It’s happening, but we have no idea why
Also…
In recent weeks, we’ve learned that global carbon emissions rose last year, defying (optimistic) expectations that they had reached a peak. We also learned that no country on Earth is on track to fulfill its emissions-cutting commitments under the Paris climate treaty; that even if all of them somehow fulfill those commitments, nonetheless, their actions would still be insufficient to avert a two-degree increase in global temperatures; and that, in a two-degree warmer world, 150 million more people will die as a result of air pollution, than would in a 1.5-degree warmer one.
And as this flood of climate research revealed that humanity was (and is) hurtling toward an ecological holocaust of unprecedented proportions — one that can only be preempted by radical changes in our species’ use of fossil fuels — the top agency for environmental regulation, in the most powerful nation on the planet, was instructing its staffers to tell the public that there is no scientific consensus about “the role of human activity” in climate change, nor about “what we can do about it.”
That’s us. We’re that most powerful nation, and Trump’s EPA is that top agency that’s telling its staffers to lie to us.
Also, don’t forget the methane that’s melting out of the Arctic permafrost, which is terrifying. Unit for unit, methane is about thirty times as potent a greenhouse gas as CO2, and there’s lots of it locked up in permafrost at the poles. For the last two or three years, the poles have each reached above freezing during the heights of their respective winters, while their average temperatures are marching upward much, much faster than the rest of the world.
I’m old. I’ll be dead soon. But … I don’t have the most toys … so, I guess I lose. yay?
All one needs is here:
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
Few scientists dispute today that the Earth is warming. There can be endless argument over thermometer readings and heat island effects, but there can be none over sea level as determined, not by tide gauges on isostatic landmasses, but by satellite altimetry, accurate to +/- 0.4 mm/yr (CSIRO).
Global Mean Sea Level Rates (of rise)
CU: 3.3 ± 0.4 mm/yr
AVISO: 3.3 ± 0.6 mm/yr
CSIRO: 3.3 ± 0.4 mm/yr
NASA GSFC: 3.2 ± 0.4 mm/yr
NOAA: 3.2 ± 0.4 mm/yr (w/ GIA)
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
Now do the arithmetic. 3.3 ± 0.4 mm/yr (CSIRO) ~ 33mm/decade (= 3.3 cm/decade ~ 33 ± 4 cm/century ~ 330 cm/1,000 yrs: ie 3.3 metres/1,000 yrs.)
~ 33 metres/10,000 yrs.
And that is without the great hunk of Antarctica’s Totten Glacier slowly but steadily sliding into the sea. If that proceeds, it “…contains enough ice to raise global sea levels by about three metres (9.8 feet) if it all melted.”
Needless to add, if that happened, then in order to attend a performance of Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers down by Sydney Harbour at the Opera House, one would need to be wearing scuba gear.
https://phys.org/news/2018-03-sea-giant-antarctic-glacier-thought.html
Sorry to all you young folks, but if it’s between your future and short-term profits/convenience now – or even just sticking it to those loathed tree-hugging hippies with their politically correct “science” and their elitist “laws of physics” – your future is going to lose every time.
Meanwhile, in December, the head of the EPA was in Morocco, first class all the way and on your dime ($40,000 including his aides), selling liquid natural gas (not his job) on behalf of the only American company producing the stuff, and whose chief lobbyist owns the house in D.C. that Pruitt lived in. Oh, and that same lobbyist’s company (he’s chairman) actively lobbies against EPA regulations.
Because that’s normal.
Linky: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/democrats-details-pruitts-dc-condo-deal-lobbyist/story?id=54103281
Guess which continent contributes least to global warming. And guess which continent is most vulnerable to the effects of global warming. Hint: it’s the same continent.