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CO2 Bursting into the Atmosphere

Photo by Marcin Jozwiak is licensed by Unsplash
Photo by Marcin Jozwiak is licensed by Unsplash

CO2 Bursting into the Atmosphere

By Robert Hunziker

CO2 is bursting into the atmosphere like never before, up and away, like it has wings.

According to climate scientists, we’re fast approaching white-knuckle time. This reinforces the outlook for 2024 as expressed by WMO: “Every major global climate record was broken last year and 2024 could be worse.” (Celeste Saulo, secretary-general, World Meteorological Organization)

Making matters more nerve-wracking yet, Carbon dioxide, CO2, in the atmosphere is setting new all-time records, soaring above expectations and well above previous readings at Mauna Lua Observatory, Hawaii:

March 18, 2024, CO2 measured 426.02 ppm.

March 15, 2023. CO2 measured 420.24 ppm.

That’s +5.78 ppm in only one year. An increase of this magnitude has not been seen before. On a seasonal basis, the month of May is ordinarily the peak reading for the year. That’s still weeks away. The climate system as it relates to greenhouse gas emissions appears to have gone bonkers, out in left field.

The historical annual rate of CO2:

1960s +0.8 ppm

1980s +1.6 ppm

2000s +2.0 ppm

2010s +2.4 ppm

Today’s +5.78 ppm is way above the trend.

Current daily readings:

March 15 427.93

March 16 426.36

March 17 423.96

March 18 426.02

It should be noted that the month of February 2024 @ 424.55 ppm was +4.25 ppm versus February 2023 @ 420.30 ppm. Once again, way above past increases. According to CO2-Earth: “The measured CO2 levels in the atmosphere serve as the single best, real-time signal of whether the world as a whole is on track to a safe future.”

Ergo, a safe future appears to be dangling.

CO2 levels may be signaling serious trouble of unanticipated global warming bursting loose, depending upon how much more CO2 is generated by fossil fuels from industry, cars, planes, and trains as well as how the planet’s climate system continues to adjust and react to decades of harsh pounding by Homo sapiens. Nature is under attack in sensitive areas, like rainforests, permafrost (25% of the Northern Hemisphere), boreal forests, Antarctica, Greenland, the Arctic, and oceans with emissions causing too much heat to handle. And today’s CO2 says it’s getting worse.

What will the world’s leaders do in the face of a trembling global climate system?

Maybe hold another UN climate conference, like COP28 in Dubai last year, headlined by another fossil fuel nation/state with a Middle East oil and gas executive as president of the UN Conference of the Parties (COP) to figure out how to handle massive excessive fossil fuel CO2 emissions choking the planet. That would really rub it into the noses of climate scientists who’d probably refuse to attend one of the second biggest shams in human history, following in the footsteps of COP28. Frankly, that kind of kindergarten approach to handling a serious issue like climate change should motivate people across the planet to rise up in opposition to one more “big fix” designed to continue enriching a teeny-weeny miniscule segment of world population.

Only recently in January 2024 Mauna Lau Observatory Hawaii anticipated a “relatively large” surge in annual average CO2 concentrations for 2024, estimating an increase of approximately 2.84 ppm more than 2023. But current trends put that into question as too low.

Global warming feeds off increasing levels of greenhouse gases, like methane, nitrous oxide, water vapor but mostly carbon dioxide (CO2). Along those lines, there are 10 primary greenhouse gases, and it’s scientifically proven that CO2 accounts for about 76% of greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gases are labeled as such because of the greenhouse effect trapping solar radiation, which functions like any typical greenhouse but without glass to trap heat. Molecules, such as CO2, simulate glass and thus retain heat.

The more CO2 in the atmosphere, the more heat is trapped. This equation is very straight-forward. But what if CO2 increases rapidly well beyond its historic pattern, which is already well beyond any historical trend in modern history? That’s happening and climate scientists in the know are deeply concerned.

As a consequence, since it’s a national election year, according to an Arctic News article d/d March 16, 2024: “The accelerating growth in carbon dioxide indicates that politicians have failed and are failing to take adequate action.”

In other words, politicians are failing to fight human-generated global warming. Many of the big promises by nations of the world at Paris ’15 to decrease emissions are nearly kaput. Politicians of the world have failed the planet and should be fired because once greenhouse gas emissions push global warming towards, and eventually to, warp speed, meaning runaway global warming, like what now appears to be in early stages, then it’s too late to remove them from office and do something constructive with replacement politicians that understand science, like Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D – RI), famous for his Time to Wake Up speeches to the Senate.

Already, before this current spike up in CO2, professional sources were anticipating trouble ahead. According to a very respected 2024 forecast, Professor Richard Betts, the Met Office in Britain: “This year’s estimated rise in atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentration is well above all three 1.5°C-compatible scenarios highlighted in the IPCC report… Even when we compensate for the temporary effects of El Niño, we find that human-induced emissions would still cause the CO2 rise in 2024 to be on the absolute limits of compliance with the 1.5°C pathways.” (Source: Eric Ralls, Met Office: 2024 CO2 Levels Will Surpass the Point of No Return, Earth.com, January 22, 2024)

Meanwhile, Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) service confirmed that February 2023 to January 2024 saw warming of 1.52 degrees Celsius above the 19th century benchmark. (Source: World Sees First 12 Months Above 1.5C Warming Level: Climate Monitor, PHYS.ORG, Feb. 8, 2024)

As it happens, the world climate system is turning into a Hollywood blockbuster horror film with CO2, the villain of the movie set, now spiking up as drought clobbers what is usually the wettest (northern) part of the Amazon and wildfires rip across Canada from the West Coast to the Atlantic provinces and ravage parts of Siberia. But it’s even worse than that as Zombie Fires, meaning fires that continue burning below surface during winter months, continue smoldering in British Columbia and Alberta into winter months. (Source: Canada Wildfires Never Stopped, They Just Went Underground as Zombie Fires Smolder on Through the Winter, CBS News, February 23, 2024)

“A lot of people talk about fire season and the end of the fire season,’ referring to the period generally thought of as being from May to September, ‘but the fires did not stop burning in 2023. The fires dug underground and have been burning pretty much all winter,” Ibid.

Global warming set the stage for those wildfires and set the stage for the most vicious drought in Amazon rainforest history. NASA’s GRACE satellite system shows an Amazon in tenuous condition in an unprecedented state of breakdown. GRACE has detected large areas of the Amazon classified as “Deep Red Zones” with severely constrained water levels. That’s global warming hard at work.

As for one example of many, back in October 2023: “The level of the Rio Negro is dropping by 1 meter (3 feet) every three days, something that has never been recorded before.” (Source: Amazon Drought Cuts River Traffic, Leaves Communities Without Water and Supplies, Mongabay, October 2023).

It’s almost impossible to grasp the damage happening to world ecosystems because it happens on the fringe of civil society, such as Siberian and Alaskan permafrost leaking methane, Antarctica ice shelves deteriorating, Greenland rain at its summit for the first time ever as the entire ice structure goes off the charts with a summertime melt rate increasing from 30,000,000 tons per day to 720,000,000 tons per day in the time span of only one year. Honestly, this is beyond words!

However, people are now starting to see the damage first-hand, like major European rivers (Rhine, Danube, etc.) partially drying up with commercial barges stuck in mud in the summer of ’22 as hundreds of French/Italian communities survived the summer of ‘22 on emergency truck-delivered water, speaking of which Johannesburg (pop. 5.6M) made CBS News headlines March 21, 2024: South Africa Water Crisis Sees Taps Run Dry across Johannesburg. And France imported electrical power for the first time in 40 years as low river flow inhibited nuclear power generation, normally 70% of France’s electrical energy. That hits home.

A few years ago, not that far back in time, people would have freaked out over the threats currently wrought by global warming, but as time passes, people get accustomed to hearing about disaster scenarios like a Hollywood film but on TV in the comfort of their homes, and they shrug and move on with life as long as it’s not in their neighborhood.

Elsewhere, beyond the weird noises of nature heard in the Amazon rainforest, in everyday life people wake up every morning in cities like LA and NYC and Atlanta and Dallas, London, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro (record heat 62.3°C or 144.14°F on March 18th), and they go about daily routines, the same ole, same ole, hop into a new EV, motor the freeway to an underground parking garage, up an elevator 20 floors to air-conditioned offices for 8 hours and then reverse the process. These people do not live where climate change damages ecosystems.

Urban ecosystems mainly consist of concrete, asphalt, glass, steel, some wood, chemical-laden textiles, and a sprinkling of flora. What’s to harm? Urban residents are missing, and ignorant of, the deterioration of the planet’s most important ecosystems that sustain life, period! This is called “recognition deficit” and down the road the consequences will be deadly.

The recognition deficit of the dangers of global warming glosses over reality. Life seems the same in NYC today as yesterday but ecosystems that are distant, out of sight, are on the ropes and some near collapse. A very harsh impact is lurking in the background. One day it’ll be profound and too late recognized.

What to do? This is the year of political electioneering. Don’t endorse political candidates that don’t understand and support climate science. This is something that everybody can do with impact, and it could be powerful.

Get off the couch and go door-to-door, or email, or pick up the phone to call friends to support candidates who believe in climate science. You can help prevent Hot House Earth, hopefully.
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This article was originally published on March 22, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

Note: This article will also be posted on the Facing Future Now! Facebook group. If you would like to comment on this article, please go to the Facebook group and post your comments there under the article posting.

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Greenland Cascading 30 Million Tons Per Hour

Photo by Annie Spratt is licensed by Unsplash.
Photo by Annie Spratt is licensed by Unsplash.

Greenland Cascading 30 Million Tons Per Hour

By Robert Hunziker

Facing Future.tv recently conducted an interview about spooky new developments in Greenland. The ice sheet is cascading/gushing at unheard of rates never dreamed possible at this stage of global warming, or at any stage for that matter.

The video opens with a statement by Peter Wadhams, professor emeritus Ocean Physics, Cambridge University, a leading authority on Arctic sea ice (A Farewell to Ice: A Report from the Arctic, Oxford University Press, 256 pgs): “Greenland’s rate of melt in summer was something that we knew about, and it was gradually increasing, then suddenly it’s multiplied itself by about 8 times; this is 30,000,000 tons an hour. When I was last up there it was more like 30,000,000 tons per day. That’s just something unheard of and so we’re really worried about what’s going on with Greenland.”

As it happens, Dr. Wadhams’ expression “worried about what’s going on with Greenland” is a very strong candidate for ‘understatement of the year’ or maybe of the century. The rate of melt he discussed is 720,000,000 tons per day versus previous analyses of 30,000,000 tons per day.

The Facing Future.tv 25:33-min video is entitled: Greenland: Ice Loss Accelerating, 30 Million Tonnes an Hour with Paul Beckwith and Peter Wadhams, Hosted by Dale Walkonen March 3, 2024.

Question by the host: “How serious is the situation in Greenland?

Answer (Wadhams): “Well, it’s very serious because it’s unprecedented that the rate of melt… Suddenly its multiplied itself by about seven or eight; it’s 30 million tons an hour, but when I was last up there it was 30 million tons per day… now gone to an hourly rate which used to be daily rate… when you’re up on the ice sheet you see big changes. There are always large meltwater streams, holes filling up with water. It’s a very dynamic scene but it’s not nearly as dynamic as it is now because everything is speeding up by a factor of about eight. It’s something unheard of… it’s not figured into the climate models used by the IPCC.”

According to Paul Beckwith, climate system scientist, University of Ottawa, the High Arctic has been warming 5-8 times the global average for some time now as many scientists and newspaper reports erroneously claimed it was only two-three times, not 5-8 times. The High Arctic directly influences Greenland, and he claims there’s good data on Greenland and Antarctica via gravity anomaly satellites, e.g., NASA’s GRACE, CyroSat, and Copernicus Sentinel-3, that show melt rates doubling every decade for both regions.

Regarding the new data: “People are going to be very surprised at the accelerated growth of sea level rise in the next decade, or two, let alone if all of Greenland melted, it would be 25 feet of sea level rise.” (Beckwith)

According to Beckwith: James Hansen (Earth Institute/Columbia University) some time ago said he would not be surprised if we had 5 meters (16 feet) of sea level rise by 2100. He said that years ago when the IPCC expected about one-half a meter by 2100.

It should be noted that current IPCC sea level rise statistics assume 1-4 feet this century, depending upon various input data.

Beckwith: We’re seeing huge acceleration in global warming, in ocean warming, estimates of sea level rise are going to be going up, up, up a lot, continually revised upwards. He believes Hansen’s 5 meters is an underestimate. If perchance that happens, what’ll it be by 2030 or 2040 or 2050? After all, Greenland’s melt rate is not static; it’s already off the charts at a baffling 30M tons per hour, formerly 30M tons by the day. Seemingly, that’s comparable to breaking the sound barrier at Mach 1.

Wadhams on Hansen: “I think Hansen is right in expecting a higher rate than models give; he always has a healthy contempt for models which I think is correct because nearly always, models are inadequate, especially the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC models.”

As queried by the host, since most people listen to what the IPCC says, for example, setting nation/state policies, where can people go for accurate information?

Beckwith’s response to ‘the dilemma of where to go for accurate information’: Scientists are individually willing to discuss their own research but reluctant to talk about research by other scientists and only make projections based upon computer models, but computer models are based upon history, often stale information by the time used.

Not included in climate modeling, major wildfires in Canada and Russia last year spewed massive amounts of ash onto Arctic ice which accelerated melting beyond expectations as dark background absorbs solar radiation rather than reflecting it to outer space.

Another new factor impacting Greenland’s ice melt that’s downright spooky is Hansen’s recent statement about Earth’s energy imbalance, which is completely out of whack with more energy than ever before coming into the planet as absorbed sunlight rather than going out as heat radiated to outer space. This imbalance has doubled within only one decade, according to a study by NASA and the US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration  This may be, probably is, the biggest ‘bad news of the year’.

Earth’s energy imbalance or “sunlight in” versus “sunlight out” is currently running at a frightful rate @ 1.36 W/m2 (watts per square meter) as of the current 2020s decade, which is double the 2005-2015 rate @ 0.71 W/m2 (Source: James Hansen).

Beckwith highlighted another major concern for Greenland as the change in jet streams at 20-40,000 feet altitude is altered, as a result of loss of Arctic sea ice, into vast wavey troughs that trap heat over Greenland. This never happened in the past. Another new dynamic, according to Beckwith, is a lot of rain in the Arctic instead of snow, thanks to global warming. And atmospheric rivers, like those that drenched the West Coast, hitting Greenland, accelerating the melt process.

It’s an understatement to conclude that Greenland is in trouble and conventional views of sea level rise are way too conservative. Unfortunately, by extension of these new facts, coastal cities are more vulnerable to flooding than ever before.

According to Climate Central, widespread areas are likely to see storm surges on top of sea level rise reaching at least 4 feet above high tide by 2030, and 5 feet by 2050. Nearly 5 million U.S. residents currently live on land less than 4 feet above high tide, and more than 6 million on land less than 5 feet above. Portland’s high tide broke all-time records, reaching 14 feet at the same time as record-breaking floods hit the US East Coast, January 14th, 2024. NOAA expects sea levels along US coasts to rise as much over the next 10 years as they did over past 100 years.

But the Climate Central study doesn’t include calculations for Greenland’s 30M tons per hour or Antarctica suddenly losing sea ice extent at a record-setting pace 2022,2023, 2024 in succession. Once again, Earth’s climate system outmaneuvers climate science research, leaving scientists bent over at the knees, coughing in its dust. It’s too fast for scientists to keep up.

Bottom line, it’s nice to assume everything will be okay, “we’ll get through it, there’s still time to fix it,” blah-blah-blah, but several new earth-shattering indicators, especially at both poles, are not waiting for that illusive fixit.

Frankly, nobody knows how bad, how soon this worldwide melt-off develops as both poles, the Arctic and Antarctica, experience unbelievably rapid change in concert with land-based melt-offs in the Alps, Patagonia, Andes, Himalayas, Caucasus, and all other mountain ranges worldwide. Meanwhile many of Europe’s famous ski resorts closed in February, even snow cannons stopped working due to high temperatures.

For the record, here’s the James Hansen sea level projection, as mentioned by Paul Beckwith: “In what may prove to be a turning point for political action on climate change, a breathtaking new study casts extreme doubt about the near-term stability of global sea levels. The study—written by James Hansen, NASA’s former lead climate scientist, and 16 co-authors, many of whom are considered among the top in their fields—concludes that glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica will melt 10 times faster than previous consensus estimates, resulting in sea level rise of at least 10 feet in as little as 50 years. The study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, brings new importance to a feedback loop in the ocean near Antarctica that results in cooler freshwater from melting glaciers forcing warmer, saltier water underneath the ice sheets, speeding up the melting rate. Hansen, who is known for being alarmist and also right, acknowledges that his study implies change far beyond previous consensus estimates. In a conference call with reporters, he said he hoped the new findings would be “substantially more persuasive than anything previously published.” I certainly find them to be.” (Source: Earth’s Most Famous Climate Scientist Issues Bombshell Sea Level Warning, Slate, July 20, 2015)

Nine years later, increasingly it looks like Hansen will be right once again.

If he’s right about “at least 10 feet” within 50 years, which would be by 2065, then what will it be in 2050, 2040, or 2030? In rough numbers, sometime between 2030-40 it would surpass the IPCC highest estimate for 2100. That’s a big-time headache for every coastal city, right around the corner. Hopefully, a magic potion drops into Earth’s atmosphere and makes this go away like a bad dream.

And as long as the magic potion is around, why not use it to strip the world’s teeny-weeny percentage of the world’s population billionaires of some of their riches to buy renewable energy for the world marketplace and finance science projects to help combat Hot House Earth. It’s coming.

For the faint of heart, cheer up, there are plenty of respected climate scientists that disagree with the expectations stated in this article. Still, over time, somebody will be right; maybe it’ll be them but maybe don’t count on that, wondering what they’d say about Greenland’s turbo-charged 30 Million/Tons/Hour.

Nevertheless, one solution that can help solve global warming is “kill Citizens United” that allows corporate interests to spend unlimited funds to influence elections, politicians, and policy (they’ve made the worst possible choices) … before it’s too late to do anything, or is it?

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This article was originally published on March 15, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

Note: This article will also be posted on the Facing Future Now! Facebook group. If you would like to comment on this article, please go to the Facebook group and post your comments there under the article posting.

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Coastal Cities at High Noon

Photo by Bob Brewer on Unsplash
Photo by Bob Brewer is licensed by Unsplash

Coastal Cities at High Noon

By Robert Hunziker

Antarctica, the massive continent of ice, the size of the continental US and Mexico combined, is breaking apart more and more as a recent scientific expedition discovered unambiguous signals of considerably more danger than previously realized.

“The changes to the sea-ice indicate that in the coming decades coastal cities will need to be reconfigured because of sea level rise,” according to Craig Stevens, Auckland

Professor of Physical Oceanography. (Source: Signs Found of Worryingly Fast Antarctic Ice Melt – New Zealand Expedition, RNZ, March 3, 2024)

Sea level rise for coastal cities, the world’s worst nightmare, is coming within indeterminate decades but probably sooner than expected because that’s how science works these days. It’s always late to the party and not properly dressed for the occasion. But don’t blame the scientists, as soon as they complete research, the fast-moving climate system has outdistanced them. This is the new normal. Science is too slow for climate change.

Moreover, reader commentary/feedback about articles such as this recognizes a distinct trend in the world’s climate system that’s starting to come apart at the seams much earlier than expected. That observation is true. But what can be done and why aren’t world leaders holding emergency meetings to challenge civilization’s biggest challenge is puzzling, to say the least. It’s only too obvious because of lack of expedient policies to halt greenhouse gas emissions global warming and consequent sea level rise are not taken seriously enough.

In that regard, it must be noted that the world’s rich/wealthy elite that buy/own politicians, buy/own Supreme Court justices could have stopped global warming dead in its tracks decades ago when Dr. James Hansen (Earth Institute/Columbia University) warned the US Senate in 1988 of global warming when he was head of NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies but instead chose to go along with a fossil fuel-poisoned world where the money resides.

Since that time, the world has become a function of neoliberal capitalism, as dictated by Reagan/Thatcher almost 50 years ago. Therefore, the question must be asked: Has that socio-economic system that has made only a few filthy rich on the back of 99.75% of the world’s population been a good caretaker of the planet? Answer: No, it has not. Then, why should that warped socio-economic system be allowed to continue as absentee care-less caretaker of the planet? Neoliberal capitalism hasn’t done one positive thing for the planet, not one but has drained resources and enriched a teeny-teeny-weeny minority of people. Bravo! But what’s the ecological legacy?

Meanwhile, a team of New Zealand scientists Antarctic Science Platform and a research team from the Italian Programma Nazionale di Ricerche in Antartide aboard the 262-foot ice-breaker research vessel Laura Bassi just returned from two months in Antarctica’s Ross Sea. They got a first-hand look at sea ice retreat and came away with deep concern. Things are happening much faster than anybody thought possible. High noon for the world’s coastal cities is closer than they expected.

Craig Stevens, Professor of Physical Oceanography, Auckland led the expedition. The three lowest sea ice extents since modern records have been kept 2022, 2023, and 2024 are the lowest in the 46-year record of Antarctic sea ice. It’s gone fast and faster. Furthermore, the configuration of deeper parts of the ocean are changing via content of salty and oxygenated water. According to Dr. Stevens: ‘With a climate emergency underway, the work they were doing was urgent.”

It was only a couple of months ago when the following headline caught attention: Antarctic Sea-Ice at ‘Mind-Blowing Low Alarms Experts, RNZ, Sept.17, 2023. “It’s so far outside anything we’ve seen, it’s almost mind-blowing,” according to Walter Meier, who monitors sea-ice with the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

“It’s so far outside anything we’ve seen, it’s almost mind-blowing,” is language that’s as strong as climate scientists ever use. That one sentence about Antarctica should ring throughout the land a clarion call to take immediate action, but, so far, it hasn’t moved the needle.

Similar to Antarctica’s cousin Arctic sea ice up north, down south huge ice expanse regulates the planet’s temperature, steadily throughout a 10,000-yr episode of human history known as the Holocene Era, not too hot, not too cold. Its white surface spectacularly reflects 80-90% of solar radiation back into space, and it importantly cools the water beneath and near it. Without its cooling ice influence: “Antarctica could transform from Earth’s refrigerator to a radiator,” Ibid.

By all appearances, it is starting to transform into a radiator for the first time in human history. The real depth of the problem, moreover, is even deeper yet as both poles react in the same manner, almost regardless of the season, rapid ice melt, big losses of the all-important albedo effect reflecting 80-90% of solar radiation back to space, whilst a rapidly expanding dark ocean background absorbs considerably more heat than the surrounding ice can withstand. It’s a vicious melt-off circular that gooses the climate system into absolute nonsensical patterns turning normal jet streams (20-40,000 feet) abnormally whacky, rocking the hemisphere with massive doses of scorching heat that stays put, atmospheric rivers, massive flooding, and wildfires galore. It’s all massive scale. There is no more normal.

Ultimately, the bruised climate system is aiming for a surprise coastal flooding of major cities that carelessly will not be prepared because, based upon many, many climate conferences, and gobs of warnings by thousands of climate scientists over many years, the risk still has not sunk into policies of major nation/states that global warming’s favored course is destructive coastal flooding and ecosystem degradation. If they truly believed, they’d do everything possible to convert fossil fuel subsidies, which the IMF says surged to a record $7 trillion, and build seawalls, very tall seawalls. This then would complete the circle of moats surrounding countries in an ongoing left-right socio-politico battle over whether revival of the Middle Ages (500 – 1400 A.D.) comes to pass. Burning at the stake could be right around the corner.

Not that many years ago, scientists never thought Antarctica would awaken from its frozen past and succumb to global warming. Well, it’s finally awakened, and it is succumbing. “It’s potentially a really alarming sign of Antarctic climate change that hasn’t been there for the last 40 years. And it’s only just emerging now,” Ibid.

It was only three decades ago when Martin Siegert, glaciologist University of Exeter started studying Antarctica. Today he says: “Awakening this monster of the south threatens an absolute disaster for the world,” Ibid.

Refreshingly, scientists studying Antarctica are not holding back statements of fact. According to Anna Hogg, Earth scientist at University of Leeds: There are signs that what is already happening to Antarctica’s ice sheets is in “the worst-case scenario range of what was predicted,” Ibid.

The worst-case scenario is too unnerving to reiterate.

What about solutions? For starters, here’s a quote from Dr. James Hansen at a special event in Utah hosted by The Nature Conservancy: “We’ve got political parties on both sides taking money from special interests. And unless we solve this problem with our democracy, we really can’t change the climate change problem. And the public knows this.”

Answer: kill Citizens United as soon as possible

Citizens United – In 2010. the U.S. Supreme Court decided that Americans cannot prevent corporations from spending unlimited money to control elections, politicians, and policy based upon interpretation of the First Amendment.

The Supremes put the United States of America up for sale to the highest bidders.
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This article was originally published on March 8, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

Note: This article will also be posted on the Facing Future Now! Facebook group. If you would like to comment on this article, please go to the Facebook group and post your comments there under the article posting.

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Accelerating Ocean Heat Breaks All-Time Records

Photo by Majkl Velner on Unsplash
Photo by Majkl Velner on Unsplash

Accelerating Ocean Heat Breaks All-Time Records

By Robert Hunziker

North Atlantic Ocean temperature is on a red-hot streak.

New research finds ocean temperatures… “have now smashed previous heat records for at least seven years in a row.” (Source: Lijing Cheng, et al, New Record Ocean Temperatures and Related Climate Indicators in 2023, Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, January 2024)

Certainly, it’s nothing to mess around with as oceans absorb 90% of planetary heat. Maybe that’s too much too quickly to withstand. Or is it a big burp or could it be something much worse?

Ocean heat represented on a chart displays a nearly vertical solid move up for over the past year. This is Michael Mann’s famous “hockey stick” applied to ocean temperature! Climate science does not have a record of such a powerful jolt upwards for ocean warming. Maybe something big or even bigger than big is underway.

A recent NYT headline tells the story: Scientists Are Freaking Out About Ocean Temperatures, New York Times, February 27, 2023, by suggesting it could be indicative of developments beyond all expectations by mainstream science. January 2024 was the 8th year in a row when global temperatures “blew past previous records.” The North Atlantic has hit record-breaking temperatures and holding them there for a solid year now. According to scientists: “It’s just astonishing Like, it doesn’t seem real.” (NYT)

But it is real!

And it should shake up and rattle the cage of every person on the planet because their leaders, who are supposed to address problems like this, are asleep at the switch, sound asleep!

It’s not only the North Atlantic that is acting up in a mean-spirited manner. Down south, according to Matthew England, professor at University of New South Wales: “The sea ice around the Antarctic is just not growing… The temperature’s just going off the charts. It’s like an omen of the future,” Ibid.

Global warming appears to be infectiously indiscriminate north/south throughout the globe. These are strange times that demand a lot of attention by nation/states of the world that are sitting ducks for surprisingly rapid sea water rise and a host of other troubling ecosystem crash landings.

Impact of Ocean Heat Acceleration

According to NASA, Global Climate Change – Vital Signs of the Planet: Accelerating ocean warming: (1) increases sea level rise due to thermal expansion (2) accelerates melting of major ice sheets, already starting to cascade everywhere on the planet, directly increases sea levels (3) intensifies hurricanes (4) degrades overall ocean health with loss of biodiversity.

For example, the Blob event in the Pacific Ocean laid the foundation for what to expect from ocean heat. According to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA): “An unprecedented marine heat wave known as ‘the Blob’ dominated the northeastern Pacific from 2013 to 2016, and upended ecosystems across a huge swath of the Pacific Ocean. This led to an ecological cascade, causing fishery collapses and fishery disaster determinations.” (The Ongoing Marine Heat Waves in U.S. Waters, Explained, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, July 24, 2023)

If fishery collapses occurred way back in 2013-16, then what of today’s more overheated ocean? The Blob was unlike anything the West Coast had experienced: From the Gulf of Alaska-to-Baja, California (Mexico) sea surface temperature hit levels 7°F above average.

“Fishery collapses” as experienced a decade ago, on top of depleted fish stocks, like we have now, is a formula for disaster for marine life and human life. Globally, overexploited fish stocks, i.e., catching fish faster than they reproduce, has “more than doubled since 1980.” Ergo, most current levels of wild fish catch are unsustainable. (Source: Fish and Overfishing, Our World in Data)

“In 2015 a record outbreak of toxic algae shut down West Coast Dungeness crab fisheries worth millions of dollars. Then came seabird die-offs, record numbers of whales entangled in fishing lines, crashing salmon returns, and starving California sea lion pups washing up on beaches, just for starters. You had a number of things occurring that by themselves were just astounding,’ according to Nate Mantua, an atmospheric scientist at NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center. ‘When you put it all together you could hardly believe it.” (Source: Looking Back at The Blob: Record Warming Drives Unprecedented Ocean Change, NOAA Fisheries, Sept. 26, 2019)

According to Arctic News: The year 2024 looks to be worse than the year 2023… sea surface temperatures that were extremely high in 2023 will be followed by a steep rise in 2024, in fact, crossing 21°C (70°F) as early as January 2024. Toxic algae welcomes the heat; it is sustained and enhanced by warmer waters.

According to Copernicus, which is the Earth Observation Programme of the European Union:

  • The average global sea surface temperature (SST) for January over 60°S–60°N reached 20.97°C, a record for January, 0.26°C warmer than the previous warmest January, in 2016, and second highest value for any month in the ERA5 dataset, within 0.01°C of the record from August 2023 (20.98°C).
  • Since 31 January, the daily SST for 60°S–60°N has reached new absolute records, surpassing the previous highest values from 23rd and 24th of August 2023.

The planet is turning hotter prior to, during, and in the aftermath of COP28 (UN Climate Conference of the Parties) held in oil-rich Dubai November/December 2023 and hosted by Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber as COP28 President as well as serving as Group CEO of ADNOC (Abu Dhabi National Oil Company) since 2016.

COPs have been held for nearly 30 consecutive years to address the issue of climate change and global warming and what to do about it. Yet they have miserably failed to impact fossil fuel emissions (up every year and accelerating). COP28 was a ‘tilted game’ in favor of continuation of fossil fuel emissions and according to Martin Siegert, polar scientist and deputy vice-chancellor at University of Exeter: “The science is perfectly clear. COP28, by not making a clear declaration to stop fossil fuel burning is a tragedy for the planet and our future. The world is heating faster and more powerfully than the COP response to deal with it.” (Source: ‘A Tragedy for the Planet’: Scientists Decry COP28 Outcome, Common Dreams, December 14, 2023)

“A tragedy for the planet and our future” as emphasized by Dr. Siegert, is a travesty that should not be allowed to stand. Throughout the history of COP meetings, never has the oil and gas industry taken the lead position in meetings of 60-80,000 attendees supposedly devoted to fixing global warming. Nothing more needs to be said about the charade known as COP28. It’s only too obvious. Well, maybe more needs to be said: The people of the world have never been so easily bamboozled, hoodwinked by an international body that’s supposed to protect the sanctity of the planet. COP28 didn’t.

Where’s the pushback?

Regardless, the oceans are in a state of rebellion, which could flood the oil & gas business out of business, as an act of nature protecting herself. Worldwide petroleum refineries are constructed along coastal areas and rivers to take advantage of water resources and easy transportation. As the spigots of fossil fuel CO2 emissions remain wide-open, assuredly, enhanced global warming will flood them out of business.

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This article was originally published on March 1, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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The Fastest Warming on Earth

Image by Emma Francis is licensed by Unsplash.
Image by Emma Francis is licensed by Unsplash.

The Fastest Warming on Earth

By Robert Hunziker

In the High Arctic scientists discovered million-year-old methane (CH4) trapped under some of the world’s mightiest glaciers detected via unprecedented groundwater springs. Analyses of 123 springs found CH4 in all but one. As the massive glaciers recede, space opens at the edge of permafrost, releasing ancient methane. This is one more totally unexpected global warming headache.

Methane detected in the High Arctic puts a big hole in the Global Methane Pledge of more than 100 countries that agreed to cut emissions 30% by 2030. It’s an add-on that nobody knows how to deal with.

The High Arctic location is Svalbard, Norway (pop. 2,642) which is the fastest warming region of the planet only 700 miles from the North Pole. It’s ironic that the fastest warming is the farthest northern human outpost, deep into the Arctic North.

“On the Dot with David Schechter,” CBS News released a 45-minute film December 4th, 2023, documenting the warmest place on Earth: Ancient Methane Escaping from Melting Glaciers Could Potentially Warm the Planet Even More.

The film is noteworthy for its elegant beauty of landscape and simplicity of explaining a very complex climate system. With a soft tell-all, David Schechter skillfully interviews climate scientists at the top of the world, thus revealing what every world citizen should be aware of, the inescapable conclusion that climate change is far and away our biggest threat, a menacing transformation of Earth’s climate system that may, or may not, be too late to halt or reverse depending upon whom Schechter interviewed at any given sequence of the film.

Nevertheless, in a very straightforward easy-to-understand manner, the underlying message of the film is a climate system that has radically changed into a threatening monster filled with sudden unforeseen risks and ultimately the potential of a metaphoric runaway freight train barreling down a mountainside. The risks are only too evident, prompting a very straightforward question: Is it too late?

The answer found in the film is yes and no, depending.

Radical temperature changes are at the core. According to the film: Winters in the US are 3.7°F warmer than a couple of decades ago. In sharp contrast, Svalbard is a nerve-rattling 13.6°F warmer, bringing in its wake bigger and more frequent avalanches and landslides than ever before whilst simultaneously massive floods, massive drought, and massive wildfires clobber ecosystems thousands of miles away in Europe, in North America, in China, throughout the world. Everything with climate change is now on a massive scale. This is different than the past.

Wide-ranging climate change was beyond anything Svalbard was prepared for, e.g., homes destroyed by avalanches. Subsequently, Svalbard has been adapting by erecting avalanche barriers and walls.

The Ny-Alesund Research Station based in Svalbard is where scientists from around the world gather to study the High Arctic. It’s the world’s northern-most research facility with 35 year-round residents swelling to over 100 scientists that fly in from around the world during summer months when sunlight is 24/7.

A sculpture of renowned Arctic explorer Roald Amundsen (1872-1928) greets visitors at the centre of Ny-Alesund.

Jack Kohler, glaciologist, Norwegian Polar Institute, has studied glaciers in the region for 27 years… a significant glacier of his focus has retreated 4 kilometers over his tenure. At the water’s edge, the glacier is as tall as a 15-story building and 2 miles wide.

Kohler says colleagues throughout the world are seeing similar effects of climate change: (1) it’s warming a lot (2) there is considerably more melt (3) there’s no compensating increase in precipitation (4) winter snow season is shrinking because of a rapid increase in temperature. Indeed, it is an unnerving worldwide phenomenon.

At the heart of the global warming issue, according to Jack Kohler: “It’s happening really fast!”

The worldwide impact of sea water rise will be on the march. Accordingly, at current melt rates, it’s estimated sea-level rise in the US over the next 30 years will increase 10-14 inches on the East Coast, 14-18 inches on the Gulf Coast, and 4-8 inches on the West Coast. Florida is already seeing a troublesome impact, raising streets by 1-3 feet in Miami Beach. High tides become high floods.

The High Arctic is also home to Zeppelin Observatory at the top of Mount Zeppelin manned by Ove Hermansen, senior scientist, Norwegian Institute for Air Research. Super sensitive equipment at the mountain top measures gases in the atmosphere. Zeppelin Observatory coordinates its findings with a network of worldwide observatories, e.g., samples sent to Boulder, Colorado, National Center for Atmospheric Research. CO2 is 50% above pre-industrial since the 1980s with methane CH4 up 165%. If such growth rates continue, all bets are off for a global warming soft landing, more likely an overheated planet, eliminating human comfort zones across equatorial regions, and beyond.

Longyearbyen is the administrative centre for Svalbard where Anna Sjoblom serves as a meteorologist at the University Center in Longyearbyen. In her view, the Arctic is “the refrigerator or freezer for the rest of the world” but unfortunately thawing way too fast, as global warming works double-time radically distorting the crucial jet stream at 20,000-40,000 feet altitude that, in turn, negatively impacts the entire Northern Hemisphere with atmospheric rivers and stationary heat waves that do not let up, throwing the climate system for a loop. According to Sjoblom: “We are getting a new type of normal in the world that nobody is ready for.”

Dr. Andy Hodson, glaciologist at University Center Svalbard has linked rapid disappearance of glacial ice to release of methane from deep underground. Glacial retreat is the driver of methane gas emitting via unprecedented pools of water on surface where none existed before. In the central region underground springs bring CH4 to surface as 123 of 124 streams were found with methane. As a result, this increases the risks of a global warming breakout, conditions are there to impact global warming far beyond current expectations, such behavior is now underway.

Svalbard’s scientists are witnessing the fastest ever climate change. For some of them, it seems to be “too late.” Yet, for others, after experiencing the world’s most rapid rate of global warming, a sense of urgency “to do something” overwhelms. They can only hope that the film will serve as a wake-up call to leaders of the world to take the problem much more seriously.
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This article was originally published on February 23, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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67 Countries Banned This Toxic Product – But the EPA Says: “Go for it!”

Photo by Samuel Fyfe on Unsplash
Photo by Samuel Fyfe is licensed by Unsplash.

67 Countries Banned This Toxic Product –But the EPA Says: “Go for it!”

By Robert Hunziker

Sixty-seven (67) countries have banned paraquat, a toxic chemical used to control weeds that was discovered in the 1950s subsequently widely used throughout the world in agriculture. Despite a deadly toxic reputation, it’s still used throughout America. Moreover, it’s a cheap effective product used as a common pesticide by third-world countries that do not proactively regulate chemical products.

As of 2024, the US EPA, once again, reapproved paraquat in the face of stiff public opposition and criticism via a slew of negative scientific studies. With more than 60 major developed countries banning the product, why is the United States still onboard?

Syngenta is the manufacturer of paraquat. Syngenta was purchased by a state-owned Chinese company named ChemChina in 2017 for $43 billion. Revenues run $20B, and it’s very profitable. This is a prime example of Chinese Communist Party capitalism hard at work.

Astonishingly, and inexplicably, China prohibits paraquat use in its own backyard, eight (8) years ago the state government banned its use, but China shamelessly allows production of the chemical for export to third-world countries and the United States.

China banned paraquat, 2016.

China buys Syngenta in 2017 to produce and sell paraquat to the world outside of China.

The UK banned paraquat, 2007.

The EU banned paraquat, 2007.

Sixty-seven (67) countries have banned paraquat.

The US EPA reapproves paraquat, 2023-24.

The US EPA reapproval of the paraquat product Gramoxone is subject to further review. There’s plenty to review, for example: “Syngenta deliberately hid important scientific knowledge about possible serious health effects caused by paraquat, a product and herbicide banned in Europe because it is so toxic that a single sip can kill.” (Source: EU Lobby Profile: Syngenta, A Toxic ‘World Champion’, Corporate Europe Observatory, October 20, 2022.

According to an article posted in the National Institutes of Health, National Library of Medicine, as of December 2019, entitled: Paraquat: The Poison Potion: “Paraquat, when ingested, is extremely toxic. It causes a spectrum of complications, including acute respiratory distress syndrome, renal failure, hepatotoxicity, and pulmonary fibrosis. The clinical course in paraquat poisoning is often protracted and there is no known antidote for this toxin.” Interestingly, this article is dedicated to various clinical treatment strategies that can be attempted when exposed to the highly toxic chemical. In short, whatever you do, don’t ingest it, don’t inhale it, stay away from it.

A significant study was completed well in advance of the recent EPA reapproval “Go for it!” which discusses much safer alternatives than paraquat poisoning, to wit: “A new study, led by Pesticide Action Network UK (PAN UK) and supported by the Centre for Pesticide Suicide Prevention, has shown that a highly hazardous pesticide can be banned without affecting agricultural productivity… Paraquat is highly toxic and fatal to humans when ingested. There is no effective treatment for paraquat poisoning. Banning paraquat is the most effective way to prevent exposure and deaths. More than sixty-seven countries have already banned its use; however, it is still widely used in many low and middle income countries.” (Source: Deadly Pesticide Can be Replaced by Safer Alternatives, New Study Shows, Centre for Pesticide Suicide Prevention, The University of Edinburgh, January 12, 2023)

“We already know that paraquat is a highly dangerous pesticide, responsible for many tens of thousands of deaths each year due to intentional and unintentional poisoning. There is no antidote for paraquat poisoning. Banning paraquat is the most effective way to prevent exposure and deaths… Pesticide bans may raise concerns from farmers, who worry that their crops will be adversely affected. This study clearly shows that there are many safer alternatives to paraquat that don’t affect agricultural productivity,” Ibid.

Regardless, America is gung-ho toxic paraquat weed killer in the face of incredible evidence against its use: “There is an incredibly overwhelming body of evidence on this that has been accepted by scientists across the globe, and the EPA’s decision really placed it at odds with the best available science,” according to Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, a senior attorney with Earthjustice, the suit’s lead plaintiff against the EPA. (Source: EPA Again OKs Use of Toxic Herbicide Linked to Parkinson’s Disease, The Guardian, February 11, 2024)

The Earthjustice suit against the EPA represents Petitioners: California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, Farmworker Association of Florida, The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, Farmworker Justice, Alianza Nacional De Campesinas, Pesticide Action Network North America, Center for Biological Diversity, and Toxic Free North Carolina.

“The science is clear that this highly lethal pesticide threatens all living things, including our country’s wildlife,” according to Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity: “The EPA should follow the lead of nearly every other major agricultural country in the world and ban this dangerous stuff for good.” (Source: Controversial Herbicide Tied to Parkinson’s Gets Green Light from EPA for Continued Use, The San Francisco Chronicle, January 31, 2024)

America seemingly has a special bond and unique love affair with paraquat. Usage in America tripled over the past decade. Accordingly, 8,000,000 pounds of it is sprayed on grapes, almonds, soya beans, cotton, corn, wheat, garlic, strawberries, rice, potatoes, artichokes, and pears especially prevalent in California, Iowa, and the Mississippi River Valley. (US Geological Survey source)

“Chronic exposure, even at low doses, can cause Parkinson’s disease… banned in the European Union (EU) since 2007, as well as Switzerland since 1998, on the grounds that it is too dangerous for European farmers even when wearing protective equipment.” (Source: Banned in Europe: How the EU Exports Pesticides Too Dangerous for Use in Europe, Public Eye, September 10, 2020)

Even though the EPA publicly acknowledges high risks of toxicity of paraquat, it nevertheless has determined that human risks are far outweighed by the beneficial use of paraquat to kill weeds. Ergo, in a mindboggling exercise of reverse-humanism, weed killers take priority over human life.

Searching for answers as to how and why toxic chemicals remain in America (and there are thousands) the answer is agrochemical companies use undue influence on federal regulators.

“Interviews with more than two dozen experts on pesticide regulation — including 14 who worked at the EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs, or OPP — described a federal environmental agency that is often unable to stand up to the intense pressures from powerful agrochemical companies, which spend tens of millions of dollars on lobbying each year and employ many former EPA scientists once they leave the agency.” (Source: The Department of Yes, How Pesticide Companies Corrupted the EPA and Poisoned America, The Intercept, June 30, 2021).

“The enormous corporate influence has weakened and, in some cases, shut down the meaningful regulation of pesticides in the U.S. and left the country’s residents exposed to levels of dangerous chemicals not tolerated in many other nations,” Ibid.

Scientists who identify toxic hazards face enormous pressure from within the Agency to overlook the risks they find. One toxicologist who worked for the Agency’s pesticide department told The Intercept: “It is an unwritten rule that to get promotions, all pesticides need to pass.”

Additional pressure to approve questionable toxic chemicals comes from weak-kneed, easily bought, ignorant, stupid, greedy members of Congress who push what’s referred to as “Yes Packages,” forcing the Agency to approve quickly even with incomplete information about product safety.

America’s elected officials receipt of contributions from Syngenta Corp PAC for federal candidates for 2023-24: $26,000 to Democrats, $136,500 to Republicans. (Source: Syngenta Corp PAC Contributions to Federal Candidates, opensecrets.org) This analysis does not include “dark money,” when both the donor and lagniappe are not identified.

According to Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn): “The pesticide industry has brazenly exploited loopholes in federal law for years and strong safeguards are needed to protect the public and our environment from harmful and sometimes lethal pesticide exposure.” (The Intercept)

Four years ago, in June of 2021 in response to The Intercept article, the EPA responded. EPA spokesperson Kenneth Labbe wrote in an email: ‘The agency is committed to ensuring our pesticide registration decisions are free from interference and that the agency’s scientific integrity policy, which is a bedrock principle for the Biden-Harris Administration, is upheld. EPA is home to world-class scientists. As it has in the past, the agency will continue to ensure their voices and the role of science will guide its decisions going forward.”

Four years later and the referenced “science guidance used by the EPA” is still highly questionable and under legal attack by numerous sources but appears to be stuck swirling in the toilet, going nowhere fast.
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This article was originally published on February 16, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Arctic Sea Ice Loss – A World of Trouble

Photo by Willian Justen de Vasconcellos is licensed by Unsplash.
Photo by Willian Justen de Vasconcellos is licensed by Unsplash.

Arctic Sea Ice Loss – A World of Trouble

By Robert Hunziker

What if Arctic sea ice melts?

All of it… during the summer!

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), over the past three decades the oldest, thickest ice (13-20 feet thick) has declined by a stunning 95 percent and 70 percent of Arctic sea ice is now thin “seasonal ice” that quickly melts in the Arctic summer.

Based upon scientific analyses, loss of sea ice impacts the planet’s biggest thermostat, i.e., the Arctic sea ice itself, into a wacky climate monster that dims/diminishes one of the biggest reflectors of solar radiation, thereby exposing Earth to excessive solar heat quickly absorbed in dark, iceless sea water that would otherwise be reflected back into space, according to NOAA >80%, by a bright icy surface , bringing in its wake unprecedented climate havoc: (1) Northern Hemispheric ultra-powerful storms (2) disrupted agricultural seasons distort crop growth (3) coastal cities at risk of flooding as the Greenland ice sheet crumbles more and more than ever before; a result of the loss of its biggest refrigerator, right next door.

Based upon several early warning signs, the stakes are enormously high. After all, Arctic sea ice has exerted positive influence, seemingly forever, by maintaining a 10,000-year Holocene Era steady climate system, earmarked by a “not-too-hot-not-too-cold spectacular Goldilocks experience” ever since people first sat around fires in caves thanks, in part, to the ever-vigilant Arctic sea ice thermostat. That gift to humanity is almost gone after 10K years of hard work. Early results of its demise are already forthcoming.

Arctic sea ice loss is arguably one of the most significant tipping points in human history. Can civilization handle it?

A study published in Nature Communications in November 2023 characterized Greenland’s northern glaciers as “in trouble” with its ice shelves rapidly weakening, destabilizing much earlier than previously thought. Loss of Arctic sea ice will accelerate this weakening, by a lot. Meantime, coastal cities of the world are not prepared for major surges.

The direct relationship between the Arctic’s inordinate warming with sea ice loss and disintegrating Greenland ice shelves has been identified for some time now: “Current research suggests that disappearing sea ice and disproportionate Arctic warming contribute to accelerated Greenland melt, which is now the single largest driver of sea-level rise.” (Source: How Are Reduced Arctic Sea ice and Increased Greenland Melting Connected? Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research, Vol. 53, Issue 1, 2021)

A proposal to revive, i.e., refreeze Arctic Sea ice, comes from a steadfast group of scientists/engineers/inventors working under the acronym PRAG. They believe they can provide the proper guidance to rescue the Arctic and welcome any support both financially and intellectually because – beware, beware – geo-engineering is a hot topic that sparks vicious dogfighting within the scientific community.

What does refreezing the Arctic entail?

A white paper authored by John Nissen founder of Planetary Restoration Action Group (“PRAG”) claims two main methods (there are others under consideration, e.g. MEER) are needed to cool the Arctic and both should be employed in conjunction: (1) marine cloud brightening – according to cloud physicist John Latham, adding salt particles from sea water to clouds increases the reflectively of sunlight thereby increasing cooling for Arctic sea ice formation; and (2) stratospheric aerosol injection – aerosol particles, a coolant called sulfur dioxide (SO2) sprayed into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight back into space, mimicking the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991-92 which emitted enough SO2 into the stratosphere to cause ~0.5C global cooling.

Interestingly, injecting SO2 to help cool the planet was suggested by the US National Academy of Sciences way back in 1992.

The arguments for and against solar radiation management (SRM) in the simplest of terms revolve around the perceived risks of harm. On the opposition side, there is fear that SRM could inadvertently create a Frankenstein climate system that could do bad things such as (1) extraordinary droughts or (2) disrupt monsoons or (3) damage the precious ozone layer. There is also the fear that SRM would encourage more fossil fuel emissions, known as the moral hazard argument.

The other side in favor of SRM geo-engineering counters by claiming there is no known evidence of significant risk of harm from deliberate geo-engineering to cool the planet, whilst also acknowledging there is no such thing as riskless interference with the climate system. After all, we’ve already geoengineered a Frankenstein climate system by emitting greenhouse gases like CO2 into the atmosphere via cars, trains, planes, and industry for over 100 years. So, it’s fair to ask what’s wrong with geo-engineering to reduce temperatures and defuse the climate crisis? Time is short, according to UN Secretary General António Guterres: “We are entering an era of global boiling.”

PRAG has no knowledge of concrete evidence that Stratospheric Aerosol Injection causes harm whereas they claim there are big potential benefits, such as restoring Arctic sea ice. Regarding the moral hazard argument: PRAG claims “the moral hazard is ‘not to geoengineer’ when geoengineering could prevent catastrophe.” Thus, they’ve staked their position, insinuating that society has few, if any, reasonable alternatives.

For millions of years, Arctic Sea ice has been one of the most important natural regulators of the Northern Hemisphere climate system. Of utmost importance, less sea ice means more sun radiation absorbed into the dark background of sea water, which means more solar heat absorbed in the sea, melting more ice, etc. in a vicious cycle. The result could be Hot House Earth, especially if melting permafrost releases vast quantities of entrapped frozen methane clathrates (aka: methane hydrates) in shallow continental-shelf waters offshore Russia, to wit: the Barents Sea, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, and East Siberian Sea.

As it happens, the entire Northern Hemisphere is a target of what happens in the Arctic. For example, rapid warming has altered the behavior of the all-important polar jet stream, a high-level stream of air which encircles the planet in a wavy, east-moving pattern. This alteration has led to the jet stream drooping and getting stuck in big holding patterns, causing extremes of weather, like endless blistering heatwaves or atmospheric rivers that stay put.

Indeed, extremes of heat have already become a serious problem, e.g., according to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, as of August 2023, seventy-five percent (75%) of Spain has been declared vulnerable to desertification because of excessive heat. That UN declaration was in 2023. On January 25, 2024 Gavarda, Spain temperature was 30.7°C (87.3°F) … in the middle of winter. As of early February 2024, Pyrenees ski resorts have closed because of snow drought.

Wake up calls of a climate in trouble are found everywhere. It’s getting serious.

Crazed, erratic polar jet streams, as a result of loss of Arctic sea ice, causes the jet stream to dip south, bringing bitter cold and powerful blizzards to America. This has always been a winter-time climate feature, but it’s gotten worse, and much worse; if the Arctic turns ice free, today’s blizzards will likely turn into something much more powerfully damaging.

PRAG has a recommended agenda to tackle the job of reconstituting Arctic sea ice. PRAG founder John Nissen has been investigating geo-engineering for over a decade, which he believes is urgently needed to save/restore Arctic sea ice. He has theorized the Gulf Stream and Arctic sea ice serve as a thermostatic control system for preventing the planet from heating above a certain temperature, approximately the global temperature of some years ago. As such, Arctic sea ice is an essential part of that control system. Global warming threatens to destroy it at a given summer’s end, possibly by 2030. Thereby, disabling the thermostatic control of the planet. This could bring on the biggest-ever disruptive climate system, to wit: (1) methane discharge from permafrost, igniting rapid global warming, as well as (2) disintegration of portions of the Greenland ice sheet, potentially flooding portions of cities like Miami Beach.

Time is of essence. James Hansen, Earth Institute/Columbia University predicts global temperatures could reach 4C this century without cooling intervention. According to Hansen, the world’s foremost climate scientist, who supports geo-engineering, something must be done soon. He believes we’ll surpass 1.5C next decade and 2C by mid-century. These are global temperature markers above pre-industrial levels that will manifest degradation of ecosystems like the Arctic far ahead of what mainstream science expects.

Earth’s energy imbalance or “sunlight in” versus “sunlight out” is currently running at a frightful rate @ 1.36 W/m2 as of the current 2020s decade. This is troubling (which is the understatement of the year). The current rate of solar radiation is double the 2005-2015 rate @ 0.71 W/m2 (Source: James Hansen). Doubling solar radiation “watts per square meter” over only a decade is a surefire way to heat up the planet much faster than ever before. This one data point is extremely significant and portends bigger trouble down the line.

The Planetary Restoration Action Group welcomes help from interested parties that want to get involved in restoring the Arctic. In their view, the alternative, or doing nothing, is not an option. Meantime, the Arctic is heating up ever faster as global warming spikes upwards, as cautioned by James Hansen. Accordingly, something must be done at the highest priority of international action to halt the Arctic warming and start refreezing the Arctic. The future for every young person is at stake.

According to PRAG, there’s no reason to be downtrodden or defeated if cooling intervention, together with efforts to reduce the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, are activated to restore the planet to a safe, sustainable, biodiverse, and productive state, leading to a bright prospect for future generations. PRAG has a hopeful message.

But time is of essence like never before. According to NOAA, because of global warming, the Arctic’s infrastructure has radically changed for the first time in human history, losing its multi-year thick ice infrastructure. And according to NASA, 70 percent of Arctic sea ice is now “seasonal ice,” that quickly melts in the Arctic summer. Considering the massive area encompassed by the 70 percent, the remaining 30 percent is starting to resemble someone hanging onto a windowsill by fingertips.

Alas, NASA claims Arctic sea ice rarely, if ever, melted in the not-too-distant past.

To contact the Planetary Restoration Action Group:

John Nissen: johnnissen2003@gmail.com
—————–
This article was originally published on February 9, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Neanderthal Virus Exposure in the 21st Century

Image Courtesy of CDC
Image courtesy of CDC

Neanderthal Virus Exposure in the 21st Century

By Robert Hunziker

Across the entire breadth of the Northern Hemisphere Arctic permafrost is rapidly melting. Nobody knows what strange pathogen is going to pop out from within tons upon tons of permafrost muck. More significantly, imagine the public anxiety if scientists detect viruses older than the human species Homo sapiens, which emerged 300,000 years ago. But Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) fossil remains have been discovered dating back 430,000 years. So then, what if viruses beyond the advent of Homo sapiens, such as Neanderthal viruses, suddenly spread across the planet?

There is some evidence that because of Neanderthal liaisons with Homo sapiens some amount of “passing of genetic code for coping with some pathogens” occurred. Neanderthal genes do show up in 2-3% of Homo sapiens genetic makeup. But don’t assume that means immunity from ancient viruses. Nobody knows what lurks within generation upon generation of permafrost.

A recent headline in The Guardian d/d Jan. 21st, 2024 highlights the story: “Arctic Zombie Viruses in Siberia Could Spark Terrifying New Pandemic, Scientists Warn.”

There’s a distinct possibility that zombie viruses could emerge from the depths at any time thanks to global warming’s impact on the Arctic, which is warming 2-4 times faster than the overall planet. The US portion of Arctic permafrost covers 85% of Alaska; it stays frozen year-round and has been around for at least 500,000 years, reaching depths of 1,000 feet.

Throughout the Arctic the deepest permafrost is 4,900 feet, and according to Nature Journal, Arctic permafrost stores nearly 1,700 billion metric tons of frozen carbon. For comparison purposes, according to Statista, current annual global emissions of carbon dioxide CO2 are 37.15 billion metric tons. So, permafrost is holding the equivalent of 46 years of current CO2 emissions.

Scientists likely lay awake at night, staring at the ceiling, wondering: How much carbon emissions will permafrost add to agriculture, industry, and transportation emissions, resulting in a whacked climate system that’s terrorizing society.

For the first time in hundreds of thousands of years, commensurate with the onset of the 21st century, and due to the overwhelming force of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, permafrost is suddenly drooping/melting very fast. As a result, modern-day society is on a collision course with thousands of years of muck, giga-tons of greenhouse gases such as CO2 and CH4, and reams of ancient viruses and bacteria. It’s a vast, dark mysterious ancient world in an icy vault that’s unfolding right before our eyes.

The oldest permafrost researched by scientists goes to a depth of 50 meters (165 feet), and it’s 650,000 years old, discovered and analyzed by a German, Russian, and English team of researchers, led by Julian Murton, University of Sussex found near the village of Batagay in eastern Siberia. (Source: Scientists Find the Oldest Permafrost Yet Discovered in Siberia, Arctic Business Journal, June 22, 2021)

The dearth of research on permafrost brings some level of nail-biting into play, known as “The Research Gap” or (1) a lack of understanding of potential harmful microbes in the permafrost (2) which microbes might survive, or not, freeze-thaw cycles (3) if plants and humans will be infected by ancient microbes. It’s important to know that nobody knows the answers to this vast mystery. Humanity is literally a sitting duck for whatever pops out of the muck.

Could a pathogen from thousands of years ago wipe out or inflict damage to modern-day society or to a particular region? The risks to humans of ancient viruses are much higher than the risks of “known pathogens.” Modern humans likely have no natural immunity to fight off prehistoric viral infections. Society could be blindsided without preparation.

Therefore, scientists are working to establish an Arctic monitoring network for early detection of ancient zombie viruses. Alas, this is but one more unfortunate fallout from excessive anthropogenic global warming. The Arctic warming 2-4 times faster than the world is exposing an unexplored underworld of ancient viruses. Nobody is prepared. Melting permafrost is under-researched: it’s massive; it’s happening now; it could be humankind’s biggest challenge, and nobody knows what to expect next.

However, the proposed Arctic monitoring network hopes to pinpoint early cases of disease threats, including facilities for quarantine and medical treatment of infected people. For example, what if an ancient zombie strain of polio, which is very contagious, raises its ugly head? Already, studies by the French National Centre for Scientific Research has discovered 13 frozen viruses in permafrost, including the Pandoravirus, which is 48,000 years old. (Source: Scientists Have Revived a ‘Zombie’ Virus That Spent 48,500 Years Frozen in Permafrost, CNN World, March 8, 2023)

The symptoms of Pandoravirus: (1) hair loss (2) flaky skin (3) bulging eyes (4) twitching (5) skin discoloration. An infected person is easily recognizable as a victim. But will it kill, maybe yes, maybe no, probably no.

According to the renown French virologist Jean-Michel Claverie: “A viral infection from an unknown, ancient pathogen in humans, animals or plants could have potentially ‘disastrous’ effects.” His research is published in a 2022 study (Source: Zombie Viruses Are Waking Up After 50,000 Years as Planet Warms, Bloomberg News, October 9, 2023).

Eventually, melting Arctic permafrost could become the world’s biggest headache, not only as a death threat but as a double threat. The threat is much more than zombie viruses. It’s also industrial contaminates that have accumulated in permafrost regions that have been neglected in existing climate impact studies. According to a very recent major study: “We identify about 4500 industrial sites where potentially hazardous substances are actively handled or stored in the permafrost-dominated regions of the Arctic. Furthermore, we estimate that between 13,000 and 20,000 contaminated sites are related to these industrial sites.” (Source: Thawing Permafrost Poses Environmental Threat to Thousands of Sites with Legacy Industrial Contamination, National Library of Medicine, March 28, 2023)

Additionally, as described in an article entitled, Alaska’s Scary Orange Rivers, Dec. 29, 2023: Alaska’s wilderness rivers are turning orange as thawing permafrost exposes toxic substances. Boots-on-the-ground research of the rivers found (1) very low levels of dissolved oxygen (2) pH factors up to 100 times more acidic than normal (3) electrical conductivity comparable to industrial wastewater. Hard to believe it’s the wilderness!

Additionally, the team of scientists in Alaska’s Kobuk Valley National Park discovered blackened, dark patches in the soil like fresh asphalt found throughout the normally pristine Brook’s Range. Water flowing via small drainage streams out of the blackened patches had pH factors so low it was like vinegar.

What then is the sensibility of a society that allows its planet to be poisoned? And for how long will life-supporting ecosystems, gradually being poisoned, remain viable? There is something horribly amiss when wilderness parks turn toxic, but who really cares is even more puzzling yet.

Consider the scenario and the repercussions as 25% of the exposed land surface of the Northern Hemisphere is covered by permafrost that’s rapidly melting. It is loaded with toxic industrial substances and thousands of years of accumulated viruses and bacteria.

Very significantly, the group of scientists conducted the “first ever comprehensive sampling of an entire watershed” on a six-day mission in an area of Alaska famously known as “the final frontier.” Here’s what they observed: Traversing the river, they found murky water over orange rocks where only a couple of years ago it was clear and full of fish, not now. At some spots the water ran half orange and half green and at others further downstream the river had the color and opacity of pea soup. Forrest McCarthy, a former US Antarctic Program coordinator, said: “Most climate change is subtle. This is like, bam!” The team could not find any fish or insects in some areas of the vast Range, saying: “Biodiversity just crashed.”

That happened in the wild where salmon are supposed to be running in streams as bears swat away mosquitos and gnats. But not what the scientists found. Science is only starting to get a handle on what’s happening up north. The scientists came away shocked and dismayed beyond belief. What else is happening throughout 25% of the Northern Hemisphere is anybody’s guess.

Meanwhile, the US, Russia, China and others have big plans now that Arctic sea ice is a shadow of its former self. They want the oil; they want the minerals; they want the metals; they want the easier trade routes; they want it all. They have big plans, but apparently nobody has big plans for how to resolve 20,000 industrial contamination sites in the Arctic. It’s an open sore. (Source: Moritz Langer, et al, Thawing Permafrost Poses Environmental Threat to Thousands of Sites with Legacy Industrial Contamination, Nature Communications, March 28, 2023)

In the context of capitalistic growth to infinity, ecosystems throughout the Arctic are up for grabs. The US wants in, as do both Russia and China. They covet and practice gangster capitalism, a few bosses own pretty much everything. Will they be able to successfully navigate the challenges of toxic-laden ecosystems and zombie viruses, or will their new-found treasure trove of commodities take so much overriding precedence that zombie viruses and toxic-laden ecosystems are easily pushed aside? Until it’s too late. The End.
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This article was originally published on January 26, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Too Much Heat, Past and Present

Image by Pawel Czerwinsk
Photo by Pawel Czerwinski is licensed by Unsplash.

Too Much Heat, Past and Present

By Robert Hunziker

The ultimate consequences of global warming are difficult to truly understand by the public, policymakers and by pretty much everybody. In their hearts, they do not want to believe it’ll cause an extinction event. That’s simply too hard to believe, going too far. People cannot wrap their minds around the idea that civilization, poof, is gone. After all, extinctions are not features of human civilization. Or are they?

Archeologists tell us otherwise. Climate change and natural disasters have led advanced civilizations into utter ruin, extinction events. The Mayan Civilization, population 7-10 million, skilled as advanced astronomers that built elaborate cities without the use of modern-day machinery around 1500 BC went extinct. Archeologists believe the causes were: (1) environmental degradation (2) deforestation (3) soil erosion and (4) climate change altered rain patterns to bring devastating drought and famine.

And one of the greatest civilizations of all time, the Indus Valley Civilization (2500-to-1700 BC) more than five million people with some of the world’s best architecture and amazing technology, cities of 50,000 with roads and advanced sewage systems, homes with private bathrooms, 3,500 years ago went extinct. Researchers studied isotopic concentrations of stalagmites, and other archeological evidence, analyzing 5,700 years of rainfall patterns for the region, discovering evidence of severe drought at the time the civilization ended.

A fascinating historical study of collapsed civilizations was published by the BBC: Are We on the Road to Civilization Collapse: February 18, 2019. Excerpts to follow:

The great historian Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975, London School of Economics and King’s College London) in his 12-volume magnum opus A Study of History analyzed the rise and fall of 28 different civilizations. He concluded: “Great civilizations are not murdered. Instead, they take their own lives.”

Our deep past is marked by recurring failure: “Collapse can be defined as a rapid and enduring loss of population, identity, and socio-economic complexity. Public services crumble and disorder ensues as government loses control of its monopoly on violence. Virtually all past civilizations have faced this fate.”

“Collapse may be a normal phenomenon for civilizations, regardless of their size and technological stage. We may be more technologically advanced now. But this gives little ground to believe that we are immune to the threats that undid our ancestors. Our newfound technological abilities even bring new, unprecedented challenges to the mix. And while our scale may now be global, collapse appears to happen to both sprawling empires (the Roman Empire for example) and fledgling kingdoms alike. There is no reason to believe that greater size is armour against societal dissolution. Our tightly coupled, globalized economic system is, if anything, more likely to make crisis spread.”

Archeologists claim the following categories mostly influence collapse: (1) climatic change (2) environmental degradation (3) inequality and oligarchy (4) complexity, meaning how society functions, e.g., too heavy of a bureaucracy (5) external shocks like famine and plagues. Hmm.

As of today, whether an extinction event is in the cards or not, and science has clearly shown us that extinctions do happen with well-developed civilizations, the most pressing concern is rapidly rising fossil fuel emissions and global temperature that disrupts, dislodges, and upends life. Alas, many signals indicate it’ll get worse.

James Hansen Earth Institute/Columbia University predicts much higher global temperatures much sooner than the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is the UN body politic of climate change.

For decades now, Hansen’s prescience has effectively been global warming’s equivalence of Yoda-speak. As the lead NASA scientist in 1988, Hansen testified to the US Senate that the greenhouse effect had been detected, indicating that the climate was changing. Human activity, specifically burning fossil fuels, was changing the chemistry of the atmosphere and not for the better.

Thirty-five years later, November 2023, Hansen has issued yet another warning but with much greater gravity and resonance than his 1988 warning. His landmark 1988 speech about changing the atmosphere’s chemistry has now become reality: it’s immediately before us. That warning has turned real through imagery, in real time, of massive wildfires, massive atmospheric rivers, massive droughts, extraordinarily floods, as unprecedented climate events regularly appear on nightly TV news programs.

Now Hansen is warning that scientists are underestimating how fast the planet is warming. In fact, he’s concerned enough that he believes the impending crisis necessitates geoengineering the planet’s atmosphere. For many scientists this is not acceptable, unproven, and unnecessary.

A recent Time magazine article We Need Geoengineering to Stop Out of Control Warming Warns Climate Scientist James Hansen, Time, Nov. 2, 2023, claims few scientists share his belief that geoengineering will be necessary. Researchers challenge its efficacy and safety profile, expecting deleterious unintended consequences.

But, as Hansen readily states, we’ve been inadvertently geoengineering the atmosphere for as long as we’ve spewed greenhouse gases, like CO2. As a society, we’re effective at changing the atmosphere’s chemistry, even though it’s not intentional. Therefore, why not re-geoengineer in the opposite direction?

Seriously, cars, trains, planes, and industry have been geoengineering the atmosphere with CO2 for over 100 years.

According to Hansen, something must be done soon. He believes we’ll surpass 1.5C next decade and 2C by midcentury. These are global temperature markers above pre-industrial levels that manifest big challenging issues, and far ahead of what mainstream science expects.

For example, warming in-excess of 2C could unleash collapse of West Antarctica ice sheets, which are already compromised. The Antarctic continent is a standout feature of the planet containing 95% of the planet’s fresh water trapped in ice melted equal to 200 feet higher sea levels. Nothing more needs to be said about that.

In fact, forget the 200 feet, which would take centuries, just the first several feet will turn the world upside down, flooding the world’s major coastal cities. High tide will become high water flood levels in the streets of America’s coastal cities. Some of this is already starting to happen, e.g., Portland’s high tide broke all-time records, reaching 14 feet at the same time as record-breaking floods hit the US East Coast, January 14th, 2024. NOAA expects sea levels along US coasts to rise as much over the next 10 years as they did over past 100 years.

Recent flooding events are setting new all-time records. These are not run of the mill normal flooding events, not normal at all. An extreme example of the climate system’s new rambunctiousness is Pakistan’s 2022 massive flood covering one-third of the country with water, 33 million people impacted, 8 million displaced, 2 million homes destroyed, 1,700 killed, 12,867 injured, and a year later 1.5 million still displaced.

What would be the aftermath if 2 million US homes were destroyed by flooding?

In a recent webinar, Hansen cautioned: “The 2°C warming limit is dead, unless we take purposeful actions to alter the earth’s energy imbalance.” It’s a strong statement that few, if any, climate scientists have the guts to make.

However, breathing the word “geoengineering” raises the hackles of many climate scientists. Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University calls Hansen’s arguments for the necessity of solar geoengineering “a misguided policy advocacy.” (Time, Nov. 2) According to Mann, the climate situation is extremely dire. But it can be handled by concerted efforts to decarbonize our economy, without resorting to geoengineering.

Whereas Hansen claims: “Emissions cuts alone will not be enough to ensure a safe climate in future years, according to Hansen and his collaborators. governments will have to impose carbon fees to help rapidly draw down emissions, they argue, adding it will also be necessary to research and deploy techniques to reduce incoming solar radiation, also known as solar geoengineering.” (Time, Nov.2)

Looking ahead, how should society approach a very spooky climate system that blindsides humanity with surprise after surprise, for example, according to The Weather Network: “Atmospheric rivers are becoming so intense that we need to rank them like hurricanes.” That’s a first as atmospheric rivers are a normal feature of the climate system but like all normal features these days, human activity, goosing up global warming, has intensified normal features by a factor of 10-to-100 times. Multiply 10 times anything… it’s a lot, or how about 100 times?

There’s paleoclimate evidence that today’s rate of CO2 emissions at over 2.0 ppm/year with resultant global warming “matching the results” of 1,000 years at 0.02 ppm/year occurring millions of years ago when only nature was involved. 2.0 ppm is 100 times faster than 0.02 ppm. That’s 100 times faster than nature, which is the crux of the global warming problem.

Nowadays, massive atmospheric rivers are competing with melting glaciers with flooding that can spur serious damage that major insurance companies never anticipated, as rates go up and up with some insurance coverage dropped in select states. And it’ll get worse unless and until human activity works to mitigate the interrelationship between fossil fuel emissions and global warming. James Hansen is saying we must enhance the planet’s albedo to reflect solar radiation back to outer space. There are ways to do this, maybe successful, maybe not.

According to Hansen, Earth’s energy imbalance is completely out of whack with more energy than ever before coming into the planet as absorbed sunlight rather than going out as heat radiated to outer space. This imbalance has doubled within only one decade, according to a study by NASA and the US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration doubling over only 14 years is downright alarming: “A positive energy imbalance – which is what we have – means the earth system is gaining energy, causing the planet to heat up.” This is no small problem; it’s big; it’s new; it threatens life-supporting ecosystems.

Going forward, a very big question is whether a world consensus will be reached about whether, or not, geoengineering will be officially endorsed. Meanwhile, several tenuous ecosystems, e.g., Greenland’s northern-most glaciers recently discovered as “surprisingly tipsy,” implies an outlook of hesitatingly “keeping one’s fingers crossed.” According to climate scientists, there are multitudes of ecosystems bordering on dangerous tipping points.

Yet, fortunately for all concerned, at least the planet is good at snapping back from adversity, surviving five extinction events, but what of human civilization in the face of similar adversity? According to Toynbee, the track record is lousy.
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This article was originally published on January 19, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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The State of Capitalism’s Climate System

Photo by fikry anshor on Unsplash
Photo by fikry anshor on Unsplash

The State of Capitalism’s Climate System

By Robert Hunziker

Three years ago, 15,000 scientists declared a climate emergency by signing onto a State of the Climate Report. That signing led to annual updates, for example, the most recent version: The 2023 State of the Climate Report: Entering Uncharted Territory, Bioscience, vol. 73, issue 12, December 2023, Oxford Academic (aka: “The Report”).

The initial paragraph of The Report suggests a planetary juggernaut of cascading ecosystems altering life systems: “Life on planet Earth is under siege. We are now in uncharted territory… a situation no one has ever witnessed firsthand in the history of humanity.” Therefore, it’s fair to say nobody really knows how this uncharted territory will play out.

The Report is a compendium of all-time climate record events depicting big-time trouble, going in the wrong direction versus maintaining a healthy planet. In and of itself, the analysis in The Report, researched and authored by top notch scientists, should be enough for world policymakers to insist upon going back to COP28 in Dubai/2023, redoing the two-week UN climate conference and adopting effective solutions to replace the mealy-mouthed inadequate proposals adopted at COP28. The world deserves better.

Thirty years of UN climate conferences failing to move the needle to help Earth’s ecosystems thrive and survive, and not collapse, has unintentionally cast a dark shadow over scientists’ climate warnings within the context of a commanding capitalistic socio-economic system based upon infinite growth at center stage, humming along like “no worries” economic growth always bails us out, but what’s left behind?

The Report makes the case that under the surface, and not clearly visible to society, a monstrosity of ecosystem turmoil threatens the entire foundation of capitalistic growth. The Report’s warnings are real, not fictional, not misleading but real warnings of a premature collapsing Earth system that’s the foundation for everything. This challenging situation has progressively gotten worse by the year, but it’s now starting to burst at the seams. The year 2023 exposed an off the charts dangerous climate system broadcasts on nightly news programs reporting massive wildfires, massive flooding, massive droughts, massive atmospheric rivers, massive everything, never witnessed previously. Scientists believe it’ll get worse.

According to the scientists: “We are afraid of the uncharted territory that we have now entered. Conditions are going to get very distressing and potentially unmanageable for large regions of the world… We warn of potential collapse of natural and socioeconomic systems… Massive suffering due to climate change is already here, and we have now exceeded many safe and just Earth system boundaries, imperiling stability and life-support systems.”

The Report states that 20 of 35 vital planetary signs are now at record extremes. This means that nearly 60% of the planet is huffing and puffing to stay on track of life-sourcing support. For example, the chart of Ocean Heat Content shows a nearly vertical upward thrust. This is viewed by scientists as especially troubling because of the knockoff impacts, including loss of sea life, coral reef bleaching, and intensified tropical storms. Hidden from view, the world’s oceans are under severe stress, not to mention extremely abusive overfishing, especially China’s inordinately large distant water fishing fleet of thousands of trawlers (“world’s worst abuser of sea laws” – IUU Fishing Index, US Coast Guard).

With 60% of the planet limping and few, if any, serious signs of governmental policy helping the 20 vital signs in various stages of deterioration, The Report addresses the root cause of trouble by identifying cause and effect, i.e., the ecological footprint of economic activity overwhelms any chances to heal the planet. In short, infinite economic growth and a steady state planet are like oil and water that do not mix.

According to the scientists, “economic growth, as it is conventionally pursued, is unlikely to allow us to achieve our social, climate, and biodiversity goals. The fundamental challenge lies in the difficulty of decoupling economic growth from harmful environmental impacts.”

More to the point, egregious, superfluous, redundant, unneeded wealth creation is at the heart of the problem. As it happens, sixty percent (60%) of planetary ecosystems hobbling along on crutches is the result of 10% of the world population enjoying a great ride at the top of a great economic bubble expanding year by year, as this minority of people lead the best possible lifestyle in classic double or triple or quadruple, or maybe even as much as 100 to 1,000 times overshoot. The 10% global footprint tramples the lowly 90%.

In a faux complexity of hopefulness, many GDP models assume that growth can be decoupled from emissions and from consumption-oriented environmental impacts and all will be hunky-dory, e.g., carbon capture will bail us out of the global warming imbroglio. However, The Report makes special mention of such assumptions as not realistic: “Negative emissions technologies are in an early stage of development, posing uncertainties regarding their effectiveness, scalability, and environmental and societal impacts. As such, we should not rely on unproven carbon removal techniques.”

In the final analysis, the hard truth is fossil fuel emissions must be halted at the source as soon as possible or future state of the planet reports will show surrealistic evidence of a sickly planet. At some point in time this image of a sickly planet will become unbearable, and the masses will turn extremely restless, similar to unwelcomed disruptions, as well as threats of disruptions, already becoming evident throughout the globe. Under the circumstances, this type of behavior is not at all surprising. After all, it’s only too obvious that nearly two-thirds of the planet’s vital signs are flashing code red, not code yellow. It’s too late for caution when immediate action is required.

According to the scientific evidence, the underlying message is clear: Do something different. The current trajectory is not working. What could policymakers of the world do differently to put the planet back to a steady state so that it doesn’t flame out near term? Climate change, like a wild roller coaster ride, is full of surprising turns and sudden rapid descent.

The Report contains ideas to hopefully shake off what looks like an inevitability of more and more failing ecosystems: “The fundamental challenge lies in the difficulty of decoupling economic growth from harmful environmental impacts. Although technological advancements and efficiency improvements can contribute to some degree of decoupling, they often fall short in mitigating the overall ecological footprint of economic activities. The impacts vary greatly by wealth; in 2019, the top 10% of emitters were responsible for 48% of global emissions, whereas the bottom 50% were responsible for just 12%. We therefore need to change our economy to a system that supports meeting basic needs for all people instead of excessive consumption by the wealthy.”

Frankly, that sounds like some version of socialism, but in America socialism is equated to Mephistopheles. But what if that’s not really true? What if socialism benefits everybody, except for the one percent?

Broadly speaking, The Report recommends: “Efforts must be directed toward eliminating emissions from fossil fuels and land-use change and increasing carbon sequestration with nature-based climate solutions.” All of which is doable., but honestly, that’s an often-repeated prescription that never seems to stick, never gains traction. If otherwise, if it gained traction, over time The State of the Climate Reports would fade into the sunset without anything to write about.

Nevertheless, the ecological overshoot of human demands on natural resources, or overexploitation, is seemingly an insurmountable issue that points a finger at endless growth and its sidekick overconsumption by rich countries and wealthy individuals. And since socialism is out of the running to fix ecological overshoot, one way forward is a circular economy. Instead of a throw-away economic system, learn to recirculate across the board, like British economist Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics designed to avoid ecological overshoot.

In the final analysis, The Report is more relevant now than ever before simply because nearly 2/3rds of the planet’s vital signs are screaming for help, but none is forthcoming. Therefore, and unfortunately, The Report is destined to grow and grow as ecosystems fail one by one, until one day Eureka! The State of the Climate Report will become sought after and studied and discussed by policymakers standing knee-deep in water.

Realistically, the issues described within this article about the state of the climate system do not get as much attention as warranted by policymakers or by the public. Assuming this article is read, the gist of it, alas, may be tossed aside as easily and quickly as our disposable-oriented society tosses aside paper wrappers, plastic containers, and pretty much everything, including nuclear waste, but where to?

Meanwhile, of special interest, the co-founder of Extinction Rebellion (XR) Roger Hallam has decided to accept the inevitability of collapsing ecosystems. He is turning his focus away from climate demonstrations and disruptions of society, gluing people to buildings, roadways, and airplanes to the discovery of a new type of civilization. He’ll be conducting a worldwide zoom session January 14th at 8:00 AM Pacific Coast time. It’ll be a rare opportunity to learn about and/or join a new world order that’s not sinister. To register for the zoom meeting: Here’s the link.
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This article was originally published on January 12, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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