For decades, climate scientists have been sounding the alarm that unless the nations of the world stop emitting greenhouse gases global warming will bring dangerous consequences. Rather, greenhouse gases, like CO2, have escalated to new highs year-over-year without hesitation.
Now, new climate studies are exposing the results of decades of a couldn’t-care-lessworld interwoven within a deadly entrapment of free-market dictates of “not to worry, the market will handle it.” It hasn’t!
Ergo, the price for decades of jaded indifference is starting to run very high and maybe irreversible with a sea level calamity poised to spring loose, catching the world unprepared.
Two major new studies paint a sobering picture of unexpected sea levels well beyond anybody’s expectations. Indeed, the world is not braced for this:
According to an article in The Guardian d/d April 10, 2023: “What experts are calling a dramatic surge in ocean levels has taken place along the US south-eastern and Gulf of Mexico coastline since 201o. (referenced study: Jianjun Yin, Decadal Acceleration of Sea Level Rise Along the U.S. East and Gulf of Mexico During 2010-2022… Journal of Climate, March 2, 2023)
Another new study: Christine L. Batchelor, et al, Rapid, Buoyancy-Driven Ice-Sheet Retreat of Hundreds of Metres Per Day, Nature, April 5, 2023 demonstrates nightmarish rapid sea level rise based upon events in the past when ice sheets retreated in pulses of almost 2,000 feet per day during the end of the last ice age. Conditions today may be similar.
As reported by Inside Climate News, the Batchelor study has alarmed climate scientists, especially glaciologists at the top of the field like Eric Rignot (more to follow) and according to Frazer Christie, polar scientist at Scott Polar Research Center/University of Cambridge: The study showed ice sheet retreat rates up to 20 times faster than previously measured anywhere else: “It’s probably likely, in my opinion, that this rapid buoyancy driven course of retreat, could be all that’s needed to set in motion a chain of events that spirals into a more runaway style of retreat.” (Source: Global Warming Could Drive Pulses of Ice Sheet Retreat Reaching 2,000 Feet Per Day, Inside Climate News, April 5, 2023)
The Batchelor study claims that “pulses of sea level rise could also be much greater than the long-term average rates currently projected by climate models… during past geological intervals of rapid warming, there’s evidence of sea level increasing at a rate of up to 20 inches per decade during episodes of rapid sea level ice sheet disintegration,” Ibid.
According to Eric Rignot, glaciologist at the University of California, Irvine and Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory: “This is an important study revealing that we have not seen anything yet in terms of how fast an ice sheet can retreat dynamically, not just melting away, but falling apart… This is not a model. This is real data. And it is frankly scary, even to me. These data should keep us awake at night,” Ibid.
Christine Batchelor, geophysicist, and a marine geology researcher at University of Newcastle said that prior studies along the Antarctic Peninsula showed a similar pattern of seafloor ridges near Larsen Ice Shelf suggesting an ice sheet retreat of up to 150 feet per day for 90 days or 6 miles of retreat per year.
The infamous Thwaites (Doomsday) Glacier in West Antarctica has an ocean-bottom that matches the Batchelor study earmarked as a “danger zone” “which has a relatively flat area just a few kilometers inland of where it is currently… so it would be a good candidate of where you might see a pulse of rapid retreat in the future,” Ibid.
According to the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration: Thwaites is losing ice faster than at any time in the past 5,000 years. And based upon an article in Scientific American d/d November 1, 2022: “Two expeditions to the Thwaites Ice Shelf have revealed that it could splinter apart in less than a decade, hastening sea-level rise worldwide.”
The Batchelor study showed the fastest rate of ice sheet retreat on record, but accordingly, depending upon “the level of warming” even faster rates are possible. This may be what is happening today. According to US climate.gov: Today’s global warming is much faster than warm periods between ice ages over the last million years.
Rignot claims: “During the time period when these events were recorded, sea level was rising 4 meters (13 feet) per century… That is 10 times what we have today. Are you scared yet? Well, you should be,” Ibid.
Meanwhile, the Jianjun Yin, University of Arizona study published in Journal of Climate: “Provides an alarming new assessment of a key ingredient of the escalating climate emergency, particularly in popular but vulnerable areas of the US where millions of people live.” (Source: Miami and New Orleans Face Greater Sea-Level Threat Than Already Feared, The Guardian, April 10, 2023)
Scientists have detected “a dramatic surge in ocean levels” along the US south-eastern and Gulf of Mexico coastlines since 2010, an increase of 5in. This is more than double the global average. The entire region is feeling the impact of sea-level acceleration. Climate scientists claim the surge is unprecedented and amplified by internal climate variabilities. Already, stories of cascading shoreline homes as well as physical movement of houses more inland occur regularly at the Outer Banks, North Carolina.
These are some of the first known studies to identify an actual surge in sea levels over the past decade as well as paleoclimate evidence of rapid pulses of ice sheet retreat and likely disintegration that are well beyond projections of sea levels by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC.
A certain level of wistfulness follows in the footsteps of these studies that depict a worsening, as well as absolutely frightening, global warming scenario that’s hastening the collapse of ice sheets that clearly and impactfully threaten modern-day civilization. But based upon blasé reactions by the world at large, it’s treated lightly, almost like it’s not reality. If it were otherwise, accepting a very harsh reality, major nations of the world would be pulling out all the stops to do whatever is necessary. Alas, this is not happening, not even close.
Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.
NASA: “Without ozone, the Sun’s intense UV radiation would sterilize the Earth’s surface.”
It was 36 years ago in panic mode when the world came together like never before unanimously agreeing to ratify The Montreal Protocol, banning CFCs. This was done to protect ozone (O3), which is a widely-dispersed layer of molecules at 10-30 miles in the stratosphere that shields humanity from dangerously harsh UV Sun radiation.
Appallingly, a similar issue is happening once again, as chlorine atoms have been turned loose to feast on precious life-saving ozone molecules. According to a recent study published in Nature Geoscience, from 2010-2020 five principal chlorofluorocarbons -CFCs- reached record-high levels in 2020 in the stratosphere. Scientists believe the increase is likely due to leakage from production of chemicals meant to replace CFCs, but unanswered questions remain outstanding.
“This shouldn’t be happening,’ says Martin Vollmer, an atmospheric chemist at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology in Dübendorf who helped to analyze data from an international network of CFC monitors. “We expect the opposite trend, we expect them to slowly go down.” (Source: ‘This Shouldn’t be Happening’: Levels of Banned CFCs Rising, Nature, April 3, 2023)
So far, the good news is that current levels of CFCs do not yet appear to be threatening the ongoing healing process of the ozone layer. Yet, this finding serves to emphasize the importance of detection and broadcasting the facts, as it must be isolated and stopped as soon as possible. Also, it should be noted that there is a 3–5-year lag time before the presence of CFCs interact with ozone molecules. Thus, the hard-core evidence is not yet completely available.
“It’s highly likely that manufacturing plants are accidently releasing three of the chemicals — CFC-113a, CFC-114a and CFC-115 — while producing replacements for CFCs. When CFCs were phased out, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) were brought in as substitutes. But CFCs can crop up as unintended by-products during HFC manufacture… The rise in the levels of the two other CFCs is a mystery: “CFC-13 and CFC-112a should not currently be used or produced,” Ibid.
Detection of CFCs in the atmosphere is a challenging issue because few CFC monitoring stations are found over the continents of Africa and South America where chemical production is not even close to being adequately monitored. Meanwhile. chemical companies continue to develop various types of CFC substitutes. Scientists are now suggesting: “The world might need to think differently about HFCs and perhaps even the next generation of refrigerant chemicals known as hydrofluoroolefins, HFOs, which can also emit CFCs,” Ibid. Or it may be necessary to amend the Montreal Protocol to address the issue.
The current problem: A Global Monitory Laboratory study analyzed five CFCs that have no real current uses, starting at the point of total global phase-out in 2010. By 2020, “all five gases were at their highest abundance since direct measurements began.” (Source: Ozone-depleting CFCs Hit Record Despite Ban: Study, PHYS.ORG, Earth Sciences, April 3, 2023) In common-speak terminology, CFCs are chemicals that gobble up ozone molecules in the atmosphere like a Packman game gone berserk sans a controller.
According to Science News, by 2012, 25 years following The Montreal Protocol, the ozone hole was at its smallest in decades. Hooray, humanity saved itself from itself and the likelihood of worldwide outbreaks of deadly skin cancer as well as insurmountable survival issues, e.g., toasted-to-a-crisp low-yielding food crops throughout the planet. As it happens, the endgame from loss of the ozone layer is rapid acceleration of the dreaded extinction event.
Emitting chlorofluorocarbons -CFCs- into the atmosphere is an insidiously dangerous proposition simply because one (only one) chlorine atom can destroy up to 100,000 atmospheric ozone molecules (Source: Basic Ozone Layer Science, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency).
Moreover, CFCs not only gobble up the ozone layer, but according to Global Carbon Project, they are also a greenhouse gas that traps heat up to 10,000 times more than CO2.
A major concern is the current “rapid upward trend” of CFCs, which will likely negatively impact both the ozone layer as well as enhance global warming at a time when the most prominent greenhouse gases, meaning carbon dioxide (CO2) methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) are already at their highest levels in human history whilst global warming continually sets new record highs. It’s a dangerous cocktail that could blindside all of humanity.
Meanwhile it’s worth taking note of the year 2022 for a peek at the first time in human history that’s best described as, “we’ve never been here before.” Global warming’s impact has always been most prominently found at the fringes of civilization, e.g., Siberian permafrost, the Arctic, Antarctica, Tibetan Plateau, the Great Barrier Reef. But, who lives there?
The year 2022 changed everything. A new era of global warming officially started. Global warming came into every living room and onto every TV set on every continent. Paradise, California a town of 27,000 burned to the ground like smoldering matchsticks as the state suffered 7,667 wildfires; UK temperatures exceeded 40C for the first time ever while less than 5% of homes have air-conditioning (never needed it); China’s longest strongest heatwave on record at 260 locations for 70 days with power supply outages and water cutbacks at some key major cities like Guangzhou (15M) and Shenzhen (13M); Japan’s hottest heatwave in over 150 years of record-keeping; India (15,000 heat deaths) unprecedented pounding heatwaves; Western Australia hottest 50.7C (123F) ever; floods ravaged Pakistan (1,739 dead), parts of China (9,000 homes washed away), Germany; severe drought nearly caused complete unnavigable status for the world’s most famous iconic commercial rivers, Rhine, Danube, Po, Yangtze, Mississippi; drinking water delivered by truck to over 100 towns and communities in France and Italy; America’s largest reservoirs within several feet of dead pool status; Santiago (5.6M) rationing water. All of which is only a sampling of the year 2022.
None of the record-setting fires, heat, floods, and droughts of 2022 were normal. Nothing was normal; it was all unprecedented. This has never happened before. If 2022 was a trailer or preview, one can only hope that the full-length feature is never released. It was the year of “we’ve never been here before.”
Additionally, CFCs once again threaten the ozone layer, but that’s indeterminate for now. The ozone layer is the planet’s major line of defense from burning alive. Meanwhile, the ozone molecule’s biggest enemy, or CFCs, have unrelenting power at 10,000 times CO2’s impact on global warming’s binge, rampage, turmoil, which started in earnest in 2022.
What’s the world going to do?
Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.
A new report by the EPA’s internal watchdog has exposed Trump administration appointees that meddled in the agency’s science to weaken “the toxicity assessment of PFASs.” If not for the Biden administration, which discovered this egregious complicity by political appointees and the chemical industry to weaken standards of toxicity, Americans would be unnecessarily exposed to dangerous chemicals beyond the abhorrent levels of exposure already extant.
Shortly after taking the oath of office, Trump grabbed a baseball bat and waddled over to EPA, eviscerating the agency created under President Richard Nixon’s administration in 1970 to protect the country from too much toxicity and carefree abuse/dumping anything and everything into the environment, e.g., Lake Erie considered a “dead lake” in the 1960s.
Trump chased many EPA senior scientists out, some fled to France. “The nation’s top environmental agency is still reeling from the exodus of more than 1,200 scientists and policy experts during the Trump administration.” (Depleted Under Trump, a ‘Traumatized’ E.P.A. Struggles With its Mission, The New York Times, Jan. 23, 2023)
As research continues to expose the dangers of PFASs, it’s become the new symbol of toxicity in America. A recent study by Environmental Working Group scientists uncovered disturbing levels of PFASs in America’s freshwater fish found throughout the country from coast-to-coast. Every citizen of America is already subject to exposure to this dangerous chemical that Trump wanted to let loose beyond established principles of science on the public.
According to numerous studies, PFASs accumulate in human tissue, showing up years later potentially as testicular, kidney, or pancreatic cancer, weakened immune systems, decreased fertility, endocrine disruption, elevated cholesterol, increased risk of asthma, thyroid disease, and puzzling weight gain. PFAS chemicals have contaminated drinking water for nearly one-half of America’s population. American cases of chronic illnesses at nearly 50% of the general population support that fact.
According to the EPA: “PFAS are a group of manufactured chemicals that have been used in industry and consumer products since the 1940s because of their useful properties. There are thousands of different PFAS, some of which have been more widely used and studied than others… PFAS can be present in our water, soil, air, and food as well as in materials found in our homes or workplaces.”
While the Trump administration feverishly worked to weaken the foundation of EPA rules and regulations, the EU was considering a much stronger stance on PFASs. According to the Health and Environment Alliance/Europe: “PFAS pollution is out of control and exposure to several forever chemicals have been linked to an array of adverse health impacts, from liver damage to reduced response to routine vaccination by children and certain cancers. PFASs have contaminated the entire planet and are found in the bodies of most people around the globe.”
Meanwhile, according to an expose in The Guardian d/d March 23, 2023, regarding the Trump administration: “Scientists say the episode is part of larger rot at the agency.” EPA scientists claim that several employees “willingly worked with the Trump appointees to weaken the assessment.” Ibid. EPA insiders claim career staff worked hand-in-glove with industry to weaken EPA standards.
“The controversy centered around a 2021 toxicity report for PFBS, a type of PFAS compound that is toxic at low levels. Research has linked the chemical to kidney disease, reproductive problems and thyroid damage, and it has been found throughout the environment,” Ibid.
“In its recent report, the EPA’s office of inspector general described ‘unprecedented’ interference by former Trump-appointed EPA chief Andrew Wheeler and other political appointees, who ordered the alteration of the PFBS toxicity value just as the assessment was about to be published in late 2020,” Ibid.
Trump changes would have resulted in less costly but insufficient cleanup by industry allowing “higher levels of the chemicals in the environment.” Scientists say it would have put human health at risks that could otherwise be prevented.
It’s nearly impossible to overstate how significant it is to the health and welfare of the country that Biden defeated Trump for the presidency. In February 2021, the Biden administration pulled the Trump-based EPA assessment, declaring it was “compromised by political interference as well as infringement of authorship” and republished the assessment using what it said is “sound science” and declared the issue resolved.
The election of Trump opened a doorway to a mecca of interference by industry in cahoots with politically appointed Trump EPA administrators to water-down long-established regulations by the EPA that were specifically constructed to safeguard Americans. Now, Trump wants to be president once again.
Can the environment vote?
Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.
A new 40-year study discovered the eye-opening fact that what happens in the Amazon Rainforest impacts the entire Earth system. This puts an exclamation point on the fact that the Amazon Rainforest, the planet’s most crucial source of life support, is in deep trouble mainly because of massive deforestation.
The Amazon River Basin is the world’s largest rainforest, larger than the next two largest rainforests combined, the Congo Basin and Indonesia, and roughly the size of the forty-eight contiguous United States covering 40% of South America including parts of Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana Suriname and French Guiana.
According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF): “The Amazon is of vital importance because people around the world, as well as locally, depend on the rainforest. Not just for food, water, wood and medicines, but to help stabilize the climate—around 76 billion tonnes of carbon is stored in the Amazon rainforest., The trees in the Amazon also release 20 billion tonnes of water into the atmosphere per day, playing a critical role in global and regional carbon and water cycles.”
The 40-year study links Amazonian deforestation to reduced Tibetan snows and Antarctic ice loss. Both carry serious consequences, respectively, loss of nature’s water towers for millions of people as sea levels rise everywhere.
The study analyzed 40 years of air temperatures, concluding that the climate of the planet is a function of several disparate forces that interact such that a new planetary state hostile to life may be underway. The study analyzed hourly near-surface temperatures accumulated by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast across a global grid of 65,000 locations for a 40-year cycle.
Specifically, the study demonstrated how air temperature changes in one region rippled through the climate system to affect temperatures in other parts of the globe. For example: “Deforestation in the Amazon likely influences the Tibetan Plateau via a convoluted 20,000-kilometer (12,400-mile) pathway driven by atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns. The study suggests that a healthy, functioning Amazon is crucial not only for the regional climate in Brazil, but for the whole Earth system.” (Source: Claire Asher, Amazon Deforestation Linked to Reduced Tibetan Snows, Antarctic Ice Loss: Study, Mongabay Series, March 8, 2023).
They’ve identified potential tipping points of the major planetary ecosystems that could trigger one after another, thereby changing life in multitudes of undesirable ways. The catalyst appears to be the Amazon Rainforest.
According to Jingfang Fan, Earth System Scientist at Beijing Normal University and the Potsdam Institute, several tipping elements of the planet could trigger one after another in a massive cascade of uncontrollable events, i.e., the Amazon Rainforest biome, the East and West Antarctic ice sheets, Arctic permafrost, and the Great Barrier Reef.
According to Teng Lui, Ph.D., at Beijing Normal University: “This is the first time that the (mathematical) theory of complex networks has been applied in the context of (far distant) tipping points… We found that the Amazon Rainforest exhibits significant teleconnection with other tipping elements,” Ibid.
The study identified “strong correlation” between temperature anomalies in the Amazon and the Tibetan Plateau, roughly 15,000 kilometers (9,300 miles) apart. The data affirmed anomalously warm temperatures in Amazon and Tibet coincided over the past 40 years. Moreover, the study identified the same relationship with the Amazon and Antarctica. (Source TC Liu, et al, Teleconnections Among Tipping Elements in the Earth System, Nature Climate Change, 2023)
“Teleconnections describe remote connections between components of the complex climate system and reflect the transportation of energy or materials on global scale. The great-circle distances of teleconnections are typically thousands of kilometres,” Ibid.
Indeed, the study supports prior studies suggesting that a healthy, or conversely unhealthy, ecosystem in the Amazon is not only impactful for the region but equally for the entire Earth system.
Of major concern, according to the World Wildlife Fund, as of 2022, thirty-five percent (35%) of the Amazon Rainforest is either totally lost or highly degraded. This fact is supportive of calling for a worldwide cooperative effort to take whatever remedial steps necessary, including a halt to human deforestation.
Another study: Amazon Against the Clock: A Regional Assessment on Where and How to Protect 80% by 2025 published by the Amazon Network of Georeferenced Socio-Environmental Information, more all-inclusive than the WWF study, claims 26% of the entire Amazonian territory shows evidence of deforestation and degradation of which 20% is categorized as irreversible and 6% highly degraded. According to the study: “Of the nine countries that make up the Amazon basin, Brazil and Bolivia have the largest amounts of destruction and, as a result, ‘savannization is already taking place in both countries.”
“In the February 2020 edition of Science Advances, Professors Thomas Lovejoy, senior fellow of the United Nations Foundation, and Carlos Nobre, climate scientist from the Institute of Higher Studies of the University of São Paulo, warned that the loss of just 20 to 25 percent of the rainforest could send the Amazon to a point of no return, marking an unstoppable transition to a drier, savanna-like ecosystem.” (Source: The Amazon Approaches Its Tipping Point, The Nature Conservancy, August 20, 2020). Dr. Thomas Lovejoy (1941-2021) and Dr. Carlos Nobre have long been considered the world’s leading experts on the Amazon.
“There are already some solutions being implemented under the principle that nature and people can thrive together. For example, in São Félix do Xingú in the Brazilian state of Pará, TNC supports a project called Cacau Mais Sustentavel. One of its objectives is to assist local farmers in adopting more sustainable practices, such as planting native cocoa trees in previously degraded lands to avoid further deforestation. Such agroforestry systems entail planting crops and native trees side by side to reforest degraded lands,” Ibid.
Meanwhile, in a stark contrast to the forces of nature, the massive rainforest is undergoing massive commercialization: (1) 600 infrastructure projects on rivers (2) twenty new highways planned (3) four hundred operating or new dams in planning stages, and (4) large-scale mining operations. (WWF)
According to Living Amazon Report 2022, World Wildlife Fund publication, November 8, 2022: “The situation has begun to show signs of nearing a point of no return: (1) Seasons are changing (2) Surface water is being lost (3) Rivers are becoming increasingly disconnected and polluted, and (4) Forests are under immense pressure from increasingly devastating waves of deforestation and fire.”
Statista claims: “In 2022, more than 145,000 wildfire outbreaks were reported in the Legal Amazon region in Brazil.” As a rule, fires do not naturally occur in humid, dripping-wet rainforests.
Fire and the human footprint behind it are challenging 30% of the world’s most precious species whilst upsetting the balance of nature across the world by wantonly degrading the biggest domino of the planet.
Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.
A battle over how to protect the planet from overheating is heating up.
Academics are coming out of the woodwork, forming coalitions, issuing declarations. A subdued debate over the merits versus demerits of solar geoengineering (SRM) has been ongoing for years. Now battle lines are forming.
The SRM controversy is coming to a head, in part, because of a small two-person startup company named Make Sunsets launching weather balloons filled with reflective sulfur particles off the coast of Baja, California with the bold idea of testing whether it is realistic to reflect sun radiation back to outer space and thus help prevent overheating of the planet. Interestingly, they expect to profit by selling credits. As such, Make Sunsets has become a bit of a renegade actor serving as an unwelcomed catalyst for academics to come to grips with the issue. But looked at from another angle, it’s a welcomed catalyst for an issue that must be sorted out as soon as possible, regardless of Make Sunsets presence.
After all, the White House has already directed a study of SRM (solar radiation management). On October 13, 2022 the White House announced funding of a five-year research plan: “One of the most controversial plans to fight climate change, utilizing technology to artificially modify the planet’s climate” or in plain English geo-engineering by spraying fine aerosols into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight away.
The White House Request for Input to a Five-Year Plan for Research on Climate Intervention itemized, as follows: “The report shall include: (1) the definition of goals in relevant areas of scientific research; (2) capabilities required to model, analyze, observe, and monitor atmospheric composition; (3) climate impacts and the Earth’s radiation budget; and (4) the coordination of Federal research and investments to deliver this assessment to manage near-term climate risk and research in climate intervention.”
Obviously, Make Sunsets has jumped the gun and rattled several significant cages, especially in the face of unanswered questions about the risks of artificially tinkering with the climate system. But, then again, is geo-engineering a by-product of fossil fuel CO2 emissions, even if not by design? If yes, it implies that fossil fuel CO2 ‘unintentional geo-engineering’ should be viewed as the direct opposite of SRM. CO2 traps heat. SRM reflects heat. This would mean that fossil fuel-generated CO2 emissions demonstrate what geo-engineering can accomplish, which is an enormous planetary headache, if misdirected.
In 2021, in Sweden, Harvard University’s outdoor Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment was halted on the spot by opposition forces. Their experiment was only aiming to test the behavior of stratospheric aerosols. Harvard’s failed attempt is a prime example of SRM’s steep uphill battle to establish credibility.
Within the past several months an opposition group to all SRM experimentation issued a declaration supported by several hundred well-known, high-level academics, social scientists, and natural scientists: We Call for an International Non-Use Agreement on Solar Geoengineering.
According to their (Non-Users) proclamation: “There are growing calls in recent years for research on ‘solar geoengineering’, a set of entirely speculative technologies to reduce incoming sunlight on earth in order to limit global warming. Our initiative stands against such emerging initiatives to explore planetary techno-fixes as a climate policy option. Solar geoengineering deployment at planetary scale cannot be fairly and effectively governed in the current system of international institutions. It also poses unacceptable risk if ever implemented as part of future climate policy. A strong political message from governments, the United Nations and civil society is urgently needed.”
The Non-Users claim SRM risks are poorly understood and can never be fully known. It could disrupt basic weather patterns to the detriment of agriculture. Also, it works against commitments for mitigation of CO2 emissions, as ultra-pro-fossil fuel interests deflect critics: “No sweat, SRM can handle it.” But, so sorry fossil fuel hopefuls, that’s not true, not even close. Furthermore, there is no dependable global governance system in place to regulate SRM deployment. In point of fact, Make Sunsets renegade behaviour proves total lack of governance.
Non-Users demand a closed-end agreement: “In sum, an International Non-Use Agreement on Solar Geoengineering would be timely, feasible, and effective. It would inhibit further normalization and development of a risky and poorly understood set of technologies that seek to intentionally manage incoming sunlight at planetary scale. And it would do so without restricting legitimate climate research. Decarbonization of our economies is feasible if the right steps are taken. Solar geoengineering is not necessary. Neither is it desirable, ethical, or politically governable in the current context.”
Meanwhile, the maybe-go-for-it side is pushing to explore the possibilities of SRM, involving an equally prestigious high-level group led by one of the world’s leading climate scientist, James Hansen of Columbia University’s Earth Institute and former director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. According to Hansen: “We have no right to ban the right to search for a solution for the mess we created… The fact that major international climate assessments are ‘always a few decades behind’ when it comes to estimating just how hot it will get makes more research even more urgent.” (Source: 60 Scientists Call for Accelerated Research Into ‘Solar Radiation Management’ That Could Temporarily Mask Global Warming, Inside Climate news, February 27, 2023)
According to this pro-SRM group: “Even with aggressive action to reduce GHG emissions it is increasingly unlikely that climate warming will remain below 1.5-2°C in the near term. This is because reversing current warming trends will require a significant reduction in the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, which significantly lag behind reductions in emissions due to their long atmospheric lifetime. Notably, even 1.5-2°C of warming brings with it significant risks to human, ecological, and global economic systems and may be sufficient to cross the threshold of earth system ‘tipping points.”
The pro-group cautiously concludes: “While we fully support research into SRM approaches, this does not mean we support the use of SRM. Uncertainties in how SRM implementation would play out in the climate system are presently too large to support implementation.”
Therefore, the outlook for SRM as an effective weapon to ameliorate global warming is cloudy at best and could be a decade, or more, in the making. According to the Hansen group: “Since decisions on whether or not to implement SRM are likely to be considered in the next one to two decades, a robust international scientific assessment of SRM approaches is needed as rapidly as possible. Notably, much of the fundamental research needed to assess SRM interventions would also address existing knowledge gaps about our atmosphere and climate, such as how particulate pollution is already affecting clouds and how much this effect has been countering the warming from GHG increases – which continues to be the largest source of uncertainty in how humans are presently affecting climate.”
Indeed, there are influential climate scientists on both sides of the SRM debate. According to University of Oxford climate physicist Raymond Pierrehumbert, SRM should never be considered until after reaching net zero carbon emissions: “But we’re not even on a downward trajectory for emissions yet… In a world where you’re continuing to pump out CO2 and then using solar radiation management is a clear death spiral… the idea that there could be effective governance for solar radiation management is just ludicrous… especially with the tech sector driving the push for solar radiation management experiments,” Ibid.
What is known about SRM is that it (1) would not by itself slow the buildup of greenhouse gases and (2) would not stop ocean acidification, two crucial negatives that must be dealt with in an orderly manner. It would, however, temporarily mask the warming but once SRM activity stops, there will likely be a significant warming rebound, thereby exacerbating global warming. In other words, like manufacturing a product on a conveyor belt, it must be continually fed material, or once aerosols halt, it will bring on rapid heating. Then, what?
There are no easy answers.
How about mirrors? See: MEER– “Cooling the planet with surface reflectors.”
Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.
Climate Code Red, a very thorough and well-respected source on climate change/global warming, recently issued a three-part study on where things stand with the climate system via looking through the rearview mirror at 2022 and reflecting that charred image into the future: Faster, Higher, Hotter: What We Learned About the Climate System in 2022 by David Spratt, Research Director, Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration, Feb. 20, 2023.
For starters, several aspects of global warming are at all-time highs, for example, coal use is at an all-time high and not surprisingly all three of the major greenhouse gases CO2, CH4, and N2O hit record highs in 2022. According to the Global Carbon Project: Carbon emissions from fossil fuels hit a new record of 37.5B tons. Topping off these all-time records, the International Energy Agency expects fossil fuel emissions to possibly peak in 2025 but remain at a “high plateau at a high level” for a decade or more with no significant decline expected in the foreseeable future. Good luck with Net Zero.
Therefore, it comes as no surprise, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessments: “There is no longer a credible path to holding warming below 1.5°C without massive immediate cooling interventions, which are not on any policymaking agendas.” Moreover, the experts quoted in the Code Red study believe anything less than 1.5°C is already out of reach.
Not only is the 1.5°C target unachievable, but it’s unachievable regardless of almost any foreseeable mitigation efforts. This fact is also emphasized by the UK publication The Economist, which discussed the lag effect of greenhouse gases, to wit: “But greenhouse-gas emissions do not cause an instantaneous rise in global temperatures, and neither does cutting them result in instantaneous cooling. Instead, it will take decades for today’s policy efforts to result in measurable impacts on global temperature.” (Source: Emissions Slashed Today Won’t Slow Warming Until Mid-Century, The Economist, July 11, 2022)
The Economist article dovetails with the opinion of James Hansen, Earth Institute, Columbia University, who is one of the planet’s leading authorities on global warming: “Global warming of at least 2°C is now baked into Earth’s future.”
Code Red goes on to remind people that, according to paleoclimate evidence, the last time CO2 kevels were similar to today’s with temperatures at 1.2°C and up to 3°C sea levels fluctuated by 20-40 meters, or equivalent to 65-130 feet. Of course, this is a frightening number that readers prefer to gloss over, or forget, but so sorry, it’s factual, it happened and could happen again. Although numbers of 65-130 feet won’t occur during the current generation; it’ll take much longer. Nevertheless, we’re not worried about 65 feet. It’s only the first few feet that’ll sufficiently flood the world’s largest coastal cities, like Mumbai and Miami. By the time 65 feet rolls around, who knows what’ll be happening.
Code Red claims that even sharp reductions in emissions will not be enough to avoid 2°C, or higher temperatures because of record-breaking fossil fuel forecasts. According to Will Steffen, executive director, Australian National University Climate Change Institute, it’s a mistake to assume we can even stabilize at 2°C. “Rather, it’s a signpost on a road to a hotter planet.”
Moreover, “When projections in late 2021 showed future warming of around 2.7°C, Potsdam Institute Director Johan Rockström said: ‘I barely even want to talk about 2.7°C… If we go beyond 2°C, it’s very likely that we have caused so many tipping points that you have probably added another degree just through self-reinforcing changes. And that’s without even talking about extreme events.”
Of equal concern: “Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research: “If the [climate system] tipping elements interact and cascades develop, then the heating could become independent [i.e. self-sustaining] at 2°C. Whether that is the case is perhaps the most important question of science right now because it would mean the end of our civilization.”
Those statements are from climate analysts that are widely considered to be at the top of the class and should not be taken lightly. Frankly, it’s a fair statement that world leaders and the public have no idea how far along the global warming threat has progressed, especially since the start of the 21st century. After all, according to the Institute for European Environmental Policy: One-half of all greenhouse gases in the atmosphere since 1750 have been emitted over the past 30 years alone. Early-stage evidence of its impact is easily identified, for example, according to NASA: Antarctica and Greenland combined lost 82B tons of ice mass, on average, per year during the 1990s versus 475B tons per year during the 2010s. That’s an extraordinary statement of fact as it’s the fuel behind sea level rise, and it is expanding in short order.
According to the study, permafrost across the Arctic is beginning to “irreversibly thaw and release carbon dioxide and methane.” Alas, we’re not even at 1.5°C yet. Hmm.
The study discusses the status of the world’s major glaciers. All of them are at various stages pointing towards tipping points that could cascade ice sheets and glaciers much more rapidly than any climate models currently indicate, to wit: “Events at both poles are not properly incorporated into current climate models. The evidence suggests that sea-level rises this century will be greater than currently considered feasible by policymakers. Based upon evidence from climate history the current global average temperature increase is enough for 5–10 metres (16-33 feet) of sea-level rise in the longer term, inundating small island states, agriculturally rich alluvial deltas, and vulnerable coastal cities.”
This article covers the first two parts of Climate Code Red’s three-part series. The third will be covered later.
Sea Level Warnings
Separate from, and coincident with, the Climate Code Red article, according to several recent studies on sea level: “The time available to prepare for increased exposure to flooding may be considerably less than assumed to date,” analysis by Dutch researchers Ronald Vernimmen and Aljosja Hooijer. (Source: Worst Impacts of Sea Level Rise Will Hit Earlier Than Expected, American Geophysical Union, January 24, 2023)
New studies have concluded: (1) ice sheets that threaten to expand oceans “will likely crumble with another 0.5°C increase in global warming” (2) ice sheets “are fragile in ways not previously understood.” (Source: Climate, Ice Sheets & Sea Level: The News is Not Good, Phys.org, February 16, 2023)
The studies found flaws in prior research because of misinterpretation of satellite data and inaccurate resources regarding some underlying countries. As a result of new calculations: “The number of people threatened by sea levels has been underestimated by tens of millions,” Ibid.
A study by Jun-Young Park, Fabian Schloesser, et al, Future Sea-Level Projections with a Coupled Atmosphere-Ocean-Ice-Sheet Model, Nature Communications d/d February 14, 2023, concluded: “Our model has a threshold between 1.5C and 2C of warming – with 1.8C as a best estimate – for acceleration of ice loss and sea level increase.”
The Park-Schloesser study claims that 1.8C brings on runaway disintegration of ice sheets. This is the first known study of this kind to correlate a specific global temperature increase with more rapid acceleration of ice loss. It, therefore, begs the question of how soon 1.8C hits?
As for example, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), if all the pledges made by countries at COP26 in Glasgow, November 2021 were met, global temperatures would “hold to 1.8C.” One-hundred-twenty (120) countries pledged at Glasgow. Net Zero by 2050. But as is always true with pledges, implementation, implementation, implementation is all that counts. However, even if the 120 countries meet Glasgow commitments, according to new research, runaway disintegration of ice sheets still starts at 1.8C.
Which brings forth the report card for COP26, as of October 2022, which is not necessarily encouraging: “Progress made on COP26 commitments since Glasgow is mixed at best. But to be fair, countries and others often save up their exciting announcements for major international moments. Hopefully we are in for some nice surprises when world leaders gather in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt for COP27. The world will be watching carefully to see if countries, companies and cities back up their commitments with real action.” (Source: Where Do We Stand on COP26 Climate Promises? A Progress Report, World Resources Institute, October 13, 2022)
By the following month, November 2022, COP27 deflated all expectations. Experts on climate change give UN-sponsored COP27 an F-grade. “A collective failure,” according to The Lancet, which is the world’s highest impact academic journal.
Therefore, if countries are not enthusiastically involved in commitments to limit/cut emissions, the consequences are found far afield. For example, Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica, the world’s most iconic image of global warming. According to Ted Scambos, Senior Research Scientist ESOC, University of Colorado: “Each visit underscores how fast Thwaites is changing, seeing this huge ice shelf moving towards you at about a mile every year is unsettling. And all by itself, this one glacier is big enough to impact sea level significantly,” Scambos, head of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, funded by the US and UK to a tune of $50M. How many glaciers of the world have funds dedicated to specific research, and what does this imply about the shaky status of Thwaites, which continues to alarm scientists?
Two new studies, with commentary on Thwaites, are found in Nature d/d February 15th, 2023: “Models of how the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and glacier flow respond to climate change are missing some important details. Incorporating these insights should clarify how and why the ice will change in the future.” (Source: Glimpse Beneath Iconic Glacier Reveals How It’s Adding to Sea-Level Rise, Nature, February 15, 2023)
Thwaites is key to future sea level rise because it is massive and increasingly unstable. “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that sea levels will probably rise by between 38 and 77 centimetres, or 1.3 feet-to-2.6 feet, by 2100, but the collapse or melting of some of the ice sheets in Greenland and the Antarctic could theoretically contribute an additional metre (3.3 feet),” Ibid. Which can only be categorized as disastrous for 8 of the top 10 largest cities in the world, which are coastal.
“Thwaites Glacier is a fast-moving block of ice, the size of Florida, in the West Antarctic. Satellite studies have shown that its ‘grounding line’ — where ice attached to bedrock transitions to ice floating in the sea — has shifted 14 kilometres (8.7 miles) inland since the late 1990s, and some parts of it are retreating as fast as 1.2 kilometres (0.75 miles) per year,” Ibid.
What’s moving Thwaites’ ice sheet? Warm ocean water is melting the underside because of climate change, which has shifted wind patterns in the region, bringing warm ocean water to West Antarctica that was not there before. The water temperatures below Thwaites’ ice shelf are about 1.5C above the freezing point.
Researchers achieved the closest look ever at the underside of Thwaites Glacier as well as “the first-ever glimpse at the spot where the ice meets the land,” Ibid.
Prior field research indicated that giant fractures in the “floating ice” of Thwaites “could shatter part of the shelf within five years.” (Source: Giant Cracks Push Imperiled Antarctic Glacier Closer to Collapse, Nature, December 14, 2021) This would open an avenue for a much faster flow of glacial ice on land into the ocean, contributing to sea-level rise. Already Thwaites accounts for 4% of sea-level rise.
“If Thwaites’s eastern ice shelf collapses, ice in this region could flow up to three times faster into the sea, Pettit says. And if the glacier were to collapse completely, it would raise sea levels by 65 centimetres (2 feet),” Erin Pettit, glaciologist at Oregon State University, Ibid.
“Thwaites flows off the Antarctic continent into the Southern Ocean. At 120 kilometres (75 miles) across, it is the world’s widest glacier. Across about two-thirds of that expanse, ice flows relatively quickly into the ocean. The remaining one-third is the eastern ice shelf, where ice had been flowing more slowly. In part, that’s because the ice grinds to a halt when it reaches an underwater mountain about 40 kilometres offshore. The submerged mountain holds back the ice flow like a cork in a bottle. Earlier this year, members of the Thwaites collaboration reported that the glacier is becoming unstuck from that mountain, causing cracking and fracturing across other parts of the ice shelf,” Ibid.
Based upon what scientists observed at Thwaites, it’s amazing that the metaphor “like a cork in a bottle” describes what may be holding back much more rapid breakup of one of the world’s largest, most menacing, glaciers.
Meantime, sea level researchers deal with a target that moves up, never down, with each passing year. What’ll stop it?
Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.
A recent report out of West Antarctica is rattling scientists.
It’s all about heat, big-time heat, encroaching upon the world’s biggest chunk of ice that locks down a couple hundred feet of sea level rise. This kind of news is enough to raise the hackles of smart well-informed people, as excessive CO2 emissions spewing like crazy ever since the turn of the 21st century are now flat-out playing with fire in a very dangerous corner of the planet.
Meanwhile, regarding this very dicey situation, what will the leading nations of the world do? A Marshall Plan operation? Or nothing? Hmm. Based upon a 30-year trail of unmitigated failures by nation/states to meet commitments to cut emissions, probably nothing! But at some point in time it’ll be too late to do anything other than photos for posterity, whatever remains?
According to a highly regarded climate authority Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research: “It’s the sea melting the ice from below, it’s not atmospheric melting from above. And this is really, really worrying … and quite surprising, because up until 10 years ago, we were absolutely convinced that the Greenland ice sheet and the Arctic was the more sensitive of the two poles.” (Source, Bob Berwyn, Antarctica Researchers Report an Extraordinary Marine Heatwave That Could Threaten Antarctica’s ice Shelves, Inside Climate News, Feb. 12, 2023)
Aboard the research ship RV Laurence M. Gould, cruising along Antarctica’s west coast, according to Carlos Moffat, chief scientist, Palmer Long Term Ecological Research Program: “Even as somebody who’s been looking at these changing systems for a few decades, I was taken aback by what I saw, by the degree of warming that I saw… We don’t know how long this is going to last. We don’t fully understand the consequences of this kind of event, but this looks like an extraordinary marine heatwave,” Ibid.
If extraordinary warm conditions continue, it could bring rapid destabilization of the critical underpinnings of the global climate system, impacting ice shelves, glaciers, coastal ecosystems and ocean currents. Already, a similar pattern swept the Arctic, as it approaches a dangersome iceless state. Accordingly, an iceless Arctic is a foreboding event that no climate scientist wants, as it amplifies Greenland’s melt rate, which is already leaning on the ropes.
Honestly, the world’s icebound ecosystems are losing itso much faster than anybody ever expected. It’s very, very, very disconcerting and should motivate world leaders to do something more than simply making slick cameo appearances at UN climate conferences, 110 world leaders showed up for COP 27 in Egypt, November 2022. Yet experts on climate change give UN-sponsored COP27 an F-grade. “A collective failure,” according to The Lancet (est. 1923), which is the world’s highest impact academic journal.
According to Moffat: “These episodes of relatively rapid ocean warming that can persist for months have been occurring all over the place. They haven’t been common in this region.” Ibid.
The RV Laurence M. Gould research vessel covered an area of 600 miles length crisscrossing at the 125-mile-wide continental shelf, documenting the heat. Moffat: “It’s very difficult to warm the ocean, and so when we see these conditions, that really speaks to a very intense forcing.”
Ocean Icy Death Spiral?
The Inside Climate News article poses the question of whether an “ocean icy death spiral” may develop. Significantly, recent studies have shown an erosion of the great continent’s buffer systems that protect it from climate extremes in other parts of the world, such as (1) a protective encircling swift ocean current and (2) defined belt of jet stream winds. Evidently, these crucial buffer systems are clearly weakening. The ramifications are beyond words.
Moreover, a Nature Climate Change study 2022 showed circumpolar deep water at 1,000-to-2,000 feet warmed considerably, allowing warm water to sneak beneath unsuspecting ice sheets. Only recently a study by a team from the University of East Anglia of Thwaites Ice Shelf, one of the biggest, and alas, tipsiest in West Antarctica, showed that one ice shelf sitting next to another ice shelf exports heat to its next-door neighbor. The study found the Pine Island Glacier flowing warm water next door into Thwaites. Thus, a series of ice shelves along the Amundsen Sea impact one another when warmer waters encroach the region. This could become a self-feeding frenzy of one major ice shelf/glacier tumbling another. The Amundsen Sea Embayment and its ice shelves include, Cosgrove, Pine Island, Thwaites, and several others.
All of which prompts the question of this decade: What’s behind this threatening rapid change of the world’s most prominent complex ice ecosystem?
In part, the answer is found in tail pipes of >1.5 billion cars of the world, which, in turn, prompts: Since the start of the 21st century, global warming has been on a breakneck pace:
According to NASA: Antarctica and Greenland combined lost 82 billion tons of ice mass per year in the 1990s compared with 475 billion tons per year in the 2010s, a sixfold increase in only a decade.
According to the Institute for European Environmental Policy: More than one-half (½) of all greenhouse gas emissions since 1750 were emitted over the past 30 years.
A comprehensive study shows the seas are rising three times (3x) faster than they were in the 1990s (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences).
With the aforementioned three points in mind, what’s next? Will it be stepped-up flat-out acceleration on top of current rapid acceleration (how about another 6-fold increase in ice mass loss per year?) and what then for Antarctica and Miami and does anybody really care enough to do something, anything, massively (worldwide) constructive, assuming it’s even possible, or will the Anthropocenerun its course?
Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.
Anybody who closely follows global warming knows that the Arctic has been clobbered 2-3 times beyond the impact on the planet. And knowledgeable sources also know that what happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic. After all, for millennia Arctic ice steadfastly served as the planet’s numero uno biggest reflector of solar radiation by reflecting 80%-90% of sunlight back to outer space.
But what if the ice is gone?
Where does all the heat go?
It’s a problem that threatens life as we know it. Alongside nuclear war, it’s one of the bigger threats to civilization since back in time when humans huddled together around smoldering fires in damp, darkened caves.
Based upon scientific studies, including the fact that the following are already in motion, the impact of an iceless Arctic: (1) Disruption of the jet streams in the troposphere at 20,000-30,000 feet which, in turn, throws off normal weather patterns throughout the Northern Hemisphere, as the steady westerlies don’t know which way is up or down or stalled, causing flash floods, torrential rains, scorching droughts, and brutal cold snaps seldom witnessed before, bringing forth unpredictable conditions with extreme cycles that whiplash society, e.g. last year’s 2022-primer for 2023-24 (2) Amplifies Greenland’s disintegration, which is already showing signs of considerable weakness and frailty as 24 feet of sea level rise remains tenuously trapped in ice. Scientists, such as Dr. Jason Box, Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, have already put Greenland on special alert status (3) Accelerated melting of permafrost across Siberia, Alaska and Canada where thermokarst lakes by the thousands, yes, by the thousands, are popping up almost overnight, spewing methane bubbles, according to Dr. Katey Walter Anthony, Aquatic Ecosystem Ecologist and professor, University of Alaska. Alas, methane is much more powerful at stimulating global warming than CO2.
Unfortunately, an iceless Arctic is totally misunderstood by people in leadership roles. There are many naïve leaders when it comes to the science and the consequential impact of an iceless Arctic, like former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (Looking North: Sharpening America’s Arctic Focus speech, Rovaniemi, Finland, May 2019) celebrating the prospects of an iceless Arctic. Likewise, Vladimir Putin, launching the super-powerful nuclear icebreaker “Rossiya” in May 2022, as well as a floating nuclear power plant. (But the thick ice is mostly gone. And honestly, nuclear in the Arctic… Really?) They visualize dancing sugarplums of new fossil fuel discoveries, easier trade routes, and control over the Far Northern latitudes overshadowing North America and Asia and Europe.
Yet, it’s nearly preordained that an iceless Arctic means an enormously challenging, maybe fatal, set of circumstances for Russia, for America, and for the world. The science is at odds with fossil fuel discovery in the Arctic. Quite the opposite is required in order to save Russia and America from stepping on their own toes. The Arctic needs to be revived, not explored for minerals and oil. Revival may be possible. In fact, a group of scientists have an ongoing effort to do just that.
Titanic Lifeboat Academy recently published an article by Dr. Guy McPherson, professor emeritus University of Arizona, explaining the scholarship/science of an iceless Arctic: On the Rate of Environmental Change, Titanic Lifeboat Academy, January 27, 2023.
The following is a partial synopsis of Dr. Guy McPhersons’ insightful analysis, with additional separate commentary:
For perspective, it’s important to recognize the fact that “Humans have only ever lived in a world topped by ice.” (Source: Mark C. Urban, Life Without Ice, Science, February 14, 2020). According to Dr. Urban, biologist & professor of ecology/evolutionary biology, University of Connecticut: The human species evolved in an icy world that determined “climatic, ecological, and political stability.” That innate stability, taken for granted, is at risk for the first time ever: “By reflecting sunlight, Arctic ice acts as Earth’s air conditioner. Once dark water replaces brilliant ice, Earth could warm substantially, equivalent to the warming triggered by the additional release of a trillion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The ice also determines who gets rain. Loss of Arctic sea ice can make it rain in Spain, dry out Scandinavian hydropower, and set California ablaze.” (Urban)
Dr. Urban believes the Arctic could become ice-free within 30 years and possibly sooner if current trends continue. His statement that ice-free warming could produce a trillion tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent is mouth-dropping; that’s equivalent to 25 years of current emissions, something that nobody has ever experienced nor can possibly imagine. There’s nothing positive about this, absolutely nothing. In fact, a trillion tons of CO2 is so enormous that it leaves the mind spinning forever, no possible exit.
As further stated by Dr. McPherson, there are name-recognition scientists that believe the Arctic will be ice-free very, very soon, as early as 2023. Harvard University professor of atmospheric science James Anderson was quoted in Forbes in 2018: “The chance there will be permanent ice in the Arctic after 2022 is essentially zero.” Professor Jennifer MacKinnon, University of California-San Diego and Scripps Institution was quoted by CBS News in 2021 as expecting an ice-free Arctic this year, 2023. According to Dr. McPherson: September 2023 is the likely date for an ice-free Arctic. “Then we can expect the full effects next year (2024).” For a detailed analysis of the Arctic: AFarewell To Ice (Oxford University Press) by one of the world’s leading experts on polar ice, Peter Wadhams.
There are several schools of thought on timing of an ice-less Arctic. Some believe an ice-free Arctic will not occur until 2030s (NOAA) or 2065 (Carbon Brief, assuming 1.5C is held, but good luck with that) or 2035 (a National Geographic Arctic article) or a Nature article claims the Arctic might become ice-free during summer within the 21st century.
Only recently, coincident with the start of the U.N. Climate Summit at el-Sheikh, Egypt COP27 in November 2022, the International Cryosphere Climate initiative research network provided new research on the Arctic: “Following the planet’s eight warmest years on record there is growing evidence that the world’s icy regions are melting at increasing rates – and far faster than scientists had expected.” (Source: COP27: Loss of Arctic Summer Sea Ice ‘Inevitable Within 30 Years – Report, Reuters, November 2022)
“Just as there’s no longer a credible path to keeping warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, there’s no credible path to avoiding an ice-free summer,” said co-author Robbie Mallett, a sea ice researcher at University College London… “A distinct environment on Earth is going to go extinct,” said Mallett.” Ibid.
The advocates of fossil fuels, like Pompeo and Putin, are thrilled about an ice-less Arctic. But in all seriousness, Putin is wasting a few billion rubles with a super-powerful nuclear icebreaker. Get serious… polar bears are struggling to find stable ice footing. Meanwhile, and most regrettably, scientists claim Pompeo’s and Putin’s greatest wishes are on the docket, an ice-less Arctic… but when?
Therefore, what happens if Drs. Urban, Anderson, and MacKinnon are right, meaning an iceless Arctic within the next 24 months?
For starters, the planet’s biggest air conditioner will be gone, and according to Dr. Urban: “By reflecting sunlight, Arctic ice acts as Earth’s air conditioner. Once dark water replaces brilliant ice, Earth could warm substantially, equivalent to the warming triggered by the additional release of a trillion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.”
In other words, the world will almost certainly turn more topsy-turvy than it was last year 2022 when major hydropower around the world creaked (Lake Powell) and major commercial waterways (Rhine, Po, Mississippi) nearly dried out as France and Italy delivered drinking water in trucks to hordes of thirsty citizens, and California was ablaze. And so much more, floods beyond belief (Pakistan, China). All of which happened before the Arctic turns ice-less, which will trigger ever more upheaval.
On the docket, there’s a trigger mechanism for much more rapid loss of Arctic sea ice looming in the wings, ready for attack. It is El Niño, which sounds innocent enough until it’s examined in more detail. Indeed, it’s a wolf in sheepskin.
The threat of El Niño: As the amount of latent heat contained in the oceans, which absorbs 80%-90% of the world’s heat, combines with the end of the current La Niña, a cooling trend at the equatorial Pacific Ocean (which served to cool the hottest year in 2022- didn’t help much, hmm) transitions into El Niño, the waters of the equatorial Pacific turn much warmer with extensive global impact. This combination will heat everything beyond comfort zones, especially in the Far North Arctic. What’s left of sea ice could disappear fast, faster than ever before, meaning the trio Urban, Anderson, and MacKinnon could “nail it.” This could result in a super cycle of crazed weather throughout the world getting even crazier with scorching bouts of drought followed by Noah’s Ark flooding, followed by city-flattening hurricanes followed by who-knows-what’s next, insanely deadly weather that leaves humanity breathless.
Hopefully, scientists are wrong about the timing of an iceless Arctic and it comes at a much later time. But science has been behind the Eightball on global warming issues for decades, always late to the party. Assuming Urban, Anderson, and MacKinnon nail it, then what will Pompeo (probable presidential candidate) and Putin (president for life sitting on a rusty nuclear icebreaker) recommend?
But more importantly, the ghost question: Why aren’t major countries throwing everything they’ve got at the biggest fixit in world history by flooding scientists with whatever funds and technical help necessary to figure out how to revive the Arctic, see: Refreeze the Arctic d/d December 9, 2022. After all, it may be possible. Otherwise, it’s only a matter of time before a trillion tons of CO2 hits. According to Statistica, global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industry hit a record annual high of 37.12 billion metric tons in 2021.
How about another trillion (1,000,000,000,000) tons?
Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.
Forever Chemicals are found everywhere from the depths of the Mariana Trench to the mountaintop of Mt. Everest. Following 80 years of manufacturing various PFAS chemicals, the world is swimming in chemical permanence. And yes, it is a toxic price society pays for modern-day conveniences — made easy!
But maybe it would be better if “products made easy by PFASs” were made the old-fashioned way, pre-1940 sans dangerous chemicals. After all, several civilizations of the world got along just fine over thousands of years without PFAS chemicals. For example, the BBC documentary: The Story of India by Michael Wood: Archeological discoveries have revealed advanced technological artifacts found at Rakhigarhi, an Indus Valley site 8,000-years-old. Indus cities had elaborate planning for drainage systems, housebuilding, and street construction with plentiful evidence of transcendent cultural affairs.
According to the United States EPA: “PFAS are a group of manufactured chemicals that have been used in industry and consumer products since the 1940s because of their useful properties. There are thousands of different PFAS, some of which have been more widely used and studied than others… PFAS can be present in our water, soil, air, and food as well as in materials found in our homes or workplaces.”
Yet, undeniably, PFASs have created a worldwide toxic stew that’s extremely messy and unquestionably deadly in some instances.
A new study by Environmental Working Group (EWG) scientists uncovered very disturbing levels of PFASs in America’s freshwater fish found throughout the country from coast-to-coast with levels of chemicals “that may be harmful” according to EWG’s polite way of saying: “Stop and beware of what you put into your mouth.” (Source: The Environmental Working Group, Forever Chemicals in Every River in the US, DGR News Service, January 27, 2023)
What are the risks?
Like nuclear radiation isotopes, PFAS chemicals last forever and ever, and ever. Over time these human genome terrorists accumulate in human tissue, showing up years later potentially as testicular, kidney, or pancreatic cancer, weakened immune systems, decreased fertility, endocrine disruption, elevated cholesterol, increased risk of asthma, thyroid disease, and puzzling weight gain.
It’s claimed that PFAS chemicals have contaminated drinking water for nearly one-half of America’s population. Interestingly enough, American cases of chronic illnesses at nearly 50% of the general population seems to support that statement, more on this later.
The US EPA website lists the hazards of PFASs at risks of various levels based upon peer-reviewed scientific studies with a stated caveat, depending upon “exposure to certain levels of PFAS.” Certain levels are two catchwords that leave a person uncertain as to… what and how much is dangerous?
Meanwhile, chronic illness in the U.S., which is likely a result of excessive PFAS exposure, is rampant. According to The Commonwealth Fund (founded in 1918): U.S. Health Care from a Global Perspective, 2019: Higher Spending, Worse Outcomes, d/d January 30th, 2020: “The U.S. has the highest chronic disease burden… and an obesity rate that is two times higher than the OECD average.” But it spends more on health care than any other country. Ouch!
Thankfully and importantly, EWG offers a free Guide to “Avoiding PFAS Chemicals.”
The EWG study discovered alarming off-the-charts levels of PFAS chemicals throughout America: “EWG found that median amount of PFAS in freshwater fish were an astounding 280 times greater than forever chemicals detected in some commercially caught and sold fish,” Ibid.
According to David Andrews Ph.D. EWG senior scientist: “People who consume freshwater fish, especially those who catch and eat fish regularly, are at risk of alarming levels of PFAS in their bodies,” Ibid.
And according to Scott Faber, EWG Senior VP for Government Affairs: “These test results are breathtaking… Eating one bass is equivalent to drinking PFOS-tainted water for a month,” Ibid.
EWG discovered: “The extent of contaminated fish to be staggering.” Test results show PFAS contamination across the country from Oregon to Maine. EWG claims there may be more than forty thousand (40,000) industrial polluters of PFAS in the United States alone: “For decades, polluters have dumped as much PFAS as they wanted into our rivers, streams, lakes and bays with impunity We must turn off the tap of PFAS pollution from industrial discharges, which affect more and more Americans every day.” (EWG)
In contrast to a frustrating ongoing procrastination in America, Europeans are taking a much stronger stance on PFAS Chemicals. Forty-six (46) European civil society organizations have demanded an urgent banning by the EU of all PFAS consumer products by 2025 and “across all uses by 2030.” (Source: Civil Society Groups Urge the EU to Keep Their Promises to Ban ‘Forever Chemicals’ PFAS, Health and Environment Alliance aka: HEAL, October 2022)
A statement by the Health and Environment Alliance/Europe: “PFAS pollution is out of control and exposure to several forever chemicals have been linked to an array of adverse health impacts, from liver damage to reduced response to routine vaccination by children and certain cancers. PFASs have contaminated the entire planet and are found in the bodies of most people around the globe.”
“We’re talking about a group of entirely human-made chemicals that didn’t exist on the planet a century ago and have now contaminated every single corner. No one gave their consent to be exposed to these harmful chemicals, we haven’t had the choice to opt out and now we have to live with this toxic legacy for decades to come. The very least we can do is to stop adding to this toxic burden by banning PFAS use and production now,” Dr. Julie Schneider, PFAS campaigner at CHEM Trust. (HEAL)
So far efforts to diminish/control/ban PFASs in the United States have been haphazard and limited in scope. Manufacturing of PFAS has mostly moved offshore, so it now comes back in products from abroad. According to EWG: “There may be more than forty thousand (40,000) industrial polluters of PFAS in the United States.” (Source: The Environmental Working Group, Forever Chemicals in Every River in the US, DGR News Service, January 27, 2023)
Some states have legislated limited restrictions, e.g., PFASs were detected by the Department of Health in Honolulu’s drinking water in 2021. Posthaste, Hawaii House Bill 1644 (2022) was enacted to prohibit manufacture and sale of certain items that contain PFAS such as wraps, liners, plates, food boats, and pizza boxes. Additionally, the bill bans PFAS in products that already have established alternatives. A few other states are also limiting PFAS chemicals.
Patrick Byrne, an environmental pollution researcher at the U.K.’s Liverpool John Moores University (a public research university est. 1823), who was not involved in the EWG research: “PFAS are probably the greatest chemical threat the human race is facing in the 21st Century.” (Source: Eating One Fish from U.S. Lakes or Rivers Likened to Drinking Months’ Worth of Contaminated Water, CBS News, January 17, 2023)
Not surprisingly, in the face of an epidemic of PFAS chemicals soaked into the fabric of America, the country ranks high in the world for cases of chronic diseases, including, cancer, diabetes, hypertension, stroke, heart disease, respiratory diseases, arthritis, obesity, and oral diseases. Forty-five percent (45%) of America’s population, or roughly 133 million Americans, have at least one chronic disease. (Source: National Center for Biotechnology – Information/National Library of Medicine)
Forty-five percent is a weighty number.
What can be done?
Is the EPA up to the task?
Answer: No, not even close.
The EPA is overwhelmed, understaffed, underfunded and outlawyered at every crossing. Despite 100+ pages of statutory text in the Toxic Substances Control Act, chemical manufacturers have no legal obligation to test or to assess the toxicity of manufactured chemicals. America’s main line of defense against toxic chemicals is an understaffed, horribly underfunded EPA. They must dig through tens of thousands of scientific data to determine what’s good and what’s bad. But without enough bodies on hand to keep turning the pages. Moreover, many chemical compositions are shielded behind “trade secrets.”
“The EPA has only banned a handful of chemicals in over 40 years.” (Source: Industrial Chemical Polluters are Almost Unregulated in the US, Massive Science, May 13, 2020).
According to the following article, Congressional Lack of Funding Continues to Jeopardize EPA Operations, EHS Administration, Wastewater, May 18, 2022: “The EPA has been substantially ‘hollowed out’ for inadequate resources that have long been dangerously declining to a point where EPA is spending, in real dollars, less than half what the agency spent in 1980.”
Therefore, in the face of tens of thousands of potentially toxic chemicals slushing about in rivers, lakes, marshes, farmland, city drainage systems, in fact throughout the country, the EPA’s wherewithal is embarrassingly scandalously weak and a sure signal of a failing society. According to sources, the recent appropriations bill rejected a piddly $10 million budget increase to address polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Evidently, Congress is not at all serious about one of the country’s most serious threats to citizens of every congressional district. They don’t care! Can’t even commit to a lousy $10M increase.
All of that on top of 4 years of Trump administration hatchet jobs on the EPA: “Trump’s environmental record is such a toxic disaster it should be declared a Superfund site.” (Source: Carol Browner, head of EPA during Clinton Administration). Trump’s fiscal 2021 prop0sed budget called for a 26% hit to EPA. This after a few years of a hatchet job on environmental departments of the federal government, chasing senior scientists out, many went to France where Macron greeted them with open arms. Just imagine Trump back in the White House! Whew!
Somewhat timidly, the EPA has been studying the PFAS issue and has taken some preventative measures, but sources wonder if it is even remotely close to adequate. With 40,000 industrial PFAS polluters in America, even though there’s no manufacturing of PFASs in the U.S. any longer, the question arises: Who’s watching the store? PFASs that are prohibited from manufacturing in America are okay elsewhere and end up in products exported to America which, via various manufacturing processes, end up in the environment.
What does it take?
Does it take a mean-spirited maddened consortium of angry pissed-off civic groups like the European HEAL campaign, which has demanded an urgent banning by the EU of all PFAS consumer products by 2025 and across all uses by 2030, in order to move the needle to control/ban/restrict PFAS chemicals?
Otherwise, putting it bluntly, we are blindly, indiscriminately poisoning ourselves.
Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.
Doomsday Clock Jitters and “How to Fix a Broken Planet”
By Robert Hunziker
In January of every year for the past 75 years the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists publishes an updated setting of the Doomsday Clock. The clock is a metaphor for how close or far humanity is from the brink.
Coincidentally, on the heels of the resetting of the world-famous clock this year, Julian Cribb, who is one of the world’s most erudite science writers, is releasing a new book: How To Fix A Broken Planet, Cambridge University Press, 2023.
Cribb’s book has entire chapters that deal with every major concern of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He describes in detail the very issues that disturb the Science and Security Board members, and he offers solutions to those same issues that served to nudge the iconic clock to its most intimidating, most threatening, most unnerving level in over 75 years: 90 Seconds to Midnight.
According to the Board, as of January 24, 2023, the new setting: “A Time of Unprecedented Danger. It is 90 Seconds to Midnight.”
“This year, the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moves the hands of the Doomsday Clock forward, largely (though not exclusively) because of the mounting dangers of the war in Ukraine. The Clock now stands at 90 seconds to midnight—the closest to global catastrophe it has ever been.” (Source: Bulletin Statement…Link to full statement: https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/)
As of today, the iconic clock has traveled far from its courageous beginnings when it first registered the dangers of nuclear annihilation in the 1940s. Today’s modern version of the enduring clock includes worldwide concerns: (1) climate change (2) bioterrorism (3) artificial intelligence and (4) damage inflicted by mis/disinformation. These elements fuse together as a potential cataclysmic event registered by the clock’s setting vis a vis a midnight hour imagery of apocalypse.
In a fascinating coincidence of mutual awareness of missteps and human frailty, Cribb’s book addresses the same issues as the Bulletin, and much more. It is an indispensable reference for solutions to what ails the world. For example, Chapter 4 Nuclear Awakening pages 44-53: “The greatest single risk of human extinction among the 10 catastrophic threats that comprise our existential emergency is still nuclear war. However, the core issue is that conflict can originate with almost any one of them – with food shortages leading to international disputes over food, land and water, in quarrels over dwindling fish, forest, energy, etc.….” (pg. 47)
“An instance of how mega-risks may compound into nuclear war is the long-standing animosity between India and Pakistan, chiefly over Kashmir, terrorism, and the waters of the Indus River which feed both countries at a time of growing climate stress. Even a relatively limited nuclear conflict between the two – 100-150 warheads of Hiroshima scale- is projected to kill 100 million people directly and 1-2 billion people worldwide as the resulting ‘nuclear winter’ would cause harvests to fail and food supplies to collapse all around the planet.” (pg. 47)
Furthermore, on dozens of occasions because of human error or technical miscue or active threat, the world has come dangerously close to the brink of nuclear conflagration. As Cribb explains, it is a “terrifying history of which most people remain ignorant.” (pg. 49)
Cribb describes seven solutions to the nuclear threat (pages 49-51) and informs individuals of what they can do, actively supporting citizen campaigns to ban nuclear and much, much more. “Understand that a nuclear inferno is a growing threat to you, your children, and to all of posterity. It exists 24/7. It is most likely to be the cause of human extinction. The fact that it has not happened in the last seventy years does not mean it will not happen. The risk is now greater than at any time since atomic weapons were invented.” (pg. 51)
Another chapter that hits the bullseye of threats to society that’s also recognized as a serious threat by the Board: Chapter 11 – Ending the Age of Deceit: “Perhaps the deadliest pandemic ever to strike humanity is the plague of deliberate misinformation, mass delusion and unfounded beliefs which is engulfing twenty-first-century human society.” (pg. 127)
Misinformation is an all-inclusive threat that humanity has seldom faced on such a massive scale. It’s literally an out-of-control epidemic that crushes the foundations of established principles. Cribb references a study by Jevin West and Carl Bergstrom, stating: “Misinformation has reached crisis proportions… it poses a risk to international peace, interferes with democratic decision making, endangers the well-being of the planet and threatens public health.” (pgs. 127-28).
The motive behind spreading lies and conspiracy theories runs the gamut from monetary greed, political advantage, malice, and hatred of others to ruinous ignorance, the most dangerous element of all the dangers. “The problem of mass delusion is compounded by signs that humans are less intelligent than they were a generation or two ago. Recent research has found that human IQ has declined by around 13 points since the mid-1970s.” (pg. 131)
Cribb says a solution to shortsighted, laughable ignorance is to reframe all economic, political, religious, and narrative discourse in a place that calls upon everyone to help develop a worldwide plan for survival in the face of unprecedented challenges, requiring worldwide leadership at all levels, media, teachers, religious leaders, and actively involved citizen groups forming an Earth System Treaty negotiated internationally by all countries in a uniform plan to “fix our planet.” Thus, overriding, overshadowing ignorant chatter and its blockhead stupidity of bold-faced lies.
The crucial significance of Cribb’s book is found in its introduction: “We humans are facing the greatest emergency of our entire million-year existence. This is a crisis compounded of 10 catastrophic risks, each of our own making. These threats are deeply interconnected and are now arriving together. However, their collective scale is so vast and their relationships so complex that few yet understand the peril they place us in.” (pg. 5)
According to Cribb, the world needs a “survival revolution.” And that is precisely what How To Fix A Broken Planet explains in detail and with solutions. It’s a fascinating, enjoyable, quick read filled with uppermost classroom quality facts that ultimately point to an Earth System Treaty with an Earth Standard Currency that literally stands the neoliberal brand of capitalism on its head and establishes value for the biosphere.
Julian Cribb is an ideal adjunct of the breadth and depth of core analysis by the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board, a group of 18 experts with backgrounds in public policy, diplomacy, and worldwide trends with advice from a Board of Sponsors, which includes eleven Nobel laureates.
The initial setting for the Doomsday Clock in 1947 was seven (7) minutes to midnight. The furthest from midnight occurred in 1991 at seventeen (17) minutes to midnight on the eve of the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty between the U.S. and the Soviet Union and collapse of the USSR and the end of the Cold War.
According to the venerable clock, the most threatening years are the most recent, 2021 and 2022, both set at 100 Seconds to Midnight, a result of global nuclear/political tensions, COVID-19, climate change, a surge of disinformation undermining the integrity of democratic institutions and increasing biological weapon threats. Now, the two most threatening years have succumbed to a new low of 90 Seconds to Midnight.
Never has civilization been so much at odds with itself.
Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.
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