Climate Disruption Depression & Emissions Rising, Breaking & Setting New Records

Oldspeak: Hey kids. I took a break from the show to do  some volunteer work at a homeless shelter in Jamaica. The work was rewarding and much-needed. While I was there, I witnessed first hand the devastating impacts anthropogenic climate change and global warming are having in that land. Persistent and long-lasting drought in regions of the island historically rain-soaked. Yellowing, dead and dying trees and other fauna dotting the countryside. Reports from long time beach dwelling locals who’ve observed the seas advance, swallowing up their white sand beaches. When I got there in October, the beach where I was staying in Boston Bay was gorgeous, but even then the evidence of erosion was obvious. When I left in November, after several days of stormy rough and high seas, the beach was pretty much gone, as the ocean had encroached several feet on to the beach.  Buried under tons of seaweed, amounts which locals told me they’d never seen in the past. On the heels of a bizarre near 40 degree temperature swing in the New York area (on Monday it was near 70 degrees, today it is 34 and snowing, the Buffalo area recently got a years worth of snow in 36 hours), and the eve of Thanksgiving; America’s tribute to the beginning of the end of First Nations People here and orgy of excess and extinction inducing consumption; we take a moment to check in with Dahr Jamail and his monthly climate dispatch. Predictably, the news is not good. In fact, It’s getting worse by the day, and the destruction is getting more and more obvious to 1st worlders. Alas, The life consuming meat grinder that is Industrial Civilization drones on, relentless, oblivious, in a zombie-like trance state, growing larger and greedier by the moment. Throwing the Ecology ever more out of balance. Enjoy the fruits of our irreparably spoiled ecology while you can. Sooner than you think,  The Giving Tree that is our Great Mother will have nothing left to give but a place to be still and perish. Gobble, Gobble!!! ” -OSJ

By Dahr Jamail @ Truthout:

“The impact of industrially packaged quanta of energy on the social environment tends to be degrading, exhausting, and enslaving, and these effects come into play even before those which threaten the pollution of the physical environment and the extinction of the (human) race.”

– Austrian philosopher Ivan Illich, 1973 article in Le Monde

 

This month’s dispatch surveys global calls for massive carbon dioxide cuts from the European Union (EU) and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that are still not enough to truly mitigate the impacts of anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) or stem the massive wildlife disruptions that are now occurring globally, and highlights other glaring signs of an increasingly unstable climate across the globe.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has concluded that, “Coal will nearly overtake oil as the dominant energy source by 2017 . . . without a major shift away from coal, average global temperatures could rise by 6 degrees Celsius by 2050, leading to devastating climate change.”

A recently announced EU plan to cut carbon dioxide emissions 40 percent by 2030 was called “too weak” by IPCC Vice Chair Professor Jim Skea, who added that this goal will commit future governments to “extraordinary and unprecedented” emissions cuts.

China and the United States recently unveiled new pledges on greenhouse gas emissions. President Barack Obama claimed that the move was “historic” as he set a new goal of reducing US levels between 26 and 28 percent by 2025, compared with 2005 levels. Meanwhile China did not set a specific target, but said its emissions would peak by 2030. Again, considering how far along the planet already is in terms of ACD impacts with every year continuing to see new emission records set globally, these gestures seem more symbolic than of a magnitude geared toward true mitigation.

Perhaps the same can be said of the recent IPCC statement, which announced that fossil fuel use must be completely eradicated by 2100.

And the warning signs of progressing ACD continue to mount.

The United Kingdom’s chief scientist recently warned that the planet’s oceans face a “serious and growing risk” from anthropogenic carbon emissions.

Earlier this year, the World Meteorological Organization reported that the world is roughly five times as prone to disaster as it was just 40 years ago.

Given what we’ve seen thus far, the warning is dire indeed.

Earth

This last month saw several ACD-related impacts across the earth.

Caribou feces found in a 700-year-old ice layer were found to contain a virus, which reminded us once again of unintended consequences from overheating the planet. According to the report published in New Scientist, potential threats to people and wildlife through melting caused by ACD are increasing. “The find confirms that virus particles are very good ‘time capsules’ that preserve their core genomic material, making it likely that many prehistoric viruses are still infectious to plants, animals or humans,” said Jean-Michel Claverie of the Aix-Marseille University School of Medicine in France, who was part of the team who found the virus.

Warmer winters in Alaska are causing increasing numbers of geese to forego their usual 3,300-mile migration, evidence of how climate disruptions are heavily impacting wildlife. Scientists have documented how increasing numbers of Pacific black brant are doing this. Prior to 1977, fewer than 3,000 of them wintered in Alaska. In recent years, however, more than 40,000 have remained, and as many as 50,000 stayed last year.

“The temperatures now in winter are much warmer,” said David Ward, a researcher at US Geological Survey’s Alaska Science Center, who conducted the research along with scientists from the US Fish and Wildlife Service. “In years past you’d often have ice that would build up in these lagoons, and the eelgrass would be unavailable for the winter period. But now that’s changing. The change not only causes a disturbance in the natural rhythms of the geese, but will have unknown ramifications throughout the ecological system the geese are part of.”

Further south in California, sandhill cranes are finding their habitat squeezed by the ongoing drought in that state, as more and more of the birds are being forced into smaller areas, and farmers and scientists are pointing toward the ACD-exacerbated drought as the culprit.

Over in Europe, common birds like the sparrow and skylark are in decline across the continent, having decreased by more than 420 million in the last three decades, according to a recent study.

A recent report from a global analytics firm described ACD as a “threat multiplier” for 32 farming-dependent nations, which, it said, now face an “extreme risk” of conflict or civil unrest over the next 30 years.

ACD has been added to the list of causes for fewer bees in the United Kingdom, according to new research. The study showed that the increase in global temperature could be disrupting the “synchronization” that has evolved over millennia between bees and the plants they pollinate.

Long referred to as the “lungs of the planet,” a stunning new report by Brazil’s leading scientists revealed how the Amazon rainforest has been degraded to the point where it is actually losing its ability to regulate weather systems.

Speaking of degradation, over 50 percent of China’s arable land is now degraded, according to the official state news agency Xinhua. This means that the country now has a reduced capacity to produce food for the world’s largest population, and ACD is named as one of the leading causes.

Lastly on the earth front, if you are feeling down about all the bad news about ACD, there’s good reason. Professor Camille Parmesan, an ACD researcher who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore for her work as a lead author of the Third Assessment Report of the IPCC, is blaming her depression on ACD.

“I don’t know of a single scientist that’s not having an emotional reaction to what is being lost,” Parmesan said in the National Wildlife Federation’s 2012 report, “The Psychological Effects of Global Warming on the United States: And Why the US Mental Health Care System is Not Adequately Prepared.” “It’s gotten to be so depressing that I’m not sure I’m going to go back to this particular site again,” she said in reference to an ocean reef she had studied since 2002, “because I just know I’m going to see more and more of it dead, and bleached, and covered with brown algae.”

Water

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission recently cancelled Maine’s shrimp season for the second straight year. A committee report said the 2014 spring shrimp survey showed the shrimp population for this year was at its lowest level in 31 years, and worse than last years, and attributed the dramatic decline in the shrimp population to rising ocean temperatures.

And these impacts aren’t just evident in the Northeast United States.

In the Northwest, bizarre sea life visitors are showing up as a result of historic warming occurring in the Northern Pacific Ocean. An ocean sunfish turned up in the net of some researchers in Alaskan waters. The ocean sunfish is usually found in the tropics or more temperate waters, and are incredibly rare in Alaska. A few days later, another showed up. “No one had ever talked about seeing one alive,” Wyatt Fournier, a research fish biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said. “Not only did we get two aboard in one week, but my commercial-fishing buddies started telling me they were bumping into them when fishing for salmon.”

The waters of Panama, which contain 290 square kilometers of coral reefs, are facing multiple threats, from increased marine traffic to pollution, but the worst is rising sea temperatures.

In the far north, a UK scientist has warned that melting Arctic ice is likely the cause of increasingly extreme weather in the United Kingdom, and that a more turbulent Arctic Ocean will impact currents like the Gulf Stream. This is particularly troubling when one considers the fact that the Arctic is warming at least twice as fast as the global average.

Speaking of melting ice, scientist Jon Riedel, who has been studying glaciers there for more than 30 years, announced that North Cascades National Park has lost roughly 50 percent of its glacier area since 1900, and added, “That’s pretty typical for mountain ranges around the world.” Riedel said that in the last few decades, glaciers in the Northwest have melted faster than ever before.

“The glaciers now seem to have melted back up to positions they haven’t been in for 4,000 years or more,” Riedel said, and went on to explain how natural influences alone could not possibly account for glacial retreat on such a scale. “As a scientist, every time I come back here, this place has changed,” he said.

Up in Alaska, the massive Harding Icefield on the Kenai Peninsula is showing dramatic signs of melting. According to measurements taken by scientists this fall, nearly 28 vertical feet of ice was lost. The Exit Glacier, which spills out of the ice field, has retreated more than in any other single year since annual mapping of its terminus began.

Among scientists, it is common knowledge that the Arctic is the “canary in the coal mine” of ACD, as it is warming faster than the rest of the planet, as aforementioned. Evidence of this appeared this past summer when temperatures soared by 7 degrees Celsius in Barrow on the north slope of the state. Scientists from the University of Alaska Fairbanks attribute the rise to ACD and the loss of Arctic sea ice, and point toward how the 7-degree Celsius increase blows a hole in international efforts aimed at preventing global temperatures from exceeding 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Gerd Wendler, the lead author of the study and a professor emeritus at the university’s International Arctic Research Center, said he was “astonished” at the findings, and told the Alaska Dispatch News: “I think I have never, anywhere, seen such a large increase in temperature over such a short period.”

As ACD continues to melt the Arctic sea ice and consistently pushes back its summertime boundaries to record-setting high latitudes, NASA has begun flying missions to study how these new developments will impact global weather.

Meanwhile down in the Southern Hemisphere, Sao Paulo in Brazil, Latin America’s largest metropolis, may soon run out of water. Given that this mega-city of 20 million residents and the country’s financial hub already is seeing many of its taps run dry, the future looks dire. At the time of this writing, the lakes that supply half of all the water to the city have been drained of 96 percent of their water capacity, as Brazil is in the midst of its worst drought in 80 years.

Looking eastward, the United Kingdom is on course to experience both one of the warmest and wettest years since record keeping began, generating fears that future droughts and flash floods will likely cost lives.

In the United States, with California now into the fourth year of its record-setting drought, the small farm town of Stratford is seeing its ground sink due to farmers having pumped so much water out of the ground that the water table below the town has fallen 100 feet in two years.

Adding insult to injury, NOAA recently released its Winter Outlook, which shows the drought in California to continue to intensify.

In fact, recent research by scientists from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography and the US Geological Survey show that California’s future droughts will be deeper and longer than even the current drought that is wracking the state.

A collection of maps on the topic of water use provide a clear picture of why the entire western United States is in deep trouble when it comes to future freshwater supplies.

In fact, the situation has progressed far enough along already that scientists are predicting that Utah will no longer have a snow skiing industry, since ACD will prevent snow from falling there by the end of this century.

Across the globe, the groundwater supply crisis is becoming so severe that the depletion of groundwater is now driving many conflicts around the globe, according to a leading NASA scientist.

Meanwhile, the city of Boston is reconsidering its relationship with the sea, since sea levels are rising and the land there is kinking. Hence, people there are investigating the possibility of copying Venice and Amsterdam, and making Boston a city of canals.

Given that US coastal cities are now flooding regularly during high tides, thanks in large part to rising seas from ACD, little has actually been done to defend them against the continuation of rising seas, and recent reports show that “nobody is truly ready.”

That said, Jakarta, the most populous city in Java, is sinking. The city has begun building a massive wall to try to stave off the rising seas that are already flooding homes nearly two miles from the coast.

Speaking of flooding, nearly 10 billion gallons of sewer overflows poured into southeastern Michigan’s waters during record-setting flooding in August, which sounded alarms about the deteriorating water quality in the Great Lakes hydrological system.

And Michigan is not alone in struggling with this problem. As storms continue to intensify due to ACD, sanitation departments throughout the US Midwest are struggling to keep apace with more frequent and intense runoff.

Lastly for this section, oceanographers recently reported that larger “dead zones,” (oxygen-depleted water) in the oceans are expected to intensify and grow due to ACD. According to the study, 94 percent of places where dead zones have been shown to exist are located in areas where average temperatures are expected to rise by approximately 4 degrees Fahrenheit by the turn of the century.

Air

US government meteorologists published a study illustrating yet another trend toward increasingly extreme weather events emerging in recent years. Their study found that tornadoes in the United States are increasingly coming in “swarms,” rather than as isolated twisters.

Recently, the first “big heat event” smashed Australian temperature records, when that country’s first major heat wave came more than a month ahead of the official start of summer. The October heat wave set daily maximum temperature records at more than 20 stations, in addition to the fact that the duration of the warmth was also exceptional, according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.

As aforementioned, the Amazon is in big trouble, which means of course the planet is, when it comes to the crumbling ecosystems’ impact on the planet. But another report, this one in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that the forests there are drying out due to lack of rainfall, causing yet more carbon to be emitted into the atmosphere, in what is yet another positive feedback loop resulting from ACD.

Lastly in this section, according to scientists from NASA and NOAA, the Antarctic ozone hole reached its annual peak in September, and the size of this year’s hole was 9.3 million square miles, an area roughly the size of the entire continent of North America.

Denial and Reality

In the United States, ACD-denial tactics never cease to amaze.

A libertarian think tank sued the White House, not exactly the bastion of ACD-mitigation action itself, for a video that tied ACD to last year’s “polar vortex” that raked much of the country with extreme low temperatures.

If you haven’t noticed, the “I’m not a scientist” meme, or variations thereof, has been the primary talking point for Republicans when it comes to ACD. When any group of politicians, lobbyists or corporate spokespeople begins saying the exact same thing, you know they are being coached.

Rupert Murdoch’s company is now concerned about ACD. The parent company of Fox News lost millions of dollars due to Superstorm Sandy, so now they are warning that ACD will likely bring even more extreme weather.

Immediately following the US midterm elections, with their new majority, Senate Republicans are targeting the already feeble federal government’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) – the incoming Senate majority leader – said he feels a “deep responsibility” to stop power plant regulations, and that his top priority is “to try to do whatever I can to get the EPA reined in.”

A recent article in the Toronto Star reminds us that geo-engineering schemes that are proposed to mitigate ACD are more like something out of a third-rate science fiction novel than something that would actually work, according to climate scientists.

The South Miami City Commission recently voted in favor of allowing Florida’s 23 southern counties to secede and create a new state called “South Florida.” This is a result of growing frustration and concern over rising sea levels and lack of ACD mitigation actions by the ACD-denying state leaders.

Another factor related to ACD is overpopulation – which tends to be shied away from most of the time, despite the obvious fact that more people consuming greater amounts of resources on an already far overtaxed planet is an equation that does not provide a happy ending. Finally, more folks are beginning to address overpopulation as another important mitigation method.

Inter Press Service recently reminded us how those populations which are already taking it on the chin from ACD in the form of massive floods, intense heat waves and rising seas are those who are the most vulnerable.

Lastly this month, in the wake of recent news of global emissions rising 2.3 percent in 2013 to set yet another record and marking the largest year-to-year increase in 30 years, the IPCC announced that the world isn’t moving anywhere near fast enough to have a chance at mitigating the impacts of ACD in any real way.

______________________________________________________________________________

Dahr Jamail

Dahr Jamail, a Truthout staff reporter, is the author of The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, (Haymarket Books, 2009), and Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq, (Haymarket Books, 2007). Jamail reported from Iraq for more than a year, as well as from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Turkey over the last ten years, and has won the Martha Gellhorn Award for Investigative Journalism, among other awards.

His fourth book, The Mass Destruction of Iraq: Why It Is Happening, and Who Is Responsible, co-written with William Rivers Pitt, is available now on Amazon. He lives and works in Washington State.

 

 

Sea Change: The Ecological Disaster That Nobody Sees

Oldspeak: “The ocean is alive; it is a living minestrone soup with an even greater diversity of life than on the land, It is where most of our oxygen is created and carbon is taken out of the atmosphere. With every breath you take, you need to thank the ocean… .The ocean drives climate and weather, It is a planetary life-support system that we have taken for granted . . . We simply must protect the machinery, the natural systems upon which our life depends.” –Sylvia Earle, former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) chief scientist.

“Experts warn that we are currently facing an extinction event in the oceans which may rival the “Great Death” of the Permian age 250 million years ago, when 95 percent of marine species died out due to a combination of warming, acidification, loss of oxygen and habitat – all conditions that are rife today…. Within the past half century the oceans have been transformed from the planet’s most productive bioregion into arguably its most abused and critically endangered…. Trillions of microscopic ocean plants called phytoplankton contribute seasonally between 50 to 85 percent of the oxygen in earth’s atmosphere, far more than all of the world’s forests combined. Nobody knows for certain how plankton will adapt to warming seas. But one study published in the United Kingdom last year suggested, worryingly, that changes in the temperature and chemical composition of the oceans would make these critical organisms less productive. Planktonremoves carbon from the atmosphere during the process of photosynthesis. Fewer plankton will mean less oxygen and more of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which will further intensify “a vicious cycle of climate change…Equally scary is the prospect that, as some researchers speculate, changes in ocean temperature may melt a frozen form of methane called “clathrates,” which is ubiquitous under the planet’s continental shelves. Methane is a greenhouse gas that is 20 times as potent in the short term as carbon dioxide. If these vast reserves bubble up into the atmosphere, it will truly be “game over” for the climate as we know it… But up to now, there has been little political will to tackle the tough issues that are leading to a death by a thousand cuts for the seas around us. The Global Ocean Commission reports that the toothless international treaties that purport to regulate human use of the oceans have failed utterly to protect them.” -Richard Schiffmann

“So basically, we’re running out of air. As time passes and conditions worsen, our air supply will steadily lessen, as greenhouse gasses further intensify. Our oceans in less than 50 years have been transformed from our planets most productive bioregion, into its most abused and critically endangered. Our oceans are the true lungs of the ecology. And they are boiling, acidifying, and dying. This cannot be stopped by human actions. While our attention is being directed toward manufactured threats like ISIS, Russia, and Ebola, We’re slowly and surely suffocating our way to extinction. Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick……” -OSJ

By Richard Schiffmann @ Truthout:

On September 21, in what is being advance-billed as the largest climate march in history, thousands of protesters will converge on New York City to focus public attention on the slow-motion train wreck of global warming. But while Americans are becoming increasingly aware that our industrial civilization is destabilizing the earth’s climate, fewer know about another environmental disaster-in-the-making: the crisis of the global oceans.

Experts warn that we are currently facing an extinction event in the oceans which may rival the “Great Death” of the Permian age 250 million years ago, when 95 percent of marine species died out due to a combination of warming, acidification, loss of oxygen and habitat – all conditions that are rife today.

Within the past half century the oceans have been transformed from the planet’s most productive bioregion into arguably its most abused and critically endangered. That is the conclusion of a report issued earlier this summer by the Global Ocean Commission, a private think tank consisting of marine scientists, diplomats and business people, which makes policy recommendations to governments.

The report catalogues a grim laundry list of environmental ills. Commercial fish stocks worldwide are being overexploited and are close to collapse; coral reefs are dying due to ocean acidification – and may be gone by midcentury; vast dead zones are proliferating in the Baltic and the Gulf of Mexico caused by an influx of nitrogen and phosphorous from petroleum-based fertilizers; non-biodegradable plastic trash – everything from tiny micro-plastic beads to plastic bags and discarded fishing gear – is choking many coastal nurseries where fish spawn; and increased oil and gas drilling in deep waters is spewing pollution and posing the risk of catastrophic spills like the Deepwater Horizon disaster which dumped an estimated 4.2 million barrels of petroleum into the Gulf of Mexico during a five-month period in 2010.

Yet these worrying trends have failed to spark public indignation. It may be a matter of “out of sight, out of mind.”

“If fish were trees, and we saw them being clear-cut, we would be upset,” renowned oceanographer Carl Safina observed in an interview with Truthout. “But the ocean is invisible to most people, an alien world.” It is hard for those of us who only see ocean life when it ends up on our dinner plates to get worked up about its destruction, Safina said.

Nevertheless, this world under the waves is vital to our survival, according to Sylvia Earle, former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) chief scientist. “The ocean is alive; it is a living minestrone soup with an even greater diversity of life than on the land,” Earle told Truthout. “It is where most of our oxygen is created and carbon is taken out of the atmosphere. With every breath you take, you need to thank the ocean.”

Trillions of microscopic ocean plants called phytoplankton contribute seasonally between 50 to 85 percent of the oxygen in earth’s atmosphere, far more than all of the world’s forests combined. Nobody knows for certain how plankton will adapt to warming seas. But one study published in the United Kingdom last year suggested, worryingly, that changes in the temperature and chemical composition of the oceans would make these critical organisms less productive. Planktonremoves carbon from the atmosphere during the process of photosynthesis. Fewer plankton will mean less oxygen and more of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which will further intensify “a vicious cycle of climate change,” according to the study’s authors.

Equally scary is the prospect that, as some researchers speculate, changes in ocean temperature may melt a frozen form of methane called “clathrates,” which is ubiquitous under the planet’s continental shelves. Methane is a greenhouse gas that is 20 times as potent in the short term as carbon dioxide. If these vast reserves bubble up into the atmosphere, it will truly be “game over” for the climate as we know it.

“The ocean drives climate and weather,” Earle said. “It is a planetary life-support system that we have taken for granted . . . We simply must protect the machinery, the natural systems upon which our life depends.”

But up to now, there has been little political will to tackle the tough issues that are leading to a death by a thousand cuts for the seas around us. The Global Ocean Commission reports that the toothless international treaties that purport to regulate human use of the oceans have failed utterly to protect them.

In an email to Truthout, former UK Foreign Minister David Miliband, a co-chair of the commission, wrote bluntly that the high seas are “a failed state . . . beyond the jurisdiction of any government, where governance and policing are effectively non-existent and anarchy rules the waves.” Miliband insists that the open ocean beyond national boundaries needs to be brought under the rule of international law. At present, global treaties make nonbinding recommendations, which are routinely violated by nations and commercial enterprises.

Perhaps not surprisingly, it is the wealthy countries that are disproportionally to blame for the ocean’s woes. According to the commission, the freedom of the seas is being “exploited by those with the money and ability to do so, with little sense of responsibility or social justice.”

One way this is happening is the chronic over-harvesting of the high seas by massive, technologically advanced ships largely from countries like France, Spain, Denmark, Japan and South Korea (the United States is actually a relatively minor player with a lower yearly catch than many far smaller countries). These floating factories frequently employ highly destructive methods like bottom trawling,the practice of dragging a heavy net on the bottom of the ocean, a process which can destroy ancient deep sea coral colonies and other fragile ecosystems.

Other questionable practices include fishing out of season and the use of cyanide and underwater explosives that stun or kill all marine life over vast swaths of the sea. Indiscriminate trawl nets and long-line fishing take untold thousands of sea birds, turtles, marine mammals and non-target fish species (called bycatch) daily, according to Earle. “It is like using a bulldozer to catch songbirds. You simply throw away the trees and all the rest.”

The results have been catastrophic. In 1950, less than 1 percent of fish species were overexploited or close to collapse. Today, that number has swollen to 87 percent, according to the Global Ocean Commission report. Not only are there “too many boats trying to catch too few fish,” but this overfishing is being abetted in many cases by government fossil fuel subsidies, which have driven an otherwise flagging industry into dangerous overdrive.

The irony is that, while the productivity of commercial fishing has never been lower, and boats need to go ever farther to catch fewer fish, the number of vessels exploiting the ocean has never been higher. While affluent countries spend tens of millions of their tax dollars to prop up their national fishing industries, coastal fisheries in the global south are being depleted and some fisher folk are barely able to survive on their diminished catches, as I discovered during a recent reporting trip to Barbados. They simply can’t compete with the big commercial fleets that are operating with impunity just beyond their territorial boundaries.

This problem is exacerbated in Barbados and elsewhere in the Caribbean by the rapid coral die-off. Instead of the thriving reefs that one would have seen only a few years back, there are now ghost forests of bleached white skeletons covered in slime. As the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide increasingly gets absorbed by the ocean’s surface waters, it creates carbonic acid, which changes the pH of the sea, making it more difficult for coral polyps and other shell-forming organisms to produce their rigid homes.

When corals die (Earle said fully half of the world’s reefs are already gone, or in steep decline) the fish and other organisms that breed among them die off as well. Equally important, reefs are an invaluable line of defense against storm surges and destructive waves. Without these natural seawalls, beach erosion and damage to low-lying coastal areas during hurricanes can spiral out of control.

Human-made physical changes to the world’s coastlines pose another threat. Productive natural hatcheries like mangrove swamps, mudflats and salt marshes are being cleared in many areas to make way for coastal development, barrier islands are dredged to build ship channels, and freshwater streams, which fish use to spawn, are blocked by dams.

In his eloquent book Running Silver, marine biologist John Waldman writes that in East Coast streams, where our forebears could “walk dry-shod on the backs” of schools of striped bass, shad, sturgeon and other fish during their spring migrations, today’s runs are as low as 2 percent of what they once were. In some cases, they’ve disappeared entirely. Cold-loving fish like salmon and cod are leaving their traditional ranges and heading toward the poles in search of cooler waters.

Amid this rising tide of bad news, however, there are some glimmers of hope. Carl Safina told Truthout that the US coastal fish populations were in free fall “until about 1998 when the Sustainable Fisheries Act went into effect [which sets strict fishing quotas]. We saw a recovery of inshore species which are wholly managed by US law and policy, at the same time as there was a continuing decline of the big offshore species like shark, tuna and many billfish in international waters.”

The challenge, as Safina sees it, is to bring the rule of law that has worked for some US fisheries to the high seas, which he calls “the Wild West in the space age.” We need something like a UN peacekeeper force for the open oceans, he said, to enforce treaties, clamp down on illegal fishing and draft strict environmental regulations.As a model for what he has in mind, Safina points to regional multination fishery boards (like those which already manage and set quotas for fisheries shared by the United States and Canada.) As this kind of international cooperation spreads, we’ll have a fighting chance to save imperiled species that are currently being fished to exhaustion. Safina alsosaid we need to stop fishing some critical areas to give them an opportunity to recover.

President Obama was clearly thinking along these lines when he announced in June the creation of the largest marine sanctuary on earth, a no-fishing and drilling zone comprising 782,000 square miles of open ocean surrounding small, unpopulated US territories in the South Pacific. Pacific island nations like the Cook and Kiribati quickly followed suit, banning fishing in their own territorial waters.

Sylvia Earle told Truthout that these are big steps in the right direction: “Here’s the good news: places where fish are protected, where we stop the killing, if enough resilience is there, these systems can be returned to abundance. It’s happened in the Florida Keys; it’s happened in protected areas off the coast of Chile, in Mexico, where grouper, snapper and sharks are making a reappearance.”

Still, until we address climate change and pollution, and find a way to establish justice and accountability on the high seas, the prospects for the world’s largest ecosystem remain grim.

 

 

 

 

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PricewaterhouseCoopers Report: We’re 20 Years Away From Catastrophe

Oldspeak: “According to the PricewaterhouseCoopers report, “the gap between what we are doing and what we need to do has again grown, for the sixth year running.” The report adds that at current rates, we’re headed towards 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit of warming by the end of the century—twice the agreed upon rate….The report also found that the world is going to blow a hole in its carbon budget—the amount we can burn to keep the world from overheating beyond 3.6 degrees… Overall, PricewaterhouseCoopers paints a bleak picture of a world that’s rapidly running out of time; the required effort to curb global emissions will continue to grow each year. “The timeline is also unforgiving…This means that emissions from the developed economies need to be consistently falling, and emissions from major developing countries will also have to start declining from 2020 onwards.” G20 nations, for example, will need to cut their annual energy-related emissions by one-third by 2030, and by just over half by 2050.” -James West

“Hmmm… When even establishment corporations that profit from business as usual are seeing the writing on the wall of climate change, that’s not good. We’re running out of time. All the Hopium, marches, pledges, intergovernmental panels, and feckless wars in the world can’t obscure this reality anymore. It’s a safe bet, we conservatively have about 20 years left before the ecology collapses. Probably less. Multiple major emitters (including the U.S.) are emitting more than ever, and are showing no signs of slowing down. Can we really expect emissions to start consistently falling by 2020? Not bloody likely. Add to human emissions the ever accelerating naturally released greenhouse gas emissions as the planet warms, and it should be fairly obvious that there is no exit strategy for this. Enjoy the time remaining as fully and presently as you can. ” -OSJ

By James West @ Mother Jones:

With every year that passes, we’re getting further away from averting a human-caused climate disaster. That’s the key message in this year’s “Low Carbon Economy Index,” a report released by the accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The report highlights an “unmistakable trend”: The world’s major economies are increasingly failing to do what’s needed to to limit global warming to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above preindustrial levels. That was the target agreed to by countries attending the United Nations’ 2009 climate summit; it represents an effort to avoid some of the most disastrous consequences of runaway warming, including food security threats, coastal inundation, extreme weather events, ecosystem shifts, and widespread species extinction.

To curtail climate change, individual countries have made a variety of pledges to reduce their share of emissions, but taken together, those promises simply aren’t enough. According to the PricewaterhouseCoopers report, “the gap between what we are doing and what we need to do has again grown, for the sixth year running.” The report adds that at current rates, we’re headed towards 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit of warming by the end of the century—twice the agreed upon rate. Here’s a breakdown of the paper’s major findings.

The chart above compares our current efforts to cut “carbon intensity”—measured by calculating the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per million dollars of economic activity—with what’s actually needed to rein in climate change. According to the report, the global economy needs to “decarbonize” by 6.2 percent every year until the end of the century to limit warming to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. But carbon intensity fell by only 1.2 percent in 2013.

The report also found that the world is going to blow a hole in its carbon budget—the amount we can burn to keep the world from overheating beyond 3.6 degrees:

The report singles out countries that have done better than others when it comes to cutting carbon intensity. Australia, for example, tops the list of countries that have reduced the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per unit of GDP, mainly due to lower energy demands in a growing economy. But huge countries like the United States, Germany, and India are still adding carbon intensity, year-on-year:

Overall, PricewaterhouseCoopers paints a bleak picture of a world that’s rapidly running out of time; the required effort to curb global emissions will continue to grow each year. “The timeline is also unforgiving. The [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] and others have estimated that global emissions will need to peak around 2020 to meet a 2°C [3.6 degrees F] budget,” the report says. “This means that emissions from the developed economies need to be consistently falling, and emissions from major developing countries will also have to start declining from 2020 onwards.” G20 nations, for example, will need to cut their annual energy-related emissions by one-third by 2030, and by just over half by 2050. The pressure will be on the world’s governments to come up with a solution to this enormous challenge at the much-anticipated climate talks in Paris next year.

 

 

NOAA Report: Summer 2014 Hottest On Record, 2014 On Pace To Be Hottest Ever. World’s Oceans Account For Most Heat Rise.

Oldspeak: “All the conditions that existed in Earth’s previous 5 mass extinctions, exist right now. Today. No other extinction event has progressed as rapidly as the one we’re bearing witness to. The oceans are heating & dying at an unprecedented rate.  We have zero ability to stop what is happening.  We must accept this. I can’t say it better than the esteemed eco-pirate Captain Paul Watson:

“The world is full of ecological fools who deny ecological reality. The world is full of mindless mobs of morons obsessed with petty trivialities or distracted by fantasies ranging from silly religions to entertainment.

What the world is lacking are ecological engineers and warriors ready and willing to address the threats to our planet and especially to our oceans.

What the great majority of people do not understand is this: unless we stop the degradation of our oceans, marine ecological systems will begin collapsing and when enough of them fail, the oceans will die.

And if the oceans die, then civilization collapses and we all die.

It’s as simple as that….

One thing for certain however is that we are running out of time.”

TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK….

By NOAA National Climatic Data Center:

 

Global Highlights

• The combined average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces for August 2014 was record high for the month, at 0.75°C (1.35°F) above the 20^th century average of 15.6°C (60.1°F), topping the previous record set in 1998.
• The global land surface temperature was 0.99°C (1.78°F) above the 20^th century average of 13.8°C (56.9°F), the second highest on record for August, behind 1998.
• For the ocean, the August global sea surface temperature was 0.65°C (1.17°F) above the 20^th century average of 16.4°C (61.4°F). This record high departure from average not only beats the previous August record set in 2005 by 0.08°C (0.14°F), but also beats the previous all-time record set just two months ago in June 2014 by 0.03°C (0.05°F).
• The combined average global land and ocean surface temperature for the June–August period was also record high for this period, at 0.71°C (1.28°F) above the 20^th century average of 16.4°C (61.5°F), beating the previous record set in 1998.
• The June–August worldwide land surface temperature was 0.91°C (1.64°F) above the 20^th century average, the fifth highest on record for this period. The global ocean surface temperature for the same period was 0.63°C (1.13°F) above the 20^th century average, the highest on record for June–August. This beats the previous record set in 2009 by 0.04°C (0.07°F).
• The combined average global land and ocean surface temperature for January–August (year-to-date) was 0.68°C (1.22°F) above the 20^th century average of 14.0°C (57.3°F), the third highest for this eight-month period on record.

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Supplemental Information

• Year-to-date Temperature Comparisons

Introduction

Temperature anomalies and percentiles are shown on the gridded maps below. The anomaly map on the left is a product of a merged land surface temperature (Global Historical Climatology Network, GHCN) and sea surface temperature (ERSST.v3b) anomaly analysis developed by Smith et al. (2008). Temperature anomalies for land and ocean are analyzed separately and then merged to form the global analysis. For more information, please visit NCDC’s Global Surface Temperature Anomalies page. The maps on the right are percentile maps that complement the information provided by the anomaly maps. These provide additional information by placing the temperature anomaly observed for a specific place and time period into historical perspective, showing how the most current month, season, or year compares with the past.

The most current data may be accessed via the Global Surface Temperature Anomalies page.

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Temperatures

In the atmosphere, 500-millibar height pressure anomalies correlate well with temperatures at the Earth’s surface. The average position of the upper-level ridges of high pressure and troughs of low pressure—depicted by positive and negative 500-millibar height anomalies on the August 2014 and June 2014–August 2014 maps—is generally reflected by areas of positive and negative temperature anomalies at the surface, respectively.

August

August 2014 Blended Land and Sea Surface
Temperature Anomalies in degrees Celsius

August 2014 Blended Land and Sea Surface
Temperature Percentiles

With records dating back to 1880, the global temperature across the world’s land and ocean surfaces for August 2014 was 0.75°C (1.35°F) higher than the 20^th century average of 15.6°C (60.1°F). This makes August 2014 the warmest August on record for the globe since records began in 1880, beating the previous record set in 1998. Nine of the 10 warmest Augusts on record have occurred during the 21^st century. Additionally, August 2014 marked the 38^th consecutive August with a temperature above the 20^th century average. The last below-average global temperature for August occurred in 1976. The departure from average for the month was also record high for the Northern Hemisphere, at 0.92°C (1.66°F) above average. The Southern Hemisphere temperature was 0.56°C (1.01°F) above average, the fourth highest on record for this part of the world.

Globally, the average land surface temperature was the second highest on record for August behind only 1998, at 0.99°C (1.78°F) above the 20^th century average. Warmer than average temperatures were evident over most of the global land surfaces, except for parts of the United States and western Europe, northern Siberia, parts of eastern Asia and much of central Australia stretching north. Overall, 26 countries across every continent except Antarctica had at least one station reporting a record high temperature for August. The United States and the Russian Federation each had stations that reported record warm temperatures as well as at least one station with a record cold temperature for the month. One station in Antarctica also reported a record cold August temperature for its 30-year period of record. The period of record varies by station.

Select national information is highlighted below. (Please note that different countries report anomalies with respect to different base periods. The information provided here is based directly upon these data):

• Averaged across the country, Australia was only 0.06°C (0.11°F) above its 1961–1990 average; however, there were some large variations between regions. Western Australia had its fifth highest maximum August temperature on record (10^th highest average temperature) while the Northern Territory had its fourth lowest minimum August temperature on record (also fourth lowest average temperature).
• Following a record warm July, August was a bit more temperate in Norway, although still warm compared to normal, with a monthly temperature that was 1.0°C (1.8°F) higher than the 1961–1990 long-term average for the country.
• The United Kingdom had its coolest August since 1993, with a temperature 1.0°C (1.8°F) below its 1981–2010 average. This ended a streak of eight consecutive warmer-than average months.
• August was 1.1°C (2.0°F) cooler than the 1981–2010 average in Austria, marking the country’s coolest August since 2006. The high alpine regions were 1.5°C (2.7°F) cooler than average.

The average August temperature for the global oceans was record high for the month, at 0.65°C (1.17°F) above the 20^th century average, beating the previous record set in 2005 by 0.08°C (0.14°F). It was also the highest departure from average for any month in the 135-year record, beating the previous record set just two months ago in June 2014 by 0.03°C (0.05°F). Record warmth was observed across much of the central and western equatorial Pacific along with sections scattered across the eastern Pacific and regions of the western Indian Ocean, particularly notable in the waters east of Madagascar. After cooling briefly in July, ocean temperatures in the Niño 3.4 region—the area where ENSO conditions are monitored—began warming once again. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center estimates that there is a 60–65 percent chance that El Niño conditions will develop during the Northern Hemisphere fall and winter. This forecast focuses on the ocean surface temperatures between 5°N and 5°S latitude and 170°W to 120°W longitude.

August	Anomaly		Rank (out of 135 years)		Records
	°C	°F			Year(s)	°C	°F
Global
Land	+0.99 ± 0.24	+1.78 ± 0.43	Warmest	2nd	1998	+1.03	+1.85
			Coolest	134th	1912	-0.75	-1.35
Ocean	+0.65 ± 0.05	+1.17 ± 0.09	Warmest	1st	2014	+0.65	+1.17
			Coolest	135th	1910, 1911	-0.45	-0.81
Land and Ocean	+0.75 ± 0.12	+1.35 ± 0.22	Warmest	1st	2014	+0.75	+1.35
			Coolest	135th	1912	-0.51	-0.92
Northern Hemisphere
Land	+1.07 ± 0.21	+1.93 ± 0.38	Warmest	1st	2010, 2014	+1.07	+1.93
			Coolest	135th	1912	-0.94	-1.69
	Ties: 2010
Ocean	+0.84 ± 0.04	+1.51 ± 0.07	Warmest	1st	2014	+0.84	+1.51
			Coolest	135th	1913	-0.57	-1.03
Land and Ocean	+0.92 ± 0.15	+1.66 ± 0.27	Warmest	1st	2014	+0.92	+1.66
			Coolest	135th	1912	-0.65	-1.17
Southern Hemisphere
Land	+0.80 ± 0.12	+1.44 ± 0.22	Warmest	7th	2009	+1.37	+2.47
			Coolest	129th	1891	-0.78	-1.40
Ocean	+0.51 ± 0.06	+0.92 ± 0.11	Warmest	4th	1998	+0.57	+1.03
			Coolest	132nd	1911	-0.48	-0.86
	Ties: 2003, 2005, 2013
Land and Ocean	+0.56 ± 0.06	+1.01 ± 0.11	Warmest	4th	2009	+0.67	+1.21
			Coolest	132nd	1911	-0.51	-0.92
	Ties: 1997

August Global Land and Ocean plot

August Global Hemisphere plot

The most current data August be accessed via the Global Surface Temperature Anomalies page.

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Seasonal (June–August)

June 2014–August 2014 Blended Land and Sea Surface
Temperature Anomalies in degrees Celsius

June 2014–August 2014 Blended Land and Sea Surface
Temperature Percentiles

June–August 2014, at 0.71°C (1.28°F) higher than the 20^th century average, was the warmest such period across global land and ocean surfaces since record keeping began in 1880, edging out the previous record set in 1998. The global ocean temperature was a major contributor to the global average, as its departure from average for the period was also highest on record, at 0.63°C (1.13°F) above average. The average temperature across land surfaces was not far behind, at fifth highest for June–August. Regionally, the Northern Hemisphere temperature across land and oceans combined was also record high for its summer season, while the Southern Hemisphere temperature was fourth highest for its winter season.

Select national information is highlighted below. (Please note that different countries report anomalies with respect to different base periods. The information provided here is based directly upon these data):

• Winter (June–August) was warmer than average for Australia; however, while the maximum temperature was 0.68°C (1.22°F) above average, the minimum temperature was 0.14°C (0.25°F) below average, making for a greater-than-average daily temperature range. The highest maximum temperature anomalies were observed in the states of Tasmania (second highest on record) and Western Australia (tied for third highest on record). The Northern Territory had below-average winter maximum and minimum temperatures, with the average temperature tying as the 33^rd coolest winter temperature in its 105-year period of record.
• Summer 2014 was 0.2°C (0.4°F) higher than the 1981–2010 average for Austria, but it also marked the coolest June–August for the country since 2005. The north and east were 0.4–0.7°C (0.7–1.3°F) above average while most other regions were near average.
• The summer temperature for Norway was 1.9°C (3.4°F) above its 1961–1990 average. Western Norway, Trøndelag, and Nordland saw temperatues 2–3°C (4–5°F) above their long-term averages.
• Summer in Denmark was 1.6°C (2.9°F) warmer than its 1961–1990 average and 0.4°C (0.7°F) warmer than the more recent 2001–2010 average. The second highest July temperature on record contributed to the summer warmth.

June–August	Anomaly		Rank (out of 135 years)		Records
	°C	°F			Year(s)	°C	°F
Global
Land	+0.91 ± 0.20	+1.64 ± 0.36	Warmest	5th	2010	+1.02	+1.84
			Coolest	131st	1885	-0.58	-1.04
Ocean	+0.63 ± 0.05	+1.13 ± 0.09	Warmest	1st	2014	+0.63	+1.13
			Coolest	135th	1911	-0.48	-0.86
Land and Ocean	+0.71 ± 0.12	+1.28 ± 0.22	Warmest	1st	2014	+0.71	+1.28
			Coolest	135th	1911	-0.46	-0.83
Northern Hemisphere
Land	+0.94 ± 0.18	+1.69 ± 0.32	Warmest	5th	2010	+1.17	+2.11
			Coolest	131st	1884	-0.68	-1.22
	Ties: 2006
Ocean	+0.76 ± 0.05	+1.37 ± 0.09	Warmest	1st	2014	+0.76	+1.37
			Coolest	135th	1913	-0.54	-0.97
Land and Ocean	+0.83 ± 0.15	+1.49 ± 0.27	Warmest	1st	2014	+0.83	+1.49
			Coolest	135th	1913	-0.50	-0.90
Southern Hemisphere
Land	+0.80 ± 0.12	+1.44 ± 0.22	Warmest	5th	2005	+1.01	+1.82
			Coolest	131st	1911	-0.70	-1.26
Ocean	+0.53 ± 0.06	+0.95 ± 0.11	Warmest	4th	1998	+0.59	+1.06
			Coolest	132nd	1911	-0.50	-0.90
	Ties: 2002
Land and Ocean	+0.57 ± 0.07	+1.03 ± 0.13	Warmest	4th	1998	+0.65	+1.17
			Coolest	132nd	1911	-0.53	-0.95

June–August Global Land and Ocean plot

June–August Global Hemisphere plot

The most current data August be accessed via the Global Surface Temperature Anomalies page.

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Year-to-date (January–August)

January–August 2014 Blended Land and Sea Surface
Temperature Anomalies in degrees Celsius

January–August 2014 Blended Land and Sea Surface
Temperature Percentiles

The first eight months of 2014 (January–August) were the third warmest such period on record across the world’s land and ocean surfaces, with an average temperature that was 0.68°C (1.22°F) above the 20^th century average of 57.3°F (14.0°C). If 2014 maintains this temperature departure from average for the remainder of the year, it will be the warmest year on record.

The average global sea surface temperature tied with 2010 as the second highest for January–August in the 135-year period of record, behind 1998, while the average land surface temperature was the fifth highest.

January–August	Anomaly		Rank (out of 135 years)		Records
	°C	°F			Year(s)	°C	°F
Global
Land	+1.01 ± 0.23	+1.82 ± 0.41	Warmest	5th	2007	+1.14	+2.05
			Coolest	131st	1885, 1893	-0.68	-1.22
Ocean	+0.55 ± 0.05	+0.99 ± 0.09	Warmest	2nd	1998	+0.57	+1.03
			Coolest	134th	1911	-0.50	-0.90
	Ties: 2010
Land and Ocean	+0.68 ± 0.11	+1.22 ± 0.20	Warmest	3rd	1998, 2010	+0.70	+1.26
			Coolest	133rd	1911	-0.51	-0.92
Northern Hemisphere
Land	+1.08 ± 0.28	+1.94 ± 0.50	Warmest	5th	2007	+1.29	+2.32
			Coolest	131st	1893	-0.78	-1.40
Ocean	+0.61 ± 0.07	+1.10 ± 0.13	Warmest	1st	2014	+0.61	+1.10
			Coolest	135th	1910	-0.49	-0.88
Land and Ocean	+0.79 ± 0.17	+1.42 ± 0.31	Warmest	2nd	2010	+0.81	+1.46
			Coolest	134th	1893, 1913	-0.51	-0.92
Southern Hemisphere
Land	+0.84 ± 0.15	+1.51 ± 0.27	Warmest	6th	2005	+1.00	+1.80
			Coolest	130th	1917	-0.77	-1.39
Ocean	+0.52 ± 0.05	+0.94 ± 0.09	Warmest	5th	1998	+0.60	+1.08
			Coolest	131st	1911	-0.52	-0.94
Land and Ocean	+0.57 ± 0.07	+1.03 ± 0.13	Warmest	3rd	1998	+0.66	+1.19
			Coolest	133rd	1911	-0.54	-0.97
	Ties: 2002, 2003, 2005

January–August Global Land and Ocean plot

January–August Global Hemisphere plot

The most current data August be accessed via the Global Surface Temperature Anomalies page.

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Precipitation

August

The maps below represent precipitation percent of normal (left) and precipitation percentiles (right) based on the GHCN dataset of land surface stations using a base period of 1961–1990. As is typical, August precipitation anomalies varied significantly around the world. As indicated by the August precipitation percentiles map below, extreme wetness was observed across part of the central United States, parts of northern Europe, central Siberia, Japan, and eastern Australia. Much of Japan received heavy rainfall from Typhoons Nakri and Halong during the first half of the month. Extreme dryness was scattered across small regions of each of the major continents.

Select national information is highlighted below. (Please note that different countries report anomalies with respect to different base periods. The information provided here is based directly upon these data):

• August was wet across Japan. Western Japan received 301 percent of its average precipitation, making this its wettest Ausgust since national records began in 1946. Typhoons Halong and Nakri, along with fronts and moist air flow, contributed to this extreme wetness.”
• The cooler-than-average August temperatures in the U.K. were accompanied by wet conditions. August tied as the seventh wettest such period since national records began in 1910, thanks in part to ex-Hurricane Bertha passing over the UK on the 10^th and 11^th. Northern Scotland was record wet.
• Latvia reported its fifth wettest August on record and second wettest for the 21^st century, with 178 percent of the country’s long-term average precipitation.

August 2014 Land-Only Precipitation
Percent of Normal

August 2014 Land-Only Precipitation Percentiles

Seasonal (June–August)

The maps below represent precipitation percent of normal (left) and precipitation percentiles (right) based on the GHCN dataset of land surface stations using a base period of 1961–1990. As is typical, precipitation anomalies during June 2014–August 2014 varied significantly around the world.

• According to the India Meteorological Department, the Southwest Monsoon brought just 82 percent of the long-term (1951–2000) average rainfall to the country from June 1 to August 27. All regions were below average. Northwest India received just 66 percent of its average amount for the period, while the South Peninsula was closest to its long-term average among all regions, at 89 percent of average. By the end of August, the monsoon trough was generally near the Himalayan foothills.
• In France, even with a drier than average June, total summer (June–August) precipitation was more than 140 percent of average, marking one of the 10 wettest summers since national records began in 1959. It was the wettest July–August period on record.

June 2014 – August 2014 Land-Only Precipitation
Percent of Normal

June 2014 – August 2014 Land-Only Precipitation Percentiles

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References

Peterson, T.C. and R.S. Vose, 1997: An Overview of the Global Historical Climatology Network Database. Bull. Amer. Meteorol. Soc., 78, 2837-2849.

Quayle, R.G., T.C. Peterson, A.N. Basist, and C. S. Godfrey, 1999: An operational near-real-time global temperature index. Geophys. Res. Lett., 26, 333-335.

Smith, T.M. and R.W. Reynolds, 2005: A global merged land air and sea surface temperature reconstruction based on historical observations (1880-1997), J. Clim., 18, 2021-2036.

Smith et al., 2008, Improvements to NOAA’s Historical Merged Land-Ocean Surface Temperature Analysis (1880-2006), J. Climate., 21, 2283-2293.

 

Like a Dull Knife: The People’s Climate “Farce”

Oldspeak: “Reality versus farce. Fascinating distinction. This march is a farce, “full of sound and fury signifying nothing“. The time for action has passed. What needs to have happened by now has not and will not happen. Carbon emmisons need to have peaked in 4 months. All indications is they’re steadily increasing with no peak in sight. We’re done. Have all the fucking photo ops and fundraisers you like. As the writer so artfully articulates, the reality is this:

“The climate justice movement has an expiration date. If the tipping points in the earth system are passed, and the feedback loops begin their vicious cycle, human attempts at mitigation will be futile, and climate justice will become an anachronism – or at worst a slogan for geo-engineering lobbies. Thousands of scientists have come to consensus on this point, and many years ago gave us a deadline: A carbon emissions peak in 2015 followed by rapid and permanent decline.     

In other words, we have roughly four months to work for climate justice. The world is literally at stake; all life on earth is at risk. Never has there been a more urgent or comprehensive mandate.

Even the guardians and gatekeepers of the ruling class, from politicians to scientists, are forthcoming on this point. Listen to Al Gore: “I can’t understand why there aren’t rings of young people blocking bulldozers, and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power plants.” He said that in 2007. It is in this context that we must seek to better understand and analyze the People’s Climate March…

No target, no demands, no timing, no unity, no history and no integrity amounts to one thing: No politics. The whole will be far less than the sum of its parts. The biggest climate march in history will amount to something less than Al Gore.

In discussions over the past month with a wide range of people – UN diplomats, radical Vermonters, unionists, professors, liberal Democrats, etc. – the same thing has been repeated to me by everyone: “If we get a huge number of people, no one will be able to ignore us.” “The mainstream media will be forced to cover it.”

So what is being billed and organized as The People’s Climate March, and An Invitation to Change Everything, turns out to be a massive photo op. The spectacle of thousands of First World citizens marching for climate justice, while they continue to generate the vast majority of carbon emissions, brings to mind the spectacle of George W. Bush visiting New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.” –Quincy Saul

By Quincy Saul  @ Truthout:

In the lead-up to any large-scale protest, it is useful to bear in mind the potential dangers and drawbacks of such an endeavor. On the eve of what is being advertised as “the biggest climate march in history,” we might reflect on Malcolm X’s experience of the March on Washington, as recounted in the Autobiography of Malcolm X:

“Farce in Washington”, I call it. . . . It was like a movie. . . . For the status-seeker, it was a status symbol. “Were you there?”. . . . It had become an outing, a picnic. . . . What originally was planned to be an angry riptide, one English newspaper aptly described now as “the gentle flood”. . . . there wasn’t a single logistics aspect uncontrolled. . . . They had been told how to arrive, when, where to arrive, where to assemble, when to start marching, the route to march. . . . Yes, I was there. I observed that circus.

Of course, not everyone present concurred with Malcolm X about the March on Washington – and even in a top-down format, one hopes the upcoming march could draw much-needed attention to the climate movement. The question is: At what cost? In this vein, what follows are a few reflections on the buildup to the September 21 People’s Climate March in New York City, to provide some concrete analysis of concrete conditions, and propose some solutions.

Deadline

The climate justice movement has an expiration date. If the tipping points in the earth system are passed, and the feedback loops begin their vicious cycle, human attempts at mitigation will be futile, and climate justice will become an anachronism – or at worst a slogan for geo-engineering lobbies. Thousands of scientists have come to consensus on this point, and many years ago gave us a deadline: A carbon emissions peak in 2015 followed by rapid and permanent decline.

In other words, we have roughly four months to work for climate justice. The world is literally at stake; all life on earth is at risk. Never has there been a more urgent or comprehensive mandate.

Even the guardians and gatekeepers of the ruling class, from politicians to scientists, are forthcoming on this point. Listen to Al Gore: “I can’t understand why there aren’t rings of young people blocking bulldozers, and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power plants.” He said that in 2007. It is in this context that we must seek to better understand and analyze the People’s Climate March.

“An Invitation to Change Everything”

The People’s Climate March has a powerful slogan. It has world-class publicity. But the desire to bring the biggest possible number of people to the march has trumped all other considerations. The results are devastating:

No Target: The march is a U-turn through Times Square, beginning at a monument to genocide (Columbus Circle) and ending . . . in the middle of nowhere. Here in New York City where the ruling class of the whole world has made their diverse headquarters, the march will target none of them. The march will not even go near the United Nations, its ostensible symbolic target.

No Timing: The United Nations will convene leading figures from all over the world – several days after the march. The march does not coincide with anything, contemporary or historic.

No Demands: Again, to attract the largest number of people, the march has rallied around the lowest common denominator – in this case, nothing. Not only are there no demands, but there is in fact no content at all to the politics of the march, other than vague concern and nebulous urgency about “the climate,” which is itself undefined.

No Unity: While a large number of people are sure to converge on Columbus Circle on September 21, the only thing they will have in common is the same street. The revolutionary communists will link arms with the Green Zionist Alliance and the Democratic Party, and compete with Times Square billboards for the attention of tourists and the corporate media.What is the binding agent for this sudden and unprecedented unity? Fifty-one years later, the words of Malcolm X still ring true: “the white man’s money.”

No History: Instead of building on the momentum of a decades-old climate justice movement, this march appears to be taking us backwards. Here’s what Ricken Patel of Avaaz, one of the main funders of the march, said to The Guardian: “We in the movement, activists, have failed up until this point to put up a banner and say if you care about this, now is the time, here is the place, let’s come together, to show politicians the political power that is out there on there.”

It is as if the massive mobilizations outside the United Nations meeting in Copenhagen (2009), Cancun (2010) and Durban (2011) never took place, let alone the literally thousands of smaller, more localized actions and gatherings for climate justice. At all of these gatherings, activists convoked the world to demonstrate the power of the people, under banners which were far more radical and transformative than anything we have seen so far for this march.

No Integrity: The invitation to change everything has been permitted and approved by the New York City Police Department. This permit betrays a lack of respect for the people who will be making sacrifices to come all the way to New York City to change the world, and a lack of integrity among those who want to change everything, but seek permission for this change from one of the more obviously brutal guardians of business as usual. This lack of integrity sets up thousands of earnest souls for an onset of depression and cynicism when this march doesn’t change the world. This will in turn be fertile soil for everyone and anyone hawking false solutions.

No target, no demands, no timing, no unity, no history and no integrity amounts to one thing: No politics. The whole will be far less than the sum of its parts. The biggest climate march in history will amount to something less than Al Gore.

In discussions over the past month with a wide range of people – UN diplomats, radical Vermonters, unionists, professors, liberal Democrats, etc. – the same thing has been repeated to me by everyone: “If we get a huge number of people, no one will be able to ignore us.” “The mainstream media will be forced to cover it.”

So what is being billed and organized as The People’s Climate March, and An Invitation to Change Everything, turns out to be a massive photo op. The spectacle of thousands of First World citizens marching for climate justice, while they continue to generate the vast majority of carbon emissions, brings to mind the spectacle of George W. Bush visiting New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

So what are we left with? James Brown knew, when he said: “You’re like a dull knife; Just ain’t cutting. You’re just talking loud; And saying nothing. Just saying nothing. Good luck to you; Just allow you’re wrong. Then keep on singing that; Same old money song . . .”

So What Are We Going to Do About It?

This is not the place to complain, but to propose solutions. If we are unsatisfied with this march and its leadership, we have to provide an alternative. As James Brown knew, we “have to pay the cost to be the boss.” Here are some suggestions for starters:

1. We are going to stop lying to the people. This is the primary and cardinal rule of revolutionary politics. To invite people to change the world and corral them into cattle pens on a police-escorted parade through the heart of consumer society is astoundingly dishonest. From now on, we will stop lying to people. Climate justice requires nothing less than a global revolution in politics and production; it requires a historic transition to a new model of civilization, which will demand great sacrifice and creativity from everyone.
2. We are going to stop making demands of anyone or anything but ourselves and each other. The powers that be are deaf, dumb and deadly, and we will waste no further time trying to pressure or persuade them. We are going to stop speaking truth to power and start speaking truth to powerlessness. Either we are going to become the leaders we have been waiting for, starting now, or we are going to resign ourselves to the inevitability of catastrophic climate change and the sixth mass extinction.
3. We are going to return to the source. This means three things: (A) Return to the common people from the delirious heights of symbolic protest politics, with dedication to concrete local work, to divorce food, water, shelter and energy systems from capital. (B) Return to the livelihood and wisdom of our ancestors, the indigenous peoples of every continent, who have lived for thousands of years in harmony with nature, and who still possess the knowledge and skills to restore balance. (C) Return to the sun – a second Copernican revolution and a heliocentric energy policy. Either we return to a subsistence perspective that has prevailed for the majority of human history, or all future development of productive forces must be based exclusively on solar energy.
4. We are going to get arrested! The only thing that we can do to meet the deadline for climate justice is to engage in a massive and permanent campaign to shut down the fossil fuel economy. But we have to do this strategically, not in the symbolic cuff-and-stuffs that are a perversion and prostitution of the noble ideals of civil disobedience and revolutionary nonviolence. So we are going to shut down coal plants; we are going to block ports, distribution centers and railway hubs where fossil fuels are transported; whatever it takes to keep the oil in the soil. We’re going to put our bodies between the soil and the sky.So let’s make sure that the call to “Flood Wall Street” on September 22 is the “angry riptide” it should be, and not “the gentle flood.”
5. We are going to join the rest of the human race. For 200 years too long, citizens of the United States have been parasites and predators on the rest of the world. To prevent climate catastrophe, we are going to leave our imperial hubris behind, and join with the revolutionary ecosocialist uprisings that are sweeping the global South.

 

 

Learning How To Live All Over Again: Dealing With the Anger & Continual Backsliding Upon The Acceptance Of Meaninglessness & Overcoming The Schizophrenia Of Awakening.

Oldspeak: “There is only the dream. There is no me or we. There is simply infinity. Logically I know this. Logically I know that nothing we do ultimately matters. Logically I know that I am simply living one thread of awareness to the exclusion of all others. There will be others. There have always been others. It is simply a never ending ride down the stream of life; experiencing only what is the next adventure around the next bend in an ever winding, never ending stream of consciousness.

I find that concept to be wonderful; freeing. I yearn for the letting go. Holding on creates anger. This bend in the river – the western industrial capitalist complex – has created some amazingly difficult habits from which to break. The most formidable being the continual neurosis that one needs to “get” somewhere. The delusion that striving and building and achieving somehow are important in and of themselves. The duality I feel is that the conscious awake me knows it is all a hologram. I know that this “person” is an imaginary construct. I know this is the dream state playing itself out and I am simply riding in the canoe. But, the Calvinist mental illness that has been brow beaten into all western beings, is the default behavior that rises when the defenses are down. We fall back into the dream and go back to acting like striving matters. The anxiety ramps up, the inability to relax causes stress, personal interactions with those close to us in the dream become strained, and we hypnotically fall back into the unconscious world of striving and attachment. Fear rears its ugly head, and peace is lost.

My spiritual autolysis has nothing to do with waking up. I am awake. My spiritual autolysis has to do with breaking 50 plus years of habits; 50 years of reacting habitually because the outside world, and those children deemed to be in positions of authority said I was supposed to have because that is the way of “reality”. The ultimate hoax is having to be taught by those who have not awakened themselves. Habits get formed, neural pathways become strongly wired together, and then when awakening happens, those pathways create doubt, anxiety, uncertainty, and a wish to get back to what has always been considered “normal”. Normal is a lie. It is the paradigm created by fear, by children, by a ruse. This plane of existence is severely, and by every definition of the term, mentally ill.” –Johnathan DeJong

Ooof. I really needed to read this right now. I’ve been meditating heavily on many of the ideas Johnathan has shared. Specifically, the idea of civilization as madness. Civilization is not the default setting of humans. It requires madness to participate well in. A couple other writers on the same excellent blog have written more extensively on the topic. Ray Jason in his excellent piece delineates a short list of the pathologies in human behaviour that civilization has spawned:

• Slavery
• Insanity
• Torture
• Human Sacrifice
• Genocide
• Plagues
• Chronic Loneliness
• Industrial War
• Laws
• Obesity
• Homicidal Dictators
• Asylums
• Heart Attacks
• Lawyers
• Crusades
• Atomic Bombs
• Cancer
• Poverty
• Inquisitions
• Diseases of Civilization
• Witch-hunts
• Drones
• Suicide Bombers
• Drug Addiction
• Taxes
• Robot Soldiers
• Bankers
• Missionaries
• Junk Food
• Overpopulation
• Sweat Shops
• Famine
• Disparity of Wealth
• Sexual Deviancy
• Child Molesters
• Serial Killers
• Compulsive Consumption
• Extinction of Species

It is hard to imagine any rational human being reading that list of atrocities and not saying to themselves, “Why have these consequences of Civilization never been brought to my attention?”  That sensible question brings us back to the title of this essay: “The Thick Facade of Civilization.”  Here is the standard dictionary definition for the word facade: “an outward appearance that is maintained to conceal a less pleasant reality.”  Civilization is so toxic to human and animal and planetary well-being, that its true nature must be hidden from people.”

Keith Farnish in his piece, talks about the anomalous and hyper-destructive effects of civilization on the ecology and all life on earth the short period of time (5 to 10,000 years)  it has existed among human beings. He asserted that “the natural reaction of even civilized people in crisis situations is to help each other and, in the longer term, build protective communities. We could call this “uncivilized” activity, but really it’s human activity. Collective behaviour is only curtailed where authority is enforced. Humans never evolved to be individuals. Humans never evolved to be civilized” He too lists pathological and suicidal requirements of civilization:

– The desire to accumulate

– The need for hiearchy

– Disconnection from the real world

– Individualism over collectivism

In this context, I’ve struggled to realize that as Mr. DeJong reminds us, the task of our time, this Earth’s 6th and fastest mass extinction, is to live in a state of mindfulness & radical acceptance of the meaninglessness of it all, to live in an awakened way, as Johanna Macy says, “fully present to what is happening in the world“. To let go of our programming and live as our full and authentic selves, not slaves to the whims and proclivities of our rapacious egos. To let go and understand that we are in control of nothing. To recognize and heal from the pathologies of striving and “being someone” social acceptable. To initiate “Spiritual Autolysis” and “Be deliberate in your actions. Be in control of your thoughts. Remove yourself from environments that pollute you and force you back into old unconscious habits, and dare to act differently than your programming when you are in familiar settings that you know don’t serve you. In order to live the knowing, to align yourself with that which you know logically to be true, you have to learn how to live- not all over again- but for the first time. Awareness is not enough. Habit breaking is the autolysis that will align you with the real. Question every thought you have ever had. Question why you do any physical action. Throw away that which hinders and keep what helps; but ultimately be mindful of everything, until being mindful becomes the habit.” All that’s left to realize that it’s all a hologram. A dream state that is one big play in which we all have parts. That structures and ideas and concepts  are to be let go, lest they become shackles. Meditate frequently and practice joining yourself with the source field of universal consciousness, free of fear, anger, doubt, anxiety and duality. Freedom awaits.” -OSJ

By  Johnathan DeJong @ Nature Bats Last:

There has always been a sense in the back of my mind that nothing really matters. How could it be that all of this “existence” really has some kind of end purpose? If you sit and think logically about it, if there is some endgame, some divine plan that is supposed to end up somewhere, then the end, it would seem, would be something to avoid. After all, the end result would be that nothing beyond that end goal matters. Once the goal is achieved, life is meaningless. So if that is the case, then the idea of an infinite ebb and flow of energy and consciousness makes a lot more sense. Life is still meaningless, but now it is an infinite field. It is not linear. It is an eternal playground. Nothing is important unless you give meaning and purpose to it. Being awakened from the role playing in the dream state, should free us. It should allow us all to simply spread our wings and throw off the shackles of this nightmare. And then, of course, I use the term “we”.

There is only the dream. There is no me or we. There is simply infinity. Logically I know this. Logically I know that nothing we do ultimately matters. Logically I know that I am simply living one thread of awareness to the exclusion of all others. There will be others. There have always been others. It is simply a never ending ride down the stream of life; experiencing only what is the next adventure around the next bend in an ever winding, never ending stream of consciousness.

I find that concept to be wonderful; freeing. I yearn for the letting go. Holding on creates anger. This bend in the river – the western industrial capitalist complex – has created some amazingly difficult habits from which to break. The most formidable being the continual neurosis that one needs to “get” somewhere. The delusion that striving and building and achieving somehow are important in and of themselves. The duality I feel is that the conscious awake me knows it is all a hologram. I know that this “person” is an imaginary construct. I know this is the dream state playing itself out and I am simply riding in the canoe. But, the Calvinist mental illness that has been brow beaten into all western beings, is the default behavior that rises when the defenses are down. We fall back into the dream and go back to acting like striving matters. The anxiety ramps up, the inability to relax causes stress, personal interactions with those close to us in the dream become strained, and we hypnotically fall back into the unconscious world of striving and attachment. Fear rears its ugly head, and peace is lost.

My spiritual autolysis has nothing to do with waking up. I am awake. My spiritual autolysis has to do with breaking 50 plus years of habits; 50 years of reacting habitually because the outside world, and those children deemed to be in positions of authority said I was supposed to have because that is the way of “reality”. The ultimate hoax is having to be taught by those who have not awakened themselves. Habits get formed, neural pathways become strongly wired together, and then when awakening happens, those pathways create doubt, anxiety, uncertainty, and a wish to get back to what has always been considered “normal”. Normal is a lie. It is the paradigm created by fear, by children, by a ruse. This plane of existence is severely, and by every definition of the term, mentally ill.

I have lived an entirely schizophrenic existence. It is the source of all of my pain. It is a mental split. There are two people involved. The first is the inner me. The awakened me. That being is awareness. It is the being that has always “known” reality. It is the wounded child that has never been able to live fully out in the open – The being who had never been allowed to truly and without resistance become completely me. Parents, society, financial issues, needing to “be” someone, always took precedence. After all, when the majority of the humanoid energy blips keep telling you that, and sometimes forcefully, a kid is going to repress him/herself. You come into this physical world utterly dependent upon others to raise you and educate you. Lost in the translation is that they don’t teach you to think for yourself. Because of this we internalize our sense of worthlessness, integrate into society, and the awakened being sits in a prison box in the recesses of one’s mind,an ever present murmur, but ignored, driven back, demonized, guilted into submission.

The second person in this schizophrenia is the ego. It is that being that the wider society in the dream state has become expert in cultivating. It is the source of all striving, all wars and corruption, all oppressive religions based on reward and punishment, and it is a brutal, fear amplifying, task master. It is intensely real, and for those asleep in the dream state, they are playing out their role in this delusion, with no questioning that there might be a very easy way to quell this cataclysmic existence. It is the face I put on when I meet with clients. It is the authoritative father figure I wear when dealing with my son. It is the dutiful, patriarchal husband armor donned when protecting one’s family. It is the constant and exhausting striving to make the farm work better than all of the other homesteads because “someone” is watching and that means failure isn’t an option. It is the worry what others think, or even the denial that one thinks that is important. If you are the animate ego with no connection to the imprisoned awareness within, your only motivation can be a striving after the physical and avoiding the negative scrutiny of others. Salvation is beyond you because you are of original sin and filth. Awakening and heaven must be given to you… because you are deemed worthless.

The ultimate war within is the ego relentlessly bludgeoning the awakened child so completely as to render the ego dominant. Thus, the external world we experience. The dream state is made manifest by the dreamer. Those who have fully let the child out; learned to live in the dream state yet fully aware, often flame out. Suicide, substance abuse, mental illness, or fleeing to anywhere so as to create an escape can all be a means to that end. The most profound struggle a human can go through is to dethrone the ego and put the inner aware being in control.

The more evolved have learned that meditation is a way to help break the habits. Some lose themselves in the life of altruism. But for so many, they still cannot let go. Awakening means to realize that the suffering poor and the greedy rich are all constructs. There is nothing. Habit breaking means choosing what game you want to play in this stream while never losing sight of the fact that it is a game. To break the habits and replace the DVD that has programmed your mind, the awakened being needs to create triggers to help snap you back into lucidity when you find yourself acting unconsciously again.

True awakening cannot happen without anger. When the torment becomes a true mental illness, because the reality of meaninglessness can no longer be suppressed, a lifetime of repression to succeed in a dream becomes a rage, a rejection of the dream itself, a mental breakdown, and one’s previous life flames out like a strip of birchbark struck by a flint. You look back on all that you did in your life unconsciously, and shake your head in disbelief. You simply cannot believe what you did with yourself and to yourself over all of that time because you let a wider society… that doesn’t even exist… torture you for so long. Aggravating as it is, there is no one to blame; not even yourself. Because ultimately, it was a dream. It still is a dream but you now accept it without keeping the knowing being encased in that lead mental casing preventing you from accessing it and using it fully. The challenge, now that the inner person has slain the outer egoic and asleep being, is to quit falling back into the trap. Funny how Christians also call a falling away – backsliding. But in the awakened state, backsliding is simply falling back to sleep and allowing the lifetime of habits to retake the helm and once again begin trying to paddle up stream.

The trick is to do nothing unconsciously. The way to break habits is to act as though you have never really lived before. Deliberately slow down, watch what you are doing and be aware of what you are thinking. Are you rushing through a task to get somewhere else? Are you thinking that what you are doing isn’t important and that you wish you were doing something else? Why? If it is important and the task you are doing is boring… does it need to be done at all? If the other seems more important should you really stop what you are doing and go do that? Why?

Buddhists do something called walking meditation. They deliberately put their awareness on each step they take, not allowing their mind to wander. One step, the next step, the next step, etc. Being present in the activity to try to quell the monkey mind. My habit to break is the thinking that I am needing to get somewhere. There is no where to get TO! There is only what I want to do to play in the field while I am able to. After that, its simply conversation.

Do I want to garden? Yes. Then garden and quit thinking you need to go paint. Do you want to observe with your telescope? Yes. Then don’t do shit during the day that will make you too tired to observe. Do you want to resume archery for fun instead of competition? Yes. Then use the space you have on the farm to do that! Use it again as your zen sport! Do you want to be in shape and live the mostly-terian or Flexitarian life? Yes? Then quit sabotaging yourself and do it… quit worrying about what others may think… they don’t EXIST! And more to the point – don’t matter!

The issue of social acceptance is another layer that Maya uses to keep us imprisoned and is very powerful. The only way to quell the fear is to grab the thought, look at your intention, then consciously decide if that is in your best interest given the game you have decided to play. I suppose you can play the “I want to worry about what others think” game, but in most cases, considering the deep slumber and pre-programmed responses these movie-extras have memorized, it is certainly not helpful. Do you love to be a modern homesteader, using your physical ability to grow your food, increase your level of self-reliance, and detach yourself from a corrupt, polluted, and destructive wider paradigm? Yes? Then do it. Do it regardless of whether the golfers, mall crawlers, and general citiot population think it valuable or not. They are IRRELEVANT!

So my spiritual autolysis is no longer about extricating the demons in my head. It is the process of habit breaking. The anger of meaninglessness comes from the stark understanding that everything you were taught to believe and everything you have done up to this point was wrong. I think that had we been a product of the indigenous who had rights of passage around the age of puberty, that there would be far more awakened beings. Our child like society killed off the people who really were enlightened, who had a success rate of waking people up of probably 90 percent because it was built into their culture. From that point, we have run around for centuries wondering how to attain enlightenment; thinking we needed some Babahooha or Swami-Salami from the east to wake us up. We invaded the North American holy land and killed off the priestesses because “we knew not what we do”. So now, instead of a vision quest at 13, we go psychotic for 50 years wondering why the pain of the imprisoned child of awareness inside of us needs drugs, or worse, the pain of ending it all.

Be deliberate in your actions. Be in control of your thoughts. Remove yourself from environments that pollute you and force you back into old unconscious habits, and dare to act differently than your programming when you are in familiar settings that you know don’t serve you. In order to live the knowing, to align yourself with that which you know logically to be true, you have to learn how to live- not all over again- but for the first time. Awareness is not enough. Habit breaking is the autolysis that will align you with the real. Question every thought you have ever had. Question why you do any physical action. Throw away that which hinders and keep what helps; but ultimately be mindful of everything, until being mindful becomes the habit.

So what game do I choose to play consciously? Runaway Climate Change is a fact. It is unavoidable in this existence. It is the pinnacle achievement of the ego-driven mindset. Everything about it, including extinction, is the result of a world that is completely asleep. It is the crowning achievement of the industrial civilization stage upon which this self-proclaimed intelligent species has created. I choose to play in this existence by rejecting that civilization. I have rejected it ever since I woke up in High School. I looked upon our species with disgust, but because I was beholden to the role models and people “in charge” it was repressed and it ended me up in the church. I reject the intelligence of our species. I value how humans change for the better pretty dramatically when they are in small social tribes. I choose to work toward local food, local community, and people lending help to people. If I can find that or if I can play a part in creating it, I will. If not. I’ll do it some other way.

No one will escape the pain of climate change. Memento Mori, remember your death. Knowing that you are going to die and keeping that awareness about you, should, in itself, change the way you behave and act on this stage. I choose to embrace the miracle of growing things. It stands in stark contrast to the wider slumbering egoic culture that strives to kill and mine everything in its path. If this world implodes and the universe folds up on this little pebble in the great void, my energy will reverberate into the eternal fabric that at least one person in this blip of an existence valued life and the natural world. I choose to use my physical abilities to work with the field. I choose to reject what ego has wrought. In the end, it doesn’t matter; but the universe planted this seed of revulsion in me back in the years that the native americans would have sent me out on a vision quest. I went on one and didn’t know it. I found myself and I hear its message. Detach from that which pollutes you, embrace that which feels right, do nothing as though it has ultimate significance. Float down your river of homesteading, don’t attempt to fight. Do it until it is indicated that you should do something else, and let that raft take you there.

I also choose to let go of controlling my world. Everything is what it is. Its all going to happen anyway… or maybe it won’t. Nothing I do is going to change that. I choose to watch world events as though they are a comedy, not something of ultimate significance. Everything is a giant comedy and my sense of humor is perfectly suited for it.

I reject the religion and sciences that revolve around ego. I choose to work to join myself with the field of energy and consciousness. My alter is my telescope, my zen is my bow, my sacrament is my farm. My tribe are those who choose to orbit those fields. But they too, will be free to find themselves and either continue to orbit or move to another plane.

There are certain realities to these choices if you don’t want to increase pain. Physical needs need to be met. At some point, the pain of work – my only forced habit of attachment to the egoic industrial civilization construct – at some level needs to be endured. The only result that can happen from eliminating that is to become a street person. It doesn’t seem to be indicated, but it does seem to be indicated that it needs to not be taken so seriously. If the ego driven world is going to wreck the lives of millions again, there is nothing on earth that I can do to stop it. In the end, it is not my fault. It is the result of children acting as if they are adults. There is nothing so blatantly obvious than the fact that we live in a world of children. They have had no right of passage, no help in awakening, and every construct of that civilization is designed to keep them trapped.

So I have anger associated with the awakening to meaninglessness. Should I have had a choice I would have avoided this existence altogether. The fascinating piece in all of this is how much bigger my understanding of infinity has become. This isn’t the only me. There are infinite versions. All of them are dreams, none of them mean anything, and that, ultimately, is the most freeing thing I can imagine. Freedom to play, freedom to choose, no matter what the slumbering play actors do.

(Throughout this I have referred to a word “Autolysis” It is a word coined in a trilogy by Jed McKenna which means to “devour one’s self”. It is a process by which he asserts can free the mind to reality. I highly recommend the books, as I know several others in this community would)

 

“Limits To Growth” Published In 1972 Proved Correct: New Research Indicates We’re Nearing Global Collapse

Oldspeak: “If the present growth trends in world population, industrialisation, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years. The most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity.” –“Limits To Growth”, 1972

Consider that statement in the context of the present reality:

“Humanity’s annual demand on the natural world has exceeded what the Earth can renew in a year since the 1970s. This “ecological overshoot” has continued to grow over the years, reaching a 50 per cent deficit in 2008. This means that it takes 1.5 years for the Earth to regenerate the renewable resources that people use, and absorb the CO2 waste they produce, in that same year.  How can this be possible when there is only one Earth? Just as it is possible to withdraw money from a bank account faster than to wait for the interest this money generates, renewable resources can be harvested faster than they can be re-grown. But just like overdrawing from a bank account, eventually the resource will be depleted. At present, people are often able to shift their sourcing when this happens; however at current consumption rates, these sources will eventually run out of resources too – and some ecosystems will collapse even before the resource is completely gone. The consequences of excess greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are also already being seen, like climate change and ocean acidification. These place additional stresses on biodiversity and ecosystems. The decline in biocapacity per capita is primarily due to an increase in global population. More people have to share the Earth’s resources. The increase in the Earth’s productivity is not enough to compensate for the demands of this growing population.” –World Wildlife Foundation, 2014

“So ignore all the chatter about “climate action” and “environmental activism” and the hoopla about the upcoming “People’s Climate March” and UN Summit on Climate Change. It’s all meaningless and masturbatory theater. Our fate was sealed 40 years ago. We are running up against the physical limits of the ecology and have shown no ability or will to stop. Continued growth in population and resource consumption all but guarantee collapse of the ecology and by extension industrial civilization. We’re witnessing the early stages of global collapse right now. We’re seeing the decline in industrial outputs predicted in Limits To Growth to start in 2015, now. The mounting pollution bringing about agricultural and food production failures in addition to cuts health and education services predicted to start in 2020 is happening now.   Infinity growth is impossible on a finite planet. The anthropocene epoch is nearing its end. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick….” -OSJ

By Graham Turner and Cathy Alexander @ The U.K. Guardian:

The 1972 book Limits to Growth, which predicted our civilisation would probably collapse some time this century, has been criticised as doomsday fantasy since it was published. Back in 2002, self-styled environmental expert Bjorn Lomborg consigned it to the “dustbin of history”.

It doesn’t belong there. Research from the University of Melbourne has found the book’s forecasts are accurate, 40 years on. If we continue to track in line with the book’s scenario, expect the early stages of global collapse to start appearing soon.

Limits to Growth was commissioned by a think tank called the Club of Rome. Researchers working out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, including husband-and-wife team Donella and Dennis Meadows, built a computer model to track the world’s economy and environment. Called World3, this computer model was cutting edge.

The task was very ambitious. The team tracked industrialisation, population, food, use of resources, and pollution. They modelled data up to 1970, then developed a range of scenarios out to 2100, depending on whether humanity took serious action on environmental and resource issues. If that didn’t happen, the model predicted “overshoot and collapse” – in the economy, environment and population – before 2070. This was called the “business-as-usual” scenario.

The book’s central point, much criticised since, is that “the earth is finite” and the quest for unlimited growth in population, material goods etc would eventually lead to a crash.

So were they right? We decided to check in with those scenarios after 40 years. Dr Graham Turner gathered data from the UN (its department of economic and social affairs, Unesco, the food and agriculture organisation, and the UN statistics yearbook). He also checked in with the US national oceanic and atmospheric administration, the BP statistical review, and elsewhere. That data was plotted alongside the Limits to Growth scenarios.

The results show that the world is tracking pretty closely to the Limits to Growth “business-as-usual” scenario. The data doesn’t match up with other scenarios.

These graphs show real-world data (first from the MIT work, then from our research), plotted in a solid line. The dotted line shows the Limits to Growth “business-as-usual” scenario out to 2100. Up to 2010, the data is strikingly similar to the book’s forecasts.

Solid line: MIT, with new research in bold. Dotted line: Limits to Growth ‘business-as-usual’ scenario.

Solid line: MIT, with new research in bold. Dotted line: Limits to Growth ‘business-as-usual’ scenario. Photograph: Supplied

Solid line: MIT, and research in bold. Dotted line: Limits to Growth ‘business-as-usual’ scenario. Photograph: Supplied

As the MIT researchers explained in 1972, under the scenario, growing population and demands for material wealth would lead to more industrial output and pollution. The graphs show this is indeed happening. Resources are being used up at a rapid rate, pollution is rising, industrial output and food per capita is rising. The population is rising quickly.

So far, Limits to Growth checks out with reality. So what happens next?

According to the book, to feed the continued growth in industrial output there must be ever-increasing use of resources. But resources become more expensive to obtain as they are used up. As more and more capital goes towards resource extraction, industrial output per capita starts to fall – in the book, from about 2015.

As pollution mounts and industrial input into agriculture falls, food production per capita falls. Health and education services are cut back, and that combines to bring about a rise in the death rate from about 2020. Global population begins to fall from about 2030, by about half a billion people per decade. Living conditions fall to levels similar to the early 1900s.

It’s essentially resource constraints that bring about global collapse in the book. However, Limits to Growth does factor in the fallout from increasing pollution, including climate change. The book warned carbon dioxide emissions would have a “climatological effect” via “warming the atmosphere”.

As the graphs show, the University of Melbourne research has not found proof of collapse as of 2010 (although growth has already stalled in some areas). But in Limits to Growth those effects only start to bite around 2015-2030.

The first stages of decline may already have started. The Global Financial Crisis of 2007-08 and ongoing economic malaise may be a harbinger of the fallout from resource constraints. The pursuit of material wealth contributed to unsustainable levels of debt, with suddenly higher prices for food and oil contributing to defaults – and the GFC.

The issue of peak oil is critical. Many independent researchers conclude that “easy” conventional oil production has already peaked. Even the conservative International Energy Agency has warned about peak oil.

Peak oil could be the catalyst for global collapse. Some see new fossil fuel sources like shale oil, tar sands and coal seam gas as saviours, but the issue is how fast these resources can be extracted, for how long, and at what cost. If they soak up too much capital to extract the fallout would be widespread.

Our research does not indicate that collapse of the world economy, environment and population is a certainty. Nor do we claim the future will unfold exactly as the MIT researchers predicted back in 1972. Wars could break out; so could genuine global environmental leadership. Either could dramatically affect the trajectory.

But our findings should sound an alarm bell. It seems unlikely that the quest for ever-increasing growth can continue unchecked to 2100 without causing serious negative effects – and those effects might come sooner than we think.

It may be too late to convince the world’s politicians and wealthy elites to chart a different course. So to the rest of us, maybe it’s time to think about how we protect ourselves as we head into an uncertain future.

As Limits to Growth concluded in 1972:

If the present growth trends in world population, industrialisation, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years. The most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity.

So far, there’s little to indicate they got that wrong.

 

“We’re running out of time. The laws of physics are non-negotiable”: Ocean Acidification & Greenhouse Gases Soar Fastest In 30 Years To New Record Levels

Oldspeak: “We know without any doubt that our climate is changing and our weather is becoming more extreme due to human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels…The Greenhouse Gas Bulletin shows that, far from falling, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere actually increased last year at the fastest rate for nearly 30 years. We are running out of time. The laws of physics are non-negotiable….The Bulletin provides a scientific base for decision-making. We have the knowledge and we have the tools for action to try to keep temperature increases within 2°C to give our planet a chance and to give our children and grandchildren a future. Pleading ignorance can no longer be an excuse for not acting.” –Michel Jarraud, secretary-general, World Meteorlogical Organization

“As I’ve said many times before, it’s just physics at this point. Emissions and ocean acidification are accelerating faster and faster each day Industrial Civilization plunders on. We are in deadly paradox. If Industrial Civilization continues, we’re fucked. If Industrial Civilization stops, we’re fucked.  Contrary to the secretary-generals assertion, the knowledge and tools for action even if by some stretch of the imagination they are ever used, are useless. There are no truly effective mitigation plans or actions to make. Keeping temperatures below 10c is not gonna happen, much, much less 2c.  We’ve exited the window of time where human actions could affect the madness to come 40 years ago. Multiple non-linear irreversible positive feedback loops have started and there’s noting we can do to stop them. As the earth warms, more and more carbon will be released from permafrost & sea floors. There is no way to stop this from happening. We barely even understand truly what’s going on. The complex interactions among various systems in the ecology are too variegated and unpredictable for our climate models to account for. It’s just a matter of time before our mother ceases to support complex life. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick…” -OSJ

By Alex Kirby @ Climate News Network:

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reports that the amounts of atmospheric greenhouse gases reached a new high in 2013, driven by rapidly rising levels of carbon dioxide.

The news is consistent with trends in fossil fuel consumption. But what comes as more of a surprise is the WMO’s revelation that the current rate of ocean acidification, which greenhouse gases (GHGs) help to cause, appears unprecedented in at least the last 300 million years.

The details of growing GHG levels are in the annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin [3], published by the WMO—the United Nations specialist agency that plays a leading role in international efforts to monitor and protect the environment.

They show that between 1990 and 2013 there was a 34 percent increase in radiative forcing—the warming effect on our climate—because of long-lived greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide.

Complex interactions

The Bulletin reports on atmospheric concentrations—not emissions—of greenhouse gases. Emissions are what go into the atmosphere, while concentrations are what stay there after the complex system of interactions between the atmosphere, biosphere (the entire global ecological system) and the oceans.

About a quarter of total emissions are taken up by the oceans and another quarter by the biosphere, cutting levels of atmospheric CO2.

In 2013, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 was 142 percent higher than before the Industrial Revolution started, in about 1750. Concentrations of methane and nitrous oxide had risen by 253 percent and 121 percent respectively.

The observations from WMO’s Global Atmosphere Watch [4] network showed that CO2 levels increased more from 2012 to 2013 than during any other year since 1984. Scientists think this may be related to reduced CO2 absorption by the Earth’s biosphere, as well as by the steady increase in emissions.

Although the oceans lessen the increase in CO2 that would otherwise happen in the atmosphere, they do so at a price to marine life and to fishing communities [5]—and also to tourism. The Bulletin says the oceans appear to be acidifying faster than at any time in at least the last 300 million years.

“We know without any doubt that our climate is changing and our weather is becoming more extreme due to human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels,” said the WMO’s secretary-general, Michel Jarraud.

Running out of time

“The Greenhouse Gas Bulletin shows that, far from falling, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere actually increased last year at the fastest rate for nearly 30 years. We are running out of time. The laws of physics are non-negotiable.

“The Bulletin provides a scientific base for decision-making. We have the knowledge and we have the tools for action to try to keep temperature increases within 2°C to give our planet a chance and to give our children and grandchildren a future. Pleading ignorance can no longer be an excuse for not acting.”

Wendy Watson-Wright, executive secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission [6] of UNESCO, said: “It is high time the ocean, as the primary driver of the planet’s climate and attenuator of climate change, becomes a central part of climate change discussions.

“If global warming is not a strong enough reason to cut CO2 emissions, ocean acidification should be, since its effects are already being felt and will increase for many decades to come.”

The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere reached 396.0 parts per million (ppm) in 2013. At the current rate of increase, the global annual average concentration is set to cross the symbolic 400 ppm threshold within the next two years.

More potent

Methane, in the short term, is a far more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2—34 times more potent over a century, but 84 times more over 20 years.

Atmospheric methane reached a new high of about 1,824 parts per billion (ppb) in 2013, because of increased emissions from human sources. Since 2007, it has started increasing again, after a temporary period of levelling-off.

Nitrous oxide’s atmospheric concentration in 2013 was about 325.9 ppb. Its impact on climate, over a century, is 298 times greater than equal emissions of CO2. It also plays an important role in the destruction of the ozone layer that protects the Earth from harmful ultraviolet solar radiation.

The oceans currently absorb a quarter of anthropogenic CO2 emissions—about 4kg of CO2 per day per person. Acidification [7] will continue to accelerate at least until mid-century, according to projections from Earth system models.

 

 

 

“Peak Water,” Giant Methane Blowholes And Ice-Free Arctic Cruises: The Climate Crisis Deepens

Oldspeak: “If even a small fraction of Arctic sea floor carbon is released to the atmosphere, we’re fucked.” -Jason Box, Climatologist.

As the world burns, this month’s installment of Dahr Jamail’s climate disruption dispatch, is more of the same. Shitty. The latest illustration of the rapidly increasingly deterioration of earth to a state unsurvivable by life forms.  A day after this story was published marked Earth Overshoot Day, the day humanity had used up the carbon storing abilities and all the planet’s natural resources that Earth can provide in the year. Consider this information in the context of a brief description of the state of affairs from the latest IPCC report:

“currently observed impacts might already be considered dangerous…. Extreme weather and rising sea levels, such as heat waves, flooding and droughts. It even raises, as an earlier report did, the idea that climate change will worsen violent conflicts and refugee problems and could hinder efforts to grow more food. And ocean acidification, which comes from the added carbon absorbed by oceans, will harm marine life…. Without changes in greenhouse gas emissions, climate change risks are likely to be high or very high by the end of the 21st century.”

The end of the 21st century projection is bullshit. It’s only purpose is to lead us to believe that the extinction inducing impacts are very far away. They are not.  The currently observed impacts will likely increase in a non-linear, exponential fashion, as more greenhouse gas emissions are released into the environment. It’s physics at this point, many of the conditions that existed during all of earth’s other mass extinctions exist now. Massive climactic shifts were the usual hallmarks of all previous extinctions. In short, as the esteemed climatologist said, we’re fucked. Burn baby burn!” -OSJ

By Dahr Jamail @ Truthout:

“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.” 

– Mahatma Gandhi

We begin this month’s climate disruption dispatch with comments from NASA’s Earth Observatory about the extreme juxtaposition of temperatures we are experiencing in North America this summer.

“If you live in the northern hemisphere, the past few weeks have been strange,” NASA states. “In places where it should be seasonably hot – the eastern and southern United States and western Europe – it’s just been warm. In places where weather is usually mild in the summer – northern Europe, the Pacific coast of North America – it has been ridiculously hot.”

To get a look at how this appears on a map of the northern hemisphere, click here.

NASA continues:

Records for high temperatures (mid-30s°C, mid-90s°F) were approached or broken in Latvia, Poland, Belarus, Estonia, Lithuania, and Sweden in late July and early August. Searing temperatures also dried out forests and fuelled wildfires in Siberia; in the U.S. states of Oregon, Washington, and California; in the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, and Northwest Territories; and even in Sweden. At the same time, cool air moved from high northern latitudes into much of the U.S., setting record-low daytime and nighttime temperatures as far south as Florida and Georgia. Temperatures dropped to the winter-like levels in the mountains of Tennessee.

The extremes generated by anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) were off the charts last year, as well, according to a recently released report from Live Science.

In 2013, global temperatures continued their long-term rising trend as the planet hit new records for greenhouse gases, Arctic heat, warm ocean temperatures and rising global sea levels. Additionally, Arctic sea ice extent was its sixth lowest and continued to decline by 14 percent per decade, Super Typhoon Haiyan recorded the highest wind speed for a tropical cyclone with sustained winds reaching 196 mph, record high temperatures were recorded in the Arctic, including record temperatures being recorded 60 feet down into the permafrost.

Indeed, when we observe what is happening in the Arctic, just one look at this before (1979) and after (2014) photo of the ice cap makes the stark reality of our situation clear.

A study recently published in Nature warns that the two-headed dragon of air pollution and ACD will likely result in 50 percent more people going hungry by 2050, due to damaged crop growth.

This month’s overview of how the four aspects of the planet are being impacted by ACD provides another sobering reality check, demonstrating how rapidly our world is moving toward an unsurvivable state.

Earth

Examples of the impacts of ACD across planetary species (including our own), which are struggling to adapt, are plentiful this month.

In the far south, Antarctic climactic variations are causing dramatic changes in fur seals that are being born smaller, showing genetic changes, and breeding later in life.

Speaking of the poles, ACD is causing fish and other ocean life to migrate into previously cooler waters, causing disruptions of the previously balanced ecosystems in both areas.

Southern Britain is now beginning to be invaded by birds and bugs from the Mediterranean, which are being drawn by the UK’s abnormally hot sun.

Across Africa, population growth and ACD are causing increasing competition for land, which is leading to increasing violence across much of that continent. One example of this is the al-Shabaab Islamist militants forcing people off their lands for farming purposes.

In southwest Florida, mangroves already on the move due to ACD are now appearing as though they will drown within the next 100 years due to ever-increasing sea-level rise.

In the North Atlantic, the numbers of codfish spawning are at an all-time low, and regulators are pointing towards ACD as the reason.

Salmon in Oregon are feeling the impacts, as diminishing river flows, higher water temperatures and the effects of drought are combining to take their toll on the Klamath Basin fisheries. Not surprisingly, drought-plagued California is also seeing large numbers of juvenile salmon die off due to low river flows and hotter-than-normal temperatures.

In Washington State, Gov. Jay Inslee, a champion of working to both educate and mitigate the impacts of ACD is working overtime to inform people about how billions of baby oysters in his state are dying.

And finally, in what could easily be categorized as “disgusting human tricks,” ACD tourism is coming to the Arctic, where people can take a cruise ship for a trip through the now ice-free Northwest Passage.

Water

We know water is essential for the survival of all life – but it’s not just about drinking water. Seventy percent of world’s freshwater use is for irrigation. While each person drinks an average of one liter of water daily, it takes 2,000 liters per person to produce the food we eat.

Irrigated areas on the planet tripled to 700 million acres between 1950 and 2000, but after decades of constant and rapid increase, growth has slowed dramatically. This, coupled with a dramatic depletion of underground water resources, comprises an example of how “peak water” is likely upon us. The term frames our understanding around the growing lack of availability, quality and use of fresh water.

As of today, 18 countries that contain half the population of humans on the planet are over pumping their aquifers. China, India and the United States, which are the three largest grain producers on the planet, are included in these. Saudi Arabia has become the first country to predict that its aquifer depletion will shrink its harvest of grain, and will thus soon become completely dependent upon imports for all of its grain. Saudi Arabia has a population of 29 million.

Rivers that now run dry or are reduced to a tiny trickle before reaching the sea for at least part of the year now include the Colorado (a major river in the southwestern United States), the Yellow (the largest river in northern China), the Nile (the lifeline of Egypt), the Indus (which supplies the majority of Pakistan’s irrigation waters), and the Ganges (which is situated in India’s most populated area – the Gangetic basin).

Land grabs for farming are essentially water grabs, as demonstrated in Ethiopia, Sudan and South Sudan, where three-fourths of the Nile River Basin is located. These countries are already in a struggle with Egypt for that river’s water. This is but one example of dozens.

Speaking of conflicts over water, in India, armed bandits were recently threatening villagers with death unless they delivered 35 buckets of water a day. This is due primarily to the fact that since 2007, water in northern India has been scarce due to the annual monsoon delivering only half of what it used to.

In the United States, examples of “peak water” abound. Nowhere is peak water more evident than in California, where more and more farmers lack enough water to maintain their livelihoods. The record-breaking drought across the Golden State is hammering the lake and river tourism industry there, where marinas and boat ramps are becoming high and dry. Entire cities in California are now under threat of running completely out of water, and country groundwater levels are falling at higher rates than is normal as a result of the severe drought.

In fact, California’s drought has become one of the worst in North American history, as the state is short more than one year’s worth of reservoir water for this time of year. The streams continue to dry up, and crops are dying off as three years of persistent drought conditions continue. Recently, dire conditions forced the state to implement statewide emergency water-conservation measures to preserve what is left of the water.

The drought has continued to intensify relentlessly throughout much of the summer, transforming the global food market in the process, since California is the nation’s biggest agricultural state by value. Impacts have reverberated as far away as China, where the California drought has resulted in an increase in the price of milk.

The US Southwest is showing broader signs of “peak water,” as a recently published study by NASA and University of California, Irvine has revealed that groundwater in the Colorado River Basin is disappearing at a “shocking” rate.

Mapping the droughts across the United States over the decades reveals that in the last 10 years, droughts in some regions are rivaling the epic droughts of the 1930s and 1950s.

Nevada’s Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States, is currently at an all-time low, which translates to water shortages likely being declared across a region that is home to 40 million people located in seven of the fastest-growing states in the country.

Other global examples of decreasing water availability include snow missing from New Zealand’s ski slopes, and severe drought in China looking as though it will end 11 years of harvest growth.

The other end of the water spectrum, too much water, is being impacted by ACD, including rising sea levels and ocean acidification. Boston city leaders are looking into building canals in order to mitigate and adjust to ACD as global sea levels continue to rise.

The city of Miami Beach is proposing an increase in storm water fees to fund city projects in an effort to deal with sea-level rise. In nearby Miami, the contrast is clear in a city leadership who is populated largely by ACD deniers, hence the low-lying city is looking like it will be the first American Atlantis for lack of acceptance, mitigation and adaptation measures.

North Carolina’s Outer Banks are vanishing due to development and ACD, according to scientists, while up in Alaska, several communities that are fishing-dependent are under threat from increasing ocean acidification, which is what happens when large amounts of carbon dioxide are absorbed into marine waters.

Back in New Zealand, rising sea levels are threatening to drive Torres Strait Islanders from their homes as the low-lying islands are becoming engulfed by the ocean.

These are but a few examples of what is to come, as recent information published by the National Climatic Data Center shows that the planet set the new mark for the hottest June on record. This was due in large part to the planet having the hottest ocean temperatures since recordkeeping began over 130 years ago.

Air

The capital city of Texas is expected to see summertime high temperatures six degrees above its current average high, in addition to seeing temperatures over 110 degrees Fahrenheit in the city more than 20 days per year by the end of this century, according to a recent study commissioned by the city of Austin.

New research has shown that tornadoes are becoming increasingly common over the last 60 years, and ACD is the driver of the change.

July saw new all-time heat records in the Siberian town of Norilsk, which is just above the Arctic Circle and known as one of the world’s coldest cities, where temperatures were on par with those in the Mediterranean.

Several massive methane blowholes that left craters in Siberia recently have left much of the scientific community scratching their heads, but the fact that methane is involved is extremely worrisome. One of the craters is 200 feet across, and appears bottomless. Russian scientists found extremely high concentrations of methane at the bottom of the first crater found.

In the atmosphere, methane is a greenhouse gas that, on a relatively short-term time scale, is far more destructive than carbon dioxide.  It is 23 times as powerful as carbon dioxide per molecule on a 100-year timescale, 105 times more potent when it comes to heating the planet on a 20-year timescale – and the Arctic permafrost, onshore and off, is packed with the stuff.

NASA has already reported about the threat posed by the distinct possibility of a massive amount of methane being released from the Arctic – which holds five to six times the carbon equivalent of that humans have burned in our entire existence on Earth – along with the fact that most of this carbon is located in thaw-vulnerable top soils within 10 feet of the surface.

However, the NASA report was from June 2013. Now, researchers surveying the Arctic Ocean’s seafloor are expressing even graver concerns over their findings, which include plumes of methane rising in bubbles from the sea floor.

Widely published climatologist Jason Box, who closely followed the research expedition, responded to what he saw with a tweet that quickly went viral: “If even a small fraction of Arctic sea floor carbon is released to the atmosphere, we’re f’d.”

Moving beneath the Arctic Ocean where methane hydrates – often described as methane gas surrounded by ice – exist, a March 2010 report in Science indicated that these cumulatively contain the equivalent of 1,000 to 10,000 gigatons of carbon. Compare this total to the 240 gigatons of carbon humanity has emitted into the atmosphere since the industrial revolution began.

This is why Box’s abrupt and blunt statement is as prophetic as it is shocking, coming from a scientist of his caliber.

To underscore this point, a study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciencesshows that the rapid rise in temperatures in the Arctic (since 2000, temperatures in the Arctic have risen twice as fast as the rest of the world) are linked directly to changes in extreme weather and global wind patterns.

Fire

It is now well known that ACD is generating larger, hotter wildfires burning earlier and later than their historic seasons. This summer we are witnessing “unprecedented” wildfires across Washington and Oregon, where evacuations are ongoing and homes continue to burn to the ground.

One of the fires in Washington smashed all previous records, becoming the largest that state has ever seen, so far. The governors of both Washington and Oregon declared states of emergency because of several major fires burning in their states. California’s Gov. Jerry Brown did the same, as he declared a state of emergency due to threats posed by several dozen wildfires in his state.

Just after California was declared in a state of emergency, the Obama administration released a video that linked the fires to ACD. In it, White House science adviser John Holdren said: “While no single wildfire can be said to be caused by climate change, climate change has been making the fire season in the U.S. longer and on average more intense.” He went on to say that annual western wildfires in the United States had “increased several-fold in the last decade” alone, and pointed out how the eight worst years on record for “area burned” by wildfires had all occurred “since 2000.”

In total, the amount of acres consumed by wildfires has doubled to more than 7 million annually, and the US fire season has expanded from 60 to 80 days since 1980.

Canada is being hammered by record-breaking wildfires as well. Large forest fires across the remote Northwest Territories are extending their reach far above average for the year, thus far. Canadian scientists are all too aware of the fact that fires like this are the new normal for their country, thanks to ACD. Across the globe, desertification is threatening what is left of the planet’s fertile lands, as extreme heat and aridity are spreading as ACD progresses.

Denial and Reality

The willful ignorance of the fossil-fuel industry-funded ACD denier/skeptic movement in the United States continues to astound.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) recently told reporters that “climate change occurs no matter what,” and that the EPA’s efforts to reduce emissions from existing power plants are “outside of the confines of the law,” and amount to no more than “an excuse to grow government, raise taxes and slow down economic growth.”

A poll involving 20 countries and more than 16,000 people revealed that the United States leads the planet when it comes to ACD denial, finding that 52 percent of US citizens agreed with this statement: “The climate change we are currently seeing is a natural phenomenon that happens from time to time.” The United States was tied by India, and China was a close second.

The United States also got the blue ribbon for having a scant 32 percent of its population disagree with this statement: “The climate change we are currently seeing is largely the result of human activity.” Australia, which just repealed its carbon tax, came in second with that statement, with 25 percent of its population saying they didn’t believe in ACD.

Back in the real world, the US military is not letting polls nor politicians hinder its planning for ACD as it is pushing forward on strategies with partner nations to mitigate security effects resulting from ACD.

NOAA recently released its 2013 State of the Climate, and said the planet continued to warm at an unhealthy pace last year, and in fact revealed, “The planet is changing more rapidly . . . than any time of modern civilization.” Meanwhile, Climate Central released an amazing tool, where you can view “1001 Blistering Future Summers,” enabling the user (us) to interact and see what 1,001 cities’ summers will be like by 2100. By way of example, using the tool you can see how, by 2100, summers in Phoenix (103.96 degrees Fahrenheit) will be like summers now in Kuwait (114.08 degrees Fahrenheit).

A recent NASA study showed that as climate models factor in temporary warming and cooling impacts of El Nino and La Nina, they are accurate predictors of global warming. This is consistent with recent studies that show how global temperatures appear to be set to rise rapidly.

As has been mentioned in these dispatches previously, the planet is now in the early stages of its sixth mass extinction event, and humans are indeed responsible, according to yet another published study, this one in Science.

According to the study, large vertebrate animals (megafauna), which include elephants and polar bears, face the steepest decline since they require large habitats and are targeted by human hunters. The loss of megafauna places ecosystems off balance and leads to consequences like massive rodent infestations that proceed to impact the well-being and stability of a large segment of species, including humans. The study highlights how the particularly steep decline of megafauna we are seeing now is characteristic of all the previous mass extinction events.

Massive climactic shifts (cooling or warming) were the signatures of the five worst mass extinction events of the planet, and each are believed to have been triggered by either asteroid impacts or volcanism.

Given the massive injection of carbon dioxide gasses into the atmosphere by humans and the fact that large amounts of methane are already being released in the Arctic which many scientists believe is already a runaway feedback loop that will add several more degrees warming to the planet, the current mass extinction event may closely resemble the Permian-Triassic extinction that happened about 251 million years ago.

During that extinction event, earth’s worst, 95 percent of all species were killed off.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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Scientists Discover Hundreds Of Methane Leaks Bubbling From The Floor Of The Atlantic Ocean… Again.

Oldspeak: “Fast on the heels of news of a gigantic chasm of a methane blow hole opening in the permafrost in Siberia, we see this.  Not sure why this is surprising any more. We’ve gone from zero gas seeps in these areas off the U.S. east coast to the largest seeps in the atlantic since the mid 2000s. Methane hydrates are being released from countless, unknown numbers of leaks all over the planet.  The most disturbing lines in this article for me are “about 40 of the leaks they detected came from depths of over 3,300 feet, likely originating from deeper reservoirs below the initial sediments that make up the sea floor. If that’s the case, those reservoirs could be a target for extraction by fossil fuel companies…” Translation: the bottom of the deep dark ocean is too hot too keep methane hydrates frozen, and energy corporations are licking their chops. As ocean warming increases, we’ll see more and more and more of these leaks discovered. Climate scientists view them with concern. Energy conglomerates view them as profit. Meanwhile, we have no idea which of these deep reservoirs of gas will become the catastrophic release; The methane time bomb that will release 50 or more gigatons of methane in to the atmosphere & collapse human civilization. Only time will tell. And there’s nothing we can do to defuse it. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick….” –OSJ

By Jeff Spross @ Climate Progress:

In what could be a clue to the future effects of climate change, scientists have discovered a huge collection of methane leaks from the ocean floor off the United States’ eastern seaboard.

Their work, published Sunday in Nature Geoscience, used a research vessel equipped with sonar to map a 94,000-square-kilometer area that arcs from North Carolina up to Massachusetts. Within that expanse, according to Scientific American, they discovered around 570 separate plumes of bubbles rising from the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. And while the scientists haven’t yet collected samples, the bubbles’ sources suggest they contain methane.

The study is surprising, because such leaks are usually found atop known methane reservoirs — or above active tectonic regions — and scientists had previously thought very few such leaks were to be found in that area of the Atlantic shelf. “This is the first time anyone has systematically mapped an entire margin,” Christian Berndt, a marine geophysicist at GEOMAR in Kiel, Germany, who was not involved in the study, told Science Magazine. “They found that there was much more methane coming out than was suspected beforehand.”

Methane is a greenhouse gas, far more potent on a pound-for-pound basis than carbon dioxide. But at 90 metric tons per ear, the methane being released by the 570 leaks is dwarfed by the annual releases from human industrial and agricultural activity, as well as other natural sources. Still, the researchers estimate there could around 30,000 more of the leaks all over the world.

There’s also the possibility that climate change and alterations to ocean temperatures could lead to far bigger releases.

“These little bits of bubbling here or there will not make a memorable impact,” Jens Greinert, who heads the deep-sea monitoring unit at GEOMAR, told Science Magazine. “It becomes interesting only if you have a catastrophic release.”

Carolyn Ruppel of the United States Geological Survey, one of the study’s co-authors, told the New York Times that about 40 of the leaks they detected came from depths of over 3,300 feet, likely originating from deeper reservoirs below the initial sediments that make up the sea floor. If that’s the case, those reservoirs could be a target for extraction by fossil fuel companies, though more research will be needed to confirm. But most of the leaks came from 800 to 2,000 feet down, and pictures Ruppel and her colleagues were able to take with a submersible show that most of the methane is likely trapped in ice structures called hydrates in the initial sediments at the seabed.

That raises the possibility that the hydrates, which are extremely sensitive to changes in temperature, are being melted by warming waters. That heat could be brought by natural cycles and variability — or by climate change. Another twist is that most of the methane is absorbed by the ocean long before it breaches the surface. The process reacts with oxygen and releases carbon dioxide, which in turn increases the acidification of the ocean in the vicinity. So there’s the possibility that warming waters from climate change could release more methane, thus further speeding up the ocean acidification that is itself being driven largely by humanity’s carbon dioxide emissions.

But with the current evidence, what connection can be drawn to climate change — if any at all — remains unclear. The undersea pictures taken by the research team suggest at least some of the methane leaks have been active for hundreds of years or even a millennia.

“It highlights a really key area where we can test some of the more radical hypotheses about climate change,” John Kessler, a professor at the University of Rochester who was not involved in the research, told the New York Times. “How will those release rates accelerate as bottom temperature warms, or how will they decelerate if there are some cooling events?”

“We don’t really have all of the answers. But this is a great place to try to find them.”