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Page added on April 29, 2018
‘We’re doomed’: Mayer Hillman on the climate reality no one else will dare mention
“We’re doomed,” says Mayer Hillman with such a beaming smile that it takes a moment for the words to sink in. “The outcome is death, and it’s the end of most life on the planet because we’re so dependent on the burning of fossil fuels. There are no means of reversing the process which is melting the polar ice caps. And very few appear to be prepared to say so.”
Hillman, an 86-year-old social scientist and senior fellow emeritus of the Policy Studies Institute, does say so. His bleak forecast of the consequence of runaway climate change, he says without fanfare, is his “last will and testament”. His last intervention in public life. “I’m not going to write anymore because there’s nothing more that can be said,” he says when I first hear him speak to a stunned audience at the University of East Anglia late last year.
From Malthus to the Millennium Bug, apocalyptic thinking has a poor track record. But when it issues from Hillman, it may be worth paying attention. Over nearly 60 years, his research has used factual data to challenge policymakers’ conventional wisdom. In 1972, he criticised out-of-town shopping centres more than 20 years before the government changed planning rules to stop their spread. In 1980, he recommended halting the closure of branch line railways – only now are some closed lines reopening. In 1984, he proposed energy ratings for houses – finally adopted as government policy in 2007. And, more than 40 years ago, he presciently challenged society’s pursuit of economic growth.
When we meet at his converted coach house in London, his classic Dawes racer still parked hopefully in the hallway (a stroke and a triple heart bypass mean he is – currently – forbidden from cycling), Hillman is anxious we are not side-tracked by his best-known research, which challenged the supremacy of the car.
“With doom ahead, making a case for cycling as the primary mode of transport is almost irrelevant,” he says. “We’ve got to stop burning fossil fuels. So many aspects of life depend on fossil fuels, except for music and love and education and happiness. These things, which hardly use fossil fuels, are what we must focus on.”
While the focus of Hillman’s thinking for the last quarter-century has been on climate change, he is best known for his work on road safety. He spotted the damaging impact of the car on the freedoms and safety of those without one – most significantly, children – decades ago. Some of his policy prescriptions have become commonplace – such as 20mph speed limits – but we’ve failed to curb the car’s crushing of children’s liberty. In 1971, 80% of British seven- and eight-year-old children went to school on their own; today it’s virtually unthinkable that a seven-year-old would walk to school without an adult. As Hillman has pointed out, we’ve removed children from danger rather than removing danger from children – and filled roads with polluting cars on school runs. He calculated that escorting children took 900m adult hours in 1990, costing the economy £20bn each year. It will be even more expensive today.
Our society’s failure to comprehend the true cost of cars has informed Hillman’s view on the difficulty of combatting climate change. But he insists that I must not present his thinking on climate change as “an opinion”. The data is clear; the climate is warming exponentially. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that the world on its current course will warm by 3C by 2100. Recent revised climate modelling suggested a best estimate of 2.8C but scientists struggle to predict the full impact of the feedbacks from future events such as methane being released by the melting of the permafrost.
Hillman is amazed that our thinking rarely stretches beyond 2100. “This is what I find so extraordinary when scientists warn that the temperature could rise to 5C or 8C. What, and stop there? What legacies are we leaving for future generations? In the early 21st century, we did as good as nothing in response to climate change. Our children and grandchildren are going to be extraordinarily critical.”
Global emissions were static in 2016 but the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was confirmed as beyond 400 parts per million, the highest level for at least three million years (when sea levels were up to 20m higher than now). Concentrations can only drop if we emit no carbon dioxide whatsoever, says Hillman. “Even if the world went zero-carbon today that would not save us because we’ve gone past the point of no return.”
Although Hillman has not flown for more than 20 years as part of a personal commitment to reducing carbon emissions, he is now scornful of individual action which he describes as “as good as futile”. By the same logic, says Hillman, national action is also irrelevant “because Britain’s contribution is minute. Even if the government were to go to zero carbon it would make almost no difference.”
Instead, says Hillman, the world’s population must globally move to zero emissions across agriculture, air travel, shipping, heating homes – every aspect of our economy – and reduce our human population too. Can it be done without a collapse of civilisation? “I don’t think so,” says Hillman. “Can you see everyone in a democracy volunteering to give up flying? Can you see the majority of the population becoming vegan? Can you see the majority agreeing to restrict the size of their families?”
Hillman doubts that human ingenuity can find a fix and says there is no evidence that greenhouse gases can be safely buried. But if we adapt to a future with less – focusing on Hillman’s love and music – it might be good for us. “And who is ‘we’?” asks Hillman with a typically impish smile. “Wealthy people will be better able to adapt but the world’s population will head to regions of the planet such as northern Europe which will be temporarily spared the extreme effects of climate change. How are these regions going to respond? We see it now. Migrants will be prevented from arriving. We will let them drown.”
A small band of artists and writers, such as Paul Kingsnorth’s Dark Mountain project, have embraced the idea that “civilisation” will soon end in environmental catastrophe but only a few scientists – usually working beyond the patronage of funding bodies, and nearing the end of their own lives – have suggested as much. Is Hillman’s view a consequence of old age, and ill health? “I was saying these sorts of things 30 years ago when I was hale and hearty,” he says.
Hillman accuses all kinds of leaders – from religious leaders to scientists to politicians – of failing to honestly discuss what we must do to move to zero-carbon emissions. “I don’t think they can because society isn’t organised to enable them to do so. Political parties’ focus is on jobs and GDP, depending on the burning of fossil fuels.”
Without hope, goes the truism, we will give up. And yet optimism about the future is wishful thinking, says Hillman. He believes that accepting that our civilisation is doomed could make humanity rather like an individual who recognises he is terminally ill. Such people rarely go on a disastrous binge; instead, they do all they can to prolong their lives.
Can civilisation prolong its life until the end of this century? “It depends on what we are prepared to do.” He fears it will be a long time before we take proportionate action to stop climatic calamity. “Standing in the way is capitalism. Can you imagine the global airline industry being dismantled when hundreds of new runways are being built right now all over the world? It’s almost as if we’re deliberately attempting to defy nature. We’re doing the reverse of what we should be doing, with everybody’s silent acquiescence, and nobody’s batting an eyelid.”
110 Comments on "‘We’re doomed’: Mayer Hillman on the climate reality no one else will dare mention"
makati1 on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 5:40 am
“Can civilisation prolong its life until the end of this century? “It depends on what we are prepared to do.” He fears it will be a long time before we take proportionate action to stop climatic calamity. “Standing in the way is capitalism. Can you imagine the global airline industry being dismantled when hundreds of new runways are being built right now all over the world? It’s almost as if we’re deliberately attempting to defy nature. We’re doing the reverse of what we should be doing, with everybody’s silent acquiescence, and nobody’s batting an eyelid.””
Humans are committing species suicide. 2100? Sooner, I think. Maybe much sooner.
Davy on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 6:06 am
Climate change indeed will likely get us in the end but there are other issues that may get us sooner. In any case it is the summation of all the issues converging and combining into one big predicament that will end modernism. I say this with less doom than in the past. It may be the case we still have a decade or two of decline and decay before the bottom falls out. This may not be a cataclysmic end. It might be a long drawn out terminal illness with smaller cataclysmic local ends. Does anyone really have a clue how things will end? Many default to mad max but this is just an example of human drama or there is denial with all is just fine. In between there is the wise men.
Many of us here early on had a doom agenda going on. We had it all mapped out then several things changed and now where are the doomers? Doom is not the dominant topic here anymore. The hardcore doomers are mostly gone but I caution the techno optimist with their cornucopian ways. This will not end well and let’s give thanks for some breathing room. Let’s tell those who will listen we can do some things to prolong life and make what is ahead less painful for ourselves and nature. Yet, first we need to acknowledge we are at the cusp of an end. Getting out of denial is the prerequisite to change and renewal. Our renewal will not be with a material golden age like the cornucopians are proselyting but with a spiritual advancement.
Most of all what we can do is local. We can try to be real green and we can learn to have less. We can expand spiritually with more wisdom. Here I define wisdom as the knowledge of what ordinary knowledge to gain and how to use it. Where modern man went wrong is with his wisdom. He lost his wisdom from losing his scale and his place within things. The car culture is a prime example of losing scale with a well-honed planetary system that is far advance to ours and being destroyed by our own subsystem. Our population has grown too much and the competitive cooperation driven by succeed and advance or you will be taken over has driven man to embrace any knowledge that advances with horrible results. These advances are not necessarily good advances and that is where wisdom has failed us. We can’t say no to more technology or consumption.
It is a reality of a finite world that real wisdom would embrace limits. It would know when to say no and that would be long before we got near dangerous boundaries. So this points to some of us creating monasteries of knowledge for the future generation to have a store house of wisdom. We can reflect on where we are and know what is wise and what is not. This is not hard to do once the proper mentality is gained. We can give guidance and pass on wisdom for those who are younger and who care.
Does it matter what happens to humans? If you see life holistically and in a timeless sense then you understand the power of nature and by extension the universe. Our knowledge is universal because we are one with the universe if you see this connectivity. If you don’t then you are still lost in the immature ego of the tortured dualistic self. It is the realization of this universal connectivity and the getting lost in our ego that is the dance of life for humans. Extinction and evolution go hand and hand. There was a big bang and there may be a big end but in the here and now we have a people and our small band or tribe.
We should return to what matters at least at our local. Man’s civilization is likely on its last leg. It is in a slow crash and burn of a slow boil. We are near a phase change of boundaries. It is in this little space of maybe a few decades we can still live in and prosper. Enjoy life if you can now because for many it will likely be downhill from here on out. That said it can also be a time of enlightenment. Some of the best of what is human has come out in the worst of times because there is something about adversity that cleanses and strengthens our species. It is the times of affluence when we degenerate.
Cloggie on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 6:49 am
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayer_Hillman
100% renewable energy and reducing the global car fleet of 1 billion to 50 million shared e-robocars and working from home/neighborhood office via the cloud.
This is possible. If it is enough, only time will tell.
Davy on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 6:55 am
“This is possible. If it is enough, only time will tell.”
Maybe locally and only for a short time. This decline can be Byzantine and follow a balkanization of globalism but no one knows because we are in uncharted waters.
muhammed atta on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 7:07 am
Chris Korda for World President!!!! Save the Planet, Kill yourself!!!!
Spencer Selander on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 7:10 am
We do have way to safely bury carbon through soil carbon sequestration. Hillman has ignored this, while also missing part of the problem – the world’s cultivated soils have lost between 50 and 70 percent of their original carbon stock, much of which has oxidized upon exposure to air to become CO2. This can be reversed, and more than reversed, through regenerative agricultural practices, reducing atmospheric CO2 while also boosting soil productivity and increasing resilience to floods and drought.
While many farmers are adopting some of those practices, such as cover cropping, because of those benefits, agribusiness will not do enough without a push. The market forces farmers to maximize short-term returns, and the benefits of increasing soil carbon are long-term. We need to pay farmers for sequestering carbon, perhaps financed by carbon tax. While there are difficulties measuring the amount of carbon being sequestered, we must not let that stop us – it needs to happen.
We must also stop pushing our industrial agriculture practiced in the developing world. Instead, help their farmers to increase productivity by increasing soil carbon. If we allow the purveyors of such quick-fix solutions as chemical fertilizers and pesticide to continue promoting their ware in those countries it will only lead to disaster.
Sunspot on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 7:23 am
None of this is news to me. I’ve watched videos by Guy McPherson. And I go here regularly. http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/ I’ll take the truth, please, no matter how ugly it is.
Kelly on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 7:46 am
I too have been saying this for many years. It became apparent to me as a child that overpopulation and anthropogenic warming would kill us all off. Humans NEVER do what they need to do until the last moment. As the Red Queen thesis in math shows, sooner or later, we will not react (or be able to react) in time.
Edward Nieh on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 7:51 am
The truth about the US and the Industrial nations’ role in Climate change.
Speaking in Paris, Kerry said:
“The fact is that even if every American citizen biked to work, carpooled to school, used only solar panels to power their homes, if we each planted a dozen trees, if we somehow eliminated all of our domestic greenhouse gas emissions, guess what – that still wouldn’t be enough to offset the carbon pollution coming from the rest of the world.
“If all the industrial nations went down to zero emissions – remember what I just said, all the industrial emissions went down to zero emissions – it wouldn’t be enough, not when more than 65 percent of the world’s carbon pollution comes from the developing world.”
He’s exactly right. Paul Knappenberger and Patrick Michaels estimate that the climate regulations the Obama administration are imposing on the energy sector – costs that will be passed down to households – will avert a meager 0.018 degree Celsius of warming by the year 2100.
In fact, the U.S. could cut 100 percent of its CO2 emissions and it would not make a difference in global warming.
Have a nice day!
ken on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 7:53 am
These are his opinions. He is not qualified to make such statements. Why do the leftist or socialist need to live with an ethereal opinion of earth? IMHO
Davy on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 7:59 am
SS, you guys can’t appreciate scale. Besides, have you ever farmed? Your Ag planting technics all have tradeoffs and one big one is lower productivity of resulting production. Actual productivity and fertility increases holistically but not production. We are in a time of overpopulation so any large scale changes like this will have real world consequences in food carrying capacity. I am all for what you mentioned but do not believe it a solution to climate change. It is an adaptation strategy for decline. It is the right strategy for the end of modernism but not a solution.
Marshall Brown on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 8:13 am
If one considers the purpose of life as the fostering of the next generation it becomes painfully obvious that intelligence is an evolutionary dead end. The saddest part being that as it approaches the end it may well bring down all other life forms with it.
twocats on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 8:22 am
“Instead, says Hillman, the world’s population must globally move to zero emissions across agriculture, air travel, shipping, heating homes – every aspect of our economy – and reduce our human population too. Can it be done without a collapse of civilisation? “I don’t think so,” says Hillman.”
if your answer to that question is anything other than “I don’t think so” you really don’t belong on this site and you might want to check a mirror because you’re probably a troll.
“Can you see everyone in a democracy volunteering to give up flying? Can you see the majority of the population becoming vegan? Can you see the majority agreeing to restrict the size of their families?””
and that’s where the rubber meets the road – who do you coordinate a global synchronized effort like that without complete totalitarianism or collapse.
“Hillman doubts that human ingenuity can find a fix and says there is no evidence that greenhouse gases can be safely buried.”
yup and it takes energy to bury it. and we don’t have a good track record of disposing of waste products we don’t like (nuclear, coal slurry, frack water reinjection).
““And who is ‘we’?” asks Hillman with a typically impish smile. “Wealthy people will be better able to adapt but the world’s population will head to regions of the planet such as northern Europe which will be temporarily spared the extreme effects of climate change.””
given how cold this spring and winter have been I wouldn’t be so sure about this. if the AMOC currents continue to slow or even stop Northern Europe could drop into a freezer.
Ron Combs on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 8:28 am
We know that man puts out 4% of the total CO2 and the earth puts out 96%. Yet, man is to blame for the problem. What utter stupidity.
Mikey on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 8:31 am
I understand his position, but maybe his data is incomplete. Just for instance. What if there was a major pandemic that reduced the population enough to significantly cut fossil fuel use? Oh yes, it would be traumatic, but life goes on.
I write about long-term human survival, by strategic and genetic adaptation. The premise is that we left our last stable ecology, the so-called tribal hunter-gatherer ecology and we need to find a new long term ecology to survive in rather than the transient ecologies we have been going through since we started farming and cities. Looking at it that way reveals a lot that I know has not been looked at by others. Yes, things are scary. There are great dangers besides global warming. Still, I see potentials that I think few see.
I’ll ask you a question. When will humanity finally grow up? You’ve heard that question before in some way or another. When will humans start to act like more than animals? Do you think then that we could find a way to stop causing climate change and survive what is already in motion? Well, I know when humans will grow up. It won’t be long. It’s not complicated. We will soon come face to face with just one more of “those problems”. This one though is going to hit us in our instincts and is one that we can do something about. If we do, we will become far more than animals.
Genetics For A New Human Ecology 🙂
… Soon – Strategy For A New Human Ecology.
John Wilson on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 8:36 am
There is still too much resistance to the idea of climate warming. It will take another generation for the idea to gain enough mass to become critical.
Davy on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 8:50 am
Mikey, a major pandemic could end our modern world. It has been shown that as far as modernism is concerned only 10% or so of the population is systematically important. A pandemic will strike with impunity with regards to human importance. So such an event may lower population but also end our species in ways similiar to climate change. IOW it might salvage a planet but maybe not our species.
Mimi on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 8:51 am
Shouldn’t the man’s theories on climate change be questioned at least somewhat given that his failed “peak oil” theories were supposed to pertain to the 1970’s and were discredited a decade ago ? (Since that the Bakken and Marcellus shale fields added enough oil reserves to last us for another what, 400 years? A very recent study by climate scientists just concluded that the models used to forecast climate change over estimated the earth’s temperature rise by 45%.
MASTERMIND on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 9:10 am
We don’t have enough fossil fuels to reach the high estimates of the IPCC and when the economic collapse happens. That’s game over. And carbon emission will drop to zero. we should not be worried about the planet but the human species.
https://imgur.com/a/pYxKa
robert on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 9:13 am
ken on sun…you conservatives have your heads up your asses….the ONLY people on the planet in denial of the obvious are US conservatives..no where else on the entire PLANET are there people ignorant enough to believe POLITICIANS that lie for corporations..
JON HARRIS on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 9:56 am
Human selfishness & greed have brought us to this place & time. I don’t think human nature will change altruistically in time. We’ll be lucky to reach 2100 as a viable species on this earth. The collateral damage will be immense!
Frankie on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 9:57 am
Cut our meat consumption in half. And stop the clear cutting of forests.
Do those two things and the planet will be OK
MASTERMIND on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 10:03 am
Robet
Yes, denial is the strongest weapon of people on the right. They deny overpopulation, that is why they reject birth control and abortions. They deny climate change. They deny evolution. They deny gun laws reduce gun violence. They deny their own mortality and think you go to heaven when you die. They deny tax cuts for the wealthy, doesn’t create prosperity for the rest.
Davy on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 10:15 am
Frankie, forget it because it won’t be ok becuase you are
not offering a solution. You are putting forward two great ideas but the time for solutions to be ok are long since last. I should remind you to differentiate between animal rearing. Grass fed animals are beneficial to nature’s cycles if properly managed. We also should be using more animal power for agriculture and transport. Where we need to reduce meat consumption is grain fed beaf. A significant amount of the planets potential to raise human food includes areas that can only be grazed. You can’t grow crops or other plant based products in these places with out damaging the ecosystem. We should not be taking down any more forest especially rainforest. This is manageable by better forest management and set asides. Two great ideas but no solution.
Cloggie on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 10:27 am
Quietly a fifth renewable energy front is being opened in Europe, after hydro, biomass, solar and wind: tidal power.
Spearheaded in Scotland and with likely follow-up in France:
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2018/04/29/meygen-tidal-power/
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2018/04/29/1-2-gw-tidal-power-plans-in-france/
Germany, Holland, Britain and Denmark maybe blessed with shallow water, suitable for the installation of giant wind turbines, Scotland and France have deeper waters with fast currents.
The density of water is 1000 times higher than that of air, meaning that the same rotor surface yields 1000 times more energy at the same speed.
The potential is in the many GW’s.
Nigel on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 10:31 am
War and all the things associated with it are devastating to the environment. Just the manufacturing of planes, tanks, etc..uses tremendous amounts of fossil fuels. total insanity. The US alone detonated over 2,500 above ground tests, A lot of heat and energy pumped into the atmosphere.
JuanP on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 10:35 am
Good article. I gave up flying for over a decade with the understanding that it was just a symbolic action. A few years back I started flying again when it became completely pointless even as a symbol. Individual actions are completely irrelevant. We are doomed. Our predicament is an inevitable consequence of our nature. We are too smart but not clever enough.
joe on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 10:37 am
Guy mcpherson gives us even less time than 2100.
MikeL on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 11:00 am
What’s so bad about the melting of polar ice caps? It’s a slow and . predictable process resulting in more fresh water availability.
Climate has been changing for thousands of years; it’s the nature of things.
Tom Servo on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 11:00 am
“global warming” is the new Hellfire and Brimstone Religion for people who claim they’re too smart to fall for a Hellfire and Brimstone Religion.
REPENT YE, REPENT YE, O YE EVILDOERS, OR YE SHALL ALL PERISH IN FLAME! AND TO PROVE YOUR CONTRITION, YE MUST GIVE ALL YOUR WORLDLY GOODS TO US, THE PROPHETS WHO OFFER YOU THE DIVINE WISDOM!!! REPENT YE, OR YE EVILDOERS, OR YE SHALL SURELY DIE!!!!
it’s the same old game as always.
MASTERMIND on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 11:01 am
Every one cent increase in gasoline prices, reduces US household purchasing power by $1 billion.
https://media0.giphy.com/media/3og0IMJcSI8p6hYQXS/giphy.gif
Naet on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 11:25 am
Don’t forget, no matter what happens, the nuclear reactors of the world need to be cared for by skilled technicians for 200,000 years or they all pop. If anything happens to the human population, and it will, the radioactive purge will finish off the job for a long long time to come. Since when have humans ever cared for anything that long. Our ONLY hope is replicator technology and a “gentle” collapse.
Frank Hollenbeck on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 11:46 am
honestly, don’t you people get tired of these doomsday preachers! in the 70s they told us that Arizona would be beachfront property ad that we should really start thinking about underwater cities! the reality is that the climate models way over estimate the warming of the planet. and even if the planet was warming, you have no clue how much is due to man! climate change is a hypothesis on a complex phenomena. you cannot prove it because you cannot run a scientific experiment on a complex phenomena. And as Karl Popper said, there are an infinite number of hypothesis for a complex phenomena, so each is irrelevant!
Davy on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 11:53 am
“What’s so bad about the melting of polar ice caps?”
ice caps = stability
We are already seeing a destabilization of the Atlantic conveyor and the jet stream in the Northern hemisphere. Wait until all that methane starts to bubbling.
GregT on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 12:04 pm
“We don’t have enough fossil fuels to reach the high estimates of the IPCC”
‘We’ don’t need to have enough fossil fuels. All ‘we’ need to do is melt the permafrost in the Arctic. The methane released will take care of the rest.
BobInget on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 12:19 pm
So, paradoxically these peak demand fears might bring the largest supply shock ever… if prices do not rise fast enough $300 oil in a few years is not impossible.
Pierre Andurand (Tweet)
Boat on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 12:23 pm
The Saudi had an audit. 270 billion left in the tank. So much all the millions of idiots who over the decades predicted only fumes in the near future.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-aramco-reserves/audit-finds-aramco-oil-reserves-slightly-higher-than-reported-sources-idUSKBN1I00AP
Boat on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 12:27 pm
For the world to continue to access that oil let’s all as one unite to bomb Yemen rebels until they drop the practice of disrupting world oil flow.
BobInget on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 12:31 pm
Don’t panic guys. Doubtless we see $190. oil before $300. (humor)
If ‘Our Dear Leader’ understood the oil bidness
he would be pretending to be nice to Iran. Not plotting to destroy M.E. production;
https://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/saudi-arabia/saudi-arabia-eyes-better-iran-deal-amid-pompeo-visit-1.2213539
BOTH Israel are planning a regime change in Iran.
Once missiles begin flying US becomes involved.
Pompeo giving Green Light as we read this.
BobInget on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 12:41 pm
Boat. We have been bombing Yemen for six years.
There are no viable targets remaining.
‘Rebels” have been TRYING to disrupt Saudi shipping. So far, ineffective.
If you were a real person, not a bot, you would secretly wish a few missiles would make a dent in world oil supply. Your N. American oil stocks would triple overnight.
Sys1 on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 12:47 pm
We are obviously doomed and there’s nothing new in reading that.
It’s even quite boring.
Instead, please give us charts and projections of exponential global warming, it will be far more fun to read.
BobInget on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 1:00 pm
“The trouble with Oil, there’s always too much or too little.” 1937
As a ‘retail investor’ I’m beginning to hedge ruinous triple digit oil prices buying cheap EXISTING natural gas pipelines. Enviros, lack of funding, holding up new NG lines until a crisis at the door.
Get ready for triple digit oil prices anyway you
know how.
MASTERMIND on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 1:02 pm
The polar ice caps reflect tons of sunlight back into space. And without them the worlds oceans and planet get warmer.
GregT on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 1:07 pm
“And without them the worlds oceans and planet get warmer.”
Which in turn means more water vapour in the atmosphere. Water vapour is also a greenhouse gas. Yet another positive feedback for even more warming.
Spencer Selander on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 1:09 pm
Davy, farmland can be managed to increase soil carbon without loss of production, in fact it will help sustain production in adverse weather years. There are increased costs involved, which is why paying farmers to do it is needed. The cost equation is different in the developing world, where an industrial farming system is not already in place – there, regenerative agriculture is more cost-effective than attempting to convert them to ag the way we do it. Reduced pollution and erosion are also benefits.
I’ve been involved with farming my whole life, I know a bit about agriculture. The fact is that industrial farming methods are more about reducing the labor cost of production than increasing production per acre. Also, those methods can’t continue as they have been – we’re losing our topsoil, and we’re running out of mine-able phosphate. Soil organic matter reduces erosion, and retains more plant nutrients. Sequestering carbon in the soil is necessary to maintain the long-term productivity of our farmlands, as well as to help mitigate global warming.
MASTERMIND on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 1:09 pm
Boat
Saudi Arabia ‘may run out of oil to export by 2030’
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/9523903/Saudis-may-run-out-of-oil-to-export-by-2030.html
The collapse of Saudi Arabia is inevitable
http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/collapse-saudi-arabia-inevitable-1895380679
Davy on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 1:22 pm
SS, I have done both types of farming. I am doing permaculture grass fed cattle and goats in a management intensive grazing arrangement currently. I am not doing it to make money as much as a pasture management tool and for food in case SHTF. To make money I would need to drastically raise stocking rates along with making hay. My experience is with what you are proposing is that it is not cost effective in the current economic paradigm. I disagree that you can produce more also except in certain types of farming. I had a 1000 acre corn and soy farm in 2000. You can’t permaculture that and produce what I did. If we could change the way things are done then maybe it could work but IMO with a much smaller global population.
MASTERMIND on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 1:25 pm
Boat
Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Warns of World Oil Shortages Ahead
https://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-minister-sees-end-of-oil-price-slump-1476870790
Saudi Aramco chief warns of looming oil shortage
https://www.ft.com/content/ed1e8102-212f-11e7-b7d3-163f5a7f229c
The oil age may come to an end for a shortage of oil -Saudi saying
Steve on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 1:28 pm
As I understand it, CO2 levels now exceed 410 ppm (413?) and the effects won’t be felt for several more years. Its already baked in. We need to be drawing down CO2, not slowing down its addition. EVERYTHING we build now to slow the addition in the future ADDS CO2 now. Concrete processing is one of the largest contributors to CO2. Think “clean” nuclear power plants and the bases of wind turbines. Electric vehicles produce 68% more CO2 during manufacture (battery) than do conventional ones. Another major contributor to CO2? The U.S. military, the largest user of petroleum in the U.S.
https://robinwestenra.blogspot.ca/2018/04/co2-levels-reach-413-ppm.html
http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2012/05/09/emissions-from-the-cement-industry/
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/electric-cars-co2-emissions-global-warming/
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2006-02-26/us-military-oil-consumption/
Steve on Sun, 29th Apr 2018 1:37 pm
Had enough yet?
http://weeklyhubris.com/had-enough-yet/