We have changed the face of the planet
The Guardian of 15 Sept 2012 carried a story ‘We have changed the face of the planet’. ‘It is staggering and scary’ scientists are reported as saying. Techno-fixers like Stewart Brand would probably take the evidence as confirmation of human beings are the God Species, so in thrall is he to our technical powers detached from moral purpose.
There is little sign of sanity in the reports now being produced by the world’s scientists. The Arctic melt this year (2012) has not only smashed all records but all but the most extreme predictions. The scientists are forecasting an ice-free north pole in the summer months by 2030.
Jonathon Porritt: Why do we play down the horror of climate change?
'No doubt I’ll end up moderating the message to avoid alienating them. To ensure that ‘scary’ doesn’t lead to denial rather than enlightenment. Keeping people on side is a precondition of making any progress on sustainability issues.I feel bad about that. All the more so having just read the latest broadside from the redoubtable Kevin Anderson at Manchester University, taking to task the vast majority of climate scientists for their mealy-mouthed inability to tell it as it really is: “Contrary to the claims of many climate sceptics, scientists repeatedly and severely underplay the implications of their analyses. When it comes to avoiding a 2°C rise, ‘impossible’ is translated into ‘difficult but doable’, whereas ‘urgent and radical’ emerge as ‘challenging’ – all to appease the god of economics. Put bluntly, climate change commitments are incompatible with short to medium-term economic growth.”He’s right about this. In one way or another, many of us are now involved in playing down the full horror of accelerating climate change. I even do it with my own children, both of whom have started to ask me how, after 40 years trying to narrow the gap between what needs to be done and what is being done, I haven’t collapsed into utter despair!'
https://www.forumforthefuture.org/greenfutures/articles/jonathon-porritt-why-do-we-play-down-horror-climate-change
The nonsense printed in recent years in certain newspapers concerning ‘the great global warming fraud’ should now be treated with the contempt it has deserved from the first and ignored – prejudice, bile and stupidity served up for ignoramuses, paranoids and neurotics. There is no more time to waste on such yellow journalism – put up the science or shut up.
We are now at a defining moment in human history. It is time to demonstrate a clear sighted and cool focus on realities and ignore the inanities and insanities of politics and journalism as mere background noise.
In 2012, 600,000 sq km ice has melted, more than has ever recorded by satellites.
"It is sad,” says pilot Arne Sorensen. “I am not doubting this is related to emitting fossil fuels to a large extent. It's sad to observe that we are capable of changing the planet to such a degree." It’s a judgement call. Sorensen cannot prove his case. Deniers continue to repeat that there is no ‘conclusive evidence’ or ‘proof’ that carbon emissions are causing the climate change. They know fine well that science does not deal with such ‘conclusive’ evidence, that science is never ‘conclusive’. Proof is something possible only in mathematics. What scientists do offer – and have offered on AGW – is ‘overwhelming’ evidence. But, ultimately, it is a judgement call. We really don’t need a weatherman to know which way this wind is blowing. The deniers will continue to demand something which they know cannot be given. They are stalling for time, pathetically trying to make a little bit more money for themselves before hard reality finally removes the till their hands are dipping. By then, it will be too late. They can be safely ignored. We are now playing for the highest stakes. Like the miser who, having been told that he only has three months left to live, spends that remaining time feverishly making more money. To what end? We get back to Plato’s demand for the examined life.
In 2012, the vast polar ice cap has receded further and faster than anyone had anticipated. The seriousness of this development lies in the fact that the ice cap regulates the Earth's temperature, the white ice reflecting the sun’s activity back, thus keeping the Earth cool. 2007’s record minimum was officially broken on 27 August, 2012,. Satellite images averaged over five days showed the ice at 4.11 million sq km. What really throws this figure into sharp relief, however, is the fact that this represents a reduction of nearly 50% compared with a mere 40 years ago. Since the 1970’s, nearly half of the ice has gone.
One recalls here the old tale of the water lily which doubles in size each day, threatening to cover the pond and choke all other life in thirty days if its growth is unchecked. By the time the lily covers half the pond, you have one day left to act – it’s too late, time has run out. The moral of the tale concerns the suddenness with which exponential growth approaches a fixed limit.
We have had warnings concerning the Arctic ice over the years, but they have been ignored. Even now, with a nearly 50% decline, the alarm bells sound more like the ringing of cash tills, as companies haggle and barter for exploration and drilling rights.
The melt didn’t stop once the record had been broken on 27 August. Satellite pictures in the second week of September showed the ice cap at a mere 3.49m sq km. This year alone, 7m sq km of ice has melted, which is 22% more than the long-term average of 9-18m sq km, that is, nearly a quarter.
The record minimum has now been formally called by the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in Colorado.
The old record hasn't just been broken, it has been smashed to little pieces, confounding all but the most extreme predictions.
The NSIDC scientist Julienne Stroeve comments on the extent and speed of the melt: "In the 1970s we had 8m sq km of sea ice. That has been halved. We need it in the summer. It has never decreased like this before. We knew the ice was getting thinner but I did not expect we'd lose this much this year. We broke the record by a lot.
"The acceleration of the loss of the extent of the ice is mostly because the ice has been so thin. This would explain why it has melted so much this year. By June, the ice edge had pulled back to where it normally is in September."
Climate change deniers repeatedly target computer modelling as producing results determined by the programmes, as though scientists do not engage in other forms of testing. But here is an instance where the evidence goes much further than the models. In her previous work, Stroeve has consistently demonstrated that ice melt has been happening at a far faster rate than that predicted by the models. Stroeve’s new research, published in the journal Geophysical Research Papers, gives evidence that supports the claim that human activity may have been responsible for most of the ice loss in recent decades. "It suggests 60% of the observed decline in ice extent in Septembers from 1953-2011 was due to human activity. The decline is linked to the increase in temperatures," Stroeve comments. "This year is significant. At the moment, the [ice extent] is below what the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report will show in 2014. We are on the extreme edge of the models, suggesting that ice loss is happening much faster than the models suggested."
Which also suggests that time is running out.
A couple of years ago, certain newspapers made a great deal about a mistake the IPCC made with respect to melting in the Himalayas. This was one isolated mistake out of countless hundreds of thousands of facts the IPCC deals with, it should be added. The mistake was spotted by the climate scientists, not the deniers, and was corrected, which is the way science operates. These same papers and the people who read them still refer to this error, as if it invalidates the whole of climate science, the years of research, the masses of evidence gathered and reported. On the issue of the record melt in the Arctic, they offer nothing, only the same old mantra about it being natural. Well, there are many things in this world that are natural. Stupidity, selfishness and cowardice, for instance, are all natural - it doesn’t make them right.
Scientists are now predicting that the Arctic may be ice-free in summer within 20 years. What is most shocking is the speed and extent of the ice loss. Nick Toberg, sea-ice researcher at Cambridge University, has extensive experience and knowledge in this area. He has analysed underwater ice thickness data collected by British nuclear submarine HMS Tireless in 2004 and 2007. He is shocked: "This is staggering. It's disturbing, scary that we have physically changed the face of the planet.” Toberg explains why we should all be alarmed. “We have about 4m sq km of sea ice. If that goes in the summer months that's about the same as adding 20 years of CO2 at current [human-caused] rates into the atmosphere. That's how vital the arctic sea ice is."
All over the Arctic, the effects of a warming atmosphere and accelerating ice loss are already apparent. The ecology of the Arctic is undergoing a rapid transformation, with trees and plants moving north, new beetles devastating whole forests in Canada, Siberia and Alaska, and snowfall increasing. It is now anticipated that entire coastal communities may have to be moved to avoid sea erosion.
We return here to the old syndicalist poem, ‘Know your Enemy’: ‘sooner than lose the things he owns, he will destroy the world.’(Front cover Workers’ Control Ken Coates and Tony Topham ed 1970)
Even faced with the destruction of the world, with the eleventh hour approaching, commercial interests see one last opportunity to get something for nothing and make money. By some grim irony, record ice loss has caused a virtual stampede as industrial interest move in to grasp Arctic resources. It’s a pathetic spectacle and completely contradicts the Brand and Lynas thesis that the human race constitutes the God Species. For years we were told that predictions of Arctic melting were alarmist myth making by scientists wanting to stay on the environmental gravy train and environmentalists who were no more than failed socialists out to bring down capitalism. Well, what wasn’t supposed to be happening has happened, the Arctic has suffered a record ice loss. And the industries whose activities bear the most responsibility for global warming move in to take advantage. Oil, gas, mining and shipping companies are now expanding their operations into areas that, a mere few years ago, would have been physically impenetrable.
Other research highlights the effect that the loss of ice could have in affecting the path and speed of the jet streams, giving a possible explanation for why the extreme weather experienced in the northern hemisphere is lasting longer.
The Arctic sea ice will start to refreeze from September, growing up to 100,000 sq km a day until the melt season begins again next year around June. However, as Toberg points out, as a result of the unprecedented melt this year, there will be less old ice, multiyear ice which is thicker and less prone to melting. The new ice will be thinner, more vulnerable to melt, thus hastening the loss of further ice next year. In other words, a positive feedback of which ecologists have been warning will kick in. This "feedbacks" will accelerate the reduction of ice. Indeed, ice experts think that this has already been happening. In recent summers, Arctic sea surface temperatures have been well above normal. The experts think that the reason for this is due to a positive feedback. As there is less ice to reflect heat back into the atmosphere, and more dark open waters to absorb solar radiation, there is less cooling and more warming, thus accelerating the melt.
Ever cautious, climate scientist call for more research before the long term implications of the Arctic melt can be established with confidence. What we do know is that sea ice plays a critical role in regulating climate, acting as a giant mirror that reflects much of the sun's energy back into the atmosphere, thus helping to cool the Earth.
"The Arctic ice cover is a lid on the planet that regulates the temperature. By taking it off you are warming it. Temperatures depend on it," says Toberg.
Scientists suspect that the formation of the sea ice produces dense salt water which sinks, helping to drive the deep ocean currents. In the absence of the summer sea ice, scientists fear that this balance could be upset, with dramatic climatic changes possible.
The extent of sea ice has varied naturally over the decades. Indeed, some Russian data suggests similar or even greater ice loss in some local areas back in the 1930s. But this standard escape of climate deniers, the trump card of natural causes, cannot be played in this instance. Stroeve is in no doubt that the models are clear and correct. If the observed records are omitted, keeping CO2 at pre-industrial levels, then none of the models show a decline of ice cover. When CO2 is put into the models, they all show a decline. "We can expect the Arctic to be ice-free in summer within 20 years," Stroeve comments. "That does not mean that natural ice variability cannot bring it back again, but the trend, we think, will be downward."
We really are at a turning point. "This is a defining moment in human history," claims Kurni Naidoo, director of Greenpeace International in Amsterdam. "In just over 30 years we have altered the way our planet looks from space and soon the north pole may be completely ice-free in summer.” The likes of Stewart Brand and Mark Lynas and other techno-fixers believe that this technical capacity makes human beings the God Species. Actually, they look more like grave robbers, digging up and living off ancient wastes. As Naidoo points out: "Fossil fuel companies are still making profits despite the fact that climate change is so clearly upon us. Our politicians are putting corporate interests above scientific warnings and failing in their duties to the public."
Damian Carrington, The Guardian’s head of the environment, compares the polar flag to the white flag of surrender and declares that the ‘world's distress signal is ignored’.
“Our planet is waving the white flag of surrender. But as the polar flag becomes ever more tattered, with holes scorched by hotter ocean waters, humanity pumps ever more globe-warming gases into the air.”
But it is not the planet that is endangered so much as the semi-clever shaved chimpanzees who continue to grab whatever it can from nature, without putting anything back. The planet will be around a lot longer than any species that attacks its own life support systems so viciously and so stupidly.
“The last great global ice melt the planet witnessed came 10,000 years ago at the end of a deep ice age. As glaciers retreated, a benign and balmy climate emerged in which the human race has flourished. Our entire civilisation is built on the warm soils left as the ice sheets melted.
This new great melting heralds the polar opposite: the gravest of threats to civilisation.
Removing the lid from the pole will release heat equivalent to fast-forwarding human-caused climate change by two decades, say scientists.
Will this be the first great tipping point to tumble the world into a new and hostile climate regime, as the cooling, reflective ice vanishes? Will the new, warm Arctic radically alter the temperate weather enjoyed by Europeans, for whom global warming has seemed a distant concern?
We seem to be prepared to take that chance. The shrinking ice has not opened new leads for decisive global action to tackle climate change.
Instead, in a vicious irony, the new channels are being exploited for oil and gas exploration, unearthing more of the very fuels driving the warming.
Decades from now, will today's record sea ice low be seen as the moment when our Earthly paradise gave up the ghost and entered a hellish new era? I sincerely hope not, but with this global distress signal failing to attract attention, I fear the worst.”