{"id":502,"date":"2010-01-14T11:35:57","date_gmt":"2010-01-14T15:35:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/?p=502"},"modified":"2013-10-25T21:46:49","modified_gmt":"2013-10-26T01:46:49","slug":"day-14-ed-markey-hears-from-me-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/day-14-ed-markey-hears-from-me-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Year 1, Month 1, Day 14: Ed Markey Hears From Me Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night I was doing bookkeeping for 2009, so I didn’t write anything. This morning I’m strapped for time, so this letter came out kind of blunt. I also included some footnotes for the first time. This was prompted by the scariest thing I have ever read<\/a>, over at Daily Kos.<\/p>\n

January 14, 2010<\/p>\n

Dear Representative Markey,<\/p>\n

Thank you for your work in the area of climate change and environmental protection. As we are now discovering, the predictions of climate scientists have been profoundly erroneous. Without exception, climatologists\u2019 projections of the rate and severity of climate change are turning out to be too timid. The world is heating up faster than they expected. Much faster. Much, much faster.<\/p>\n

The latest news reveals that we face what is surely the most pressing existential crisis in humanity\u2019s history. The recent discovery of atmospheric methane levels over the Arctic ocean ranging between a hundred and a thousand times normal is a terrifying augury of things to come (see below). Once the gigatonnes of frozen methane locked in the tundra begin to melt, climatic tipping points are going to arrive faster and faster, and the best-case scenarios will look like dystopian nightmares. The worst-case scenarios can be summed up in one word: Venus.<\/p>\n

Unless we can learn to set aside international and intra-national differences of opinion and personality conflicts, the outlook for coming generations is dire. Your leadership is needed now more than ever.<\/p>\n

Thank you again for your efforts in this field.<\/p>\n

Yours sincerely,<\/p>\n

Warren Senders<\/p>\n

1. \u201cScientists have uncovered what appears to be a further dramatic increase in the leakage of methane gas that is seeping from the Arctic seabed.\u201d <\/p>\n

\t(http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/science\/nature\/8437703.stm<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

2. \u201cFairbanks, Alaska\u2014A team led by International Arctic Research Center scientist Igor Semiletov has found data to suggest that the carbon pool beneath the Arctic Ocean is leaking.<\/p>\n

The results of more than 1,000 measurements of dissolved methane in the surface water from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf this summer as part of the International Siberian Shelf Study show an increased level of methane in the area. Geophysical measurements showed methane bubbles coming out of chimneys on the seafloor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t(http:\/\/www.iarc.uaf.edu\/highlights\/2008\/ISSS-08\/<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night I was doing bookkeeping for 2009, so I didn’t write anything. This morning I’m strapped for time, so this letter came out kind of blunt. I also included some footnotes for the first time. This was prompted by the scariest thing I have ever read, over at Daily Kos. January 14, 2010 Dear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,44],"tags":[94,98,95],"class_list":["post-502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-politics","tag-desperation","tag-ed-markey","tag-ping-into-the-wind"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6620,"href":"http:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions\/6620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}