Image by Annie Spratt.
“We are running the most dangerous experiment in history right now, which is to see how much carbon dioxide the atmosphere can handle before there is an environmental catastrophe.” (Elon Musk interview, Icons: Elon Muck Doesn’t Let Up at Tesla, SpaceX, USA Today, April 17, 2013)
Dear Elon, it has started.
The following is the most alarming/frightening study in over a decade, ever since y0u predicted the likelihood of “an environmental catastrophe.” Congratulations on your clairvoyance ahead of the curve.
International Study Team shaken by World Glacier Meltdown
Trouble is brewing throughout the planet with glaciers across the world melting at an astounding rate. This is much more serious than just one more bad news climate change event; it is a formidable threat that’s already in motion in early stages, happening now, and in a big way, with the public likely blindsided by much faster sea level rise as well as drastic loss of freshwater resources. This is where climate change hits the ground running.
“Glaciers are losing ice at an accelerating rate, threatening global sea levels and freshwater supplies. A massive international effort has tracked this loss over two decades, revealing that glaciers lost 273 billion tonnes of ice per year on average, with a drastic 36% increase in recent years.” (The Great Glacier Meltdown Uncovered – 273 Billion Tonnes of Ice Lost Annually, SciTechDaily, Feb. 22, 2025).
Advanced satellite data collaborated by 35 international teams spent 20 years researching world glacier conditions. The results are a frightening combination of massive acceleration, “surged significantly over the last decade,” and assured risks to freshwater supplies. This climate change event threatens the substance and foundation of civilization.
Climate change is not a tongue-in-the-cheek issue as treated by several well-known politicians, who should know better. This is not a grade-school event; it’s serious grownup Ph.D. stuff, threatening and accelerating beyond all normal reason or logic. Forget NetZero 2050; it may prove to be useless. It’s happening now right under our noses.
Staggering Volume of Ice Disappearing
“At the start of the study period in 2000, glaciers (excluding the massive ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica) covered 705,221 square kilometers and contained an estimated 121,728 billion tonnes of ice… with regional declines varying from 2% in the Antarctic and Subantarctic Islands to a striking 39% in Central Europe.” (The Great Glacier Meltdown Uncovered – 273 Billion Tonnes of Ice Lost Annually, SciTechDaily, Feb. 22, 2025.
As stated, “A striking 39% decline in Central Europe.” This is kinda like the bottom falling out, and it is doubtful that the following Euro news item will be a one-off headline: In Pictures: Europe’s Mighty Rivers Are Drying Up in the Climate-Driven Drought, EuroNews, Nov. 8, 2022.
“The rate of ice loss has escalated over time. While the average annual loss stands at 273 billion tonnes, this figure increased by 36% in the second half of the study period (2012–2023) compared to the first half (2000–2011) … Over the full study period, glacier ice loss was 18% greater than that of the Greenland Ice Sheet and more than twice the loss from Antarctica’s Ice Sheet, underscoring the critical role glaciers play in global sea-level rise,” Ibid.
The 20-year study employed field measurements, optical, radar, laser and gravimetry satellite missions. Satellite observations included those from the US Terra/ASTER and ICESat-2, the US–German GRACE, the German TanDEM-X and ESA’s CryoSat missions, among others. This produced an annual time series of data from multiple sources for all glacier regions globally from 2000 to 2023 over which time glaciers collectively lost 6,542 billion tonnes of ice.
Significant Fresh Water Loss
“In addition to rising sea levels, glacier melt represents a significant loss of regional freshwater resources. To put this in perspective, the 273 billion tonnes of ice lost annually amounts to what the entire global population consumes in 30 years, assuming three liters per person and per day,” noted glaciologist Prof. Zemp,” Ibid.
Glaciers are vital freshwater resources, especially for local communities in Central Asia and the Central Andes, where glaciers dominate runoff during warm and dry seasons: Water Scarcity in ASEAN: An Urgent Call for Action, ModernDiplomacy, June 27, 2024. Glaciers are the water towers of the world.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks on the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation in New York, March 22, 2023:
“And consider the vast mountainous glaciers in nearly every continent. In Asia, for example, 10 major rivers originate in the Himalaya region, supplying freshwater to 1.3 billion people living in its watershed. President Rahmon has long warned about the devastation from melting glaciers on communities and people alike. We’ve already seen how Himalayan melts have worsened flooding in Pakistan.”
“As glaciers and ice sheets continue to recede over the coming decades, major Himalayan rivers like the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra will feel the impact — seeing their flows reduced. On top of that, rising sea levels combined with saltwater intrusion will decimate large parts of these huge deltas.”
“In fact, a new compilation of data released by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned that global average sea levels have already risen faster since 1900 than over any preceding century in the last 3,000 years.”
“Unless we reverse this trend, the consequences will be catastrophic. Low-lying communities and entire countries could be erased forever. We would witness mass movements of entire populations — and fierce competition for water and land. And disasters would accelerate worldwide — including floods, droughts and landslides. Losing these giants would be a giant problem for our world.”
Glacier Study Results vis a vis IPCC AR6 (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Sixth Assessment Report) “Altogether, our observations and recent modelling studies indicate higher projected glacier mass loss than the estimates from IPCC AR6. We are, therefore, facing continued and possibly accelerated mass loss until the end of this century. This underpins the IPCC’s call for urgent and concrete actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”(Community Estimate of Global Glacier Mass Changes from 2000 to 2023, Nature, Feb. 19, 2025)
Yet, in the face of reams of scientific data of how tenuously civilization exists within the raging madness of climate change, the United States backs out of the Paris 2015 nations of the world climate agreement, major corporations quit climate change mitigation plans, oil and gas companies stridently increase production of CO2 emissions well beyond earlier promises, and Germany scales back its climate mitigation plans.
As for example, sample headlines: (1) Germany Set to Scale Down Climate Ambitions, Bloomberg News, Feb. 16, 2025 (2) Trump Ends Climate Work Inside Agency That Responds to Disasters, Bloomberg, Feb. 15, 2025 (3) Empty Promises: Oil & Gas Decarbonization Charter Masks Massive Fossil Fuel Expansion, Zero Carbon Analytics, Nov. 13, 2024 (4) Companies Are Scaling Back Sustainability Pledges, Harvard Business Review, Aug. 20, 2024.
Just as climate change turns into a devastating monster, following the script of Elon’s projection of “environmental catastrophe,” key players “head for the hills” to avoid commitments. Conclusively, people need to brace for a world climate system that becomes so vicious, given enough time, life may become nearly meaningless. Already, the world’s leading climate scientists James Hansen, reinforcing Elon’s foresight, has declared the “IPCC’s 2C ceiling not to be exceeded” DOA.
Frankly, the world can’t handle 2C above pre-industrial. Look at what’s happening at 1.5C over the past 12-16 months. Insurance companies are going batshit with rates, canceling coverage on both coasts, and homeowners’ insurance costs price buyers out of the market.
There are hundreds of headlines about how badly climate change is impacting the economy and normal life patterns, for example: Move Over, Florida, Retirees are Making New Plans as Climate Change Raises Costs, Barron’s, Feb. 13, 2025: “Beth McCormack recently called off her search to buy a home in Florida. The Chicago attorney decided that prices were too high, especially given the expensive homeowners’ insurance she would need to buy.”
Widespread avoidance of the human-caused climate change issue is killing capitalism by a thousand cuts. In fact, over a decade ago Elon saw it coming in his 2013 interview: “We are running the most dangerous experiment in history right now…” But the “environmental catastrophe” he foresaw looks to be starting much earlier than expected. Oh, by the way, how are things over at the EPA?
Source: Counter Punch
