Please place all comments not related to petroleum in this thread.
368 thoughts to “Open Thread- Non-Petroleum, October 11, 2018”
THE STUFF NIGHTMARES ARE MADE OF
“We have so many causes in our world, so many voices, so many injustices and so many opportunities. But in the end, it all might come to nothing, for the one great challenge overriding all others continues to remain an outlier. The world has known of the coming climate apocalypse for decades and warnings have been publicized from every major venue on the planet, and yet so little has actually been accomplished for all the promises that have been made. All those causes mentioned earlier are fighting for the world’s attention, yet they refuse to come together and cooperate on that one issue that transcends their efforts and their outcomes. Every cause is important, but only one cause supersedes all the others. We’ve known that. We’ve prevaricated. We’ve stalled. Governments have refused to challenge their own populaces because, well, harsh actions for sustainability don’t win elections. And the rest of us have just gone on shopping, wasting, and waiting for others to do something.”
“Royal Dutch Shell and its four Asian investors agreed to pony up C$40 billion of capital spending, seven years after first rolling out what is rated as THE BIGGEST INFRASTRUCTURE UNDERTAKING IN CANADIAN HISTORY and a project that could boost global LNG supplies by 10 percent.”
BTW, there will be unanimous First Nation participation. “One of the most encouraging breakthroughs involved the unanimous backing of 25 elected First Nations along the pipeline right of way. They have all signed on for benefits agreements, with operator TransCanada conditionally awarding C$640 million worth of contracting and employment opportunities to indigenous businesses, but a company spokeswoman would not say whether those deals include revenue sharing from the pipeline’s profits.”
MURKOWSKI IS TAKING HEAT FOR HER KAVANAUGH VOTE. BUT HER SUPPORT FOR ARCTIC DRILLING COULD HELP HER.
“Murkowski wrote a landmark piece of legislation opening 1.5 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, in northeastern Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling. With Trump’s signature at the end of last year, anywhere between 4.3 and 11.8 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil will be eligible for extraction, according to a 1998 U.S. Geological Survey estimate. Nearly every elected official the state has sent to Washington before Murkowski over the past three decades – including her own father, former senator and governor Frank Murkowski – had tried and failed to open that remote coastal plain in Alaska’s North Slope to fossil-fuel extraction.”
What pathetic pieces of shit these people are!
I said way back when that sooner or later there would be money enough on the table to buy the First Nations .
Hey Mac, good to see you back! How’s the campaigning going? What’s your sense of the mood in your neck of the woods?
Poverty corrupts.
Can you see Texas up there on your high horse?
LOL
It sounds like you felt my comment was excessively judgmental. And, as best I can tell, your comment is meant to be…judgmental…
Not sure. Been told that pointing out someone’s judgmental-ism is an observation, not itself being judgmental.
I suppose that’s possible, but I think that’s hard to do. In this case, look at the tone of the comment…
Yeah, and Trans Mountain will go through as well. Two things about BC LNG. It’s 8 days closer to Asia than US supplies, and it’s not US supplies. Sometimes when trade wars start up and allies are rebranded as enemies, there are changes in markets and buying trends.
BC population is by and large very pleased with this announcement. I am, in any event. As Chretien once said, “If we don’t sell our oil they’ll just buy it from someone else”. It seems similar to the war on drugs. Demonize the growers. Demonize the cartels. Demonize the street dealers. But no one ever talks about the demand.
I don’t see a change until gas is $10/gallon and a few US cities are underwater and GW is no longer deniable for even the most land locked ignoramous. Who knows, maybe the economy will collapse with the same result? Hang on.
Remember, it’s already cheaper to operate an electric vehicle than a fossil-powered vehicle. It already has lower total cost of ownership. It’s already cheaper to generate electricity with wind or with solar or with existing hydro than with existing coal or with existing gas, let alone with oil. It’s already cheaper to deliver electricity from batteries than with “peaking” plants. Solar and wind and batteries and EVs continue to get cheaper.
Gasoline can’t compete on price with EVs unless it goes below $1/gallon. Natural gas can only compete on price with electric heat pump heating if it stays below $3.50/therm, and that price is currently subsidized by the unprofitable fracking companies.
The only reasons people are still using fossil fuels are (1) habit, and (2) insufficient production volumes for batteries, solar, wind, EVs, heat pumps, etc.
Basically, we just need to manufacture a hell of a lot more EVs, heat pumps, batteries, wind, and solar. That’s all. Drive fossil fuel producers bankrupt by eliminating their demand, and their political suport will go away too. It’s very simple.
Those kind of talking points aren’t just ignorance or even trolling. They’re part of a rhetorical frame to cancel out the science, like the UN report and the news this week because, the fears of Americans understand how dangerous this is to us, to our homes, to our children, it would be harder to defend the industry line of doing little to nothing about the climate and so we end up with the snowballs……[snip]
So with or without Scott Pruitt, we also see the Trump administration’s EPA making it easier for corporations to emit fossil fuels and evade rules for clean power, while energy companies have plowed over 10 million in the GOP races several elections in a row and those companies include coal corporations. The UN report says it’s especially to blame for the new surges in the Earth’s heat.
Now let’s be clear, it is hard sometimes to keep track of the science of how the earth is getting warmer, the details and Republican critics of global warming like to repeat the talking point that they themselves are not scientists behind climate change
Obviously Ari Melber and a significant portion of the US electorate get it. The fact is that the beneficiaries of the FF industries don’t wanna hear it, as if they will be able to use all the money they are making to insulate themselves from the effects of global warming. One only has to visit the web sites of “Think tanks” funded by FF interests to see that they are making a herculean effort to sow doubt about the science of climate change. One of the downsides of runaway capitalism is that it leads to a situation where extreme wealth allows the holders of that wealth to use it to stymie competitive threats.
Somebody needs to expose the money trail and file an antitrust suite against these mfs.
Here’s the problem -as I see it but keep in mind these are just my opinions- climate change has become synonymous with high carbon emissions. The two aren’t the same. It’s now undeniable that Earth is getting warmer, so if that’s the question being asked the results would be overwhelmingly yep. The reasons why are many -overdevelopment, slash & burn, mining, etc etc etc. All are contributors to warming the planet. Then there’s the elephant in the room of overpopulation with tens of millions of people added to the planet each year. Extra people contribute to warming.
If the issue got confined to just these areas, then there’s very little controversy because we can see these things with our own eyes. The problems arise when we move to CO2 emissions. We can’t directly see these so we have to rely on abstractness like fallible computer models. Therein lies the enormous issue. Most simply do not trust those who are behind models and who push them onto the public. They see this as an issue of control thru usage of data that can be made to say what those behind it wish to say by changing parameters and such.
Added to this are the statements by top scientists and environmentalists about how the ultimate goal is to change economic systems and living freedoms. Put in one additional elephant in the room, the Third World along with China and India -for the most part- are exempt from the emissions controls developed countries are subject to and it starts to looking like the proposed solutions are a prescription for New World Order. Thus so many get skeptical -not of the scientific theory- but the agendas behind the politicians bringing it up. Until that issue is completely addressed we cannot and will not reach any kind of meaningful consensus on what to do going forward.
Like you said, it’s your opinion! You are entitled to it, but it ain’t worth a bucket of warm spit!
Troll alert
“Until that issue is completely addressed we cannot and will not reach any kind of meaningful consensus on what to do going forward.”
Your talents are wasted. You should teach civics at Harvard.
It might possible be useful for someone to say that pretty much all of those statements just aren’t true – they’re just misinformation put out by people funded by oil and fossil fuel interests.
For example, there really aren’t any scientists saying that the goal is to change economic systems and living freedoms.
Nick G- “For example, there really aren’t any scientists saying that the goal is to change economic systems and living freedoms.”
If you keep saying stuff like that you will never make it as a Fox news Analyst. Careful.
Smells of a spambot churning out random statements.
NAOM
Yes. Any comments we leave are intended for other readers, who might be confused.
Yep, that is how I try to handle it.
I’ll bet that the coastal communities along the Florida Panhandle hit by hurricane Michael on Wednesday are going to find they no longer have an economy… And guess what, scientists are clear that hurricane intesity and storm surge has increasead due to human caused climate change. And everyone has the FREEDOM to pretend it isn’t so…
For the record, the main message of the SR15 report is exactly that our current economic system is a path to suicide! Its time to wake up and smell the coffee!
“Current economic system”? Where in the report does it say that?
In the entire report, all of it is a take down of the fossil fuel growth based global economy. And no it doesn’t spell it out in exactly those words but it is a thorough condemnation of the status quo. It says that only radical change in the way we live and do business will keep us from complete and utter disaster. IMHO there is no other way to interpret the Summary for Policy makers.
Fred,
Fossil fuel industries are desperately spreading the meme that climatologists are commies, using climate change as a pretext for their radical commie agenda. It’s worth paying attention to what you say to not give support to this idea.
Communists use coal, oil and gas. Capitalists and socialists use them.
Yes, getting rid of fossil fuels, and other sources of GHG emissions will be a big change. But that’s different. For instance, you can dramatically move the economy away from FF with a simple carbon tax, if you make it high enough. There’s no communism in a carbon tax – mostly just pain for FF investors.
And heat pumps, passive houses and EVs are better and more convenient than FFs. EVs can be and are built in the same factories, by the same workers. EVs drive on the same roads. There’s no communism necessary to electrification.
Even a circular economy doesn’t require communism. Heck, the US steel industry is almost entirely circular – I haven’t noticed any communists running US steel mills (though some of the old-time steel industry labor organizers might have other ideas…).
Nick, it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference what particular flavor of political or economic ideology a particular group of societies professes to believe in.
Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, Theocracies, Any number of Authoritarian fascist regimes, you name it! They all are part of a global economic system. Every single one of them runs mostly on fossil fuel. If you seriously believe that a report to world leaders telling them that they have to get off of fossil fuels as of the day before yesterday, has no major global economic implications, then I really don’t know what the hell you are smoking!
Fred,
Fossil fuels just aren’t that important. Sure, they’re important, but we’ve gone through lots of changes in the past that were just as large.
The move from an economy dominated by farms, to one dominated by manufacturing, was a big change. Heck, it precipitated the US Civil war as the balance of power shifted from the South to the North.
The move from horses to tractors was big. It precipitated the Great Depression by displacing millions of farmers. People blame the great migration on the dust bowl, but it was really tractors that caused the Crash and displaced all those people.
The move from coal to oil was big. It precipitated aviation, suburbs, new forms of warfare, etc., etc. But the basic form of our economy didn’t change.
No, fossil fuels are obsolete. Renewables and various forms of electrification are cheaper, cleaner, faster, better.
The only reason we don’t see it is the desperate rear guard action of oil interests, led by a decades-long misinformation campaign by the Koch family.
Economic System- An economic system is a system of production, resource allocation and distribution of goods and services within a society or a given geographic area.
I’m pretty sure that urgent action to phase out fossil fuel, which is what the IPCC report calls for, is gonna change the economic system. I’m also pretty sure that Nick G is a fact resistant human who lives in an alternate reality.
See my comment above. Also, ad hominem comments only make your comments look thoughtless and uninformed. Better to listen carefully to what people actually say. You might actually learn something, and if you express your ideas carefully, other people might actually learn from you!
To your comment about economic systems: they’re pretty agnostic to WHAT they distribute: they can distribute bicycles, horses, ICEs or EVs.
I believe we would be better off if economists can be recruited to tout a better system than scientists warning of the chaos to come. Promise of a better economy under renewable would get more attention.
NAOM
That is the approach I am seeing. Take my island home for example.
Jamaica, like many other small island states, has been hostage to the international oil markets, with it’s economy doing well when oil prices are low and the world economy is doing well driving commerce and tourism. However, when oil prices go up and the world economy slows down we face double jeopardy, with reduced income from bauxite/alumina exports and tourism occurring at the same time as increasing oil prices with their attendant impacts on foreign currency outflows and other rising cost due to increased transportation costs.
The beauty of transitioning to a renewable energy based economy is that fuel price volatility is just about eliminated. Renewable energy. once it reaches a large enough scale also has the potential to decouple economic activity (growth) from fossil fuel use. I suspect that there are several places in the world where this decoupling will soon be undeniable, as a matter of fact, Peter Newman of Curtin University, Perth, Australia has published a paper on the topic.
In 2016 the International Energy Agency announced that the world had changed. For the first time in hundreds of years the world was producing less greenhouse emissions than the year before without this being caused by an economic crisis [5] . In 2015 the amount of GHG emitted to the world’s atmosphere decreased by around 0.5% whilst economic growth continued at more than 3%. A few scientists had predicted this but mostly the fossil fuel lobby had been in complete denial over its possibility [6] .
Figure 1 shows that for the first time the industrial world was producing wealth without this meaning more fossil fuels and more emissions. Despite its huge implications for a world that has faced down the global climate issue for decades without much good news, the world’s media were virtually silent. Perhaps this was because the EIA (from the US Government Energy Information Administration) were more sanguine predicting a continued growth in GHG of 1%, though their data were only up to 2012 and in reality, they did not consider the possibility of major changes often picked up by groups such as Carbon Tracker [7] [8] . Indeed, Carbon Tracker has shown that the new trends in GHG are following the kind of projections made by the IPCC’s carbon emissions targets much more closely than any other conservative projections.
The decoupling of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from wealth (usually measured as GDP or GNI, gross national income) has been a UN agenda for several decades [2] [3] . The first signs of decoupling began in the 1990’s as Figure 1 indicates and their trajectories have been separating out quite rapidly for most of the 21st century. For many commentators and scientists, such as the IPCC, this relative decoupling was not significant enough for a world needing less total GHG until the actual decline in global emissions began. Now we appear to have reached a point where this can be seen in a peak in global greenhouse emissions. We now have absolute decoupling for the first time.
Interesting, now how do we get that into a circular steady state economy with no growth
NAOM
We’re already there, in part.
If you look closely at the statistical methods used by the US government (BEA, etc) you’ll see that they don’t require resource consumption growth. For instance, cars can have a higher value just because they offer higher quality or more features.
It’s not just that. The whole economic system, of more growth, more consumers, more… more… more… needs to move to a circular system. Economists need to get behind the end of growth in a finite system and that our current economic model is a path to total collapse. They need to promote the advantages of a fossil fuel free economy, a clean, quieter environment with new jobs for old.
NAOM
In the near future economists that specialize in ‘degrowth’ formulations will be in high demand, fueling growth in that specialty.
In a statement their spokeswoman decried the growth of their guild- “We are trying to limit our membership and income”, to no avail.
No growth isn’t necessary because the economy is measured in the value of the goods and services produced, not in terms of the costs.
Compare a potato and an iPhone for example. You love you iPhone and spent $800 on it (LOL). A potato costs a few cents and you destructively fry it, eat half of it and and throw the rest away.
But if you reverse engineer an iPhone you’ll find it is a crude piece of junk that was obsolete by the time it hit the shelves and will be laughed at in 5 years.
Good luck reverse engineering a potato. Human technology isn’t there yet. If an artifact like a smart phone ever does reach the sophistication of a potato, humans will probably be obsolete.
In the mean time there is vast room for growing the economy while reducing its environmental footprint.
Raymond Sloop, you are a perfect example of the result of FF interests making a herculean effort to sow doubt about the science of climate change. You have come here spouting the exact same bullshit talking points that are the standard fare of deniers, suggesting that you are a purveyor of FF industry sponsored science denial. If you are not a purveyor, you are a victim, being guided by the propaganda to think in ways the Koch brothers et al want you to think.
I’m pretty sure you would say all the fuss about the Y2k was a waste of money when in fact, the preemptive efforts made to avoid problems were largely successful and Y2K came and went largely without incident. Climate science is based on sound scientific knowledge and the scientists are trying to warn us about the consequences of increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere, before we pass certain tipping points which will have apocalyptic consequences. Your employers, assuming you are in fact on the payroll, just want to make sure they can continue to rake in the profits from the extraction and use of FF.
Since you’re so concerned about “economic systems and living freedoms”, here’s a thought for you. Fossil fuels are finite and in the case of oil, the peak of global production might be this year but, will not be later than 2030. If global oil production starts to decline next year, what will happen to your precious “economic systems and living freedoms”, that are predicted on continuous economic growth? The same measures that you and those of like mind are railing against, might just be the ones that allow some semblance of economic growth to continue in the absence of growing FF consumption. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
Ironic that the OP gets thrashed for pointing out that (paraphrase) this talk about climate change is scary, people don’t want to hear about changing economic systems.
And the UP – usual posters – spend the whole thread saying ridiculous!…. and then arguing about changing economic systems, and sub-topics such as whether electrification will necessitate a changing economic system.
LOL
Check out GoneFishing’s YouTube link for a good full picture
I got my new Tesla Model 3 last Friday and it is very nice. It is the AWD with long range battery (310 miles), for anyone interested the RWD model (long range battery) supposedly will be delivered in 4 weeks, if you get the car by Dec 31, 2018 you also get a $7500 Federal tax credit if you live in the US. I assume the 4 week delivery is for US and Canadian customers only, Europeans have just started getting their cars, so I imagine delivery time frames may be longer than 4 weeks. Don’t know about rest of the World and right hand drive cars will come later, not sure of that either.
Good luck. It will be interesting to hear your report. Tomorrow we head down Island in our 2009 Toyota Yaris. 🙂 Big rode trip for us, actually driving to another community. 🙂
Thanks Paulo.
Very nice so far. The nicest car I have previously owned was a Toyota Camry XLE, so not sure how it compares to a high end car, though I have been in a friend’s Audi A5 and it was very nice, but I didn’t drive that car. The “enhanced auto pilot” is essentially a lane keep assist and adaptive cruise control combined, it is a cool feature, but I have seen that on a Honda Civic, though the display is a little nicer on the Tesla in that it shows you where the car is in the lane.
I also have a 2009 Toyota Yaris– which I use instead of the Subaru.
I drive a 2004 Yaris, which is definitely suboptimal on the autobahn but gets me around town nicely. I am boycotting the car industry until they do electric.
My new car is a 2007 Saturn Aura. I paid $5,000 cash for it. It was a stretch.
It has the GM 3.6 V6 (high feature) engine, and a 6 speed transmission. It’s the nicest car I’ve ever had. I put Opel badges on it and it now it looks like a German Vectra.
Mostly it sits in my driveway because I have a bicycle.
Two college degrees and $5K will get you a decent used car.
What do you expect your range to be Dennis?
Hickory,
Still trying to determine, it will depend on the weather, I expect in fall and spring (no AC conditions) maybe 300 miles and in the winter about 200 miles, going on a longer trip this weekend, so we will get more info then. The battery pack is supposedly 75 kWhr and so far I have averaged about 310 Whr per mile in about 150 miles of driving, that would suggest only 242 miles of range, occasionally I have gotten 200 Whr/mile for short trips (10 miles or so), which would be 375 miles of range with a full charge on the battery. The 310 mile range suggests about 240 Whr per mile. Note that playing around with the acceleration of 0-60 in 4.5 seconds will not result in very long range. My 21 year old tested the acceleration for me, so that’s part of the low efficiency so far.
Short answer 310 miles in ideal conditions and 200 miles in severe cold or heat with no attempt to drive efficiently.
I have a hybrid. Going uphill to my house on the ridge really bites into the battery charge. But going down to town I gain a little back, with regen braking.
In any case, enjoy not hanging out at the gas station.
I have a 2017 Chevy Volt. It averages about 30.1 kWh/100 miles, or by your method 3o1 Whr per mile. Being an old fogie I don’t drive very far any more so, with an average range of 65 miles/charge, I haven’t put any gas in it since September 2017. the gasoline engine starts for 15 minutes about every other month on its own for, as it says, “maintenance. Up to about 45 miles/day I can charge overnight on 120 volts using the local green utility I pay 17 cents per kWh.
There is some loss of range, maybe as much as 10% in cold weather and on really cold days if left outside the gasoline engine starts specifically to warm the battery. Someone has done a lot of really clever engineering on this car.
I really like the powertrain but if I could get my hands on the kid who programed all of the cutsie messages I would throttle him (or her).
It’s a nice looking car too. How is the comfort and handling?
I have the 2017 Chevy Volt (wife drives it to work). It is an excellent car. The ride and handling is very good. The only annoying thing is that it doesn’t have Homelink. Hence we have carry the garage door remote inside the car.
I think it’s quite comfortable and drives nice. For comparison my wife has a 2010 Lexus. That’s a little nicer. The Volt is roomier but the one way it is far better than the Lexus is the electric powertrain. After driving an IC car, even the sophisticate Lexus V6, the electric motor is so smooth and the low RPM torque is a wonder.
Repeating myself I absolutely loath every electronic message. I actually get a message about every two weeks on the center dash screen that says, basically, “Do not look at this screen while driving you might crash and hurt yourself”. The display is in 1/4″ high letters and won’t go away until I push the button.
Wow only 10% in cold weather! Maybe it’s not that cold where you live, where I live 0 F or lower is not uncommon, so I thought perhaps 25 to 30% lower range on the coldest days. I will let everyone know this winter.
It was about 50 F this past weekend for my road trip (40 F to 60 F), so no need for either heat or AC, probably the best range I will get.
Dennis, it is about 10% loss of range in “normal” cold weather, up to 30% when you get down to 10F or lower.
I’m a snowbelt Model S owner.
Hi JJHMAN, so does this mean that the cost of driving 100 miles is about $5.00? 30,1 kwh * 17c ?
In which case about half the cost of buying petrol? 25mpg or 4 gallons * $2.50? = $10.00
Yes about $5.00/100 miles.
And indeed winters here are pretty mild. It is California ;>) but about 70 miles north of San Francisco. Not much freezing.
Thanks,
Yes we call that kind of weather Spring or Fall where I live, unless you are in the Mountains where it might be colder. 🙂
Some research suggests for very cold places (Canada) range at 0 F is about 50% of moderate weather (50 F). So long trips in winter may be a challenge.
Yes it has a battery heater, but real world experience of Canadians in 0 F weather suggests the battery heating and cabin heating uses up quite a lot of the battery so instead of 300 miles of range they get about 150 miles of range in very cold weather.
I will let you know what I see as I am almost in Canada, Northern New England and 0F is pretty common in January and February. So far for about 700 miles I have averaged 243 Whr (I am assuming trip odometer is accurate), the battery pack is about 75000 Whr, so average range has been about 308 miles (weather has averaged roughly 55 F, so no need for heat or AC, which means this may be as good as my range will be. Occasionally short round trips have been about 210 Whr, typically these are low speed (25 to 45 MPH) trips. For that kind of driving (maybe a 15 minute trip in 55 F weather) range would be about 357 miles on a full charge. At highway speeds it might be something like 270 miles of range.
Don’t underrate the use of a domestic electric fan heater to defrost and initially warm the car before going out. Don’t forget to unplug it or you’ll need a really long extension cord 😉
NAOMN
Isn’t the normal thing to keep the car plugged into an outlet/charger in your garage, and use house power to warm the battery and cabin before you leave?
Dennis, as someone in a cold weather state who has compared notes with a lot of other Tesla owners, you’ll get 210 miles range in extremely cold weather (not 150). It’s about 70% of rated, not 50%.
Hickory,
Update on range. I made a 220 mile round trip this past weekend so the odometer is at about 450 miles. The average energy used is 247 Whr per mile over the 450 miles, the battery pack holds 75000 Whr, so the average range should be about 75000/247=304 miles on a full charge. Though a more realistic range would probably be about 280 miles as it is a problem if you run the battery down to zero on an EV. Realistically I doubt I would go below 40 miles left on the battery pack, so probably 264 miles is the effective range. Note that on my trip back (downhill on average), I managed 187 Whr per mile, so if I always drive downhill I can go further. 🙂
I should have kept track of the round trip numbers, but I did not. I drove conservatively, no hard acceleration and 65 MPH on interstate (about 70 miles of 220 mile total, most of the rest was 50 to 55 MPH with slower speeds in small towns 25 to 40 MPH, average speed was about 50 MPH for the trip.
Yeh, I like that strategy of mainly going downhill! Hard to beat.
Here is a great vehicle charging location app- PlugShare
Key data point left out Dennis, though you may have mentioned it elsewhere: how much did it cost?
Hi Duane- If you are interested, there is a very good site for comparing the relative costs of particular petrol, hybrid, and electric vehicles.
You can put in your particular commute or other trips,
and vary the cost of electricity in your locale, and the cost of petrol,
and compare away.
Its interesting to see results, such as how does a petrol Honda Accord do vs a hybrid one, for example.
60k before sales and excise taxes (which will vary depending upon your state).
I have advanced autopilot and AWD which add to the cost of the car. The cheapest available (no added options and black paint and RWD) Model 3 is currently 49k, the smaller battery pack and no options will be 35k (available in June 2019, in theory). The lower cost model claims 220 miles of range vs 310 miles for my Tesla.
Oh great! Good to hear, Dennis. Did you have any of the problems with rescheulded deliveries/communications confusion which some Model 3 recipients have had — or did your delivery go smoothly?
The bad news for coal in the US just keeps rolling in!
With the units struggling to clear in the PJM capacity auction and efforts to win subsidies for its plant denied, the AEP announcement is the latest sign of the coal industry’s slow decline. The company informed employees of the decision on Oct. 5.
The company said it “unsuccessfully sought a buyer for Conesville Plant for a number of years,” but made the decision to shut it down after considering “the costs of keeping the plant operational and the outcomes of recent competitive generation auctions.”
The plant’s closure may already be having ripple effects. Westmoreland Coal announced Oct. 9 that it had declared bankruptcy and the Conesville plant is a major customer of the coal supplier, according to S&P Global.
“The bad news for coal in the US just keeps rolling in!”
Does it? A superficial bit of research will show you that US coal exports are booming. Better not to tell half a story. 😉
Steam-coal shipments will probably jump 58 percent to 58 million metric tons this year, according to Guillaume Perret, founder of Perret Associates Ltd., a London-based research company. He expects exports to reach 65 million tons by 2025.
The biggest buyer of U.S. coal in the first quarter was India, where thermal plants help generate about three-quarters of its electricity. An official from that Asian country earlier this year criticized Trump for seeking to pull out of the Paris climate deal while the U.S. has been a major contributor to emissions during its history.
US production of coal is trending lower based on EIA data through the second quarter of 2018.
Coal demand is dropping worldwide. Other ways of generating electricity are just cheaper.
Domestic consumption trumps exports.
Is this cool or is it mega-cool (you have to look at the YouTube video).
‘PULSAR IN A BOX’ REVEALS SURPRISING PICTURE OF A NEUTRON STAR’S SURROUNDINGS
An international team of scientists studying what amounts to a computer-simulated “pulsar in a box” are gaining a more detailed understanding of the complex, high-energy environment around spinning neutron stars, also called pulsars. The model traces the paths of charged particles in magnetic and electric fields near the neutron star, revealing behaviors that may help explain how pulsars emit gamma-ray and radio pulses with ultraprecise timing.
‘Tipping points’ could exacerbate climate crisis, scientists fear
“Key dangers largely left out of the IPCC special report on 1.5C of warming are raising alarm among some scientists who fear we may have underestimated the impacts of humans on the Earth’s climate.”
When the world reaches one of the tipping points,
our systems will collapse completely,
perhaps approximately the year 2075,
but likely before the year 2100.
Good day.
“This is the scariest thing about the IPCC Report — it’s the watered down, consensus version.”
The non-sugar coated version of the future is what I recommend preparing for. Or don’t. I won’t lose any sleep over ya.
More scary is that scientists are conservative anyway, so all the papers that IPCC select from are already weeding out the more catastrophic aspects. The ‘worst case’ with tipping points presented is probably only a P80 case and there are many more risks on the downside that haven’t been addressed.
It has been no secret that the IPCC is not very adept at assessing and communicating climate change risk.
Policy Brief—Recommendations for Improving the Treatment of Risk and Uncertainty in Economic Estimates of Climate Impacts in the Sixth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report
Abstract Large discrepancies persist between projections of the physical impacts of climate change and economic damage estimates. These discrepancies increase with increasing global average temperature projections. Based on this observation, we recommend that in its Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) improve its approach to the management of the uncertainties inherent in climate policy decisions. In particular, we suggest that the IPCC (1) strengthen its focus on applications of decision making under risk, uncertainty, and outright ambiguity and (2) estimate how the uncertainty itself affects its economic and financial cost estimates of climate damage and, ultimately, the optimal price for each ton of carbon dioxide released. Our hope is that by adopting these recommendations, AR6 will be able to resolve some of the documented inconsistencies in estimates of the physical and economic impacts of climate change and more effectively fulfill the IPCC’s mission to provide policymakers with a robust and rigorous approach for assessing the potential future risks of climate change.
How a Fortnite squad of scientists is hoping to defeat climate change
By Robin George Andrews
Fortnite is the world’s most popular video game, with hundreds of millions of players worldwide. (In August, a record 78.3 million played the game.) The premise is a lot like the Japanese movie Battle Royale: 100 people land on an island, only one person or team can win, and victory is obtained by murdering everyone else. To make things more exciting, a toxic storm slowly begins to compress the map so that the players are forced into the same areas. As in The Hunger Games, special caches, including crates and llamas, are dropped to encourage players to go to the same areas. It is fast-paced, fantastical, and utterly ludicrous — and, perhaps, a great platform to talk about climate change.
It could be said that too many scientists discuss climate change as an abstract issue that most ordinary people struggle to connect with. The result is that while around three-quarters of Americans believe climate change is real, just over half of the public think it’s mostly driven by human activity. Around 28 percent of Americans don’t believe climate change will personally affect them. Getting any real climate change legislation through Congress will require engaged voters, and most people aren’t there yet.
One reason scientists struggle to connect is because of their limited understanding of how to reach the public. Most scientists think that outreach is limited to a handful of options: public talks, social media, or blogging, says Katharine Hayhoe, a renowned climatologist and director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University. But all those options require a public that already wants to engage in climate change discussion, which means they’re not the best way to reach the apathetic. Hayhoe has tried to branch out: knitting projects with patterns that display rising temperatures, for instance.
Then, unexpectedly, Fortnite entered her life.
Hayhoe had just recorded a webinar on climate change that proved to be particularly popular. A few days later, her son, Gavin, was playing Fortnite, and he uploaded a video to the streaming service Twitch. “The climate science webinar I uploaded to YouTube last week has 1k views,” a subsequent tweet from Hayhoe reads. “The Fortnite FPP video my eleven-year-old uploaded yesterday has 10k views.”
Gavin’s best Fortnite video got 18,000 views, he says, and he’s not even on the high end: some Fortnite streamers have over 16 million subscribers on YouTube. Hayhoe sensed an opportunity to make climate communication more fun for a much broader audience — crucially, an audience that wasn’t already invested in climate change.
Getting any real climate change legislation through Congress will require engaged voters
There’s an assumption by logically minded scientists and entrepreneurs that logic is eventually going to win people over. But you only have to read the fly by deniers on this site or the comments on any MSM climate change article to know that’s not true. Show them anything that contradicts their previous statements and they just double down on their idiocy. Hurricane victims in US regularly call it an act of god – to do otherwise would be to admit they are actually partly to blame and cognitive dissonance does not allow that. And how long do we have – we’ve known for 30 and more years and there’s really relatively little meaningful worldwide legislation (and in the USA it’s getting repealed). Do we give it another 20 years? That would leave us minus 8 to do something.
There’s an assumption by logically minded scientists and entrepreneurs that logic is going eventually going to win people over.
I think that is actually a myth. Most scientists that I know personally, seem to have no illusion about the fact that logic and actual data have little to no impact when it comes to changing the minds of those who have deeply held ideological beliefs.
What we need is a better synergy between communications experts and scientists to find ways to get the message out. Unfortunately the message is not very palatable to the average layperson… Basically what we need is a new story that will capture people’s imaginations and get them into a war time effort mood. Though I am far from having the slightest clue as to what that story needs to be.
Playing whack a mole with internet trolls is probably not the best path forward but their bullshit must be clearly labeled for what it is.
Cheers!
Any voluntary solution would require some form of perceived “sacrifice” among the global rich (that includes all here I suspect) even if it is just to our status signalling and consequential reproductive fitness. That is unsellable, therefore there is no voluntary solution space. Droughts, hurricanes, floods, famines, wildfires, pestilence and resource wars will be involuntary but effective.
So far, I have only seen one meaningful community wide response to overshoot, and that seems to have been temporary. But did have a big effect. I’m talking about China’s one child policy.
And that did not come about through education and voluntary acts by individuals. It was a top down authoritarian measure with big sticks for enforcement.
If we wait for education and voluntary efforts, well, we will be waiting centuries for this species to react.
Bugger the rich, sacrifice them on an alter, Aztec style, as an example to all.
NAOM
“Bugger the rich, sacrifice them on an alter, Aztec style,”
Why the rich, more effective would be just those who have children?
Actually I’m not with you at all on the notion of killing.
Maybe someone needs to explain to them it was an act of god warning them to change their ways.
NAOM
Revealing the Dark Side of Wind Power
By Mark Buchanan
Any solution to global warming will almost certainly rely on an expansion of renewable energy, reducing carbon dioxide emissions with clean solar or wind energy and related technologies. It’s still far from clear, however, which technologies might deliver copious amounts of energy when we need it while avoiding negative environmental consequences.
Research published today may help clarify the situation — and it’s not encouraging for wind-power enthusiasts. It suggests that the power available from wind is much more limited than many experts thought, and that deployment on a larger scale could significantly raise temperatures over the Earth’s surface, as turbines alter atmospheric flows. The research highlights a painful but not altogether surprising reality: Even the cleanest renewable technologies come with environmental costs.
It suggests that the power available from wind is much more limited than many experts thought, and that deployment on a larger scale could significantly raise temperatures over the Earth’s surface, as turbines alter atmospheric flows.
I guess we could just continue burning all the available fossil fuel and emitting more CO2 into the atmosphere…
Even the cleanest renewable technologies come with environmental costs.
Well, DUH!
Dark Side of wind power? Really? This argument has been going back and forth since 2010. I wouldn’t take the models too seriously and since I can’t see the actual paper, I will ignore it for now.
Here is an example the craziness of scientific analysis in this area. These researchers calculated that a maximum of 1.1 watts of electricity could be generated per square metre over a large (1E5 km2) wind farm in the windy state of Kansas (USA). The correlation between the amount of energy generated and the number of wind turbines is not linear, as more turbines increasingly slow down the wind. https://www.mpg.de/9389067/wind-energy-wind-electricity
100,000 km2 is about half of Kansas covered with wind turbines, an insane example at best.
Of course wind turbines interfere with wind, the studies to maximize their potential in large groups were done several years ago.
They remove energy from the wind, as far as heating goes due to turbulence, I have read studies that go both ways and also show neutral effect overall so the final analysis is still up in the air.
One thing I did notice is that here in the east the wind farms are mostly linear on mountain tops and that the forests grow well beneath them. Out in the rest of the country where it is flat and windy, I noticed farming goes on below the wind towers, it’s not like they take up the areas quoted. If one wants to go crazy with energy density, PV could be put underneath them but that would eliminate nature or farming.
There is plenty of space to put in wind turbines and the heating effects seen over time are also due to climate change as well as wind speed loss due to global warming. So one must remove those factors before just blaming wind farms.
The wind is slowing down Near-surface wind speeds over landmasses across the planet have dropped by as much as 25% since the 1970s, and climate scientists are taking note. Michael Lucy reports. https://cosmosmagazine.com/climate/the-wind-is-slowing-down
The multitude of effects on the physical system and ecosystem of the planet from generating GWG’s is staggering and of large magnitude. Not seeing that renewable energy systems like wind have magnitudes less harm is just being an asshole. Acid ocean anyone?
One thing I did notice is that here in the east the wind farms are mostly linear on mountain tops and that the forests grow well beneath them. Out in the rest of the country where it is flat and windy, I noticed farming goes on below the wind towers, it’s not like they take up the areas quoted.
I’ve recently driven past plenty of wind farms here in Germany and in Austria and Hungary… I noticed the same thing. The cows and sheep seem perfectly contented grazing around the bases of the towers. Crops grow just fine too. There are even people who hunt wild boar around them…
Acid ocean anyone?
Well, I’ll invite anyone to come see the state of the coral reefs in my back yard in South Florida!
For the record, I think it is beyond fucking ridiculous to compare the impacts of wind energy to those of fossil fuels!
If one compares just the amount of disturbed land by wind power versus land disturbed by coal power for equivalent energy output, the ratio is about 1:20. There is no comparison at any level and it makes no sense to build out wind power to the point where it is making itself far less efficient.
The enduring theme is simply that anything done by humans on the scale of fossil fuel production/bruning or, for that matter, farming is going to have serious negative effects on the function of natural systems. Fundamentally human society depends more on those natural systems than on energy or farming.
There are too many humans on the planet for the natural systems to provide the resources needed by modern society.
Not really.
PV on rooftops could supply most of grid power – that has essentially zero ecological impact compared to the roof alone.
Fossil fuels are enormously destructive, in a way that is many orders of magnitude greater than other things like solar or wind power.
Let me see 1 km^2 =10^6 m^2
1.1 W/m^2 x 10^6 =1,100,000 or 1.1 MW
10^5 km^2 x 1.1 MW = 110,000 MW = 110 GW
No small cheese, 100 nuklear reactors and you don’t have to evacuate 1,000 km^2 if one breaks.
NAOM
There have been articles pointing out that this research is being deliberately misinterpreted.
NAOM
The claims made here about wind are false, but even more ludicrous is the idea that it is somehow not “clean”. That’s some pretty desperate propaganda.
What’s up with all the fuss about the increase in temperature of 2 degree C that may happen? Heck according to Wikipedia, we just came out of a 7 degree C warming period of less than 50 years, only 12,000 years ago. What were them Clovis people burning to cause all that warming?
Not that you have demonstrated the slightest understanding of what the actual implications of a 2 °C world would be like, especially with regards the risks of passing certain tipping points in the planetary physical, chemical and biological systems. You also seem to be profoundly ignorant of the impact of humans on ecosystems over the past few thousand years and how agricultural development has affected the climate in pre-industrial times.
Though you could probably do worse than read this recent post over at Real Climate:
Pre-industrial anthropogenic CO2 emissions: How large?
Filed under: Carbon cycle Climate Science Greenhouse gases Paleoclimate — mike @ 11 October 2018
Guest article by William Ruddiman
However, I highly doubt your intent is to educate yourself and acquire some actual knowledge. Ignorance about any topic is excusable. Deliberate ignorance and spouting nonsense is a rather sad trait to display as arrogantly as you and your ilk seem to so thoroughly enjoy.
It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Mark Twain
Fred
I spent some time trying to figure out what William Ruddiman has to say. His main point seems to be that humans increased CO2 levels in pre industrial times by 40 ppm, beginning around 7000 years ago. That seems quite probable and agrees with my understanding that land use practices have possibly contributed more CO2 and other green house gasses then the contribution by fossil fuels.
But that does not address my question. What was the source of energy to warm the planet by 7 degrees C which effectively ended the Younger Dryas roughly 12,000 years ago?
Before you accuse me of voluntary ignorance you could at the very least address the question I asked.
Farmboy- “What was the source of energy to warm the planet by 7 degrees C which effectively ended the Younger Dryas roughly 12,000 years ago?”
Like Dennis said below- it was more like 4 degree C over about 10,000 yrs, and to answer your question about the source of energy-
The answer is the Sun.
And that is the same source of energy that warms us up today. Come on farmer- you knew that answer.
The earths ability to absorb and hold the heat varies over time, with things like albedo, ocean circulation patterns, and greenhouse gas concentrations.
I understand your fear. Fear leads to denial. Chaos in the environment is scary. Prayer ain’t going to help you with drought. Sorry to say.
Farmboy,
It is about 1.5 C rise in global temperatures from 12.5 kyBP to 10.8 kyBP. There might have been local changes in temperatures in Greenland as large as you suggest due to changes in the Jetstream or ocean currents, when the entire Globe is considered, there have not been 7 C swings in Global temperatures in 50 year periods as you suggest.
Your facts are wrong, first we are talking about average Global temperatures. The science says that Global average temperature rose about 4 C over a 12,600 year period (from 22,000 years BP to 9,000 years BP), in the past 118 years Global average temperatures have risen about 1 C, a rate of increase that is 27 times higher than the Glacial to interglacial transition at the start of the Holocene.
Another important difference is that 22000 years BP the human population was quite small (maybe 2 million), things are a little different today with a population of 7.4 billion and rising.
As a farmer I imagine you might appreciate what another 1 C rise in Global average temperatures might do to crops and livestock, or perhaps not. Maybe you should read the report.
things are a little different today with a population of 7.4 billion and rising.
The population is rising faster than you think it is Dennis. You are off by over 250 million. Current world population is:
7,656,189,300 and rising every second. World Population Clock
Thanks Ron,
I guessed at World Population, there are varying estimates, see
There are three primary determinants of global population growth: mortality, fertility, and population momentum. You always seem to focus on fertility and assume that educating women in Africa will suddenly reduce fertility there. It won’t. You really do need to travel a bit. The UN has the world with more than 10 billion by 2060. That’s roughly (only) 40 years from now. The average school girl in sub-Sahara Africa expects to have four kids. The schools they go to, if they go at all, are all run by various religious institutions, churches that are NOT teaching birth control.
There is a girl we have been supporting in Uganda since she was in kindergarten. She’s currently on her way to becoming a medical doctor. She agrees with me that the current path to population growth will not change for at least one generation. BTW she graduated from one of the best, and most secular, High Schools in Uganda. Birth control was NEVER mentioned.
Doug,
Changes in fertility ratios can happen pretty quickly, education is the key. Educated women have fewer children. There are other estimates besides those from the UN.
Hi Dennis.
Changes in fertility ratios do not happen quickly. As Doug has pointed out, population momentum is a key determinant. Essentially, educating women is indeed a fine thing…it just takes more than one generation to make a difference. Those fertility ratios change over decades and centuries.
Hi Lloyd,
The average World TFR was about 5 births per woman in 1965 and about 2.5 in 2005, so it was cut in half in 40 years. Yes population momentum is a factor, this is well understood by demographers.
Chart below from paper above. The policies leading to SSP1 are what I would suggest, though we probably will not do that well, just something to aim for.
Oh and to be clear, by “pretty quickly”, I mean 40 years for TFR to fall from 2.5 to 1.75 with proper policies.
A small sample example, my wife’s and my families had a combined TFR of 5.5 (children born from 1950 to 1979 in both families), the next generation had an average TFR of 1.1.
This is much too small a sample as it is 2 families of maybe 400 million families (assuming about 7 people per family of 2.76 billion in 1955). The change for those two families was pretty quick.
I stand by my comments. I said decades to centuries, and even the most optimistic scenarios don’t peak until mid century, and then take 50 more years to return to our current population. And to be clear, I would not describe 40 years as “pretty quick”. I also think that the factors that caused fertility rates in the developed world to dive are more than education of women: the material wealth and technology that allowed me to be almost certain that my single child would live to adulthood will not be repeated. I think that the graph that we will actually see in 2100 will not be an arc: there will be a cliff, and we will be somewhere well below the point we are now. I don’t exactly know why or when, but I do think that we won’t do anything to stop overpopulation, and it is too late to change it anyway.
Lloyd,
I will go with the demographers who study the discipline. In demography, quick is 40 years, so when I said pretty quick, I assumed a knowledge of demographics, the concept of population momentum is well understood by most who have read any papers on demographics. Any changes take a couple of generations (about 40 years). Part of the “limits to growth” will be the demographic transition, population will fall and even with rising income per capita the system can reach a steady state, also as resources become limited they will be used more efficiently and recycled where possible, when World population falls to 500 million or so we might reach a sustainable solution, this can happen in 200 years at a TFR of 1.5 or lower, which has been achieved in many East Asian nations.
Dennis,
40 years can be improved upon. For instance, Iran achieved a 2/3 reduction in TFR in just 20 years:
Iran TFR: 1982 = 6.5 vs 2001 = 2.1
The Iranian leadership prioritized a smaller population. They encouraged smaller families, introduced sex education in schools, and even distributed condoms.
Because it seems to be very hard to convince governments to actually provide birth control information in school, I support private charities which provide good birth control information for free over the web. Now that most people in the world can access the web, this makes a difference.
Contribute to Scarleteen, Sex etc., or Planned Parenthood, if you care about this; top three English-language sex-ed sites on the web last I checked.
Dennis Quoting the average temp over 12,600 years is a great way to erase all the spikes and dips in temperature during that time. The drastic sudden spikes and dips during that time period is where we need to focus more. These are the events that can wreck havoc with the life on the planet as a whole and even more so in particular areas. Here is a quote from wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas
concerning the dramatic rise in temperature that ended the Younger Dryas period.
“Measurements of oxygen isotopes from the GISP2 ice core suggest the ending of the Younger Dryas took place over just 40 to 50 years in three discrete steps, each lasting five years. Other proxy data, such as dust concentration and snow accumulation, suggest an even more rapid transition, which would require about 7 °C (13 °F) of warming in just a few years.[12][13][24][25] Total warming in Greenland was 10 ± 4 °C (18 ± 7 °F).[26]
The end of the Younger Dryas has been dated to around 11,550 years ago, occurring at 10,000 BP (uncalibrated radiocarbon year), a “radiocarbon plateau” by a variety of methods, mostly with consistent results:”
I may not be understanding it correctly but it looks to me like Greenland temps permanently increased by 10 degree C and Global temps increased permanently 7 degree C. Now most of the regulars on this page refuse to look at the dramatic rise in a short time period and instead focus on the average over thousands to millions of years.
Farmboy,
There may have been local temperature changes in Greenland that were as large as you suggest, but globally probably not. See Shakun et al 2012 and chart below. Also look at figures at link below.
Read the Global effects part of the Wikipedia article you linked, the abrupt changes were not synchronous around the World and were absent entirely in parts of the Globe. It was likely due to rapid influx of glacial meltwater into the North Atlantic which changed salinity and temperature and affected Ocean circulation patterns and the Jetstream leading to abrupt changes in temperature, potentially a rapid melt of the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica might lead to something similar in the future. Though likely this would be 100s to 1000s of years in the future.
The Younger Dryas was a northern hemisphere event most likely due to slowing or stopping of the AMOC. This was not global cooling, as the heat was not transported north, it built up in the south.
Try reading this site. https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/abrupt-climate-change/The%20Younger%20Dryas
GF If the warming that brought about the ending of the Younger Dryas was only a Northern Hemisphere event then explain to me why the ice cores from the Antarctic at vostok also show a dramatic warming at the same time.
First, let’s look at the connection between temperature in the Antarctic during the period of deglaciation, as recorded in ice cores, and that from Greenland which is likewise derived from ice cores with the addition of foraminiferal proxies from seafloor sediment. More recent work than the paper you mentioned (that one is nearly thirty years old) does indeed show warming in the Antarctic before warming in the Northern Hemisphere, but the difference is about two hundred years not a thousand.
Next, let’s look at connection between sea-surface temperatures (which is what is actually under discussion) in the Antarctic and in the North Atlantic. The general flow of water in the Atlantic is from the Southern Ocean, the seas that surround Antarctica (the water warms up in equatorial regions), up the west side of the Atlantic to its northern waters. In the North Atlantic waters sink, causing waters from the south to move in and replace them. The sinking has two causes: It’s windy up there and the winds cause evaporation of surface waters. Evaporation is a cooling process so the remaining waters are colder and more prone to sink. Too, the water evaporates but the salt doesn’t, so the water remaining is saltier and thus denser now and more prone to sink. The circulation that results, of waters in the North Atlantic sinking (and flowing southward at depth) and warmer waters coming up from the south, is called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation–the AMOC. The warm Gulf Stream is part of the system.
Warmth coming north slowed during the deglaciation as a result of fresh water coming from melting of the large ice sheet that covered much of Canada. (The melting was part of the glacial/interglacial cycle that is timed by astronomical factors.) Fresh water is less dense than salt water and impedes the sinking that was part of the AMOC. Slow the AMOC and you slow the flow of warm water from the south, and thus you delay, in the North Atlantic, the warming evident in Antarctica–by about two hundred years, as far as we know now.
I hope this helps.
Synapsid Thank you for taking the time to give a good explanation of how it could have occurred that the temps on the poles decreased dramatically while the earth continued to warm and the ice to thaw, even though it seems a bit impossible.
I’m curious as to which Astronomical factors you are taking into account since they would likely need to be quite powerful to overtake the albedo effect?
In case you respond I will read it but likely won’t have the time and energy to respond.
Hi farmboy,
Those astronomical factors are the Milankovitch factors and Wikipedia has a good article on them. What shows up in the history of glacial/interglacial cycles over the last, roughly, three million years is the result of interactions among changes in the tilt of the Earth’s axis relative to the plane of its orbit (41 000-year cycle), change in the direction the axis points (it swings around like a spinning top does and a cycle length of about 23 000 emerges), change in how close to circular the Earth’s orbit is (100- and 400-thousand-year cycles.) Those cycles interact and affect how much sunlight reaches the Earth’s surface in high middle latitudes, where the ice sheets grow when sunlight arrival is in the low range of intensity.
The Milankovitch factors have been acting for the whole of the planet’s history but the current system of glaciation alternating with interglaciation became possible when the long-term cooling trend that began about 38 million years ago brought average temperatures low enough.
“What’s up with all the fuss about the increase in temperature of 2 degree C that may happen?”
Skip the next 9 meals you were planning on eating. That feeling you have on day 3 is what all the fuss is about. A real farmboy (sic) would know that.
Skip the next 9 meals you were planning on eating. That feeling you have on day 3 is what all the fuss is about. A real farmboy (sic) would know that.
A real farmboy would also have some basic understanding of plant physiology and the how increased CO2 and increased warming effects plants such as wheat, corn, soy and rice in all the major food producing regions of the planet.
Climate change’s negative effects on plants will likely outweigh any gains from elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide levels
Fred Farmers working with nature are able to significantly increase the CO2 available to their plants way beyond what is in the air above. By minimizing tillage and chemical usage we allow the biology including earthworms to build our soil full of tunnels so that the soil can breath out the CO2 that is produced by the biology and keeping green plants growing they can access that just in time supply of CO2 and when tidal force and other mechanisms pull air back down into the soil the biology is supplied again with oxygen.
Fred Farmers working with nature are able to significantly increase the CO2 available to their plants way beyond what is in the air above.
That is such a simplistic one dimensional statement.
I could cite dozens of papers on research showing deleterious effects of increased CO2 on the major food crop plant’s nutritional quality. Which doesn’t even begin to address concerns of increased warming on soil biology and CO2 release from those sources.
Increased carbon dioxide levels in air restrict plants ability to absorb nutrients
The rapidly rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere affect plants’ absorption of nitrogen, which is the nutrient that restricts crop growth in most terrestrial ecosystems. Researchers at the University of Gothenburg have now revealed that the concentration of nitrogen in plants’ tissue is lower in air with high levels of carbon dioxide, regardless of whether or not the plants’ growth is stimulated. The study has been published in the journal Global Change Biology.
Potential Effects of Climate Change on Soil Properties: A Review
ABSTRACT: Soils form through the multifarious interaction of a number of forces, including climate, relief, parent material, organisms, all acting over time. It takes thousands of years for a soil to form and most soils are still developing following changes in some of these soil forming factors, particularly climate and vegetation, over the past few decades. Climate is one of the most important factors affecting the formation of soil with important implications for their development, use and management perspective with reference to soil structure, stability, topsoil water holding capacity, nutrient availability and erosion. Further Indirect effects corresponds to changes in growth rates or water-use efficiencies, through sea-level rise, through climate-induced decrease or increase in vegetative cover or anthropogenic intervention. Assuming constant inputs of carbon to soils from vegetation, different estimate predict that expected changes in temperature, precipitation and evaporation will cause significant change in organic matter turnover and CO2 dynamics. In conclusion, increased productivity would generally lead to greater inputs of carbon to soil, thus increasing organics.
Lest anyone assume that the last sentence of this abstract is a reason to rejoice and conclude that therefore all will be well, I strongly recommend a grounding in the mathematics of Chaos and a review on bifurcations and tipping points.
Finding the mathematical basis of ‘tipping points’ through bifurcation analysis will help us discover whether or not accurate mathematical representations of physical or socioecomic systems display tipping point behaviour. In mathematics, a bifurcation is a point at which small changes start to grow rapidly, through positive feedbacks. If the systems studied do behave like bifurcations then it may be possible to predict ‘tipping points’ we encounter in the world. In chaos theory, a well-known example of a system that bifurcates is a Lorenz attractor originally derived from a model of convection in the earth’s atmosphere. Studying how different kinds of systems bifurcate will help researchers determine whether or not a particular system could ‘tip’.
With that mathematical grounding in hand now we can go back and reexamine the complex interrelationships of all the organisms involved in maintaining soil ecosystem health. And I won’t even ask that we dive too deeply into the various levels of biochemistry and evolutionary biology of the many organisms involved, but suffice it to say, none of that can be ignored either!
Cheers!
Fred
I said —- Farmers working with nature are able to significantly increase the CO2 available to their plants way beyond what is in the air above.
You said— That is such a simplistic one dimensional statement.
So my question to you now is. Do you really want to argue with nature? This is just what happens in natural ecosystems such as forests and grasslands. The biology in the soil and decaying biomass etc uses oxygen and puts out CO2. The above ground photosynthesizing biomass takes up a large portion of this CO2 so that it never goes up high into the atmosphere.
As regenerative farmers, we try to maximize photosynthesis by maintaining green plants for as much of the time as possible and by allowing conditions that are favorable for the soil biology to supply the nutrients that those plants need and one of those nutrients happens to be CO2. On my farm most of the land is in pasture that is very seldom grazed down to where photosynthesis is reduced below say 1/3 of its capacity had it not been grazed. Many people including many biologists agronomists etc are not aware that well timed grazing is very important to maximize photosynthetic production throughout the year. If not grazed the plants leaves tend to get old and the photosynthetic process slows down. Even mowing does not induce the plant to send out new leaves as well as the tearing and leaf pulling action of grazing does.
To rephrase my prior point. For all practical purposes, a farmer that manages appropriately for this process of CO2 going directly from soil organisms to green leaves,whether they understand it or not. She or he is not limited to the small amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere but can access just in time CO2 directly within the micro ecosystem between the tallest leaf and the deeper soil organisms, whether they be bacteria, insects rodents or what have you eating plant exudates dead plants or manure and urine left behind by the grazers or as some evidence suggests even from the breath of the grazers themselves.
Keep in mind that almost all of the research for agronomy has been done in sterile soil or at the best in fields that are biologically extremely degraded due to chemical usage of fertilizers fungicides pesticides and on and on. So they are not very relevant to biologically healthy ecosystems.
And BTW Nitrogen is seldom the most limiting factor in plants in biological ecosystems including those that are manipulated by humans to produce food fiber and fuel for humans. So the research you linked to is only relevant to what is usually called conventional agriculture when in reality it has only been ongoing for less than a century and looking like it won’t last even one more century.
For all practical purposes, a farmer that manages appropriately for this process of CO2 going directly from soil organisms to green leaves,whether they understand it or not. She or he is not limited to the small amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere but can access just in time CO2 directly within the micro ecosystem between the tallest leaf and the deeper soil organisms, whether they be bacteria, insects rodents or what have you eating plant exudates dead plants or manure and urine left behind by the grazers or as some evidence suggests even from the breath of the grazers themselves.
Any chance you could back that up with some links to research that might support your statement?
BTW, You are preaching to choir with regards soil management! Unfortunately I still need to see some research before I accept your claims.
For the record, my cousins have a farm in the interior of Sao Paulo state. They are also soil scientists and agronomists. Their farm is not too far from the sugarcane plantation in this video and they incorporate many of the processes discussed therein, on their own land. In any case increase in atmospheric CO2 coupled with global warming does not bode well for agriculture or ecosystems and there is plenty of research to back that up.
1/ Increased CO2 often leads to increased plant biomass but does not increase the seed yield ie what you are growing the plants for. In other words you will use more fertilisers to produce more waste without more results.
2/ Nutritional value of foods decreases with increased CO2, this is especially so with rice which is a vital food source in much of the world.
3/ Increased temperatures harm many plants. For example the UK suffered a shortage of lettuce as they stopped growing at 30C. Plant breeders have stated that they cannot breed new strains fast enough to keep up with change.
4/ Try growing crops in droughts, hurricane force winds, floods, fire etc.
Is that simple enough. TLDR; farming is fucked.
NAOM
So this is where I’m coming from.
I’ve been coming to this website for several years to learn and to keep up on the oil situation to be able to adapt and plan my day to day life with these facts. So I owe a lot to Ron and Dennis and many others.
But every so often I take a peak at the electricity postings and then I see all the posts centered around global climate warming caused by humans. That is all great in its own right but the many factors in the bigger picture that seem to not be appreciated by most of the regulars is what I find pathetic.
There is no appreciation for the fact that this planet has been through many catastrophic events including major extinction events, just in the time since Anatomically Modern Humans have been on the earth, or even in the last 20,000 years.
In North America alone we have the extinction of many of the mega mammals including the mastodons cave lions giant short nose bear bison horses camels etc all just a mere 12,000 years ago. This event likely also killed off most of the humans that were living in NA at the time. In Siberia we have the millions of Mega Mammal remains that are being found as they thaw out from since the last ice age. Many of them are found with their stomachs full and frozen in place. So they didn’t die from starvation and they were frozen in place before they had time to rot. This looks to me like a dramatic freezing event that transpired within hours.
The ocean sedimentary deposits record several Heindricks Events where massive amounts of rocks etc were deposited by melting glaciers in a very short period of time.
Both the Arctic and Antarctic ice cores record dramatic changes in tempratures CO2 levels and Dust levels. Then we have the burkle crater event in the Indian Ocean that caused a mega tsunami that left chevrons up to 600 ft high on Madagascar and smaller ones on Australia only 5,000 years ago. In addition we have hundreds of Impact craters on the earth and then we can only estimate all the similar sized objects that exploded in the atmosphere instead of making craters which is likely to be around 80 for every crater. On top of that we have Dry Falls Washington, which is the remnant of what was once the largest waterfall caused by a single melting event according to J. Harlen Bretz.
But instead of focusing and trying to understand the dramatic and catastrophic climatic changes that have occurred very recently and trying to understand and minimize those risks the focus is on CO2 levels and EVs.
Also lacking is the appreciation for how fast and how effectively we could manage our agricultural soils to sequester all the CO2 emissions while also reducing methane emissions while producing way more nutritious food with drastic reductions in chemicals and fossil fuel wasting fertilizers.
With this I will log off and be on my way.
Hello again farmboy.
Just a couple of comments. Megamammal extinctions late in the Pleistocene were connected to some extent with human presence in some areas but the connection varied by the kind of mammal we’re looking at, and humans seem not to have suffered from the results as far as we can tell from the archaeological record. In the central part of the US and elsewhere we have continuity of human presence but with shifts in patterns of subsistence rather than the archaeological record going blank. We’ve always been good at surviving.
The flood that created Dry Falls here in Washington state is the last of some forty floods that did successive rearrangements of much of the eastern part of the state, and each was caused by the failure of an ice dam holding in Glacial Lake Missoula in western Montana. After each one except the last the ice re-advanced and blocked the Clark Fork River again and the lake filled again and lasted until the ice dam failed.
There’s a big difference between local climate change, which includes *every* event you mentioned, and *global* climate change. Global is a much bigger problem, and it’s caused by burning fossil fuels (plus deforestation).
“Antarctica’s ice sheet is melting at a rapidly increasing rate, now pouring more than 200 billion tons of ice into the ocean annually and raising sea levels a half-millimeter every year. The melt rate has tripled in the past decade. If the acceleration continues, some of scientists’ worst fears about rising oceans could be realized, leaving low-lying cities and communities with less time to prepare than they had hoped.”
HUGE ICEBERG POISED TO BREAK OFF ANTARCTICA’S PINE ISLAND GLACIER
“The rift only has about another 6 miles (10 km) to go before one or more icebergs calf, breaking off from the glacier. Another such event happened a mere year ago in 2017, when an iceberg 4.5 times the size of Manhattan broke off Pine Island Glacier.”
“If the iceberg breaks off in one piece, it will be a whopping 115 square miles (300 square kilometers).”
Ice Apocalypse – MULTIPLE METERS SEA LEVEL RISE Rapid collapse of Antarctic glaciers could flood coastal cities by the end of this century. Based on an article written by Eric Holthaus. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp5kK0Td-Vc
The insurance industry has paid the bastard off… Insurance policies do not cover ‘Acts of God’!
Cheers!
“Whether or not your home is insured against an Act of God depends on the disaster and your policy’s writing. Most standard homeowners insurance policies do cover damage from wind, hail, lightning and volcanic eruptions, according to the Insurance Information Institute. They do not, however, cover damage from floods and earthquakes (even though these would technically be considered “Acts of God” in the sense that they fall well outside of human control).”
If one has flood insurance on top of the comprehensive, most Acts of God are covered. Tree falls from wind are covered around here. Cars are usually covered too.
Forget earthquakes, apparently they are the Devil’s work. https://coverhound.com/insurance-learning-center/what-does-act-of-god-mean-when-it-comes-to-homeowners-insurance
I wonder if landslides are covered or peasants with torches.
Doug, it’s obvious God is pissed off at the way Florida voted in the last Presidential Election. There can be no other explanation. He’s gonna get them, county by county, for the next millennium.
What can I say? That’s just how all-powerful supernatural beings roll.
-Lloyd
What other explanation could there be?
Why is God going under cover of weather now? Used to be a real forthright guy, just blast a city or flood the world type. No questions about who did it. Now it’s all stealth.
Dennis,
I know you think the climate scientists have built (all) the feedbacks into their models but of course they haven’t. Naturally you won’t take my word for this so perhaps take a hint from Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a professor of climate sciences at the University of California, San Diego.
NEW CLIMATE REPORT ACTUALLY UNDERSTATES THREAT
“The report also ignores “wild cards” in the climate system, or self-reinforcing feedbacks, said Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a professor of climate sciences at the University of California, San Diego. That includes thinning Arctic sea ice, which allows the ocean to absorb more heat, causing even more ice loss and diminished reflectivity in the region, he said. Such feedback loops have a real possibility of pushing the planet into a period of chaos that humans cannot control.”
I always say there is a great deal of uncertainty and I also say many of the feedbacks are included in the models, permafrost feedback is less well understood, many models couple a permafrost model with Global Climate Models, often these are refereed to as Earth System Models.
I also often say the models are not perfect, this should be rather obvious, or it is to me so often I leave out the obvious in my comments.
And yes there are climate scientists that believe that the IPCC SR15 is too optimistic, and there are climate scientists that believe it is too pessimistic, it is a compromise document agreed to by mainstream climate scientists, no more, no less.
Anyone know if the United States has introduced bail-in laws?
We’re getting off fossil fuels? Yeah right.
NORWAY’S LARGEST OIL PIPELINE NOW IN PLACE
“The pipeline plays a really central role in the project. When the Johan Sverdrup field produces at peak, 660,000 bbl of oil valued at more than NOK 350 million each day, will flow daily into Mongstad…When the pipeline operations are complete, the 2018 Johan Sverdrup installation campaign will be over. With three jackets, two topsides, one bridge, over 400 km of pipelines, and 200 km of power cables, the 2018 campaign is probably the busiest installation campaign ever for a project on the Norwegian continental shelf. And in 2019 the last two topsides and remaining bridges will be put in place before startup of the first phase of the Johan Sverdrup development expected in November next year.”
The Johan Sverdrup discovery is one of the largest oil discoveries ever made on the Norwegian continental shelf and will prolong the life of the Norwegian oil industry for several decades. The discovery extends over an area of 200 km² on the Utsira High in the central part of the North Sea.
As far as I can tell the IPCC paper has been completely ignored in all oil trade mags. and blogs and pretty well all business and investment pages in the MSM. Sorted!
With the misnamed ‘Nobel Prize in Economics’ being handed out to these two, one has to work extra hard at trying not to succumb to a serious bout of depression.
Having said that, we are all fucked!
I think we’ve chosen, and continue to choose, self-genocide. One thing about it though is that it really is ‘interesting’, in all senses of the word. Economics to me is not much different from a religion before science came along – it tries to explain things that people want explained but it doesn’t really have the tools or comparative data to do so, which means it just ends up with lots of obfuscation, appeals to authority and just-so stories. Some predictions accidentally come out right, or the maths/philosophy/hermeneutics looks impressive, or you know the right people, and you get elected pope. All christianity was written from the perspective of small, bronze age tribes, all economics has been written from the perspective of a civilization with an ever growing supply of cheap and benign energy.
The 19th-century creators of neoclassical economics—the theory that now serves as the basis for coordinating activities in the global market system—are credited with transforming their field into a scientific discipline. But what is not widely known is that these now legendary economists—William Stanley Jevons, Léon Walras, Maria Edgeworth and Vilfredo Pareto—developed their theories by adapting equations from 19th-century physics that eventually became obsolete. Unfortunately, it is clear that neoclassical economics has also become outdated. The theory is based on unscientific assumptions that are hindering the implementation of viable economic solutions for global warming and other menacing environmental problems.
Unless we become atheists to this relgio/economic paradigm, we can kiss our sorry little asses goodbye!
I’ve recently read “The Origin Of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics” by Eric Beinhocker (a lot of it on the theme in that SA article) and books by Steve Keen, Kummel and others that all rip modern economics to shreds. But none of them made much mention, if at all, of the environment. Only those by Daly and Hall that I’ve seen do.
I think the scientists are facing a “boy who cried wolf” scenario because there’s no observable immediate or even medium term impacts of any of their warnings.
Tell that to the residents of Mexico Beach, FL!
You might also check with the ski resort operators and farmers. They are both seeing the effects of a rapidly changing climate.
The warnings I meant are the most dire ones like civilization is going to collapse. People either don’t see this as imminently possible, or they see prior warnings that didn’t come to fruition. In either case…people wind up disregarding scientists altogether. I don’t see how there’s any possibility of changing the behavior. Warnings about ski resorts and farming aren’t going to get public reaction because most people don’t have any direct involvement in those industries. Warnings of stronger natural disasters won’t get much response either, since the normal thing people think is “that won’t happen to me.” Also politically the normal response to natural disasters is to rebuild using tougher standards that can better withstand stronger storms (and actually notice how generally the newer construction in Mexico Beach, FL did indeed stay mainly intact in the hurricane). The construction industry also is extremely important economically and rebuilding after natural disasters isn’t all that bad in the long term if you think about it in terms of local employment and economic growth.
The warnings I meant are the most dire ones like civilization is going to collapse.
I’m not aware of any mainstream scientists who have made predictions of the collapse of civilization – at least no predictions for any date before now, or even any date in the near future.
Any farmer who’s paying attention is watching the catastrophic effects of climate change on their crops — the climate bands are shifting and they can’t grow the same crops they used to.
Transport evolved discussing the availability of Batteries for EV’s.
Appears that only Tesla is serious about shipping EV’s in the west. It’s simple math. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx5kidGYVIg
Great, this is the problem that all manufacturers both want and dread, demand exceeding expectations. It seems that Tesla outplanned them again and the big guys will have to play catchup in a fast expanding market.
The “big guys” are mostly toast. The new big automakers are Tesla, BYD, Geely, BAIC, and probably some other Chinese companies. Nissan, BMW, and VW may survive if they move fast enough. GM has the technology but refuses to mass-produce electric cars.
“They say he cannot be a man; not perfectly; not properly; because his suit is too big or too small, or too blue or too grey; or that tie, the one he thinks speaks so subtly of his subsumed personality, well, it is lying, obviously, of the passions in his life that are too weak or misdirected. They say.
These men and those they speak for in offices of money and power are everywhere. They say he cannot be a man, at least not in the usual way, because he is lacking dignity.”
“Over time, a meaning became apparent to Jaszczuk. ‘The pictures show people who are used, who are overworked, overstressed and exhausted. Do we really want to end up like this?’
This theme comes through clearly in the cleverly designed book, which is styled like a high-end glossy magazine, the flow of images creating an increasing sense of being crushed and stretched. This impression is heightened by well-chosen image pairings on each two-page spread, presenting near-identical shapes or complementary poses…
Some of his flashlit sleepers look like murder victims (perhaps killed by excessive work), just like the New York photographer Weegee might have shot them. Others recall Robert Longo’s larger-than-life portraits Men in the Cities (Longo based his drawings on photographs), not only in their contorted suit-clad subjects, but also thematically: the impression that they are being bent out of shape by the society they live in. But Jaszczuk’s pictures go further: they suggest we’re all in the same exploitative capitalist-consumerist bed, and we’re all asleep as we turn somersaults.”
“Energy is often used to mean exergy when the latter is not understood in the context of the necessary rate of change of growth of global systemic exergy, i.e., the affordable, sustainable capacity to do work per capita.
The critical inference is that, as per LTG, the world as reached the critical exergetic log-linear limit bound of growth of population and per capita low-entropy resource extraction and consumption in order to grow and sustain our oil- and debt-based, high-tech, high-entropy global economy and civilization…
Further, because of the net exergetic limit bound constraints, neither can we afford to build out to anything close to the necessary scale of so-called ‘alternative’ or ‘renewable’ energy, simultaneously sustain the liquid fossil fuel infrastructure indefinitely hereafter, AND maintain real GDP per capita growth.
This and other aspects speak to Jeffrey and yours truly’s past assertions that an infinitesimally small share of the population actually understands Peak Oil, net energy, exergy, ELM, ECI, ANE, and CNE.” ~ BC
What’s the problem boys and girls? We have 12 whole years, they tell us, to achieve “far-reaching changes in society” by making huge strides towards eliminating greenhouse gases arising from fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas. TWELVE WHOLE YEARS. If you happen to be ten years old that’s like, you know — FOREVER.
Meanwhile,
INDIA’S COAL IMPORT RISES 35% TO 21.1 MILLION TONNES IN SEPTEMBER
India’s coal import increased substantially by 35 per cent to 21.1 million tonnes (MT) in September, as against 15.61 million tonnes in the corresponding month previous fiscal. The rise in imports comes at a time when the captive power plants in the country are grappling with the issue of coal shortages. “The increase in coal and coke imports in September is mainly due to higher imports of non-coking coal during the month under review,”
TRUMP’S MAKING U.S. COAL EXPORTS THE GREATEST THEY’VE EVER BEEN
“U.S. exports of coal used by power stations are set to hit a record this year on increased global demand for the nation’s high-energy-content fuel. Steam-coal shipments will probably jump 58 percent to 58 million metric tons this year, according to Guillaume Perret, founder of Perret Associates Ltd., a London-based research company. He expects exports to reach 65 million tons by 2025.”
And for Dennis, who seems to be in a permanent state of denial, according to the EIA’s latest Quarterly Coal Report:
• Second–quarter 2018 U.S. coal exports (30.9 million short tons) increased 13.4% from first–quarter 2018. The average price of U.S. coal exports during second–quarter 2018 was $103.26 per short ton.
• The United States continued to import coal primarily from Colombia (68.4%), Canada (13.6%), and Indonesia (17.2%). No imports were recorded from Australia for second–quarter 2018. U.S. coal imports in second–quarter 2018 totaled 1.5 million short tons. The average price of U.S. coal imports during second–quarter 2018 was $82.95 per short ton.
• Steam coal exports totaled 13.9 million short tons (12.8% higher than first–quarter 2018). Metallurgical coal exports totaled 16.9 million short tons (13.9% higher than first–quarter 2018).
• U.S. coal consumption totaled 156.9 million short tons in second-quarter 2018, which was 6.4% lower than the 167.7 million short tons reported in first–quarter 2018 and 6% lower than the 166.9 million short tons reported in second–quarter 2017. The electric power sector accounted for about 92.1% of the total U.S. coal consumption in second–quarter 2018.
US Production of coal, has decreased according the EIA, so not sure what I am denying.
I do not disagree that coal exports have increased. If we look at the World using BP data, there was a fast increase from 2000 to 2011 in World production of coal, since 2013 World coal output has been falling, though there was indeed an increase in 2017.
Future output is unknown. Chart is in Mtoe per year and is based on the BP Statistical Review of World Energy.
Interesting how with the advent of EV production going worldwide, renewable energy can reduce coal, natural gas and oil burning all at once.
Wonder when the last coal train will run, have stopped running around here.
An optimistic scenario for replacing coal and natural gas fired power generation in chart below.
This is for the World based on BP data through 2017. It is assumed that solar and wind growth rates gradually slow to 7%/year (50 year growth rate for oil and natural gas from 1923 to 1973), coal is replaced first by new wind and solar and then natural gas, process done by 2040. It is assumed EVs and plugins replace most oil use in land transport, ships move to nuclear and wind, planes to battery and biofuel hybrids. Also there will be improved efficiency more recycling and circular economy, better soil conservation, human waste converted to fertilizer. Aim is zero anthropogenic GHG emissions by 2050 and half of 2015 levels by 2030, CDR after 2050 if needed and probably it will.
Clearly policies for rapid reduction in TFR is also needed, education, better access to healthcare and equal rights for all regardless of race, gender, religion, or sexual preference.
I look on EV’s as a positive energy system since they actually reduce energy use as they reduce the FF use and infrastructure energy.
The big fella coming onto the block is the digital footprint. Almost everything is dependent upon high tech chip technology, internet communications (satellites) and ever more complex machinery to make these products. Plus the lifespans of digital devices is short and production is much more energy intense than standard manufacturing.
Assuming we can keep global civilization together until 2050, not run short of materials, and have food shortages, migrations, sea level rise, storms, etc. derail the growing internet of things civilization; then we can expect at a minimum the digital systems will use about half our electric power by 2050.
Right now a smartphone has a bigger electric use footprint than an average refrigerator. Internet of things (smart systems) will require many billions of sensors worldwide, huge amounts of communications and ever greater amounts of storage along with computing power if smart systems go global.
We might expect some major advances in data storage, but unless handled very carefully the growing digital age could easily end up being our limiting energy factor.
Each GB of cellular data uses about 19 kWh across the system. As both people and things become ever increasing users and gatherers of the huge amounts of data, the energy needs become increasingly phenomenal.
So we have to be very careful (when does that happen?) about trying to make things more efficient and “better” using the digital and communications systems since in reality it will use much more energy.
Complexity on layers of complexity on layers of short life span of digital devices can be the next energy eating monster to tame. However, civilization seems reluctant to back off once the genie is out of the bottle, so this will either be another bottleneck or a big battleneck.
We may start to run up against this new energy wall as early as the mid 2020’s. Could be later but staying on course makes it inevitable.
As of this summer, bitcoin operations consumed the electricity energy equivalent of Ireland, and had increased 5 fold over the prior year.
Interesting comment Gonefishing, thanks.
Chart below from BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2018 for World Electricity Generation, fairly linear from 2000 to 2017, future as always not known. About a 580 TWhr increase in electricity generation each year on average from 1995 to 2017.
Note that my optimistic scenario above only included 165 TWhr of growth from Natural Gas, so 415 TWhr of electricity generation of growth should be added to the model (assumes the 1995-2017 growth rate continues). By 2040 this would mean an extra 9545 TWhr would be needed over the assumptions in my optimistic model. There might be some energy savings from reduced natural gas, coal, and oil production (I am not sure how much this will add up to, but it might be substantial).
Revision to optimistic scenario which accounts for electricity growth of 580 TWhr/year, but does not account for energy savings from reduced energy use in the petroleum sector (which is difficult to quantify quickly), energy needed will likely be less than this scenario when all energy savings are included.
Forgot electricity generation chart.
And then there is the increased use of refrigeration and air conditioning in developing nations. The number of air-conditioners worldwide is predicted to soar from 1.6 billion units today to 5.6 billion units by midcentury, according to a report issued Tuesday by the International Energy Agency.May 15, Effectively going from 20 percent of building electrical use today to 3.6 times that.Yale says quadruple by 2050.
ships move to nuclear and wind, planes to battery and biofuel hybrids.
Synthetic fuels of various kinds will also be used: H2, NH3, and a variety of hydrocarbons. Their production only needs affordable or cheap electricity, which is very likely with the overbuilding of wind & solar.
Nick, yes at some point that may be the case as wind and solar ramps up.
I think synthetics are more realistic than biofuels, which aren’t scalable much beyond what we have now.
Synthetics cost more now (if you subtract the external costs of environmental damage), but they will be cheap when cheap surplus electricity becomes plentiful.
I mention this in part because you’re likely to get objections to biofuels from readers who know about the problems of environmental damage and scalability.
Nick, I agree. The biofuels would be a temporary solution until solar and wind reach scale. Perhaps not the cheapest way to go, but if the syn fuels are made from coal or natural gas, it will be difficult to remain under 2 C of warming. We could also simply reduce air travel, it is likely to become very expensive as peak oil is reached which may help to reduce air miles travelled.
hmm. What biofuels are you considering? I’m not sure ethanol can really be expanded much – it’s already about 40% of corn – and I have the impression that bio-diesel is causing as much or more emissions than petroleum due to forest clearing.
Doug, it is my hope, as unrealistic as it may seem, that the growth in the use of renewable energy the world has seen over the past decade, will continue and hopefully accelerate as the cost of solar PV technology continues to fall further. Note that unsubsidised solar PV is now the least cost source for electricity generation in areas with good solar resources, like the southwestern US.
In the US, the contribution of solar to electricity generation grew by a factor of more than 100 between 2007 and 2017, that is from 0.01% to 1.38%. Of course, this is the early part of the S growth curve so, this kind of explosive growth cannot be expected to continue much longer. However, we don’t know how close we are to the point where exponential growth changes to logistic growth. If current exponential growth rates were to continue for another eight years, solar PV would be contributing over 30% to US electricity generation by the end of 2026 and the next doubling would land the contribution at 60%, a level that does not need to be reached if we take other renewable sources into consideration.
Looking at wind in the US, it’s contribution grew from 0.65% in 2006 to 6.33% in 2017. If growth in the contribution from wind were to continue at a similar rate for another 11 years, the contribution from wind would grow roughly tenfold to somewhere in the region of 60%.
So if you were to add up all the potential of renewable sources for electricity generation in the US under the scenarios outlined above, huge reductions in carbon emissions would not be out of the question.
Past growth in renewable energy has happened against a framework of support and subsidies from the government on one hand and growing resistance and the sowing of doubt from the incumbent energy and electricity providers on the other hand. Going forward, it should be expected that economics will drive accelerating adoption of wind and solar in the US as their prices continue to fall. The big question is, will the rest of the world sit idly by and watch the US take advantage of lower cost, renewable sources of electricity or will they follow suite?
You will of course point to the transportation sector as a serious challenge going forward but, that is another sector that is ripe for disruption that I will address in another post shortly.
I might seem totally out of touch with reality on this but, to quote George Bernard Shaw — ‘There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?’
Now if many people used vehicles similar to this, say with a small electric motor/battery to assist and the skin covered with solar cells, even charging off the grid or roof would be a rare event. Plus the cost of fuel would be very small.
“Past growth in renewable energy has happened against a framework of support and subsidies from the government on one hand and growing resistance and the sowing of doubt from the incumbent energy and electricity providers on the other hand.”
I agree — having observed Norway closely. In fact, my Niece, a Norwegian (petroleum) reservoir engineer drives an EV (Mitsubishi Outlander). Rather than appealing to people’s environmental conscience, Norway decided to exempt e-cars from vehicle taxes that are among the highest in the world, including a sales tax of 25 percent plus a registration tax that averages more than $12,000, depending on weight, engine size, etc. This has worked.
BTW, citing 0.01% to 1.38% over ten years as being indicative of a statistical growth rate indicator is not really kosher. Think about it, how your growth rate would have looked if you’d stepped back a few years to say 0.001 or 0.0001% or to the first EV sold. Or, if you really want to impress the peasants, with infinite growth, go back to before the first EV. 🙂
Now, keeping things in perspective, in 2017, roughly 11.1 million light trucks were sold in the US and in 2016, sales of light trucks accounted for about 65 percent of the 17.1 million vehicle units sold. Also, light truck market share in Q2 2018 in “environmentally enlightened” California was 55.5%, up from 50.4% in Q2 2017.
Shifts to light trucks for the US outside California was more pronounced, accounting for 69.6% of new light vehicle sales. I don’t want to be a spoil sport but that’s the way it is. I know that California’s goal is to put 1.5 million ZEVs on the state’s roads by 2025 and I wish them luck with that.
Norway also happens to have oodles of hydroelectric power, which I’d assume is pretty cheap in real terms (i.e. I don’t know about taxes) and will remain so as long as the snow and rain keeps falling, plus a pretty high carbon tax. Without the hydroelectric in place first though, they might not have been able to do any of the other stuff.
“However, we don’t know how close we are to the point where exponential growth changes to logistic growth.”
Based on past adoption curves, it’ll be well past 50%. Wind adoption is slowing down early, which I think is due to permitting; there is no such permitting problem with solar.
“The big question is, will the rest of the world sit idly by and watch the US take advantage of lower cost, renewable sources of electricity or will they follow suite? ”
Parts of the world are actually well ahead of the US. South Australia is perhaps most dramatic, along with various islands. But the transition to cheap renewable energy is well documented in most countries.
“Acts of God,” for insurance purposes, are defined as events that occur through natural causes and could not be avoided through the use of caution and preventative measures. In essence, the phrase “Acts of God” refers to natural disasters.
-So, I ask you, is global warming and all of its manifestations, an act of god?
The answer here is worth trillions in payments.
-And, if I am atheist (and thus not subject to any contracts, written or unwritten, with god or his self-appointed representatives), are my natural disaster losses covered by the policy?
Oooooh, I am waiting for the first victim to take an insurance company to court and argue that the ‘denial of payout due to Act of God’ was incorrect as they are atheist and God does not exist so there is no such thing as an ‘Act of God’.
NAOM
I’d pay to watch that movie, especially the part where Kavanaugh, Santorum, Kudlow get drunk and vomit on each other.
If there were a group of people locked and sealed in a very large stadium, and a few took it upon themselves to measure the carbon dioxide to oxygen ratio of the air and notice that is slowly going up. They get in front of everybody and say, ” Hey guys, we noticed that we are slowly getting more carbon dioxide and less oxygen in our air. If this continues we will all be dead in a few weeks. We need to cut down our breathing by 80 percent and get some more plants in here to reverse the process.” Everybody just keeps on breathing at the same pace, and a few worried people can’t figure out why we don’t change our breathing habits. Civilization can’t stop producing carbon dioxide without the death of most of the people. The population knows this so these climate reports are just warning shouts in the middle of a hurricane.
You seem to be concerned with transportation and home energy use. I think the growth of renewables looks like an s curve, slow at first, then quick, then slower and slower as it approaches a limit. I feel this limit is much lower than our current fossil fuel energy usage. Also, what about fertilizer for food, high temperatures needed for manufacturing, and all the roads that use asphalt, all the concrete usage? We cannot feed our population without industrial farming.
Just because a solution does not solve every problem at once, such as ticks or acne, does not invalidate it.
What about high temps for manufacturing? Ever hear of electric furnaces and lasers?
Asphalt for roads, not a problem, alternative materials have been invented.
Feed our population? Going to run out of soil and nutrients anyway, best to find new (old) ways to feed people before the soil is gone. Stops them and the world from being poisoned as they are from industrial ag.
Concrete? Buildings using concrete only last 30 to 50 years. Not very sustainable. We will probably be using 3D printed structures which are much stronger and lighter than concrete, using much less material to achieve the same purpose.
Who actually believes we are going to have this many people in the future? Do you comprehend the term unsustainable?
Unsustainable energy, farming, population growth, environmental destruction, all lead to collapse of various sorts.
Time to change our ways and means. Time to achieve our goals as a species.
Hi Jason. In large part your statement is a good analogy, and is worth thinking about. However, you said- “Civilization can’t stop producing carbon dioxide without the death of most of the people.”
Thats not necessarily true. I wager that carbon dioxide generation could be cut heavily, if people had it as a priority, without massive death. So much of the fossil and wood fuel is used inefficiently, and frivolously. Lower carbon technology could be deployed much more rapidly. Buildings could be better insulated. People could eat lower down the foodchain. Constructive adaptation measures could be deployed as if we were at war footing. If it were a priority.
And yes, we do have to downsize, and it will happen on way or another- through deliberate measures, or very painful and haphazard ones. We will have to downsize towards a low carbon carrying capacity. No choice there.
Ostrich or responsible man, our choice.
Well said.
Hi Hickory, I read Gail’s Our Finite World blog and comments, but wander over here occasionally, usually to get real time data on energy production and usage. I don’t agree with everything over there, but she makes a strong point that if we cut down on fossil fuel usage, the entire financial system will crash as loans and investments and debt in general is taken on with future growth in mind. If finance collapses, then a major disruption in fuel production and distribution is likely. One way or another we will be forced to use less carbon, but I don’t see it happening willingly.
Sure, the old has to get out of the way of the new. Happens all the time and is a historical fact. The collapse of the transportation industry in the beginning of the 1900’s did not wreck the world economy. In fact it improved it because even better substitutes were available to more people. Collapse of the whale oil industry, the coal driven locomotive industry, the wood burning industry did not cause national or global economic collapse, due to substitutes being better and cheaper. Thus more market.
Consider the huge amount of substitutive growth of the renewable, alternative transport, new materials, changing construction methods, rebuilding and such which for the next 40 or 50 years would dominate the economy. All of it better and cheaper.
Spending money on real changes versus spending ever greater amounts to burn more fuel and cause more disaster are our choices. Gail sees disaster, many others see positive change and vast improvement. Moving from a destructive economy to a constructive one is the choice. The other choice is complete collapse of civilization.
Gone Fishing,
“Even better substitutes were available”, meaning more energy available per unit volume. Sure cars are faster and last longer than horses, if they have fuel. How many joules of energy in a tank of gas vs stored in the atp of horse muscles. No contest. Same with whale vs coal, wood vs coal and gas. Is solar and wind “better” in this regard vs fossil fuels? If we had a substitute that provided more energy per volume and per time than fossil fuels we could see another transition. Renewables are not it. I would love to be wrong. My children future depend on it.
Sorry you don’t see the reality. We have had many discussions on renewable energy here and they beat fossil fuels hands down as a system of energy provision. Plus they are vastly more abundant and orders of magnitude less destructive.
You are making the same mistake or the same purposeful mistake made by many renewable energy deniers.
A 100 X100 foot area of land receives 3636 kWh of energy per day on average . Your gallon of gasoline has only about 19 kWh of energy, only 1/5 of which is useful, making it 3.8 kWh. So the sun is putting the equivalent of 956 gallons of effective gasoline energy every day of the year on average per 100 by 100 area. Repeat this over the whole planet.
Just the area of one oil refinery collects the equivalent of 11 million gallons of useful gasoline in solar energy. To make 11 million gallons of gasoline takes about 440,000 barrels of oil. That same refinery refines 250,000 barrels of oil per day. If one includes the areas for drilling, roads, pipelines, service stations, maintenance areas, support businesses, etc, the energy density of oil becomes very low. Once one considers the size and volume of the earth needed to dispose of it’s waste products, the energy density of petroleum is negligible.
So besides being a destructive process, it is not really very energetic and has a short timespan of use but a very long timespan of destruction. Adding the time factor make petroleum a non-energy source. It destroys more than it gains.
If civilization can’t run on renewable energy there is only one alternative so far.
Of course the extremely expensive and so far not possible fusion energy could come along some day. The fantasy dreams of Bill Gate’s advanced nuclear options that are hugely more efficient than today’s clunkers might happen someday.
But dealing with reality, it’s renewables and efficiency for now. Anything else is fantasy or deadly disaster.
Nice to hear you guys have got it all figured out.
Just the energy end, trying to get the public motivated and stymie the sociopathic anti-renewable crowd still needs a lot of work.
Is solar and wind “better” in this regard vs fossil fuels?
Yes, of course it is. You haven’t ever really looked at the numbers.
Much, much better.
Solar generates power with *no* fuel consumed, versus lots of fuel for coal, gas, wood, etc. Think about it.
“but she makes a strong point that if we cut down on fossil fuel usage, the entire financial system will crash”
Those who DON’T respond to the challenge of self-reliance will be hurt and not survive. – Fixed it for you. “we” are all not in this together.
How long can/will house of Saud be able to finance/save the “we”?
Coach Red Pill explains the PetroDollar – Perhaps the most important deal in modern history https://youtu.be/xNr1LWgIyiE
The Petrodollar is collapsing, and it’s one of the biggest opportunities in the world now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBg_7dGkonQ
I want to look at a little history of EVs to put something I saw recently into perspective. First I looked at the oldest videos I could find on youtube with a search for “AC Propulsion t-zero”. I found three videos posted 12 years ago, one of which apologised for the video quality as follows ” !! Sorry about video quality… was filmed in Jan 2000 well before Consumer level 10Mpix camcorders!!”. The link below appears to have been excerpted from a documentary on the History Channel (the history channel’s logo is in the lower right corner of the screen). It showcases the AC Propulsion t-zero, a car built by EV enthusiast startup AC Propulsion to showcase the performance capabilities of EVs. According to the Wikipedia page, the original founders of Tesla Motors, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning had been for test rides in the t-zero and had tried to encourage the principals at AC Propulsion to take the car into production. Again according to the Wikipedia entry, Elon Musk had also been for a test ride and also encouraged AC Propulsion to produce the vehicle but was instead referred to Eberhard and Tarpenning. The rest is history and we now have the Tesla Motors Model 3 as the fourth best selling passenger sedan in the US for the month of September!
Which brings me to a youtube video that was posted 4 days ago that I saw referenced in a comment over at insideevs.com. The video features the “Schaeffler 4ePerformance” concept vehicle (video) a car developed by The Schaeffler Group, a global automotive and industrial supplier, based on an Audi RS3 four door sports sedan. The video was posted by Daniel Abt (youtube channel) a driver in the Formula e race series and the title says it all!
I’m posting this because, it reminds me of the buzz around the t-zero twelve years ago. The t-zero was the inspiration for Tesla Motors and I suspect the “Schaeffler 4ePerformance concept” will serve as the inspiration for a German starup to emerge and one day challenge the hegemony of the establish German automakers. This sort of thing is the genesis of disruption. This prototype, development platform not only beat a Porsche in a quarter mile drag race, it beat it driving in reverse!
When I see an electric vehicle out perform the formula one, or 24 hours at lemans, vehicles, I’ll be convinced. Let’s get some side by side comparisons. Like I said, I hope I’m wrong.
The 2020 Tesla Roadster, scheduled for first deliveries late next year will accelerate from zero to sixty in 1.9 seconds and have a range of 620 miles (1000 km). From ZeroTo60Times“Formula One race cars have been recorded to reach 0-60 as fast as 1.6 seconds, however the typical range for modern day F1 cars is between 2.1 to 2.7 seconds”. So, looks like you don’t have long to wait for the acceleration part. 620 miles of range ain’t too bad either!
The car that is the subject of the video I linked to is a beast. It is this kind of “balls to the wall” performance that will get the attention of gearheads first and then the general public eventually. I see these things as indicators of an impending disruption, Germany is just about 20 years late to the small enthusiast, performance EV game. Even Croatia is ahead in that game with Rimac Automobili. For a fascinating look at the Rimac and it’s beginnings see Inside Rimac (four part video series).
Never seen the videos of Teslas leaving drag racers in their dust, have you? Oh, and those are street models not special builds.
NAOM
Hi Jason,
Do you drive your car for 24 hours straight on a regular basis? If so, stick with a gasoline powered vehicle. I like my Tesla Model 3, works fine for me. 🙂
Jason,
Have you ever driven a formula one race car? I have not, not really interested in travelling in circles (or on a circuit).
You should consider test driving a Tesla Model 3, they are nicer than most vehiclles, though they will not accelerate faster than a Formula One race car.
I have the Long rang AWD Model 3 which is advertised at 0-60 in 4.5 seconds, but has been tested at about 4.33 seconds.
The Performance version of the Model 3 is reviewed at the link below:
Maybe a test drive would be convincing? Probably cheaper than a Formula 1 car. 🙂
Trolls are thick since the climate report came out. Got someone worried it did.
NAOM
Look, I’m a reasonable troll. I believe in climate change. My beef is with those who think renewables will replace fossil fuels without major suffering. But I get it, you are just protecting your tribe. It’s human nature.
Jason,
Not replacing fossil fuels results in more suffering, that is the point. Will it be challenging to replace fossil fuels by 2050, yes! Is it possible, maybe, but only if we get most people pulling in the same direction. So likely to be major suffering in either case.
Jason- ” My beef is with those who think renewables will replace fossil fuels without major suffering.”
I think most of the people who visit this site do indeed share your thought on this. Basically that is the root of why they are here- trying to wrap our mind around the challenge, the unfolding tragedy, the whole phenomenon of overshoot.
Some do try to be hopeful, optimistic, or constructive some of the time, and believe that if we made all the right moves (starting 30-40 yrs ago, IMHO), that we could keep the downslope at a shallow angle.
In my view, certain places will do better than others, in part because of the luck of their geography, in part because of choices and policies that they implement.
I sure am not optimistic about the collective smarts of people. We are in the midst of a big extinction event of our own doing, and we won’t be spared from its effects.
as an aside, you mention Gail T. Realize that she has been very wrong with her prognostications thus far. In time, things may come to pass as she suggests, but I’d take her with a grain of salt.
Not replacing FF with renewables will result in major suffering.
Replacing FF with renewables will result in major suffering.
Pick your poison.
Survivalist,
Suffering is likely to be greater by not replacing fossil fuels with some alternative, it will need to be attempted in any case. Makes more sense to start sooner rather than later, that way we will have some fossil fuel to burn when the next ice age arrives in 140,000 years or so.
The transition away from FF to alternatives will not, in itself, cause suffering. Let me say that again:
Renewables and EVs will not cause suffering.
Suffering will be caused by the delay in the transition. IOW:
Suffering will be caused by fossil fuels, not by the alternatives. The faster the transition, the less the suffering.
Nick,
I believe the suffering will be due to difficulty making the transition and I agree it is mainly due to waiting too long and the extra global warming that will occur as a result, the sooner we begin the lower the level of suffering.
the problem is, “sooner” means 1970.
Agreed, so the best we can do is start now unless we devise a way to travel back in time, which only happens in poorly written science fiction.
If we switch from fossil fuels to renewables ASAP, we will be pretty damn happy. Ask anyone with solar panels on their roof, or whose power comes from a local wind farm, or who has a Powerwall battery in their home, or an electric car in their garage.
Ask them about how much money they’re saving, too.
If we DON’T switch from fossil fuels to renewables, we will have major major major major major major major suffering, starting with the suffering we *already* have from pollution, oil spills, coal mining, etc., and the high cost of fossil fuels.
We are not tribal. We’re cold-hearted, hard-headed dollars-and-cents types. Renewables are cheaper and have far fewer bad side effects. Pay attention.
Dear Mr. Trump,
You might be interested in this article from New Scientist Magazine. I know you’re busy so have attached three paragraphs you should find worthy of your attention.
Cheers,
WE’VE MISSED MANY CHANCES TO CURB GLOBAL WARMING. THIS MAY BE OUR LAST
“If anything, denial is deepening. The populist revolt is hostile to action and its leaders have managed to tar environmentalists as just another wing of the liberal elite. Populism thrives by offering simplistic solutions to complex problems – the exact opposite of what the world needs right now…
The natural reaction to the IPCC report and wider developments may thus be despair. But that guarantees only one outcome: defeat. As the report makes clear, we still have time to pull off a rescue. It will arguably be the largest project that humanity has ever undertaken – comparable to the two world wars, the Apollo programme, the cold war, the abolition of slavery, the Manhattan project, the building of the railways and the rollout of sanitation and electrification, all in one. In other words, it will require us to strain every muscle of human ingenuity in the hope of a better future, if not for ourselves then at least for our descendants…
The history of humanity is one of stupidity, denial and dawdling followed by heroic rearguard action to prevail against all odds. The climate crisis is close to that inflection point. Does our generation have the gumption? It is time to find out.”
Doug, since Trump can’t read, it will have to be in an audio-book format, hopefully with some cartoon animation to keep him engaged.
1 page at a time.
NAOM
I wonder when the first mainstream “no chance now, we’re cooked” article will come out (and be broadly ignored I’d guess). I think maybe not so long, actually this year’s NYT supplement piece might have been the first. The recent article “Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene” had authors from almost all the major climate research labs. so I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s close to what they are all thinking (though the “best case” spin on it). Without action far above that proposed in the IPCC report it would suggest we are in runaway already. If you think about what was being reported just three years ago (most feedbacks ignored or not understood, renewables easy, politicians and populations are bound to wake up and take action etc.) and then project the same change forward the reports are likely to be about adaption and disaster mitigation only and not much about being able to retain any kind of BAU.
Okay George, here’s (an early) one for you.
‘WE’RE DOOMED’: MAYER HILLMAN ON THE CLIMATE REALITY NO ONE ELSE WILL DARE MENTION
“Global emissions were static in 2016 but the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was confirmed as beyond 400 parts per million, the highest level for at least three million years (when sea levels were up to 20m higher than now). Concentrations can only drop if we emit no carbon dioxide whatsoever. Even if the world went zero-carbon today that would not save us because we’ve gone past the point of no return.”
A small band of artists and writers, such as Paul Kingsnorth’s Dark Mountain project, have embraced the idea that “civilisation” will soon end in environmental catastrophe but only a few scientists – usually working beyond the patronage of funding bodies, and nearing the end of their own lives – have suggested as much. Is Hillman’s view a consequence of old age, and ill health? “I was saying these sorts of things 30 years ago when I was hale and hearty,” he says.
Can civilisation prolong its life until the end of this century? “It depends on what we are prepared to do.” He fears it will be a long time before we take proportionate action to stop climatic calamity. “Standing in the way is capitalism. Can you imagine the global airline industry being dismantled when hundreds of new runways are being built right now all over the world? It’s almost as if we’re deliberately attempting to defy nature. We’re doing the reverse of what we should be doing, with everybody’s silent acquiescence, and nobody’s batting an eyelid.”
Finally as a (cynical) retired geoscientist myself, one who thinks in geological time scales, I’d agree with this sentiment:
Hillman is amazed that our thinking rarely stretches beyond 2100. “This is what I find so extraordinary when scientists warn that the temperature could rise to 5C or 8C. What, and stop there? What legacies are we leaving for future generations? In the early 21st century, we did as good as nothing in response to climate change. Our children and grandchildren are going to be extraordinarily critical.”
If we do not have a fix in place for 2100 then we need not worry about what comes after. There will be no future generations to worry about.
NAOM
Now, now, it’s not all that bad. Most mammals came about when it was at least 5C warmer. We just have to learn to adapt.
Ooops, forgot about the methane hydrate problem for a moment. Oh well, toodle pipski.
Reminds me the older of the two major daily newspapers in my neck of the woods. One day of the week (Tuesday?) they feature stories on the environment, pollution climate change etc and then I believe it is the very next day, they switch the theme to “growth and jobs”! They seem to think we can have “growth and jobs” without degrading the environment or contributing to climate change. They are big fans of the push to use more LNG on the island, seemingly having dropped their love affair with coal and are very lukewarm on renewables.
I have noticed that if I want to get comments past moderation, the comments cannot contain the slightest hint of any limits to growth. Strange how some people’s minds work! Is this what we call cognitive dissonance?
You live on an island. With never ending growth, at some point, everyone will be standing shoulder to shoulder. That model just does not work.
NAOM
From Hillmans interview-
Instead, says Hillman, the world’s population must globally move to zero emissions across agriculture, air travel, shipping, heating homes – every aspect of our economy – and reduce our human population too. Can it be done without a collapse of civilisation? “I don’t think so,” says Hillman. “Can you see everyone in a democracy volunteering to give up flying? Can you see the majority of the population becoming vegan? Can you see the majority agreeing to restrict the size of their families?”
Hillman doubts that human ingenuity can find a fix and says there is no evidence that greenhouse gases can be safely buried. But if we adapt to a future with less – focusing on Hillman’s love and music – it might be good for us. “And who is ‘we’?” asks Hillman with a typically impish smile. “Wealthy people will be better able to adapt but the world’s population will head to regions of the planet such as northern Europe which will be temporarily spared the extreme effects of climate change. How are these regions going to respond? We see it now. Migrants will be prevented from arriving. We will let them drown.”
This partially mirrors the statement that Jason made in a comment earlier, about low carbon economy not being survivable.-“Civilization can’t stop producing carbon dioxide without the death of most of the people.”
With our historic population over the last 200,000 years of 1-10 million, not a problem.
7.6 billion? Not a chance.
And we’re adding 83 million every single year (population of NY city = 8.17 million).
I usually think of it as more than four, greater São Paulos… Which by now, is probably overly conservative.
According to IBGE, Brazil’s main government research institute, the population in the city of São Paulo is about 11 million inhabitants. If we take into account the metropolitan area, which includes 38 smaller cities around the capital, the population is almost 19,000,000 inhabitants.Jul 12, 2013
To keep that in perspective the entire global human population during the early Holocene is estimated to have been around half the current population of today’s Greater São Paulo.
And we still have to listen to our sage leaders talk about feeding 9 to 11 billion humans in the next couple of decades.
That is beyond ridiculous!
The shift to a zero-emissions economy CAN, of course, be done TRIVIALLY without any damage to civilization. Hillman is being an idiot.
We just build lots of solar factories, wind turbine factories, etc., and replace our energy sources; we save tons of money, have less local pollution, and stop global warming. We have enough spare energy to pull CO2 out of the air and fix it as solid carbon.
The problem is that we have a very large, active political group which wants to keep burning fossil fuels for the LULZ, as far as I can tell. Call them Republicans, Tories, or Oilmen, they are nihilists whose plan is to let everyone die so they can have their short term fix of flame and burning. It’s whacked. I don’t know what to do about them.
Since if they aren’t stopped, they will destroy human civilization, it is morally valid to kill them all (it’s self-defence), but it’s not practical at this point; there are too many of them.
There’s a subtle difference between reporting that so-and-so said X and writing a main article or leader (not a columnist’s op-ed) which just states X as a set position (presumably of the editior and publisher, but also reflecting wider understanding).
I will concede that I am defeated on this matter. Hopefully I’m wrong, but I don’t think so. Time shall tell. It always does.
Meanwhile, I hope to fly back to Antigua one day and enjoy a banana rum cake again and hang out on the beach with my wife. Hopefully that part of the world is still habitable by the time I get back to it.
Cheers!
Does it really matter or is it just paper anyway? I used to think massive debt was a doom scenario but not so convinced any more. Maybe Watcher is rubbing off on me.
US NATIONAL DEBT AT HIGHEST LEVEL SINCE AFTER WWII
“The new report to Congress paints a grim fiscal outlook for the next three decades, blaming sharp increases in net interest costs, Social Security and Medicare spending, and generally flat revenues over the next few years. In a nutshell, according to the CBO, spending is growing rapidly year over year — and revenues and even the growth of the economy just aren’t keeping up with the pace.”
Just poor money management, tax collections are up 5.6& from year before and have been rising yearly. Republican presidents/congress always seem to increase the debt. Too much military. Spending has blossomed under Trump.
It always takes the Dims a while to get things at least partly functional.
The loot and pillage motto of the Repugs is hard to deal with.
“Does it really matter or is it just paper anyway?”
Oh, it will come matter someday. That much debt represents a great weakness, a fragility, and a dead weight on future growth prospects. At some point the ability to kick the can down the road will fail, perhaps right around the time that peak oil starts to show up in the marketplace.
When that happens, much of things that debt pays for will either outright stop or become very expensive to uphold and so will be drastically scaled back. What are those things that debt has been used to buy, or is earmarked for?
medicare, military spending, pensions, mortgages, social security, infrastructure, education
Things like that.
I think there’s a theory that ultimately the debt is ultimately be coming out of pension provisions, so it’s just a question of which particular cohorts get clobbered first and hardest. But I don’t pretend to understand it.
As I see it, first in line to get clobbered is those have income- via escalation of tax rates. Second is the elderly/retired, through cuts in pensions and medical support. Third will be the wealthy, with taxes on assets. Although the very wealthy have so many ways to shield that wealth in places like Caymans and Switzerland.
Global ‘reset’. Try to be gone by then.
Those who are lenders will lose, those who are debtors will win, in the short term. Long term it depends on whether people have blind faith that all debt is bad and the solution to a debt problem cannot be more debt.
This was Hoover’s thinking in 1929-1932 (he had an excuse, as Keynes’ General Theory was not published until 1936) and the thinking of the Europeans in 2009 to 2013 (they seem to have little excuse except for perhaps a poorly done influential paper suggesting high government debt leads to lower growth, which might be true in the extreme, but is not true in general).
Government deficit spending in an economic crisis situation (with low inflation and high unemployment) is exactly the correct policy, if we assume a shorter crisis is desired rather than a longer one.
Whole day to get these 3600 kwh. And you have to build high tech solar pv to capture it. By burning oil you can get this amount of energy in couple seconds by just throwing a match into gasoline tank.
I was just talking to an owner of a 2017 Chevy Volt. Great car, he drives a lot but hardly uses any of that gasoline stuff. The engine and fuel tank are rarely used accessories. Nice to have but with today’s EV tech no need for the drilling, pumping, pipelines, refineries, more pipelines, trucks to distribute or those gasoline stations. All getting useless and will be extinct like the belching farting dinosaurs they are.
Transition can only be made from a worse energy source, to a better one. Never the other way around.
I am glad you agree with me. At least Somebody does.
First of all, your statement is blatantly false and contains logical fallacies!
Second, if you are trying to imply that a transition from fossil fuels to alternatives can’t happen because because the latter are a worse system for providing energy than the former, you either don’t understand the true costs of continuing to use fossil fuels and the fact that they are now giving diminishing returns on energy required to extract, process and ship them, let alone that ICEs are pathetically inefficient compared to electric motors…
Fossil fuels are by far the worse form of obtaining energy because they have to be combusted to produce heat which is then used to do work in highly inefficient machines that end up wasting most of that heat… Lose, lose, (pun intended)!
FFs are orders of magnitude better than wind, or solar. What is the biggest battery made by Tesla? Something like energy equivalent of 2 rail carts of coal?
OK, FFs have to be combusted, so what? FFs contain so much energy per weight, that renewables cannot be even named as energy sources.
Yahbut try burning that lump of coal twice or more times.
NAOM
Depends on how you look at it. I have enough space on the roof of my apartment to generate 5 to 6 kW power at peak. Based on my experience with my 2kW system I would generate about 25-30 kWh per day on average (5 to 6 peak sun hours in PV speak). My average consumption before I got PV was between 100 and 150 kWh per month. Now. because of the lame brained, utility friendly arrangements that exist in my neck of the woods, I will have to go through a fair amount of red tape to make the full use of my system. I would rather not go into that any more in a public forum such as this.
I plan to get an EV and maybe upgrade the PV system to reduce my carbon footprint further but, essentially, the PV system will be able to take care of my electricity and transportation needs for the rest of my life! Once batteries and their associated systems get to the point where they are more affordable, I will hardly need grid electricity at all.
I am doing an exercise using Google’s Mymaps feature to document at least the location of all the PV systems I can identify on the island where I live. Some estimates put the installed capacity at the end of 2016 at about 30 MW but, what the exercise proving to me is there is easily enough space on rooftops for probably 100 times that (3,000 MW). I have done some rough numbers and 2,000 MW would be enough to satisfy the entire electricity needs of the island, provided there is adequate storage.
So for now we need FF to keep the lights on and keep transportation systems operating but, how much longer before we don’t? I’m with Tony Seba in saying, twelve years or less.
“FFs are orders of magnitude better than wind, or solar”
ROFLMAO
Who left the village gate open again?
2nd grade energy primer.
Solar flux over earth surface 89,300 TW. That is 780 million TWh/yr Length of time available is over 1 billion years.
Fossil fuels total energy, 120 TWh/yr for 50 years, then civilization crashes and goes back to the Stone Age, except planet is a lot hotter than in the Stone Age and most animals are extinct.
Which resource is larger? Which resource is available for an unlimited time? Which resource fails after a few generations?
Which energy source causes civilization to fail?
Incorrect answers mean a return to the village.
FFs are orders of magnitude better than wind, or solar.
Okaaay… If you say so! However, most of the rest of the world disagrees with you.
There are many signs that the energy industry is on the brink of profound change. Globally, policy developments, despite some notable exceptions, continue to favour renewables technology. Last year, new renewable power capacity additions were more than double the new power capacity additions from fossil fuels. In capital markets, a reallocation of funds towards cleaner technology is underway. Where is all of this going to take us? That is what we aim to answer.
“FFs are orders of magnitude better than wind, or solar.”
Do not confuse the funny things in your head wirth reality. 🙂
Hint: FFs die because of very basic economic facts. Try to understand them.
Today in Göbrichen, where I am staying, very dry and 23°C… not good for local farmers, what is the cost of heat waves and drought?
Death
“OK, FFs have to be combusted, so what?”
To answer your question- combustion of FF releases CO2, which is a greenhouse gas. Increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, and CO2 in the oceans, are having impacts on life on earth due to climate change and ocean acidification. The impacts of same will very likely be fatal to much of life on earth.
What a dumbass you are!
Everyone who has half a brain knows a Tesla is 20 times better than a filthy, shaking, stinking gasmobile.
Everyone who has a quarter of a brain knows that solar panels are better than a coal burning power plant (which do you want on *your* rooftop)?
Either you’re missing a brain entirely, or you’re paid to spew this pro-fossil bilge and you don’t really believe it. Is the Kremlin paying you? We know they’re paying a lot of trolls like you, who don’t believe what they’re writing but are paid to troll.
You are absolutely correct, Somebody.
I suspect, however, that you misunderstand the meanings of “worse” and “better”.
Bingo. We’re going to transition from crappy fossil fuels to wonderful solar/wind/batteries/heat pumps. Some of us are already making the transition.
“Transition can only be made from a worse energy source, to a better one. Never the other way around.”
That’s a normative statement and expresses a value judgement about whether a situation is desirable or undesirable, i.e better or worse.
I think what you’re trying to say is that FF is more energy dense. That would be a descriptive, or positive statement, and would contain no indication of approval or disapproval.
Delete.
“adapt but the world’s population will head to regions of the planet such as northern Europe which will be temporarily spared the extreme effects of climate change. How are these regions going to respond? We see it now. Migrants will be prevented from arriving. ”
Some people say that we shouldn’t think about building a wall on the USA southern border, rather we should be thinking ahead and build a ‘climate migration wall’, to shield the north from coming tsunami of climate refugees over the next 50 yrs. Must adapt to the conditions.
This wall would exclude places like the Norfolk, Savannah, Miami, New Orleans, Houston, El Paso, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, clearly.
More debatable would be places like Manhattan, Atlanta, Little Rock, Dallas, and Bakersfield.
The USA is going to have a massive climate migrant/refugee problem. People fleeing coastal flooding, swamped cities, devastating storms etc. And those are just from the USA itself. Miami gets wiped out, where do the people go? Houston, New Orleans etc, where do the people go?
NAOM
BTW Does anyone here think the CO2 level has stabilized?
If you do, the Mauna Loa Observatory doesn’t agree with you.
Daily CO2, Oct. 12, 2018: 405.66 ppm, Oct. 12, 2017: 403.56 ppm.
“CO2 concentrations haven’t been this high in millions of years. Even more alarming is the rate of increase in the last five decades and the fact that CO2 stays in the atmosphere for hundreds or thousands of years. This [400 ppm] milestone is a wake up call that our actions in response to climate change need to match the persistent rise in CO2. Climate change is a threat to life on Earth and we can no longer afford to be spectators.” – Dr. Erika Podest
Stabilized? The rate of increase has not even stabilized.
Even using those low numbers for methane, manmade greenhouse gases contribute 3 watts per m2 to global warming(NOAA). Admittedly, that is a small forcing compared to what natural snow, ice, methane and CO2 changes will do but one has to start somewhere.
We are so blessed, most of mankind working together to warm the planet and nature getting together to do an even better job. Now that is unity and cooperation on a global scale.
Indeed, it warmeth the cockles of my heart!
Here is one for Doug, but the rest of you might enjoy this too. Only way to see things is to get out there.
Yeah, there’s something truly magical about the light in northern latitudes, especially when you throw in an aurora. Maybe that’s the reason I did my thesis on Alfvén waves — a lifetime ago. If it weren’t for having my Grandson nearby I’d probably live in Norway full time now.
I seem to be getting further North as I age——-
I’ve been thinking about applying for political asylum in Iceland and opening a geothermal powered greenhouse and growing bananas for export to Brazil… 😉
Iceland has Europe‘s largest banana plantation: could grow in importance due to Panama Disease
With the upcoming loss of our commercial variety, this is interesting.
I actually have some real time experience on this subject.
Another “more than expected” piece.
THE BIGGEST THREAT TO GREENLAND’S GLACIERS LIES DEEPER IN THE OCEAN THAN EXPECTED
“Unlike most other bodies of water, the ocean surrounding Greenland gets warmer with increasing depth. That’s because warm, salty currents from the Atlantic are heavier than fresh glacial water, so those currents end up on the bottom. And that’s what’s got scientists’ attention: our oceans absorb the heat trapped by greenhouse gases, so they’re getting warmer, and as they do, Greenland’s biggest, deepest glaciers are interacting with them — and melting at increasing speeds.”
Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person on the planet who thinks ocean acidification, global warming’s evil twin, is actually the greater of those two evils by many orders of magnitude. While as difficult as it may seem, I can envision bioengineering organisms to withstand increased warming, however it is basically (pun intended) simply not possible to fight chemistry! Damn it!
Sea snail shells dissolve in increasingly acidified oceans, study shows
October 15, 2018, University of Plymouth
Shelled marine creatures living in increasingly acidified oceans face a fight for survival as the impacts of climate change spread, a new study suggests.
Svante Arrhenius was not far off the mark when titling has landmark paper:
On the Influence of Carbonic Acid
in the Air upon the Temperature of
the Ground
Of course at the time, he didn’t know how that same carbonic acid would cause the unraveling of marine ecosystems very probably leading to the next major ocean extinction event. Which in turn will set multiple tipping points in motion. I sure hope every one of those future 9 to 10 billion humans relishes their solar dried jellyfish sandwiches!
Having seen the importance of reefs to the ocean ecosystem, at first hand, the thought terrifies me. Winter visibility 2-3 meters due to algae etc – fish food. Spring visibility 3-5 meters due to pinhead sized newly hatched fish – fish food. The survivors go on to be the new fish that we catch to eat. Loose the reef then what happens? People just do not understand the chain of supply of food that we eat. Break the chain – we die.
NAOM
Searching the web for “disruption”, I found a documentary with the “Disruption” as the name and watched it before I fell asleep. It was about the Peoples Climate March (PCM) on September the 21st, 2014 in New York City and one of the things I found interesting was that it included several clips featuring Chris Hayes of MSNBC, Van Jones of CNN and Rhode Island senator Sheldon Whitehouse. These three guys all get the seriousness of climate change and I find it quite amazing that,, despite the obvious strong support for action on climate change, demonstrated by the PCM, there is so much resistance to the idea in the US. It was pointed out by Sheldon Whitehouse that:
“That makes coal and oil and other fossil fuels more competitive against solar and wind and other sources then they deserve to be. Behind the environmental problems that carbon pollution causes and behind the economic problems is a political problem that a very small group of very powerful special interests have exerted very rough control over the political establishment.”
Would the politicians who find themselves in opposition to the interests that oppose action on climate change be able to gain anything by exposing the link between FF interests and climate change denial? It is becoming increasingly clear that since strong action on climate change will require accelerated use of technologies that will decimate the FF industries, those that benefit the most from those industries see any action on climate change as an existential threat. It is also obvious that these interests are not about to go quietly into the night. What I find truly abhorrent is the psycopathic nature of these people, willing to take the chance that the planet may become uninhabitable for most forms of life present today, just so that they can gain more wealth.
In the documentary, Naomi Oreskes outlines how, following Jim Hansen’s testimony before congress in 1988 the movement for action on climate change was gathering momentum when it more or less suddenly fell apart. Gee! I wonder how come that happened?
” I find it quite amazing that,, despite the obvious strong support for action on climate change, demonstrated by the PCM, there is so much resistance to the idea in the US.”
While there is a segment of the US that is supportive of adaptation, there is a very strong segment who are either afraid of losing their ‘business as usual’ status that they currently enjoy, and a very large segment who see this whole thing as a a trivial issue. They are taught this by Fox news, which is their primary source of brain ‘enrichment’. There is a third large group who are just apathetic, and another who are preoccupied with just getting by.
There needs to be a shift from highlighting the downside of climate change, which causes a psychological block, to promoting the benefits of the new technologies – clean, quiet streets, cheap energy, new jobs etc. I think I posted a link to a TED talk about how switching from using negatives to influence to using positives gets more results. I’ll try and look for it
Following on from this comment above, this morning I had a look at the electricity production graph for South Australia over at the OpenNEM. The screenshot of the relevant area below, shows that from about 1:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Australia time on Sunday October 14, 2018 wind or wind plus solar generated more power than the province was using! That is, fourteen and a half hours in which they could claim they were using 100% renewable energy, if the claim is made that the gas generators were supplying exports.
This prompted me to try and find other instances of countries or regions running on 100% renewables for any length of time. Iceland is the leader in this race running on all renewables, all the time. Costa Rica, Norway and the province of Quebec in Canada also generate more than 99% of their electricity from renewable sources (mostly hydro). Back in March 2017, Denmark made news for generating all of their electricity using wind for an entire day and Portugal recorded a four day period back in 2016, in which the electricity produced came entirely from renewable sources. Even in Germany, all the country’s demand could have been satisfied by the amount of renewable energy supplied on New Year’s Day 2018, a significant achievement even when the fact that it was a holiday is taken into consideration. In several countries and regions, renewables are generating close to if not more than 30% of their annual electricity needs (California 27% for 2017). Countries where the contribution is greater than 30% include New Zealand (80%), Honduras (50%), Portugal (44% in 2017), Germany (36% in 2017), Spain (33.7% for 2017), Denmark (32.3% for 2017) and the UK (31.7% in Q2, 2018).
It is increasingly apparent to me that the idea that 100% renewable energy is a mere impractical pipe dream is pure, unadulterated FF propaganda! The places that are close or already there are blessed with rich hydro-power resources but some of the jurisdictions that are currently hovering around 30% do not have any single renewable resource that could be considered remarkable. What is lacking in terms of the quest for reduced carbon emissions is vision, the political will and the fortitude to stand up to the FF interests.
The times on the chart below are US Eastern Standard Time, some 15 hours behind the time in Australia so, 10:00 a.m. EST is actually 1:00 a.m. the next day in Australia.
Yep. It’s time to move onward… Tasmania is now talking about producing more than 100% renewables, i.e. being a renewable energy exporter (as their state’s “business model”). Everyone smart should be doing this.
Cheltenham Literature Festival: Global warming peril from diseases trapped in the ice (paywalled in The Times)
Global warming will release deadly diseases that have been trapped in the ice caps for tens of thousands of years, an Oxford academic has warned.
…
Peter Frankopan, professor of global history and director of the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research, said there is “absolutely no chance” that nation states will keep below the 1.5-degree increase.
He told the Cheltenham Literature Festival that the greater worry of global warming is not the flooding of exotic holiday destinations but disease pandemics caused by the inevitable melting of ice. “If we go over that degree change, it’s not about the Maldives being harder to visit on holiday or migration of people — it’s about what happens when permafrost unfreezes and the release of biological agents that have been buried for millennia, in fact tens of thousands of years,” he said.
The Black Death may have been by caused short-term, rapid warming after 1340.
One thing I’m starting to understand is just how exceptionally stable the world climate has been in the years while our global civilization has grown, and maybe had to have been to allow that to happen. We take the stability for granted but seemingly quite small events could easily cascade to widespread disruption. It might all have been a wildly improbable and once-off fluke; how would we know different?
Are There Zombie Viruses In The Thawing Permafrost?
Johnny, now go to the blackboard and write this, ten thousand times:
People just do not understand the chain of supply of food that we eat. Break the chain – we die.
Oh, and while we are at it, think of any industrial monoculture, or even say a fish farm, and compare that to the beautiful vibrant complexity of a healthy living coral reef ecosystem.
I assure you, Johnny, man is not nurtured by food alone…
Man run over by lawn mower while trying to kill son with chainsaw
You know you are in the USA——
Feuding in Tennessee.
Went to a lawnmower fight with a chainsaw? Opting for a Darwin award.
Lawnmowers rule, ask any grasshopper.
After losing his leg, being served for second degree attempted murder and violating parole, he won’t be chasing his son down anymore. Probably shoot him if he ever gets out of prison. Dad is 76 years old and still hasn’t learned, never will.
Dr George Mobus
“For a number of years now I have been predicting a dooms-day scenario due to the twin impacts of climate change and peak fossil fuels. The former represents significant costs to societies. The latter represents significant decline in generating the income needed to pay the costs.”
“I continue to advise people to consider less what they can do as individuals to combat climate change (but do that also) and begin laying plans for how to survive in a totally chaotic world of 2-3 degrees C and no oil.”
Maybe in a decade or two our elite minds will actually state the root of the problem and tell us to “combat” the correct system. So far I have not found one that is willing to or publically recognizes the actual root of the problem. Either they are incompetent or afraid of losing their positions (or lives).
Me too, I never state it.
I’ve always liked George and have exchanged thoughts with him upon occasion. Tks, for reminding me to visit his blog. He hasn’t posted very frequently these days, Last time I commented there was in early summer of this year.
Cheers!
I’m curious about the situation with Jack Bryan’s documentary “Active Measures”, outlining the history of Trumps connections to the Russian Mob. I looked at the box office figures for it so far and they look pretty pathetic and it is not available for viewing on-line for free from any of the usual suspects.
Given the upcoming elections, would it not suit the DNC to pay the producers of the movie a fee, say a million dollars from their considerable war chest, and make it available for viewing on Youtube? What would prevent an agreement being made to make a low/medium definition version (360-480P) available on Youtube, if only for a limited time?
If you are hoping for some Hail Mary move from the Democrats, I would not hold my breath.
Hey don’t give up hope we also have these political parties…/sarc!
There are several minor parties in the United States. None of them has ever had any seats in the United States Congress.
Libertarian Party – A libertarian and liberal party which has around 411,250 registered voters as of March 2016. It is the third party (politics) and promotes a non-interventionist foreign policy and civil liberties.
Green Party – A left-wing environmentalist party that promotes social democracy and respect for diversity, peace and non-violence.
Constitution Party – A conservative party that promotes American nationalism, Paleoconservatism, Christianity, the anti-abortion movement, and greater attention on the U.S. Constitution. Has around 440,000 registered voters.
BTW, can anyone tell me the difference between the current GOP and the Constitution Party?! Trump, Pence, Brett Kavanaugh, and all the others, etc… Talk about Paleoconservatism!
Paleoconservatism opposes foreign wars of invasion. Ther’es the only difference.
Pepsi, Pepsi Lite– take your pick.
Trump Hits A New High-Water Mark: The Biggest Federal Deficit In 6 Years
The federal deficit has soared 17 percent in the president’s first fiscal year.
President Donald Trump likes to boast that he’s breaking records with the latest low unemployment figures. Here’s another record for his administration: The 2018 federal deficit hit the highest level of the last six years.
The deficit jumped 17 percent (or by $113 billion) to $779 billion at the end of Trump’s first fiscal year, according to final figures released Monday by the Treasury Department. That’s mostly due to the massive corporate tax cut that slashed rates from 35 percent to 21 percent, choking revenue for spending, which climbed 3 percent. Much of that was a hike in defense spending and money to pay interest on the climbing federal debt, CNN reported.
The U.S. government’s $523 billion in interest payments to service its debt in 2018 — the highest ever — was more than the entire economic output of Belgium this year, Bloomberg reported.
Corporate tax collections in the U.S. fell 22 percent, or $76 billion, in the fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30. The total federal debt — which combines annual deficits — was 78 percent of the nation’s entire gross domestic product in June. It hasn’t been that large a percentage since World War II.
Trump and Ryan arn’t worried about the deficit- they figure they will make it up on the increased income taxes from the blue states where people have lost their state income and property tax deductions on Fed filing.
“A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward..”
Europe Is Making Moves To Ditch Dirty Cars. Trump Wants More Of Them.
Denmark, Norway, France and the U.K. have a date to ban gas and diesel cars. In the U.S., the plan is to gut car emission legislation.
Paris is a city with a vision: The end of the automobile age. Dependence on gas- and diesel-powered vehicles has come at a huge cost to Parisians’ health and the environment in the metropolis of 12 million people. The French capital, regularly covered in a thick blanket of smog, has the worst air quality of any city in western Europe, according to a Greenpeace-commissioned study.
Mayor Anne Hidalgo believes it’s time for radical action. She wants the city to become a fossil fuel-free zone, a place where people get around on foot, bicycles, public transit and ― if necessary ― in electric vehicles.
She has said that diesel cars will be banned by 2024, and last year she announced that all combustion-engine cars must be gone by 2030. A network of Parisian neighborhoods already goes car-free each Sunday, and cars are banned from a stretch of road along the river Seine in the city center. The city government is considering making public transit free to entice drivers to give up vehicle ownership altogether.
If We’re Going To Save The Planet, We’ve Got To Use The Nuclear Option
Good news and bad news arrived this week from the world’s top climate change experts. Good news: they can tell us in agonizing detail why the world should really, really keep the rise in global warming to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius. Bad news: the 132 authors of the 700-page report offer many ideas but no feasible plan for how to do that. As the International Panel on Climate Change’s co-chair put it, “One thing the report did not aspire to do is answer the question of feasibility.” So we can call it the Beach Boys Report ― “Wouldn’t it be nice…”
The 2015 Paris Agreement set an overall goal of staying below 2 degrees Celsius of global warming. However, the combination of the deal’s country-by-country goals would not accomplish that, and no major country is on track to meet its goals anyway. The 1.5 degree target is rightly even more ambitious, but also even further from the reality of energy systems in the world today.
In the first part of the 21st century, the fastest-growing energy source was coal. And energy use is going up rapidly because poor countries want to be richer ― and have a right to be. Climate goals and realities are not converging.
The title of the article states: If We’re Going To Save The Planet, We’ve Got To Use The Nuclear Option”
Sorry, if that is what people think, then we can just forget it. Nuclear is simply not a solution for saving the planet. It is not economically viable. Wishful fantasies notwithstanding!
The game is getting late.
Desperation and delusion are becoming common.
Lots of people make money from promoting and implementing boondoggles. Snake oil up to our necks.
So how do the authors of this piece propose that this would work?
Both Sweden and France have powered growing economies for decades on cheap nuclear power. Both transitioned off fossil electricity in less than 20 years. There is no reason the world can’t do the same now.
The IPCC has told us how urgently the world needs to decarbonize to prevent a climate catastrophe. We need a realistic plan. It will include huge increases in renewable power, greater energy efficiency and shifts in agriculture. It must also include building 100 to 200 new nuclear reactors worldwide each year for the next few decades. Instead of merely taking steps in the right direction that don’t add up, the world needs to get moving along this proven, feasible path to save our planet.
The paragraph immediately following the excerpt in the comment above mine criticises solar and wind energy ad follows:
The main mitigation scenarios in the IPCC’s new report depend heavily on wind and solar power. These are both important parts of a solution, but they are harder and harder to deploy as they constitute more of the power grid. That’s because the outputs of wind and solar sources vary ― between day and night, between winter and summer, and often unpredictably. The desperately needed technologies to affordably store such renewable energy are still developing. Furthermore, renewable energies are diffuse, using large amounts of land, steel and concrete per unit of electricity generated, which makes it harder to expand them at the scale and pace called for by the IPCC’s dire timeline.
So on the one hand the authors are saying that a rapid, large scale nuclear build out is needed and is feasible, while, on the other hand, a large scale renewable build out is not practical or feasible. I wonder if my opinion on these matters would be different if I had a stake in the nuclear power industry? Recent history does not support either of the author’s assertions. Outside of China, all nuclear construction projects have been plagued by quality issues, causing delays and all of them are significantly over budget, yet the authors would have us believe that ” building 100 to 200 new nuclear reactors worldwide each year for the next few decades” is a promising solution?
My comment further up with the chart of electricity production from South Australia has examples of countries or regions that seem to be within striking distance of generating almost all of their electricity with renewable energy. With additions to their renewable capacity, the stories could soon change from generating all their electricity with renwables on occasion, to generating more than they need most of the time and eventually the occasions when fossil fuels are needed would be the newsworthy ones. The argument that renewable energy cannot scale to tasks seems to be less credible than the suggestion that a nuclear build-out of the scale required is possible.
We just went over this not long ago. Apparently no one is paying attention to this blog and we just keep recycling the same old opinion things which were disproven several times before. Groundhog day combined with Sesame Street.
But I guess that is what trolls do, they just keep restating the same old lies and myths until the commenters give up.
As warming becomes more and more obvious, we will be hearing a lot of talk about Nuclear Energy, and Geo-engineering.
Probably some action too.
Like most of what we do, the probability is high that the measures conceived and undertaken will be very ill-advised, and poorly executed.
Nuclear Energy, and Geo-engineering, two technologies guaranteed to fuck the planet up even more.
NAOM
Desperate people will experiment with extreme measures, and vote for extreme idiots.
And in another near-future version, a very pretty and well-educated chairman of the EU, or Asia United, will explain to a global audience on their devices, with a 100 scientists and bio/geo-engineers standing behind her, that they now have come up with the successful formula for implementing global climactic adjustment. In fact, they began with the process secretly 4 months ago, and are now approaching full capacity. The applause from the audience around the world is deafening, especially after she announced that each voter giving a thumbs up within the next three minutes will receive 18 carbon/carbo plus credits to their account!
What we could do to save the planet from climate change came up as a topic in the PA debate I was watching this evening. I found this clip of it on Cspan. I don’t know which side has a better argument on this topic.
That may be true,
but the 10 yr cost to own/operate will be much-much cheaper,
particularly as peak oil marketplace implications become apparent at the pump.
Darn, reality strikes again, they are already cheaper.
Recycle this one for those that don’t pay attention.
Worst case scenario: Trouble brewing as climate change affects beer supply (paywalled at the Times)
The world’s beer drinkers will be drowning their sorrows after a study found that the price of a pint could double because of climate change.
Barley, the main ingredient in beer, is particularly sensitive to extreme weather events such as droughts and heatwaves, which scientists say will become more frequent as the average temperature rises.
…
The study, published in Nature Plants, admitted that rising beer prices “may seem inconsequential in comparison to many of the other impacts of climate change”. [sic] However, it adds: “There is nonetheless something fundamental in the cross-cultural appreciation of beer.”
Also to be found on the BBC and Grauniad.
NAOM
Rather than EVs perhaps they/we should be talking about EBs (as in electric boats). BTW: this should be filed in the overflowing “Greater-than-Expected.” tray. That’s the one beside the almost empty “Less-than-Expected” tray.
WORLD HERITAGE SITES THREATENED BY SEA LEVEL RISE
“In 2013, the UN’s climate science panel estimated that global oceans could go up by as much as 76 centimetres by century’s end. But recent studies — taking into account shrinking ice sheets, now the top contributor to sea level rise — suggest those earlier projections were far too conservative. The IPCC will publish new estimates in September 2019. Even under the most optimistic scenarios for reducing greenhouse gases, sea levels will continue to rise well into or across the 22nd century.”
TRUMP TELLS ‘60 MINUTES’ CLIMATE CHANGE WILL REVERSE ITSELF AND HE DOESN’T WANT TO LOSE JOBS FIGHTING IT
President Donald Trump predicted climate change would fix itself, said he knows more about NATO that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and claimed the European Union was formed to take advantage of the U.S. in a wide-ranging interview aired Sunday on “60 Minutes.”
You can tell this TV host, real estate scammer, bankrupt 4 times, non reader, is just who we need as a ruler.
I had to stop listening to anything he says. It doesn’t matter what he says. Every word that comes out of his mouth is no more than a sales effort to promote his brand. It is absolutely unanchored in any factual reality.
I wondered for a while if he could be intelligent at all given his vocabulary and speech patterns of a 12 year old but I eventually realized that that is the level of understanding of his most ardent followers so his words are primarily directed towards them.
Synapsid — I remember tossing a rock into an alkali lake and a blob of purple “fluid” came to the surface like a huge mushroom. Turned out to be purple sulfur fixing bacteria that was of great interest to some geochemists.
WAS LIFE ON THE EARLY EARTH PURPLE?
Earth’s atmosphere has not always contained significant amounts of oxygen. For the first two billion years of our planet’s history, the atmosphere was rich in carbon dioxide and methane, but around 2.4 billion years ago something changed: the Great Oxygenation Event that saw the abundance of free oxygen in our atmosphere dramatically rise. The cause of this is thought to be cyanobacteria, which are able to perform photosynthesis – the transformation of sunlight and carbon dioxide into metabolic energy to produce sugars that fuel life’s processes, and oxygen as a ‘waste’ product – using a green pigment called chlorophyll.
Thanks for this article. And I’ve never happened to wonder what causes the purple sulfur-fixers to be purple. (Note to self: Look into this, with port.)
I like the research approach in the article: Simple thinking. What a great idea!
—
An update for you and all other aficionados of the Mekong: Because the river cuts through much mountainous terrain especially in China it has been thought that it predated the regional uplift and cut down through the rising land fast enough to hold its course. That’s what the Columbia River here in the Pacific Northwest did in order to form a canyon that Washington and Oregon could use as a border. In today’s Eurekalert (cue French horns) is a piece on dating Mekong downcutting that shows that the downcutting coincides with increased monsoon activity in Southeastern Asia during the Mid-Miocene Climatic Optimum, and new (last few months) dating of the MMCO shows (cue the loud bassoon–they cannot choose but hear) that its boundaries match in time those of the extrusion of the greatest volume of the Columbia River flood basalts. Let us lift a glass of our favored to the good ol’ CRB where I had so much fun mapping back in nineteen-ought-seventy-nine.
Estimable Synapsid,
Apparently the reason the lowly purple sulfur-fixers are purple is because of their spectral reflectance. Purple is a combination of two spectral colors, red and blue.
Red light has a wavelength of 700–635 nanometers and blue between 450–495.
It is interesting to note that green photosynthetic plants tend to absorb light mostly in the reds and blues reflecting green which gives them their characteristic color.
Whereas, From Wikipedia:
Purple bacteria or purple photosynthetic bacteria are proteobacteria that are phototrophic, that is, capable of producing their own food via photosynthesis.[1] They are pigmented with bacteriochlorophyll a or b, together with various carotenoids, which give them colours ranging between purple, red, brown, and orange. They may be divided into two groups – purple sulfur bacteria (Chromatiales, in part) and purple non-sulfur bacteria
Louis Armstrong – What a wonderful world ( 1967 ) – YouTube
I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
Climate-driven declines in arthropod abundance restructure a rainforest food web
Bradford C. Lister and Andres Garcia
Significance Arthropods, invertebrates including insects that have external skeletons, are declining at an alarming rate. While the tropics harbor the majority of arthropod species, little is known about trends in their abundance. We compared arthropod biomass in Puerto Rico’s Luquillo rainforest with data taken during the 1970s and found that biomass had fallen 10 to 60 times. Our analyses revealed synchronous declines in the lizards, frogs, and birds that eat arthropods. Over the past 30 years, forest temperatures have risen 2.0 °C, and our study indicates that climate warming is the driving force behind the collapse of the forest’s food web. If supported by further research, the impact of climate change on tropical ecosystems may be much greater than currently anticipated.
Abstract
A number of studies indicate that tropical arthropods should be particularly vulnerable to climate warming. If these predictions are realized, climate warming may have a more profound impact on the functioning and diversity of tropical forests than currently anticipated. Although arthropods comprise over two-thirds of terrestrial species, information on their abundance and extinction rates in tropical habitats is severely limited. Here we analyze data on arthropod and insectivore abundances taken between 1976 and 2012 at two midelevation habitats in Puerto Rico’s Luquillo rainforest. During this time, mean maximum temperatures have risen by 2.0 °C. Using the same study area and methods employed by Lister in the 1970s, we discovered that the dry weight biomass of arthropods captured in sweep samples had declined 4 to 8 times, and 30 to 60 times in sticky traps. Analysis of long-term data on canopy arthropods and walking sticks taken as part of the Luquillo Long-Term Ecological Research program revealed sustained declines in abundance over two decades, as well as negative regressions of abundance on mean maximum temperatures. We also document parallel decreases in Luquillo’s insectivorous lizards, frogs, and birds. While El Niño/Southern Oscillation influences the abundance of forest arthropods, climate warming is the major driver of reductions in arthropod abundance, indirectly precipitating a bottom-up trophic cascade and consequent collapse of the forest food web.
FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!
Esteemed FredM,
Thanks for this. I’d just finished reading the same article at Wikipedia and raced over here to spread the word only to find that a helpful gentleman who for some reason prefers to live in a water-soluble state in a hurricane track had already provided the reference.
A day late and a dollar short–story of my life. (My father’s variant was “A dollar down and a dollar when you catch me.”)
It’s the carotenoids as cause the color, purple being part of the range. (hmm…I could celebrate learning this…)
Fred, have you guys cloned Trump?
‘WE ARE HEADED FOR A VERY DARK PERIOD.’ BRAZIL’S RESEARCHERS FEAR ELECTION OF FAR-RIGHT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE
“Beset by economic woes and dissatisfied with the left-wing politicians in power for most of the past 15 years, Brazil appears poised to make a hard turn and elect a far-right candidate, Jair Bolsonaro, as its next president. His rapid ascent has unnerved local researchers, who worry about the future of Brazilian science, the protection of the country’s biodiversity, and its role in the global struggle against climate change.”
Do you, Fred, equate criticism of Musk with being un-American/anti-American. Is it treasonous? Oh my, you have drunk the kool-aid. Perhaps you might like to declare your position in Tesla shares so we can assess your opinion for bias. The last thread in which I offered criticism of Musk resulted in you calling me a Russian FF troll. Your overly emotional and insulting responses to any criticism of Musk indicate a lack of objectivity. I suggest you’re the troll Fred, a Musk troll, not unlike the US LTO trolls/shills who frequent the petroleum thread. (Texas Tea)
Muskers, or perhaps Muskovites is better (has a nice Russian ring to it), are not unlike Trumpsters and Bitcoiners. Musk is similar to Trump, but his worshippers are more similar to bitcoiners.
Trump followers are more trollish and they know Trump “triggers” a certain type of person they deem as SJW/ whiny liberal/ etc.. Most of their activity is more in line with trolling rather than recruiting. They seem more angsty and insulting.
Bitcoiners are more “cultish” and have blind faith in bitcoin disrupting the status quo and ushering in a new techno-libertarian utopia.
Musk fanatics are also cultish and have blind faith in Musk disrupting the status quo (big oil, ICE incumbent car companies) and ushering in a new techno-green utopia.
Let us know when Tesla posts a P/E ratio that’s not less than zero.
Cue the hysteria.
Hey Fred, the ricochet got you!
LOL!?
Dude, Tesla was profitable last quarter (Q3), according to all reputable analyses. The official earnings announcement is TOMORROW.
Get a clue.
It is a tad ironic that at a time when it seems we need scientifically enlightened global cooperation the most, we have all these scientifically ignorant, socially backward looking, populist politicians with fascist and authoritarian tendencies rising to power all over the world. This is not just a US or Brazilian problem. It is happening in Europe and in many other parts of the world as well. None of this bodes well for solving our issues in the time scales we still have available. Depressing to say the least… 🙁
Trump is a consequence not a cause. Civilization forgets after about 70 to 80 years; perceived hard times, and the ones coming are going to be a lot more than just perceived, lead to demagogues and “hard-men” if no-one can remember what they were like last time around. Trump is probably considered a bit of a wimp and push-over by the others and more so as his total incompetence and flakey hold on (an entirely self-centred) reality become more apparent with each day.
I really don’t think it is about forgetting. It is mostly about racism. Every Trump supporter I know is a racist, though most would deny it. But they all complain about “The Blacks”. And most are xenophobic as well. They are racist whether they think they are or not. And they all are Trump supporters.
They want to “Make America Great Again”. But just when was America great? Or when was it greater than it is right now? They all lone for the good old days of segregation. They believe Trump will “Make America White Again”.
If you doubt my words then just ask the next avid Trump supporter you meet any question relating to race. Don’t be shocked by his/her answer. That’s just who they are. Well, perhaps not all of them, but about 95 to 99 percent of avid Trump supporters are racist and/or xenophobic.
Hard-line Trumpism isn’t softening; it’s being cemented.
Increasingly, as he picks his cabinet from among his fawning loyalists, it is becoming clear that by “Make America Great Again,” he actually meant some version of “Make America a White, Racist, Misogynistic Patriarchy Again.” It would be hard to send a clearer message to women and minorities that this administration will be hostile to their interests than the cabinet he is assembling.
“Crisis cults serve up illusions of recovered grandeur and empowerment during times of collapse, anxiety and disempowerment. A mythologized past will magically return. The old social hierarchies and rules will again apply. Prescribed rituals and behaviors, including acts of violence to cleanse the society of evil, will vanquish malevolent forces. These crisis cults—they have arisen in most societies that faced destruction, from Easter Island to Native Americans at the time of the 1890 Ghost Dance—create hermetically sealed tribes. We are already far down this road.”
Nice talk by Snyder, has happened before in the US.
The historical horrors of the coal miners and their families is a dark stain on America. The rich and powerful were tyrannical in their use and abuse of workers.
However, strangely enough, during the same period of time there arose a segment of the rich and powerful who assisted the workers and general public, pushing America forward ethically, physically and economically. These more enlightened rich were key to many of our social and educational systems from the late 1800’s through the mid-1900’s. They were also key players in protecting the environment.
Yeah, that sounds like a typical crisis cult. Only thing to do with them is to remove them from power. Often they destroy themselves.
Last week I overheard one of my co-workers, a staunch bumper stickered MAGA hatted Trump supporter, say:
“I don’t have nothing against them people. I just think it’s like crayons; every color should have its own box, if you know what I’m sayin’.”
As a designer, I was left to contemplate what kind of person wants only one color of crayon in their crayon box.
A racist.
There have always been racists, there hasn’t always been ones in so many positions of power, as is happening now.
Oh, you are either very young or have a very short memory George. South Carolina Senator Storm Thurmond ran for president in 1948 on the “States Rights” Party. They openly supported segregation. Georgia Senator Richard Russell, whom the Russell Senate Office building is named after, openly supported segregation. Open racism was supported and shouted from the floors of Congress in the 40s, 50s and even into the 60s.
Racism has slowly, very gradually, been disappearing from politics since the middle 60s. Only now has Trump and the Republican rabble been bringing it back. And we now have an avid racist in the White House for the first time since Woodrow Wilson.
It is ironic how things have switched. The Democratic Party was once the party of racism. Not things have completely gone full circle. It is now the Democrats who are for civil rights and now it is the Republican Party who is suporting racism.
I meant in the last 70 to 80 years or so, which was my first comment – your point kind of agrees more than not with that- also I maybe have a less US centric view.
Trump and his racist supporters are reactionaries. They are actually reacting to the decline in racism. Racism was normal in the 1920s, sadly. Woodrow Wilson won with overwhelming majorities twice… and his successors from the other party were also racists.
By contrast, Trump didn’t even win the majority of votes, and he was running against a supremely awful campaigner who was pushing the wrong message. Trump, like racism, is now *deeply unpopular*. This is a reactionary attempt to roll back the change, and it has no chance whatsoever (you can tell from polling younger people).
Unfortunately, the Republican/fascist tactics in support of the fossil-fuel burners are causing massive damage to the world and particularly to young people.
Will take 5-7mn years for species to recover from losses since rise of humans
Researchers also say it will take 3-5 million to return to current biodiversity level
Scientists say we need to boost conservation efforts to prevent worst case
Humans are now driving mammals to extinction at rates much faster than Earth’s species may be able to recover from, a new study warns.
Even in the best-case scenario, worrying new estimates suggest it will take upwards of 5 million years for mammal species to bounce back to current biodiversity levels following the extinctions expected to occur over the next five decades.
The researchers say evolution will not be able to keep up with the rate by which mammal species are dying out unless we ramp up conservation efforts.
Species extinction, like climate change, is being driven by human beings. Other animals have what we want, food, territory, and resources. So we just take it from them. That’s what all animals try to do. But we are a superpredator, we can do it and they, that is other animals, can’t do.
This comment caught my eye! She actually thinks there will be 12 billion humans on this planet at some point. Imagine 12 billion humans who think like this:
leslie graham, Kampala, Mozambique, about 10 hours ago
So what use are the other mammals anyway? We can’t eat them and they just take up space that could be used for building land or agriculture. There will be around 12 billion mouths to feed by the end of this century. You really think we can afford the luxury of allowing other animals to compete for our food growing areas. How many of you have ever even seen a rhino or polar bear anyway? Life is competition for resources and we are winning.
What she an others like her fail to grasp is that we are absolutely NOT winning! My money is on the probable long term winners being mostly bacteria and fungi. Most mammals including humans will not be around for too much longer.
Good luck, stupid humans!
Having a very advanced brain does not necessarily mean they have advanced knowledge or understanding. Sometimes the brain is so unused it appears as if they have an anus at both ends.
12 billion people all with cell phones, refrigerators, cars, TV’s etc. etc. etc.
Nahhhh. Not going to happen. Unless 10 billion live off in space somewhere. Thanks Elon.
There is some good news though. Although the mammals of the time, small rodent-like creatures, were narrowed down by the big asteroid hit, by the time of the PETM and even during it they had diversified into an incredible collection of species of all sizes and natures. A fantastic world of high bio-diversity.
Also, reptiles, amphibians and birds survived both cataclysms.
The Ice Age has been tough on mammals but once we are out of the way, whatever is left can evolve and radiate to make a whole new set of amazing creatures.
Alarming Study Links ‘Collapse’ of Rainforest Food Web to Rising Temperatures
Comparing 1976 to 2011-2013, the new study found a massive drop in the weight of insects collected in traps from two long-term research sites. Twenty years of data on the abundance of more than 120 groups of canopy insects revealed a similar decline. The researchers found a concomitant drop in the abundance of insect-eating lizards, frogs, and birds.
(apologies if already posted)
That Earther site has good stuff. There’s another recent paper on water wars (USA doesn’t come out well) https://earther.gizmodo.com/here-s-where-the-post-apocalyptic-water-wars-will-be-fo-1829793126
Plus one on Polar Bear starvation in a warmer Arctic and one on climate change and Angkor Wat demise. I think the papers are collected from other journals but some may be original.
Alaska expands oil field production: in a (former) wildlife park no less. Climate change? What climate change?
BLM APPROVES OIL FIELD IN NATIONAL PETROLEUM RESERVE-ALASKA
“The federal Bureau of Land Management has signed off on another oil field within the National Petroleum Reserve. The BLM announced Monday that it had issued a joint record of decision with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approving Greater Mooses Tooth 2. ConocoPhillips Alaska, Inc. expects to start construction at the site this winter. The company says the site should be in production for 30 years, from 2020-2050.”
Why is the Army Corps of Engineers involved? Is it just an approving authority or will it provide oversight or construction of facilities? If either of the latter are not paid for at commercial rates then it would be a government subsidy.
NAOM
Just below that
“St. Louis-based electric utility Ameren Missouri is building a solar facility for business and residential customers to tap into renewable energy.”
Fossle fuel fiends just don’t get it.
NAOM
If I were to guess, I would guess that this may be the last oilfield to go into production. It’s “conventional” so it will outlast the fracking and deepwater and tar sands garbage, and it’s supposed to start production in 2020, versus the date of 2023 when it will become impossible to profitable drill an oil well ever.
Llano River at Llano, TX was running 25,000cfs. Normally runs at around 150cfs.
Very nasty, I hope people get out before one of those dams goes.
THE STUFF NIGHTMARES ARE MADE OF
“We have so many causes in our world, so many voices, so many injustices and so many opportunities. But in the end, it all might come to nothing, for the one great challenge overriding all others continues to remain an outlier. The world has known of the coming climate apocalypse for decades and warnings have been publicized from every major venue on the planet, and yet so little has actually been accomplished for all the promises that have been made. All those causes mentioned earlier are fighting for the world’s attention, yet they refuse to come together and cooperate on that one issue that transcends their efforts and their outcomes. Every cause is important, but only one cause supersedes all the others. We’ve known that. We’ve prevaricated. We’ve stalled. Governments have refused to challenge their own populaces because, well, harsh actions for sustainability don’t win elections. And the rest of us have just gone on shopping, wasting, and waiting for others to do something.”
https://www.nationalnewswatch.com/2018/10/11/the-stuff-nightmares-are-made-of/
Demise of fossil fuels. Bullshit.
LNG CANADA A ‘GO’
“Royal Dutch Shell and its four Asian investors agreed to pony up C$40 billion of capital spending, seven years after first rolling out what is rated as THE BIGGEST INFRASTRUCTURE UNDERTAKING IN CANADIAN HISTORY and a project that could boost global LNG supplies by 10 percent.”
BTW, there will be unanimous First Nation participation. “One of the most encouraging breakthroughs involved the unanimous backing of 25 elected First Nations along the pipeline right of way. They have all signed on for benefits agreements, with operator TransCanada conditionally awarding C$640 million worth of contracting and employment opportunities to indigenous businesses, but a company spokeswoman would not say whether those deals include revenue sharing from the pipeline’s profits.”
http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/403379809.shtml
And,
MURKOWSKI IS TAKING HEAT FOR HER KAVANAUGH VOTE. BUT HER SUPPORT FOR ARCTIC DRILLING COULD HELP HER.
“Murkowski wrote a landmark piece of legislation opening 1.5 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, in northeastern Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling. With Trump’s signature at the end of last year, anywhere between 4.3 and 11.8 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil will be eligible for extraction, according to a 1998 U.S. Geological Survey estimate. Nearly every elected official the state has sent to Washington before Murkowski over the past three decades – including her own father, former senator and governor Frank Murkowski – had tried and failed to open that remote coastal plain in Alaska’s North Slope to fossil-fuel extraction.”
What pathetic pieces of shit these people are!
I said way back when that sooner or later there would be money enough on the table to buy the First Nations .
Hey Mac, good to see you back! How’s the campaigning going? What’s your sense of the mood in your neck of the woods?
Poverty corrupts.
Can you see Texas up there on your high horse?
LOL
It sounds like you felt my comment was excessively judgmental. And, as best I can tell, your comment is meant to be…judgmental…
Not sure. Been told that pointing out someone’s judgmental-ism is an observation, not itself being judgmental.
I suppose that’s possible, but I think that’s hard to do. In this case, look at the tone of the comment…
Yeah, and Trans Mountain will go through as well. Two things about BC LNG. It’s 8 days closer to Asia than US supplies, and it’s not US supplies. Sometimes when trade wars start up and allies are rebranded as enemies, there are changes in markets and buying trends.
BC population is by and large very pleased with this announcement. I am, in any event. As Chretien once said, “If we don’t sell our oil they’ll just buy it from someone else”. It seems similar to the war on drugs. Demonize the growers. Demonize the cartels. Demonize the street dealers. But no one ever talks about the demand.
I don’t see a change until gas is $10/gallon and a few US cities are underwater and GW is no longer deniable for even the most land locked ignoramous. Who knows, maybe the economy will collapse with the same result? Hang on.
Remember, it’s already cheaper to operate an electric vehicle than a fossil-powered vehicle. It already has lower total cost of ownership. It’s already cheaper to generate electricity with wind or with solar or with existing hydro than with existing coal or with existing gas, let alone with oil. It’s already cheaper to deliver electricity from batteries than with “peaking” plants. Solar and wind and batteries and EVs continue to get cheaper.
Gasoline can’t compete on price with EVs unless it goes below $1/gallon. Natural gas can only compete on price with electric heat pump heating if it stays below $3.50/therm, and that price is currently subsidized by the unprofitable fracking companies.
The only reasons people are still using fossil fuels are (1) habit, and (2) insufficient production volumes for batteries, solar, wind, EVs, heat pumps, etc.
Basically, we just need to manufacture a hell of a lot more EVs, heat pumps, batteries, wind, and solar. That’s all. Drive fossil fuel producers bankrupt by eliminating their demand, and their political suport will go away too. It’s very simple.
See The Climate Report That Shreds Donald Trump’s Science Denials | The Beat With Ari Melber | MSNBC (Youtube video)
Those kind of talking points aren’t just ignorance or even trolling. They’re part of a rhetorical frame to cancel out the science, like the UN report and the news this week because, the fears of Americans understand how dangerous this is to us, to our homes, to our children, it would be harder to defend the industry line of doing little to nothing about the climate and so we end up with the snowballs……[snip]
So with or without Scott Pruitt, we also see the Trump administration’s EPA making it easier for corporations to emit fossil fuels and evade rules for clean power, while energy companies have plowed over 10 million in the GOP races several elections in a row and those companies include coal corporations. The UN report says it’s especially to blame for the new surges in the Earth’s heat.
Now let’s be clear, it is hard sometimes to keep track of the science of how the earth is getting warmer, the details and Republican critics of global warming like to repeat the talking point that they themselves are not scientists behind climate change
Obviously Ari Melber and a significant portion of the US electorate get it. The fact is that the beneficiaries of the FF industries don’t wanna hear it, as if they will be able to use all the money they are making to insulate themselves from the effects of global warming. One only has to visit the web sites of “Think tanks” funded by FF interests to see that they are making a herculean effort to sow doubt about the science of climate change. One of the downsides of runaway capitalism is that it leads to a situation where extreme wealth allows the holders of that wealth to use it to stymie competitive threats.
Somebody needs to expose the money trail and file an antitrust suite against these mfs.
Here’s the problem -as I see it but keep in mind these are just my opinions- climate change has become synonymous with high carbon emissions. The two aren’t the same. It’s now undeniable that Earth is getting warmer, so if that’s the question being asked the results would be overwhelmingly yep. The reasons why are many -overdevelopment, slash & burn, mining, etc etc etc. All are contributors to warming the planet. Then there’s the elephant in the room of overpopulation with tens of millions of people added to the planet each year. Extra people contribute to warming.
If the issue got confined to just these areas, then there’s very little controversy because we can see these things with our own eyes. The problems arise when we move to CO2 emissions. We can’t directly see these so we have to rely on abstractness like fallible computer models. Therein lies the enormous issue. Most simply do not trust those who are behind models and who push them onto the public. They see this as an issue of control thru usage of data that can be made to say what those behind it wish to say by changing parameters and such.
Added to this are the statements by top scientists and environmentalists about how the ultimate goal is to change economic systems and living freedoms. Put in one additional elephant in the room, the Third World along with China and India -for the most part- are exempt from the emissions controls developed countries are subject to and it starts to looking like the proposed solutions are a prescription for New World Order. Thus so many get skeptical -not of the scientific theory- but the agendas behind the politicians bringing it up. Until that issue is completely addressed we cannot and will not reach any kind of meaningful consensus on what to do going forward.
Like you said, it’s your opinion! You are entitled to it, but it ain’t worth a bucket of warm spit!
Troll alert
“Until that issue is completely addressed we cannot and will not reach any kind of meaningful consensus on what to do going forward.”
Your talents are wasted. You should teach civics at Harvard.
It might possible be useful for someone to say that pretty much all of those statements just aren’t true – they’re just misinformation put out by people funded by oil and fossil fuel interests.
For example, there really aren’t any scientists saying that the goal is to change economic systems and living freedoms.
Nick G- “For example, there really aren’t any scientists saying that the goal is to change economic systems and living freedoms.”
If you keep saying stuff like that you will never make it as a Fox news Analyst. Careful.
Smells of a spambot churning out random statements.
NAOM
Yes. Any comments we leave are intended for other readers, who might be confused.
Yep, that is how I try to handle it.
I’ll bet that the coastal communities along the Florida Panhandle hit by hurricane Michael on Wednesday are going to find they no longer have an economy… And guess what, scientists are clear that hurricane intesity and storm surge has increasead due to human caused climate change. And everyone has the FREEDOM to pretend it isn’t so…
For the record, the main message of the SR15 report is exactly that our current economic system is a path to suicide! Its time to wake up and smell the coffee!
“Current economic system”? Where in the report does it say that?
In the entire report, all of it is a take down of the fossil fuel growth based global economy. And no it doesn’t spell it out in exactly those words but it is a thorough condemnation of the status quo. It says that only radical change in the way we live and do business will keep us from complete and utter disaster. IMHO there is no other way to interpret the Summary for Policy makers.
Fred,
Fossil fuel industries are desperately spreading the meme that climatologists are commies, using climate change as a pretext for their radical commie agenda. It’s worth paying attention to what you say to not give support to this idea.
Communists use coal, oil and gas. Capitalists and socialists use them.
Yes, getting rid of fossil fuels, and other sources of GHG emissions will be a big change. But that’s different. For instance, you can dramatically move the economy away from FF with a simple carbon tax, if you make it high enough. There’s no communism in a carbon tax – mostly just pain for FF investors.
And heat pumps, passive houses and EVs are better and more convenient than FFs. EVs can be and are built in the same factories, by the same workers. EVs drive on the same roads. There’s no communism necessary to electrification.
Even a circular economy doesn’t require communism. Heck, the US steel industry is almost entirely circular – I haven’t noticed any communists running US steel mills (though some of the old-time steel industry labor organizers might have other ideas…).
Nick, it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference what particular flavor of political or economic ideology a particular group of societies professes to believe in.
Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, Theocracies, Any number of Authoritarian fascist regimes, you name it! They all are part of a global economic system. Every single one of them runs mostly on fossil fuel. If you seriously believe that a report to world leaders telling them that they have to get off of fossil fuels as of the day before yesterday, has no major global economic implications, then I really don’t know what the hell you are smoking!
Fred,
Fossil fuels just aren’t that important. Sure, they’re important, but we’ve gone through lots of changes in the past that were just as large.
The move from an economy dominated by farms, to one dominated by manufacturing, was a big change. Heck, it precipitated the US Civil war as the balance of power shifted from the South to the North.
The move from horses to tractors was big. It precipitated the Great Depression by displacing millions of farmers. People blame the great migration on the dust bowl, but it was really tractors that caused the Crash and displaced all those people.
The move from coal to oil was big. It precipitated aviation, suburbs, new forms of warfare, etc., etc. But the basic form of our economy didn’t change.
No, fossil fuels are obsolete. Renewables and various forms of electrification are cheaper, cleaner, faster, better.
The only reason we don’t see it is the desperate rear guard action of oil interests, led by a decades-long misinformation campaign by the Koch family.
Economic System- An economic system is a system of production, resource allocation and distribution of goods and services within a society or a given geographic area.
I’m pretty sure that urgent action to phase out fossil fuel, which is what the IPCC report calls for, is gonna change the economic system. I’m also pretty sure that Nick G is a fact resistant human who lives in an alternate reality.
See my comment above. Also, ad hominem comments only make your comments look thoughtless and uninformed. Better to listen carefully to what people actually say. You might actually learn something, and if you express your ideas carefully, other people might actually learn from you!
To your comment about economic systems: they’re pretty agnostic to WHAT they distribute: they can distribute bicycles, horses, ICEs or EVs.
I believe we would be better off if economists can be recruited to tout a better system than scientists warning of the chaos to come. Promise of a better economy under renewable would get more attention.
NAOM
That is the approach I am seeing. Take my island home for example.
Jamaica, like many other small island states, has been hostage to the international oil markets, with it’s economy doing well when oil prices are low and the world economy is doing well driving commerce and tourism. However, when oil prices go up and the world economy slows down we face double jeopardy, with reduced income from bauxite/alumina exports and tourism occurring at the same time as increasing oil prices with their attendant impacts on foreign currency outflows and other rising cost due to increased transportation costs.
The beauty of transitioning to a renewable energy based economy is that fuel price volatility is just about eliminated. Renewable energy. once it reaches a large enough scale also has the potential to decouple economic activity (growth) from fossil fuel use. I suspect that there are several places in the world where this decoupling will soon be undeniable, as a matter of fact, Peter Newman of Curtin University, Perth, Australia has published a paper on the topic.
Decoupling Economic Growth from Fossil Fuels
3. Evidence
In 2016 the International Energy Agency announced that the world had changed. For the first time in hundreds of years the world was producing less greenhouse emissions than the year before without this being caused by an economic crisis [5] . In 2015 the amount of GHG emitted to the world’s atmosphere decreased by around 0.5% whilst economic growth continued at more than 3%. A few scientists had predicted this but mostly the fossil fuel lobby had been in complete denial over its possibility [6] .
Figure 1 shows that for the first time the industrial world was producing wealth without this meaning more fossil fuels and more emissions. Despite its huge implications for a world that has faced down the global climate issue for decades without much good news, the world’s media were virtually silent. Perhaps this was because the EIA (from the US Government Energy Information Administration) were more sanguine predicting a continued growth in GHG of 1%, though their data were only up to 2012 and in reality, they did not consider the possibility of major changes often picked up by groups such as Carbon Tracker [7] [8] . Indeed, Carbon Tracker has shown that the new trends in GHG are following the kind of projections made by the IPCC’s carbon emissions targets much more closely than any other conservative projections.
The decoupling of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from wealth (usually measured as GDP or GNI, gross national income) has been a UN agenda for several decades [2] [3] . The first signs of decoupling began in the 1990’s as Figure 1 indicates and their trajectories have been separating out quite rapidly for most of the 21st century. For many commentators and scientists, such as the IPCC, this relative decoupling was not significant enough for a world needing less total GHG until the actual decline in global emissions began. Now we appear to have reached a point where this can be seen in a peak in global greenhouse emissions. We now have absolute decoupling for the first time.
Interesting, now how do we get that into a circular steady state economy with no growth
NAOM
We’re already there, in part.
If you look closely at the statistical methods used by the US government (BEA, etc) you’ll see that they don’t require resource consumption growth. For instance, cars can have a higher value just because they offer higher quality or more features.
It’s not just that. The whole economic system, of more growth, more consumers, more… more… more… needs to move to a circular system. Economists need to get behind the end of growth in a finite system and that our current economic model is a path to total collapse. They need to promote the advantages of a fossil fuel free economy, a clean, quieter environment with new jobs for old.
NAOM
In the near future economists that specialize in ‘degrowth’ formulations will be in high demand, fueling growth in that specialty.
In a statement their spokeswoman decried the growth of their guild- “We are trying to limit our membership and income”, to no avail.
No growth isn’t necessary because the economy is measured in the value of the goods and services produced, not in terms of the costs.
Compare a potato and an iPhone for example. You love you iPhone and spent $800 on it (LOL). A potato costs a few cents and you destructively fry it, eat half of it and and throw the rest away.
But if you reverse engineer an iPhone you’ll find it is a crude piece of junk that was obsolete by the time it hit the shelves and will be laughed at in 5 years.
Good luck reverse engineering a potato. Human technology isn’t there yet. If an artifact like a smart phone ever does reach the sophistication of a potato, humans will probably be obsolete.
In the mean time there is vast room for growing the economy while reducing its environmental footprint.
Raymond Sloop, you are a perfect example of the result of FF interests making a herculean effort to sow doubt about the science of climate change. You have come here spouting the exact same bullshit talking points that are the standard fare of deniers, suggesting that you are a purveyor of FF industry sponsored science denial. If you are not a purveyor, you are a victim, being guided by the propaganda to think in ways the Koch brothers et al want you to think.
I’m pretty sure you would say all the fuss about the Y2k was a waste of money when in fact, the preemptive efforts made to avoid problems were largely successful and Y2K came and went largely without incident. Climate science is based on sound scientific knowledge and the scientists are trying to warn us about the consequences of increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere, before we pass certain tipping points which will have apocalyptic consequences. Your employers, assuming you are in fact on the payroll, just want to make sure they can continue to rake in the profits from the extraction and use of FF.
Since you’re so concerned about “economic systems and living freedoms”, here’s a thought for you. Fossil fuels are finite and in the case of oil, the peak of global production might be this year but, will not be later than 2030. If global oil production starts to decline next year, what will happen to your precious “economic systems and living freedoms”, that are predicted on continuous economic growth? The same measures that you and those of like mind are railing against, might just be the ones that allow some semblance of economic growth to continue in the absence of growing FF consumption. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
Ironic that the OP gets thrashed for pointing out that (paraphrase) this talk about climate change is scary, people don’t want to hear about changing economic systems.
And the UP – usual posters – spend the whole thread saying ridiculous!…. and then arguing about changing economic systems, and sub-topics such as whether electrification will necessitate a changing economic system.
LOL
Check out GoneFishing’s YouTube link for a good full picture
http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-october-11-2018/#comment-655201
NAOM
I got my new Tesla Model 3 last Friday and it is very nice. It is the AWD with long range battery (310 miles), for anyone interested the RWD model (long range battery) supposedly will be delivered in 4 weeks, if you get the car by Dec 31, 2018 you also get a $7500 Federal tax credit if you live in the US. I assume the 4 week delivery is for US and Canadian customers only, Europeans have just started getting their cars, so I imagine delivery time frames may be longer than 4 weeks. Don’t know about rest of the World and right hand drive cars will come later, not sure of that either.
Good luck. It will be interesting to hear your report. Tomorrow we head down Island in our 2009 Toyota Yaris. 🙂 Big rode trip for us, actually driving to another community. 🙂
Thanks Paulo.
Very nice so far. The nicest car I have previously owned was a Toyota Camry XLE, so not sure how it compares to a high end car, though I have been in a friend’s Audi A5 and it was very nice, but I didn’t drive that car. The “enhanced auto pilot” is essentially a lane keep assist and adaptive cruise control combined, it is a cool feature, but I have seen that on a Honda Civic, though the display is a little nicer on the Tesla in that it shows you where the car is in the lane.
I also have a 2009 Toyota Yaris– which I use instead of the Subaru.
I drive a 2004 Yaris, which is definitely suboptimal on the autobahn but gets me around town nicely. I am boycotting the car industry until they do electric.
My new car is a 2007 Saturn Aura. I paid $5,000 cash for it. It was a stretch.
It has the GM 3.6 V6 (high feature) engine, and a 6 speed transmission. It’s the nicest car I’ve ever had. I put Opel badges on it and it now it looks like a German Vectra.
Mostly it sits in my driveway because I have a bicycle.
Two college degrees and $5K will get you a decent used car.
What do you expect your range to be Dennis?
Hickory,
Still trying to determine, it will depend on the weather, I expect in fall and spring (no AC conditions) maybe 300 miles and in the winter about 200 miles, going on a longer trip this weekend, so we will get more info then. The battery pack is supposedly 75 kWhr and so far I have averaged about 310 Whr per mile in about 150 miles of driving, that would suggest only 242 miles of range, occasionally I have gotten 200 Whr/mile for short trips (10 miles or so), which would be 375 miles of range with a full charge on the battery. The 310 mile range suggests about 240 Whr per mile. Note that playing around with the acceleration of 0-60 in 4.5 seconds will not result in very long range. My 21 year old tested the acceleration for me, so that’s part of the low efficiency so far.
Short answer 310 miles in ideal conditions and 200 miles in severe cold or heat with no attempt to drive efficiently.
I have a hybrid. Going uphill to my house on the ridge really bites into the battery charge. But going down to town I gain a little back, with regen braking.
In any case, enjoy not hanging out at the gas station.
I have a 2017 Chevy Volt. It averages about 30.1 kWh/100 miles, or by your method 3o1 Whr per mile. Being an old fogie I don’t drive very far any more so, with an average range of 65 miles/charge, I haven’t put any gas in it since September 2017. the gasoline engine starts for 15 minutes about every other month on its own for, as it says, “maintenance. Up to about 45 miles/day I can charge overnight on 120 volts using the local green utility I pay 17 cents per kWh.
There is some loss of range, maybe as much as 10% in cold weather and on really cold days if left outside the gasoline engine starts specifically to warm the battery. Someone has done a lot of really clever engineering on this car.
I really like the powertrain but if I could get my hands on the kid who programed all of the cutsie messages I would throttle him (or her).
It’s a nice looking car too. How is the comfort and handling?
I have the 2017 Chevy Volt (wife drives it to work). It is an excellent car. The ride and handling is very good. The only annoying thing is that it doesn’t have Homelink. Hence we have carry the garage door remote inside the car.
I think it’s quite comfortable and drives nice. For comparison my wife has a 2010 Lexus. That’s a little nicer. The Volt is roomier but the one way it is far better than the Lexus is the electric powertrain. After driving an IC car, even the sophisticate Lexus V6, the electric motor is so smooth and the low RPM torque is a wonder.
Repeating myself I absolutely loath every electronic message. I actually get a message about every two weeks on the center dash screen that says, basically, “Do not look at this screen while driving you might crash and hurt yourself”. The display is in 1/4″ high letters and won’t go away until I push the button.
Wow only 10% in cold weather! Maybe it’s not that cold where you live, where I live 0 F or lower is not uncommon, so I thought perhaps 25 to 30% lower range on the coldest days. I will let everyone know this winter.
It was about 50 F this past weekend for my road trip (40 F to 60 F), so no need for either heat or AC, probably the best range I will get.
Dennis, it is about 10% loss of range in “normal” cold weather, up to 30% when you get down to 10F or lower.
I’m a snowbelt Model S owner.
Hi JJHMAN, so does this mean that the cost of driving 100 miles is about $5.00? 30,1 kwh * 17c ?
In which case about half the cost of buying petrol? 25mpg or 4 gallons * $2.50? = $10.00
Yes about $5.00/100 miles.
And indeed winters here are pretty mild. It is California ;>) but about 70 miles north of San Francisco. Not much freezing.
Thanks,
Yes we call that kind of weather Spring or Fall where I live, unless you are in the Mountains where it might be colder. 🙂
Some research suggests for very cold places (Canada) range at 0 F is about 50% of moderate weather (50 F). So long trips in winter may be a challenge.
Model 3 does not have a battery heater?
https://insideevs.com/tesla-model-3-range-loss-bitter-cold-video/
Tesla has now confirmed the
Million Mile Motor on Model 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFHYxv2Z-7A&t=400s
Gonefishing,
Yes it has a battery heater, but real world experience of Canadians in 0 F weather suggests the battery heating and cabin heating uses up quite a lot of the battery so instead of 300 miles of range they get about 150 miles of range in very cold weather.
I will let you know what I see as I am almost in Canada, Northern New England and 0F is pretty common in January and February. So far for about 700 miles I have averaged 243 Whr (I am assuming trip odometer is accurate), the battery pack is about 75000 Whr, so average range has been about 308 miles (weather has averaged roughly 55 F, so no need for heat or AC, which means this may be as good as my range will be. Occasionally short round trips have been about 210 Whr, typically these are low speed (25 to 45 MPH) trips. For that kind of driving (maybe a 15 minute trip in 55 F weather) range would be about 357 miles on a full charge. At highway speeds it might be something like 270 miles of range.
Don’t underrate the use of a domestic electric fan heater to defrost and initially warm the car before going out. Don’t forget to unplug it or you’ll need a really long extension cord 😉
NAOMN
Isn’t the normal thing to keep the car plugged into an outlet/charger in your garage, and use house power to warm the battery and cabin before you leave?
Dennis, as someone in a cold weather state who has compared notes with a lot of other Tesla owners, you’ll get 210 miles range in extremely cold weather (not 150). It’s about 70% of rated, not 50%.
Hickory,
Update on range. I made a 220 mile round trip this past weekend so the odometer is at about 450 miles. The average energy used is 247 Whr per mile over the 450 miles, the battery pack holds 75000 Whr, so the average range should be about 75000/247=304 miles on a full charge. Though a more realistic range would probably be about 280 miles as it is a problem if you run the battery down to zero on an EV. Realistically I doubt I would go below 40 miles left on the battery pack, so probably 264 miles is the effective range. Note that on my trip back (downhill on average), I managed 187 Whr per mile, so if I always drive downhill I can go further. 🙂
I should have kept track of the round trip numbers, but I did not. I drove conservatively, no hard acceleration and 65 MPH on interstate (about 70 miles of 220 mile total, most of the rest was 50 to 55 MPH with slower speeds in small towns 25 to 40 MPH, average speed was about 50 MPH for the trip.
Yeh, I like that strategy of mainly going downhill! Hard to beat.
Here is a great vehicle charging location app- PlugShare
Key data point left out Dennis, though you may have mentioned it elsewhere: how much did it cost?
Hi Duane- If you are interested, there is a very good site for comparing the relative costs of particular petrol, hybrid, and electric vehicles.
You can put in your particular commute or other trips,
and vary the cost of electricity in your locale, and the cost of petrol,
and compare away.
Its interesting to see results, such as how does a petrol Honda Accord do vs a hybrid one, for example.
https://gis.its.ucdavis.edu/evexplorer/#!/locations/start
60k before sales and excise taxes (which will vary depending upon your state).
I have advanced autopilot and AWD which add to the cost of the car. The cheapest available (no added options and black paint and RWD) Model 3 is currently 49k, the smaller battery pack and no options will be 35k (available in June 2019, in theory). The lower cost model claims 220 miles of range vs 310 miles for my Tesla.
For more info
https://www.tesla.com/model3
Oh great! Good to hear, Dennis. Did you have any of the problems with rescheulded deliveries/communications confusion which some Model 3 recipients have had — or did your delivery go smoothly?
The bad news for coal in the US just keeps rolling in!
AEP to shutter 1,590 MW Ohio coal plant two years ahead of schedule
Dive Insight:
With the units struggling to clear in the PJM capacity auction and efforts to win subsidies for its plant denied, the AEP announcement is the latest sign of the coal industry’s slow decline. The company informed employees of the decision on Oct. 5.
The company said it “unsuccessfully sought a buyer for Conesville Plant for a number of years,” but made the decision to shut it down after considering “the costs of keeping the plant operational and the outcomes of recent competitive generation auctions.”
The plant’s closure may already be having ripple effects. Westmoreland Coal announced Oct. 9 that it had declared bankruptcy and the Conesville plant is a major customer of the coal supplier, according to S&P Global.
“The bad news for coal in the US just keeps rolling in!”
Does it? A superficial bit of research will show you that US coal exports are booming. Better not to tell half a story. 😉
Steam-coal shipments will probably jump 58 percent to 58 million metric tons this year, according to Guillaume Perret, founder of Perret Associates Ltd., a London-based research company. He expects exports to reach 65 million tons by 2025.
The biggest buyer of U.S. coal in the first quarter was India, where thermal plants help generate about three-quarters of its electricity. An official from that Asian country earlier this year criticized Trump for seeking to pull out of the Paris climate deal while the U.S. has been a major contributor to emissions during its history.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-01/trump-s-making-u-s-coal-exports-the-greatest-they-ve-ever-been
Doug,
US production of coal is trending lower based on EIA data through the second quarter of 2018.
Coal demand is dropping worldwide. Other ways of generating electricity are just cheaper.
Domestic consumption trumps exports.
Is this cool or is it mega-cool (you have to look at the YouTube video).
‘PULSAR IN A BOX’ REVEALS SURPRISING PICTURE OF A NEUTRON STAR’S SURROUNDINGS
An international team of scientists studying what amounts to a computer-simulated “pulsar in a box” are gaining a more detailed understanding of the complex, high-energy environment around spinning neutron stars, also called pulsars. The model traces the paths of charged particles in magnetic and electric fields near the neutron star, revealing behaviors that may help explain how pulsars emit gamma-ray and radio pulses with ultraprecise timing.
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-10-pulsar-reveals-picture-neutron-star.html#jCp
‘Tipping points’ could exacerbate climate crisis, scientists fear
“Key dangers largely left out of the IPCC special report on 1.5C of warming are raising alarm among some scientists who fear we may have underestimated the impacts of humans on the Earth’s climate.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/09/tipping-points-could-exacerbate-climate-crisis-scientists-fear
When the world reaches one of the tipping points,
our systems will collapse completely,
perhaps approximately the year 2075,
but likely before the year 2100.
Good day.
“This is the scariest thing about the IPCC Report — it’s the watered down, consensus version.”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/09/whats-not-latest-terrifying-ipcc-report-much-much-much-more-terrifying-new-research
The non-sugar coated version of the future is what I recommend preparing for. Or don’t. I won’t lose any sleep over ya.
More scary is that scientists are conservative anyway, so all the papers that IPCC select from are already weeding out the more catastrophic aspects. The ‘worst case’ with tipping points presented is probably only a P80 case and there are many more risks on the downside that haven’t been addressed.
It has been no secret that the IPCC is not very adept at assessing and communicating climate change risk.
https://academic.oup.com/reep/article/12/2/371/5025082
Policy Brief—Recommendations for Improving the Treatment of Risk and Uncertainty in Economic Estimates of Climate Impacts in the Sixth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report
Abstract
Large discrepancies persist between projections of the physical impacts of climate change and economic damage estimates. These discrepancies increase with increasing global average temperature projections. Based on this observation, we recommend that in its Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) improve its approach to the management of the uncertainties inherent in climate policy decisions. In particular, we suggest that the IPCC (1) strengthen its focus on applications of decision making under risk, uncertainty, and outright ambiguity and (2) estimate how the uncertainty itself affects its economic and financial cost estimates of climate damage and, ultimately, the optimal price for each ton of carbon dioxide released. Our hope is that by adopting these recommendations, AR6 will be able to resolve some of the documented inconsistencies in estimates of the physical and economic impacts of climate change and more effectively fulfill the IPCC’s mission to provide policymakers with a robust and rigorous approach for assessing the potential future risks of climate change.
How a Fortnite squad of scientists is hoping to defeat climate change
By Robin George Andrews
https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/10/17914098/fortnite-climate-change-fight-scientists-global-warming-video-games
Fortnite is the world’s most popular video game, with hundreds of millions of players worldwide. (In August, a record 78.3 million played the game.) The premise is a lot like the Japanese movie Battle Royale: 100 people land on an island, only one person or team can win, and victory is obtained by murdering everyone else. To make things more exciting, a toxic storm slowly begins to compress the map so that the players are forced into the same areas. As in The Hunger Games, special caches, including crates and llamas, are dropped to encourage players to go to the same areas. It is fast-paced, fantastical, and utterly ludicrous — and, perhaps, a great platform to talk about climate change.
It could be said that too many scientists discuss climate change as an abstract issue that most ordinary people struggle to connect with. The result is that while around three-quarters of Americans believe climate change is real, just over half of the public think it’s mostly driven by human activity. Around 28 percent of Americans don’t believe climate change will personally affect them. Getting any real climate change legislation through Congress will require engaged voters, and most people aren’t there yet.
One reason scientists struggle to connect is because of their limited understanding of how to reach the public. Most scientists think that outreach is limited to a handful of options: public talks, social media, or blogging, says Katharine Hayhoe, a renowned climatologist and director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University. But all those options require a public that already wants to engage in climate change discussion, which means they’re not the best way to reach the apathetic. Hayhoe has tried to branch out: knitting projects with patterns that display rising temperatures, for instance.
Then, unexpectedly, Fortnite entered her life.
Hayhoe had just recorded a webinar on climate change that proved to be particularly popular. A few days later, her son, Gavin, was playing Fortnite, and he uploaded a video to the streaming service Twitch. “The climate science webinar I uploaded to YouTube last week has 1k views,” a subsequent tweet from Hayhoe reads. “The Fortnite FPP video my eleven-year-old uploaded yesterday has 10k views.”
Gavin’s best Fortnite video got 18,000 views, he says, and he’s not even on the high end: some Fortnite streamers have over 16 million subscribers on YouTube. Hayhoe sensed an opportunity to make climate communication more fun for a much broader audience — crucially, an audience that wasn’t already invested in climate change.
Getting any real climate change legislation through Congress will require engaged voters
There’s an assumption by logically minded scientists and entrepreneurs that logic is eventually going to win people over. But you only have to read the fly by deniers on this site or the comments on any MSM climate change article to know that’s not true. Show them anything that contradicts their previous statements and they just double down on their idiocy. Hurricane victims in US regularly call it an act of god – to do otherwise would be to admit they are actually partly to blame and cognitive dissonance does not allow that. And how long do we have – we’ve known for 30 and more years and there’s really relatively little meaningful worldwide legislation (and in the USA it’s getting repealed). Do we give it another 20 years? That would leave us minus 8 to do something.
There’s an assumption by logically minded scientists and entrepreneurs that logic is going eventually going to win people over.
I think that is actually a myth. Most scientists that I know personally, seem to have no illusion about the fact that logic and actual data have little to no impact when it comes to changing the minds of those who have deeply held ideological beliefs.
What we need is a better synergy between communications experts and scientists to find ways to get the message out. Unfortunately the message is not very palatable to the average layperson… Basically what we need is a new story that will capture people’s imaginations and get them into a war time effort mood. Though I am far from having the slightest clue as to what that story needs to be.
Playing whack a mole with internet trolls is probably not the best path forward but their bullshit must be clearly labeled for what it is.
Cheers!
Any voluntary solution would require some form of perceived “sacrifice” among the global rich (that includes all here I suspect) even if it is just to our status signalling and consequential reproductive fitness. That is unsellable, therefore there is no voluntary solution space. Droughts, hurricanes, floods, famines, wildfires, pestilence and resource wars will be involuntary but effective.
So far, I have only seen one meaningful community wide response to overshoot, and that seems to have been temporary. But did have a big effect. I’m talking about China’s one child policy.
And that did not come about through education and voluntary acts by individuals. It was a top down authoritarian measure with big sticks for enforcement.
If we wait for education and voluntary efforts, well, we will be waiting centuries for this species to react.
Bugger the rich, sacrifice them on an alter, Aztec style, as an example to all.
NAOM
“Bugger the rich, sacrifice them on an alter, Aztec style,”
Why the rich, more effective would be just those who have children?
Actually I’m not with you at all on the notion of killing.
Maybe someone needs to explain to them it was an act of god warning them to change their ways.
NAOM
Revealing the Dark Side of Wind Power
By Mark Buchanan
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-10-04/wind-power-isn-t-as-clean-as-we-thought-it-was
Any solution to global warming will almost certainly rely on an expansion of renewable energy, reducing carbon dioxide emissions with clean solar or wind energy and related technologies. It’s still far from clear, however, which technologies might deliver copious amounts of energy when we need it while avoiding negative environmental consequences.
Research published today may help clarify the situation — and it’s not encouraging for wind-power enthusiasts. It suggests that the power available from wind is much more limited than many experts thought, and that deployment on a larger scale could significantly raise temperatures over the Earth’s surface, as turbines alter atmospheric flows. The research highlights a painful but not altogether surprising reality: Even the cleanest renewable technologies come with environmental costs.
It suggests that the power available from wind is much more limited than many experts thought, and that deployment on a larger scale could significantly raise temperatures over the Earth’s surface, as turbines alter atmospheric flows.
I guess we could just continue burning all the available fossil fuel and emitting more CO2 into the atmosphere…
Even the cleanest renewable technologies come with environmental costs.
Well, DUH!
Dark Side of wind power? Really? This argument has been going back and forth since 2010. I wouldn’t take the models too seriously and since I can’t see the actual paper, I will ignore it for now.
Here is an example the craziness of scientific analysis in this area.
These researchers calculated that a maximum of 1.1 watts of electricity could be generated per square metre over a large (1E5 km2) wind farm in the windy state of Kansas (USA). The correlation between the amount of energy generated and the number of wind turbines is not linear, as more turbines increasingly slow down the wind.
https://www.mpg.de/9389067/wind-energy-wind-electricity
100,000 km2 is about half of Kansas covered with wind turbines, an insane example at best.
Of course wind turbines interfere with wind, the studies to maximize their potential in large groups were done several years ago.
They remove energy from the wind, as far as heating goes due to turbulence, I have read studies that go both ways and also show neutral effect overall so the final analysis is still up in the air.
One thing I did notice is that here in the east the wind farms are mostly linear on mountain tops and that the forests grow well beneath them. Out in the rest of the country where it is flat and windy, I noticed farming goes on below the wind towers, it’s not like they take up the areas quoted. If one wants to go crazy with energy density, PV could be put underneath them but that would eliminate nature or farming.
There is plenty of space to put in wind turbines and the heating effects seen over time are also due to climate change as well as wind speed loss due to global warming. So one must remove those factors before just blaming wind farms.
The wind is slowing down
Near-surface wind speeds over landmasses across the planet have dropped by as much as 25% since the 1970s, and climate scientists are taking note. Michael Lucy reports.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/climate/the-wind-is-slowing-down
The multitude of effects on the physical system and ecosystem of the planet from generating GWG’s is staggering and of large magnitude. Not seeing that renewable energy systems like wind have magnitudes less harm is just being an asshole. Acid ocean anyone?
One thing I did notice is that here in the east the wind farms are mostly linear on mountain tops and that the forests grow well beneath them. Out in the rest of the country where it is flat and windy, I noticed farming goes on below the wind towers, it’s not like they take up the areas quoted.
I’ve recently driven past plenty of wind farms here in Germany and in Austria and Hungary… I noticed the same thing. The cows and sheep seem perfectly contented grazing around the bases of the towers. Crops grow just fine too. There are even people who hunt wild boar around them…
Acid ocean anyone?
Well, I’ll invite anyone to come see the state of the coral reefs in my back yard in South Florida!
For the record, I think it is beyond fucking ridiculous to compare the impacts of wind energy to those of fossil fuels!
If one compares just the amount of disturbed land by wind power versus land disturbed by coal power for equivalent energy output, the ratio is about 1:20. There is no comparison at any level and it makes no sense to build out wind power to the point where it is making itself far less efficient.
The enduring theme is simply that anything done by humans on the scale of fossil fuel production/bruning or, for that matter, farming is going to have serious negative effects on the function of natural systems. Fundamentally human society depends more on those natural systems than on energy or farming.
There are too many humans on the planet for the natural systems to provide the resources needed by modern society.
Not really.
PV on rooftops could supply most of grid power – that has essentially zero ecological impact compared to the roof alone.
Fossil fuels are enormously destructive, in a way that is many orders of magnitude greater than other things like solar or wind power.
Let me see 1 km^2 =10^6 m^2
1.1 W/m^2 x 10^6 =1,100,000 or 1.1 MW
10^5 km^2 x 1.1 MW = 110,000 MW = 110 GW
No small cheese, 100 nuklear reactors and you don’t have to evacuate 1,000 km^2 if one breaks.
NAOM
There have been articles pointing out that this research is being deliberately misinterpreted.
NAOM
The claims made here about wind are false, but even more ludicrous is the idea that it is somehow not “clean”. That’s some pretty desperate propaganda.
What’s up with all the fuss about the increase in temperature of 2 degree C that may happen? Heck according to Wikipedia, we just came out of a 7 degree C warming period of less than 50 years, only 12,000 years ago. What were them Clovis people burning to cause all that warming?
Not that you have demonstrated the slightest understanding of what the actual implications of a 2 °C world would be like, especially with regards the risks of passing certain tipping points in the planetary physical, chemical and biological systems. You also seem to be profoundly ignorant of the impact of humans on ecosystems over the past few thousand years and how agricultural development has affected the climate in pre-industrial times.
Though you could probably do worse than read this recent post over at Real Climate:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/10/pre-industrial-anthropogenic-co2-emissions-how-large/
Pre-industrial anthropogenic CO2 emissions: How large?
Filed under: Carbon cycle Climate Science Greenhouse gases Paleoclimate — mike @ 11 October 2018
Guest article by William Ruddiman
However, I highly doubt your intent is to educate yourself and acquire some actual knowledge. Ignorance about any topic is excusable. Deliberate ignorance and spouting nonsense is a rather sad trait to display as arrogantly as you and your ilk seem to so thoroughly enjoy.
It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Mark Twain
Fred
I spent some time trying to figure out what William Ruddiman has to say. His main point seems to be that humans increased CO2 levels in pre industrial times by 40 ppm, beginning around 7000 years ago. That seems quite probable and agrees with my understanding that land use practices have possibly contributed more CO2 and other green house gasses then the contribution by fossil fuels.
But that does not address my question. What was the source of energy to warm the planet by 7 degrees C which effectively ended the Younger Dryas roughly 12,000 years ago?
Before you accuse me of voluntary ignorance you could at the very least address the question I asked.
Farmboy- “What was the source of energy to warm the planet by 7 degrees C which effectively ended the Younger Dryas roughly 12,000 years ago?”
Like Dennis said below- it was more like 4 degree C over about 10,000 yrs, and to answer your question about the source of energy-
The answer is the Sun.
And that is the same source of energy that warms us up today. Come on farmer- you knew that answer.
The earths ability to absorb and hold the heat varies over time, with things like albedo, ocean circulation patterns, and greenhouse gas concentrations.
I understand your fear. Fear leads to denial. Chaos in the environment is scary. Prayer ain’t going to help you with drought. Sorry to say.
Farmboy,
It is about 1.5 C rise in global temperatures from 12.5 kyBP to 10.8 kyBP. There might have been local changes in temperatures in Greenland as large as you suggest due to changes in the Jetstream or ocean currents, when the entire Globe is considered, there have not been 7 C swings in Global temperatures in 50 year periods as you suggest.
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/abrupt-climate-change/The%20Younger%20Dryas
Farmboy,
Your facts are wrong, first we are talking about average Global temperatures. The science says that Global average temperature rose about 4 C over a 12,600 year period (from 22,000 years BP to 9,000 years BP), in the past 118 years Global average temperatures have risen about 1 C, a rate of increase that is 27 times higher than the Glacial to interglacial transition at the start of the Holocene.
Another important difference is that 22000 years BP the human population was quite small (maybe 2 million), things are a little different today with a population of 7.4 billion and rising.
As a farmer I imagine you might appreciate what another 1 C rise in Global average temperatures might do to crops and livestock, or perhaps not. Maybe you should read the report.
http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/
Also there is FAQ 3.1 on page 10 of the page linked below which gives impacts of 1.5 and 2 C of warming.
http://report.ipcc.ch/sr15/pdf/sr15_faq.pdf
things are a little different today with a population of 7.4 billion and rising.
The population is rising faster than you think it is Dennis. You are off by over 250 million. Current world population is:
7,656,189,300 and rising every second.
World Population Clock
Thanks Ron,
I guessed at World Population, there are varying estimates, see
https://www.census.gov/popclock/
which has 7.526 B.
Dennis —
There are three primary determinants of global population growth: mortality, fertility, and population momentum. You always seem to focus on fertility and assume that educating women in Africa will suddenly reduce fertility there. It won’t. You really do need to travel a bit. The UN has the world with more than 10 billion by 2060. That’s roughly (only) 40 years from now. The average school girl in sub-Sahara Africa expects to have four kids. The schools they go to, if they go at all, are all run by various religious institutions, churches that are NOT teaching birth control.
There is a girl we have been supporting in Uganda since she was in kindergarten. She’s currently on her way to becoming a medical doctor. She agrees with me that the current path to population growth will not change for at least one generation. BTW she graduated from one of the best, and most secular, High Schools in Uganda. Birth control was NEVER mentioned.
Doug,
Changes in fertility ratios can happen pretty quickly, education is the key. Educated women have fewer children. There are other estimates besides those from the UN.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378014001095
Hi Dennis.
Changes in fertility ratios do not happen quickly. As Doug has pointed out, population momentum is a key determinant. Essentially, educating women is indeed a fine thing…it just takes more than one generation to make a difference. Those fertility ratios change over decades and centuries.
Hi Lloyd,
The average World TFR was about 5 births per woman in 1965 and about 2.5 in 2005, so it was cut in half in 40 years. Yes population momentum is a factor, this is well understood by demographers.
Read the following paper.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378014001095
Chart below from paper above. The policies leading to SSP1 are what I would suggest, though we probably will not do that well, just something to aim for.
Oh and to be clear, by “pretty quickly”, I mean 40 years for TFR to fall from 2.5 to 1.75 with proper policies.
A small sample example, my wife’s and my families had a combined TFR of 5.5 (children born from 1950 to 1979 in both families), the next generation had an average TFR of 1.1.
This is much too small a sample as it is 2 families of maybe 400 million families (assuming about 7 people per family of 2.76 billion in 1955). The change for those two families was pretty quick.
I stand by my comments. I said decades to centuries, and even the most optimistic scenarios don’t peak until mid century, and then take 50 more years to return to our current population. And to be clear, I would not describe 40 years as “pretty quick”. I also think that the factors that caused fertility rates in the developed world to dive are more than education of women: the material wealth and technology that allowed me to be almost certain that my single child would live to adulthood will not be repeated. I think that the graph that we will actually see in 2100 will not be an arc: there will be a cliff, and we will be somewhere well below the point we are now. I don’t exactly know why or when, but I do think that we won’t do anything to stop overpopulation, and it is too late to change it anyway.
Lloyd,
I will go with the demographers who study the discipline. In demography, quick is 40 years, so when I said pretty quick, I assumed a knowledge of demographics, the concept of population momentum is well understood by most who have read any papers on demographics. Any changes take a couple of generations (about 40 years). Part of the “limits to growth” will be the demographic transition, population will fall and even with rising income per capita the system can reach a steady state, also as resources become limited they will be used more efficiently and recycled where possible, when World population falls to 500 million or so we might reach a sustainable solution, this can happen in 200 years at a TFR of 1.5 or lower, which has been achieved in many East Asian nations.
Dennis,
40 years can be improved upon. For instance, Iran achieved a 2/3 reduction in TFR in just 20 years:
Iran TFR: 1982 = 6.5 vs 2001 = 2.1
The Iranian leadership prioritized a smaller population. They encouraged smaller families, introduced sex education in schools, and even distributed condoms.
Because it seems to be very hard to convince governments to actually provide birth control information in school, I support private charities which provide good birth control information for free over the web. Now that most people in the world can access the web, this makes a difference.
Contribute to Scarleteen, Sex etc., or Planned Parenthood, if you care about this; top three English-language sex-ed sites on the web last I checked.
Dennis Quoting the average temp over 12,600 years is a great way to erase all the spikes and dips in temperature during that time. The drastic sudden spikes and dips during that time period is where we need to focus more. These are the events that can wreck havoc with the life on the planet as a whole and even more so in particular areas. Here is a quote from wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas
concerning the dramatic rise in temperature that ended the Younger Dryas period.
“Measurements of oxygen isotopes from the GISP2 ice core suggest the ending of the Younger Dryas took place over just 40 to 50 years in three discrete steps, each lasting five years. Other proxy data, such as dust concentration and snow accumulation, suggest an even more rapid transition, which would require about 7 °C (13 °F) of warming in just a few years.[12][13][24][25] Total warming in Greenland was 10 ± 4 °C (18 ± 7 °F).[26]
The end of the Younger Dryas has been dated to around 11,550 years ago, occurring at 10,000 BP (uncalibrated radiocarbon year), a “radiocarbon plateau” by a variety of methods, mostly with consistent results:”
I may not be understanding it correctly but it looks to me like Greenland temps permanently increased by 10 degree C and Global temps increased permanently 7 degree C. Now most of the regulars on this page refuse to look at the dramatic rise in a short time period and instead focus on the average over thousands to millions of years.
Farmboy,
There may have been local temperature changes in Greenland that were as large as you suggest, but globally probably not. See Shakun et al 2012 and chart below. Also look at figures at link below.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature10915
Farmboy,
Read the Global effects part of the Wikipedia article you linked, the abrupt changes were not synchronous around the World and were absent entirely in parts of the Globe. It was likely due to rapid influx of glacial meltwater into the North Atlantic which changed salinity and temperature and affected Ocean circulation patterns and the Jetstream leading to abrupt changes in temperature, potentially a rapid melt of the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica might lead to something similar in the future. Though likely this would be 100s to 1000s of years in the future.
The Younger Dryas was a northern hemisphere event most likely due to slowing or stopping of the AMOC. This was not global cooling, as the heat was not transported north, it built up in the south.
Try reading this site.
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/abrupt-climate-change/The%20Younger%20Dryas
GF If the warming that brought about the ending of the Younger Dryas was only a Northern Hemisphere event then explain to me why the ice cores from the Antarctic at vostok also show a dramatic warming at the same time.
https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Geochronology/Ice_cores
“then explain to me me why the ice cores from the Antarctic at vostok also show a dramatic warming at the same time. ”
If you consider a difference of one thousand years as being at the same time then I don’t know.
http://hydrologie.org/redbooks/a208/iahs_208_0269.pdf
Hi farmboy.
I’ll try to help, a bit, to answer your question.
First, let’s look at the connection between temperature in the Antarctic during the period of deglaciation, as recorded in ice cores, and that from Greenland which is likewise derived from ice cores with the addition of foraminiferal proxies from seafloor sediment. More recent work than the paper you mentioned (that one is nearly thirty years old) does indeed show warming in the Antarctic before warming in the Northern Hemisphere, but the difference is about two hundred years not a thousand.
Next, let’s look at connection between sea-surface temperatures (which is what is actually under discussion) in the Antarctic and in the North Atlantic. The general flow of water in the Atlantic is from the Southern Ocean, the seas that surround Antarctica (the water warms up in equatorial regions), up the west side of the Atlantic to its northern waters. In the North Atlantic waters sink, causing waters from the south to move in and replace them. The sinking has two causes: It’s windy up there and the winds cause evaporation of surface waters. Evaporation is a cooling process so the remaining waters are colder and more prone to sink. Too, the water evaporates but the salt doesn’t, so the water remaining is saltier and thus denser now and more prone to sink. The circulation that results, of waters in the North Atlantic sinking (and flowing southward at depth) and warmer waters coming up from the south, is called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation–the AMOC. The warm Gulf Stream is part of the system.
Warmth coming north slowed during the deglaciation as a result of fresh water coming from melting of the large ice sheet that covered much of Canada. (The melting was part of the glacial/interglacial cycle that is timed by astronomical factors.) Fresh water is less dense than salt water and impedes the sinking that was part of the AMOC. Slow the AMOC and you slow the flow of warm water from the south, and thus you delay, in the North Atlantic, the warming evident in Antarctica–by about two hundred years, as far as we know now.
I hope this helps.
Synapsid Thank you for taking the time to give a good explanation of how it could have occurred that the temps on the poles decreased dramatically while the earth continued to warm and the ice to thaw, even though it seems a bit impossible.
I’m curious as to which Astronomical factors you are taking into account since they would likely need to be quite powerful to overtake the albedo effect?
In case you respond I will read it but likely won’t have the time and energy to respond.
Hi farmboy,
Those astronomical factors are the Milankovitch factors and Wikipedia has a good article on them. What shows up in the history of glacial/interglacial cycles over the last, roughly, three million years is the result of interactions among changes in the tilt of the Earth’s axis relative to the plane of its orbit (41 000-year cycle), change in the direction the axis points (it swings around like a spinning top does and a cycle length of about 23 000 emerges), change in how close to circular the Earth’s orbit is (100- and 400-thousand-year cycles.) Those cycles interact and affect how much sunlight reaches the Earth’s surface in high middle latitudes, where the ice sheets grow when sunlight arrival is in the low range of intensity.
The Milankovitch factors have been acting for the whole of the planet’s history but the current system of glaciation alternating with interglaciation became possible when the long-term cooling trend that began about 38 million years ago brought average temperatures low enough.
“What’s up with all the fuss about the increase in temperature of 2 degree C that may happen?”
Skip the next 9 meals you were planning on eating. That feeling you have on day 3 is what all the fuss is about. A real farmboy (sic) would know that.
Skip the next 9 meals you were planning on eating. That feeling you have on day 3 is what all the fuss is about. A real farmboy (sic) would know that.
A real farmboy would also have some basic understanding of plant physiology and the how increased CO2 and increased warming effects plants such as wheat, corn, soy and rice in all the major food producing regions of the planet.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ask-the-experts-does-rising-co2-benefit-plants1/
Climate change’s negative effects on plants will likely outweigh any gains from elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide levels
Fred Farmers working with nature are able to significantly increase the CO2 available to their plants way beyond what is in the air above. By minimizing tillage and chemical usage we allow the biology including earthworms to build our soil full of tunnels so that the soil can breath out the CO2 that is produced by the biology and keeping green plants growing they can access that just in time supply of CO2 and when tidal force and other mechanisms pull air back down into the soil the biology is supplied again with oxygen.
Fred Farmers working with nature are able to significantly increase the CO2 available to their plants way beyond what is in the air above.
That is such a simplistic one dimensional statement.
I could cite dozens of papers on research showing deleterious effects of increased CO2 on the major food crop plant’s nutritional quality. Which doesn’t even begin to address concerns of increased warming on soil biology and CO2 release from those sources.
https://science.gu.se/english/News/News_detail/increased-carbon-dioxide-levels-in-air-restrict-plants-ability-to-absorb-nutrients.cid1309352
Increased carbon dioxide levels in air restrict plants ability to absorb nutrients
The rapidly rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere affect plants’ absorption of nitrogen, which is the nutrient that restricts crop growth in most terrestrial ecosystems. Researchers at the University of Gothenburg have now revealed that the concentration of nitrogen in plants’ tissue is lower in air with high levels of carbon dioxide, regardless of whether or not the plants’ growth is stimulated. The study has been published in the journal Global Change Biology.
https://scienceinternational.com/fulltext/?doi=sciintl.2016.51.73
Potential Effects of Climate Change on Soil Properties: A Review
ABSTRACT:
Soils form through the multifarious interaction of a number of forces, including climate, relief, parent material, organisms, all acting over time. It takes thousands of years for a soil to form and most soils are still developing following changes in some of these soil forming factors, particularly climate and vegetation, over the past few decades. Climate is one of the most important factors affecting the formation of soil with important implications for their development, use and management perspective with reference to soil structure, stability, topsoil water holding capacity, nutrient availability and erosion. Further Indirect effects corresponds to changes in growth rates or water-use efficiencies, through sea-level rise, through climate-induced decrease or increase in vegetative cover or anthropogenic intervention. Assuming constant inputs of carbon to soils from vegetation, different estimate predict that expected changes in temperature, precipitation and evaporation will cause significant change in organic matter turnover and CO2 dynamics. In conclusion, increased productivity would generally lead to greater inputs of carbon to soil, thus increasing organics.
Lest anyone assume that the last sentence of this abstract is a reason to rejoice and conclude that therefore all will be well, I strongly recommend a grounding in the mathematics of Chaos and a review on bifurcations and tipping points.
https://www.dur.ac.uk/ihrr/tippingpoints/mathematicaltippingpoints/
Mathematical Basis of Tipping Points
Finding the mathematical basis of ‘tipping points’ through bifurcation analysis will help us discover whether or not accurate mathematical representations of physical or socioecomic systems display tipping point behaviour. In mathematics, a bifurcation is a point at which small changes start to grow rapidly, through positive feedbacks. If the systems studied do behave like bifurcations then it may be possible to predict ‘tipping points’ we encounter in the world. In chaos theory, a well-known example of a system that bifurcates is a Lorenz attractor originally derived from a model of convection in the earth’s atmosphere. Studying how different kinds of systems bifurcate will help researchers determine whether or not a particular system could ‘tip’.
With that mathematical grounding in hand now we can go back and reexamine the complex interrelationships of all the organisms involved in maintaining soil ecosystem health. And I won’t even ask that we dive too deeply into the various levels of biochemistry and evolutionary biology of the many organisms involved, but suffice it to say, none of that can be ignored either!
Cheers!
Fred
I said —- Farmers working with nature are able to significantly increase the CO2 available to their plants way beyond what is in the air above.
You said— That is such a simplistic one dimensional statement.
So my question to you now is. Do you really want to argue with nature? This is just what happens in natural ecosystems such as forests and grasslands. The biology in the soil and decaying biomass etc uses oxygen and puts out CO2. The above ground photosynthesizing biomass takes up a large portion of this CO2 so that it never goes up high into the atmosphere.
As regenerative farmers, we try to maximize photosynthesis by maintaining green plants for as much of the time as possible and by allowing conditions that are favorable for the soil biology to supply the nutrients that those plants need and one of those nutrients happens to be CO2. On my farm most of the land is in pasture that is very seldom grazed down to where photosynthesis is reduced below say 1/3 of its capacity had it not been grazed. Many people including many biologists agronomists etc are not aware that well timed grazing is very important to maximize photosynthetic production throughout the year. If not grazed the plants leaves tend to get old and the photosynthetic process slows down. Even mowing does not induce the plant to send out new leaves as well as the tearing and leaf pulling action of grazing does.
To rephrase my prior point. For all practical purposes, a farmer that manages appropriately for this process of CO2 going directly from soil organisms to green leaves,whether they understand it or not. She or he is not limited to the small amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere but can access just in time CO2 directly within the micro ecosystem between the tallest leaf and the deeper soil organisms, whether they be bacteria, insects rodents or what have you eating plant exudates dead plants or manure and urine left behind by the grazers or as some evidence suggests even from the breath of the grazers themselves.
Keep in mind that almost all of the research for agronomy has been done in sterile soil or at the best in fields that are biologically extremely degraded due to chemical usage of fertilizers fungicides pesticides and on and on. So they are not very relevant to biologically healthy ecosystems.
And BTW Nitrogen is seldom the most limiting factor in plants in biological ecosystems including those that are manipulated by humans to produce food fiber and fuel for humans. So the research you linked to is only relevant to what is usually called conventional agriculture when in reality it has only been ongoing for less than a century and looking like it won’t last even one more century.
For all practical purposes, a farmer that manages appropriately for this process of CO2 going directly from soil organisms to green leaves,whether they understand it or not. She or he is not limited to the small amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere but can access just in time CO2 directly within the micro ecosystem between the tallest leaf and the deeper soil organisms, whether they be bacteria, insects rodents or what have you eating plant exudates dead plants or manure and urine left behind by the grazers or as some evidence suggests even from the breath of the grazers themselves.
Any chance you could back that up with some links to research that might support your statement?
BTW, You are preaching to choir with regards soil management! Unfortunately I still need to see some research before I accept your claims.
For the record, my cousins have a farm in the interior of Sao Paulo state. They are also soil scientists and agronomists. Their farm is not too far from the sugarcane plantation in this video and they incorporate many of the processes discussed therein, on their own land. In any case increase in atmospheric CO2 coupled with global warming does not bode well for agriculture or ecosystems and there is plenty of research to back that up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-pr0cYzuDQ
Is this the Future of Global Food Systems?
1/ Increased CO2 often leads to increased plant biomass but does not increase the seed yield ie what you are growing the plants for. In other words you will use more fertilisers to produce more waste without more results.
2/ Nutritional value of foods decreases with increased CO2, this is especially so with rice which is a vital food source in much of the world.
3/ Increased temperatures harm many plants. For example the UK suffered a shortage of lettuce as they stopped growing at 30C. Plant breeders have stated that they cannot breed new strains fast enough to keep up with change.
4/ Try growing crops in droughts, hurricane force winds, floods, fire etc.
Is that simple enough. TLDR; farming is fucked.
NAOM
So this is where I’m coming from.
I’ve been coming to this website for several years to learn and to keep up on the oil situation to be able to adapt and plan my day to day life with these facts. So I owe a lot to Ron and Dennis and many others.
But every so often I take a peak at the electricity postings and then I see all the posts centered around global climate warming caused by humans. That is all great in its own right but the many factors in the bigger picture that seem to not be appreciated by most of the regulars is what I find pathetic.
There is no appreciation for the fact that this planet has been through many catastrophic events including major extinction events, just in the time since Anatomically Modern Humans have been on the earth, or even in the last 20,000 years.
In North America alone we have the extinction of many of the mega mammals including the mastodons cave lions giant short nose bear bison horses camels etc all just a mere 12,000 years ago. This event likely also killed off most of the humans that were living in NA at the time. In Siberia we have the millions of Mega Mammal remains that are being found as they thaw out from since the last ice age. Many of them are found with their stomachs full and frozen in place. So they didn’t die from starvation and they were frozen in place before they had time to rot. This looks to me like a dramatic freezing event that transpired within hours.
The ocean sedimentary deposits record several Heindricks Events where massive amounts of rocks etc were deposited by melting glaciers in a very short period of time.
Both the Arctic and Antarctic ice cores record dramatic changes in tempratures CO2 levels and Dust levels. Then we have the burkle crater event in the Indian Ocean that caused a mega tsunami that left chevrons up to 600 ft high on Madagascar and smaller ones on Australia only 5,000 years ago. In addition we have hundreds of Impact craters on the earth and then we can only estimate all the similar sized objects that exploded in the atmosphere instead of making craters which is likely to be around 80 for every crater. On top of that we have Dry Falls Washington, which is the remnant of what was once the largest waterfall caused by a single melting event according to J. Harlen Bretz.
But instead of focusing and trying to understand the dramatic and catastrophic climatic changes that have occurred very recently and trying to understand and minimize those risks the focus is on CO2 levels and EVs.
Also lacking is the appreciation for how fast and how effectively we could manage our agricultural soils to sequester all the CO2 emissions while also reducing methane emissions while producing way more nutritious food with drastic reductions in chemicals and fossil fuel wasting fertilizers.
With this I will log off and be on my way.
Hello again farmboy.
Just a couple of comments. Megamammal extinctions late in the Pleistocene were connected to some extent with human presence in some areas but the connection varied by the kind of mammal we’re looking at, and humans seem not to have suffered from the results as far as we can tell from the archaeological record. In the central part of the US and elsewhere we have continuity of human presence but with shifts in patterns of subsistence rather than the archaeological record going blank. We’ve always been good at surviving.
The flood that created Dry Falls here in Washington state is the last of some forty floods that did successive rearrangements of much of the eastern part of the state, and each was caused by the failure of an ice dam holding in Glacial Lake Missoula in western Montana. After each one except the last the ice re-advanced and blocked the Clark Fork River again and the lake filled again and lasted until the ice dam failed.
There’s a big difference between local climate change, which includes *every* event you mentioned, and *global* climate change. Global is a much bigger problem, and it’s caused by burning fossil fuels (plus deforestation).
For those interested:
Pre-industrial anthropogenic CO2 emissions: How large?
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/10/pre-industrial-anthropogenic-co2-emissions-how-large/
Hightrekker,
Interesting, thanks.
ANTARCTIC ICE LOSS HAS TRIPLED IN A DECADE
“Antarctica’s ice sheet is melting at a rapidly increasing rate, now pouring more than 200 billion tons of ice into the ocean annually and raising sea levels a half-millimeter every year. The melt rate has tripled in the past decade. If the acceleration continues, some of scientists’ worst fears about rising oceans could be realized, leaving low-lying cities and communities with less time to prepare than they had hoped.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/06/13/antarctic-ice-loss-has-tripled-in-a-decade-if-that-continues-we-are-in-serious-trouble/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.71d3bfe9672a
And,
HUGE ICEBERG POISED TO BREAK OFF ANTARCTICA’S PINE ISLAND GLACIER
“The rift only has about another 6 miles (10 km) to go before one or more icebergs calf, breaking off from the glacier. Another such event happened a mere year ago in 2017, when an iceberg 4.5 times the size of Manhattan broke off Pine Island Glacier.”
“If the iceberg breaks off in one piece, it will be a whopping 115 square miles (300 square kilometers).”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/huge-iceberg-poised-to-break-off-antarcticas-pine-island-glacier/
Ice Apocalypse – MULTIPLE METERS SEA LEVEL RISE
Rapid collapse of Antarctic glaciers could flood coastal cities by the end of this century. Based on an article written by Eric Holthaus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp5kK0Td-Vc
Yep, Richard Alley has done many lectures on this topic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zko-8txYpw
Richard Alley: Science works…science helps us!
Yes sir, science helped get us where we are today. 🙁
Act of God? Again? What’s He so pissed off about now?
HURRICANE MICHAEL FLATTENS BEACH TOWN LIKE ‘MOTHER OF ALL BOMBS’
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45839343
The insurance industry has paid the bastard off… Insurance policies do not cover ‘Acts of God’!
Cheers!
“Whether or not your home is insured against an Act of God depends on the disaster and your policy’s writing. Most standard homeowners insurance policies do cover damage from wind, hail, lightning and volcanic eruptions, according to the Insurance Information Institute. They do not, however, cover damage from floods and earthquakes (even though these would technically be considered “Acts of God” in the sense that they fall well outside of human control).”
If one has flood insurance on top of the comprehensive, most Acts of God are covered. Tree falls from wind are covered around here. Cars are usually covered too.
Forget earthquakes, apparently they are the Devil’s work.
https://coverhound.com/insurance-learning-center/what-does-act-of-god-mean-when-it-comes-to-homeowners-insurance
I wonder if landslides are covered or peasants with torches.
Doug, it’s obvious God is pissed off at the way Florida voted in the last Presidential Election. There can be no other explanation. He’s gonna get them, county by county, for the next millennium.
What can I say? That’s just how all-powerful supernatural beings roll.
-Lloyd
What other explanation could there be?
Why is God going under cover of weather now? Used to be a real forthright guy, just blast a city or flood the world type. No questions about who did it. Now it’s all stealth.
Dennis,
I know you think the climate scientists have built (all) the feedbacks into their models but of course they haven’t. Naturally you won’t take my word for this so perhaps take a hint from Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a professor of climate sciences at the University of California, San Diego.
NEW CLIMATE REPORT ACTUALLY UNDERSTATES THREAT
“The report also ignores “wild cards” in the climate system, or self-reinforcing feedbacks, said Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a professor of climate sciences at the University of California, San Diego. That includes thinning Arctic sea ice, which allows the ocean to absorb more heat, causing even more ice loss and diminished reflectivity in the region, he said. Such feedback loops have a real possibility of pushing the planet into a period of chaos that humans cannot control.”
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/10/new-climate-report-actually-understates-threat-some-researchers-argue
Doug,
I always say there is a great deal of uncertainty and I also say many of the feedbacks are included in the models, permafrost feedback is less well understood, many models couple a permafrost model with Global Climate Models, often these are refereed to as Earth System Models.
I also often say the models are not perfect, this should be rather obvious, or it is to me so often I leave out the obvious in my comments.
And yes there are climate scientists that believe that the IPCC SR15 is too optimistic, and there are climate scientists that believe it is too pessimistic, it is a compromise document agreed to by mainstream climate scientists, no more, no less.
Anyone know if the United States has introduced bail-in laws?
We’re getting off fossil fuels? Yeah right.
NORWAY’S LARGEST OIL PIPELINE NOW IN PLACE
“The pipeline plays a really central role in the project. When the Johan Sverdrup field produces at peak, 660,000 bbl of oil valued at more than NOK 350 million each day, will flow daily into Mongstad…When the pipeline operations are complete, the 2018 Johan Sverdrup installation campaign will be over. With three jackets, two topsides, one bridge, over 400 km of pipelines, and 200 km of power cables, the 2018 campaign is probably the busiest installation campaign ever for a project on the Norwegian continental shelf. And in 2019 the last two topsides and remaining bridges will be put in place before startup of the first phase of the Johan Sverdrup development expected in November next year.”
https://www.worldoil.com/news/2018/9/10/norways-largest-oil-pipeline-now-in-place
The Johan Sverdrup discovery is one of the largest oil discoveries ever made on the Norwegian continental shelf and will prolong the life of the Norwegian oil industry for several decades. The discovery extends over an area of 200 km² on the Utsira High in the central part of the North Sea.
As far as I can tell the IPCC paper has been completely ignored in all oil trade mags. and blogs and pretty well all business and investment pages in the MSM. Sorted!
With the misnamed ‘Nobel Prize in Economics’ being handed out to these two, one has to work extra hard at trying not to succumb to a serious bout of depression.
Having said that, we are all fucked!
theecologist.org/2018/oct/12/nobel-prize-climate-chaos-romer-nordhaus-and-ipcc
Economists, Climate Chaos and the IPCC report…
I think we’ve chosen, and continue to choose, self-genocide. One thing about it though is that it really is ‘interesting’, in all senses of the word. Economics to me is not much different from a religion before science came along – it tries to explain things that people want explained but it doesn’t really have the tools or comparative data to do so, which means it just ends up with lots of obfuscation, appeals to authority and just-so stories. Some predictions accidentally come out right, or the maths/philosophy/hermeneutics looks impressive, or you know the right people, and you get elected pope. All christianity was written from the perspective of small, bronze age tribes, all economics has been written from the perspective of a civilization with an ever growing supply of cheap and benign energy.
Yep, I wholeheartedly agree!
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-economist-has-no-clothes/
The Economist Has No Clothes
The 19th-century creators of neoclassical economics—the theory that now serves as the basis for coordinating activities in the global market system—are credited with transforming their field into a scientific discipline. But what is not widely known is that these now legendary economists—William Stanley Jevons, Léon Walras, Maria Edgeworth and Vilfredo Pareto—developed their theories by adapting equations from 19th-century physics that eventually became obsolete. Unfortunately, it is clear that neoclassical economics has also become outdated. The theory is based on unscientific assumptions that are hindering the implementation of viable economic solutions for global warming and other menacing environmental problems.
Unless we become atheists to this relgio/economic paradigm, we can kiss our sorry little asses goodbye!
I’ve recently read “The Origin Of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics” by Eric Beinhocker (a lot of it on the theme in that SA article) and books by Steve Keen, Kummel and others that all rip modern economics to shreds. But none of them made much mention, if at all, of the environment. Only those by Daly and Hall that I’ve seen do.
I think the scientists are facing a “boy who cried wolf” scenario because there’s no observable immediate or even medium term impacts of any of their warnings.
Tell that to the residents of Mexico Beach, FL!
You might also check with the ski resort operators and farmers. They are both seeing the effects of a rapidly changing climate.
The warnings I meant are the most dire ones like civilization is going to collapse. People either don’t see this as imminently possible, or they see prior warnings that didn’t come to fruition. In either case…people wind up disregarding scientists altogether. I don’t see how there’s any possibility of changing the behavior. Warnings about ski resorts and farming aren’t going to get public reaction because most people don’t have any direct involvement in those industries. Warnings of stronger natural disasters won’t get much response either, since the normal thing people think is “that won’t happen to me.” Also politically the normal response to natural disasters is to rebuild using tougher standards that can better withstand stronger storms (and actually notice how generally the newer construction in Mexico Beach, FL did indeed stay mainly intact in the hurricane). The construction industry also is extremely important economically and rebuilding after natural disasters isn’t all that bad in the long term if you think about it in terms of local employment and economic growth.
The warnings I meant are the most dire ones like civilization is going to collapse.
I’m not aware of any mainstream scientists who have made predictions of the collapse of civilization – at least no predictions for any date before now, or even any date in the near future.
Any farmer who’s paying attention is watching the catastrophic effects of climate change on their crops — the climate bands are shifting and they can’t grow the same crops they used to.
Transport evolved discussing the availability of Batteries for EV’s.
Appears that only Tesla is serious about shipping EV’s in the west. It’s simple math.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx5kidGYVIg
Great, this is the problem that all manufacturers both want and dread, demand exceeding expectations. It seems that Tesla outplanned them again and the big guys will have to play catchup in a fast expanding market.
The “big guys” are mostly toast. The new big automakers are Tesla, BYD, Geely, BAIC, and probably some other Chinese companies. Nissan, BMW, and VW may survive if they move fast enough. GM has the technology but refuses to mass-produce electric cars.
Excluding the US market?
Santorini to target overweight tourists with donkey weight limit
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/12/santorini-greece-donkeys-overweight-tourists-animal-welfare
Hightrekker,
Thank you for this. You get the Smile of the Day award.
I though it a bit off topic.
But, what the hell——-
It’s NOT offtopic – Efficiency rules.. you have to plug the holes in the Bucket or else.
Islanders and people from the M.E. are up there too:
Rank Country* % of Adult Population That Is Obese
1 Nauru 61.0%
2 Cook Islands 55.9%
3 Palau 55.3%
4 Marshall Islands 52.9%
5 Tuvalu 51.6%
6 Niue 50.0%
7 Tonga 48.2%
8 Samoa 47.3%
9 Kiribati 46.0%
10 Micronesia (Federated States of) 45.8%
11 Kuwait 37.9%
12 United States of America 36.2%
13 Jordan 35.5%
14 Saudi Arabia 35.4%
15 Qatar 35.1%
16 Libya 32.5%
17 Turkey 32.1%
18 Egypt 32.0%
18 Lebanon 33.7%
20 United Arab Emirates 31.7%
High Fashion
Legless Japanese businessmen: the photographer who caught a Tokyo epidemic
?️ From The Archives
What’s the problem boys and girls? We have 12 whole years, they tell us, to achieve “far-reaching changes in society” by making huge strides towards eliminating greenhouse gases arising from fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas. TWELVE WHOLE YEARS. If you happen to be ten years old that’s like, you know — FOREVER.
Meanwhile,
INDIA’S COAL IMPORT RISES 35% TO 21.1 MILLION TONNES IN SEPTEMBER
India’s coal import increased substantially by 35 per cent to 21.1 million tonnes (MT) in September, as against 15.61 million tonnes in the corresponding month previous fiscal. The rise in imports comes at a time when the captive power plants in the country are grappling with the issue of coal shortages. “The increase in coal and coke imports in September is mainly due to higher imports of non-coking coal during the month under review,”
//economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/66105510.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
And,
TRUMP’S MAKING U.S. COAL EXPORTS THE GREATEST THEY’VE EVER BEEN
“U.S. exports of coal used by power stations are set to hit a record this year on increased global demand for the nation’s high-energy-content fuel. Steam-coal shipments will probably jump 58 percent to 58 million metric tons this year, according to Guillaume Perret, founder of Perret Associates Ltd., a London-based research company. He expects exports to reach 65 million tons by 2025.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-01/trump-s-making-u-s-coal-exports-the-greatest-they-ve-ever-been
And for Dennis, who seems to be in a permanent state of denial, according to the EIA’s latest Quarterly Coal Report:
• Second–quarter 2018 U.S. coal exports (30.9 million short tons) increased 13.4% from first–quarter 2018. The average price of U.S. coal exports during second–quarter 2018 was $103.26 per short ton.
• The United States continued to import coal primarily from Colombia (68.4%), Canada (13.6%), and Indonesia (17.2%). No imports were recorded from Australia for second–quarter 2018. U.S. coal imports in second–quarter 2018 totaled 1.5 million short tons. The average price of U.S. coal imports during second–quarter 2018 was $82.95 per short ton.
• Steam coal exports totaled 13.9 million short tons (12.8% higher than first–quarter 2018). Metallurgical coal exports totaled 16.9 million short tons (13.9% higher than first–quarter 2018).
• U.S. coal consumption totaled 156.9 million short tons in second-quarter 2018, which was 6.4% lower than the 167.7 million short tons reported in first–quarter 2018 and 6% lower than the 166.9 million short tons reported in second–quarter 2017. The electric power sector accounted for about 92.1% of the total U.S. coal consumption in second–quarter 2018.
https://www.eia.gov/coal/production/quarterly/
US Production of coal, has decreased according the EIA, so not sure what I am denying.
I do not disagree that coal exports have increased. If we look at the World using BP data, there was a fast increase from 2000 to 2011 in World production of coal, since 2013 World coal output has been falling, though there was indeed an increase in 2017.
Future output is unknown. Chart is in Mtoe per year and is based on the BP Statistical Review of World Energy.
https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html
Interesting how with the advent of EV production going worldwide, renewable energy can reduce coal, natural gas and oil burning all at once.
Wonder when the last coal train will run, have stopped running around here.
An optimistic scenario for replacing coal and natural gas fired power generation in chart below.
This is for the World based on BP data through 2017. It is assumed that solar and wind growth rates gradually slow to 7%/year (50 year growth rate for oil and natural gas from 1923 to 1973), coal is replaced first by new wind and solar and then natural gas, process done by 2040. It is assumed EVs and plugins replace most oil use in land transport, ships move to nuclear and wind, planes to battery and biofuel hybrids. Also there will be improved efficiency more recycling and circular economy, better soil conservation, human waste converted to fertilizer. Aim is zero anthropogenic GHG emissions by 2050 and half of 2015 levels by 2030, CDR after 2050 if needed and probably it will.
Clearly policies for rapid reduction in TFR is also needed, education, better access to healthcare and equal rights for all regardless of race, gender, religion, or sexual preference.
I look on EV’s as a positive energy system since they actually reduce energy use as they reduce the FF use and infrastructure energy.
The big fella coming onto the block is the digital footprint. Almost everything is dependent upon high tech chip technology, internet communications (satellites) and ever more complex machinery to make these products. Plus the lifespans of digital devices is short and production is much more energy intense than standard manufacturing.
Assuming we can keep global civilization together until 2050, not run short of materials, and have food shortages, migrations, sea level rise, storms, etc. derail the growing internet of things civilization; then we can expect at a minimum the digital systems will use about half our electric power by 2050.
Right now a smartphone has a bigger electric use footprint than an average refrigerator. Internet of things (smart systems) will require many billions of sensors worldwide, huge amounts of communications and ever greater amounts of storage along with computing power if smart systems go global.
We might expect some major advances in data storage, but unless handled very carefully the growing digital age could easily end up being our limiting energy factor.
Each GB of cellular data uses about 19 kWh across the system. As both people and things become ever increasing users and gatherers of the huge amounts of data, the energy needs become increasingly phenomenal.
So we have to be very careful (when does that happen?) about trying to make things more efficient and “better” using the digital and communications systems since in reality it will use much more energy.
Complexity on layers of complexity on layers of short life span of digital devices can be the next energy eating monster to tame. However, civilization seems reluctant to back off once the genie is out of the bottle, so this will either be another bottleneck or a big battleneck.
We may start to run up against this new energy wall as early as the mid 2020’s. Could be later but staying on course makes it inevitable.
As of this summer, bitcoin operations consumed the electricity energy equivalent of Ireland, and had increased 5 fold over the prior year.
Interesting comment Gonefishing, thanks.
Chart below from BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2018 for World Electricity Generation, fairly linear from 2000 to 2017, future as always not known. About a 580 TWhr increase in electricity generation each year on average from 1995 to 2017.
Note that my optimistic scenario above only included 165 TWhr of growth from Natural Gas, so 415 TWhr of electricity generation of growth should be added to the model (assumes the 1995-2017 growth rate continues). By 2040 this would mean an extra 9545 TWhr would be needed over the assumptions in my optimistic model. There might be some energy savings from reduced natural gas, coal, and oil production (I am not sure how much this will add up to, but it might be substantial).
Revision to optimistic scenario which accounts for electricity growth of 580 TWhr/year, but does not account for energy savings from reduced energy use in the petroleum sector (which is difficult to quantify quickly), energy needed will likely be less than this scenario when all energy savings are included.
Forgot electricity generation chart.
And then there is the increased use of refrigeration and air conditioning in developing nations.
The number of air-conditioners worldwide is predicted to soar from 1.6 billion units today to 5.6 billion units by midcentury, according to a report issued Tuesday by the International Energy Agency.May 15, Effectively going from 20 percent of building electrical use today to 3.6 times that.Yale says quadruple by 2050.
Same thing for refrigeration, quadruple.
Problem with cell phone technology is that it is very energy consumptive when downloading data (video). Moving to 5G might be a stretch. Who knows what will follow.
Video killed the Energy Star: Why 5G must use less power
https://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/5g-waves/4460339/Video-killed-the-Energy-Star–Why-5G-must-use-less-power-
ships move to nuclear and wind, planes to battery and biofuel hybrids.
Synthetic fuels of various kinds will also be used: H2, NH3, and a variety of hydrocarbons. Their production only needs affordable or cheap electricity, which is very likely with the overbuilding of wind & solar.
Nick, yes at some point that may be the case as wind and solar ramps up.
I think synthetics are more realistic than biofuels, which aren’t scalable much beyond what we have now.
Synthetics cost more now (if you subtract the external costs of environmental damage), but they will be cheap when cheap surplus electricity becomes plentiful.
I mention this in part because you’re likely to get objections to biofuels from readers who know about the problems of environmental damage and scalability.
Nick, I agree. The biofuels would be a temporary solution until solar and wind reach scale. Perhaps not the cheapest way to go, but if the syn fuels are made from coal or natural gas, it will be difficult to remain under 2 C of warming. We could also simply reduce air travel, it is likely to become very expensive as peak oil is reached which may help to reduce air miles travelled.
hmm. What biofuels are you considering? I’m not sure ethanol can really be expanded much – it’s already about 40% of corn – and I have the impression that bio-diesel is causing as much or more emissions than petroleum due to forest clearing.
Doug, it is my hope, as unrealistic as it may seem, that the growth in the use of renewable energy the world has seen over the past decade, will continue and hopefully accelerate as the cost of solar PV technology continues to fall further. Note that unsubsidised solar PV is now the least cost source for electricity generation in areas with good solar resources, like the southwestern US.
In the US, the contribution of solar to electricity generation grew by a factor of more than 100 between 2007 and 2017, that is from 0.01% to 1.38%. Of course, this is the early part of the S growth curve so, this kind of explosive growth cannot be expected to continue much longer. However, we don’t know how close we are to the point where exponential growth changes to logistic growth. If current exponential growth rates were to continue for another eight years, solar PV would be contributing over 30% to US electricity generation by the end of 2026 and the next doubling would land the contribution at 60%, a level that does not need to be reached if we take other renewable sources into consideration.
Looking at wind in the US, it’s contribution grew from 0.65% in 2006 to 6.33% in 2017. If growth in the contribution from wind were to continue at a similar rate for another 11 years, the contribution from wind would grow roughly tenfold to somewhere in the region of 60%.
So if you were to add up all the potential of renewable sources for electricity generation in the US under the scenarios outlined above, huge reductions in carbon emissions would not be out of the question.
Past growth in renewable energy has happened against a framework of support and subsidies from the government on one hand and growing resistance and the sowing of doubt from the incumbent energy and electricity providers on the other hand. Going forward, it should be expected that economics will drive accelerating adoption of wind and solar in the US as their prices continue to fall. The big question is, will the rest of the world sit idly by and watch the US take advantage of lower cost, renewable sources of electricity or will they follow suite?
You will of course point to the transportation sector as a serious challenge going forward but, that is another sector that is ripe for disruption that I will address in another post shortly.
I might seem totally out of touch with reality on this but, to quote George Bernard Shaw — ‘There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?’
Now if many people used vehicles similar to this, say with a small electric motor/battery to assist and the skin covered with solar cells, even charging off the grid or roof would be a rare event. Plus the cost of fuel would be very small.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAcy7EVRpXc
There are always possibilities.
Here is a way to get your workout and commute too, up to over 80 mph.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th9ryOKjFdQ
Islandboy —
“Past growth in renewable energy has happened against a framework of support and subsidies from the government on one hand and growing resistance and the sowing of doubt from the incumbent energy and electricity providers on the other hand.”
I agree — having observed Norway closely. In fact, my Niece, a Norwegian (petroleum) reservoir engineer drives an EV (Mitsubishi Outlander). Rather than appealing to people’s environmental conscience, Norway decided to exempt e-cars from vehicle taxes that are among the highest in the world, including a sales tax of 25 percent plus a registration tax that averages more than $12,000, depending on weight, engine size, etc. This has worked.
BTW, citing 0.01% to 1.38% over ten years as being indicative of a statistical growth rate indicator is not really kosher. Think about it, how your growth rate would have looked if you’d stepped back a few years to say 0.001 or 0.0001% or to the first EV sold. Or, if you really want to impress the peasants, with infinite growth, go back to before the first EV. 🙂
Now, keeping things in perspective, in 2017, roughly 11.1 million light trucks were sold in the US and in 2016, sales of light trucks accounted for about 65 percent of the 17.1 million vehicle units sold. Also, light truck market share in Q2 2018 in “environmentally enlightened” California was 55.5%, up from 50.4% in Q2 2017.
Shifts to light trucks for the US outside California was more pronounced, accounting for 69.6% of new light vehicle sales. I don’t want to be a spoil sport but that’s the way it is. I know that California’s goal is to put 1.5 million ZEVs on the state’s roads by 2025 and I wish them luck with that.
Norway also happens to have oodles of hydroelectric power, which I’d assume is pretty cheap in real terms (i.e. I don’t know about taxes) and will remain so as long as the snow and rain keeps falling, plus a pretty high carbon tax. Without the hydroelectric in place first though, they might not have been able to do any of the other stuff.
“However, we don’t know how close we are to the point where exponential growth changes to logistic growth.”
Based on past adoption curves, it’ll be well past 50%. Wind adoption is slowing down early, which I think is due to permitting; there is no such permitting problem with solar.
“The big question is, will the rest of the world sit idly by and watch the US take advantage of lower cost, renewable sources of electricity or will they follow suite? ”
Parts of the world are actually well ahead of the US. South Australia is perhaps most dramatic, along with various islands. But the transition to cheap renewable energy is well documented in most countries.
“Acts of God,” for insurance purposes, are defined as events that occur through natural causes and could not be avoided through the use of caution and preventative measures. In essence, the phrase “Acts of God” refers to natural disasters.
The phrase generally brings to mind hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, hail, or floods. However, the lines can be fuzzier than most people realize.”
from- https://www.cbsnews.com/media/insurance-what-exactly-constitutes-an-act-of-god/
-So, I ask you, is global warming and all of its manifestations, an act of god?
The answer here is worth trillions in payments.
-And, if I am atheist (and thus not subject to any contracts, written or unwritten, with god or his self-appointed representatives), are my natural disaster losses covered by the policy?
Oooooh, I am waiting for the first victim to take an insurance company to court and argue that the ‘denial of payout due to Act of God’ was incorrect as they are atheist and God does not exist so there is no such thing as an ‘Act of God’.
NAOM
I’d pay to watch that movie, especially the part where Kavanaugh, Santorum, Kudlow get drunk and vomit on each other.
If there were a group of people locked and sealed in a very large stadium, and a few took it upon themselves to measure the carbon dioxide to oxygen ratio of the air and notice that is slowly going up. They get in front of everybody and say, ” Hey guys, we noticed that we are slowly getting more carbon dioxide and less oxygen in our air. If this continues we will all be dead in a few weeks. We need to cut down our breathing by 80 percent and get some more plants in here to reverse the process.” Everybody just keeps on breathing at the same pace, and a few worried people can’t figure out why we don’t change our breathing habits. Civilization can’t stop producing carbon dioxide without the death of most of the people. The population knows this so these climate reports are just warning shouts in the middle of a hurricane.
B.S. ! See my comment further up.
You seem to be concerned with transportation and home energy use. I think the growth of renewables looks like an s curve, slow at first, then quick, then slower and slower as it approaches a limit. I feel this limit is much lower than our current fossil fuel energy usage. Also, what about fertilizer for food, high temperatures needed for manufacturing, and all the roads that use asphalt, all the concrete usage? We cannot feed our population without industrial farming.
You do realize this is basically an energy blog???
Logistical curve?
See my comment from the 10th
http://peakoilbarrel.com/eias-electric-power-monthly-august-2018-edition-with-data-for-july/#comment-654624
Just because a solution does not solve every problem at once, such as ticks or acne, does not invalidate it.
What about high temps for manufacturing? Ever hear of electric furnaces and lasers?
Asphalt for roads, not a problem, alternative materials have been invented.
Feed our population? Going to run out of soil and nutrients anyway, best to find new (old) ways to feed people before the soil is gone. Stops them and the world from being poisoned as they are from industrial ag.
Concrete? Buildings using concrete only last 30 to 50 years. Not very sustainable. We will probably be using 3D printed structures which are much stronger and lighter than concrete, using much less material to achieve the same purpose.
Who actually believes we are going to have this many people in the future? Do you comprehend the term unsustainable?
Unsustainable energy, farming, population growth, environmental destruction, all lead to collapse of various sorts.
Time to change our ways and means. Time to achieve our goals as a species.
Hi Jason. In large part your statement is a good analogy, and is worth thinking about. However, you said- “Civilization can’t stop producing carbon dioxide without the death of most of the people.”
Thats not necessarily true. I wager that carbon dioxide generation could be cut heavily, if people had it as a priority, without massive death. So much of the fossil and wood fuel is used inefficiently, and frivolously. Lower carbon technology could be deployed much more rapidly. Buildings could be better insulated. People could eat lower down the foodchain. Constructive adaptation measures could be deployed as if we were at war footing. If it were a priority.
And yes, we do have to downsize, and it will happen on way or another- through deliberate measures, or very painful and haphazard ones. We will have to downsize towards a low carbon carrying capacity. No choice there.
Ostrich or responsible man, our choice.
Well said.
Hi Hickory, I read Gail’s Our Finite World blog and comments, but wander over here occasionally, usually to get real time data on energy production and usage. I don’t agree with everything over there, but she makes a strong point that if we cut down on fossil fuel usage, the entire financial system will crash as loans and investments and debt in general is taken on with future growth in mind. If finance collapses, then a major disruption in fuel production and distribution is likely. One way or another we will be forced to use less carbon, but I don’t see it happening willingly.
Sure, the old has to get out of the way of the new. Happens all the time and is a historical fact. The collapse of the transportation industry in the beginning of the 1900’s did not wreck the world economy. In fact it improved it because even better substitutes were available to more people. Collapse of the whale oil industry, the coal driven locomotive industry, the wood burning industry did not cause national or global economic collapse, due to substitutes being better and cheaper. Thus more market.
Consider the huge amount of substitutive growth of the renewable, alternative transport, new materials, changing construction methods, rebuilding and such which for the next 40 or 50 years would dominate the economy. All of it better and cheaper.
Spending money on real changes versus spending ever greater amounts to burn more fuel and cause more disaster are our choices. Gail sees disaster, many others see positive change and vast improvement. Moving from a destructive economy to a constructive one is the choice. The other choice is complete collapse of civilization.
Gone Fishing,
“Even better substitutes were available”, meaning more energy available per unit volume. Sure cars are faster and last longer than horses, if they have fuel. How many joules of energy in a tank of gas vs stored in the atp of horse muscles. No contest. Same with whale vs coal, wood vs coal and gas. Is solar and wind “better” in this regard vs fossil fuels? If we had a substitute that provided more energy per volume and per time than fossil fuels we could see another transition. Renewables are not it. I would love to be wrong. My children future depend on it.
Sorry you don’t see the reality. We have had many discussions on renewable energy here and they beat fossil fuels hands down as a system of energy provision. Plus they are vastly more abundant and orders of magnitude less destructive.
You are making the same mistake or the same purposeful mistake made by many renewable energy deniers.
A 100 X100 foot area of land receives 3636 kWh of energy per day on average . Your gallon of gasoline has only about 19 kWh of energy, only 1/5 of which is useful, making it 3.8 kWh. So the sun is putting the equivalent of 956 gallons of effective gasoline energy every day of the year on average per 100 by 100 area. Repeat this over the whole planet.
Just the area of one oil refinery collects the equivalent of 11 million gallons of useful gasoline in solar energy. To make 11 million gallons of gasoline takes about 440,000 barrels of oil. That same refinery refines 250,000 barrels of oil per day. If one includes the areas for drilling, roads, pipelines, service stations, maintenance areas, support businesses, etc, the energy density of oil becomes very low. Once one considers the size and volume of the earth needed to dispose of it’s waste products, the energy density of petroleum is negligible.
So besides being a destructive process, it is not really very energetic and has a short timespan of use but a very long timespan of destruction. Adding the time factor make petroleum a non-energy source. It destroys more than it gains.
If civilization can’t run on renewable energy there is only one alternative so far.
Of course the extremely expensive and so far not possible fusion energy could come along some day. The fantasy dreams of Bill Gate’s advanced nuclear options that are hugely more efficient than today’s clunkers might happen someday.
But dealing with reality, it’s renewables and efficiency for now. Anything else is fantasy or deadly disaster.
Nice to hear you guys have got it all figured out.
Just the energy end, trying to get the public motivated and stymie the sociopathic anti-renewable crowd still needs a lot of work.
Is solar and wind “better” in this regard vs fossil fuels?
Yes, of course it is. You haven’t ever really looked at the numbers.
Much, much better.
Solar generates power with *no* fuel consumed, versus lots of fuel for coal, gas, wood, etc. Think about it.
“but she makes a strong point that if we cut down on fossil fuel usage, the entire financial system will crash”
Those who DON’T respond to the challenge of self-reliance will be hurt and not survive. – Fixed it for you. “we” are all not in this together.
How long can/will house of Saud be able to finance/save the “we”?
Coach Red Pill explains the PetroDollar – Perhaps the most important deal in modern history https://youtu.be/xNr1LWgIyiE
The Petrodollar is collapsing, and it’s one of the biggest opportunities in the world now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBg_7dGkonQ
I want to look at a little history of EVs to put something I saw recently into perspective. First I looked at the oldest videos I could find on youtube with a search for “AC Propulsion t-zero”. I found three videos posted 12 years ago, one of which apologised for the video quality as follows ” !! Sorry about video quality… was filmed in Jan 2000 well before Consumer level 10Mpix camcorders!!”. The link below appears to have been excerpted from a documentary on the History Channel (the history channel’s logo is in the lower right corner of the screen). It showcases the AC Propulsion t-zero, a car built by EV enthusiast startup AC Propulsion to showcase the performance capabilities of EVs. According to the Wikipedia page, the original founders of Tesla Motors, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning had been for test rides in the t-zero and had tried to encourage the principals at AC Propulsion to take the car into production. Again according to the Wikipedia entry, Elon Musk had also been for a test ride and also encouraged AC Propulsion to produce the vehicle but was instead referred to Eberhard and Tarpenning. The rest is history and we now have the Tesla Motors Model 3 as the fourth best selling passenger sedan in the US for the month of September!
Which brings me to a youtube video that was posted 4 days ago that I saw referenced in a comment over at insideevs.com. The video features the “Schaeffler 4ePerformance” concept vehicle (video) a car developed by The Schaeffler Group, a global automotive and industrial supplier, based on an Audi RS3 four door sports sedan. The video was posted by Daniel Abt (youtube channel) a driver in the Formula e race series and the title says it all!
210Km/h BACKWARDS | The World Record! | Daniel Abt
I’m posting this because, it reminds me of the buzz around the t-zero twelve years ago. The t-zero was the inspiration for Tesla Motors and I suspect the “Schaeffler 4ePerformance concept” will serve as the inspiration for a German starup to emerge and one day challenge the hegemony of the establish German automakers. This sort of thing is the genesis of disruption. This prototype, development platform not only beat a Porsche in a quarter mile drag race, it beat it driving in reverse!
When I see an electric vehicle out perform the formula one, or 24 hours at lemans, vehicles, I’ll be convinced. Let’s get some side by side comparisons. Like I said, I hope I’m wrong.
The 2020 Tesla Roadster, scheduled for first deliveries late next year will accelerate from zero to sixty in 1.9 seconds and have a range of 620 miles (1000 km). From ZeroTo60Times “Formula One race cars have been recorded to reach 0-60 as fast as 1.6 seconds, however the typical range for modern day F1 cars is between 2.1 to 2.7 seconds”. So, looks like you don’t have long to wait for the acceleration part. 620 miles of range ain’t too bad either!
The car that is the subject of the video I linked to is a beast. It is this kind of “balls to the wall” performance that will get the attention of gearheads first and then the general public eventually. I see these things as indicators of an impending disruption, Germany is just about 20 years late to the small enthusiast, performance EV game. Even Croatia is ahead in that game with Rimac Automobili. For a fascinating look at the Rimac and it’s beginnings see Inside Rimac (four part video series).
Never seen the videos of Teslas leaving drag racers in their dust, have you? Oh, and those are street models not special builds.
NAOM
Hi Jason,
Do you drive your car for 24 hours straight on a regular basis? If so, stick with a gasoline powered vehicle. I like my Tesla Model 3, works fine for me. 🙂
Jason,
Have you ever driven a formula one race car? I have not, not really interested in travelling in circles (or on a circuit).
You should consider test driving a Tesla Model 3, they are nicer than most vehiclles, though they will not accelerate faster than a Formula One race car.
I have the Long rang AWD Model 3 which is advertised at 0-60 in 4.5 seconds, but has been tested at about 4.33 seconds.
The Performance version of the Model 3 is reviewed at the link below:
https://www.motortrend.com/cars/tesla/model-3/2018/2018-tesla-model-3-dual-motor-performance-quick-test-review/
Maybe a test drive would be convincing? Probably cheaper than a Formula 1 car. 🙂
Trolls are thick since the climate report came out. Got someone worried it did.
NAOM
Look, I’m a reasonable troll. I believe in climate change. My beef is with those who think renewables will replace fossil fuels without major suffering. But I get it, you are just protecting your tribe. It’s human nature.
Jason,
Not replacing fossil fuels results in more suffering, that is the point. Will it be challenging to replace fossil fuels by 2050, yes! Is it possible, maybe, but only if we get most people pulling in the same direction. So likely to be major suffering in either case.
Jason- ” My beef is with those who think renewables will replace fossil fuels without major suffering.”
I think most of the people who visit this site do indeed share your thought on this. Basically that is the root of why they are here- trying to wrap our mind around the challenge, the unfolding tragedy, the whole phenomenon of overshoot.
Some do try to be hopeful, optimistic, or constructive some of the time, and believe that if we made all the right moves (starting 30-40 yrs ago, IMHO), that we could keep the downslope at a shallow angle.
In my view, certain places will do better than others, in part because of the luck of their geography, in part because of choices and policies that they implement.
I sure am not optimistic about the collective smarts of people. We are in the midst of a big extinction event of our own doing, and we won’t be spared from its effects.
as an aside, you mention Gail T. Realize that she has been very wrong with her prognostications thus far. In time, things may come to pass as she suggests, but I’d take her with a grain of salt.
Not replacing FF with renewables will result in major suffering.
Replacing FF with renewables will result in major suffering.
Pick your poison.
Survivalist,
Suffering is likely to be greater by not replacing fossil fuels with some alternative, it will need to be attempted in any case. Makes more sense to start sooner rather than later, that way we will have some fossil fuel to burn when the next ice age arrives in 140,000 years or so.
The transition away from FF to alternatives will not, in itself, cause suffering. Let me say that again:
Renewables and EVs will not cause suffering.
Suffering will be caused by the delay in the transition. IOW:
Suffering will be caused by fossil fuels, not by the alternatives. The faster the transition, the less the suffering.
Nick,
I believe the suffering will be due to difficulty making the transition and I agree it is mainly due to waiting too long and the extra global warming that will occur as a result, the sooner we begin the lower the level of suffering.
the problem is, “sooner” means 1970.
Agreed, so the best we can do is start now unless we devise a way to travel back in time, which only happens in poorly written science fiction.
If we switch from fossil fuels to renewables ASAP, we will be pretty damn happy. Ask anyone with solar panels on their roof, or whose power comes from a local wind farm, or who has a Powerwall battery in their home, or an electric car in their garage.
Ask them about how much money they’re saving, too.
If we DON’T switch from fossil fuels to renewables, we will have major major major major major major major suffering, starting with the suffering we *already* have from pollution, oil spills, coal mining, etc., and the high cost of fossil fuels.
We are not tribal. We’re cold-hearted, hard-headed dollars-and-cents types. Renewables are cheaper and have far fewer bad side effects. Pay attention.
Dear Mr. Trump,
You might be interested in this article from New Scientist Magazine. I know you’re busy so have attached three paragraphs you should find worthy of your attention.
Cheers,
WE’VE MISSED MANY CHANCES TO CURB GLOBAL WARMING. THIS MAY BE OUR LAST
“If anything, denial is deepening. The populist revolt is hostile to action and its leaders have managed to tar environmentalists as just another wing of the liberal elite. Populism thrives by offering simplistic solutions to complex problems – the exact opposite of what the world needs right now…
The natural reaction to the IPCC report and wider developments may thus be despair. But that guarantees only one outcome: defeat. As the report makes clear, we still have time to pull off a rescue. It will arguably be the largest project that humanity has ever undertaken – comparable to the two world wars, the Apollo programme, the cold war, the abolition of slavery, the Manhattan project, the building of the railways and the rollout of sanitation and electrification, all in one. In other words, it will require us to strain every muscle of human ingenuity in the hope of a better future, if not for ourselves then at least for our descendants…
The history of humanity is one of stupidity, denial and dawdling followed by heroic rearguard action to prevail against all odds. The climate crisis is close to that inflection point. Does our generation have the gumption? It is time to find out.”
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24031992-900-weve-missed-many-chances-to-curb-global-warming-this-may-be-our-last/
Doug, since Trump can’t read, it will have to be in an audio-book format, hopefully with some cartoon animation to keep him engaged.
1 page at a time.
NAOM
I wonder when the first mainstream “no chance now, we’re cooked” article will come out (and be broadly ignored I’d guess). I think maybe not so long, actually this year’s NYT supplement piece might have been the first. The recent article “Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene” had authors from almost all the major climate research labs. so I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s close to what they are all thinking (though the “best case” spin on it). Without action far above that proposed in the IPCC report it would suggest we are in runaway already. If you think about what was being reported just three years ago (most feedbacks ignored or not understood, renewables easy, politicians and populations are bound to wake up and take action etc.) and then project the same change forward the reports are likely to be about adaption and disaster mitigation only and not much about being able to retain any kind of BAU.
Okay George, here’s (an early) one for you.
‘WE’RE DOOMED’: MAYER HILLMAN ON THE CLIMATE REALITY NO ONE ELSE WILL DARE MENTION
“Global emissions were static in 2016 but the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was confirmed as beyond 400 parts per million, the highest level for at least three million years (when sea levels were up to 20m higher than now). Concentrations can only drop if we emit no carbon dioxide whatsoever. Even if the world went zero-carbon today that would not save us because we’ve gone past the point of no return.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/26/were-doomed-mayer-hillman-on-the-climate-reality-no-one-else-will-dare-mention
A couple of added snips:
A small band of artists and writers, such as Paul Kingsnorth’s Dark Mountain project, have embraced the idea that “civilisation” will soon end in environmental catastrophe but only a few scientists – usually working beyond the patronage of funding bodies, and nearing the end of their own lives – have suggested as much. Is Hillman’s view a consequence of old age, and ill health? “I was saying these sorts of things 30 years ago when I was hale and hearty,” he says.
Can civilisation prolong its life until the end of this century? “It depends on what we are prepared to do.” He fears it will be a long time before we take proportionate action to stop climatic calamity. “Standing in the way is capitalism. Can you imagine the global airline industry being dismantled when hundreds of new runways are being built right now all over the world? It’s almost as if we’re deliberately attempting to defy nature. We’re doing the reverse of what we should be doing, with everybody’s silent acquiescence, and nobody’s batting an eyelid.”
Finally as a (cynical) retired geoscientist myself, one who thinks in geological time scales, I’d agree with this sentiment:
Hillman is amazed that our thinking rarely stretches beyond 2100. “This is what I find so extraordinary when scientists warn that the temperature could rise to 5C or 8C. What, and stop there? What legacies are we leaving for future generations? In the early 21st century, we did as good as nothing in response to climate change. Our children and grandchildren are going to be extraordinarily critical.”
If we do not have a fix in place for 2100 then we need not worry about what comes after. There will be no future generations to worry about.
NAOM
Now, now, it’s not all that bad. Most mammals came about when it was at least 5C warmer. We just have to learn to adapt.
Ooops, forgot about the methane hydrate problem for a moment. Oh well, toodle pipski.
Reminds me the older of the two major daily newspapers in my neck of the woods. One day of the week (Tuesday?) they feature stories on the environment, pollution climate change etc and then I believe it is the very next day, they switch the theme to “growth and jobs”! They seem to think we can have “growth and jobs” without degrading the environment or contributing to climate change. They are big fans of the push to use more LNG on the island, seemingly having dropped their love affair with coal and are very lukewarm on renewables.
I have noticed that if I want to get comments past moderation, the comments cannot contain the slightest hint of any limits to growth. Strange how some people’s minds work! Is this what we call cognitive dissonance?
You live on an island. With never ending growth, at some point, everyone will be standing shoulder to shoulder. That model just does not work.
NAOM
From Hillmans interview-
Instead, says Hillman, the world’s population must globally move to zero emissions across agriculture, air travel, shipping, heating homes – every aspect of our economy – and reduce our human population too. Can it be done without a collapse of civilisation? “I don’t think so,” says Hillman. “Can you see everyone in a democracy volunteering to give up flying? Can you see the majority of the population becoming vegan? Can you see the majority agreeing to restrict the size of their families?”
Hillman doubts that human ingenuity can find a fix and says there is no evidence that greenhouse gases can be safely buried. But if we adapt to a future with less – focusing on Hillman’s love and music – it might be good for us. “And who is ‘we’?” asks Hillman with a typically impish smile. “Wealthy people will be better able to adapt but the world’s population will head to regions of the planet such as northern Europe which will be temporarily spared the extreme effects of climate change. How are these regions going to respond? We see it now. Migrants will be prevented from arriving. We will let them drown.”
This partially mirrors the statement that Jason made in a comment earlier, about low carbon economy not being survivable.-“Civilization can’t stop producing carbon dioxide without the death of most of the people.”
With our historic population over the last 200,000 years of 1-10 million, not a problem.
7.6 billion? Not a chance.
And we’re adding 83 million every single year (population of NY city = 8.17 million).
I usually think of it as more than four, greater São Paulos… Which by now, is probably overly conservative.
According to IBGE, Brazil’s main government research institute, the population in the city of São Paulo is about 11 million inhabitants. If we take into account the metropolitan area, which includes 38 smaller cities around the capital, the population is almost 19,000,000 inhabitants.Jul 12, 2013
To keep that in perspective the entire global human population during the early Holocene is estimated to have been around half the current population of today’s Greater São Paulo.
And we still have to listen to our sage leaders talk about feeding 9 to 11 billion humans in the next couple of decades.
That is beyond ridiculous!
The shift to a zero-emissions economy CAN, of course, be done TRIVIALLY without any damage to civilization. Hillman is being an idiot.
We just build lots of solar factories, wind turbine factories, etc., and replace our energy sources; we save tons of money, have less local pollution, and stop global warming. We have enough spare energy to pull CO2 out of the air and fix it as solid carbon.
The problem is that we have a very large, active political group which wants to keep burning fossil fuels for the LULZ, as far as I can tell. Call them Republicans, Tories, or Oilmen, they are nihilists whose plan is to let everyone die so they can have their short term fix of flame and burning. It’s whacked. I don’t know what to do about them.
Since if they aren’t stopped, they will destroy human civilization, it is morally valid to kill them all (it’s self-defence), but it’s not practical at this point; there are too many of them.
There’s a subtle difference between reporting that so-and-so said X and writing a main article or leader (not a columnist’s op-ed) which just states X as a set position (presumably of the editior and publisher, but also reflecting wider understanding).
I will concede that I am defeated on this matter. Hopefully I’m wrong, but I don’t think so. Time shall tell. It always does.
Meanwhile, I hope to fly back to Antigua one day and enjoy a banana rum cake again and hang out on the beach with my wife. Hopefully that part of the world is still habitable by the time I get back to it.
Cheers!
Does it really matter or is it just paper anyway? I used to think massive debt was a doom scenario but not so convinced any more. Maybe Watcher is rubbing off on me.
US NATIONAL DEBT AT HIGHEST LEVEL SINCE AFTER WWII
“The new report to Congress paints a grim fiscal outlook for the next three decades, blaming sharp increases in net interest costs, Social Security and Medicare spending, and generally flat revenues over the next few years. In a nutshell, according to the CBO, spending is growing rapidly year over year — and revenues and even the growth of the economy just aren’t keeping up with the pace.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/national-debt-at-highest-level-since-after-wwii/
Just poor money management, tax collections are up 5.6& from year before and have been rising yearly. Republican presidents/congress always seem to increase the debt. Too much military. Spending has blossomed under Trump.
It always takes the Dims a while to get things at least partly functional.
The loot and pillage motto of the Repugs is hard to deal with.
“Does it really matter or is it just paper anyway?”
Oh, it will come matter someday. That much debt represents a great weakness, a fragility, and a dead weight on future growth prospects. At some point the ability to kick the can down the road will fail, perhaps right around the time that peak oil starts to show up in the marketplace.
When that happens, much of things that debt pays for will either outright stop or become very expensive to uphold and so will be drastically scaled back. What are those things that debt has been used to buy, or is earmarked for?
medicare, military spending, pensions, mortgages, social security, infrastructure, education
Things like that.
I think there’s a theory that ultimately the debt is ultimately be coming out of pension provisions, so it’s just a question of which particular cohorts get clobbered first and hardest. But I don’t pretend to understand it.
As I see it, first in line to get clobbered is those have income- via escalation of tax rates. Second is the elderly/retired, through cuts in pensions and medical support. Third will be the wealthy, with taxes on assets. Although the very wealthy have so many ways to shield that wealth in places like Caymans and Switzerland.
Global ‘reset’. Try to be gone by then.
Those who are lenders will lose, those who are debtors will win, in the short term. Long term it depends on whether people have blind faith that all debt is bad and the solution to a debt problem cannot be more debt.
This was Hoover’s thinking in 1929-1932 (he had an excuse, as Keynes’ General Theory was not published until 1936) and the thinking of the Europeans in 2009 to 2013 (they seem to have little excuse except for perhaps a poorly done influential paper suggesting high government debt leads to lower growth, which might be true in the extreme, but is not true in general).
Government deficit spending in an economic crisis situation (with low inflation and high unemployment) is exactly the correct policy, if we assume a shorter crisis is desired rather than a longer one.
Whole day to get these 3600 kwh. And you have to build high tech solar pv to capture it. By burning oil you can get this amount of energy in couple seconds by just throwing a match into gasoline tank.
I was just talking to an owner of a 2017 Chevy Volt. Great car, he drives a lot but hardly uses any of that gasoline stuff. The engine and fuel tank are rarely used accessories. Nice to have but with today’s EV tech no need for the drilling, pumping, pipelines, refineries, more pipelines, trucks to distribute or those gasoline stations. All getting useless and will be extinct like the belching farting dinosaurs they are.
Transition can only be made from a worse energy source, to a better one. Never the other way around.
I am glad you agree with me. At least Somebody does.
First of all, your statement is blatantly false and contains logical fallacies!
Second, if you are trying to imply that a transition from fossil fuels to alternatives can’t happen because because the latter are a worse system for providing energy than the former, you either don’t understand the true costs of continuing to use fossil fuels and the fact that they are now giving diminishing returns on energy required to extract, process and ship them, let alone that ICEs are pathetically inefficient compared to electric motors…
Fossil fuels are by far the worse form of obtaining energy because they have to be combusted to produce heat which is then used to do work in highly inefficient machines that end up wasting most of that heat… Lose, lose, (pun intended)!
FFs are orders of magnitude better than wind, or solar. What is the biggest battery made by Tesla? Something like energy equivalent of 2 rail carts of coal?
OK, FFs have to be combusted, so what? FFs contain so much energy per weight, that renewables cannot be even named as energy sources.
Yahbut try burning that lump of coal twice or more times.
NAOM
Depends on how you look at it. I have enough space on the roof of my apartment to generate 5 to 6 kW power at peak. Based on my experience with my 2kW system I would generate about 25-30 kWh per day on average (5 to 6 peak sun hours in PV speak). My average consumption before I got PV was between 100 and 150 kWh per month. Now. because of the lame brained, utility friendly arrangements that exist in my neck of the woods, I will have to go through a fair amount of red tape to make the full use of my system. I would rather not go into that any more in a public forum such as this.
I plan to get an EV and maybe upgrade the PV system to reduce my carbon footprint further but, essentially, the PV system will be able to take care of my electricity and transportation needs for the rest of my life! Once batteries and their associated systems get to the point where they are more affordable, I will hardly need grid electricity at all.
I am doing an exercise using Google’s Mymaps feature to document at least the location of all the PV systems I can identify on the island where I live. Some estimates put the installed capacity at the end of 2016 at about 30 MW but, what the exercise proving to me is there is easily enough space on rooftops for probably 100 times that (3,000 MW). I have done some rough numbers and 2,000 MW would be enough to satisfy the entire electricity needs of the island, provided there is adequate storage.
So for now we need FF to keep the lights on and keep transportation systems operating but, how much longer before we don’t? I’m with Tony Seba in saying, twelve years or less.
“FFs are orders of magnitude better than wind, or solar”
ROFLMAO
Who left the village gate open again?
2nd grade energy primer.
Solar flux over earth surface 89,300 TW. That is 780 million TWh/yr Length of time available is over 1 billion years.
Fossil fuels total energy, 120 TWh/yr for 50 years, then civilization crashes and goes back to the Stone Age, except planet is a lot hotter than in the Stone Age and most animals are extinct.
Which resource is larger? Which resource is available for an unlimited time? Which resource fails after a few generations?
Which energy source causes civilization to fail?
Incorrect answers mean a return to the village.
FFs are orders of magnitude better than wind, or solar.
Okaaay… If you say so! However, most of the rest of the world disagrees with you.
https://eto.dnvgl.com/2018#Energy-Transition-Outlook-2018-
https://eto.dnvgl.com/2018/foreword
There are many signs that the energy industry is on the brink of profound change. Globally, policy developments, despite some notable exceptions, continue to favour renewables technology. Last year, new renewable power capacity additions were more than double the new power capacity additions from fossil fuels. In capital markets, a reallocation of funds towards cleaner technology is underway. Where is all of this going to take us? That is what we aim to answer.
“FFs are orders of magnitude better than wind, or solar.”
Do not confuse the funny things in your head wirth reality. 🙂
Hint: FFs die because of very basic economic facts. Try to understand them.
Today in Göbrichen, where I am staying, very dry and 23°C… not good for local farmers, what is the cost of heat waves and drought?
Death
“OK, FFs have to be combusted, so what?”
To answer your question- combustion of FF releases CO2, which is a greenhouse gas. Increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, and CO2 in the oceans, are having impacts on life on earth due to climate change and ocean acidification. The impacts of same will very likely be fatal to much of life on earth.
What a dumbass you are!
Everyone who has half a brain knows a Tesla is 20 times better than a filthy, shaking, stinking gasmobile.
Everyone who has a quarter of a brain knows that solar panels are better than a coal burning power plant (which do you want on *your* rooftop)?
Either you’re missing a brain entirely, or you’re paid to spew this pro-fossil bilge and you don’t really believe it. Is the Kremlin paying you? We know they’re paying a lot of trolls like you, who don’t believe what they’re writing but are paid to troll.
You are absolutely correct, Somebody.
I suspect, however, that you misunderstand the meanings of “worse” and “better”.
Bingo. We’re going to transition from crappy fossil fuels to wonderful solar/wind/batteries/heat pumps. Some of us are already making the transition.
“Transition can only be made from a worse energy source, to a better one. Never the other way around.”
That’s a normative statement and expresses a value judgement about whether a situation is desirable or undesirable, i.e better or worse.
I think what you’re trying to say is that FF is more energy dense. That would be a descriptive, or positive statement, and would contain no indication of approval or disapproval.
Delete.
“adapt but the world’s population will head to regions of the planet such as northern Europe which will be temporarily spared the extreme effects of climate change. How are these regions going to respond? We see it now. Migrants will be prevented from arriving. ”
Some people say that we shouldn’t think about building a wall on the USA southern border, rather we should be thinking ahead and build a ‘climate migration wall’, to shield the north from coming tsunami of climate refugees over the next 50 yrs. Must adapt to the conditions.
This wall would exclude places like the Norfolk, Savannah, Miami, New Orleans, Houston, El Paso, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, clearly.
More debatable would be places like Manhattan, Atlanta, Little Rock, Dallas, and Bakersfield.
The USA is going to have a massive climate migrant/refugee problem. People fleeing coastal flooding, swamped cities, devastating storms etc. And those are just from the USA itself. Miami gets wiped out, where do the people go? Houston, New Orleans etc, where do the people go?
NAOM
BTW Does anyone here think the CO2 level has stabilized?
If you do, the Mauna Loa Observatory doesn’t agree with you.
Daily CO2, Oct. 12, 2018: 405.66 ppm, Oct. 12, 2017: 403.56 ppm.
“CO2 concentrations haven’t been this high in millions of years. Even more alarming is the rate of increase in the last five decades and the fact that CO2 stays in the atmosphere for hundreds or thousands of years. This [400 ppm] milestone is a wake up call that our actions in response to climate change need to match the persistent rise in CO2. Climate change is a threat to life on Earth and we can no longer afford to be spectators.” – Dr. Erika Podest
Stabilized? The rate of increase has not even stabilized.
Even using those low numbers for methane, manmade greenhouse gases contribute 3 watts per m2 to global warming(NOAA). Admittedly, that is a small forcing compared to what natural snow, ice, methane and CO2 changes will do but one has to start somewhere.
We are so blessed, most of mankind working together to warm the planet and nature getting together to do an even better job. Now that is unity and cooperation on a global scale.
Indeed, it warmeth the cockles of my heart!
Here is one for Doug, but the rest of you might enjoy this too. Only way to see things is to get out there.
Landscape Photography | Walking on Thin Ice in Arctic Norway
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuX6otnc2iA
Yeah, there’s something truly magical about the light in northern latitudes, especially when you throw in an aurora. Maybe that’s the reason I did my thesis on Alfvén waves — a lifetime ago. If it weren’t for having my Grandson nearby I’d probably live in Norway full time now.
I seem to be getting further North as I age——-
I’ve been thinking about applying for political asylum in Iceland and opening a geothermal powered greenhouse and growing bananas for export to Brazil… 😉
https://icelandmag.is/article/iceland-has-europes-largest-banana-plantation-could-grow-importance-due-panama-disease
Iceland has Europe‘s largest banana plantation: could grow in importance due to Panama Disease
With the upcoming loss of our commercial variety, this is interesting.
I actually have some real time experience on this subject.
Another “more than expected” piece.
THE BIGGEST THREAT TO GREENLAND’S GLACIERS LIES DEEPER IN THE OCEAN THAN EXPECTED
“Unlike most other bodies of water, the ocean surrounding Greenland gets warmer with increasing depth. That’s because warm, salty currents from the Atlantic are heavier than fresh glacial water, so those currents end up on the bottom. And that’s what’s got scientists’ attention: our oceans absorb the heat trapped by greenhouse gases, so they’re getting warmer, and as they do, Greenland’s biggest, deepest glaciers are interacting with them — and melting at increasing speeds.”
https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/43e5q3/the-biggest-threat-to-greenlands-glaciers-is-the-warming-ocean
Nahh, it’s Iceland tapping too much geothermal heat and warming the region. 🙂
Turning CO2 into stone in Iceland – earthrise
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZr656rA5ik
How Geothermal Energy Revolutionised Iceland’s Greenhouses | Earth Lab
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KepmDQfEHg
Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person on the planet who thinks ocean acidification, global warming’s evil twin, is actually the greater of those two evils by many orders of magnitude. While as difficult as it may seem, I can envision bioengineering organisms to withstand increased warming, however it is basically (pun intended) simply not possible to fight chemistry! Damn it!
https://phys.org/news/2018-10-sea-snail-shells-dissolve-increasingly.html
Sea snail shells dissolve in increasingly acidified oceans, study shows
October 15, 2018, University of Plymouth
Shelled marine creatures living in increasingly acidified oceans face a fight for survival as the impacts of climate change spread, a new study suggests.
Svante Arrhenius was not far off the mark when titling has landmark paper:
On the Influence of Carbonic Acid
in the Air upon the Temperature of
the Ground
Of course at the time, he didn’t know how that same carbonic acid would cause the unraveling of marine ecosystems very probably leading to the next major ocean extinction event. Which in turn will set multiple tipping points in motion. I sure hope every one of those future 9 to 10 billion humans relishes their solar dried jellyfish sandwiches!
Having seen the importance of reefs to the ocean ecosystem, at first hand, the thought terrifies me. Winter visibility 2-3 meters due to algae etc – fish food. Spring visibility 3-5 meters due to pinhead sized newly hatched fish – fish food. The survivors go on to be the new fish that we catch to eat. Loose the reef then what happens? People just do not understand the chain of supply of food that we eat. Break the chain – we die.
NAOM
Searching the web for “disruption”, I found a documentary with the “Disruption” as the name and watched it before I fell asleep. It was about the Peoples Climate March (PCM) on September the 21st, 2014 in New York City and one of the things I found interesting was that it included several clips featuring Chris Hayes of MSNBC, Van Jones of CNN and Rhode Island senator Sheldon Whitehouse. These three guys all get the seriousness of climate change and I find it quite amazing that,, despite the obvious strong support for action on climate change, demonstrated by the PCM, there is so much resistance to the idea in the US. It was pointed out by Sheldon Whitehouse that:
“That makes coal and oil and other fossil fuels more competitive against solar and wind and other sources then they deserve to be. Behind the environmental problems that carbon pollution causes and behind the economic problems is a political problem that a very small group of very powerful special interests have exerted very rough control over the political establishment.”
Would the politicians who find themselves in opposition to the interests that oppose action on climate change be able to gain anything by exposing the link between FF interests and climate change denial? It is becoming increasingly clear that since strong action on climate change will require accelerated use of technologies that will decimate the FF industries, those that benefit the most from those industries see any action on climate change as an existential threat. It is also obvious that these interests are not about to go quietly into the night. What I find truly abhorrent is the psycopathic nature of these people, willing to take the chance that the planet may become uninhabitable for most forms of life present today, just so that they can gain more wealth.
In the documentary, Naomi Oreskes outlines how, following Jim Hansen’s testimony before congress in 1988 the movement for action on climate change was gathering momentum when it more or less suddenly fell apart. Gee! I wonder how come that happened?
” I find it quite amazing that,, despite the obvious strong support for action on climate change, demonstrated by the PCM, there is so much resistance to the idea in the US.”
While there is a segment of the US that is supportive of adaptation, there is a very strong segment who are either afraid of losing their ‘business as usual’ status that they currently enjoy, and a very large segment who see this whole thing as a a trivial issue. They are taught this by Fox news, which is their primary source of brain ‘enrichment’. There is a third large group who are just apathetic, and another who are preoccupied with just getting by.
There needs to be a shift from highlighting the downside of climate change, which causes a psychological block, to promoting the benefits of the new technologies – clean, quiet streets, cheap energy, new jobs etc. I think I posted a link to a TED talk about how switching from using negatives to influence to using positives gets more results. I’ll try and look for it
NAOM
Here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp0O2vi8DX4
NAOM
Following on from this comment above, this morning I had a look at the electricity production graph for South Australia over at the OpenNEM. The screenshot of the relevant area below, shows that from about 1:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Australia time on Sunday October 14, 2018 wind or wind plus solar generated more power than the province was using! That is, fourteen and a half hours in which they could claim they were using 100% renewable energy, if the claim is made that the gas generators were supplying exports.
This prompted me to try and find other instances of countries or regions running on 100% renewables for any length of time. Iceland is the leader in this race running on all renewables, all the time. Costa Rica, Norway and the province of Quebec in Canada also generate more than 99% of their electricity from renewable sources (mostly hydro). Back in March 2017, Denmark made news for generating all of their electricity using wind for an entire day and Portugal recorded a four day period back in 2016, in which the electricity produced came entirely from renewable sources. Even in Germany, all the country’s demand could have been satisfied by the amount of renewable energy supplied on New Year’s Day 2018, a significant achievement even when the fact that it was a holiday is taken into consideration. In several countries and regions, renewables are generating close to if not more than 30% of their annual electricity needs (California 27% for 2017). Countries where the contribution is greater than 30% include New Zealand (80%), Honduras (50%), Portugal (44% in 2017), Germany (36% in 2017), Spain (33.7% for 2017), Denmark (32.3% for 2017) and the UK (31.7% in Q2, 2018).
It is increasingly apparent to me that the idea that 100% renewable energy is a mere impractical pipe dream is pure, unadulterated FF propaganda! The places that are close or already there are blessed with rich hydro-power resources but some of the jurisdictions that are currently hovering around 30% do not have any single renewable resource that could be considered remarkable. What is lacking in terms of the quest for reduced carbon emissions is vision, the political will and the fortitude to stand up to the FF interests.
The times on the chart below are US Eastern Standard Time, some 15 hours behind the time in Australia so, 10:00 a.m. EST is actually 1:00 a.m. the next day in Australia.
Yep. It’s time to move onward… Tasmania is now talking about producing more than 100% renewables, i.e. being a renewable energy exporter (as their state’s “business model”). Everyone smart should be doing this.
Cheltenham Literature Festival: Global warming peril from diseases trapped in the ice (paywalled in The Times)
Global warming will release deadly diseases that have been trapped in the ice caps for tens of thousands of years, an Oxford academic has warned.
…
Peter Frankopan, professor of global history and director of the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research, said there is “absolutely no chance” that nation states will keep below the 1.5-degree increase.
He told the Cheltenham Literature Festival that the greater worry of global warming is not the flooding of exotic holiday destinations but disease pandemics caused by the inevitable melting of ice. “If we go over that degree change, it’s not about the Maldives being harder to visit on holiday or migration of people — it’s about what happens when permafrost unfreezes and the release of biological agents that have been buried for millennia, in fact tens of thousands of years,” he said.
The Black Death may have been by caused short-term, rapid warming after 1340.
One thing I’m starting to understand is just how exceptionally stable the world climate has been in the years while our global civilization has grown, and maybe had to have been to allow that to happen. We take the stability for granted but seemingly quite small events could easily cascade to widespread disruption. It might all have been a wildly improbable and once-off fluke; how would we know different?
Are There Zombie Viruses In The Thawing Permafrost?
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/01/24/575974220/are-there-zombie-viruses-in-the-thawing-permafrost
Johnny, now go to the blackboard and write this, ten thousand times:
People just do not understand the chain of supply of food that we eat. Break the chain – we die.
Oh, and while we are at it, think of any industrial monoculture, or even say a fish farm, and compare that to the beautiful vibrant complexity of a healthy living coral reef ecosystem.
I assure you, Johnny, man is not nurtured by food alone…
Man run over by lawn mower while trying to kill son with chainsaw
You know you are in the USA——
Feuding in Tennessee.
Went to a lawnmower fight with a chainsaw? Opting for a Darwin award.
Lawnmowers rule, ask any grasshopper.
After losing his leg, being served for second degree attempted murder and violating parole, he won’t be chasing his son down anymore. Probably shoot him if he ever gets out of prison. Dad is 76 years old and still hasn’t learned, never will.
Dr George Mobus
“For a number of years now I have been predicting a dooms-day scenario due to the twin impacts of climate change and peak fossil fuels. The former represents significant costs to societies. The latter represents significant decline in generating the income needed to pay the costs.”
“I continue to advise people to consider less what they can do as individuals to combat climate change (but do that also) and begin laying plans for how to survive in a totally chaotic world of 2-3 degrees C and no oil.”
http://questioneverything.typepad.com/question_everything/2018/10/finally-people-are-waking-up-to-how-bad-it-is.html
Maybe in a decade or two our elite minds will actually state the root of the problem and tell us to “combat” the correct system. So far I have not found one that is willing to or publically recognizes the actual root of the problem. Either they are incompetent or afraid of losing their positions (or lives).
Me too, I never state it.
I’ve always liked George and have exchanged thoughts with him upon occasion. Tks, for reminding me to visit his blog. He hasn’t posted very frequently these days, Last time I commented there was in early summer of this year.
Cheers!
I’m curious about the situation with Jack Bryan’s documentary “Active Measures”, outlining the history of Trumps connections to the Russian Mob. I looked at the box office figures for it so far and they look pretty pathetic and it is not available for viewing on-line for free from any of the usual suspects.
Given the upcoming elections, would it not suit the DNC to pay the producers of the movie a fee, say a million dollars from their considerable war chest, and make it available for viewing on Youtube? What would prevent an agreement being made to make a low/medium definition version (360-480P) available on Youtube, if only for a limited time?
If you are hoping for some Hail Mary move from the Democrats, I would not hold my breath.
Hey don’t give up hope we also have these political parties…/sarc!
There are several minor parties in the United States. None of them has ever had any seats in the United States Congress.
Libertarian Party – A libertarian and liberal party which has around 411,250 registered voters as of March 2016. It is the third party (politics) and promotes a non-interventionist foreign policy and civil liberties.
Green Party – A left-wing environmentalist party that promotes social democracy and respect for diversity, peace and non-violence.
Constitution Party – A conservative party that promotes American nationalism, Paleoconservatism, Christianity, the anti-abortion movement, and greater attention on the U.S. Constitution. Has around 440,000 registered voters.
BTW, can anyone tell me the difference between the current GOP and the Constitution Party?! Trump, Pence, Brett Kavanaugh, and all the others, etc… Talk about Paleoconservatism!
Paleoconservatism opposes foreign wars of invasion. Ther’es the only difference.
Pepsi, Pepsi Lite– take your pick.
Trump Hits A New High-Water Mark: The Biggest Federal Deficit In 6 Years
The federal deficit has soared 17 percent in the president’s first fiscal year.
President Donald Trump likes to boast that he’s breaking records with the latest low unemployment figures. Here’s another record for his administration: The 2018 federal deficit hit the highest level of the last six years.
The deficit jumped 17 percent (or by $113 billion) to $779 billion at the end of Trump’s first fiscal year, according to final figures released Monday by the Treasury Department. That’s mostly due to the massive corporate tax cut that slashed rates from 35 percent to 21 percent, choking revenue for spending, which climbed 3 percent. Much of that was a hike in defense spending and money to pay interest on the climbing federal debt, CNN reported.
The U.S. government’s $523 billion in interest payments to service its debt in 2018 — the highest ever — was more than the entire economic output of Belgium this year, Bloomberg reported.
Corporate tax collections in the U.S. fell 22 percent, or $76 billion, in the fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30. The total federal debt — which combines annual deficits — was 78 percent of the nation’s entire gross domestic product in June. It hasn’t been that large a percentage since World War II.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-deficit-highest-six-years_us_5bc545ece4b0a8f17ee4c5d6
Trump and Ryan arn’t worried about the deficit- they figure they will make it up on the increased income taxes from the blue states where people have lost their state income and property tax deductions on Fed filing.
“A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward..”
-Franklin D. Roosevelt
Scare yourselves
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
NAOM
Europe Is Making Moves To Ditch Dirty Cars. Trump Wants More Of Them.
Denmark, Norway, France and the U.K. have a date to ban gas and diesel cars. In the U.S., the plan is to gut car emission legislation.
Paris is a city with a vision: The end of the automobile age. Dependence on gas- and diesel-powered vehicles has come at a huge cost to Parisians’ health and the environment in the metropolis of 12 million people. The French capital, regularly covered in a thick blanket of smog, has the worst air quality of any city in western Europe, according to a Greenpeace-commissioned study.
Mayor Anne Hidalgo believes it’s time for radical action. She wants the city to become a fossil fuel-free zone, a place where people get around on foot, bicycles, public transit and ― if necessary ― in electric vehicles.
She has said that diesel cars will be banned by 2024, and last year she announced that all combustion-engine cars must be gone by 2030. A network of Parisian neighborhoods already goes car-free each Sunday, and cars are banned from a stretch of road along the river Seine in the city center. The city government is considering making public transit free to entice drivers to give up vehicle ownership altogether.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cars-gas-diesel-emissions-pollution-us-europe_us_5bb61182e4b0876eda9be111
If We’re Going To Save The Planet, We’ve Got To Use The Nuclear Option
Good news and bad news arrived this week from the world’s top climate change experts. Good news: they can tell us in agonizing detail why the world should really, really keep the rise in global warming to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius. Bad news: the 132 authors of the 700-page report offer many ideas but no feasible plan for how to do that. As the International Panel on Climate Change’s co-chair put it, “One thing the report did not aspire to do is answer the question of feasibility.” So we can call it the Beach Boys Report ― “Wouldn’t it be nice…”
The 2015 Paris Agreement set an overall goal of staying below 2 degrees Celsius of global warming. However, the combination of the deal’s country-by-country goals would not accomplish that, and no major country is on track to meet its goals anyway. The 1.5 degree target is rightly even more ambitious, but also even further from the reality of energy systems in the world today.
In the first part of the 21st century, the fastest-growing energy source was coal. And energy use is going up rapidly because poor countries want to be richer ― and have a right to be. Climate goals and realities are not converging.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-nuclear-power-climate-change_us_5bbe08b0e4b01470d057b4c0
The title of the article states: If We’re Going To Save The Planet, We’ve Got To Use The Nuclear Option”
Sorry, if that is what people think, then we can just forget it. Nuclear is simply not a solution for saving the planet. It is not economically viable. Wishful fantasies notwithstanding!
The game is getting late.
Desperation and delusion are becoming common.
Lots of people make money from promoting and implementing boondoggles. Snake oil up to our necks.
So how do the authors of this piece propose that this would work?
Both Sweden and France have powered growing economies for decades on cheap nuclear power. Both transitioned off fossil electricity in less than 20 years. There is no reason the world can’t do the same now.
The IPCC has told us how urgently the world needs to decarbonize to prevent a climate catastrophe. We need a realistic plan. It will include huge increases in renewable power, greater energy efficiency and shifts in agriculture. It must also include building 100 to 200 new nuclear reactors worldwide each year for the next few decades. Instead of merely taking steps in the right direction that don’t add up, the world needs to get moving along this proven, feasible path to save our planet.
The paragraph immediately following the excerpt in the comment above mine criticises solar and wind energy ad follows:
The main mitigation scenarios in the IPCC’s new report depend heavily on wind and solar power. These are both important parts of a solution, but they are harder and harder to deploy as they constitute more of the power grid. That’s because the outputs of wind and solar sources vary ― between day and night, between winter and summer, and often unpredictably. The desperately needed technologies to affordably store such renewable energy are still developing. Furthermore, renewable energies are diffuse, using large amounts of land, steel and concrete per unit of electricity generated, which makes it harder to expand them at the scale and pace called for by the IPCC’s dire timeline.
So on the one hand the authors are saying that a rapid, large scale nuclear build out is needed and is feasible, while, on the other hand, a large scale renewable build out is not practical or feasible. I wonder if my opinion on these matters would be different if I had a stake in the nuclear power industry? Recent history does not support either of the author’s assertions. Outside of China, all nuclear construction projects have been plagued by quality issues, causing delays and all of them are significantly over budget, yet the authors would have us believe that ” building 100 to 200 new nuclear reactors worldwide each year for the next few decades” is a promising solution?
My comment further up with the chart of electricity production from South Australia has examples of countries or regions that seem to be within striking distance of generating almost all of their electricity with renewable energy. With additions to their renewable capacity, the stories could soon change from generating all their electricity with renwables on occasion, to generating more than they need most of the time and eventually the occasions when fossil fuels are needed would be the newsworthy ones. The argument that renewable energy cannot scale to tasks seems to be less credible than the suggestion that a nuclear build-out of the scale required is possible.
We just went over this not long ago. Apparently no one is paying attention to this blog and we just keep recycling the same old opinion things which were disproven several times before. Groundhog day combined with Sesame Street.
But I guess that is what trolls do, they just keep restating the same old lies and myths until the commenters give up.
As warming becomes more and more obvious, we will be hearing a lot of talk about Nuclear Energy, and Geo-engineering.
Probably some action too.
Like most of what we do, the probability is high that the measures conceived and undertaken will be very ill-advised, and poorly executed.
Nuclear Energy, and Geo-engineering, two technologies guaranteed to fuck the planet up even more.
NAOM
Desperate people will experiment with extreme measures, and vote for extreme idiots.
And in another near-future version, a very pretty and well-educated chairman of the EU, or Asia United, will explain to a global audience on their devices, with a 100 scientists and bio/geo-engineers standing behind her, that they now have come up with the successful formula for implementing global climactic adjustment. In fact, they began with the process secretly 4 months ago, and are now approaching full capacity. The applause from the audience around the world is deafening, especially after she announced that each voter giving a thumbs up within the next three minutes will receive 18 carbon/carbo plus credits to their account!
What we could do to save the planet from climate change came up as a topic in the PA debate I was watching this evening. I found this clip of it on Cspan. I don’t know which side has a better argument on this topic.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4755735/climate-change-pa-17-debate
http://www.thedrive.com/tech/24235/bmw-electric-cars-will-always-be-more-expensive-than-gas-cars
This would only be true if the Petro Dollar Stays relevant and MENA “Middle East North Africa” stays stable. Can you say CARmageddon ?
That may be true,
but the 10 yr cost to own/operate will be much-much cheaper,
particularly as peak oil marketplace implications become apparent at the pump.
Darn, reality strikes again, they are already cheaper.
Recycle this one for those that don’t pay attention.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWg5tGyvq5U
Worst case scenario: Trouble brewing as climate change affects beer supply (paywalled at the Times)
The world’s beer drinkers will be drowning their sorrows after a study found that the price of a pint could double because of climate change.
Barley, the main ingredient in beer, is particularly sensitive to extreme weather events such as droughts and heatwaves, which scientists say will become more frequent as the average temperature rises.
…
The study, published in Nature Plants, admitted that rising beer prices “may seem inconsequential in comparison to many of the other impacts of climate change”. [sic] However, it adds: “There is nonetheless something fundamental in the cross-cultural appreciation of beer.”
Also to be found on the BBC and Grauniad.
NAOM
Rather than EVs perhaps they/we should be talking about EBs (as in electric boats). BTW: this should be filed in the overflowing “Greater-than-Expected.” tray. That’s the one beside the almost empty “Less-than-Expected” tray.
WORLD HERITAGE SITES THREATENED BY SEA LEVEL RISE
“In 2013, the UN’s climate science panel estimated that global oceans could go up by as much as 76 centimetres by century’s end. But recent studies — taking into account shrinking ice sheets, now the top contributor to sea level rise — suggest those earlier projections were far too conservative. The IPCC will publish new estimates in September 2019. Even under the most optimistic scenarios for reducing greenhouse gases, sea levels will continue to rise well into or across the 22nd century.”
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-10-world-heritage-sites-threatened-sea.html#jCp
Meanwhile, (Guess we can all relax now.)
TRUMP TELLS ‘60 MINUTES’ CLIMATE CHANGE WILL REVERSE ITSELF AND HE DOESN’T WANT TO LOSE JOBS FIGHTING IT
President Donald Trump predicted climate change would fix itself, said he knows more about NATO that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and claimed the European Union was formed to take advantage of the U.S. in a wide-ranging interview aired Sunday on “60 Minutes.”
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/from-climate-change-to-china-to-kavanaugh-heres-what-trump-told-60-minutes-2018-10-14?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo
You can tell this TV host, real estate scammer, bankrupt 4 times, non reader, is just who we need as a ruler.
I had to stop listening to anything he says. It doesn’t matter what he says. Every word that comes out of his mouth is no more than a sales effort to promote his brand. It is absolutely unanchored in any factual reality.
I wondered for a while if he could be intelligent at all given his vocabulary and speech patterns of a 12 year old but I eventually realized that that is the level of understanding of his most ardent followers so his words are primarily directed towards them.
Synapsid — I remember tossing a rock into an alkali lake and a blob of purple “fluid” came to the surface like a huge mushroom. Turned out to be purple sulfur fixing bacteria that was of great interest to some geochemists.
WAS LIFE ON THE EARLY EARTH PURPLE?
Earth’s atmosphere has not always contained significant amounts of oxygen. For the first two billion years of our planet’s history, the atmosphere was rich in carbon dioxide and methane, but around 2.4 billion years ago something changed: the Great Oxygenation Event that saw the abundance of free oxygen in our atmosphere dramatically rise. The cause of this is thought to be cyanobacteria, which are able to perform photosynthesis – the transformation of sunlight and carbon dioxide into metabolic energy to produce sugars that fuel life’s processes, and oxygen as a ‘waste’ product – using a green pigment called chlorophyll.
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-10-life-early-earth-purple.html#jCp
Estimable DougL,
Thanks for this article. And I’ve never happened to wonder what causes the purple sulfur-fixers to be purple. (Note to self: Look into this, with port.)
I like the research approach in the article: Simple thinking. What a great idea!
—
An update for you and all other aficionados of the Mekong: Because the river cuts through much mountainous terrain especially in China it has been thought that it predated the regional uplift and cut down through the rising land fast enough to hold its course. That’s what the Columbia River here in the Pacific Northwest did in order to form a canyon that Washington and Oregon could use as a border. In today’s Eurekalert (cue French horns) is a piece on dating Mekong downcutting that shows that the downcutting coincides with increased monsoon activity in Southeastern Asia during the Mid-Miocene Climatic Optimum, and new (last few months) dating of the MMCO shows (cue the loud bassoon–they cannot choose but hear) that its boundaries match in time those of the extrusion of the greatest volume of the Columbia River flood basalts. Let us lift a glass of our favored to the good ol’ CRB where I had so much fun mapping back in nineteen-ought-seventy-nine.
Estimable Synapsid,
Apparently the reason the lowly purple sulfur-fixers are purple is because of their spectral reflectance. Purple is a combination of two spectral colors, red and blue.
Red light has a wavelength of 700–635 nanometers and blue between 450–495.
It is interesting to note that green photosynthetic plants tend to absorb light mostly in the reds and blues reflecting green which gives them their characteristic color.
Whereas, From Wikipedia:
Purple bacteria or purple photosynthetic bacteria are proteobacteria that are phototrophic, that is, capable of producing their own food via photosynthesis.[1] They are pigmented with bacteriochlorophyll a or b, together with various carotenoids, which give them colours ranging between purple, red, brown, and orange. They may be divided into two groups – purple sulfur bacteria (Chromatiales, in part) and purple non-sulfur bacteria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWzrABouyeE
Louis Armstrong – What a wonderful world ( 1967 ) – YouTube
I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
Cheers!
And in other cheerful news:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/10/09/1722477115
Climate-driven declines in arthropod abundance restructure a rainforest food web
Bradford C. Lister and Andres Garcia
Significance
Arthropods, invertebrates including insects that have external skeletons, are declining at an alarming rate. While the tropics harbor the majority of arthropod species, little is known about trends in their abundance. We compared arthropod biomass in Puerto Rico’s Luquillo rainforest with data taken during the 1970s and found that biomass had fallen 10 to 60 times. Our analyses revealed synchronous declines in the lizards, frogs, and birds that eat arthropods. Over the past 30 years, forest temperatures have risen 2.0 °C, and our study indicates that climate warming is the driving force behind the collapse of the forest’s food web. If supported by further research, the impact of climate change on tropical ecosystems may be much greater than currently anticipated.
Abstract
A number of studies indicate that tropical arthropods should be particularly vulnerable to climate warming. If these predictions are realized, climate warming may have a more profound impact on the functioning and diversity of tropical forests than currently anticipated. Although arthropods comprise over two-thirds of terrestrial species, information on their abundance and extinction rates in tropical habitats is severely limited. Here we analyze data on arthropod and insectivore abundances taken between 1976 and 2012 at two midelevation habitats in Puerto Rico’s Luquillo rainforest. During this time, mean maximum temperatures have risen by 2.0 °C. Using the same study area and methods employed by Lister in the 1970s, we discovered that the dry weight biomass of arthropods captured in sweep samples had declined 4 to 8 times, and 30 to 60 times in sticky traps. Analysis of long-term data on canopy arthropods and walking sticks taken as part of the Luquillo Long-Term Ecological Research program revealed sustained declines in abundance over two decades, as well as negative regressions of abundance on mean maximum temperatures. We also document parallel decreases in Luquillo’s insectivorous lizards, frogs, and birds. While El Niño/Southern Oscillation influences the abundance of forest arthropods, climate warming is the major driver of reductions in arthropod abundance, indirectly precipitating a bottom-up trophic cascade and consequent collapse of the forest food web.
FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!
Esteemed FredM,
Thanks for this. I’d just finished reading the same article at Wikipedia and raced over here to spread the word only to find that a helpful gentleman who for some reason prefers to live in a water-soluble state in a hurricane track had already provided the reference.
A day late and a dollar short–story of my life. (My father’s variant was “A dollar down and a dollar when you catch me.”)
It’s the carotenoids as cause the color, purple being part of the range. (hmm…I could celebrate learning this…)
Fred, have you guys cloned Trump?
‘WE ARE HEADED FOR A VERY DARK PERIOD.’ BRAZIL’S RESEARCHERS FEAR ELECTION OF FAR-RIGHT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE
“Beset by economic woes and dissatisfied with the left-wing politicians in power for most of the past 15 years, Brazil appears poised to make a hard turn and elect a far-right candidate, Jair Bolsonaro, as its next president. His rapid ascent has unnerved local researchers, who worry about the future of Brazilian science, the protection of the country’s biodiversity, and its role in the global struggle against climate change.”
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/10/we-are-headed-very-dark-period-brazil-s-researchers-fear-election-far-right
This post by Coffeeguyzz got me thinking about Qanon and related bullshit madness…
http://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-september-27-2018/#comment-653485
… and I came across this in the process of literature review:
The Rise of the American Crisis Cult
“Conservatives are generally morons,” he said. “It’s like herding cats.”
http://seankerrigan.com/the-rise-of-the-american-crisis-cult/
further more:
Elon Musk and America’s Toxic Cult of the CEO
“If you have a reckless CEO who can’t be fired because it would hurt the company, then you don’t really have a company; you have a cult.”
https://newrepublic.com/article/151479/elon-musk-americas-toxic-cult-ceo
The anti-American and anti-Tesla/Musk rhetoric is on the rise from a surprising new front, now the progressives. Stupid seems to spread.
How Many Progressives Have Been Duped By Anti-Tesla, Anti-EV Propaganda?
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/09/02/how-many-progressives-have-been-duped-by-anti-tesla-anti-ev-propaganda/
Do you, Fred, equate criticism of Musk with being un-American/anti-American. Is it treasonous? Oh my, you have drunk the kool-aid. Perhaps you might like to declare your position in Tesla shares so we can assess your opinion for bias. The last thread in which I offered criticism of Musk resulted in you calling me a Russian FF troll. Your overly emotional and insulting responses to any criticism of Musk indicate a lack of objectivity. I suggest you’re the troll Fred, a Musk troll, not unlike the US LTO trolls/shills who frequent the petroleum thread. (Texas Tea)
Muskers, or perhaps Muskovites is better (has a nice Russian ring to it), are not unlike Trumpsters and Bitcoiners. Musk is similar to Trump, but his worshippers are more similar to bitcoiners.
Trump followers are more trollish and they know Trump “triggers” a certain type of person they deem as SJW/ whiny liberal/ etc.. Most of their activity is more in line with trolling rather than recruiting. They seem more angsty and insulting.
Bitcoiners are more “cultish” and have blind faith in bitcoin disrupting the status quo and ushering in a new techno-libertarian utopia.
Musk fanatics are also cultish and have blind faith in Musk disrupting the status quo (big oil, ICE incumbent car companies) and ushering in a new techno-green utopia.
Let us know when Tesla posts a P/E ratio that’s not less than zero.
Cue the hysteria.
Hey Fred, the ricochet got you!
LOL!?
Dude, Tesla was profitable last quarter (Q3), according to all reputable analyses. The official earnings announcement is TOMORROW.
Get a clue.
It is a tad ironic that at a time when it seems we need scientifically enlightened global cooperation the most, we have all these scientifically ignorant, socially backward looking, populist politicians with fascist and authoritarian tendencies rising to power all over the world. This is not just a US or Brazilian problem. It is happening in Europe and in many other parts of the world as well. None of this bodes well for solving our issues in the time scales we still have available. Depressing to say the least… 🙁
Robert Reich: America’s Most Dangerous Export
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fURtVISgYuI
Trump is a consequence not a cause. Civilization forgets after about 70 to 80 years; perceived hard times, and the ones coming are going to be a lot more than just perceived, lead to demagogues and “hard-men” if no-one can remember what they were like last time around. Trump is probably considered a bit of a wimp and push-over by the others and more so as his total incompetence and flakey hold on (an entirely self-centred) reality become more apparent with each day.
I really don’t think it is about forgetting. It is mostly about racism. Every Trump supporter I know is a racist, though most would deny it. But they all complain about “The Blacks”. And most are xenophobic as well. They are racist whether they think they are or not. And they all are Trump supporters.
They want to “Make America Great Again”. But just when was America great? Or when was it greater than it is right now? They all lone for the good old days of segregation. They believe Trump will “Make America White Again”.
If you doubt my words then just ask the next avid Trump supporter you meet any question relating to race. Don’t be shocked by his/her answer. That’s just who they are. Well, perhaps not all of them, but about 95 to 99 percent of avid Trump supporters are racist and/or xenophobic.
Trump: Making America White Again
Hard-line Trumpism isn’t softening; it’s being cemented.
Increasingly, as he picks his cabinet from among his fawning loyalists, it is becoming clear that by “Make America Great Again,” he actually meant some version of “Make America a White, Racist, Misogynistic Patriarchy Again.” It would be hard to send a clearer message to women and minorities that this administration will be hostile to their interests than the cabinet he is assembling.
“Crisis cults serve up illusions of recovered grandeur and empowerment during times of collapse, anxiety and disempowerment. A mythologized past will magically return. The old social hierarchies and rules will again apply. Prescribed rituals and behaviors, including acts of violence to cleanse the society of evil, will vanquish malevolent forces. These crisis cults—they have arisen in most societies that faced destruction, from Easter Island to Native Americans at the time of the 1890 Ghost Dance—create hermetically sealed tribes. We are already far down this road.”
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-wages-of-sin/
Make America Great Again
Sure we can go back to the Gilded Age where workers were essentially slaves and coal mining conditions were so bad that miners were in open armed rebellion. A miner was worth less than a mule to the company owners.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/theminewars/
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/minewars/
Thanks for those links.
Timothy Snyder- Sadopopulism
https://youtu.be/oOjJtEkKMX4
Nice talk by Snyder, has happened before in the US.
The historical horrors of the coal miners and their families is a dark stain on America. The rich and powerful were tyrannical in their use and abuse of workers.
However, strangely enough, during the same period of time there arose a segment of the rich and powerful who assisted the workers and general public, pushing America forward ethically, physically and economically. These more enlightened rich were key to many of our social and educational systems from the late 1800’s through the mid-1900’s. They were also key players in protecting the environment.
Yeah, that sounds like a typical crisis cult. Only thing to do with them is to remove them from power. Often they destroy themselves.
Last week I overheard one of my co-workers, a staunch bumper stickered MAGA hatted Trump supporter, say:
“I don’t have nothing against them people. I just think it’s like crayons; every color should have its own box, if you know what I’m sayin’.”
As a designer, I was left to contemplate what kind of person wants only one color of crayon in their crayon box.
A racist.
There have always been racists, there hasn’t always been ones in so many positions of power, as is happening now.
Oh, you are either very young or have a very short memory George. South Carolina Senator Storm Thurmond ran for president in 1948 on the “States Rights” Party. They openly supported segregation. Georgia Senator Richard Russell, whom the Russell Senate Office building is named after, openly supported segregation. Open racism was supported and shouted from the floors of Congress in the 40s, 50s and even into the 60s.
Racism has slowly, very gradually, been disappearing from politics since the middle 60s. Only now has Trump and the Republican rabble been bringing it back. And we now have an avid racist in the White House for the first time since Woodrow Wilson.
It is ironic how things have switched. The Democratic Party was once the party of racism. Not things have completely gone full circle. It is now the Democrats who are for civil rights and now it is the Republican Party who is suporting racism.
I meant in the last 70 to 80 years or so, which was my first comment – your point kind of agrees more than not with that- also I maybe have a less US centric view.
Trump and his racist supporters are reactionaries. They are actually reacting to the decline in racism. Racism was normal in the 1920s, sadly. Woodrow Wilson won with overwhelming majorities twice… and his successors from the other party were also racists.
By contrast, Trump didn’t even win the majority of votes, and he was running against a supremely awful campaigner who was pushing the wrong message. Trump, like racism, is now *deeply unpopular*. This is a reactionary attempt to roll back the change, and it has no chance whatsoever (you can tell from polling younger people).
Unfortunately, the Republican/fascist tactics in support of the fossil-fuel burners are causing massive damage to the world and particularly to young people.
Scientists warn extinction now outpaces evolution as study finds it will take MILLIONS of years for mammals to recover from human-caused losses
Will take 5-7mn years for species to recover from losses since rise of humans
Researchers also say it will take 3-5 million to return to current biodiversity level
Scientists say we need to boost conservation efforts to prevent worst case
Humans are now driving mammals to extinction at rates much faster than Earth’s species may be able to recover from, a new study warns.
Even in the best-case scenario, worrying new estimates suggest it will take upwards of 5 million years for mammal species to bounce back to current biodiversity levels following the extinctions expected to occur over the next five decades.
The researchers say evolution will not be able to keep up with the rate by which mammal species are dying out unless we ramp up conservation efforts.
Species extinction, like climate change, is being driven by human beings. Other animals have what we want, food, territory, and resources. So we just take it from them. That’s what all animals try to do. But we are a superpredator, we can do it and they, that is other animals, can’t do.
This comment caught my eye! She actually thinks there will be 12 billion humans on this planet at some point. Imagine 12 billion humans who think like this:
leslie graham, Kampala, Mozambique, about 10 hours ago
So what use are the other mammals anyway? We can’t eat them and they just take up space that could be used for building land or agriculture. There will be around 12 billion mouths to feed by the end of this century. You really think we can afford the luxury of allowing other animals to compete for our food growing areas. How many of you have ever even seen a rhino or polar bear anyway? Life is competition for resources and we are winning.
What she an others like her fail to grasp is that we are absolutely NOT winning! My money is on the probable long term winners being mostly bacteria and fungi. Most mammals including humans will not be around for too much longer.
Good luck, stupid humans!
Having a very advanced brain does not necessarily mean they have advanced knowledge or understanding. Sometimes the brain is so unused it appears as if they have an anus at both ends.
12 billion people all with cell phones, refrigerators, cars, TV’s etc. etc. etc.
Nahhhh. Not going to happen. Unless 10 billion live off in space somewhere. Thanks Elon.
There is some good news though. Although the mammals of the time, small rodent-like creatures, were narrowed down by the big asteroid hit, by the time of the PETM and even during it they had diversified into an incredible collection of species of all sizes and natures. A fantastic world of high bio-diversity.
Also, reptiles, amphibians and birds survived both cataclysms.
The Ice Age has been tough on mammals but once we are out of the way, whatever is left can evolve and radiate to make a whole new set of amazing creatures.
https://earther.gizmodo.com/alarming-study-blames-collapse-of-rainforest-food-web-o-1829771825
Alarming Study Links ‘Collapse’ of Rainforest Food Web to Rising Temperatures
Comparing 1976 to 2011-2013, the new study found a massive drop in the weight of insects collected in traps from two long-term research sites. Twenty years of data on the abundance of more than 120 groups of canopy insects revealed a similar decline. The researchers found a concomitant drop in the abundance of insect-eating lizards, frogs, and birds.
(apologies if already posted)
That Earther site has good stuff. There’s another recent paper on water wars (USA doesn’t come out well)
https://earther.gizmodo.com/here-s-where-the-post-apocalyptic-water-wars-will-be-fo-1829793126
Plus one on Polar Bear starvation in a warmer Arctic and one on climate change and Angkor Wat demise. I think the papers are collected from other journals but some may be original.
Alaska expands oil field production: in a (former) wildlife park no less. Climate change? What climate change?
BLM APPROVES OIL FIELD IN NATIONAL PETROLEUM RESERVE-ALASKA
“The federal Bureau of Land Management has signed off on another oil field within the National Petroleum Reserve. The BLM announced Monday that it had issued a joint record of decision with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approving Greater Mooses Tooth 2. ConocoPhillips Alaska, Inc. expects to start construction at the site this winter. The company says the site should be in production for 30 years, from 2020-2050.”
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/alaska/articles/2018-10-16/blm-approves-oil-field-in-national-petroleum-reserve-alaska
Why is the Army Corps of Engineers involved? Is it just an approving authority or will it provide oversight or construction of facilities? If either of the latter are not paid for at commercial rates then it would be a government subsidy.
NAOM
Just below that
“St. Louis-based electric utility Ameren Missouri is building a solar facility for business and residential customers to tap into renewable energy.”
Fossle fuel fiends just don’t get it.
NAOM
If I were to guess, I would guess that this may be the last oilfield to go into production. It’s “conventional” so it will outlast the fracking and deepwater and tar sands garbage, and it’s supposed to start production in 2020, versus the date of 2023 when it will become impossible to profitable drill an oil well ever.
Llano River at Llano, TX was running 25,000cfs. Normally runs at around 150cfs.
Very nasty, I hope people get out before one of those dams goes.
It’s happening all over the globe.
Report – Flood Losses in Europe to Increase Fivefold by 2050
http://floodlist.com/europe/report-floods-europe-increase-fivefold-2050