DID YOU KNOW? Bonnie Donovan
Last week, we talked about the 2022 report that said the world is on a trajectory to increase carbon and other emissions by 10% in 2030.
As part of our thinking about what humans have done to cause warming of the earth, and the results it will have on humans, we should also consider the catastrophic results of human actions in causing confluent, adverse events in the natural world.
The world’s human population in the year A.D. 1, was about 200 million. By 1500 it was 461 million. By 1800 it had grown to 1 billion.
In November 2022, the world’s population reached 8 billion — an incredible, 800% growth in only 223 years. The world population is forecast to grow to 11 billion by 2100, when it is expected to plateau.
Humans, driven by an accelerated population growth of 800%, sought and acquired vast areas of land to live on, grow crops, hunt game, raise cattle, mine for minerals, and dig for water and for oil. They massively destroyed forests, water sources and natural growth in the process.
With the Industrial Revolution, followed by the technology revolution, over this 223-year time period, the confluences of population growth and industrial revolution emerged and jointly destroyed more habitats and ecosystems across the world, resulting in the wiping out of nearly 70% of the world’s wildlife. In parallel, they caused global warming that now threatens the planet.
Another adverse event is our inability to stop the accelerating melting of ice in the huge ice sheets and glaciers in Antarctica, Greenland, and around the world. Data from two NASA-supported Grace Missions indicates that the massive Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets have been losing ice mass since 2002. It is likely that the tipping point has passed where increasing melting of ice can be slowed or stopped within foreseeable time frames.
The ice age that created these huge ice sheets and glaciers occurred 100,000 years ago. That ice age lasted until 25,000 years ago. Only another ice age can replace lost ice sheets and glaciers.
In 2020, the Royal Society reported on recent studies estimating that since the end of the last ice age, average temperatures have risen by 4 to 5 degrees Celsius (7-9 degrees Fahrenheit). That change has occurred over the last 7,000 years.
But the society also reported that CO-2 in the atmosphere has risen by more than 40% in the past 200 years, much of this since the early 1970s. The current speed of warming is now 10 times that occurring at the end of the ice age.
Back to another adverse event in the making. Ice sheets and glaciers contain most of the earth’s freshwater. The ice sheets and glaciers of Antarctica, alone, contain two-thirds of the earth’s freshwater, which is melting into the salty oceans, raising sea levels.
The ice sheets and glaciers at the North and South poles and around the world, in Greenland and other countries, act as enormous reflectors of the sun’s rays, pushing 90% of the sun’s heat in that area, back into the atmosphere. This ice is melting at an accelerating rate. When the reflecting shield is gone, it cannot be replaced.
The Washington Post in January 2021 published details of a report that stated that Earth is losing 1.2 trillion tons of ice every year. It was claimed that this is a 60% increase since 2010.
A second, NASA-backed study on the Greenland ice sheet, finds that no fewer than 74 major glaciers that terminate in deep water ocean are being severely undercut and weakened by ocean forces. This is like melting the feet that carry the human body. Eventually, this phenomenon will cause a collapse into the ocean waters, adding to rises in sea levels.
A report by a consensus of experts in these matters stated that in the worldwide plans to address global warming, the true rates of ice melting are severely understated. They projected that the melting of ice sheets, alone, could cause at least 16 inches of seawater rise by 2,100.
When we read this, we thought, “Is the world in even more trouble?” Scientists are not given to overstating their case, so this must be a very serious warning.
Graphs tracking ice loss from 2002 to 2022 show a steady, continuous, loss of ice mass for both Antarctica and Greenland.
The white surfaces of ice sheets are part of what has stabilized the Earth’s climate for millennia. When ice melts exposing water or land, these darker surfaces absorb the heat from the sun.
The earth’s surface under the ice in Antarctica is made mostly of ancient bogs that are dark brown and green in color. The seawater is dark blue. Scientists believe that most of the land under the Antarctic ice, stores millions of tons of methane hydrate, which would be gas if released into the atmosphere. That would dramatically worsen global warming.
The melting sheet of ice and glaciers can create two adverse events: the release of global-warming gasses and increases in ocean levels.
The critical questions we have for the experts include whether the uncontrolled melting of sheet ice and glaciers is caused by a continuous feedback loop , where the melting and collapse of huge ice blocks enable the melting of more ice. Will the continuing of melting ice and its consequences offset the planned efforts by nations to eliminate fossil fuels and reduce emissions from industrial, personal, public and farming sources? If so, what are the consequences for all of us?
In Santa Barbara, with the forecast of stronger winter storms off the California coast, the higher sea levels indicated could inundate the airport, the harbor and parts of downtown. Cliffs along the coast could be undermined by the higher seas, threatening parts of the railroad and Highway 101.
We are facing almost unlimited, illegal immigration of people into California and the nation. At the same time, California is experiencing an acceleration of large and mid-size companies leaving the state along with employees, to more favorable government treatment in taxes, regulations and opportunities. Individuals are also leaving California for more opportunities and affordable places to live.
The precarious nature of the California income tax system that depends largely on the fortunes of a relatively small portion of the population, could become a critical tax issue for those who remain, because the immigrants coming into California are likely to be poor, unskilled people who will become the responsibility of remaining taxpayers for food, housing, education and medical care. The influx of thousands of adults and children with little or no English will be a heavy burden on already poorly performing schools systems.
Next week, in Part 3, we will write some more about potential adverse events and finish with some conclusions.
Bonnie Donovan writes the “Did You Know?” column in conjunction with a bipartisan group of local citizens. It appears Saturdays in the Voices section.
