Our World Is Burning
TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 5 Oct 2020
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service
Two Time Scales
4 Oct 2020 – The central problem which the world faces in its attempts to avoid catastrophic climate change is a contrast of time scales. In order to save human civilization and the biosphere from the most catastrophic effects of climate change we need to act immediately. Fossil fuels must be left below the ground. Forests must be left above the ground and saved from destruction for beef or palm oil production.
These vitally necessary actions are opposed by powerful economic interests, by powerful fossil fuel corporations desperate to monetize their underground “assets”, and by corrupt politicians receiving money the beef or palm oil industries.
However, although some disastrous effects of climate change are already visible, the worst of these calamities lie in the distant future. Therefore it is difficult to mobilize the political will for quick action. We need to act immediately, because of the danger of passing tipping points beyond which climate change will become irreversible despite human efforts to control it.
Tipping points are associated with feedback loops, such as the albedo effect and the methane hydrate feedback loop. The albedo effect is important in connection with whether the sunlight falling on polar seas is reflected or absorbed. While ice remains, most of the sunlight is reflected, but as areas of sea surface become ice-free, more sunlight is absorbed, leading to rising temperatures and further melting of sea ice, and so on, in a loop.
The methane hydrate feedback loop involves vast quantities of the powerful greenhouse gas methane, CH4, frozen in a crystalline form surrounded by water molecules. 10,000 gigatons of methane hydrates are at present locked in Arctic tundra or the continental shelves of the world’s oceans. Although oceans warm very slowly because of thermal inertia, the long-term dangers from the initiation of a methane-hydrate feedback loop are very great. There is a danger that a very large-scale anthropogenic extinction event could be initiated unless immediate steps are taken to drastically reduce the release of greenhouse cases.
Only Immediate Climate Action Can Save the Future
Immediate action to halt the extraction of fossil fuels and greatly reduce the emission of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses is needed to save the long-term future of human civilization and the biosphere.
At the opening ceremony of United Nations-sponsored climate talks in Katowice, Poland, Sir David Attenborough said “Right now, we are facing a man-made disaster of global scale. Our greatest threat in thousands of years: Climate change. If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of much of the natural world are on the horizon. The world’s people have spoken. Their message is clear. Time is running out. They want you, the decision-makers, to act now.”
Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General, said climate change was already “a matter of life and death” for many countries. He added that the world is “nowhere near where it needs to be” on the transition to a low-carbon economy.
The World Is Burning!
Although the worst threats from catastrophic climate change lie in the long-term future, we are starting to see the effects of climate change today. California is burning! Together, blazes in California, Oregon and Washington have burned more than 5.8 million acres, a spokesman and a report from the NIFC say. California Gov. Gavin Newsom says climate change is to blame.
The Arctic is burning! A northeastern Siberian town, north of the Arctic Circle, is likely to have set a record for the highest temperature documented in the Arctic, with a reading of 100.4 degrees (38 Celsius) recorded in June, 2020. The dangerous greenhouse gas methane is bubbling up from melting permafrost in the Arctic and from the shallow seas north of Siberia. Furthermore, wildfires in the Arctic are emitting an unprecedented amount of CO2.
The 2020 hurricane season has started early, notably with Laura, and it is predicted to be unusually severe. Greenland’s ice sheet is melting. Ice shelves are collapsing in the Antarctic. But despite these obvious signs of danger, the climate emergency is hardly mentioned in the 2020 political campaigns, or in U.S. mass media. It ought to be a central issue.
Greta Thunberg’s 2019 Speech at Davos
Here are some quotations from the speech of world-famous teenage climate activist Greta:
“Our house is on fire. I am here to say, our house is on fire. According to the IPCC, we are less than 12 years away from not being able to undo our mistakes. In that time, unprecedented changes in all aspects of society need to have taken place, including a reduction of our CO2 emissions by at least 50%…
“Here in Davos – just like everywhere else – everyone is talking about money.
It seems money and growth are our only main concerns.
“And since the climate crisis has never once been treated as a crisis, people are simply not aware of the full consequences on our everyday life. People are not aware that there is such a thing as a carbon budget, and just how incredibly small that remaining carbon budget is. That needs to change today.
“No other current challenge can match the importance of establishing a wide, public awareness and understanding of our rapidly disappearing carbon budget, that should and must become our new global currency and the very heart of our future and present economics.
“We are at a time in history where everyone with any insight of the climate crisis that threatens our civilization – and the entire biosphere – must speak out in clear language, no matter how uncomfortable and unprofitable that may be.
“We must change almost everything in our current societies. The bigger your carbon footprint, the bigger your moral duty. The bigger your platform, the bigger your responsibility.”
A New Freely Downloadable Book
I would like to announce the publication of a new book, which discusses the ecological crisis that we face today. The book may be downloaded free of charge and circulated from the following link:
http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Our-World-is-Burning-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf
Other books and articles about global problems are on these links:
I hope that you will circulate the links in this article to friends and contacts who might be interested.
__________________________________________
John Scales Avery, Ph.D., who was part of a group that shared the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize for their work in organizing the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, is a member of the TRANSCEND Network and Associate Professor Emeritus at the H.C. Ørsted Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He is chairman of both the Danish National Pugwash Group and the Danish Peace Academy and received his training in theoretical physics and theoretical chemistry at M.I.T., the University of Chicago and the University of London. He is the author of numerous books and articles both on scientific topics and on broader social questions. His most recent books are Information Theory and Evolution and Civilization’s Crisis in the 21st Century (pdf).
Tags: Activism, Climate Change, Deforestation, Forest fires, Global warming, Paris Climate Agreement
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 5 Oct 2020.
Anticopyright: Editorials and articles originated on TMS may be freely reprinted, disseminated, translated and used as background material, provided an acknowledgement and link to the source, TMS: Our World Is Burning, is included. Thank you.
If you enjoyed this article, please donate to TMS to join the growing list of TMS Supporters.
This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 License.
I understand John Scales Avery’s position, thoughts and proposals very well and agree with him 100%. But I also know that there is a quicker way to solve the climate crisis: the Universal Abolition of of Wars. This means the Universal Abolition of Militarism, Armed Forces, Military Research and Military Testing. Underwater and space explosions are poison to the environment.
The SECURITY Industry CREATES more INSECURITY, for humanity. Militarism destroys Nature. This destruction of Nature most of Climate Changes we and the planet experience.
I say ‘most’ because some climate changes are natural. Take for instance the temperature. Cold countries produce white wine. 350 years ago, 90% of the the wine produced in England was RED. What does this indicate? take saffron, the plant use for flavouring and colouring food. Again, it grows in very hot climates. 400 years ago, England grew saffron, something unthinkable today.
Alberto