The Danger The Planet Faces Because Human InstinctOverpowers Human Reason
David Ropeik
Jan. 16, 2015
...You woke up each day last year and went about your business as any
human does, compelled by deep and ancient instincts to do the things
necessary to get yourself safely to bed at night. You acquired the
resources necessary or helpful for safety and survival - food, water,
shelter, warmth/cooling, transportation, friendship and social/tribal
cohesion - and on a good day maybe you also acquired some fun stuff or
did some fun activity or filled in the upper levels of Maslow's
Hierarchy of Needs.
But chances are pretty good you cared more
about fulfilling your needs than anybody else's. And you cared about now
and today more than tomorrow. You didn't Think Globally. You thought,
and acted, and lived your life and fulfilled your needs, locally.
PERSONALLY. As did most of the seven BILLION human animals on the
planet, taking from the system the resources necessary for safety and
survival, and putting back into the system both their products and their
wastes. Each us us satisfying our own needs but cumulatively taking
from a system more resources than it has to offer (the once abundant New England cod fishery was finally closed by government fiat last year because of overfishing),
and putting back more waste than it can handle (air pollution in
Beijing recently got so bad it was "off the charts" rising beyond the
highest and most dangerous levels on the health scale designed to
measure such things.
Right now the global temperature records are making all the news. But
climate change is just one symptom of the larger problem that makes very
little news but which lies at the heart of why we, and all current Life
on Earth, face an unavoidable crash. We are compelled from the deepest
level of our genes and survival instincts to taking more from the system
than it can provide and put back in more waste than it can handle, and
no amount of human brain power outwit the natural instincts that are
driving us 150 miles an hour toward a cliff.
We are not the only
animal that does this. Many species live unsustainably in their finite
ecosystems and when their demands on the system outpace supply, move on.
We are, however, the only animal where the system limits are the entire
biosphere itself. Silly visions of moving to other places in the
universe notwithstanding, there is no place for humans to move to, and
there surely won't be within the relatively short time frame - a couple
hundred years - in which the natural system we depend on will become
"much less hospitable".
Many people, myself included, see rays of
hope in this dark sky; technological solutions to some of our challenges
(cleaner power, advances in agriculture and food production, reduction
in pollution and waste), less violence as more of us live closer
together (see: The World is Not Falling Apart),
and even the faith that human reason itself can, when the crises really
start hitting the fan, figure out ways to stop doing the damage we're
doing, undo the harm we've already done, or adapt to at least some of
the harms we face.
But to live in the delusion that these
solutions can entirely save the day...to believe that they can do any
more than head off the worst of what is to come...is dangerous.
Dangerous, because the belief that our intellect can provide the tools
and enlightened leadership that will ride to the rescue, arrogantly
denies the inescapable truth that we are still mostly instinctive
animals, each of us compelled by deep subconscious urges to do what we
can as individuals to survive today; and the day after that, and
everybody else, are just not as much of a concern. And they never will
be.
Can we do a lot to address these challenges? Yes, of course.
And we should. Can we do enough to address them all and forestall the
serious damage that lies ahead? Almost certainly not. But if we get a
little more realistic about just how much/little human reason can help
us conquer our deepest animal instincts, and a little less naïve that we
can 'live with restraint' as Bill McKibben has put it, we might sooner
get to the task of preparing for what's to come rather than pretending
we can head it off.
It is probably in the best interest of Life
on Earth As We Know It (LIFE long term is another matter entirely) if
humans accepted that there will be a steep price to pay for our
unsustainable ways, that given what we've already done this price is
unavoidable, and that pretending we can head this off and preparing as
soon as possible is urgently needed if we're going to at least keep that
cost as low as possible...
Showing posts with label global warming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label global warming. Show all posts
Sunday, January 18, 2015
Sunday, November 02, 2014
Sign the petition: Stop NPR from gutting its climate coverage
Stop NPR from gutting its climate coverage.
National Public Radio just made the baffling decision to drastically reduce its staff dedicated to covering climate change and the environment, leaving just one part-time reporter on the beat.1
It’s unacceptable for one of our major sources of journalism in the public interest to essentially abandon it’s coverage of climate and the environment by reducing the staff covering it from four full-time journalists to one part-time reporter...
NPR’s decision is part of a disturbing anti-science trend within the news media. According to a study released last year, the number of newspapers that included a weekly science sections has shrunk from 85 to just 19 in the past 25 years.3 That’s why it is so crucial for NPR to provide meaningful coverage of climate change that is honest with the American people about the scope of the problem and what must be done to address it.
Tell NPR: One part-time reporter is not enough. Reverse the decision to slash your team of reporters covering climate change and the environment...
Friday, July 26, 2013
In 2013, North Pole is once again a lake
North Pole, July 2013Ice - Surface melting revealed by the North Pole Environmental Observatory
NOAA
Since 2002, the multi-agency USA-Japan joint project entitled "North Pole Environmental Observatory" (NPEO) has deployed Web Cameras along with instruments that monitor air, ice and ocean conditions. The cameras and instrumentation are deployed in Spring on an ice floe drifting southward from the North Pole (drift maps are shown below). The Web Cams provide an otherwise unobtainable view of sea ice conditions throughout the Arctic summer. Animations of the images are available as YouTube videos.
In 2012, on August 26, the Arctic sea ice extent reached the lowest value observed during the satellite record. Following that low, Arctic sea ice extent continued to drop, falling below 4 million square kilometers by September 5. Compared to September conditions in the 1980's and 1990's, this represents a 45% reduction in the area of the Arctic Ocean covered by sea ice. (Reference: National Snow and Ice Data Center)...
July 15, 2004 The North Pole
Summer Heat Unravels Arctic’s Icy Blanket
NOAA
August 22, 2011
The blanket of ice coating Earth’s northernmost seas was thin and ragged in July, setting a record low for sea ice extent for the month. Sea ice stretched across only 3.06 million square miles; the long-term July average is 3.9 million...
Sunday, August 05, 2012
North Carolina outlaws science: coastal buyers beware as sea levels rise!
New Law in North Carolina Bans Latest Scientific Predictions of Sea-Level Rise
By ALON HARISH
BC News
Aug 2, 2012
A new law in North Carolina will ban the state from basing coastal policies on the latest scientific predictions of how much the sea level will rise, prompting environmentalists to accuse the state of disrespecting climate science.
The law has put the state in the spotlight for what critics have called nearsightedness and climate change denial, but its proponents said the state needed to put a moratorium on predictions of sea level rise until scientific techniques improve.
The law was drafted in response to an estimate by the state's Coastal Resources Commission (CRC) that the sea level will rise by 39 inches in the next century, prompting fears of costlier home insurance and accusations of anti-development alarmism among residents and developers in the state's coastal Outer Banks region.
Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue had until Thursday to act on the bill known as House Bill 819, but she decided to let it become law by doing nothing.
The bill's passage in June triggered nationwide scorn by those who argued that the state was deliberately blinding itself to the effects of climate change. In a segment on the "Colbert Report," comedian Stephen Colbert mocked North Carolina lawmakers' efforts as an attempt to outlaw science.
"If your science gives you a result you don't like, pass a law saying the result is illegal. Problem solved," he joked.
The law, which began as a routine regulation on development permits but quickly grew controversial after the sea-level provision was added, restricts all sea-level predictions used to guide state policies for the next four years to those based on "historical data."
Tom Thompson, president of NC-20, a coastal development group and a key supporter of the law, said the science used to make the 39-inch prediction was flawed, and added that the resources commission failed to consider the economic consequences of preparing the coast for a one-meter rise in sea level, under which up to 2,000 square miles would be threatened.
A projection map showing land along the coast underwater would place the permits of many planned development projects in jeopardy...
By ALON HARISH
BC News
Aug 2, 2012
A new law in North Carolina will ban the state from basing coastal policies on the latest scientific predictions of how much the sea level will rise, prompting environmentalists to accuse the state of disrespecting climate science.
The law has put the state in the spotlight for what critics have called nearsightedness and climate change denial, but its proponents said the state needed to put a moratorium on predictions of sea level rise until scientific techniques improve.
The law was drafted in response to an estimate by the state's Coastal Resources Commission (CRC) that the sea level will rise by 39 inches in the next century, prompting fears of costlier home insurance and accusations of anti-development alarmism among residents and developers in the state's coastal Outer Banks region.
Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue had until Thursday to act on the bill known as House Bill 819, but she decided to let it become law by doing nothing.
The bill's passage in June triggered nationwide scorn by those who argued that the state was deliberately blinding itself to the effects of climate change. In a segment on the "Colbert Report," comedian Stephen Colbert mocked North Carolina lawmakers' efforts as an attempt to outlaw science.
"If your science gives you a result you don't like, pass a law saying the result is illegal. Problem solved," he joked.
The law, which began as a routine regulation on development permits but quickly grew controversial after the sea-level provision was added, restricts all sea-level predictions used to guide state policies for the next four years to those based on "historical data."
Tom Thompson, president of NC-20, a coastal development group and a key supporter of the law, said the science used to make the 39-inch prediction was flawed, and added that the resources commission failed to consider the economic consequences of preparing the coast for a one-meter rise in sea level, under which up to 2,000 square miles would be threatened.
A projection map showing land along the coast underwater would place the permits of many planned development projects in jeopardy...
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Greenland melts, open water in Arctic Ocean-scientists
Jul 25, 2012
By Deborah Zabarenko
(Reuters)
For a few days this month, NASA's images of the Greenland ice sheet turned red, indicating that for a while, almost the entire surface of the vast frozen island was melting.
The big melt in Greenland is part of an overall picture of an unusually warm season across the Arctic, with much of the sea route from Western Europe to the Pacific as free of ice in July as it normally would be by summer's end, the chief of the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said on Wednesday.
On an average summer, about half of Greenland's surface ice melts, according to NASA. This summer, satellites showed about 97 percent of the ice sheet thawed at some point in mid-July.
The change was swift, as seen in images...
On July 8, there was a big white area in the middle of the image, indicating that 40 percent of Greenland's surface had thawed; by July 12, virtually the whole island was pictured as red, showing widespread defrosting.
For Mark Serreze, director and senior research scientist at the Colorado-based National Snow and Ice Data Center, one interesting aspect of the Greenland event is its relative rarity.
This kind of comprehensive surface melting might happen about every 150 years or so in Greenland, which would make this year unusual but not unprecedented, Serreze said by telephone.
However, he said, most of the previous events were clustered around a period 7,000 years ago known as the Holocene Thermal Maximum, when variations in the sun's tilt on its axis sent more sunshine to extreme northern latitudes, warming them up. There is no such solar tilt going on now, but the melt is occurring just the same...
Friday, May 11, 2012
Does our society want science education? Or do we think knowledge is elitist--or worse?
Microsoft, Pfizer and Comcast are funding the people who made this:
Heartland equates climate change with terrorism
Sum of Us
May 11, 2012
Are you part of the “radical fringe”? According to an ad campaign by the Heartland Institute, if you believe in climate change, you’re a radical on par with the likes of Osama bin Laden, the Unabomber, and notorious mass-murderer Charles Manson.
An ad campaign planned by the corporate front-group the Heartland Institute — which is funded in part by Microsoft and Pfizer – features the faces of these notorious killers alongside the phrase “I still believe in Global Warming. Do you?” Tell Microsoft, Pfizer, and Heartland’s other funders to stop funding Heartland and its dirty climate change denier smears.
Even as people are literally dying from increased flooding, drought, freak storms, and other climate impacts around the world, the fossil fuel industry continues to deny that climate change even exists. Their strategy has been incredibly effective — they’ve stopped the US from taking any serious action to end its addiction to oil and coal, which in turn has made it impossible for the world to reach a global climate treaty. And Heartland, a key climate change denier, also depends on Microsoft, Pfizer, and other corporations who claim they believe in climate change out of one side of their mouth — while simultaneously funding an organization that runs despicable ads like these out of the other side. That’s why we’re joining up with our friends at Forcast the Facts to call for corporations to stop funding Heartland.
The Heartland Institute has a long history of playing dirty. Last year, Heartland was caught trying to sneak industry-written pro-coal propaganda into elementary schools, and previously they have acted as hired guns for the cigarette industry, distributing a paper titled “Joe Camel is Innocent!”.
Corporations have begun fleeing from Heartland. In March, General Motors announced it would no longer fund Heartland. Just yesterday, Diageo — the company behind Guinness, Smirnoff, Johnny Walker, and other brands — also announced they were pulling funding. Now is the time to give Microsoft, Pfizer, and Heartland’s other funders — many of whom have explicitly stated they care about fighting climate change — a push to follow GM and Diageo’s lead.
Heartland equates climate change with terrorism
Sum of Us
May 11, 2012
Are you part of the “radical fringe”? According to an ad campaign by the Heartland Institute, if you believe in climate change, you’re a radical on par with the likes of Osama bin Laden, the Unabomber, and notorious mass-murderer Charles Manson.
An ad campaign planned by the corporate front-group the Heartland Institute — which is funded in part by Microsoft and Pfizer – features the faces of these notorious killers alongside the phrase “I still believe in Global Warming. Do you?” Tell Microsoft, Pfizer, and Heartland’s other funders to stop funding Heartland and its dirty climate change denier smears.
Even as people are literally dying from increased flooding, drought, freak storms, and other climate impacts around the world, the fossil fuel industry continues to deny that climate change even exists. Their strategy has been incredibly effective — they’ve stopped the US from taking any serious action to end its addiction to oil and coal, which in turn has made it impossible for the world to reach a global climate treaty. And Heartland, a key climate change denier, also depends on Microsoft, Pfizer, and other corporations who claim they believe in climate change out of one side of their mouth — while simultaneously funding an organization that runs despicable ads like these out of the other side. That’s why we’re joining up with our friends at Forcast the Facts to call for corporations to stop funding Heartland.
The Heartland Institute has a long history of playing dirty. Last year, Heartland was caught trying to sneak industry-written pro-coal propaganda into elementary schools, and previously they have acted as hired guns for the cigarette industry, distributing a paper titled “Joe Camel is Innocent!”.
Corporations have begun fleeing from Heartland. In March, General Motors announced it would no longer fund Heartland. Just yesterday, Diageo — the company behind Guinness, Smirnoff, Johnny Walker, and other brands — also announced they were pulling funding. Now is the time to give Microsoft, Pfizer, and Heartland’s other funders — many of whom have explicitly stated they care about fighting climate change — a push to follow GM and Diageo’s lead.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Notorious El Nino Doubles Civil Wars, Scientists Say
Notorious El Nino Doubles Civil Wars, Scientists Say
International Business Times
August 24, 2011
The El Nino climate cycle brings not only high temperatures and dry weather, but also more chances of civil wars, a new study claims.
Between 1950 and 2004, the risk of civil wars doubled in 90 tropical countries when hit by El Nino, is the warm phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, a periodic warming and cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean.
A farmer guides his carabao on dried and cracked farmland in San Juan town, Batangas province, south of Manila April 18, 2010. A mild dry spell brought about by the El Nino phenomenon damaged the Philippines' agriculture sector and caused power shortages due to low water levels at hydro power plants.
El Nino Weather Events Linked to Tropical Civil Wars - Study
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While its partner La Nina is a cool, rainy period, El Nino brings high temperature and more scarce rainfall every three to seven years, impacting weather patterns across much of Africa, the Mideast, India, southeast Asia, Australia, and the Americas, which holds half the world's population.
Interacting with other factors including wind and temperature cycles over the other oceans, El Nino can vary dramatically in power and length. At its most intense, it brings scorching heat and multi-year droughts.
In the study published in Wednesday's Nature, scientists from Princeton University and Columbia University's Earth Institute used statistics to link global weather observations and outbreaks of violence.
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The scientists correlated ENSO from 1950 to 2004 with onsets of civil conflicts that killed more than 25 people in a given year. The data included 175 countries and 234 conflicts, with over half of which each caused more than 1,000 battle-related deaths.
The findings suggest that the arrival of El Nino doubled the risk of civil conflict across 90 affected tropical countries, and may help account for a fifth of worldwide conflicts over the past half-century.
Remarkable links were found between El Nino patterns and civil unrest in Peru in 1982 and Sudan in 1963.
Further, a strong link between violence and El Nino were also found in El Salvador, the Philippines and Uganda in 1972; Angola, Haiti and Myanmar in 1991, and Congo, Eritrea, Indonesia and Rwanda in 1997.
"This is the first major evidence that the global climate is a major factor in organized violence around the world," says Solomon M. Hsiang, the study's lead author, a graduate of the Earth Institute's Ph.D. in sustainable development.
While the study does not blame specific wars on El Nino, it confirms many scientists' speculation over the strong link between climate-conflict.
Just this July, the UN Security Council discussed on climate-driven conflicts. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted that the possible adverse effects of climate change are "not only exacerbates threats to international peace and security; it is a threat to international peace and security".
"The most important thing is that this looks at modern times, and it's done on a global scale," said Hsiang. "We can speculate that a long-ago Egyptian dynasty was overthrown during a drought. That's a specific time and place, that may be very different from today, so people might say, 'OK, we're immune to that now.' This study shows a systematic pattern of global climate affecting conflict, and shows it right now."
"No one should take this to say that climate is our fate. Rather, this is compelling evidence that it has a measurable influence on how much people fight overall," said the co-author Mark Cane, a climate scientist at Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
"It is not the only factor--you have to consider politics, economics, all kinds of other things."
According to Cane, the poorest countries respond to El Nino with violence.
The natural El Nino cycle is different from manmade global warming which continuously ramps up the temperature and extreme weather, according to the researchers. Global warming would have even greater impacts than the El Niño, and is more likely to provoke conflicts, noted Cane.
El Nino patterns can be predicted up to two years ahead, the study may give room for pre-emptive action for some conflicts and reduce humanitarian suffering.
International Business Times
August 24, 2011
The El Nino climate cycle brings not only high temperatures and dry weather, but also more chances of civil wars, a new study claims.
Between 1950 and 2004, the risk of civil wars doubled in 90 tropical countries when hit by El Nino, is the warm phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, a periodic warming and cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean.
A farmer guides his carabao on dried and cracked farmland in San Juan town, Batangas province, south of Manila April 18, 2010. A mild dry spell brought about by the El Nino phenomenon damaged the Philippines' agriculture sector and caused power shortages due to low water levels at hydro power plants.
El Nino Weather Events Linked to Tropical Civil Wars - Study
Related Articles
Al Gore to Global Warming Skeptics: You Will be Shunned Like Racists
Gore: Future Generation to Call Skeptics of Global Warming as Racists
Al Gore Likens Global Warming Doubters to Racists
Related Topics
Global warming
Australia
India
Sudan
Disasters
Angola
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While its partner La Nina is a cool, rainy period, El Nino brings high temperature and more scarce rainfall every three to seven years, impacting weather patterns across much of Africa, the Mideast, India, southeast Asia, Australia, and the Americas, which holds half the world's population.
Interacting with other factors including wind and temperature cycles over the other oceans, El Nino can vary dramatically in power and length. At its most intense, it brings scorching heat and multi-year droughts.
In the study published in Wednesday's Nature, scientists from Princeton University and Columbia University's Earth Institute used statistics to link global weather observations and outbreaks of violence.
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The scientists correlated ENSO from 1950 to 2004 with onsets of civil conflicts that killed more than 25 people in a given year. The data included 175 countries and 234 conflicts, with over half of which each caused more than 1,000 battle-related deaths.
The findings suggest that the arrival of El Nino doubled the risk of civil conflict across 90 affected tropical countries, and may help account for a fifth of worldwide conflicts over the past half-century.
Remarkable links were found between El Nino patterns and civil unrest in Peru in 1982 and Sudan in 1963.
Further, a strong link between violence and El Nino were also found in El Salvador, the Philippines and Uganda in 1972; Angola, Haiti and Myanmar in 1991, and Congo, Eritrea, Indonesia and Rwanda in 1997.
"This is the first major evidence that the global climate is a major factor in organized violence around the world," says Solomon M. Hsiang, the study's lead author, a graduate of the Earth Institute's Ph.D. in sustainable development.
While the study does not blame specific wars on El Nino, it confirms many scientists' speculation over the strong link between climate-conflict.
Just this July, the UN Security Council discussed on climate-driven conflicts. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted that the possible adverse effects of climate change are "not only exacerbates threats to international peace and security; it is a threat to international peace and security".
"The most important thing is that this looks at modern times, and it's done on a global scale," said Hsiang. "We can speculate that a long-ago Egyptian dynasty was overthrown during a drought. That's a specific time and place, that may be very different from today, so people might say, 'OK, we're immune to that now.' This study shows a systematic pattern of global climate affecting conflict, and shows it right now."
"No one should take this to say that climate is our fate. Rather, this is compelling evidence that it has a measurable influence on how much people fight overall," said the co-author Mark Cane, a climate scientist at Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
"It is not the only factor--you have to consider politics, economics, all kinds of other things."
According to Cane, the poorest countries respond to El Nino with violence.
The natural El Nino cycle is different from manmade global warming which continuously ramps up the temperature and extreme weather, according to the researchers. Global warming would have even greater impacts than the El Niño, and is more likely to provoke conflicts, noted Cane.
El Nino patterns can be predicted up to two years ahead, the study may give room for pre-emptive action for some conflicts and reduce humanitarian suffering.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Arctic ice cap to disappear in 20-30 years: study
It's time to take a cruise to Alaska and get some photographs to show our grandchildren.
Arctic ice cap to disappear in 20-30 years: study
AFP
by Elodie Mazein Elodie Mazein
Oct 14,2009
LONDON (AFP) – The Arctic ice cap will disappear completely in summer months within 20 to 30 years, a polar research team said as they presented findings from an expedition led by adventurer Pen Hadow.
It is likely to be largely ice-free during the warmer months within a decade, the experts added.
Veteran polar explorer Hadow and two other Britons went out on the Arctic ice cap for 73 days during the northern spring, taking more than 6,000 measurements and observations of the sea ice...
"The summer ice cover will completely vanish in 20 to 30 years but in less than that it will have considerably retreated," said Professor Peter Wadhams, head of the polar ocean physics group at Britain's prestigious Cambridge University.
"In about 10 years, the Arctic ice will be considered as open sea."...
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