Thursday, June 08, 2006

Screw with the planet long enough

And sooner or later, the planet will start screwing with you. A month of rain? Record-setting hurricane season? Blizzards? scorching hot summer days? Yep.

When you increase the amount of heat in the system, it's not just that the average temperature gets warmer. It's that there's more energy in the global feedback loop. Storms become more frequent and more violent. Cold days get colder, hot days get hotter. As we melt more ice from the poles and lower the salinity of the oceans, the current loops that steer weather around the globe will slow or cease entirely. Europe's going to freeze at some point.

Basically, we're screwed. I suspect we've passed the point of no return on climate - 5-10 years ago we might have been able to change things but not anymore. Humans will survive, of course, but the world we're giving our children is not going to be nearly as nice a place as the one we had. Way to go, humanity!

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