Africa's lake Tanganyika warming fast, life dying

[villager]

Source: Reuters


Africa's lake Tanganyika warming fast, life dying

ABIDJAN (Reuters) – Africa's lake Tanganyika has heated up sharply over the past 90 years and is now warmer than at any time for at least 1,500 years, a scientific paper said on Sunday, adding that fish and wildlife are threatened.

The lake, which straddles the border between Tanzania in East Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is the world's second largest by volume and its second deepest, the paper says.

Lead scientist on the project Jessica Tierney told Reuters the sharp rise in temperature coincided with rises in human emissions of greenhouse gases seen in the past century, so the study added to evidence that emissions are warming the planet.

The 'Great Lakes' such as Tanganyika, Malawi and Kenya's lake Turkana were formed millions of years ago by the tectonic plate movements that tore Africa's Great Rift Valley.

Some 10 million people live around Tanganyika and depend upon it for drinking water and food, mostly fish.

<snip>


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100516/sc_nm/us_climate_lake_tanganyika

[xchrom]

1. Recommend

[hlthe2b]

2. This will prove devastating... K&R

[hatrack]

3. Emails! Climategate! Scientific Elitists! Bill Ayers! Hard-workin' Americans! Hoax! Emails!

There, that should do it . . .

[tom_paine]

6. You forgot AL GORE'S HOUSE!

:rofl:

[Bragi]

4. Nothing will be done

We have no intention of doing what would be needed to save this lake, or to ward off any of the worst effects of climate change, which are already taking place across the planet.

This being the case, it is no longer clear to me exactly what ethical people ought to be doing.

[Devil_Fish]

5. agreed, sadly. N/T

[Moostache]

7. I have lost faith in humanity anyway...this is just one more reason why...

We are doomed as a species because greed and short-sightedness infect us like ringworm....

[glinda]

8. Well said and totally correct.

[Quantess]

9. Sadly, I agree with you.

[GliderGuider]

10. Things that must be done to avert the crisis

will be done only as its consequence.

However, that is only true as a broad-brush, institutional-level view of industrial civilization. Crisis is inevitable, but the depth and consequences of it will depend on so many factors that chaos theory may overtake systems theory as a general guiding principle. As a result ethical individuals must continue to act as though their actions would save the day. Ethical individuals are the butterflies whose flapping wings may create hurricanes. The more butterflies that are flapping, the better the chances of a civilization-shifting hurricane (speaking purely metaphorically, of course).

[Bragi]

11. Thanks for that, but...

I'm convinced of the need to act ethically even (or especially) when faced with an inevitable disaster, but what does this mean?

In the case of climate change, I think it is now obvious that wing flappings by the ethical few will not reverse or stop the calamitous harm being done, or that is yet to come, because our political-economic structures now ensure, and will continue to ensure, that effective and responsible societal-level action is impossible. If anything, after the disaster in Copenhagen, this seems to be more true than ever. Nothing will be done by States in a timely way to avert disaster. This we now know to be true.

So, what now? Since social and political action now seems futile, my "instincts" tell me that the ethical thing to do now is to listen to our survival genes and focus on looking after ourselves, our families and people we care about, as the disaster that awaits begins to envelop us. Though I've been a political and social activist in the past, I'm actually okay with the notion of focusing on "me and mine" at this stage of my life.

I'm fine, however, only up to a point, which is that I also know deep down that this political "disengagement" strategy is exactly what the economic-political forces who are fucking everything up would have me, and people like me, do. They win.

(I'm reading Bill McKibben's new tome 'Eaarth" right now. he seems top be calling for local, small, community-level action not as a social change strategy, but as a survival strategy. I continue to ponder...)

- B

[GliderGuider]

12. I pretty much agree with you

The most effective ethical action right now is anything that will ensure viability within a fairly close horizon (me and mine). The scope of that action can be pretty wide, and will depend on individual circumstances.

However, IMO taking ethical action at a higher level shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. The bald truth is that we have no way of predicting the future of a civilization with any degree of certainty, so we just don't know what actions might turn out to be useful even in the face of very long odds indeed. Even low-probability actions are worth undertaking, just on the slim possibility that miracles might sometimes happen.

[Delphinus]

17. Thank you, GliderGuider.

I needed to hear what you said today. :hug:

[progressoid]

13. Not to worry, this is all cyclical.

Neil Bortz told me so.

[RainMickey]

14. The best approach to slowing or reversing global warming would be to kill off....

....about half the globe's human population. That'd be a least a start.

[davidinalameda]

15. do you want to volunteer to go first

[RainMickey]

16. Actually, I had you in mind.