Oceans/Seas

Now that the Obama administration has publicized their report, 2014 National Climate Assessment, about the dangers of global warming with concomitant climate change, the Republicans have decided to informally declare war on the planet.
As such, the thesis herein is that global warming and climate change are now so widely recognized and so well defined by science that opposition to the problem is tantamount to an act of war. Furthermore, as a matter of principle, purposeful acts that serve to perpetuate global warming are acts against all of humanity.

Greenpeace recently released a report that details “how by 2050, renewable energy sources could be producing close to 97% of electricity in the U.S. and approximately 94% of the country’s needs for heating and cooling homes and businesses.”  The report “presents the case for a radical and rapid energy transformation and a pathway for meeting the reduced emissions that the scientific community says is urgent.”

Planet Earth is seen through rose-colored glasses by 58% of congressional Republicans who refuse to accept the fact that humans are responsible for climate change. And, they have a right to their opinion, same as the other side on this issue.
But, are they wearing rose-colored glasses and only fooling themselves? Or, are their scientific advisers wearing rose-colored glasses? Or, are they correct about global warming?
Whichever question is the appropriate one, the thesis of this article questions whether their scientific advisers are giving them good advice.

Like a spear thrusting into the Gulf of Mexico’s gut, the Isle de Jean Charles is turbulent with ruinous daily oil and gas accidents, rising sea levels, and tropical storms. Homes on the Isle de Jean Charles perch on delicate wooden stilts thirteen feet high, their paint peeling in the sun. A solitary road snakes down the spine of the shrinking island. Stained American flags billow slowly in the Gulf breeze, affixed to porches where one can catch the nasal tones of plaid-clad men bantering in Cajun French.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted into the atmosphere and absorbed by the ocean may be invisible to the naked eye, but it is extraordinarily visible in its effect, as will be chronicled herein, and it shows up in the weirdest places.
Burning oil, gas, and coal spews tons upon tons upon tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, and similar to blowing up a balloon too much, the earth’s atmosphere can only hold so much before bad things start popping.
Are you sitting?

Human-caused climate change may already be out of control, as suggested in recent reports by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), confirming that a “tipping point” may already have arrived (1) with warming of the Arctic and (2) with excessive levels of CO2 causing acidification in the ocean, thereby threatening the existence of both human and marine life.

How many people wait with bated breath for Earth Day to arrive in April of each year? Who knows, but taking a wild guess, probably nobody. Earth Day kinda died out along with the fade-out of the counter-culture of the sixties and seventies. Today, they’re all grandparents and Earth Day has dissipated.
Earth Day was started to provide “support for environmental protection,” and as shall be described, Earth Day came onto the scene like the Big Bang, but ever since, it has been a fizzler, failing to impact, even slightly, the biggest environmental problem facing America, ever.

According to leaks about the widely anticipated upcoming report by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), which is due the first week of April, the scientific community is finally taking off the gloves and hitting the public smack dab between the eyes with the brutal truth.
Whereas in the past, IPCC reports were conservatively constructed and couched in scientific lingo that people found difficult to fully understand, this time it is different.

The burning of fossil fuels is warming the planet, melting glaciers and polar ice caps, raising sea levels, causing more destructive hurricanes, floods, and droughts, and increasing ocean acidity. Leading climate experts hold that a third of existing petroleum reserves will add enough carbon dioxide to push the planet past the tipping point of irreversible climate change.

The needs of the natural world are more important than the needs of the economic system.
— Derrick Jensen, Endgame Volume One: The Problem of Civilization