Let’s see – this is the only large representative, rather than parliamentary, democracy; and, it’s the greatest country in the world. Coincidence?

The Dems were brave today. Whether they were also smart remains to be seen. But if you note the vociferous defence of every last dime of Medicare and Medicaid spending by Republicans (!) just lately, you have to guess they were smart indeed.

Originally posted as a comment
by floydsm8
on The Atlantic using DISQUS.

The theme was the Evolution of Eco-Activism, “Following the compelling shift from conservation to environmentalism to environmental/social justice over the last half-century”, with Jerry Mander (International Forum on Globalization), Karen Pickett (Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters), and Carla Pérez (Movement Generation).

Chris showed an evocative new 10-minute film, then there was a valuable panel talk. Jerry Mander said that things have gone so far that we need systemic changes and worldview changes, but that localization and sufficiency will be crucial. Karen Pickett talked about the Headwaters campaign and the importance of direct action.

Carla Perez then answered a question of mine from the floor about where are the opportunities for near-term progress. She gave a very Transition-friendly answer – Resiliency; work with your neighbors, not your Facebook friends spread all over; understand that economy is local first. Her group, Movement Generation, refers to it as translocal solutions. Carla went on to say that the upcoming crises will see many lives lost – and an amazing outpouring of creativity.

Now a large “unknown unknown” has reared its very ugly head. The oceans of the world routinely release methane, from a variety of processes, as do the soils. A new paper, published today in the journal Science, reports that the East Siberian Arctic Ice Shelf, a 2 million square mile area of the Arctic Sea north of Siberia, is releasing as much methane as the rest of the world’s oceans combined. According to Dr. Natalia Shakhova, lead author of the paper, the release is about 7 teragams, or about 7 million tonnes, of methane annually.

Dr. Shakhova continues: “Our concern is that the subsea permafrost has been showing signs of destabilization already,” she said. “If it further destabilizes, the methane emissions may not be teragrams, it would be significantly larger.” The release of less than 1% of the methane trapped in this one area could lead to a tripling or more in the methane in the Earth’s atmosphere, strongly contributing to global warming.

Such a release would also cause heightened warming in its local region, accelerating methane releases from this shelf, and likely increasing permafrost degradation right across this very sensitive area. This would probably put the Earth’s climate firmly into runaway climate change, and might even cause abrupt climate change – a sudden temperature increase of several degrees Celsius in just a few years.

It’s worth reading the press release from the US National Science Federation (NSF) announcing the work. It calls the methane release “alarming”, and even mentions abrupt climate change as a possible outcome. Methane levels in “hotspots” are hundreds or a thousand times more than background levels, and the entire region has a “bubble” of elevated atmospheric methane. While theoretically possible, it’s hard to believe that these releases have been going on for a long time. This is just one of the determinations that urgently need to be made. However, the initial implications of this work are very bad.

Links (which have further links):

- The UN Environmental Program ice shelf map and NSF press release mentioned above.

- Climate Progress, which is usually on the optimistic side, has the best summary I’ve seen so far, with strong links, a video of the lead scientist on the issue speaking, and useful comments as well. (As much to capture the zeitgeist as for specific information.)

- The New York Times has a low-key article that summarizes, and somewhat downplays the results.

- Andy Revkin of the Times’ flawed Dot Earth blog emphasizes only the comments of scientists who call this a preliminary result.

* A half-humorous reference to the REM song, “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)“.

• The environment absorbs less CO2. About 50% of our current emissions are absorbed by the environment – roughly half of that by the oceans, the other half by plants on land. This uptake of CO2 by the environment may already be in decline.
• Reflection of sunlight drops. As snow and ice cover retreat – as cover is smaller in geographic extent, or seasonal cover lasts for less of the year – dark ground and even darker water are exposed, which absorb sunlight, further warming the earth.
• More CO2 and methane are emitted from nature. Soils, forests, peat, the seas, organic deposits in permafrost, and methane clathrates all emit some CO2 and methane. As the environment warms, “natural” emissions increase.

Less uptake of CO2, plus less reflecting of sunlight, plus more CO2 from nature, can add up to a self-sustaining cycle. Once begun, it might well not end until the uptake of CO2 by nature has largely stopped, there’s very little snow and ice left to reflect sunlight, and stored deposits of CO2 and methane are largely depleted.

When this has occurred, our planet would be a very different place. It might be 5-10C (9-18F) warmer, bereft of most of its living species, and substantially desertified, for a very long time to come.

In its 2007 Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, warned that global warming must be kept at less than 2C (3.6F) to give humanity a 50/50 chance of avoiding runaway climate change. This raises three questions:

• Is 50/50 a chance we want to take?
• Might the climate be more resistant to warming, perhaps giving us more breathing room?
• Might the climate be less resistant to warming? In particular, might runaway climate change have already begun?

This blog’s job is to help investigate these questions, from a science and technology journalist’s point of view. That is, not to do the scientific work to answer the question – no one person could do that – but to review the work that has been done, and new work as it comes along, with a view to answering this question.

I’ve already done a preliminary survey, and made some initial calculations, in my book, Runaway. My current hypothesis – and my personal belief – is that runaway climate change is inevitable, even if emissions from humanity stopped today.

I believe even more firmly that humanity will not do anything resembling halting emissions today, but will emit much more. Even if I’m wrong, and we still have a margin before runaway warming begins, we’re certain to bust right through it before we get a handle on our emissions. If and when we do so, we’ll then have to stop the mightiest genie ever let loose from any bottle, before it permanently changes the earth, and eliminates most or all of us in the process.