The rate of release of carbon into the atmosphere today is nearly 10 times as fast as during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), 55.9 million years ago, the best analog we have for current global warming, according to an international team of geologists. Rate matters and this current rapid change may not allow sufficient time for the biological environment to adjust.

“We looked at the PETM because it is thought to be the best ancient analog for future climate change caused by fossil fuel burning,” said Lee R. Kump, professor of geosciences, Penn State….

“Rather than the 20,000 years of the PETM which is long enough for ecological systems to adapt, carbon is now being released into the atmosphere at a rate 10 times faster,” said Kump. “It is possible that this is faster than ecosystems can adapt.”

That’s the Penn State news release for a major new study in Nature Geoscience, “Slow release of fossil carbon during the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum” (subs. req’d).

Again, this bad news isn’t big news to Climate Progress readers.  A year ago I wrote about a different Nature Geoscience study, which found our oceans are acidifying 10 times faster today than 55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred.  And the UK’s Royal Society  published a 2010 paper that noted, “Palaeotemperature proxy data from across the PETM indicate a coincident increase in global surface temperatures of approximately 5-6°C,”  which is to say 9° – 11°F.

In short, whatever we do, we don’t want to duplicate the conditions of the PETM.   Unfortunately,  the new study finds human are actually pushing the climate system 10 times harder than it was pushed during the PETM by natural forcings.

The new study does come with a number of caveats, as would be expected for any analysis of such a long time ago.  Here’s more from the news release:

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The presumptive front-runner is a professional flip-flopper, from his opposition to the Obama healthcare reform bill that his Massachusetts plan inspired to his embrace of the car company bailout he once rejected.

I’m coining a new term for the politician who points in all directions simultaneously, who is omni-directional.

What’s interesting is that in contrast to the large group of  national GOP climate zombies who reject the science and don’t want to take action, there is an emerging Romney-directional group who claim they believe in climate science but don’t want to take action:

• GOP contender Jon Huntsman stuns right by embracing climate science, but still tries to appease them by flip-flopping to oppose any action
• Confused Chris Christie embraces climate science, rejects climate action

Unsurprisingly, Romney is now in the latter group.  He told voters in New Hampshire that the world is getting warmer, humans are contributing, and “it’s important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases.”  Here’s the video via TP Green:

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While officials throughout the U.S. Department of Homeland Security scramble to deal with a torrent of extreme climate disasters, the Tea Party-controlled House of Representatives has voted to cripple their response. In a nearly party-line vote of 242 to 180 on Thursday, the House adopted an amendment by Rep. John Carter (R-TX) to prohibit the Department of Homeland Security from participating in the Obama administration’s Interagency Task Force on Climate Change Adaptation. Carter justified his amendment by saying DHS — which includes the U.S. Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) — should focus on the Mexican border instead of “duplicating the work” of agencies that monitor climate change and greenhouse pollution:

“Why, at a time when our nation is running a public debt of over $14 trillion, should the Department of Homeland Security be spending money on a Climate Change Adaptation Task Force?” he said, adding that the money would be better spent securing the southern border with Mexico. “These are the priorities that the Secretary should be focusing on — not wasting time duplicating the work of the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.”

“Disaster planning is a form of climate change adaptation,” the Task Force on Climate Change Adaptation’s October 2010 progress report recognizes.The task force, mandated by President Barack Obama in executive order 13514 to develop a “U.S. strategy for adaptation to climate change,” has already produced a national action plan for managing freshwater resources in a changing climate. FEMA has the critical mission of revising the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and the Coastal Construction Manual to reflect the impacts of global warming on sea level rise, storms, and floods.

The work of the climate adaptation task force, including the Department of Homeland Security, to mobilize our nation against climate disasters is desperately needed:

– The U.S. Coast Guard has closed a more than 180-mile stretch of the Missouri River due to flood levels that are expected to last the entire summer.

– FEMA is handling 37 presidential major disaster declarations, 7 emergency declarations, and 57 fire management assistance declarations for 2011 — before the hurricane season has begun. These disasters include May’s tornado outbreaks, the raging wildfires of Texas and Arizona, the killer snowstorms of February and March, and flooding from North Dakota to Mississippi.

The Republican Party is doing its utmost to cripple our nation’s ability to prepare for and respond to climate disasters. At Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s behest, House GOP slashed clean energy investments to pay for emergency disaster relief following the Joplin and Tuscaloosa tornadoes. They cut the DHS disaster preparedness budget, including firefighter funding, in half (after Democrats raised an outcry, some firefighter grants were restored). They have blocked funding for the NOAA Climate Service, and slashed money for critical weather satellites. In states throughout the nation, conservatives are gutting clean-energy programs and attacking climate science, while local emergency services budgets are stripped to the bone.

With the security of our homeland under the clear and present threat of global warming, conservatives are choosing to cripple our defenses, simply to serve the obscene profits of climate polluters.

The Koch Industries front group Americans for Prosperity is preparing a tour across America “aimed at trying to put the blame for high gas prices on the Obama administration.” The tour will feature multiple campaign-style rallies, a website, and radio and television advertisements. The tour will demand that Obama increase domestic drilling — even though domestic oil production is at an all time high and further drilling will do nothing to affect prices.

Koch’s relaunch of Drill Baby Drill appears to be a crass attempt to distract Americans from a true driver of high prices: oil speculation, coming from companies like Koch. In fact, a new ThinkProgress investigation of Koch’s oil speculation business reveals that Koch is perhaps the most important player in distorting oil markets for private profit.

Our report highlights:

– Koch’s role in inventing modern oil derivatives.

– Koch’s alliance with Enron and the Gramm family in deregulating oil speculation, first in the early ’90s then again ten years later.

– Koch’s participation in unregulated exchanges, and the ways in which it uses its political power to allow excessive oil speculation to continue.

Experts contacted by ThinkProgress pin the blame for sky-high prices and record volatility on excessive oil speculation, the oil market corrupted by unregulated Wall Street traders who buy and hold onto oil futures contracts with no interest in the actual delivery of oil. Koch Industries — generally known as an oil pipelines and refining company — is also on the forefront of speculating on oil for profit.

Even Goldman Sachs concedes that at least $27 of the price of crude this year has been a result of rampant speculation, not supply and demand. Other experts contacted by ThinkProgress have said the number is closer to fifty dollars. To read our report about Koch Industry’s long and sordid history in the oil speculation business, click here.