Exxon conducted scientific research in the 1970s and accurately predicted increased global temperatures as a result of fossil fuel emissions. Nevertheless, it continued to assert there was no evidence for this.
www.nytimes.com/2023/01/12/climate/exxon-mobil-global-warming-climate-change.html
www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/09/climate/biodiversity-habitat-loss-climate.html
We are now at +1.2 C hotter than 1880. Only 0.3 C to go for catastrophe, according to environmental scientists.
Well done, developed nations!
Note: Post originally published on Sept. 2, 2020
According to recent research conducted by the Scripps Institute at UCSD, these bursts do not significantly add to the greenhouse effect. However, the large volumes of methane released from petroleum wells do.
As the planet warms, we’ll see more methane (CH4) emissions from the ground and oceans. CH4 has up to 80 times the greenhouse effects as CO2.
Living near the Finger Lakes I hear about these a lot in the late summer. Not only are the world’s 37aquifers running low, but our fresh, surface waters are becoming toxic. Farming and gardening practices, and overpopulation drive climate change, resulting in these blooms.
This could create a tipping point which could threaten public health on a grand scale.
www.nytimes.com/2018/08/29/science/lake-superior-algae-toxic.html
Each time we read and article like this we can say, oh, that’s in the future or somewhere else. But sooner or later the degrading environment will catch up to all of us. One by one, the dominos are falling.
According to National Geographic, the annual rate of sea level rise over the past 20 years has been 0.13 inches a year, roughly twice the average speed of the preceding 80 years. This is due to human activity that results in the thermal expansion of sea water, the melting of glaciers and polar icecaps, and the melting of the Greenland ice sheet.
The result is the flooding of wetlands, contamination of aquifers and agricultural soils, and lost of habitat for fish, birds, and plants. Higher sea level, combined with more intense storms (e.g., super storm Sandy) create much greater storm surges.
The result will be far more than property losses. As more of the coast is gradually lost to the sea, there will be a great migration inland, putting evermore demands on limited resources.
How bad could it be? A recent study says we can expect the oceans to rise between 2.5 and 6.5 feet by 2100, enough to swamp many of the cities along the U.S. East Coast. Should a complete meltdown of the Greenland ice sheet occur, sea level could rise to 23 feet, submerging London.
This is a fictionalized account of a deep space probe mission conducted from the planet Outlandia located 200 years away in our Milky Way Galaxy. Outlandia launched Xertox in Earth’s year 1950 after spectrographic analysis indicated Earth was located in what we call the Goldilocks zone (not too hot, not too cold . . .). Unfortunately, by the time it got here in 2152, we were toast.
The Xertox deep space probe (powered by ION rockets, enabling it to travel just short of the speed of light) from the planet Outlandia entered a polar Earth orbit and collected data from every surface area for a period of twelve months. These data included photos of the planet’s surface, along with atmospheric, oceanic, and continental compositions and temperatures (collected by deployed robotic labs).
Analysis (based on data received by Outlandia, another 200 years later) revealed that the planet’s atmosphere contained high levels of greenhouse gases contributing to an average surface temperature of 64.4° F. The oceans were highly acidic and appeared to have risen significantly over the past 150 years. The planet had no glaciers, with little ice at the southern pole. The northern pole had no ice.
There were no signs of higher lifeforms, only bacterial, algae, and fungi groups. Given soil analyses and the planet-wide remains of buildings and large structures, it appears the planet had intelligent beings and a wide array of higher plant and animal life forms. Further analysis shows a rapid release of methane from warming tundra and oceans over a hundred-year period, likely due to the extensive burning of fossil fuels. This conclusion is supported by the unique fossil fuel signature contained in many of the atmospheric CO2 molecules (fossil fuels have no carbon-14, and neither does the CO2 that comes from burning them).
Since this advanced civilization would have had decades warning of rising temperatures and their implications, we conclude this species rapidly developed technologically, well ahead of the time necessary to evolve to the stage of collectively focusing on their long-term needs and goals. Famine, disease, pollution, mass migrations, and conflict would have drastically reduced the populations of most species. Eventually, temperatures too high to support most life forms completed the extinction process.
Does our fate sound far-fetched? Maybe not. According to NOAA, the average global surface temperature in 2019 was 2.07° F higher than the pre-industrial period, 1880-1900 (the 21st century global average is 58.8º F). Scientists warn of a threshold effect if the average surface temperature rises to 3.6° F above the average 1880 temperature. Melting glaciers, rising sea levels, stronger storms, and the current (sixth) extinction of species all attest to the implications of these rising temperatures related to burning fossil fuels. Right now, things don’t look too promising.
Perhaps it is time for us to evolve a lot faster.
Stephen Fielding Images 