This month’s open thread. It’s coming to the end of the year and that means updates to the annual time series of observations and models relatively soon. Suggestions for what you’d like to see assessed are welcome… or any other climate science related topic.
> Edward Griesch
Look, you’re now going on and on about nuclears in _two_ active topics here. Failure to contain the stuff is the whole problem.
Work on containment. Show you know how to control it.
You’ve been invited repeatedly to bravenewclimate where you’d get the attention you warrant.
McPherson may go overboard on a few issues, but things are getting very dire indeed.
Hansen, K.Anderson of Tyndall, IEA, Potsdam Institute, World Bank, PTC, and many others are predicting very bad things (global temps from 2-6 degrees C above background) by about the end of the century if we don’t make very radical changes right away. And those kind of changes do not seem to be in the cards right now.
246 James
Just google “McPherson” on the search bar. I just checked his Climate Arguments. Most of what he “presents” has actually been well known by the scientific community for years. He misreads and overinterprets / exaggerates most of his stuff, and references utter nonsense, like….
“(….. )John Davies concludes: “The world is probably at the start of a runaway Greenhouse Event which will end most human life on Earth before 2040.” He considers only atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, not the many self-reinforcing feedback loops described below. (……) (due to) methane release from the Arctic Ocean — Sam Carana expects up to 20 C warming by 2050. Small wonder atmospheric methane can cause such global catastrophe considering its dramatic rise during the last few years, as elucidated by Carana on 5 December 2013 in the figure below.”
Just to name some of the most extreme samples. Apart from that:
“…atmospheric oxygen levels are dropping to levels considered dangerous for humans, particularly in cities”
“the ultra-conservative International Energy Agency concludes that, “coal will nearly overtake oil as the dominant energy source by 2017 … without a major shift away from coal, average global temperatures could rise by 6 degrees Celsius by 2050, leading to devastating climate change.”
“Earthquakes trigger methane release, and consequent warming of the planet triggers earthquakes, as reported by Sam Carana at the Arctic Methane Emergency Group (October 2013)”
Check the references and the articles he mentions for yourself. Most of his “feedbacks” are not nearly as extreme as he makes them appear to be.
I do not know why he says all this nonsense (though many of the articles he links to are good science), but I am really disturbed by how many people uncritically believe his stuff.
It might perhaps be helpful if one of the moderators comments on McPhersons twaddle, as it really appears that he “attracts” many people. Although Gavin, David and the others probably do have enough to do, it would probably be a good way to get many people back to their senses if a real climate scientist clarifies this here (McPherson is NOT a climate scientist btw, he is an ecologist who never published anything on climate change).
Re radiation and geiger counters
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sdlha6H5s6E
http://blog.safecast.org/
We can not (public information) say that for certain, but there could be a sudden outburst somewhere within the next years, but probably much lower than the 50 GT mentioned. BUT in the long run this certainly needs more attention (decades). And after 2100 all bets are off (so far) … BUT we might pass a point when things get out of control /because of the slow climate inertia), even if we reduce emissions. And that is why we have to follow the precautionary principle when making decisions.
We just had the warmest November on record and this certainly means something positive feedback wise. (Think record sea ice lose, further acceleration of SLR, increased precipitation, increased wildfires…).
To James: This is strictly my own opinion and represents NO ONE else’s. But it arrives from a life’s accumulation of both science theory and personal experiences in a beautiful rain forest system in western Oregon. It’s one person’s viewpoint only, which must by needs be provincial in scope.
Climate knowledge is growing rapidly now and while there still remain some interesting challenges to the status quo on certain points (for example, exactly how it is that CO₂ and CH₄ started rising some 5000 years ago, if not by human impacts, or how it is that humans overwhelmed expected gradual declines and added enough to achieve those rises that far back) that need further research… the very conservative consensus, which must be conservative by its nature since it takes time for consensus to develop as further research helps to close gaps and remove or improve assumptions, is always playing catch-up it seems.
In engineering-speak, scientific climate consensus is way over-damped. I’d LOVE to see it get anywhere close to critically-damped. But to do that it wouldn’t be consensus anymore, either. And so I don’t want to change that. It’s just that in interpreting consensus, as it develops, I have to keep in mind this highly conservative and over-damped inherent nature of it.
In simple terms, things are likely worse than current consensus tells you. The IPCC consensus is pathetically underspun and obfuscated. Plain language would help a lot. But even then, it must be slow to evolve or else it’s not “consensus.” So things are worse and will get worse faster than they suggest. That’s just the nature of the beast.
Climate though is only one of many facets. Humans have literally taken over the planet in my own lifetime, moving from partial dominance to complete and total overwhelming affects. Forest systems are stripped down into patchwork quilts, which leave life itself in increasingly smaller “islands” to survive in. Roads, fences, etc, further divide and endanger these areas. Dr. Lovejoy studied the effects in Brazil of a policy there to prevent property owners from cutting more than 50% of a forest system they own, where they kept selling their land to new owners and the new owners cut 50% and sold them again and again. He found a clear and quantitative relationship in the 1980’s with species in these islands vs their size. That equation says that there is only ONE forest system in the North American continent that might be species-stable — the 4-park Banff/Glacier National area — but that is suffering from serious glacier system loss from climate. His equation accurately explained species changes in the Yellowstone National park system over an 80 year period that was analyzed.
Humans and domestic animals now occupy 99% of the mass of land based vertebrates. Global population has about tripled in my 60 years of life — and risen by a factor of 4 in my State. As a kid, sloughs and rivers that literally teemed with life (I could get a Fall’s supply of smelt fish from the Sandy river with a single 5-gallon bucket placed just ONCE into the river and pulled up as a teenager or dip a pickle jar into a Columbia River slough in the middle of a city — Portland — and get dozens of tadpoles and guppies with a random sweep) are now completely and totally dead and stagnant or else otherwise unrecognizable. The Mt Hood 11-glacier system has declined by 50% in about 30 years — I now see an almost bald mountain during late summers, where that was NEVER true as little as 20 years ago. That’s the water storage for perhaps 1.5 million people right now, people who are NOT yet planning other water storage replacements as this supply dwindles.
We are in the middle of the 6th “extinction” event, as well. The diversity of this life and it’s health is what we humans depend upon in ways we both understand and do not understand. It also provides the protective actions that help mitigate changes we make, as well.
If you read back here and see a couple of my other posts, you will get some additional thoughts about this from me. But the upshot is that I don’t believe we have the capability, collectively which is what is needed, to act in ways any informed view of the science suggests must take place. So we will simply keep pressing our foot on the accelerator as we run right smack into a series of upcoming “walls.” Unable even to realize the walls we’ve already hit and in complete denial about the walls we will yet hit, always with the foot stuck down hard on the accelerator too stupid to even consider the idea of lifting up on it.
It won’t all happen at once or everywhere on earth, of course. Space and time will yield varying results here and there. But terrible collision it is, just the same. And human collective systems are smart enough to climb on the backs of the rest of life on earth, tearing it down all the faster in a desperate attempt for just a little more time in that last gasp. We’re good for that much, anyway.
I expect to see crisis responses to declining ecologies we’ve quilted and hacked to death with our machetes and also climate changes to occur in my remaining lifetime. Perhaps circa 2025-2030, though I wouldn’t be surprised to see it sooner (or a little later.) We are already using up in a year what it takes Earth 18 months to replace and are at or near complete, 100% domination of the planet now. We are consuming our capital savings at a rapid rate. There is no 150% to move towards. We are at the wall, now, and already pushing up against this unmovable object. We already feel some of the pain. We just haven’t yet realized that we are moving at 60mph and the wall won’t move.
You remember the saying, “It’s not the fall that kills you. It’s the sudden stop at the bottom.” Yeah. Like that. Depending on where you are, the effect will either be a little earlier or a little later, or a little more or a little less. But sudden stop it will be.
No theory of human behavior or politics I’ve been exposed to suggests a viable alternative view. But I also prefer to live in denial, with hope. So, both needing the possibilities of hope while valuing my credulity, I must remain of split minds, aware of what is more likely and yet hopeful despite it.
I anticipate “interesting times” for my children and grandchildren.
Thanks for your responses everyone. I know things are bad, and I expect them to get worse, but “global extinction” does seem a bit much I guess. Nice to hear from some people who know that this guy is full of bunk.
Patrick at 253: The head of the IEA has indeed said that we are heading for 6 degrees C (as have many other leading scientists and organizations). But Guy’s timing seems to be off here. Though some early media coverage of Birol’s statement did give the impression that it was by mid century, iirc, the original quote did not give a date, and it seems he meant for this level of warming to come near the end of the century.
“‘With current policies in place, global temperatures are set to increase 6 degrees Celsius, which has catastrophic implications,’ IEA Chief Economist Fatih Birol said. ‘If as of 2017 there is not a start of a major wave of new and clean investments, the door to 2 degrees will be closed.'”
http://www.iea.org/publications/worldenergyoutlook/pressmedia/quotes/7/
So, yeah, Guy should be a bit more careful in his presentations. But the basic fact that well informed people are talking about the high likelihood of temperature increases of 2-6 degrees in the coming decades should have all of us very, very worried indeed. I happen to think downplaying our situation is more dangerous than focusing on relatively minor inaccuracies of those trying to ring alarms and wake people up.
So far though, no kind of messaging–no matter how dire, how accurate, how clear…– seems to be piercing the thick skull of the general populace, the politicians and decisions makers.
The house is on fire. It’s not clear how many will be able to get out before being immolated.
“Some scientists are indicating we should make plans to adapt to a 4C world,” [climate Scientist Ari]Leifer comments. “While prudent, one wonders what portion of the living population now could adapt to such a world, and my view is that it’s just a few thousand people [seeking refuge] in the Arctic or Antarctica.”
We should all be running around crying fire and pulling every fire alarm in sight.
Another record to watch: http://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/wildlife/krill.htm
James: McPherson is whacked, but we still have a problem. How bad? it depends on how long there is no real political action to set things right.
* Join 350.org
But above all, don’t read this. Hide it under the bed like the rest of us.
Edward Greisch (Comments 242-4) Regarding the supposed safety of commercial nuclear power, what I quoted:
… is clearly a sweeping generalization, and I personally find it difficult to imagine anyone making that claim with a straight face.
Looking at just one form of cancer, we have known of increased rates of leukemia around the Krummel nuclear plant near Hamburg, Germany since at least 1994. Please see for example:
Some literature seems to suggest that this is a wider problem in Germany than simply the Krummel area. Please see for example:
Apparently, the question of whether commercial nuclear power plants result in increased rates of leukemia in children is a subject of ongoing study, with oftentimes conflicting results, possibly due to differences in methodology and quality control. Please see:
Further, while I would not wish to suggest that the literature in this area has been subject to systematic distortion by industry, I would bear in mind that this is a distinct possibility. Please see for example:
… as well as the book:
Regardless, I do not consider myself especially opposed to commercial nuclear power. My personal focus isn’t so much on safety but cost.
As Peter Sinclair states:
Joe Romm seems to take a similar view:
Re McPherson–The main puzzle to me about him is, if this is really what he thinks, why bother to blog about it? I’d go pro as a drinker, if I were him.
Re: 246 James; 255 prokaryotes
Re: Guy McPherson
I think the previous commenters have nailed Mr. McPherson pretty well. He misinterprets/misrepresents valid research, cherry picks worst case scenarios, and weaves a darkly convincing but temporally misleading narrative. It seems to me that most or all of his assertions are possible, or even inevitable given enough time and inaction. What struck me was his use of precise dates; this is a classic tactic of doomsday manipulators (think Heaven’s Gate). Further, if you visit his ‘survivalist’ site ( http://survivalacres.com/blog/ ) he appears to be selling not just books but survivalist gear. While I appreciate the “wake up” aspect of his work, the distorted eschatological tenor feeds into the exact worldview that got us here in the first place. On the other hand, maybe he knows what he’s doing, i.e., scaring the s**t out of people. He’s certainly trolling mindsets that require simplistic heuristics – “the answer” – to address extremely complex, demanding, and frightening real world problems; whether he believes what he says (I think he does, at least to some extent) is another question. Plus, America loves it some Armageddon story. To spin this as positively as possible, maybe Mr. McPherson could serve as an introduction – a “gateway” – to more authoritative information for folks just getting started. Or not.
254 prokaryotes: So where did Safecast hide their actual readings? I watched the youtube video. No data. Same for their web site.
“Power to Save the World; The Truth About Nuclear Energy” by
Gwyneth Cravens, 2007 Finally a truthful book about nuclear
power.
Page 98: There is a table of millirems per year from the
background in a list of inhabited places.
Chernobyl: 490 millirem/year
Guarapari, Brazil: 3700 millirem/year
Tamil Nadu, India: 5300 millirem/year
Ramsar, Iran: 8900 to 13200 millirem/year
Zero excess cancer deaths are recorded. All are natural except for
Chernobyl.
251 Hank Roberts: WHO is going on and on about energy? I am only responding to nonsense being told by others, including you. So please Hank Roberts and prokaryotes obey the taboo.
With respect to the all-too-prevalent misunderstandings about what is possible and what is unlikely with methane and the Arctic, and other issues, I thought Richard Alley did a good job presenting the facts at the AGU, putting the different issues in perspective with his invited lecture, “Abrupt Climate Change in the Arctic”. My link will probably not work as you will need your own login, but perhaps it will get you to the right place to find it:
http://virtualoptions.agu.org/media/GC34B-01.+Abrupt+Climate+Change+in+the+Arctic+(and+Beyond)A+An+Update+(Invited)/1_ftc9qk9e
How one publisher is stopping academics from sharing their research
261 Timothy Chase: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Current-and-Future-Generation/The-Nuclear-Debate/#.UkEq0ygsbF1
http://thebreakthrough.org/images/pdfs/Breakthrough_Institute_How_to_Make_Nuclear_Cheap.pdf
I know who Joe Romm is. Now drop the subject and go to BraveNewClimate.
James #246,
McPherson, in my estimation, is the best of the climate change predictors. Best, however, is not perfect. He mixes hard science with speculation, and as you see here, his detractors focus on the speculation in an attempt to discredit him. However, if one were to remove his speculative comments, both his hard science references and his connections of the dots are more than enough to make his general case.
The more recent global climate models project temperature increases under a business-as-usual model on the order of 5 C, plus or minus about a degree, by the end of the century. According to Mark Lynas (Six Degrees) and many others, at these temperatures many species go extinct, including ours. These global climate models do not include the major positive feedback mechanisms, and they will only accelerate the temperature increase. So, under BAU, we can expect extinction-level conditions somewhere before century’s end. Whether it is near-term (~mid-century) extinction as McPherson predicts, or a generation or two later, cannot be determined without more accurate global climate models. But, it should be clear to all readers of this blog that every nation with significant fossil fuel reserves is rushing at breakneck speeds to extract them as fast as possible, and there is no lack of consumers for the product. In spite of what the McPherson detractors (here and elsewhere) say, it is rather obvious where we are headed.
Thank you Susan — that pointer works (as you note, one has to have the free login/password set up, but after putting those in your link opens the page for Alley’s invited update. Good way to get people to see it.
From the opening text on that page with the video:
268 DIOGENES,
No one tries to discredit someone “out of spite”. People who point out the obvious errors in McPhersons arguments are not “detractors”. Most people who tend to defend McPherson (like yourself) tend to say “yeah he’s wrong on a few (!) things, but overall he’s right, look at the IPCC/PIK/NASA/NOAA etc.”, although he tends to ridicule those institutions as far behind the science, for no obvious reasons. He references this AMEG nonsense, presents it as valid science (although it is the furthest thing from), grossly exaggerates articles to make a point, and claims utter nonsense (6°C by 2050, more than 100% more than any credible institution predicts under any scenario) and never backs up his claims with numbers (especially his feedbacks, apart from the AMEG/methane stuff). His “connecting the dots” is basically just saying “oh there’s this feedback, so WE’RE DOOMED” or “this persons says this and this, so we’re screwed”. However, there are real scientists working on these issues, like those of the PIK, one of the best institutions on this (its director, Schellnhuber, published multiple papers on tipping points, etc). I’m not saying all is well, it is not. But making up unnecessary catastrophes is not helpful at all. But I’m really shocked how many people tend to cling to McPherson, as his methodology is utterly failed. No credible scientist would work like this (makes on wonder what kind of people receive PhD’s nowadays). This is cherry-picking in order to proliferate himself. Apart from that, whether we will actually keep on BAU or switch to renewables etc is a political, not a scientific statement. Btw, 5°C under BAU has been proposed by many institutions over several years, I am always surprised why people insist on representing this as a new finding.
PatrickF #270,
The simple example I presented estimates human species extinction somewhere between mid-century and 2100, under BAU. It doesn’t require the elaborate detail that McPherson presents, which includes both hard science and speculation. McPherson also believes we are past the point where human actions can prevent near-term extinction, due to all the positive feedback mechanisms being in play. I am not yet convinced of this, but under the BAU scenario that appears to be very high probability, that becomes an irrelevant issue.
[Response: Sorry, but the idea that “positive feedback and/or BAU implies extinction” is just nonsense. Please take it somewhere else. – gavin]
Abrupt Climate Change In The Arctic (And Beyond) An Update (Open Access)
http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/musings/solar-thermal-deadAlthough panels with circulating water to capture heat are doubly good http://sundrumsolar.com/
as the hotter a solar photovoltaic panel gets the less efficient it is.
Although you can now get panels combining PV with fluid circulation for heat collection, taking heat away from the panels — and PV panel efficiency goes down as they get hotter.
http://pveducation.org/pvcdrom/solar-cell-operation/effect-of-temperature
Since we all speculate and project the future to some extent, this might be an interesting read for some
Isaac Asimov’s 1964 predictions of life in 2014 are prescient
ps.
If you look up some of his novels (Foundation Series and such) you can read about Earth and the requirement for space exploration because Earth is rattled with destructive storms and such.
And here is Asimov about climate change.
Visit to the World’s Fair of 2014
By ISAAC ASIMOV
Re- Comment by Hank Roberts — 21 Dec 2013 @ 5:54 PM
My local expert says that for home owners the combined hot water/PV panels don’t yet pay out yet, but they could be effective in a large centralized commercial installation if the lifetimes of the two components could be equalized.
Steve
If I may take a moment to thank the community here at Real Climate…. the moderators, contributors, guest contributors, commenters, (the pros, the regulars, the whacks), and the lurkers.
This site remains the authoritative reference for understanding climate, and I hope that the contributors continue to source the commitment, time, and energy necessary for the site’s future success.
I thank you all and wish you all “high hopes” for our next “go round”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sigyNxo0Sxw
After the warmest November on record, December ramps up with unusual global weather phenomena
Where has Siberia’s winter gone? and some images
Heatwave expected to hit one-third of Australia over Christmas, from that article “This is the first protracted heatwave of the spring-summer period over such a large area”
Significant winter storm to bring ice, snow to Kansas
Argentine Capital Suffers Blackouts in Heat Wave
New York City, Philadelphia, Atlantic City Break Temperature Records During December Heat Wave
recaptcha says “nschang Translated”
Thanks for those links, prok.
The current SkS weekly news round up has a number of links to 2013-in-review articles:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/2013-SkS-Weekly-News-Roundup_51C.html
The most important development to me is that more and more top climatologists and organizations devoted to evaluating our current situation have essentially come to the concluded that our goose is cooked.
Consider these questions:
–Does anyone anywhere think that wind and solar can grow fast enough to replace over 6% of ff generation every year, year in and year out, starting now?
–Does anyone think that significant economic growth can happen while energy use rapidly shrinks?
–Does anyone think that the world will suddenly plan and carry out a 6% or more shrinkage of the world economy, or a 10% or more shrinkage of the industrial nations’ economies?
If the answer to all of these is “no” (and that is clearly the only honest answer to all of them), then we have to agree that two of the world’s top climatologist essentially said that we are now completely and utterly beyond hope.
(J. Hansen said we need immediate at least 6% annual reducsions in emissions; K. Anderson, 10% annual reductions from industrialized countries to avoid 2 degrees C increase. Potsdam Institute, IEA, World Bank, PWC, and a number of others have said much the same in their own ways.)
May the season bring what joy it can. I find that the carols stick in my throat, somehow.
Climate Change, Clashes and Riots
Life is full of little surprises.
BBC News reports:
22 December 2013 ‘Massive’ reservoir of melt water found under Greenland ice
Note the difference in emphasis: “water found under” (BBC, link above)
compared to: “meltwater storage in firn within” (scientists):
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2043.htmlExtensive liquid meltwater storage in firn within the Greenland ice sheet
Nature Geoscience (2013)
doi:10.1038/ngeo2043
I agree with hf @ 279 and thoroughly appreciate Real Climate.
Thanks prokaryotes for the future cast from 1964. This, the first day of a new astronomical year, is a good time for such reflection.
Here are some words for the day from a more distant, idealistic voice. And don’t miss the beautiful real time global wind map.
Wili #282,
“(J. Hansen said we need immediate at least 6% annual reducsions in emissions; K. Anderson, 10% annual reductions from industrialized countries to avoid 2 degrees C increase. Potsdam Institute, IEA, World Bank, PWC, and a number of others have said much the same in their own ways.)”
Actually, Hansen states in this recent Plos One article that 2 C rise would be disastrous.
http://www.rtcc.org/2013/12/03/james-hansen-2-c-temperature-rise-would-be-disastrous/
Anderson has made similar statements.
Timothy Chase @261 — This is the wrong forum for such matters. I can point out your errors, including Joe Romm’s, over on the Brave New Climate Discussion Forum. It is set up for such discussions; here is not.
Gavin responded that extinction due to BAU and positive feedbacks is “nonsense”, yet I believe he said positive things, in the media, about Hansen’s latest paper. That shows 350ppm CO2 is the maximum we should aim for (and maybe lower). We’ll be at 400ppm within a year or two. What was the earth like the last time CO2 was at 400ppm, to say nothing of the other GHGs?
McPherson does cherry pick the worst cases but that, in itself, doesn’t make those worst cases impossible or even unlikely. McPherson does misrepresent some of the feedbacks (including representing a few that are theoretical as already in play) but I’m not sure he says any one will cook our goose, instead relying on listing as many positive feedbacks as possible. He doesn’t say we don’t really know how any of them will play out or how long it will take for a combination of them to make life unbearable across most of the planet (for McPherson it is all of the planet).
[By the way, someone seemed to imply that McPherson is in it for the money. Nothing could be further from the truth.]
However, BAU will quickly make BAU untenable, in my opinion, because BAU will lead to societal collapse way before all of the fossil fuels have been burned. Unfortunately, according to Hansen, et al, we are already at dangerous GHG concentrations, so, clearly, our goose is at least partially cooked. Hansen has no chance of getting governments to listen and most are still pursuing an “all of the above” energy policy.
Some people place hope on nuclear or renewables. Nuclear is likely to be out of the frying pan into the fire, a time bomb waiting for our kids, just as much as climate change. Renewables have limits, in materials, diffuseness, intermittency and environmental damage. There was a paper a couple of years ago that showed wind definitely has limits. There is only so much diversion of natural energy flows that you can have before noticeable effects on the environment, even if there was enough materials to build out renewables and renewables themselves could build operate and maintain renewables, as some hope. Some also hope that life can go on, pretty much as it is today, just powered by renewables (or nuclear), completely disregarding all the other ways our civilisation destroys the environment.
I think it’s time to get real.
Re- Comment by wili — 22 Dec 2013 @ 12:56 PM
Wili, if you really believe this rant (e.g. all is lost no matter what) then why are you posting here. Do you get some kind of sick pleasure from telling everybody that they are up the proverbial creek without a paddle? There have been many paths that have charted a reasonable future if we just get going. Most recently, on my local community radio, I heard an interview with Jigar Shaw who has the chops to say that renewables can out compete fossil fuels and revitalize our economy. He has a book. Check it out.
Steve
> to protect young people, future generations and nature
Hansen et al. are right, of course.
The problem is convincing people who have never cared a bit about young people, future generations, and nature in the past — whether from blind selfishness or from some prettied up political theory that the future takes care of itself, which amounts to the same thing.
This is not a new problem and not unique to climate science. Each generation of young people discovers it — but doesn’t understand why previous generations couldn’t have figured out in their own time that much of what they were doing was stupid because it damaged those “young people, future generations and nature” — while making the current generation richer than any before.
There was so much to consume, that worked for a while — each generation could be richer _while_ degrading the resource.
Nobody imagined running out of livable planet — til the latter half of the last century of the previous millenium or thereabouts. Sometime after 1950 or so we began — those few reading the science — to get a clue we’d been a very stupid monkey for several centuries and gotten our grandchildren, and nature, into a very bad condition. The most common response was “Urp. Yum. Well, it was good while it lasted.”
Science is a very new thing in human history. Very few people have any clue about anything we’ve learned from science. Heck, writing is pretty damn new in human history, given how long humans have been on the planet — and whatever oral history there was of all those long years quit being told and sung and has disappeared, mostly.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:History
In addition to Hank at #284, also see this press release by Utrecht University:
http://press.uu.nl/a-large-body-of-liquid-water-layer-in-greenland-snow/
Could this water at one point quite suddenly finds it way out of the ice sheet into the ocean? Or would that always be a more gradual process?
“UN warns of food riots in developing world as drought pushes up prices”
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/may/27/food-riots-warning-by-un-as-commodities-soar
WE ARE AT WAR!!! The Climate change counter movement vs the Climate change acceptance movement which I would say nearly all of us who take part in Real climate adhere to. The counter movement’s denial budget is something like $500-1000 million dollars. Those of us who actually give a damn about this planet we call home better cough up with something considerably better that that if we to win the hearts and minds of the populace. One of the most interesting articles I’ve read for a while comes from Robert J Brulle from Drexel university. Who has just finished a three part study in the insidious and murky funding of the counter movement. Url: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/12/131220154511.htm
The first thing that hit me was the realisation that we are indeed at war and the prize…well the continuation of life on earth, can’t get much bigger than that can you. The enemy is a little difficult to pin down though. The majority of funding comes from ‘dark money’ donations to organisations where sources of their income is untraceable. Koch Industries and Exxon have channelled their funding of the counter movement into this dark money stream of late as well.
Anyone with any ideas about this issue please speak up. I intend to devote quite some research time into this highly immoral and profoundly selfish situation.
Edward Greisch: I just read your similar synopysis on the dark money matter @147 in the thread ‘A failure in communicating the impact of new findings’. The first and probably most important step in defeating your enemy is to intimately understand your enemy, that’s what we all have to do don’t you think?.
Steve Fish,
I’ve also read books about renewables. Some say that it’s impossible to run our modern, technological, industrial global economy on renewables. That seems about right, to me. So the question then becomes, what kind of global economy can we run with renewables? I think we need to be honest and objective when answering that question because look what wishful thinking leads to.
Permafrost Methane Time Bomb
Climate Change: Why you should be angry and why anger isn’t enough
captcha: dictated ripiel
#282–
“–Does anyone anywhere think that wind and solar can grow fast enough to replace over 6% of ff generation every year, year in and year out, starting now?”
Yes, though not ‘starting now.’ And ‘can’ is of course different from ‘will.’ Although in some jurisdictions (Denmark and Germany come to mind) the growth of renewables has reduced emissions, at the global level renewables have so far just meant that we are less far behind the emissions eight-ball than would have been the case without them. (Somewhat analogously, perhaps, to the North American auto industry, whose technology could have delivered much better gas mileage long ago, but which chose instead–rationally driven by consumer preference, it must be said–to hold mileage more or less constant but to ramp up power.)
However: “In 2008, world total of electricity production and consumption was 20,279TWh. This number corresponds to a “consumed” power of around 2.3 TW on average. The total energy needed for producing this power is roughly a factor 2 to 3 higher because the efficiency of power plants is roughly 30-50%, see Electricity generation. The generated power is thus in the order of 5 TW.” (Wikipedia.)
In 2012, the world added roughly 80 GW of wind and solar; that’s about 1.6%. And one study projects that by 2020, solar could well be adding 100 GW yearly by itself; obviously, that’s 2%. There’s still a gap, of course, and one has to remember that the renewables figures I’ve given are for nameplate, not actual generation. We’d need something like 450 GW yearly being added to hit 6% of actual generation. But my guess is that that is doable, if our collective mind were concentrated enough.
I wrote about that (among other things) here: http://doc-snow.hubpages.com/hub/Mark-Lynass-Six-Degrees-A-Summary-Review.
However–on the hopeful side–other ‘Stabilization wedges’ are growing, too. For instance, falling US emissions are being driven mostly by cheap natural gas displacing coal–something that may happen elsewhere. And automotive efficiency is rising once again–though the increase in usage may nullify the emissions effect.
So, I don’t think we are certainly ‘cooked’ in this regard.
Yet.
“Does anyone think that significant economic growth can happen while energy use rapidly shrinks?”
Actually, yes. energy intensity per unit economic growth has been declining globally for several years, and my guess is that the surface has barely been scratched.
For example:
http://www.nordicenergy.org/thenordicway/topic/energy-systems-2/
But again, ‘can’ and ‘will’ are different beasts.
“Does anyone think that the world will suddenly plan and carry out a 6% or more shrinkage of the world economy, or a 10% or more shrinkage of the industrial nations’ economies?”
No. But question 2 kind of renders that moot.
Steve Fish @ #298: If you really believe your rant (“I don’t like what you’re saying, so shut up”), perhaps you should find another forum. This is a forum to discuss science and its consequences; if you can only handle scientific conclusions that you find comforting, I would advise focusing on something other than climate science.
One other point, since there has been much discussion of late about communication. My conclusion was sincerely derived by looking at the (im)probabilities of the actions needed to be taken as spelled out by our leading scientists. But as a strategy, it is a fairly well established and tested approach, particularly in locker rooms, for an authority/coach, who up to that point had been the biggest encourager of the team, to suddenly announce at half time that the game is lost and that there is now no hope.
The usual result is that the team members themselves rally and start encouraging the coach (and so themselves) that they can put forth the extra effort to win. It doesn’t always work, but climate communications strategies used so far have not moved the gauge very far (i.e. at all) in the right direction.
Kevin McKinney @ #297: Thank you for your careful response. I am particularly impressed by your condensation of Lynas’s book. Do you mind if I use it in an upcoming class? I could have my students send you their response papers, if you would like the feedback.
You are right that in _theory_ most of those things _can_ happen. The likelihood that they will seems vanishingly remote to me at this point, hence my gloom in this holiday season (though ‘the most wonderful time of the year’ often puts me in something of a funk, anyways).
I find it interesting that the thing you can least imagine happening is a commitment to degrowth, even though that essentially is just a commitment to words (rather than massive infrastructure buildouts required for a major ramp up of alternatives); and to imagining an economy that can actually be potentially sustained long term on a finite planet.
But I fear that you are right that such a change of wording and perspective is too far outside the imaginations of most leaders and the populace to have much traction for the foreseeable future. As Ray said so well on the other thread, what is needed most now is wisdom and courage, but both seem to be in rather short supply.
(Recaptcha wisely suggests in its garbled way: “eRoom the”)
Greenland is wetter than it looks.
Extensive liquid meltwater storage in firn within the Greenland ice sheet
Nature Geoscience 2013. Forster, Box et al.
A Nonviolent Insurgency for Climate Protection http://climatestate.com/2013/12/23/a-nonviolent-insurgency-for-climate-protection/