Feb 09 2009
Wake up Call
This isn’t just about polar bears anymore. This video explains tipping points and feedback loops very well. Does that sound too geeky for you? Watch the video, it’s very enlightening. It’s called “Wake Up, Freak Out – then Get a Grip”, which I found on ClimateAction.au.
Here’s the bottom line: We need to get the carbon level in the atmosphere down to 350 ppm. At the highest, we could probably stand 400ppm. More than that and serious problems will occur. Methane is already leaking out of the permafrost in the north, and methane is our biggest, worst greenhouse gas. Unfortunately, we are currently on track to get up to 600ppm, or more, which would literally change the planet into a place where life might not survive. At least, not life as we know it. (Climate change evolution has already started in insects). What will solve this gigantic problem? The big question is, how can we stop this before we get to a tipping point after which there is no return.
The 8 leading industrialized countries have to take on much more ambitious plans than they have today, and get the developing countries to understand they can’t go where we have been. They need to start several steps ahead of our industrial revolution. How do we know this? A super computer program. This climate simulator was developed by MIT and several other entities. It’s called C-ROADS. Bob Correll of the Climate Action Initiative was recently interviewed on NPR and I’m going to play what he had to say in the next Futurism Now podcast. Bob Correll has been using the C-ROADS simulator to explore the long term impacts of several country-level commitments to address climate change. So far, the commitments are not adequate, but that’s what upcoming climate conferences are for. The following article is from Climate Interactive.
C-ROADS — The Climate Rapid Overview and Decision-support Simulator
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