[D66] [JD: 150] Is This the Beginning of Runaway Global Warming? | eand.co [DISTURBING]

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eand.co
<https://eand.co/is-this-the-beginning-of-runaway-global-warming-ba472b9143c8>



  Is This the Beginning of Runaway Global Warming? - Eudaimonia and Co

umair haque
10-13 minutes
------------------------------------------------------------------------


    It’s Beginning to Feel Like We’ve Finally Pushed the Planet Past its
    Final Tipping Point

umair haque

<https://medium.com/@umairh?source=post_page-----ba472b9143c8-------------------------------->

Something is going very, very wrong. /Haywire/. It’s hotter in
Washington, DC and New York than it is in Lahore, Pakistan. London got
more than a month’s worth of rain in a few /minutes/
<https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjNmsrlsOjxAhWGMlkFHaC_CwMQFjABegQIBRAD&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Fuk-england-london-57816647&usg=AOvVaw0Un6jJFTB2jT8CF7ZhRsUp>.
Entire regions of Germany are flooded
<https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwj33vfrsOjxAhXVFlkFHaKCBJcQ0PADegQIAhAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2Feurope%2Flive-news%2Fdeadly-flooding-in-europe-07-16-21%2Findex.html&usg=AOvVaw3n3L_OYEXKrg2W8mv7kuqO>.
California’s burning — again
<https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjT6p3ysOjxAhVJMlkFHZYECFUQ0PADegQIFBAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sacbee.com%2Fnews%2Fcalifornia%2Ffires%2Farticle252828123.html&usg=AOvVaw1hDoeRvau8iFOmLYmEsUXm>.
Parts of Canada rivalled the hottest places on earth — and went up like
tinder
<https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjHj9n5sOjxAhWsElkFHQ0qAuMQFnoECAMQAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Fworld-us-canada-57678054&usg=AOvVaw22GWIfTgw18CHrHVsXi2iH>.

*Something is /very wrong/. *Not just wrong in a usual way, but wrong in
a weird, off-the-charts way. These are “extreme events” which scientists
have long feared. But they’ve even shocked scientists with /how suddenly
extreme and frequent they are/.

Don’t take it from me.

“The far north of Europe also sweltered in record-breaking June heat,
and cities in India, Pakistan and Libya have endured unusually high
temperatures in recent weeks. Suburbs of Tokyo have been drenched in the
heaviest rainfall since measurements began and a usual month’s worth of
July rain fell on London in a day. Events that were once in 100 years
are becoming commonplace. Freak weather is increasingly normal.”

Then Daniel Swain, a climate scientists, says something that sounds
particularly ominous
<https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjUrJGTsejxAhU_F1kFHY13CuwQFnoECAIQAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fenvironment%2F2021%2Fjul%2F16%2Fclimate-scientists-shocked-by-scale-of-floods-in-germany&usg=AOvVaw2rrzUa8gigQTfIX8bYvgVx>.
“This is not a localised freak event, it is definitely part of a
coherent global pattern.” Think about that for a moment. He’s right.
None of these weird, devastating “extreme events” are unconnected.
London and Germany flooded and California baked and Canada burned and
Washington, DC got hotter than Lahore /at exactly the same time/.

They’re part of a pattern.

So what pattern is it?

*It’s /not /just what even scientists expected from “climate change,”
**better called global overheating*
<https://eand.co/this-is-why-we-should-stop-calling-it-climate-change-1468bd7e68f4?source=your_stories_page------------------------------------->*.
*You can find tons of evidence of scientists being literally shocked.
“This is such an exceptional event that we can’t rule out the
possibility
<https://www.climatechangenews.com/2021/07/07/north-american-heatwave-broke-records-climate-models/>
that we’re experiencing heat extremes today that we only expected to
come at higher levels of global warming.” “The obvious acceleration of
the breakdown of our stable climate simply confirms that — when it comes
to the climate emergency — /we are in deep, deep shit/
<https://www.rawstory.com/we-are-in-deep-deep-sh-t-climate-experts-shocked-at-severity-of-floods-in-germany-and-belgium/>/.”/

The pattern we’re seeing now is something new, something that exceeds
even the worst expectations of science, something that’s genuinely
shocking and disturbing in fresh ways.

I’d put it like this, in the form of a question.

*What if this is the beginning of runaway global warming?* It seems
worth asking.

Again, don’t take it from me
<https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiP5_O6sujxAhW_GVkFHYBzDRwQFnoECAYQAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fenvironment%2F2021%2Fjul%2F16%2Fclimate-scientists-shocked-by-scale-of-floods-in-germany&usg=AOvVaw2rrzUa8gigQTfIX8bYvgVx>.
“Some experts fear the recent jolts indicate the climate system may have
crossed a dangerous threshold. Instead of smoothly rising temperatures
and steadily increasing extremes, they are examining whether the trend
may be increasingly ‘nonlinear.’”

*Let me translate that. It appears as if we’ve /broken /something.
Something really, really fundamental. *And without that something, as a
limiting factor, the planet is now beginning to heat much, much faster
than expected, in severe, ominous, and devastating ways.

You can think about that another way, if you like. A tipping point was
hit. Earlier than expected. A point at which the system races to an
entirely different equilbrium, a new place of balance. Hence, the
vicious speed and sudden fury with which the climate appears to be
transforming. Positive feedback sets in — system changes reinforce
themselves — and bang! Game over.

*What might some of those tipping points and broken systems be? There
are plenty of candidates. *The ocean currents which circulate cool water
and disperse the heat of water warmed by the sun — there’s plenty of
evidence already they’re being affected badly.
<https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjlmvnevOjxAhVsFlkFHTV2D7sQFnoECB4QAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fclimate.nasa.gov%2Fnews%2F2950%2Farctic-ice-melt-is-changing-ocean-currents%2F&usg=AOvVaw2yJaybR3JUNI1RZAgomhky>
The melting of the polar ice caps — which again is obvious to see, and
has a double hit, because ice reflects heat, but earth absorbs it. The
monsoon which much of the world relies on for water and coolness. The
permafrost, which traps methane and other greenhouse gases
<https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwir1sOGvejxAhXbMVkFHUluBNoQFnoECDIQAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fe360.yale.edu%2Ffeatures%2Fhow-melting-permafrost-is-beginning-to-transform-the-arctic&usg=AOvVaw2L6YnFLYVh3WRqHu3f20hf>.
The boreal zones — like in Canada — essentially dying off as forests
<https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwigo8aOvejxAhXuGVkFHQOcCO4QFjACegQIBBAD&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencedaily.com%2Freleases%2F2015%2F08%2F150820144722.htm&usg=AOvVaw2IZRBxdjunVXiIMoGCMIcI>.
The lungs of the earth, the Amazon
<https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiQ49GWvejxAhUJGFkFHSzNAO4QFnoECAcQAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwwf.panda.org%2Fknowledge_hub%2Fwhere_we_work%2Famazon%2Famazon_threats%2Fclimate_change_amazon%2F&usg=AOvVaw2zqPsaA4_XpsLZDiN8oiEn>.

Those are just some of the planet’s major ecosystems. And the really
alarming thing is that many of them have just hit tipping points, or are
getting awfully close to them.

The Amazon’s the first one to hit a tipping point which we know of and
can call one: it emits more carbon than it takes in, crippled, battered,
left for dead. Bang. That’s one crucial planetary ecosystem /dead/. Did
anyone much notice or even care? Did you? Are you just clueless, the way
our institutions want you?

*Then there’s the melting of ice sheets, whether in the Arctic,
Antarctic, Greenland.* Their disintegration has been swift and severe —
faster, again, than predicted. Have they /already/ hit a tipping point?

How about the ocean currents? There’s plenty of evidence, too, they’re
slowing down, changing in strange ways unseen for millions of years.
/Tipping point?/

I could go on.

The problem is this. Science can only really confirm these tipping
points /after they happen/.

*That’s not to say science isn’t valuable.* It’s invaluable, because it
lets us predict that these systems are fragile and /shouldn’t be messed
with at all/.

If you don’t know when you’re going to push a system past a tipping
point — a nonlinear feedback point beyond which it races to a new
equilibrium, but that one might, well, destroy your civilisation and
life…then you should probably /stop doing what you’re doing
immediately/, and try to preserve the system from any further perturbation.

In other words, we should have tried to attain much, much more ambitious
targets, decades ago. Not just a reduction in carbon emissions, but
/zero carbon/. Instead of idiot billionaires going to Mars, that should
have been our generation’s moonshot. Or even finding ways to restore the
ice sheets. Or revivify the great forests, like the Amazon. We think of
building apps as an engineering challenge. /It’s not/. Revivifying
ecosystems, protecting ice sheets, hitting no carbon at all — those are
today’s /real/ engineering challenges.

*They’re so vast nobody knows how to do them — nobody even has a clue.
If I say to you, hey, /how do we bring an ice sheet back to life/?*
You’ll give me a blank stare. Elon Musk can’t tell me. Jeff Bezos can’t
tell me. So why do we worship these fools as geniuses
<https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwirip_evujxAhWRKVkFHfwxDKkQFnoECAIQAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Feand.co%2Fwhy-do-americans-idolize-the-super-rich-5590d80471ce&usg=AOvVaw30mJjjrZcyay7bE1cFpOaB>,
at least plenty of us? We have literally no idea how to fix these
problems — and that is what we have to try to do, because science can
only confirm the worst for us, after it happens.

We need to concentrate what dwindling resources we have left as a
civilization, as societies, on fixing problems /we have no idea how to
fix yet/. Anyone know how to stop, say, Germany from flooding? Not just
deal with the damage of the floods — but /prevent the flood/? Anyone
know how to /reverse a planetary tipping point/?

*Nobody does. And we had better try to find out, fast.* We need to
invest trillions upon trillions in this stuff, in the most radical way
imaginable — think what “zero carbon” really means. /Or else/.

Or else? Well, take a look around. We’re being /boiled alive/
<https://eand.co/this-isnt-a-heatwave-it-s-a-dying-planet-ac1c9eb529d1?source=your_stories_page------------------------------------->.
We’re being drowned. Burned. Our civilisation is literally beginning to
go up in flames, flood, drought, and plague. And it looks a whole lot
like this is /just the beginning/.
<https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwit8PjrwOjxAhU0GVkFHWkOAQQQFnoECAMQAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Feand.co%2Fthree-decades-three-revolutions-or-our-civilization-will-collapse-de2758d94f63&usg=AOvVaw3WLENdwGu445C5O04wCxR2>

If I think back, even in my own life, /it didn’t used to be like this/.
Washington DC and New York City weren’t remotely as hot as Lahore or New
Delhi. And Lahore and New Delhi, in turn, weren’t nearly as hot as /they
/are now. Canada wasn’t going up in flames. Europe wasn’t flooding.

*That’s not “anecdotal evidence,” that’s /reality/. The climate really
was vastly different, on a level you can now notice every day. *The
seasons were different. The days and nights were different. The storms
were different. The rain and wind was different. It didn’t used to be
like this — and it got “like this” way too fast, way faster than anyone
much expected, except those once dismissed as “pessimists” and
“alarmists.” But it looks like /they were right/. The planet appears to
be overheating faster and harder than anyone much thought possible. So
fast that you and I can /literally now feel it/ over the tiny,
infinitesimal geological scale of one human lifetime. Shudder.

*Let me say it again, because I think this point really matters. The
planet appears to be overheating so fast, so rapidly, so suddenly, that
you and I can feel it /in our own lifetimes/. *That’s /incredibly/ fast.
It’s why climate scientists are shocked. Usually, the climate changes in
relatively slow ways — maybe fast for /it/, but compared to a human
lifetimes, eons. Thousands of years, even millions.

The climate does not change within decades unless /something fundamental
is broken/. It doesn’t change so swiftly and severely that you and I can
talk about how different the seasons were just a decade or two ago — or
even a few years ago — unless something has gone deeply wrong, in the
most basic planetary systems. We should not be able to feel climate
change as rapidly and severely as we are — within the span of a single
human lifetime — unless something truly mega-catastrophic is happening.

Think about today’s young people. Even they’ll talk about the summers
being cooler. About storms and floods being less frequent. About winters
being colder. The extremes of weather being way, way less extreme.
They’re /kids/. They’re not just innocent and cute and nice — they’ve
only been alive for twenty or thirty years or less. That’s how fast our
planet appears to be overheating. That’s incredibly, shockingly,
ominously fast.

*We should be incredibly worried. It is /not normal/. Even within the
pretty catastrophic range of “normal” for climate scenarios. *We’re
beyond even that abnormal normal. We’re rapidly, severely outpacing /our
very own worst predictions/ for planetary climate catastrophe. So fast,
so hard, that you can feel it in your memory. That you remember: it
didn’t used to be like this. Just a few short years ago. Within the
mayfly span of a single human lifetime. And it seems to be accelerating
every year, overheating, warming, how searingly hot it is, even in what
used to be some of the coldest places or times on earth, in your life,
in our world.

*That’s really, really bad. /It shouldn’t be happening like this/,
“climate change.” *It’s too fast, too severe, too weird, too sudden,
accelerating too hard, spinning out of control. It’s way beyond us now,
shocking us every season
<https://eand.co/none-of-this-is-normal-5a8bd67544c2?source=your_stories_page------------------------------------->,
hitting us much, much harder than most of us ever thought it could or
would, catastrophic discontinuity exploding off the axes of the graphs
we used to confidently show each other to prove how intelligent we were.
/I can barely go outside today. /You?

So let me ask you again: is this now the beginning
<https://eand.co/this-is-our-last-warning-from-a-dying-planet-9711e005f62?source=your_stories_page------------------------------------->
of runaway planetary overheating?

Umair
July 2021

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