WORLDFIRE - Chapter 6, Part II Houston, We Have a Problem

[Brenda]

Tom Weis
Mar 19, 2024
(This is a very comprehensive (and in the end overly optimistic to me) article and really worth reading the whole thing. He provides an enormous amount of links to data.)

In just a few generations, we have managed to dig up and burn much of the fossil fuels the Earth took eons to create, heating the atmosphere to levels not seen in eons. But not all of that heat stays in the air. About 90 percent of it has been absorbed by the oceans. How much heat is that? As reported in Scientific American, “if the heat generated between 1955 and 2010 had gone into the Earth’s atmosphere instead of the oceans, temperatures would have jumped by nearly 97 degrees Fahrenheit.” Think of that excess heat as a gigantic engine fueling hurricanes. Oceanic carbon dioxide levels have similarly soared, leading to an increase in ocean acidification that could result in the horrifying prospect of marine organisms no longer being able to form calcium carbonate shells. In recent decades, scientists have also seen a marked decline of microscopic marine algae called phytoplankton. Why should you care? Phytoplankton not only comprise the base of the marine food chain. They produce half the world’s oxygen and naturally remove about 30% of our carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere during photosynthesis. 22 prominent marine scientists, referencing a mass extinction event, have warned that “CO2 from burning fossil fuels is changing the chemistry of the seas faster than at any time since a cataclysmic natural event known as the Great Dying 250 million years ago.”

Also driving that migration will be sea level rise. It might alarm you to learn that the grandfather of climate science, James Hansen, who has consistently been ahead of the curve in foreseeing climate impacts, is predicting a sea level rise of six to ten feet by 2065. Six to ten feet would make ghost towns of coastal cities like New York. As it is, cities like Annapolis, Maryland; Charleston, South Carolina; and Miami, Florida are already experiencing sunny-day flooding often one to two feet deep. Other scientists are warning that rapid melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets could result in a global water rise of up to six to 15 feet by century’s end. A single glacier in Greenland called the Zachariae Isstrom glacier that is currently breaking up into the ocean has enough water in it to raise sea levels one and a half feet globally. Another collapsing glacier in Antarctica called the Thwaites “Doomsday” glacier could itself raise sea levels by up to three feet. All told, the Greenland Ice Sheet has enough water in it to eventually raise the world’s seas 23 feet. Greenland and Antarctica have been losing ice at a rate six times faster than that observed in the 1990s, putting us on track with what top climate authorities consider to be a worst-case scenario.

In her book, This Changes Everything, award-winning author Naomi Klein asks “what is wrong with us? What is really preventing us from putting out the fire that is threatening to burn down our collective house? I think the answer is far more simple than many have led us to believe: we have not done the things that are necessary to lower emissions because those things fundamentally conflict with deregulated capitalism, the reigning ideology for the entire period we have been struggling to find a way out of this crisis. We are stuck because the actions that would give us the best chance of averting catastrophe—and would benefit the vast majority—are extremely threatening to an elite minority that has a stranglehold over our economy, our political process, and most of our major media outlets.”

There has never been a clearer need for a modern-day Mission Control to coordinate the rescue of our dangerously compromised spaceship Earth. Let no one say the United States lacks the genius or resources to mount such a global rescue mission. Similar to what the Apollo 13 mission dramatically demonstrated, we can save ourselves by dedicating our best and brightest to solving this life-and-death emergency. Just as the space experts at Mission Control found a way to bring our courageous astronauts safely home long ago, so can experts operating a Climate Mission Control bring the crew of spaceship Earth home today. Just as tragedy yielded to triumph then, so can we find a way now, but we must focus on this mission as if our lives depended on it because for many of us, they do.

https://cominghometogaia.substack.com/p/worldfire-chapter-6-part-ii?utm_campaign=email-post&r=lvyxk&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email