{"id":394431,"date":"2019-01-29T00:12:58","date_gmt":"2019-01-28T23:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/we-are-destroying-our-life-support-system\/"},"modified":"2019-01-29T00:12:58","modified_gmt":"2019-01-28T23:12:58","slug":"we-are-destroying-our-life-support-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/we-are-destroying-our-life-support-system\/","title":{"rendered":"We Are Destroying Our Life Support System"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<aside class=\"series-card row\">\n<div class=\"series-image small-4 columns\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/truthout.org\/series\/climate-disruption-dispatches\/\"><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"200\" height=\"113\" src=\"https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/2018_0129n-cdd-200x113.jpg\" class=\"attachment-hd_thumbnail size-hd_thumbnail\" alt=\"Climate Disruption Dispatches\" srcset=\"https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/2018_0129n-cdd-200x113.jpg 200w, https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/2018_0129n-cdd-400x225.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\"\/><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>The warming of planet Earth continues apace, and the ramifications become ever more stunning with each passing month. While no single meteorological event or phenomenon can be attributed solely to human-caused climate disruption, this is now nearly always the leading cause of the event, or at the very least a major contributing factor.<\/p>\n<p>Recent data from the World Meteorological office showed that 2018 was the <a href=\"https:\/\/gallery.mailchimp.com\/daf3c1527c528609c379f3c08\/files\/47970344-dd9a-4eab-adb0-57cf80e4e841\/Draft_Statement_26_11_2018_v12_approved_jk.pdf\">fourth warmest on record<\/a>, making the last four years the <a href=\"https:\/\/gallery.mailchimp.com\/daf3c1527c528609c379f3c08\/files\/47970344-dd9a-4eab-adb0-57cf80e4e841\/Draft_Statement_26_11_2018_v12_approved_jk.pdf\">hottest four years<\/a> in Earth\u2019s recorded history.<\/p>\n<p>On that note, it is worth remembering that the single worst mass extinction event in Earth\u2019s history, the \u201cGreat Dying\u201d that happened 252 million years ago and took out as much as 96 percent of all marine species and two-thirds of terrestrial life, occurred <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2018\/dec\/06\/global-warming-extinction-report-the-great-dying?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other\">due to rapid planetary warming<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Another feedback loop has been discovered in the Arctic, this time in Greenland, where it was recently reported that melting glaciers are yet <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/greenland-has-yet-another-methane-leak\/\">another source of methane<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It was also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pnas.org\/content\/early\/2019\/01\/14\/1806562116\">recently revealed<\/a> that Greenland saw an \u201cunprecedented\u201d loss of ice over the last two decades. Another study by a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41586-018-0752-4\">US research team<\/a> had shown that the decade of 2004-13 experienced more sustained and intense melting there than during any other 10-year period in the 350-year record. This means that Greenland is contributing <a href=\"https:\/\/insideclimatenews.org\/news\/05122018\/greenland-ice-sheet-melting-tipping-points-sea-level-rise-climate-change-arctic-warming\">more to sea level rise<\/a> than previously understood, adding more than at any other time that record keeping has existed. Melt water runoff there has increased <a href=\"https:\/\/insideclimatenews.org\/news\/05122018\/greenland-ice-sheet-melting-tipping-points-sea-level-rise-climate-change-arctic-warming\">50 percent<\/a> since the industrial revolution began.<\/p>\n<div class=\"banner_wrapper\" style=\"\">\n<div id=\"banner-247291\" class=\"banner subscribe-banner  banner-247291 bottom vert custom-banners-theme-default_style\" style=\"\"><a class=\"custom_banners_big_link\" href=\"#\"\/><\/p>\n<div class=\"banner_caption\" style=\"\">\n<div class=\"banner_caption_inner\">\n<div class=\"banner_caption_text\" style=\"\">\n<p><strong>Never miss another story<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Get the news you want, delivered to your inbox every day.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Also recently, and even more shocking, ice loss from the Antarctic has sextupled since just the 1970\u2019s, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/energy-environment\/2019\/01\/14\/ice-loss-antarctica-has-sextupled-since-s-new-research-finds\/?noredirect=on&amp;utm_term=.f0784a5668f9\">another study<\/a>. This means ice loss has accelerated 480 percent in the last four decades. The study underscored how the gigantic East Antarctic ice sheet is already a giant contributor to sea level rise. This is alarming, given that this region was previously expected to be&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/truthout.org\/articles\/we-are-destroying-our-life-support-system\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The warming of planet Earth continues apace, and the ramifications become ever more stunning with each passing month. While no single meteorological event or phenomenon can be attributed solely to human-caused climate disruption, this is now nearly always the leading cause of the event, or at the very least a major contributing factor. Recent data [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":387699,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-394431","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}