Habitat
– part 2
Further
reflections on runaway climate change
Seemorerocks
Since
writing my essay Habitat last weekend I have received some excellent letters and feedback.
In
addition I have had a couple of letters that have given me cause to
pause. These were critical of Guy McPherson and sceptical about
claims about near-term extinction.
Actually,
they were darned dismissive.
What
both correspondents bad in common was a concern with a paper
published by Arctic
News,
written by Malcolm
Light
– one that Guy McPherson commonly refers to.
The
tone of the letters led me to look a bit more closely at the
criticisms, especially an article written and provided to me by Alex
Smith of Ecoshock.org.
The
first thing that struck me on reading his essay was this passage:
"If
a lot of methane is released in a decade or two, global mean
temperature may rise more than 10 degrees Centigrade some say. It
could be twice that in the Arctic. Could our complex industrial
civilization could survive? It's unlikely agriculture could feed our
current billions. Most current species would disappear in the 6th
great extinction. Are humans immune to extinction?
“Is
it happening already? Arctic sea ice is melting more each year.
should we try to cool the Arctic, if not the world? That's
the view of a small but growing group of scientists and concerned
citizens.
It's
called geoengineering.”
Hang
on!
This
links the observation of methane releases and feedback mechanisms and
the conclusion that this will likely lead to mass extinction with
geoenineering
I
know that members of the Arctic
Emergency Group
(and Light, in particular) are advocates of geoengineering, which is
something that many of us (myself included) find abhorent.
I
certainly haven't heard it advocated amongst those that I'm in
contact with.
Here's
Clive Hamilton, author of , talking about geo-engineering.
Surely
you can't work in reverse and say that because Malcolm Light and the
Arctic Emergency Group are advocating geoengineering to cool the
Arctic that that totally negates the conclusion of their research –
which is that warming in the Arctic has given rise to the rapid
melting of the ice shelf, which has led to the release of methane,
both from the permafrost and the sea floor. giving rise to positive
feedback mechanisms that in turn speed up the warming.
They
describe this as an emergency
As
Guy McPherson says: “We've
triggered 14 positive feedbacks. They are multiplicative, not
additive.…..It's not a case of 1 + 2 + 4 …, rather it's a case of
1 x 2 x 4 ... and so on. ,,,,,,they interact w/ one another in a dire
manner.”
Talking
about Malcolm Light, Alex Smith dismisses his paper in these
words:
“In what looks
like a scientific paper, complete with complex graphs and charts...”
In
this “pseudo-paper” Malcolm Light comes, as a result of
calculations he has made that “"The
absolute mean extinction time for the northern hemisphere is 2031.8
and for the southern hemisphere 2047.6 with a final mean extinction
time for 3/4 of the earth's surface of 2039.6."
He
then talks about Malcolm Light’s background with industry and his
bias in favour of geoengineering. That seems to preclude Light ipso
facto from
serious consideration.
It
reminds me of attempts to dismiss Peak Oil on the grounds that one of
the major proponents, Matthew Simmons was an investment banker and
close to the Bush administration.
Guilt
by association.
Somehow
out of all this Malcolm Light's paper ends up totally "discredited",
so with that we are to believe all talk of "near-term
extinction" is now unnecessary and we can rest assured with the
knowledge that humans will inhabit this earth for a long time yet
(sic)
Well,
I don't think so.
Guy,
who never, by the way adopted any fantasies about geoengineering does
admit that this first
attempt to
analyse any
of
the 12 positive feedbacks that have been unleashed may have some
errors in it.
Having
summarily "dismissed" poor old Malcolm Light it still
remains to take on the Arctic Emergency Group which has on it some
fairly solid scientific representation.
It's
not to be taken that lightly.
Except
that its members do,
as
I understand it, advocate
geoengineering so I suppose that might provide grounds to dismiss
them as well.
There
is, amongst our friends, quite a lot of discussion of extinction and
how hard it is for species (especially the human one presumably) to
actually go extinct.
Now,
we really have got into nitpicking!
For
myself, I am not going to get too excited about a date (even if some
retired scientist has
come
up with 2039.6 as the date). To me it doesn't really matter whether
the date in 2039, 2050. It doesn't really matter if some small groups
of humans are still able to scratch together a living around the
north pole a century from now.
Essentially
it comes down to one thing. We are already seeing a range of
positive feedbacks that are producing conditions that are already
making life difficult for people on different parts of the globe.
As
already pointed out - the nature of feedbacks is that they are
exponential
- so
what the computer projections see as a 4C increase will be much more
than that.
So
quick will these changes likely be that humans will be finding it
uncomfortably hot long before the sea comes lapping at our door (with
the exception of the Maldives and some Pacific islands).
Recent
events in the Arctic seem to indicate that changes are occuring very
fast - with 80-90F
in the Canadian and Siberian arctic in June,
whereas last years temperatures
in the 50-60F range
last year were already disturbing the habitat of the polar bear.
We
don't hear much about the polar bear currently, Why's that?
In
the southern summer we had temperatures in Australia so high that
they had to find another colour, and just in the last few days it
looks as if we might have hit a world record for recorded
temperature.
Let's
just finish off this section with the contributions of some of the
foremost climate scientists and what they say about why Arctic ice
matters.
While
it is true that none of these scientists actually mentions near-term
extinction, we
have to bear in mind that scientists are professionals who stick to
their specialities and don't often venture into the speculative
sphere.
But
you don't even have to ready between the lines to see how serious
things are - and I would pay particular attention to the words of
Russian scientist, Natalia Shakhova.
Several other things leap out at me in this critique.
The first major one is, when talking about the future of humanity the focus is entirely on anthropogenic climate change.
Anyone
who has spent any time looking around this blog will be very aware
that there are a whole range of crises facing humanity, such as:Further
- 400+ nuclear reactors that have paseed their use-by dates and threaten to melt down - especially given the downward march of the world economy, the expense and time needed to safely shut down each one of these behemoths
- Peak Oil and energy decline
- Population overshoot (7 billion mouths to feed)
- Species and habitat destruction - such as the collapse in honey bee colonies that we require to pollinate our crops, fisheries collapse
- Water shortages
- Problems with producing food to feed 7 billion people
- Earth changes such as volcanism
- Disease and pestilence; modern medicine is headed for a cliff due to antibiotic resistance.
Any
of these things (or all of them) will likely contribute to collapse
of human civilisation and much of the non-human world.
Will
we be nuked, or will we die of heat and starvation?
Underlying
this is the assumption that Guy McPherson regularly points out, that
most people are unwilling to give up their reliance on human
civilisation. As he says if you believe your water comes from a tap
you will do anything to protect that; if you believe that you depend
on rivers for your water, you will do anything to protect that.
Essentially
it comes down to a difference in paradigm.
If
you believe in all the advantages of human civilisation then it
becomes impossible to let go and the mind will come up with all sorts
of rationalisation as to why there should be no end to it all.
The
person that comes to mind in this regard who challenges us to
question all our assumptions with regard to human civilisation is
Derrick
Jensen
in his book Endgame.
Just
some (not all) of his key points are:
- Civilisation is not and can never be sustainable. This is especially true for industrial civilisation
- Traditional cultures do not often voluntarily give up or sell the resources on which their communities are based until their communities have been destroyed
- Our way of living – industrial civilisation -is based on, requires, and would collapse very quickly without persistent violence
- Civilisation is not redeemable. This culture will not undergo any sort of voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living. If we do not put a halt to it, civilisation will continue to immiserate the vast majority of humans and to degrade the planet until it (cilisation, and probably the planet) collapses.
- The longer we wait for civilsation to crash – or the longer we wait beforewe ourselves bring it down – the messier the crash will be, and the worse things will be for those humans and nonhumans who live during it, and for those that come after.
- The needs of the natural world are more important than the needs of the economic system
- The culture as a whole and most of the members are insane. The culture is driven by a death urge, an urge to destroy life
- Those in power rule by force
- The culture's problem lies above all in the belief that controlling and abusing the natural world is justifiable
From this point-of-view the collapse of the human, industrial civilisation is not a bad thing.
In fact, Guy McPherson (and I concur wholeheartedly) the only thing that will prevent a sixth extinction would be the rapid destruction of the economy.
The latest information that has come out in the last year has forced Guy to rethink this and to conclude that the extinction of life within a generation is, in his opinion, almost certain.
I pray not, but fear that will be the case.
REFERENCES
Here are some of the key articles and videos from recent times that cover events in the Arctic and Antarctic relating to methane release and positive feedback mechanisms
Here is Malcolm Light's original article
Here are some of the key articles and videos from recent times that cover events in the Arctic and Antarctic relating to methane release and positive feedback mechanisms
Here is Malcolm Light's original article
A
Guardian article by Oliver Tickell on why 4C means extinction
Major
news for 2012 was that the Greenland ice sheet melted to its greatest
extent
Flooding
in Greenland - July 2012
An
early presentation (2007) by David Wasdell of the Apollo-Gaia
programme on feedback mechanisisms
An
article from the Arctic Emergency Group on methane hydrates
A
presentation by David Wasdell, Natalia Shakhova, Peter Wadhams and
James Hansen - MUST-SEE
Breaking:
Arctic Ice Breaks Up in Beaufort Sea - Paul
Beckwith
Why Arctic sea ice will vanish in 2013 - Paul Beckwith
Potential
methane reservoirs beneath Antarctica
On
the influence of volcanic activity on methane releases
The
most recent extreme weather in United States and the Arctic
Unprecedented
Jet Stream Wave Sparks 120+ Degree Temps in the US Southwest and
Tundra Fires in Extreme Northern Canada
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