By Val Germann
As most Star Phoenix Base readers undoubtedly know, the weather on dear old Mother Earth has been going wild again this spring and summer. Some unfortunate locale in Texas picked up 18-inches of rain the other day, in about SIX HOURS, and it was not as the result of a hurricane or tropical storm. No, that massive deluge was just “a lot of rain” out of a more-or-less standard kind of frontal passage. Could this be a harbinger of a “new normal” for Texas weather? Yes, it could.
The key was contained in an article originating with the AFP and carried recently on the ENERGY DAILY website. The operative section is this:
Between 2000 and 2004, worldwide CO2 emissions increased at a rate that is over three times the rate during the 1990s-the rate increased from 1.1 % per year during the 1990s to 3.1% per year in the early 2000s.
This is a devastating statement, one that should be striking fear into policy makers from pole-to-pole here on our benighted planet. While it’s definitely true that total fossil fuel use is going up world wide, it didn’t suddenly go up THAT fast. No, what likely happened is something else, such as a major “sink” for CO2 suddenly losing it’s effectiveness. It that’s true then within a few years it should become evident and everyone will wake up to a whole new planet, one in the throes of a “runaway greenhouse effect,” flying up to some unknown and most likely ruinous level.
A long time ago Napoleon Bonapart said, as his end approached, “Apres moi, le deluge!” And of course, he was right, in a figurative way. Today, for whole planet, the possiblity that “After us, comes the deluge,” may be literally coming true. –