Hot Air

Something to keep in mind... carbon emissions are caused by an economic system built on resource extraction and consumption.

The Vanishing Face of Gaia by James Lovelock was published in 2009. Much of what he says is still relevant today. The data from a number of current studies reinforces what he was saying in this book nine years ago.

Since the 1970s, James Lovelock has been involved in 'global heating' conversations with many leading current climate scientists. He proposed the Gaia hypothesis, which postulates that the Earth functions as a self-regulating system. Lovelock is known for his dire warnings about 'global heating'. He is 99 years old.

Here are some of the most interesting passages from his book. He has carefully considered these issues and responds with well-reasoned and contentious analysis…

It is time to wake up and realize that Gaia is no cozy mother that nurtures humans and can be propitiated by gestures such as carbon trading or sustainable development. Gaia, even though we are a part of her, will always dictate the terms of peace. Back in May 1940, we in the UK woke to find facing us across the Channel a wholly hostile continental force about to invade. We were alone without an effective ally but fortunate to have a new leader, Winston Churchill, whose moving words stirred the whole nation from its lethargy: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.” We all need modern Churchill’s to lead us from the clinging, flabby, consensual thinking of the late twentieth century and to bind our nations with a singleminded effort to wage a difficult war. We need a leader who will stir us all but especially to stir those young environmentalists who so bravely protested against all forms of desecration of the country side and wilderness. Where are the ”Earth First” battalions now?

We have been hearing a lot about “hot-house Earth” in the news today. Already in 2009, he mentions hot-house events in connection to the Eocene period…

The long-term history of the Earth suggests the existence of hot and cold stable states that geologists refer to as the greenhouses and the ice houses. In between are the metastable periods like the present interglacial. The best-known hot-house happened 55 million years ago, near the beginning of the period known by geologists as the Eocene. It was so called because it marked the dawn (“eos”) of large mammals. The Eocene was already warm by present standards, and a geological accident caused the release of between 1 and 2 teratons of carbon dioxide into the air (a teraton is 1 million million tons). Putting this much carbon dioxide in the air caused the temperature of the temperate and Arctic regions to rise by fifteen degrees, and the tropics by between nine and fifteen degrees; and it took about two hundred thousand years for conditions to return to their previous states. Soon we will have injected a comparable quantity of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and the Earth itself may release as much again. …the Earth was 0.5 percent cooler then and there was no agriculture anywhere, so that natural vegetation was free to regulate the climate.

His chapter on geoengineering talks about techniques including physical means such as the manipulation of the planetary albedo, physiological geoengineering such as tree planting, and active geoengineering such as the introduction of an aerosol of sulphuric acid droplets into the stratosphere. He also addresses carbon sequestration…

The behavior of this simple geophysiological model and the Earth’s recent climate history revealed by ice-core analysis indicated a climate and atmospheric composition that fluctuates suddenly, as would be expected of a dynamic system with positive feedback. An engineer or physiologist looking at the historic response of the earth system would think it unwise to assume that climate change can simply be reversed by reducing emissions or by geoengineering.

Global heating would not have happened but for the rapid expansion in numbers and wealth of humanity.

Whatever we do as geoengineers is unlikely to stop dangerous climate change or prevent death on a scale that makes all previous wars, famines, and disasters small; but to continue “business as usual” could be worse…

Perhaps the greatest value of the Gaia concept lies in its metaphor of a living Earth, which reminds us that we part of it and that our contract with Gaia is not about human rights alone, but includes human obligations.

HOT AIR NEWS ROUNDUP

General Climate Change News

100 Dead in Nigeria Following Severe Flooding
EcoWatch September 19, 2018

Nigeria declared a national disaster in four states Monday in response to deadly flooding that National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) spokesperson Sani Datti partly attributes to climate change, CNN reported.

"Based on the data available, 100 people have so far died in 10 states," Datti said Monday, as Al Jazeera reported.

Weeks of heavy rain have caused floods that have displaced thousands of people in the country's south and central states, NEMA told CNN.

Mysterious Microbes Turning Polar Ice Pink, Speeding Up Melt
National Geographic September 2018

A surprisingly happy and healthy ecosystem of algae is not only turning parts of the Greenland ice sheet pinkish-red, it’s contributing more than a little to the melting of one of the biggest frozen bodies of water in the world.

The discolored snow isn’t just an Arctic phenomenon. “It’s actually a global occurrence,” says Alexandre Anesio, a biogeochemist from the University of Bristol.

Nearing the Arctic’s seasonal minimum
Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis September 19, 2018

The seasonal minimum of Arctic sea ice extent is imminent; extent at the minimum is likely to be the sixth lowest in the satellite record, tied with 2008.

Container ship crosses Arctic route for first time in history due to melting sea ice
Independent September 18. 2018

A commercial container ship has for the first time successfully navigated the Northern Sea Route of the Arctic Ocean, a route made possible by melting sea ice caused by global warming.
...
The new ice-class 42,000 ton vessel, carrying Russian fish and South Korea electronics, left Vladivostok, in the far east of Russia, on the 23 August.

A summation of the Global Climate Action Summit…
Global Climate Action Summit Strives to Stoke Ambition
Environment News Service September 14, 2018

State of California is joining with San Francisco-based Earth imaging company Planet Labs to develop and launch a satellite to track climate change-causing pollutants and help reduce these destructive emissions.

Interesting debate on geoengineering…
A Debate on Geoengineering: Should We Deliberately “Hack” Planet Earth to Combat Climate Change?
Democracy Now September 14, 2018

Supporters of geoengineering endorse radical ways to manipulate the planet, from spraying aerosols with sulfur particles into the stratosphere, to scrubbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

It’s also true that even if we cut emissions to zero, even if we eliminate emissions, we actually don’t solve the climate problem, because the CO2 that we’ve put in there through industrial action, polluters, over centuries, stays in the air for millennia. So, there, in fact, are no magic-bullet simple solutions to climate change. It’s completely incorrect to say that solar geoengineering is a solution, but it’s also incorrect to say that bringing emissions to zero is a solution, because we’ll still have the climate change.

So, absolutely true, that there’s a crisis of democracy. Part of the reason we, the citizens, haven’t been able to get the kind of climate action we need is failures in our democracy that put too much power associated with fossil fuels that have blocked action. I couldn’t agree more. And I’ve taken personal risks, up to coming close to losing my job at University of Calgary, when I called out oil companies for corruption at that university. So I’ve worked, in fact, on cutting emissions and opposing fossil fuels for decades. So the idea that somehow it’s this dichotomy between “it’s all about democracy, and we just need to focus on that” and “we should just do business as usual and make capitalism happy,” that’s just fuzzy thinking. So, yes, there’s a challenge in democracy. It’s central. If we can’t get broad, collective agreement, control, from the people, that allows us to force emissions cuts, we won’t solve the problem. That’s true.

The World Has Never Seen Anything Like What’s Happening at the Equator Right Now
Mother Jones September 17, 2018

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said that science doesn’t know if a warming planet will have more hurricanes, but its assembled researchers do agree that what hurricanes happen will be worse. More intense wind, more rain, parked for longer over coastal cities unprepared for 100-year-storms that now come once every five years instead.

Christopher McKay, a NASA planetary scientist who studies terraforming and life in extreme environments. “What is certain is that the coming changes will be very, very inconvenient to human society and be of enormous cost to human infrastructure. Fires, floods, sea level, heat waves, etc … Although a cynic might say that the Earth overall will benefit in direct proportion that all things human are decremented.”

Hurricane Florence

In Florence's Floodwater: Sewage, Coal Ash and Hog Waste Lagoon Spills
Inside Climate News September 18, 2018

Clean-water advocates who surveyed the state by plane on Monday documented two breaches in a coal ash landfill near Wilmington, and found that giant ash piles near a power plant in another part of the state had been overcome by floodwater. They spotted dozens of hog farms with waste lagoons under water. One poultry company estimated that 1.7 million of its chickens had drowned and said its farmers hadn't been able to reach millions more.

3.4 Million Chickens, 5,500 Hogs Killed in Florence's Flooding
EcoWatch September 18, 2018

The footprint of flooding from this storm covers much of the same area hit by flooding from Hurricane Matthew in 2016, which only worsens the burden on these farmers.

When Matthew hit the state, it flooded more than 140 hog and poultry barns, more than a dozen open hog waste pits and thousands of acres of manure-saturated fields, the Environmental Working Group and Waterkeeper Alliance reported.

Poultry is the number one agricultural industry in North Carolina, with a statewide economic impact of $36.6 billion a year, according to the North Carolina Poultry Federation.

Sanderson Farms, the third largest poultry producer in the country, issued a statement on Monday that 1.7 million of its broiler chickens "were destroyed as a result of flooding." Sixty of its 880 broiler houses in North Carolina flooded and another six broiler houses experienced damage. Four breeder houses out of a total of 92 in the state flooded.

Hurricane Florence’s Unusual Extremes Worsened by Climate Change
inside climate news September 14, 2018

They estimated that Florence's rainfall forecast is more than 50 percent higher than it would have been without global warming, and that the hurricane's projected size is about 80 kilometers larger. It was a quick study, and more extensive analysis after the storm will fine-tune those estimates, other scientists said, but they acknowledged that it's indicative of human influence on extreme weather.

"With Florence, there's a lot I would say that's consistent with our understanding of how global warming affects tropical systems," said Woods Hole Research Center president and director Phil Duffy. Not all the science is set, but the global warming projections are robust for more Category 4 and 5 storms, as well as a trend to more rapid intensification, he said.

"That's simply a function of very warm sea surface temperatures, and those are obviously tied to global warming. And this storm track is kind of weird, it's unusual and unexpected. Normally these things proceed parallel to the coastline, this one is pretty much T-boning the coast."

This is how the world ends: will we soon see category 6 hurricanes?
The Guardian September 15, 2018

Jeff Masters, one of the most respected meteorologists in America, has begun to wonder publicly about the potential for a category 6 hurricane.
...
“A ‘black swan’ hurricane – a storm so extreme and wholly unprecedented that no one could have expected it – hit the Lesser Antilles Islands in October 1780,” Masters wrote to open the post. “Deservedly called The Great Hurricane of 1780, no Atlantic hurricane in history has matched its death toll of 22,000. So intense were the winds of the Great Hurricane that it peeled the bark off of trees – something only EF5 tornadoes with winds in excess of 200mph have been known to do.”

Masters then made the startling claim that such a “black swan” hurricane was not only possible now but almost certain to occur more than once. He said that such storms should more properly be called “grey swan” hurricanes because the emerging science clearly showed that such “bark-stripping” mega-storms are nearly certain to start appearing.

Climate Change: Wildlife & the Environment

'A single piece of plastic' can kill sea turtles, says study
BBC September 13, 2018

Researchers found there was a one in five chance of death for a turtle who consumed just one item - rising to 50% for 14 pieces.

The team found that younger turtles are at a higher risk of dying from exposure to plastic than adults.

The authors say their research raises concerns over the long term survival of some turtle species.

What the world needs now to fight climate change: More swamps
The Conversation September 12, 2018

...the world needs more swamps – and bogs, fens, marshes and other types of wetlands.

These are some of the most diverse and productive ecosystems on Earth. They also are underrated but irreplaceable tools for slowing the pace of climate change and protecting our communities from storms and flooding.

Scientists widely recognize that wetlands are extremely efficient at pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and converting it into living plants and carbon-rich soil. As part of a transdisciplinary team of nine wetland and climate scientists, we published a paper earlier this year that documents the multiple climate benefits provided by all types of wetlands, and their need for protection.

Vast stores of carbon have accumulated in wetlands, in some cases over thousands of years. This has reduced atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide and methane – two key greenhouse gases that are changing Earth’s climate.

Natural wetlands typically absorb more carbon than they release. But as the climate warms wetland soils, microbial metabolism increases, releasing additional greenhouse gases. In addition, draining or disturbing wetlands can release soil carbon very rapidly.

This is a ‘long read’ and interesting if you like bugs. Buried deep in the article are some gems about Climate Change…

‘A different dimension of loss’: inside the great insect die-off
The Guardian December 14, 2017

Everywhere, invertebrates are threatened by climate change, competition from invasive species and habitat loss. Insect abundance seems to be declining precipitously, even in places where their habitats have not suffered notable new losses. A troubling new report from Germany has shown a 75% plunge in insect populations since 1989, suggesting that they may be even more imperiled than any previous studies suggested.

In the decades since Fisher started making expeditions to Madagascar, deforestation has accelerated, and today only 10% of its virgin forests remain intact. Fisher says that “in 50 years I can’t imagine any forest left in Madagascar”. According to Wendy Moore, a professor of entomology at the University of Arizona, who specialises in ant nest beetles, “There is a sense of running out of time. Everyone in the field who is paying attention feels that.” Because many insects depend on a single plant species for their survival, the devastation caused by deforestation is almost unimaginably huge. “Once a certain type of forest vanishes, thousands, or tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of species will vanish,” Erwin told me. “Deforestation is taking out untold millions of species.”

“any long automobile journey,” especially one undertaken in summer, “would result in a car windscreen that was insect-spattered”. In recent years this phenomenon seems to have vanished.

This is another related article cited in the article above…

Warning of 'ecological Armageddon' after dramatic plunge in insect numbers
The Guardian October 18, 2017

The cause of the huge decline is as yet unclear, although the destruction of wild areas and widespread use of pesticides are the most likely factors and climate change may play a role. The scientists were able to rule out weather and changes to landscape in the reserves as causes, but data on pesticide levels has not been collected.

“Insects make up about two-thirds of all life on Earth [but] there has been some kind of horrific decline,” said Prof Dave Goulson of Sussex University, UK, and part of the team behind the new study. “We appear to be making vast tracts of land inhospitable to most forms of life, and are currently on course for ecological Armageddon. If we lose the insects then everything is going to collapse.”

And this is the study sited in the article about ecological Armageddon...

More than 75 percent decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas
PLOS one October 17, 2018

Malaise traps, deployed over 27 years in 63 nature protection areas in Germany (96 unique location-year combinations) to infer on the status and trend of local entomofauna. Our analysis estimates a seasonal decline of 76%, and mid-summer decline of 82% in flying insect biomass over the 27 years of study. We show that this decline is apparent regardless of habitat type, while changes in weather, land use, and habitat characteristics cannot explain this overall decline.

Gold mining in northern Finland hurts reindeer, says Natural Resources Institute
Eye on the Arctic September 19, 2018

Gold mining in Lapland (northern Finland) is causing more ecological problems than a local association has reported, according to the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke).

The Lapland gold miners’ association says extraction activities in the region cause only mild disruption to the local ecosystem. However, Luke says the association’s data is flawed because it does not account for the total loss over time of grazing lands used by reindeer.

Climate change may drive 10 percent of amphibian species in the Atlantic Rainforest to extinction
Eurekalert September 12, 2018

Global warming could lead to the extinction of up to 10% of frog and toad species endemic to Brazil's Atlantic Rainforest biome within about the next 50 years.

The investigator had the support of the São Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP through its Research Program on Global Climate Change .
"The first expected impact of climate change on anuran amphibians in the Atlantic Rainforest and Cerrado is the extinction of 42 species due to the complete loss of the areas with favorable climate conditions between 2050 and 2070," Vasconcelos said.


Recent Climate Change Studies

Long and informative…
Scientists Warn the UN of Capitalism's Imminent Demise
Motherboard August 28, 2018

Capitalism as we know it is over. So suggests a new report commissioned by a group of scientists appointed by the UN Secretary-General. The main reason? We’re transitioning rapidly to a radically different global economy, due to our increasingly unsustainable exploitation of the planet’s environmental resources.


Those are the stark implications of a new scientific background paper prepared by a team of Finnish biophysicists. The team from the BIOS Research Unit in Finland were asked to provide research that would feed into the drafting of the UN Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR), which will be released in 2019.

The scientists refer to the pioneering work of systems ecologist Professor Charles Hall of the State University of New York with economist Professor Kent Klitgaard from Wells College. Earlier this year, Hall and Klitgaard released an updated edition of their seminal book, Energy and the Wealth of Nations: An Introduction to BioPhysical Economics.
Hall and Klitgaard are highly critical of mainstream capitalist economic theory, which they say has become divorced from some of the most fundamental principles of science. They refer to the concept of ‘Energy Return on Investment’ (EROI) as a key indicator of the shift into a new age of difficult energy. EROI is a simple ratio that measures how much energy we use to extract more energy.

Air pollution particles found in mothers' placentas
The Guardian September 16, 2018

Scientists are increasingly finding that air pollution results in health problems far beyond the lungs. In August, research revealed that air pollution causes a “huge” reduction in intelligence, while in 2016 toxic nanoparticles from air pollution were discovered in human brains.

Flood frequency of the world's largest river has increased fivefold
University of Leeds September 19, 2018

A recent study of more than 100 years of river level records from the Amazon shows a significant increase in frequency and severity of floods. The scientists' analysis of the potential causes could contribute to more accurate flood prediction for the Amazon Basin.
Water levels of the Amazon River have been recorded daily in Port of Manaus, Brazil since the beginning of the last century. The team used 113 years of water level records and found extreme floods and droughts have become more frequent over the last two to three decades.
According to the study, the increased flooding is linked to a strengthening of the Walker circulation—an ocean-powered system of air circulation caused by differences in temperature and pressure over the tropical oceans. This system influences weather patterns and rainfall across the tropics and beyond.

As a result of greenhouse warming, wind belts in mid to high latitudes in the Southern hemisphere have shifted further south, opening a window for transport of warm Indian ocean waters around the tip of Africa, via the Agulhas current, towards the tropical Atlantic.


QMS: Time to disconnect greed from the welfare of earth, if survival means anything. I like trees.

Paul Beckwith: "I declare a global climate change emergency to claw back up the rock face to attempt to regain system stability, or face an untenable calamity of biblical proportions."

Kevin Hester: "There is no past analogue for the rapidity of what we are baring witness to. There has been a flood of articles ... 2C is no longer attainable and that we are heading for dangerous climate change"

Guy McPherson: "The recent and near-future rises in temperature are occurring and will occur at least an order of magnitude faster than the worst of all prior Mass Extinctions. Habitat for human animals is disappearing throughout the world, and abrupt climate change has barely begun."

me… We need to turn on a dime at mach nine!

Enjoy!
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magiamma's picture

These massive Superstorms, simultaneously striking heavily populated regions on opposite sides of the planet are not freaks of nature. They are children of abrupt Climate Change, and those children are growing and getting stronger all the time. Watch out.

Denying climate change is criminal, in my opinion, as abrupt changes accelerate around our planet.

We cannot trust our lives to rich old white men who dominate the corridors of power.

Typhoon Mangkhut - CNN, Updated 2:37 AM ET, Sat September 15, 2018

Here are some statistics that show Mangkhut’s power:

Mangkhut was the strongest storm anywhere on the planet in 2018, with wind speeds at one stage of 285 kph (180 mph).
Mangkhut made landfall of 165 mph (270 kph), 75 mph (120 kph) stronger than Hurricane Florence that hit North Carolina on the same day.
Typhoon-force winds stretched for 270 kilometers (168 miles), the distance between Paris and Brussels.
It is the strongest storm to make landfall in the Philippines since Super Typhoon Haiyan in 2013, and the strongest to make landfall on the Philippines’ northern island of Luzon since Super Typhoon Megi in 2010.
On Luzon, more than 30 million people were expected to face tropical storm-force winds.

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magiamma's picture

@magiamma
Where r they, the earth first battalions? Thanks for the music. Love the piano. Sign in the back says something about heat c? but could not quite make out the second word. Mother earth is in charge and a lot bigger than us. Beckwith says it's criminal to deny climate change.
and...

We cannot trust our lives to rich old white men who dominate the corridors of power.

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Thanks for the compilation Magi. A lot to learn here. A few snips...

If we can’t get broad, collective agreement, control, from the people, that allows us to force emissions cuts, we won’t solve the problem.

our contract with Gaia is not about human rights alone, but includes human obligations.

And the idea that Mother Nature is calling the shots on climate change, not us. We are part of the biome which is more than all of 'us' combined.

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magiamma's picture

@QMS
no idea... Smile but thanks again

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Thunderclap Newman 1969

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smiley7's picture

Free-flowing thoughts recall an old tune we used to sing "There's a hole in the bucket dear Liza, a hole."

"Well fix it dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry ..."

Question remains for this earth mother is how to move the Henry's in charge to fix it.

One step at a time; thanks again for bringing the weekly environmental news.

Hoping you and all have a wonderful day; it's a beauty here on the Mt.

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magiamma's picture

@smiley7
Smile

Glad the mountain is beauteous. Yeah, we used sing that song too. Different connotation to think of the Earth as needing fix-it Henrys. How did you and your friends survive the Florence deluge? Lots of news about water contamination. There will be lots of work to do. Thanks for stopping by.

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decimated huge areas in British Columbia. The smoke was visible and headache inducing all the way to Western Ontario. You mention an article that points out the effect of air pollution on not just the lungs but the brain as well. I can't imagine how bad the smoke was if you live close to those fires....and then there are the firefighters.

The August edition of Harper's Magazine was predominantly devoted to wildfires. There were several excellent articles. The one sentence that struck me from all that writing was that the wild fires WILL burn until there are no forests left. For all the people who love forests, or who love a particular stand of trees, this is a horrific idea. It brings to my mind a documentary I saw back in the '90s or even as long ago as the '80s about an oil spill off the coast of Spain. There was an image of a young woman gazing out at the sea and the decimation all around and she just crumpled, weeping, on the beach. So many of us know that feeling, I just wish we could take care of our planet.

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@randtntx @randtntx magi, thanks for the the roundup of articles, much appreciated Smile

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@randtntx
Wow, the fires will burn until there is nothing left... Makes sense but what an image. Yes, I could be on my knees weeping but for ranting. Well, maybe not ranting, but it sure feels like what I want to do sometime. Rant. Or weep. You are so welcome for the news roundup. Thanks for stopping by and for the fire update. Smile

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Speaking about all of this is crucial, even though I know, many will say that doesn't make a bit of difference. There is an article in Counterpunch that I think is magnificent. It reflects many of the ideas we discuss on C99 and paints a picture of how these ideas are related, dependent on one another, affect one another, and are intertwined. It may have been referenced before here, but just in case it hasn't, here is the link. https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/07/the-fires-this-time-2/

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magiamma's picture

@randtntx
James Lovelock is in lockstep with the issue of global consumption...

Global heating would not have happened but for the rapid expansion in numbers and wealth of humanity.

From Counterpunch September 7 The Fires This Time

But in Canada, with 550 fires burning last month in British Columbia alone...

...he (James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time) used his formidable skills to try to wake white people from the zombie-like trance of their parsimonious privilege to see that the richness of a real life would only be possible—for them—if all were free

...

Fifty years on from 1968, a global consumer society now exists that has not resolved a single fundamental question that the 20th century posed of how we ought to live

...

And now a revolution is happening, on a scale larger than humans have ever seen. But it is nature’s revolt, not humanity’s. We have never lived in a world warming as quickly (and thus as chaotically) as the one we are entering. We have never witnessed a Great Extinction, ...our civilization’s response so far is to double down on the behaviors that unleashed the revolution—but that is because hierarchical civilization is the very definition of a feedback loop,

...

Richard Heinberg says our contemporary hierarchies, our systemic inequalities, are stark enough to be analogous to predator-prey relationships...he uses it to show how extreme inequality (over-predation) is a feature of a particular phase in both natural ecosystems and human societies. That phase generally heralds a rapid reduction in energy consumption, levels of complexity and population size. In the context of an integrated global society, however, it becomes a question of impacts that stretch beyond a single generation:

To the extent that we are today eroding the carrying capacity on which future generations would otherwise depend, our way of life could be characterized as intergenerational “predation;” to put it crudely, the old are “eating” the young.

NASA: A picture is worth a thousand words...

Blog wk 7 Nasa Fire Image.jpg

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lotlizard's picture

So my prediction is that the Earth will be ruined, as Western elites will let the Saudis and the other Gulf monarchies continue to produce and sell fossil fuels to their hearts’ content, literally come hell or high water.

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magiamma's picture

@lotlizard
Says production costs for Saudi Arabia are $5 a barrel...

With the largest proven oil reserves in the world and a production cost of only $5 per barrel, the kingdom will continue to capitalize on persistent global demand. “When people talk about a post-oil future, Saudi Arabia is still selling oil because it’s a low-cost producer,”

Saudi Arabia’s young crown prince may be looking to the post-oil future, but state oil monopoly Aramco is setting itself up for another two decades of growing demand.

Because, seriously, the crown prince really needs a...

half a trillion dollars to build his dream mega-city of NEOM, billed as a high-tech Red Sea business hub that would be Saudi Arabia’s answer to Dubai.

And why would the US care when in 2017...
US-Saudi Arabia seal weapons deal worth nearly $110 billion immediately, $350 billion over 10 years

The United States sealed a multibillion arms deal with Saudi Arabia, the White House announced on Saturday, a move that solidifies its decades-long alliance with the world's largest oil exporter just as President Donald Trump begins his maiden trip abroad as leader of the free world.

The agreement, which is worth $350 billion over 10 years and $110 billion that will take effect immediately, was hailed by the White House as "a significant expansion of…[the] security relationship" between the two countries.

Literally hell or high water!

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Hawkfish's picture

@magiamma

and 007 was wrong. In hindsight, taking out the Saudi oil fields with a nuke seems like a socially valuable action. Who cares if he would have made a few bucks in the market on the side?

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

magiamma's picture

@Hawkfish

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lotlizard's picture

@Hawkfish  
and the 180-degree turn at Mach Nine is not happening and it needs to, then —

— is the idea so unthinkable that something will have to stop fossil-fuel production and sale, and do it on a dime?

Electromagnetic pulses have an instant effect on unprotected electrical circuitry and electronics — what’s the equivalent for petroleum infrastructure?

How’s that for a question out of left field, which in this ballpark seems to be James Bond territory . . . ?

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@lotlizard USA will frack to compete with them, using our water to do it, releasing massive amounts of methane, and causing a few earthquakes to boot! USA, USA, USA!!!

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

magiamma's picture

@lizzyh7 @lizzyh7
Thanks for mentioning methane. Our species seems to be very short sighted...

Methane is a very strong greenhouse gas, 21 to 25 times as strong as carbon dioxide over a 100 year period. But for a shorter period under 20 years it (methane) can be 100 times the strength of CO2. This is a really powerful feedback mechanism in the short-term.

Not that studies (and more and more good ones coming out every week) really make a difference...
NASA study Jan 2018

When the research team subtracted this large decrease from the sum of all emissions, the methane budget balanced correctly, with room for both fossil fuel and wetland increases. The research is published in the journal Nature Communications.

Atmospheric methane concentrations are given by their weight in teragrams.
One teragram equals about 1.1 million U.S. tons -- more than the weight of 200,000 elephants.

Methane emissions are increasing by about 25 teragrams a year, with total emissions currently around 550 teragrams a year.

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dystopian's picture

It is worse than everyone thought, all the best models, faster than everyone thought, so what is ahead? Worse. Much worse. So bad we can hardly predict it. 100 year floods became annual over a few year period. And here in America where climate change denial is a religion, manufactured and maintained by the creators of the problem, facts don't matter, only faith. If the media can convince everyone Trump or Hillary are acceptable candidates for President, they certainly have the ability to teach climate change. They choose not to.

Saw this today... looking bleak for birds out there...
https://www.audubon.org/news/in-alaska-starving-seabirds-and-empty-colon...

great post!

P.S. On that thread last week... loved, loved your art! So creative and original, absolutely wonderful! Awesome.

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We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein

magiamma's picture

@dystopian
And glad you enjoyed my art.

The news is just getting worse every week. I think anyone with eyes wide open is appalled. Shocking. I'm with Paul Beckwith, "These massive Superstorms, ... They are children of abrupt Climate Change, and those children are growing and getting stronger all the time. Watch out."

I used to joke about having front row seats. No more.

Thanks for the article. A few snippets from it...

The murres' disappearance this year isn’t limited to Nome. Throughout Alaska’s coastal waters on the Bering and Chukchi Seas, Common and Thick-billed Murres failed to breed this year. Typically millions of the raucous black-and-white seabirds gather at some 170 colonies along Alaska’s coast to nest and raise their chicks together. But this year barely any birds showed up to their breeding grounds in May and June, and those that did arrived uncharacteristically late. Some birds in the Pribolof Islands in the Bering Sea were still sitting on eggs in mid-August, about a month later than normal.

At the same time, when Alaskan communities fringing the Bering and Chukchi Seas weren't finding live birds on nests, they were finding dead birds on beaches. From May through July, hundreds of emaciated Thick-billed Murres, Common Murres, Fork-tailed Petrels, Short-tailed Shearwaters, Black-legged Kittiwakes, and Northern Fulmars washed up on the Alaskan coast. Their cause of death? Starvation.

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enhydra lutris's picture

have a good one out there.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

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@enhydra lutris
Thanks for popping in. Have a good one yourself.

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mhagle's picture

http://www.lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf

I hope to do an essay on it. Or maybe someone else wants to do it?

I don't have much time to hang out here, so if someone else wants to review that paper, that would be great.

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

magiamma's picture

@mhagle
I replied earlier but forgot to save. Yes, I will blog (verb) this. Am on page 21 of 31 pages. Really excellent paper. omg! Thanks again.

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