77 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, June 19, 2021”

  1. “Amanda Ripley does not like to think of any conflict as unsolvable. Her new book, “High Conflict,” reveals that progress is possible even in the most bitter, entrenched, and violent clashes.

    The genesis for Ms. Ripley’s book was the political divide in the United States. She began wondering how ordinary people become mired in extreme, yet commonplace, polarization. It’s the type of strife that keeps people awake at night, encourages them to start flamethrower tirades on Twitter, or entices some to cut off relationships with friends and family. In what she terms high conflict, one imagines adversaries as evil and less than human.

    Ms. Ripley, an investigative journalist for The Atlantic, went searching for examples of people and communities who had been stuck in high conflict and found a way out. That quest led her to meet with Democrats in New York City and Republicans in rural Michigan. In the rival gang territories of Chicago and in civil war-torn Colombia, Ms. Ripley met individuals who’ve put down their guns and now help others to extricate themselves from violent disputes. She even consulted experts for NASA who work on diminishing conflict among crews of astronauts in space.

    The pull of conflict can be hypnotic. But in her book “High Conflict,” Amanda Ripley explores how it is broken by genuine listening. As part of our Respect Project, she talks with the Monitor about how we can all find practical ways forward.

    Ms. Ripley describes high conflict as an invisible force with a hypnotic pull. The initial reason for various disputes becomes less important than the self-perpetuating, us-versus-them battle that takes on a cosmic importance for those in its thrall. The Monitor spoke with the author about how to become aware of high conflict, how to avoid getting drawn into it, and why the dry kindling for conflagrations can be dampened by showing genuine respect for others.“

    https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2021/0519/Is-any-conflict-unsolvable-This-author-doesn-t-think-so?j=517050&sfmc_sub=123912090&l=1220_HTML&u=19096717&mid=10979696&jb=1008&cmpid=ema:Politics:20210613&src=newsletter

  2. OFM- on those last thoughts regarding self sufficiency, I am pretty pessimistic about any country having all the pieces of the puzzle to keep a complex industrial economy going without extensive trade.
    Some will have enough energy, some will have plenty of water, or copper, or vanadium, or cotton, or a functional culture.
    But few to none will have all of the ingredients needed to get by without ‘globalization’. At least not in any kind of modern way.

    Their are very few partnerships that would be better than the USA/Canada. Australia/Indonesia could be a powerhouse, but the cultural differences are huge. And of course Russia would prefer to bring back a half dozen of the choice former members of the Soviet Union. And the southern half of S. America has a lot going for it, assuming Argentina would learn someday how to manage itself better.

    The big challenge for Europe is energy. Going to have to find a way to get along with Russia.

    1. As a Canadian, I can tell you that the USA/Canada “partnership” is not as rosy as you depict it. We are getting tired of the USA imposing tariffs on Canadian lumber, aluminum, steel, etc. and then, after losing the dispute in trade “court”, saying “We don’t give a shit if we’re wrong, we still want to impose tariffs”. It has happened over and over, no matter which president is in office.

      1. I am not depicting a rosy relationship, just saying there is a strong partnership potential based on the attributes of each, theoretically.
        I don’t think of the USA as anyone’s good neighbor.
        Its a very troubled country as it now stands.

      2. If anyone wishes to have body & soul united no longer, it is a simple task to accomplish; just sew an American flag to your backpack and trying hitchhiking across any other country on the planet. Canada is likely not an exception.

        1. I think that in most countries people with an American flag on their backpacks (with the possible exception of some countries in the Middle East) will be treated well, at least in Russia for sure. Although in the Russian Federation more than 90% have the ideology of patriots of their country and consider the United States an enemy The Russian Federation and the “world evil”, everyone I know separates Americans as citizens and the American government fulfilling the “evil mission of democratization.” As I think so …

          1. Good to hear, and I have found here that in the USA people from Russia are universally welcome. For most of the people of the world, they may have (learned) disdain for a particular government, but do generally see the people as separate from it.

            However when you wave a flag, you are pronouncing alignment with the government or organization. I don’t own an American flag, because it would be a show of support for too many bad things that have happened, and too many policies that have been extremely cruel.
            The same can be applied to all countries.

            1. Hickory you are probably right. The responsibility is always with the government.
              1. The US government throughout history has been effective in achieving its goals, which cannot be said about the evaluation of it by the rest of the world. The US government has partnerships with the media, they form the necessary mood in society. With regard to the Russian Federation, there is a negative one, they form the image of an enemy. In the entire history of the Russian Federation and the USSR, not a single film has been filmed where Russians would kill American servicemen. From 1945 to 1965, dozens of American reconnaissance aircraft were shot down on the territory of the USSR. Not a single Russian over the United States. American military bases are located around the world, this is due to with the messianic worldview of the US government.
              2.For an objective assessment of politics, several things from the economic sphere are needed:
              -Trade balance of the country.
              -Real GDP reflecting only industrial and rural production. Gross and calculated per capita. It is also important to have correct and not speculative estimated prices of goods.
              So the US government has always been very effective, since the trade balance has always been negative. The US GDP (including services) was approximately about 10% of world consumption, more than 15% of world GDP. Now the numbers could change, but the order is approximately the same.
              Corrupt oligarchs came to power in the Russian Federation and the result of their rule is exactly the opposite: the trade balance is positive-export = about $ 370 billion is imported for $ 250 billion. The difference consists of the profits of Western companies that bought assets in the 90s at low cost and the local bourgeoisie, which became fabulously rich for the last 30 years, together with officials …
              Well, ordinary people cannot influence anything …

            2. ‘Well, ordinary people cannot influence anything’…
              It often seems that way. The super wealthy around the world generally have things running optimally for them.
              But ordinary people can have a very big effect, especially when working together.
              When he was born, Martin Luther King was a common man, and so were some of the recent American Presidents, including both the American President and Vice president currently, for example.
              And in this country of 330 million, sometimes only a few votes makes all the difference between a tilt to the super wealthy or fascism vs a tilt towards economic democracy and human rights.
              And lets not forget that ordinary people elected an ordinary man to be the leader of Germany in the early 1930’s.
              The average person can a role in promoting great good or great evil.

              I would like to see a day when the USA and Russia see each other as allies once again.

            3. “I would like to see a day when the USA and Russia see each other as allies once again.”
              I also hope so, especially since there are no fundamental differences and clashes of interests between the countries.

            4. On most days, I feel like here in the USA our biggest political enemies are living right within our borders. It wouldn’t take much for this for this country to fragment. Almost happened during this past presidency.

              I have long thought that Russia joining NATO would be a good move all around.

            5. “On most days, I feel like here in the USA our biggest political enemies are living right within our borders. It wouldn’t take much for this for this country to fragment.”
              –
              I think it is not ethical to comment on the internal political situations in the United States without being a citizen of this country. I will only say that I was surprised by the choice of a clown with red bangs in the penultimate election. I am not talking about his program, but about the shocking style, which I consider unacceptable.
              As for NATO, in my opinion, it was created for a military confrontation with the USSR, which has long been gone, and the power of the bloc in comparison with the Russian Federation is several times higher. The entry into it of the Russian Federation makes the existence of the bloc meaningless.
              I consider it more necessary to adopt international strict laws obliging the preservation of borders and non-interference of external forces in the affairs of sovereign states with a guarantee of the leading powers. With the preservation of the status quo today …

  3. I agree at least to the extent that we would necessarily have to reduce our standard of living in some respects.
    And I understand that establishing some new industries and reestablishing some old ones that have been exported would be a slow, tough, and expensive process.

    But I can’t see that there’s any industry a country such as the USA, especially in partnership with Western Europe, couldn’t operate successfully.. so long as the necessary raw materials are available.

    We had plenty to eat farming with WWI technology.

    Sure a global market means economies of scale otherwise unattainable with a market limited to half a billion people or less.

    So far as I can see most of the computers sold in this country to individuals aren’t used for much more than email and fun and games.Last year’s model will generally run software published over the next five or ten years. We could easily get by with what we have in terms of computers. We could actually go backwards , if NECESSARY, in building cars and trucks, to obsolete designs.

    Nobody would be naked or cold if we were to cut clothing production in half,,,,,,,, and putting a million uneducated people back to work in textiles would get that million of the welfare rolls.

    With ten percent of our people working on farms again, we would have plenty to eat using WWII and or early fifties technologies.

    More than enough of us would live using WWII era medicines and medical practices.

    This academic question isn’t about living as well or better than we do now.

    It’s about survival as a country, or alliance, and as a culture and economy, in the face of overshoot and collapse.

    1. Doug , the effort you make to inform that there are other plays at work besides only peak oil is appreciated . Keep doing the good work .

  5. As of Sunday there were four possible storms forming, Generally they don’t all reach named status but it’s still a high number for June. What seems different from other years, but has been predicted for this one, is that they are heading more west than north west so more will impact the US and Caribbean. There’s the risk to GoM production but more important might be if they start hitting areas not yet recovered from previous events, that is when I think areas will start to be permanently abandoned.

  6. Meanwhile the drought in the South West (soon to be just West as a whole) is looking terrible, maybe the storm tracks will continue west over the Rockies, but that is just wishful thinking.

    1. Coldest first day of summer I have ever seen. By the way, the map is not correct, a halt of the drought is occurring in the northern tier of the map. There is rain and less hot and dry.

      You can believe what you want, but it is never what is really happening.

    2. Have any major storms ever crossed the Rockies from the East, in the lower to mid portion of the range?

      1. I am no meteorological historian but I doubt that has ever happened. In that part of the USA, the weather always moves west to east.

  7. The Arctic ice area is about to start seting new records. The ice is especially broken up and labile this year so, apart from the ocean heat encroaching from the Atlantic and Pacific, volume is being lost by drift through the Fram Strait to the death zones in the Greenland Sea (soon to be joined by thes Nares Strait and Baffin Bay).

  8. El Nino looks likely to be starting next spring with La Nina gone for the time being. The longer the heat builds in the oceans, especially in view of the latest NASA report above, the worse the atmospheric effects are going to be when it is released. It may be a relief for the US with a break in the drought and fewer hurricanes but who knows with rate ate which the climate is changing, but it’s going to be scorchio for the rest of the world and maybe devastating for the thin and weakened Arctic ice. There was a recent report that thickness has been overestimated as it partly depends on modelling of expected snow thickness, which is based on historical data, but because of increased atmospheric humidity and snow fall the assumed snow depth should be higher and hence the ice has been thinner.

      1. Be cautious with these forecasts : they are changing nearly every month. And what is shown is a maximum probability of neutral ENSO. So relatively low windshear on Atlantic…

    2. Ah oui, for US, but for us, we get in my town 60 mm of rain or nearly 2.5 inches in less than one hour with a supercell. That’s our first. There is a nice exposition of the contents of different basements in the streets around.

  9. DEFORESTATION IN BRAZIL AMAZON RAINFOREST SOARS 67 PERCENT

    “For the first five months of the year, the data show deforestation was up 25 percent compared with a year earlier, with 2,548 square kilometres (949 square miles) destroyed – an area more than three times the size of New York City. Deforestation peaks during the dry season – from May to October – when it is easier for illegal loggers to access the forest for valuable wood.”

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/11/deforestation-in-brazil-amazon-rainforest-soars-67-percent

    1. Meanwhile,

      RECORD HEAT IN NORTHWESTERN RUSSIA, SIBERIAN WILDFIRE SEASON KICKS OFF EARLY

      Siberia is seeing the first forest fires of 2021. It is believed that some have simply not been extinguished since last summer, have continued to smoulder and are rekindled with the arrival of milder temperatures and drier weather, the so-called zombie fires, happening mainly in frozen peatlands.

    1. The horror show, when it comes to the biosphere, is indeed real.
      Extinction real.

      note to self- keep in mind you are a part of the biosphere

      1. First day of summer in Maine, 90-degree heat, no significant rain in many weeks, tick populations up (I found a tick in my drinking glass yesterday), and for those of us who grow apples–FIRE BLIGHT!

        It is not to be believed: Every day I am cutting more “strikes” out of the orchard. I do not have the equipment or wherewithal to spray streptomycin on my trees, so I must tend to them like injured soldiers in a ward.

        And yet you would never know we’re on the cusp of disaster. On our little road, young males drive by much too fast in huge, ugly, loud trucks, which brings out murderous impulses in me.

        In my opinion, we’ve screwed the pooch.

      2. Note that some of hysteria about climate you read here could, in fact, be true somewhat, but as posts from George+Kaplan explain, if El Nino is a reason, it has nothing to do with us. It’s actually a lot more appropriate to discuss climate change as a series of changes that return earth to normative mean temperatures of the ancient past rather than as a catastrophe. Of course there will be some extinctions of inter glacial species, but that has happened to many species before humans even came along, so that’s not really “our” problem as some want you to believe.

        1. Guess atmospheric carbon dioxide went up by more than 40% in mere 100 years simply by coincidence then? Silly nature.

        2. Don’t drag me into your blinkered denier bullshit, we’re heading for a permanent El Nino state, quasi-regular cycles are going to disappear and instead we will have chaotic unpredictability and it’s ultimately due to CO2 from fossil fuels (i.e. us). This will be completely anathema to a cereal based civilisation and we will have long periods of incredible tedium interspersed with moments of fully justified terror with starvation, war, slavery, rape, torture, and death all around – I think within the lifetimes of anyone still of working age now, but maybe later. There’s a chance (slimmer by the day) that we could do something about it but not with your sort of dissonance averse cowardice holding any sort of sway among the general public.

  11. You can’t trust my analysis of nuclear energy since I am heavily biased against it- I just don’t trust humans ability to handle the whole radiation chain in a flawless manner.
    But others may believe in the flawless nature of humanity, and may therefore want to imagine what this company does- Seaborg. Floating modular molten salt reactors are its goal.
    https://www.nucnet.org/news/denmark-s-seaborg-attracts-private-funding-for-molten-salt-reactor-project-11-5-2020

    1. The technology of MSFR is still in the limbo…They are editing nice pictures and nice text to attract fools.

    2. Nuclear was uneconomical in the 70s. Dow Chemical and BASF had spent millions planning to operate their own reactors they intended to buy from established companies. Both scrapped their plans due to the huge investment required and the dubious economics and decided to just burn more fossil stuff instead.

      I fail to see how the “new” stuff would offer better specific cost considering, most of the currently proposed designs have a previous life as prototypes in the 50s and 60s. The really novel designs are barely more than computer hallucinations.

      With renewables still getting cheaper by the year, I fail to see an economically viable future for nuclear.

      1. There is still no really installation to store renewable energy.
        You’ll need 2 energy infrastructures: The direct usage, and backup energy when the production fails. This second infrastructure will cost more than the primary production – it will contain creating a storing medium, allocating space and ressources for the storage, and plants to convert it back flexible.

        And batteries can only be a small part of the solution – expensive and raw material intensive. And small capacity – you’ll need more storage than the day / night cycle from solar in a desert. Think of solar only delivering 20% for a few weeks, or wind calming for a few weeks, too.

        Speaking of wind – here in Europe it is already happenening that wind turbines shadow each other, especially in low wind times. So storage is even more necessary, and it needs to be bigger. To avoid switch offs, here in mid Europe a storage should contain round about 3 Weeks of total energy consumption, at least. 2-3 week periods of low wind with foggy weather are quite common in winter.

        Or you just take load from the system and go into modern fission / fusion or geothermic plants as addition. You need less storage then, and can fill it faster.

        You can check how fluctuating the production of alternative energies is, here our german production chart:
        https://energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=de&c=DE&interval=month
        You can flip through the years in this tool.
        For information, lot’s of coal and all nuclear will be switched off the next few years. How they want to manage this I can’t really understand – especially with going electric with cars in mind.

          1. Gerry , you jumped the gun . Read the article . All yakkity yak . Leave alone tech blueprint not even political discussions have started with the participant countries . They say they plan to start by 2027 . It is going to need lining the pockets of several politicians and bureaucrats specially since KSA is involved . BS .

          2. 2027 the first cable – planned.
            And it’s only a few GW – and it’s mostly solar, you’ll need a storage to have it 24/7. And in winter it can get cloudy in marocco, too.

            So – you still need an additional storage.

            Additional – this won’t come for a few Million $. All their calculation of the power line is naive in best case – a nat gas pipeline in this size would cost billions, and an experimental high tech cable will cost a lot more than a mere pipe made from steel.

            Big projects will always cost more than planned.

            Additional:
            All together, it won’t give more energy than an big atomic plant complex. Good, but not enough to be more than an addition.

            With the risks:
            – Defect on the cable – a under sea blow up of a multi GW cable will need months to repair
            – Politically instability in Morocco

            Going oversea solar would be better on going on hydrogen or ammonia in my opinion. Then you have the storage included, and so a real sollution.

        2. Eulensp… yes storage of energy important , and will cost money.
          Better to make it happen, rather than just go back to washing clothes by hand and cutting down all the worlds forests.
          Pretty easy choice. Lots of work to be done.

          note- hydrogen, ammonia, oil, charged lithium battery are all just forms of energy storage. Almost all of that energy in the world came form the sun.

  12. Nice to watch the team effort on curbing greenhouse gas emissions unfolding. Before you know it all the doom-and-gloom will be in a rear view mirror and we’ll be visiting protected wildlife parks to watch animals frolicking in pristine water holes — from our non-polluting EVs of course.

    WORLD’S COAL PRODUCERS NOW PLANNING MORE THAN 400 NEW MINES

    “China, Australia, India and Russia account for more than three quarters of the new projects, according to a study by U.S. think-tank Global Energy Monitor. China alone is now building another 452 million tonnes of annual production capacity.”

    https://www.reuters.com/world/china/worlds-coal-producers-now-planning-more-than-400-new-mines-research-2021-06-03/

    1. Meanwhile,

      MAY DEFORESTATION IN THE AMAZON HITS 14-YEAR HIGH

      • Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon rose sharply in May, reports the country’s national space research institute INPE.
      • According to INPE’s satellite-based deforestation tracking system, DETER, forest destruction in the Brazilian portion of the Amazon through the first 27 days of the month amounted to 1,180 square kilometers, an area 20 times the size of Manhattan.
      • Deforestation in May was the highest for any May dating back to at least 2007. The next highest May on record is May 2008, when 1,096 square kilometers was cut down.
      • Scientists are bracing for a bad fire season in the southern and eastern Amazon due to below average rainfall during the most recent rainy season. A resurgence of fire and deforestation in the Amazon is heightening concerns about the fate of Earth’s largest rainforest, which some researchers say could be approaching a point where vast areas transition toward drier habitat.

      https://news.mongabay.com/2021/06/may-deforestation-in-the-amazon-hits-14-year-high/

    1. No only in India- There are plenty of parts of the USA where the thinking is pretty lukewarm at best. A culture in decline.

  14. As the World Turns, I mean warms.

    MOSCOW BATTERED BY HISTORIC JUNE HEAT WAVE

    On Monday the temperature in the Russian capital hit 34.7 degrees Celsius (94.5 degrees F), matching the record for a June day hit in 1901. The weather service, which has kept records since 1881, is forecasting temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees F) on Thursday and Friday. “The increase in temperatures recorded in Moscow for these days is unprecedented in 120 years. This is because of global climate change.”

    The highest ever recorded temperature in Moscow — more than 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 degrees F) — was recorded in July 2010 when much of western Russia was hit by a massive heat wave and huge fires. Russia’s second city Saint Petersburg, some 600 kilometres northwest of Moscow, has also seen a heat wave this month, with temperatures hitting 34 degrees Celsius (93.2 degrees F), the highest since 1998.

    https://phys.org/news/2021-06-moscow-battered-historic-june.html

  15. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/21/by-land-sea-and-air-gm-to-expand-fuel-cell-business-beyond-evs.html

    Top management in the auto industry may never actually say so in so many words, but there’s little doubt in my mind that in quiet off the record conversations over drinks and cigars the collective judgement is that, having been handed the lemon of peak oil, they have no choice but to make the best of it, and adopt oil free or mostly oil free technologies.

    The seldom mentioned bull in the hydrogen vehicle China shop is that there’s no way of producing enough hydrogen to run the worlds vehicles and machinery…….. except to get it by stripping it out of water.

    I wonder how long it will take for the hard core right wing here in the USA to come to understand that every oil well eventually runs dry to the point it must be abandoned….

    And get behind the wind and solar electricity industries so they can continue to drive seven thousand pound vehicles to the store to fetch beer and groceries, lol.

  16. I don’t have any clear idea how long it will be before the overshoot shit is well and truly in the fan, in terms of forcing major involuntary changes in the way we live …….. but I don’t have any doubt these changes are coming, and my personal guess is that we will be belly to belly and nose to nose with some of them within the next decade or two, right here in the good ole USA.

    But there’s some reason to hope that some of our worst leaders are shooting their own feet off, and will have less and less influence as time passes.

    https://theweek.com/feature/analysis/1001754/the-us-catholic-bishops-are-making-american-catholicism-a-one-issue?utm_campaign=afternoon_newsletter_20210621&utm_source=afternoon_newsletter

    I don’t know a whole lot of Catholics well these days, having moved back to the hills, but I used to know a fair number, when I was in the city, and of the whole lot of them, only one or two families, out of at least a couple of dozen, paid any attention to the teaching of their Church on birth control.

    I expect that proportion is even lower today than it was a couple of decades back.

    And it’s very likely IMO that not more than one out of a dozen, maybe even less, young Catholic women of child bearing age will make the decision to terminate ( or otherwise) a pregnancy on the basis of their church’s teachings.

    The net effect of moves such as the one in this link will be to drive an ever larger portion of younger voters out of the Catholic Church….. just as right wing political foolishness is driving out ever more younger voters, and especially ever more well educated younger voters, out of the Protestant churches.

    I can say one thing for Baptist and other Protestant preachers.They’re smart enough it takes them only a couple of decades to come to understand that if they want a congregation with at least a few kids in the pews, they had best not say a whole lot about how Momma dresses, or whether she smokes, or works outside the house, or has a couple of glasses of wine or beer once in a while, lol.

    My personal estimate is that except in the mostly rural parts of the deep South, the political power of organized religion in this country will shrink by half within another twenty years.

    This is not to say that there won’t be enough religiously motivated voters to flip some otherwise competitive elections one way or the other, but this will be happening less and less often.

  17. So, it’s not worse than expected, it’s MUCH worse than expected.

    CRUSHING CLIMATE IMPACTS TO HIT SOONER THAN FEARED

    Climate change will fundamentally reshape life on Earth in the coming decades, even if humans can tame planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, according to a landmark draft report from the UN’s climate science advisors. Dangerous thresholds are closer than once thought, and dire consequences stemming from decades of unbridled carbon pollution are unavoidable in the short term. “The worst is yet to come, affecting our children’s and grandchildren’s lives much more than our own.”

    https://phys.org/news/2021-06-climate-impacts-sooner.html

    1. There’s a frighteningly growing trend in “worse than expected”-headlines and research regarding climate change!

      1. But the UN and government agencies would never try to deceive us, w-would they? 😕

    2. This is the latest UK climate risj assessment, issued every five years. The whole theme of the presentation is that things are much worse this time around because a) things are worse than expected five years ago, and b) the politicians have done pretty much nothing that they were recommended to do. UK organisitions do these sort of reports quite well I think, but they have no more impact with the PTB than any where else so to some extent you could say they are a bigger waste of time and effort than the others.

      https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/independent-assessment-of-uk-climate-risk/

      And to show how the UK s leading from the rear on climate change:

      “UK prepares to approve oilfield despite Cop26 climate conference.

      Ministers are set to approve a new North Sea oil and gas project months before Britain hosts a global climate change conference in Glasgow.

      Under proposals submitted to the government, developers behind the Cambo heavy crude field off the coast of the Shetland Islands expect to extract 150 million barrels of oil — roughly equivalent to operating 16 coal-fired power stations for a year.

      Setting up and powering the oil rig will emit more than three million tonnes of carbon over the project’s lifetime.

      The oilfield is expected to operate until 2050, by which time Britain has pledged to be net carbon neutral. However, the project will not be covered by the government’s “climate checkpoint”, which will assess whether new oilfield developments are “compatible with the UK’s climate change objectives”, because it was licensed for exploration in 2001 and 2004.”

      Net zero is turning into a hell of a con game.

  18. Surface temperatures in Siberia heat up to a mind-boggling 118 degrees

    Temperature-tracking satellites are monitoring sweltering heat above the Arctic Circle.

    It’s not just the Western region of the US that’s sweltering right now. Siberia in Russia is baking, and satellites are bearing witness to a brutal heat wave above the Arctic Circle. Copernicus Sentinel-3A and Sentinel-3B satellites captured a snapshot of land surface temperatures on June 20, and it was hot.

    According to NASA, “Land surface temperature is how hot the ‘surface’ of the Earth would feel to the touch in a particular location.” The Sentinel image shows a peak ground temperature of 118 degrees Fahrenheit (48 degrees Celsius) near Verkhojansk, a small town usually known for its extreme cold temperatures.

    The World Meteorological Organization has been tracking the rise in temperatures around the world. “The most dramatic change is in the Arctic, which is warming more than twice as fast as the global average,” the agency said Monday in a statement aimed at raising awareness of the urgency to act on the climate crisis.

    1. 2 days ago, I had to put on a light jacket when I was out pumping gas. There was a cold stiff wind blowing in from the north.

      1. William- not nice to brag about having a little cool weather during global warming.

  19. Government agencies generally lead from behind, especially on unpopular issues.

    I don’t see much change in behavior of individual people in regard to energy consumption- direct or indirect.
    Whatever is convenient, whatever is exciting, whatever is comfort or prestige enhancing,
    is exactly what people choose with their wallet (credit/bitcoin/yuan/peso/whatever).
    People drive and fly, and purchase, on a whim.

    The climate is not an important issue to the vast hoard.
    It is too much an issue for tomorrow, or for the other valley, or for the worried intellectual.

    The greenhouse gas problem will improve once we run out of inexpensive fossil fuel [assuming the methane beneath the sea and permafrost stays below the surface].
    By that time the damage to relative stability will be baked in the cake.

  20. This is bloody awful. If I wasn’t depressed before I am now.

    WATER CRISIS ‘COULDN’T BE WORSE’ ON OREGON-CALIFORNIA BORDER

    “The water crisis along the California-Oregon border went from dire to catastrophic this week as federal regulators shut off irrigation water to farmers from a critical reservoir and said they would not send extra water to dying salmon downstream or to a half-dozen wildlife refuges that harbor millions of migrating birds each year.”

    https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/correction-western-drought-klamath-basin-story-77874353

    1. Closer to home.

      DANGEROUS HEAT WAVE WARNING ISSUED FOR B.C. INTERIOR

      Along with Environment Canada, the RCMP, BC SPCA, Interior Health, Central Okanagan Emergency Operations and others are warning that the duration of this heat wave is concerning as there is little relief at night with elevated overnight temperatures. This record-breaking heat event will increase the potential for heat-related illnesses and increase the risk of wildfires due to drought conditions.

    2. The recent drought monitor map shows a severe drought starting in Maine. Here in the southern part of the state, we’re battling lack of rain and high winds–and fire blight in the apple orchards, which is a bacterial disease promoted by hot weather during bloom season. This shit has been going on in the spring for five years now. This is pretty stressful, but what is happening in N. Cal is just unimaginable. Except that it isn’t unimaginable any more.

  21. Curious to find out why/how a big building just falls down? Subsidence?

    1. The building, which was constructed in 1981, has been sinking at an alarming rate since the 1990s, according to a study in 2020 by Shimon Wdowinski, a professor in the Department of Earth and Environment.

      1. I see that it is 6 ft above sea level, right on the seaward edge of a sandy island.
        This would make a fitting prologue in the story about how Miami didn’t work out in the 21st century, as luxury motor boats jet past in the background….cut to a commercial promoting Carnival Cruise Lines.

      2. Doug, Hickory, George,

        The building was built on reclaimed wetland. It’s been sinking 2 millimeters a year since 1990 but nearby buildings have not. I’m guessing that the sinking part is the part that collapsed.

        Yep, the bedrock in Florida is mostly limestone. When neighbors said last year that they were moving to Florida I remarked, casually as is my wont, “You’re out of your mind–a water-soluble state in a hurricane track.”

    2. Isn’t the bedrock all limestone on the southern tip of Florida? At the best of times, with it open to seawater as well as precipitation, that can lead to sinkholes, but if the equilibrium is upset so seawater is more acid and the sea level rising, allowing more frequent and higher volume of seawater intrusion, there could be all sorts of accelerated dissolution going on in places. That’s complete speculation on my part of course, but fits in with the “it’s worse than we thought’ theme if true.

  22. If this doesn’t make you weep a galaxy of tears… then you must be human.

    “A new study predicts massive range declines of Africa’s great apes — gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos — due to the impacts of climate change, land-use changes and human population growth. Under the best-case scenario, the authors predict that great apes will lose 85 percent of their range [By 2050].

    Maybe the whole primate experiment was a bad one, or perhaps just the branch we fell out of?

  23. Don’t fret folks, apparently it’s all going to be “green oil”.

    MEGA OIL PROJECT IN RUSSIA’S FAR NORTH

    “Rosneft says the Vostok Oil project will tap into an estimated six billion tonnes of oil reserves across two oilfields, producing 30 million tonnes of oil in 2024 and reaching 100 million tonnes annually by 2030. The plans include the construction of 15 towns for 400,000 oil workers, a port, two airports, 800 kilometres of pipeline and 3,500 kilometres of electrical line. This network of pipelines, roads and electrical lines will criss-cross the Arctic tundra, a treeless expanse across which reindeers travel hundreds of kilometres.”

    Speaking at the Petersburg International Economic Forum earlier this month, Sechin said the project will produce “green barrels of oil”. He told the conference the project’s carbon footprint will be 75% lower than the average of other major new oil projects as methane gas and wind will be used to power production. The oil’s low sulphur content, he says, means the refining process can be less emissions-intensive.

    Meanwhile, Axel Dalman, associate oil and gas analyst at Carbon Tracker, told Climate Home that while it was “perfectly possible” for Rosneft to reduce its emissions from its production process by 75%, this did not take into account the much larger share of emissions resulting from the oil being burnt. “Calling it ‘green barrels of oil’ is quite misleading when you consider that 85% of the emissions in a barrel of oil happen at the consumption stage.”

    https://www.climatechangenews.com/2021/06/25/mega-oil-project-russias-far-north-threatens-arctic-indigenous-communities/

    2. “Rosneft says that the Vostok Oil project will allow to use approximately six billion tons of oil at two fields, producing 30 million tons.”
      —
      It is unlikely that there are such reserves. Too optimistic. The project has already begun to be realized. Website: https: //www.rosneft.ru/press/releases/item/206375/ More: http://vostok-oil.ru/
      In addition, they plan to build a giant coal transshipment terminal in the port of Dikson (30 million tons per year), there is a deposit of a unique low-sulfur high-energy coal nearby, the issue of ownership (the owner of the company committed suicide).
      As for emissions, it would be useful to reduce industrial output (and therefore to reduce emissions) through repairable reliable equipment, interchangeable units by introducing international standards (well, there are charging units, refrigeration units, glass for electric stove doors, etc.), but this contradicts the established economic strategy – Everyone should buy more and, after a short exploitation, throw away then buy new in order to ensure demand and utilization of production facilities.

    3. Don’t loose your sleep over this . Will not be done because it cannot be done , just like the solar projects in KSA already explained on the other thread . We are going to hear and see a lot of yakkity yak from now on . 2018 was the world peak and that is the final nail in the coffin of industrial civilisation . Sleep well .

      1. What makes you so sure?

        RUSSIA STARTS WORK ON ARCTIC PORT FOR $110BN VOSTOK OIL PROJECT

        “Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft has begun work on its Sever Bay terminal in preparation for an immense project to develop a Siberian oil field. Located on the Taymyr peninsula on the Kara Sea coast, the port will house Russia’s largest Arctic oil terminal. All construction materials for the remote site are delivered by ship, and so far 20,000 tons of heavy machinery, living quarters, and communications equipment have been delivered.”

        https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/russia-starts-work-arctic-port-110bn-vostok-oil-pr/

        1. Doug , simple . The equation is:- there is no ” nett surplus ” energy now available for these type of projects . Even if they succeed ( which I am confident they will not ) it will be a white elephant . They have started work but will they finish it ? This is not an electrical switch with an “on” ” off ” toggle . This is a long term project . Many a slip between the cup and the lip . Let me add that from now you are going to have many announcements as to how we are going to continue BAU . All will be BS crap like the ” green deal ” . Peak oil is a bitch plus decline , depletion , rust and age never sleep . Best of luck to VDP .

        2. Doug Leighton I’m not at all sure about anything. Yes, I believe the project will be successfully implemented. Most likely they will be able to produce 30 million tons of normal oil.
          But the fact that after a while they will reach 100 million tons per year (about 2 million barrels) in 2030
          I doubt, and in general ever at such a level. The fact is that the exploration is not over.

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