There was big climate news today and it was daunting. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/antarctica-thwaites-glacier-ice-shelf-collapse-climate-5-years
It's a hit for me because I've been predicting that the ice in West Antarctica would collapse much faster than they were predicting. Each time they've reported over the last fifteen years that climate change is happening faster than they previously estimated, I have thought that they still don't have it right. That it is happening even faster than their new estimates.
And so today, the scientists are back saying that it's happening even faster than they thought the last ten times they came forward to say it was happening faster than they thought. Only this time, the news media is showing some alarm. Nothing compared to what it means, though.
Cutting to the chase -- I've seen for a number of years now that 2030 is a turning point on climate change. We will get very serious about it then.
What boggles my mind, is that this news wasn't plastered in big red letters across every newspaper and internet news site. It's the most important news of the year.
What boggles my mind, is that this news wasn't plastered in big red letters across every newspaper and internet news site. It's the most important news of the year.
I agree it's important news but unfortunately the news market is more interested in the political news such as the Jan 6 events and the pandemic.
I just read the estimates of sea level rise of this melt--two to three feet. That will be catastrophic in many parts of the world. Moreover, it is just the beginning. A scientist said, in an NPR interview that I cannot locate at this moment, that this melt is like uncorking a bottle and if neighboring glaciers give way, we could see 10 feet of sea level rise in a few decades!!!!!
It is so ironic that T's power was based, in part, on anti-immigration sentiments and nothing will create more immigrants in the history of humanity than climate change.
I am so angry and frustrated. I spent three slow hours on Zoom tonight discussing grants and projects related to climate change that are the equivalent of spitting in the ocean....
@raincloud I am glad you posted this instead of me. I have predicted 20 feet sea level rise by 2100 and up to 80 feet on the eastern seaboard. I felt these numbers back in 2012 when I first posted them. People got so upset that I took them down around 2018. But it is still what I see.
P.S. Having intuitively known for over a decade that this catastrophic situation was going to start unfolding much faster than science was predicting, it is strange and, unsettling, no it is breathtaking, to read how surprised the media is. We haven't even heard from the politicians about it.
I am going to go take a walk under the moonlight with my sweet Rooney puppy, since it is as warm as Springtime in December here. And I am going to hang out with Mother Earth, Father Sky, Sister Moon and the trees. Maybe they have some wisdom to give a poor human.
I am so angry and frustrated. I spent three slow hours on Zoom tonight discussing grants and projects related to climate change that are the equivalent of spitting in the ocean....
I know how you feel. I really do. But it feels good to know that a fellow earthling feels the same way as I. You are a sister I am proud to know. I watched 350.org founder Bill McKibben speaking last year. He said he was at this point neither optimistic nor pessimistic. (As you know, he's been trying to get the world to do something about climate change for 40 years.) He said, he simply wakes up each morning thinking about what kind of trouble he can make that day.
That's all we can do, @raincloud. Make trouble.
@jeanne-mayell Have you read any of the writings by Edgar Cayce about earth changes? I read about him many years ago and the parts I remember are that the Mississippi River would split the US in two and both coasts would be greatly diminished...but that Virginia Beach would remain above water. I think most of his work was written in the 1920s or earlier. We've been ignoring the warnings a long time.
Once again I must thank this community for helping me write an essay:
https://towardstheedges.com/2022/02/03/surge/
@jeanne-mayell led me to some of the articles I cite, and @raincloud contributed an important anecdote.
@coyote Beautiful essay! I really love how you articulate the complexity and non-linear nature of grief/grieving the change in climate. It is such a huge issue and interconnected with everything we experience here on the Earth that it cannot be reduced to headlines or simple, singular solutions. As you so eloquently stated, "In my experience of growing comfortable with grief, though, I’ve learned that “waking up” is inherently chaotic, prolonged, and potentially violent." The sooner we all realize that, the sooner we can ride the journey together to a better reality.
@coyote Your essay hit just the right note of acceptance yet urge to do and be more. I like that you showed the non linearity of change not only in nature but in humans as well. As the scales of familiarity fall from our eyes we each will grieve, accept and move on to make a more survivable world.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
The new sea level rise data that is coming out will affect some areas more severely. In New Zealand, scientists are projecting that sea-level rise in their biggest urban areas may be double the global average due to seismic activity that causes the land to drop down. So the combination of sea level rise, and falling land amplifies the rise of the sea.
They are projecting that sea rise will be happening two to three decades sooner.
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/swifter-rise-sea-level-predicted
@jeanne-mayell Have you read any of the writings by Edgar Cayce about earth changes? I read about him many years ago and the parts I remember are that the Mississippi River would split the US in two and both coasts would be greatly diminished...but that Virginia Beach would remain above water. I think most of his work was written in the 1920s or earlier. We've been ignoring the warnings a long time.
Cayce's earth changes are pretty amazing, given he was seeing a dramatically new map of the U.S., which will likely occur if all the glaciers melt and we see 230 feet sea level rise. And I should add that I feel that all of the glaciers will melt. If someone were to draw the new map of the US with 230 feet sea level rise, it might resemble Cayce's map.
I think Cayce's personal bias got the best of him when he said that the entire Eastern seaboard would be lost to the sea, but that somehow Virginia Beach where he lived would be spared. Meanwhile, these cities will disappear: NYC, Miami, Washington DC., Mumbai, India, Sáo Paulo, Brazil, Shanghai, Los Angeles, Chenai and Buenos Aires, to name a few.
@matildagirl On the U.S. eastern seaboard, from North Caroline to Maine, we are experiencing much faster sea level rise, perhaps 3 times the global average.
Ignorance was bliss once upon a time.
I guess if some areas really start to show sea level rising like your Eastern seaboard the powers that be might start reacting and changing things a bit earlier to maybe help slow it down.
It took thousands and thousands of years for Man to evolve to the present time and a mighty short time to be stuffing it up.
Actually, because climate change works on an exponential (accelerating) scale, by the time people actually see the rising seas, it will be too late to stop the glaciers from melting. We have to escalate the narrative. It will take a miracle or some new undiscovered carbon capture technique. There are scientists studying the impact of spewing aerosols into the atmosphere to block the sun.