Metaphor Reality

December 1, 2015

2010HanDarkly-overcast this Tuesday afternoon on California’s north coast, an apt environment for supposed rainstorms cruising our way — we’re forecast for some heavy precipitation all this week, with a big gusher slated for Wednesday.
Leading edge of the newest weather front is predicted for this evening. Outside right now, all appearances indicate any time.

As world leaders meet in Paris this week for COP21, the UN climate conference, apparently they all seem to feel a grandiose-need to hitch-a-metaphor to the proceedings, which to the Guardian, is oratorical-produced variations of, “The eyes of the world are upon us,” increasing the drama with politics.

Of course, the eyes of the future is what’s at stake.

(Illustration found here).

Even as the wordsmiths of nations depart Paris after bullshitting for a couple of days, government negotiators begin the task of working up some type agreement, though, what kind is elusive. And it’s all ‘pledges,’ as if that was worth shit.
Maybe all wind in the talk: ‘“It’s back to the nitty gritty,” said Alden Meyer, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, adding the opening day was “all good but that does not resolve the crunch issues.”

The problem is the problem of climate change won’t be handled via pledges. Even as these people gather-up, more environmental shit comes along — a new study released just today, oxygen levels may be a greater threat to humanity than flooding/sea-level rise, according to the research from the University of Leicester, published in Bulletin of Mathematical Biology.
Details from ThinkPol, and Sergei Petrovskii, Professor in Applied Mathematics from the University of Leicester’s Department of Mathematics:

“Global warming has been a focus of attention of science and politics for about two decades now,” Professor Petrovskii explained.
“A lot has been said about its expected disastrous consequences; perhaps the most notorious is the global flooding that may result from melting of Antarctic ice if the warming exceeds a few degrees compared to the pre-industrial level.
“However, it now appears that this is probably not the biggest danger that the warming can cause to the humanity.”
“About two-thirds of the planet’s total atmospheric oxygen is produced by ocean phytoplankton — and therefore cessation would result in the depletion of atmospheric oxygen on a global scale,” he added.
“This would likely result in the mass mortality of animals and humans.”
“About two-thirds of the planet’s total atmospheric oxygen is produced by ocean phytoplankton – and therefore cessation would result in the depletion of atmospheric oxygen on a global scale,” he added.
“This would likely result in the mass mortality of animals and humans.”
The team developed a new model of oxygen production in the ocean that takes into account basic interactions in the plankton community, such as oxygen production in photosynthesis, oxygen consumption because of plankton breathing and zooplankton feeding on phytoplankton.
While mainstream research often focuses on the CO2 cycle, as carbon dioxide is the agent mainly responsible for global warming, few researchers have explored the effects of global warming on oxygen production.

Last week, I noted the growth of microscopic marine alga — plankton — in our oceans at a staggering rate, supposedly linked to the high-rise of CO2 in sea water: ‘“Something strange is happening here, and it’s happening much more quickly than we thought it should,” said Anand Gnanadesikan, associate professor in the Morton K. Blaustein Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Johns Hopkins and one of the study’s five authors.’
Read the background on that shit at Phys.org.

Maybe, an allegory of Paris…

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