Something To Think About During the Silly Season

Eric at Surfdom brings up a disturbing subject that I've been meaning to write about for the past month, ie, the phenomenon of 'positive feedback' accelerating the process of climate change. He cites the example of the shrinking of the Arctic ice cap exposing increasing amounts of sea water to the sun, making it warm up quicker, causing more ice to melt, causing more heating ...

You get the picture.

But that's not the only example. The fires burning throughout Eastern Australia are pumping millions of tons of C02 into the atmosphere. Longer periods of drought allows the bush to burn more frequently, but doesn't allow the vegetation to grow back. The C02 permanently released into the atmosphere accelerates the global warming process.

Then there's the human influence ...

Getting warmer? Buy an air conditioner! Burn more fossil fuel to power it ...

Climate change induced water shortage? Desalination is the answer. Just crank up the coal burning power stations to keep the water flowing.

Positive feedback is causing previous predictions of climate change consequences to look very conservative. We have less time to act than previously thought.