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    Dahr Jamail - We’re Living in the Warmest Decade Since Record-Keeping Began Archived Message

    Posted by johnhol on March 14, 2019, 8:41 pm, in reply to "Richard Seymour on how f**ked we now are"

    Begins:

    Some people are in an outright panic. Some are in full-blown denial. Indeed, human responses to runaway climate disruption are spanning the spectrum. From profiteers plugging books containing “solutions” to geoengineering attempts like this one “blocking out the sun,” many are understandably anxious to move forward with a plan.

    However, this is also an important time to pause, take some deep breaths, and reconnect with the Earth to listen for each of our personal callings as to how to be — and then, what to do — during this time of crisis. Fear and panic are not going to take us where we need or want to go.

    I see fear responses resulting from the fact that the gravity of our situation is sinking in now to larger swaths of the general population.

    2018 was the fourth warmest year ever recorded, with the only warmer years being 2015, 2016 and 2017.

    On top of that, the Met Office reported that we are currently in the middle of what is likely to be the warmest decade since record keeping began, so expect more “record warmest” years in the near future.

    A recent report warned that if current climate disruption trends continue (and there is no reason to believe they will lessen) the Himalayas could lose most of their glaciers by 2100 as they warm up by 8 degrees Fahrenheit (8°F). This would bring radical disruptions to food and water supplies for upwards of 1.5 billion people, in addition to a mass migration crisis.

    On that note, as 2 billion people around the globe rely on groundwater aquifers for their freshwater, another study showed that climate disruption has placed nearly half of the groundwater of Earth in danger. Climate disruption is shifting rainfall and will make it harder for 44 percent of Earth’s aquifers to recharge.

    We are living in an era of abrupt climate disruption: self-reinforcing feedback loops are accelerating as well as growing in number. More evidence of this comes in the form of sea level rise. Another report warned that Earth today looks much as it did 115,000 years ago temperature-wise: All we are missing now is the 20-30 feet of sea level rise that resulted the last time it was this warm.

    But in terms of sea level rise, Earth is in the process of catching up. Another recent study revealed a massive cavity growing underneath West Antarctica that covers two-thirds the footprint of Manhattan and is 300 meters tall. The Thwaites Glacier, where the cavity is located, alone would add two feet to global sea levels if it melts. Moreover, the Thwaites Glacier acts as a buttress to neighboring glaciers and icefields. So, if it melts out, it could likely set in motion a catastrophic amount of ice loss, contributing significantly to global sea level rise. “For global sea-level change in the next century, this Thwaites Glacier is almost the entire story,” New York University geoscientist David Holland told The Washington Post last year.

    Further distress comes in the form of a report warning of the multifaceted environmental crisis we are facing: topsoil erosion, ocean acidification, climate disruption, logging of forests, and the mass loss of species are converging to destabilize society and the global economy. The report warns that policymakers are not grasping the seriousness of what is being done to the planet. It points out that topsoil is being lost 10 to 40 times faster than it is being replenished by natural processes, and 30 percent of the planet’s arable land has become unproductive due to erosion since just the mid-20th century. The report states that 95 percent of Earth’s land areas could become degraded by 2050.

    Climate disruption has placed nearly half of the groundwater of Earth in danger.
    A recent UN study already warned that the world’s food supply is already under severe threat from the ongoing and catastrophic loss of biodiversity. “Around the world, the library of life that has evolved over billions of years – our biodiversity – is being destroyed, poisoned, polluted, invaded, fragmented, plundered, drained and burned at a rate not seen in human history,” Ireland’s president, Michael Higgins, said at a biodiversity conference in Dublin, as reported by The Guardian. “If we were coal miners we’d be up to our waists in dead canaries.”

    Continues:

    https://truthout.org/articles/were-living-in-the-warmest-decade-since-record-keeping-began/

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