John Hendrix's illustration titled "Doomsday" was 1 of 500 illustrations chosen by the Society of Illustrators to be featured in their newest compilation, Icons & Images: 50 Years of Extraordinary Illustration. Hendrix's "Doomsday" was featured in the January/February 2007 issue of Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The images for the collection were chosen by a committee from a pool of 25,000 images featured in annual magazines since 1958.
An excellent post over at The Island of Doubt:
It's hard to say just when humanity stopped trying to prevent climate change. Some say only a few prescient individuals ever really took the threat seriously until the dramatic events of 2012. But by then, of course, it was too late to do anything about it. Still, if we have to pinpoint a specific time that the public conversation began to switch from how to avoid catastrophic global warming to learning to live with the consequences, 2008 would be as good a candidate as any.
A similar line of thought has been occurring to me recently. The doubters and deniers have 'won' the battle, at least on the 'socio-political' side of things -- we aren't going to act in any meaningful way to reduce our ever-increasing GHG emissions. This announcement by Russia make that quite clear; GHG reductions are in the 'too-hard' basket. Even the homeless (in the global North) have large carbon footprints. This may change, but only after The Cataclysm. Until then, it's full speed ahead!
The deniers and doubters wrong on the science, though. Theirs is a Pyrrhic Victory, with all of humanity paying the cost, all so that we can continue Our Way of Life.
Go and read this excellent essay "Beyond the point of no return" by Ross Gelbspan posted over at Gristmill. I think he has managed to crystallize the essence of everything I have been trying (or wanting) to say here at planet doom? (in an admittedly much more scattershot way) in his post. A few excerpts:
We have failed to meet nature's deadline. In the next few years, this world will experience progressively more ominous and destabilizing changes. These will happen either incrementally -- or in sudden, abrupt jumps.
[...]
This slow-motion collapse of the planet leaves us with the bitterest kind of awakening. For parents of young children, it provokes the most intimate kind of despair. For people whose happiness derives from a fulfilling sense of achievement in their work, this realization feels like a sudden, violent mugging. For those who feel a debt to all those past generations who worked so hard to create this civilization we have enjoyed, it feels like the ultimate trashing of history and tradition. For anyone anywhere who truly absorbs this reality and all that it implies, this realization leads into the deepest center of grief.
[...]
To keep ourselves afloat, we need to change the economic and political structures that determine how we behave. In this case, we need to elevate the ethic of cooperation over the deeply ingrained reflex of competition. We need to elevate our biological similarities over our geographical differences. We need, in the face of this oncoming onslaught, to reorganize our social structures to reflect our most humane collective aspirations.
The new Tangled Bank is up over at from Archaea to Zeaxanthol. Go an give it a read. THe usual wide variety of posts is on offer. Something for everyone!
My recent post on the perils of geo-engineering is included.
From Deltoid:
As I (and many others!) hoped for, climate change has become a major election issue here in Australia. The battle is only half won, though. We need to continue to press our leadership for sensible action as well as summoning the will as a society to follow through on the necessary changes. No grandiose schemes, please.
ps. we also need to make sure and get rid of the current leadership, too!
Are you an eco-blogger?
Go and read the many excellent examples on offer in Oekologie #11 at 10 000 Birds to help you determine the answer to this edifying question.
My own post on Animal adjustments as a response to climate change is included.
The new edition of the Tangled Bank blog carnival is out over at The Other 95%. The usual potpourri of interesting science blog posts across a variety of disciplines.
My recent post on the danger to coral reefs is included.
Go over, have a read and expand your horizons.
The blog carnival Tangled Bank #89 is up over at Aardvarchaeology, including posts on beasties, doctorin', 'nurvs' and 'hypnerotomachia'.
All the posts I read were good, but I found the stories about iffy medical experimentation and the increasing incidence of measles in the UK due to the autism-vaccine scare especially interesting.
My post 'Down south' is also featured in the carnival.
Read and Enjoy!
In following on from my post of 31 July, More hurricanes, anyone?, on the recently published Holland/Webster paper on Atlantic TC trends, I point you towards this item on Roger Pielke Sr's Climate Science blog.
The post takes a closer look at the data issues involved in creating the long time series record used to estimate the trends. The basic conclusion?
Landsea was absolutely correct about the sloppiness, which is inexcusable. The jury is still out on trends, though uncertainty seems sure to persist for a while, despite the loud and aggressive claims to the contrary.My take is still that both sides are correct to some degree. The upswing in storms in recent times is real and not too negatively influenced by data problems. The data in the earlier era undoubtedly underestimates the number of storms. This post points out several shortcoming in the Holland/Webster analysis methodology, increasing the uncertainty of the magnitude of any trend that may exist. The number of storms likely hasn't doubled in 100 years, but some trend is still likely there.
From Climate Progress
Those who argue against strong action today to reduce greenhouse gas emissions — the adapters who are essentially saying to climate change, “Bring it on!” — cannot criticize those who then ask the obvious adaptation question — how will climate change impact this country and its infrastructure?
Certainly climate change will have the biggest infrastructure impact on our coastal cities, water and sewage systems, levees, and electric grid. But given that a remarkable 70,000 other bridges in the country are also structurally deficient, we should seek to learn whether such troubled bridges can take the ever-growing stresses generated by global warming.
