Two Items from New IPCC Report, "Sky Whale" Poem, and New Book

The above video by Dave Borlace's Just Have a Think is full of great information but I will focus on two items and what 5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial of 1850 means: 1) "It's actually more like about 5 degrees Celsius higher [ . . . . ] within 80 years or so at our current trajectory." and 2) "It's the small island developing states that are getting walloped right now but much of the western coast of America looks like being pretty vulnerable within the next 10 years or so."

3) 4 degrees Celsius, as I quoted before, means severe consequences according to Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. Rockström noted "It’s difficult to see how [Earth] could accommodate a billion people or even half of that." Update: The Guardian, at Rockström's request, changed the quote for a 4 C world to "It’s difficult to see how we could accommodate eight billion people or maybe even half of that."

Here is a poem from my forthcoming book Between River and Street:

Sky Whale

After the last whale died

whale-shaped clouds appeared.

Some said “whale spirits.”

Others “just clouds.”

The ones who spoke the latter

were the same who

killed most of the planet.

#

And this is from another poem in the book:

Now, our blue jewel planet undoes 4.54 billion years of evolution
to try again.  In a twist on Plato,
there can never be hope until scientists become politicians

or politicians become scientists.

"Top Five 2019 Summer Arctic Calamities" Increase Geoengineering Pressure

I'm grateful to Dave Borlace's Just Have a Think for these updates. For those in the US, when he says 21 degrees Celcius "about 560 miles from the North Pole," that equals 69.8 Fahrenheit; "Anchorage [, Alaska] sweltered in 32 degrees Celcius heat" equals 89.6 Fahrenheit; and "Markusvinca [, Sweden] reported a temperature of 34.8 Celcius" equals 94.64 Fahrenheit, "the hottest ever recorded in a country above the Arctic Circle." Here is his video on the "Blue Ocean Event" he mentioned. In that video, the "50 degrees Celcius" equals 122 Fahrenheit in major food-growing regions. He says "Our current human activity puts us on a path towards 4 degrees Celcius [. . .] by 2100. [. . . .] The comfortable detachment and insulation we currently enjoy in the West will be pretty much shattered as we struggle to find enough food to feed our populations." 

In a related matter, according to Matt McGrath of BBC.com, Japan, Australia, the US, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia are not participating in "the special UN summit on climate change taking place in New York on Monday." He added, "Perhaps most worrying of all is the data on sea-level rise." He quoted UN Secretary General António Guterres, "on [a goal of] reaching carbon neutrality by 2050." As you can see in the right frame, I have readers from four of those five nations (not Saudi Arabia) so I hope they will pressure elected officials to act in time, which an October 2018 IPCC report notes is about 12 years before humanity loses control and, according to Jonathan Watts of The Guardian, failure will "significantly worsen the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people."

On NPR September 23, 2019 I heard part of this VICE News video Greta Thunberg Rips World Leaders at the U.N. Over Climate Change at yesterday's "special UN summit on climate change taking place in New York."

On September 20 I marched in the Climate Strike with students from San Diego's Mission Bay High School, SanDiego350, ReWild Mission Bay, and an expected million students, and four million people total, around the globe. The timing was good as the September 25, 2019, new UN climate report noted, according to Mark Phillips of cbsnews.com in Monaco, "Tipping points are being reached where some of the more severe consequences of climate change can no longer be avoided [. . . .] In the worst case scenarios as many as a billion people could be affected [. . . .] The report's authors say that we are now in a race between the speed of climate change and our ability to adapt to it, and that it's a race that we're losing."

A Sept. 7, 2019, CNBC video notes "This Bill Gates-funded chemical cloud could help stop global warming [with 'significant risks and uncertainties']"

Last week Corey Gabriel, Executive Director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Masters of Advanced Studies in Climate Science and Policy (MAS CSP) gave a geoengineering lecture that showed stakes are rapidly rising for nations to decide how, where, when and if to use this controversial plan to reduce climate impacts.

I was there to give a 90-minute climate change poetry workshop to his students in an attempt to bring a healthy dose of humanity and other right-brain activity to the science. His students were creative and insightful, willing to take risk in their poems, and share responses with the group. 

The geoengineering topic made it clear decision-makers will need the best of their left brains and right brains to find solutions without neglecting climate justice. 

I wrote about geoengineering and climate refugees on this blog, but Professor Gabriel's lecture made me want to know more. I found this 10-minute Sept. 7, 2019, CNBC video featuring UCSD's Kate Ricke, Professor of Climate Science and Policy; Frank Keutsch, Principle Investigator at SCoPEx; Alan Robock, Climate Scientist at Rutgers University (discussing "termination effect"); Mike Hulme, author of Why We Disagree about Climate Change; Stephen Gardiner, author of A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change; Andy Parker, Project Director of Solar Radiation at Management Governance Initiative; and Tom Ackerman, University of Washington.

Gardiner said "No responsible scientist says this is a silver bullet. All the responsible scientists say this is something we could deploy if we had to alongside all the other stuff that we already have to do [ . . . .] This is a real moral horror, especially in a situation where we're not doing all the things that we could be doing to minimize the risks of climate catastrophe now."

Parker added "Whatever happens, we've got to cut our CO₂ to zero."

The CNBC video noted "a 2016 opinion poll conducted by the Harvard group doing solar geoengineering research found that 67% of subjects support its use."

Professor Gabriel said large-scale geoengineering is a challenge because the least expensive method of using sulphate particulates is not currently possible over 1 C above the 1850 baseline when they fall from the sky, and we are at or over 1 C now. Therefore, he believes more research is needed, but small-scale geoengineering will do more good than harm. He wrote "I do think geoengineering could be effective in controlling global mean temperature and I think that it’s possible that the technology, albeit very expensive and complex, could be developed that would allow for geoengineering to be deployed, and then monitored and adjusted as needed, to possibly avoid many of the potential disparate negative impacts that have been discussed.  In the event that geoengineering did cause disparate regional impacts, a regulatory scheme would need to develop that would contain enforceable compensation mechanisms to compensate those who suffer any damages.  Also, I think it’s important to note the relevant comparison to make in the context of whether or not to deploy geoengineering in the future is a comparison between the damages in a world with global warming and geoengineering vs. the damages in a warmer world without geoengineering.  An extra 0.5C-0.75C of warming, on top of, say 2.5C above preindustrial, would likely be very problematic.  Potentially a great deal more problematic than whatever disparate impacts a geoengineering regime would bring about."

Damian Carrington wrote at The Guardian November 22, 2018 "The idea of geoengineering is controversial, with opponents arguing it could seem like an easy solution to global warming and weaken efforts to cut the root cause of emissions. Others warn it risks serious unintended consequences, such as droughts and damage to crops. In October, more than 100 civil society groups condemned geoengineering as 'dangerous, unnecessary and unjust'. [par break] However, many scientists say not conducting geoengineering research would be even more dangerous, because climate change may become so bad that governments feel compelled to deploy it despite not knowing its full consequences." Recent climate data show we are quickly heading to the "so bad" condition so it makes sense to understand the effects of the technology before using it. 

The good news is Carrington added "Spreading particles in stratosphere to fight climate change [could be ‘remarkably inexpensive’ as it] may cost $2bn a year."

The bad news with large-scale geoengineering is the above-mentioned "termination effect" noted by Professor Gabriel and the 10-minute Sept. 7, 2019, CNBC video.

It's stunning so-called world "leaders" waited 60 years to act, putting scientists in a race against the clock to preserve a livable planet with small-scale and large-scale geoengineering attempts.  

Scientist and Forbes writer James Conca noted September 10, 2019, "To bring this home, all you have to do is see how climate scientists are seeking psychiatric help for the depression, anxiety and PTSD that happens when you see a train wreck coming but no one seems to want to do anything about it - and you’re on the train."  He added "The Chinese have specifically said they will do exactly this [solar geoengineering] if things get too out of hand with global warming. And they have a robust research program already underway."

It is like a grizzly bear trapped us in a cave. We can stay in the cave and starve, or fight him by trying geoengineering, and maybe some of us will live. Grizzly tracks, scat, and claw marks on trees were obvious, but our current leaders seem to care even less for future generations than past leaders cared about us.  At best, our situation reminds me of Butch and Sundance's "Off the Cliff Scene" where Sundance says "Next time." At worst, we may be in the final scene of doom before Butch says ignorantly "For a moment there, I thought we were in trouble."

It requires "all hands on deck" everywhere, as Roger Hallam of Extinction Rebellion put it.  

In short, it's time to take the training wheels off the Paris Climate Agreement. In a previous post, I included quotes from Apollo 8 astronauts Bill Anders, Frank Borman, and Jim Lovell in the free 29-minute film Earthrise. One was "When I hear people chanting that we ought to go on to Mars, I'm thinking [. . . .] why don't we get our act together here on Earth first, and go to Mars as human beings, not as jingoistic Americans or Chinese or Russians or Indians. Let's just do it as human beings." To do otherwise risks war and decreases our chance for survival. 

Welcome to the Future -- Thoughts and Prayers for Those in Dorian's Path

Today weather.com reported "This is the strongest hurricane to ever go through the NW Bahamas, right now 180 miles an hour maximum sustained winds with gusts to up to 220 miles an hour." Democracy Now! has this Sept. 6 update.

In more bad news, according to Scott Sistek, KOMONews.com Meteorologist, "'The Blob' is back in the Pacific Ocean, but what does it mean?"

Dahr Jamail wrote this update on the global state of climate at truthout.org: "Alaska’s Sea Ice Completely Melted for First Time in Recorded History."

I read Jonathan Franzen's New Yorker article "What If We Stopped Pretending?" with interest. While I strongly disagree with his statement "In the long run, it probably makes no difference how badly we overshoot two degrees," I like his focus on individual and community preparation.  Look, every human life saved, every species saved in land, sea, and sky matters.  Gaia Vince wrote in The Guardian May 18, 2019 "Climate models predict we’re currently on track for a heating of somewhere between 3C and 4C for 2100 [. . . .] A 4C rise in global average temperatures would force humans away from equatorial regions [. . . .] 'We will have lost all the reefs decades before 2100 – at somewhere between 2C and 4C,' says Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany [ . . . .] Higher sea levels will make today’s low-lying islands and many coastal regions, where nearly half the global population live, uninhabitable, generating an estimated 2 billion refugees by 2100 [ . . . .] Rockström doesn’t like our chances. 'It’s difficult to see how we could accommodate a billion people or even half of that,' he says." Update: The Guardian, at Rockström's request, changed the quote for a 4 C world to "It’s difficult to see how we could accommodate eight billion people or maybe even half of that."

My two questions are: 1) What would city planning, agriculture, wilderness preservation, transportation, and colleges look like if our leaders told us this truth? and  2) What potential does humanity have if we stop playing this game of musical chairs with our and nonhuman survival?