The inconvenient truth about global warming is that it's a lot more than a moral issue that will mainly affect future generations. Climate change is happening now, could rapidly escalate, and could have a profound impact on every person alive today.
As a freelance science journalist, I have recently turned my attention to probing the truth about Global Warming. What I found shocked me. To say this truth is inconvenient is quite an understatement. Climate change is big, its happening now, and there is no escaping it. It’s no longer some far-way problem that our kids will have to deal with, as science at first thought it would be. Information that has only come to light in the last few years strongly suggests that it could get a lot worse very, very quickly. It could soon threaten our food and water supplies, and people in low-lying, heavily populated coastlines around the world.
Climate scientist Professor Spencer Weart believes not enough is being publicized about this threat, and I agree with him:
"Much more likely than not, global warming is upon us. It is prudent to expect that weather patterns will change and the seas will rise, in an ever worsening pattern, through our lifetimes and on into our grandchildren's...Nearly everyone in the world will need to adjust. Citizens will need reliable information. So it is an important job, in some ways our top priority, to improve the communication of knowledge".
The fact is we aren’t being told the whole truth about global warming. For a start, our best climate scientists are being muzzled, harassed and forbidden from talking to the press about the things they know but dare not say. On top of that, fossil fuel companies have been avidly campaigning to spread misinformation and confusion about climate change and global warming…. After all, the last thing they want is control or limitation over their industry…
Yet, nearly every week now a shocking climate catastrophe hits the news… From Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, to mega-droughts in Australia, disappearing islands in the South Pacific, the Asian tsunami, laval mud oozing uncontrollably out of the ground in Indonesia, stunning melting of sea ice in the Arctic, the collapse of massive ice shelves in Antarctica, floating icebergs off New Zealand’s coast, accelerating glaciers in Greenland, and only this month, the earthquake off Japan measuring a massive 8.1 on the Richter Scale - they are all (yes, even the seismic activity) signs of spiraling climate change… and emerging facts suggest that we ain’t seen nothing yet!
Every day climate extremes are being recorded around the world that dramatically exceed official predictions. Groundbreaking research continues to uncover fundamental truths about climate that have yet to be incorporated into climate models and predictions. While many official scenarios still assume that changes will unfold in a gradual, linear fashion, newly understood climate forces have the potential to create rapidly accelerating, exponential shifts.
And fresh evidence about Earth’s climate past has only recently revealed that centuries of slow, creeping variations in our planet’s climate history have been punctuated by stunningly rapid change. No longer is climate seen as an inherently stable system that gradually shifts from one state to another. Our climate system has shown that it is capable of responding to relatively small upsets with radical instability and upheaval. Could it be possible that it is happening again? The latest facts suggest that it is.
"Large, abrupt and widespread climate changes with major impacts have occurred repeatedly in the past, when the earth system was forced across thresholds. Although abrupt climate change can occur for many reasons, it is conceivable that human forcing of climate change is increasing the probability of large, abrupt events." - Prof. R. B. Alley
But science has been a bit late waking up. It was not until 2005 that the phrase ‘tipping point’ appeared in publications on climate, implying that it could change not only rapidly, but irreversibly. Such tipping points indicate a threshold of change beyond which the system loses its stability and transforms spontaneously into a radically new state….cold to hot, warm to freezing, wet to dry, calm to chaotic. It is now understood that even small creeping changes…like current global warming… can induce sudden, irreversible flips from one climate state to another.
We are now seeing possible tipping points in the melting of polar ice caps, and the thawing of tundra, both of which further exacerbate the warming that is triggering them, dramatically accelerating climate change even more. In this way, rather than steady, gradual changes, what we could be facing is an abrupt rearrangement of our climate.
A report by the U.S. National Research Council first suggested in 2002 that abrupt and potentially catastrophic climate changes are not only possible but likely in the future.
"The world is teetering on the brink of abrupt climate change: a change that will be so rapid and unexpected that human and natural systems will have difficulty adapting to it "
The real question is what does it mean for our future?
It is no longer easy to deny that the climate is changing. The risk is that it may change quicker than we can either fully understand or successfully adapt to it. Trouble is we can’t really afford not to act now… We could easily be caught woefully unprepared.
Unfortunately we missed the opportunity to avert this crisis with minor tweeks to our lifestyle and behavior, like changing light bulbs or catching the bus now and then. This late in the day we should be seriously preparing for the shocks ahead, because time is running out.
This is a volatile world. If climate shifted abruptly in the past, not just once, but repeatedly, it's inevitable it will happen again. The question is, when?
Climate scientist Professor Spencer Weart believes not enough is being publicized about this threat, and I agree with him:
"Much more likely than not, global warming is upon us. It is prudent to expect that weather patterns will change and the seas will rise, in an ever worsening pattern, through our lifetimes and on into our grandchildren's...Nearly everyone in the world will need to adjust. Citizens will need reliable information. So it is an important job, in some ways our top priority, to improve the communication of knowledge".
The fact is we aren’t being told the whole truth about global warming. For a start, our best climate scientists are being muzzled, harassed and forbidden from talking to the press about the things they know but dare not say. On top of that, fossil fuel companies have been avidly campaigning to spread misinformation and confusion about climate change and global warming…. After all, the last thing they want is control or limitation over their industry…
Yet, nearly every week now a shocking climate catastrophe hits the news… From Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, to mega-droughts in Australia, disappearing islands in the South Pacific, the Asian tsunami, laval mud oozing uncontrollably out of the ground in Indonesia, stunning melting of sea ice in the Arctic, the collapse of massive ice shelves in Antarctica, floating icebergs off New Zealand’s coast, accelerating glaciers in Greenland, and only this month, the earthquake off Japan measuring a massive 8.1 on the Richter Scale - they are all (yes, even the seismic activity) signs of spiraling climate change… and emerging facts suggest that we ain’t seen nothing yet!
Every day climate extremes are being recorded around the world that dramatically exceed official predictions. Groundbreaking research continues to uncover fundamental truths about climate that have yet to be incorporated into climate models and predictions. While many official scenarios still assume that changes will unfold in a gradual, linear fashion, newly understood climate forces have the potential to create rapidly accelerating, exponential shifts.
And fresh evidence about Earth’s climate past has only recently revealed that centuries of slow, creeping variations in our planet’s climate history have been punctuated by stunningly rapid change. No longer is climate seen as an inherently stable system that gradually shifts from one state to another. Our climate system has shown that it is capable of responding to relatively small upsets with radical instability and upheaval. Could it be possible that it is happening again? The latest facts suggest that it is.
"Large, abrupt and widespread climate changes with major impacts have occurred repeatedly in the past, when the earth system was forced across thresholds. Although abrupt climate change can occur for many reasons, it is conceivable that human forcing of climate change is increasing the probability of large, abrupt events." - Prof. R. B. Alley
But science has been a bit late waking up. It was not until 2005 that the phrase ‘tipping point’ appeared in publications on climate, implying that it could change not only rapidly, but irreversibly. Such tipping points indicate a threshold of change beyond which the system loses its stability and transforms spontaneously into a radically new state….cold to hot, warm to freezing, wet to dry, calm to chaotic. It is now understood that even small creeping changes…like current global warming… can induce sudden, irreversible flips from one climate state to another.
We are now seeing possible tipping points in the melting of polar ice caps, and the thawing of tundra, both of which further exacerbate the warming that is triggering them, dramatically accelerating climate change even more. In this way, rather than steady, gradual changes, what we could be facing is an abrupt rearrangement of our climate.
A report by the U.S. National Research Council first suggested in 2002 that abrupt and potentially catastrophic climate changes are not only possible but likely in the future.
"The world is teetering on the brink of abrupt climate change: a change that will be so rapid and unexpected that human and natural systems will have difficulty adapting to it "
The real question is what does it mean for our future?
It is no longer easy to deny that the climate is changing. The risk is that it may change quicker than we can either fully understand or successfully adapt to it. Trouble is we can’t really afford not to act now… We could easily be caught woefully unprepared.
Unfortunately we missed the opportunity to avert this crisis with minor tweeks to our lifestyle and behavior, like changing light bulbs or catching the bus now and then. This late in the day we should be seriously preparing for the shocks ahead, because time is running out.
This is a volatile world. If climate shifted abruptly in the past, not just once, but repeatedly, it's inevitable it will happen again. The question is, when?
 | By Dr Margaret Lillian Published: 11/26/2006 |
| Massive earthquake hits Japan - The Big Picture | The magnitude 8.9 earthquake slammed Japan's eastern coast Friday, unleashing a 13-foot (4-meter) tsunami that swept boats, cars, ... |
