What Environmental Reporting Leaves Out

[CRH]

17. If the patterns of the climate shift so rapidly, ...

that no historical records or farmers almanacs can help determine parameters of what to plant, when to plant, or where to plant; what more could define chaos? We do not need an instant apocalypse, to define chaos. Where should I build the next hydroelectric plant, where will the rainfall be, and when, and how much, and for how many years? Will this period of the unknown be temporary and settle out into a new normal, or will it continue to evolve and defy our schedules, and develop into different realities, henceforth from some condition we are presently unaware? You talk with certainty how the climate works, and how sudden shifts are unlikely or not possible. What can you base this on if some known parameters are no longer valid?

By very definition, there is no predicting, chaos. Yet through your rose colored glasses, you attempt to do just that. You talk with great certainty of how the climate works; from what pretense? Past experience, recorded history, religious fervor? What is your basis, that permits you to make statements of certainty, when many known parameters of the climate are likely to be, rendered obsolete? What effects will new ocean currents, wind currents, warming or cooling patterns, ocean acidification, percentages in atmospheric gases, have on not just weather patterns and rainfall, but on plant, animal, bacterial, or viral; growth, life and or death. What will be their resulting, consequent effect on ecosystems and an evolving climate trying to stabilize over what, a decade, century, millennium, or longer?

Will the change happen so fast our solutions will be out paced?

You seem to be an optimist beyond reason of what is happening in front of you today. I don't want to tell you this is unrealistic or pop your balloons. However, perhaps you should examine what you feel is certain today, under a different set of tools, a set of tools that accounts for the changes in the dynamics of your known world and past experiences. Because quite simply, humankind is entering into a new reality not tied to past occurrence, with variables so vast possibilities are incalculable.