Bubbling Our Way to Catastrophe

Oscillating between pessimistic optimism (or optimistic pessimism), there are so many reasons to be hopeful for change. Amazing technologies. Increasing awareness. McSUV sales plummeting. Political leaders taking forthright stands. Optimism.

Reality can strike hard, ambusing surging optimism with reasons for dire concern. Today’s Chicago Tribune had a story of bubbling catastrophe …

Sergei Zimov waded through knee-deep snow to reach a frozen lake where so much methane belches out of the melting permafrost that it spews from the ice like small geysers.

the Russian scientist struck a match to make a jet of the greenhouse gas visible. The sudden plume of fire threw him backward. … “Sometimes a big explosion happens, because the gas comes out like a bomb…. There are a million lakes like this in northern Siberia.”

Out of sight of almost all of us (the US). Out of mind for most as well.

In Siberia, the permafrost entombs billions of tons of organic matter from the Ice Age, … Dormant for millennia, the permafrost is being thawed by global warming, triggering the microbial consumption that results in the release of greenhouse gases.