[Closed] It's all about the Arctic

Thank you so much for all of this, Bright Opal.  Great links and I'll add one more.  

We truly are getting mixed news and climate change reports from one hand and opposing headlines from others. 

This from Friday, Nov. 23, Chicago Tribune:

"Federal climate change report paints grim picture for Midwest

"Rising temperatures in the Midwest are projected to be the largest contributing factor to declines in U.S. agricultural productivity, with extreme heat wilting crops and posing a threat to livestock, according to a sweeping federal report on climate change released Friday."

This headline about the Midwest is exactly what Jeanne has predicted all along.

As someone who lives in Oregon now but still calls Alaska home (and 3/4 of my family still live there)  melting polar ice caps have already become apparent in our animal and habitat populations.  Two family members filled in as substitute teachers in the Point Hope one room school last year in order to allow kids to meet graduation requirements in spite of regular teacher leaving without warning.

They said just the decline in polar bear and whale populations was strikingly apparent in the Spring hunt. This is not only the meat the indigenous people live on, its it's an innate part of their traditional and spiritual belief system and practice.

In Juneau, our famous Mendenhall Glacier receding from ice melt has become visibly apparent from photos showing new landmarks appearing that were hidden by ice years ago. In other words, we can see it happening before our eyes.

Bless your family member (and a lot of others) with love and light for clear eyes, heart, and wisdom instead of resolute stubborness.

Bless you for dealing with this personal stressor and so many others, and bless all the rest of us for how we all must cope with changing conditions and times!

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-met-climate-change-report-midwest-20181123-story,amp.html

Thanks Michele.  Once, I was with my god-daughter and niece.  She told me of one day spent with their mother on Abraham's Plain.  As an activity, they cleaned up a little corner of the Plains which was littered with garbage after a concert.  The whole time, their mother explained to the my little girls how  important it was to take care of the earth.  Now, the girls are watching everyone and they're not afraid to let us know when we are throwing out that could be recycled something by mistake.  The then 6-year old girl said: "Hey that could be recycled! Please be careful, we're the ones who'll have to live with your mess".  And she's right!  Whenever I see those report coming out, I keep thinking about my 4 girls (nieces).  I believe we can still turn things around if everyone works towards that same goal.  

How do you explain climate change without terrifying people?  If everyone understood what is happening, it would become the highest priority on the planet.  Thank you, Bright Opal for starting this topic.

When someone tells me they are buying a new car but not a hybrid or  electric car, I realize they don't know what is at stake.  Same with food choices.  We can eat in ways that have low impact on the climate (i.e., vegan and local) but most people don't know that.

I am hopeful that we will turn the situation around.  But it's not going to come from ignorance.   Here's a short explanation:

1. There's a blanket surrounding the earth that warms it.  

It's like a goose down blanket.   Every time we drive our gas cars or fly in an airplane, more goose down (in the form of carbon gases) float up to the atmosphere and get stuffed into to the blanket.  

It takes a thousand years for that blanket of warming gasses to disperse once it is placed there. There are stations around the earth that test the thickness of the blanket every minute of every day. They measure it in parts per million carbon (ppm). We know exactly how thick it is at this moment, and what gasses are in it.  350 ppm is thought to be the highest that it should be and allow life to go on as always.  But it's been rising steadily. 

2. In 2013, the blanket became thicker than it has been since humans came on the earth.

In May 2013 the atmosphere hit 400 ppm carbon for the first time in recorded history.  

The day before it happened, I  had a dream that the Arctic had completely melted.  It was one of those vivid surreal dreams that will stand out in my mind for the rest of my life.

In the dream, I was viewing the North Atlantic coastline from about 15 miles up.  I could see the curve of the earth.  I could see the hot sun beating down on the black water. I saw travel companies had set up kayak tours to the North Pole and I saw the tiny kayaks moving up the coast.  Then I saw superstorms whirling down towards Boston from the northeast at never-before-recorded hurricane speeds, forcing the kayakers to take shelter.  

3. Since the blanket will not disperse for a thousand years, we now have a warming blanket that is going to melt all the ice on the earth.  

The last time the earth's atmosphere was 400 ppm carbon, all the glaciers had melted and seas were 220 feet higher.  I am not sure there is any way to prevent this from happening although no one knows how long it will take - more than two hundred years perhaps.

You can find a sea level map and see what happens. Most scientists focus on what will happen in the next 80 years. There's a wide range of estimates from under a foot to 20 feet. I feel 20 feet. 

4. Losing our cities to melted ice is indescribably tragic, but it's not fatal to humanity.  

Climate change is fatal however in two ways: food can't grow and humans can't tolerate temperatures over a certain amount. 

5. The warming caused by the blanket doesn't happen all at once.

It takes time for everything on earth to be thoroughly warmed. If you took a chunk of ice out of the freezer and placed it on the countertop, it wouldn't melt instantly, right?  But it would melt eventually. 

The oceans have been absorbing the warming for decades but may be hitting a saturation point. When that happens, we will likely see a surge in surface temperatures.  

6. Like all natural systems, climate change is accelerating which is the most terrifying thing about it.  

This is a critical fact because when change is accelerating, it is undetectable at first. Then at the last minute, it surges.  By the time climate change is obvious to everyone, it will be way to late to adapt to it. 

7. It works like a ticking bomb, only we don't know when it will go off.

We could be looking at a doubling of earth temperatures over, say, a seven to ten year period. That would be fatal for everyone. 

8. It is all about the Arctic:

Bright Opal's topic title is true in more ways than one: 

a. Arctic melting is changing wind patterns that make some placers colder rather than warmer. In the winter of 2015 Alaska did not have enough snow to run the annual dog sledding race, while Boston got a record-breaking 112 inches.  One week, the Boston temperatures were many degrees colder than Toronto!

 These strange shifts are temporary while the warming works its way through our system.  Once the earth thoroughly responds to the warming blanket around it, there won't be any more extreme coldness.  Unless we act fast, the whole earth will become tropical and then it will become a hot desert. 

b. Arctic melting could be fatal for the earth due to methane gas release.

When the Arctic melts, it is likely to release tons of methane gas from the ocean floor beneath it.  Methane can warm the blanket 20 times greater than  carbon, the other greenhouse gas that forms the blanket.  We know that microorganisms in the ocean eat up some of the methane before it gets to the surface.  But we don't know how much will get eaten up and how much will reach the surface. This is a critical figure that will impact conditions on earth.  

 We have a chance to survive all of this if we act now.  

While there is a surge in climate change, there is also a surge in activism with women leading the charge. Scientists are also working on ways to survive - foods we can eat, systems to fuel the world on fuel that doesn't warm the planet, and ways we can live and stay cool. 

You can help keep up the hope by posting the events that turn our situation around.

You can also help by finding meaning in this situation.  Why are you here on this planet now?  I believe you chose to come to help.  I also believe that spirits from your true home are guiding you and me to turn this around. 

The human race is young by species standards.  Surviving and turning around climate change where we finally treat Mother Earth with respect is our right of passage to a wiser species. Let's do this. 

Greenland's Melting Ice Sheet Has 'Gone Into Overdrive', New Evidence Reveals:

"Melting of the Greenland ice sheet has gone into overdrive," Trusel, from Rowan University in New Jersey, told ScienceAlert.
"It's now melting more than at any point in at least the last four centuries, and probably more than at any time in the last 7 to 8 millennia."

https://www.sciencealert.com/greenland-ice-sheet-melting-has-gone-into-overdrive-first-of-its-kind-study-reveals?perpetual=yes&limitstart=1