Still Ron Patterson asks, “Was 2018 the peak for crude oil production?” and Gail Tverberg says, “Given the nearly worldwide problem of falling affordability of goods by non-elite workers, we should not be surprised if the peaks in oil production in October and November 2018 ultimately prove to be the maximum production ever recorded.” The former is merely looking at recent production trends, the latter believes that consumers can’t afford the prices producers need to invest in new capacity. Neither argument impresses me.
Yep! Five pound bag, stuffed with 10 pounds of shit, hasn’t burst yet so I guess it never will!
I don’t know why he (and others like him) enjoy picking on the peak oil community. As far as I can tell peak oilers mostly keep to themselves and have “fun” doing their own thing, debating oil and renewables and the environment. We don’t seem to go around pushing our agenda in big newspapers, generally anything peak oilers publish is on their own peak oil specific sites.
And if Lynch was right, and the last decade really did prove everyone here is a quack and oil will never decline, or at least not in any of our lifetimes, then why does he keep writing articles about it? Methinks he doth protest too much.
“I don’t know why he (and others like him) enjoy picking on the peak oil community…..”
“Representatives of America’s clean energy companies are withholding their support for the climate-fighting plan, calling it unrealistic and too politically divisive for an industry keen to grow in both red and blue states.
The cool reaction reflects the difficulty that progressive politicians vying for the White House may have in selling aggressive global-warming policy to the business community and more moderate voters. ”
If you are interested in change, and changing peoples attitudes so they can find new things palatable, a measured approach is more likely to be successful, whether it is energy policy, or medical funding policy. I find that ‘progressives’ make a mistake of trying to force things down peoples throat. They often gag.
If you are interested in change, and changing peoples attitudes so they can find new things palatable, a measured approach is more likely to be successful, whether it is energy policy, or medical funding policy. I find that ‘progressives’ make a mistake of trying to force things down peoples throat. They often gag.
Well that’s all fine and dandy! Unfortunately it totally ignores our reality and how dire our circumstances actually are! Furthermore AOC’s Green New Deal is not even close to being radical enough to change our path. If implemented it would be like, instead of hitting the brick wall at 100 mph, we slow down to 90 mph. We’re still dead!
Maybe everyone, the folks on the Left and the Right. The folks in the middle, the business community, politicians, the economists. policymakers, etc… and even people like AOC and OFM should read this report.
Right now were are on a path to mass suicide! Would anyone like some sugar with their cyanide pills?! Maybe that way they will gag a little less!
WHAT LIES BENEATH: THE UNDERSTATEMENT OF EXISTENTIAL CLIMATE RISK
Abstract Human-induced climate change is an existential risk to human civilisation: an adverse outcome that will either annihilate intelligent life or permanently and drastically curtail its potential, unless carbon emissions are rapidly reduced. Special precautions that go well beyond conventional risk management practice are required if the increased likelihood of very large climate impacts — known as “fat tails” — are to be adequately dealt with. The potential consequences of these lower-probability, but higher-impact, events would be devastating for human societies. The bulk of climate research has tended to underplay these risks, and exhibited a preference for conservative projections and scholarly reticence, although increasing numbers of scientists have spoken out in recent years on the dangers of such an approach. Climate policymaking and the public narrative are significantly informed by the important work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). However, IPCC reports also tend toward reticence and caution, erring on the side of “least drama”, and downplaying the more extreme and more damaging outcomes. Whilst this has been understandable historically, given the pressure exerted upon the IPCC by political and vested interests, it is now becoming dangerously misleading with the acceleration of climate impacts globally. What were lower-probability, higher-impact events are now becoming more likely. This is a particular concern with potential climatic tipping points — passing critical thresholds which result in step changes in the climate system — such as the polar ice sheets (and hence sea levels), and permafrost and other carbon stores, where the impacts of global warming are non-linear and difficult to model with current scientific knowledge. However the extreme risks to humanity which the tipping points represent, justify strong precautionary management. Under-reporting on these issues is irresponsible, contributing to the failure of imagination that is occurring today in our understanding of, and response to, climate change. If climate policymaking is to be soundly based, a reframing of scientific research within an existential risk-management framework is now urgently required. This must be taken up not just in the work of the IPCC, but also in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations if we are to address the real climate challenge. Current processes will not deliver either the speed or the scale of change required.
If you are interested in change, and changing peoples attitudes so they can find new things palatable, a measured approach is more likely to be successful, whether it is energy policy, or medical funding policy. I find that ‘progressives’ make a mistake of trying to force things down peoples throat. They often gag.
Yeah, Ok!
When your house is on fire, you don’t invite the neighbors over for a friendly discussion on how to direct the fire hoses so they won’t impact their flower beds!
So Fred,
when we talk, or write, or craft a policy (Green new Deal for example).
what is our goal?
Is it to vent, or rant, or be ‘right’? To make the opposition wrong?
Or is it to be effective? To move the ball in the direction of our goal?
If we really believe that global warming is dire, and want to be effective, its about getting the mass of people moving in the right direction. Without gathering momentum, you won’t get towards the goal. Being extreme about communication, or measures taken can be counterproductive.
For example, if Republicans win again, Ruth will be replaced someone like Pence or Bannon. Alienating marginal voters will get a very bad result.
The renewables companies cited in this article recognize these realities, and want to keep up with the momentum on installations that they have, and not risk the toehold they are getting in red states. The New Green deal has great goals, but is crafted in a hasty and naive manner. Its more about being right, then getting towards the goal.
Thats how I see it.
I’m much more likely to vote for someone pragmatic, than one who espouses my greatest ideals but has no effective method to get there.
I’m much more likely to vote for someone pragmatic, than one who espouses my greatest ideals but has no effective method to get there.
That would be nice! Sometimes you just run out of time…
“The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.”
Winston Churchill
I think we will see a lot more people taking part in movements such as this: https://xrebellion.org/
I think governor Gavin Newsom in CA gives an interesting example of how things can actually go in a positive direction. I speak specifically of the death penalty. He didn’t emphasize it in his campaign but when it came time for him to authorize a specific execution he simply said he can’t do it on a personal moral basis. I don’t think that’s far from FDR running for president in 1932 promising to balance the budget. We need good people that get into office and do the right thing. Nothing else will work.
Fred, best to let nature take it’s course and have some fun along the way (EV’s, renewables, organic gardens, climate science, etc.). Nature is the great maker and breaker of species. Live and learn or just go away. Simple, not highly efficient, but definitely works well in the long run.
I see some of my neighbors just trying to survive, using the old systems to try and make it through. Instead of trying to change their own paradigm. Either way may be fruitless but those who try to change and do will have a much better time of it while they are here. The others just wonder why everything is getting more difficult and they lose hope, even worse they do not enjoy the time they have.
Every day is precious, just like every creature is precious.
President Donald Trump has a low approval rating. He is engaging in bitter Twitter wars and facing metastasizing investigations.
But if the election were held today, he’d likely ride to a second term in a huge landslide, according to multiple economic models with strong track records of picking presidential winners and losses.
Credit a strong U.S. economy featuring low unemployment, rising wages and low gas prices — along with the historic advantage held by incumbent presidents.
While Trump appears to be in a much stronger position than his approval rating and conventional Beltway wisdom might suggest, he also could wind up in trouble if the economy slows markedly between now and next fall, as many analysts predict it will.
And other legal bombshells could explode the current scenario. Trump’s party managed to lose the House in 2018 despite a strong economy. So the models could wind up wrong this time around.
Despite all these caveats, Trump looks surprisingly good if the old James Carville maxim coined in 1992 — “the economy, stupid” — holds true in 2020.
“The economy is just so damn strong right now and by all historic precedent the incumbent should run away with it,” said Donald Luskin, chief investment officer of TrendMacrolytics, a research firm whose model correctly predicted Trump’s 2016 win when most opinion polls did not. “I just don’t see how the blue wall could resist all that.”
Models maintained by economists and market strategists like Luskin tend to ignore election polls and personal characteristics of candidates. Instead, they begin with historical trends and then build in key economic data including growth rates, wages, unemployment, inflation and gas prices to predict voting behavior and election outcomes.
Yale economist Ray Fair, who pioneered this kind of modeling, also shows Trump winning by a fair margin in 2020 based on the economy and the advantage of incumbency.
“Even if you have a mediocre but not great economy — and that’s more or less consensus for between now and the election — that has a Trump victory and by a not-trivial margin,” winning 54 percent of the popular vote to 46 for the Democrat, he said. Fair’s model also predicted a Trump win in 2016 though it missed on Trump’s share of the popular vote.
Sure let’s keep him in so he can oversee the next big recession just like Bush and probably start fake war like he did to distract everyone.
Hmmm, maybe those people that worked at the 5000 stores that closed this year so far are happy about the economy and the Fed Ex people are not worried about their jobs.
““Slowing international macroeconomic conditions and weaker global trade growth trends continue, as seen in the year-over-year decline in our FedEx Express international revenue,” Graf said.”
“U.S. freight volume has dropped for three months in a row.
In February, orders for Class-8 freight trucks were down 58 percent from a year ago.
U.S. manufacturing output was down for a second straight month in the month of February.
U.S. residential construction spending just plunged for the sixth month in a row.
Industrial production on a year-over-year basis in Europe has fallen for three months in a row.
When we see numbers like those, normally everyone is screaming “recession” by now.” https://moneyandmarkets.com/global-economy-fedex-worst-shape-great-recession/
Trump will bring everything down faster (except for profits for large corps in the short term) —-
Probably best– the survivors (if any) will have more resources to work with.
A slow Dim is not a good move.
Trump does seem to be a bit of an accelerationist, that is to say he is speeding up the destruction that is already happening in society. All he needs is a utopian vision of the future and he could be a Bond villain.
>I find that ‘progressives’ make a mistake of trying to force things down peoples throat. They often gag.
Thanks for demeaning the convo with this little Breitbart comments section meme. It’s a bit icky how right winger pretend to be terrified of having things forced down their their throats and insist homosexuality is a choice that they have not made. Maybe you should tone down you dark fantasies and look at what’s going on in the country instead.
Clean renewable energy is very popular among people across the political spectrum. That is why even some of the most corrupt Republican administrations are being forced to abandon their opposition to it.
“Thanks for demeaning the convo with this little Breitbart comments section meme.”
Great example. You just don’t get it. That is unfortunate.
That mistake will keep being repeated until it is acknowledged.
It is more important to be effective on issues you care about, rather than being
cool or so damn ‘right’.
Preaching to your constituents isn’t what makes progress.
I get it all right. It’s what Pol Pot called “volunteerism”. If you propagandize the populace heavily enough they will act against their own interests. It works. Nixon realized it first, and that is the origin of Fox News and modern Republicanism.
Americans think what TV wants them to think. When car companies told them fins on cars were beautiful, they believed it. When CNN replayed that plane crashing into a building in New York a million times, they shit their pants. Heck, the library of the Kingsport campus of East Tennessee State University shut down for fear of terrorist attacks. I doubt it was high on Al Qaeda’s target list. When Fox told them Saddam had WMDs, they believed it.
They’ll believe any shit you tell them, and turn on a dime. My favorite example is Ben Bernanke. When Bush was president, Republicans loved him and Democrats hated him. As soon as Obama got into office, Republicans hated him and Democrats loved him.
When you claim you understand the soul of America better than I do, it’s just because you think that today’s news cycle is the soul of America. It’s just like the crap OFM sells as down home wisdom. It’s really just an old man with a short memory regurgitating what he sees on TV. All you really mean is that a lot of people watch Fox News, but I didn’t need a burning bush to figure that out.
I’m lost on what you saying. Consider me stupid, or maybe we were talking about different parts of this long and wandering thread.
Its beyond me now.
Peace out.
On second thought- I think you lost in a strange mind at times. “It’s just like the crap OFM sells as down home wisdom.” He makes a hell of a lot more sense than you, by and large.
“And I believe the history of communism is American history. America owes a great debt to the Red Menace. After all, the threat of Communism inspired us to our greatest achievements. The communists forced our hand on issues of poverty, lest the entire American capitalist project be swept away in a tide of home-grown Bolshevism. They held us morally responsible for our quotidian atrocities. They made us appreciate the arts. They made us stronger and faster. They sent us all the way to the moon.
Watching Rachel Maddow babble and hiss about Russians cutting your gas lines, one might come to the conclusion she’s merely a xenophobic paranoiac—which she indeed is. But when you catch all the anachronistic hammer and sickle iconography that so often accompanies our recent Russophobia revival, it’s clear that we’re not merely panicking, we’re mourning, and that we’re nostalgic for a worthy opponent. We miss the Soviets. Sure we make eyes at China, (who yes, looks stunning in red), but it’s just not the same. We are all the poorer for the loss of the communist states. The whole world is.”
Anyone notice that lately the Republican symbol has the stars upside down?
A new order or a new cult?
They are not upside down, They are just rotated 36 ° to the right 😉
If that were an Ass, then you could have achieved the same result by rotating 36 ° to the left…
If you believe in conspiracy theories and Astrology then this bit of trivia may be significant:
CNN poll conducted by SSRS, the President’s approval rating was 36% …
Cheers!
.
Geometry for the symbol minded. Keep trying to convince yourself Fred that people only believe in science. Point downward has an old and nasty meaning. Almost as dangerous as Christianity.
“A reversed pentagram, with two points projecting upwards, is a symbol of evil and attracts sinister forces because it overturns the proper order of things and demonstrates the triumph of matter over spirit. It is the goat of lust attacking the heavens with its horns, a sign execrated by initiates.”[14]
“The flaming star, which, when turned upside down, is the hierolgyphic [sic] sign of the goat of Black Magic, whose head may be drawn in the star, the two horns at the top, the ears to the right and left, the beard at the bottom. It is the sign of antagonism and fatality. It is the goat of lust attacking the heavens with its horns.”[15]
“Let us keep the figure of the Five-pointed Star always upright, with the topmost triangle pointing to heaven, for it is the seat of wisdom, and if the figure is reversed, perversion and evil will be the result.”[16]
And to get that, all you need is 36%. Um, degrees…
And Trump wins in 2020 by a landslide. No witch hunt needed and the economy is doing fine, record unemployment, rising wages and a growing economy, the best it has ever been. We’ll hit even hit RCP 10.0 before 2050.
Just ask Dave Hillemann!
Cheers!
Happy Equinox Fred, I mean yesterday of course.
I got my spirit rattles ready. You can beat the drums. The head of the EPA is trying to light the fire but failed.
He told me
Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla, bang bang
Ooo eee ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla bang bang
Ooo eee ,ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla ,bang bang
Ooo eee ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla bang bang
I feel the warmth already.
“Let us keep the figure of the Five-pointed Star always upright, with the topmost triangle pointing to heaven, for it is the seat of wisdom, and if the figure is reversed, perversion and evil will be the result.”
Sure! Could you just remind me which way is up, please?
Sometimes I sorta lose my sense of direction…
😉
Down is easy, just drop something. Most things go down, it’s getting up that is tough. 🙂
Hmm maybe this might solve the problem…
Just have Donald Trump Jr. shoot the elephant.
.
ROFL
And I thought that the GOP was against witchcraft and satanism.
NAOM
USFS Withdraws Blue Mountains Forest Plan Revision
It would have approximately doubled logging, removed current protective Forest Plan standards for streams and water quality, scrapped the prohibition on logging large trees (those ≥21” diameter at breast height), and severely weakened environmental protections regarding livestock grazing. The plan also failed to protect many ecologically important potential Wilderness and Roadless Areas. The plan would have exacerbated many of the negative effects on forests associated with climate change, such as increased stream temperatures and loss of biodiversity.
Just noticed your winky face symbol, time to get tilted. 🙂
Hi Fred,
I take the big picture environmental picture in general, and the climate picture specifically, as seriously as anybody whatsoever.
I believe it’s literally a life or death situation, for the greater part of humanity, and a huge chunk of the biosphere, and maybe all of us naked apes and MOST of the biosphere.
But as I see things, Hickory is right, and I’m right, in that a measured approach, politically, WILL BE more effective than pushing right now for really radical short term change.
I can’t see but one thing convincing the voting public to go for anything, short term, that’s as disruptive as the policies you personally advocate.
NOW HEAR THIS! as they used to say in the Navy, or at least on tv shows about the navy, lol.
The reason I keep telling everybody to pray to the Deity of their personal choice for PEARL HARBOR WAKE UP EVENTS is that I can’t see any other possible way to get the public to support the NECESSARY( as you RIGHTLY point out) programs you advocate.
I’m not dictator for life of this country, but IF I were, you would be one of my closest advisors.
But I wouldn’t risk being overthrown by pushing your agenda too hard and fast, thereby putting a pro fossil fuel dictator in power in my place!
I’m not a survivalist in the usual sense, but in case it gets to be necessary to bunker up, I’m better prepared than ninety nine point nine nine percent of the people in this country, and I would have a fairly good shot at surviving an economic collapse, and maybe even an environmental collapse, depending on how bad things get in my neck of the woods.
This is something I’ve discussed with a number of close acquaintances who believe collapse is a real if not very likely in the near future possibility, and they are prepared to come here, with all they can get here with, in the way of survival goods, and live communally with me for the duration.
I estimate the possibility of REALLY SERIOUS SHIT hitting the fan at about two percent a year, at this time, with that risk gradually rising maybe another percent within the next five to ten years, and so on,accelerating, so that the odds of a collapse,economic or ecological or both, are probably fifty percent, my own wild ass guess, within the next fifty years.
But I won’t be around even half that long, at the very longest.
I know that at times I come across as pushing an untenable agenda.
I’m not! I don’t have an agenda. You can believe me or not!
I’m just saying how I see things. I don’t expect any change due to what I say!
I used to self censor but I no longer see any point of doing that.
Cheers!
I get it,Fred.
And how hard you should push your beliefs depends very much on who your audience is at any particular time, so long as you are consistent and don’ contradict yourself.
So pushing really hard here is quite appropriate.
Having lunch with friends who aren’t so well informed as the audience here, it would likely be better to just talk about how great an electric car is, and how cheap batteries are getting, so that your friends will soon be able to buy solar panels, and batteries and such, and save more than the payment on the system by way of reduced electric bills, etc.
In other words, old teachers tell new ones, ya gotta take the kids where you find them, and from there, go as far as you can.
“I estimate the possibility of REALLY SERIOUS SHIT hitting the fan at about two percent a year, at this time, with that risk gradually rising maybe another percent within the next five to ten years,”
Depends on when and where you are, nature is doing death by a thousand cuts right now but with ever increasing blades. ‘Almost Everything Is Destroyed’: Cyclone Idai Leaves Mozambique’s Fourth-Largest City in Ruins Mozambique had received some 5.5 to 7.4 inches of rain in 24 hours in the week before the storm even hit. Seven people died then, and more than 30,000 were already experiencing displacement, according to ReliefWeb. The cyclone’s heavy rainfall—it was expected to drop up to 18 inches onto Mozambique—has only made things worse.
This cyclone was, indeed, unusual, as it’s the seventh cyclone in the Indian Ocean this season. That’s more than double the average for this time of year. Unfortunately, although the cyclone has fizzled out Mozambique’s Institute of Meteorology expects conditions of extreme rain, thunder, and wind to persist throughout the country until Thursday.
I do wonder if coastal cities and towns are worth trying to update to low carbon standards, since many will be wrecked or going underwater within the century. Investing in ocean bottom is the realm of fish and corals.
‘Nothing was left’: Flash floods, landslides hit Indonesia’s Papua region Rain-triggered flash floods and landslides that struck Indonesia’s easternmost province this past weekend have killed nearly 90 people and driven thousands from their homes. The country’s disaster mitigation agency has cited human-caused deforestation as having exacerbated the scale of the damage. https://news.mongabay.com/2019/03/nothing-was-left-flash-floods-landslides-hit-indonesias-papua-region/
Meanwhile, much of the earth was not devastated yesterday. Although the prelude to extinction continued mostly unnoticed.
Just another few days on our planet. So much infrastructure, so much more rain.
Lucky California supplies 25% of our food—-
The midwest seems like a continual mess.
Hi GF,
I get where you are coming from too, just as I get where Fred is coming from.
YES, things are desperately fucked up already in LOTS of places, but so far, most of the people in the richer western countries don’t really have a clue as to how bad things are already, because the troubles headed THEIR way are still mostly over the horizon. They don’t have a clue as to how much future trouble is already baked in.
I’m guesstimating that it will be anywhere from a few years to a couple of generations, fifty years or so, before the reality of the shit in the fan really smacks most people such as Yankees, Limeys, Germans, Frenchmen, Canadians, etc, upside their collective heads.
City planners, builders, engineers and scientists race to find new ways for people to make a home as climate change threatens increased heavy flooding, dangerous weather conditions and extreme storm surges.
For areas experiencing more flooding – U.S. coastal communities and those living near rivers – there is hope. Answers range from the fanciful to the concrete (literally).
For private developers and individual homeowners, there are many ways to build more safely in flood-prone areas.
“It’s actually cheaper to build hazard-resistant homes than it is to build to the minimum building codes and then fix things,” said Jeremy Gregory, a research scientist at the department of civil and environmental engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studied Katrina and other disasters.
“Over its lifetime, you spend more time on the repairs than on the initial construction costs,” said Gregory, who directs the Concrete Sustainability Hub, which studies how concrete can be used for engineering applications.
Individual homeowners can raise foundations, so their homes are farther above ground and less likely to flood. In areas of Florida and the East Coast, homes are built on piers to hold them even higher.
“It’s really an elevation game, is what it comes down to. The higher you are, the less likely you are to get wet,” said William Sweet, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration expert on sea level rise.
The one downside is that although “you can raise your house, you’re still driving through water to get to your house,” he said.
An old-but-new choice is to build houses above ground level, in which the first story holds the garage or storage, and living quarters are up one floor.
This style of home goes back to building techniques people in flood-prone areas have long known, but it became less common as flood insurance became available and people moved often enough that they didn’t have a stake in building for the long term.
One of the biggest adaptation tools is simply information, so home buyers and homeowners, along with their communities, can make informed decisions.
There are so many things wrong with this story it is difficult to know where to begin addressing them!
There are 3 ways to avoid the flooding issue:-
1/ Don’t build in flood-prone areas.
2/ Don’t build in flood-prone areas.
3/ Don’t build in flood-prone areas.
NAOM
4) Don’t re- insure rebuilding on properties that are in the 100 yr FEMA flood zone. The maps aren’t perfect, but generally very good.
5) Don’t permit rebuilding/remodeling in the flood zones
4/ There would need to be a grandfathering clause but not pay out for building in the same spot or at-risk area, only in safe zones.
5/ See 1/ 2/ 3/ above
NAOM
Hey,
Technology might save industrial civilization, or at least a significant portion thereof. It’s not impossible.
Collapse may come piecemeal, and some portions of the globe may pull thru near enough whole that we naked apes can continue to live in these places, and maybe even enjoy a more or less modern technological life style.
Who can really say for sure just how cheap renewable energy might be at some future time?
This guy has probably spent upwards of a quarter of a million bucks on his electrification program……. but twenty years from now, in current day money, everything Tesla in the link might cost less than a quarter as much as it does today.
African Scientists To Showcase Efforts Addressing Ocean Acidification At High-Level Ocean Conference
Ocean Acidification Africa (OA-Africa; https://www.oa-africa.net/) is a pan-African network working to coordinate and promote ocean acidification awareness and research in Africa. The network is composed of more than 100 scientists interested in conducting ocean acidification research in Africa. OA- Africa is part of the wider Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network (www.goa-on.org) as one of seven regional hubs.
You would have to be an idiot for the very idea that all Africans are ignorant to even cross your mind.
BUT….. consider the state of ignorance of the general public, here in the USA, where almost everybody has radio, television, and internet, half of us with an instant access crystal ball ( made flat so it will fit in your pocket! ) we keep with us virtually all the time.
Not a lot of people in this forum have a lower opinion of the intellects of Joe and Suzy Sixpack than I do……. but this does not mean I LOOK DOWN on them, or disrespect them because they are unfortunate in this respect.
Now think about the typical relatively poor ( as Africans go, economically) African person…… He or she is really up against it, in terms of understanding what the REAL SCORE is, in terms of his or her future, and the future of their kids.
How in hell are we going to help these people get thru the next few decades?
If I were super rich, I would buy some mini solar panels and tv sets and distribute them free,by the tens of millions and put up a satellite, and run educational programming on it half and half with entertainment suitable to that audience……. because half entertainment would make it more likely the sets would be USED, rather than destroyed by various priests or politicians, etc.
And I would air drop abortion pills and birth control pills by the cargo plane load, all over the place, any place where there are lots of people, and pay any woman or man to have a permanent end put to parenthood. A vasectomy can be performed for as little as spaying a puppy, for less than ten bucks in expendables, and a vet could do a hundred a day. ditto a nurse, with a helper or two of course. . Tubal ligation is way more complicated and expensive. I have castrated a bunch of pigs and calves myself, and I could learn the vasectomy procedure in a day. Sure I would do a few that didn’t work, but I wouldn’t infect my patients or clients. Medical and veterinary professionals who laugh at people like me are not interested in affordable results, they are interested in protecting their TURF.
People are going to die in very large numbers in Africa over the next few decades, due to starvation associated with climate problems, water depletion, hot resource wars, etc, barring miraculous good luck with weather, birth rates falling like a rock, foreign aid, climate troubles arriving later rather than sooner, etc.
I would be willing, with a helper, to adopt one child myself, and am actually sort of interested in finding some woman with a small kid to come live with me and my Dad, free room and board, in exchange for help with him and the kid for me to play with and mentor, but I haven’t run across anyone that fits the bill.. ugly but pleasant and highly intelligent.
( I’m too old for much in the way of sex, lol, but not to old to think about it, and wouldn’t want an attractive woman around all the time unless she happened to be into old men, lol. )
But I’m absolutely sure that not more than a very small portion of the electorate in this country, or in any other well to do country, will ever support immigration on the grand scale. The people in such a country as Italy, which will eventually have mostly all old folks, might be willing to admit enough younger folk to look after them, but that’s about ALL they will want to admit, unless they are more or less fully culturally and educationally compatible.
I fully expect to see walls and fences built, on the grand scale, and manned by men with guns, with orders to shoot, if somebody invents a drug that will allow me to live another thirty or forty years.Maybe only twenty years.
NOTE. I am strongly opposed to building a fence on our southern border.
I am strongly in favor of doing what is necessary, or simply possible, to help the people to the south of us all the way down to Tierra del Fuego, pardon my senile spelling, get their acts together politically and economically, so that they can enjoy decent lives in their own countries, and thus not be FORCED to migrate.
There are many things we could do, and should be doing, to help them. It might be good to get a discussion of such things going.
TMI – “( I’m too old for much in the way of sex, lol, but not to old to think about it, and wouldn’t want an attractive woman around all the time unless she happened to be into old men, lol. )”
Woman Knits Stylish Suit From 300 Plastic Grocery Bags
Rosa Ferrigno’s new suit takes recycling to an extreme — she knitted it from more than 300 plastic grocery bags.
The 75-year-old woman from Greece in western New York whiled away the winter knitting a skirt and jacket from filmy brown bags scissored into thin strips that were tied together to make yarn. She lined it with cotton fabric.
Rosa, the perfect woman for you Mac. Go for it BigBoy !
How in hell are we going to help these people get thru the next few decades?
We ain’t! They are doing it on their own already.
The same disclaimer applies to them as it does to us. Probably too little too late and the transition is too slow!
If I were super rich, I would buy some mini solar panels and tv sets and distribute them free,by the tens of millions and put up a satellite, and run educational programming on it half and half with entertainment suitable to that audience……. because half entertainment would make it more likely the sets would be USED, rather than destroyed by various priests or politicians, etc.
Africans already have smartphones with internet access which is radically changing their access to information and how they do business including banking! They are already on the solar bandwagon as well!
And I would air drop abortion pills and birth control pills by the cargo plane load, all over the place, any place where there are lots of people, and pay any woman or man to have a permanent end put to parenthood. A vasectomy can be performed for as little as spaying a puppy, for less than ten bucks in expendables, and a vet could do a hundred a day.
Again they are way ahead of the curve on a lot of that! BTW cargo planes are sooo last century. Drones are much more efficient! Though admittedly birth control needs to be addressed at a cultural paradigm level. Separate dissertation!
Filled With Blood And Drugs, These Delivery Drones Are Saving Lives In Africa
People are going to die in very large numbers in Africa over the next few decades, due to starvation associated with climate problems, water depletion, hot resource wars, etc, barring miraculous good luck with weather, birth rates falling like a rock, foreign aid, climate troubles arriving later rather than sooner, etc.
As they will be dying in large numbers all over the word for many of the same reasons!
Mexicans Are Stealing Border Wall Materials, Using Them For Home Security
As a former resident of Mexico, my comrades were always resourceful.
I wonder if Don The Con can figure out a cut?
I wonder if Don The Con can figure out a cut?
Dunno! But I can’t wait for the talking head explosions at Faux News while dissecting his speech to the nation:
“Not only have they NOT paid for it! But now, the Mexicans are stealing our beautiful border wall! And they are using it to build walls around their own homes to keep themselves safe!”
Bwahahahaha!
BTW, has ‘The Onion’ gone bankrupt yet?!
Total non-sequiter Fred, but I was listening to Gabor Szabo today, who I dig, and randomly discovered that Magyar means Hungarian.
Interesting.
Yes! Not to be confused with the Huns! 😉
Probably a good market for it, better quality and sharper than the local product which is quite blunt. Oh, some reports say that the ratas are not detained long. If there is no denuncia against them the police can only detain them for 48hrs, I doubt the gringos can get it together to do that.
NAOM
When does USA reach 110% of deficiet/GNP? How about 1 Oct 19 when President’s executive order for sequestration kicks in? Why? 3% Fed rate with Fed buy backs to 1 Aug ensure no equity when coupled with 9M kids 90 days late on school payments and 9M auto owners 90 days late on car payments? 3% is really 5% if companies who had 3T in 2007 debt have 5T now…essential double amount debt so 1/2 rate is same outflow to service> Fix? Brit exit, Deutch broke. War Asia…China 25% tariffs on/about 1 June for non conformance to inspections (never with a communist statistician)…oh well…
“When does USA reach 110% of deficiet/GNP?”
What part of the Trump/Republican tax cut don’t you understand ? Turning the rich from tax payers into payday lenders was always the plan. Just another con played on the FoxNews conservatives.
If you are a “Rape and Scrape” member of the elite, lending your friends in the Government money at a profit is always better than being taxed on the same income–
Win win!
Disclaimer: I am posting this article partly with the intention that people click it and increase the number of views. It was written by my sister.
Can A Circular Economy Help Clean The Oceans?
SAP
Judith Magyar
Take a look around here, look 360 degrees and follow some of the streets you will find a dozen or so, or many more, shops that sell disposable eating gear and dozens of eating places that use them. The white shelters at the side of the square fill with food stalls, in the evening, that use disposables. This is only one small part of the town. Maybe that will give some idea of the scale of the change needed.
The culture change is huge. Many supermarkets only put large bags in the fruit and veg section using the theory that they will sell more as people fill the bags. I often have to stop and repack bags after leaving the checkouts having failed to dissuade the packer from using so many bags (note, I only take bags when I need to for I need to put my rubbish out in bags.). So many changes.
NAOM
I have posted my opinion that AOCs ‘Green New Deal’ is not even close to radical enough!
While I can’t post the details of something I’m working on to completely change our use of petrochemical plastics. I can say that it has a lot to do with the underlying logic of architecting biopolymer materials and how we incorporate them into our designs and products!
An analogy would be ways we can rethink how we can change our use and implementation of solar PV and related products. How often have we all heard the by now very tired and worn bullshit arguments against solar PV, such as that they are bad for the environment because we need to cut down forests to make room for solar farms?!
Here’s a short 9:00 min TED talk that might help a few more see the light 😉
The sun delivers more energy to earth in one hour than all of humanity uses in an entire year. How can we make this power more accessible to everyone, everywhere? Solar designer Marjan van Aubel shows how she’s turning everyday objects like tabletops and stained glass windows into elegant solar cells — and shares her vision to make every surface a power station.
We should put all our efforts into completely eliminating all burning of fossil fuels and making all petrochemical based products obsolete! IMHO anyone who thinks that is too radical an idea just doesn’t understand the magnitude of the problem and that we already have solutions, we just need to implement them as fast as possible.
Cheers!
“We should put all our efforts into completely eliminating all burning of fossil fuels and making all petrochemical based products obsolete! IMHO anyone who thinks that is too radical an idea just doesn’t understand the magnitude of the problem and that we already have solutions, we just need to implement them as fast as possible.”
Figure out how to sell the ideas to those who gave the electoral college to Trump.
Figure out how to sell the ideas to those who gave the electoral college to Trump.
That simply isn’t productive. You will never convince them to change their minds, let alone their ways. Complete waste of time. I prefer to work work with active change agents. Most of them working behind the scenes in anonymity!
So how do you change paradigms? Thomas Kuhn, who wrote the seminal book about the great paradigm shifts of science has a lot to say about that. In a nutshell, you keep pointing at the anomalies and failures in the old paradigm, you keep coming yourself, and loudly and with assurance from the new one, you insert people with the new paradigm in places of public visibility and power. You don’t waste time with reactionaries; rather you work with active change agents and with the vast middle ground of people who are open-minded.
Donella Meadows, Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System.
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is hacking at the root!
Henry David Thoreau
Bingo!
We have a winner—-
Fred, there are very many voters, maybe 20% of the total who are up for grabs. We need to get them on board.
I’m not talking those about those in the John Birch Society.
If we don’t, the John Birches will have a solid majority on the Supreme court, and control the epa, dept of education etc.
The scientific, academic, and engineering and technical establishments are already up to date, these people are not behind the curve. They create the curve.
It’s the PEOPLE, and the COMMERCIAL /ECONOMIC establishment that’s the problem. We have to figure out a way to nudge and shove them in the right direction,and that’s one hell of a job.
They’re scared, and they’re creatures of habit. They put their faith in what they know, because what they know has enabled them to live and prosper, to a greater or lesser extent, all their lives.
THERE IS a reason why ignorant and stupid people tend to be conservative. The ones who AREN’T tend to die young, or spend their lives in jail, or starve on the street, because they fail to observe the rules of conservative social behavior. Don’t stick out from the crowd, or the crowd won’t be there for you when you need it( community support). Don’t give up the livelihood you know and HAVE for one that may leave you broke……. and without your old job that may not have been a very good one, but at least it was the sort of job that usually lasts……. etc.
Millions and millions of them have tried the little candy store, the little garage, this and that and the other, and failed, and they learned the hard lesson that being a business man is not all it’s cracked up to be…… and their friends and neighbors have watched the process.
Conservatism is above all and essentially nothing else, in one critical respect, than an effort to protect the economic and cultural turf of those who practice it.
They are right to be scared, and to fight back against change, because change has in the historical record been bad for them many times compared to the times it has been good for them.
Realists understand that while revolutions do occasionally result in great advances in culture and economics, the odds are very high that any given uprising or revolution will result in the people involved in it being WAY worse off than previously. Anybody who reads history knows this is true.
Condemning conservatives, although this is entirely justified, in respect to climate, energy, etc, is the worst possible thing you can do in terms of winning THEM over.
But of course condemning THEM, painting THEM as NOT US, when the audience is US, works like a charm, in terms of getting US to the polls, etc.
The trick is to badmouth conservatives in forums where they don’t visit, to make speeches condemning them on college campuses, and in big blue cities, while avoiding the conservative audience as best you can, if you take that route. This is practical politics, PP101.
We don’t have much over a dozen regulars here who among this dozen post way over half of all the comments.
I could have half a dozen conservatives reading this blog as regularly as the sun coming up, for the technical content, except for the very fact that so many regulars here make fun of religion, etc.
There aren’t any easy answers, it’s political war, and you expect to win some fights and lose some, all the while hoping for victory in the end.
“Freedom begins between the ears.”
——Edward Abbey
What’s the deal with these gigantic bulk sized lobster claws Costco is selling now?
The day ev’s REALLY take of in the USA will be the day you can buy one cheap, from a respected manufacturer with dealerships and showrooms all over the place. That’s Honda, in the two wheeler market. There are Honda motorcycle dealerships in towns as small as ten thousand people. WITH parts departments. WITH mechanics.
And their customers buy without any fear that next year, or five years from now, they will have to scrap their just barely paid for machine for lack of parts or a mechanic who knows how to work on it.
Dang! That scooter is interesting, I go past the Honda bike showroom regularly so I will need to keep an eye out. If the price is right that may suit me just fine.
NAOM
For those who have not been paying attention to the last few decades and consider that “wake up calls” have not arrived (apparently large droughts, massive fires, floods, superstorms and multiple high level hurricanes are not enough) listen carefully to this meteorologist describing what just happened in the Midwest.
I agree that there have been plenty of wake up calls….. of the sort noticed by people who are already awake and looking for them.
But so far, there just hasn’t been enough of them, of sufficient magnitude, to wake up the PEOPLE of countries such as the USA.
If you were to go onto a major university campus, and talk to students other than science majors, you would find that most of them are only marginally aware of the sort of climate, economic, and ecological disasters you post links to.
The average or typical person on the street in NYC might be aware of the fact that there are floods happening in the Midwest, but I’ll bet the farm on it that they don’t know that these floods are trending up in frequency and amount of land flooded.
Of all the reasonably well educated people OUTSIDE the science community I have ever met, the typical individual knows a hell of a lot more about college and professional sports than he does the biosphere and the planet he lives on.
Sometimes I think that the biggest single discrete failing of the liberal/ scientific community is that it GROSSLY OVERESTIMATES the intellectual breadth and depth of the typical man or woman on the street.
I can’t see any way to get around this problem, short to medium term, other than to hope like hell that Mother Nature, and perhaps our naked ape enemies, bust us upside our collective head with a LOT of wake up bricks….. It’s going to take a LOT to get the attention of Joe and Suzy Sixpack.
Of course we are well and truly deeply into the business of throwing some ourselves ( Remember Pogo,” We have met the enemy, and they is us. “) but so far, as bad as things are, ecologically, there simply hasn’t been enough hits to get the public’s attention.
Maybe what we need is for the Russians to shut off their oil and gas exports for a couple of months.
Now THAT would get the attention of Joe and Suzy right damned quick…… because gasoline would shoot up a dollar at least within a week or two. AND it would convince five or ten million Yankee’s to buy every ev that Detroit and China combined can manufacture for the next two or three years.
This graph from the link, is downright scary! At least it is, if you know something about the PETM!
.
For those who understand tipping points, 4 & 5 are scary. We are at the edge of an abyss.
NAOM
Yup!
Why are we still increasing our population, not even realizing that this will be a burden on all natural resources and create an even steeper rate of warmth? If we don’t scale back to more sustainable growth, things will get grim in many ways over the next decade. The culmination will be global economic depression, causing so many lost jobs that millions of people will get disgruntled.
The reason is quite simple, really.
Growth is the religion of economists and everyone that is benefiting from the current paradigm. If you follow economic news the actual state of the economy (total output, distribution of wealth, etc.) is not even mentioned a tenth as often as the GROWTH RATE. I have even heard it described as “the economy”.
And it turns out, you probably already know this, growth consists of only two components; increased productivity and population growth. That is, get more workers and/or get more product out of each one.
As we know, temperature rise is not only non-linear but often stepwise with sharp rises, falls and level points.
However, taking the simplistic linear model shown in the graph above as an averaged reality, one must consider that just civilization’s heat engine alone, sans global warming, approximates the PETM and LGT lines.
So even if we could somehow live on this planet successfully with a growing industrial civilization using high temperature release (such as fission or fusion power) that did not emit GHG, the temperature rise would model the two above mentioned events.
Of course any temperature rise is accompanied by stimulation of the natural feedback systems giving rise to albedo changes and exudation of greenhouse gases from land and ocean.
Therefor, an extended high energy large civilization has little chance of success.
We must move to low temperature (mostly biological) methods of production and energy. PV and wind (solar input driven) are an approximation of that but we need advanced biochemical and biogenetic systems.
Adding net energy to this planet is in the long run, a dangerous and deadly act.
Fred do you have a link to a larger version of that pic?
Look in the report and click on it.
Thank you.
The paper is flawed by not discussing how earth climate is mostly impacted by the sun and earth’s own inner core.
There is no doubt that over long periods of time, geological time, the Earth’s core has a truly substantial effect on climate. It does after all supply the energy that enables continental drift, etc.
And volcanic activity also derives from energy emanating from the core, which is in motion, and apparently changes it’s shape a little bit, and changes its circulation patterns a little bit, over time. These changes are apparently what causes the magnetic poles to shift and eventually flip.
I see a lot of speculation in the popular press to the effect that the shifting north magnetic pole has something to do with current climate change, or expected climate change, in the near future.
But if there’s any good evidence that things going on in the core are having any significant short term ( decades or generations of people ) effects on climate, I haven’t seen it.
Does anybody here know of any good evidence to this effect?
The current changes of temperature are shifting massive amounts of water to different positions on the globe, stressing and destressing large areas. The danger here is shattering regions with methane hydrate reserves and making them accessible to the water and atmosphere above them. Increasing seismic activity can destabilize the methane which in turn causes more warming, forming another feedback loop.
“The melting rate of glaciers has become
significantly higher, causing a noticeable rise (0.19meters) in the sea level globally. Climate
change can trigger catastrophes such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and
landslides due to melting glaciers and rising in sea level. The melting of glaciers driven by
global warming warns us of a seismically turbulent future. When glaciers melt, the massive
weight on the Earth’s crust reduces and the crust bounces back in what scientists call an
“isostatic rebound”. The process can reactivate faults and lift pressure on magma chambers
that feed volcanoes, hence increases seismic activity. The paper discusses the correlation
between rise in temperature due to global warming and earthquake frequency using Pearson’s
correlation coefficient and regression analysis based on a case study from Alaska.” https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/167/1/012018/pdf
The destabilization of methane hydrates is not just occurring in the Arctic regions.
Seismic signs of escaping methane under the sea
Somewhere off the eastern coast of North Carolina, a frozen mixture of water and methane gas tucked in seabed sediments is starting to break down. Researchers blame a shifting Gulf Stream — the swift Atlantic Ocean current that flows north from the Gulf of Mexico — which is now delivering warmer waters to areas that had previously only experienced colder temperatures.
Here you go Larry, just a little background reading on the PETM, Paleoclimate, sudden warming, sea level rise and ocean acidification which happened to cause mass extinction of marine ecosystems during that time. Keep in mind that the current rate of anthropogenic induced change, far exceeds the rate of change that occurred during the PETM. BTW my AI scientific research assistant gave me 294 papers at first blush, so there is plenty more where this came from.
True Larry. Means they are not trying to sell you anything.
Larry Butler,
Why would you expect there to be Larry? I’m honestly curious. Would you expect a geochemist to publish a paper in a business journal?
My expectation is having input from real businessmen on matters that will directly impact them. I don’t trust government people. To much corruption and lies.
So Larry, which one of the 14 papers referencing the PETM, that I linked above, contains even a single example of corruption and lies?! Please be specific.
Larry, if ‘real businessmen’ want to do some science, go for it. Get schooled up at a University. Should take just under a decade. And if they (you) are good thinkers, perhaps you can do some research and publish the results if they are coherent, relevant and make it through the peer-review process.
The reverse process happens. Some scientists become ‘real businessman’. Go for it.
btw- not all decisions in life are business ones.
Hello Larry, I was corporate scientist. The fact is that much of business innovation and invention is driven by discoveries and advances in those liberal universities and government laboratories you so deeply trash talk.
Hint: it’s the garbage right wing radio that you need to distrust and disbelieve
Well, why not start with the Exxon reports that they buried because they felt threatened by it.
See, you can find stuff if you look. Now I don’t plan on doing anymore of your research for you, go and do it yourself.
NAOM
You are funny, bro.
I actually did laugh out loud… any private sector work is both proprietary, so not released, or buried ala Exxon, so really not released.
I assume you are writing a grade school assignment?
Ahahahahahaha
I recall reading recently that when all atmospheric greenhouse gases are calculated the CO2 eq is approaching about 500 ppm. I’m an optimist though; several years of bad harvests will quickly sort quite a bit of this mess out.
Those are the down-factored numbers over time, the IRF(reality) is much higher.
For those who do not get what climate change and fossil fuel pollution means
The lithium-ion batteries that power AirPods are everywhere. One industry report forecast that sales would grow to $109.72 billion by 2026, from $36.2 billion in 2018. They charge faster, last longer, and pack more power into a small space than other types of batteries do. But they die faster, too, often after just a few years, because every time you charge them, they degrade a little. They can also catch fire or explode if they become damaged, so technology companies make them difficult, if not impossible, for consumers to replace themselves.
The result: A lot of barely chargeable AirPods and wireless mice and Bluetooth speakers are ending up in the trash as consumers go through products—even expensive ones—faster than ever.
A German environmental agency found that the proportion of products sold to replace a defective appliance grew from 3.5 percent in 2004 to 8.3 percent in 2012.
This means the world will continue to generate a lot of waste. Of the 3.4 million tons of electronic waste generated in America in 2012—an 80 percent increase from 2000—just 29 percent was recycled.
“But they die faster, too, often after just a few years, because every time you charge them, they degrade a little”
Even such a generally reliable outfit as The Atlantic fucks up environmental reporting, apparently having editors or old tired reporters doing work they are utterly unqualified for in cases such as this one.
If there’s any kind of readily available, highly portable and affordable battery that outlasts lithium ion I’ll give the author of that piece an hour to draw a crowd and kiss his ass on the courthouse steps.
But things are not necessarily going to hell in terms of energy production, if we get lucky and something happens to put the afterburners on in the renewable energy industries.
The groundwork is done, the tech is now far enough along that it’s obviously highly profitable, so long as financing and market access is available, and there will soon be enough voters who are young enough to understand the issue, as opposed to old farts who can’t or refuse to understand depletion and pollution, to put politicians in office, local, state, and federal, who will keep the renewable pedal to the metal.
(HB, that’s Mack truck driver talk for just putting a stick between the seat and the go pedal and jamming it tight on the floor board. That’s what I used to do when I drove one on the Interstate back in the eighties once in a while. They didn’t have a cruise control feature back in the good old days, lol, but I hear you can get it on new ones. )
This link provides a great fast summary of the state of the renewable energy biz as of 2019, and what is likely to happen over the next few years.
“But they die faster, too, often after just a few years, because every time you charge them, they degrade a little”
“Even such a generally reliable outfit as The Atlantic fucks up environmental reporting, apparently having editors or old tired reporters doing work they are utterly unqualified for in cases such as this one.”
It’s an orchestrated FUD plot by the Koch brothers to undermine public confidence in battery electric vehicles. 😉 /sarc
Yeah. The Atlantic ought to do better, and usually does.
They aren’t a shoe string outfit dependent on free press releases.
One big problem with reporters is that they are picked from the arts people, history, English etc. They want people who can write good essays, science types are not regarded as essay writers.Unfortunately that means a lot of the reporters know nada about science, just can write a good story.
NAOM
Really? We are worried about ear buds when massive changes in the climate and ecology of the planet are occurring? How droll and unimportant a subject. Makes me wonder what is the point of posting.
Much more important was, while hiking along a creek yesterday, I came upon a short section that had the air filled with flying insects. The fish seemed to enjoy the early spring meal also. This in an area that is mostly devoid of flying insects for years now. Maybe protected microenvironments will act as stores of living species.
No sign of any frogs though.
The Rapid Decline Of The Natural World Is A Crisis Even Bigger Than Climate Change
A three-year UN-backed study from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform On Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services has grim implications for the future of humanity
The last year has seen a slew of brutal and terrifying warnings about the threat climate change poses to life. Far less talked about but just as dangerous, if not more so, is the rapid decline of the natural world. The felling of forests, the over-exploitation of seas and soils, and the pollution of air and water are together driving the living world to the brink, according to a huge three-year, U.N.-backed landmark study to be published in May.
Industrial farming is to blame for much of the loss of nature, said Mark Rounsevell, professor of land use change at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, who co-chaired the European section of the IPBES study. “The food system is the root of the problem. The cost of ecological degradation is not considered in the price we pay for food, yet we are still subsidizing fisheries and agriculture.”
Yeah, I have been thrashing this straw for half a century. Nothing is being done. Here is this guy’s solution:
Ultimately, Watson concludes that saving nature will require a major rethink of how we live and how we think about nature, but that it is possible to turn this dire situation around if governments want it to happen.
“There are no magic bullets or one-size-fits-all answers. The best options are found in better governance, putting biodiversity concerns into the heart of farming and energy policies, the application of scientific knowledge and technology, and increased awareness and behavioral changes,” Watson said. “The evidence shows that we do know how to protect and at least partially restore our vital natural assets. We know what we have to do.”
In truth nothing will be done. There will be total environmental collapse. Almost everyone is confident we will fix it. And this is one of the dumbest answers yet: ” if governments want it to happen.” Yeah right. That’ a belly laugh.
Hi Ron,
We’re damned if we do, and we’re damned if we don’t when it comes to farming. It’s too late to try to go back to any sort of labor intensive farming the way it used to be done. Nobody at all of my acquaintaince is willing to give up that airconditioned office for a red neck, and for now, and for the easily foreseeable future, we simply don’t know enough to farm sustainably on the grand scale.. the scale necessary to feed billions of people at prices they can afford.
We would have bread riots here, in short order, in the USA, if we were to try to farm on the grand scale the way biologists and other scientists tell us we ought to be farming.
We’re past the tipping point, as far as farming goes. This cannot possibly end well for the vast masses of mankind.
But a few of us may be able to not only pull thru but also continue to enjoy industrial civilization…… on a sustainable basis. We Yankees have a shot at it, assuming the North American climate doesn’t go completely to hell, and we don’t fight a NBC WWIII.
Five or ten years ago, I couldn’t bring myself to believe we could ever have enough wind farms and solar farms, and machinery enough that would run on batteries, or intermittently, as power is available, to giterdone.
But now……. I really do believe it’s possible, especially since I expect most of the rest of the world to bear the price of disease, famine, exposure and war, to a far greater extent than we will, and because our population is still relatively low, in relation to our resource base.
Nobody is going to physically invade the USA or Canada , or even Mexico, so long as Uncle Sam is up to preventing it. So our main worry on that front is going to be nuclear and biological war. Maybe we can avoid large scale nuclear exchange, and we will most likely survive a biological war as well, since we know how to contain if not cure contagious diseases.
The obvious answer to these problems is the need for a massive downsizing of humanity, and its footprint.
Yet downsizing is not in our DNA.
And we have not been wise enough to absorb the take-home message over the past 50 yrs, and actually react.
And so we will do it the hard way.
And so we will do it the hard way.
One child one family worldwide would have been much, much easier.
Huge [triple that] carbon taxes starting in 1992 would have been much easier.
Living in shared homes with 3-5 families would have been so much easier.
A low meat diet would have been so much easier.
Instead we will do it the hard way.
“Instead we will do it the hard way.”
Mother Nature cares not a whit about hardships, lol. She rolls the dice, and they fall as they fall.
Evolution can and does eventually result in various useful bodily features and behaviors coming into being……. but there’s no reason why brakes on the urge to DO IT should have evolved.
There has never been any fitness advantage to having fewer children in human history.MORE have always been better, because MORE meant greater security, greater fitness, taken all around.
One for the mice, one for the crow, one to rot, and one to grow. That’s an old time rhyme that was once familiar from the mouths of an old Scots Irish farm women back when I was a kid. The origins of it are lost in history, but it’s one of the easy to remember rules farmers of previous times used to use to plan their work, and it’s often included in books. You needed four times as much seed as you wanted in mature corn plants.
We will continue to “do it the hard way” pun intended, twice over, except when women are finally educated, and convinced by seeing other women’s one or two babies live to adulthood. That’s a SLOW process.
Dying the hard way in misery makes it possible to do it the other hard way, the ultimate pleasure way, more space and more resources for the youngsters that survive. Pun intended.
“There has never been any fitness advantage to having fewer children in human history.”
We have broken a lot of rules. Fitness is no longer relevant. A pitiful excuse of a man has his finger on a nuclear bomb.
We will pay the price for overshoot. Being aware of the process hasn’t helped us ‘wise’ ape react to lessen the impact.
Full speed ahead.
In the last 200,000 years, homo sapiens has had a population of 1-10 million, with near extinction 70,000 years ago (visible in the genetic record).
7.6+ billion? Try not to laugh
Hi Hickory,
I should have added UNTIL NOW right after that about no fitness advantage, lol.
True. This is now uncharted territory.
From kidney dialysis to genetic manipulation of embryos.
From 80,000 yr old rainwater brought to surface as irrigation water, to 180 million year old reduced carbon being dug up and oxidized in a flash.
From a few tribes, to 7.8 Billion.
All with hands, and mouths, and still with the urge to procreate, even if in sardine conditions.
An experiment that was doomed from the start.
Knowledge is a wonderful, though sometimes disturbing, thing. However the fact that nature is still thought of in terms of dollars by these gatherers of knowledge tells me that human failure is guaranteed. When we learn to have a backbone, do what is right and what is needed, we will no longer try to justify our actions to the economists and business heads. Until then, we are weak and ineffective.
I just listened to Wendell Berry talking of the impact of industrial society upon agrarian society and it’s ramifications. Quite revealing. Wendell Berry: The Thought of Limits in the Prodigal Age https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0fLDa7a6Ag
The winds of renewable energy are blowing hard in Maryland. Will they follow through or will NIMBYism put wind in the doldrums?
I don’t suppose there is any thing much if anything at all in the way of penalties or an enforcement mechanism in this agreement, but it’s still a historic turning point.
The Prius has an AWD option now for about a $1000, opening up the northern market. 50 mpg combined.
A random thought about being sure we know what’s ultimately good or bad, or just the value of some particular technology or custom totals up.
I was once convinced that television is the ultimate in wasted time, wasted ambition, false hopes and such.
But it certainly appears to be the case that the birth rate among women in Brazil dropped like a rock, over a very few years, in very large part as the result of women there watching television, and accepting the women on tv as their role models….. women with one or two or no kids, half a dozen or more pairs of shoes, a closet full of nice clothes, jobs, some time and money for themselves etc.
So maybe we should be thanking Sky Daddy for television.
From the article
The Parises, who are expecting a second child, are neither wealthy nor environmental firebrands. Yet the couple opted to spend $36,000 for a home solar system consisting of 26 solar panels, freshly installed on the roof this month, and a smart battery—about the size of a small refrigerator—parked in the cellar.
On sunny days, the photovoltaic panels supply all of the Paris household’s electricity needs and charge their hybrid car’s electric battery, too. Once these basics are covered, the rooftop-generated power feeds into the stationary battery until it’s full—primed for nighttime energy demand and cloudy days. Then, when the battery is topped off, the unit’s digital control system automatically redirects any excess energy into Berlin’s power grid, for which the Parises will be compensated by the local grid operator.
“They convinced me it would pay off in ten years,” explains Paris, referring to Enerix, a Bavaria-based retailer offering solar systems and installation services. “After that, most of our electricity won’t cost us anything.” The investment, he says, is a hedge against rising energy costs. Moreover, the unit’s smart software enables the Parises to monitor the production, consumption, and storage of electricity, as well as track in real time the feed-in of power to the grid.
Juice is expensive in Germany, but once the Germans have paid for their renewable energy infrastructure, they will be in better shape than any other country that is dependent on imported fossil fuels.
And juice will be cheap for them, THEN, unless they choose to maintain high grid sourced consumption taxes, which they generally spend on things well worthwhile to individuals and the country as a whole.
The last I found to read about installation costs of home scale solar in Germany, they had it down to only half what an equivalent installation costs HERE.
And their installation costs, in constant money, will continue to fall slowly, because newer panels are more efficient, meaning smaller installations produce more, and because the people doing the work are still going to be finding ways to giterdone just as competently but a little cheaper, year after year.
Just think, that system short circuits the mine, the natural gas drilling, the transport of material, the power station, the burning of FF, the main grid distribution structure. It eliminates the petroleum system from drilling to refining to distribution and burning, as well as subsidiary energy from coal and natural gas to produce the products.
All in one neat, CO2 and methane burning free and continuous mining/drilling pollution free system. It eliminates external needs for many years.
California Solar Sets Record, But That’s Not The Big News
On Saturday, March 16, California set a new solar energy record. Just before 3 o’clock in the afternoon, solar output peaked at 10,765 megawatts, the highest amount ever, though just a smidgen more than the previous record set last June. According to the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), demand at that time, not including behind-the-meter solar, was around 18 gigawatts. Los Angeles and Sacramento are not part of the CAISO grid.
That meant solar was meeting 59% of the grid’s power needs at that moment.That’s wonderful news, but what should get solar proponents really excited is that CAISO was a net exporter of electricity to other systems at the time the record was set.
Things are happening in sand country these days, when it comes to solar power.
I have seen plenty of speculation in the past as to why it has taken so long to take off, and speculated a bit on this question myself.
But now I’m thinking all those princes and other big wig kids from that part of the world haven’t been enrolling in Yankee and Limey universities and majoring in finance for nothing. They have probably been putting of putting their money into solar for the same reason I have , namely that it has been getting cheaper so fast that it’s been better to buy later rather than sooner, in any sort of reasonable dollars and cents scenario.
I believe the cost of solar electricity in that part of the world is now low enough that from here on out, the people there will actually generate a net profit right away on every new solar farm, so long as it’s financed at a reasonable interest rate. This profit will come in the form of selling gas and oil they would have otherwise used to generate electricity.
So far as long as they foresee a sale for oil and gas at a good price, they will likely be pedal to the metal on solar.
The system I would like to have would save me maybe sixty to ninety bucks a month, depending on the weather and the season.
The price of it has been falling that much or more every year, and the longer I put off buying it, the better the quality of good name brand components will be, ditto better warranties too.
How to Deal with Chaos in Climate and Politics
In complex systems, small changes can make big differences
With the benefit of hindsight, we clearly see consequences of the decision taken by the citizens of the United States on November 8, 2016. We cannot change the decision or the political initial conditions that led to it. We can, however, influence the initial conditions before the next presidential election on November 3, 2020. We can use the intervening 19 months to call out bad behavior.
We can speak out when the president is untruthful, embraces dictators, uses hateful speech, undermines democratic institutions, demeans allies, abrogates treaties and initiates trade wars. We can ask our elected representatives whether their pledge of allegiance is to “one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all” or to Donald J. Trump. We can be tireless advocates for decency, honesty, kindness and rationality. We can ensure that our children’s concerns about their climate future are heard, not mocked. Scientists can speak publicly about the reality and seriousness of human-caused climate change; we can encourage our professional institutions and academies to do the same.
Climate change denial is evil, says Mary Robinson
Exclusive: chair of Elders group also says fossil fuel firms have lost their social licence
The denial of climate change is not just ignorant, but “malign and evil”, according to Mary Robinson, because it denies the human rights of the most vulnerable people on the planet.
The former UN high commissioner for human rights and special envoy for climate change also says fossil fuel companies have lost their social licence to explore for more coal, oil and gas and must switch to become part of the transition to clean energy.
Robinson will make the outspoken attack on Tuesday, in a speech to the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew in London, which has awarded her the Kew International Medal for her “integral work on climate justice”.
She also told the Guardian she supports climate protests, including the school strikes for climate founded by “superstar” Greta Thunberg, and that “there is room for civil disobedience as a way of communicating, though we also need hope”.
Sadly, the USA is chock full of poor judgment and simplistic thinking. This will not end well, nor even have a good middle time.
With the Arctic being well above average temps lately (6.5C over the 1979 to 2000 average today), it might be a good time to keep a close eye upon that region this year.
Warmer weather means more evaporation off the oceans thus more moisture in the air. Warm moist air moving upslope, say toward the head of a glacier, cools and condensation can occur. If temperatures up there are low enough snow falls. That will put new snow on the upper part of the glacier and if warming keeps the air moist offshore that snow will be buried by more snow and the lower part of the pile will compact under the weight and become ice. With more weight on it the glacier will re-advance–mountain glaciers flow downhill. This is the cycle for a mountain glacier. That cycle is why the glacier’s retreat is expected not to last.
If warming continues for decades the melting that will result will eventually overcome the glacier cycle described above and mountain glaciers will go into full retreat. This is happening in parts of the northern Andes where glacier meltwater is the main water source for the settlements farther downslope and the decreasing water supply is causing hardship.
Arctic still 6.4C above 79-2000 average temp and predicted to be over 7C above on March 31.
Tis truly the age of man. From the oil-gas side.
“What started as an American phenomenon is now being felt around the world as U.S. oil exports surge to levels unthinkable only a few years ago. The flow of crude will keep growing over the next few years with huge consequences for the oil industry, global politics and even whole economies. OPEC, for example, will face challenges keeping oil prices high, while Washington has a new, and potent, diplomatic weapon.
American oil exports stepped up a gear last year, jumping more than 70 percent to just over 2 million barrels a day, according to government data. Over the past four weeks, U.S. oil exports have averaged more than 3 million barrels a day — more than what Middle East petro-state Kuwait sells.
Coffeeguyzz says:
03/26/2019 at 12:40 pm
Ovi
That referenced article could be a sobering, highly informative read for anyone following the hydrocarbon world.
The amount of oil yet to be unleashed via fracturing/horizontal drilling is simply vast.
A few years on, the even larger amounts of natgas to be extracted, consumed, exported by way of ‘unconventional’ methods will transform the world as we now know it.”
Truly, the world is being transformed into a world not as we know it.
That is probably a good thing.
First, Coffeeguyzz is not just wrong, he is fractally wrong.!
His vision will not come to pass. A global nuclear holocaust would be more survivable.
Second, The oil age is over! Most people just don’t know it yet!
Third, this is the dawning of the age of man enhanced by AI.
Everything that anyone can imagine is being disrupted and transformed!
Here’s just one example in transportation technology.
Rimac 2
Full video: 48:19 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcC0amHnBKU
A little bit of joyous hyperbole is always welcome,
but…….
As Churchill put it about the War, in his time, the end of the oil age is not yet, nor maybe even the beginning of the end, but you and I have lived to see in his immortal words ” the end of the beginning”, and that’s something we can be proud of, even we had only a little to do with it, blogging and talking and getting the word out.
CHEERS indeed!
I’m beginning to think that maybe I will live to own a ratted out third hand electric car me ownself… even though I am a tight as the bark on an oak penny pinching old Scots Irishman. And before then, I will have my ten thousand watts worth of home grown juice, enough to run any of my power tools, etc, enough to pump water to a storage tank uphill on the farm, enough for air conditioning in hot weather, enough that with a super sized water heater I won’t even need a solar hot water system, enough to feed any excess juice into a few tons of gravel with heater wires in it, which I may put into a little used portion of the basement, thereby helping keep the house warm……
And then with an electric car that can both eat juice and regurgitate it as I need it in the house, if the sun isn’t shining, and an old ice car in reserve……. I may be able to get my electricity bill down to the minimum monthly charge here, which is less than thirty bucks at this time……… you have to pay a little bit just to stay connected.
Disconnecting is probably not a good idea…… although I could manage it, because I have a couple of gasoline powered generators that would keep the pumps and refrigerators, etc, running thru a really bad spell of weather.
It was sarcasm Fred. I am, as are you, very interested in the preservation of species and the ecology. The blatant joy of certain FF promoters at the thought of expansion of the hugely destructive fossil fuel systems is beyond my comprehension. But, as Cats@ has pointed out the system is being taken over by the enviropaths.
Apparently the population at large reads about such occurrences and just goes about it’s business. Have we reached the mythical lemming state? OFM keeps asking for wake up calls, well he bells and sirens have been ringing and screaming for a while now. Some attention has been paid but the rise of natural gas, for example, has stifled the growth of renewable (PV,wind).
The gross mental insufficiencies I observe in people are the biggest part of the problem. A cultural system that trains one to make money and acquire technology is a highly destructive system headed to a conclusion.
Remind me what the plot of the human story was please.
The gross mental insufficiencies I observe in people are the biggest part of the problem. A cultural system that trains one to make money and acquire technology is a highly destructive system headed to a conclusion.
I blame it on the viral propagation of the pathological meme, best characterized by the neoclassical economic school of thought. This is now a global pandemic that really took off in the mid 1970s.
I think it might even explain the blatant joy of certain FF promoters at the thought of expansion of the hugely destructive fossil fuel systems…
While at first blush this TED video may seem a bit OT, I think there may be some nuggets within in that help explain quite a lot about the mental processes of the old guard politicians on both sides of the aisle. Might explain why AOCs Green New Deal is so unpalatable even to died in the wool Democrats…
After years of effort, scientists at the Fish and Wildlife Service had a moment of celebration as they wrapped up a comprehensive analysis of the threat that three widely used pesticides present to hundreds of endangered species, like the kit fox and the seaside sparrow.
Their analysis found that two of the pesticides, malathion and chlorpyrifos, were so toxic that they “jeopardize the continued existence” of more than 1,200 endangered birds, fish and other animals and plants.
But just before the team planned to make its findings public in November 2017, something unexpected happened: Top political appointees of the Interior Department, which oversees the Fish and Wildlife Service, blocked the release and set in motion a new process intended to apply a much narrower standard to determine the risks from the pesticides.
Leading that intervention was David Bernhardt, then the deputy secretary of the interior and a former lobbyist and oil-industry lawyer.
Mr. Bernhardt is now President Trump’s nominee to become interior secretary. The Senate is scheduled to hold a hearing on his confirmation Thursday.
This sequence of events is detailed in more than 84,000 pages of Interior Department and Environmental Protection Agency documents obtained via Freedom of Information requests by The New York Times and, separately, by the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group that sued the federal government to force it to complete the pesticide studies.
The documents provide a case study of how the Trump administration has been using its power to second-guess or push aside conclusions reached by career professionals, particularly in the area of public health and the environment.
Recording reveals oil industry execs laughing at Trump access
By Lance Williams
Gathered for a private meeting at a beachside Ritz–Carlton in Southern California, the oil executives were celebrating a colleague’s sudden rise. David Bernhardt, their former lawyer, had been appointed by President Donald Trump to the powerful No. 2 spot at the Department of the Interior.
Just five months into the Trump era, the energy developers who make up the Independent Petroleum Association of America, or IPAA, already had watched the new president order a sweeping overhaul of environmental regulations that were cutting into their bottom lines – rules concerning smog, hydraulic fracturing and endangered species protection.
Dan Naatz, the association’s political director, told the audience of about 100 executives that Bernhardt’s new role meant their priorities would be heard at the highest levels of the department.
“We know him very well, and we have direct access to him, have conversations with him about issues ranging from federal land access to endangered species, to a lot of issues,” Naatz said, according to an hourlong recording of the June 2017 event in Laguna Niguel provided to Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting.
The previous eight years had been dispiriting for the industry: As IPAA vice president Jeff Eshelman told the group, it had seemed as though the Obama administration and environmental groups had put together “their target list of everything that they wanted done to shut down the oil and gas industry.”
But now, the oil executives were almost giddy at the prospect of high-level executive branch access of the sort they hadn’t enjoyed since Dick Cheney, a fellow oilman, was vice president.
George H.W. Bush famously declared: “The American way of life is not up for negotiations. Period.”
I’ve was immersed in “the real world” for a couple of days with little or no access to the the internet and my attention focused on some other stuff. I come back to see the US AG’s conclusions on the Muller report, the guy the POTUS hand picked to receive the report basically trying to bury it and the stuff at the top of this sub-thread. Also looked at a postmortem of the results of this weekend’s elections in New South Wales, down under via reneweconomy.com.au.
It is depressing to realise that the public at large in the western world is being led by the nose, in large part due to the influence of a very small number of extremely wealthy entities with interests in the fossil fuel industries. Think Koch Industries and News Corp. News Corp has a very large presence in Australia and reports from reneweconomy.com.au suggest that the anti-renewable, anti-EV, climate change denying apparatus is going full bore, with the approach of the upcoming federal elections in Australia. Will the Australian people fall victim to the propaganda and vote against their interests? It appears there is a chance sanity will prevail but, we will have to wait till after the elections (in May?) to find out. I was under the impression that the elections were due this month but, it appears the ruling party decided to delay them. My guess is that the tide was against them (the ruling coalition) so the delay gives their FF industry backers (News Corp. et al) time to ratchet up the propaganda campaign and for it to swing some votes their way!
Another effect of being out in the real world for a couple of days was to realize how “off the radar” the stuff we discuss around here every day is. I did not detect any concern about the state of the environment or future energy security or climate change from anybody I came in contact with. Everybody just appears to be concerned about their own personal issues inside their own little bubble.
I feel almost like member of an alien species that has been left on earth to observe the downfall of it’s greatest civilisation! Among the things I find strange is that if I talk about a 100% renewable electricity generation system for my neck of the woods, the reaction is as if it is not realistic except in the very long term. Yet the island already has 100MW of installed wind turbines and will double the solar PV capacity in the next three months, when a new 50 MW PV plant is commissioned. This plant will join a three year old 20 MW solar farm and an estimated 30MW (and growing) “behind the meter” capacity and will have been built in less than twelve months (actual construction time, ground was broken in Dec 2017 but, the ground breaking ceremony was followed by a period of inactivity, while financing was finalised). The peak demand on the local grid is in the region of 650 MW so, with all I’ve just outlined combined with falling cost for solar, wind and storage, is 100 % renewable all that unrealistic? Puerto Rico doesn’t think so and they are an island at the same exact latitude, in the same general area with similar size and population!
The Puerto Rico state legislature adopted on Monday a bill that would set a 100% renewable portfolio standard (RPS) by 2050 as part of a broader package of energy reforms.
The U.S. territory will join Hawaii, California and Washington, D.C., with its 100% RPS target, which includes interim goals of 40% renewables by 2025 and 50% by 2040. Similar to Hawaii’s island economy, Puerto Rico’s energy customers faced high prices from importing fossil fuels for power generation as well as resilience issues from extreme weather and vulnerable transmission infrastructure.
“I feel almost like member of an alien species that has been left on earth to observe the downfall of it’s greatest civilisation! Among the things I find strange is that if I talk about a 100% renewable electricity generation system for my neck of the woods, the reaction is as if it is not realistic except in the very long term. ”
Now you have some idea how the Buddhist monks felt as they became enlightened in the midst of medieval systems.
I believe the quote “Nature Bats Last” is attributed to Robert Michael Pyle. Guy McP does name his website that though.
In 2001 Australian economist John Quiggin wrote that the Lavoisier Group is “devoted to the proposition that basic principles of physics…cease to apply when they come into conflict with the interests of the Australian coal industry.”
It’s true though.
The American Way of Life is not sustainable, and that’s not negotiable.
Just to be clear, the world is still fucked, right?
We’ve still gone off the cliff and we’re simply in freefall waiting for the violent deceleration at the end of the trip, right?
Just wanted to clear that up.
Thanks in advance!
Doom.
I think you are going to see things from a much more optimistic standpoint by taking a series of steps-
1. change your name, something like ‘we can make things better’
2. eat more vegetables
3. exercise regularly
4. get out in the public more often, socialize a little
5. spend more time with your favorite hobby
6. smile at people, even if you don’t know them
7. get some solar panels. a dozen should do.
8. give lots of money to both the Nature Conservancy and the Southern Poverty Law Center
9. go around with a shopping cart and pick up garbage along the side of the road
Otherwise that’s great advice for having a good life. I’ve made my choice and doom it is.
Perhaps another significant life changing moment will arise and give rise to the requisite motivation to change my views and my life, but no dice so far. I thought a child might do it, but nope, not so much.
Nonetheless, I’m not 100% wedded to the end of all things. After all, the doomsayers could be wrong after all. I don’t entirely think they are, but they could very well be. That’s a bona fide possibility. They are, after all, merely human.
So we’ll see.
In the meantime, thanks for taking the time to give some thoughtful, helpful advice that I won’t take.
Also, read up on the SPLC. Maybe their critics have some grounds for their criticism (not that they ever bothered put those grounds forth in any kind of cogent, thoughtful manner that could convince anyone who wasn’t already convinced). I think that everyone would be well served by reading this article about the SPLC and adjust their speech accordingly. Which isn’t to say that there aren’t hateful scum in the world, because there most certainly are, but to say that as an authority, the SPLC appears to leave more than a few credibility and reliability issues.
“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.” ~ William Arthur Ward
I’m actually very optimistic for myself, but most of ya’ll are fucked.
That poor guy is in a mental spiral. He missed the lesson on the meaning of life.
“Without religion bad people would be doing bad things, and good people good things. You need something like religion to make good people do bad things” ~ Slavoj Zizek
Too true. Not what I meant though.
While I agree with much of what Marty has to say, I’m not fully in agreement.
Life carries on until it doesn’t. It’s just how it does. We are lifeforms, and no matter how messed up we go about doing it, it’s what we do too.
It is what it is.
There mere fact that our capacities outran our wisdom and that we can’t accept the brute simplicity of our existence doesn’t void the truth of the foregoing.
There is almost certainly more to it than the foregoing, but what that is and what you can take to the bank, I don’t know. I am quite certain that you can take our basic life drives and purposes to the bank though. Those are very reliable and true. Individuals may act contrary to type, but we’re not a species of undead or unliving. Not yet anyways. With sufficient tech, we may just get there, but not as of yet and likely not soon.
Err… That may be Rus I agree with. In short, Matthew McConaughey’s character. That’s the guy I mostly agree with.
This is quite a nice “Movie Review” of True Detective, for those interested.
True Detective – The Decay of Humanity https://youtu.be/ZEHCzjk0Hrk
This one is good too, I think.
No Country For Old Men – Morality In An Inhumane World https://youtu.be/JmQ7hn1uaQE
FWIW, I enjoy contemplating what is morally obligatory (required), (merely) morally permissible, and morally impermissible (not permitted) in the context of a human induced mass extinction and ecological collapse.
what is “morally impermissible in the context of a human induced mass extinction and ecological collapse.”
For humans, apparently nothing falls in this category. It doesn’t even take extreme circumstances. The Pope just has to say, offer them conversion first… Its happened to tens of millions.
Or, ask those who were survivors of genocide for other (stupid) reasons.
We could write a thousand books detailing the examples.
It might be more insightful to ask the perpetrators of genocide rather than the survivors, if one wishes to understand other (stupid) reasons.
Humans seem to disagree quite strongly on the topic of what is and what is not morally impermissible, abortion for example. It seems to me that humanity, as a whole, has not concluded that ‘nothing is morally impermissible’, except perhaps Nihilists.
An analysis of aggregate human behavior does, though, seem to indicate that there is always somebody somewhere willing to do very nasty things and believe them to be morally justified; like human torture, and destroying the eco-sphere for profit, for example.
The American Empire is irrelevant! There are only 2,208 human beings on the planet that count and somehow the rest of us need to find a way to hold them accountable.
The super-elites, the 2,208 billionaires — those who attend Global Economic Summits, own banks, buy off governments, pollute with impunity, and hold political influence in virtually every nation in the world — comprise not the “1%” but only 28-millionths of a percent of the human population. According to Forbes magazine, the average billionaire makes about $635 million dollars every year, $12 million per week, even when they’re on holiday.
For these people, neo-classical economic theory works just fine, but only if one ignores the human and ecological costs: poverty, squalor, homelessness, migrations, biodiversity loss, global heating, disappearing forests, toxic land and water, and rising, acidic oceans. Capitalism is designed to benefit those who have capital, the wealthy. For most of humanity, modern neo-classical economics erodes well being. For the ecosystem at large, neo-classical economics serves as a rationalisation for plunder.
And that is the problem for most of humanity. We’re non-essential to keeping the exceptionally wealthy going. Their wealth and their sustainability doesn’t depend on our human labor or even our purchasing power anymore.
So most of humanity doesn’t have much leverage. And given the way global politics is going, most of humanity is going along with their irrelevance. A lot of that wealth merely lies in digital form, and a lot of the power the wealthy have exists only because it is given to them. The wealth could be eliminated and the power taken away, but it hasn’t happened.
The very poor can’t do much. But the middle class could, but aren’t. They more or less willingly go along with watching their land, air, and water being destroyed. I suppose this is one way to reduce the human population to a size that can be supported by what is left.
Humans seem to be inclined to believe religious leaders and kings have special powers, even if they don’t. We sacrifice ourselves in the belief that it is required of us.
Since 2016, social-media companies have come under fire for allowing white supremacy and other extremist ideologies to spread. YouTube’s algorithms have been shown to push people further toward the fringes; a New York Times headline called the site “The Great Radicalizer.” Facebook is notorious for allowing anti-vaxxers and other conspiracy theorists to organize and spread their messages to millions—the two most-shared news stories on Facebook in 2019 so far are both false. Twitter, too, has been criticized for being slow to police the misinformation that spreads on its platform.
But Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are not where young people go to socialize. Instagram is.
The platform is likely where the next great battle against misinformation will be fought, and yet it has largely escaped scrutiny. Part of this is due to its reputation among older users, who generally use it to post personal photos, follow aspirational accounts, and keep in touch with friends. Many teenagers, however, use the platform differently—not only to connect with friends, but to explore their identity, and often to consume information about current events.
Jack, a 16-year-old who asked to be referred to by a pseudonym to protect his identity, has learned a lot about politics through Instagram. In 2020, he’ll be able to vote for the first time, and so he recently started following some new Instagram pages to bone up on issues facing the country.
Following just a handful of these accounts can quickly send users spiraling down a path toward even more extremist views and conspiracies, guided by Instagram’s own recommendation algorithm.
q_redpillworld17, for instance, which requested to follow me after I followed the_typical_liberal, has posted several videos and images claiming proof that the New Zealand shooting was a “false flag”; one post compares the mosque’s blood-spattered carpet with another image, implying that the carpets don’t match so the shooting was staged. Another is a graphic video of the shooting, with a caption claiming that the bullets disappeared mid-air. Another suggests 200 examples of proof that the Earth is flat. Another falsely claims that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is secretly connected to the Clintons, who feed baby blood to George Soros.
activate_justice, another page that requested to follow my account, is littered with Kek memes and shared a screenshot of a YouTube video declaring that it has been “confirmed: Hillary died” and that Nancy Pelosi has been arrested. mommy_underground, which Instagram itself suggested I follow, features a post falsely claiming that a new bill would “engrave Planned Parenthood’s abortion number” onto the back of all student-ID cards for girls over the age of 12.
The top of my Instagram Explore page also featured a racist caricature of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, exaggerating her features and darkening her skin; a post about Hillary Clinton being a pedophile; a 4chan screenshot talking about a “beta Jew”; and yet another Christchurch false-flag post.
Given the velocity of the recommendation algorithm, the power of hashtagging, and the nature of the posts, it’s easy to see how Instagram can serve as an entry point into the internet’s darkest corners. Instagram “memes pages and humor is a really effective way to introduce people to extremist content,” says Becca Lewis, a doctoral student at Stanford and a research affiliate at the Data and Society Research Institute. “It’s easy, on Instagram, to attach certain hashtags to certain memes and get high visibility.”
Conspiracy Theories Can’t Be Stopped
By Maggie Koerth-Baker
We’ve all watched conspiracies grow from myriad soils: the missing Malaysia Airlines jet, the political passions of George Soros, vaccines, climate change, even the football secrets of the New England Patriots. Conspiracy theories appear to have become a major part of how we, as a society, process the news. It might be harder to think of an emotionally tinged event that didn’t provoke a conspiracy theory than it is to rattle off a list of the ones that did.
The ubiquity — and risks — of all these conspiracies has caught the attention of scientists. For years, the potentially dangerous consequences of conspiracy led many researchers to approach belief in conspiracies as a pathology in need of a cure. But that train of thought tended to awkwardly clash against some of the facts. The more we learn about conspiracy beliefs, the more normal they look — and the more some scientists worry that trying to prevent them could present its own dangers.
At the same time, though, conspiracy theories have a sociopolitical aspect that makes them stand out. Carrie Leonard, a postdoctoral fellow in psychology at the University of Lethbridge in Canada, and other researchers, think of belief in conspiracy as an interaction between individual tendencies and social circumstances. So, for instance, if you’re part of a group that is marginalized by society or lacks power in important ways you’re more likely to believe in conspiracy theories. That means being a member of a racial minority is a predictor of conspiracy belief — and so is unemployment, low economic status, or even just being a member of a cultural group that’s looked down on by people in positions of power.
There’s also no evidence to suggest that conspiracy belief is a phenomenon of the far right or the far left, said Joseph Uscinski, a political scientist at the University of Miami. Americans broadly believe in a “them” pulling the strings and manipulating the country.
WMD in Iraq was a good conspiracy. Prob my fav.
In 2018 US renewables produced about 650 million megawatts of energy. If all that was used to run EV’s it would displace 200 million petrol cars. That would mean a drop in demand of 100 billion gallons of gasoline which is 73 percent of all gasoline consumption in the US.
Despite the government tariff on imported solar panels, growth is still continuing. What we need now is EV production to catch up to renewable growth, thus displacing the need for much of our petroleum industry and greatly increase the health, welfare and security of the nation and the world.
The economic benefits are huge since we pay about 1 billion dollars a day just for gasoline. At $2.60 a gallon you get 25 miles. At a nickel a kWh off a solar roof you get 25 miles for 31 cents. Of course the environmental and health benefits are huge also.
GF- I love the idea, and think the whole concept is valid/worthy.
The nickel per kWh off the roof ain’t quite real world. Perhaps at utility scale PV.
I’ve got a very well priced productive roof system. I figured out how many yrs it would take to achieve a 5 cent/kwh price at current production levels (assumes no degradation or costs such new invertor).
At the 32 nd yr of operation the cost would get that low.
But hell, if you use 10 yrs, still its only about a dollar to get 25 miles with solar from the roof.
I’m in.
Not sure why you think the panels only last 10 years.
Typical lifespan of the PV panel is now looking like greater than 30 years. Degradation is less than 1 percent per year, so I use 30 years in my calculations. I used $2.50 per watt installation cost to mimic the US residential cost. The end value came out at less than a nickel so I rounded it up which should take care of some of the system maintenance.
I expect prices to fall to $2 a watt in the US. Class A 300 watt panels are now selling for about $200, so most of the cost is the installation and inverter/wiring.
It takes about 10 panels to supply an EV, which is $2000 just for the panels. Not a bad investment considering the cost of gasoline is about $1300 a year for the average driver. That makes close to 30 years of free fuel and it’s useful for other at home uses, unlike gasoline.
In my state the added solar is not taxed which means it’s just money on the roof instead of a liability like the rest of the house.
If one was to consider the added value to the house and subtract that from the original cost the numbers look even better.
2012 study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) found that, on average, solar panel output falls by 0.8 percent each year. This rate of decline is called solar panel degradation rate. Though this rate of decline metric will vary depending on which panel brand you buy, premium manufacturers like SunPower offer degradation rates as low as 0.3%. Solar panel degradation rates are constantly improving as solar panel technology gets better over the years, and degradation rates below 1% are common throughout the industry. In the years since this 2012 study was conducted, more efficient technologies have been developed and many newer panels have just a 0.5 percent yearly decline in energy output. https://news.energysage.com/how-long-do-solar-panels-last/
If you compare the PV panel to the oil well it replaces, I don’t see oil wells shut down when they reach 80 percent of original production. Maybe one should calculate at least 10 percent loss into the original installation. Although as we clean up the atmosphere you might be getting 10 percent more sunlight in developed regions, so it all evens out.
Of course the cars could get more efficient also, since we are not using carbon fiber much yet. Best existing full size EV’s are getting 0.2 kWh/mile. I used 0.25 kWh per mile in my calculations. City EV’s do even better (smaller and run slower).
However it works out, we are not far from having the power to run all the transport on renewable electricity. Now we need to get away from luxury EV and down into the mainstream use. Look like Tesla won’t even produce it’s base model 3, they keep putting off the customers hoping they will buy the Model 3+.
We need Ford to really get into the game. Toyota is not. Chevy produced a good EV but it is in the price range of the Model 3 so not the best marketing
“To get electrification volumes where we would all like them to be we have to make sure we make the affordability targets or otherwise they are going to stay as a niche item or a pure luxury item,”
“We think we have a technology path that will get us a 300 plus miles range and an affordable crossover utility that will be fully competitive,” https://electrek.co/2017/05/18/ford-first-all-electric-vehicle/
Once EV’s get similar in price to ICE then the economics will drive a large customer base, which will push more charge points.
Makes sense, if you use 30 yrs, and yes I do expect longlife from the panels. Track record appears to have been excellent overall.
I guess I’m just not used to people using longterm planning and projections.
Over 30 yrs, my system looks like about 5.3 cents/kwh.
I expect prices to fall to $2 a watt in the US. Class A 300 watt panels are now selling for about $200, so most of the cost is the installation and inverter/wiring. It takes about 10 panels to supply an EV, which is $2000 just for the panels. Not a bad investment considering the cost of gasoline is about $1300 a year for the average driver. That makes close to 30 years of free fuel and it’s useful for other at home uses, unlike gasoline.
Is precisely why the GOP, Trump and his supporters, NO! Not the 60 million morons who voted for him, but the Fossil fuel lobby! are against AOC’s Green New Deal, and why even the old guard Democrats are against it! It puts way too many nails in the coffin of our petroleum fueled industrial civilization.
But there is not a damn thing any of them, can do to stop the changes that are already underway. Not even the Koch brothers or the Heartland Institute!
Here’s ‘nuther one a them there HollyWood nit wit libtards what aint got cents ‘nuf ta know that battres ain’t never gonna go fur nuf, ner las long ‘nuf ta be worth a shit, cept ta CRANK the motor!
I KNOW this is so, because I just got it straight from one of my neighbors by phone who heard about this from his kid, who can actually read and write and do arithmetic, lol.
Methinks that the little children these days are literally leading the adults to the waters of wisdom.
Expressing pay back in a ten year time frame is actually a great idea, if talking to most people these days. That’s more apt to get their attention, being more in line with their own expectations about how long they are apt to own the house they live in, etc, except for old folks, who don’t have much reason to worry about twenty five and thirty year paybacks.
This IS assuming that the numbers at ten years are reasonably attractive, lol.
I have long noticed that most people these days don’t actually give a damn about how long a new car is likely to last. At most, they are concerned only with the trade in value when they get another new car, anywhere from three to six years or so down the road.
“Expressing pay back in a ten year time frame is actually a great idea”
I was not calculating payback time. I calculated the energy produced over the panel “lifetime” and compared the costs over that time to the costs of running an ICE the same distance as an EV from the panels.
In oil terms it would be URR. In reality with manufacturers like Sunpower claiming 8 percent loss of production rate at 25 years, the panels still have a lot of lifetime left at 30 years. So the URR of panels may be twice what I calculated, 2.5 cents per mile or less. Essentially they may be lifetime panels. The key here is a one time investment provides “fuel” for decades without further investment.
Oil is trapped by needing further investment and by continuous new costs to the users of the products.
As far as payback time goes, if one is feeding EV’s with the panel it is about 3 to 5 years compared to the cost of liquid fuel for ICE vehicle over the same driving distance.
OFM,
Aren’t a lot of people familiar with 30 year mortgages. For rural conservatives, I would expect they would live in their home for 50 years at least. I have been in the same home for 23 years and I am a damn liberal.
And why, Dennis, do we not have 30 yr US Solar Bonds?
Something like this in Canada, but on a grand scale.
You could buy into 30 yrs of PV in New Mexico. https://www.solarbonds.ca/
The long lifespan of solar panels is a huge benefit.
Problem is you’ve (or your country) has to come up with the funding now to purchase the project.
That means 30 yrs of value up front, either in cash, or a big loan.
Its far worse for a nuclear reactor.
Nonetheless, it means you better be credit worthy (a very long income stream ahead of you and a clean record behind you) or wealthy to pay for this transition.
How many people, or countries, fit that bill well enough?
Thus the need for the US Solar Bond….
I certainly was not promoting going into debt to get the EV-PV system. However for the many millions that can afford an EV (new or used) and the 10 or 12 PV panels to feed it, I was giving a different perspective on the economics than is usually presented.
For those that cannot afford all that, they can rideshare, plan their trips better, get a higher mpg vehicle on next purchase, etc.
Ebikes and e-motorcycles are options that many in developing countries are purchasing.
The whole idea is that we need to reduce FF burn, not just get some new high tech gizmos.
The poor people in the world generally have a minimal carbon footprint. It’s the richer ones that are the big FF burners.
Agreed. We are just adding comments.
1881 — US: Barnum & Bailey’s Circus forms. American politics is never the same.
1979 — US: A Three Mile Island cooling unit fails, leading to a meltdown that uncovers the reactor’s core. Amid the worst nuclear disaster in US history, it takes Pennsylvania authorities three days to advise pregnant women & children to evacuate. Thousands flee the Harrisburg area. The men — apparently born macho mutants — hang around for their daily dose.
“No nuclear reactor is an island.”
I was 80 miles downwind as an 18 yr old. Wasn’t pleasant times. The lack of solid info was hard to swallow. We dodged a bullet with that one.
The recently spotted test mule of a camouflaged Ford F-150 – suspected to be all-electric (with a fake exhaust pipe) or plug-in hybrid – was recently discussed by TheFastLaneTruck.
Spy photos obtained by InsideEVs reveal and independent rear suspension, while from the side profile we probably see battery packs (on the bottom).
If I were in charge of this project and wanted to keep it secret, the first thing I would do is not use that conspicuous “camo” wrap. If they are testing EV technology they could use an existing model as a mule since the F-150 still uses “body on frame” construction. If I wanted to be really sneaky, I would include a system to generate engine noises as a decoy. I think Ford is getting spooked by all the talk of electric trucks and desperately wants it known that they are working on something too!
Ford announced it’s intention to develop hybrid pick-ups a while ago, so no need to hide.
It also intends to develop a lower cost 300 mile range crossover EV.
It’s the flying car that they disguise. 🙂
Of particular interest to those with a taste for astronomy and astrophysics
I have no expertise in this field, but do know some BASIC chemistry and physics, and in the past I have read that Mars lacks sufficient gravity, and also lacks a strong magnetic field, both of which are theoretically ( supposed) to be necessary to maintaining a reasonably dense atmosphere, something along the line of the Earth’s atmospheric density.
If so, any water that makes it to the surface of Mars can be expected to be lost to space, over any extended period of time. Right or wrong?
Mars did have a denser atmosphere but it’s escape velocity is much lower than Earth. That plus solar winds slowly remove the lighter atoms, leaving some CO2.
What a riot. We cannot even control the level of trace gases in our atmosphere and people are thinking about adding a full atmosphere to a dead planet. We also cannot control ourselves, so thinking in the long term about controlling Mars is just silly.
Now if they discover petroleum, natural gas and lots of rare earth metals then we would make a severe attempt to industrialize Mars also. However, there is no money in going to Mars.
I think Mars is safe from us, except for a small amount of litter in the form of probes and failed expeditions.
Raging Rivers May Have Washed Over Mars for Billions of Years
A study of 200 river systems shows the waterways persisted even while the atmosphere was disappearing and the Red Planet was drying up
Totten is retreating, with potential to raise sea level by 10 feet. However other east Antarctica glaciers are on the move.
More glaciers in East Antarctica are waking up A group of four glaciers in an area of East Antarctica called Vincennes Bay, west of the massive Totten Glacier, have lowered their surface height by about 9 feet since 2008, hinting at widespread changes in the ocean. https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2832/more-glaciers-in-east-antarctica-are-waking-up/
NASA climate research continues to be tainted and self-contradictory. As a case in point, not that long ago, NASA confirmed Antarctica was gaining more ice than losing.
Warning.
That story is 4 years old and contains older data.
NAOM
For those with an interest in more recent data and analysis.
Antarctica ice melt has accelerated by 280% in the last 4 decades https://www.pnas.org/content/116/4/1095
“The total mass loss from Antarctica increased from 40 ± 9 Gt/y in the 11-y time period 1979–1990 to 50 ± 14 Gt/y in 1989–2000, 166 ± 18 Gt/y in 1999–2009, and 252 ± 26 Gt/y in 2009–2017, that is, by a factor 6 (Fig. 2, Table 1, and SI Appendix, Fig. S1). This change in mass loss reflects an acceleration of 94 Gt/y per decade in 1979–2017, increasing from 48 Gt/y per decade in 1979–2001 to 134 Gt/y per decade in 2001–2017, or 280%.”
Antarctic sea ice shrinks to second lowest minimum http://www.antarctica.gov.au/news/2018/antarctic-sea-ice-shrinks-to-second-lowest-minimum
“Antarctic sea ice has shrunk to its second lowest extent on record, with the latest satellite data showing a total 2.15 million km² surrounding the icy continent. This year’s summer low sea ice extent almost broke the existing minimum record of 2.07 million km², set in March last year when the extent was approximately 27 per cent below the average annual minimum since 1979.”
NASA climate research continues to be tainted and self-contradictory. As a case in point, not that long ago, NASA confirmed Antarctica was gaining more ice than losing.
Steve, you obviously have problems with reading comprehension. You’re either a troll or a moron and you didn’t even read what you posted!
From your link:
But it might only take a few decades for Antarctica’s growth to reverse, according to Zwally. “If the losses of the Antarctic Peninsula and parts of West Antarctica continue to increase at the same rate they’ve been increasing for the last two decades, the losses will catch up with the long-term gain in East Antarctica in 20 or 30 years — I don’t think there will be enough snowfall increase to offset these losses.”
Wow! that certainly proves that NASA’s research is tainted and contradictory!
Nah, not really! It just proves that you really don’t understand how science actually works!
Steven Haner,
Anybody with a university freshman level of understanding of the way real science works, looking at the same NASA data, concludes that NASA is doing the job honestly and ethically.
The very nature of observational, as compared to experimental, research is that you EXPECT to collect some to quite a lot of contradictory( but still accurate) data in most cases, and that as you collect more and more data, you resolve the contradictions and come to a good solid understanding of what’s really going on.
And what’s PERFECTLY OBVIOUS to anybody but people who REFUSE to look at the vast bulk of the evidence, is that the world is warming up fast, and that the total mass of ice in the world is shrinking fast.
Weather is the expression of climate, in the very short term, and even as it gets warmer, it’s to be EXPECTED that some places will get more rain and snow, some will get less, and that precipitation will vary in such places from day to day, month to month, and year to year. The AVERAGE winter where I live is getting warmer, but I still expect to see some very cold days and nights, even some new record lows……. but not as MANY new record lows as compared to new records set for the warmest days of the winter. We are getting new record highs, and new record high minimums at night, far faster than we are getting new record lows, day or night.
SO…… It in to be EXPECTED, it is no surprise at all, that while MOST glaciers world wide are shrinking, SOME glaciers in some places, are growing. But the number that is growing is minuscule, compared to the number that is shrinking.
Such Koch brothers Trump type sound bites as you posted are be biting Republicans on the ass and taking out bigger chunks every election from HERE ON OUT.
Let’s not forget that Trump called forced warming a hoax and that the R party calls it a fraud and a hoax to get grant money so scientists can live high on the hog, Steven Haner.
If I recall correctly, the earlier snow study overestimated the mass of snow due to instrumental difficulties in measuring snow from the satellite. Turns out the snow increase was less than the ice loss all along.
Antarctica’s contribution to sea level rise was mitigated by snowfall
“A new NASA-led study has determined that 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.
“Our findings don’t mean that Antarctica is growing; it’s still losing mass, even with the extra snowfall,” said Brooke Medley, a glaciologist with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author of the study, which was published in Nature Climate Change on Dec. 10. “What it means, however, is that without these gains, we would have experienced even more sea level rise in the 20th century.”
Without the warmer moist air caused by global warming to increase snowfall and the changes in the ozone layer over Antarctica, sea level rise would be even faster.
If I recall correctly, the earlier snow study overestimated the mass of snow due to instrumental difficulties in measuring snow from the satellite.
Yes, I’m pretty sure I read something to that effect myself, in the not all too distant past. Though I’m wiling to wager that an update of the data only serves to reinforce Mr. Haner’s ridiculous belief that NASA’s climate research continues to be tainted and self-contradictory…
The Earth cares not what Haner thinks.
We can be glad for the extra time and reduction of severity of this situation. The ocean is acting as a heat reservoir and as a carbon reservoir (with huge downsides) keeping the temperature rise mitigated.
Also if we had developed civilization during a warm period without polar ice caps the temperature would have already shot up severely.
Still we are close enough to being a warm world that we can push it into that state.
It reminds me of someone who is receiving $10,000 a month. With a little thought they realise that is $120,000 a year then celebrate that they will be a millionaire in less than 10 years.
.
.
.
They have not accounted for their spending of $15,000 per month.
And yes, they can change diapers. But see no need.
Well, at least until those 2,208 billionaires who currently control half of the global wealth start wearing diapers themselves.
.
Hi Fred,
I don’t have much use for billionaires, personally, except when I read about them donating a BIG chunk of their money to good causes, such as founding a new university, or medical research, etc.
But while they are theoretically as rich as King Midas, in reality, it seems to me that most of their supposed wealth is sort of imaginary, in some respects.
Consider a conversation I had with somebody a while back who said that if one or two of them would donate their fortune to feeding the hungry, there would be no more hungry people.
Well, there’s no doubt the money would go a LONG WAY, by encouraging industrial farmers to grow more, etc, and maybe training subsistence farmers and providing them with fertilizers, etc.
But in actuality, the REAL resources needed to feed everybody well simply do not exist, unless we change our ways of eating. The land is no longer there,it’s covered with asphalt and factories and houses, the water is no longer there, the soil is washed away and in the bottom of the sea, etc.
And the number of people depending on these vanishing resources is growing daily.
Bottom line, money can’t fix everything.
A hell of a lot of people,especially people of the leftish political persausion, just don’t seem to understand this.
Your take is appreciated, and thanks in advance. Everybody else, likewise.
Of course money can’t fix everything.
However, allowing a few to sequester large portions of the collective wealth leaves less circulating in the economy for the rest. Their sequestered money velocity becomes zero. It is a massive misallocation of resource.
And while some of the sequestered wealth does make its way to good use, such as a Childrens Hospital, much of it remains sequestered.
And the decision making for the use of the sequestered money is often extremely poor and unproductive. For example, bizarre art collections, rocket projects, extraordinary fashion and uninhabited mansions. We could go on and on a trillion-fold, while close to a billion people are still open field defecators, hoping to get one good meal.
The money could be used productively, for infrastructure, education, environmental remediation, sustainable business building, etc.
No one needs more than 50 million dollars-
Chew on the full report- https://www.credit-suisse.com/media/assets/…/docs/…/global-wealth-databook-2018.pdf
Our estimates suggest that the lower half of the global population collectively owns less than 1% of global wealth, while the richest 10% of adults own 85% of all wealth and the top 1% account for almost half of all global assets
But while they are theoretically as rich as King Midas, in reality, it seems to me that most of their supposed wealth is sort of imaginary, in some respects.
I disagree! If we were considering only ‘money’ as a measure of their wealth, then you may have a point. Truth be told, they own vast amounts of land, hold mineral rights, control natural resources, own the means of production, etc… Therefore they have disproportionate economic and political impact on the lives of billions of human beings all over the planet.
Furthermore their so called philanthropy is mostly bogus and is more a way to hide their lack of paying their fair share by avoiding taxes!
I’m not necessarily against the wealthy owning land.
Neither am I.
I’m just against 1% of the population owning 50% of the planet’s assets!
Wealth in dollars (or other monetary types) is not the wealth of the world. But just to go along with the theme.
An equal share of billionaire’s wealth would amount to 1.3E-8% per person. According to Forbes The World’s Billionaires list that comes to about $1500 per person.
If all the world’s wealth (government, corporation and individual) were converted into cash it would come out to about $50,000 per person. So if you are worth more than that, well a lot of other people are coming up short.
Basically, the bottom half of world’s people have about 1 percent of the wealth. The bottom 90 percent have 14 percent of the wealth.
The individual billionaires are vastly outdone by the large public corporations assets.
Or you can not worry about it and read my new book “How to Have a Great Time on Almost no Money”.
Or study Buddhist philosophy and remove the desire for material wealth. 🙂
Fred,
There is a contradictory tension in that view.
On the one hand, wealth “sequestered” means less destruction to the planet from an ecological point of view, so it has less impact. On the other, I agree on the power aspect, that might be mitigated to some degree by limiting monetary influence in government and not allowing corporations to have the rights of people (as they are not people, a corporation lives forever in principle). Unfortunately in many places such as the US this is not the case and may never be.
I can’t help but quote Walter Reuther to Henry Ford: Yes but can you sell a car to it?
A question about terminology and acronyms for anybody.
When speaking of the highest minimum temperature of a given 24 hour day, I have seen it expressed two or three ways, in words.
So, the question is, what is the most widely or generally accepted terminology, and the acronym, that will be familiar to the most people? I write almost entirely for laymen, and lots of them are confused when they run across this data.
It’s always better to ask a dumb question early than to be taken for a dummy later.
Interesting OT: The development and production of the 787 Dreamliner, announced in 2003, was outsourced all over the world. That led to years of delays and billions in development cost overruns. In 2010 Airbus announced the A-320 NEO as a better alternative to the 737 NG. Boeing was still busy to get the 787 into the air. It had neither the engineering capacity nor the money to counter the NEO with a brand new plane. It hastily revamped the 737, a design from the 1960s, into the 737 MAX. It promised to airlines that the new plane would not require to retrain their pilots. MCAS was specifically designed to allow for that. It was a huge mistake.
Boeing once was an engineering company with an attached sales department. It 2001, when it moved its headquarter to Chicago, it became a dealership with an attached engineering wing. The philosophical difference is profound. It is time for the company to find back to its roots.
Trump Asks OPEC to Pump More Oil Because Prices Are Too High
WTF?! I thought the US was already energy independent thanks to all that shale… Why would Trump need anything from OPEC?!
Once again, President Trump is expressing something the overwhelming majority of Americans have already been thinking. Gas prices rising 30-35% in the past few weeks is definitely not justified. The oil companies are making a killing as usual by sticking it to the middle class consumer.
Trump Just Achieved What Every President Since Nixon Had Promised: Energy Independence
So if that is true you should be protesting in front of the white house because Trump has full control of gas prices in the US and doesn’t need any help from OPEC!
So Trump should declare a national emergency and nationalize all the American oil companies and force gas prices to come down! We no longer need OPEC!
Hail Trump, the oil companies and MAGA!
ROFL!!
BTW, in my opinion gas prices should be raised to a minimum of $10.00 a gallon by adding a CO2 tax that can be used to pay for AOC’s Green New Deal!
The New Green Deal will die in the Washington political meat grinder. We cannot rely on federal or Democratic party support on this. Anything that comes out will be too little too late and more snake oil to feed the system.
Something like the NGD will only come about when the fossil fuel system has already been broken and on the power descent. Power will shift to other corporations or fossil fuel corps that take over the renewable power system.
I will leave the rest unspoken.
The New Green Deal will die in the Washington political meat grinder.
GF, I know that! My point is not that I expect it to come to pass any time soon through the existing political process but rather that is delusional to think the status quo can or will continue to go on. The forces rising outside the political arena will force the politicians to come around. They just don’t know it yet.
You are right Fred. The status quo is going and the change is accelerating, with or without any action on our part.
Gas prices have been a total ripoff, for many years now. Even with inflation, the price shouldn’t be over $2/gal. That’s fair. Back when I started driving, it was 30 cents/gal, or less, and most everything was better then.
Gasoline and diesel need to be phased out completely! End of story!
In the meantime maybe Trump will be successful in convincing OPEC to increase their production and bring the price down and make everything more better again just like in them good old days… Good luck with that!
BTW, just like Climate Change, Peak Oil is also a hoax.
Charles Van Vleet says things, like gas, should be priced by what we think is fair. I really like that.
I think its only fair that a big slice of good pizza is 25 cents, like when I was young.
And I’d like to buy some prime farmland for 200$/acre. I consider that fair.
Maybe we have a fairness pricing committee. Well wait…., wouldn’t that be communist or something.
The cannabis wasn’t better then. The LSD probably was though.
Charles,
Cars were certainly not better when gasoline was 30 cents per gallon. Human rights abuses were much worse. No 1965 may have seemed nice, but you didn’t really know what was going on in the wide world.
Daybeer. Well named. Deep Thinker would have been an outright lie.
Good morning Fred,
How about a little background on the political situation in Florida, vis a vis solar power, the big power company there, and the state government?
As I see it the power company is just fine with solar power, so long as it controls the sale and distribution thereof, and more or less owns the state legislature and regulatory agency, at least in this one respect. I’m pretty sure you will know the score!
In any case, they just announced that they are planning on building the world’s biggest peaker battery, to be powered with an existing solar farm already built.
I won’t be very surprised to hear that their record size battery will be made to look small by one that will be built in Texas within the next four or five years. Texas may be cherry red, but business men there do know how to count money, and how to make it and save it, and Texas is dead ripe for using batteries this way, to save off peak wind and solar juice for use when it not only saves fuel but allows the utility to eliminate an old worn out coal or gas plant as well.
As I see it the power company is just fine with solar power, so long as it controls the sale and distribution thereof, and more or less owns the state legislature and regulatory agency, at least in this one respect.
Yep! same old, same old. They want to continue their monopoly on centralized power distribution.
From your link:
PFL has been on a course to change that over the past two years, however. The company says it has spent two decades on a modernization program to replace its legacy oil-burning plants with more efficient natural gas plants. Now, as natural gas is becoming a worst-offender in US carbon emissions sources, legacy natural gas plants are being replaced by cleaner sources.
No, they aren’t doing any of this because NG is a source of CO2 pollution. They are doing it because solar PV plus battery storage, is now cheaper than NG.
But the future is distributed solar on rooftops, parking lots and such, connected to local smart grids using EV batteries as backup. Millenials understand the downsides of predatory neoclassical capitalism and they will be the ones in the halls of power soon. FPL’s outdated business model is an extinct dinosaur still walking, as the asteroid get’s closer by the minute. Big changes are coming much faster than they anticipate!
Cheers!
Edit: I guess PFL stands for Plorida Fower and Light? 😉
In blow to climate, coal plants emitted more than ever in 2018 – “We are headed for disaster, and nobody seems to be able to slow things down”
This one is a PNG file just under 29 KB. It should post fine without you having to do anything to it.
.
I was wondering if its my browser? Firefox? I always get an error.
I doubt it. The error you get is more likely due to your pict exceeding the size limitation that has been set by our hosts. Check the file size by clicking on your file and scrolling down to properties. If it is larger than 50 KB it will not post and you need to resize it and probably reduce the dpi to 72.
Cheers!
50/72 thanks Fred
Just like OFM said below: “Fred, you’re right about the big picture.”
The rule is pretty simple if it is less than 50 kB it works for gif, jpg, and png image files.
Usually gif tends to be smallest so if png or jpg doesn’t work saving in gif format sometimes does. Also paint can be used to reduce file size by reducing number of pixels, sometimes the image degrades so that it is useless so links are a better choice in that case.
We probably should avoid posting maps like without an explanation because they can easily mislead those who are already confused about the difference between weather and climate.
100 consecutive months with above normal temperatures at Svalbard
Since 1961, the average temperature at Longyearbyen airport has increased with 5,6 degrees Celsius. For comparison, measurements at the meteorological institute in Oslo show an increase of 2 degrees for the same period.
The old saying «the Arctic heats twice as much as the rest of the world» is not accurate anymore. Climate changes impact on the Arctic is worse, up to six times higher than global temperature increase.
Located at 76° North, Longyearbyen is the world’s northernmost permanent settlement.
In Longyearbyen, people already have a first hand knowledge on what it means to live in what likely is the world’s fastest warming town.
Houses are sagging as the ground underneath is melting. Stable permafrost is long gone for the 2,200 inhabitants 1,300 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle.
Isfjorden (The Ice Fjord) northwest from Longyearbyen hasn’t been ice-covered mid-winter for the last 10 years. Researchers says the fjord’s marine life is changing from Arctic to Atlantic climate zone.
Alpine glaciers: Another decade of loss
Filed under: Climate Science hydrological cycle Instrumental Record — group @ 25 March 2019
Guest Commentary by Mauri Pelto (Nichols College)
Preliminary data reported from the reference glaciers of the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) in 2018 from Argentina, Austria, China, France, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland and United States indicate that 2018 will be the 30th consecutive year of significant negative annual balance (> -200mm); with a mean balance of -1247 mm for the 25 reporting reference glaciers, with only one glacier reporting a positive mass balance (WGMS, 2018).
All this accelerating exponentially while most people are focused on the faux news about the economy, Brexit or the next presidential election cycle in the US. Anyone still remember the Muller Report?! Which system is better capitalism or communism? The evils of socialism and why the Green New Deal is too expensive! Meanwhile the fashion industry rakes in 2.4 T per year. So not enough bitcoin left to tackle climate change…
Good luck with maintaining the status quo!
Cheers!
Bread and circuses have replaced turtles all the way down.
“He’s the smartest guy in the room, every room he goes to,” said Dary Stone, a former member of the Texas Finance Commission, the state’s banking regulator, who has known Mr. Beal for decades.
Now Mr. Beal, 66, is betting that he can turn back the inroads of alternative energy. He is arguing before federal regulators that California policies discriminate against generators powered by fossil fuels like natural gas and coal as the state promotes sources like solar and wind power.
I’m betting that he is actually pretty dumb and arrogant based on his past performance and run of good luck! He has yet to grasp that the future is going to be nothing like the past and this is one bet he is going to lose big time!
I agree, mostly. You’re right about the big picture, but a politically savvy guy like this one might succeed in making a few more tens of millions, or even another billion, for himself, fighting a rear guard action while the rest of the ff industry loses the war.
Something tells me that ninety nine percent of the kids in university studying energy and engineering are working on renewables these days,with the rest focused on fusion or some other aspect of nuclear engineering.
Commercial nuclear power is a dead man walking these days, but there will probably be some new nukes built more or less so long as today’s industrial civilization lasts, because of the military apps involving warships, weapons, and last but not least, medical and biological applications. There’s even a possibility, but only a slim one imo, that somebody will actually build a reasonably safe nuke that doesn’t produce much in the way of long lived waste.
OFM,
Commercial nuclear power a dead man walking: If only it were so. In the US and the UK, yes, and France is having second thoughts I believe; Germany too.
There are 55 plants under construction worldwide, though. China’s building 11, India 7, South Korea 5, Russia I seem to remember 6, and the little ol’ UAE sees 4 being built there by South Korea. Even Turkey is getting ready for one, down from the two originally planned.
New nuke plants are very much the mode once we look beyond the US and the EU, I fear. A fair number of the 55 total are being built, outside their own borders, by China, Russia (including the one in Turkey), and South Korea.
1963 — US: Los Angeles ends streetcar service after nearly 90 years.
Prof. David Battisti – Climate change and Global Food Security
25th anniversary edition of WMO’s State of the Climate report shows accelerating global warming impacts – “The data released in this report give cause for great concern”
Science proved that climate happened before the industrial revolution. It further proved that plants need CO2 for growth, and there are smart scientists at public research universities across the country right now creating systems to store and collect surplus carbon. So what’s AOC and her party’s real goal with the green new deal? I’ll tell you, it’s they need another way to control your life. As long as you have any kind of individual freedom whatsoever, they are unhappy.
Right on Kelsivictor,
You GET IT!
The D’s want everything that’s not forbidden to be mandatory.
BUT you forgot to mention that Trump is a Christian, and that his three wives have all been selected from girls whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower, and that he only hires the best people, as indicated by the fact that none of his associates has ever even been ticketed for overstaying his parking meter space, and that ……..
You ARE a blooming idiot.
“You ARE a blooming idiot”
For more than two years now, you have been telling us not to call your neighbors stupid. Have you given up ?
Ron I believe OFM was being sarcastic.
Suyog
Of course. I have deleted my comment.
.
Hi Fred, when I posted the AOC link. It made me think about of you. She doesn’t even go as far as some of your ideas and approaches you have raised here. Yet she is the current lighting rod of right wing attacks. You would die of a million cuts the first day in politics. Best you keep your day job.
LOL! There’s a reason I keep saying that her ideas are not radical enough!
You would die of a million cuts the first day in politics. Best you keep your day job.
And I was just considering launching my campaign for congress!
It further proved that plants need CO2 for growth, and there are smart scientists at public research universities across the country right now creating systems to store and collect surplus carbon.
Yep! Just add CO2 to get the REAL New Green Deal!
.
Kelsivictor- sorry man, but most of the readers here have gone beyond 3rd grade. So most of them arn’t quite so gullible to such fake/foolish/ stupid analysis such as yours.
Fred Magar is dead on about the future of the automobile.
So Apple is in the race to actually build cars more or less from the ground up, rather than just providing the electronics for self driving capabilities, as most people have been thinking recently.
Apple has cash enough to go it alone, and the APPLE brand name is probably the best loved name in the entire world. You run across people who say Apple products aren’t all that much better, especially considering the PRICE of them, but you hardly EVER hear anybody criticizing the performance and reliability of anything with the Apple logo on it. I know a dozen people, personally, who will never buy any other brand name, so long as Apple makes a variation of the product they want, they will line up to buy an APPLE automobile, the way Tesla fans have lined up to buy a Tesla.
As electric drive trains get to be simpler and cleaner and cheaper to build, newly designed I C engines are looking like something out of cartoon shows, with dozens of gizmos growing in them, and out of them, like cancers, that ordinary mechanics can’t even IDENTIFY, never mind diagnose and repair. Ordinary cars and light trucks are now coming equipped with eight and even nine or ten speed transmissions, in order to squeeze out a tiny bit more performance and fuel economy. Fixing these engines and transmissions is going to cost a LOT more, when they are out of warranty or ten to twenty years old, than it’s going to cost to put a NEW battery in an older electric car…….. IF it happens to need a new battery. Most likely, it won’t , at least not until it’s got three hundred thousand miles on it!
This is what you get on the current “stripped not equipped” cheapest Tesla, and what it costs.
I witnessed the very tip end of the tail of the horse and mule era, and I’ve lived to see the announcement of the funeral, a little premature, of the oil age!
Yep, ICE engines have reached a peak in complexity and refinement.
By “nibbling” at many parasitic loads and increasing turbulence in the combustion chamber Toyota has achieved 40 percent efficiency in it’s ICE’s. Also improved the CVT.
This makes the car about equivalent to an EV using the grid for power if one only considers the output from the exhaust. Yes, even the most efficient ICE is more GHG polluting than an EV due to upstream emissions before the gasoline gets in the car. Yes, all EV’s on the grid pollute as long as the grid is powered by coal and natural gas.
Only the combination of PV/wind power and an EV gets close to no pollution and no GHG to drive. Still the roads add 20 percent to 40 percent FF use due to maintenance requirements. So until all the machinery and materials become carbon emission free, even EVs with renewables have a large enough carbon footprint to cause global warming/climate change.
Myself, I emit my personal share of CO2 every day. Proper food and exercise limits the methane. 🙂
We have to work very hard and be extremely resourceful to actually get to near zero carbon emissions.
Bad news, if we reduce our GHG emissions to 5 % of current we still emulate the lead up to the PETM. So some need of carbon sequestering is required or long term disaster happens.
Other bad news, ice free is guaranteed at the current level of atmospheric carbon.
Further very bad news, we are not going to get near zero emissions in the first half of the century or probably ever.
Happy motoring, while you still can.
Still the roads add 20 percent to 40 percent FF use due to maintenance requirements. So until all the machinery and materials become carbon emission free, even EVs with renewables have a large enough carbon footprint to cause global warming/climate change.
Aw, come on Fred. That is my gig. I have been pushing flight and flying cars for quite awhile now on this site. With the express statement to get rid of most roads.
I guess I should be happy at least one other person gets it. 🙂
Now we will hear from the “planes kill birds” trolls or the flight is bad commenters. What a world.
“Now we will hear from the “planes kill birds” trolls”
How much co2 do you think it will take to change my driveway into a runway ? or do you think we can just cut down the trees on the street in front of my house and I can use that ?
For the rest they just walk the trail over to the local grass strip for high efficiency STOL and other aircraft to farther places and to major airports.
BTW in all my postings on this subject I never said to get rid of all roads. But some people jump to conclusions for exercise.
“With the express statement to get rid of most roads”
“I never said to get rid of all roads. But some people jump to conclusions for exercise”
Have you ever used Google maps in the suburbs of America ?
Huntington Beach has the population of 200K all within 26 square miles. It closed it’s last air strip 30 years ago and now has homes built in it’s location.
“For the rest they just walk the trail over to the local grass strip”
So you think things will stay the same with all that is going on now? That is very solid thinking.
Not at all, I just believe in being realistic about what can work with todays reality. We aren’t going to solve anything talking about the cartoon Jetson’s.
Now HB, if the Blackfly VTOL landing near your house was not good enough for you I guess your neighbors will use that taxi service.
Realism, most likely Huntingdon Beach will be mostly abandoned in the future.
But it’s good to have small dreams now and then. Especially ones that solve huge problems. That plane could be a light cargo carrier bringing supplies into the last of the villagers there and taking out their handmade products to market.
No, my neighbors will most likely get picked up by an Uber driver in a Prius with in 3 minutes of their request.
Now we will hear from the “planes kill birds” trolls or the flight is bad commenters. What a world.
Yeah, they should have locked Captain Chesley Sullenberger up for killing all those poor geese before ditching his plane in the Hudson 😉
” the flight is bad commenters”
Thats me.
Flight is bad.
Waste of resource.
Completely optional to living.
Better to ride a bike.
Isn’t that fast enough.
Why such a hurry.
Live simply, so that others may simply….
Climb a hill if you need a bigger view sometimes.
before long we’ll probably hear about how planes almost died from geese. what about the geese?, one might ask.
I find it next to impossible to believe that road maintenance, EVEN including the original construction, results in twenty to forty percent of the total CO2 cost of driving on them. I worked a year plus on I77 where it comes off the mountain below the Blue Ridge Parkway, operating one of about two hundred pieces of heavy equipment there from start to finish, for about three years total,iirc.
Side streets that are expensive to build and to maintain, and that have only a few vehicles on them, excepting people commuting in cars early and late, now I can see it in that case.
You won’t find many opportunities to walk safely across I77 , unless it’s the wee small hours of the night! Most of the time, you can see anywhere from ten to fifty or more cars and trucks from the top of any small high spot on this road.
I’m ready to bet the farm that every fifty to sixty eighteen wheelers that climb that mountain use as much fuel, collectively, as one heavy construction machine in a ten hour shift. It’s not unusual to see them lined up out of sight, in the right hand lane, with some in the left lane, passing the slower ones. This is a daily occurrence, year in, year out.
Thousands of cars and big trucks pass over that stretch of about seven miles, every day, which at the time was credited with being the biggest job ever, in terms of yards moved, to build a road east of the Mississippi the same length.
And that was at least forty, going on closer to fifty years ago now.
This stretch of mountain highway gets some potholes patched annually, but there are no more than a dozen or so vehicles on the scene, and for no more than a few days. It gets a new layer of pavement only at very long intervals, and that’s mostly recycled asphalt, if enough can be found. Part of it comes right off the top of the existing pavement, ground off and remelted and used again.
” find it next to impossible to believe that road maintenance, EVEN including the original construction, results in twenty to forty percent of the total CO2 cost of driving on them. ” Yeah, people don’t think in those terms from materials to transport to end use etc. and all the energy that goes into each step. I found a thorough study of the road maintenance energy use from Spain. Spain has a lot of roads per area and they came up with 40 percent. Of course that includes bridges too.
If I come across the study I will post it. Until then, keep non-believing.
Spain is a geographically tough place, and it probably costs a lot to build a road there, plus they don’t seem to have so many cars and trucks as in the USA, so the per mile cost of roads is likely higher, and the use of them is likely lighter.
But I will remain a non believer, until I see some figures that impress me. All the grading and paving was done on that stretch with two hundred machines, in a VERY tough place, as road building goes.All the gravel was crushed with electricity within fifteen miles or so, and hauled in on no more than a couple of dozen trucks over a period of a few months during the actual paving. There’s not a hell of a lot of steel on this stretch to be sure, just drains and guard rails and signs, excepting two overpass two lane bridges for the Blue Ridge Parkway.
It WAS an around the clock job, twenty hours a day, with four for maintenance on the equipment, so that’s about two hundred machines times two shifts times about seven hundred days,say probably under three hundred thousand man and machine hours.
The Virginia Department of Transportation says average daily traffic, both directions combined is over forty thousand vehicles per day, with twenty four percent being Class A heavy trucks.
With each one being on this stretch about eight minutes or so , including trucks going slower upgrade,unless I’ve miscounted zeros, this is roughly five thousand vehicle hours per day, with over a thousand of them being heavy trucks. The current annual truck traffic over a few years time is probably far greater, in terms of CO2 than the equipment use that got the road built.
And all the maintenance that’s ever been done on it since hasn’t amounted to beans, compared to the work that went into building it.
This road will be there for centuries, and still in use, barring the collapse of industrial civilization.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see the shoulders partitioned off and widened and train tracks laid on them, someday, lol. I believe trains are going to make a HUGE comeback, due to automation and their awesome energy efficiency, compared to trucks.
Methinks the figures in the study were selected to make roads look bad, the way the environmentalists often compute figures involving water used to raise corn to make raising corn look like it takes a gazillion gallons of water to grow an acre of corn. The reality is that nearly all of that water falls as rain, and would have fallen, and either sunk in or run off, as the case may be, whether the field was in corn, or grass, or undisturbed forest.
Not even an eyedropper full is actually ever LOST in the process, although it is without question usually polluted to some degree.
“Methinks the figures in the study were selected to make roads look bad, the way the environmentalists often compute figures ”
Yep, Spanish government and other European government studies are just conspiracy publications to fulfill the aims of the environmentalists that control all those governments.
Oh my God, mark this day in history. I agree with you Mac( a Trumpster)
Its a great day in history. I can almost picture you guys sitting on the porch together in Virginia, awkwardly rocking the chairs out of cadence.
LOL! While dueling banjos play in the background…
Thank you HB,
It’s a well known fact that when two bitter enemies agree about something in dispute that it’s VERY likely they are both barking up the tree of truth.
Please keep up the good work, I NEED you as my helper!
Now I do feel the need to complain a little. Since I’m the Trumpster, I think it’s only fair that YOU should post more links such as this one.
Yeah, I’ve been following George Mobus for many years!
I check in regularly—
He seems to be facing our “situation” realistically–
I bet most of the hiders will do themselves in shortly after the radio goes silent and the Geiger counter starts ticking. Nowhere to hide from global warming and/or nuclear radiation (followed by nuclear winter then greater heating).
Civilization will not go quietly into the darkness.
I should open up a post collapse old folks home.
Don’t forget to put a landing pad for one of these on the roof.
In October 2016, Engie officially confirmed that it would close the Hazelwood Power Station and it would cease operating at the end of March 2017.
The announcement came after several years in which investment in renewable energy had largely collapsed – thanks to the Abbott government’s review of the renewable energy target. The few exceptions were a handful of projects supported by ARENA and the ACT (with the one noticeable exception being the White Rock Wind Farm).
While Hazelwood was despised by environmentalists as the most carbon polluting coal power station in Australia (and close to one of the worst in the world), it was very important to the National Electricity Market’s power supplies.
According to analysis prepared for the Australian Energy Market Operator, the lead time for developing and constructing a new coal-fired power station is around eight years. If we wanted to replace it with a new coal power station, we’d be waiting a very long time.
Yet it turns out that simultaneous with the announcement that Hazelwood would shut, the renewable energy sector experienced a dramatic and remarkable revival.
Over the space of just two summers since Hazelwood shut, both the amount of energy we lost since its closure and critically, also the capacity it provided during the peak summer demand period, have been replaced largely by wind and solar.
Who says a transition cannot happen very quickly? At least in some places it can!
Who says a transition cannot happen very quickly? At least in some places it can!
Only those who have an economic interest in prolonging the fossil fuel age. We know exactly who they are. And it can and should happen everywhere! Not just in a few select places.
At this point there is overwhelming evidence that a 100% transition to renewables is not only technically feasible with currently existing technology but it is also economically viable and already cost effective!
Response to ‘Burden of proof: A comprehensive review of the feasibility of 100% renewable-electricity systems’
I have found that I can make a very powerful argument in favor of renewable energy on a face to face basis with a certain class of people who are generally fossil fuel fans.
These people have two things in common that make it possible for me to convert them into renewable energy fans.
First off, they are willing to consider what helps THEM, in terms of their own short to medium term bottom line.
Second, they do have a certain level of understanding of basic free market economics, and the application of this understanding to the renewable energy issue.
So here’s the deal. We currently subsidize renewables and electric cars, etc, to some degree. The question is whether the individual I’m targeting wins or loses as the result of paying his share of the tax money that pays the subsidies.
I maintain that he DOES, because his out of pocket for renewable energy subsidies is trivial, as an individual……… BUT
Renewable electricity is cutting sharply into the demand for coal and gas as generating fuel, and thus placing downward pressure on the price of both these commodities, and of any commodity manufactured using them…… such as nitrate fertilizers and steel. Gas to heat his home is cheaper, his new tractor or truck is a little cheaper.
It REALLY helps if the targeted individual knows about INELASTIC DEMAND, and farmers usually do….. when the crop is short, the gross farm income revenue is higher than when the crop is bountiful, because prices rise sharply during shortages, and crash during gluts. The prices of coal and gas are inelastic.
The same argument applies to oil. The more electric cars on the road, and electric trucks, the greater the downward pressure on the price of gasoline and diesel fuel.
Putting hard numbers on these arguments is a hard problem, it’s hard to find good figures, but the IDEA is enough to get otherwise conservative people to thinking positively about renewable electricity and electric cars and trucks.
(Why) Social Democracy Succeeded Where Capitalism Failed
The First Great Lesson of the 21st Century (and Why Countries That Don’t Learn it Are Collapsing)
BTW two book recommendations:
Tyler Volk’s “Quarks to Culture: How We Came to Be
And:
E.O. Wilson’s Genesis: The Deep Origin of Societies
But if anyone wants to really understand the crossroads at which humanity stands just Google the word ‘Eusapient’ you will get zero hits! And Google will ask if you meant ‘Sapient’?
Then if you try the same search in Google Scholar you will quite ironically get ‘EU-sapient Project’.
Googling ‘Eusocial’ gives over a half million hits mostly referring to insects and zoology.
To come full circle you will need to read Tyler Volk’s “Quarks to Culture: How We Came to Be” to understand why the author of the essay I linked at the top of my post, while coming close, still doesn’t quite grasp what is really happening either.
At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home & our being, drive a spear into the land, & say to the bulldozers, earthmovers, government & corporations, “thus far & no farther.”
— Edward Abbey
OK, but I think we are way past that point! We need a completely different way of looking at our planet and how we interact with each other. Here’s a view of all the stuff that is orbiting our planet.
It includes satellites and space debris. The Indians just blew up one of their own defunct satellites to show off their prowess with missiles… they created more space debris which is now endangering the ISS! Way to go! This is just one more example of why stupid xenophobic nationalism won’t work when trying to address planetary problems.
Humanity now has only a very short window of opportunity to go from its toddler tribal stage, straight to a much wiser more globally interconnected responsible adulthood.
Yeah, good luck with that!
Yeah, good luck with that!
Fred GETS IT.
One of the biggest failings of reasonably well educated people, people who are at least acquainted with the bare bones of evolutionary theory, is that they don’t comprehend and understand that evolution only builds brakes into behavior when brakes add to fitness, when they add to greater reproductive success.
We eat till we get fat, if we can, because evolution programmed us this way. There’s HUGE survival value embedded in love handles and an overhanging belly, when winter hits, and food is short, or not to be had, unless you eat one of the other people shivering in the cave.
And while obesity is very bad for an individual LONG TERM, it seldom kills anybody who is relatively young, meaning young enough to have kids, so there’s not much in the way of brakes in terms of limiting the tendency to eat ( OVER EAT is a term derived from a judgement call, a moral judgement based, not on biological science but on religious and moral training, etc) and store as much precious fat as possible.
Now if being fat were to lead to men and women dying in their teens, twenties or thirties, in significant numbers, numbers greater than are saved from starvation, then there would be some reproductive pressure for brakes on the appetite.After a number of generations, the combinations of genes that lead to obesity would be gradually selected AGAINST, rather than FOR.
We have up until the last few hundred years never really had much cause to worry about using up the gifts of nature, because we simply couldn’t , except in terms of specific resources in specific places. We could exhaust the soil in a particular locality, or use up all the trees in a locality, or pollute a given stream, but there just weren’t that many of us around, and there was still plenty of land, plenty of fish, plenty of trees, etc.
The more of these things we used up, the greater our reproductive success, and by Sky Daddy we WENT OUT, and WE MULTIPLIED!
Now Mother Nature is like HONEY BADGER, who doesn’t give a shit. SHE doesn’t care if we thrive or perish, or if any other particular organism lives or perishes. SHE’S TOTALLY indifferent, SHE’S not even keeping score, except by way of the fossil record. If we survive for a while longer, we will leave more fossils for some other intelligent species to ponder, assuming another such species eventually evolves on this planet, or visits it.
If we don’t, there will be fewer of OUR fossils to be found. Nobody will give a shit, not even the rats,if they survive, unless they evolve intelligence enough to comprehend that they were so successful during our time because we so very conveniently provided them with plenty to eat, and plenty of places to hide, and transportation all over the world!
Some of us no doubt have read Twain’s little essay about a bug that happened to light on the very tip top of the Eiffel Tower, and sat there,pondering the nature of existence, concluding that the tower was put there, plus the Earth itself, just for it’s own benefit, just to provide it with a majestic perch from which to observe it’s kingdom!
Damn I can’t find that one right away, but here’s another that applies just as well.
“Man has been here 32,000 years. That it took a hundred million years to prepare the world for him is proof that that is what it was done for. I suppose it is. I dunno. If the Eiffel tower were now representing the world’s age, the skin of paint on the pinnacle-knob at its summit would represent man’s share of that age; and anybody would perceive that that skin what what the tower was built for. I reckon they would, I dunno.”
Twain was up on his science, but back during his days, we didn’t yet know that the Earth is billions instead of millions of years old.
“Now Mother Nature is like HONEY BADGER, who doesn’t give a shit. SHE doesn’t care if we thrive or perish, or if any other particular organism lives or perishes. SHE’S TOTALLY indifferent”
That is the most erroneous statement ever made and is being replicated across the planet in modern times to the detriment of all.
Mother Nature spent a billion years making you and all the other creatures as good as it gets. Nature provides us with all the abilities and strength we need to survive, thrive and raise young to continue on.
Nature provides us with air, water, food and materials to sustain us. It provides us with mothers to suckle us and protect us. Just because we have to grow up and take care of ourselves does not mean we are not being taken care of, just that mama is not around to hold our hands anymore. Time comes in all lives that they become independent and able to care for others.
We could not be more cared for. Not being coddled and fed by hand does not mean we are not provided for.
Not nature’s fault we decided to screw the system that was built so long and hard. Nor is it time to say nature does not care for us. More like time to say we don’t care for us or the rest of the world and it’s about time we did start caring, fast and hard.
If you don’t understand you are part of large and fantastic system that is supposed to work together and provides for each other, then I guess modern industrial civilization results and the system gets wrecked.
The sun feeds the world, the air, water and soil feed the grass, the caribou eat the grass and spreads fertilizer for the grass, the wolf eats some caribou, which keeps them fit, healthy and not overpopulated. The wolf tends the streams, the wolf spreads fertilizer for the plants that feed the caribou. When the wolf dies it fertilizes further for caribou.
The tree feeds the squirrel. The squirrel plants the trees.
It all works together.
We decided it does not, we decided nature should serve us and we were above nature. We are the great decision makers.
The truth will soon smack us in the head. It’s already kicking us in the balls.
People are the result of billions of generations of living creatures struggling, many successful, many not in the long term. We are the end result of all that struggle, all that effort, all that luck. We should at least act as if we respect that heritage and not throw it away so easily.
I don’t have the foggiest idea what you’re smoking, but I want some of it.
You’re talking like a priest.
I’m personally as aware of the nature of nature, of the interdependence of all living things on all other living things as anybody, period, and I fully understand that WE, collectively, are fucking up the ENTIRE SHOW for all living things……. well, maybe not ALL things….. The microbes in rocks a kilometer or two and farther down are apparently safe from us, lol, except in the handful of places we drill deep oil wells or tunnel deep in search of gold, etc.
There’s NO SENTIENT BEING in charge, designing nature to provide a place for us…… the very idea is straight up religious bullshit.. I’ve been hearing it since I was about three years or four years old…. sooner, actually, but I was that old before it started making an impression on me.
Of course the preacher at our family church talked about God and Jesus, rather than MOTHER NATURE, but it’s all the same basic sermon, only the names have been changed.
It occurs to me that this is what pedagogues refer to as a teachable moment.
Anybody who thinks about this conversation, and takes GF’s side of it to heart, even though he does not take it LITERALLY ( We could not be more cared for. !!!!!!) may want to give some thought to why religions are so persistent, why they obviously ( not so much these days as in the past) benefit their adherents in terms of successful reproduction, which is the ONLY standard, the gold standard, by which impartial and indifferent nature ” keeps score”.
We have Medicare now, and Social Security, and food stamps, and social workers, and churches as a consequence are not so powerful or so useful as they once were………. but no more than a couple of generations back, churches WERE the social safety net, in many communities, by and large. They existed BECAUSE they got things done…. because they conferred FITNESS on their followers.
Portraying nature as the life giver, the ultimate mother, is a very effective technique with which to manipulate people…….. even people who possess doctorates in the hard sciences.
I’m not opposed to using this technique to help muster political support for politicians that hopefully will pursue such policies as are in our collective enlightened best self interest……. such as clean air and water laws, more renewable energy, etc.
I’m actually all in favor of it, because it WORKS…….. but I will not call it anything other than what it is…a method of manipulating people via their emotions, rather than their intellect.
Yeah, I’m of the mind that the universe has no opinion about Earth or life on it. Enough events came together to create life on Earth, and then intelligent life on Earth, but in the cosmic scheme of things, life on Earth, Earth itself, the Sun, etc. will be gone.
I want to prolong life on Earth as long as possible, and I am distressed about the extent to which we are trashing Earth, but I don’t see a grand plan created by Mother Nature. I think it is possible to limit our impact so that we don’t destroy everything, but as far as the universe is concerned, if we kill off life on Earth, it is of no consequence. We’re just another expendable life form.
So you jumped from my saying that nature provides all the “services” we need, our inate abilities and it all works together to some interpretation of Gaia?
Do you think the oxygen is provided by Air Products or from the plants that are supported by the sunlight, the air, water, etc?
Definition of care:
the provision of what is necessary for the health, welfare, maintenance, and protection of someone or something.
Nothing religious or even emotional about that.
I’m not sure if you addressing your comment to me, but I’m not sure I even agree that Earth is a closed system. If we get slammed by a huge asteroid, or if there is a massive volcanic eruption, life as we know it will likely be disrupted.
I think Homo Sapiens are doing a poor job of planning for the future, and that really distresses me. But I’m not sure that we can assume that we might be immune to natural or cosmic disasters. That’s no reason not to treat Earth like a closed ecological system, but if we step back far enough in time and space, we aren’t.
Apparently I am not communicating. Earth can in no way be a closed system, it is fed energy by the sun and loses energy to space.
Sure, if a super volcano went off the disturbance would be worldwide. Smaller volcanoes like Pinatubo barely counteract global warming for a short time. In the long run all volcanic activity increases global warming.
As far as asteroids/comets, we are always a target. Last good set of probably comet debris struck about 12,000 years ago and rewrote the life in North America.
In general though we get very few planet killers, just regional ones. The famous meteor crater in northern Arizona, some 1219 meters (4,000 feet) in diameter and 183 meters (600 feet) deep, was created 50,000 years ago by a nickel-iron meteorite perhaps 60 meters in diameter. It probably survived nearly intact until impact, at which time it was pulverized and largely vaporized as its 6-7 x 1016 joules* of kinetic energy were rapidly dissipated in an explosion equivalent to some 15 million tons of TNT! Falls of this class occur once or twice every 1000 years. https://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/sl9/back2.html
A similar impact today would have a decent probability of causing major death and destruction to humans, since we cover much of the earth now.
We can’t detect smaller asteroids yet. In fact the cutoff point is larger and we can’t see ones coming in from the sun side.
Since 2015, observers discovered more than 1500 previously unknown NEOs each year (over 2000 in 2017). Roughly half of the known catalogue of NEOs are objects larger than about 460 feet (140 meters) in size. The estimated population of NEOs of this size is about 25,000. Current surveys are finding NEOs of this size at a rate of about 500 per year.
The 460-foot cutoff point was established by a NASA NEO survey science definition team (SDT) in 2003 and reaffirmed in 2017. The SDT determined that impacts from objects of that size would only produce regional effects, while larger objects would have corresponding wider effects such as large sub-global effects from impacts of a 984-foot (300-meter) object and global effects from 0.6 mile (1-kilometer) object impacts.
So we are currently unable to observe objects that could wipe out an area 100 miles in diameter.
“I don’t have the foggiest idea what you’re smoking, but I want some of it.
You’re talking like a priest.”
“Portraying nature as the life giver, the ultimate mother, is a very effective technique with which to manipulate people…….. even people who possess doctorates in the hard sciences”
” but I will not call it anything other than what it is…a method of manipulating people via their emotions, rather than their intellect.:”
So I say that nature provides everything we need including our own abilities and the system works together then you insult me, twist my meaning and words. Devious and dastardly methods. Or you have no comprehension of what I was saying (more likely).
You can call me a manipulator or a drugged up liar (priest) but the truth and reality will not change. The world works and provides. Humans just suck at being a part of it and think they are superior even though they are quite inferior and proving it every day.
So my turn now:
Hey Bonehead, you think the food on this planet doesn’t come from plants, the energy from the sun, the water from the rain, the oxygen from the plants, your genetic material from the original slime, your God-given abilities from your ancestors (maybe you are an alien?)? It’s all there provided by nature. You are dependent upon it and it’s given freely. You did not invent your own genes (or even your jeans), they were handed down from a long line going way back into the primordial slime.
I think you are very confused as to how things actually work because you are so into yourself and propagandized by the current culture of superior man.
But reality is catching up to us fast and the superior human will be just another animal soon, even in his own mind.
I don’t think you will understand, so don’t spend any time on thinking about it.
If I stepped on your religion, oh well. God will help you feel superior again. For a while at least.
“Hey Bonehead”
California adopts new wetlands rules to protect them from Trump rollbacks
California regulators voted Tuesday to strengthen state safeguards for thousands of wetlands and streams that are about to lose federal protections in a Trump administration rollback of the Clean Water Act.
Nearly 90 percent of California’s historic wetlands have been filled in or plowed under, and the state has said it is vital to preserve what remains.
The new state rules will insulate California from Washington’s efforts to drop regulations that prevent the destruction of isolated wetlands and seasonal streams.
“It’s all there provided by nature. You did not invent your own”
Wetlands Loss Since the Revolution
“Additionally, the status of wetlands
in the United States is constantly changing. It is estimated that, on average, over 60 acres of wetlands have been lost every hour in the lower 48 states during this 200-year timespan.” https://www.fws.gov/wetlands/Documents%5CWetlands-Loss-Since-the-Revolution.pdf
@OFM
What you are referring to is known as the ‘thrifty gene hypothesis’. It fell into disrepute quite a while ago due to lack of consistent and well researched evidence.
Sorry but it piques me when I see popular notions bandied about which have little to back them up.
Humanity now has only a very short window of opportunity to go from its toddler tribal stage, straight to a much wiser more globally interconnected responsible adulthood.
Sorry- that is in the rear view mirror.
Globally, anthropogenic emission of methane is about 400 million tons/year or 60 gigatons CO2e. Thirty-three percent of that is from natural gas, coal and oil.
The trees were logged and milled, parts of the estuary were mined for gravel, rock walls were built to stop erosion, and a straight channel, in use to this day, was dug so the river no longer wound through the estuary, shifting course with the seasons. All that meant fewer insects and that meant weak and hungry barn swallows, now susceptible to the larvae of the blowfly. One by one, the nesting pairs slipped away over decades, Dawe says. “When I left there were none.”
They’re among more 30 B.C. birds known to be in decline, including the iconic Great Blue Heron (1.7% per year), the Rufous Hummingbird (1.91%), the beautiful killdeer (3.8%), the American Goldfinch (4.85%) and so on. Forty-five of the 57 coastal waterbirds using the Strait of Georgia were in decline between 1999 and 2011, including the Brant sea goose (4.7% per year), Greater Yellowlegs (10.5%) and Western Grebe (16.4%).
We are converting nature into people and products at a high rate of speed, so nature is now collapsing around us.
It may well be that all the positive news will amount only to “too little too late” but I remain hopeful that at least a fairly substantial portion of humanity can escape the built in crash heading our way, and continue to enjoy the fruits of industrial civilization….. on a sustainable basis.
Here’s another piece of VERY encouraging news which I have not seen mentioned here in this forum.
The article is VERY well written, as you expect at the Scientific American, but it fails to mention one fact that should imo have been included…… the VALUE of the oxygen generated as a “by product ” of electrolyzing water to generate free hydrogen. Purified oxygen is a VERY valuable commodity, although there may not be much market for it in the potential quantities involved in producing hydrogen on the grand scale. On the other hand, business men can probably find plenty of use for pure oxygen in such quantities at a cheap price.
The first thing that occurs to me is that it could be fed right into a gas turbine, or blast furnace, or kitchen range for that matter, designed to accept it. Adding separate distribution facilities for home use would be out of the question, too expensive…… but an industrial facility that uses pure O2 could be built right next to an electrolyzer, avoiding distribution costs altogether.
Such articles also generally fail to mention that peak electricity demand can be reduced quite a bit by mandating highly efficient appliances such as hot water heaters, which can be turned off without a problem during peaks, and can be turned on and brought up to whatever heat is deemed safe during periods of surplus renewable electricity production.
I keep mine set at about one thirty F but I could add a gizmo called a tempering valve, and set the thermostat at one sixty or even one seventy… which would mean I could store a few kilowatt hours of surplus renewable juice in the form of extra hot water at a one time cost of less than hundred bucks, by installing this device myself.
Another Whale Has Washed Up Dead With Plastic Packing Its Stomach
A sperm whale found off the coast of Sardinia, Italy, was pregnant and carrying 49 pounds of plastic
“We’ve used the ‘comfort’ of disposable objects in a lighthearted way in the past years and now we are paying the consequences. Indeed the animals, above all, are the ones paying them,”
The naysayers are going to be choking on their words to an ever greater extent once today’s best panels, four hundred watts, are common place. The production of a given small installation will have more or less doubled over the last ten years with them, and given that labor and installation materials are now and have been the bulk of the cost for years……
When the price of four hundred watt panels eventually falls to the price of current day two hundred watt panels……. the cost of home grown juice will be less than the cost of grid sourced juice for many tens of millions of people right here in the USA, and Republicans will forget about trying to kill the industry, and switch to bragging about American know how and ingenuity.
While I’m sure the price of PV panels will continue to go down, while their efficiency will continue to improve, I’m even more excited about a slightly less high tech solution for energy storage!
ANU finds 530,000 potential pumped-hydro sites worldwide The Australian National University (ANU) has completed a global audit of 530,000 potential sites for pumped-hydro energy storage that can be used to support low-cost, secure, 100 per cent renewable electricity grids.
The zero-emission grids would mainly rely on solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind technology, with support from pumped-hydro storage and extra high voltage transmission between regions. Solar PV and wind constitute the largest and second largest respectively annual global net capacity additions.
Note to anyone still betting on fossil fuels and especially nuclear, as a means of producing energy, you have already lost that bet!
.
The Commission has authorized a total of 24 pumped storage projects that are constructed and in operation, with a total installed capacity of over 16,500 megawatts. Most of these projects were authorized more than 30 years ago.
Recent Developments at FERC
The Commission has seen an increase in the number of preliminary permit and license applications filed for pumped storage projects. Since the beginning of 2014, the Commission has issued licenses for three proposed pumped storage projects. .
Here is a good example on what warming can do to a landscape.
This big island is a prime permafrost laboratory, and when its warm the land destabilizes and slumps ( a type of landslide).
Video 1/2 way down is worth watching- https://phys.org/news/2019-04-slippery-slope-climate-reshaping-arctic.html
LOL!
MAGA with RETROGRESSIVE THAW SLUMPS
I think that would make a great GOP campaign slogan for 2020 to counteract AOC’s Green New Deal!
Just a week or so ago, NASA reported Greenland ice was growing again. I know because I saw it on the news with my own eyes, here are a couple of the reports.
I mostly just skim the threads, there’s more content than I can read, or want to read.
Did your parents have any children that lived?
But you bother to troll. About time you read some of this then you would have seen the original posts.
NAOM
Yipee! Upon careful examination they have found two firing synapses in your brain! That’s fantastic news! Unfortunately the rest of your brain is completely dead!
And that, in case you missed the point, is analogous to morons like you crowing about the fact that there is one glacier somewhere that is still growing growing while we know that the vast majority of them all over the world are shrinking!
As for your idiotic comment above: I mostly just skim the threads, there’s more content than I can read, or want to read.
At the very least it would behoove you to use the search function and read pertinent posts to the topic you are commenting on.
Maybe your precious time would be better spent elsewhere!
Edit:
Watts Up is currently featuring a piece about the Little Ice Age.
I’m sure their little village is missing you dearly, so please don’t keep them waiting!
Did you even listen to the youtube accuweather video? “However the glacier is losing more ice to the ocean than the ice it is accumulating.” So even that one glacier is not gaining mass.
The other video is a conservative propaganda channel.
Now we know all 100 glaciers on Greenland are losing mass.
The melt has just started for this year.
Greenland loses 286 gigatons of ice per year on average, but we are just at the beginning of the melt period which could go on for centuries. As the earth warms further warm Atlantic waters and air will melt the ice sheet causing it to lose altitude and become even warmer, implying an increasing loss over time.
The ice sheet does not exist at 3C above preindustrial global temperatures according to paleontological records. We are now about 1.4C above preindustrial and heading higher in global temperature.
Dan,
If 7 glaciers grow, and 93 shrink… it shows a trend.
But I guess you will just hear what you want to.
More convenient that way.
This site is good for finding the first forest fires of the season… look at the Chem- COsc. If it’s a remote Siberian location with a high COsc it’s likely a fire.
For those wanting a greater understanding on how atmospheric methane concentrations, rates and sources are determined. Note there are major exceptions in the calculations including lack of inclusion of permafrost and methane hydrate in future values and low tau value not considering changes to the hydroxyl radical.
Spring Outlook: Historic, widespread flooding to continue through May
Nearly two-thirds of the Lower 48 states face an elevated risk for flooding through May, with the potential for major or moderate flooding in 25 states, according to NOAA’s U.S. Spring Outlook issued today. The majority of the country is favored to experience above-average precipitation this spring, increasing the flood risk.
…Likewise, our results indicate that the current CO2 concentration of ~410 ppm is unprecedented over the past 3 million years. The climate sensitivity of the model is around 3°C global warming for a doubling of CO2 concentration, which is at the center of the range of current best estimates of climate sensitivity that range between 1.5 and 4.5°C. It is possible that the real climate sensitivity is lower than 3°C, in which case the modelled CO2 concentration needed to fit the oxygen isotope record during the early Quaternary would be higher than in the present model simulations, but it would still be unlikely to exceed the present day value. In the context of future climate change, our results imply that a failure to significantly reduce CO2 emissions to comply with the Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming well below 2°C will not only bring Earth’s climate away from Holocene-like conditions, but also push it beyond climatic conditions experienced during the entire current geological period.
It’s nice that they may be able to model the climate but correlation does not imply causation. If one examines the previous glaciations between the Eemian (as denoted by very high insolation at 65N due to orbital changes) and the Holocene, one sees three peak insolation times and four corresponding minima. These will correspond to the advances and retreats of the ice cap during the so called last glaciation. The periods are about 40,000 years. At times the ice retreated almost to the Arctic ocean.
The ice cap was not stable at all as claimed by the paper. The so called 100,000 year period is just a marking of the largest swings in northern insolation, with other swings in insolation in between with their own advances and retreats of ice.
I am not convinced of their their reasoning for the supposed stability (that is actually unstable and follows the orbital driven insolation) of the ice sheets.
CO2 and methane levels are generally followers of global temperature changes except in the case of extreme long term volcanism (which humans are trying to model now) where CO2 buildup occurs due to emissions.
Hello Ron,
I see Michael Lynch loves you , he’s quoting you again
I’m sure you’re not worried ( neither am I 😉 )
forbin
Yeah, he is a riot. Since we were wrong about peak oil earlier, that means oil production will never peak.
From Lynch in Forbes: The Curious Incident Of The Oil Supply That Didn’t Decline
Still Ron Patterson asks, “Was 2018 the peak for crude oil production?” and Gail Tverberg says, “Given the nearly worldwide problem of falling affordability of goods by non-elite workers, we should not be surprised if the peaks in oil production in October and November 2018 ultimately prove to be the maximum production ever recorded.” The former is merely looking at recent production trends, the latter believes that consumers can’t afford the prices producers need to invest in new capacity. Neither argument impresses me.
Yep! Five pound bag, stuffed with 10 pounds of shit, hasn’t burst yet so I guess it never will!
I don’t know why he (and others like him) enjoy picking on the peak oil community. As far as I can tell peak oilers mostly keep to themselves and have “fun” doing their own thing, debating oil and renewables and the environment. We don’t seem to go around pushing our agenda in big newspapers, generally anything peak oilers publish is on their own peak oil specific sites.
And if Lynch was right, and the last decade really did prove everyone here is a quack and oil will never decline, or at least not in any of our lifetimes, then why does he keep writing articles about it? Methinks he doth protest too much.
“I don’t know why he (and others like him) enjoy picking on the peak oil community…..”
Same reason Trump picks on dead people?
Alternate Universe MAGA. It’s been years since I’ve $$ for a Movie. Where is Amazon in this Alt time dimension?
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-19/hollywood-making-jobs-great-again-surpasses-energy-jobs-mpaa-says
This article on the New Green Deal gives a version of the message that OFM has been trying to pound into collective mind here-
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-greennewdeal-companies/solar-and-wind-firms-call-the-green-new-deal-too-extreme-idUSKCN1R212S
“Representatives of America’s clean energy companies are withholding their support for the climate-fighting plan, calling it unrealistic and too politically divisive for an industry keen to grow in both red and blue states.
The cool reaction reflects the difficulty that progressive politicians vying for the White House may have in selling aggressive global-warming policy to the business community and more moderate voters. ”
If you are interested in change, and changing peoples attitudes so they can find new things palatable, a measured approach is more likely to be successful, whether it is energy policy, or medical funding policy. I find that ‘progressives’ make a mistake of trying to force things down peoples throat. They often gag.
If you are interested in change, and changing peoples attitudes so they can find new things palatable, a measured approach is more likely to be successful, whether it is energy policy, or medical funding policy. I find that ‘progressives’ make a mistake of trying to force things down peoples throat. They often gag.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Well that’s all fine and dandy! Unfortunately it totally ignores our reality and how dire our circumstances actually are! Furthermore AOC’s Green New Deal is not even close to being radical enough to change our path. If implemented it would be like, instead of hitting the brick wall at 100 mph, we slow down to 90 mph. We’re still dead!
Maybe everyone, the folks on the Left and the Right. The folks in the middle, the business community, politicians, the economists. policymakers, etc… and even people like AOC and OFM should read this report.
Right now were are on a path to mass suicide! Would anyone like some sugar with their cyanide pills?! Maybe that way they will gag a little less!
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328413289_WHAT_LIES_BENEATH_THE_UNDERSTATEMENT_OF_EXISTENTIAL_CLIMATE_RISK
WHAT LIES BENEATH: THE UNDERSTATEMENT OF EXISTENTIAL CLIMATE RISK
Abstract
Human-induced climate change is an existential risk to human civilisation: an adverse outcome that will either annihilate intelligent life or permanently and drastically curtail its potential, unless carbon emissions are rapidly reduced. Special precautions that go well beyond conventional risk management practice are required if the increased likelihood of very large climate impacts — known as “fat tails” — are to be adequately dealt with. The potential consequences of these lower-probability, but higher-impact, events would be devastating for human societies. The bulk of climate research has tended to underplay these risks, and exhibited a preference for conservative projections and scholarly reticence, although increasing numbers of scientists have spoken out in recent years on the dangers of such an approach. Climate policymaking and the public narrative are significantly informed by the important work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). However, IPCC reports also tend toward reticence and caution, erring on the side of “least drama”, and downplaying the more extreme and more damaging outcomes. Whilst this has been understandable historically, given the pressure exerted upon the IPCC by political and vested interests, it is now becoming dangerously misleading with the acceleration of climate impacts globally. What were lower-probability, higher-impact events are now becoming more likely. This is a particular concern with potential climatic tipping points — passing critical thresholds which result in step changes in the climate system — such as the polar ice sheets (and hence sea levels), and permafrost and other carbon stores, where the impacts of global warming are non-linear and difficult to model with current scientific knowledge. However the extreme risks to humanity which the tipping points represent, justify strong precautionary management. Under-reporting on these issues is irresponsible, contributing to the failure of imagination that is occurring today in our understanding of, and response to, climate change. If climate policymaking is to be soundly based, a reframing of scientific research within an existential risk-management framework is now urgently required. This must be taken up not just in the work of the IPCC, but also in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations if we are to address the real climate challenge. Current processes will not deliver either the speed or the scale of change required.
If you are interested in change, and changing peoples attitudes so they can find new things palatable, a measured approach is more likely to be successful, whether it is energy policy, or medical funding policy. I find that ‘progressives’ make a mistake of trying to force things down peoples throat. They often gag.
Yeah, Ok!
When your house is on fire, you don’t invite the neighbors over for a friendly discussion on how to direct the fire hoses so they won’t impact their flower beds!
So Fred,
when we talk, or write, or craft a policy (Green new Deal for example).
what is our goal?
Is it to vent, or rant, or be ‘right’? To make the opposition wrong?
Or is it to be effective? To move the ball in the direction of our goal?
If we really believe that global warming is dire, and want to be effective, its about getting the mass of people moving in the right direction. Without gathering momentum, you won’t get towards the goal. Being extreme about communication, or measures taken can be counterproductive.
For example, if Republicans win again, Ruth will be replaced someone like Pence or Bannon. Alienating marginal voters will get a very bad result.
The renewables companies cited in this article recognize these realities, and want to keep up with the momentum on installations that they have, and not risk the toehold they are getting in red states. The New Green deal has great goals, but is crafted in a hasty and naive manner. Its more about being right, then getting towards the goal.
Thats how I see it.
I’m much more likely to vote for someone pragmatic, than one who espouses my greatest ideals but has no effective method to get there.
I’m much more likely to vote for someone pragmatic, than one who espouses my greatest ideals but has no effective method to get there.
That would be nice! Sometimes you just run out of time…
“The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.”
Winston Churchill
I think we will see a lot more people taking part in movements such as this:
https://xrebellion.org/
This 1 hour long video is embedded at link above but some might just choose to watch it without navigating the site itself.
It explains the movement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=61&v=b2VkC4SnwY0
Cheers!
I think governor Gavin Newsom in CA gives an interesting example of how things can actually go in a positive direction. I speak specifically of the death penalty. He didn’t emphasize it in his campaign but when it came time for him to authorize a specific execution he simply said he can’t do it on a personal moral basis. I don’t think that’s far from FDR running for president in 1932 promising to balance the budget. We need good people that get into office and do the right thing. Nothing else will work.
Fred, best to let nature take it’s course and have some fun along the way (EV’s, renewables, organic gardens, climate science, etc.). Nature is the great maker and breaker of species. Live and learn or just go away. Simple, not highly efficient, but definitely works well in the long run.
I see some of my neighbors just trying to survive, using the old systems to try and make it through. Instead of trying to change their own paradigm. Either way may be fruitless but those who try to change and do will have a much better time of it while they are here. The others just wonder why everything is getting more difficult and they lose hope, even worse they do not enjoy the time they have.
Every day is precious, just like every creature is precious.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/21/trump-economy-election-1230495
How Trump is on track for a 2020 landslide
President Donald Trump has a low approval rating. He is engaging in bitter Twitter wars and facing metastasizing investigations.
But if the election were held today, he’d likely ride to a second term in a huge landslide, according to multiple economic models with strong track records of picking presidential winners and losses.
Credit a strong U.S. economy featuring low unemployment, rising wages and low gas prices — along with the historic advantage held by incumbent presidents.
While Trump appears to be in a much stronger position than his approval rating and conventional Beltway wisdom might suggest, he also could wind up in trouble if the economy slows markedly between now and next fall, as many analysts predict it will.
And other legal bombshells could explode the current scenario. Trump’s party managed to lose the House in 2018 despite a strong economy. So the models could wind up wrong this time around.
Despite all these caveats, Trump looks surprisingly good if the old James Carville maxim coined in 1992 — “the economy, stupid” — holds true in 2020.
“The economy is just so damn strong right now and by all historic precedent the incumbent should run away with it,” said Donald Luskin, chief investment officer of TrendMacrolytics, a research firm whose model correctly predicted Trump’s 2016 win when most opinion polls did not. “I just don’t see how the blue wall could resist all that.”
Models maintained by economists and market strategists like Luskin tend to ignore election polls and personal characteristics of candidates. Instead, they begin with historical trends and then build in key economic data including growth rates, wages, unemployment, inflation and gas prices to predict voting behavior and election outcomes.
Yale economist Ray Fair, who pioneered this kind of modeling, also shows Trump winning by a fair margin in 2020 based on the economy and the advantage of incumbency.
“Even if you have a mediocre but not great economy — and that’s more or less consensus for between now and the election — that has a Trump victory and by a not-trivial margin,” winning 54 percent of the popular vote to 46 for the Democrat, he said. Fair’s model also predicted a Trump win in 2016 though it missed on Trump’s share of the popular vote.
Sure let’s keep him in so he can oversee the next big recession just like Bush and probably start fake war like he did to distract everyone.
Hmmm, maybe those people that worked at the 5000 stores that closed this year so far are happy about the economy and the Fed Ex people are not worried about their jobs.
““Slowing international macroeconomic conditions and weaker global trade growth trends continue, as seen in the year-over-year decline in our FedEx Express international revenue,” Graf said.”
“U.S. freight volume has dropped for three months in a row.
In February, orders for Class-8 freight trucks were down 58 percent from a year ago.
U.S. manufacturing output was down for a second straight month in the month of February.
U.S. residential construction spending just plunged for the sixth month in a row.
Industrial production on a year-over-year basis in Europe has fallen for three months in a row.
When we see numbers like those, normally everyone is screaming “recession” by now.”
https://moneyandmarkets.com/global-economy-fedex-worst-shape-great-recession/
Trump will bring everything down faster (except for profits for large corps in the short term) —-
Probably best– the survivors (if any) will have more resources to work with.
A slow Dim is not a good move.
Trump does seem to be a bit of an accelerationist, that is to say he is speeding up the destruction that is already happening in society. All he needs is a utopian vision of the future and he could be a Bond villain.
>I find that ‘progressives’ make a mistake of trying to force things down peoples throat. They often gag.
Thanks for demeaning the convo with this little Breitbart comments section meme. It’s a bit icky how right winger pretend to be terrified of having things forced down their their throats and insist homosexuality is a choice that they have not made. Maybe you should tone down you dark fantasies and look at what’s going on in the country instead.
Clean renewable energy is very popular among people across the political spectrum. That is why even some of the most corrupt Republican administrations are being forced to abandon their opposition to it.
https://www.thesuntimes.com/news/20190321/solar-energy-report-shows-solid-progress-in-arkansas
https://www.1011now.com/content/news/Nebraska-bill-targeting-wind-energy-projects-stalls-506447031.html
https://www.tampabay.com/business/residential-solar-is-on-the-rise-in-florida-20190314/
“Thanks for demeaning the convo with this little Breitbart comments section meme.”
Great example. You just don’t get it. That is unfortunate.
That mistake will keep being repeated until it is acknowledged.
It is more important to be effective on issues you care about, rather than being
cool or so damn ‘right’.
Preaching to your constituents isn’t what makes progress.
I get it all right. It’s what Pol Pot called “volunteerism”. If you propagandize the populace heavily enough they will act against their own interests. It works. Nixon realized it first, and that is the origin of Fox News and modern Republicanism.
Americans think what TV wants them to think. When car companies told them fins on cars were beautiful, they believed it. When CNN replayed that plane crashing into a building in New York a million times, they shit their pants. Heck, the library of the Kingsport campus of East Tennessee State University shut down for fear of terrorist attacks. I doubt it was high on Al Qaeda’s target list. When Fox told them Saddam had WMDs, they believed it.
They’ll believe any shit you tell them, and turn on a dime. My favorite example is Ben Bernanke. When Bush was president, Republicans loved him and Democrats hated him. As soon as Obama got into office, Republicans hated him and Democrats loved him.
When you claim you understand the soul of America better than I do, it’s just because you think that today’s news cycle is the soul of America. It’s just like the crap OFM sells as down home wisdom. It’s really just an old man with a short memory regurgitating what he sees on TV. All you really mean is that a lot of people watch Fox News, but I didn’t need a burning bush to figure that out.
I’m lost on what you saying. Consider me stupid, or maybe we were talking about different parts of this long and wandering thread.
Its beyond me now.
Peace out.
On second thought- I think you lost in a strange mind at times. “It’s just like the crap OFM sells as down home wisdom.” He makes a hell of a lot more sense than you, by and large.
https://seekingalpha.com/news/3444568-trump-finalize-3_7b-aid-vogtle-nuclear-project-bloomberg?app=1#email_link
Centralized Power was the major factor in collapse of the Soviet Union.
The Answer is becoming clear – Grid Defection.
“And I believe the history of communism is American history. America owes a great debt to the Red Menace. After all, the threat of Communism inspired us to our greatest achievements. The communists forced our hand on issues of poverty, lest the entire American capitalist project be swept away in a tide of home-grown Bolshevism. They held us morally responsible for our quotidian atrocities. They made us appreciate the arts. They made us stronger and faster. They sent us all the way to the moon.
Watching Rachel Maddow babble and hiss about Russians cutting your gas lines, one might come to the conclusion she’s merely a xenophobic paranoiac—which she indeed is. But when you catch all the anachronistic hammer and sickle iconography that so often accompanies our recent Russophobia revival, it’s clear that we’re not merely panicking, we’re mourning, and that we’re nostalgic for a worthy opponent. We miss the Soviets. Sure we make eyes at China, (who yes, looks stunning in red), but it’s just not the same. We are all the poorer for the loss of the communist states. The whole world is.”
Anyone notice that lately the Republican symbol has the stars upside down?
A new order or a new cult?
They are not upside down, They are just rotated 36 ° to the right 😉
If that were an Ass, then you could have achieved the same result by rotating 36 ° to the left…
If you believe in conspiracy theories and Astrology then this bit of trivia may be significant:
CNN poll conducted by SSRS, the President’s approval rating was 36% …
Cheers!
.
Geometry for the symbol minded. Keep trying to convince yourself Fred that people only believe in science. Point downward has an old and nasty meaning. Almost as dangerous as Christianity.
“A reversed pentagram, with two points projecting upwards, is a symbol of evil and attracts sinister forces because it overturns the proper order of things and demonstrates the triumph of matter over spirit. It is the goat of lust attacking the heavens with its horns, a sign execrated by initiates.”[14]
“The flaming star, which, when turned upside down, is the hierolgyphic [sic] sign of the goat of Black Magic, whose head may be drawn in the star, the two horns at the top, the ears to the right and left, the beard at the bottom. It is the sign of antagonism and fatality. It is the goat of lust attacking the heavens with its horns.”[15]
“Let us keep the figure of the Five-pointed Star always upright, with the topmost triangle pointing to heaven, for it is the seat of wisdom, and if the figure is reversed, perversion and evil will be the result.”[16]
And to get that, all you need is 36%. Um, degrees…
And Trump wins in 2020 by a landslide. No witch hunt needed and the economy is doing fine, record unemployment, rising wages and a growing economy, the best it has ever been. We’ll hit even hit RCP 10.0 before 2050.
Just ask Dave Hillemann!
Cheers!
Happy Equinox Fred, I mean yesterday of course.
I got my spirit rattles ready. You can beat the drums. The head of the EPA is trying to light the fire but failed.
He told me
Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla, bang bang
Ooo eee ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla bang bang
Ooo eee ,ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla ,bang bang
Ooo eee ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla bang bang
I feel the warmth already.
“Let us keep the figure of the Five-pointed Star always upright, with the topmost triangle pointing to heaven, for it is the seat of wisdom, and if the figure is reversed, perversion and evil will be the result.”
Sure! Could you just remind me which way is up, please?
Sometimes I sorta lose my sense of direction…
😉
Down is easy, just drop something. Most things go down, it’s getting up that is tough. 🙂
Hmm maybe this might solve the problem…
Just have Donald Trump Jr. shoot the elephant.
.
ROFL
And I thought that the GOP was against witchcraft and satanism.
NAOM
USFS Withdraws Blue Mountains Forest Plan Revision
https://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/2019/03/20/usfs-withdraws-blue-mountains-forest-plan-revision/
It would have approximately doubled logging, removed current protective Forest Plan standards for streams and water quality, scrapped the prohibition on logging large trees (those ≥21” diameter at breast height), and severely weakened environmental protections regarding livestock grazing. The plan also failed to protect many ecologically important potential Wilderness and Roadless Areas. The plan would have exacerbated many of the negative effects on forests associated with climate change, such as increased stream temperatures and loss of biodiversity.
Sounded like a Trump wet dream—
https://bluemountainsbiodiversityproject.org/comment/
Just noticed your winky face symbol, time to get tilted. 🙂
Hi Fred,
I take the big picture environmental picture in general, and the climate picture specifically, as seriously as anybody whatsoever.
I believe it’s literally a life or death situation, for the greater part of humanity, and a huge chunk of the biosphere, and maybe all of us naked apes and MOST of the biosphere.
But as I see things, Hickory is right, and I’m right, in that a measured approach, politically, WILL BE more effective than pushing right now for really radical short term change.
I can’t see but one thing convincing the voting public to go for anything, short term, that’s as disruptive as the policies you personally advocate.
NOW HEAR THIS! as they used to say in the Navy, or at least on tv shows about the navy, lol.
The reason I keep telling everybody to pray to the Deity of their personal choice for PEARL HARBOR WAKE UP EVENTS is that I can’t see any other possible way to get the public to support the NECESSARY( as you RIGHTLY point out) programs you advocate.
I’m not dictator for life of this country, but IF I were, you would be one of my closest advisors.
But I wouldn’t risk being overthrown by pushing your agenda too hard and fast, thereby putting a pro fossil fuel dictator in power in my place!
I’m not a survivalist in the usual sense, but in case it gets to be necessary to bunker up, I’m better prepared than ninety nine point nine nine percent of the people in this country, and I would have a fairly good shot at surviving an economic collapse, and maybe even an environmental collapse, depending on how bad things get in my neck of the woods.
This is something I’ve discussed with a number of close acquaintances who believe collapse is a real if not very likely in the near future possibility, and they are prepared to come here, with all they can get here with, in the way of survival goods, and live communally with me for the duration.
I estimate the possibility of REALLY SERIOUS SHIT hitting the fan at about two percent a year, at this time, with that risk gradually rising maybe another percent within the next five to ten years, and so on,accelerating, so that the odds of a collapse,economic or ecological or both, are probably fifty percent, my own wild ass guess, within the next fifty years.
But I won’t be around even half that long, at the very longest.
I know that at times I come across as pushing an untenable agenda.
I’m not! I don’t have an agenda. You can believe me or not!
I’m just saying how I see things. I don’t expect any change due to what I say!
I used to self censor but I no longer see any point of doing that.
Cheers!
I get it,Fred.
And how hard you should push your beliefs depends very much on who your audience is at any particular time, so long as you are consistent and don’ contradict yourself.
So pushing really hard here is quite appropriate.
Having lunch with friends who aren’t so well informed as the audience here, it would likely be better to just talk about how great an electric car is, and how cheap batteries are getting, so that your friends will soon be able to buy solar panels, and batteries and such, and save more than the payment on the system by way of reduced electric bills, etc.
In other words, old teachers tell new ones, ya gotta take the kids where you find them, and from there, go as far as you can.
“I estimate the possibility of REALLY SERIOUS SHIT hitting the fan at about two percent a year, at this time, with that risk gradually rising maybe another percent within the next five to ten years,”
Depends on when and where you are, nature is doing death by a thousand cuts right now but with ever increasing blades.
‘Almost Everything Is Destroyed’: Cyclone Idai Leaves Mozambique’s Fourth-Largest City in Ruins
Mozambique had received some 5.5 to 7.4 inches of rain in 24 hours in the week before the storm even hit. Seven people died then, and more than 30,000 were already experiencing displacement, according to ReliefWeb. The cyclone’s heavy rainfall—it was expected to drop up to 18 inches onto Mozambique—has only made things worse.
This cyclone was, indeed, unusual, as it’s the seventh cyclone in the Indian Ocean this season. That’s more than double the average for this time of year. Unfortunately, although the cyclone has fizzled out Mozambique’s Institute of Meteorology expects conditions of extreme rain, thunder, and wind to persist throughout the country until Thursday.
https://earther.gizmodo.com/almost-everything-is-destroyed-cyclone-idai-leaves-moz-1833374728
I do wonder if coastal cities and towns are worth trying to update to low carbon standards, since many will be wrecked or going underwater within the century. Investing in ocean bottom is the realm of fish and corals.
‘Nothing was left’: Flash floods, landslides hit Indonesia’s Papua region
Rain-triggered flash floods and landslides that struck Indonesia’s easternmost province this past weekend have killed nearly 90 people and driven thousands from their homes. The country’s disaster mitigation agency has cited human-caused deforestation as having exacerbated the scale of the damage.
https://news.mongabay.com/2019/03/nothing-was-left-flash-floods-landslides-hit-indonesias-papua-region/
Meanwhile, much of the earth was not devastated yesterday. Although the prelude to extinction continued mostly unnoticed.
More rain. as ice jam takes out actual dam.
http://www.holtindependent.com/news/spencer-dam-destroyed-by-record-ice-jams-and-flooding/article_ccce2832-4697-11e9-9cb8-5b46a90fdf79.html
11-foot wall of water: One dam breaks, three counties suffer
https://journalstar.com/news/state-and-regional/nebraska/foot-wall-of-water-one-dam-breaks-three-counties-suffer/article_eaf487d7-acc0-53a8-8786-9eccb43942ed.html
Spencer Nebraska Dam Collapse/ US 281 Bridge Drone Footage 4k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk34O-e9jGo&t=161s
Just another few days on our planet. So much infrastructure, so much more rain.
Lucky California supplies 25% of our food—-
The midwest seems like a continual mess.
Hi GF,
I get where you are coming from too, just as I get where Fred is coming from.
YES, things are desperately fucked up already in LOTS of places, but so far, most of the people in the richer western countries don’t really have a clue as to how bad things are already, because the troubles headed THEIR way are still mostly over the horizon. They don’t have a clue as to how much future trouble is already baked in.
I’m guesstimating that it will be anywhere from a few years to a couple of generations, fifty years or so, before the reality of the shit in the fan really smacks most people such as Yankees, Limeys, Germans, Frenchmen, Canadians, etc, upside their collective heads.
Don’t forget to pray for WAKE UP events!
PS, thanks for this bunch of links!
Meanwhile, Australia is getting a double whammy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1-UE8Ef5bE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky7W3KdeGoU
The waters are rising, the floods are coming. What are we doing to save ourselves?
Elizabeth Weise
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/20/nebraska-floods-more-water-coming-heres-what-mankind-should-do/3214576002/
City planners, builders, engineers and scientists race to find new ways for people to make a home as climate change threatens increased heavy flooding, dangerous weather conditions and extreme storm surges.
For areas experiencing more flooding – U.S. coastal communities and those living near rivers – there is hope. Answers range from the fanciful to the concrete (literally).
For private developers and individual homeowners, there are many ways to build more safely in flood-prone areas.
“It’s actually cheaper to build hazard-resistant homes than it is to build to the minimum building codes and then fix things,” said Jeremy Gregory, a research scientist at the department of civil and environmental engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studied Katrina and other disasters.
“Over its lifetime, you spend more time on the repairs than on the initial construction costs,” said Gregory, who directs the Concrete Sustainability Hub, which studies how concrete can be used for engineering applications.
Individual homeowners can raise foundations, so their homes are farther above ground and less likely to flood. In areas of Florida and the East Coast, homes are built on piers to hold them even higher.
“It’s really an elevation game, is what it comes down to. The higher you are, the less likely you are to get wet,” said William Sweet, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration expert on sea level rise.
The one downside is that although “you can raise your house, you’re still driving through water to get to your house,” he said.
An old-but-new choice is to build houses above ground level, in which the first story holds the garage or storage, and living quarters are up one floor.
This style of home goes back to building techniques people in flood-prone areas have long known, but it became less common as flood insurance became available and people moved often enough that they didn’t have a stake in building for the long term.
One of the biggest adaptation tools is simply information, so home buyers and homeowners, along with their communities, can make informed decisions.
There are so many things wrong with this story it is difficult to know where to begin addressing them!
There are 3 ways to avoid the flooding issue:-
1/ Don’t build in flood-prone areas.
2/ Don’t build in flood-prone areas.
3/ Don’t build in flood-prone areas.
NAOM
4) Don’t re- insure rebuilding on properties that are in the 100 yr FEMA flood zone. The maps aren’t perfect, but generally very good.
5) Don’t permit rebuilding/remodeling in the flood zones
4/ There would need to be a grandfathering clause but not pay out for building in the same spot or at-risk area, only in safe zones.
5/ See 1/ 2/ 3/ above
NAOM
Hey,
Technology might save industrial civilization, or at least a significant portion thereof. It’s not impossible.
Collapse may come piecemeal, and some portions of the globe may pull thru near enough whole that we naked apes can continue to live in these places, and maybe even enjoy a more or less modern technological life style.
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/03/21/early-customer-basks-in-the-glow-of-his-new-tesla-solar-roof-tile-install/
Who can really say for sure just how cheap renewable energy might be at some future time?
This guy has probably spent upwards of a quarter of a million bucks on his electrification program……. but twenty years from now, in current day money, everything Tesla in the link might cost less than a quarter as much as it does today.
Apparently not all Africans are ignorant…
https://frontpageafricaonline.com/news/african-scientists-to-showcase-efforts-addressing-ocean-acidification-at-high-level-ocean-conference/
African Scientists To Showcase Efforts Addressing Ocean Acidification At High-Level Ocean Conference
Ocean Acidification Africa (OA-Africa; https://www.oa-africa.net/) is a pan-African network working to coordinate and promote ocean acidification awareness and research in Africa. The network is composed of more than 100 scientists interested in conducting ocean acidification research in Africa. OA- Africa is part of the wider Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network (www.goa-on.org) as one of seven regional hubs.
You would have to be an idiot for the very idea that all Africans are ignorant to even cross your mind.
BUT….. consider the state of ignorance of the general public, here in the USA, where almost everybody has radio, television, and internet, half of us with an instant access crystal ball ( made flat so it will fit in your pocket! ) we keep with us virtually all the time.
Not a lot of people in this forum have a lower opinion of the intellects of Joe and Suzy Sixpack than I do……. but this does not mean I LOOK DOWN on them, or disrespect them because they are unfortunate in this respect.
Now think about the typical relatively poor ( as Africans go, economically) African person…… He or she is really up against it, in terms of understanding what the REAL SCORE is, in terms of his or her future, and the future of their kids.
How in hell are we going to help these people get thru the next few decades?
If I were super rich, I would buy some mini solar panels and tv sets and distribute them free,by the tens of millions and put up a satellite, and run educational programming on it half and half with entertainment suitable to that audience……. because half entertainment would make it more likely the sets would be USED, rather than destroyed by various priests or politicians, etc.
And I would air drop abortion pills and birth control pills by the cargo plane load, all over the place, any place where there are lots of people, and pay any woman or man to have a permanent end put to parenthood. A vasectomy can be performed for as little as spaying a puppy, for less than ten bucks in expendables, and a vet could do a hundred a day. ditto a nurse, with a helper or two of course. . Tubal ligation is way more complicated and expensive. I have castrated a bunch of pigs and calves myself, and I could learn the vasectomy procedure in a day. Sure I would do a few that didn’t work, but I wouldn’t infect my patients or clients. Medical and veterinary professionals who laugh at people like me are not interested in affordable results, they are interested in protecting their TURF.
People are going to die in very large numbers in Africa over the next few decades, due to starvation associated with climate problems, water depletion, hot resource wars, etc, barring miraculous good luck with weather, birth rates falling like a rock, foreign aid, climate troubles arriving later rather than sooner, etc.
I would be willing, with a helper, to adopt one child myself, and am actually sort of interested in finding some woman with a small kid to come live with me and my Dad, free room and board, in exchange for help with him and the kid for me to play with and mentor, but I haven’t run across anyone that fits the bill.. ugly but pleasant and highly intelligent.
( I’m too old for much in the way of sex, lol, but not to old to think about it, and wouldn’t want an attractive woman around all the time unless she happened to be into old men, lol. )
But I’m absolutely sure that not more than a very small portion of the electorate in this country, or in any other well to do country, will ever support immigration on the grand scale. The people in such a country as Italy, which will eventually have mostly all old folks, might be willing to admit enough younger folk to look after them, but that’s about ALL they will want to admit, unless they are more or less fully culturally and educationally compatible.
I fully expect to see walls and fences built, on the grand scale, and manned by men with guns, with orders to shoot, if somebody invents a drug that will allow me to live another thirty or forty years.Maybe only twenty years.
NOTE. I am strongly opposed to building a fence on our southern border.
I am strongly in favor of doing what is necessary, or simply possible, to help the people to the south of us all the way down to Tierra del Fuego, pardon my senile spelling, get their acts together politically and economically, so that they can enjoy decent lives in their own countries, and thus not be FORCED to migrate.
There are many things we could do, and should be doing, to help them. It might be good to get a discussion of such things going.
TMI – “( I’m too old for much in the way of sex, lol, but not to old to think about it, and wouldn’t want an attractive woman around all the time unless she happened to be into old men, lol. )”
Woman Knits Stylish Suit From 300 Plastic Grocery Bags
Rosa Ferrigno’s new suit takes recycling to an extreme — she knitted it from more than 300 plastic grocery bags.
The 75-year-old woman from Greece in western New York whiled away the winter knitting a skirt and jacket from filmy brown bags scissored into thin strips that were tied together to make yarn. She lined it with cotton fabric.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/knitting-with-a-repurpose-woman-makes-suit-of-plastic-bags_n_5c940293e4b0a6329e1436b0
Rosa, the perfect woman for you Mac. Go for it BigBoy !
How in hell are we going to help these people get thru the next few decades?
We ain’t! They are doing it on their own already.
The same disclaimer applies to them as it does to us. Probably too little too late and the transition is too slow!
If I were super rich, I would buy some mini solar panels and tv sets and distribute them free,by the tens of millions and put up a satellite, and run educational programming on it half and half with entertainment suitable to that audience……. because half entertainment would make it more likely the sets would be USED, rather than destroyed by various priests or politicians, etc.
Africans already have smartphones with internet access which is radically changing their access to information and how they do business including banking! They are already on the solar bandwagon as well!
https://www.cnbc.com/2013/11/11/cashless-africa-kenyas-smash-success-with-mobile-money.html
Cashless Africa: Kenya’s smash success with mobile money
And I would air drop abortion pills and birth control pills by the cargo plane load, all over the place, any place where there are lots of people, and pay any woman or man to have a permanent end put to parenthood. A vasectomy can be performed for as little as spaying a puppy, for less than ten bucks in expendables, and a vet could do a hundred a day.
Again they are way ahead of the curve on a lot of that! BTW cargo planes are sooo last century. Drones are much more efficient! Though admittedly birth control needs to be addressed at a cultural paradigm level. Separate dissertation!
https://www.fastcompany.com/40457183/filled-with-blood-and-medical-supplies-these-delivery-drones-are-saving-lives-in-africa
Filled With Blood And Drugs, These Delivery Drones Are Saving Lives In Africa
People are going to die in very large numbers in Africa over the next few decades, due to starvation associated with climate problems, water depletion, hot resource wars, etc, barring miraculous good luck with weather, birth rates falling like a rock, foreign aid, climate troubles arriving later rather than sooner, etc.
As they will be dying in large numbers all over the word for many of the same reasons!
Cheers!
ROFL!
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/border-wall-stolen-tijuana-home-security_n_5c9291bbe4b08c4fec33b5f4
Mexicans Are Stealing Border Wall Materials, Using Them For Home Security
As a former resident of Mexico, my comrades were always resourceful.
I wonder if Don The Con can figure out a cut?
I wonder if Don The Con can figure out a cut?
Dunno! But I can’t wait for the talking head explosions at Faux News while dissecting his speech to the nation:
“Not only have they NOT paid for it! But now, the Mexicans are stealing our beautiful border wall! And they are using it to build walls around their own homes to keep themselves safe!”
Bwahahahaha!
BTW, has ‘The Onion’ gone bankrupt yet?!
Total non-sequiter Fred, but I was listening to Gabor Szabo today, who I dig, and randomly discovered that Magyar means Hungarian.
Interesting.
Yes! Not to be confused with the Huns! 😉
Probably a good market for it, better quality and sharper than the local product which is quite blunt. Oh, some reports say that the ratas are not detained long. If there is no denuncia against them the police can only detain them for 48hrs, I doubt the gringos can get it together to do that.
NAOM
When does USA reach 110% of deficiet/GNP? How about 1 Oct 19 when President’s executive order for sequestration kicks in? Why? 3% Fed rate with Fed buy backs to 1 Aug ensure no equity when coupled with 9M kids 90 days late on school payments and 9M auto owners 90 days late on car payments? 3% is really 5% if companies who had 3T in 2007 debt have 5T now…essential double amount debt so 1/2 rate is same outflow to service> Fix? Brit exit, Deutch broke. War Asia…China 25% tariffs on/about 1 June for non conformance to inspections (never with a communist statistician)…oh well…
“When does USA reach 110% of deficiet/GNP?”
What part of the Trump/Republican tax cut don’t you understand ? Turning the rich from tax payers into payday lenders was always the plan. Just another con played on the FoxNews conservatives.
If you are a “Rape and Scrape” member of the elite, lending your friends in the Government money at a profit is always better than being taxed on the same income–
Win win!
Disclaimer: I am posting this article partly with the intention that people click it and increase the number of views. It was written by my sister.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2019/03/22/can-a-circular-economy-help-clean-the-oceans/#35e521115264
Can A Circular Economy Help Clean The Oceans?
SAP
Judith Magyar
Take a look around here, look 360 degrees and follow some of the streets you will find a dozen or so, or many more, shops that sell disposable eating gear and dozens of eating places that use them. The white shelters at the side of the square fill with food stalls, in the evening, that use disposables. This is only one small part of the town. Maybe that will give some idea of the scale of the change needed.
https://www.google.com/maps/@20.6518957,-105.2180202,3a,75y,270h,90t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sSOKtizphfX_ZXtmOFF_UWA!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DSOKtizphfX_ZXtmOFF_UWA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D340.62097%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100?hl=en
The following gives and idea of the prices one needs to beat to get the market and the local shops, above, are cheaper.
https://www.lacomer.com.mx/lacomer/doHome.action?dep=Platos-vasos-y-cubiertos-desechables&key=Desechables&padreId=91&pasId=87&opcion=listaproductos&path=,91&pathPadre=&mov=1&subOpc=0&jsp=PasilloPadre.jsp&succId=415&agruId=87&succFmt=100
The culture change is huge. Many supermarkets only put large bags in the fruit and veg section using the theory that they will sell more as people fill the bags. I often have to stop and repack bags after leaving the checkouts having failed to dissuade the packer from using so many bags (note, I only take bags when I need to for I need to put my rubbish out in bags.). So many changes.
NAOM
I have posted my opinion that AOCs ‘Green New Deal’ is not even close to radical enough!
While I can’t post the details of something I’m working on to completely change our use of petrochemical plastics. I can say that it has a lot to do with the underlying logic of architecting biopolymer materials and how we incorporate them into our designs and products!
An analogy would be ways we can rethink how we can change our use and implementation of solar PV and related products. How often have we all heard the by now very tired and worn bullshit arguments against solar PV, such as that they are bad for the environment because we need to cut down forests to make room for solar farms?!
Here’s a short 9:00 min TED talk that might help a few more see the light 😉
https://www.ted.com/talks/marjan_van_aubel_the_beautiful_future_of_solar_power#t-518192
The sun delivers more energy to earth in one hour than all of humanity uses in an entire year. How can we make this power more accessible to everyone, everywhere? Solar designer Marjan van Aubel shows how she’s turning everyday objects like tabletops and stained glass windows into elegant solar cells — and shares her vision to make every surface a power station.
We should put all our efforts into completely eliminating all burning of fossil fuels and making all petrochemical based products obsolete! IMHO anyone who thinks that is too radical an idea just doesn’t understand the magnitude of the problem and that we already have solutions, we just need to implement them as fast as possible.
Cheers!
“We should put all our efforts into completely eliminating all burning of fossil fuels and making all petrochemical based products obsolete! IMHO anyone who thinks that is too radical an idea just doesn’t understand the magnitude of the problem and that we already have solutions, we just need to implement them as fast as possible.”
Figure out how to sell the ideas to those who gave the electoral college to Trump.
Figure out how to sell the ideas to those who gave the electoral college to Trump.
That simply isn’t productive. You will never convince them to change their minds, let alone their ways. Complete waste of time. I prefer to work work with active change agents. Most of them working behind the scenes in anonymity!
So how do you change paradigms? Thomas Kuhn, who wrote the seminal book about the great paradigm shifts of science has a lot to say about that. In a nutshell, you keep pointing at the anomalies and failures in the old paradigm, you keep coming yourself, and loudly and with assurance from the new one, you insert people with the new paradigm in places of public visibility and power. You don’t waste time with reactionaries; rather you work with active change agents and with the vast middle ground of people who are open-minded.
Donella Meadows, Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System.
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is hacking at the root!
Henry David Thoreau
Bingo!
We have a winner—-
Fred, there are very many voters, maybe 20% of the total who are up for grabs. We need to get them on board.
I’m not talking those about those in the John Birch Society.
If we don’t, the John Birches will have a solid majority on the Supreme court, and control the epa, dept of education etc.
The scientific, academic, and engineering and technical establishments are already up to date, these people are not behind the curve. They create the curve.
It’s the PEOPLE, and the COMMERCIAL /ECONOMIC establishment that’s the problem. We have to figure out a way to nudge and shove them in the right direction,and that’s one hell of a job.
They’re scared, and they’re creatures of habit. They put their faith in what they know, because what they know has enabled them to live and prosper, to a greater or lesser extent, all their lives.
THERE IS a reason why ignorant and stupid people tend to be conservative. The ones who AREN’T tend to die young, or spend their lives in jail, or starve on the street, because they fail to observe the rules of conservative social behavior. Don’t stick out from the crowd, or the crowd won’t be there for you when you need it( community support). Don’t give up the livelihood you know and HAVE for one that may leave you broke……. and without your old job that may not have been a very good one, but at least it was the sort of job that usually lasts……. etc.
Millions and millions of them have tried the little candy store, the little garage, this and that and the other, and failed, and they learned the hard lesson that being a business man is not all it’s cracked up to be…… and their friends and neighbors have watched the process.
Conservatism is above all and essentially nothing else, in one critical respect, than an effort to protect the economic and cultural turf of those who practice it.
They are right to be scared, and to fight back against change, because change has in the historical record been bad for them many times compared to the times it has been good for them.
Realists understand that while revolutions do occasionally result in great advances in culture and economics, the odds are very high that any given uprising or revolution will result in the people involved in it being WAY worse off than previously. Anybody who reads history knows this is true.
Condemning conservatives, although this is entirely justified, in respect to climate, energy, etc, is the worst possible thing you can do in terms of winning THEM over.
But of course condemning THEM, painting THEM as NOT US, when the audience is US, works like a charm, in terms of getting US to the polls, etc.
The trick is to badmouth conservatives in forums where they don’t visit, to make speeches condemning them on college campuses, and in big blue cities, while avoiding the conservative audience as best you can, if you take that route. This is practical politics, PP101.
We don’t have much over a dozen regulars here who among this dozen post way over half of all the comments.
I could have half a dozen conservatives reading this blog as regularly as the sun coming up, for the technical content, except for the very fact that so many regulars here make fun of religion, etc.
There aren’t any easy answers, it’s political war, and you expect to win some fights and lose some, all the while hoping for victory in the end.
“Freedom begins between the ears.”
——Edward Abbey
What’s the deal with these gigantic bulk sized lobster claws Costco is selling now?
https://www.today.com/food/costco-selling-giant-lobster-claws-they-re-enormous-t150674
Nothing like destroying breeding stock to ensure future supply.
NAOM
Radiation? I wouldn’t eat lobster that big.
The damned dam holding back the electric vehicle revolution hasn’t actually collapsed yet, but it’s leaking like crazy.
https://electrek.co/2019/03/22/honda-electric-crf450-bike-scooter/
The day ev’s REALLY take of in the USA will be the day you can buy one cheap, from a respected manufacturer with dealerships and showrooms all over the place. That’s Honda, in the two wheeler market. There are Honda motorcycle dealerships in towns as small as ten thousand people. WITH parts departments. WITH mechanics.
And their customers buy without any fear that next year, or five years from now, they will have to scrap their just barely paid for machine for lack of parts or a mechanic who knows how to work on it.
Yep, great stuff.
If you haven’t seen this Oregon companies models- check them out(standing!).
https://www.arcimoto.com/deliverator/
and this Taiwanese electric scooter battery system (Honda has some catchup to do)
https://www.gogoro.com/smart-energy/
Dang! That scooter is interesting, I go past the Honda bike showroom regularly so I will need to keep an eye out. If the price is right that may suit me just fine.
NAOM
For those who have not been paying attention to the last few decades and consider that “wake up calls” have not arrived (apparently large droughts, massive fires, floods, superstorms and multiple high level hurricanes are not enough) listen carefully to this meteorologist describing what just happened in the Midwest.
Floods, abrupt climate change, farmers and commerce..Nick Humphrey covered it all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5azvmLHI2i8
Extreme weather events have been happening almost simultaneously across the globe.
Flooded Mozambique
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbJ2KyQGvuw
I agree that there have been plenty of wake up calls….. of the sort noticed by people who are already awake and looking for them.
But so far, there just hasn’t been enough of them, of sufficient magnitude, to wake up the PEOPLE of countries such as the USA.
If you were to go onto a major university campus, and talk to students other than science majors, you would find that most of them are only marginally aware of the sort of climate, economic, and ecological disasters you post links to.
The average or typical person on the street in NYC might be aware of the fact that there are floods happening in the Midwest, but I’ll bet the farm on it that they don’t know that these floods are trending up in frequency and amount of land flooded.
Of all the reasonably well educated people OUTSIDE the science community I have ever met, the typical individual knows a hell of a lot more about college and professional sports than he does the biosphere and the planet he lives on.
Sometimes I think that the biggest single discrete failing of the liberal/ scientific community is that it GROSSLY OVERESTIMATES the intellectual breadth and depth of the typical man or woman on the street.
I can’t see any way to get around this problem, short to medium term, other than to hope like hell that Mother Nature, and perhaps our naked ape enemies, bust us upside our collective head with a LOT of wake up bricks….. It’s going to take a LOT to get the attention of Joe and Suzy Sixpack.
Of course we are well and truly deeply into the business of throwing some ourselves ( Remember Pogo,” We have met the enemy, and they is us. “) but so far, as bad as things are, ecologically, there simply hasn’t been enough hits to get the public’s attention.
Maybe what we need is for the Russians to shut off their oil and gas exports for a couple of months.
Now THAT would get the attention of Joe and Suzy right damned quick…… because gasoline would shoot up a dollar at least within a week or two. AND it would convince five or ten million Yankee’s to buy every ev that Detroit and China combined can manufacture for the next two or three years.
TLDR – people these days need to get woke! ?
For the talking heads here:
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2019/03/climate-tipping-points.html?m=1
To put it mildly, I find the blogs of ‘Sam Carana’ a little extreme, but I do follow.
This graph from the link, is downright scary! At least it is, if you know something about the PETM!
.
For those who understand tipping points, 4 & 5 are scary. We are at the edge of an abyss.
NAOM
Yup!
Why are we still increasing our population, not even realizing that this will be a burden on all natural resources and create an even steeper rate of warmth? If we don’t scale back to more sustainable growth, things will get grim in many ways over the next decade. The culmination will be global economic depression, causing so many lost jobs that millions of people will get disgruntled.
The reason is quite simple, really.
Growth is the religion of economists and everyone that is benefiting from the current paradigm. If you follow economic news the actual state of the economy (total output, distribution of wealth, etc.) is not even mentioned a tenth as often as the GROWTH RATE. I have even heard it described as “the economy”.
And it turns out, you probably already know this, growth consists of only two components; increased productivity and population growth. That is, get more workers and/or get more product out of each one.
As we know, temperature rise is not only non-linear but often stepwise with sharp rises, falls and level points.
However, taking the simplistic linear model shown in the graph above as an averaged reality, one must consider that just civilization’s heat engine alone, sans global warming, approximates the PETM and LGT lines.
So even if we could somehow live on this planet successfully with a growing industrial civilization using high temperature release (such as fission or fusion power) that did not emit GHG, the temperature rise would model the two above mentioned events.
Of course any temperature rise is accompanied by stimulation of the natural feedback systems giving rise to albedo changes and exudation of greenhouse gases from land and ocean.
Therefor, an extended high energy large civilization has little chance of success.
We must move to low temperature (mostly biological) methods of production and energy. PV and wind (solar input driven) are an approximation of that but we need advanced biochemical and biogenetic systems.
Adding net energy to this planet is in the long run, a dangerous and deadly act.
Fred do you have a link to a larger version of that pic?
Look in the report and click on it.
Thank you.
The paper is flawed by not discussing how earth climate is mostly impacted by the sun and earth’s own inner core.
There is no doubt that over long periods of time, geological time, the Earth’s core has a truly substantial effect on climate. It does after all supply the energy that enables continental drift, etc.
And volcanic activity also derives from energy emanating from the core, which is in motion, and apparently changes it’s shape a little bit, and changes its circulation patterns a little bit, over time. These changes are apparently what causes the magnetic poles to shift and eventually flip.
I see a lot of speculation in the popular press to the effect that the shifting north magnetic pole has something to do with current climate change, or expected climate change, in the near future.
But if there’s any good evidence that things going on in the core are having any significant short term ( decades or generations of people ) effects on climate, I haven’t seen it.
Does anybody here know of any good evidence to this effect?
The current changes of temperature are shifting massive amounts of water to different positions on the globe, stressing and destressing large areas. The danger here is shattering regions with methane hydrate reserves and making them accessible to the water and atmosphere above them. Increasing seismic activity can destabilize the methane which in turn causes more warming, forming another feedback loop.
“The melting rate of glaciers has become
significantly higher, causing a noticeable rise (0.19meters) in the sea level globally. Climate
change can trigger catastrophes such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and
landslides due to melting glaciers and rising in sea level. The melting of glaciers driven by
global warming warns us of a seismically turbulent future. When glaciers melt, the massive
weight on the Earth’s crust reduces and the crust bounces back in what scientists call an
“isostatic rebound”. The process can reactivate faults and lift pressure on magma chambers
that feed volcanoes, hence increases seismic activity. The paper discusses the correlation
between rise in temperature due to global warming and earthquake frequency using Pearson’s
correlation coefficient and regression analysis based on a case study from Alaska.”
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/167/1/012018/pdf
The destabilization of methane hydrates is not just occurring in the Arctic regions.
Seismic signs of escaping methane under the sea
Somewhere off the eastern coast of North Carolina, a frozen mixture of water and methane gas tucked in seabed sediments is starting to break down. Researchers blame a shifting Gulf Stream — the swift Atlantic Ocean current that flows north from the Gulf of Mexico — which is now delivering warmer waters to areas that had previously only experienced colder temperatures.
https://www.nature.com/news/seismic-signs-of-escaping-methane-under-the-sea-1.11652
Here you go Larry, just a little background reading on the PETM, Paleoclimate, sudden warming, sea level rise and ocean acidification which happened to cause mass extinction of marine ecosystems during that time. Keep in mind that the current rate of anthropogenic induced change, far exceeds the rate of change that occurred during the PETM. BTW my AI scientific research assistant gave me 294 papers at first blush, so there is plenty more where this came from.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature04668
Subtropical Arctic Ocean temperatures during the Palaeocene/Eocene thermal maximum.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature03115
A humid climate state during the Palaeocene/Eocene thermal maximum.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-06472-y
Coupled microbial bloom and oxygenation decline recorded by magnetofossils during the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2757
An abyssal carbonate compensation depth overshoot in the aftermath of the Palaeocene-Eocene thermal maximum
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature05043
Arctic hydrology during global warming at the Palaeocene/Eocene thermal maximum.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09441
Continental warming preceding the Palaeocene-Eocene thermal maximum.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26224712
The extended Price equation quantifies species selection on mammalian body size across the Palaeocene/Eocene Thermal Maximum.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29118135
Mass extinction in tetraodontiform fishes linked to the Palaeocene-Eocene thermal maximum.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30177558
Capturing the global signature of surface ocean acidification during the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature06012
Increased terrestrial methane cycling at the Palaeocene-Eocene thermal maximum.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2013.0093
Sensitivity of the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum climate to cloud properties.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature23646
Very large release of mostly volcanic carbon during the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum
https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/169993/
Sea-level and salinity fluctuations during the Palaeocene-Eocene thermal maximum Arctic Spitsbergen
https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.839383
Organic geochemistry records from two Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum sections in Denmark
I had a look thru all those links, not a single one had an author from the private sector business world.
https://youtu.be/9a3eCHij4Vo
+9000
Hahahaha
.
True Larry. Means they are not trying to sell you anything.
Larry Butler,
Why would you expect there to be Larry? I’m honestly curious. Would you expect a geochemist to publish a paper in a business journal?
My expectation is having input from real businessmen on matters that will directly impact them. I don’t trust government people. To much corruption and lies.
So Larry, which one of the 14 papers referencing the PETM, that I linked above, contains even a single example of corruption and lies?! Please be specific.
Larry, if ‘real businessmen’ want to do some science, go for it. Get schooled up at a University. Should take just under a decade. And if they (you) are good thinkers, perhaps you can do some research and publish the results if they are coherent, relevant and make it through the peer-review process.
The reverse process happens. Some scientists become ‘real businessman’. Go for it.
btw- not all decisions in life are business ones.
Hello Larry, I was corporate scientist. The fact is that much of business innovation and invention is driven by discoveries and advances in those liberal universities and government laboratories you so deeply trash talk.
Hint: it’s the garbage right wing radio that you need to distrust and disbelieve
Well, why not start with the Exxon reports that they buried because they felt threatened by it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil_climate_change_controversy
Many more linked on this page that you can explore.
https://www.smokeandfumes.org/fumes
See, you can find stuff if you look. Now I don’t plan on doing anymore of your research for you, go and do it yourself.
NAOM
You are funny, bro.
I actually did laugh out loud… any private sector work is both proprietary, so not released, or buried ala Exxon, so really not released.
I assume you are writing a grade school assignment?
Ahahahahahaha
I recall reading recently that when all atmospheric greenhouse gases are calculated the CO2 eq is approaching about 500 ppm. I’m an optimist though; several years of bad harvests will quickly sort quite a bit of this mess out.
Those are the down-factored numbers over time, the IRF(reality) is much higher.
For those who do not get what climate change and fossil fuel pollution means
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/science-environment-47673327/mongolia-a-toxic-warning-to-the-world
NAOM
Arctic sea ice maximum ties for seventh lowest in satellite record
https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2019/03/arctic-sea-ice-maximum-ties-for-seventh-lowest-in-satellite-record/
The surprisingly short life of new electronic devices
Alana Semuels
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/your-airpods-probably-have-terrible-battery-life/585439/
The lithium-ion batteries that power AirPods are everywhere. One industry report forecast that sales would grow to $109.72 billion by 2026, from $36.2 billion in 2018. They charge faster, last longer, and pack more power into a small space than other types of batteries do. But they die faster, too, often after just a few years, because every time you charge them, they degrade a little. They can also catch fire or explode if they become damaged, so technology companies make them difficult, if not impossible, for consumers to replace themselves.
The result: A lot of barely chargeable AirPods and wireless mice and Bluetooth speakers are ending up in the trash as consumers go through products—even expensive ones—faster than ever.
A German environmental agency found that the proportion of products sold to replace a defective appliance grew from 3.5 percent in 2004 to 8.3 percent in 2012.
This means the world will continue to generate a lot of waste. Of the 3.4 million tons of electronic waste generated in America in 2012—an 80 percent increase from 2000—just 29 percent was recycled.
“But they die faster, too, often after just a few years, because every time you charge them, they degrade a little”
Even such a generally reliable outfit as The Atlantic fucks up environmental reporting, apparently having editors or old tired reporters doing work they are utterly unqualified for in cases such as this one.
If there’s any kind of readily available, highly portable and affordable battery that outlasts lithium ion I’ll give the author of that piece an hour to draw a crowd and kiss his ass on the courthouse steps.
But things are not necessarily going to hell in terms of energy production, if we get lucky and something happens to put the afterburners on in the renewable energy industries.
The groundwork is done, the tech is now far enough along that it’s obviously highly profitable, so long as financing and market access is available, and there will soon be enough voters who are young enough to understand the issue, as opposed to old farts who can’t or refuse to understand depletion and pollution, to put politicians in office, local, state, and federal, who will keep the renewable pedal to the metal.
(HB, that’s Mack truck driver talk for just putting a stick between the seat and the go pedal and jamming it tight on the floor board. That’s what I used to do when I drove one on the Interstate back in the eighties once in a while. They didn’t have a cruise control feature back in the good old days, lol, but I hear you can get it on new ones. )
This link provides a great fast summary of the state of the renewable energy biz as of 2019, and what is likely to happen over the next few years.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/03/23/3-trends-to-watch-in-renewable-energy-in-2019.aspx
“Even such a generally reliable outfit as The Atlantic fucks up environmental reporting, apparently having editors or old tired reporters doing work they are utterly unqualified for in cases such as this one.”
It’s an orchestrated FUD plot by the Koch brothers to undermine public confidence in battery electric vehicles. 😉 /sarc
Yeah. The Atlantic ought to do better, and usually does.
They aren’t a shoe string outfit dependent on free press releases.
One big problem with reporters is that they are picked from the arts people, history, English etc. They want people who can write good essays, science types are not regarded as essay writers.Unfortunately that means a lot of the reporters know nada about science, just can write a good story.
NAOM
Really? We are worried about ear buds when massive changes in the climate and ecology of the planet are occurring? How droll and unimportant a subject. Makes me wonder what is the point of posting.
Much more important was, while hiking along a creek yesterday, I came upon a short section that had the air filled with flying insects. The fish seemed to enjoy the early spring meal also. This in an area that is mostly devoid of flying insects for years now. Maybe protected microenvironments will act as stores of living species.
No sign of any frogs though.
The Rapid Decline Of The Natural World Is A Crisis Even Bigger Than Climate Change
A three-year UN-backed study from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform On Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services has grim implications for the future of humanity
The last year has seen a slew of brutal and terrifying warnings about the threat climate change poses to life. Far less talked about but just as dangerous, if not more so, is the rapid decline of the natural world. The felling of forests, the over-exploitation of seas and soils, and the pollution of air and water are together driving the living world to the brink, according to a huge three-year, U.N.-backed landmark study to be published in May.
Industrial farming is to blame for much of the loss of nature, said Mark Rounsevell, professor of land use change at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, who co-chaired the European section of the IPBES study. “The food system is the root of the problem. The cost of ecological degradation is not considered in the price we pay for food, yet we are still subsidizing fisheries and agriculture.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nature-destruction-climate-change-world-biodiversity_n_5c49e78ce4b06ba6d3bb2d44
Yeah, I have been thrashing this straw for half a century. Nothing is being done. Here is this guy’s solution:
Ultimately, Watson concludes that saving nature will require a major rethink of how we live and how we think about nature, but that it is possible to turn this dire situation around if governments want it to happen.
“There are no magic bullets or one-size-fits-all answers. The best options are found in better governance, putting biodiversity concerns into the heart of farming and energy policies, the application of scientific knowledge and technology, and increased awareness and behavioral changes,” Watson said. “The evidence shows that we do know how to protect and at least partially restore our vital natural assets. We know what we have to do.”
In truth nothing will be done. There will be total environmental collapse. Almost everyone is confident we will fix it. And this is one of the dumbest answers yet: ” if governments want it to happen.” Yeah right. That’ a belly laugh.
Hi Ron,
We’re damned if we do, and we’re damned if we don’t when it comes to farming. It’s too late to try to go back to any sort of labor intensive farming the way it used to be done. Nobody at all of my acquaintaince is willing to give up that airconditioned office for a red neck, and for now, and for the easily foreseeable future, we simply don’t know enough to farm sustainably on the grand scale.. the scale necessary to feed billions of people at prices they can afford.
We would have bread riots here, in short order, in the USA, if we were to try to farm on the grand scale the way biologists and other scientists tell us we ought to be farming.
We’re past the tipping point, as far as farming goes. This cannot possibly end well for the vast masses of mankind.
But a few of us may be able to not only pull thru but also continue to enjoy industrial civilization…… on a sustainable basis. We Yankees have a shot at it, assuming the North American climate doesn’t go completely to hell, and we don’t fight a NBC WWIII.
Five or ten years ago, I couldn’t bring myself to believe we could ever have enough wind farms and solar farms, and machinery enough that would run on batteries, or intermittently, as power is available, to giterdone.
But now……. I really do believe it’s possible, especially since I expect most of the rest of the world to bear the price of disease, famine, exposure and war, to a far greater extent than we will, and because our population is still relatively low, in relation to our resource base.
Nobody is going to physically invade the USA or Canada , or even Mexico, so long as Uncle Sam is up to preventing it. So our main worry on that front is going to be nuclear and biological war. Maybe we can avoid large scale nuclear exchange, and we will most likely survive a biological war as well, since we know how to contain if not cure contagious diseases.
The obvious answer to these problems is the need for a massive downsizing of humanity, and its footprint.
Yet downsizing is not in our DNA.
And we have not been wise enough to absorb the take-home message over the past 50 yrs, and actually react.
And so we will do it the hard way.
And so we will do it the hard way.
One child one family worldwide would have been much, much easier.
Huge [triple that] carbon taxes starting in 1992 would have been much easier.
Living in shared homes with 3-5 families would have been so much easier.
A low meat diet would have been so much easier.
Instead we will do it the hard way.
“Instead we will do it the hard way.”
Mother Nature cares not a whit about hardships, lol. She rolls the dice, and they fall as they fall.
Evolution can and does eventually result in various useful bodily features and behaviors coming into being……. but there’s no reason why brakes on the urge to DO IT should have evolved.
There has never been any fitness advantage to having fewer children in human history.MORE have always been better, because MORE meant greater security, greater fitness, taken all around.
One for the mice, one for the crow, one to rot, and one to grow. That’s an old time rhyme that was once familiar from the mouths of an old Scots Irish farm women back when I was a kid. The origins of it are lost in history, but it’s one of the easy to remember rules farmers of previous times used to use to plan their work, and it’s often included in books. You needed four times as much seed as you wanted in mature corn plants.
We will continue to “do it the hard way” pun intended, twice over, except when women are finally educated, and convinced by seeing other women’s one or two babies live to adulthood. That’s a SLOW process.
Dying the hard way in misery makes it possible to do it the other hard way, the ultimate pleasure way, more space and more resources for the youngsters that survive. Pun intended.
“There has never been any fitness advantage to having fewer children in human history.”
We have broken a lot of rules. Fitness is no longer relevant. A pitiful excuse of a man has his finger on a nuclear bomb.
We will pay the price for overshoot. Being aware of the process hasn’t helped us ‘wise’ ape react to lessen the impact.
Full speed ahead.
In the last 200,000 years, homo sapiens has had a population of 1-10 million, with near extinction 70,000 years ago (visible in the genetic record).
7.6+ billion? Try not to laugh
Hi Hickory,
I should have added UNTIL NOW right after that about no fitness advantage, lol.
True. This is now uncharted territory.
From kidney dialysis to genetic manipulation of embryos.
From 80,000 yr old rainwater brought to surface as irrigation water, to 180 million year old reduced carbon being dug up and oxidized in a flash.
From a few tribes, to 7.8 Billion.
All with hands, and mouths, and still with the urge to procreate, even if in sardine conditions.
An experiment that was doomed from the start.
Knowledge is a wonderful, though sometimes disturbing, thing. However the fact that nature is still thought of in terms of dollars by these gatherers of knowledge tells me that human failure is guaranteed. When we learn to have a backbone, do what is right and what is needed, we will no longer try to justify our actions to the economists and business heads. Until then, we are weak and ineffective.
I just listened to Wendell Berry talking of the impact of industrial society upon agrarian society and it’s ramifications. Quite revealing.
Wendell Berry: The Thought of Limits in the Prodigal Age
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0fLDa7a6Ag
The winds of renewable energy are blowing hard in Maryland. Will they follow through or will NIMBYism put wind in the doldrums?
New bills aim to make Maryland reliant on renewable energy
http://www.thebaynet.com/articles/0319/new-bills-aim-to-make-maryland-reliant-on-renewable-energy.html
“The winds of renewable energy are blowing hard in Maryland.”
The winds of change are blowing hard in Germany too.
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-mission-elon-musk-master-plan-vw-bmw-daimler/
I don’t suppose there is any thing much if anything at all in the way of penalties or an enforcement mechanism in this agreement, but it’s still a historic turning point.
The Prius has an AWD option now for about a $1000, opening up the northern market. 50 mpg combined.
A random thought about being sure we know what’s ultimately good or bad, or just the value of some particular technology or custom totals up.
I was once convinced that television is the ultimate in wasted time, wasted ambition, false hopes and such.
But it certainly appears to be the case that the birth rate among women in Brazil dropped like a rock, over a very few years, in very large part as the result of women there watching television, and accepting the women on tv as their role models….. women with one or two or no kids, half a dozen or more pairs of shoes, a closet full of nice clothes, jobs, some time and money for themselves etc.
So maybe we should be thanking Sky Daddy for television.
https://www.wired.com/story/in-germany-solar-powered-homes-are-catching-on/
From the article
The Parises, who are expecting a second child, are neither wealthy nor environmental firebrands. Yet the couple opted to spend $36,000 for a home solar system consisting of 26 solar panels, freshly installed on the roof this month, and a smart battery—about the size of a small refrigerator—parked in the cellar.
On sunny days, the photovoltaic panels supply all of the Paris household’s electricity needs and charge their hybrid car’s electric battery, too. Once these basics are covered, the rooftop-generated power feeds into the stationary battery until it’s full—primed for nighttime energy demand and cloudy days. Then, when the battery is topped off, the unit’s digital control system automatically redirects any excess energy into Berlin’s power grid, for which the Parises will be compensated by the local grid operator.
“They convinced me it would pay off in ten years,” explains Paris, referring to Enerix, a Bavaria-based retailer offering solar systems and installation services. “After that, most of our electricity won’t cost us anything.” The investment, he says, is a hedge against rising energy costs. Moreover, the unit’s smart software enables the Parises to monitor the production, consumption, and storage of electricity, as well as track in real time the feed-in of power to the grid.
Juice is expensive in Germany, but once the Germans have paid for their renewable energy infrastructure, they will be in better shape than any other country that is dependent on imported fossil fuels.
And juice will be cheap for them, THEN, unless they choose to maintain high grid sourced consumption taxes, which they generally spend on things well worthwhile to individuals and the country as a whole.
The last I found to read about installation costs of home scale solar in Germany, they had it down to only half what an equivalent installation costs HERE.
And their installation costs, in constant money, will continue to fall slowly, because newer panels are more efficient, meaning smaller installations produce more, and because the people doing the work are still going to be finding ways to giterdone just as competently but a little cheaper, year after year.
Just think, that system short circuits the mine, the natural gas drilling, the transport of material, the power station, the burning of FF, the main grid distribution structure. It eliminates the petroleum system from drilling to refining to distribution and burning, as well as subsidiary energy from coal and natural gas to produce the products.
All in one neat, CO2 and methane burning free and continuous mining/drilling pollution free system. It eliminates external needs for many years.
California Solar Sets Record, But That’s Not The Big News
On Saturday, March 16, California set a new solar energy record. Just before 3 o’clock in the afternoon, solar output peaked at 10,765 megawatts, the highest amount ever, though just a smidgen more than the previous record set last June. According to the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), demand at that time, not including behind-the-meter solar, was around 18 gigawatts. Los Angeles and Sacramento are not part of the CAISO grid.
That meant solar was meeting 59% of the grid’s power needs at that moment.That’s wonderful news, but what should get solar proponents really excited is that CAISO was a net exporter of electricity to other systems at the time the record was set.
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/03/24/california-solar-sets-record-but-thats-not-the-big-news/
Wouldn’t you know, my inverter fried the very next day. service guy on the way here now. In a petrol truck. Only 10 months old, was hoping for 10 yrs.
Got lucky, just a bad breaker.
Lucky break!
Hopefully, 10 years.
Helen Caldicott: “I Think We [Humans] Are Going to Destroy Most Life on Earth”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFoJ-hlYM-U
I’ve been at political demonstrations and groups with her.
It has been a while.
Committed-
Caldicott. One of my biggest heros.
I guess someone’s gotta do it, right?
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2019/03/25/phase-iv-of-5-gw-mohammed-bin-rashid-al-maktoum-solar-park-reaches-financial-close/
Things are happening in sand country these days, when it comes to solar power.
I have seen plenty of speculation in the past as to why it has taken so long to take off, and speculated a bit on this question myself.
But now I’m thinking all those princes and other big wig kids from that part of the world haven’t been enrolling in Yankee and Limey universities and majoring in finance for nothing. They have probably been putting of putting their money into solar for the same reason I have , namely that it has been getting cheaper so fast that it’s been better to buy later rather than sooner, in any sort of reasonable dollars and cents scenario.
I believe the cost of solar electricity in that part of the world is now low enough that from here on out, the people there will actually generate a net profit right away on every new solar farm, so long as it’s financed at a reasonable interest rate. This profit will come in the form of selling gas and oil they would have otherwise used to generate electricity.
So far as long as they foresee a sale for oil and gas at a good price, they will likely be pedal to the metal on solar.
The system I would like to have would save me maybe sixty to ninety bucks a month, depending on the weather and the season.
The price of it has been falling that much or more every year, and the longer I put off buying it, the better the quality of good name brand components will be, ditto better warranties too.
Wage Stagnation in Nine Charts
https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/
Add to that Chaos in Climate and Politics!
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/how-to-deal-with-chaos-in-climate-and-politics/
How to Deal with Chaos in Climate and Politics
In complex systems, small changes can make big differences
With the benefit of hindsight, we clearly see consequences of the decision taken by the citizens of the United States on November 8, 2016. We cannot change the decision or the political initial conditions that led to it. We can, however, influence the initial conditions before the next presidential election on November 3, 2020. We can use the intervening 19 months to call out bad behavior.
We can speak out when the president is untruthful, embraces dictators, uses hateful speech, undermines democratic institutions, demeans allies, abrogates treaties and initiates trade wars. We can ask our elected representatives whether their pledge of allegiance is to “one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all” or to Donald J. Trump. We can be tireless advocates for decency, honesty, kindness and rationality. We can ensure that our children’s concerns about their climate future are heard, not mocked. Scientists can speak publicly about the reality and seriousness of human-caused climate change; we can encourage our professional institutions and academies to do the same.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/26/climate-change-denial-is-evil-says-mary-robinson
Climate change denial is evil, says Mary Robinson
Exclusive: chair of Elders group also says fossil fuel firms have lost their social licence
The denial of climate change is not just ignorant, but “malign and evil”, according to Mary Robinson, because it denies the human rights of the most vulnerable people on the planet.
The former UN high commissioner for human rights and special envoy for climate change also says fossil fuel companies have lost their social licence to explore for more coal, oil and gas and must switch to become part of the transition to clean energy.
Robinson will make the outspoken attack on Tuesday, in a speech to the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew in London, which has awarded her the Kew International Medal for her “integral work on climate justice”.
She also told the Guardian she supports climate protests, including the school strikes for climate founded by “superstar” Greta Thunberg, and that “there is room for civil disobedience as a way of communicating, though we also need hope”.
Sadly, the USA is chock full of poor judgment and simplistic thinking. This will not end well, nor even have a good middle time.
With the Arctic being well above average temps lately (6.5C over the 1979 to 2000 average today), it might be a good time to keep a close eye upon that region this year.
Yeah, the Arctic is so far above average that…
Greenland glacier is growing again, NASA says
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR6LJm3moyA
Alex Spicker,
Warmer weather means more evaporation off the oceans thus more moisture in the air. Warm moist air moving upslope, say toward the head of a glacier, cools and condensation can occur. If temperatures up there are low enough snow falls. That will put new snow on the upper part of the glacier and if warming keeps the air moist offshore that snow will be buried by more snow and the lower part of the pile will compact under the weight and become ice. With more weight on it the glacier will re-advance–mountain glaciers flow downhill. This is the cycle for a mountain glacier. That cycle is why the glacier’s retreat is expected not to last.
If warming continues for decades the melting that will result will eventually overcome the glacier cycle described above and mountain glaciers will go into full retreat. This is happening in parts of the northern Andes where glacier meltwater is the main water source for the settlements farther downslope and the decreasing water supply is causing hardship.
Try reading this
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mbzybn/why-a-growing-glacier-isnt-good-news-for-the-climate-greenland-jakobshavn
NAOM
Arctic still 6.4C above 79-2000 average temp and predicted to be over 7C above on March 31.
Tis truly the age of man. From the oil-gas side.
“What started as an American phenomenon is now being felt around the world as U.S. oil exports surge to levels unthinkable only a few years ago. The flow of crude will keep growing over the next few years with huge consequences for the oil industry, global politics and even whole economies. OPEC, for example, will face challenges keeping oil prices high, while Washington has a new, and potent, diplomatic weapon.
American oil exports stepped up a gear last year, jumping more than 70 percent to just over 2 million barrels a day, according to government data. Over the past four weeks, U.S. oil exports have averaged more than 3 million barrels a day — more than what Middle East petro-state Kuwait sells.
Coffeeguyzz says:
03/26/2019 at 12:40 pm
Ovi
That referenced article could be a sobering, highly informative read for anyone following the hydrocarbon world.
The amount of oil yet to be unleashed via fracturing/horizontal drilling is simply vast.
A few years on, the even larger amounts of natgas to be extracted, consumed, exported by way of ‘unconventional’ methods will transform the world as we now know it.”
Truly, the world is being transformed into a world not as we know it.
That is probably a good thing.
First, Coffeeguyzz is not just wrong, he is fractally wrong.!
His vision will not come to pass. A global nuclear holocaust would be more survivable.
Second, The oil age is over! Most people just don’t know it yet!
Third, this is the dawning of the age of man enhanced by AI.
Everything that anyone can imagine is being disrupted and transformed!
Here’s just one example in transportation technology.
Rimac 2
Full video: 48:19
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcC0amHnBKU
His vision:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcC0amHnBKU&t=2395s
Good morning on a fine spring morning Fred,
A little bit of joyous hyperbole is always welcome,
but…….
As Churchill put it about the War, in his time, the end of the oil age is not yet, nor maybe even the beginning of the end, but you and I have lived to see in his immortal words ” the end of the beginning”, and that’s something we can be proud of, even we had only a little to do with it, blogging and talking and getting the word out.
CHEERS indeed!
I’m beginning to think that maybe I will live to own a ratted out third hand electric car me ownself… even though I am a tight as the bark on an oak penny pinching old Scots Irishman. And before then, I will have my ten thousand watts worth of home grown juice, enough to run any of my power tools, etc, enough to pump water to a storage tank uphill on the farm, enough for air conditioning in hot weather, enough that with a super sized water heater I won’t even need a solar hot water system, enough to feed any excess juice into a few tons of gravel with heater wires in it, which I may put into a little used portion of the basement, thereby helping keep the house warm……
And then with an electric car that can both eat juice and regurgitate it as I need it in the house, if the sun isn’t shining, and an old ice car in reserve……. I may be able to get my electricity bill down to the minimum monthly charge here, which is less than thirty bucks at this time……… you have to pay a little bit just to stay connected.
Disconnecting is probably not a good idea…… although I could manage it, because I have a couple of gasoline powered generators that would keep the pumps and refrigerators, etc, running thru a really bad spell of weather.
It was sarcasm Fred. I am, as are you, very interested in the preservation of species and the ecology. The blatant joy of certain FF promoters at the thought of expansion of the hugely destructive fossil fuel systems is beyond my comprehension. But, as Cats@ has pointed out the system is being taken over by the enviropaths.
Apparently the population at large reads about such occurrences and just goes about it’s business. Have we reached the mythical lemming state? OFM keeps asking for wake up calls, well he bells and sirens have been ringing and screaming for a while now. Some attention has been paid but the rise of natural gas, for example, has stifled the growth of renewable (PV,wind).
The gross mental insufficiencies I observe in people are the biggest part of the problem. A cultural system that trains one to make money and acquire technology is a highly destructive system headed to a conclusion.
Remind me what the plot of the human story was please.
The gross mental insufficiencies I observe in people are the biggest part of the problem. A cultural system that trains one to make money and acquire technology is a highly destructive system headed to a conclusion.
I blame it on the viral propagation of the pathological meme, best characterized by the neoclassical economic school of thought. This is now a global pandemic that really took off in the mid 1970s.
I think it might even explain the blatant joy of certain FF promoters at the thought of expansion of the hugely destructive fossil fuel systems…
While at first blush this TED video may seem a bit OT, I think there may be some nuggets within in that help explain quite a lot about the mental processes of the old guard politicians on both sides of the aisle. Might explain why AOCs Green New Deal is so unpalatable even to died in the wool Democrats…
https://www.ted.com/talks/james_flynn_why_our_iq_levels_are_higher_than_our_grandparents/discussion
Cheers!
“this is the dawning of the age of man enhanced by AI” ~ FM
Are you one of those Singularity “Rapture for the Nerds” types?
Help is on the way, stay calm and stay on the line.
NOPE!
But I’m pretty sure AI will drive our cars for us!
Diagnose our medical conditions,
Help us design and build our tools and machines, etc,,,
It is already deeply embedded in most of our lives.
Can you imagine spending time doing research before Google?
Most of us already have smartphones which are a form of AI enhancement that gives access to all of human knowledge.
And yes, before you ask, I am acutely aware of the downsides and dangers of using it for propaganda and manipulation.
Speaking of ‘The Singularity’, I find people like Ray Kurzweil and his vision of immortality to be rather pathetic…
Cheers!
I’d be impressed if AI could drive a train without fucking it up.
Just like wetware.
Interior Nominee Intervened to Block Report on Endangered Species
By Eric Lipton
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/us/politics/endangered-species-david-bernhardt.html
After years of effort, scientists at the Fish and Wildlife Service had a moment of celebration as they wrapped up a comprehensive analysis of the threat that three widely used pesticides present to hundreds of endangered species, like the kit fox and the seaside sparrow.
Their analysis found that two of the pesticides, malathion and chlorpyrifos, were so toxic that they “jeopardize the continued existence” of more than 1,200 endangered birds, fish and other animals and plants.
But just before the team planned to make its findings public in November 2017, something unexpected happened: Top political appointees of the Interior Department, which oversees the Fish and Wildlife Service, blocked the release and set in motion a new process intended to apply a much narrower standard to determine the risks from the pesticides.
Leading that intervention was David Bernhardt, then the deputy secretary of the interior and a former lobbyist and oil-industry lawyer.
Mr. Bernhardt is now President Trump’s nominee to become interior secretary. The Senate is scheduled to hold a hearing on his confirmation Thursday.
This sequence of events is detailed in more than 84,000 pages of Interior Department and Environmental Protection Agency documents obtained via Freedom of Information requests by The New York Times and, separately, by the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group that sued the federal government to force it to complete the pesticide studies.
The documents provide a case study of how the Trump administration has been using its power to second-guess or push aside conclusions reached by career professionals, particularly in the area of public health and the environment.
Recording reveals oil industry execs laughing at Trump access
By Lance Williams
https://www.revealnews.org/article/oil-executives-predicted-expanded-influence-in-trumps-interior-department/
Gathered for a private meeting at a beachside Ritz–Carlton in Southern California, the oil executives were celebrating a colleague’s sudden rise. David Bernhardt, their former lawyer, had been appointed by President Donald Trump to the powerful No. 2 spot at the Department of the Interior.
Just five months into the Trump era, the energy developers who make up the Independent Petroleum Association of America, or IPAA, already had watched the new president order a sweeping overhaul of environmental regulations that were cutting into their bottom lines – rules concerning smog, hydraulic fracturing and endangered species protection.
Dan Naatz, the association’s political director, told the audience of about 100 executives that Bernhardt’s new role meant their priorities would be heard at the highest levels of the department.
“We know him very well, and we have direct access to him, have conversations with him about issues ranging from federal land access to endangered species, to a lot of issues,” Naatz said, according to an hourlong recording of the June 2017 event in Laguna Niguel provided to Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting.
The previous eight years had been dispiriting for the industry: As IPAA vice president Jeff Eshelman told the group, it had seemed as though the Obama administration and environmental groups had put together “their target list of everything that they wanted done to shut down the oil and gas industry.”
But now, the oil executives were almost giddy at the prospect of high-level executive branch access of the sort they hadn’t enjoyed since Dick Cheney, a fellow oilman, was vice president.
George H.W. Bush famously declared: “The American way of life is not up for negotiations. Period.”
U.S. Lifestyle Is Not Up for Negotiation
http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/05/us-lifestyle-is-not-up-for-negotiation/
Nature bats last! 😉
Guy McPherson
I’ve was immersed in “the real world” for a couple of days with little or no access to the the internet and my attention focused on some other stuff. I come back to see the US AG’s conclusions on the Muller report, the guy the POTUS hand picked to receive the report basically trying to bury it and the stuff at the top of this sub-thread. Also looked at a postmortem of the results of this weekend’s elections in New South Wales, down under via reneweconomy.com.au.
It is depressing to realise that the public at large in the western world is being led by the nose, in large part due to the influence of a very small number of extremely wealthy entities with interests in the fossil fuel industries. Think Koch Industries and News Corp. News Corp has a very large presence in Australia and reports from reneweconomy.com.au suggest that the anti-renewable, anti-EV, climate change denying apparatus is going full bore, with the approach of the upcoming federal elections in Australia. Will the Australian people fall victim to the propaganda and vote against their interests? It appears there is a chance sanity will prevail but, we will have to wait till after the elections (in May?) to find out. I was under the impression that the elections were due this month but, it appears the ruling party decided to delay them. My guess is that the tide was against them (the ruling coalition) so the delay gives their FF industry backers (News Corp. et al) time to ratchet up the propaganda campaign and for it to swing some votes their way!
Another effect of being out in the real world for a couple of days was to realize how “off the radar” the stuff we discuss around here every day is. I did not detect any concern about the state of the environment or future energy security or climate change from anybody I came in contact with. Everybody just appears to be concerned about their own personal issues inside their own little bubble.
I feel almost like member of an alien species that has been left on earth to observe the downfall of it’s greatest civilisation! Among the things I find strange is that if I talk about a 100% renewable electricity generation system for my neck of the woods, the reaction is as if it is not realistic except in the very long term. Yet the island already has 100MW of installed wind turbines and will double the solar PV capacity in the next three months, when a new 50 MW PV plant is commissioned. This plant will join a three year old 20 MW solar farm and an estimated 30MW (and growing) “behind the meter” capacity and will have been built in less than twelve months (actual construction time, ground was broken in Dec 2017 but, the ground breaking ceremony was followed by a period of inactivity, while financing was finalised). The peak demand on the local grid is in the region of 650 MW so, with all I’ve just outlined combined with falling cost for solar, wind and storage, is 100 % renewable all that unrealistic? Puerto Rico doesn’t think so and they are an island at the same exact latitude, in the same general area with similar size and population!
Puerto Rico passes 100% renewable energy bill as it aims for storm resilience
Dive Brief:
“I feel almost like member of an alien species that has been left on earth to observe the downfall of it’s greatest civilisation! Among the things I find strange is that if I talk about a 100% renewable electricity generation system for my neck of the woods, the reaction is as if it is not realistic except in the very long term. ”
Now you have some idea how the Buddhist monks felt as they became enlightened in the midst of medieval systems.
I believe the quote “Nature Bats Last” is attributed to Robert Michael Pyle. Guy McP does name his website that though.
In 2001 Australian economist John Quiggin wrote that the Lavoisier Group is “devoted to the proposition that basic principles of physics…cease to apply when they come into conflict with the interests of the Australian coal industry.”
It’s true though.
The American Way of Life is not sustainable, and that’s not negotiable.
Just to be clear, the world is still fucked, right?
We’ve still gone off the cliff and we’re simply in freefall waiting for the violent deceleration at the end of the trip, right?
Just wanted to clear that up.
Thanks in advance!
Doom.
I think you are going to see things from a much more optimistic standpoint by taking a series of steps-
1. change your name, something like ‘we can make things better’
2. eat more vegetables
3. exercise regularly
4. get out in the public more often, socialize a little
5. spend more time with your favorite hobby
6. smile at people, even if you don’t know them
7. get some solar panels. a dozen should do.
8. give lots of money to both the Nature Conservancy and the Southern Poverty Law Center
9. go around with a shopping cart and pick up garbage along the side of the road
that should be a good start
Yeah…
About the SPLC, have a read of this: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/03/the-southern-poverty-law-center-is-everything-thats-wrong-with-liberalism
As for optimism, eh, not really my style.
Otherwise that’s great advice for having a good life. I’ve made my choice and doom it is.
Perhaps another significant life changing moment will arise and give rise to the requisite motivation to change my views and my life, but no dice so far. I thought a child might do it, but nope, not so much.
Nonetheless, I’m not 100% wedded to the end of all things. After all, the doomsayers could be wrong after all. I don’t entirely think they are, but they could very well be. That’s a bona fide possibility. They are, after all, merely human.
So we’ll see.
In the meantime, thanks for taking the time to give some thoughtful, helpful advice that I won’t take.
Also, read up on the SPLC. Maybe their critics have some grounds for their criticism (not that they ever bothered put those grounds forth in any kind of cogent, thoughtful manner that could convince anyone who wasn’t already convinced). I think that everyone would be well served by reading this article about the SPLC and adjust their speech accordingly. Which isn’t to say that there aren’t hateful scum in the world, because there most certainly are, but to say that as an authority, the SPLC appears to leave more than a few credibility and reliability issues.
For the philosophical pessimists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqovhbrNsbo
“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.” ~ William Arthur Ward
I’m actually very optimistic for myself, but most of ya’ll are fucked.
That poor guy is in a mental spiral. He missed the lesson on the meaning of life.
“Without religion bad people would be doing bad things, and good people good things. You need something like religion to make good people do bad things” ~ Slavoj Zizek
Too true. Not what I meant though.
While I agree with much of what Marty has to say, I’m not fully in agreement.
Life carries on until it doesn’t. It’s just how it does. We are lifeforms, and no matter how messed up we go about doing it, it’s what we do too.
It is what it is.
There mere fact that our capacities outran our wisdom and that we can’t accept the brute simplicity of our existence doesn’t void the truth of the foregoing.
There is almost certainly more to it than the foregoing, but what that is and what you can take to the bank, I don’t know. I am quite certain that you can take our basic life drives and purposes to the bank though. Those are very reliable and true. Individuals may act contrary to type, but we’re not a species of undead or unliving. Not yet anyways. With sufficient tech, we may just get there, but not as of yet and likely not soon.
Err… That may be Rus I agree with. In short, Matthew McConaughey’s character. That’s the guy I mostly agree with.
This is quite a nice “Movie Review” of True Detective, for those interested.
True Detective – The Decay of Humanity
https://youtu.be/ZEHCzjk0Hrk
This one is good too, I think.
No Country For Old Men – Morality In An Inhumane World
https://youtu.be/JmQ7hn1uaQE
No Country for Old Men – Opening Scene
https://youtu.be/9eZ6EACDKiE
FWIW, I enjoy contemplating what is morally obligatory (required), (merely) morally permissible, and morally impermissible (not permitted) in the context of a human induced mass extinction and ecological collapse.
Moonraker (8/10) Movie CLIP – Drax’s Deadly Dream (1979)
https://youtu.be/xx4t4fBIY88
what is “morally impermissible in the context of a human induced mass extinction and ecological collapse.”
For humans, apparently nothing falls in this category. It doesn’t even take extreme circumstances. The Pope just has to say, offer them conversion first… Its happened to tens of millions.
Or, ask those who were survivors of genocide for other (stupid) reasons.
We could write a thousand books detailing the examples.
It might be more insightful to ask the perpetrators of genocide rather than the survivors, if one wishes to understand other (stupid) reasons.
Humans seem to disagree quite strongly on the topic of what is and what is not morally impermissible, abortion for example. It seems to me that humanity, as a whole, has not concluded that ‘nothing is morally impermissible’, except perhaps Nihilists.
An analysis of aggregate human behavior does, though, seem to indicate that there is always somebody somewhere willing to do very nasty things and believe them to be morally justified; like human torture, and destroying the eco-sphere for profit, for example.
What will cause the next Holocaust?
https://soundcloud.com/war_college/what-will-cause-the-next
“In the meantime, thanks for taking the time to give some thoughtful, helpful advice that I won’t take.”
Love the honesty.
I’m with you half the time, except I didn’t have the kid.
SPLC- nobodies perfect, but I loudly applause their anti-white supremacist work.
And yes, we are on track. Some would call it off track. Same result.
The best article I have seen about how climate change may play into the fall of the American empire and the rise of the Chinese empire.
https://www.thenation.com/article/end-of-world-order-empire-climate-change/
The American Empire is irrelevant! There are only 2,208 human beings on the planet that count and somehow the rest of us need to find a way to hold them accountable.
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2019-03-26/failed-economics/
Failed Economics
The super-elites, the 2,208 billionaires — those who attend Global Economic Summits, own banks, buy off governments, pollute with impunity, and hold political influence in virtually every nation in the world — comprise not the “1%” but only 28-millionths of a percent of the human population. According to Forbes magazine, the average billionaire makes about $635 million dollars every year, $12 million per week, even when they’re on holiday.
For these people, neo-classical economic theory works just fine, but only if one ignores the human and ecological costs: poverty, squalor, homelessness, migrations, biodiversity loss, global heating, disappearing forests, toxic land and water, and rising, acidic oceans. Capitalism is designed to benefit those who have capital, the wealthy. For most of humanity, modern neo-classical economics erodes well being. For the ecosystem at large, neo-classical economics serves as a rationalisation for plunder.
And that is the problem for most of humanity. We’re non-essential to keeping the exceptionally wealthy going. Their wealth and their sustainability doesn’t depend on our human labor or even our purchasing power anymore.
So most of humanity doesn’t have much leverage. And given the way global politics is going, most of humanity is going along with their irrelevance. A lot of that wealth merely lies in digital form, and a lot of the power the wealthy have exists only because it is given to them. The wealth could be eliminated and the power taken away, but it hasn’t happened.
The very poor can’t do much. But the middle class could, but aren’t. They more or less willingly go along with watching their land, air, and water being destroyed. I suppose this is one way to reduce the human population to a size that can be supported by what is left.
Humans seem to be inclined to believe religious leaders and kings have special powers, even if they don’t. We sacrifice ourselves in the belief that it is required of us.
1951 — Iran: Mossadeq nationalizes Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.
Instagram Is the Internet’s New Home for Hate
Taylor Lorenz
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/instagram-is-the-internets-new-home-for-hate/585382/
Since 2016, social-media companies have come under fire for allowing white supremacy and other extremist ideologies to spread. YouTube’s algorithms have been shown to push people further toward the fringes; a New York Times headline called the site “The Great Radicalizer.” Facebook is notorious for allowing anti-vaxxers and other conspiracy theorists to organize and spread their messages to millions—the two most-shared news stories on Facebook in 2019 so far are both false. Twitter, too, has been criticized for being slow to police the misinformation that spreads on its platform.
But Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are not where young people go to socialize. Instagram is.
The platform is likely where the next great battle against misinformation will be fought, and yet it has largely escaped scrutiny. Part of this is due to its reputation among older users, who generally use it to post personal photos, follow aspirational accounts, and keep in touch with friends. Many teenagers, however, use the platform differently—not only to connect with friends, but to explore their identity, and often to consume information about current events.
Jack, a 16-year-old who asked to be referred to by a pseudonym to protect his identity, has learned a lot about politics through Instagram. In 2020, he’ll be able to vote for the first time, and so he recently started following some new Instagram pages to bone up on issues facing the country.
Following just a handful of these accounts can quickly send users spiraling down a path toward even more extremist views and conspiracies, guided by Instagram’s own recommendation algorithm.
q_redpillworld17, for instance, which requested to follow me after I followed the_typical_liberal, has posted several videos and images claiming proof that the New Zealand shooting was a “false flag”; one post compares the mosque’s blood-spattered carpet with another image, implying that the carpets don’t match so the shooting was staged. Another is a graphic video of the shooting, with a caption claiming that the bullets disappeared mid-air. Another suggests 200 examples of proof that the Earth is flat. Another falsely claims that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is secretly connected to the Clintons, who feed baby blood to George Soros.
activate_justice, another page that requested to follow my account, is littered with Kek memes and shared a screenshot of a YouTube video declaring that it has been “confirmed: Hillary died” and that Nancy Pelosi has been arrested. mommy_underground, which Instagram itself suggested I follow, features a post falsely claiming that a new bill would “engrave Planned Parenthood’s abortion number” onto the back of all student-ID cards for girls over the age of 12.
The top of my Instagram Explore page also featured a racist caricature of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, exaggerating her features and darkening her skin; a post about Hillary Clinton being a pedophile; a 4chan screenshot talking about a “beta Jew”; and yet another Christchurch false-flag post.
Given the velocity of the recommendation algorithm, the power of hashtagging, and the nature of the posts, it’s easy to see how Instagram can serve as an entry point into the internet’s darkest corners. Instagram “memes pages and humor is a really effective way to introduce people to extremist content,” says Becca Lewis, a doctoral student at Stanford and a research affiliate at the Data and Society Research Institute. “It’s easy, on Instagram, to attach certain hashtags to certain memes and get high visibility.”
Conspiracy Theories Can’t Be Stopped
By Maggie Koerth-Baker
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/conspiracy-theories-cant-be-stopped/
We’ve all watched conspiracies grow from myriad soils: the missing Malaysia Airlines jet, the political passions of George Soros, vaccines, climate change, even the football secrets of the New England Patriots. Conspiracy theories appear to have become a major part of how we, as a society, process the news. It might be harder to think of an emotionally tinged event that didn’t provoke a conspiracy theory than it is to rattle off a list of the ones that did.
The ubiquity — and risks — of all these conspiracies has caught the attention of scientists. For years, the potentially dangerous consequences of conspiracy led many researchers to approach belief in conspiracies as a pathology in need of a cure. But that train of thought tended to awkwardly clash against some of the facts. The more we learn about conspiracy beliefs, the more normal they look — and the more some scientists worry that trying to prevent them could present its own dangers.
At the same time, though, conspiracy theories have a sociopolitical aspect that makes them stand out. Carrie Leonard, a postdoctoral fellow in psychology at the University of Lethbridge in Canada, and other researchers, think of belief in conspiracy as an interaction between individual tendencies and social circumstances. So, for instance, if you’re part of a group that is marginalized by society or lacks power in important ways you’re more likely to believe in conspiracy theories. That means being a member of a racial minority is a predictor of conspiracy belief — and so is unemployment, low economic status, or even just being a member of a cultural group that’s looked down on by people in positions of power.
There’s also no evidence to suggest that conspiracy belief is a phenomenon of the far right or the far left, said Joseph Uscinski, a political scientist at the University of Miami. Americans broadly believe in a “them” pulling the strings and manipulating the country.
WMD in Iraq was a good conspiracy. Prob my fav.
In 2018 US renewables produced about 650 million megawatts of energy. If all that was used to run EV’s it would displace 200 million petrol cars. That would mean a drop in demand of 100 billion gallons of gasoline which is 73 percent of all gasoline consumption in the US.
Despite the government tariff on imported solar panels, growth is still continuing. What we need now is EV production to catch up to renewable growth, thus displacing the need for much of our petroleum industry and greatly increase the health, welfare and security of the nation and the world.
The economic benefits are huge since we pay about 1 billion dollars a day just for gasoline. At $2.60 a gallon you get 25 miles. At a nickel a kWh off a solar roof you get 25 miles for 31 cents. Of course the environmental and health benefits are huge also.
GF- I love the idea, and think the whole concept is valid/worthy.
The nickel per kWh off the roof ain’t quite real world. Perhaps at utility scale PV.
I’ve got a very well priced productive roof system. I figured out how many yrs it would take to achieve a 5 cent/kwh price at current production levels (assumes no degradation or costs such new invertor).
At the 32 nd yr of operation the cost would get that low.
But hell, if you use 10 yrs, still its only about a dollar to get 25 miles with solar from the roof.
I’m in.
Not sure why you think the panels only last 10 years.
Typical lifespan of the PV panel is now looking like greater than 30 years. Degradation is less than 1 percent per year, so I use 30 years in my calculations. I used $2.50 per watt installation cost to mimic the US residential cost. The end value came out at less than a nickel so I rounded it up which should take care of some of the system maintenance.
I expect prices to fall to $2 a watt in the US. Class A 300 watt panels are now selling for about $200, so most of the cost is the installation and inverter/wiring.
It takes about 10 panels to supply an EV, which is $2000 just for the panels. Not a bad investment considering the cost of gasoline is about $1300 a year for the average driver. That makes close to 30 years of free fuel and it’s useful for other at home uses, unlike gasoline.
In my state the added solar is not taxed which means it’s just money on the roof instead of a liability like the rest of the house.
If one was to consider the added value to the house and subtract that from the original cost the numbers look even better.
2012 study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) found that, on average, solar panel output falls by 0.8 percent each year. This rate of decline is called solar panel degradation rate. Though this rate of decline metric will vary depending on which panel brand you buy, premium manufacturers like SunPower offer degradation rates as low as 0.3%. Solar panel degradation rates are constantly improving as solar panel technology gets better over the years, and degradation rates below 1% are common throughout the industry. In the years since this 2012 study was conducted, more efficient technologies have been developed and many newer panels have just a 0.5 percent yearly decline in energy output.
https://news.energysage.com/how-long-do-solar-panels-last/
If you compare the PV panel to the oil well it replaces, I don’t see oil wells shut down when they reach 80 percent of original production. Maybe one should calculate at least 10 percent loss into the original installation. Although as we clean up the atmosphere you might be getting 10 percent more sunlight in developed regions, so it all evens out.
Of course the cars could get more efficient also, since we are not using carbon fiber much yet. Best existing full size EV’s are getting 0.2 kWh/mile. I used 0.25 kWh per mile in my calculations. City EV’s do even better (smaller and run slower).
However it works out, we are not far from having the power to run all the transport on renewable electricity. Now we need to get away from luxury EV and down into the mainstream use. Look like Tesla won’t even produce it’s base model 3, they keep putting off the customers hoping they will buy the Model 3+.
We need Ford to really get into the game. Toyota is not. Chevy produced a good EV but it is in the price range of the Model 3 so not the best marketing
“To get electrification volumes where we would all like them to be we have to make sure we make the affordability targets or otherwise they are going to stay as a niche item or a pure luxury item,”
“We think we have a technology path that will get us a 300 plus miles range and an affordable crossover utility that will be fully competitive,”
https://electrek.co/2017/05/18/ford-first-all-electric-vehicle/
Once EV’s get similar in price to ICE then the economics will drive a large customer base, which will push more charge points.
Makes sense, if you use 30 yrs, and yes I do expect longlife from the panels. Track record appears to have been excellent overall.
I guess I’m just not used to people using longterm planning and projections.
Over 30 yrs, my system looks like about 5.3 cents/kwh.
I expect prices to fall to $2 a watt in the US. Class A 300 watt panels are now selling for about $200, so most of the cost is the installation and inverter/wiring. It takes about 10 panels to supply an EV, which is $2000 just for the panels. Not a bad investment considering the cost of gasoline is about $1300 a year for the average driver. That makes close to 30 years of free fuel and it’s useful for other at home uses, unlike gasoline.
That plus this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcC0amHnBKU&t=2395s
Is precisely why the GOP, Trump and his supporters, NO! Not the 60 million morons who voted for him, but the Fossil fuel lobby! are against AOC’s Green New Deal, and why even the old guard Democrats are against it! It puts way too many nails in the coffin of our petroleum fueled industrial civilization.
But there is not a damn thing any of them, can do to stop the changes that are already underway. Not even the Koch brothers or the Heartland Institute!
They need to listen to this old Dylan song and really take it to heart.
The Times They Are A Changing!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxvVk-r9ut8
Hi Fred,
Here’s ‘nuther one a them there HollyWood nit wit libtards what aint got cents ‘nuf ta know that battres ain’t never gonna go fur nuf, ner las long ‘nuf ta be worth a shit, cept ta CRANK the motor!
I KNOW this is so, because I just got it straight from one of my neighbors by phone who heard about this from his kid, who can actually read and write and do arithmetic, lol.
Methinks that the little children these days are literally leading the adults to the waters of wisdom.
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-jay-leno-end-of-gasoline-cars-video/
Hi GF,
Expressing pay back in a ten year time frame is actually a great idea, if talking to most people these days. That’s more apt to get their attention, being more in line with their own expectations about how long they are apt to own the house they live in, etc, except for old folks, who don’t have much reason to worry about twenty five and thirty year paybacks.
This IS assuming that the numbers at ten years are reasonably attractive, lol.
I have long noticed that most people these days don’t actually give a damn about how long a new car is likely to last. At most, they are concerned only with the trade in value when they get another new car, anywhere from three to six years or so down the road.
“Expressing pay back in a ten year time frame is actually a great idea”
I was not calculating payback time. I calculated the energy produced over the panel “lifetime” and compared the costs over that time to the costs of running an ICE the same distance as an EV from the panels.
In oil terms it would be URR. In reality with manufacturers like Sunpower claiming 8 percent loss of production rate at 25 years, the panels still have a lot of lifetime left at 30 years. So the URR of panels may be twice what I calculated, 2.5 cents per mile or less. Essentially they may be lifetime panels. The key here is a one time investment provides “fuel” for decades without further investment.
Oil is trapped by needing further investment and by continuous new costs to the users of the products.
As far as payback time goes, if one is feeding EV’s with the panel it is about 3 to 5 years compared to the cost of liquid fuel for ICE vehicle over the same driving distance.
OFM,
Aren’t a lot of people familiar with 30 year mortgages. For rural conservatives, I would expect they would live in their home for 50 years at least. I have been in the same home for 23 years and I am a damn liberal.
And why, Dennis, do we not have 30 yr US Solar Bonds?
Something like this in Canada, but on a grand scale.
You could buy into 30 yrs of PV in New Mexico.
https://www.solarbonds.ca/
The long lifespan of solar panels is a huge benefit.
Problem is you’ve (or your country) has to come up with the funding now to purchase the project.
That means 30 yrs of value up front, either in cash, or a big loan.
Its far worse for a nuclear reactor.
Nonetheless, it means you better be credit worthy (a very long income stream ahead of you and a clean record behind you) or wealthy to pay for this transition.
How many people, or countries, fit that bill well enough?
Thus the need for the US Solar Bond….
I certainly was not promoting going into debt to get the EV-PV system. However for the many millions that can afford an EV (new or used) and the 10 or 12 PV panels to feed it, I was giving a different perspective on the economics than is usually presented.
For those that cannot afford all that, they can rideshare, plan their trips better, get a higher mpg vehicle on next purchase, etc.
Ebikes and e-motorcycles are options that many in developing countries are purchasing.
The whole idea is that we need to reduce FF burn, not just get some new high tech gizmos.
The poor people in the world generally have a minimal carbon footprint. It’s the richer ones that are the big FF burners.
Agreed. We are just adding comments.
1881 — US: Barnum & Bailey’s Circus forms. American politics is never the same.
1979 — US: A Three Mile Island cooling unit fails, leading to a meltdown that uncovers the reactor’s core. Amid the worst nuclear disaster in US history, it takes Pennsylvania authorities three days to advise pregnant women & children to evacuate. Thousands flee the Harrisburg area. The men — apparently born macho mutants — hang around for their daily dose.
“No nuclear reactor is an island.”
I was 80 miles downwind as an 18 yr old. Wasn’t pleasant times. The lack of solid info was hard to swallow. We dodged a bullet with that one.
Growing up in LA in the 50’s, I got dosed several times.
If the wind went the wrong direction from Nevada, we got dosed.
Then there was this:
https://data.nbcstations.com/national/KNBC/la-nuclear-secret/
Why is Ford doing this?
Watch Ford F-150 Electric Pickup Truck Drive Silently: Video
Ford F-150 Energi?
The recently spotted test mule of a camouflaged Ford F-150 – suspected to be all-electric (with a fake exhaust pipe) or plug-in hybrid – was recently discussed by TheFastLaneTruck.
Spy photos obtained by InsideEVs reveal and independent rear suspension, while from the side profile we probably see battery packs (on the bottom).
If I were in charge of this project and wanted to keep it secret, the first thing I would do is not use that conspicuous “camo” wrap. If they are testing EV technology they could use an existing model as a mule since the F-150 still uses “body on frame” construction. If I wanted to be really sneaky, I would include a system to generate engine noises as a decoy. I think Ford is getting spooked by all the talk of electric trucks and desperately wants it known that they are working on something too!
Ford announced it’s intention to develop hybrid pick-ups a while ago, so no need to hide.
It also intends to develop a lower cost 300 mile range crossover EV.
It’s the flying car that they disguise. 🙂
Of particular interest to those with a taste for astronomy and astrophysics
https://phys.org/news/2019-03-evidence-deep-groundwater-mars.html
I have no expertise in this field, but do know some BASIC chemistry and physics, and in the past I have read that Mars lacks sufficient gravity, and also lacks a strong magnetic field, both of which are theoretically ( supposed) to be necessary to maintaining a reasonably dense atmosphere, something along the line of the Earth’s atmospheric density.
If so, any water that makes it to the surface of Mars can be expected to be lost to space, over any extended period of time. Right or wrong?
Mars did have a denser atmosphere but it’s escape velocity is much lower than Earth. That plus solar winds slowly remove the lighter atoms, leaving some CO2.
What a riot. We cannot even control the level of trace gases in our atmosphere and people are thinking about adding a full atmosphere to a dead planet. We also cannot control ourselves, so thinking in the long term about controlling Mars is just silly.
Now if they discover petroleum, natural gas and lots of rare earth metals then we would make a severe attempt to industrialize Mars also. However, there is no money in going to Mars.
I think Mars is safe from us, except for a small amount of litter in the form of probes and failed expeditions.
Dunno! But, this just in:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/raging-rivers-flowed-mars-billions-years-180971821/
Raging Rivers May Have Washed Over Mars for Billions of Years
A study of 200 river systems shows the waterways persisted even while the atmosphere was disappearing and the Red Planet was drying up
Totten is retreating, with potential to raise sea level by 10 feet. However other east Antarctica glaciers are on the move.
More glaciers in East Antarctica are waking up
A group of four glaciers in an area of East Antarctica called Vincennes Bay, west of the massive Totten Glacier, have lowered their surface height by about 9 feet since 2008, hinting at widespread changes in the ocean.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2832/more-glaciers-in-east-antarctica-are-waking-up/
NASA climate research continues to be tainted and self-contradictory. As a case in point, not that long ago, NASA confirmed Antarctica was gaining more ice than losing.
Mass Gains of Antarctic Ice Sheet Greater than Losses
The research challenges the conclusions of other studies, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2013 report, which says that Antarctica is overall losing land ice.
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-of-antarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses
Warning.
That story is 4 years old and contains older data.
NAOM
For those with an interest in more recent data and analysis.
Antarctica ice melt has accelerated by 280% in the last 4 decades
https://www.pnas.org/content/116/4/1095
“The total mass loss from Antarctica increased from 40 ± 9 Gt/y in the 11-y time period 1979–1990 to 50 ± 14 Gt/y in 1989–2000, 166 ± 18 Gt/y in 1999–2009, and 252 ± 26 Gt/y in 2009–2017, that is, by a factor 6 (Fig. 2, Table 1, and SI Appendix, Fig. S1). This change in mass loss reflects an acceleration of 94 Gt/y per decade in 1979–2017, increasing from 48 Gt/y per decade in 1979–2001 to 134 Gt/y per decade in 2001–2017, or 280%.”
Antarctic sea ice shrinks to second lowest minimum
http://www.antarctica.gov.au/news/2018/antarctic-sea-ice-shrinks-to-second-lowest-minimum
“Antarctic sea ice has shrunk to its second lowest extent on record, with the latest satellite data showing a total 2.15 million km² surrounding the icy continent. This year’s summer low sea ice extent almost broke the existing minimum record of 2.07 million km², set in March last year when the extent was approximately 27 per cent below the average annual minimum since 1979.”
NASA climate research continues to be tainted and self-contradictory. As a case in point, not that long ago, NASA confirmed Antarctica was gaining more ice than losing.
Steve, you obviously have problems with reading comprehension. You’re either a troll or a moron and you didn’t even read what you posted!
From your link:
But it might only take a few decades for Antarctica’s growth to reverse, according to Zwally. “If the losses of the Antarctic Peninsula and parts of West Antarctica continue to increase at the same rate they’ve been increasing for the last two decades, the losses will catch up with the long-term gain in East Antarctica in 20 or 30 years — I don’t think there will be enough snowfall increase to offset these losses.”
Wow! that certainly proves that NASA’s research is tainted and contradictory!
Nah, not really! It just proves that you really don’t understand how science actually works!
Steven Haner,
Anybody with a university freshman level of understanding of the way real science works, looking at the same NASA data, concludes that NASA is doing the job honestly and ethically.
The very nature of observational, as compared to experimental, research is that you EXPECT to collect some to quite a lot of contradictory( but still accurate) data in most cases, and that as you collect more and more data, you resolve the contradictions and come to a good solid understanding of what’s really going on.
And what’s PERFECTLY OBVIOUS to anybody but people who REFUSE to look at the vast bulk of the evidence, is that the world is warming up fast, and that the total mass of ice in the world is shrinking fast.
Weather is the expression of climate, in the very short term, and even as it gets warmer, it’s to be EXPECTED that some places will get more rain and snow, some will get less, and that precipitation will vary in such places from day to day, month to month, and year to year. The AVERAGE winter where I live is getting warmer, but I still expect to see some very cold days and nights, even some new record lows……. but not as MANY new record lows as compared to new records set for the warmest days of the winter. We are getting new record highs, and new record high minimums at night, far faster than we are getting new record lows, day or night.
SO…… It in to be EXPECTED, it is no surprise at all, that while MOST glaciers world wide are shrinking, SOME glaciers in some places, are growing. But the number that is growing is minuscule, compared to the number that is shrinking.
Such Koch brothers Trump type sound bites as you posted are be biting Republicans on the ass and taking out bigger chunks every election from HERE ON OUT.
Let’s not forget that Trump called forced warming a hoax and that the R party calls it a fraud and a hoax to get grant money so scientists can live high on the hog, Steven Haner.
If I recall correctly, the earlier snow study overestimated the mass of snow due to instrumental difficulties in measuring snow from the satellite. Turns out the snow increase was less than the ice loss all along.
Antarctica’s contribution to sea level rise was mitigated by snowfall
“A new NASA-led study has determined that 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.
“Our findings don’t mean that Antarctica is growing; it’s still losing mass, even with the extra snowfall,” said Brooke Medley, a glaciologist with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author of the study, which was published in Nature Climate Change on Dec. 10. “What it means, however, is that without these gains, we would have experienced even more sea level rise in the 20th century.”
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2836/antarcticas-contribution-to-sea-level-rise-was-mitigated-by-snowfall/
Without the warmer moist air caused by global warming to increase snowfall and the changes in the ozone layer over Antarctica, sea level rise would be even faster.
If I recall correctly, the earlier snow study overestimated the mass of snow due to instrumental difficulties in measuring snow from the satellite.
Yes, I’m pretty sure I read something to that effect myself, in the not all too distant past. Though I’m wiling to wager that an update of the data only serves to reinforce Mr. Haner’s ridiculous belief that NASA’s climate research continues to be tainted and self-contradictory…
The Earth cares not what Haner thinks.
We can be glad for the extra time and reduction of severity of this situation. The ocean is acting as a heat reservoir and as a carbon reservoir (with huge downsides) keeping the temperature rise mitigated.
Also if we had developed civilization during a warm period without polar ice caps the temperature would have already shot up severely.
Still we are close enough to being a warm world that we can push it into that state.
It reminds me of someone who is receiving $10,000 a month. With a little thought they realise that is $120,000 a year then celebrate that they will be a millionaire in less than 10 years.
.
.
.
They have not accounted for their spending of $15,000 per month.
NAOM
Lots to say about where this is going.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=30&v=5iV_hB08Uns
And yes, they can change their own battery. And patrol their electrical generating station.
And yes, they can change diapers. But see no need.
And now for the forklift
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0mEYIBFOPM
And yes, they can change diapers. But see no need.
Well, at least until those 2,208 billionaires who currently control half of the global wealth start wearing diapers themselves.
.
Hi Fred,
I don’t have much use for billionaires, personally, except when I read about them donating a BIG chunk of their money to good causes, such as founding a new university, or medical research, etc.
But while they are theoretically as rich as King Midas, in reality, it seems to me that most of their supposed wealth is sort of imaginary, in some respects.
Consider a conversation I had with somebody a while back who said that if one or two of them would donate their fortune to feeding the hungry, there would be no more hungry people.
Well, there’s no doubt the money would go a LONG WAY, by encouraging industrial farmers to grow more, etc, and maybe training subsistence farmers and providing them with fertilizers, etc.
But in actuality, the REAL resources needed to feed everybody well simply do not exist, unless we change our ways of eating. The land is no longer there,it’s covered with asphalt and factories and houses, the water is no longer there, the soil is washed away and in the bottom of the sea, etc.
And the number of people depending on these vanishing resources is growing daily.
Bottom line, money can’t fix everything.
A hell of a lot of people,especially people of the leftish political persausion, just don’t seem to understand this.
Your take is appreciated, and thanks in advance. Everybody else, likewise.
Of course money can’t fix everything.
However, allowing a few to sequester large portions of the collective wealth leaves less circulating in the economy for the rest. Their sequestered money velocity becomes zero. It is a massive misallocation of resource.
And while some of the sequestered wealth does make its way to good use, such as a Childrens Hospital, much of it remains sequestered.
And the decision making for the use of the sequestered money is often extremely poor and unproductive. For example, bizarre art collections, rocket projects, extraordinary fashion and uninhabited mansions. We could go on and on a trillion-fold, while close to a billion people are still open field defecators, hoping to get one good meal.
The money could be used productively, for infrastructure, education, environmental remediation, sustainable business building, etc.
No one needs more than 50 million dollars-
Chew on the full report-
https://www.credit-suisse.com/media/assets/…/docs/…/global-wealth-databook-2018.pdf
Our estimates suggest that the lower half of the global population collectively owns less than 1% of global wealth, while the richest 10% of adults own 85% of all wealth and the top 1% account for almost half of all global assets
But while they are theoretically as rich as King Midas, in reality, it seems to me that most of their supposed wealth is sort of imaginary, in some respects.
I disagree! If we were considering only ‘money’ as a measure of their wealth, then you may have a point. Truth be told, they own vast amounts of land, hold mineral rights, control natural resources, own the means of production, etc… Therefore they have disproportionate economic and political impact on the lives of billions of human beings all over the planet.
Furthermore their so called philanthropy is mostly bogus and is more a way to hide their lack of paying their fair share by avoiding taxes!
I’m with Dutch Historian, Rutger Bergman!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5LtFnmPruU
Trump’s pick for Federal Reserve owes more than $75,000 in taxes, court record shows
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/28/trumps-fed-pick-stephen-moore-owes-75000-in-taxes-government-says.html
Trump is very consistent in choosing his minions.
I’m not necessarily against the wealthy owning land. In some cases it is a way to protect it from development.
https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2018/7/8/the-billionaire-quietly-protecting-western-lands-from-oil-and-gas-drilling
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/billionaire-pledges-90000-acres-con
https://www.apnews.com/0f49f5528a3a42ffb93290b48448d11f
https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2015/1/7/meet-the-billionaire-with-the-most-land-and-plenty-of-conser.html
I’m not necessarily against the wealthy owning land.
Neither am I.
I’m just against 1% of the population owning 50% of the planet’s assets!
Wealth in dollars (or other monetary types) is not the wealth of the world. But just to go along with the theme.
An equal share of billionaire’s wealth would amount to 1.3E-8% per person. According to Forbes The World’s Billionaires list that comes to about $1500 per person.
If all the world’s wealth (government, corporation and individual) were converted into cash it would come out to about $50,000 per person. So if you are worth more than that, well a lot of other people are coming up short.
Basically, the bottom half of world’s people have about 1 percent of the wealth. The bottom 90 percent have 14 percent of the wealth.
The individual billionaires are vastly outdone by the large public corporations assets.
https://www.forbes.com/global2000/#18ab80a0335d
Or you can not worry about it and read my new book “How to Have a Great Time on Almost no Money”.
Or study Buddhist philosophy and remove the desire for material wealth. 🙂
Fred,
There is a contradictory tension in that view.
On the one hand, wealth “sequestered” means less destruction to the planet from an ecological point of view, so it has less impact. On the other, I agree on the power aspect, that might be mitigated to some degree by limiting monetary influence in government and not allowing corporations to have the rights of people (as they are not people, a corporation lives forever in principle). Unfortunately in many places such as the US this is not the case and may never be.
I can’t help but quote Walter Reuther to Henry Ford: Yes but can you sell a car to it?
Innovating to handle the transition-
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/chargewheel-nets-funding-for-mobile-ev-and-scooter-charging-trailers/551436/
A question about terminology and acronyms for anybody.
When speaking of the highest minimum temperature of a given 24 hour day, I have seen it expressed two or three ways, in words.
So, the question is, what is the most widely or generally accepted terminology, and the acronym, that will be familiar to the most people? I write almost entirely for laymen, and lots of them are confused when they run across this data.
It’s always better to ask a dumb question early than to be taken for a dummy later.
Interesting OT:
The development and production of the 787 Dreamliner, announced in 2003, was outsourced all over the world. That led to years of delays and billions in development cost overruns. In 2010 Airbus announced the A-320 NEO as a better alternative to the 737 NG. Boeing was still busy to get the 787 into the air. It had neither the engineering capacity nor the money to counter the NEO with a brand new plane. It hastily revamped the 737, a design from the 1960s, into the 737 MAX. It promised to airlines that the new plane would not require to retrain their pilots. MCAS was specifically designed to allow for that. It was a huge mistake.
Boeing once was an engineering company with an attached sales department. It 2001, when it moved its headquarter to Chicago, it became a dealership with an attached engineering wing. The philosophical difference is profound. It is time for the company to find back to its roots.
Sounds like a Dilbert cartoon situation.
More like this:
https://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/51-l/docs/rogers-commission/Appendix-F.txt
ROFLMAO!
In the land of the morons, the half wit is king!
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-28/trump-says-opec-must-pump-more-oil-because-prices-are-too-high
Trump Asks OPEC to Pump More Oil Because Prices Are Too High
WTF?! I thought the US was already energy independent thanks to all that shale… Why would Trump need anything from OPEC?!
Once again, President Trump is expressing something the overwhelming majority of Americans have already been thinking. Gas prices rising 30-35% in the past few weeks is definitely not justified. The oil companies are making a killing as usual by sticking it to the middle class consumer.
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/energy-independence-trump/
Trump Just Achieved What Every President Since Nixon Had Promised: Energy Independence
So if that is true you should be protesting in front of the white house because Trump has full control of gas prices in the US and doesn’t need any help from OPEC!
So Trump should declare a national emergency and nationalize all the American oil companies and force gas prices to come down! We no longer need OPEC!
Hail Trump, the oil companies and MAGA!
ROFL!!
BTW, in my opinion gas prices should be raised to a minimum of $10.00 a gallon by adding a CO2 tax that can be used to pay for AOC’s Green New Deal!
The New Green Deal will die in the Washington political meat grinder. We cannot rely on federal or Democratic party support on this. Anything that comes out will be too little too late and more snake oil to feed the system.
Something like the NGD will only come about when the fossil fuel system has already been broken and on the power descent. Power will shift to other corporations or fossil fuel corps that take over the renewable power system.
I will leave the rest unspoken.
The New Green Deal will die in the Washington political meat grinder.
GF, I know that! My point is not that I expect it to come to pass any time soon through the existing political process but rather that is delusional to think the status quo can or will continue to go on. The forces rising outside the political arena will force the politicians to come around. They just don’t know it yet.
You are right Fred. The status quo is going and the change is accelerating, with or without any action on our part.
Gas prices have been a total ripoff, for many years now. Even with inflation, the price shouldn’t be over $2/gal. That’s fair. Back when I started driving, it was 30 cents/gal, or less, and most everything was better then.
Gasoline and diesel need to be phased out completely! End of story!
In the meantime maybe Trump will be successful in convincing OPEC to increase their production and bring the price down and make everything more better again just like in them good old days… Good luck with that!
BTW, just like Climate Change, Peak Oil is also a hoax.
Charles Van Vleet says things, like gas, should be priced by what we think is fair. I really like that.
I think its only fair that a big slice of good pizza is 25 cents, like when I was young.
And I’d like to buy some prime farmland for 200$/acre. I consider that fair.
Maybe we have a fairness pricing committee. Well wait…., wouldn’t that be communist or something.
The cannabis wasn’t better then. The LSD probably was though.
Charles,
Cars were certainly not better when gasoline was 30 cents per gallon. Human rights abuses were much worse. No 1965 may have seemed nice, but you didn’t really know what was going on in the wide world.
Daybeer. Well named. Deep Thinker would have been an outright lie.
Good morning Fred,
How about a little background on the political situation in Florida, vis a vis solar power, the big power company there, and the state government?
As I see it the power company is just fine with solar power, so long as it controls the sale and distribution thereof, and more or less owns the state legislature and regulatory agency, at least in this one respect. I’m pretty sure you will know the score!
In any case, they just announced that they are planning on building the world’s biggest peaker battery, to be powered with an existing solar farm already built.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/03/florida-utility-to-close-natural-gas-plants-build-massive-solar-powered-battery/
I won’t be very surprised to hear that their record size battery will be made to look small by one that will be built in Texas within the next four or five years. Texas may be cherry red, but business men there do know how to count money, and how to make it and save it, and Texas is dead ripe for using batteries this way, to save off peak wind and solar juice for use when it not only saves fuel but allows the utility to eliminate an old worn out coal or gas plant as well.
As I see it the power company is just fine with solar power, so long as it controls the sale and distribution thereof, and more or less owns the state legislature and regulatory agency, at least in this one respect.
Yep! same old, same old. They want to continue their monopoly on centralized power distribution.
From your link:
PFL has been on a course to change that over the past two years, however. The company says it has spent two decades on a modernization program to replace its legacy oil-burning plants with more efficient natural gas plants. Now, as natural gas is becoming a worst-offender in US carbon emissions sources, legacy natural gas plants are being replaced by cleaner sources.
No, they aren’t doing any of this because NG is a source of CO2 pollution. They are doing it because solar PV plus battery storage, is now cheaper than NG.
But the future is distributed solar on rooftops, parking lots and such, connected to local smart grids using EV batteries as backup. Millenials understand the downsides of predatory neoclassical capitalism and they will be the ones in the halls of power soon. FPL’s outdated business model is an extinct dinosaur still walking, as the asteroid get’s closer by the minute. Big changes are coming much faster than they anticipate!
Cheers!
Edit: I guess PFL stands for Plorida Fower and Light? 😉
In blow to climate, coal plants emitted more than ever in 2018 – “We are headed for disaster, and nobody seems to be able to slow things down”
https://desdemonadespair.net/2019/03/in-blow-to-climate-coal-plants-emitted-more-than-ever-in-2018-we-are-headed-for-disaster-and-nobody-seems-to-be-able-to-slow-things-down.html
I guess it is not in our evolutionary history to concern us.
Being ruled by psychopaths doesn’t help.
Yep.
Has anyone. Found a link to the Intelkegience Agency leaked doc about cratering the Grid is the quickest path to regiem change?
http://www.earthhour.org/
Arctic plus 7.4 C today. The heat continues. Anybody for a slushy?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it looks like arctic sea ice extent has broken the graph- lowest extent for date on record.
[I have never successfully posted an attachment]
https://seaice.uni-bremen.de/data/amsr2/today/extent_n_running_mean_amsr2_previous.png
This one is a PNG file just under 29 KB. It should post fine without you having to do anything to it.
.
I was wondering if its my browser? Firefox? I always get an error.
I doubt it. The error you get is more likely due to your pict exceeding the size limitation that has been set by our hosts. Check the file size by clicking on your file and scrolling down to properties. If it is larger than 50 KB it will not post and you need to resize it and probably reduce the dpi to 72.
Cheers!
50/72 thanks Fred
Just like OFM said below: “Fred, you’re right about the big picture.”
Yes arctic sea ice is record low for date
https://ads.nipr.ac.jp/vishop.ver1/data/graph/plot_extent_n_v2.csv
https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/www.moyhu.org/blog/polview.html
Hickory,
The rule is pretty simple if it is less than 50 kB it works for gif, jpg, and png image files.
Usually gif tends to be smallest so if png or jpg doesn’t work saving in gif format sometimes does. Also paint can be used to reduce file size by reducing number of pixels, sometimes the image degrades so that it is useless so links are a better choice in that case.
We probably should avoid posting maps like without an explanation because they can easily mislead those who are already confused about the difference between weather and climate.
100 consecutive months with above normal temperatures at Svalbard
Since 1961, the average temperature at Longyearbyen airport has increased with 5,6 degrees Celsius. For comparison, measurements at the meteorological institute in Oslo show an increase of 2 degrees for the same period.
The old saying «the Arctic heats twice as much as the rest of the world» is not accurate anymore. Climate changes impact on the Arctic is worse, up to six times higher than global temperature increase.
Located at 76° North, Longyearbyen is the world’s northernmost permanent settlement.
In Longyearbyen, people already have a first hand knowledge on what it means to live in what likely is the world’s fastest warming town.
Houses are sagging as the ground underneath is melting. Stable permafrost is long gone for the 2,200 inhabitants 1,300 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle.
Isfjorden (The Ice Fjord) northwest from Longyearbyen hasn’t been ice-covered mid-winter for the last 10 years. Researchers says the fjord’s marine life is changing from Arctic to Atlantic climate zone.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/ecology/2019/03/march-coming-end-svalbard-can-look-back-100-months-above-normal-temperatures
Here’s a link to an overview of the site that produced the image. It’s easy to find from the home page.
https://climatereanalyzer.org/about/
Blast from the past, making our present and future warmer.
This article is from 2010. Wonder where the permafrost line is today.
Canada’s Permafrost Has Moved North 80 Miles in Past 50 Years
https://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/canadas-permafrost-has-moved-north-80-miles-in-past-50-years.html
Add to that, this info from realclimate.org:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2019/03/alpine-glaciers-another-decade-of-loss/#comments
Alpine glaciers: Another decade of loss
Filed under: Climate Science hydrological cycle Instrumental Record — group @ 25 March 2019
Guest Commentary by Mauri Pelto (Nichols College)
Preliminary data reported from the reference glaciers of the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) in 2018 from Argentina, Austria, China, France, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland and United States indicate that 2018 will be the 30th consecutive year of significant negative annual balance (> -200mm); with a mean balance of -1247 mm for the 25 reporting reference glaciers, with only one glacier reporting a positive mass balance (WGMS, 2018).
All this accelerating exponentially while most people are focused on the faux news about the economy, Brexit or the next presidential election cycle in the US. Anyone still remember the Muller Report?! Which system is better capitalism or communism? The evils of socialism and why the Green New Deal is too expensive! Meanwhile the fashion industry rakes in 2.4 T per year. So not enough bitcoin left to tackle climate change…
Good luck with maintaining the status quo!
Cheers!
Bread and circuses have replaced turtles all the way down.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/business/energy-environment/andrew-beal-california.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
From the link:
“He’s the smartest guy in the room, every room he goes to,” said Dary Stone, a former member of the Texas Finance Commission, the state’s banking regulator, who has known Mr. Beal for decades.
Now Mr. Beal, 66, is betting that he can turn back the inroads of alternative energy. He is arguing before federal regulators that California policies discriminate against generators powered by fossil fuels like natural gas and coal as the state promotes sources like solar and wind power.
I’m betting that he is actually pretty dumb and arrogant based on his past performance and run of good luck! He has yet to grasp that the future is going to be nothing like the past and this is one bet he is going to lose big time!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDwCMxPwJ_4
Kenny Rogers – The Gambler
Good morning Fred,
I agree, mostly. You’re right about the big picture, but a politically savvy guy like this one might succeed in making a few more tens of millions, or even another billion, for himself, fighting a rear guard action while the rest of the ff industry loses the war.
Something tells me that ninety nine percent of the kids in university studying energy and engineering are working on renewables these days,with the rest focused on fusion or some other aspect of nuclear engineering.
Commercial nuclear power is a dead man walking these days, but there will probably be some new nukes built more or less so long as today’s industrial civilization lasts, because of the military apps involving warships, weapons, and last but not least, medical and biological applications. There’s even a possibility, but only a slim one imo, that somebody will actually build a reasonably safe nuke that doesn’t produce much in the way of long lived waste.
OFM,
Commercial nuclear power a dead man walking: If only it were so. In the US and the UK, yes, and France is having second thoughts I believe; Germany too.
There are 55 plants under construction worldwide, though. China’s building 11, India 7, South Korea 5, Russia I seem to remember 6, and the little ol’ UAE sees 4 being built there by South Korea. Even Turkey is getting ready for one, down from the two originally planned.
New nuke plants are very much the mode once we look beyond the US and the EU, I fear. A fair number of the 55 total are being built, outside their own borders, by China, Russia (including the one in Turkey), and South Korea.
1963 — US: Los Angeles ends streetcar service after nearly 90 years.
Prof. David Battisti – Climate change and Global Food Security
https://youtu.be/KPfJvZ9TfPQ
25th anniversary edition of WMO’s State of the Climate report shows accelerating global warming impacts – “The data released in this report give cause for great concern”
https://desdemonadespair.net/2019/03/25th-anniversary-edition-of-wmos-state-of-the-climate-report-shows-accelerating-global-warming-impacts-the-data-released-in-this-report-give-cause-for-great-concern.html
AOC explains why the Green New Deal is about more than climate
Rep. Ocasio Cortez on Green New Deal: ‘We need to do something.’
Ocasio-Cortez: U.S. knew climate change was real in 1989
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez explains why the Green New Deal is about more than climate
The case for the Green New Deal
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says it’s about the ‘future of fossil fuel workers
https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-explains-why-the-green-new-deal-is-about-more-than-climate-1468164675990
Science proved that climate happened before the industrial revolution. It further proved that plants need CO2 for growth, and there are smart scientists at public research universities across the country right now creating systems to store and collect surplus carbon. So what’s AOC and her party’s real goal with the green new deal? I’ll tell you, it’s they need another way to control your life. As long as you have any kind of individual freedom whatsoever, they are unhappy.
Right on Kelsivictor,
You GET IT!
The D’s want everything that’s not forbidden to be mandatory.
BUT you forgot to mention that Trump is a Christian, and that his three wives have all been selected from girls whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower, and that he only hires the best people, as indicated by the fact that none of his associates has ever even been ticketed for overstaying his parking meter space, and that ……..
You ARE a blooming idiot.
“You ARE a blooming idiot”
For more than two years now, you have been telling us not to call your neighbors stupid. Have you given up ?
Ron I believe OFM was being sarcastic.
Suyog
Of course. I have deleted my comment.
.
Hi Fred, when I posted the AOC link. It made me think about of you. She doesn’t even go as far as some of your ideas and approaches you have raised here. Yet she is the current lighting rod of right wing attacks. You would die of a million cuts the first day in politics. Best you keep your day job.
LOL! There’s a reason I keep saying that her ideas are not radical enough!
You would die of a million cuts the first day in politics. Best you keep your day job.
And I was just considering launching my campaign for congress!
It further proved that plants need CO2 for growth, and there are smart scientists at public research universities across the country right now creating systems to store and collect surplus carbon.
Yep! Just add CO2 to get the REAL New Green Deal!
.
Dear Koch brothers
Please send better quality trolls.
Sincerely
NAOM
Kelsivictor- sorry man, but most of the readers here have gone beyond 3rd grade. So most of them arn’t quite so gullible to such fake/foolish/ stupid analysis such as yours.
Fred Magar is dead on about the future of the automobile.
https://electrek.co/2019/03/30/apple-car-tesla-electric-powertrain/
So Apple is in the race to actually build cars more or less from the ground up, rather than just providing the electronics for self driving capabilities, as most people have been thinking recently.
Apple has cash enough to go it alone, and the APPLE brand name is probably the best loved name in the entire world. You run across people who say Apple products aren’t all that much better, especially considering the PRICE of them, but you hardly EVER hear anybody criticizing the performance and reliability of anything with the Apple logo on it. I know a dozen people, personally, who will never buy any other brand name, so long as Apple makes a variation of the product they want, they will line up to buy an APPLE automobile, the way Tesla fans have lined up to buy a Tesla.
As electric drive trains get to be simpler and cleaner and cheaper to build, newly designed I C engines are looking like something out of cartoon shows, with dozens of gizmos growing in them, and out of them, like cancers, that ordinary mechanics can’t even IDENTIFY, never mind diagnose and repair. Ordinary cars and light trucks are now coming equipped with eight and even nine or ten speed transmissions, in order to squeeze out a tiny bit more performance and fuel economy. Fixing these engines and transmissions is going to cost a LOT more, when they are out of warranty or ten to twenty years old, than it’s going to cost to put a NEW battery in an older electric car…….. IF it happens to need a new battery. Most likely, it won’t , at least not until it’s got three hundred thousand miles on it!
This is what you get on the current “stripped not equipped” cheapest Tesla, and what it costs.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/billroberson/2019/03/31/a-budget-tesla-what-you-give-up-and-get-with-the-cheapest-model-3-ev/#7de1caf3658b
I witnessed the very tip end of the tail of the horse and mule era, and I’ve lived to see the announcement of the funeral, a little premature, of the oil age!
Yep, ICE engines have reached a peak in complexity and refinement.
By “nibbling” at many parasitic loads and increasing turbulence in the combustion chamber Toyota has achieved 40 percent efficiency in it’s ICE’s. Also improved the CVT.
https://www.sae.org/news/2018/04/toyota-unveils-more-new-gasoline-ices-with-40-thermal-efficiency
This makes the car about equivalent to an EV using the grid for power if one only considers the output from the exhaust. Yes, even the most efficient ICE is more GHG polluting than an EV due to upstream emissions before the gasoline gets in the car. Yes, all EV’s on the grid pollute as long as the grid is powered by coal and natural gas.
Only the combination of PV/wind power and an EV gets close to no pollution and no GHG to drive. Still the roads add 20 percent to 40 percent FF use due to maintenance requirements. So until all the machinery and materials become carbon emission free, even EVs with renewables have a large enough carbon footprint to cause global warming/climate change.
Myself, I emit my personal share of CO2 every day. Proper food and exercise limits the methane. 🙂
We have to work very hard and be extremely resourceful to actually get to near zero carbon emissions.
Bad news, if we reduce our GHG emissions to 5 % of current we still emulate the lead up to the PETM. So some need of carbon sequestering is required or long term disaster happens.
Other bad news, ice free is guaranteed at the current level of atmospheric carbon.
Further very bad news, we are not going to get near zero emissions in the first half of the century or probably ever.
Happy motoring, while you still can.
Still the roads add 20 percent to 40 percent FF use due to maintenance requirements. So until all the machinery and materials become carbon emission free, even EVs with renewables have a large enough carbon footprint to cause global warming/climate change.
So don’t use roads… https://www.solar-flight.com/sunseeker-duo/
Very Kool!
Aw, come on Fred. That is my gig. I have been pushing flight and flying cars for quite awhile now on this site. With the express statement to get rid of most roads.
I guess I should be happy at least one other person gets it. 🙂
Now we will hear from the “planes kill birds” trolls or the flight is bad commenters. What a world.
“Now we will hear from the “planes kill birds” trolls”
How much co2 do you think it will take to change my driveway into a runway ? or do you think we can just cut down the trees on the street in front of my house and I can use that ?
Oh, you want a personal craft. How special. One VTOL coming up for HB, right away. Flies autonomous too, nothing too good for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjnzuFOAmLc
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=671Vf3PFlWU
For the rest they just walk the trail over to the local grass strip for high efficiency STOL and other aircraft to farther places and to major airports.
BTW in all my postings on this subject I never said to get rid of all roads. But some people jump to conclusions for exercise.
“With the express statement to get rid of most roads”
“I never said to get rid of all roads. But some people jump to conclusions for exercise”
Have you ever used Google maps in the suburbs of America ?
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Huntington+Beach,+CA/@33.6981295,-118.0453306,13754m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x80dd2422f9c82ab5:0x45ed85c9a4663b01!8m2!3d33.6594835!4d-117.9988026?hl=en
Huntington Beach has the population of 200K all within 26 square miles. It closed it’s last air strip 30 years ago and now has homes built in it’s location.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meadowlark_Airport
“For the rest they just walk the trail over to the local grass strip”
So you think things will stay the same with all that is going on now? That is very solid thinking.
Not at all, I just believe in being realistic about what can work with todays reality. We aren’t going to solve anything talking about the cartoon Jetson’s.
Now HB, if the Blackfly VTOL landing near your house was not good enough for you I guess your neighbors will use that taxi service.
Realism, most likely Huntingdon Beach will be mostly abandoned in the future.
But it’s good to have small dreams now and then. Especially ones that solve huge problems. That plane could be a light cargo carrier bringing supplies into the last of the villagers there and taking out their handmade products to market.
No, my neighbors will most likely get picked up by an Uber driver in a Prius with in 3 minutes of their request.
Keep dreaming
Thanks HB, it’s been fun. Too bad about your town never changing.
Climate chaos.
Not looking good for California.
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/california-extreme-climate-future-ucla-study
So get one of these
https://lilium.com/
Now we will hear from the “planes kill birds” trolls or the flight is bad commenters. What a world.
Yeah, they should have locked Captain Chesley Sullenberger up for killing all those poor geese before ditching his plane in the Hudson 😉
” the flight is bad commenters”
Thats me.
Flight is bad.
Waste of resource.
Completely optional to living.
Better to ride a bike.
Isn’t that fast enough.
Why such a hurry.
Live simply, so that others may simply….
Climb a hill if you need a bigger view sometimes.
before long we’ll probably hear about how planes almost died from geese. what about the geese?, one might ask.
I find it next to impossible to believe that road maintenance, EVEN including the original construction, results in twenty to forty percent of the total CO2 cost of driving on them. I worked a year plus on I77 where it comes off the mountain below the Blue Ridge Parkway, operating one of about two hundred pieces of heavy equipment there from start to finish, for about three years total,iirc.
Side streets that are expensive to build and to maintain, and that have only a few vehicles on them, excepting people commuting in cars early and late, now I can see it in that case.
You won’t find many opportunities to walk safely across I77 , unless it’s the wee small hours of the night! Most of the time, you can see anywhere from ten to fifty or more cars and trucks from the top of any small high spot on this road.
I’m ready to bet the farm that every fifty to sixty eighteen wheelers that climb that mountain use as much fuel, collectively, as one heavy construction machine in a ten hour shift. It’s not unusual to see them lined up out of sight, in the right hand lane, with some in the left lane, passing the slower ones. This is a daily occurrence, year in, year out.
Thousands of cars and big trucks pass over that stretch of about seven miles, every day, which at the time was credited with being the biggest job ever, in terms of yards moved, to build a road east of the Mississippi the same length.
And that was at least forty, going on closer to fifty years ago now.
This stretch of mountain highway gets some potholes patched annually, but there are no more than a dozen or so vehicles on the scene, and for no more than a few days. It gets a new layer of pavement only at very long intervals, and that’s mostly recycled asphalt, if enough can be found. Part of it comes right off the top of the existing pavement, ground off and remelted and used again.
” find it next to impossible to believe that road maintenance, EVEN including the original construction, results in twenty to forty percent of the total CO2 cost of driving on them. ” Yeah, people don’t think in those terms from materials to transport to end use etc. and all the energy that goes into each step. I found a thorough study of the road maintenance energy use from Spain. Spain has a lot of roads per area and they came up with 40 percent. Of course that includes bridges too.
If I come across the study I will post it. Until then, keep non-believing.
Spain is a geographically tough place, and it probably costs a lot to build a road there, plus they don’t seem to have so many cars and trucks as in the USA, so the per mile cost of roads is likely higher, and the use of them is likely lighter.
But I will remain a non believer, until I see some figures that impress me. All the grading and paving was done on that stretch with two hundred machines, in a VERY tough place, as road building goes.All the gravel was crushed with electricity within fifteen miles or so, and hauled in on no more than a couple of dozen trucks over a period of a few months during the actual paving. There’s not a hell of a lot of steel on this stretch to be sure, just drains and guard rails and signs, excepting two overpass two lane bridges for the Blue Ridge Parkway.
It WAS an around the clock job, twenty hours a day, with four for maintenance on the equipment, so that’s about two hundred machines times two shifts times about seven hundred days,say probably under three hundred thousand man and machine hours.
The Virginia Department of Transportation says average daily traffic, both directions combined is over forty thousand vehicles per day, with twenty four percent being Class A heavy trucks.
With each one being on this stretch about eight minutes or so , including trucks going slower upgrade,unless I’ve miscounted zeros, this is roughly five thousand vehicle hours per day, with over a thousand of them being heavy trucks. The current annual truck traffic over a few years time is probably far greater, in terms of CO2 than the equipment use that got the road built.
And all the maintenance that’s ever been done on it since hasn’t amounted to beans, compared to the work that went into building it.
This road will be there for centuries, and still in use, barring the collapse of industrial civilization.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see the shoulders partitioned off and widened and train tracks laid on them, someday, lol. I believe trains are going to make a HUGE comeback, due to automation and their awesome energy efficiency, compared to trucks.
Methinks the figures in the study were selected to make roads look bad, the way the environmentalists often compute figures involving water used to raise corn to make raising corn look like it takes a gazillion gallons of water to grow an acre of corn. The reality is that nearly all of that water falls as rain, and would have fallen, and either sunk in or run off, as the case may be, whether the field was in corn, or grass, or undisturbed forest.
Not even an eyedropper full is actually ever LOST in the process, although it is without question usually polluted to some degree.
“Methinks the figures in the study were selected to make roads look bad, the way the environmentalists often compute figures ”
Yep, Spanish government and other European government studies are just conspiracy publications to fulfill the aims of the environmentalists that control all those governments.
Oh my God, mark this day in history. I agree with you Mac( a Trumpster)
Its a great day in history. I can almost picture you guys sitting on the porch together in Virginia, awkwardly rocking the chairs out of cadence.
LOL! While dueling banjos play in the background…
Thank you HB,
It’s a well known fact that when two bitter enemies agree about something in dispute that it’s VERY likely they are both barking up the tree of truth.
Please keep up the good work, I NEED you as my helper!
Now I do feel the need to complain a little. Since I’m the Trumpster, I think it’s only fair that YOU should post more links such as this one.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/ny-s-attorney-general-one-most-powerful-nation-should-worry-n985086
I guess these will be going out of fashion.
https://www.autozone.com/shop-and-garage-tools/oil-drain-pan/flotool-large-drip-tray/475418_0_0
NAOM
Heck no! They’ll make great urine collectors for fertilizing crops… 😉
Won’t last Fred, they rust out too fast.
I was thinking the non-biodegradable non rusting plastic ones that will still be around for another hundred years or so.
.
Another human faces reality:
Spring Equinox – 2019
https://questioneverything.typepad.com/question_everything/2019/03/spring-equinox-2019-climate-chaos-and-more.html
Yeah, I’ve been following George Mobus for many years!
I check in regularly—
He seems to be facing our “situation” realistically–
I bet most of the hiders will do themselves in shortly after the radio goes silent and the Geiger counter starts ticking. Nowhere to hide from global warming and/or nuclear radiation (followed by nuclear winter then greater heating).
Civilization will not go quietly into the darkness.
I should open up a post collapse old folks home.
Don’t forget to put a landing pad for one of these on the roof.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=Jterxus7V3g
Daniel Wiegand: LILIUM (WORLD.MINDS MOBILITY 2018)
Bigger plans to increase air travel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe6LR3bNRI0&t=242s
Future long-haul flights could take 30 minutes,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDEKjfnRhqQ
There goes the antarctic ice.
It seems Fred & I differ in terms of expected post collapse commuting options to and fro the old folks home.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqTA1BfBtNA
A look at how voters are more against things than they are for things, which may prevent any action other than to tear down the status quo.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/world/europe/brexit-theresa-may-democracy-chaos.html
For those interested in the beginning of the seasonal Greenland ice sheet melt
https://climatereanalyzer.org/wx_frames/gfs/ds/gfs_arc-lea_t2max_10-day.png
Perhaps there’ll be a rather early start this year?
It took just two summers for renewables to replace Hazelwood
In October 2016, Engie officially confirmed that it would close the Hazelwood Power Station and it would cease operating at the end of March 2017.
The announcement came after several years in which investment in renewable energy had largely collapsed – thanks to the Abbott government’s review of the renewable energy target. The few exceptions were a handful of projects supported by ARENA and the ACT (with the one noticeable exception being the White Rock Wind Farm).
While Hazelwood was despised by environmentalists as the most carbon polluting coal power station in Australia (and close to one of the worst in the world), it was very important to the National Electricity Market’s power supplies.
According to analysis prepared for the Australian Energy Market Operator, the lead time for developing and constructing a new coal-fired power station is around eight years. If we wanted to replace it with a new coal power station, we’d be waiting a very long time.
Yet it turns out that simultaneous with the announcement that Hazelwood would shut, the renewable energy sector experienced a dramatic and remarkable revival.
Over the space of just two summers since Hazelwood shut, both the amount of energy we lost since its closure and critically, also the capacity it provided during the peak summer demand period, have been replaced largely by wind and solar.
Who says a transition cannot happen very quickly? At least in some places it can!
Who says a transition cannot happen very quickly? At least in some places it can!
Only those who have an economic interest in prolonging the fossil fuel age. We know exactly who they are. And it can and should happen everywhere! Not just in a few select places.
At this point there is overwhelming evidence that a 100% transition to renewables is not only technically feasible with currently existing technology but it is also economically viable and already cost effective!
Case in point:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032118303307
Response to ‘Burden of proof: A comprehensive review of the feasibility of 100% renewable-electricity systems’
I have found that I can make a very powerful argument in favor of renewable energy on a face to face basis with a certain class of people who are generally fossil fuel fans.
These people have two things in common that make it possible for me to convert them into renewable energy fans.
First off, they are willing to consider what helps THEM, in terms of their own short to medium term bottom line.
Second, they do have a certain level of understanding of basic free market economics, and the application of this understanding to the renewable energy issue.
So here’s the deal. We currently subsidize renewables and electric cars, etc, to some degree. The question is whether the individual I’m targeting wins or loses as the result of paying his share of the tax money that pays the subsidies.
I maintain that he DOES, because his out of pocket for renewable energy subsidies is trivial, as an individual……… BUT
Renewable electricity is cutting sharply into the demand for coal and gas as generating fuel, and thus placing downward pressure on the price of both these commodities, and of any commodity manufactured using them…… such as nitrate fertilizers and steel. Gas to heat his home is cheaper, his new tractor or truck is a little cheaper.
It REALLY helps if the targeted individual knows about INELASTIC DEMAND, and farmers usually do….. when the crop is short, the gross farm income revenue is higher than when the crop is bountiful, because prices rise sharply during shortages, and crash during gluts. The prices of coal and gas are inelastic.
The same argument applies to oil. The more electric cars on the road, and electric trucks, the greater the downward pressure on the price of gasoline and diesel fuel.
Putting hard numbers on these arguments is a hard problem, it’s hard to find good figures, but the IDEA is enough to get otherwise conservative people to thinking positively about renewable electricity and electric cars and trucks.
Thanks Fred. A long read but excellent…
For those interested in electric power.
375 MVA Transformer – A quick look and energising
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQijX1DEp1k
April Fool’s Day brought a new method of stopping climate change. ??
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/extinction-rebellion-protesters-strip-off-in-house-of-commons-a4106521.html
Here’s two items from Venezuela
https://twitter.com/wellingmichael/status/1111779470371971073?s=21
https://twitter.com/vpitv/status/1104593488555978753?s=21
An article about the electric blackouts in Venezuela
https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2019/04/02/now-its-an-electric-coup/
(Why) Social Democracy Succeeded Where Capitalism Failed
The First Great Lesson of the 21st Century (and Why Countries That Don’t Learn it Are Collapsing)
https://eand.co/why-social-democracy-succeeded-and-capitalism-failed-2a5b5bfc1ae7
BTW two book recommendations:
Tyler Volk’s “Quarks to Culture: How We Came to Be
And:
E.O. Wilson’s Genesis: The Deep Origin of Societies
But if anyone wants to really understand the crossroads at which humanity stands just Google the word ‘Eusapient’ you will get zero hits! And Google will ask if you meant ‘Sapient’?
Then if you try the same search in Google Scholar you will quite ironically get ‘EU-sapient Project’.
Googling ‘Eusocial’ gives over a half million hits mostly referring to insects and zoology.
To come full circle you will need to read Tyler Volk’s “Quarks to Culture: How We Came to Be” to understand why the author of the essay I linked at the top of my post, while coming close, still doesn’t quite grasp what is really happening either.
Either that or at least watch his talk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvZckqJnC6E
At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home & our being, drive a spear into the land, & say to the bulldozers, earthmovers, government & corporations, “thus far & no farther.”
— Edward Abbey
OK, but I think we are way past that point! We need a completely different way of looking at our planet and how we interact with each other. Here’s a view of all the stuff that is orbiting our planet.
http://www.stuffin.space/
It includes satellites and space debris. The Indians just blew up one of their own defunct satellites to show off their prowess with missiles… they created more space debris which is now endangering the ISS! Way to go! This is just one more example of why stupid xenophobic nationalism won’t work when trying to address planetary problems.
Humanity now has only a very short window of opportunity to go from its toddler tribal stage, straight to a much wiser more globally interconnected responsible adulthood.
Yeah, good luck with that!
Yeah, good luck with that!
Fred GETS IT.
One of the biggest failings of reasonably well educated people, people who are at least acquainted with the bare bones of evolutionary theory, is that they don’t comprehend and understand that evolution only builds brakes into behavior when brakes add to fitness, when they add to greater reproductive success.
We eat till we get fat, if we can, because evolution programmed us this way. There’s HUGE survival value embedded in love handles and an overhanging belly, when winter hits, and food is short, or not to be had, unless you eat one of the other people shivering in the cave.
And while obesity is very bad for an individual LONG TERM, it seldom kills anybody who is relatively young, meaning young enough to have kids, so there’s not much in the way of brakes in terms of limiting the tendency to eat ( OVER EAT is a term derived from a judgement call, a moral judgement based, not on biological science but on religious and moral training, etc) and store as much precious fat as possible.
Now if being fat were to lead to men and women dying in their teens, twenties or thirties, in significant numbers, numbers greater than are saved from starvation, then there would be some reproductive pressure for brakes on the appetite.After a number of generations, the combinations of genes that lead to obesity would be gradually selected AGAINST, rather than FOR.
We have up until the last few hundred years never really had much cause to worry about using up the gifts of nature, because we simply couldn’t , except in terms of specific resources in specific places. We could exhaust the soil in a particular locality, or use up all the trees in a locality, or pollute a given stream, but there just weren’t that many of us around, and there was still plenty of land, plenty of fish, plenty of trees, etc.
The more of these things we used up, the greater our reproductive success, and by Sky Daddy we WENT OUT, and WE MULTIPLIED!
Now Mother Nature is like HONEY BADGER, who doesn’t give a shit. SHE doesn’t care if we thrive or perish, or if any other particular organism lives or perishes. SHE’S TOTALLY indifferent, SHE’S not even keeping score, except by way of the fossil record. If we survive for a while longer, we will leave more fossils for some other intelligent species to ponder, assuming another such species eventually evolves on this planet, or visits it.
If we don’t, there will be fewer of OUR fossils to be found. Nobody will give a shit, not even the rats,if they survive, unless they evolve intelligence enough to comprehend that they were so successful during our time because we so very conveniently provided them with plenty to eat, and plenty of places to hide, and transportation all over the world!
Some of us no doubt have read Twain’s little essay about a bug that happened to light on the very tip top of the Eiffel Tower, and sat there,pondering the nature of existence, concluding that the tower was put there, plus the Earth itself, just for it’s own benefit, just to provide it with a majestic perch from which to observe it’s kingdom!
Damn I can’t find that one right away, but here’s another that applies just as well.
“Man has been here 32,000 years. That it took a hundred million years to prepare the world for him is proof that that is what it was done for. I suppose it is. I dunno. If the Eiffel tower were now representing the world’s age, the skin of paint on the pinnacle-knob at its summit would represent man’s share of that age; and anybody would perceive that that skin what what the tower was built for. I reckon they would, I dunno.”
Twain was up on his science, but back during his days, we didn’t yet know that the Earth is billions instead of millions of years old.
“Now Mother Nature is like HONEY BADGER, who doesn’t give a shit. SHE doesn’t care if we thrive or perish, or if any other particular organism lives or perishes. SHE’S TOTALLY indifferent”
That is the most erroneous statement ever made and is being replicated across the planet in modern times to the detriment of all.
Mother Nature spent a billion years making you and all the other creatures as good as it gets. Nature provides us with all the abilities and strength we need to survive, thrive and raise young to continue on.
Nature provides us with air, water, food and materials to sustain us. It provides us with mothers to suckle us and protect us. Just because we have to grow up and take care of ourselves does not mean we are not being taken care of, just that mama is not around to hold our hands anymore. Time comes in all lives that they become independent and able to care for others.
We could not be more cared for. Not being coddled and fed by hand does not mean we are not provided for.
Not nature’s fault we decided to screw the system that was built so long and hard. Nor is it time to say nature does not care for us. More like time to say we don’t care for us or the rest of the world and it’s about time we did start caring, fast and hard.
If you don’t understand you are part of large and fantastic system that is supposed to work together and provides for each other, then I guess modern industrial civilization results and the system gets wrecked.
The sun feeds the world, the air, water and soil feed the grass, the caribou eat the grass and spreads fertilizer for the grass, the wolf eats some caribou, which keeps them fit, healthy and not overpopulated. The wolf tends the streams, the wolf spreads fertilizer for the plants that feed the caribou. When the wolf dies it fertilizes further for caribou.
The tree feeds the squirrel. The squirrel plants the trees.
It all works together.
We decided it does not, we decided nature should serve us and we were above nature. We are the great decision makers.
The truth will soon smack us in the head. It’s already kicking us in the balls.
People are the result of billions of generations of living creatures struggling, many successful, many not in the long term. We are the end result of all that struggle, all that effort, all that luck. We should at least act as if we respect that heritage and not throw it away so easily.
First Life with David Attenborough
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlZOCGhQoQ4&t=4339s
GF,
I don’t have the foggiest idea what you’re smoking, but I want some of it.
You’re talking like a priest.
I’m personally as aware of the nature of nature, of the interdependence of all living things on all other living things as anybody, period, and I fully understand that WE, collectively, are fucking up the ENTIRE SHOW for all living things……. well, maybe not ALL things….. The microbes in rocks a kilometer or two and farther down are apparently safe from us, lol, except in the handful of places we drill deep oil wells or tunnel deep in search of gold, etc.
There’s NO SENTIENT BEING in charge, designing nature to provide a place for us…… the very idea is straight up religious bullshit.. I’ve been hearing it since I was about three years or four years old…. sooner, actually, but I was that old before it started making an impression on me.
Of course the preacher at our family church talked about God and Jesus, rather than MOTHER NATURE, but it’s all the same basic sermon, only the names have been changed.
It occurs to me that this is what pedagogues refer to as a teachable moment.
Anybody who thinks about this conversation, and takes GF’s side of it to heart, even though he does not take it LITERALLY ( We could not be more cared for. !!!!!!) may want to give some thought to why religions are so persistent, why they obviously ( not so much these days as in the past) benefit their adherents in terms of successful reproduction, which is the ONLY standard, the gold standard, by which impartial and indifferent nature ” keeps score”.
We have Medicare now, and Social Security, and food stamps, and social workers, and churches as a consequence are not so powerful or so useful as they once were………. but no more than a couple of generations back, churches WERE the social safety net, in many communities, by and large. They existed BECAUSE they got things done…. because they conferred FITNESS on their followers.
Portraying nature as the life giver, the ultimate mother, is a very effective technique with which to manipulate people…….. even people who possess doctorates in the hard sciences.
I’m not opposed to using this technique to help muster political support for politicians that hopefully will pursue such policies as are in our collective enlightened best self interest……. such as clean air and water laws, more renewable energy, etc.
I’m actually all in favor of it, because it WORKS…….. but I will not call it anything other than what it is…a method of manipulating people via their emotions, rather than their intellect.
Yeah, I’m of the mind that the universe has no opinion about Earth or life on it. Enough events came together to create life on Earth, and then intelligent life on Earth, but in the cosmic scheme of things, life on Earth, Earth itself, the Sun, etc. will be gone.
I want to prolong life on Earth as long as possible, and I am distressed about the extent to which we are trashing Earth, but I don’t see a grand plan created by Mother Nature. I think it is possible to limit our impact so that we don’t destroy everything, but as far as the universe is concerned, if we kill off life on Earth, it is of no consequence. We’re just another expendable life form.
So you jumped from my saying that nature provides all the “services” we need, our inate abilities and it all works together to some interpretation of Gaia?
Do you think the oxygen is provided by Air Products or from the plants that are supported by the sunlight, the air, water, etc?
Definition of care:
the provision of what is necessary for the health, welfare, maintenance, and protection of someone or something.
Nothing religious or even emotional about that.
I’m not sure if you addressing your comment to me, but I’m not sure I even agree that Earth is a closed system. If we get slammed by a huge asteroid, or if there is a massive volcanic eruption, life as we know it will likely be disrupted.
I think Homo Sapiens are doing a poor job of planning for the future, and that really distresses me. But I’m not sure that we can assume that we might be immune to natural or cosmic disasters. That’s no reason not to treat Earth like a closed ecological system, but if we step back far enough in time and space, we aren’t.
Apparently I am not communicating. Earth can in no way be a closed system, it is fed energy by the sun and loses energy to space.
Sure, if a super volcano went off the disturbance would be worldwide. Smaller volcanoes like Pinatubo barely counteract global warming for a short time. In the long run all volcanic activity increases global warming.
As far as asteroids/comets, we are always a target. Last good set of probably comet debris struck about 12,000 years ago and rewrote the life in North America.
In general though we get very few planet killers, just regional ones.
The famous meteor crater in northern Arizona, some 1219 meters (4,000 feet) in diameter and 183 meters (600 feet) deep, was created 50,000 years ago by a nickel-iron meteorite perhaps 60 meters in diameter. It probably survived nearly intact until impact, at which time it was pulverized and largely vaporized as its 6-7 x 1016 joules* of kinetic energy were rapidly dissipated in an explosion equivalent to some 15 million tons of TNT! Falls of this class occur once or twice every 1000 years.
https://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/sl9/back2.html
A similar impact today would have a decent probability of causing major death and destruction to humans, since we cover much of the earth now.
We can’t detect smaller asteroids yet. In fact the cutoff point is larger and we can’t see ones coming in from the sun side.
Since 2015, observers discovered more than 1500 previously unknown NEOs each year (over 2000 in 2017). Roughly half of the known catalogue of NEOs are objects larger than about 460 feet (140 meters) in size. The estimated population of NEOs of this size is about 25,000. Current surveys are finding NEOs of this size at a rate of about 500 per year.
The 460-foot cutoff point was established by a NASA NEO survey science definition team (SDT) in 2003 and reaffirmed in 2017. The SDT determined that impacts from objects of that size would only produce regional effects, while larger objects would have corresponding wider effects such as large sub-global effects from impacts of a 984-foot (300-meter) object and global effects from 0.6 mile (1-kilometer) object impacts.
https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/faq
So we are currently unable to observe objects that could wipe out an area 100 miles in diameter.
“I don’t have the foggiest idea what you’re smoking, but I want some of it.
You’re talking like a priest.”
“Portraying nature as the life giver, the ultimate mother, is a very effective technique with which to manipulate people…….. even people who possess doctorates in the hard sciences”
” but I will not call it anything other than what it is…a method of manipulating people via their emotions, rather than their intellect.:”
So I say that nature provides everything we need including our own abilities and the system works together then you insult me, twist my meaning and words. Devious and dastardly methods. Or you have no comprehension of what I was saying (more likely).
You can call me a manipulator or a drugged up liar (priest) but the truth and reality will not change. The world works and provides. Humans just suck at being a part of it and think they are superior even though they are quite inferior and proving it every day.
So my turn now:
Hey Bonehead, you think the food on this planet doesn’t come from plants, the energy from the sun, the water from the rain, the oxygen from the plants, your genetic material from the original slime, your God-given abilities from your ancestors (maybe you are an alien?)? It’s all there provided by nature. You are dependent upon it and it’s given freely. You did not invent your own genes (or even your jeans), they were handed down from a long line going way back into the primordial slime.
I think you are very confused as to how things actually work because you are so into yourself and propagandized by the current culture of superior man.
But reality is catching up to us fast and the superior human will be just another animal soon, even in his own mind.
I don’t think you will understand, so don’t spend any time on thinking about it.
If I stepped on your religion, oh well. God will help you feel superior again. For a while at least.
“Hey Bonehead”
California adopts new wetlands rules to protect them from Trump rollbacks
California regulators voted Tuesday to strengthen state safeguards for thousands of wetlands and streams that are about to lose federal protections in a Trump administration rollback of the Clean Water Act.
Nearly 90 percent of California’s historic wetlands have been filled in or plowed under, and the state has said it is vital to preserve what remains.
The new state rules will insulate California from Washington’s efforts to drop regulations that prevent the destruction of isolated wetlands and seasonal streams.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/california-adopts-new-wetlands-rules-to-protect-them-from-trump-rollbacks/ar-BBVyk0N?ocid=spartanntp
“It’s all there provided by nature. You did not invent your own”
Wetlands Loss Since the Revolution
“Additionally, the status of wetlands
in the United States is constantly changing. It is estimated that, on average, over 60 acres of wetlands have been lost every hour in the lower 48 states during this 200-year timespan.”
https://www.fws.gov/wetlands/Documents%5CWetlands-Loss-Since-the-Revolution.pdf
@OFM
What you are referring to is known as the ‘thrifty gene hypothesis’. It fell into disrepute quite a while ago due to lack of consistent and well researched evidence.
Sorry but it piques me when I see popular notions bandied about which have little to back them up.
Humanity now has only a very short window of opportunity to go from its toddler tribal stage, straight to a much wiser more globally interconnected responsible adulthood.
Sorry- that is in the rear view mirror.
Globally, anthropogenic emission of methane is about 400 million tons/year or 60 gigatons CO2e. Thirty-three percent of that is from natural gas, coal and oil.
The trees were logged and milled, parts of the estuary were mined for gravel, rock walls were built to stop erosion, and a straight channel, in use to this day, was dug so the river no longer wound through the estuary, shifting course with the seasons. All that meant fewer insects and that meant weak and hungry barn swallows, now susceptible to the larvae of the blowfly. One by one, the nesting pairs slipped away over decades, Dawe says. “When I left there were none.”
They’re among more 30 B.C. birds known to be in decline, including the iconic Great Blue Heron (1.7% per year), the Rufous Hummingbird (1.91%), the beautiful killdeer (3.8%), the American Goldfinch (4.85%) and so on. Forty-five of the 57 coastal waterbirds using the Strait of Georgia were in decline between 1999 and 2011, including the Brant sea goose (4.7% per year), Greater Yellowlegs (10.5%) and Western Grebe (16.4%).
But it isn’t just birds. …
https://www.farmlandbirds.net/content/wildlife-biologist-neil-dawe-says-he-wouldnt-be-surprised-if-generation-after-him-witnesses-
We are converting nature into people and products at a high rate of speed, so nature is now collapsing around us.
It may well be that all the positive news will amount only to “too little too late” but I remain hopeful that at least a fairly substantial portion of humanity can escape the built in crash heading our way, and continue to enjoy the fruits of industrial civilization….. on a sustainable basis.
Here’s another piece of VERY encouraging news which I have not seen mentioned here in this forum.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/europe-stores-electricity-in-gas-pipes/
The article is VERY well written, as you expect at the Scientific American, but it fails to mention one fact that should imo have been included…… the VALUE of the oxygen generated as a “by product ” of electrolyzing water to generate free hydrogen. Purified oxygen is a VERY valuable commodity, although there may not be much market for it in the potential quantities involved in producing hydrogen on the grand scale. On the other hand, business men can probably find plenty of use for pure oxygen in such quantities at a cheap price.
The first thing that occurs to me is that it could be fed right into a gas turbine, or blast furnace, or kitchen range for that matter, designed to accept it. Adding separate distribution facilities for home use would be out of the question, too expensive…… but an industrial facility that uses pure O2 could be built right next to an electrolyzer, avoiding distribution costs altogether.
Such articles also generally fail to mention that peak electricity demand can be reduced quite a bit by mandating highly efficient appliances such as hot water heaters, which can be turned off without a problem during peaks, and can be turned on and brought up to whatever heat is deemed safe during periods of surplus renewable electricity production.
I keep mine set at about one thirty F but I could add a gizmo called a tempering valve, and set the thermostat at one sixty or even one seventy… which would mean I could store a few kilowatt hours of surplus renewable juice in the form of extra hot water at a one time cost of less than hundred bucks, by installing this device myself.
Another Whale Has Washed Up Dead With Plastic Packing Its Stomach
A sperm whale found off the coast of Sardinia, Italy, was pregnant and carrying 49 pounds of plastic
“We’ve used the ‘comfort’ of disposable objects in a lighthearted way in the past years and now we are paying the consequences. Indeed the animals, above all, are the ones paying them,”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/plastic-dead-pregnant-whale_n_5ca224bde4b0fb341d6030c4
https://mashable.com/article/arctic-sea-ice-maximium-2019-low/#cdxT69_Tsaq7
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/02/sunpower-named-top-us-commercial-solar-provider-in-2018-among-top-solar-manufacturers/
The naysayers are going to be choking on their words to an ever greater extent once today’s best panels, four hundred watts, are common place. The production of a given small installation will have more or less doubled over the last ten years with them, and given that labor and installation materials are now and have been the bulk of the cost for years……
When the price of four hundred watt panels eventually falls to the price of current day two hundred watt panels……. the cost of home grown juice will be less than the cost of grid sourced juice for many tens of millions of people right here in the USA, and Republicans will forget about trying to kill the industry, and switch to bragging about American know how and ingenuity.
While I’m sure the price of PV panels will continue to go down, while their efficiency will continue to improve, I’m even more excited about a slightly less high tech solution for energy storage!
https://anu.prezly.com/anu-finds-530000-potential-pumped-hydro-sites-worldwide-223526#
ANU finds 530,000 potential pumped-hydro sites worldwide
The Australian National University (ANU) has completed a global audit of 530,000 potential sites for pumped-hydro energy storage that can be used to support low-cost, secure, 100 per cent renewable electricity grids.
The zero-emission grids would mainly rely on solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind technology, with support from pumped-hydro storage and extra high voltage transmission between regions. Solar PV and wind constitute the largest and second largest respectively annual global net capacity additions.
Note to anyone still betting on fossil fuels and especially nuclear, as a means of producing energy, you have already lost that bet!
.
The Commission has authorized a total of 24 pumped storage projects that are constructed and in operation, with a total installed capacity of over 16,500 megawatts. Most of these projects were authorized more than 30 years ago.
Recent Developments at FERC
The Commission has seen an increase in the number of preliminary permit and license applications filed for pumped storage projects. Since the beginning of 2014, the Commission has issued licenses for three proposed pumped storage projects. .
https://www.ferc.gov/industries/hydropower/gen-info/licensing/pump-storage.asp
Here is a good example on what warming can do to a landscape.
This big island is a prime permafrost laboratory, and when its warm the land destabilizes and slumps ( a type of landslide).
Video 1/2 way down is worth watching-
https://phys.org/news/2019-04-slippery-slope-climate-reshaping-arctic.html
LOL!
MAGA with RETROGRESSIVE THAW SLUMPS
I think that would make a great GOP campaign slogan for 2020 to counteract AOC’s Green New Deal!
The North Is Melting – Here Are All The Records Broken by Alaska’s Weather Last Month
https://www.sciencealert.com/alaska-s-weather-just-keeps-breaking-so-many-records-it-s-getting-hard-to-keep-track
Arctic still over 6C (6.8C) above normal.
OMG! Bob’s Blue Blob has invaded Canada!
Yeah, but the Republicans have now taken over the Arctic. 🙂
Or is it the communists?
Share of electricity capacity additions in the United States from 2010 to 2018, by resource
https://www.statista.com/statistics/525735/share-of-us-electricity-capacity-additions-by-resource/
A few small points of melt in Greenland today.
http://nsidc.org/greenland-today/
Looks like it’ll continue for a bit.
https://climatereanalyzer.org/wx/fcst_outlook/
Just a week or so ago, NASA reported Greenland ice was growing again. I know because I saw it on the news with my own eyes, here are a couple of the reports.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cher6x-9qfg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxwimuCVhow
You have not read this open thread, the subject has been covered.
http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-march-21-2019/#comment-671954
NAOM
I mostly just skim the threads, there’s more content than I can read, or want to read.
Did your parents have any children that lived?
But you bother to troll. About time you read some of this then you would have seen the original posts.
NAOM
Yipee! Upon careful examination they have found two firing synapses in your brain! That’s fantastic news! Unfortunately the rest of your brain is completely dead!
And that, in case you missed the point, is analogous to morons like you crowing about the fact that there is one glacier somewhere that is still growing growing while we know that the vast majority of them all over the world are shrinking!
As for your idiotic comment above:
I mostly just skim the threads, there’s more content than I can read, or want to read.
At the very least it would behoove you to use the search function and read pertinent posts to the topic you are commenting on.
Maybe your precious time would be better spent elsewhere!
Edit:
Watts Up is currently featuring a piece about the Little Ice Age.
I’m sure their little village is missing you dearly, so please don’t keep them waiting!
Did you even listen to the youtube accuweather video? “However the glacier is losing more ice to the ocean than the ice it is accumulating.” So even that one glacier is not gaining mass.
The other video is a conservative propaganda channel.
Now we know all 100 glaciers on Greenland are losing mass.
The melt has just started for this year.
Greenland loses 286 gigatons of ice per year on average, but we are just at the beginning of the melt period which could go on for centuries. As the earth warms further warm Atlantic waters and air will melt the ice sheet causing it to lose altitude and become even warmer, implying an increasing loss over time.
The ice sheet does not exist at 3C above preindustrial global temperatures according to paleontological records. We are now about 1.4C above preindustrial and heading higher in global temperature.
Dan,
If 7 glaciers grow, and 93 shrink… it shows a trend.
But I guess you will just hear what you want to.
More convenient that way.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/chem/surface/level/overlay=cosc/orthographic=-252.02,61.84,1002
This site is good for finding the first forest fires of the season… look at the Chem- COsc. If it’s a remote Siberian location with a high COsc it’s likely a fire.
For those wanting a greater understanding on how atmospheric methane concentrations, rates and sources are determined. Note there are major exceptions in the calculations including lack of inclusion of permafrost and methane hydrate in future values and low tau value not considering changes to the hydroxyl radical.
Anthropogenic Changes in Atmospheric Methane Concentration
http://www.geo.cornell.edu/eas/PeoplePlaces/Faculty/cathles/Gas%20Blog%20PDFs/9CH4c%20Methane%20Emissions.pdf
Spring Outlook: Historic, widespread flooding to continue through May
Nearly two-thirds of the Lower 48 states face an elevated risk for flooding through May, with the potential for major or moderate flooding in 25 states, according to NOAA’s U.S. Spring Outlook issued today. The majority of the country is favored to experience above-average precipitation this spring, increasing the flood risk.
https://www.noaa.gov/media-release/spring-outlook-historic-widespread-flooding-to-continue-through-may
BUT! BUT! It’s only a computer model right?!
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2019/04/first-successful-model-simulation-of-the-past-3-million-years-of-climate-change/
…Likewise, our results indicate that the current CO2 concentration of ~410 ppm is unprecedented over the past 3 million years. The climate sensitivity of the model is around 3°C global warming for a doubling of CO2 concentration, which is at the center of the range of current best estimates of climate sensitivity that range between 1.5 and 4.5°C. It is possible that the real climate sensitivity is lower than 3°C, in which case the modelled CO2 concentration needed to fit the oxygen isotope record during the early Quaternary would be higher than in the present model simulations, but it would still be unlikely to exceed the present day value. In the context of future climate change, our results imply that a failure to significantly reduce CO2 emissions to comply with the Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming well below 2°C will not only bring Earth’s climate away from Holocene-like conditions, but also push it beyond climatic conditions experienced during the entire current geological period.
Link to referenced paper:
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/4/eaav7337
It’s nice that they may be able to model the climate but correlation does not imply causation. If one examines the previous glaciations between the Eemian (as denoted by very high insolation at 65N due to orbital changes) and the Holocene, one sees three peak insolation times and four corresponding minima. These will correspond to the advances and retreats of the ice cap during the so called last glaciation. The periods are about 40,000 years. At times the ice retreated almost to the Arctic ocean.
The ice cap was not stable at all as claimed by the paper. The so called 100,000 year period is just a marking of the largest swings in northern insolation, with other swings in insolation in between with their own advances and retreats of ice.
I am not convinced of their their reasoning for the supposed stability (that is actually unstable and follows the orbital driven insolation) of the ice sheets.
CO2 and methane levels are generally followers of global temperature changes except in the case of extreme long term volcanism (which humans are trying to model now) where CO2 buildup occurs due to emissions.
The Last Ice Age (120 000 years ago to Modern)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USIAcXfv39k
Not so stable between the Eemian and Holocene max is it?
Yeah, I agree. As I think by now you are probably aware, I’m an RCP10.0 kinda guy 😉
Not long to wait now, the variations are changing frequencies and amplitudes. System jump ahead.
New EPM post is up.
http://peakoilbarrel.com/eias-electric-power-monthly-march-2019-edition-with-data-for-january-2019/
also Open Thread Petroleum
http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-petroleum-april-4-2019/