Overheated Planet Entering 'Uncharted Territory at Frightening Speed'

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

by Commondreams.org staff writer Lauren McCauley

With new evidence that the concentration of greenhouse gases broke yet another record in 2014, the head of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned on Monday that the warming planet is hurtling "into uncharted territory at a frightening speed."

The United Nations weather agency's latest Greenhouse Gas Bulletin (pdf) reports that atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) reached 397.7 parts per million (ppm) in 2014, substantially beyond the 350ppm level deemed "safe" by scientists to avoid global warming.

WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said this means that we will "soon" be living with globally averaged CO2 levels above the dangerous milestone of 400 ppm "as a permanent reality."

"We can’t see CO2. It is an invisible threat, but a very real one," Jarraud said. "It means hotter global temperatures, more extreme weather events like heatwaves and floods, melting ice, rising sea levels, and increased acidity of the oceans. This is happening now and we are moving into uncharted territory at a frightening speed."

source link: http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/11/09/overheated-planet-entering-uncharted-territory-frightening-speed

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Commenting on this piece CD reader Redravensounds wrote:

That means that all current computer models have been rendered moot.

We no longer have a viable data set. Why? Because since the industrial revolution, humans have gone from a chartable linear increase to near non-linearity. In geologic time - in far faster than an eye blink.

In electronics or in math or in physics this is referred to as "saturation". It is a vertical climb, where the Y axis climbs toward infinity at 0 X (X being time).........

We have not reached a fully non linear state yet, but the wave form rise time is decreasing rapidly X and Y are inversely proportional. . So rapidly, that models can't keep up with the delta change.

The human race is literally frying itself to extinction. And the .01 percent thinks they are exempt.

All of this goes on while some of the "leaders" discuss options to keep the companies rolling - They fiddle while the Earth burns........... They will burn too. I hope these piggish.01 percent fools are happy

Mother nature has a fevah' and she is going to beat the living hell out of the deaf human race with the cow bell!

Also commenting on this piece, CD reader Jaundicedview wrote:

Anyone who has looked honestly at the problem knows that we are very near the point of no return now or beyond it. Therefore the only serious plan is for a rapid almost total end to the use of fossil fuels. No one in power is suggesting it. But the real question is not what the 1% do, but why everybody else goes along. The structures, the laws, the habits that we have allowed to shape our lives are leading us over the cliff. No one ever thinks that there might actually be a death wish. After all, the human race is a disgrace, causing the extinction of millions of other species, dumping continent-sized islands of garbage, and gouging huge ugly scars in the earth. Perhaps people have realized that it would be far better for the planet if we just went. It has become extremely embarrassing to be human.

Also commenting on this piece, CD reader Nottheonly1 wrote:

Uncharted sounds very Columbus like.

More though, this is reminiscent of 'Indiana Jones' and the Climate of Doom - without any scenes to laugh about.

But then, there have always been people that convincingly stated that 'humor is when You laugh in spite of everything'.

Since there is no homogeneous 'bad', or 'good', all the 'bad' contains some 'good' and all the 'good' contains some 'bad'.

Which leads me to point out that with Mama Earth turning up the heat, some things will become moot. New opportunities will arise out of the loss of the missed ones of the past. Bugs will have the time of their lives. They will go North now.

'Think positive' was what I have heard for most of my life. As best as I could I followed that advice. But now, I am not so sure any more if that was just to distract me from the insanity that lies ahead.

Time to go South and watch the wheels go by. I really love them rolling...

[valerief]

1. It seems people would rather believe in fake invisible threats like ghosts

than in real invisible threats like CO2.

[i-should- be-working]

2. I SO MUCH trust Sanders over hillary on climate policy

Is it a surprise to anyone that despair is in the air?

[Darb]

7. Consider letting some posts move forward without

attacking Hillary Clinton. It makes for better discussion.

[The Stranger]

3. Perhaps this is, in the end, the ultimate meaning for us, as a people, as a community as a species.

We were given the greatest gifts anyone or anything has ever been given.

And we destroyed it.

"Hubris" doesn't really quite capture it.

We're all on an express train to Hell, and the ones driving the train are quite literally mentally ill -- still focused on conflicts over "religion," "culture," and "race."

For some of us, to watch this happen, and yet be powerless to prevent it -- that is our horrible, horrible fate.

[truedelphi]

4. So here is the elephant in the room - either a person does believe in

Acknowledging the human being component of climate change, or the person will not.

But in either case, since the methane in the North Sea, the Indian Sea, the polar sea regions, many of the ocean regions will be released, and very soon!! what friggin' difference does it make?

Last week, scientist Bill Nye had a TV half hour devoted to showing the tremendous earth changes going on.

And one scientist he interviewed who totally believes in climate change has already moved his household out to a remote area in New Mexico, to exist off the grid, as things are going to be so very brutal for anyone living in a city. (Miami City being one of the worst places to choose for one's humble abode.) That scientist states that by 2030, people will be extinct. (A very big possibility!)

So does it make any friggin' difference, other than allowing mainstream politicians to develop mainstream (that is, for corporate profit) solutions?

And we know many of those "solutions" do not work. Already in Great Britain, politicians have allowed for cutting down trees near highways, to replace the trees with these metallic monstrosities that supposedly will be better at carbon absorption than trees are. The fact that trees are dirty nasty over-sized plants that litter up the shoulders of the roads with leaves and other debris like falling branches also stood in the favor of whatever Corporate Conglomerate developed the metallic monstrosities.

[The Stranger]

5. 2030?

Well, then let's get this over with.

[truedelphi]

11. Yep, this one scientist kept saying 2030! n/t

[cstanleytech]

6. Its not uncharted exactly since co2 levels have been as high in the distant past and

life found a way to still survive and we might find a way as well.
If however we dont survive then we dont but no species lasts forever and even stars have a beginning and an ending.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

8. You sound as though...

...you believe it's entirely out of our hands.

There have certainly been extreme changes in climate not influenced by humans in Earth's history, but WE'RE driving this one with our ceaseless and massive emissions from burning fossil fuels.

Don't you think we owe it to future generations to try and do something about it?

[cstanleytech]

9. I am not saying we should not try to mitigate

the damage we have caused but in all honesty I think the damage is irreversible with any tech we have now or might develop within the next 50 years.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

10. I'm inclined to agree...

...that we've moved beyond the point of reversing near term catastrophic climate change--survivability is still an open question.

If a crash landing is emiment, the pilot still does everything he can to try and make it survivable. Seems to me this is precisely the situation we're in, but rather than try to make the crash landing survivable, we just close the window blind so we don't have to watch the ground rushing up at OUR GRANDCHILDREN.

[truedelphi]

12. But if the hockey stick projection that Al Gore mentioned is indeed true,

Then what friggin' difference does any thing make?

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

13. Your question is tantamount...

...to asking why spray water on a burning building. Might make little difference, might make a lot. The fire trucks show up, the fireman pile out and do the very best they can to mitigate the damage--humanity needs to do the same with respect to looming catastrophic climate change.

[truedelphi]

14. What is not being mentioned in this discussion of Global Climate Change is

This extremely important fact - the Number One concern of many meteorologists and geologists is the volcano-ization possibilities spread out across the planet.

Whenever any of the major volcanoes wake up, they indicate various significant differences in the scenario of Global Warming. When ever a volcano goes off in the Southern Hemisphere, the likelihood of cooling the planet significantly goes up greatly. (Note the volcanic explosion back in the early 1990's that resulted in a significant drop in global temperature.)

At the risk of being called "aery faery" I would say that it looks like Gaia is wanting to take care of itself.

Currently the volcano that I live quite close to, Mt Konocti, here in Northern Calif., is now considered enough of a threat that there are US Geological Society sensors installed on various places on its shoulders. These sensors mean that should the volcano go active, residents of Lake County would have close to six months worth of warning to get out.

This a marks a huge difference in how Mt Konocti was viewed back in October of 2005 when we moved here.

Back then, we were told that the likelihood of it becoming active was extremely remote. Then its "sister volcano" unexpectedly went off down in Chile, and so "our" volcano is no longer considered to be quite so dormant.

If Yellowstone goes up, then we would have a scenario similar to an extreme nuclear winter event.

All this could happen in eight months, or a year, or ten years or two hundred years. The number of volcanoes that could impact the cooling effects on Global "Warming" go up each and every month as there are so many reports of "dormant" volcanoes suddenly needing a different (and greater) consideration.

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[Lodestar]

16. good points! n/t

[Lodestar]

15. Waters Edge - an investigation of Sea Rise in the US by Reuters based on data, not models.

This is an excellent article based on the mining of real data to track sea rise, look for signs of trouble and make decisions
accordingly. There is NO COHESIVE NATIONAL PLAN to deal with this issue, but it's real and it's happening right now...not
in some distant future. People who live and work on the coasts...decision time.

http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/waters-edge-the-crisis-of-rising-sea-levels/

[truedelphi]

17. Thanks Lodestar - a lot of decent info at that link.

Still trying to absorb it all.