Between 20 and 82 times as powerful a greenhouse gas as CO2, we - TopicsExpress

Between 20 and 82 times as powerful a greenhouse gas as CO2, we either are on the brink of or have already passed the point of no return on the release of an unstoppable and accelerating flow of methane from under the Arctic ice. This is not like an asteroid that someday might hit Earth over which we have no control. This is something we are doing to ourselves and the certainty that it is happening is definitely way over 50%. Some would say over 95%. If we buy home owners fire insurance when the risk of an event is way under 1%, why are we not acting on something where the risk of a catastrophic event is 50% or more? What ever happened to the precautionary principle? A 1998 consensus statement characterized the precautionary principle this way: “when an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically” ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1240435/pdf/ehp0109-000871.pdf I hope it is not too late.