Maybe not extinction, but still really bad
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Posted on April 20, 2006
Filed Under Justice, Global warming/Climate change, Deep ecology, Ecological overshoot, Ecological hope, Consumer culture, Fossil fuel dependency, Environmental disasters, Earth spirituality
Today from Margaret Swedish:
Today's Washington Post contains a story based on some new research that offers the hope that, bad as things are about to get because of global warming, the scenario may not be so dire that we are out of time to save ourselves. The study cited in the article is being reported in the recent issue of Nature and was led by Duke University climatologist, Gabriele C. Hegerl.
In recent years, a growing consensus among scientists has indicated global temperature rise of somewhere between 2.5 and 8 degrees Fahrenheit. But some models have pointed to the possibility of rises between 11 and 16 degrees, which could unleash unimaginable catastrophe, including the possible extinction of the human species. The new research seems to put warming in the consensus range, with only a 5 percent chance that temperatures will increase beyond 11 degrees.
Said Hegerl as quoted in the Post: "This still commits to quite a bit of climate change, but it leaves the door open to avoiding the largest and most devastating consequences."
These predictions are based on measurements that indicate that CO2 levels in the atmosphere will reach double those at the dawn of the industrial age, in other words, as a result of human activity. We are expected to reach that level sometime after 2050, so the time is getting near. But, I wonder, what will constrain human beings from continuing their ruinous consumption patterns, just adding more carbon beyond those levels? Only our decision not to do so, to stop emitting so much carbon into the atmosphere, and to work to radically alter US and international economic, development, environmental, and corporate policies in this direction.
But the new research indicates that we have some time, and that if we start now, we still have the choice between a very difficult future or a catastrophic one. The US emits one quarter of all the carbon that human beings belch into the atmosphere each day. We have an enormous responsibility here to alter our lifestyles, to begin to live more simply, to scale down our consumption of throw-away goods and nonrenewables, to get rid of vehicles that get less than 40 mpg and insist that car-makers do better than that, to live in smaller houses and fewer houses, to stop foolish development and suburban and exurban sprawl, to get out of our cars all together as much as possible, etc.
And let's not get too complacent about temperature rises between 2-8 degrees. This still means inundation of many coastal areas, changes in weather patterns, including drying of the US Midwest and South, more deluges and floods elsewhere, desertifation in parts of the world, food and water shortages, and more.
This study may allow us to take a deep breath in terms of a fatal future, but it does not spare us the challenge of lifestyles changes, drastic policy changes to address the climate shifts already begun, which will continue for decades and decades to come, and of bringing a halt to the increase in greenhouse gas emissions caused by the consumption patterns of industrial and post-industrial societies.
Hegerl says the door is open to avoiding the worst consequences of global warming and climate change; let's walk through that door.
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