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JUST STOP EVIDENCE
Here you find information and links that describe the predicament that humanity has gotten itself into. Your conviction about the validity of this information is your gateway to opting out of the culture that created the predicament. If you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem.
The most important first thing you can do to Just Stop is research. Go online, especially to the alternative news websites such as those listed in the Links, and read, learn, study, find out what is really going on. Research to the point where you can distinguish between opinion and fact, between deception and truth. Research until you own the information. Owning the information brings you into your own authority. This is the opposite of avoiding information so that you can keep pretending that everything is normal. When you have taken your own authority back then you are accountable for your actions. You start taking actions sourced by your own clarity rathing than limiting your actions to what is allowed by others.
Think about the information you find. Analyze it. Talk to your friends and your enemies about what is going on to find out what they are thinking. Get to the end of what is known and then ask the next question; find answers to that. Then ask the next question. That is where this website came from: asking the next question.
Media channels inundate us with a numbing flood of climate change announcements. The more I research original documents the more I discover that media and government information (including UN) is unfortunately distorted by individuals who are being paid by corporations such as Exxon and Phillip Morris to confuse and delay legislation and who are not revealing their true interests (read Heat by George Monbiot). The information is also distorted by people acting purely for personal profit without regard for humanity (read The Corporation by Joel Bakan, or see the DVD).
At this point in my own research, the key issue seems to be as follows: Western consumer culture thrives by burning through the planet’s oil reserves. The burning produces greenhouse gases that capture heat from the sun.
When the average concentration of green house gases on earth exceeds about 350 parts per million (ppm) (measured as CO2-e, where the e means that other green house gases are included as CO2 equivalents), then global average temperatures will rise more than 2 degrees Centigrade above pre-industrial levels.
The AR4 Report from the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released in November 2007 reports that present CO2-e levels are about 370 ppm.
We are already past the limit.
People used to estimate the limit that would produce a 2 C temperature rise at 450 ppm, but this was a premature guess. Here is why.
Frozen under Siberian Arctic tundra is about 400 gigatons (billion tons) of methane hydrates called clathrates. Clathrates are methane gas bubbles compressed into ice crystals. When the gas is released it expands 160 times in volume. The methane is a byproduct of bacteria that decompose organic matter in airless environments. These clathrates have been accumulating for over 40,000 years (for more info see this article: http://www.mindfully.org/Air/2004/Methane-Arctic-Warming16dec04.htm). In addition to the tundra clathrates there are an estimated 1,500 gigatons of additional clathrates under the ocean on continental shelves. Since it takes longer for the ocean to warm up than it does the land, it is the clathrates under the tundra that are worrisome.
Methane has a green house effect that is 21 times more powerful than CO2. As global temperatures rise, Arctic temperatures increase far quicker than global averages because non-reflecting dark-colored earth absorbs far more heat than snow does. If just 6 to 10 gigatons additional methane are burped into the atmosphere from under the tundra we pass the tipping point. Increased heat absorbed by the atmospheric methane melts more Arctic permafrost, causing more methane to be released in a run-away thermal spiral. The environment will not return to conditions hospitable to human life for thousands of years.
As each molecule of methane slow-burns in the atmosphere, it absorbs two molecules of oxygen. We run out of oxygen to breath. Fossil records show that just such a reaction occurred at least twice on earth, once 55 million years ago disrupting the climate for 100,000 years, and before that, 251 million years ago when it eradicated 94% of life under the sea and all but one big land animal. 100 million years passed before ecosystems reestablished themselves on earth.
Humanity is swiftly generating this future for itself.
Some researchers say that since the earth’s present temperature is only 0.78 C over pre-industrial, current emission rates for CO2 give us 50 to 100 years before the 350 ppm tipping point is reached forcing us past the 2 C safety limit. But there are two additional factors to consider: thermal inertia and solar dimming.
THERMAL INERTIA: There turns out to be a 20-30 year lag between CO2 emissions and the resultant earth temperature rise. This is because it takes so long to heat up the oceans, and the ocean is still cooling the air. The oceans are now at the temperature to match CO2 that was released in the 1970’s. In 20-30 years the oceans will be warmed to the heat trapped by today’s level of CO2. So because of thermal inertia we can already add 0.45 C to the 0.78 C making earth’s temperature already equivalent to 1.23 C above pre-industrial.
SOLAR DIMMING: A portion of the sunlight that would hit the earth is being reflected by particles of air pollution and jet contrails in the atmosphere (not even counting chemtrails). If emissions and air flights are suddenly decreased we simultaneously decrease that shading effect. More sunlight will get through the air to heat the earth. This could add 20% to the present temperature rise. 20% x 1.23 C = 0.246 C Add 0.246 C to the 1.23 C and the earth’s actual temperature rise is more like 1.48 C. So we have a mere 0.52 C cushion between where we are now and the time when we stop adding green house gas emissions. But we haven’t begun stopping yet.
- In fact greenhouse emissions are increasing far faster than predicted, due to:
- China’s and Asia’s sudden outburst of coal-fired electric generation plants,
- The degradation of the Amazon basin as a CO2 absorber,
- Uncountable acres of rainforests being burned to grow cattle food or biofuel crops,
- And so on.
Even if all green house gas emissions were instantaneously stopped this minute, a temperature rise of over 2 C will already occur within the next decade. And estimating 2 C as the safety factor is already questionable, because the 2 C rise actually guarantees thermal runaway conditions. Our fate is sealed.
Now you know why Bush et. al. wanted to build a wall between USA and Mexico. Not to keep out a few illegal workers, but to keep out millions when Mexico runs out of food and water.
(Watch this video if you have the courage: www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJBxdRIQx7Y)
Anything less than 90% absolute reduction of global CO2 emissions immediately is meaningless.
The recent Bali conference proposed 60% reduction over the next 30 years. Pointless.
Europe mandates 50% reductions over the next 20 years. Still not significant.
California proposes 25% reductions by 2020. Won’t make enough difference.
It is already too late to preserve anything like civilization as we know it.
All efforts now are directed towards slowing the unstoppable process as much as we can, or towards preparing ahead of time for the predictable lowland flooding, desertification, storms, and draughts.
“Yes, suffering in the world is overwhelming. But inside of me there is such a passion for what can be done! And if we are ruined, then we are ruined – but it will not be without our having tried.” Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavatti