Tipping points 2006

Here’s another truly frightening article, which Charlie sent me a few days ago, and which has been keeping me up at night.

It says that in 2006 we may have reached a number of the tipping points that climate scientists were worried might arrive as soon as 2050 if we weren’t careful.  Russia’s peat bogs are releasing so much methane that they are now responsible for more global warming than US emissions, and more will be released the warmer it gets.  England’s soil has gone from being a carbon sink to a carbon emitter which completely eliminates any gains England has made through cutting emissions of fossil fuels.  And the North Sea ice appears to be in permanent decline.

This report came at a time that we also heard of ice shelves breaking up in the Arctic.  I’m afraid the measures now necessary to combat serious global destabilization and mass extinctions may be far more serious than we had contemplated.