It's time to DO SOMETHING

Ok, I've tried to keep the doom and gloom out of my blogs as I believe the old adage that you can catch more flies with honey....  but I've been doing a lot of reading on climate change over the last month and some of the news is getting rather serious.  It seems we are really running out of time to take action.  I'm actually a very skeptical person and to this day I'm not really convinced that global climate change is really happening.  It's so hard to believe when it's -10 degrees C outside.  What I do believe in, very strongly, is risk management.  For example I have several smoke detectors in my home; fire extinguishers; fire insurance on the house and car.  I spend time and money to reduce the risks to myself and my family all the time.  I now look at these things as neccessities .

Climate change sounds so far off and at times (when it's cold out) almost harmless.  Unfortunately there are a lot of very smart people that have been studying this issue for decades and some of their forecasts are very frightening; so much so, that they just can't be ignored since the risks of taking no action is so great compared to the costs of taking these actions.  It turns out that the actions to reduce atmospheric carbon are all worthwhile in the long term anyways, both at a personal level and for all of society.  I mean, who doesn't like clean air, paying less in the long term for energy and having lots of trees around?  All the technology exists and is cost effective over the long term.

Why the urgency?  As you can read below there are a half a dozen positive feedback loops that can affect the climate in a quick (a decade not centuries) and disastrous way.  I can't see how we can risk not taking action right now.  I think action has to be made up of two main parts: doing what you can personally (reducing your carbon foot print to zero as quickly as you can) and joining the collective voices to ensure our leaders and businesses make the right long term decisions.  I think our neighbours to the south just made a very positive move by electing Mr. Obama.  In Durham we can stop the waste incinerator (it's far better to bury the carbon in our waste than to send it up in the air) and let our various levels of government know that climate change is the highest priority where economic stimulus should be directed.  I think every GM employee would be happy to be building a plug in electric vehicle here.

I encourage you to read the info below and weigh the risks for yourself and do something about it.

I copied this out of a blog on the site www.climateprogress.org

I think it is increasingly clear the “middle ground” is unstable in that once you hit 500 ppm (or possibly lower), the amplifying feedbacks kick in: These feedbacks include:

• The defrosting of the permafrost
• The drying of the Northern peatlands (bogs, moors, and mires).
• The destruction of the tropical wetlands
• Decelerating growth in tropical forest trees — thanks to accelerating carbon dioxide
• Wildfires and Climate-Driven forest destruction by pests
• The desertification-global warming feedback
• The saturation of the ocean carbon sink

As Dr. Pope puts it, “If the climate turns out to be particularly sensitive to increases in Greenhouse gases and the Earth’s biological systems cannot absorb very much carbon then temperature rises could be even higher.”

Indeed, some of the best research on this has come from the Hadley Center, since it has one of the few models that incorporates many of the major carbon cycle feedbacks. In a 2003 Geophysical Research Letters(subs. req’d) paper, “Strong carbon cycle feedbacks in a climate model with interactive CO2 and sulphate aerosols,” the Hadley Center, the U.K.’s official center for climate change research, finds that the world would hit 1000 ppm in 2100 even in a scenario that, absent those feedbacks, we would only have hit 700 ppm in 2100. I would note that the Hadley Center, though more inclusive of carbon cycle feedbacks than most other models, still does not model most of the feedbacks above or any feedbacks from the melting of the tundra even though it is probably the most serious of those amplifying feedbacks.

So we must stabilize at 450 ppm or below — or risk what can only be called humanity’s self-destruction. Since the cost is maybe 0.11% of GDP per year — or probably a bit higher than that if we shoot for 350 ppm — the choice would seem clear.

Comments

[Louis Bertrand]

Well said, Duane!

The point to remember, even as the temperature dips to -20C in our Winter wonderland, is not "Global Warming", but "Climate Change".

Climate Change means that we will see not so gradual changes in the weather patterns we are used to, and those changes might happen too fast for us to adapt (and the other creatures sharing our environment).

Here's a simple way to look at it. We are trapping more of the sun's energy in our atmosphere and since the sun heats the equator more than the poles, that energy must flow around as wind, moisture and rain. Just think of a pot of water on a stove. The water doesn't heat up all at once, and you can see it swirling around.

Whatever you call it, you're doing us all a favour by talking about it. Thanks.