Views of Jason Box

Jason Box: April 17, 2017.

... climate change is a defining issue of our time, whether or not one accepts what science tells us. And unfortunately, the US is now confounded from Washington DC by a brand of deeply cynical politics that threatens our species tackling climate change soon enough. Historically, the largest source of climate changing pollution, the US and DC is turning its back on the Paris Agreement, a global treaty enforcing the ambition to keep climate warming under +1.5 C above pre-industrial. Our species is acting late on this crisis. Already today at +1C above pre-industrial, we’re beginning to see profound damaging effects including increased storm severity, the drying of continental interiors, and melting ice sheets.

All of these climate change effects have overall strongly negative impacts, primarily on reducing food and water security for humans and nature that surrounds.At this stage, by supporting dirty energy from projects like the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, against the will of the majority of people and treaties signed with indigenous first nations peoples, it’s clear US climate denial is a result of a bought-out political system and a fossil fuel dominated economy. US republicans and some democrats are choosing more expensive climate destabilizing energy over cleaner and safer energy systems that benefit people and nature long term. 

The most profitable industry in history, rather than using their capital and technical capacity to transition itself to become sustainable energy, its leaders like Exxon have chosen an anti-science, greedy, and reckless path. 

Fortunately, and despite obfuscation from fossil fuel corporations, fossil energy is clearly emerging as yesterday’s energy. Still, clean energy couldn’t be coming on soon enough given that carbon emissions and concentrations are already so high that we’re losing the ice sheets and harming our oceans through carbonic acidification. Our species needs to find a way to maintain a steep fall rate for carbon emissions for the foreseeable future and engage in what has been largely a missing conversation and action of turning emissions negative until we stabilize somewhere below 350 parts per million CO2. We’re currently more than 40% above pre-industrial CO2. We thus need not only to cut carbon emissions but drawdown many Giga tons carbon from the atmosphere. While an enormous task, it’s possible and urgent to avoid a Mad Max future.

North Pole overheating. Dec. 25, 2016.

The combination of 1.) extra ocean to atmosphere heat transfer enabled by record low sea ice and 2.) pulses of warm air from the south has produced stunning large temperature departures from normal.

... alarmed we’re in uncharted climate territory driven by abrupt human-driven climate change

Box: July 29, 2014.

If even a small fraction of Arctic sea floor carbon is released to the atmosphere, we're f'd.

more here:
If We Release a Small Fraction of Arctic Carbon, 'We're F'd': Climatologist.  via Motherboard. Aug. 1, 2014.