Kilimanjaro Ice Cap Melt in 7 Years

It’s true I should stop going to or give parties, even though it’s the season. Too much of everything really. Last night was no different except for an interesting conversation I had about The Law of Economy. Right off the bat, the Law of Economy has very little to do with Economics as an applied science. It has to do with establishing what we can extract from nature before Nature stops us. It has to do with the carrying capacity of Mother Earth. It has to do with how far we can go extracting resources from the earth to build and motorize tools and toys that pollute the air we breath and the water we drink and then at the end of their life-cycle are discarded off to be reclaimed over time by the earth and the elements, while in the disintegration process polluting the earth. The discussion got started because of the growing concerns here in North Florida about the number of license requests to operate woodburning bio energy plants in the North Florida and South Georgia forests.

For good measure we expanded our views to the global scene and the recent Green House Gas Emissions summit in Copenhagen and whether a treaty on global warming is in the works or even needed. In a relatively small circle I quickly found out how many people have elected to view their own lifestyle as the ruling one for everyone to follow and call Global Warming a hoax. It’s also amazing how we collectively can stick our head in the sand for the realities out there.

While snow and ice storms already batter the US and Western Europe with Winter only 2 days old, and Summer rain is flooding many countries South of the Equator, we’re facing some pretty crispy weather here on Amelia Island, Florida as well. Nothing to worry about meteorologists hush: “El Ni√±o is back with a vengeance”.

The United Nations just closed the Summit on Greenhouse Carbon Emissions last weekend with a couple of last minute token concessions by the major players for good fun and promises for the future. There is simply too much distance in world opinions and economic interests to get a clear mandate on how to approach Global Warming. Actually the expression “Global Warming” almost sounds too cozy and friendly to expect anything bad from it. Some think that Global Warming is the end of the world, others that it is a total hoax and yet some believe that it is a good thing as we are going to be wearing bathing suits all year long. Still arrogantly look down on us ignorami while proclaiming “solar cycles” as the natural culprit.

Having been involved with practical/economically justified green since the late 1960’s, I think that we’re already past midnight and actually have sped up the process over the past several decades and it’s better now to concentrate on humanity and technology and how to survive the upcoming extremes, rather than bicker about what can and should be done to prevent them.

There are many Americans that shout that since WWII we have spent a lot of our wealth to rebuild and stabilize other countries as well as humanitarian support for the people of them. Now we are running record deficits, losing too many jobs and have an economy in shambles, yet we are expected to give more of the wealth that we don’t have to help other countries out? A lot of people are of the opinion that something should be done but we do not have the money to finance it here at home let alone abroad.

Let me warm you up to some realities:
‚Ä¢ Yesterday a news item reported on the Chacaltaya glacier (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt0SUOBRpZE)ski run in Bolivia – once famous for being the highest ski run in the world, is set to disappear completely within the next few months. The melt is a crucial element of a crisis in the country’s water supply and the capital city of La Paz (the Peace) will face enormous water scarcity. Original calculations had estimated the glacier to disappear sometime in 2015-2016 pointing at the escalating timetable of global warming.
‚Ä¢ Last week Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology issued a shipping alert after a massive 60 square mile Antarctic iceberg was spotted 1,100 miles (1,700 kilometers) off the country’s southwestern coast.
• In late November there was news that a group of up to 50 icebergs were just off the coast the Northern Islands of New Zealand. These melting colossi alone could very well change the conveyor belts of the oceans.

The Belt that Gives us our Climates

• Greenland is now actually turning green instead of ice and snow covered white. The Greenland Ice Sheet has experienced record melting in recent years and is likely to contribute substantially to sea level rise as well as to possible changes in ocean circulation (conveyor belt) in the future.
• The Maldives Islands in the Indian Ocean, an archipelago of almost 2,000 coral reef islands has a population of some 400,000 people who are desperately looking for another place on the Asian continent to relocate their culture and people to.

So is Kiribati (Gilbert Islands), a Micronesian island nation with some 100,000 residents.  It is anticipated that they may not last on their native land for another decade.

Dwelling upon the term “Global Warming” or even “Climate Change” is actually an Act of Ignorance as it does not address the REAL problem. The real problem is industrial pollution and the fact that we extract from the earth polluting fossil fuels for energy production. The other real problem is the unhampered world population growth which requires more energy production – which increases the effect of global warming on food production and the need to feed the masses.

Earth doesn’t stop at national borders, just because we randomly draw or by force made them. Take an air sample from an urban area to the lab to see the real problem. When Chernobyl’s nuclear disaster happened in Russia, the weather patterns made the whole of Western Europe a victim, thousands of miles away. We act as if we are in charge of the earth and NOT as visitors who are only welcome as long as we play by the earth’ rules. Well obviously we don’t play by the rules and nature is applying some counter pressure to our uncontrollable sucking of resources and polluting of the atmosphere. I’m with George Carlin, rest his soul in peace: When Earth gets enough of our abuse, it’ll shake its skin like a dog shakes off fleas and continues its very own cycle which historically may happen simultaneously. End of story. Or is it…?

The Real Importance of Copenhagen is not any Treaty or Agreement

Even though a lot of nations returned from Copenhagen with the dreaded feeling that nothing has been accomplished, the summit has turned the tables and the long fight has led to recognition of the green concern. Copenhagen is where the principle and the process of environmental change and global warming have moved from being the exclamation of a pressure group, and a charity whine, to being the orthodoxy, the accepted wisdom, the mainstream.

The environment was playing in the sandbox until Copenhagen, regardless of Kyoto Protocols.From here on it makes absolutely no difference any longer what opinion polls or referendums say. It won’t matter a bit that the Green Party has singularly failed in every democracy. It doesn‚Äôt matter that they‚Äôre all as boring and righteous as goody-two-shoes. It doesn‚Äôt matter that scientists fake messages and bury statistics, that they do everything in a veil of secrecy. None of this matters now. It doesn‚Äôt even matter if it‚Äôs actually going to happen. All that matters is that the people who matter, think it matters.

When the heads of nearly every government turned up in Copenhagen to make promises, sign agreements that they will break and fudge and chuckle over and lie about, that’s not what’s important. They may bounce the check, but they won’t bounce the reason for writing it. They’re on board for global warming.

From here on it is about arranging the world economy for the next century.

Global warming is where the momentum is. Global warming is the future. The loonies with the sandwich boards handed their baton over to the power brokers and deal makers. They will of course go on complaining and protesting, they will sneer at progress and write books and turn up on late-night cable TV shows and radio shows, because that’s what they’ve done all their lives. But make no mistake, they‚Äôre effectively kicked off the porch. This is the new deal and they don’t have a seat on that table, because from here on it is about arranging the world economy for the next century. Because no matter what economic model we look at, energy is the tool that makes it happen. And guess what? None of this could have happened without the laptop. The ecology movement was made possible by the web, the blogs and the emails. Until the internet came along, most activism died in the sixties in a vacuum where no-one could hear them.

What effect could this have on us here on Amelia Island. Well a couple of days ago I read the story about the Houma Indians in the Louisiana Bayou who are family by family forced to leave their island where they have resided for almost 300 years. The hurricanes and the rising tides are taking over their island in the Gulf of Mexico.

Does this look like we still have time? I don’t think so.

Do we have time? Not if we continue to deny that Global Warming will create extreme weather patterns, the most severe one our future generations in North America and Western Europe will face. The icebergs breaking off the polar caps could re-direct the ocean conveyor belts as has happened in history and if that happens, the consequences will be devastating.

NASA is spending more resources and research on this phenomenon as they are of the opinion that by disturbing a massive ocean current, melting Arctic sea ice might trigger colder weather in Europe and North America and make our barrier islands disappear under water. If the Great Conveyor Belt suddenly stops, the cause might not matter. Europeans and Americans will have other things on their minds–like how to grow crops in snow. Now is the time to find out how we can build enough greenhouse growing capacity. Now is also the time to discuss and research the possibilities and options to build dikes and water resistance walls like they did in the Netherlands, a country that lies for 60% under sea level. If we don’t, oceanfront real estate prices will be dropping rapidly.+

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