Chapter 3
"Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely
due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations"
UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Global Climate Change
The threat of Global Climate Change is inarguably the greatest international security issue facing Mankind in the 21st century.
In scale and in scope, global climate change represents the greatest environmental crisis the world has ever seen. Humanity now stands
at the precipice of plunging into a world that by some estimates could find our planet between 2-10 degrees farenheit warmer by the end
of the century than the one we currently experience today. This represents a massive disruption and dislocation not only to the physical
environment, but to a human civilization utterly dependent upon the viability and stability of the Earth's life-support systems.
To put this threat into perspective, it is now acknowledged that every single country on the planet is now affected to some
degree or another from the consequences of global climate change. The year 2010, as well as the 1st decade of the 21st century, were
the warmest every recorded planetwide. Whether it be seasonal weather pattern shifts, a rise in sea levels,
an increase in drought conditions, precipitation levels, hotter and/or colder temperatures, an escalation of extreme
weather events, or any combination thereof, global climate change is changing our world in a very fundamental level.
CO2 emissions have been on the increase since the advent of the Industrial Age beginning in the 18th and 19th centuries. At the time
of the Industrial Age, a baseline level of 280 ppm (parts per million) existed. As of 2010, that level has now risen to between 392-394 ppm, and
is going up every year by 1 to 2 ppm, with no end in sight. If one factors in the total amount of all greenhouse gases that have been released
into the atmosphere, that number jumps to 430 ppm. Additional greenhouse gases include nitrous oxides, methane and CFC's, which trap heat 10 to
25 to 15,000 times more, respectively.
Methane releases bear particular scrutiny, since a warming planet melts permafrost in the northern latitudes- particularily in Siberia-
where huge amounts of methane are stored. Methane releases from previously frozen ground will most likely "fast track" the threat of global
warming and its disasterous consequences for the planet.
The world's oceans, as well as the vast tropical rainforest belts in the Amazon, in the Indonesian archipelago, in Africa and Southeast Asia
(along with most temperate forested areas), have been the chief carbon sinks for the planet in regards to sequestering atmospheric carbon
dioxide emissions. However, as the oceans become more acidic, they lose their ability to efficently absorb CO2 while still providing a healthy
oceanic ecosystem for all the creatures who depend on the ocean environment for their survival. Many coral reef areas have been bleached as a
result of acidification of many coastal habitats around the globe. As well, many sea creatures are now having a difficult time forming
calcium carbonate bone and skeletal structures due to the changing chemistry of the oceans.
The other major carbon sink for the planet have been the tropical rainforests, euphemistically known as the "lungs of the earth". The
planet's tropical rainforests are now disappearing at an alarming rate worldwide. Figures vary from an area the size of the US state of Pennsylvannia
to an area the size of Poland (or greater) being cut down every year. Whatever the case may be, it is safe to say that alot of biomass is being
removed, in turn, removing the ability of those rainforest areas to absorb CO2 from the planet's atmosphere. Once cleared, deforested areas
are usually burned to remove the detritus to make way for agriculture, plantations or cattle farming. In addition to removing these
forest carbon sinks, more carbon is then released into the atmosphere from burning, complicating and henceforth, diminishing the global carbon capture
calculus of our planet's tropical rainforest ecosystems.
As the planet's oceans and the tropical rainforest belts lose their ability to efficiently sequester carbon emissions due to removal and
oversaturation, so too is the carbon cycle and its ability to reign-in and recycle carbon, diminished. This breakdown, in turn, makes the threat
of global climate change ever more dangerous, as well as restricts our ability to contain and control the damage that is, and will continue
to result, as planetary carbon emissions continue to escalate.
Activist Bill McKibben, author of numerous books on global climate change, and Dr James Hansen of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies,
have both concluded that global carbon dioxide levels need to be brought down to 350 ppm in order for human civilization to get the threat of global
climate change under control, as well as minimize the projected damage and temperature increases that are forecasted to occur in this century.
Vice President Al Gore, in his widely acclaimed movie, "An Inconvenient Truth", has concluded that if CO2 emissions are not brought under control
and eliminated quickly, we are likely to see an increase in extreme weather events, a melting of the polar ice caps (including Greenland) and a
subsequent rise in sea levels worldwide. Sea level rise will affect many low-lying coastal areas around the globe where the vast majority
of humanity currently resides.
Another factor to take into account concerns the proliferation of insect-borne disease vectors worldwide. Already, insect diseases such as
malaria, dengue fever, lyme disease and west nile virus are beginning to rise in latitude and elevation due to a general warming of the planet's
biosphere. The spread of insect-borne diseases will only add to the high number of deaths that already occur on Earth annually due to our
inability to effectively control these pests and the damage they do to both humans and animals. There are an estimated 100 billion insects in
existence on Planet Earth.
The hydrocarbon economy and the burning of fossil fuels by human civilization is the primary cause of greenhouse gas emissions leading to the
threat of global climate change. Left unattended, I submit that it is the "mother" of all global eugenics operations. I say this because of the dramatic
life-threatening consequences that will result if allowed to continue unabated. This threat, by far the # 1 international environmental security
crisis in the world today, has the potential to affect and seriously disrupt the lives of literally billions of people on Earth in the not too distant future.
Global Climate Change on the scale of just a 2 degree farenheit increase this century, will bring with it a drastic increase in hunger, starvation, disease
and malnutrition worldwide, particularily in Africa, the poorest continent and one that will most likely suffer the harshest damage from our
warming planet.
Changing weather and agricultural conditions, a projected scarcity of available food and water resources and a subsequent increase in desertification
levels worldwide, will severely limit the ability of many peoples and nations, particularily in the developing world, to properly feed themselves
and survive in the coming years and decades. This will only add to the current levels of existing genocide already occuring on Earth today
due to preventable levels of widespread hunger, famine, disease and malnutrition worldwide.
A deliberate policy of continuing on with a highly antiquated hydrocarbon economy while systematically failing to transit our civilization into a free,
non-polluting, renewable and sustainable energy economy, can only be seen as a way of seriously depopulating large numbers of people from off the face of the Earth.
Granted, the population of the planet is in overshoot, however, there is another way through the difficult rapids ahead. Another world is possible.
Again, we must learn to honor the sanctity and sacredness of life, however lowly or destitute. That means envisioning and implementing a literal
"manhattan project" to quickly and rapidly move human civilization into a clean, renewable and sustainable energy economy for the 21st century.
Solar, wind and anti-gravitic energy systems can become the bedrock foundations for an evolving and advanced world environmental order in this
emerging Age of Ecology as we subsequently jettison the dirty, highly polluting, primitive practices of hydrocarbon burning.
The collective evolution and deliberate pursuit of higher levels of consciousness and intelligence will propel our species into one that
thrives and survives the perils of the 21st century. Our current path degrades and diminishes life with global eugenics policies designed to
inflict megadeath and ecocide. Again, this is a struggle between the forces of life and light against the forces of death and darkness in this
campaign to Save the Planet.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been absolutely stellar in helping to organize and educate peoples, nations and governments
of the world on the impending issue of global climate change. The United Nations has had a number of COP (conferences of the parties) over the years.
As of 2010, they have held 16 conferences throughout the world working to coordinate international consensus and action agreements- as well
as issuing annual reports- designed to supercede the Kyoto protocols set to expire in 2012. UN Earth Summits have similiarily been held once a decade
since the 1970's in various nations. These summits have, and will continue to be, absolutely key in coordinating and coalescing global
environmental knowledge, information, policy and political acumen in helping to forge an emerging Green World Order on Earth in the very near future.
The massive pine beetle epidemic that has caused the death of millions of acres of forestland in the mid to upper latitudes, particularily
in the USA, Canada and Russia, is becoming one of the major catalysts needed to help expose the cost of driving a gas-guzzling SUV, for example, as
well as helping the public make the connection that each 1 degree increase at the equator translates into a 10 degree increase at the poles.
This is why the farther north one goes, the greater and more extensive the pine beetle damage is.
As producers and consumers of SUV's learn that their overconsumptive carbon emitting lifestyles are directly contributing to pine beetle
epidemics and whole tracts of dead forest land, perhaps this will give them the impetus to shift into non-polluting solar electric and anti-gravitic
transportation alternatives. The solar electric car/photovoltaic/recharge grid is one of the next critical technical and societal shifts that
need to come to pass quickly as we ween our world economy off the oil spigot and drastically reduce, and eventually eliminate, our collective carbon footprint
as a species. Given a time frame, I'd say the shift needs to be in full gear by 2020.
Global Climate Change, currently the "mother" of all global eugenics operations, clearly has the potential to become instead, the "mother" of all global
opportunities. It is so because it will fundamentally restructure and transform every single facet of our backwards civilization and move us into
the Age of Ecology where we truely and rightly belong. As the largest, most comprehensive and most serious global environmental threat to the planet, global
climate change single-handedly has the potential to shift humanity onto the path of international sustainable development, a thriving global green
economy and an intelligent, advanced one world government firmly in control of its own enlightened universal destiny.
Frontline and on the ground today, the elimination and deconstruction of coal and coal-fired plants- especially in China- must take first priority.
Coal is the dirtiest and most carbon polluting of all the fossil fuels and needs to be banned worldwide immediately as a means of generating heat and
electricity. The alternative to cover for this projected energy deficit is a full scale global campaign to mass produce, proliferate and employ
the use of solar photovoltaic panels, both in a centralized and decentralized manner, across the entire planet.
The transition to a post carbon world is not only inevitable, it is a necessary mandate in regards to ameliorating the supreme threat
that global climate change represents to the continuity of human civilization. The reduction and elimination of global greenhouse gases and hence,
the stabilization of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere, can only happen if we actively choose to engage in re-directing our talent, resources,
education, genius, vision and technological priorities towards constructing and operating a renewable, functionable and sustainable world energy
economy.
SOURCES:
1. Bill McKibben/350.org
2. Vice President Al Gore/An Inconvenient Truth
3. Dr James Hansen/NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies