written 2 February, 2025
published 9 February, 2025
The 2021 fictional movie "Don't Look Up" portrays how humanity responds to the impending disaster of a comet about to impact the Earth. The entrenched status quo declared it "fake news", to calm the public and protect profits. More responsible people organized a global attempt to deflect the comet enough to avoid any impact. At the last minute, wealthy voices, seduced by the value of the rare minerals in the comet, derailed that attempt. Instead of changing trajectory, the goal became capturing the comet. That failed, and everyone died.
"Don't Look Up" is a metaphor for the climate crisis, which our current "leader" labels as "fake news". Addicted to protecting short term corporate profits, he is working to undo the modest efforts of the previous administration.
But the changes in the Arctic Ocean are real. The Northwest Passage, once completely frozen solid, was first transited by 3 icebreakers in 1957. The Arctic is warming 3-4 times faster than the rest of the planet, with diminishing summer ice cover each year. The first summer with an ice-free route was in 2007, and cruise ships now occasionally make the passage.
The potential economic opportunities are huge, as passage through the Arctic, from China to Europe, is twice as quick as current routes using the Panama or Suez Canals, which are often congested. Further, vast mineral and fossil fuel deposits could be exploited as the ice recedes. China and Russia are very interested, which explains why our "leader" is now threatening to make Canada another state, and invade Greenland, offending two of our traditional allies. National Security is the excuse, but greed is the driver. However, like the misguided wealthy in the movie, a fundamental disaster is being completely ignored, risking everyone.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is a known greenhouse gas. Humans have changed the atmospheric chemistry, added over 1,000 billion tons of fossil carbon in the last 75 years, heating the planet an additional 1.6°C. Atmospheric CO2 lasts for millennium, and the heating effect lags behind the atmospheric content by about a decade, so even if we stopped adding more today (which is NOT happening), the planet will slowly continue to heat up.
But methane (CH4) is another important greenhouse gas. It is a smaller part of the atmosphere, and breaks down into CO2 within a decade, but over that short interval it is 80-120 times more potent than CO2 at heating the planet. Natural methane is the byproduct of anerobic bacterial action, so wet lands, rice paddies, landfills, and herbivore belches contribute, but they recycle existing atmospheric carbon. Natural gas is fossil methane, buried for millions of years. As that industry expands, methane leakage increases. In 2005, natural gas fracking boomed and by 2007 atmospheric content of methane began increasing sharply.
But the looming disaster in the warming Arctic comes from long frozen methane in the vast area of permafrost and in the sea floor of the Arctic Ocean. These deposits have accumulated over millennium from buried bacterial action. Like frozen carbon dioxide (dry ice), frozen methane goes directly from solid to gas when heated. With increasing frequency, when frozen methane in permafrost warms and turns to gas, it blows out visible craters on the surface.
The Arctic Ocean is a shallow sea, with an average depth of about 100'. When the surface is covered with ice, as it has been for thousands of years, sunlight is reflected back, keeping the ocean floor cold, and the frozen sea floor methane remains stable. The concern is that when the ocean surface is ice free, the darker water absorbs heat, warming the shallow sea and eventually the ocean floor, turning the frozen methane to gas which then rises to the surface.
The Arctic is relatively unexplored, so the amount of frozen sea floor methane is estimated between 200 billion to 10,000 billion tons. If 1,000 billion tons of CO2 warmed the world by 1.6°C, then just 10 billion tons of methane would have the same impact. That is only 5 percent of the lowest estimated amount of sea floor methane, or less than 0.1 percent of the highest estimate. The heating impact would hit within months. Once any significant methane induced heating started, there would be nothing to stop the whole frozen mess coming to the surface.
GOP/MAGA institutionalizes denial, distracted by greed, domination, and petty revenge, ignoring issues that are rapidly corroding our economy and our civilization.
