George Monbiot (The Guardian): On climate change denial

[Jack Rabbit]

From The Guardian Unlimited (London)
Dated Tuesday September 20

It would seem that I was wrong about big business
Corporations are ready to act on global warming but are thwarted by ministers who resist regulation in the name of the market
By George Monbiot

Climate-change denial has gone through four stages. First the fossil-fuel lobbyists told us that global warming was a myth. Then they agreed that it was happening, but insisted that it was a good thing: we could grow wine in the Pennines and take Mediterranean holidays in Skegness. Then they admitted that the bad effects outweighed the good ones, but claimed that climate change would cost more to tackle than to tolerate. Now they have reached stage four. They concede that climate change would be cheaper to address than to neglect, but maintain that it's now too late. This is their most persuasive argument.

Today the climatologists at the Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado will publish the results of the latest satellite survey of Arctic sea ice. It looks as if this month's coverage will be the lowest ever recorded. The Arctic, they warn, could already have reached tipping point - the moment beyond which the warming becomes irreversible. As ice disappears, the surface of the sea becomes darker, absorbing more heat. Less ice forms, so the sea becomes darker still, and so it goes on.

Last month, New Scientist reported that something similar is happening in Siberia. For the first time on record, the permafrost of western Siberia is melting. As it does so, it releases the methane stored in the peat. Methane has 20 times the greenhouse warming effect of carbon dioxide. The more gas the peat releases, the warmer the world becomes, and the more the permafrost melts.

Two weeks ago, scientists at Cranfield University discovered that the soils in the UK have been losing the carbon they contain; as temperatures rise, the decomposition of organic matter accelerates, which causes more warming, which causes more decomposition. Already the soil in this country has released enough carbon dioxide to counteract the emissions cuts we have made since 1990.

Read more.

[despairing optimist]

1. Recommended. People, the game's over if we're all under water

and starving from famines due to climate changes. We could be like the dinosaurs, nibbling on leaves and grass until, one day, an asteroid hits and the world turns upside down in a matter of months or weeks. Sort of makes all other politics moot, doesn't it?

[truth2power]

2. I've always wondered if this is what happened to Venus...

I don't know enough about geophysics or whatever to determine whether it could have happened that way. Just curious.. :shrug:

[Jack Rabbit]

3. Hmmmm . . .

Computer generated surface view of Eistla Regio (from the southwest) on the planet Venus. From the website of NASA

[truth2power]

4. So...whaddya think? I read somewhere

that the chemical composition of the surface of Venus is similar to biblical descriptions of hell.

I dunno...why is Venus the way it is?

I'm not trying to be tin-foil here, but it might be prudent to think about what could happen to our beautiful planet. Not that the religious whackos would care. This would be right up their alley.