Whatever we do the planet is doomed... dooomed!Boffin admissions on emissionsBy Sylvie BarakTuesday, 27 January 2009, 17:17A DEPRESSING new scientific study says climate change is almost certainly irreversible and that as carbon dioxide emissions increase, long-term environmental disruption will ensue.doomedSusan Solomon, author of the paper to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reckons whatever we do now, the damage that has already been caused will continue anyway.It would be nice to write Solomon off as slightly less melodramatic version of Al Gore, but sadly, it turns out she's one of the world's top climate scientists, working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.Talking to NPR, Solomon noted how most people simply imagined things would get back to normal within a hundred years or so if the human race stopped sullying up the planet with Co2. But she warned "What we're showing here is that's not right. It's essentially an irreversible change that will last for more than a thousand years".The basis for this pessimistic outlook lies at the bottom of the Ocean... literally. Solomon reckons the Planet's excess heat is being absorbed by Oceanic waters, for now, but that eventually, all that carbon dioxide and heat will be regurgitated in a process lasting hundreds of years.Solomon's study takes an acute look at how all this will affect sea level rise and drought in the long-term, and its not looking pretty, kids.The report warns that if we carry on as if it's all 'business as usual', even for just a few more decades, a huge and permanent dust-bowl could form over the Southwest USA and all across the Mediterranean. And, no, dust doesn't taste good in a pita.As tempting as it may be to raise our hands and declare it all a lost cause, Solomon says it is no time to do any such thing. She added "I guess if it's irreversible, to me it seems all the more reason you might want to do something about it". µ
does this mean we get to build those dome thingies from the movies ?
