NAS: From Ice Sheet Collapse to Mass Extinctions, You’re not Ready for Climate Change

[unhappycamper]

http://www.juancole.com/2013/12/collapse-extinctions-climate.html

NAS: From Ice Sheet Collapse to Mass Extinctions, You’re not Ready for Climate Change
By Juan Cole | Dec. 6, 2013

Those are at least two of the takeaways from a new report released by scientists in the National Academy of Sciences on Tuesday which says the sudden impacts of climate change this century and beyond are inevitable but warn that far too little has been done to prepare for them.

"If you think about gradual change, you can see where the road is and where you're going. With abrupt changes and effects, the road suddenly drops out from under you." –Prof. Tony Barnosky

The report, Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change, looks at the issue of abrupt changes in climate, weather patterns, and the impacts that can occur in a matter of years or decades, not the lengthier scenarios that climate scientists sometimes focus on. (The full report can be read online here).

"The most challenging changes are the abrupt ones," said James White, professor of geological sciences at the University of Colorado in Boulder and chair of the report committee, at a press conference on Tuesday.

[newfie11]

1. Tell me about it

-17 here right now

[Heather MC]

2. We are slow boiling frogs

and we‘re screwed, because the right people will not admit that fact

[Enthusiast]

3. They will not admit this fact because their gig is supremely profitable.

We could change over to renewable energy almost immediately if there was only the will to do so.

Just imagine if the trillions Dubya gifted to the wealthy connected during the Afghan-Iraq Wars would have been diverted to a national effort to move toward clean renewable energy and a smart grid.

[Heather MC]

4. I often imagine what it would have been like if

the real winner of the 2000 election had moved into the white house

[Enthusiast]

6. Me too.

Another thing people forget about Gore is his proposal to strengthen airline cockpit doors.

Gore proposed this as Vice President in the late 1990s in response to intelligence reports that Bin Ladin was a threat to airlines. Gore was subsequently pilloried by Limbaugh. Limbaugh claimed it would cost $300 dollars per plane—as if that would be some sort of economic hardship for the airlines.

Isn't it odd that we never heard another peep about Gore's proposal after 911. Not a peep. This nation is clear gone.

[Demo_Chris]

7. Nothing would have changed. Sorry. nt

[BlueToTheBone]

10. I think you are very wrong.

We would not have invaded Iraq or Afghanistan. We would have been on the path to the 21st century rather than the 19th

[Demo_Chris]

12. I understand why you would like to believe that...

I am really not going to debate something neither of us can prove. However, I am inclined to believe that a President Gore would have done EXACTLY what he was told to do by his corporate owners.

[4dsc]

5. So we are going to live in interesting times after all

We screwed no matter what we do now. Its too late to change the future now. So lets add a couple of billion more people to the mix and see TSHTF.

[RoccoR5955]

8. agreed! n/t

[GliderGuider]

9. Too bad there's nothing we can do to prevent it

Or mitigate it.
Or prepare for it.
Or adapt to it.

The Great Convulsion has begun.

It was built into our genetics by the Second Law of Thermodynamics when life was first created, and then reinforced by every physical and social adaptation we've made for the last million years. We're simply fulfilling the manifest destiny of a problem-solving, limit-defeating organism on a planet with a surfeit of accessible carbon.

Don't weep, just watch with awe as the denouement of the human experiment unfolds before your very eyes. How many species get to be aware of their own demise?

[raouldukelives]

11. Maybe all our meager efforts are a lost cause. Still better than standing for a corporate cause.

Even if in the end, all the efforts of those fighting the only fight that will truly matter in the entire history of mankind and animal kind, even if it only amounts to a few more struggling breaths of air for a dolphin or a child to suffer a few moments less, it will be worth it.
For me at least, in my tiny world, in my tiny way.