A short diatribe on climate change. Diatribe "a bitter and abusive speech or writing"
Society will at some point reduce its carbon output.
The point at which this will happen is not currently clear. Proactive or anticipatory policies, working on the basis of the precautionary principle would if adopted, have lead drastic cuts in the emissions of greenhouse gases already.
The next stage of possible action is the transitional period between anticipation and reaction. This is not where the battle aught to be fought, and indeed may prove enormously damaging for society and the natural world. We are seeing ample evidence of climate change from around the world, this will lead to real conviction of the need to act. However the climate system has enormous inertia, of the level 50-70 years, now we can see evidence it is to late to stop a huge amount of damage, but we still have options in mitigation, catastrophic climate change-as characterized by largescale climatic anomalies, circulation changes and accelerated positive feedbacks-may still be avoided.
The final stage which we may reach is the fully reactionary, or adaptive phase, where we have no option but to adapt the best we can. Climate change is very unlikely to give us this choice as a manageable option. If the degree of mitigation carried out in the transitional phase is insufficient then adaption will not be possible for developed society, let alone developing societies. Unfortunately its the same old story those who are poorest are most vulnerable, and those who are most vulnerable will lose most of what little they have. With climate change, this general pattern is likely to be amplified by chances of geography. Large parts of the developing world are more susceptible to the physical effects of climate change, semi-desert regions around the world are desertifying, the people of such lands in china and Africa are amongst the worlds poorest. Water supplies will be adversely effected in many countries, including the USA, however there may be few areas hit harder than rural India, China and parts of south America; these areas are ofcourse home to some of the worlds most intensively farmed subsitance agriculture lands.
The independent nespaper recently reported that we are "sleepwalking into disaster", we may or may not get there but we are certainly on course.
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The point at which this will happen is not currently clear. Proactive or anticipatory policies, working on the basis of the precautionary principle would if adopted, have lead drastic cuts in the emissions of greenhouse gases already.
The next stage of possible action is the transitional period between anticipation and reaction. This is not where the battle aught to be fought, and indeed may prove enormously damaging for society and the natural world. We are seeing ample evidence of climate change from around the world, this will lead to real conviction of the need to act. However the climate system has enormous inertia, of the level 50-70 years, now we can see evidence it is to late to stop a huge amount of damage, but we still have options in mitigation, catastrophic climate change-as characterized by largescale climatic anomalies, circulation changes and accelerated positive feedbacks-may still be avoided.
The final stage which we may reach is the fully reactionary, or adaptive phase, where we have no option but to adapt the best we can. Climate change is very unlikely to give us this choice as a manageable option. If the degree of mitigation carried out in the transitional phase is insufficient then adaption will not be possible for developed society, let alone developing societies. Unfortunately its the same old story those who are poorest are most vulnerable, and those who are most vulnerable will lose most of what little they have. With climate change, this general pattern is likely to be amplified by chances of geography. Large parts of the developing world are more susceptible to the physical effects of climate change, semi-desert regions around the world are desertifying, the people of such lands in china and Africa are amongst the worlds poorest. Water supplies will be adversely effected in many countries, including the USA, however there may be few areas hit harder than rural India, China and parts of south America; these areas are ofcourse home to some of the worlds most intensively farmed subsitance agriculture lands.
The independent nespaper recently reported that we are "sleepwalking into disaster", we may or may not get there but we are certainly on course.
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posted by Calvin Jones @ 1:28 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
All the rational discourse is fine for the choir but to move the public it will take action at the symbolic level. Diatribes may be cathartic for the scientist ignored but it does little for moving ideas into the mainstream.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Non Linear Induction-Climate Sensation
From my blog
http://portablepoetryportal.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Non Linear Induction-Climate Sensation
Intelligence Digression
A temperature logarithmic progression
Breaks all the feed back barriers
Disorders the heat carriers
Gives Gaia depression
Leaving the earth with little hope
Civilization has a negative slope
In a post climate sion
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"Diatribes may be cathartic for the scientist ignored but it does little for moving ideas into the mainstream."
I agree entirely, if ranting was all i did then that would be pointless, catharsis is all it was. If this was a regular feature of the blog i`d expect everyone to tune out. Indulgence requested.
eh rant away... it's not the only thing you do. but afaik we have to start dealing with adaptation technologies, like yestrday, it usually takes 50 years for us to adapt, thankfully that is speeding up, but we will not be able to stop this with capping emissions. sorry. how do you plan on growing food in europe after the thermohaline shuts down? how are we going to stay warm when our insulation (in the 1st world) is made for temperatuires that are no longer the norm? the crazy thing is that there are all the solutions we need on the planet right now (we have modular stackable agribots, we have new energy sources, and efficiencies can do wonders, right?). so how do they get ramped up? and if all of our discourse is about capping 1990 levels of CO2 will we ever get around to the stuff that really matters?
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