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Author Topic: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️  (Read 116837 times)

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AGelbert

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Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #300 on: September 18, 2015, 02:27:14 am »
[/center]
The Arctic Sea Tumbles To A New Low  :(

Quote

Arctic sea ice reaches fourth lowest minimum



September 15, 2015   
 
On September 11, Arctic sea ice reached its likely minimum extent for 2015. The minimum ice extent was the fourth lowest in the satellite record, and reinforces the long-term downward trend in Arctic ice extent. Sea ice extent will now begin its seasonal increase through autumn and winter. In the Antarctic, sea ice extent is average, a substantial contrast with recent years when Antarctic winter extents reached record high levels.

Please note that this is a preliminary announcement. Changing winds or late-season melt could still reduce the Arctic ice extent, as happened in 2005 and 2010. NSIDC scientists will release a full analysis of the Arctic melt season, and discuss the Antarctic winter sea ice growth, in early October.




http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
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AGelbert

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Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #301 on: September 18, 2015, 03:38:26 am »
Thursday, September 10, 2015
   
3.27°C warmer by 2030?   
 

Will it be 3.27°C warmer by the year 2030?

In December 2015, world delegates will descend on Paris to ensure that global warming will not cross the guardrail of 2°C above pre-industrial levels.
 
In a way, we have already crossed this guardrail. NOAA data show that the year-to-date land surface temperature was 1.47°C above the 20th century average on the Northern Hemisphere in 2015, as illustrated by the image below.


 Granted, there was less warming on the Southern Hemisphere, so the globally-averaged land surface temperature was a little bit lower, i.e. 1.34°C above the 20th century average. For reference, the image below  gives an overview of mean 1901-2000 temperatures. Anyway, the difference between hemispheres is small and not very relevant since most people live on the Northern Hemisphere.
 

More importantly, this 1.47°C rise is a rise compared to the 20th century average. The 20th century average was some 0.60°C higher than temperatures were at the start of the NOAA record in 1880. In other words, temperatures for most people on Earth are already 2.07°C higher than they were in 1880.

Furthermore, between 1750 and 1880 the global average temperature had already increased by some 0.20°C.

Sure, 2015 is an El Niño year, but this El Niño is still strengthening, so 2016 could well be even warmer. Moreover, recent temperatures are in line with expectations of a polynomial trendline that is based on these NOAA data and that points at yet another degree Celsius rise by 2030, on top of the current level, as illustrated by the top image. Altogether, this would make it 3.27°C warmer than in 1750 for most people on Earth by the year 2030.

So, instead of acting as if dangerous global warming could possibly eventuate beyond the year 2100, delegates in Paris should commit to lowering temperatures, starting now.

To lower temperatures, cutting emissions alone will not be enough.

Stopping all emissions by people would make that the aerosols that are currently sent up in the air by burning fuel and that are currently masking the full impact of global warming, will fall out of the air in a matter of weeks. Until now, about half of the global temperature rise is suppressed by such aerosols. Stopping aerosols release overnight could make temperatures rise abruptly by 1.20°C in a matter of weeks.

Furthermore, carbon dioxide that is emitted now will take ten years to reach its peak impact, so we're still awaiting the full wrath of carbon dioxide emitted over the past decade.

A recent study calculates that global mean surface temperature may increase by 0.50°C after carbon emissions are stopped, and they will decrease only minimally from that level for the next 10,000 years.

Removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere would not work fast enough to avoid further warming and acidification of the oceans.
In fact, temperatures look set to rise even faster as feedbacks start to kick in more fully, such as albedo changes due to decline of the snow and ice cover in the Arctic and methane releases from the Arctic Ocean seafloor. Furthermore, water vapor will increase by 7% for every 1°C warming. Water vapor is one of the strongest greenhouse gases, so increasing water vapor will further contribute to a non-linear temperature rise.

In conclusion, the world needs to commit to comprehensive and effective action that includes both emission cuts and removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and oceans, as well as further action to deal with the dire situation in the Arctic, as discussed at the Arctic-news Blog.


http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/


Quote

"A 4 degree C temperature increase world cannot sustain a global society (like the one we now have)".

Kevin Anderson (former Director of the Tyndall Centre, the UK's top academic institute researching climate change)
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AGelbert

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Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #302 on: September 18, 2015, 02:36:17 pm »
I present the following short video as additional scientific evidence that the precautionary principle demands we engage in drastic and massive efforts immediately to reduce the probability of N.T.H.E.:



A brief explanation of why positive feedback loops are uncontrollable, once they start. Incremental measures will not stop positive feedback loops from starting. Therefore, incremental measures will not work to reduce the high probability of N.T.H.E. from a multiplicity of positive feedback loops. This is why immediate and drastic action is warranted now.
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #303 on: September 18, 2015, 02:37:32 pm »
Why positive feedback mechanisms will not be prevented by incremental measures.

 I present this as part of the evidence that the probability of N.T.H.E. is increasing.
This video is from 2012. YET, it predicts an ice free arctic in the summer between 2015-20. He was spot on. Current targets are around 2017-i9. Back in 2007, the models didn't predict that happening until around 2050! David Wasdell is a credentialed scientist. He was a reviewer in IPCC studies. He explains how the SCIENCE was downplayed by lawyers from various governments. This was done so the science predicting catastrophe (i.e. NON-linearity of degradation acceleration) WOULD NOT be made public. The only hard position reached by the IPCC is that climate change is anthropogenic, PERIOD. Since then things have improved somewhat on the truth about the gravity of our situation, but the public is still mostly in the dark about the existential threat calmly explained here.

David Wasdell makes it clear that strategy geared to today's symptoms is insufficient because causal elements have a 40 to 50 year lag. Incremental measures based on present observations are, not just doomed to fail, they guarantee that they will fail in the future. Only massive, government sponsored action NOW has a chance (and even that is not a sure thing, as is stated in this video) of somewhat ameliorating the probability of catastrophe. He clearly states  that a massive extinction event destroying over 80% of life on earth  will be triggered by about 30 positive feedback loops that credentialed climate scientists agree will overwhelm the ability of our technology to stop them.

As he says, the observation of a "tipping point", if we have the misfortune to view it, guarantees that any response is 40 to 50 years behind the baked in causative factors.

 

Quote
David Wasdell, Director of the Meridian Programme, is a world-renowned expert in the dynamics of climate change. He is also a reviewer of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment reports and the author of numerous papers and presentations on climate change and related topics.
http://www.apollo-gaia.org


Here's video by Professor Kevin Anderson
explaining why every day that we delay increases the stupendous cost of the effort to bring the situation under control.

It's a long video. That means that people like Ashvin will not watch it, even though their life may depend on the knowledge imparted in it.

Professor Anderson tears apart every argument presented by Alan or Mking that defends the paltry incremental measures now used to address the issue of catastrophic climate change.

 


Climate Change: Going beyond the dangerous 

 
Quote

Ian McPherson   Uploaded on Feb 9, 2012

Kevin Anderson, former Director of the Tyndall Centre (the UK's top academic institute researching climate change) is a depressing guy. Here, in his lecture "Beyond dangerous climate change: emission scenarios for a new world", he lays out the grim reality of climate change, and our inability to address it globally.

We are currently mitigating for 4 degrees C of warming and planning for 2 degrees C. As Anderson points out, that's ass backwards. Further, he sees absolutely no way we can meet those targets, given the rapid industrialisation of China and the emerging economies, and the current state of global political inaction.

He points out, with brutal honesty, that "climate analysts construct their scenarios not to avoid dangerous climate change but to avoid threatening economic growth". There is, therefore, almost no possibility that we are going to act, either in time or at the scale necessary, to address the challenge facing us.

We pretend that 2 degrees C is our threshold. Yet the climate scenarios and plans presented to policymakers do not actually reflect that threshold. As Anderson says, "most policy advice is to accept a high probability of extremely dangerous climate change rather than propose radical and immediate emission reductions."

Depressing stuff indeed...

--------------------------------------

Download the paper this lecture is based on (written by Anderson and Alice Bows) here: http://ianmcpherson.com/blog/audio/Ke...

Read David Robert's thoughts about the paper in two articles at Grist:
http://grist.org/climate-change/2011-...
http://grist.org/climate-policy/2011-...

--------------------------------------

This lecture is part of the London School of Economics Department of International Development Friday Lecture Series. More information can be found here: http://www2.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/vi...

--------------------------------------

Speaker: Professor Kevin Anderson.
Recorded on 21 October 2011 in Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House, London UK.

This lecture is part of the LSE Department of International Development Friday Lecture Series. A question and answer session follows the talk.

Kevin Anderson is professor of energy and climate change in the School of Mechanical, Aeronautical and Civil Engineering at the University of Manchester.

He has recently finished a two-year position as director of the Tyndall Centre, the UK's leading academic climate change research organisation, during which time he held a joint post with the University of East Anglia.
« Last Edit: September 20, 2015, 09:31:04 pm by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #304 on: September 18, 2015, 02:51:05 pm »
Quote
Climate Myth...

CO2 is plant food

Earth's current atmospheric CO2 concentration is almost 390 parts per million (ppm).  Adding another 300 ppm of CO2 to the air has been shown by literally thousands of experiments to greatly increase the growth or biomass production of nearly all plants.  This growth stimulation occurs because CO2 is one of the two raw materials (the other being water) that are required for photosynthesis.  Hence, CO2 is actually the "food" that sustains essentially all plants on the face of the earth, as well as those in the sea.  And the more CO2 they "eat" (absorb from the air or water), the bigger and better they grow. (source: Plants Need CO2)

Quote
An argument made by those who prefer to see a bright side to climate change is that carbon dioxide (CO2) being released by the burning of fossil fuels is actually good for the environment. This conjecture is based on simple and appealing logic: if plants need CO2 for their growth, then more of it should be better. We should expect our crops to become more abundant and our flowers to grow taller and bloom brighter.

However, this "more is better" philosophy is not the way things work in the real world. There is an old saying, "Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing." For example, if a doctor tells you to take one pill of a certain medicine, it does not follow that taking four is likely to heal you four times faster or make you four times better. It's more likely to make you sick.

It is possible to boost growth of some plants with extra CO2, under controlled conditions inside of greenhouses. Based on this,  'skeptics' make their claims of benefical botanical effects in the world at large. Such claims fail to take into account that increasing the availability of one substance that plants need requires other supply changes for benefits to accrue.  It also fails to take into account that a warmer earth will see an increase in deserts and other arid lands, reducing the area available for crops.

Plants cannot live on CO2 alone; a complete plant metabolism depends on a number of elements. It is a simple task to increase water and fertilizer and protect against insects in an enclosed greenhouse but what about doing it in the open air, throughout the entire Earth? Just as increasing the amount of starch alone in a person's diet won't lead to a more robust and healthier person, for plants additional CO2 by itself cannot make up for deficiencies of other compounds and elements.

What would be the effects of an increase of CO2 on agriculture and plant growth in general?

1. CO2 enhanced plants will need extra water both to maintain their larger growth as well as to compensate for greater moisture evaporation as the heat increases. Where will it come from? In many places rainwater is not sufficient for current agriculture and the aquifers they rely on are running dry throughout the Earth (1, 2).

On the other hand, as predicted by climate research, we are experiencing more intense storms with increased rainfall rates throughout much of the world. One would think that this should be good for agriculture. Unfortunately when rain falls in short, intense bursts it does not have time to soak into the ground. Instead, it  quickly floods into creeks, then rivers, and finally out into the ocean, often carrying away large amounts of soil and fertilizer.

2. Unlike Nature, our way of agriculture does not self-fertilize by recycling all dead plants, animals and their waste. Instead we have to constantly add artificial fertilizers produced by energy-intensive processes mostly fed by hydrocarbons, particularly from natural gas which will eventually be depleted. Increasing the need for such fertilizer competes for supplies of natural gas and oil, creating competition between other needs and the manufacture of fertilizer. This ultimately drives up the price of food.

3. Too high a concentration of CO2 causes a reduction of photosynthesis in certain of plants. There is also evidence from the past of major damage to a wide variety of plants species from a sudden rise in CO2 (See illustrations below). Higher concentrations of CO2 also reduce the nutritional quality of some staples, such as wheat.

4. As is confirmed by long-term  experiments, plants with exhorbitant supplies of CO2 run up against  limited availability of other nutrients. These long term projects show that while some plants exhibit a brief and promising burst of growth upon initial exposure to C02, effects such as the  "nitrogen plateau" soon truncate this benefit

5. Plants raised with enhanced CO2 supplies and strictly isolated from insects behave differently than if the same approach is tried in an otherwise natural setting. For example, when the growth of soybeans is boosted out in the open this creates changes in plant chemistry that makes these specimens more vulnerable to insects, as the illustration below shows (at link).

Plant defenses go down as carbon dioxide levels go up, the researchers found. Soybeans grown at elevated CO2 levels attract many more adult Japanese beetles than plants grown at current atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Science Daily; March 25, 2008. (Credit: Photo courtesy of Evan Delucia)


More than 55 million years ago, the Earth experienced a rapid jump in global Carbon Dioxide levels that raised temperatures across the planet. Now, researchers studying plants from that time have found that the rising temperatures may have boosted the foraging of insects. As modern temperatures continue to rise, the researchers believe the planet could see increasing crop damage and forest devastation. Science Daily; Feb. 15, 2008

Quote
Global Warming reduces plant productivity. As Carbon Dioxide increases, vegetation in Northern Latitudes also increases. However, this does not compensate for decreases of vegetation in Southern Latitudes. The overall amount of vegetation worldwide declines

Quote
6. Likely the worst problem is that increasing CO2 will increase temperatures throughout the Earth. This will make deserts and other types of dry land grow. While deserts increase in size, other eco-zones, whether tropical, forest or grassland will try to migrate towards the poles. Unfortunately it does not follow that soil conditions will necessarily favor their growth even at optimum temperatures.

In conclusion, it would be reckless to keep adding CO2 to the atmosphere. Assuming there are any positive impacts on agriculture in the short term, they will be overwhelmed by the negative impacts of climate change.

Added CO2 will likely shrink the range available to plants while increasing the size of deserts. It will also increase the requirements for water and soil fertility as well as plant damage from insects.

Increasing CO2 levels would only be beneficial inside of highly controlled, enclosed spaces like greenhouses.

Basic rebuttal written by doug_bostrom

UPDATE July 2015:


The negative effects of climate change far outweigh any positive effect from increased CO2 levels.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-plant-food.htm

The fossil fuel industry has been trying to push that STUPID, "CO2 is great for plants" baloney for at least two decades. Yeah, they use CO2. Yeah, they NEED CO2. Yeah, More CO2 means they can absorb it better and grow faster.

HOWEVER, they don't do ANY of those things when they are forced outside the BAND of temperature and other conditions that are sine qua non for them.  It's BIOSHERE MATH 101.

The fossil fuel industry is pushing the CO2 happy talk TOTALLY out of context. The desertification and deforestation is NOT being counterbalanced by the greening of colder areas now accessing more CO2 due to warming.

Some areas towards the poles will experience some greening. SO WHAT? We can't plan on moving all the animals, insects and other biota that DON"T migrate, along with the trees and crops north or south thousands of miles.

This the true  situation (Poodwaddle deforestation year to date clock):

http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock/env2/
Poodwaddle is firmly backed by government published data.

And there is this, which totally destroys any happy talk about CO2 "benefits".

Burning remaining fossil fuel could cause 60-meter sea level rise

September 11, 2015
Quote

"Our findings show that if we do not want to melt Antarctica, we can't keep taking fossil fuel carbon out of the ground and just dumping it into the atmosphere as CO2 like we've been doing," Caldeira said. "Most previous studies of Antarctic have focused on loss of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Our study demonstrates that burning coal, oil, and gas also risks loss of the much larger East Antarctic Ice Sheet."

http://phys.org/news/2015-09-fossil-fuel-meter-sea.html#jCp


Here's a nice quote from another article in Phys.org:


Quote

What is the NIPCC? Is it just like the IPCC, but with an "N"?

Well, no. The NIPCC is a group of climate change "skeptics", bank rolled by the libertarian Heartland Institute to promote doubt about climate change. This suits the Heartland Institute's backers, including fossil fuel companies and those ideologically opposed to government regulation.

The NIPCC promotes doubt via thousand-page reports, the latest of which landed with a dull thud last week. These tomes try to mimic the scientific reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), right down to the acronym. However, unlike the IPCC, the NIPCC reports are works of partisan pseudoscience
.

http://phys.org/news/2013-09-adversaries-zombies-nipcc-climate-pseudoscience.html#jCp

The fossil fuel industry does not get it. Neither do those who advocate that incremental measures are sufficient to ameliorate the extinction threat that global warming poses to our species. 
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #305 on: September 18, 2015, 03:00:20 pm »
Addendum to the above post - Some of the most important questions in my mind, given the data you and others have presented, are the following (most of them are inter-related):

-What is the reliability of projections which suggest trends such as CO2 emissions, species extinction, deforestation, etc. will continue at a rate destructive enough to conclude HP (high probability) of NTHE?

-What are the chances that natural positive feedback mechanisms in these areas will burn themselves out or be counter-acted by negative feedback mechanisms?

-What are the chances that scientific technology will progress quickly enough to offer viable solutions (I believe you say this is a very good chance)?

-What are the chances that the above technology, or other mitigating policies, will be implemented by corporations and governments which can make a difference when push comes to shove (I believe you say this is a low chance, but quite possible)?

-What are the chances that consumers may intentionally or unintentionally act in ways to mitigate destructive environmental trends (for ex, becoming too poor to consume as much)?

-What are any other known or as of yet unknown factors which may serve to mitigate the destructive trends?

These are admittedly the questions of a layperson without much scientific knowledge or insight. Some of them may be nonsensical, and if so I would be glad to hear why. However, if you believe the general process of asking these and other questions is a strategy of obfuscation, misrepresentation, manipulation, etc., then we simply have a fundamental disagreement as to how the probability of NTHE should be properly assessed.

-What is the reliability of projections which suggest trends such as CO2 emissions, species extinction, deforestation, etc. will continue at a rate destructive enough to conclude HP (high probability) of NTHE?


The videos I have posted addressed this in detail. To summarize the findings, the rate of the negative effects of Global Warming is not decreasing, all the tracked effects are increasing in quantity. But more alarming, is that all of them are increasing in the rate of increase as well. I will post another video, this one from 2013, but quite comprehensive in covering both the increase and the increase in rate.

That is, the graphed slopes of CO2 increase and Temperature increase and deforestation increase and desertification increase and ocean acidification increase (and others) are all tilting upwards in angle. As you will see in the graphs presented, the IPCC scenarios are overly conservative. The observed temperature data as of 2013 was right at the top range of their most extreme scenario (from the IPCC 2007 report). A new IPCC report came out this year. The scenario range has been adjusted upwards (to more extreme), but the models, as the videos I have already presented explain, still do not account for several factors.

So there is no logical reason to believe any of the scenarios are "within the ballpark", so to speak. And all the indicators point to an increased rate of deleterious global warming effects.

As to whether the rate increase of all these factors is sufficient to warrant warnings about a high probability of N.T.H.E. if drastic measures are not engaged in to ameliorate the existential threat, the answer is yes. If the rate was decreasing or constant, the answer would be a maybe. WHY? Because of the baked in approximately 40 year causative factor time lag.

Because of that 40 year time lag, it is simply impossible, even with drastic measures to stop the continued increase in deleterious effects of global warming for that length of time, even if we go 100% green today. IOW, we have to go to more than 100% green to actually address the baked in time lag. We have go to, say 130% or so, so as to rapidly return the atmosphere to pre-industrial levels. This is certainly not limited just to CO2 reduction. Many other toxic products of industry must be eliminated somehow.

That is why incremental measures doom future generations to a high probability of extinction. Scientifically speaking, incremental measures will not even slow the rate if increase of deleterious factors, let along the quantitative increase.

-What are the chances that natural positive feedback mechanisms in these areas will burn themselves out or be counter-acted by negative feedback mechanisms?


Positive feedback mechanisms are also addressed in the videos I have presented and some of my posts. These mechanisms, of which there are about 30, once having reached a self reinforcing state (which is why they call them positive feedback mechanisms) are difficult to control. They, in fact, cannot be controlled beyond a certain point. Yes, they burn themselves out eventually. But before they do, they result in mass die offs. This has been established by studies of CO2 build up in ancient times before humans walked the earth. When a positive feedback loop reaches a certain stage, our technology is incapable of arresting it's effects. This is not alarmist hyperbole on my part. This is a direct quote from the IPCC reviewer scientist in one of the videos I presented.

The video I present at the end of this posts shows that the negative feedbacks are being overwhelmed by the positive feedbacks at present.

Positive feedback loops are not like a line of falling dominoes that you can put your hand on to stop the rest from falling. Considering the fact that there are about 30 positive feedback loops involved in global warming, it is necessary to picture their cumulative interactive, multiple feedback reinforcing effects as a chain reaction. It's not 30 independent systems. It's more like 30 times 30 (30 times repeated) because they all act to boost each other in multiples of the last iteration exponentially. That means that they get beyond the ability of our technology to control exponentially.

This short video of ping pong balls on mouse traps is a crude analogy of how positive feedback loops work;

Start at the 24 second mark:


For example, we are triggering a positive feedback loop by reducing the earth's albedo (ice cover). The videos I have presented cover how we simply cannot stop the resulting runaway greenhouse effect once the positive feedback loops begin in earnest. Guy McPherson thinks we did that already. I entertain the hope that we can ameliorate those mechanisms somewhat and postpone or possibly prevent N.T.H.E. But it is not presently feasible to do that with incremental measures.

-What are the chances that consumers may intentionally or unintentionally act in ways to mitigate destructive environmental trends (for ex, becoming too poor to consume as much)?

The main consumer culprits are the 20% in the rich countries that use around 76% of the world's resources, according to a 2007 UN pie chart. Consumers are doing quite a bit to mitigate destructive environmental trends.

But that pie chart leaves out the non-consumer polluters that do more damage than we ordinary piggies in the rich countries.

The problem is that the main polluters are outside of the consumer loop. Many people think this issue can be addressed by recycling and lowering our carbon footprint. Yes, that is important and many are doing it. But the industries that are unrelated to consumer products are gigantic polluters, showing no sign of slowing their massive polluting activities, never mind stopping them. The military of the USA, despite moves to go solar on many bases, still are one the largest polluters of the air , land and sea. In short, the governments of the world, backed by the large polluting industries continue to make things worse.

Year to date fossil fuel use:
http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock/env3/

So the chances that consumers acting to try to mitigate the destructive factors are high. But the chances that those actions, absent massive government efforts stop all polluting industries quickly, will actually mitigate those destructive factors, are low to none. A collapse in industrial output from massive poverty still does not account for the 40 year baked in climate damage coming at us. It would reduce the amount of polluting, but not stop it. It is sine qua non to reverse it in order to mitigate or eliminate the existential threat to our species.

I support all efforts to recycle and conserve. But I know what the biosphere math is telling us. Nevertheless, I urge all people to conserve as much as possible. Just because that behavior is somewhat quixotic, does not mean it should not be done. Responsible behavior is based on the ethical concern for future generations, regardless of whether it is enough or not. I'm sure you agree that doing the right thing does not guarantee success in human society. In fact, the reverse is true most of the time.


-What are the chances that scientific technology will progress quickly enough to offer viable solutions (I believe you say this is a very good chance)?

-What are the chances that the above technology, or other mitigating policies, will be implemented by corporations and governments which can make a difference when push comes to shove (I believe you say this is a low chance, but quite possible)?

-What are any other known or as of yet unknown factors which may serve to mitigate the destructive trends?


I will address the above three questions after I exercise. Some of the answers are in this video, but I will verbalize them for clarity when I come back. It was published on May 2, 2013. All the data is accurate and backed by hard science. The more recent data is more alarming (this was before the latest IPCC report). But even with the data  Professor Somerville had then, the case for urgent action was clear.



The Scientific Case for Urgent Action to Limit Climate Change


Distinguished Professor Emeritus Richard Somerville, world-renowned climate scientist and author of "The Forgiving Air: Understanding Environmental Change," discusses the scientific case for urgent action to limit climate change.
« Last Edit: September 21, 2015, 08:07:53 pm by AGelbert »
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AGelbert

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Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #306 on: September 18, 2015, 03:01:30 pm »
Ashvin,
Here I continue to address your questions with a post from Eddie that I comment on.

Because of that 40 year time lag, it is simply impossible, even with drastic measures to stop the continued increase in deleterious effects of global warming for that length of time, even if we go 100% green today. IOW, we have to go to more than 100% green to actually address the baked in time lag. We have go to, say 130% or so, so as to rapidly return the atmosphere to pre-industrial levels. This is certainly not limited just to CO2 reduction. Many other toxic products of industry must be eliminated somehow.

A lot of people missed the memo on this, but I've read it from a number of sources I trust.

Exactly. AS David Wasdell states in the following video, if you wish to actually ameliorate the existential threat from catastrophic climate change, you must use the projected climate condition of about 40 years from now as your target, not what is observed at present. Acting on the present guarantees failure due to the fact that the feedback mechanisms are moving faster than the policies to ameliorate climate change. This is politically very unpalatable. But it is the only approach with science behind it. IOW, if the IPCC predicted 470 ppm of CO2 and a 2 degree C increase by 2055, then drastic action to eliminate any target above that must be taken now.

Of course, that is not happening. Every day that isn't happening makes it more and more difficult to deal with.
 

David Wasdell, Director of the Meridian Programme, is a world-renowned expert in the dynamics of climate change. He is also a reviewer of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment reports and the author of numerous papers and presentations on climate change and related topics.

Kevin Anderson, former Director of the Tyndall Centre (the UK's top academic institute researching climate change), said that a global society (like the one we have now) is not possible with our present level of technology in 4degree C or higher world. And that's where we are going, despite the IPCC figures all revolving about an alleged agreement (with no teeth, no enforcement and all voluntary carbon limits. LOL!) by the piggy countries s of taking measures to keep the planet  below 2 degrees C. Collapse is baked in, so to speak, thanks to government piecemeal incremental measures.

Back to David Wasdell, he clearly and calmly stated that the 30 or so positive feedback loops, if not addressed with absolute limits on carbon output, including even foregoing even biofuels, approximately 80% of life on Earth may die. If that isn't an existential threat, I don't know what is.


Ashvin asked,

What are the chances that scientific technology will progress quickly enough to offer viable solutions (I believe you say this is a very good chance)?'

According to both the scientists I mentioned, we do not have the technology to stop this catastrophe at this time, once the runaway greenhouse positive feedback loops push us past a certain point. Some say we have passed it. Due to the 40 year bake and the paltry government measures being employed, it sure looks that way. Drastic measures to stop emitting CO2 might change that equation.

But it is not realistic to expect governments to engage in them. When large masses of people are dying and a public outcry is sounded, it will be about 40 years too late.

All that said, there are technofix types that claim we just have to put a pack of aerosols up there and cool the planet like volcanic eruptions have partially done in the past. There is evidence that our government has been doing just that since 2000. It doesn't seem to be working. Maybe it's just a conspiracy theory, but some very obvious man made 'cloud' grids have been videoed for some time. And, they are not jet contrails.

Another less messy and much more expensive approach is to block out a portion of the sunlight reaching earth with some giant aluminum vapor coated, 1 mil thick, polyester film a few thousand miles in diameter to cool the planet. But we have no way of knowing whether such a simple solution would not trigger some, even worse, unforeseen climate effect. It certainly is true that the massive sun shield qualifies in the 'any port in the N.T.H.E. storm' category.

But it would do nothing to eliminate the other industrial toxins, unrelated to CO2, that have upped the probability of getting cancer in our lives from 1 in 10 back in 1950 to 1 in 2 (for men) and 1 in 3 (for women) at present. And no, that isn't because we "live longer" ( check the social Security stats and you will find the longevity increase applies to the top 20% wage earners. The bottom 80% "longevity increase" looks like a rounding error.  :P). ; it's because we are subject to more pollutants in our food, air and water from birth than any humans in history. 

We have a plethora of severe problems and the rug the gooberment keeps trying to sweep them under is starting to look like Mount Everest.


-What are the chances that the above technology, or other mitigating policies, will be implemented by corporations and governments which can make a difference when push comes to shove (I believe you say this is a low chance, but quite possible)?

-What are any other known or as of yet unknown factors which may serve to mitigate the destructive trends?


Well, here's the situation, according to Professor Emeritus Richard Somerville  Please note that he is a very conservative scientist. But he makes it clear how serious the urgency is BECAUSE of the limitations of our technology and government reaction times.

The above graph is discussing the procedure to limit the damage to 2 degrees C. That was in 2013. He explained that the required carbon limits, if not enforced by 2020, will basically be impossible to implement. We are passing by 2015 with no end in site to the INCREASE in carbon pollution.

As he said, once the window is closed, it will remain closed. That is a scientist's way of stating an existential threat. He understands the technology. He understands what will happen when we cannot hope to stop the positive feedback mechanisms from overwhelming reforms. He understands that will head us to 4 degrees C or more. That is a dire threat to our species, and literally millions of other species we share this planet with.



Notice how the IPCC sea level rise predictions only fit the data at the extreme end. It is not logical to think that they aren't erring on the side of caution. They are. Therefore, only the most extreme scenarios they come up with can be considered 'in the ball park'.

Every time a report comes out, they have to admit that, yeah, the ice melted more than predicted and several other predictions were a bit on the, uh, conservative side. Each report published every 7 or 8 years gets a little more real. Consequently, it is prudent to assume that a worse than their worse case scenario is highly probable.

That is why I believe firmly that mankind faces an existential threat from Global Warming AND all the other industrial pollution factors degrading the biosphere.

That is why I focused initially on extinctions with Alan. When the extinction rate of species in our biosphere is 1,000 to 10,000 the normal background rate of the last ten thousand yeas (at least!), it's logical to then assume our species faces an existential threat.

This extinction rate cannot be neatly approached as the product of a single cause. Our society is lousy at dealing with multiple causes. It's like we are as bad as crows (they can't count above three).

But  there are thousands of toxic chemicals, radionuclides and aerosols, along with the CO2 damage that have joined together to drown us in our industrial effluents. CO2 pollution is what we should all agree on. As you can see from Alan's posts, even that is like pulling teeth.

Also, there are too many corporations stuck in the incremental measures approach to expect them to own up the their responsibility to future generations. I just posted an article on the good and the bad corporations. But the 'good" are STILL not at 100% renewable energy. And the bad ones are worse than ever.   

It's hard to communicate this threat dispassionately. I do the best I can. We are in a world of trouble.

These are the web sites Professor Emeritus Richard Somerville recommends for reliable information. I hang around RealClimate regularly. I have posted articles from RealClimate here during the last year and have recommended it to all readers. They are the ones who are now looking very hard at the meltwater tunneling by supercritical water (liquid water several degrees below freezing due to massive glacier pressures lubricating glacier movement) beneath Greenland glaciers that is NOT addressed in any of the IPCC predictions that David Wasdell discussed.

They cover all the climate bases. RealClimate is staffed exclusively by climate scientists. 



« Last Edit: September 21, 2015, 09:41:18 pm by AGelbert »
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Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #307 on: September 18, 2015, 06:50:07 pm »
AS you can see from the following Poodwaddle clock graphics, things are not getting better. The Renewable energy contribution is unacceptably small and the CO2 emissions, which need to be ZERO, continue to exacerbate the existential threat we face from CO2 pollution.

Here's the electrical energy only picture (year to date) to give you an idea of why fossil fuelers are not singing the blues YET. There are still way too many fossil fuel energy widgets being purchased by global society. The year to date clock on the right is for production, which doesn't directly relate to demand (although eventually it will).

 

http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock/env4/
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Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #308 on: September 19, 2015, 02:52:16 pm »
As usual, when Ashvin has no way to counter my arguments, he goes away. So much for Ashvin's "objectivity".


I wish the mendacity and duplicity of the fossil fuelers like MKing was discussed more (instead of dodged often!) by allegedly objective fellows like Ashvin and Alan. The false equivalence they ascribe (see Alan's "counterfeit" coin  ;)) to collapse sites sounding the alarm and the tsunami of bullsh it from the fossil fuel propagandists is rather telling, isn't it? It sure looks like an irresponsible and unprincipled back door defense of the polluting status quo to me.    They can prissily, and line by "logical" line, claim they do not support the polluting status quo until the cows come home.

But their deliberate attempts to downplay the gravity of our situation, continually asking (when they aren't using outright mockery and derision) for more and more data before they will commit to a "firm" conclusion in regard to our plight is a CLASSIC foot dragging technique to PREVENT public opinion from demanding massive reforms! Yeah, they'll try to deny that too (and they'll do it LINE BY LINE and then claim they "countered" "spurious and groundless accusations".  ::) ).

Exxon Mobile has been DOING what Alan and Ashvin have done here for DECADES!


Direct quotes from Exxon Mobile

“…for most nations the Kyoto Protocol would require extensive diversion of human and financial resources away from more immediate and pressing needs in health care, education, infrastructure, and, yes, the environment—all critical to the well-being of future generations.”

ExxonMobil went on to advocate a “strong focus on scientific understanding” around climate change and proposed policies “that have the potential to make significant longer-term reductions in emissions, if they are needed.”

The ad finished with this: “Although it is hard to predict what the weather is going to be this weekend, we know with certainty that climate change policies, unless properly formulated, will restrict life itself.”

Exxon Advertised Against Climate Change for Decades After Top Executives Knew Burning Fossil Fuels Would Warm the Planet  >:(

http://ecowatch.com/2015/09/19/climate-change-exxon/2/

Agelbert NOTE:
The best way to describe why the fossil fuel Industry uses crocodile tears about their "concern" for humanity to lie, distort and double talk about the truth of the climate change existential threat is embodied in the following quote:

“The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants.”   ―  Albert Camus

The Fossil Fuelers   DID THE Climate Trashing, human health depleteing CRIME,   but since they have ALWAYS BEEN liars and conscience free crooks, they are trying to AVOID   DOING THE TIME or     PAYING THE FINE!     Don't let them get away with it! Pass it on!
« Last Edit: September 19, 2015, 04:57:51 pm by AGelbert »
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Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #309 on: September 19, 2015, 06:48:53 pm »
Excellent comment posted on an article by Thom Hartmann

Quote

RFord • 6 hours 33 min ago #6

Seems like every time I turn around there's a new climate change report coming out showing that climate change and global warming is happening faster than had previously been predicted. Many people are not concerned about this happening (global warming) because they believe it's not going to affect them because they will die of old age long before it starts killing all human beings and they are not concerned with what will happen to yet unborn generations.

Some think that global warming is a farce and it's not feasible, or that it's too expensive to move away from carbon energy. These Ideas come from the fossil fuel industry, who pay their bought and paid for congressmen, senators and news outlets to say these things.

The fact is people are already dying from the effects of climate change in Serria (Sierra Leone - https://zikipediq.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/south-is-the-first-victim-of-global-warming/) and, yes, right here in the USA.

People are dying because of drought caused forest fires either by fighting the fires or by being caught in the fires.

But many don't die, they just lose everything they own including their home. Global warming and climate change are happening now at ever increasing rates. It may not be the future generations of earthlings that go extinct. It may be the present generations that go extinct sooner than anyone has imagined.

If humans are smart, they will do all they can to keep themselves from going extinct. But I'm afraid humans are not as smart and superior as humans think they are.

The time to act against global warming is now because the tipping point is when human produced greenhouse gasses are no longer the main cause of global warming.

The tipping point is when global warming is causing global warming and then there is no stopping it. The air, water, and the surface of the Earth become extremely hot and poisoned with methane and 90 percent of all living things on earth dies.

http://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2015/09/will-be-worst-el-nino-65-years#comment-335282

I would add the following:

The responsibility to care for and preserve the biosphere on behalf of future generations, including returning it to the healthy state it was in over a century ago when we began to severely pollute it, is not optional (unless you are an Empathy Deficit Disordered Evolutionary Dead End).
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Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #310 on: September 19, 2015, 08:35:21 pm »

Rhetoric Versus Reality

Kevin Anderson presenting at the EcoCities conference at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester on 14 May 2012.

The 2 degree C Increase limitation is not feasible. A 4 degree C increase is only possible with massive action from all the world's main polluting countries to totally eliminate all carbon emissions in a very limited time period. Why this is so is stated by Engineer Kevin Anderson.

Kevin Anderson is professor of energy and climate change in the School of Mechanical, Aeronautical and Civil Engineering at the University of Manchester.

He has recently finished a two-year position as director of the Tyndall Centre, the UK's leading academic climate change research organisation, during which time he held a joint post with the University of East Anglia.

Some slides rom the above video:


This last slide explains what those attempting to ridicule doomers DO NOT GET IT. And that's why I suspect the motives of ANYONE (see Alan, Ashvin, MKing, Snowleopard, etc. et al) who attempts to PREVENT progress by irresponsibly claiming that accepting the reality of a high probability of N.T.H.E. on our present trajectory, causes people to give up.

That's status quo defending, la la land, rhetorical BULLSH IT, as Kevin Anderson says in much more polite language below.

« Last Edit: September 19, 2015, 09:47:13 pm by AGelbert »
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Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #311 on: September 19, 2015, 10:30:17 pm »
Catastrophic Climate Change & Runaway Global Warming - David Wasdell

Quote
Uploaded on Jan 9, 2012

24 minutes into the presentation he talks about NASA being afraid to release findings of methane releases off the coast of San Diego for fear of retribution by the Bush administration.

David Wasdell, Director of the Meridian Programme, is a world-renowned expert in the dynamics of climate change. He is also a reviewer of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment reports and the author of numerous papers and presentations on climate change and related topics.

For more on David Wasdell visit: http://www.meridian.org.uk/Resources/

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Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #312 on: September 20, 2015, 08:32:35 pm »
I wish you well. The Tardigrades can wait. They are patient.

We'll leave the Earth to the Tardigrades in due time.  They can take a full on asteroid impact, we cannot.

Unless said asteroid hits in the next 30 years, Guy McPherson is wrong.

RE

I agree that we will certainly not be extinct in 30 years. But Guy McPherson is guilty of being early, not alarmist or hyperbolic.

Kevin Anderson. Richard Somerville and David Wasdell, to name just three serious scientists directly involved with climate science, agree we face an existential threat. The issue is not WHETHER we face an existential threat. The issue is HOW SOON within a few decades or less the door is closing to ameliorate or prevent that threat.
 
The deluded flat refuse to accept that their IS an existential threat, never mind IF the threat is near term.

I think you agree with that, do you not?

I think Guy McPherson understands the politics of the social system killing us quite well. How has Hansen done with his low key stuff? Not too well. And Hansen wrote a book of "fiction" where he clearly lays out an extinction scenario for humans WITHIN a century! But he won't go public with that in his peer reviewed stuff, NOT because he has no scientifically valid grounds (as idiot fossil fuelers might claim), but because he knows how it "works" in politics. He is, in a cowardly fashion, bowing to politically expedient incremental measure demands in the face of an existential threat. 

McPherson understands that, unless the public accepts the FACT that we do face an existential threat WITHIN a generation (regardless of whether that estimate is EARLY by two or three decades), our extinction is baked in. If he did not CARE about the our survival, he would not be shouting the warning from the rooftops!

As Kevin Anderson said, it is imperative to get people to understand the SCALE of the action that is needed. The people that claim McPherson is peddling futility are wrong.

 

It will be TOO LATE if we don't start getting serious about N.T.H.E. in 2030. MAYBE it's not too late now. But  Kevin Anderson. Richard Somerville and David Wasdell, etc. et al are making a case for DRASTIC and URGENT action. They clearly state that incremental measures will NOT WORK to prevent the extinction of most, and possibly all of the human species.

RE, this is not about Guy McPherson. He is not alone in his warning, even if he is more strident than other scientists out there.
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Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #313 on: September 20, 2015, 08:42:08 pm »
Tuna and mackerel populations suffer catastrophic 74% decline, research shows

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. 

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


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! 

Palloy tries to downplay the above marine species extinction threat. Palloy does not get it. I will explain why.

At the risk of being called a shill for the fossil fuel industry by AG, again, I should just like to point out that the pH of the oceans varies between 8.1 and 8.4, and that so far climate change hasn't altered that by 0.1 anywhere at all.  It would happen in time of course, IF we continued to burn fossil fuels at the same, or increasing rates.  But if you believe in Peak Fossils then that won't happen - not because THEY wouldn't want to, but because they won't be able to make money out of it.  That's when they will stop extracting fossil fuels, and industrial civilisation will collapse.

Temperatures will continue to rise maybe until 2045, and ocean acidification will continue, but industrialised fishing will be over almost instantly, and fish stocks will replenish quickly.  The mix of species will be different, no doubt, but they have always been different, and nobody is really aware of what the mix is anyway.

So don't worry, just pray the collapse happens soon.

Sigh, you mathematicians don't do much biosphere math, do you? What YOU call "insignificant" pH (you know, the negative logarithm of the hydrogen ion concentration) differences have VERY significant (as in homeostatic band required) effects on living systems (you know, the stuff we eat!).

Homeostasis REQUIRES that strict pH (and temperature and pressure and dissolved CO2 and dissolved O2, etc.) bands be adhered to or the organism dies. The reason it dies is because thousands to millions of biochemical reactions per second, vital to living processes, will not take place outside those homeostatic bands.

For mathematicians, the numbers are "significant" if they are, say, 2% or more and INSIGNIFICANT when they vary less than that.

For biologists, the numbers are homeostatic band life or death SIGNIFICANT when they vary by 0.01 % - often even less!).

This is so because the enzymes (catalysts made by living systems to lower the energy of activation for chemical reactions so the organism does not overheat and die from chemical reaction waste heat inefficiencies) will NOT take place when the pH (in combination with the other factors I mentioned) varies by a very small percentage. And all these bands vary in different parts of the human body. The pH band your bloodstream can handle is far less than the one the water in your tissues can handle.

There is a LOT MORE to this.

For example, I'm sure you would agree that being drunk is hazardous to your health because it slows your reflexes, dehydrates you, stresses your kidneys and liver and blinds you to reality because the system thinks it is pigging out on cheap energy - sends your brain a signal that everything is amazingly great (that's called being high).

The change in concentration of alcohol in the blood required to effect all these deleterious changes (that the organism itself perceives INCORRECTLY  as  "good" because it FEELS good") is, from your point of view, tiny.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Relative_risk_of_an_accident_based_on_blood_alcohol_levels_(linear_scale).jpg

Biosphere math is DIFFERENT from the math applied to non-living matter, Palloy. Stop trying to apply your math to living systems. It is tantamount to peddling rose colored glasses about the severity of our environmental plight.   

Here's one more example of how a pollutant in our atmosphere that kills life is actually made by living systems to preserve life. It's all in the percentages, Palloy. It's all in where the polluting gas is and how much of it there is. The life or death differences in percentage are FAR LESS than 0.01%.

The gas I refer to is Nitric Oxide (NO).

Environmental effects

Nitric oxide in the air may convert to nitric acid, which has been implicated in acid rain. However, it is an important source of nutrition for plant life in the form of nitrates. Furthermore, both NO and NO2 participate in ozone layer depletion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitric_oxide


Humans make Nitric oxide in their noses to kill bacteria before it gets to their lungs. This is why breathing through your nose is a good idea.  ;D

But the percentage is so tiny that a fellow like you would claim it was "insignificant" if it was no longer there (which would guarantee bacterial attacks on the lung tissue  :P).

On the other hand, if we breath too much  Nitric oxide because it's in the atmosphere as a pollutant, it can destroy tissue. And before it does that, it will vasodilate the begeezes out of your blood vessels, depleting your ability to get oxygen to your brain and everywhere else in your body. Too much, by a very small percentage, will kill you.

This is what homeostasis is ALL ABOUT. This is why Lovelock used the homeostatic analogy in his Gaia hypothesis. He understood the incredibly small percentage of variation that our biosphere REQUIRES to be viable. The fact that most people are not aware of this is used by the deluded wishful thinkers to claim the gravity of our situation can be solved by killing off most of the human population. NEVER MIND that the top 20% will still be there doing 80% of the damage.


The collapse of the human population will not allow the fish populations to rebound simply because EATING the fish, though a contributing factor, is not the main reason they are headed for extinction.

Your post is biosphere reality challenged. It's time for you to take of the "culling the population will solve all our problems" rose colored glasses.

 



Palloy said,
Quote
At the risk of being called a shill for the fossil fuel industry by AG, again, I should just like to point out that the pH of the oceans varies between 8.1 and 8.4, and that so far climate change hasn't altered that by 0.1 anywhere at all.

How can Palloy be right about percentages and WRONG about the deleterious impact on marine species at the same time?  :icon_scratch:  First of all, he refused to state the TREND when he said that  "pH of the oceans varies between 8.1 and 8.4". This is double talk for, "it's no big deal". To cover his illogical ass he then says that "eventually" it's gonna happen. LOL! A brain dead person knows that! His entire post lowballs the  existential threat for marine species due to CO2 caused ocean acidification. This is what irresponsible defenders of the polluting energy status quo DO.   


Quote



OA Observations and Data

Follow the links below to access ocean acidification data for each of our observation programs

The field of carbon cycle science depends on well-designed, well-executed, and carefully maintained observations.  The PMEL carbon group primarily focuses on large scale observations of ocean interior carbon through hydrographic cruises and surface ocean carbon dynamics through measurements made on volunteer observing ships, buoys, and other autonomous systems. We work in both the open ocean and in coastal environments. We maintain long-term time series observations as well as conducting short term process studies or exploratory studies.  Since ocean acidification emerged as an important scientific issue, we have been augmenting and expanding our observational capacity by adding pH and other biogeochemical measurements to the platforms listed below.

http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/OA+Observations+and+Data
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Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #314 on: September 21, 2015, 08:41:35 pm »
Quote
outbacktommy • 4 hours 46 min ago #9 Has the earth's capacity to provide food for the human population been exceeded? If so, by how much, or how much room is left? I'm concerned that due to the inertia of the status quo, and the pressures of the developmental state of the bulk of the earths population, that our climate tipping point was reached several years ago and that all we can do now is slow it's progress. One of the few factors that keeps me optimistic is raising my children to be aware of their consumption and how it relates to the consumption of others and the impact on our earth. - See more at: http://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2015/09/will-be-worst-el-nino-65-years#comment-form

Agelbert reply to outbacktommy

Here's the situation:

I present to you following short video as scientific evidence that the precautionary principle demands we engage in drastic and massive efforts immediately to reduce the probability of Near Term Human Extinction (N.T.H.E.):



A brief explanation of why positive feedback loops are uncontrollable, once they start. Incremental measures will not stop positive feedback loops from starting. Therefore, incremental measures will not work to reduce the high probability of N.T.H.E. from a multiplicity of positive feedback loops. This is why immediate and drastic action is warranted now.

For more detail on the subject of positive feedback mechanisms:
Why positive feedback mechanisms will not be prevented by incremental measures.

David Wasdell is a credentialed scientist. He was a reviewer in IPCC studies. He explains how the SCIENCE was downplayed by lawyers from various governments. This was done so the science predicting catastrophe (i.e. NON-linearity of degradation acceleration) WOULD NOT be made public. The only hard position reached by the IPCC is that climate change is anthropogenic, PERIOD. Since then things have improved somewhat on the truth about the gravity of our situation, but the public is still mostly in the dark about the existential threat calmly explained here.

David Wasdell makes it clear that strategy geared to today's symptoms is insufficient because causal elements have a 40 to 50 year lag. Incremental measures based on present observations are, not just doomed to fail, they guarantee that they will fail in the future. Only massive, government sponsored action NOW has a chance (and even that is not a sure thing, as is stated in this video) of somewhat ameliorating the probability of catastrophe.

He clearly states that a massive extinction event destroying over 80% of life on earth will be triggered by about 30 positive feedback loops that credentialed climate scientists agree will overwhelm the ability of our technology to stop them.

http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/climate-change/global-warming-is-with-us/msg3824/#msg3824

Also, these questions I answered may help you to understand the gravity of our plight. And, as you surmised, it's not that we can't handle high temperatures, it's that we can't feed ourselves in a 4 degree plus C world (from the preindustrial world baseline).

Despite what the IPCC reports say publiicly about staying within a plus 2 degree C target, scientists in the IPCC already admit that is a lost cause BECAUSE of the government lawyers that forced the massaging of the IPCC science.

Governments are doing absolutely nothing to stop CO2 emissions. The incremental measures to reduce them are woefully insufficient. - See more at: http://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2015/09/will-be-worst-el-nino-65-years#comment-335511

These are the questions:

-What is the reliability of projections which suggest trends such as CO2 emissions, species extinction, deforestation, etc. will continue at a rate destructive enough to conclude HP (high probability) of NTHE?

-What are the chances that natural positive feedback mechanisms in these areas will burn themselves out or be counter-acted by negative feedback mechanisms?

-What are the chances that scientific technology will progress quickly enough to offer viable solutions (I believe you say this is a very good chance)?

-What are the chances that the above technology, or other mitigating policies, will be implemented by corporations and governments which can make a difference when push comes to shove (I believe you say this is a low chance, but quite possible)?

-What are the chances that consumers may intentionally or unintentionally act in ways to mitigate destructive environmental trends (for ex, becoming too poor to consume as much)?

-What are any other known or as of yet unknown factors which may serve to mitigate the destructive trends?


Answers at the following two links:

http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/climate-change/global-warming-is-with-us/msg3827/#msg3827

http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/climate-change/global-warming-is-with-us/msg3828/#msg3828

Finally, don't believe any of the fossil fuel industry funded propaganda out there about increased CO2 concentration in a warming planet being "good" for plants.

The fact is that the reverse is true.

http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/climate-change/global-warming-is-with-us/msg3825/#msg3825


The Fossil Fuelers   DID THE Climate Trashing, human health depleteing CRIME,   but since they have ALWAYS BEEN liars and conscience free crooks, they are trying to AVOID   DOING THE TIME or     PAYING THE FINE!     Don't let them get away with it! Pass it on!
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

 

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