Mr. Helm
Member
I've just finished reading the book "FIELD NOTES from a CATASTROPHE", brilliantly witten by journalist Elizabeth Kolbert. The tittle is alarming in itself, and the series of reports she has made around the world show why: there's no doubt about the current consequences of global warming. I recommend it for anyone who's interested in finding out deeper information concerning the theme. Here are its last words:
last paragraph: "(...) Ice core records also show that we are steadily drawing closer to the temperature peaks of the last interglacial, when sea levels were some fifteen feet higher than they are today. Just a few degress more and the earth will be hotter than it has been at any time since our species evolved. The feedbacks that have been identified in the climate system - the ice-albedo feedback, the water vapor feedback, the feedback between temperatures and carbon storage in the permafrost - take small changes to the system and amplify them into much larger forces. Perhaps the most unpredictable feedback of all is the human one. With six billion people on the planet, the risks are everywhere apparent. A disruption in the moonsoon patterns, a shift in ocean currents, a major drought - any one of these could easily produce streams of refugees numbering in the millions. As the effects of global warming become more and more difficult to ignore, will we react by finally fashioning a global response? Or will we retreat into ever narrower and more destructive forms of self-interest? It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing."
That would be harsh enough, was it not by the contents of one of the series of stories she has written for The New Yorker Magazine that is not part of the book. It's about the "ice core reports" mentioned, is called "Ice Memory" and can be read from this link: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2002/01/07/020107fa_FACT.
In essence, it is pointed out that the heating process is a natural ocurrence, which we are but accelerating.
The consequences of all those facts are already impending upon us, as with sudden climate shifts and unprecedented metereological events such as tornados and hurricanes down here in Brazil, for instance.
How it will end? No one can say, exactly. Neither if anything drastic will affect us more than we are currently being affected.
But then this is just to call your attention for the facts that do show how changes are already taking place.
Beware is being aware, and this call is just a tentative effort to help out in terms of awareness.
Call it a Christmas gift!
last paragraph: "(...) Ice core records also show that we are steadily drawing closer to the temperature peaks of the last interglacial, when sea levels were some fifteen feet higher than they are today. Just a few degress more and the earth will be hotter than it has been at any time since our species evolved. The feedbacks that have been identified in the climate system - the ice-albedo feedback, the water vapor feedback, the feedback between temperatures and carbon storage in the permafrost - take small changes to the system and amplify them into much larger forces. Perhaps the most unpredictable feedback of all is the human one. With six billion people on the planet, the risks are everywhere apparent. A disruption in the moonsoon patterns, a shift in ocean currents, a major drought - any one of these could easily produce streams of refugees numbering in the millions. As the effects of global warming become more and more difficult to ignore, will we react by finally fashioning a global response? Or will we retreat into ever narrower and more destructive forms of self-interest? It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing."
That would be harsh enough, was it not by the contents of one of the series of stories she has written for The New Yorker Magazine that is not part of the book. It's about the "ice core reports" mentioned, is called "Ice Memory" and can be read from this link: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2002/01/07/020107fa_FACT.
In essence, it is pointed out that the heating process is a natural ocurrence, which we are but accelerating.
The consequences of all those facts are already impending upon us, as with sudden climate shifts and unprecedented metereological events such as tornados and hurricanes down here in Brazil, for instance.
How it will end? No one can say, exactly. Neither if anything drastic will affect us more than we are currently being affected.
But then this is just to call your attention for the facts that do show how changes are already taking place.
Beware is being aware, and this call is just a tentative effort to help out in terms of awareness.
Call it a Christmas gift!