Sorry for the doom and gloom

[SHRED]

But the more I read and study about this climate change we are going through the more I realize that it appears to be far worse, and happening much faster, than many realize in the general public.

I have heard we have "10 years to turn this around".
Even that seems optimistic to me.
"An Inconvenient Truth" seemed optimistic to me.

1 more year of drought in the South American rain forests and this may shift at an exponential rate.
1 slip of the Greenland ice shelf and disaster.

Are we not on more than "the brink"?
My intuition tells me it is already much too late.
Much past the brink.

Am I just being overly dramatic or is my intuition as close to reality as I think it is?

[bananas]

1. Al Gore has said that he thinks we can turn it around

I don't have a link handy.

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. Unfortunately, I'm thinking you're right.

I can't think of any reasonable dire prediction about the environment made in the past 20 years that has not come true, sooner than predicted. The breakup of the Antarctic ice shelves, not supposed to happen till 2020. This level of diminishment of Arctic ice, not expected till 2050. The rise of ocean levels, 18 inches by 2050? They've already risen 2 feet in the past 50 years.

It's feeding on itself, and accelerating. You ain't seen nothin yet.

[megatherium]

7. Where does the 2 feet in the last 50 years number come from?

I thought it's only been a few milimeters so far.

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. Something I read the other day. i will look for verification.

ON EDIT:

I can find no verification - everything I've seen says 10 - 25cm over the past 100 years. It was probably something I read on the internets.

My bad.

This does not, however, negate my basic premise - that effects of global warming are accelerating, and we will see them sooner than most people predict. Scientists tend to use the most conservative numbers possible to make themselves less open to challenge; therefore, the the average predictions should be seen as the minimum predictions.

[megatherium]

10. Thanks. nt

[Delphinus]

11. I agree with what you say here:

Scientists tend to use the most conservative numbers possible to make themselves less open to challenge; therefore, the the average predictions should be seen as the minimum predictions.

That's why the meetings I've attended on pandemic flu are always so "rosy", yet when people talk about them, they see things as much more dire.

Back on topic, I understand that some feel we can turn it around, but the changes are like a snowball rolling downhill. Once it gets started, it picks up speed, adding more snow to itself, and it won't stop until it gets down to the bottom of the hill.

Earth's ecosystem is a delicate balance and its not been in balance for a long time. When the rate of extinction of species is what it is, discussed right here in this forum, how we think we can bring it all back into stasis in under ten years is beyond my abilities to see. That doesn't mean I won't stop trying to mitigate my impact - but I'm too old to live in a fantasy world. I want to teach my grandbabies how to live in this "brave, new world" we're rushing headlong toward. I want everyone's eyes to be opened. We've lived in darkness for too long now.

[Subdivisions]

3. I feel your pain

I, too, feel as if the balance has already tipped and that it is already too late.

If you take global warming, the current energy crisis (yes, I called it a crisis), all the wars already being fought and ones predicted like Iran and N. Korea and a few more doom and gloom happening and scenarios, you have the makings of World War III, though I hesitate to go there quite yet.

SHRED, I don't think it is just you because my intuition is ON FIRE.

[DemsRBetterLovers]

4. Cultural Ecology is practically its own science now in the UCs

The affects of culture due to enviroment factors=cultural ecology

More specifically, professors are focusing on global warming and its affects on modern culture.
Let me tell you, its some scary stuff.

[mike_c]

5. your intuition is better than you think IMO...

...and I'm a professional ecologist. I won't hijack your thread for my rant-- let's just say that I don't have much hope for the short range future of the planet. Long range is still up in the air and depends on the time scale in question-- and whether the scenario includes significant human population.

[Codeblue]

6. I've already noticed

The world is falling apart around us. We have a war in Somalia that has now sucked in neighboring Ethiopia. We have crazy politicians with their own militias running amok in NIgeria in their "election." We have people in Congo being killed because of an election. We have a war between Israel and Hezbollah which is threatening to engulf the entire Middle East. We have North Korea posturing while Japan threatens to invade if they do much more. We have the U.S. on the verge of financial collapse and a President about to start throwing his own citizens into camps. To top it all off, gas prices are over $3.00 a gallon.

But the worst part is, nobody cares about the chaos. We all just continue to drive our internal combustion engines around polluting the world with our exhaust fumes. Global warming will happen and cause a cataclysm, and I don't think many people will even realize the world is about to end until just before the darkness overcomes them for good....

[ramapo]

9. I think you're correct

From my vantage point of having watched the world for 45+ years (started reading the newspaper when I was five), I'd say the train has left the station.

The effects of climate change become more clearly evident everyday yet nothing, absolutely nothing, is being done about it. We're burning fossil fuels like there's no tomorrow, and maybe there won't be.

The time to have acted passed about 30 years ago when Jimmy Carter was president. Instead, the citizenry dismissed him as a "downer" and started the decades-long party kicked off by "Morning in America".

The Earth will be ok in the long run, what will live here is another question.

[Boomer]

12. Echoes of my own thoughts

Just last night my partner and I were discussing the "we have ten years to turn things around" statement made on 60 Minutes last night.

I don't buy it.

Too many feedback loops have been set in motion. If we were to stop every single carbon emission RIGHTNOW, I think the accumulated momentum of current CO2 levels would still carry us over the edge. And that's assuming we're not tipping over already, which is also a distinct possibility.

Glacial melt, permafrost thaw, ocean C02 saturation -- we've pushed the climate beyond recovery and into a state of chaos as searches for a new equilibrium. And I highly doubt that equilibrium will be as hospitable to humans (or even mammals) as what we've destroyed.

Perhaps the most chilling articles I've read lately are the description of a resurgence of ocean bacteria and jellyfish. They are ancient lifeforms that thrive in high-nutrient, low-oxygen environments, and their populations are booming now that the food chain above them has been decimated and climate conditions are favoring them.

That is one possible face of our future: a return to the primordial soup. No humans need apply.

[Dead_Parrot]

13. Depends how you look at it...

I think in 10 ten years time, we'll realise we missed the boat by 11 years. The feeling I've got is that we're aleady past the initial tipping point, but the inertia of the system means we've not going to witness the full horror of what we've done for some time.

Having said that, I think we still have lots of scope for damage limitation: Just how bad it gets is still up to us.

As a rough analogy, imagine a guy who's been shot in the stomach: It's already bad - maybe life threatening. Would you shoot him again? or would you take him to hospital?

I'm not quite ready to give up while there's a hope of salvaging something from this mess.