"We are running out of time"

  This article in Yale e360 ,is an interesting read. It talks about safe operating zone for humans and how we have crossed them in three out nine instances

“..if we keep pushing the planet this way, we will cause sudden, irreversible damage to the systems that made human civilization possible in the first place. …..journal Nature, Rockstrom and 27 of his fellow environmental scientists argue that we have to conceive of many tipping points at once. They propose that humans must keep the planet in what they call a “safe operating space,” inside of which we can thrive. If we push past the boundaries of that space — by wiping out biodiversity, for example, or diverting too much of the world’s freshwater — we risk catastrophe”

 

Without  GPS ..whew!!

 

“Unfortunately, the authors of the Nature paper maintain, we’ve already started pushing out beyond these boundaries…..“We’re sitting on top of a mesa right now, and we’re driving  around, but we don’t have our lights on and we don’t even have a map,” says Jonathan Foley, a co-author of the new study and the director of the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment. “That’s a dangerous way to move around.”

     

Optimism!?  Some people keep saying that.  I’m no expert, but as I understand it, Chlorofluorocarbons was a mole while CO₂ is this big mountain  of a problem!  I personally cannot understand how people can be optimistic with the success of Montreal protocol. CO₂ is a whole other beast challenging international relationship management to the core! This is unlike any challenge mankind has seen before! I don’t feel optimistic at all. (We’ll see  what happens in Copenhagen)

 

“While the paper makes for a sobering read, its authors think we should also find some cause for optimism in it. Humanity nearly crossed another threshold by destroying the ozone layer with chlorofluorocarbons. But we recognized the crisis in time and banned chlorofluorocarbons, allowing the ozone layer to slowly recover..”

 

In another article, Greenland ice sheet and the Antarctica are melting faster than expected,  as published  in Nature journal.  As reported by e360,   it is now clear to scientists that a self feeding phenomenon has begun

 

  “confirm concerns among some climate scientists that the accelerating rate of ice sheet melting has become a self-feeding phenomenon — essentially, the more the ice melts, the more the water near the ice sheets causes more melting. “The question is how far will it run?” said Hamish Pritchard of the British Antarctic Survey and lead author of the study”

 

I wonder how close this gets us to the climate change threshold?

 

   “It’s more widespread than we previously thought” says Hamish Pritchard.  My thoughts exactly!