A cyber-penny for your cyber-thoughts and links. Just another tree-free day on Climate Progress:
Climate Progress
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Get ThinkProgress email alerts
About Climate Progress
Edited by Joe Romm, we cover climate science, solutions and politics. Columnist Tom Friedman calls us "the indispensable blog" and Time magazine named us one of the 25 "Best Blogs of 2010." Newcomers, start here.
Joe Romm's New Book
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga.
Joe Romm has pulled together the secrets of the greatest communicators in history to show how you can apply these tools to your writing, speaking, blogging — even your Tweeting.
Subscribe to Climate Progress by Email
Powered by NewsWhip
Got a Hot Tip?
Have a hot news tip? We'd love to hear from you. Use the form below to send us the latest.
Climate Progress Archives
About ThinkProgress | Contact Us | Donate
You can wear now a Climate Tshirt made by me, with the following slogan:
The oceans are warmer today than they were 30 years ago, means there’s about, on average, 4 percent more water vapor lurking around – Kevin Trenberth, Scientist
Can be bought in the US and EU. http://galaxymachine.de
Working now on another climate thmed TShirt with this quote: The only constant is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.
— Isaac Asimov
Feedback is welcome
Maybe some way to shorten/paraphrase the text.
A t-shirt idea may be to include a quote from the National Academy of Sciences assessment.
Great that you are using creative ways to get the word out.
Need a better quote. Maybe Asimov on global warming.
You are right, i will probably use a quote from “Our Angry Earth”.
Keep in mind the CafePress Tshirt from Skeptical Science – “97% of climate experts agree we’re causing global warming”
(what we need, is people to wear them w/in sight of weathercasters…)
I think a set of Tshirts, with 1 little-known fact per shirt, would be great. It’s a great conversation starter for those who want to talk, and gently reaches those who don’t.
Mental Health:
As my contribution to the open thread, I would like to call attention to keeping one’s mental/emotional health up to par. I am starting to dig myself out of depression, likely touched off from informing myself deeply on the subjects of energy, resources, and climate change. These are all such interesting and important topics that they sucked in my attention for a while and knocked me down a pretty bad emotional spiral.
Anyway, talk with a good licensed psychiatrist/psychologist, if you feel the need to do so. Take a look at the symptoms for depression, and assess yourself in order to determine if you need help. Depression is one of those things that you don’t necessarily realize is a problem unless you are consciously aware of it. Also, the serotonin re-uptake inhibitor drugs do work for some people; my brain physiology seems to be quite receptive to them. My therapist has told me the peer-review literature suggests that both therapy and the drugs together have the best effects, drugs on their own have the least likely chance for success.
Anyway, keep yourselves in fighting shape. The issues discussed here at Climate Progress are important and need to be advocated by people that are in peak form, in all aspects of health and well-being.
I suggest humor as a remedy, Otter. People like Watts and Koch are perfect targets for the comedy of the absurd. Gail Zawacki is good at this approach- she wears wild costumes for public demonstrations, and keeps the zest going.
I find that the endorphins released during the act of sex facilitates a great release of tension and momentary feelings of intense pleasure. Sorta leaves the world outside your bedroom door for awhile. And getting a good bit of rest afterwards helps as well – passing on the cigarette, of course.
Sports, a healthy diet and music is also a great way to break up deep moods.
I do it less these days, but dedicating part of your news time on the net to actively seeking good news stories helps too. There are a LOT more of these than you might think if you`ve never done this.
Also, check your thyroid levels. I had a horrid time last year, and blamed it on all the reading I do–but last week tested low on thyroid function during annual physical. Could have added to the gloom.
take vacation days from reading/hearing about dire subjects, and limit your efforts to only one of them. (global warming?) Get outside, in nature, around animals, water, woods, the elements. befriend funny people. get a copy of nancy wilson ross’s “the world of zen” for some short brain-tune-ups. (i’m not a buddhist btw.) eat healthy food. replace tv with music. find an exercise you love and do it regularly. stay away from people who you don’t enjoy. talk to people you do, but not about your depression, except to tell them you are. save the therapy for a professional. avoid places that make you more depressed. change the scenery when you are. remember that it will pass.
Hah, thanks much for the suggestions, folks. I’ve come up with a plan of action to get myself up to par again.
Thanks for listening to my little public service announcement.
One of the few news sites reporting the Thai floods in the UK is Channel 4 – report here:
http://www.channel4.com/news/thailands-floods-threaten-bangkok
Some interesting thoughts from
Nouriel Roubini- the economist who predicted the housing bubble and great crash n 2008.
NEW YORK – This year has witnessed a global wave of social and political turmoil and instability, with masses of people pouring into the real and virtual streets: the Arab Spring; riots in London; Israel’s middle-class protests against high housing prices and an inflationary squeeze on living standards; protesting Chilean students; the destruction in Germany of the expensive cars of “fat cats”; India’s movement against corruption; mounting unhappiness with corruption and inequality in China; and now the “Occupy Wall Street” movement in New York and across the United States.
The increase in private- and public-sector leverage and the related asset and credit bubbles are partly the result of inequality. Mediocre income growth for everyone but the rich in the last few decades opened a gap between incomes and spending aspirations. In Anglo-Saxon countries, the response was to democratize credit – via financial liberalization – thereby fueling a rise in private debt as households borrowed to make up the difference. In Europe, the gap was filled by public services – free education, health care, etc. – that were not fully financed by taxes, fueling public deficits and debt. In both cases, debt levels eventually became unsustainable.
The result is that free markets don’t generate enough final demand. In the US, for example, slashing labor costs has sharply reduced the share of labor income in GDP. With credit exhausted, the effects on aggregate demand of decades of redistribution of income and wealth – from labor to capital, from wages to profits, from poor to rich, and from households to corporate firms – have become severe, owing to the lower marginal propensity of firms/capital owners/rich households to spend.
The problem is not new. Karl Marx oversold socialism, but he was right in claiming that globalization, unfettered financial capitalism, and redistribution of income and wealth from labor to capital could lead capitalism to self-destruct. As he argued, unregulated capitalism can lead to regular bouts of over-capacity, under-consumption, and the recurrence of destructive financial crises, fueled by credit bubbles and asset-price booms and busts.
Any economic model that does not properly address inequality will eventually face a crisis of legitimacy. Unless the relative economic roles of the market and the state are rebalanced, the protests of 2011 will become more severe, with social and political instability eventually harming long-term economic growth and welfare.
read it all
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/roubini43/English
There have been also considerable riots in Toronto earlier this year.
The Psychological Impacts of Global Climate Change
..warming is likely to have some direct impacts on human behavior. On the basis of experimental and correlational research, Anderson (2001) concluded that there is a causal relationship between heat and violence and that any increase in average global temperature is likely to be accompanied by an increase in violent aggression. Predictions include a rise of about 24,000 assaults or murders in the United States every year for every increase of 2 degrees Fahrenheit in the average temperature. In a more recent article, Anderson and DeLisi (in press) described some of the probable effects of climate change on violence. Both lab-based manipulations of temperature and comparisons of differences in violent crime associated with seasonal and regional temperature differences indicate that heat can have an immediate effect on violent tendencies. More subtle but possibly more powerful long-term impacts may result from an effect of heat on fetal and child development. http://climateforce.net/2011/08/07/the-psychological-impacts-of-global-climate-change/
lets all think.
So this does not only apply to the human species.
There is a casual link with heated animal behavior and hot times also.
Interesting times lie ahead….
Not only will the heat exacerbate conflicts and aggressive human behavior, once you have a shortage of water or food, people will start looting.
And before this people will try to steal things to compensate. Especially in our consumer world, where many can not participate.
This is why i think that the 99% movement today, is so important. Better find now a solution for more justice and less poverty. than later into the century. Imagine the 99% movement during a time of heat waves and food shortages.
I wish Roubini had said (my addition in caps)
“Any economic model that does not properly address BOTH inequality AND OUR ADDICTION TO ECONOMIC GROWTH will eventually face a crisis of legitimacy.”
Spain!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SjUIEAZr4Yo
And HSBC have released a study on climate change vulnerability which makes sobering reading
http://www.hsbc.com/1/content/assets/about_hsbc/2011_in_the_future/111013_scoring_climate_change_risk.pdf
Thanks, Spike, that’s an interesting piece. I agree about India, since it’s already almost unbearably hot there in Spring. Canada may not be the least vulnerable place, though. We don’t know how the boreal forest will react to another 2C. It could burn up, and subsequent flooding could cause massive erosion and property damage.
Thanks for the link. It looks to be an excellent paper and it’s good to see it coming from the business community.
The ranking of the vulnerability of G20 countries is an interesting approach – and resonates.
The high cost of inaction
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/10/the-cost-of-inaction/
About
Socolow Re-Reaffirms 2004 ‘Wedges’ Paper, Urges ‘Monumental’ Levels of Clean Energy Deployment ASAP
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/09/30/333435/socolow-wedges-clean-energy-deployment/
Just another local twist in the unfolding climate drama. I have a small eco-village project in NW Costa Rica near the Pacific. Wet-dry tropical climate.
Now in our rainy season, we are experiencing a massive increase in lightning. No scientists here, nor historical data to rely on, but all the long-term foreign residents and older locals agree that the intensity of lightning strikes is way above historical norms.
The effect that this increase will have on our local reforestation efforts is yet to be determined, but the skeletons of dead trees are visible throughout the forests on the hills of our valley.
On the positive side, perhaps someone will figure out a way to harness all that incoming energy and plug in into the national grid.
Speaking of the North American boreal forest, Joe, I think that an extensive post is called for. It’s a giant carbon sink- mostly in the soil- poised for massive feedbacks when the climate warms.
Geoengineering here would take the form of leaving it alone, and not continuing to clearcut it for two by fours, packaging, and toilet paper.
I can suggest qualified forest scientists to write on the subject. This would reach a bigger audience here than in the journals. Most people, even among the educated, don’t know how critical that area is to our future, and don’t know how fragile it actually is.
Mike, there is a major beetle problem. There is now a danger of the beetles crossing over through Canada from the west to the east. What can we do about that?
Pete-
Beetle kills are more devastating in “managed” stands, which tend to be dominated by pine. Mature forests are more diverse and more resilient. Post beetle kill surviving species take over niches and fix nitrogen.
Heres a story about an interesting boreal forest albedo feedback… Hopefully I do the tag right this time…
guess not… here it is in plain text
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110325022352.htm
Back to the wedges of stabilization, either Socolow’s or yours (the latter aimed at lower CO2). Pictures help so much. Somewhere there is a pie chart of all the wedges, isn’t there? [If not, there ought to be]. Joe, could you repost that chart, or something equally graphic?
From desmogblog – the big Canadian corporation that owns Zucatti Park is trying to shut down Occupy Wall Street. Guess what? Is hugely in the dirty energy business, big suprise.
http://desmogblog.com/canadian-corporation-behind-efforts-shut-down-occupy-wall-street-has-ties-big-oil
Hi all,
I printed some Climate Hawk t-shirts, available here:
http://joeimmen.bigcartel.com/product/climate-hawk-t-shirt
You can use coupon CLIMATE20 to get 20% off.
I’d like to offer my recommendation for “The Climate Crisis: An Introductory Guide to Climate Change” by David Archer and Stefan Rahmstorf. If you’re like me – somewhat technical (an electrical engineer), but not a climate scientist – this book offers a very well written and well documented narrative on AGW – including commentary of IPCC AR4. Disclaimer: I am in no way connected to either author.
http://www.amazon.com/Climate-Crisis-Introductory-Guide-Change/dp/0521732557/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318690047&sr=1-1
Joe, this is somewhat aimed at you because it suggests an effort to get true information about climate change to more people.
Reading about Siri, the iPhone 4s “intelligent assistant” fascinated me, leading to a lot of research. Found, among other things: Siri makes extensive use of WolframAlpha technology to answer questions. Other IA’s use TrueKnowledge. If you stick a .com after these you can ask questions via internet. These are “Answer” sites. They mostly give pertinent info, not other sites.
People will obviously be asking questions about climate change. The sites appear let you introduce information to be used in future queries. Same with Wikipedia.
Is there an ongoing effort to populate answers with accurate responses? If not, how to start one?
BTW: For fun, try asking TrueKnowledge.com “What is the meaning of life, the universe and everything?”
WolframAlpha’s response is, well, not as much fun.
John Locke on Climate Change
John Locke’s ‘The Second Treatise of Government’ is, as many know, a remarkable and history-influencing book. In essence, it’s the book (and type of reasoning) upon which most of what we currently understand about the foundational justifications of government is based. Locke was a huge influence on Thomas Jefferson, and on the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution, and he was one of the three people from history that Jefferson admired most.
In any case, has anyone read it recently? Please do: and when you do, keep in mind the issue of climate change. If we accept the scientific understanding of climate change (as we should), and if we understand that climate change will bring harms on people and societies throughout the world (as it most likely will), then the clear (and repeated) statements and logic used by Locke result in the following:
1. That if the United States and other large offending countries (i.e., those that put immense amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere and are unwilling to stop) do not stop doing so, and take effective measures to dramatically reduce CO2 emissions to safe levels that won’t cause harms, then countries that will be harmed by climate change would (and will) be justified to use force or other means in an effort to protect their own interests and insist that we stop. Do you understand? If we don’t stop contributing to climate change, and thus to the harms that it will bring, other countries (and/or their peoples) will be JUSTIFIED — they will be “in the right” — to use force or other means against us, to protect their interests. This according to John Locke: and his reasoning is sound. Of course, he would say (correctly) that such countries should ask us to reduce our emissions, and verbally insist that we do, and then give us fair warnings if we don’t, before they resort to other means (e.g., force, the taking-over of U.S. assets on their soil, or etc.). But in the end, Locke’s clear statements and reasoning give this result: that if the U.S.’s activities cause harms or are causing harms to other countries and peoples, if the U.S. doesn’t stop those activities, those other countries and peoples would be justified, and in the right, to use force or other means against us. Realize that this is the same document that set the stage for the right of our founders to declare independence from England.
2. That President Obama most likely doesn’t even have the right, i.e., the genuine authority, to permit such a thing as the Keystone XL pipeline. Why not? U.S. Law gives him such a right, right? Well, as it turns out, U.S. Law (and the U.S. government, and the U.S. people) don’t really, genuinely, have that right to give in the first place. In other words, in light of what science tells us about climate change, and the harms it will likely bring, NO PEOPLES or COMMUNITIES that they establish (i.e., countries) have the right to bring about and impose such harms on the rest of the world. Period. Read Locke. Or rather, what I’d say to the Repubs and oil execs is this: “Read Locke and weep!”
Some people may think that this is merely a theoretical argument, that it doesn’t really matter. Not so. When people, and countries, who are harmed by climate change feel and see those harms more and more, or even anticipate them on the basis of what scientists are saying, they will increasingly want to stop us (and others) from continuing to contribute to the problem, and many of them will begin to want reparations. There is nothing theoretical about that: it’s already beginning to happen. But as we know, and as history tells us, people also look for sound justifications for their actions, especially when those actions are large and potentially grave. If, as seems to be the case (read it for yourselves), the very same document that originally provided the basis for our modern understanding of government, and for the American war of independence and the French revolution, and the underlying reasoning, also lays out the justification and reasoning that would support what I’ve said above, THAT is something important to understand. In short, we are “in the wrong” to cause the types of harms that climate change will bring; we are “in the wrong” not to stop contributing to the problem; we are “in the wrong” to ignore the pleas and genuine requests to stop the harms that have been made by many other countries and peoples; and those countries and peoples will ultimately be “in the right” to use whatever means they choose, if necessary to defend themselves, their lands, their climate, their properties, and so forth.
I suggest that people read ‘The Second Treatise of Government’, by John Locke, which is part of his ‘Two Treatises of Government’ (1690).
I’d also suggest that businesses should care, deeply, about these things, not only because all people (as humans) should care, but also for specific business reasons. For example, if McDonalds wants to avoid a situation wherein countries (small, medium, or large) begin to take possession of McDonalds assets, as partial restitution for damages brought about by climate change, then McDonalds ought to be in favor of U.S. policies that dramatically reduce our contribution to climate change. Same goes for Walmart. Same goes for GE. Same goes for Starbucks. Same goes for etc. etc. etc. And, if some countries start to take possession of the assets of U.S. companies like that, in response to climate change, and rightly so (according to John Locke, for example), and if those companies or the U.S. government would want us, U.S. citizens, to go to war with those countries for doing so, such a war would be an unjust war on our part; and don’t ask me to participate in an unjust war. Our choice is this: to very substantially reduce our CO2 emissions and do all that we can to prevent furthering of the climate change problem.
In any case, read Locke.
Be Well,
Jeff
are you going to the white house on nov. 6th to pressure obama to say no to the pipeline? you could take some Locke quotes on signs! if you are unable, make the signs and pay for an unemployed person or student to go in your place….
Jeff,
Your comment, I think, is fully on target.
In the MTR film, “The Last Mountain,”which I recommend, Robert F. Kennedy reminds us that ancient law saw the logic of protecting our air, and that modern man set aside this law in order to allow rampant industrialization.
Now the chickens are coming home to roost, and, as you point out, we are openning ourselves to world hatred, and worse. Sad.
Jeff, not that you need more to do, but I’d enjoy hearing your similar, thoughtful, historically-reasoned thoughts on leadership.
To wit, don’t leaders normally have some obligation to protect their people from harm? Would this obligation logically, if not legally, extend to the POTUS, Obama?
You write so well about these topics. Do we have reason to call on Obama to do more to protect us? If he doesn’t act, do we have any legal recourse? What can we do?
What can non-Americans do?
Warm regards,
Roger
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/10/14/pol-.html
The Harper gov’t this week cuts funding to a 34-year-old national environmental network that has served as a link between people and the federal government.
The network acted as a link between 640 small environmental groups across the country and the federal government. In the past, if Ottawa needed advice on policies or new laws it would ask the network for input. The organization would then help the various smaller groups discuss issues and take part in formal consultations across the country.
The grassroots organization has helped craft important environmental legislation over the past three decades, including the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
Environmental groups are furious about the decision.
Former national co-ordinator of group says “Canadians are not going to spend their time mining the far reaches of the government web pages to find out about new policies,” he said. “The Environmental Network does that. We are the connection between the people and the feds.”
The Harper government’s Environment Ministry is there to protect the business environment of the oil companies of the tar sands.
In light of Dr Caldiera’s email to Joe (Oct 10th on CP) the NOAA/NSIDC report of permafrost carbon emissions (Feb 17th on CP) warrants a review. That report was exceptional in its degree of self-censorship in six main items, notably its failures:
1. to adopt our present warming trajectory as the driver of permafrost melt rather than a moderate IPCC scenario;
2. to include projections of warming from the other five mega-feedbacks, of which three are readily quantifiable (one per ppmv of CO2, two per degree C of global temperature);
3. to describe permafrost emissions in CO2e rather than just in carbon;
4. to include the consequent warming from permafrost emissions in calculating their rate of output;
5. to provide an additional projection of warming and consequent permafrost emissions that also includes warming from the loss of the sulphate parasol due to anthro-emissions’ control;
6. to provide a clear concluding statement that, absent our early intervention in global temperature, permafrost CO2e emissions alone will cause such warming of the oceans that the future control of self-reinforcing warming is impossible.
Without correcting other deficiencies, just the description of permafrost emissions in CO2e is sufficient to justify the missing conclusion. Widespread observation of water-saturation of melted permafrost peat indicates the normal exclusion of oxygen causing anaerobic decomposition, and the large majority of carbon being emitted as methane and only a small minority as CO2. Taking a highly conservative 50:50 ratio, CO2e outputs from the deficient NOAA/NSIDC graph of carbon outputs, under methane’s 72CO2e equivalence to CO2 on a 20yr-horizon, can be seen as follows:
1.0GTC x 3.667CO2 . . . . . . . . .= 3.667GT CO2e
1.0CTC x 1.333CH4 x 72CO2e = 96.0GT CO2e
From an approximated trendline on the graph, CO2e emissions at decade intervals are:
Year. . . . .GTC. . . . .CO2. . . CH4 as CO2e. . . .Sum GT CO2e
2020. . . . .0.52. . . . .0.953. . . . . .24.96. . . . . . . . . .25.91
2030. . . . .0.82. . . . .1.503. . . . . .39.36. . . . . . . . . .40.86
2040. . . . 1.033. . . . 1.894. . . . . .49.584. . . . . . . . . 51.48
2050. . . . .1.22. . . . .2.237. . . . . .58.56. . . . . . . . . .67.28
This conservative assessment indicates a permafrost CO2e output by 2020 equal to a 78% rise on present annual anthro-CO2 outputs, and an effective doubling a few years later. By comparison, the most high profile anti-GHG campaign – against the Tar Sands – is against a rise of perhaps 3% at most by the mid-2020s.
With this information, it seems clear that we have already drifted into the need of emergency intervention to control global temperature specifically to halt permafrost melt, and that this need is being obscured from the public, (though if anyone could either refute the above quantification of that threat, or point out other means of its resolution than effective albido restoration, that would be very welcome).
In this light, beside generally urging an extension of CP’s focus to include scientists’ acceptance of censorship of public information (which is plainly at least as dangerous as profiteering denialism), specifically Dr Caldiera’s email, talking down the likelihood of geo-e and talking up the impracticality of sulphate aerosols, warrants a more detailed critique than it got last week. To this end I’m posting a second comment below.
Regards,
Lewis
Very good info, Lewis, thanks.
Lewis:
I’ve read and reread this post and thought I understood. I hope I didn’t. I’d really appreciate your help.
It seems like you are saying that if we stopped all carbon emissions tomorrow, the warming already in the pipeline plus the resulting emissions from melting permafrost leading to further warming would cause catastrophic global warming.
Or are you saying that with no significant reductions of carbon output by man, melting permafrost outputs will overwhelm mankind’s outputs in 10 years or so, causing catastrophic global warming?
Or something else entirely.
Guess I’m looking for a concise summary of the dangers as you understand them independent of discussions of Geo-E and Dr Caldiera’s email to Joe.
Brooks – thanks for your response.
You have it right in the former outline I’m afraid. Just the doubling of warming in the pipeline, reflecting our increase of CO2 since the mid-’70s from 335ppmv to 390ppmv along with the rise of other GHGs and albedo loss to date, would massively accelerate the feedbacks over the next ~35 years, effectively regardless of efforts at cutting anthro emissions.
Those anthro emissions will have the same ~35yr timelag on their warming impact, meaning that they’d not start becoming a driver of the main terrestrial and water vapour feedbacks until the late 2040s. They certainly need cutting to near zero ASAP, but even on a radical 25yr schedule, that wouldn’t affect the issue of controlling the permafrost melt, which will be won or lost long before their impact is felt. Even ending them today would have no significant effect on the problematic pipeline warming; in fact, by ending the resupply of the cooling ‘sulphate parasol’, it would impose an additional timelagged pipeline warming amounting to a second doubling of AGW (ref. Hansen).
The permafrost CO2e emissions would also of course be of timelagged impact to some extent – but the projected huge volumes of heat entering the oceans would clearly have extreme impacts on both sea-ice loss and seabed methyl clathrates in less than the full ~35yr timelag for global air temperature rise and related climate destabilization.
The core of the issue of permafrost melt’s CO2e output is that if it is not rapidly controlled, its resulting heating of the oceans means we should be committed to uncontrollable self-reinforcing warming – i.e. to extinction.
I find this information pretty unwelcome and have posted it here partly in hopes of a refutation which, despite some long and hard study, I’ve been unable to produce myself.
My second hope was that if the info is essentially correct it will cause people to review the secondary and ineffective US ‘national-footprint’ focus, and start addressing global warming as THE critical Global issue that demands the mutual investment of one aspect of national soveriegnty in the global common good, specifically in an equitable and efficient climate treaty.
In my view the absence of this demand as the core focus of US environmentalists’ stance is one of the primary things that has to change – if we’re going to find a resolution to the predicament.
Regards,
Lewis
Back in 200(?), a leader in clathrate study put up a question to Bush and the public at large, last I read she and the national commission she was on were having trouble with what to say in that they hadn’t heard back.
Have things changed with the commission concerning those long standing concens?
An act of congress established the Methane Hydrates Research and Advisory Committee in the year 2000.
They just had another meeting Oct. 12 and the minutes are available.
I don’t know if they are still saying that there is a real issue with it but they probably do.
Just saying
Enjoy
Raul
Dr Caldiera’s scientific expertise in his field, which has my profound respect, is such that few could hope to critique his work – yet this should not be conflated with his political judgement, which is neither a matter of formal training nor qualifications nor published works.
His email to Joe (Oct 10th on CP) is primarily about politics, not science, and indicates a wish to defuse outcry over the BPC’s unwise rebranding effort, which he doesn’t seem very keen to defend – he makes clear that his preference was for separate reports on carbon recovery and albido restoration, thus evading the need of a single name for both. Notably, he twice refers to anyone seeing albido restoration as a means to continue polluting as ‘nutters’ – indicating that there are few if any such on the BPC panel, since it’s futile to insult people that one hopes to influence in future sessions.
Plainly Dr Caldiera is fighting his corner in discussions, knowing that sulphate aerosols are both simple and cheap enough to be deployed within months, even by a minor nation, let alone the US. Moreover, the prior testing question is null since they can only be effectively tested at global scale on a multi-year basis. His research is primarily into benign alternatives, and that needs time and resources, and the lack of any public clamour for early intervention and, especially, a steady opposition to sulphate aerosols – which I suspect is the reason he talks down the need for Geo-E and talks up the impracticality of sulphates, even at the risk of seeming complacent and less than candid.
For instance:
“If, however, we are speaking about the sunlight reflection approaches, then I still think it unlikely that these would ever be deployed unless there is some kind of crisis.”
This can still be written for a US audience, including CP readers, but in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Thailand, Colombia and scores of other afflicted countries it would seem profoundly discreditable. Consider your reaction to it if the US population had been hit with damage proportionate to the Pakistan floods – 1.6 million Americans and their children are still homeless and destitute from the 2010 event; with 5 million more now impacted by the 2011 event, with untold numbers of people missing, with around 18,000 villages destroyed by surging waters, along with their vital livestock and equipment, and with a large fraction of the nation’s harvest lost for a second year – Would this be enough to be called ‘a crisis’ ?
For instance:
“I see the term “climate remediation” as aspirational: the goal is to try to remedy some of the causes or consequences of climate change. The extent to which such efforts can be successful is an open question, but there is no doubt that the environmentally safest path is to avoid emitting greenhouse gases in the first place.”
No scientist of Dr Caldiera’s standing could be unaware of the prime justification for geo-e – that we have at least a quadrupling of warming ‘in the pipeline’ (due to thermal inertia and loss of the ‘sulphates parasol’ by emissions’ control) which will act on the six interactive mega-feedbacks, of which at least five are already accelerating just under today’s timelagged warming from the 1970’s 335ppmv of CO2. With albido loss reportedly already providing a forcing equivalent to around 30% of annual anthro-CO2 outputs, and Russian academics expecting fully one third of their permafrost to have melted by 2050 (predictably outgassing its carbon mostly as methane not CO2 owing to the peat’s water saturation) the feedbacks’ interactive threat is patently obvious – despite its super-exponential quantification being problematic. The safest path is thus one that addresses that early feedback threat, and stops its long-term exacerbation by both airborne GHG stocks and by further anthro-emissions.
For instance:
“How could anybody ever tell whether a weather event was due to the stratospheric aerosols, excess greenhouse gases, or natural variability in the climate system? If some region has a major drought in the decade after the introduction of the stratospheric aerosol spray, aren’t they likely to attribute that change to the aerosol spray system?”
This ignores the reality that with only two suspects, natural variability and AGW, and very extreme impacts occurring, no liability case has ever been taken to the ICJ, nor does the leading culprit, the USA and its fossil fuel industry, show the slightest fear of being so arraigned. Yet with a third suspect added, intentional sulphate aerosols, it is claimed that a credible case could be made ? Notably his statement both assumes that ‘sunlight reflection’ would mean damaging sulphate aerosols’ use (rather than, say, cloud brightening) and employs the rather lame liability argument as to the improbability of that usage. It also ignores the critical need for the prior agreement of global supervision of the objectives and the technologies’ RD&D that would nullify the liability question. As the BPC report indicates, the US preference is for control of its own exclusive coalition arrangement. Gardiner’s critique of this is telling.
For instance:
“However, if continued heating of the planet results in massive crop failures throughout the tropics and threatens huge loss of life, then it is possible that such risks [of unintended consequences] would seem like a good bargain.”
It is unclear what numbers of deaths amount to “huge loss of life” but with exceptionally low per capita global food stocks and farming increasingly disrupted by climate impacts and diverse pressures, the threat of mega-famine through massive crop failure is already present and is rising by the year. With scant reserves, that crop-failure will not threaten huge loss of life: it will impose it. In this context a better bargain for vulnerable developing countries (India, Brazil, China etc) would be to decline to cut their fossil emissions until a mandated UN scientific body is supervising the careful replacement of their sulphate component’s cooling effect.
For instance:
“I see research into these risky options as kind of an insurance policy. If you see a bunch of kids playing with matches on your wooden deck, your first impulse should be to get the kids to stop playing with matches. You might also want fire insurance, but our first responsibility is to try to prevent the fire.”
This again obscures the priorities: 2012 anthro-GHG outputs will not have a notable impact on global warming until the late 2040’s and while anthro outputs need to be cut ASAP, to ignore the feedback outputs, that are on track to dwarf them in the next two decades, and suggest instead that possible delay in halting anthro-outputs is a risk perhaps justifying geo-e as insurance – is surely either less than candid or implausibly ill-informed.
It needs saying that in ignoring the need for urgent global programs to cleanse the atmosphere by carbon recovery, and to decelerate the feedbacks by albido restoration, we are plodding along a deepening canyon that leads only to extinction. Climbing out of it is getting harder the further along we go. Once the feedbacks are out of control, that’s it. No human intervention could counteract say the mass collapse of methyl hydrates as ever warmer oceans trigger their release. Cutting our direct emissions – even at a radical pace – has little or no effect on our present trajectory directly towards that outcome.
Yet – while the feedbacks and the pipeline warming driving them are not yet beyond our potential control – both the public and the environment movement are lulled into an absence of demand for their control.
So why is this not an issue across the environment movement ? All we get are rather wild put-downs of geo-engineering assuming that a/. it’s a profit scam &/or b/. it’s a scam to prolong fossil profits &/or c/. it will require sulphate aerosols which might cause droughts . . . . . none of which are necessarily true. – Martin Bunzl’s “the definitive killer objection to geoengineering as even a temporary fix” is a case in point. His critique was of sulphate aerosols specifically, not even of albido restoration in general, let alone of carbon recovery too. If I wrote a piece titled “the definitive killer objection to energy supply reform” – that scarified say mega-hydro as representing all our renewable energy options and ignored energy conservation entirely, what response would it deserve ?
Whether enviro opinion leaders (unlike Caldiera) actually believe such cant as the a, b, & c reasons above, or simply enjoy vain hopes of using them as a stick to lessen the PTB’s confidence of Geo-E’s availability as an off-switch for warming once it becomes convenient, is beside the point. Much of the info on the feedbacks and the pipeline warming has been publicly available for over two decades, and nothing’s been done with it. Even most enviros are very hazy on the implications, let alone the public. Thus as Caldiera’s proposal of a post mega-famine ‘good bargain’ implies, we are plodding, blindfold, directly toward belated emergency attempts at geo-e, potentially using untested under-supervised technologies, that may well be applied (as in token forestry for commercial ‘carbon offsets’) for grossly counter-productive objectives.
If the environment movement actually undertook a strategic review of the global predicament, the absence of a campaign for a fully mandated UN scientific supervisory body (responsible for both the objectives and the R,D&D of geo-e technologies) would be pretty obvious as one of the critical missing components in global capacity-building for the resolution of global warming. Opposition to geo-e would be replaced with demand for its active, stringently careful R&D under formally mandated oversight. However, given the propensity of people to cling to the home-comforts of habits of mind – even here on CP (?)– I can only hope that these perspectives will get people to start looking around and asking, loudly and persistently,
“WEATHERFUCARWE ?”
because environmentalism’s dog-eared road map looks nothing at all like the country we’re in.
Regards,
Lewis
Also a great read Ken Caldeira’s homepage at Stanford University.
http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab/
Thank you Lewis. I can see Geo-E taking its place in the context of a UN scientific group, as long as some of those scientists have some understanding of the Earth as a system and not just a collection or aggregate of individual variables to be manipulated one by one.
You have also underlined the necessity and urgency of obtaining international agreement about a global plan of attack, AND an agreement about enforcible sanctions for any country that fails to adequately play its part. Given that the current UN is a representative body, a simple majority should suffice and should be considered binding on all.
I wonder how long it will take. Ban Ki Moon sounded pretty serious last time I heard him, ME
Joe, I hope you respond here.
Lewis, if sulfate aerosol albedo restoration can only be tested and implemented at scale, it is unlikely to happen unless it’s too late. You are assuming global agreement to aggressive intervention. The unknown consequences and continued ocean acidification are also strong arguments against. I’m not saying you are wrong- I am not well enough informed on the subject- but am skeptical of proactive decisions, since we haven’t even seen a carbon tax in this country.
However, if hydrates and peat start to erupt soon- and we’re seeing some of it already- the world will take these steps out of pure desperation. These and other feedbacks won’t be triggered within weeks or months. We’ll have a little time to form some sort of response, say, after the Siberian lakes and Canadian peat forests start to belch methane at a 1-2 Gt rate- which would be a huge increase over the present. This amount would be invisible to the public, however, along with its short term consequences.
The oil and coal companies will be there to cash in. Continuing scarcity and delivery bottlenecks will result in another doubling of fossil fuel prices in the next decade, making the fossil fuel companies more wealthy than almost any country, and more liquid than any of them. They will form geoengineering cartels, led by Koch, Shell, and Exxon, who we can be sure have investigated the above in depth. They are not fools, and know all about global warming.
They already control the American government. It will make little difference if we get sulfate spraying and (mistaken) tree planting schemes from the wholesale source.
We have a power vacuum in the US. Our parties were laughably easy to buy off, and no political body with any long term commitment has stepped up to stop them. By default, it might be up to scientists, and those with quality lay knowledge of what we are facing. This will need to happen within the next few years, and the struggle must be undertaken with a full commitment to everything except violence.
Mike, I’m sure that it can be depressing to be an American at the moment but I think it would be a mistake to judge future action by what has taken place in the US.
There is a lot going on around the world and behind the scenes at the UN and it is simply inconceivable that there will not be a global agreement, hopefully strong and binding, to drastically reduce emissions. The time is coming and as we see from the growing demos around the world, that agreement will be not just a high level international agreement but also one backed by ordinary people everywhere who’ve had a gutsful of corporate power in every area.
The rest of the world will not allow the fossil fuel monsters to cash in on the remaining reserves when it means certain death as well as destruction. Rich they may be but there is always more than one way to stuff a duck, ME
I hope you’re right, Merrelyn, but maybe you underestimate the stranglehold that the fossil fuel companies have here. Remember, we couldn’t even pass a carbon tax.
We already had an international agreement, the Kyoto treaty. The US failed to sign it, giving other countries an excuse to ignore their own targets. There is no international organization with the strength to demand compliance, since there are no penalties in place for failing to do so. Until bad actors are punished- including oil sheikdoms and extractive countries such as Canada- not much will change.
Mike, all things American are reported here (Oz) with alacrity and we are well informed on USA history and state of the art in this matter.
Please see my note just above to Lewis C about the conditions that could justifiably lead to Geo-E – they include enforcible sanctions.
Historically, the UN has been weak because of its premise of the supremacy of national sovereignty together with its representative nature, which as you well know, has led to a lack of effective intervention in such disasters as the Cambodian killing fields and the Rwandan genocide.
This is different. We are not talking about nation states but about our PLANET which supports life. The UN, perhaps with totally changed rules and protocols, will act. The only real question is ‘will it be too late?’, ME
Penalties on CO2 emissions are not working, so how about some thought to making CO2 a resource so greed can help? Whatever the US does in reducing its emissions will be offset by the accelerating power demand of India, China, and the developing world. Calera has an interesting process for making cement from CO2, although where they get all of the NaOH remains unclear to me. Solar-to-fuel using CO2 as a feedstock for electrolysis also is worth a look. CO2 might be a way to store the energy of wind and solar which would otherwise go to waste because it is curtailed.
For you James Hansen fans,check out Hansen’s endorsement of Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL). He’s also on CCL’s 3-member board.
CCL’s goal is simple. Organize by congressional district to pass fee-and-dividend legislation. 45 Chapters so far.
CCL members organized the local tar sands protest at Obama’s Milwaukee HQ, but CCL’s focus is direct, one-on-one lobbing–creating longterm relationships with congressmen both nationally and locally.
But, there is also extensive contact with local media, political, business, religious, academic and other opinions leaders. You don’t have to join to help (but there are no dues so why not). Hopefully, you’ll hear more about CCL, but they’re clearly on the right track.
Global temperature for September 2011 was the 8th warmest on record:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
September 2011 Global temperature anomaly map
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2011&month_last=09&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=09&year1=2011&year2=2011&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg
NOAA also finds last month as the 8th warmest September:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2011/9
Again, may I remind everyone of the good news from the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington.
The Center is discussing a “Plan B” should curbing CO2 fail. This would involve research and action to put reflective material into our atmosphere to reduce sunlight hitting earth, thus slowing heating of the planet.
It is a radical and problematic course, but it beats doing nothing in light of lack of progress on reducing CO2.
The most hopeful aspect of this move is we are getting realistic about not curbing CO2. Up until now we have been just bemoaning government, media and private resistance or outright refusal to deal with climate change. Attacking or mocking the Deniers became an end in itself. Hopefully, we are turning a page toward realism and effective action.
We also need a “Plan C” that deals with potential failure of Plans A and B. Plan C would deal with survival for at least some humans. It is grim work and the mind wants to set such dire thoughts aside.
But we set the dire idea of global warming aside many years ago and see where that got us.
Here is the link to an article on Plan B thinking by the Bipartisan Policy Center:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/science/earth/04climate.html?_r=1
Bill- (Gates?)- we appreciate your weighing in here, but it becomes problematic to assume that drastic emissions reductions will be just as impossible in the future as they are now. Results include a what-the-hell return to Happy Motoring and living large, and a guarantee that the key actor- the United States- continues to do nothing.
We may be forced into geoengineering sooner than we think, but continuing BAU- which you are doing via the Foundation’s fossil fuel investments- is deeply cynical and defeatist. Whether you smell profits in geoengineering or have just arrived at a rational decision to go that route, you are expressing a deep cynicism that is part of what got us into this horrible trap.
Mike, good to get your thoughts. We need not suspect each others motives here.
I see no problem with working on Plans A, B and C at the same time. I just feel it is a kind of “Denial-lite” to go on acting like we can get the CO2 genie back in the bottle. Time is getting very short.
We are at nearly 400 parts per million CO2 and scientists say anything over 350 is highly threatening.
To me there is a kind of cynicism continuing as if we can reduce CO2 emissions. International conferences have failed utterly. If there is a buck to be made, I feel no CO2 reduction will happen. Add to that the millions of people in places like India and China fighting to attain upper class status even with its fossil fuel costs.
We got caught flat footed with no planning or effective action on CO2 build up which we were warned about decades ago. Let’s not invest all our efforts soley hoping to stop CO2 emissions.
Thinking about and working on Plans B and C requires unpleasant admissions about where earth is going.
But rational people like those at this blog do what reality dictates.
Unfortunately, Bill, plan B is very unlikely to work.
Trying to fix a hugely complex system which is going out of control by adding still more factors is not likely to work.
There is one carbon negative strategy that likely would work, though, and that would actually start putting the genie back in the bottle:
Wikipedia: Bio-energy with Carbon Capture and Storage
Biomass Energy with Carbon Capture and Storage:
River transport of biomass and charcoal would be one way to cut down on transportation costs. Many coal fired power plants are on rivers for cooling water, including many, many on the Mississippi river and its navigable tributaries.
Combining the so called “clean coal” strategy of carbon sequestration with naturally carbon neutral biomass energy results in carbon negative electricity supply.
As the supplier of about a tenth of anthropogenic CO2, transforming the coal fired power plants in the U.S. into a net carbon neutral or slightly carbon negative source of electricity for electric vehicles would not be trivial.
It is even possible to make the coal fired power plants more efficient, by adding a topping cycle, and pay for the conversion with increased efficiency.
The Bangkok Post op-ed -
We do not know what we are doing
This entire story is typical, and decades in the making. The theme of incompetence; the plot of mediocrity; the characters that are self-righteous, vain and greedy; and the climax of disastrous loss of lives and livelihoods. Yes, there’s something we know best how to do, to get things done in our favour. But unfortunately, Mother Nature doesn’t take bribe money.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/261557/we-do-not-know-what-we-are-doing
Thailand is a tropical country with monsoon seasons. Annual flooding is even more a part of life than skin-whitening cream, but less so than corruption. Given climate change, deforestation, decades of poor planning and mismanagement, the flood disaster will get progressively worse and worse. The present disaster will pale compared to the next one.
Hanna told the Guardian the company’s suppliers, who are mainly in Central America, were already experiencing changing rainfall patterns and more severe pest infestations.
Even well-established farms were seeing a drop in crop yield, and that could well discourage growers from cultivating coffee in the future, further constricting supply, he said. “Even in very well established coffee plantations and farms, we are hearing more and more stories of impacts.”
These include: more severe hurricanes, mudslides and erosion, variation in dry and rainy seasons.
Hanna said the company was working with local producers to try to cushion them from future changes.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/oct/13/starbucks-coffee-climate-change-threat?newsfeed=true
Central America death toll at 45 from heavy rains
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/world/Central+America+death+toll+from+heavy+rains/5556805/story.html#ixzz1atiA2w13
Rice in Arkansas
In Arkansas County, “we are 70 percent harvested on rice, but this past week was very slow due to spotty rain showers and cloudy days,” said Brent Griffin, Arkansas County Extension staff chair. “Rice yields continue to drop due bacterial panicle blight and quality – milling yields – continues to drop.”
Bacterial panicle blight thrives in high nighttime temperatures, infecting the flowering parts of the plant and aborting kernel formation, known as “blanking.”
Yield reduction in his county so far isn’t as drastic as last year, but “still 40 to 60 bushels off from normal and we are hoping for improvement on later plantings,” Griffin said.
http://deltafarmpress.com/rice/panicle-blight-thorn-side-harvesting-rice-growers
Did you see this too Bob:
Severe thunderstorms that developed late Sunday afternoon brought heavy rain to parts of Arkansas, spawning high winds and baseball- and golf ball-sized hail, including some that broke the windshield of a storm spotter’s car in Arkansas County.
Another ‘baseball storm’.
PL -
Warmer nights have given Bacterial panicle blight the upper hand in rice fields in Ark.
New night time highs vs lows the last 30 days ……
1619 to 529.
http://ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/records/
I posted a story about a banana fungus in the Philippines ….. A commenter said there were GM engineered plants in a lab to fight this . I pointed out the plant breeders have to make bananas that stand up to Cat 5 typhoons as well.
http://coloradobob1.newsvine.com/_news/2011/10/11/8274410-fungus-could-wipe-out-philippine-bananas-growers
Biology is crammed with examples where just a change of a few degrees, make all the difference in a pest getting the upper hand.
PL -
I saw this type of event last winter , watching Greenland, and Alaska :
Maine , New Hampshire, and Vermont have been very warm day & night, and setting rainfall records as well.
VAN BUREN 2 Maine 10-15-2011
Nighttime max temp
55.0°F 2011-10-15 45.0°F 1990-10-15
Precp -
1.05 in 2011-10-15 0.83 in 1978-10-15
Warm rain in Maine, in the middle of Oct.
MT WASHINGTON NH
This is rain
4.67 in 2011-10-15 4.3 in 2005-10-15
http://ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/records/daily/prcp/2011/10/15?sts=US#records_look_up
Yesterday’s USA TODAY in the MONEY section had an article about a geothermal company in southwest Utah now reorganized under Chapter 11 after losing about $50 million in investor’s money. The plant operates but produces only 7 MW.
Well, there goes Lake Meredith
http://amarillo.com/opinion/editorial/2011-10-14/well-there-goes-lake-meredith
I would like to see articles in this blog on details of climate history, as up to date as the latest published papers on this topic, but simple enough so even folks like me can understand. Extinctions, biomarkers, isotope ratios, ice cores, fossils, chemical analysis of marine sediments, and geochronology are some of the topics that should be covered thoroughly. I believe that a detailed understanding of these topics is a very important element of public acceptance of the serious nature of the climate problem. My personal belief in the credibility of a source of information derives largely from an understanding that the people providing the information know details supporting their assertions that are not known to critics of those assertions. More detailed knowledge engenders more credibility. Let’s take full advantage of this fact.
The figures appear to come largely from a study prepared by the consultants Wood Mackenzie and published last month by the American Petroleum Institute (API). (Perry explicitly footnotes it in his plan.) That study found that “U.S. policies which encourage the development of new and existing resources could, by 2030… support an additional 1.4 million jobs”. About 1.2 million of those are based on expansion of U.S. production by 6.0 million barrels per day of oil and 22.4 billion cubic feet of gas per day by 2030, along with approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. (The rest come from future U.S.-Canada pipelines). The study projects interim impacts of 700,000 new jobs by 2015 and 1.1 million by 2020.
WoodMac assumes five policy changes in order to generate this expansion, all of which are echoed in Perry’s and Romney’s plans:
Open the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, parts of the Rocky Mountains, the Atlantic and Pacific Outer Continental Shelves, the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, the Alaska National Petroleum Reserve, and Alaska offshore to drilling. There is certainly a sharp contrast here with the Obama administration. Whether a new president could make all of these things happen is another question — in many cases, the nearby states would be strongly opposed.
Gulf of Mexico permitting is returned to its previous pace. It isn’t clear, though, that this is actually a new policy — given the resources by Congress and a bit of time, the Obama administration might well do the same.
Lifting of the drilling moratorium in New York State. Neither Perry nor Romney, of course, has any power over this, so it’s inappropriate to include it in estimates of federal policy.
Forgo federal regulation of shale gas and tight oil development, including, in particular, tighter regulation of fracturing and water disposal. The assumption here is that federal rules would be stricter than state ones; WoodMac assumes that they would add 30 cents per thousand cubic feet to the cost of producing gas. It’s not clear that that’s true — states like clean water too.
Approve the Keystone XL pipeline and other future U.S.-Canada pipelines. This may or may not be a policy shift from the Obama administration — we’ll have to wait and see what happens with Keystone XL first.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/10/deconstructing-rick-perrys-energy-and-jobs-plan/246715/?google_editors_picks=true
This is a bad movie gone bad….
“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”
-Albert Einstein
After a bit of searching I find that the Pakistan floods of 2010 were only the second worst in 50 years, Unfortunately that Pakistan hydrology site gave no more details.
Climate Portals
Lovely…..
Mexico’s Newest Export To U.S. May Be Water
http://www.huffingtonpost.com
SAN DIEGO — Mexico ships televisions, cars, sugar and medical equipment to the United States. Soon, it may be sending water north.
Desalination plants can blight coastal landscapes, sucking in and killing fish eggs and larvae. They require massive amounts of electricity and dump millions of gallons of brine back into the ocean that can, if not properly disposed, also be harmful to fish.
2 seconds ago · Like
proposed plants have also sparked concerns that American water interests looking to Mexico are simply trying to dodge U.S. environmental reviews and legal challenges.
Huh?
http://tinyurl.com/3wurxha
Liam Fox resignation exposes Tory links to US radical right
Recently disgraced and resigned UK Secretary of State for Defence, Liam Fox, has been found to have links with ALEC. I’d noticed this the other day (Grauniad immediately removed my comment on it) in their interactive chart showing the connections.
This is really insidious and revealing, which helps explain a fair bit about the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s (Osborne being highly influenced by one of his predecessors, Nigel Lawson) and David Cameron’s consistent backtracking on election promises related to climate change and environmental issues (and healthcare). No wonder Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Chris Huhne, has been under so much sideline attack recently.
Chris Huhne: The UK electricity market has to change, so that we escape the cycle of fossil fuel addiction!
http://climateforce.net/2011/07/08/the-pace-of-progress-chris-huhne-the-uk-electricity-market-has-to-change-so-that-we-escape-the-cycle-of-fossil-fuel-addiction/
Well, fingers crossed, all of this hoo-hah could lead to the lobbying industry here in the UK getting a royal kick in the teeth, including the introduction of licensing.
Lobbying links put pressure on coalition
“The figures show that ministers met corporate representatives on 1,537 occasions in the first 10 months of the coalition. This excludes several hundred round-table meetings where numerous companies were present.
Trade bodies, thinktanks and other interest groups had 1,409 meetings. By contrast, charities were met on just 833 occasions, and union representatives just 130 times, less than a tenth as often as their corporate counterparts.
[...]
“A parliamentary pass is worth its weight in gold to a lobbyist.
“Once they have one in their hands, they can wander around the Palace of Westminster, use it to access politicians, peers and civil servants they want to access and they can do it quietly, quickly and with little trace.
“And what is so important is that they can hold informal meetings with power-brokers that never have to be declared – the public need never know, and their influence remains hidden from the parliamentary authorities, from the public and, in some cases, from the police. It is a scandal.”"
Coffee to Disappear in Your Lifetime? – ABC News
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSG7llF-T64&feature=player_embedded
We need to start ASAP with Electric vehicle conversion, at large scale
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle_conversion
NEWS ANALYSIS
Where Did Global Warming Go?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/sunday-review/whatever-happened-to-global-warming.html
I’ve just been reading reviews of Steven Pinker’s new book “The Better Angels of our Nature” http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/oct/15/steven-pinker-better-angels-violence-interview and http://www.amazon.co.uk/Better-Angels-Our-Nature-Violence/dp/1846140935/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318781595&sr=1-1 in which he presents the thesis that there has been a gradual decline in violent behaviour by humans and that we are now living in possibly the most peaceful period of human history. I may not buy it because the first section describes in gory detail the hideous tortures and atrocities of past times (e.g. execution by slow torture as a form of public amusement). I find his arguments convincing but why am I saying this on a climate change website?
Because I think that, environmental, and consequent economic collapse, would take us back to those times. The An Lushan rebellion in 8th century China resulted in the deaths of 15% of the total world population. The resource wars consequent on environmental collapse could dwarf even that. Humans have an almost infinite capacity to blame somebody else for their problems – mainly foreigners, ethnic religious and sexual minorities, independent-minded women, anybody who doesn’t conform… Weird cults to appease their God(s) will arise. Human sacrifice anyone?
Hardcore denialists are probably beyond redemption, but thos who think “Oh, it won’t be so bad. We’ll adapt without any serious problems” should be forced to read this book and think on how bad, how indescribably awful for human society, the results of catastrophic global warming could be.
Well, Pinker’s viewpoint is one way to look at it, but then there are legal systems that would punish those who, for instance, would help a small toddler run over by a van. I’m not convinced any moral compass has turned.
Toddler left dying after hit and run prompts soul searching in China
(Warning: the linked webpage there has the most upsetting footage I think I’ve ever seen)
Nukes/Alternate energy…. 22mins in…
Keynote: Reinventing Fire – Amory Lovins
http://vimeo.com/28441246
So if we make storage tech available to end users then they could store peak renewable energy generation like wind and use it when ever.
This happened by mistake with the electric car industry. Should be possible for target designs.
NEW BOOK: “Deep Green Resistance” bu Aric McBay (and others).
Tidbits:
“Power will change only when it is forced to….whether that force is vilent or not violent is a discussion for later.”
The Underground Railroad was at the time considered a “radical fringe group” by many abolitionists.”
There is a new book out called, “Deep Green Resistance” by Aric McBay (and others).
These are some tidbits:
“Too many leftists refuse to face the nature of power, the nature of systemic oppression, and the nature of the social psychology we are up against…
Power will change only when it is forced to. Whether that force is applied violently or nonviolently is a discussion for later.
… the gov’t understands… movements without leaders are not movements, but random individuals incapable of waging a sustained campaign for justice. Movements are easily destroyed by imprisoning/killing the leaders; that’s why governments do it.”
“Resistance is a simple concept: power, unjust and immoral, is confronted and dismantled. The powerful are denied their right to hurt the less powerful. Domination is replaced by equity…”
Most of the population is never going to join an actual resistance. We’re social creatures; by definition, it’s hard to stand against the herd. Most people are not psycologically suited to the requirements of resistance. Conformity brings rewards; fighting back brings punishment and allienation.”
So put away your bricks and spray paint: those are not weapons for the serious. From this point forward, we aim to be effective.”
this is a very contradictory summary: power will change when forced to but gov’ts will imprison or kill leaders of movements; yet movements without leaders (occupy wall street?) are not movements. power must be overcome by resistance, which will dismantle the power; but put away bricks and spray paint; those are not serious weapons. fighting back results in punishment and alienation.
so, cynthia, what exactly ARE the oppressed victims to do? and in what form??
Read the book and find out. It’s not that complicated. The point is, just protesting, being nice, setting an example, or whatever will not work. Shoot, the whole world protested the Iraqi war; did it do any good?
Look to the example of movements that worked: Martin Luther King, the Underground Railroad, etc. You have to get tough.
your reply is much clearer than the quotes from the book. many historians believe that the freedom riders and malcolm x had a more critical role in u.s. civil rights–that martin luther king’s tactics would not have worked without them…he disapproved of both. same with gandhi, who had a militant nemesis/fighter against the brits, whose name i can’t recall but india well remembers.
i believe both factions are necessary–the non-violent polite protesters, whose bad treatment from the gov’t and police will arouse sympathy and outrage from the huge majority of passive and indifferent citizenry, and the bold, (brick-throwing?) fire-setting, confrontational “eco-terrorists” as the gov’t and corporate rags call them, who scare the hell out of them. when both those groups increase in size, we’ll see some change.
meanwhile, are we enviros sending tim dechristopher some love letters?
I left a reply– a good reply. Where is it?
Gotta love this – for the current leading Republican in the Primary race:
Cain’s longtime ties to controversial Koch brothers’ group key to his surging presidential bid
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/long-ties-to-koch-backed-americans-for-prosperity-are-foundation-of-cain-campaign/2011/10/16/gIQA6Qi9nL_story.html
Doesn’t the Koch’s orchestrate the key figures of the Republican party?
Not sure if it’s been an article already…
Marines set to ship more solar panels to Afghanistan (September 29th, 2011)
Has the sweetest quote…
“Marines with India Company 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines deployed to Sangin, Afghanistan, last year and used this equipment all while engaged in some of the fiercest fighting since U.S. forces entered Afghanistan.
Their rave reviews urged Corps leaders to ship more alternative energy systems to Afghanistan faster.
“Guys didn’t want to give it up,” said Maj. Sean Sadlier, a logistics analyst with the Marine Corps Expeditionary Energy Office. “What better review can you get than that.””
Paul magnus — Thanks. Yes, there will be more and more desal. Ideally these are energized by NPPs which are low carbon.
As for storage, some utilities are considering the idea of grouping together enough used EV batteries to supply about 50 houses. These presumably are energized by solar PV. Unfortunately this is going to be what I call a boutique solution which will not replace baseload generation.
must see video of current state of sea level rise….
expect 1-2m rise per century; with a 2-3C rise final sea level will level off at ~20m; Sea level rise will not be distributed evenly.
Tim Naish Seminar
http://goo.gl/m3hFd
Requires, you have to install Silverlight + restart, to watch.
Researchers refine assessment of tipping elements of the climate system
The West Antarctic ice sheet is a potential tipping element of the climate system that might have partially tipped already.
http://www.pik-potsdam.de/news/press-releases/kipp-elemente-im-klimasystem-forscher-verfeinern-ihre-einschaetzung
Timescales of events described as ‘abrupt’ may vary dramatically. Changes recorded in the climate of Greenland at the end of the Younger Dryas, as measured by ice-cores, imply a sudden warming of +10°C within a timescale of a few years.[6] Other abrupt changes are the +4 °C on Greenland 11,270 years ago[7] or the abrupt +6 °C warming 22 000 years ago on Antarctica.[8] By contrast, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum may have initiated anywhere between a few decades and several thousand years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrupt_climate_change
What is not mentioned in the Tim Naish lecture, is the speed of emissions today, which are unprecedented in the geological record. Therefor you can expect that this will affect ice sheet dynamics.
To model nonlinearity i wonder of we could apply memristive functions.
Memristive systems
Chua applied this model to empirically observed phenomena, including the Hodgkin-Huxley model of the axon and a thermistor at constant ambient temperature. He also described memristive systems in terms of energy storage and easily observed electrical characteristics. These characteristics match resistive random-access memory and phase-change memory, relating the theory to active areas of research. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memristor#Potential_applications
Excellent slides from a recent presentation by climatologist Barry Brook of Adelaide, South Australia:
http://bravenewclimate.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/bwb_anu_np.pdf
Earth the Operators Manual
http://earththeoperatorsmanual.com/
Peak coal this year?
http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-05-13/peak-coal-year
related
Correction to the True Cost of Coal Power – MMN11
MMN11 is Extremely Conservative
In short, the CO2 external costs estimated in MMN11 are extremely conservative. Nevertheless, they estimated that in the USA, coal combustion CO2 emissions cause an additional $15 billion in external damages per year which are not reflected in its market price. Had they used a more realistic SCC value, this figure would be much, much higher. This just reinforces our previous conclusion even further, that the economy would benefit by putting a price on CO2 emissions, thus allowing the free market to incorporate those (currently external) costs.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/correction-to-true-cost-of-coal-power-mmn11.html