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Global warming passes the point of no return
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by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
Feb. 17, 2006
I have had the unfortunate duty to stand death watches with families
waiting for an injured child to die. Fundamental to this duty is to
restrain any impulse to point out to the family all the various ways
they may have contributed to the impending death. Ignore the unfenced
swimming pool. Ignore the unsecured fire arms in the home. Ignore the
ATV given on the sixth birthday. Ignore all the ignorant, thoughtless,
mean-spirited actions by "responsible adults" that contributed to
the catastrophic outcome. The dictates of compassion and
professionalism require silence on my part.
Unfortunately there are usually peripheral family members that can be
counted on to call these things cruelly to the attention of the parents
anyway, but the duty to compassion is a personal one and extends to
non-interference in the families emotional domestic violence.
If you believe, along with increasingly many of the most qualified
climate scientist (see "Global warming: Passing the 'tipping point") that we
have passed the point of no return with global warming, a similar
dilemma results. Similar but infinitely worse.
With the negligent
death of a child there is the hope that a lesson may have been learned
that will protect the life of other children. In the case of
irreversible extreme climate change there is little hope that the
object lessons, even if well understood, can have any future utility.
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The fact that future generations will be snuffed out no matter what we achieve in our dissent against the crimes of the global corpratocracy, is bad enough.
Worse yet would be to die off without confronting the ignorance that brought us to this impasse.
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Dr. Herb Ruhs & grandson
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There's much more than this at Unknown News.
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It becomes questionable if the human species, along with millions of
other species, will even survive, much less be able to do anything to
save itself. All "issues," war, justice, pollution, environmental
destruction -- every single one -- suddenly becomes insignificant in
terms of future outcomes.
So what is a self respecting, compassionate person to do? Give up
hectoring the environmental knuckle-draggers? Spare the true believers
in "progress" from
further ridicule? Give up on opposing war and
genocide? Ridicule activists whose issues of concern become moot in the
context of inevitable doom? No, I think not.
The fact, if you accept
the science, that the struggle to save the world is now, objectively
speaking, a futile effort, is actually not a reason to back off. The
fact that future generations will be snuffed out no matter what we
achieve in our dissent against the crimes of the global corpratocracy,
is bad enough. Worse yet would be to die off without confronting the
ignorance that brought us to this impasse.
There are no bystanders in this catastrophe. No-one needs
to spare the feelings of the bereaved. We are all bereaved now. What
is better? To die off in continued ignorance and darkness, or to meet
our collective fate in a condition of understanding and light? The
human spirit acting in the light of love requires that we actually
increase our efforts to confront the ignorance that surrounds us.
In
fact, I suggest that this unfolding catastrophe has the potential to
release us from the tyranny of fear. There is no reason to continue to
pay attention to fear any more. Let the energy of justice, truth and
compassion animate us as never before. There is no further reason to
restrain ourselves in an effort to be "polite." I don't see much
utility of getting stuck in anger either.
Most of the world's people are now in the first stage of grief --
denial. The stages of anger and bargaining, as described by
Kubler-Ross, may be unavoidable, but there is no reason to get stuck in
the process. The sooner we get to the end of the grief process --
acceptance -- the better.
With acceptance comes the ability to feel
again and begin to enjoy what is left, the memories, the humor, the
gentle virtues of life. My suggestion, to those dealing with any loss,
is to just deliberately bring on crying. Crying cleanses. Crying
together brings transformation to our better selves.
© by the author.
Global warming: Passing
the 'tipping point'
by Michael McCarthy, The Independent [London, UK]
Feb. 11, 2006
A crucial global warming "tipping point" for the Earth, highlighted only last week by the British government, has already been passed, with devastating consequences.
Research commissioned by The Independent reveals that the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has now crossed a threshold, set down by scientists from around the world at a conference in Britain last year, beyond which really dangerous climate change is likely to be unstoppable.
The implication is that some of global warming's worst predicted effects, from destruction of ecosystems to increased hunger and water shortages for billions of people, cannot now be avoided, whatever we do. It gives considerable force to the contention by the green guru Professor James Lovelock, put forward last month in The Independent, that climate change is now past the point of no return.
The danger point we are now firmly on course for is a rise in global mean temperatures to 2 degrees above the level before the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century.
At the moment, global mean temperatures have risen to about 0.6 degrees above the pre-industrial era -- and worrying signs of climate change, such as the rapid melting of the Arctic ice in summer, are already increasingly evident. But a rise to 2 degrees would be far more serious.
By that point it is likely that the Greenland ice sheet will already have begun irreversible melting, threatening the world with a sea-level rise of several meters. Agricultural yields will have started to fall, not only in Africa but also in Europe, the US and Russia, putting up to 200 million more people at risk from hunger, and up to 2.8 billion additional people at risk of water shortages for both drinking and irrigation. The Government's conference on Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change, held at the UK Met Office in Exeter a year ago, highlighted a clear threshold in the accumulation of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, which should not be surpassed if the 2 degree point was to be avoided with "relatively high certainty".
This was for the concentration of CO2 and other gases such as methane and nitrous oxide, taken together in their global warming effect, to stay below 400ppm (parts per million) in CO2 terms -- or in the jargon, the "equivalent concentration" of CO2 should remain below that level.
The warning was highlighted in the official report of the Exeter conference, published last week. However, an investigation by The Independent has established that the CO2 equivalent concentration, largely unnoticed by the scientific and political communities, has now risen beyond this threshold.
This number is not a familiar one even among climate researchers, and is not readily available. For example, when we put the question to a very senior climate scientist, he said: "I would think it's definitely over 400 -- probably about 420." So we asked one of the world's leading experts on the effects of greenhouse gases on climate, Professor Keith Shine, head of the meteorology department at the University of Reading, to calculate it precisely. Using the latest available figures (for 2004), his calculations show the equivalent concentration of C02, taking in the effects of methane and nitrous oxide at 2004 levels, is now 425ppm. This is made up of CO2 itself, at 379ppm; the global warming effect of the methane in the atmosphere, equivalent to another 40ppm of CO2; and the effect of nitrous oxide, equivalent to another 6ppm of CO2.
The tipping point warned about last week by the Government is already behind us.
"The passing of this threshold is of the most enormous significance," said Tom Burke, a former government adviser on the green issues, now visiting professor at Imperial College London. "It means we have actually entered a new era -- the era of dangerous climate change. We have passed the point where we can be confident of staying below the 2 degree rise set as the threshold for danger. What this tells us is that we have already reached the point where our children can no longer count on a safe climate."
The scientist who chaired the Exeter conference, Dennis Tirpak, head of the climate change unit of the OECD in Paris, was even more direct. He said: "This means we will hit 2 degrees [as a global mean temperature rise]."
Professor Burke added: "We have very little time to act now. Governments must stop talking and start spending. We already have the technology to allow us to meet our growing need for energy while keeping a stable climate. We must deploy it now. Doing so will cost less than the Iraq war so we know we can afford it."
The 400ppm threshold is based on a paper given at Exeter by Malte Meinhausen of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Dr Meinhausen reviewed a dozen studies of the probability of exceeding the 2 degrees threshold at different CO2 equivalent levels. Taken together they show that only by remaining above 400 is there a very high chance of not doing so.
Some scientists have been reluctant to talk about the overall global warming effect of all the greenhouses gases taken together, because there is another consideration -- the fact that the "aerosol", or band of dust in the atmosphere from industrial pollution, actually reduces the warming.
As Professor Shine stresses, there is enormous uncertainty about the degree to which this is happening, so making calculation of the overall warming effect problematic. However, as James Lovelock points out -- and Professor Shine and other scientists accept -- in the event of an industrial downturn, the aerosol could fall out of the atmosphere in a matter of weeks, and then the effect of all the greenhouse gases taken together would suddenly be fully felt.
As originally published
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This is an archived Unknown News page. For newest material, visit our main page.
This page tagged at Technorati under
ACTIVISM
CLIMATE CHANGE
ENVIRONMENTALISM
GLOBAL WARMING
HERB RUHS
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Previous articles by Dr Ruhs:
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Can the President legally crush a child's testicles?
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To dream the impossible dream
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The gangsters' mentality
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Four decades in five minutes
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The masquerade of "civilization"
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Yet another, higher dose of pain
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The war of one against all:
The roots of our enslavement
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Doctors, medicine, hospitals, and the rest of the story
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Highway robbery turns out to be legal after all
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Class warfare, anyone?
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Why "Free Speech" does not matter
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Big pharma
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The genius fish and other comments
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When all else fails, try the truth
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Childhood abuse and the role it plays in maintaining coercive power
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Murder by medical device
by Herb Ruhs, MD
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