Humans Seem Hell Bent on Committing Mass Suicide -- But There's Still Hope

By Fred Branfman, AlterNet. Posted May 15, 2009.

Although critics accuse the IPCC of being alarmist, it has in fact been too conservative. Adverse effects of climate change have regularly exceeded its predictions.

So is the heating of the planet the only problem?

No. Also of particular concern is the state of the Earth’s oceans. The moderate Economist magazine’s survey of the world’s oceans concluded on December 31, 2008: "Fish are now almost everywhere in decline. Coral reefs have suffered most. The sea is hideously polluted. Ice melts. Each of these changes is a catastrophe. Together they make for something much worse. Moreover, they are happening alarmingly fast. Many are irreversible." Wisely, it stated that "the mass extinction, however remote, that should be concentrating minds is that of mankind."

What scientists have proven particularly credible on all this?

Dr. James Hansen first brought global warming to world attention and, although he is also accused of alarmism, negative events have often outstripped his predictions. He has recently written that unless dramatic action is taken to reverse global warming "we will leave a devastated, impoverished planet for all generations of humanity that we can imagine ... recent evidence reveals a situation more urgent than had been expected. ... It will be necessary to take actions that return [carbon dioxide] to a level of at most 350 pip [parts per million], but probably less, if we are to avert disastrous pressures on fellow species and large sea level rise."

Dr. James Lovelock, a distinguished British scientist who discovered ozone-layer depletion and invented the "Gaia Hypothesis," predicted in 2007, in an issue of Rolling Stone magazine, that global warming will bring "mass migrations [and] epidemics, which are likely to kill millions. By 2100, the Earth’s population will be culled from today’s 6.6 billion to as few as 500 million, with most of the survivors living in the far latitudes—Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia, the Arctic Basin."

My God! Six billion humans dead! Are all the experts as pessimistic as Dr. Lovelock?

No. Most, like Hansen, believe the planet can still be saved. But Hansen thinks this will require dramatic measures like imposing a tax on all sources of carbon at the wellhead, which would both dramatically reduce the use of carbon and make renewable energy cost-competitive. He also believes coal must be outlawed as soon as possible—saying that "the trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death." He also advocates safe nuclear energy.

There are a handful of expert skeptics about the dangers posed by global warming. But given the unusual consensus among almost all other experts, nonexpert citizens have no responsible choice except to make saving the biosphere their top priority. One would think that the unexpected collapse of the world economy would wake up humans to the possibility of biospheric collapse. The IPCC has written that man-made "warming could lead to some impacts that are abrupt or irreversible, depending upon the rate and magnitude of the climate change." Many credible climate scientists fear that global warming could, relatively soon, reach a "tipping point," making it impossible to forestall a global catastrophe. Humans are in denial, however, about the threat to their survival.

What could cause climate change to become irreversible?

Interactions between separate climate-caused problems accelerate the rate of degradation in unforeseen ways. Christopher Field, a Carnegie Institution expert, reported on February 15, 2009, that "emissions from burning fossil fuels since 2000 have largely outpaced the estimates used in the [United Nations] panel’s 2007 reports."

The Washington Post reported on February 15, 2009, that "unexpectedly large amounts of carbon dioxide are being released into the atmosphere as the result of ‘feedback loops.’ ... Prominent among these, evidence indicates, is a cycle in which higher temperatures are beginning to melt the arctic permafrost, which could release hundreds of billions of tons of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. ... The permafrost holds 1 trillion tons of carbon, and as much as 10 percent of that could be released this century, Field said. Along with carbon dioxide, melting permafrost releases methane, which is 25 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. ... Currently, about 10 billion tons of carbon is emitted each year."

See more stories tagged with: environment, economy, global warming, oceans, collapse, biosphere, planetary destruction

Fred Branfman is a writer, public policy activist, spiritual seeker and student of psychology. While directing Rebuild America in Washington, D.C., from 1987 to 1991, Branfman wrote “An Investment Economics for the Year 2000” and “Industry-led Strategy.” He wrote the “strategic investment initiative” for U.S. Sen. Gary Hart’s mid-1980s run for president. As a Cabinet-level aide for California’s then-Gov. Jerry Brown, he wrote the “Investment in High Technology” and “Investment in People” state-of-the-state initiatives. He also promoted renewable energy while directing Protecting Future Generations in the mid-1990s, and authored the state of California’s SolarCal strategy and “Jobs From the Sun” in 1979 while with the Campaign for Economic Democracy.

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