Summary: SUMMARY: Dr. Michael Jennings says Earth's climate is already beyond the worst scenarios. Could a new Dark Age save us? Dr. Sing C. Chew says we are due. It's edutainment for troubled times. Radio Ecoshock 140319 WELCOME The bad news is planet Earth is already committed to very dangerous climate change. Dr. Michael Jennings published a paper in 2012 showing we are already in the worst case scenario. My interview with Dr. Jennings is frank and moving. We may be saved from utter disaster if an economic collapse comes sooner rather than later. Dr. Sing C. Chew will give us the good news about Dark Ages, and the signs we are entering one now. In March 2014, the Earth's atmosphere went above 401 parts per billion of carbon dioxide. The Arctic ice is at an absolute record low this winter, even as eastern north america freezes. New science is reporting bad news like artillery fire from a climate war zone. Increased malaria zones, dying birds, faster Greenland ice melt, climate disruption is moving faster than anyone can comprehend. I'm Alex Smith, welcome to Radio Ecoshock, the cheerful program for pessimists and realists alike. Download/listen to this Radio Ecoshock show in CD Quality (56 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB) MICHAEL JENNINGS: HEADING TOWARD THE WORST CASE SCENARIO Well it's official. With no international agreements and ever-growing greenhouse gas emissions, scientists are asking if we are heading off the cliff of climate disruption, into the worst of all worlds. Our guest is Dr. Michael Jennings from the Department of Geography at the University of Idaho. Last year he published a paper in the journal "Global Policy". It's title is: "Climate Disruption: Are We Beyond the Worst Case Scenario?" Here are the details on that paper: Climate Disruption: Are We Beyond the Worst Case Scenario? Published in Global Policy, Volume 4, Issue 1, Article first published online: 3 SEP 2012 and in print: Global Policy Volume 4 . Issue 1 . February 2013 "Climate disruption: Are we beyond the worst case scenario?" was published by the London School of Economics journal "Global Policy", free online here. Michael wrote me in an email: "If we are to maintain the climate of the Holocene—which is the climate that agriculture, economies, and societies evolved with over the past 10,000 years—we can emit no more than a total of 500 billion total tons of carbon without a large scale perturbation of the biosphere as we have known it since the dawn of agriculture. So far we have emitted a total 370 billion tons since the beginning of the industrial revolution. That leaves us with 130 billion tons of carbon emissions until we reach the safe limit of 500 billion tons. Right now we are emitting more than 9 billion tons per year; it’s actually closer to 10. So, 130 billion tons at 10 tons per year leaves us with how many years, assuming no annual increases? At the same time, burning all of the fossil fuel that is currently owned, accounted for and held in known reserves would emit 2,795 billion tons of carbon dioxide. That is more than 20 times the 130 billion tons that is safe. But, our global economy is predicated on not only the value of the existing reserves of coal, oil, and gas as they are traded around the world, but the economic yield of the goods and energy that would be derived from those 2,795 billion tons of emissions. What would you do if you were invested in those carbon stocks?" More about investments in carbon stocks further, in a segment with Mark Campanale of carbontracker.org. See below. Dr Jennings pointed us toward a pivotal paper led by Dr. James Hansen, formerly of NASA. It's titled "Assessing ‘‘Dangerous Climate Change’’: Required Reduction of Carbon Emissions to Protect Young People, Future Generations and Nature" It may be the most important paper of the year. Read it in full text here. There are two items in the paper by Hansen et al. that seldom get attention. The first is our obligation to coming generations. The second point raised by
