Patch Blog: Hot Enough for You? Hang in There, Cosmo!

May, 2062

Hi, I’m Cosmo Kopitar Freed, grandson of Jan Freed, the Patch’s own Climate Blogger.  In his will Grandpa asked me to carry on the tradition of Climate Change Blogging.  My mom, Hannah, wasn’t interested: “why bother?",  she said. So, I guess it’s up to me.

Grandpa? After his 115th climate blog, he put down his laptop, bought a 1968 Camaro SS-396  and roared off to Vegas with Maggie, his wife of 50 years.  “If ya can’t beat em, join ‘em,” he said.  His last gig was as a croupier at a subterranean retirement casino, called “The Beginning.”  “I like the Garden of Eden décor, and it’s cool down there, all day”, he once wrote on Facebook.

So, here we are in Eagle Rock, May, 2062.  Sure it’s hot, but no worse (or better) than the old town of Mojave used to be.  And, Mojave?  You think we have  problems?

At Bilo’s Market all they sell are iSun Helmets (209.99) Bottled water (41.99/gallon) and Nopales Candy Bars (4.99).   They do pretty well, I’m happy to say, but Mom tells me water used to just come from the tap, year round!   And, they had “snow” in the Sierras that people played in. Wow.

One of these days, me and my Lucille plan to move to Topanga Canyon, cheap now since the Great Conflagration., and  only in the high 70’s, during the winter.  Much of it has washed away in the ocean, but you can still find the occasional bargain.

Speaking of  the ocean, it now ends at Normandie Ave, or Western Ave, I forget.   They call it the new “Santa Monica”. How did that happen? Well, Dr. Jim Hansen, the one time director at NASA back in the 2000’s, was spot on.  He predicted as much and explained why. 

Back in Grandpa’s day, 2012, the CO2 level was 385 parts/million (ppm), up 30% from a hundred years before.   It kept rising at 2ppm/year.  Due to the love of “business as usual “ and fears for the Free Market , people just weren’t in the mood to stop it, not at least in any serious way.   Even with all the warnings from experts. We can be such thoughtless, giddy creatures, can’t we?

Now, 50 years later CO2 is at 485 ppm..   Right?  50 years x 2 ppm/year + 385ppm = 485 ppm.

The last time that such a level of CO2, 485 ppm, occurred on earth, millions of years ago, there were, as a result, no permanent ice sheets anywhere on earth and, due to its greater volume and expansion as it warmed, the ocean level was 70-80 Meters (210 -240 feet) higher than the level in year 2012.  Or, so the geological record showed.  Predictably, that is exactly what happened this time too. I don't know if we can do anything, now to bring it down.

Sorry about the science stuff.  Got that habit from Grandpa.   

Unfortunately, Hansen’s predictions were ignored.  We adopted a "wait and see" policy.  And, he was called names, too: It was “Joe the Plumber meets vs. National Aeronautics and Space Administration”. Joe won, sort of.

And so, now  the Mexican solar cruise ships dock at New Normandie Beach. (used to be Wilshire and Normandy)   Yes, the ships’ range has much improved!

Of course, I’m tired of heat waves! Who isn’t?

The CO2 level has finally stabilized at 485 ppm. That may be too late to reverse the changes.  I knew we were sunk when the  GOP in 2012 took both houses of Congress and permanently banned wind farms, calling them  “Marxist Socialist Tools of World Domination”.  Of course, we Americans sure didn’t want that! So, we understood when Congress voted $12 billion/year more for the oil companies.

The GOP was also quite concerned that the turbines would kill birds.  This became the fervent cause of compassionate conservatives everywhere.   Funny,  the GOP continued to support killing wolves from helicopters, though.  And, when British Petroleum gunked up all those thousands of birds and their nesting sites (like entire islands) did Congress pass legislation to guarantee safer deep water drilling? Nope.  Go figure.

No veto from Obama, either. Sigh ...

But, with the recent mass extinctions, drops in world population and other impacts, fewer  folks drive now and so ... there are fewer emissions. Simple. We stopped it at 485ppm.

It's been over 102 for a week straight. I don't know how much longer I can stand this. My shoes stuck to the asphalt, yesterday. I had to leave one of them there and crawl home.  I’ll get it tonight.    

Don't get me wrong,  it ain’t all bad. **

I saw a bird this week.  Second week in a row! And, the very last Eagle Rock climate denier (heard muttering profanities all the way)  finally moved to  Mylar City, above the Arctic Circle to be with "his people".  Also, Chinese winter wheat, at least, is cheap  (I really am tired of winter wheat, though). And, baseballs fly much farther, now, in the humid air. Most fish are history because the ocean’s too acidic from the CO2, but  truckers haul Tilapia, grown in Winnipeg, to the local Ralphs. Did you know there are over 100 ways to cook Tilapia? And the taps will flow again on Tuesday, next.

Looking back, "What happened?" Why did we ignore our top climate scientists (thousands of them) , such as Dr. Hansen, when he said, back in 2008,  “The most difficult task, phase-out over the next 20-25 years of coal use that does not capture CO2, is herculean, yet feasible when compared with the efforts that went into World War II. The stakes, for all life on the planet, surpass those of any previous crisis. The greatest danger is continued ignorance and denial, which could make tragic consequences unavoidable.”

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_13/

Ignorance and denial.  I guess that’s the answer.

• This  scenario might take a couple hundred years, but once we reach 485 ppm, eventually all ice sheets are expected to melt and ocean levels increase about 80 M, and these changes may be irreversible due to “positive feedbacks” from a number of sources, such as, a) missing ice cannot reflect sunlight as before, so oceans absorb more heat; b) release of methane  from permafrost and ocean sediments; c) loss of forests due to infestations and drought, etc. So, I exaggerate in the time-line a bit, but the end result is the same.

§  See maps of which land will be flooded  by a 80 meter rise in ocean levels, when ice sheets disappear at:

http://the100metreline.blogspot.com/2009/06/80m-sea-rise-maps-for-north-...

** for a realistic look at what else we can expect in California see  Union of  Concerned Scientists  http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/impacts/ca-glob...