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NASA Drops a Bomb: February 2016 Shatters All Previous Temperature Records

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#24

scientists are not prone to hyperbole. It has always been their nature to avoid being seen as “chicken littles” predicting the end of days. But man, they have done humanity no service in their conscious attempt to soft sell global warming.
However, its not their fault that we haven’t listened.
It sure looks to this amateur meteorologist that we are seeing an acceleration of temperate rise, exacerbating the huge jumps that we now see in El Niño years. I’ll wager that by the late 2020’s we will see an increase of nearly .1C every year. And by 2050 we will be closer to 4 degrees C above pre industrial mean. The symptoms will be pretty damn clear by then, as the oceans will be nearly dead, wars will be being waged not for oil, but for fresh water, and the poorest, most downtrodden humans will moving about the globe like a giant virus, trying to escape the resource wars and the super storms that will destroy the coasts and river valleys the used t live in.

Oh, I forgot the best part. There’s no stopping it now. That ship has sailed, right into a goddamn iceberg

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#25

Methinks thou hyperbolith too much! It astounds me that after all these decades of warning about climate change that I see people still wanting to announce to others that it is too late. If it is too late then why are you bothering to talk about it? If the plane is crashing what is the point of telling the person next to you that it is falling?

First off, I agree that scientists have been forced by nitpicking republicans and conservative deniers to be cautious about predicting climate change. That has definitely hurt us all.

However, my point was actually that scientists weren’t able to predict this not that they did so but were cautious about saying so. I am saying that our science wasn’t up to the task… That we actually didn’t have the ability or skills needed to make such a prediction. I am saying it is likely that they are still wrong too in that they are likely underestimating the rate of change.

Nevertheless, I do not think it is too late. I think the science is wrong there too. I also think humanity is quite willing to do whatever it takes to do what is right, difficult as that may be at first. Governments and entrenched fossil fuel interests are not willing.

I think we could power the world easily with solar, wind and tidal electricity. A lot needs to change but a lot of change is good. Plenty of new jobs and industry, better health etc. The Earth could heal if we work fast. If we wait… I pity the young then… It will be very bad indeed.

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#26

Naah, you’ll just come back as a cockroach, they seem to survive anything.
;-})

#27

Good point, not contrary to Cookies’ statement, which I read to say not that Trump is the climate change culprit but that between worrying about Trump and all of which he is the culprit and climate change, of which, as you say, many others are the culprits, it’s hard to know how to stop feeling like a ping pong ball.

#28

Ah, the great Natalie Merchant, one of the most beautiful women –inside and out– this country ever produced. If there were far more people like her and far fewer of the dummies and sociopaths around it never would have come to this. It’s beyond tragic that a species with the potential of homo sapiens sapiens fouled its nest to the point of ecological collapse and is now facing its end. Who knows what was truly lost because of this 500 year-orgy of violence and greed and lust for material wealth?

What might have been.

If lust and hate is the candy
If blood and love tastes so sweet
Then we give 'em what they want

Hey, hey, give 'em what they want

So their eyes are growing hazy
'Cause they wanna turn it on
So their minds are soft and lazy, well

Hey, hey, give 'em what they want

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#29

My favorite goddess is actually Nemesis. And make no mistake, the now fast-approaching climate death of the human species is the quintessential divine retribution for the hubris of this civilization.

We were warned that she was inescapable. Too few listened.

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#30

Were we to accept the 1.5C degree limit in global warming, with whatever disasters it entails, we have 10 years, as a civilization, to achieve the following:

  1. Establish a global collective committed to the tasks of:
    a) Turning capitalism OFF
    b) De-militarizing and disarming in order to minimize the danger of mass-destruction
    c) De-industrialize
    d) Establishing the foundations of a new agrarian economy, with minimal industry and zero fossil-fuel usage
    e) Establishing localized cooperatives for human needs, counsel, and administration
    f) Dismantling the nation-state system
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#31

Correct! What odds do you see of this happening?

Personally, I’m convinced people would rather die than give up their materialist, consumerist lifestyles. As a global civilization we are going to plow straight into the iceberg. And there are no lifeboats.

What I expect to see are desperate, last-ditch geoengineering efforts at solar radiation management once this curve goes linear (it is approaching linear right now). Who knows how little time there will be to try to keep the sun from cooking off the bulk of life on Earth? A decade? A few years? A matter of months? Certain feedback loops, like the release of arctic methane, can kick in so rapidly and at such huge scale that there really may not be much time at all to organize a response, even a desperate, hair-brained one.

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#32

I disagree and feel strongly that technology is our only hope. Obviously there also needs to be a change in the old slash and burn/use it up and move to a new place and do it all again.

We need wise use and environmental protection, fisheries protection etc but we don’t need to destroy civilization or humanity. We need better technology. Non carbon producing energy/the end of fossil fuel tech and so forth.

I can envision a carbon free technological world where renewables like solar and wind power our trains and even our planes (they are working hard to develop electric jets), electric cars and whatever. We could do things more efficiently and faced with disaster I think people will want to do things a better way.

If we stopped using fossil fuel that one thing which many people insist is impossible but which is quite possible and will eventually happen (and sooner than most believe) then we would see an immense ‘sigh of relief’ from our ailing environment. We would prevent that killer heat because all calculations of carbon based greenhouse temperatures are based on the carbon remaining in the atmosphere but it doesn’t work that way.

The world’s natural systems will sequester carbon and reduce its levels in the atmosphere. Moreover we are attempting to work out means of human based sequestering and carbon removal. For example we could stop using asphalt and use a type of concrete that pulls carbon from the atmosphere. A lot of road out there across the world and in buildings.

Those who want to be malevolent and claim the species should go extinct have done too many drugs and must live with the brain damage but maybe they should seek help and therapy. There is nothing revolutionary in saying the end is near and we deserved it anyway.

No we don’t. We deserve to be smart enough to save the planet and ourselves from those too selfish and greedy.

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#33

How could it be “very likely” if we can’t even test if it’s there? “Fundamental” Physics has it’s own pathologies, and is becoming delusional with the rest of society. Try Lee Smolin’s, Trouble With Physics or Pete Woit’s, Not Even Wrong or Jim Baggot’s Farewell to Reality.

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#34

I agree. It is not too late. The soil can hold 2-3 times the amount of carbon in the air and above ground plants together. The way the average person can do this is to eat organic vegetables, pastured and grass fed meat, dairy. eggs and chicken. Animals eating grass and then depositing their urine and excrement can sequester huge amounts of carbon. The animals need to be managed as nature used to in moving and closely packed herds. Allan Savory has developed the system and many small farmers including Joel Salatin are perfecting it. I am optimistic because small farmers can make more money and work less using the system as one of the farmers in the film “Soil Carbon Cowboys” arrests colorfully to.
Those that say humans are headed for extinction forget that humans are the only species to inhabit all parts of the earth including the harshest. The only way cockroaches can exist North of the Arctic Circle or in the Sahara is in a human made abode.

#35

ttp://www.alternet.org/election-2016/gasland-director-urges-fracking-states-vote-sanders-super-tuesday

#36

I agree that there is a lot we can do and all those who will say that this thing or that thing won’t be enough apparently never figured out that the idea is to do them all together and that the worldwide teamwork approach will do the trick.

BTW … Cockroaches are highly overrated… Lol. Besides I never felt that their surviving when we wouldn’t all that much of a recommendation for them.

I believe in decency and human beings can work together. Some folks think only greed works with people. Deep down inside I believe the species will always be smart enough to work together for survival even if a few individuals are not.

At the moment greed rules and destroys us but we see that for the very first time that fossil fuels are on shaky ground. Once we see that fossil fuels are replaced with renewable energy become a reality ( which it is fast doing) I think humanity will enter a new Renaissance which will allow even our ever growing population to exist along with nature. Cheap virtually free energy will allow us to do amazing things.

For example small farmers should be able to sell to a central world distributor as easy as a local one if shipping were free etc.

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#37

Yes, I can see that as a possibility… but, who will get to survive… that is already baked into the cake also… all those sociopathic billionaires…

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#38

I also have wondered about the reincarnation thing… I used to be 100 percent into it… then, we experienced the Iraq war and which made me even more aware of the effect of war on children… and I thought, well, how is it fair for a child to go through the horrors of war, be maimed or worse…before they really get to work on their Karma… so, I put it aside for a while, because it reminded me too much of the whole religious fire and brim stone believe system…I really do not know what to think of reincarnation at this point… I think it has merit somehow… I’m working on it.

#39

For years most climate scientists have understood that all the IPCC predictions were understated.

Some of the reasons for doing so included preventing panic, adopting a “conservative” position on climate change, not understanding the climate systems (and their interactions) well enough to create accurate and robust climate models, synergistic effects, and the existence of myriad “unknowns” about which we are only now gaining a better understanding.

In fact climate scientists don’t even take into account the effects of various “heat” effluents from nuclear reactors, coal fire plants, steel smelters, warm human sewage, decomposing organic matter, etc. on the earth’s water systems and ambient air. And that doesn’t even address the chemical content of such matters.

Now when one realizes that this heat (and many of the related chemicals) can’t escape the atmosphere you end up with a pressure-cooker effect within a closed system.

You will be reading about all sorts of untoward phenomena occurring in the coming months and years so being “surprised” (ie: characterizing the February data as a “bomb”) at the NASA data is concerning to say the least.

Rather, the “surprise” is that little of anything has been done thus far to reduce the damage perpetrated by humans everyday.

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#40

Thank you, I have been trying to say this for a few years now… you put it well…

#41

I have the idea that … maybe if thousands of people could “go on the road”, hiking all the way across the country … in protest of industrial society, we may make some progress in helping more and more people, going in the direction of “living off the grid”… of course, I can see it now… there would be so many problems… I guess… and of course, the “authorities” would interfere, to say the least… I don’t know… it is just another way I thought of in order to get the word out about one last ditch effort to save at least some life on this planet…even if it isn’t us… trying to help others understand that industrial civilization is our problem…but, I thing many would feel as if it were an attack… so, guess it’s not such a good idea… I don’t know what do you guys think?.. course, it’d be hard for me to go now, my daughter is still in school, but , hey, maybe we could just have a RITUAL walk around our communities… say once a month, as many people as you can muster up… make a ritual circle walk, carrying not signs, but maybe homemade items, or food to share… at least with each other… I don’t know, we should at least help others understand and then we can come up with ways to be off grid… ALL TOGETHER NOW…
I call the White House comment line a couple times a month … asking WHEN will an executive directive be put in place to shut down all nuclear power plants…since it takes 40 years to shut one down… we could get ahead of the abrupt climate change and shut them down so that maybe just maybe they wouldn’t add to our demise… but, I think we are out of time for that too…

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#42

Thoughtful post – and I certainly admire your optimism – but (sadly) I think “we’ve met the enemy and he is us” (Walt Kelly, Commodore Perry).

Humans are a horrendously-flawed species – and if you look at the extinction rates of all the other species as the result of human influence – it seems only fair to this observer that some form of poetic justice be meted out.

And Mother Nature has the power to do just that.

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#43

yes, what you are talking about is great, but it can’t be the only solution, it is PART of a solution… the rest of it is to get rid of civilization. you cannot absorb enough carbon to make up for all the co2 produced by making new nuclear power plants, (concrete) all the jet fuel from thousands of rich folk traveling to Paris for their daily luxury spa treatment, all those football/baseball fans in their big ol’ electricity sucking stadiums and their pick up trucks to boot… all those pet toys made of plastic, let alone the kids toys… all those bombs, and military factories spewing poison and death… it’s too much… it’s like a candle in the … hurricane…

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