The Thirteenth Tipping Point
Twelve global disasters and one powerful antidote.
WE'VE BEEN DIVING SHIFTS through the night for a week, donning clammy wet suits long after bedtime in order to hover above coral heads and peer into the pools of light from handheld strobes. We are examining the coral polyps, those goose bump-like swellings decorating staghorn, elkhorn, brain, fan, lettuce-leaf, and plate corals. Virtually all of the scleractinian, or reef-building, corals are readying themselves for the greatest sex show on earth, preparing to unleash an orgy of fertilization, self-fertilization, hybridization, and every other manner of fruitful and unfruitful coupling Mother Nature can dream up.
The pink and orange gamete bundles that look like caviar eggs but are actually hermaphroditic clusters of eggs and sperm are migrating up the polyps toward the oral cavities, the corals' single, multipurpose orifices. Each night these bundles have been growing and stretching the polyps until they resemble nothing so much as minuscule pregnant bellies. On this night, the fourth night after the full moon of the austral springtime, the gametes are beginning to crown, like human heads in their birth canals.
I check my watch. When I glance back to the coral, the ocean is transformed. I blink, thinking I'm seeing things. But it's really here—the black water engulfed in a pink and orange blizzard flowing toward the surface. Within seconds, countless billions of magenta and tangerine gamete bundles have been birthed from their polyps and are floating upward on the buoyancy of the fatty eggs.
Those of us underwater at this moment are also transformed by the bundles, which collect under the folds and angles of our wet suits, buoyancy control devices, dive masks, and regulators. Colorful gametes tangle in our hair. If we could breathe water, we'd be breathing them. The rate of the blizzard amplifies until the light from the strobes blinds us. Clicking to a lower setting, I see eruptions of milky white sperm pulsing rhythmically from nearby sponges and sea cucumbers, polychaete worms and giant clams.
On this night, as many as half of the reef-building corals—perhaps 150 species—plus a host of other invertebrates inhabiting the 1,200 miles of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, are spawning. It's an ancient ritual, maybe as old as the 200 million-plus years that scleractinian corals have been alive. These corals emerged in the darkest days after the Permian-Triassic extinction, when the planet was impoverished nearly beyond repair by massive global climate change, and when almost all life died in hot, dry, and iceless conditions. Since then they have survived two subsequent mass extinctions, including the one that killed the non-avian dinosaurs.
Already, manta rays with six-foot wingspans are sailing into view, mouths open, filtering the eggs from the water. At the outer range of our strobes, reef sharks are circling, preparing to gorge on those that have come to feast. From the cold and perpetually dark reaches of the deep known as the mesopelagic, fish that glow in the dark, and live a mile or more below the tidal, lunar, and seasonal influences that trigger the mass spawning, are rising toward it now, preparing to devour the bonanza they have perceived in ways we can't.
No modern human knew of the mass spawning of corals on the Great Barrier Reef before 1982, when marine biologists accidentally happened upon it. Since then, other spawnings adhering to their own unique schedules have been discovered on many reef systems. Somehow, spineless, brainless, eyeless, earless, immotile marine animals that meet all our criteria for zero intelligence manage to synchronize their activities to ensure survival. Otherwise, all their gametes—a year's investment in energy—would launch off into open water without ever finding suitable partners. While an individual animal might survive such behavior for the term of its natural life, the species could not.
12 ASTEROIDS AND EVOLVING INTO WISDOM
IN 2004, JOHN SCHELLNHUBER, distinguished science adviser at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the United Kingdom, identified 12 global-warming tipping points, any one of which, if triggered, will likely initiate sudden, catastrophic changes across the planet. Odds are you've never heard of most of these tipping points, even though your entire genetic legacy—your children, your grandchildren, and beyond—may survive or not depending on their status.
Why is this? Is it likely that 12 asteroids on known collision courses with earth would garner such meager attention? Remarkably, we appear to be doing what even the simplest of corals does not: haphazardly tossing our metaphorical spawn into a ruthless current and hoping for a fertile future. We do this when we refuse to address global environmental issues with urgency; when we resist partnering for solutions; and when we continue with accelerating momentum, and with what amounts to malice aforethought, to behave in ways that threaten our future.
A 2005 study by Anthony Leiserowitz, published in Risk Analysis, found that while most Americans are moderately concerned about global warming, the majority—68 percent—believe the greatest threats are to people far away or to nonhuman nature. Only 13 percent perceive any real risk to themselves, their families, or their communities. As Leiserowitz points out, this perception is critical, since Americans constitute only 5 percent of the global population yet produce nearly 25 percent of the global carbon dioxide emissions. As long as this dangerous and delusional misconception prevails, the chances of preventing Schellnhuber's 12 points from tipping are virtually nil.
So what will it take to trigger what we might call the 13th tipping point: the shift in human perception from personal denial to personal responsibility? Without a 13th tipping point, we can't hope to avoid global mayhem. With it, we can attempt to put into action what we profess: that we actually care about our children's and grandchildren's futures.
Science shows that we are born with powerful tools for overcoming our perilous complacency. We have the genetic smarts and the cultural smarts. We have the technological know-how. We even have the inclination. The truth is we can change with breathtaking speed, sculpting even "immutable" human nature. Forty years ago many people believed human nature required blacks and whites to live in segregation; 30 years ago human nature divided men and women into separate economies; 20 years ago human nature prevented us from defusing a global nuclear standoff. Nowadays we blame human nature for the insolvable hazards of global warming.
The 18th-century taxonomist Carolus Linnaeus named us Homo sapiens, from the Latin sapiens, meaning "prudent, wise." History shows we are not born with wisdom. We evolve into it.
CLIMATE CLIQUES AND NAYSAYERS
EISEROWITZ'S STUDY OF risk perception found that Americans fall into "interpretive communities"—cliques, if you will, sharing similar demographics, risk perceptions, and worldviews. On one end of this spectrum are the naysayers: those who perceive climate change as a very low or nonexistent danger. Leiserowitz found naysayers to be "predominantly white, male, Republican, politically conservative, holding pro-individualism, pro-hierarchism, and anti-egalitarian worldviews, anti-environmental attitudes, distrustful of most institutions, highly religious, and to rely on radio as their main source of news." This group presented five rationales for rejecting danger: belief that global warming is natural; belief that it's media/environmentalist hype; distrust of science; flat denial; and conspiracy theories, including the belief that researchers create data to ensure job security.
We might wonder how these naysayers, who represent only 7 percent of Americans yet control much of our government, got to be the way they are. A study of urban American adults by Nancy Wells and Kristi Lekies of Cornell University sheds some light on environmental attitudes. Wells and Lekies found that children who play unsupervised in the wild before the age of 11 develop strong environmental ethics. Children exposed only to structured hierarchical play in the wild—through, for example, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, or by hunting or fishing alongside supervising adults—do not. To interact humbly with nature we need to be free and undomesticated in it. Otherwise, we succumb to hubris in maturity. The fact that few children enjoy free rein outdoors anymore bodes poorly for our future decision-makers.
Another study, this one from the Earth Institute at Columbia University, found an ominous silence when it comes to educating American K-12 students on the relationship between our personal behavior and our environment: that the size and inefficiency of our cars, homes, and appliances, our profligate fuels, our love of disposables, and the effects of buying more than we need actually undermine our prospects on earth. Slightly more time is spent teaching kids how the environment can affect us, overpowering humanity with floods, droughts, storms, earthquakes, climate change. But in our overall failure to illuminate the interdependence between Homo sapiens and earth we withhold critical knowledge from those whose lives depend upon it most.
Many of today's kids recreate in the unwilderness of the shopping mall, where messages of prudence and wisdom are overwhelmed by the consumerism that feeds global warming. We send our kids to the mall because we fear the dangers outside. We could hardly be more wrong in our assessment of risk.
THE ALARMISTS AND THE ACROBAT
ON THE OTHER END of Leiserowitz's spectrum of perception regarding global warming is an interpretive community he calls the alarmists, generally comprised of individuals holding pro-egalitarian, anti-individualist, and antihierarchical worldviews, who are supportive of government policies to mitigate climate change, even so far as raising taxes. Members of this group are likely to have taken personal action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Collectively, alarmists compose 11 percent of Americans, with the remaining interpretive communities falling considerably closer to the alarmists than the naysayers in the spectrum—suggesting the gap might be cinched by sustained public education on the neighborhood dangers likely to arise in a changed global climate.
Hurricane Katrina provided a wake-up call for how bad it can get in the neighborhood, and may prove a tipping point itself. Yet long before its rampage, American kids were coloring pictures of the first icon of global environmentalism, the Amazon. Its billion-plus acres of rivers and rainforest—its trees collecting and containing excessive greenhouse gases from the atmosphere—were our primer for the revolutionary notion that the earth's neighborhoods are interdependent.
Today Amazonia is the most famous of Schellnhuber's tipping points. For a generation, kids have grown up learning that the Amazon is at risk from massive deforestation. But even if clearcutting were to halt, climate models forecast that a warming globe will convert the wet Amazonia forest into savanna within this century, and the loss of trees will render the region a net CO2 producer, further accelerating global warming.
Amazonia's tipping point might be fast approaching. The year 2005 saw the driest conditions in 40 years, with wildfires raging unabated, and 2006 is looking worse, raising alarms that environmental synergism is already in play as changes become self-sustaining and reinforce one another. Dan Nepstadt of the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts questions whether the warming of the Atlantic (the tropical North Atlantic rose 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit above the 1901-1970 average in 2005) is affecting airflow over the Amazon, leading to drier and fierier conditions there.
Changes in the currents of the North Atlantic constitute another tipping point. As the Atlantic warms, ice caps melt, diluting the ocean and potentially shutting down its thermohaline circulation (THC), the oceanic river currently delivering the thermal equivalent of 500,000 power stations' worth of warmth to Europe. A 2005 study published in Nature found that after 50 years of monitoring, a critical component of the THC had suddenly slowed by 30 percent.
The fate of this circulation is closely linked to one of Schellnhuber's more notorious tipping points, the Greenland Ice Sheet. Encompassing 6 percent of the earth's freshwater supply, this ice, if melted, would raise sea levels by about 23 feet worldwide—not counting ice loss from the rest of the Arctic and the Antarctic. A study by NASA and the University of Kansas showed the decline of Greenland's ice unexpectedly doubled between 1996 and 2005, as glaciers surged into the sea with unpredicted speed. More worrying, the area of melt shifted 300 nautical miles north during the last four years of the study, indicating the warmth is spreading rapidly.
One tipping point affects the other in a balance as delicate as that of an acrobat's spinning plates. Greenland's increasing freshwater flow into the North Atlantic will certainly impact the THC. Warm water recirculating within the central Atlantic may further rearrange airflow over the Amazon, accelerating its dry-down and tree loss, and potentially freeing as much carbon dioxide from its enormous reservoir as the 20th century's total fossil fuel output. A sudden Amazonian release would surely melt whatever of Greenland hadn't already melted, crashing the THC and drastically cooling Europe—in the worst-case scenario, freezing it solid. Although we like to compartmentalize, nature does not. Biology and climatology are the indivisible warp and weft of earth's living fabric.
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I would consider myself a "naysayer" however I don't fit the description you give the group. I think it's very racist and biggoted to suggest that those who believe science over hype are less credible just because they don't buy into the religion of liberalism.
Currently, in every 100,000 air molecules in our atmosphere, you will find 38 carbon molecules. At the rate that we create green house gasses, the number will be 39/100,000 in 5 years.
We need to protect the environment. We should put our efforts into problems that we can actually fix. We're in between ice ages right now. We are experiencing a natural warming cycle.
I think the "Global Warming Debate" is swipe at our mad rush forward in technology and it will only get faster and faster. The ludites, the nannies, and the conformists are oozing out in every sector possible. They don't want to enjoin the future.
The problem with their approach is there is no feasable way to stop global warming other than killing off 5.8 billion people and going back to the cave.
If we halt our appetite for new technology and development when the world reaches 10 billion people, and it will, life on Earth will be worse than Hell.
There will be energy wars raging everywhere. You will have access to electricity for 6 hours once a week.
Let's take a serious look at this because this is the REAL CHEESE. The world is projected to need double the amount of power in use today by the year 2050. It will need 4X today's output by 2100 and by 2150 it will require, not desire, require 8X the amount of energy in use today. Without that added output world progress will freeze up and fall apart. There will be chaos and war. The end will come with you or your descendants huddled in a dark shelter with no hope of help arriving.
Putting a little solar power panel on your roof is not going to equal the vast amounts of energy we will require by 2050, 2100, and 2150. We need thousands of new high energy resources, or the end will come. We need Moon-based solar power, huge orbital-solar power stations, nuclear power, coal power, and we need to nail down fusion power once and for all, or you can kiss everything you know and understand today goodbye.
How's that for a scary senario. I think it beats "Global Warming" hands down. We are on a treadmill of our own making and until the population bomb is defused we must provide energy or die in an armagedon type demise.
Bode Bliss
Cleveland, Ohio
Our society is based on greed and consumption, with total disregard to the impact we have on the earth and all nonhuman creatures that inhabit it, let alone humans who do not share this self-serving "philosophy" of utter disregard to the consequences. Yes, we need energy to maintain our lifestyles. But if we do not change the way we live voluntarily, it seems that the earth will see to it, one way or another. How ridiculous and selfish we are to rigidly refuse to accept what science has learned. The truth is, no one fully understands the impact of what is currently happening to our earth. Everything in nature is connected. We are looking to the large, obvious changes as harbingers of global trauma, but the truth is, something as "small" as the extinction of one species of insect could be all it takes to push us over the edge. We have to do more than change the way consume, we have to change the way we think, and we have to do it now--not when we think we "fully understand the nature of the problem."
The critical point this article ignores it that it is not just a matter of cutting back, but radically radically cutting back. The global sustainable GDP is barely an equivalent of 2000 US dollars a year, and nearly no one, no matter how well intentioned, is likely to cut back that far. You will find a few voices who advocate the need to cut back consumption to the global median wage, namely J. Merkel in his book "Radical Simplicity" and FitzGerald in "Sea-steading" but to date I've encountered no one else, including this author, who takes the issue that seriously.
Hence, doomsday.
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Ms. Julia Whitty, your article is one of the most insightful, creative, comprehensive pieces I have read, and I am blessed to be able to learn and be inspired by your terrific research and your eloquent words.
Would it not be fair to say if we dry out one area, the Amazon, that perhaps another area would get wetter?
Perhaps forests would return where savanna is today?
I can't stand Bush and his ilk, but our science should seek to look to explore counter arguments as well.
Scientists dedicate their lives to the pursuit of knowledge and truth. The primary goal of their lives is understanding the universe, and helping others understand and appreciate nature. It is surprising and sad that so many influential scientists are dishonest and corrupt, spreading dangerous falsehoods in order to gain money, fame, or simply for job security.
One example is the complicity of scientists employed by tobacco companies. Their deliberate lies caused many of us to get sick and die for decades until the truth of smoking dangers became accepted. Barnes, DE and LA Bero wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association 279:1566-1570 that "that while most reviews of passive smoking conclude that it is harmful to human health, when the author has an affiliation with the tobacco industry, the review is more likely to reach the opposite conclusion." For details, see .
This is one example of a series of analyses showing that when an author has a financial interest in the outcome of a study, the conclusions are likely to be biased in favor of the financial interest. The debate over lead poisoning is a past example from the chemical industry in which industry scientists produced consistently biased findings.
See also , by Norbert Hirschhorn, MD, Consultant to the World Health Organization.
Recently news reports came out saying that drug studies are dishonest. For example, giving smaller doses of the competitor's drugs, or otherwise bias the studies. Again, scientists spread falsehoods in order to get job security.
We are currently affected internationally by a very serious scientific fraud. Dishonest scientists have convinced world governments, including our government, that global warming is caused by large amounts of carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere, and that we must spend a lot of money to reduce the carbon dioxide in order to prevent excessive warming. This is bad science, as historical records show that when the earth warms, a few centuries later carbon dioxide forms in the atmosphere. Global warming not caused by carbon dioxide, but by the variable solar wind.
The sun emits streams of charged particles, called the solar wind. As this stream approaches the earth, the stream's magnetic field (moving charges create a magnetic field) deflects cosmic rays away from the atmosphere. Cosmic rays that strike air molecules ionize them. These ions act like seeds creating clouds. More solar wind means fewer clouds. Less solar wind means more clouds that reflect sunlight and cool the earth.
The sun is a very dynamic, changing object. The solar wind waxes and wanes every 15 centuries, causing global warming and cooling. Worldwide studies of historical events and of the earth's ancient past verify the existence of these warming and cooling cycles.
The current global warming is due to the increasing solar wind, and will last for another 5 centuries. Talking about reducing carbon dioxide in order to reduce global warming is another example of dishonest scientists hawking their wares. Government leaders must critically examine scientific claims, and always be suspicious and on guard.
Yes, we must reduce pollutants in order to make the air safer to breathe and to make us healthier. Let us not waste our valuable resources and money on false science.
Thank you very much.
Dr. Aranoff said: "Talking about reducing carbon dioxide in order to reduce global warming is another example of dishonest scientists hawking their wares. Government leaders must critically examine scientific claims, and always be suspicious and on guard."
He earlier mentioned the bad science funded entirely by interested corporations. Today the interested corporations (most notorious being Exxon)are funding the science of the climate-change debunkers. My suggestion is that he's dragging a red herring. If I follow the corporate money behind climate research, I'm inclined to believe the "alarmists".
Too many words; too little emphasis on effective action.
In response to Bode Bliss and those who think the same way...They are exact;y backwards in their thinking. What we must do is make and use the energy we have close at hand from the only real ultimate source of energy on this planet--the sun..In contrast to what was posted, if we would put out technology into improving and utilizing solar power on a local basis. Maybe on every roof top or even all paved areas which absorb billions of tons of energy everyday we could produce the energy needed without all of the far-out science to "bring it from the moon" or where ever. It is here right above us. Let's figure out how to use it. Of course we can't continue to use all the energy we want unabated. Time to grow up and learn to conserve what we have
In response to Dr. Aranoff and any other skeptics.I will agree with him that even scientists can be swayed by various incentives to present any given view, but whether one accepts that human use of fossil feuls is contributing to global climate change or not, the resource itself is finite and we are going to run out of it and have to adapt to using something else.We can either do it in an intelligent and controlled fashion or disastrous, catasrophic fashion.Warming or not we need to begin changing our way of life.
Well written article but a little off on a few things i.e. Katrina is nothing compared to what will happen in the near future. 100 years? These scientists need to take their head out of their asses! We are in a "SNOWBALL EFFECT" Things can only get worse at a more alarming rate.
It does not take a scientist to figure out how fast the glaciers are melting.
We can stall the inevitable......
1) Cease extracting oil from the earth.
(by the way) Oil is not from dinosaur bones like we were taught in school!!
It is from vegetation.
2) Enforce a 1 child law limit world wide. These people need to wake the [deleted] up!!
3) Cease all use of plastic!! The hardener in plastic makes the human body produce more Estrogen in both male & female so in turn the human body automatically produces more Testosterone. Which obviously means more babies.
Where is all of this incompetence coming from?
you are brilliant, and you will make a differece in the world today.
You said that "In ordinary play, if all players contribute all their money, everyone wins big. If one player cheats, everyone wins small." This is an exaggeration. A typical game of ten players doesn't go from "big" to "small" if only one person defects.
"Minigames capturing the essence of Public Goods experiments show that even in the absence of rationality assumptions, both punishment and reward will fail to bring about prosocial behaviour. ... But reputation can induce fairness and cooperation in populations adapting through learning or imitation." according to: http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Admin/PUB/Documents/IR-01-031.pdf
You should note that humans are more intelligent than dolphins in spite of the dolphin brain being larger. Also you might add that dolphins sleep in one-half of their brain at a time.
"The dolphin cortical column is composed of only 5 layers. The reptilian cortex has only three layers." according to wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortical_column
Public Policy games show that intelligence is a disadvantage to the group and hence the individusl in certain social situations. Are you recommending that humans become less intelligent?
don
You know what they say....it would take the planet to almost die for anyone with power,money and resources to do something to help the environment. People always want to redeem themselves after someone has died. Why would it take for someone or something to die beforfe it is noticed? It's a sad truth about human nature's way of learning. If we're any smarter, we all need to do something about saving our planet.
i dont profess to know all the answers,only a few of them .im grateful for the webs information , one thing that is painfully obvious is that if the majority of people dont agree there is a problem and quickly its curtain time for all
"My you live in interesting times".
We are challenged by future of whole humanity. We are on crossroads of future of humanity, destruction and greed of war or sharing the spirit of love and hope .Division between those energies is getting greater and greater, this is battle for Earth, between Light and darkness. Who are you serving? Mother is crying,
desperately crying, Mother Earth is presently being raped with rage, bombs, hatred, revenge, greed, and it is ready to explode in big ways of earthquakes, volcano's, floods, intense heat you will not be able to bear it.
Will you be the mice running in your hole, you will not be able to find, or you will suddenly realize your divine nature, help the world, stop destruction and war, forgive and ask for forgiveness, hug the Mother earth with so much love, get the strength now before it is late for all of us.
It is time of great challenge when we need to look at our spiritual nature, see the big picture, learn from our past and mistakes, awaken from within vision of better world to live and create in, create peace on the world, wake up our spiritual, enlightening energies that are dormant sleeping in all of us, realize our true spiritual potentials, so the world can hear us, and respect.
American Nation has huge role to play in next decade. We have much karma to bear. Our hope is major transformation and change on all levels.
We are the energy, planet earth is made of energy, we are part of mother earth, we influence all.
Ask your self which energies are you serving in your life, what you do, what you speak of, what you think?
That same energy will serve you or will destroy you, simply you ask for it.
Wake up now, before it is too late for all of us, we all share collective karma.
we need to think about polar cities for the future, year 2500 or so.
Julia want to interview me?
Danny Bloom in Taiwan
put some nice outfits on these pages.
okay like da
Yes, we now face an amazing challenge if WE are to survive. Certainly, life will continue to evolve without us.
Presently, according to David Suzuki, over 55,000 species go extinct every year. As indicated in so many articles and theories, we have no clue as to which species may serve as the tipping point to topple humankind from its pedestal.
Species are going extinct because of the fragmentization of habitats due to our invasion into habitats and disrupting established ecosystems that represent millions of years of evolution and networking. Since water is the essence and supporter of every ecosystem - our alteration of surface and groundwater is the leading cause for
most extinctions.
To save our world - all of humanity must awaken to a new water consciousness - and weigh every action and purchase of nonliving items - and consider the impact on our world of water. We must begin to invest in a living world in lieu of a dying world. We have to wake up!
William E. Marks www.watervoices.com
College Students Address Global Issues
From: The Clinton Foundation (enews@clintonfoundation.org)
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Sent: Thursday, 20 March 2008 1:26:46 AM
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To: John Berbatis (johnberbatisau@hotmail.com)
Estimating Exponentials
by Bob Powell, 5/29/07
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An article, Australian Researcher warns about Mass Human Extinction from Global Environmental Collapse by John Berbatis made me think, "Gee. Maybe things are worse than even I thought."
He writes: "Judging by the current extremes of global weather conditions and the recent increase in worldwide seismic activity, I believe humanity will face extinction before the end of 2008."
2008 !!! Holy Cow. And here I've been worried about the coming economic collapse at about that time.
Alarmist? Maybe. Maybe not. That's next year. Maybe he's wrong and it's at least 10 or 20 years away. Whew! That would be a relief.
But really. Exponential increases do quickly get out of hand and humans are really, really terrible at recognizing how quickly. How terrible? This graph shows how bad we are at it based on experiments with real human beings.
Estimating Exponential Growth. From The Logic of Failure, Recognizing and Avoiding Error in Complex Situations by Dietrich Dorner, 1996, that I used in my Systems Thinking and Problem Solving class at Colorado Tech (in the slides for the second class).
Link to Systems Thinking and Problem Solving class.
Beyond this, we're terrible at understanding the dynamics of stocks and flows as described at Global Warming: An Inconvenient-to-Understand Truth and Sterman's paper to which there is a link, also based on experiments with human beings, students from MIT and Harvard.
So that's two reasons why the seriousness of climate change is so easy to obfuscate, which I view as a crime of planetary proportions considering the number of people who will die unless the human race takes immediate action.
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URL: http://www.exponentialimprovement.com/cms/estexp.shtml
In the past ten years there has been an exponential melting of the ice sheets and a noticeable disintegration of the ice shelves, owing to 'global warming'.
The loss of mass from the underlying Tectonics Plates causes them to ascend (iso-static rebound), and this results in an increase in the intensification and frequency of global seismological activity. The seismic data of the past ten years confirm this conjecture. Furthermore, the ice shelves impede the flow of glaciers and ice sheets into to the oceans; and when the 'polar regions' are subjected to unprecedented seismic upheavals, these events will then cause the ice sheets and glaciers to be dislodged en masse into the ocean!
This occurrence will then instantly destabilize the earth's surface weight distribution (isostasy), and so precipitate a 'crust displacement' (Mag. 12). i.e., axis change! The previous subterranean extraction of fossil fuels will greatly exacerbate this impending Apocalypse.
Currently, the excessive amount of carbon and methane gasses in the atmosphere is causing catastrophic weather conditions, globally - and this situation will rapidly deteriorate... 'a climate runaway!'
The global environmental and geo-political situations are now coalescing into a 'critical mass'; so I believe humanity can expect a catastrophe of worldwide proportions within this year!
In 1998, I submitted my dissertation on the above matter to various eminent institutions and individuals, to which I received positive responses from PM's Tony Blair, Helen Clark (NZ) & Lee Kwain Yew (Singapore) as well as the UN's - Dr Mary Robinson, Hon. Justice Michael Kirby AC CMG of the High Court of Australia, Premier P. Beattie (Queensland, Au) and Chief Justices of Canada, Norway, Taiwan, Mexico and Netherlands etc,.
Reality rules this universe! ... not unproductive discussion & debate?
From: disasterdiplomacy@hotmail.com
To: johnberbatisau@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: Global environment collapse -how+why(seismic)
Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 13:32:39 +0000
Dear John,
Thank you kindly for your email and for the information. Yes, there is a reasonable amount of credible scientific literature on the topic of linkages between (i) weather and climate and (ii) tectonic events. The linkages are even stronger when we consider disaster events, not just the environmental changes. It is good to hear about your contribution to this body of research and I hope that you find opportunities to continue such endeavours.
I would be cautious about promoting endorsements of science from lawyers, such as the politicians and judges whom you mentioned, because their values and training are not always the most appropriate for judging scientific merit. Some are able to straddle more than one field and make important contributions in several areas, but that does not apply to them all. Mary Robinson left UNHCR in 2002.
Reality rules this universe! ... not unproductive discussion & debate?
As is clear from my work, including on the disaster diplomacy website, I agree with this sentiment.
Ilan
From: "Ackerley, Beth" To: "John Berbatis" Subject: Tsunami SMS Warnings Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2007 11:50:53 +1000 Mr John Berbatis Email address: johnberbatisau@hotmail.com Dear Mr Berbatis The Premier, Paul Lennon MHA, has asked me to acknowledge and thank you for your email of 29 March 2007 in relation to Tsunami SMS warning. Yours sincerely Beth Ackerley Executive Officer Premier's Office Telephone: 6233 6068 Fax: 6234 1572 Email: Beth.Ackerley@dpac.tas.gov.au From : thepremier Sent : Tuesday, 13 March 2007 2:00:16 PM To : Subject : AA07/06566 - Global warming From : thepremier Sent : Tuesday, 13 March 2007 2:00:16 PM To : johnberbatisau@hotmail.com Subject : AA07/06566 - Global warming Dear Mr Berbatis The Premier has received your recent email concerning global warming. Your views have been noted and Mr Iemma the appreciates reasons which prompted you to write to him on this occasion. You may be sure that your comments will receive close consideration. Yours sincerely Jocelyn Mouawad Assistant Private Secretary From: WA-Government Sent: Tuesday, 10 April 2007 4:13:08 PM To : "john berbatis" Subject : RE: SMS alerts for tsunami warning. | | | Drafts | Inbox Dear Mr Berbatis We refer to your recent email regarding SMS alerts for tsunami warnings. Your suggestion has been noted and forwarded to the Hon John Kobelke, Minister for Police and Emergency Services for consideration. Regards WA Govt >>> "john berbatis" 5/04/07 9:30 am >>> Dear Premier Alan Carpenter, In last month, there has been a heightened level of global seismological activity, especially in the Pacific basin 'ring of fire'; and it appears to be substantially escalating. I have recommended by email - to all State Premiers, PM Howard and the Chief Minister Clare Martin, that they consider the immediate establishing of a SMS alert for a tsunami threat, so as to facilitate the most effective means of the warning the public. Kind regards, John Berbatis 4/21 Cornelian St Scarborough 6019 Perth WA April 5th, 2007 Tel: 0422621382 NB. Premier Peter Beattie sent me a positive response by letter, on March 26th 2007 - pertaining to above matter.
FiFrom : Sent : Wednesday, 25 April 2007 8:14:56 AM To : johnberbatisau@hotmail.com Subject : | | | Drafts | Inbox We have received your e-mail.
Best Regard,
E-mail Team
Cabinet Secretariate Government of Japan
Dear Editor, Syllogisms that I submitted in 1998, which were recognized by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights - Dr Mary Robinson and the Hon. Justice Michael D. Kirby AC CMG of the High Court of Australia. Time must exist before matter can be created, and only an animate entity can conceive of space-time. Time must be a stabilized and uniform condition before matter can form, thus Monotheism is a Truth. The Universe consists of space-time; which is functionally active and growing but remains stable. These combined characteristics are indicative of an animate entity only, thus Pantheism is a fact. Consequently, all mortals' behaviour and attitudes become conspicuous by our Creator. Reality is the dream of a Universal sentient being; sensations of all mortals are merely light flashes within elongated fractal crystals, flowing in a white mist which is time itself; ensconced within a beige coloured and velvet textured Pearl, that is, a holographic Universe. If all electrical particles were in different time zones - matter would not form, thus time is a controlled electromagnetic radiation (energy) E = mc2. To be perfect - one must know the past, present and future, there is only one, the one that created Time. John Berbatis Perth, Australia March 26th, 2007 Tel: +61 0422621382 Email: johnberbatisau@hotmail.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A natural warming cycle? Are you kidding me?
All the people on this post
All the people on this post who fear global warming, and a miriad of other human caused travails, but won't blame overpopulation and see it as the only cause wil go out and have 4 children, someday.
Have some guts, and help fight overpopulation!
How ridiculous and selfish we are to rigidly refuse ..
How ridiculous and selfish we are to rigidly refuse to accept what science has learned. The truth is, no one fully understands the impact of what is currently happening to our earth. Everything in nature is connected. We are looking to the large, obvious changes as harbingers of global trauma, but the truth is, something as "small" as the extinction of one species of insect could be all it takes to push us over the edge.
There is a reasonable amount of credible scientific literature .
There is a reasonable amount of credible scientific literature on the topic of linkages between (i) weather and climate and (ii) tectonic events. The linkages are even stronger when we consider disaster events, not just the environmental changes.
Change Our Attitude towards the Environment before it's Too Late
Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth' talks in detail about how global warming, deforestation and commercial activity by industries and factories are affecting or will affect the planet earth in a drastic way, if proper precautions or changes are not undertaken in our interaction with the environment. Usually, in a fight between the nature and the human species, nature has always prevailed. I hope that we take this fact seriously and change our attitude towards our environment in a positive way before its too late.
Suggestions
I too am closer to a "naysayer" than anything else, but I do think that global climate change is a problem. The problem isn't, in my own opinion, that we don't care about climate change, but that most people in that stereotype are more worried about their own lives not something 50+ years in the future. Another portion is that media and the government give environmental issues less coverage and make them seem like less of a problem.
America's big problem with CO2 production is that we don't have as much incentive as other countries. Here we complain about fuel for our cars costing $2.49 a gallon, in other countries its as high as $10-11 a gallon. Personally, I think they have more incentive to work on alternatives to petroleum based fuels. But here in the states there is very little focus as compared to other countries. Japan has even created a small car which can run on a few thousand PSI of compressed air! Americans like to make things illegal when they don't like them, I'm against that and I think its a terible thing to do. However, I think that we should have smaller cars and have higher tax consequences for those who have larger vehicles (SUVs and large trucks like F650s), even larger consequences for those with cars that are only owned for desire and go far above and beyond serving the purpose of transportation (Hummers, Ferraris, Porche, etc.), and another high tax consequence on having multiple cars owned by one person. There are people in the US that own 5+ cars just because they can. If they can aford that many cars, they can aford a tax on each one. We're already making progress in trying to promote more efficient cars with the cash for clunkers program which ended all too quickly and I've heard of plans to give tax deductions for those who own hybrids or fully electric vehicles.
There isn't much that one individual can do to stop this environmental problem. The government of the US, as well as other countries, need to be involved and promoting it; otherwise, the ignorant will simply ignore it like the government is currently doing.
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