Climate Change Realities

[jebatty]

This quote captured a key essence of climate change realties:

http://www.minnpost.com/earth-journal/2014/12/7-most-insightful-comments-about-environment-2014

December 30, 2014

David Biello, on wilderness. Writing in Scientific American about the Wilderness Act’s 50th anniversary meaning of wilderness in a time when no part of the world lies beyond human interference:

Wilderness poses this fundamental question at least: what kind of place do we want for our home? Will our terrestrial abode retain an abundance of plants, animals, microbes and fungi like the world Homo sapiens was first born into? Or will the Earth become a vast monoculture, a grim subset of nominally wild species that co-exist in symbiosis with modern human civilization, like rats and seagulls? The natural world can only persist now as a deliberate act of human will. That will require firm human purpose as a gesture of humility, yes, but also a form of self-protection.

 

[Where2]

The sad reality is that it seems like the majority of the change will have to be done behind the backs of most Americans. I say this because of the number of people that are actually concerned and truly know a little bit about global warming. I feel like most people are actually just completely ignorant to their actions and consequences, environmentally speaking.

I would guess most Americans got a "C" at best in chemistry and other science classes in high school. For those who continued their education beyond high school, avoiding the sciences was the name of the game unless they were heading into engineering or actually planning on teaching science. Fast forward those hundreds of thousands of bright young minds 10+ years into the future. They still don't understand science, biology, ecology or chemistry enough to understand the interplay between CO2 and everything else.

The Atlantic ocean tides lap up at a dock behind my house, and I have lived on this same canal for 40+ years with access to the same dock for reference. I can tell you low tides are not as low as they once were. Most Americans couldn't tell you that tides run in a 19 year cycle, and I venture to guess most of Congress couldn't tell you that NOAA has a collection of tide stations that have been collecting tide data since before the current members of Congress were born.

This link to NOAA's sea level trends map is an interesting one. http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends.html
My nearest station reference: Miami Beach @ +2.39mm/yr doesn't sound like much change, until you realize at that rate, in the 40+ years I have lived on this canal that's nearly +4" of sea level rise. My reference canal has not been dredged since I was born, and the concrete filled PVC piles on my reference dock haven't been modified or replaced in those 40+ years. I've seen the trend with my own eyes, and there definitely is a trend.