Bad news from the scientists. Despite a lot of great rhetoric, there still seems to be no urgency to actually do things now, and help the populations of the major industrial nations take steps to alter their economies to protect themselves, let alone future generations. Our leaders continue on as if the status quo is just something we can afford to maintain, and say that by 2050 or so we might be able to achieve something. A radically different future is emerging in this picture, and here locally it will continue to affect our water supplies, as well as the ability for Port Townsend and other towns located at sea level to continue to exist as we have known them. We have a project to replace the pier at Point Hudson as one example. The *assumption* being used to spend the money on the current design is that the pier has a lifetime of 40 years or so, and by then, we can re-engineer for the standard models of what global warming should bring us by then. Today’s data calls into question whether engineering to that standard is even viable to last that long. That’s only one example.
“We are in a kind of climate emergency now,” said Prof Stefan Rahmstorf, from the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research in Germany. He told Fairfax Media: “This is really quite stunning … it’s completely unprecedented.”
The reminder is that this data points to the worse case of scientific predictions very possibly becoming the norm. That worse case could be as high as 26′ feet of ocean rise before the end of the century. While I’m not advocating that we will see that, in some models that is the far end of the model. And the current data points to that kind of outcome.
It certainly seems as though we are fiddling while “Rome” burns. Continue to demand real change over global warming with our politicians. Elect politicians who believe in it. Right here, in Washington State, are a lot of Republicans in our State Senate and House, that refuse to believe this data, for a variety of political reasons. You can change that by voting them out. We have a presidential election where the entire Republican side of the tickets refuse to even believe in global warming. I come back to the question that if 99 out of 100 bridge engineers told you to not drive your car over a bridge until it is repaired, would you load up your family and go drive over it? Vote people in who believe in science. If you live within 100 feet of the Salish Sea, you owe it to yourself to do that. Consider it self preservation.
Filed under: Puget Sound | Tagged: Puget Sound |
