“We are asleep. All across the world. This is the defining moment for humanity.”
The government agency that oversees Australia’s Great Barrier Reef on Friday (31-01-14) approved a plan to dump vast swathes of sediment on the reef as part of a major coal port expansion by the North Queensland Bulk Ports. The Abbott Point coal port is planned to become the biggest coal port in the world. A decision that environmentalists say will endanger one of the world’s most fragile ecosystems. (AP) As you might know Ocean acidification is one of most important issues that we are currently facing on our planet today. Read article I wrote about it last week here. Also a new study found that the Arctic’s temperature (CHASING ICE) rise has actually been higher than any other part of the Earth. Scientists linked the shrinking ice and snow cover in the region on the heat being trapped in the atmosphere. “In the Arctic, as the climate warms, most of the additional heat remains trapped in a shallow layer of the atmosphere close to the ground, not deeper than 1 or 2 kilometers [0.6 to 1.2 miles],” says German climate scientist Felix Pithan to LiveScience. This thick layer of air prevents the atmosphere from releasing the excess heat thus causing warming in the region. All this and other key findings can be found in the January 30th 2014 full UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC report here. The final version can now be read online and provides detailed information to policymakers and the scientific community. The Working Group Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) has 1,500 pages of text, 600 diagrams, cites 9,000 scientific publications and claims to offer a comprehensive understanding of the physical science basis of climate change. Some of it’s report findings:
1.) World temperatures have barely risen in the past 15 years.
2.) Temperature rises have dropped from 0.12°C per decade since 1951 to just 0.05°C per decade since 1998.
3.) The slowdown is great enough to be termed a ‘pause’ or ‘hiatus’ by scientists.
4.) But over the long term, from 1951, climate models have matched what has happened to global temperatures.
4.) It is ‘extremely likely’ – with at least 95 per cent certainty – that humans are the main cause of rising temperatures since the 1950s.
5.) Each of the past three decades has been successively warmer than any preceding decade since 1850.
6.) Sea levels have risen by 19cm on average since 1901, with the rate of increase higher than in the previous two millennia.
7.) Concentrations of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have increased to levels unprecedented for at least 800,000 years.
8.) Carbon dioxide is 40 per cent above pre-industrial levels, mainly due to burning fossil fuels and changes to land such as deforestation.
9.) Around 30 per cent of the carbon dioxide emitted has been absorbed by the oceans, which has the effect of making them more acidic.
10.) Continued emissions of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and changes ranging from melting ice sheets to sea level rises.
11.) Temperatures look set to rise more than 2C above pre-industrial levels without ambitious action to reduce emissions.
12.) Sea levels are expected to rise by between 26cm (10 inches) and 82cm (32 inches) by the end of the century.
13.) Climate change will also affect rainfall, with extreme rainstorms expected to get more intense and more frequent by the end of the century.
14.) Most aspects of climate change will persist for many centuries even if emissions of carbon dioxide are stopped. (source Daily Mail)
This all brings me back to a 12-12-2009 Exclusive Eenvandaag interview with economic and social theorist Jeremy Rifkin, where he said the words: “We are asleep. All across the world. This is the defining moment for humanity.” Watch Interview above. Also watch Rifkin’s Power to the people’ 3rd Industrial Revolution" Tegenlicht Talk here and The Empathic Civilisation here.