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Among the latest front, yet another (strong) piece of evidence of the cascading impacts of climate change on eco-systems around the world and the global eco-system’s ability to sustain modern human civilization, scientists have laid out how Lake Tanganyika is heating at an unprecedented rate (at least of 1500 years of scientific analysis) and that this heating is driving down productivity.

In reaction to this, thoughtful blogger DWG commented:

This is yet another canary in the coal mine with a fever.

With frog species disappearing … with coral reefs bleaching … salamanders disappearing … glaciers melting … sea level rising … precipitation increasing and increasingly in large events … temperatures warming decade to decade … considering all of these, the comment drove me to this reaction:

When are we simply past the “canary in the coal mine” analogy?  Haven’t all the canaries already died?

“Canary in a coal mine” is a powerful image. As Clem put it,

For decades, how closely a coal miner paid attention to the canary in the coal mine was, literally, the difference between life and death. Today, the “canary in the coal mine” is a more sophisticated set of man-made monitors and biological indicators, but just as important for our long term health and welfare.

“Canary in the coal mine” is an issue of life or death …

“Canary in the coal mine” is used, in no small part, to refer to a harbinger of the future.

“One small event in an isolated area may not seem especially noteworthy, but it may offer the first tangible warning of a larger problem developing.”

What we are seeing are harbingers of a future dominated by the impacts of catastrophic climate chaos, less productive and disrupted ecosystems, disappearing species, changing habitation patterns, etc … The increasing number and complexity of the implications of climate change that we already seeing are ‘harbingers’ of far worse ‘future’ problems if we don’t begin acting seriously, well, yesterday.

But, “first tangible warming” from “one small event in an isolated area” … How many sick, dying, and dead canaries in the global warming mine must we see, must slap in the face as a human civilization before we begin to act seriously.

Sadly, the appropriate analogy for humanity might be a group of miners desperately seeking to eek out ‘just one more ton’ of coal even as the canaries collapse in the cages surrounding them.

As per DWG,

The canaries are dead and the pelicans are oiled. It all feels like a slow motion wreck. People seem to forget that the climate models have been wrong in terms of predicting adverse environmental effects – the effects are happening far more rapidly than the models  predicted. We have assumed a liner trajectory when the effects have behaved exponentially. We need to scream louder for clean energy and hope the powers that be finally listen.