Posted on October 25, 2018 in 5x5 Anniversary Feature, ASRC in the News, Environmental Sciences Initiative
Local governments can take steps to resist federal rollback of legislation meant to protect the climate, writes ASRC Environmental Science Initiative Professor Peter Groffman:
“Here is what is so alarming. Until now, nature has done a pretty astounding job of absorbing the greenhouse gases that we have been pouring into our atmosphere over the last 150 years. But a growing body of research shows that we may well be running out of miracles.
Recently, my colleagues and I at the Advanced Science Research Center at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York published evidence showing that increased precipitation brought on by climate change is making forest soil wetter and reducing its ability to absorb methane from the atmosphere.
Additional studies show that global warming and other man-made environmental changes are causing natural sources of methane trapped beneath lake sediments, wetlands, and Arctic permafrost to be released into the atmosphere.
Clearly, we have reached the point where it is no longer simply an issue of exhausting nature’s capacity to absorb our pollution. Now we must grapple with the knowledge that our continued emissions will spur a cause-and-effect loop that will accelerate the rate of climate change.”