The Most Pernicious Climate Myth of All
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Please use this space to discuss John Harte’s MAHB Blog post The Most Pernicious Climate Myth of All. Click on the link below to read more.
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On behalf of A. Comfort:
It is the last holdout of the deniers…if this myth is shattered, nothing stands between them and humanity actually taking actions to save itself.
Tell me, what actions can humanity take to save itself? There are now over a dozen positive feedback loops enhancing global warming that appear out of humans ability to stop. Here are a few:
(1) Drought in the Amazon triggered the release of more carbon than the United States in 2010 (Science, February 2011). In addition, ongoing deforestation in the region is driving declines in precipitation at a rate much faster than long thought, as reported in the 19 July 2013 issue of Geophysical Research Letters.
(2) Warm Atlantic water is defrosting the Arctic as it shoots through the Fram Strait (Science, January 2011).
(3) Siberian methane vents have increased in size from less than a meter across in the summer of 2010 to about a kilometer across in 2011 (Tellus, February 2011)
(4) Drought in the Amazon triggered the release of more carbon than the United States in 2010 (Science, February 2011). In addition, ongoing deforestation in the region is driving declines in precipitation at a rate much faster than long thought, as reported in the 19 July 2013 issue of Geophysical Research Letters.
(5) Peat in the world’s boreal forests is decomposing at an astonishing rate (Nature Communications, November 2011)
Invasion of tall shrubs warms the soil, hence destabilizes the permafrost (Environmental Research Letters, March 2012)(6) Greenland ice is darkening (The Cryosphere, June 2012)
Methane is being released from the Antarctic, too (Nature, August 2012). According to a paper in the 24 July 2013 issue of Scientific Reports, melt rate in the Antarctic has caught up to the Arctic.There are more feedback loops listed at:
http://tinyurl.com/jvjgwd2
OR:
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2013/10/how-do-we-act-in-the-face-of-climate-chaos.html-A. Comfort
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Meanwhile, here in Australia, we’re going backwards – fast! The new conservative Federal Government led by Prime Minister Tony Abbott is promising to repeal the Clean Energy legislation (including the carbon tax) brought in by the previous Labor Government led by Julia Gillard. Their alternative measures – the Direct Action Plan – is likely to lead to an increase in emissions by 2020 on 2000 levels despite their promise to reduce emissions by at least 5 per cent. This week the independent Climate Change Authority (which Abbott wants to abolish as he did the Climate Commission) advised that the 5 per cent target was hopelessly inadequate if we hoped to stay within the 2 degree C. guardrail. It recommended either a 15 per cent or 25 per cent reduction target by 2020 but warned the 15 per cent one would require extraordinary effort in the years following 2020 to achieve a 40-50 per cent reduction by 2030. The lack of ambition by the new Government suggests denialism is alive and well – that the elected Members are scientifically illiterate. And now the worst may happen – Labor may vote with the Coalition to repeal the very legislation that had been such a triumph. I’m generally proud to be Australian but I suspect we will be shamed by the international community at the COP19 meeting in Warsaw that starts within a couple of weeks. And we will deserve it.
Jenny Goldie
National President
Sustainable Population Australia
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