Showing posts with label carbon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label carbon. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

LAND SUBSIDENCE and GLOBAL WARMING are CASCADE FAILURE MODES

Since infrastructure buildup of 1960s and prior, U.S. political activism has combined with elected self interests blocked further development of U.S water management systems. Due to increased population, increased gross domestic products (GDPs) overdrafting groundwaters/aquifers, global warming climate change, and very active untoward political special interests -- the most chronic global water problem is water-overdraft land subsidence. Unless there are significant and rapid global energy changes, human races end 2050-2055 by 250-years of carbon and methane atmospheric accumulations.

Because of previous and ongoing neglect of care for water cycle and systems for gathering, storing, and distribution of potable water, most of the world will very-likely (ie, have greater than 90% probability) face a severe or greater water shortage.  

Anti science U.S., left Democratic and special interest movements promote social projects, corruption, paybacks, and criminal activity that has undermined public knowledge of scientific reasoning. Having undermined public acceptance of the scientific method and reporting, politicians are then free to create social and environmental problems only politicians can solve. Without a major informative scientific based solutions to systemic physical life and death issues, untoward politicians continue their corruption and disregard of human life.

By intentional benign neglect, media lack of coverage of vital human races issues is criminal.   

CASCADE FAILURE

Cascading failures usually begin when one part of the system fails resulting in complete system failure. Global life support system failures for human survival include: (1) land subsidence and saltwater inundation resulting from underground water drafts and (2) global warming temperature increase. Cascade failures case regional and national water system failures and deadly global warming runaway.

Land Subsidence/Saltwater intrusion - In the case of water source storage capacity, a cascade failure occurs when underground water drafts cause land subsidence collapse. Groundwater/aquifer availability cascade fails result in permanent decreases in stored water, groundwater water flow, and water supplies, which leads to more water overdrafting and less underground water storage and less sustainable water cycle capacity. Saltwater intrusion into groundwater and aquifers is also a cascade failure overdraft problem that destroyed much potable water capacity.  

Global Warming - Global warming temperature increase cascade failures are several, but among the important is Arctic Region warming release of global warming gas methane that leads to more regional (and global) temperature increase.  A greenhouse gas emission "hockey stick" curve identifies a cascade failure mode. Exceeding "global carbon budget" is a cascade failure. Global warming cascade failures are sometimes referred to as exceeding "tipping points."  Exceeding global carbon budget also exceeds established Earth temperature control limits.

Feedback can amplify climatic processes where changing one quantity (the amount of carbon dioxide/methane in the atmosphere) can change a second quantity (rising temperatures on Earth) which in turn changes the first quantity (even more carbon dioxide/methane released). Decrease in potability water availability feedback also occurs with decreased groundwater and aquifer storage capacity.  

Major tipping points for the Earth are greenhouse gas emissions of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, global warming leading to severe weather events, polar ice melting and widespread droughts, oceanic acidification and melting permafrost, and dying rain forests that release enormous amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Very bad things happen when we pass a tipping point. Tipping points are subtle. They are reached in tiny increments each day with no way to measure the exact time or event that pushes a threat into irreversibility. Once that happens, it is cascade failure and difficult or even impossible to reverse the threat as rolling feedbacks strengthen the failure.  

A “bombshell” report by International Energy Agency in late 2011 notes that without positive action now, by 2017 global carbon dioxide emissions are “locked-in” by existing power plants, factories and vehicles that results in exceeding "global carbon cycle." Rising hydrocarbon (coal, oil, natural gas) energy use will lead to irreversible and catastrophic global warming and all human races death.

SUBSURFACE WATER

When you deplete groundwater stored and water mine aquifers -- you have run out of potable water. Regions and human races are living on borrowed time when they overdraft underground water. There are no capable central authorities authorized to correct surface and subsurface water issues.    

It is transfer of groundwater and aquifer mining that results in ground subsidence, which results in permanent compression of ground-structure and decrease in essential water storage capacity. Over time, because of population growth, increased gross domestic products (GDPs), increased global water demands, and not properly manage underground water resources, their results in essential UNDERGROUND WATER STORAGE-CAPACITY that quickly diminish, becomes very critically limited, which leads to cascade water failure modes.      

Exceeding of maximum sustainable water yield -- Knowledge of underground water is paramount in sustaining water supplies for drinking, agriculture, and industry. When pumping from an aquifer extracts water faster than it can be recharged, the system is out of equilibrium, and the water table will continue to drop until recharge increases or pumping decreases. The groundwater/aquifer is said to be in overdraft. Maximum sustainable yield refers to the maximum use that a renewable resource can sustain without impairing its renewability through natural growth or replenishment. Enhanced maximum sustainable can use artificial recharge methods to increase annual water yield.  

As part of the water cycle, underground water sources produce flow of rivers, streams, and lakes. Where surface water, such as lakes and rivers, are scarce, inaccessible, or water cycle has changed. It is groundwater, aquifer supplies that provides water needs of people. Groundwater and aquifer depletion, a term often defined as long-term water-level declines caused by sustained underground water pumping, is a key issue associated with underground water use. Too many areas of the U.S. are experiencing groundwater/aquifer depletion that have exceeded maximum sustainable water limits.

Excessive pumping can overdraw the groundwater "bank account" -- Increased demands on groundwater resources have overstressed aquifers in many areas of the world, not just in arid regions. Pumping water out of the ground faster than it is replenished is exceeding maximum sustainable water yield and over years causes water supply problems.

In response to over pumping, volume of groundwater in storage is decreasing in many areas of the U.S. and global water supplies. Groundwater depletion is primarily caused by sustained groundwater over pumping. Some of the negative effects of groundwater depletion:

o  Lowering of the water table
o  Increased costs for the user
o  Reduction of water in streams, rivers, and lakes resulting from human induced water cycle changes.
o  Increased groundwater and aquifer saltwater inundation.
o  Land subsidence - Land subsidence occurs when large amounts of groundwater have been withdrawn from certain types of rocks, such as fine-grained sediments. The rock compacts because the water is partly responsible for holding the ground up. When the water is withdrawn, the rocks falls in on itself, prominently removing underground water storage capacity. You may not notice land subsidence because it can occur over large areas (thousands of square kilometers) rather than in a small spot, like a sinkhole. That does not mean that subsidence is not a big event -- states like California, Texas, and other states have suffered extensive land subsidence permanent damage.
o  Deterioration of water quality
o  Depletion of water resources
o  Permanent loss of below ground storage capacity
o  Increased need for water desalination facilities. Water desalination technology is mature and is unlikely to decrease desalination energy demands, decrease construction and operating costs, or adequately augment natural water cycle.  

Groundwater depletion, or excessive removal of subsurface water, results in land subsidence and is most often caused by human activities. Basic cause of land subsidence is a loss of support structures below ground and permanent loss of below ground storage capacity.

Social divergence of 1960s stopped many national water projects. It needs to be understood restarting water projects to match existing water conditions take at least two decades. It does take more than one decade to design, fund, and construct new water facilities to meet current needs. Add to that it can take more than one decade for collection and distribution of gathered available surface water. To meet future water needs -- increase funding and increase size of projects. By the time necessary water augmentation is in place, the water crisis has grown to a water catastrophe. U.S. Congress needs to act now.

Mining Water -- Mining is the extraction of a substance of value from the earth such as water or oil, natural gas, etc. Groundwater overdraft and aquifer water-mining are most important water problems in the world. Because land subsidences is easily measurable with satellites, satellite alterminitor recordings are to be used as a metric to evaluate global and regional water safe yield levels and identify water sustainability problem areas.   

Fossil water - Fossil water mining is now common self destructive practice. Fossil water or paleowater is groundwater that has remained sealed in an aquifer for a long period of time. Water can rest underground in "fossil aquifers" for thousands or even millions of years. Changes in the surrounding geology sealed aquifers from further replenishing from precipitation, the water becomes trapped within, and is known as fossil water. Removing water from aquifers that do not adequately replenish is called "water-mining," once mined that natural non-replenished water resource is gone forever. However, there are artificial methods to recharge some aquifers. Along with running out of water sustainable yield, water mining can result in ground subsidence.

Ground Subsidence - When groundwater and/or aquifers are overdrafted there occurs ground subsidence (ie, a lowering of ground level caused by compression resulting from, in this case, excessive below ground water withdrawal). The overdraft of such aquifer systems results in permanent subsidence. That is, permanent decrease in underground storage and in related ground failures.

Drafting Coastal Aquifers - Drafting coastal aquifer and delta water systems can result in permanent saltwater inundated from ocean water into potable underground water channels. Quality of potable underground waters are permanently destroyed by infusion of ocean saltwater and below ground water migrations. Compounding problems of coastal aquifer equilibrium is a projected 3.2-feet (1-meter) sea level rise by 2099.   

Much of the world's population is located near coastal areas. Many of the world's coasts are becoming increasingly urban. In fact, 14 of the world's 17 largest cities are located along coasts, including, Bangkok, Jakarta, and Shanghai and lesser California Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Monterey Bay area. In addition, two-fifths of cities with populations of 1 million to 10 million people are located near coastlines. The urbanization of coasts brings with it coastal development (including demands for fresh water and sewage treatment), damage to coastal ecosystems, and extensive damage to subsurface water systems.

Coastal aquifers tend to have wedge shaped zones of saltwater underlying the potable freshwater. Under natural conditions the boundary between the freshwater and saltwater tends to be relatively stable, but pumping can cause saltwater to migrate inland, resulting in permanent saltwater contamination of the water supply. Continued drafting of contaminated water sources accelerates water supply degeneration.   

Migration of natural "pollutants" due to drafting underground water occurs within some regions. Inland aquifers can experience similar saline/fresh water boundary problems when withdrawal of good-quality water from upper parts of inland aquifers can allow underlying saline water to move upward, which permanently degrades water source quality.

Because subground seawater salinity and natural contaminants migrations are easily satellite measurable, land altitude is used as a metric to help evaluate global and regional water safe yield levels and identify water sustainability problem areas.

Land Subsidence -- More than 80 percent of subsidence within U.S. is related to the withdrawal of below ground water.  

LAND SUBSIDENCE IS A PERMANENT WATER SYSTEM CASCADE FAILURE MODE.

IT IS VERY CRITICAL THAT GROUNDWATER AND AQUIFERS NO LONGER BE OVERDRAFTED. TO STOP GROUND SUBSIDENCE AND SALTWATER INUNDATION, ESTABLISH GROUNDWATER REPLENISHMENT (GWR) SYSTEMS AND PROPER WATER SUPPLY AUGMENTATION.  

Land subsidence from water drafting has documented damaged roads, sewer lines, flood-retention structures, water pipes, and many other types of infrastructure. However, little has been presented to estimate regional and global water losses. There is a need for increased satellite reporting of the growing problem of land subsidence due to belowground water pumping.  

Land subsidence and saltwater inundation play an increasing detrimental role in the management of water resources for a population prior to 2050-2055 that exceeds 9-billion people dying from global warming temperature increase.     

Alluvial Plains -- The type of sediment deposits cause some critical water resources being drafted and experiencing permanent land subsidence are in alluvial plains. An alluvial plain is a largely flat landform created by the deposition of sediment over a long period of time (millions of years) by one or more rivers coming from highland regions, from which alluvial soil forms. Examples of alluvium planes are many:  o Padan plain (Po basin or Pianura Padana), Italy, area of 17,756 mile square (46,000 kilometer square  o Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta region, California, USA area 1,100 miles square (2,849 kilometer square)  o etc.

California's critical Central Valley (area of approximately 22,500 miles square (58,275 kilometers square)) is formed by loose sediment alluvial deposits that are easily subjected to land subsidence from underground water overdrafting. Once the land subsides, under soils collapses, and groundwater storage capacity is permanently reduced. Water management is completely ignored by the politics of California Department of Water Resources Board, State Legislature leadership, California Secretary for Natural Resources, Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP), and other political special interests.       

Manage Water Resources -- It can take 20-30 years to significantly change water supply resources -- if timely change is to occur, you better start now.

Lack of analyzing national water resources and water cycle as a whole has led to critical national and multinational water mismanagement. To publicly provide for current and projected water needs, it is critical to know, understand, and respond to regional/global water-cycle supply capacity, rate of water uses, projected long-term climate changes, and rate of loss of underground water storage capacity.   

U.S. water management politicians hope that there does not come a long drought. Of course politicians do not provide necessary water resource changes -- they just hope and delay responses.

A decade-long drought in the Colorado River Basin, which has lowered Lake Mead water supply to Hoover Dam by more than 120 feet from its high-water mark. Hoover Dam could stop generating electricity by 2013, if water levels in Lake Mead continue to drop 10 feet per year, and go below the level needed to supply generators. When Hoover Dam stops generating electricity, traditionally U.S. greenhouse gas emissions of hydrocarbon (coal, oil, natural gas) has replaced hydroelectric energy.  

According to United States Geological Survey, significant groundwater depletions have occurred in High Plains water basins (including Ogallala Aquifer) of the Midwest, many areas in the Southwest (AZ, CA, NM, NV, and TX), the Sparta Aquifer in the Southeast (AR, LA, and MS), and in the Chicago-Milwaukee area (where long-term pumping has lowered groundwater levels by as much as 900 feet in the sandstone aquifer underlying the Chicago area and eastern Wisconsin). Studies estimate that current groundwater overdrafts in Arizona total 2.5 million international acre foot (3,084 meter-squared) per year, approximately 50% in excess of maximum sustainable yield. A Kansas Geological Survey study projects that significant regions of that state will have exhausted their groundwater supplies by 2025. In some areas of Nebraska, groundwater levels have fallen almost 30 feet (9.1 meters) below normal.

Colorado River flow has a 50 percent chance of going dry by 2021, which has impacts upon 25 million people. Congress has yet to address issues of Colorado River flow that result in decreased Hoover Dam water output and reduced electrical generation. High Plains will dry up in as little as 25 years, leaving High Plains aquifers high-and-dry in eight states of South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas (major areas for food production and major political corn ethanol production region).

High Plains aquifers are among the world's largest aquifers, it covers an area of approximately 174,000 miles square (450,658 kilometer square) in portions of the eight states of South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas. The saturated thickness of the Ogallala Aquifer has declined by over 50 percent in some areas (reported aquifer level declines of over 100 feet (30.5 meter) between 1950 and 1997). For political reasons, lack of public reporting of Ogallala Aquifer water resource problems is chronic since 2007.  

Close to a quarter of available water in the Texas Ogallala had been pumped out by 1980 and large portions of Ogallala Aquifer are overdrafted as true water mining operations. Almost all U.S. central and southern Ogallala Aquifer would be unable to run center-pivot irrigation by 2020, producing a permanent major global food source collapse. Further subsurface water storage gains are possible by Groundwater Recharge (GWR) of groundwater basins with rainfall runoff that normally flows to sea. Nevada-Utah and Rocky Mountain north to Alaska water should also be considered as a GWR water sources for the depleting High Plains aquifer.

Pacific Northwest groundwater development of the Columbia River Basalt aquifer of Washington and Oregon has caused water-level declines. Desert Southwest increased groundwater pumping to support population growth in south-central Arizona (including the Tucson and Phoenix areas) has resulted in water-level declines of between 300 and 500 feet (91-152 meter) in much of the area. Land subsidence was first noticed in the 1940s and subsequently as much as 12.5 feet (3.8 meter) of subsidence has been measured. In 1999, Las Vegas, Nevada, was the fastest growing municipal area in the United States. In places, groundwater levels have declined 300 feet (91 meter).  

Since development began on the vast Florida Everglades in the late 19th century, damage has been rampant with the draining of swamp land, the erection of dikes, dams and canals, and the intrusion of farms and development that have polluted with fertilizers, runoff, and groundwater/aquifer depletion. Plans to restore the Everglades will fail because turning back the environment clock on a large scale environment project is very expensive and close to impossible. The best that can be hoped for are projects to mitigate (or accommodate) environment change. Only time will tell how successful are attempts to curb patterns of human destruction

Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is where California's two largest rivers Sacramento River and San Joaquin River come together, carrying runoff from the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Central Valley, and on to San Francisco Bay. Since 1960s, untoward special interests control California water allocations through control of Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta region and politics of California Department of Water Resources Board. California water is controlled by a covey of politically controlled convoluted water "authorities" and self appointed water/environment vigilantes.   

Pressure on water resources is important in Spain, Italy, and Turkey because of the very large acreage under irrigation. Like the U.S., large escalation in groundwater extractions has been driven by the falling costs of pumping technologies in areas with profitable irrigated crops. In contrast to large collective irrigation systems, for political self interest reasons -- private groundwater extractions are not subject to much control by water administrations.

China warned February 2011 that major agricultural regions were facing their worst drought in 60 years. In Italy, pervasive aquifer overdraft and water quality problems are located in the Po basin, Romagna and Puglia, and in the coastal plains of Campania, Calabria, Sicily, and Sardinia. These regions do not have problems of water scarcity, but rather of water quality. Water pricing will not solve scarcity or improve quality in the more degraded areas, because rising water prices would reduce consumption in large irrigation districts of inland Spain or southern Italy.   

There is little evidence that long-term droughts are not "new norms" within the Colorado River basin, Texas, California, China, Italy, and nuclear armed Pakistan/India Punjab alluvial plain water agreements, and other parts of the world. The only path to correct long-term water issues is proper management of surface and subsurface water convenience and groundwater storage.

Water Management -- Global warming climate change predicts that rainfall will become increasingly erratic, with rain coming in big storms separated by longer dry stretches. If the U.S. has a High Plains and California longer-term drought, U.S. and global food supply systems would be crippled.

To prevent the effects of long-term droughts, underground water long-term storage must be enhanced. When rain falls it must be surface short-term stored and transferred to long-term aquifer storage for later dry years.

To use water resources properly are: Conjunctive Water Management and Groundwater Recharge (GWR):  

Conjunctive Water Management -- Conjunctive water management is used to improve water supply reliability, to reduce groundwater overdraft and land subsidence, to protect water quality, and to improve environmental conditions.

Groundwater Recharge (GWR) -- Groundwater recharge is the movement of surface water from the land surface, through the topsoil and subsurface, and into de-watered aquifer space.  Recharge occurs naturally from precipitation falling on the land surface, from water stored in lakes, and from creeks and rivers carrying storm runoff. There are at least 15 methods available for groundwater replenishment (GWR) recharge of underground water saturation zones and prevent land subsidence. Water augmentation is supplying water from other sources for GWR and additional water resource uses. For political self interest reasons, GWR systems are under utilized within the U.S. and many other parts of the world.    

Recharge also occurs when water is placed into constructed recharge ponds (also called spreading basins), when water is injected into the subsurface by wells, and when water is released into creeks and rivers beyond what occurs from the natural hydrology (for example, by releases of imported water).   

Significant amounts of recharge can also occur either intentionally or incidentally from applied irrigation water and from water placed into unlined conveyance facilities.  

Groundwater banking is a subset of GWR water replenishment systems. Groundwater banking is the recharge (often of imported surface water or local floodwater) into de-watered aquifer space for later recovery and use or exchange with others.  

Use all resources available to prevent land subsidence and saltwater intrusions resulting from underground water drafting.  

Water Reporting - National, state, and regional water reporting has often been manipulated to promote corruption of political and special interests.  

Global warming will cause drought and forest fires turning regions into a large source of carbon dioxide that feeds back to create more warming. Secondly, a warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor, which increases the intensity of other extremes of the water cycle, such as heavy rains, punishing storms and flooding (as in 2011).

California 1970 population was 20.0 million and in 2010 was increased by 86.5% to 37.3 million. Little if any water planning to accommodate future demands has occurred since 1960s, after conservatives were removed from election cycles. Since 1960s-1970s, untoward politicians and special interests have dismantled science and central authority functions, diverted funding, while authority of special interest groups subdivided among themselves water responsibility and accountability to enhance untoward political control of critical water resources. Politicians use "divide and conquer" state and regional water authorities for untoward special interest control of water.

It is easier to corrupt a regional politically divided authority than corrupt a central scientific authority that has real authority and knows what it is doing. Divide and conquers is mostly imposed by legislation and political funding strategies. Since 2007 left Democrats took control of U.S. House, Senate, and government functions, public access to water information has been rewritten or withdrawn from internet access. Water and water information is ignored by media and is extensively controlled by political special interests.     

Unless changed, land subsidence and saltwater inundation from drafting regional water DOES destroy global central water storage and distribution systems and all other water cycle supply systems. Science can support informed decisions on global warming, water, environmental issues, and sustainable life issues. However, it is politicians who make decisions (or not). To date, politicians base their decisions upon self political interests.   

GLOBAL WARMING TEMPERATURE INCREASE

All species, including humans, have their own tipping point for survival and are threatened by seasonal changes, severe weather, and loss of habitat and global warming temperature increase.

For more than a decade the scope and goals of global warming mitigations have been sidetracked by political process of deceit, misrepresentation, and corruption. Nuclear energy is the only clean energy with capacity to curb global warming. Since 1970s and formation of U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Congress has limited nuclear to 20% national energy. The 1990s produced misdirection of official global warming mitigation goals. In 2009, NRC shut down Yucca Mountain Nuclear Geologic Repository, which is a vital part of U.S. Nuclear Fuel Cycle. Additional disruption of very critical U.S. Nuclear Fuel Cycle systems were produced and has established that the U.S. is to continue its hydrocarbon energy use past 2017 point of 'global carbon cycle carbon budget' abilities. By 2030-2040, the +2 degree Centigrade limit is exceeded. Uncontrollable temperature increase follows with a undeniable 2050-2055 end of all human races.

About one-third of global warming greenhouse warming results from electrical generation gases emitted by hydrocarbon (coal, oil, and natural gas) energy. NRC members have always been representatives for antinuclear and pro hydrocarbon corrupt political self interests movements. It is through Congressional left Democrat member activity that global clean nuclear energy was sidetracked to make room for "renewable energy" waste, fraud, and corruption promotion of wind, solar, ethanol, and carbon cap-and-trade. Congress first legislated U.S. "green energy" push with Energy Policy Act (EPAct 1992) and with later Acts.

By late 1990s, special interest politics took over structure of global warming technological reporting. UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports of post 2001 improperly ignored natural methane as a important global warming gas and sliced-diced reports to add confusion and non viable options that obfuscated understanding global warming. IPCC documents now need revisions to present projected reality. In reality, there are only two viable global warming case studies: (1) greenhouse gas emissions "business as usual" and (2) case study that attempts to save human races.           

By 2003, increased political promotion of energy waste, fraud, corruption (while promoting wind, solar, green energy, ethanol, and carbon cap-and-trade) became the priority global warming response of left Democratic systems. Also around 2003 was another push for political social transformation of public housing. Because it was popular with his political base, President Obama spearheaded alternatives to energy and has made several efforts to shutdown global and U.S. Nuclear Fuel Cycle. Under current political conditions, it could take up to a decade to restart significant U.S. nuclear electrical generation.

U.S. and global anti nuclear sentiment and stalling of nuclear industry development is a direct result of U.S. political self interests of hydrocarbon energy sector. To save all humanity, there is little time left to inform public of vital needs to rapidly expand nuclear energy. It is combined natural methane and human carbon levels that produces global warming. Nuclear energy is the only energy source that might reduce human carbon emissions. Natural methane emissions can only be reduced by reducing global temperatures.        

Colleges and universities who for decades have promoted failed Communism and failed alternatives to energy have lost many years of student instructions. Education is now not helping resolving global warming issues. Those educational institutions are more interested in the politics of keeping flow of government grants and funds than they are concerned about saving doomed lives of their students.  

Once the carbon parts per million (ppm) concentration within the atmosphere tips over a magic number that no one so far exactly knows (but some say is carbon content between 350-450 ppm), then positive regenerative feedback assures there will be no global warming relief. If global warming greenhouse gas level exceed "the trip point," a thermo cascade failure occurs, even if all human carbon release activities would just stop, such as shutting down transportation, power plants, and industry.  

GLOBAL WARMING IS A CORRECTABLE GLOBAL TEMPERATURE SYSTEM CASCADE FAILURE MODE. IF NOT NOW QUICKLY CORRECTED, GLOBAL WARMING IS FATAL TO ALL HUMAN RACES 2050-2055.  

At historical trends of natural and human global warming greenhouse gas increase, human races termination from global warming is 2050-2099, but most likely termination is 2050-2055. Resulting from natural Arctic Region methane release and 250-years of human hydrocarbon emissions. Without rapid natural and human global warming greenhouse gas emission changes, and considering methane increases, expected is zero-years to forty-years remaining for human races existence.    

Starting from 2012, over the coming next five years, least-cost global warming option is lowering global warming by steadily transforming global human hydrocarbon energy systems to clean nuclear energy; lower human/natural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; and then over time lower to zero human GHG emissions. Difficult to reduce are increasing Arctic Region natural methane levels that are ocean current temperature dependent and land surface-air temperature dependent. Arctic Region natural vast methane emissions form a reinforced positive feedback loop that is directly proportional to temperature (ie, huge stores of Arctic methane release form a positive regenerative cascade failure mode).

Core global warming task is to reduce global energy share of coal, natural gas, and petroleum, to be replaced nationally and globally with hydrocarbon free nuclear and hydroelectric energy. Molecule to molecule -- nuclear energy is the most intense carbon-free energy source available -- no other available energy source has the capacity to effect decrease in global warming temperature increase. How quickly nuclear energy is expanded to replace hydrocarbon energy determines if the human races can be saved over time.

Expansion of nuclear electrical generation is the only realistic global warming temperature reduction method available within the time frame necessary to make a difference. Additional uses of nuclear energy are to be further explored.

Carbon-free hydroelectric energy expansion is limited by available dam site locations. Dam sites and dam locations need expansion to accommodate both expansion of hydroelectricity to counter human greenhouse gas emissions and provide expanded surface water storage for water augmentation of groundwater replenishment (GWR) recharge for underground water saturation zones.  

U.S. national energy policies and global energy policies are in long-term political disarray and unable to meet needs of curbing global warming temperature increase. Other than U.S. military and intelligence agencies, there is no political leadership or empowered organization existing who are capable of planning what it takes to timely alter the rate of global warming. As soon as possible, existing U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) membership is to be replaced by four senior nuclear specialists and one presidential appointee. Revised scope of revised NRC membership is to include supervisions of U.S. 'Nuclear Fuel Cycle' and rapid expansion of U.S. nuclear energy. Global and U.S. plans for global warming reduction are to be produced by U.S. intelligence agencies and U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). Natural and human greenhouse gases are to peak by 2020 and decline thereafter.  

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Increasing 0-40 Year Human Race Lifespan

Under current accelerating rates of carbon and methane gases release, human life ends 2050-2055 CE. If Arctic Region methane clathrates carbon reserves become explosively unstable by temperature increase, tectonic uplift, or undersea landslides -- global warming temperature quickly rises and there are no more human races. Therefore, estimates for the continuation of human-life range from a minimum of zero-years to a maximum of 40-years.  

If the Arctic Region water is warm enough to melt the fringes of the Arctic Ocean ice cap, the water is now warm enough to melt huge amounts of global warming methane clathrates, which releases the very powerful methane global warming gas. Further destabilization of the Arctic Region methane clathrate cap is very threatening to human life continued existence:

"Study finds warm ocean currents cause majority of ice loss from Antarctica"

April 25, 2012
PHYS.ORG

Reporting this week in the journal Nature, an international team of scientists led by British Antarctic Survey (BAS) has established that warm ocean currents are the dominant cause of recent ice loss from Antarctica. New techniques have been used to differentiate, for the first time, between the two known causes of melting ice shelves - warm ocean currents attacking the underside, and warm air melting from above. This finding brings scientists a step closer to providing reliable projections of future sea-level rise.

Researchers used 4.5 million measurements made by a laser instrument mounted on NASA's ICESat satellite to map the changing thickness of almost all the floating ice shelves around Antarctica, revealing the pattern of ice-shelf melt across the continent. Of the 54 ice shelves mapped, 20 are being melted by warm ocean currents, most of which are in West Antarctica.

In every case, the inland glaciers that flow down to the coast and feed into these thinning ice shelves have accelerated, draining more ice into the sea and contributing to sea level rise and water temperature increase.

Lead author Dr Hamish Pritchard from British Antarctic Survey, which is part of the UK's Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), said: "In most places in Antarctica, we can't explain the ice-shelf thinning through melting of snow at the surface, so it has to be driven by warm ocean currents melting them from below. We've looked all around the Antarctic coast and we see a clear pattern: in all the cases where ice shelves are being melted by the ocean, the inland glaciers are speeding up. It's this glacier acceleration that's responsible for most of the increase in ice loss from the continent and this is contributing to sea-level rise.

"What's really interesting is just how sensitive these glaciers seem to be. Some ice shelves are thinning by a few metres a year and, in response, the glaciers drain billions of tons of ice into the sea. This supports the idea that ice shelves are important in slowing down the glaciers that feed them, controlling the loss of ice from the Antarctic ice sheet. It means that we can lose an awful lot of ice to the sea without ever having summers warm enough to make the snow on top of the glaciers melt - the oceans can do all the work from below.

"But this does raise the question of why this is happening now. We think that it's linked to changes in wind patterns. Studies have shown that Antarctic winds have changed because of changes in climate, and that this has affected the strength and direction of ocean currents. As a result warm water is funnelled beneath the floating ice. These studies and our new results therefore suggest that Antarctica's glaciers are responding rapidly to a changing climate."

A different picture is seen on the eastern Antarctic Peninsula (the long stretch of land pointing towards South America). Here, the ice-shelf thinning found by this study can be explained by warm summer winds directly melting the snow on the ice-shelf surfaces. Both patterns, of widespread ocean-driven melting and this summer melting on the Antarctic Peninsula, can therefore be attributed to Antarctica's changing wind patterns. This research is part of international efforts to improve understanding of the interactions between ice and climate in order to improve the reliability of sea-level rise projections. Professor David Vaughan is the leader of ice2sea - a major EU-funded FP7 programme. Ice2sea will improve projections of the contribution of ice to future sea-level rise. He said, "This study shows very clearly why the Antarctic ice sheet is currently losing ice, which is a major advance. But the real significance is that it also shows the key to predicting how the ice sheet will change in the future is in understanding the oceans. Perhaps we should not only be looking to the skies above Antarctica, but also into the surrounding oceans."

The study was carried out by an international team from British Antarctic Survey, Utrecht University, Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Earth & Space Research in Corvallis, Oregon. NASA's ICESat – Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite – measurements were collected during the period 2003 – 2008 to detect changes in ice-shelf thickness through time.

Provided by British Antarctic Survey

Fin

Top-level Space Assessment Missions - ICESat-2 and SMAP

Unfortunately ICESat failed as predicted March 2009. The scheduled launch of ICESat replacement, ICESat-2, is about 2015, but is now in a funding delay by anti-science President Obama. NASA could be forced to delay two approved, top-tier Earth science missions by more than one year due to the poorly defined nature of President Obama's 2010 Federal Budget. Delayed top-level space assessment missions are: Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite 2 (ICESat-2) and Soil Moisture Active and Passive (SMAP) missions.  Although NASA requested $75 million and $132 million this year for ICESat-2 and SMAP, respectively, NASA could be forced to reduce planned spending on ICESat-2 by $22 million in order to stay within the $1.4 billion spending ceiling Congress appropriated for Earth science initiatives of 2011. SMAP funding would have to be reduced by $30 million.

Both missions topped the National Research Council’s list of large-scale climate-monitoring priorities in its 2007 Earth science decadal survey. ICESat-2 is designed to continue measurements of changes in polar ice-sheet mass to anticipate changes to global sea levels. SMAP, is designed to improve weather forecasts and flood and drought predictions.

Maintaining the launch schedule of ICESat-2 and SMAP data collection is essential to measure direction and progress of the effectiveness of global warming mitigations.  

Global Warming Response

"Obama vows to fight for climate action, make global warming a key 2012 issue" Fox Nation, 26 April 2012. The combination of greenhouse gases Arctic Region methane (from warming deposits of methane clathrates) and increasing hydrocarbon energy gases releases, define human-life range of existence as from a minimum of zero-years to a maximum of 40-years. If President Obama is to influence human lifespan, he must quickly implement an effective energy plan that reduces natural and human greenhouse gas emissions.

To prevent the destruction of all human life from global warming temperature increase by 2050-2055 CE, human and natural greenhouse gases must peak by 2020 CE and decline thereafter. After 250-years of using global warming hydrocarbon energy (coal, oil, natural gas), the only clean energy source with the energy capacity to displace carbon producing hydrocarbon energy is NUCLEAR ENERGY. ONLY by rapidly replacing hydrocarbon energy with clean nuclear energy can the lifespan of human life be extended. Human life expectancy depends upon how quickly and how much global nuclear energy capacity is expanded and how well nuclear fuel cycle is expanded.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Global Warming Status

A perplexing issue with global warming is communicating the seriousness of continuing global temperature increase. At current rate of building hydrocarbon (coal, oil, natural gas) infrastructures, global carbon budget lock-in occurs very soon. Human energy greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of carbon increasingly exceed Earth's carbon budget. Latter, the critical 450 ppm carbon dioxide level is exceeded 2030-2040 CE. Resulting human races termination from global warming is 2050-2099 CE, but most likely 2050-2055 CE.

Unless global warming human and natural atmospheric GHGs peak by 2020 CE and start to reduce thereafter, human races begin to end when the carbon level exceeds 450 ppm. Unfortunately, although global warming effects are understood, necessary corrective action responses by the global political industries remain non existent.  

Briefly, we have five years to change the global energy structures to that of clean nuclear energy. Only a rapid and large nuclear energy expansion replacing hydrocarbon energy can prevent "global hydrocarbon infrastructure lock-in." Changing the political approach to energy used is a problem. Since the 1990s, the U.S. and European untoward political industries have suppressed mitigation responses to global warming temperature increase in order to promote continued union coal production. Although all humans now under the age of 30-years are certainly to be destroyed, no political system has identified any aspect of global warming temperature increase as a pressing problem or concern.

NOTE: The first step in problem solving is to identify responsible management; establish baseline metrics; possible solutions, select optimum solutions, needed resources, and identify the implementation timeline with critical paths. Global warming responses require very critical timing for mitigations to be effective. The costs associated with stopping temperature increase is not relevant, but cost efficiencies in reducing global temperatures is important. Recognizing that politics and politicians can be very counterproductive to progress is important. Responses must address the overriding issue to save human races.   

Over the coming five years, the least-cost and only global warming option to lowering global warming is by steadily transforming global human energy systems to zero emissions nuclear energy, which in turn lowers human and natural GHG emissions. Difficult to reduce are Arctic Region's huge amounts of natural methane and carbon emissions that are ocean-current temperature dependent and land surface air temperature dependent. Arctic Region natural methane and carbon emissions form a powerful reinforced positive feedback loop that is directly temperature and regional emissions related.

Unfortunately, too many world leaders and national politicians remain committed to continuing hydrocarbon energy dependence. Necessary planned successful social and environmental responses to global warming temperature increase are essential, many, and varied and involve lives of more than 9 billion people. No nation maintains a viable organization to respond to countering global warming temperature increase. Not in place is the needed central organization to coordinate implementation of identified needed energy, social, and environmental responses.    

Technology is available to mitigate global warming temperature increase, but it is the politicians who are committing Earth to human life termination. Either the politicians now respond, or we all shall terminate 2050-2055 CE.  

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Spaceship Earth’s global warming energy

Global warming temperature increase is a response to atmospheric accumulations of human and natural carbon dioxide and methane emission since the 1750 CE start of the industrial revolution. The most important reason the world has not responded to to global warming is the result of the U.S. political machinery suppressing for more than 30-years the expansion of nuclear energy as a replacement energy for the U.S. carbon economy.    


The future progress of Earth’s temperature increase is basically established. Unless there is a huge conversion from energy “business as usual” use of hydrocarbon energy (coal, oil, natural gas), Earth’s infrastructure carbon budget lock-in occurs around 2017 CE, atmospheric carbon level 450 ppm is exceeded, +2 oC limit is exceed around 2030-2040 CE, sometime 2050-2099 CE Earth’s average temperature increase exceeds +5 oC, and the resulting end of all human life.  

All those who are not yet born, and those who are now children and young adults under the age of 30-years, shall die 2050-2099 CE, ending the 160 thousand year journey of mankind.  

Global Warming - This Lifespan

Earth’s human survival is as a spaceship flying through space. Spaceship Earth life support system is a closed system with finite capacity to sustain a finite amount of human life over a finite lifespan, within a finite livable temperature range: "We travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil" -Adlai Stevenson (D), U.N. Ambassador, 1965

In the 1960s, Spaceship Earth was a concern to many. Then the U.S. political leadership decided to shutdown clean nuclear energy. Instead of using clean nuclear energy to expand the U.S. economy, 1970s-2010s leaders stopped nuclear energy expansion in order to continue expanding U.S. coal and oil economies. Since the 1973 Arab (OPEC) oil embargo‎, U.S. oil importation became a U.S. diplomatic foreign exchange tool. (On October 16, 1973, OPEC announced a decision to raise the posted price of oil by 70%, to $5.11 a barrel.) On January 18, 2012, President Obama rejected Keystone XL oil application to limit domestic oil supply and keep OPEC oil imports at agreement levels (imports are around 20% of U.S. oil consumed). Much of the Middle East depends upon U.S. importing oil.    

The global population grew and gross domestic product (GDP) grew, thus grew the demand for more energy, more coal, oil, natural gas, resulting in more human and natural global warming greenhouse gas emissions. There is now no end in sight for Earth’s temperature increase. Scientists suggest that left unchecked, too soon Modern Global Warming accumulated warming forces will exceed natural carbon dioxide and methane heating effects produced by the 252.28 Ma Siberian Traps volcanic eruptions that resulted in End-Permian Mass Extinction.      

The following below article discusses the 2007 CE release UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group I Report. UN IPCC has produced much valuable information, but the body of work has been politically corrupted to deflect increased concern about global warming temperature increase. For more than two decades politicians have covertly obfuscated and negated UN IPCC’s global warming reporting. Under the Obama administration many U.S. government departments, agencies, colleges, and universities under report and misreport global warming and energy. Covert obfuscation of global warming is done by many nations and by much of the biased news media. Much of the public body of global warming knowledge has been politically corrupted, leaving the whole global warming knowledge base and media reporting as unreliable.       

UN IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, “Climate Change 2007 (AR4)” is made up of four sections: Working Group I Report - "The Physical Science Basis," Working Group II Report - "Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability," Working Group III Report - "Mitigation of Climate Change," and summary “The AR4 Synthesis Report.” Parts of IPCC AR are significantly corrupted leaving the whole document unreliable.

On 02 February, 2007, the UN IPCC Working Group I Report, an international group of scientists charged with reviewing the evidence on global climate change, issued "Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis," a summary for policymakers. It was written as part I of the IV parts of the IPCC panel's Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). Working Group I summary describes progress in understanding the human and natural drivers of global warming (aka, climate change). The following Working Group I 2007 CE statement was released:

"The new report powerfully underscores the need for a massive effort to slow the pace of global climatic disruption before intolerable consequences become inevitable. The report is far clearer and less equivocal in its description of how Earth's climate is changing—and in attributing the bulk of these changes to human activities—than the last IPCC report in 2001. That was to be expected, because since 2001 there has been a torrent of new scientific evidence on the magnitude, human origins, and growing impacts of the climatic changes that are underway. In overwhelming proportions, this evidence has been in the direction of showing faster change, more danger, and greater confidence about the dominant role of carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning and tropical deforestation in causing the changes that are being observed.”  

Unfortunately, most people only look at UN IPCC "The AR4 Synthesis Report." By political design, the Synthesis Report downplays and subdivides the intensity of the global warming problem.  

The 2007 CE IPCC Working Group I Report within below article does contain valuable information and has been fairly critiqued:

Global Warming Shock Wave Awakens World Leaders

WASHINGTON, DC, February 2, 2007 (ENS) - This morning in Paris, hundreds of scientists from around the world released a report showing that global warming is accelerating, that human activity is responsible for this warming, and that it is likely irreversible for centuries, even if greenhouse gas emissions are stabilized.

The report, entitled "The Physical Science Basis: a Summary for Policymakers," (Working Group I Report) was adopted in a line-by line review by the governments of 113 countries, including the United States.

The new Working Group I Report report says that warming during the last 100 years was 0.74 oC (1.3 oF), with most of the warming occurring during the past 50 years. The warming for “business as usual” energy use over the next 20 years is projected to increase 0.4 oC (0.6 oF) for a total preindustrial temperature increase of about 1.2 oC (1.9 oF) by 2027 CE. Global warming greenhouse gas atmospheric concentrations continue to rise.   

   [NOTE: Over the years more than a hundred nations have agreed not to exceed the +2 oC limit, which shall be exceeded 2030-2040 CE. Also, Earth atmosphere exceeds the carbon 450 ppm limit in 2030-2040 CE. Arctic Region methane hydrate (aka, clathrate) gas is increasing its methane vent. Energy infrastructure carbon budget lock-in is exceeded 2017 CE (which is a pivotal point). The last point at which to stop global warming temperature increase is by peaking human production of carbon dioxide at 2017 CE and reducing carbon dioxide levels. --DGE]  

Mid-range climate change scenarios predict severe droughts and floods, more intense hurricanes and cyclones, pressure on fresh water and food supplies, increased spread of diseases, and rising sea levels that could displace hundreds of millions of people worldwide and affect the growing world population of billions of people.

Reaction to the 2007 IPCC AR4 report, the first report in six years from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has ranged across the spectrum.

Dr. Sharon Hays, leader of the U.S. delegation at the Paris meeting and chief science official in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said the IPCC report "reflects the size able and robust body of knowledge regarding the physical science of climate change, including the finding that the Earth is warming and that human activities have very likely caused most of the warming of the last 50 years."

U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said the United States embraces the findings of the IPCC report. "We agree with it, and the science behind it is something that our country has played a very important role in," he told journalists today in Washington.

The Bush administration continues to rely on technology to counter global warming rather than the limits on emissions adopted by other industrialized nations under the Kyoto Protocol. Reportedly, the United States has invested nearly $29 billion since 2001 in climate-related science and technology programs.

"We estimate that the U.S. has invested more in climate change science than the rest of the world combined," Bodman said.

In Congress, Chairman of the Senate Energy Committee Jeff Bingaman, a New Mexico Democrat said, "This U.N. report is only the latest in a series of signals that increase the urgency of our efforts to deal with global warming," Bingaman said. "Today I am again urging the President to show leadership and work with Congress to implement a mandatory, market-based cap and trade program to address this challenge." "The consequences so clearly spelled out in this report, and many others, compel us to act now," he said.

Responsible environmental groups generally welcomed the IPCC's information in hopes that it may prompt swift action to limit global warming.

"The good news is that the political climate in Washington is changing as well." "Congress needs to enact comprehensive emission limits that will steadily reduce global warming pollution. We have an opportunity to fix this problem, but only if we act before it’s too late."

On Tuesday, 44 Greenpeace activists scaled the Eiffel Tower in Paris to hang banners proclaiming, "It's Not Too Late."

"The more we know, the worse it is," said Greenpeace climate campaigner Stephanie Tunmoore. "We're in Paris to urge the governments of the world to act, while there's still time. To date, the world's governments have done far too little to face up to the reality of climate change and to combat it."

Conservative U.S. think tanks brought out an arsenal of arguments to counter the IPCC findings. The Center for Science and Public Policy produced a report claiming that greenhouse gas emissions are rising faster in European countries which are bound by the Kyoto Protocol than in the United States, which has rejected the international treaty in 25 June 1997 with the US Senate passage of the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (the vote was 95-0).

   [NOTE: The Kyoto Protocol WAS REJECTED by the U.S. Senate on 25 June 1997, with the US Senate passage of the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (the vote was 95-0). However, President Clinton did sign the agreement as a symbolic gesture. In 2012, the U.S. Senate continues to oppose the UN Kyoto Protocol energy commitments. U.S. Senators also oppose and do not respond to the accurate parts of UN IPCC scientific reporting. The U.S. House members say nothing about everything unless you are in the correct 9 digit zip code.
   In the 1990s, the UN effort to curb global warming temperature increase was covertly hijacked by political special interests intent upon keeping up investments in global hydrocarbon economies. On the surface the Kyoto Protocol and IPCC reporting appears helpful, but in reality much of the UN reporting and all of the high-level UN “negotiations” are counter productive to reducing global warming greenhouse gases or reducing global temperature increase; as witnessed by the 20-years and 17 rounds of UNFCCC "climate change" negotiations that has produced no global warming reductions.
   The 1990s U.S. political machinery (and others) intentionally undermined the process of saving human races from complete destruction at 2050-2099 CE. While politicians and special interests have been undermining real global warming responses; the covert political leadership was staging huge criminal profits capers with paper trading carbon-cap-and-trade scams and the construction of under productive/limited output renewable green energy. Of great investigative U.S. interests is the political federal and state funded alternative renewable green energy funding game. --DGE]        

National Center for Policy Analysis Senior Fellow H. Sterling Burnett said the new IPCC "shows less expected warming and lower estimated sea level rise than previous reports."

"We can expect this news to be lost among dramatic claims of impending disaster by politicians and environmental lobbyists alike," said the conservative, whose main point is that the United States must not join the Kyoto Protocol.

"You'd never know it from watching the news, but every time the IPCC releases a new report, future warming is reduced and the impacts are less severe and more distant," Burnett said.

But at the Center for Global Development in Washington, which works to reduce global poverty and inequality, senior fellow David Wheeler warned that a recent World Bank study of sea level rise to which he contributed, found that "even a one meter rise will force 60 million people to relocate."
"We confront a stark reality here," Wheeler said. "Millions of poor people will be displaced by sea-level rise that has been caused by the affluent West. When this happens, current international turbulence may seem placid by comparison."

Corporate Reaction

The DuPont corporation, one of the 10 companies in the newly formed U.S. Climate Action Partnership, called again today on the federal government to enact climate change legislation to create a national cap on carbon dioxide emissions and a market in carbon credits.

DuPont Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer Linda Fisher said, "Climate change is a serious global issue that must be addressed through concerted global action. We believe that the science on climate change is sufficiently strong and the risks serious enough to merit a timely action."

"We believe that voluntary measures, while constructive, are not sufficient to address an issue of this magnitude by themselves," Fisher said. "The challenge is global and requires broad and coordinated action across all sectors of the economy."

Politicians saw economic and political opportunity in the need to combat climate change. They are closely associated with company manufactures materials for photovoltaic solar panels and fuel cells and a new breathable roofing membrane that creates an energy saving seal around a home.

   [NOTE: Multinational Playground for Political and Special Interest Corruption - Carbon trading markets across the world were valued at 96 billion euros (US$122.63 billion) in 2011, up 4 percent on 2010. The carbon markets’ shuffle of carbon credits. Major multinational carbon market funds appear to be sourced from U.S. federal funding. Although the carbon markets are huge, none of the carbon trading has resulted in any REDUCTION of global warming temperature increase. Left progressive Democrats “stimulated” the U.S. economy with an expensive ‘American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’ (ARRA 2009) that included over $90 billion in unproductive “climate change” alternative renewable energy green investments. Yucca Mountain project is necessary for the U.S. clean nuclear fuel cycle. Although construction is competed, Yucca Mountain was stopped by the U.S. Senate political machinery of left Democrat neo communists. Nuclear energy is the only energy available that is capable of replacing hydrocarbon energy that might prevent carbon budget infrastructure lock-in. --DGE]

The world's largest and most profitable petroleum giant, acknowledged today, "Many global ecosystems, especially the polar areas, are showing signs of warming. CO2 [carbon dioxide] emissions have increased during this same time period - and emissions from fossil fuels and land use changes are one source of these emissions." "Because the risks to society and ecosystems could prove to be significant, it is prudent now to develop and implement strategies that address the risks, keeping in mind the central importance of energy to the economies of the world."

The company said it is working to curb global warming through "partnerships with auto and engine makers on programs that could significantly reduce vehicle emissions, conducting internal research on potential for hydrogen-fuelled vehicles, investing in energy efficiency in our facilities, and working with organizations such as the European Union and Stanford University on groundbreaking research to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

International Reaction

Newly appointed UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said today that climate change will be one of his "top priorities" over the next five years of his term.

"The report highlights the scientific consensus regarding the quickening and threatening pace of human-induced climate change," said Ban. "The global response therefore needs to move much more rapidly as well, and with more determination."

"Protecting the global environment is largely beyond the capacity of individual countries," Ban said in a video message to the Conference for Global Ecological Governance in Paris. "The natural arena for such action is the United Nations."

Ban said the world is witnessing an "assault on the global environment" that risks undermining the many advances human society has made in recent decades. "It is undercutting our fight against poverty. It could even come to jeopardize international peace and security," he said.
Last month, Ban called for a special summit of heads of state to address global warming.

"We need clear objectives and strong ecological governance at the global level, a concept that continues to elude us," UN General Assembly President Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa told conference delegates.

She asserted that the General Assembly is the best forum for the international community to work to combat climate change.

European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas called for "an urgent start to international negotiations on a comprehensive new global climate change agreement."

"I am deeply concerned at the accelerating pace and the increasing extent of climate change," Commissioner Dimas said.

"To stabilize global emissions of greenhouse gases," he said, "the next step must be for developed countries to cut their emissions to 30 percent below 1990 [greenhouse gas] levels by 2020, as the Commission proposed last month."

   [NOTE: To reverse global warming there needs to be a implemented a greenhouse gas reduction plan. No nation has a global warming plan, much less an effective plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Powerful politicians such as President Obama and within the U.S. Senate have opposed global warming planning necessary to save human races from sure mass suicide 2050-2099 CE. -DGE]   

"We are on the historic threshold of the irreversible," warned French President Jacques Chirac, who convened a meeting today to plan for a new international body to protect the global climate.

"In the face of this urgency, it is no longer the time for half-measures. It is time for a revolution," Chirac said as he opened the conference.

"While climate changes run like a rabbit, world-wide politics move like a snail: either we accelerate or we risk a disaster," said Italy's environment minister, Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio.

The Italian minister called for urgent action to impose a global tax on carbon emissions and create a United Nations organization to deal with climate change.

Canadian Environment Minister John Baird said today that the government accepts the IPCC's findings, and he called on Canadians "to get ready for some tough decisions on reducing greenhouse gas emissions."

Malcolm Turnbull, Australia's new minister of environment and water resources, said the science in the IPCC report "is important, but it's not new."

“We know our Australian climate is volatile we have always been the land of droughts and flooding rains. But while it isn’t possible to say that any particular drought, or flood, is caused by global warming, the overall warming trend means that we must assume that, at least in Southern Australia, we will be living in drier and hotter times," said Turnbull. South Africa's Environmental Affairs Minister Arthinus van Schalkwyk said failure to act would be "indefensible."

In particular, van Schalkwyk said in a statement, "the new IPCC report is a wake-up call to the world’s largest emitter, the United States.”

"We applaud the unilateral climate actions taken by the State of California and others and strongly encourage the federal government of the USA to hear the growing groundswell of opinion in that country, and act on their moral obligation to join the global effort under the Kyoto Protocol and future negotiations to combat climate change," he said.

   [NOTE: After the 2005 promotion-start of wind, solar energy, and ethanol to feed cars, in 2006, the California left Democrat Legislature passed AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act (2006). The act later became President Obama’s model for federal global warming law, to be imposed by the left Democrats’ Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). California AB 32 promoted alternative renewable green energy and carbon-cap-and-trade, both of which over the years have proven to be sources of great U.S. and global corruption by politicians and special interests. -DGE]

Indonesian Environment Minister says that his country could lose about 2,000 islands by 2030 due to climate change. Ocean water level rising "is very, very serious," reporters were told Monday at a press conference attended by Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Witoelar said the science presented by the IPCC shows that sea levels are expected to rise about 89 centimeters (35 inches) by 2030, which means that about 2,000 mostly uninhabited islands would be inundated.

Today, de Boer called for "speedy and decisive international action" to combat global warming.

"The findings, which governments have agreed upon, leave no doubt as to the dangers mankind is facing and must be acted upon without delay," said de Boer. "Any notion that we do not know enough to move decisively against climate change has been clearly dispelled."

Fin

Global Warming Future

The global warming path is clear - Thanks to the abysmal and unforgivable failure of the world’s leadership, 20-years and 17 rounds of UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) "climate change" negotiations have failed to give full effect and deliver a fair, ambitious, and binding GLOBAL WARMING deal for maintaining climate at a livable level. The fate of humanity is in the hands of political machines and Earth’s unyielding geophysical balance.   

If greenhouse gas emissions do not plateau by 2020 and rapidly decline thereafter a sequence of global temperature increase occurs:

  
 +2.0°C: Unless natural and human greenhouse gases peak by 2020 CE, in 2030-2040 CE Earth global warming temperature increase shall exceed +2.0°C limit above preindustrial average temperature. Atmospheric carbon dioxide content exceeds 450 ppm.  
 Groundwater - There has been very little research on the impact of global warming on groundwater, including the question of how climate change will affect the relationship between surface waters and aquifers that are hydraulically connected. Postulated is wipe out of agriculture and cattle ranching occurs as sand dunes and dust bowls appear across five US states, from Texas in the south to Montana in the north. Major to massive dust storms sweep the U.S. Midwest. Saltwater inundation of coastal groundwater stores will expand. Groundwater pollution such as saltwater encroachment associated with over drafting of aquifers or natural leaching from natural occurring deposits are natural sources of pollution.
  Rising sea levels - Rising sea levels accelerate as the Greenland ice sheet tips into irreversible melt, submerging atoll nations and low-lying deltas. In Peru, disappearing Andean glaciers mean 10 million people face water shortages. Warming seas wipe out the Great Barrier Reef and make coral reefs virtually extinct throughout the tropics. Worldwide, a third of all species on the planet face extinction. In the 20th century, sea level rise has been accelerating and over the last decades.    Warming Weather - Temperature, humidity, altitude, ocean currents, and pressure differences fuels the mid-latitude storms affect Earth’s most populated regions. At mid latitudes, conditions are hot and humid. At the poles the air is cold and dry; with a little extra heat, water vapor, and Arctic Regional methane clathrate breakdown creates a great temperature raise. Remedial global warming action has become ineffectual to prevent catastrophic temperature increase.
Rain forest turns to desert - The Amazonian rain forest burns in a firestorm of catastrophic ferocity, covering South America with ash and smoke. Once the smoke clears, the interior of Brazil has become desert, and huge amounts of extra carbon have entered the atmosphere, further boosting global warming. The entire Arctic ice cap disappears in the summer months, leaving the North Pole ice-free for the first time in 3 million years. Water supplies run short in California as the Sierra Nevada snow pack melts away. Tens of millions displaced as the Kalahari Desert expands across southern Africa.
 +4.0°C to +4.4°C: Post 2050-2055 CE, scientists warn only one-tenth of the world’s people might survive to 2099 CE. Students now enrolled in schools and universities face this future.
  WATER - Rapidly rising temperatures in the Arctic Region (like Siberia) sea and land permafrost in the melt zone, releasing vast quantities of methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) producing a temperature rise. Melting ice caps and sea level rises have displace more than 100 million people, particularly in Bangladesh, the Nile Delta, and Shanghai. Heat waves and drought make much of the sub-tropics uninhabitable: large-scale migration even takes place within Europe, where deserts are growing in southern Spain, Italy, and Greece. More than half of wild species wiped out, in the worst mass extinction since the end of the dinosaurs. Agriculture collapses in Australia.     Decreasing water availability and increasing drought in mid-latitudes and semi-arid low latitudes. Groundwater is increasingly over drafted and surface water is in critical short supply in some locations.
 ECOSYSTEMS – There are major extinctions around the globe. Coral mortality is spreading due to ocean acidification and surface/mid-depth ocean warming. Terrestrial biosphere tends toward a net carbon source, as ~40% of ecosystems affected.  
 FOOD - All production of cereals decrease. There is increased ocean acidification, increased water hypoxia, and a devastating decreases in fish biomass. Food chain disruptions occur.
 COAST – There is increased damage from floods and storms, with about 30% loss of coastal wetlands. Additional 2 to 15 million people are at risk of coastal flooding each year. There is increased loss of groundwater storage capacity from saltwater inundation into coastal aquifers. “500-year floods” and storm surges occur once every 25 to 240 years while "100-year" flood/storm surge events occur every 3-20 years.  
 HEALTH – There are increased health burdens from malnutrition, diarrhoeal, cardio-respiratory, and infectious diseases with increased morbidity and mortality from heat waves, floods, and droughts.  Substantial increased burden on health services.
 ECONOMIC INVESTMENTS - Investment in the world economy is like being a frog in a pot of slowly heated water. The point at which the frog dies is understood. The question is how much will the the investment advisers and media keep turning up the heat under uninformed investors.
 SOCIAL STABILITY – Society’s social structure will increasingly breakdown as life support systems break down under the demands of increased population, increased climate change, increased regional temperatures, decreased food supplies, and increased life support distribution issues.  
 SINGLE EVENTS - Long-term commitment to several meters of sea-level rise due to ice sheet loss, leading to reconfiguration of coastlines worldwide and inundation of low-lying areas. It is to be noted that the (<10%) likelihood in the 21st century Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) shutdown may still be significant given the high consequences of an abrupt shutdown. MOC shutdown includes adverse effects on food production and terrestrial vegetation, changes in fisheries and effects on oceanic carbon dioxide uptake and oceanic oxygen concentrations, an increased warming of southern hemisphere high latitudes and tropical drying.  Weather change patterns are also associated with MOC and Thermohaline Circulation (THC) activity.
 +5.4°C: This global temperature increase is reached prior to 2099 1.1-meter (3.6 feet) rise of sea level by 2099. Only a very small fraction of the 9-10 billion could continue to exist at the Polar Regions.     
 +6.0°C: Long-term effects on global warming “climate change” are largely "irreversible" for more than millions of years. Anthropogenic and natural global warming greenhouse gas concentrations previously exceeded critical temperature stabilization “trip points.” Human races have been extinguished. After this point no one is around to care about what happens next.  

U.S. Global Warming Politics

In 1988, James Hansen, director of NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies, testified before the U.S. Senate that, based on computer models and temperature measurements, he was “99 percent” certain “...the [human-caused] greenhouse effect has been detected and it is changing our climate now.” His statement was widely covered by the media and first brought the term “global warming” to the general public attention. Typical of Senate politicians they ignored the scientific warning and there were no political responses to global warming temperature increase. The only response the U.S. Senate provided was to undermine global efforts to respond respond to the peril that global warming poses. Disruptive and skilled gangs were and still are organized to discredit global warming reality.    

ON February 2007, South Africa's Environmental Affairs said failure to act upon global warming would be "indefensible." Global warming failure to act was not only indefensible, failure to act by political machinery leadership has created a situation that is criminal in intent to destroy human civilization in order to receive profits from multinational government supported “carbon cap and trade” and alternative renewable green energy. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks:

"For most of the last century, economic growth was fuelled by what seemed to be a certain truth: the abundance of natural resources.  We mined our way to growth.  We burned our way to prosperity.  We believed in consumption without consequences. Those days are gone.  In the twenty-first century, supplies are running short and the global thermostat is running high.  Climate change is also showing us that the old model is more than obsolete.  It has rendered it extremely dangerous.  Over time, that model is a recipe for national disaster.  It is a global suicide pact. ..."  World Economic Forum session on redefining sustainable development, in Switzerland, 28 January 2011.

In the 1960s-2010s, global warming was known to be a growing problem caused by massive use of hydrocarbon energies (coal, oil, natural gas) expelling global warming gases since 1750 CE. Self serving politicians ignored the global warming scientific advice and set a course to keep the U.S. dependent upon a hydrocarbon economy.

There are only two sources of clean energy that might curb enough global warming to save the human races: nuclear reactor energy and hydroelectric energy.  

In the U.S., suitable hydroelectric sites either contain constructed dams or the politicians gave up public water rights to expand 1970s commercial development and to prevent water and electrical use with dam-construction. Water dam construction continues to be opposed by environmentalist and lawyers. That dam opposition gave the politicians their excuses to restrict surface water development, sell the land and water rights for district growth, development, and profits.  

Since the 1970s, to encourage expansion of the existing global domestic hydrocarbon economies of coal, oil, and natural gas. U.S. nuclear reactor energy has been opposed by politicians. Not only did the untoward politicians oppose nuclear expansion, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) stopped issuing new licences for nuclear facilities since 1978 CE. As politicians, lawyers and political parrots, NRC members for the last 30-years has been decommissioning nuclear reactors.   

In the 1990s special political interest took over UN responses to global warming, which resulted in 20-years and 17 UN “climate change” meetings during which nothing was accomplished that had anything to due with global warming. Than in 2005 CE, the left Democrats activated left progressive political “grassroots” support of alternatives to energy and continued to close down U.S. nuclear energy. In December 2009 CE, at Denmark UN COP-15 meeting, President Obama promoted a transfer of wealth scheme that has derailed global responses to global warming. European-U.S. neo communist 2011 CE shutdown of Germany nuclear energy with a “Atomics Law.” In the place of nuclear energy the German-U.S. politicians promoted dependence upon alternatives to energy. However, in fact, U.S. and Germany politicians expanded dependence upon the economy of coal, oil, natural gas.

Alternatives to energy was just a political front for USD $100s of billions shift to domestic and international political corruption. Stopping global warming temperature increase involves many trillions of dollars over many years and many elections. With corruption “adapting” to global warming temperature increase, political corruption within the global warming industry is going to remain an expensive political fixture for a long time.

In 2009, to add to preventing further global/U.S. nuclear development, President Obama’s political machinery took over the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) membership and also shut down the completed Yucca Mountain geologic nuclear repository. In effect, the U.S. neo communist left Democrats (with help from some congressional Republicans) have politically nationalized U.S. energy and stopped the global effort to reduce global warming temperature increase.

With many political claims of “safety,” resulting from the 1970s politics, nuclear plant construction costs skyrocketed from a reactor estimated at $660 million to $8.87 billion. The congressional political machinery approach to eliminating U.S. nuclear energy is to make nuclear facilities so expensive for “safety” reasons that nuclear energy cannot compete in the energy market with cheaper coal, oil, and natural gas. Over the decades to eliminate nuclear energy as a energy competitor, as costs for hydrocarbon energy increase, the NRC members imposed more costly and unnecessary nuclear “safety” requirements. Therefor, there was never a timely global switch to nuclear energy that is necessary to save human races from 2050-2099 CE destruction.     

Phasing out nuclear energy was typical of U.S. politics after the 1979 CE Three Mile Island accident. Since 1979, NRC members have been building a political government nuclear energy energy “regulated monopoly” by denying nuclear construction with NRC members’ unwarranted and costly “safety” demands. For more than 30-years, the NRC members job was to decommission nuclear energy sights for high level politicians.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the last reactor built was the "River Bend" plant in Louisiana. Its construction began in March of 1977 CE. The last plant to begin commercial operation is the "Watts Bar" plant in Tennessee, which came online in 1996 CE. Although new nuclear reactors have been built in this country within the last three decades the NRC members have not issued a license to build a new reactor since 1978 CE. The reactors that have opened in the last decades were approved prior to 1978 CE. There are currently 104 operating nuclear reactors at 64 plants across the country. Half of the nuclear reactors are over 30-years old. February 09, 2012, NRC members have issued the COL license to Plant Vogtle in Georgia, which is a too little, too late, and too much of a political act on the part of the NRC member politicians and lawyers and President Obama.

As a share of total U.S. energy: Total U.S. energy: nuclear electric is 8%, conventional hydroelectric power 2.7%, coal 23%, natural gas 23%, and petroleum 40%. Nuclear energy produces about 20% of U.S. electrical energy. The core global warming task is to reduce global energy share of coal, natural gas, and petroleum, to be replaced with hydrocarbon free nuclear and hydroelectric energy.   

Neither President Obama nor the Republican candidates or the U.S. Congress have established a viable national or multinational response plan to counter global warming temperature increase. A response plan for global warming would take about ten-years to develop. Earth does not have ten-years, it only has five years till 2017 CE to stop building hydrocarbon-energy infrastructure.   

Global hydrocarbon infrastructure lock-in occurs around 2017 CE, and it takes about 3-4 years to build a large nuclear facility. How is the U.S. going to produce enough clean nuclear energy soon enough to cap and reduce carbon emissions so that human races are saved from total destruction 2050-2099 CE?  

The start of any Republican or Democrat global warming recovery plan is to expand U.S. nuclear energy. To properly expand U.S. nuclear energy it is necessary to replace the politics of the NRC members with an experienced panel of three military nuclear officers and one presidential appointee. To meet Earth’s 2017 CE carbon budget infrastructure criteria it is required to quickly expand U.S. and global nuclear capacity. To quickly expand U.S. nuclear capacity it is necessary that the existing NRC memberships be replaced with leaders who are experienced with organization skills, military nuclear design, construction, and operation. Not doing so results in the destruction of 9 billion people.

Global warming is a political and economic force involving global trillions to dollars of energy change. Who will win the coming elections based upon their global warming solutions? Political greed and corruption is too large to be effectively opposed--political corruption has sucked the life out of this world. The lives of more than 9 billion people in 2050-2099 CE are of little concern to the current anti-response political machines and special interest forces.

The first step to problem resolution is recognition of the problem. Enough world leaders have yet to acknowledge global warming as a problem.

The first applied step to global warming success is a new NRC membership makeup of three senior military nuclear representatives and one President appointed representative. Shifting to a military nuclear structure for expanding commercial nuclear reactors will provide much needed professional U.S. clean energy direction. Nuclear energy is the only energy source that might produce enough clean energy to prevent human races destruction.

Unless there is change, all those who are not yet born, and those who are now children and young adults under the age of 30-years, shall die 2050-2099 CE, ending the 160 thousand year journey of mankind.