Just how urgent an issue is Climate Change, and where should it be ranked in importance in Bernie’s message? Is he right to make this a top priority? These are some of the questions that appeared to get lost in the discussions here over the past week or so.
While some said #BLM is more important than any other issue, economic equality vs. that rigged for the benefit of the 1% was argued by others. Each side had valid and convincing arguments. But they both seem to be trumped by the fact that if we don’t keep fossil fuels in the ground right now to limit greenhouse gas emissions, we may not need to worry about police brutality or wealth inequality in my lifetime, and I’m sixty-six years old. Even waiting for a new POTUS to address this may be too long.
Please follow me below the squiggle to find out why.
My inspiration to finally write my first diary after lurking here for roughly ten years, came from this excellent post by VL BAKER, along with the accompanying discussion thread. The diary quotes the Slate article covering former NASA lead climate scientist James Hansen’s recently released study, which concludes:
...that glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica will melt 10 times faster than previous consensus estimates, resulting in sea level rise of at least 10 feet in as little as 50 years. The study, which has not yet been peer reviewed, brings new importance to a feedback loop in the ocean near Antarctica that results in cooler freshwater from melting glaciers forcing warmer, saltier water underneath the ice sheets, speeding up the melting rate. (emphasis mine)
The Slate article, VL, and most of the commenters, did an excellent job of analyzing the potential outcomes of such a rapid rise in sea level, and they are indeed terrifying.
Hansen is quoted in the article as saying “the real world is moving somewhat faster than the model,” and that “conflicts arising from forced migrations and economic collapse might make the planet ungovernable, threatening the fabric of civilization.” Up to this point Hansen has been right about most of his predictions.
This discussion brought me to a study done way back in 2003 by Richard F. Pittenger and Robert B. Gagosian for the Center for Technology and National Security Policy of the National Defense University, hardly a left wing think tank. Compelling PDF here.
While Hansen concentrates on the social upheavals of sea level rise, Pittenger and Gagosian address the impacts on military readiness, security threats, and crop failures, due to a rapid drop in average temperatures for the North Atlantic region. This could bring about a sudden disruption of the Ocean Conveyor System of warm and cold ocean currents that control the weather for the rest of the planet. The culprits here are the same, i.e. the melting of glaciers and the Arctic ice cap which produce cold fresh water that mixes with warm salty sea water to accelerate climate change.
Both studies used similar methodologies by scrutinizing paleoclimate records from earth core sampling to examine the different phenomena, so we know that this type of rapid change has been seen before. Although both studies are uncertain about the timing, they both reject the “slow ramp” climate change scenarios that claim we have time to adapt. While Hansen gives us less than 50 years, Pittenger and Gagosian claim that these changes can occur “in time spans as short as three to 10 years.” They say:
About 12,700 years ago, as Earth emerged from the most recent ice age and began to warm, the Ocean Conveyor was disrupted. Within a decade, average temperatures in the North Atlantic region plummeted nearly 10° Celsius. (emphasis mine)
While this diary is based on a comparison of two studies, the overwhelming majority of climate change research has produced similar conclusions. Worldwide, 2014 was already the hottest year on record, and all the data so far point to 2015 being even warmer. Yet the winter of 2014-2015 saw Boston setting an all time record for snowfall, while for the rest of the Northeast it was the coldest and longest winter in human memory, as those of us who live here can attest to. We have already postponed action beyond the time limits of the 2003 study, so it is very possible that the changes have already started, even if we are only beginning to understand the complex systems that control climate. The deaths and displacements from further delay could number in the millions, if it’s not already too late and we have passed the tipping points.
Lead on then Senator Sanders, and please don’t stop trying to make us to see the importance of this issue, because the consequences of inaction are too horrible to contemplate. IMHO, this is the number one issue in front of us, because the whole planet is at risk.