"We all agree. Climate change is real, ...
Yet even now, few people fully understand the gravity of the threat, or its immediacy,"                                   Now I believe we are on the verge of a catastrophe
 
 
We are at a crossroad.                                                                                                                                                      One path leads to a comprehensive climate change agreement, the other to oblivion
               Ban Ki moon.   Addressing the UN climate convention conference  Bali 12 December 2007
(referring to the Copenhagen UN Climate Convention summit   to sign an treaty to replace the expiring Kyoto Protocol.) .
 


 "The Earth today stands in imminent peril


...and nothing short of a planetary rescue will save it from the                   environmental cataclysm of dangerous climate change"


James Hansen,  Makiko Sato, Pushker Kharecha Gary Russell (NASA),  David Lea University of California, Barbara,  Mark Siddall Lamont-Doherty  Columbia Unversity New York. Royal Society paper 9/6/07


James Hansen's site http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/

                                                                               

 

 
     Research since 2007 shows we are all in great peril now from global warming  (- Yes even America)
THE MISSION 

(for us all)

is nothing less than rescuing humanity and life on Earth

from the rapidly Increasing risk of oblivion

 by fossil fuel global warming greenhouse gas emissions.

 

                                                                                   

 

 
 
                                    The race to fossil fuel oblivion   
          Global  Climate  Catastrophe
There are four looming GHGas Ocean Catastrophes for immediate concern
 
1. Loss of Arctic Ocean  summer ice (catastrophe to Northern hemisphere and the planet)
 
2. Ocean warming
3. Ocean acidification.
4. The death of the world's coral reefs
 
 
The catastrophe that gets all the attention is Sea Level Rise from thermal expansion and melting land ice. 
This catastrophe how ever is much more distant, much slower and more isolated.
  Catastrophes Currently in the Making that Should be of immediate Concern To Us All
 
1. Runaway Global Heating from Arctic climate feedbacks (survival of all life on Earth)
2. Runaway Arctic Ocean ice melt down
3. Ocean carbon sink failure accelerating future warming
4. Loss of water and food supplies (survival of humanity regionally)
5. Ocean carbon sink failure
6. Killing of the worlds coral reefs
 
These are not included in risk assessments or policy making.
Note.
 
Vast ice sheets (eg Greenland) for their irreversible total loss to the ocean because of their weight.
 
Permafrost Methane and Methane Clathrates
(/hydrates) for runaway global warming by massive carbon feedback adding more GHGases.
 
Collapse of the Amazon as a large carbon feedback adding more GHGases to the atmosphere.
 
Antarctic Ozone Hole.
Global warming is delaying the recovery of stratospheric ozone depletion.
 
ENSO is El Niņo/Southern Oscillation. An interation between ocean and winds that can lead to prolonged climate extremes
Total combined cumulative (100s yrs) impact to Humanity planet Earth ? 
     o  Top catastrophic impact for survival of large regional human populations and of Humanity is - 
                                                                                                                                  DAMAGE To AGRICULTURE
 
     o Top catastrophic global climate change effect for survival of life on Earth is - CARBON FEEDBACKS
 
     o Single most catastrophic impact for the survival of All life on Earth  is  -  METHANE HYDRATE OUTGASSING
 
These are not included in the IPCC assessment  as top dangers and are not included in policy making.
 
 
                                  What Is Catastrophic Climate Change?
                   What are the Top Catastrophic Risks from Climate Change?
                   What Do the Scientists Say about Catastrophic Climate Change?
Tipping Elements in the Earths Climate Sysytem Lenton 2007

OCEANS
The climate is normally controlled by the oceans so the GHGas impacts (warming + acidification) on the oceans alone can lead to the catastrophic collapse of marine life and massively catastrophic feedbacks to the climate system.
 Loss of   
 fisheries
 food supply


Yet very few scientists or world leaders  are supporting the declaration of a global/planetary state of emergency by Al Gore James Hansen and Ban Ki moon.

Few have as yet stated that global GHGas levels and global GHGas emissions are above the danger limit.

And so the gathering storm of catastrophe looms ever larger and ever closer.
Ban Ki moon UN Secretary General addressing the General Assembly  Nov 2007.
There is hardly any published science on the risk of global climate catastrophe.
Climate scientists do no regard  'dangerous' and 'catastrophic' as scientific terms that they can research and report on.
This paper on Tpping Pints is the first  scientific attempt to do so
The Heat Lag Doubling Factor
 
First it has to be understood that todays atmospheric GHGas level does not correlate with today's temperature increase level.
The surface of the planet that warms is mostly composed of ocean water which makes the planet a mightly big place to warm.
As it takes several decades for a heat radiating GHGas to warm the planet the degree of warming is always decades behind the source of warming (atmospheric GHGases. This is called the heat/thermal lag.
Today's warming is 0.8oC. We must add 0.6oC thermal lag.
Add to that the lag of stopping the emissions we have commmitted (condemned) all future generations to a global warming of double our warming today.
Therefore we should add in about 30yrs of more warming to calculate the warming effect of GHGas emissions today.  
 
This is not being factored into risk assessmen and policy making.
The Long Term Cumulative Multiplying Factor.
 
What ever level of global warming the world ends up with it will last for thousands of years. This is due to another even longer heat/thermal lag which is due to the physics of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2).
CO2 last in the atmosphere for over 100 years and 20% of all CO2 emissions last for 1000 years.
So all damages from the warming and climate disruption will be cumulative (build up) over at least the next thousand years.
This then is the top factor in assessing the risk of catastrophe.
This is not being factored into risk assessmen and policy making.
 
 
The Computer Model Probability  Range Factor (A doubling for risk of catastrophe)
 
Projections of future warming are made by complex climate models but there is no whole Earth model and no model for alll the interactions that acurr with all the climate changes. So far the rapid melt down of alll planetary ice masses shows rhe models to be underestimating by up to 50 years. Just the projections for the degree of warming from a level of atmospheric GHGases has a margin of error on the low side of 200%. The projected warming has over a 10% chance of being double what the models say onm warming which means at least a 10% of all impacts coming twice as fast as the predictions. For the Arctic the models have understimated by 300%.
This is not being factored into catastrophic risk assessment and policy making.
                                                                                      Catastrophic Risk Aversion
When a new aeroplane is being built catastrophic risk aversion is the key to the design and construction.
Any chance of catastrophe no matter how small is eliminated in the plane's development. Fail safe mechanics and electronics are built onto the design for example. In the case of the warming of the  planet catastrophic risk assessment and aversion are no even being considered. It has been known  by the scientists for example since 1990 that Arctic methane hydrates would be destabilized by global warming and would release huge amounts of methane. This event was considered to be a long way off and methane hydrates are not included in assessments and polcy making. They are now emitting methane into the atmosphere.
It follows that a protective policy for all future life on Earth would have to exclude any catastrophic risk under a factor of four times the global warming projected by models,. Had that been done scientists would not have been caught out by the Arctic Ocean meltdown that is happening three times as fast as they projected.  
 
The Additive Holistic  Factor
 
Global warming damages life on Earth of its own accord as all creatures cannot tolerate high levels of warming. In addition the warming causes a large number of damaging climate changes. These are all adverse at global warming that are now inevitabe and so they will all interact together in an additive (in fact multiplier) way to produce a final impact that is the sum (more than) of all the changes considered seperately.
 
Ths is not included in risk assessments or policy making.  
                                                                                      Catastrophic Risk Denial
The greatest risk of global catastrophe today comes from global climate change.
However instead of catastrophic global climate change risk aversion/avoidance we have almost universal denial of any catastrophic risk.
 
Denial is actually built into the science assessments and policy making.
This comes about because of reductionist science reliance on computer models and  no consideration of the precuationary principle.
 
The following are the catastrophic factors that the science and policy making does not account for.
                                                                                      Catastrophe Is Now
 
Although the idea is not even being considered, the fact is we all now face catastrophe and for large populations in the most climate vulnerable regions catastrophe has started.
It has been recognized for over ten years that industrial scale land clearing and urban construction has brought about a mass extinction event of life on Earth and the loss of sustainable ecosystems is on going and accelerating.
Global climate change, just starting to impact on natural ecosystems, will greatly accelerate the catastrophic rate of the exinction of species and wildlife populations.
For survival of life on Earth we are at catastrophic global warming (accelerating meltdown of all ice masses).   
For survival of humanity we are catastrophic atmospheric GHGas levels (agriculture).
And the global warming will be double today's due to today's GHGas levels
Climate change scientists go by the geophysical definition of 'a violent and sudden change in feature of the Earth' (Mirriam Webster).
 
A relevent definition would be by the general understanding of a 'momentous event' 'leading to ruin'  (Webster dictionary).
This definition would take in irreversible damage to regions of the planet rendering them practically uninhabitable by humans or their natural  wild species inhabitants 
 
 
  
 The Low Probability (by models) Factor
The computer models being relied on cannot put any numbers on the greatest catastrophes.
The scientists and policy makers place lowest priority on lowest probability (by models) catastrophic events.
The most extreme of many examples is Arctic methane hydrates and runaway global heating .
While this is acknowledged as the greatest of all possible catastrophes it is not mentioned in the IPCC assessment for policy makers.   
                                                                                      Catastrophic Human Factor 
The science of global climate change puts the modeling lar of scale geophysical changes to the planet at the center of the science.
The policy making relies totally on the IPCC assessment.
Human populations are not at the center of the IPCC assessments.
Human rights are not included in science assessments.
Water food and public health security are glossed over in the IPCC assessments.