July 20, 2021: Climate Change Emergency

 

7/20/21: The number that sticks out today is 60,000. As in 60,000 square miles burned. That would be the same as setting fire to Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont. 

That’s how much forest and tundra burned up in Siberia last year. Scientists have no doubt. Climate change is the issue.

 

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“Climate change emergency.”

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This year is starting off worse: 30,000 square miles already reduced to cinders. Again, for comparison’s sake: like burning up all of South Carolina, including Lindsey Graham’s pants. 

Now, with the western U.S. suffering through its worst drought in at least 1,200 years, with climate change making it worse, only the numbest skulls continue to miss the point. We, (and we mean “we” as in humanity) are going to have to figure out how to adjust. 

Cue Sen. James Inhofe with his infamous “this-snowball-I-made” disproves climate change schtick.

 

Cue the boneheaded howls of the right-wing types who scare people with stories of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez taking away all the cows, and President Biden taking away all the hamburgers. 

Cue the eternally ill-informed, and incurious Donald J. Trump, who as president routinely called climate change a hoax and focused his attention on low-flow showerheads. Because the real focus was that his hair had to be “perfect.”

Trump is an idiot.

 

So, here, in the simplest way possible, let us explain the basics of the growing crisis in Siberia. Freakishly warm summers in recent years have caused the permafrost layer to thaw. Until now, it has been known as the “permafrost layer” because it was permanently frozen. For Trump fans, you can go to a NASA website for kids, where scientists will explain. “As Earth’s climate warms, the permafrost is thawing,” they note. “That means the ice inside the permafrost melts, leaving behind water and soil.” 

·       When permafrost is frozen, plant material in the soil – called organic carbon – can’t decompose, or rot away. As permafrost thaws, microbes begin decomposing this material. This process releases greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere. 

·       When permafrost thaws, so do ancient bacteria and viruses in the ice and soil. These newly-unfrozen microbes could make humans and animals very sick. Scientists have discovered microbes more than 400,000 years old [emphasis added] in thawed permafrost.

 

 

A quick check of Encyclopedia Britannica gives us the information that in parts of Siberia the permafrost is 5,000 feet thick. In northern Alaska it’s roughly half that thick. There are areas of Alpine permafrost at high altitudes round the world. Lest we confuse people, we will leave that out. 

As NASA explains – for kids – as permafrost melts, organic material frozen for thousands and even tens of thousands of years, begins to decompose. This increases the amount of carbon dioxide and methane released into the atmosphere. And this, in turn, exacerbates the climate change emergency. 

Take note of those last three words: “climate change emergency.” If you want to believe Joe Biden is coming for your Big Mac, and that’s your navel-gazing focus, you might be beyond reason. 

No one knows how humanity will rise to meet this threat, or if humanity will fail in the face of emergency, instead. We need to understand that experts in 34 countries, and 1,997 jurisdictions and local governments around the world, have declared a “climate change emergency.”

 

There’s a reason almost every nation on earth has signed on to the Paris Climate Accord (Trump pulled us out). Experts and leaders in 191 countries around the globe recognize a crisis is building. 

Only six nations have failed to join the agreement: Turkey (population: 84 million), Iran (84 million), Iraq (40 million), Yemen (30 million), Libya (seven million), and Eritrea (four million). Another way of looking at the matter is to note that governments representing 97% of the globe’s 7.8 billion people realize something must be done. 

That doesn’t mean the leaders of those 191 nations know how to meet the challenge; but they know it’s coming.