Some scary news from up north

[AK Granola]

Check out this recent publication from my neck of the melting woods.

https://uaf-iarc.org/2019/08/23/alaskas-changing-environment/

They did a nice job on the graphics. Meanwhile I still have tomato plants growing nicely outdoors, and got swarmed with mosquitoes on my walk home from work. My usual average first frost date used to be August 21st.

Not normal, not at all. So weird.

[Tom K]

The sad part is that a majority of Alaskans seem to support the very policies that are enabling the root causes of the problems.  I wonder how many of them will read this publication, and vote accordingly?

[AK Granola]

You’re right Tom, Alaskans are not as a whole very environmentally conscious. But I would argue that’s true of the US in general. Our entire economic stability rests on massive overconsumption. If we all stop overconsumption we plunge into recession. And all of that excess is killing our planet.

The publication comes from the research institute at our top university, funded by federal grants. Our state government has just voted to destroy research in the state, so it will be a challenge just to monitor the changes from here on out. It is the dark ages, when prayer is all you need, and “evidence” is fake. Alaskans and Americans won’t read this publication, but the ball is rolling fast now, and there’s no sending it back up the hill, no matter what anyone believes.

[Tom K]

“Our entire economic stability rests on massive overconsumption. If we all stop overconsumption we plunge into recession. And all of that excess is killing our planet.”

The publication comes from the research institute at our top university, funded by federal grants. Our state government has just voted to destroy research in the state, so it will be a challenge just to monitor the changes from here on out. It is the dark ages, when prayer is all you need, and “evidence” is fake. Alaskans and Americans won’t read this publication, but the ball is rolling fast now, and there’s no sending it back up the hill, no matter what anyone believes.”

 

Truer words were never spoken.  Yes, the ball is rolling, and the evidence continues to pile up daily, if one is paying attention.  Everything from climate instability to rising sea levels to ocean acidification to methane hydrate decomposition to anaerobic decomposition of the tundra substrate to mass species extinction, and on and on.  Hard lessons are on the horizon for the human race, and my hope for effective measures is fast fading.  In the end, however, I am optimistic, for my faith rests on life itself.  The earth is indifferent to our fate as a species, but life at some level of complexity will survive to restart the evolutionary process.   Earth and the life it supports will abide.

 

[Steve M]

Sadly, anyone that has done much reading/research on this topic will come to the same conclusions.      Also sadly, the US currently has a “leader” who not only does not read….but has surrounded himself by ‘yes men’.

[jscott]

Tom has been writing about warming for years and gets it. There are some I know however who claim they won’t be bothered by mass extinction and mass death of people because Life Will Find a Way. I think that’s just another form of denial. I don’t think they get it.

Philosophy won’t allow you to sail blithely through that kind of catastrophe.

[Tom K]

“Philosophy won’t allow you to sail blithely through that kind of catastrophe.”

I get into that mindset at times.  I suspect it is an attempt to put a little distance between myself and a catastrophe of a magnitude beyond my emotional capacity to process.

[Eric Blumensaadt]

These indicators are truly alarming. And the US, still the biggest CO2 producing nation but we have a president bent on making things WORSE! This crisis is FAR beyond politics and ideology. It is mass extinction or partial extinction and a (much damaged) “survivors” environment. That is our choice because we have waited way too long to preserve the environment we were born into. So very sad.

Folks, as a long time teacher of environmental studies (since the ’70s) I think we actually may have passed the tipping point with ocean acidification. And the oceans are our main lifeline, whether we know stir not.

 

 

[Tom K]

” And the oceans are our main lifeline, whether we know stir not.”

Approximately 66% of the O2 in the atmosphere is produce by phytoplankton photosysnthesis.  At some point, acidification and ocean warming is likely to put a serious dent in their population.  What even a 1-2% reduction in the O2 fraction of the atmosphere would imply for life on earth has not been studied, at least not anywhere I have looked, but I think it’s safe to say it would leave a lot of us seriously short of breath.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151201094120.htm

[AK Granola]

It’s only an anomalous blip on the trend line, not altering the upward trajectory, but here’s a Christmas present to you all, from interior Alaska. It will be minus 40-50 starting tomorrow night! It’s like old times. Filling up the water jugs tonight in case the pipes freeze!

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