Planet collapsing under global warming stress : IMC-SA

I just googled, fears, global threats and some key word variations to establish what concerns humans most, a kind of a web research that did not surprise me. All the hits were about terrorists, Chemical or biological weapons, obese children, low western birth rates and other illogical modern day phobias. None of which held the fear I was looking for because fat child terrorists are never likely to be born.

—Terms like Global warming & climate change did not come up with the same fears and did not convey what lies in store for us in this climate change era. Still built upon cemented and static assumptions of prehistoric global climate the haphazard testing and modeling methods employed in research are illogical. The climate is changing in parallel with human activity..

The problem is that all aspects of the environment are being treated as if they were separate, reduce co2 and the problem is solved is the accepted thinking, however less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will not reduce the impact of what is already overburdened.

Forests once absorbed sufficient co2 in partnership with the plankton in the sea to balance out what was naturally created by the earth’s volcanic action. Each year, since time began, tons of gas belched out of cracks in the earth.

The gas was exhaust from an engine delivered in inexhaustible supplies after geo-sequestered carbon deposits incinerated beneath the earths crust and were continuously absorbed into carbon sinks on its surface which operated as if their lives depended upon it.

It was a self sustaining mechanism that no longer operates.

About 8000 years ago something started to happen that began to alter the earth’s ability to maintain the biosphere. Human’s appeared on the scene intent upon making their lives easier and began to farm the land, which inevitably led to deforestation.

Draining swamps and burning began to destroy the carbon sinks inevitably leading to accelerated global warming we know today. Initially the extra co2 created by burning was slight in amongst the overall volume of what was being created naturally and made little difference.

Compensating for the loss of swamps and woodland the sea continued to absorb much of CO2 and the cycle continued as if no real impact was made. However, the change was enormously beneficial to human civilization so the practice swept across northern Europe until it was recognized human behavior throughout the world.

Of course 8000 years is a very long time for anyone to notice such a change, so it is hardly surprising that today governments and scientist assure us that we can put things right.

Today just as many volcanoes belch just the same amount of carbon dioxide into the air each year as they did when nature took 400 years to lock it all away beneath the watery carbon sinks.

The problem is that there is now far more gas in the air and less on the surface to deal with it. Forest no longer cover 2/3rds of the earths land mass and the plankton in the sea is an endangered species.

For this reason neither scientist nor governments have a plan.

Most climate scientist talk about changing temperatures affecting human civilization over the next 100 years, a term, or life tenure, most of us feel comfortable with, plenty of time, to think, and do something while we concentrate on paying the bills.

Assured by a trusted authority South Africans feel certain that they can adapt to the coming heat, knowing full well we can & will use more energy to keep ourselves cool. In Europe faced with opposite threats, anyone regardless of what they believe will burn more fossil fuels to keep warm.

We are comforted in the knowledge that climate control is a ‘term’ clearly stamped on the front of any affordable home appliance. Made in China, it assures us that anything can be done by anyone for next to nothing, proving that science and industry can & does create better environments.

It’s a false hope as engineered climate control needs the earths stored carbon deposits to be effective while it is said a strong economy is of paramount importance in our shortlist of main concerns.

Governments through private enterprise intend building desalination plants to fill the empty reservoirs that will one-day supply agriculture with all its water needs.
We can continue blindly on assured that technology has all the answers so that we can do without nature. Moving from drought stricken broad acre farming techniques to sheltered food production. Aquaculture ventures will continue to become a larger feature of our coastline while sheds for hydroponics and green plastic houses will replace ploughed fields in our countryside.

We will observe these changes in scenery in one generation, as Africa becomes a land of tattered plastic tunnels girt by netted ponds..

Rising seas, overwhelming low aquifers in Spain has not dampened the drought stricken nation’s love affair with providing hydroponics fruit and vegetables to Europe, farmers are happy that they can still make use of the barren land. Dry Coastal waterways are no longer a concern, and over fished oceans spoiled by pollution will no longer bother them, as their environment will no longer be dependant upon nature.

South Africans will do the same.

In China population growth, delivering a hungry workforce has developed a growing economic monster that no longer has enough land to feed itself. Industrial and suburban development has encroached upon so much land the government has had to encourage farmers to produce high protein yields in order to supply domestic demand.

As a sign of the times, Rainforests in the Amazon are being sacrificed to the god of Chinese industry so that Soya can feed the hungry pigs that grace the plates of the nation’s factory workers.

Nothing can change to avert the worst dangers of global warming, Humans will adapt so that consumerism survives.

Already in the atmosphere is enough CO2 to keep global warming going for 400 years.

The current predictions issued by media concerning timing of rising sea levels or extremes in weather are not based upon fair indicators, or guaranteed by primary and secondary safety guards. The predictions are made only after disaster strikes and scientists are pressured into predicting reoccurrence. In response wild guesses are made and the best case scenarios are selected.

What is always left out of all global warming debate, as if it has no meaning outside the northern hemisphere is that all global warming predictions are wholly dependant upon the Gulf Stream functioning as well as it once did.

What is more than obvious is that governments intentionally down- play policy of all environmental concerns, in preference to less important subjects that get all the attention funding and consideration.

No one questions the global warming implications of $400 Billions being spent on the Iraq war or the absurd waste of money that was spent demolishing Afghanistan.

No one seems concerned that global warming already kills more than terrorists and has the potential to kill more life in the next generation than all the wars of the last two centuries.

Few would know how much any country has ever contributed to any one environmental project. While most would be shocked to find out that the Melbourne’s Commonwealth games cost more than has ever been spent globally in the short history of conservation.

In reality, wars no longer matter; terrorist’s matter less as what was once hoped to be achieved through armed conflict will not be sustainable in the near future. Poverty in the third world is due the unfair distribution of resources, so how do the recipients of the lions share intend to supply developing nations to end their poverty?

As we have heard, the intention is to find greater supplies of raw materials and ignore pollution restrictions in the emergent economies while they develop greater needs for more raw materials.

A situation not only guaranteeing that developed nations will maintain pollution levels but the third world will equal the effort. All at a time when the greater threat of climate change continues to be ignored and grows unscathed by little concern.

The Gulf Stream is only one single component of the planets climate system and is dependant upon the stability offered by all the other component parts. It is the key stone, without which, the earth’s climate will develop greater extremes in both spheres. Take it out, and both sides of the arch will collapse. No scientist can assure climate stability past the next decade but nevertheless all scientists seem to assure us that no significant change will occur any time soon.

Closer to nature, there is already significant changes occurring that show environments are no longer able to sustain life as they once did. From eyewitness accounts Polar Bears have died by drowning because Global warming has changed their environment significantly,, walruses too have abandoned their pups as the ice that once provided nurseries dissolves beneath the breeding population.

However what is significant for nature means nothing to humans, it seems like no big deal, but dig a little deeper and the picture becomes frightening.

Both plankton and fish populations have been decimated in recent years, due to ocean current disruption leading to food chain collapse in many of the worlds oceans prompting concern amongst nations whose population depends upon the protein rich source.

Already reports of starvation have emerged in nature as oceans develop areas devoid of oxygen which has affected available nutrient resources that sustained a bio diversity that now has had to move on or die.

Ground cover and forest on land that once supported life throughout the world have dried out. Rainforests have been affected with the Amazon recording its driest years while all regions report significant die back.

In hot temperatures, forests release more CO2 than Industrial nations. The heat wave that parched Europe in 2003 caused the continent's grasslands and forests to release huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Heat waves are predicted to become more common because of climate change, so the discovery raises fears that forests in temperate regions will become significant emitters of this greenhouse gas.

Researchers found that at the height of the summer of 2003, carbon was baking out of Europe's vegetation at a rate of half a billion tonnes per year. By comparison, UK industrial emissions totaled 150 million tonnes of carbon equivalents in 2003.

.Under heat stress Forest release CO 2 along with other toxic chemicals and methane, all without catching fire, while forest fires also occurs more frequently as the temperatures increase, adding to the realization that trees are no longer helping in the fight against global warming,

While awareness suggest there was never really a fight to begin with, only assistance.

These events are happening right now, proving that the extreme weather not predicted for decades has already arrived.

Viruses kept out of the human population because natural habitat once existed are now clearly jumping ship in an effort to survive the changing natural landscapes. Avian flu has our attention today as it spreads into Europe and Canada, but a few years ago Bacteria hit the headlines as the greater concern, now both demand human hosts as they compete for survival.

Australians were warned last year that in the next few decades Ross river fever, spread by mosquitoes, would affect population centers in southern states, and already this year cases have reached epidemic due to floods and unseasonable wet weather occurring in South Australia.

In the artic circle the surface seasonally devoid of snow and ice is no longer reflecting heat or photon energy, the sea has become dark and as receptive to warming as the land. 3 meters or more of perennially frozen soil is now thawing, altering ecosystems where caribou are now reported to have become bogged in annual migrations.

The thaw is damaging buildings, rail links, oil pipelines and roads across Alaska Canada Norway, Russia and Siberia. Scientists are still saying these things may happen many years from now, somehow oblivious to what can be seen now.

Scientists know the thawing will increase runoff to the Arctic Ocean and release vast amounts of Methane into the atmosphere, which of course will lead to greater warming and greater release of methane gases.

This by itself is reason to believe the Global warming tipping point was reached some years ago while governments concern themselves with how to supply growing demands in electricity as coal becomes more expensive to extract in the Peak Oil age.

The disingenuous concern for the environment allows a small amount of support for alternative energy debate as Nuclear power is labeled environmentally friendly only because it offers equal supplies to meet growing demands.

Regardless of what little governments will do, increased precipitation and sea surface heating from global warming is already disrupting the Atlantic Conveyer and has grave effect on the ocean food chain in the Atlantic and other oceans, and this effect will be severe.

Phytoplankton is the basis of the entire marine food web, ultimately affecting everything from zooplankton to the larger fish that people consume. Production is set to decrease as the currents are disrupted. This loss could hit 50 percent in some areas causing the environmental collapse that will take wild fish off the menu for humans.

The Atlantic Conveyer current has the strongest impact in the North Atlantic, but it is a global phenomenon. Surface waters from the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Ocean and the southern Atlantic are pulled northward where they are cooled by the atmosphere in the North Atlantic.

As the water cools, it sinks 2,000 to 3,000 meters and begins flowing southward. The upwelling from the mixing of waters constantly replenishes the supply of phytoplankton at the surface, forming a rich nutrient source at the bottom of the marine food web.

However, higher levels of generated carbon dioxide from natural and human activity with great stores of methane entering the atmosphere without hope of being absorbed into carbon sinks, will increase water and air temperatures and decrease salinity in the North Atlantic at a rate significant enough to prevent the sinking and ultimate mixing of the water.

This would not only disrupt the Atlantic Conveyer current, but such a situation would actually prevent nutrient-rich waters from triggering phytoplankton growth along the whole route that the Atlantic conveyer takes.

When the Atlantic Conveyer current worked well, the dead plankton sunk to the bottom and was replaced at the surface with nutrient-rich water that encourages further production but now that the current has been disrupted, the mixing is less, so that production of first links in the food chain is also reduced and co2 storage becomes negligable

However, what ever can be said about global warming it is clear that far worse is actually happening right now than is being reported. Beneath the deepest oceans are also huge stores of liquefied frozen gas, of both Methane and carbon dioxide laid down by dead organisms over centuries. These submerged lakes are kept stored by the maintained temperature of the sea and its depth.

Permafrost not only occurs on land in the artic circle but also beneath the oceanic crust. Off the shore, Canada’s huge reserves of frozen methane exist but in the North Sea where sea temperatures have already warmed enough gases bubble to the surface from the subterranean vats so the gas vaults are now empty.

Recently scientist have admitted surprise to learn that CO2 absorbed by the sea surface creates carbolic acid, they were also amazed how much co2 is now in the atmosphere compared to before deforestation and burning of fossil fuel. Today we are advised that if everyone does there bit to reduce CO2 there will be a future.

Government publicly funded infomercial’s are used to encourage people to use less power while building companies create air-conditioning dependant housing. Electricity use is a target of all global warming concern while cars are rarely mentioned and the media seems less than honest while it blames the consumer without identifying the lack of choice.

Perhaps its time we planned for the future that is already here, we should be building insulated houses, creating subterranean sealed aquifers fed by desalination plants that are powered by photo electric cells that need little maintenance. It is time we geo-sequestered nuclear technology to make it safe for future generations and taught our children survival techniques not for the consumer age but for the end of its age, which we now face.

Thank you for your time