Climate Disruption and Global Warming

It's no coincidence that we've lost power (electric) three times in the last month due to "violent" storms. Since over 60% of the US is suffering from a severe drought, the corn and soybean crops even for the upper Midwest are in the process of being lost, and the west is going up in flames, we consider ourselves lucky.

Bill McKibben of 350.org fame, has pointed out that there is an easy way to explain our problems: through three numbers (Rolling Stone, 07/19/2012).

The one thing the failed environmental conference in Copenhagen agreed to in 2009, was that a global rise in temperature of more than 2 degrees Celsius had to be avoided. Considering that global temperature has only risen about 0.8 degrees Celsius, and we have seen dramatic changes already, that 2 degrees Celsius agreement looks overly indulgent.

It is the 327th month that global temperature averages have been higher than global averages in all of the 20th Century. In addition, the US had the warmest Spring ever recorded, by a huge margin, a third of Arctic summer ice has disappeared, the oceans are 30% more acidic (threatening much marine life) and the atmosphere over the oceans is 5% wetter, opening the world to severe flooding.

Yet the Rio environmental summit this Spring was not attended by any important national leader, and the issue of global warming, or "climate change," seems to be a non-issue in the Presidential and Congressional/Senatorial campaigns in the US, the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases driving global warming.

Two other figures sum up our global predicament. The first, McKibben identified is 565 gigatons of carbon, the amount the world can add to the global atmosphere with a four in five chance that we won't exceed the 2 C target. One in five chances, however, says that even this figure is too high. This may especially be true, since the amount of carbon already released has not yet been fully realized in the 0.8 degrees rise in global temperature. Global climate changes have a lag time. 565 gigatons means the amount of additional coal, oil, gas, methane and burning forests the earth might be able to sustain, before we exceed the 2C limit. Yet, except for the recession year of 2009, the world has been pouring out more and more carbon into the atmosphere every year.

The third figure, however, is the most devastating. It is 2,795 gigatons, the amount of carbon contained in the proven reserves of all the oil/coal/gas companies and countries, (Venezuela to Canada). Why devastating? This number represents the assets of producer countries and companies. If they're not allowed to burn it, their "investments" become worthless. That's why Exxon and others spend hundreds of millions to persuade us there is no global warming.

The economic system will destroy the planet for most humans--by orders of magnitude worse than the Roman Empire's desertification of the Mediterranean world in the fifth Century.