It's not like our problems get 1% worse with every 1% temperature rises or something linear like that.
Rather, it's more like a bathtub in the upstairs bathroom. For years, you've been filling that bathtub up with lots of water without issue. Because you know what it can take, and turn off the spigot just before it tops off.. But one day you leave the water running a few minutes too long, and it spills over the top, rotting the floor, ruining the ceiling downstairs, maybe even getting you sued as your little mistake ruins something priceless in your downstairs neighbor's apartment. With 5% more water, you do a thousand percent, heck infinite percent, more damage.
This is New Orleans in 2005. They could take what they've been taking for decades. But add just a little more and it's a disaster of unfathomable magnitude.
Much of the world is prepared for disasters of n magnitude. But because n is all we're prepared for (because it's all we've ever seen) 5% more than n can cause biblical disaster.
I think the bathtub analogy is interesting. Not perfect but it does touch on the fascinating/terrifying idea that if climate change creates consequences just a little bit beyond our worst-case scenarios the results will not be just a little bit beyond catastrophic, but a lot beyond it.
ReplyDeleteBut just because we might be on the brink of global calamity is no reason to put Exxon's quarterly profits at risk...
It's been interesting to watch the weather news lately. Seems like "record-breaking" goes before "storm" almost automatically these days.
ReplyDeleteAnd whichever side of the climate change argument one might be on, I think everyone can agree that reducing dependence on fossil fuels, becoming more self-sufficient and sustainable, make good political and economic sense. Pro-oil execs, corporations, politicians & lobbyists are clever in how they get us all snarled up in debating climate change, diverting us from the more current problem of being dependent on our (near) enemies for energy. If we could just work on that problem, who knows...in a few years maybe the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf would stop melting so much....betcha it would.
ReplyDeletei heard yesterday that the amazon rainforest carbon sink went into reverse again in 2010 like in 2005 with the drought. pumping carbon out instead of absorbing it.
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