Steve #334: Your link to slideshare.net seems thin on published science, unlike IPCC WG3 which cites the forestry literature when recommending sustainable forest management, replacing steel and concrete with wood, using forestry residues for energy production, etc.
I think an important point is that yes old forests store a lot of carbon, but the rate of accumulation declines. For maximum benefit, rotations should be set to optimize the biomass accumulation rate. Foresters are familiar with the fact that rotations based on volume mean annual increment (MAI) vary depending on the product being managed for, e.g. pulpwood rotations are shorter than sawlog rotations. Setting rotations based on carbon accumulation would probably result in long rotations.
Another thing I noticed in the slideshow is that all the forest pictures are in old rainforests. I have visited Cathedral Grove on Vancouver Island and was impressed, but in my neck of the boreal forest, it is really rare to find a 200-year-old tree. The question hereabouts isn’t whether a stand will burn, but when. Forest ecologists don’t use the term “climax” but “late seral stage” when discussing forest succession in the boreal. Since the modern era of firefighting, much of Canada’s boreal forest is older than the pre-settlement forests.
Also I think where the slideshow used the word “conservation” they meant “preservation”. Sustainable forestry conserves the forest at the landscape level.
Hank #335: I see that Steve has pointed out that your “only if it’s burned” statement is incorrect. Rotting wood releases methane, unlike lumber in a well-constructed house. However as I stated above, if it’s in the boreal forest it will burn eventually.
Hank #345: I don’t see a lot of sense in sending wood pellets from North America to Europe, but I certainly see a place for local use of forestry residue in heating and electricity production.
round that up to 24 billion bushels to account for everything else. Now cut it in half due to the most unimaginable widespread drought, and you’ve got 12 billion bushels, or 38 bushels per person. A bushel has ~50 ears of corn, so that’s 36 ears of corn per week per person. (and corn, unlike the rest, is mostly cob. Just try and eat a bushel of wheat.) A family of four can’t go through three bushels of grain plus all the rest of the veggies per week. So, tell us how the numbers add up to anything but “plenty of food no matter what”?
————
Victor: I could contuinue, but you get the point. Or do you?
Richard: Sure. You can take 1000 quotes by various individuals and find some that sound incorrect when taken out of context. Perhaps they were actually incorrect, but in any case, it’s all just anecdotal stuff by a politician. Given that the standard for “truth” for a politician is “Well, maybe if you squint exactly right he might be kinda sorta correct”, I’d say Gore did phenomenal. If YOU were honest, you’d compare and contrast Gore with Inhofe. So, Victor, show us your honesty, compare the dudes… (I’ll bet a quarter that you care not a whit about truth, so you won’t touch this challenge…)
I’d put Gore more on the “those cigarettes will kill you.” level. Flawed but essentially correct.
—————–
Steve Fish: Climax forests are carbon neutral in that they take up as much carbon as is released.
Richard: You sure about that? I thought forests had various levels of soil production, so only in extreme cases would such a thing be true. Now, that other guy’s (Scott?) quote of 100x sequestration via grass versus forest sounds “truthier”…
If your scenario comes to pass, what odds do you place on the USA continuing its tradition of using much or most of its horticultural land for lawns? Yep, I can just see those suburbs filled with starving folks mowing the lawn while wondering how, o how they’ll afford tomatoes at $50 a pound….
This isn’t just a multiple record-setting historic aviation event by two accomplished extreme-flight pilots, but it’s a paradigmatic experiment in energy management. And it’s a paradigm of real world planning for what isn’t here yet. And real world risk taking. I have yet to hear anyone so succinctly eloquent on these subjects as the two pilots of the Solar Impulse. They built a plane for a battery technology that didn’t exist yet. Vision, anybody?
The style of their transparent real-time documentation of these flights sets another record, I think.
round that up to 24 billion bushels to account for everything else. Now cut it in half due to the most unimaginable widespread drought, and you’ve got 12 billion bushels, or 38 bushels per person. A bushel has ~50 ears of corn, so that’s 36 ears of corn per week per person. (and corn, unlike the rest, is mostly cob. Just try and eat a bushel of wheat.) A family of four can’t go through three bushels of grain plus all the rest of the veggies per week. So, tell us how the numbers add up to anything but “plenty of food no matter what”?
If your scenario comes to pass, what odds do you place on the USA continuing its tradition of using much or most of its horticultural land for lawns? Yep, I can just see those suburbs filled with starving folks mowing the lawn while wondering how, o how they’ll afford tomatoes at $50 a pound….
Yep, NOBODY will figure out that a little grey water and a few square feet of space….
BPL: You just don’t get it, do you? It’s not just that drought and coastal storms will blight agriculture badly. It’s that PLUS lowered nutrient quality of foods PLUS increased insect activity PLUS the deaths of forests PLUS the deaths of bees PLUS the end of of fossil fuels PLUS the heat waves PLUS the unpredictability of weather PLUS the death of the ocean PLUS multiple wars over resources, some of them possibly escalating to nuclear, PLUS the general economic disruption.
People are going to feed themselves with tomatoes grown on their lawns? I have news for you, it takes an acre to support one person, and you can’t do it on tomatoes because they have barely any nutrients. That’s an acre per person with a balanced diet and an adequate set of tools. And when mass production drops off, tools will be harder to supply.
You cannot support seven billion people on primitive agriculture; that’s why there never WERE seven billion people at once before. And when the system collapses, primitive agriculture is all we’ll have left. I don’t say it will happen next week, but that it will happen in this century–gradually, one crisis after another after another–yes, that I’m convinced of. And its partly because of the Pollyanna attitude of people like you and zebra.
Theosays
CC communication: Had another go at selling some interest. Surely, having your uncle’s name in an important climate blog makes a good carrot?
But no, the overwhelming response is that the young ones prefer to persue more positive (BAU whatever) type activities. Fair enough too, cause the young ones need hope for their future. The last three UVs@RC are full of doom and gloom, and that is only because of a little “wow” spike in the temperatures. Where will this discussion go, when there is a serious event?
Adaptation and even disaster management can be much more positive. “Ha ha, we had this event, so we all got together and got around it somehow.” All those new jobs and exciting topics to study.
Adaptation can be fun and satisfying too. Currently building my own “Ark” and modifying my gardens to cope with a changing climate.
Theosays
Maybe enough corn, but with our oceans going off, our seafood supplies might be reduced. So we will need to create lots of fish farms. Build more dams on our rivers and put a lock at their delta to keep them sweet. Dutchies are good at that :)
But is there any research on the uptake of CO2 by our lakes and rivers?
zebrasays
@BPL 349,
” Are you familiar with the numbers? I am, and I say you’re wrong; we’re headed for catastrophe in this century.”
I have yet to see any numbers from you or anyone on this. I’ve asked for any such projected scenario, to no avail.
Maybe your definition of catastrophe is that people in the USA will no longer be able to consume their usual 3800 calories per day, but have to settle for 1900? To me, that sounds like a public health miracle, not a catastrophe.
Brian Dodgesays
Digby says ” (Note I do not mention emissions debouching from a melty Arctic as I see no evidence for it.)” I say look harder.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v459/n7246/full/nature08031.html
“Here we measure net ecosystem carbon exchange and the radiocarbon age of ecosystem respiration in a tundra landscape undergoing permafrost thaw to determine the influence of old carbon loss on ecosystem carbon balance.”
” In contrast, areas that thawed decades earlier lost even more old carbon, a 78 per cent increase over minimally thawed areas; this old carbon loss contributed to overall net ecosystem carbon release despite increased plant growth. Our data document significant losses of soil carbon with permafrost thaw that, over decadal timescales, overwhelms increased plant carbon uptake”
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7107/full/nature05040.html
“We show that ebullition accounts for 95 per cent of methane emissions from these lakes, and that methane flux from thaw lakes in our study region may be five times higher than previously estimated.”
” We find that thawing permafrost along lake margins accounts for most of the methane released from the lakes, and estimate that an expansion of thaw lakes between 1974 and 2000, which was concurrent with regional warming, increased methane emissions in our study region by 58 per cent”
1200+ cites between these two papers.
Steve Fishsays
Re: Comment by Richard Caldwell — 24 Apr 2016 @ 6:09 PM, ~#352
Your comment: “You sure of that?” Yes, I am very sure of that. Come on Richard; you can look this stuff up, but how about a simple thought experiment. Take a mature forest that has been around for thousands, hundreds of thousands, a million years. If there were an imbalance between uptake of CO2 by growing plants and release of CO2 by simple oxidation and decay (or fires), there would either be no carbon in the soil at all, or it would be hundreds of feet deep. Steve
Steve Fishsays
Re: Comment by Phil L — 24 Apr 2016 @ 5:35 PM, ~#351
Phil, you are confusing forest management for lumber production with basic principles of how carbon is stored and cycled in forests. For the basic science that underlies the slideshare presentation, search Scholar with “forest+carbon+CO2” and “soil+carbon+respiration” to get a start. Steve
And, first, make sure Google doesn’t know who you are for that search.
Warning from academic librarians about the “search bubble” aka “filter bubble” here:
companies like Facebook and Google use the data we share online to build a personalized bubble around each person in which they only encounter information, news and links that confirm their already established world view and assumptions. And while the bubble is pervasive, it is mostly invisible.
If you want to be a skeptic, start by doubting your lying browser results.
Thomassays
Side-bar re 308 Robin Johnson says:
If the data source is correct Robin then “The US consumes only 20% of the beef consumed worldwide.” while the US represents only ~4.3% of the global population.
Which closely aligns with the economic research on income inequality too The lead research economist at the World Bank, Branko Milanovic, will be reporting soon, in the journal Global Policy, the first calculation of global income-inequality, and he has found that the top 8% of global earners are drawing 50% of all of this planet’s income.
2013 http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/worlds-richest-8-earn-half-all-planetary-income
Back in APR 2009: OPINION Yale_e360
Stephen Pacala, director of the Princeton Environment Institute, calculates that the world’s richest half-billion people — that’s about 7 percent of the global population — are responsible for 50 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. Meanwhile the poorest 50 percent are responsible for just 7 percent of emissions. http://e360.yale.edu/feature/consumption_dwarfs_population_as_main_environmental_threat/2140/
I think there are some academic papers out about this issue, but none to hand sorry.
BPL: People are going to feed themselves with tomatoes grown on their lawns? I have news for you, it takes an acre to support one person, and you can’t do it on tomatoes because they have barely any nutrients.
Richard: So, you’re saying that they’ll throw away the three bushels of grain and try to subsist on tomatoes? No other veggies allowed? If you remove the primary plank of a position, and then remove every other plank except one, and then remove the nails holding that plank, well, you’re wasting everybody’s time. Stop it.
I get that you see storm clouds. I do too. The difference is that I understand that collapse is slow and uneven. Yep, bees collapse – not everywhere, but say in Florida. (since the real world ends at the border) You’re saying that no action will be taken to contain the collapse? Are you saying we won’t benefit from overseas wars in which we supply both sides? Remember Iran/Iraq? A great way to get them to kill each other with our weapons. Bought some of our oil for a while, eh?
BPL: And its partly because of the Pollyanna attitude of people like you and zebra.
Richard: POLLYANNA?!? Dude, I’ve talked about half of humanity dying horrible deaths. In many areas every creature within reach that’s at least mouse-sized is exterminated. You know, Leningrad. But in the USA, we have the resources to survive. Do you get how much further down below anything you’ve ever experienced “survive” is? It’s not going on a diet. It’s trapping mice and raising worms and insects to get protein. It’s searching for rotten roadkill because it’s pre-inoculated and grows great maggots.
Again, we eat too much. We eat meat. We waste half our food. We lose lots more. We use half our land to grow lawns. We’ve got tremendous acreage not in production. We grow cotton on prime land and buy new clothes all the time instead of hemp on poor land and keeping clothes forever. Multiply THOSE numbers together and see how your scenario really plays out.
———-
Steve Fish: If there were an imbalance between uptake of CO2 by growing plants and release of CO2 by simple oxidation and decay (or fires), there would either be no carbon in the soil at all, or it would be hundreds of feet deep.
Richard: Coal happens? Yes, I generally look stuff up, but here I was looking for your opinion. It smells like a topic that deserves more attention than I’d like to give it at the moment.
Steve Fish: Phil, you are confusing forest management for lumber production with basic principles of how carbon is stored and cycled in forests.
Richard: Nope, he’s saying that [log] houses are great at storing carbon. Why is storing carbon in a living tree superior to a log house?
I lived near Cathedral Grove and adore Old Trees with all my soul. If folks get to Vancouver Island, it’s a grand place to stop.
If there were an imbalance between uptake of CO2 by growing plants and release of CO2 by simple oxidation and decay (or fires), there would either be no carbon in the soil at all…
Gonna do my ‘fool rushes in’ routine here–again–but I wouldn’t have thought so, since we are talking about 3 reservoirs, not 2–soil, air, and flora. We know plants use CO2 from the air–Keeling curve, et cetera–so in principle you can imagine that the soil reservoir could have no net flux while there is a positive flux from air to biomass. Have no idea if that’s what actually happens in reality.
Speaking of unknowns, seems there are quite a few yet about tropical soils in particular–which (I’ve heard from some guy on a blog somewhere) tend to be impoverished relative to temperate or boreal ones, with most nutrients stored in biomass, not soil. Presumably that includes carbon, but as I say, I’m just rushing in here.
So far I’ve just glanced at that–hopefully more time for a better look soon.
Thomassays
RC Truism of the Day:
“Dumb people always assume you are not as clever as they are.”
And especially if you are a Climate (related) Scientist :-)
Thomassays
368 Richard: “Nope, he’s saying that [log] houses are great at storing carbon. Why is storing carbon in a living tree superior to a log house?”
The Log House doesn’t last as long a living tree and it don’t eat no excess CO2 from the atmosphere anymore.
Do I win a prize? :-)
Thomassays
355 Hank Roberts, thanks that was ‘stunning’ Have you ever seen the live real-time aircraft traffic visuals?
Two things of note here. Global shipping and aircraft GHG emissions are excluded from the COP21 Treaty just ratified. Ocean shipping has the lowest ghg kg/klm traveled (and $cost) than every other form of freight transportation by a factor of ‘heaps’. I can’t recall where I dug that up from as it was a few years ago now.
The outtake for me was that in some circumstances highly efficient production of X product in Y nation and then shipping internationally can sometimes be a Net lower ghg contribution (and lower $cost) than the alternative. But to know this in all situations requires an openness and honesty from all players especially the Corporations engaged in same. Self-interest, ROI and all that gets in the way of course.
Digby Scorgiesays
Brian Dodge @363
I never said anything of the kind, mate. You’re confusing me with someone else. Besides, I write proper English; you’ll not catch me using such a word as “melty”!
368 Richard Caldwell: Growing food on lawns: I have to agree with BPL. Drought = no grey water, or any other color of water, available. Very few people know how to grow anything without detailed instructions. Roving gangs will steal or rob all food produced anywhere anyhow. Gardening, like farming, takes a lot more skill, practice and planning than you imagine. Storing food is not easy even if you know how and nobody is robbing you. Farming and gardening require physical health and strength as well as knowledge, skills and abilities.
To make a garden, you have to buy seeds ahead of time. You have to hire somebody to plough and disc [formerly “harrow”]. Then you can lay out rows and do your planting. You will need fertilizer, pesticides, fungicide, etcetera, as well as rain. It will take months for your garden to grow. You must weed with a hoe. Harvesting is also labor intensive.
What you need is not a garden. What you need are guns and an infinite supply of ammunition. Wild animals in general will be hunted to extinction as humans make a last desperate attempt to survive after agriculture collapses.
A friend of mine participated in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. When it was over, there was no food in the grocery stores, so my friend went out of Budapest to go squirrel hunting. There were no squirrels.
Cannibalism will happen, with human hunting human, as happened in Chaco Canyon. I think that was in “Collapse” by Jared Diamond.
Robin Johnsonsays
@367 – In fairness, nations in colder climates have long relied on meat. The “efficient” food mix includes a lot of animal protein. Using animals to convert inedible vegetation and waste food into something edible by humans is actually efficient food resource management. However, raising meat on intensively farmed corn and soybeans is not efficient and generally totally nuts.
I find arguments based on “share” are somewhat fallacious. If I have 2 children who consume more per child than someone with 10 children, but if the aggregate of the 10 is greater than the 2 – why would you point the crooked finger at the 2? I’m very egalitarian – but if irresponsible people have way too many babies – don’t complain to me that my children are using up their resources. Apportioning resources “fairly” does not have an easy answer. The only GOOD news is that the US and Europe have a lot of room to make ourselves more efficient without sacrificing comfort. I have no idea what India and China are going to do.
Phil Lsays
Steve #365: I am a proponent of Sustainable Forest Management using an ecosystem-based approach. Mimicking Mother Nature makes sense to me. In the boreal forest Mother Nature doesn’t walk with a soft tread. I’m all for setting aside representative areas that are off-limits to forest operations and where natural processes can run their course. However on the remaining landbase it seems to me that the full spectrum of age classes should be represented. Woodland Caribou and marten prefer old forest, but moose and many songbirds prefer young forests.
Hank #366: I am in agreement with IPCC WG3 on the role of Sustainable Forest Management in mitigation of climate change. If that earns me a label of “skeptic”, so be it.
Thomas: The Log House doesn’t last as long a living tree and it don’t eat no excess CO2 from the atmosphere anymore. Do I win a prize? :-)
Richard: How about a carbon-sequestering wooden nickel? :-)
I dunno about maximum log house longevity, but hundreds of years is easy. Here’s one that is almost 400 years old and going strong. Imagine how long a modern one will last:
However, your point is valid. We often build garbage that becomes landfill within decades. Under that scenario, live trees rule. OTOH, remember that for every 400 year old live tree, hundreds(?) didn’t make it and ended up rotting or burning. Plus, live trees often rot from the inside out. Trees get damaged and water infiltrates the center. Eventually the tree is a ring around a column of rot-water. That 400 year old live tree might be a net carbon loser.
As to future sequestration, I had my land on Vancouver Island selectively logged for log houses. Afterwards, the woods kept on sequestering carbon just fine. All those little trees grow up to replace those who died for houses.
Along with Kevin Anderson notions of BECCS being next to extremely wishful thinking seems to be born out by this article and if there is no viable BECCS (presently there is not) then surely the Paris agreements and any other agreements means we are not going to be successful in 1.5 or 2C and its more than likely a 500/550 (2.5 – 3.5C rise) at best we can hope for.
RC 368: . Do you get how much further down below anything you’ve ever experienced “survive” is?
BPL: You have no idea what I have or haven’t experienced, you bloody fool.
RC: It’s not going on a diet. It’s trapping mice and raising worms and insects to get protein. It’s searching for rotten roadkill because it’s pre-inoculated and grows great maggots.
BPL: Enough to survive on. For billions of people. You keep thinking in terms of individual meals. I’m telling you you need more than that.
RC: Again, we eat too much. We eat meat. We waste half our food. We lose lots more. We use half our land to grow lawns. We’ve got tremendous acreage not in production. We grow cotton on prime land and buy new clothes all the time instead of hemp on poor land and keeping clothes forever. Multiply THOSE numbers together and see how your scenario really plays out.
BPL: What part of “arable land eventually goes to zero” do you not understand? And what part of “primitive agriculture cannot support billions of people” do you not understand? And all we’ll have left is primitive agriculture, because the economy is going to hell once urban workers can’t be fed. You talked about growing tomatoes on “a few square feet” of land, which shows gross ignorance of just how much it takes to support an individual. “With graywater,” implying we’ll still have functioning plumbing and adequate supplies of urban and suburban water. WE WILL NOT. Damn it, do the math! I have. We’re not just going to lose half the population, and the rest will be fine. We’re going to lose more than 90%, possibly more than 99%. Unless we act. Which we will be less likely to do as long as we think “we” will be safe whatever happens.
Victorsays
#352 “If YOU were honest, you’d compare and contrast Gore with Inhofe. So, Victor, show us your honesty, compare the dudes…”
It’s kinda hard to respond with my hands tied behind my back and a handkerchief stuffed in my mouth. Since my posts are currently winding up in the Bore Hole, what’s the point?
Steve Fishsays
Re: Comment by Richard Caldwell — 25 Apr 2016 @ 7:52 PM, ~#368
You say: “Coal happens?” This comment is a fail. Look up “carboniferous+lignin+suberin.” Coal doesn’t happen anymore. When the current coal is gone, there will be no more, so we should preserve this precious reserve of carbon bonds for the future.
You say: “Nope, he’s saying that [log] houses are great at storing carbon.” Another fail. The prize-winning Thomas (~#371) gave one reason. Another is that usable logs and lumber are quite a bit less than half of the forest biomass that is destroyed by logging. There are more reasons that you should look up before commenting.
Your confidently asserted incorrect opinions make me doubtful that you are a serious commenter here.
> Ocean shipping has the lowest ghg kg/klm traveled (and $cost) …
Well, in this universe, at this point.
I’d sure like to see numbers on this alternative: taxing the carbon cost of _transportation_ as an alternative to taxing the carbon cost of production.
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/liu_11_14/
The Long Haul
From the ANNALS OF TRANSPORTATION,
The Pacific Monthly, May 2009
— by Ken Liu —
Sidewise Award Winner for 2014 Best Short-Form Alternate History
CO2 fell below 407 ppm briefly in the last week, but has rebounded:
Daily CO2
April 25, 2016: 408.23 ppm
April 25, 2015: 402.59 ppm
March CO2
March 2016: 404.83 ppm
March 2015: 401.52 ppm
Big pretty jump in the April 25th daily comparison, but that number is very noisy. That said, the 402.59 is sort of inline with the March 2015 401.52 number, whereas the 408.23 is simply a “wow” type of number at this moment in time.
The problem of course is that CO2 accumulation drives global warming and ocean acidification, so as this number climbs we get more of each and that is not a good thing for many living things on the planet.
It’s encouraging to hear all the good news about transition away from fossil fuels, but as long as we keep seeing the CO2 levels rise at an increasing rate, it’s could be too little, too late. Or it could be news generated by cooking the books along with the planet. I continue to watch the accumulation of GHG in the atmosphere. All the talk and work is meaningless unless we see that rise start to slow in a manner that suggests that we are actually headed toward a time when we will be seeing that hard number start going down. I don’t expect to live to see such a day, but I would love to be surprised and see that without having to hobble around this planet until I am over 100 yoa.
The March monthly jump of 3.3 is high, but in line with an annual increase of perhaps 3.1 ppm which is what I expect to see for 2016. This is a path to a disastrously warmed planet.
So, where is all this carbon coming from?
1. Agriculture? Yes, and we should be making fundamental changes in the nature of our species agriculture to fix more carbon in the soil, to grow food crops with less input of petrochemicals. Once we start looking for that kind of agriculture transition, CAFO meat production is out the window and that is undoubtedly a good thing for a variety of reasons.
2. Burning of fossil fuels? Yes, and we should be imposing a carbon tax with a rate that rises over a decade so we can hope for a somewhat stable economic transition away from fossil fuels. An unstable economic system will fuel more global conflict and armed conflict does not help us address the ecological disaster that our species has created.
3. Out of the natural environment that has warmed under the onslaught of CO2 that our species has pumped into the atmosphere. This one is a real problem, because it is likely outside our control or beyond our ability to address. Changes in the various carbon sinks, melting of permafrost, drying of wetlands releasing ghg into the atmosphere? Here we are in the area of positive feedbacks where a significantly changed physical environment starts “selecting” species for extinction.
So far, I think our species is “selecting” a lot of species for extinction using the first two processes of increasing ghg in the environment. A vibrant and varied (which is to say: healthy) ecosystem has a very wide range of flora and fauna. If our species wants to inhabit a planet with a healthy ecosystem, it is going to need think well beyond questions about how we grow corn or other grains for the global market.
I drive around and see gas-powered equipment being used to create and maintain suburban lawns and I think, well, our species is as dumb as the dodo. What happened to the dodos?
Re: Comment by Kevin McKinney — 25 Apr 2016 @ 8:25 PM, ~#369
Hi, Kevin. There is a carbon (CO2) flux from the air to forest biomass. The biomass in a climax forest consists mostly of living trees that contain most of the carbon in the forest as hydrocarbon compounds (e.g. lignin). Usually, soil carbon is a smaller carbon pool that is contained in the top six inches (permafrost is one exception). Soil carbon is in dead forest biomass and the soil organisms that break it down to power their little selves and thereby release CO2 in the process. In a mature forest, in the long term, the CO2 absorption and release must balance. The carbon pools cannot increase or decrease for very long, or we would see the extreme results in our forests. In the short term, there are fluctuations due to, for example, yearly variation between moist warm growth and cool dormancy, or what happens after a forest fire. Beware of short-term fluctuations that might lead you astray into believing in a pause in forest growth.
Digby Scorgie @373.
Indeed, it was I and not you who made the comment (@210) that “(Note I do not mention emissions debouching from a melty Arctic as I see no evidence for it.)”, this in considering the rise in atmospheric CO2 2014-to-2015 and its potential source given a reported zero increase in FF CO2 emissions for that period. The emissions to be accounted total some 250Mt(C) and would have to have been absent in previous years or at least additional to previous years’ emissions. Thus the two papers cited by Brian Dodge @363 do not yield fruit from his ‘harder look’ for such evidence. (Schuur et al (2009) shows melty tundra to be an initial net sink for CO2 until the biosphere is established on it, when it then becomes a net source. Walter et al (2006) discuss methane from Siberian lakes.)
I would defend the use of “melty” as being entirely “proper English”. The convention is set that a noun can be converted for use as an adjective by using the suffix -y. Unusual uses of that convention may bring with them a certain irreverence to the statements that employ them but that is very often not a bad thing.
BPL wrote: “it takes an acre to support one person, and you can’t do it on tomatoes because they have barely any nutrients.”
In his 1982 book “Survival Gardening” (unfortunately out of print), John Freeman showed how to supply 100 percent of one person’s nutritional needs from 1000 square feet of growing space, using organic gardening techniques like the “biointensive” methods taught by John Jeavons in “How To Grow More Vegetables”.
Tomatoes and other popular garden vegetables supply plenty of vital “nutrients”, but as Freeman writes “in many gardens the produce is fine in meeting mineral and vitamin requirements but is deficient in calories and protein … when a mixed vegetable diet is used, providing a sufficiency of calories is the problem, not, as is commonly assumed, having enough protein … people getting enough calories will also have a sufficiency of protein.”
Freeman’s solution was simply to emphasize vegetables that are particularly high in calories (e.g. starchy root vegetables like turnip, potato, sweet potato, rutabaga) and/or protein (e.g. legumes and some green vegetables.
BPL wrote: “You cannot support seven billion people on primitive agriculture”
Modern intensive organic gardening is not “primitive agriculture”. In fact it is the most advanced form of agriculture ever developed.
During World War II, back yard “victory gardens” supplied up to two thirds of all the produce consumed in America. With today’s more advanced organic gardening techniques, America’s sprawling suburbs could produce huge amounts of food.
Which, by the way, would not only be useful in “adapting” to agricultural disruptions, but if pursued on a large scale NOW could help reduce GHG emissions from food production.
Brian Dodgesays
Mea culpa Digby. That should have been “MA Roger, replying to Digby says…”
Steve Fishsays
Re: Comment by Hank Roberts — 25 Apr 2016 @ 6:18 PM, ~#366
Regarding the bubble, I turn on private browsing in FireFox. My tests show a slight difference between regular and private Google searches, but private eliminates a whole bunch of irritating ads. I found no difference when searching Google Scholar.
> we would see the extreme results in our forests.
If we could let forests grow for centuries we would see something close to the normal full result. Possibly for a millenium, if it takes much longer to recreate the original soil than it takes to grow full sized trees.
Almost no one here likely has ever even _seen_ a full grown tree outside a reservation.
I notice that like economists doomers give a number, or a time, but rarely both. So here is a question. Under each of the RCPs, what number of humans will die due to anthro climate change, and when ?
I suspect the estimates will be hedged with caveats. Nevertheless it might be an illuminating exercise.
Richard Caldwellsays
Mike: Agriculture? Yes, and we should be making fundamental changes
Richard: Yep. I’ve been researching a new method which has had promising results. Its goal is to build soil and sequester carbon while producing food and fuel in areas like Nebraska. My biofuel engine would be far less useful if it relied on current farming techniques, which are of debatable carbon productivity, especially when soil loss is considered.
——————
BPL: You have no idea what I have or haven’t experienced, you bloody fool.
Richard: Sure I do. I can say that there’s better than 99% chance that you’ve never survived on maggots. Never lived like Leningrad. Either confirm or deny; don’t spout nonsensical insults. So, BPL, tell us, what is the closest you’ve come to the survival mode of which I speak? Have you or your kids ever had kwashiorkor?
BPL: Enough to survive on. For billions of people
Richard: The US has 320 MILLION or so. Remember, this discussion is limited to the United States over the next 40 years (You’ve said 2040, 40 years, whatever). As to your comment that the USA’s arable land will go to zero, I’d expect a freshman in high school to make such an ignorant logic error. You THINK you’ve detected a trend in drought and you THINK it is associated with global temperature. All well and good, but where’s the fossil record for the last interglacial? We’re not going to exceed the last interglacial in the next 40 years. Show us a rainfall map of the USA during that period, overlaid with irrigation capability 40 years from now. Attempting to state a conclusion without such information is stupid. You did check, right?
BPL: ~”When urban workers can’t be fed, we’ll only have primitive agriculture, and with primitive agriculture we can’t feed urban workers”. That’s stupid, and not just because it’s circular. Drip irrigation isn’t going away. Hybrid seeds will continue to improve. Organics, GMO, etc, etc, etc. Wooden sticks aren’t in our future.
And no, you haven’t done the math. You’ve taken some silly trends and used a ruler to extrapolate while ignoring all data that doesn’t conform to your apocalyptic vision. Have you learned nothing about the perils of extrapolation from your years on this site? I’ve brought up points and asked questions and you’ve NEVER given a response which includes any of the new points. If you had done the math, you’d be able to answer as opposed to throwing rotten tomatoes. Where’s that USA in the Eemian map?
BPL: You talked about growing tomatoes on “a few square feet” of land, which shows gross ignorance of just how much it takes to support an individual.
Richard: Secular’s source says you’re off by a FACTOR OF 43!!! Show us your admirable ability to learn by admitting your previous “gross ignorance”.
Instead of spouting stupidities, ignoring the clarification, and then re-spouting the same lie, (the second time it’s a LIE) how about engaging productively? Tomatoes are only the delicious poster-child for the home garden, as epitomized by Victory Gardens of WW2. Again, bulk calories come from farms, and Nebraska has plenty of irrigated land which is at no risk of running out of water. Your state? Hope you’re in worse shape; it will make OUR agricultural products that much more valuable.
BPL’s cite: suitable growing days will actually decrease globally by up to 11% when other climatic variables that limit plant growth are considered
Richard: That’s exactly equal to 100% reduction, right? Apparently so, since the article claimed in its headline that suitable days would “disappear”. They sound like you, BPL.
————
Steve Fish: You say: “Coal happens?” This comment is a fail.
Richard: Come on. I asked you a question. You complained about the ask. I explained that I’m not going to research yet and asked another short question which only showed that I still felt the need to research the issue. How can a question with a promise for future research be a “fail”? How can it be a “confident assertion”? And, your “confident assertion” that coal does NOT happen appears wobbly. My first search result says, “The process of coal formation is still taking place today” http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2013/02/18/3691317.htm Clarify? Retract?
Steve Fish: usable logs and lumber are quite a bit less than half of the forest biomass that is destroyed by logging.
Richard: Ever heard of pellet fuel? Other than roots, which are a type of sequestration and soil building, the rest of the biomass is still available, and forestry is slowly moving towards utilizing everything. Besides, you mixed outputs of vastly different efficiencies and longevities. I talked log homes, you went “usable logs and lumber”. Please answer for LOGS responsibly harvested with ALL the slash and sawdust utilized for fuel, mulch, and other uses, as compared to trees left alone and ALL the other services, including housing, provided through other means over a 500 year cycle. You’d get lots and lots of slash, sawdust, root-balls, and log houses for that one decomposing dead old-growth tree. (which is still providing tremendous ecosystem services – this isn’t a totally lopsided issue.)
Please include fire risk in the analysis. If trees in an area in a warming world burn every 200 years, then trying for old growth in that area is a fool’s errand. And unless you’re going to re-introduce megafauna, true old growth might be very difficult, indeed.
————-
Edward: Drought = no grey water, or any other color of water, available
Richard: Nope. Drought just means less water, and we waste most of our water. Heck, flood irrigation is still used in the USA! Doubling efficiency while halving availability = no net change. And, as Robin(?) pointed out, the eastern USA is slated to get MORE rain.
I’m intimately familiar with gardening. I’ve grown my whole life, indoors and out. I’ve made irrigation systems of all sorts. And no, you don’t have to wait months. Radishes only take a few weeks. Lettuces and greens are fast. The biggest problem most folks have with gardening is overproduction. There’s only so much squash you can give away. And detailed instructions are everywhere. I’d say things are easier now than in the wars, yet Victory Gardens managed to equal or exceed farms for fresh veggie production in WW2.
And year-round is easy. I built a house in Atlanta with an attached 33′ greenhouse that used waist-high pea-gravel beds. I moved plants around just by thrusting my hand in and lifting. Talk about massive year-round production! When folks talk about how much land and work it takes, it’s obvious they’ve never gardened, and surely have never had a properly designed attached greenhouse. There’s nothing like wandering over and picking what you want without muss, fuss, getting dressed, or even bending over. Plus, your house is substantially heated for free!
Theosays
@385 Mike might like this one. I ordered a CO2 sensor/logger for $169 from http://www.CO2meter.com , but I wont be in town for another month to collect, so . . .
What do you CO2/forest experts think I will see on my gadget? It will be mounted outside in a (re-growth) forest in a valley in the mountains. I expect to see it climb during the day and go down at night, when the forest is consuming it. Be interesting to see, how close it gets to 408.23 ppm
ENSO is already in La Nina watch, so things should go back to “normal” soon.
Chuck Hughessays
It’s kinda hard to respond with my hands tied behind my back and a handkerchief stuffed in my mouth. Since my posts are currently winding up in the Bore Hole, what’s the point?
Comment by Victor — 26 Apr 2016 @
When you do have a chance you blow it. This comment is a perfect example of how you waste pixels, time and effort complaining about how you’re not being treated “fairly” when what you’re really doing is proving you have nothing to say.
Chuck Hughessays
During World War II, back yard “victory gardens” supplied up to two thirds of all the produce consumed in America. With today’s more advanced organic gardening techniques, America’s sprawling suburbs could produce huge amounts of food.
Which, by the way, would not only be useful in “adapting” to agricultural disruptions, but if pursued on a large scale NOW could help reduce GHG emissions from food production.
Comment by SecularAnimist — 26 Apr 2016 @
I’m sure all those apartment dwellers and people who don’t own land will get right on that. Where I live the soil is too rocky but I hear tell you can eat fresh briar weeds if you can get around the thorns. Of course in Beijing that wouldn’t be a problem but then you have all that concrete to deal with. Forget that the world population during WW2 was less than half what it is now…. but I digress.
Victorsays
#352 “If YOU were honest, you’d compare and contrast Gore with Inhofe. So, Victor, show us your honesty, compare the dudes…”
Out of the goodness of my heart, and because I like you, and because I have nothing better to do at the moment anyhow (plus I’m bored), I will respond to your challenge. If it winds up in the Bore Hole, why then so be it.
I have neither love, like nor respect for our “good” Senator Inhofe. Most of his notions regarding political issues, such as comparing the Environmental Protection Agency to the Gestapo, and declaring the climate change movement as a hoax, plus his notions concerning the role of God in determining the climate, are laughably absurd. As a long time liberal-progressive, I’m also offended by his consistent advocacy of some of the most extreme and harmful ultra-conservative positions generally, justified by his perverse “understanding” of Judeo-Christian values.
However: his notorious exhibition of a snowball on the Senate floor has, imo, been consistently misinterpreted. The snowball was clearly not intended to “refute” AGW, as has so often been assumed. It was presented in response to the many predictions by Al Gore and other climate alarmists that snow would be a thing of the past by now. At the time he held up that snowball, large regions of the northeast USA were experiencing not only snow, but record snowfall, along with record low temperatures. Thus that snowball was intended to symbolize precisely what I demonstrated in my response to some of Gore’s flawed predictions re Climate Change: “It Ain’t Necessarily So.”
Embarrassing as it is for me to find myself allied with ultra-conservatives like Inhofe, regarding this particular issue I feel I have no choice, because in this one case, and most likely for the wrong reasons, they are, for a change, right.
Now I must emphasize that none of the above actually counts as a response to your challenge because your challenge is based on a misunderstanding of the point I was trying to make regarding Gore’s film. My primary intention was not to accuse Gore of being wrong about climate change, but to demonstrate how easy it is even for someone like Gore, who had access to the most recent scientific findings, to make unwarranted assumptions about what conditions will be like in the future, based on cherry picking data that appeared to support his position. I see time and again the same sort of assumptions being made right here, on this blog, so the point I was making was not about Gore per se, but the general tendency for all those of like persuasion to deceive themselves in a similar fashion.
It is getting to the end of the month so let me just point out that my new recipe makes the Earth’s “carrying capacity” easily over 20 billion people with not much more of an ick factor compared to present day factory farming practices. The talk of food doom is not useful. https://slashdot.org/journal/2621427/explanatory-note-for-better-home-through-chemistry
Steve #334: Your link to slideshare.net seems thin on published science, unlike IPCC WG3 which cites the forestry literature when recommending sustainable forest management, replacing steel and concrete with wood, using forestry residues for energy production, etc.
I think an important point is that yes old forests store a lot of carbon, but the rate of accumulation declines. For maximum benefit, rotations should be set to optimize the biomass accumulation rate. Foresters are familiar with the fact that rotations based on volume mean annual increment (MAI) vary depending on the product being managed for, e.g. pulpwood rotations are shorter than sawlog rotations. Setting rotations based on carbon accumulation would probably result in long rotations.
Another thing I noticed in the slideshow is that all the forest pictures are in old rainforests. I have visited Cathedral Grove on Vancouver Island and was impressed, but in my neck of the boreal forest, it is really rare to find a 200-year-old tree. The question hereabouts isn’t whether a stand will burn, but when. Forest ecologists don’t use the term “climax” but “late seral stage” when discussing forest succession in the boreal. Since the modern era of firefighting, much of Canada’s boreal forest is older than the pre-settlement forests.
Also I think where the slideshow used the word “conservation” they meant “preservation”. Sustainable forestry conserves the forest at the landscape level.
Hank #335: I see that Steve has pointed out that your “only if it’s burned” statement is incorrect. Rotting wood releases methane, unlike lumber in a well-constructed house. However as I stated above, if it’s in the boreal forest it will burn eventually.
Hank #345: I don’t see a lot of sense in sending wood pellets from North America to Europe, but I certainly see a place for local use of forestry residue in heating and electricity production.
Killian: How many ecosystems import water?
Richard: Flood plains, rivers, lakes, tidal flats…
————–
Hank: Only if it’s burned.
Richard: Well, if you stock the forest with dead tinder and increase summertime temps while reducing humidity, then so be it.
———
BPL: but yes, it will happen
Richard: Golly, gee. US corn production: 14,000,000,000 bushels. wheat production: 2,000,000,000 bushels soybeans: 4,000,000,000 bushels
round that up to 24 billion bushels to account for everything else. Now cut it in half due to the most unimaginable widespread drought, and you’ve got 12 billion bushels, or 38 bushels per person. A bushel has ~50 ears of corn, so that’s 36 ears of corn per week per person. (and corn, unlike the rest, is mostly cob. Just try and eat a bushel of wheat.) A family of four can’t go through three bushels of grain plus all the rest of the veggies per week. So, tell us how the numbers add up to anything but “plenty of food no matter what”?
————
Victor: I could contuinue, but you get the point. Or do you?
Richard: Sure. You can take 1000 quotes by various individuals and find some that sound incorrect when taken out of context. Perhaps they were actually incorrect, but in any case, it’s all just anecdotal stuff by a politician. Given that the standard for “truth” for a politician is “Well, maybe if you squint exactly right he might be kinda sorta correct”, I’d say Gore did phenomenal. If YOU were honest, you’d compare and contrast Gore with Inhofe. So, Victor, show us your honesty, compare the dudes… (I’ll bet a quarter that you care not a whit about truth, so you won’t touch this challenge…)
I’d put Gore more on the “those cigarettes will kill you.” level. Flawed but essentially correct.
—————–
Steve Fish: Climax forests are carbon neutral in that they take up as much carbon as is released.
Richard: You sure about that? I thought forests had various levels of soil production, so only in extreme cases would such a thing be true. Now, that other guy’s (Scott?) quote of 100x sequestration via grass versus forest sounds “truthier”…
Re James @338: Not true. Look at http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr2/extent_n_running_mean_amsr2_regular.png
@all: Just put Victor on your list. Also saves me having to wade through your reactions. Remember, if no reaction, author looses interest.
Visualize: ocean shipping, including type, carbon burned, etc.:
http://blog.geogarage.com/2016/04/stunning-interactive-map-of-global.html
BPL,
If your scenario comes to pass, what odds do you place on the USA continuing its tradition of using much or most of its horticultural land for lawns? Yep, I can just see those suburbs filled with starving folks mowing the lawn while wondering how, o how they’ll afford tomatoes at $50 a pound….
http://scienceline.org/2011/07/lawns-vs-crops-in-the-continental-u-s/
Yep, NOBODY will figure out that a little grey water and a few square feet of space….
I could continue….
Comment by Victor — 23 Apr 2016 @
But you don’t need to prove it.
Bertrand Piccard has landed the Solar Impulse in California. Ooh I missed it. Sergey Brin showed up.
http://www.solarimpulse.com/leg-9-from-Hawaii-to-Mountain_View_CA
https://twitter.com/bertrandpiccard/status/724135954529787904
So be there when it takes off.
This isn’t just a multiple record-setting historic aviation event by two accomplished extreme-flight pilots, but it’s a paradigmatic experiment in energy management. And it’s a paradigm of real world planning for what isn’t here yet. And real world risk taking. I have yet to hear anyone so succinctly eloquent on these subjects as the two pilots of the Solar Impulse. They built a plane for a battery technology that didn’t exist yet. Vision, anybody?
The style of their transparent real-time documentation of these flights sets another record, I think.
RC: Richard: Golly, gee. US corn production: 14,000,000,000 bushels. wheat production: 2,000,000,000 bushels soybeans: 4,000,000,000 bushels
round that up to 24 billion bushels to account for everything else. Now cut it in half due to the most unimaginable widespread drought, and you’ve got 12 billion bushels, or 38 bushels per person. A bushel has ~50 ears of corn, so that’s 36 ears of corn per week per person. (and corn, unlike the rest, is mostly cob. Just try and eat a bushel of wheat.) A family of four can’t go through three bushels of grain plus all the rest of the veggies per week. So, tell us how the numbers add up to anything but “plenty of food no matter what”?
If your scenario comes to pass, what odds do you place on the USA continuing its tradition of using much or most of its horticultural land for lawns? Yep, I can just see those suburbs filled with starving folks mowing the lawn while wondering how, o how they’ll afford tomatoes at $50 a pound….
Yep, NOBODY will figure out that a little grey water and a few square feet of space….
BPL: You just don’t get it, do you? It’s not just that drought and coastal storms will blight agriculture badly. It’s that PLUS lowered nutrient quality of foods PLUS increased insect activity PLUS the deaths of forests PLUS the deaths of bees PLUS the end of of fossil fuels PLUS the heat waves PLUS the unpredictability of weather PLUS the death of the ocean PLUS multiple wars over resources, some of them possibly escalating to nuclear, PLUS the general economic disruption.
People are going to feed themselves with tomatoes grown on their lawns? I have news for you, it takes an acre to support one person, and you can’t do it on tomatoes because they have barely any nutrients. That’s an acre per person with a balanced diet and an adequate set of tools. And when mass production drops off, tools will be harder to supply.
You cannot support seven billion people on primitive agriculture; that’s why there never WERE seven billion people at once before. And when the system collapses, primitive agriculture is all we’ll have left. I don’t say it will happen next week, but that it will happen in this century–gradually, one crisis after another after another–yes, that I’m convinced of. And its partly because of the Pollyanna attitude of people like you and zebra.
CC communication: Had another go at selling some interest. Surely, having your uncle’s name in an important climate blog makes a good carrot?
But no, the overwhelming response is that the young ones prefer to persue more positive (BAU whatever) type activities. Fair enough too, cause the young ones need hope for their future. The last three UVs@RC are full of doom and gloom, and that is only because of a little “wow” spike in the temperatures. Where will this discussion go, when there is a serious event?
Adaptation and even disaster management can be much more positive. “Ha ha, we had this event, so we all got together and got around it somehow.” All those new jobs and exciting topics to study.
Adaptation can be fun and satisfying too. Currently building my own “Ark” and modifying my gardens to cope with a changing climate.
Maybe enough corn, but with our oceans going off, our seafood supplies might be reduced. So we will need to create lots of fish farms. Build more dams on our rivers and put a lock at their delta to keep them sweet. Dutchies are good at that :)
But is there any research on the uptake of CO2 by our lakes and rivers?
@BPL 349,
” Are you familiar with the numbers? I am, and I say you’re wrong; we’re headed for catastrophe in this century.”
I have yet to see any numbers from you or anyone on this. I’ve asked for any such projected scenario, to no avail.
Maybe your definition of catastrophe is that people in the USA will no longer be able to consume their usual 3800 calories per day, but have to settle for 1900? To me, that sounds like a public health miracle, not a catastrophe.
Digby says ” (Note I do not mention emissions debouching from a melty Arctic as I see no evidence for it.)” I say look harder.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v459/n7246/full/nature08031.html
“Here we measure net ecosystem carbon exchange and the radiocarbon age of ecosystem respiration in a tundra landscape undergoing permafrost thaw to determine the influence of old carbon loss on ecosystem carbon balance.”
” In contrast, areas that thawed decades earlier lost even more old carbon, a 78 per cent increase over minimally thawed areas; this old carbon loss contributed to overall net ecosystem carbon release despite increased plant growth. Our data document significant losses of soil carbon with permafrost thaw that, over decadal timescales, overwhelms increased plant carbon uptake”
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7107/full/nature05040.html
“We show that ebullition accounts for 95 per cent of methane emissions from these lakes, and that methane flux from thaw lakes in our study region may be five times higher than previously estimated.”
” We find that thawing permafrost along lake margins accounts for most of the methane released from the lakes, and estimate that an expansion of thaw lakes between 1974 and 2000, which was concurrent with regional warming, increased methane emissions in our study region by 58 per cent”
1200+ cites between these two papers.
Re: Comment by Richard Caldwell — 24 Apr 2016 @ 6:09 PM, ~#352
Your comment: “You sure of that?” Yes, I am very sure of that. Come on Richard; you can look this stuff up, but how about a simple thought experiment. Take a mature forest that has been around for thousands, hundreds of thousands, a million years. If there were an imbalance between uptake of CO2 by growing plants and release of CO2 by simple oxidation and decay (or fires), there would either be no carbon in the soil at all, or it would be hundreds of feet deep. Steve
Re: Comment by Phil L — 24 Apr 2016 @ 5:35 PM, ~#351
Phil, you are confusing forest management for lumber production with basic principles of how carbon is stored and cycled in forests. For the basic science that underlies the slideshare presentation, search Scholar with “forest+carbon+CO2” and “soil+carbon+respiration” to get a start. Steve
> search Scholar
And, first, make sure Google doesn’t know who you are for that search.
Warning from academic librarians about the “search bubble” aka “filter bubble” here:
http://acrlog.org/2011/07/07/thinking-about-the-filter-bubble/
If you want to be a skeptic, start by doubting your lying browser results.
Side-bar re 308 Robin Johnson says:
If the data source is correct Robin then “The US consumes only 20% of the beef consumed worldwide.” while the US represents only ~4.3% of the global population.
Only 20%? Maybe there is something to see in that figure in regards to contributions to total global warming there.
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/9/1/014010/
Carbon Use Inequality
And 50% of global CO2 comes from only 10% of the global population today?
Kevin Anderson March 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVJ8lMIm9-c&feature=youtu.be&t=36m53s
Which closely aligns with the economic research on income inequality too
The lead research economist at the World Bank, Branko Milanovic, will be reporting soon, in the journal Global Policy, the first calculation of global income-inequality, and he has found that the top 8% of global earners are drawing 50% of all of this planet’s income.
2013 http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/worlds-richest-8-earn-half-all-planetary-income
2015 Extreme Carbon Inequality by Oxfam http://oxf.am/Zecv
Briefing https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/mb-extreme-carbon-inequality-021215-en.pdf
NewsMedia http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/02/worlds-richest-10-produce-half-of-global-carbon-emissions-says-oxfam
Back in APR 2009: OPINION Yale_e360
Stephen Pacala, director of the Princeton Environment Institute, calculates that the world’s richest half-billion people — that’s about 7 percent of the global population — are responsible for 50 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. Meanwhile the poorest 50 percent are responsible for just 7 percent of emissions.
http://e360.yale.edu/feature/consumption_dwarfs_population_as_main_environmental_threat/2140/
I think there are some academic papers out about this issue, but none to hand sorry.
I wasn’t aware of this though (it’s true too) http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gore's_Law :-)
BPL: People are going to feed themselves with tomatoes grown on their lawns? I have news for you, it takes an acre to support one person, and you can’t do it on tomatoes because they have barely any nutrients.
Richard: So, you’re saying that they’ll throw away the three bushels of grain and try to subsist on tomatoes? No other veggies allowed? If you remove the primary plank of a position, and then remove every other plank except one, and then remove the nails holding that plank, well, you’re wasting everybody’s time. Stop it.
I get that you see storm clouds. I do too. The difference is that I understand that collapse is slow and uneven. Yep, bees collapse – not everywhere, but say in Florida. (since the real world ends at the border) You’re saying that no action will be taken to contain the collapse? Are you saying we won’t benefit from overseas wars in which we supply both sides? Remember Iran/Iraq? A great way to get them to kill each other with our weapons. Bought some of our oil for a while, eh?
BPL: And its partly because of the Pollyanna attitude of people like you and zebra.
Richard: POLLYANNA?!? Dude, I’ve talked about half of humanity dying horrible deaths. In many areas every creature within reach that’s at least mouse-sized is exterminated. You know, Leningrad. But in the USA, we have the resources to survive. Do you get how much further down below anything you’ve ever experienced “survive” is? It’s not going on a diet. It’s trapping mice and raising worms and insects to get protein. It’s searching for rotten roadkill because it’s pre-inoculated and grows great maggots.
Again, we eat too much. We eat meat. We waste half our food. We lose lots more. We use half our land to grow lawns. We’ve got tremendous acreage not in production. We grow cotton on prime land and buy new clothes all the time instead of hemp on poor land and keeping clothes forever. Multiply THOSE numbers together and see how your scenario really plays out.
———-
Steve Fish: If there were an imbalance between uptake of CO2 by growing plants and release of CO2 by simple oxidation and decay (or fires), there would either be no carbon in the soil at all, or it would be hundreds of feet deep.
Richard: Coal happens? Yes, I generally look stuff up, but here I was looking for your opinion. It smells like a topic that deserves more attention than I’d like to give it at the moment.
Steve Fish: Phil, you are confusing forest management for lumber production with basic principles of how carbon is stored and cycled in forests.
Richard: Nope, he’s saying that [log] houses are great at storing carbon. Why is storing carbon in a living tree superior to a log house?
I lived near Cathedral Grove and adore Old Trees with all my soul. If folks get to Vancouver Island, it’s a grand place to stop.
#364, Steve Fish–
Gonna do my ‘fool rushes in’ routine here–again–but I wouldn’t have thought so, since we are talking about 3 reservoirs, not 2–soil, air, and flora. We know plants use CO2 from the air–Keeling curve, et cetera–so in principle you can imagine that the soil reservoir could have no net flux while there is a positive flux from air to biomass. Have no idea if that’s what actually happens in reality.
Speaking of unknowns, seems there are quite a few yet about tropical soils in particular–which (I’ve heard from some guy on a blog somewhere) tend to be impoverished relative to temperate or boreal ones, with most nutrients stored in biomass, not soil. Presumably that includes carbon, but as I say, I’m just rushing in here.
http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/65/9/906.full
So far I’ve just glanced at that–hopefully more time for a better look soon.
RC Truism of the Day:
“Dumb people always assume you are not as clever as they are.”
And especially if you are a Climate (related) Scientist :-)
368 Richard: “Nope, he’s saying that [log] houses are great at storing carbon. Why is storing carbon in a living tree superior to a log house?”
The Log House doesn’t last as long a living tree and it don’t eat no excess CO2 from the atmosphere anymore.
Do I win a prize? :-)
355 Hank Roberts, thanks that was ‘stunning’ Have you ever seen the live real-time aircraft traffic visuals?
Two things of note here. Global shipping and aircraft GHG emissions are excluded from the COP21 Treaty just ratified. Ocean shipping has the lowest ghg kg/klm traveled (and $cost) than every other form of freight transportation by a factor of ‘heaps’. I can’t recall where I dug that up from as it was a few years ago now.
The outtake for me was that in some circumstances highly efficient production of X product in Y nation and then shipping internationally can sometimes be a Net lower ghg contribution (and lower $cost) than the alternative. But to know this in all situations requires an openness and honesty from all players especially the Corporations engaged in same. Self-interest, ROI and all that gets in the way of course.
Brian Dodge @363
I never said anything of the kind, mate. You’re confusing me with someone else. Besides, I write proper English; you’ll not catch me using such a word as “melty”!
fyi CSIRO confirms more than 275 “scientists” jobs will be cut from the organisation. As expected, the Oceans and Atmosphere division is the hardest hit, with about 75 positions to go.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-26/csiro-to-cut-275-jobs-open-new-climate-centre/7356918
368 Richard Caldwell: Growing food on lawns: I have to agree with BPL. Drought = no grey water, or any other color of water, available. Very few people know how to grow anything without detailed instructions. Roving gangs will steal or rob all food produced anywhere anyhow. Gardening, like farming, takes a lot more skill, practice and planning than you imagine. Storing food is not easy even if you know how and nobody is robbing you. Farming and gardening require physical health and strength as well as knowledge, skills and abilities.
To make a garden, you have to buy seeds ahead of time. You have to hire somebody to plough and disc [formerly “harrow”]. Then you can lay out rows and do your planting. You will need fertilizer, pesticides, fungicide, etcetera, as well as rain. It will take months for your garden to grow. You must weed with a hoe. Harvesting is also labor intensive.
What you need is not a garden. What you need are guns and an infinite supply of ammunition. Wild animals in general will be hunted to extinction as humans make a last desperate attempt to survive after agriculture collapses.
A friend of mine participated in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. When it was over, there was no food in the grocery stores, so my friend went out of Budapest to go squirrel hunting. There were no squirrels.
Cannibalism will happen, with human hunting human, as happened in Chaco Canyon. I think that was in “Collapse” by Jared Diamond.
@367 – In fairness, nations in colder climates have long relied on meat. The “efficient” food mix includes a lot of animal protein. Using animals to convert inedible vegetation and waste food into something edible by humans is actually efficient food resource management. However, raising meat on intensively farmed corn and soybeans is not efficient and generally totally nuts.
I find arguments based on “share” are somewhat fallacious. If I have 2 children who consume more per child than someone with 10 children, but if the aggregate of the 10 is greater than the 2 – why would you point the crooked finger at the 2? I’m very egalitarian – but if irresponsible people have way too many babies – don’t complain to me that my children are using up their resources. Apportioning resources “fairly” does not have an easy answer. The only GOOD news is that the US and Europe have a lot of room to make ourselves more efficient without sacrificing comfort. I have no idea what India and China are going to do.
Steve #365: I am a proponent of Sustainable Forest Management using an ecosystem-based approach. Mimicking Mother Nature makes sense to me. In the boreal forest Mother Nature doesn’t walk with a soft tread. I’m all for setting aside representative areas that are off-limits to forest operations and where natural processes can run their course. However on the remaining landbase it seems to me that the full spectrum of age classes should be represented. Woodland Caribou and marten prefer old forest, but moose and many songbirds prefer young forests.
Hank #366: I am in agreement with IPCC WG3 on the role of Sustainable Forest Management in mitigation of climate change. If that earns me a label of “skeptic”, so be it.
Here’s a link to the Carbon Budget Model used by Natural Resources Canada – Canadian Forest Service.
http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/forests/climate-change/carbon-accounting/13107
Thomas: The Log House doesn’t last as long a living tree and it don’t eat no excess CO2 from the atmosphere anymore. Do I win a prize? :-)
Richard: How about a carbon-sequestering wooden nickel? :-)
I dunno about maximum log house longevity, but hundreds of years is easy. Here’s one that is almost 400 years old and going strong. Imagine how long a modern one will last:
http://www.nj.com/gloucester-county/index.ssf/2014/10/six_things_you_might_not_know_about_the_oldest_log_cabin_in_the_united_states_new_jerseys_nothnagle.html
However, your point is valid. We often build garbage that becomes landfill within decades. Under that scenario, live trees rule. OTOH, remember that for every 400 year old live tree, hundreds(?) didn’t make it and ended up rotting or burning. Plus, live trees often rot from the inside out. Trees get damaged and water infiltrates the center. Eventually the tree is a ring around a column of rot-water. That 400 year old live tree might be a net carbon loser.
As to future sequestration, I had my land on Vancouver Island selectively logged for log houses. Afterwards, the woods kept on sequestering carbon just fine. All those little trees grow up to replace those who died for houses.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2016/apr/26/abandon-hype-in-climate-models
Along with Kevin Anderson notions of BECCS being next to extremely wishful thinking seems to be born out by this article and if there is no viable BECCS (presently there is not) then surely the Paris agreements and any other agreements means we are not going to be successful in 1.5 or 2C and its more than likely a 500/550 (2.5 – 3.5C rise) at best we can hope for.
z@362,
Start here. I’m revising this work, but this is what I’ve got so far:
http://www.ajournal.co.uk/pdfs/BSvolume13(1)/BSVol.13%20(1)%20Article%202.pdf
RC 368: . Do you get how much further down below anything you’ve ever experienced “survive” is?
BPL: You have no idea what I have or haven’t experienced, you bloody fool.
RC: It’s not going on a diet. It’s trapping mice and raising worms and insects to get protein. It’s searching for rotten roadkill because it’s pre-inoculated and grows great maggots.
BPL: Enough to survive on. For billions of people. You keep thinking in terms of individual meals. I’m telling you you need more than that.
RC: Again, we eat too much. We eat meat. We waste half our food. We lose lots more. We use half our land to grow lawns. We’ve got tremendous acreage not in production. We grow cotton on prime land and buy new clothes all the time instead of hemp on poor land and keeping clothes forever. Multiply THOSE numbers together and see how your scenario really plays out.
BPL: What part of “arable land eventually goes to zero” do you not understand? And what part of “primitive agriculture cannot support billions of people” do you not understand? And all we’ll have left is primitive agriculture, because the economy is going to hell once urban workers can’t be fed. You talked about growing tomatoes on “a few square feet” of land, which shows gross ignorance of just how much it takes to support an individual. “With graywater,” implying we’ll still have functioning plumbing and adequate supplies of urban and suburban water. WE WILL NOT. Damn it, do the math! I have. We’re not just going to lose half the population, and the rest will be fine. We’re going to lose more than 90%, possibly more than 99%. Unless we act. Which we will be less likely to do as long as we think “we” will be safe whatever happens.
#352 “If YOU were honest, you’d compare and contrast Gore with Inhofe. So, Victor, show us your honesty, compare the dudes…”
It’s kinda hard to respond with my hands tied behind my back and a handkerchief stuffed in my mouth. Since my posts are currently winding up in the Bore Hole, what’s the point?
Re: Comment by Richard Caldwell — 25 Apr 2016 @ 7:52 PM, ~#368
You say: “Coal happens?” This comment is a fail. Look up “carboniferous+lignin+suberin.” Coal doesn’t happen anymore. When the current coal is gone, there will be no more, so we should preserve this precious reserve of carbon bonds for the future.
You say: “Nope, he’s saying that [log] houses are great at storing carbon.” Another fail. The prize-winning Thomas (~#371) gave one reason. Another is that usable logs and lumber are quite a bit less than half of the forest biomass that is destroyed by logging. There are more reasons that you should look up before commenting.
Your confidently asserted incorrect opinions make me doubtful that you are a serious commenter here.
Steve
> Ocean shipping has the lowest ghg kg/klm traveled (and $cost) …
Well, in this universe, at this point.
I’d sure like to see numbers on this alternative: taxing the carbon cost of _transportation_ as an alternative to taxing the carbon cost of production.
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/liu_11_14/
The Long Haul
From the ANNALS OF TRANSPORTATION,
The Pacific Monthly, May 2009
— by Ken Liu —
Sidewise Award Winner for 2014 Best Short-Form Alternate History
CO2 fell below 407 ppm briefly in the last week, but has rebounded:
Daily CO2
April 25, 2016: 408.23 ppm
April 25, 2015: 402.59 ppm
March CO2
March 2016: 404.83 ppm
March 2015: 401.52 ppm
Big pretty jump in the April 25th daily comparison, but that number is very noisy. That said, the 402.59 is sort of inline with the March 2015 401.52 number, whereas the 408.23 is simply a “wow” type of number at this moment in time.
The problem of course is that CO2 accumulation drives global warming and ocean acidification, so as this number climbs we get more of each and that is not a good thing for many living things on the planet.
It’s encouraging to hear all the good news about transition away from fossil fuels, but as long as we keep seeing the CO2 levels rise at an increasing rate, it’s could be too little, too late. Or it could be news generated by cooking the books along with the planet. I continue to watch the accumulation of GHG in the atmosphere. All the talk and work is meaningless unless we see that rise start to slow in a manner that suggests that we are actually headed toward a time when we will be seeing that hard number start going down. I don’t expect to live to see such a day, but I would love to be surprised and see that without having to hobble around this planet until I am over 100 yoa.
The March monthly jump of 3.3 is high, but in line with an annual increase of perhaps 3.1 ppm which is what I expect to see for 2016. This is a path to a disastrously warmed planet.
So, where is all this carbon coming from?
1. Agriculture? Yes, and we should be making fundamental changes in the nature of our species agriculture to fix more carbon in the soil, to grow food crops with less input of petrochemicals. Once we start looking for that kind of agriculture transition, CAFO meat production is out the window and that is undoubtedly a good thing for a variety of reasons.
2. Burning of fossil fuels? Yes, and we should be imposing a carbon tax with a rate that rises over a decade so we can hope for a somewhat stable economic transition away from fossil fuels. An unstable economic system will fuel more global conflict and armed conflict does not help us address the ecological disaster that our species has created.
3. Out of the natural environment that has warmed under the onslaught of CO2 that our species has pumped into the atmosphere. This one is a real problem, because it is likely outside our control or beyond our ability to address. Changes in the various carbon sinks, melting of permafrost, drying of wetlands releasing ghg into the atmosphere? Here we are in the area of positive feedbacks where a significantly changed physical environment starts “selecting” species for extinction.
So far, I think our species is “selecting” a lot of species for extinction using the first two processes of increasing ghg in the environment. A vibrant and varied (which is to say: healthy) ecosystem has a very wide range of flora and fauna. If our species wants to inhabit a planet with a healthy ecosystem, it is going to need think well beyond questions about how we grow corn or other grains for the global market.
I drive around and see gas-powered equipment being used to create and maintain suburban lawns and I think, well, our species is as dumb as the dodo. What happened to the dodos?
warm regards
Mike
http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1002167
Re: Comment by Kevin McKinney — 25 Apr 2016 @ 8:25 PM, ~#369
Hi, Kevin. There is a carbon (CO2) flux from the air to forest biomass. The biomass in a climax forest consists mostly of living trees that contain most of the carbon in the forest as hydrocarbon compounds (e.g. lignin). Usually, soil carbon is a smaller carbon pool that is contained in the top six inches (permafrost is one exception). Soil carbon is in dead forest biomass and the soil organisms that break it down to power their little selves and thereby release CO2 in the process. In a mature forest, in the long term, the CO2 absorption and release must balance. The carbon pools cannot increase or decrease for very long, or we would see the extreme results in our forests. In the short term, there are fluctuations due to, for example, yearly variation between moist warm growth and cool dormancy, or what happens after a forest fire. Beware of short-term fluctuations that might lead you astray into believing in a pause in forest growth.
Steve
Digby Scorgie @373.
Indeed, it was I and not you who made the comment (@210) that “(Note I do not mention emissions debouching from a melty Arctic as I see no evidence for it.)”, this in considering the rise in atmospheric CO2 2014-to-2015 and its potential source given a reported zero increase in FF CO2 emissions for that period. The emissions to be accounted total some 250Mt(C) and would have to have been absent in previous years or at least additional to previous years’ emissions. Thus the two papers cited by Brian Dodge @363 do not yield fruit from his ‘harder look’ for such evidence. (Schuur et al (2009) shows melty tundra to be an initial net sink for CO2 until the biosphere is established on it, when it then becomes a net source. Walter et al (2006) discuss methane from Siberian lakes.)
I would defend the use of “melty” as being entirely “proper English”. The convention is set that a noun can be converted for use as an adjective by using the suffix -y. Unusual uses of that convention may bring with them a certain irreverence to the statements that employ them but that is very often not a bad thing.
“Earth Has Lost a Third of Arable Land in Past 40 Years”
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/earth-has-lost-a-third-of-arable-land-19785
BPL wrote: “it takes an acre to support one person, and you can’t do it on tomatoes because they have barely any nutrients.”
In his 1982 book “Survival Gardening” (unfortunately out of print), John Freeman showed how to supply 100 percent of one person’s nutritional needs from 1000 square feet of growing space, using organic gardening techniques like the “biointensive” methods taught by John Jeavons in “How To Grow More Vegetables”.
Tomatoes and other popular garden vegetables supply plenty of vital “nutrients”, but as Freeman writes “in many gardens the produce is fine in meeting mineral and vitamin requirements but is deficient in calories and protein … when a mixed vegetable diet is used, providing a sufficiency of calories is the problem, not, as is commonly assumed, having enough protein … people getting enough calories will also have a sufficiency of protein.”
Freeman’s solution was simply to emphasize vegetables that are particularly high in calories (e.g. starchy root vegetables like turnip, potato, sweet potato, rutabaga) and/or protein (e.g. legumes and some green vegetables.
BPL wrote: “You cannot support seven billion people on primitive agriculture”
Modern intensive organic gardening is not “primitive agriculture”. In fact it is the most advanced form of agriculture ever developed.
During World War II, back yard “victory gardens” supplied up to two thirds of all the produce consumed in America. With today’s more advanced organic gardening techniques, America’s sprawling suburbs could produce huge amounts of food.
Which, by the way, would not only be useful in “adapting” to agricultural disruptions, but if pursued on a large scale NOW could help reduce GHG emissions from food production.
Mea culpa Digby. That should have been “MA Roger, replying to Digby says…”
Re: Comment by Hank Roberts — 25 Apr 2016 @ 6:18 PM, ~#366
Regarding the bubble, I turn on private browsing in FireFox. My tests show a slight difference between regular and private Google searches, but private eliminates a whole bunch of irritating ads. I found no difference when searching Google Scholar.
Steve
> we would see the extreme results in our forests.
If we could let forests grow for centuries we would see something close to the normal full result. Possibly for a millenium, if it takes much longer to recreate the original soil than it takes to grow full sized trees.
Almost no one here likely has ever even _seen_ a full grown tree outside a reservation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_old-growth_forests
http://41.media.tumblr.com/11d651ef38e4fdc7f13be24696bdd94c/tumblr_numnxzN3vg1sq04bjo1_1280.jpg
https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2290/2459037064_d8db9b7f4a_b.jpg
I notice that like economists doomers give a number, or a time, but rarely both. So here is a question. Under each of the RCPs, what number of humans will die due to anthro climate change, and when ?
I suspect the estimates will be hedged with caveats. Nevertheless it might be an illuminating exercise.
Mike: Agriculture? Yes, and we should be making fundamental changes
Richard: Yep. I’ve been researching a new method which has had promising results. Its goal is to build soil and sequester carbon while producing food and fuel in areas like Nebraska. My biofuel engine would be far less useful if it relied on current farming techniques, which are of debatable carbon productivity, especially when soil loss is considered.
——————
BPL: You have no idea what I have or haven’t experienced, you bloody fool.
Richard: Sure I do. I can say that there’s better than 99% chance that you’ve never survived on maggots. Never lived like Leningrad. Either confirm or deny; don’t spout nonsensical insults. So, BPL, tell us, what is the closest you’ve come to the survival mode of which I speak? Have you or your kids ever had kwashiorkor?
BPL: Enough to survive on. For billions of people
Richard: The US has 320 MILLION or so. Remember, this discussion is limited to the United States over the next 40 years (You’ve said 2040, 40 years, whatever). As to your comment that the USA’s arable land will go to zero, I’d expect a freshman in high school to make such an ignorant logic error. You THINK you’ve detected a trend in drought and you THINK it is associated with global temperature. All well and good, but where’s the fossil record for the last interglacial? We’re not going to exceed the last interglacial in the next 40 years. Show us a rainfall map of the USA during that period, overlaid with irrigation capability 40 years from now. Attempting to state a conclusion without such information is stupid. You did check, right?
BPL: ~”When urban workers can’t be fed, we’ll only have primitive agriculture, and with primitive agriculture we can’t feed urban workers”. That’s stupid, and not just because it’s circular. Drip irrigation isn’t going away. Hybrid seeds will continue to improve. Organics, GMO, etc, etc, etc. Wooden sticks aren’t in our future.
And no, you haven’t done the math. You’ve taken some silly trends and used a ruler to extrapolate while ignoring all data that doesn’t conform to your apocalyptic vision. Have you learned nothing about the perils of extrapolation from your years on this site? I’ve brought up points and asked questions and you’ve NEVER given a response which includes any of the new points. If you had done the math, you’d be able to answer as opposed to throwing rotten tomatoes. Where’s that USA in the Eemian map?
BPL: You talked about growing tomatoes on “a few square feet” of land, which shows gross ignorance of just how much it takes to support an individual.
Richard: Secular’s source says you’re off by a FACTOR OF 43!!! Show us your admirable ability to learn by admitting your previous “gross ignorance”.
Instead of spouting stupidities, ignoring the clarification, and then re-spouting the same lie, (the second time it’s a LIE) how about engaging productively? Tomatoes are only the delicious poster-child for the home garden, as epitomized by Victory Gardens of WW2. Again, bulk calories come from farms, and Nebraska has plenty of irrigated land which is at no risk of running out of water. Your state? Hope you’re in worse shape; it will make OUR agricultural products that much more valuable.
BPL’s cite: suitable growing days will actually decrease globally by up to 11% when other climatic variables that limit plant growth are considered
Richard: That’s exactly equal to 100% reduction, right? Apparently so, since the article claimed in its headline that suitable days would “disappear”. They sound like you, BPL.
————
Steve Fish: You say: “Coal happens?” This comment is a fail.
Richard: Come on. I asked you a question. You complained about the ask. I explained that I’m not going to research yet and asked another short question which only showed that I still felt the need to research the issue. How can a question with a promise for future research be a “fail”? How can it be a “confident assertion”? And, your “confident assertion” that coal does NOT happen appears wobbly. My first search result says, “The process of coal formation is still taking place today” http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2013/02/18/3691317.htm Clarify? Retract?
Steve Fish: usable logs and lumber are quite a bit less than half of the forest biomass that is destroyed by logging.
Richard: Ever heard of pellet fuel? Other than roots, which are a type of sequestration and soil building, the rest of the biomass is still available, and forestry is slowly moving towards utilizing everything. Besides, you mixed outputs of vastly different efficiencies and longevities. I talked log homes, you went “usable logs and lumber”. Please answer for LOGS responsibly harvested with ALL the slash and sawdust utilized for fuel, mulch, and other uses, as compared to trees left alone and ALL the other services, including housing, provided through other means over a 500 year cycle. You’d get lots and lots of slash, sawdust, root-balls, and log houses for that one decomposing dead old-growth tree. (which is still providing tremendous ecosystem services – this isn’t a totally lopsided issue.)
Please include fire risk in the analysis. If trees in an area in a warming world burn every 200 years, then trying for old growth in that area is a fool’s errand. And unless you’re going to re-introduce megafauna, true old growth might be very difficult, indeed.
————-
Edward: Drought = no grey water, or any other color of water, available
Richard: Nope. Drought just means less water, and we waste most of our water. Heck, flood irrigation is still used in the USA! Doubling efficiency while halving availability = no net change. And, as Robin(?) pointed out, the eastern USA is slated to get MORE rain.
I’m intimately familiar with gardening. I’ve grown my whole life, indoors and out. I’ve made irrigation systems of all sorts. And no, you don’t have to wait months. Radishes only take a few weeks. Lettuces and greens are fast. The biggest problem most folks have with gardening is overproduction. There’s only so much squash you can give away. And detailed instructions are everywhere. I’d say things are easier now than in the wars, yet Victory Gardens managed to equal or exceed farms for fresh veggie production in WW2.
And year-round is easy. I built a house in Atlanta with an attached 33′ greenhouse that used waist-high pea-gravel beds. I moved plants around just by thrusting my hand in and lifting. Talk about massive year-round production! When folks talk about how much land and work it takes, it’s obvious they’ve never gardened, and surely have never had a properly designed attached greenhouse. There’s nothing like wandering over and picking what you want without muss, fuss, getting dressed, or even bending over. Plus, your house is substantially heated for free!
@385 Mike might like this one. I ordered a CO2 sensor/logger for $169 from http://www.CO2meter.com , but I wont be in town for another month to collect, so . . .
What do you CO2/forest experts think I will see on my gadget? It will be mounted outside in a (re-growth) forest in a valley in the mountains. I expect to see it climb during the day and go down at night, when the forest is consuming it. Be interesting to see, how close it gets to 408.23 ppm
ENSO is already in La Nina watch, so things should go back to “normal” soon.
It’s kinda hard to respond with my hands tied behind my back and a handkerchief stuffed in my mouth. Since my posts are currently winding up in the Bore Hole, what’s the point?
Comment by Victor — 26 Apr 2016 @
When you do have a chance you blow it. This comment is a perfect example of how you waste pixels, time and effort complaining about how you’re not being treated “fairly” when what you’re really doing is proving you have nothing to say.
During World War II, back yard “victory gardens” supplied up to two thirds of all the produce consumed in America. With today’s more advanced organic gardening techniques, America’s sprawling suburbs could produce huge amounts of food.
Which, by the way, would not only be useful in “adapting” to agricultural disruptions, but if pursued on a large scale NOW could help reduce GHG emissions from food production.
Comment by SecularAnimist — 26 Apr 2016 @
I’m sure all those apartment dwellers and people who don’t own land will get right on that. Where I live the soil is too rocky but I hear tell you can eat fresh briar weeds if you can get around the thorns. Of course in Beijing that wouldn’t be a problem but then you have all that concrete to deal with. Forget that the world population during WW2 was less than half what it is now…. but I digress.
#352 “If YOU were honest, you’d compare and contrast Gore with Inhofe. So, Victor, show us your honesty, compare the dudes…”
Out of the goodness of my heart, and because I like you, and because I have nothing better to do at the moment anyhow (plus I’m bored), I will respond to your challenge. If it winds up in the Bore Hole, why then so be it.
I have neither love, like nor respect for our “good” Senator Inhofe. Most of his notions regarding political issues, such as comparing the Environmental Protection Agency to the Gestapo, and declaring the climate change movement as a hoax, plus his notions concerning the role of God in determining the climate, are laughably absurd. As a long time liberal-progressive, I’m also offended by his consistent advocacy of some of the most extreme and harmful ultra-conservative positions generally, justified by his perverse “understanding” of Judeo-Christian values.
However: his notorious exhibition of a snowball on the Senate floor has, imo, been consistently misinterpreted. The snowball was clearly not intended to “refute” AGW, as has so often been assumed. It was presented in response to the many predictions by Al Gore and other climate alarmists that snow would be a thing of the past by now. At the time he held up that snowball, large regions of the northeast USA were experiencing not only snow, but record snowfall, along with record low temperatures. Thus that snowball was intended to symbolize precisely what I demonstrated in my response to some of Gore’s flawed predictions re Climate Change: “It Ain’t Necessarily So.”
Embarrassing as it is for me to find myself allied with ultra-conservatives like Inhofe, regarding this particular issue I feel I have no choice, because in this one case, and most likely for the wrong reasons, they are, for a change, right.
Now I must emphasize that none of the above actually counts as a response to your challenge because your challenge is based on a misunderstanding of the point I was trying to make regarding Gore’s film. My primary intention was not to accuse Gore of being wrong about climate change, but to demonstrate how easy it is even for someone like Gore, who had access to the most recent scientific findings, to make unwarranted assumptions about what conditions will be like in the future, based on cherry picking data that appeared to support his position. I see time and again the same sort of assumptions being made right here, on this blog, so the point I was making was not about Gore per se, but the general tendency for all those of like persuasion to deceive themselves in a similar fashion.
It is getting to the end of the month so let me just point out that my new recipe makes the Earth’s “carrying capacity” easily over 20 billion people with not much more of an ick factor compared to present day factory farming practices. The talk of food doom is not useful. https://slashdot.org/journal/2621427/explanatory-note-for-better-home-through-chemistry