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Page added on October 13, 2015
Welcome To a New Planet
Not so long ago, it was science fiction. Now, it’s hard science — and that should frighten us all. The latest reports from the prestigious and sober Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) make increasingly hair-raising reading, suggesting that the planet is approaching possible moments of irreversible damage in a fashion and at a speed that had not been anticipated.
Scientists have long worried that climate change will not continue to advance in a “linear” fashion, with the planet getting a little bit hotter most years. Instead, they fear, humanity could someday experience “non-linear” climate shifts (also known as “singularities” or “tipping points”) after which there would be sudden and irreversible change of a catastrophic nature. This was the premise of the 2004 climate-disaster film The Day After Tomorrow. In that movie — most notable for its vivid scenes of a frozen-over New York City — melting polar ice causes a disruption in the North Atlantic Current, which in turn triggers a series of catastrophic storms and disasters. At the time of its release, many knowledgeable scientists derided the film’s premise, insisting that the confluence of events it portrayed was unlikely or simply impossible.
Fast forward 11 years and the prospect of such calamitous tipping points in the North Atlantic or elsewhere no longer looks improbable. In fact, climate scientists have begun to note early indicators of possible catastrophes.
Take the disruption of the North Atlantic Current, the pivotal event in The Day After Tomorrow. Essentially an extension of the Gulf Stream, that deep-sea current carries relatively warm salty water from the South Atlantic and the Caribbean to the northern reaches of the Atlantic. In the process, it helps keep Europe warmer than it would otherwise be. Once its salty water flows into sub-Arctic areas carried by this prolific stream, it gets colder and heavier, sinks to lower depths, and starts a return trip to warmer climes in the south where the whole process begins again.
So long as this “global conveyor belt” — known to scientists as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC — keeps functioning, the Gulf Stream will also continue to bring warmer waters to the eastern United States and Europe. Should it be disrupted, however, the whole system might break down, in which case the Euro-Atlantic climate could turn colder and more storm-prone. Such a disruption might occur if the vast Greenland ice sheet melts in a significant way, as indeed is already beginning to happen today, pouring large quantities of salt-free fresh water into the Atlantic Ocean. Because of its lighter weight, this newly introduced water will remain close to the surface, preventing the submergence of salty water from the south and so effectively shutting down the conveyor belt. Indeed, exactly this process now seems to be underway.
By all accounts, 2015 is likely to wind up as the hottest year on record, with large parts of the world suffering from severe heat waves and wildfires. Despite all this, however, a stretch of the North Atlantic below Iceland and Greenland is experiencing all-time cold temperatures, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. What explains this anomaly? According to scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Pennsylvania State University, among other institutions, the most likely explanation is the arrival in the area of cold water from the Greenland ice sheet that is melting ever more rapidly thanks to climate change. Because this meltwater starts out salt-free, it has remained near the surface and so, as predicted, is slowing the northern advance of warmer water from the North Atlantic Current.
So far, the AMOC has not suffered a dramatic shutdown, but it is slowing, and scientists worry that a rapid increase in Greenland ice melt as the Arctic continues to warm will pour ever more meltwater into the North Atlantic, severely disrupting the conveyor system. That would, indeed, constitute a major tipping point, with severe consequences for Europe and eastern North America. Not only would Europe experience colder temperatures on an otherwise warmer planet, but coastal North America could witness higher sea levels than those predicted from climate change alone because the Gulf Stream tends to pull sea water away from the eastern U.S. and push it toward Europe. If it were to fail, rising sea levels could endanger cities like New York and Boston. Indeed, scientists discovered that just such a slowing of the AMOC helped produce a sea-level rise of four inches from New York to Newfoundland in 2009 and 2010.
In its 2014 report on the status of global warming, the IPCC indicated that the likelihood of the AMOC collapsing before the end of this century remains relatively low. But some studies suggest that the conveyor system is already 15%-20% below normal with Greenland’s melting still in an early stage. Once that process switches into high gear, the potential for the sort of breakdown that was once science fiction starts to look all too real.
Tipping Points on the Horizon
In a 2014 report, “Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability,” Working Group II of the IPCC identified three other natural systems already showing early-warning signs of catastrophic tipping points: the Arctic, coral reefs, and the Amazonian forest. All three, the report suggested, could experience massive and irreversible changes with profound implications for human societies.
The Arctic comes in for particular scrutiny because it has experienced more warming than any other region on the planet and because the impact of climate change there is already so obvious. As the report put it, “For the Arctic region, new evidence indicates a biophysical regime shift is taking place, with cascading impacts on physical systems, ecosystems, and human livelihoods.”
This has begun with a massive melt of sea ice in the region and a resulting threat to native marine species. “For Arctic marine biota,” the report notes, “the rapid reduction of summer ice covers causes a tipping element that is now severely affecting pelagic [sub-surface] ecosystems as well as ice-dependent mammals such as seals and polar bears.” Other flora and fauna of the Arctic biome are also demonstrating stress related to climate change. For example, vast areas of tundra are being invaded by shrubs and small trees, decimating the habitats of some animal species and increasing the risk of fires.
This Arctic “regime shift” affects many other aspects of the ecosystem as well. Higher temperatures, for instance, have meant widespread thawing and melting of permafrost, the frozen soil and water that undergirds much of the Arctic landmass. In this lies another possible tipping-point danger, since frozen soils contain more than twice the carbon now present in the atmosphere. As the permafrost melts, some of this carbon is released in the form of methane, a potent greenhouse gas with many times the warming potential of carbon dioxide and other such gases. In other words, as the IPCC noted, any significant melting of Arctic permafrost will “create a potentially strong positive feedback to accelerate Arctic (and global) warming.” This, in fact, could prove to be more than a tipping point. It could be a planetary catastrophe.
Along with these biophysical effects, the warming of the Arctic is threatening the livelihoods and lifestyles of the indigenous peoples of the region. The loss of summer sea ice, for example, has endangered the marine species on which many such communities depend for food and the preservation of their cultural traditions. Meanwhile, melting permafrost and coastal erosion due to sea-level rise have threatened the very existence of their coastal villages. In September, President Obama visited Kotzebue, a village in Alaska some 30 miles above the Arctic Circle that could disappear as a result of melting permafrost, rising sea levels, and ever bigger storm surges.
Coral Reefs at Risk
Another crucial ecosystem that’s showing signs of heading toward an irreversible tipping point is the world’s constellation of coral reefs. Remarkably enough, although such reefs make up less than 1% of the Earth’s surface area, they house up to 25% of all marine life. They are, that is, essential for both the health of the oceans and of fishing communities, as well as of those who depend on fish for a significant part of their diet. According to one estimate, some 850 million people rely on coral reefs for their food security.
Corals, which are colonies of tiny animals related to sea anemones, have proven highly sensitive to changes in the acidity and temperature of their surrounding waters, both of which are rising due to the absorption of excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. As a result, in a visually dramatic process called “bleaching,” coral populations have been dying out globally. According to a recent study by the Worldwide Fund for Nature, coral reef extent has declined by 50% in the last 30 years and all reefs could disappear as early as 2050 if current rates of ocean warming and acidification continue.
“This irreversible loss of biodiversity,” reports the IPCC, will have “significant consequences for regional marine ecosystems as well as the human livelihoods that depend on them.” Indeed, the growing evidence of such losses “strengthens the conclusion that increased mass bleaching of corals constitutes a strong warning signal for the singular event that would constitute the irreversible loss of an entire biome.”
Amazonian Dry-Out
The Amazon has long been viewed as the epitome of a tropical rainforest, with extraordinary plant and animal diversity. The Amazonian tree cover also plays a vital role in reducing the pace of global warming by absorbing vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere during the process of photosynthesis. For years, however, the Amazon has been increasingly devastated by a process of deforestation, as settlers from Brazil’s coastal regions clear land for farming and ranching, and loggers (many operating illegally) harvest timber for wood products. Now, as if to add insult to injury, the region faces a new threat from climate change: tree mortality due to a rise in severe drought and the increased forest fire risk that accompanies it.
Although it can rain year-round in the Amazon region, there is a distinct wet season with heavy rainfall and a dry season with much less of it. An extended dry season with little rain can endanger the survival of many trees and increase the risk of wildfires. Research conducted by scientists at the University of Texas has found that the dry season in the southern Amazonian region has grown by a week every decade since 1980 while the annual fire season has lengthened. “The dry season over the southern Amazon is already marginal for maintaining rainforest,” says Rong Fu, the leader of the research team. “At some point, if it becomes too long, the rainforest will reach a tipping point” and disappear.
Because the Amazon harbors perhaps the largest array of distinctive flora and fauna on the planet, its loss would represent an irreversible blow to global biodiversity. In addition, the region hosts some of the largest assemblages of indigenous peoples still practicing their traditional ways of life. Even if their lives were saved (through relocation to urban slums or government encampments), the loss of their cultures, representing thousands of years of adaptation to a demanding environment, would be a blow for all humankind.
As in the case of the Arctic and coral reefs, the collapse of the Amazon will have what the IPCC terms “cascading impacts,” devastating ecosystems, diminishing biodiversity, and destroying the ways of life of indigenous peoples. Worse yet, as with the melting of the Arctic, so the drying-out of Amazonia is likely to feed into climate change, heightening its intensity and so sparking yet more tipping points on a planet increasingly close to the brink.
In its report, the IPCC, whose analysis tends, if anything, to be on the conservative side of climate science, indicated that the Amazon faced a relatively low risk of dying out by 2100. However, a 2009 study conducted by Britain’s famed Meteorological (Met) Office suggests that the risk is far greater than previously assumed. Even if global temperatures were to be held to an increase of 2 degrees Celsius, the study notes, as much as 40% of the Amazon would perish within a century; with 3 degrees of warming, up to 75% would vanish; and with 4 degrees, 85% would die. “The forest as we know it would effectively be gone,” said Met researcher Vicky Pope.
Of Tipping Points and Singularities
These four natural systems are by no means the only ones that could face devastating tipping points in the years to come. The IPCC report and other scientific studies hint at further biomes that show early signs of potential catastrophe. But these four are sufficiently advanced to tell us that we need to look at climate change in a new way: not as a slow, linear process to which we can adapt over time, but as a non-linear set of events involving dramatic and irreversible changes to the global ecosphere.
The difference is critical: linear change gives us the luxury of time to devise and implement curbs on greenhouse gas emissions, and to construct protective measures such as sea walls. Non-linear change puts a crimp on time and confronts us with the possibility of relatively sudden, devastating climate shifts against which no defensive measures can protect us.
Were the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation to fail, for example, there would be nothing we could do to turn it back on, nor would we be able to recreate coral reefs or resurrect the Amazon. Add in one other factor: when natural systems of this magnitude fail, should we not expect human systems to fail as well? No one can answer this question with certainty, but we do know that earlier human societies collapsed when faced with other kinds of profound changes in climate.
All of this should be on the minds of delegates to the upcoming climate summit in Paris, a meeting focused on adopting an international set of restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions. Each participating nation is obliged to submit a set of measures it is ready to take, known as “intended nationally determined contributions,” or INDCs, aimed at achieving the overall goal of preventing planetary warming from exceeding 2 degrees Celsius. However, the INDCs submitted to date, including those from the United States and China, suggest a distinctly incremental approach to the problem. Unfortunately, if planetary tipping points are in our future, this mindset will not measure up. It’s time to start thinking instead in terms of civilizational survival.
Michael T. Klare
67 Comments on "Welcome To a New Planet"
Plantagenet on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 2:27 pm
It was an enormous mistake for the UN to give up on the treaty requiring mandated reductions in CO2 production that was scheduled to be signed at Copenhangen in 2010 and shift instead to a treaty asking only for VOLUNTARY reductions in CO2 production.
The world already tried voluntary CO2 reductions with the Kytoto accords and it did’t work—-global CO2 production soared during the Kyoto Accords.
Cheers!
apneaman on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 2:41 pm
I thought the whole thing was on Obama, planty? Now it’s the UN’s fault. Anything or anyone but you and your Alaska resident oil royalty cheques that you spend on carbon spewing vacation flights every year.
apneaman on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 2:43 pm
The Fall of the Colors
“Every day, most of us look directly at one of the worst manifestations of global industrial pollution — only one of which is climate change — and yet we do not see it. Especially this time of year, we stare at it, take trips to see even more of it, and marvel to each other about how “gorgeous” it is. We look at the colors of the forest, but we do not see the sickness of the trees. Let me warn you: once you do see, you cannot unsee, although you will wish most fervently that you could.
If we do look just a little more closely at those “spectacular” fall colors, walk up to just about any tree and inspect it, we will see skeletal branches whose leaves have been prematurely lost; leaves that are curled and crisped and spotted and blanched with sickness; more than likely, in a mature tree, a partially rotted-out core; and overall a display of color that pales in comparison with prior years. I wrote about this last year [Falling Colors: The Long Agony of the Trees] and of course nothing has happened since to make it any better.
Forests are in massive decline on every forested continent. And every year we learn that more are dying, and more things are killing them. Of course climate change — specifically, warming temperatures and drought — is a major factor. And as I have learned largely through the efforts of blogger Gail Zawickie at Wits End, the implacable rise of background levels of ozone pollution, primarily from automobile exhaust, is poisoning trees everywhere now, even in remote, pristine locations.
But wait, there’s more! Call right now and we’ll double the number of existential threats to trees and thus humans. Operators are standing by.
Radioactive emissions from nuclear power plants and nuclear accidents, borne by wind and water, absorbed by soil, affect trees much as does ozone, by administering a low-dose, cumulative, persistent poison that affects the tree and the tree’s ability to resist other threats such as insects and fungi. There is a relentless global increase in these emissions, from accidents such as those at Chernobyl and Fukushima, and from the daily operations of power plants.
And one more thing. When forests that have been absorbing and sequestering radioactivity for decades burn, as they have been doing across vast areas of the northern hemisphere since early spring this year, the radioactivity, still as potent as ever, is released in the smoke, carried by the wind, and redistributed as if all the radioactive emissions of decades were released all over again.
Acid rain is a term we almost never hear these days, as if it were a problem that had gone away. Hardly. While automobile exhaust has been cleansed of much of the nitrogen oxides that are the primary cause of excess acid in the atmosphere, little has been done to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide gas, which is not only a greenhouse gas but also a contributor to acid rain, which continues to damage trees, among other living things, worldwide.
Insects are being unleashed by warming temperatures that allow them to operate at higher altitudes and latitudes. In the American West, for example, beetles preying on conifers for longer periods of time each year, in places they have never been before, have killed an astonishing 70,000 square miles of forest since 2000. And it’s not just because there are more beetles in more places, but also because the trees, are also besieged by ozone, radiation, acid rain and drought.
So take another look at the bleaching colors of fall, and now, see them, how they represent not the ecstatic celebration of nature and the turning of the seasons that was once so reassuring to us; but resemble now the art of the undertaker’s cosmetics that prompt us to say, “Oh, it looks so natural.”
http://www.dailyimpact.net/2015/10/13/the-fall-of-the-colors/#more-3088
Apneaman on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 3:15 pm
Climate scientist hits out at IPCC projections
As a new chairman is appointed to the Intergovernmental Panel on climate Change (IPCC) a University of Manchester climate expert has said headline projections from the organisation about future warming are ‘wildly over optimistic.’
http://phys.org/news/2015-10-climate-scientist-ipcc.html
Plantagenet on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 3:15 pm
@apey
You are right—it was Obama who got in a pissing contest with the Chinese leader at the 2010 UN Conference on Climate in Copenhagen.
Obama heard the Chinese had called a meeting of non-aligned countries to discuss the proposed treaty, and even though he wasn’t invited Obama went to the meeting of non-aligned countries called by the Chinese, and tried to take over the meeting “community organizer” style. He went to the podium, interrupted the proceedings, and gave a speech to the stunned delegates. Needless to say the Chinese found this insulting, and things went downhill from there.
Unfortunately, the treaty that all the world leaders had gone to Copenhagen to sign was then abandoned, and the world lost any chance of ever mandating CO2 reductions that would’ve mitigated global warming.
This makes obama the only person to ever single-handedly destroy years of UN negotiations on a mandatory CO2 reduction treaty. The proposed Paris treaty is much weaker—theCO2 reductions all will be “voluntary.”
Cheers!
Apneaman on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 3:18 pm
Ironically it’s worse than we’ve been saying
“Ironically, while the “deniers” try to convince the public that scientists are over-stating the problem, the evidence coming in suggests just the opposite – things are changing faster than the models predict!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT3wrnJmJzk
Apneaman on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 3:37 pm
The Rapid and Startling Decline
Of World’s Vast Boreal Forests
Scientists are becoming increasingly concerned about the fate of the huge boreal forest that spans from Scandinavia to northern Canada. Unprecedented warming in the region is jeopardizing the future of a critical ecosystem that makes up nearly a third of the earth’s forest cover.
““Boreal forests have a potential to hit a tipping point this century,” said Anatoly Shvidenko, of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and a co-author of a survey of a recent research on boreal forests in the journal Science. “It is urgent we place more focus on climate mitigation and adaptation with respect to these forests.”
A tipping point would include the mother of all concerns: the unbridled melting of permafrost, one of the main thrusts of the ABoVE project. The permafrost in the boreal is more susceptible to thawing than in the Arctic because it’s closer to the freezing point. If large-scale melting occurs it would release more carbon dioxide and methane, which have been bound up in the frozen soil for thousands of years, and bring on more warming, and then more thawing, a dangerous loop. “Scientists call it a positive feedback, but most people call that a vicious cycle,” said Peter Griffith, chief support scientist for the ABoVE project.”
http://e360.yale.edu/feature/the_rapid_and_startling_decline_of_worlds_vast_boreal_forests/2919/#.VhyjAjsnA_s.twitter
Plantagenet on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 3:44 pm
Yes, the Boreal Forest is a very important and overlooked aspect of the climate change issue. Scientific studies show permafrost warming and thermokarst ponds growing, putting the forest at risk. I can see about 10,000 square miles of boreal forest from my hilltop cabin and I hate the thought of it ever changing.
Cheers!
Apneaman on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 3:46 pm
Planty, you is a fucking retard extraordinaire. Dumber than a pallet of bricks. Calling you a moron would be an insult to actual morons. Your ignorance and stupidity is only exceeded by your ignorance and stupidity.
HARM on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 3:49 pm
Yup, it’s not ironic at all. It’s 100% predictable and a direct effect of 7.3 billion people (growing by another 800 million each decade) all trying to live on a planet that might sustainably support 1-2 billion of us at a third-world consumption level, and perhaps 500 million at an American consumption level.
Apneaman on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 4:02 pm
planty, here is your beloved UN/IPCC. Ask yourself why they need to obscure everything with bureaucratic speak?
UN climate reports are increasingly unreadable
Summary documents by intergovernmental panel are packing in longer sentences and more complex words than ever before.
“The climate summary findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are becoming increasingly unreadable, a linguistics analysis suggests.
IPCC summaries are intended for non-scientific audiences. Yet their readability has dropped over the past two decades, and reached a low point with the fifth and latest summary published in 2014, according to a study published in Nature Climate Change1.”
http://www.nature.com/news/un-climate-reports-are-increasingly-unreadable-1.18543?WT.mc_id=TWT_NatureNews
GregT on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 4:17 pm
Planter,
For starters COP15 in Copenhagen was in 2009, not 2010 as you apparently believe. Wrong again.
What occurred during the talks is also not as you believe. It was the Chinese that refused to agree to target goals. Obama did everything that he could in good faith. Many world leaders were frustrated by China’s lack of involvement right from the start.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/dec/22/copenhagen-climate-change-mark-lynas
GregT on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 4:34 pm
@planter,
Are you jealous of Obama because he is more closely related to English royalty than you are?
http://genealogyofpresidents.blogspot.ca
Apneaman on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 4:52 pm
NASA: Monster El Nino + Climate Change Means ‘Not Normal’ Winter is On the Way
“It’s official, as of this Monday’s weekly NOAA ENSO report, a still growing 2015 El Nino had taken yet one more step into monster event territory. Hitting a +1.5 C sea surface temperature anomaly in the benchmark Nino 3.4 zone over the period of July through September even as weekly values rocketed to an amazing +2.4 C above average, the 2015 El Nino heightened yet again — making a substantial jump in overall ocean heat content. But according to a recent report out of NASA’s Earth Observatory, it appears we’re just beginning to see the full potential of this thing.
As Big or Bigger in Ocean Heat Content Than 1997-1998
For the 2015 El Nino, an event that NASA scientists are now calling ‘too big to fail,’ appears bound to continue strengthening through late Fall and Early Winter. Growing into a climate and weather wrenching oceanic and atmospheric heavyweight that will significantly impact North American weather patterns during the Winter of 2015-2016. This extreme climate event — which is currently building to an extraordinary ocean heat content anomaly in the Central and Eastern Pacific — is now comparable to the top three strongest El Ninos on record. In other words, and according to NASA: “El Niño is strengthening and it looks a lot like the strong event that occurred in 1997–98.”
“[The] elements of our changing climate are too new to say with certainty what the winter will bring.”
A pretty significant statement when one begins to fully take in its meaning — that climate change may be starting to set weather forecasting out of the context of the latter 20th Century. That it’s NASA’s view that aspects of modern weather prediction for El Nino events may have already been set off kilter by ‘elements of our changing climate.’
New Global Temperature Records For 2015 Likely a Lock
But what we do know is that the ocean-to-atmosphere heat back-up generated by what could be a record El Nino, when combined with the enormous added heat forcing provided by human fossil fuel emissions, will almost certainly set new global high temperature records for 2015 and possibly for 2016. This, unfortunately, means that we’ve already started on a dangerous path toward the far more disruptive +1.5 and +2 C above 1880s benchmarks. A range that many scientists associate with a greatly increased risk of hitting climate tipping points.”
http://robertscribbler.com/2015/10/13/nasa-monster-el-nino-climate-change-means-not-normal-winter-is-on-the-way/
energy investor on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 5:03 pm
So IPCC is getting ready to use global warming as the justification for global cooling?
In the Southern Hemisphere we have had a cooler than usual winter and know summer with el Nino will also be cooler.
Perhaps the IPCC folk could rely less on hyperbole and more on facts. At least that is what the deniers do…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/10/12/fact-checking-mark-carneys-catastrophic-climate-claims/
Not everything is due to climate change. But as we and our livestock now comprise more than 97% of the world’s land mamals, we are already past our physical limits for growth and won’t accept that reality?
ghung on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 5:25 pm
wattsupwiththat? Really?!
Davy on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 5:51 pm
Thanks for the El Niño link Ape Man. I have been following this closely. Any info is greatly appreciated.
Apneaman on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 6:14 pm
energy investor, shut your stupid fucking cake hole. No one is interested in your links to college drop out and Heartland Institute funded Anthony Watts website. Take a read and/or google him. This guy is one of the slimiest creatures out there. Oh I forgot, you already know that.
Anthony Watts
“Willard Anthony Watts (Anthony Watts) is a blogger, weathercaster and non-scientist, paid AGW denier who runs the website wattsupwiththat.com. He does not have a university qualification and has no climate credentials other than being a radio weather announcer. His website is parodied and debunked at the website wottsupwiththat.com Watts is on the payroll of the Heartland Institute, which itself is funded by polluting industries.[1]”
Education
Watts attended Purdue University from 1975 to 1982 but left without graduating.[2] A number of direct queries to Watts to find out if he graduated from college were rebuffed,[3] but a direct query to Purdue revealed that he did not obtain a degree from the university.
About-face on BEST project results
The “BEST” (Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatures) study, under lead scientist (and former skeptic) Richard Muller, was sponsored by institutions that had previously supported the denial of the standard interpretation of the climate data. But when the BEST results came out, they confirmed the previous results that the Earth is warming.[13]
Watts had initially declared (about BEST) that “I’m prepared to accept whatever result they produce, even if it proves my premise wrong.”[14] But when the results came out he changed his position and his site published numerous attacks[15] against Muller and the BEST study.”
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Anthony_Watts
7 years in college and not even a bachelor’s degree. What a fucking loser retard!
The Heartland Institute also refutes that smoking can lead to poor health outcomes and cancer. Big tobacco, like big oil is another one of their major funders.
A response to Climate Change disinformation at wattsupwiththat.com
http://wottsupwiththat.com/
Plantagenet on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 7:18 pm
@Apey
Have you ever gone to a doctor to determine if you suffered permanent brain damage on those week-long cocaine binges you like to boast about?
There are certain aspects to your behavior that suggest you have mental problems consistent with cocaine induced brain damage
Cocaine use shrinks the brain and lowers IQ, consistent with your behavior. And cocaine abuse might also explain your emotional immaturity.
Its either the cocaine abuse or you are naturally a total jerk.
http://www.livescience.com/19867-cocaine-ages-brain-shrink.html
Cheers!
GregT on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 7:47 pm
It’s obvious planter, that even with any loss in brain capacity that Apnea may or may not have experienced, he is still lightyears ahead of you.
You have proven beyond any reasonable doubt planter, that you are not an intelligent person. You aren’t even approaching smart.
Apneaman on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 8:32 pm
No I have not Dr Planty, but then again why would I? Maybe you should get your brain checked, since that was only 2 weeks ago and I also mentioned that I have been clean and sober for over 20 years. Poor memory or selective memory? I’m guessing both and shitty reading comprehension skills too (as per usual). There is no mention in your link of behaviour, mostly just cognitive abilities and one mention of depression, which is a mood disorder. If you really knew anything about the brain you would know that intelligence is mostly hereditary and so is your stupidity. Oh you can tweak it a bit with education, but it’s obvious from your never ending stream of moronic statements that it has a very limited range. I dropped out in grade 9 planty. How far did you go?
GregT on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 8:41 pm
Judging from many of her comments, I would be surprised if planter is even old enough to be in grade 9 yet. I’ve met 6 year olds that have displayed higher levels of maturity.
The potty mouth comments immediately come to mind. ‘Wash your potty mouth’ sounds like something a three year old would say.
BC on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 9:06 pm
Its either the cocaine abuse or you are naturally a total jerk.
S/he still doesn’t know that s/he doesn’t know.
Boat on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 9:17 pm
GregT,
Your older than three and you still think there is a recession during a period of growth because the IMF revised their numbers that were still classified as over 2% growth. Maybe your lack of growth could be surgically removed.
GregT on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 9:26 pm
Overall a sobering article, but, still doesn’t convey the seriousness of our predicament.
If the gulf stream stalls and the AMOC stops functioning, that would be game over for most advanced life on Earth. The oceans would become anoxic in a very short period of time providing a breeding ground for some very nasty forms of bacteria.
Phytoplankton are responsible for around 50% of all oxygen generated on the planet. If we manage to kill off the coral reefs, phytoplankton will be soon to follow. So much for living in areas high above sea level.
GregT on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 9:30 pm
Boat,
I’m not sure which of the two of you takes the cake for being the most clueless. The jury is still out. Keep up the low standards and you just might be the winner.
makati1 on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 9:37 pm
Amazing! The planet is dying but the discussion is over what I am beginning to think is deliberate stupidity act to pull the chains of some on here. Much as I too enjoy doing that on occasion because it is so easy in this over stressed world, it gets old after a while. So, ease off guys and just ignore he/she/it if he/she/it bothers you. I do.
welch on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 9:55 pm
Hey Ape,
How ’bout you lay off a little on the personal attacks on plant? For Christ sakes I wonder how old some of you are. And no, it’s not because I don’t think he can take care of himself, it’s just that wading through the long littany of insults from you guys kind of grows onerous. Yes, it’s a free country (or used to be) but it’s getting a little rediculous. Thanks mate, much appreciated.
GregT on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 10:01 pm
Stick around for long enough, and post often enough welch, and you will eventually understand why some of us here have had enough. I’m sure that after you’ve been on the receiving end you’ll have a completely different take.
drwater on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 10:33 pm
Welch said:
“Hey Ape,
How ’bout you lay off a little on the personal attacks on plant? For Christ sakes I wonder how old some of you are.”
+99
Apnea – you post a lot of interesting links here. No need to drag yourself down with the personal attacks.
Apneaman on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 10:48 pm
Hey, welch how ’bout I don’t? Spare me your special pleading. Just another entitled white boy wanting things the way you want them. Too fucking bad. Free country and free and near infinity internet – no wading necessary. All sorts of warmNfuzzy people are just one click away.
BillC on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 10:50 pm
Global warming is a ploy invented by the Cater Admin to scare people into conserving fossil fuels. During those times the U.S. Oil production had just peak and the Middle East had us by the balls.
They could have admitting that we will run short of fossil fuels and start a stampede and who knows what else. Instead the powers concocted ‘Global Warming’. This is the biggest ploy ever, but it did work.
LOL
How many remember Jimmy Carter giving his sweater speech?
antaris on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 10:56 pm
BillC, just another dumb redneck
GregT on Tue, 13th Oct 2015 11:10 pm
BillC,
You’ve got a bit of catching up to do. The scientific community exchanged the term ‘Global Warming’ for ‘Climate Change’, because many people were incapable of understanding that an overall increase in global mean temperature could also result in areas of cooler than normal temps. That was back in 1988, or 27 years ago.
There are mountains of information available to you, if you are willing to take the time to read and/or understand them. Otherwise, you are living in a complete state of denial. IE: A fantasy world of your own making.
joe on Wed, 14th Oct 2015 12:35 am
Climategate sadly was manna from heaven for some people. There has been some very bad science done around this issue. I guess it’s psychologically easier to think it’s false, because there are no consequences then. If you think CC is real then you have to realise complex results and future results from today’s simple actions like using a car or heating a home. Or using a computer and reading these words…
makati1 on Wed, 14th Oct 2015 1:07 am
The big corporations have funded many ‘think tank’ articles to undercut/discredit the real science articles proving that we are killing the very system we need to survive. It seems to have worked because denial is easier than doing something to downsize your own contribution to the problem.
That the American miss-education system is turning out stupid kids with paper degrees, and no idea about the real world, doesn’t help. Inability to think is becoming the norm in America, the worst polluting country in the world. It’s 5% burns 25%+ of the world’s hydrocarbons, producing the CO2 that is killing us.
But the Kardashian antics are more interesting, right? “Hey Maw! Grab me another beer! Kim’s got a wardrobe ‘malfunction’ I want to see”.
theedrich on Wed, 14th Oct 2015 3:56 am
Mak, you have a point. The American university system has both expanded and deteriorated as a result of the government-promoted student “loan” program that endentures the naïve young for decades. The explosion of basket-weaving social “science” courses aimed at churning out voters for the Demonic Party is another reason for the massive grade inflation. Add in IQ-reducing brain poisons like marijuana and related chemicals, and we have a population explosion of degreed near-illiterates unable to spell, let alone think.
The few academic bright spots are overwhelmed by a system sagging under the weight of self-delusion. While the community organizer in the White House recites nostrums taught him by his peptalk handlers, the nation is being slowly dragged down by its own lies, sloth and ostrich behavior. Currently, the only two politicians stating even partial truths on right and left happen to be the two who are not slurping in huge donations from superpacs (and even, apparently, from some foreign donors). Thus, given the self-congratulatory rigidity of a stupidifying country, it does not look like there is any chance for movement on climate change or anything else. China, the EMs and Europe are all ensnared in webs of their own weaving, so we can expect nothing serious from those quarters.
Because any change would bring pain, which means that the status quo is non-negotiable.
Davy on Wed, 14th Oct 2015 4:28 am
Welch, Ape Man’s attacks are harmless. These guys have fun with each other. Planter likes the attention. The real blemish to this board is when people talk openly about genocidal wishes, outright lies, and redundant political agenda. These people need to be crushed and often are just ignored here. I could care less about those who post a comment and do not engage in daily conversation. These posts are just garbage that whiffs around the net. It is the regulars here who do it that need to be called out.
GregT on Wed, 14th Oct 2015 5:51 am
“Because any change would bring pain”
The changes necessary would bring death theedrich, for billions. We are in population overshoot. We have cheated nature for a while, that’s all. Our scientific knowledge has allowed us to expand our populations beyond the natural carrying capacity of ‘Mother Earth’. This was only ever a temporary situation. The longer that we continue to pretend that we are in control, the further into overshoot we will go, the more damage we will cause our planet, and the more people will die. Up to and including the extinction of our species. It is far too late to stop the inevitable. We made a wrong turn long ago, back before the industrial revolution.
We should have stayed on the farms, and if we are lucky, that is where a tiny percentage of us will end up living out our lives in the future.
bug on Wed, 14th Oct 2015 6:02 am
Apneaman’s comments to Plant are comic gold. On several occasions I have been drinking coffee while reading and the results were coffee sprayed all over the place.
Kenz300 on Wed, 14th Oct 2015 10:54 am
Climate Change is real… we will all be impacted by it….
Ocean Fish Populations Cut In Half Since The 1970s: Report
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/crucial-marine-populations-cut-in-half-since-the-1970s-report_55f9ecd2e4b00310edf5b1b2?ir=Green§ion=green&utm_hp_ref=green
——————-
Solar and Wind Just Passed Another Big Turning Point
http://bloom.bg/1WK34MZ
BobInget on Wed, 14th Oct 2015 1:16 pm
The good news; Donald’s NYC is totally screwed.
The bad news; America’s NYC is totally screwed.
http://choices.climatecentral.org/#12/40.7116/-74.0006?compare=temperatures&carbon-end-yr=2100&scenario-a=warming-4&scenario-b=warming-2
Apneaman on Wed, 14th Oct 2015 1:22 pm
Bubble plumes off Washington, Oregon suggest warmer ocean may be releasing frozen methane
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-10-plumes-washington-oregon-warmer-ocean.html#jCp
Apneaman on Wed, 14th Oct 2015 1:30 pm
Costliest (and Deadliest?) Disaster of 2015: Indonesia’s $14 Billion Fires
“Indonesia’s Center for International Forestry Research estimated the smoke will cost $14 billion in agriculture production, forest degradation, health, transportation and tourism, according to an October 9 article in The Wall Street Journal. Indonesia’s Health Ministry says 20 million people–8% of the country’s population–have been impacted by this year’s haze; 120,000 of them have sought medical attention for respiratory problems. The disaster may also be the deadliest disaster of 2015, depending upon how one treats the difficult task of determining air pollution deaths. Over 10,000 adults are likely to die from pollution from the fires, judging by the results of a 2013 study in Nature Climate Change by Marlier et al., El Niño and health risks from landscape fire emissions in Southeast Asia.”
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/costliest-and-deadliest-disaster-of-2015-indonesias-14-billion-f
Apneaman on Wed, 14th Oct 2015 1:39 pm
bug, sorry if I caused you to fuck up your keyboard with a 100% Arabic shower.
theedrich on Thu, 15th Oct 2015 5:35 am
@GregT:
Because the last thread that you addressed me is probably evaporating into the cloud, I will re-post here my answer to your statement there, which you are repeating here, that we should just all become mediæval again:
It may indeed seem that if we had just stuck with prehistorical ignorance and mythologies, we would be so much better off. Actually, that is exactly what the Commies thought and still think: an Edenic paradise without clothing or work of any kind. Unicorns on every side.
The reality is that it is precisely these prehistorical religious beliefs, modes of thought and primitive behavior which are preventing us from using science and knowledge (“scientia”) rationally. Our highly developed neocortices are used mainly to fulfill the animalistic urges and impulses of the reptilian brain deep within us. The fantasy that we can return to being lower apes and commune blissfully with nature is a methamphetamine hallucination entertained by modern liberals and spiritualist frauds.
The laws of nature are inflexible, regardless of what preachers and politicians say. And the only way out of the dilemma of modern overload is both extremely rational and utterly unsympathetic. But then, the tear-jerkers and Angela Merkels of the world — and the power elites behind them — would not allow that. So the exhaustion of nature will take care of the problem for us, for once and for all.
Davy on Thu, 15th Oct 2015 6:52 am
Thee said “The reality is that it is precisely these prehistorical religious beliefs, modes of thought and primitive behavior which are preventing us from using science and knowledge (“scientia”) rationally.”
Sure, Thee, you think more of the same without human religious beliefs would save the day. You are so far down a rat hole you can’t see. The human race cannot have its complexity and live within the natural ecosystem. We have proven that. You may argue about how our primitive side prevents us from transcending Mother Nature through science and knowledge but you have no way of proving that. The chance to do that is gone and never to be recovered. Our only hope is a return to a natural spirituality with an order of magnitude smaller population.
The evidence is plain to see man cannot control and manage his knowledge and technology. You can dream of your supper beings but that is a religion no different than the ones you complain about. Man belongs in a semi-nomadic ecological regime without excess complexity. He belongs as part of nature not separate. Google the Kogi of Columbia Thee. These are the people that respect that which gives them life.
We modern humans are separated now with no respect for our earth biosphere. The results are all too apparent. No amount of knowledge and technology is going to save us at this point. In fact the more we try to save ourselves through knowledge and technology the deeper the hole. I ain’t buying your super race argument.
Kenz300 on Thu, 15th Oct 2015 7:46 am
Climate Change is real and it will impact all of us……..
Exxon’s Climate Change Cover-Up Is ‘Unparalleled Evil,’ Says Activist
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/exxon-evil-bill-mckibben_561e7362e4b028dd7ea5f45f?utm_hp_ref=green&ir=Green§ion=green
Kenz300 on Thu, 15th Oct 2015 7:47 am
We all need to do our part………..
Pope Francis’s edict on climate change will anger deniers and US churches | World news | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/27/pope-francis-edict-climate-change-us-rightwing
BillC on Thu, 15th Oct 2015 8:20 pm
Greg T
You need to get caught up. Global warming went to climate change because facts didn’t support so they went to climate change. Then after Katrina it went from ‘climate change’ to “Extreme Weather’. But then US went 10 years without a hurricane ..record..LOL.. This was also during “The Pause’ Press quietly changed back to ‘climate change’
I also used to believe, for 20 years, that Global
Warming was true. But then I decided to do my own thinking.