*Hmmm. Well, it's turning out to be a good day for some "brutal truth."
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54210
"CLIMATE CHANGE
Driving Straight Into Catastrophe
By Julio Godoy
"PARIS, Jan 24, 2011 (IPS) - Despite repeated warnings by environmental and climate experts that reduction of fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions is fundamental to forestalling global warming, disaster appears imminent. According to the latest statistics, unprecedented climate change has Earth hurtling down a path of catastrophic proportions.
"The Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that the global consumption of primary energy in 2010 reached some 500 exajoules (EJ), a number just under the worst-case scenario formulated ten years ago by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC’s Special Report on Emissions Scenarios, published in 2000, calculated the worst-case scenario as 525 EJ consumed in one calendar year.
"The IEA found that coal was one of the largest sources of energy consumed in 2010, comprising approximately 27 percent of the total energy consumption. Coal, one of the cheapest sources of energy, is considered the filthiest of all, as far as greenhouse gases emissions (GHGE) are concerned.
"Correspondingly, the global GHGE, measured as equivalent to carbon dioxide, reached at least 32 billion tonnes last year, only one step below the most pessimistic scenario imagined by the IPCC in 2000: 33 billion tonnes of CO2. (((Just goes to show that the ol' IPCC were always keen on underplaying stark reality. Also, it shows that, in 2000, nobody could imagine the economic vitality of the Chinese, Indians and Brazilians – including the Chinese, Indians and Brazilians.)))
"The results for 2010 were conditioned by the present global economic crisis – meaning that under normal economic circumstances, the numbers would have been higher. (((Amazing but true.))) In other words, total consumption of energy in 2010 would have been worse than the most pessimistic scenario the IPCC formulated ten years ago had the global economy been in better shape.
"These findings have prompted leading environmental experts to warn that humankind is racing towards destruction. (((Why are they still "warning"? Shouldn't they be violently protesting, or even engaging in revolutionary movements of some kind? Warning whom? Who is the intended warnee here? "Humankind?" There is no one in a position of authority to take actions on these warnings. We have no Humankind Inc.; there is no ultrasuperpower named Humankindistan.)))
"The year 2010 was the hottest ever measured since the beginning of the recordings, 130 years ago," Anders Levermann, professor of climate system dynamics at the Physics Institute of the Potsdam University told IPS. (((Well, yes indeed it was; better throw another endangered Great Barrier shrimp on the drowned Australian barbie.)))
"Levermann referred to the newest global temperature measurements carried out by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 2010.
"According to the NOAA, "For the 2010 year (January-November), the combined global land and ocean surface temperature was 0.64 degrees Celsius above the 20th century average - the warmest such period since records began in 1880."
"Levermann explained that, contrary to appearance, the arctic winter in Western Europe is just another negative consequence of climate change.
"Global warming is melting the ice in the Kara Sea, in the Arctic Ocean," he explained. "This leads to a high pressure area above Siberia, which drives extremely cold winds towards Europe." (((Well, it's nice to read such a cogent explanation of that. Generally these pronouncements are prefaced with the cornball ritual remark that no particular awful event can ever be attributed to the stark fact that the planet's atmosphere is massively polluted.)))
"Levermann pointed out that the extreme global weather conditions experienced in 2010 - very cold weather in Western Europe during the winter, massive floods in Pakistan and Australia, extremely hot summers in Russia and Western Europe - illustrate the limits of even the most expert climate predictions.
"The more greenhouse gases we emit, the more the global climate gets out of control," Levermann said. "But the weather extremes that we cannot predict, such as the floods in Pakistan and Australia and the fires in Russia, are the ones that set the limits to human life." (((It's not the weather that's gonna kill people, but the famines, wars, epidemics and mass evacuations consequent on the weather. People are gonna be in climate-change refugee camps still denying that the weather had anything to do with their plight.)))
"According to the newest IPCC estimations, global temperatures may rise as much as eight degrees Celsius by the year 2200.
"Levermann explained that the temperature difference within an interglacial period, such as the one we are living now, have historically reached about five Celsius degrees.
"The transition between these temperature extremes lasted some 50,000 years in the past," Levermann said. "But at the present rate of GHGE we are reducing such a transition by 50 times."
"He added that the rapid rising of global temperatures could provoke extreme weather catastrophes that humankind won’t be able to survive.
"The rising frequency of weather extremes, with their enormous social and economic consequences, would not allow public budgets to recuperate, nor give societies the time to breathe again," Levermann said. "Nor would insurance companies be able to compensate for the damages." (((This is all true, but I don't think it presents a good understanding of the consequences of truly major catastrophes. Conflating "humankind" with "insurance companies" is bathetic. It's like discussing the problems of budgetmakers and insurance companies in Europe during the Black Death.)))
"Levermann echoed earlier warnings that climate change could destroy countries such as Bangladesh, cities situated near the oceans, such as New York and Amsterdam, and make large parts of Africa uninhabitable." (((Yes, people have indeed been saying this forever. When your city actually HAS been destroyed, as with New Orleans or Detroit, the people there don't go around saying "well, we certainly had plenty of warning," because they, in fact, did. Instead, some perish, many leave and the remainder complain about the outsiders dropping by for the ruin porn.)))
"Climate change would destroy drinking water supplies, agriculture, habitats, and provoke giant waves of migration and mass mortality," he explained. (((My most recent science fiction novel, THE CARYATIDS, has some rather eloquent prose descriptions of this situation. People find that novel hard to take. I'm wondering if writing some terrifying, brilliantly detailed scifi was any useful contribution to that discourse. Great writers in times of utter calamitous blinding horror write cheery stuff like Boccaccio's DECAMERON.)))
"Levermann compared the consequences of global warming to a wall hidden in fog. "We cannot see the wall, but it is there. And we are driving at the highest possible speed towards it." (END)
(((Later: why did this arrive today? Volcanic coalburning led to planet's worst mass extinction (so far, that is)? Gee whiz, what off-the-wall menace could be worse than volcanic coalburning?)))
Volcanoes led to largest extinction ever: study
Last Updated: Monday, January 24, 2011 | 9:46 AM ET Comments24Recommend22
CBC News
University of Calgary geoscientist Stephen Grasby at Buchanan Lake, Axel Heiberg Island, Nunavut, where coal ash layers provide the first direct evidence of significant volcanic eruptions during the great Permian extinction. (University of Calgary)
The world's biggest extinction was triggered by a massive volcanic eruption, burning coal and steep increases in greenhouse gases, say researchers at the University of Calgary.
About 250 million years ago, before the age of the dinosaurs, the Permian extinction wiped out 95 per cent of life in the oceans and 70 per cent of life on land. While scientists have long suspected volcanic eruptions in Siberia were to blame, the Calgary team says it has found credible evidence to back up the theory.
Stephen Grasby, a geoscientist with the University of Calgary and research scientist at Natural Resources Canada, says he and his colleagues found evidence of the eruption in the Canadian Arctic. Specifically, they found layers of coal ash in rocks from the time of the extinction.
"Our research is the first to show direct evidence that massive volcanic eruptions — the largest the world has ever witnessed — caused massive coal combustion, thus supporting models for significant generation of greenhouse gases at this time," Grasby said in a release.
The results of the research are published in the current issue of Nature Geoscience.
During the Permian extinction, the Earth was basically one big land mass called Pangaea, containing ecosystems ranging from desert to lush forest. Pangaea was home to primitive amphibians, early reptiles and synapsids: the group that would one day include mammals. (((I'd be guessing the with-it-sounding "synapsids" were the guys lumbering around on all fours saying "Reptilekind must confront the danger of volcanic coalburning, as we have already warned many times.")))
"The volcanoes that erupted so spectacularly and signalled the beginning of the end for so many plants and animals of this period are now found in northern Russia. The ash was blown to regions now in Canada's Arctic. (((No doubt easier to study geologically, now that it's melting.)))
"It was a really bad time on Earth," said Grasby. "In addition to these volcanoes causing fires through coal, the ash it spewed was highly toxic and was released in the land and water, potentially contributing to the worst extinction event in earth history."
It took five million years for the planet to rebound and for higher life forms to reappear.
(((And that's the cheeriest line in this blogpost.)))
