I'm sorry, I thought we're in a Climate Emergency?

Submitted by RantingRooster on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 8:09am

I used to get up early on Sunday mornings and wash my wife's car before she went to church. First thing she would say when she got back, “you missed a spot”. Trust me, I know what it feels like to have someone, metaphorically speaking, kick you in the private parts for all your hard efforts.

I see the world from a devil's advocate point of view. The glass is half empty, as it were. Or as my c99 bio includes, part time raving lunatic.

However, there is rationale behind my lunacy, if you will, because to me, picking a few bad apples from the tree, while ignoring the roots are rotten, is not cause for a victory lap.

For me, the “insult”, is that Texas is rendering every other environmental groups efforts in surrounding states, essentially mute. If other states sequester, say 100 tons of Co2, and Texas pumps out 500 tons, personally, I don't think that is cause for celebration.

To me, it is cause for a serious re-evaluation of the strategies deployed by the Texas environmental movements. Clearly they are not working if Texas' carbon emissions are rapidly rising, and most importantly, are canceling out other states efforts. (I don't really think that's anything to write home to momma about...)

From the Hill

Despite leadership from so many states, the overall U.S. emissions picture is bleak if we don’t do more. As we squeeze the emissions balloon downward in some states and economic sectors, emissions are simultaneously expanding upward in others. The net effect: nationwide carbon emissions rose rapidly in 2018 — the biggest increase in eight years.

Texas is the leading culprit. The emissions increase from Texas alone has erased reductions from all states in the West and Northeast, combined.

(bold emphasis mine)

If you feel insulted, I would suggest you direct polemic ire at the source organizations that are failing badly. Especially, organizations that are putting their efforts into feel good campaigns, and not realizing, 1 the current recycling technologies can't handle straws in the first place, and 2, our plastics are not being actually recycled, it's being shipped via container ships to China, who isn't taking much of these plastics from the US anymore.

It's like, Mr. 45, meet Mr. foot. Boom.

Now, imagine if the Texas Environment Movements were duplicating the success others have been accomplishing, protecting and preserving vital lands, habitats and biodiversity, as well as reducing emissions, instead of worrying about straws. Then maybe, Texas carbon emissions would not be canceling out the hard won efforts in surrounding states.

But what I see happening, and most importantly, what I've experienced being involved with 5 different climate change organizations, is the “powers that be”, including several prominent Texas Environmental organizations, are developing Climate Actions Plans with cities across the state, based on bad data, and allowing the fox to guard the hen house.

For example, this presentation on the City of Dallas, City Environmental and Climate Planing Efforts, Slide 7.

Do you notice anything on this page that jumps out to you? Note this presentation was presented on Jan 14, 2019.

Then there's this little nugget from the ACCO (Association of Climate Change Officers), presentation. See slide 24, and I'll ask the same question, does anything on this page jump out to you?

If I'm not mistaken, a 4.5C rise in temperatures will pretty much wipe humanity from the face of the earth. Just saying...

Now, review all the members of the “Stakeholders Advisory Committee”, including prominent Environmental Groups. But please note The Dallas Federal Reserve, and especially JPMorganChase, have seats at the table.

(JPMorgan is listed on the City's website)

It's like the foxes are guarding the hen house. It's absurd.

Now, when I attended these City meetings, that were available to the public, and asked about these bad data points, and others, “How can the City plan for Climate Change, when the data for their inputs used for planning, is incorrect?” Let's just say my question wasn't well received.

I didn't get to ask my follow up question as to why JPMorgan Chase has a seat at the table, when they are the number 1 financier of fossil fuel exploration, extraction, distribution and processing, not to mention a 3 time convicted felon, and is currently under indictment of the RICO Act for rigging the precious metals market.

I had to forget about mentioning the fact that the company the City of Dallas has hired to manage this Climate Action Plan, AECOM, has quite the history of violations.

Unfortunately, no one from any of these Environmental groups on the Stakeholders Advisory Committee were pushing back, at all, about anything. The plans and proposals they are putting forth, are for business as usual. ie Incremental change.

A couple of things you might consider.

A big part of the problem, at least to me, is the "corporatization" of Non-Profits, as INCITE writes about in book "The Revolution Will Not Be Funded, Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex", which is collection of essays about the corporatization of the non-profit sector, which, is a TRILLION-dollar industry in the US.

"Many social justice organizations have joined this world, often blunting political goals to satisfy government and foundation mandates. But even as funding shrinks, many activists often find it difficult to imagine movement-building outside the non-profit model"

Erica West wrote about it in her article, "Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex"

The anthology The Revolution Will Not Be Funded defines the nonprofit-industrial complex as “a set of symbiotic relationships that link political and financial technologies of state and owning-class control with surveillance over public political ideology, including and especially emergent progressive and leftist social movements.”

Snip

Nonprofits may be required to have employees with certain advanced degrees in order to bill for services and receive funding from programs, such as Medi-Cal in California or the federal Medicaid health care program. Foundations themselves may place whatever stipulations they want in grants, including requiring those who provide services to have advanced degrees, such as a PhD in psychology, even if it’s not necessarily needed.

This professionalization creates stratification between nonprofit employees and the clients they serve, as well as among those with and without such degrees within a nonprofit.

A more detailed analysis can be found here by Dylan Rodríguez, The Political Logic of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex.

"Perhaps never before has the struggle to mount viable movements of radical social transformation in the United States been more desperate, urgent, or difficult. In the aftermath of the 1960s mass-movement era, the edifices of state repression have themselves undergone substantive transformation, even as classical techniques of politically formed state violence–colonization and protocolonial occupation, racist policing, assassination, political and mass-based imprisonment–remain fairly constant in the US production of global order."

Snip

In this context, the structural and political limitations of current grassroots and progressive organizing in the United States has become stunningly evident in light of the veritable explosion of private foundations as primary institutions through which to harness and restrict the potentials of US-based progressive activisms. Heavily dependent on the funding of such ostensibly liberal and progressive financial bodies as the Mellon, Ford, and Soros foundations, the very existence of many social justice organizations has often come to rest more on the effectiveness of professional (and amateur) grant writers than on skilled–much less “radical”–political educators and organizers.

The very same things are happening in the Environmental Non-Profit sector!

Just check out Environment Texas, one of the largest "Non-profit" environmental organizations in Texas. The organization's director, Luke Metzger, explains in his 2019 Annual report

To be an environmentalist, you’ve got to wrestle with a conundrum: We need bold action on a short timeline … with broad public support.
We need to do a lot, quickly, to preserve a livable planet. But progress has to earn and sustain the support of the people in order to last—so progress doesn’t often come in one big swooping action. It usually comes one small-ish victory at a time.

(bold emphasis mine)

Right there from the horse's mouth as it were, "It usually comes one small-ish victory at a time", ie incremental change.

I'm sorry, but forming a bucket line, when we have multiple fire engines full of water to douse the flames, is not going to get us there, especially when Texas Carbon emissions are rising so much, it's canceling out the efforts of multiple states, COMBINED!

Look, don't get me wrong, a lot of the work they do is very important. They've had some good victories, BUT, things are not "normal". The "science" informs us, we are in an EMERGENCY to drastically reduce carbon emissions.

Now, I maybe suffering from serious Climate Change PTSD, from being buried in the scientific papers over the last couple of years since I wrote my essay series on Climate Change. I really didn't know shit about bio diversity back then, but I damn sure do now.

Heck, some of those reports about biodiversity loss scare the fuck out of me because we are so damn close to losing it all. Which, if I'm not mistaken, happens with 3C rise, and some places a lot sooner, and others it's already happening big time!

(I'm guessing those people with the Association of Climate Change Officers, do not really realize, what is going to happen with a 4.5C rise in average temperatures to biodiversity across the planet.)

Secondly, I've done my damnedest to get involved, but identity politics has reared it's ugly head and infected the Texas Environmental Movement. In the last 3 years I've learned there are 4 major impediments to being involved in the Climate Change movement, at least in North Texas. If you're male, white, old and ex-military, just take a seat and STFU. ("We do have Starbucks coffee"...)

One organization's national team leaders specifically told me, they wanted a woman or a person of color to lead the city level group. I'm like, ok fine, where the are they? Months pass and still nothing. It's absurd. How are we going to tackle the Climate Crisis breathing down our necks, if we are waiting for young, photogenic people to step up?

Heck, I've even applied for jobs at just about everyone of those environmental groups on the Stakeholders Advisory Committee, and only the TCE responded, and their “opportunity”, to me, was a joke, and a bad one at that. Knocking on doors, collecting names and donations, 60% of which goes to pay your own salary, for incremental change legislation, and feel good campaigns. It's absurd.

Some of these environmental organizations have reached out to me, and instead of offering a job, or even a small stipend, they've asked me to travel across the state or multiple states, shoot video at some their public events, produce a video for them, and do it all for free. While at the same time, sending me emails begging for donations. (Talk about feeling insulted!)

And of course not a single one of these "Climate Change / Environmental" non-profit organizations will address the rotten roots of the apple tree, ie Capitalism. All of their "solutions" are based on "market" solutions, ie green capitalism, which is Capitalism.

It's the third rail of the non-profit sector, shhh don't talk about the ills of capitalism, it could hurt our big donor feelings....

I'm just saying... Texas alone has erased reductions from all states in the West and Northeast, combined. Does that not inform you, we're (Texas) NOT doing a very good job of tackling the Climate EMERGENCY, with shallow victories and feel good campaigns?

As much as I hated my wife saying it, she was right, I missed a spot.

Tags:

# ClimateCrisis

#Environment

#Co2

#DangerWarningWillRobinson

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Comments

Submitted by Cassiodorus on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 9:15am

The problem, as I pointed out in a previous comment --

is that

the Powers That Be have since 1992 couched the "solution" in the wrong terms ("reducing carbon emissions") rather than the right ones (phasing out the industries which create the carbon). It's as if there were a huge toxic spill and the government said "hey we'll just tell everyone to stop breathing the air or drinking the water and everything will be fine."
Beyond Paris: avoiding the trap of carbon metrics

Instead of changing our economic system to make it fit within the natural limits of the planet, we are redefining nature so that it fits within the economic system.

It's totally okay, you see, for the carbon producers to continue on their merry ways, as long as the carbon consumers "cut carbon emissions."

That's the mentality they have. They're going to "cut carbon emissions" -- just enough to manufacture some statistics that make them look good -- and that's it. Meanwhile you can go to the EIA web page and see that for most years global fossil fuel production increases.

—

“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon

Submitted by OzoneTom on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 10:10am

This should add some spring to your step! /s

"The materials used by the global economy have quadrupled since 1970, far faster than the population, which has doubled. In the last two years, consumption has jumped by more than 8% but the reuse of resources has fallen from 9.1% to 8.6%."

Guardian: World’s consumption of materials hits record 100bn tonnes a year

Submitted by CB on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 12:35pm

How in the world can we bring

@OzoneTom
the rest of the 7.8 billion people up to the living standards of an average American? We have to expect the use of the world's total resources to have increased at an exponential rate.

The only way for this to be balanced is for the Americans and Europeans to consume much, much less. We have been pigging out for well over two centuries and are the source of the base load of CO2 in the environment. I remember walking to school in the mid fifties when the air was so filthy with smog it brought tears to my eyes and caused my nose to hurt.

As poorer nations come out of poverty, they are producing a fraction of the pollution and waste that we did due to more efficient production of steel, aluminum, power, food, transportation, etc, etc than we in America did.

Doubling the population at a cost of just quadrupling the use of resources in order to begin to bring the poorer 8/10ths of the world's population up to the economic standards of even the poorest American is a fucking bargain.

Look around at our cities and towns and how we live. The GDP of the US is over 62,000.00 per capita! Compare to the rest of the world:

China has far, far surpassed the US for getting more from less.

The GDP per person is now over $10,000 in China.

Common prosperity: China's poverty alleviation campaign

"The people yearn for a better life, and our goal is to help them achieve it."
- Chinese President Xi Jinping

2020 is set to be the year China eradicates poverty in the country and becomes a "moderately prosperous society in all respects." If China achieves this goal, it would be 10 years ahead of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal target of ending global poverty by 2030.
...
China has lifted more than 800 million people - 76 percent of the world's poor - out of poverty since the 1980s, contributing more than any other country to global poverty reduction. After this historic achievement, China is determined to help every last one of its poor, having made poverty alleviation a top agenda in the country's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020).

"We must ensure that by the year 2020, all rural residents living below the current poverty line have been lifted out of poverty, and poverty is eliminated from all poor counties and regions," Chinese President Xi Jinping said while addressing the 19th CPC National Congress.
...
China's development is the development of Chinese people, and the country's leadership has a proven track record to show that. According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)'s Human Development report, since the Human Development Index (HDI) was introduced in 1990 China is the only country in the world to have moved from low development group to high development category.
...

Submitted by Cassiodorus on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 5:42pm

Please see Foster, Clark, and York

@CB

The only way for this to be balanced is for the Americans and Europeans to consume much, much less.

their book is titled The Ecological Rift, in which it is explained that productive consumption outdoes consumptive consumption by a factor of about thirty or forty. It isn't the consumer consumption that's at fault -- rather, production needs to be localized, everything needs to be recycled, production methods need to be made less resource-intensive. When we've done this, then we can talk about who needs to consume less.

#2
the rest of the 7.8 billion people up to the living standards of an average American? We have to expect the use of the world's total resources to have increased at an exponential rate.

The only way for this to be balanced is for the Americans and Europeans to consume much, much less. We have been pigging out for well over two centuries and are the source of the base load of CO2 in the environment. I remember walking to school in the mid fifties when the air was so filthy with smog it brought tears to my eyes and caused my nose to hurt.

As poorer nations come out of poverty, they are producing a fraction of the pollution and waste that we did due to more efficient production of steel, aluminum, power, food, transportation, etc, etc than we in America did.

Doubling the population at a cost of just quadrupling the use of resources in order to begin to bring the poorer 8/10ths of the world's population up to the economic standards of even the poorest American is a fucking bargain.

Look around at our cities and towns and how we live. The GDP of the US is over 62,000.00 per capita! Compare to the rest of the world:

China has far, far surpassed the US for getting more from less.

The GDP per person is now over $10,000 in China.

Common prosperity: China's poverty alleviation campaign

"The people yearn for a better life, and our goal is to help them achieve it."
- Chinese President Xi Jinping

2020 is set to be the year China eradicates poverty in the country and becomes a "moderately prosperous society in all respects." If China achieves this goal, it would be 10 years ahead of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal target of ending global poverty by 2030.
...
China has lifted more than 800 million people - 76 percent of the world's poor - out of poverty since the 1980s, contributing more than any other country to global poverty reduction. After this historic achievement, China is determined to help every last one of its poor, having made poverty alleviation a top agenda in the country's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020).

"We must ensure that by the year 2020, all rural residents living below the current poverty line have been lifted out of poverty, and poverty is eliminated from all poor counties and regions," Chinese President Xi Jinping said while addressing the 19th CPC National Congress.
...
China's development is the development of Chinese people, and the country's leadership has a proven track record to show that. According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)'s Human Development report, since the Human Development Index (HDI) was introduced in 1990 China is the only country in the world to have moved from low development group to high development category.
...

—

“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon

Submitted by thanatokephaloides on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 6:03pm

carbon footprints

@Cassiodorus

their book is titled The Ecological Rift, in which it is explained that productive consumption outdoes consumptive consumption by a factor of about thirty or forty. It isn't the consumer consumption that's at fault -- rather, production needs to be localized, everything needs to be recycled, production methods need to be made less resource-intensive. When we've done this, then we can talk about who needs to consume less.

And in the case of the USA, our military needs to be localized. We need to get out of the regime change business. We spend more on military than all other nations on Earth combined, with a nuclear-backed carbon footprint to match. A single modern fighter plane burns as much carbon in one hour as the most carbon-wasteful family burns in a year.

—

"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Submitted by lotlizard on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 11:28pm

Will Tesla supply the world with self-driving electric tanks?

@thanatokephaloides
Yeah, right.

Tanks and miles per gallon? More like how many gallons does it take to go one mile.

“Green warfare” — “Green Army, green Navy, green Air Force, green Marines” — “green nuclear warheads” — it is to laugh.

Code-breaking and simulating nuclear reactions require energy-sucking supercomputers. All-pervading government and corporate surveillance requires huge energy-sucking data centers.

Who actually accomplished quick deindustrialization and population decrease? The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. “Medical genocide,” an intervention to save the planet? A worldwide wave of “C’mere Verde” — “In green stone-age Stalinist future, (Pol) Pot smokes you”?

Submitted by CB on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 8:58pm

Reviews of the book sounds like they

@Cassiodorus
are espousing replacing capitalism with socialism.

China seems to be doing a reasonable job in that direction.

China Focus: Socialism with Chinese characteristics: 10 ideas to share with world

BEIJING, Oct. 8 (Xinhua) -- The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) is expected to set a blueprint for the country to march toward modernization under the banner of "socialism with Chinese characteristics."

Since its 12th national congress in 1982, the CPC has always stressed "socialism with Chinese characteristics." Under this banner, China has become the world's second largest economy and is stepping ever closer to becoming a moderately prosperous society in all respects in the next three years.

As the world's largest developing country, socialist China's rise in a playing field dominated by capitalist states has brought fresh ideas in addressing challenges facing humanity in at least ten respects. Let's have a look at those ten areas:

BTW, China's goal of peaking emissions by 2030 is expected be met by 2022.

China CO2 emissions to peak in 2022, ahead of schedule: government researcher

FUXIAN LAKE, China (Reuters) - China’s emissions of climate-warming greenhouse gases are likely to peak by 2022 even without the introduction of tougher policies, well ahead of an original target of “around” 2030, a senior government researcher said on Thursday.

China’s pledge to bring emissions to a peak by “around 2030” was a key component of a global pact to tackle climate change drawn up in Paris in 2015.

Beijing has since promised to show “the highest possible ambition” when reviewing its targets, and a government think tank has urged Beijing to introduce stricter measures for its next 2021-2025 “five-year plan”.

But Jiang Kejun, research professor with the Energy Research Institute, a unit of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top planning body, said he had “extreme confidence” in Beijing’s ability to bring emissions to a peak by 2022 on just a “business as usual” trajectory.

Submitted by Cassiodorus on Fri, 01/24/2020 - 1:39am

"Socialism" according to the authors' notions --

@CB would be a regime wholly unlike that currently dominant in China.

#2.1.1 are espousing replacing capitalism with socialism. China seems to be doing a reasonable job in that direction. China Focus: Socialism with Chinese characteristics: 10 ideas to share with world BEIJING, Oct. 8 (Xinhua) -- The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) is expected to set a blueprint for the country to march toward modernization under the banner of "socialism with Chinese characteristics." Since its 12th national congress in 1982, the CPC has always stressed "socialism with Chinese characteristics." Under this banner, China has become the world's second largest economy and is stepping ever closer to becoming a moderately prosperous society in all respects in the next three years. As the world's largest developing country, socialist China's rise in a playing field dominated by capitalist states has brought fresh ideas in addressing challenges facing humanity in at least ten respects. Let's have a look at those ten areas: BTW, China's goal of peaking emissions by 2030 is expected be met by 2022. China CO2 emissions to peak in 2022, ahead of schedule: government researcher FUXIAN LAKE, China (Reuters) - China’s emissions of climate-warming greenhouse gases are likely to peak by 2022 even without the introduction of tougher policies, well ahead of an original target of “around” 2030, a senior government researcher said on Thursday. China’s pledge to bring emissions to a peak by “around 2030” was a key component of a global pact to tackle climate change drawn up in Paris in 2015. Beijing has since promised to show “the highest possible ambition” when reviewing its targets, and a government think tank has urged Beijing to introduce stricter measures for its next 2021-2025 “five-year plan”. But Jiang Kejun, research professor with the Energy Research Institute, a unit of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top planning body, said he had “extreme confidence” in Beijing’s ability to bring emissions to a peak by 2022 on just a “business as usual” trajectory.

—

“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon

Submitted by CB on Fri, 01/24/2020 - 2:32pm

Are you sure? I see many parallels.

@Cassiodorus

Making War on the Planet: Geoengineering and Capitalism’s Creative Destruction of the Earth
Posted Jul 24, 2018 by John Bellamy Foster
...
Eco-Revolution as the Only Alternative
...
Today’s necessary ecological revolution would include for starters: (1) an emergency moratorium on economic growth in the rich countries coupled with downward redistribution of income and wealth; (2) radical reductions in greenhouse gas emissions; (3) rapid phase-out of the entire fossil fuel energy structure; (4) substitution of an alternative energy infrastructure based on sustainable alternatives such as solar and wind power and rooted in local control; (5) massive cuts in military spending with the freed-up economic surplus to be used for ecological conversion; (6) promotion of circular economies and zero-waste systems to decrease the throughput of energy and resources; (7) building effective public transportation, together with measures to decrease dependence on the private automobile; (8) restoration of global ecosystems in line with local, including indigenous, communities; (9) transformation of destructive, energy-and chemical-intensive agribusiness-monocultural production into agroecology, based on sustainable small farms and peasant cultivation with their greater productivity of food per acre; (10) institution of strong controls on the emission of toxic chemicals; (11) prohibition of the privatization of freshwater resources; (12) imposition of strong, human-community-based management of the ocean commons geared to sustainability; (13) institution of dramatic new measures to protect endangered species; (14) strict limits imposed on excessive and destructive consumer marketing by corporations; (15) reorganization of production to break down current commodity chains geared to rapacious accumulation and the philosophy of “Après moi le déluge”; and (16) the development of more rational, equitable, less wasteful, and more collective forms of production.

How many of those ideals have now been implemented or scheduled by the Chinese government (put the term in Google and add 'China' to it)? Eco-socialism has been considered by the Chinese government for decades, well before it was talked about by western governments.

“The rich consume and the poor suffer the pollution”
Pan Yue
Zhou Jigang
27.10.2006
...
ZJ: How did eco-socialism come into being. What does it consist of?

PY...After the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, new Marxist thinkers found that ecological issues presented a heaven-sent opportunity to expose the capitalist system and unite socialists. They sought out ecological viewpoints in the works of Marx and Engels, in statements such as: “naturalism is humanism, and humanism is socialism;” “the relationship between man and nature is that between man and man, just as the relationship between man and man is that between man and nature;” and “our world faces two revolutions – reconciliation between man and nature, and between men themselves.” They laid the blame for the global environmental crisis at the feet of the capitalist system, and proposed using Marxist dialectics to repudiate a purely economic rationality.
...
ZJ: China, a socialist country, apart from facing the environmental colonialism of developed capitalist nations, is also seeing its own rapid economic development exacerbate the environmental crisis. How should China’s current environmental crisis be viewed?

PY...With the rise of globalisation, developed countries have transferred their industry to developing nations as a form of environmental colonialism. In China, pollution has been moved from east to west and from the city to the rural areas. The rich consume and the poor suffer the pollution. The economic and environmental inequalities caused by a flawed understanding of growth and political achievement, held by some officials, have gone against the basic aims of socialism and abandoned the achievements of Chinese socialism.

As a socialist country, China should unite with other developing countries to oppose an international economic order which causes environmental inequality. Domestically, it should establish systems to prevent unbalanced development from causing environmental risks. From this we can see the wisdom and correctness of the political ideals put forward by the Communist Party Central Committee: the scientific view of development and the construction of a harmonious, resource-conserving and environmentally-friendly society – and how urgent and necessary it is to promote an entirely new type of industrialisation.
...
Our strengths lie in the rich historical, cultural and theoretical resources we can carry forward. We are in east Asia, we can learn from the experience of combining Confucianism with industrial civilisation, and also draw upon the successful combination of European socialism with western civilisation. Our socialist political theory contains within it the core concept of eco-industrial civilisation – social justice. We are already working tirelessly to make the construction of a socialist environmental culture and ecological civilisation our duty and mission.

Pan Yue is deputy director of China's State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA). Part of a new generation of outspoken Chinese senior officials, Pan has given rise to a tide of environmental debate, attracting enormous attention and controversy. On Socialist Environmentalism was published in China Economic Times on September 26, 2006.

For an Eco-Socialist Vision: An Interview with Qingzhi Huan
...
GH...Based on this policy position, China’s participation in international climate change politics over the past years can be divided into three stages: pre-1992, 1992-2012, 2012-now. Up until 2012, the dominant understanding was that it was the advanced countries like the EU countries and the US which were to take immediate actions. Since 2012, the Chinese government gradually updated or shifted its position towards international cooperation on climate change, especially under the framework of the UNFCCC. The best example here is the new role of China in reaching and implementing the Paris Agreement.

To be honest, the major impetus for this adjustment of the Chinese policy position does not stem from the signing and implementation of the Paris Agreement but comes from implementing the national strategy of promoting the construction of an eco-civilization. Briefly speaking, marked by the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the modernization of “national ecological environment governance system and governance capacity” has been recognized as one of the top political and policy goals for the CPC and the Chinese government, and joining international cooperation on climate change more actively is one ideal symbolic case to show their political willingness. For instance, China is also paying more and more attention to the implementation of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) by organizing several important, related international activities in 2019-20.

CS: Environmental protection is not a new issue in China. In 1972, China, unlike other countries ruled by socialist parties, took part in the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, where a number of principles and recommendations concerning environmental protection were agreed upon. Could you sketch developments and changes in China’s environmental policies since then?
...
CS: In European countries and in North America, the idea of a green capitalism is the mainstream answer to the current ecological challenges. What could they gain from alternative visions of the future like the one you put forward?

QH: Arguably, “green capitalism” or “eco-capitalism” is the most practical or even “rational” approach to deal with the current ecological challenges in European countries and in North America, because, thanks to the hierarchical international economic and political order and the increasingly wide acceptance of the “imperial mode of living” in developing countries, these “advanced” countries can manage to use the global resources and sinks to their own advantage. If such a structural configuration remains unchanged, one can imagine that there will be little possibility for the world to move towards an eco-socialist future.

However, it seems that this configuration has indeed become socially and ecologically problematic in recent years. On the one hand, following the economic rise of several major developing countries including China, it is becoming more and more difficult for the US and European countries to maintain the status quo of the international order, which will threaten not only their position of hegemony in the traditional sense but also their green model of “eco-capitalism.” In other words, there will be less and less space or possibilities in reality for these “advanced” countries to maintain the good quality of their local environment while continuing to enjoy a high level of material consumption. To some extent, the increasing tensions today between China and the West led by the US can be interpreted in this way. On the other hand, more and more developing countries, especially the emerging economies like China, are taking the ecological environment problems seriously for different reasons. This implies that there will be more and stricter restrictions from developing countries on the acceptance of “dirty” capital and technology, let alone of waste and garbage, as the dispute over waste import between the Philippines and Canada has clearly shown.

In both senses mentioned above, in my opinion, the principles and ways of thinking of eco-socialism can contribute in making European and North American countries eventually realize the limits and defects of “green capitalism” or “eco-capitalism.” Solving local or short-term problems while others pay the costs needs to end, and a process of radical social-ecological transformation needs to be initiated as soon as possible. A more just world and more equal society are the precondition for a cleaner environment.

Submitted by Cassiodorus on Sat, 01/25/2020 - 9:10am

If you "see" parallels

@CB that's because you're not looking, for instance, at the fact that coal infrastructure in China is still expanding. From Wired, end of November last year:

China Is Still Building an Insane Number of New Coal Plants

At any rate, China's "socialism" is actually state capitalism, whereas Foster is on record as wanting to do away with value as an autonomous process ruling people's lives, which would mean doing away with state capitalism. When you make arguments like this you come across as really naive.

#2.1.1.2.1

Making War on the Planet: Geoengineering and Capitalism’s Creative Destruction of the Earth
Posted Jul 24, 2018 by John Bellamy Foster
...
Eco-Revolution as the Only Alternative
...
Today’s necessary ecological revolution would include for starters: (1) an emergency moratorium on economic growth in the rich countries coupled with downward redistribution of income and wealth; (2) radical reductions in greenhouse gas emissions; (3) rapid phase-out of the entire fossil fuel energy structure; (4) substitution of an alternative energy infrastructure based on sustainable alternatives such as solar and wind power and rooted in local control; (5) massive cuts in military spending with the freed-up economic surplus to be used for ecological conversion; (6) promotion of circular economies and zero-waste systems to decrease the throughput of energy and resources; (7) building effective public transportation, together with measures to decrease dependence on the private automobile; (8) restoration of global ecosystems in line with local, including indigenous, communities; (9) transformation of destructive, energy-and chemical-intensive agribusiness-monocultural production into agroecology, based on sustainable small farms and peasant cultivation with their greater productivity of food per acre; (10) institution of strong controls on the emission of toxic chemicals; (11) prohibition of the privatization of freshwater resources; (12) imposition of strong, human-community-based management of the ocean commons geared to sustainability; (13) institution of dramatic new measures to protect endangered species; (14) strict limits imposed on excessive and destructive consumer marketing by corporations; (15) reorganization of production to break down current commodity chains geared to rapacious accumulation and the philosophy of “Après moi le déluge”; and (16) the development of more rational, equitable, less wasteful, and more collective forms of production.

How many of those ideals have now been implemented or scheduled by the Chinese government (put the term in Google and add 'China' to it)? Eco-socialism has been considered by the Chinese government for decades, well before it was talked about by western governments.

“The rich consume and the poor suffer the pollution”
Pan Yue
Zhou Jigang
27.10.2006
...
ZJ: How did eco-socialism come into being. What does it consist of?

PY...After the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, new Marxist thinkers found that ecological issues presented a heaven-sent opportunity to expose the capitalist system and unite socialists. They sought out ecological viewpoints in the works of Marx and Engels, in statements such as: “naturalism is humanism, and humanism is socialism;” “the relationship between man and nature is that between man and man, just as the relationship between man and man is that between man and nature;” and “our world faces two revolutions – reconciliation between man and nature, and between men themselves.” They laid the blame for the global environmental crisis at the feet of the capitalist system, and proposed using Marxist dialectics to repudiate a purely economic rationality.
...
ZJ: China, a socialist country, apart from facing the environmental colonialism of developed capitalist nations, is also seeing its own rapid economic development exacerbate the environmental crisis. How should China’s current environmental crisis be viewed?

PY...With the rise of globalisation, developed countries have transferred their industry to developing nations as a form of environmental colonialism. In China, pollution has been moved from east to west and from the city to the rural areas. The rich consume and the poor suffer the pollution. The economic and environmental inequalities caused by a flawed understanding of growth and political achievement, held by some officials, have gone against the basic aims of socialism and abandoned the achievements of Chinese socialism.

As a socialist country, China should unite with other developing countries to oppose an international economic order which causes environmental inequality. Domestically, it should establish systems to prevent unbalanced development from causing environmental risks. From this we can see the wisdom and correctness of the political ideals put forward by the Communist Party Central Committee: the scientific view of development and the construction of a harmonious, resource-conserving and environmentally-friendly society – and how urgent and necessary it is to promote an entirely new type of industrialisation.
...
Our strengths lie in the rich historical, cultural and theoretical resources we can carry forward. We are in east Asia, we can learn from the experience of combining Confucianism with industrial civilisation, and also draw upon the successful combination of European socialism with western civilisation. Our socialist political theory contains within it the core concept of eco-industrial civilisation – social justice. We are already working tirelessly to make the construction of a socialist environmental culture and ecological civilisation our duty and mission.

Pan Yue is deputy director of China's State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA). Part of a new generation of outspoken Chinese senior officials, Pan has given rise to a tide of environmental debate, attracting enormous attention and controversy. On Socialist Environmentalism was published in China Economic Times on September 26, 2006.

For an Eco-Socialist Vision: An Interview with Qingzhi Huan
...
GH...Based on this policy position, China’s participation in international climate change politics over the past years can be divided into three stages: pre-1992, 1992-2012, 2012-now. Up until 2012, the dominant understanding was that it was the advanced countries like the EU countries and the US which were to take immediate actions. Since 2012, the Chinese government gradually updated or shifted its position towards international cooperation on climate change, especially under the framework of the UNFCCC. The best example here is the new role of China in reaching and implementing the Paris Agreement.

To be honest, the major impetus for this adjustment of the Chinese policy position does not stem from the signing and implementation of the Paris Agreement but comes from implementing the national strategy of promoting the construction of an eco-civilization. Briefly speaking, marked by the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the modernization of “national ecological environment governance system and governance capacity” has been recognized as one of the top political and policy goals for the CPC and the Chinese government, and joining international cooperation on climate change more actively is one ideal symbolic case to show their political willingness. For instance, China is also paying more and more attention to the implementation of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) by organizing several important, related international activities in 2019-20.

CS: Environmental protection is not a new issue in China. In 1972, China, unlike other countries ruled by socialist parties, took part in the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, where a number of principles and recommendations concerning environmental protection were agreed upon. Could you sketch developments and changes in China’s environmental policies since then?
...
CS: In European countries and in North America, the idea of a green capitalism is the mainstream answer to the current ecological challenges. What could they gain from alternative visions of the future like the one you put forward?

QH: Arguably, “green capitalism” or “eco-capitalism” is the most practical or even “rational” approach to deal with the current ecological challenges in European countries and in North America, because, thanks to the hierarchical international economic and political order and the increasingly wide acceptance of the “imperial mode of living” in developing countries, these “advanced” countries can manage to use the global resources and sinks to their own advantage. If such a structural configuration remains unchanged, one can imagine that there will be little possibility for the world to move towards an eco-socialist future.

However, it seems that this configuration has indeed become socially and ecologically problematic in recent years. On the one hand, following the economic rise of several major developing countries including China, it is becoming more and more difficult for the US and European countries to maintain the status quo of the international order, which will threaten not only their position of hegemony in the traditional sense but also their green model of “eco-capitalism.” In other words, there will be less and less space or possibilities in reality for these “advanced” countries to maintain the good quality of their local environment while continuing to enjoy a high level of material consumption. To some extent, the increasing tensions today between China and the West led by the US can be interpreted in this way. On the other hand, more and more developing countries, especially the emerging economies like China, are taking the ecological environment problems seriously for different reasons. This implies that there will be more and stricter restrictions from developing countries on the acceptance of “dirty” capital and technology, let alone of waste and garbage, as the dispute over waste import between the Philippines and Canada has clearly shown.

In both senses mentioned above, in my opinion, the principles and ways of thinking of eco-socialism can contribute in making European and North American countries eventually realize the limits and defects of “green capitalism” or “eco-capitalism.” Solving local or short-term problems while others pay the costs needs to end, and a process of radical social-ecological transformation needs to be initiated as soon as possible. A more just world and more equal society are the precondition for a cleaner environment.

—

“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon

Submitted by CB on Sat, 01/25/2020 - 4:41pm

Nonsense. The parallels are there.

@Cassiodorus

that's because you're not looking, for instance, at the fact that coal infrastructure in China is still expanding.

Your supplied link does NOT say what you are implying.

China Is Still Building an Insane Number of New Coal Plants
...
Indeed, coal-powered electricity generation in China has flatlined, despite the explosive growth in the number of coal plants. According to Daisy Ren, a doctoral student at Carnegie Mellon who studies the economics of energy policy, China’s coal use is expected to peak around 2020. “We should be concerned about whether China is burning more coal in the future, but increasing its coal capacity is not equivalent to using that much coal,” Ren says. Still, if China has any hope of meeting its climate goals, it needs to be retiring coal plants, not opening new ones.
...

I suggest you read the following:
Everything You Think You Know About Coal in China Is Wrong

What is the difference between "state socialism" and "state capitalism"? You are splitting hairs. Next you will have us dancing on the head of a pin.

Definition of state socialism

: an economic system with limited socialist characteristics that is effected by gradual state action and typically includes public ownership of major industries and remedial measures to benefit the working class

Definition of state capitalism

: an economic system in which private capitalism is modified by a varying degree of government ownership and control

Have you even read Foster's articles on China?

Submitted by Cassiodorus on Sun, 01/26/2020 - 4:33pm

No I am not.

@CB Indeed value still acts as an autonomous process ruling people's lives in China, whereas socialism would be a mastery of the valuation process.

—

“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon

Submitted by davidgmillsatty on Sat, 01/25/2020 - 6:05pm

The population bomb is over

@CB It takes 2.1 births per woman for population replacement. China is now down to 1.5. All of Europe is about 1.6, the US at 1.9. Even India is now down to 2.1. Brazil is 1.9. We will probably not hit 9 billion by 2050 and will begin a long decline after that.

#2
the rest of the 7.8 billion people up to the living standards of an average American? We have to expect the use of the world's total resources to have increased at an exponential rate.

The only way for this to be balanced is for the Americans and Europeans to consume much, much less. We have been pigging out for well over two centuries and are the source of the base load of CO2 in the environment. I remember walking to school in the mid fifties when the air was so filthy with smog it brought tears to my eyes and caused my nose to hurt.

As poorer nations come out of poverty, they are producing a fraction of the pollution and waste that we did due to more efficient production of steel, aluminum, power, food, transportation, etc, etc than we in America did.

Doubling the population at a cost of just quadrupling the use of resources in order to begin to bring the poorer 8/10ths of the world's population up to the economic standards of even the poorest American is a fucking bargain.

Look around at our cities and towns and how we live. The GDP of the US is over 62,000.00 per capita! Compare to the rest of the world:

China has far, far surpassed the US for getting more from less.

The GDP per person is now over $10,000 in China.

Common prosperity: China's poverty alleviation campaign

"The people yearn for a better life, and our goal is to help them achieve it."
- Chinese President Xi Jinping

2020 is set to be the year China eradicates poverty in the country and becomes a "moderately prosperous society in all respects." If China achieves this goal, it would be 10 years ahead of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal target of ending global poverty by 2030.
...
China has lifted more than 800 million people - 76 percent of the world's poor - out of poverty since the 1980s, contributing more than any other country to global poverty reduction. After this historic achievement, China is determined to help every last one of its poor, having made poverty alleviation a top agenda in the country's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020).

"We must ensure that by the year 2020, all rural residents living below the current poverty line have been lifted out of poverty, and poverty is eliminated from all poor counties and regions," Chinese President Xi Jinping said while addressing the 19th CPC National Congress.
...
China's development is the development of Chinese people, and the country's leadership has a proven track record to show that. According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)'s Human Development report, since the Human Development Index (HDI) was introduced in 1990 China is the only country in the world to have moved from low development group to high development category.
...

Submitted by The Wizard on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 10:25am

Nice Rant, RR

And loaded with evidence. We, those of us who understand the crisis, really need to talk about strategies. Your comment about Capitalism is exactly correct and I have noticed that many in the climate crisis movement have come to that exact conclusion, including Naomi Klein. Capitalism maximises profits and then claims to maximize social good as a side-effect. If you had the choice of paying $0.50 per kilowatt hour for clean electricity or keeping cheap electricity and having 8 billion humans die a miserable death, capitalism would choose the latter. You can't quantum-tunnel around profit barriers.

So how do we get there? The American population has been willfully inoculated against any economic system that is not capitalism. Here's a possible scenario-

- We keep talking about alternative technologies and economies
- Western economies crash, the bubble bursts, and the kleptocrats lose it all
- the climate crisis becomes crystal clear- we are facing extinction
- the world gears up to solve this, spending 10s of trillion of dollars, creating industries and jobs, similar to the response to WWII.

The reason that the kleptocrats need to lose it all should be obvious. They fear change that might affect their privileged positions and will spend dollars and political capital and use the media to prevent an adequate response to the climate crisis.

—

Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.

Submitted by Steven D on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 11:06am

#BigOil

owns Texas State Gov't.

—

"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

Submitted by RantingRooster on Fri, 01/24/2020 - 11:09am

Yep, they sure do

@Steven D and as a result, in my view, all three branches of our state government have violated art. 12, sec. 2 of our constitution. ie failed to protect the public from corporations, as required by our constitution, which seems to be just a piece of paper with some words on it....

—

C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote

Submitted by QMS on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 11:06am

Kick the can down the road

Tired of seeing this 10 to 20 year fix being touted by the pols and pundits.
That is not a solution so much as an avoidance.
Tackling the extraction industry is our only hope.
The global capitalists are running away with the ball.

BTW, also hear that 'prefer women, minorities, LGBTQ+'
pre-qualification language tossed around in other social
realms. How about knowledge, enthusiasm and skills?

Phew

Submitted by Lily O Lady on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 11:40am

The “women, minorities,” etc. is BS. It’s more of distraction

@QMS

by diverting attention from the issue at hand. I consider charities to be jobs programs for technocrats. It’s just a layer of private burocracy (pardon my spelling) to get in between us and the issues. And we know that our “two” parties distinguish themselves by social issues while pursuing the same neoliberal agenda. Which means capitalism. Which is killing life on Earth including us.

—

"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

Submitted by edg on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 11:48am

The Big 3 of Climate Change

Three major factors are driving climate change as well as preventing viable solutions to climate change: Globalization. Modernization. Immigration.

Globalization transfers production to those countries least capable of practicing good environmental stewardship of the Earth. It's not a coincidence that China is suffering from air pollution, water problems, soil problems, habitat destruction, and biodiversity loss.

Modernization leads to more factories in operation and more vehicles on the road, increases oil production and/or consumption, and generates additional CO2 output.

Immigration increases the carbon footprint of immigrants. Studies show that a person that moves to the United States produces 4 to 8 times as much carbon output as they would have in their native country.

Submitted by CB on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 4:43pm

China is now doing much more than most countries

@edg
in reducing pollution from industrial and human activities. They will be able to respond much more rapidly to these problems than the United States due to having a command economy. The country can direct massive amounts of government funding in developing the technology and manpower towards ameliorating environmental problems.

China continues to clean up their environment on a scale and speed historically unmatched by their western counterparts.

China’s War on Pollution Will Change the World

China is cracking down on pollution like never before, with new green policies so hard-hitting and extensive they can be felt across the world, transforming everything from electric vehicle demand to commodities markets.

Four decades of breakneck economic growth turned China into the world’s biggest carbon emitter. But now the government is trying to change that without damaging the economy—and perhaps even use its green policies to become a leader in technological innovation. So, as lawmakers attend the annual National People’s Congress, here’s a look at the impact of the environmental focus, at home and abroad.
...

China is now #1 globally in renewables in patents, production and investment by factors of 1.5 to 3. In 2018 more electric vehicles were produced than the rest of the world combined. All the major cities now have electric buses and taxis. Many gasoline powered vehicles are banned in city centers. There are also 250 million electric 2-wheelers, 99% of the world's total, in China.

China also leads the world in tree planting. In 2018, 60,000 soldiers planted trees in Hebei province, which encircles Beijing, in an area equivalent to the size of Ireland.

China and India Lead the Way in Greening

The world is literally a greener place than it was twenty years ago, and data from NASA satellites has revealed a counterintuitive source for much of this new foliage. A new study shows that China and India—the world’s most populous countries—are leading the increase in greening on land. The effect comes mostly from ambitious tree-planting programs in China and intensive agriculture in both countries.

Ranga Myneni of Boston University and colleagues first detected the greening phenomenon in satellite data from the mid-1990s, but they did not know whether human activity was a chief cause. They then set out to track the total amount of Earth’s land area covered by vegetation and how it changed over time.

The research team found that global green leaf area has increased by 5 percent since the early 2000s, an area equivalent to all of the Amazon rainforests. At least 25 percent of that gain came in China. Overall, one-third of Earth’s vegetated lands are greening, while 5 percent are growing browner. The study was published on February 11, 2019, in the journal Nature Sustainability.
...

Submitted by edg on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 8:50pm

A good start. n/t

@CB

#6
in reducing pollution from industrial and human activities. They will be able to respond much more rapidly to these problems than the United States due to having a command economy. The country can direct massive amounts of government funding in developing the technology and manpower towards ameliorating environmental problems.

China continues to clean up their environment on a scale and speed historically unmatched by their western counterparts.

China’s War on Pollution Will Change the World

China is cracking down on pollution like never before, with new green policies so hard-hitting and extensive they can be felt across the world, transforming everything from electric vehicle demand to commodities markets.

Four decades of breakneck economic growth turned China into the world’s biggest carbon emitter. But now the government is trying to change that without damaging the economy—and perhaps even use its green policies to become a leader in technological innovation. So, as lawmakers attend the annual National People’s Congress, here’s a look at the impact of the environmental focus, at home and abroad.
...

China is now #1 globally in renewables in patents, production and investment by factors of 1.5 to 3. In 2018 more electric vehicles were produced than the rest of the world combined. All the major cities now have electric buses and taxis. Many gasoline powered vehicles are banned in city centers. There are also 250 million electric 2-wheelers, 99% of the world's total, in China.

China also leads the world in tree planting. In 2018, 60,000 soldiers planted trees in Hebei province, which encircles Beijing, in an area equivalent to the size of Ireland.

China and India Lead the Way in Greening

The world is literally a greener place than it was twenty years ago, and data from NASA satellites has revealed a counterintuitive source for much of this new foliage. A new study shows that China and India—the world’s most populous countries—are leading the increase in greening on land. The effect comes mostly from ambitious tree-planting programs in China and intensive agriculture in both countries.

Ranga Myneni of Boston University and colleagues first detected the greening phenomenon in satellite data from the mid-1990s, but they did not know whether human activity was a chief cause. They then set out to track the total amount of Earth’s land area covered by vegetation and how it changed over time.

The research team found that global green leaf area has increased by 5 percent since the early 2000s, an area equivalent to all of the Amazon rainforests. At least 25 percent of that gain came in China. Overall, one-third of Earth’s vegetated lands are greening, while 5 percent are growing browner. The study was published on February 11, 2019, in the journal Nature Sustainability.
...

Submitted by davidgmillsatty on Sat, 01/25/2020 - 6:27pm

According to NASA CO2 did a lot

@CB

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-g...

#6
in reducing pollution from industrial and human activities. They will be able to respond much more rapidly to these problems than the United States due to having a command economy. The country can direct massive amounts of government funding in developing the technology and manpower towards ameliorating environmental problems.

China continues to clean up their environment on a scale and speed historically unmatched by their western counterparts.

China’s War on Pollution Will Change the World

China is cracking down on pollution like never before, with new green policies so hard-hitting and extensive they can be felt across the world, transforming everything from electric vehicle demand to commodities markets.

Four decades of breakneck economic growth turned China into the world’s biggest carbon emitter. But now the government is trying to change that without damaging the economy—and perhaps even use its green policies to become a leader in technological innovation. So, as lawmakers attend the annual National People’s Congress, here’s a look at the impact of the environmental focus, at home and abroad.
...

China is now #1 globally in renewables in patents, production and investment by factors of 1.5 to 3. In 2018 more electric vehicles were produced than the rest of the world combined. All the major cities now have electric buses and taxis. Many gasoline powered vehicles are banned in city centers. There are also 250 million electric 2-wheelers, 99% of the world's total, in China.

China also leads the world in tree planting. In 2018, 60,000 soldiers planted trees in Hebei province, which encircles Beijing, in an area equivalent to the size of Ireland.

China and India Lead the Way in Greening

The world is literally a greener place than it was twenty years ago, and data from NASA satellites has revealed a counterintuitive source for much of this new foliage. A new study shows that China and India—the world’s most populous countries—are leading the increase in greening on land. The effect comes mostly from ambitious tree-planting programs in China and intensive agriculture in both countries.

Ranga Myneni of Boston University and colleagues first detected the greening phenomenon in satellite data from the mid-1990s, but they did not know whether human activity was a chief cause. They then set out to track the total amount of Earth’s land area covered by vegetation and how it changed over time.

The research team found that global green leaf area has increased by 5 percent since the early 2000s, an area equivalent to all of the Amazon rainforests. At least 25 percent of that gain came in China. Overall, one-third of Earth’s vegetated lands are greening, while 5 percent are growing browner. The study was published on February 11, 2019, in the journal Nature Sustainability.
...

Submitted by Lily O Lady on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 12:01pm

Thank you RR. We needed to address this problem as soon

as we became aware of it. I was hoping that a President Gore was going to point us in the right direction. Bernie Sanders said that we need a WWII style effort years ago. Scared the hell out of TPTB. They’re the ones that don’t like Bernie.

People don’t even have any idea what that would be like. I was born in the early ‘50s, but I have a reasonable idea. When I was 5 or so years old, I remember my mom rinsing and flattening cans for recycling. Yes, they did that in the 1950s! Garbage was wrapped in newspaper (remember those?) to either feed livestock or be composted. I don’t remember all the details, but we didn’t need glass recycling because bottles were, get this, returned and reused. We paid a deposit for the bottles which we got back when we returned them. If we were too lazy to return them, some enterprising soul could collect them and get the deposit for themselves. It worked.

I remember references in Bugs Bunny cartoons from the WWII era. “Is this trip really necessary,” didn’t make a lot of sense to me then, but I get it now. Old movies showed people collecting scrap metal for the war effort. Things didn’t go to waste. Now scrap metal is ripped from functioning street lights and air conditioners because of the crap economy. There hasn’t been a real crack down on illegal metal trade. Probably because “job” the universal excuse for capitalism.

People worked together for a common goal. What if the goal, instead of killing people, were to save the biosphere, or a least salvage what we can? Well, I can dream.

—

"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

Submitted by davidgmillsatty on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 6:21pm

Your wife was right.

Because my views are often perceived here as those of a persona non grata, I haven't weighed in on climate change. But maybe today is my day. What the hell? I was raised in Texas and spent most of my life there.

I will simply and succinctly say this. The scientific evidence is now very clear that the earth's clouds, and thus its temperature, are highly linked to cosmic rays. This is a theory that has been developing for about twenty years. Cosmic rays cause clouds to form (the technical phrase is that "cosmic rays enhance the formation of cloud condensation nuceli"). That is now a scientific fact.

The 20th century had a significant reduction of cosmic radiation. This reduction was caused by the sun's heliosphere which was particularly strong during the 20th century and which protected the earth from the higher levels of cosmic radiation experienced for most of the last millennia. The twentieth century had fewer clouds than previous centuries because of this. Fewer clouds mean a warmer earth.

Cosmic rays are now the elephant in the climate change room. The last four or five years have had a mushroom of scientific papers regarding this. The documented cosmic ray influence on cloud formation, and thus climate, just hasn't made the mainstream yet. But it will.

The last two solar cycles, 23 and 24, have seen a significant weakening of the heliosphere and the earth is getting cloudier again. How long the weakening of the heliosphere will last, no one knows. And how long it will take the increased cloudiness to have an observable effect on climate, no one knows. (Maybe it already has -- remember the hiatus?)

But cosmic radiation is now part of the climate equation.

Submitted by Hawkfish on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 12:36pm

Citation needed

@davidgmillsatty

I also follow the literature on this stuff, and this sounds like a retread of Richard Lindzen’s “Iris Hypothesis”, which was debunked over a decade ago.

—

We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg

Submitted by davidgmillsatty on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 2:22pm

Have no idea what the Iris hypothesis is

@Hawkfish Let me repeat the the technical phrase:

Cosmic rays enhance the formation of cloud condensation nuclei.

This is known as the theory of Henrik Svensmark. He has proven this in his own cloud chambers and the backstory of his theory and his first paper are very well documented in this documentary from 2008 or thereabouts:

Submitted by davidgmillsatty on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 4:44pm

And his theory was subsequently confirmed at CERN

@davidgmillsatty In a project known as CLOUD. And here is the project manager of CLOUD, Jasper Kirkby, discussing the findings in 2015. And he specifically says that CLOUD has found that "cosmic rays enhance the formation of cloud condensation nuclei" when biogenic vapors are the particles upon which water vapor condenses. He goes on to say that in pre-industrial times that this was the means by which clouds formed. He further says that in today's climate that particles of sulfuric acid from pollution are the primary particles on which water vapor condenses. In spite of that, he still says there will be a reduction in the amount of warming.

Now what Kirkby doesn't say is that the entire southern hemisphere, which is 80% water and only comprises 10% of the world's population, and is a very pristine environment, means that Svensmark's theory is applicable to the entire southern hemisphere.

And a subsequent paper on cloudiness in the southern hemisphere, which incidentally is far cloudier than the northern hemisphere, shows that the biogenic particles from plankton are the source for cloud condenstation nuclei in that hemisphere.

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/6/e1500157

Submitted by earthling1 on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 1:48pm

Clear and clouds

@davidgmillsatty
should never be used in the same sentence.

—

Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

Submitted by RantingRooster on Fri, 01/24/2020 - 11:15am

Well of course she was

@davidgmillsatty , that's the whole secret to a happy marriage, no? The woman is always right, no matter what! (snark)

—

C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote

Submitted by RantingRooster on Fri, 01/24/2020 - 3:58pm

Here's what I think...

@davidgmillsatty

From SkepticalScience

"Henrik Svensmark has proposed that galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) could exert significant influence over global temperatures (Svensmark 1998). The theory goes that the solar magnetic field deflects GCRs, which are capable of seeding cloud formation on Earth. So if the solar magnetic field were to increase, fewer GCRs would reach Earth, seeding fewer low-level clouds, which are strongly reflective. Thus an increased solar magnetic field can indirectly decrease the Earth's albedo (reflectivity), causing the planet to warm. Therefore, in order for this theory to be plausible, all four of the following requirements must be true.

Solar magnetic field must have a long-term positive trend.
Galactic cosmic ray flux on Earth must have a long-term negative trend.
Cosmic rays must successfully seed low-level clouds.
Low-level cloud cover must have a long-term negative trend."

Most recently from SkepticalScience.com, What do the CERN experiments tell us about global warming?

In short, the CERN experiment only tested one-third of one out of four requirements to blame global warming on cosmic rays. Additionally scientists have measured solar activity and the number of cosmic rays reaching Earth, and neither meets the first two requirements listed above. Both solar magentic field strength and the number of cosmic rays reaching Earth have been flat over the past 50+ years

From PNAS.org (older article, I think from 2012, so it's a bit old)

The correlation is remarkable because the Earth’s climate has not been driven by the Sun alone. Other forcings like volcanoes, greenhouse gas concentrations, and internal variability also have played an important role. To quantify the solar influence on the Earth’s climate and to distinguish between the different forcings, climate model simulations are required for the Holocene, employing the new dataset of total solar irradiance"

And then there's this, from 2 years ago by Dr. Paul Beckwith,
[video:https://youtu.be/Bn9M-U1TcTY]

From Cern

“Direct effects of cosmic-ray ionisation on the formation of fair-weather clouds are highly speculative and almost completely unexplored experimentally,” says Kirkby. “So this run could be the most boring we’ve ever done – or the most exciting! We won’t know until we try, but by the end of the CLOUD experiment, we want to be able to answer definitively whether cosmic rays affect clouds and the climate, and not leave any stone unturned.”

(bold emphasis mine)

Until Kirby can actually prove his theory, he's just being a good scientist and not leaving any stone unturned, as he indicated. Imho, the theory is no where ready for main stream review, nor do I consider it in anyway an "elephant in the room".

Additionally as SkepticalScience indicated above, Kirby would still need to prove the remaining 2/3rd of one of the 4 requirements, and then satisfy the remaining 3 other requirements all together. So he's got his work cut out for him.

I won't rule it out completely, I did find more food for thought from PNAS, articles I found when searching for "climate change, cosmic rays", with publication dates between the years 2016-2019. (I have not gone through them so...)

—

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Submitted by davidgmillsatty on Sun, 01/26/2020 - 10:15am

I watched the video and read the four things.

@RantingRooster We have had the four things.

They have just been building toward a solar maximum (warming) not a minimum (cooling).

1.We have had a long term trend in declining cosmic rays since about 1700 (the Be10 graph below) causing warming.

2.We have had a long term trend in the increase of TSI (the TSI graph below) causing warming.

3.We know from Forbush decreases (coronal mass ejections that cause a decrease in cosmic radiation) that when these decreases are large enough, there is an immediate decrease in clouds within several days. So the theory has been proven by observation of its climatic effects as well as experimentally in the cloud chambers. Svensmark himself and his son have two papers on this. Attempts to debunk his papers have included minimal Forbush decreases and there is a threshold that has to be overcome to observe the negative effect on cloud formation. Also Nir Shaviv and Jon Vizer have shown the link to cosmic rays and climate in the geological record. High Be10 concentrations, as well as high C14 concentrations, and high Ti41 concentrations, (all produced by cosmic rays) all correspond in the geologic record to cold times.

4. We have had an increase in cloud cover since Solar cycle 23 began (solar winds began to slow down) and the increase in cloud cover has lasted through Solar cycle 24. The prediction for Solar cycle 25 is that it will be about the same as 24. These two cycles are much more representative of the past than those of the 20th century. And the expectation is for another one like them. After that, there is real disagreement among the experts.

The theory poses a huge measurement problem as well. Its effects are most likely to be observed in areas where there are very few means of measuring it. Over the oceans, in the southern hemisphere, at the poles, etc. We don't even have good measurements for temperature in these places, much less a means of documenting cloud cover.

It is also clear the solar physicists do not know which direction the sun is headed. Toward a real maximum (solar winds of perhaps 800 kilometers/sec instead of 600) that could really ramp up temperature or toward a real minimum (solar winds of 150 or 200 instead of 300)) which could put us in another mini-ice age.

Unfortunately Dr. Beckwith is quite typical of climatologists who know very little about the sun, cosmic rays, TSI, (UV significantly increases and decreases with TSI movement and that has huge implications for heat gain and loss) the ozone layer, and the shrinking of the atmosphere since Solar Cycle 23 began. If he knew about these things he would address them. It is obviously not his field. It's sad that he doesn't know what he doesn't know. But it is clear he doesn't want to. It's a classic case or wilful ignorance.

Rely on him if you want. I quit relying on these generalists who know little about the sun and space weather about ten years ago.

As for Skeptical Science, it has its opposition in the No-Trick Zone where hundreds of articles are logged in on the sun and its effect on climate. The last five years or so they literally have logged over a hundred a year if I recall correctly. Two can play that game of websites that link to papers supporting a position.

Don't think that the astrophysicists in the space agencies around the world don't know about this. The thermosphere of the earth has shrunk so much since Solar Cycle 23 that the drag on satellites has been severely reduced and they are staying in orbit far longer than anticipated. Creating space junk for one thing. And for another thing the thermosphere is reaching unprecedented cold for the Space Age.

#8

From SkepticalScience

"Henrik Svensmark has proposed that galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) could exert significant influence over global temperatures (Svensmark 1998). The theory goes that the solar magnetic field deflects GCRs, which are capable of seeding cloud formation on Earth. So if the solar magnetic field were to increase, fewer GCRs would reach Earth, seeding fewer low-level clouds, which are strongly reflective. Thus an increased solar magnetic field can indirectly decrease the Earth's albedo (reflectivity), causing the planet to warm. Therefore, in order for this theory to be plausible, all four of the following requirements must be true.

Solar magnetic field must have a long-term positive trend.
Galactic cosmic ray flux on Earth must have a long-term negative trend.
Cosmic rays must successfully seed low-level clouds.
Low-level cloud cover must have a long-term negative trend."

Most recently from SkepticalScience.com, What do the CERN experiments tell us about global warming?

In short, the CERN experiment only tested one-third of one out of four requirements to blame global warming on cosmic rays. Additionally scientists have measured solar activity and the number of cosmic rays reaching Earth, and neither meets the first two requirements listed above. Both solar magentic field strength and the number of cosmic rays reaching Earth have been flat over the past 50+ years

From PNAS.org (older article, I think from 2012, so it's a bit old)

The correlation is remarkable because the Earth’s climate has not been driven by the Sun alone. Other forcings like volcanoes, greenhouse gas concentrations, and internal variability also have played an important role. To quantify the solar influence on the Earth’s climate and to distinguish between the different forcings, climate model simulations are required for the Holocene, employing the new dataset of total solar irradiance"

And then there's this, from 2 years ago by Dr. Paul Beckwith,
[video:https://youtu.be/Bn9M-U1TcTY]

From Cern

“Direct effects of cosmic-ray ionisation on the formation of fair-weather clouds are highly speculative and almost completely unexplored experimentally,” says Kirkby. “So this run could be the most boring we’ve ever done – or the most exciting! We won’t know until we try, but by the end of the CLOUD experiment, we want to be able to answer definitively whether cosmic rays affect clouds and the climate, and not leave any stone unturned.”

(bold emphasis mine)

Until Kirby can actually prove his theory, he's just being a good scientist and not leaving any stone unturned, as he indicated. Imho, the theory is no where ready for main stream review, nor do I consider it in anyway an "elephant in the room".

Additionally as SkepticalScience indicated above, Kirby would still need to prove the remaining 2/3rd of one of the 4 requirements, and then satisfy the remaining 3 other requirements all together. So he's got his work cut out for him.

I won't rule it out completely, I did find more food for thought from PNAS, articles I found when searching for "climate change, cosmic rays", with publication dates between the years 2016-2019. (I have not gone through them so...)

Submitted by davidgmillsatty on Sat, 01/25/2020 - 5:10pm

Here's a chart on Solar Wind Speed

@davidgmillsatty It clearly picked up during the 20th Century. Knocks out the cosmic radiation. And knocks out the clouds. Earth heats up.

#8.4 We have had the four things. They have just been building toward a solar maximum (warming) not a minimum (cooling). 1.We have had a long term trend in declining cosmic rays since about 1700 (the Be10 graph below) causing warming. 2.We have had a long term trend in the increase of TSI (the TSI graph below) causing warming. 3.We know from Forbush decreases (coronal mass ejections that cause a decrease in cosmic radiation) that when these decreases are large enough, there is an immediate decrease in clouds within several days. So the theory has been proven by observation of its climatic effects as well as experimentally in the cloud chambers. Svensmark himself and his son have two papers on this. Attempts to debunk his papers have included minimal Forbush decreases and there is a threshold that has to be overcome to observe the negative effect on cloud formation. Also Nir Shaviv and Jon Vizer have shown the link to cosmic rays and climate in the geological record. High Be10 concentrations, as well as high C14 concentrations, and high Ti41 concentrations, (all produced by cosmic rays) all correspond in the geologic record to cold times. 4. We have had an increase in cloud cover since Solar cycle 23 began (solar winds began to slow down) and the increase in cloud cover has lasted through Solar cycle 24. The prediction for Solar cycle 25 is that it will be about the same as 24. These two cycles are much more representative of the past than those of the 20th century. And the expectation is for another one like them. After that, there is real disagreement among the experts. The theory poses a huge measurement problem as well. Its effects are most likely to be observed in areas where there are very few means of measuring it. Over the oceans, in the southern hemisphere, at the poles, etc. We don't even have good measurements for temperature in these places, much less a means of documenting cloud cover. It is also clear the solar physicists do not know which direction the sun is headed. Toward a real maximum (solar winds of perhaps 800 kilometers/sec instead of 600) that could really ramp up temperature or toward a real minimum (solar winds of 150 or 200 instead of 300)) which could put us in another mini-ice age. Unfortunately Dr. Beckwith is quite typical of climatologists who know very little about the sun, cosmic rays, TSI, (UV significantly increases and decreases with TSI movement and that has huge implications for heat gain and loss) the ozone layer, and the shrinking of the atmosphere since Solar Cycle 23 began. If he knew about these things he would address them. It is obviously not his field. It's sad that he doesn't know what he doesn't know. But it is clear he doesn't want to. It's a classic case or wilful ignorance. Rely on him if you want. I quit relying on these generalists who know little about the sun and space weather about ten years ago. As for Skeptical Science, it has its opposition in the No-Trick Zone where hundreds of articles are logged in on the sun and its effect on climate. The last five years or so they literally have logged over a hundred a year if I recall correctly. Two can play that game of websites that link to papers supporting a position. Don't think that the astrophysicists in the space agencies around the world don't know about this. The thermosphere of the earth has shrunk so much since Solar Cycle 23 that the drag on satellites has been severely reduced and they are staying in orbit far longer than anticipated. Creating space junk for one thing. And for another thing the thermosphere is reaching unprecedented cold for the Space Age.

Submitted by davidgmillsatty on Sat, 01/25/2020 - 7:09pm

Here is a chart comparing sunspots to cosmic rays

@davidgmillsatty When the sunspots are high, the solar wind is high, and vice versa.

And the sunspots have declined in Solar Cycles 23 and 24, the solar winds have slackened and as a result the cosmic radiation has increased.

Submitted by davidgmillsatty on Sat, 01/25/2020 - 7:11pm

And here is a chart of sunspots over the last millennia

@davidgmillsatty You can see the 20th Century was different

Submitted by davidgmillsatty on Sun, 01/26/2020 - 10:18am

Here is a chart comparing cloud decline to temperture increase

@davidgmillsatty

Submitted by davidgmillsatty on Sun, 01/26/2020 - 10:21am

Here is a chart showing how the thermosphere

@davidgmillsatty Is now in unprecedented cold for the Space Age

#8.4 We have had the four things. They have just been building toward a solar maximum (warming) not a minimum (cooling). 1.We have had a long term trend in declining cosmic rays since about 1700 (the Be10 graph below) causing warming. 2.We have had a long term trend in the increase of TSI (the TSI graph below) causing warming. 3.We know from Forbush decreases (coronal mass ejections that cause a decrease in cosmic radiation) that when these decreases are large enough, there is an immediate decrease in clouds within several days. So the theory has been proven by observation of its climatic effects as well as experimentally in the cloud chambers. Svensmark himself and his son have two papers on this. Attempts to debunk his papers have included minimal Forbush decreases and there is a threshold that has to be overcome to observe the negative effect on cloud formation. Also Nir Shaviv and Jon Vizer have shown the link to cosmic rays and climate in the geological record. High Be10 concentrations, as well as high C14 concentrations, and high Ti41 concentrations, (all produced by cosmic rays) all correspond in the geologic record to cold times. 4. We have had an increase in cloud cover since Solar cycle 23 began (solar winds began to slow down) and the increase in cloud cover has lasted through Solar cycle 24. The prediction for Solar cycle 25 is that it will be about the same as 24. These two cycles are much more representative of the past than those of the 20th century. And the expectation is for another one like them. After that, there is real disagreement among the experts. The theory poses a huge measurement problem as well. Its effects are most likely to be observed in areas where there are very few means of measuring it. Over the oceans, in the southern hemisphere, at the poles, etc. We don't even have good measurements for temperature in these places, much less a means of documenting cloud cover. It is also clear the solar physicists do not know which direction the sun is headed. Toward a real maximum (solar winds of perhaps 800 kilometers/sec instead of 600) that could really ramp up temperature or toward a real minimum (solar winds of 150 or 200 instead of 300)) which could put us in another mini-ice age. Unfortunately Dr. Beckwith is quite typical of climatologists who know very little about the sun, cosmic rays, TSI, (UV significantly increases and decreases with TSI movement and that has huge implications for heat gain and loss) the ozone layer, and the shrinking of the atmosphere since Solar Cycle 23 began. If he knew about these things he would address them. It is obviously not his field. It's sad that he doesn't know what he doesn't know. But it is clear he doesn't want to. It's a classic case or wilful ignorance. Rely on him if you want. I quit relying on these generalists who know little about the sun and space weather about ten years ago. As for Skeptical Science, it has its opposition in the No-Trick Zone where hundreds of articles are logged in on the sun and its effect on climate. The last five years or so they literally have logged over a hundred a year if I recall correctly. Two can play that game of websites that link to papers supporting a position. Don't think that the astrophysicists in the space agencies around the world don't know about this. The thermosphere of the earth has shrunk so much since Solar Cycle 23 that the drag on satellites has been severely reduced and they are staying in orbit far longer than anticipated. Creating space junk for one thing. And for another thing the thermosphere is reaching unprecedented cold for the Space Age.

Submitted by PriceRip on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 2:23pm

Laugh or Cry : Herding Cats

It is hard to decide if one should laugh or cry about the situation. The real tragedy is that everyone has a plan but no one is able to get the rest behind the plan. (that's the Herding Cats part of the subject)

Now that we have no doubt that the deficit is not a concern for the anti-crowd, and in the not too distant future the Tax-Spend lie will bite the dust, then we might, just might, be able to remove one more bit of erudite verbal haze from the conversation.

Maybe if we all can survive for a while, I'll meet you on the other side and we can start talking about how to construct a livable future.

TTFN

RIP

Submitted by davidgmillsatty on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 4:47pm

Can you refute Svensmark?

@PriceRip See my posts above.

Submitted by PriceRip on Thu, 01/30/2020 - 1:09pm

Why??

@davidgmillsatty

Others have already refuted Henrik Svensmark's work. I see no point in me simply citing other's critiques.

RIP

Submitted by RantingRooster on Fri, 01/24/2020 - 4:04pm

It takes....

@PriceRip

Cat food to break on through to the other side.

[video:https://youtu.be/-r679Hhs9Zs]

—

C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote

Submitted by CB on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 2:59pm

I don't think a 4.5C temp rise

will completely destroy human life on this planet. It may kill off 50-60% of the population but millions will survive. It will be a self-limiting event to a great extent.

Humans are wickedly smart - sometimes too smart for their own good. War and pestilence will most likely be responsible for any mass culling of humans.

We've been here before but without the tools and technology we now have to modify climate. The temperature in the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) was 23C compared to the current 15C. This was the time when our mammalian primate ancestors originally evolved so we can adapt readily.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldLBoErAhz4]

Submitted by Cassiodorus on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 5:52pm

I see.

@CB

We've been here before

Was there a time in human history when atmospheric carbon dioxide was more than 410 parts per million? The measurements say no.

—

“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon

Submitted by CB on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 7:16pm

Primates evolved during the PETM era

@Cassiodorus
when CO2 AND methane levels in the atmosphere were considerably greater than 410 PPM. In fact, the CO2 levels at the beginning of that era were already greater then the current level.

About climate sensitivity of carbon dioxide: today compared with PETM

Due to IPCC the climate sensitivity of CO₂ very likely is 3.0 ± 1.5 ℃ for each doubling of the concentration of atmospheric CO₂.

Counting on earlier global warming using the Arrhenius formula [ΔT=λ·α·㏑(C/C₀)], global mean vs emissions of atmospheric CO₂, assumed mostly depending on CO₂, gives:

1970-2018 0.9 ℃ 325ppm,408ppm: sensitivity 2.74 ℃
PETM 5 ℃ 700ppm,2000ppm: sensitivity 3.30 ℃

I would say that we will be able to get things under full control within 100 years from the current advances being made - especially as shown by China.

Greta's plan to immediately cease using coal and other fossil fuels would destroy life as we know it. Starvation and disease would kill untold billions of people. Do you realize how much energy we need just to produce and transport food and material to keep us warm and safe from the elements - mankind's basic needs? Or how much energy we will need to make the transformation to a low carbon footprint?

According to NASA, the world has got 5% greener in the last 2 decades.

Submitted by Cassiodorus on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 8:17pm

I'm sure those evolving primates burned lots of fossil fuels

@CB and added 2.3 ppm of CO2 to the atmosphere every year.

—

“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon

Submitted by CB on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 9:48pm

During the PETM CO2 was over 2,000 PPM

@Cassiodorus
It is believed the original increase of CO2 was from lightning strikes setting massive fires and coal deposits burned by volcanic action. What pushed it over the edge causing the temp to spike was the melting of methane hydrates.

At 2.3 PPM per we have several hundred years to solve the problem. China will be at peak emissions with the next 2-5 years then should start going down. Europe is doing well. This leaves the US and it's massive military and oil conglomerates neither of which want a reduction in their global footprint.

I'm more concerned with the massive recession in the US that will be occurring in the near future. The one good thing about it will be the forced scaling down of those twin evils of US global hegemony.

Submitted by Cassiodorus on Fri, 01/24/2020 - 1:37am

Are you a climate scientist?

@CB Inquiring minds want to know.

—

“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon

Submitted by CB on Fri, 01/24/2020 - 12:12pm

They didn't have such beasts in my time

@Cassiodorus
I took two beginning courses in geology/geography - plate tectonics. They call it geochronology or some such thing now. I was fascinated by the basic history of the earth.

I got good marks but the memorization load was huge:
"Peter Piper Milks Cows" (Precambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, Cenozoic)
"Pigeon Egg Omelets Make People Puke Heartily" (Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, Pliocene, Pleistocene, Holocene)

Most of the stuff we now know for a fact was just speculation in my day (late 60's). Carbon 14 dating was just taking off. Popular Science/Popular Mechanics magazines had articles for mini-reactors powering small towns and even individual houses. We thought everyone would be working an eight hour workweek at something we loved doing by 2000!

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=836iIlA-awE]

The reason that I am reasonably optimistic about the future is because I see massive changes for good around the world. I see the parallels between Chinese (and other nations not controlled by the US) citizens having hopes and dreams for their futures that we did in the 50's and 60's before they were dashed by "Greed is Good". Hopefully these nations will learn from the experience of the US.

The only bad thing is the US is refusing to realize that it cannot maintain global hegemony through cutthroat capitalism (Zero Sum) into the future. There is now in play a fight between Francis Fukuyama's "End of History" in the American corner wearing the blue boxers and Carl Marx's "End of History" in the Chinese corner wearing the red boxers. I'm putting my money on China (Win-Win).

Submitted by davidgmillsatty on Fri, 01/24/2020 - 2:00pm

Are you going to trust a climate scientist

@Cassiodorus Or an astrophysicist when it comes to the sun's effect on the earth? Personally, I am going with an astrophysicist.

Submitted by PriceRip on Thu, 01/30/2020 - 1:22pm

Bad Choice

@davidgmillsatty

The climate scientist is far more qualified to address this issue than the astrophysicist. Unless the astrophysicist is also an expert in climate science.

RIP

Submitted by RantingRooster on Fri, 01/24/2020 - 1:51pm

I think we have to be careful

@CB @CB
when comparing environmental factors of the distanct past vs today, because the timescales are so incredibly and dramatically different. The timescale and the rate of change today is much more compressed, a century or two vs tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years. Especially when we're talking about a 4.5c rise in average temps globally.

From SkepticalScience.com

The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) was a period of natural global warming that took place almost 56 million years ago. It came at a time when the atmospheric concentration of CO2 was already higher than today, and global temperatures also much warmer. The PETM warming was a roughly 200,000-year long event where global temperatures rose by a further 6–8°C, and is thought to have been caused by a massive injection of CO2 into the atmosphere."

(bold emphasis mine)
Snip

The authors find that the maximum PETM rate of emission for organic carbon as the source is equivalent to 6.2 billion tonnes of CO2 per year, and for methane as the source, 1.1 billion tonnes of CO2 per year. For comparison: 2010 human-carbon emissions were 30.6 billion tonnes. So if organic carbon was the source, current emissions are almost 5 times faster than the PETM, and if methane, current emissions are rising 27 times faster.

(bold emphasis mine)

My point I guess, is that the compressed timescale that change is happening today is much, much, quicker than in the distant past, which isn't giving many spices time to adapt.

When considering a 4.5c rise, another simple, yet not so obvious factor to consider is what is referred too as the Wet Bulb Effect,

"A sustained wet-bulb temperature exceeding 35 °C (95 °F) is likely to be fatal even to fit and healthy people, unclothed in the shade next to a fan; at this temperature our bodies switch from shedding heat to the environment, to gaining heat from it."

In other words, high heat (95 degrees or higher) and a high humidity (100%) equals certain death. It's not the heat that kills you, as they say, "It's the humidity".

Then there's the Methane pulse is just on the horizon, a sudden release of large amounts of methane from the Permafrost regions of the planet. From ScientistWarning.Org,

"Even more troubling is that recently, researchers everywhere are finding that methane readings globally are going bonkers to quote those reporting on this. Others are noting a surging trend and recently, shocking data has emerged showing global atmospheric methane readings literally going off the charts."

And then we have Dr. Paul Beckwith, a Climate Systems Scientist, explains that a "Blue Ocean Event", will crush humanity like a bug.

[video:https://youtu.be/OH-rQyEoYew]

We are facing a plethora of variable factors, anyone of which could trigger runaway climate change, and a 4.5c rise in global "average" temp would mean we are already in "the event", as it were. Meaning there would be no stopping it.

From PNAS.Org

This analysis implies that, even if the Paris Accord target of a 1.5 °C to 2.0 °C rise in temperature is met, we cannot exclude the risk that a cascade of feedbacks could push the Earth System irreversibly onto a “Hothouse Earth” pathway.

F3.large_.jpg

One tipping point too many crossed, and it's a virtual cascade of tipping points and earth could be a Venus like planet in less than 100 years or so.

(edit, added 100% to high humidity)

—

C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote

Submitted by davidgmillsatty on Fri, 01/24/2020 - 2:43pm

I have a graph for you

@RantingRooster It is a graph of Be10 concentration from a Greenland ice core. Be10 is the best proxy for cosmic radiation. If Svensmark is right the earth was far cloudier in the last millennium than it was in the 20th century.

#10 #10
when comparing environmental factors of the distanct past vs today, because the timescales are so incredibly and dramatically different. The timescale and the rate of change today is much more compressed, a century or two vs tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years. Especially when we're talking about a 4.5c rise in average temps globally.

From SkepticalScience.com

The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) was a period of natural global warming that took place almost 56 million years ago. It came at a time when the atmospheric concentration of CO2 was already higher than today, and global temperatures also much warmer. The PETM warming was a roughly 200,000-year long event where global temperatures rose by a further 6–8°C, and is thought to have been caused by a massive injection of CO2 into the atmosphere."

(bold emphasis mine)
Snip

The authors find that the maximum PETM rate of emission for organic carbon as the source is equivalent to 6.2 billion tonnes of CO2 per year, and for methane as the source, 1.1 billion tonnes of CO2 per year. For comparison: 2010 human-carbon emissions were 30.6 billion tonnes. So if organic carbon was the source, current emissions are almost 5 times faster than the PETM, and if methane, current emissions are rising 27 times faster.

(bold emphasis mine)

My point I guess, is that the compressed timescale that change is happening today is much, much, quicker than in the distant past, which isn't giving many spices time to adapt.

When considering a 4.5c rise, another simple, yet not so obvious factor to consider is what is referred too as the Wet Bulb Effect,

"A sustained wet-bulb temperature exceeding 35 °C (95 °F) is likely to be fatal even to fit and healthy people, unclothed in the shade next to a fan; at this temperature our bodies switch from shedding heat to the environment, to gaining heat from it."

In other words, high heat (95 degrees or higher) and a high humidity (100%) equals certain death. It's not the heat that kills you, as they say, "It's the humidity".

Then there's the Methane pulse is just on the horizon, a sudden release of large amounts of methane from the Permafrost regions of the planet. From ScientistWarning.Org,

"Even more troubling is that recently, researchers everywhere are finding that methane readings globally are going bonkers to quote those reporting on this. Others are noting a surging trend and recently, shocking data has emerged showing global atmospheric methane readings literally going off the charts."

And then we have Dr. Paul Beckwith, a Climate Systems Scientist, explains that a "Blue Ocean Event", will crush humanity like a bug.

[video:https://youtu.be/OH-rQyEoYew]

We are facing a plethora of variable factors, anyone of which could trigger runaway climate change, and a 4.5c rise in global "average" temp would mean we are already in "the event", as it were. Meaning there would be no stopping it.

From PNAS.Org

This analysis implies that, even if the Paris Accord target of a 1.5 °C to 2.0 °C rise in temperature is met, we cannot exclude the risk that a cascade of feedbacks could push the Earth System irreversibly onto a “Hothouse Earth” pathway.

One tipping point too many crossed, and it's a virtual cascade of tipping points and earth could be a Venus like planet in less than 100 years or so.

(edit, added 100% to high humidity)

Submitted by davidgmillsatty on Fri, 01/24/2020 - 4:19pm

Here are two more that are also interesting

@davidgmillsatty Climatologists assumed that the sun was essentially a constant and thus had no effect on climate on short term time scales. The idea that the sun was a constant was based primarily on total solar irradiance (TSI). TSI is fairly constant but as it has been studied more and more it seems to vary as well. So climatologists didn't even get TSI right much less the sun's magnetic output which widely varies, particularly the solar winds that protect the earth from cosmic radiation.

So here is a TSI reconstruction and you will see that that TSI was higher during the 20th century than it was in previous centuries.

And what surprises even me is how much it fell off in late 2019:

Submitted by CB on Fri, 01/24/2020 - 4:46pm

The onset of the PETM was extremely rapid

@RantingRooster
accelerating over a period of only a few thousand years to a temperature rise of 8C. The PETM as a whole lasted 200,000 years (ie natural recovery time). I would say that we are now about 200 years into the industrial revolution which has started the current anthropogenic global warming.

I don't think we understand all the processes at play here. I'm not saying that we will survive unscathed. I mentioned 50-60% death rate of humans (mainly due to living in coastal areas) worst case if the situation is not rectified soon. But I see forces at work in ameliorating the situation. China, having replaced the US as the prime emitter of CO2 several decades ago, will be hitting peak emissions well before the Paris Accord of 2030 (possibly as soon as 2022 from reports). This is an important milestone because China emits about 27% of the global total CO2 compared to US 15%. The Power of Siberia gas pipeline has just been opened a month ago and this will replace a lot of China's coal fired electrical plants. Unfortunately, the US does not have the same priority. They are fighting to keep coal plants and saving the natural gas for export. (Fracking is a whole new pile of shit.)

At this time, without sequestration, the global temp rise will be about 2C if the Paris accord is followed and peak emissions are reached by 2030. If we plant 1.2 trillion trees in the next decade it would sequester about 10 years of CO2 emissions and give us a bit of breathing room.

The US is lagging behind in these efforts. Maybe it needs a few Cat 5 hurricanes across Florida and the East Coast the coming year as a wake up call?

#10 #10
when comparing environmental factors of the distanct past vs today, because the timescales are so incredibly and dramatically different. The timescale and the rate of change today is much more compressed, a century or two vs tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years. Especially when we're talking about a 4.5c rise in average temps globally.

From SkepticalScience.com

The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) was a period of natural global warming that took place almost 56 million years ago. It came at a time when the atmospheric concentration of CO2 was already higher than today, and global temperatures also much warmer. The PETM warming was a roughly 200,000-year long event where global temperatures rose by a further 6–8°C, and is thought to have been caused by a massive injection of CO2 into the atmosphere."

(bold emphasis mine)
Snip

The authors find that the maximum PETM rate of emission for organic carbon as the source is equivalent to 6.2 billion tonnes of CO2 per year, and for methane as the source, 1.1 billion tonnes of CO2 per year. For comparison: 2010 human-carbon emissions were 30.6 billion tonnes. So if organic carbon was the source, current emissions are almost 5 times faster than the PETM, and if methane, current emissions are rising 27 times faster.

(bold emphasis mine)

My point I guess, is that the compressed timescale that change is happening today is much, much, quicker than in the distant past, which isn't giving many spices time to adapt.

When considering a 4.5c rise, another simple, yet not so obvious factor to consider is what is referred too as the Wet Bulb Effect,

"A sustained wet-bulb temperature exceeding 35 °C (95 °F) is likely to be fatal even to fit and healthy people, unclothed in the shade next to a fan; at this temperature our bodies switch from shedding heat to the environment, to gaining heat from it."

In other words, high heat (95 degrees or higher) and a high humidity (100%) equals certain death. It's not the heat that kills you, as they say, "It's the humidity".

Then there's the Methane pulse is just on the horizon, a sudden release of large amounts of methane from the Permafrost regions of the planet. From ScientistWarning.Org,

"Even more troubling is that recently, researchers everywhere are finding that methane readings globally are going bonkers to quote those reporting on this. Others are noting a surging trend and recently, shocking data has emerged showing global atmospheric methane readings literally going off the charts."

And then we have Dr. Paul Beckwith, a Climate Systems Scientist, explains that a "Blue Ocean Event", will crush humanity like a bug.

[video:https://youtu.be/OH-rQyEoYew]

We are facing a plethora of variable factors, anyone of which could trigger runaway climate change, and a 4.5c rise in global "average" temp would mean we are already in "the event", as it were. Meaning there would be no stopping it.

From PNAS.Org

This analysis implies that, even if the Paris Accord target of a 1.5 °C to 2.0 °C rise in temperature is met, we cannot exclude the risk that a cascade of feedbacks could push the Earth System irreversibly onto a “Hothouse Earth” pathway.

One tipping point too many crossed, and it's a virtual cascade of tipping points and earth could be a Venus like planet in less than 100 years or so.

(edit, added 100% to high humidity)

Submitted by davidgmillsatty on Fri, 01/24/2020 - 6:15pm

Not necessary

@CB A magnetically weakened sun with much slower solar winds, will allow more cosmic radiation to continue to increase cloudiness, especially in the southern hemisphere. And the surprise today is I just found out how the TSI went down in the fourth quarter of 2019 to its lowest level in 100 years, maybe 300 years. A double whammy. More clouds and less TSI. I don't know any physicists who were predicting both. I have been following the solar effect on earth's climate for at least ten years. Call me a bit stunned.

And I am retiring to Des Moines, where last winter was brutal, and this year has had lots of snow. I lived my entire life in the south. What I would give for global warming to be true.

Submitted by wendy davis on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 4:53pm

and here i'd thought that cory morningtar

had coined the term 'non-profit industrial complex in 2010.

FROM THE NON-PROFIT INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX WITH LOVE. THE ART OF ANNIHILATION.
, theartofannihilation.com

The art of propaganda has been nothing less than brilliant. The deceit is so thick – you need a knife to cut through it. The corruption and greed so deep you need wings to stay above it and thigh high boots to wade through it. An alluring tapestry of luminous lies, interwoven with finely textured deception and silk-like corruption – as smooth and seductive as freshly churned butter. The pursuit of man’s mind by way of domination has been the greatest and most successful experiment – the manipulation of man’s mind has resulted in a massive erosion of empathy, which has allowed status quo “business as usual” to continue uninterrupted with little resistance.

Capitalism effectively bred a contempt for our Earth that multiplied like a virus. The pollution of mind mutated into narcissism with inflicted self-hatred to form a suicidal Molotov cocktail. Those who have succumbed now hold hands in a circle and taunt the very planet that gives us life. The ugly side of humanity continues to violently pierce our Earth Mother with drills and slash her beautiful skin with razors. She is losing breath. She is dying. Yet, when she lashes back, it will be with an Armageddon deathblow against which our own actions will resemble childish prattle. And perhaps not until this time will global society finally recognize that our shared purpose was not to compete with one another and claim dominance and superiority over our Earth Mother – but rather our role was to protect, defend and nurture. The human family – under the arm of its EuroAmerican “big brother” – will have finally succeeded in conquering our shared planet, only to find that we have destroyed ourselves. – Cory Morningstar, excerpt from part II of the exposé, The 2º Death Dance – The 1º Cover-up.

An introduction to Morningstar’s body of work. By Jay Taber at Intercontinental Cry.

(in part)

In the decades since these publications were first published, a new form of psywar has emerged in the form of false hope. With unlimited funding and organizational support from foundations like Ford, Rockefeller, Gates and Soros, U.S. Government propaganda now has a vast new army of non-profits that, along with corporate media and academia, serve as both a third wing of mass consciousness and a fifth column for destabilization campaigns worldwide.

As Cory Morningstar captures The Simulacrum in her multi-part series on the non-profit industrial complex, domesticating the populace is a fait accompli, and the only question remaining is what will happen if and when capitalist activism is seen for what it is. By following the money from aristocratic derivatives to embodiments of false hope like Avaaz, MoveOn, and Change, Morningstar steps through the looking glass to expose how NGOs have become a key tool of global dominance using social media as a means of social manipulation.

When the smoke generated by phony progressives clears, all that is left is an industrial wasteland of false hope and real threats. When the betrayals of NGOs like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are known, we can finally begin to exercise our responsibilities. Until then, programs like Democracy Now remain little more than adult versions of Sesame Street for the toy Che brigades.

i'd done a II-part series here based on her investigations in 2016.

Submitted by lotlizard on Thu, 01/23/2020 - 11:44pm

Can Texas top the U.K.?

The U.K. birthed Extinction Rebellion, activists who are seriously radical about there being a climate crisis.

So in the U.K., a climate crisis hype was the order of the day for a moment, even overshadowing the occasional Muslim terrorist attack.

But then suddenly Brexit and Boris Johnson became the most important thing.

And now the media spotlight has abandoned both Brexit and extinction and the most important thing is Prince Harry and “Megxit.”

We have the attention span of — of — of animals with really short attention spans.

Submitted by humphrey on Fri, 01/24/2020 - 12:10am