CLIMATE CRUXES SIGNAL NEXT CRUNCH STAGE

By Patrick Cusick
An imploding worldwide recession is poised to occupy the media's attention throughout 2009 and threatens to mask over the next more acute stage of climate change. It would be tragic if the world's leaders become so blinkered on finding specific fixes for the human- made economic turmoil that they conveniently delay the introduction of urgently needed climate-friendly energy projects.
When times are tough politicians tend to become protective and fearful micro-thinkers, forgetting that it's the excessive burning of fossil fuels that created the convergence of a climate and economic crisis.
Over the past 100 years there have been two crux points that showed why humans should be more concerned about the planet's climatic decline. The first occurred in the summer of 1988 when fierce temperatures across Europe compounded the damage done by the most severe drought on record in the northern hemisphere. Around the same time extensive forest wildfires broke out in the US triggering the United Nations to set up a panel on climate change, involving over 2,000 scientists and climate experts.
The next crux occurred two decades later when in 2003 excessively long heat waves scorched large swathes of Europe. The intense European spring and summer heat was followed by a number of extremely powerful hurricanes from 2005 to 2007, including Hurricane Katrina. Climate watchers are now waiting for signs of the next climate change crux point, which will most likely follow a summer meltdown of all Arctic ice.
Last year scientists were stunned when the waters of the Northwest Passage became virtually ice-free for the first time on record. The urgent forecasts by veteran scientists of an ice-free Arctic Ocean have set off alarm bells. After more than 30 years working in the Arctic scientist Robie Macdonald observed: "The Arctic Ocean has not been seasonally clear of ice for a couple of million years at least, maybe longer, so this is very extraordinary."
The Arctic meltdown isn't just about the possible extinction of polar bears or disappearing plankton. At stake is a changing climate that's affecting the sustainability of Earth?s natural bounty. It's not the melting Arctic ice that is the only concern, as this same cause is also affecting all glaciers including the entire ice sheet covering Greenland - melting the permafrost that has locked up millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases under frozen ground.
Since the early 1990s glaciers worldwide have been in a constant process of decline affecting the supply of global fresh water supplies, which are dependent of on these sources. Asian glaciers fuel the main rivers providing water for more than 2 billion people. Already the Tibetan glaciers, where the massive Mekong River begins, has reached critical levels with a huge portion of the ice melting due to greenhouse gases.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects a 3C degrees increase in warming by 2100. But that's the average surface temperature. On the upper glaciers the warming will be twice as much, as high altitude glaciers feel the effects of global warming more than those at sea level.
The vast majority of qualified scientists and experts are convinced that what has been witnessed so far is just the beginning of a general destabilization of Earth's climate, and more rapidly warming planet over the next decade will shake the world out of its apathy and the false notion that the weather will remain fine for another lifetime. And the certain rise in methane gases will bring about a greater awareness that there are more threatening climate change gasses other than CO2.
The world can't afford to sit back and wait for the UN?s fifth assessment report on climate change to be released in 2013. The UN climate treaty scheduled for finalization next year should have the framework to mandate all nations into using more renewable energy and mitigate with the reforestation of tropical forests, the lungs of planet, to restore some climate harmony that won't damage the world's economic system.
This week parts of Europe experienced a shivering extreme cold snap. Snow and ice storms can result from the extra volumes of liquidity caused by global warming. But any coolness caused by high liquidity is short lived. As the Earth heats more the liquidity will go past the freeze stage and the evaporated water will condense into flooding rain.
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