Wednesday, 16 May 2012 17:45

Written by Robert Biller

My parents were part of the “Greatest Generation.” My generation will be remembered (not for very long) as the “Worst.” Why? Because, even though we were aware of the devastating effects of global warming and have the technology to combat it, we did nothing till it was too late. If the Arctic permafrost melts, and it will as global warming accelerates, it will release double the CO2 that is now in the earth’s atmosphere, and that’s not the worst part – the tundra contains unfathomable amounts of methane, and this greenhouse gas is 30 times more toxic (as far as we’re concerned) than carbon dioxide. So, when the permafrost gets soft enough, we’ll get stiff! And the threat of thawing is no reach because entire Alaskan towns have begun to shift in the softening terra unfirma. Geoengineering has devised methods to increase our atmosphere’s reflectivity (reversing global warming) and remove carbon dioxide, but without adequate funding and further research, the long-term effects and effectiveness of these approaches are unknown. If the permafrost melts too quickly, we are doomed! Read much, much more in a fine article by Michael Specter (“The Climate Fixers”) in the current “New Yorker.”