The Law of Unintended Consequences

Apparently we're going to save ourselves by geo engineering the planet. In case you don't know, geo- engineering aims to fix the havoc wrought by greenhouse gas emissions by preventing sunlight from reaching the planet.  

Two Harvard engineers are to spray sun-reflecting chemical particles into the atmosphere to artificially cool the planet, using a balloon flying 80,000 feet over Fort Sumner, New Mexico.   http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/17/us-geoengineers-spray-sun-balloon

Vandana Shiva and Gwynne Dyer debated the propriety of geo-engineering back in 2010.    Democracy Now posted these videos on Youtube:

Part 1

Part 2

Debated may be a misnomer, don't you think?   As Vandana Shiva points out, geo - engineering is a  fix by the thinking that created climate change.   And, whatever the consequences of preventing sunlight from reaching the earth,  that won't do much to prevent the oceans from acidfying.

The Pacific Ocean is growing more acidic at a much faster rate than anticipated, scientists say, putting everything from corals to mussels in jeopardy.   Researchers say carbon dioxide from the atmosphere forms carbonic acid in the ocean, changing the seawater enough that it can dissolve the shells of coral and shellfish.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/07/16/bc-ocean-acidification.html?cmp=rss

Can you say Easter Island?    We keep doing the same old things while the bad news rolls in - but it's OK to cut down the last tree because ....otherwise we'd have to change.

Please write the Right Honorable Stephen Harper and instruct him to pass meaningful legislation on  greenhouse gas emissions.  (Yes, government need to do this - just how did your individual actions stop acid rain? Or fix the hole in the ozone layer?  They didn't - international agreements/ laws did.)

Individual actions do count  - especially in a community setting.  So start a Transition Town in your community to smooth our  inevitable carbon descent.   And plant some trees while you're at it.

Ice Core Records for the Last 800,000 Years

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/04/climatologist-mosley-thompson-warming-antarctica

There have been some extremely deep ice cores taken in Antarctica at Dome C that go back 800,000 or 900,000 years.  I understand that the Dome C record shows very clearly that we've got more CO2 in our atmosphere now than at any time in 800,000 years.

Mosley-Thompson: Oh yeah. Very clearly. If you look back over the eight glacial/interglacial cycles, you essentially see that CO2 never rises above 300 parts per million and we're at about 389 now. Methane never rises above about 800 parts per billion, and I think we're at about 1,700 parts per billion. So we're clearly outside the range of natural variability. I personally think that graph simply showing the natural fluctuations in those two important greenhouse gases, over almost a million years of Earth history — and then you see the two dots [today] that are so much higher than anything that we see in that near-million history — tells us very clearly that we have a serious problem.

Read the entire article at the link above.  And then sit dowm and weep - not necessarily in Grand Central Station.  Once you've expressed your anger and sorrow, write the Honorable Stephen Harper and demand that he revise Canada's climate change  policies .   Check out Transition Towns and work on an energy descent plan for your local community.  Push your pension plan to de-invest in companies that commit ecocide - like BP.  Revamp your RRSP holdings - click on the Corporate, Environmental and Social Responsibility link on my blogroll to vet a company.  Educate other people.  Make social connections.  Eat local food.  Devote your time, money , and energy to any cause that makes the world better - like http://www.350.org/. 

Climate CHange

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/13/peru-glacier-ice-lake-tsunami

A massive ice block broke from a glacier and crashed into a lake in the Peruvian Andes, unleashing a 23-metre tsunami and sending muddy torrents through nearby towns, killing at least one person.....César Álvarez, governor of Ancash region, which includes the affected area, blamed climate change. "Because of global warming the glaciers are going to detach and fall on these overflowing lakes. This is what happened,"...It was the latest evidence that glaciers are vanishing from Peru, which has 70% of the world's tropical icefields. They have retreated by 22% since 1975, according to a World Bank report, and warmer temperatures are expected to erase them entirely within 20 years.  The same phenomenon is under way in neighbouring Bolivia, where the Chacaltaya glacier, 5,000 metres (17,400ft) up in the Andes, used to be the world's highest ski run. Predictions that it would survive until 2015 seem to be optimistic: according to recent pictures a few lumps of ice near the summit are all that remains.  The World Bank report warned that the disappearance of Andean ice sheets would threaten hydro-electric power and the water supplies of nearly 80 million people.

More evidence - are we going to do something? 

Write the Prime Minister a letter instructing him to meet the twin challenges of climate change and peak oil.
Ditto your Premier.   Explore starting or getting involved in a Transition Town at your local level.
Belonging to a community that shares your concerns  about the effects of climate change is very empowering. The last is probably the most important step you can take for two reasons.  It is realatively easy to influence local politics - and you won't feel  insignicant , alone, and powerless.  Your community will create the velvet climate revolution!

Transition Towns Totnes

Transistion Town Totnes

Transition Towns

Two of us attended a Transition Towns Workshop this weekend in Vernon, BC:  it was unlike most workshops I've ever been to.  I was astonished, energized, strengthened, and inspired - you could have knocked me over with a typewriter!   Transition Towns are places that, led by an initiating committee,  are working to solve the problems of peak oil and climate change locally.   That sentence sounds impossible, doesn't it?  It isn't - the city that I have raved about previously, Portland, Oregon - is a Transition Town.  ( Portland's greenhouse gas emissions will be 10 % below 1990 levels this year! )

But it isn't just the successes that make the Transition Model so cool: coolness is implicit in its philosophy.  It is best describeds by the phrase "Transition is a party, not a protest!"  The model is democratic and inclusive; focuses on both exterior results and inner transformations, creates social connections and fun, and embraces uncertainty.  In fact, their UK website states:

We truly don't know if this will work. Transition is a social experiment on a massive scale. What we are convinced of is this:
■if we wait for the governments, it'll be too little, too late
■if we act as individuals, it'll be too little
■but if we act as communities, it might just be enough, just in time.

Check out their website at http://www.transitiontowns.org/TransitionNetwork/TransitionNetwork
 Or research a Canadian city  - Victoria, BC, and Vancouver, BC are both transition towns. Or go to a Transition Towns workshop with your friends.  And start a party!
(Yes, the reference to "obsolete" technology was deliberate. )