The Climate Crisis Is Worse Than You
Might Think
By James Donahue
Bruce Melton, environmental researcher and author of
Climate Discovery Chronicles, has written a compelling report on the world climate crisis that recently appeared on
the Truthout website.
In his copyright report Melton carefully
documents why dramatic weather changes like extreme flooding, the recent polar vortex over the United States, the excessive
heat waves and violent storm fronts are all directly linked to a warming planet.
He warns that the general population is confused about this crisis because
of massive misinformation campaigns created by the fossil fuel industry and the fact that the media, in its constant effort
to offer “fair” reporting, always finds one of the few researchers who disagree with the majority of scientists
about the seriousness of our plight when a warning report makes news.
It is Melton’s belief that the general public “is 20 years behind most climate scientists” in
understanding the looming impact of the growing accumulation of carbon dioxide, methane and nitros oxide in the
air.
He writes that if world governments had
faithfully met the agreements reached during the 1987 Kyoto Protocol, and reduced industrial and automobile emissions to 1987
levels by 2012, “that would have been all that was needed.” While the United States has done a relatively good
job of cutting carbon emissions, nations like China, India and elsewhere have become such major polluters that the world’s
atmosphere is now so dangerously polluted it may be impossible to reverse the looming destruction.
Melton explained that the overall warming impact of the accumulation of greenhouse
gasses has been mostly absorbed by the world’s oceans, but the oceans are beginning to heat up now, and this is having
an effect on our weather. There is more water in the atmosphere now, which is causing extreme rains, snows and storms.
Also, until recently, world scientists were ignoring
the arctic region when measuring world temperatures. Now it has been discovered that the arctic is the fastest warming place
on the planet.
Melton noted that coal has been wrongly
blamed for much of the carbon accumulation, but researchers have discovered that oil has been the real culprit. He writes
that “coal emits an enormous amount of sulfur dioxide when it burns. Sulfur dioxide is a global cooling pollutant.”
The author warns that we may already be on the threshold
of an irreversible situation, since the world has more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere than anytime in world history.
He warns: “In the long-term, we are far more likely
to be able to develop solutions to mitigate for greenhouse gas warming. But if we fail to control radical climate change in
the short term, we are toast.”
Melton
said he believes “we are likely closer to irreversible dangerous climate change – if it has not begun already
– and to take action, there must be a basic public consensus.”
Because of political failures to even bring this issue to the table, and because the media
is all but ignoring it, generating that “basic public consensus” on time to get anything done about this crisis
seems unlikely.
