Please place all comments not related to oil or gas in this thread.
432 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, December 12, 2018”
Ron’s great post over on the oil side shows that global oil production outside the US has probably already peaked. The US is apparently the only real driver of global oil production gains. The primary driver of US oil production is shale oil, which Ron says has a legacy decline rate of 6.78% per year.
Solar PV has a legacy decline rate of 1% or less (time to 10 percent power is greater than 200 years). Wind turbines are found to lose 1.6 ± 0.2% of their output per year, with typical lifespans of 25 years and growing (although many old ones are being replaced early due to efficiency and power advances in new turbines).
This makes it obvious that investing in shale oil and probably shale gas too (similar problems of decline rates) has been one of our worst energy investments and certainly has no long term prospects.
I agree, in that I would have preferred 100% of the money invested in shale to have been invested in solar/wind instead.
However it would take a whole new way of economic thinking that is foreign to most. We can call it Long Term Planning (with low rates of return).
The Chinese are a little better at this than the rest. They look out about 5yrs-10 yrs, compared to 6-36 months for most the rest of the world.
Low rates of return? Yep, but we could learn to live with that. Might even extinct the last wild mammal a little slower that way.
If you could buy into a solar PV project that yielded the equivalent electricity of $1000/yr for 30 yrs,
how much would you pay for it today in cash (realizing that to pay for it on credit would cost more in the long run, and is a more complicated analysis)? I’m talking real money that you have actually available to deploy this month.
I will start the bidding. I would pay $10,000. Anyone care to out bid me on it?
Low rates of return???? What is the return on a business that is losing money? Namely shale oil. All returns are outside the actual business itself (a way to move borrowed money around the system).
You are concerned about the rate of return on PV? Solar PV power is being sold at 2.5 cents to 5 cents a kWh at a profit.
An average land based wind turbine can produce more than 6 million kWh per year. The average is going up.
From WindEurope Wind is competitive
Wind power makes economic sense; onshore wind is the cheapest form of new power generation in Europe today.
Wind in Europe accounts for €72bn+ annual turnover and 330,000 jobs.
Offshore wind is rapidly reducing costs and will play a central role in Europe’s power mix going forward.
Wind is mainstream
In the last year alone, wind accounted for 44% of all new power installations across Europe – more than any other technology.
Wind now covers over 11% of Europe’s electricity demand.
By 2030, wind could serve a quarter of the EU’s electricity needs and be the backbone of Europe’s energy system.
Wind is strategic
Wind is an important and growing part of Europe’s industry base. Three of the five largest turbine manufacturers in the world are European companies. The European industry has a 40% share of all wind turbines sold globally and provides the lion’s share of Europe’s €35 billion renewable exports. We lead the world in offshore wind with over 90% of today’s offshore wind farms.
Overall, wind energy has transformed from a niche sector to a mainstream industry. Increasingly competitive and attracting more investment yearly, the wind sector is set to thrive in the 21st Century.
Europe is expected to reach 258 GW of wind capacity by 2022. It’s a viable growing power system, unlike fossil fuel which puts the nations at risk from foreign supply and the world at risk from pollution and global warming.
Now please tell me what the rate of return is on shale gas and shale oil production?
Before you get all in a lather, I’m not suggesting that shale has a rate of return worth a damn (or anything).
But please do refer all offers you have for any 30 yr Solar Bonds that pay 5% interest to me. I’ll consider purchasing large quantities of them in lots of $10,000, whether they come from the bank or the credit union, the State of Texas or Nevada or any state half sunny state, from Tesla or GM, from Duke Energy or Xcel, or any utility for that matter. Or from Amazon or Google. Or the city of Las Cruces, Yuma, Amarillo or Macon. Or Fidelity, or Vanguard. Or from a local electrical co-op.
6% return would be preferable and I would even favor 7% more.
Once a salesman from any of these organizations comes around, or I see advertising seeking investment for the 27 billion panels we need to put in place this decade, then I’ll know there is a viable scenario with a decent rate of return. I keep checking the mailbox every day. So far no luck.
[I have 20 panels on my roof, so don’t even try to peg me as a naysayer. I truly look forward to day when we could all have access to such an investment]
Here is an offer for you. Pay 5% of your income each year toward building out renewable energy or people with guns come to your door, stand you in front of a judge then send you away to jail for twenty years (we call that the government).
Is that what it takes? At what point do we start changing. When there are no fish to eat, most wild animals gone, cattle dying in the fields, agriculture barely produces half of what it does now, the forests are mostly gone, the water poisoned, the heat killing, the very air growing toxic and oxygen depleted. What is the point when people stop looking for profit and start doing what needs to be done instead of living a really sick and deadly reality show?
I was hoping for some answer a little more reality based.
Maybe someday.
I am not really interested in your personal portfolio. Anyone who thinks personal profit is the answer is living a very deadly delusion.
BTW, you seem to have missed the entire point of what I originally posted. Maybe think about it a bit.
Or listen to this expert. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGfIjCG-zB4
OK, lets have a massive GoFundMe to build out solar facilities with the electricity returned to the investors.
NAOM
When panic sets in the governments will be forcing a massive GoFundMe down everybody’s throats or other orifice. I figure during the 20’s for the USA. Earlier for much of Europe if they are smart. There will be no choice, pay or jail.
Those exist: they’re called municipal bonds and commercial paper. They’re not called “solar bonds”, but if you want the equivalent, you can buy commercial paper issued by companies that sell PV.
Unfortunately, the interest rates are not going to be higher than the general market’s going rate (depending on the issuer’s bond rating): nobody’s going to pay more than they have to.
Nick , if you only have a bullshit reply, why even put it up?
The reply was correct. Utilities (either government owned, or investor owned) tend to be good credit risks, so they pay low interest rates. If they find a great investment (like cheap solar) they’ll pass on the savings to their customers or their shareholders, but they’ll still pay the same rates on their bonds.
So. Was your question a joke, or BS in your mind? If so, I missed the joke.
In fact, I’m puzzled. Your vehemence suggests that you weren’t joking. So…why do you think the reply is BS?
OK. I’ll try to approach this from a slightly different direction to help illustrate the point.
It would be nice if there was a straightforward way for the public to individually, or in groups (like a credit union), to invest directly in solar generation. I am referring to other than on their own roof, since many don’t have an appropriate roof, unshaded or in a very sunny zone.
Sure you can purchase shares in a solar supply company like Solaredge or Enphase, or some mixed utility. But not directly in solar production like a Solar Bond would do. And therefore you cannot enthusiastically direct your vast collective financial resourcess to PV production.
Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to directly invest in utility or community scale PV production, with steady bond-like returns? And in a place with gangbuster solar output.
But you have no such avenue.
Why?
I can think of two reasons.
First, the culture isn’t interested in making PV a nationwide priority, with transmission, permitting and landuse decisions that promote the deployment on a massive scale.
Secondly, the return on money invested is too low to light a fire under the industry, in a way that would have salesman (mutual funds, utilities, site developers, etc) clamoring for the billions to deploy. The lack of investment vehicles is a big takehome message on this.
I suspect both of these reasons are at play.
I look forward to the day when there are great direct investment opportunities in specific PV production projects at the retail level (ex 401K).
This is very long overdue, IMHO.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear about my gist earlier up.
I realized another aspect of this discussion.
At home the payback for PV can be relatively quick because you are replacing high cost retail electricity.
For utility scale PV, the producers are getting power purchase agreements (PPA’s) at wholesale rates that are much lower. This means that they are competitive with coal and nat gas, but there is not a lot of profit left after all costs, to distribute to stakeholders (such as bond holders would be).
Like most things, the simple first take on an issue if often inaccurate due to faulty assumptions.
If I understand correctly, you’re asking if there’s a way to lend to PV developers at a high rate of return, and if not, why not?
Well, I’m not aware of any form of lending in which the lender participates in the profits of the borrower (maybe I don’t get out enough!). What I’ve seen is that when a lender wants profit participation they ask for equity in various forms: one form would be to buy stock in the company. I think that’s true whether it’s oil, coal, PV or wind.
So, if you install PV on your home, you own it, and get the direct benefit.
There is “community solar”. I think there are a lot of financing structures, but the idea is mostly that you invest, and in return you get renewable power, hopefully cheap. So it’s similar to the familiar residential rooftop model.
Utility scale PV can have a very high ROI. But, the PPAs would be very profitable for the customer (the utility): competition between developers reduces the rates that the utility pays, and transfers the ROI from the developer to the customer.
Which is how you want it to work in a free market: competition drives down prices and transfers the benefit to the end customer in the form of low electricity prices and low monthly bills.
Occasionally equity investors will get high returns in return for investing early, in high risk companies. Tesla is a good example. But that’s a combination of luck and compensation for taking risk.
I give up. I’ll chalk it up to a massive failure of communication.
We live on different planets.
Well, that’s too bad.
I think part of the problem is having a common understanding of things like “bonds”: AFAIK, bonds are by definition *not* a place to get better returns because of a higher ROI project. That’s equity investing. The interest rates on bonds are based on the credit worthiness of the borrower, and other technical things like the term of bond, tax treatment, etc.
So, the lack of high interest “solar” bonds doesn’t tell us anything about PV ROI.
Does that help?
> if you only have a bullshit reply, why even put it up?
I’m impressed by you inability to see that you own post is bullshit.
Nice, for comparison the US installed 10.6 GW in 2017. To hit near 20 GW in 2019 would be a record (and lots of employment/wages).
Yes, the government controls the throttle on PV installations. They can help or hurt the growth at will.
Although I bet the prices drop as the subsidies fall.
Long-term bonds backed by solar farms are issued regularly and pay rates of 5% or slightly less. You just haven’t researched them.
Look into “solar asset-backed notes” and “solar loan-backed notes”. (There are also wind backed notes.) You’ll be buying them in lots of $100,000 or more, though, so be forewarned. Call up your broker’s bond desk, or find a better broker if you don’t get help there.
A lot of them are reserved for the institutional market. You can buy shares in REITs which do nothing but operate solar farms or buy these bonds, and then issue preferred stock. These have… varied quality of management, and some have been rather overleveraged.
But anyway! The point remains. If you have a million dollars to invest, call your broker, you’ll be able to invest in solar-backed bonds which have 25-year terms. Companies DO issue them, frequently (Tesla issued a lot of them). They’re so safe that the interest rates are dropping, you’ll probably only get 4.5%, but that’s the going rate.
They’re so safe that the interest rates are dropping, you’ll probably only get 4.5%, but that’s the going rate.
And there is the paradox of bonds: high-quality means low interest rates. High Yield is a synonym for junk, and the very best investments of all, treasury notes, have the lowest rates.
So where is a lot of the money coming from for solar PV and renewable energy. The capitalists of course, the conservatives, the towns, the industries.
Correction, the legacy decline rate of fracked oil is 6.78 % per month, giving 43 percent per year. That makes the decline rates for renewables look very small.
SUV AND PICKUP TRUCK SALES SURGE AGAIN IN U.S.
“Top automakers reported an increase in U.S. auto sales in August including another sharp rise in SUV sales, as low unemployment and strong consumer confidence helped mitigate the impact of rising interest rates and fuel prices.”
BTW, roughly 17,000,000 vehicles are sold in the US every year, and, correct me if I’m wrong, about 0.3 % are Teslas (cf 0.4 % for Porsche).
Not only that, but as my experience living on a “country” road testifies, such vehicles are bigger, uglier, and louder. Even at five a. m., adolescent males think it proper to rattle the neighbors’ windows.
The ignorant rednecks are ascendant in these parts. Those of us who have spent time learning about peak oil–utterly humiliated.
Plus they are killing you and all around them. Beside the pollution, “They are one of America’s leading causes of avoidable injury and death, especially among the young. Oddly, the most immediately devastating consequence of the modern car—the carnage it leaves in its wake—seems to generate the least public outcry and attention. “.
What are the failings of cars? First and foremost, they are profligate wasters of money and fuel: More than 80 cents of every dollar spent on gasoline is squandered by the inherent inefficiencies of the modern internal combustion engine. No part of daily life wastes more energy and, by extension, more money than the modern automobile. While burning through all that fuel, cars and trucks spew toxins and particulate waste into the atmosphere that induce cancer, lung disease, and asthma. These emissions measurably decrease longevity—not by a matter of days, but years. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology calculates that 53,000 Americans die prematurely every year from vehicle pollution, losing 10 years of life on average compared to their lifespans in the absence of tailpipe emissions.
There are also the indirect environmental, health, and economic costs of extracting, transporting, and refining oil for vehicle fuels, and the immense national-security costs and risks of being dependent on oil imports for significant amounts of that fuel. As an investment, the car is a massive waste of opportunity—“the world’s most underutilized asset,” the investment firm Morgan Stanley calls it. That’s because the average car sits idle 92 percent of the time. Accounting for all costs, from fuel to insurance to depreciation, the average car owner in the U.S. pays $12,544 a year for a car that puts in a mere 14-hour workweek. Drive an SUV? Tack on another $1,908.14
Then there is the matter of climate.
So down with cars, SUV’s, crossovers, and whatever. Especially ones with infernal combustion engines. Get your walking shoes out because horses are dangerous too.
>mitigate the impact of rising interest rates and fuel prices.”
Fuel prices are rising? What are these people smoking?
re: “17,000,000 vehicles sold… in US … 0.3% Tesla”
17,000,000 * 0.003 = 51,000
maybe last year, this year to date in U.S. it is:
114,500 model 3
22,495 model S
22,000 model X
======
158,995 or .9% of US sales YTD.
look for another 25K Teslas in the U.S. in December, would make 1% of 17 million.
Nice, but nothing like the 39% BEV market share in Norway in October 2018 though. http://ev-sales.blogspot.com/2018/11/norway-october-2018.html
A smart oil exporting country, subsidize EVs at home by selling the oil overseas, charge EVs with hydropower.
CLIMATE POLICIES PUT WORLD ON TRACK FOR 3.3C WARMING
“The CAT report said there had been progress since 2015, but current policies meant the world was heading for warming of 3.3C. That compared with the 3.4C it predicted a year ago, and it said that if governments were to implement policies they had in the pipeline, warming by 2100 could be limited to 3C.”
I left a reply to your permafrost post on the other thread.
Much of my graduate work was on the glacial palaeoclimate and flora of northern Eurasia, and to help ends meet I translated a good deal of Soviet research literature on the permafrost and its shapes and changes.
no port yet
Synapsid — Interesting. I read/write Russian as well but my translations mostly involved converting Soviet oil/gas reserve reports into a form acceptable to Western regulatory bodies. Since Russians use, or used, a different system then us (a more conservative one) this required a lot of recalculations. I got a lot of help from Russian (and some Chinese) engineers of course. Had to examine lots of drill core as well, naturally. Interesting days indeed.
I also replied there and mentioned that I might need to take up the port habit as well!
Cheers!
.
Ahhhh, Taylor’s though I cannot see if it is LBVR, brings back memories. Cockburns – no!
NAOM
FredM, NAOM,
I can only give my preferences, as I have no palate to speak of: My everyday port is Kopke Fine Tawny, and the small-glass port for luxury is Kopke 10-year Tawny. I spent several months and an amount I refuse to calculate trying ports and these are what I liked best.
I bought by accident a bottle of Warre’s Heritage Ruby and didn’t notice until I’d not only opened it but poured out a glassful: That’s not a tawny! (checks label) I bought a ruby!! Well, I can’t return it…hm, I like that.
Again, I have no palate and only say that I like these.
One wonders if Mr Trump is listening,
The only thing Trump hears are the crazy voices in his head!
Not true, he watches Fox News and talks on the phone with Sean Hannity every night.
That qualifies as “crazy voices”.
Excellent point. Despite recent advanced in areas like deep learning, etc, we are a long way from what I would call artificial intelligence.
But the internet and cable TV are pretty close to artificial schizophrenia.
All those voices coming out of nowhere and driving you to distraction.
Here’s a somewhat technical explanation of why social media is designed to make its users crazy and hateful. Short answer: It’s profitable.
1) Own Moscow.. investments
2) Own China…stocks…
3) Own India…commonwealth
4) Own Iran…investments
5) Own Germany, overextended loans…fractional banking…08 Brussels printing…own Germany world empire debt…third world
6) Own Isreal..support
7) Own USA…
Missing?
a) Don’t own CO2…drought Germany…aka no food.. cold…no gulf stream.
b) Other option is the volcanoes sulfur cooling.. no CO2 supporters
c) To save Britain end CO2…end US…end China.. linked…via Germany debt
Darwin, Australia swelters through hottest night ever recorded
Maybe it is not too late to send little boy Trump on a walkabout
In Australian Aboriginal society, Walkabout is a rite of passage during which males undergo a journey during adolescence, typically ages 10 to 16, and live in the wilderness for a period as long as six months to make the spiritual and traditional transition into manhood. Wikipedia
CO2 VS THE COPS
“Whatever our world leaders are ‘doing’ to reduce emissions, they are doing it wrong. We have to understand what the older generation has dealt to us, what mess they have created that we have to clean up and live with.” – Greta Thunberg, 15-year-old Swedish climate hero speaking at COP24
Del Mar is one of countless coastal communities in California and across the U.S. that is seeing the impacts of climate change and preparing for worse to come.
By midcentury, tens of millions of U.S. homes and billions of dollars of property are likely to be destroyed or made unusable by increased flooding from rising seas and storms, according to a recent climate report by the U.S. government.
“Sea level rise and storm surge could completely erode two-thirds of southern California beaches by 2100,” the report warns.
That leaves residents of seaside towns like Del Mar with an alarming choice: stay and fight those impacts, or turn and leave.
Retreating from sea level rise can take different forms. It can mean changing zoning to limit construction in flood-prone areas. It can also mean removing or relocating development from vulnerable areas, using buyout programs or transferring property rights.
Some communities in California are embracing the idea.
At first, Del Mar was looking at it, too.
The blowback, though, was almost immediate. Realtors’ groups spoke out against the plan. Homeowners were hysterical.
“What we learned from our community is that even the mere discussion of managed retreat, in the minds of some, completely devalues their property,” says Amanda Lee, Del Mar’s senior city planner.
The concern was that if the city formalized a plan that included retreat, it would be harder for property owners to get loans or sell their land.
Hearing those concerns, “we started crossing out managed retreat and replacing it with other words like ‘not feasible here in Del Mar’,” says Terry Gaasterland, who chaired the city’s Sea Level Rise Advisory Committee.
The city council even went as far as to pass a resolution banning future city councils from planning for retreat.
What we learned from our community is that even the mere discussion of managed retreat, in the minds of some, completely devalues their property,” says Amanda Lee, Del Mar’s senior city planner.
Oh, well, it seems we are still in the deny, deny, deny, phase eh?!
Maybe all these morons should go read the story of Old King Canute and the tides…
BTW, I have front row seats to the same story unfolding in my own backyard in the greater Miami area. Stupid Republican politicians just continue to deny climate change, ocean acidification and sea level rise. But declining property values are going to be the least of their problems.
Party on dudes! Don’t plan for retreat just fucking drown, all of you dumbass conservatives!
How do you think Gov. DeSantis will compare to Scott on Florida’s climate change issues?
At least when it comes to sea level rise this is what he has said:
“Still, he went on to acknowledge the realities of South Florida. “The sea rise may be because of human activity and the changing climate, maybe it is not, I do not know,” DeSantis said. “What I do know is I see the sea rising. I see the increase in flooding in South Florida. I think you would be a fool to not consider that is an issue we need to address”
We shall see, he still has a bunch of science deniers in his administration including leftovers from the Scott administration..
Sometimes you need to throw leftovers away, before they continue to smell.
Story is all backwards as usual, should be all about the towns that are planning to retreat. Possibly just a mention of Delmar with no details. Instead they advertise the town with the wrong attitude and decisions. The one that forgets how sea walls and dikes get breached. Promoting the wrong, the horrible and the stupid is the meme of the mass media.
Yep. Man bites dog.
It’s a basic problem with “news”. It has to be novel, for the sake of novelty. Unfortunately, nobody tells children that the news media are designed to not be a reliable way to get a realistic picture of the world.
Yep, and it also builds a fearful, negative and cynical outlook among people.
Yeah. Journalists have another old saying for that: “if it bleeds, it leads”.
Unfortunately, the industry isn’t generally willing to say loud and clearly that fear mongering is basic to what they do. The better ones, like the NYT, try to tone that down a bit. But…it’s basic: at best, news media are designed to focus on our problems, not what’s going right. At worst…they’re propagandists.
Well, they are going to end up retreating however it will not be an orderly march but fleeing from the destruction on the front line of climate change.
NAOM
Life in a flood zone:
I used to live in Campbell River, BC. (now live 75 km west in Sayward Valley). Anyway, I heard on CBC the other day that CR now has a full-time city employee that is developing mitigating sea level rise responses starting with new construction, permitting, etc.
In the ’70s, when I first moved there, heavy southeast storms with high tide would sometimes push driftwood over the highway. By 2010 it has been a common occurance, and in 2012 part of the highway was washed out and had to rip rapped.
One big strategy was/is leaving the long sloping and rocky beaches to remain as is. However, there are rip rap breakwaters downtown. At high tides the storm drains in town don’t work. Some stores flood and several roads are blocked off through the tide cycle.
I live on a tidal river that is subject to heavy flows. In fact, it looks like Monday will be an ‘event’ day with lots of rain and 50 kt winds on top of about 6″ of rain in the next few days. Our house site has never flooded, but the water does come up to the edge of the lawn about once every 7-8 years. Then, water would have to rise another 2 feet to reach the foundation, plus my house is on a 4 foot crawl space. When the water is high, the flooded lowlands (general flood plain) have little current, but the flow channels are scary scary. I am just 20 metres from the actual main river channel and often see 200 ‘+ trees and roots whip downstream. Exciting stuff. The big problem for residents is you can’t drive out and away past a certain flood level as all roads are blocked. It’s just too dangerous to attempt it. The same with boats. If you lose a prop you could die if the current grabs you.
Anyway, we are also planning (at home) for increased flooding. I have hauled in 4 tandem dump loads of type 10 shot rock (4-14 inches granite) which I have used to armour my river bank and protect the trees. I need about 2 more loads to complete the job. It’s expensive. I have to do a bit at a time as it is illegal to do so in BC. What is legal is to do nothing, let the river wash your bank out, then beg and threaten to get public funds for restoration, then machines place godawful giant riprap along the river banks that almost looks industrial. The way I have done it is to let the foilage grow up around and through the smaller size rocks. Plus, we hand place a lot of them. I have one of the few homesites on the river that doesn’t flood, but I also left the trees. It is amazing that some homeowners remove all trees. I see the river through a very small screen of 3’ diameter of cedar, spruce, and fir. The lower branches have been trimmed out for views but the root systems holds the bank together. Plus, below sight levels I have retained a thick mat of salmon and thimble berry, huck, and left the vinca that ‘got away’ from a past owner. My neighbour, who cleared everything…lost 5 metres of bank until he finally let the trees regrow. It looks like hell, to be honest.
Our biggest threat these days are new residents ‘making’ farms out of floodplain forest. They haven’t experienced the high flows of past major events. Yet. But, they will sure as hell and then we can say, “I told you so”. One ‘artist’ from the City (Victoria) bought a home on stilts. This is about 10 miles upstream from my place. Think about it. Stilts. Someone built a house on stilts for a reason. Apparently, she wants to replace it with a ‘rancher’. She lives adjacent to a new farm, one that just removed all the trees. That new owner is from South Africa. Anyone here ever try and tell a South African white male anything? Or the Kiwi new farmer 5 miles away? Or, my Australian friends 8 miles upstream? (Got that macho thinggy going). So, we just wait, watch, and we’ll see.
One other improvement is logging. Despite the rate of current logging, replanting is immediate. Plus, the days of streamside logging is long gone and very illegal. And, the giant logjams of past logging debris has been salvaged so flows don’t back up and produce sudden and catostrophic releases when the ‘let go’. They used S-64s to sling the salvageable wood out of the river channel, and made a tidy profit doing so. This was done about 20 years ago.
Anyway, it could be worse. We could live in NC, SC, FL, TX, LA…… you get the point.
regards
“Anyone here ever try and tell a South African white male anything? ”
Thanks for the laugh.
Had one as a manager, have to agree 100%. Best memory from there was his standing in the middle of the office receiving a telephone verbal bollocking from the MD that could be heard over the whole office.
NAOM
200′ tree in flood meets house on stilts – no, I don’t want to think about it!
Tree roots holding together the riverbank, when will they learn these things? My bet is on the upside of never.
NAOM
“and joining Team Trump is akin to diving head first into a pit of quicksand. You may well find yourself expected to do things that would taint you forever. “
I used to live in Del Mar. Only a small portion of the city is in danger of sea rise and it is a very expensive area. Houses there have been very occasionally inundated by high tides as far back as the 1960s. This is really a story about real estate values. I suspect that by now the people living there can afford the once-in-two-decades flood as long as they can get insurance. It’s one thing to experience that, another to have it be common knowledge so that prices are affected.
Much ‘rich’ mcmansionry and tacky tourist-bubble resorts and similar, as well as the usual hideous ‘BAU’ industrial setups, etc., have infected/sullied waterfronts worldwide with their ‘real estate’, often to the exclusion of local community waterfront access and cleanliness of the surrounding water and land-areas. So perhaps sea-level rise may mete out some poetic justice and schadenfreude, and new homes for marine animals…
Do you think some sea animals, say, like orca, feel schadenfreude and/or senses of poetic justice?
I think sea animals are happy when they have clean water and good food and a good mate, just like humans and all other animals. Probably only humans, a rare few, feel either schadenfreude or a sense of poetic justice.
We view minorities and the vulnerable as less than human…
We experience Schadenfreude (pleasure at another person’s distress) by the age of four, according to a study from 2013…
We believe in karma – assuming that the downtrodden of the world deserve their fate…
We are blinkered and dogmatic. If people were rational and open-minded, then the straightforward way to correct someone’s false beliefs would be to present them with some relevant facts. However a classic study from 1979 showed the futility of this approach…
We would rather electrocute ourselves than spend time in our own thoughts…
We are vain and overconfident. Our irrationality and dogmatism might not be so bad were they married to some humility and self-insight, but most of us walk about with inflated views of our abilities and qualities…
We are moral hypocrites…
We are all potential trolls…
We favour ineffective leaders with psychopathic traits…
We are sexually attracted to people with dark personality traits…”
Of course those don’t apply to everyone across the board, but in any case, that we are communicating on this illegitimate coercive government war-invention thing called the internet and behind anonymous nicknames and screens while on civilization-/’war-economy’-collapse websites such as these should tell you something of some of this, yes?
I think your “descriptions” match all of us and none of us. Humans seem to me to be totally inconstant. A friend told me once that we spend too much time trying to separate the good guys from the bad guys an not enough time trying to resolve the good and the bad in each of us. Surveys get different answers depending on how the question is asked, hence “push polls”.
Good points, JJHMAN, and it’s good to maintain a healthy skepticism about stuff like that.
“Russia’s government has sent bombers halfway around the world to Venezuela. The Russian and Venezuelan people should see this for what it is: two corrupt governments squandering public funds, and squelching liberty and freedom while their people suffer.” ~ Mike Pompeo
Hilarious…
It appears that there will be no USA ‘intervention’ in Venezuela, at least that Venezuela politicos don’t want.
“Urban gondolas are getting more and more mainstream media attention — so much so that major news outlets are now purposely travelling to La Paz to learn how Mi Teleférico has transported 150 million passengers in just four years!“
“The oldest and thickest ice in the region has declined by 95 percent, meaning, as The Washington Post reported Monday, that ‘the sea at the top of the world has already morphed into a new and very different state, with major implications not only for creatures such as walruses and polar bears but, in the long term, perhaps for the pace of global warming itself.’
If the ice’s decline worsens and results in ice-free summers for earth, the planet will get even hotter, according to the report card, and even minor changes in weather can have devastating impacts. ‘In the Arctic Ocean, a difference of 2 degrees can be huge‘, Walt Meier, a sea ice expert at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, told the Post. He added, ‘If it goes from 31 Fahrenheit to 33 Fahrenheit, you’re going from ice skating to swimming. … the Arctic is an early warning system for the climate.’ “
Attached image of ‘double-decker’ gondola (unrelated to aforementioned article):
Considering the current world political environment, we should start preparing for the worst case scenarios of climate change and fossil fuel depletion. The possibility that the renewable/EV thrust may peter out is quite real. Global wind power growth has gone near linear already from an early exponential start. Wind energy growth has fallen from 17 percent in 2015 to 10 percent in 2017. If the current rate holds it will be 10 years to a global doubling of wind power. It looks like the slowdown started in 2009. If the downward trend continues it could be several decades to a doubling.
PV seems to be holding in exponential growth, though it fell from 49 percent growth in 2016 t0 30 percent growth in 2017. Most of the growth occurred in China (26%), the US (20%) and India (18 %).
If the PV growth rate goes linear soon, the outlook for renewables falls apart.
Maybe the marketing of this battery storage system will stimulate more interest in PV and wind energy.
The battery that could make mass solar and wind power viable https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImqmMOkANgg
Any delay in transistion to renewable energy and EV’s puts the world at risk of depleted oil production and then depleted natural gas production. It also increases the potential of greatly increased burning of fossil fuels.
Sounds like they have surmounted the problem of seals. This could boost micro-grids, imagine a housing estate with rooftop solar panels and a communal battery pack, no outside power needed.
NAOM
GF- couldn’t agree more. The necessary transition to a massive base of installed solar and wind, is not being taken seriously. Even in Calif where something like 20% of electrical generation is solar and wind, it is far behind the curve, when you consider all the liquid fuel energy that must be replaced as well.
The dip in wind makes some sense. With Trump subsidising fossil fuel and wanting to boost coal with threats about hitting renewables I can see investors getting nervous about investing. My worry is that he may decide to subsidise coal and keep coal plants open by taxing renewables, I would want to hold my investments until things got clearer especially with wind.
NAOM
“The possibility that the renewable/EV thrust may peter out is quite real.” ~ GoneFishing
Sweeeet.
Since most of the energy now produced is wasted, there is no reason to maintain the energy industry at current levels — unless you work in the industry of course.
Renewables are inherently low profit, because the lack of marginal costs encourage producers to set near zero prices to win market share, and the inherent scalability of the technology allows huge numbers of small producers to enter the market. The main effect of the renewables revolution will be to suck the profits out of the energy business.
So what happens when an industry that mostly produces waste that nobody wants or needs stops making money? Shrinkage seems likely.
So renewables will grow until they destroy the traditional energy industry, and then start to shrink. Based on the howls of pain already being emitted by traditional providers, it’s likely that renewables don’t need to be anywhere close to as big as the current industry to kill it.
EDIT: You may be thinking wait, everybody want energy. But it simply isn’t true. Everybody want energy services, like heat and light, and the results of mechanical work but nobody wants energy per se. For example if your house is cold, you don’t care if you produce heat to warm it, use a 100%+ efficient heat pump to get warmer, or simply improve insulation. The result is the same.
Daily CO2 looking good kids. Dec. 12, 2018: 409.73 ppm: Dec. 12, 2017: 406.51 ppm. How long until 410 becomes our new baseline?
My worthless opinion is that feedback loops are still in the early gears. It is my worthless opinion, that climate models and projections are wrong, similar to projections of oil prices or world production and peak etc. I don’t think anyone knows when shit will hit the fan with climate or oil (lack thereof).
I will even extend that argument to modern civilization, no one on earth knows where we are going. Or how it will inevitably end.
The only certainty in life is death.
I don’t think anyone knows when shit will hit the fan with climate or oil (lack thereof).
Well guess what?! It is already happening right now, on multiple fronts and places, at this very moment. I have seen it first hand with my very own eyes in Europe, in Germany and Hungary, I’ve seen it first hand in Brazil in the Amazon, I see it every day where I live in Florida.
You can read about it in the news as what is going down in Paris which is a double whammy, the French want their cake and want to eat it too with a maintaining of the status quo and they don’t yet understand that both climate change and peak oil are behind Macron’s fuel tax hikes.
We see Nationalism on the rise as climate change refugees start to move across borders. We see it in places like Syria and the Middle East. Droughts in India, crop failures sea level rise in Bangladesh.
This is just the first splatters of the feces impinging on the ventilator!
Wait until the corals are all dead in a few few more El Ninos and permafrost melt really starts to release CH4 and CO2 followed by glacier melt and sea shelf collapse in Antarctica.
You can read about insect population collapse over the last three decades in the science journals. Etc, etc, etc etc…
We have the data about what is happening right, we know! This is not that we are perhaps going to find out some day in the distant future. You can continue to deny reality if you wish but you will be proven to be fractally wrong!
Cheers!
My friend,
One can argue that the world has always been a cesspool. And climate extremes are prevalent throughout climate records.
Reminds me of religious people arguing for the Armageddon, one of the signs, earthquakes will increase. Obviously, when humans start populating everywhere including fault lines, you will record more earthquakes. But for the believers it was a sign from god.
And the climate extremes you speak of might be the same. Population increases, more humans will suffer climate extremes. To argue that climate change is responsible is a slippery slope. You need to provide evidence, for a particular event say a hurricane, is the result of climate change. Do you realise how difficult that would be, it actually would be impossible to do.
Neither climate nor oil is not a black and white issue. The complexity is more than what supercomputers can handle.
And also my definition of shit hitting the fan, is obviously different to yours. All i see now is business as usual. My definition is when climate change IMPEDES business as usual, then that is when shit has hit the fan.
I mean one can even argue that the world is more relatively peaceful now than it has ever been (within the period of industrial civilization).
In many ways Iron Mike is right. He only sees business as usual which is true for many. Much of society and civilization is designed to feed on and profit from terror, war, destruction, death and loss of other. In fact a lot of it is designed to force others into failure and ruin so the Vultures can feed.
As things get worse, BAU people only see things getting better. They won’t see anything wrong until they themselves are directly threatened, injured or killed.
Just remember, the next CAT 5 storm is opportunity knocks for BAU rebuilders and suppliers. The next time a town gets incinerated in a fire or flooded away, just think of all the rebuilding that will happen filling the pockets of the builders, suppliers, and fuel suppliers. Think of all those bank loans, new cars, overflowing credit cards. Huge profits to be made in destruction, as every fossil fuel producer and his suppliers know.
Nope, BAU people operate in the present and see wrecks as opportunities. We need people like that, since there is a lot of rebuilding and cleaning up to do before we get tired of paying for it.
Too bad the business of destruction and death has severe limits and ramifications.
You might want to listen to this fellow IM
Dr. Ingraffea’s research concentrates on computer simulation and physical testing of complex fracturing processes. He and his students performed pioneering research in the use of interactive computer graphics in computational mechanics. He has authored with his students over 200 papers in these areas. He has been a principal investigator on over $35M in R&D projects from the NSF, NASA Langley, Nichols Research, NASA Glenn, AFOSR, FAA, Kodak, U. S. Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station, U.S. Dept. of Transportation, IBM, Schlumberger, Digital Equipment Corporation, the Gas Research Institute, Sandia National Laboratories, the Association of Iron and Steel Engineers, General Dynamics, Boeing, Caterpillar Tractor, and Northrop Grumman Aerospace.
And other old news. Global warming is not an output of computer models; it is a conclusion based on observations of a great many global indicators. By far the most straightforward evidence is the actual surface temperature record. While there are places — in England, for example — that have records going back several centuries, the two major global temperature analyses can only go back around 150 years due to their requirements for both quantity and distribution of temperature recording stations.
These are the two most reputable globally and seasonally averaged temperature trend analyses:
•NASA GISS direct surface temperature analysis
•CRU direct surface temperature analysis
Both trends are definitely and significantly up. In addition to direct measurements of surface temperature, there are many other measurements and indicators that support the general direction and magnitude of the change the earth is currently undergoing. The following diverse empirical observations lead to the same unequivocal conclusion that the earth is warming:
Hi GF,
I will check out your link.
I am not arguing against climate change. From the independent research I’ve done, the climate is certainly changing. Obviously if one looks at the rate of change of GHG in the atmosphere, humans being responsible is hard to argue against. Especially with knowing that the earth has not been going through a geologically active period, and the sun cycles. There is no doubt the earth has been warming, i am not arguing against that either.
What i am saying is, no one knows, exactly how this thing will play out. Supercomputers are built by humans, and the data fed into them are fed by humans, humans are by no means omniscient. Hence the supercomputers will in no way be omniscient. So no amount of computer modelling, in my worthless opinion, will be able to predict how quickly or slowly shit will hit the fan. That is all i am saying. It is just my 2 cents.
Not here to argue.
And your first sentence, He only sees business as usual which is true for many.
Not sure if you are trying to belittle me, but whatever.
Peace.
“And your first sentence, He only sees business as usual which is true for many.
Not sure if you are trying to belittle me, but whatever.”
Nope, just going from your own words: “All i see now is business as usual. ” and putting them in context with how BAU works. Up to a point BAU is enhanced (for some people and some markers) by the increased destruction and loss from fires, superstorms, massive floods, droughts, heatwaves and coldspells. That has it’s limits and will just break down the system after a while.
As far as not trusting programmers, don’t get in a car, airplane, use a microwave, or most anything anymore, it’s all computer run on programming.
Myself, I go with the field scientist and the data. Mostly the programs just fill in the voids and try to determine the details. Long ago we had a good knowledge of the averages and major effects.
If you watch the Ingraffea video you will see that the data shows we are above the worst case scenario.
As far as natural feedbacks my research and calculations show they are at or very near the amount of heating from anthropogenic GWG releases right now. All indications are toward increasing feedbacks. That should be enough to scare the pants off the world, but it just hums along with most ignoring or hoping someone else will take care of it.
As a spectroscopist I have a strong grasp of how electromagnetic energy operates. The models used are simple mathematical series and formulas that run using Excel. Here is one of my graphs, you may find it interesting.
If you want to understand what is wrong with the computer models read Peter Wadhams’ A Farewell to Ice.
No SHTF has not happened in the developed world very much at all, not in a fast way. It’s more of slow drain and crushing effect, covered up by other factors such as growing economic inequality, resource problems and loss of control over the governments. The superstorms and massive Western drought in North America are a vibrant part of the problem but some people think they are just weather and natural.
In some more vul
GF
How can you compare the complexity of a car, or microwave, to climate or oil prices projections?
Two entirely different leagues. Has nothing to do with programming. It is like the uncertainty principle. It has nothing to do with the equipment or the apparatus or the person doing the experiment or a computer program being optimised. It is just the laws of nature.
I watched the Ingraffea video you linked me. I agree with his co2 projections increasing more rapidly (I wouldn’t say exponentially though). However, there is a lot of questioning one has to do. Like how is he gathering that wind outputs that much energy while shale gas much lower. How is he calculating EROI of wind and shale gas?
Once again calculation of EROI is such a complex task if one is serious about knowing the absolute figure. Hence it is sometimes heavily criticised, and to some extent rightly so. It’s more of slow drain and crushing effect, covered up by other factors such as growing economic inequality, resource problems and loss of control over the governments. The superstorms and massive Western drought in North America are a vibrant part of the problem but some people think they are just weather and natural.
Again one can argue looking at statistical data that poverty and equality is much better than it was in the past.
I would refrain from making absolute statements like that. But that’s just me.
Regarding your graph, did you use Stefan-Boltzmann law and change the albedo value for water and ice?
I give up. You live in a world far different than me and do not even read the labels on graphs.
BTW the Ingraffea graph was for temperature rise not CO2.
And the climate extremes you speak of might be the same. Population increases, more humans will suffer climate extremes. To argue that climate change is responsible is a slippery slope. You need to provide evidence, for a particular event say a hurricane, is the result of climate change. Do you realise how difficult that would be, it actually would be impossible to do.
You are simply WRONG! You are apparently not up to date on the latest research.
Global Warming and Hurricanes
An Overview of Current Research Results
Last Revised: Sept. 20, 2018
1. Summary Statement
Two frequently asked questions on global warming and hurricanes are the following:
What changes in hurricane activity are expected for the late 21st century, given the pronounced global warming scenarios from IPCC models?
Have humans already caused a detectable increase in Atlantic hurricane activity or global tropical cyclone activity?
The IPCC AR5 presents a strong body of scientific evidence that most of the global warming observed over the past half century is very likely due to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. But what does this change mean for hurricane activity? Here, we address these questions, starting with those conclusions where we have relatively more confidence. The main text then gives more background discussion. “Detectable” change here will refer to a change that is large enough to be clearly distinguishable from the variability due to natural causes.
Don’t forget the fine print for an overall view.
These global-scale changes are not necessarily projected to occur in all tropical cyclone basins. For example, our 2015 study projects an increase in tropical storm frequency in the Northeast Pacific and near Hawaii, and a decrease in category 4-5 storm days over much of the southern hemisphere basins and parts of the northwest Pacific basin–both at variance with the global-scale projected changes. These differences in responses between basins seem to be linked to how much SSTs increase in a given region compared to the tropical mean increase in SST. Basins that warm more than the tropical average tend to show larger increases in tropical cyclone activity for a number of metrics.
Our 2015 study simulations also project little change in the median size of tropical cyclones globally; the model shows some skill at simulating the differences in average storm size between various basins in the present-day climate, lending some credibility to its future climate change projections of tropical cyclone size
2015 study Finally, the framework is shown to be capable of reproducing both the observed global distribution of outer storm size—albeit with a slight high bias—and its interbasin variability. Projected median size is found to remain nearly constant globally, with increases in most basins offset by decreases in the northwest Pacific
Don’t have confirmation bias. As usual things are not always black and white.
My worthless opinion is after ocean temperatures reach and go beyond a certain threshold level, whatever it is, then i’d say stronger cat4-5 hurricanes will be more rampant. Again as i said, in my opinion, the feedback loops are still in the first gears.
One of the most visible consequences of a warming world is an increase in the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events. The National Climate Assessment finds that the number of heat waves, heavy downpours, and major hurricanes has increased in the United States, and the strength of these events has increased, too.
A measure of the economic impact of extreme weather is the increasing number of billion-dollar disasters, which is shown below. The map shows all types of weather disasters, some of which are known to be influenced by climate change (floods, tropical storms) and some for which a climate influence is uncertain (tornadoes).
And that is just the weather. There are links to increased droughts and fires too!
Your missing my point which is that there is now very solid evidence specifically linking individual extreme weather events to climate change! The NY Times article is behind the times… (pun intended) 😉
This is about new cutting edge scientific research.
Up until a few years ago, it wasn’t possible to draw that link with any degree of accuracy, Otto says. But in 2004, Pete Stott at the UK Met Office published a paper in the scientific journal Nature showing that climate change had at least doubled the risk of the 2003 European heatwave that killed tens of thousands of people. Twelve years later the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society dedicated an entire issue to the new field of extreme event attribution. In the introduction, its editors argued that it was now possible to detect the effects of climate change on some events with high confidence. “That was really the first time we could say that we can attribute events to anthropogenic climate change,” Otto says.
If interested you can read the linked studies in the article and see for yourself that the science has been evolving for a while now and it is no longer correct to state that it is impossible to attribute specific extreme weather events to anthropogenic climate change.
And this is not about agreeing to disagree!
The earth is NOT flat it isn’t even a sphere, its an oblate spheroid!
Cheers!
I’ll read the link you posted thanks Fred. Though i remain skeptical until much more independent studies come in.
Cheers.
Shit/fan – more like the output of the sewage farm fed into the wind farm!
NAOM
Hi Iron Mike,
I recommend watching this lecture by Hugh Montgomery that was posted by George Kaplan a few days ago. Climate change is just the icing on the plastic contaminated cake.
In my opinion, sure, climate changes over time. We know that from the study of paleoclimatology. But it is not so much the absolute number of degrees the climate changes, rather it is the rate of change, and the ability (or inability) of the ecosystems that we depend on to adapt.
I guess it’s hard for humans to not to think about things on a human timescale.
Hi Chilyb,
rather it is the rate of change
Definitely, hence anthropogenic climate change is the best explanation.
Yes looking at earths geological eras and the main 5 extinction events, climate change was a factor in all of them. I agree.
I will check out the video.
Thanks
Are Humans Like a Virus on Planet Earth?
I believe the answer is a resounding yes. lol
IM, viruses have never been linked to a major extinction event (yet). I think they are more of a balance mechanism.
I read the labels on your graph. Water absorbs more of the suns energy than ice (positive feedback). Isn’t that what the graph is showing?
The label says solar input, not long wave radiation output which would need a complex calculation with atmospheric GHG absorption/radiation which I can do but also needs cloud factors which I can only approximate. So I just showed the increase of heating by solar gain.
Yes the open water does absorb much more energy than the ice and both are accounted. With much more open water in the spring through fall it is now a global heating and climate change factor. Unlike not long ago when it was mostly covered all year long.
As the snow cover recedes northward and the Arctic Ocean is open all summer the albedo factors increase and so do the methane/CO2 factors from melting permafrost.
Lots to look forward to.
That increase is downscaled to global area. The actual Arctic levels are much higher.
Ohh right, I thought you were using that to calculate the effective temperature. My bad.
Interesting stuff. Yes if you take away the short-wave solar input – long wave infrared earth dissipates, you get the energy budget. Starting to remember now.
Keep us posted on your findings.
Long wave goes both ways. Remember GHGs and clouds.
There are also ocean current inputs from the south and winds from the south, so in all the system is complex and variable from year to year.
Overall, it is heating up and losing ice, ice is thin now and getting young.
I would say keep a strong eye on the global social interactions from 2025 to 2030, much of it will be due to the changes in the Arctic region.
(ant’s nest stirred with stick)
How long until 410 becomes our new baseline?
Yeah, does anyone remember when 350 ppm was considered the line that shouldn’t be crossed?!
Yes, using forests for biofuel is a very dangerous and environmentally harmful way to operate. People will always find ways to pervert the object of laws or make laws that have bad unintended ramifications.
And using ‘croplands’ for biofuels is just as bad as using ‘forests’.
Too many people.
I feel it is reasonable to suggest that peak oil et al will result in increased deforestation, both regulated and non.
Maybe the future will be all sing-songs and Elon Musk bukake parties, but I doubt it.
I agree Survivalist. Deforestation after peak fossil is not brought up very often, but I think is inevitable in many places. In fact most places that have a significant winter heating load will be cutting their forests wholesale. Poor and cold people are very good at burning wood, and coal.
The Marcellus/Utica will spare the eastern USA to some extent, but it will still be very heavy.
Korea, Germany, New England forests, for example, will be ravaged.
Its a lot of carbon that will be liberated from its cellulose prison.
‘The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.’
– Winston Churchill
Actually those pictures of socialism are mislabeled. Those are precisely the results shown in the youtube video about wealth inequality due to Capitalism as practiced in the USA!
Either you are a fucking moron or you are part of the 1% depicted in the video. Either way you are full of shit!
Editor’s note: This talk was presented at a TED Salon event given in partnership with Samsung.
There is actually something intellectually pathetic about someone posting such a set of pictures as an argument. Every one of those pictures could just as easily, with revise captions, describe democracy in America.
Says the rich Trump capitalist
I usually like memes, but yours are really dumb. Do you have any memes that might appeal to smarter folks?
You are, of course, trying to make an emotional appeal to the illiterate…lucky for us, there aren’t any on this blog. Provide some kind of stat or sourcing to prove that your photos are what they claim to be, or I will just point out an undeniable fact:
You are a shallow propagandist: a liar and a bullshitter.
Lake Powell is currently at 43 percent capacity; Lake Mead at 38 percent.
Things could get very interesting soon.
The canary in the southwest. Just another reason for the border wall. The water wouldn’t be needed when the country doesn’t have any agriculture workers.
Haha. Good one.. [I wish it was a joke].
You can’t, they will say, make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.
check out the right hand side links for other global examples of the changing world
Hickory,
Thanks for this. I’ve been keeping an eye on Lake Powell for about forty years, my main interest being that the Glen Canyon Dam that holds it in is built against sandstone with calcareous–that is, water-soluble,–cement: The rock holding the dam is permeable and has absorbed about a third of water that has flowed into the reservoir since the river was dammed. We won’t get that water back.
As we see from the images at the link, the Colorado carries a great deal of sediment; that’s why it was long ago called “Too thick to drink and too thin to plow.” That sediment doesn’t make it past the dam and last I looked (going on memory here) about a third of the reservoir’s volume is now sediment not water. Somebody put it well: In maybe half a century the dam will just be a waterfall.
Glen Canyon Dam is our own equivalent of Egypt’s Aswan High Dam and is equally destructive.
Its going to be an amazing waterfall.
I have wondered if the water going over the top will erode the face of structure, and eventually breech it catastrophically. If so, all that sediment will get flushed out within several years I think. Right down into Lake Mead.
“Too thick to drink and too thin to plow.”
I’m pretty sure Mark Twain said that about the Mississippi a long time before the Glen Canyon dam was thought of.
JJHMAN,
It might have been Twain, I don’t know; that’s why I said “long ago.”
It does sound like something that could be regional, though. The West is good at that sort of thing.
“I think we are way above our heads.”
CLIMATE CHANGE WILL BRING MULTIPLE DISASTERS AT ONCE
In the not-too-distant future, disasters won’t come one at a time. Instead, we can expect a cascade of catastrophes, some gradual, others abrupt, all compounding as climate change takes a greater toll. That is how Camillo Mora, the lead author of a study released Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, describes the numerous impacts that are expected to hit us in the coming years. He adds, “I think we are way above our heads.”
To reach that conclusion, the team of 23 scientists reviewed more than 3,000 scientific peer-reviewed scientific papers. They examined the impact on human health, food supplies, water, the economy, infrastructure, and security from multiple factors including rising temperatures, drought, heat waves, wildfires, precipitation, floods, powerful storms, sea level rise and changes in land cover and ocean chemistry.
You know what Doug?! That is not even close to how bad things are really going to get due to synergies and domino effect of multiple ecosystems collapsing all at once. It never ceases to boggle my mind, my apologies to E.O. Wilson, how few people actually comprehend the implications. And unfortunately that group of people who do not comprehend includes many scientists, who one would imagine, should know better. Case in Point: Oxbridge astrophysicists (David Sloan and colleagues) who published a rather controversial paper. Using tardigrades as their bench mark. to conclude that life on earth will be just fine!
BTW, disclaimer, this link was posted over at Real Climate:
Global warming causes the worst kind of extinction domino effect
…So, boil, fry or freeze the Earth, and you’ll still have tardigrades around, concluded Sloan and colleagues.
When Giovanni first read this, and then passed the paper along to me for comment, our knee-jerk reaction as ecologists was a resounding ‘bullshit!’. Even neophyte ecologists know intuitively that because species are all interconnected in vast networks linked by trophic (who eats whom), competitive, and other ecological functions (known collectively as ‘multiplex networks’), they cannot be singled out using mere thermal tolerances to predict the probability of annihilation.
Co-extinctions — the phenomenon of species going extinct because the species on which they depend go extinct first — mean that defaulting to physiological tolerances alone would severely underestimate extinction rates. But by how much?
Giovanni and I immediately responded to the journal that the Sloan conclusions could not be defended because of this simple fact. But they refused to publish the response because we could not quantify by how much they underestimated extinction.
Well, “fair enough”, we said. So, we set about trying to do the impossible — estimate the global extinction rate of species facing planetary catastrophes with co-extinctions taken into account.
As you can imagine, that was no easy task.
Ecologists have to be the most depressed human beings on earth right now… Where is that bottle of port?!
It seems I’m in good company! This is the author’s concluding comment:
This basically means that global warming is the worst possible mechanism driving extinctions, and why we have most likely vastly underestimated extinctions arising from projected climate change in the near future. Shit.
I need a drink.
Well you certainly talk a big talk, but let’s see your CV and list of published peer-review journal articles to judge just how much better you “comprehend” the science compared to virtually every other career scientist. Otherwise, I fear you will just be perceived, ironically, as another one of the anti-science nuts you frequently, and persistently, deride.
At least I know enough about how ecosystems work to understand this paragraph… and I was saying something specifically to Doug, who does grasp complex nonlinear dynamics!
When Giovanni first read this, and then passed the paper along to me for comment, our knee-jerk reaction as ecologists was a resounding ‘bullshit!’. Even neophyte ecologists know intuitively that because species are all interconnected in vast networks linked by trophic (who eats whom), competitive, and other ecological functions (known collectively as ‘multiplex networks’), they cannot be singled out using mere thermal tolerances to predict the probability of annihilation.
You on the other hand obviously lack even basic English reading comprehension skills, let alone scientific ones.
Now Fuck Off, ignorant Troll!
Edit: (you can check out all the associated machinery in the paper’s Methods and Supplementary material). Not that you will understand any of this but here is the link
Co-extinctions annihilate planetary life during extreme environmental change
Giovanni Strona & Corey J. A. Bradshaw
Scientific Reportsvolume 8, Article number: 16724 (2018) | Download Citation
Abstract Climate change and human activity are dooming species at an unprecedented rate via a plethora of direct and indirect, often synergic, mechanisms. Among these, primary extinctions driven by environmental change could be just the tip of an enormous extinction iceberg. As our understanding of the importance of ecological interactions in shaping ecosystem identity advances, it is becoming clearer how the disappearance of consumers following the depletion of their resources — a process known as ‘co-extinction’ — is more likely the major driver of biodiversity loss. Although the general relevance of co-extinctions is supported by a sound and robust theoretical background, the challenges in obtaining empirical information about ongoing (and past) co-extinction events complicate the assessment of their relative contributions to the rapid decline of species diversity even in well-known systems, let alone at the global scale. By subjecting a large set of virtual Earths to different trajectories of extreme environmental change (global heating and cooling), and by tracking species loss up to the complete annihilation of all life either accounting or not for co-extinction processes, we show how ecological dependencies amplify the direct effects of environmental change on the collapse of planetary diversity by up to ten times.
Daily CO2
December 12, 2018: 409.73 ppm
December 12, 2017: 406.51 ppm
November CO2
November 2018: 408,02 ppm
November 2017: 405.12 ppm
Perhaps a year over year spike coming secondary to an El Niño?
The 98 El Niño had a big CO2 spike, but the 92 one did not. Anybody know much about that? https://ggweather.com/enso/oni.htm
It could just be local effects – for Mauna Lao if the wind blows from LA or downdraft from the volcanic vents then CO2 measurement rises slightly and vice versa. But this year the increase has been consistently and quite anomalously high since summer. Earlier I wondered if the Pacific typhoons and then the California fires were the issue but its got worse since. The other stations that have continuous monitoring look high if anything but the data can’t be downloaded until they have been verified (annually) so it’s difficult to tell trends really. Which is a long winded way of saying I don’t know, but its interesting to follow.
This report is interesting; from the summary at the end:
“El Niño is expected to form and continue through the Northern Hemisphere winter 2018-19 (~80% chance) and into spring (55-60% chance).*”
50% chance is flipping a coin. 80 percent chance is slightly better.
Much like the weather forecast I got from NWS three days ago saying today was to be partly sunny and warm with no precipitation. Now it’s cool cloudy and rainy with 90 percent chance of much more rain later today.
El Niño is responsible for the warm pattern we’re seeing over North America for the second half of December. There are many analogous years that featured a similar temperature profile in the ENSO region as we’re seeing now. Those years, by and large, saw a very cold autumn in the eastern half of North America (just like we saw this year), followed by a very warm December in the same region. The remainder of meteorological winter typically ends up with January temperatures closer to normal and February temperatures on the warm side, but not as much as December.
The recent warm pattern over western North America is interesting, however it is not due to El Niño as there isn’t one right now, as far as I understand. The jet stream certainly seems to be a factor lately with often a large ridge over the west and a deep trough in the east.
By definition, El Niño and La Niña cannot be officially declared until 7 months into an event. Refer to pages 19, 20, 21 in the NOAA presentation you linked. The data show we are seeing El Niño conditions now. They will need to persist through March for an El Niño to be declared in the historical record.
The North American jet stream lately has shown all the hallmarks of El Niño. A split flow with a dominant Pacific stream and a northern branch that prevents Arctic air from blanketing Canada.
There’s a massive SSW event in the works over the Arctic, though. This could translate into a newsworthy unpredicted global cooling event in the Northern Hemisphere about a month or so from now.
This could translate into a newsworthy unpredicted global cooling event in the Northern Hemisphere about a month or so from now.
Do drop us a line if and when it translates to a cooling event along the Great Barrier Reef and all the devastated coral reefs start recovering!
I predict a global northern hemispherical event in the near future. It’s typically called winter.
Been on a cooling trend here for a few months now.
Bob Frisky,
So you have a link for the SSW event in the Arctic?
[annual average ppm rise in global atmospheric CO2 concentration]
During the PETM maximum CO2 rise (methane included) was about 1/5 the rate of our current injection into the atmosphere. Even if we dropped to 1 ppm/yr, that is enough to warm the planet very quickly. Although the current acidification of the oceans is possibly more extreme than the PETM or at least similar.
Also on a related note, new research is showing that burning coal might have had a large role in the Permian mass extinction. I guess that doesn’t bode well for us humans.
It may be too late to make enough of a difference to reverse a PETM like extinction event due to warming and ocean acidification but the Chinese are at least making some noises that they are heading away from fossil fuels at an ever increasing rate. I guess we shall see!
CREO 2018: A new era in the Chinese energy transition
A new era in the Chinese energy transition is on the menu and renewables are the order of the day, according to the latest China Renewable Energy Outlook (CREO). China will not require a gas bridge between coal and renewables, it finds, adding that renewables will become the core of the nation’s energy system by 2050, with annual PV installs of between 80-160 GW possible. Not only that, but electricity supply could be cheaper in this future than it is today.
For the record, IMHO, I think 2050 is about 3 decades too late!
Cheers!
Oh yeah, and there will be way too many people by then and too few tardigrades…
And for the stupid trolls that have been showing up here recently there are a few free online courses at M.I.T. in applied mathematics dealing with Chaos Theory, I suggest you brush up on your calculus and take some of them before you come here to post more of your nonsense!
” I think 2050 is about 3 decades too late!”
That is exactly my take on it, if not 4.
And the statement says that renewables will be the core by 2050.
Well, ummm, there will be no other choice folks.
All the fossil fuel sources will be far beyond their peak by then, having be oxidized right up into the air.
We will be far into burning the long tails (of global production) by then.
“For the record, IMHO, I think 2050 is about 3 decades too late!”
Not sure what we are too late for.
Looking at the boundary conditions, with no efforts to stem global warming and BAU continues on, civilization will last long enough to completely wreck the natural world.
At the other end of the spectrum, with high efforts to reduce global warming (low probability), reduced BAU will extend further into the future and last long enough to completely wreck the natural world.
Looking at the highest probability, continued low to eventually medium efforts to stem global warming, BAU (slightly modified, then further reduced) continues long enough to completely wreck the natural world.
We need a complete change of human view and civilization within the next few years to have a chance at not destroying the natural world as we knew it or at least easing it on into a warmer world. We need not a kink in the line of civilization but a full break and redirection to a low energy, positive impact society and civilization. It was needed decades ago but better late than never.
Odds of that happening before most vertebrate species and many invertebrate species are further decimated and/or gone is low. We will be too busy with our own survival and our own megalomaniac plans for our future, as the floor (not the rug) is pulled out from under us by (guess who).
Aside: I just find it sickly humorous that people are depending upon government to make the changes needed. Government is there to enhance and encourage resource extraction, industry plus commerce. Also to control the citizens both foreign and domestic so to continue it’s primary mission.
GF- when Fred said 2050 is 3 decades too late- he was referring to the Chinese goal of making renewable energy ‘the core of their energy system’, as indicated in his posting if you read it.
Changes nothing in what I said. Although you do need to read his first sentence.
Yes, that is what I was referring to! Not that I disagree with the gist of GF’s general points but one of the very few governments that may be able to change direction and force that change on its population at large is the Chinese government. To be clear I am not necessarily a big fan of the way they acheive some of those goals but that is a separate discussion.
people are depending upon government to make the changes needed
I don’t think anyone (no one who’s smart, anyway) is depending on government to initiate change, at least not in the sense that one might passively pray to a deity to take care of things for you.
No, government is simply a vehicle for getting things done. If it is a force for BAU, it’s simply because the forces of BAU have been more successful at pushing the levers of power: persuading (aka misinforming aka propagandizing) voters, lobbying (aka contributing to aka buying) politicians, etc., etc.
So…have you talked to anyone in government lately? Perhaps technical staff? Have you contributed money to anybody’s campaign, maybe with a followup conversation about what you’d like in the way of policies?
One voter with $50 is important to a politician: they figure that this represents between 10 and 100 silent voters. And, it’s easy for small contributions to match the big contributions of the wealthy: that was one of the interesting developments of the US 2018 elections…
So…have you talked to anyone in government lately? Perhaps technical staff? Have you contributed money to anybody’s campaign, maybe with a followup conversation about what you’d like in the way of policies?
For what it is worth, I have contributed money To Andrew Yang. He is one of the very few politicians that I’m aware of that at least has some grasp of the kinds of problems we face as a global civilization.
Nick, keep on believing. The tendency of people to want to stay with the herd and keep believing despite all evidence to the contrary is just one of the more charming human characteristics.
That poll is way too simplistic. Of course we can’t regard government as a father figure who will take care of us.
First of all, thinking of government as a single entity is way oversimplified. “Govenment” consists of many different entities, with different structures, histories, cultures, etc. Someone who has a history with the military, for instance, will have an entirely different experience than someone who has worked with or for the TVA, NOAA, NREL, etc.,etc. And, of course, there’s state, county, city, school, HOA, etc., etc.
Second, government is a tool that responds to various constituencies, pressures, etc. It’s what we make it. The simplest form of social organization is a father of an extended family, who needs no formal, explicit social contract. A much larger society can be run by a warlord who rules by pure fear and violence – again, there is no formal social contract. The current equivalent is Charles Koch, who wants to exploit the resources he owns and have no one interfere. Government tends to expand involvement and power (think of the Magna Carta), and so warlords fear it. Which is why Koch is trying to cripple and shrink our current democracy.
Sadly, that poll is evidence that his campaign is working: people trust democracy less, and autocrats more. One result: Trump’s election (Koch 1, people 0).
The bottom line: democracy is how we get things done collectively. It depends on the involvement of everyone. Abandon it, and abandon all hope.
Of course there are now the ‘Yellow Vests’ and ‘Extinction Rebellion’ (and whoever/whatever else) that are attempting to push ‘government’ in particular ways that may approach what might be called, socialism. I have my doubts, given issues surrounding overcomplexity (and illegitimate coercion, etc.).
As for Koch, to ‘reduce’ an erosion of some notion of ‘democracy’ to some ‘bad guy’ seems like a take on a bad super-hero flick, and as such, pretty silly. (Same thing with him being tacked onto the issues of AGW. Governments have overwhelming majority share and control of fossil fuels.)
In any case, if Koch and company can help sink what is already full of holes, maybe so much the better.
If you’re working for government, incidentally, and I think you may have mentioned that recently heron, and are drawing your income from the tax-coerced public, then you’re in a sense, parasitic on them…
In the real world, the ‘evil-doers’ and the ‘good guys’ are not necessarily cut-and-dried.
…And then you have scientists and engineers selling themselves and their planet out to (government-subsidized) corporations (owned and/or operated and/or controlled by former government officials) for a ‘quick buck’, but that’s another comment.
In the first three quarters of 2018, China’s newly installed capacity of PV was 34.54 GW, down 19.7% on the same period last year. Of this, 17.4 GW was utility scale PV power plants, down 37.2% on the same period last year；newly installed capacity of distributed PV was 17.14 GW, an increase of 12% on the same period last year.。
By the end of September, total nationwide PV power generation capacity reached 164.74 GW, of which 117.94 GW of utility-scale PV power plants, and 46.80 GW distributed PV。PV power generation in the first three quarters was 133.83 TWh, an increase of 56.2% on the same period last year；the curtailment rate of PV was 2.9%, down 2.7 percentage points on the same period last year。The curtailment occurred mainly in Xinjiang and Gansu, with 1.73 TWh curtailed in Xinjiang (excluding XPCC), at a curtailment rate of 16%, down 5.4 percentage points on the same period last year；a further 780 GWh of PV was curtailed in Gansu, at a curtailment rate of 10%, down 11 percentage points on the same period last year。
HOPE FOR ‘DECENT’ CLIMATE TALKS OUTCOME
“It was never going to be great, not least because the US is playing a laggard role, but I think we can get a decent outcome, if it’s framed in the right way,” said Alden Meyer from the Union of Concerned Scientists.
In all, Norwegian oil companies expect to spend 175.3 billion kroner ($20.49 billion) in 2019, while 2018 oilfield spending is now pegged at NOK 156 billion ($18.27 billion). The slight increase in 2018 over 2017 capex estimates was mostly down to royal assent for the 100-million-barrel Fenja field.
No matter what you look at, may it be deforestation, atmospheric carbon levels, species extinctions, polluted rivers, every aspect has gotten worse year after year. Governments doesn’t seem to be able to solve this crisis, and neither is the public.
If we can learn one thing of the past collapses of major civilizations, it is that all of those showed some (if not most) of the following symptoms during or immediately before their imminent collapse: environmental destruction, depletion of vital resources (such as water, arable soil and timber), famine, overpopulation, social and political unrest, inequality, invasion or other forms of devastating warfare, and disease.
‘Tis the season of snowy nights and reindeer pulling sleighs — except in the actual Arctic, where climate change is wreaking havoc on a real-world winter wonderland. A new “report card” from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Admin. Arctic Program paints a dire picture for the frozen North. According to the program’s 2018 Arctic Report Card, Arctic surface air temperatures are warming twice as fast as in the rest of the globe, while populations of wild reindeer and caribou have tumbled by 50 percent over the last 20 years.
Meanwhile, toxic algal blooms driven by warming waters represent a new threat to marine life in the Arctic, the researchers wrote. Algal toxins have been found in ill or dead animals ranging from seabirds to seals to whales.
Snowy mountain winters are being “squeezed” by climate change, according to scientists in California. Researchers who studied the winter snowfall in the mountains there revealed that rising temperatures are reducing the period during which snow is on the ground in the mountains – snow that millions rely on for their fresh water.
“Our winters are getting sick and we know why,” said Prof Amato Evan, from the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, who carried out the investigation. “It’s climate change; it’s rising temperatures.”
Most water is used for agriculture and business. Growing food in arid and desert regions is a non-sustainable system.
The hubris of people is sickening. California counts “environmental” water as part of their water use. Meaning streams and rivers that are protected and isolated from farm and human use. People think they own everything. With that attitude soon they will not have the use of anything.
“In dry years, the share of water that goes to the environment decreases dramatically as flows diminish in rivers and streams. During this latest drought, the state also reduced water for the environment to reserve some supplies for farms and cities.
So beside a stream or river being in drought condition, the water sucking humans pump even more out of them. Dried dead water life, with increased pollution concentrations.
“When will they ever learn?”
People and corporations both have a trait in common, that being inability to think for the long term. Neither were created with the capability to understand what is in their own self interest for long term survival, which is why they just keep voting against it.
As a devoted eater of locally caught Salmon I am offended by central valley farmers, who grow almonds to sell in China, claiming that the water needed for Salmon spawning is “wasted” on the “environment”.
I drove through the central valley last month. Just about every mile there was a sign extolling the moral superiority of growing food. Ten feet behind the signs were gigantic almond orchards.
Its a choice. Irrigate some of the best damn land on the planet for high yields, or keep more water in the river channel for salmon (which we then pull out to eat by and large), or divert more water to the cities and suburbs for human consumption.
Either way its people controlling the water for their own special priority purpose.
Hey, I have an idea. Lets try less people. All over the world.
Perhaps in time this reverse experiment will be run.
Hey, I have an idea. Lets try less people. All over the world.
Perhaps in time this reverse experiment will be run.
Oh it most definitely will happen and probably sooner rather than later! It is a direct consequence of ecological overshoot, human die off along with the sixth mass biological extinction. Everything that I see happening in all corners of the globe and the science backs it up, points very clearly to this outcome!
Not a matter of “if”, but when.
Its also a question of mechanism and rate. Just how do we achieve a smaller population, and how fast?
Note- I will resist if the theocrats get involved in the process. That really pisses me off.
We have a choice, reduce the population to 2 billion or have it reduced to 2 million. We seem to be choosing the latter and the 1% seem to think they will be that but they cannot see that they will be the ones that get eaten.
NAOM
So they are either people who are allowed to choose short term economics over life on this planet or they are people who have a form of dementia and cannot think past a short time span plus make very poor and harmful decisions.
Why are they still being allowed to stay in their positions? Has no one noticed this? Is this acceptable behavior that is supported by the people. Or are the people no longer involved and never see the man behind the curtain?
Somehow this reminds me of WWII Germany and what happened to those who went along for short term security.
Why are they still being allowed to stay in their positions? Has no one noticed this? Is this acceptable behavior that is supported by the people. Or are the people no longer involved and never see the man behind the curtain?
I have to assume that to be a rethorical question!
To put it another way, why do 1% of the world’s population control over 50% it’s resources and what can the ignorant powerless masses do about it?!
Let me know if you have any ideas on how to right this massive inequality in wealth distribution?
“Let me know if you have any ideas on how to right this massive inequality in wealth distribution?”
Not in a public venue like this.
Not in a public venue like this.
LOL! I suspect we may find that we agree on what really needs to be done…
Cheers!
What really surprises me is how easily humans are placated on this issue. Give them just a little stability of food supply, and they seem ready to accept massive wealth sequestration by the top 0.2%. This is a global phenomena.
In USA, the education system fails miserably at teaching people to think with any sophistication about this issue. I believe a considerable portion is due to a concerted effort by the super wealthy to cloud the issue, such as promoting the campaign labeling people ‘commies’ who express any support for economic justice.
And the other big factor, as I mentioned above, is how easily people are placated.
Get in the boxcar or you might die, (starve, fail, be excluded, be imprisoned, never get a job again, lose your family, lose your job, lose your pension, lose your social security).
The threats are real and the methods on the increase. The people are not placated, they are ruled by fear, a real and tangible set of fears. They all know this deep down inside, yet like the constant threat of nuclear annihilation it is moved to the background and submerged after a while.
Well, you seem to know just everything GF.
All I know is that people sure act placated,
in that they put up with the wealth sequestration as if its no big deal.
You’d think there would atleast be a clamoring for a strict estate tax.
Spend some time on Cheezburger’s Fail Blog and Americana for a real cringe about this.
NAOM
“Growing food in arid and desert regions is a non-sustainable system.” ~ GoneFishing
To embellish Jensen’s quote, I also cite permaculture’s (and maybe others’) Desert Greening project or projects. If we can lose forests and get deserts, perhaps we can reverse the processes and/or at least help them along in the right directions, so that, for example, we may grow food in formerly arid regions sustainably.
Another BS article on the impending doom of renewable energy due to the lack of rare earth metals just appeared in Motherboard magazine.
There is so much false crap printed about climate change, renewables and EV that I wonder if the internet and publications will survive much longer. That article said that PV cells use rare earth’s. Maybe in a very small percentage of specialty cells, but generally not at all.
Next of course is wind, but that too is a bloated carcass of a story, almost all fiction. Many people think rare earths are also a necessary component of wind turbines, but the facts find otherwise: only about two percent of the U.S. wind turbine fleet uses them, and that number shouldn’t change much in the years to come.
EV’s you say? Up until the long range model 3 all other Tesla models used no rare earth in the motors, they used induction motors. The standard model 3 is an induction motor. Just goes to prove that EV’s do not need these materials.
The vast majority use conventional electromagnets made of copper and steel, and companies that have used rare earths in the past are actively working to reduce their levels of use
I could go on but what is the use. The climate deniers and anti-renewable people will eat up the pig swill and keep regurgitating it all over the internet. Too bad too, we have enough real problems to deal with without making up a lot of fake problems that would only exist if we had not changed course already.
But that is the state of civilization, full of lies and BS to serve the needs of the sociopaths.
Urgh! Toyota have ferreted out ferrites that are better magnets than rare earth ones plus there are several other groups that have developed non-rare earth magnets that are better.
NAOM
Yeah, we have no limit to practical renewable (PV, wind) energy. The batteries are getting better too.
I think a key element is in the initial design of an energy using system. Say a house or building that needs heat and cooling. Why use a huge set of PV when one can use passive and thermal collectors and water or other mass storage for the heat. Ice can be stored for the air conditioning and refrigeration.
That ultimate tool of energy conservation, insulation, is not used enough.
Once we get smart enough, we can emulate nature by running our chemical reactions at ambient temperatures or at least low temperatures.
Since 70 percent of the world’s people are poor or nearly so they are not big energy users or consumers. It’s the top 30 percent that use most of the energy.
Arguing for the continuation of BAU– the global industrial crony-capistalist plutocracy– to support the buildout of solar panels, windmills and electric cars at this stage of the game seems ill-advised and irresponsible, speaking of sociopathology.
But maybe some people like to associate themselves with such causes as AGW and the general wrecking of the planet so that they can then railroad their ‘solutions’ for them, their ideas from the fruits of BAU, yes, like solar panels, windmills and electric living-rooms-on-wheels, as well as the continuation, by the way, of ribbons and ribbons of asphalt and assorted/related infrastructure all over the landscapes, and that the tax-coerced public pay for, speaking of sociopathology.
The issues surrounding rare earths– nevertheless, more than many may think– are of course not the only ones surrounding solar panels, windmills and electric cars and similar trinkets.
If you/we are really serious about anthropogenic climate change and the general trashing of the planet, I would respectfully advise that we simply dial down BAU, and with it, fossil-fuel usage.
Naturally, doing so will go against some pseudorenewable/BAU/pseudogovernment narratives, agendas and vested interests.
Trump Interior Secretary Zinke resigns amid ethics probes – “Surrounding himself with former lobbyists, it quickly became clear that Ryan Zinke was a pawn for the oil and gas industry”
“Ryan Zinke will go down as the most anti-conservation Interior secretary in our nation’s history,” said Jennifer Rokala, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities. “Surrounding himself with former lobbyists, it quickly became clear that Ryan Zinke was a pawn for the oil and gas industry. We can expect more of the same from Acting Secretary David Bernhardt, but without the laughable Teddy Roosevelt comparisons.”
How Stone Stacking Wreaks Havoc on National Parks
By Sophie Haigney
The balancing of stones is an elementary kind of creation, not unlike the building of sand castles. Stone stacks, or cairns, have prehistoric origins. They marked Neolithic burial grounds in what is now Scotland, guided nautical travels in Scandinavia, and served as shrines to the Inca goddess Pachamama in Peru. Contemporary stone stackers, then, are taking up the mantle of an ancient and artistic tradition. In the past decade or so, though, there has been an explosion of cairns around the world—in national parks, in the Scottish Highlands, on the beaches of Aruba. Park rangers, environmentalists, and hikers have all become alarmed, to varying degrees. The movement of so many stones can cause erosion, damage animal ecosystems, disrupt river flow, and confuse hikers, who depend on sanctioned cairns for navigation in places without clear trails.
Inspired by social-media posts, new rock stackers are taking up the hobby, and the piles of stones are proliferating along with the pictures of them. After all, replication is not only a side effect of social media; it’s part of the point. “Rock stacking is a way of quickly making your mark and having an image of it. People are posting pictures of them on Instagram, saying, ‘I’ve been here and I made this,’ ” the head of a small volunteer-run environmental organization called the Blue Planet Society, said.
National parks are caught in the crosshairs of the debate, too. In 2016, a previous post on Zion National Park’s Facebook page about stone stacking got more than twenty-six hundred comments, as people bitterly debated whether small towers of rocks could really be a problem.
In Acadia National Park, volunteers destroyed nearly thirty-five hundred rock stacks, on two mountains alone, in 2016 and 2017. “I would probably equate the rock-stacking phenomenon with the painted-rock phenomenon, in how it’s driven by social media,” Christie Anastasia, the public-affairs specialist at Acadia, said. Painted rocks are a kind of social-media treasure hunt; people leave brightly decorated rocks in parks, with their social-media handles noted on the undersides. The person who finds the rock can then send a message to the person who left it. Acadia park employees have collected hundreds of them during the past year. The painted rocks now sit in a purgatory of bins, while the park staff figures out what to do with them. “We’re still cogitating on it,” Anastasia said. “We thought about throwing them into the ocean, but there might be chemicals in the paint. We’ve thought about throwing them in the fire. We’re still deciding. But they really have no place in a national park.”
Hmmm, let’s ask ourselves what a National Park is for starters. It is a unique or special natural area set aside to protect it and allow the use of it by the public.
So first thing they do is chop roads and trails through it, erect buildings, water, septic facilities, RV and camping areas, parking lots, etc.
Then they invite the public by the millions to drive several billions of miles each year to the facilities (which is further than the 1800 miles of toilet paper the visitors use).
However, the National Park system has been very successful due to increased visitation over the years. They need more parks and more funding. https://www.denverpost.com/2018/11/21/national-parks-crisis-tourists/
Next they worry about some rocks being piled up by a few of the visitors. Back in the good ole days when America had a brain, they would just hire some extra help to disperse the little rock piles if they were actually a problem.
This however sounds more like a faux problem, common in our society now. Instead of moaning about the problems, why don’t we do what people used to do, deal with the problems and shut their bleeping mouths.
“Perhaps the most memorable image of COP24 meeting was that of 15-year-old Swedish student Greta Thunberg.” Greta who has organised school strikes in Sweden held daily press conferences to drive home her message that platitudes and warm words just aren’t enough anymore. Her message was sharp and succinct: “We cannot solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis.”
Maybe the governments and their scientific organizations have lost the respect of the people, since they know that little was or will be done to actually address the multitude of problems.
Time to stop begging and pleading with them. Time to act strongly.
Time to stop begging and pleading with them. Time to act strongly.
I’m guessing you don’t want to put forth any concrete proposals, this being a public venue, eh?!
However, speaking of bad actors, what about the entire oil side of this very blog and comments such as this from climate change denialist Fernando Leanme?!
There’s no evidence for a “runaway” temperature increase. But there’s plenty of evidence for a fanatical, repressive, and irrational movement which ties world average temperature to the need to implement communism.
No evidence he says! Tied to communism?! Really now!
So how do we deal with large numbers of ideologues of his ilk, many of whom have found their way into authoritarian governments the world over. My personal patience with these people, already at an all time low, is now reaching the point where I think taking direct legal action against them is absolutely necessary!
BUT, we have The Wisdom of God and the Wisdom of Man on our side (Romans 11:25-36). Right?
SAUDI ARABIA’S GREAT THIRST
“When intensive modern farming started, there was a staggering 120 cubic miles (500 cubic kilometers) of water beneath the Saudi desert, enough to fill Lake Erie in the U.S. But in recent years, up to 5 cubic miles has been pumped to the surface annually for use on the farms. Virtually none of it is replaced by the rains, because there effectively are none. Based on extraction rates detailed in a 2004 paper from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, the Saudis were on track to use up at least 96 cubic miles of their aquifers by 2008. Experts estimate that four-fifths of the Saudis’ “fossil” water is now gone. That means one of the planet’s greatest and oldest freshwater resources, in one of its hottest and most parched places, has been all but emptied in little more than a generation.”
Fernando’s family got their right wing asses kicked by the Cuban Revolution, and escaped to Fascist Spain.
This was obviously a blow that he has not recovered from.
I try compassion, but am trending to your side.
The clock is ticking loudly.
I don’t think Fernando is important. He should just be banned from the blog so that he’ll stop stinking it up with his bogus nonsense.
That said, people in more important positions who spread disinformation like he does SHOULD be sued. And ExxonMobil IS being sued, by the Attorney General of New York.
Reminds me, for some reason, of charging electric vehicles with coal-generated electricity.
Fred, I try not to listen to the sociopaths, the destructively insane and the purposely ignorant greedy among us. I found in years of whitewater kayaking that the best way to deal with rocks is to go around them (a method of ignoring them) and move on toward my goal. Rocks, which interrupt the stream of life and flow of the river, get left behind to eventually be eroded away.
It is tempting to spend time with them, the disruption and challenge presented is entertaining and fun, sometimes deadly with the wrong move at the wrong rock.
Fred, I try not to listen to the sociopaths, the destructively insane and the purposely ignorant greedy among us.
I have tried in the past to do exactly that. Unfortunately it hasn’t seemed to work out too well. They seem to be the ones who somehow manage to end up running, er, ruining things, including the whole planet!
BTW, I kayak mostly in the ocean, not too many rocks where I am so I just get to ride the waves and the surf!
Looks fun indeed! Though if I lose my balance and ever get flipped by a wave in the ocean ( it does happen occasionally) the chances of smashing my head on a rock are pretty slim, which is a good thing, especially since I tend to kayak without a helmet … Not to mention that there are no rivers like that in South Florida 😉
E Fred M,
Odd, that. I think of South Florida as a river, one that has land sticking up here and there. The land is mostly misused.
Ought to give it back to the Burmese pythons. Oh, wait…
Well, you are not too far off the mark! The entire everglades ecosystem is also known as the river of grass. Though very few people observing it would recognize it as a river. Let alone as a place for exciting white water kayaking. ?
Florida keeps being mentioned as a great casualty of impending sea-level rise. There may still be everglades, but they will probably creep north.
I hear that the American midwest was once a shallow inland sea and wonder if it may become one again.
I watched her speech to the conference, a longer TED talk and an interview with Amy Goodman fro Democracy Now. I am impressed that this child was interested in the issue of climate change from the time she learned about it in school at nine years old. It got to the point where she lapsed into a depression about four years ago and would not speak or eat. She has since decided to make the cause of climate action central to her life. She is not the first fifteen year old to address the U.N. on climate change. An earlier youth activist was Xiuhtezcatl Martinez who is now 18 years old but has been an activist for 12 years and also spoke at the U.N. when he was 15:
Greta however, has been more strident in her criticism of world leaders as can be seen from the excerpt from her speech below.
“You only speak of a green eternal economic growth because you are too scared of being unpopular. You only talk about moving forward with the same bad ideas that got us into this mess even when the only sensible thing to do is pull the emergency brake. You are not mature enough to tell it like it is. Even that burden you leave to us children but, I don’t care about being popular. I care about climate justice and the Living Planet. Our civilisation is being sacrificed for the opportunity of a very small number of people to continue making enormous amounts of money. Our biosphere is being sacrificed so that rich people in countries like mine can live in luxury. It is the sufferings of the many which pay for the luxuries of the few,”
Her COP speech is one hell of a roast, well worth listening to. I would give a link but people can bloody well get off their butts and Google it for themselves! If she has the nous to get off her butt then others can do the same.
NAOM
The Thunbergs are descendants of Svante Arrhenius, the Nobel-prize-winning scientist who in 1896 first calculated the greenhouse effect caused by carbon dioxide emissions. Thunberg’s father was named after him, and said much of Arrhenius’s work has stood the test of time, but not everything. “He thought we’d be [at today’s levels of warming] in 2,000 years’ time,” said Svante Thunberg.
SNOW OVER ANTARCTICA BUFFERED SEA LEVEL RISE DURING LAST CENTURY
“An increase in snowfall accumulation over Antarctica during the 20th century mitigated sea level rise by 0.4 inches. However, Antarctica’s additional ice mass gained from snowfall makes up for just about a third of its current ice loss.”
Perhaps we’re simply catching up with the dolphins?
REVEALING HIDDEN INFORMATION IN SOUND WAVES
With the recorded sound translated into frequencies, Dowling puts his technique to use. He mathematically combines any two frequencies within the signal’s recorded frequency range, to reveal information outside that range at a new, third frequency that is the sum or difference of the two input frequencies. “This information at the third frequency is something that we haven’t traditionally had before,”
“Now, imagine yourself in the same room when a smoke alarm goes off. That annoying screech is generated by sound waves at higher frequencies, and in the midst of them, it would be difficult for you to locate the source of the screech without opening your eyes for additional sensory information. The higher frequency of the smoke alarm sound creates directional confusion for the human ear.
Nearly got pegged by an ambulance, a few days ago. I could hear it but not locate it – until it emerged from the side road to my right. Just managed to stop in time!
NAOM
Around here the ambulance that approaches a stop sign at an intersection is supposed to slow and make sure the way is clear before proceeding across the intersection. Intersections with stop lights have special detectors that change the other route light to red upon an ambulance approaching the intersection (they get the green).
No bursting through uncontrolled intersections, too dangerous.
Mexican drivers seem to stop when the driver is level with the road, so they can look for a space to cut into, which leaves a good part of the front sticking into the paths of cyclists.
NAOM
Perhaps we’re simply catching up with the dolphins?
Methinks we have a rather long way to go!
Cheers!
Fred, you’re preaching to the choir. 😉
I know! 😉
But in other great news, I saw two Monarch butterflies while riding my bike to the beach today. And to top that, an unknown bug literally flew right into my mouth! I’m happy to say I was able to spit it out and it seemed none the worse for the wear.
BTW, the Monarchs were visiting milkweed flowers planted in someone’s front yard! Amazing!
Milkweed– at least a particular kind that grows up here in certain parts of Canada– is edible– the pods and, if recalled, the flowers or at least their buds. (I may have had both.) Also, their seed fluff is good for insulation and boyancy, such as for clothing and life-preservers.
A little dose of optimism for your Sunday evening reading pleasure (Monday morning for people west of the international date line and east of the prime meridian (0° longitude) ):
Renewable energy is on track to comprise 38% of Germany’s gross electricity consumption in 2018 – a 2% increase on 2017. January, April and May were particularly strong for renewables, comprising up to 43% of generation during these months.
These are the results of a new report presented by German research institute ZSW (Zentrum für Sonnenenergie- und Wasserstoff-Forschung Baden-Württemberg) and industry association for water and energy economy BDEW (Bundesverband der Energie- und Wasserwirtschaft). In it, they find that by the end of 2018, total consumption of renewable energy could reach 229 billion kWh.
Some caution combined with a mild dose of optimism:
BOSTON, Mass. and WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Section 201 solar tariffs took a toll on utility-scale solar installations in the third quarter according to the U.S. Solar Market Insight Report for Q3 from Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA). The residential market, meanwhile, continued to stabilize after a down 2017. Overall, the analysts expect 2018 growth to be flat.
For the first time since 2015, quarterly additions of utility-scale solar photovoltaics (PV) fell below 1 gigawatt (GW), highlighting the impact of the tariffs and the uncertainty surrounding them in late 2017 and early 2018. As a result, the U.S. solar market was down 15 percent year-over-year in the third quarter of the year, but the report notes that a strong project pipeline lies ahead.
“Developers originally planning to bring projects online in Q3 2018 were forced to push out completion dates to Q4 2018 or Q1 2019 due to uncertainty around tariffs,” said Colin Smith, Senior Analyst at Wood Mackenzie. “We did, however, see utility PV procurement outpace installations fourfold in Q3, showing that despite the tariffs causing project delays, there is substantial growth ahead for the U.S. utility PV sector.”
Even with the tariffs, the report forecasts 3.5 GW of utility PV for Q4 2018, and projects that the fourth quarter will be the largest quarter for utility PV installations since Q4 2016, as Wood Mackenzie expects many of the delayed projects to come online by the end of the year.
Kurt Vonnegut once wrote, “Labor history in the US is treated like pornography.”
Renowned climate scientist Kevin Anderson tweeted: “On climate change, Greta Thunberg demonstrates more clarity & leadership in one speech than a quarter of a century of the combined contributions of so-called world leaders. Willful ignorance & lies have overseen a 65 percent rise in CO2 since 1990. Time to hand over the baton.”
BTW KEVIN ANDERSON is the Deputy Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research; holds a joint chair in Energy and Climate Change at the School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering at the University of Manchester and School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia; and is an honorary lecturer in Environmental Management at the Manchester Business School. He is an adviser to the British Government (as of 2009) on climate change.
Sounds like one of those dang liberal socialists! ?
And the warnings keep coming but is anyone listening?!
The scientists who revealed what caused the “greatest crisis in the history of life of Earth”, have called for immediate action to halt the further warming of the planet through human caused climate change.
Oceanographers based in Seattle said the largest mass extinction in the planet’s history – what has been termed the “great dying” – was caused by extreme global warming that saw ocean temperatures rise by as much as 10C around 252m years ago.
But don’t worry folks, climate change is just a hoax so climate scientists can get rich…
“China – the place where most of the jobs went and where most of the stuff we consume is made – already consumes half of the world’s coal, copper, steel, nickel and aluminium. It also consumes nearly two-thirds of the world’s concrete. To grow at just 3.5 percent would require that China consume all of the world’s reserves of those resources by 2038 – at which point it would also be consuming a quarter of the world’s oil and uranium and half of the world’s grain harvest. The impossibility of this is what people mean when they use the word “unsustainable” to describe our situation.”
Why pick just on China?! Our entire global civilization is unsustainable! And who exactly is this ‘WE’ you speak of? Last I checked every single government, business, corporation and economy is hell bent on growth.
We busted Earth’s budget! In 2018, Earth Overshoot Day lands on August 1. Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity has exhausted nature’s budget for the year. For the rest of the year, we are maintaining our ecological deficit by drawing down local resource stocks and accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We are operating in overshoot.
Ecological Deficits and Reserves Today, more than 80 percent of the world’s population lives in countries that are running ecological deficits, using more resources than what their ecosystems can renew. Is your country operating in the red?
The only question I have, is what are ‘WE’ going to do about it. At least China is consciously planning on changing their system, Do you know of any other government that is even aware of the problem and implementing change?
To be fair I don’t think what China is doing is enough nor will it be in time!
Cheers!
I think he was using it as an example. His writing, from what I have seen, generally doesn’t spare anyone. I didn’t know you had such a hard-on for China. Perhaps you should write a blog that emulates them. Next time I’ll check if it’s ok with you before I post a link that references China, and perhaps then we’ll be spared your histrionics.
I didn’t know you had such a hard-on for China. Perhaps you should write a blog that emulates them
Fer criminies sake lighten up! I don’t have any special predilection for China one way or another. As I said no one is sustainable at the moment! And try not to spin everything I say as a personal attack on you. When I wrote: “Why pick on just China…” I was trying to say that they are far from the only ones who are unsuntainable, wouldn’t you agree that that is the case?!
Sheesh!
China may have reached peak cement while others are growing
Year over year up 3.12
Ten year average 2.401 per year increase.
A CO2 monitor sitting directly on top of a volcano should not be used for a world wide measure of CO2. Yet they have decided to make a volcanic cite the center for all the official CO2 numbers.
You honestly think that hasn’t been thought of and data validated accordingly?
Another village somewhere is searching for its idiot!
Nah, they don’t want that one back.
…a volcanic cite
Why not? He can actually cite a volcano! That alone must make him pretty darn special, no?!
Can you imagine what he can do when Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull publishes its next peer reviewed paper in the Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research?! He will become the world’s most renown village idiot!
ROFL
Eastcoast Chuck- It is a good question. but you are not the first to consider it.
NOAA takes this into account, as explained in this short article.
Summary- not a problem for the data collection.
Mauna Loa is not the only station monitoring CO2 levels in the atmosphere. There are many, in both North and South hemispheres including at the South Pole.
Yeah, there’s a reason I haven’t owned or watched any TV for about the last 15 years. And I got the hell off Facebook about the begining of 2015… And while I’m sure I’m being tracked and manipulated while accessing information on the internet I think I have a bit more freedom to choose content that interests me. At least I have yet to see any form of targeted advertising trying to sell me ‘GREEN’ products when I watch, say, a scientific lecture on ocean acidification… Of course someone somewhere is sure to have added my name to their database for doing so!
Cheers!
Well, I/we must be even more deprived/depraved than you Fred. My parents decided I’d do better in school without a distracting TV in the house then wife and I went along with the idea; net result being, there’s never been a TV in our house. So, our kids wasted all their spare time learning foreign languages, playing musical instruments, reading, etc. Can you imagine all the money we would have saved by avoiding books, buying violins, on sports, etc. and just sticking the kids in front of a TV set?
Yeah, spending money on books, violins and sports?! Hard to imagine anything more depraved than that, except for learning languages…?
Hmm, just checked my Win version. I have a brand new HP laptop and I have Windows version 1803 (OS build 17134.471) I haven’t tried to implement Keith’s workaround yet but I have a hunch I will have to jump through a few hoops to do it. Thanks! MS.
There are reasons I use Linux
Good listening.
Lets also acknowledge that all sources tend to use these techniques, even our relatives, in order to manipulate our thoughts and opinions. Certainly ‘non’-mainstream sources do it as best they can as well.
Last week I heard 3 people claim that both Trump and Pence would be impeached and indited, and that within the year we would have speaker of the house Pelosi be sworn in as president.
By the time the third person parroted this line I really got to wondering which ‘non’-mainstream source they got it from. My guess is the radio program ‘Democracy Now’
Call me a skeptic. I would be honored.
I noticed all the comments were pro Trump, anti Democrats. As if Fox etc. weren’t the worst of the bunch.
Besides, having a bunch of NBC affiliates blather the same lines about birthdays is not the same as trying to brainwash someone to believe that Trump, Pelosi or Putin is an ideal leader.
Looks like we are going to see shallow water wind energy being deployed off the coast of Massachusetts pretty soon.
You don’t spend $405 M for an acreage lease just to look fancy.
WIDESPREAD DECREASE IN WIND ENERGY RESOURCES FOUND OVER THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE
“Wind energy is a natural resource characterized by instability. Previous studies mainly focus on the assessment of wind energy reserves, but it’s not clear how wind energy evolves over time.”
In 2014 researchers at the MIT Media Lab designed an experiment called Moral Machine. The idea was to create a game-like platform that would crowdsource people’s decisions on how self-driving cars should prioritize lives in different variations of the “trolley problem.” In the process, the data generated would provide insight into the collective ethical priorities of different cultures.
The researchers never predicted the experiment’s viral reception. Four years after the platform went live, millions of people in 233 countries and territories have logged 40 million decisions, making it one of the largest studies ever done on global moral preferences.
A new paper published in Nature presents the analysis of that data and reveals how much cross-cultural ethics diverge on the basis of culture, economics, and geographic location.
The Moral Machine took that idea to test nine different comparisons shown to polarize people: should a self-driving car prioritize humans over pets, passengers over pedestrians, more lives over fewer, women over men, young over old, fit over sickly, higher social status over lower, law-abiders over law-benders? And finally, should the car swerve (take action) or stay on course (inaction)?
Imagine if the self driving AI becomes conscious, then realizes there are too many humans, then becomes depressed and suicidal and decides to slam itself into a wall killing all its passengers including the baby and the grandma…
Given the statistics for fatalities caused by human drivers I find the premise behind this article rather stupid and pointless! And no, I don’t expect AI driving algorithms to become conscious anytime soon, certainly not in time to avoid humans causing all life on the planet to go extinct!
As Greta Thunberg said in her Ted talk, focusing on learning facts in school at this juncture is pretty much pointless…
Cheers!
“Imagine if the self driving AI becomes conscious, then realizes there are too many humans, then becomes depressed and suicidal and decides to slam itself into a wall killing all its passengers including the baby and the grandma… ” LOL, probably just would refuse to leave the garage and would turn off it’s download systems.
On another note, cars are becoming extremely complex. The Chevy Volt has about 10 million lines of code. Typical ICE cars have 25 to 60 CPUs. Now with the addition of autonomous features we are looking at an extremely complex and high speed system layered on top of the standard car with all the mechanical control systems linked to it.
For comparison, a study done in 2015 showed the typical global climate model had less than (sometimes far less than) one million lines of code.
A mechanic I talked to said it is much more difficult to diagnose hybrid and EV problems than with the ICE. Maybe the diagnostics or training has not caught up with the changes and new complexity. Maybe we will experience black box syndrome.
In one interview Stephen Colbert said he was not afraid of AI taking over, he was more worried about it not taking over.
It’s at 8 min on the video
Neil DeGrasse Tyson Interviews Stephen Colbert (Neil learns a few things) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FktrNFjZfKg
Considering the human track record, he has a valid point. 🙁
We’re getting a lot of roll over accidents here in places and conditions where they just should not happen. I suspect a case of serious mobilephoneitis with complications due to textfingeritis.
NAOM
Fred —
DOLPHINS DISCOVERED ‘TIMESHARING’ THE SEA FOR THE FIRST TIME
“A 9-year study has uncovered some unusual behavior by common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) living off the coast of Slovenia. Within one population of this species, the animals have divided into two groups that avoid contact by hunting at different times of day—a social strategy not known in marine mammals.”
As I noted the other day, it seems we humans have more than a little catching up to do… 😉
Attention all armchair astronomy buffs:
NEW HORIZONS SPACECRAFT TAKES THE INSIDE COURSE TO ULTIMA THULE
“Our team feels like we have been riding along with the spacecraft, as if we were mariners perched on the crow’s nest of a ship, looking out for dangers ahead,” said hazards team lead Mark Showalter, of the SETI Institute. “The team was in complete consensus that the spacecraft should remain on the closer trajectory, and mission leadership adopted our recommendation.”
Greta (Thunberg), we need you more than ever; and, don’t forget your battle axe:
WE FINALLY HAVE THE RULEBOOK FOR THE PARIS AGREEMENT, BUT GLOBAL CLIMATE ACTION IS STILL INADEQUATE
The Paris Rulebook, agreed at the UN climate summit in Katowice, Poland, gives countries a common framework for reporting and reviewing progress towards their climate targets. Yet the new rules fall short in one crucial area. While the world will now be able to see how much we are lagging behind on the necessary climate action, the rulebook offers little to compel countries to up their game to the level required. The national pledges adopted in Paris are still woefully inadequate to meet the 1.5℃ or 2℃ global warming goals of the Paris Agreement. In the run-up to the Katowice talks, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a special report detailing the urgent need to accelerate climate policy. Yet the summit ran into trouble in its efforts to formally welcome the report, with delegates eventually agreeing to welcome its “timely completion”.
In an ominous message for European rivals such as Germany’s Wacker Chemie, Daqo CEO Longgen Zhang said: “Our teams will continue to optimize Phase 3B’s operational efficiency, which will enhance our competitive advantage in cost structure and quality.”
Poly output set to double
Far from being an idle boast, Mr. Longgen predicted further price falls when a “de-bottlenecking” exercise associated with the latest production expansion drives up output to 35,000 MT by the end of June.
And some six to nine months further out, Daqo is hoping to have Phase 4A of its facilities online, doubling its polysilicon output to 70,000 MT.
Daqo is gambling on the oft-seen Chinese corporate strategy of blowing competitors out of the water by cornering a huge slice of the market at wafer thin margins as world demand for PV rebounds.
Bearing in mind the above, does anyone care to hazard a guess as to why the IEA in their 2018 WEO, thinks that worldwide annual PV capacity additions are going to trend downward gradually until 2035, at which point the IEA expects them to start trending upward gradually, as show in the graphic below?
It defies logic to me, since a doubling of raw material production would imply a doubling of final product (PV modules) shorty thereafter! Following that logic, we should see a significant increase in annual PV capacity additions going into 2020 and beyond.
In support of the last paragraph of my post above:
Earlier today, we published IHS Markit’s findings and predictions for the energy storage inverter market. It has now released a short research note today, laying bare its key predictions for the 2019 global solar PV industry.
Overall, it sees new capacity additions growing 18% on 2018 to reach 123 GW next year, which is more positive than PV InfoLink’s recent estimates that the market will see 112 GW added.
While China currently comprises around half of the global market, its dominance is set to diminish, says Edurne Zoco, research director, solar and energy storage, with predictions that two thirds of new capacity will be located outwith its borders.
Instead, she sees either the revival or emergence of several other markets. These comprise Argentina, Egypt, South Africa, Spain and Vietnam, which are set to account for 7% of the 2019 market, or 7 GW of new capacity.
“PV is becoming more distributed geographically, with annual PV installations growing by more than 20 percent in 45 country markets,” she writes.
In the United States, which is currently the second largest solar PV market, Zoco says that installations will grow an impressive 28% next year, as developers scramble to roll out project pipelines in time for the 30% investment tax credit deadline next December.
I will continue to post stories that support a hunch I have, that the potential future CO2 emissions are being grossly overestimated because, most of the mainstream, conventional, forecasting agencies (IEA, EIA, BP etc.) are grossly underestimating future growth in renewables.
Cuomo’s announcement adds to a growing number of state and city initiatives aimed at reducing carbon emissions, a response, in part, to federal inaction on climate change. As state leaders begin to tackle global warming on their own terms, many credit the groundwork that has already been laid in their state.
Last week, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, D, committed his state to 100% clean energy by 2045, saying the goal was only possible “because we have done smart things up until now,” including adopting a renewable portfolio standard, ramping up wind energy and adopting green transportation policies.
In Illinois, Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker, D, has called for his state to reach 100% renewables generation by 2050. The state generates over half its energy from nuclear power but has been ramping up its solar portfolio as it looks toward a pure renewables goal.
New York, for its part, set its CES goals in August 2016, which “laid the groundwork to create enough renewable energy to meet half of the state’s electricity needs by 2030,” James Denn, public information officer for the New York PSC, told Utility Dive in an email. Along with its recent storage goals, New York recently issued an 800 MW offshore wind solicitation, part of Cuomo’s goal to develop 2,400 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
SCARY STATISTIC: 90.5 PERCENT OF PLASTIC IS NOT RECYCLED
The world’s burgeoning plastic waste crisis has won the attention of Britain’s Royal Statistical Society, which chose 90.5 percent—the proportion of plastic waste that has never been recycled—as its international statistic of the year.
That doesn’t account for how the weather was different also in 1950, 1900, 1850 and so on and so forth. Hasn’t stopped people from moving here to the Phoenix area like crazy.
Hi Bruce, if you are looking for historical weather records for cities they are available on the internet.
This is about climate change and predicted temperatures into the future.
Where they sit in their air conditioned living rooms and watch TV all day. The area was considered to hot to inhabit before air conditioning became widespread.
Insect Armageddon
An insect Armageddon is under way, say many entomologists, the result of a multiple whammy of environmental impacts: pollution, habitat changes, overuse of pesticides, and global warming. And it is a decline that could have crucial consequences. Our creepy crawlies may have unsettling looks but they lie at the foot of a wildlife food chain that makes them vitally important to the makeup and nature of the countryside. They are “the little things that run the world” according to the distinguished Harvard biologist Edward O Wilson, who once observed: “If all humankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed 10,000 years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.”
So what was that you were you saying about worrying about the third floor(energy, economy, politics)?!
The oil furnace in the basement has exploded and a raging 4 alarm fire is burning its way up into the building… has anyone considered it might be time to call the fire department?! Other than an autistic Swedish teenage girl, that is!
Note to trolls and science deniers: if you haven’t yet taken that applied mathematics course in Chaos Theory, time is quickly running out!
Cheers!
Meanwhile,
DISCOVERY OF RECENT ANTARCTIC ICE SHEET COLLAPSE RAISES FEARS OF A NEW GLOBAL FLOOD
“Some 125,000 years ago, during the last brief warm period between ice ages, Earth was awash. Temperatures during this time, called the Eemian, were barely higher than in today’s greenhouse-warmed world. Yet proxy records show sea levels were 6 to 9 meters higher than they are today, drowning huge swaths of what is now dry land.”
More certainty is on the way. Next month, the International Ocean Discovery Program’s JOIDES Resolution research ship will begin a 3-month voyage to drill at least five marine cores off West Antarctica. “That’s going to be a great test,” Carlson says. Meanwhile, he hopes to get his own study published in time to be included in the next United Nations climate report. In the 2001 and 2007 reports, West Antarctic collapse was not even considered in estimates of future sea level; only in 2013 did authors start to talk about an Antarctic surprise, he says. Research is due by December 2019. “We gotta beat that deadline.”
The Underwater Forest, a new documentary by Ben Raines produced by This is Alabama, details the discovery and exploration of an ancient cypress forest found sixty feet underwater in the Gulf of Mexico, due south of Gulf Shores, Alabama. The forest dates to an ice age more than 60,000 years ago, when sea levels were about 400 feet lower than they are today.
Fred,
Yeah, as EVERY first-year Earth Science student knows, sea level has been like a yo-yo. Unfortunately, most humans, who should know better, tend to think on rather short time scales; paycheck-to-paycheck for many, the next financial quarter for business types, and four years max for our politicians. But, for geo-types, it was like yesterday when you could stroll from Europe to the UK and not get your feet wet. Would it help if all High School students were requited to study something equivalent to Geology 101 — no math required?
I’d be happy if they were just taught to grasp geologic and biological time scales. Though perhaps a tiny bit of math would be helpful for that!
.
E Fred M,
An ice age more than 60 000 years ago? That’s part way through the most recent one and long before its maximum, and five times too short for the age of the previous glacial. ‘Dobe wall whoever wrote that.
E Synapsid,
Dunno! You might want to take it up with these folk!
Facies Reconstruction of a Late Pleistocene Cypress Forest
Discovered on the Northern Gulf of Mexico Continental Shelf
Suyapa Gonzalez1, Samuel J. Bentley, Sr.1, Kristine L. DeLong3, Kehui Xu2, Jeffrey Obelcz2,
Jonathan Truong1, Grant L. Harley4, Carl A. Reese4, and Alicia Caporaso5
ABSTRACT A previously buried bald cypress forest (Taxodium distichum) was discovered on the continental shelf seafloor, offshore of Orange Beach, Alabama, USA, in ~20 m water
depth. The forest was likely buried in the late Pleistocene, possibly exhumed by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and is now exposed as stumps in life position. In August 2015 and
July 2016, submersible vibracores and geophysical data were collected to investigate local stratigraphy and mode of forest preservation. This study focuses on analysis of the longest and most stratigraphically complete vibracore, DF–1 (4.78 m). This core revealed, from top to bottom, a surface of Holocene transgressive sands, underlain by interbedded sand and mud (potentially Holocene or Pleistocene), overlying a swamp or
delta plain facies (likely Pleistocene) containing woody debris and mud that has been provisionally dated using radiocarbon to ca. 41–45 ka. One core collected in 2016 revealed a Pleistocene paleosol beneath Holocene sands in a nearby trough.
We hypothesize that floodplain aggradation in the area was a key factor that might have allowed forest preservation. A sea-level rise pulse of 10–15 m occurred ca. 40 ka that could have produced widespread floodplain aggradation, likely burying the swamp and forest sediments. During the subsequent glacial lowstand, sediments that comprise the floodplain were eroded and paleosols were formed in other nearby areas. It is hypothesized that some swamp sediments located in paleo-topographic lows might have been preserved and buried due to the deep coverage of the eastern-trending channel infill sediments. Coastal wave erosion during transgression likely eroded high ground but enough sediment remained to keep the cypress forest blanketed and therefore allowed preservation of stumps and woody debris.
Bold mine.
Also:
GEOLOGIC SETTING The Gulf of Mexico during the Holocene Sea level rose rapidly from the Last Glacial Maximum, when global sea levels were as much as 125 m lower than present, to present late Holocene levels, decelerating around 6000 yr ago (Fig. 4). The Last Glacial Maximum was encompassed by Marine Isotope State (MIS) 2 (29–14 ka), followed by MIS 1 (14–0 ka) (Lisiecki and
Raymo, 2005). The Holocene slowdown in rate of sea level rise during this time period allowed for the development of coastal land forms in the area. Since that time, shoreline position has been stable (Donoghue, 2011). The trees (Taxodium distichum), which produced stumps preserved in the study area, generally grow between 0–30 m above sea level in flood plain and riparian environments in the humid subtropics (Little, 1971). Based on this observation, approximate time frames can be identified when the forest may have grown, by studying the sea-level curves like the one in Figure 4. The depth range of 18–20 m intersects sea level near times of ~10,000 ka, 110,000 ka, and 125,000 ka. Therefore, the time between about 10,000 ka and about 110,000 ka thus represents a possible time interval during which this forest may have grown.
E FM,
See? Makes my point.
“The forest dates to an ice age more than 60 000 years ago, when sea level was more than 400 feet lower than it is today.” None of that is in the abstract.
The Geological Setting part says “…the time between about 10 000 ka and about 110 000 ka thus represents a possible time interval during which this forest may have grown.” Even that part contains an error: 10 000 years ago is 10 ka not 10 000 ka, likewise for 110 000 ka. The reasoning there is OK though. Compare that with the link: “…dates to an ice age more than 60 000 years ago, when sea level was 400 feet lower than it is today.” 60 000 years ago was during the early part of the last ice age, the Wisconsinan (we call it the Wisconsin); an ice age more than 60 000 years ago would have been the one that ended about 130 000 years ago (we call that one the Illinoian).
Come to think of it, an adobe wall’s too good for them.
(too early for Port, mutter mutter)
Yes, I see your point. The typos are bad!
10 ka vs 10,000 ka… etc.
However the fact that this submerged forest exists and has been dated to about 45,000 years in age is still a testament that sea levels have fluctuated widely due to climate change and that such fluctuations had to have happened in relatively short time frames. Which does not bode well for coastal cities such as Miami and NYC!
For lack of port I will open a nice Malbec later!
Lack of port = submerged
E Fred,
I have hinted gently that setting up one’s abode in a water-soluble state in a hurricane track is not perhaps the top choice one could make.
Now, it is widely accepted that geology is the Queen of the Sciences, and that Quaternary Geology is the crown she proudly bears, and all know that the Quaternary is the time of the ice ages. Lots of ice on the continents means less water in the oceans and, as you say, that means sea level goes up and down because ice sheets grow and shrink. In fact if one looks up Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles, and how fast they can occur, Malbec, wise choice as it is in so many situations, might be set aside for something stronger. Now, I’m not pushing Port here, not at all…but Brandy does come to mind.
Yeah, I’d say we have <50% chance of survival at this point. Only thing to do is to STOP BURNING FOSSILS. We can also try to such CO2 out of the air, switch to carbon-negative concrete, etc. But the key is, if you're burning fossils in ANY WAY, you need to STOP IT RIGHT NOW.
Drive a gas car? STOP. Find a way to quit it. Get an electric car, an electric motorcyle, a bicycle, walk, move where you can walk.
Heat your house with oil, coal, or natgas, or propane? STOP. Replace it with something else. (Best choice is a lot of insulation and an electric heat pump.) Can't afford that? Move to a smaller house where you can afford it.
Buy fossil fueled electricity? STOP. Pay for renewable electricity if that's allowed in your state; put up solar panels; get a home battery; reduce your usage so that the solar + battery covers everything; if you can't afford that, try to move to an apartment building where the landlord is doing it…
Don't have any money to do any of this stuff? CAMPAIGN. Get attention, like Greta. Talk to every local government meeting there is. Leaflet. Do what you can.
Humanity depends on stopping fossil fuel burning ASAP.
Don’t have any money to do any of this stuff? CAMPAIGN. Get attention, like Greta. Talk to every local government meeting there is.
I’d reverse that. Maybe the personal stuff is essential for credibility, and for personal satisfaction. But…it’s the governmental regulation that is far more powerful, far faster, and has about 1000 times as much Return on Time Invested.
If 55% of the population stopped using personal FF, you’d maybe reduce FF by 45%. If 55% of the population demanded government regulation (carbon taxes, efficiency, etc) you’d get to 100%.
Very interesting articles thanks for sharing. It will be interesting how they play out next 5 years or so.
Fred,
GROUPS OF PILOT WHALES HAVE THEIR OWN DIALECTS
“In humans, different social groups, cities, or regions often have distinct accents and dialects. Those vocal traits are not unique to us, however. A new study from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has found that short-finned pilot whales living off the coast of Hawai’i have their own sorts of vocal dialects, a discovery that may help researchers understand the whales’ complex social structure.”
“These groups of pilot whales all use the same habitat. The fact that they have different vocal repertoires means that they’re purposely not associating with each other,” says Amy Van Cise, a Postdoctoral Scholar at WHOI and lead author on the study. “It’s sort of like if you’ve got hipsters and prep kids in the same high school — each group has different slang. They identify themselves with certain speech to maintain that separation.”
Geez! Next thing you know they will form aquatic nation states and require passports from other pilot whales… 😉
. As a result, all serious divers buy a diving computer. They cost several hundred dollars, are about the size of your palm, and provide constantly updated figures for critical diving measurements. They are a life-or-death piece of kit.
Imagine that. When I was doing saturation diving on oil rigs back in the day all of our decompressions were calculated manually using dive tables.
Not to mention that as a sport diving instructor I used to teach repetitive dive calculations using dive tables. I don’t think I had a dive computer till the mid 90s.
Even when I finally did I remember spending a lot of time learning about the algorithms of different brands and knowing what I knew about computers not being all that impressed… I always did manual calculations as a backup. Mostly because no computer could know what I knew about myself and specific diving conditions creating added physiological stressors such as me being tired and cold due to strong currents and cold temps. So I would always build in my own extra safety margins for deco…
Cheers!
Edit: And I always made a point of thanking Haldane’s goats for their contribution ?
Tables, depth gauge, manometer as primary, dive computer for backup, nitrox for last dive on a busy week. Used to plan dives to use sightseeing as deco. Down to a shallow ledge first, for equipment check, then down the canyon for corals and eels. Next up to the edge, then shallower and shallower until poking around at 15′. Finally spooking the swimming touristas, come up from behind and tweak their fins, watch them walk on water back to the boat ‘There’s a shark, he tried to bite me!!!’ Alternatively, get under them and let out a big blast of air from 15′.
NAOM
Tables, depth gauge, manometer as primary
Let me guess, those were in meters and bar, right?! 😉
IMHO. Diving is the best case ever for switching from imperial to metric.
I never had to think too hard to know how many liters of air my dual 10L steels filled to 200 bar would provide me! Or what my average air consumption was at 20 m. or at 3 atm…
Nah, feet and PSI, we are under the influence of Gringostan here. Did use Bar for a few dives in the UK.
NAOM
This is inconceivable, given what we know; sort of a human suicide pact in action. Pity the children.
CONTROVERSIAL COAL MINE SET TO BREAK GROUND
“Indian billionaire Gautam Adani’s Carmichael [coal prospect] is located in Australia’s huge Galilee Basin, which covers around 250,000 square kilometers — about the size of the U.K. If the region is fully developed, it has potential to more than double Australia’s thermal coal exports.”
Perhaps its time to authorize military airstrikes on such operations! And people like Gautam Adani should be held accountable for crimes against humanity! He should be tried, condemned and executed if found guilty! As should all members of the Australian government who allow this coal mine to be developed! In my opinion these people’s crimes are worse than Adolf Hitler’s because they are not only directly responsible for millions of human deaths across the globe but are also destroying the ecosystems and planetary support systems on which all life on this planet depends! This can not be allowed!
The only hope is that renewables will make coal uneconomic more quickly than this idiotic project can be developed!
You sound like one of those nutty “valve turners”. Are you one?
No I don’t turn any valves but I am getting more pissed off by day! Especially when it comes to putting up with trolls like you!
So are you a Trump supporter or just a Koch brother’s minion?! Either way, if you support projects such as Adani’s you should probably be locked up too!
Cheers!
I support projects that provide good paying jobs and grow local economies.
How do you feel about projects that create massive air and water pollution?
A good libertarian would object to somebody stealing from their neighbor, by polluting their property.
You’d agree, right?
A libertarian model of justice (fairness) would suggest that one who pollutes the air then has to compensate those who breath it.
Most folks in USA only know of a right wing version of libertarianism. Libertarianism can occupy both the left and right wing of the political spectrum
I don’t think there are any good answers here. I just know if I were a politician my primary concern would be my constituents’ job and economic prospects.
Then you should be against coal and for solar!
Here’s some actual numbers! renewables are already providing more and better paying jobs than coal, gas and oil combined when it comes to electricity generation!
Just under 374,000 people were employed in solar energy, according to the report, while coal, gas and oil power generation combined had a workforce of slightly more than 187,000. The boom in the country’s solar workforce can be attributed to construction work associated with expanding generation capacity. The gulf in employment is growing with net generation from coal falling 53 percent over the last decade. During the same period, electricity generation from natural gas increased 33 percent while solar expanded 5,000 percent.
Got that?! While coal fell by 53% solar grew by 5000%!
So apparently Dan, you are either ignorant of facts or you don’t really give a rat’s ass about the economic prospects of the populace at large and you care even less about the environmental damage caused by a few rich people promoting coal mining! Sounds to me like you are a fossil fuel promoting troll!
Is that like the ‘ECONOMY’ Uber Alles?! Even if it means the extinction of most life on the planet.
BTW, coal does not provide good jobs for anyone, it only lines the pockets of a very small minority to the detriment of the majority!
BLS counts about 50,000 coal mining jobs in the United States. Solar power industry employs more workers in science, engineering, manufacturing, construction, and installation.
Won’t be any ‘good paying jobs’ or ‘local economies’ if we go into collapse.
NAOM
Dan Goudreault,
Clearcutting our National Parks would create a lot of jobs for the neighboring lumbering industry. Does that make it a good idea?
Lots of trees in the National Parks of the Intermountain West and the North West. Lots of jobs…
As long as it’s done sustainably, timber harvesting is a pretty good deal since it deals with an inherently renewable resource.
“As long as it’s done sustainably, timber harvesting is a pretty good deal since it deals with an inherently renewable resource.”
Yes, from a kindergarten view of the world it would seem so.
However to grow an actual forest, one with a full ecology of plants, bacteria, fungus, insects, and other animal life can take a thousand years. It is a living system, not just trees.
So what you are proposing is a tree farm, a mostly sterile place that is stripmined long before it can come back to full life again. Killing the whole system in large clear cuts to provide economy. Then replanting a single species of tree.
The earth is not just for one species, it belongs to the millions of species that live here.
Maybe a business should come and knock down your home and all the ones in your area for the wood and other materials and kill or displace all of you, as you want to destroy the home of many others and kill the life there in the forest.
Then when all the houses were rebuilt, it gets done again.
See, a sustainable business. Just wood and material harvesting for the good of a few.
How would that be?
The oldest known giant sequoia is 3,500 years old based on dendrochronology. Giant sequoias are among the oldest living organisms on Earth.
They occur in scattered groves, with a total of 68 groves (see list of sequoia groves for a full inventory), comprising a total area of only 144.16 km2 (35,620 acres).
Many are protected in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks and Giant Sequoia National Monument.
If humanity had the luxury of another 1,000 years to get its shit together I might indulge your immaturity and lack of knowledge and even greater lack of wisdom and suggest that you at least get an education and expand your horizons both intellectually and culturally.
As it stands, since we hardly have more than a decade to turn this ship around and keep it from running aground on the rocks, I fear we must write you off as just more dead weight.
As GF alluded to below, your world view is about equivalent to that of child in kindergarten. Which is about the same as that of the current occupant of the oval office.
I doubt it will help but maybe spend 20 minutes and listen and learn a thing about trees and forests.
“A forest is much more than what you see,” says ecologist Suzanne Simard. Her 30 years of research in Canadian forests have led to an astounding discovery — trees talk, often and over vast distances. Learn more about the harmonious yet complicated social lives of trees and prepare to see the natural world with new eyes.
You left out about how those trees and forests, need management!
“Often one of the tools needed to manage a forest is a harvest. A logger is utilized to harvest dead and dying trees, suppressed trees, over-mature trees and any other trees that have been selected to accomplish the management goals. However, without a market there would be no place to send the trees that are harvested. Thus the critical need to promote the health and vigor of Pennsylvania’s sawmills, paper mills, cabinet makers, etc. Without a market for the wood products there would be no income for the landowner and therefore, less incentive to practice proper forest management.’
You left out about how those trees and forests, need management!
Yeah and don’t forget to rake the forest!
You stupid trolls are beyond pathetic!
Hey Pops, could you post the source for your quote on forest management?
Proper forest management, removing one tree per thousand per year. Even the dead ones provide homes and food for many creatures, as well as returning nutrients to the soil as they decay.
Life is a circle, otherwise it is a dead end.
“Mars is essentially in the same orbit… somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, & water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe. ”
I don’t see coal going away until PV and wind become ubiquitous. As one mine plays out it has to be replaced by another to feed the current stock of coal burners.
The alternative, natural gas, is a worse global warming fuel than coal when one considers the leakage in systems.
It will be another decade before solar and wind take a large chunk out of global energy. However, even in monsoon periods PV is making a difference. https://cleantechnica.com/2017/09/15/solar-keeps-lights-brutal-monsoon-season-rural-india/
Maybe people will adjust to the technologies rather than forcing them to be fully continuous and fully present.
PV and wind are already ubiquitous. Mines are closing because the plants they supply are closing.
The big world problem is corrupt provincial govenrments in China:
Xi Jinping has to crack down on this, or he will look weak. (And anger both the international community and his own population.)
This mine is best described as “****ing nutbar”. Every single lender has declared it uneconomic and unfinanceable, and they’ve shrunk it to 1/10 its planned size, and they plan to build an entire railroad to support it…. there is absolutely no way it can ever make any money. Environmentalists are lining up to stop it, still.
The suspicion is that the company wants to be paid in order to not build it. Blackmail, basically.
Meanwhile in Trumpolandia… 16,000 fools have been parted from their money!
A GoFundMe campaign titled “We The People Will Fund The Wall” has raised over $1 million and counting to build President Donald Trump’s border wall.
More than 16,000 people have pledged donations to the campaign created Sunday by a “fundraising team” in Miramar, Florida, according to the campaign page.
Its initial goal of $200 million has been bumped to $1 billion.
So all they will need is another 44 billion. Since the current estimated cost of this idiotic boondogle is about 45 billion! Not to mention that the US Government can’t legally use this money to build a wall! And if this thing is ever built it will be promptly torn down by any future generation of normal humans because it is an ecological nightmare when it comes to preventing animal migrations of many already endangered species.
Trump supporters are dumber than a bag of dirt!
I’ve taken to describing the Trump followers as a coalition of oligarchs and idiots.
I wonder what the average IQ of a Trump rally is?
They may not actually be dumber than average but they all seem to have some rather negatively correlated pyschological traits!
Social Psychological Perspectives on Trump Supporters
Thomas F. Pettigrew
Abstract
No one factor describes Trump’s supporters. But an array of factors – many of them reflecting five major social psychological phenomena can help to account for this extraordinary political event: authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, prejudice, relative deprivation, and intergroup contact. Research on the topic demonstrates that these theories and concepts of social psychology prove centrally important in helping to understand this unexpected event. This paper describes the supporting data for this statement and demonstrates the close parallels between these American results and those of research on far-right European supporters.
I meant rally not supporters. I suspect the Sheeple who make the time and effort to show up to the rally, especially at this late stage of the ‘He’s obviously an idiot and way out of his depth’ dynamic, are a very special kind of supporter; to wit, a particularly naive and unintelligent one. Although its worth noting that many of the HRC fanatics seem just as naive and ignorant about politics and the world. My fav campaign item from her was that America is energy independent.
“We are now, for the first time ever, energy independent.”
— Hillary Clinton on Sunday, October 9th, 2016 in the second presidential debate
Same as all the Survivalist and OldFarmerMac(Trumpster) bloggers who sucked up the tabloid and Russian internet hate for HRC, very low. How conveniently you forget.
Yes, I don’t like HRC, so surely I must be drinking the kool-aid of the Russian tabloid troll bots; for after all, there is nothing unlikable about HRC, and there are only 2 sides to American political discourse. I wrote in Charlie Sheen on my ballot. Your talents are wasted- you should work for CIA as Director of Complicated Political Analysis.
Why Trump Decided To Remove U.S. Troops From Syria
A interesting source, but must be taken with some caution.
That link is worth reading. I think the “real politic” logic makes a lot of sense and it is well thought out. I only have one problem with it. There is no way Trump could think that deeply about any subject. More likely Erdogan promised him a hotel in Istanbul.
Our Realities Are Mediated
I’ve heard Trump speak in interviews and what I hear doesn’t quite square with how he’s ostensibly sometimes portrayed in some media. There seems to be some sorts of discontinuity, which would make sense given his apparent media ‘love affair’. He doesn’t seem any more or less level-headed than, say, some who have commented on this blog. For example, I’m unsure who I’d want leading the running of the country, whether Magyar, say, or Trump. Then again, I believe in anarchy, so it’s kind of moot anyway.
In any case, I’d keep in mind how we acquire our info/’realities’ sometimes. I mean, it’s not like any of us hereon have actually chatted with Trump, have we? In person I mean.
I don’t think I need a personal conversation with Trump to decide what kind of person he is.
I’m afraid I’ve seen way too much of him speaking in any number of contexts and I have found none of it confidence inspiring. His vocabulary is childish, his body language is tiresome his expressed logic is inane. The record of his actions, both personal and professional are those of a person with more ego than human value.
Yet I frequently confuse my friends by referring to his “genius” as a demagogue. It seems has spent a lifetime selling himself and bullying others to conform to his wishes and he is good at it. He has demonstrated a cool understanding how to stay on top of the game. He understands that he can stay in control by giving the rich and powerful donor class what they want; deregulation, lower taxes and increased military spending and promising the white deplorables what they want; racism, anti-establishment ranting and promises of high paying jobs. Unlike the donor class the deplorables don’t need tangible benefits, the promises and symbolic gestures seem to work just fine.
I’m not sure either who I would like running the country but I am sure it isn’t him or anyone like him.
A deeper look into the unique characteristics of Triceratops.
Knowing which Americans have installed solar panels on their roofs and why they did so would be enormously useful for managing the changing U.S. electricity system and to understanding the barriers to greater use of renewable resources. But until now, all that has been available are essentially estimates.
To get accurate numbers, Stanford University scientists analyzed more than a billion high-resolution satellite images with a machine learning algorithm and identified nearly every solar power installation in the contiguous 48 states. The results are described in a paper published in the Dec. 19 issue of Joule. The data are publicly available on the project’s website.
The analysis found 1.47 million installations, which is a much higher figure than either of the two widely recognized estimates. The scientists also integrated U.S. Census and other data with their solar catalog to identify factors leading to solar power adoption.
The inventory highlights activators and impediments to solar deployment. For example, the researchers found that household income is very important, but only to a point. Above $150,000 a year, income quickly ceases to play much of a role in people’s decisions.
On the other hand, low- and medium-income households do not often install solar systems even when they live in areas where doing so would be profitable in the long term. For example, in areas with a lot of sunshine and relatively high electricity rates, utility bill savings would exceed the monthly cost of the equipment. The impediment for low- and medium-income households is upfront cost, the authors suspect.
“Dear Commissioner Weisenmiller:
I just became aware in the last few days of the proposal in the new building energy efficiency standards rulemaking to mandate rooftop solar on all new residential buildings. I want to urge you not to adopt the standard. I, along with the vast majority of energy economist, believe that residential rooftop solar is a much more expensive way to move towards renewable energy than larger solar and wind installations. The savings calculated for the households are based on residential electricity rates that are far above the actual cost of providing incremental energy, so embody a large cross subsidy from other ratepayers. This would be a very expensive way to expand renewables and would not be a cost-effective practice that other states and countries could adopt to reduce their own greenhouse gas footprints. Because I, and most other economists studying California’s energy policy, just became aware of this proposal, we have not had time to participate in the policy process or write public documents on the subject. At the least, I would urge you to delay adopting such a rule until independent analysis from energy experts can be made part of the record.
I will add that I have no financial interest in any energy company. I am expressing my views purely in the interestof moving forward with California’s fight against climate change in a cost-effective way that can be exported to other states and countries.
“The estimated direct impact of California’s rooftop solar initiative is not zero, but in some ways it barely budges the needle. That figure of 700,000 metric tons of emissions over three years is far less than even 1 percent of the state’s annual emissions…
If the state enacts the right policies, supporters say rooftop solar panels could spread clean energy benefits beyond just Californians who can buy expensive new homes and drive Tesla cars.”
Why do I have this nasty suspicion that promoters of concentrated renewable energy systems are aware that all of the savings will go to corporate owners and that the prices paid by consumers will be as high as the traffic will bear?
I monitor the relative cost of driving my Volt on electricity compared to gasoline and have taken to monitoring my utility bill quite closely. I contract with a local (mostly) renewal supplier, Sonoma Clean Power, but pay my bill through PG&E which also charges a delivery fee, meaning the cost of running the grid. My last bill included $43.10 generation cost and $83.16 delivery for 491 kWh. When battery costs drop below some level there will be no value at all for the grid connection.
Wow, those wires must be made of gold to be paying that much for delivery charges. Around here it is a nickel per kWh for delivery.
PG&E is not famous as a philanthropic stalwart.
islandboy has mentioned the idea of solar getting people off the grid and so as a kind of freedom from the grid/gov.; while Nick G seems to be advocating the reverse; remaining with the grid/gov., and maybe using it to charge electric vehicles when the sun has set or is in the process of doing so, and/or to balance the load.
As for myself, I have mentioned some time ago how we, or at least those who can afford non-renewable renewable energy, would still in a sense be ‘grid-tied’ to the crony-capitalist plutarchy and that many fossil fuel companies are investing in non-renewable renewable energy.
That said, it sure sounds like how things will play out will be in typical clusterfuck fashion that is the status-quo.
Those are just excuses. We need both a rooftop solar mandate and large solar farms. We’ll get both.
Far Less Wiggle-Room @ 7 Billion+
If fossil fuel usage and other forms of ‘extractive industries’, etc., were diminishing at a suitable rate, then I’d be inclined to agree, but…
We need a viable planet and only have one.
Mars doesn’t cut it and some things are not worth the gamble.
‘Rooftop solar mandates’, ‘large solar farms’ and other similar exclusionary/unholistic/non-systemic/etc. approaches are not existential requirements, and their pursuit, rather than rapidly dialing down fossil-fuel, etc., extraction/usage, at this stage of ecocide may increasingly threaten those very existential requirements.
It appears far too late for too many reasons to experiment with things like large-scale solar/windmill farms and electric vehicles.
Maybe if things were pristine and undepleted/unextinct/etc. and we were running around at a population of a billion.
Excellent study Cats@. Some activists should get right on this and promote sending demands to congressmen and senators (state and federal) for a 3% income tax for those making $100,000 to $150,000 gross and a 5 % tax above $150,000 dollars. Monies to fund assisting lower income families to install PV, insulate homes, better windows, and subsidize EV rollout.
Let’s see how that works out.
Let’s see how that works out.
And if the bums (congressmen and senators ) don’t, then start by taking away their socialist benefits, especially their health care. Let’s how they like it!
While we are at it, let’s make all their tax returns public!
Cheers!
I have ways around it, no way should we depend upon government to make actual progress. Leave the old ways behind.
Yeah I actually agree but that doesn’t mean we should let the bastards off the hook for all the harm they have caused!
True, it might scare the pants off others bent on eco-destruction.
“Anarchyyy!” (pseudoLOL)
Oxymoron-Powered Society
Like practically everything else in this oxymoronic uneconomic economy, non-renewable renewables will likely be misallocated. Those better-off may beg to differ.
The United States is bankrupt and the consequences will be dire.
All the debt spending is good. Allowed humans to achieve a rapid population growth to over 7 Billion. Without debt financing, we would still be at below 4 Billion.
Where is the fun in that? Slow sustainable growth is for pussies.
[sarcasm, for those who need interpretation of unseen body language]
Hugo,
It’s fascinating to read this news article from the Christian Broadcasting Network. It’s clearly propaganda: full of not just misinformation but outright lies. So, I have two questions:
For Hugo: do you see the same misinformation that I do? For instance, the interviewee (the 2nd in command in the Trump Budget office) says that lack of revenue is not the cause of deficits. This is an astonishingly dishonest thing to say, in light of the recent massive tax cut. And then he says expenses have to be cut. Obviously, he’s talking about cuts to social programs that will hurt low income folks. Do you agree?
For everyone else: any thoughts as to why so many Christians have decided to buy into such unChristian ideas?
Um.
Did christians ever not lie? Immaculate conception, descended from David, rose from the dead, etc.
Unchristian? You mean like burning pagan temples with the pagans inside, crusades, inquisitions, pogroms?
Of course we should lower taxes on inherited money and remove benefits from those lazy poor folks. If they weren’t lazy they wouldn’t be poor would they?
Nick G
I was not pointing out his interpretation of how the debt has grown. I was simply looking at the unsustainable debt which must be paid mainly by middle class and poorer people. The rich are never affected by there things.
I do know that the United States had the highest rate of GDP growth in the 50s and 60s when the top rate of tax was 70%. I also know that the richest 1% control 22% of the country’s wealth when 40 years ago they controlled less than 10%.
The top 0.1% have really benefited from the tax cuts.
The tax from the rich paid to build and repair roads, school etc and employed millions. Now that money buys paintings, diamonds, gold and shares. Which does little to boost GDP.
I agree.
My point was that you need to be careful about your reading sources. CBN is clearly a bad source of information. In this context, I suspect that it didn’t publish any articles suggesting that the federal deficit was unsustainable when the recent tax cut was under consideration. The debtclock that is linked to in the story is dishonest: for instance, federal debt is mostly domestic and the rest is denominated in US currency; social security/Medicare is not a contractual debt, it’s simply a benefit that can be changed at any time.
“social security/Medicare is not a contractual debt, it’s simply a benefit that can be changed at any time.”
Sometimes peoples expectations built up over time, are far harder to contradict than any paper contract. I think you may find that ‘obligation’ to be quite real, if you try to alter the arrangement. Particularly at the ballot box.
No question, politicians can’t casually threaten big changes to SS/Medicare with impunity. They can’t even get rid of “Obamacare”, even after voting to do so 80 times.
But…do a little research into the history of SS, pensions in general and government pensions in particular. You’ll see a lot of change.
The obvious change for SS is to raise the retirement age. This makes perfect sense, because people are living longer – that has raised the benefit level dramatically, in a way that was never designed into the structure of SS. And, the age has been raised before: the standard age used to be 65, now it’s 67. https://www.ssa.gov/planners/retire/agereduction.html
There’s been no storming of the Bastille, no riots in the streets – the age just shifted gradually. It’s very powerful: each year the retirement age is raised increases the number working and reduces the number who are retired, shifting the ratio of payers to payees. But, the other simple change would be to (gasp!) raise taxes. Either way, the unfunded liability is erased.
Hey Fred, when I got up this morning (before sunrise) the temperature here was the same as Jacksonville Florida and it has risen 5F since then. Happy Winter Solstice to everyone. Day length increases from here for us more northern inhabitants.
While Florida is at the southern end of the northern hemisphere it is still winter solstice here as well! So I too am looking forward to increasing day lengths!
We had severe thunderstorms overnight and it is supposed to cool off tonight with temps going down into the low 50s.
Cheers!
Wow, you mean Florida is in the northern hemisphere? Never would have guessed. So I looked it up and Miami does have an N after it’s latitude. sarc
You are farther from the center of the earth than I am, even though I am higher above msl.
AccuWeather warnings for Florida on Dec. 21 2018
Seriously? How stupid have people become? Isn’t it sufficient to warn people of high winds, flooding risk and rip currents? Do people really need to be told to find an alternate route if the roadway ahead is covered in water or to avoid swimming in high winds and rough surf?!
Those living along the Florida Peninsula’s west coast should move to higher ground if floodwaters threaten, and holiday travelers should seek an alternate route if water is covering the roadway ahead.
It is impossible to determine how much water is covering a road using the naked eye alone, and it only takes 1 foot of water to float most vehicles.
Adamson added that the strong winds will create an enhanced risk for rip currents and lead to unusually large waves and rough surf.
Anybody heading to the beach and planning to swim in the Gulf of Mexico should do so near a lifeguard or simply make alternate plans.
In addition, localized beach erosion is possible, and people should make sure to obey swimming and flooding advisories when and where they are issued.
On the east coast on my local beach the posted sign simply said:
HAZARDOUS CONDITIONS! NO LIFE GUARD! SWIM AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Its AccuWeather– a repug source for information.
They probably made a buck doing it.
“Seriously? How stupid have people become? Isn’t it sufficient to warn people of high winds, flooding risk and rip currents? Do people really need to be told to find an alternate route if the roadway ahead is covered in water or to avoid swimming in high winds and rough surf?!”
Yes, they need this warning Fred. Remember, most of these people were the same ones who voted for trump.
“Do people really need to be told to find an alternate route if the roadway ahead is covered in water or to avoid swimming in high winds and rough surf?!”
Given the number of people who have been drowned doing driving through floods – yes.
NAOM
Haven’t you ever heard of “turn around, don’t drown”? That’s straight from the NWS, paid for by your tax dollars, in case you don’t like AccuWeather’s version. The depth of water on a flooded road can be very deceptive, and it doesn’t take much water to get a vehicle floating, even a large one like a pickup truck.
A great way to fight climate change; well, we all have to do our bit — don’t we?
ADMINISTRATION MOVES CLOSER TO OPENING ARCTIC REFUGE FOR OIL
“The Trump administration moved closer on Thursday to opening thousands of miles within Alaska’s pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas leasing, issuing a draft report that concluded the polar bears, caribou and other wildlife could safely share their untouched wilderness with oil and gas producers.”
“U.S. coal exports to Asia surged in 2017, and there is an argument to be made for America to become an even bigger global supplier of the fuel, a Nikkei Asian Review study has found. By volume, U.S. coal exports to Asia doubled last year, compared with 2016. The total reached 32.8 million short tons — a short ton being the equivalent of 907kg. Asia-bound exports of steam coal used for power generation, in particular, more than tripled.”
Heres to you Bob F
Data source- MIT
just another reason to hate Universities
If these forecasts for hotter temps don’t bother you, then you are absolutely not a patriotic American.
What is more important to the country than the yield of corn. Nothing.
Heat stress on corn during pollination time (especially if it is on the dry side), cuts heavily into seed set, and thus yield.
[Just ask your favorite local Agronomist for tutorials if you don’t already know all about it. Strange to think that Americans wouldn’t know much about corn. Really strange.]
Ironically, industrial farming, such as WRT corn, is of course a sizeable source of C02 emissions.
“Today we have more soil scientists than at any other time in history. If you plot the rise of soil scientists against the loss of soil, you see that the more of them you have, the more soil you lose.” ~ Bill Mollison
Looks like it will soon be time to take advantage of the adiabatic lapse rate.
More silly alarmism; At least Blue Blob Bob won’t be fooled.
MELTING OF GREENLAND’S ICE IS ‘OFF THE CHARTS’
“The current thought in the scientific community is that there is a temperature threshold that could trigger a point of no return for the eventual melting of Greenland and Antarctica’s ice sheets. And though we don’t know exactly what that temperature tipping point is, what’s clear is that the more we warm, the more ice melts. Once the ice sheets reach these tipping points, it’s thought that they’ll go into a state of irreversible retreat, so they’ll be responding to what we do now for centuries and milliennia into the future.”
Bob, if you’re reading this, could you kindly let us know which it is? Thanks!
Just ask your favorite local Agronomist for tutorials if you don’t already know all about it
I have to wonder how many Americans even know what an agronomist is or does…?
BTW, Two of my first cousins are agronomists 😉
Corn? You mean, Maize, that invasive grain species from Mexico? Where was the border wall when we needed it?! /sarc
My Univ degree is in Agronomy, although I went on to study and work in an entirely different field. Actually not in a field at all.
Still grow a lot of plants though.
“What ideas and skills need to be lying around as industrial civilization crumbles? One collection of ideas and skills that’s already handily packaged and awaiting adoption is permaculture—a set of design tools for living created by ecologists back in the 1970s who understood that industrial civilization would eventually reach its limits.”
“… centered around whole systems thinking simulating or directly utilizing the patterns and resilient features observed in natural ecosystems. It uses these principles in a growing number of fields from regenerative agriculture, rewilding to community and organizational design and development…
The word permaculture originally referred to ‘permanent agriculture‘, but was expanded to stand also for ‘permanent culture‘, as it was understood that social aspects were integral to a truly sustainable system…
It has many branches that include, but are not limited to, ecological design, ecological engineering, regenerative design, environmental design, and construction. Permaculture also includes integrated water resources management that develops sustainable architecture, and regenerative and self-maintained habitat and agricultural systems modelled from natural ecosystems.
Mollison has said: ‘Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single product system.‘ “
“It wasn’t until I sat down and looked at the electricity situation that I realized how worrying it really is. Intermittent wind and solar cannot stand on their own. They also cannot scale up to the necessary level in the required time period. Instead, the way they are added to the grid artificially depresses wholesale electricity prices, driving other forms of generation out of business. While intermittent wind and solar may sound sustainable, the way that they are added to the electric grid tends to push the overall electrical system toward collapse. They act like parasites on the system.
The world has become increasingly globalized in the last thirty years. Because of the greater interconnectedness, if a collapse occurs in the near future, it could be much worse and more widespread than prior collapses. The adverse results could exceed those of the Depression of the 1930s or the Great Recession of 2008-2009. We have no guarantee of being able to preserve either the oil system or the electricity system. The population of the world could fall dramatically; the economy may need to organize again in a new way without either oil or electricity.“
This is how your world could end “Massive social unrest” here being a rather bloodless phrase masking the utter chaos coming to a country already riven by corruption and religious violence.
“It’s sort of the nightmare scenario,” said Huber. “None of the economists is modelling what happens to a country’s GDP if 10% of the population is refugees sitting in refugee camps. But look at the real world. What happens if one person who was doing labour in China has to move to Kazakhstan, where they aren’t working? In an economic model, they’d be immediately put to work. But in the real world, they’d just sit there and get pissed. If people don’t have economic hope and they’re displaced, they tend to get mad and blow things up. It’s the kind of world in which the major institutions, including nations as a whole, have their existence threatened by mass migration. That’s where I see things heading by mid-century.”
So I look at that as, if it’s night-time and acclimatised, fit people can just disintegrate into a pool of useless people on stretchers. That’s what I see happening to society, to cultures,” Huber said. “If you want to know how mass extinctions happen, that’s how. So when people talk about the Pleistocene megafauna extinctions and Clovis people, sometimes they act like it’s a mystery how these things happen. But it happens in exactly the same way.
“It was another great year for science, and physics was front and center, as a team at the University of Oxford announced that they may have solved one of the biggest mysteries in modern physics. They came up with a new theory that could explain the missing 95 percent of the cosmos, and in so doing bring balance to the universe. Their theory unites dark matter and dark energy, resulting in a fluid, which they suggest possesses negative mass.”
Plus, [best of all 🙂 ] a trio of researchers from several institutions in the U.S. and Canada found evidence that spaghetti-looking nuclear material beneath the surface of neutron stars might just be the strongest material in the universe. Their simulation showed that the nuclear pasta was 10 billion times harder to break than steel.
LOL! I think we still have a ways to go before we understand all there is to know in physics…
Given that about 95% of the universe is dark energy and dark matter!
Be nice if we applied the physics and math we already know. Apparently there is a rumination time lag on the order of decades and then only partial responses. Alzheimer World. No wonder the universe is expanding away from us at high speed.
E Fred M,
This is off topic but there is an article on Eurekalert about surfer’s ear bone deposits being found in skulls from prehistoric sites on the Gulf of Panama. Oysters are suggested as the proximate cause, as in diving for them.
E Synapsid,
Quite interesting! I was not aware that surfer’s ear is actually caused by cold temperatures.
Given that I have had quite a bit of exposure to cold water I’m going to guess that I have it myself.
Tks!
You are very welcome.
Just saw a new video (Published on Dec 7, 2018) featuring Tony Seba on Youtube. It’s one of the longest I have seen at 1 hr. 55 min. and was recorded at a presentation he gave at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM).
The presentation was in English and so were most of the questions in the half hour question and answer session. I always find it interesting to hear Seba add some of the latest developments and data to his presentations. While the first hour and twenty minutes will be familiar to anyone who has already watched any of Seba’s standard presentations, the expanded discussions in the question and answer session might be of interest, even if one is already familiar with Seba’s work. For example, he speaks about changes that should happen with regulation and markets to facilitate distributed generation, including allowing individual consumers to sell electricity as well as buy it. He sort of described on internet of electricity with an ebay type market for buying and selling electricity.
One question was about the value of the oil and gas industry in Mexico and the feasibility of extending viabilty of those industries. Seba’s answer was very interesting but, I’m pretty sure it was not what people in the oil and gas industry want to hear!
For those who are familiar with Seba’s presentations, I highly recommend the last 35 minutes where he is responding to questions. Lots of discussion related to many discussions we have in this forum. To save time, Youtube settings allow you to watch videos at up to twice the normal speed.
Tks, I skipped right to the questions!
I like how Seba inverts the question about a legal framework for autonomous vehicles. We will have to decide if it is safe to let humans drive anywhere other than a closed and isolated course. ROFL.
Meanwhile the new infrastructure is being installed to assist the stranded EV owner.
AAA has been ahead of the curve with its emergency electric vehicle charging service, which has been available since 2011. Seeing EVs as the future, the organization is sticking with the program despite the relatively low number of service calls. https://electrek.co/2016/09/06/aaa-ev-emergency-charging-truck/
Skipped to the questions too. Left me with a few thoughts.
If AEVs decided to re-route, because of a blockage or slowdown, to a different route that was clear wouldn’t that mean the slowdown would just move to the new route as they all switch to it?
If AEVs are always communicating would telecoms/internet start to rout over the matrix of AEVs taking a web model. Short range links, especially optical, could be very much faster than even 5G, could that hit cell networks as people communicate over car-net?
Open data is a nice idea but an antipathy to the government especially those who are control freaks. Given the very poor grasp of technology by those in power, I can see any attempt at government regulation ending up totally handicapping any effort in this direction. On top of that what happens if State A, State B and the feds have different ideas for regulation, what happens if countries have different ideas, would you still be able to drive across borders or have to switch AEVs at the border?
NAOM
He’s right about the headline. The only question is, is 2030 quick enough to prevent human extinction? We need to stop oil, gas, and coal FASTER than that.
Climate destruction has been accelerated by the willingness of idiots to blow huge amounts of money on extremely unprofitable fracking, tar sands, and bankrupt coal plants. How do we stop the idiots, except by shooting or bombing them?
Nathanael,
Let’s stay away from those types of suggestions or you will be banned. Strike one.
It’s easy – you pass a law.
Time to start talking to your legislators. But…not really your legislators. Actually, you want to talk to their staff. The elected representatives are figureheads, to a great extent. The real work is done by the staff. (Yes, even Trump – his “staff” just aren’t in the Whitehouse, where they should be…)
Fred,
“In the last decade, the speed at which Florida’s sea level is rising has increased and is now rising by 1 inch every 3 years. Around Miami, it took around 31 years for the sea level to rise by 6 inches. Scientists now forecast that in just the next 15 years, the sea level will have risen by another 6 inches.”
And why would anyone worry about that?!
Real estate prices are still rising faster than the sea level /sarc
.
Actually, seaside Miami real estate prices are dropping. The prices are rising inland at the moment… probably not far enough inland though!
2018 ARCTIC REPORT SHOWS WARMING CONTINUES TO MOUNT
2018 has been another year of continued warming in the Arctic atmosphere and ocean leading to broad changes in the environmental system in both predicted and unexpected ways. There is a considerable level of uncertainty as to what exactly will happen environmentally in the coming years as new threats arise and continue to grow in the region.
• Surface air temperatures in the Arctic this 2018 continued to warm twice as fast relative to the rest of the earth. Between 2014–18 they have exceeded all previous records since 1900.
• On land, higher air temperatures continued to drive broad, long term trends in declining terrestrial snow cover. Melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet and lake ice, together with an increase in summertime river discharge and the expansion and greening of the tundra vegetation are all related to the warming trend observed.
• Despite the increase in grazing vegetation growth across the Arctic tundra, the herd populations of wild reindeer and caribou have declined by close to 50% over the past two decades.
• Older Arctic ice has been declining and this 2018 Arctic sea ice remained younger, thinner and covered less are than in the past. Since satellite observation began the 12 lowest extensions of ice have occurred in the last 12 years.
• Ocean primary production levels in the Bering Sea region during 2018, were at times 500% higher than normal levels as a result of record low sea ice extension.
• Harmful toxic algae blooms have been expanding across the Arctic oceans coinciding with warmer sea surface temperatures. This has been a threat for food sources across the region.
“We are reminded that if we do not address the problem of climate change in the rest of the world, we will see forces unleashed in the Arctic that may seal our doom. The region already suffers more than most from the impacts of climate change. But as those climate impacts worsen, the Arctic shifts from being a victim of climate change to becoming a driver of global devastation: with melting ice projected to bury coastlines around the world and disrupt important ocean currents that stabilize temperatures in Europe; and with melting permafrost releasing massive amounts of methane (a greenhouse gas much more powerful that carbon dioxide) into the atmosphere.”
“We are reminded that if we do not address the problem of climate change in the rest of the world, we will see forces unleashed in the Arctic that may seal our doom.
Well then this should not come as a great surprise!
Nasa says it has detected the first signs of significant melting in a swathe of glaciers in East Antarctica.
The region has long been considered stable and unaffected by some of the more dramatic changes occurring elsewhere on the continent.
But satellites have now shown that ice streams running into the ocean along one-eighth of the eastern coastline have thinned and sped up.
If this trend continues, it has consequences for future sea levels.
There is enough ice in the drainage basins in this sector of Antarctica to raise the height of the global oceans by 28m – if it were all to melt out.
“That’s the water equivalent to four Greenlands of ice,” said Catherine Walker from Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Ironically 28m is not much more than the depth of the submerged cypress forest in the Gulf of Mexico that I posted a Youtube video about up thread. And why would the current detected trends not continue?!
This press conference is relevant to measuring Antarctic ice loss. The precision of the new tools is just mind boggling as is the data of the actual ice loss:
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Published on Dec 12, 2018
Glacier crevasses, cracks in sea ice and forest canopies – the first height data from NASA’s Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 are so clear that scientists can easily distinguish these and other features of Earth’s surface. At this press conference, scientists will present the first results and new data visualizations from ICESat-2, which launched Sept. 15. They’ll discuss how the airborne Operation IceBridge campaign led into ICESat-2 and how the satellite’s seasonal measurements of changing ice sheets and sea ice will lead to better understanding of sea level rise and global weather and climate patterns.
It wasn’t very long ago that NASA said Antarctica had an ice surplus because it was gaining much more than it was losing (citation provided). Normally, in science, you don’t get to have it both ways.
So you agree then that 1) climate related phenomena are changing and in this case, like many especially in the cryosphere, quicker than expected and for the worse; 2) the new satellite was a necessary and successful addition to the scientific toolbox and well worth the funding; 3) by implication more such projects are needed to keep up with the changes.
I’d thought previously you were a standard denier driven by fear, envy and willful ignorance but maybe POB is an enlightening influence and you are learning sense, though the “normally in science” comment indicates you still have a long way to go.
Normally, in science, you don’t get to have it both ways.
It appears you do not quite underdstand how science actually works! For one thing, science is not static.
Normally in science when you develop better tools and use them you acquire better data and that may allow you to provide a better analysis in a particular field of research, thereby updating or even completely changing a previously held, long standing conclusion.
BTW, from the last paragraph of your cite, which is from Oct. 30, 2015:
To help accurately measure changes in Antarctica, NASA is developing the successor to the ICESat mission, ICESat-2, which is scheduled to launch in 2018. “ICESat-2 will measure changes in the ice sheet within the thickness of a No. 2 pencil,” said Tom Neumann, a glaciologist at Goddard and deputy project scientist for ICESat-2. “It will contribute to solving the problem of Antarctica’s mass balance by providing a long-term record of elevation changes.”
Well, we are now at the end of 2018. Given that these are measurements taken by satellite one can not help but be blown away by the quality and precision of the data ICESat-2 is capable of providing.
As George Kaplan noted:
“Changes in the cryosphere, are happening quicker than expected and for the worse!”
Hi Tony,
Lets imagine a simple science experiment.
I put more ice on the tray you are holding [like more ice accumulating on an Antarctic shelf]
At some point it becomes too heavy and you drop it [like an ice sheet breaking free].
btw- in a warmer atmosphere, the areas of high mountains and high latitude can get much more snow, since of course you remember that warmer air holds more moisture. More snow does always mean more permanent ice [melt happens annually].
There are many mechanisms by which things are changing. A stable earth is a mirage.
Sometime I find graphs posted without the associated text frustrating.
Do these charts indicate that both the Arctic and Antarctic were gaining ice until about 2005 and that both began losing ice only at that late date?
I thought the Arctic was losing ice long before 2005.
Another science experiment I’ve seen in children’s science classes for when they explain the two sides to the climate debate. If you load up a cup with as many ice cubes as you can then wait for the ice cubes to melt, the melted water will be at a lower level than the ice cubes were.
Oh boy, you need to re-do phenomenology 101 and pay attention this time! Yeah, a big mound of ice, in a cup, will go down but you will see a big pool of water on the table. It is that pool of water that is the problem.
A better experiment would be to fill your sink with water to the edge of the draining board then put a big block of ice on the draining board. Then watch the ice melt, the water level in the sink rise, then the water overflow onto the draining board. That is what is happening NOW!
NAOM
Please note that the data in that report is from 1992 to 2001 – it is now 2018, some 20 years later!
2018 Fall Meeting Press Conference: Arctic Report Card 2018
Love the questions at the end from the journalist asking RDML Tim Gallaudet, USN Ret., Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and Acting NOAA Administrator, Washington, D.C., U.S.A.; whether or not anyone at the White House had briefed Trump about this report card. And if not then why not?!
With the coming New Year, we welcome yet another 83,000,000 folk to our pretty blue planet — with world population expected to reach a hearty 8 billion in 2023 (according to the United Nations).
MEANWHILE — A WEATHERMAN’S WARNING
“The warming trend has been evident for decades. We have known since the 19thcentury that greenhouse gases trap heat in our atmosphere, threatening ecosystems, communities and our way of life. What is new is that these reports encourage urgent action. Because we’ve waited too long to act on climate, our vulnerabilities are no longer calculated in generations or decades, but years.”
And just think: with sustainable growth we can continue to add hundreds of millions of consumers each year, living happily ever after. (sarc)
Merry Christmas everyone
‘Tis duly noted you wrote: ‘CONSUMERS’ and not folk or people… 😉
That’s the only reason we put up with the peasantry.
E Fred M, Estimable DougL, and all,
Doug’s post on the 21st at 10:42 is the background that should be the foreground, in my opinion. The future increase in the use of coal will be the continuation in the current growth of its consumption in India and SE Asia.
I’ve been hooting and pointing at India for years as the home of the future threat but attention has focused on China. Now China is getting serious, bumpily, about reducing its coal use and that’s a good thing; once she gets equally serious about no longer building coal-burning power plants in other countries things will be even gooder, but there are or will be shortly as many people in India as there are in China and no indication of even beginning to address the country’s growing use of coal. Add in Indonesia and SE Asia and gloom descends. (Australia, though, enabler and exporter as well as consumer…cause for despair there until the voters throw the bums out.)
Time for Port.
E Synapsid,
Hopefully sooner than later India too may soon find out that it’s coal plants are unviable.
Renewables May Prove Cheaper Than 96% of Coal Plants Worldwide by 2030
“Over time, these coal-fired power plants will just become more and more unviable.”
EMMA FOEHRINGER MERCHANT NOVEMBER 29, 2018
As for Adani’s coal mine project in Australia, I think that he and other’s like him can and will, eventually be held legally liable.
How can we hold governments accountable to their human rights duties? A Dutch case recently upheld by the appeals court might hold the answer.
In June 2015, The Hague District Court and a group of 886 concerned citizens, united by the environmental interest group Urgenda Foundation, made history. This, the first successful climate change case brought on human rights and civil law grounds, saw the Dutch government ordered to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by a minimum of 25% on 1990 levels by the year 2020.
Three years on – against a backdrop of intense scrutiny and after an appeal lodged by the government – The Hague Court of Appeal upheld this decision on October 9. Indeed, it has gone significantly further in affirming the duties of care owed by the state to its people. The court considered the weight of the scientific evidence presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the recommendations of successive UN conferences to reach an informed conclusion on the required mitigation targets commensurate with the prevention of dangerous climate change.
No Port tonight. I’m going to the local craft beer pub, with two lady friends for some holiday cheer! I had suggested Ouzo and dancing on tables at the Greek joint on the beach but they said no. Party poopers! 😉
That article just confirms what I have suspected about coal related power generating infrastructure basically becoming stranded assets and economically unviable. Which means that Adani’s Australian Charmichael coal mining project can not go forward due to economic reasons alone!
“Another 30 companies, all in the power sector, are also facing the guillotine because the Allahabad high court has denied them more time to sort out their woes. The debt of these companies alone amounts to Rs 140,000 crore. Among them are three giant power plants, the 4,000 MW Coastal Gujarat Power of Tatas, Adani power, Mundra and Essar Power. They are bankrupt because they had the temerity to base their plants and have been denied the right to set tariffs that will cover the higher cost of imported coal, by the Supreme Court of India.
…Their chief mistake was to “extrapolate past growth and performance to the future” and accept projects with very little equity capital, that relied almost entirely upon loans. When the upswing ended with the onset of global recession in 2008 and demand slackened, many projects became unviable.”
With the high interest rates, it appears India is merely a system to move money to bankers and other wealthy investors. That type of system does not have any real interest in the common good.
Any system based on economic selection is not only an unstable system but is designed to select and support systems that are extremely efficient and low cost. It is also susceptible to financial and political manipulation. It is blind and deaf to the creation of workable long term societies and civilizations. What good it does is not by choice but happenstance along with the blood, sweat and tears of those outside the banking system.
In this case, after long term development and technological advances it turns out that fossil fuels are more expensive than renewables. That has held up the advance of these technologies into the mainstream by almost fifty years. A very harmful system that will hang on for many more years, maybe right to the end.
Although many seem to be against individual and small group action, at least they can make rational decisions based on the greater good (man and all the species). Once governments, lobbyists, banks and plutocrats are involved the decisions made are mediocre at best and terrible at worst.
Mr. Potter ” Peter Bailey was not a businessman.”
Don’t believe the Koch brothers, and their demonization of government. Government only appears irrational because plutocrats like the Koch’s have been allowed to have too much influence.
NOAA is government. IPCC is government. Civil rights, fair housing…all government. Which is why the Koch’s of the world fear government. They want to keep you away from it. Keep you isolated and powerless.
Get involved. Talk to your state reps, and your city alderpeople. More importantly, talk to their staffs. Educate them. Educate your neighbors to talk to them. And…make campaign contributions.
That’s how change is made.
“Don’t believe the Koch brothers”
You win the biggest insult to me this year award. I think your rose colored glasses have turned dark red from drinking in the propaganda stream.
Ah, no insult intended.
It’s just that turning away from government, IMHO, is a big mistake. And…the Koch’s have been working very hard for 70 years to get us all to do that. I think it’s hard to be unaffected by that. I see it everywhere, in the thinking of friends and family. Even people who I expected to be much more…umm…well informed…have been repeating Koch/Fox talking points. It’s everywhere, and it’s changed the whole atmosphere and culture in which we live.
Sigh.
Again, no insult intended!
“But time is of the essence, for every day that the rupee continues to depreciate increases the repayment obligations of companies loaded with foreign debt and weakens their capacity to respond positively to measures designed to revive economic growth. One more attempt to avoid domestic collapse by propping up interest rates will bring on the foreign exchange crisis that the government is mistakenly trying to avert through monetary policy alone.”
Second State of the Carbon Cycle Report
(SOCCR2) SOCCR2 is an authoritative decadal assessment of carbon cycle science across North America, developed by over 200 experts from the U.S., Canadian and Mexican governments, national laboratories, universities, private sector, and research institutions.
SOCCR2 is a Sustained Assessment Product of the U.S. Global Change Research Program.
Then again the full report is over 800 pages long and the title doesn’t specifically mention ‘Climate Change’!
Anything more than a single page of cartoon is over their heads – especially when their heads are in the sand.
Did anyone catch Dennis’s prognostication about burning through the proven natural gas reserves in the 2020’s. ? Even adding on some new discoveries, that should startle everyone. Natural gas is used for heating, fertilizer, electrical production. Without a strong development of alternative energy sources in the next few years, the US will face an energy collapse.
“Note that that that at the end of 2017 there were 308 TCF of proved shale gas reserves and 50 TCF of cumulative output, so a total of 358 TCF of shale gas. We reach 354 TCF of shale gas cumulative output at the end of 2024 in this scenario at Dec 2024 output of 124 BCF/d.” http://peakoilbarrel.com/opec-november-production-data/#comment-661805
Even if he is off a few years, we are cutting things really close here. Psycho irrational exuberance exemplifies the times. Would hate to see a push back to coal for obvious reasons. Plus coal won’t last that long without large tech advances in efficient mining. Too much overburden in the Powder River Basin and too small and deep veins elsewhere.
Might be good in the long run, teach us to live more efficiently and effectively, but very damaging and harmful in the meantime.
Without a strong development of alternative energy sources in the next few years, the US will face an energy collapse.
Oh fer crimminies sake! Haven’t we already established in this very thread, beyond any reasonable doubt, that advocating for renewables does more harm than good?!
And as for pushing coal:
Well, in the energy crisis about thirty years ago, we saw ads such as this (shows slide). This is from the American Electric Power Company. It’s a bit reassuring, sort of saying, now, don’t worry too much, because “we’re sitting on half of the world’s known supply of coal, enough for over 500 years.” Well, where did that “500 year” figure come from? It may have had its origin in this report to the committee on Interior and Insular Affairs of the United States Senate, because in that report we find this sentence: “At current levels of output and recovery, these American coal reserves can be expected to last more than 500 years.”
There is one of the most dangerous statements in the literature. It’s dangerous because it’s true. It isn’t the truth that makes it dangerous, the danger lies in the fact that people take the sentence apart: they just say coal will last 500 years. They forget the caveat with which the sentence started. Now, what were those opening words? “At current levels.” What does that mean? That means if—and only if—we maintain zero growth of coal production.
Arithmetic, Population and Energy – a talk by Al Bartlett
Ron’s great post over on the oil side shows that global oil production outside the US has probably already peaked. The US is apparently the only real driver of global oil production gains. The primary driver of US oil production is shale oil, which Ron says has a legacy decline rate of 6.78% per year.
Solar PV has a legacy decline rate of 1% or less (time to 10 percent power is greater than 200 years). Wind turbines are found to lose 1.6 ± 0.2% of their output per year, with typical lifespans of 25 years and growing (although many old ones are being replaced early due to efficiency and power advances in new turbines).
This makes it obvious that investing in shale oil and probably shale gas too (similar problems of decline rates) has been one of our worst energy investments and certainly has no long term prospects.
I agree, in that I would have preferred 100% of the money invested in shale to have been invested in solar/wind instead.
However it would take a whole new way of economic thinking that is foreign to most. We can call it Long Term Planning (with low rates of return).
The Chinese are a little better at this than the rest. They look out about 5yrs-10 yrs, compared to 6-36 months for most the rest of the world.
Low rates of return? Yep, but we could learn to live with that. Might even extinct the last wild mammal a little slower that way.
If you could buy into a solar PV project that yielded the equivalent electricity of $1000/yr for 30 yrs,
how much would you pay for it today in cash (realizing that to pay for it on credit would cost more in the long run, and is a more complicated analysis)? I’m talking real money that you have actually available to deploy this month.
I will start the bidding. I would pay $10,000. Anyone care to out bid me on it?
Low rates of return???? What is the return on a business that is losing money? Namely shale oil. All returns are outside the actual business itself (a way to move borrowed money around the system).
You are concerned about the rate of return on PV? Solar PV power is being sold at 2.5 cents to 5 cents a kWh at a profit.
An average land based wind turbine can produce more than 6 million kWh per year. The average is going up.
From WindEurope
Wind is competitive
Wind power makes economic sense; onshore wind is the cheapest form of new power generation in Europe today.
Wind in Europe accounts for €72bn+ annual turnover and 330,000 jobs.
Offshore wind is rapidly reducing costs and will play a central role in Europe’s power mix going forward.
Wind is mainstream
In the last year alone, wind accounted for 44% of all new power installations across Europe – more than any other technology.
Wind now covers over 11% of Europe’s electricity demand.
By 2030, wind could serve a quarter of the EU’s electricity needs and be the backbone of Europe’s energy system.
Wind is strategic
Wind is an important and growing part of Europe’s industry base. Three of the five largest turbine manufacturers in the world are European companies. The European industry has a 40% share of all wind turbines sold globally and provides the lion’s share of Europe’s €35 billion renewable exports. We lead the world in offshore wind with over 90% of today’s offshore wind farms.
Overall, wind energy has transformed from a niche sector to a mainstream industry. Increasingly competitive and attracting more investment yearly, the wind sector is set to thrive in the 21st Century.
Europe is expected to reach 258 GW of wind capacity by 2022. It’s a viable growing power system, unlike fossil fuel which puts the nations at risk from foreign supply and the world at risk from pollution and global warming.
Now please tell me what the rate of return is on shale gas and shale oil production?
Before you get all in a lather, I’m not suggesting that shale has a rate of return worth a damn (or anything).
But please do refer all offers you have for any 30 yr Solar Bonds that pay 5% interest to me. I’ll consider purchasing large quantities of them in lots of $10,000, whether they come from the bank or the credit union, the State of Texas or Nevada or any state half sunny state, from Tesla or GM, from Duke Energy or Xcel, or any utility for that matter. Or from Amazon or Google. Or the city of Las Cruces, Yuma, Amarillo or Macon. Or Fidelity, or Vanguard. Or from a local electrical co-op.
6% return would be preferable and I would even favor 7% more.
Once a salesman from any of these organizations comes around, or I see advertising seeking investment for the 27 billion panels we need to put in place this decade, then I’ll know there is a viable scenario with a decent rate of return. I keep checking the mailbox every day. So far no luck.
[I have 20 panels on my roof, so don’t even try to peg me as a naysayer. I truly look forward to day when we could all have access to such an investment]
Here is an offer for you. Pay 5% of your income each year toward building out renewable energy or people with guns come to your door, stand you in front of a judge then send you away to jail for twenty years (we call that the government).
Is that what it takes? At what point do we start changing. When there are no fish to eat, most wild animals gone, cattle dying in the fields, agriculture barely produces half of what it does now, the forests are mostly gone, the water poisoned, the heat killing, the very air growing toxic and oxygen depleted. What is the point when people stop looking for profit and start doing what needs to be done instead of living a really sick and deadly reality show?
I was hoping for some answer a little more reality based.
Maybe someday.
I am not really interested in your personal portfolio. Anyone who thinks personal profit is the answer is living a very deadly delusion.
BTW, you seem to have missed the entire point of what I originally posted. Maybe think about it a bit.
Or listen to this expert.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGfIjCG-zB4
OK, lets have a massive GoFundMe to build out solar facilities with the electricity returned to the investors.
NAOM
When panic sets in the governments will be forcing a massive GoFundMe down everybody’s throats or other orifice. I figure during the 20’s for the USA. Earlier for much of Europe if they are smart. There will be no choice, pay or jail.
Those exist: they’re called municipal bonds and commercial paper. They’re not called “solar bonds”, but if you want the equivalent, you can buy commercial paper issued by companies that sell PV.
Unfortunately, the interest rates are not going to be higher than the general market’s going rate (depending on the issuer’s bond rating): nobody’s going to pay more than they have to.
Nick , if you only have a bullshit reply, why even put it up?
The reply was correct. Utilities (either government owned, or investor owned) tend to be good credit risks, so they pay low interest rates. If they find a great investment (like cheap solar) they’ll pass on the savings to their customers or their shareholders, but they’ll still pay the same rates on their bonds.
So. Was your question a joke, or BS in your mind? If so, I missed the joke.
In fact, I’m puzzled. Your vehemence suggests that you weren’t joking. So…why do you think the reply is BS?
OK. I’ll try to approach this from a slightly different direction to help illustrate the point.
It would be nice if there was a straightforward way for the public to individually, or in groups (like a credit union), to invest directly in solar generation. I am referring to other than on their own roof, since many don’t have an appropriate roof, unshaded or in a very sunny zone.
Sure you can purchase shares in a solar supply company like Solaredge or Enphase, or some mixed utility. But not directly in solar production like a Solar Bond would do. And therefore you cannot enthusiastically direct your vast collective financial resourcess to PV production.
Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to directly invest in utility or community scale PV production, with steady bond-like returns? And in a place with gangbuster solar output.
But you have no such avenue.
Why?
I can think of two reasons.
First, the culture isn’t interested in making PV a nationwide priority, with transmission, permitting and landuse decisions that promote the deployment on a massive scale.
Secondly, the return on money invested is too low to light a fire under the industry, in a way that would have salesman (mutual funds, utilities, site developers, etc) clamoring for the billions to deploy. The lack of investment vehicles is a big takehome message on this.
I suspect both of these reasons are at play.
I look forward to the day when there are great direct investment opportunities in specific PV production projects at the retail level (ex 401K).
This is very long overdue, IMHO.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear about my gist earlier up.
I realized another aspect of this discussion.
At home the payback for PV can be relatively quick because you are replacing high cost retail electricity.
For utility scale PV, the producers are getting power purchase agreements (PPA’s) at wholesale rates that are much lower. This means that they are competitive with coal and nat gas, but there is not a lot of profit left after all costs, to distribute to stakeholders (such as bond holders would be).
Like most things, the simple first take on an issue if often inaccurate due to faulty assumptions.
https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/09/13/the-south-takes-the-lead-in-utility-scale-solar-as-interconnection-queues-swell-to-188-gw-w-charts/
This is very good news from the article- “Interconnection queues have swelled to 188.5 GW of utility solar capacity, eight times more than installed capacity.”, meaning there are a lot of projects in the pipeline. The grid interconnection is a big bottleneck, both bureaucratically and logistically, in most cases.
If I understand correctly, you’re asking if there’s a way to lend to PV developers at a high rate of return, and if not, why not?
Well, I’m not aware of any form of lending in which the lender participates in the profits of the borrower (maybe I don’t get out enough!). What I’ve seen is that when a lender wants profit participation they ask for equity in various forms: one form would be to buy stock in the company. I think that’s true whether it’s oil, coal, PV or wind.
So, if you install PV on your home, you own it, and get the direct benefit.
There is “community solar”. I think there are a lot of financing structures, but the idea is mostly that you invest, and in return you get renewable power, hopefully cheap. So it’s similar to the familiar residential rooftop model.
https://www.seia.org/initiatives/community-solar
Utility scale PV can have a very high ROI. But, the PPAs would be very profitable for the customer (the utility): competition between developers reduces the rates that the utility pays, and transfers the ROI from the developer to the customer.
Which is how you want it to work in a free market: competition drives down prices and transfers the benefit to the end customer in the form of low electricity prices and low monthly bills.
Occasionally equity investors will get high returns in return for investing early, in high risk companies. Tesla is a good example. But that’s a combination of luck and compensation for taking risk.
I give up. I’ll chalk it up to a massive failure of communication.
We live on different planets.
Well, that’s too bad.
I think part of the problem is having a common understanding of things like “bonds”: AFAIK, bonds are by definition *not* a place to get better returns because of a higher ROI project. That’s equity investing. The interest rates on bonds are based on the credit worthiness of the borrower, and other technical things like the term of bond, tax treatment, etc.
So, the lack of high interest “solar” bonds doesn’t tell us anything about PV ROI.
Does that help?
> if you only have a bullshit reply, why even put it up?
I’m impressed by you inability to see that you own post is bullshit.
Well, somebody seems to be investing in solar.
https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/11/28/solar-power-project-pipeline-partying-like-its-1999/
Nice, for comparison the US installed 10.6 GW in 2017. To hit near 20 GW in 2019 would be a record (and lots of employment/wages).
Yes, the government controls the throttle on PV installations. They can help or hurt the growth at will.
Although I bet the prices drop as the subsidies fall.
Long-term bonds backed by solar farms are issued regularly and pay rates of 5% or slightly less. You just haven’t researched them.
Look into “solar asset-backed notes” and “solar loan-backed notes”. (There are also wind backed notes.) You’ll be buying them in lots of $100,000 or more, though, so be forewarned. Call up your broker’s bond desk, or find a better broker if you don’t get help there.
A lot of them are reserved for the institutional market. You can buy shares in REITs which do nothing but operate solar farms or buy these bonds, and then issue preferred stock. These have… varied quality of management, and some have been rather overleveraged.
But anyway! The point remains. If you have a million dollars to invest, call your broker, you’ll be able to invest in solar-backed bonds which have 25-year terms. Companies DO issue them, frequently (Tesla issued a lot of them). They’re so safe that the interest rates are dropping, you’ll probably only get 4.5%, but that’s the going rate.
They’re so safe that the interest rates are dropping, you’ll probably only get 4.5%, but that’s the going rate.
And there is the paradox of bonds: high-quality means low interest rates. High Yield is a synonym for junk, and the very best investments of all, treasury notes, have the lowest rates.
So where is a lot of the money coming from for solar PV and renewable energy. The capitalists of course, the conservatives, the towns, the industries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOaAHPCH58w
https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuarhodes/2018/08/21/what-does-100-renewable-energy-really-mean/#2f0606761ac8
Correction, the legacy decline rate of fracked oil is 6.78 % per month, giving 43 percent per year. That makes the decline rates for renewables look very small.
SUV AND PICKUP TRUCK SALES SURGE AGAIN IN U.S.
“Top automakers reported an increase in U.S. auto sales in August including another sharp rise in SUV sales, as low unemployment and strong consumer confidence helped mitigate the impact of rising interest rates and fuel prices.”
BTW, roughly 17,000,000 vehicles are sold in the US every year, and, correct me if I’m wrong, about 0.3 % are Teslas (cf 0.4 % for Porsche).
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-suv-and-pickup-truck-sales-surge-again-in-us/
Not only that, but as my experience living on a “country” road testifies, such vehicles are bigger, uglier, and louder. Even at five a. m., adolescent males think it proper to rattle the neighbors’ windows.
The ignorant rednecks are ascendant in these parts. Those of us who have spent time learning about peak oil–utterly humiliated.
Plus they are killing you and all around them. Beside the pollution, “They are one of America’s leading causes of avoidable injury and death, especially among the young. Oddly, the most immediately devastating consequence of the modern car—the carnage it leaves in its wake—seems to generate the least public outcry and attention. “.
What are the failings of cars? First and foremost, they are profligate wasters of money and fuel: More than 80 cents of every dollar spent on gasoline is squandered by the inherent inefficiencies of the modern internal combustion engine. No part of daily life wastes more energy and, by extension, more money than the modern automobile. While burning through all that fuel, cars and trucks spew toxins and particulate waste into the atmosphere that induce cancer, lung disease, and asthma. These emissions measurably decrease longevity—not by a matter of days, but years. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology calculates that 53,000 Americans die prematurely every year from vehicle pollution, losing 10 years of life on average compared to their lifespans in the absence of tailpipe emissions.
There are also the indirect environmental, health, and economic costs of extracting, transporting, and refining oil for vehicle fuels, and the immense national-security costs and risks of being dependent on oil imports for significant amounts of that fuel. As an investment, the car is a massive waste of opportunity—“the world’s most underutilized asset,” the investment firm Morgan Stanley calls it. That’s because the average car sits idle 92 percent of the time. Accounting for all costs, from fuel to insurance to depreciation, the average car owner in the U.S. pays $12,544 a year for a car that puts in a mere 14-hour workweek. Drive an SUV? Tack on another $1,908.14
Then there is the matter of climate.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/04/absurd-primacy-of-the-car-in-american-life/476346/
So down with cars, SUV’s, crossovers, and whatever. Especially ones with infernal combustion engines. Get your walking shoes out because horses are dangerous too.
Happy Motoring
another sharp rise in SUV sales
That’s because they get a roughly 25% subsidy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax
>mitigate the impact of rising interest rates and fuel prices.”
Fuel prices are rising? What are these people smoking?
re: “17,000,000 vehicles sold… in US … 0.3% Tesla”
17,000,000 * 0.003 = 51,000
maybe last year, this year to date in U.S. it is:
114,500 model 3
22,495 model S
22,000 model X
======
158,995 or .9% of US sales YTD.
https://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/
n.b. one must go to the bottom of the chart and scroll to see totals to right, or go super wide screen.
look for another 25K Teslas in the U.S. in December, would make 1% of 17 million.
Nice, but nothing like the 39% BEV market share in Norway in October 2018 though.
http://ev-sales.blogspot.com/2018/11/norway-october-2018.html
A smart oil exporting country, subsidize EVs at home by selling the oil overseas, charge EVs with hydropower.
for 2018 Tesla is about neck and neck worldwide with Porsche
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/07/11/tesla-on-track-to-pass-porsche-in-annual-vehicle-sales-in-2018/
One wonders if Mr Trump is listening,
UN CLIMATE CHIEF: CLIMATE TALKS MUST BE RESCUED FROM FAILURE
“To waste this opportunity would compromise our last best chance to stop runaway climate change. It would not only be immoral, it would be suicidal.”
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-12-climate-failure-chief.html#jCp
But, hope springs eternal (in the human breast):
CLIMATE POLICIES PUT WORLD ON TRACK FOR 3.3C WARMING
“The CAT report said there had been progress since 2015, but current policies meant the world was heading for warming of 3.3C. That compared with the 3.4C it predicted a year ago, and it said that if governments were to implement policies they had in the pipeline, warming by 2100 could be limited to 3C.”
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/climate-policies-put-world-track-3-3c-warming-165340016–finance.html
DougL,
I left a reply to your permafrost post on the other thread.
Much of my graduate work was on the glacial palaeoclimate and flora of northern Eurasia, and to help ends meet I translated a good deal of Soviet research literature on the permafrost and its shapes and changes.
no port yet
Synapsid — Interesting. I read/write Russian as well but my translations mostly involved converting Soviet oil/gas reserve reports into a form acceptable to Western regulatory bodies. Since Russians use, or used, a different system then us (a more conservative one) this required a lot of recalculations. I got a lot of help from Russian (and some Chinese) engineers of course. Had to examine lots of drill core as well, naturally. Interesting days indeed.
I also replied there and mentioned that I might need to take up the port habit as well!
Cheers!
.
Ahhhh, Taylor’s though I cannot see if it is LBVR, brings back memories. Cockburns – no!
NAOM
FredM, NAOM,
I can only give my preferences, as I have no palate to speak of: My everyday port is Kopke Fine Tawny, and the small-glass port for luxury is Kopke 10-year Tawny. I spent several months and an amount I refuse to calculate trying ports and these are what I liked best.
I bought by accident a bottle of Warre’s Heritage Ruby and didn’t notice until I’d not only opened it but poured out a glassful: That’s not a tawny! (checks label) I bought a ruby!! Well, I can’t return it…hm, I like that.
Again, I have no palate and only say that I like these.
One wonders if Mr Trump is listening,
The only thing Trump hears are the crazy voices in his head!
Not true, he watches Fox News and talks on the phone with Sean Hannity every night.
That qualifies as “crazy voices”.
Excellent point. Despite recent advanced in areas like deep learning, etc, we are a long way from what I would call artificial intelligence.
But the internet and cable TV are pretty close to artificial schizophrenia.
All those voices coming out of nowhere and driving you to distraction.
Here’s a somewhat technical explanation of why social media is designed to make its users crazy and hateful. Short answer: It’s profitable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5zIlWSMlU8
british view?
1) Own Moscow.. investments
2) Own China…stocks…
3) Own India…commonwealth
4) Own Iran…investments
5) Own Germany, overextended loans…fractional banking…08 Brussels printing…own Germany world empire debt…third world
6) Own Isreal..support
7) Own USA…
Missing?
a) Don’t own CO2…drought Germany…aka no food.. cold…no gulf stream.
b) Other option is the volcanoes sulfur cooling.. no CO2 supporters
c) To save Britain end CO2…end US…end China.. linked…via Germany debt
Darwin, Australia swelters through hottest night ever recorded
http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2018/12/darwin-australia-swelters-through.html
Probably just a liberal lie!
Maybe it is not too late to send little boy Trump on a walkabout
In Australian Aboriginal society, Walkabout is a rite of passage during which males undergo a journey during adolescence, typically ages 10 to 16, and live in the wilderness for a period as long as six months to make the spiritual and traditional transition into manhood. Wikipedia
CO2 VS THE COPS
“Whatever our world leaders are ‘doing’ to reduce emissions, they are doing it wrong. We have to understand what the older generation has dealt to us, what mess they have created that we have to clean up and live with.” – Greta Thunberg, 15-year-old Swedish climate hero speaking at COP24
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2018/12/12/analysis/co2-vs-cops?fbclid=IwAR1g9SLnDOS9LI9ZP0BEMux6MyGZ-BxPl3cYSAzWlas0mlUcC-GlVK7EuL4
Darwin, Australia swelters through hottest night ever recorded
Can we send Cold Blob Bob down there and put him up for a week in a room with no AC?!
‘Retreat’ Is Not An Option As A California Beach Town Plans For Rising Seas
Nathan Rott
https://www.npr.org/2018/12/04/672285546/retreat-is-not-an-option-as-a-california-beach-town-plans-for-rising-seas
Del Mar is one of countless coastal communities in California and across the U.S. that is seeing the impacts of climate change and preparing for worse to come.
By midcentury, tens of millions of U.S. homes and billions of dollars of property are likely to be destroyed or made unusable by increased flooding from rising seas and storms, according to a recent climate report by the U.S. government.
“Sea level rise and storm surge could completely erode two-thirds of southern California beaches by 2100,” the report warns.
That leaves residents of seaside towns like Del Mar with an alarming choice: stay and fight those impacts, or turn and leave.
Retreating from sea level rise can take different forms. It can mean changing zoning to limit construction in flood-prone areas. It can also mean removing or relocating development from vulnerable areas, using buyout programs or transferring property rights.
Some communities in California are embracing the idea.
At first, Del Mar was looking at it, too.
The blowback, though, was almost immediate. Realtors’ groups spoke out against the plan. Homeowners were hysterical.
“What we learned from our community is that even the mere discussion of managed retreat, in the minds of some, completely devalues their property,” says Amanda Lee, Del Mar’s senior city planner.
The concern was that if the city formalized a plan that included retreat, it would be harder for property owners to get loans or sell their land.
Hearing those concerns, “we started crossing out managed retreat and replacing it with other words like ‘not feasible here in Del Mar’,” says Terry Gaasterland, who chaired the city’s Sea Level Rise Advisory Committee.
The city council even went as far as to pass a resolution banning future city councils from planning for retreat.
What we learned from our community is that even the mere discussion of managed retreat, in the minds of some, completely devalues their property,” says Amanda Lee, Del Mar’s senior city planner.
Oh, well, it seems we are still in the deny, deny, deny, phase eh?!
Maybe all these morons should go read the story of Old King Canute and the tides…
BTW, I have front row seats to the same story unfolding in my own backyard in the greater Miami area. Stupid Republican politicians just continue to deny climate change, ocean acidification and sea level rise. But declining property values are going to be the least of their problems.
Party on dudes! Don’t plan for retreat just fucking drown, all of you dumbass conservatives!
How do you think Gov. DeSantis will compare to Scott on Florida’s climate change issues?
At least when it comes to sea level rise this is what he has said:
“Still, he went on to acknowledge the realities of South Florida. “The sea rise may be because of human activity and the changing climate, maybe it is not, I do not know,” DeSantis said. “What I do know is I see the sea rising. I see the increase in flooding in South Florida. I think you would be a fool to not consider that is an issue we need to address”
We shall see, he still has a bunch of science deniers in his administration including leftovers from the Scott administration..
Sometimes you need to throw leftovers away, before they continue to smell.
Story is all backwards as usual, should be all about the towns that are planning to retreat. Possibly just a mention of Delmar with no details. Instead they advertise the town with the wrong attitude and decisions. The one that forgets how sea walls and dikes get breached. Promoting the wrong, the horrible and the stupid is the meme of the mass media.
Yep. Man bites dog.
It’s a basic problem with “news”. It has to be novel, for the sake of novelty. Unfortunately, nobody tells children that the news media are designed to not be a reliable way to get a realistic picture of the world.
Yep, and it also builds a fearful, negative and cynical outlook among people.
Yeah. Journalists have another old saying for that: “if it bleeds, it leads”.
Unfortunately, the industry isn’t generally willing to say loud and clearly that fear mongering is basic to what they do. The better ones, like the NYT, try to tone that down a bit. But…it’s basic: at best, news media are designed to focus on our problems, not what’s going right. At worst…they’re propagandists.
Well, they are going to end up retreating however it will not be an orderly march but fleeing from the destruction on the front line of climate change.
NAOM
Life in a flood zone:
I used to live in Campbell River, BC. (now live 75 km west in Sayward Valley). Anyway, I heard on CBC the other day that CR now has a full-time city employee that is developing mitigating sea level rise responses starting with new construction, permitting, etc.
In the ’70s, when I first moved there, heavy southeast storms with high tide would sometimes push driftwood over the highway. By 2010 it has been a common occurance, and in 2012 part of the highway was washed out and had to rip rapped.
One big strategy was/is leaving the long sloping and rocky beaches to remain as is. However, there are rip rap breakwaters downtown. At high tides the storm drains in town don’t work. Some stores flood and several roads are blocked off through the tide cycle.
I live on a tidal river that is subject to heavy flows. In fact, it looks like Monday will be an ‘event’ day with lots of rain and 50 kt winds on top of about 6″ of rain in the next few days. Our house site has never flooded, but the water does come up to the edge of the lawn about once every 7-8 years. Then, water would have to rise another 2 feet to reach the foundation, plus my house is on a 4 foot crawl space. When the water is high, the flooded lowlands (general flood plain) have little current, but the flow channels are scary scary. I am just 20 metres from the actual main river channel and often see 200 ‘+ trees and roots whip downstream. Exciting stuff. The big problem for residents is you can’t drive out and away past a certain flood level as all roads are blocked. It’s just too dangerous to attempt it. The same with boats. If you lose a prop you could die if the current grabs you.
Anyway, we are also planning (at home) for increased flooding. I have hauled in 4 tandem dump loads of type 10 shot rock (4-14 inches granite) which I have used to armour my river bank and protect the trees. I need about 2 more loads to complete the job. It’s expensive. I have to do a bit at a time as it is illegal to do so in BC. What is legal is to do nothing, let the river wash your bank out, then beg and threaten to get public funds for restoration, then machines place godawful giant riprap along the river banks that almost looks industrial. The way I have done it is to let the foilage grow up around and through the smaller size rocks. Plus, we hand place a lot of them. I have one of the few homesites on the river that doesn’t flood, but I also left the trees. It is amazing that some homeowners remove all trees. I see the river through a very small screen of 3’ diameter of cedar, spruce, and fir. The lower branches have been trimmed out for views but the root systems holds the bank together. Plus, below sight levels I have retained a thick mat of salmon and thimble berry, huck, and left the vinca that ‘got away’ from a past owner. My neighbour, who cleared everything…lost 5 metres of bank until he finally let the trees regrow. It looks like hell, to be honest.
Our biggest threat these days are new residents ‘making’ farms out of floodplain forest. They haven’t experienced the high flows of past major events. Yet. But, they will sure as hell and then we can say, “I told you so”. One ‘artist’ from the City (Victoria) bought a home on stilts. This is about 10 miles upstream from my place. Think about it. Stilts. Someone built a house on stilts for a reason. Apparently, she wants to replace it with a ‘rancher’. She lives adjacent to a new farm, one that just removed all the trees. That new owner is from South Africa. Anyone here ever try and tell a South African white male anything? Or the Kiwi new farmer 5 miles away? Or, my Australian friends 8 miles upstream? (Got that macho thinggy going). So, we just wait, watch, and we’ll see.
One other improvement is logging. Despite the rate of current logging, replanting is immediate. Plus, the days of streamside logging is long gone and very illegal. And, the giant logjams of past logging debris has been salvaged so flows don’t back up and produce sudden and catostrophic releases when the ‘let go’. They used S-64s to sling the salvageable wood out of the river channel, and made a tidy profit doing so. This was done about 20 years ago.
Anyway, it could be worse. We could live in NC, SC, FL, TX, LA…… you get the point.
regards
“Anyone here ever try and tell a South African white male anything? ”
Thanks for the laugh.
Had one as a manager, have to agree 100%. Best memory from there was his standing in the middle of the office receiving a telephone verbal bollocking from the MD that could be heard over the whole office.
NAOM
200′ tree in flood meets house on stilts – no, I don’t want to think about it!
Tree roots holding together the riverbank, when will they learn these things? My bet is on the upside of never.
NAOM
“and joining Team Trump is akin to diving head first into a pit of quicksand. You may well find yourself expected to do things that would taint you forever. “
I used to live in Del Mar. Only a small portion of the city is in danger of sea rise and it is a very expensive area. Houses there have been very occasionally inundated by high tides as far back as the 1960s. This is really a story about real estate values. I suspect that by now the people living there can afford the once-in-two-decades flood as long as they can get insurance. It’s one thing to experience that, another to have it be common knowledge so that prices are affected.
Much ‘rich’ mcmansionry and tacky tourist-bubble resorts and similar, as well as the usual hideous ‘BAU’ industrial setups, etc., have infected/sullied waterfronts worldwide with their ‘real estate’, often to the exclusion of local community waterfront access and cleanliness of the surrounding water and land-areas. So perhaps sea-level rise may mete out some poetic justice and schadenfreude, and new homes for marine animals…
Do you think some sea animals, say, like orca, feel schadenfreude and/or senses of poetic justice?
I think sea animals are happy when they have clean water and good food and a good mate, just like humans and all other animals. Probably only humans, a rare few, feel either schadenfreude or a sense of poetic justice.
Quite unsure about your last part (for example; The bad news on human nature, in 10 findings from psychology), but fair enough in any case.
From the link:
Of course those don’t apply to everyone across the board, but in any case, that we are communicating on this illegitimate coercive government war-invention thing called the internet and behind anonymous nicknames and screens while on civilization-/’war-economy’-collapse websites such as these should tell you something of some of this, yes?
I think your “descriptions” match all of us and none of us. Humans seem to me to be totally inconstant. A friend told me once that we spend too much time trying to separate the good guys from the bad guys an not enough time trying to resolve the good and the bad in each of us. Surveys get different answers depending on how the question is asked, hence “push polls”.
Good points, JJHMAN, and it’s good to maintain a healthy skepticism about stuff like that.
Hilarious…
It appears that there will be no USA ‘intervention’ in Venezuela, at least that Venezuela politicos don’t want.
CNBC Explores Mi Teleférico in La Paz
The Arctic Is Heating at a Record Pace, With No Signs of Slowing
…And on lighter notes:
Hillary Stories
White House Press Briefing
Attached image of ‘double-decker’ gondola (unrelated to aforementioned article):
Considering the current world political environment, we should start preparing for the worst case scenarios of climate change and fossil fuel depletion. The possibility that the renewable/EV thrust may peter out is quite real. Global wind power growth has gone near linear already from an early exponential start. Wind energy growth has fallen from 17 percent in 2015 to 10 percent in 2017. If the current rate holds it will be 10 years to a global doubling of wind power. It looks like the slowdown started in 2009. If the downward trend continues it could be several decades to a doubling.
PV seems to be holding in exponential growth, though it fell from 49 percent growth in 2016 t0 30 percent growth in 2017. Most of the growth occurred in China (26%), the US (20%) and India (18 %).
If the PV growth rate goes linear soon, the outlook for renewables falls apart.
Maybe the marketing of this battery storage system will stimulate more interest in PV and wind energy.
The battery that could make mass solar and wind power viable
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImqmMOkANgg
Any delay in transistion to renewable energy and EV’s puts the world at risk of depleted oil production and then depleted natural gas production. It also increases the potential of greatly increased burning of fossil fuels.
Sounds like they have surmounted the problem of seals. This could boost micro-grids, imagine a housing estate with rooftop solar panels and a communal battery pack, no outside power needed.
NAOM
GF- couldn’t agree more. The necessary transition to a massive base of installed solar and wind, is not being taken seriously. Even in Calif where something like 20% of electrical generation is solar and wind, it is far behind the curve, when you consider all the liquid fuel energy that must be replaced as well.
The dip in wind makes some sense. With Trump subsidising fossil fuel and wanting to boost coal with threats about hitting renewables I can see investors getting nervous about investing. My worry is that he may decide to subsidise coal and keep coal plants open by taxing renewables, I would want to hold my investments until things got clearer especially with wind.
NAOM
Sweeeet.
Since most of the energy now produced is wasted, there is no reason to maintain the energy industry at current levels — unless you work in the industry of course.
Renewables are inherently low profit, because the lack of marginal costs encourage producers to set near zero prices to win market share, and the inherent scalability of the technology allows huge numbers of small producers to enter the market. The main effect of the renewables revolution will be to suck the profits out of the energy business.
So what happens when an industry that mostly produces waste that nobody wants or needs stops making money? Shrinkage seems likely.
So renewables will grow until they destroy the traditional energy industry, and then start to shrink. Based on the howls of pain already being emitted by traditional providers, it’s likely that renewables don’t need to be anywhere close to as big as the current industry to kill it.
EDIT: You may be thinking wait, everybody want energy. But it simply isn’t true. Everybody want energy services, like heat and light, and the results of mechanical work but nobody wants energy per se. For example if your house is cold, you don’t care if you produce heat to warm it, use a 100%+ efficient heat pump to get warmer, or simply improve insulation. The result is the same.
Daily CO2 looking good kids. Dec. 12, 2018: 409.73 ppm: Dec. 12, 2017: 406.51 ppm. How long until 410 becomes our new baseline?
My worthless opinion is that feedback loops are still in the early gears. It is my worthless opinion, that climate models and projections are wrong, similar to projections of oil prices or world production and peak etc. I don’t think anyone knows when shit will hit the fan with climate or oil (lack thereof).
I will even extend that argument to modern civilization, no one on earth knows where we are going. Or how it will inevitably end.
The only certainty in life is death.
I don’t think anyone knows when shit will hit the fan with climate or oil (lack thereof).
Well guess what?! It is already happening right now, on multiple fronts and places, at this very moment. I have seen it first hand with my very own eyes in Europe, in Germany and Hungary, I’ve seen it first hand in Brazil in the Amazon, I see it every day where I live in Florida.
You can read about it in the news as what is going down in Paris which is a double whammy, the French want their cake and want to eat it too with a maintaining of the status quo and they don’t yet understand that both climate change and peak oil are behind Macron’s fuel tax hikes.
We see Nationalism on the rise as climate change refugees start to move across borders. We see it in places like Syria and the Middle East. Droughts in India, crop failures sea level rise in Bangladesh.
This is just the first splatters of the feces impinging on the ventilator!
Wait until the corals are all dead in a few few more El Ninos and permafrost melt really starts to release CH4 and CO2 followed by glacier melt and sea shelf collapse in Antarctica.
You can read about insect population collapse over the last three decades in the science journals. Etc, etc, etc etc…
We have the data about what is happening right, we know! This is not that we are perhaps going to find out some day in the distant future. You can continue to deny reality if you wish but you will be proven to be fractally wrong!
Cheers!
My friend,
One can argue that the world has always been a cesspool. And climate extremes are prevalent throughout climate records.
Reminds me of religious people arguing for the Armageddon, one of the signs, earthquakes will increase. Obviously, when humans start populating everywhere including fault lines, you will record more earthquakes. But for the believers it was a sign from god.
And the climate extremes you speak of might be the same. Population increases, more humans will suffer climate extremes. To argue that climate change is responsible is a slippery slope. You need to provide evidence, for a particular event say a hurricane, is the result of climate change. Do you realise how difficult that would be, it actually would be impossible to do.
Neither climate nor oil is not a black and white issue. The complexity is more than what supercomputers can handle.
And also my definition of shit hitting the fan, is obviously different to yours. All i see now is business as usual. My definition is when climate change IMPEDES business as usual, then that is when shit has hit the fan.
I mean one can even argue that the world is more relatively peaceful now than it has ever been (within the period of industrial civilization).
In many ways Iron Mike is right. He only sees business as usual which is true for many. Much of society and civilization is designed to feed on and profit from terror, war, destruction, death and loss of other. In fact a lot of it is designed to force others into failure and ruin so the Vultures can feed.
As things get worse, BAU people only see things getting better. They won’t see anything wrong until they themselves are directly threatened, injured or killed.
Just remember, the next CAT 5 storm is opportunity knocks for BAU rebuilders and suppliers. The next time a town gets incinerated in a fire or flooded away, just think of all the rebuilding that will happen filling the pockets of the builders, suppliers, and fuel suppliers. Think of all those bank loans, new cars, overflowing credit cards. Huge profits to be made in destruction, as every fossil fuel producer and his suppliers know.
Nope, BAU people operate in the present and see wrecks as opportunities. We need people like that, since there is a lot of rebuilding and cleaning up to do before we get tired of paying for it.
Too bad the business of destruction and death has severe limits and ramifications.
You might want to listen to this fellow IM
Dr. Ingraffea’s research concentrates on computer simulation and physical testing of complex fracturing processes. He and his students performed pioneering research in the use of interactive computer graphics in computational mechanics. He has authored with his students over 200 papers in these areas. He has been a principal investigator on over $35M in R&D projects from the NSF, NASA Langley, Nichols Research, NASA Glenn, AFOSR, FAA, Kodak, U. S. Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station, U.S. Dept. of Transportation, IBM, Schlumberger, Digital Equipment Corporation, the Gas Research Institute, Sandia National Laboratories, the Association of Iron and Steel Engineers, General Dynamics, Boeing, Caterpillar Tractor, and Northrop Grumman Aerospace.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGfIjCG-zB4&t=8s
And other old news.
Global warming is not an output of computer models; it is a conclusion based on observations of a great many global indicators. By far the most straightforward evidence is the actual surface temperature record. While there are places — in England, for example — that have records going back several centuries, the two major global temperature analyses can only go back around 150 years due to their requirements for both quantity and distribution of temperature recording stations.
These are the two most reputable globally and seasonally averaged temperature trend analyses:
•NASA GISS direct surface temperature analysis
•CRU direct surface temperature analysis
Both trends are definitely and significantly up. In addition to direct measurements of surface temperature, there are many other measurements and indicators that support the general direction and magnitude of the change the earth is currently undergoing. The following diverse empirical observations lead to the same unequivocal conclusion that the earth is warming:
Hi GF,
I will check out your link.
I am not arguing against climate change. From the independent research I’ve done, the climate is certainly changing. Obviously if one looks at the rate of change of GHG in the atmosphere, humans being responsible is hard to argue against. Especially with knowing that the earth has not been going through a geologically active period, and the sun cycles. There is no doubt the earth has been warming, i am not arguing against that either.
What i am saying is, no one knows, exactly how this thing will play out. Supercomputers are built by humans, and the data fed into them are fed by humans, humans are by no means omniscient. Hence the supercomputers will in no way be omniscient. So no amount of computer modelling, in my worthless opinion, will be able to predict how quickly or slowly shit will hit the fan. That is all i am saying. It is just my 2 cents.
Not here to argue.
And your first sentence, He only sees business as usual which is true for many.
Not sure if you are trying to belittle me, but whatever.
Peace.
“And your first sentence, He only sees business as usual which is true for many.
Not sure if you are trying to belittle me, but whatever.”
Nope, just going from your own words: “All i see now is business as usual. ” and putting them in context with how BAU works. Up to a point BAU is enhanced (for some people and some markers) by the increased destruction and loss from fires, superstorms, massive floods, droughts, heatwaves and coldspells. That has it’s limits and will just break down the system after a while.
As far as not trusting programmers, don’t get in a car, airplane, use a microwave, or most anything anymore, it’s all computer run on programming.
Myself, I go with the field scientist and the data. Mostly the programs just fill in the voids and try to determine the details. Long ago we had a good knowledge of the averages and major effects.
If you watch the Ingraffea video you will see that the data shows we are above the worst case scenario.
As far as natural feedbacks my research and calculations show they are at or very near the amount of heating from anthropogenic GWG releases right now. All indications are toward increasing feedbacks. That should be enough to scare the pants off the world, but it just hums along with most ignoring or hoping someone else will take care of it.
As a spectroscopist I have a strong grasp of how electromagnetic energy operates. The models used are simple mathematical series and formulas that run using Excel. Here is one of my graphs, you may find it interesting.
If you want to understand what is wrong with the computer models read Peter Wadhams’ A Farewell to Ice.
No SHTF has not happened in the developed world very much at all, not in a fast way. It’s more of slow drain and crushing effect, covered up by other factors such as growing economic inequality, resource problems and loss of control over the governments. The superstorms and massive Western drought in North America are a vibrant part of the problem but some people think they are just weather and natural.
In some more vul
GF
How can you compare the complexity of a car, or microwave, to climate or oil prices projections?
Two entirely different leagues. Has nothing to do with programming. It is like the uncertainty principle. It has nothing to do with the equipment or the apparatus or the person doing the experiment or a computer program being optimised. It is just the laws of nature.
I watched the Ingraffea video you linked me. I agree with his co2 projections increasing more rapidly (I wouldn’t say exponentially though). However, there is a lot of questioning one has to do. Like how is he gathering that wind outputs that much energy while shale gas much lower. How is he calculating EROI of wind and shale gas?
Once again calculation of EROI is such a complex task if one is serious about knowing the absolute figure. Hence it is sometimes heavily criticised, and to some extent rightly so.
It’s more of slow drain and crushing effect, covered up by other factors such as growing economic inequality, resource problems and loss of control over the governments. The superstorms and massive Western drought in North America are a vibrant part of the problem but some people think they are just weather and natural.
Again one can argue looking at statistical data that poverty and equality is much better than it was in the past.
I would refrain from making absolute statements like that. But that’s just me.
Regarding your graph, did you use Stefan-Boltzmann law and change the albedo value for water and ice?
I give up. You live in a world far different than me and do not even read the labels on graphs.
BTW the Ingraffea graph was for temperature rise not CO2.
And the climate extremes you speak of might be the same. Population increases, more humans will suffer climate extremes. To argue that climate change is responsible is a slippery slope. You need to provide evidence, for a particular event say a hurricane, is the result of climate change. Do you realise how difficult that would be, it actually would be impossible to do.
You are simply WRONG! You are apparently not up to date on the latest research.
https://www.wri.org/blog/2018/09/recent-scientific-advancements-show-new-connections-between-climate-change-and
Recent Scientific Advancements Show New Connections Between Climate Change and Hurricanes
https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes/
Global Warming and Hurricanes
An Overview of Current Research Results
Last Revised: Sept. 20, 2018
1. Summary Statement
Two frequently asked questions on global warming and hurricanes are the following:
What changes in hurricane activity are expected for the late 21st century, given the pronounced global warming scenarios from IPCC models?
Have humans already caused a detectable increase in Atlantic hurricane activity or global tropical cyclone activity?
The IPCC AR5 presents a strong body of scientific evidence that most of the global warming observed over the past half century is very likely due to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. But what does this change mean for hurricane activity? Here, we address these questions, starting with those conclusions where we have relatively more confidence. The main text then gives more background discussion. “Detectable” change here will refer to a change that is large enough to be clearly distinguishable from the variability due to natural causes.
Don’t forget the fine print for an overall view.
These global-scale changes are not necessarily projected to occur in all tropical cyclone basins. For example, our 2015 study projects an increase in tropical storm frequency in the Northeast Pacific and near Hawaii, and a decrease in category 4-5 storm days over much of the southern hemisphere basins and parts of the northwest Pacific basin–both at variance with the global-scale projected changes. These differences in responses between basins seem to be linked to how much SSTs increase in a given region compared to the tropical mean increase in SST. Basins that warm more than the tropical average tend to show larger increases in tropical cyclone activity for a number of metrics.
Our 2015 study simulations also project little change in the median size of tropical cyclones globally; the model shows some skill at simulating the differences in average storm size between various basins in the present-day climate, lending some credibility to its future climate change projections of tropical cyclone size
2015 study
Finally, the framework is shown to be capable of reproducing both the observed global distribution of outer storm size—albeit with a slight high bias—and its interbasin variability. Projected median size is found to remain nearly constant globally, with increases in most basins offset by decreases in the northwest Pacific
Don’t have confirmation bias. As usual things are not always black and white.
My worthless opinion is after ocean temperatures reach and go beyond a certain threshold level, whatever it is, then i’d say stronger cat4-5 hurricanes will be more rampant. Again as i said, in my opinion, the feedback loops are still in the first gears.
https://www.c2es.org/content/extreme-weather-and-climate-change/
Extreme Weather and Climate Change
One of the most visible consequences of a warming world is an increase in the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events. The National Climate Assessment finds that the number of heat waves, heavy downpours, and major hurricanes has increased in the United States, and the strength of these events has increased, too.
A measure of the economic impact of extreme weather is the increasing number of billion-dollar disasters, which is shown below. The map shows all types of weather disasters, some of which are known to be influenced by climate change (floods, tropical storms) and some for which a climate influence is uncertain (tornadoes).
And that is just the weather. There are links to increased droughts and fires too!
Are we going to have a linking contest now ?
Here is a level headed article.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/25/us/hurricane-harvey-climate-change-texas.html
And lets agree to disagree.
Peace
No, I’m not interested in a linking contest!
Your missing my point which is that there is now very solid evidence specifically linking individual extreme weather events to climate change! The NY Times article is behind the times… (pun intended) 😉
This is about new cutting edge scientific research.
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/climate-change-weather-attribution
Up until a few years ago, it wasn’t possible to draw that link with any degree of accuracy, Otto says. But in 2004, Pete Stott at the UK Met Office published a paper in the scientific journal Nature showing that climate change had at least doubled the risk of the 2003 European heatwave that killed tens of thousands of people. Twelve years later the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society dedicated an entire issue to the new field of extreme event attribution. In the introduction, its editors argued that it was now possible to detect the effects of climate change on some events with high confidence. “That was really the first time we could say that we can attribute events to anthropogenic climate change,” Otto says.
If interested you can read the linked studies in the article and see for yourself that the science has been evolving for a while now and it is no longer correct to state that it is impossible to attribute specific extreme weather events to anthropogenic climate change.
And this is not about agreeing to disagree!
The earth is NOT flat it isn’t even a sphere, its an oblate spheroid!
Cheers!
I’ll read the link you posted thanks Fred. Though i remain skeptical until much more independent studies come in.
Cheers.
Shit/fan – more like the output of the sewage farm fed into the wind farm!
NAOM
Hi Iron Mike,
I recommend watching this lecture by Hugh Montgomery that was posted by George Kaplan a few days ago. Climate change is just the icing on the plastic contaminated cake.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UP_-Bvf5fU&t=3697s
In my opinion, sure, climate changes over time. We know that from the study of paleoclimatology. But it is not so much the absolute number of degrees the climate changes, rather it is the rate of change, and the ability (or inability) of the ecosystems that we depend on to adapt.
I guess it’s hard for humans to not to think about things on a human timescale.
Hi Chilyb,
rather it is the rate of change
Definitely, hence anthropogenic climate change is the best explanation.
Yes looking at earths geological eras and the main 5 extinction events, climate change was a factor in all of them. I agree.
I will check out the video.
Thanks
Are Humans Like a Virus on Planet Earth?
I believe the answer is a resounding yes. lol
IM, viruses have never been linked to a major extinction event (yet). I think they are more of a balance mechanism.
For people I like SOT, Stupid Omnivore with Tools
MAN
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfGMYdalClU
Lol. Agreed.
I read the labels on your graph. Water absorbs more of the suns energy than ice (positive feedback). Isn’t that what the graph is showing?
The label says solar input, not long wave radiation output which would need a complex calculation with atmospheric GHG absorption/radiation which I can do but also needs cloud factors which I can only approximate. So I just showed the increase of heating by solar gain.
Yes the open water does absorb much more energy than the ice and both are accounted. With much more open water in the spring through fall it is now a global heating and climate change factor. Unlike not long ago when it was mostly covered all year long.
As the snow cover recedes northward and the Arctic Ocean is open all summer the albedo factors increase and so do the methane/CO2 factors from melting permafrost.
Lots to look forward to.
That increase is downscaled to global area. The actual Arctic levels are much higher.
Ohh right, I thought you were using that to calculate the effective temperature. My bad.
Interesting stuff. Yes if you take away the short-wave solar input – long wave infrared earth dissipates, you get the energy budget. Starting to remember now.
Keep us posted on your findings.
Long wave goes both ways. Remember GHGs and clouds.
There are also ocean current inputs from the south and winds from the south, so in all the system is complex and variable from year to year.
Overall, it is heating up and losing ice, ice is thin now and getting young.
I would say keep a strong eye on the global social interactions from 2025 to 2030, much of it will be due to the changes in the Arctic region.
(ant’s nest stirred with stick)
How long until 410 becomes our new baseline?
Yeah, does anyone remember when 350 ppm was considered the line that shouldn’t be crossed?!
They still have a website: https://350.org/
Sorry if this is a repost.
Europe’s renewable energy directive poised to harm global forests, experts argue
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180912081253.htm
Yes, using forests for biofuel is a very dangerous and environmentally harmful way to operate. People will always find ways to pervert the object of laws or make laws that have bad unintended ramifications.
And using ‘croplands’ for biofuels is just as bad as using ‘forests’.
Too many people.
https://phys.org/news/2018-12-bioenergy-crops-bad-biodiversity-climate.html
There is some evidence that one response to the GFC in Greece was for people to increase wood-fired home heating and illegal logging.
https://greece.greekreporter.com/2011/12/23/rise-in-use-of-firewood-to-heat-homes-causing-deforestation/
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13608746.2013.799731
I feel it is reasonable to suggest that peak oil et al will result in increased deforestation, both regulated and non.
Maybe the future will be all sing-songs and Elon Musk bukake parties, but I doubt it.
I agree Survivalist. Deforestation after peak fossil is not brought up very often, but I think is inevitable in many places. In fact most places that have a significant winter heating load will be cutting their forests wholesale. Poor and cold people are very good at burning wood, and coal.
The Marcellus/Utica will spare the eastern USA to some extent, but it will still be very heavy.
Korea, Germany, New England forests, for example, will be ravaged.
Its a lot of carbon that will be liberated from its cellulose prison.
Wealth Inequality in America
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM
It’s not what you think it is.
Yet we still have morons come here and tell us how bad socialism is. Even the video treats it with disdain!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3iBCzjsVTw
Tim Minchin – Fuck The Poor
‘The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.’
– Winston Churchill
Actually those pictures of socialism are mislabeled. Those are precisely the results shown in the youtube video about wealth inequality due to Capitalism as practiced in the USA!
Either you are a fucking moron or you are part of the 1% depicted in the video. Either way you are full of shit!
I highly recommend watching this short TED talk.
https://www.ted.com/talks/douglas_rushkoff_how_to_be_team_human_in_the_digital_future/up-next#t-12728
Douglas Rushkoff
at
TED Salon: Samsung
How to be “Team Human” in the digital future
Editor’s note: This talk was presented at a TED Salon event given in partnership with Samsung.
There is actually something intellectually pathetic about someone posting such a set of pictures as an argument. Every one of those pictures could just as easily, with revise captions, describe democracy in America.
Says the rich Trump capitalist
I usually like memes, but yours are really dumb. Do you have any memes that might appeal to smarter folks?
You are, of course, trying to make an emotional appeal to the illiterate…lucky for us, there aren’t any on this blog. Provide some kind of stat or sourcing to prove that your photos are what they claim to be, or I will just point out an undeniable fact:
You are a shallow propagandist: a liar and a bullshitter.
Lake Powell is currently at 43 percent capacity; Lake Mead at 38 percent.
Things could get very interesting soon.
The canary in the southwest. Just another reason for the border wall. The water wouldn’t be needed when the country doesn’t have any agriculture workers.
Haha. Good one.. [I wish it was a joke].
You can’t, they will say, make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.
Here is a visual snapshot on that-
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/world-of-change/LakePowell
check out the right hand side links for other global examples of the changing world
Hickory,
Thanks for this. I’ve been keeping an eye on Lake Powell for about forty years, my main interest being that the Glen Canyon Dam that holds it in is built against sandstone with calcareous–that is, water-soluble,–cement: The rock holding the dam is permeable and has absorbed about a third of water that has flowed into the reservoir since the river was dammed. We won’t get that water back.
As we see from the images at the link, the Colorado carries a great deal of sediment; that’s why it was long ago called “Too thick to drink and too thin to plow.” That sediment doesn’t make it past the dam and last I looked (going on memory here) about a third of the reservoir’s volume is now sediment not water. Somebody put it well: In maybe half a century the dam will just be a waterfall.
Glen Canyon Dam is our own equivalent of Egypt’s Aswan High Dam and is equally destructive.
Its going to be an amazing waterfall.
I have wondered if the water going over the top will erode the face of structure, and eventually breech it catastrophically. If so, all that sediment will get flushed out within several years I think. Right down into Lake Mead.
“Too thick to drink and too thin to plow.”
I’m pretty sure Mark Twain said that about the Mississippi a long time before the Glen Canyon dam was thought of.
JJHMAN,
It might have been Twain, I don’t know; that’s why I said “long ago.”
It does sound like something that could be regional, though. The West is good at that sort of thing.
“I think we are way above our heads.”
CLIMATE CHANGE WILL BRING MULTIPLE DISASTERS AT ONCE
In the not-too-distant future, disasters won’t come one at a time. Instead, we can expect a cascade of catastrophes, some gradual, others abrupt, all compounding as climate change takes a greater toll. That is how Camillo Mora, the lead author of a study released Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, describes the numerous impacts that are expected to hit us in the coming years. He adds, “I think we are way above our heads.”
To reach that conclusion, the team of 23 scientists reviewed more than 3,000 scientific peer-reviewed scientific papers. They examined the impact on human health, food supplies, water, the economy, infrastructure, and security from multiple factors including rising temperatures, drought, heat waves, wildfires, precipitation, floods, powerful storms, sea level rise and changes in land cover and ocean chemistry.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-multiple-disasters-at-once-study-warns/
You know what Doug?! That is not even close to how bad things are really going to get due to synergies and domino effect of multiple ecosystems collapsing all at once. It never ceases to boggle my mind, my apologies to E.O. Wilson, how few people actually comprehend the implications. And unfortunately that group of people who do not comprehend includes many scientists, who one would imagine, should know better. Case in Point: Oxbridge astrophysicists (David Sloan and colleagues) who published a rather controversial paper. Using tardigrades as their bench mark. to conclude that life on earth will be just fine!
BTW, disclaimer, this link was posted over at Real Climate:
https://conservationbytes.com/2018/11/25/global-warming-causes-the-worst-kind-of-extinction-domino-effect/
Global warming causes the worst kind of extinction domino effect
…So, boil, fry or freeze the Earth, and you’ll still have tardigrades around, concluded Sloan and colleagues.
When Giovanni first read this, and then passed the paper along to me for comment, our knee-jerk reaction as ecologists was a resounding ‘bullshit!’. Even neophyte ecologists know intuitively that because species are all interconnected in vast networks linked by trophic (who eats whom), competitive, and other ecological functions (known collectively as ‘multiplex networks’), they cannot be singled out using mere thermal tolerances to predict the probability of annihilation.
Co-extinctions — the phenomenon of species going extinct because the species on which they depend go extinct first — mean that defaulting to physiological tolerances alone would severely underestimate extinction rates. But by how much?
Giovanni and I immediately responded to the journal that the Sloan conclusions could not be defended because of this simple fact. But they refused to publish the response because we could not quantify by how much they underestimated extinction.
Well, “fair enough”, we said. So, we set about trying to do the impossible — estimate the global extinction rate of species facing planetary catastrophes with co-extinctions taken into account.
As you can imagine, that was no easy task.
Ecologists have to be the most depressed human beings on earth right now… Where is that bottle of port?!
It seems I’m in good company! This is the author’s concluding comment:
This basically means that global warming is the worst possible mechanism driving extinctions, and why we have most likely vastly underestimated extinctions arising from projected climate change in the near future. Shit.
I need a drink.
Well you certainly talk a big talk, but let’s see your CV and list of published peer-review journal articles to judge just how much better you “comprehend” the science compared to virtually every other career scientist. Otherwise, I fear you will just be perceived, ironically, as another one of the anti-science nuts you frequently, and persistently, deride.
At least I know enough about how ecosystems work to understand this paragraph… and I was saying something specifically to Doug, who does grasp complex nonlinear dynamics!
When Giovanni first read this, and then passed the paper along to me for comment, our knee-jerk reaction as ecologists was a resounding ‘bullshit!’. Even neophyte ecologists know intuitively that because species are all interconnected in vast networks linked by trophic (who eats whom), competitive, and other ecological functions (known collectively as ‘multiplex networks’), they cannot be singled out using mere thermal tolerances to predict the probability of annihilation.
You on the other hand obviously lack even basic English reading comprehension skills, let alone scientific ones.
Now Fuck Off, ignorant Troll!
Edit: (you can check out all the associated machinery in the paper’s Methods and Supplementary material). Not that you will understand any of this but here is the link
https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41598-018-35068-1/MediaObjects/41598_2018_35068_MOESM1_ESM.pdf
Steven- ” I fear you will just be perceived, ironically, as another one of the anti-science nuts you frequently, and persistently, deride”
Have no fear Steven. Very few will think of Fred in that vein.
Fear something else, like an authoritarian theocracy with facial recognition software.
In case anyone wants to read the full paper:
Warning! The implications are depressing
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-35068-1
Co-extinctions annihilate planetary life during extreme environmental change
Giovanni Strona & Corey J. A. Bradshaw
Scientific Reportsvolume 8, Article number: 16724 (2018) | Download Citation
Abstract
Climate change and human activity are dooming species at an unprecedented rate via a plethora of direct and indirect, often synergic, mechanisms. Among these, primary extinctions driven by environmental change could be just the tip of an enormous extinction iceberg. As our understanding of the importance of ecological interactions in shaping ecosystem identity advances, it is becoming clearer how the disappearance of consumers following the depletion of their resources — a process known as ‘co-extinction’ — is more likely the major driver of biodiversity loss. Although the general relevance of co-extinctions is supported by a sound and robust theoretical background, the challenges in obtaining empirical information about ongoing (and past) co-extinction events complicate the assessment of their relative contributions to the rapid decline of species diversity even in well-known systems, let alone at the global scale. By subjecting a large set of virtual Earths to different trajectories of extreme environmental change (global heating and cooling), and by tracking species loss up to the complete annihilation of all life either accounting or not for co-extinction processes, we show how ecological dependencies amplify the direct effects of environmental change on the collapse of planetary diversity by up to ten times.
Daily CO2
December 12, 2018: 409.73 ppm
December 12, 2017: 406.51 ppm
November CO2
November 2018: 408,02 ppm
November 2017: 405.12 ppm
Perhaps a year over year spike coming secondary to an El Niño?
The 98 El Niño had a big CO2 spike, but the 92 one did not. Anybody know much about that?
https://ggweather.com/enso/oni.htm
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/gr.html
It could just be local effects – for Mauna Lao if the wind blows from LA or downdraft from the volcanic vents then CO2 measurement rises slightly and vice versa. But this year the increase has been consistently and quite anomalously high since summer. Earlier I wondered if the Pacific typhoons and then the California fires were the issue but its got worse since. The other stations that have continuous monitoring look high if anything but the data can’t be downloaded until they have been verified (annually) so it’s difficult to tell trends really. Which is a long winded way of saying I don’t know, but its interesting to follow.
This report is interesting; from the summary at the end:
“El Niño is expected to form and continue through the Northern Hemisphere winter 2018-19 (~80% chance) and into spring (55-60% chance).*”
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf
50% chance is flipping a coin. 80 percent chance is slightly better.
Much like the weather forecast I got from NWS three days ago saying today was to be partly sunny and warm with no precipitation. Now it’s cool cloudy and rainy with 90 percent chance of much more rain later today.
El Niño is responsible for the warm pattern we’re seeing over North America for the second half of December. There are many analogous years that featured a similar temperature profile in the ENSO region as we’re seeing now. Those years, by and large, saw a very cold autumn in the eastern half of North America (just like we saw this year), followed by a very warm December in the same region. The remainder of meteorological winter typically ends up with January temperatures closer to normal and February temperatures on the warm side, but not as much as December.
The recent warm pattern over western North America is interesting, however it is not due to El Niño as there isn’t one right now, as far as I understand. The jet stream certainly seems to be a factor lately with often a large ridge over the west and a deep trough in the east.
By definition, El Niño and La Niña cannot be officially declared until 7 months into an event. Refer to pages 19, 20, 21 in the NOAA presentation you linked. The data show we are seeing El Niño conditions now. They will need to persist through March for an El Niño to be declared in the historical record.
The North American jet stream lately has shown all the hallmarks of El Niño. A split flow with a dominant Pacific stream and a northern branch that prevents Arctic air from blanketing Canada.
There’s a massive SSW event in the works over the Arctic, though. This could translate into a newsworthy unpredicted global cooling event in the Northern Hemisphere about a month or so from now.
This could translate into a newsworthy unpredicted global cooling event in the Northern Hemisphere about a month or so from now.
Do drop us a line if and when it translates to a cooling event along the Great Barrier Reef and all the devastated coral reefs start recovering!
I predict a global northern hemispherical event in the near future. It’s typically called winter.
Been on a cooling trend here for a few months now.
Bob Frisky,
So you have a link for the SSW event in the Arctic?
Thanks.
The CPC recently launched an SSW event monitoring page on its stratospheric products page. http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/
ECMWF analyses and forecasts are at. http://www.geo.fu-berlin.de/en/met/ag/strat/produkte/winterdiagnostics/index.html
The NASA and JMA links on those web sites have additional data.
“global cooling event in the Northern Hemisphere”
Do you understand what ‘global’ and ‘Northern Hemisphere’ mean?
‘global’ != ‘Northern Hemisphere’
‘Northern Hemisphere’ != ‘global’
NAOM
Bob Frisky,
Thanks for the links.
Sorry about the “So”. I meant “Do”.
3 is the new 2?
[annual average ppm rise in global atmospheric CO2 concentration]
During the PETM maximum CO2 rise (methane included) was about 1/5 the rate of our current injection into the atmosphere. Even if we dropped to 1 ppm/yr, that is enough to warm the planet very quickly. Although the current acidification of the oceans is possibly more extreme than the PETM or at least similar.
Also on a related note, new research is showing that burning coal might have had a large role in the Permian mass extinction. I guess that doesn’t bode well for us humans.
It may be too late to make enough of a difference to reverse a PETM like extinction event due to warming and ocean acidification but the Chinese are at least making some noises that they are heading away from fossil fuels at an ever increasing rate. I guess we shall see!
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2018/12/14/creo-2018-time-for-a-new-era-in-the-chinese-energy-transition/
CREO 2018: A new era in the Chinese energy transition
A new era in the Chinese energy transition is on the menu and renewables are the order of the day, according to the latest China Renewable Energy Outlook (CREO). China will not require a gas bridge between coal and renewables, it finds, adding that renewables will become the core of the nation’s energy system by 2050, with annual PV installs of between 80-160 GW possible. Not only that, but electricity supply could be cheaper in this future than it is today.
For the record, IMHO, I think 2050 is about 3 decades too late!
Cheers!
Oh yeah, and there will be way too many people by then and too few tardigrades…
And for the stupid trolls that have been showing up here recently there are a few free online courses at M.I.T. in applied mathematics dealing with Chaos Theory, I suggest you brush up on your calculus and take some of them before you come here to post more of your nonsense!
” I think 2050 is about 3 decades too late!”
That is exactly my take on it, if not 4.
And the statement says that renewables will be the core by 2050.
Well, ummm, there will be no other choice folks.
All the fossil fuel sources will be far beyond their peak by then, having be oxidized right up into the air.
We will be far into burning the long tails (of global production) by then.
“For the record, IMHO, I think 2050 is about 3 decades too late!”
Not sure what we are too late for.
Looking at the boundary conditions, with no efforts to stem global warming and BAU continues on, civilization will last long enough to completely wreck the natural world.
At the other end of the spectrum, with high efforts to reduce global warming (low probability), reduced BAU will extend further into the future and last long enough to completely wreck the natural world.
Looking at the highest probability, continued low to eventually medium efforts to stem global warming, BAU (slightly modified, then further reduced) continues long enough to completely wreck the natural world.
We need a complete change of human view and civilization within the next few years to have a chance at not destroying the natural world as we knew it or at least easing it on into a warmer world. We need not a kink in the line of civilization but a full break and redirection to a low energy, positive impact society and civilization. It was needed decades ago but better late than never.
Odds of that happening before most vertebrate species and many invertebrate species are further decimated and/or gone is low. We will be too busy with our own survival and our own megalomaniac plans for our future, as the floor (not the rug) is pulled out from under us by (guess who).
Aside: I just find it sickly humorous that people are depending upon government to make the changes needed. Government is there to enhance and encourage resource extraction, industry plus commerce. Also to control the citizens both foreign and domestic so to continue it’s primary mission.
GF- when Fred said 2050 is 3 decades too late- he was referring to the Chinese goal of making renewable energy ‘the core of their energy system’, as indicated in his posting if you read it.
Changes nothing in what I said. Although you do need to read his first sentence.
Yes, that is what I was referring to! Not that I disagree with the gist of GF’s general points but one of the very few governments that may be able to change direction and force that change on its population at large is the Chinese government. To be clear I am not necessarily a big fan of the way they acheive some of those goals but that is a separate discussion.
I wonder how well China is really doing.
https://www.rfa.org/english/commentaries/energy_watch/chinas-coal-use-climbs-despite-pollution-plans-07162018102732.html
people are depending upon government to make the changes needed
I don’t think anyone (no one who’s smart, anyway) is depending on government to initiate change, at least not in the sense that one might passively pray to a deity to take care of things for you.
No, government is simply a vehicle for getting things done. If it is a force for BAU, it’s simply because the forces of BAU have been more successful at pushing the levers of power: persuading (aka misinforming aka propagandizing) voters, lobbying (aka contributing to aka buying) politicians, etc., etc.
So…have you talked to anyone in government lately? Perhaps technical staff? Have you contributed money to anybody’s campaign, maybe with a followup conversation about what you’d like in the way of policies?
One voter with $50 is important to a politician: they figure that this represents between 10 and 100 silent voters. And, it’s easy for small contributions to match the big contributions of the wealthy: that was one of the interesting developments of the US 2018 elections…
So…have you talked to anyone in government lately? Perhaps technical staff? Have you contributed money to anybody’s campaign, maybe with a followup conversation about what you’d like in the way of policies?
For what it is worth, I have contributed money To Andrew Yang. He is one of the very few politicians that I’m aware of that at least has some grasp of the kinds of problems we face as a global civilization.
Nick, keep on believing. The tendency of people to want to stay with the herd and keep believing despite all evidence to the contrary is just one of the more charming human characteristics.
But there is some good news. Maybe people are waking up, probably for the wrong reasons, but it is a step in the right direction.
http://www.people-press.org/2017/12/14/public-trust-in-government-1958-2017/
keep on believing.
Believing what, exactly??
That poll is way too simplistic. Of course we can’t regard government as a father figure who will take care of us.
First of all, thinking of government as a single entity is way oversimplified. “Govenment” consists of many different entities, with different structures, histories, cultures, etc. Someone who has a history with the military, for instance, will have an entirely different experience than someone who has worked with or for the TVA, NOAA, NREL, etc.,etc. And, of course, there’s state, county, city, school, HOA, etc., etc.
Second, government is a tool that responds to various constituencies, pressures, etc. It’s what we make it. The simplest form of social organization is a father of an extended family, who needs no formal, explicit social contract. A much larger society can be run by a warlord who rules by pure fear and violence – again, there is no formal social contract. The current equivalent is Charles Koch, who wants to exploit the resources he owns and have no one interfere. Government tends to expand involvement and power (think of the Magna Carta), and so warlords fear it. Which is why Koch is trying to cripple and shrink our current democracy.
Sadly, that poll is evidence that his campaign is working: people trust democracy less, and autocrats more. One result: Trump’s election (Koch 1, people 0).
The bottom line: democracy is how we get things done collectively. It depends on the involvement of everyone. Abandon it, and abandon all hope.
So-called government is a ‘clusterfuck’, Nick, and could be the end-game for what Mayr suggested is human’s ‘lethal mutation’.
Of course there are now the ‘Yellow Vests’ and ‘Extinction Rebellion’ (and whoever/whatever else) that are attempting to push ‘government’ in particular ways that may approach what might be called, socialism. I have my doubts, given issues surrounding overcomplexity (and illegitimate coercion, etc.).
As for Koch, to ‘reduce’ an erosion of some notion of ‘democracy’ to some ‘bad guy’ seems like a take on a bad super-hero flick, and as such, pretty silly. (Same thing with him being tacked onto the issues of AGW. Governments have overwhelming majority share and control of fossil fuels.)
In any case, if Koch and company can help sink what is already full of holes, maybe so much the better.
If you’re working for government, incidentally, and I think you may have mentioned that recently heron, and are drawing your income from the tax-coerced public, then you’re in a sense, parasitic on them…
In the real world, the ‘evil-doers’ and the ‘good guys’ are not necessarily cut-and-dried.
…And then you have scientists and engineers selling themselves and their planet out to (government-subsidized) corporations (owned and/or operated and/or controlled by former government officials) for a ‘quick buck’, but that’s another comment.
For the record:
2018 Q3 PV installations utility and distributed by province
In the first three quarters of 2018, China’s newly installed capacity of PV was 34.54 GW, down 19.7% on the same period last year. Of this, 17.4 GW was utility scale PV power plants, down 37.2% on the same period last year；newly installed capacity of distributed PV was 17.14 GW, an increase of 12% on the same period last year.。
By the end of September, total nationwide PV power generation capacity reached 164.74 GW, of which 117.94 GW of utility-scale PV power plants, and 46.80 GW distributed PV。PV power generation in the first three quarters was 133.83 TWh, an increase of 56.2% on the same period last year；the curtailment rate of PV was 2.9%, down 2.7 percentage points on the same period last year。The curtailment occurred mainly in Xinjiang and Gansu, with 1.73 TWh curtailed in Xinjiang (excluding XPCC), at a curtailment rate of 16%, down 5.4 percentage points on the same period last year；a further 780 GWh of PV was curtailed in Gansu, at a curtailment rate of 10%, down 11 percentage points on the same period last year。
HOPE FOR ‘DECENT’ CLIMATE TALKS OUTCOME
“It was never going to be great, not least because the US is playing a laggard role, but I think we can get a decent outcome, if it’s framed in the right way,” said Alden Meyer from the Union of Concerned Scientists.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46554254
Meanwhile, countries race to get off fossil fuel,
NORWAY [OIL/GAS] SPENDING SURGES
In all, Norwegian oil companies expect to spend 175.3 billion kroner ($20.49 billion) in 2019, while 2018 oilfield spending is now pegged at NOK 156 billion ($18.27 billion). The slight increase in 2018 over 2017 capex estimates was mostly down to royal assent for the 100-million-barrel Fenja field.
https://www.oilandgaspeople.com/news/17647/norway-spending-surges/
No matter what you look at, may it be deforestation, atmospheric carbon levels, species extinctions, polluted rivers, every aspect has gotten worse year after year. Governments doesn’t seem to be able to solve this crisis, and neither is the public.
If we can learn one thing of the past collapses of major civilizations, it is that all of those showed some (if not most) of the following symptoms during or immediately before their imminent collapse: environmental destruction, depletion of vital resources (such as water, arable soil and timber), famine, overpopulation, social and political unrest, inequality, invasion or other forms of devastating warfare, and disease.
https://medium.com/@FeunFooPermaKra/the-collapse-of-global-civilization-has-begun-b527c649754c
THE ARCTIC IS NOT DOING WELL (AT ALL)
‘Tis the season of snowy nights and reindeer pulling sleighs — except in the actual Arctic, where climate change is wreaking havoc on a real-world winter wonderland. A new “report card” from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Admin. Arctic Program paints a dire picture for the frozen North. According to the program’s 2018 Arctic Report Card, Arctic surface air temperatures are warming twice as fast as in the rest of the globe, while populations of wild reindeer and caribou have tumbled by 50 percent over the last 20 years.
Meanwhile, toxic algal blooms driven by warming waters represent a new threat to marine life in the Arctic, the researchers wrote. Algal toxins have been found in ill or dead animals ranging from seabirds to seals to whales.
https://www.livescience.com/64278-arctic-dire-report.html
Elsewhere,
CLIMATE CHANGE IS ‘SHRINKING WINTER’
Snowy mountain winters are being “squeezed” by climate change, according to scientists in California. Researchers who studied the winter snowfall in the mountains there revealed that rising temperatures are reducing the period during which snow is on the ground in the mountains – snow that millions rely on for their fresh water.
“Our winters are getting sick and we know why,” said Prof Amato Evan, from the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, who carried out the investigation. “It’s climate change; it’s rising temperatures.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46547064
Most water is used for agriculture and business. Growing food in arid and desert regions is a non-sustainable system.
The hubris of people is sickening. California counts “environmental” water as part of their water use. Meaning streams and rivers that are protected and isolated from farm and human use. People think they own everything. With that attitude soon they will not have the use of anything.
“In dry years, the share of water that goes to the environment decreases dramatically as flows diminish in rivers and streams. During this latest drought, the state also reduced water for the environment to reserve some supplies for farms and cities.
They are faced with balancing short-term economic impacts on urban and agricultural water users against long-term harm—even risk of extinction—to fish and wildlife. ”
https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/
So beside a stream or river being in drought condition, the water sucking humans pump even more out of them. Dried dead water life, with increased pollution concentrations.
“When will they ever learn?”
People and corporations both have a trait in common, that being inability to think for the long term. Neither were created with the capability to understand what is in their own self interest for long term survival, which is why they just keep voting against it.
As a devoted eater of locally caught Salmon I am offended by central valley farmers, who grow almonds to sell in China, claiming that the water needed for Salmon spawning is “wasted” on the “environment”.
I drove through the central valley last month. Just about every mile there was a sign extolling the moral superiority of growing food. Ten feet behind the signs were gigantic almond orchards.
Its a choice. Irrigate some of the best damn land on the planet for high yields, or keep more water in the river channel for salmon (which we then pull out to eat by and large), or divert more water to the cities and suburbs for human consumption.
Either way its people controlling the water for their own special priority purpose.
Hey, I have an idea. Lets try less people. All over the world.
Perhaps in time this reverse experiment will be run.
Hey, I have an idea. Lets try less people. All over the world.
Perhaps in time this reverse experiment will be run.
Oh it most definitely will happen and probably sooner rather than later! It is a direct consequence of ecological overshoot, human die off along with the sixth mass biological extinction. Everything that I see happening in all corners of the globe and the science backs it up, points very clearly to this outcome!
Not a matter of “if”, but when.
Its also a question of mechanism and rate. Just how do we achieve a smaller population, and how fast?
Note- I will resist if the theocrats get involved in the process. That really pisses me off.
We have a choice, reduce the population to 2 billion or have it reduced to 2 million. We seem to be choosing the latter and the 1% seem to think they will be that but they cannot see that they will be the ones that get eaten.
NAOM
So they are either people who are allowed to choose short term economics over life on this planet or they are people who have a form of dementia and cannot think past a short time span plus make very poor and harmful decisions.
Why are they still being allowed to stay in their positions? Has no one noticed this? Is this acceptable behavior that is supported by the people. Or are the people no longer involved and never see the man behind the curtain?
Somehow this reminds me of WWII Germany and what happened to those who went along for short term security.
Why are they still being allowed to stay in their positions? Has no one noticed this? Is this acceptable behavior that is supported by the people. Or are the people no longer involved and never see the man behind the curtain?
I have to assume that to be a rethorical question!
To put it another way, why do 1% of the world’s population control over 50% it’s resources and what can the ignorant powerless masses do about it?!
Let me know if you have any ideas on how to right this massive inequality in wealth distribution?
“Let me know if you have any ideas on how to right this massive inequality in wealth distribution?”
Not in a public venue like this.
Not in a public venue like this.
LOL! I suspect we may find that we agree on what really needs to be done…
Cheers!
What really surprises me is how easily humans are placated on this issue. Give them just a little stability of food supply, and they seem ready to accept massive wealth sequestration by the top 0.2%. This is a global phenomena.
In USA, the education system fails miserably at teaching people to think with any sophistication about this issue. I believe a considerable portion is due to a concerted effort by the super wealthy to cloud the issue, such as promoting the campaign labeling people ‘commies’ who express any support for economic justice.
And the other big factor, as I mentioned above, is how easily people are placated.
Get in the boxcar or you might die, (starve, fail, be excluded, be imprisoned, never get a job again, lose your family, lose your job, lose your pension, lose your social security).
The threats are real and the methods on the increase. The people are not placated, they are ruled by fear, a real and tangible set of fears. They all know this deep down inside, yet like the constant threat of nuclear annihilation it is moved to the background and submerged after a while.
Well, you seem to know just everything GF.
All I know is that people sure act placated,
in that they put up with the wealth sequestration as if its no big deal.
You’d think there would atleast be a clamoring for a strict estate tax.
Spend some time on Cheezburger’s Fail Blog and Americana for a real cringe about this.
NAOM
Unsure about that, depending on what you mean, since apparently, ‘Forests precede us and deserts dog our heels.‘. Maybe your notion of growing food is industrial monoculture.
To embellish Jensen’s quote, I also cite permaculture’s (and maybe others’) Desert Greening project or projects. If we can lose forests and get deserts, perhaps we can reverse the processes and/or at least help them along in the right directions, so that, for example, we may grow food in formerly arid regions sustainably.
Another BS article on the impending doom of renewable energy due to the lack of rare earth metals just appeared in Motherboard magazine.
There is so much false crap printed about climate change, renewables and EV that I wonder if the internet and publications will survive much longer. That article said that PV cells use rare earth’s. Maybe in a very small percentage of specialty cells, but generally not at all.
Next of course is wind, but that too is a bloated carcass of a story, almost all fiction.
Many people think rare earths are also a necessary component of wind turbines, but the facts find otherwise: only about two percent of the U.S. wind turbine fleet uses them, and that number shouldn’t change much in the years to come.
EV’s you say? Up until the long range model 3 all other Tesla models used no rare earth in the motors, they used induction motors. The standard model 3 is an induction motor. Just goes to prove that EV’s do not need these materials.
The vast majority use conventional electromagnets made of copper and steel, and companies that have used rare earths in the past are actively working to reduce their levels of use
https://www.aweablog.org/rare-earths-wind-turbines-problem-doesnt-exist/
I could go on but what is the use. The climate deniers and anti-renewable people will eat up the pig swill and keep regurgitating it all over the internet. Too bad too, we have enough real problems to deal with without making up a lot of fake problems that would only exist if we had not changed course already.
But that is the state of civilization, full of lies and BS to serve the needs of the sociopaths.
Urgh! Toyota have ferreted out ferrites that are better magnets than rare earth ones plus there are several other groups that have developed non-rare earth magnets that are better.
NAOM
Yeah, we have no limit to practical renewable (PV, wind) energy. The batteries are getting better too.
I think a key element is in the initial design of an energy using system. Say a house or building that needs heat and cooling. Why use a huge set of PV when one can use passive and thermal collectors and water or other mass storage for the heat. Ice can be stored for the air conditioning and refrigeration.
That ultimate tool of energy conservation, insulation, is not used enough.
Once we get smart enough, we can emulate nature by running our chemical reactions at ambient temperatures or at least low temperatures.
Since 70 percent of the world’s people are poor or nearly so they are not big energy users or consumers. It’s the top 30 percent that use most of the energy.
Wealthier people produce more carbon pollution — even the “green” ones
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/12/1/16718844/green-consumers-climate-change
Arguing for the continuation of BAU– the global industrial crony-capistalist plutocracy– to support the buildout of solar panels, windmills and electric cars at this stage of the game seems ill-advised and irresponsible, speaking of sociopathology.
But maybe some people like to associate themselves with such causes as AGW and the general wrecking of the planet so that they can then railroad their ‘solutions’ for them, their ideas from the fruits of BAU, yes, like solar panels, windmills and electric living-rooms-on-wheels, as well as the continuation, by the way, of ribbons and ribbons of asphalt and assorted/related infrastructure all over the landscapes, and that the tax-coerced public pay for, speaking of sociopathology.
The issues surrounding rare earths– nevertheless, more than many may think– are of course not the only ones surrounding solar panels, windmills and electric cars and similar trinkets.
If you/we are really serious about anthropogenic climate change and the general trashing of the planet, I would respectfully advise that we simply dial down BAU, and with it, fossil-fuel usage.
Naturally, doing so will go against some pseudorenewable/BAU/pseudogovernment narratives, agendas and vested interests.
Trump Interior Secretary Zinke resigns amid ethics probes – “Surrounding himself with former lobbyists, it quickly became clear that Ryan Zinke was a pawn for the oil and gas industry”
http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2018/12/trump-interior-secretary-zinke-resigns.html
“Ryan Zinke will go down as the most anti-conservation Interior secretary in our nation’s history,” said Jennifer Rokala, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities. “Surrounding himself with former lobbyists, it quickly became clear that Ryan Zinke was a pawn for the oil and gas industry. We can expect more of the same from Acting Secretary David Bernhardt, but without the laughable Teddy Roosevelt comparisons.”
How Stone Stacking Wreaks Havoc on National Parks
By Sophie Haigney
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/rabbit-holes/people-are-stacking-too-many-stones
The balancing of stones is an elementary kind of creation, not unlike the building of sand castles. Stone stacks, or cairns, have prehistoric origins. They marked Neolithic burial grounds in what is now Scotland, guided nautical travels in Scandinavia, and served as shrines to the Inca goddess Pachamama in Peru. Contemporary stone stackers, then, are taking up the mantle of an ancient and artistic tradition. In the past decade or so, though, there has been an explosion of cairns around the world—in national parks, in the Scottish Highlands, on the beaches of Aruba. Park rangers, environmentalists, and hikers have all become alarmed, to varying degrees. The movement of so many stones can cause erosion, damage animal ecosystems, disrupt river flow, and confuse hikers, who depend on sanctioned cairns for navigation in places without clear trails.
Inspired by social-media posts, new rock stackers are taking up the hobby, and the piles of stones are proliferating along with the pictures of them. After all, replication is not only a side effect of social media; it’s part of the point. “Rock stacking is a way of quickly making your mark and having an image of it. People are posting pictures of them on Instagram, saying, ‘I’ve been here and I made this,’ ” the head of a small volunteer-run environmental organization called the Blue Planet Society, said.
National parks are caught in the crosshairs of the debate, too. In 2016, a previous post on Zion National Park’s Facebook page about stone stacking got more than twenty-six hundred comments, as people bitterly debated whether small towers of rocks could really be a problem.
In Acadia National Park, volunteers destroyed nearly thirty-five hundred rock stacks, on two mountains alone, in 2016 and 2017. “I would probably equate the rock-stacking phenomenon with the painted-rock phenomenon, in how it’s driven by social media,” Christie Anastasia, the public-affairs specialist at Acadia, said. Painted rocks are a kind of social-media treasure hunt; people leave brightly decorated rocks in parks, with their social-media handles noted on the undersides. The person who finds the rock can then send a message to the person who left it. Acadia park employees have collected hundreds of them during the past year. The painted rocks now sit in a purgatory of bins, while the park staff figures out what to do with them. “We’re still cogitating on it,” Anastasia said. “We thought about throwing them into the ocean, but there might be chemicals in the paint. We’ve thought about throwing them in the fire. We’re still deciding. But they really have no place in a national park.”
Hmmm, let’s ask ourselves what a National Park is for starters. It is a unique or special natural area set aside to protect it and allow the use of it by the public.
So first thing they do is chop roads and trails through it, erect buildings, water, septic facilities, RV and camping areas, parking lots, etc.
Then they invite the public by the millions to drive several billions of miles each year to the facilities (which is further than the 1800 miles of toilet paper the visitors use).
However, the National Park system has been very successful due to increased visitation over the years. They need more parks and more funding.
https://www.denverpost.com/2018/11/21/national-parks-crisis-tourists/
Next they worry about some rocks being piled up by a few of the visitors. Back in the good ole days when America had a brain, they would just hire some extra help to disperse the little rock piles if they were actually a problem.
This however sounds more like a faux problem, common in our society now. Instead of moaning about the problems, why don’t we do what people used to do, deal with the problems and shut their bleeping mouths.
“Perhaps the most memorable image of COP24 meeting was that of 15-year-old Swedish student Greta Thunberg.” Greta who has organised school strikes in Sweden held daily press conferences to drive home her message that platitudes and warm words just aren’t enough anymore. Her message was sharp and succinct: “We cannot solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46582265
Deja vu all over again.
Listen to the Children – Severn Cullis-Suzuki’s famous speech on the environment (1992)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGdS8ts63Ck
Maybe the governments and their scientific organizations have lost the respect of the people, since they know that little was or will be done to actually address the multitude of problems.
Time to stop begging and pleading with them. Time to act strongly.
Peter Wadhams – IPCC Underestimates & Political Cowards
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEM2NhPw–U
Time to stop begging and pleading with them. Time to act strongly.
I’m guessing you don’t want to put forth any concrete proposals, this being a public venue, eh?!
However, speaking of bad actors, what about the entire oil side of this very blog and comments such as this from climate change denialist Fernando Leanme?!
There’s no evidence for a “runaway” temperature increase. But there’s plenty of evidence for a fanatical, repressive, and irrational movement which ties world average temperature to the need to implement communism.
No evidence he says! Tied to communism?! Really now!
Here’s some evidence:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4O4jK-lZrI
The Mathematics of Climate Change
So how do we deal with large numbers of ideologues of his ilk, many of whom have found their way into authoritarian governments the world over. My personal patience with these people, already at an all time low, is now reaching the point where I think taking direct legal action against them is absolutely necessary!
BUT, we have The Wisdom of God and the Wisdom of Man on our side (Romans 11:25-36). Right?
SAUDI ARABIA’S GREAT THIRST
“When intensive modern farming started, there was a staggering 120 cubic miles (500 cubic kilometers) of water beneath the Saudi desert, enough to fill Lake Erie in the U.S. But in recent years, up to 5 cubic miles has been pumped to the surface annually for use on the farms. Virtually none of it is replaced by the rains, because there effectively are none. Based on extraction rates detailed in a 2004 paper from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, the Saudis were on track to use up at least 96 cubic miles of their aquifers by 2008. Experts estimate that four-fifths of the Saudis’ “fossil” water is now gone. That means one of the planet’s greatest and oldest freshwater resources, in one of its hottest and most parched places, has been all but emptied in little more than a generation.”
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshwater/saudi-arabia-water-use/
Crisis, what crisis?
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/dec/16/head-in-the-clouds-climate-change-nalini-nadkarni-costa-rica-monteverde
NAOM
Fernando’s family got their right wing asses kicked by the Cuban Revolution, and escaped to Fascist Spain.
This was obviously a blow that he has not recovered from.
I try compassion, but am trending to your side.
The clock is ticking loudly.
I don’t think Fernando is important. He should just be banned from the blog so that he’ll stop stinking it up with his bogus nonsense.
That said, people in more important positions who spread disinformation like he does SHOULD be sued. And ExxonMobil IS being sued, by the Attorney General of New York.
Exxon Will Use Wind, Solar to Produce Crude Oil in Texas
Reminds me, for some reason, of charging electric vehicles with coal-generated electricity.
Fred, I try not to listen to the sociopaths, the destructively insane and the purposely ignorant greedy among us. I found in years of whitewater kayaking that the best way to deal with rocks is to go around them (a method of ignoring them) and move on toward my goal. Rocks, which interrupt the stream of life and flow of the river, get left behind to eventually be eroded away.
It is tempting to spend time with them, the disruption and challenge presented is entertaining and fun, sometimes deadly with the wrong move at the wrong rock.
Fred, I try not to listen to the sociopaths, the destructively insane and the purposely ignorant greedy among us.
I have tried in the past to do exactly that. Unfortunately it hasn’t seemed to work out too well. They seem to be the ones who somehow manage to end up running, er, ruining things, including the whole planet!
BTW, I kayak mostly in the ocean, not too many rocks where I am so I just get to ride the waves and the surf!
Hang Ten! 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4KQ0RGh0GE
Boofing is fun!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GDViwdB72c
Looks fun indeed! Though if I lose my balance and ever get flipped by a wave in the ocean ( it does happen occasionally) the chances of smashing my head on a rock are pretty slim, which is a good thing, especially since I tend to kayak without a helmet … Not to mention that there are no rivers like that in South Florida 😉
E Fred M,
Odd, that. I think of South Florida as a river, one that has land sticking up here and there. The land is mostly misused.
Ought to give it back to the Burmese pythons. Oh, wait…
Well, you are not too far off the mark! The entire everglades ecosystem is also known as the river of grass. Though very few people observing it would recognize it as a river. Let alone as a place for exciting white water kayaking. ?
Florida keeps being mentioned as a great casualty of impending sea-level rise. There may still be everglades, but they will probably creep north.
I hear that the American midwest was once a shallow inland sea and wonder if it may become one again.
I watched her speech to the conference, a longer TED talk and an interview with Amy Goodman fro Democracy Now. I am impressed that this child was interested in the issue of climate change from the time she learned about it in school at nine years old. It got to the point where she lapsed into a depression about four years ago and would not speak or eat. She has since decided to make the cause of climate action central to her life. She is not the first fifteen year old to address the U.N. on climate change. An earlier youth activist was Xiuhtezcatl Martinez who is now 18 years old but has been an activist for 12 years and also spoke at the U.N. when he was 15:
Xiuhtezcatl, Indigenous Climate Activist at the High-level event on Climate Change
Greta however, has been more strident in her criticism of world leaders as can be seen from the excerpt from her speech below.
“You only speak of a green eternal economic growth because you are too scared of being unpopular. You only talk about moving forward with the same bad ideas that got us into this mess even when the only sensible thing to do is pull the emergency brake. You are not mature enough to tell it like it is. Even that burden you leave to us children but, I don’t care about being popular. I care about climate justice and the Living Planet. Our civilisation is being sacrificed for the opportunity of a very small number of people to continue making enormous amounts of money. Our biosphere is being sacrificed so that rich people in countries like mine can live in luxury. It is the sufferings of the many which pay for the luxuries of the few,”
Her COP speech is one hell of a roast, well worth listening to. I would give a link but people can bloody well get off their butts and Google it for themselves! If she has the nous to get off her butt then others can do the same.
NAOM
The Thunbergs are descendants of Svante Arrhenius, the Nobel-prize-winning scientist who in 1896 first calculated the greenhouse effect caused by carbon dioxide emissions. Thunberg’s father was named after him, and said much of Arrhenius’s work has stood the test of time, but not everything. “He thought we’d be [at today’s levels of warming] in 2,000 years’ time,” said Svante Thunberg.
SNOW OVER ANTARCTICA BUFFERED SEA LEVEL RISE DURING LAST CENTURY
“An increase in snowfall accumulation over Antarctica during the 20th century mitigated sea level rise by 0.4 inches. However, Antarctica’s additional ice mass gained from snowfall makes up for just about a third of its current ice loss.”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/12/181213141527.htm
Perhaps we’re simply catching up with the dolphins?
REVEALING HIDDEN INFORMATION IN SOUND WAVES
With the recorded sound translated into frequencies, Dowling puts his technique to use. He mathematically combines any two frequencies within the signal’s recorded frequency range, to reveal information outside that range at a new, third frequency that is the sum or difference of the two input frequencies. “This information at the third frequency is something that we haven’t traditionally had before,”
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-11-revealing-hidden.html#jCp
“Now, imagine yourself in the same room when a smoke alarm goes off. That annoying screech is generated by sound waves at higher frequencies, and in the midst of them, it would be difficult for you to locate the source of the screech without opening your eyes for additional sensory information. The higher frequency of the smoke alarm sound creates directional confusion for the human ear.
Nearly got pegged by an ambulance, a few days ago. I could hear it but not locate it – until it emerged from the side road to my right. Just managed to stop in time!
NAOM
Around here the ambulance that approaches a stop sign at an intersection is supposed to slow and make sure the way is clear before proceeding across the intersection. Intersections with stop lights have special detectors that change the other route light to red upon an ambulance approaching the intersection (they get the green).
No bursting through uncontrolled intersections, too dangerous.
Mexican drivers seem to stop when the driver is level with the road, so they can look for a space to cut into, which leaves a good part of the front sticking into the paths of cyclists.
NAOM
Perhaps we’re simply catching up with the dolphins?
Methinks we have a rather long way to go!
Cheers!
Fred, you’re preaching to the choir. 😉
I know! 😉
But in other great news, I saw two Monarch butterflies while riding my bike to the beach today. And to top that, an unknown bug literally flew right into my mouth! I’m happy to say I was able to spit it out and it seemed none the worse for the wear.
BTW, the Monarchs were visiting milkweed flowers planted in someone’s front yard! Amazing!
Milkweed– at least a particular kind that grows up here in certain parts of Canada– is edible– the pods and, if recalled, the flowers or at least their buds. (I may have had both.) Also, their seed fluff is good for insulation and boyancy, such as for clothing and life-preservers.
A little dose of optimism for your Sunday evening reading pleasure (Monday morning for people west of the international date line and east of the prime meridian (0° longitude) ):
Renewables to account for 38% of Germany’s 2018 gross electricity consumption
Renewable energy is on track to comprise 38% of Germany’s gross electricity consumption in 2018 – a 2% increase on 2017. January, April and May were particularly strong for renewables, comprising up to 43% of generation during these months.
These are the results of a new report presented by German research institute ZSW (Zentrum für Sonnenenergie- und Wasserstoff-Forschung Baden-Württemberg) and industry association for water and energy economy BDEW (Bundesverband der Energie- und Wasserwirtschaft). In it, they find that by the end of 2018, total consumption of renewable energy could reach 229 billion kWh.
Some caution combined with a mild dose of optimism:
Solar Tariffs Hold Back Q3 Installations, Scramble Project Timelines As Procurement Pipeline Booms
BOSTON, Mass. and WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Section 201 solar tariffs took a toll on utility-scale solar installations in the third quarter according to the U.S. Solar Market Insight Report for Q3 from Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA). The residential market, meanwhile, continued to stabilize after a down 2017. Overall, the analysts expect 2018 growth to be flat.
For the first time since 2015, quarterly additions of utility-scale solar photovoltaics (PV) fell below 1 gigawatt (GW), highlighting the impact of the tariffs and the uncertainty surrounding them in late 2017 and early 2018. As a result, the U.S. solar market was down 15 percent year-over-year in the third quarter of the year, but the report notes that a strong project pipeline lies ahead.
“Developers originally planning to bring projects online in Q3 2018 were forced to push out completion dates to Q4 2018 or Q1 2019 due to uncertainty around tariffs,” said Colin Smith, Senior Analyst at Wood Mackenzie. “We did, however, see utility PV procurement outpace installations fourfold in Q3, showing that despite the tariffs causing project delays, there is substantial growth ahead for the U.S. utility PV sector.”
Even with the tariffs, the report forecasts 3.5 GW of utility PV for Q4 2018, and projects that the fourth quarter will be the largest quarter for utility PV installations since Q4 2016, as Wood Mackenzie expects many of the delayed projects to come online by the end of the year.
Kurt Vonnegut once wrote, “Labor history in the US is treated like pornography.”
Renowned climate scientist Kevin Anderson tweeted: “On climate change, Greta Thunberg demonstrates more clarity & leadership in one speech than a quarter of a century of the combined contributions of so-called world leaders. Willful ignorance & lies have overseen a 65 percent rise in CO2 since 1990. Time to hand over the baton.”
BTW KEVIN ANDERSON is the Deputy Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research; holds a joint chair in Energy and Climate Change at the School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering at the University of Manchester and School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia; and is an honorary lecturer in Environmental Management at the Manchester Business School. He is an adviser to the British Government (as of 2009) on climate change.
Sounds like one of those dang liberal socialists! ?
And the warnings keep coming but is anyone listening?!
Mass Extinction
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/great-dying-mass-extinction-permian-scientists-action-climate-change-science-curtis-deutsch-justin-a8686306.html?amp
The scientists who revealed what caused the “greatest crisis in the history of life of Earth”, have called for immediate action to halt the further warming of the planet through human caused climate change.
Oceanographers based in Seattle said the largest mass extinction in the planet’s history – what has been termed the “great dying” – was caused by extreme global warming that saw ocean temperatures rise by as much as 10C around 252m years ago.
But don’t worry folks, climate change is just a hoax so climate scientists can get rich…
“China – the place where most of the jobs went and where most of the stuff we consume is made – already consumes half of the world’s coal, copper, steel, nickel and aluminium. It also consumes nearly two-thirds of the world’s concrete. To grow at just 3.5 percent would require that China consume all of the world’s reserves of those resources by 2038 – at which point it would also be consuming a quarter of the world’s oil and uranium and half of the world’s grain harvest. The impossibility of this is what people mean when they use the word “unsustainable” to describe our situation.”
http://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2018/12/11/climbing-everest-in-high-heels/
Why pick just on China?! Our entire global civilization is unsustainable! And who exactly is this ‘WE’ you speak of? Last I checked every single government, business, corporation and economy is hell bent on growth.
https://www.footprintnetwork.org/our-work/earth-overshoot-day/
We busted Earth’s budget!
In 2018, Earth Overshoot Day lands on August 1. Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity has exhausted nature’s budget for the year. For the rest of the year, we are maintaining our ecological deficit by drawing down local resource stocks and accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We are operating in overshoot.
https://www.footprintnetwork.org/resources/data/
Ecological Deficits and Reserves
Today, more than 80 percent of the world’s population lives in countries that are running ecological deficits, using more resources than what their ecosystems can renew. Is your country operating in the red?
The only question I have, is what are ‘WE’ going to do about it. At least China is consciously planning on changing their system, Do you know of any other government that is even aware of the problem and implementing change?
To be fair I don’t think what China is doing is enough nor will it be in time!
Cheers!
I think he was using it as an example. His writing, from what I have seen, generally doesn’t spare anyone. I didn’t know you had such a hard-on for China. Perhaps you should write a blog that emulates them. Next time I’ll check if it’s ok with you before I post a link that references China, and perhaps then we’ll be spared your histrionics.
I didn’t know you had such a hard-on for China. Perhaps you should write a blog that emulates them
Fer criminies sake lighten up! I don’t have any special predilection for China one way or another. As I said no one is sustainable at the moment! And try not to spin everything I say as a personal attack on you. When I wrote: “Why pick on just China…” I was trying to say that they are far from the only ones who are unsuntainable, wouldn’t you agree that that is the case?!
Sheesh!
China may have reached peak cement while others are growing
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46455844
NAOM
I’ll add BioMason to my usual list of not-commercialized carbon-free concrete alternatives (along with Novacem and Ferrock).
Week beginning on December 9, 2018: 409.40 ppm
Weekly value from 1 year ago: 406.28 ppm
Weekly value from 10 years ago: 385.39 ppm
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/weekly.html
Year over year up 3.12
Ten year average 2.401 per year increase.
A CO2 monitor sitting directly on top of a volcano should not be used for a world wide measure of CO2. Yet they have decided to make a volcanic cite the center for all the official CO2 numbers.
You honestly think that hasn’t been thought of and data validated accordingly?
Another village somewhere is searching for its idiot!
Nah, they don’t want that one back.
…a volcanic cite
Why not? He can actually cite a volcano! That alone must make him pretty darn special, no?!
Can you imagine what he can do when Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull publishes its next peer reviewed paper in the Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research?! He will become the world’s most renown village idiot!
ROFL
Eastcoast Chuck- It is a good question. but you are not the first to consider it.
NOAA takes this into account, as explained in this short article.
Summary- not a problem for the data collection.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/climateqa/mauna-loa-co2-record/
As you can clearly see on the following chart, the trend in CO2 is as crystal clear as it gets since 1960 data collection started-
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/full.html
Eastcoast Chuck,
Mauna Loa is not the only station monitoring CO2 levels in the atmosphere. There are many, in both North and South hemispheres including at the South Pole.
Mainstream Media Propaganda & Public Thought Control
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwx4QzEAKKw
Yeah, there’s a reason I haven’t owned or watched any TV for about the last 15 years. And I got the hell off Facebook about the begining of 2015… And while I’m sure I’m being tracked and manipulated while accessing information on the internet I think I have a bit more freedom to choose content that interests me. At least I have yet to see any form of targeted advertising trying to sell me ‘GREEN’ products when I watch, say, a scientific lecture on ocean acidification… Of course someone somewhere is sure to have added my name to their database for doing so!
Cheers!
Well, I/we must be even more deprived/depraved than you Fred. My parents decided I’d do better in school without a distracting TV in the house then wife and I went along with the idea; net result being, there’s never been a TV in our house. So, our kids wasted all their spare time learning foreign languages, playing musical instruments, reading, etc. Can you imagine all the money we would have saved by avoiding books, buying violins, on sports, etc. and just sticking the kids in front of a TV set?
Yeah, spending money on books, violins and sports?! Hard to imagine anything more depraved than that, except for learning languages…?
This slaps a lot of internet rubbish
http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm
NAOM
Hmm, just checked my Win version. I have a brand new HP laptop and I have Windows version 1803 (OS build 17134.471) I haven’t tried to implement Keith’s workaround yet but I have a hunch I will have to jump through a few hoops to do it. Thanks! MS.
There are reasons I use Linux
Good listening.
Lets also acknowledge that all sources tend to use these techniques, even our relatives, in order to manipulate our thoughts and opinions. Certainly ‘non’-mainstream sources do it as best they can as well.
Last week I heard 3 people claim that both Trump and Pence would be impeached and indited, and that within the year we would have speaker of the house Pelosi be sworn in as president.
By the time the third person parroted this line I really got to wondering which ‘non’-mainstream source they got it from. My guess is the radio program ‘Democracy Now’
Call me a skeptic. I would be honored.
I noticed all the comments were pro Trump, anti Democrats. As if Fox etc. weren’t the worst of the bunch.
Besides, having a bunch of NBC affiliates blather the same lines about birthdays is not the same as trying to brainwash someone to believe that Trump, Pelosi or Putin is an ideal leader.
Looks like we are going to see shallow water wind energy being deployed off the coast of Massachusetts pretty soon.
You don’t spend $405 M for an acreage lease just to look fancy.
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/record-breaking-405m-offshore-wind-us-leasing-auction-shows-bullish-inte/544465/
WIDESPREAD DECREASE IN WIND ENERGY RESOURCES FOUND OVER THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE
“Wind energy is a natural resource characterized by instability. Previous studies mainly focus on the assessment of wind energy reserves, but it’s not clear how wind energy evolves over time.”
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-12-widespread-decrease-energy-resources-northern.html#jCp
It would be interesting to see the actual energy generation data from specific turbines that have been in place for a long time.
November 2018 Global Temperature Update
http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/
Should a self-driving car kill the baby or the grandma? Depends on where you’re from.
by Karen Hao
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612341/a-global-ethics-study-aims-to-help-ai-solve-the-self-driving-trolley-problem/
In 2014 researchers at the MIT Media Lab designed an experiment called Moral Machine. The idea was to create a game-like platform that would crowdsource people’s decisions on how self-driving cars should prioritize lives in different variations of the “trolley problem.” In the process, the data generated would provide insight into the collective ethical priorities of different cultures.
The researchers never predicted the experiment’s viral reception. Four years after the platform went live, millions of people in 233 countries and territories have logged 40 million decisions, making it one of the largest studies ever done on global moral preferences.
A new paper published in Nature presents the analysis of that data and reveals how much cross-cultural ethics diverge on the basis of culture, economics, and geographic location.
The Moral Machine took that idea to test nine different comparisons shown to polarize people: should a self-driving car prioritize humans over pets, passengers over pedestrians, more lives over fewer, women over men, young over old, fit over sickly, higher social status over lower, law-abiders over law-benders? And finally, should the car swerve (take action) or stay on course (inaction)?
Imagine if the self driving AI becomes conscious, then realizes there are too many humans, then becomes depressed and suicidal and decides to slam itself into a wall killing all its passengers including the baby and the grandma…
Given the statistics for fatalities caused by human drivers I find the premise behind this article rather stupid and pointless! And no, I don’t expect AI driving algorithms to become conscious anytime soon, certainly not in time to avoid humans causing all life on the planet to go extinct!
As Greta Thunberg said in her Ted talk, focusing on learning facts in school at this juncture is pretty much pointless…
Cheers!
“Imagine if the self driving AI becomes conscious, then realizes there are too many humans, then becomes depressed and suicidal and decides to slam itself into a wall killing all its passengers including the baby and the grandma… ” LOL, probably just would refuse to leave the garage and would turn off it’s download systems.
On another note, cars are becoming extremely complex. The Chevy Volt has about 10 million lines of code. Typical ICE cars have 25 to 60 CPUs. Now with the addition of autonomous features we are looking at an extremely complex and high speed system layered on top of the standard car with all the mechanical control systems linked to it.
For comparison, a study done in 2015 showed the typical global climate model had less than (sometimes far less than) one million lines of code.
A mechanic I talked to said it is much more difficult to diagnose hybrid and EV problems than with the ICE. Maybe the diagnostics or training has not caught up with the changes and new complexity. Maybe we will experience black box syndrome.
In one interview Stephen Colbert said he was not afraid of AI taking over, he was more worried about it not taking over.
It’s at 8 min on the video
Neil DeGrasse Tyson Interviews Stephen Colbert (Neil learns a few things)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FktrNFjZfKg
Considering the human track record, he has a valid point. 🙁
We’re getting a lot of roll over accidents here in places and conditions where they just should not happen. I suspect a case of serious mobilephoneitis with complications due to textfingeritis.
NAOM
Fred —
DOLPHINS DISCOVERED ‘TIMESHARING’ THE SEA FOR THE FIRST TIME
“A 9-year study has uncovered some unusual behavior by common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) living off the coast of Slovenia. Within one population of this species, the animals have divided into two groups that avoid contact by hunting at different times of day—a social strategy not known in marine mammals.”
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/12/dolphins-discovered-timesharing-sea-first-time
As I noted the other day, it seems we humans have more than a little catching up to do… 😉
Attention all armchair astronomy buffs:
NEW HORIZONS SPACECRAFT TAKES THE INSIDE COURSE TO ULTIMA THULE
“Our team feels like we have been riding along with the spacecraft, as if we were mariners perched on the crow’s nest of a ship, looking out for dangers ahead,” said hazards team lead Mark Showalter, of the SETI Institute. “The team was in complete consensus that the spacecraft should remain on the closer trajectory, and mission leadership adopted our recommendation.”
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-12-horizons-spacecraft-ultima-thule.html#jCp
Greta (Thunberg), we need you more than ever; and, don’t forget your battle axe:
WE FINALLY HAVE THE RULEBOOK FOR THE PARIS AGREEMENT, BUT GLOBAL CLIMATE ACTION IS STILL INADEQUATE
The Paris Rulebook, agreed at the UN climate summit in Katowice, Poland, gives countries a common framework for reporting and reviewing progress towards their climate targets. Yet the new rules fall short in one crucial area. While the world will now be able to see how much we are lagging behind on the necessary climate action, the rulebook offers little to compel countries to up their game to the level required. The national pledges adopted in Paris are still woefully inadequate to meet the 1.5℃ or 2℃ global warming goals of the Paris Agreement. In the run-up to the Katowice talks, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a special report detailing the urgent need to accelerate climate policy. Yet the summit ran into trouble in its efforts to formally welcome the report, with delegates eventually agreeing to welcome its “timely completion”.
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-12-rulebook-paris-agreement-global-climate.html#jCp
Greta (Thunberg), we need you more than ever; and, don’t forget your battle axe:
Indeed!
.
Daqo relentlessly increases polysilicon output
In an ominous message for European rivals such as Germany’s Wacker Chemie, Daqo CEO Longgen Zhang said: “Our teams will continue to optimize Phase 3B’s operational efficiency, which will enhance our competitive advantage in cost structure and quality.”
Poly output set to double
Far from being an idle boast, Mr. Longgen predicted further price falls when a “de-bottlenecking” exercise associated with the latest production expansion drives up output to 35,000 MT by the end of June.
And some six to nine months further out, Daqo is hoping to have Phase 4A of its facilities online, doubling its polysilicon output to 70,000 MT.
Daqo is gambling on the oft-seen Chinese corporate strategy of blowing competitors out of the water by cornering a huge slice of the market at wafer thin margins as world demand for PV rebounds.
Bearing in mind the above, does anyone care to hazard a guess as to why the IEA in their 2018 WEO, thinks that worldwide annual PV capacity additions are going to trend downward gradually until 2035, at which point the IEA expects them to start trending upward gradually, as show in the graphic below?
It defies logic to me, since a doubling of raw material production would imply a doubling of final product (PV modules) shorty thereafter! Following that logic, we should see a significant increase in annual PV capacity additions going into 2020 and beyond.
In support of the last paragraph of my post above:
2019 PV installations to hit 123 GW, global balance shifting, says IHS Markit
Earlier today, we published IHS Markit’s findings and predictions for the energy storage inverter market. It has now released a short research note today, laying bare its key predictions for the 2019 global solar PV industry.
Overall, it sees new capacity additions growing 18% on 2018 to reach 123 GW next year, which is more positive than PV InfoLink’s recent estimates that the market will see 112 GW added.
While China currently comprises around half of the global market, its dominance is set to diminish, says Edurne Zoco, research director, solar and energy storage, with predictions that two thirds of new capacity will be located outwith its borders.
Instead, she sees either the revival or emergence of several other markets. These comprise Argentina, Egypt, South Africa, Spain and Vietnam, which are set to account for 7% of the 2019 market, or 7 GW of new capacity.
“PV is becoming more distributed geographically, with annual PV installations growing by more than 20 percent in 45 country markets,” she writes.
In the United States, which is currently the second largest solar PV market, Zoco says that installations will grow an impressive 28% next year, as developers scramble to roll out project pipelines in time for the 30% investment tax credit deadline next December.
I will continue to post stories that support a hunch I have, that the potential future CO2 emissions are being grossly overestimated because, most of the mainstream, conventional, forecasting agencies (IEA, EIA, BP etc.) are grossly underestimating future growth in renewables.
New York Gov. Cuomo pledges 100% carbon-free electricity by 2040
Dive Insight:
Cuomo’s announcement adds to a growing number of state and city initiatives aimed at reducing carbon emissions, a response, in part, to federal inaction on climate change. As state leaders begin to tackle global warming on their own terms, many credit the groundwork that has already been laid in their state.
Last week, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, D, committed his state to 100% clean energy by 2045, saying the goal was only possible “because we have done smart things up until now,” including adopting a renewable portfolio standard, ramping up wind energy and adopting green transportation policies.
In Illinois, Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker, D, has called for his state to reach 100% renewables generation by 2050. The state generates over half its energy from nuclear power but has been ramping up its solar portfolio as it looks toward a pure renewables goal.
New York, for its part, set its CES goals in August 2016, which “laid the groundwork to create enough renewable energy to meet half of the state’s electricity needs by 2030,” James Denn, public information officer for the New York PSC, told Utility Dive in an email. Along with its recent storage goals, New York recently issued an 800 MW offshore wind solicitation, part of Cuomo’s goal to develop 2,400 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
SCARY STATISTIC: 90.5 PERCENT OF PLASTIC IS NOT RECYCLED
The world’s burgeoning plastic waste crisis has won the attention of Britain’s Royal Statistical Society, which chose 90.5 percent—the proportion of plastic waste that has never been recycled—as its international statistic of the year.
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-12-scary-statistic-percent-plastic-recycled.html#jCp
Hot time in the US of A
WEATHER 2050
Winters and summers will be warmer in every city by 2050. Type in other cities to see for yourself:
https://www.vox.com/a/weather-climate-change-us-cities-global-warming
That doesn’t account for how the weather was different also in 1950, 1900, 1850 and so on and so forth. Hasn’t stopped people from moving here to the Phoenix area like crazy.
Hi Bruce, if you are looking for historical weather records for cities they are available on the internet.
This is about climate change and predicted temperatures into the future.
Where they sit in their air conditioned living rooms and watch TV all day. The area was considered to hot to inhabit before air conditioning became widespread.
Insect Armageddon
An insect Armageddon is under way, say many entomologists, the result of a multiple whammy of environmental impacts: pollution, habitat changes, overuse of pesticides, and global warming. And it is a decline that could have crucial consequences. Our creepy crawlies may have unsettling looks but they lie at the foot of a wildlife food chain that makes them vitally important to the makeup and nature of the countryside. They are “the little things that run the world” according to the distinguished Harvard biologist Edward O Wilson, who once observed: “If all humankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed 10,000 years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/17/where-have-insects-gone-climate-change-population-decline
While we waste a lot of time worrying about the third floor(energy, economy, politics), the basement is crumbling away.
Meanwhile, in other ecosystems…
On thin ice: Disappearing zooplankton could collapse Arctic food chain
Read more: https://www.upi.com/On-thin-ice-Disappearing-zooplankton-could-collapse-Arctic-food-chain/9021490883438/#ixzz5a8zUKYQM
Phytoplankton Population Drops 40 Percent Since 1950
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/phytoplankton-population/
So what was that you were you saying about worrying about the third floor(energy, economy, politics)?!
The oil furnace in the basement has exploded and a raging 4 alarm fire is burning its way up into the building… has anyone considered it might be time to call the fire department?! Other than an autistic Swedish teenage girl, that is!
Note to trolls and science deniers: if you haven’t yet taken that applied mathematics course in Chaos Theory, time is quickly running out!
Cheers!
Meanwhile,
DISCOVERY OF RECENT ANTARCTIC ICE SHEET COLLAPSE RAISES FEARS OF A NEW GLOBAL FLOOD
“Some 125,000 years ago, during the last brief warm period between ice ages, Earth was awash. Temperatures during this time, called the Eemian, were barely higher than in today’s greenhouse-warmed world. Yet proxy records show sea levels were 6 to 9 meters higher than they are today, drowning huge swaths of what is now dry land.”
More certainty is on the way. Next month, the International Ocean Discovery Program’s JOIDES Resolution research ship will begin a 3-month voyage to drill at least five marine cores off West Antarctica. “That’s going to be a great test,” Carlson says. Meanwhile, he hopes to get his own study published in time to be included in the next United Nations climate report. In the 2001 and 2007 reports, West Antarctic collapse was not even considered in estimates of future sea level; only in 2013 did authors start to talk about an Antarctic surprise, he says. Research is due by December 2019. “We gotta beat that deadline.”
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/12/discovery-recent-antarctic-ice-sheet-collapse-raises-fears-new-global-flood
Doug,
You might find this documentary interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKm0eRfFFfo
The Underwater Forest, a new documentary by Ben Raines produced by This is Alabama, details the discovery and exploration of an ancient cypress forest found sixty feet underwater in the Gulf of Mexico, due south of Gulf Shores, Alabama. The forest dates to an ice age more than 60,000 years ago, when sea levels were about 400 feet lower than they are today.
Fred,
Yeah, as EVERY first-year Earth Science student knows, sea level has been like a yo-yo. Unfortunately, most humans, who should know better, tend to think on rather short time scales; paycheck-to-paycheck for many, the next financial quarter for business types, and four years max for our politicians. But, for geo-types, it was like yesterday when you could stroll from Europe to the UK and not get your feet wet. Would it help if all High School students were requited to study something equivalent to Geology 101 — no math required?
I’d be happy if they were just taught to grasp geologic and biological time scales. Though perhaps a tiny bit of math would be helpful for that!
.
E Fred M,
An ice age more than 60 000 years ago? That’s part way through the most recent one and long before its maximum, and five times too short for the age of the previous glacial. ‘Dobe wall whoever wrote that.
E Synapsid,
Dunno! You might want to take it up with these folk!
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4369196-DeLong-Paper.html
Facies Reconstruction of a Late Pleistocene Cypress Forest
Discovered on the Northern Gulf of Mexico Continental Shelf
Suyapa Gonzalez1, Samuel J. Bentley, Sr.1, Kristine L. DeLong3, Kehui Xu2, Jeffrey Obelcz2,
Jonathan Truong1, Grant L. Harley4, Carl A. Reese4, and Alicia Caporaso5
ABSTRACT
A previously buried bald cypress forest (Taxodium distichum) was discovered on the continental shelf seafloor, offshore of Orange Beach, Alabama, USA, in ~20 m water
depth. The forest was likely buried in the late Pleistocene, possibly exhumed by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and is now exposed as stumps in life position. In August 2015 and
July 2016, submersible vibracores and geophysical data were collected to investigate local stratigraphy and mode of forest preservation. This study focuses on analysis of the longest and most stratigraphically complete vibracore, DF–1 (4.78 m). This core revealed, from top to bottom, a surface of Holocene transgressive sands, underlain by interbedded sand and mud (potentially Holocene or Pleistocene), overlying a swamp or
delta plain facies (likely Pleistocene) containing woody debris and mud that has been provisionally dated using radiocarbon to ca. 41–45 ka. One core collected in 2016 revealed a Pleistocene paleosol beneath Holocene sands in a nearby trough.
We hypothesize that floodplain aggradation in the area was a key factor that might have allowed forest preservation. A sea-level rise pulse of 10–15 m occurred ca. 40 ka that could have produced widespread floodplain aggradation, likely burying the swamp and forest sediments. During the subsequent glacial lowstand, sediments that comprise the floodplain were eroded and paleosols were formed in other nearby areas. It is hypothesized that some swamp sediments located in paleo-topographic lows might have been preserved and buried due to the deep coverage of the eastern-trending channel infill sediments. Coastal wave erosion during transgression likely eroded high ground but enough sediment remained to keep the cypress forest blanketed and therefore allowed preservation of stumps and woody debris.
Bold mine.
Also:
GEOLOGIC SETTING
The Gulf of Mexico during the Holocene Sea level rose rapidly from the Last Glacial Maximum, when global sea levels were as much as 125 m lower than present, to present late Holocene levels, decelerating around 6000 yr ago (Fig. 4). The Last Glacial Maximum was encompassed by Marine Isotope State (MIS) 2 (29–14 ka), followed by MIS 1 (14–0 ka) (Lisiecki and
Raymo, 2005). The Holocene slowdown in rate of sea level rise during this time period allowed for the development of coastal land forms in the area. Since that time, shoreline position has been stable (Donoghue, 2011). The trees (Taxodium distichum), which produced stumps preserved in the study area, generally grow between 0–30 m above sea level in flood plain and riparian environments in the humid subtropics (Little, 1971). Based on this observation, approximate time frames can be identified when the forest may have grown, by studying the sea-level curves like the one in Figure 4. The depth range of 18–20 m intersects sea level near times of ~10,000 ka, 110,000 ka, and 125,000 ka. Therefore, the time between about 10,000 ka and about 110,000 ka thus represents a possible time interval during which this forest may have grown.
E FM,
See? Makes my point.
“The forest dates to an ice age more than 60 000 years ago, when sea level was more than 400 feet lower than it is today.” None of that is in the abstract.
The Geological Setting part says “…the time between about 10 000 ka and about 110 000 ka thus represents a possible time interval during which this forest may have grown.” Even that part contains an error: 10 000 years ago is 10 ka not 10 000 ka, likewise for 110 000 ka. The reasoning there is OK though. Compare that with the link: “…dates to an ice age more than 60 000 years ago, when sea level was 400 feet lower than it is today.” 60 000 years ago was during the early part of the last ice age, the Wisconsinan (we call it the Wisconsin); an ice age more than 60 000 years ago would have been the one that ended about 130 000 years ago (we call that one the Illinoian).
Come to think of it, an adobe wall’s too good for them.
(too early for Port, mutter mutter)
Yes, I see your point. The typos are bad!
10 ka vs 10,000 ka… etc.
However the fact that this submerged forest exists and has been dated to about 45,000 years in age is still a testament that sea levels have fluctuated widely due to climate change and that such fluctuations had to have happened in relatively short time frames. Which does not bode well for coastal cities such as Miami and NYC!
For lack of port I will open a nice Malbec later!
Lack of port = submerged
E Fred,
I have hinted gently that setting up one’s abode in a water-soluble state in a hurricane track is not perhaps the top choice one could make.
Now, it is widely accepted that geology is the Queen of the Sciences, and that Quaternary Geology is the crown she proudly bears, and all know that the Quaternary is the time of the ice ages. Lots of ice on the continents means less water in the oceans and, as you say, that means sea level goes up and down because ice sheets grow and shrink. In fact if one looks up Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles, and how fast they can occur, Malbec, wise choice as it is in so many situations, might be set aside for something stronger. Now, I’m not pushing Port here, not at all…but Brandy does come to mind.
Yeah, I’d say we have <50% chance of survival at this point. Only thing to do is to STOP BURNING FOSSILS. We can also try to such CO2 out of the air, switch to carbon-negative concrete, etc. But the key is, if you're burning fossils in ANY WAY, you need to STOP IT RIGHT NOW.
Drive a gas car? STOP. Find a way to quit it. Get an electric car, an electric motorcyle, a bicycle, walk, move where you can walk.
Heat your house with oil, coal, or natgas, or propane? STOP. Replace it with something else. (Best choice is a lot of insulation and an electric heat pump.) Can't afford that? Move to a smaller house where you can afford it.
Buy fossil fueled electricity? STOP. Pay for renewable electricity if that's allowed in your state; put up solar panels; get a home battery; reduce your usage so that the solar + battery covers everything; if you can't afford that, try to move to an apartment building where the landlord is doing it…
Don't have any money to do any of this stuff? CAMPAIGN. Get attention, like Greta. Talk to every local government meeting there is. Leaflet. Do what you can.
Humanity depends on stopping fossil fuel burning ASAP.
Don’t have any money to do any of this stuff? CAMPAIGN. Get attention, like Greta. Talk to every local government meeting there is.
I’d reverse that. Maybe the personal stuff is essential for credibility, and for personal satisfaction. But…it’s the governmental regulation that is far more powerful, far faster, and has about 1000 times as much Return on Time Invested.
If 55% of the population stopped using personal FF, you’d maybe reduce FF by 45%. If 55% of the population demanded government regulation (carbon taxes, efficiency, etc) you’d get to 100%.
Couple of interesting articles
https://gnseconomics.com/en_US/2018/12/18/q-review-4-2018-the-path-to-the-global-depression/
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/brexit-stage-one-in-europes-slow-burn-energy-collapse-1f520d7e2d89
Very interesting articles thanks for sharing. It will be interesting how they play out next 5 years or so.
Fred,
GROUPS OF PILOT WHALES HAVE THEIR OWN DIALECTS
“In humans, different social groups, cities, or regions often have distinct accents and dialects. Those vocal traits are not unique to us, however. A new study from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has found that short-finned pilot whales living off the coast of Hawai’i have their own sorts of vocal dialects, a discovery that may help researchers understand the whales’ complex social structure.”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/12/181219115507.htm
“These groups of pilot whales all use the same habitat. The fact that they have different vocal repertoires means that they’re purposely not associating with each other,” says Amy Van Cise, a Postdoctoral Scholar at WHOI and lead author on the study. “It’s sort of like if you’ve got hipsters and prep kids in the same high school — each group has different slang. They identify themselves with certain speech to maintain that separation.”
Geez! Next thing you know they will form aquatic nation states and require passports from other pilot whales… 😉
For Fred
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/12/19/suunto_scuba_screwup/
NAOM
. As a result, all serious divers buy a diving computer. They cost several hundred dollars, are about the size of your palm, and provide constantly updated figures for critical diving measurements. They are a life-or-death piece of kit.
Imagine that. When I was doing saturation diving on oil rigs back in the day all of our decompressions were calculated manually using dive tables.
Not to mention that as a sport diving instructor I used to teach repetitive dive calculations using dive tables. I don’t think I had a dive computer till the mid 90s.
Even when I finally did I remember spending a lot of time learning about the algorithms of different brands and knowing what I knew about computers not being all that impressed… I always did manual calculations as a backup. Mostly because no computer could know what I knew about myself and specific diving conditions creating added physiological stressors such as me being tired and cold due to strong currents and cold temps. So I would always build in my own extra safety margins for deco…
Cheers!
Edit: And I always made a point of thanking Haldane’s goats for their contribution ?
Tables, depth gauge, manometer as primary, dive computer for backup, nitrox for last dive on a busy week. Used to plan dives to use sightseeing as deco. Down to a shallow ledge first, for equipment check, then down the canyon for corals and eels. Next up to the edge, then shallower and shallower until poking around at 15′. Finally spooking the swimming touristas, come up from behind and tweak their fins, watch them walk on water back to the boat ‘There’s a shark, he tried to bite me!!!’ Alternatively, get under them and let out a big blast of air from 15′.
NAOM
Tables, depth gauge, manometer as primary
Let me guess, those were in meters and bar, right?! 😉
IMHO. Diving is the best case ever for switching from imperial to metric.
I never had to think too hard to know how many liters of air my dual 10L steels filled to 200 bar would provide me! Or what my average air consumption was at 20 m. or at 3 atm…
http://www.nerdycatscubatravels.com/scuba/scuba-diving-with-the-imperial-system-versus-the-metric-system%EF%BB%BF/
Nah, feet and PSI, we are under the influence of Gringostan here. Did use Bar for a few dives in the UK.
NAOM
This is inconceivable, given what we know; sort of a human suicide pact in action. Pity the children.
CONTROVERSIAL COAL MINE SET TO BREAK GROUND
“Indian billionaire Gautam Adani’s Carmichael [coal prospect] is located in Australia’s huge Galilee Basin, which covers around 250,000 square kilometers — about the size of the U.K. If the region is fully developed, it has potential to more than double Australia’s thermal coal exports.”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/world-apos-most-controversial-coal-130000038.html
Perhaps its time to authorize military airstrikes on such operations! And people like Gautam Adani should be held accountable for crimes against humanity! He should be tried, condemned and executed if found guilty! As should all members of the Australian government who allow this coal mine to be developed! In my opinion these people’s crimes are worse than Adolf Hitler’s because they are not only directly responsible for millions of human deaths across the globe but are also destroying the ecosystems and planetary support systems on which all life on this planet depends! This can not be allowed!
The only hope is that renewables will make coal uneconomic more quickly than this idiotic project can be developed!
You sound like one of those nutty “valve turners”. Are you one?
No I don’t turn any valves but I am getting more pissed off by day! Especially when it comes to putting up with trolls like you!
So are you a Trump supporter or just a Koch brother’s minion?! Either way, if you support projects such as Adani’s you should probably be locked up too!
Cheers!
I support projects that provide good paying jobs and grow local economies.
How do you feel about projects that create massive air and water pollution?
A good libertarian would object to somebody stealing from their neighbor, by polluting their property.
You’d agree, right?
A libertarian model of justice (fairness) would suggest that one who pollutes the air then has to compensate those who breath it.
Most folks in USA only know of a right wing version of libertarianism. Libertarianism can occupy both the left and right wing of the political spectrum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-libertarianism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-libertarianism
Nozick seems to be the leading Right Wing libertarian theologian, and he’s not very hard to pull apart.
Right-Libertarians are just anarchists with training wheels- “anarchy, but not on my lawn’. Most of them wouldn’t survive two weeks of it.
Ask Stim
https://youtu.be/pL3kKUNuq4w
Maybe Dan G would like to move to Flint and have his kids drink the tap water for a few years.
Utah Phillips
https://youtu.be/xuegVoHM4tY
I don’t think there are any good answers here. I just know if I were a politician my primary concern would be my constituents’ job and economic prospects.
Then you should be against coal and for solar!
Here’s some actual numbers! renewables are already providing more and better paying jobs than coal, gas and oil combined when it comes to electricity generation!
https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2017/01/25/u-s-solar-energy-employs-more-people-than-oil-coal-and-gas-combined-infographic/#6ea9a15d2800
Just under 374,000 people were employed in solar energy, according to the report, while coal, gas and oil power generation combined had a workforce of slightly more than 187,000. The boom in the country’s solar workforce can be attributed to construction work associated with expanding generation capacity. The gulf in employment is growing with net generation from coal falling 53 percent over the last decade. During the same period, electricity generation from natural gas increased 33 percent while solar expanded 5,000 percent.
Got that?! While coal fell by 53% solar grew by 5000%!
So apparently Dan, you are either ignorant of facts or you don’t really give a rat’s ass about the economic prospects of the populace at large and you care even less about the environmental damage caused by a few rich people promoting coal mining! Sounds to me like you are a fossil fuel promoting troll!
Is that like the ‘ECONOMY’ Uber Alles?! Even if it means the extinction of most life on the planet.
BTW, coal does not provide good jobs for anyone, it only lines the pockets of a very small minority to the detriment of the majority!
BLS counts about 50,000 coal mining jobs in the United States. Solar power industry employs more workers in science, engineering, manufacturing, construction, and installation.
Won’t be any ‘good paying jobs’ or ‘local economies’ if we go into collapse.
NAOM
Dan Goudreault,
Clearcutting our National Parks would create a lot of jobs for the neighboring lumbering industry. Does that make it a good idea?
Lots of trees in the National Parks of the Intermountain West and the North West. Lots of jobs…
As long as it’s done sustainably, timber harvesting is a pretty good deal since it deals with an inherently renewable resource.
“As long as it’s done sustainably, timber harvesting is a pretty good deal since it deals with an inherently renewable resource.”
Yes, from a kindergarten view of the world it would seem so.
However to grow an actual forest, one with a full ecology of plants, bacteria, fungus, insects, and other animal life can take a thousand years. It is a living system, not just trees.
So what you are proposing is a tree farm, a mostly sterile place that is stripmined long before it can come back to full life again. Killing the whole system in large clear cuts to provide economy. Then replanting a single species of tree.
The earth is not just for one species, it belongs to the millions of species that live here.
Maybe a business should come and knock down your home and all the ones in your area for the wood and other materials and kill or displace all of you, as you want to destroy the home of many others and kill the life there in the forest.
Then when all the houses were rebuilt, it gets done again.
See, a sustainable business. Just wood and material harvesting for the good of a few.
How would that be?
The oldest known giant sequoia is 3,500 years old based on dendrochronology. Giant sequoias are among the oldest living organisms on Earth.
They occur in scattered groves, with a total of 68 groves (see list of sequoia groves for a full inventory), comprising a total area of only 144.16 km2 (35,620 acres).
Many are protected in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks and Giant Sequoia National Monument.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequoiadendron_giganteum
If humanity had the luxury of another 1,000 years to get its shit together I might indulge your immaturity and lack of knowledge and even greater lack of wisdom and suggest that you at least get an education and expand your horizons both intellectually and culturally.
As it stands, since we hardly have more than a decade to turn this ship around and keep it from running aground on the rocks, I fear we must write you off as just more dead weight.
As GF alluded to below, your world view is about equivalent to that of child in kindergarten. Which is about the same as that of the current occupant of the oval office.
I doubt it will help but maybe spend 20 minutes and listen and learn a thing about trees and forests.
How Trees Talk to Each Other
Suzanne Simard
https://www.ted.com/talks/suzanne_simard_how_trees_talk_to_each_other?language=en
“A forest is much more than what you see,” says ecologist Suzanne Simard. Her 30 years of research in Canadian forests have led to an astounding discovery — trees talk, often and over vast distances. Learn more about the harmonious yet complicated social lives of trees and prepare to see the natural world with new eyes.
You left out about how those trees and forests, need management!
“Often one of the tools needed to manage a forest is a harvest. A logger is utilized to harvest dead and dying trees, suppressed trees, over-mature trees and any other trees that have been selected to accomplish the management goals. However, without a market there would be no place to send the trees that are harvested. Thus the critical need to promote the health and vigor of Pennsylvania’s sawmills, paper mills, cabinet makers, etc. Without a market for the wood products there would be no income for the landowner and therefore, less incentive to practice proper forest management.’
You left out about how those trees and forests, need management!
Yeah and don’t forget to rake the forest!
You stupid trolls are beyond pathetic!
The Lorax (original)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V06ZOQuo0k
Hey Pops, could you post the source for your quote on forest management?
Proper forest management, removing one tree per thousand per year. Even the dead ones provide homes and food for many creatures, as well as returning nutrients to the soil as they decay.
Life is a circle, otherwise it is a dead end.
“Mars is essentially in the same orbit… somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, & water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe. ”
— Vice President of the United States, Dan Quayle
Repug science—-
Google the PA forestry Association. http://paforestry.org/programs/forest-industry
Google the PA forestry Association.
Yeah, there were no healthy forest ecosystems anywhere on the planet before the arrival of ‘Forest Land Owners’, Loggers, Cabinet makers etc…
Do you know anything about the history of the impact of humans on old growth forests?! That’s a rhetorical question…
Try some numbers
https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2018/jun/15/canada-oil-sands-pipeline-trans-mountain-what-if-invest-renewable-wind-energy
NAOM
I don’t see coal going away until PV and wind become ubiquitous. As one mine plays out it has to be replaced by another to feed the current stock of coal burners.
The alternative, natural gas, is a worse global warming fuel than coal when one considers the leakage in systems.
It will be another decade before solar and wind take a large chunk out of global energy. However, even in monsoon periods PV is making a difference. https://cleantechnica.com/2017/09/15/solar-keeps-lights-brutal-monsoon-season-rural-india/
Maybe people will adjust to the technologies rather than forcing them to be fully continuous and fully present.
PV and wind are already ubiquitous. Mines are closing because the plants they supply are closing.
The big world problem is corrupt provincial govenrments in China:
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45640706
Xi Jinping has to crack down on this, or he will look weak. (And anger both the international community and his own population.)
This mine is best described as “****ing nutbar”. Every single lender has declared it uneconomic and unfinanceable, and they’ve shrunk it to 1/10 its planned size, and they plan to build an entire railroad to support it…. there is absolutely no way it can ever make any money. Environmentalists are lining up to stop it, still.
The suspicion is that the company wants to be paid in order to not build it. Blackmail, basically.
Meanwhile in Trumpolandia… 16,000 fools have been parted from their money!
https://www.yahoo.com/news/gofundme-campaign-border-wall-raises-010942362.html
A GoFundMe campaign titled “We The People Will Fund The Wall” has raised over $1 million and counting to build President Donald Trump’s border wall.
More than 16,000 people have pledged donations to the campaign created Sunday by a “fundraising team” in Miramar, Florida, according to the campaign page.
Its initial goal of $200 million has been bumped to $1 billion.
So all they will need is another 44 billion. Since the current estimated cost of this idiotic boondogle is about 45 billion! Not to mention that the US Government can’t legally use this money to build a wall! And if this thing is ever built it will be promptly torn down by any future generation of normal humans because it is an ecological nightmare when it comes to preventing animal migrations of many already endangered species.
Trump supporters are dumber than a bag of dirt!
I’ve taken to describing the Trump followers as a coalition of oligarchs and idiots.
I wonder what the average IQ of a Trump rally is?
They may not actually be dumber than average but they all seem to have some rather negatively correlated pyschological traits!
https://jspp.psychopen.eu/article/view/750
Social Psychological Perspectives on Trump Supporters
Thomas F. Pettigrew
Abstract
No one factor describes Trump’s supporters. But an array of factors – many of them reflecting five major social psychological phenomena can help to account for this extraordinary political event: authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, prejudice, relative deprivation, and intergroup contact. Research on the topic demonstrates that these theories and concepts of social psychology prove centrally important in helping to understand this unexpected event. This paper describes the supporting data for this statement and demonstrates the close parallels between these American results and those of research on far-right European supporters.
I meant rally not supporters. I suspect the Sheeple who make the time and effort to show up to the rally, especially at this late stage of the ‘He’s obviously an idiot and way out of his depth’ dynamic, are a very special kind of supporter; to wit, a particularly naive and unintelligent one. Although its worth noting that many of the HRC fanatics seem just as naive and ignorant about politics and the world. My fav campaign item from her was that America is energy independent.
“We are now, for the first time ever, energy independent.”
— Hillary Clinton on Sunday, October 9th, 2016 in the second presidential debate
What a buffoon!
Scum vs Scum
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/scum-vs-scum/
It appears HB prefers his scum Blue, not Red; it makes him feel like a caring, smart and savvy guy.
Personally I find the whole moral sage of the Dims vs Repugs to be kinda vapid. HB is pretty keen about it though; fills his needs I guess.
Saint George on Politicians
https://youtu.be/07w9K2XR3f0
Same as all the Survivalist and OldFarmerMac(Trumpster) bloggers who sucked up the tabloid and Russian internet hate for HRC, very low. How conveniently you forget.
Yes, I don’t like HRC, so surely I must be drinking the kool-aid of the Russian tabloid troll bots; for after all, there is nothing unlikable about HRC, and there are only 2 sides to American political discourse. I wrote in Charlie Sheen on my ballot. Your talents are wasted- you should work for CIA as Director of Complicated Political Analysis.
Why Trump Decided To Remove U.S. Troops From Syria
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/12/why-trump-decided-to-remove-us-troops-from-syria.html#more
A interesting source, but must be taken with some caution.
That link is worth reading. I think the “real politic” logic makes a lot of sense and it is well thought out. I only have one problem with it. There is no way Trump could think that deeply about any subject. More likely Erdogan promised him a hotel in Istanbul.
Our Realities Are Mediated
I’ve heard Trump speak in interviews and what I hear doesn’t quite square with how he’s ostensibly sometimes portrayed in some media. There seems to be some sorts of discontinuity, which would make sense given his apparent media ‘love affair’. He doesn’t seem any more or less level-headed than, say, some who have commented on this blog. For example, I’m unsure who I’d want leading the running of the country, whether Magyar, say, or Trump. Then again, I believe in anarchy, so it’s kind of moot anyway.
In any case, I’d keep in mind how we acquire our info/’realities’ sometimes. I mean, it’s not like any of us hereon have actually chatted with Trump, have we? In person I mean.
I don’t think I need a personal conversation with Trump to decide what kind of person he is.
I’m afraid I’ve seen way too much of him speaking in any number of contexts and I have found none of it confidence inspiring. His vocabulary is childish, his body language is tiresome his expressed logic is inane. The record of his actions, both personal and professional are those of a person with more ego than human value.
Yet I frequently confuse my friends by referring to his “genius” as a demagogue. It seems has spent a lifetime selling himself and bullying others to conform to his wishes and he is good at it. He has demonstrated a cool understanding how to stay on top of the game. He understands that he can stay in control by giving the rich and powerful donor class what they want; deregulation, lower taxes and increased military spending and promising the white deplorables what they want; racism, anti-establishment ranting and promises of high paying jobs. Unlike the donor class the deplorables don’t need tangible benefits, the promises and symbolic gestures seem to work just fine.
I’m not sure either who I would like running the country but I am sure it isn’t him or anyone like him.
A deeper look into the unique characteristics of Triceratops.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGvE1M95rtw
We will be hearing lots of stories like this as time rolls along-
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-amtrak-sea-level/?srnd=premium
Neat, though due to non-linearity might expect it sooner. Once the Arctic opens up in the summer, the rate of change should accelerate.
We can only hope.
I want huge positive feedbacks loops to start soon.
It would be so good to be right.
[sarcasm, for those who need interpretation of unseen body language]
Scientists locate nearly all U.S. solar panels, examine who goes solar and why
By Mark Golden
https://energy.stanford.edu/news/stanford-scientists-locate-nearly-all-us-solar-panels-applying-machine-learning-billion
Knowing which Americans have installed solar panels on their roofs and why they did so would be enormously useful for managing the changing U.S. electricity system and to understanding the barriers to greater use of renewable resources. But until now, all that has been available are essentially estimates.
To get accurate numbers, Stanford University scientists analyzed more than a billion high-resolution satellite images with a machine learning algorithm and identified nearly every solar power installation in the contiguous 48 states. The results are described in a paper published in the Dec. 19 issue of Joule. The data are publicly available on the project’s website.
The analysis found 1.47 million installations, which is a much higher figure than either of the two widely recognized estimates. The scientists also integrated U.S. Census and other data with their solar catalog to identify factors leading to solar power adoption.
The inventory highlights activators and impediments to solar deployment. For example, the researchers found that household income is very important, but only to a point. Above $150,000 a year, income quickly ceases to play much of a role in people’s decisions.
On the other hand, low- and medium-income households do not often install solar systems even when they live in areas where doing so would be profitable in the long term. For example, in areas with a lot of sunshine and relatively high electricity rates, utility bill savings would exceed the monthly cost of the equipment. The impediment for low- and medium-income households is upfront cost, the authors suspect.
residential rooftop solar mandate
Experts Aren’t Taking a Shine to California’s Rooftop Solar Rule
Why do I have this nasty suspicion that promoters of concentrated renewable energy systems are aware that all of the savings will go to corporate owners and that the prices paid by consumers will be as high as the traffic will bear?
I monitor the relative cost of driving my Volt on electricity compared to gasoline and have taken to monitoring my utility bill quite closely. I contract with a local (mostly) renewal supplier, Sonoma Clean Power, but pay my bill through PG&E which also charges a delivery fee, meaning the cost of running the grid. My last bill included $43.10 generation cost and $83.16 delivery for 491 kWh. When battery costs drop below some level there will be no value at all for the grid connection.
Wow, those wires must be made of gold to be paying that much for delivery charges. Around here it is a nickel per kWh for delivery.
PG&E is not famous as a philanthropic stalwart.
islandboy has mentioned the idea of solar getting people off the grid and so as a kind of freedom from the grid/gov.; while Nick G seems to be advocating the reverse; remaining with the grid/gov., and maybe using it to charge electric vehicles when the sun has set or is in the process of doing so, and/or to balance the load.
As for myself, I have mentioned some time ago how we, or at least those who can afford non-renewable renewable energy, would still in a sense be ‘grid-tied’ to the crony-capitalist plutarchy and that many fossil fuel companies are investing in non-renewable renewable energy.
That said, it sure sounds like how things will play out will be in typical clusterfuck fashion that is the status-quo.
Those are just excuses. We need both a rooftop solar mandate and large solar farms. We’ll get both.
Far Less Wiggle-Room @ 7 Billion+
If fossil fuel usage and other forms of ‘extractive industries’, etc., were diminishing at a suitable rate, then I’d be inclined to agree, but…
We need a viable planet and only have one.
Mars doesn’t cut it and some things are not worth the gamble.
‘Rooftop solar mandates’, ‘large solar farms’ and other similar exclusionary/unholistic/non-systemic/etc. approaches are not existential requirements, and their pursuit, rather than rapidly dialing down fossil-fuel, etc., extraction/usage, at this stage of ecocide may increasingly threaten those very existential requirements.
It appears far too late for too many reasons to experiment with things like large-scale solar/windmill farms and electric vehicles.
Maybe if things were pristine and undepleted/unextinct/etc. and we were running around at a population of a billion.
Excellent study Cats@. Some activists should get right on this and promote sending demands to congressmen and senators (state and federal) for a 3% income tax for those making $100,000 to $150,000 gross and a 5 % tax above $150,000 dollars. Monies to fund assisting lower income families to install PV, insulate homes, better windows, and subsidize EV rollout.
Let’s see how that works out.
Let’s see how that works out.
And if the bums (congressmen and senators ) don’t, then start by taking away their socialist benefits, especially their health care. Let’s how they like it!
While we are at it, let’s make all their tax returns public!
Cheers!
I have ways around it, no way should we depend upon government to make actual progress. Leave the old ways behind.
Yeah I actually agree but that doesn’t mean we should let the bastards off the hook for all the harm they have caused!
True, it might scare the pants off others bent on eco-destruction.
“Anarchyyy!” (pseudoLOL)
Oxymoron-Powered Society
Like practically everything else in this oxymoronic uneconomic economy, non-renewable renewables will likely be misallocated. Those better-off may beg to differ.
The United States is bankrupt and the consequences will be dire.
http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/politics/2018/december/with-us-debt-spiraling-out-of-control-at-nearly-22-trillion-this-man-is-tasked-with-slashing-it
https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/42/the-private-debt-crisis/
None of us would load up so much debt if we had a choice. The consequences will be terrible for 90% of the population.
http://www.alt-market.com/articles/3607-the-psychological-warfare-behind-economic-collapse
All the debt spending is good. Allowed humans to achieve a rapid population growth to over 7 Billion. Without debt financing, we would still be at below 4 Billion.
Where is the fun in that? Slow sustainable growth is for pussies.
[sarcasm, for those who need interpretation of unseen body language]
Hugo,
It’s fascinating to read this news article from the Christian Broadcasting Network. It’s clearly propaganda: full of not just misinformation but outright lies. So, I have two questions:
For Hugo: do you see the same misinformation that I do? For instance, the interviewee (the 2nd in command in the Trump Budget office) says that lack of revenue is not the cause of deficits. This is an astonishingly dishonest thing to say, in light of the recent massive tax cut. And then he says expenses have to be cut. Obviously, he’s talking about cuts to social programs that will hurt low income folks. Do you agree?
For everyone else: any thoughts as to why so many Christians have decided to buy into such unChristian ideas?
Um.
Did christians ever not lie? Immaculate conception, descended from David, rose from the dead, etc.
Unchristian? You mean like burning pagan temples with the pagans inside, crusades, inquisitions, pogroms?
Of course we should lower taxes on inherited money and remove benefits from those lazy poor folks. If they weren’t lazy they wouldn’t be poor would they?
Nick G
I was not pointing out his interpretation of how the debt has grown. I was simply looking at the unsustainable debt which must be paid mainly by middle class and poorer people. The rich are never affected by there things.
I do know that the United States had the highest rate of GDP growth in the 50s and 60s when the top rate of tax was 70%. I also know that the richest 1% control 22% of the country’s wealth when 40 years ago they controlled less than 10%.
The top 0.1% have really benefited from the tax cuts.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/nov/13/us-wealth-inequality-top-01-worth-as-much-as-the-bottom-90
In that time the debt has gone from 31% of GDP to 108%
https://www.thebalance.com/national-debt-by-year-compared-to-gdp-and-major-events-3306287
The tax from the rich paid to build and repair roads, school etc and employed millions. Now that money buys paintings, diamonds, gold and shares. Which does little to boost GDP.
I agree.
My point was that you need to be careful about your reading sources. CBN is clearly a bad source of information. In this context, I suspect that it didn’t publish any articles suggesting that the federal deficit was unsustainable when the recent tax cut was under consideration. The debtclock that is linked to in the story is dishonest: for instance, federal debt is mostly domestic and the rest is denominated in US currency; social security/Medicare is not a contractual debt, it’s simply a benefit that can be changed at any time.
“social security/Medicare is not a contractual debt, it’s simply a benefit that can be changed at any time.”
Sometimes peoples expectations built up over time, are far harder to contradict than any paper contract. I think you may find that ‘obligation’ to be quite real, if you try to alter the arrangement. Particularly at the ballot box.
No question, politicians can’t casually threaten big changes to SS/Medicare with impunity. They can’t even get rid of “Obamacare”, even after voting to do so 80 times.
But…do a little research into the history of SS, pensions in general and government pensions in particular. You’ll see a lot of change.
The obvious change for SS is to raise the retirement age. This makes perfect sense, because people are living longer – that has raised the benefit level dramatically, in a way that was never designed into the structure of SS. And, the age has been raised before: the standard age used to be 65, now it’s 67.
https://www.ssa.gov/planners/retire/agereduction.html
There’s been no storming of the Bastille, no riots in the streets – the age just shifted gradually. It’s very powerful: each year the retirement age is raised increases the number working and reduces the number who are retired, shifting the ratio of payers to payees. But, the other simple change would be to (gasp!) raise taxes. Either way, the unfunded liability is erased.
Hey Fred, when I got up this morning (before sunrise) the temperature here was the same as Jacksonville Florida and it has risen 5F since then. Happy Winter Solstice to everyone. Day length increases from here for us more northern inhabitants.
While Florida is at the southern end of the northern hemisphere it is still winter solstice here as well! So I too am looking forward to increasing day lengths!
We had severe thunderstorms overnight and it is supposed to cool off tonight with temps going down into the low 50s.
Cheers!
Wow, you mean Florida is in the northern hemisphere? Never would have guessed. So I looked it up and Miami does have an N after it’s latitude. sarc
You are farther from the center of the earth than I am, even though I am higher above msl.
AccuWeather warnings for Florida on Dec. 21 2018
Seriously? How stupid have people become? Isn’t it sufficient to warn people of high winds, flooding risk and rip currents? Do people really need to be told to find an alternate route if the roadway ahead is covered in water or to avoid swimming in high winds and rough surf?!
Those living along the Florida Peninsula’s west coast should move to higher ground if floodwaters threaten, and holiday travelers should seek an alternate route if water is covering the roadway ahead.
It is impossible to determine how much water is covering a road using the naked eye alone, and it only takes 1 foot of water to float most vehicles.
Adamson added that the strong winds will create an enhanced risk for rip currents and lead to unusually large waves and rough surf.
Anybody heading to the beach and planning to swim in the Gulf of Mexico should do so near a lifeguard or simply make alternate plans.
In addition, localized beach erosion is possible, and people should make sure to obey swimming and flooding advisories when and where they are issued.
On the east coast on my local beach the posted sign simply said:
HAZARDOUS CONDITIONS! NO LIFE GUARD! SWIM AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Its AccuWeather– a repug source for information.
They probably made a buck doing it.
“Seriously? How stupid have people become? Isn’t it sufficient to warn people of high winds, flooding risk and rip currents? Do people really need to be told to find an alternate route if the roadway ahead is covered in water or to avoid swimming in high winds and rough surf?!”
Yes, they need this warning Fred. Remember, most of these people were the same ones who voted for trump.
“Do people really need to be told to find an alternate route if the roadway ahead is covered in water or to avoid swimming in high winds and rough surf?!”
Given the number of people who have been drowned doing driving through floods – yes.
NAOM
Haven’t you ever heard of “turn around, don’t drown”? That’s straight from the NWS, paid for by your tax dollars, in case you don’t like AccuWeather’s version. The depth of water on a flooded road can be very deceptive, and it doesn’t take much water to get a vehicle floating, even a large one like a pickup truck.
A great way to fight climate change; well, we all have to do our bit — don’t we?
ADMINISTRATION MOVES CLOSER TO OPENING ARCTIC REFUGE FOR OIL
“The Trump administration moved closer on Thursday to opening thousands of miles within Alaska’s pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas leasing, issuing a draft report that concluded the polar bears, caribou and other wildlife could safely share their untouched wilderness with oil and gas producers.”
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/administration-moves-closer-opening-arctic-210713878.html
Meanwhile,
US SHOVELS MORE COAL EXPORTS INTO ASIA
“U.S. coal exports to Asia surged in 2017, and there is an argument to be made for America to become an even bigger global supplier of the fuel, a Nikkei Asian Review study has found. By volume, U.S. coal exports to Asia doubled last year, compared with 2016. The total reached 32.8 million short tons — a short ton being the equivalent of 907kg. Asia-bound exports of steam coal used for power generation, in particular, more than tripled.”
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Datawatch/US-shovels-more-coal-exports-into-Asia
Like it hot?
You are in luck-
https://phys.org/news/2018-12-annual-high-heat-days-northeast-century.html
Heres to you Bob F
Data source- MIT
just another reason to hate Universities
If these forecasts for hotter temps don’t bother you, then you are absolutely not a patriotic American.
What is more important to the country than the yield of corn. Nothing.
Heat stress on corn during pollination time (especially if it is on the dry side), cuts heavily into seed set, and thus yield.
[Just ask your favorite local Agronomist for tutorials if you don’t already know all about it. Strange to think that Americans wouldn’t know much about corn. Really strange.]
Ironically, industrial farming, such as WRT corn, is of course a sizeable source of C02 emissions.
Looks like it will soon be time to take advantage of the adiabatic lapse rate.
Well—
https://a.disquscdn.com/get?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.giphy.com%2Fmedia%2FZThQqlxY5BXMc%2Fgiphy.gif&key=l-DD4WmhJNJXgU5G6LjS2Q&w=800&h=318
More silly alarmism; At least Blue Blob Bob won’t be fooled.
MELTING OF GREENLAND’S ICE IS ‘OFF THE CHARTS’
“The current thought in the scientific community is that there is a temperature threshold that could trigger a point of no return for the eventual melting of Greenland and Antarctica’s ice sheets. And though we don’t know exactly what that temperature tipping point is, what’s clear is that the more we warm, the more ice melts. Once the ice sheets reach these tipping points, it’s thought that they’ll go into a state of irreversible retreat, so they’ll be responding to what we do now for centuries and milliennia into the future.”
https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/06/world/greenland-ice-sheet-melting-unprecedented-rate-climate-change-wxc/index.html
I thought it was ‘Cold-Blob Bob’…
Bob, if you’re reading this, could you kindly let us know which it is? Thanks!
Just ask your favorite local Agronomist for tutorials if you don’t already know all about it
I have to wonder how many Americans even know what an agronomist is or does…?
BTW, Two of my first cousins are agronomists 😉
Corn? You mean, Maize, that invasive grain species from Mexico? Where was the border wall when we needed it?! /sarc
My Univ degree is in Agronomy, although I went on to study and work in an entirely different field. Actually not in a field at all.
Still grow a lot of plants though.
Pity the Conservative Consumer Watchdog
https://thebaffler.com/latest/pity-the-conservative-consumer-watchdog-beery
The Big Picture
Permaculture is a set of design principles
Electricity won’t save us from our oil problems
This is how your world could end
“Massive social unrest” here being a rather bloodless phrase masking the utter chaos coming to a country already riven by corruption and religious violence.
“It’s sort of the nightmare scenario,” said Huber. “None of the economists is modelling what happens to a country’s GDP if 10% of the population is refugees sitting in refugee camps. But look at the real world. What happens if one person who was doing labour in China has to move to Kazakhstan, where they aren’t working? In an economic model, they’d be immediately put to work. But in the real world, they’d just sit there and get pissed. If people don’t have economic hope and they’re displaced, they tend to get mad and blow things up. It’s the kind of world in which the major institutions, including nations as a whole, have their existence threatened by mass migration. That’s where I see things heading by mid-century.”
So I look at that as, if it’s night-time and acclimatised, fit people can just disintegrate into a pool of useless people on stretchers. That’s what I see happening to society, to cultures,” Huber said. “If you want to know how mass extinctions happen, that’s how. So when people talk about the Pleistocene megafauna extinctions and Clovis people, sometimes they act like it’s a mystery how these things happen. But it happens in exactly the same way.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/09/this-is-how-your-world-could-end-climate-change-global-warming
BTW Physics (science) is NOT dead,
THE TOP PHYS.ORG ARTICLES OF 2018
“It was another great year for science, and physics was front and center, as a team at the University of Oxford announced that they may have solved one of the biggest mysteries in modern physics. They came up with a new theory that could explain the missing 95 percent of the cosmos, and in so doing bring balance to the universe. Their theory unites dark matter and dark energy, resulting in a fluid, which they suggest possesses negative mass.”
Plus, [best of all 🙂 ] a trio of researchers from several institutions in the U.S. and Canada found evidence that spaghetti-looking nuclear material beneath the surface of neutron stars might just be the strongest material in the universe. Their simulation showed that the nuclear pasta was 10 billion times harder to break than steel.
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-12-yearthe-articles.html#jCp
BTW Physics (science) is NOT dead,
LOL! I think we still have a ways to go before we understand all there is to know in physics…
Given that about 95% of the universe is dark energy and dark matter!
Be nice if we applied the physics and math we already know. Apparently there is a rumination time lag on the order of decades and then only partial responses. Alzheimer World. No wonder the universe is expanding away from us at high speed.
E Fred M,
This is off topic but there is an article on Eurekalert about surfer’s ear bone deposits being found in skulls from prehistoric sites on the Gulf of Panama. Oysters are suggested as the proximate cause, as in diving for them.
E Synapsid,
Quite interesting! I was not aware that surfer’s ear is actually caused by cold temperatures.
Given that I have had quite a bit of exposure to cold water I’m going to guess that I have it myself.
Tks!
You are very welcome.
Just saw a new video (Published on Dec 7, 2018) featuring Tony Seba on Youtube. It’s one of the longest I have seen at 1 hr. 55 min. and was recorded at a presentation he gave at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM).
Clean Disruption: Why Conventional Energy and Transportation will be Obsolete by 2030
The presentation was in English and so were most of the questions in the half hour question and answer session. I always find it interesting to hear Seba add some of the latest developments and data to his presentations. While the first hour and twenty minutes will be familiar to anyone who has already watched any of Seba’s standard presentations, the expanded discussions in the question and answer session might be of interest, even if one is already familiar with Seba’s work. For example, he speaks about changes that should happen with regulation and markets to facilitate distributed generation, including allowing individual consumers to sell electricity as well as buy it. He sort of described on internet of electricity with an ebay type market for buying and selling electricity.
One question was about the value of the oil and gas industry in Mexico and the feasibility of extending viabilty of those industries. Seba’s answer was very interesting but, I’m pretty sure it was not what people in the oil and gas industry want to hear!
For those who are familiar with Seba’s presentations, I highly recommend the last 35 minutes where he is responding to questions. Lots of discussion related to many discussions we have in this forum. To save time, Youtube settings allow you to watch videos at up to twice the normal speed.
Tks, I skipped right to the questions!
I like how Seba inverts the question about a legal framework for autonomous vehicles. We will have to decide if it is safe to let humans drive anywhere other than a closed and isolated course. ROFL.
Meanwhile the new infrastructure is being installed to assist the stranded EV owner.
AAA has been ahead of the curve with its emergency electric vehicle charging service, which has been available since 2011. Seeing EVs as the future, the organization is sticking with the program despite the relatively low number of service calls.
https://electrek.co/2016/09/06/aaa-ev-emergency-charging-truck/
Skipped to the questions too. Left me with a few thoughts.
If AEVs decided to re-route, because of a blockage or slowdown, to a different route that was clear wouldn’t that mean the slowdown would just move to the new route as they all switch to it?
If AEVs are always communicating would telecoms/internet start to rout over the matrix of AEVs taking a web model. Short range links, especially optical, could be very much faster than even 5G, could that hit cell networks as people communicate over car-net?
Open data is a nice idea but an antipathy to the government especially those who are control freaks. Given the very poor grasp of technology by those in power, I can see any attempt at government regulation ending up totally handicapping any effort in this direction. On top of that what happens if State A, State B and the feds have different ideas for regulation, what happens if countries have different ideas, would you still be able to drive across borders or have to switch AEVs at the border?
NAOM
He’s right about the headline. The only question is, is 2030 quick enough to prevent human extinction? We need to stop oil, gas, and coal FASTER than that.
Climate destruction has been accelerated by the willingness of idiots to blow huge amounts of money on extremely unprofitable fracking, tar sands, and bankrupt coal plants. How do we stop the idiots, except by shooting or bombing them?
Nathanael,
Let’s stay away from those types of suggestions or you will be banned. Strike one.
It’s easy – you pass a law.
Time to start talking to your legislators. But…not really your legislators. Actually, you want to talk to their staff. The elected representatives are figureheads, to a great extent. The real work is done by the staff. (Yes, even Trump – his “staff” just aren’t in the Whitehouse, where they should be…)
Fred,
“In the last decade, the speed at which Florida’s sea level is rising has increased and is now rising by 1 inch every 3 years. Around Miami, it took around 31 years for the sea level to rise by 6 inches. Scientists now forecast that in just the next 15 years, the sea level will have risen by another 6 inches.”
https://sealevelrise.org/states/florida/
And why would anyone worry about that?!
Real estate prices are still rising faster than the sea level /sarc
.
Actually, seaside Miami real estate prices are dropping. The prices are rising inland at the moment… probably not far enough inland though!
2018 ARCTIC REPORT SHOWS WARMING CONTINUES TO MOUNT
2018 has been another year of continued warming in the Arctic atmosphere and ocean leading to broad changes in the environmental system in both predicted and unexpected ways. There is a considerable level of uncertainty as to what exactly will happen environmentally in the coming years as new threats arise and continue to grow in the region.
• Surface air temperatures in the Arctic this 2018 continued to warm twice as fast relative to the rest of the earth. Between 2014–18 they have exceeded all previous records since 1900.
• On land, higher air temperatures continued to drive broad, long term trends in declining terrestrial snow cover. Melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet and lake ice, together with an increase in summertime river discharge and the expansion and greening of the tundra vegetation are all related to the warming trend observed.
• Despite the increase in grazing vegetation growth across the Arctic tundra, the herd populations of wild reindeer and caribou have declined by close to 50% over the past two decades.
• Older Arctic ice has been declining and this 2018 Arctic sea ice remained younger, thinner and covered less are than in the past. Since satellite observation began the 12 lowest extensions of ice have occurred in the last 12 years.
• Ocean primary production levels in the Bering Sea region during 2018, were at times 500% higher than normal levels as a result of record low sea ice extension.
• Harmful toxic algae blooms have been expanding across the Arctic oceans coinciding with warmer sea surface temperatures. This has been a threat for food sources across the region.
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/2018-arctic-report-shows-warming-continues-to-mount/120248/
AS THE ARCTIC GOES, SO GOES THE PLANET
“We are reminded that if we do not address the problem of climate change in the rest of the world, we will see forces unleashed in the Arctic that may seal our doom. The region already suffers more than most from the impacts of climate change. But as those climate impacts worsen, the Arctic shifts from being a victim of climate change to becoming a driver of global devastation: with melting ice projected to bury coastlines around the world and disrupt important ocean currents that stabilize temperatures in Europe; and with melting permafrost releasing massive amounts of methane (a greenhouse gas much more powerful that carbon dioxide) into the atmosphere.”
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/carter-roberts/as-the-arctic-goes-so-goe_b_8511122.html
“We are reminded that if we do not address the problem of climate change in the rest of the world, we will see forces unleashed in the Arctic that may seal our doom.
Well then this should not come as a great surprise!
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46517396
Nasa says it has detected the first signs of significant melting in a swathe of glaciers in East Antarctica.
The region has long been considered stable and unaffected by some of the more dramatic changes occurring elsewhere on the continent.
But satellites have now shown that ice streams running into the ocean along one-eighth of the eastern coastline have thinned and sped up.
If this trend continues, it has consequences for future sea levels.
There is enough ice in the drainage basins in this sector of Antarctica to raise the height of the global oceans by 28m – if it were all to melt out.
“That’s the water equivalent to four Greenlands of ice,” said Catherine Walker from Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Ironically 28m is not much more than the depth of the submerged cypress forest in the Gulf of Mexico that I posted a Youtube video about up thread. And why would the current detected trends not continue?!
This press conference is relevant to measuring Antarctic ice loss. The precision of the new tools is just mind boggling as is the data of the actual ice loss:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3GyW-DAS3A&index=8&list=PL7Ihm2Mh3MZ7P-8C6M3cJVRI0obQ4jL-4&t=0s
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Published on Dec 12, 2018
Glacier crevasses, cracks in sea ice and forest canopies – the first height data from NASA’s Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 are so clear that scientists can easily distinguish these and other features of Earth’s surface. At this press conference, scientists will present the first results and new data visualizations from ICESat-2, which launched Sept. 15. They’ll discuss how the airborne Operation IceBridge campaign led into ICESat-2 and how the satellite’s seasonal measurements of changing ice sheets and sea ice will lead to better understanding of sea level rise and global weather and climate patterns.
It wasn’t very long ago that NASA said Antarctica had an ice surplus because it was gaining much more than it was losing (citation provided). Normally, in science, you don’t get to have it both ways.
Works Cited
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-of-antarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses
So you agree then that 1) climate related phenomena are changing and in this case, like many especially in the cryosphere, quicker than expected and for the worse; 2) the new satellite was a necessary and successful addition to the scientific toolbox and well worth the funding; 3) by implication more such projects are needed to keep up with the changes.
I’d thought previously you were a standard denier driven by fear, envy and willful ignorance but maybe POB is an enlightening influence and you are learning sense, though the “normally in science” comment indicates you still have a long way to go.
Normally, in science, you don’t get to have it both ways.
It appears you do not quite underdstand how science actually works! For one thing, science is not static.
Normally in science when you develop better tools and use them you acquire better data and that may allow you to provide a better analysis in a particular field of research, thereby updating or even completely changing a previously held, long standing conclusion.
BTW, from the last paragraph of your cite, which is from Oct. 30, 2015:
To help accurately measure changes in Antarctica, NASA is developing the successor to the ICESat mission, ICESat-2, which is scheduled to launch in 2018. “ICESat-2 will measure changes in the ice sheet within the thickness of a No. 2 pencil,” said Tom Neumann, a glaciologist at Goddard and deputy project scientist for ICESat-2. “It will contribute to solving the problem of Antarctica’s mass balance by providing a long-term record of elevation changes.”
Well, we are now at the end of 2018. Given that these are measurements taken by satellite one can not help but be blown away by the quality and precision of the data ICESat-2 is capable of providing.
As George Kaplan noted:
“Changes in the cryosphere, are happening quicker than expected and for the worse!”
Hi Tony,
Lets imagine a simple science experiment.
I put more ice on the tray you are holding [like more ice accumulating on an Antarctic shelf]
At some point it becomes too heavy and you drop it [like an ice sheet breaking free].
btw- in a warmer atmosphere, the areas of high mountains and high latitude can get much more snow, since of course you remember that warmer air holds more moisture. More snow does always mean more permanent ice [melt happens annually].
There are many mechanisms by which things are changing. A stable earth is a mirage.
Shall we take a look?
https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth103/sites/www.e-education.psu.edu.earth103/files/M2I24_GRACE_velicogna2009.png
Sometime I find graphs posted without the associated text frustrating.
Do these charts indicate that both the Arctic and Antarctic were gaining ice until about 2005 and that both began losing ice only at that late date?
I thought the Arctic was losing ice long before 2005.
Another science experiment I’ve seen in children’s science classes for when they explain the two sides to the climate debate. If you load up a cup with as many ice cubes as you can then wait for the ice cubes to melt, the melted water will be at a lower level than the ice cubes were.
Oh boy, you need to re-do phenomenology 101 and pay attention this time! Yeah, a big mound of ice, in a cup, will go down but you will see a big pool of water on the table. It is that pool of water that is the problem.
A better experiment would be to fill your sink with water to the edge of the draining board then put a big block of ice on the draining board. Then watch the ice melt, the water level in the sink rise, then the water overflow onto the draining board. That is what is happening NOW!
NAOM
Please note that the data in that report is from 1992 to 2001 – it is now 2018, some 20 years later!
NAOM
Yep!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wIMDei1Q3c&index=7&list=PL7Ihm2Mh3MZ7P-8C6M3cJVRI0obQ4jL-4&t=0s
2018 Fall Meeting Press Conference: Arctic Report Card 2018
Love the questions at the end from the journalist asking RDML Tim Gallaudet, USN Ret., Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and Acting NOAA Administrator, Washington, D.C., U.S.A.; whether or not anyone at the White House had briefed Trump about this report card. And if not then why not?!
Lot’s of good content posted at Real Climate on
American Geophysical Union (AGU) https://fallmeeting.agu.org/2018/
2018 Fall Meeting Press Conferences
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7Ihm2Mh3MZ7P-8C6M3cJVRI0obQ4jL-4
With the coming New Year, we welcome yet another 83,000,000 folk to our pretty blue planet — with world population expected to reach a hearty 8 billion in 2023 (according to the United Nations).
MEANWHILE — A WEATHERMAN’S WARNING
“The warming trend has been evident for decades. We have known since the 19thcentury that greenhouse gases trap heat in our atmosphere, threatening ecosystems, communities and our way of life. What is new is that these reports encourage urgent action. Because we’ve waited too long to act on climate, our vulnerabilities are no longer calculated in generations or decades, but years.”
https://www.theinvadingsea.com/2018/12/19/a-weathermans-warning-were-running-out-of-time-to-protect-ourselves-from-the-warming-climate/
And just think: with sustainable growth we can continue to add hundreds of millions of consumers each year, living happily ever after. (sarc)
Merry Christmas everyone
‘Tis duly noted you wrote: ‘CONSUMERS’ and not folk or people… 😉
That’s the only reason we put up with the peasantry.
E Fred M, Estimable DougL, and all,
Doug’s post on the 21st at 10:42 is the background that should be the foreground, in my opinion. The future increase in the use of coal will be the continuation in the current growth of its consumption in India and SE Asia.
I’ve been hooting and pointing at India for years as the home of the future threat but attention has focused on China. Now China is getting serious, bumpily, about reducing its coal use and that’s a good thing; once she gets equally serious about no longer building coal-burning power plants in other countries things will be even gooder, but there are or will be shortly as many people in India as there are in China and no indication of even beginning to address the country’s growing use of coal. Add in Indonesia and SE Asia and gloom descends. (Australia, though, enabler and exporter as well as consumer…cause for despair there until the voters throw the bums out.)
Time for Port.
E Synapsid,
Hopefully sooner than later India too may soon find out that it’s coal plants are unviable.
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/renewables-may-prove-cheaper-than-96-of-coal-plants-2030#gs.zimTN_s
Renewables May Prove Cheaper Than 96% of Coal Plants Worldwide by 2030
“Over time, these coal-fired power plants will just become more and more unviable.”
EMMA FOEHRINGER MERCHANT NOVEMBER 29, 2018
As for Adani’s coal mine project in Australia, I think that he and other’s like him can and will, eventually be held legally liable.
http://theconversation.com/courts-can-play-a-pivotal-role-in-combating-climate-change-104727
How can we hold governments accountable to their human rights duties? A Dutch case recently upheld by the appeals court might hold the answer.
In June 2015, The Hague District Court and a group of 886 concerned citizens, united by the environmental interest group Urgenda Foundation, made history. This, the first successful climate change case brought on human rights and civil law grounds, saw the Dutch government ordered to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by a minimum of 25% on 1990 levels by the year 2020.
Three years on – against a backdrop of intense scrutiny and after an appeal lodged by the government – The Hague Court of Appeal upheld this decision on October 9. Indeed, it has gone significantly further in affirming the duties of care owed by the state to its people. The court considered the weight of the scientific evidence presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the recommendations of successive UN conferences to reach an informed conclusion on the required mitigation targets commensurate with the prevention of dangerous climate change.
No Port tonight. I’m going to the local craft beer pub, with two lady friends for some holiday cheer! I had suggested Ouzo and dancing on tables at the Greek joint on the beach but they said no. Party poopers! 😉
The “Indian Flue”
https://thewire.in/economy/the-indian-flu-or-why-the-crash-of-the-economy-is-imminent
Tks, GF!
That article just confirms what I have suspected about coal related power generating infrastructure basically becoming stranded assets and economically unviable. Which means that Adani’s Australian Charmichael coal mining project can not go forward due to economic reasons alone!
“Another 30 companies, all in the power sector, are also facing the guillotine because the Allahabad high court has denied them more time to sort out their woes. The debt of these companies alone amounts to Rs 140,000 crore. Among them are three giant power plants, the 4,000 MW Coastal Gujarat Power of Tatas, Adani power, Mundra and Essar Power. They are bankrupt because they had the temerity to base their plants and have been denied the right to set tariffs that will cover the higher cost of imported coal, by the Supreme Court of India.
…Their chief mistake was to “extrapolate past growth and performance to the future” and accept projects with very little equity capital, that relied almost entirely upon loans. When the upswing ended with the onset of global recession in 2008 and demand slackened, many projects became unviable.”
With the high interest rates, it appears India is merely a system to move money to bankers and other wealthy investors. That type of system does not have any real interest in the common good.
Any system based on economic selection is not only an unstable system but is designed to select and support systems that are extremely efficient and low cost. It is also susceptible to financial and political manipulation. It is blind and deaf to the creation of workable long term societies and civilizations. What good it does is not by choice but happenstance along with the blood, sweat and tears of those outside the banking system.
In this case, after long term development and technological advances it turns out that fossil fuels are more expensive than renewables. That has held up the advance of these technologies into the mainstream by almost fifty years. A very harmful system that will hang on for many more years, maybe right to the end.
Although many seem to be against individual and small group action, at least they can make rational decisions based on the greater good (man and all the species). Once governments, lobbyists, banks and plutocrats are involved the decisions made are mediocre at best and terrible at worst.
Mr. Potter ” Peter Bailey was not a businessman.”
Don’t believe the Koch brothers, and their demonization of government. Government only appears irrational because plutocrats like the Koch’s have been allowed to have too much influence.
NOAA is government. IPCC is government. Civil rights, fair housing…all government. Which is why the Koch’s of the world fear government. They want to keep you away from it. Keep you isolated and powerless.
Get involved. Talk to your state reps, and your city alderpeople. More importantly, talk to their staffs. Educate them. Educate your neighbors to talk to them. And…make campaign contributions.
That’s how change is made.
“Don’t believe the Koch brothers”
You win the biggest insult to me this year award. I think your rose colored glasses have turned dark red from drinking in the propaganda stream.
Ah, no insult intended.
It’s just that turning away from government, IMHO, is a big mistake. And…the Koch’s have been working very hard for 70 years to get us all to do that. I think it’s hard to be unaffected by that. I see it everywhere, in the thinking of friends and family. Even people who I expected to be much more…umm…well informed…have been repeating Koch/Fox talking points. It’s everywhere, and it’s changed the whole atmosphere and culture in which we live.
Sigh.
Again, no insult intended!
“But time is of the essence, for every day that the rupee continues to depreciate increases the repayment obligations of companies loaded with foreign debt and weakens their capacity to respond positively to measures designed to revive economic growth. One more attempt to avoid domestic collapse by propping up interest rates will bring on the foreign exchange crisis that the government is mistakenly trying to avert through monetary policy alone.”
And I thought Pakistan would be first—–
In other news I wonder, how Trump and the stupid Republicans missed this government report available at https://carbon2018.globalchange.gov/
Second State of the Carbon Cycle Report
(SOCCR2)
SOCCR2 is an authoritative decadal assessment of carbon cycle science across North America, developed by over 200 experts from the U.S., Canadian and Mexican governments, national laboratories, universities, private sector, and research institutions.
SOCCR2 is a Sustained Assessment Product of the U.S. Global Change Research Program.
Then again the full report is over 800 pages long and the title doesn’t specifically mention ‘Climate Change’!
Anything more than a single page of cartoon is over their heads – especially when their heads are in the sand.
NAOM
Dow 30
21,909.19
-536.18(-2.39%)
Things are getting very interesting—–
New Non-Petrol thread up
http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-december-24-2018/
also
http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-petroleum-december-24-2018/
Happy Holidays.
Happy Holidays!
Oh, Dennis, what’s your email?
Thanks.
Did anyone catch Dennis’s prognostication about burning through the proven natural gas reserves in the 2020’s. ? Even adding on some new discoveries, that should startle everyone. Natural gas is used for heating, fertilizer, electrical production. Without a strong development of alternative energy sources in the next few years, the US will face an energy collapse.
“Note that that that at the end of 2017 there were 308 TCF of proved shale gas reserves and 50 TCF of cumulative output, so a total of 358 TCF of shale gas. We reach 354 TCF of shale gas cumulative output at the end of 2024 in this scenario at Dec 2024 output of 124 BCF/d.”
http://peakoilbarrel.com/opec-november-production-data/#comment-661805
Even if he is off a few years, we are cutting things really close here. Psycho irrational exuberance exemplifies the times. Would hate to see a push back to coal for obvious reasons. Plus coal won’t last that long without large tech advances in efficient mining. Too much overburden in the Powder River Basin and too small and deep veins elsewhere.
Might be good in the long run, teach us to live more efficiently and effectively, but very damaging and harmful in the meantime.
Without a strong development of alternative energy sources in the next few years, the US will face an energy collapse.
Oh fer crimminies sake! Haven’t we already established in this very thread, beyond any reasonable doubt, that advocating for renewables does more harm than good?!
And as for pushing coal:
Well, in the energy crisis about thirty years ago, we saw ads such as this (shows slide). This is from the American Electric Power Company. It’s a bit reassuring, sort of saying, now, don’t worry too much, because “we’re sitting on half of the world’s known supply of coal, enough for over 500 years.” Well, where did that “500 year” figure come from? It may have had its origin in this report to the committee on Interior and Insular Affairs of the United States Senate, because in that report we find this sentence: “At current levels of output and recovery, these American coal reserves can be expected to last more than 500 years.”
There is one of the most dangerous statements in the literature. It’s dangerous because it’s true. It isn’t the truth that makes it dangerous, the danger lies in the fact that people take the sentence apart: they just say coal will last 500 years. They forget the caveat with which the sentence started. Now, what were those opening words? “At current levels.” What does that mean? That means if—and only if—we maintain zero growth of coal production.
Arithmetic, Population and Energy – a talk by Al Bartlett
Bow down to the Great Pyramid of Coal Reserves.