Nissan celebrates a tremendous achievement of selling 136,324 Note cars in Japan last year, which put the model on the top of all models, ahead of Toyota Aqua (126,561), Toyota Prius (115,462) and Nissan Serena minivan (99,865). For comparison, the Nissan LEAF was #35 at 25,722.
We would normally not bother, but both Nissans – Note and Serena – are offered in conventional and a special, series-hybrid version called e-POWER (without plug-in capability).
As it turns out, 70% of all Note sales in 2018 were Note e-Power, which would translate to over 95,000. Since the introduction of Note e-POWER in November 2016, Nissan already sold over 200,000 of those!
I have posted this here because I think it is a noteworthy (pun intended) development that, up until I saw this article, seemed to have been completely under the radar! AFAIK this is the first series hybrid from a major manufacturer outside of the BMW i3. However unlike the BMW, which is an EV with a reasonably sized battery (22 kWh), a 25 kW 647 cc, two-cylinder generator and a 9 L (2.4 US gal.) fuel tank, the e-Power has a 1.5 kWh battery pack (1/20 the size of it’s all electric stable mate, the Leaf), a 1.2 L three cylinder gasoline generator and 41 L (11 gal.) tank and no plug-in capability. Apparently the e-Power system uses the same electric motor as the Leaf but, it is de-tuned to produce 40kW, exactly half as potency of the Leaf’s system.
There has been some debate, particularly when the Chevrolet Volt was being developed, about whether a series hybrid EV would make sense, the point being that running the ICE as a generator to provide power to the electric motor would be less efficient than a mechanical transmission at highway speeds. Nissan appears to have developed this system with optimization for urban, low speed, stop and go driving. The result is fuel consumption figures of more than 60 mpg, possibly over 80 mpg, allowing up to 850 miles on a single tank of gas! With this car they appear to have achieved what GM did not achieve with the Volt or Toyota with the Prius, a series hybrid that is significantly more fuel efficient than it’s parallel hybrid counterparts.
I am surprised that Nissan has managed to introduce this car in Japan and sell over 200 thousand of them in a little over two years without much notice from the automotive press. It certainly shows what can be achieved with a little effort. On a web site offering new Japan domestic market cars for export, a 2019, Note e-Power was listed at $22,800, exactly $6,000 more than the non e-power variant so, despite costing almost 36% more, 70% of Note sales are the e-Power variant. I think that this type of vehicle could prove very popular in urban and suburban areas all over the world as a commuter car. For long distance highway cruising, not so much, even though it still appears to return fuel consumption figures as good as or better than is pure ICE powered counterpart. This could eventually be a game changer.
Below are links to a November 2016 review of the car and a September 2018 review of the 4WD version by an American living in Japan:
Here’s something a bit new: … increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are affecting the nutritional composition of staples such as rice and wheat.
Yep! I have posted numerous links on this very topic in the past. Especially when encountering denialist posts about how CO2 is such a great plant food 😉
I believe this is going to turn out to be a rather serious issue in the future!
Increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide:
Anticipated negative effects on food quality
Cheers!
I call that stumbling over gold nuggets to pick up pennies. I could see higher CO2 levels negatively affecting animals from elephants down to bacteria. But plants? Are you serious.??
CO2 is plant nutrition. If the mineral or vitamin content in a plant is to low than something should be done to increase those levels instead of fussing over the CO2 level.
And BTW Adequate levels of CO2 is critical for photosynthesis/production of sugar to reach its potential. The more sugar a plant produces above its basic needs, the more sugars that it will send down into the soil to feed the microbes. When they eat sugar they are then forced to extract minerals from the soil to balance out all the sugar in their diet. When these microbes die or are eaten and pooped out by bigger predators they then supply the plant with bioavailable minerals etc.
So one of the most important/leveraged things that a farmer or environmentalist can do to increase biological function, carbon sequestration, water infiltration rates and water holding capacity, and topsoil formation is to ensure that the plants have access to adequate nutrients to maximize the photosynthetic capacity of the plants in their control. These nutrients include water and sunlight. magnesium and nitrogen for chlorophyl. Iron to increase the spectrum of light that can produce sugar. Manganese to make it all happen, and last but not least CO2 which can often be the weakest link, especially when the plants are otherwise photosynthesizing at a good rate. That is why many greenhouses supply it by artificial means and at very high rates.
I could see higher CO2 levels negatively affecting animals from elephants down to bacteria. But plants? Are you serious.??
Yep! I’m dead serious no pun intended! That’s what current scientific research is telling us. I’m sorry you don’t like reality but whether you do or not, doesn’t change it!
Too much CO2 is bad for the nutrient quality of most of our food crops such as rice!
Or maybe just religion dressed as science. Similar to the pseudo science coming out of our Ag programs that advising farmers to apply 1 unit of N for every bushel of corn he/she intends to produce? When some farmers use little or none and still out produce their neighbors. Or recommendations to use GMOs neonic and fungicide seed treatment, ad nauseum, all dressed up as science.
Just keep an eye out for bias, even in science.
“Or maybe just religion dressed as science. Similar to the pseudo science coming out of our Ag programs that advising farmers to apply 1 unit of N for every bushel of corn he/she intends to produce?”
Why do you not make a internet search first? At the moment you insult people with your uneducated opinion. People, who have done actual experiments, i.e. who have worked in contrast to you.
Rising carbon dioxide and invasive, noxious plants: potential threats and consequences
“Because current levels of atmospheric CO2 are less than optimal for plant growth, recent and projected increases in this …. constitutes a noxious weed (e.g., kudzu, Table I). Nomenclature aside, the impact of this …”
I’ll add to that , CO2 increases some crops growth but, at the same time, reduce the yield of the food part. I.e. more waste plant, less food.
NAOM
NAOM So if you disagree you just start making things up?
No, I am not making things up. You have just posted a link to CO2 use in greenhouses where it is of benefit to some crops. In other trials yield of field crops has been reduced or plant growth increased without gain of yield (requiring more fertilizer for the same yield too). I would provide a link but it is flooded out by the ‘CO2 is plant food’ crap and I can’t be bothered to wade through that smelly stuff for you. So, quit throwing insults and do your research properly.
NAOM
Farmlad MAY actually think he knows what he’s talking about, but the odds are much higher that he’s just a troll.
To me he sounds as if he has been listening to some Koch brothers type guys who cherry pick the literature and use their pickings to brainwash people who are inclined to believe in Trump and company.
This is OFM talking, and it’s no accident I chose OFM as my handle. I put four years in getting my ag degree, back in the dark ages, and have taken enough course since then, in order to keep up, to total up to another degree as well.
More CO2 IS good for certain plants, and IS used to accelerate the growth of some crops in greenhouses, true enough.
But Fred and Ulenspiegel and the other regulars are right.In terms of the big picture, more atmospheric CO2 is bad news for farmers as well as just about everybody else.
OFM I have plenty of respect for you and have enjoyed many of your long comments over the last 4 years or so. First off. Nowhere Do I say that higher Atmospheric CO2 is good for farmers or crops. But plants do require adequate levels of CO2 and sometimes that is the limiting factor in photosynthesis. The practical way to address that is to grow copious amounts of root and plant biomass in the prior growing season so that it is decomposing and giving off CO2 at the time that the crop is photosynthesizing at a high rate. That is why we should not be spreading nitrogen in the fall and doing fall tillage unless we still have time to establish a cover crop.
If you mistake me for a Koch supporter then there has been some terrible miscommunication.
Well, you used the term “virtue signalling”. There are several problems with that.
First, it’s mostly used by conservatives to attack ideas they don’t like.
2nd, and most important, it’s an ad hominem, which by definition is a “troll” behavior.
3rd, it’s kind’ve meaningless:
“A criticism of accusing another person of virtue signalling is that in doing so, ironically, one is, as Jane Coaston in the New York Times notes; “trying to signal something about their own values: that they are pragmatic, appropriately cynical, in touch with the painful facts of everyday life.”[17] David Shariatmadari in the Guardian argues that this makes it “indistinguishable from the thing it was designed to call out [reproach]: smug posturing from a position of self-appointed authority.”[2] Sam Bowman says of this that “saying virtue signalling is hypocritical. It’s often used to try to show that the accuser is above virtue signalling and that their own arguments really are sincere. Of course, this is really just another example of virtue signalling!”[4]”
Are you aware that humans can die from too much exposure to oxygen?
But oxygen is just human cell food! Without it humans can’t produce sufficient adenosine triphosphate!
If the air surrounding you was pure oxygen you would run into neurological difficulties after a few days or less, leading to blindness, convulsions and, eventually, death. Many preme babies require 100% oxygen to be able to breath – then go blind.
NAOM
The Apollo space craft had pure oxygen atmospheres at a pressure of 5 psi. That’s higher than the partial pressure in Earth’s atmosphere. What causes the neurological damage to babies?
I’ll give you 3 links, the first an example, second a reference from it and 3rd some information on the other effects and concentrations. The pressure on Apollo was reduced to 5 psi partly to avoid issues with toxicity, I can’t remember the exact max time for breathing pure oxygen at 1 atm (Fred might). 5 psi was a compromise between oxygen at the partial pressure of 3.1 psi and sufficient pressure to avoid problems from low pressure. The problem is partial pressure rather than concentration.
The problem is partial pressure rather than concentration.
Yeah, as NAOM said, it is about the partial pressure. When I worked as a saturation diver at depths of up to 500 ft. our typical working breathing mixture was 13% O2 and 87% He.
Why does breathing pure oxygen kill you?
We need oxygen to live, yet there’s always too much of a good thing. Pure oxygen can be deadly.
By Luis Villazon
Our blood has evolved to capture the oxygen we breathe in and bind it safely to the transport molecule called haemoglobin. If you breathe air with a much higher than normal O2 concentration, the oxygen in the lungs overwhelms the blood’s ability to carry it away.
The result is that free oxygen binds to the surface proteins of the lungs, interferes with the operation of the central nervous system and also attacks the retina.
Contrary to popular myth, hyperventilating air at ordinary pressures never causes oxygen toxicity (the dizziness is due to CO2 levels dropping too low), but breathing oxygen at pressures of 0.5 bar or more (roughly two and a half times normal) for more than 16 hours can lead to irreversible lung damage and, eventually, death.
What happens is that iron in the heme group of your hemoglobin becomes oxidized in a high O2 partial pressure environment… Imagine all your red blood cells getting rusty 😉
Cheers!
“If the air surrounding you was pure oxygen you would run into neurological difficulties after a few days or less,”
Also lung damage…
Oxygen toxicity
Evidence of decline in lung function as measured by pulmonary function testing can occur as quickly as 24 hours of continuous exposure to 100% oxygen,[35] with evidence of diffuse alveolar damage and the onset of acute respiratory distress syndrome usually occurring after 48 hours on 100% oxygen.[34] Breathing 100% oxygen also eventually leads to collapse of the alveoli (atelectasis), while—at the same partial pressure of oxygen—the presence of significant partial pressures of inert gases, typically nitrogen, will prevent this effect.[37]
Preterm newborns are known to be at higher risk for bronchopulmonary dysplasia with extended exposure to high concentrations of oxygen.[38] Other groups at higher risk for oxygen toxicity are patients on mechanical ventilation with exposure to levels of oxygen greater than 50%, and patients exposed to chemicals that increase risk for oxygen toxicity such the chemotherapeutic agent bleomycin.[35] Therefore, current guidelines for patients on mechanical ventilation in intensive care recommends keeping oxygen concentration less than 60%.[34]
Rat made his living by running ventilators. We wanted to keep the O2 below 50%, but we’d go as high as necessary to keep the blood oxygenated. We would use a technique called PEEP, positive end expiratory pressure, to open alveoli (air sacs) for better oxygenation. We kept the lung pressure above atmospheric at the end of expiration, sort of like inflating a balloon.
We’d also try to control CO2, but I would say mostly to control the pH of the blood. Normal blood pH is 7.35-7.45, and increasing CO2 levels would cause acidosis. We would increase the minute ventilation, the amount the patient breathed in a minute, by either increasing the volume of the breath, or the number of breaths/ minute, or both, to blow off CO2. Sorta like geoengineering (bioengineering) the body’s atmosphere and oceans.
Interesting Warf, I had to learn for my Nitrox course then, as well, taking into account snorkeling and shallow water blackout, plenty of ways to get you if you don’t follow the rules.
NAOM
Hmmm… Shallow water blackout, there’s a dissertation on that topic alone. We shall leave it for another day. 😉
It’s fun teasing snorkelers.
It’s fun teasing snorkelers.
Ehem! While it may be OK to tease snorklers, I think what you were referring to is the sport of free diving, which is something else again… 😉
Even when I was in my prime I could maybe do 20 m and a bottom time of about three and half minutes. One of my star pupils, an extraordinary young lady far surpassed me in short order…
My instructor used to win his beer money by taking bets on how long he could stay down in the tank. I had a few tricks when free diving to wind the snorkelers, from the day-tour boats, up. Got to have fun with the tourists 😉
NAOM
Who needs Wikipedia with this bunch answering questions?
Thanks, guys.
This is the smartest bunch of chatter on the internet I suspect (um..some exceptions)
The pressure of CO2 on Mars is much higher than on earth, maybe we should farm Mars.
GoneFishing,
The partial pressure of CO2 (in percent) on Mars is higher than on Earth.
For all: The part of the total pressure of the atmosphere (in percent) that is due to CO2 is much higher on Mars than it is on Earth. That’s because Mars’ atmosphere is almost entirely CO2. There is very little of that atmosphere, though, so the actual pressure exerted by CO2 there is quite small. Now that I think about it, though, I don’t know how the total amount of atmospheric CO2 compares between Mars and Earth, and that could be what GoneFishing is referring to. Or maybe I just gave GF an out.
Rats.
Well y’all, now you know what partial pressure means (weak smile.)
Well y’all, now you know what partial pressure means (weak smile.)
Here’s how you calculate the partial pressure of CO2 at 1 atm on planet earth.
How would you calculate the partial pressure of CO2, given an atmospheric pressure of 760 mm Hg and a 0.04% concentration?
Chemistry Gases Partial Pressure
The actual calculation being:
Carbon dioxide’s partial pressure in air will thus be
PCO2 = 0.00004 X 760 mmHg = 0.304 mmHg
Rounded to one sig fig, the number of sig figs you have for the percent composition of CO2
0.3 mmHg
EXTRA CREDIT:
Look up the concentration of CO2 and the atmospheric pressure on Mars and calculate PCO2 for Mars and then compare it to PCO2 for earth. 😉
Cheers!
Synapsid, Mars atmospheric pressure is .087 psi compared to Earth at 14.7 psi. Mars atmosphere is 95% CO2, therefore pressure of CO2 on Mars is more than 10 times partial pressure of CO2 here. Plants should do great on Mars, think of 50 foot tall tomato plants. :-0
BTW, I was being a bit sarcastic playing on the increased CO2 makes plants grow more. They should grow a lot better on Mars, right? Of course the extreme low temperatures, weaker sunlight, arid conditions, dead toxic soil might have some minor effects on the growth, but the extra CO2 should take care of that. 🙂
Enough simple minded fun on this subject.
GoneFishing,
Yep, pretty much what I said. Toward the end, there. Sort of.
A little more background on circular economics concepts from the Disruptive Innovation Festival.
Disruptive Innovation Festival – DIF
Published on Nov 15, 2018 Imagine if we built an economic system built on abundance rather than scarcity. Taking advantage of the latest digital tools, computational power, material science, biomimicry and a somewhat older idea – the commons – this new system could have the power to transform how we live and work. System Reset is a feature-length documentary which explores this story of change in our economy.
Shot in London, Amsterdam and Barcelona, this film is a DIF 2018 exclusive. It features some of the leading thinkers in materials, economics, the commons movement, FabLabs, digital citizenship, urban planning and architecture. Don’t miss your opportunity to see them collectively weave a picture of how our economy could operate.
These are the kinds of people people and the thinking we need as an antidote to neo-classical economic thinking, Trumpism and Brexit style head in the sand nationalism and populism!
“A study released Monday shows for the first time that more than 16,000 desalination plants scattered across the globe produce more briny toxic sludge than fresh water.
For every litre of fresh water extracted, a litre-and-a-half of salty, chemical-laden sludge called brine is dumped—in most cases—into the ocean.
That’s enough to cover the state of Florida in a 30-centimetre (one-foot) layer of slime.”
Another example of neo-classical thinking—-
As a practical matter, we pretty much have to do what we have to do in order to keep the wheels turning short to medium term……
So…….. It appears that the problem at least in coastal areas is mostly about dumping the sludge into near shore shallow waters, or into estuaries or bays etc where circulation to dilute the concentration is poor or absent.
But there are lots of desal plants located inland, which necessarily use somewhat salty water locally present as feed stock, and necessarily have to get rid of their brine by product locally.
So far as I can see, if concentrated brine is piped well out to sea and dispersed into moving deep water, it ought not be a BIG problem, since it will be mixed with vast quantities of normal brine aka seawater.
Looking at this as a long term issue, the only real solution that immediately comes to mind is that we’re totally screwed unless the world wide population soon peaks and declines.
We aren’t going to quit using fossil fuels in the short or medium term, lol. Any serious attempt to do so would result in every politician advocating the attempt being laughed out of office, double time.
Nor are we going to give up desal.
With enough energy input, which can eventually be provided by “almost” too cheap to meter wind and solar power, maybe it will be possible and practical to actually reduce the brine to a pile of salt, which can be used for various purposes, or else just piled up in some out of the way place where it won’t get wet and into the ground and stream water. At least this won’t be even a hundredth as dangerous as a spent nuclear fuel stockpile, lol.
Somewhere in my notes I have links to an article about a greenhouse built to operate in a similar fashion, but with a far simpler heat capture and storage system.
In this one, a substantial pit was excavated, and numerous pipes installed running the length of the greenhouse were installed about six feet down or so, and all the ends brought up to surface level and connected by way of a manifold at one end.
A large electrically driven fan pushes the air thru the pipes, sucking it in at the manifold end, and forcing it out at the other. The large volume of earth and the large contact area with the pipes ensures good heat transfer, both in cooling mode during the day and heating mode at night.
But it seems the cost of installing such a system is such that it’s simply not practical and won’t likely be practical anytime soon…….. assuming the price of the natural gas typically used to heat greenhouses stays low.
I haven’t done it myself, but I know a lady who builds a super simple little greenhouse using a dozen bales of moldy old hay, a sheet of greenhouse plastic, and some boards. She arranges the hay in a rectangle, lays boards across it, and puts the plastic over the boards so that it hangs down with some touching the ground all around, and secures it with pieces of firewood.
She doesn’t put on the cover until it gets to be cold weather, and raises kale in this little enclosure. It produces more than you would ever believe, and she gets nice fresh kale right on thru the winter. On occasion at the beginning and end of her “season” she has to fold the plastic back to keep it from getting too hot, but she seldom ever has to remove it to water her crop. Enough water seems to percolate in thru the soil during the winter.
Yes, I have seen a south facing design passive greenhouse that used an insulated north wall with mass storage. Not sure if they would work all winter in Minnesota without insulating the glass at night but further south could give good results most years.
Some new design windows have up to R14 but would be much more expensive than standard glass or plastic. That would allow full passive operation even in cold areas like Minnesota.
I think the design was for reliable commercial operation. It looked like it had a fueled backup in the original design (so as not to freeze crop during exceptional weather).
HUMAN DIET CAUSING ‘CATASTROPHIC’ DAMAGE TO PLANET
“The global food system is the single largest emitter of greenhouse gases, the biggest driver of biodiversity loss, and the main cause of deadly algae blooms along coasts and inland waterways….
Beef is the main culprit. Not only do cattle pass massive quantities of planet-warming methane, huge swathes of carbon-absorbing forests –- mostly in Brazil -– are cut down every year to make room for them.”
“The vision and the mission of [Impossible] is really great because they’ve been able to mimic a lot of the same flavors, textures, and most importantly, the satisfying quality of meat through science,” she said. “And to me that shines a light on a possible wide-scale solution to one of the biggest threats we’re facing as a planet in terms of sustainability.”
…Minor’s medium-rare burger sold me completely on 2.0. Topped with salsa fresca, avocado, and a vegan secret sauce, it hit all the same pleasure centers in my body as when I eat a well-made burger at a restaurant. Milliken was right — the chew and umami were on point. I thought the original Impossible was great, but this exceeded my expectations. It even looked like the real thing. Is this fake beef so convincing you could trick a meat eater into believing it’s real? Sure. But if we assume people love burgers simply because they taste good, no trickery is needed.
Based on the complete silence, I guess not. I was wondering what he recommends humans consume for basic daily meals if the latest demand is to ban meat now too.
It really doesn’s matter. Demands by groups of concerned citizens, on any subject, are always ignored by the masses. You should have figured that out long ago.
For almost 800 million people in the world, food is already pretty much a luxury…
Most meat, BTW, depends on a completely unsustainable industrial agricultural system that will collapse sooner or later so it doesn’t really matter if it will be banned or not. But frankly as someone who voluntarily abstains from most red meat it really doesn’t make up a part of my daily diet. There are plenty of other things to eat. Like fruits, nuts, vegetables, legumes, beans, lentils, grain, and occasionally some fish and even insects! And no, I’m not being facetious!
Red meat just isn’t all that good for you and most of it nowadays is chock full of hormones, antibiotics and it’s mostly raised in pens on corn!
Hunger Statistics Every year, authors, journalists, teachers, researchers, schoolchildren and students ask us for statistics about hunger and malnutrition. To help answer these questions, we’ve compiled a list of useful facts and figures on world hunger.
Some 795 million people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life. That’s about one in nine people on earth.
The vast majority of the world’s hungry people live in developing countries, where 12.9 percent of the population is undernourished.
Asia is the continent with the most hungry people – two thirds of the total. The percentage in southern Asia has fallen in recent years but in western Asia it has increased slightly.
Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the highest prevalence (percentage of population) of hunger. One person in four there is undernourished.
Poor nutrition causes nearly half (45%) of deaths in children under five – 3.1 million children each year.
One out of six children — roughly 100 million — in developing countries is underweight.
One in four of the world’s children are stunted. In developing countries the proportion can rise to one in three.
If women farmers had the same access to resources as men, the number of hungry in the world could be reduced by up to 150 million.
66 million primary school-age children attend classes hungry across the developing world, with 23 million in Africa alone.
WFP calculates that US$3.2 billion is needed per year to reach all 66 million hungry school-age children.
So what do you recommend those 795 million people consume for basic daily meals?!
We can’t solve hunger without stopping rampant climate change. Imagine the Holodomor, the Great Leap Forward Famine, the Irish Famine (but with no welcoming USA), the Spanish Flu, the Black Death, the Thirty Years War, Eastern Front Prison Camps, the Armenian Genocide march, the Trail of Tears, Korean War human wave attacks etc. all happening at the same time. Then multiply by ten or twenty and keep it going for decades – that’s what any survivors after 2100 will have lived through if climate warming goes on as current (and they will be competing with each other and any remaining wildlife to try to survive in a degraded environment with continuing accelerating decline).
I’m VERY afraid George is right.
Now I’ll provide my little helper HB if he is still around an opportunity to really get worked up.
Good sense indicates that JUST MAYBE we are going to eventually NEED ironclad control of our borders.
I have posted comments in the past to the effect that once the shit is really and truly well into the fan, border fences will be quite common place, and that there will be machine guns on the defended side of the fences, and that they will be used as necessary.
We don’t need a southern border fence now, and building one now, or within the near future, would be a BIG mistake, in terms of our standing in the world.
But a few decades down the road?
It’s all about how fast things go downhill, and where. Mexico is at high risk of collapse, in the estimation of the Pentagon, but there’s also an excellent chance that if the people there ever manage to install a competent and ethical government, they will be in about as good a position as anybody to weather the coming storm………
Except maybe it will get so hot they want to migrate all the way to Canada..
If I were a young guy, I would be looking at a smallish piece of raw land somewhere rather high up and quite a good way to the north of Virginia, just in case I might want to pack up everything that isn’t nailed down and move there if Virginia gets to be as hot and muggy as Florida.
In these kind of scenarios, where there is large migration away from heat damaged areas, the walls may need to be built to keep people in Florida, parts of Texas Arizona and Calif on the south side. Where do you draw the line in such a scenario?
Urban/rural. Young/old. Healthy/unfit. Physically skilled/skilled with only thumbs….
Canada
“a completely unsustainable industrial agricultural system that will collapse sooner or later”
Yet this system is exactly what permits our fat asses to sit commenting. “Industrial Ag” takes a whipping, but there ain’t no other way to feed an industrial-sized population. Ag means unsustainable, no matter how you slice it.
Industrial agriculture as it is practiced today is a damned if we do, and damned if we don’t proposition.
It is literally impossible to give up industrial agriculture in the short term.
Only the greatest of fools would even entertain the idea of doing so except as an academic or intellectual exercise. ONE fact alone is sufficient to demonstrate my point. Three hundred million Yankee people do not produce any food at all, not even a tomato from a patio pot, although a substantial part of that number are involved in the shipping, processing, retailing and so forth of food.
Getting any significant number of these people back into agriculture as such is a political and economic impossibility short term and medium term.
OTOH, it’s equally obvious that industrial scale agriculture as we practice it today can’t last indefinitely, and on a world wide basis, it probably can’t last much more than another couple or three generations due to the loss of topsoil, depletion of clean water, climate problems, land being developed and lost to farming, etc, etc etc.
But it is possible, and even likely in my professional opinion, that we can modify our current industrial agricultural systems to the extent that we can continue to produce food enough that only a very small percentage of all people will necessarily live on farms and be actively engaged in farming.
( Farmers themselves do not separate herding or livestock operations of any kind into separate categories in casual conversation about the big picture so I am not doing so here. )
If we succeed in this endeavor, it will be necessary to make some truly groundshaking changes that aren’t going to go over very well with Joe and Suzy Sixpack.
We will have to eat a hell of a lot less meat, especially beef, requires far greater inputs per unit output. This is not to say there won’t be some beef available, because cows can graze on some land otherwise unsuitable for farming.
We will have to pass laws protecting land and zoning land for agricultural purposes in order to preserve it.
We will have to eat lower on the food chain in general, it’s not just beef. This is not to say we can’t still have some chicken and port, etc, because these animals can be grown on agricultural byproducts and garbage ( properly sanitized) and when fed grains, the feed conversion to meat ratio is far better than beef.
We will have to create a political and economic environment that allows people to practice agriculture on a very small scale almost anyplace, such as their urban backyard. A lot of people throw away enough food to keep half a dozen laying hens happy, and that many produce enough manure to grow a family sized supply of tomatoes and cucumbers.
We will have to somehow convince the public that it’s in their interest to pay a little more so as to allow farmers to use somewhat more expensive production techniques involving less use of pesticides, manufactured fertilizers and other inputs such as packaging and diesel fuel.
We will have to control the size of the population, by one means or another, unless it declines in and of itself.
People have some funny ideas about organic agriculture. Go to a successful and typical organic farm, and you see electrical grid connections, heated and lighted barns and packing houses with electrically driven machinery all over the place, sheds with tractors, combines, mowers, rakes, balers, sprayers parked in them. VERY seldom will you see a horse or mule actually used to accomplish any real work, lol.
Trucks deliver loads of boxes and bags, and produce leaves in big trucks, generally already boxed or bagged.
IF the operator is really and truly producing on a serious scale, you almost always find that he has a ready source of organic fertilizer sourced off farm……. such as manure from a nearby livestock operation, or truck loads of leaves and sticks collected by the maintenance department of a nearby town or city….. etc.
What I’m saying is that an organic farm is really not at all very different, as a rule, from an ordinary farm, except for the use of manufactured fertilizers and pesticides, and even organic farmers use some of each, if you consider a soil amendment such as ground limestone to be a manufactured product. It does after all have to be mined, ground, and shipped to the farm.
Organic techniques can and often do work very well at small scales, but if you want CHEAP food, you get it by producing it by the hundreds of acres per man involved in the doing of it. Organic techniques don’t work so well at large scales, meaning you are basically forced, in terms of the current state of the art, to produce smaller amounts in smaller fields, using more complicated crop rotations, and producing a considerable variety of crops, so as to avoid large scale and conventional monocultures.
This means the farmer needs more help, more equipment, greater expertise, and excellent access to markets which is for now at least quite a problem. It’s possible for me to grow let us say ten acres of green beans, but nobody around here is in the market for more than maybe half an acre’s worth……. there’s no industrial scale buyer or canning or freezer plant any place nearby.
The big chain stores which dominate the retailing industry as a rule won’t even talk to a small grower like me. The local Walmart, Food Lion, etc, would rather contract for thousands of bushels of apples from a couple of thousand miles away than to deal with a local grower like me……. even though I grow a better quality product, lol.
Tens of millions of acres of farm land currently used to grow let us say wheat or corn or soybeans aren’t well suited to growing a large variety of fruits and vegetables due to topography, climate, and or distance from markets. You can’t grow apples in a river bottom, because frost wipes you out. You can replant corn, you wait a year for another try at an apple crop. Who is going to move to rural Iowa and live in a non existent house and go back to work on a thousand acre grain farm currently operated mostly by one man, maybe two or three at the most, so that thousand acres can be devoted to fifty acres of green beans, ten acres of squash, ten of cucumbers, etc?
I could go on all day, but enough is enough.
I’m not saying it can’t be done, but I’m saying we aren’t going to give up industrial agriculture, for economic and political reasons, short of collapse.
This is not to say however that we can’t modify our current industrial agricultural systems to be at least MORE OR LESS sustainable, on a long term basis, so long as we also maintain a more or less sustainable industrial economy .
I don’t see any theoretical reasons we can’t giterdone. But the doing of it is going to be one hell of a job.
Wish I could respond to more of this post. But here,
“Go to a successful and typical organic farm, and you see electrical grid connections, heated and lighted barns and packing houses with electrically driven machinery all over the place, sheds with tractors…”
Yes, yes, yes. And PLASTIC. Holy O FAILS without ample use of plastics…. and PESTICIDES, like Pyganic. Holy O is simply a superstition, an ideology masquerading as “sustainability” in order to command higher prices for comparable–and sometimes inferior–products.
Ain’t no such thing as “sustainable” when it comes to growing food to grow a population of non-food-growers.
IF TSHTF, my own little agricultural niche–heritage apples grow in New England–is probably as doomed as a fat hog on Easter Sunday.
Organic food is a great way to charge customers more money for the same product. That farmers hate is shows how out of touch they are with their customers. This, in general, is a reflection of the primitive state of modern agriculture, which lives on government subsidies instead of its wits.
Farmers have to find niche markets to provide higher priced goods or face continuing decline as their product turns into a commodity. And they need to move fast, because the entire industry is facing disruption on a massive scale.
The entire industry is based on the “Green Revolution” of the sixties, which is a wonderful thing and saved probably billions of lives, but is showing its age. Like the fossil fuel industry, it delivered huge prosperity but has too many side affects to ignore. And like the fossil fuel industry, it is facing huge challenges as markets and technologies change.
Meat and dairy will probably be hit first. The shift away from consuming animal products to is already happening. And imitations of meat and dairy products are just a few years from hitting the mainstream. Meanwhile dairy cows have gotten so productive that the industry is dying.
There is too much food around, which is why farmers get huge subsidies to burn crops (in the form of methanol). The ecological impact is huge, and harder and harder to justify. Intensive farming methods allow city dwellers to get their food from nearer than ever before, and low costs allow them to be fussier about what they buy.
If American farming tech caught up to the Dutch or Israelis, most of the farms would close for lack of customers. There would be no water shortages in the West either. But that is just the beginning. As tastes change regulations clamp down on waste and pollution and new technologies bring costs down, the industry will need to complete rethink itself. And tough talk won’t change that.
Yeah,
As always OFM (to me) makes a lot of sense and his views about the scale of the agriculture operations needed to feed the world are logical with only one flaw . . . Rice.
I don’t have the time or inclination to check the numbers but if a comparison is done between rice and wheat I am guessing world production would be similar . . . could be way wrong but it doesn’t alter my views.
Wheat growing is capital intensive on some of the largest individual acreages ever farmed . . . in the places I know, rice is produce in plots of just a few square meters.
No where in agriculture is there such a stark contrast in the average size of farms that support different segments of the worlds population.
If it ever comes to the crunch folks will survive on small holdings. . . because they have to.
The piss from one human will pretty much grow enough green leafy vegetables to support two humans and that is a good starting point for calculations..
Cheers.
You paint a very accurate picture of the real life challenges in farming. Organic farming as we know it today is so full of holes. On the one hand we have what I call cheating such as using regular CAFO manures, Mega Organic dairies, where it would be impossible to graze the required amount, and conventional grains shipped from the Ukraine and by the time they reach US port are certified organic.
On the other hand there are many biologically friendly practices that that for some technical reason do not pass the grade.
I very much appreciate the direction that the regenerative agriculture community is pursuing to help conventional farmers take their farming to a whole new level. As a fruit grower you would likely find this well worth your time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trXgzBsPGdo
I went to the sponsoring website and found “specialists” in various “holistic,” “naturopathic,” “healing,” “integrative medicine” techniques, and to top it off, Michael Phillips, the writer of that hideously superstitious manual The Apple Grower, recommending such shit as “biodynamics.”
Thanks, but no fucking thanks.
People don’t really like meat much, as a matter of fact. They like meat-like substances, like sausage, which is easier to eat. It can also can be created with much less damage to the environment than the primitive farming practices in use today. Farmers whine a lot, but they are vastly subsidized most of their problems are home made.
About 60% of beef consumption in the US is ground beef. The real stuff is expensive but easy to fake, as Taco Bell showed us. And other than chicken wings, most people prefer chicken McNugget like substances to chicken with skin and bones. I loved eating drumsticks as a kid. My kids think they are “too complicated”.
Fake meat is now hitting the market, and will soon be cheaper than the real stuff. Of course you will hear people whining about how it’s “elitist” or something, because it’s still expensive so only early adopters consume it, but that will change. Remember when mobile phones were “yuppie toys”? My kids don’t.
Without massive increases in the already insane subsidies, the meat industry is going to get hit very hard in a decade or so. Of course, the thing the Midwest grows best is senators, so those sweet government bailouts will come, but in the long run meat farming and the godawful mess meat farmers make (because they can) is on its way out.
Jungles do not get cut down to grow food. They get cut down to make a profit. Period. How do I know?? I grew up cutting down virgin jungle to increase the hectares on my parents little farm. And If we didn’t do it first then the neighbors would have done it. It really is that simple.
All we need to do to keep the tiny amount of remaining jungle intact is to make it more economical for the people in control of those jungles to maintain them. Its as simple as that.
Much of our planet is swimming in food and most farmers currently are having a very hard time making a profit due to overproduction and partly because land is expensive so if a farmer can just cut down some jungle and farm it then his costs are significantly less which is his competitive advantage.
The problem is not the cows, or the beans, or the farmers. The problem is that the mainstream press prefers to push a wet noodle. This way they can virtue signal and put the blame on other people instead of asking a simple question, how can we pool our funds and pay the people in control of these jungles to keep them and to even let more grow back?
Jungles do not get cut down to grow food. They get cut down to make a profit.
Not sure what you think people do with beef cattle but in Brazil the forests are being cut down for cattle ranching! Yes, it is about making a profit selling cattle for hamburger which a lot of people still eat!
Lets say you are king of Brazil. How would you go about preserving and growing back the jungles?
I’ start by getting the current Brazilian administration out of power!
Fred I presented my simple Idea of a practical and workable plan to actually preserve tropical jungles. I realize that in real life its more complex but that’s the basics. We also have some precedent with the National park systems here in the USA. Jungle preservation would be taking it global.
Shaming people into not eating meat is not going to save the jungles because meat production is only one of the ways to derive profit from jungle soils.
So do you think there is a way to save the jungles that are left or will you just raise a fuss (virtue signaling) as they get wiped out left and right?
Have you been to the Brazilian Amazon?!
I have!
My life on this planet began in a little clearing in the semitropical jungle of Paraguay. By the time I was 15 it was mostly soya fields and small remnants of jungle left here and there.
Some of the meassures that were taken in Paraguay to save the jungle actually ended up speeding up the process. For one the laws enacted to ban log and lumber exports made that there was very little economic incentive left for land owners to maintain jungles so they cleared the land and burned tens of thousands of $ worth of logs per hectare to plant soya that yielded several hundred $ worth of profit per hectare per year.
Now most so called environmentalists will cry about logging but my answer is that logging the jungles is way way better than soya and other crop fields that are getting dozens of chemical applications every stinking year. A logged jungle continues to provide the vast majority of the ecosystem functions of an untouched jungle whereas cropped acres are generally a very destructive force in that environment.
So I would say that the best solution is to find ways to reward the land owners of jungles to keep them. Whether those land owners are individuals, communities, or governments. And there will always have to be some give and take between the two parties to find the best solutions instead of demanding perfection and having it fall flat year after year. Good luck trying to shame and force people to eat less meat since that will do nothing to incentivise the landowners of jungle to keep them.
Good luck trying to shame and force people to eat less meat since that will do nothing to incentivise the landowners of jungle to keep them.
Really?!
It so happens, that I’ve always been a supporter of sustainable extraction of natural resources by indigenous people who live in the rain forest. For the record these places aren’t what I would call ‘jungles’ a term that I find both inaccurate and somewhat offensive.
Don’t know about anyone else, but I very rarely eat red meat. Especially from ranched beef cattle. Anyone who knows anything about the Amazonian rain forest knows that if you cut it down to plant crops you very quickly lose productivity. It’s just the nature of the ecosystems and how the top soil is regenerated so monoculture crops such as soy simply do not work without massive inputs of fertilizer.
Sustainable logging can work in some places. However building highways and towns throughout the forest also is a really bad idea. The current administration want’s to do more of all of the above!
And whatever you may think, it is a fact that large areas of the Brazilian rain forest are being burned and clear cut to raise beef cattle.
To make matters worse we now have a populist moron who is scientifically and ecologically illiterate in the presidency! His intended policies are sure to make an already bad situation much worse!
I don’t want to shame anyone into anything! I want to enforce the environmental laws and regulations that are already on the books and have been written into the Brazilian constitution. If you cut down the rain forest to plant mono culture crops or raise cattle you should go to jail and be severely fined.
Fred Part of my point is just that it is hypocritical to derive an existence primarily off of land that was cleared from its native vegetation(that would be like 99% of us), even if it was eons ago and then turn around and now be like, You guys have natural resources but you are not allowed to extract them.
Instead I suggest that the more workable method is to say, Look, you guys have untapped natural resources but if you destroy them just to make a little profit then we and eventually you as well will have to pay a terrible price. So how can we support you so that it will be more profitable for you in the meantime to manage them holistically.
The stick is needed often but first try carrots. More cooperation, and less coercion.
So why do they vote for a moron? I can imagine that it has something to do with people that got fed up with being told what to do and what they can’t do. To much coercion from top down makes the people furious. You can watch the results of to much top down quite dramatic and in real time in France, in Syria and Iraq and the West Bank. And to a somewhat subdued degree all over the world.
A bit of meat, a lot of veg – the flexitarian diet to feed 10 billion
By James Gallagher
A diet has been developed that promises to save lives, feed 10 billion people and all without causing catastrophic damage to the planet.
Scientists have been trying to figure out how we are going to feed billions more people in the decades to come.
Their answer – “the planetary health diet” – does not completely banish meat and dairy.
But it is recommending we get most of our protein from nuts and legumes (such as beans and lentils) instead.
Their diet needs an enormous shift in what we pile on to our plates and for us to turn to foods that we barely eat.
If you served it all up this is what you would be allowed each day:
1. Nuts – 50g a day
2. Beans, chickpeas, lentils and other legumes – 75g a day
3. Fish – 28g a day
4. Eggs – 13g a day (so one and a bit a week)
5. Meat – 14g a day of red meat and 29g a day of chicken
6. Carbs – whole grains like bread and rice 232g a day and 50g a day of starchy vegetables
7. Dairy – 250g – the equivalent of one glass of milk
8. Vegetables -(300g) and fruit (200g)
The diet has room for 31g of sugar and about 50g worth of oils like olive oil.
Will it save lives?
The researchers say the diet will prevent about 11 million people dying each year.
That number is largely down to cutting diseases related to unhealthy diets such as heart attacks, strokes and some cancers. These are now the biggest killers in developed countries.
“A diet has been developed that promises to save lives, feed 10 billion people and all without causing catastrophic damage to the planet.”
Once again, faulty thinking about the magnitude of overshoot.
The gist should be more like- with a diet along these lines, the earths healthy carrying capacity may be closer to 1.6 Billion, rather than 800 million previously suggested.
Just for fun I encountered both of these on the same day. Pick your favorite future:
Global clean energy investment nearly flat since 2011-
320 Bill in 2011
332 Bill in 2018
entirely unimpressive
token spending for a transition people plan to make in 20 or 30 yrs from now, if at all
Keep in mind that costs have fallen so the same money gets you more megawatts of power.
I agree though that faster growth in dollars spent would be better. The cost differentials as fossil fuel prices increase and non-fossil fuel energy decreases in cost may lead to an acceleration in spending on non-fossil fuel energy. At some point (probably near 2030) alternatives reach a critical mass where demand for fossil fuels may begin to fall faster than supply, this will drive fossil fuel prices lower and make a lot of future fossil fuel investment unprofitable. This capital will be applied to clean energy and will accelerate the transition, this will be a snowball effect that will quickly drive fossil fuel use to nearly zero, perhaps by 2050.
Hi Dennis,
I read your comment as a prediction that renewable energy growth will occur fast enough and soon enough that there will actually be a fossil fuel glut , possibly occurring sometime around 2030.
This is possible, but my gut feeling is that instead of a glut of cheap fossil fuel, we are more likely to experience shortages and have to pay high prices for oil and gas, and maybe even coal, before then.
This would of course lead investors to put money into renewable energy, probably LOTS of money, considering the way our political systems operate.
We go overboard when we get afraid. Consider the incredibly amount of money we spend on airport security for instance, when taking into account the time of people who fly.
If for some reason gasoline should have to be rationed for six months, our Yankee congress would probably pass a law subsidizing electric cars out the ying yang….. assuming D control… maybe even R control.
I know you believe peak oil is within easy view, probably within ten years, but I haven’t noticed if you have voiced your opinion about peak gas. ??
If gas prices rise sharply, and stay up, then the amount of money going into wind and solar power infrastructure will go up like a rocket.
OFM,
I agree there will be shortages, especially for oil, and this will lead to high oil prices, possibly this will happen for coal and then natural gas as well. I expect oil will peak first, then coal, and then natural gas (2025, 2030, and then 2035). The high fossil fuel prices will accelerate the transition to EVs, solar and wind power and also lead to grater development of a modern high voltage DC transmission network (grid). Also costs for batteries, solar PV and wind power will continue to fall while fossil fuel prices rise. At some point, probably around 2035 to 2045 a tipping point is reached where demand fossil fuels falls faster than the depletion rate of fossil fuels and prices start to plummet.
Then the fossil fuel companies go the way of United States Leather Company and Central Leather Companies (who mainly supplied buggy whip and saddle makers with leather).
Also note that utility scale solar is already cheaper than the most efficient natural gas power plants. I expect peak gas around 2030 to 2035, but also note that the World price for natural gas is far higher than the US, as US exports more natural gas it will approach the World price level.
This metal is powering today’s technology—at what price?
By Robert Draper
One early Saturday morning in La Paz, Álvaro García Linera, the vice president of Bolivia, greets me in the spacious salon outside his office overlooking Plaza Murillo. The debonair, silver-haired 56-year-old politician is known in his country as a committed Marxist ideologue. But today he presents himself as a capitalist pitchman.
The pitch in question involves lithium. García Linera speaks of his country’s natural resource in a simultaneously factual and awestruck way. Lithium, essential to our battery-fueled world, is also the key to Bolivia’s future, the vice president assures me. A mere four years hence, he predicts, it will be “the engine of our economy.” All Bolivians will benefit, he continues, “taking them out of poverty, guaranteeing their stability in the middle class, and training them in scientific and technological fields so that they become part of the intelligentsia in the global economy.”
But as the vice president knows, no pitch about lithium as Bolivia’s economic salvation is complete without addressing the source of that lithium: the Salar de Uyuni. The 4,000-square-mile salt flat, one of the country’s most magnificent landscapes, will almost certainly be altered—if not irreparably damaged—by mining the resource underneath it.
A Highway Megaproject Tears at the Heart of New Guinea’s Rainforest
The Indonesian government is building a 2,700-mile road network on the island of New Guinea, opening up some of the world’s last great tropical rainforests to development and threatening unique indigenous cultures. Can international pressure force Indonesia to scale back this megaproject?
There’s a big question over what quantity of life people being born now can expect (maybe more so on quality) but it looks increasingly like at least some will be around to see the very last piece of tropical forest destroyed.
To Hold Warming to 1.5 Degrees, Study Says Nations Must Stop Building New Fossil Fuel Infrastructure Immediately
If nations commit immediately not to replace fossil fuel infrastructure as it reaches the end of its expected lifetime, the world would have a 64 percent chance of keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Communications.
I think given the accelerating permafrost melt and the aerosol effect this is wildly optimistic and we’d be lucky even to stabilise below about 2.5°C, but still should be done (3 is really bad), and yet the very opposite is happening in a bid to try to maintain BAU (just look at Norway – supposedly greener than most but have just issued more oil leases than ever).
The idea that the climate could be stabilized at 2.5C is far-fetched. The climate science I am familiar with indicates that somewhere between 1.5C and 2C, natural feedback loops will take over from human carbon emissions as the driver of climate change. Think of it like this: human industry is a finger pressing on a switch label “global climate.” Once that switch is thrown, the Earth will move into a hothouse state. That new equilibrium maybe 6C or even 10C above our baseline.
Unfortunately for our species, we can expect that switch to be irreversibly thrown in the next few decades (if it hasn’t already flipped).
I hope there are some libraries out there archiving these comments so we can sit back and see which side turned out to be right in 35 years. The track record for doom & gloom end time predictions isn’t so hot, though, people have been making them essentially since the start of human civilization but the results are rarely as anticipated.
The problem with doom and gloom is that when it happens it is pretty painful. If you take the fall of the western Empire to be around 4-500 life in Europe was stunningly bad for almost 1,000 years.
It happens.
CJS – I tend to agree. The paper last year about Trajectories in the Anthropocene (or something similar) from the Potsdam institute – actually the most discussed and cited climate paper of 2018 according to ClimateBrief – covered it pretty well. 2.5 might be stable if there was a huge development to allow CO2 extraction (not going to happen though) but I didn’t want to get too far away from the assumptions in the original paper.
Brightsiding climate is a bad strategy
Is all “good news” and no “bad news” a good climate action and communications strategy? This analysis finds that the answer is a resounding “no”.
…
if you avoid including an honest assessment of climate science and impacts in your narrative, its pretty difficult to give people a grasp about where the climate system is heading and what needs to be done to create the conditions for living in climate safety, rather than increasing and eventually catastrophic harm. But that’s how the big climate advocacy organisations have generally chosen to operate, and it represents a strategic failure to communicate.
This is a pretty good series of articles but I think starting the argument by considering how effective the message can be is a bit condescending (as is brightsiding more than anything) , it’s more about basic censorship and propaganda.
It is time to accept reality and grieve! Powerful essay at Truthout by Dahr Jamail, The New Press
In Facing Mass Extinction, We Must Allow Ourselves to Grieve
I believe everyone alive is feeling this sorrow for the planet, although most are not aware of it. Rather than grieving for her, many are given pills for depression, or find other ways to self-medicate. To live well involves making amends to the Earth by finding gratitude for every bite of food and for every stitch of clothing, for every element in our bodies, for it all comes from the Earth. It also means living in a community with others who are remaking themselves and their lifestyle in accord with what is. “Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well,” Czech dissident, writer, and statesman Václav Havel said, “but the certainty that something is worth doing no matter how it turns out.” Writing this book is my attempt to bear witness to what we have done to the Earth. I want to make my own amends to the Earth in the precious time we have left, however long that might be. I go into my work wholeheartedly, knowing that it is unlikely to turn anything around. And when the tide does not turn, my heart breaks, over and over again as the reports of each succeeding loss continue to come in. The grief for the planet does not get easier. Returning to this again and again is, I think, the greatest service I can offer in these times. I am committed in my bones to being with the Earth, no matter what, to the end.
Peace!
On this theme, I want to share a classic from Paul Kingsnorth:
“I’m not sure I know the answer. But I know there is no going back to anything. And I know that we are not headed, now, toward convivial tools. We are not headed toward human-scale development. This culture is about superstores, not little shops; synthetic biology, not intentional community; brushcutters, not scythes. This is a culture that develops new life forms first and asks questions later; a species that is in the process of, in the words of the poet Robinson Jeffers, “break[ing] its legs on its own cleverness.”
What does the near future look like? I’d put my bets on a strange and unworldly combination of ongoing collapse, which will continue to fragment both nature and culture, and a new wave of techno-green “solutions” being unveiled in a doomed attempt to prevent it. I don’t believe now that anything can break this cycle, barring some kind of reset: the kind that we have seen many times before in human history. Some kind of fall back down to a lower level of civilizational complexity. Something like the storm that is now visibly brewing all around us.
If you don’t like any of this, but you know you can’t stop it, where does it leave you? The answer is that it leaves you with an obligation to be honest about where you are in history’s great cycle, and what you have the power to do and what you don’t. If you think you can magic us out of the progress trap with new ideas or new technologies, you are wasting your time. If you think that the usual “campaigning” behavior is going to work today where it didn’t work yesterday, you will be wasting your time. If you think the machine can be reformed, tamed, or defanged, you will be wasting your time. If you draw up a great big plan for a better world based on science and rational argument, you will be wasting your time. If you try to live in the past, you will be wasting your time. If you romanticize hunting and gathering or send bombs to computer store owners, you will be wasting your time.
And so I ask myself: what, at this moment in history, would not be a waste of my time? And I arrive at five tentative answers:”
[read on for more at the link above]
Hey Caelan,
Hope everything is alright with you buddy.
An interesting chart of EV money flow. Germany is whopping the USA.
Yes, very good info from reuters there. I’ve been very impressed with that news source- pretty straight up.
It will be very interesting to see if a big supply crunch develops with batteries for vehicles.
It sure looks possible to me, but I don’t pretend to really understand the magnitude of the constraints of the industry.
Could turn into a huge scramble.
Some of those countries and companies are putting 2/3 of their expenditure into batteries so it looks like they are trying to avoid the supply pinch.
NAOM
Emissions for 2018 were about 37 GtCO2. There are 1.2 billion cars with average about 4.5 Te of CO2 per year, or 5.4 GtCO2 total, or about 15%. At absolute best only about a third of that is going to be replaced over the next 10 or 20 years, so 95% of emissions (and continuing to grow at the moment) isn’t getting addressed with EVs alone – all that money what be better spent replacing coal fired power with low emission technology.
What do you mean by low emission technology?
Whatever it is, someone better start installing it asap!
Australia swelters through record-breaking heatwave
I can only imagine the consequences of that heat wave to the Great Barrier Reef this year… plus the double whammy of all that heat plus ocean acidification!
Oh, yeah, and all that industrial run off, plastics pollution, sunscreen, agricultural run off, herbicides, pesticides, human waste, medical drugs, etc, etc. LOL! and people worry about the economy!
Yeah, it came after record-breaking heat on Tuesday, when all-time heat records were set in Carnegie in Western Australia (47.8C) and Tarcoola (49C), Port Augusta (48.9C) and Ernabella/Pukatja (44.5C) in South Australia. So, starting to look dangerous for people as well. For you Yanks: 50C = 122F. Which would be quite warm on a tennis court. 😉
Meanwhile, the average yearly ice mass loss in Antarctica has increased to roughly 252 gigatons from 40 gigatons – and counting!
And, what is becoming common knowledge (I hope).
2018 WAS THE HOTTEST YEAR EVER RECORDED FOR THE PLANET’S OCEANS
“The year 2018 passed the previous record set just the year before, in 2017; the top five years of ocean heat have come in the last five years. Last year continues a startling trend of global ocean warming that is a direct result of humans’ warming of the planet.”
A new analysis, published Thursday in the journal Science, found that the oceans are heating up 40 percent faster on average than a United Nations panel estimated five years ago.
.
No worries mate,
AUSTRALIA’S COAL REVIVAL IN FULL SWING BY 2019
“Next year augurs well for the Australian coal sector. This applies to both thermal coal (used in electricity production) and metallurgical coal (used in steel production). Demand for thermal coal in Asia is steadily increasing. A report commissioned this year by the Minerals Council of Australia sees an increase in such demand of around 50% between now and 2030. This is based on the expectation that demand will increase strongly in India and Southeast Asia and remain more-or-less stable in China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Glencore Australia, our largest exporter of thermal coal, shares this optimism.”
Oh, well! There will be new life after the current mass extinction event but for now we will need some time to grieve!
.
“This is based on the expectation that demand will increase strongly in India and Southeast Asia and remain more-or-less stable in China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.”
Hopefully this is just wishful thinking, ignoring the threat of disruption from renewables. Looking at China:
The Chinese PV market saw the deployment of around 44.1 GW of capacity according to official data published over the weekend by the National Energy Administration (NEA).
That is around 500 MW more than the 43.6 GW announced by the China Photovoltaic Industry Association (CPIA) last week.
The NEA revealed China’s cumulative installed PV capacity reached around 174.63 GW at the end of December, while that of wind power surpassed 184.2 GW. The authority reports nuclear power reached 44.66 GW capacity, thermal power 114.36 GW and hydro 35.2 GW.
I got suspicious when I noticed the figure for thermal capacity was less than either wind or solar so I went over to China Energy Portal and found this:
Sure enough, the decimal place in the PV Magazine article was off by one place and the figure for thermal capacity should be 1,143.67 GW instead.
Looking at the capacity additions for 2018, Thermal grew by 3% (33.3 GW) while Hydropower grew by 2.5 % (8.6 GW), Wind by 12.4% (20.3 GW), Solar by 33.9% (44.2 GW) and Nuclear by 24.7% (8.8 GW). Clerly the big growth story is solar and even if the absolute amount of solar capacity added each year were to decline, solar will inevitably take market share away from the other sources. It is extremely unlikely that solar growth will decline in the long run and the source most likely to lose market share is coal.
To reduce its annual electricity bill, Indian Railways will soon run trains powered by solar power from arrays of PV cells deployed along electrified tracks in 10 states. The solar power generated will replace 4 GW of coal-fired electricity consumed by the railways, saving the operator 20% of its annual energy bill in the first year and 40% thereafter. Indian Railways currently buys electricity for around INR5 ($0.07) per unit.
Developers will recover the installation cost of solar panels and other equipment through the sale of power to the railway operator. Under an agreement with states, there will be a provision to sell surplus power to the local utilities, which will supply equivalent power when Indian Railways needs it.
India has resumed its contest with China to host the world’s biggest solar park and the projected Ladakh solar project could bring the crown back to south Asia.
According to U.S.-based insurance provider SolarInsure, as of June 2017, China’s Datong Solar Power Project – with a projected capacity of 3 GW – has the potential to become the world’s biggest single-location solar PV project, once completed.
The Ladakh project is expected to be complete by 2023, with abundant sunlight and clear air making Ladakh unusually suitable for solar technologies.
The power generated from the 5 GW PV plant in Leh district will be transmitted, along a 900 km stretch of the Leh-Manali road, for consumption by Kaithal district in the state of Haryana. It will be supplemented by another 2.5 GW solar project in the Kargil district, to provide electricity to light up the plains and reduce dependence on diesel generators for a population that remains cut off for around half the year.
Electricity demand in India would reach 840 GW by 2030 if the country’s gross domestic product grows at a rate of 6.5 per cent, as predicted.
To achieve its goal of generating 40 per cent of electricity from non-fossil fuels by 2030, India would have to install 500 GW of renewable energy generation capacity by 2028, according to Anand Kumar, Secretary of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, who was speaking at the India-Norway Business Summit 2019 which opened yesterday in New Delhi.
Of those 500 GW, 350 GW would be solar, 140 GW wind, and the remaining generation capacity would come from small hydro and biomass power.
India already has 75 GW of installed renewable energy capacity with another 46 GW under implementation. The 75 GW in place makes up around 22 per cent of the nation’s installed power generation capacity.
Going over to PV Magazine India it seems even coal boss Gautam Adani appears to be hedging his bets!
Billionaire Gautam Adani plans to invest Rs30,000 crore ($4.21 billion) in the world’s largest solar hybrid park, in Khavda, Gujarat. The huge commitment was part of the Rs50,000 crore investment he announced at the ninth Vibrant Gujarat Summit in Ahmedabad last week.
“Over the next five years, our investments will include the world’s largest solar hybrid park, in Khavda,” said the industrialist. “The anticipated investment in this park is Rs30,000 crore. We also plan to establish an integrated lithium battery manufacturing complex and expand our photovoltaic manufacturing capabilities.”
Adani Group’s investments in Gujarat in the past five years exceed Rs50,000 crore and the company reiterated its promise to “further accelerate our investments”.
During the three-day Vibrant Gujarat Summit, some 548 memoranda of understanding were signed for the supply of power – including renewables – and oil and gas.
I have my doubts about the expectations of the Minerals Council of Australia. They are part of the FF lobby that directs the anti renewable actions of the current Australian Federal Government. Let’s see what happens after the elections in Australia in March.
“50C = 122F. Which would be quite warm on a tennis court. ?”
In Melbourne not so hot these days, well below 30 C
There is a good chance that all that renewable energy and EVs will accomplish over the next 5 years is to stem the rise of GHG’s unless the world starts taking global warming and climate change seriously.
Take the United States, just 20% of it’s vastly over-bloated military budget applied over the last decade would have put the US well along the path toward total renewable energy. If we then continued that for another decade, almost all energy would be renewable.
Fact is that the decaying power infrastructure has to be maintained and replaced at a cost of over 5 trillion dollars. That is to keep it on track for a dead end and a deadly one at that. So throwing that kind of money at renewable energy and some storage would mean saving money, lives and reducing environmental destruction all in one package. It also puts dependence on foreign oil out of the picture and therefor much of the reason for foreign wars. With the US leading the renewable/EV surge the ROW would start rapidly following because the math would become so obvious.
I sometimes think that education is mostly wasted, when the so called bright people cannot even do simple math. Forget the exponential Fred, people in power can’t or don’t want to do simple linear mathematics. Nor do they obey STOP signs and WARNING lights.
Disclaimer: Changing the global energy to a non-GHG producing systems is only a portion of the needed changes to reduce global disaster. However, it is a very important change that will lead to or enhance other deep societal changes.
The problem here is that the US Military hegemony resulted in an international system where the rich countries were able to go about their business in a way that kept the third world subservient and unable to control their own destiny and resources. You were better off as a US ally, and if you couldn’t be a US ally, going Russian kept you in the second world (roughly), which is better than being in the third world.
Now we have Trump trying to remove the foundations of this system. Now, I know that this system is unfair. However, I fear that it’s removal will invoke costs that are greater than the tax that American exeptionalism places on other first-world countries (like Canada, where I live).
What the US gets for it’s military build-up (and the fact that other developed allies have proportionally smaller militaries) is fewer wars, and productivity focused on things other than the military.
So…to be a US ally is to take second place and not shoot anybody, and to ignore the fact that our success is built on the luck of geography and timing, and the bad luck of 6 billion poor people.
The Huawei kidnappings (for what else is the taking of political prisoners?) are yet another sign that without a strong USA, the entire global structure is unmanageable.
I don’t like it (this is a structure that gave us Trump, after all) but I accept that for the rest of my life (30 years probably, barring massive drops in the standard of living (which I suspect will happen)) this system is best for me. I’m not sure that even if I had a say, I would go against my interests in this matter. The decline of globalism and US hegemony are completely unpredictable, particularly with resource constraints likely to come into play.
Now, if I was 20, I might feel differently, and without having any insight into how we came to have this system, or any suspicion that things that take hundreds of years to build can go south in the blink of an eye, I might do impulsive things.
As might a disenfranchised 45 year old.
Or if I was an entitled, amoral 70 year old (particularly one in high office in the service of a foreign power).
To my mind, the whole thing is on a knife edge, and increasing inequality is what will throw it off balance.
Is this a trick question?
In the lead comment I posted at the top of this thread, I highlighted a development that points the possibilities of applying currently known technology to make significant improvements in fuel economy. I was so intrigued by this development that I searched for as much info on these two vehicles as I could find and watched a couple more reviews in addition to the two I linked to. I also discovered that the ICE only version of the car IS available in North America as the Nissan Versa Note, albeit with a 1.6 L (109 HP) gasoline motor instead of the 1.2 L (80 HP) offered in the JDM model. Here are what I consider some interesting facts:
The e-Power (hybrid) Note uses exactly the same ICE as it’s non-hybrid counterpart
The hybrid achieves significantly better fuel economy in city driving
The hybrid has better acceleration than the non-hybrid, even better than the North American variant with the larger displacement motor.
More than two thirds of the model range sold in Japan are the hybrid variant
Aggressive regenerative braking allows one pedal driving, resulting in better fuel economy and significantly lower brake system wear, when the vehicle has to slow down frequently.
Since the motive power comes from the single speed, electric drive train there is no shifting resulting in a driving experience that is very similar to a fully electric vehicle.
The electric motor produces 254 Nm of torque from a standstill as opposed to 160 Nm for the 1.6 L or 110 Nm for the 1.2 L
Nissan claims that in the van the e-Power system produces performance similar to a standard 3.5 L gasoline engine, while using the same 1.2 L gasoline motor as the Note.
There is also a “tuned” version of the system offering 134 hp and 320 Nm of torque as opposed to 54 hp and 254 Nm
All in all, the result is a very practical, economical solution for driving around in a city, combined with the convenience of being able to re-fuel at the existing network of fuel stations in the event of journeys outside of the range provide by the fuel tank.
In the past couple of weeks, I have got caught stuck in rush traffic resulting in a one mile trip taking about one hour. In one case I would have been better off walking were it not for the fact that the rest of the trip was 20 miles and only took about half an hour, once I reached the city limits! In the other case I was picking up large, fairly heavy items. My observation is that thousands of vehicles sit in rush hour traffic everyday, with their engines idling so that they can move a few feet every few minutes. I have noticed increasing amounts of cars, equipped with start/stop features, that you hear start up every time the traffic starts to move but, this feature can’t be even close to as efficient as an electric drive train in rush hour type traffic jams.
If one considers all the cities in all the countries all over the world where this scenario is duplicated, it must be a huge amount of fuel being wasted in traffic jams all over the world. This must be producing significant CO2 emissions, without achieving the desired result of moving goods and people quickly from one point to another. EVs would reduce CO2 emissions a great deal in such a scenario with hybrids having emissions that are only slightly higher than pure, all electric vehicles. It would be very interesting to quantify how much fuel and CO2 emissions could be saved by using electrified drive trains in urban traffic worldwide.
Knowing what I know, I find it extremely frustrating to observe and participate in this waste. I think we lost at least a decade in the advancement of electric/hybrid technology when the California ZEV mandate was killed back in 2003, following pressure from the automobile industry including a law suite from GM (GM Sues to Overturn State’s Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate). Who knows how the tech would have advanced had the mandate stayed in place? Somewhat good news is that the California ZEV mandate is back in force, no doubt partially a result of Tesla’s effort to prove that ZEV technology could be made viable.
This Nissan technology just goes to show what can be achieved with a little creativity once the will (incentive or coercion) exists. The city traffic problem is a worldwide issue as highlighted by the following article in the Economist: The hidden cost of congestion. I would not be surprised if it turned out that a significant amount of vehicle CO2 emissions were the result of wasted time in traffic.
The bad news on human nature, in 10 findings from psychology
Christian Jarrett in association with The British Psychological Society’s Research Digest
It’s a question that’s reverberated through the ages – are humans, though imperfect, essentially kind, sensible, good-natured creatures? Or are we, deep down, wired to be bad, blinkered, idle, vain, vengeful and selfish? There are no easy answers, and there’s clearly a lot of variation between individuals, but here we shine some evidence-based light on the matter through 10 dispiriting findings that reveal the darker and less impressive aspects of human nature:
We view minorities and the vulnerable as less than human
We experience Schadenfreude (pleasure at another person’s distress) by the age of four
We believe in karma – assuming that the downtrodden of the world deserve their fate
We are blinkered and dogmatic
We would rather electrocute ourselves than spend time in our own thoughts
We are vain and overconfident
We are moral hypocrites
We are all potential trolls
We favour ineffective leaders with psychopathic traits
We are sexually attracted to people with dark personality traits
Don’t get too down – these findings say nothing of the success that some of us have had in overcoming our baser instincts. In fact, it is arguably by acknowledging and understanding our shortcomings that we can more successfully overcome them, and so cultivate the better angels of our nature.
Who is “We” ? Do you have a mouse in your pocket ? Because your not speaking for me.
An elder Native American was teaching his grandchildren about
life. He said to them, “A fight is going on inside me.. it is a
terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One wolf represents fear,
anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt,
resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
The other stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity,
humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity,
truth, compassion, and faith.”
“This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other
person, too”, he added.
The Grandchildren thought about it for a minute and then one child
asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee simply replied… “The one you feed.”
“We would rather electrocute ourselves than spend time in our own thoughts”
“and faith”
Speaking or thinking with intelligence is a learned educational skill. Cat’s list of “We” is just a lazy human excuse for themselves. You can do better if you apply yourself.
Bullshit! There are plenty of studies and examples that show the exact opposite. I’ll go with those that want to support Douglas Rushkoff’s Team Human.
You can catch him at Sam Harris’ latest podcast!
The opposite of which of the traits. Do you disagree with all of them. Well there is at least one of them that I agree with 100 percent. (But just in the case of “most people”.)
We are blinkered and dogmatic. If people were rational and open-minded, then the straightforward way to correct someone’s false beliefs would be to present them with some relevant facts. However a classic study from 1979 showed the futility of this approach – participants who believed strongly for or against the death penalty completely ignored facts that undermined their position, actually doubling-down on their initial view. This seems to occur in part because we see opposing facts as undermining our sense of identity. It doesn’t help that many of us are overconfident about how much we understand things and that, when we believe our opinions are superior to others, this deters us from seeking out further relevant knowledge.
I also agree that most people are vain and overconfident. But not everyone. But I disagree strongly with the last two on the list. But again, that is only the majority of people, not everyone.
We favour ineffective leaders with psychopathic traits
We are sexually attracted to people with dark personality traits
But at least I can partly agree with you. There is no list of traits that universally applies to everyone. That is why I always try to use the term “most people” and in some cases “the vast majority of people”.
Yeah, I know, Ron. There was a time when I would go to the trouble of responding to lists like that with caveats and examples to support my arguments and point of view. These days I no longer have the patience to do that, so if I read a comment that suggests everything is a black and white issue and nothing can be nuanced or presented in multiple shades of gray, then I just fire back with a blanket charge of bullshit! Not even Christian Jarrett, the author of those studies, traffics in absolutes!
Peace!
“…are humans, though imperfect, essentially kind, sensible, good-natured creatures? Or are we, deep down, wired to be bad, blinkered, idle, vain, vengeful and selfish?”
We’re both, you idiot! It’s just another false dichotomy!
Fucking idiots!
To state my own opinion, I really think it comes down to the way society is structured nowadays. We humans are meant to live in small tribes centered around morality, faith, family, and culture; instead, we’re being forced to live and work with hundreds of thousands of people we have nothing in common with. Everyone becomes competition. There’s no motivation to feel empathy for the people you’re surrounded by. Plus, this same structure results too often in mental illnesses.
Very true and if I may add one more item to what humans are meant to be centered in, the natural world.
No, while I agree that humans are meant to be centered in, the natural world. the rest of it is not true at all! see my reply below!
Duhh, the various religions (mostly nature based for all others are fantasy) formed the format and moral fabric of how people interacted with nature.
When the non-nature based religion/ slave cultures arose, so did the destructive/extractive culture arise, which has since taken over the world.
The meme of competition is endemic through the modern day culture from the individual to the nation. This is mostly employed as a means of control and a means of feeding the needs of the upper classes. Limited cooperation is demanded while the individual is isolated by the hierarchy. The hierarchy is no longer accessible to the individual, who must form temporary tribes (movements) to accomplish even small changes.
The meme of competition is endemic through the modern day culture from the individual to the nation. This is mostly employed as a means of control and a means of feeding the needs of the upper classes. Limited cooperation is demanded while the individual is isolated by the hierarchy.
The cooperative human
Nature Human Behaviourvolume 2, pages427–428 (2018) | Download Citation
Human beings are a social species that relies on cooperation to survive and thrive. Understanding how and why cooperation succeeds or fails is integral to solving the many global challenges we face.
Cooperation lies at the heart of human lives and society — from day-to-day interactions to some of our greatest endeavours. Understanding cooperation — what motivates it, how it develops, how it happens and when it fails to happen — is therefore an important part of understanding all kinds of human behaviour. In this focus issue of Nature Human Behaviour, we bring together review, opinion and research content on human cooperation from across the journal’s scope — including evolution, anthropology, ecology, economics, neuroscience and environmental science — to spark interdisciplinary conversation and perhaps even inspire some scientific cooperation. In our dedicated collection on cooperation
if I may add one more item to what humans are meant to be centered in, the natural world..
We were meant? By whom?
“Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.”
Katharine Hepburn, The African Queen
And I might have asked Katharin Hepburn the same question. What I am getting at is: “No one put us here or meant for us to do anything.” We just evolved into who we are, warts and all. But I guess what you guys are driving at is the fact that we evolved in a totally different environment from the one we live in today. But there is not much we can do about that. We will just have to suffer the consequences.
You really need to learn to use a dictionary before going off the rails.
meant verb
simple past tense and past participle of mean
mean verb (used with object), meant, mean·ing.
to intend for a particular purpose, destination, etc.:
to intend to express or indicate:
to have as its sense or signification; signify:
to bring, cause, or produce as a result:
The last meaning, the one in bold, is the only one that could possibly apply. So I know how to use a dictionary.
Again: By whom?
Ron is dead on, we were not put here and we aren’t “meant” to do anything, we’re just the end product of evolution that has occurred up to this moment in time along our particular evolutionary branch of the tree of life.
Nature only keeps score one way, by survival and reproduction, and Mother Nature isn’t even AWARE of the score, being a non sentient process, not a living being or God or Goddess.
Having said this much, most things that CAN happen in evolutionary terms are probably or at least possibly going to happen, given time enough and enough individuals and a diverse enough environment.
So we have evolved to have both tendencies to look after ourselves and our immediate family and or tribe, but we are also evolved to be able to cooperate with other tribes….. to some extent.
Cooperation seems to me to be enabled to whatever point we consider “them” as either strangers and enemies or ” us” , relatives, friends, and allies. We are capable of passing judgement on this question, but we aren’t very good at coming up with the right answer, either “US” or “THEM” when meeting strangers.
This is naturally to be expected, because Mother Nature or evolution makes great and ample and very effective use of camouflage and trickery.
An individual or tribe that’s too quick to trust is apt to wind up dead or enslaved. OTOH, individuals and tribes that fail to cooperate when cooperation would be the best choice are also apt to wind up dead or enslaved.
Individuals and tribes that would prefer to be peaceful and cooperative, if they last, have generally been capable of defending themselves, so as to fend off other aggressive individuals and tribes.
So…. even countries that are very peaceful indeed still find it necessary to enter into military alliances and maintain military establishments of their own… otherwise they generally don’t last very long.
We have, in effect, and angel on one shoulder, and demon on the other, and both of them are constantly vying for our attention.
We humans are meant to live in small tribes centered around morality, faith, family, and culture; instead, we’re being forced to live and work with hundreds of thousands of people we have nothing in common with. Everyone becomes competition.
Oh, man, really?! Humans are indeed, highly social Great Apes and they evolved to live in relatively small tribes but they also evolved to cooperate!
BTW, Nobody anywhere works with hundreds of thousands of people!
As for: morality, faith, family, and culture Culture took thousands of years to develop and only after humans developed language! There were many myths and creation stories and all kinds of deities that humans have believed in and worshiped over that same period. The concept of morality varies according to culture and tribe but it is a consequence of primate evolution. What is a common denominator across all the great apes is an innate sense of justice and fair play!
With armed conflict in the Persian Gulf now upon us, Harvard archaeologist Steven LeBlanc takes a long-term view of the nature and roots of war, presenting a controversial thesis: The notion of the “noble savage” living in peace with one another and in harmony with nature is a fantasy. In Constant Battles: The Myth of the Peaceful, Noble Savage, LeBlanc contends that warfare and violent conflict have existed throughout human history, and that humans have never lived in ecological balance with nature.
The start of the second major U.S. military action in the Persian Gulf, combined with regular headlines about spiraling environmental destruction, would tempt anyone to conclude that humankind is fast approaching a catastrophic end. But as LeBlanc brilliantly argues, the archaeological record shows that the warfare and ecological destruction we find today fit into patterns of human behavior that have gone on for millions of years.
Constant Battles surveys human history in terms of social organization-from hunter gatherers, to tribal agriculturalists, to more complex societies. LeBlanc takes the reader on his own digs around the world — from New Guinea to the Southwestern U.S. to Turkey — to show how he has come to discover warfare everywhere at every time. His own fieldwork combined with his archaeological, ethnographic, and historical research, presents a riveting account of how, throughout human history, people always have outgrown the carrying capacity of their environment, which has led to war.
Ultimately, though, LeBlanc’s point of view is reassuring and optimistic. As he explains the roots of warfare in human history, he also demonstrates that warfare today has far less impact than it did in the past. He also argues that, as awareness of these patterns and the advantages of modern technology increase, so does our ability to avoid war in the future.
Yes there is a lot of confusion between the wage slave hive system of modern civilization, it’s predecessor the vassel slave hive system and the hunter gatherer system. They first two are dramatically different than the last.
Hunter gatherers tended to inhabit regions for thousands of years with the ecosystems still intact.
Modern hive civilization (where individuals are considered work units not individuals and have little importance) can support large military forces and produce arms on large scale so that in one war the casualties far outnumber what would have been the earth population in prehistoric times.
Modern day systems destroy local ecology in the bink of an eye and use synthetic systems to support poor health among it’s citizens.
You seem very focused on an occasional battle, where in modern civilization we kill far more people in just a few years with poor nutrition, toxins, accident then in both world wars combined. Plus they live in concrete and steel boxes most of their lives, all congested and diseased.
Modern civilization is a poor place to live for most. Plus it’s a dead end in it’s current state, add that to the total.
You seem very focused on an occasional battle, where in modern civilization we kill far more people in just a few years with poor nutrition, toxins, accident then in both world wars combined.
I don’t have any idea why you think I am focused on the occasional battle. “Constant Battles” is the opposite of “Occasional Battles”. Also, I am in total agreement with you about toxins and pollution killing millions. But that is another subject for another day. That has nothing to do with “The Myth of the Noble Savage”.
The book I quoted was all about the historical evidence that primitive tribes were almost always engaged in warfare with other tribes. However, studies of modern-day indigenous tribes also bear that out.
A graph at the top of Page 57 of “The Blank Slate” by Stephen Pinker shows nine bars, eight of them representing the percentage of male death cause by warfare in South America and New Guinea. I have converted the bars to percentages of deaths because I cannot post the chart itself. The figures may not be exact but they are as close as I could glean by just looking at the bars. The names represent indigenous tribes.
Jivaro 59 percent of males died as a result of war.
Yanomamo (Shamatari)39 percent of males died as a result of war.
Mae Enga 36 percent of males died as a result of war.
Dugum Dani 30 percent of males died as a result of war.
Murngin 29 percent of males died as a result of war.
Yanomamo (Namowei) 25 percent of males died as a result of war.
Huli 20 percent of males died as a result of war.
Gebusi 9 percent of males died as a result of war.
US & Europe 20th C. 1 percent of males died as a result of war.
Pinker’s next two paragraphs:
The first eight bars, which range from almost 10 percent to almost 60 percent, come from indigenous peoples in South America and New Guinea. The nearly invisible bar at the bottom represents the United States and Europe in the twentieth century and includes the statistics from two world wars. Moreover Keely and others have noted that native peoples are dead serious when they carry out warfare.
Many of them make weapons as damaging as their technology permits, exterminate their enemies when they can get away with it, and enhance the experience by torturing captives, cutting off trophies, and feasting on enemy flesh.
“The Blank Slate” by Stephen Pinker , is a must read.
Don’t always agree with him, but that book is a classic.
I would be interested to know on which points you disagree with Pinker?
not much really—
He proclaims, correctly, that humans are safer now than anytime in their history.
He ignores our overpopulation, resource depletion, etc, which you are fully aware of.
>> centered around morality, faith, family, and culture <<
Your list seems to reflect conservative values: loyalty, authority, sanctity.
Liberals are more into care and fairness, inclusiveness, less tribal.
The Right alway has to ask “Daddy”, for he always know best.
The was a book called the Lucifer Effect a few years back that covered how pliable our morality is. I find the idea of absolute morality pretty ridiculous – we are animals with a very good adaptive tool in our large brains, John Gray covers this really well. Everything comes down to overall reproductive advantage and tit-for-tat protective behaviour (but being “nice” is not to be sneered at nevertheless).
I have a feeling that most of the regulars here may have their last opportunity to see a nice lunar eclipse tonight…….. unless they are able to travel. It’s going to be a long time before another is visible from the east coast of the USA.
And of course we’re in mid-blizzard here in Maine.
10/10 cloud and thunderstorm forecast 🙁 🙁 🙁
Clear last night too, reminds me of the last total eclipse I tried to see, crystal clear the day before then 10/10 🙁
NAOM
Sky partially cleared before midnight and I had a good view. 🙂 North side looked a lot brighter that the rest.
NAOM
There’s a site here the has data on permafrost thaw depth for both different cryosphere areas.
Most sites show a noisy but mostly constant depth but some show what happens when the thaw line reaches them and they start melting at about 5 to 10 cm per year. One site in Alaska had a wildfire in 2010 and is melting much faster. There aren’t as many sites as I expected; many are shown as inactive and the reporting form Canada has been pretty sparse since 2013.
European Russia also shows sites with melting.
Bit of trivia:
ALASKA’S MELTING GLACIERS
“Scientists from the University of Alaska and the U.S. Geological Survey estimate that Alaska is losing ice at the rate of 75 billion metric tons a year. They calculate that Alaska’s glaciers and frozen rivers are melting fast enough to cover the whole state with 30 centimeters of water (nearly a foot) every seven years.”
The hemlock, ash and maple under threat out here in the eastern US is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
An American tragedy: why are millions of trees dying across the country? A quiet crisis playing out in US forests as huge numbers of trees succumb to drought, disease, insects and wildfire – much of it driven by climate change
In northern California, an invasive pathogen called Sudden Oak Death is infecting hundreds of different plants, from redwoods and ferns to backyard oaks and bay laurels. The disease is distantly related to the cause of the 19th-century Irish potato famine, and appears to have arrived with two “Typhoid Marys”, rhododendrons and bay laurels, said Dr David Rizzo, of the University of California, Davis.
“We’re talking millions of trees killed, whole mountain sides dying,” Rizzo said.
It’s not just hemlock, ash and maple here in the East.
It’s not on the radar yet, but we are at high risk of losing black walnut. Some foresters came around a while back putting out traps looking for the culprit insect, I can’t remember it’s name, which is apparently playing hell already with walnut trees not too far to the west of us. A
We already have ordinances outlawing moving firewood in certain directions across county and city borders here in Virginia. I can’t locate the copy and paste tool on this toy computer I’m using at the moment, but you can google gypsy moth in Virginia and get the story in a flash. These moths can wipe out an oak forest.
And as far as black locust is concerned, ( the go to tree for farmers in need of fence posts and timbers for barns and sheds after the loss of the chesnut) there’s hardly a one left in my immediate area. A beetle which was formerly unknown locally is stripping them of foliage twice or even three times in one season…. which generally kills them. I’m salvaging the dead wood to burn on my place, being too old to bother with stockpiling fence posts. Sad, a black locust that grew slowly in the shade, with a dense tight grain resulting, would last forty to sixty years as a fence post.. I can’t recall the name of the beetle. This loss hasn’t even made the news, with all the other bad news crowding it out.
Then there’s the chesnut…….. when I was a boy, the woods was still full of trunks and stumps. They’re all gone now…except a few trees that keep on sprouting new growth, to be continually killed back.
The word is that the American Chesnut Foundation and apparently some other organizations have finally been able to breed a fully blight resistant tree, one with just one or two new genes that confer resistance, with these trees being said to be indistinguishable even by a professional from the original trees, except by genetic analysis.
But you better be sitting down when you inquire about the price of a few seedlings, lol. I’m going to get some nevertheless, although I won’t likely live to see them bear a nice crop of nuts.
Then there’s the question of the deer. They have made an astounding comeback here, due to well enforced hunting regulations and suburban sprawl and so many farms being abandoned to forest again, but chronic wasting disease is on the march…. and will likely reach my area within a decade or so.
Coyotes are having a ball here. Everybody who has cows now generally has a jack ass of some sort with his cows to keep them away.
OFM, how do you watch so many cows ?
Jackasses work cheap, just a little hay or grass and a handful of grain once in a while. One is enough for up to thirty or more cows , so long as they are all in the same enclosure.
I guess grey wolves could kill them, but coyotes are afraid of them, with good reason. They kill any coyote that gets within reach of their hooves.
And they can and do make enough noise to roust out the farmer. Sometimes he gets out quick enough to shoot a coyote or two.
The ExxonMobil operated Sable gas field in Nova Scotia has been shutdown (for good) as well – it wasn’t providing much at end of life but now the pipeline has to be reversed so that NS takes some supply from the US.
Garage
The supply from the US may be jeopardized as fierce local opposition exists for compressor station build out, to say nothing about the massive – and growing – winter time natgas scarcity in New England itself.
Surprisingly, to me, LNG infrastructure seems to be in the offing as a proposed mid scale LNG plant in central Massachusetts is being considered.
Over in Bradford county, Pennsylvania, a company wants to build a 2.1 mtpa LNG plant and ship the product out via rail and truck.
Cost of this plant is estimated at $850 million.
Infrastructure constraints will continue to cost that region dearly over the next several winters.
LT
At 5:00 AM, Tuesday, it hit about 10% total at just under 1,700 Megawatts (1,695).
The Belgian LNG ship Exemplar picked up a Yamal-sourced cargo in France mid December and has been laying offshore Boston harbor for 3 weeks now.
Pilgrim had operating troubles a few days ago and was down to 26% capacity output for a day or so. Currently back up to 100%.
As opposition to the Clean Energy Connect transmission picks up steam, that much needed 1,000+ Megawatts is increasingly looking doubtful.
For those who are looking for offshore generation, a project killing permit denial for Vineyard Wind from a Rhode Island Coastal Commission may come down next week.
The offshore operators have offered local fishermen $6 million in compensation for lost fishing grounds, which is a small fraction of the potential loss estimate.
All in all, the New England folks are entering some very precarious territory regarding wintertime electricity availability and I am not sure if they recognize this yet.
Coffee, in regards to the fishing ground issue with offshore wind, I thought that the experience has been increased fish catches near wind farms due to the artificial habitat effect.
Steven Degraer, a senior scientist at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, said his preliminary research finds that wind parks provide an increase in biomass of fish food. This increased food supply does mean more fish are found in wind farms, particularly species like cod, pouting and horse mackerel.
There does appear to be a possible problem during installation, with industrial scale activities and noise.
Hickory
I do not know much about the situation regarding the European wind farms, but the Block Island project – in similar fashion to Gulf offshore oil infrastructure – has noticeably increased the fish population in nearby waters.
The biggest problem for New England offshore (and there are several) is safe access within the project’s footprint.
These areas are worked by both trawlers and trap operators and the proposed layout from Vineyard Wind has been deemed unworkable.
OCEANS HAD THEIR HOTTEST YEAR ON RECORD IN 2018 AS GLOBAL WARMING ACCELERATES
“The analysis by an international team of scientists confirms the oceans are heating up much faster than previously recognized, and that the pace of warming has accelerated sharply since the 1990s.”
Ocean heat seems to be going up linearly – i.e. no sign it’s tailing off to a new stable condition, which means increased heat gain from GHG is keeping up with increased heat loss from a warmer stratosphere. How does that end? Also the interdecadal pacific oscillation is switching to a positive phase which means higher sea-surface temperatures for the next 20 or 30 years (the temperature spikes in the early 40s and 1998 were both at the end of a positive phase) and the Atlantic oscillation also looks to be moving to a phase with higher surface temperatures.
IN ZEROHEDGE:
“Some would call it ironic, others hypocritical but whatever your level of cynicism, here are the facts: as its top global risks for 2018 and 2019 in terms of likelihood, this year’s billionaire boondoggle at the World Economic Forum in Davos listed “extreme weather conditions”, i.e. global warming. … and yet, according to Air Charter Service, no less than 1,500 private jet flights will land in Davos over the five days of its duration: a 50% increase in both private jets and toxic environmental emissions compared to last year, when roughly 1,000 private jets descended upon Davos.”
Sigh! Is it any wonder Greta (Thunberg), and her followers, are discouraged?
Sigh! Is it any wonder Greta (Thunberg), and her followers, are discouraged?
Yeah, whatever! The global statistics on commercial airline flights are even more discouraging!
And all one has to do is read the comments on the petroleum side of this very blog to get a feel for the depth of our collective delusions!
The statistic gives the number of flights performed globally by the airline industry from 2004 through 2019. Passenger air traffic and the number of flights performed are on the rise; in 2018, it is estimated that 38.1 million flights will be operated worldwide.
‘WE’, know BAU can’t continue for ever… but almost 8 billion humans and growing apparently don’t! And to make matters worse, the minute those airliners stop flying the little bit of global dimming they provide will also end and things will only get worse.
Cheers!
International flights don’t go against an individual country’s emissions or the IPCCs reduction targets so they must have no warming effect, or have I got something wrong?
Well, according to Wiki: “Comprehensive research shows that despite anticipated efficiency innovations to airframes, engines, aerodynamics and flight operations, there is no end in sight, even many decades out, to rapid growth in CO2 emissions from air travel and air freight, due to projected continual growth in air travel. This is because international aviation emissions have escaped international regulation.”
RICH GET RICHER AS THE DIVIDE WITH WORLD’S POOR GROWS WIDER (paywalled at the Times). While the fortunes of the super-rich rose by 12 per cent in 12 months, equivalent to £2.5 billion a day, the wealth of the 3.8 billion people in the poorer half fell by 11 per cent.
…
Oxfam said that the best way to tackle poverty and to reduce inequality was through public services such as education and health. Too much of the tax burden was being borne by workers, the charity said.
CHINA’S DEC 2018 COAL OUTPUT UP 2.1%: OFFICIAL DATA
China’s December 2018 coal output increased 2.1% from a year ago to reach 320.38 million mt or 3.84 billion mt on an annualized basis, according to official data released Monday.
2018 coal imports up 3.9% on the year. The country’s annual coal production in 2018 reached 3.55 billion mt, rising 5.2% year on year as the government replaced outdated production capacity with higher-quality coal supply, the National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement.
…
The statement added that China’s imports of crude oil and natural gas surged in 2018. Crude oil imports rose 10.1% year on year, while natural gas imports jumped nearly 32% year on year.
ANCIENT CLIMATE CHANGE TRIGGERED WARMING THAT LASTED THOUSANDS OF YEARS
The findings also suggest that climate change today could have long-lasting impacts on global temperature even if humans are able to curb greenhouse gas emissions. “We found evidence for a feedback that occurs with rapid warming that can release even more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere,” said Shelby Lyons, a doctoral student in geosciences at Penn State. “This feedback may have extended the PETM climate event for tens or hundreds of thousands of years. We hypothesize this is also something that could occur in the future.”
The findings also suggest that climate change today could have long-lasting impacts on global temperature even if humans are able to curb greenhouse gas emissions
An endeavor that seems less and less likely with each passing year!
Well, here is some food for thought. (pun intended of course)
I was going to start by saying that the study does not assess, say the environmental impacts of organically raised crickets, as compared to conventionally raised beef cattle, but, who gives a flying fornication anyway?! I guess my absolutely irrelevant point might have been, it’s the PARADIGM, STUPID! That plus the mass delusion that a population of 9 to 10 billion humans can continue to be fed by any means at all, be it conventional or not.
Organic food worse for the climate?
Date: December 13, 2018
Source: Chalmers University of Technology
Summary:
Organically farmed food has a bigger climate impact than conventionally farmed food, due to the greater areas of land required, a new study finds.
In case anyone is interetsted. Actual letter in Nature behind the ususal paywall.
Assessing the efficiency of changes in land use for mitigating climate change
Timothy D. Searchinger, Stefan Wirsenius, Tim Beringer & Patrice Dumas
Naturevolume 564, pages249–253 (2018)
It seems the rush to crush nature and of course ourselves is the overriding paradigm. At least for a little while longer.
All the scientific papers and media coverage on the subjects of our predicaments reminds me a nervous herd mooing among themselves when they notice danger might be near. right before they stampede. It’s just mostly chatter since no one knows what the world will be like even two decades from now, though one can safely bet it will be different, possibly very different.
About the book by Pinker, “The Blank Slate”
It’s way more than just a modern classic.
It’s THE one book written by a real scientist with real expertise and qualifications that is readily accessible to any reasonably well educated layman, well written, enjoyable, and oh, EVER so enlightening.
It’s the one book that you need to read to understand the revolution that has occurred in the social sciences over the last half century, when the accepted dogma was that the human mind IS a blank slate. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
We aggies were laughing our asses off at the folks in psychology department professors at least as far back as the sixties,when I was a undergrad, when they were trying to convince us that all animal behavior is instinctive, except in humans…. and that human behavior is infinitely malleable, if you control the environment of the child, etc. ( If you wanted a Collegiate Professional Certificate along with your sheepskin, you had to take a couple of extra courses in psychology in order to get it.. That’s what they called a teachers ticket in Virginia back in those days. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been in the psychology building, lol. )
You see, even farm boys smart enough to get into good universities are smart enough to observe and think at least a little for themselves.
We have been proven right of course, animals do possess varying levels of intelligence, and even self awareness, etc.
Pinker is the one person who lays it all out in one simply MARVELOUS book.
As for questions or issues not addressed in that book, he has since written another, titled something to the effect the Angels of our Better Nature or something close that goes into considerable depth concerning cooperation, war, and such other topics.
I consider anybody who has not read these books as intellectually handicapped, if the conversation turns to the “nature ” and behavior of naked apes.
I second. I have a signed copy from a lecture he gave in Portland Maine years ago.
That book is simply spectacular, along with How the Mind Works and The Language Instinct. I learned about Judith Rich Harris’s “The Nurture Assumption” through Pinker, another game-changer.
I consider anybody who has not read these books as intellectually handicapped
I agree OFM
I enjoyed ‘The Blank Slate’ when I read it a number of years ago. Lately, however, Pinker has, in my mind, become a Julian Simon type cornucopian. Here is a review from George Monbiot on Pinker’s new book ‘Enlightenment Now’:
Eric, thanks for the link. It appears Pinker may have stepped too far out of his field of expertise. It happens.
Lately, however, Pinker has, in my mind, become a Julian Simon type cornucopian.
That has also been my opinion for quite some time now. These days, he definitely seems to have blinders and rose colored glasses on. I no longer consider his scholarship nor his thinking to be cutting edge! But then again, no star burns brightly for ever.
agree
Pinker perhaps needs to get out of Harvard a bit more often and see more of the world.
When Pinker stopped writing about the mind, evolution and language, I sort of lost interest and quit reading him, so I can’t comment on his outlook.
However, in interviews, he claims he completely changed his mind about the future, entirely on the basis of the data:
Thanks for this link Michael. I, very reluctantly, agree with your opinion concerning Pinker’s opinions. He is correct about the human condition getting better. But he completely overlooks the environmental condition of the world. While the human condition has improved the condition for all other species of animal has gotten decidedly worse.
In improving the living conditions, for today, for an ever-expanding human population, we are totally overlooking the future condition of all creatures, including humans.
In short, Pinker has gone completely anthropocentric. He fails to realize that his short-term anthropocentricism is destroying the world.
One caveat about his Ted video, I am not at all sure his data on world poverty is correct. His data seems to reflect conditions primarily in the developed world.
I’m of the mind that Pinker is right, as far as it goes. But past performance is no assurance of future success.
I’ve formulated an idea I called “the paradox of growth.” Some say things are better, some say worse, but they are both correct–even if they seem to contradict one another–because we exist in a regime of growth.
With growth, you have growing improvements–and increasing whole numbers of people suffering.
With growth, you can have “only” .025% of people suffering calamity Y and still have more suffering than when the rate was 10%, because small percentages of large numbers can still lead to very large numbers.
If you have 100 people on a boat and 10 are killed by a lunatic passenger, it’s pretty hideous because the death rate is ten percent.
But 50 people killed on a boat by a rampaging passenger is an “improvement” when you have 2,000 on board: the rate is “only” .025 percent!
Same with planet. Declining “rates,” higher real numbers. I’m beginning to think it’s a fallacy to try to measure human misery via “rates”.
Michael, you missed my point completely. Yes, the human condition is definitely improving. That was Pinker’s point. But the health of the earth is definitely in serious decline. The world’s environmental health is in god awful. We are headed for total collapse. But Pinker, in the video, only concentrated on the current state of the human population. He was totally anthropocentric.
And by the way, 50 is 2.5 percent of 2,000, not .025 percent.
Putting it simply, humans are improving their condition by drawing down the earth’s ecological capital. We are seriously into overshoot. It may feel good while we gorge ourselves on what is left of the natural resources, but there is bound to be a serious reckoning.
Very well put Eric. But why is that so hard for some otherwise great minds to understand?
Its a painful reality to swallow, so many prefer not to open their mouth [eyes] to it.
In favor of hydrogen in big trucks, there’s plenty of room to mount large fuel tanks, because unless you load one with potato chips or some other really light weight cargo, there’s usually a lot more space than you need, because trucks must comply with load limits , so much per axle, so much per foot length, so much max no matter what. A flat bed forty foot trailer stacked with angle iron can’t be stacked even a foot deep without being overloaded.
Hydrogen tanks, like batteries,can be mounted in out of the way places such as where the diesel engine, diesel tanks, and transmission are located in conventional trucks, plus under the and between the frame rails in the trailer portion of the truck.
The big advantage of hydrogen is that full hydrogen tanks big enough to match the mileage of a battery powered truck is that the full hydrogen tanks are a lot lighter than the batteries. How much lighter nobody has said in specific terms, to the best of my knowledge. It seems that the hydrogen powered truck will be able to haul a somewhat bigger load, by weight, because the of the weight penalty imposed by oversized batteries. How much bigger, I don’t have a real clue, but it could be as much as half or more the weight of the batteries.
My personal opinion is that so long as Tesla can deliver a class 8 pure electric capable of three hundred miles loaded, that’s enough to sell one hell of a lot of trucks……….. if the price is right and they prove to be reliable and durable. Big trucks aren’t like cars, the people who buy them expect them to run upwards of a million miles without much in the way of repairs or downtime even for scheduled maintenance. When they do have problems, they’re actually easier and faster by a mile to repair than a typical late model car or pickup truck, since they’re BUILT with fast affordable repairs in mind.
SO…. both battery powered and fuel cell powered trucks are going to be held to high standards of reliability and durability. Electric motors are old hat, they can be built to last just about forever. Batteries and fuel cells have yet to prove themselves in trucks that ride rough and stay on the road for days at a time, with two guys taking turns driving.
The big advantage, which I consider overwhelming for now and for at least a decade or so to come, is that the grid goes virtually everywhere trucks go, and it’s not going to be outrageously expensive to install chargers anywhere trucks frequently stop. A full charge is not necessarily necessary. If the trucker can charge up enough to go another twenty to forty miles at a stop, he can reach the next stop on a delivery route easily enough without ever waiting to recharge or running out of juice on the road.
For now, hydrogen distribution systems are as rare as hundred dollar bills on sidewalks, and hydrogen even if you can get it is very likely to be pretty expensive for some time to come, for sure more expensive than grid sourced electricity.
And for now, the fuel cell truck is very likely to be much more costly up front. Whether fuel cells will be cheaper than batteries a few years or decades down the road is anybody’s guess.
My money, if I had any to bet, would be on batteries for at least the next five or ten years. Even if there’s a cost breakthrough in the fuel cell biz, it’s going to take that long, at least, for enough hydrogen fueling stations to be built to even approach the ease of recharging an electric truck.
OFM- you may find what this company is doing to be of interest. They are pushing ahead strongly in the trucking-hydrogen space. https://nikolamotor.com/stations
These are electric trucks, with the batteries charged by onboard fuel cells. “A: The Nikola One™ has a fuel cell onboard that charges the batteries. This fuel cell runs on hydrogen and will need to be refueled every 800-1,200 miles depending on terrain and load size.”
OFM
Glad to see you posting, and I hope all is going well with you.
You may find spending some time following up on Hickory’s link to Nikola Motors highly enlightening.
The business model of only leasing, not selling, coupled with 1 million miles free fuel, are sure to be intriguing for prospective customers.
If you poke around the site of their hydrogen supplier, a Norwegian outfit Nel Hydrogen, you may be very surprised at how far along all this technology has come.
Thanks Coffee and Hickory,
I will read your links and add them to my notes. I’ll have time to hang out here for a while, thru the rest of the winter, probably.
But time flies, and there are so many things I’m trying to get done, on the farm, looking after family issues, etc.
Hopefully sometime this year I will have a site of my own up, with many similarities to this one, and lots of references to this one as well. I’m trying right now to upgrade my more or less first grade level computer skills to the point I can run it myself, not having much in the way of cash to pay somebody else to solve all the inevitable problems. I’m not ” hard up” as we say in this neck of the woods, but I am what we describe as “land rich and money poor”. Someday I’ll have to sell some land, but I won’t until I MUST, and so far I haven’t run across anybody in particular I would like to see as the new owner. It’s my hope that somebody who will treasure the place, and live on it and maintain it as sustainably as possible, rather than subdivide it, will turn up.
Indeed they are far along their development.
Last summer they awarded a- ” multi-billion NOK contract, to be deployed from 2020, Nel will deliver up to 1 GW of electrolysis plus fueling equipment…
“We are immensely proud of announcing this 1 GW electrolyzer contract with Nikola for the exclusive delivery of 448 electrolyzers and supporting fueling equipment as part of their groundbreaking development of a hydrogen station infrastructure across the US. The multi-billion NOK contract is by far the largest electrolyzer and fueling station contract ever awarded. It will secure fast and cost efficient fueling of Nikola’s fleet of hydrogen trucks, delivering support to major customers like Anheuser-Busch, as well as a growing fleet of Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles. ”
These electrolysis stations will have to get their energy from somewhere- could be grid supplied PV, wind, or nat gas fueled turbine.
A large portion of the energy for the electrolysis is to come from solar panels.
If you check out the ‘Energy’ listing on their home site, you will see that they acquired a solar installation company with the earlier stated goals of using this method with which to create the hydrogen.
Likewise, on the ‘H2 Stations’ listing, the vast majority of their planned fueling stations are located in the southern US.
The scope of what this company is attempting to achieve is truly breathtaking as well as paradigm shattering for the truck transportation industry.
Having some heavy hitters in their corner such as Ryder and the big Caterpillar dealer in Tennessee doesn’t hurt their credibility, either.
It will be interesting to follow these developments in the coming couple of years.
Yes that solar source of energy is great. The nat gas or grid can be used in winter, or cloudy zones if needed.
One day last week my PV array put out only 4.8% of what it did today. It was a very cloudy that day, and completely clear today, as an example of real world variability.
Most of North America will be in severely cold 2 m temperature anomalies next week according to the ECWMF. The Midwest is looking at a solid stretch of temperatures 20 °C/36 °F below normal. For a change, there should be no further melting in Greenland, since even they will be on the negative side of the anomalies.
This, too, shall pass (it’s supposed to be 50 here in Maine Thursday), but the CO2 will keep rising.
For a change, there should be no further melting in Greenland, since even they will be on the negative side of the anomalies.
You really don’t understand the difference between climate and weather, do you?! A temporary cold spell is not going to stop the ice in Greenland from melting, let alone rebuild what has already been lost!
Stop embarrassing yourself!
“You really don’t understand the difference between climate and weather, do you”
Oh he understands the difference. He is on a fake news propaganda campaign, and so is highly selective in his (mis)use of data.
Maybe he’s hoping for a Trump whitehouse position, something like science advisor.
‘Yes-man Frisky’
FOREST SOIL NEEDS DECADES OR CENTURIES TO RECOVER FROM FIRES AND LOGGING
“The impacts of logging on forest soils differs from that of fire because of the high-intensity combination of clearing the forest with machinery and post-logging “slash” burning of debris left on the ground. This can expose the forest floor, compact the soil, deplete soil nutrients, and release large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Ecologically vital, large old trees in Mountain Ash forests may take over a century to recover from fire or logging. Our new findings indicate that forest soils may take a similar amount of time to recover.”
Yes, there is a disturbing frequency of burned areas that are not regrowing since conditions are often drier and warmer than when the forest grew initially.
To replace a forest ecology may take 4000 years, but that is assuming the original species set is available nearby.
DougL,
Large old “Mountain Ash”–that threw me off for a moment. Ain’t no such critter. Then I read that the study was done in Australia, and refers to a eucalypt.
“Climate change is causing Greenland ice masses to melt faster, losing four times more ice since 2003. The only thing we can do is adapt and mitigate further global warming – it’s too late for there to be no effect, we are watching the ice sheet hit a tipping point”.
Sand is essential to make concrete, glass, silicon for computer chips, and many other products (longer list in Peak Sand), so no wonder top journal “Science” has had two articles on this topic.
Sand mining also ruins ecosystems, lessens biodiversity, impairs water and food security, makes storm surges and tsunamis more destructive, ruins drinking water with salty water, and salinization of cultivated land reduces and even prevents land from being farmed.
In India, illegally mining sand has become very lucrative and the “Sand Mafia” in India has become one of the most powerful and violent organized crime groups. They’ve killed hundreds of people so far in “sand wars”. As a consequence of sand mining, death stalks people in other ways; standing-water pools created by extraction have increased the prevalence of malaria and other diseases.
I guess this can work, but at first glance, it looks to be pretty expensive in terms of capital and production, compared to straight up pv, and storing energy as heat at the site the heat will be needed.
What I’m thinking is that putting thermal mass, such as a gravel bed or concrete, in the floor, with heating wires in it, would work as well, and probably for a lot less money.
Of course solar energy stored as heat in a floor slab isn’t going to run the lights or computer, so there will still be a need for deferred generation into the evening and night, so that’s in favor of the thermal storage and steam system.
Now if this collected heat is surplus to the need for electricity elsewhere, and can be used to desalinate sea water, that might well tip the scales towards making it economically attractive.
Thermal collector efficiency is about l70 percent, solar PV efficiency is about 20 percent. So why use solar PV over thermal (flat panel)? A mix would be much more realistic and efficient. Use the solar thermal primarily for heating. Excess PV power can heat water, make ice, etc.
The first priority is sealing and insulating buildings. That could cut energy demand by 2/3. Less demand, smaller energy collectors. Less demand means longer life of pumps, fans and cooling equipment.
Sorry, but how do you get to 170% for thermal or are you referring to heat pumps?
NAOM
If you look carefully that is not a one that is an “el”. Compare the two l versus 1. Just a typo, not a one. 70 percent is the efficiency.
70 percent is from a published study of flat plate solar thermal collectors.
I use 70 percent when I design them and increase the aperture area by 43 percent as compensation for losses. The nice thing about solar thermal is the coldest days are often the clearest in the winter. Usually cloudy days are warmer. The other nice thing is they can be built at home.
Ah, thanks, I need to get my eyes tuned. Doesn’t show up very clearly, here, though. I need to get a flat plate collector installed but jobs have been backlogging, must clear the backlog.
After a year of turbulence for global solar, new capacity installations will break the 100 GW barrier for the first time in 2019, according to consultants Wood Mackenzie.
Unveiling its Global Solar PV Markets – Top 10 Trends to Watch in 2019 report this morning, the Scottish energy research company predicted 103 GW of new PV will be installed in the next 12 months, as the sector rebounds following figures which showed last year was the first in which new capacity additions failed to rise year on year.
Wood Mackenzie has predicted the world will continue to wean itself off a dependency on China which, although it will remain the world’s top dog for some time to come, will see its share of global installed capacity fall from the 55% seen in 2017 to around 19% by 2023. The Edinburgh-based consultancy predicts Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt and Italy will be the world’s fastest-growing solar markets this year.
And another landmark will be set in the final three months of 2019, according to the report’s authors, with more than 30 GW of new solar anticipated for a quarterly record, as regional markets Latin America, the Middle East and Africa continue to expand.
Depending on who’s figures are used global PV capacity additions were between 95 GW and 99 GW in 2017. This indicates that global PV module manufacturing capacity is somewhere in that region. Global module manufacturing capacity is not in decline so it is fairly safe to say that the same amount of capacity or more was manufactured in 2018. I am not aware of any glut of unsold PV modules on the world market so, I think proclaiming that "new capacity installations will break the 100 GW barrier for the first time in 2019" is a bit premature. All the data for 2018 is not in yet and despite the slowdown in China, other countries appear to be making up for the decline in China. We will just have to wait and see when the final data for 2018 comes in over the next couple of months.
We often discuss tribalism here as a major factor in what people believe in and advocate. Personally I believe tribalism, meaning in this case simply the tendency to support those we perceive as family, friends, and cultural “US” as opposed to the enemy “THEM” is all too often the key factor in what people believe and want, politically.
SO……….. since so very many of us hate Trump, and his repug allies, and they say global warming is a hoax and a conspiracy to get yo’ tax money so them there sin’tist’s can live high on the hog, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that people who don’t actually give climate a thought otherwise are going to start believing in forced climate change….. given that the enemy does not, lol.
There is actually a reference to this thought in the article.
So maybe Trump is going to be seen in the end as a slow motion Pearl Harbor Wake Up Event, a few years down the road, as the super storms and super floods and super droughts and aquifers running dry dominate the news even more than they do today.
The statistics presented in this article are encouraging to say the least.
Now if we actually do get some real ” come to Jesus” wake up events, it’s altogether possible that we can get some things done, for instance maybe permitting and building a nation wide HVDC network.
There’s no reason, with some luck, that this sort of grand under taking can’t be sold to the public as in the public interest, on various grounds from construction employment to national security to local tax revenues, just as the interstate highway system was sold.
Such a network would mean the continued spectacular growth in wind and solar power would continue for years to come, since there would be a ready market for the cheap juice.
And the more such juice is available, the more practical it will be to make good use of it.
Cheap electricity can be stored as heat or chill, by heating or cooling cheap thermal mass, thereby making it practical to depend on wind and solar power to heat and cool our houses and other buildings to a far greater extent than at present, plus the intermittency problem would be halved or quartered, and maybe eventually, at some point, totally solved, lol. But every kilowatt hour’s worth of juice stored as heat is one less that needs to be stored in a battery or pumped hydro facility, etc.
Climate Change Could Lead to Greater Reliance on iPhones, Says Apple
by Juli Clover
A U.K.-based non-profit organization, CDP, recently asked major companies to provide reports on their environmental impact with details on the risks and opportunities that climate change might present.
Apple was one of the respondents, and as outlined by Bloomberg, the company believes future climate-related disasters could increase peoples’ dependence on the iPhone.
According to Apple’s report, of which only a portion of a statement was shared, the iPhone can work as a flashlight or a siren, provide first aid instructions, or serve as a radio. The device can be charged via hand cranks or car batteries, allowing it to work even when power is out.
Apple declined to comment on the information provided in the report, and we only have a small glimpse at the data that was included. Apple undoubtedly had additional thoughts to share on climate change, much like the other companies that participated.
Disney, for example, said it’s worried about rising temperatures affecting park attendance, while Coke said potential water shortages could limit water availability for the bottling of Coke. Intel said that droughts in areas of its operation could increase operational costs, while AT&T said that frequent hurricanes and wildfires could lead to more spending on damage repair for its network.
“Apple works hard to limit its carbon footprint, and all of its facilities worldwide operate using 100 percent renewable energy. Apple is now focusing on recycling, with the aim of a closed-loop supply chain that puts an end to its need to mine the earth for rare minerals. ”
Good for Apple. However, the number of bad apples in the bunch are allowing the climate to change faster than human action is changing. Losers.
What signal will it take? Coral reefs are dying, ice is going away, fresh water is diminishing, storms are stronger, oceans are rising, deadly heat is increasing, insects are disappearing.
There is at least 120 feet of sea level rise already baked into the system and it looks like we are headed for maximum loss of ice. But long before that the food system will crash. Who or what can live without food for very long? I guess we will find out.
Yeah, but not to worry! from your linked article, me thinks they must be channeling The New and Improved, Steven Pinker here:
The good news is that humans adapt to heat, both physiologically (through acclimatization) and socially (with air conditioning, for instance).
That will continue, according to the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which states with very high confidence that adaptation efforts in humans “will reduce the projected increase in deaths from heat.”
Yep, I’m sure the 800 million humans globally who are currently starving, will rush out and buy energy efficient air conditioners!
Edit: Sorry, my apologies, we are all out of LUSION but we still have a couple cases of rose colored glasses!
Cheers!
Those Pinker fans could definitely use a continuous supply of LUSION.
Meanwhile, over on the oily side, they are talking about a new technique to double the amount of oil sucked out of shale. Talk about harbingers of doom.
Maybe we can all have solar powered solid state chilling suits and helmets to get us through the summers. Could also condense atmospheric water for drinking.
Nice for water, but no mention of cooling. Must be fun in the sun in a black sealed suit.
Nien, nien, mien freund! Achtung!
At just past the 2:00 min mark as the Imperial ecologist is explaining the workings of the stihl suit to Duke Leto he says:
… “It’s a high efficiency filter and heat exchange system that allows prespiration to pass through the first layer and is then collected in the second layer…”
So it both cools AND collects water… 😉
I missed that. So we have a black suit that collects heat at about 800 watts from sunlight plus the heat of person 100 to 270 watts (stationary to running) making one thousand watts or more to get rid of with the energy of motion (say 100 watts during travel and none during stationary) giving at least an efficiency greater than 1000 percent. Amazing heat pump there. 🙂
ROFL! which is why it is called … drum roll please! ‘SCIENCE FICTION’. 😉
Reality was much worse than what you say. I
read a description of the actual shooting of the movie, These suits were made of latex and all the actors who wore them and had to film scenes of running in the desert were constantly on the verge of heat stroke. No joke!
Yes, saw the movie a long time ago and did not think it was non-fiction. Although the suit was the least of the leaps of imagination in the book/film.
So you don’t believe a solar powered nanotechnology material could be developed that would pump heat across itself to provide 70F on one side and 170F on the other?
FERMI DISCOVERS A PULSAR THAT SWITCHED FROM RADIO EMISSIONS TO HIGH-ENERGY GAMMA RAYS
“It’s almost as if someone flipped a switch, morphing the system from a lower-energy state to a higher-energy one,” said Benjamin Stappers, an astrophysicist at the University of Manchester, England, who led an international effort to understand this striking transformation. “The change appears to reflect an erratic interaction between the pulsar and its companion, one that allows us an opportunity to explore a rare transitional phase in the life of this binary.”
Here’s something for the pink glasses crowd to rant and rave about! Doesn’t matter, of course, we’ve got a whole decade (maybe) to get our collective act together.
ELECTRIC CARS WILL NOT STOP RISING OIL DEMAND, SAYS ENERGY AGENCY CHIEF
“Even if there were 300 million [electric cars] with the current power generation system, the impact in terms of CO2 emissions is less than 1% – nothing. If you can’t decarbonise [the power sector], C02 emissions will not be going down. It may be helpful for the local pollution, but for global emissions it is not.”
If EVs are just adding to numbers rather than replacing ICEs it seem likely to be worse: either new roads/parking/infrastructure have to be built or congestion goes up and all other cars efficiencies go down. Public transport EVs like trams, hybrid buses, trains seem a much better idea.
For some perspective on why I refuse to remove my rose colored glasses see a comment I posted over on the oily side. It has less to do with being optimistic and more to do with desperately hoping that some transition will allow me to grow old without a great deal of suffering. If these efforts to wean the world off FF don’t meet with some success, as George puts it WASF to the power of x!
Hi Doug,
It seems to me that any such hope as we have depends as much on the time frames at which various problems play out as much as anything else. Some problems are solvable, given the right circumstances.
Consider:
Three hundred million electric cars may not amount to much, in terms of total C pollution, but we may see the total number of cars in the world falling, instead of rising, and maybe falling pretty fast, depending on how the cards fall, geologically, politically, and economically. If the number of cars actually starts declining, due to economic factors and oil supply being such that the people of the world, collectively, can no longer afford to buy them and drive them, then the proportion of electric cars will rise like a rocket, in my estimation.
This would occur because it would be politically acceptable and even good politics for governments to allow and even encourage electric cars to be sold, while restricting the sale of ICE conventional cars, to reduce the need to produce or import very expensive oil, if there is an oil crisis associated with economic downturn. Governments all over would likely do whatever they can to keep people happy by supporting the sale of electric cars under such circumstances. That would pretty much satisfy people with money enough…. remaining or newly earned money enough to buy an electric car.
If the price of gas goes sky high and stays up, it could be that high electricity prices will lead enough consumers to come to the realization that anytime they are running their homes and businesses on wind and or solar electricity, they aren’t paying thru the nose for gas generation.
So it may be possible under such circumstances to get the people behind the construction of wind and solar farms on the grand scale plus the construction of new transmission lines, which will have to be HVDC, to get the juice to the places it needs to be. This scenario might take ten years to play out, but it the deals could be cut within that time frame, and construction of more wind and solar farms plus new long distance transmission lines started, or at as far along as the planning stages.
Under the right circumstances, politicians representing various constituencies can make hay together. Local people like local tax collections even if they are hard core right wingers who believe in nothing being subsidized, union guys like getting paid to build things, defense hawks like the idea of not being dependent on importing anything critical, such as oil, etc.
If collapse happens suddenly, we’re up shit creek without a paddle. But if things go to hell in a more leisurely fashion, there are plenty of things that can and may well be done to soften the landing….. maybe even to the extent that whole countries walk away. You know what they say about landings, any landing you can walk away from is a good one….. even if the plane is scrap metal.
Selling public transportation and such is going to be one hell of a job in a country such as the USA, but if oil is simply not to be had…….. people WILL buy electric cars, if they can afford them.
And if they can’t afford a car, even people out in the boonies can and may be forced to learn how to get by making very few trips to town, by ride sharing, and by having things delivered. It’s already cheaper to get a small package in most places via mail or express delivery than it is to actually drive to the city and pick it up. A UPS truck passes my house every single day, almost, these days, because everybody on my road has learned about delivery.
If I had nothing else to do, I believe I could start a business picking up groceries, etc, for people in the neighborhood, and make better than minimum wages, maybe even decent wages, by doing home deliveries……. when and if gasoline prices spike, and gasoline is rationed.
We can adapt to a surprising degree. People who believe otherwise aren’t thinking things thru, they’re just thinking people will REFUSE to adapt.
Note I am NOT disputing Fred Maygar in respect to people who have near zero income or other resources being unable to adapt. I believe he is right when he says that huge numbers of people will NOT be able to adapt to climate change and other existential problems. They will in my opinion die slow and hard in place, or die in the process of trying to emigrate to other countries that don’t want them and can’t really afford them, for the most part.
I’m sure the USA could accommodate a few million, even ten or twenty million immigrants, even if most of them lacked language skills and relevant job skills. But WOULD we? Poor people BORN in this country would resent the hell out of having to compete with them, and seeing them get handouts, call them what you will, charity, welfare, or safety net, that could otherwise go to THEM.
I can’t see our leadership ever allowing huge numbers of people into the country, given that the political consequences for such leaders would be to be sent home, next election, and all of them, regardless of their party, would know this.
So I don’t see this country ever allowing huge numbers of new people entry. Nor do I see any other reasonably prosperous country allowing large numbers of immigrants, in relation to the national population. One or two percent, annually, might be politically acceptable in some countries… probably no more, except maybe if a country is running too short of younger people and too long on older people, as may eventually be the case in a country such as Italy or Japan, both of which have very low birth rates.
Anybody who wants to pick these comments apart, please do so. I would rather learn when I’m wrong now instead of later, lol.
“….. people WILL buy electric cars, if they can afford them.”
Having witnessed the (rapid) adoption of EVs in Norway, they seem, in many respects, BAU: ever expanding roads, bridges, tunnels, parking lots, etc. Of course, the country has lots of carbon free (sort of) electricity and immense (oil/gas) wealth which facilitated the transition. Norwegians call this the “Norway Paradox”. 😉
In the US most electricity comes from coal and gas which make the “greenness” of EVs questionable. And remember, two thirds of global generation comes from fossil fuels.
So replacement of ICE cars with EV needs ever expanding infrastructure? Or do you mean that population and car demand is increasing?
I mean, having people running around in EVs require the same investment in road infrastructure as they did/do with ICEs. In Norway, owing to the mountains, fjords, etc., this is enormous, other countries — probably less.
Also, Norwegians love foreign travel; Africa is especially popular. All this has been (is) paid for by exploiting North Sea oil and gas. The average Norwegian would agree that when you look at life-style, it’s all pretty much BAU.
The fact that electricity there comes from hydro is a significant difference from the world-at-large — by luck. That same “luck” means that to drive around you need many costly bridges, tunnels, snowplows, ferries, etc. So when asked, the average Norwegian will say: “I bought an EV because of all the government subsidies and it’s great that they don’t pollute our towns and cities.” When a Norwegian says that he/she is talking, in part, about noise pollution because they all hate noise. OK, I’ll shut up!
Yes, I see what you mean. Peeling back the layers of BAU gets a lot easier when one expands the problem.
I found a paper on the CO2 footprint of roads (building and maintenance). A quick calculation gave the CO2 road rate at 40% of that of the total emissions (road plus traffic). I did not include the CO2 from demolishing the road as the paper states few roads are ever removed.
Bridges and other structures are included. http://oa.upm.es/29119/1/INVE_MEM_2013_169096.pdf
That means EV’s are at least a 60 percent solution and as highway machinery, truck transport, industry etc. switch to electric use and less CO2 intensive materials and methods that portion should increase significantly.
If we still need all that in the future or don’t take to the air and stop using most roads. 🙂
I won’t argue that we won’t “take to the air” but this seems unlikely . Roads are it, probably forever. We may elevate them or put them underground in places that are densely populated. We may lay rails on some existing roads and run autonomous electric trains, little ones, on them, because this might prove to be extremely energy efficient and economical.
In terms of what will happen as we come nose to nose and belly to belly with hard limits, my opinion is that we will build very few new roads, and damned few new ice cars, as oil supplies must inevitably run short.
But as things wind down, as the long emergency plays out, I foresee huge numbers of electric cars being built…… as many as the buying public can afford, however many that might be. Such cars CAN be built to last more or less indefinitely. Even ICE cars can be built to last fifty years or longer. Electric cars can and will be powered by renewable energy, eventually, unless industrial civilization collapses sooner.
As fossil fuels deplete, and climate problems mount, it’s my argument that with some luck, electric cars will be embraced wholesale by the people of this country and the world.
Public opinions and beliefs can and do change, given time. As people come to the realization that climate change is real, and a SHORT TERM problem, as is going to be the case, and that oil supplies are limited, and a SHORT TERM problem, as must happen sooner or later……….
Then the political will to get away from oil before it runs REALLY short, and fossil fuel generated electricity before the climate goes REALLY nuts, may come to pass.
At that time, assuming we aren’t yet too far gone down the rat hole of economic exhaustion, we can and will get busy ( substitute the words maybe or hopefully as you prefer for can and will) building wind and solar farms wholesale, and building HVDC power lines wholesale, tightening up building codes wholesale, renovating older buildings for energy efficiency wholesale, manufacturing truly energy efficient appliances wholesale, etc etc.
We can, hopefully, and will, hopefully, do these things for the same reasons that in the past we built up our huge military establishment, built the interstate highway system, put satellites in orbit, etc.
We did these things because they WERE NECESSARY, or because somebody convinced us they were necessary, and because they were profitable and provided jobs and so forth.
The entire world may be headed to hell in a hand basket, but there’s a real possibility that some people in some places may pull thru ok.
The likelihood of some of us establishing a sustainable society and economy depends largely upon how fast we get started and how hard we work at it.
A hot oil war resulting in severe rationing of gasoline and diesel fuel would hurt like hell, for a while, but long term…….. the effect would be at least somewhat like that of having an abscessed tooth extracted. The loss of chewing efficiency is FAR outweighed by the elimination of the pain and the danger of the infection spreading.
We can solve many of the problems associated with overshoot, and the more of them we solve, the softer the crash. Some of us can walk away.
It took two generations for the public as a whole to finally accept the fact that tobacco is a killer, but nowadays even the dumbest and most ignorant hillbilly understands that coffin nails are aptly named.
We may not have two generations grace when it comes to climate, oil depletion, etc…
Even when the inevitable migration to EV’s occurs, we need to move away from the premise that everyone owns a personal vehicle. Otherwise, depletion of resources and the ravenous demand for energy, no matter whether it comes from a sustainable source, will continue to grow with corresponding population growth.
At the very least, within large urban areas worldwide, it would be feasible to minimize personal vehicle use without much real inconvenience. If there was a significant fee/penalty for personal vehicle use within our cities, maybe we can then significantly reduce the number of single passenger commutes. Imagine the positive impacts of reduced traffic, less need for parking infrastructure, more green space, etc…
In Vancouver, we have decent transit service but it still seems to require a real paradigm shift for some to “get on-board”. Hopefully, in the near future, a fleet of relatively small “on demand” autonomous vehicles will provide a much more convenient and desirable form of transport to help reduce the use of personal vehicles.
I agree, cities will benefit most from cars as a service. Luckily, the developing world is taking to the streets in two wheeled vehicles by the droves and switching to electric quickly, so car ownership is not as high as it could be.
Won’t really change the production rate much since a personal car can last 15 years or more while a service car is worn out by five. So service cars have a much higher replacement rate.
I wouldn’t fret too much about growing populations. Once food and water limits are reached, population will fall very quickly.
However, the biggest problem is over consumption. The modern western type lifestyle is a carbon burner and material waster. Even within the US there is a threefold difference in carbon footprint between the richest 10 percent and poorest 10 percent.
The ratio magnifies globally with better than a 10 to 1 ration between high income and low income groups.
The per capita emissions of North America is 17 times that of per capita African.
Overconsumption by a small portion of the population is the biggest problem, while much of the planet’s population has a hard time getting necessities.
Sadly, unless there is a dramatic global crises, climate change and other factors hit the world’s poor first and hardest. The very people that cause the least carbon burn.
“Won’t really change the production rate much since a personal car can last 15 years or more while a service car is worn out by five. So service cars have a much higher replacement rate”
Maybe not so. What wears out the most on an IfCE car? The engine? I would expect an EV to have a longer service life as the motors will last longer and motor control will reduce wear and tear on the rest of the systems. Cars intended as service cars would have customised drive profiles to maximise life , keeping wear and tear to a minimum, no insanity mode!
As for material use, with the new classes of car there is an opportunity to design in more recyclability and reusability. Motors could well be refurbished, if in good condition, or materials recovered, if not. (lots of ‘re’s there 🙂 )
NAOM
Oslo has a pretty good Tram and Metro service, or used to when I lived there in the 90s.
Same now. It’s also probably one of the cleanest (and quietest) cities of comparable size.
ROFL. If we don’t decarbonize, all this conversation about the future will be totally meaningless.
I guess the BAUIEA hasn’t gotten the message yet.
I wouldn’t believe the IEA, they appear to use the same scenario as Morgan Stanley for EV number projection.
We all know we can trust Morgan Stanley, right? They have no investment in growth or BAU, right? 🙂
Mauna Loa CO2 setting new records daily at the moment, and I guess will continue to May now – today almost 5 ppm above last year and well above expected trend.
January 22, 2019 413.86 ppm
January 22, 2018 408.95 ppm
New research published in Science by Hebrew University of Jerusalem Professor Daniel Rosenfeld shows that the degree to which aerosols cool the earth has been grossly underestimated, necessitating a recalculation of climate change models to more accurately predict the pace of global warming.
… they discovered that aerosols’ cooling effect is nearly twice higher than previously thought.
…
Our current global climate predictions do not correctly take into account the significant effects of aerosols on clouds on Earth’s overall energy balance. Further, Rosenfeld’s recalculations mean fellow scientists will have to rethink their global warming predictions — which currently predict a 1.5 to 4.5-degree Celsius temperature increase by the end of the 21st century — to provide us a more accurate diagnosis — and prognosis — of the Earth’s climate.
I think there was a paper a couple of years ago that had a similar conclusion, i.e. it had cooling effect of 1.3°C rather than 0.5°C. This may be a factor behind Arctic amplification as there aren’t so many aerosols in the cryosphere zones.
Yes, it has been known for quite a long time that global dimming is at least that large. Bad part is that certain regions will experience much larger magnitudes of heating at first since they are the aerosol producing regions with the highest concentrations. In time it will average out but some areas will have several degrees of fast rise as they reduce their aerosols. Temperature gradients are dependent upon on how fast we stop producing the aerosols.
The major factor in fast Arctic amplification is loss of ice and snow aided by warm ocean and air currents. Those involve local changes on the order of 100 watts where dimming is generally maxed around 20 watts in the worst cases and lower overall.
It is all in one direction though, hotter.
Quite a while ago I noticed that the timing of our carbon intrusion was important, the cryosphere was already unstable when humans started the industrial GHG plume.
Here is an oldy but goody, exemplifying the instability points (tipping points) of our recent period. The effect of solar radiation variations on the climate
of the Earth If to consider that with the absence of ice the
Arctic Ocean receives additionally an amount
of heat equal to the mean value coming now to
the ice-free areas of the oceans at high latitudes,
the mean air temperature in the Arctic must be
somewhat higher than the above value, i.e. close
to zero.
This result is in agreement with the conclusions
drawn using other methods in previous
works by the author (Budyko, 1961,1962, 1966),
L. R. Rakipova (1962, 1966), D o ~ & S h a w
(1966), and others. It confirms once more the
possibility of existence of ice-free regime in the
polar basin in the present epoch and at the same
time indicates high instability of such a regime.
It is evident that with the annual mean
temperature in the Central Arctic close to water
freezing point comparatively small anomalies
of radiation income may lead to ice restoration.
Thus, with the present distribution of continents
and oceans the existence of two climatic
regimes is possible one of which is characterized
by the presence of polar ice and large thermal
contrast between the pole and the equator,
and the other by the absence of glaciation and
small meridional mean gradient of temperature.
Both of these regimes are unstable since even
small variations of solar radiation income could
be sufficient either for freezing of the ice-free
polar ocean or melting of the existing ice. Such
a peculiarity of climatic regime seems to determine
the main features of climate variations
in the Quaternary period. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.2153-3490.1969.tb00466.x
Of course Ice Ages are inherently unstable, depending upon orbital changes and the phase change properties of water. With this latest injection of GHG and loss of the cryosphere, the Earth should exit the Ice Age to a warm period. Only the far future will determine if that change is stable.
George Kaplan,
Thanks for posting this. I also saw a report about this Science paper elsewhere. I haven’t read the paper, nor am I an expert in this field, but the implications, if this is in fact true, are stunning. I guess this underestimation has been suggested previously.
How clean do we want that coal?
Some comes from marine shipping using high sulphur bunker oil – and that will be going away in 2020 (I’ve tried to find numbers for sources of aerosol without much success, some seem to indicate MFO is a significant source – maybe a third, which could translate to 0.25°C extra warming within a couple of years by the new numbers – some don’t mention it at all compared with coal).
CO2 is a weak greenhouse gas compared with the other ones and makes up just a small % of the atmosphere.
Do you live under a rock?
Probably does! That’s where all the trolls come crawling out from under…
How can there still be people like you coming up with this drivel?
Cyanide is a weak poison compared to the others and makes up just a small % of your body… Or at least it should to do the gene pool a favor.
Man that rate of increase is bloody scary.
What are the chances the output from the sensor is being affected by the government’s shutdown? Even if there are still government employees at work near the sensor, they aren’t getting paid, and haven’t been paid in over a month.
Krell- “What are the chances the output from the sensor is being affected by the government’s shutdown?”
Thats funny man. Thanks for the laugh.
Mauna Loa is a Scripps installation.
Basically, 2017 and 2018 marked years in which the previously slow and imperceptible declines in institutions and economic activities started to accelerate to the point of notice by even the generally ignorant masses. The political fallout, the trend toward nationalism and xenophobia has become all too obvious. People are scared and confused. They will resort to protectionist thinking in an attempt to restore what they consider the normal order. But it is a futile effort. From this point forward the rate of decline and collapse will just increase. If we think the last several years were bad, say in the nature of mass migrations, just wait. As droughts and floods continue to make life unlivable in regions near the Equator (Middle East, Northern Africa, Central and upper South America) the violence will escalate beyond imagining. The mass exoduses from these regions into the US and Europe will intensify beyond reckoning. If we thought the tensions these migrations had stirred up already was bad, just wait.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
A Tale of Two Cities
Dickens at his best
Hi Hightrekker,
While I am totally opposed to building a wall on our southern border, I am in favor, as the vast majority of Americans seem to be, of controlling our borders and not allowing large numbers of new immigrants to enter the country without control of their number and control of who they are, individually.
And while the leftish or D wing politicians are opposed to the proposed wall, I can’t think of one who seriously proposes to simply allow hundreds of thousands and even millions of people to enter this country as they please.
Advocating for immigration privileges for a relatively small number of people who are political refugees or who are simply impoverished, on humanitarian grounds, is politically feasible.
Advocating the uncontrolled entry of thousands and tens of thousands or more immigrants who will inevitably contain some very bad apples is essentially political suicide, in terms of a political party’s platform. The number of bad apples will be or would be relatively small of course, maybe only one young guy out of hundreds or even a couple of thousands but we have troubles enough already with gangs such as MS13 etc. I hope I remembered the name of the game correctly. The one I have in mind consists mostly of young male immigrants who basically don’t give a shit about anything, except …… robbery, extortion, gang status, etc.
Massive immigration simply will not fly here in the USA, nor in any other country capable of controlling its borders, as I see it.
SO……… Trump doesn’t have to get his wall, for there to be a wall…… if a few years down the road it proves impossible to stop uncontrolled large scale immigration without it.
Whoever is is power, R or D, will build the wall.
You can bet your last can of beans on it.
There isn’t any border crisis NOW.
But later?
I foresee one numerous countries having a border crisis, and have posted comments in the past in various forums that walls will be quite common, and manned with soldiers with orders to shoot, as necessary, in some parts of the world.
Hopefully things won’t get this bad at Yankee borders, but I don’t think it’s possible to guarantee otherwise.
Depending on how bad things get to our south, we might be able to help the people down that way solve their own problems to the extent they will stay home. I hope so.
But if the climate, or political situation in such countries, goes NUTS, we will have to deal with tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, of would be immigrants….. one way or another. And if they ever get in wholesale, ten times as many will be lined up awaiting entry as soon as the word gets around.
A number of countries have allowed numerous migrants to enter, and put them into refugee camps.
How that would fly with the American people I have no real idea. I suppose we would go along with such a solution.. up to a point, depending on which party, and who, is in office in Washington and various states, especially border states.
There are interesting times headed our way.
There are 7.6 billion people on the planet—
We use 10 grams of oil to produce 1 of food.
Does anybody know of a readily accessible article that details this allegation that we use ten grams of oil to produce one gram of food?
Generally I find it hard to track down the source of such numbers.
Here’s a link to a publication that has some easily comprehended figures.
EDIT:
“All together the food-processing industry in the United States uses about ten calories of fossil-fuel energy for every calorie of food energy it produces.”
“There are 7.6 billion people on the planet—
We use 10 grams of oil to produce 1 of food.”
And yet the deer sleeping in the woods a short distance from me use no petroleum, nor the hawk that was hunting the area. They also do not need houses, furnaces, computers, cars, etc to have a life. All they need is some natural space.
Why do we need so much technological and energetic life support? Are we that crippled and hyper-dependent?
Because I like sleeping in my bed with a roof over my head and so do you
And I like being able to talk about such things on the Innertubes.
Excellent response HB, exemplifying the major confusion people have between likes (desires) and needs.
So I can now add confusion, hedonism and lack of self control to the list of modern ailments.
Although to be fair, much of the desires have been put into codes ,laws and societal demands forcing these systems upon all except those that live outside of developed nations or areas.
People get so used to them, they think they actually need them.
Also, we are basically tropical animals, no fur and sweat glands all over, long legs. Look like big frogs.
Meanwhile the little wren I heard this morning is doing just fine at 19F and will survive the below zero weather of the next couple of days.
Gogoro- Electric transport taking taiwan by storm, Dig around their site for the details. https://www.gogoro.com/about/
Gov. McMaster of South Carolina gave a speech, with talk about environmental protection and preparations for the impacts of climate change in his state. It is a good example of how Republicans nationwide should be discussing the great environmental and climate challenges of our times instead of backing away from them or even denying there are still any challenges. People need to see some acceptable conservative minded pathways towards solving these challenges.
Here’s an excerpt from this speech…..
This land, as noted by explorers for kings and queens, is lush, fertile and brimming with abundance in plant and animal life. It is irreplaceable. The obligation and privilege of our generation and others to use it, cultivate it, develop it and also to protect it and encroach upon it only gently.
Our economic growth and the preservation of our natural environment are not opposing objectives which must be balanced as in a competition, one against the other. Instead, they are complimentary, each dependent on the other.
To these ends, I recently established the South Carolina Floodwater Commission. It is unique in the United States. The commission’s purpose is to provide guidance, solutions and opportunities presented by inland and coastal flooding and all that entails. Its scope will be global, to be applied here.
Economic prosperity requires that we address water in a comprehensive fashion – whether it is flooding, sea rise, aquifer depletion, or upstream withdrawal. Make no mistake – a plentiful water supply is essential to our manufacturing, agricultural and tourism industries as well as our quality of life.
That means that we must stand firmly against all efforts to endanger the future of our pristine coastline, our beaches, our sea islands, our marshes, and our watersheds.
Ladies and gentlemen, that means we will not have offshore testing or drilling off the coast of South Carolina.
That’s a good start! However he is still stuck on the ‘GROWTH’ paradigm being necessary for prosperity. He says:
Our economic growth and the preservation of our natural environment are not opposing objectives which must be balanced as in a competition, one against the other. Instead, they are complimentary, each dependent on the other.
No, unfortunately economic growth is still the underlying basis for our current system, it is the underlying thesis of capitalism and neo-classical economics. It is a model that is linear when it comes to extraction, use and waste of resources. It ignores all the negative consequences of the exponential function.
Having said that, he does seem to get some things right:
Economic prosperity requires that we address water in a comprehensive fashion – whether it is flooding, sea rise, aquifer depletion, or upstream withdrawal. Make no mistake – a plentiful water supply is essential to our manufacturing, agricultural and tourism industries as well as our quality of life.
Somehow we need to change from the current paradigm of ‘GROWTH’ to one of prosperity based on synergistic circularity, while eliminating all use of fossil fuels and drastically reducing human population and its impact on the environment. We need to develop technologies to remove and sequester massive amounts of CO2 and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere so we can at least mitigate if not reverse climate change. Then there is the sixth mass biological extinction a truly existential threat! Not to mention dealing with all the potentially massive and disruptive feedbacks and tipping points that might already be past the point of no return. According to our best scientists we have maybe another decade or so to do all of this!
Add to that our continual under estimation of all the unknown unknowns and their attendant future risks such as the sudden elimination of the cooling effects of global dimming, (mentioned by George Kaplan), if we stop with our particulate emissions, whether that occurs by design or due to the global collapse of our current economic system.
Good luck with all of that!
“Good luck with all of that!”
‘WE ARE LOSING THE RACE’ ON CLIMATE CHANGE: UN CHIEF
“The Paris accord has been shaken by the withdrawal of the United States under President Donald Trump, and by threats to do the same by Brazil’s new hard-right leader, Jair Bolsonaro. The UN secretary-general said the commitments made in Paris were already “not enough”. If what we agreed in Paris would be materialised, the temperature would rise more than 3.0 degrees (Celsius)….
We’re heading towards 4.0 degrees Centigrade increase in this century, and the passive indifference that most countries are accepting is basically a mutual suicide pact.”
NORTH SLOPE OIL AND GAS ACTIVITY IS AT ITS HIGHEST LEVEL IN 20 YEARS
“The number of exploration and production rigs working on the oil-rich North Slope should reach its highest level in 20 years this winter, state officials say. Oil field employment is higher than last year, modestly, but a first in more than four years. And the state just had one of its strongest North Slope lease sales in recent history…
Those factors and others show the recent plunge in oil prices has not dampened industry’s expectations for the region, amid newfound interest in a little-tapped geological formation, the Nanushuk, state officials indicated in a meeting with the Senate Finance committee last week.”
What never seems to be spelt out is what 3 and 4 degrees means in detail – i.e. mass famines and wars with millions or billions dead with every country devastated. “Suicide Pact” sounds a bit like hype and prople can easily say “not me though”. And always saying “by 2100” gives the audience a subconscious a way out – deaths, displacements and economic impacts are happening now, problems will escalate faster than can be followed even by the experts, and the environmental damage is mostly irreversible on generational time scales. If the UN is still around I wonder what they will say in 2040.
A degree by degree explanation of what will happen when the earth warms
Three degrees by the end of the century most likely means proceeding to a 6 to 8C world due to natural feedbacks. Sorry kiddees, no ice cream on this trip.
Speaking of water supply, not long now. In fact it’s already drying up! The long emergency is unfolding.
I get two on track, one demonstrable progress, two off track (i.e. going in the opposite direction) and lots of insufficient progress and insufficient data.
Looks highly insufficient to me and they missed the number one fossil fuel problem, natural gas.
‘TIPPING POINT’ RISK FOR ARCTIC HOTSPOT
“The Arctic Ocean has a cold, fresh surface layer which acts as a cap on a layer of warm, saltier Atlantic water beneath. But now in the Barents Sea there’s not enough freshwater-rich sea-ice flowing from the high Arctic to maintain the freshwater cap. And that’s allowing warm, salty Atlantic water to rise to the surface. In what’s known as a feedback loop – the more the layers mix, the warmer the surface gets. And the warmer the surface gets, the more the waters mix. So, it’s now only a matter of time, the researchers say, before this section of the Arctic effectively becomes part of the Atlantic. It could happen in as little as a decade.”
“They are forecasting that average CO2 concentrations in 2019 will be 411ppm. Carbon dioxide concentration exceeded 400ppm for the first time in 2013. The year-on-year increase of CO2 is getting steadily bigger as it has done throughout the whole of the 20th century. What we are seeing for next year will be one of the biggest on record and it will certainly lead to the highest concentration of CO2.”
“What’s critical, however, is that the persistent rise in atmospheric CO2 is entirely at odds with the ambition to limit global warming to 1.5C. We need to see a reduction in the rate of CO2 emissions, not an increase.”
Be interesting to see how close predictions come – if some of the sinks are failing or El Nino effects are more than expected then we might approach 3ppm this year.
“The rising popularity of electric vehicles – which use twice as much copper as internal combustion engines “,
is fueling a copper mining resurgence in the usa
There’s been a great deal of discussion here concerning the possibility, or impossibility, of continued economic growth in the face of hard physical limits imposed by geology and ecology, etc.
Personally as a practical matter, I’m convinced that there are hard limits, and that we are pretty close to them, now, in terms of how many material goods we can have, if such goods cannot be entirely or almost entirely recycled. It’s obvious, barring technological miracles, that there’s not oil enough, aluminum and steel enough, etc, for everybody in the world to have a car, nor room enough for enough roads, etc.
BUT at least as a theoretical matter, I can’t see why economic growth cannot continue for a very long time, is such growth consists mostly of services and or SOME material things that don’t consume a lot of actual materials and that can be easily and completely recycled. Hundreds and maybe even thousands of computers can be built with the amount of actual material and energy that goes into producing just one car for instance. So maybe we COULD have a computer for every last person, especially if it were built to last indefinitely. Take out the moving parts, and electronic devices DO last indefinitely in my experience, if they are good quality and well cared for.
So….. My question is this.
Who believes that we can have continued economic growth without continually increasing consumption of physical resources, if this growth is concentrated in areas such as health care, given that the basic resources involved in health care are knowledge and professional skills and training?
Who believes such continued growth of this sort is impossible, as a THEORITICAL matter?
Economic growth is now mainly about status signalling to gain reproductive advantage – it’s built in behaviour not a considered choice (below the poverty line it’s more about having enough to provide for family needs – also about reproductive advantage though). There’s a lot of evidence that US is no happier collectively now than it was in the 60s, and less happy than many supposed poorer countries at the moment. And in terms of reproductive advantage at current rates of population growth every single atom in the universe will be part of a human in 10,000 years, that’s probably a hard limit. Genotypes only really “care” about the immediate next generation that they are seeking to be as big a part of as possible.
And in terms of reproductive advantage at current rates of population growth every single atom in the universe will be part of a human in 10,000 years, that’s probably a hard limit.
Don’t worry George, to channel Julian Simon, I’m sure there are other universes!
From: The transcript of Arithmetic, Population and Energy – a talk by Al Bartlett
…Now, Simon had a book that was published by the Princeton University Press. In that book, he’s writing about oil from many sources, including biomass, and he says, “Clearly there is no meaningful limit to this source except for the sun’s energy.” He goes on to note, “But even if our sun was not so vast as it is, there may well be other suns elsewhere.” Well, Simon’s right; there are other suns elsewhere, but the question is, would you base public policy on the belief that if we need another sun, we will figure out how to go get it and haul it back into our solar system? (audience laughter)
Now, you cannot laugh: for decades before his death, this man was a trusted policy advisor at the very highest levels in Washington DC.
Who knows, maybe Simon has reincarnated and he is advising the Trump administration!
Hi Fred, and anybody else interested,
What is your personal belief or opinion as to the most likely way the population crisis will play out?
Do you believe that the odds are high that there will be a major hard population crash before the population peaks due to falling birth rates, or moderate, or low?
Do you believe , or think, that once the population does decline substantially, that people will continue to have small families, or will go back to having as many kids as a woman can bear before being worn out physically?
Do you think or believe that a society that crashes, or has crashed, or that if industrial civilization crashes, that enough technology and industry will survive that effective and affordable birth control is still POSSIBLE, as opposed to actually available?
I have often stated my own belief that hard REGIONAL population crashes are likely, but that a world wide crash is not, barring a super contagious disease that cannot be controlled, or flat out nuclear war, etc. I believe that there is a likelihood of some people in some places pulling thru the coming hard times more or less whole, in terms of loss of loss of life. I believe that it’s possible, and likely that there will be some places with working water and sewer, working grid, stores with food on the shelves, and more or less honest cops on the streets.
( Personal cars and the other trappings of modern rich societies may be rarities but we don’t really HAVE to have cars, if it’s a choice of getting by without them, or not getting by, lol. We can survive with locally brewed beer rather than beer in cans hauled from far away. )
It should be obvious from my many comments over the years that I believe people such as Simon are idiots, but this does not mean that it’s impossible for us to substitute newer things for older ones no longer available, or to get by without some things, or that we can’t capture ENOUGH energy from the sun to enable us to maintain a NEW GENERATION industrial civilization, one that uses energy three or four or five times as efficiently, and wastes almost none on such frivolous stupidity as three ton vehicles as personal transportation, etc.
We don’t really HAVE to have air travel. It’s true that nowadays millions of people depend on it to earn a living, but it contributes very little in terms of the things we REALLY need to live. You can’t eat a plane ticket, or live in a plane. I treasure my mid winter tropical fruit, but I can live without it, getting by ok with fruit delivered by train…….. or with what is locally available, canned, dried, frozen, etc.
We can live just fine without ninety percent of the junk in a Walmart store, and the last ten percent could be replaced with similar items……. made to last indefinitely. Such items are already there on the shelves, actually, in most cases, just on DIFFERENT shelves.
Tempered glass or stainless steel or ceramic tableware and cookware for instance is just about forever.
We substituted a couple of pickup truck loads of insulation sixty years ago for five or six pickup truck loads of firewood every year since, compared to the amount needed in our old board and batten green oak house. That’s THREE HUNDRED loads saved since then. And if I were building again, I would build so that less than one load would suffice for an entire winter.
That board and batten rough sawn oak house would have lasted a couple of centuries, if protected from leaks and termites….. but the house we built out of concrete and masonry block will probably last more or less indefinitely…. if well maintained. Several centuries at least. Of course it will need some work from time to time, but compared to building new?
And most of our furniture is hand made solid oak, chestnut, or cherry, already fifty plus years old, some of it around a hundred years old. It will last centuries at least, barring fire. It’s not the sort of stuff rich people had in preindustrial days, but it’s still very attractive, and the only parts requiring non renewable resources are brass screws and hinges.
Now maybe we can’t manage an industrial economy that is indefinitely sustainable, meaning centuries to millenia or forever………
But I think the odds are good that we can at least theoretically manage to maintain and industrial economy, meaning one that provides us with the really important stuff, for a long time, centuries at least….. IF we collectively put our minds and backs to the job.
“So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
tags: decisions, gandalf, steadfastness, truths
477 likes
What will we do with the time remaining to us?
As the crisis grows ever greater, we will take ever more desperate measures, like the officer who puts his men on half rations because he has no other choice.
The real question is whether we as a society, taken as a whole, wake up and take proactive measures before it’s truly too late to prevent a catastrophic crash. I do not believe that we will take such measures as a species, that we will collectively do anything proactive on a word wide basis.
What is your personal belief or opinion as to the most likely way the population crisis will play out?
Do you believe that the odds are high that there will be a major hard population crash before the population peaks due to falling birth rates, or moderate, or low?
I won’t pretend to know how the future unfolds. Humans are extraordinarily clever and adaptive animals and possess some very unique characteristics. E. O. Wilson has written about social organization of eusocial species and the evolutionary survival advantages that such organization confers. Perhaps humans still have a rabbit or two we can pull out of our collective hats.
Having said that, there is little doubt that we are in biological and resource use overshoot. It is very difficult for me to imagine a soft landing from our current circumstances. There is no reason to think that we will outsmart the laws of nature and the following graph depicts what normally happens to biological organisms in overshoot. So I am not very optimistic about our chances.
.
OFM- I agree with your take on this big topic.
I do expect catastrophe like big famine, and war driven migrations, even on a much bigger scale than happened in China and India in mid 20th century, in next few decades.
But the problems will be patchy. Even in WWII, the problem were patchy.
And certain areas will do better at adaptation.
“The real question is whether we as a society, taken as a whole, wake up and take proactive measures before it’s truly too late to prevent a catastrophic crash.”- Yes indeed.
It will be interesting to see if USA can work as a unified society in this regard. Tough to see that happening now.
The graph Fred posted looks ‘dead’ on to me, question is the slope and smoothness of those lines.
OFM: My view is that civilization has become so networked that at some point in collapse everything will go local. Only small, isolated groups will survive.
I am a member of a closed group of people ( forums.silentcountry.com ) who share their doomstead preparations and opinions on current events. If anyone here cares to join mention my name, woodsy_gardener when applying.
Hi George,
If Ron didn’t have first dibs on the handle Darwinian, I would be using it myself.
You’re dead on about status and mating behaviors, etc. You’re also dead on about happiness and who is, and who is not, happy.
There’s no doubt in my mind that you fully understand that behaviors that enhance reproductive success in the short term will continue to determine who mates with who , and that the long term is a strictly academic question…… except as it relates to what happens in the short term. There is no long term, in terms of humankind, except via the short term bridge across the abyss of time.
Having said this much, it is also an obvious fact that we can and have learned how to cooperate on the grand scale in lots of respects, in ways contrary to our raw primal impulses. Wimpy guys with great jobs can now win the hands of fair maidens who would have gone to the athletic bad boys in previous times. Slavery is frowned on, we submit to having to have our homes connected to water and sewer systems, we pay taxes without murdering tax collectors, armed robbery is not much pursued as a way of life, etc, except as practiced by nation states, etc.
So maybe it is possible that we can modify our status seeking behaviors by switching from automobiles for example to smart phones……. I read that already many younger people no longer really give a shit about a car at all, never mind a status car…. but that these same individuals FLAUNT their thousand dollar plus phones, their expensive wardrobes, their perfectly straight and snowy enhanced teeth, their enhanced breasts, their artificial tans, etc.
So maybe while slavery is out, having a personal servant may be THE status symbol of the future? I’ve noticed that having servants works very well, lol.
Smart phones may not be entirely sustainable, but compared to cars…… the amount of actual resources needed on a per unit basis to create them is probably no more than one percent of whats needed to make a car. Phones can probably be made to be entirely recyclable, and to last indefinitely, and they don’t need much in the way of energy, compared to cars, etc.
I’m exploring possibilities, and glad to hear whatever the regulars here have to say, because there are some VERY intelligent and fully awake people hanging out here.
I have discovered and corrected more than a few mistakes and blind spots in my own thinking as a result of following this site, and hereby wish to thank everybody from HB my little helper to Dennis and Ron, the whole lot of you!
A great deal of what they have said here and at the old TOD site will be incorporated into my own site, when I eventually have enough original material ready to go live.
There’s always going to be some group growing – it’s more a question of at whose expense. There was a time when maybe the whole world was growing, but only by taking from future generations. At the moment the super rich are growing quickly, but at the expense of almost every body else. At some point it will become more obvious to the masses that they are being screwed and revolutions will start (I assume – though at the moment smart phones and social media may be new tools to zombify the population so maybe things take longer) . The problem is that revolutions almost always leave everyone worse off in the short term, both the revolutionaries and the ex-PTB, some of whom may be hanging from lampposts (the only exception I think was the revolts leading to the fall of the USSR empire and then there was huge support available from the western powers).
“I have discovered and corrected more than a few mistakes and blind spots in my own thinking as a result of following this site, and hereby wish to thank everybody from HB my little helper to Dennis and Ron, the whole lot of you!”
Did Nancy as “The Donald” calls her, just justify Joe Biden for President ? I’ve been thinking that Biden was to old to run, but experience has it’s advantage. Maybe a Biden/Harris ticket ?
We need a large tax increase for the wealthy and corporations(back to the rates of the 50’s and 60’s). A 60’s style moon landing race to decarbonize. A free world boycott of Russian energy(this is war, remember McCain called them a gas station). Gun regulations. More money for education. Infrastructure and Immigration Bills. Oh yes, and maybe most important of all. Free birth control for all dropped by airplanes around the world.
“Maybe a Biden/Harris ticket ? ”
I’m on board with that. Planning to go see her launch her campaign at midday tomorrow.
I saw most of her kick off speech today. Makes Bernie and Liz sound old. She’s got that Obama charisma. I haven’t seen anybody that I think can beat her. Who is going to stop her after South Carolina than early California ? Educated White’s and women in her camp too.
Agree. I came away impressed. She is very bright, and has a strong presence, that is growing.
Big enthusiastic crowd, bigger than Trumps inauguration?
I have 10 criteria for choosing a democratic candidate.
#1-9 They have a strong chance of winning in swing districts around the country
#10 I find them palatable.
Hang in there Ruth!
Excuse me, that’s Dr. Ruth
Flipping though the channels this morning, Fox Newsless was running the smear Kamala campaign. She must be the real thing.
A lot of the status for smart phones comes from posting images of “activities” – i.e. holidays, parties, restaurants, etc. – all those require more and more consumption even if not of actual “stuff” (maybe why air transport is expanding so much). Also smart phones are a direct intracranial drip for advertisers to get people to keep buy-buy-buying and get that dopamine fix again.
Who believes that we can have continued economic growth without continually increasing consumption of physical resources, if this growth is concentrated in areas such as health care, given that the basic resources involved in health care are knowledge and professional skills and training?
Who believes such continued growth of this sort is impossible, as a THEORITICAL matter?
There are a number of things wrong with this thinking.
Specifically, even the example of health care glaringly underscores the problem. Health care is extremely resource intensive. One need only look at how we deal with, one use only plastics in the healthcare industry. Just google medical waste regulations…
BTW, even knowledge and professional skills and training do not exist in an energy and resource use vacuum.
So I for one do not believe economic growth is even theoretically possible going forward. We need a completely different paradigm of prosperity without growth, more like degrowth coupled with reduced resource consumption.
How do we get there? No one really has the slightest clue but it is 100% for sure that growth will end one way or another!
“As Davos wraps up today, what have we got so far so far from the cockpit of globalisation? Warnings of rising nationalism. Fears of recession. Worries that everything could come tumbling down again. And a total rejection of any policy alternatives regardless.
It’s as if the Captain of the Titanic admits to the passengers early into the journey that the ship is sinkable, and indeed they will all drown horribly when it goes down, but then reassures everybody he’s sticking to the same route towards the iceberg anyway. BEFORE FLYING HOME IN HIS PRIVATE JET.”
I’m no expert in ‘economics’, but it seems like there are different categories of growth,or of GDP.
Obviously raising/selling $10,000 of alfalfa is different than writing/selling$10,000 dollars worth of poetry. The work of an electrician or operating room nurse/doctor is of different value to the overall economy than that of a wedding planner.
70,000 gallons of petrol spent on Nascar is of different value than the same consumption of fuel used for constructing a port.
Compare the kind of growth we have seen in China over the last 30 yrs, with that of the USA.
It looks like they have generally been effective in their allocation of resource,capital, and labor, while we have been frivolous by comparison (Iraq).
Cost of Three Gorges Dam in China (including resettlement of 1.3 million people) = 37 $Billion
[hydroelectric output almost 5 times greater annual production than largest USA- Grand Coulee]
Cost of USA wars in Asia since 2001 up to Nov 2018 = $5.9 Trillion (or 159 Grand Coulee Dams).
Which of these dollars spent purchased their country economic growth and sustainability in a time of impending peak oil.
“Who believes such continued growth of this sort is impossible, as a THEORITICAL matter?”
If you scratch the surface of your typical moderately educated man in the street you will find a cornucopian. When presented with a laundry list of rapidly depleting resources, the typical response is “We will invent our way out of the shortages.”
Economists of the classical school say that we ‘create our own resources’. Economics Nobelist Robert Solow said that “… in effect we can get along without natural resources.” All of which points to a belief in the possibility of perpetual growth. It seems to be such a strong meme that one might justifiably conclude that it is part of human nature.
I, for one, do not believe that perpetual growth is possible. Much more likely is a cycle of growth and collapse. Even a gradual ‘powering down’ seems highly unlikely since we are addicted to growth and our industrial economy has developed to be dependent on perpetual growth.
So, no, given human nature, I don’t even think THEORETICALY that this sort of growth (perpetual) is possible.
Hi Eric,
What you seem to be saying to me is that you believe it is not theoretically possible for us to change our gross or overall behaviors on the nation state level, in order to do what has to be done to survive.
I don’t know or necessarily believe that we can change so much……. but consider how primitive ( meaning less technologically advanced and not so materially rich) peoples behave versus how people behave in modern large scale civilized societies. The differences are huge. Slavery for instance is rare, so rare as to be almost non existent in a society such as that of the USA or any Western European country. Measures involving public health, such as outlawing the use of simple hole in the ground toilets, and mandating proper water supply and sewer systems are universal in modern large scale societies.
If survival depends on changing our material consumption patterns, perhaps we can and will change them……… assuming there is an adequate window of opportunity, a window large enough and long lasting enough for us to be FORCED to realize it’s either change or die.
I’m not sure such change is possible, nor predicting it, at this time, other than to say I think some people in some places may manage a transition to a more or less long term sustainable industrial civilization.
Time frames matter. We might be able to transition to an economic paradigm that is not sustainable for tens of thousands of years, but that uses one time gifts of nature so sparingly, and recycles so efficiently, that it could last centuries or thousands of years.
Mac, I believe you missed the point of Eric’s post. He was talking about growth, perpetual growth in particular. That is the imposibility of perpetual growth. Obviously perpetual growth is impossible, a point Al Bartlett made perfectly clear.
Eric did not onec mention survival. Of course survival does not require perpetual growth. But survival on the economic and population level we live at today does require perpetual growth, as well as perpetual natural resources. And that is impossible. That, I think, was the crux of Eric’s post.
Yes, thanks Ron. The hard limits to growth are what Al Bartlett is talking about and what I was alluding to in discussing what humans are capable of in terms of moderating their behavior.
I used to be more optimistic about the human race’s possibility of changing its behavior. In Clive Ponting’s book “The Green History of the World” he talks about how things changed from the onset of the ‘Dark Ages’ at the fall of the Roman Empire to about 1500 years later into the so-called Renaissance. Cities were growing much faster than human’s ability to deal with urban logistics, especially in terms of public health. The plague prone centuries finally gave away as people learned how to build public sewer systems, water systems and other infrastructure necessary to have a relatively healthy society.
Extrapolating to present times, one of the biggest problems humans have is war, i.e. simply getting along with each other in a peaceable way. I figured it might take 1500-2000 years for humans to learn how to live peacefully with each other (this was my optimistic point of view). But depleting resources and climate change have “changed everything” (Naomi Klein’s words).
When the Native Americans in New England first encountered the European settlers, they asked them if they were coming to the New World because they had run out of trees back home. In a sense, they had. While there might be enough resources in terms of fossil fuels, biomass, and, yes, even solar, wind and tides, to have one more big blowout of a mass consumption spree, it will just make the crash that much harder.
On TOD there was occasional debate about what would ‘get us’ first, peak oil or climate change. Currently, I think climate change is in the lead.
On TOD there was occasional debate about what would ‘get us’ first, peak oil or climate change. Currently, I think climate change is in the lead.
I don’t think it will be one or the other. It will be a combination of everything. It will be resource scarcity, political collapse, famine in many countries on a large scale, and civil discorse. I think all these things, and other things I have not named, will hapen long before climate change has any really dramatic effects. In other words, in about half a century or so.
2001-2018, 20T a year income…340T… 6T is 2%…not much for peace in asia…as a tax. As a line in the sand for other upset nations, kept more peace in asia…
While there is lots of conversation about converting civilization to running on electricity and the demand that EVs will place on the power structure, there has been a shadow system quickly growing and eating up the electric power while we have been looking elsewhere. It’s the computing, information, communication and internet systems.
Digitalisation, energy and data demand: The impact of Internet traffic on overall and peak electricity consumption
Andrae and Edler [30], also anticipating a compound rate of growth of 7% per year, calculate that the production and operation of ICT will rise to 21% of global electricity consumption by 2030: this is an absolute rise to 8000 TWh, from a base of around 2000 TWh in 2010. In a worst case scenario, this could reach as high as 50% of global electricity use by 2030, but only 8% in the best case.
Of course this does not cover all the other power consuming electronics that control and operate almost everything we use now. It would be a great bit of irony if the global rise of electronics overpowered the ability to produce power. It is probable that electronics will consume as much or more power than the global transportation system as it becomes fully electric.
So much for planning ahead, the silicon avalanche is already upon us and is relentless.
Amazon, as an example, is developing server chips based on ARM technology with motherboards to match , the goal to cut power consumption. I would expect the likes of Google and Facebook to move the same way. There is, already, a move to natural cooling of server farms to reduce energy use. There is also a move from big, desktop computers to pads and notebooks, again a saving. I am switching to a new computer which is a considerable improvement on my old but, at the same time, reducing power use. My current smartphone is many times more powerful than my last but uses 1/2 the power.
I would not be so pessimistic. Instead I would look at the wasteful domestic appliances that can consume many times more power.
NAOM
“I would not be so pessimistic. Instead I would look at the wasteful domestic appliances that can consume many times more power.”
First of all, don’t confuse power with energy. A 75 watt (power) light bulb left on uses more energy than a refrigerator over a 24 hour period, since the refrigerator is not on all the time, yet will use more power when it is on.
Realism is not pessimism. So you think that washing clothes, cooking dinner, refrigerating food are a waste? Compared to streaming senseless videos and TV or Texting, Twitting and Tweeting around the world? I guess in a delusional world that is true.
Maybe think of how much time something is on would give you a better perspective of energy use. Server systems, internet systems, modems, many computers, cell phone systems, control systems, are all on 24/7. Domestic appliances are on for short periods of time and sometimes only once or twice a week.
Refrigerator uses 1 to 2 kWh/day. Dishwasher uses about 0.8 kWh per day (4 loads a week)
Computer and screen uses 140 to 350 watts using up to 5 kWh per day. In a home they might spend more time in sleep mode if that is set, so comparable to a refrigerator.
If computer is communicating via intranet, uses a server and also communicates via internet, the power use goes way up due to external demand.
Then there is the wifi and cable modem, they usually run 24/7 and use about 40 watts, giving another kilowatt per day (again, similar to a refrigerator). Low power adds up to large energy.
Well, at least manufacturers have reduced standby loads which could add up to 7% of a household electric bill back in 2000. .
And that smartphone, it’s a power sucker. Uses more than some refrigerators.
Last year the average iPhone customer used 1.58 GB of data a month, which times 12 is 19 GB per year. The most recent data put out by a ATKearney for mobile industry association GSMA (p. 69) says that each GB requires 19 kW. That means the average iPhone uses (19kw X 19 GB) 361 kwh of electricity per year. In addition, ATKearney calculates each connection at 23.4 kWh. That brings the total to 384.4 kWh. The electricity used annually to charge the iPhone is 3.5 kWh, raising the total to 388 kWh per year. EPA’s Energy Star shows refrigerators with efficiency as low as 322 kWh annually.
The always on digital world uses about as much power as that new electric car will each year and is destined to increase beyond them. People need to start system thinking and not just what it takes to run their individual component.
Now air conditioning could use some improvement, but most of that use is due to poor building construction and lack of shading (or reflective shades) on sun facing windows.
It will be better when more silicon PV powers much of the world but still the tremendous advance of electronics into every device and machine could overwhelm.
Plus, many of those electronic systems have relatively short lives and need to be replaced frequently.
Of course some car manufacturers are adding huge amount of electronics that often communicate over the internet and will soon communicate between cars. Yikes, power consumption from silicon is an epidemic because it is so flexible and useful for so many things (both necessary and unnecessary).
Many valid points there but the main gist of my argument is that, although things are being added, there is a lot being done to reduce consumption. That refrigerator may be useful and consume 2kW/d but why shouldn’t it consume 1.5 or even 1. When replacing mine I noted that USA models consumed about 20-25% more power than Korean models and my current one consumes about 10% more than it’s predecessor while having about 180% of the space (enabling me to conserve on cooking by making and storing more portions). Computers may be using a lot of resources in total but there is a move away to portables that use less base power. At the same time there is the move from wire to fibre, while the modems and associated equipment become more efficient. Is cable more power hungry than transmitter towers with hundreds of thousands of watts? We may be using more devices but the power used by each is decreasing, it is a balancing act.
NAOM
“We may be using more devices but the power used by each is decreasing, it is a balancing act.”
So you believe that there is no increase in global power consumption by digital devices despite there being much evidence that it is increasing between 7 and 10 percent per year. Is the power system increasing output by 7 to 10 percent per year? More like 3 percent per year. Guess what? The two will intersect if the rates stay the same.
That balancing act is way out of balance. Luckily we will come across hard limits before that intersection happens.
BTW, refrigerators and most appliances have gotten more efficient too.
But most people do not have dozens of refrigerators but in developed countries they do have dozens of CPUs and connections to millions of other ones. My fridge does not use WiFi or a modem (yet). 🙂
I don’t disagree with your point, but the quote that compared the power consumption of a cell phone and a refrigerator left me curious what energy expert wrote “each GB requires 19kW”, rather than 19kWh, so I read the Time article and found that it points out that those figures were worst case figures based on highest use cases (for example “T-Mobile iPhone users reported just 0.19 GB of data use a month”) and that others strongly disputed the conclusions:
“Gernot Heiser, a professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney and co-author of a 2010 study on power consumption in smartphones, echoed Koomey’s sentiments that Mills’ work was flawed.
Writing to MSN News, Heiser said Mills’ work “seems blatantly wrong.” He said Mills overestimates the amount of power used by a modern smartphone, in this case a Galaxy S III, by more than four times.
“I’d have to have a quick look to see how they arrive at this figure, but it certainly looks like baloney to me,” Heiser said.”
Again, I don’t disagree with your points, but the figures in that quote are suspicious.
You are forgetting that much of streaming is done over wi-fi now, both to cell phones and TV’s. Global video streaming uses up 58 percent of the internet bandwidth. Also, many phones now talk over Wi-Fi internet connections. So the load has moved somewhat but still takes lots of energy from servers and distribution systems.
I do 99 percent of my streaming to my phone over Wi-Fi connections, so it never shows up on the cell phone data usage. Only time I use much cell data is when the internet is down due to power outages.
2018 global cell phone data use per month is 5.6 GB per phone.
Predicted to increase to 21 GB by 2024.
https://www.ericsson.com/en/mobility-report/reports/november-2018/streaming-video
————- Video Streaming Now Makes Up 58% Of Internet Usage Worldwide Networking equipment company Sandvine has released the 2018 edition of its annual Global Internet Phenomena Report, which reveals that the internet has succeeded mostly as a convenient way for people to watch video. A stunning 57.69% of all downstream traffic — which is to say traffic downloaded from, rather than uploaded to, the internet — is now video.
As the map below shows, in the Americas, Netflix dominates video streaming traffic. In Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), YouTube comes out on top. And in the Asia-Pacific region, other platforms beat out Facebook and Netflix for the top spot.
Tsunami of data’ could consume one fifth of global electricity by 2025
Billions of internet-connected devices could produce 3.5% of global emissions within 10 years and 14% by 2040, according to new research, reports Climate Home News
Even if we convert to all renewable energy and EV for land transport, it looks like the energy for communications and computing will rival or exceed global land transport energy. This will slow the energy transistion and if it gets out of hand (as it is now in the process) could overwhelm power systems.
So we become more energy efficient on one hand yet cancel a lot of it somewhere else to watch cute cats and TV shows or people doing dumb things and chattering to each other endlessly. Something to keep an eye on.
The circus continues. Where’s the bread?
GRETA THUNBERG — TED X STOCKHOLM
“People tell me I should be in school, learning how to be a climate scientist, learning facts, but why should I go to school to learn facts when the most important facts by the most educated climate scientists are ignored by politicians and society?”
Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.
Though it may be too late to implement it at this point…
Cheers!
“Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.”
Which is precisely why my grandson is being home-schooled!
… there has been a shadow system quickly growing and eating up the electric power while we have been looking elsewhere. It’s the computing, information, communication and internet systems.
Yep, it’s definitely a true dilemma! It’s also another big wrench in the gears of the continuous growth model of neo-classical economics. Information theory tells us that information is not a free lunch but must comply with the laws of physics and thermodynamics.
It is a common myth, that working from home on a computer is a way to avoid the carbon footprint of a daily commute. Unfortunately server farms are extremely energy intensive, kudos to corporations such as Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, etc… that are transitioning their information technology centers to 100% renewable energy wherever they can. They are not in it out of the goodness of their hearts, let alone for the benefit to the environment. It’s all about it making economic sense. If it happens to be good for the environment that’s just an added benefit.
Perhaps one route to greater efficiency in computing can in the future be achieved with super energy efficient quantum computers.
Energy-efficient quantum computing
Joni Ikonen, Juha Salmilehto & Mikko Möttönen
npj Quantum Informationvolume 3, Article number: 17 (2017) |
Abstract In the near future, one of the major challenges in the realization of large-scale quantum computers operating at low temperatures is the management of harmful heat loads owing to thermal conduction of cabling and dissipation at cryogenic components. This naturally raises the question that what are the fundamental limitations of energy consumption in scalable quantum computing. In this work, we derive the greatest lower bound for the gate error induced by a single application of a bosonic drive mode of given energy. Previously, such an error type has been considered to be inversely proportional to the total driving power, but we show that this limitation can be circumvented by introducing a qubit driving scheme which reuses and corrects drive pulses. Specifically, our method serves to reduce the average energy consumption per gate operation without increasing the average gate error. Thus our work shows that precise, scalable control of quantum systems can, in principle, be implemented without the introduction of excessive heat or decoherence.
“Perhaps one route to greater efficiency in computing can in the future be achieved with super energy efficient quantum computers.”
Not sure that is likely to be the case, or not for a decade or so. BTW, I’m impressed you’re a student of Information Theory; there aren’t many of us floating around, methinks!
Esteemed Doug L, (with apologies to Synapsid) 😉
BTW, I’m impressed you’re a student of Information Theory; there aren’t many of us floating around, methinks!
And I, for what it’s worth, am equally impressed that you are a student of so many other things as well !
We are, after all. extremely fortunate to be alive at a time when access to information and knowledge is so readily available, it would be a total waste of our minds not to take full advantage of such an opportunity!
Though while these seem to be both the best of times and the worst as well, I have never subscribed to the misguided notion, that; “ignorance is bliss”!
The extreme cold is still on the way. Now the only question is how many daily record lows and all-time record lows are going to be broken?
The “cold pole” definitely seems to be moving south towards Greenland as the sea ice disappears – not good news for Alaska and Siberia wildfires and permafrost melt.
^He so funny! We just had record warmth and tropical downpours in Maine. And meanwhile Australia burns.
What’s funny is that Cold Blob Bob very, very rarely makes any kind of claim about what meaning, if any, the cold temperature anomaly maps he posts actually have.
I kind of suspect he’s just having a bit of fun posting factual information (albeit cherry picked) in order to get a rise out of folks taking issue with an implied warming denialist argument that he actually hasn’t made.
Or, maybe he really is just completely ignorant of the difference between local vs global, climate vs weather, and the meaning of the word average, but I don’t think so.
I kind of suspect he’s just having a bit of fun posting factual information (albeit cherry picked) in order to get a rise out of folks taking issue with an implied warming denialist argument that he actually hasn’t made.
Yep, you are probably right. I actually consider him a troll! When I respond to his posts it is usually in the vein of a public service announcement attempting to shed light on his cherry picked BS!
Pulling strings is fun for some people. One would think this is the first time the Midwest has gotten cold. LMAO
The Great Indiana Blizzard https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrucrkPEIR8
Enjoy
Yeh, Its going to be cold as f—ck! Like once every 20 yrs cold.
Lets celebrate it.
Cold records are becoming much more rare in the world-
Once again Mr Blobby posts cold weather warnings that illustrate the changes in climate that have been predicted by scientists. Predictions that are now coming true.
NAOM
Trolls/ nincompoops such as Bob are actually entertaining, so long as they don’t post too often, lol.
And in case anybody who is not acquainted with the ABC’s of atmosphere and climate is interested, it presents a ready opportunity to point out that more record highs are being set than record lows.
And it allows us the opportunity to point out to newbies that anytime a really big cold spell hits down towards the south, it means that somewhere else, there is some extremely warm air ( in relative terms to normal temperature) that has moved way up north to take up the space vacated by that cold air.
What this means in a nutshell is that there is some other place such as up around Alaska or Siberia that is generally much WARMER than usual when it is COLDER than usual in the lower 48.
So Bob is providing us with a teachable moment, and maybe those of us who have contact with kids ought to thank him, lol.
It appears as if there are cold Arctic incursions into North America, Europe and Asia today, making global temperatures 0.4C above the 1979-2000 base average.
The loss of integrity of the polar vortex means more of these cold incursions.
There has been talk that North America will enjoy the last of the cold as the polar vortex moves south toward Greenland, the last bastion of ice in the northern hemisphere. At least until Greenland melts significantly.
So keep those long underwear and gloves handy and the home fires (or solar) burning.
If the AMOC slows further, Northern Europe and Great Britain will also enjoy the last of the cold.
Of course they will also enjoy incursions of very hot weather too. Sounds like maximum storm time to me and the plants will be very confused.
OFM,
Go to the site climatereanalyzer.org. You can rotate the globe with the cursor. I use the 2m Temperature and 2m Temperature Anomaly views often.
Great site Synapsid
It’s my favorite, too. And from U Maine!
To OFM: Also, it presents an opportunity to learn about the weirding of the jet stream:
Brazil dam collapse: seven bodies found and hundreds missing
Chance of finding survivors ‘minimal’ after tailings dam at iron ore mine bursts
The mine is owned by Brazilian mining giant Vale. It was involved in a 2015 mine collapse in the same state that claimed 19 lives and is regarded as the country’s worst-ever environmental disaster.
Vale shares plummeted on the new accident, losing eight percent in New York trading…
…The Brazil office of Greenpeace, the environmental activist group, said Friday’s dam break was “a sad consequence of the lessons not learned by the Brazilian government and the mining companies”.
Such incidents “are not accidents but environmental crimes that must be investigated, punished and repaired”, it added.
We are going to need many Brazilian Greta Thunbergs!
Sorry to hear about it Fred. I like the courts’ immediate action of freezing 5 billion of the firms funds to protect claims, not like the USA that allows companies to bankrupt themselves out of harms way.
NAOM
Human predation on other species for fatuous reasons is still in strong swing, However, we probably still can see snowy egrets, great egrets, roseate spoonbills and other birds because of two women.
How Two Women Ended the Deadly Feather Trade Birds like the snowy egret were on the brink of extinction, all because of their sought-after plumage
True, I still get to occasionally see egrets hunting in downtown Hollywood on the little patches of green dividing the flow of traffic… They do look a bit out of place but I’m always happy to see them.
Egrets hunting here, close to my house, see them regularly.
NAOM
Fuck man, we’ll always need rhino horns for our aphrodisiac (or to cure cancer) and elephant ivory to carve cute doohickeys. Besides, fewer rhinos/elephants = more room for people. And, like elephants, lions and rhinos, which can be a bit scary, giraffe heads make great wall trophies; they’re almost tame so really easy to shoot.
Here is what that sounds like to me and my response to it.
So, 20-ish years to phase out coal and replace it with what? Well, Russian natural gas it seems. Greta is right to despair: we REALLY don’t have this much time to keep kicking the can down the road — IMHO. All one has to do is read GFs various “temperature consequences” described above to see this is too little, too late!
GERMANY SHOULD PHASE OUT COAL MINING BY 2038: COMMISSION
“Germany should end all coal mining for electricity production by 2038, a government-appointed commission said Saturday, laying out a roadmap to phase out the polluting fuel. The transition is expected to cost up to 80 billion euros ($91 billion) over 20 years, half of which will go to the regions shuttering plants in the west and east of the country, with the rest helping prevent electricity prices from rising, the commission said…
Despite its green reputation, Germany remains heavily reliant on the dirtiest of all fossil fuels, in part because of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to phase out nuclear power by 2022 in response to the 2011 Fukushima disaster.”
“Some people say that the climate crisis is something that we will have created, but that is not true, because if everyone is guilty then no one is to blame. And someone is to blame,” Thunberg said flatly. “Some people, some companies, some decision-makers in particular, have known exactly what priceless values they have been sacrificing to continue making unimaginable amounts of money. And I think many of you here today belong to that group of people.“
I think it is time for trials at the Hague!
That girl can deliver one hell of a burn!
NAOM
THE GIRL WHO GETS IT
“Adults keep saying we owe it to the young people, to give them hope,” [Greta] Thunberg said, “But I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is.”
Meanwhile, in Brussels, teenagers marched last week, with some carrying banners which read, “Dinosaurs thought they had time too.”
The growing silicon energy eater and social monster, the internet of things has numerous downsides. Here is some discussion on that.
Alexa, kill yourself and the entire internet of things!
Suddenly a great silence falls upon the world…
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Actually there is some very solid scientific evidence which leads to the conclusion that to reach a tipping point in a social movement you really don’t need more than about a 4% of the population to buy in and get things started. Even violent dictatorships have been overthrown by relatively small groups of non violent protesters starting a movement.
The number of teenagers marching in Brussels was about 30 thousand and there are movements starting all around the world. More power to these kids!
Yes, and when 300 million people take this really seriously, we can get started.
I have a much faster way to change things. Let me introduce you to the new world kings. I don’t think humans will rate very high in the kingdom but things will get straightened out quite quickly.
Maybe we can work our way up to court jesters.
Yes, and when 300 million people take this really seriously, we can get started.
Read her full speech at the link above. What would you say to her face?!
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What would you say to her face?!
Stock up on tinned gravy, it makes almost anything taste good, even you lawn.
I strongly suspect her reply to you would probably not include the exact words that come to my mind, but I’m sure she’d get the message across!
How droll.
What she says is fine as far as it goes but it falls far short of what needs to be said to those who pretend to lead.
This has been right next to my desk in my view for many years. Take it seriously.
“But man, proud man,
Dress’d in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he’s most assur’d—
His glassy essence—like an angry ape
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As makes the angels weep; who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.”
Until humans drop their fake façade of “kingship” and realize they are currently the least important species on the planet, all roads lead to disaster.
Fred, who and what do you serve?
Fred, who and what do you serve?
Let me put it this way, I have never been very popular with kings, I have a knack for telling them that they are butt naked.
Speaking of rulers, maybe it is ants that rule the land. They seem to have integrated quite well into the natural system while having fast communication and a large cooperative social structure.
Scientists estimate that about 20,000 ant species crawl the Earth. Taxonomists have classified more than 11,000 species, which account for at least one-third of all insect biomass. The combined heft of ants in the Brazilian Amazon is about four times greater than the combined mass of all of the mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians, according to one survey.
I recall coming across ant’s nests that had cleared areas on the surface varying from 6 feet to 30 feet in diameter. These were in mountain regions where winter temperatures dropped to minus 30 F.
Yeah, many many moons ago as a student, I had the opportunity to meet Dr. Mário Paulo Autuori who was one of Brazil’s foremost experts on ants! I also had many an interesting and sometimes rather painful personal encounter with Brazilian ants… 😉
I have also read some of E.O. Wilson’s books on ants, (not books I’d recommend for the lay reader) He is one the of the foremost, still living experts on ants.
Reducing coal burning won’t make much difference if they just use more natural gas.
THE FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD CLIMATE ACTIVIST WHO IS DEMANDING A NEW KIND OF POLITICS
“Thunberg developed her special interest in climate change when she was nine years old and in the third grade. “They were always talking about how we should turn off lights, save water, not throw out food,” she told me. “I asked why and they explained about climate change. And I thought this was very strange. If humans could really change the climate, everyone would be talking about it and people wouldn’t be talking about anything else. But this wasn’t happening.”
Poor dear. Just wait until she realizes we’re just apes.
You do other ape species a great disservice. Because the other apes live in harmony with their environment and they don’t massacre other creatures and certainly don’t do things like dropping cluster bombs and poisonous gas canisters on their cousins. Nor do they worship imaginary gods and use this nonsense to justify barbaric deeds. So we’re not “just apes” anymore than cancer is just another disease. Unlike yourself I’ve no doubt Greta is well aware of the difference.
The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. –Chuck D.
The one very important difference between humans and other apes is that they all have natural restraints on their population growth, humans have virtually none. We have become a super-predator, we can kill them at will. We can take over their territory and resources at will. They have no defense to our invasion. The adaptation, that is our evolved characteristic that enables our power over every other species on earth is our brain. Our intelligences enables us to do this… so we do. It is as simple as that.
Every species lives to the very limits of its existence. Every species produces far more offspring than can possibly survive. And for most of the history of our species, Homo sapiens, that was true as well. But our primary survival adaptation, our intelligence, has enabled us to overcome almost all barriers to our population growth… for a couple of hundred years anyway.
Please note, I am not blaming Homo sapiens for this adapted characteristic that will enable them to… eventually… bring massive death and destruction upon most life on this planet. No one is to blame for what nature produces.
Well said Ron.
It seems to me that humans who have had a tendency to show restraint, have consistently been pushed aside by the hasty and aggressive mass of those who don’t.
Restraint has generally not been a survival advantage that shows up in the genetic blueprint.
We are all descended from the most ingenious, and brutally aggressive, of the hundreds of hominid branches from the past.
If we ever do become truly wise, we will find ourselves looking out at a scorched and tattered ecoscape.
If we’d maintained chimpanzees’ fairly slow reproductive rate things might have worked out a bit better, but we churn babies out every couple of years rather than every eight or so – I think one theory is that this is an effect of nurturing post menopausal grand-mothers in a tribal environment.
As of mid 2018-
42 individuals hold as much wealth as the poorer 3.7 Billion of the planet (roughly poorer 1/2),
and there were over 149,000 individuals in the world with a net worth of greater than $50 Mill USD.
[greater than $50M is categorized as the UHNW- Ultra High Net Worth individuals]
Call me radical, communist whatever, but no one person needs more than $50M. Without exception.
I am in favor of that excess wealth being confiscated, by whatever bank or jurisdiction the wealth is held. No hidden accounts- sorry if you become bankrupt Switzerland. You have been living on blood money for well over a century.
Tax people just for being successful is a strategy way beyond the pale. There’s a clear reason why retirees in CA, NJ, NY, CT, MA, IL, MD, and so on pack it up and move to places like FL and TX and AZ just as soon as they retire.
Hi Charles. Thanks for being gentle and calling what I advocate as being “beyond the pale”, rather commie or something like that.
So be it. Extreme wealth sequestration, such as net worth above $50M/individual, sure doesn’t seem right or necessary, or moral- in a world where people starve, or live in severe poverty. Nothing more complicated than that.
And for clarification, I do not believe in taxing ‘earned income’ at rates any higher than we have today. If anything- less would be preferable.
Corporate America Is Getting Ready to Monetize Climate Change
By Christopher Flavelle
As the Trump administration rolls back rules meant to curb global warming, new disclosures show that the country’s largest companies are already bracing for its effects. The documents reveal how widely climate change is expected to cascade through the economy — disrupting supply chains, disabling operations and driving away customers, but also offering new ways to make money.
The disclosures were collected by CDP, a U.K.-based nonprofit that asks companies to report their environmental impact, including the risks and opportunities they believe climate change presents for their businesses. More than 7,000 companies worldwide filed reports for 2018, including more than 1,800 from the U.S.
Most of the largest U.S. companies by market capitalization submitted information to CDP, and the vast majority say the threat is real and serious: Of the 25 companies whose submissions were reviewed by Bloomberg, 21 said they had identified “inherent climate-related risks with the potential to have a substantial financial or strategic impact” on their business.
Many of those risks related to the effects of climate change on companies’ ability to operate. One of the most commonly cited risks was not enough water.
Climate change isn’t all downside for the largest U.S. companies. Many of those that filed reports with CDP said they believe climate change can bolster demand for their products.
For one thing, more people will get sick. “As the climate changes, there will be expanded markets for products for tropical and weather related diseases including waterborne illness,” wrote Merck & Co.
More disasters will make iPhones even more vital to people’s lives, Apple predicted.
Living with climate change is also going to cost money, which some banks see as an opening. “Preparation for and response to climate-change induced natural disasters result in greater construction, conservation and other business activities,” Wells Fargo and Co wrote, adding that it “has the opportunity to provide financing to support these efforts.”
More disasters will mean increased sales for Home Depot, the company wrote. And as temperatures get higher, people are going to need more air conditioners. Home Depot predicted that its ceiling fans and other appliances will see “higher demand should temperatures increase over time.”
Alphabet Inc.’s Google says it expects costs and benefits from climate change. “Fluctuating socio-economic conditions due to climate change” could reduce demand for online advertising, the company reported. Yet more people might use Google Earth.
Most of these charts will shock you. And it all started when Maduro took over. This proves, in spades, how important it is to have a stable government and how important the one man at the top is to the stability of that government.
6. Many Venezuelans are leaving
Three million Venezuelans have left their home country since 2014, according to the UN.
The majority of those leaving have crossed into neighboring Colombia, some then move on to Ecuador, Peru and Chile. Others have gone south to Brazil.
Of those three million, about 2,650,000 left in 2018. So, the exodus is dramatically accelerating.
Is there a positive or negative effect on the jungle and wildlife due to this collapse?
Meanwhile the big three military states are vying for position in Venezuela. The United Nations is far from united.
Is there a positive or negative effect on the jungle and wildlife due to this collapse?
Really hard to tell. My hunch is that compared to the overall negative effects of human encroachment in the Amazonian rain forest in many of the countries of that region, the effects of what is happening in Venezuela will have only minimal effects one way or another.
Most of these charts will shock you.
Not really!
It’s mostly what I would expect. BTW I lived under a military dictatorship in Brazil and through currency changes and massive inflation there as well. A cult like following of populist authoritarian leadership generally leads to this kind of disaster. Oh, and it really doesn’t help if you have a one trick pony economy based on a finite resource… Sooner or later the shit does hit the fan!
All Americans , North ,Central and South should pay close attention to what is happening in Venezuela because it can happen anywhere.
I wasn’t aware of any big policy differences between Maduro and Chavez.
Why the big change in outcome?
“Thursday also saw a diplomatic battle at the Organization of American States, with Secretary Pompeo and OAS Secretary Almagro pushing the body to recognize Guaidó. The efforts were unsuccessful, garnering only 16 favourable votes out of the 34 countries, with US allies Guyana, Santa Lucia, and Jamaica abstaining.”
Chavez helped sow the seeds and Maduro reaped the consequences! Why is this so difficult to grasp?!
“In September 2012 former US President Jimmy Carter said “the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world”.
Obvious lies!
Carter is a communist stooge?
Oh, don’t be ridiculous. Hugo Chavez was enormously popular in Venezuela. He was elected by a majority of 55 percent to 44 percent in 2012, then he died. Then Vice President Maduro was given power to rule by decree. No election and no fair election since. In 2012 Carter was probably correct, or at least close to it. Carter had no idea a despotic dictator would take power just like we had no idea a wanna be despotic dictator would be elected in the USA.
“No election and no fair election since. ”
Am I living on a different planet?
Sixteen political parties participated in the electoral contest, including governing PSUV and the MSV, Tupamaro, UPV, Podemos, PPT, ORA, MPAC, MEP, PCV, AP, MAS, Copei, Esperanza por el Cambio, and UPP89.
In Venezuela it is not compulsory that all political parties participate in electoral processes. It is their right to choose whether to participate or not. That’s exactly why our system is democratic. The fact that three parties (AD, VP, and PJ) decided freely not to participate does not delegitimise the electoral process.
Six candidates competed for presidency: Nicolás Maduro, Henri Falcón, Javier Bertucci, Reinaldo Quijada, Francisco Visconti Osorio and Luis Alejandro Ratti (the last two later decided to withdraw.)
.
Maduro won by a wide margin, obtaining 6,248,864 votes, that is 67.84%; followed by Henri Falcón with 1,927,958, or 20.93%; Javier Bertucci with 1,015,895, 10.82%; and Reinaldo Quijada, who obtained 36,246 votes, or 0.39% of the total. The difference between Maduro and Falcón was of 46.91 percentage points.
The electoral process was observed by about 150 people, including 14 electoral commissions from eight countries; two technical electoral missions; 18 journalists from different parts of the world; one member of the European Parliament, and one technical-electoral delegation from the Russian Electoral Centre.
Same government– just Maduro is dealing with a boycott on Venezuelan Oil.
The game will change.
Hi Ron,
One thing I never expected to do is post a positive comment about Trump as president, but even stopped clocks are right twice a day.
It’s way past time we and other countries get our shit together and help the people of Venezuela get rid of Maduro and company.
It’s impossible to say what Trump might actually do, other than tell lies, so I will refrain from predicting that any help, at least in the short term, will be coming from the USA, but at least he did say it’s past time for Maduro to go.
I’m pretty sure he has done 7 or 8 things right.
But he already fired 3 of them for not being ‘yes’ men reliably enough.
“But he already fired 3 of them for not being ‘yes’ men reliably enough.”
Is that different than your President Trump?
Hi Doug- in fact I was referring exactly to Pres trump.
Can you say Bay of Pigs?
Trump is heading in that direction.
But, who knows?
+1
Trump does not heed advisers, only his gut, and does not believe in experienced diplomats. He has put the cart before the horse by announcing this before getting support or just getting the feel of the OAS. He has complicated this by is actions against members of the OAS. He is estranged from them and his treatment of Mexico, migrants and Central American states may come back to bite him. He may not get the support he needs and has, already, pushed Venezuela further into the hands of Cuba, China and Russia.
NAOM
For those so inclined. Personally, the only thing I find more satisfying than a walk in the “bush” with my dog is walking through a beautiful mathematical argument, especially one related to some astrophysical phenomena. This I learned from my wife — to give credit where it’s due.
HOW MATHS CAN ANSWER QUESTIONS WE HAVEN’T THOUGHT OF YET
“Maths is considered an instrument that produces correct answers to our questions about the universe. For example, maths can predict correctly that if you have two apples and eat an apple a day, they will last you precisely two days. However, sometimes maths produces answers that seem counterintuitive to our own experiences of the universe, like the Banach–Tarski paradox, which states that a solid ball can be cut into several pieces and these pieces can be assembled into two solid balls, each having the same size as the original ball. Do these contradictions suggest that there’s a crisis in maths, that it can’t explain the mysteries of the universe? No. They just force us to reconsider how we approach these problems.”
I’m about to leave to go out for a walk along the beach to clear my head after being holed up inside due to heavy rains these past couple of days, so I will read the linked paper about the Banach–Tarski paradox at a later time.
But I could not resist watching the sliced knot video which needs to be sliced to be unknotted in 3D but not in 4D… Do not tie yourself up in knots trying to follow it! It’s not worth it 😉
Ok, as far as tools go, if all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail, so If all you have is a rope, does not, everything look like a knot?
Enjoy you beach walk Fred. We used to live in Kitsilano (district of Vancouver) and beach walks, with kids and dog, were a daily routine. I do so miss the ocean! Meanwhile, if you’re keen to take a beautiful mathematical journey have a go at the following – if only for the math!
A NEW EQUATION OF STATE FOR NEUTRON STAR MATTER WITH NUCLEI IN THE CRUST AND HYPERONS IN THE CORE
Heh, just got back, I went to a place called Anne Kolb Nature center on the Intra Coastal and walked down a boardwalk through the mangroves to a fishing pier and while watching a fish hawk did my moral duty to nature by feeding a swarm of no-see-ums. For once I couldn’t really bring myself to complain about the lack of insects… 😉
I also just read this wonderful upbeat post by Chris Martenson over at PeakOil.com titled: Collapse Is Already Here
What he says is not much news to most of the readers here, but I truly regret having read a few of the comments. One asshole in particular should be automatically banned from the entire internet! On second thought he should be banned from the entire planet.
From your (depressing) link:
“However, unlike Hollywood’s vision, the early stages of collapse cause people to cling even tighter to the status quo. Instead of panic in the streets, we simply see more of the same — as those in power do all they can to remain so, while the majority of the public attempts to ignore the growing problems for as long as it possibly can.”
And,
“Our leadership is absolutely not up to the task. If the Davos conference currently underway in Switzerland is a sign of anything at all, it’s that we’re doomed. The world has been taken over by bankers and financiers too smitten by their love of money to notice much else or be of any practical service to the world.”
You think that’s depressing?! It’s pouring rain again and I just dropped my glass of wine on the kitchen floor… what a mess 😉
Meanwhile I decided to brush up on Thomas Fermi differential equations so I could at least try to understand some of the math in the paper you linked. Admittedly a bit above my pay grade. And as is wont to happen, has already sent me down some side alleys to visit with Paul Dirac, Schrödinger and Feynman diagrams…
QED!
Nope, not what you thought. ‘Quod Erat Demonstrandum’, the paper, after all is based on a mathematical proof, right?! Or as has been demonstrated.
.
L.O.L.!
” the early stages of collapse cause people to cling even tighter to the status quo”
This is as simple and obvious, and yet as profound, as any one sentence (excerpted from a longer one in this case) as I have run across in quite a while.
It perfectly describes the mindset of people who are Trump fanatics. The foot soldiers, the typical members of a fundamentalist church, see him as the leader who reassures them they are right, and everybody else is wrong.
If they are a little brighter,such as leaders of a fundamentalist church, they see him for what he is, personally, but they still bite their tongue and keep their mouth shut, refraining from criticizing him, because he is appointing judges they believe are in favor of the status quo, in terms of race, sex, religion, guns, environment, business regulations, etc. The status quo is not only the butter on their bread, it IS their bread.
Nevertheless it doesn’t do any good to call such people superstitious, ignorant, racist, etc. It just hardens their attitude, so that it’s impossible to explain to them that air pollution, cigarettes, and junk food equal an early death by about a decade or so on average.
It is possible to meet some of them halfway, or even three quarters of the way, and get them to thinking about their medical bills as they get older, or when they lose their insurance along with their job, or when their kid is in jail for selling some mary jane, etc.
Or when they can’t fish in their life long favorite hole anymore because the fish are either all dead, or have too much poison in them to be edible.
If the D’s can pry just one tenth of serious Christians away from the Trump camp, that’s probably more than enough to put them across the finish line next election cycle.
Somebody ought to be paying for ads targeted at them, pointing out how many times Trump has been married, his grab’em by the xxxxxx comments, his hooker payoffs, his countless failures to pay his debts, his bankruptcies, etc.
Because they DO NOT know about these things, anymore than grade school dropouts know about say for instance evolution or nuclear physics. What they have heard, they have heard ONLY from his defenders mentioning his record with the sole purpose of denying the truth of it.
Ugh. Comments at PO are worse than YouTube.
Yep, my thoughts exactly!
Thanks Fred, for the heads up on this Chris Martenson link. It is fantastic. Everyone should read it. Again, here is the link:
And that is only a summary of what we know. What we don’t know could probably fill many volumes.
It is interesting that books on the subject are no longer relevant since by the time one is written it is long out of date. Even blogs are not now fast enough to keep up with the changes, they are so vast and mostly unknown.
The fast crash of the global ecosystem may never give us time to ever really know the specifics. Of course that is not important.
I agree.
CHILDREN’S CLIMATE RALLIES GAIN MOMENTUM IN EUROPE
German students are mobilizing with the Twitter hashtag #FridaysForFuture. A popular slogan was “There’s no planet B”.
Dinosaurs in the House. And we thought they were extinct, but Pelosi and friends have managed to make a “Climate Crisis Committee” with no powers and no New Green Deal. This is the group that is supposed to save the planet? Bunch of old dinosaurs keeping the new Green Deal reps out of the committee to keep BAU going as long as possible.
The panel will not have the power to subpoena or depose, nor will it have the authority to vote on legislation and send it directly to the House floor for a vote.
It also is not being explicitly charged with developing Green New Deal legislation, which supporters envision as bringing the county to 100 percent renewable electricity and decarbonizing major industries over 10 years, as well as a universal jobs guarantee and other ideas.
This committee, if it turns out that the rumors about it are true, sounds about as useful as a screen door on a submarine,” Corbin Trent, a spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez, told The Hill last week. “As it’s portrayed it’s going to be completely incapable of solving the greatest threat to human kind.”
Ocasio-Cortez took to Twitter on Monday and accused leaders of rejecting her climate agenda as “too controversial
I don’t think they have a clue as to what is really happening right now in the world, let alone what will happen soon.
Not good. So much depends on Herr Bolsonaro now. Maybe the kids will actually make a difference this year?
“Brazil’s deforestation in 2017 was equivalent to 365 million tonnes of CO2 and jumped by almost 50% over the three months of campaigning before Bolsonaro was elected last year. The DRC’s tree cover loss was equivalent to 158Mt last year and Indonesia’s to 125Mt.”
On the other hand,
“There are some good signs. Costa Rica’s tree cover grew from 20% to around 50% over 30 years. And Indonesia’s loss dropped by 60% year-on-year in 2017, which Global Forest Watch attributed in part to a 2016 moratorium on peat drainage, educational campaigns and stronger enforcement.”
Not good. So much depends on Herr Bolsonaro now. Maybe the kids will actually make a difference this year?
The only silver lining to the most recent Vale mining dam disaster in Brazil is that it is going to make it extremely difficult for Bolsonaro and his ministers to implement their planned rollbacks of environmental regulations!
Nope, he’ll just find a way of blaming the disaster on the regulations. Seems to be the way these sort of people think.
NAOM
No, I think you are dead wrong on this one! He will have to change his tune and very quickly. In my experience the Brazilian people are very unforgiving of blatant government hand outs and favors to mining companies when there are clear examples of harm to the environment and the people, due to lax enforcement of environmental regulations.
This second Vale dam disaster in three years will make it impossible for him to continue with the argument that the regulations are too restrictive. There is going to be a very severe backlash over this and it is already happening.
São Paulo’s ex mayor, Fernando Haddad tweeted this:
“Má escolha: o governo errou ao nomear para ministro do Meio Ambiente alguém cujas posições estão na contramão do que o país precisa. Bolsonaro, até ontem, só fala em afrouxar a fiscalização e facilitar o licenciamento. Veremos agora.”
Em dezembro de 2018, o então candidato à presidência Jair Bolsonaro fez inúmeras críticas ao que chamou de “indústria da multa” ambiental, durante discurso transmitido pelas redes sociais. Ele afirmou que as multas são extorsivas, que iria acabar com o “capricho” dos fiscais do Ibama e que a licença ambiental atrapalha a execução de obras de infraestrutura, de acordo com informações da Folha de S.Paulo.
If you don’t read Portuguese you can Google translate it, Basically both the ex mayor and the Folha de S.Paulo call him to task for statements he made during his campaign and even as recently as the day before the disaster, about environmental regulations being too strict and that he was going to relax them in favor of mining and other companies, as the mayor said: “Now we shall see!”
That is just the tip of the iceberg of the outrage that will now be directed at Bolsonaro and his administration. I really don’t see this going well for them.
The Brazilian public that supported Bolsonaro tends to be much more fickle and volatile than say, Trump supporters.
Cheers!
Herr Bolsonaro?
The dude is still really hurting after someone shot him.
In an operation today.
Might need to find another fascist to loot and pillage.
(Sorry- someone knifed him)
The EDGE of existence.
Amphibians
Around 30% are threatened with extinction, which is more than birds (13%) and mammals (21%). However, this is likely an underestimation of the true number, as the majority of amphibians described since 2004 have not been assessed by the IUCN Red List. At least 42% of all known amphibian species are declining, and as many as 159 amphibian species may already be extinct. There are currently 972 EDGE amphibians, which is more than any other EDGE group. Most of these are frogs and toads, due to the sheer number of species, but there are also priority EDGE salamanders and caecilians.
Where I live, in what was insect haven when I was a kid, you have to look for bugs. I have about 20 swallow nests and last spring, for the first time, only about half were occupied; there’s nothing for them to eat! I know I’ve commented on this before but it depresses me.
BUG’S LIFE: THE DEMISE OF INSECTS
“It’s not just the bees [and frogs] that are disappearing. Insects across the board are showing dramatic drops in population levels, leading to a serious knock-on effect for ecosystems everywhere.”
Yeah, now every time I go outside I search for some sign of insects, they are getting more and more difficult to find. The clearest sign to me is a lack of spiderwebs! Especially orb weavers on the trails I walk. I’m beginning to think that Rachel Carson’s silent spring pales in comparison to what is happening right now!
Fred – this should be esoteric (arcane) enough to turn your crank. Everyone else can safely ignore. 🙂
COULD AN EXTREMOPHILE HOLD THE SECRET TO TREATMENT OF DEVASTATING INJURIES?
“A biological that is engineered to avoid toxicity based on a design leveraging millions of years of evolution to confer cellular protection is not only likely to be safer but also to potentially offer improved egg viability over existing technology. Similar potential exists for the preservation of organs for transplantation and could complement emerging techniques for whole-body preservation.”
Side note: Not the least of which was my artistic side because of the illustration of the Tardigrade at the top. I have recently been working on hyper realistic vector based illustrations of arthropods. I’m working on a series titled: ‘Where Have all the Monarchs Gone’. So I am now paying extra attention to scientific illustration.
This is a very low resolution jpeg of one of my recent illustrations of a Monarch caterpillar on a leaf fragment. As Ken Robinson said about 7 year old William Shakespeare. “Must do better” 😉
.
True Fred, we are fast approaching the long Silent Night.
While the climate scientists were trying to figure out which end the climate sensitivity was on, the world had not a clue to the biological sensitivity. Or at least they ignored it with typical cavalier attitude toward nature.
I find it especially ironic that while I’m drawing Monarch caterpillars, Bloomberg reports this…
(Bloomberg) — Caterpillar Inc. just reported the biggest quarterly profit miss since at least the beginning of 2008, sending its shares plunging.
The construction and mining equipment maker, widely considered a bellwether for the global industrial economy, reported a fourth-quarter profit that lagged analysts’ average estimate by 44 cents a share. According to Bloomberg data, this is the biggest miss reported by the company since at least the first quarter of 2008, which is the farthest the data goes back.
Very Big Sigh!
Not to worry, there is still plenty of carbon based life left on earth, Just not the ones we relate to very easily. Which is probably best for them.
And who knows, maybe after a while all that newly released and to be released carbon will herald a fantastic explosion of life across the planet.
Not to worry, there is still plenty of carbon based life left on earth, Just not the ones we relate to very easily.
Ok, but let’s just say I’m still kinda worried because of this:
What’s missing from this chart is just as important
Yet despite our small biomass among animals, we’ve had an overwhelmingly huge impact on the planet. The chart above represents a massive amount of life. But it doesn’t show what’s gone missing since the human population took off.
To be sure, it is a very safe bet that there will be some forms of life on this planet for a very long time to come.
1853 — Cuba: Revolutionist José Martí (1853-1895) lives, Havana. Cuban poet, essayist & journalist, who became symbol of Cuba’s struggle for independence. The popular song “Guantanamera” is based on a poem by Martí. Worked on underground papers & sent to jail & forced into exile (three columns & you’re out?)
Industrial civilization may be headed to hell in a hand basket, and past tipping points that mean that destination is a dead sure thing.
Or maybe not.
I tend to believe that some people and some societies have a shot, how good a shot it’s impossible to say, of surviving the coming crash, while preserving such things as working water and sewer systems, well stocked grocery stores, fire departments, cops mostly honest and plentiful, etc.
The rest of the world …… I think countless people are going to die hard and often slow as well in various parts of the world. The death toll could mount to as high as eighty percent or more of the global population, in several worst case scenarios.
So I am NOT a cornucopian, but I do believe that there is some hope for us as a species, even if most of the biosphere croaks. Some of us will likely make it so long as the atmosphere has enough oxygen, and some of the more digestible species of plants survive, etc.
And there are some bright spots, in terms of non renewable resources.
Some that appear to be in very short supply may turn out to be plentiful at higher prices that are still not so high as to be out of reach.
Lithium is one such resource. It appears that there are plenty of places with lots of lithium that can be extracted at more or less affordable prices. Maybe there’s enough that’s accessible that we can build electric cars by the tens of millions, eventually, and by the time they are worn out, we will have enough lithium to recycle to get by…… given that the population is just about dead sure to decline substantially, and that we can actually live ok with damned few personal cars or trucks. Railroads and street cars and buses can come back, given time and the NECESSITY of such comebacks.
But by husbanding such resources as are still available, it appears to be possible for the world economy to approach a sustainable state, so that industrial civilization can last for quite some time, barring bad luck….. maybe several centuries….. by which time the population might have dropped far enough that burning enough coal to maintain the status quo might not be much of a problem, etc.
I don’t think anybody can say FOR SURE either way.
Thought you might enjoy this:
Hecklers Attack Howard Schultz At Event After He Teases Presidential Bid
“Don’t help elect Trump, you egotistical billionaire asshole!” one heckler shouted at the possible presidential candidate. “Go back to getting ratioed on Twitter!”
It only took a few minutes before the first heckler lashed out at former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz during his Monday evening book event at a Manhattan Barnes & Noble.
The comments received light boos, and the man was quickly escorted out. Then a few minutes later, a second heckler spoke up.
You ain’t seen nothing yet. Just wait if he really starts to run seriously. You will get “Boycott Starbucks” movements all over the USA. Starbucks stock will plummet.
And my opinion is he is a selfish sonofabitch, just like Ralph Nader was.
For all the advocates of Renewable Energy sources, the immanent declaration of bankruptcy by PG&E tomorrow (1/29), holds enormous repercussions – potentially – for everal firms that supply solar and wind sourced electricity to the California market.
Sidestepping the eye glazing details, a number of wind and solar suppliers are protected by pre arranged Power Purchasing Agreements (PPAs) with PG&E.
These essentially guarantee a revenue stream that may be well above market rates (The Block Island offshore PPA escalates to an ultimate 48 cents per kilowatt hour, the equivalent to $480/Mwh …about 10 times higher than today’s wholesale rate).
As PG&E will come under the powerful jurisdiction of the federal bankruptcy court, renewable suppliers fear that their now protected, above market contracts will be voided.
Gee Coffeeguyzz, one might almost misconstrue your post as a form of gloating at someone else’s misfortune…
In the big picture it probably doesn’t matter all that much anymore. Fossil fuels advocates are in just as bad a place, if not worse. IMHO, much worse!
What you call enormous repercussions pale in comparison to what you should really be worried about.
Cheers!
The cold weather this week in the midwest should be a reminder to all, that a strong grid and a considerable percentage of baseload power is critical for certain times.
Globally-
For the year 2018 as a whole, 430 stations set all-time heat records, and 40 set all-time cold records. With global warming steadily increasing the baseline temperature of the planet, it becomes harder and harder to set all-time cold records.
“ADAPT or PERISH”
Once upon a time, Dinosaurs were the most powerful beings on Earth.
Suddenly, their environment changed dramatically,
and these powerful giants could not adapt.
Millions died while weaker animals became the fittest and survived.
Climate Change Theory =
more 500 year floods;
more super tornadoes;
more super hurricanes;
more heatwaves;
more wildfires;
more droughts.
These disasters will likely kill many humans,
and possibly the animals we need for food,
and the trees we need for wood.
The remaining question is,
how many human societies will be able to adapt quickly,
and wisely enough to survive?
The dinosaurs survived in some form – one of them was the common ancestor for all the bird. Wonder if primates or mammals will leave anything like that, if so I think it would likely be coming from something a lot smaller than us
Just be glad birds descended from the theropods not the sauropods, your car will be forever grateful.
I’m a big Tesla fan, although I can’t afford one and wouldn’t spend more than maybe five grand for a car even if I had ten million, except maybe a collectible car apt to appreciate in value. There are tons of better options, better ways to spend money, than on expensive cars.
Nevertheless I’m a fan because Tesla is moving the needle towards electricity, sourced eventually mostly from with and sun, and away from oil, which depletes and brings on resource wars… not to mention providing the money some of our enemies use to inflict countless little cuts, and a few big ones ( so far only a few big ones) on our society.
But here’s a lesson for people who think a Tesla might be cheap to own, in terms of repairs. There will for a hell of a long time be essentially nothing available on the aftermarket that matters, and it could be that nobody, other than a Tesla employee, will ever know enough about the electronics to solve electronic problems.
Eighteen grand for three relatively basic repairs is right up there in Ferrari territory. Axles and halfshafts are simple mechanical components, and while the rear brakes may have some electronics above and beyond other cars………. they still consist basically of calipers, rotors and pads, and I doubt very seriously that it took a Tesla mechanic more than three, maybe four hours max, to swap out the parts.
Considering the relative simplicity of electric drive trains, it probably takes a lot less time to swap out axles and such as well, due to access likely being easier and so faster.
I wonder how long it will be before a typical electric car has typical repair costs, for similar repairs, as compared to a more or less equivalent conventional car.
My local parts supplier, the one I use most often because that’s the one that has damned near anything you can get aftermarket for damned near any popular car, tells me I can fuggetaboutit as far as buying parts for say a Chevy Volt…. except maybe tires, light bulbs, and a few pieces of trim that often get broken in minor accidents, etc. There simply isn’t enough market for aftermarket parts for anybody to bother manufacturing them.
So if you own a Volt………. you’re pretty much at the mercy of the Chevy dealership. They charge three times as much for a typical new alternator as I pay aftermarket……… and aftermarket I get free exchange as long as I own the car. New original equipment…… a year typically.
Nissan Leaf repair costs. The Nissan Leaf Reliability Rating is 4.0 out of 5.0, which ranks it 3rd out of 4 for alternative fuel vehicles.
The average annual repair cost is $636 which means it has average ownership costs. The severity of repairs is average and the frequency of those issues is low, so major repairs are uncommon for the Leaf.
We presented models for ENSO (i.e. the El Nino behavior) and a few other climate indices at the American Geophysical Union meeting last month in DC and the presentation PDF is now available from the ESSOAR archive here:
Hi Paul,
I downloaded the PDF file but there seems to be something wrong with some of the text in the file.
Could you please check it.
Tks!
The repository evidently places text disclaimers over the PDF, much like the librarians did when Newton, Laplace, and Boltzmann wrote their seminal papers.
Probably can pony up several hundred $ and purchase Acrobat Pro to remove the text.
Nah, I have other software that can do the job, no worries! I was just too lazy!
I refuse to support Adobe products these days. I still bear a grudge from the days when I purchased an upgrade to Illustrator and they had changed a specific keyboard sequence I had been using for over a decade… never forgave them for that one!
Nissan e-POWER A Huge Sales Success: Why Not Add a Plug?
Nissan e-POWER beat Toyota’s hybrids in Japan
Nissan celebrates a tremendous achievement of selling 136,324 Note cars in Japan last year, which put the model on the top of all models, ahead of Toyota Aqua (126,561), Toyota Prius (115,462) and Nissan Serena minivan (99,865). For comparison, the Nissan LEAF was #35 at 25,722.
We would normally not bother, but both Nissans – Note and Serena – are offered in conventional and a special, series-hybrid version called e-POWER (without plug-in capability).
As it turns out, 70% of all Note sales in 2018 were Note e-Power, which would translate to over 95,000. Since the introduction of Note e-POWER in November 2016, Nissan already sold over 200,000 of those!
I have posted this here because I think it is a noteworthy (pun intended) development that, up until I saw this article, seemed to have been completely under the radar! AFAIK this is the first series hybrid from a major manufacturer outside of the BMW i3. However unlike the BMW, which is an EV with a reasonably sized battery (22 kWh), a 25 kW 647 cc, two-cylinder generator and a 9 L (2.4 US gal.) fuel tank, the e-Power has a 1.5 kWh battery pack (1/20 the size of it’s all electric stable mate, the Leaf), a 1.2 L three cylinder gasoline generator and 41 L (11 gal.) tank and no plug-in capability. Apparently the e-Power system uses the same electric motor as the Leaf but, it is de-tuned to produce 40kW, exactly half as potency of the Leaf’s system.
There has been some debate, particularly when the Chevrolet Volt was being developed, about whether a series hybrid EV would make sense, the point being that running the ICE as a generator to provide power to the electric motor would be less efficient than a mechanical transmission at highway speeds. Nissan appears to have developed this system with optimization for urban, low speed, stop and go driving. The result is fuel consumption figures of more than 60 mpg, possibly over 80 mpg, allowing up to 850 miles on a single tank of gas! With this car they appear to have achieved what GM did not achieve with the Volt or Toyota with the Prius, a series hybrid that is significantly more fuel efficient than it’s parallel hybrid counterparts.
I am surprised that Nissan has managed to introduce this car in Japan and sell over 200 thousand of them in a little over two years without much notice from the automotive press. It certainly shows what can be achieved with a little effort. On a web site offering new Japan domestic market cars for export, a 2019, Note e-Power was listed at $22,800, exactly $6,000 more than the non e-power variant so, despite costing almost 36% more, 70% of Note sales are the e-Power variant. I think that this type of vehicle could prove very popular in urban and suburban areas all over the world as a commuter car. For long distance highway cruising, not so much, even though it still appears to return fuel consumption figures as good as or better than is pure ICE powered counterpart. This could eventually be a game changer.
Below are links to a November 2016 review of the car and a September 2018 review of the 4WD version by an American living in Japan:
Test Driving Nissan’s All New e-Power Note (850 miles on one tank!)
Nissan 4WD e-Power Note Review
From George’s comment at the end of the last thread:
http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-january-10-2019/#comment-664210
Here’s something a bit new: … increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are affecting the nutritional composition of staples such as rice and wheat.
Yep! I have posted numerous links on this very topic in the past. Especially when encountering denialist posts about how CO2 is such a great plant food 😉
I believe this is going to turn out to be a rather serious issue in the future!
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002600&type=printable
Increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide:
Anticipated negative effects on food quality
Cheers!
I call that stumbling over gold nuggets to pick up pennies. I could see higher CO2 levels negatively affecting animals from elephants down to bacteria. But plants? Are you serious.??
CO2 is plant nutrition. If the mineral or vitamin content in a plant is to low than something should be done to increase those levels instead of fussing over the CO2 level.
And BTW Adequate levels of CO2 is critical for photosynthesis/production of sugar to reach its potential. The more sugar a plant produces above its basic needs, the more sugars that it will send down into the soil to feed the microbes. When they eat sugar they are then forced to extract minerals from the soil to balance out all the sugar in their diet. When these microbes die or are eaten and pooped out by bigger predators they then supply the plant with bioavailable minerals etc.
So one of the most important/leveraged things that a farmer or environmentalist can do to increase biological function, carbon sequestration, water infiltration rates and water holding capacity, and topsoil formation is to ensure that the plants have access to adequate nutrients to maximize the photosynthetic capacity of the plants in their control. These nutrients include water and sunlight. magnesium and nitrogen for chlorophyl. Iron to increase the spectrum of light that can produce sugar. Manganese to make it all happen, and last but not least CO2 which can often be the weakest link, especially when the plants are otherwise photosynthesizing at a good rate. That is why many greenhouses supply it by artificial means and at very high rates.
I could see higher CO2 levels negatively affecting animals from elephants down to bacteria. But plants? Are you serious.??
Yep! I’m dead serious no pun intended! That’s what current scientific research is telling us. I’m sorry you don’t like reality but whether you do or not, doesn’t change it!
Too much CO2 is bad for the nutrient quality of most of our food crops such as rice!
Or maybe just religion dressed as science. Similar to the pseudo science coming out of our Ag programs that advising farmers to apply 1 unit of N for every bushel of corn he/she intends to produce? When some farmers use little or none and still out produce their neighbors. Or recommendations to use GMOs neonic and fungicide seed treatment, ad nauseum, all dressed up as science.
Just keep an eye out for bias, even in science.
“Or maybe just religion dressed as science. Similar to the pseudo science coming out of our Ag programs that advising farmers to apply 1 unit of N for every bushel of corn he/she intends to produce?”
Why do you not make a internet search first? At the moment you insult people with your uneducated opinion. People, who have done actual experiments, i.e. who have worked in contrast to you.
Rising carbon dioxide and invasive, noxious plants: potential threats and consequences
https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/80420520/FullTextPublicationspdf/Publications/ziska/potentialthreats.pdf
“Because current levels of atmospheric CO2 are less than optimal for plant growth, recent and projected increases in this …. constitutes a noxious weed (e.g., kudzu, Table I). Nomenclature aside, the impact of this …”
I’ll add to that , CO2 increases some crops growth but, at the same time, reduce the yield of the food part. I.e. more waste plant, less food.
NAOM
NAOM So if you disagree you just start making things up?
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/00-077.htm
No, I am not making things up. You have just posted a link to CO2 use in greenhouses where it is of benefit to some crops. In other trials yield of field crops has been reduced or plant growth increased without gain of yield (requiring more fertilizer for the same yield too). I would provide a link but it is flooded out by the ‘CO2 is plant food’ crap and I can’t be bothered to wade through that smelly stuff for you. So, quit throwing insults and do your research properly.
NAOM
Farmlad MAY actually think he knows what he’s talking about, but the odds are much higher that he’s just a troll.
To me he sounds as if he has been listening to some Koch brothers type guys who cherry pick the literature and use their pickings to brainwash people who are inclined to believe in Trump and company.
This is OFM talking, and it’s no accident I chose OFM as my handle. I put four years in getting my ag degree, back in the dark ages, and have taken enough course since then, in order to keep up, to total up to another degree as well.
More CO2 IS good for certain plants, and IS used to accelerate the growth of some crops in greenhouses, true enough.
But Fred and Ulenspiegel and the other regulars are right.In terms of the big picture, more atmospheric CO2 is bad news for farmers as well as just about everybody else.
OFM I have plenty of respect for you and have enjoyed many of your long comments over the last 4 years or so. First off. Nowhere Do I say that higher Atmospheric CO2 is good for farmers or crops. But plants do require adequate levels of CO2 and sometimes that is the limiting factor in photosynthesis. The practical way to address that is to grow copious amounts of root and plant biomass in the prior growing season so that it is decomposing and giving off CO2 at the time that the crop is photosynthesizing at a high rate. That is why we should not be spreading nitrogen in the fall and doing fall tillage unless we still have time to establish a cover crop.
If you mistake me for a Koch supporter then there has been some terrible miscommunication.
Well, you used the term “virtue signalling”. There are several problems with that.
First, it’s mostly used by conservatives to attack ideas they don’t like.
2nd, and most important, it’s an ad hominem, which by definition is a “troll” behavior.
3rd, it’s kind’ve meaningless:
“A criticism of accusing another person of virtue signalling is that in doing so, ironically, one is, as Jane Coaston in the New York Times notes; “trying to signal something about their own values: that they are pragmatic, appropriately cynical, in touch with the painful facts of everyday life.”[17] David Shariatmadari in the Guardian argues that this makes it “indistinguishable from the thing it was designed to call out [reproach]: smug posturing from a position of self-appointed authority.”[2] Sam Bowman says of this that “saying virtue signalling is hypocritical. It’s often used to try to show that the accuser is above virtue signalling and that their own arguments really are sincere. Of course, this is really just another example of virtue signalling!”[4]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling
Are you aware that humans can die from too much exposure to oxygen?
But oxygen is just human cell food! Without it humans can’t produce sufficient adenosine triphosphate!
If the air surrounding you was pure oxygen you would run into neurological difficulties after a few days or less, leading to blindness, convulsions and, eventually, death. Many preme babies require 100% oxygen to be able to breath – then go blind.
NAOM
The Apollo space craft had pure oxygen atmospheres at a pressure of 5 psi. That’s higher than the partial pressure in Earth’s atmosphere. What causes the neurological damage to babies?
I’ll give you 3 links, the first an example, second a reference from it and 3rd some information on the other effects and concentrations. The pressure on Apollo was reduced to 5 psi partly to avoid issues with toxicity, I can’t remember the exact max time for breathing pure oxygen at 1 atm (Fred might). 5 psi was a compromise between oxygen at the partial pressure of 3.1 psi and sufficient pressure to avoid problems from low pressure. The problem is partial pressure rather than concentration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Flowers (look for her music on YouTube)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retinopathy_of_prematurity
https://www.diversalertnetwork.org/medical/articles/OXTOX_If_You_Dive_Nitrox_You_Should_Know_About_OXTOX
NAOM
The problem is partial pressure rather than concentration.
Yeah, as NAOM said, it is about the partial pressure. When I worked as a saturation diver at depths of up to 500 ft. our typical working breathing mixture was 13% O2 and 87% He.
https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/why-does-breathing-pure-oxygen-kill-you/
Why does breathing pure oxygen kill you?
We need oxygen to live, yet there’s always too much of a good thing. Pure oxygen can be deadly.
By Luis Villazon
Our blood has evolved to capture the oxygen we breathe in and bind it safely to the transport molecule called haemoglobin. If you breathe air with a much higher than normal O2 concentration, the oxygen in the lungs overwhelms the blood’s ability to carry it away.
The result is that free oxygen binds to the surface proteins of the lungs, interferes with the operation of the central nervous system and also attacks the retina.
Contrary to popular myth, hyperventilating air at ordinary pressures never causes oxygen toxicity (the dizziness is due to CO2 levels dropping too low), but breathing oxygen at pressures of 0.5 bar or more (roughly two and a half times normal) for more than 16 hours can lead to irreversible lung damage and, eventually, death.
What happens is that iron in the heme group of your hemoglobin becomes oxidized in a high O2 partial pressure environment… Imagine all your red blood cells getting rusty 😉
Cheers!
“If the air surrounding you was pure oxygen you would run into neurological difficulties after a few days or less,”
Also lung damage…
Oxygen toxicity
Evidence of decline in lung function as measured by pulmonary function testing can occur as quickly as 24 hours of continuous exposure to 100% oxygen,[35] with evidence of diffuse alveolar damage and the onset of acute respiratory distress syndrome usually occurring after 48 hours on 100% oxygen.[34] Breathing 100% oxygen also eventually leads to collapse of the alveoli (atelectasis), while—at the same partial pressure of oxygen—the presence of significant partial pressures of inert gases, typically nitrogen, will prevent this effect.[37]
Preterm newborns are known to be at higher risk for bronchopulmonary dysplasia with extended exposure to high concentrations of oxygen.[38] Other groups at higher risk for oxygen toxicity are patients on mechanical ventilation with exposure to levels of oxygen greater than 50%, and patients exposed to chemicals that increase risk for oxygen toxicity such the chemotherapeutic agent bleomycin.[35] Therefore, current guidelines for patients on mechanical ventilation in intensive care recommends keeping oxygen concentration less than 60%.[34]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_toxicity
Tx. Warf & Fred.
Rat made his living by running ventilators. We wanted to keep the O2 below 50%, but we’d go as high as necessary to keep the blood oxygenated. We would use a technique called PEEP, positive end expiratory pressure, to open alveoli (air sacs) for better oxygenation. We kept the lung pressure above atmospheric at the end of expiration, sort of like inflating a balloon.
http://www.jonathandownham.com/mechanical-ventilation-peep-positive-end-expiratory-pressure/
We’d also try to control CO2, but I would say mostly to control the pH of the blood. Normal blood pH is 7.35-7.45, and increasing CO2 levels would cause acidosis. We would increase the minute ventilation, the amount the patient breathed in a minute, by either increasing the volume of the breath, or the number of breaths/ minute, or both, to blow off CO2. Sorta like geoengineering (bioengineering) the body’s atmosphere and oceans.
Interesting Warf, I had to learn for my Nitrox course then, as well, taking into account snorkeling and shallow water blackout, plenty of ways to get you if you don’t follow the rules.
NAOM
Hmmm… Shallow water blackout, there’s a dissertation on that topic alone. We shall leave it for another day. 😉
It’s fun teasing snorkelers.
It’s fun teasing snorkelers.
Ehem! While it may be OK to tease snorklers, I think what you were referring to is the sport of free diving, which is something else again… 😉
Even when I was in my prime I could maybe do 20 m and a bottom time of about three and half minutes. One of my star pupils, an extraordinary young lady far surpassed me in short order…
My instructor used to win his beer money by taking bets on how long he could stay down in the tank. I had a few tricks when free diving to wind the snorkelers, from the day-tour boats, up. Got to have fun with the tourists 😉
NAOM
Who needs Wikipedia with this bunch answering questions?
Thanks, guys.
This is the smartest bunch of chatter on the internet I suspect (um..some exceptions)
The pressure of CO2 on Mars is much higher than on earth, maybe we should farm Mars.
GoneFishing,
The partial pressure of CO2 (in percent) on Mars is higher than on Earth.
For all: The part of the total pressure of the atmosphere (in percent) that is due to CO2 is much higher on Mars than it is on Earth. That’s because Mars’ atmosphere is almost entirely CO2. There is very little of that atmosphere, though, so the actual pressure exerted by CO2 there is quite small. Now that I think about it, though, I don’t know how the total amount of atmospheric CO2 compares between Mars and Earth, and that could be what GoneFishing is referring to. Or maybe I just gave GF an out.
Rats.
Well y’all, now you know what partial pressure means (weak smile.)
Well y’all, now you know what partial pressure means (weak smile.)
Here’s how you calculate the partial pressure of CO2 at 1 atm on planet earth.
https://socratic.org/questions/how-would-you-calculate-the-partial-pressure-of-co2-given-an-atmospheric-pressur
How would you calculate the partial pressure of CO2, given an atmospheric pressure of 760 mm Hg and a 0.04% concentration?
Chemistry Gases Partial Pressure
The actual calculation being:
Carbon dioxide’s partial pressure in air will thus be
PCO2 = 0.00004 X 760 mmHg = 0.304 mmHg
Rounded to one sig fig, the number of sig figs you have for the percent composition of CO2
0.3 mmHg
EXTRA CREDIT:
Look up the concentration of CO2 and the atmospheric pressure on Mars and calculate PCO2 for Mars and then compare it to PCO2 for earth. 😉
Cheers!
Synapsid, Mars atmospheric pressure is .087 psi compared to Earth at 14.7 psi. Mars atmosphere is 95% CO2, therefore pressure of CO2 on Mars is more than 10 times partial pressure of CO2 here. Plants should do great on Mars, think of 50 foot tall tomato plants. :-0
BTW, I was being a bit sarcastic playing on the increased CO2 makes plants grow more. They should grow a lot better on Mars, right? Of course the extreme low temperatures, weaker sunlight, arid conditions, dead toxic soil might have some minor effects on the growth, but the extra CO2 should take care of that. 🙂
Enough simple minded fun on this subject.
GoneFishing,
Yep, pretty much what I said. Toward the end, there. Sort of.
A little more background on circular economics concepts from the Disruptive Innovation Festival.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=166&v=_Wyo7u-1IBE
System Reset
Disruptive Innovation Festival – DIF
Published on Nov 15, 2018
Imagine if we built an economic system built on abundance rather than scarcity. Taking advantage of the latest digital tools, computational power, material science, biomimicry and a somewhat older idea – the commons – this new system could have the power to transform how we live and work. System Reset is a feature-length documentary which explores this story of change in our economy.
Shot in London, Amsterdam and Barcelona, this film is a DIF 2018 exclusive. It features some of the leading thinkers in materials, economics, the commons movement, FabLabs, digital citizenship, urban planning and architecture. Don’t miss your opportunity to see them collectively weave a picture of how our economy could operate.
These are the kinds of people people and the thinking we need as an antidote to neo-classical economic thinking, Trumpism and Brexit style head in the sand nationalism and populism!
“A study released Monday shows for the first time that more than 16,000 desalination plants scattered across the globe produce more briny toxic sludge than fresh water.
For every litre of fresh water extracted, a litre-and-a-half of salty, chemical-laden sludge called brine is dumped—in most cases—into the ocean.
That’s enough to cover the state of Florida in a 30-centimetre (one-foot) layer of slime.”
Another example of neo-classical thinking—-
As a practical matter, we pretty much have to do what we have to do in order to keep the wheels turning short to medium term……
So…….. It appears that the problem at least in coastal areas is mostly about dumping the sludge into near shore shallow waters, or into estuaries or bays etc where circulation to dilute the concentration is poor or absent.
But there are lots of desal plants located inland, which necessarily use somewhat salty water locally present as feed stock, and necessarily have to get rid of their brine by product locally.
So far as I can see, if concentrated brine is piped well out to sea and dispersed into moving deep water, it ought not be a BIG problem, since it will be mixed with vast quantities of normal brine aka seawater.
Looking at this as a long term issue, the only real solution that immediately comes to mind is that we’re totally screwed unless the world wide population soon peaks and declines.
We aren’t going to quit using fossil fuels in the short or medium term, lol. Any serious attempt to do so would result in every politician advocating the attempt being laughed out of office, double time.
Nor are we going to give up desal.
With enough energy input, which can eventually be provided by “almost” too cheap to meter wind and solar power, maybe it will be possible and practical to actually reduce the brine to a pile of salt, which can be used for various purposes, or else just piled up in some out of the way place where it won’t get wet and into the ground and stream water. At least this won’t be even a hundredth as dangerous as a spent nuclear fuel stockpile, lol.
A Minnesota solar powered greenhouse that grows vegetables all year long.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0M6l3bnzZE
Somewhere in my notes I have links to an article about a greenhouse built to operate in a similar fashion, but with a far simpler heat capture and storage system.
In this one, a substantial pit was excavated, and numerous pipes installed running the length of the greenhouse were installed about six feet down or so, and all the ends brought up to surface level and connected by way of a manifold at one end.
A large electrically driven fan pushes the air thru the pipes, sucking it in at the manifold end, and forcing it out at the other. The large volume of earth and the large contact area with the pipes ensures good heat transfer, both in cooling mode during the day and heating mode at night.
But it seems the cost of installing such a system is such that it’s simply not practical and won’t likely be practical anytime soon…….. assuming the price of the natural gas typically used to heat greenhouses stays low.
I haven’t done it myself, but I know a lady who builds a super simple little greenhouse using a dozen bales of moldy old hay, a sheet of greenhouse plastic, and some boards. She arranges the hay in a rectangle, lays boards across it, and puts the plastic over the boards so that it hangs down with some touching the ground all around, and secures it with pieces of firewood.
She doesn’t put on the cover until it gets to be cold weather, and raises kale in this little enclosure. It produces more than you would ever believe, and she gets nice fresh kale right on thru the winter. On occasion at the beginning and end of her “season” she has to fold the plastic back to keep it from getting too hot, but she seldom ever has to remove it to water her crop. Enough water seems to percolate in thru the soil during the winter.
Yes, I have seen a south facing design passive greenhouse that used an insulated north wall with mass storage. Not sure if they would work all winter in Minnesota without insulating the glass at night but further south could give good results most years.
Some new design windows have up to R14 but would be much more expensive than standard glass or plastic. That would allow full passive operation even in cold areas like Minnesota.
I think the design was for reliable commercial operation. It looked like it had a fueled backup in the original design (so as not to freeze crop during exceptional weather).
HUMAN DIET CAUSING ‘CATASTROPHIC’ DAMAGE TO PLANET
“The global food system is the single largest emitter of greenhouse gases, the biggest driver of biodiversity loss, and the main cause of deadly algae blooms along coasts and inland waterways….
Beef is the main culprit. Not only do cattle pass massive quantities of planet-warming methane, huge swathes of carbon-absorbing forests –- mostly in Brazil -– are cut down every year to make room for them.”
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2019-01-human-diet-catastrophic-planet.html#jCp
So do you have any good vegan recipes to share?
I haven’t personally tried it yet but I’m intrigued.
https://www.thrillist.com/eat/nation/impossible-burger-2-review-vegan-burger
“The vision and the mission of [Impossible] is really great because they’ve been able to mimic a lot of the same flavors, textures, and most importantly, the satisfying quality of meat through science,” she said. “And to me that shines a light on a possible wide-scale solution to one of the biggest threats we’re facing as a planet in terms of sustainability.”
…Minor’s medium-rare burger sold me completely on 2.0. Topped with salsa fresca, avocado, and a vegan secret sauce, it hit all the same pleasure centers in my body as when I eat a well-made burger at a restaurant. Milliken was right — the chew and umami were on point. I thought the original Impossible was great, but this exceeded my expectations. It even looked like the real thing. Is this fake beef so convincing you could trick a meat eater into believing it’s real? Sure. But if we assume people love burgers simply because they taste good, no trickery is needed.
Based on the complete silence, I guess not. I was wondering what he recommends humans consume for basic daily meals if the latest demand is to ban meat now too.
It really doesn’s matter. Demands by groups of concerned citizens, on any subject, are always ignored by the masses. You should have figured that out long ago.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-46865204
For almost 800 million people in the world, food is already pretty much a luxury…
Most meat, BTW, depends on a completely unsustainable industrial agricultural system that will collapse sooner or later so it doesn’t really matter if it will be banned or not. But frankly as someone who voluntarily abstains from most red meat it really doesn’t make up a part of my daily diet. There are plenty of other things to eat. Like fruits, nuts, vegetables, legumes, beans, lentils, grain, and occasionally some fish and even insects! And no, I’m not being facetious!
Red meat just isn’t all that good for you and most of it nowadays is chock full of hormones, antibiotics and it’s mostly raised in pens on corn!
https://www.foodaidfoundation.org/world-hunger-statistics.html
Hunger Statistics
Every year, authors, journalists, teachers, researchers, schoolchildren and students ask us for statistics about hunger and malnutrition. To help answer these questions, we’ve compiled a list of useful facts and figures on world hunger.
Some 795 million people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life. That’s about one in nine people on earth.
The vast majority of the world’s hungry people live in developing countries, where 12.9 percent of the population is undernourished.
Asia is the continent with the most hungry people – two thirds of the total. The percentage in southern Asia has fallen in recent years but in western Asia it has increased slightly.
Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the highest prevalence (percentage of population) of hunger. One person in four there is undernourished.
Poor nutrition causes nearly half (45%) of deaths in children under five – 3.1 million children each year.
One out of six children — roughly 100 million — in developing countries is underweight.
One in four of the world’s children are stunted. In developing countries the proportion can rise to one in three.
If women farmers had the same access to resources as men, the number of hungry in the world could be reduced by up to 150 million.
66 million primary school-age children attend classes hungry across the developing world, with 23 million in Africa alone.
WFP calculates that US$3.2 billion is needed per year to reach all 66 million hungry school-age children.
So what do you recommend those 795 million people consume for basic daily meals?!
We can’t solve hunger without stopping rampant climate change. Imagine the Holodomor, the Great Leap Forward Famine, the Irish Famine (but with no welcoming USA), the Spanish Flu, the Black Death, the Thirty Years War, Eastern Front Prison Camps, the Armenian Genocide march, the Trail of Tears, Korean War human wave attacks etc. all happening at the same time. Then multiply by ten or twenty and keep it going for decades – that’s what any survivors after 2100 will have lived through if climate warming goes on as current (and they will be competing with each other and any remaining wildlife to try to survive in a degraded environment with continuing accelerating decline).
I’m VERY afraid George is right.
Now I’ll provide my little helper HB if he is still around an opportunity to really get worked up.
Good sense indicates that JUST MAYBE we are going to eventually NEED ironclad control of our borders.
I have posted comments in the past to the effect that once the shit is really and truly well into the fan, border fences will be quite common place, and that there will be machine guns on the defended side of the fences, and that they will be used as necessary.
We don’t need a southern border fence now, and building one now, or within the near future, would be a BIG mistake, in terms of our standing in the world.
But a few decades down the road?
It’s all about how fast things go downhill, and where. Mexico is at high risk of collapse, in the estimation of the Pentagon, but there’s also an excellent chance that if the people there ever manage to install a competent and ethical government, they will be in about as good a position as anybody to weather the coming storm………
Except maybe it will get so hot they want to migrate all the way to Canada..
If I were a young guy, I would be looking at a smallish piece of raw land somewhere rather high up and quite a good way to the north of Virginia, just in case I might want to pack up everything that isn’t nailed down and move there if Virginia gets to be as hot and muggy as Florida.
In these kind of scenarios, where there is large migration away from heat damaged areas, the walls may need to be built to keep people in Florida, parts of Texas Arizona and Calif on the south side. Where do you draw the line in such a scenario?
Urban/rural. Young/old. Healthy/unfit. Physically skilled/skilled with only thumbs….
Canada
“a completely unsustainable industrial agricultural system that will collapse sooner or later”
Yet this system is exactly what permits our fat asses to sit commenting. “Industrial Ag” takes a whipping, but there ain’t no other way to feed an industrial-sized population. Ag means unsustainable, no matter how you slice it.
“Ag” itself IS the problem:
http://www.sigervanbrabant.be/docs/Diamond.PDF
Industrial agriculture as it is practiced today is a damned if we do, and damned if we don’t proposition.
It is literally impossible to give up industrial agriculture in the short term.
Only the greatest of fools would even entertain the idea of doing so except as an academic or intellectual exercise. ONE fact alone is sufficient to demonstrate my point. Three hundred million Yankee people do not produce any food at all, not even a tomato from a patio pot, although a substantial part of that number are involved in the shipping, processing, retailing and so forth of food.
Getting any significant number of these people back into agriculture as such is a political and economic impossibility short term and medium term.
OTOH, it’s equally obvious that industrial scale agriculture as we practice it today can’t last indefinitely, and on a world wide basis, it probably can’t last much more than another couple or three generations due to the loss of topsoil, depletion of clean water, climate problems, land being developed and lost to farming, etc, etc etc.
But it is possible, and even likely in my professional opinion, that we can modify our current industrial agricultural systems to the extent that we can continue to produce food enough that only a very small percentage of all people will necessarily live on farms and be actively engaged in farming.
( Farmers themselves do not separate herding or livestock operations of any kind into separate categories in casual conversation about the big picture so I am not doing so here. )
If we succeed in this endeavor, it will be necessary to make some truly groundshaking changes that aren’t going to go over very well with Joe and Suzy Sixpack.
We will have to eat a hell of a lot less meat, especially beef, requires far greater inputs per unit output. This is not to say there won’t be some beef available, because cows can graze on some land otherwise unsuitable for farming.
We will have to pass laws protecting land and zoning land for agricultural purposes in order to preserve it.
We will have to eat lower on the food chain in general, it’s not just beef. This is not to say we can’t still have some chicken and port, etc, because these animals can be grown on agricultural byproducts and garbage ( properly sanitized) and when fed grains, the feed conversion to meat ratio is far better than beef.
We will have to create a political and economic environment that allows people to practice agriculture on a very small scale almost anyplace, such as their urban backyard. A lot of people throw away enough food to keep half a dozen laying hens happy, and that many produce enough manure to grow a family sized supply of tomatoes and cucumbers.
We will have to somehow convince the public that it’s in their interest to pay a little more so as to allow farmers to use somewhat more expensive production techniques involving less use of pesticides, manufactured fertilizers and other inputs such as packaging and diesel fuel.
We will have to control the size of the population, by one means or another, unless it declines in and of itself.
People have some funny ideas about organic agriculture. Go to a successful and typical organic farm, and you see electrical grid connections, heated and lighted barns and packing houses with electrically driven machinery all over the place, sheds with tractors, combines, mowers, rakes, balers, sprayers parked in them. VERY seldom will you see a horse or mule actually used to accomplish any real work, lol.
Trucks deliver loads of boxes and bags, and produce leaves in big trucks, generally already boxed or bagged.
IF the operator is really and truly producing on a serious scale, you almost always find that he has a ready source of organic fertilizer sourced off farm……. such as manure from a nearby livestock operation, or truck loads of leaves and sticks collected by the maintenance department of a nearby town or city….. etc.
What I’m saying is that an organic farm is really not at all very different, as a rule, from an ordinary farm, except for the use of manufactured fertilizers and pesticides, and even organic farmers use some of each, if you consider a soil amendment such as ground limestone to be a manufactured product. It does after all have to be mined, ground, and shipped to the farm.
Organic techniques can and often do work very well at small scales, but if you want CHEAP food, you get it by producing it by the hundreds of acres per man involved in the doing of it. Organic techniques don’t work so well at large scales, meaning you are basically forced, in terms of the current state of the art, to produce smaller amounts in smaller fields, using more complicated crop rotations, and producing a considerable variety of crops, so as to avoid large scale and conventional monocultures.
This means the farmer needs more help, more equipment, greater expertise, and excellent access to markets which is for now at least quite a problem. It’s possible for me to grow let us say ten acres of green beans, but nobody around here is in the market for more than maybe half an acre’s worth……. there’s no industrial scale buyer or canning or freezer plant any place nearby.
The big chain stores which dominate the retailing industry as a rule won’t even talk to a small grower like me. The local Walmart, Food Lion, etc, would rather contract for thousands of bushels of apples from a couple of thousand miles away than to deal with a local grower like me……. even though I grow a better quality product, lol.
Tens of millions of acres of farm land currently used to grow let us say wheat or corn or soybeans aren’t well suited to growing a large variety of fruits and vegetables due to topography, climate, and or distance from markets. You can’t grow apples in a river bottom, because frost wipes you out. You can replant corn, you wait a year for another try at an apple crop. Who is going to move to rural Iowa and live in a non existent house and go back to work on a thousand acre grain farm currently operated mostly by one man, maybe two or three at the most, so that thousand acres can be devoted to fifty acres of green beans, ten acres of squash, ten of cucumbers, etc?
I could go on all day, but enough is enough.
I’m not saying it can’t be done, but I’m saying we aren’t going to give up industrial agriculture, for economic and political reasons, short of collapse.
This is not to say however that we can’t modify our current industrial agricultural systems to be at least MORE OR LESS sustainable, on a long term basis, so long as we also maintain a more or less sustainable industrial economy .
I don’t see any theoretical reasons we can’t giterdone. But the doing of it is going to be one hell of a job.
Wish I could respond to more of this post. But here,
“Go to a successful and typical organic farm, and you see electrical grid connections, heated and lighted barns and packing houses with electrically driven machinery all over the place, sheds with tractors…”
Yes, yes, yes. And PLASTIC. Holy O FAILS without ample use of plastics…. and PESTICIDES, like Pyganic. Holy O is simply a superstition, an ideology masquerading as “sustainability” in order to command higher prices for comparable–and sometimes inferior–products.
Ain’t no such thing as “sustainable” when it comes to growing food to grow a population of non-food-growers.
IF TSHTF, my own little agricultural niche–heritage apples grow in New England–is probably as doomed as a fat hog on Easter Sunday.
Organic food is a great way to charge customers more money for the same product. That farmers hate is shows how out of touch they are with their customers. This, in general, is a reflection of the primitive state of modern agriculture, which lives on government subsidies instead of its wits.
Farmers have to find niche markets to provide higher priced goods or face continuing decline as their product turns into a commodity. And they need to move fast, because the entire industry is facing disruption on a massive scale.
The entire industry is based on the “Green Revolution” of the sixties, which is a wonderful thing and saved probably billions of lives, but is showing its age. Like the fossil fuel industry, it delivered huge prosperity but has too many side affects to ignore. And like the fossil fuel industry, it is facing huge challenges as markets and technologies change.
Meat and dairy will probably be hit first. The shift away from consuming animal products to is already happening. And imitations of meat and dairy products are just a few years from hitting the mainstream. Meanwhile dairy cows have gotten so productive that the industry is dying.
There is too much food around, which is why farmers get huge subsidies to burn crops (in the form of methanol). The ecological impact is huge, and harder and harder to justify. Intensive farming methods allow city dwellers to get their food from nearer than ever before, and low costs allow them to be fussier about what they buy.
If American farming tech caught up to the Dutch or Israelis, most of the farms would close for lack of customers. There would be no water shortages in the West either. But that is just the beginning. As tastes change regulations clamp down on waste and pollution and new technologies bring costs down, the industry will need to complete rethink itself. And tough talk won’t change that.
Yeah,
As always OFM (to me) makes a lot of sense and his views about the scale of the agriculture operations needed to feed the world are logical with only one flaw . . . Rice.
I don’t have the time or inclination to check the numbers but if a comparison is done between rice and wheat I am guessing world production would be similar . . . could be way wrong but it doesn’t alter my views.
Wheat growing is capital intensive on some of the largest individual acreages ever farmed . . . in the places I know, rice is produce in plots of just a few square meters.
No where in agriculture is there such a stark contrast in the average size of farms that support different segments of the worlds population.
If it ever comes to the crunch folks will survive on small holdings. . . because they have to.
The piss from one human will pretty much grow enough green leafy vegetables to support two humans and that is a good starting point for calculations..
Cheers.
You paint a very accurate picture of the real life challenges in farming. Organic farming as we know it today is so full of holes. On the one hand we have what I call cheating such as using regular CAFO manures, Mega Organic dairies, where it would be impossible to graze the required amount, and conventional grains shipped from the Ukraine and by the time they reach US port are certified organic.
On the other hand there are many biologically friendly practices that that for some technical reason do not pass the grade.
I very much appreciate the direction that the regenerative agriculture community is pursuing to help conventional farmers take their farming to a whole new level. As a fruit grower you would likely find this well worth your time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trXgzBsPGdo
I went to the sponsoring website and found “specialists” in various “holistic,” “naturopathic,” “healing,” “integrative medicine” techniques, and to top it off, Michael Phillips, the writer of that hideously superstitious manual The Apple Grower, recommending such shit as “biodynamics.”
Thanks, but no fucking thanks.
People don’t really like meat much, as a matter of fact. They like meat-like substances, like sausage, which is easier to eat. It can also can be created with much less damage to the environment than the primitive farming practices in use today. Farmers whine a lot, but they are vastly subsidized most of their problems are home made.
About 60% of beef consumption in the US is ground beef. The real stuff is expensive but easy to fake, as Taco Bell showed us. And other than chicken wings, most people prefer chicken McNugget like substances to chicken with skin and bones. I loved eating drumsticks as a kid. My kids think they are “too complicated”.
Fake meat is now hitting the market, and will soon be cheaper than the real stuff. Of course you will hear people whining about how it’s “elitist” or something, because it’s still expensive so only early adopters consume it, but that will change. Remember when mobile phones were “yuppie toys”? My kids don’t.
Without massive increases in the already insane subsidies, the meat industry is going to get hit very hard in a decade or so. Of course, the thing the Midwest grows best is senators, so those sweet government bailouts will come, but in the long run meat farming and the godawful mess meat farmers make (because they can) is on its way out.
Jungles do not get cut down to grow food. They get cut down to make a profit. Period. How do I know?? I grew up cutting down virgin jungle to increase the hectares on my parents little farm. And If we didn’t do it first then the neighbors would have done it. It really is that simple.
All we need to do to keep the tiny amount of remaining jungle intact is to make it more economical for the people in control of those jungles to maintain them. Its as simple as that.
Much of our planet is swimming in food and most farmers currently are having a very hard time making a profit due to overproduction and partly because land is expensive so if a farmer can just cut down some jungle and farm it then his costs are significantly less which is his competitive advantage.
The problem is not the cows, or the beans, or the farmers. The problem is that the mainstream press prefers to push a wet noodle. This way they can virtue signal and put the blame on other people instead of asking a simple question, how can we pool our funds and pay the people in control of these jungles to keep them and to even let more grow back?
Jungles do not get cut down to grow food. They get cut down to make a profit.
Not sure what you think people do with beef cattle but in Brazil the forests are being cut down for cattle ranching! Yes, it is about making a profit selling cattle for hamburger which a lot of people still eat!
Lets say you are king of Brazil. How would you go about preserving and growing back the jungles?
I’ start by getting the current Brazilian administration out of power!
Fred I presented my simple Idea of a practical and workable plan to actually preserve tropical jungles. I realize that in real life its more complex but that’s the basics. We also have some precedent with the National park systems here in the USA. Jungle preservation would be taking it global.
Shaming people into not eating meat is not going to save the jungles because meat production is only one of the ways to derive profit from jungle soils.
So do you think there is a way to save the jungles that are left or will you just raise a fuss (virtue signaling) as they get wiped out left and right?
Have you been to the Brazilian Amazon?!
I have!
My life on this planet began in a little clearing in the semitropical jungle of Paraguay. By the time I was 15 it was mostly soya fields and small remnants of jungle left here and there.
Some of the meassures that were taken in Paraguay to save the jungle actually ended up speeding up the process. For one the laws enacted to ban log and lumber exports made that there was very little economic incentive left for land owners to maintain jungles so they cleared the land and burned tens of thousands of $ worth of logs per hectare to plant soya that yielded several hundred $ worth of profit per hectare per year.
Now most so called environmentalists will cry about logging but my answer is that logging the jungles is way way better than soya and other crop fields that are getting dozens of chemical applications every stinking year. A logged jungle continues to provide the vast majority of the ecosystem functions of an untouched jungle whereas cropped acres are generally a very destructive force in that environment.
So I would say that the best solution is to find ways to reward the land owners of jungles to keep them. Whether those land owners are individuals, communities, or governments. And there will always have to be some give and take between the two parties to find the best solutions instead of demanding perfection and having it fall flat year after year. Good luck trying to shame and force people to eat less meat since that will do nothing to incentivise the landowners of jungle to keep them.
Good luck trying to shame and force people to eat less meat since that will do nothing to incentivise the landowners of jungle to keep them.
Really?!
It so happens, that I’ve always been a supporter of sustainable extraction of natural resources by indigenous people who live in the rain forest. For the record these places aren’t what I would call ‘jungles’ a term that I find both inaccurate and somewhat offensive.
Don’t know about anyone else, but I very rarely eat red meat. Especially from ranched beef cattle. Anyone who knows anything about the Amazonian rain forest knows that if you cut it down to plant crops you very quickly lose productivity. It’s just the nature of the ecosystems and how the top soil is regenerated so monoculture crops such as soy simply do not work without massive inputs of fertilizer.
Sustainable logging can work in some places. However building highways and towns throughout the forest also is a really bad idea. The current administration want’s to do more of all of the above!
And whatever you may think, it is a fact that large areas of the Brazilian rain forest are being burned and clear cut to raise beef cattle.
To make matters worse we now have a populist moron who is scientifically and ecologically illiterate in the presidency! His intended policies are sure to make an already bad situation much worse!
I don’t want to shame anyone into anything! I want to enforce the environmental laws and regulations that are already on the books and have been written into the Brazilian constitution. If you cut down the rain forest to plant mono culture crops or raise cattle you should go to jail and be severely fined.
Fred Part of my point is just that it is hypocritical to derive an existence primarily off of land that was cleared from its native vegetation(that would be like 99% of us), even if it was eons ago and then turn around and now be like, You guys have natural resources but you are not allowed to extract them.
Instead I suggest that the more workable method is to say, Look, you guys have untapped natural resources but if you destroy them just to make a little profit then we and eventually you as well will have to pay a terrible price. So how can we support you so that it will be more profitable for you in the meantime to manage them holistically.
The stick is needed often but first try carrots. More cooperation, and less coercion.
So why do they vote for a moron? I can imagine that it has something to do with people that got fed up with being told what to do and what they can’t do. To much coercion from top down makes the people furious. You can watch the results of to much top down quite dramatic and in real time in France, in Syria and Iraq and the West Bank. And to a somewhat subdued degree all over the world.
A bit of meat, a lot of veg – the flexitarian diet to feed 10 billion
By James Gallagher
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-46865204
A diet has been developed that promises to save lives, feed 10 billion people and all without causing catastrophic damage to the planet.
Scientists have been trying to figure out how we are going to feed billions more people in the decades to come.
Their answer – “the planetary health diet” – does not completely banish meat and dairy.
But it is recommending we get most of our protein from nuts and legumes (such as beans and lentils) instead.
Their diet needs an enormous shift in what we pile on to our plates and for us to turn to foods that we barely eat.
If you served it all up this is what you would be allowed each day:
1. Nuts – 50g a day
2. Beans, chickpeas, lentils and other legumes – 75g a day
3. Fish – 28g a day
4. Eggs – 13g a day (so one and a bit a week)
5. Meat – 14g a day of red meat and 29g a day of chicken
6. Carbs – whole grains like bread and rice 232g a day and 50g a day of starchy vegetables
7. Dairy – 250g – the equivalent of one glass of milk
8. Vegetables -(300g) and fruit (200g)
The diet has room for 31g of sugar and about 50g worth of oils like olive oil.
Will it save lives?
The researchers say the diet will prevent about 11 million people dying each year.
That number is largely down to cutting diseases related to unhealthy diets such as heart attacks, strokes and some cancers. These are now the biggest killers in developed countries.
“A diet has been developed that promises to save lives, feed 10 billion people and all without causing catastrophic damage to the planet.”
Once again, faulty thinking about the magnitude of overshoot.
The gist should be more like- with a diet along these lines, the earths healthy carrying capacity may be closer to 1.6 Billion, rather than 800 million previously suggested.
Just for fun I encountered both of these on the same day. Pick your favorite future:
https://www.kolibree.com/en/ara/
https://givingbrush.com/?gclid=Cj0KCQiA1NbhBRCBARIsAKOTmUuaCKIydu7DeQw8P_-Eowp-02oFeBgEQMSH_G4d5HkZfCKE8A0oZ9caAtbKEALw_wcB
Global clean energy investment nearly flat since 2011-
320 Bill in 2011
332 Bill in 2018
entirely unimpressive
token spending for a transition people plan to make in 20 or 30 yrs from now, if at all
https://about.bnef.com/blog/clean-energy-investment-exceeded-300-billion-2018/
Hickory,
Keep in mind that costs have fallen so the same money gets you more megawatts of power.
I agree though that faster growth in dollars spent would be better. The cost differentials as fossil fuel prices increase and non-fossil fuel energy decreases in cost may lead to an acceleration in spending on non-fossil fuel energy. At some point (probably near 2030) alternatives reach a critical mass where demand for fossil fuels may begin to fall faster than supply, this will drive fossil fuel prices lower and make a lot of future fossil fuel investment unprofitable. This capital will be applied to clean energy and will accelerate the transition, this will be a snowball effect that will quickly drive fossil fuel use to nearly zero, perhaps by 2050.
Hi Dennis,
I read your comment as a prediction that renewable energy growth will occur fast enough and soon enough that there will actually be a fossil fuel glut , possibly occurring sometime around 2030.
This is possible, but my gut feeling is that instead of a glut of cheap fossil fuel, we are more likely to experience shortages and have to pay high prices for oil and gas, and maybe even coal, before then.
This would of course lead investors to put money into renewable energy, probably LOTS of money, considering the way our political systems operate.
We go overboard when we get afraid. Consider the incredibly amount of money we spend on airport security for instance, when taking into account the time of people who fly.
If for some reason gasoline should have to be rationed for six months, our Yankee congress would probably pass a law subsidizing electric cars out the ying yang….. assuming D control… maybe even R control.
I know you believe peak oil is within easy view, probably within ten years, but I haven’t noticed if you have voiced your opinion about peak gas. ??
If gas prices rise sharply, and stay up, then the amount of money going into wind and solar power infrastructure will go up like a rocket.
OFM,
I agree there will be shortages, especially for oil, and this will lead to high oil prices, possibly this will happen for coal and then natural gas as well. I expect oil will peak first, then coal, and then natural gas (2025, 2030, and then 2035). The high fossil fuel prices will accelerate the transition to EVs, solar and wind power and also lead to grater development of a modern high voltage DC transmission network (grid). Also costs for batteries, solar PV and wind power will continue to fall while fossil fuel prices rise. At some point, probably around 2035 to 2045 a tipping point is reached where demand fossil fuels falls faster than the depletion rate of fossil fuels and prices start to plummet.
Then the fossil fuel companies go the way of United States Leather Company and Central Leather Companies (who mainly supplied buggy whip and saddle makers with leather).
Also note that utility scale solar is already cheaper than the most efficient natural gas power plants. I expect peak gas around 2030 to 2035, but also note that the World price for natural gas is far higher than the US, as US exports more natural gas it will approach the World price level.
This metal is powering today’s technology—at what price?
By Robert Draper
One early Saturday morning in La Paz, Álvaro García Linera, the vice president of Bolivia, greets me in the spacious salon outside his office overlooking Plaza Murillo. The debonair, silver-haired 56-year-old politician is known in his country as a committed Marxist ideologue. But today he presents himself as a capitalist pitchman.
The pitch in question involves lithium. García Linera speaks of his country’s natural resource in a simultaneously factual and awestruck way. Lithium, essential to our battery-fueled world, is also the key to Bolivia’s future, the vice president assures me. A mere four years hence, he predicts, it will be “the engine of our economy.” All Bolivians will benefit, he continues, “taking them out of poverty, guaranteeing their stability in the middle class, and training them in scientific and technological fields so that they become part of the intelligentsia in the global economy.”
But as the vice president knows, no pitch about lithium as Bolivia’s economic salvation is complete without addressing the source of that lithium: the Salar de Uyuni. The 4,000-square-mile salt flat, one of the country’s most magnificent landscapes, will almost certainly be altered—if not irreparably damaged—by mining the resource underneath it.
Oops I forgot to post the link. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2019/02/lithium-is-fueling-technology-today-at-what-cost/
A Highway Megaproject Tears at the Heart of New Guinea’s Rainforest
The Indonesian government is building a 2,700-mile road network on the island of New Guinea, opening up some of the world’s last great tropical rainforests to development and threatening unique indigenous cultures. Can international pressure force Indonesia to scale back this megaproject?
https://e360.yale.edu/features/a-highway-megaproject-tears-at-the-heart-of-papuas-rainforest
There’s a big question over what quantity of life people being born now can expect (maybe more so on quality) but it looks increasingly like at least some will be around to see the very last piece of tropical forest destroyed.
To Hold Warming to 1.5 Degrees, Study Says Nations Must Stop Building New Fossil Fuel Infrastructure Immediately
If nations commit immediately not to replace fossil fuel infrastructure as it reaches the end of its expected lifetime, the world would have a 64 percent chance of keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Communications.
I think given the accelerating permafrost melt and the aerosol effect this is wildly optimistic and we’d be lucky even to stabilise below about 2.5°C, but still should be done (3 is really bad), and yet the very opposite is happening in a bid to try to maintain BAU (just look at Norway – supposedly greener than most but have just issued more oil leases than ever).
What would 3 degrees mean?
http://www.climatecodered.org/2010/09/what-would-3-degrees-mean.html
Thanks for this.
The idea that the climate could be stabilized at 2.5C is far-fetched. The climate science I am familiar with indicates that somewhere between 1.5C and 2C, natural feedback loops will take over from human carbon emissions as the driver of climate change. Think of it like this: human industry is a finger pressing on a switch label “global climate.” Once that switch is thrown, the Earth will move into a hothouse state. That new equilibrium maybe 6C or even 10C above our baseline.
Unfortunately for our species, we can expect that switch to be irreversibly thrown in the next few decades (if it hasn’t already flipped).
I hope there are some libraries out there archiving these comments so we can sit back and see which side turned out to be right in 35 years. The track record for doom & gloom end time predictions isn’t so hot, though, people have been making them essentially since the start of human civilization but the results are rarely as anticipated.
The problem with doom and gloom is that when it happens it is pretty painful. If you take the fall of the western Empire to be around 4-500 life in Europe was stunningly bad for almost 1,000 years.
It happens.
CJS – I tend to agree. The paper last year about Trajectories in the Anthropocene (or something similar) from the Potsdam institute – actually the most discussed and cited climate paper of 2018 according to ClimateBrief – covered it pretty well. 2.5 might be stable if there was a huge development to allow CO2 extraction (not going to happen though) but I didn’t want to get too far away from the assumptions in the original paper.
Brightsiding climate is a bad strategy
Is all “good news” and no “bad news” a good climate action and communications strategy? This analysis finds that the answer is a resounding “no”.
…
if you avoid including an honest assessment of climate science and impacts in your narrative, its pretty difficult to give people a grasp about where the climate system is heading and what needs to be done to create the conditions for living in climate safety, rather than increasing and eventually catastrophic harm. But that’s how the big climate advocacy organisations have generally chosen to operate, and it represents a strategic failure to communicate.
http://www.climatecodered.org/p/brightsiding.html
This is a pretty good series of articles but I think starting the argument by considering how effective the message can be is a bit condescending (as is brightsiding more than anything) , it’s more about basic censorship and propaganda.
It is time to accept reality and grieve! Powerful essay at Truthout by Dahr Jamail, The New Press
In Facing Mass Extinction, We Must Allow Ourselves to Grieve
https://truthout.org/articles/in-facing-mass-extinction-we-dont-need-hope-we-need-to-grieve/
I believe everyone alive is feeling this sorrow for the planet, although most are not aware of it. Rather than grieving for her, many are given pills for depression, or find other ways to self-medicate. To live well involves making amends to the Earth by finding gratitude for every bite of food and for every stitch of clothing, for every element in our bodies, for it all comes from the Earth. It also means living in a community with others who are remaking themselves and their lifestyle in accord with what is. “Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well,” Czech dissident, writer, and statesman Václav Havel said, “but the certainty that something is worth doing no matter how it turns out.” Writing this book is my attempt to bear witness to what we have done to the Earth. I want to make my own amends to the Earth in the precious time we have left, however long that might be. I go into my work wholeheartedly, knowing that it is unlikely to turn anything around. And when the tide does not turn, my heart breaks, over and over again as the reports of each succeeding loss continue to come in. The grief for the planet does not get easier. Returning to this again and again is, I think, the greatest service I can offer in these times. I am committed in my bones to being with the Earth, no matter what, to the end.
Peace!
On this theme, I want to share a classic from Paul Kingsnorth:
https://orionmagazine.org/article/dark-ecology/
“I’m not sure I know the answer. But I know there is no going back to anything. And I know that we are not headed, now, toward convivial tools. We are not headed toward human-scale development. This culture is about superstores, not little shops; synthetic biology, not intentional community; brushcutters, not scythes. This is a culture that develops new life forms first and asks questions later; a species that is in the process of, in the words of the poet Robinson Jeffers, “break[ing] its legs on its own cleverness.”
What does the near future look like? I’d put my bets on a strange and unworldly combination of ongoing collapse, which will continue to fragment both nature and culture, and a new wave of techno-green “solutions” being unveiled in a doomed attempt to prevent it. I don’t believe now that anything can break this cycle, barring some kind of reset: the kind that we have seen many times before in human history. Some kind of fall back down to a lower level of civilizational complexity. Something like the storm that is now visibly brewing all around us.
If you don’t like any of this, but you know you can’t stop it, where does it leave you? The answer is that it leaves you with an obligation to be honest about where you are in history’s great cycle, and what you have the power to do and what you don’t. If you think you can magic us out of the progress trap with new ideas or new technologies, you are wasting your time. If you think that the usual “campaigning” behavior is going to work today where it didn’t work yesterday, you will be wasting your time. If you think the machine can be reformed, tamed, or defanged, you will be wasting your time. If you draw up a great big plan for a better world based on science and rational argument, you will be wasting your time. If you try to live in the past, you will be wasting your time. If you romanticize hunting and gathering or send bombs to computer store owners, you will be wasting your time.
And so I ask myself: what, at this moment in history, would not be a waste of my time? And I arrive at five tentative answers:”
[read on for more at the link above]
Hey Caelan,
Hope everything is alright with you buddy.
An interesting chart of EV money flow. Germany is whopping the USA.
https://graphics.reuters.com/AUTOS-INVESTMENT-ELECTRIC/010081ZB3HD/index.html
NAOM
Yes, very good info from reuters there. I’ve been very impressed with that news source- pretty straight up.
It will be very interesting to see if a big supply crunch develops with batteries for vehicles.
It sure looks possible to me, but I don’t pretend to really understand the magnitude of the constraints of the industry.
Could turn into a huge scramble.
Some of those countries and companies are putting 2/3 of their expenditure into batteries so it looks like they are trying to avoid the supply pinch.
NAOM
Emissions for 2018 were about 37 GtCO2. There are 1.2 billion cars with average about 4.5 Te of CO2 per year, or 5.4 GtCO2 total, or about 15%. At absolute best only about a third of that is going to be replaced over the next 10 or 20 years, so 95% of emissions (and continuing to grow at the moment) isn’t getting addressed with EVs alone – all that money what be better spent replacing coal fired power with low emission technology.
What do you mean by low emission technology?
Whatever it is, someone better start installing it asap!
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-46886798
Australia swelters through record-breaking heatwave
I can only imagine the consequences of that heat wave to the Great Barrier Reef this year… plus the double whammy of all that heat plus ocean acidification!
Oh, yeah, and all that industrial run off, plastics pollution, sunscreen, agricultural run off, herbicides, pesticides, human waste, medical drugs, etc, etc. LOL! and people worry about the economy!
Yeah, it came after record-breaking heat on Tuesday, when all-time heat records were set in Carnegie in Western Australia (47.8C) and Tarcoola (49C), Port Augusta (48.9C) and Ernabella/Pukatja (44.5C) in South Australia. So, starting to look dangerous for people as well. For you Yanks: 50C = 122F. Which would be quite warm on a tennis court. 😉
Meanwhile, the average yearly ice mass loss in Antarctica has increased to roughly 252 gigatons from 40 gigatons – and counting!
And, what is becoming common knowledge (I hope).
2018 WAS THE HOTTEST YEAR EVER RECORDED FOR THE PLANET’S OCEANS
“The year 2018 passed the previous record set just the year before, in 2017; the top five years of ocean heat have come in the last five years. Last year continues a startling trend of global ocean warming that is a direct result of humans’ warming of the planet.”
https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/national/2018-was-the-hottest-year-ever-recorded-for-the-planets-oceans
A new analysis, published Thursday in the journal Science, found that the oceans are heating up 40 percent faster on average than a United Nations panel estimated five years ago.
.
No worries mate,
AUSTRALIA’S COAL REVIVAL IN FULL SWING BY 2019
“Next year augurs well for the Australian coal sector. This applies to both thermal coal (used in electricity production) and metallurgical coal (used in steel production). Demand for thermal coal in Asia is steadily increasing. A report commissioned this year by the Minerals Council of Australia sees an increase in such demand of around 50% between now and 2030. This is based on the expectation that demand will increase strongly in India and Southeast Asia and remain more-or-less stable in China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Glencore Australia, our largest exporter of thermal coal, shares this optimism.”
http://www.mining.com/web/australias-coal-revival-full-swing-2019/
Oh, well! There will be new life after the current mass extinction event but for now we will need some time to grieve!
.
“This is based on the expectation that demand will increase strongly in India and Southeast Asia and remain more-or-less stable in China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.”
Hopefully this is just wishful thinking, ignoring the threat of disruption from renewables. Looking at China:
China installed 44.1 GW of solar in 2018, according to official NEA data
The Chinese PV market saw the deployment of around 44.1 GW of capacity according to official data published over the weekend by the National Energy Administration (NEA).
That is around 500 MW more than the 43.6 GW announced by the China Photovoltaic Industry Association (CPIA) last week.
The NEA revealed China’s cumulative installed PV capacity reached around 174.63 GW at the end of December, while that of wind power surpassed 184.2 GW. The authority reports nuclear power reached 44.66 GW capacity, thermal power 114.36 GW and hydro 35.2 GW.
I got suspicious when I noticed the figure for thermal capacity was less than either wind or solar so I went over to China Energy Portal and found this:
2018 Power production stats (preliminary)
Sure enough, the decimal place in the PV Magazine article was off by one place and the figure for thermal capacity should be 1,143.67 GW instead.
Looking at the capacity additions for 2018, Thermal grew by 3% (33.3 GW) while Hydropower grew by 2.5 % (8.6 GW), Wind by 12.4% (20.3 GW), Solar by 33.9% (44.2 GW) and Nuclear by 24.7% (8.8 GW). Clerly the big growth story is solar and even if the absolute amount of solar capacity added each year were to decline, solar will inevitably take market share away from the other sources. It is extremely unlikely that solar growth will decline in the long run and the source most likely to lose market share is coal.
Meanwhile over in India:
Indian Railways plans to tender 4 GW solar project
From pv magazine India.
To reduce its annual electricity bill, Indian Railways will soon run trains powered by solar power from arrays of PV cells deployed along electrified tracks in 10 states. The solar power generated will replace 4 GW of coal-fired electricity consumed by the railways, saving the operator 20% of its annual energy bill in the first year and 40% thereafter. Indian Railways currently buys electricity for around INR5 ($0.07) per unit.
Developers will recover the installation cost of solar panels and other equipment through the sale of power to the railway operator. Under an agreement with states, there will be a provision to sell surplus power to the local utilities, which will supply equivalent power when Indian Railways needs it.
Bold in body of article above, mine.
Planned 5 GW Indian solar plant will be ‘the world’s largest’
From pv magazine India.
India has resumed its contest with China to host the world’s biggest solar park and the projected Ladakh solar project could bring the crown back to south Asia.
According to U.S.-based insurance provider SolarInsure, as of June 2017, China’s Datong Solar Power Project – with a projected capacity of 3 GW – has the potential to become the world’s biggest single-location solar PV project, once completed.
The Ladakh project is expected to be complete by 2023, with abundant sunlight and clear air making Ladakh unusually suitable for solar technologies.
The power generated from the 5 GW PV plant in Leh district will be transmitted, along a 900 km stretch of the Leh-Manali road, for consumption by Kaithal district in the state of Haryana. It will be supplemented by another 2.5 GW solar project in the Kargil district, to provide electricity to light up the plains and reduce dependence on diesel generators for a population that remains cut off for around half the year.
India will tender 500 GW renewable capacity by 2028
From pv magazine India.
Electricity demand in India would reach 840 GW by 2030 if the country’s gross domestic product grows at a rate of 6.5 per cent, as predicted.
To achieve its goal of generating 40 per cent of electricity from non-fossil fuels by 2030, India would have to install 500 GW of renewable energy generation capacity by 2028, according to Anand Kumar, Secretary of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, who was speaking at the India-Norway Business Summit 2019 which opened yesterday in New Delhi.
Of those 500 GW, 350 GW would be solar, 140 GW wind, and the remaining generation capacity would come from small hydro and biomass power.
India already has 75 GW of installed renewable energy capacity with another 46 GW under implementation. The 75 GW in place makes up around 22 per cent of the nation’s installed power generation capacity.
Going over to PV Magazine India it seems even coal boss Gautam Adani appears to be hedging his bets!
Adani pledges $4 billion for world’s largest solar hybrid park in Gujarat
Billionaire Gautam Adani plans to invest Rs30,000 crore ($4.21 billion) in the world’s largest solar hybrid park, in Khavda, Gujarat. The huge commitment was part of the Rs50,000 crore investment he announced at the ninth Vibrant Gujarat Summit in Ahmedabad last week.
“Over the next five years, our investments will include the world’s largest solar hybrid park, in Khavda,” said the industrialist. “The anticipated investment in this park is Rs30,000 crore. We also plan to establish an integrated lithium battery manufacturing complex and expand our photovoltaic manufacturing capabilities.”
Adani Group’s investments in Gujarat in the past five years exceed Rs50,000 crore and the company reiterated its promise to “further accelerate our investments”.
During the three-day Vibrant Gujarat Summit, some 548 memoranda of understanding were signed for the supply of power – including renewables – and oil and gas.
I have my doubts about the expectations of the Minerals Council of Australia. They are part of the FF lobby that directs the anti renewable actions of the current Australian Federal Government. Let’s see what happens after the elections in Australia in March.
“50C = 122F. Which would be quite warm on a tennis court. ?”
In Melbourne not so hot these days, well below 30 C
There is a good chance that all that renewable energy and EVs will accomplish over the next 5 years is to stem the rise of GHG’s unless the world starts taking global warming and climate change seriously.
Take the United States, just 20% of it’s vastly over-bloated military budget applied over the last decade would have put the US well along the path toward total renewable energy. If we then continued that for another decade, almost all energy would be renewable.
Fact is that the decaying power infrastructure has to be maintained and replaced at a cost of over 5 trillion dollars. That is to keep it on track for a dead end and a deadly one at that. So throwing that kind of money at renewable energy and some storage would mean saving money, lives and reducing environmental destruction all in one package. It also puts dependence on foreign oil out of the picture and therefor much of the reason for foreign wars. With the US leading the renewable/EV surge the ROW would start rapidly following because the math would become so obvious.
I sometimes think that education is mostly wasted, when the so called bright people cannot even do simple math. Forget the exponential Fred, people in power can’t or don’t want to do simple linear mathematics. Nor do they obey STOP signs and WARNING lights.
Disclaimer: Changing the global energy to a non-GHG producing systems is only a portion of the needed changes to reduce global disaster. However, it is a very important change that will lead to or enhance other deep societal changes.
The problem here is that the US Military hegemony resulted in an international system where the rich countries were able to go about their business in a way that kept the third world subservient and unable to control their own destiny and resources. You were better off as a US ally, and if you couldn’t be a US ally, going Russian kept you in the second world (roughly), which is better than being in the third world.
Now we have Trump trying to remove the foundations of this system. Now, I know that this system is unfair. However, I fear that it’s removal will invoke costs that are greater than the tax that American exeptionalism places on other first-world countries (like Canada, where I live).
What the US gets for it’s military build-up (and the fact that other developed allies have proportionally smaller militaries) is fewer wars, and productivity focused on things other than the military.
So…to be a US ally is to take second place and not shoot anybody, and to ignore the fact that our success is built on the luck of geography and timing, and the bad luck of 6 billion poor people.
The Huawei kidnappings (for what else is the taking of political prisoners?) are yet another sign that without a strong USA, the entire global structure is unmanageable.
I don’t like it (this is a structure that gave us Trump, after all) but I accept that for the rest of my life (30 years probably, barring massive drops in the standard of living (which I suspect will happen)) this system is best for me. I’m not sure that even if I had a say, I would go against my interests in this matter. The decline of globalism and US hegemony are completely unpredictable, particularly with resource constraints likely to come into play.
Now, if I was 20, I might feel differently, and without having any insight into how we came to have this system, or any suspicion that things that take hundreds of years to build can go south in the blink of an eye, I might do impulsive things.
As might a disenfranchised 45 year old.
Or if I was an entitled, amoral 70 year old (particularly one in high office in the service of a foreign power).
To my mind, the whole thing is on a knife edge, and increasing inequality is what will throw it off balance.
Is this a trick question?
In the lead comment I posted at the top of this thread, I highlighted a development that points the possibilities of applying currently known technology to make significant improvements in fuel economy. I was so intrigued by this development that I searched for as much info on these two vehicles as I could find and watched a couple more reviews in addition to the two I linked to. I also discovered that the ICE only version of the car IS available in North America as the Nissan Versa Note, albeit with a 1.6 L (109 HP) gasoline motor instead of the 1.2 L (80 HP) offered in the JDM model. Here are what I consider some interesting facts:
The e-Power (hybrid) Note uses exactly the same ICE as it’s non-hybrid counterpart
The hybrid achieves significantly better fuel economy in city driving
The hybrid has better acceleration than the non-hybrid, even better than the North American variant with the larger displacement motor.
More than two thirds of the model range sold in Japan are the hybrid variant
Aggressive regenerative braking allows one pedal driving, resulting in better fuel economy and significantly lower brake system wear, when the vehicle has to slow down frequently.
Since the motive power comes from the single speed, electric drive train there is no shifting resulting in a driving experience that is very similar to a fully electric vehicle.
The electric motor produces 254 Nm of torque from a standstill as opposed to 160 Nm for the 1.6 L or 110 Nm for the 1.2 L
Nissan claims that in the van the e-Power system produces performance similar to a standard 3.5 L gasoline engine, while using the same 1.2 L gasoline motor as the Note.
There is also a “tuned” version of the system offering 134 hp and 320 Nm of torque as opposed to 54 hp and 254 Nm
All in all, the result is a very practical, economical solution for driving around in a city, combined with the convenience of being able to re-fuel at the existing network of fuel stations in the event of journeys outside of the range provide by the fuel tank.
In the past couple of weeks, I have got caught stuck in rush traffic resulting in a one mile trip taking about one hour. In one case I would have been better off walking were it not for the fact that the rest of the trip was 20 miles and only took about half an hour, once I reached the city limits! In the other case I was picking up large, fairly heavy items. My observation is that thousands of vehicles sit in rush hour traffic everyday, with their engines idling so that they can move a few feet every few minutes. I have noticed increasing amounts of cars, equipped with start/stop features, that you hear start up every time the traffic starts to move but, this feature can’t be even close to as efficient as an electric drive train in rush hour type traffic jams.
If one considers all the cities in all the countries all over the world where this scenario is duplicated, it must be a huge amount of fuel being wasted in traffic jams all over the world. This must be producing significant CO2 emissions, without achieving the desired result of moving goods and people quickly from one point to another. EVs would reduce CO2 emissions a great deal in such a scenario with hybrids having emissions that are only slightly higher than pure, all electric vehicles. It would be very interesting to quantify how much fuel and CO2 emissions could be saved by using electrified drive trains in urban traffic worldwide.
Knowing what I know, I find it extremely frustrating to observe and participate in this waste. I think we lost at least a decade in the advancement of electric/hybrid technology when the California ZEV mandate was killed back in 2003, following pressure from the automobile industry including a law suite from GM (GM Sues to Overturn State’s Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate). Who knows how the tech would have advanced had the mandate stayed in place? Somewhat good news is that the California ZEV mandate is back in force, no doubt partially a result of Tesla’s effort to prove that ZEV technology could be made viable.
This Nissan technology just goes to show what can be achieved with a little creativity once the will (incentive or coercion) exists. The city traffic problem is a worldwide issue as highlighted by the following article in the Economist: The hidden cost of congestion. I would not be surprised if it turned out that a significant amount of vehicle CO2 emissions were the result of wasted time in traffic.
The bad news on human nature, in 10 findings from psychology
Christian Jarrett in association with The British Psychological Society’s Research Digest
https://aeon.co/ideas/the-bad-news-on-human-nature-in-10-findings-from-psychology
It’s a question that’s reverberated through the ages – are humans, though imperfect, essentially kind, sensible, good-natured creatures? Or are we, deep down, wired to be bad, blinkered, idle, vain, vengeful and selfish? There are no easy answers, and there’s clearly a lot of variation between individuals, but here we shine some evidence-based light on the matter through 10 dispiriting findings that reveal the darker and less impressive aspects of human nature:
We view minorities and the vulnerable as less than human
We experience Schadenfreude (pleasure at another person’s distress) by the age of four
We believe in karma – assuming that the downtrodden of the world deserve their fate
We are blinkered and dogmatic
We would rather electrocute ourselves than spend time in our own thoughts
We are vain and overconfident
We are moral hypocrites
We are all potential trolls
We favour ineffective leaders with psychopathic traits
We are sexually attracted to people with dark personality traits
Don’t get too down – these findings say nothing of the success that some of us have had in overcoming our baser instincts. In fact, it is arguably by acknowledging and understanding our shortcomings that we can more successfully overcome them, and so cultivate the better angels of our nature.
Who is “We” ? Do you have a mouse in your pocket ? Because your not speaking for me.
An elder Native American was teaching his grandchildren about
life. He said to them, “A fight is going on inside me.. it is a
terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One wolf represents fear,
anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt,
resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
The other stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity,
humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity,
truth, compassion, and faith.”
“This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other
person, too”, he added.
The Grandchildren thought about it for a minute and then one child
asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee simply replied… “The one you feed.”
“We would rather electrocute ourselves than spend time in our own thoughts”
“and faith”
Speaking or thinking with intelligence is a learned educational skill. Cat’s list of “We” is just a lazy human excuse for themselves. You can do better if you apply yourself.
Bullshit! There are plenty of studies and examples that show the exact opposite. I’ll go with those that want to support Douglas Rushkoff’s Team Human.
You can catch him at Sam Harris’ latest podcast!
The opposite of which of the traits. Do you disagree with all of them. Well there is at least one of them that I agree with 100 percent. (But just in the case of “most people”.)
We are blinkered and dogmatic. If people were rational and open-minded, then the straightforward way to correct someone’s false beliefs would be to present them with some relevant facts. However a classic study from 1979 showed the futility of this approach – participants who believed strongly for or against the death penalty completely ignored facts that undermined their position, actually doubling-down on their initial view. This seems to occur in part because we see opposing facts as undermining our sense of identity. It doesn’t help that many of us are overconfident about how much we understand things and that, when we believe our opinions are superior to others, this deters us from seeking out further relevant knowledge.
I also agree that most people are vain and overconfident. But not everyone. But I disagree strongly with the last two on the list. But again, that is only the majority of people, not everyone.
We favour ineffective leaders with psychopathic traits
We are sexually attracted to people with dark personality traits
But at least I can partly agree with you. There is no list of traits that universally applies to everyone. That is why I always try to use the term “most people” and in some cases “the vast majority of people”.
Yeah, I know, Ron. There was a time when I would go to the trouble of responding to lists like that with caveats and examples to support my arguments and point of view. These days I no longer have the patience to do that, so if I read a comment that suggests everything is a black and white issue and nothing can be nuanced or presented in multiple shades of gray, then I just fire back with a blanket charge of bullshit! Not even Christian Jarrett, the author of those studies, traffics in absolutes!
Peace!
“…are humans, though imperfect, essentially kind, sensible, good-natured creatures? Or are we, deep down, wired to be bad, blinkered, idle, vain, vengeful and selfish?”
We’re both, you idiot! It’s just another false dichotomy!
Fucking idiots!
To state my own opinion, I really think it comes down to the way society is structured nowadays. We humans are meant to live in small tribes centered around morality, faith, family, and culture; instead, we’re being forced to live and work with hundreds of thousands of people we have nothing in common with. Everyone becomes competition. There’s no motivation to feel empathy for the people you’re surrounded by. Plus, this same structure results too often in mental illnesses.
Very true and if I may add one more item to what humans are meant to be centered in, the natural world.
No, while I agree that humans are meant to be centered in, the natural world. the rest of it is not true at all! see my reply below!
Duhh, the various religions (mostly nature based for all others are fantasy) formed the format and moral fabric of how people interacted with nature.
When the non-nature based religion/ slave cultures arose, so did the destructive/extractive culture arise, which has since taken over the world.
The meme of competition is endemic through the modern day culture from the individual to the nation. This is mostly employed as a means of control and a means of feeding the needs of the upper classes. Limited cooperation is demanded while the individual is isolated by the hierarchy. The hierarchy is no longer accessible to the individual, who must form temporary tribes (movements) to accomplish even small changes.
The meme of competition is endemic through the modern day culture from the individual to the nation. This is mostly employed as a means of control and a means of feeding the needs of the upper classes. Limited cooperation is demanded while the individual is isolated by the hierarchy.
Yep, absolutely!
https://samharris.org/podcasts/146-digital-capitalism/
#146 – DIGITAL CAPITALISM
A Conversation with Douglas Rushkoff
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-018-0389-1
The cooperative human
Nature Human Behaviourvolume 2, pages427–428 (2018) | Download Citation
Human beings are a social species that relies on cooperation to survive and thrive. Understanding how and why cooperation succeeds or fails is integral to solving the many global challenges we face.
Cooperation lies at the heart of human lives and society — from day-to-day interactions to some of our greatest endeavours. Understanding cooperation — what motivates it, how it develops, how it happens and when it fails to happen — is therefore an important part of understanding all kinds of human behaviour. In this focus issue of Nature Human Behaviour, we bring together review, opinion and research content on human cooperation from across the journal’s scope — including evolution, anthropology, ecology, economics, neuroscience and environmental science — to spark interdisciplinary conversation and perhaps even inspire some scientific cooperation. In our dedicated collection on cooperation
if I may add one more item to what humans are meant to be centered in, the natural world..
We were meant? By whom?
“Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.”
Katharine Hepburn, The African Queen
And I might have asked Katharin Hepburn the same question. What I am getting at is: “No one put us here or meant for us to do anything.” We just evolved into who we are, warts and all. But I guess what you guys are driving at is the fact that we evolved in a totally different environment from the one we live in today. But there is not much we can do about that. We will just have to suffer the consequences.
You really need to learn to use a dictionary before going off the rails.
meant verb
simple past tense and past participle of mean
mean verb (used with object), meant, mean·ing.
to intend for a particular purpose, destination, etc.:
to intend to express or indicate:
to have as its sense or signification; signify:
to bring, cause, or produce as a result:
The last meaning, the one in bold, is the only one that could possibly apply. So I know how to use a dictionary.
Again: By whom?
Ron is dead on, we were not put here and we aren’t “meant” to do anything, we’re just the end product of evolution that has occurred up to this moment in time along our particular evolutionary branch of the tree of life.
Nature only keeps score one way, by survival and reproduction, and Mother Nature isn’t even AWARE of the score, being a non sentient process, not a living being or God or Goddess.
Having said this much, most things that CAN happen in evolutionary terms are probably or at least possibly going to happen, given time enough and enough individuals and a diverse enough environment.
So we have evolved to have both tendencies to look after ourselves and our immediate family and or tribe, but we are also evolved to be able to cooperate with other tribes….. to some extent.
Cooperation seems to me to be enabled to whatever point we consider “them” as either strangers and enemies or ” us” , relatives, friends, and allies. We are capable of passing judgement on this question, but we aren’t very good at coming up with the right answer, either “US” or “THEM” when meeting strangers.
This is naturally to be expected, because Mother Nature or evolution makes great and ample and very effective use of camouflage and trickery.
An individual or tribe that’s too quick to trust is apt to wind up dead or enslaved. OTOH, individuals and tribes that fail to cooperate when cooperation would be the best choice are also apt to wind up dead or enslaved.
Individuals and tribes that would prefer to be peaceful and cooperative, if they last, have generally been capable of defending themselves, so as to fend off other aggressive individuals and tribes.
So…. even countries that are very peaceful indeed still find it necessary to enter into military alliances and maintain military establishments of their own… otherwise they generally don’t last very long.
We have, in effect, and angel on one shoulder, and demon on the other, and both of them are constantly vying for our attention.
We humans are meant to live in small tribes centered around morality, faith, family, and culture; instead, we’re being forced to live and work with hundreds of thousands of people we have nothing in common with. Everyone becomes competition.
Oh, man, really?! Humans are indeed, highly social Great Apes and they evolved to live in relatively small tribes but they also evolved to cooperate!
BTW, Nobody anywhere works with hundreds of thousands of people!
As for: morality, faith, family, and culture Culture took thousands of years to develop and only after humans developed language! There were many myths and creation stories and all kinds of deities that humans have believed in and worshiped over that same period. The concept of morality varies according to culture and tribe but it is a consequence of primate evolution. What is a common denominator across all the great apes is an innate sense of justice and fair play!
http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/articles/entry/chimps_and_bonobos_prove_that_moral_behavior_is_a_product_of_evolution/
Chimps and Bonobos Prove that Moral Behavior is a Product of Evolution
Book Review: The Bonobo and the Atheist
Oh, man, really?! Humans are indeed, highly social Great Apes and they evolved to live in relatively small tribes but they also evolved to cooperate!
They evolved to cooperate within their tribe. The ancient history of humanity is a history conflict between tribes.
Ron, you might want to read this.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/is-it-natural-for-humans-to-make-war-new-study-of-tribal-societies-reveals-conflict-is-an-alien-8718069.html
And you might want to read this:
Constant Battles: Why We Fight
With armed conflict in the Persian Gulf now upon us, Harvard archaeologist Steven LeBlanc takes a long-term view of the nature and roots of war, presenting a controversial thesis: The notion of the “noble savage” living in peace with one another and in harmony with nature is a fantasy. In Constant Battles: The Myth of the Peaceful, Noble Savage, LeBlanc contends that warfare and violent conflict have existed throughout human history, and that humans have never lived in ecological balance with nature.
The start of the second major U.S. military action in the Persian Gulf, combined with regular headlines about spiraling environmental destruction, would tempt anyone to conclude that humankind is fast approaching a catastrophic end. But as LeBlanc brilliantly argues, the archaeological record shows that the warfare and ecological destruction we find today fit into patterns of human behavior that have gone on for millions of years.
Constant Battles surveys human history in terms of social organization-from hunter gatherers, to tribal agriculturalists, to more complex societies. LeBlanc takes the reader on his own digs around the world — from New Guinea to the Southwestern U.S. to Turkey — to show how he has come to discover warfare everywhere at every time. His own fieldwork combined with his archaeological, ethnographic, and historical research, presents a riveting account of how, throughout human history, people always have outgrown the carrying capacity of their environment, which has led to war.
Ultimately, though, LeBlanc’s point of view is reassuring and optimistic. As he explains the roots of warfare in human history, he also demonstrates that warfare today has far less impact than it did in the past. He also argues that, as awareness of these patterns and the advantages of modern technology increase, so does our ability to avoid war in the future.
Yes there is a lot of confusion between the wage slave hive system of modern civilization, it’s predecessor the vassel slave hive system and the hunter gatherer system. They first two are dramatically different than the last.
Hunter gatherers tended to inhabit regions for thousands of years with the ecosystems still intact.
Modern hive civilization (where individuals are considered work units not individuals and have little importance) can support large military forces and produce arms on large scale so that in one war the casualties far outnumber what would have been the earth population in prehistoric times.
Modern day systems destroy local ecology in the bink of an eye and use synthetic systems to support poor health among it’s citizens.
You seem very focused on an occasional battle, where in modern civilization we kill far more people in just a few years with poor nutrition, toxins, accident then in both world wars combined. Plus they live in concrete and steel boxes most of their lives, all congested and diseased.
Modern civilization is a poor place to live for most. Plus it’s a dead end in it’s current state, add that to the total.
some interesting reading
https://www.vox.com/conversations/2017/11/22/16649038/civilization-progress-humanity-history-technology
You seem very focused on an occasional battle, where in modern civilization we kill far more people in just a few years with poor nutrition, toxins, accident then in both world wars combined.
I don’t have any idea why you think I am focused on the occasional battle. “Constant Battles” is the opposite of “Occasional Battles”. Also, I am in total agreement with you about toxins and pollution killing millions. But that is another subject for another day. That has nothing to do with “The Myth of the Noble Savage”.
The book I quoted was all about the historical evidence that primitive tribes were almost always engaged in warfare with other tribes. However, studies of modern-day indigenous tribes also bear that out.
A graph at the top of Page 57 of “The Blank Slate” by Stephen Pinker shows nine bars, eight of them representing the percentage of male death cause by warfare in South America and New Guinea. I have converted the bars to percentages of deaths because I cannot post the chart itself. The figures may not be exact but they are as close as I could glean by just looking at the bars. The names represent indigenous tribes.
Jivaro 59 percent of males died as a result of war.
Yanomamo (Shamatari)39 percent of males died as a result of war.
Mae Enga 36 percent of males died as a result of war.
Dugum Dani 30 percent of males died as a result of war.
Murngin 29 percent of males died as a result of war.
Yanomamo (Namowei) 25 percent of males died as a result of war.
Huli 20 percent of males died as a result of war.
Gebusi 9 percent of males died as a result of war.
US & Europe 20th C. 1 percent of males died as a result of war.
Pinker’s next two paragraphs:
The first eight bars, which range from almost 10 percent to almost 60 percent, come from indigenous peoples in South America and New Guinea. The nearly invisible bar at the bottom represents the United States and Europe in the twentieth century and includes the statistics from two world wars. Moreover Keely and others have noted that native peoples are dead serious when they carry out warfare.
Many of them make weapons as damaging as their technology permits, exterminate their enemies when they can get away with it, and enhance the experience by torturing captives, cutting off trophies, and feasting on enemy flesh.
“The Blank Slate” by Stephen Pinker , is a must read.
Don’t always agree with him, but that book is a classic.
I would be interested to know on which points you disagree with Pinker?
not much really—
He proclaims, correctly, that humans are safer now than anytime in their history.
He ignores our overpopulation, resource depletion, etc, which you are fully aware of.
>> centered around morality, faith, family, and culture <<
Your list seems to reflect conservative values: loyalty, authority, sanctity.
Liberals are more into care and fairness, inclusiveness, less tribal.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/jonathan-haidt-the-moral-matrix-breaking-out-of-our-righteous-minds/
The Right alway has to ask “Daddy”, for he always know best.
The was a book called the Lucifer Effect a few years back that covered how pliable our morality is. I find the idea of absolute morality pretty ridiculous – we are animals with a very good adaptive tool in our large brains, John Gray covers this really well. Everything comes down to overall reproductive advantage and tit-for-tat protective behaviour (but being “nice” is not to be sneered at nevertheless).
I have a feeling that most of the regulars here may have their last opportunity to see a nice lunar eclipse tonight…….. unless they are able to travel. It’s going to be a long time before another is visible from the east coast of the USA.
And of course we’re in mid-blizzard here in Maine.
10/10 cloud and thunderstorm forecast 🙁 🙁 🙁
Clear last night too, reminds me of the last total eclipse I tried to see, crystal clear the day before then 10/10 🙁
NAOM
Sky partially cleared before midnight and I had a good view. 🙂 North side looked a lot brighter that the rest.
NAOM
There’s a site here the has data on permafrost thaw depth for both different cryosphere areas.
https://www2.gwu.edu/~calm/
Most sites show a noisy but mostly constant depth but some show what happens when the thaw line reaches them and they start melting at about 5 to 10 cm per year. One site in Alaska had a wildfire in 2010 and is melting much faster. There aren’t as many sites as I expected; many are shown as inactive and the reporting form Canada has been pretty sparse since 2013.
European Russia also shows sites with melting.
Bit of trivia:
ALASKA’S MELTING GLACIERS
“Scientists from the University of Alaska and the U.S. Geological Survey estimate that Alaska is losing ice at the rate of 75 billion metric tons a year. They calculate that Alaska’s glaciers and frozen rivers are melting fast enough to cover the whole state with 30 centimeters of water (nearly a foot) every seven years.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/repeat-photography-of-alaskan-glaciers/
The hemlock, ash and maple under threat out here in the eastern US is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
An American tragedy: why are millions of trees dying across the country?
A quiet crisis playing out in US forests as huge numbers of trees succumb to drought, disease, insects and wildfire – much of it driven by climate change
In northern California, an invasive pathogen called Sudden Oak Death is infecting hundreds of different plants, from redwoods and ferns to backyard oaks and bay laurels. The disease is distantly related to the cause of the 19th-century Irish potato famine, and appears to have arrived with two “Typhoid Marys”, rhododendrons and bay laurels, said Dr David Rizzo, of the University of California, Davis.
“We’re talking millions of trees killed, whole mountain sides dying,” Rizzo said.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/19/tree-death-california-hawaii-sudden-oak
Hi GF,
It’s not just hemlock, ash and maple here in the East.
It’s not on the radar yet, but we are at high risk of losing black walnut. Some foresters came around a while back putting out traps looking for the culprit insect, I can’t remember it’s name, which is apparently playing hell already with walnut trees not too far to the west of us. A
We already have ordinances outlawing moving firewood in certain directions across county and city borders here in Virginia. I can’t locate the copy and paste tool on this toy computer I’m using at the moment, but you can google gypsy moth in Virginia and get the story in a flash. These moths can wipe out an oak forest.
And as far as black locust is concerned, ( the go to tree for farmers in need of fence posts and timbers for barns and sheds after the loss of the chesnut) there’s hardly a one left in my immediate area. A beetle which was formerly unknown locally is stripping them of foliage twice or even three times in one season…. which generally kills them. I’m salvaging the dead wood to burn on my place, being too old to bother with stockpiling fence posts. Sad, a black locust that grew slowly in the shade, with a dense tight grain resulting, would last forty to sixty years as a fence post.. I can’t recall the name of the beetle. This loss hasn’t even made the news, with all the other bad news crowding it out.
Then there’s the chesnut…….. when I was a boy, the woods was still full of trunks and stumps. They’re all gone now…except a few trees that keep on sprouting new growth, to be continually killed back.
The word is that the American Chesnut Foundation and apparently some other organizations have finally been able to breed a fully blight resistant tree, one with just one or two new genes that confer resistance, with these trees being said to be indistinguishable even by a professional from the original trees, except by genetic analysis.
But you better be sitting down when you inquire about the price of a few seedlings, lol. I’m going to get some nevertheless, although I won’t likely live to see them bear a nice crop of nuts.
Then there’s the question of the deer. They have made an astounding comeback here, due to well enforced hunting regulations and suburban sprawl and so many farms being abandoned to forest again, but chronic wasting disease is on the march…. and will likely reach my area within a decade or so.
Coyotes are having a ball here. Everybody who has cows now generally has a jack ass of some sort with his cows to keep them away.
OFM, how do you watch so many cows ?
Jackasses work cheap, just a little hay or grass and a handful of grain once in a while. One is enough for up to thirty or more cows , so long as they are all in the same enclosure.
I guess grey wolves could kill them, but coyotes are afraid of them, with good reason. They kill any coyote that gets within reach of their hooves.
And they can and do make enough noise to roust out the farmer. Sometimes he gets out quick enough to shoot a coyote or two.
https://www.iso-ne.com/isoexpress/
4% Oil this am. Should get very interesting with the shutdown of Pilgrim later this year. Last year there was at least one Russian LNG shipments.
https://ohsonline.com/articles/2019/01/07/nrc-hearing-on-pilgrim-plant.aspx
The ExxonMobil operated Sable gas field in Nova Scotia has been shutdown (for good) as well – it wasn’t providing much at end of life but now the pipeline has to be reversed so that NS takes some supply from the US.
Garage
The supply from the US may be jeopardized as fierce local opposition exists for compressor station build out, to say nothing about the massive – and growing – winter time natgas scarcity in New England itself.
Surprisingly, to me, LNG infrastructure seems to be in the offing as a proposed mid scale LNG plant in central Massachusetts is being considered.
Over in Bradford county, Pennsylvania, a company wants to build a 2.1 mtpa LNG plant and ship the product out via rail and truck.
Cost of this plant is estimated at $850 million.
Infrastructure constraints will continue to cost that region dearly over the next several winters.
LT
At 5:00 AM, Tuesday, it hit about 10% total at just under 1,700 Megawatts (1,695).
The Belgian LNG ship Exemplar picked up a Yamal-sourced cargo in France mid December and has been laying offshore Boston harbor for 3 weeks now.
Pilgrim had operating troubles a few days ago and was down to 26% capacity output for a day or so. Currently back up to 100%.
As opposition to the Clean Energy Connect transmission picks up steam, that much needed 1,000+ Megawatts is increasingly looking doubtful.
For those who are looking for offshore generation, a project killing permit denial for Vineyard Wind from a Rhode Island Coastal Commission may come down next week.
The offshore operators have offered local fishermen $6 million in compensation for lost fishing grounds, which is a small fraction of the potential loss estimate.
All in all, the New England folks are entering some very precarious territory regarding wintertime electricity availability and I am not sure if they recognize this yet.
Coffee, in regards to the fishing ground issue with offshore wind, I thought that the experience has been increased fish catches near wind farms due to the artificial habitat effect.
Steven Degraer, a senior scientist at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, said his preliminary research finds that wind parks provide an increase in biomass of fish food. This increased food supply does mean more fish are found in wind farms, particularly species like cod, pouting and horse mackerel.
There does appear to be a possible problem during installation, with industrial scale activities and noise.
Hickory
I do not know much about the situation regarding the European wind farms, but the Block Island project – in similar fashion to Gulf offshore oil infrastructure – has noticeably increased the fish population in nearby waters.
The biggest problem for New England offshore (and there are several) is safe access within the project’s footprint.
These areas are worked by both trawlers and trap operators and the proposed layout from Vineyard Wind has been deemed unworkable.
OCEANS HAD THEIR HOTTEST YEAR ON RECORD IN 2018 AS GLOBAL WARMING ACCELERATES
“The analysis by an international team of scientists confirms the oceans are heating up much faster than previously recognized, and that the pace of warming has accelerated sharply since the 1990s.”
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2019-01-oceans-hottest-year-global.html#jCp
Meanwhile,
GREENLAND ICE MELTING ‘EVEN IN WINTER’
“The research has been carried out at the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) who found massive warm waves are melting the ice from below.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-46646203
Ocean heat seems to be going up linearly – i.e. no sign it’s tailing off to a new stable condition, which means increased heat gain from GHG is keeping up with increased heat loss from a warmer stratosphere. How does that end? Also the interdecadal pacific oscillation is switching to a positive phase which means higher sea-surface temperatures for the next 20 or 30 years (the temperature spikes in the early 40s and 1998 were both at the end of a positive phase) and the Atlantic oscillation also looks to be moving to a phase with higher surface temperatures.
IN ZEROHEDGE:
“Some would call it ironic, others hypocritical but whatever your level of cynicism, here are the facts: as its top global risks for 2018 and 2019 in terms of likelihood, this year’s billionaire boondoggle at the World Economic Forum in Davos listed “extreme weather conditions”, i.e. global warming. … and yet, according to Air Charter Service, no less than 1,500 private jet flights will land in Davos over the five days of its duration: a 50% increase in both private jets and toxic environmental emissions compared to last year, when roughly 1,000 private jets descended upon Davos.”
Sigh! Is it any wonder Greta (Thunberg), and her followers, are discouraged?
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-01-21/1500-private-jets-descend-davos-week-50-last-year
Sigh! Is it any wonder Greta (Thunberg), and her followers, are discouraged?
Yeah, whatever! The global statistics on commercial airline flights are even more discouraging!
And all one has to do is read the comments on the petroleum side of this very blog to get a feel for the depth of our collective delusions!
https://www.statista.com/statistics/564769/airline-industry-number-of-flights/
The statistic gives the number of flights performed globally by the airline industry from 2004 through 2019. Passenger air traffic and the number of flights performed are on the rise; in 2018, it is estimated that 38.1 million flights will be operated worldwide.
‘WE’, know BAU can’t continue for ever… but almost 8 billion humans and growing apparently don’t! And to make matters worse, the minute those airliners stop flying the little bit of global dimming they provide will also end and things will only get worse.
Cheers!
International flights don’t go against an individual country’s emissions or the IPCCs reduction targets so they must have no warming effect, or have I got something wrong?
Well, according to Wiki: “Comprehensive research shows that despite anticipated efficiency innovations to airframes, engines, aerodynamics and flight operations, there is no end in sight, even many decades out, to rapid growth in CO2 emissions from air travel and air freight, due to projected continual growth in air travel. This is because international aviation emissions have escaped international regulation.”
RICH GET RICHER AS THE DIVIDE WITH WORLD’S POOR GROWS WIDER (paywalled at the Times).
While the fortunes of the super-rich rose by 12 per cent in 12 months, equivalent to £2.5 billion a day, the wealth of the 3.8 billion people in the poorer half fell by 11 per cent.
…
Oxfam said that the best way to tackle poverty and to reduce inequality was through public services such as education and health. Too much of the tax burden was being borne by workers, the charity said.
All is well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDAmPIq29ro
CHINA’S DEC 2018 COAL OUTPUT UP 2.1%: OFFICIAL DATA
China’s December 2018 coal output increased 2.1% from a year ago to reach 320.38 million mt or 3.84 billion mt on an annualized basis, according to official data released Monday.
2018 coal imports up 3.9% on the year. The country’s annual coal production in 2018 reached 3.55 billion mt, rising 5.2% year on year as the government replaced outdated production capacity with higher-quality coal supply, the National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement.
…
The statement added that China’s imports of crude oil and natural gas surged in 2018. Crude oil imports rose 10.1% year on year, while natural gas imports jumped nearly 32% year on year.
https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/coal/012119-chinas-dec-2018-coal-output-up-21-official-data
Sorted!? Or to put it another way WASF.
ANCIENT CLIMATE CHANGE TRIGGERED WARMING THAT LASTED THOUSANDS OF YEARS
The findings also suggest that climate change today could have long-lasting impacts on global temperature even if humans are able to curb greenhouse gas emissions. “We found evidence for a feedback that occurs with rapid warming that can release even more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere,” said Shelby Lyons, a doctoral student in geosciences at Penn State. “This feedback may have extended the PETM climate event for tens or hundreds of thousands of years. We hypothesize this is also something that could occur in the future.”
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2019-01-ancient-climate-triggered-thousands-years.html#jCp
The findings also suggest that climate change today could have long-lasting impacts on global temperature even if humans are able to curb greenhouse gas emissions
An endeavor that seems less and less likely with each passing year!
Well, here is some food for thought. (pun intended of course)
I was going to start by saying that the study does not assess, say the environmental impacts of organically raised crickets, as compared to conventionally raised beef cattle, but, who gives a flying fornication anyway?! I guess my absolutely irrelevant point might have been, it’s the PARADIGM, STUPID! That plus the mass delusion that a population of 9 to 10 billion humans can continue to be fed by any means at all, be it conventional or not.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/12/181213101308.htm
Organic food worse for the climate?
Date: December 13, 2018
Source: Chalmers University of Technology
Summary:
Organically farmed food has a bigger climate impact than conventionally farmed food, due to the greater areas of land required, a new study finds.
In case anyone is interetsted. Actual letter in Nature behind the ususal paywall.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0757-z
Letter | Published: 12 December 2018
Assessing the efficiency of changes in land use for mitigating climate change
Timothy D. Searchinger, Stefan Wirsenius, Tim Beringer & Patrice Dumas
Naturevolume 564, pages249–253 (2018)
Whatever, party on dudes and dudettes!
Who is tuning the crank today? Turning nature into money, things and more people? What is in actual control of the lives of humanity?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMbeYJgH_6g&t=1828s
It seems the rush to crush nature and of course ourselves is the overriding paradigm. At least for a little while longer.
All the scientific papers and media coverage on the subjects of our predicaments reminds me a nervous herd mooing among themselves when they notice danger might be near. right before they stampede. It’s just mostly chatter since no one knows what the world will be like even two decades from now, though one can safely bet it will be different, possibly very different.
About the book by Pinker, “The Blank Slate”
It’s way more than just a modern classic.
It’s THE one book written by a real scientist with real expertise and qualifications that is readily accessible to any reasonably well educated layman, well written, enjoyable, and oh, EVER so enlightening.
It’s the one book that you need to read to understand the revolution that has occurred in the social sciences over the last half century, when the accepted dogma was that the human mind IS a blank slate. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
We aggies were laughing our asses off at the folks in psychology department professors at least as far back as the sixties,when I was a undergrad, when they were trying to convince us that all animal behavior is instinctive, except in humans…. and that human behavior is infinitely malleable, if you control the environment of the child, etc. ( If you wanted a Collegiate Professional Certificate along with your sheepskin, you had to take a couple of extra courses in psychology in order to get it.. That’s what they called a teachers ticket in Virginia back in those days. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been in the psychology building, lol. )
You see, even farm boys smart enough to get into good universities are smart enough to observe and think at least a little for themselves.
We have been proven right of course, animals do possess varying levels of intelligence, and even self awareness, etc.
Pinker is the one person who lays it all out in one simply MARVELOUS book.
As for questions or issues not addressed in that book, he has since written another, titled something to the effect the Angels of our Better Nature or something close that goes into considerable depth concerning cooperation, war, and such other topics.
I consider anybody who has not read these books as intellectually handicapped, if the conversation turns to the “nature ” and behavior of naked apes.
I second. I have a signed copy from a lecture he gave in Portland Maine years ago.
That book is simply spectacular, along with How the Mind Works and The Language Instinct. I learned about Judith Rich Harris’s “The Nurture Assumption” through Pinker, another game-changer.
I consider anybody who has not read these books as intellectually handicapped
I agree OFM
I enjoyed ‘The Blank Slate’ when I read it a number of years ago. Lately, however, Pinker has, in my mind, become a Julian Simon type cornucopian. Here is a review from George Monbiot on Pinker’s new book ‘Enlightenment Now’:
https://www.monbiot.com/2018/03/09/contrary-to-reason/
Eric, thanks for the link. It appears Pinker may have stepped too far out of his field of expertise. It happens.
Lately, however, Pinker has, in my mind, become a Julian Simon type cornucopian.
That has also been my opinion for quite some time now. These days, he definitely seems to have blinders and rose colored glasses on. I no longer consider his scholarship nor his thinking to be cutting edge! But then again, no star burns brightly for ever.
agree
Pinker perhaps needs to get out of Harvard a bit more often and see more of the world.
When Pinker stopped writing about the mind, evolution and language, I sort of lost interest and quit reading him, so I can’t comment on his outlook.
However, in interviews, he claims he completely changed his mind about the future, entirely on the basis of the data:
https://www.52-insights.com/interview-politics-enlightenment-steven-pinker-why-our-world-is-getting-better/
Thanks for this link Michael. I, very reluctantly, agree with your opinion concerning Pinker’s opinions. He is correct about the human condition getting better. But he completely overlooks the environmental condition of the world. While the human condition has improved the condition for all other species of animal has gotten decidedly worse.
In improving the living conditions, for today, for an ever-expanding human population, we are totally overlooking the future condition of all creatures, including humans.
In short, Pinker has gone completely anthropocentric. He fails to realize that his short-term anthropocentricism is destroying the world.
One caveat about his Ted video, I am not at all sure his data on world poverty is correct. His data seems to reflect conditions primarily in the developed world.
I’m of the mind that Pinker is right, as far as it goes. But past performance is no assurance of future success.
I’ve formulated an idea I called “the paradox of growth.” Some say things are better, some say worse, but they are both correct–even if they seem to contradict one another–because we exist in a regime of growth.
With growth, you have growing improvements–and increasing whole numbers of people suffering.
With growth, you can have “only” .025% of people suffering calamity Y and still have more suffering than when the rate was 10%, because small percentages of large numbers can still lead to very large numbers.
If you have 100 people on a boat and 10 are killed by a lunatic passenger, it’s pretty hideous because the death rate is ten percent.
But 50 people killed on a boat by a rampaging passenger is an “improvement” when you have 2,000 on board: the rate is “only” .025 percent!
Same with planet. Declining “rates,” higher real numbers. I’m beginning to think it’s a fallacy to try to measure human misery via “rates”.
Michael, you missed my point completely. Yes, the human condition is definitely improving. That was Pinker’s point. But the health of the earth is definitely in serious decline. The world’s environmental health is in god awful. We are headed for total collapse. But Pinker, in the video, only concentrated on the current state of the human population. He was totally anthropocentric.
And by the way, 50 is 2.5 percent of 2,000, not .025 percent.
Putting it simply, humans are improving their condition by drawing down the earth’s ecological capital. We are seriously into overshoot. It may feel good while we gorge ourselves on what is left of the natural resources, but there is bound to be a serious reckoning.
Very well put Eric. But why is that so hard for some otherwise great minds to understand?
Its a painful reality to swallow, so many prefer not to open their mouth [eyes] to it.
Hydrogen powered highway trucks?
It could happen, it’s not too smart to bet against a company with the engineering and financial muscle of Toyota, lol.
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-semi-rival-kenworth-toyota-hydrogen-fuel-cell-truck-specs/
In favor of hydrogen in big trucks, there’s plenty of room to mount large fuel tanks, because unless you load one with potato chips or some other really light weight cargo, there’s usually a lot more space than you need, because trucks must comply with load limits , so much per axle, so much per foot length, so much max no matter what. A flat bed forty foot trailer stacked with angle iron can’t be stacked even a foot deep without being overloaded.
Hydrogen tanks, like batteries,can be mounted in out of the way places such as where the diesel engine, diesel tanks, and transmission are located in conventional trucks, plus under the and between the frame rails in the trailer portion of the truck.
The big advantage of hydrogen is that full hydrogen tanks big enough to match the mileage of a battery powered truck is that the full hydrogen tanks are a lot lighter than the batteries. How much lighter nobody has said in specific terms, to the best of my knowledge. It seems that the hydrogen powered truck will be able to haul a somewhat bigger load, by weight, because the of the weight penalty imposed by oversized batteries. How much bigger, I don’t have a real clue, but it could be as much as half or more the weight of the batteries.
My personal opinion is that so long as Tesla can deliver a class 8 pure electric capable of three hundred miles loaded, that’s enough to sell one hell of a lot of trucks……….. if the price is right and they prove to be reliable and durable. Big trucks aren’t like cars, the people who buy them expect them to run upwards of a million miles without much in the way of repairs or downtime even for scheduled maintenance. When they do have problems, they’re actually easier and faster by a mile to repair than a typical late model car or pickup truck, since they’re BUILT with fast affordable repairs in mind.
SO…. both battery powered and fuel cell powered trucks are going to be held to high standards of reliability and durability. Electric motors are old hat, they can be built to last just about forever. Batteries and fuel cells have yet to prove themselves in trucks that ride rough and stay on the road for days at a time, with two guys taking turns driving.
The big advantage, which I consider overwhelming for now and for at least a decade or so to come, is that the grid goes virtually everywhere trucks go, and it’s not going to be outrageously expensive to install chargers anywhere trucks frequently stop. A full charge is not necessarily necessary. If the trucker can charge up enough to go another twenty to forty miles at a stop, he can reach the next stop on a delivery route easily enough without ever waiting to recharge or running out of juice on the road.
For now, hydrogen distribution systems are as rare as hundred dollar bills on sidewalks, and hydrogen even if you can get it is very likely to be pretty expensive for some time to come, for sure more expensive than grid sourced electricity.
And for now, the fuel cell truck is very likely to be much more costly up front. Whether fuel cells will be cheaper than batteries a few years or decades down the road is anybody’s guess.
My money, if I had any to bet, would be on batteries for at least the next five or ten years. Even if there’s a cost breakthrough in the fuel cell biz, it’s going to take that long, at least, for enough hydrogen fueling stations to be built to even approach the ease of recharging an electric truck.
OFM- you may find what this company is doing to be of interest. They are pushing ahead strongly in the trucking-hydrogen space.
https://nikolamotor.com/stations
These are electric trucks, with the batteries charged by onboard fuel cells. “A: The Nikola One™ has a fuel cell onboard that charges the batteries. This fuel cell runs on hydrogen and will need to be refueled every 800-1,200 miles depending on terrain and load size.”
OFM
Glad to see you posting, and I hope all is going well with you.
You may find spending some time following up on Hickory’s link to Nikola Motors highly enlightening.
The business model of only leasing, not selling, coupled with 1 million miles free fuel, are sure to be intriguing for prospective customers.
If you poke around the site of their hydrogen supplier, a Norwegian outfit Nel Hydrogen, you may be very surprised at how far along all this technology has come.
Thanks Coffee and Hickory,
I will read your links and add them to my notes. I’ll have time to hang out here for a while, thru the rest of the winter, probably.
But time flies, and there are so many things I’m trying to get done, on the farm, looking after family issues, etc.
Hopefully sometime this year I will have a site of my own up, with many similarities to this one, and lots of references to this one as well. I’m trying right now to upgrade my more or less first grade level computer skills to the point I can run it myself, not having much in the way of cash to pay somebody else to solve all the inevitable problems. I’m not ” hard up” as we say in this neck of the woods, but I am what we describe as “land rich and money poor”. Someday I’ll have to sell some land, but I won’t until I MUST, and so far I haven’t run across anybody in particular I would like to see as the new owner. It’s my hope that somebody who will treasure the place, and live on it and maintain it as sustainably as possible, rather than subdivide it, will turn up.
OFM,
Contact me, I think you have my e-mail address. If not use peakoilbarrel@gmail.com.
Concerning your blog.
Indeed they are far along their development.
Last summer they awarded a- ” multi-billion NOK contract, to be deployed from 2020, Nel will deliver up to 1 GW of electrolysis plus fueling equipment…
“We are immensely proud of announcing this 1 GW electrolyzer contract with Nikola for the exclusive delivery of 448 electrolyzers and supporting fueling equipment as part of their groundbreaking development of a hydrogen station infrastructure across the US. The multi-billion NOK contract is by far the largest electrolyzer and fueling station contract ever awarded. It will secure fast and cost efficient fueling of Nikola’s fleet of hydrogen trucks, delivering support to major customers like Anheuser-Busch, as well as a growing fleet of Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles. ”
https://nikolamotor.com/press_releases/nel-asa-awarded-multi-billion-nok-electrolyzer-and-fueling-station-contract-by-nikola-47
These electrolysis stations will have to get their energy from somewhere- could be grid supplied PV, wind, or nat gas fueled turbine.
A large portion of the energy for the electrolysis is to come from solar panels.
If you check out the ‘Energy’ listing on their home site, you will see that they acquired a solar installation company with the earlier stated goals of using this method with which to create the hydrogen.
Likewise, on the ‘H2 Stations’ listing, the vast majority of their planned fueling stations are located in the southern US.
The scope of what this company is attempting to achieve is truly breathtaking as well as paradigm shattering for the truck transportation industry.
Having some heavy hitters in their corner such as Ryder and the big Caterpillar dealer in Tennessee doesn’t hurt their credibility, either.
It will be interesting to follow these developments in the coming couple of years.
Yes that solar source of energy is great. The nat gas or grid can be used in winter, or cloudy zones if needed.
One day last week my PV array put out only 4.8% of what it did today. It was a very cloudy that day, and completely clear today, as an example of real world variability.
Most of North America will be in severely cold 2 m temperature anomalies next week according to the ECWMF. The Midwest is looking at a solid stretch of temperatures 20 °C/36 °F below normal. For a change, there should be no further melting in Greenland, since even they will be on the negative side of the anomalies.
This, too, shall pass (it’s supposed to be 50 here in Maine Thursday), but the CO2 will keep rising.
For a change, there should be no further melting in Greenland, since even they will be on the negative side of the anomalies.
You really don’t understand the difference between climate and weather, do you?! A temporary cold spell is not going to stop the ice in Greenland from melting, let alone rebuild what has already been lost!
Stop embarrassing yourself!
“You really don’t understand the difference between climate and weather, do you”
Oh he understands the difference. He is on a fake news propaganda campaign, and so is highly selective in his (mis)use of data.
Maybe he’s hoping for a Trump whitehouse position, something like science advisor.
‘Yes-man Frisky’
This will make Bob frisky happy- 2018 was colder than the the year before.
Maybe the ice age is coming?
https://phys.org/news/2019-01-high-4th-warmest-year-earth.html
What’s a century, here or there?
FOREST SOIL NEEDS DECADES OR CENTURIES TO RECOVER FROM FIRES AND LOGGING
“The impacts of logging on forest soils differs from that of fire because of the high-intensity combination of clearing the forest with machinery and post-logging “slash” burning of debris left on the ground. This can expose the forest floor, compact the soil, deplete soil nutrients, and release large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Ecologically vital, large old trees in Mountain Ash forests may take over a century to recover from fire or logging. Our new findings indicate that forest soils may take a similar amount of time to recover.”
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2019-01-forest-soil-decades-centuries-recover.html#jCp
Yes, there is a disturbing frequency of burned areas that are not regrowing since conditions are often drier and warmer than when the forest grew initially.
To replace a forest ecology may take 4000 years, but that is assuming the original species set is available nearby.
DougL,
Large old “Mountain Ash”–that threw me off for a moment. Ain’t no such critter. Then I read that the study was done in Australia, and refers to a eucalypt.
GREENLAND’S ICE MELTING RATE REACHING ‘TIPPING POINT’
“Climate change is causing Greenland ice masses to melt faster, losing four times more ice since 2003. The only thing we can do is adapt and mitigate further global warming – it’s too late for there to be no effect, we are watching the ice sheet hit a tipping point”.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/01/greenland-ice-melting-rate-reaching-tipping-point-190122065853185.html
Sand is essential to make concrete, glass, silicon for computer chips, and many other products (longer list in Peak Sand), so no wonder top journal “Science” has had two articles on this topic.
Sand mining also ruins ecosystems, lessens biodiversity, impairs water and food security, makes storm surges and tsunamis more destructive, ruins drinking water with salty water, and salinization of cultivated land reduces and even prevents land from being farmed.
In India, illegally mining sand has become very lucrative and the “Sand Mafia” in India has become one of the most powerful and violent organized crime groups. They’ve killed hundreds of people so far in “sand wars”. As a consequence of sand mining, death stalks people in other ways; standing-water pools created by extraction have increased the prevalence of malaria and other diseases.
http://energyskeptic.com/2019/science-magazine-on-peak-sand-2017/
HOT SAND!
Forget solar panels, your home could one day be heated using hot sand
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/magaldi-solar-thermal-energy
I guess this can work, but at first glance, it looks to be pretty expensive in terms of capital and production, compared to straight up pv, and storing energy as heat at the site the heat will be needed.
What I’m thinking is that putting thermal mass, such as a gravel bed or concrete, in the floor, with heating wires in it, would work as well, and probably for a lot less money.
Of course solar energy stored as heat in a floor slab isn’t going to run the lights or computer, so there will still be a need for deferred generation into the evening and night, so that’s in favor of the thermal storage and steam system.
Now if this collected heat is surplus to the need for electricity elsewhere, and can be used to desalinate sea water, that might well tip the scales towards making it economically attractive.
Thermal collector efficiency is about l70 percent, solar PV efficiency is about 20 percent. So why use solar PV over thermal (flat panel)? A mix would be much more realistic and efficient. Use the solar thermal primarily for heating. Excess PV power can heat water, make ice, etc.
The first priority is sealing and insulating buildings. That could cut energy demand by 2/3. Less demand, smaller energy collectors. Less demand means longer life of pumps, fans and cooling equipment.
Sorry, but how do you get to 170% for thermal or are you referring to heat pumps?
NAOM
If you look carefully that is not a one that is an “el”. Compare the two l versus 1. Just a typo, not a one. 70 percent is the efficiency.
70 percent is from a published study of flat plate solar thermal collectors.
I use 70 percent when I design them and increase the aperture area by 43 percent as compensation for losses. The nice thing about solar thermal is the coldest days are often the clearest in the winter. Usually cloudy days are warmer. The other nice thing is they can be built at home.
Ah, thanks, I need to get my eyes tuned. Doesn’t show up very clearly, here, though. I need to get a flat plate collector installed but jobs have been backlogging, must clear the backlog.
NAOM
Solar will rebound this year with more than 100 GW of new capacity
After a year of turbulence for global solar, new capacity installations will break the 100 GW barrier for the first time in 2019, according to consultants Wood Mackenzie.
Unveiling its Global Solar PV Markets – Top 10 Trends to Watch in 2019 report this morning, the Scottish energy research company predicted 103 GW of new PV will be installed in the next 12 months, as the sector rebounds following figures which showed last year was the first in which new capacity additions failed to rise year on year.
Wood Mackenzie has predicted the world will continue to wean itself off a dependency on China which, although it will remain the world’s top dog for some time to come, will see its share of global installed capacity fall from the 55% seen in 2017 to around 19% by 2023. The Edinburgh-based consultancy predicts Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt and Italy will be the world’s fastest-growing solar markets this year.
And another landmark will be set in the final three months of 2019, according to the report’s authors, with more than 30 GW of new solar anticipated for a quarterly record, as regional markets Latin America, the Middle East and Africa continue to expand.
Depending on who’s figures are used global PV capacity additions were between 95 GW and 99 GW in 2017. This indicates that global PV module manufacturing capacity is somewhere in that region. Global module manufacturing capacity is not in decline so it is fairly safe to say that the same amount of capacity or more was manufactured in 2018. I am not aware of any glut of unsold PV modules on the world market so, I think proclaiming that "new capacity installations will break the 100 GW barrier for the first time in 2019" is a bit premature. All the data for 2018 is not in yet and despite the slowdown in China, other countries appear to be making up for the decline in China. We will just have to wait and see when the final data for 2018 comes in over the next couple of months.
Looks like PV is moving faster than predicted.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/04/solar-power-renewables-international-energy-agency
Preacher sez the Lord sometimes does his work in mysterious ways, lol.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/22/climate/americans-global-warming-poll.html?action=click&module=Latest&pgtype=Homepage
We often discuss tribalism here as a major factor in what people believe in and advocate. Personally I believe tribalism, meaning in this case simply the tendency to support those we perceive as family, friends, and cultural “US” as opposed to the enemy “THEM” is all too often the key factor in what people believe and want, politically.
SO……….. since so very many of us hate Trump, and his repug allies, and they say global warming is a hoax and a conspiracy to get yo’ tax money so them there sin’tist’s can live high on the hog, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that people who don’t actually give climate a thought otherwise are going to start believing in forced climate change….. given that the enemy does not, lol.
There is actually a reference to this thought in the article.
So maybe Trump is going to be seen in the end as a slow motion Pearl Harbor Wake Up Event, a few years down the road, as the super storms and super floods and super droughts and aquifers running dry dominate the news even more than they do today.
The statistics presented in this article are encouraging to say the least.
Now if we actually do get some real ” come to Jesus” wake up events, it’s altogether possible that we can get some things done, for instance maybe permitting and building a nation wide HVDC network.
There’s no reason, with some luck, that this sort of grand under taking can’t be sold to the public as in the public interest, on various grounds from construction employment to national security to local tax revenues, just as the interstate highway system was sold.
Such a network would mean the continued spectacular growth in wind and solar power would continue for years to come, since there would be a ready market for the cheap juice.
And the more such juice is available, the more practical it will be to make good use of it.
Cheap electricity can be stored as heat or chill, by heating or cooling cheap thermal mass, thereby making it practical to depend on wind and solar power to heat and cool our houses and other buildings to a far greater extent than at present, plus the intermittency problem would be halved or quartered, and maybe eventually, at some point, totally solved, lol. But every kilowatt hour’s worth of juice stored as heat is one less that needs to be stored in a battery or pumped hydro facility, etc.
Climate Change Could Lead to Greater Reliance on iPhones, Says Apple
by Juli Clover
https://www.macrumors.com/2019/01/22/apple-iphone-climate-change-impact/
A U.K.-based non-profit organization, CDP, recently asked major companies to provide reports on their environmental impact with details on the risks and opportunities that climate change might present.
Apple was one of the respondents, and as outlined by Bloomberg, the company believes future climate-related disasters could increase peoples’ dependence on the iPhone.
According to Apple’s report, of which only a portion of a statement was shared, the iPhone can work as a flashlight or a siren, provide first aid instructions, or serve as a radio. The device can be charged via hand cranks or car batteries, allowing it to work even when power is out.
Apple declined to comment on the information provided in the report, and we only have a small glimpse at the data that was included. Apple undoubtedly had additional thoughts to share on climate change, much like the other companies that participated.
Disney, for example, said it’s worried about rising temperatures affecting park attendance, while Coke said potential water shortages could limit water availability for the bottling of Coke. Intel said that droughts in areas of its operation could increase operational costs, while AT&T said that frequent hurricanes and wildfires could lead to more spending on damage repair for its network.
“Apple works hard to limit its carbon footprint, and all of its facilities worldwide operate using 100 percent renewable energy. Apple is now focusing on recycling, with the aim of a closed-loop supply chain that puts an end to its need to mine the earth for rare minerals. ”
Good for Apple. However, the number of bad apples in the bunch are allowing the climate to change faster than human action is changing. Losers.
What signal will it take? Coral reefs are dying, ice is going away, fresh water is diminishing, storms are stronger, oceans are rising, deadly heat is increasing, insects are disappearing.
There is at least 120 feet of sea level rise already baked into the system and it looks like we are headed for maximum loss of ice. But long before that the food system will crash. Who or what can live without food for very long? I guess we will find out.
Climate Change Is Killing Us Right Now
https://newrepublic.com/article/143899/climate-change-killing-us-right-now
Yeah, but not to worry! from your linked article, me thinks they must be channeling The New and Improved, Steven Pinker here:
The good news is that humans adapt to heat, both physiologically (through acclimatization) and socially (with air conditioning, for instance).
That will continue, according to the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which states with very high confidence that adaptation efforts in humans “will reduce the projected increase in deaths from heat.”
Yep, I’m sure the 800 million humans globally who are currently starving, will rush out and buy energy efficient air conditioners!
Urban Dictionary: lusion
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=lusion
Mar 30, 2017 – something that you have that gives you common sense and a clear state of mind. Without it you become delusional.
Six packs of LUSION, on sale now, in aisle six!
Edit: Sorry, my apologies, we are all out of LUSION but we still have a couple cases of rose colored glasses!
Cheers!
Those Pinker fans could definitely use a continuous supply of LUSION.
Meanwhile, over on the oily side, they are talking about a new technique to double the amount of oil sucked out of shale. Talk about harbingers of doom.
Maybe we can all have solar powered solid state chilling suits and helmets to get us through the summers. Could also condense atmospheric water for drinking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x354tLs4Wtw
Stillsuit
Nice for water, but no mention of cooling. Must be fun in the sun in a black sealed suit.
Nien, nien, mien freund! Achtung!
At just past the 2:00 min mark as the Imperial ecologist is explaining the workings of the stihl suit to Duke Leto he says:
… “It’s a high efficiency filter and heat exchange system that allows prespiration to pass through the first layer and is then collected in the second layer…”
So it both cools AND collects water… 😉
I missed that. So we have a black suit that collects heat at about 800 watts from sunlight plus the heat of person 100 to 270 watts (stationary to running) making one thousand watts or more to get rid of with the energy of motion (say 100 watts during travel and none during stationary) giving at least an efficiency greater than 1000 percent. Amazing heat pump there. 🙂
ROFL! which is why it is called … drum roll please! ‘SCIENCE FICTION’. 😉
Reality was much worse than what you say. I
read a description of the actual shooting of the movie, These suits were made of latex and all the actors who wore them and had to film scenes of running in the desert were constantly on the verge of heat stroke. No joke!
Yes, saw the movie a long time ago and did not think it was non-fiction. Although the suit was the least of the leaps of imagination in the book/film.
So you don’t believe a solar powered nanotechnology material could be developed that would pump heat across itself to provide 70F on one side and 170F on the other?
Maybe this is the start:
https://www.nanowerk.com/nanotechnology-news/newsid=47952.php
NO, science (physics) isn’t dead:
FERMI DISCOVERS A PULSAR THAT SWITCHED FROM RADIO EMISSIONS TO HIGH-ENERGY GAMMA RAYS
“It’s almost as if someone flipped a switch, morphing the system from a lower-energy state to a higher-energy one,” said Benjamin Stappers, an astrophysicist at the University of Manchester, England, who led an international effort to understand this striking transformation. “The change appears to reflect an erratic interaction between the pulsar and its companion, one that allows us an opportunity to explore a rare transitional phase in the life of this binary.”
https://scitechdaily.com/fermi-discovers-pulsar-switched-radio-emissions-high-energy-gamma-rays/
Here’s something for the pink glasses crowd to rant and rave about! Doesn’t matter, of course, we’ve got a whole decade (maybe) to get our collective act together.
ELECTRIC CARS WILL NOT STOP RISING OIL DEMAND, SAYS ENERGY AGENCY CHIEF
“Even if there were 300 million [electric cars] with the current power generation system, the impact in terms of CO2 emissions is less than 1% – nothing. If you can’t decarbonise [the power sector], C02 emissions will not be going down. It may be helpful for the local pollution, but for global emissions it is not.”
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2019/01/22/electric-cars-will-not-stop-rising-oil-demand-says-energy-agency-chief/
If EVs are just adding to numbers rather than replacing ICEs it seem likely to be worse: either new roads/parking/infrastructure have to be built or congestion goes up and all other cars efficiencies go down. Public transport EVs like trams, hybrid buses, trains seem a much better idea.
For some perspective on why I refuse to remove my rose colored glasses see a comment I posted over on the oily side. It has less to do with being optimistic and more to do with desperately hoping that some transition will allow me to grow old without a great deal of suffering. If these efforts to wean the world off FF don’t meet with some success, as George puts it WASF to the power of x!
Hi Doug,
It seems to me that any such hope as we have depends as much on the time frames at which various problems play out as much as anything else. Some problems are solvable, given the right circumstances.
Consider:
Three hundred million electric cars may not amount to much, in terms of total C pollution, but we may see the total number of cars in the world falling, instead of rising, and maybe falling pretty fast, depending on how the cards fall, geologically, politically, and economically. If the number of cars actually starts declining, due to economic factors and oil supply being such that the people of the world, collectively, can no longer afford to buy them and drive them, then the proportion of electric cars will rise like a rocket, in my estimation.
This would occur because it would be politically acceptable and even good politics for governments to allow and even encourage electric cars to be sold, while restricting the sale of ICE conventional cars, to reduce the need to produce or import very expensive oil, if there is an oil crisis associated with economic downturn. Governments all over would likely do whatever they can to keep people happy by supporting the sale of electric cars under such circumstances. That would pretty much satisfy people with money enough…. remaining or newly earned money enough to buy an electric car.
If the price of gas goes sky high and stays up, it could be that high electricity prices will lead enough consumers to come to the realization that anytime they are running their homes and businesses on wind and or solar electricity, they aren’t paying thru the nose for gas generation.
So it may be possible under such circumstances to get the people behind the construction of wind and solar farms on the grand scale plus the construction of new transmission lines, which will have to be HVDC, to get the juice to the places it needs to be. This scenario might take ten years to play out, but it the deals could be cut within that time frame, and construction of more wind and solar farms plus new long distance transmission lines started, or at as far along as the planning stages.
Under the right circumstances, politicians representing various constituencies can make hay together. Local people like local tax collections even if they are hard core right wingers who believe in nothing being subsidized, union guys like getting paid to build things, defense hawks like the idea of not being dependent on importing anything critical, such as oil, etc.
If collapse happens suddenly, we’re up shit creek without a paddle. But if things go to hell in a more leisurely fashion, there are plenty of things that can and may well be done to soften the landing….. maybe even to the extent that whole countries walk away. You know what they say about landings, any landing you can walk away from is a good one….. even if the plane is scrap metal.
Selling public transportation and such is going to be one hell of a job in a country such as the USA, but if oil is simply not to be had…….. people WILL buy electric cars, if they can afford them.
And if they can’t afford a car, even people out in the boonies can and may be forced to learn how to get by making very few trips to town, by ride sharing, and by having things delivered. It’s already cheaper to get a small package in most places via mail or express delivery than it is to actually drive to the city and pick it up. A UPS truck passes my house every single day, almost, these days, because everybody on my road has learned about delivery.
If I had nothing else to do, I believe I could start a business picking up groceries, etc, for people in the neighborhood, and make better than minimum wages, maybe even decent wages, by doing home deliveries……. when and if gasoline prices spike, and gasoline is rationed.
We can adapt to a surprising degree. People who believe otherwise aren’t thinking things thru, they’re just thinking people will REFUSE to adapt.
Note I am NOT disputing Fred Maygar in respect to people who have near zero income or other resources being unable to adapt. I believe he is right when he says that huge numbers of people will NOT be able to adapt to climate change and other existential problems. They will in my opinion die slow and hard in place, or die in the process of trying to emigrate to other countries that don’t want them and can’t really afford them, for the most part.
I’m sure the USA could accommodate a few million, even ten or twenty million immigrants, even if most of them lacked language skills and relevant job skills. But WOULD we? Poor people BORN in this country would resent the hell out of having to compete with them, and seeing them get handouts, call them what you will, charity, welfare, or safety net, that could otherwise go to THEM.
I can’t see our leadership ever allowing huge numbers of people into the country, given that the political consequences for such leaders would be to be sent home, next election, and all of them, regardless of their party, would know this.
So I don’t see this country ever allowing huge numbers of new people entry. Nor do I see any other reasonably prosperous country allowing large numbers of immigrants, in relation to the national population. One or two percent, annually, might be politically acceptable in some countries… probably no more, except maybe if a country is running too short of younger people and too long on older people, as may eventually be the case in a country such as Italy or Japan, both of which have very low birth rates.
Anybody who wants to pick these comments apart, please do so. I would rather learn when I’m wrong now instead of later, lol.
“….. people WILL buy electric cars, if they can afford them.”
Having witnessed the (rapid) adoption of EVs in Norway, they seem, in many respects, BAU: ever expanding roads, bridges, tunnels, parking lots, etc. Of course, the country has lots of carbon free (sort of) electricity and immense (oil/gas) wealth which facilitated the transition. Norwegians call this the “Norway Paradox”. 😉
In the US most electricity comes from coal and gas which make the “greenness” of EVs questionable. And remember, two thirds of global generation comes from fossil fuels.
So replacement of ICE cars with EV needs ever expanding infrastructure? Or do you mean that population and car demand is increasing?
I mean, having people running around in EVs require the same investment in road infrastructure as they did/do with ICEs. In Norway, owing to the mountains, fjords, etc., this is enormous, other countries — probably less.
Also, Norwegians love foreign travel; Africa is especially popular. All this has been (is) paid for by exploiting North Sea oil and gas. The average Norwegian would agree that when you look at life-style, it’s all pretty much BAU.
The fact that electricity there comes from hydro is a significant difference from the world-at-large — by luck. That same “luck” means that to drive around you need many costly bridges, tunnels, snowplows, ferries, etc. So when asked, the average Norwegian will say: “I bought an EV because of all the government subsidies and it’s great that they don’t pollute our towns and cities.” When a Norwegian says that he/she is talking, in part, about noise pollution because they all hate noise. OK, I’ll shut up!
Yes, I see what you mean. Peeling back the layers of BAU gets a lot easier when one expands the problem.
I found a paper on the CO2 footprint of roads (building and maintenance). A quick calculation gave the CO2 road rate at 40% of that of the total emissions (road plus traffic). I did not include the CO2 from demolishing the road as the paper states few roads are ever removed.
Bridges and other structures are included.
http://oa.upm.es/29119/1/INVE_MEM_2013_169096.pdf
That means EV’s are at least a 60 percent solution and as highway machinery, truck transport, industry etc. switch to electric use and less CO2 intensive materials and methods that portion should increase significantly.
If we still need all that in the future or don’t take to the air and stop using most roads. 🙂
I won’t argue that we won’t “take to the air” but this seems unlikely . Roads are it, probably forever. We may elevate them or put them underground in places that are densely populated. We may lay rails on some existing roads and run autonomous electric trains, little ones, on them, because this might prove to be extremely energy efficient and economical.
In terms of what will happen as we come nose to nose and belly to belly with hard limits, my opinion is that we will build very few new roads, and damned few new ice cars, as oil supplies must inevitably run short.
But as things wind down, as the long emergency plays out, I foresee huge numbers of electric cars being built…… as many as the buying public can afford, however many that might be. Such cars CAN be built to last more or less indefinitely. Even ICE cars can be built to last fifty years or longer. Electric cars can and will be powered by renewable energy, eventually, unless industrial civilization collapses sooner.
As fossil fuels deplete, and climate problems mount, it’s my argument that with some luck, electric cars will be embraced wholesale by the people of this country and the world.
Public opinions and beliefs can and do change, given time. As people come to the realization that climate change is real, and a SHORT TERM problem, as is going to be the case, and that oil supplies are limited, and a SHORT TERM problem, as must happen sooner or later……….
Then the political will to get away from oil before it runs REALLY short, and fossil fuel generated electricity before the climate goes REALLY nuts, may come to pass.
At that time, assuming we aren’t yet too far gone down the rat hole of economic exhaustion, we can and will get busy ( substitute the words maybe or hopefully as you prefer for can and will) building wind and solar farms wholesale, and building HVDC power lines wholesale, tightening up building codes wholesale, renovating older buildings for energy efficiency wholesale, manufacturing truly energy efficient appliances wholesale, etc etc.
We can, hopefully, and will, hopefully, do these things for the same reasons that in the past we built up our huge military establishment, built the interstate highway system, put satellites in orbit, etc.
We did these things because they WERE NECESSARY, or because somebody convinced us they were necessary, and because they were profitable and provided jobs and so forth.
The entire world may be headed to hell in a hand basket, but there’s a real possibility that some people in some places may pull thru ok.
The likelihood of some of us establishing a sustainable society and economy depends largely upon how fast we get started and how hard we work at it.
A hot oil war resulting in severe rationing of gasoline and diesel fuel would hurt like hell, for a while, but long term…….. the effect would be at least somewhat like that of having an abscessed tooth extracted. The loss of chewing efficiency is FAR outweighed by the elimination of the pain and the danger of the infection spreading.
We can solve many of the problems associated with overshoot, and the more of them we solve, the softer the crash. Some of us can walk away.
It took two generations for the public as a whole to finally accept the fact that tobacco is a killer, but nowadays even the dumbest and most ignorant hillbilly understands that coffin nails are aptly named.
We may not have two generations grace when it comes to climate, oil depletion, etc…
Even when the inevitable migration to EV’s occurs, we need to move away from the premise that everyone owns a personal vehicle. Otherwise, depletion of resources and the ravenous demand for energy, no matter whether it comes from a sustainable source, will continue to grow with corresponding population growth.
At the very least, within large urban areas worldwide, it would be feasible to minimize personal vehicle use without much real inconvenience. If there was a significant fee/penalty for personal vehicle use within our cities, maybe we can then significantly reduce the number of single passenger commutes. Imagine the positive impacts of reduced traffic, less need for parking infrastructure, more green space, etc…
In Vancouver, we have decent transit service but it still seems to require a real paradigm shift for some to “get on-board”. Hopefully, in the near future, a fleet of relatively small “on demand” autonomous vehicles will provide a much more convenient and desirable form of transport to help reduce the use of personal vehicles.
I agree, cities will benefit most from cars as a service. Luckily, the developing world is taking to the streets in two wheeled vehicles by the droves and switching to electric quickly, so car ownership is not as high as it could be.
Won’t really change the production rate much since a personal car can last 15 years or more while a service car is worn out by five. So service cars have a much higher replacement rate.
I wouldn’t fret too much about growing populations. Once food and water limits are reached, population will fall very quickly.
However, the biggest problem is over consumption. The modern western type lifestyle is a carbon burner and material waster. Even within the US there is a threefold difference in carbon footprint between the richest 10 percent and poorest 10 percent.
The ratio magnifies globally with better than a 10 to 1 ration between high income and low income groups.
The per capita emissions of North America is 17 times that of per capita African.
Overconsumption by a small portion of the population is the biggest problem, while much of the planet’s population has a hard time getting necessities.
Sadly, unless there is a dramatic global crises, climate change and other factors hit the world’s poor first and hardest. The very people that cause the least carbon burn.
“Won’t really change the production rate much since a personal car can last 15 years or more while a service car is worn out by five. So service cars have a much higher replacement rate”
Maybe not so. What wears out the most on an IfCE car? The engine? I would expect an EV to have a longer service life as the motors will last longer and motor control will reduce wear and tear on the rest of the systems. Cars intended as service cars would have customised drive profiles to maximise life , keeping wear and tear to a minimum, no insanity mode!
As for material use, with the new classes of car there is an opportunity to design in more recyclability and reusability. Motors could well be refurbished, if in good condition, or materials recovered, if not. (lots of ‘re’s there 🙂 )
NAOM
Oslo has a pretty good Tram and Metro service, or used to when I lived there in the 90s.
Same now. It’s also probably one of the cleanest (and quietest) cities of comparable size.
ROFL. If we don’t decarbonize, all this conversation about the future will be totally meaningless.
I guess the BAUIEA hasn’t gotten the message yet.
I wouldn’t believe the IEA, they appear to use the same scenario as Morgan Stanley for EV number projection.
We all know we can trust Morgan Stanley, right? They have no investment in growth or BAU, right? 🙂
Mauna Loa CO2 setting new records daily at the moment, and I guess will continue to May now – today almost 5 ppm above last year and well above expected trend.
January 22, 2019 413.86 ppm
January 22, 2018 408.95 ppm
Just one more down payment back to the Eocene.
Wow! I hate to say it but that’s downright scary.
Wanna see something really scary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETC6NSxpFFE
WE NEED TO RETHINK EVERYTHING WE KNOW ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-01/thuo-wnt012019.php
I think there was a paper a couple of years ago that had a similar conclusion, i.e. it had cooling effect of 1.3°C rather than 0.5°C. This may be a factor behind Arctic amplification as there aren’t so many aerosols in the cryosphere zones.
Yes, it has been known for quite a long time that global dimming is at least that large. Bad part is that certain regions will experience much larger magnitudes of heating at first since they are the aerosol producing regions with the highest concentrations. In time it will average out but some areas will have several degrees of fast rise as they reduce their aerosols. Temperature gradients are dependent upon on how fast we stop producing the aerosols.
The major factor in fast Arctic amplification is loss of ice and snow aided by warm ocean and air currents. Those involve local changes on the order of 100 watts where dimming is generally maxed around 20 watts in the worst cases and lower overall.
It is all in one direction though, hotter.
Quite a while ago I noticed that the timing of our carbon intrusion was important, the cryosphere was already unstable when humans started the industrial GHG plume.
Here is an oldy but goody, exemplifying the instability points (tipping points) of our recent period.
The effect of solar radiation variations on the climate
of the Earth
If to consider that with the absence of ice the
Arctic Ocean receives additionally an amount
of heat equal to the mean value coming now to
the ice-free areas of the oceans at high latitudes,
the mean air temperature in the Arctic must be
somewhat higher than the above value, i.e. close
to zero.
This result is in agreement with the conclusions
drawn using other methods in previous
works by the author (Budyko, 1961,1962, 1966),
L. R. Rakipova (1962, 1966), D o ~ & S h a w
(1966), and others. It confirms once more the
possibility of existence of ice-free regime in the
polar basin in the present epoch and at the same
time indicates high instability of such a regime.
It is evident that with the annual mean
temperature in the Central Arctic close to water
freezing point comparatively small anomalies
of radiation income may lead to ice restoration.
Thus, with the present distribution of continents
and oceans the existence of two climatic
regimes is possible one of which is characterized
by the presence of polar ice and large thermal
contrast between the pole and the equator,
and the other by the absence of glaciation and
small meridional mean gradient of temperature.
Both of these regimes are unstable since even
small variations of solar radiation income could
be sufficient either for freezing of the ice-free
polar ocean or melting of the existing ice. Such
a peculiarity of climatic regime seems to determine
the main features of climate variations
in the Quaternary period.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.2153-3490.1969.tb00466.x
Of course Ice Ages are inherently unstable, depending upon orbital changes and the phase change properties of water. With this latest injection of GHG and loss of the cryosphere, the Earth should exit the Ice Age to a warm period. Only the far future will determine if that change is stable.
George Kaplan,
Thanks for posting this. I also saw a report about this Science paper elsewhere. I haven’t read the paper, nor am I an expert in this field, but the implications, if this is in fact true, are stunning. I guess this underestimation has been suggested previously.
How clean do we want that coal?
Some comes from marine shipping using high sulphur bunker oil – and that will be going away in 2020 (I’ve tried to find numbers for sources of aerosol without much success, some seem to indicate MFO is a significant source – maybe a third, which could translate to 0.25°C extra warming within a couple of years by the new numbers – some don’t mention it at all compared with coal).
CO2 is a weak greenhouse gas compared with the other ones and makes up just a small % of the atmosphere.
Do you live under a rock?
Probably does! That’s where all the trolls come crawling out from under…
How can there still be people like you coming up with this drivel?
Cyanide is a weak poison compared to the others and makes up just a small % of your body… Or at least it should to do the gene pool a favor.
Man that rate of increase is bloody scary.
What are the chances the output from the sensor is being affected by the government’s shutdown? Even if there are still government employees at work near the sensor, they aren’t getting paid, and haven’t been paid in over a month.
Krell- “What are the chances the output from the sensor is being affected by the government’s shutdown?”
Thats funny man. Thanks for the laugh.
Mauna Loa is a Scripps installation.
Basically, 2017 and 2018 marked years in which the previously slow and imperceptible declines in institutions and economic activities started to accelerate to the point of notice by even the generally ignorant masses. The political fallout, the trend toward nationalism and xenophobia has become all too obvious. People are scared and confused. They will resort to protectionist thinking in an attempt to restore what they consider the normal order. But it is a futile effort. From this point forward the rate of decline and collapse will just increase. If we think the last several years were bad, say in the nature of mass migrations, just wait. As droughts and floods continue to make life unlivable in regions near the Equator (Middle East, Northern Africa, Central and upper South America) the violence will escalate beyond imagining. The mass exoduses from these regions into the US and Europe will intensify beyond reckoning. If we thought the tensions these migrations had stirred up already was bad, just wait.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
A Tale of Two Cities
Dickens at his best
Hi Hightrekker,
While I am totally opposed to building a wall on our southern border, I am in favor, as the vast majority of Americans seem to be, of controlling our borders and not allowing large numbers of new immigrants to enter the country without control of their number and control of who they are, individually.
And while the leftish or D wing politicians are opposed to the proposed wall, I can’t think of one who seriously proposes to simply allow hundreds of thousands and even millions of people to enter this country as they please.
Advocating for immigration privileges for a relatively small number of people who are political refugees or who are simply impoverished, on humanitarian grounds, is politically feasible.
Advocating the uncontrolled entry of thousands and tens of thousands or more immigrants who will inevitably contain some very bad apples is essentially political suicide, in terms of a political party’s platform. The number of bad apples will be or would be relatively small of course, maybe only one young guy out of hundreds or even a couple of thousands but we have troubles enough already with gangs such as MS13 etc. I hope I remembered the name of the game correctly. The one I have in mind consists mostly of young male immigrants who basically don’t give a shit about anything, except …… robbery, extortion, gang status, etc.
Massive immigration simply will not fly here in the USA, nor in any other country capable of controlling its borders, as I see it.
SO……… Trump doesn’t have to get his wall, for there to be a wall…… if a few years down the road it proves impossible to stop uncontrolled large scale immigration without it.
Whoever is is power, R or D, will build the wall.
You can bet your last can of beans on it.
There isn’t any border crisis NOW.
But later?
I foresee one numerous countries having a border crisis, and have posted comments in the past in various forums that walls will be quite common, and manned with soldiers with orders to shoot, as necessary, in some parts of the world.
Hopefully things won’t get this bad at Yankee borders, but I don’t think it’s possible to guarantee otherwise.
Depending on how bad things get to our south, we might be able to help the people down that way solve their own problems to the extent they will stay home. I hope so.
But if the climate, or political situation in such countries, goes NUTS, we will have to deal with tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, of would be immigrants….. one way or another. And if they ever get in wholesale, ten times as many will be lined up awaiting entry as soon as the word gets around.
A number of countries have allowed numerous migrants to enter, and put them into refugee camps.
How that would fly with the American people I have no real idea. I suppose we would go along with such a solution.. up to a point, depending on which party, and who, is in office in Washington and various states, especially border states.
There are interesting times headed our way.
There are 7.6 billion people on the planet—
We use 10 grams of oil to produce 1 of food.
Does anybody know of a readily accessible article that details this allegation that we use ten grams of oil to produce one gram of food?
Generally I find it hard to track down the source of such numbers.
Here’s a link to a publication that has some easily comprehended figures.
https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/nrcs141p2_023113.pdf
Not sure if this is one, but I remember this from long ago:
https://harpers.org/archive/2004/02/the-oil-we-eat/
EDIT:
“All together the food-processing industry in the United States uses about ten calories of fossil-fuel energy for every calorie of food energy it produces.”
Here’s a better link to the article:
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2004-05-23/oil-we-eat-following-food-chain-back-iraq/
(Unfortunately, it does not include the sources of the data.)
I believe this is what you are looking for.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/10-calories-in-1-calorie-out-the-energy-we-spend-on-food/
“There are 7.6 billion people on the planet—
We use 10 grams of oil to produce 1 of food.”
And yet the deer sleeping in the woods a short distance from me use no petroleum, nor the hawk that was hunting the area. They also do not need houses, furnaces, computers, cars, etc to have a life. All they need is some natural space.
Why do we need so much technological and energetic life support? Are we that crippled and hyper-dependent?
Because I like sleeping in my bed with a roof over my head and so do you
And I like being able to talk about such things on the Innertubes.
Excellent response HB, exemplifying the major confusion people have between likes (desires) and needs.
So I can now add confusion, hedonism and lack of self control to the list of modern ailments.
Although to be fair, much of the desires have been put into codes ,laws and societal demands forcing these systems upon all except those that live outside of developed nations or areas.
People get so used to them, they think they actually need them.
Also, we are basically tropical animals, no fur and sweat glands all over, long legs. Look like big frogs.
Meanwhile the little wren I heard this morning is doing just fine at 19F and will survive the below zero weather of the next couple of days.
Gogoro- Electric transport taking taiwan by storm, Dig around their site for the details.
https://www.gogoro.com/about/
Gov. McMaster of South Carolina gave a speech, with talk about environmental protection and preparations for the impacts of climate change in his state. It is a good example of how Republicans nationwide should be discussing the great environmental and climate challenges of our times instead of backing away from them or even denying there are still any challenges. People need to see some acceptable conservative minded pathways towards solving these challenges.
Here’s an excerpt from this speech…..
This land, as noted by explorers for kings and queens, is lush, fertile and brimming with abundance in plant and animal life. It is irreplaceable. The obligation and privilege of our generation and others to use it, cultivate it, develop it and also to protect it and encroach upon it only gently.
Our economic growth and the preservation of our natural environment are not opposing objectives which must be balanced as in a competition, one against the other. Instead, they are complimentary, each dependent on the other.
To these ends, I recently established the South Carolina Floodwater Commission. It is unique in the United States. The commission’s purpose is to provide guidance, solutions and opportunities presented by inland and coastal flooding and all that entails. Its scope will be global, to be applied here.
Economic prosperity requires that we address water in a comprehensive fashion – whether it is flooding, sea rise, aquifer depletion, or upstream withdrawal. Make no mistake – a plentiful water supply is essential to our manufacturing, agricultural and tourism industries as well as our quality of life.
That means that we must stand firmly against all efforts to endanger the future of our pristine coastline, our beaches, our sea islands, our marshes, and our watersheds.
Ladies and gentlemen, that means we will not have offshore testing or drilling off the coast of South Carolina.
That’s a good start! However he is still stuck on the ‘GROWTH’ paradigm being necessary for prosperity. He says:
Our economic growth and the preservation of our natural environment are not opposing objectives which must be balanced as in a competition, one against the other. Instead, they are complimentary, each dependent on the other.
No, unfortunately economic growth is still the underlying basis for our current system, it is the underlying thesis of capitalism and neo-classical economics. It is a model that is linear when it comes to extraction, use and waste of resources. It ignores all the negative consequences of the exponential function.
Having said that, he does seem to get some things right:
Economic prosperity requires that we address water in a comprehensive fashion – whether it is flooding, sea rise, aquifer depletion, or upstream withdrawal. Make no mistake – a plentiful water supply is essential to our manufacturing, agricultural and tourism industries as well as our quality of life.
Somehow we need to change from the current paradigm of ‘GROWTH’ to one of prosperity based on synergistic circularity, while eliminating all use of fossil fuels and drastically reducing human population and its impact on the environment. We need to develop technologies to remove and sequester massive amounts of CO2 and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere so we can at least mitigate if not reverse climate change. Then there is the sixth mass biological extinction a truly existential threat! Not to mention dealing with all the potentially massive and disruptive feedbacks and tipping points that might already be past the point of no return. According to our best scientists we have maybe another decade or so to do all of this!
Add to that our continual under estimation of all the unknown unknowns and their attendant future risks such as the sudden elimination of the cooling effects of global dimming, (mentioned by George Kaplan), if we stop with our particulate emissions, whether that occurs by design or due to the global collapse of our current economic system.
Good luck with all of that!
“Good luck with all of that!”
‘WE ARE LOSING THE RACE’ ON CLIMATE CHANGE: UN CHIEF
“The Paris accord has been shaken by the withdrawal of the United States under President Donald Trump, and by threats to do the same by Brazil’s new hard-right leader, Jair Bolsonaro. The UN secretary-general said the commitments made in Paris were already “not enough”. If what we agreed in Paris would be materialised, the temperature would rise more than 3.0 degrees (Celsius)….
We’re heading towards 4.0 degrees Centigrade increase in this century, and the passive indifference that most countries are accepting is basically a mutual suicide pact.”
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2019-01-climate-chief.html#jCp
Meanwhile,
NORTH SLOPE OIL AND GAS ACTIVITY IS AT ITS HIGHEST LEVEL IN 20 YEARS
“The number of exploration and production rigs working on the oil-rich North Slope should reach its highest level in 20 years this winter, state officials say. Oil field employment is higher than last year, modestly, but a first in more than four years. And the state just had one of its strongest North Slope lease sales in recent history…
Those factors and others show the recent plunge in oil prices has not dampened industry’s expectations for the region, amid newfound interest in a little-tapped geological formation, the Nanushuk, state officials indicated in a meeting with the Senate Finance committee last week.”
https://www.adn.com/business-economy/energy/2019/01/23/state-says-north-slope-oil-and-gas-activity-is-at-its-highest-level-in-20-years/
What never seems to be spelt out is what 3 and 4 degrees means in detail – i.e. mass famines and wars with millions or billions dead with every country devastated. “Suicide Pact” sounds a bit like hype and prople can easily say “not me though”. And always saying “by 2100” gives the audience a subconscious a way out – deaths, displacements and economic impacts are happening now, problems will escalate faster than can be followed even by the experts, and the environmental damage is mostly irreversible on generational time scales. If the UN is still around I wonder what they will say in 2040.
A degree by degree explanation of what will happen when the earth warms
http://globalwarming.berrens.nl/globalwarming.htm
Three degrees by the end of the century most likely means proceeding to a 6 to 8C world due to natural feedbacks. Sorry kiddees, no ice cream on this trip.
Speaking of water supply, not long now. In fact it’s already drying up! The long emergency is unfolding.
PUMPED DRY: The Global Crisis of Vanishing Groundwater
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjsThobgq7Q&t=3218s
Climate Action Barometer: 12 Charts Explain Where We Are Today, and Where We Need to Be in 2020
https://www.wri.org/blog/2019/01/climate-action-barometer-12-charts-explain-where-we-are-today-and-where-we-need-be-2020
I get two on track, one demonstrable progress, two off track (i.e. going in the opposite direction) and lots of insufficient progress and insufficient data.
Looks highly insufficient to me and they missed the number one fossil fuel problem, natural gas.
‘TIPPING POINT’ RISK FOR ARCTIC HOTSPOT
“The Arctic Ocean has a cold, fresh surface layer which acts as a cap on a layer of warm, saltier Atlantic water beneath. But now in the Barents Sea there’s not enough freshwater-rich sea-ice flowing from the high Arctic to maintain the freshwater cap. And that’s allowing warm, salty Atlantic water to rise to the surface. In what’s known as a feedback loop – the more the layers mix, the warmer the surface gets. And the warmer the surface gets, the more the waters mix. So, it’s now only a matter of time, the researchers say, before this section of the Arctic effectively becomes part of the Atlantic. It could happen in as little as a decade.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46976040
BIG RISE IN ATMOSPHERIC CO2 EXPECTED IN 2019
“They are forecasting that average CO2 concentrations in 2019 will be 411ppm. Carbon dioxide concentration exceeded 400ppm for the first time in 2013. The year-on-year increase of CO2 is getting steadily bigger as it has done throughout the whole of the 20th century. What we are seeing for next year will be one of the biggest on record and it will certainly lead to the highest concentration of CO2.”
“What’s critical, however, is that the persistent rise in atmospheric CO2 is entirely at odds with the ambition to limit global warming to 1.5C. We need to see a reduction in the rate of CO2 emissions, not an increase.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46989789
Be interesting to see how close predictions come – if some of the sinks are failing or El Nino effects are more than expected then we might approach 3ppm this year.
“The rising popularity of electric vehicles – which use twice as much copper as internal combustion engines “,
is fueling a copper mining resurgence in the usa
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-copper-electric-focus/u-s-copper-projects-gain-steam-thanks-to-electric-vehicle-trend-idUSKCN1PI0GZ
There’s been a great deal of discussion here concerning the possibility, or impossibility, of continued economic growth in the face of hard physical limits imposed by geology and ecology, etc.
Personally as a practical matter, I’m convinced that there are hard limits, and that we are pretty close to them, now, in terms of how many material goods we can have, if such goods cannot be entirely or almost entirely recycled. It’s obvious, barring technological miracles, that there’s not oil enough, aluminum and steel enough, etc, for everybody in the world to have a car, nor room enough for enough roads, etc.
BUT at least as a theoretical matter, I can’t see why economic growth cannot continue for a very long time, is such growth consists mostly of services and or SOME material things that don’t consume a lot of actual materials and that can be easily and completely recycled. Hundreds and maybe even thousands of computers can be built with the amount of actual material and energy that goes into producing just one car for instance. So maybe we COULD have a computer for every last person, especially if it were built to last indefinitely. Take out the moving parts, and electronic devices DO last indefinitely in my experience, if they are good quality and well cared for.
So….. My question is this.
Who believes that we can have continued economic growth without continually increasing consumption of physical resources, if this growth is concentrated in areas such as health care, given that the basic resources involved in health care are knowledge and professional skills and training?
Who believes such continued growth of this sort is impossible, as a THEORITICAL matter?
Economic growth is now mainly about status signalling to gain reproductive advantage – it’s built in behaviour not a considered choice (below the poverty line it’s more about having enough to provide for family needs – also about reproductive advantage though). There’s a lot of evidence that US is no happier collectively now than it was in the 60s, and less happy than many supposed poorer countries at the moment. And in terms of reproductive advantage at current rates of population growth every single atom in the universe will be part of a human in 10,000 years, that’s probably a hard limit. Genotypes only really “care” about the immediate next generation that they are seeking to be as big a part of as possible.
And in terms of reproductive advantage at current rates of population growth every single atom in the universe will be part of a human in 10,000 years, that’s probably a hard limit.
Don’t worry George, to channel Julian Simon, I’m sure there are other universes!
From: The transcript of Arithmetic, Population and Energy – a talk by Al Bartlett
…Now, Simon had a book that was published by the Princeton University Press. In that book, he’s writing about oil from many sources, including biomass, and he says, “Clearly there is no meaningful limit to this source except for the sun’s energy.” He goes on to note, “But even if our sun was not so vast as it is, there may well be other suns elsewhere.” Well, Simon’s right; there are other suns elsewhere, but the question is, would you base public policy on the belief that if we need another sun, we will figure out how to go get it and haul it back into our solar system? (audience laughter)
Now, you cannot laugh: for decades before his death, this man was a trusted policy advisor at the very highest levels in Washington DC.
Who knows, maybe Simon has reincarnated and he is advising the Trump administration!
Hi Fred, and anybody else interested,
What is your personal belief or opinion as to the most likely way the population crisis will play out?
Do you believe that the odds are high that there will be a major hard population crash before the population peaks due to falling birth rates, or moderate, or low?
Do you believe , or think, that once the population does decline substantially, that people will continue to have small families, or will go back to having as many kids as a woman can bear before being worn out physically?
Do you think or believe that a society that crashes, or has crashed, or that if industrial civilization crashes, that enough technology and industry will survive that effective and affordable birth control is still POSSIBLE, as opposed to actually available?
I have often stated my own belief that hard REGIONAL population crashes are likely, but that a world wide crash is not, barring a super contagious disease that cannot be controlled, or flat out nuclear war, etc. I believe that there is a likelihood of some people in some places pulling thru the coming hard times more or less whole, in terms of loss of loss of life. I believe that it’s possible, and likely that there will be some places with working water and sewer, working grid, stores with food on the shelves, and more or less honest cops on the streets.
( Personal cars and the other trappings of modern rich societies may be rarities but we don’t really HAVE to have cars, if it’s a choice of getting by without them, or not getting by, lol. We can survive with locally brewed beer rather than beer in cans hauled from far away. )
It should be obvious from my many comments over the years that I believe people such as Simon are idiots, but this does not mean that it’s impossible for us to substitute newer things for older ones no longer available, or to get by without some things, or that we can’t capture ENOUGH energy from the sun to enable us to maintain a NEW GENERATION industrial civilization, one that uses energy three or four or five times as efficiently, and wastes almost none on such frivolous stupidity as three ton vehicles as personal transportation, etc.
We don’t really HAVE to have air travel. It’s true that nowadays millions of people depend on it to earn a living, but it contributes very little in terms of the things we REALLY need to live. You can’t eat a plane ticket, or live in a plane. I treasure my mid winter tropical fruit, but I can live without it, getting by ok with fruit delivered by train…….. or with what is locally available, canned, dried, frozen, etc.
We can live just fine without ninety percent of the junk in a Walmart store, and the last ten percent could be replaced with similar items……. made to last indefinitely. Such items are already there on the shelves, actually, in most cases, just on DIFFERENT shelves.
Tempered glass or stainless steel or ceramic tableware and cookware for instance is just about forever.
We substituted a couple of pickup truck loads of insulation sixty years ago for five or six pickup truck loads of firewood every year since, compared to the amount needed in our old board and batten green oak house. That’s THREE HUNDRED loads saved since then. And if I were building again, I would build so that less than one load would suffice for an entire winter.
That board and batten rough sawn oak house would have lasted a couple of centuries, if protected from leaks and termites….. but the house we built out of concrete and masonry block will probably last more or less indefinitely…. if well maintained. Several centuries at least. Of course it will need some work from time to time, but compared to building new?
And most of our furniture is hand made solid oak, chestnut, or cherry, already fifty plus years old, some of it around a hundred years old. It will last centuries at least, barring fire. It’s not the sort of stuff rich people had in preindustrial days, but it’s still very attractive, and the only parts requiring non renewable resources are brass screws and hinges.
Now maybe we can’t manage an industrial economy that is indefinitely sustainable, meaning centuries to millenia or forever………
But I think the odds are good that we can at least theoretically manage to maintain and industrial economy, meaning one that provides us with the really important stuff, for a long time, centuries at least….. IF we collectively put our minds and backs to the job.
“So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
tags: decisions, gandalf, steadfastness, truths
477 likes
What will we do with the time remaining to us?
As the crisis grows ever greater, we will take ever more desperate measures, like the officer who puts his men on half rations because he has no other choice.
The real question is whether we as a society, taken as a whole, wake up and take proactive measures before it’s truly too late to prevent a catastrophic crash. I do not believe that we will take such measures as a species, that we will collectively do anything proactive on a word wide basis.
What is your personal belief or opinion as to the most likely way the population crisis will play out?
Do you believe that the odds are high that there will be a major hard population crash before the population peaks due to falling birth rates, or moderate, or low?
I won’t pretend to know how the future unfolds. Humans are extraordinarily clever and adaptive animals and possess some very unique characteristics. E. O. Wilson has written about social organization of eusocial species and the evolutionary survival advantages that such organization confers. Perhaps humans still have a rabbit or two we can pull out of our collective hats.
Having said that, there is little doubt that we are in biological and resource use overshoot. It is very difficult for me to imagine a soft landing from our current circumstances. There is no reason to think that we will outsmart the laws of nature and the following graph depicts what normally happens to biological organisms in overshoot. So I am not very optimistic about our chances.
.
OFM- I agree with your take on this big topic.
I do expect catastrophe like big famine, and war driven migrations, even on a much bigger scale than happened in China and India in mid 20th century, in next few decades.
But the problems will be patchy. Even in WWII, the problem were patchy.
And certain areas will do better at adaptation.
“The real question is whether we as a society, taken as a whole, wake up and take proactive measures before it’s truly too late to prevent a catastrophic crash.”- Yes indeed.
It will be interesting to see if USA can work as a unified society in this regard. Tough to see that happening now.
The graph Fred posted looks ‘dead’ on to me, question is the slope and smoothness of those lines.
OFM: My view is that civilization has become so networked that at some point in collapse everything will go local. Only small, isolated groups will survive.
I am a member of a closed group of people ( forums.silentcountry.com ) who share their doomstead preparations and opinions on current events. If anyone here cares to join mention my name, woodsy_gardener when applying.
Hi George,
If Ron didn’t have first dibs on the handle Darwinian, I would be using it myself.
You’re dead on about status and mating behaviors, etc. You’re also dead on about happiness and who is, and who is not, happy.
There’s no doubt in my mind that you fully understand that behaviors that enhance reproductive success in the short term will continue to determine who mates with who , and that the long term is a strictly academic question…… except as it relates to what happens in the short term. There is no long term, in terms of humankind, except via the short term bridge across the abyss of time.
Having said this much, it is also an obvious fact that we can and have learned how to cooperate on the grand scale in lots of respects, in ways contrary to our raw primal impulses. Wimpy guys with great jobs can now win the hands of fair maidens who would have gone to the athletic bad boys in previous times. Slavery is frowned on, we submit to having to have our homes connected to water and sewer systems, we pay taxes without murdering tax collectors, armed robbery is not much pursued as a way of life, etc, except as practiced by nation states, etc.
So maybe it is possible that we can modify our status seeking behaviors by switching from automobiles for example to smart phones……. I read that already many younger people no longer really give a shit about a car at all, never mind a status car…. but that these same individuals FLAUNT their thousand dollar plus phones, their expensive wardrobes, their perfectly straight and snowy enhanced teeth, their enhanced breasts, their artificial tans, etc.
So maybe while slavery is out, having a personal servant may be THE status symbol of the future? I’ve noticed that having servants works very well, lol.
Smart phones may not be entirely sustainable, but compared to cars…… the amount of actual resources needed on a per unit basis to create them is probably no more than one percent of whats needed to make a car. Phones can probably be made to be entirely recyclable, and to last indefinitely, and they don’t need much in the way of energy, compared to cars, etc.
I’m exploring possibilities, and glad to hear whatever the regulars here have to say, because there are some VERY intelligent and fully awake people hanging out here.
I have discovered and corrected more than a few mistakes and blind spots in my own thinking as a result of following this site, and hereby wish to thank everybody from HB my little helper to Dennis and Ron, the whole lot of you!
A great deal of what they have said here and at the old TOD site will be incorporated into my own site, when I eventually have enough original material ready to go live.
There’s always going to be some group growing – it’s more a question of at whose expense. There was a time when maybe the whole world was growing, but only by taking from future generations. At the moment the super rich are growing quickly, but at the expense of almost every body else. At some point it will become more obvious to the masses that they are being screwed and revolutions will start (I assume – though at the moment smart phones and social media may be new tools to zombify the population so maybe things take longer) . The problem is that revolutions almost always leave everyone worse off in the short term, both the revolutionaries and the ex-PTB, some of whom may be hanging from lampposts (the only exception I think was the revolts leading to the fall of the USSR empire and then there was huge support available from the western powers).
“I have discovered and corrected more than a few mistakes and blind spots in my own thinking as a result of following this site, and hereby wish to thank everybody from HB my little helper to Dennis and Ron, the whole lot of you!”
Did Nancy as “The Donald” calls her, just justify Joe Biden for President ? I’ve been thinking that Biden was to old to run, but experience has it’s advantage. Maybe a Biden/Harris ticket ?
We need a large tax increase for the wealthy and corporations(back to the rates of the 50’s and 60’s). A 60’s style moon landing race to decarbonize. A free world boycott of Russian energy(this is war, remember McCain called them a gas station). Gun regulations. More money for education. Infrastructure and Immigration Bills. Oh yes, and maybe most important of all. Free birth control for all dropped by airplanes around the world.
“Maybe a Biden/Harris ticket ? ”
I’m on board with that. Planning to go see her launch her campaign at midday tomorrow.
I saw most of her kick off speech today. Makes Bernie and Liz sound old. She’s got that Obama charisma. I haven’t seen anybody that I think can beat her. Who is going to stop her after South Carolina than early California ? Educated White’s and women in her camp too.
Agree. I came away impressed. She is very bright, and has a strong presence, that is growing.
Big enthusiastic crowd, bigger than Trumps inauguration?
I have 10 criteria for choosing a democratic candidate.
#1-9 They have a strong chance of winning in swing districts around the country
#10 I find them palatable.
Hang in there Ruth!
Excuse me, that’s Dr. Ruth
Flipping though the channels this morning, Fox Newsless was running the smear Kamala campaign. She must be the real thing.
A lot of the status for smart phones comes from posting images of “activities” – i.e. holidays, parties, restaurants, etc. – all those require more and more consumption even if not of actual “stuff” (maybe why air transport is expanding so much). Also smart phones are a direct intracranial drip for advertisers to get people to keep buy-buy-buying and get that dopamine fix again.
Who believes that we can have continued economic growth without continually increasing consumption of physical resources, if this growth is concentrated in areas such as health care, given that the basic resources involved in health care are knowledge and professional skills and training?
Who believes such continued growth of this sort is impossible, as a THEORITICAL matter?
There are a number of things wrong with this thinking.
Specifically, even the example of health care glaringly underscores the problem. Health care is extremely resource intensive. One need only look at how we deal with, one use only plastics in the healthcare industry. Just google medical waste regulations…
BTW, even knowledge and professional skills and training do not exist in an energy and resource use vacuum.
So I for one do not believe economic growth is even theoretically possible going forward. We need a completely different paradigm of prosperity without growth, more like degrowth coupled with reduced resource consumption.
How do we get there? No one really has the slightest clue but it is 100% for sure that growth will end one way or another!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFDAzHI9Dt0
Tom Murphy: Growth has an Expiration Date
Cheers!
This sounds about right!
LESSONS FROM DAVOS:
“As Davos wraps up today, what have we got so far so far from the cockpit of globalisation? Warnings of rising nationalism. Fears of recession. Worries that everything could come tumbling down again. And a total rejection of any policy alternatives regardless.
It’s as if the Captain of the Titanic admits to the passengers early into the journey that the ship is sinkable, and indeed they will all drown horribly when it goes down, but then reassures everybody he’s sticking to the same route towards the iceberg anyway. BEFORE FLYING HOME IN HIS PRIVATE JET.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-01-25/lessons-davos-everything-can-come-crashing-down-and-total-rejection-any-policy
I’m no expert in ‘economics’, but it seems like there are different categories of growth,or of GDP.
Obviously raising/selling $10,000 of alfalfa is different than writing/selling$10,000 dollars worth of poetry. The work of an electrician or operating room nurse/doctor is of different value to the overall economy than that of a wedding planner.
70,000 gallons of petrol spent on Nascar is of different value than the same consumption of fuel used for constructing a port.
Compare the kind of growth we have seen in China over the last 30 yrs, with that of the USA.
It looks like they have generally been effective in their allocation of resource,capital, and labor, while we have been frivolous by comparison (Iraq).
Cost of Three Gorges Dam in China (including resettlement of 1.3 million people) = 37 $Billion
[hydroelectric output almost 5 times greater annual production than largest USA- Grand Coulee]
Cost of USA wars in Asia since 2001 up to Nov 2018 = $5.9 Trillion (or 159 Grand Coulee Dams).
Which of these dollars spent purchased their country economic growth and sustainability in a time of impending peak oil.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/14/us-has-spent-5point9-trillion-on-middle-east-asia-wars-since-2001-study.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_hydroelectric_power_stations
“Who believes such continued growth of this sort is impossible, as a THEORITICAL matter?”
If you scratch the surface of your typical moderately educated man in the street you will find a cornucopian. When presented with a laundry list of rapidly depleting resources, the typical response is “We will invent our way out of the shortages.”
Economists of the classical school say that we ‘create our own resources’. Economics Nobelist Robert Solow said that “… in effect we can get along without natural resources.” All of which points to a belief in the possibility of perpetual growth. It seems to be such a strong meme that one might justifiably conclude that it is part of human nature.
I, for one, do not believe that perpetual growth is possible. Much more likely is a cycle of growth and collapse. Even a gradual ‘powering down’ seems highly unlikely since we are addicted to growth and our industrial economy has developed to be dependent on perpetual growth.
So, no, given human nature, I don’t even think THEORETICALY that this sort of growth (perpetual) is possible.
Hi Eric,
What you seem to be saying to me is that you believe it is not theoretically possible for us to change our gross or overall behaviors on the nation state level, in order to do what has to be done to survive.
I don’t know or necessarily believe that we can change so much……. but consider how primitive ( meaning less technologically advanced and not so materially rich) peoples behave versus how people behave in modern large scale civilized societies. The differences are huge. Slavery for instance is rare, so rare as to be almost non existent in a society such as that of the USA or any Western European country. Measures involving public health, such as outlawing the use of simple hole in the ground toilets, and mandating proper water supply and sewer systems are universal in modern large scale societies.
If survival depends on changing our material consumption patterns, perhaps we can and will change them……… assuming there is an adequate window of opportunity, a window large enough and long lasting enough for us to be FORCED to realize it’s either change or die.
I’m not sure such change is possible, nor predicting it, at this time, other than to say I think some people in some places may manage a transition to a more or less long term sustainable industrial civilization.
Time frames matter. We might be able to transition to an economic paradigm that is not sustainable for tens of thousands of years, but that uses one time gifts of nature so sparingly, and recycles so efficiently, that it could last centuries or thousands of years.
Mac, I believe you missed the point of Eric’s post. He was talking about growth, perpetual growth in particular. That is the imposibility of perpetual growth. Obviously perpetual growth is impossible, a point Al Bartlett made perfectly clear.
Eric did not onec mention survival. Of course survival does not require perpetual growth. But survival on the economic and population level we live at today does require perpetual growth, as well as perpetual natural resources. And that is impossible. That, I think, was the crux of Eric’s post.
Yes, thanks Ron. The hard limits to growth are what Al Bartlett is talking about and what I was alluding to in discussing what humans are capable of in terms of moderating their behavior.
I used to be more optimistic about the human race’s possibility of changing its behavior. In Clive Ponting’s book “The Green History of the World” he talks about how things changed from the onset of the ‘Dark Ages’ at the fall of the Roman Empire to about 1500 years later into the so-called Renaissance. Cities were growing much faster than human’s ability to deal with urban logistics, especially in terms of public health. The plague prone centuries finally gave away as people learned how to build public sewer systems, water systems and other infrastructure necessary to have a relatively healthy society.
Extrapolating to present times, one of the biggest problems humans have is war, i.e. simply getting along with each other in a peaceable way. I figured it might take 1500-2000 years for humans to learn how to live peacefully with each other (this was my optimistic point of view). But depleting resources and climate change have “changed everything” (Naomi Klein’s words).
When the Native Americans in New England first encountered the European settlers, they asked them if they were coming to the New World because they had run out of trees back home. In a sense, they had. While there might be enough resources in terms of fossil fuels, biomass, and, yes, even solar, wind and tides, to have one more big blowout of a mass consumption spree, it will just make the crash that much harder.
On TOD there was occasional debate about what would ‘get us’ first, peak oil or climate change. Currently, I think climate change is in the lead.
On TOD there was occasional debate about what would ‘get us’ first, peak oil or climate change. Currently, I think climate change is in the lead.
I don’t think it will be one or the other. It will be a combination of everything. It will be resource scarcity, political collapse, famine in many countries on a large scale, and civil discorse. I think all these things, and other things I have not named, will hapen long before climate change has any really dramatic effects. In other words, in about half a century or so.
2001-2018, 20T a year income…340T… 6T is 2%…not much for peace in asia…as a tax. As a line in the sand for other upset nations, kept more peace in asia…
While there is lots of conversation about converting civilization to running on electricity and the demand that EVs will place on the power structure, there has been a shadow system quickly growing and eating up the electric power while we have been looking elsewhere. It’s the computing, information, communication and internet systems.
Digitalisation, energy and data demand: The impact of Internet traffic on overall and peak electricity consumption
Andrae and Edler [30], also anticipating a compound rate of growth of 7% per year, calculate that the production and operation of ICT will rise to 21% of global electricity consumption by 2030: this is an absolute rise to 8000 TWh, from a base of around 2000 TWh in 2010. In a worst case scenario, this could reach as high as 50% of global electricity use by 2030, but only 8% in the best case.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618301051
Of course this does not cover all the other power consuming electronics that control and operate almost everything we use now. It would be a great bit of irony if the global rise of electronics overpowered the ability to produce power. It is probable that electronics will consume as much or more power than the global transportation system as it becomes fully electric.
So much for planning ahead, the silicon avalanche is already upon us and is relentless.
Amazon, as an example, is developing server chips based on ARM technology with motherboards to match , the goal to cut power consumption. I would expect the likes of Google and Facebook to move the same way. There is, already, a move to natural cooling of server farms to reduce energy use. There is also a move from big, desktop computers to pads and notebooks, again a saving. I am switching to a new computer which is a considerable improvement on my old but, at the same time, reducing power use. My current smartphone is many times more powerful than my last but uses 1/2 the power.
I would not be so pessimistic. Instead I would look at the wasteful domestic appliances that can consume many times more power.
NAOM
“I would not be so pessimistic. Instead I would look at the wasteful domestic appliances that can consume many times more power.”
First of all, don’t confuse power with energy. A 75 watt (power) light bulb left on uses more energy than a refrigerator over a 24 hour period, since the refrigerator is not on all the time, yet will use more power when it is on.
Realism is not pessimism. So you think that washing clothes, cooking dinner, refrigerating food are a waste? Compared to streaming senseless videos and TV or Texting, Twitting and Tweeting around the world? I guess in a delusional world that is true.
Maybe think of how much time something is on would give you a better perspective of energy use. Server systems, internet systems, modems, many computers, cell phone systems, control systems, are all on 24/7. Domestic appliances are on for short periods of time and sometimes only once or twice a week.
Refrigerator uses 1 to 2 kWh/day. Dishwasher uses about 0.8 kWh per day (4 loads a week)
Computer and screen uses 140 to 350 watts using up to 5 kWh per day. In a home they might spend more time in sleep mode if that is set, so comparable to a refrigerator.
If computer is communicating via intranet, uses a server and also communicates via internet, the power use goes way up due to external demand.
Then there is the wifi and cable modem, they usually run 24/7 and use about 40 watts, giving another kilowatt per day (again, similar to a refrigerator). Low power adds up to large energy.
Well, at least manufacturers have reduced standby loads which could add up to 7% of a household electric bill back in 2000. .
And that smartphone, it’s a power sucker. Uses more than some refrigerators.
Last year the average iPhone customer used 1.58 GB of data a month, which times 12 is 19 GB per year. The most recent data put out by a ATKearney for mobile industry association GSMA (p. 69) says that each GB requires 19 kW. That means the average iPhone uses (19kw X 19 GB) 361 kwh of electricity per year. In addition, ATKearney calculates each connection at 23.4 kWh. That brings the total to 384.4 kWh. The electricity used annually to charge the iPhone is 3.5 kWh, raising the total to 388 kWh per year. EPA’s Energy Star shows refrigerators with efficiency as low as 322 kWh annually.
http://science.time.com/2013/08/14/power-drain-the-digital-cloud-is-using-more-energy-than-you-think/
The always on digital world uses about as much power as that new electric car will each year and is destined to increase beyond them. People need to start system thinking and not just what it takes to run their individual component.
Now air conditioning could use some improvement, but most of that use is due to poor building construction and lack of shading (or reflective shades) on sun facing windows.
It will be better when more silicon PV powers much of the world but still the tremendous advance of electronics into every device and machine could overwhelm.
Plus, many of those electronic systems have relatively short lives and need to be replaced frequently.
Of course some car manufacturers are adding huge amount of electronics that often communicate over the internet and will soon communicate between cars. Yikes, power consumption from silicon is an epidemic because it is so flexible and useful for so many things (both necessary and unnecessary).
Many valid points there but the main gist of my argument is that, although things are being added, there is a lot being done to reduce consumption. That refrigerator may be useful and consume 2kW/d but why shouldn’t it consume 1.5 or even 1. When replacing mine I noted that USA models consumed about 20-25% more power than Korean models and my current one consumes about 10% more than it’s predecessor while having about 180% of the space (enabling me to conserve on cooking by making and storing more portions). Computers may be using a lot of resources in total but there is a move away to portables that use less base power. At the same time there is the move from wire to fibre, while the modems and associated equipment become more efficient. Is cable more power hungry than transmitter towers with hundreds of thousands of watts? We may be using more devices but the power used by each is decreasing, it is a balancing act.
NAOM
“We may be using more devices but the power used by each is decreasing, it is a balancing act.”
So you believe that there is no increase in global power consumption by digital devices despite there being much evidence that it is increasing between 7 and 10 percent per year. Is the power system increasing output by 7 to 10 percent per year? More like 3 percent per year. Guess what? The two will intersect if the rates stay the same.
That balancing act is way out of balance. Luckily we will come across hard limits before that intersection happens.
BTW, refrigerators and most appliances have gotten more efficient too.
But most people do not have dozens of refrigerators but in developed countries they do have dozens of CPUs and connections to millions of other ones. My fridge does not use WiFi or a modem (yet). 🙂
I don’t disagree with your point, but the quote that compared the power consumption of a cell phone and a refrigerator left me curious what energy expert wrote “each GB requires 19kW”, rather than 19kWh, so I read the Time article and found that it points out that those figures were worst case figures based on highest use cases (for example “T-Mobile iPhone users reported just 0.19 GB of data use a month”) and that others strongly disputed the conclusions:
Again, I don’t disagree with your points, but the figures in that quote are suspicious.
You are forgetting that much of streaming is done over wi-fi now, both to cell phones and TV’s. Global video streaming uses up 58 percent of the internet bandwidth. Also, many phones now talk over Wi-Fi internet connections. So the load has moved somewhat but still takes lots of energy from servers and distribution systems.
I do 99 percent of my streaming to my phone over Wi-Fi connections, so it never shows up on the cell phone data usage. Only time I use much cell data is when the internet is down due to power outages.
2018 global cell phone data use per month is 5.6 GB per phone.
Predicted to increase to 21 GB by 2024.
https://www.ericsson.com/en/mobility-report/reports/november-2018/streaming-video
————-
Video Streaming Now Makes Up 58% Of Internet Usage Worldwide
Networking equipment company Sandvine has released the 2018 edition of its annual Global Internet Phenomena Report, which reveals that the internet has succeeded mostly as a convenient way for people to watch video. A stunning 57.69% of all downstream traffic — which is to say traffic downloaded from, rather than uploaded to, the internet — is now video.
As the map below shows, in the Americas, Netflix dominates video streaming traffic. In Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), YouTube comes out on top. And in the Asia-Pacific region, other platforms beat out Facebook and Netflix for the top spot.
http://digg.com/2018/streaming-video-worldwide
Tsunami of data’ could consume one fifth of global electricity by 2025
Billions of internet-connected devices could produce 3.5% of global emissions within 10 years and 14% by 2040, according to new research, reports Climate Home News
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/11/tsunami-of-data-could-consume-fifth-global-electricity-by-2025
Even if we convert to all renewable energy and EV for land transport, it looks like the energy for communications and computing will rival or exceed global land transport energy. This will slow the energy transistion and if it gets out of hand (as it is now in the process) could overwhelm power systems.
So we become more energy efficient on one hand yet cancel a lot of it somewhere else to watch cute cats and TV shows or people doing dumb things and chattering to each other endlessly. Something to keep an eye on.
The circus continues. Where’s the bread?
GRETA THUNBERG — TED X STOCKHOLM
“People tell me I should be in school, learning how to be a climate scientist, learning facts, but why should I go to school to learn facts when the most important facts by the most educated climate scientists are ignored by politicians and society?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAmmUIEsN9A
Yes, not many people can argue against Greta Thunberg’s powerful logic!
Which reminds me of another oldie but goodie TED talk…
https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity?language=en
Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.
Though it may be too late to implement it at this point…
Cheers!
“Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.”
Which is precisely why my grandson is being home-schooled!
… there has been a shadow system quickly growing and eating up the electric power while we have been looking elsewhere. It’s the computing, information, communication and internet systems.
Yep, it’s definitely a true dilemma! It’s also another big wrench in the gears of the continuous growth model of neo-classical economics. Information theory tells us that information is not a free lunch but must comply with the laws of physics and thermodynamics.
It is a common myth, that working from home on a computer is a way to avoid the carbon footprint of a daily commute. Unfortunately server farms are extremely energy intensive, kudos to corporations such as Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, etc… that are transitioning their information technology centers to 100% renewable energy wherever they can. They are not in it out of the goodness of their hearts, let alone for the benefit to the environment. It’s all about it making economic sense. If it happens to be good for the environment that’s just an added benefit.
Perhaps one route to greater efficiency in computing can in the future be achieved with super energy efficient quantum computers.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41534-017-0015-5
Energy-efficient quantum computing
Joni Ikonen, Juha Salmilehto & Mikko Möttönen
npj Quantum Informationvolume 3, Article number: 17 (2017) |
Abstract
In the near future, one of the major challenges in the realization of large-scale quantum computers operating at low temperatures is the management of harmful heat loads owing to thermal conduction of cabling and dissipation at cryogenic components. This naturally raises the question that what are the fundamental limitations of energy consumption in scalable quantum computing. In this work, we derive the greatest lower bound for the gate error induced by a single application of a bosonic drive mode of given energy. Previously, such an error type has been considered to be inversely proportional to the total driving power, but we show that this limitation can be circumvented by introducing a qubit driving scheme which reuses and corrects drive pulses. Specifically, our method serves to reduce the average energy consumption per gate operation without increasing the average gate error. Thus our work shows that precise, scalable control of quantum systems can, in principle, be implemented without the introduction of excessive heat or decoherence.
“Perhaps one route to greater efficiency in computing can in the future be achieved with super energy efficient quantum computers.”
Not sure that is likely to be the case, or not for a decade or so. BTW, I’m impressed you’re a student of Information Theory; there aren’t many of us floating around, methinks!
Esteemed Doug L, (with apologies to Synapsid) 😉
BTW, I’m impressed you’re a student of Information Theory; there aren’t many of us floating around, methinks!
And I, for what it’s worth, am equally impressed that you are a student of so many other things as well !
We are, after all. extremely fortunate to be alive at a time when access to information and knowledge is so readily available, it would be a total waste of our minds not to take full advantage of such an opportunity!
Though while these seem to be both the best of times and the worst as well, I have never subscribed to the misguided notion, that; “ignorance is bliss”!
The extreme cold is still on the way. Now the only question is how many daily record lows and all-time record lows are going to be broken?
The “cold pole” definitely seems to be moving south towards Greenland as the sea ice disappears – not good news for Alaska and Siberia wildfires and permafrost melt.
^He so funny! We just had record warmth and tropical downpours in Maine. And meanwhile Australia burns.
What’s funny is that Cold Blob Bob very, very rarely makes any kind of claim about what meaning, if any, the cold temperature anomaly maps he posts actually have.
I kind of suspect he’s just having a bit of fun posting factual information (albeit cherry picked) in order to get a rise out of folks taking issue with an implied warming denialist argument that he actually hasn’t made.
Or, maybe he really is just completely ignorant of the difference between local vs global, climate vs weather, and the meaning of the word average, but I don’t think so.
I kind of suspect he’s just having a bit of fun posting factual information (albeit cherry picked) in order to get a rise out of folks taking issue with an implied warming denialist argument that he actually hasn’t made.
Yep, you are probably right. I actually consider him a troll! When I respond to his posts it is usually in the vein of a public service announcement attempting to shed light on his cherry picked BS!
Pulling strings is fun for some people. One would think this is the first time the Midwest has gotten cold. LMAO
The Great Indiana Blizzard
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrucrkPEIR8
Enjoy
Yeh, Its going to be cold as f—ck! Like once every 20 yrs cold.
Lets celebrate it.
Cold records are becoming much more rare in the world-
http://www.climatesignals.org/data/record-high-temps-vs-record-low-temps
Once again Mr Blobby posts cold weather warnings that illustrate the changes in climate that have been predicted by scientists. Predictions that are now coming true.
NAOM
Trolls/ nincompoops such as Bob are actually entertaining, so long as they don’t post too often, lol.
And in case anybody who is not acquainted with the ABC’s of atmosphere and climate is interested, it presents a ready opportunity to point out that more record highs are being set than record lows.
And it allows us the opportunity to point out to newbies that anytime a really big cold spell hits down towards the south, it means that somewhere else, there is some extremely warm air ( in relative terms to normal temperature) that has moved way up north to take up the space vacated by that cold air.
What this means in a nutshell is that there is some other place such as up around Alaska or Siberia that is generally much WARMER than usual when it is COLDER than usual in the lower 48.
So Bob is providing us with a teachable moment, and maybe those of us who have contact with kids ought to thank him, lol.
It appears as if there are cold Arctic incursions into North America, Europe and Asia today, making global temperatures 0.4C above the 1979-2000 base average.
The loss of integrity of the polar vortex means more of these cold incursions.
There has been talk that North America will enjoy the last of the cold as the polar vortex moves south toward Greenland, the last bastion of ice in the northern hemisphere. At least until Greenland melts significantly.
So keep those long underwear and gloves handy and the home fires (or solar) burning.
If the AMOC slows further, Northern Europe and Great Britain will also enjoy the last of the cold.
Of course they will also enjoy incursions of very hot weather too. Sounds like maximum storm time to me and the plants will be very confused.
OFM,
Go to the site climatereanalyzer.org. You can rotate the globe with the cursor. I use the 2m Temperature and 2m Temperature Anomaly views often.
Great site Synapsid
It’s my favorite, too. And from U Maine!
To OFM: Also, it presents an opportunity to learn about the weirding of the jet stream:
The Arctic Meltdown & Extreme Weather.
FUCK!
Here we go again!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/25/brazil-dam-collapse-news-latest-mining-disaster-brumadinho
Brazil dam collapse: seven bodies found and hundreds missing
Chance of finding survivors ‘minimal’ after tailings dam at iron ore mine bursts
The mine is owned by Brazilian mining giant Vale. It was involved in a 2015 mine collapse in the same state that claimed 19 lives and is regarded as the country’s worst-ever environmental disaster.
Vale shares plummeted on the new accident, losing eight percent in New York trading…
…The Brazil office of Greenpeace, the environmental activist group, said Friday’s dam break was “a sad consequence of the lessons not learned by the Brazilian government and the mining companies”.
Such incidents “are not accidents but environmental crimes that must be investigated, punished and repaired”, it added.
We are going to need many Brazilian Greta Thunbergs!
Sorry to hear about it Fred. I like the courts’ immediate action of freezing 5 billion of the firms funds to protect claims, not like the USA that allows companies to bankrupt themselves out of harms way.
NAOM
Human predation on other species for fatuous reasons is still in strong swing, However, we probably still can see snowy egrets, great egrets, roseate spoonbills and other birds because of two women.
How Two Women Ended the Deadly Feather Trade
Birds like the snowy egret were on the brink of extinction, all because of their sought-after plumage
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-two-women-ended-the-deadly-feather-trade-23187277/
True, I still get to occasionally see egrets hunting in downtown Hollywood on the little patches of green dividing the flow of traffic… They do look a bit out of place but I’m always happy to see them.
Egrets hunting here, close to my house, see them regularly.
NAOM
Fuck man, we’ll always need rhino horns for our aphrodisiac (or to cure cancer) and elephant ivory to carve cute doohickeys. Besides, fewer rhinos/elephants = more room for people. And, like elephants, lions and rhinos, which can be a bit scary, giraffe heads make great wall trophies; they’re almost tame so really easy to shoot.
Here is what that sounds like to me and my response to it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNiR5ZTb_MA
So, 20-ish years to phase out coal and replace it with what? Well, Russian natural gas it seems. Greta is right to despair: we REALLY don’t have this much time to keep kicking the can down the road — IMHO. All one has to do is read GFs various “temperature consequences” described above to see this is too little, too late!
GERMANY SHOULD PHASE OUT COAL MINING BY 2038: COMMISSION
“Germany should end all coal mining for electricity production by 2038, a government-appointed commission said Saturday, laying out a roadmap to phase out the polluting fuel. The transition is expected to cost up to 80 billion euros ($91 billion) over 20 years, half of which will go to the regions shuttering plants in the west and east of the country, with the rest helping prevent electricity prices from rising, the commission said…
Despite its green reputation, Germany remains heavily reliant on the dirtiest of all fossil fuels, in part because of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to phase out nuclear power by 2022 in response to the 2011 Fukushima disaster.”
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2019-01-german-expert-panel-deadline-coal.html#jCp
Here’s what Greta said to people at Davos she didn’t mince words:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/25/europe/greta-thunberg-davos-world-economic-forum-intl/index.html
“Some people say that the climate crisis is something that we will have created, but that is not true, because if everyone is guilty then no one is to blame. And someone is to blame,” Thunberg said flatly. “Some people, some companies, some decision-makers in particular, have known exactly what priceless values they have been sacrificing to continue making unimaginable amounts of money. And I think many of you here today belong to that group of people.“
I think it is time for trials at the Hague!
That girl can deliver one hell of a burn!
NAOM
THE GIRL WHO GETS IT
“Adults keep saying we owe it to the young people, to give them hope,” [Greta] Thunberg said, “But I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is.”
Meanwhile, in Brussels, teenagers marched last week, with some carrying banners which read, “Dinosaurs thought they had time too.”
The growing silicon energy eater and social monster, the internet of things has numerous downsides. Here is some discussion on that.
Click Here to Kill Everyone
With the Internet of Things, we’re building a world-size robot. How are we going to control it?
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/01/the-internet-of-things-dangerous-future-bruce-schneier.html
Rise of the machines: who is the ‘internet of things’ good for?
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/06/internet-of-things-smart-home-smart-city
Alexa, kill yourself and the entire internet of things!
Suddenly a great silence falls upon the world…
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Actually there is some very solid scientific evidence which leads to the conclusion that to reach a tipping point in a social movement you really don’t need more than about a 4% of the population to buy in and get things started. Even violent dictatorships have been overthrown by relatively small groups of non violent protesters starting a movement.
The number of teenagers marching in Brussels was about 30 thousand and there are movements starting all around the world. More power to these kids!
Yes, and when 300 million people take this really seriously, we can get started.
I have a much faster way to change things. Let me introduce you to the new world kings. I don’t think humans will rate very high in the kingdom but things will get straightened out quite quickly.
Maybe we can work our way up to court jesters.
Yes, and when 300 million people take this really seriously, we can get started.
Well, are you taking it seriously or not?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/25/our-house-is-on-fire-greta-thunberg16-urges-leaders-to-act-on-climate
‘Our house is on fire’
Greta Thunberg
Read her full speech at the link above. What would you say to her face?!
.
What would you say to her face?!
Stock up on tinned gravy, it makes almost anything taste good, even you lawn.
I strongly suspect her reply to you would probably not include the exact words that come to my mind, but I’m sure she’d get the message across!
How droll.
What she says is fine as far as it goes but it falls far short of what needs to be said to those who pretend to lead.
This has been right next to my desk in my view for many years. Take it seriously.
“But man, proud man,
Dress’d in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he’s most assur’d—
His glassy essence—like an angry ape
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As makes the angels weep; who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.”
Until humans drop their fake façade of “kingship” and realize they are currently the least important species on the planet, all roads lead to disaster.
Fred, who and what do you serve?
Fred, who and what do you serve?
Let me put it this way, I have never been very popular with kings, I have a knack for telling them that they are butt naked.
Speaking of rulers, maybe it is ants that rule the land. They seem to have integrated quite well into the natural system while having fast communication and a large cooperative social structure.
Scientists estimate that about 20,000 ant species crawl the Earth. Taxonomists have classified more than 11,000 species, which account for at least one-third of all insect biomass. The combined heft of ants in the Brazilian Amazon is about four times greater than the combined mass of all of the mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians, according to one survey.
https://www.livescience.com/747-ants-rule-world.html
I recall coming across ant’s nests that had cleared areas on the surface varying from 6 feet to 30 feet in diameter. These were in mountain regions where winter temperatures dropped to minus 30 F.
Yeah, many many moons ago as a student, I had the opportunity to meet Dr. Mário Paulo Autuori who was one of Brazil’s foremost experts on ants! I also had many an interesting and sometimes rather painful personal encounter with Brazilian ants… 😉
I have also read some of E.O. Wilson’s books on ants, (not books I’d recommend for the lay reader) He is one the of the foremost, still living experts on ants.
Good general knowledge video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUdgBEKX5ZQ
E. O. Wilson – Lord of the Ants
Reducing coal burning won’t make much difference if they just use more natural gas.
THE FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD CLIMATE ACTIVIST WHO IS DEMANDING A NEW KIND OF POLITICS
“Thunberg developed her special interest in climate change when she was nine years old and in the third grade. “They were always talking about how we should turn off lights, save water, not throw out food,” she told me. “I asked why and they explained about climate change. And I thought this was very strange. If humans could really change the climate, everyone would be talking about it and people wouldn’t be talking about anything else. But this wasn’t happening.”
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-fifteen-year-old-climate-activist-who-is-demanding-a-new-kind-of-politics
Poor dear. Just wait until she realizes we’re just apes.
You do other ape species a great disservice. Because the other apes live in harmony with their environment and they don’t massacre other creatures and certainly don’t do things like dropping cluster bombs and poisonous gas canisters on their cousins. Nor do they worship imaginary gods and use this nonsense to justify barbaric deeds. So we’re not “just apes” anymore than cancer is just another disease. Unlike yourself I’ve no doubt Greta is well aware of the difference.
Doug, take a chill pill.
The compassionate ape.
The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. –Chuck D.
The one very important difference between humans and other apes is that they all have natural restraints on their population growth, humans have virtually none. We have become a super-predator, we can kill them at will. We can take over their territory and resources at will. They have no defense to our invasion. The adaptation, that is our evolved characteristic that enables our power over every other species on earth is our brain. Our intelligences enables us to do this… so we do. It is as simple as that.
Every species lives to the very limits of its existence. Every species produces far more offspring than can possibly survive. And for most of the history of our species, Homo sapiens, that was true as well. But our primary survival adaptation, our intelligence, has enabled us to overcome almost all barriers to our population growth… for a couple of hundred years anyway.
Please note, I am not blaming Homo sapiens for this adapted characteristic that will enable them to… eventually… bring massive death and destruction upon most life on this planet. No one is to blame for what nature produces.
Well said Ron.
It seems to me that humans who have had a tendency to show restraint, have consistently been pushed aside by the hasty and aggressive mass of those who don’t.
Restraint has generally not been a survival advantage that shows up in the genetic blueprint.
We are all descended from the most ingenious, and brutally aggressive, of the hundreds of hominid branches from the past.
If we ever do become truly wise, we will find ourselves looking out at a scorched and tattered ecoscape.
If we’d maintained chimpanzees’ fairly slow reproductive rate things might have worked out a bit better, but we churn babies out every couple of years rather than every eight or so – I think one theory is that this is an effect of nurturing post menopausal grand-mothers in a tribal environment.
As of mid 2018-
42 individuals hold as much wealth as the poorer 3.7 Billion of the planet (roughly poorer 1/2),
and there were over 149,000 individuals in the world with a net worth of greater than $50 Mill USD.
[greater than $50M is categorized as the UHNW- Ultra High Net Worth individuals]
Call me radical, communist whatever, but no one person needs more than $50M. Without exception.
I am in favor of that excess wealth being confiscated, by whatever bank or jurisdiction the wealth is held. No hidden accounts- sorry if you become bankrupt Switzerland. You have been living on blood money for well over a century.
info sources-
https://www.credit-suisse.com/media/assets/private-banking/docs/uk/global-wealth-report-2018.pdf
https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2018/jan/22/inequality-gap-widens-as-42-people-hold-same-wealth-as-37bn-poorest
Tax people just for being successful is a strategy way beyond the pale. There’s a clear reason why retirees in CA, NJ, NY, CT, MA, IL, MD, and so on pack it up and move to places like FL and TX and AZ just as soon as they retire.
Hi Charles. Thanks for being gentle and calling what I advocate as being “beyond the pale”, rather commie or something like that.
So be it. Extreme wealth sequestration, such as net worth above $50M/individual, sure doesn’t seem right or necessary, or moral- in a world where people starve, or live in severe poverty. Nothing more complicated than that.
And for clarification, I do not believe in taxing ‘earned income’ at rates any higher than we have today. If anything- less would be preferable.
Corporate America Is Getting Ready to Monetize Climate Change
By Christopher Flavelle
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-22/muggy-disney-parks-downed-at-t-towers-firms-tally-climate-risk
As the Trump administration rolls back rules meant to curb global warming, new disclosures show that the country’s largest companies are already bracing for its effects. The documents reveal how widely climate change is expected to cascade through the economy — disrupting supply chains, disabling operations and driving away customers, but also offering new ways to make money.
The disclosures were collected by CDP, a U.K.-based nonprofit that asks companies to report their environmental impact, including the risks and opportunities they believe climate change presents for their businesses. More than 7,000 companies worldwide filed reports for 2018, including more than 1,800 from the U.S.
Most of the largest U.S. companies by market capitalization submitted information to CDP, and the vast majority say the threat is real and serious: Of the 25 companies whose submissions were reviewed by Bloomberg, 21 said they had identified “inherent climate-related risks with the potential to have a substantial financial or strategic impact” on their business.
Many of those risks related to the effects of climate change on companies’ ability to operate. One of the most commonly cited risks was not enough water.
Climate change isn’t all downside for the largest U.S. companies. Many of those that filed reports with CDP said they believe climate change can bolster demand for their products.
For one thing, more people will get sick. “As the climate changes, there will be expanded markets for products for tropical and weather related diseases including waterborne illness,” wrote Merck & Co.
More disasters will make iPhones even more vital to people’s lives, Apple predicted.
Living with climate change is also going to cost money, which some banks see as an opening. “Preparation for and response to climate-change induced natural disasters result in greater construction, conservation and other business activities,” Wells Fargo and Co wrote, adding that it “has the opportunity to provide financing to support these efforts.”
More disasters will mean increased sales for Home Depot, the company wrote. And as temperatures get higher, people are going to need more air conditioners. Home Depot predicted that its ceiling fans and other appliances will see “higher demand should temperatures increase over time.”
Alphabet Inc.’s Google says it expects costs and benefits from climate change. “Fluctuating socio-economic conditions due to climate change” could reduce demand for online advertising, the company reported. Yet more people might use Google Earth.
Venezuela: All you need to know about the crisis in seven charts
Most of these charts will shock you. And it all started when Maduro took over. This proves, in spades, how important it is to have a stable government and how important the one man at the top is to the stability of that government.
6. Many Venezuelans are leaving
Three million Venezuelans have left their home country since 2014, according to the UN.
The majority of those leaving have crossed into neighboring Colombia, some then move on to Ecuador, Peru and Chile. Others have gone south to Brazil.
Of those three million, about 2,650,000 left in 2018. So, the exodus is dramatically accelerating.
Is there a positive or negative effect on the jungle and wildlife due to this collapse?
Meanwhile the big three military states are vying for position in Venezuela. The United Nations is far from united.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/security-council-meeting-on-venezuela-expected-to-highlight-tensions-between-us-and-russia/2019/01/25/10103b7e-20b6-11e9-8b59-0a28f2191131_story.html
Is there a positive or negative effect on the jungle and wildlife due to this collapse?
Really hard to tell. My hunch is that compared to the overall negative effects of human encroachment in the Amazonian rain forest in many of the countries of that region, the effects of what is happening in Venezuela will have only minimal effects one way or another.
Most of these charts will shock you.
Not really!
It’s mostly what I would expect. BTW I lived under a military dictatorship in Brazil and through currency changes and massive inflation there as well. A cult like following of populist authoritarian leadership generally leads to this kind of disaster. Oh, and it really doesn’t help if you have a one trick pony economy based on a finite resource… Sooner or later the shit does hit the fan!
All Americans , North ,Central and South should pay close attention to what is happening in Venezuela because it can happen anywhere.
I wasn’t aware of any big policy differences between Maduro and Chavez.
Why the big change in outcome?
“Thursday also saw a diplomatic battle at the Organization of American States, with Secretary Pompeo and OAS Secretary Almagro pushing the body to recognize Guaidó. The efforts were unsuccessful, garnering only 16 favourable votes out of the 34 countries, with US allies Guyana, Santa Lucia, and Jamaica abstaining.”
Chavez helped sow the seeds and Maduro reaped the consequences! Why is this so difficult to grasp?!
“In September 2012 former US President Jimmy Carter said “the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world”.
Obvious lies!
Carter is a communist stooge?
Oh, don’t be ridiculous. Hugo Chavez was enormously popular in Venezuela. He was elected by a majority of 55 percent to 44 percent in 2012, then he died. Then Vice President Maduro was given power to rule by decree. No election and no fair election since. In 2012 Carter was probably correct, or at least close to it. Carter had no idea a despotic dictator would take power just like we had no idea a wanna be despotic dictator would be elected in the USA.
“No election and no fair election since. ”
Am I living on a different planet?
Sixteen political parties participated in the electoral contest, including governing PSUV and the MSV, Tupamaro, UPV, Podemos, PPT, ORA, MPAC, MEP, PCV, AP, MAS, Copei, Esperanza por el Cambio, and UPP89.
In Venezuela it is not compulsory that all political parties participate in electoral processes. It is their right to choose whether to participate or not. That’s exactly why our system is democratic. The fact that three parties (AD, VP, and PJ) decided freely not to participate does not delegitimise the electoral process.
Six candidates competed for presidency: Nicolás Maduro, Henri Falcón, Javier Bertucci, Reinaldo Quijada, Francisco Visconti Osorio and Luis Alejandro Ratti (the last two later decided to withdraw.)
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Maduro won by a wide margin, obtaining 6,248,864 votes, that is 67.84%; followed by Henri Falcón with 1,927,958, or 20.93%; Javier Bertucci with 1,015,895, 10.82%; and Reinaldo Quijada, who obtained 36,246 votes, or 0.39% of the total. The difference between Maduro and Falcón was of 46.91 percentage points.
The electoral process was observed by about 150 people, including 14 electoral commissions from eight countries; two technical electoral missions; 18 journalists from different parts of the world; one member of the European Parliament, and one technical-electoral delegation from the Russian Electoral Centre.
Same government– just Maduro is dealing with a boycott on Venezuelan Oil.
The game will change.
Hi Ron,
One thing I never expected to do is post a positive comment about Trump as president, but even stopped clocks are right twice a day.
It’s way past time we and other countries get our shit together and help the people of Venezuela get rid of Maduro and company.
It’s impossible to say what Trump might actually do, other than tell lies, so I will refrain from predicting that any help, at least in the short term, will be coming from the USA, but at least he did say it’s past time for Maduro to go.
I’m pretty sure he has done 7 or 8 things right.
But he already fired 3 of them for not being ‘yes’ men reliably enough.
“But he already fired 3 of them for not being ‘yes’ men reliably enough.”
Is that different than your President Trump?
Hi Doug- in fact I was referring exactly to Pres trump.
Can you say Bay of Pigs?
Trump is heading in that direction.
But, who knows?
+1
Trump does not heed advisers, only his gut, and does not believe in experienced diplomats. He has put the cart before the horse by announcing this before getting support or just getting the feel of the OAS. He has complicated this by is actions against members of the OAS. He is estranged from them and his treatment of Mexico, migrants and Central American states may come back to bite him. He may not get the support he needs and has, already, pushed Venezuela further into the hands of Cuba, China and Russia.
NAOM
For those so inclined. Personally, the only thing I find more satisfying than a walk in the “bush” with my dog is walking through a beautiful mathematical argument, especially one related to some astrophysical phenomena. This I learned from my wife — to give credit where it’s due.
HOW MATHS CAN ANSWER QUESTIONS WE HAVEN’T THOUGHT OF YET
“Maths is considered an instrument that produces correct answers to our questions about the universe. For example, maths can predict correctly that if you have two apples and eat an apple a day, they will last you precisely two days. However, sometimes maths produces answers that seem counterintuitive to our own experiences of the universe, like the Banach–Tarski paradox, which states that a solid ball can be cut into several pieces and these pieces can be assembled into two solid balls, each having the same size as the original ball. Do these contradictions suggest that there’s a crisis in maths, that it can’t explain the mysteries of the universe? No. They just force us to reconsider how we approach these problems.”
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-09-maths-havent-thought.html#jCp
I’m about to leave to go out for a walk along the beach to clear my head after being holed up inside due to heavy rains these past couple of days, so I will read the linked paper about the Banach–Tarski paradox at a later time.
But I could not resist watching the sliced knot video which needs to be sliced to be unknotted in 3D but not in 4D… Do not tie yourself up in knots trying to follow it! It’s not worth it 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K4veUgDdCk
Knot ^4D or (Not for Thee)
Ok, as far as tools go, if all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail, so If all you have is a rope, does not, everything look like a knot?
Enjoy you beach walk Fred. We used to live in Kitsilano (district of Vancouver) and beach walks, with kids and dog, were a daily routine. I do so miss the ocean! Meanwhile, if you’re keen to take a beautiful mathematical journey have a go at the following – if only for the math!
A NEW EQUATION OF STATE FOR NEUTRON STAR MATTER WITH NUCLEI IN THE CRUST AND HYPERONS IN THE CORE
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0004-637X/777/1/4
Cheers,
Heh, just got back, I went to a place called Anne Kolb Nature center on the Intra Coastal and walked down a boardwalk through the mangroves to a fishing pier and while watching a fish hawk did my moral duty to nature by feeding a swarm of no-see-ums. For once I couldn’t really bring myself to complain about the lack of insects… 😉
I also just read this wonderful upbeat post by Chris Martenson over at PeakOil.com titled: Collapse Is Already Here
https://peakoil.com/generalideas/chris-martenson-collapse-is-already-here
What he says is not much news to most of the readers here, but I truly regret having read a few of the comments. One asshole in particular should be automatically banned from the entire internet! On second thought he should be banned from the entire planet.
From your (depressing) link:
“However, unlike Hollywood’s vision, the early stages of collapse cause people to cling even tighter to the status quo. Instead of panic in the streets, we simply see more of the same — as those in power do all they can to remain so, while the majority of the public attempts to ignore the growing problems for as long as it possibly can.”
And,
“Our leadership is absolutely not up to the task. If the Davos conference currently underway in Switzerland is a sign of anything at all, it’s that we’re doomed. The world has been taken over by bankers and financiers too smitten by their love of money to notice much else or be of any practical service to the world.”
You think that’s depressing?! It’s pouring rain again and I just dropped my glass of wine on the kitchen floor… what a mess 😉
Meanwhile I decided to brush up on Thomas Fermi differential equations so I could at least try to understand some of the math in the paper you linked. Admittedly a bit above my pay grade. And as is wont to happen, has already sent me down some side alleys to visit with Paul Dirac, Schrödinger and Feynman diagrams…
QED!
Nope, not what you thought. ‘Quod Erat Demonstrandum’, the paper, after all is based on a mathematical proof, right?! Or as has been demonstrated.
.
L.O.L.!
” the early stages of collapse cause people to cling even tighter to the status quo”
This is as simple and obvious, and yet as profound, as any one sentence (excerpted from a longer one in this case) as I have run across in quite a while.
It perfectly describes the mindset of people who are Trump fanatics. The foot soldiers, the typical members of a fundamentalist church, see him as the leader who reassures them they are right, and everybody else is wrong.
If they are a little brighter,such as leaders of a fundamentalist church, they see him for what he is, personally, but they still bite their tongue and keep their mouth shut, refraining from criticizing him, because he is appointing judges they believe are in favor of the status quo, in terms of race, sex, religion, guns, environment, business regulations, etc. The status quo is not only the butter on their bread, it IS their bread.
Nevertheless it doesn’t do any good to call such people superstitious, ignorant, racist, etc. It just hardens their attitude, so that it’s impossible to explain to them that air pollution, cigarettes, and junk food equal an early death by about a decade or so on average.
It is possible to meet some of them halfway, or even three quarters of the way, and get them to thinking about their medical bills as they get older, or when they lose their insurance along with their job, or when their kid is in jail for selling some mary jane, etc.
Or when they can’t fish in their life long favorite hole anymore because the fish are either all dead, or have too much poison in them to be edible.
If the D’s can pry just one tenth of serious Christians away from the Trump camp, that’s probably more than enough to put them across the finish line next election cycle.
Somebody ought to be paying for ads targeted at them, pointing out how many times Trump has been married, his grab’em by the xxxxxx comments, his hooker payoffs, his countless failures to pay his debts, his bankruptcies, etc.
Because they DO NOT know about these things, anymore than grade school dropouts know about say for instance evolution or nuclear physics. What they have heard, they have heard ONLY from his defenders mentioning his record with the sole purpose of denying the truth of it.
Ugh. Comments at PO are worse than YouTube.
Yep, my thoughts exactly!
Thanks Fred, for the heads up on this Chris Martenson link. It is fantastic. Everyone should read it. Again, here is the link:
Chris Martenson: Collapse Is Already Here
Collapse is a process, not an event.
And it’s already underway, all around us.
I agree, the Chris Martenson link is a gem.
And that is only a summary of what we know. What we don’t know could probably fill many volumes.
It is interesting that books on the subject are no longer relevant since by the time one is written it is long out of date. Even blogs are not now fast enough to keep up with the changes, they are so vast and mostly unknown.
The fast crash of the global ecosystem may never give us time to ever really know the specifics. Of course that is not important.
I agree.
CHILDREN’S CLIMATE RALLIES GAIN MOMENTUM IN EUROPE
German students are mobilizing with the Twitter hashtag #FridaysForFuture. A popular slogan was “There’s no planet B”.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46999381
Dinosaurs in the House. And we thought they were extinct, but Pelosi and friends have managed to make a “Climate Crisis Committee” with no powers and no New Green Deal. This is the group that is supposed to save the planet? Bunch of old dinosaurs keeping the new Green Deal reps out of the committee to keep BAU going as long as possible.
The panel will not have the power to subpoena or depose, nor will it have the authority to vote on legislation and send it directly to the House floor for a vote.
It also is not being explicitly charged with developing Green New Deal legislation, which supporters envision as bringing the county to 100 percent renewable electricity and decarbonizing major industries over 10 years, as well as a universal jobs guarantee and other ideas.
This committee, if it turns out that the rumors about it are true, sounds about as useful as a screen door on a submarine,” Corbin Trent, a spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez, told The Hill last week. “As it’s portrayed it’s going to be completely incapable of solving the greatest threat to human kind.”
Ocasio-Cortez took to Twitter on Monday and accused leaders of rejecting her climate agenda as “too controversial
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/423492-house-dems-formalize-climate-committee-plans-without-green-new-deal
I don’t think they have a clue as to what is really happening right now in the world, let alone what will happen soon.
Not good. So much depends on Herr Bolsonaro now. Maybe the kids will actually make a difference this year?
“Brazil’s deforestation in 2017 was equivalent to 365 million tonnes of CO2 and jumped by almost 50% over the three months of campaigning before Bolsonaro was elected last year. The DRC’s tree cover loss was equivalent to 158Mt last year and Indonesia’s to 125Mt.”
On the other hand,
“There are some good signs. Costa Rica’s tree cover grew from 20% to around 50% over 30 years. And Indonesia’s loss dropped by 60% year-on-year in 2017, which Global Forest Watch attributed in part to a 2016 moratorium on peat drainage, educational campaigns and stronger enforcement.”
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2019/01/28/worlds-three-biggest-rainforests-face-year-precarious-politics/
Not good. So much depends on Herr Bolsonaro now. Maybe the kids will actually make a difference this year?
The only silver lining to the most recent Vale mining dam disaster in Brazil is that it is going to make it extremely difficult for Bolsonaro and his ministers to implement their planned rollbacks of environmental regulations!
Nope, he’ll just find a way of blaming the disaster on the regulations. Seems to be the way these sort of people think.
NAOM
No, I think you are dead wrong on this one! He will have to change his tune and very quickly. In my experience the Brazilian people are very unforgiving of blatant government hand outs and favors to mining companies when there are clear examples of harm to the environment and the people, due to lax enforcement of environmental regulations.
This second Vale dam disaster in three years will make it impossible for him to continue with the argument that the regulations are too restrictive. There is going to be a very severe backlash over this and it is already happening.
São Paulo’s ex mayor, Fernando Haddad tweeted this:
“Má escolha: o governo errou ao nomear para ministro do Meio Ambiente alguém cujas posições estão na contramão do que o país precisa. Bolsonaro, até ontem, só fala em afrouxar a fiscalização e facilitar o licenciamento. Veremos agora.”
Em dezembro de 2018, o então candidato à presidência Jair Bolsonaro fez inúmeras críticas ao que chamou de “indústria da multa” ambiental, durante discurso transmitido pelas redes sociais. Ele afirmou que as multas são extorsivas, que iria acabar com o “capricho” dos fiscais do Ibama e que a licença ambiental atrapalha a execução de obras de infraestrutura, de acordo com informações da Folha de S.Paulo.
If you don’t read Portuguese you can Google translate it, Basically both the ex mayor and the Folha de S.Paulo call him to task for statements he made during his campaign and even as recently as the day before the disaster, about environmental regulations being too strict and that he was going to relax them in favor of mining and other companies, as the mayor said: “Now we shall see!”
That is just the tip of the iceberg of the outrage that will now be directed at Bolsonaro and his administration. I really don’t see this going well for them.
The Brazilian public that supported Bolsonaro tends to be much more fickle and volatile than say, Trump supporters.
Cheers!
Herr Bolsonaro?
The dude is still really hurting after someone shot him.
In an operation today.
Might need to find another fascist to loot and pillage.
(Sorry- someone knifed him)
The EDGE of existence.
Amphibians
Around 30% are threatened with extinction, which is more than birds (13%) and mammals (21%). However, this is likely an underestimation of the true number, as the majority of amphibians described since 2004 have not been assessed by the IUCN Red List. At least 42% of all known amphibian species are declining, and as many as 159 amphibian species may already be extinct. There are currently 972 EDGE amphibians, which is more than any other EDGE group. Most of these are frogs and toads, due to the sheer number of species, but there are also priority EDGE salamanders and caecilians.
http://www.edgeofexistence.org/amphibians/
Where I live, in what was insect haven when I was a kid, you have to look for bugs. I have about 20 swallow nests and last spring, for the first time, only about half were occupied; there’s nothing for them to eat! I know I’ve commented on this before but it depresses me.
BUG’S LIFE: THE DEMISE OF INSECTS
“It’s not just the bees [and frogs] that are disappearing. Insects across the board are showing dramatic drops in population levels, leading to a serious knock-on effect for ecosystems everywhere.”
http://geographical.co.uk/nature/wildlife/item/2285-bug-s-life
Yeah, now every time I go outside I search for some sign of insects, they are getting more and more difficult to find. The clearest sign to me is a lack of spiderwebs! Especially orb weavers on the trails I walk. I’m beginning to think that Rachel Carson’s silent spring pales in comparison to what is happening right now!
Fred – this should be esoteric (arcane) enough to turn your crank. Everyone else can safely ignore. 🙂
COULD AN EXTREMOPHILE HOLD THE SECRET TO TREATMENT OF DEVASTATING INJURIES?
“A biological that is engineered to avoid toxicity based on a design leveraging millions of years of evolution to confer cellular protection is not only likely to be safer but also to potentially offer improved egg viability over existing technology. Similar potential exists for the preservation of organs for transplantation and could complement emerging techniques for whole-body preservation.”
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2019-01-extremophile-secret-treatment-devastating-injuries.html#jCp
Yeah that hits quite a few of my buttons!
Side note: Not the least of which was my artistic side because of the illustration of the Tardigrade at the top. I have recently been working on hyper realistic vector based illustrations of arthropods. I’m working on a series titled: ‘Where Have all the Monarchs Gone’. So I am now paying extra attention to scientific illustration.
This is a very low resolution jpeg of one of my recent illustrations of a Monarch caterpillar on a leaf fragment. As Ken Robinson said about 7 year old William Shakespeare. “Must do better” 😉
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True Fred, we are fast approaching the long Silent Night.
While the climate scientists were trying to figure out which end the climate sensitivity was on, the world had not a clue to the biological sensitivity. Or at least they ignored it with typical cavalier attitude toward nature.
I find it especially ironic that while I’m drawing Monarch caterpillars, Bloomberg reports this…
(Bloomberg) — Caterpillar Inc. just reported the biggest quarterly profit miss since at least the beginning of 2008, sending its shares plunging.
The construction and mining equipment maker, widely considered a bellwether for the global industrial economy, reported a fourth-quarter profit that lagged analysts’ average estimate by 44 cents a share. According to Bloomberg data, this is the biggest miss reported by the company since at least the first quarter of 2008, which is the farthest the data goes back.
Very Big Sigh!
Not to worry, there is still plenty of carbon based life left on earth, Just not the ones we relate to very easily. Which is probably best for them.
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/29/17386112/all-life-on-earth-chart-weight-plants-animals-pnas
And who knows, maybe after a while all that newly released and to be released carbon will herald a fantastic explosion of life across the planet.
Not to worry, there is still plenty of carbon based life left on earth, Just not the ones we relate to very easily.
Ok, but let’s just say I’m still kinda worried because of this:
What’s missing from this chart is just as important
Yet despite our small biomass among animals, we’ve had an overwhelmingly huge impact on the planet. The chart above represents a massive amount of life. But it doesn’t show what’s gone missing since the human population took off.
To be sure, it is a very safe bet that there will be some forms of life on this planet for a very long time to come.
We are replacing biomass with garbage.
http://www.theworldcounts.com/counters/shocking_environmental_facts_and_statistics/world_waste_facts
OT: But interesting
1853 — Cuba: Revolutionist José Martí (1853-1895) lives, Havana. Cuban poet, essayist & journalist, who became symbol of Cuba’s struggle for independence. The popular song “Guantanamera” is based on a poem by Martí. Worked on underground papers & sent to jail & forced into exile (three columns & you’re out?)
Industrial civilization may be headed to hell in a hand basket, and past tipping points that mean that destination is a dead sure thing.
Or maybe not.
I tend to believe that some people and some societies have a shot, how good a shot it’s impossible to say, of surviving the coming crash, while preserving such things as working water and sewer systems, well stocked grocery stores, fire departments, cops mostly honest and plentiful, etc.
The rest of the world …… I think countless people are going to die hard and often slow as well in various parts of the world. The death toll could mount to as high as eighty percent or more of the global population, in several worst case scenarios.
So I am NOT a cornucopian, but I do believe that there is some hope for us as a species, even if most of the biosphere croaks. Some of us will likely make it so long as the atmosphere has enough oxygen, and some of the more digestible species of plants survive, etc.
And there are some bright spots, in terms of non renewable resources.
Some that appear to be in very short supply may turn out to be plentiful at higher prices that are still not so high as to be out of reach.
Lithium is one such resource. It appears that there are plenty of places with lots of lithium that can be extracted at more or less affordable prices. Maybe there’s enough that’s accessible that we can build electric cars by the tens of millions, eventually, and by the time they are worn out, we will have enough lithium to recycle to get by…… given that the population is just about dead sure to decline substantially, and that we can actually live ok with damned few personal cars or trucks. Railroads and street cars and buses can come back, given time and the NECESSITY of such comebacks.
https://electrek.co/2019/01/25/tesla-talks-lithium-warren-buffett-geothermal-wells-california-report/#disqus_thread Maybe a truly sustainable industrial civilization IS impossible, over the long term, meaning several centuries or longer.
But by husbanding such resources as are still available, it appears to be possible for the world economy to approach a sustainable state, so that industrial civilization can last for quite some time, barring bad luck….. maybe several centuries….. by which time the population might have dropped far enough that burning enough coal to maintain the status quo might not be much of a problem, etc.
I don’t think anybody can say FOR SURE either way.
Thought you might enjoy this:
Hecklers Attack Howard Schultz At Event After He Teases Presidential Bid
“Don’t help elect Trump, you egotistical billionaire asshole!” one heckler shouted at the possible presidential candidate. “Go back to getting ratioed on Twitter!”
It only took a few minutes before the first heckler lashed out at former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz during his Monday evening book event at a Manhattan Barnes & Noble.
The comments received light boos, and the man was quickly escorted out. Then a few minutes later, a second heckler spoke up.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/howard-schultz-heckled-book-event_us_5c4fc96fe4b0f43e410a3ec2
You ain’t seen nothing yet. Just wait if he really starts to run seriously. You will get “Boycott Starbucks” movements all over the USA. Starbucks stock will plummet.
And my opinion is he is a selfish sonofabitch, just like Ralph Nader was.
For all the advocates of Renewable Energy sources, the immanent declaration of bankruptcy by PG&E tomorrow (1/29), holds enormous repercussions – potentially – for everal firms that supply solar and wind sourced electricity to the California market.
Sidestepping the eye glazing details, a number of wind and solar suppliers are protected by pre arranged Power Purchasing Agreements (PPAs) with PG&E.
These essentially guarantee a revenue stream that may be well above market rates (The Block Island offshore PPA escalates to an ultimate 48 cents per kilowatt hour, the equivalent to $480/Mwh …about 10 times higher than today’s wholesale rate).
As PG&E will come under the powerful jurisdiction of the federal bankruptcy court, renewable suppliers fear that their now protected, above market contracts will be voided.
Gee Coffeeguyzz, one might almost misconstrue your post as a form of gloating at someone else’s misfortune…
In the big picture it probably doesn’t matter all that much anymore. Fossil fuels advocates are in just as bad a place, if not worse. IMHO, much worse!
If you haven’t already, you might want to read this:
http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-january-17-2019/#comment-665136
What you call enormous repercussions pale in comparison to what you should really be worried about.
Cheers!
The cold weather this week in the midwest should be a reminder to all, that a strong grid and a considerable percentage of baseload power is critical for certain times.
article on polar vortex-
https://phys.org/news/2019-01-science-polar-vortex-outbreaks.html
Globally-
For the year 2018 as a whole, 430 stations set all-time heat records, and 40 set all-time cold records. With global warming steadily increasing the baseline temperature of the planet, it becomes harder and harder to set all-time cold records.
“ADAPT or PERISH”
Once upon a time, Dinosaurs were the most powerful beings on Earth.
Suddenly, their environment changed dramatically,
and these powerful giants could not adapt.
Millions died while weaker animals became the fittest and survived.
Climate Change Theory =
more 500 year floods;
more super tornadoes;
more super hurricanes;
more heatwaves;
more wildfires;
more droughts.
These disasters will likely kill many humans,
and possibly the animals we need for food,
and the trees we need for wood.
The remaining question is,
how many human societies will be able to adapt quickly,
and wisely enough to survive?
The dinosaurs survived in some form – one of them was the common ancestor for all the bird. Wonder if primates or mammals will leave anything like that, if so I think it would likely be coming from something a lot smaller than us
Just be glad birds descended from the theropods not the sauropods, your car will be forever grateful.
NAOM
Ready for a China $5000 ePickup? Wonder how they get around the Pickup US import ban?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaS8LIe001A
Picked up these links over at realclimate.org
Scientist Warning from COP24 The Extinction Rebellion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byiWsQaKnQU
Emotional toll of climate change Scientist’s version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Yi7QxnNvQk
Sunrise Movement. A Youth Movement to stop climate change and create millions of good jobs in the process.
https://www.sunrisemovement.org/about/
I’m a big Tesla fan, although I can’t afford one and wouldn’t spend more than maybe five grand for a car even if I had ten million, except maybe a collectible car apt to appreciate in value. There are tons of better options, better ways to spend money, than on expensive cars.
Nevertheless I’m a fan because Tesla is moving the needle towards electricity, sourced eventually mostly from with and sun, and away from oil, which depletes and brings on resource wars… not to mention providing the money some of our enemies use to inflict countless little cuts, and a few big ones ( so far only a few big ones) on our society.
But here’s a lesson for people who think a Tesla might be cheap to own, in terms of repairs. There will for a hell of a long time be essentially nothing available on the aftermarket that matters, and it could be that nobody, other than a Tesla employee, will ever know enough about the electronics to solve electronic problems.
This link may be missing something……. but if not, it’s scary how much it costs to fix a problem on a Tesla.
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/01/28/350000-miles-in-a-tesla-model-x-just-18000-in-maintenance/
Eighteen grand for three relatively basic repairs is right up there in Ferrari territory. Axles and halfshafts are simple mechanical components, and while the rear brakes may have some electronics above and beyond other cars………. they still consist basically of calipers, rotors and pads, and I doubt very seriously that it took a Tesla mechanic more than three, maybe four hours max, to swap out the parts.
Considering the relative simplicity of electric drive trains, it probably takes a lot less time to swap out axles and such as well, due to access likely being easier and so faster.
I wonder how long it will be before a typical electric car has typical repair costs, for similar repairs, as compared to a more or less equivalent conventional car.
My local parts supplier, the one I use most often because that’s the one that has damned near anything you can get aftermarket for damned near any popular car, tells me I can fuggetaboutit as far as buying parts for say a Chevy Volt…. except maybe tires, light bulbs, and a few pieces of trim that often get broken in minor accidents, etc. There simply isn’t enough market for aftermarket parts for anybody to bother manufacturing them.
So if you own a Volt………. you’re pretty much at the mercy of the Chevy dealership. They charge three times as much for a typical new alternator as I pay aftermarket……… and aftermarket I get free exchange as long as I own the car. New original equipment…… a year typically.
Nissan Leaf repair costs.
The Nissan Leaf Reliability Rating is 4.0 out of 5.0, which ranks it 3rd out of 4 for alternative fuel vehicles.
The average annual repair cost is $636 which means it has average ownership costs. The severity of repairs is average and the frequency of those issues is low, so major repairs are uncommon for the Leaf.
https://repairpal.com/nissan/leaf
Chevy volt comes in at $582 annual repair.
We presented models for ENSO (i.e. the El Nino behavior) and a few other climate indices at the American Geophysical Union meeting last month in DC and the presentation PDF is now available from the ESSOAR archive here:
https://www.essoar.org/doi/10.1002/essoar.10500568.1
The AGU is an interesting crowd
Hi Paul,
I downloaded the PDF file but there seems to be something wrong with some of the text in the file.
Could you please check it.
Tks!
The repository evidently places text disclaimers over the PDF, much like the librarians did when Newton, Laplace, and Boltzmann wrote their seminal papers.
Probably can pony up several hundred $ and purchase Acrobat Pro to remove the text.
Nah, I have other software that can do the job, no worries! I was just too lazy!
I refuse to support Adobe products these days. I still bear a grudge from the days when I purchased an upgrade to Illustrator and they had changed a specific keyboard sequence I had been using for over a decade… never forgave them for that one!