Why the latest on climate change is dire, and probably worse than they’re telling us.
I know, “Worse than THEY’RE telling us” sounds a bit conspiratorial. After all, conspiracy theories always contain a “they”, some mysterious group of powerful individuals hiding behind some unknown curtain of world power, manipulating the masses for nefarious reasons.
To most rational and intelligent people these ideas may sound fringe and bogus. “Conspiracy theory” usually refers to some belief for which there is little to no verifiable evidence, just blind faith in the claims of some wacko televangelist, influencer or youtuber, something we often get from cults or religions.
What I’m about to write is not a “conspiracy theory” but a simple observation. No, I am not a climate scientist, though I did learn a thing or two about it in college and from books by climatologists, and I’ve been fascinated with the topic for years.
But one thing I’ve learned by reading up on scientific journals is that even if all industrial activities stopped today (which would of course be good, regardless), we would still experience warming for quite some time, possibly even a few hundred years.
That’s why I was surprised to see what I read in a recent New York Times article about the latest IPCC report. The NYT article states that: “scientists say warming will largely halt once humans stop adding heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere.” The report in mention was pretty dire, but that single phrase from the New York Times almost made me cringe because of how inaccurate it is.
Why is such a credible and highly respected source of elite media making such a misleading claim?
Sounds nice, but there’s a problem. Actually, a few of them.
Now, there is no doubt that we must stop emitting carbon and methane emissions into the atmosphere as soon as possible, but the idea that warming will “halt” once humans stop adding greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is akin to something out of a fairy tale.
It could take many decades, up to a century or even more, for temperatures to go down even if all human industrial activities suddenly came to a screeching halt.
For one, it takes about a decade or more for a single emission of C02 to have its maximum warming effect on our planet, which means the warming we are getting today is from emissions released into the atmosphere around the time people thought the world was going to end because of the Mayan calendar, Barack Obama was still in his first term, and Amy Winehouse still refused to go to rehab.
This means that even if we stopped polluting today, the heating effect of the emissions released yesterday wouldn’t even be felt until the early/mid 2030’s.
Plus, in 2013, research from Princeton University published in the journal Nature Climate Change stated that it could take many decades, even up to a century or even more, for temperatures to go down even if all human industrial activities suddenly came to a screeching halt.
But, according to the research, about 100 years after such a hypothetical occurrence took place, the Earth may begin to warm again, albeit slightly, for an additional 400 years due to the ocean’s decreasing ability to continue absorbing atmospheric heat.
The feedbacks that keep feeding us
Then there’s something called the feedback loops, a phenomenon most mainstream media outlets seem reluctant to discuss. One such feedback loop comes from the melting sea ice in the North Pole. For millions of years, the ice cover over the Arctic Ocean has normally accumulated snow, lots of it. All that snow reflects much of the solar radiation hitting the Earth back into space, keeping the entire planet relatively cool, known as the albedo effect.
But as human activities warm the planet, the Arctic is warming three times faster, and as the Arctic ice melts away, less solar radiation is reflected back into space, and more is absorbed into the open ocean, accelerating global warming.
Then there’s the issue of the melting permafrost, or ground that remains frozen year round in places like Siberia, Greenland, Alaska, and the Canadian Arctic. This permafrost is thawing at a much faster rate than scientists previously thought. The melting Earth in these areas is already causing damage as roads and entire buildings have collapsed into the ground, which had previously been frozen for thousands of years, until now.
It appears we’ve created a kind of snowball that may now be rolling down a metaphorical slope on its own.
Over 1,500 gigatons of carbon is stored in the world’s permafrost. That’s twice as much as the atmosphere currently contains. As it thaws, bacteria break down the organic matter that has been there for thousands of years, and that’s how C02 and methane are gradually unleashed into the atmosphere, trapping even more solar radiation and warming the planet even faster, which has the potential to raise global temperatures by an additional 0.5C.
An additional 0.5 degrees may sound modest, but it’s enough to wreak havoc on our planetary climate systems.
Global heating is also causing more wildfires, which produce smoke and, of course, more planet warming greenhouse gas emissions, which heats the planet even more, which produces water vapor from the warming oceans, which also traps more solar radiation, warming the planet even more, which melts more permafrost, which releases more methane, which produces more heat, which causes more wildfires, which produces more heat, which produces more water vapor…
Of course, the original source of current global warming are human industrial activities, including food production (especially meat production), but it appears we’ve created a kind of snowball that may now be rolling down a metaphorical slope on its own, gaining mass with each passing second, and there’s a good chance that snowball (perhaps fireball would be more appropriate) is now unstoppable, regardless of what we do.
Whether that’s the case or not is still up for debate, but one thing’s for sure, warming will not “halt” even if we were to suddenly stop using electricity, driving cars, flying jumbo jets and farming animals for food, and it may take centuries before temperatures go back to preindustrial levels, if they do so at all considering the snowball (fireball) effect that our inaction may have allowed.
Why are “they” not being honest?
All too often, these feedback loops are not even added to the equation in modern day climate modelling, and it appears the IPCC assessments are hesitant to factor them in as well. Mainstream journalists appear to think that reporting on the subject would be like, well… playing with fire.
But why?
For one, by introducing the feedback loops (which are already happening) into climate predictions, the big picture may look a bit too dire, like a scary movie we won’t allow our children to watch.
Climate scientists and journalists are human and, just like most normal people, they have hopes for the future, and probably kids.
When people have children, they may become irrationally hopeful about the future. Accepting the idea that it may be too late to slow, let alone stop, anthropogenic global warming is a sour pill to swallow, unless you’re a masochist and enjoy the acidic taste.
Another reason is that, by admitting the window to save ourselves may already be closed, most reasonable climate experts and reporters know they would be indirectly sending the following message to the world: “After years of studying the climate crisis, we’ve come to the conclusion that we’re all going to die even if we stop burning fossil fuels. So fuck it. We might as well just keep this party going baby.”
This is something right-wing politicians and “news” outlets like Fox News would bask in. Suddenly they would admit global warming is actually happening and that humans are to blame, but it’s too late to stop it so who cares? Keep enjoying your life, eating your steaks and driving your SUV’s, and let’s get rid of all those pesky solar panels and windmills and make coal and oil the ONLY sources of energy worldwide.
Come to think of it, let’s all have a cigarette, plus a glass of whiskey with a Quaalude to help us forget about the world’s problems, and our own.
If it’s too late to stop global warming, should we just throw in the towel?
Whether a smoker who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer should continue to smoke because it makes no difference at that point is a matter of debate. The thing is, smoking comes with more added value besides just lung cancer and other respiratory diseases, like the simple fact that it makes it harder to breathe, it stinks, makes your teeth yellow, and is a nuisance for those who’d rather breathe oxygen instead of ammonia.
A similar argument can be made for the burning of fossil fuels and the farming of animals for food. Indeed, we may have crossed the point of no return, but the consequences of our industrial activities go beyond just warming the planet.
Exposure to air pollution causes cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases and numerous cancers. On average, 6.7 million people a year die from pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels, not to mention how factories that produce coal, plastics, textiles, etc., pollute rivers, lakes and reservoirs, making drinking water unsafe.
Animal agriculture for meat production, aside from contributing more to global warming than the entire global transportation industry, is extremely cruel to animals, along with being the leading driver of wildlife habitat destruction, a leading cause of freshwater depletion and among the leading contributors to water pollution and ocean dead zones.
Is there a conspiracy to keep us in the dark?
Not exactly. I’d say it has more to do with a kind of collective denial. In some ways it’s the product of ignorance on the part of the mainstream media, in other ways it's irrationality on the part of scientists, while in others it's well planned, a way to keep hope alive and prevent humanity from adding more fuel to the fire by giving the option that we may still save ourselves if we stop now.
“They” may or may not know what they’re doing when they tell us we can “halt” climate change if we halt our industrial activities. But regardless of what scientists and the media tell us, we seem reluctant to stop the party that started with the onset of the industrial revolution over 200 years ago.
“Progress” is like a drug to us, and just like Amy Winehouse, we refuse to go to rehab.
And it’s looking more and more like we’ll end up following in her footsteps, on a global scale.
If you’re a passionate reader then you may very well enjoy my fiction novel The Shadow in the Mirror, where you can find out what’s actually going on with Harold Hopkins (genre: paranormal suspense).
Harold’s only wish is to lead a normal life. Yet for reasons he can’t comprehend, he is shunned by all living things. No matter how hard he tries, he is unable to garner attention from the woman he loves, nor can he foster genuine friendships or find a decent job. Meanwhile, since childhood, he has been haunted by his own reflection in the mirror, which frequently acts as a window to another world. The person on the other side is everything Harold wishes he could be, like a clone of himself leading the fruitful life he was destined to lead. He finally sets off in search of answers, where he learns about the unearthly events that took place when he was born, and discovers the tantalizing truth about his own existence…
