Radical Noesis - Thinking outside the box

NASA documented a "drastic shrinkage in Arctic ice" between 2004 and 2005. I would say that it is a "drastic" change. In the previous "few decades", the ice has been shrinking by .7% a year. Now, in one year the Arctic ice shrunk by 14%! That represents roughly a 1700% increase (or acceleration). According the article, the Arctic lost ice equivalent to the size of Turkey.

Given that much melting of ice, it comes as no surprise that "sea levels are rising faster than predicted." Now this study by the British Antarctic Survey was looking at melt at the south pole - not the north. Prior estimates of sea level rise were between 9 and 88cm over this century. That level of melt would submerge many coastal areas including "Bangladesh, the Nile Delta and even London." However, Professor Rapley of the Antarctic Study said that rate of rise will be exceeded. He would not estimate by how much (or how soon). Rapley noted:

"We have learned in the last 18 months that the ice sheets are capable in selected areas of much more rapid changes and dynamic discharges than we previously thought."

Back to the Arctic, rising sea levels are washing away villages and lives. A report by ABC News titled "Global Warming Washing Away Entire Communities" leads as follows:

"A funny thing happened just before a ceremony was to be held last week to commemorate a $3 million sea wall around the village of Kivalina way up on Alaska's Arctic coastline. The village, home to Inupiat natives for 4,000 years, is about to be washed into the sea, and the 1,800-foot wall is supposed to stop that.

But along came a modest storm, with winds of up to 40 miles per hour, and 160 feet of the wall washed out. The ceremony was canceled."

The report notes that Kivalina is only one of roughly 200 northern villages that are being swallowed by the sea. With the death of those villages goes the lives of entire cultures. One might call it "eco-genocide." These peoples have done little to contribute to the "human" accelerated global warming. They have no power to get nations -such as the United States - to address the issues. However, they will (and are) paying a terrible price for stupidity and lies.

Yes LIES.

Exxon got rapped by Britain's Royal Society for funding organizations, and sponsoring ads, that denies the reality of climate change (Guardian, 9/20/06). According to the Royal Society, ExxonMobile funded 39 groups promoting the idea that climate change is not happening to the tune of almost $3 million. Yes, $3 million in one year.

Apparently, ExxonMobile had agreed to not fund any more denial groups that try to present the idea that there is scientific dispute about global warming. Obviously they reneged on that promise. There is almost universal scientific agreement that global warming is real and that it is being driven by human sources.

Britain's leading scientists have challenged the US oil company ExxonMobile to stop funding groups that attempt to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change.

In an unprecedented step, the Royal Society, Britain's premier scientific academy, has written to the oil giant to demand that the company withdraws support for dozens of groups that have "misrepresented the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence".

The scientists also strongly criticise the company's public statements on global warming, which they describe as "inaccurate and misleading".

Given all this bad news, three cheers for Al Gore calling "for an immediate freeze on heat-trapping gas emissions," and the state of California filing a law suit against automakers for "making vehicles that contribute to global warming, causing pollution and erosion that costs the state millions of dollars."

It is way past time to get off the dime on global warming. It is clear now that changes are going faster, and more dramatically as positive feedback loops come into play. There is no time to waste. Whole cultures and millions (if not billions) of people's lives depends on what we do now. Also dependent on our action or inaction are thousands of species on the planet. The true doomsday scenario is that "civilized man's" own greed and bullheadedness will cause an extinction level event. One highly possible way this can happen is the death of the oceans. If they die, then humans are not far behind.