After Gutenberg

The Syllogism of Doom goes:

1. If we (that is, humanity) increase our use of coal, the atmosphere will likely tip over into irreversible, catastrophic warming.
2. We are going to increase our use of coal.
Therefore:
3. The atmosphere will likely tip over into irreversible, catastrophic warming.

There are some, who are in denial that “warming of several degrees Celsius” will result in the end of life as we know it. Somehow they are able to disbelieve that consequences of denial, delay and inaction are irreversible and catastrophic.

In an email to Joseph Romm, Jim Hansen wrote, “It seems to me that young people, especially, should be doing whatever is necessary to block construction of dirty (no CCS) coal-fired power plants.”

And, they probably avoid reading After Gutenberg or Climate Progress.
But, in case they do, Joseph Romm has summarized the amplifying processes that are and will contribute to the irreversible, catastrophic nature of our failure to reduce our carbon emissions by a significant amount.

They include:

• The defrosting of the permafrost
• The drying of the Northern peatlands (bogs, moors, and mires).
• The destruction of the tropical wetlands
• Decelerating growth in tropical forest trees — thanks to accelerating carbon dioxide
• Wildfires and Climate-Driven forest destruction by pests
• The desertification-global warming feedback
• The saturation of the ocean carbon sink

What prompted the above summary was publication of a study of recent variations in surface temperature and “the response of tropospheric water vapor to these variations.” Published in Geophysical Research Letters (subs. req’d), “Water-vapor climate feedback inferred from climate fluctuations, 2003–2008” the authors concluded that the “existence of a strong and positive water-vapor feedback means that projected business-as-usual greenhouse-gas emissions over the next century are virtually guaranteed to produce warming of several degrees Celsius.

The report also prompted Professor Romm to conclude his post with the following, succinct observation:

Truly only one negative feedback in the planet’s overall carbon cycle can act with sufficient speed and strength to avert catastrophic climate impacts: The dominant carbon-based life form on this planet will have to respond to the already painfully clear impacts of our carbon emissions by slashing those emissions sharply.

A critical way to lessen carbon emissions is to get off coal, to include:

1. Coal for electric power generation
2. Coal and bitumen to make transportation fuel, and
3. Coal, bitumen and petroleum products for plastics

Instead, the recently enacted, near-trillion-dollar bailout of the financial sector by the federal government of the United States included almost $2.8 billion in tax credits for coal operators. This is just one recent example of continuing disregard for future survival of life as we know it.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government…

Responsible leaders, such as Al Gore and James Hansen, thus have begun to advocate civil disobedience. Over the past year or so, Gore has done so in the pages of the NY Times, Rolling Stone and most recently, in person, at the Clinton Global Initiative. And, as reported by Marley Miles, on behalf of the Wise 11 — young people, who, for the sake of nature and humanity, had the courage to stand up against “coal power” by locking themselves to the gates of Dominion Power’s planned power plant in St. Paul Va — Dr. Hansen made the following statement:

The science of climate change has become clear in recent years: if coal emissions to the atmosphere are not halted, we will drive to extinction a large fraction of the species on the planet. Already almost half of summer sea ice in the Arctic has been lost, coral reefs are under great stress, mountain glaciers are melting world-wide with consequences for fresh water supplies of hundreds of millions of people within the next several decades, and climate extremes including greater floods, more intense heat waves and forest fires, and stronger storms have all been documented.

Our parents did not realize the long-term effects of fossil fuel use. We no longer have that excuse. Let us hope that the courage of these young people will help spark public education about the climate and environmental issues, and help us preserve nature for the sake of our children and grandchildren.

But, Dr. Hansen, as someone (hawk-splut) who hails from Virginia, may I remind you that the Old Dominion is the Birthplace of Freedom, with eloquent leaders, such as Patrick Henry, who said, “Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Coal” and Thomas Jefferson, who wrote, “we are endowed with certain, unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and mountaintop removal mining for Coal.”