[GHung]

What we have here is a classic case of discounting the future. Nothing new there, which is why we're screwed. Future generations be damned.

[Apneaman]

Climate change: 2015 will be the hottest year on record 'by a mile', experts say


"Even though there are still several months left in the year to gather temperature readings from around the world, climate researchers believe nothing short of a Krakatoa-sized volcanic eruption that cuts out sunlight for months on end can now stop last year’s record being beaten."



http://www.independent.co.uk/environmen ... 77138.html

[StarvingLion]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ralfy', 'I')'m not sure, but I think the tendency is to ignore threats. Thus, peak oil, global warming, and other crises are either hoaxes or easy to solve. Given that, more priority is given to entertainment, technofixes, or the belief that those in authority will solve these problems.

Fracking and unconventional production in general are not proof that peak oil did not take place but actually confirm it. That's why debts had been rising and more oil companies face difficulties given lower prices, especially around half-a-trillion during the next few years:

"Oil Industry Needs Half a Trillion Dollars to Endure Price Slump"

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... to-survive

Meanwhile, higher prices leads to more economic crises, in turn already worsened due to fallout from financial speculation coupled with more credit created. That combined with the oil crisis has caused several economies to fall apart and considerable damage to most.

For material resources, there are no substitutes, which is why energy and financial costs to obtain them have been going up. Meanwhile, fallout from financial crises has dampened prices.

For global warming, one report indicates something like a trillion dollars has been lost each year due to its effects, prompting even insurance companies, multinational banks, military and science organizations, etc., to publish reports warning of its effects.

Finally, I think these crises are brought up not to make things more interesting but to show that they are connected to and amplify each other.

[C8]

A couple of points in reply to some of the replies:

First, I never said everything was hunky dory, just maybe not, y'know...... DOOOOOOOOOM! I think there is a big difference between being concerned and being panicked- I see a lot of panic on these boards.

Now to specifics:

Tanada:
Yes I have read those threads you mentioned (I'm not a boob) and some of those issues are concerning, but in all fairness I think many other points are being left out:

Artic:
1. yes its declining- but not as fast as people thought and there is little hard evidence that proves it will disappear. As the ice gets melted the remaining ice is further from direct rays and is harder to melt- this is why the decline rate seems to be slowing.

2. And nobody is mentioning the growth of ice in the antarctic (like that doesn't matter at all)

3. The climate has been much warmer in the past than it is now- how did it cool down? Are there counter feedback loops? Climate scientist don't seem to know how this works yet.

4. Over 90% of all temperature (by molecular volume) is stored in the ocean- not the air- and we have only begun a systematic monitoring of ocean temps in the last 10 years. There is much we still do not know about how deep sea currents and events play a role in all this.

I believe CO2 growth should be addressed (with research on how to remove it cheaply) but am not in panic mode.

Wildfires:
1. Wildfires have happened for many years, it strange to see people act like major fires have never happened before global warming. The only thing GW can be blamed for (partly) is the growth rate of fires.

2. We have also had a 100 year buildup of fuel material in the way of trees and bushes due to a constant fire suppression policy by the forest service. Almost every article I ever read about wildfires has a forest ranger mentioning the tremendous amount of brush fuel that is stoking these mega fires. This makes it hard to determine how much of this is due to global warming.

3. More homes than ever are being built deep into forests and this is increasing property loss more than any other factor.

Hurricanes:
1. Guess what? We have had hurricanes before global warming! And guess what? Far more people died from them than are dying today- its not even close. This despite the incredible increase of population on coastal areas in the last 30 years.

2. I am not ignoring the rest of the world (I mentioned the US in my post). Yes, I see the typhoons (and the tiny amount of people they kill) and I also see the studies that say a warming world will have fewer violent storms.

I am not saying there are not problems, there are. But years ago we worried about nuclear war, Y2k, Bird Flu, Peak Oil, etc. and none of that really was worth it in the end. I am not sure the personality that fear creates is ever worth the 'cause' they feel they are fighting for.

Some aspects of the Doomer psychology i have noticed in some of the replies:

1. It creates a personality that sees no shades of grey- only absolutes
2. It creates a personality that says "you are either with us or against us"
3. Doomers have a remarkable lack of humor or warmth- they seem to be bitter and mocking, in worst cases they are literally foaming at the mouth

I restate my argument that things are not this dire yet and Doomerism is not a mentally healthy path for an individual

[Cog]

Doomerism is a death cult to a large degree. They either predict it, want it, or otherwise hold the position that there is nothing we can do about it. Past predictions are sent down the memory hole and if you remind the doomers about them, they get annoyed with you. I've learned from my past experiences with doomers not to get in between a man and his doom. He will not thank you for it. Now tie that in with a unhealthy dose of conspiracy theory thinking, and you have a full blow psychosis at work.

[Lore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('C8', '
')Artic:
1. yes its declining- but not as fast as people thought and there is little hard evidence that proves it will disappear. As the ice gets melted the remaining ice is further from direct rays and is harder to melt- this is why the decline rate seems to be slowing.

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cog', 'D')oomerism is a death cult to a large degree. They either predict it, want it, or otherwise hold the position that there is nothing we can do about it. Past predictions are sent down the memory hole and if you remind the doomers about them, they get annoyed with you. I've learned from my past experiences with doomers not to get in between a man and his doom. He will not thank you for it. Now tie that in with a unhealthy dose of conspiracy theory thinking, and you have a full blow psychosis at work.

[Lore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outcast_Searcher', '
')Again, if the point of this site is to inform the uninformed, wouldn't some measure of balance and perspective and actually admitting that factual data on BOTH sides of issues actually exists? Given the lack of balance, apparently yelling "doom" loudly is actually more important than truly informing. IMO, that's unfortunate.

[Tanada]

Antarctica is lower than it has been since 2003, time to check up on the current state of the planet C8

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere ... arctic.png

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outcast_Searcher', '
')Again, if the point of this site is to inform the uninformed, wouldn't some measure of balance and perspective and actually admitting that factual data on BOTH sides of issues actually exists? Given the lack of balance, apparently yelling "doom" loudly is actually more important than truly informing. IMO, that's unfortunate.

[ralfy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('C8', 'A') couple of points in reply to some of the replies:

First, I never said everything was hunky dory, just maybe not, y'know...... DOOOOOOOOOM! I think there is a big difference between being concerned and being panicked- I see a lot of panic on these boards.

Now to specifics:

Tanada:
Yes I have read those threads you mentioned (I'm not a boob) and some of those issues are concerning, but in all fairness I think many other points are being left out:

Artic:
1. yes its declining- but not as fast as people thought and there is little hard evidence that proves it will disappear. As the ice gets melted the remaining ice is further from direct rays and is harder to melt- this is why the decline rate seems to be slowing.

[ralfy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cog', 'D')oomerism is a death cult to a large degree. They either predict it, want it, or otherwise hold the position that there is nothing we can do about it. Past predictions are sent down the memory hole and if you remind the doomers about them, they get annoyed with you. I've learned from my past experiences with doomers not to get in between a man and his doom. He will not thank you for it. Now tie that in with a unhealthy dose of conspiracy theory thinking, and you have a full blow psychosis at work.

[ralfy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outcast_Searcher', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cog', 'D')oomerism is a death cult to a large degree. They either predict it, want it, or otherwise hold the position that there is nothing we can do about it. Past predictions are sent down the memory hole and if you remind the doomers about them, they get annoyed with you. I've learned from my past experiences with doomers not to get in between a man and his doom. He will not thank you for it. Now tie that in with a unhealthy dose of conspiracy theory thinking, and you have a full blow psychosis at work.

[ralfy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outcast_Searcher', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outcast_Searcher', '
')Again, if the point of this site is to inform the uninformed, wouldn't some measure of balance and perspective and actually admitting that factual data on BOTH sides of issues actually exists? Given the lack of balance, apparently yelling "doom" loudly is actually more important than truly informing. IMO, that's unfortunate.

[C8]

FWIW- I am simply stating thast there are all kinds of trends going on in the world- some positive, some negative- but things can change very fast and new technology can become a game changer (see the history of Peak Oil). When we become a "doomer" or "corny" we close our eyes to news that doesn't fit our narrative. I try to post stuff from both sides.

Here is an example that I doubt most of the GW concerned folks would post: There has been a recent study that shows the world is actually getting greener and more area is becoming covered with biomass- especially in the crucial boreal forest area. This seems to be due to two forces: 1. govt.planting programs and 2. urbanization increases- which are removing people from countrysides and allowing plants to grow more thickly.

The bias that many have is to look at a localized area that is deforesting and amplify its disaster while ignoring the overall positive world trend.

Here is the link and the story:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-de ... e26147272/

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Green surprise: Why the world's forests are growing back

If the air feels just a bit fresher, it may be because the trees are making a comeback. Despite a lot of bad news on climate, our planet has become measurably greener, as seen from space. And that points to a way out of the climate crisis.

A group of scholars at Australian, Chinese, Dutch and Saudi Arabian universities recently published, in the journal Nature Climate Change, a 20-year study measuring the precise quantity of the Earth’s “terrestrial biomass” – that is, the total mass of living organisms, most of which are plants. They used two decades of microwave satellite readings (which are an accurate way to measure biological material) to determine how the world’s stock of living things has changed over time.

Because biological matter absorbs and stores carbon, it is crucial to protecting the Earth from climate change: If we diminish the amount of plant matter, then more carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, ends up in the atmosphere.

What the study found was, in the initial years, predictably depressing: Between 1993 and 2002, the world’s stock of plants declined – in large part because of large-scale deforestation in the tropical rain forests of Brazil and Indonesia.

But then, between 2003 and 2012 (the last year they analyzed), something surprising happened: The trees started growing back. Their results showed that deforestation in Brazil and Indonesia slowed sharply, while better growing conditions in the savannahs of northern Australia and southern Africa added mass, and – most dramatically – the vast forests of China and Russia grew back at a considerable pace. The last point is especially significant: The boreal forest, which stretches across Northern Canada and Russia, stores almost 60 per cent of the world’s carbon (tropical rain forests store about half that much).

The result was, they reported, “an overall gain” in the world’s carbon-absorbing green matter – a result that has been reproduced in other recent studies showing an expansion of the global carbon sink. Another study, published in July, found that the share of carbon emissions caused by deforestation has declined by a third in the past decade.

What is most significant is not that the world’s forests are growing back, but the reasons why. Almost all of the regreening of the post-2003 years was caused, whether through explicit policy or happy accident, by countries increasing their level of urbanization, their proportion of commercial agriculture or their rate of economic growth – all of which created the conditions for a more carbon-friendly ecology.

A lot of the regreening was caused by explicit policies devoted to that task: Starting in the 1990s, both China and the European Union introduced “afforestation” programs to return former croplands to forest – in the case of Europe, which produces far more food than it needs, by paying farmers grants to convert fields to forests – in the process converting at least 6,000 square kilometres of land back to forest.

China’s program, popularly known as the “Great Green Wall,” is intended to replant almost 400 million hectares of forest in a 4,500-kilometre strip across northern China by 2050, making it the world’s largest reforesting program, and it appears to have had dramatic results.

This was only possible because China shifted from being a deeply impoverished, rural economy based on small-hold peasant farming (which tends to denude the land of forests, as well as producing very little food) to one that is urbanized and based on higher-production agriculture – so it both no longer needs all that former forest land, and also has the financial and infrastructural resources to replant forests.

Brazil, likewise, now has the scale of economy and government to end the ruin of the Amazon forest – and, for the past decade, the political will. That ruin was largely based on wasteful large-scale methods of soy and cattle farming that chewed rapidly into virgin forest. Starting in 2004, Brazil launched a Program for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Amazon that, in the words of Jonah Busch from the Center for Global Development, has included satellite monitoring, law enforcement, new protected areas and indigenous territories, restrictions on rural credit, and moratoriums on unsustainable soy and cattle production. This has caused Amazon deforestation to fall by almost 80 per cent – but has actually increased Brazil’s soy and cattle production, because farms were forced to find commercial-agriculture efficiencies rather than simply eating up more land.

Brazil is one of several ex-developing countries that now have the resources and urbanization level to get their forests under control – but even Brazil is getting help from Germany in a program, announced this week, in which Berlin will finance a program, initially costing $830-million, to reduce Amazon deforestation to zero by 2030 – something ecologists say is easily possible.

That’s modelled on a deal struck between Norway and Indonesia in 2010 in which the Scandinavian country is paying to stop the wasteful cutting of Indonesia’s rain forests – a program which, in combination with modernization of Indonesia’s economy, is bearing fruit, according to the satellite measures.

The return of the trees teaches us a lesson. To reduce our destructive carbon output, the solution is not to reduce economic activity; rather, it’s to combine a booming urban economy with smart policies that make growth and ecology work in harmony.

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ralfy', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outcast_Searcher', '
')So the classic example, to me, is the "financial doomerist" meme that any positive economic numbers, such as ongoing global economic growth is a lie, since everything the MSM prints is a lie cloaked in a conspiracy.

[Cog]

Did anyone really predict the increase in oil production in the USA due to fracking? Over at TOD, when they were still alive, there were scary charts posted every month showing a shark fin drop-off in global oil production and it was not even theorized that the US could reverse its 1970 peak. Those scary charts were absolutely wrong.

Yes oil production predictions will always be wrong because there is too much complexity in the system as pstarr rightly points out. Doesn't mean at some point in the future that there won't be some sort of peak production in the global sense of the word. Unless you believe in abiotic oil, there will be a time when we simply can't find or produce any additional amount each year. Oil fields deplete over time and a collection of oil fields will deplete over time. But when that is, no one is going to be able to predict.