Warmists who refuse to give up their fossil fueled travel and big “carbon” lives hit hardest
(Grist) There’s a new scientific paper out in the journal Nature called “Approaching a state shift in Earth’s biosphere.†In a sane world, it would be front page news. This is from the abstract:
Localized ecological systems are known to shift abruptly and irreversibly from one state to another when they are forced across critical thresholds. Here we review evidence that the global ecosystem as a whole can react in the same way and is approaching a planetary-scale critical transition as a result of human influence. [emphasis by David Roberts at Grist]
As examples of past global state shifts, the authors cite the Cambrian explosion (“a conversion of the global ecosystem from one based almost solely on microbes to one based on complex, multicellular life,†which took a comparatively brief 30 million years), the Big Five mass extinctions, and the last glacial-interglacial transition, which started about 14 thousand years ago.
The difference today is that human beings are generating “forcings†(influences on biophysical systems) of unprecedented power at an unprecedented rate. These forcings include “human population growth with attendant resource consumption, habitat transformation and fragmentation, energy production and consumption, and climate change.†The authors emphasize that all these forcings “far exceed, in both rate and magnitude, the forcings evident at the most recent global-scale state shift, the last glacial-interglacial transition.â€
Darwin’s ghost wonders why in the hell he wrote that book about survival of the fittest in the first place.
Anyhow, there is a slight point about being better stewards of the environment. Of course, the enviroweenies believe that we should live like we did tens of thousands of years ago, or, should I say, everyone else should. They won’t give up their big lifestyles. Oh, and everyone else should die.
And yet, no one still has absolutely no idea HOW or WHY or WHEN these “forcings” occur. We don’t even know WHAT the “forcings” are.
And.. that abrupt comment? Yeah, we can’t even really define what abrupt means on a geological time scale. 100 years? 1000 years? Yeah, we can’t narrow it down. It’s impossible.
It’s just too bad that we can’t define those upper bounds. We don’t know the limits, upper or lower. Heck, we aren’t even near the historical upper limit that we have been able to proxy-measure. Add to that, we have no way of measuring the difference between human and natural caused “influences” let alone determine if they are positive or negative forcing.
So… a brief moment in time that is fast approaching us – a period of 30 million years???? Are we starting the 30 million year period or ending it? Did we miss it?
Also, please define the precise metrics that led to, caused, and forced the single-celled microbes to become multi-cellular.
So, if the 30 million year period of “change” was brief, are we in a period of average or longer period of change? And if so, WHY THE HELL DO WE CARE?!!?!??!