The planetary populace may just not give a rat's ass.

The practice of slacking off when the 'end is in sight' is so common that HR managers call it short-timers disease. Almost everyone has either experienced or seen the results of Short Timers' Disease. It's the 'why should I give a rat's ass' approach to work those last few days/weeks on the job. Note that academia is at least smart enough to get things wrapped up rapidly after finals are complete. Short timers' disease is so frequently seen in business that whole courses in 'counseling' for it are provided to the HR industry. Odd that industries by and large foster the whole syndrome by demanding a 2 week or more notice period. One would think that if short timers disease was as destructive to the bottom line and larger morale as the HR training industry believes then the thing to do would be to get the departing employee gone as quick as is feasible.

But no, industry/corporations decide that notice is the way to 'manage' the separation phase of the business relationship.

Universe has given humans their notice. No, not a firing, but rather a notice to quit the premises. It might not be two weeks notice, and might be several years notice, but it is unlikely that given recent solar system events, it is decades notice or even 'many years' notice.

A great many articles in mainstream science publications, and even popular culture publications are referencing this notice, but always with the qualifiers somewhere with the content, that the notice is decades long. This is probably done as an unconscious response to short timers disease. After all, we wouldn't want humans to really grasp the probabilities for struggle, or the whole planet might start not giving a rat's ass.

Take for instance the article citing the rise in carbon dioxide to levels not seen in 55 million years, and the expected result of global glacial meltdown and a rise in sea level of 120+ METERS (393.6 feet). Article Link. Now we must note that such a sea level rise takes away approximately 8% of all usable land in North America alone. The NOAA graphic below shows the impact of an 8 meter (26feet)rise in sea level on the east coast of N. America.

And note that this is 8 meters or less than one 15th the expected level of rise of sea level. Now the two maps below show (crudely) the expected level of 393 feet in higher sea level and its impact on Puget Sound, WA State, USofA.

Puget Sound, as it is today, with 3790 kilometers of shoreline and almost all of the major population centers occupying some portion of that shoreline.. Average depth of the water is 140 meters with the average dry land height ten miles in from the edge of the sound being 345.9 feet. Now if we add another 120+ meters we get a wholly new configuration of the sound.

Although crude, the 120 meter increase line on the graphic above represents the new coast line of Puget Sound and was calculated by consultation with recent topological maps from DNR (Dept. Of Natural Resources, WA State). The point of course, is that this 8 per cent land loss, at least as illustrated by Puget Sound, includes MOST of the populated land within Puget Sound. Further, this sea level rise will impact over 65% of the population of the state.

So, when the 120 meter increase in sea level is applied to the North American continent, we will see an amazing change relative to human habitation where something over 40% of the population of the whole continent will be forced to relocate. The picture is even more staggering though when examined on a population center basis as such a sea level rise will inundate 90% of the population centers of the country (city by population count analysis).

Of course, sea level rise is but one impact of our current climatic period. As we note from the Guardian article:

Dr King described how the ice caps like those on Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, had been continuous for hundreds of thousands of years and survived through successive warm periods but were now expected to disappear in 30 to 40 years.

He said that the realisation of the scale of the crisis was what prompted him to say in January that climate change was a bigger threat than global terrorism. "We are moving from a warm period into the first hot period that man has ever experienced since he walked on the planet."

But even this article, which, for a mainstream publication, is pretty 'doomish', still references a multi-decade time period for the planet's notice to humans. And of course, there is the obligatory 'hope-full' language at the end of the article, but still, as these go, the hope element is small, and evidently forlorn. This is pretty much an in-your-face statement that humans are going to face extinction threats, without using those words. Nonetheless, the threat level has been tone down by the author through the multi-decade timeline. So humans are short-timers, just that the time frame is beyond what most humans will use for decision making, i.e. greater than 14 years.

It is necessary for the observant reader to note that this article and underlying studies do *NOT* take into account that the process affecting earth is also affecting all the other planets and planetary bodies within the solar system. Nor does this article (as with all that will show up in mainstream publications) take into account the probability that the process itself is accelerating. Nor does the article take into account events which are logically likely to occur which would also dramatically speed up the process under discussion.

With now several references and studies showing carbon dioxide at multi million year highs, one must note several points. First, we don't have a clue as to how high carbon dioxide levels can go as our sampling tool is ice, which was not to be found in anywhere on the planet the last time that carbon dioxide levels were this elevated. So there are no methods available to guide us in how the rise of carbon dioxide affects the planet after all the ice is gone. Second, we find that the current expectations for carbon dioxide rise are considering humans to be the prime source for the gas, and do not recognize the impact that sudden-release events within either the frozen methane fields within the oceans, nor the permafrost will have on CO2 levels. In point of fact, there are already measurements of methane levels increasing over all the areas of formerly permafrost now that both Alaska, and the Siberian north are melting.

What is conceived of as a multi-decade process has every potential and probable likelihood of 'tipping' over into a sub-decade process with any number of events. Evidence of sub-sea quakes 'stirring ' the release of methane already exists. And as noted within the daily pages here at HPH, the instances of earth cracking are increasing. As are points of evidence for the shutting down of the Gulf Stream (a catastrophic climate event), and the alteration of other ocean currents.

We even find that the projections of increase in global warming which is expected to 'set off' a trigger event such as the collapse of the supporting structure of the North Pacific Deep Methane Field (which would nearly double CO2 in the atmosphere) are likely predictable based on trends already observed.

As we can see from the graph, actual/observed CO2 levels are both ahead of, and at higher levels than those predicted by the computer models.

When overlayed with the range of temperatures at which many of the geo-scientists expect/predict a trigger event such as the release of methane (or glacial collapse), we arrive at the following graph.

As we can see from the chart above, reaching the 'trigger point' will not be a multi-decade process. Further, this chart and the computer model from which it is derived do *not* take into account pan-solar system effects, nor even the observable increase in radiation from the sun (nor the increase in the rate of increase). Nor of course is any computer model reacting to increased meteor impacts (which transfer energy to the atmosphere/planet), nor the rise in acidity of the oceans, which itself may help break down benthic methane structures. Or precipitate the shift of the Antarctic glacier (a new article coming on how that will occur).

Boiled down to a thick and syrupy mass, the evidence points to humans having received their short term notice to quit the premises....or? Perhaps the current period is best thought of as the short term notice to humans to change. NOT that change by humans will in any way divert, ameliorate, nor postpone, nor cancel the rapid approach of extinction of the species (amongst many many many other species also doomed), but rather a courtesy note from Universe to start fighting like hell, the survival of the species is at stake. Change by some humans may assist in their individual survival. And if enough smart humans survive (this time) the manifesting planetary change, then perhaps, the species will have enough remnants to reach the carry point and humans will survive into the second, and even third decade of the 21st century.

Funny, but somehow, didn't humans used to believe it would be their own arrogance and abuse of power (like nuclear war) that would take them out? Now the consensus emerging is that weather/climate, of all things, will be the species undoing. Of course, weather/climate is but a symptom of energy transfers, and as we observe now (since 1975), energy just keeps pouring into the solar system as it marches ever closer to the alignment with the galactic arm on December 23 of 2012. At some time between now and then, and likely to be found when the blue line trend (in the graph above) reaches a convergence with the left most third of the red box, all hell will break loose as all of humans, more or less all at once, learn they have Short Timer's Disease.

At that point, the species will exhibit two broad forms of behavior: there will those who get serious about species level survival (and all that implies), and those who just won't give a rat's ass.

Which will you be?

c'est fini

(in more ways than one)