Sea Ice Extent for 2013

[Peter Lemkin]

To get back to the science and not the attacks, while there is acknowledged by the majority of environmental and climate scientists, worldwide that there is climate warming [and that it is due to changes in several things humans have caused], it is to be expected that the TREND will vary slightly year to year or even in wavering of a few years. It is the trend that is important. The North Polar ice is very drastically lessened in recent years - to the extent that Polar Bears are threatened and new shipping routes have opened up for the first time in memory, along with new polar sea oil rigs being placed, etc. Antarctica is a more complex situation, with ice loss in some areas and in the last two years some ice increase in others...but this doesn't represent any proof of anything. While the Earth overall is warming, in some places temporarily, it will be cooler [while most places, on average, will warm], warmer air and sea also change the conditions everywhere - producing stronger and more storms, greater rain and floods in most areas [a few will experience less rain]. This is my field - Environmental Science - which I studied up to the graduate level and have taught and keep up on. It has always saddened me that some great researchers on other things Deep Political are blind to this - a deep political conspiracy by Big Oil, Big Money, Big Chemical, et al. They can be in denial, but the climate will warm and change for the worse for most humans and most other living things - on land and in the sea and air. We are fouling our own 'bed' - we [humans] are a plague on the Planet unless we reduce our numbers and impact [called a footprint in Environmental Science] on Gaia. No one need or should be harmed or killed to reduce the numbers and Environmental Scientists do not believe in Eugenics or the like...just realizing that any finite resource cannot support infinite use [now becoming abuse!]. Yes, the Koch Bros. have funded a few scientists in secret to produce papers saying that climate change is part of a natural cycle in Earth/Sun...blah, blah....it is not. It is due to increased CO2, methane, other chemicals and aerosols in the atmosphere, cutting of forests and damage to other carbon sinks [absorbers], pollution of all kinds, overuse and/or overhunting of resources - non-living and living. The ways in which we are damaging the Planet and life on it - including ourselves - are many. Warming of the air and seas only one. If denied by a majority [gladly this is not so, at this time] it will mean the end of most life. Technology can NOT do more than provide a temporary patch - and then only for the wealthy. Physics and science, Nature, in the end will rebalance the system, as it must....this new balance will not favor humans nor most living things. We must stop our uncontrolled growth in numbers and use [abuse; overuse] of resources. At the same time, the poor and developing have every right to 'catch up' with the wealthy and developed. It is a very delicate balancing act and THERE technology can help....along with not being in denial about the problem; ultimately greater than the political ones we face, which are more immediate and obvious, but pale next to changing the Earth for the need and greed of one species, temporarily - and even there for a few.....already most humans are beginning to suffer from the double curse of imperialism/wars/financial manipulations/deep-political-shit and environmental destruction. Watch the floods, the stronger storms, droughts, rising sea-level, pollution, habitat destruction, resource exhaustion....and more.....it has been ongoing for some time, but all too obvious since the age of oil and modern technological [over]development. We can still have our computers and such, but must, overall, reduce and change our relationship with our Mother [Earth] and all who live on her....or perish rather sooner than later. The Native Americans [and most other Native People's had it correct - 'civilized' [sic] humans have long had it wrong [their relationship with their environment]. I would suggest people look at the books or lectures by Derrick Jensen and the many other voices calling for immediate change - especially by the most 'developed' peoples to a change toward the views of the Native Peoples who lived for hundreds of thousands of years in harmony with their environment. Below, one of many good films to awaken those still asleep to where we are headed - to the extinction of OUR species and most others......but before that a horrible period of decline, wars, shortages, suffering of the EVER GROWING numbers of poor, RAPID environmental degradation, etc. The film names and interviews most of the better writers, thinkers, speakers on the subject. Change or perish...we haven't long now. ::face.palm:: Nothing short of a total paradigm shift in our mode of thinking about the meaning of life well lived [personal and societal] is needed; our inter-relationship with the living and non-living world that sustain us and won't if we abuse or over-use it/change it into an unsustainable nightmare - these changes; these paradigm shifts, I am sure are paralleled in the Environmental / Social-Philosophical / and Deep Political spheres. The same forces and the same denial - the same allowance of a small group of would-be feudal overlords are destroying our environment; our polity; our philosophy and education - everything. Change your paradigm and the path to rectify all becomes OBVIOUS - then it is just a matter of action. When will you hammer in your picket pin?! [see the film for the context of that remark]. Please watch this film - show it to others. I cry every time I see it...and I have shown it in my environmental courses over 100 times. It touches me. I hope some part of it reaches you. Its message is real in a way - in the exact way - that most of human society [especially the 'advanced' cultures technologically] have become unreal and detached from the real human nature, human philosophy, and Nature itself. Be a part of the solution to all of our problems; not just some of them; and not just a cynical watcher. Act. Feel. Be. Fight. Hammer in your picket pins and stand our ground. Win....and we win the future. Loose and we have lost the Planet for ourselves and future generations - your children and those of others - not to mention the tens of millions of other species who have as much right [or more] to survive than we do. Join those who have decided to force a paradigm shift - first on themselves, then their friends, and then the World of Humans. Join Us.