Yea, it’s all pretty sad.
Particularly for that hand full of us who have known about this and thought about it and watched it develop - trying, but powerless to change the course that a handful of ruthless powerful folks choose.

Been a few nice decades, but the runway behind us won’t do us any good -
It’s so f’n heartbreakingly sad watching this show unfold, while powerless to do a f’n thing about it.

And it didn’t need to be this way, but here we are children.

It’s going to be a bizarre period,
idiots who will never give up denying reality, with huge weapons stashes, faith in god and anger,
a crumbling situation,
while the smart folks become ever more heartbroken at the hopelessness and inevitability of meltdown.

can i have a witness…

words of comfort anyone…

citizenschallenge.pm - 07 August 2012 08:56 PM

Yea, it’s all pretty sad.
Particularly for that hand full of us who have known about this and thought about it and watched it develop - trying, but powerless to change the course that a handful of ruthless powerful folks choose.

Been a few nice decades, but the runway behind us won’t do us any good -
It’s so f’n heartbreakingly sad watching this show unfold, while powerless to do a f’n thing about it.

And it didn’t need to be this way, but here we are children.

It’s going to be a bizarre period,
idiots who will never give up denying reality, with huge weapons stashes, faith in god and anger,
a crumbling situation,
while the smart folks become ever more heartbroken at the hopelessness and inevitability of meltdown.

can i have a witness…

words of comfort anyone…

(comfort) Knowing you has been a privilege…..

But I am afraid we are in the middle of the Sixth Extinction.
http://www.actionbioscience.org/newfrontiers/eldredge2.html

Perhaps it is a necessary and inevitable natural evolutionary process. Perhaps this will be the dawning of a new species Homo Sapiens.
In the event of drastic global climate change,  I am sure the survivors will have a better understanding of the consequences of applied natural laws, but then, maybe not..

Coldheart Tucker - 07 August 2012 06:21 AM

I’d just like to point out that it always seems like the scientists are saying, “Oops!  Climate change is worse than we thought.”  Anyone think that maybe we ought to be expecting the “We’ve passed the tipping point.” announcement very, very soon?

Are you joking?
Are you paying any attention?

DarronS - 06 August 2012 01:00 PM

But the deniers will keep denying, Faux News will keep telling people we have been in a cooling trend since 1998, and we’ll continue with business as usual until the train runs off the cliff.

The next big announcement, in 10 years or so, will be when we pass a tipping point and accelerating climate change becomes irreversible.

We probably won’t even know we are passed a tipping point until after we are significantly passed it.  We could already be.

psik

citizenschallenge.pm - 09 August 2012 09:17 PM

Coldheart Tucker - 07 August 2012 06:21 AM

I’d just like to point out that it always seems like the scientists are saying, “Oops!  Climate change is worse than we thought.”  Anyone think that maybe we ought to be expecting the “We’ve passed the tipping point.” announcement very, very soon?

Are you joking?
Are you paying any attention?

Yes.  Lots of attention, and the news is rarely good at all.  So, it seems to be me that we need to get our house in order immediately.

Yes.  Lots of attention, and the news is rarely good at all.  So, it seems to be me that we need to get our house in order immediately.

Agreed. Write’s post says it all; we are in the middle of the 6th extinction and the only way for the public to wake up,is to have yet another mega-disaster like Katrina which BTW has been predicted to occur again. La’s governor has done virtually nothing to prepare for another inundation so when New Orleans is wiped out maybe everyone will at least start a dialogue with their reps before it’s too late to act. Fact is so many livelihoods are tied to fossil fuels, especially in this area that legislators are reluctant to act on legislation that would put thousands out of work. They fail to realize that alternate sources of energy could replace jobs lost from say, coal mining or fracking. Until we find a solution to this delimna we’re going to keep belching out the carbon.

Cap’t Jack

Coldheart Tucker - 09 August 2012 10:37 PM

citizenschallenge.pm - 09 August 2012 09:17 PM

Coldheart Tucker - 07 August 2012 06:21 AM

I’d just like to point out that it always seems like the scientists are saying, “Oops!  Climate change is worse than we thought.”  Anyone think that maybe we ought to be expecting the “We’ve passed the tipping point.” announcement very, very soon?

Are you joking?
Are you paying any attention?

Yes.  Lots of attention, and the news is rarely good at all.  So, it seems to be me that we need to get our house in order immediately.

OK

sorry the tipping point thing got me, but than if we admit we have passed some tipping points there’s even less incentive to change lazy ways.

Check out this series of posts that reports on current Arctic activity - it’s look like a slush pond more than an Ice Cap.
Arctic Sea Ice Blog
http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2012/08/cyclone-warning.html

From NOVA,

the West Antarctic ice sheet were to melt, global seas would rise by 15 to 20 feet. If the East sheet were to melt as well, seas would rise by as much as 200 feet, swamping many oceanic islands and redrawing the world’s coastlines (see Water World).

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/warnings/almanac.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/mapping-sea-level-rise.html

This image is pretty poor, but on the web page is good. 
Plus it links to a power point with more details.

Tipping elements in the Earth’s climate system

And from Skeptical Science: Greenland ice sheet sumer temperatures highest in (at least) 172 years.

Developing a new manuscript (Box et al. submitted), I’ve managed to update the Box et al. (2009) near-surface air temperature reconstruction and am struck after incorporating 4 more years, it seems little doubt that summer air temperatures for Greenland ice are the highest in at least 172 years. Summer temperatures in the late 2000s are roughly 0.5 C warmer than in the 1930s and even warmer than at any time since at least 1840s.

Because the reconstruction captures the end of the Little Ice Age, it is further reasonable to think that Greenland probably hasn’t been as warm in summer than since the time the Norse colonized Greenland beginning in 982.