Melting arctic ice sheet
Credit: Nick Cobbing
The incident was small, but Jason Box doesn’t want to talk about it. He’s been skittish about the media since it happened. This was last summer, as he was reading the cheery blog posts transmitted by the chief scientist on the Swedish icebreaker Oden, which was exploring the Arctic for an international expedition led by Stockholm University. “Our first observations of elevated methane levels, about ten times higher than in background seawater, were documented . . . we discovered over 100 new methane seep sites…. The weather Gods are still on our side as we steam through a now ice-free Laptev Sea….”
As a leading climatologist who spent many years studying the Arctic at the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center at Ohio State, Box knew that this breezy scientific detachment described one of the nightmare long-shot climate scenarios: a feedback loop where warming seas release methane that causes warming that releases more methane that causes more warming, on and on until the planet is […]
20 years ago, when the knowledge of the 6th mass extinction was just beginning to register for the few who ‘chase’ these stories, it was all about the coming loss of the megafauna. Now included within that epic story are the pollinators, songbirds and the summer bugs squashed on your bumper and windshield. Oh yeah, forgot to mention homo sapiens too, as we now know we are included. And so goes the non-local unconsciousness. Sigh!
I see now that Esquire has done a reprint from Aug. of 2015. Still quite relevant, as now more than ever. I feel for hockey stick Michael Mann who has been so pilloried. There really is nothing else to discuss.
As a Canadian one of the national characteristics we are known for is upon meeting, to talk about the weather, as many good northern country might do. *Not even in my ‘tribe’* will folks discuss this runaway climate breakdown emergency. This should all be above the fold.
This year in our woodsy central NC there was a silent spring. Few flying insects, no ants in the kitchen, few small birds but robins and no bug splatters on the windshield. I would wake up at night with deep heartache and a sense of loneliness.
By June more visitors have shown up but still many fewer than all previous years. I can sit outside in our wooded neighborhood and am seldom bothered by even mosquitos. When I have asked others about this most seem not to have noticed or think no bugs are just great.
There are many anecdotal reports like yours that I read every week, Will. Each year I have set out 3 hummingbird feeders for at least 11 – 14 birds. They would empty the feeders every day. This year, there are only 2 visitors. It takes them 8 days to empty the feeder. I and a friend lost 3 hives to winter kill + mould this past season.