August 19, 2013 – Back in the halcyon days of warnings about
a far off event called climate change (as
opposed to the actual occurrence of
climate change, which is what we’re stuck with now), Americans were warned that
if certain tendencies in the climate asserted themselves, they would encourage the
climate’s unpredictability, thereby leading to more change. When an action leads to results that
reinforce the original action, a feedback loop has been established. Say, for instance, that a student who
dislikes school because he gets poor grades, decides that because of his
disliking school he’d rather play soccer with friends than study for a
test. The consequences are quite predictable:
because he doesn’t study for the test, he performs poorly on the test, leading
to an even greater dislike of school.
That’s a feedback loop.
In the early days, right after World War II, all that
scientists knew was that the earth was warming.
Because everyone they told wanted to know why our planet was getting
warmer, they were sent right back to the drawing board. Gradually, they began to discern the
problem. The news was worse than anticipated:
burning oil and coal was the cause of the warming. And the warming wasn’t just a regional or
national problem. It was global. They decided to call the problem global
warming.
Because the production of energy by means of burning oil and
coal enables our very upscale, American way of life, no one wants to know about
what the scientists discovered. The growing body of evidence is, however,
very difficult to ignore. Gradually the
news of our dangerous dilemma has spread, so that now, legislators and leaders
of various kinds are expressing concern.
Sadly, only Democrats listen to and understand the science.
Republicans are still fighting it, every inch of the way.
Back to climate change feedback loops. A number of them exist today, and the more
that exist, the more that will become established. Here’s what I’m talking about:
· Methane is a greenhouse gas. Billions of tons are sequestered in
permafrost, which is melting and releasing the methane. Though methane lasts only seven years in the
atmosphere, it is more than 20 times more toxic to humans than carbon
dioxide. As more and more methane is
released into the atmosphere, the world becomes hotter and hotter. It will be a very, very, very long time until
we run out of methane.
· Drought in the Amazon caused it to release more
carbon dioxide than the entire United States released in 2010. The more carbon dioxide that exists in the
atmosphere, the greater the greenhouse effect.
The greater the greenhouse effect, the hotter the earth becomes.
· Boreal forests, bogs, and peat deposits are
burning at a rate exceeding the historical rate of the last 10,000 years. This is due to the fact that forests close to
the Arctic are much hotter and drier than they used to be. Lightning strikes have increased because
thunder storms have increased, as a result of warming air’s capacity to carry
more water. Drying forests are the
tinder, lightning is the match.
· Ice, snow, and water in the oceans of the North
are darkening. This causes these
normally light-colored surfaces to become less reflective. The less light and heat that are reflected
away from the earth, the warmer the earth becomes. Ice and snow have become dirty as a result of
burning fossil fuels. Northern waters
are darkening because of flooding which carries silt, or dirt particles. As our planet warms, flooding will increase.
· As glaciers melt because of the increasing
temperature, surface meltwater invades cracks in the ice, which causes glacial ice to soften and melt even
further. Beyond a certain tipping point,
water begins to pour from beneath the ice.
As this phenomenon grows, a second tipping point begins to take shape. As it is reached and surpassed, the flood
emanating from the glacier becomes chaotic.
The likelihood of a tsunami caused by the volume of water escaping the
glacier becomes far greater, and sea level rises dramatically. As stated previously, while our planet warms,
flooding will increase.
Climate change deniers are costing us our planet.
With thanks to Transitionvoice.com.
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