Freakout!

I've been reading the latest book by the climate change guru, James Hansen. These quotes were new to me and hit me with the proverbial sledgehammer. 1,000 breeding pairs? That is virtual extinction and we've been there once already. It's the sort of intensely frightening scenario that I've heard James Lovelock suggest on ABC Radio National's Science Show. What have we got awaiting us, given we're doing nothing much about it.

“Twenty thousand years ago, sea level was 110 metres … lower than it is today, exposing my of the present continental shelves. The rate of sea level rise can be rapid once ice sheets begin to disintegrate, About 14,000 years ago, se level increased 4 to 5 metres per century for several consecutive centuries – an average rate of 1 meter every 20 or 25 years” p.38

“The decent our of Eemian warmth into ice age conditions must have been stressful on humans, even though it took thousands of years. Indeed, the final descent into full ice age conditions 70,000 years ago was rapid and coincided with the one near extinction of humans; as few as one thousand breeding pairs are estimated to have survived during the population bottleneck.” p.39

Storms of my grandchildren / James Hansen. London : Bloomsbury, 2009