Why the time is NOW

From Field Notes from a Catastrophe (Amazon link to hardcover, paperback to be released just after Christmas), by Elizabeth Kolbert

[A]s the ice sheet melted, it didn't so much shrink as start to accelerate. Thus, in the summer of 1996, the ice around Swiss Camp [an observation post on the Greenland ice sheet] moved at a rate of thirteen inches per day, but, in 2001, it had sped up to twenty inches per day.

[T]he acceleration of the Greenland ice sheet suggests yet another feedback mechanism: once an ice sheet begins to melt, it starts to flow faster, which means it also thins out faster, encouraging further melt... [I]f greenhouse gas emissions are not controlled, the total disintegration of the Greenland ice sheet could be set in motion in a matter of decades.

Why should this matter to us? Well...

All told, the Greenland ice sheet holds enough water to raise sea levels by twenty-three feet. Scientists at NASA have calculated that throughout the 1990s the ice sheet, despite some thickening at the center by twelve cubic miles per year.

And the author makes the following ominous statement, that it is unclear how long it will take for the ice sheet to melt sufficiently so as to cause the full consequences to be felt, but...

once [significant melting is] begun it would become self-reinforcing, and hence virtually impossible to stop.

If we do not get a handle on climate change in the short term, the long term may not matter. The planet is a system, a system that seeks balance. We may cause the Earth to find a new balance if we do not bring immediate change to our behavior.

The planet is also a gift. It is a creation given to us by God, and bequeathed to us by generations past. Will we pass on the gift in all its glory, or only a degraded and possibly dangerous version of the gift? The time to decide is NOW.

GP