SUDDEN IMPACT.

EDITORIAL; NICOLAS KYNIGOS.

ENVIRONMENTAL AVISOR: CIVIL RIGHTS PARTY OF CANADA.

Global warming is real and here to stay, humanity is facing a new threat that has never occurred on this scale for thousands of years called, {Global Warming & The Green House Gas Effect}. Humanity has to set a new course and take affirmative action to deal with this global threat. This unpredictable climatic crisis we are all about to face will manifest a sudden impact on earth and humanities future existence. Each degree our planet warms up will determine a radical future outcome for man-kind. Current data shows the average global temperature has already risen .08 degrees Celsius, less than a degree of warming we are now experiencing could easily transform any given continent causing severe flooding and drought world wide. Green house gases, a toxic cocktail made up of methane, water vapour, carbon dioxide, nitrus oxide, ozone trapping more heat in earth’s atmosphere and radically transforming the entire Planet.

For over the last 100 years green house emissions have soared as we find more ways to use up more energy. Poisonous  carbon dioxide still continues to rise in our atmosphere causing skin cancer and respiratory ailments. If this planet continues to warms up by one degree the Arctic will be ice free for half the year. Severe flooding world wide will occur, frequent earthquakes, forest fires, droughts and hurricanes will increase intensity. Just one degree increase can turn Americas farmland into desert land & sand dust, a shift in one or two degrees will evaporate moisture on land and bring forth drought or a sudden (Dust Ball Effect). Our planet has experienced climate change before, this natural climatic progression has played out over thousands and millions of years, global warming now is measured in terms of decades & years. Species are not able to keep up with these intense warming trends. Global warming at this rate can send us back to uncharted territory, nothing like we have ever experienced in the history of life on earth. Global warming started with our insatiable appetite for energy, every click of a switch we turn on or even pressing our gas pedal requires some kind of energy resource, nearly 90% of global energy starts as a fossil fuel, coal, oil or natural gas. The consequences of using prehistoric remains for fuel is inescapable, carbon dioxide fumes are pouring into our atmosphere suffocating our entire planet.

If the world warms by two degrees some changes to the bio-sphere are no longer gradual, Greenland’s glaciers will disappear, polar bears will struggle to survive, insects will migrate in new directions. Pine beetles will infect and kill off forests then tragically exterminate thousands of species that rely on food and protection from the forest. Millions of species feed and breed in coral reefs, if we reach a 2-3 degree tipping point waters will warm up dramatically killing algae and most aquatic life forms in the oceans. The oceans are the planets largest carbon sink, natures primary mechanism for absorbing  carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, there are numerous indications that these eco-systems are breaking down.

The tipping point is excess carbon dioxide sitting in the lower waters of the reef turning oceans into acidic dead zones, the fate of all creatures at the bottom of the food chain hangs in the balance. It took nature approximately 150,000 years to create Greenland’s ice sheet now melting into the sea faster than at any time recorded in earth’s history. This is the fastest moving ice field on the planet, more than forty meters a day melting quickly into the sea. In 1992 there was 5.6 kilometres slipping into the sea and disappearing rapidly, in 2002 that number more than doubled to 15.5 kilometres annually. Greenland’s ice sheet contains enough frozen water to raise global sea levels up to 7 meters, scientists agree a two degree warming is the actual tipping point that determines how we fundamentally live on this planet. Loss of ice sheets accelerates global warming, water from melting ice absorbs more of the suns heat warming the planet a lot faster, this chain reaction is harder to predict the overall climatic effect & condition.  If the world warms by three degrees, the Arctic is ice free all summer, the Amazon rainforest will dry out, snow caps on the Alps will all disappear, the Mediterranean and parts of Europe wither in searing summer heat, intensive hurricane activity and massive coastal flooding occur world wide.

During the heat wave in 1993 signs of photosynthesis were breaking down forest and plant. Under normal conditions trees and plants are a first line of defence against green house gases, absorbing carbon dioxide then converting it into oxygen then releasing it back into the atmosphere. What would happen to the bio-sphere if one of the planets most important mechanisms for converting carbon dioxide into oxygen stops working on a regular basis ? In extreme heat wave conditions some plants retain oxygen releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere instead. A three degree global warming increase could possibly exterminate the Amazon forest and turn it into a patch work of arid savannah, for each tree we loose were are taking an incremental step towards fire and drought in any given forested region on the planet.

Global warming and deforestation will be reaching a tipping point within twenty years we will experience positive kick backs, vicious cycles of drought and massive forest fires leading to more drought and desertification. Loosing most of the Amazon forest to warmer climatic conditions will result  in releasing hundreds and millions of tons of stored carbon into the atmosphere, possibly intensifying global warming by another degree. If the world temperature increases by four degrees oceans will rise overtaking heavily populated cities collapsing entire civilizations Deltas home to billions of people, Bangladesh will be washed away, Egypt inundated, Rome submerged, glacier ice sheets will disappear shutting off the flow of fresh water to billions. Northern Canada becomes one of the worlds bountiful agricultural zones, while a beach in the Mediterranean becomes a tropical hot spot. The entire West Antarctic ice sheet could collapse sending sea levels rising even higher than 7 meters. A world of four degrees warming will start to look unrecognisable, we will see some of the most important rivers of the world drying up, this will endanger billions of people forcing a massive exodus towards fertile ground and fresh water rivers.

Lastly, a global warming increase of 5-6 degrees will result in total devastation and mass extinction, Los Angeles, Bombay, Cairo, and thousands of cities around the world will dry up, climate refugees by the millions will try to escape this planetary chaos. Human civilization will not be able to withstand this kind of climatic shock wave, this will be the twighlight- zone end of climate change. Life on earth will never be the same, the most frightening thing is not knowing the final outcome concerning climate change and the conditions it will bring upon us. Rich or poor these fatal conditions will be equally felt world wide, a six degree global warming increase is called the dooms day scenario, life on earth will cease to exist.