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Page added on September 17, 2016
Global Warming and the Future of Humanity
How serious of an issue is climate change? Does global warming really threaten human civilization? Can it be reversed, or is it already late?
In this exclusive interview for Truthout, two scholars, Noam Chomsky, one of the world’s leading public intellectuals, and Graciela Chichilnisky, a renowned economist and climate change authority who wrote and designed the carbon market of the Kyoto Protocol, concur on a few key points. First of all, global warming and climate change constitute the greatest challenge facing humanity, and may pose an even greater threat to our species than that of nuclear weapons. Secondly, the operations of the capitalist world economy are at the core of the climate change threat because of over-reliance on fossil fuels and a perverse sense of economic values. Thirdly, the world needs to adopt alternative energy systems as quickly as possible. And finally, it is crucial to explore technologies to assist us in reversing climate change — as time is running out.
C. J. Polychroniou: A consensus seems to be emerging among scientists and even political and social analysts that global warming and climate change represent the greatest threat to the planet. Do you concur with this view, and why?
Noam Chomsky: I agree with the conclusion of the experts who set the Doomsday Clock for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. They have moved the Clock two minutes closer to midnight — three minutes to midnight — because of the increasing threats of nuclear war and global warming. That seems to me a credible judgment. Review of the record shows that it’s a near miracle that we have survived the nuclear age. There have been repeated cases when nuclear war came ominously close, often a result of malfunctioning of early-warning systems and other accidents, sometimes [as a result of] highly adventurist acts of political leaders. It has been known for some time that a major nuclear war might lead to nuclear winter that would destroy the attacker as well as the target. And threats are now mounting, particularly at the Russian border, confirming the prediction of George Kennan and other prominent figures that NATO expansion, particularly the way it was undertaken, would prove to be a “tragic mistake,” a “policy error of historic proportions.”
As for climate change, it’s by now widely accepted by the scientific community that we have entered a new geological era, the Anthropocene, in which the Earth’s climate is being radically modified by human action, creating a very different planet, one that may not be able to sustain organized human life in anything like a form we would want to tolerate. There is good reason to believe that we have already entered the Sixth Extinction, a period of destruction of species on a massive scale, comparable to the Fifth Extinction 65 million years ago, when three-quarters of the species on earth were destroyed, apparently by a huge asteroid. Atmospheric CO2 is rising at a rate unprecedented in the geological record since 55 million years ago. There is concern — to quote a statement by 150 distinguished scientists — that “global warming, amplified by feedbacks from polar ice melt, methane release from permafrost, and extensive fires, may become irreversible,” with catastrophic consequences for life on Earth, humans included — and not in the distant future. Sea level rise and destruction of water resources as glaciers melt alone may have horrendous human consequences.
Graciela Chichilnisky: The consensus is that climate change ranks along with nuclear warfare as the top two risks facing human civilization. If nuclear warfare is believed to be somewhat controlled, then climate change is now the greatest threat.
As difficult as it is to eliminate the risk of nuclear warfare, it requires fewer changes to the global economy than does averting or reversing climate change. Climate change is due to the use of energy for industrial growth, which has been and is overwhelmingly based on fossil fuels. Changing an economic system that is bent on uncontrolled and poorly measured economic growth and depends on fossil energy for its main objectives, is much more difficult than changing how nuclear energy is used for military purposes. Some think it may be impossible.
Virtually all scientific studies point to increased temperatures since 1975, and a recent story in The New York Times confirms that decades-long warnings by scientists on global warming are no longer theoretical as land ice melts and sea levels rise. Yet, there are still people out there who not only question the widely accepted scientific view that current climate change is mostly caused by human activities, but also cast a doubt on the reliability of surface temperatures. Do you think this is all politically driven, or also caused by ignorance and perhaps even fear of change?
Chomsky: It is an astonishing fact about the current era that in the most powerful country in world history, with a high level of education and privilege, one of the two political parties virtually denies the well-established facts about anthropogenic climate change. In the primary debates for the 2016 election, every single Republican candidate was a climate change denier, with one exception, John Kasich — the “rational moderate” — who said it may be happening but we shouldn’t do anything about it. For a long time, the media have downplayed the issue. The euphoric reports on US fossil fuel production, energy independence, and so on, rarely even mention the fact that these triumphs accelerate the race to disaster. There are other factors too, but under these circumstances, it hardly seems surprising that a considerable part of the population either joins the deniers or regards the problem as not very significant.
Chichilnisky: Climate change is new and complex. We don’t have all the answers. We are still learning how exactly the Earth reacts to increased CO2 and other greenhouse gases. We know it leads to warming seas which are melting the North and the South Poles, rising and starting to swallow entire coastal areas in the US and elsewhere, as the New York Times article documents. We know that the warming rising seas will swallow entire island nations that are about 25 percent of the UN vote and perhaps at the end, even our civilization. This realization is traumatic and the first reaction to trauma is denial. Since there is some remaining scientific uncertainty, a natural response is to deny that change is occurring. This is natural but it is very dangerous. Signs of a poorly understood but treatable house fire requires action, not inaction. While denial leads to certainty, it is only the certainty of death. This is true for individuals and also for civilizations.
Political parties often take advantage of denial and fear in a moment of change. This is a well understood phenomenon that often leads to scapegoat-ism: blaming outsiders, such as immigrants, or racial and religious minorities. The phenomenon is behind Brexit and the violence in the political cycles in the US and EU. After denial comes anger and finally, acceptance. I think some are still between denial and anger, and I hope will reach acceptance, because there is still time to act, but the door is closing fast.
In global surveys, Americans are more skeptical than other people around the world over climate change. Why is that? And what does it tell us about American political culture?
Chomsky: The US is to an unusual extent a business-run society, where short-term concerns of profit and market share displace rational planning. The US is also unusual in the enormous scale of religious fundamentalism. The impact on understanding of the world is extraordinary. In national polls almost half of those surveyed have reported that they believe that God created humans in their present form 10,000 years ago (or less) and that man shares no common ancestor with the ape. There are similar beliefs about the Second Coming. Senator James Inhofe, who headed the Senate Committee on the environment, speaks for many when he assures us that “God’s still up there and there’s a reason for this to happen,” so it is sacrilegious for mere humans to interfere.
Chichilnisky: The “can do” logic, by its own nature, does not accept limits. And an empire does not have a graceful way to evolve out of this role. History demonstrates this time and again. Trying to conserve a privileged global position makes change traumatic for the US.
The first reaction to trauma is denial, as I explained, then comes anger and finally, acceptance. I think the US is still between denial and anger, and I hope we will reach acceptance because almost perversely, right now, only the US has the technology that is needed for global economic change.
Recent data related to global emissions of heat-treating gases suggest that we may have left behind us the period of constantly increased emissions. Is there room here for optimism about the future of the environment?
Chomsky: There is always room for Gramsci’s “optimism of the will.” There are still many options, but they are diminishing. Options range from simple initiatives that are easily undertaken like weatherizing homes (which could also create many jobs), to entirely new forms of energy, perhaps fusion, perhaps new means of exploiting solar energy outside the Earth’s atmosphere (which has been seriously suggested), to methods of decarbonization that might, conceivably, even reverse some of the enormous damage already inflicted on the planet. And much else.
Chichilnisky: This is good news, it is a step in the right direction. But the road is miles long and the first step, while necessary, does not determine success. It is far from enough. The problem that few people appreciate and was only recently observed in the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] data is that CO2 stays hundreds of years in the atmosphere once emitted. It does not decay as particles or sulfur dioxide does. We have used the majority of our carbon budget and we are already at dangerous levels of CO2 concentrations, about 400 parts per million. The levels were 250 before industrialization. So the problem is what we have done already and, therefore, what must be undone.
According to the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC, page 191, in most scenarios we now have to remove the CO2 we emitted. These emissions were recent, mostly since World War II — 1945 — which was a turning point of the world economy. This was the era of US dominance and of globalization based on over-extraction of natural resources from poor nations and overconsumption of those same resources by the rich industrial nations. The era of galloping increase of wealth by the very few and the even faster galloping and record inequality and poverty in the world economy as a whole. This is the divide between the [global] North that houses 18 percent of the global population and the [global] South that houses over 80 percent.
Given that change in human behavior happens slowly and that it will take many decades before the world economy makes a shift to new, clean(er) forms of energy, should we look toward a technological solution to climate change?
Chomsky: Anything feasible and potentially effective should be explored. There is little doubt that a significant part of any serious solution will require advances of technology, but that can only be part of the solution. Other major changes are necessary. Industrial production of meat makes a huge contribution to global warming. The entire socioeconomic system is based on production for profit and a growth imperative that cannot be sustained.
There are also fundamental issues of value: What is a decent life? Should the master-servant relation be tolerated? Should one’s goals really be maximization of commodities — Veblen’s “conspicuous consumption”? Surely there are higher and more fulfilling aspirations.
Chichilnisky: We seem to have no alternative. I would like to say that the problem could be solved by green energy sources. However, they can no longer solve the problem: many studies have demonstrated that the long-run solutions, such as planting more trees, which are critical to human survival, and adopting cleaner forms of energy, which are the long-run energy solution, cannot be utilized in the timescale that matters. That is the problem. Technology is a many-headed monster and perhaps it would be better to regress to a safer past and avoid technological change; it is tempting to think like that. But UN studies have shown that even if we planted a tree on every square yard available in the planet by the end of the century we would only capture at most 10 percent of the CO2 we need to reduce. This does not mean that we should not plant trees; we should, for biodiversity’s sake, and for our long-term future together with the other species.
Trees and clean energy [are] the long-run solution but we have no time to wait for the long run. We need a short-run solution now, and one that encourages and facilitates the transition to the long-run solution. This is the technology that IPCC proposes, to remove CO2 directly from air. I cofounded a company called Global Thermostat that uses the heat and the power from clean and fossil energy sources, such as solar plants and wind farms, to remove CO2 from air. It provides a short-run solution that facilitates and accelerates the advent of the needed long run.
Many in the progressive and radical community, including the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), are quite skeptical and even opposed to so-called “geo-engineering” solutions. Is this the flip side of the coin to climate change deniers?
Chomsky: That does not seem to me a fair assessment. UCS and others like them may be right or wrong, but they offer serious reasons. That is also true of the very small group of serious scientists who question the overwhelming consensus, but the mass climate denier movements — like the leadership of the Republican Party and those they represent — are a different phenomenon altogether. As for geoengineering, there have been serious general critiques that I think cannot be ignored, like Clive Hamilton’s, along with many positive assessments. It is not a matter for subjective judgment based on guesswork and intuition. Rather, these are matters that have to be considered seriously, relying on the best scientific understanding available, without abandoning sensible precautionary principles.
Chichilnisky: The remedy could be worse than the disease. Certain geoengineering processes have been proposed that could be very dangerous and must be avoided. Geoengineering means changing the Earth’s fundamental large-scale processes. We know little of the consequences of the geoengineering process, such as spraying particles into the atmosphere that shade the planet from the sun’s rays and could decrease its temperature. But this process is how dinosaurs disappeared from the Earth about 60 million years ago, by particles spewed by a volcano or a giant meteorite impact, and our species could follow suit. The sun is the source of all energy on planet Earth and we cannot experiment with our only energy source. Changing the world’s oceans to increase their uptake of CO2, as other geoengineering solutions propose, is equally dangerous, as the increased resulting acidity of the oceans kills tiny crustaceans, such as krill, that are the basis of the pyramid of life on the planet as we know it.
What immediate but realistic and enforceable actions could or should be taken to tackle the climate change threat?
Chomsky: Rapid ending of use of fossil fuels, sharp increase in renewable energy, research into new options for sustainable energy, significant steps toward conservation, and not least, a far-reaching critique of the capitalist model of human and resource exploitation; even apart from its ignoring of externalities, the latter is a virtual death knell for the species.
Chichilnisky: Here is a plan consisting of realistic and enforceable actions that can be taken now to tackle the climate change threat: We have to remove the CO2 that the industrial economy has already emitted, which otherwise will remain in the atmosphere for hundreds of years and alter the Earth’s climate irreversibly. It is possible to do this. The technology now exists to remove carbon directly from the atmosphere and is proven, very safe and inexpensive. This new technology works by taking the CO2 directly from pure air — or a combination of industrial sources and pure air — using as a power source not electricity, but mostly the inexpensive heat that is residual of most industrial processes. The CO2 removed from air is stabilized on earth by selling it for useful commercial purposes with a benefit. CO2 from air can replace petroleum: it can produce plastics and acetate, it can produce carbon fibers that replace metals and clean hydrocarbons, such as synthetic gasoline. We can use CO2 to desalinate water, enhance the production of vegetables and fruit in greenhouses, carbonate our beverages and produce biofertilizers that enhance the productivity of the soil without poisoning it. Carbon negative technology is absolutely needed now as reported by the UNFCCC [United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change] Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC, p. 191, and also in four articles of the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Is there a way to predict how the world will look like 50 years from now if humans fail to tackle and reverse global warming and climate change?
Chomsky: If current tendencies persist, the outcome will be disastrous before too long. Large parts of the world will become barely habitable affecting hundreds of millions of people, along with other disasters that we can barely contemplate.
Chichilnisky: It is easier to create the future than to predict it. Right now we must implement the requirements of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the UN Kyoto Protocol, as well as the Paris Agreement recommendations: immediately we must remove the CO2 we have already emitted from the planet’s atmosphere and extend the Kyoto emission limits. This is the only possible alternative in most scenarios to catastrophic climate change. This can and must be done.
The funding provided by the Kyoto Protocol Carbon Market could build carbon negative power plants in poor nations. Carbon negative power plants can provide energy while they overcome poverty and change economic values in the right direction.
The UN carbon market, which is international law since 2005, will produce a much needed change in global economic values. The change in economic values created by the new markets for global public goods will reorient our global economy and under the right conditions can usher the satisfaction of basic needs of the present and of the future. This is what is needed right now. We need to support our future instead of undermining human survival. Let’s do it.
120 Comments on "Global Warming and the Future of Humanity"
penury on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 12:03 pm
I agree with the experts. While there is a multitude of actions which need to have been done or need doing immediately to reduce the effect of climate change, nothing will be done. Humans apparently are incapable of postponing there pleasure just to prolong the existence of life on this planet.
Cloggie on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 12:23 pm
“nothing will be done”
Too negative.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement
One of the immediate consequences was that the largest German energy producer E.ON decided to split itself up into a dirty fossil company which was repelled, while the mother company from now on will concentrate on renewable energy only.
DerHundistlos on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 2:09 pm
Without an environmentally generated catastrophe of biblical proportions effecting the industrial powers, forget fundamental change, but by then it could very well be too late. As stated by E.O. Wilson, “One planet. One experiment.”
claman on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 2:45 pm
Chomsky rapidly needs front pages . Only the US is responsible for the current situation ??. What about China, India , Russia and Indonesia. Chomsky is going hard on the white man’s guilt.
“Chomsky: Rapid ending of use of fossil fuels, sharp increase in renewable energy, research into new options for sustainable energy, significant steps toward conservation, and not least, a far-reaching critique of the capitalist model of human and resource exploitation; even apart from its ignoring of externalities, the latter is a virtual death knell for the species.”
No critisism of develloping countries at all.
Chichilnisky’s suggestions are not realistic.
“Chichilnisky: Here is a plan consisting of realistic and enforceable actions that can be taken now to tackle the climate change threat: We have to remove the CO2 that the industrial economy has already emitted, which otherwise will remain in the atmosphere for hundreds of years and alter the Earth’s climate irreversibly. It is possible to do this. The technology now exists to remove carbon directly from the atmosphere and is proven, very safe and inexpensive.”
It seems that some body needed to make them self heard, but with out having any new messages. Chomsky and Chichilnisky can do better than that.
Try laying some of the blame on the develloping contries instead of just the whites.
Leon on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 3:12 pm
These people need to walk down to the beach. Here in the Florida along the Gulf of Mexico there has not been any significant rise in sea level in years.
Leon on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 3:14 pm
Do these gents understand that CO2 isn’t much of a greenhouse gas. It is water vapor that is the nearly total greenhouse gas.
claman on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 3:39 pm
Leon you’re wrong and Chomsky is right. But he is using the blame game, which I think we should have been “over and done with” by now.
The West started the CO2 pollution, but the rest of the world took it up, and are by now even more polluting than we have ever been.
China, India and even Africa are in the future burning carbon-hydrates in an ever increasing way.
There is no way they will ever go back to one of the west’s most ingenious inventions, namely the bicycle.
The west invented the car, but they also invented the cycle, which most people seem to forget
claman on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 3:52 pm
Bicycles are the answer to a great deal of local and global pollution. Take a look at it.
http://www.mate.bike/
Boat on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 4:02 pm
“The technology now exists to remove carbon directly from the atmosphere and is proven, very safe and inexpensive.”
If this tech is inexpensive why dosen’t
Chichilnisky fund it. The oppisite must be true or the world would have done it already.
claman on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 4:13 pm
Boat, exactly my thought, and Graciela Chichilnisky should explain herself.
Apneaman on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 4:20 pm
Clogged that agreement is a fucking joke and nothing but one more corporate sponsored gatekeeper smoke and mirrors show. It’s not enforceable, does not come anywhere near close enough and is full of vagueness, corporate weasel words and loop holes. At it’s best, which will never happen, it’s a band aid on a shotgun wound. You simply do not understand the scale of AGW. AGW is but one predicament among a host of environmental overshoot predicaments including too many humans and growing. Combined they are likely to end the humans short run on this rock. You are ignorant of the evidence. Whether this is due to willful ignorance or apathy or laziness or lack of time from watching too many ALEX JONES videos is irrelevant, you simply lack the knowledge to weigh in on it. You are the board conspiracy tard while at the same time loudly shouting and promoting the fake techno-enviro savior bullshit which is largely controlled by the very same overlords you and Alex are going on about. Like the majority of the sheeple you have voluntary bought into their #1 product – HOPE. It’s been the #1 seller throughout human history.
Why are fossil fuel companies sponsoring the Paris climate talks?
http://grist.org/climate-energy/why-are-fossil-fuel-companies-sponsoring-the-paris-climate-talks/
The “Purpose” of “Consumer Activism” & COP21 – “We Mean Business”
“The fact that the Peoples Climate March was designed and orchestrated as a mass mobilization social engineering experiment financed by the oligarchs to”change everything” (expand capital and existing power structures) is captured in the (01:40 minute) video titled We Mean Business Momentum:”
http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2015/12/11/the-purpose-of-consumer-activism-cop21-we-mean-business/
“nothing will be done” – exactly!
claman on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 4:28 pm
Here is the deal (from wikipedia):
Economic issues[edit]
A crucial issue for CDR methods is their cost, which differs substantially among the different technologies: some of these are not sufficiently developed to perform cost assessments. The American Physical Society estimates the costs for direct air capture to be $600/tonne with optimistic assumptions.[41] The IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme and Ecofys provides an estimate that 3.5 billion tonnes could be removed annually from the atmosphere with BECCS (Bio-Energy with Carbon Capture and Storage) at carbon prices as low as €50,[42] whereas a report from Biorecro and the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute estimates costs “below €100” per tonne for large scale BECCS deployment.[4]
Risks, problems and criticisms[edit]
CDR is slow to act, and requires a long-term political and engineering program to effect.[43] CDR is even slower to take effect on acidified oceans. In a Business as usual concentration pathway, the deep ocean will remain acidified for centuries, and as a consequence many marine species are in danger of extinction.[44]
claman on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 4:31 pm
Apne: I’m not clogged, I’m Clammed 🙂
Apneaman on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 4:52 pm
claman my man, clogged you are not. Excessively hopey IMO, but a fine fella nonetheless.
chris clodfelter on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 5:05 pm
I am ready to follow these climate scientist. They are right, we need to form a world communist government so we can control the consumption, reproduction, and attitude of the general population. They do not understand what is good for them. Once the ruling group has control of everyone, we can cut way back on everything and stop this global warming madness. They will stop the use of petroleum products and allow only renewable energy to be authorized. No more pollution. No more problems. Everything will be great and we will share equally across all nations. Utopia. I can’t wait to see it.
Of course, this is how the Hunger Games got started. But, we need to teach this in the classroom.
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“It doesn’t matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.”-Paul Watson, founder of Greenpeace
“No matter if the science is all phoney, there are collateral environmental benefits…. climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.”- Christine Stewart, former Canadian Environment Minister
“We’ve got to ride the global-warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.”- Timoth Wirth, U.S./UN functionary, former Democrat Senator
“A global climate treaty must be implemented even if there is no scientific evidence to back the greenhouse effect.”- Richard Benedik, former U.S./UN bureaucrat
“We redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy…Basically it’s a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization…One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.”- Ottmar Edenhoffer, UN-IPCC official
“The goal now is a socialist, redistributionist society, which is nature’s proper steward and society’s only hope.” David Brower, founder of the Sierra Club
“The emerging ‘environmentalization’ of our civilization and the need for vigorous action in the interest of the entire global community will inevitably have multiple political consequences. Perhaps the most important of them will be a gradual change in the status of the United Nations. Inevitably, it must assume some aspects of a world government.”-Mikhail Gorbachev, communist and former leader of U.S.S.R.
“A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources.”- Emma Brindal, a climate justice campaigner coordinator for Friends of the Earth
“I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.”-James Lovelock, known as founder of ‘Gaia’ concept
“The answer to global warming is in the abolition of private property and production for human need. A socialist world would place an enormous priority on alternative energy sources. This is what ecologically-minded socialists have been exploring for quite some time now.”- Louis Proyect, Columbia University
“The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.” Daniel Botkin, emeritus professor
“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”- Maurice Strong, a billionaire elitist
“The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet.”-Jeremy Rifkin, Greenhouse Crisis Foundation
“We contend that the position of the nuclear promoters is preposterous beyond the wildest imaginings of most nuclear opponents, primarily because one of the purported “benefits” of nuclear power, the availability of cheap and abundant energy, is in fact a liability.”- Paul Ehrlich, professor, Stanford University:
“Global Sustainability requires the deliberate quest of poverty, reduced resource consumption and set levels of mortality control.”- Maurice King, UK professor
“It’s not viable’ for poverty stricken developing world to emulate prosperity of U.S.”- Jerry Brown, California Governor
“It is a campaign not for abundance but for austerity. It is a campaign not for more freedom but for less. Strangest of all, it is a campaign not just against other people, but against ourselves.”-George Monbiot, a UK Guardian environmental journalist
“Not only do journalists not have a responsibility to report what skeptical scientists have to say about global warming. They have a responsibility not to report what these scientists say.”- Ross Gelbsan, journalist.
DerHundistlos on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 5:05 pm
Crazy Uncle LEON = Yawn.
energy investor on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 5:35 pm
I can’t comment on Florida, but if Leon’s comments were about New Zealand, he would be factually correct about sea level rise. For the last century, the rise hasn’t altered by much. Just a millimeter or so per year.
Sure glaciers melt faster but as they lose volume that stands to reason.
What else do we expect during an inter-glacial period?
Leon’s comments on CO2 being a weak greenhouse gas are also factually correct.
I am not convinced either way, but I just wish people would stick to facts rather than alarmist modelling.
Crazy uncle ei? Yawn?
penury on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 5:41 pm
In the U.S. the denial of climate change is IMHO much more prevalent than in most or all other countries. The majority of U.S. residents have been removed from nature for at least two generations. They neither know nor care about the death of the animal and flora specie occurring along side them. I have walked in the mountains, and observed the change in the populations of birds, insects, and grasses and weeds within 30 miles of home. If I find any other persons who have any interest it is indeed a rare day.
Tom Owens on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 5:45 pm
Tides in Vietnam and Bangladesh have been encroaching on rice paddies that were never touched before. Island countries in the Pacific are seeing their shorelines approaching and are preparing for the worst, as is a village in Alaska. Many acres in Louisiana are being engulfed. City officials in Newport Virginia and several Florida cities report higher tides than ever before, a swamp in North Carolina is has shown deterioration from higher tides. This is the kind of thing that starts slowing, but will overpower all coasts. The glaciers of Greenland were about a mile high, researchers have repeatedly seen a increase in the speed of decay in recent years. Its are going to go somewhere.
claman on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 5:46 pm
Chriss , you are a globalist, and the globalists started this over consumption world. You can be communist or capitalist,but as long as you are a globalist you are guilty of over consumption, uncontrolled pollution and extinction of species.
You Say: ” it’s I am ready to follow these climate scientist. They are right, we need to form a world communist government so we can control the consumption, reproduction, and attitude of the general population.”
Communism is absolutely no warranty for a “green ” world. Just look at China who have destroyed its own waters and agricultural soil in a way that only can be compared to India and Bangladesh.
If you care about nature, then please don’t be either a communist or a capitalist. If you want the world population to double in the next century then please be a communist or a capitalist.
Cloggie on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 5:47 pm
I am ready to follow these climate scientist. They are right, we need to form a world communist government
I couldn’t have illustrated it better myself, why I prefer to keep this CG religion at a distance. Too many commies smelling an excuse for global governance, aka communism.
Our resident Ueber-leftie Apneaman is the #1 here, pushing for the acuteness of CG.
I smell a rat.
How about pushing for fast introduction of renewables rather than going along with a stinking UN sending us tax bills to “combat CG”.
The Paris accords and EU renewable energy targets, that’s the way forward.
I don’t know if CG is for real and if it is, if it is purely negative. I remind again to the recent findings, namely that the planet is rapidly greening due to the increased atmospheric CO2 levels.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36130346
It is called Greening of the Earth and its Drivers, and it is based on data from the Modis and AVHRR instruments which have been carried on American satellites over the past 33 years.The sensors show significant greening of something between 25% and 50% of the Earth’s vegetated land, which in turn is slowing the pace of climate change as the plants are drawing CO2 from the atmosphere
My remedy: move into renewables as fast as you can and “be content with the CG you get”.
Cloggie on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 5:50 pm
Forgot to add: 13,000 years we had the end of an ice age when sea levels rose with ca. 100 meters. That was purely the work of Mother Nature. So wtf should we worry about 1-2 degrees temperature change and a few cm sea level rise.
Man-made CG is peanuts compared to what Mother Nature is capable of.
Cloggie on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 5:55 pm
NASA video on rising CO2-levels & global greening (GG).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOwHT8yS1XI
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth
Mike on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 6:04 pm
Climate Change – A Realist View
A. History – The Last Ice Age
1. 22,000 years ago 2 mile thick Ice Sheets covered much of the northern hemisphere. These advancing ice sheets destroyed everything in their path literally scrapping the earth down to bed rock in most areas. They dug out the holes that became the great Lakes.
a) 22,000 years ago the great ice sheets that buried much of Asia, Europe and North America stopped their creeping advance.
b) The North American ice sheets covered all of Canada and into the United States including; Kansas, Wisconsin, Michigan, Montana and North & South Dakota, the terminal line of these sheets are shown in many reference books..
2. 10,000 years ago Ice Sheet has retreated to the above the current US border.
3. 5,000 years ago Ice Sheet has retreated into northern Canada.
4. 1,000 years ago Ice Sheet has retreated to individual glaciers and small ice sheets in Alaska and all of Greenland. Written records of early explorers show the retreat was a fact before the industrial revolution and was the continuation of a process that have been going on from time before man’s written records.
B. Last 200 years – The remaining glacier ice in Alaska and mountainous areas of North America has continued to retreat. Since the earliest written records starting over 300 years ago in Alaska, Europe and in Glacier National Park in Montana the retreat of the Glaciers has been well documented. So this process has been continuing for all of man’s recorded history and well before the dawn of the industrial revolution.
C. Man’s production and use of hydrocarbons may be somewhat accelerating the buildup of CO2 but that is a minor increase in the natural occurring environmental conditions as volcanic eruptions, naturally occurring cyclic changing sea currents and temperatures can all affect CO2 levels more than human CO2 production.
D. Current Conditions –
1. 2015 According to Tom Wagner, the Cryosphere program scientist at NASA, the paleo-climate record shows that sea levels can rise as much as 10 feet (three meters) in a century or two, if the ice sheets fall apart rapidly. As have happened in the past geological history and will happen again.
2. Sea levels are rising and ice sheets are shrinking. We can do nothing to stop this. We must accept that and plan accordingly. It will change the way we look at the coast lines. It should change the way governments allow building in the low lying areas of the coasts.
Source References:
• http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/glaciation
• http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/nercNORTHAMERICA.htm
• http://www.mountainnature.com/geology/Glaciers.htm
claman on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 6:17 pm
Clogg, I think you have forgotten about the browning/yellowing in the southern parts of the US and Europe.
Asia is a bit different but If the glaciers disappears in Himalaya then we will all get problems.
Clogg , try to stay positive, we are really gonna need it some day soon.
claman on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 6:34 pm
Mike, You are completely right in your description of how the ice-age devolved.
The problem seems to be that the present day warming goes too fast. Where it in former times took hundreds of years, it now takes only decades. It’s the speed Mike, not the change.
makati1 on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 6:47 pm
The CC deniers don’t want to think that their lifetime will be impacted and their dreams ruined. There are no ‘historical’ numbers to compare today to. None. Changes are accelerating daily. No time in the past has had millions of years of sun energy dumped into a closed system so fast and so relentless and we still have the burners turned to high.
We are passing tipping points like stop-signs in a small town. If you do not understand what that means, then you do not understand what is happening. Perhaps you need to spend more time studying biology, chemistry and physics. Things that have natural laws that cannot be broken.
As I often point out, I am 72 and I expect to live to see the collapse and the bottleneck of humanity. All the signs point to it happening soon. I wish I were wrong, but…
claman on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 6:59 pm
Mike , Some of the earlier rise in sea levels happened because of sudden bursts of of glacial lakes.
I believe north America had two of those, while Europe had one, but all of them were big – maybe even catastrophic seen with modern eyes.
Apneaman on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 6:59 pm
clogged and mike so fucking what?? – Climate Change: A Retards Cherry Picking View. You can bring up all the past climate changes for 4.5 billion years and it don’t mean shit if you do not put it in context, which in the case of living creatures matters. Specifically the rate and scale of the changes. There is NO such thing as man made climate change – there is just planetary physics and chemistry and the only thing that was ever up for the debate was the trigger.
Volcanic traps releasing massive amounts of CO2 causing the climate to change and the oceans to acidify and triggering a chain of life killing disasters is responsible for the worst mass extinction ever, The mother of all mass extinctions, The Permian.
Great Dying 252 million years ago coincided with CO2 build-up
http://earthsky.org/earth/great-dying-252-million-years-ago-concided-with-co2-build-up
Alarming new study makes today’s climate change more comparable to Earth’s worst mass extinction
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Lee-commentary-on-Burgess-et-al-PNAS-Permian-Dating.html
The Last Time Oceans Got This Acidic This Fast, 96% of Marine Life Went Extinct
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-last-time-our-oceans-got-this-acidic-it-drove-earths-greatest-extinction
Do the math – Connect the dots.
Same thing again except instead of volcanic traps it’s billions of industrialized rapacious apes digging up the coal beds and oil, gas and burning all the buried hydro carbons and changing the carbon cycle, hydrologic cycle, cryosphere and every other natural and stable cycle needed to maintain millions of species, including humans.
It’s all going bye bye and so are we. The human carbon puking is happening much much faster than any puny volcanic traps ever puked it out and the positive feedbacks are just getting started. Stick around for another decade or two and learn the meaning of exponential and nonlinear.
Good science makes accurate predictions and almost all of them have borne out.
They only erred on the speed – “MUCH FASTER THAN PREVIOUSLY EXPECTED”
Cloggie on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 7:00 pm
Ah well, peak oil didn’t happen in 2010, but thank God there is still climate change to look forward to. And it is going to happen in our lifetime! We doomers were right all along.
It is not difficult to see how “the end is nigh” sects develop. Perhaps we can all gather on a beach in the Philippines and with a glass of champagne collectively commit suicide.
As I often point out, I am 72 and I expect to live to see the collapse and the bottleneck of humanity.
Yeah, the Good Lawd will arrange things such that the planetary Grand Finale will coincide with the end of your long life as a sort of Sylvester fireworks. Life was always about you, Bill.
/solipsism
/sarcasm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown
claman on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 7:09 pm
Take it easy Mak, all peoples’s dreams get ruined when they die. And some day all Chinese naval dreams will lie in rusting heaps deep below the water. That is just the way life goes.
claman on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 7:16 pm
Apne, We do put in context.
“You can bring up all the past climate changes for 4.5 billion years and it don’t mean shit if you do not put it in context,”
The context is that the changes in climate is going too fast seen through the eyes of history. That’s the problem.
Apneaman on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 7:18 pm
clogged, except the evidence mounts every damn day. Not with another study or prediction. No no no, I’m talking real world, real time. Another: city trashing mega rain storm, extinct species, wildfires, droughts, shrinking reservoirs, melting glaciers, melting snow caps, melting sea ice. This is REAL shit going down. I am NOT speculating on the end times – I am documenting it.
Every Damn day
Arctic summer sea ice melts to second lowest level ever recorded
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2106119-arctic-summer-sea-ice-melts-to-second-lowest-level-ever-recorded/
makati1 on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 7:31 pm
claman, yes, but they ignore reality and bring on a quicker and more painful end to their lives than necessary. That is what many here are doing. The blinders keep them from seeing their mistakes and making changes.
Why did you bring up the Chinese? They live on the same earth you do. I could change that sentence to “…some day all American naval dreams will lie in rusting heaps…” and it would be just as correct. Do you think that the Chinese will go away? That if the US starts a war, Americans will not die by the tens of millions this time, not a few hundred thousand as in previous world wars? That those bombs will not fall on your head? Dreams of immunity and exceptionalism are common today, but ask the Iranians, Afgans, Libyans, Syrians, how ‘safe’ the world is. We all ‘dream’ but we also prepare for the probable future, not the one we would like to have.
claman on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 7:40 pm
Allright Apne, lets take that question.
ARE you religieous and believe that the end is nigh,
or are you realistic and think the end is nigh
or are you just pessimistic and think the end is nigh
claman on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 7:53 pm
Mak I do bring up the chinese naval thing, because I don’t agree with what they are doing, but I also bring it up because I have started thinking what an extreme waste of resources all these warships are. And the airplanes, and the tanks and the whole war circus.
The Chinese might have a right and a reason for what they are doing, but most people think they are doing it wrong.
makati1 on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 8:07 pm
Claman:
Who has the largest navy by far? AMERICA.
Who has the largest air force? AMERICA.
Who is currently at war in many countries? AMERICA.
Who consumes 25+% of the world’s resources? AMERICA.
Who is trying to start a world war? AMERICA.
Who is the biggest DEBTOR nation? AMERICA.
And on and on.
And you DO agree with the death and destruction that the US is causing all over the world? China is defending it’s country and people from Imperial forces that want to control it. (Ditto for Russia) China is building trade networks, not foreign military bases. China bashing is a sign of successful indoctrination of the basher by the Imperial Propaganda Department, nothing more.
Don Hart on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 8:10 pm
The majority of responders are from the delusional denialist camp of faux science and conspiracy theorists in which scientists are trying to take over the world. They post books of false information provided by professional denialists working for fossil fuel companies, or radical religious nuts. Many of the remaining posters are willing to accept global warming reality, yet want to blame the third world that have merely been extraction sites for western greed, or the second world countries who have merely accepted the overuse of resources as the economic model needed for growth. Both recommend doing nothing because there is no problem, or it’s too complicated. Neither will accept the industrialized worlds primary responsibility for this destructive economic system. Any dangers from bad government choices, whether communism, financial corruption, or ineffective technologies are far less dangerous than the many environmental problems facing us. Wasting time on fears of black helicopters or Chinese and Indian incompetence in using coal changes nothing. Fix this now or destroy the world is the only real world issue.
makati1 on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 8:22 pm
Don, Right On!
i1 on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 8:23 pm
MFN trading status for China signed into law 12/6/01 paved the way for coal consumption to go crazy.
We’ve got zero control over this shit, liberating sequestered carbon is our purpose.
BTW Gnome, tell me the one about 19 arabs with box cutters again. Bwahahaha.
claman on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 8:26 pm
Mak,
I do NOT agree with the american globalists.
I do NOT agree with the American way of invading countries that have a ruler/government that they don’t like.
I do NOT agree when the Americans want their particular jurisdiction to be global standard.
There is a lot more that I don’t like about US’s bullying around.
And I certainly don’t like it when other countries try to do the same when they feel strong enough and can bully their neighbours. China has lost so much respect.
Davy on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 8:33 pm
This is not an either or issue. You can’t discuss human survival without including the variables. You can’t discuss climate change in a vacuum. We have a global economy that allows 7BIL people to live. Oil drives this economy. This is the three predicament of the pyramid of doom.
Climate change likely cannot be reversed. I say likely in a nice way. I should be honest and say it can’t be reversed. The conditions created over centuries but most profoundly the last 3 decades has created a dynamics of change to the climate beyond human control. Geoengineering is beyond possible when one considers the amount of carbon and methane we are dealing with. This is especially true when we consider the out of control feedback loops. Natural increases in carbon we have lost control of. It is more than gases too it is about vegetation. Vegetation is burning that would have to be stopped yet, fires will continue. Deforestation would need to be halted and reversed. Reforestation may be done but over multiple years and we don’t have that time. The ocean has been warmed. No amount of geoengineering will cool the oceans. These are long term forces in incredible quantities that must be turned quickly. It is insane to believe they can be turned.
The economy is facing limits and diminishing returns. We have debt distortions. These distortions are malinvestment along with structural issues of wealth transfer and corruption. The growth based economy that is now global is not growing at the rate it must to remain healthy. There are demographic issues of too many people and not enough of the right people. An aggregate overpopulation with too many old people requiring support. Society has unfunded liabilities which are nothing more than exaggerated promises. The economy has become top heavy with financial services. These services are not productive. There are far too many job descriptions that have no real value. High quality resources are in depletion with substitution at hard limits. There is nothing about the economy to be optimistic about. It is only the fantasy of innovation and efficiency from technology that still captivates the population. Nothing else is positive and the reality of technology is it is killing us.
Oil is depleting and the value of the product produced is falling. Nations that produce oil have been destabilized by the effects of generations growing up with oil. There are dynamics of oil and the economy that are not healthy. Oil demand and supply are not in a healthy band. We are running out of low cost oil and faced with difficult areas to find new supply. Oil is the foundation of our global civilization and it is in depletion. How quickly is debatable but it is likely within a decade before we are unable to run a global civilization on oil.
If only one of these legs of doom where a problem then we might be able to manage through the problem. When all three are a problem there is little hope. I often hear people discussing what needs to be done to solve climate change but the solutions kill the economy. These people do not acknowledge consequences for their solutions. If you decarbonize the economy you end the economy. The economy feeds the global masses. We have such a large population the only way to support so many people is oil. Oil is depleting so our ability to support people is falling at the same time more is needed to support more people. The scale of change needed to combat climate change is so quick. The scale of possible changes to the economy without destroying the economy is too slow. Scaling is unrealistic anyway you look at our catch 22 trap. Too much carbon with too much damage to the ecosystem from deforestation. Too much heat already in the ocean. The amount of carbon to remove is beyond what we could do in time even if we found a way to remove carbon through geoengineering. The economy must decarbonized so much so quick there is no way it can survive such a makeover. Society is already coming apart with relative prosperity. These changes cannot maintain prosperity and be effective. Something must give and will and there is nothing anyone can do about it.
We need to be honest and end our denial. We are doomed to a collapse. The best we can do is mitigate and adapt to that collapse. We can get there fast or slower but it cannot be avoided. We are wasting precious time debating these issues. We should enter a crisis mode now and baton the hatches. We have a huge productive global economy to employ in our powerdown. We can make preparations that will enhance survivability. Of course this is fantasy because there is no way society can be steered. There are too many issues for a common cause. There are too many cultures to agree. It comes down to our local and within that local to you. Any talk by anyone discussing a macro solution is fantasy. We have hope but it is local and it is personal. We have no hope for our civilization. Modern man will be gone within a century probably a decade but that is not for us to know. Fate is secretive but she does allow a peek and the peek we are getting is horrifying.
makati1 on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 8:38 pm
calman: Respect? Who’s respect? The West? If you think they give a damn about Western ‘respect’ you are fooling yourself.
As for the East, Well, I don’t see loss of respect. I see US meddling in countries where they have no business, causing trouble for China any way they can. If they leave, the area will cool down.
I don’t see China wanting to dominate or control any neighbor. I just see them trying to get rid of a pain in their ass, the US. I totally agree with that goal and the sooner the better. Ditto for the bullshit the West puts out about China or Russia.
I would like to see the economy of the US collapse before it can start WW3. I think that may happen next year, or so the signs seem to indicate. That would be a good thing for most of humanity.
Apneaman on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 8:39 pm
Mak, this one made me think of you buddy. It’s fun.
I Wish I Didn’t Know That
REAL-LIFE TALES OF CLOSE CALLS, SCREW UPS, AND NUCLEAR NEAR MISSES.
http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-weapons/close-calls
claman on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 8:39 pm
Don, your remark is remarkable because it doesn’t contain one single word about what you your self think, but only criticism of what others think. Wake up Don
Anonymous on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 8:58 pm
That comment about Don’s (comment) makes even less sense than your nonsense about whatever it is about the Chinese navy that upsets you so much and keeps you awake at nights. And you think *he* needs to ‘wake up’?
lols…
claman on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 9:14 pm
Anonymous, Then what is his point of view , except every body else are stupid? He is just complaining about others, and doesn’t say a word about what he thinks himself. I think he is a grumpy old fellow.
claman on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 9:19 pm
Mak, “I don’t see China wanting to dominate or control any neighbor”.
China has 18 neighbours, and they have territorial disputes with every one.
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-12-05/news/44808172_1_south-china-sea-xisha-islands-paracel-islands
claman on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 9:24 pm
Mak read the link. Its half past four in the western Swedish Taiga. sleep tight
ghung on Sat, 17th Sep 2016 9:37 pm
“I don’t see China wanting to dominate or control any neighbor”.
All things considered, they’re pretty much going to have to. Their resource/demographic quotient requires them to suck resources from somewhere. Unless my math is wrong, their population exceeds the combined populations of 17 out of 18 of the neighbors you mention. It doesn’t matter how high you stack’em; all those people still need to eat, drink, stay warm, go to work, piss and shit. Doesn’t matter much if their per-capita consumption is lower than that in the west.
Too many people. Not enough planet.