The nation's top climate scientist, James Hansen, has just published a general-audience article, "Tipping Point" [PDF], in State of the Wild 2008-2009 from Island Press. It is well worth sending to folks who don't like all the math. His key points:
We are at the tipping point because the climate state includes large, ready positive feedbacks provided by the Arctic sea ice, the West Antarctic ice sheet, and much of Greenland's ice.
...
Prior major warmings in Earth's history, the most recent occurring 55 million years ago ... resulted in the extinction of half or more of the species then on the planet.
...
In my view, special interests have undue sway with our governments and have effectively promoted minimalist actions and growth in fossil fuels, rather than making the scale of investments necessary.
You might also like this figure on "cumulative fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions by different countries as a percent of global total" --
China has a long way to go to catch up to this country -- let alone the entire industrialized world -- on cumulative emissions (though they are obviously trying as hard as they can).
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stevenearlsalmony Posted 9:49 am
29 Apr 2008
Life and human institutions like national economies are utterly dependent upon the Earth for existence; but too many of our leaders view the Earth as some kind of thing to be manipulated, dissipated, and ravaged secondary to their adamant practice of a religion called Endless Economic Growth. This clear and obvious object of their idolatry is the soon to become unsustainable expansion of the leviathan-like, global political economy. What a colossal sham. What a shame. What a shambles for our children to confront.
Always with thanks,
Steve
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LGT Posted 10:13 am
29 Apr 2008
[First Draft: February 25, 2005]
Unless the global energy consumption is reduced rapidly--by mid 2006--to levels below 60EJ/year (6E+19 joules/year), our studies show that the runaway positive feedback loops that are destroying Earth's ecosystems including ozone holes, global heating, extreme climatic events, toxic pollution, resources depletion, unethical conduct, war, and disease pandemics would reach the point of no return, overwhelm our life support systems and render most of our population centers uninhabitable by as early as 2015, possibly earlier.
Failure to rein back the global energy consumption to the levels below 60 exajoules by June 2006 would render the concept of sustainable management redundant (it seems highly unlikely that post industrial civilization would voluntarily sacrifice its perceived privileges and values in favor of sustaining life on Earth).
http://msrb.wordpress.com/stop-burning-earth/
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Pangolin Posted 10:39 am
29 Apr 2008
Maybe you are the butterfly that starts the hurricane of GHG emissions reform. Flap some wings and find out.
Put the Carbon Back
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Delay And Deny Posted 2:30 pm
29 Apr 2008
How about banning the Shuttle and Space Station?
All that CO2 on "liftoff"...
Texeme.Construct(Participant)
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Delay And Deny Posted 2:47 am
30 Apr 2008
MIT Study says Bill Gates 10,000 more polluting than Average Joe!!
http://www.newscientist.com/blog/environment/2008/04/even ...
Consider the American lifestyles that the students looked at. One was led by what they dubbed a "Bill Gates approximation". Their supervisor, mechanical engineer Timothy Gutowski, says they didn't approach the real Gates for the project, as the Microsoft co-founder and multibillionaire probably would not "end up looking good". Gutowski was right. According to estimates based on the lifestyle Gates leads, his energy use is 10,000 times the global average.
Texeme.Construct(Participant)
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wmanny Posted 4:23 am
07 May 2008
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