Yes,
it's abnormally cold in Europe and abnormally warm in Greenland. The
polar vortex
is apparently out or whack again. Also the northern and southern jet
streams weirdly enough are
interconnecting.
Here
in Pacifica our problem is that our shoreline is melting with apartments buildings and homes literally at
risk of falling into the ocean - and this is before any real sea
level rise has
even set in.
Yet
SLT may not be the worst of it. There are many calamities unfolding
as we warm the planet hotter than it has been in 125,000 years.
Once called the the 'greenhouse effect', the terminology has becomes normalized. 'Climate change' sounds more benign. For last half of
the 2oth century the great existential threat was annihilation by
nuclear war - and it still is. But now a second hubris driven
reality has emerged . We as a species are destroying our planet's
life very capability to sustain the diversity of life as we know it.
But
like our own mortality it is easy to set aside the implications such
an awesomely grave reality and get on with business as usual. After
all life must go on. As with our inability to outlaw nuclear
weapons, confronting global warming becomes just another example of our species' misuse of our several thousand year evolved tool-making genius. Simple tool making morphing over time into worldwide
industrialization coupled with avarice-driven late monopoly
capitalism and then malevolently entangled with our bestial
territorial imperatives, makes for quite difficult nut to crack. Yet
almost all 195 nations big and small some how agreed to try to tackle
the problem. Hence the Paris accords.
But
in the USA a large number of people voted for a political party that
officially opposes doing anything about it and for a president who
believes its all a “hoax”. Even the oil dependent Gulf States
and the Putin-led Russkies signed on to the Paris accords. Yet we
have bowed out. All of the 2016 GOP presidential candidates with one
exception were off-board regarding climate change and facing
up to it. And in the presidential debates it was hardly discussed.
Many
of these fools hide behind fossil fuel company supported researchers
or so-called contrarians who pride themselves on digging up
inconsistencies and errors in the thousands of peer-reviewed research
papers constantly being published. I for one hope they are right
and the whole thing is a grandiose world-wide delusion, the biggest
academic boondoggle in history. Then all the 'greenie' types can go
back to worrying about their traditional concerns – air and water
pollution, habitat loss, pesticides/ herbicides in our food, huge
dead zones at the mouth of rivers, plastic islands the size of Texas
in the world's oceans and so on.
Beyond the Sea Level Rise that coastal communities are facing here's a checklist of what the global warming hoax
mongers claim is also happening:
- Disruption of the Jet Streams and Polar Vortex: Due to rapid warming of the arctic and less white ice surface to reflect the solar heat back, the darker water surface is absorbing the heat and warming. This is affecting high altitudes temperatures which is in turn is disrupting the northern jet stream causing it to vary. It now periodically dips enough to cross the equator to connect with the southern jet stream. This could have deleterious affects on agriculture by causing colder and warmer winters. Also the Polar Vortex is periodically dipping south. Whether the erratic jet streams are causing this is not clear.
- Ocean acidification. That is the name given to the ongoing decrease in the pH balance of the Earth's oceans, caused by the uptake of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. About 30–40% of the carbon dioxide released by humans into the atmosphere dissolves into the oceans, rivers and lake. Too high an acidic balance impairs shell making in marine life. That's not good.
- Coral Reef Die-offs. Life sustaining coral reefs are bleaching out and dying all over the world due to ocean temperature rise. The Great Barrier Reef off of Australia's east coast has declined by 50% since 1985. Reef health is very important to global fisheries (which were already in decline due to over fishing).
- Sixth Great Extinction Over 1,400 Endangered Species are threatened by climate change according to the International Union for Conservation. The habitats where these species have evolved and thrived over millenniums are suddenly warmer and less hospitable or there is less water due to persistent droughts. So many plants and animals are now threatened that we are now experiencing an extinction rate comparable to the last five great extinctions going back 425 million years.
- Desertification As rain pattern shift, marginally productive areas for agriculture become actual deserts. All of the world's deserts are expanding due to an increase in prolonged droughts. The horrific Syrian War was triggered by a prolonged drought.
- Forest fires as a problem worsen The incidence and intensity of forest fires are worsening. In California the main fire season now extends into December. Globally fire rage longer and occur more frequently than in the past due to prolonged drought conditions.
- Storms frequency and intensity worsen: Extreme low pressure zones that give rise to hurricanes and tornadoes are random events. So no single storm or storm season can be tied to changed climate conditions. But no one can deny extremely warm waters in Gulf of Mexico or the Caribbean are not factors in the parade of nasty hurricanes and extreme rain events in 2017.
