As I have mentioned previously in this space, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was designed to fail when it was created during the Ronald Reagan administration.
It replaced the Advisory Group on Greenhouse Gases, which sounded the alarm in indicating a considerably direr future than the IPCC. Yet even the IPCC has concluded in its 8 October 2018 report, Global Warming of 1.5o, that Earth in the midst of the most abrupt event in planetary history. Less than a year later, the IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Planet concluded climate change is irreversible due to an overheated ocean.
That report was published 24 September 2019. In other words, the designed-to-fail IPCC has concluded that Earth is in the midst of the most abrupt event in planetary history, and the IPCC has also concluded this event is irreversible. Nearly five years after the IPCC concluded climate change is abrupt and irreversible, this remains the most important and least reported item from the world’s corporate media outlets.
Apparently, corporate media outlets, government officials, and paid climate scientists believe it’s better to withhold important information than to share it with the masses. I suspect they fear panic would occur, and they would rather the panic ensue only after they leave the public stage. Unfortunately, withholding information only guarantees an even worse outcome when the masses discover they’ve been lied to. If the masses discover the big lie only as society is unraveling, the panic will be far greater than it would have been if people had been forewarned.
As you might expect, the situation worsens by the day. A leading Canadian news outlet, CBC, provides an update. Their headline from 28 May 2024: Effects of warmer Atlantic Ocean now being felt in northern Manitoba, experts say. Here’s the subhead: “Hudson Bay on track to have one of its earliest ice-free dates ever.”
The lede indicates the dire nature of the situation, for those of us concerned about Arctic ice and therefore all life on Earth: “The warming climate is causing renewed concern in northern Manitoba, as a marine heat wave that hit the Atlantic Ocean last summer could lead to Manitoba’s northern port have one of the earliest ice-free dates on record.”
The expert mentioned in the CBC headline is a Professor of biological sciences at the University of Alberta. He works in Manitoba on the shore of Hudson Bay. He was quoted in the article: “I’ve been working up here for 40 years now and it’s noticeable just how much that things have changed. This has been an unusual year. The ice has been quite light for large parts of the winter period. It was a bit slow to form, and we had some very warm water in Hudson Bay in 2023.”
The CBC article indicates that the southern Hudson Bay has been losing five days of sea ice cover each decade. In addition, the breakup date for the ice has been earlier every year since 2020.
The CBC article goes on to quote an Assistant Professor of Environment and Geography at the University of Manitoba. The professor is referring to the ongoing Atlantic heat wave: “We are set up to have a really, really potentially bad year.”
The Assistant Professor realizes the importance of seemingly minor organisms: “Seagrasses are one of [the] foundational plants that you can find in various ecosystems around the world … There have been in the past massive die-offs of eelgrass. You might not care about grass, but guess what? A lot of the organisms that live in those regions depend on that eelgrass.”
In other words, the Assistant Professor is pointing out that we are one. Humans depend upon the organisms that depend upon the eelgrass. The seagrasses are among the plants that serve as the base of the marine food web. If you’re interested in habitat for marine species, then you are—by default—interested in seagrasses, including eelgrass.
The senior director of conservation and policy for Polar Bears International expresses concern for these renowned bears. They spend far longer on land than did their ancestors: “It’s a month longer on shore than their grandparents would have spent. That’s mostly a key month of the season when they’re out catching young ring seals in the spring and early summer.”
More time ashore will pose difficulties for the polar bears. The biological sciences Professor at the University of Alberta points out that more time ashore means less food for the bears: “They’re burning up about a little over a kilogram of body mass per day when they’re not feeding. There’s not enough here on land to feed them. So if you add another month of ice free time, that means they’ve got to come ashore with an extra 30 kilograms of fat and muscle to live that period and at some point … we no longer get successful reproduction and we start to see increasing mortality.”
The Polar Bears International senior director of conservation and policy reiterates an important point I’ve referenced frequently in this space: “The Arctic also acts … as the Earth’s air conditioning unit. … So as that AC unit starts to fail, that’s not great for the rest of us.”
“Not great for the rest of us.” That’s a clever, albeit muted, way of indicating that an ice-free Arctic Ocean spells disaster for all life on Earth.
Yes, all life on Earth is interconnected. Yes, we are one. Yes, we depend upon many other species to ensure our continued survival. Yes, Earth is in the midst of abrupt, irreversible climate change. Yes, Earth is in the midst of the worst Extinction Event in planetary history.
No, technology will not save us. Our fate is sealed, even if the masses finally notice all of the above. Still, I’m a big fan of informing people. One of the tidbits we must share comes from the 2007 film, No Country for Old Men. A line from Barry Corbin playing the role of Ellis is relevant: “You can’t stop what’s coming. It ain’t all waiting on you. That’s vanity.”
Vanity aside, our time is short. Let’s share the evidence supporting this uncomfortable idea.
If you’re looking for further evidence that our time is short, and there’s little we can do about it, consider this title from Phys.Org on 8 June 2024: COP29 climate hosts say they'll keep expanding fossil fuels.
That’s right, folks: The people the masses believe are running the show are doing a fine job retaining aerosol masking. The rest of us are charged with conserving fossil fuels while the financially wealthy are fanning the flames on a planet already on fire.
Author
"Dr. Guy McPherson is an internationally recognized speaker, award-winning scientist, and the world’s leading authority on abrupt climate change leading to near-term human extinction. He is professor emeritus at the University of Arizona, where he taught and conducted research for twenty years. His published works include 14 books and hundreds of scholarly articles. Dr. McPherson has been featured on TV and radio and in several documentary films. He is a blogger, cultural critic, and co-host of his own radio show “Nature Bats Last.” Dr. McPherson speaks to general audiences across the globe, and to scientists, students, educators, and not-for-profit and business leaders who seek their best available options when confronting Earth’s cataclysmic changes." source
