Product Description
Major changes are wreaking havoc on the Arctic environment, melting the ice of the Arctic Ocean, melting the permafrost, killing millions of acres of forest, eroding shorelines, crumbling native villages into the sea and disrupting Arctic ecosystems. The extinction of Arctic megafauna like polar bear, walrus and seal is predicted, unless massive changes are made in our energy sources.
Predictions of an ice-free Arctic Ocean changed from 2080 two years ago to 2040 a year ago to as early as 2012 in December, 2007. Warming is accelerating so fast, that scientists fear the tipping point they have long feared may have been reached. The warming is triggering positive feedbacks that cause more warming.
I experienced the massive, horrific changes to the Arctic in the summer of 2004 in my journey hundreds of miles down the Porcupine River and through the Arctic Refuge. The tundra was much drier and the landscape far different in just the 13 years since I had backpacked and rafted hundreds of miles through the Arctic in 1991. Giant sinkholes caved into the permafrost, riverbanks eroded into the sea and giant foot-wide cracks opened along lake banks, where the permafrost was melting.
The climate changes are being caused mostly by the burning of fossil fuels. While some think it unfathomable that we can change the climate, we need only look at a satellite photo of the Earth at night to realize the scale to which we have conquered the planet, and are burning fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide levels are up 37 percent and methane levels have gone up two and a half times in the atmosphere since 1850. Both are greenhouse gases.
Fossil fuels should be renamed carbon reserves to better describe the true purpose for coal in particular and also oil and natural gas. As long as we leave them in the ground, and switch our energy sources to proven renewables, efficiency and conservation, we can avoid the worst of climate change.
As we learn more about tipping points, and the attractor states of the climate, we should be very worried. Scientists warn that we may be on the very rapid shift to a super-warm earth that has not been seen in 55 million years. While we should hope they are wrong, the increasing scientific support of this argument and the severity of the implications means we should devote commensurate resources to understanding and acting on this issue.
Instead of leaving it at the doom and gloom of our current path, Arctic Melting shows how we can make massive reductions and ultimately eliminate our emissions of greenhouse gases through increasing efficiency in every sector of our economy, and changing entirely to renewable energy sources. This does not require new technology or excessive monetary input, but can be done using existing technology and economic resources.
Predictions of an ice-free Arctic Ocean changed from 2080 two years ago to 2040 a year ago to as early as 2012 in December, 2007. Warming is accelerating so fast, that scientists fear the tipping point they have long feared may have been reached. The warming is triggering positive feedbacks that cause more warming.
I experienced the massive, horrific changes to the Arctic in the summer of 2004 in my journey hundreds of miles down the Porcupine River and through the Arctic Refuge. The tundra was much drier and the landscape far different in just the 13 years since I had backpacked and rafted hundreds of miles through the Arctic in 1991. Giant sinkholes caved into the permafrost, riverbanks eroded into the sea and giant foot-wide cracks opened along lake banks, where the permafrost was melting.
The climate changes are being caused mostly by the burning of fossil fuels. While some think it unfathomable that we can change the climate, we need only look at a satellite photo of the Earth at night to realize the scale to which we have conquered the planet, and are burning fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide levels are up 37 percent and methane levels have gone up two and a half times in the atmosphere since 1850. Both are greenhouse gases.
Fossil fuels should be renamed carbon reserves to better describe the true purpose for coal in particular and also oil and natural gas. As long as we leave them in the ground, and switch our energy sources to proven renewables, efficiency and conservation, we can avoid the worst of climate change.
As we learn more about tipping points, and the attractor states of the climate, we should be very worried. Scientists warn that we may be on the very rapid shift to a super-warm earth that has not been seen in 55 million years. While we should hope they are wrong, the increasing scientific support of this argument and the severity of the implications means we should devote commensurate resources to understanding and acting on this issue.
Instead of leaving it at the doom and gloom of our current path, Arctic Melting shows how we can make massive reductions and ultimately eliminate our emissions of greenhouse gases through increasing efficiency in every sector of our economy, and changing entirely to renewable energy sources. This does not require new technology or excessive monetary input, but can be done using existing technology and economic resources.
