Renewable Revolution

This reinforces my opinion that the clathrates are being melted by heat from below, not atmospheric heat.  Atmospheric temperature hasn't changed THAT much to get clathrates buried under permafrost to start melting.

RE

There is something else you should consider. That is, the ability of the oceans to serve as a carbon sink (the one that masked the CO2 hit and has a time lag of about 40 years) is reduced as the oceans warm (colder salt water can absorb more CO2). Therefore, increased ocean temperatures goose still another positive feedback mechanism that will pump CO2 out of the ocean and into the atmosphere in addition to the unabated increase in the amount CO2 being pumped into it from burning fossil fuels. 

0.81°C =  The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for July 2015 was the highest for July in the 136-year period of record, at 0.81°C (1.46°F) above the 20th century average of 15.8°C (60.4°F), surpassing the previous record set in 1998 by 0.08°C (0.14°F).

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201507

RE said,

The key here is whether geotectonic or anthropogenic, this process is underway, and we need to find a way to survive on a planet with 22C Average global temperature, which is where the system plateaus when all the carbon is released into the atmosphere.

Good luck trying to do that. Already I have read from a credentialed scientist that a global society cannot exist in a plus 4 degree C World (19C average).

A plus 10 degree C world (25 C average) is Permian Extinction level stuff. And the claim we are headed there BEFORE the positive feedback loops are burned out is not hyperbole.

I don't think we have a snowball's chance in hell of handling a 22 degree C average temperature (about 6 degrees C higher than present). Yes, for a while you can survive at the poles with a 60 METER sea level rise, but biosphere math requires diversity (that won't be there) plus the ability of a large enough gene pool (mating pairs) of surviving species to remain within their sine qua non  homeostatic band. We don't know how to do that.

Unless you are planning some giant mirror in space technofix (which might not work for other reasons), any plan to survive above a plus 3 degree C rise is not possible with our present level of technology.

Of course the extremophiles can handle just about anything. Tardigrades might inherit the earth. That isn't much help to us.

WWF says we risk losing species critical to human food security unless action is taken to halt overfishing and other threats to marine life.

Tuna and mackerel populations have suffered a “catastrophic” decline of nearly three quarters in the last 40 years, according to new research.   

WWF and the Zoological Society of London found that numbers of the scombridae family of fish, which also includes bonito, fell by 74% between 1970 and 2012, outstripping a decline of 49% for 1,234 ocean species over the same period.  :emthdown: 

The conservation charity warned that we face losing species critical to human food security, unless drastic action is taken to halt overfishing and other threats to marine life.

Louise Heaps, chief advisor on marine policy at WWF UK, said:

"This is catastrophic. We are destroying vital food sources, and the ecology of our oceans.”

Attention in recent years has focused on species such as bluefin tuna, now on the verge of extinction in the Pacific, but other close relatives commonly found on restaurant menus or in tins, such as yellowtail tuna and albacore, are now also becoming increasingly scarce. Only skipjack, also often tinned, is showing “a surprising degree of resilience”, according to Heaps, one of the authors of the Living Blue Planet report, published on Wednesday.


Sea cucumbers, a luxury food in Asia, have fallen 98%.  

Other species suffering major declines include sea cucumbers, a luxury food in Asia, which have fallen 98% in number in the Galapagos and 94% in in the Egyptian Red Sea. Populations of endangered leatherback turtles, which can be seen in UK waters, have plummeted.

Overfishing is not the only culprit behind a halving of marine species since 1970. Pollution, including plastic detritus which can build up in the digestive systems of fish; the loss of key habitats such as coastal mangrove swamps; and climate change are also taking a heavy toll, with the oceans becoming more acidic as a result of the carbon dioxide we are pouring into the atmosphere.

“I am terrified about acidification,” Heaps told the Guardian. “That situation is looking very bleak. We were taught in the 1980s that the solution to pollution is dilution  , but that suggests the oceans have an infinite capacity to absorb our pollution.  That is not true, and we have reached the capacity now.  ”

She predicts that all of the world’s coral reefs could be effectively lost by 2050, if current trends are allowed to continue unchecked, and said that evidence of the effects of acidification – which damages tiny marine animals that rely on calcium to make their shells and other organs - could be found from the Antarctic to the US west coast. 


Full article:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/15/tuna-and-mackerel-populations-suffer-catastrophic-74-decline-research-shows

Agelbert NOTE: The typical reaction (by the fossil fuelers and N.T.H.E. threat denying wishful thinkers) to the above will be the wailing and gnashing of teeth about "overpopulation"  . However, Global Warming caused CO2 ocean acidification and other industrial and big ag pollutants like chemical fertilizers will be, uh, mentioned in passing, THUS: "we are solving all that with incremental measures. No need to get so excited. We must weigh the benefits to society of business as usual against the "minor" cost of collapsing tuna, mackerel, shellfish, sea cucumbers, sea turtles, etc., populations. There is no reason to let this alarmist news stampede us in to any rash activity that might threaten GDP!". 

Right after that they will scream for all those "useless eaters" out there to stop driving tuna sandwich prices up! The "job creator" one percent wants to serve champagne and caviar, not tuna casserole! 

Quote from: agelbert on September 20, 2015, 06:08:25 pm

RE's plan (he lives in Alaska) might just work to prevent human extinction.  :
 But, the survivors will not come out of it unscathed.

See below: Future Success Story of Remnant, though somewhat brain damaged from pollution caused DNA degradation, Homo saps in Alaska: 

No, they won't.

However, the Die Off will eliminate most if not all of the Evil people with Empathy Disorder, because only those who cooperate and share will survive.

Remember the Equation S=G/E²  Spirituality equals Gravity divided by Energy squared.  As available energy decreases Spirituality increases, allowing Good to Triumph over Evil.

The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth.  Right after the Meek get very, VERY Angry.

RE

I wish you well. The Tardigrades can wait. They are patient.

Perhaps we're fuc ked after all.

Quote

Containing radiation equivalent to 14,000 times the amount released in the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima 68 years ago, more than 1,300 used fuel rod assemblies packed tightly together need to be removed from a building that is vulnerable to collapse, should another large earthquake hit the area.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/14/us-japan-fukushima-insight-idUSBRE97D00M20130814

The problem is if the spent fuel gets too close, they will produce a fission reaction and explode with a force much larger than any fission bomb given the total amount of fuel on the site. All the fuel in all the reactors and all the storage pools at this site (1760 tons of Uranium per slide #4) would be consumed in such a mega-explosion.

In comparison, Fat Man and Little Boy weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki contained less than a hundred pounds each of fissile material – See more at: http://www.dcbureau.org/20110314781/natural-resources-news-service/fission-criticality-in-cooling-ponds-threaten-explosion-at-fukushima.html

Once the fuel is uncovered, it could become hot enough to cause the metal cladding encasing the uranium fuel to rupture and catch fire, which in turn could further heat up the fuel until it suffers damage. Such an event could release large amounts of radioactive substances, such as cesium-137, into the environment.

This would start in more recently discharged spent fuel, which is hotter than fuel that has been in the pool for a longer time. A typical spent fuel pool in the United States holds several hundred tons of fuel, so if a fire were to propagate from the hotter to the colder fuel a radioactive release could be very large.

http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/making-nuclear-power-safer/handling-nuclear-waste/safer-storage-of-spent-fuel.html#.VUp3n5Om2J8

You may be right. RE will wait for the "fat lady" to sing. I just keep adding and subtracting in the biosphere math equation. The subtraction is rather consistent and the trajectory looks suicidal.

Only Bagdad Bob could be optimistic about out trajectory as a species. WHEN the last homo SAP buys the farm is not the issue. Also, the "long enough time line" excuse that somehow ignores all the crap and poisons and evil bastards adding more that we have to deal with is like dancing on a plank you are walking. Of course we are all alive until we die. Everybody has their own timeline and some have a longer one than others.

But optimism has no place in the biosphere math we are witnessing. We are walking a plank. The fact that it "ain't over yet" isn't the issue. All of us will do what we can to extend our stay in the valley of tears.

That's why I think comments that describe graphically how fu cked we are have a proper place in this discussion. I think, if we are to survive, a bare bones, no bull sh it, no happy talk, no "we can do this" locker room coach optimism is what we need to prevent our species from buying the farm. Things are not just "iffy"; they are AWFUL, and getting WORSE!

Here's a fictional tale about our very possible future that you might enjoy. Feel free to pass it on with, or without, attribution.


Star Date 344,757.093821 (late naked ape tool makers date 2066): Gardener Commander Zarkploof Report 747:

The last of the naked ape tool makers ceased biochemical activity in the most recent revolution of the blue planet around it's sun. It fell in a nuclear waste pool while being chased at night by a pack of large canines. The canines left at dawn. The ape swam, then crawled, out but lapsed into unconsciousness from treading water for so long. It was then bitten by several large rodents and bled to death while trying to fend them off. The rodents, the canines and a nearby ant colony disposed of the remains. All of those creatures subsequently died of radionuclide poisoning. The radionuclide pollution is extensive. We have sent probes to aid existing species in maintaining some vitality. We are doing this in order to provide the biochemical substrate for reseeding efforts so we won't have to start from microscopic autotrophs in rebuilding the biological energy absorption pyramid.

It is estimated that 245,000 local years will be required for the nuclear contaminants (Mostly the one the naked apes called Plutonium but there are several others) to cease degrading the biosphere with harmful mutations.

Our DNA bank has 157% of the species populating the planetary biosphere prior to the naked ape polluting millennium that destroyed the naked apes. NOTE: We will file a detailed report on the extinct species such as the giant reptiles and mammals in regard to the reseeding timeline.

For the next 100,000 years we will seed various fungi to absorb radionuclides for the purpose of collecting them and depositing them in the local sun. Perhaps, because of this activity, the time for active reseeding can take place somewhat earlier than 245,000 years. But we must bear in mind what happened on the Zeta 382, which required an increase in wait time, instead of a decrease. As was the case at Zeta 382, there are chemicals the naked killer apes produced in their ignorance that, though not radioactive, are deleterious to life and even more difficult to eliminate than the radioactive elements. The glyphosate poison is one of many that are ubiquitous in this thoroughly degraded biosphere.  So caution is advised.

As to the naked killer ape tool makers, we recommend the DNA of this species be modified to prevent self awareness. It seems that self awareness, though it does help them develop primitive cause and effect horizon logic, does not aid them in avoiding the manufacture of tools to wantonly exploit the biosphere they require for life. These beings always seem to fail through the "fool with a tool" axiom of degenerate self aware species development postulated by the philosopher Glado the Putzenko in his "Beings that Don't Understand Being" treatise. They cannot seem to grasp the idea that defecating where one obtains nourishment is suicidal when the product of defecation is an industrial pollutant.

This planet is a very depressing and sad place to visit at the moment. Speaking for myself and all of the crew, I request home leave equivalent to 20 local planet years on our home planets.

One of the factors creating stress in our crew is the fact that the naked killer ape tool makers looked so much like us.




Respecfully,

Gardener Commander Zarkploof