Climate crunch: A burden beyond bearing—The climate situation may be even worse than you think.

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090429/full/4581091a.html

Published online 29 April 2009 | Nature 458, 1091-1094 (2009) | doi:10.1038/4581091a

News Feature

Climate crunch: A burden beyond bearing

The climate situation may be even worse than you think. In the first of three features, Richard Monastersky looks at evidence that keeping carbon dioxide beneath dangerous levels is tougher than previously thought.

Richard Monastersky

In 2007, environmental writer Bill McKibben approached climate scientist James Hansen and asked him what atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide could be considered safe. Hansen's reaction: "I don't know, but I'll get back to you."

After he had mulled it over, Hansen started to suspect that he and many other scientists had underestimated the long-term effects of greenhouse warming. Atmospheric concentration of CO₂ at the time was rising past 382 parts per million (p.p.m.), a full 100 ticks above its pre-industrial level. Most researchers, including Hansen, had been focusing on 450 p.p.m. as a target that would avoid, in the resonant and legally binding formulation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, "dangerous climate change". McKibben was aware of this: he was thinking of forming an organization called 450.org to call attention to the number, and his question to Hansen was by way of due diligence.

As he thought about McKibben's question, Hansen, who runs NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, began to wonder if 450 p.p.m. was too high. Having spent his career working on climate models, he was aware that in some respects the real world was outstripping them. Arctic sea ice was reaching record lows; many of Greenland's glaciers were retreating; the tropics were expanding. "What was clear was that climate models are our weakest tool, in that you can't trust their sensitivity in any of these key areas," he says. Those warning signs — and his studies of past climate change — led Hansen to conclude that only by pulling CO₂ concentrations down below today's value could humanity avert serious problems. He came back to McKibben with not 450 but 350. In 2008, he published a paper spelling out his rationale for that target.

The difference between 350 and 450 is not just one of degree. It's one of direction. A CO₂ concentration of 450 p.p.m. awaits the world at some point in the future that might conceivably, though with difficulty, be averted. But 350 p.p.m. can be seen only in the rear-view mirror. Hansen believes that CO₂ levels already exceed those that would provide long-term safety, and the world needs not just to stop but to reverse course. Although his view is far from universal, a growing number of scientists agree that the CO₂ challenge is even greater than had previously been thought.

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[ananda]

1. This is the REAL news.

It's more important than anything else....

[wuvuj]

2. The final solution....

...you first?

[Gregorian]

3. I see this as robbing future generations.

This is how I feel. Not only confined to concentrations of carbon emissions, but many other things. I own a timber ranch. I can see with my own eyes the few stumps that were here before the many smaller trees that grew after they were cut. The forests are no what they were. The BIG trees are no longer here for people to see. It's important, even if it doesn't seem like it. Now the chemistry of our atmosphere is no longer the same. And people don't smile like they used to. I don't. I know what was. And I know I've been robbed. By virtue of our modern lifestyles we are all robbing those who will follow.

[wuvuj]

4. And the irony is...

...that the younger you are...the less realization you might have that things were different at one time? So as things change for the worse...fewer people will realize it?

I've camped a lot in the west....easily accessible old growth is hard to find....amazing when you see the big trees....small plots surrounded by clearcuts and younger growth.

[Gregorian]

5. I understand.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about just what you mentioned. I saw the dairy farms in Silicon Valley, as I grew up. Those who don't know better don't have the comparison, and many love the area. It gets worse for me, as I bought property in the Los Gatos hills about 20 years ago. There was a group of rather old folks there that I had the opportunity to meet. These were the guys who owned the hills. The christmas tree farms. One of them told me stories about the Bay Area before the developments. The phenomena you could see from the hills. Like the bay boiling with seals. Or the quilts of flowers in the fields below. I only caught a glimpse.

What I see is a decrease in the quality of life that is directly proportional to the increase in population.

I remember cherry orchards and pheasants. Old mansions in fields. Now Google has a bunch of concrete there. So I am gravely disappointed and offended. Yet I get philosophical about it. Trading a field for a global mind. Walking amongst the flowers for the ability to search world wide documentation.

I'll opt for slower, smaller, and perhaps more boring. However, I do believe that the benefits of modern living are huge. And I can argue that we are far better for it. I've lived in a backwards town. And in the most progressive. And I can testify that there are some very rotten places. People who don't even know their own destructive behavior. But I can also argue the same for a progressive community.

What I wanted to see was an intelligence that consisted of not as much fact based as common sense based. Limits. Knowing when to stop.

But it's so complicated. Breeding, that is. A woman was more like a husband's captive than a partner. A sexual object. And without birth control. And the two big factors that I see are the time delay of population perception, and the subjectivity of perception. The latter being of a rather complex psychological nature.

[Fotoware58]

11. Large doesn't necessarily mean old in trees

The distribution of "old growth" depends on the definition you care to use. It's rather hard to get people to settle on just one definition, especially other than age, which requires coring the tree and counting the tree rings. Enlightened humans can accurately estimate age by looking at other characteristics. Younger trees can look much older because of their outstanding genetics and growth conditions. A thirty year old tree can be 30" in diameter and 90 feet tall. On the other hand, a 180 year old tree might only be 14" in diameter.

Do not underestimate the skills and experience it SHOULD take to be an average timbermarker. It also takes an artist's eye to envision what a stand of trees might look like after an eco-forestry treatment. Imagine being a person who largely decides what that piece of ground will look like for decades to come. Co-worker "ologists" often enjoy wielding that kind of power when they work with timber crews. It's really a big empowerment. So many timbermarkers today lack the schooling, the experience with logging equipment and don't have that artist's eye and ecologist's soul. The level of personal responsibility is as high as any field around.

I no longer work for the government (worn-out body) but, I just want people to be educated about "real Freddie's", like me, who decide to try to be above the politics, right or left. Alas, both sides are destroying forests, complimenting each other's destructive political practices affecting our forests. Clearly, neither side wants today's style of forests. Burn it to "save" it?

Science is the savior! Use that advanced brain, folks. Indians tended their forests. Why don't WE??!?

[pscot]

6. Generational change is the frog in the kettle

Each succeding generation sees things as "normal". It's hard to convey a sense of what has been lost, to people who have no experience by which to measure the loss. It must be even harder for city dwellers to grasp. How does one explain the milky way to someone who has never seen it?

[Gregorian]

8. Ha. Right.

What a great example.

I have another- My quest over the last twenty years is to find silence. Not only is it next to impossible to find, but most people don't even know what silence is like. And another group I've met don't like it. They're so conditioned to noise they don't know what to do without it.

I was shocked the first time I had pork that was raised on a neighbor's farm. And sausage I never dreamed of.

One of the first things I recall losing was tomatoes.

These are not little things. These are the basics of life.

I hate commiserating. I'd much rather be joyous and celebrating. It's hard to do when you feel loss. I feel robbed. And I'm living the lucky life. I've got it "made". :)

[truedelphi]

7. But is it even us?

I look out my windows every single day, and chem trails, some the size (ie width_) of a house are above my heads.

people try to tell me that they are just normal con trails - but I have never experienced weather like I have this winter.

We were over due for rain; in the San Francisco Bay Area 87 miles Southwest of me, they have a drought.

The clouds come in over my head, rain clouds not only grey, but multilevel, absolutely pregnant with rain. Absolutely black, is the color of the belly of those pregnant clouds.

You can taste the rain in the air. And then it blows further east, only a few drops hitting out ground here.

Meanwhile, on The History channel, they have a documentary on - it explains this desert in So America, known as the driest place on earth. The weird thing about this desert is how it is bordered by the ocean. But the dry air current from Antarctica comes up north and hits the upper layer of atmosphere over this desert. When the rain clouds come in from the ocean, this higher and dryer layers shifts the rain further inland.

Exactly what seems to be happening here - except northern California doesn't have any Antartic air currents hitting it.

[Gregorian]

9. I've heard about the alteration in rainfall in Africa, but not in S. America.

Global dimming is contributing to that. Jet contrails are a huge contributor to global dimming. And it is actually masking the true effects of global warming. In other words, global warming would be far worse without the dimming. Not good thoughts, but like I was discussing with my 80 year old mom tonight, it's better to be aware than irresponsible. She just spent two days with her ultra conservative sister. I don't subscribe to the chemtrail theory, but I've got an intense distaste for what people are doing to our atmosphere. I detest jets. And cars. At least in these numbers.

By the way, thanks for your sig line link to Max Keiser. I'm watching it now. I've been a Max listener for a few years now. He's great.

On a positive note, it's good to know we have company. I have a visceral reaction to some of what is going on environmentally. But we need to keep ourselves from going under. Remember, you're not alone.

[truedelphi]

10. Actaully the desert that they describe in Spo America has been this way

For hundreds of years.

But I was surprised as I mused about how is it that the clouds here are forced to drift further east, without depositing their rainfall here, to see this on The History channel like a week later..