A melting planet
Published on LinkedIn on February 25th, 2019 [2nd draft]
The melting ice and the confused minds
Melting floating ice do not rise the level of the water because the ice has a bigger volume than water, thus once it melts the water fulfil the volume of submerged had. This is knew since the Archinede's principle has been demonstrated.
Now, keep looking at the glass and speaking about what happens next. Until the ice is melting the temperature of the water is kept stable because the melting ice absorbs the exceeding warm which will not contribute to raise the water temperature. After the ice is melted, the water temperature start to raise.
Inland glaciers will release the water that will flow into the oceans and seas, increasing their level. The air temperature will not grow suddenly because the inland glacier absorb the extra warm and melt. However because the planet is bigger than a glass of water, some glaciers will expand and other reduce.
Thus, the whole effect would be the sum of all the effects. This makes the things going forward slowly but once the break-point is reached, the entire system will change behaviour like the glass of water warming after the ice cube melted.
Look at the whole picture and do not be confused by the single event. Weather change is a fact because humans.
The climate change is a fact
The climate change is a fact and the debate is now about the causes of this change. It is because the human activities or because natural global changes happen regularly?
Both. Earth is a complex dynamic large system. Such a system do not reach a stable equilibrium but oscillate around some few demi-stable attractors. To understand this, you would be engaged into chaos theory and fractal attractors.
Humans activities are sustained by fossil energy. Burning fossils means that we are freeing CO2 which was enttrapped millions of years ago. This is like give at the Earth system a kick that move the whole system into a new trajectory.
Each kick is cumulative because the average time to enttrapped again the CO2 is about 1+? century. It needs time to recovery. As long as we burn fossils much faster than the recovery trend, we are pushing the whole Earth system away from its equilibrium.
At a certain point the Earth system will change the attractors and move away as an avalanche does. It will move away from the current equilibrium towards another one and there is no any evidence that the next equilibrium would be better or even suitable for the life we are used today.
A catastrophe, indeed.
The definition of catastrophe is related to and abruptly change in worse. Which fits correctly with the explanation above.
Even the glass of water, at a certain point change its behaviour. It doesn't change it, in real. It changes for us that observe only a particular at time. Let's me explain.
Until the ice is melting the water level and water temperature are quite stable, both. Once the ice is melted, things start to change but slowly. What slowly means?
It means that a glass of water is a very simple system compared to the whole Earth or even a single glaciers. Bigger systems do not slowly change their equilibrium attractor. They do it in an abrutly way, like avalanche.
Global average temperature is raising? Yes, it is a fact but it is raising slowly like in the glass of water before the catastrophe. Global warming or CO2 emissions are the problems? Nope, their are indexes but such indexes are telling us that the Earth is going to change its main equilibrium. The main problem is that our activities are producing damages faster that Earth could recover.
We burn fossils faster than CO2 could be enttrapped. We cut threes faster than they can grow. We are polluting faster than environment could sustain.
We are polluting faster and faster
So, we are polluting faster than the environment could recover. Is this a fake news? Nope! Why scientists speaks about global warming but I saw even colder winters than before? Colder winters and warmer summers are the result of the climate change. Stronger typhoons, vaster floods, etc.
Why we deserve these kind of catastrophes? It is not a matter of deserving or not. It is a matter of how complex eco-system works. It is not a punishment, it is like an avalanche. Something big and large move abruptly from one point of equilibrium to another point of equilibrium and in the meantime everything is on the avalanche way is destroyed.
- Avalanche is nor good nor evil, they are massive phenomena. Like any massive and quick phenomena, they are catastrophes.
The main point is speed. We are doing things faster than Earth could sustain. So, we are kicking away Earth from its equilibrium and it will find another equilibrium which is not necessarily good for the life as we known today and in this changement we will face catastrophes, many.
What's Trump has to do with this? Nothing.
Whoever is the US president the climate change is a fact because we are polluting Earth faster than it could recover.
Is climate change a problem?
Are climate change or pollution problems?
- It depends on the definition of problem and by which point of view we observe things.
Climate change will probably not kill us but our children. Pollution might kill or drive I'll others people but give us the change to buy food, shoes, gas and others stuff cheaper.
Might global warming cause a mass extinction on Earth? The 6th mass extinction is just in progress caused by pesticides and intensive farming and agriculture. Insects are dying and bees as well. Without bees, flowers would not be pollinated anymore. Thus many fruits and vegetables will be no anymore available and many species will die.
A change that brings consequences that bring other consequences than bring other consequences, etc. The ultimate consequences could be a human extinction, as well.
It the human extinction a threat? Yes it is, but just for us. Without us the Earth may recover itself in few millions years. This planet will take care of itself. We should not worry about that. We should worry about us ourselves.
A tip? Earth is like a spaceship. How we are messing up this starship is our own problem. Nobody else will care, if we do not care.
What has this to do with Trump?
We are polluting our planet faster than it is able to recover. Pollution will challenge our ability to live on this planet. This has nothing to with Trump.
If Trump will be replaced with someone else, then will we suddenly change our way of living, our way of consuming, our way of producing goods and energy? Will we stop to litter? I do not think so.
I think that whoever will take over the US presidency could do very little about our behaviour. It our choice and our responsability. We, all humans, are responsible for pollution and thus climate change, as well. Nobody else.
We all humans together can change the environment or preserve it. We are changing the environment, indeed.
- Can Trump stop all of us? Nope.
- Can another US president stop all us? Nope.
So Trump has nothing to do with this. It is about us, our choice our responsability and nobody else. It is about us, not Trump.
Latest news from NASA
Cracking across Antarctica’s Brunt Ice Shelf is set to release an iceberg w/ an area about 2x the size of NYC. The splitting could result in an uncertain future for the shelf’s scientific research & human presence. See what @NASAEarth satellites captured.
— NASA (@NASA) 24 febbraio 2019
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(C) 2019, Roberto A. Foglietta, this article's text is licesed under Creative Common Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0).
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