We’ve Been Risking Everything By Ignoring Climate Change, So Maybe It’s Time For A Different Kind Of Gamble

Washington Post - Tom Toles

(Tom Toles)

When a battered woman walks into an emergency room, is it inappropriate to find out how she got hurt? Or is it enough to treat her cuts and broken facial bones and send her back for more?
With regard to climate damage, we survey the cataclysm on Puerto Rico and treat the wounds. Actually, we are hardly doing that, because the wounds are so astonishingly severe. It's as though we don't know even how to think about it, because we don't. We won't ask how it happened; we never ask. We simply suggest that people turn the other cheek and brace for more of the same.
Let's saunter back a few years to the balmy days when climate change was widely considered nothing but a source of easy joshing. "If this is climate change," we would say on a warm winter day, "I'll take it!"
Now we have an entire U.S. territory, shredded from end to end, without power or agriculture left functioning. This is climate change. Are we going to take this?
Maybe. Because somehow even the most stunning and painful evidence of warming doesn't register as compelling. Back in the jokey days, it was considered tiresome in the extreme to point out that, yes, this is a beautiful day, but eventually this will turn into devastation. Oh, Gloomy Gus! Oh, Debbie Downer! Oh, Crabby Cassandra!
For our elected officials, it is still a big joke. They still have cover from the denier industry. Climate changes all the time! This way and that! Too hot, too cold, always something! This kind of talk is very cheap — in the sense of a fool's economy. It's cheap now, but bankrupting later. (See price tag on fixing Puerto Rico.)
Maybe it's time to make this cheap talk more costly. Maybe we should require elected and appointed officials to put their own money on the line along with their assurances.
With something more costly than ordinary dissembling involved, and an actual price to pay, they might suddenly see that pricing carbon looks like a far better bet.

Links

• Hedge Fund Asks Climate Deniers To Put Their Money Where Their Mouth Is
• Climate projections
• New climate change projections for Australia 
• Get ready for 60-day heatwaves as Australia warms up — the dire climate predictions
• Longer, hotter summers predicted in extreme weather report by Climate Council
• Coastal Risk Australia

How Did That Get There? Plastic Chunks On Arctic Ice Show How Far Pollution Has Spread

The Guardian - Jamie Doward

Discovery by UK scientists prompts fear that melting ice will allow more plastic to be released into the central Arctic Ocean – with huge effects on wildlife 

Plastic pollution on an ice floe in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. Photograph: Conor McDonnell

A British-led expedition has discovered sizeable chunks of polystyrene lying on remote frozen ice floes in the middle of the Arctic Ocean.
The depressing find, only 1,000 miles from the north pole, is the first made in an area that was previously inaccessible to scientists because of sea ice. It is one of the most northerly sightings of such detritus in the world’s oceans, which are increasingly polluted by plastics.
A team of scientists drawn from the UK, US, Norway and Hong Kong, headed by marine biologist Tim Gordon of Exeter University, said the discovery confirmed just how far plastic pollution has spread. It has prompted fears that plastic waste is flowing into the Arctic as the ice melts because of climate change. The thaw is simultaneously releasing plastic that has long been trapped in the ice.
The scientists, who were on the explorer Pen Hadow’s Arctic Mission attempt to sail to the north pole, were surprised to discover the blocks of polystyrene many hundreds of miles from land in areas that were, until recently, covered by ice all year round. They found two large pieces on the edge of ice floes between 77° and 80° north, in the middle of the international waters of the central Arctic Ocean.
“For the 25 years I have been exploring the Arctic I have never seen such large and very visible items of rubbish,” said Hadow, the only person to have trekked solo, without resupply, from Canada to the geographic north pole. “The blocks of polystyrene were just sitting on top of the ice.”

The scientists fear the thaw is releasing plastic trapped by the ice into the Arctic Ocean. Photograph: Conor Mcdonnell/Conor McDonnell

“Finding pieces of rubbish like this is a worrying sign that melting ice may be allowing high levels of pollution to drift into these areas,” Gordon said. “This is potentially very dangerous for the Arctic’s wildlife.”
The pioneering expedition – using two yachts – sailed further into the international waters of the Central Arctic Ocean than any previous navigation attempt without icebreakers. Rates of ice melt have increased dramatically due to climate change, with 40% of the central Arctic Ocean now navigable in summer.
Estimates suggest that there are more than 5 trillion pieces of plastic floating on the surface of the world’s oceans. It has been claimed that there is now enough plastic to form a permanent layer in the fossil record. Dr Ceri Lewis, scientific adviser to the expedition based at the University of Exeter, has previously warned that people produce around 300 million tons of plastic a year, roughly the same weight as all the humans on the planet. Around half of all plastic produced is used once and then thrown away.
A significant concern is that large plastic pieces can break down into “microplastics” – tiny particles that are accidentally consumed by filter-feeding animals. The particles remain in animals’ bodies and are passed up the food chain, threatening wildlife at all levels from zooplankton to apex predators such as polar bears. In an attempt to gauge the presence of microplastics in Arctic waters, the scientists intend to test samples of seawater they collected in nets with holes smaller than a millimetre across.

‘The blocks of polystyrene were just sitting on top of the ice,’ said Pen Hadow. Photograph: Conor Mcdonnell @conormcdphoto/Conor McDonnell

“Many rivers that are often a source of plastic pollution lead into the Arctic Ocean, but plastic pollution has been literally trapped into the ice,” Lewis said. “Now the ice is melting we believe microplastics are being released into the Arctic. The Arctic is thought to be a hot spot of microplastics accumulation due to the number of rivers that empty into the Arctic basin, yet we have very little data to support this idea in the more northerly parts of the Arctic Ocean.” He added that the data the expedition was collecting was important because the Arctic supports many fisheries which could be affected by microplastics.
Some projections indicate that the entire Arctic Ocean will be ice-free in summer by 2050. This will allow human exploitation of the newly opened waters and bring a range of fresh threats to Arctic wildlife.
“The Arctic Ocean’s wildlife used to be protected by a layer of sea ice all year round,” Gordon said.
“Now that is melting away, this environment will be exposed to commercial fishing, shipping and industry for the first time in history. We need to seriously consider how best to protect the Arctic’s animals from these new threats. By doing so, we will give them a fighting chance of adapting and responding to their rapidly changing habitat.”

The scientists discovered plastic pollution lying on remote frozen ice floes in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. Photograph: Conor McDonnell

The team is also investigating the impact of human-made noise pollution on Arctic marine life and mammals, using underwater loudspeakers and microphones to understand how sound travels through the polar seas, and how this might be affected by ice loss. Arctic cod, beluga whales, ringed seals and walruses use a range of sounds to communicate in the underwater darkness. Narwhals hunt for fish a mile below the surface using biosonar, emitting 1,000 high-pitched clicks every second and listening to their reflected echoes – much the same way that bats do.
“It is critical that we establish baseline natural recordings in this newly exposed oceanic environment,” said Professor Steve Simpson, an expert in bioacoustics and noise pollution at Exeter University. “These recordings will allow us to understand how human activities are changing the soundscape of the summer Arctic, and assess the success of future noise management in this unique acoustic world.”
On-board wildlife biologist Heather Bauscher said increasing ice melt could have serious consequences for the whole Arctic ecosystem. “Quality research and the development of sound management strategies are necessary to protect the Arctic’s wildlife: this is crucial at a time of such dramatic change,” she said.

Links

• A million bottles a minute: world's plastic binge 'as dangerous as climate change'
• Plastic polluted Arctic islands are dumping ground for Gulf Stream
• The latest threat to Antarctica: an insect and plant invasion
• Plastic polluted Arctic islands are dumping ground for Gulf Stream
• How disappearing sea ice has put Arctic ecosystem under threat
• Could a £400bn plan to refreeze the Arctic before the ice melts really work?
• Arctic powers gather for Alaska talks as pace of global warming threatens ice cap
• Dark snow: from the Arctic to the Himalayas, the phenomenon that is accelerating glacier melting
• Rate of Arctic summer sea ice loss is 50% higher than predicted
• Arctic wilderness faces pollution threats as oil and gas giants target its riches

We May Survive The Anthropocene, But Need To Avoid A Radioactive ‘Plutocene’

The Conversation - Andrew Glikson

A nuclear blast and runaway climate change could propel us into the Plutocene. mwreck/Shutterstock.com

On January 27, 2017, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the arms of its doomsday clock to 2.5 minutes to midnight – the closest it has been since 1953. Meanwhile, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels now hover above 400 parts per million.
Why are these two facts related? Because they illustrate the two factors that could transport us beyond the Anthropocene – the geological epoch marked by humankind’s fingerprint on the planet – and into yet another new, even more hostile era of our own making.
My new book, titled The Plutocene: Blueprints for a post-Anthropocene Greenhouse Earth, describes the future world we are on course to inhabit, now that it has become clear that we are still busy building nuclear weapons rather than working together to defend our planet.
I have coined the term Plutocene to describe a post-Anthropocene period marked by a plutonium-rich sedimentary layer in the oceans. The Anthropocene is very short, having begun (depending on your definition) either with the Industrial Revolution in about 1750, or with the onset of nuclear weapons and sharply rising greenhouse emissions in the mid-20th century. The future length of the Plutocene would depend on two factors: the half-life of radioactive plutonium-239 of 24,100 years, and how long our CO₂ will stay in the atmosphere – potentially up to 20,000 years.
During the Plutocene, temperatures would be much higher than today. Perhaps they would be similar to those during the Pliocene (2.6 million to 5.3 million years ago), when average temperatures were about 2℃ above those of pre-industrial times, or the Miocene (roughly 5.3 million to 23 million years ago), when average temperatures were another 2℃ warmer than that, and sea levels were 20–40m higher than today.
Under these conditions, population and farming centres in low coastal zones and river valleys would be inundated, and humans would be forced to seek higher latitudes and altitudes to survive – as well as potentially having to contend with the fallout of nuclear conflict. The most extreme scenario is that evolution takes a new turn – one that favours animals best equipped to withstand heat and radiation.

Climates past
While we have a range of tools for studying prehistoric climates, including ice cores and tree rings, these methods do not of course tell us what the future holds.
However, the basic laws of physics, the principles of climate science, and the lessons from past and current climate trends, help us work out the factors that will dictate our future climate.
Broadly speaking, the climate is shaped by three broad factors: trends in solar cycles; the concentration of atmospheric greenhouse gases; and intermittent events such as volcanic eruptions or asteroid impacts.
Solar cycles are readily predicted, and indeed can be seen in the geological record, whereas intermittent events are harder to account for. The factor over which we have the most control is our own greenhouse emissions.
CO₂ levels have previously climbed as high as 2,000 parts per million (ppm), most recently during the early Eocene, roughly 55-45 million years ago. The subsequent decline of CO₂ levels to just a few hundred parts per million then cooled the planet, creating the conditions that allowed Earth’s current inhabitants (much later including humans) to flourish.
But what of the future? Based on these observations, as reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), several projections of future climates indicate an extension of the current interglacial period by about 30,000 years, consistent with the longevity of atmospheric CO₂.
If global warming were to reach 4℃, as suggested by Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, chief climate advisor to the German government, the resulting amplification effects on the climate would pose an existential threat both to nature and human civilisation.
Barring effective sequestration of carbon gases, and given amplifying feedback effects from the melting of ice sheets, warming of oceans, and drying out of land surfaces, Earth is bound to reach an average of 4℃ above pre-industrial levels within a time frame to which numerous species, including humans, may hardly be able to adapt. The increase in evaporation from the oceans and thereby water vapour contents of the atmosphere leads to mega-cyclones, mega-floods and super-tropical terrestrial environments. Arid and semi-arid regions would become overheated, severely affecting flora and fauna habitats.
The transition to such conditions is unlikely to be smooth and gradual, but may instead feature sharp transient cool intervals called “stadials”. Increasingly, signs of a possible stadial are being seen south of Greenland.
A close analogy can be drawn between future events and the Eocene-Paleocene Thermal Maximum about 55 million years ago, when release of methane from Earth’s crust resulted in extreme rise in temperature. But as shown below, the current rate of temperature rise is far more rapid – and more akin to the planet-heating effects of an asteroid strike.

Rate of global average temperature rise during (1) the end of the last Ice Age; (2) the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum; (3) the current bout of global warming; and (4) during an asteroid impact. Author provided

Mounting our defence
Defending ourselves from global warming and nuclear disaster requires us to do two things: stop fighting destructive wars, and start fighting to save our planet. There is a range of tactics we can use to help achieve the second goal, including large-scale seagrass cultivation, extensive biochar development, and restoring huge swathes of the world’s forests.
Space exploration is wonderful, but we still only know of one planet that supports life (bacteria possibly excepted). This is our home, and there is currently little prospect of realising science fiction’s visions of an escape from a scorched Earth to some other world.
Yet still we waver. Many media outlets operate in apparent denial of the connection between global warming and extreme weather. Meanwhile, despite diplomatic progress on nuclear weapons, the Sword of Damocles continues to hang over our heads, as 14,900 nuclear warheads sit aimed at one another, waiting for accidental or deliberate release.
If the clock does strike nuclear midnight, and if we don’t take urgent action to defend our planet, life as we know it will not be able to continue. Humans will survive in relatively cold high latitudes and altitudes. A new cycle would begin.

Links

• An official welcome to the Anthropocene epoch – but who gets to decide it’s here?
• What is a pre-industrial climate and why does it matter?
• Irma and Harvey: very different storms, but both affected by climate change
• Can ‘cli-fi’ actually make a difference? A climate scientist’s perspective
• How TV weather presenters can improve public understanding of climate change
• Developing countries can prosper without increasing emissions
• Drones help scientists check the health of Antarctic mosses, revealing climate change clues
• Two centuries of continuous volcanic eruption may have triggered the end of the ice age
• This is why we cannot rely on cities alone to tackle climate change