The July 2018 episode of Nature Bats Last on The Progressive Radio Network covered two recent articles published by Professor Andrew Glikson from the Australian National University.
Professor Glikson was unable to connect for the live show so I read cruical aspects of the articles and have added my analysis and observations.
The audio is embedded here;
Central to the show was this article published in Global Research titled “The Methane Time Bomb and the Future of the Biosphere”.
Methane release from permafrost
“Early warnings are manifest. Expeditions along the East Siberian Arctic Shelf in 2011 led by the Russian scientists Igor Semiletov and Natalia Shakova identified a large number of km-size sea bed structures from which methane plumes were bubbling. The East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) is reported to be highly perforated and close to thawing”.
I quoted Joanna Macy from her article titled “The Greatest Danger” in context of talking about the severity of the multitude of crises we face; “Because of social taboos, despair at the state of our world and fear for our future are rarely acknowledged. The suppression of despair, like that of any deep recurring response, contributes to the numbing of the psyche.” As a “Blue Water” ocean sailing skipper, I am obliged to consider worst case scenarios and strategies in the event of a catastrophic failure of my vessel and the implications that could have for my passengers, crew and myself ( in that order). I suspect one of the reasons I am so involved and vocal in the climate/extinction crises, when most won’t even acknowledge their existence, is that my life experiences have prepared me for the unfolding shipwreck we are all experiencing. It’s not in my nature to avoid the issue, it would go against everything I have learned in 16 ocean passages and hundreds of coastal races and the experience of living in two war zones. The Greatest Danger
During the show the studio played my oral presentation to the N.Z. Government Ministry of the Environment in 2015
I will be making another submission to the “Ministry of the Environment” where I shall quote Canadian scientist William Rees. At the 1hr 10min mark William Rees says “The Scientifically neccessary is politically unfeasable. The politically feasable is scientifically irrelevant”.Therein lies the nub of the predicament we find ourselves in. Nothing being proposed is relevant to the severity of the multitude of converging crises we face.
“As glaciers melt, sea levels rise at an accelerate rate and intense hurricanes and wildfires increase, by a factor of ~3 since early in the 20th century, unthinkable consequences of runaway global warming and nuclear wars loom. A new Orwellian age of fake news, half-truths, cover-ups and false flags is becoming the order of the day. The Orwellian Climate and Faustian Bargain
Professor Glikson has agreed to be my guest on the 7th August at 3p.m. E.S.T. on Nature Bats Last on PRN.FM
Feel free to post any questions you’d like him to answer in the August episode directly in the comments section of this blog below.
The photo above is methane bubbles percolating through the water column to the surface in the Arctic.
Before taking your children on “The Trip of a Lifetime” consider this;
“Tourism, including flights, hotels, food and even the production of souvenirs, emitted the equivalent of 4.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2013, the most recent data available, or 8 percent of all man-made greenhouse gases, up from 3.9 billion in 2009, it said.” Indulging ourselves with tourism in a climate crisis is omnicide.
“Booming tourism emits 8 percent of greenhouse gases, study shows”.
Burning methane on frozen lakes is a sign of the times!
More information on the methane risk below courtesy of Paul Beckwith;
Bubble Bubble, Methane Trouble
I'm an anti-imperialist, environmental activist and blue ocean sailor, who is passionate about the earth and all it's inhabitants without favour. Brace for imminent impact as we bare witness to the non-linear unraveling of the biosphere and habitability disappearing for most if not all complex life on the only habitable planet we know of. To quote President Niinistö in North Russia: ‘If We Lose the Arctic, We Lose the World’. Folks we have lost the Arctic.
Kevin Hester 
Both images are powerful; it’s going to take powerful media to wake people up.
thanks for all of the links; the NBL is downloading, and I look forward to listening to it tonight.
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Reblogged this on The Brooklyn Culture Jam and commented:
Thank you for this. Reblogging because people still don’t get the methane issue. Great work!
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Your guest could not join, but what you presented is informative. Thanks.
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One of the many differences with the Triassic extinction is the rapidity of this one.
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https://atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/acp-2018-597/
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We write because we care. We choose our topics because they’re important. What I don’t hear more of (but good job in this article) is what the 7.6 billion people on the planet can do. We need to get better at inspiring social change.
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Robert Hunziker’s Part II of his ongoing piece ‘Three Climatic Monsters with Asteroid Impact’ went up today on counterpunch.org. Part II is dead on (pun intended) on the methane monster…
Everything bad is accelerating like a runaway train falling off a mountain from every direction I read into. This is…beyond frightening to be honest. This isn’t linear progression, it’s starting to look like orders of magnitude jumps from one state to another is trembling on the edge of reality in front of us.
Playamart Zeebra Designs: The media is owned and operated by 6 mega-corporations (6 extremely wealthy conservative white guys) in the US that are tied into the fossil fuels industry and right wing anti-climate science thinking. Just because they are rich doesn’t necessarily mean they are smart. So there already is an incredibly powerful and controlling media that a majority of people in this country listen to and then tie in FaceBlech and the rest of social media that piggybacks on how to think the ‘right way.’
We’re not going to find any help there, or very rarely and then only puff pieces that don’t connect the dots in any meaningful way. Expect nothing from these wealthy clowns.
Andy Cline: Yes, we care. Idealism isn’t dead just on life support. But people do not want to hear this. I can see the steel wall come down behind their eyes when I start saying anything about the climate. And this is from people who admit this is happening! They just don’t want to know. Even my longest & best surfer/lifetime friend says the best he hopes for is that his wife will die before he does and then it won’t matter…he accepts the reality but doesn’t want to change his lifestyle, either. They recently did a hop to Lanai from their home on Oah’u for a mountain club hike. Case in point; nobody is willing to tune down their lifestyles.
It’s a fear reaction from something so scary that the only cognitive response is to shut thinking down. As a Kenpo teacher for 30 years I’ve seen that from students (especially those that come to learn after having been badly beaten). An emotional trigger hits them and they just flat freeze. The hardest part is helping them get over that reaction and it’s a tough one in karate. This is harder..
With the on-going and accelerating climate collapse/chaos/disaster/catastrophe (NEVER the bullcrap word ‘change’) how can we possibly break through that wall? And honestly, isn’t it too late to truly make the drastic changes that are needed to even somewhat mitigate what is roaring down on us? The positive feedbacks are going to be…stunning I’m thinking. Already are….
Haven’t flown in an airplane since 1998 and made the choice to not buy a new vehicle in 2006 but installed a 7kWt passive system with the money. I drive an average of 40 miles a week during the dry season (Spring-Fall). No pesticides layered across this ridgeline property since I bought it nearly 15 years ago and have used bio-control for the horribly invasive Chinese Knapweed that infests these mountains and my property. Wish I could post a picture of what has changed since 2008 when I released the flying knapweed weevils. Incredible! Flowers and plants and bushes and…it’s healing. And I’m the ‘go-to’ guy in this area about climate; was told by a die-hard Republican a few years ago that I’m the only ‘liberal’ (I’m NOT that right wing) he’ll listen to about it. I guess it was a compliment.
I talk to the kids about it. They don’t shut down like adults do and actually ask questions. Intelligent questions. The snowboarder kids I have taught each winter make a considerable base in this small mountain community…and many are now adults with families and still ask questions. Small steps when we need huge ones but any is better than walking backwards on this reality.
92’F at 10am this morning in the mountains at 49’North latitude. 100’F by 2pm yesterday afternoon. It’s been blistering here…August weather in June into July.
sealintheSelkirks
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“This 60 percent difference between our new estimate and the EPA’s current one can have profound climate consequences.”
No shit sherlock!!
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/the-u-s-natural-gas-industry-is-leaking-way-more-methane-than-previously-thought
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“The study, published this month in Geophysical Research Letters, uses computer modeling to investigate the impression that noctilucent clouds are occurring more often. Led by Franz-Josef Lübken (Leibniz Institute of Atmospheric Physics), the authors conclude that the number of times an observer at a given middle-to-high-latitude spot might see a noctilucent cloud has increased from once every few decades in the 1800s to once or more per year today. During preindustrial times, they add, the very brightest and most visible noctilucent clouds might have been seen only once every few centuries.”
https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Methane-Giving-Noctilucent-Clouds-Boost
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Dahr Jamail on methane from 2017
https://www.sott.net/article/391835-Methane-time-bomb-Study-warns-of-apocalyptic-release-of-Arctic-methane
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As the ecocidal fossil fuel companys continue to look for fuel that we already know we cannot burn we will see more leakage from these submarine reserves just as we see on their terrestrial fields.
One of my multitude of concerns is the possibility of a ‘blow out’ at depth.
A pressing issue with a methane ‘blowout’ could well be near instantaneous warming.
In this weeks episode of Nature Bats Last on The Progressive Radio Network I will be re-interviewing Professor Andrew Glikson from the ANU about his recent publications on methane and we’ll address this possibility.
https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/china-searches-for-more-gas-hydrates-in-south-china-sea#gs.Tb7hQpA
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“Faster than expected” will be the epitaph of the human species virtual tombstone.
http://www.highnorthnews.com/thawing-permafrost-releases-more-methane-than-expected/
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Another day, another feedback loop.
https://news.uaf.edu/abrupt-thaw-of-permafrost-beneath-lakes-could-significantly-affect-climate-change-models/
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“Strange Lakes Are Speeding Up Arctic Permafrost Melt, And That’s Really Bad News”
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-arctic-permafrost-is-melting-strange-thermokarst-lakes-climate-change-abrupt-melting
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The latest bad news from Sam Carana at the Arctic News Blog;
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Coming ready or not!
https://robinwestenra.blogspot.com/2018/08/methane-methane-emissions-from-laptec.html?spref=fb
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More recent evidence;
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2018/08/more-and-bigger-sinkholes-yamal-tundra#.W5AWqWkzqJJ.facebook
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Robertscribbler is forced to come to the methane party that he has been avoiding like the rest. The data doesn’t lieuntil they intervene which they have in the past and could quite likely do again in the future, why wouldn’t they when the stakes are so high.
https://robertscribbler.com/tag/natalia-shakhova/
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So much methane, so little time.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/arctic-lakes-are-bubbling-and-hissing-with-dangerous-greenhouse-gases/?utm_term=.c053d44a38eb
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“Putting it all together, Collins says, this means that climate change projections such as those from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have been underestimating the effects of methane.”
Same old, same old, ongoing underestimation of the methane risk!
https://cosmosmagazine.com/climate/jupiter-and-titan-findings-underpin-troubling-news-about-earth-methane-emissions
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Reblogged this on AGR Daily 60 Second News Bites.
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Hunziker with a new deadly warning on Methane release…out of Siberian ROCKS. Are you freaking kidding me?
Siberia’s Hot Streak
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/10/04/siberias-hot-streak/
sealintheSelkirks
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And now we find out that GHG/Methane releases by Big Oil are far worse. WHY am I not surprised?
First in a 4-part series about methane flaring. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry our little heads over, eh?
How Greenhouse Gases Released by the Oil and Gas Industry Far Exceed What Regulators Think They Know
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24022022/texas-natural-gas-flaring-venting
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There’s always more we don’t know, isn’t there Kevin?
sealintheSelkirks
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OOPS!
“Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are now comparable to where they were during the mid-Pliocene epochoffsite link, around 4.3 million years ago. ”
Think about that for a few seconds. My brain is saying WHAAAA? From this link:
NOAA: Methane feedback loop from rainfall over tropical wetlands-methane levels shatter all records
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/4/15/2092117/-NOAA-Methane-feedback-loop-from-rainfall-over-tropical-wetlands-methane-levels-shatter-all-records
Not much I can add to this little nugget of information.
sealintheSelkirks
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