Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration Has Passed the Point of No Return

[marmar]

Dahr Jamail | Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration Has Passed the Point of No Return

Monday, 23 May 2016 00:00
By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | Report


A recent trip up Washington State's Mount Rainier brought home to me how rapidly things are changing, even in the high country.

I first climbed the mountain in 1994, when the main route was a picturesque climb up smooth glaciers. Most of the time crevasses weren't even visible, and snow cover was abundant.

But anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) has been speeding up with each passing year, and in the same area 22 years later, I found large portions of it nearly unrecognizable. We took a somewhat different route than the one I'd climbed in 1994, primarily because the lower portion of that route is now unusable, as the glacier it traversed is so broken up and crevassed as to make it impassable.

It being early season (most of the guide services had yet to begin taking clients up the mountain), I expected much heavier snow cover and the snow bridges over crevasses to be in decent shape. That wasn't the case. After gingerly stepping our way over several sketchy snow bridges, I was grateful we weren't on the 14,411-foot-high northwestern volcano any later in the season than we were. Thankfully, we were able to summit and get back down without incident.

Less than a year and a half earlier, in December 2014, Nature World News reported that ACD was melting Rainier's glaciers at "unprecedented" rates (six times the historic speed). .............(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/36133-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-concentration-has-passed-the-point-of-no-return

[tonyt53]

1. But...but...but...the planet has been warmer

Sure has. But it took well over a thousand years to do it, not 100. Mankind is in trouble, and the poorest will suffer the first and the most.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

6. K&R that's what the top 1% are hoping; but they have not built mansions on Mars yet

What do the rich, inbred, idiots plat to do; sell oxygen?

[roamer65]

10. We have to get the population numbers down soon.

I am really starting to believe we need a strongly enforced, global one child policy.

No exceptions for anyone.

[former9thward]

14. China, is that you posting?

[Jeffersons Ghost]

24. China has Trump-trolls working for them...

I wonder if the Freepers and Trump-trolls enjoy working for Chinese code specialists. The question becomes; are they willingly working with enemies of the USA, to create code, to overburden NSA and FBI agents? They ARE real; and so are online agents of the FBI! Are we having fun yet?

[roamer65]

29. It's the cold hard truth.

The more children we bring into this world, the larger our total carbon footprint becomes.

Earth cannot handle 9 billion of us, under our present way of life. Period.

We either get this under control, or nature will control it for us.

[former9thward]

30. How do you propose to enforce this?

I thought women controlled their own bodies. I guess that concept goes out the window for you. Now the government owns their bodies. How progressive!

[roamer65]

31. By all means, then.

Take it to 800ppm and see what happens. Be my guest...

[former9thward]

33. Humans will survive.

But if you want to live in a panic filled world go for it.

[roamer65]

34. ...and if you want to stick your head in the sand.

Go for it.

[raccoon]

37. First world citizens' carbon footprint is many times that of most third

world citizens.

First world citizens need to reduce their carbon footprint.

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. 'a person may be five times as likely to die in an extinction event than in a car crash."

and as the article shows, once again the scientists and other observers are seeing events much much sooner than they had originally predicted.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

3. 10 years ago they were predicting a 100-year countdown. Now they are in full blown...

...panic while admitting they were wrong and that the temperature is rising at a rate much faster than they had imagined and now that 100-year window has dwindled to a tenth of that initial prediction.

Hang on tight...

[dixiegrrrrl]

20. For years now, the mantra has been " more/faster/" than expected.

Expectations seem to need recaliberation.

[Bigmack]

4. And driving west, down I5 from Snoqualmie Pass one now sees

LOTS of brown, dead and dying, evergreen trees. Same thing visible on other highways here in Western Washington. Having lived here my entire life - 73 years - I NEVER remember seeing dead and dying evergreens along the roads. Alas, but the WARM future be here NOW. Ms Bigmack

[TrappedInUtah]

5. Isn't that pine beetles

I think we need to genetically engineer a way to wipe out all the pine beetles. Only way to save our forests.

[HuckleB]

16. You might be right, but that doesn't change the fact...

... That the air is now brown much of the summer in Cascadia and the northern Rockies. Smoke is the norm.

[hunter]

17. Pine beetles are a symptom, not the disease itself.

Pine beetles reproduce more frequently as the weather warms and trees stressed by climate change are less able to defend themselves.

Climate Change Sends Beetles Into Overdrive

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2012/03/climate-change-sends-beetles-overdrive

[Bigmack]

35. Not pines in that area... Douglas Fir and Hemlock and Cedar. nt

[Bigmack]

39. NO, These are NOT pine trees being killed by the beetle

The dead and dying trees are fir trees. And I HAVE seen the devastation caused by the pine bark beetles to pine trees up in British Columbia....tens of thousands of acres of dead trees. Ms Bigmack

[dixiegrrrrl]

21. Oh noes......

I am glad I have not been back up there, all my memories would be ruined.

[cantbeserious]

7. Sad State Of Affairs

eom

[roamer65]

8. It's gonna be a surreal experience...

...when I tell my young nephew in 20 years that I remember when there were polar bears, oceans with fish, plenty of food to eat, etc.

Not looking forward to it.

[dixiegrrrrl]

27. Eons ago, I saw Soylent Green in a theater

and was powerfully struck by Edward G. Robinson's death scene, in a society which encouraged death, so those who volunteered were placed in a bed ( maybe a lab table, I forget) and allowed to watch a wall sized screen of what
"polar bears, oceans with fish, plenty of food to eat, etc. " looked like...in the past.
Blew me away. Still does.

Yet, at the same time, I was taking my school age kids on camping trips and drives all over the state so they could be familiar with the beauty of the place.
Not really thinking that it would be this soon before all of it was seriously threatened.

[Exilednight]

38. it's quite sad that we live in a world where we see the train approaching and

Some people stand on the tracks insisting it will stop before it hits them, or refuse to acknowledge the train is even there.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. But, but

My city passed an aggressive climate action plan...it is not enough

Auto correct. Oif

[Jeffersons Ghost]

11. Is my math correct or has this Opening Post attained slightly over 200 readers after 10 replies?

and only 4 recommendations... Do these low numbers make sense to new readers?

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. Don't know. But realize there is a social silence on this

[roamer65]

32. You are right, Nadin.

They will only discuss it when most coastal cities are submerged and society is on the edge of collapse. That point will be too late.

[lunatica]

40. Many people who are on higher ground feel they need not worry

but they don't realize that the migration form low lying ground will devastate the higher ground also. Not many will be untouched in the end. Not even the 1%.

[Scientific]

13. No hope the Republicans will do anything to "conserve" life on earth

Because they are all phony "conservatives" - just using the word to cover up their radical exploitation of planet and people. They will choose to stay stupid.

[TrappedInUtah]

15. They think it doesn't matter

God will provide or something like that.

[dembotoz]

25. grew up with the concept of christian stewardship

which is at its base a conservative idea....guess they now just want to worship some damn fetus

[gordianot]

18. However idiots maintain CO2 is good for plant growth.

So according to Republican logic CO2 is good for plant life. There seems to be a huge difference between using Science and understanding Science. High School Science teachers you have a challenge everywhere.

[Xithras]

19. I recently climbed Mt. Lyell in Yosemite with both my sons.

It's been estimated that Lyell Glacier will be gone by 2020 at its current rate of retreat, and it's one of the last remnants of the original glaciers that carved Yosemite Valley. I wanted them to have that memory of what we are losing. Someday soon, the memory is all that will be left.

[hatrack]

22. Five years ago, I walked across a glacier in Nevada's Great Basin National Park; it's now gone

A small glacier, certainly but well situated to survive, in a deep, east-facing valley, shielded from afternoon sunlight.

It was about 9,000 above sea level, and one that had been there since the park was established in 1986 and for living memory beyond that.

Glad I did it when some ice still remained.

[Avalux]

23. There should be a global urgency but there isn't.

I don't know if it's because human beings are that short-sighted, in denial, or just don't care. There shouldn't be ANYTHING more important to us than this singular issue, yet when presented with the data, people ignore or mock it. Maybe because the severity of what we're facing is just too horrible?

The Earth is a magnificent place, rare and unique, at least in our known corner of the galaxy. WE are a part of it - what happens to it happens to us too. Yet instead of understanding this and being caretakers, we are inflicting harm and thus bringing about our own destruction in the process.

[Jackie Wilson Said]

26. The question will be which disaster will kill us first, Climate Change or Drumpf Presidency

[roamer65]

28. Both.

It will be a package deal.

[roamer65]

36. NASA climate scientists on the issue.

http://climate.nasa.gov/400ppmquotes/

Dr. Erika Podest is right on the money with her assessment.