This month’s open thread. Topics this month? What should a conservative contrarian be writing op-eds about that avoids strawman arguments, and getting facts wrong? What do you really think about geoengineering? Tracking the imminent conclusion of the Nenana Ice Classic (background)?
Usual rules apply.
Re #195 Hank asked, “This one?”
The reference to the RCI, yes, though that is not my project and the incubator concept isn’t described there. They are wanting to apply the concept.
*** Re #200 Alastair McDonald said Re 196 where Killian quoted “… we ignore the threat of abrupt climate change induced by a slowing or shutdown of the AMOC at our own peril.”
You may find this poster that I presented at PAGES 2017 10 days ago interesting.
Interesting. Key seems to be the idea of CO2 saturation. But if extension past the archipelago leads to cooling, what extent of loss leads in the other direction?
*** Re #198 Scott Strough said https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14856
Of course we can still quibble over the numbers Brian Walsh uses…
Can’t access the paper, so…
Oh and Lillian John has included an embedded community concept in his latest work? Were you the one who gave him that idea? Or was it one of the hundreds of other scientists and economists he works with?
Who knows? My concept has been out there for quite a while now, and I have no way of knowing who has or hasn’t come across it. Good ideas tend to arise in multiple locations over the course of history, so… Careful, though, an embedded community means exactly nothing. Embedding a regenerative community into a regenerative ecosystem means everything.
BPL evidently hasn’t read the literature :
I published 3 times on NW aerosol sources and transport in Nature and once in Naturwissenschaften, ,as well as replying to Sagan in Foreign Affairs a year before Starley Thompson & Steve Schneider did.
Many were scandalized by the 1991 paper to which you refer , as it was a review of TTAPS by the TTAPS authors themselves– for a second contemporary opinion from a viewpoint politically sympathetic to Sagan, see ” The Little Chill” in The New Republic. in it, Science journalist Elliot Marshal quotes a far harsher critic of Sagan, Council For A Liveable Word President George Rathjens of MIT, thus: “nuclear winter is the worst example of the misrepresentation of science to the public in my memory. “
#198 Scott Strough said killian, https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14856
Of course we can still quibble over the numbers Brian Walsh uses, but the pathways he got. This is a monumental and profound improvement over previous models…
Gotta disagree. Absolutely nothing regenerative about any of those pathways/scenarios. Yes, you can plug in increased sequestration *from* regen ag, but the overall pathways are not right. Chief among the errors is using Paris as the goal. Suicidal. I will state the simple, yet obvious again and again until someone besides myself takes note: The ice was melting – everywhere – once we passed 300 ppm, not 350 ppm, and once we passed a fraction of +1C, let alone the +1C – +1.2C we seem to have hit.
Why you ask? Never before was so well made a published model including soil carbon. That pathway which has been overlooked in agriculture far too long will in the end be the ONLY hope.
The *only* moniker is, as you said, wrong. And, if you’re going to use an “only,” it is not soil, but simplification. We can reduce carbon production, even get to net zero or even negative, but that does not solve the pollution and resource issues. Collapse would still be on the horizon. There is no solution unless one accounts for both halves of the problem. Yes, climate is a killer, but resource depletion and pollution are a combined killer of civilization… which would likely result in a restart of the rise in GHG’s as people survived any way they could.
In reality, we always come back to systems. Deal with these issues as a systems problem or face failure, imo. We need simplification to get to near net-zero. Then, all the mitigation we do goes into sub-net-zero, thus returning to pre-industrial within a human lifetime. At the same time, we end the resource crisis and begin ameliorating the pollution crisis.
Additionally, because of clear signs of passing multiple tipping points, we really can’t take the time to let any of those scenarios play out. This is another element missing from his analysis. Simplification, however, can happen rapidly while massively reducing consumption.
The study is, as you say, an improvement, but it is nowhere near solutions. Good to, once again, have more scientific back-up for things we already know will work.
Re Do it. Plug 5-20 tCO2/ha/yr on 1,413,180,000 ha arable ground and 3,377,388,400 ha pasture. Now consider it improves both yields and profits at the same time. Tell us again I am exaggerating when I say “only”?
Do it for me. I have nothing to run any models on and my math sucks. Interested in the results. As for a mother of all models, I came up with this back in 2008, published it in 2009. You wanna provide a true pathway forward, let’s do this: World Simulation
Re Lillian John: Can’t find anything. I came up with the idea of incubators on my own. I read few theorists because the books are too expensive, extensive info about the books are available in various ways or, more commonly, I am not interested in being told what a thing is; I want to start from, “What is this thing, it’s essence?” I.e., First Principles. For me, it involved many different bits of info that coalesced into the idea of RCI’s in a flash… as these things usually do for me. To put it very, very simply, I was thinking of trying to get each Occupy group to take on permaculture as a core concept, thus, if successful, Occupy would passively ramp up the spread of permaculture. When that quickly died, the idea had already come to me of seeding cities with neighborhood General Assemblies to get whole cities linked together and get thye fractal governance of the city going. At the time, it was transformational as a concept, but after Occupy that fractal neighborhood GA/City GA idea percolated and I realized the same could be applied to spreading ecovillagey communities *and* governance. In terms of governance, it thought of it as a sort of citizens’ check and balance. Later, it became a way to transition from current governance to regenerative governance.
So, whomever this person is, whatever their concept is, I definitely did not get it from them. Whether they got it from me, i do not know.
Re #199, let’s take the last first. Kevin McKinney said Clearly, those who dislike technological optimism will not like this report (yes, Killian, I’m thinking that will include you–no offense intended.)
Let’s do be accurate: I do not dislike technical optimism. I have some, myself. I think if we are careful with our resources and stop using the great majority of them, we will have an opportunity in the future to reach out to the heavens and start bringing resources in, thus regaining some comfort level and complexity, but there is absolutely no way we get to that point without a massive die-off if we do not simplify first.
“CCL is clueless.”
I disagree. CCL is not trying to achieve permanent sustainability, it is trying to achieve near-immediate term political reform.
How is that not clueless? No degree of reform is going to turn a power-based, hierarchical, patriarchal system into a regenerative system. Talk about spitting in the wind.
It has been argued that only the former matters, but I think in the real world it matters how bad the situation actually is when the current paradigm ‘withers away’
And how does any degree of political change get us to a better world? Capitalism and republics do not, I repeat, do not, cannot, will not, lead to anything different than the last 200+ years. The 20/80 rule applies. We never get too far afield because the systems in place simply *can’t* do so and continue to function.
Waste of time.
people buy less of anything (including fossil-fueled energy) when it is more expensive.
Or they just burn/destroy something else. EV’s give us only 25% improivement on GHG’s, e.g., while creating new environmental problems.
Moreover, CCL has at least a couple of IMO highly valuable attributes. One, it creates and organizes a community of folks active around climate policy.
Who do not listen to people who know more than they do.
Two, its structure, centered around the weekly call, provides an ongoing program of informal education on the topic.
Or would, if they would listen, but they won;’t because they love thems lattes, they does! Look, when Hansen was talking Cap and Dividend years ago, I was excited. I remember suggesting it to CCL then and being rebuffed. They now claim they were on it all along… .whatever. Regardless, it was a viable concept at the time, or so it seemed, because I thought, foolishly, we could transform this system. I have since realized we cannot due to the inherent characterisitics and principles upon which current systems are based.
We cannot get there from here, so…
Here is how we *can* make use of C&D, and the only way it becomes worth doing:
http://aperfectstormcometh.blogspot.kr/2008/03/build-out-grid-vs-household-towards.html
On another topic, I found this paper quite interesting:
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/585c3439be65942f022bbf9b/t/590a650de4fcb5f1d7b6d96b/1493853480288/Rethinking+Transportation_May_FINAL.pdf
It’s the inaugural “Rethink X” paper on transportation, which has created some small buzz. The essential thesis is that once autonomous electric vehicles are approved, a drastic wave of disruption will be unleashed, with “Transportation as a service” (TaaS) becoming a new paradigm and virtually completely supplanting traditional car (and truck) ownership, as well as manufacturing. That follows from purely economic logic–for a starter example, the paper calculates that the average American household will save about $5600 annually by switching from individual ownership to TaaS. Moreover, this disruption will be highly non-linear, based on the cost curves of existing tech, and will consequently be nearly complete on a roughly decadal timescale.
For our purposes, the most significant impact will be the decimation of oil demand on a global basis, and a consequent drastic decrease in CO2 emissions.
Cars are a no-go. Let them eat their cake, but it is made of cardboard. Is it possible? Sure. Will it help? No. It will make things worse. It will make people think they have saved the world and **extend** the time line to reaching truly regenerative systems. Always remember opportunity cost. Apply that to CCL, too: Their activism is suicidal more because of what they are **not** advocating than because of what they are.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/index.html
They need to make a new 5yr/monthly graph before the end of the month. Or May will be off the “chart”
Very slow in the agw/cc chatter world atm….. lazing in a deck chair alaska to the east sipping on pina coladas and watching the ice crack up and float away.
Nice “poster” summary A. McD, very well written it was, clear, understandable what you are saying … at least imho. thx.
Wait n see huh? :-)
Oh, dear, Zhang et al. has, Richard Telford points out, published a ‘correlation by eyeball’ sun-affects-climate analysis:>
https://quantpalaeo.wordpress.com/author/richardjamest/
I’d have put it on Tamino’s site but didn’t find an appropriate thread open.
Last Week
May 14 – 20, 2017 410.36 ppm
May 14 – 20, 2016 407.39 ppm
per CO2.earth
nuff said,
Mike
205 Killian says: “I thought, foolishly, we could transform this system. I have since realized we cannot due to the inherent characteristics and principles upon which current systems are based. AND
“CCL, too: Their activism is suicidal more because of what they are **not** advocating than because of what they are.”
Nailed it. But you’re still wasting your breath and pixels K. Nothing is going to change anytime soon, or at all. More likely get far worse. The good super smart scientists are not going to save anyone either.
We’re in a leaky boat in the middle of a pacific tornado and everyone is going down with the ship… the good the bad and the ugly.
Including those who are visionary and right, only half right and endlessly barking up the wrong trees, the big mouths and the silent, those who have never even heard of climate change yet as they eek out a living in garbage dump, and those who are totally wrong as well about agw/cc and WTF to do about it.
Did you play red rover decades ago at school? It’s all over red rover. And so it doesn’t matter anymore what anyone does or says now.
Go live your life be happy doing what you love …. the survivors will work it all out for themselves in the future. That’s Life mate.
Hank Roberts @207,
Your link to Zhang et at (2017) isn’t working. This link gives the full paper.
And Hadcrut has posted for April and as per Gistemp & NOAA, it shows continuing ”scorchyisimo!!!” The April global anomaly is again down on the heights of March (+0.88°C) & Feb (+0.84°C) to +0.74ºC, again equal to that of January.
April 2017 becomes =14th hottest month on the full record (=19th in Gistemp, =12th in NOAA) and again the 2nd hottest April on record (behind 1st-place April 2016 (+0.91ºC) and well ahead of the pack (3rd-place April 2010 +0.68ºC, 4th-place April 2015 +0.67ºC and 5th-place April 2014 +0.67ºC, the first 3 places identical in order to Gistemp & NOAA).
The start of 2017 also remains ”scorchyisimo!!!” with first four months of 2017 still head-&-shoulders above the first four months of all other years excepting last year which was of course boosted by an El Nino (this all as per Gisemp/NOAA). The first-4-months HadCRUT averages (with eventual annual averages) look like this:-
.. .. 1st 4 months .. Annual ave
2016 .. +0.99ºC .. .. +0.77ºC
2017 .. +0.80ºC
2015 .. +0.69ºC .. .. +0.76ºC
2002 .. +0.63ºC .. .. +0.50ºC
2007 .. +0.62ºC .. .. +0.49ºC
2010 .. +0.62ºC .. .. +0.56ºC
1998 .. +0.61ºC .. .. +0.54ºC
2004 .. +0.53ºC .. .. +0.45ºC
2005 .. +0.53ºC .. .. +0.55ºC
2014 .. +0.52ºC .. .. +0.56ºC
As a non-El Nino year, the eventual annual avergase for 2017 could well be warmer than the average for its first 4 months.
Daily CO2
May 21, 2017: 409.91 ppm
May 21, 2016: 407.21 ppm
How are we doing with CO2 emissions?
https://www.carbonbrief.org/half-global-population-could-face-unknown-climates-by-mid-century
“You can see some of their results in the maps below for a moderate emissions scenario called RCP4.5. It’s worth noting that current emissions are tracking above RCP4.5, close to the highest emissions scenario used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (RCP8.5).”
Underlying study: https://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate3297.html
Frame et. al. refine the idea of “time of emergence” by adding factor of localized variability of weather patterns. So, in a region that has high variability of weather (noise) the signal of climate change will not be recognized as quickly as it would be in a region that has had low variability of weather. This makes sense. I mull this and think, oh, this suggests that populations in the HV (high variability) regions may be slow to move forward with support for change needed to bring the carbon cycle back to a balanced state.
I expect there may be some exceptions – like equatorial coastal communities or sub-Arctic regions – that may have had low variability weather historically – where impact from one presentation of global warming (sea level rise or loss, loss of sea ice, thawing of tundra, etc.) will bring an earlier “time of emergence” sensibility to the resident populations.
This makes me wonder if the continental US might be a region of historically high variability where the time of emergence might happen later than it would in most other regions of the world.
Of course, another consideration is population density. If you are considering socio-political response to global warming by our species another factor in the potential responses is population density and the power to respond and make changes that might alter/reduce the CO2 emissions. An example of that: the resident human population of the WAIS might experience the time of emergence early and easily through ice loss, but since there are so few actual human residents, the early time of emergence is academic because of population density and the special characteristics of the small population that spends much time in a place like Antarctica. It’s not Joe the Plumber studying things down in Antarctica, if you follow my meaning…
got to repeat one part: “It’s worth noting that current emissions are tracking above RCP4.5, close to the highest emissions scenario used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (RCP8.5).”
That is the ball game. We have to bring the CO2 number in the atmosphere down and we are failing at this time.
Warm regards
Mike
#208 Mike:
Thanks for keeping us aware of the CO2 readings which are, of course, in the first order of importance. As they go up the chances of a livable world for future generations goes down. I hope to live to see the day when they reverse and start heading downward, but am not optimistic.
Incidentally, here are some recently observed corollaries of the Dunning-Kruger effect (the phenomenon wherein persons of low cognitive ability — those who lost in the genetic lottery that passed out brains — suffer from illusory superiority when they mistakenly assess their ability as greater than it is):
— persons of low cognitive ability will bestow illusory superiority on opinion-makers (writers, commentators, politicians, scientists) whom they find worthy of admiration. They will use the term “brilliant” to describe someone who is disseminating absolute nonsense.
— persons of low cognitive ability will find illusory inferiority in opinion-makers who do not support their pet theories. They will use the term “idiocy” to describe a presentation by someone who is simply reporting real-world facts or peer-reviewed scientific findings.
— persons of low cognitive ability will be impervious to superior arguments with which are at odds with their preconceptions. No amount of patience and rationality will work with them because, unfortunately, they do not have the mental firepower to grasp where the truth lies.
Warm regards,
S.B. Ripman
Killian, thanks for your thoughts in #205.
You said:
Guess we’ll have to disagree on that. I don’t believe that all “power-based, hierarchical, patriarchal” systems are functionally the same, nor do I believe that such characteristics are immutable. In fact, I think the patriarchy is visibly tottering in much of the developed world. Trumpism is a remarkable symptom thereof, I think.
I also think that hierarchy is in some sense unavoidable. It didn’t start with humans, and while different human societies do embody it in varying degrees, I doubt there is any that is completely hierarchy-free–hunter-gather bands still have leaders. Unless, perhaps, you are using a definition which uses some sort of institutional (as opposed to provisional, personally-based) hierarchy?
In any case, I think it does matter what the current system does or does not do between, say, tomorrow and 2030. If CCL were to get a carbon tax measure passed–say, in 2019, it would not by itself create a sustainable society–of course. But it would make it a lot easier for small farmers to compete with industrial ag; it would make it a lot easier for EVs to displace ICEs, with consequent emissions reductions amounting to a large fraction of the US national total (at last EIA analysis, IIRC 31% of the national total was transportation); and it would accelerate the greening of the whole power generation infrastructure. Not perfect, but a hell of a lot better than the status quo–and this at a time when bending the Keeling Curve downward is a matter of considerable urgency.
You view it as something that will “**extend** the time line to reaching truly regenerative systems”; I think rather that it is more likely to prove something that will “**extend** the time available [for] reaching truly regenerative systems.” It isn’t an either/or between reform and radical change. Reform may well lead to radical change–if one is lucky, it may even do so by an incremental route. There are several nations around today which vividly illustrate this–I was born in one of them (and it’s across the Detroit River from you!)
I appreciate your comments on the ReThink paper as well, but I wonder if you actually read the whole thing? It isn’t just that substitution of EVs for ICEs occurs; it’s that if their analysis is correct, private car ownership drops by 95%. Total production of cars drops by 70%. One of the things the report envisions is a merging of the TaaS paradigm into public transit, and even the possibility of advertising-funded transportation.
The bottom line is that the TaaS model would be a *much* more efficient use of resources. Could you keep building autonomous EVs forever? I don’t see why not, especially as total population drops. There’s enough material with solar energy and sophisticated recycling to keep building them for a very, very long time. If you want to keep the Internet going (as you’ve advocated in the past, and as for another example McKibben does in “Eaarth”) then I think that you are going to need transportation for the computers, infrastructure, and so forth, and you are going to need sophisticated manufacturing capabilities, all of which also have *their* transportation needs. (NB.–ReThink also expect TaaS to become the operative paradigm for trucking.)
Lastly, let me throw in another appreciation–that is for the concept of authority inhering in the local community and being delegated upward as necessary. My first thought was “Sure, like that’s going to happen!” But I quickly recalled that an upward delegation of authority is in fact the essential model of both Canadian and American governments (and any others properly classed as federal). The states/provinces are the primary loci of power, with power going to the national government only as specified for particular purposes. (Of course that model has been eroded in practice over time, but nonetheless it is the ‘default’.) Why, then, would it be impossible for a similar dynamic to exist at lower structural levels as well? Can’t think of a reason why it *couldn’t*, though I can certainly think of reasons why it might not be in particular cases. (Most of them are instantiations of cynical realpolitik, of course. NC bathroom bill, anyone?)
214
Kevin McKinney, some quotes from the RethinkX and comments:
A disruption is when new products and services create a new market and significantly weaken, transform or destroy existing product categories, markets or industries.
Not new and already well known in ‘power circles’. Rupert Murdoch was giving speeches about disruption over 5 years ago fwiw. The western world’s best known neoliberal libertarian free market economics is everything proponent. Something Pinochet adopted as national economic policy immediately he took power in a US backed coup in 1974. Disruption is not new is my key point. The ICE put horse and cart transportation out of business to and the disruption was managed. Society survived. A proprietary “Seba Technology Disruption Framework™” analysis was not required then, and I doubt it’s needed now. Personal opinion and exp.
You say: “if their analysis is correct, private car ownership drops by 95%. Total production of cars drops by 70%.” between now and 2030!!! 12 years? Seriously? Just the USA or globally?
RethinkX claims … the impact of the collapse of oil prices throughout the oil industry value chain will be felt as soon as 2021 ….. the number of passenger vehicles on American roads will drop from 247 million to 44 million ….. [yeah, a 92% drop] ….. 70% fewer passenger cars
and trucks will be manufactured each year…. [ do you have GM or Exxon shares? Expecting any tax receipts from them and their employees in the next dozen years? Will the new unemployed all drive for EV Uber then? ] See what I am getting at, perhaps, maybe?
Is this “economic analysis” really credible or been tested by anyone or been peer reviewed by reputable academic processes or does it actually belong in the really compelling science fiction shelves?
Quote: TaaS will provide 95% of the passenger miles traveled within 10 years of the widespread regulatory approval of AVs. By 2030, individually owned ICE vehicles will still represent 40% of the vehicles in the U.S. vehicle fleet, but they will provide just 5% of passenger miles. AND
The aim of this research is to start a conversation and focus decision-makers’ attention ….. That = POLITICIANS = the same one’s who taken all that speedy action on Climate science the last 37 years — THEM? Those people? The one’s funded by the BAU establishment and spending all the Taxes and currently shutting down anything climate related at Fed Govt level?
Really? Those “movers and shakers” and the Corps that own them?
Then they repeat that phrase again as if saying it twice will make it happen in a a dozen years – Quote: “The aim of this research is to start a conversation and focus decision-makers’ attention…“
Did you ever see The Castle movie, the line that goes “Tell ’em their dreaming!” ???
While RethinkX are crunching their “algorithms” and printing “lovely reports”, and while “you talk” and “others talk” those in power are actually doing things, are not listening, and do not care one bit anyway.
Voters even less – even if they actually had the time and the brains to understand anything in the first place.
I put it to you that the RethinkX Transportation Report is a “marketing tool” based purely on self-interest as a money making business opportunity – no different than Judith Curry moving into Private Weather Forecasting using cutting edge algorithms …. similar to the ones that drove “traditional” banks and financial equities corporation over a cliff in 2008.
Because Kevin, that is the basis of these kinds of “software programs” – they can be slightly re-engineered into producing GCMs as well. Doesn’t mean the output is worth a plum nickle or fit for purpose.
Buyer beware …. talk is cheap. Snake OIl salesman didn’t disappear in the early 1900s when selling heroin and opium laced health cures was finally banned.
Seriously… http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/gullible
213 S.B. Ripman,
Rhetorical question: Are the following people of “low cognitive ability”?
Judith Curry, Koch brothers, Tol, Lindzen, Spencer, Bob Carter, John Christy, Roger Pielke Snr./Jr., Lord Lawson etc etc plus Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump and those that run ALEC, Clexit Coalition, FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity, Heritage Foundation, Marshall Institute, Cato Institute and the American Enterprise Institute, the IPA, ExxonMobil etc?
212 mike, during the time of the Kyoto Protocol it took me a couple of years in my spare time to get my head around the TAR (2001) and global Energy Use data and projections. By the time I got to read the AR4 (2007) well I was LOL and shaking my head over the RCPs …. I knew then we traveling RCP8.5 and nothing known at that time was going to change that. years later I got to read and watch Kevin Anderson lectures and analysis (and other’s good work like Hansen). Nothing was a surprise then, only disappointing. Nothing is surprising now a DECADE LATER.
I do not need to read this. https://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate3297.html Frankly I consider it a waste of my and everyone else’s time.
What could it possibly say that everyone reading this site shouldn’t already have known long long ago?
Hey Mike, yes mate, you’re 100% correct, we gotta get that CO2 ppm down … not going to happen!
Talking about it here or anywhere will not change a single thing nor stop one less molecule from hitting the atmosphere.
In psychology there’s this thing called “a window of tolerance”. AS clearly explained since the 1980’s in Climate Science know-how there was this thing called “a window of opportunity.”
It’s gone. Let it go and move on (is my tip.)
#213 S. B. Ripman:
“— persons of low cognitive ability will bestow illusory superiority on opinion-makers (writers, commentators, politicians, scientists) whom they find worthy of admiration. They will use the term “brilliant” to describe someone who is disseminating absolute nonsense.
— persons of low cognitive ability will find illusory inferiority in opinion-makers who do not support their pet theories. They will use the term “idiocy” to describe a presentation by someone who is simply reporting real-world facts or peer-reviewed scientific findings.
— persons of low cognitive ability will be impervious to superior arguments with which are at odds with their preconceptions. No amount of patience and rationality will work with them because, unfortunately, they do not have the mental firepower to grasp where the truth lies.”
Thanks, S.B. (Finally someone who gets it!)
:-)
A seriously scary look at the future of global food production, mostly under pressure by China, from Bloomberg in several articles.
https://www.google.com/search?q=bloomberg+china+global+food
“some of these dudes are pretty cynical” — G.W. Bush, on heads of government worldwide.
The amount of pesticide and fertilizer being used is scary, when you look at where it’s going to end up.
Re #214 Kevin McKinney said Killian said:
No degree of reform is going to turn a power-based… system into a regenerative system…
Guess we’ll have to disagree on that. I don’t believe that all “power-based, hierarchical, patriarchal” systems are functionally the same, nor do I believe that such characteristics are immutable.
Nothing to disagreee on: 1. Has never happened. 2. Irrelevant: Regenerative systems cannot be that way. Doesn’t matter what you believe; what matters are the principles and characteristics of the two.
I also think that hierarchy is in some sense unavoidable… while different human societies do embody it in varying degrees, I doubt there is any that is completely hierarchy-free–hunter-gather bands still have leaders.
False. Some may have leaders. Typically, there are simply more and less trusted people who *seem* to function as leaders, but in reality are trusted with greater responsibility, not power. This is the pattern to follow if you need a nominal leader to feel happy about yourself. Otherwise, truly egalitarian societies *do* exist, whether you want to “believe” it or not.
In any case, I think it does matter what the current system does or does not do between, say, tomorrow and 2030.
Never said it didn’t. I said what people who understand the context need to to do is get on with creating the new system. The danger of your approach is exactly what we observe: It’s the easiest road (maintain status quo and paint it green), so is the one that gets funding attention, participation. The real work of saving us from ourselves lies elsewhere. Now, if you couldfocus the great majority of energy on transitioning while intentionally keeping a small bit of energy going into political change, then fine. But it needs to be understood for what it is (stop-gap, minimal impact) and be intentionally planned within the greater context of simplification.
If CCL were to get a carbon tax measure passed–say, in 2019… easier for small farmers to compete… for EVs to displace ICEs, with consequent emissions reductions…
Simplification dos this faster, more completely. Why seek the lesser option?
would accelerate the greening of the whole power generation infrastructure.
Already have enough in the U.S. for simplification. Why build more rather than shrink consumption down to the level we must get to anyway?
You view it as something that will “**extend** the time line to reaching truly regenerative systems”; I think rather that it is more likely to prove something that will “**extend** the time available [for] reaching truly regenerative systems.”
Terrible risk assessment. First, the reductions you speak of do not end emissions, they merely slow growth of atmospheric totals, at best. When the current load is already creating havoc, slowing to 1 or 2 ppm/yr is meaningless. Second, are you psychic? Do you know when tipping points are occurring/going to occur?
This point is sufficient for your entire post. To even bother with all your caveats and alternatives you have to dismiss the risk.
It isn’t an either/or between reform and radical change. Reform may well lead to radical change–if one is lucky, it may even do so by an incremental route. There are several nations around today which vividly illustrate this–I was born in one of them (and it’s across the Detroit River from you!)
See above. And, you are wrong. There is no historical precedent on the scale we are talking about, I think maybe you just don’t see the depth and breadth of the changes needed.
Will have to get to the rest later. Short for time, so comments are a bit terse,
Cheers
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170523082009.htm
Has anybody read the paper referenced at the link above
Joshua Krissansen-Totton, David C. Catling. Constraining climate sensitivity and continental versus seafloor weathering using an inverse geological carbon cycle model. Nature Communications, 2017; 8: 15423 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15423
It would be interesting to see what David Archer and others think about this article.
Re 214 Kevin McKinney said, Part II It isn’t an either/or between reform and radical change. Reform may well lead to radical change
No, it won’t, because it doesn’t. Not on this scale. This is not a matter of tweaking where the power lies or which party holds power, or even as large a change as from English monarchy > U.S. This is way beyond that. We are talking about fundamentals; changing the **basis** upon which society functions, the assumptions, the principles.
There are no exemplars for this kind of shift. You will not get there from here.
it may even do so by an incremental route.
If one wants to ignore risk. Why risk it when you have options that do not?
There are several nations around today which vividly illustrate this–I was born in one of them (and it’s across the Detroit River from you!)
No, there aren’t and no, you weren’t. I haven’t been in Detroit for years.
EVs for ICEs… ownership drops by 95%. Total production of cars drops by 70%… merging of the TaaS paradigm into public transit… more efficient
Who cares? More efficient isn’t the goal. And Jeavons’. (Which is why such incremental change leads to growth, not change.) Why in the world do this when *any* other system is far more efficient? Trains, trolleys, etc., all are better. This is a non-solution intended for people who will not let go their metaphorical latte.
you keep building autonomous EVs forever? I don’t see why not
Then you do not understand much of anything about resources, production, energy, recycling, etc. Not even going to bother trying to convince you because such a statement belies a dearth of knowledge to vast for this space.
especially as total population drops. There’s enough material with solar energy and sophisticated recycling to keep building them for a very, very long time.
Liebig’s Law. Look it up. And this:
Resources
If you want to keep the Internet going… then I think that you are going to need transportation …manufacturing
Not cars. 1. We recognize it is unsustainable. 2. We minimize to absolute need, primarily for long-distance, inter-bio-region transport.
authority inhering in the local community and being delegated upward… upward delegation of authority is in fact the essential model of both Canadian and American governments
Not really. Also, not authority, and I need to change the use of “delegated.” Responsibility is more accurate, and is based on scale of the problem, not authority or power in any sense.
Empty lot > neighborhood/small town.
Water supply > starts at home, but could be addressed at home, neighborhood, city, regional and bio-regional scales.
Water Main > neighborhood/city.
Watershed > bio-region, but all levels likely need consulting. Solutions cannot violate smaller scales rights.
Food > Best at home and neighborhood, but planning may need to be at all scales in some locations.
Emergencies > Special decision-making authority and structures needed at all levels as egalitarian is slow and poorly fitted to emergencies. Good prep and planning should allow for a work group to deal with this, thus allowing the overall structure to *not* be abrogated in some emergencies. Must have a pathway for reversion to normal operating process.
The states/provinces are the primary loci of power, with power going to the national government only as specified for particular purposes.
in theory.
Underlying all of this is the risk assessment, physical reality and awareness that solutions really do exist. Without those things, people have no reason to not be selfish.
#211 The third syllable of “scorchyisimo” is spelled with two s’s, Mr. Rodger, as any musician will tell you. But spelling it correctly wouldn’t make it any less tiresome.
In any case, I see no point in your obsession with monthly vagaries of temperature. If temps continue to go up for the next few years, you’ll see that as confirmation of your precious climate change “consensus” — and if they dip downward, as well they might, you’ll see that as due to the difference between “weather” and “climate.” So you can’t lose, can you?
Only you have already lost: because a theory that can’t be falsified is NOT a scientific theory. Unless, of course, you expect us to hang around for another 50 years to see what will REALLY happen, “long term.” I, for one, can’t wait. See you then. :-)
At least a few scientists and academics do get it. No enough, but some is better than none at all imo.
May 24th 2017 – Scientists really aren’t the best champions of climate science Why aren’t facts enough to get us to act on global warming? by Andy Murdock, University of California
sample quote “Veerabhadran “Ram” Ramanathan, an atmospheric scientist at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, has been publishing on climate change for more than 40 years, dating back to the early 1970s when he discovered the greenhouse effect of CFCs. But his finest moment in scientific communication was not in a prestigious journal or a global climate conference.”
https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/5/24/15680542/scientists-climate-change-facts
Read it, allow it to sink in, if at all possible.
Of course still nothing will change. Public outreach Climate scientists will not adjust their approach nor seek out proper training. So the history books may well be noting that in the late 20th and early 21st century fame does not equal effectiveness nor leadership ability when it comes to communicating the looming dangers of climate change to the world at that time.
2017 May 24th on Planet Earth
Environmental lawyers say advice means reef might finally be listed as a ‘world heritage site in danger’- The central aim of the government’s plan to protect the Great Barrier Reef is no longer achievable due to the dramatic impacts of climate change, experts have told the government’s advisory committees for the plan.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/25/great-barrier-reef-2050-plan-no-longer-achievable-due-to-climate-change-experts-say
“At some point there will be a collapse, and if and when it happens, it’s gone forever – no amount of money in the universe can bring it back,” said Prof Tomasz Wesołowski, a forest biologist at the University of Wrocław who has been conducting fieldwork in Białowieża for each of the last 43 years. “With every tree cut, we are closer to this point of no return.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/23/worst-nightmare-europes-last-primeval-forest-brink-collapse-logging
Group ‘Polish Mothers on Tree Stumps’ breastfeed their babies
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/07/polish-law-change-unleashes-massacre-of-trees
We can feed an extra 4 billion people a year if we reject the bloated and wasteful factory farming systems that are endangering our planet’s biodiversity and wildlife, said farming campaigner Philip Lymbery on Monday night, launching a global campaign to Stop the Machine.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/24/calls-to-reform-food-system-factory-farming-belongs-in-a-museum
Do not be alarmed – Normal programming will resume shortly.
216 killian. not the same as you are about but some aspects are close. another voice in the wilderness, but interesting ideas in that he nails the causes of the problem and lays out the problem clearly. imho.
https://youtu.be/fVBknoOSVIQ?t=14m27s
killian #216 – I think you’re right about the difficulty of dealing with the impending clash of resources and civilization. The CCL proposal for a Tax-and-Dividend plan to “solve” the climate change dilemma is likely to fail, even if it were possible to be enacted. The ultimate problem is at the level of the consumer, the person who actually makes the choice to participate in the urban/suburban model of life on Earth which has evolved after the Industrial Revolution. The message from the data has been clear to me since working on the energy side of the situation back in ’74, when the finite reality of fossil fuels became central to my thinking.
As you note, the other resources we rely upon are derived from concentrations of minerals which are themselves in limited supply. These mineral concentrations represent stored chemical energy, much like the stores of solar energy contained within fossil fuels. Of course, we have the knowledge to produce these materials in high purity from diffuse sources, but doing so requires the application of energy from other sources. Recycling materials from scrap also requires energy and the recovery is never 100%.
Building EV’s to replace all the cars now on the road would require massive quantities of lithium and recycling those batteries would inevitably result in losses. When a car is wrecked, there is often a loss of some chemicals at the spot, a process which occurs over and over again on the roads. And, as Amory Lovins once said, EV’s are “elsewhere polluters” in that the electricity must be generated and transported into the batteries of each EV. That said, we know that there are technologies presently available to produce vehicles for personal transport which can achieve much higher MPG with low CO2 emissions. I think we don’t yet know how to make them look like today’s cars which are able to run 80 mph or faster on a freeway and which exhibit a reasonable level of crash safety, all at low cost. A prime example of such a vehicle is the VW 1-Litre, which employed fore-and-aft seating coupled with a small diesel engine in a hybrid configuration. A great idea, but where can I buy one at a competitive price today, more than 15 years after the first version was introduced? The latest version, the XL1, was to begin limited production back in 2013 at a price of €111,000. One would think that a punishing carbon tax would be necessary to entice the average Joe Six Pack to buy one and give up his monster 4×4 PU.
So, killian, I conclude that you are right to suggest that some sort of revolutionary transition would be required to switch our world economy away from it’s present course. Not exactly a new idea, as the history of 19th century Europe showed. The French Revolution(s) and later socialist thinkers like Marx ultimately resulted in the Russian Revolution, after many twists and turns. We know how that turned out, sad to say. The world will eventually reach a sustainable equilibrium, if only as the result of the ultimate depletion of fossil fuels and the reduction of food production per capita as population growth continues and climate changes in disruptive ways. The Syrian situation was heavily influenced by a severe drought which resulted in massive crop failures and another failure of the Indian Monsoon could potentially destabilize all of southeast Asia , (SEE: Great Famine of 1876–78, ~5 million deaths).
Like it or not, we are all along for the ride as humanity heads toward the cliff. Pass the popcorn and another beer, it’s time for the TRUMP SHOW…
“What do you really think about geoengineering? ‘
About as much as the new talking head of the EPA:
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2017/05/trump-epa-director-welcomes-hand-of.html
POTUS glad handilng in Riyadh:
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2017/05/trump-epa-director-welcomes-hand-of.html
Re 202 where Killian writes in reply to my post saying: You may find this poster that I presented at PAGES 2017 10 days ago interesting.
“Interesting. Key seems to be the idea of CO2 saturation. But if extension past the archipelago leads to cooling, what extent of loss leads in the other direction?”
We have seen in the past what happens. At the end of the Younger Dryas stadial, when the sea ice in the GIN Seas disappeared, temperatures in Greenland jumped by 20C in a matter of three years! Temperatures in Western Europe jumped from sub glacial to temperate. During the previous inter-glacial, the Eemian, when the Arctic was possibly ice free, temperatures in Western Europe were several degrees warmer than present.
If,when the Arctic sea ice melts, we get a repeat of the scale of changes which happened at the Younger Dryas termination, then agriculture will be severely disrupted within a period of a few years!
Re 206 where Thomas writes:
“Nice “poster” summary A. McD, very well written it was, clear, understandable what you are saying … at least imho. thx.
Wait n see huh? :-)”
Thanks for reading my poster and the nice comment, but I had hoped it would make more impact than wait and see.
It has been claimed that on the approach to a tipping point being reached the system shows signs of instability. We have seen record lows in September sea ice extent in 1996, 2007, and 2012. Are these warning us that the Arctic sea ice is about to go the same way as the GIN Sea ice?
Here is a new direct link to the poster for those who have not yet read it: Abrupt Climate Change explained by an old scheme for outgoing long wave radiation.
Killian @ 204,
Your math sucks? That bad really? approx 36 GtCO2e is our emission level and approx 1/2 of that is already handled primarily by current sinks.(15-20 Gt/yr)
So changing agriculture to regenerative models first lowers emissions by approx 20% +/- that gets us down to 30 GtCO2
Then we directly sequester carbon at the rate of 5-20 tCO2/ha/yr x approx 5 Gha = 25-100 Gt/yr.
30 Gt/yr – 25 Gt/yr = 5 Gt/yr -*
30 Gt/yr – 100 Gt/yr = – 70 Gt/yr -*
*- approx 15-20 Gt/yr natural ecosystem sinks currently functioning.
That’s without reducing fossil fuel use in any other sector besides agriculture!!!!!
With current technology and methods backed by multiple 10 year case studies measuring soil carbon.
If you can’t handle simplified math like that, no wonder you are missing systems science when it is staring you square in the face!
The mathless answer is the atmospheric C02 levels start dropping like a rock, twice as fast as they went up. How fast depends on how fast the oceans outgas CO2. They might start fizzing like a coke! That’s how fast we can end this whole debate with regenerative ag. Ocean acidification..solved…food production ….solved… water crisis … solved… economies… booming even faster than any time in recorded history… taxes? … dropping like a rock, probably faster than atmospheric CO2. Remember vast vast vast sums of tax money are being spent to subsidize those sectors of the economy causing BOTH poverty AND global farming. It’s expensive to manipulate worldwide markets into moving against profits. a HUGE amount of money is being spent to ensure AGW doesn’t get solved and people stay poor.
https://www.quora.com/What-former-U-S-President-do-you-despise-most/answer/Scott-Strough
Killian, thanks again for your comments. I won’t try to address each, particularly as we are already pushing the bounds of topicality on some of them.
However, a few responses. I’m not so much arguing, as giving you feedback on how I see it–which continues to be quite differently than you. May be right, may not, but this is how it is computing for me right now.
1)
Well, we are here–so we’d better hope we can get ‘there’ somehow, no? It’s disingenuous to talk about ‘which party holds power’, when it is really about the concrete actions those parties may take. Yes, it’s hard to change fundamentals. But it can be done, and it can be done incrementally in democratic ways. And yes, Canadian independence did come about via just such a process, as did various other nations.
2)
But it is one of your principles: don’t waste stuff.
Sorry, out of time. More later.
How the Food Industry is Cooking the Planet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeDS7-lPg4M
Australian alternative fact mill , Principia Institute International has issued a second book for Sky Dragon slayers who like their thermodynamics upside down and their radiative transfer backwards.
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2017/05/get-me-office-of-presidential-sky.html
Uh, oh. Paging Peter Ward …
——-
Upper ocean O2 trends: 1958–2015
Authors
Takamitsu Ito, Shoshiro Minobe, Matthew C. Long, Curtis Deutsch
First Published:
9 May 2017
Vol:
44,
Pages:
4214–4223
DOI:
10.1002/2017GL073613
Key Points
A widespread negative O2 trend is beginning to emerge from the envelope of interannual variability
The global ocean O2 inventory is negatively correlated with the global ocean heat content
Variability and trends in the observed upper ocean O2 concentration are dominated by the apparent oxygen utilization
Agw/cc action? It’s 100% politics and activism all the way down. The science is barely the starting gun. eg.
The anti-Adani effort links in to coordinated global efforts by the environment movement to stop new coalmines. #StopAdani (and the associated activities) is the environmental movement’s equivalent of a multinational corporation – with Queensland the local frontline of a global, anti-coal offensive.
#StopAdani is the biggest environmental campaign seen in this country since the Franklin campaign in the 1980s.
It is well-organised, rolling out in communities (there have been 320 events nationally over the past few months, and another 60 are in the calendar). The issue thunders through social media and reverberates through mainstream press coverage.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/27/federal-labor-feels-the-heat-over-adani-and-coalition-is-sweating-too
It’s logical, it’s rational, it’s even scientific (if you think about it a little bit). If you really want to reduce CO2 emissions and minimise future climate changes then do not sit back and let the next massive new coal mine open without a fight.
Simple really. It’s not rocket science or climate science. It’s plain common sense actually. Doesn’t matter what your job is, what your training is in, nor how old you are, nor what party you like to vote for, nor where on earth you happen to live. It’s the same answer every time #StopAdani
If you say you want to stop agw/cc and that you back the science but are not doing something now to #StopAdani -no matter how little-no matter where you live- then there’s a strong possibility you could be just another hypocrite.
More than 74 hours to get a comment posted? Yeah right. Looks like my prediction/thesis about RC was correct. It’s all over. It’s finished.
V 224: a theory that can’t be falsified is NOT a scientific theory.
BPL: You can falsify AGW easily–just show that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas, or is not rising, or is not anthropogenic.
> It’s all over. It’s finished.
— Auden
Could the new declaration of war against coal by Trump National Economic Councilor Cohn herald post G-7 concesssions on the Paris Agreement?
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2017/05/in-paris-agreement-concession-trump-to.html
Really nice paper describing a soliton on a glacier at doi:10.1002/2017GL073478
Gigaton size lump of ice going down Rink glacier outbound from Greenland. Do any ice models describe this at all ?
sidd
You guys have been debating Climate Change for many years and obviously it is getting us nowhere, specially recently in the US, Australia and even EU. Might it be a good idea to accept that all life on our world, first grows slowly, then blooms and dies. Our bloom was the previous century. This century is NOT hopeful, but part of that natural cycle. Eventually we will also use ALL nuclear power, exhaust all our resources, fight with everyone for more and sex will require a special permit. In 60s, Kennedy gave humanity hope for a continued existence, but in the 00s, while slowly boiling in a pot of water, we mainly concern ourselves with our own current comforts. Climate Change activists are greatly to blame for that, attacking people’s way of life and putting them on the defensive. I no longer enjoy nature documentaries, cause they always point out, how beautiful it was and how we are destroying it. The navel gazing in AUS includes a national apology for invading the place 200 years ago??? The EU has at least 2000 years of apologizing to do and the US should now apologize for dropping the ball. Maybe Trump is right and we should just make the most of what we’ve got left. But instead of letting that flower die, maybe we can use some seeds or clone it and plant it in someone else’s garden. And no apologies needed, after all, survival belongs to the fittest !
#231 Alastair McDonald, “I had hoped it would make more impact than wait and see.” Sorry you misunderstand me, it’s wasn’t a comment about yoru work. I am speaking from a pov of where I have been for over a decade already. It’s a global experiment with an obvious result where the detailed specifics of who/what is “right” no longer matters.
Most will freak out at the CO2 saturation point which I’m nonplussed about as well as what exactly is ECS, IPO, SLR etc. Past history cannot predict the experimental results because this experiment is unprecedented, it can only guide one’s thinking about it for good or ill.
That neg feedbacks in ARs of obvious coming changes in systemic climate dynamics are excluded from RCPs speaks volumes to me. So opinions including the consensus opinion does not matter one bit. What you present makes sense to me, at least your communication is clearer with explaining what you think is the key.
That’s a plus (even though no one with the power to drive change is listening or will listen) but still we are all at a point of having to wait and see because 1) no one really knows in the Climate science arena, and 2) nothing is being done (or will/can be done) to stop the key drivers of climate change now.
232 Scott Strough, it might be maths but it is still nothing but a Theory you’re presenting that is utterly disconnected from the real world of how life and economics actually works in the world now, today, and next year, and in a decade and in 2 decades.
Forecasting theoretical hypothetical mathematics into the future is useless when it does not accommodate the real world with real people living in it and how those with power actually think and what they believe.
That you say that the whole thing can be solved by Ag carbon sequestration even if emissions are not cut dramatically is telling me you’re just another Neoliberal fantasy merchantman pushing a barrow to no where. Your numbers may add up right, for you, but so what? That changes nothing.
#229 Russell “What do you really think about geoengineering?” At the risk of repeating myself and the truth, it’s just another mythical Ponzi Scheme for the Neoliberal Cult.
228 E. Swanson I agree. Especially about EV renewable electicity supply is concerned.
A factoid, Car Production in China is avg 2 million units per month the last year or so. Then comes light trucks, heavy trucks and buses on top of that. While Car Production in the United States is avg 3.7 million units per MONTH. That’s almost 70 million units per year from only two nations; and does NOT include other big producers Korea/Japan nor all those Corporations manufacturing in developing nations.
That is not going to stop anytime soon. Neither will military hardware production which dwarfs car manufacturing as far as tax imposts, resources and energy use is concerned.
re Trump may well be the best geopolitical opportunity climate science and agw/cc environmental activists have had for decades. Unfortunately people do not think or observe holistically what’s right in front to their faces. They are all ignoring his driving motivation for being there in the first place which is his personal historical legacy.
No one is more motivated or effective in challenging entrenched religious myths and the harm down by such fraudulent beliefs and faux ideologies than Apostates are. Trump has the potential to be the greatest Apostate to take up the cause of saving the planet ever seen. Why? Because he holds his beliefs and opinions very very lightly. He is not an ideological fanatic himself, he’s there now for other reasons.
Unfortunately there is probably no one in CS etc who has the ability to manipulate him toward the truth of AGW/CC and make him change his opinion and then self-motivate him to act on that. It would only take 3 wise men 10 minutes to do so, but alas, they either do not exist or do not believe they are up to the job.
Sadly everyone has forgotten (or minimise) the fact that without Reagan and Thatcher there would probably never been a Rio Summit or an IPCC and the massive funding of climate science that followed. But people are generally stupid and much prefer “fighting someone” and being “right” than winning!
And so here we are … “Like it or not, we are all along for the ride as humanity heads toward the cliff. Pass the popcorn and another beer, it’s time for the TRUMP SHOW…” instead! (smile)
228 E. Swanson, PS
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2017/05/unforced-variations-may-2017/comment-page-5/#comment-678589
Dennis Coyne @222,
The actual paper Krissansen-Totton & Catling (2017) ‘Constraining climate sensitivity and continental versus seafloor weathering using an inverse geological carbon cycle model’ is here.
The article you link (or more correctly, the Uni of Washington article it repeats) is surely mistaken in saying-
This is a bit odd as it should be well known that ECS does not take account of the sort of long-term effects (eg rock weathering) examined by the paper. That long-term effects do result in a higher climate sensitivity is surely quite well known (as per figure 7 of Hansen & Sato (2012)(PDF) and Krissansen-Totton & Catling simply confirms this finding, stating their work “supports the view that the long-term climate sensitivity of the Earth system is greater than the fast-feedback Charnay sensitivity captured by Global Circulation Models (GCMs).”
224
Victor says:
24 May 2017 at 10:56
Weaktor, the borehole beckons your return. You’re not providing any scientific enlightnment and, since Summer is just around the corner why don’t you take a vacation. We deserve it.