Start Fighting Global Warming, Like Yesterday People!

Ok folks, so global warming is this really big deal right. It will mean increases in global temps that will see disasterous consequences to our global ecosystems, climates, weather patterns, sea levels etc. But its 20-50-100 years off isnt it? We have time to figure out a solution. Kyoto is a start and we'll follow that up with another treaty to keep things going in another decade. Right?

Wrong! Im sorry to say it, but global warming is now and it may already be too late. I dont say this to be a doomsayer (the world is ending etc) but rather to impress the urgency of the situation. We must act seriously and quickly starting yesterday people! Check out this truly ominous news from the The Guardian via PeakEnergy (blog):

A vast expanse of western Sibera is undergoing an unprecedented thaw that could dramatically increase the rate of global warming, climate scientists warn today. Researchers who have recentlyreturned from the region found that an area of permafrost spanning a million square kilometres — the size of France and Germany combined — has started to melt for the first time since it formed 11,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age.

The area, which covers the entire sub-Arctic region of western Siberia, is the world's largest frozen peat bog and scientists fear that as it thaws, it will release billions of tonnes of methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere.

It is a scenario climate scientists have feared since first identifying "tipping points" — delicate thresholds where a slight rise in the Earth's temperature can cause a dramatic change in the environment that itself triggers a far greater increase in global temperatures. [...]

The researchers found that what was until recently a barren expanse of frozen peat is turning into a broken landscape of mud and lakes, some more than a kilometre across.

Dr Kirpotin told the magazine the situation was an "ecological landslide that is probably irreversible and is undoubtedly connected to climatic warming". He added that the thaw had probably begun in
the past three or four years.

Climate scientists yesterday reacted with alarm to the finding, and warned that predictions of future global temperatures would have to be revised upwards.

"When you start messing around with these natural systems, you can end up in situations
where it's unstoppable. There are no brakes you can apply," said David Viner, a senior scientist at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

"This is a big deal because you can't put the permafrost back once it's gone. The causal effect is human activity and it will ramp up temperatures even more than our emissions are doing." [...]

Western Siberia is heating up faster than anywhere else in the world, having experienced a rise of some 3C in the past 40 years. Scientists are particularly concerned about the permafrost, because as it thaws, it reveals bare ground which warms up more quickly than ice and snow, and so accelerates the rate at which the permafrost thaws.

Siberia's peat bogs have been producing methane since they formed at the end of the last ice age, but most of the gas had been trapped in the permafrost. According to Larry Smith, a hydrologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, the west Siberian peat bog could hold some 70 billion tonnes of methane, a quarter of all of the methane stored in the ground around the world.

The permafrost is likely to take many decades at least to thaw, so the methane locked within it will not be released into the atmosphere in one burst, said Stephen Sitch, a climate scientist at the Met Office's Hadley Centre in Exeter.

But calculations by Dr Sitch and his colleagues show that even if methane seeped from the permafrost over the next 100 years, it would add around 700 million tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere each year, roughly the same amount that is released annually from the world's wetlands and agriculture.

It would effectively double atmospheric levels of the gas, leading to a 10% to 25% increase in global warming, he said. [...]

"If we don't take action very soon, we could unleash runaway global warming that will be beyond our control and it will lead to social, economic and environmental devastation worldwide," he said. "There's still time to take action, but not much.

"The assumption has been that we wouldn't see these kinds of changes until the
world is a little warmer, but this suggests we're running out of time." [...] [emphasis
added]"

So, time to get off our arses and get things moving. This is going to take a national, no, make that worldwide effort. It will be akin to the Apollo Project, the world recognizing that this MUST BE DONE and that we WILL find a way to do it. We could put a man on the moon in less than a decade. Can we save our planet and ourselves?

[Addendum]: So, not being one who likes to be all doom and gloom, Im going to point out that here's a little something (three links) you can do right now to make a small difference in reducing your personal impact on global warming. Purchase carbon offsets and do your part to clean up after yourself. Also, check with your local electricity provider and see if they have renewable power purchase options for your electricity. This eliminates the greenhouse gas emission at the source (at least for your electricity consumptions) before you have to buy offsets to countaract them. Do both, do either, do something. It's what any responsible citizen of this planet should do if they can afford it.