Guy McPherson - credible or alarmist?

[morls]

Hi,

I've been reading some writing by Guy McPherson, and was wondering if anyone has a strong view either way about his ideas and projections for the course of climate change? I have to say, if he's right the outlook is pretty depressing...

Cheers

Stephen

https://guymcpherson.com/climate-chaos/climate-change-summary-and-update/

[Wavytone]

I regard him as an alarmist, and the article is an unstructured rant from someone with no formal scientific credentials in climatology. The article lacks any real logic, draws on hysteria and misplaced fear of things like PRISM.

While some of the material he draws on is factual (such as geological records) there is a fundamental difference: humans didn't exist at the previous extinction events, nor did any other species have both the science to understand what is going on, nor the technological capabilities to intervene in any way. The result was evolution - and the survival of the fittest - or non-survival of the least fit - running its course. We have the ability to fast-track that, both by deliberate selective breeding as well as direct genetic modifications. In addition we are able to assist or interfere in the reproductive cycles of plants, at will.

While I would agree on several points though:
- global warming is happening faster than most want to admit, and will probably exceed the forecast extremes by 2100;
- it cant be undone, as the genie (CO2) is already out of the bottle;
- there are several regions where humanity has already exceeded the population sustainable on rainfall, and the human population has to be drastically reduced by one means or another;
- The most likely outcomes are famine, disease and/or wars fought over resources (primarily water). All will happen (and are happening now on a small scale).

China's one-child policy was effective and in many respects admirable as the only effective peaceful effort to reduce population in a generation. It did show it is possible, though only in a non-democratic state.

He is right in one respect in a very broad sense - America has been quietly taking steps to ensure it will survive long after any other country has fallen into ruin. This thinking started way back in the Cold War period in the 1950s.

But the details he offers are frankly very flawed, hysterical rubbish.

[morls]

Interesting to get your thoughts, thanks. A friend of mine who is an academic thinks highly of his general assumptions (extreme changes are imminent) but I'm still not sure, at the moment I'm wary of extreme views either way.

Whichever way things go, we're in for some interesting times...

[el_draco]

Make no mistakes, we are screwed alright. As soon as the methane really gets going this planet will wreak like the arse end of a bovine.... :shrug:

[xelasnave]

The things that will take us out will be the things we are not expecting.
I expect everyting so nothing will ever get me☺
Alex

[E23]

Agreed. I just had a quick scan of his views and he appears to be a semi-qualified nutcase, extreme alarmist. Even if we are heading into some very rough weather (sorry) and it's too late to stop at 2 degrees warming, it will not be the 'end of days' for humanity. As sure as technology created the problem, technology can fix it. Think geo-engineering. Eg putting a reflective substance like sulphur dust in the stratosphere. It is however too late for the Great Barrier Reef. It's doomed by increasing frequency of bleaching events due to hot oceans.. Sadly also for ground based astronomy, it will also be doomed for a hundred years or so while the 'solution' settles back to Earth. By that time we would have stopped the CO2 and CH4 emissions.

Talking about doomsayers, remember the Club of Rome report 'Limits to Growth' 1972 by a group of very eminent experts regarding the approaching doom due to 1. population growth, 2. air pollution, 3. depletion of resources, by year 2000. Well, they missed global warming as well as they badly overestimated population growth. Air pollution is fixed, there is no sign of depletion of resources and world population will peak at 11 billion by 2050. (all demographers agree on that).

Global warming is different and is serious but I'm optimistic that we can fix it. I'm an engineer.

Andras

[el_draco]

Its this kind of thinking that put us in the predicament in the first place.

Engineers believe there is always a technological fix, believe me I deal with a super duper version on a regular basis, but I can assure you, nature cannot be "engineered".

To solve an engineering problem, you first have to have a detailed understanding of the system, and we aren't even in the ballpark on that when looking at the planet as a whole.

There are multi-level feedback processes that we are only touching on now, including ocean mixing rates, for example, and more we don't even know about yet. There is so much methane in deep ocean deposits and permafrost that we just can't even begin to comprehend what will happen once that starts really moving... and it's started. Temperature measurements in deep permafrost are rising way to fast and... surprise, surprise, we don't understand why :shrug: Like I said, we are screwed, but good!

If the U.S. corps of engineers is anything to go by, we might as well just burn all the coal on the planet today and get it over an done with faster :rolleyes:

[morls]

I shudder to think what would happen if we pumped millions of tonnes of sulphur into the atmosphere, if only because there is no way we can fully understand the long-term ramifications (not to mention sulphuric acid H2SO4 and Venus and runaway greenhouse)...

As far as the great barrier reef, the real problem is not a "hot ocean" but acidification of the ocean which causes problems in the calcium-carbonate system upon which many many organisms depend.

Stephen

[The_bluester]

Regardless if he is right or wrong further on, I got no further than “In the near future, habitat for Homo sapiens will be gone. Shortly thereafter, all humans will die.”

[xelasnave]

We need to move underground ro survive climate change or the next big hit.
Lets face it we are here today because many mammals lived in the protection of the Earth itself...besides I would love a Hobbit house☺
Alex

[morls]

That's it! I'm off to Coober Pedy. Imagine the night sky...:stargaze:

[E23]

Rom

I don't necessarily disagree with your analysis of the problem but I still think there is an engineered solution. There must be one otherwise we are really stuffed seeing the pollies still haven't pulled their finger out. The species that has worked out how nature works at the quantum mechanics level and taken high resolution images of Pluto's moon Charon and engineered your iPhone is not going to throw its hands up at a bit of climate engineering. When the politicians finally realise that we are being cooked they will ask the successors of Einstein, Oppenheimer, Fermi, Teller et al(by the way, Teller was onto this before he died about 20 years ago) to organise a Manhattan or Apollo style project and fix the climate problem. There is no other way. It's too late to stop our CO2 emissions.

Andras

[el_draco]

Ah, yeah... :question: That's what I said.



Spoken just like an engineer. Despite our perpetual arrogance... we know virtually nothing about how life works or the planets systems beyond the most basic superficial functions of some of the earths cycles.
- We don't even have a remotely complete map of the ocean floor.
- Can't predict weather with any accuracy beyond a few weeks, and regularly get it COMPLETELY wrong.
- Have not even catalogued, let alone studied, 80% of the species on earth that we THINK may be there.
- Cant cure the common cold...
- Can't maintain any kind of natural balance with nature.
- Yadda, yadda, yadda

If we knew anything of real consequence, we would not be in this predicament now. We operate basically like a cancer on this planet and the host is dying.




You are dreaming.... For a long time, the scientists warned the wankers and the wankers ignored them pretty much the way they do today; nothing has changed, despite all the warning signs and all the incontrovertible evidence of anthropogenic climate change.

Its now just a case of the frog in the pot slowly cooking as the water heats up. In fact, the wankers in this country and Yank land, for example, have attacked the scientific community for speaking up. NOTE, we don't even have a minister for Science atm. http://theconversation.com/no-science-minister-and-its-unclear-where-science-fits-in-australia-91739

We are already completely screwed. This joke we call "civilisation" has a life expectancy of about 20 years, tops... IMHO :rolleyes:

[FlashDrive]

You beauty ... I'll be 83 then and ready to fall of the perch ... it won't matter to me ....:D

Col.....

[E23]

You are missing the point. This frog can feel the heat and wants to do something about it. What's your solution?

If you are into laying the blame for the current situation look no further than the Greens and their predecessors the CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) in the UK. Their hysterical obsession of conflating nuclear weapons with nuclear power in the 60s. Expect for them we would not have any fossil fuel power generation buy now.

Andras

[Oddity]

:scared2:

I recommend a visit to China to set the record straight on this. When I visited you could literally see smog inside the airport terminal looking from one end of the hall to the other. The sun on a day with no clouds, looked more like an orange moon.



“All” seems a grandiose embellishment. If by “all” you mean “some” and by “agree” you mean “see it in some models and not others”.

[E23]

Yes, a bit like Los Angeles in the 70s. Check it out now. If they did it in 30 years the Chinese will fix theirs in less than 15.

What happened to Paul Ehrich's exponential population bomb?

Andras

[AndrewJ]

I think you need to look more at how economists have come up with schemes that require constant growth to function, and how science and engineering has now given the money /power hungry capitalists /developers an ability to utilise these theories to build/pollute at levels never before possible.
Just look at the microcosm of Victoria/Melbourne.
( the worlds most wonderful place :-) )
We now import lots of "people" per year as required by theory.
They need houses and infrastructure so we pay huge numbers of people to build houses/infrastructure and claim that this is aiding our economy, but its not a stable income without ever increasing growth, and it doesnt actually generate new "external" money.
Its also making the place impossible to move around in.
Second problem is a lot of the money used to pay for building the now overpriced product is "borrowed", and is also being siphoned off bit by bit by all the vultures in the "finance" sections of society, who dont actually do much for their money.
We are like one of those Attenborough films where everyone is feeding off an ever diminishing bait ball, and patting each other on the back at how good the times are whilst we can see the ball.
What happens when the bait ball is consumed????
I also note a huge chunk of our last budget is now based on Fines and Stamp duties, vs exports that bring in fresh money.
Not a good sign for sustainable living.

Andrew

[el_draco]

Let me see... It would have been much better to accumulate megatons of nuclear waste with an "extended" half life and proliferate nuclear weapons.... not to mention add a few dozen more 3 mile islands, Fukushimas and Chernobyls... I guess. I believe the European Union just spent how many billions replacing the tomb at Chernobyl for a hundred years? http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170101-a-new-tomb-for-the-most-dangerous-disaster-site-in-the-world

You are blowing smoke bubbles at "greenies" the same way everyone with a vested interest in perpetuating the status quo does. :rolleyes:

I believe the U.K went coal free for 3 days a week or so ago... still burning gas of course, but its a bit better than a 100,000 year commitment to a waste dump, I guess...

Engineers don't like "greenies" because they make engineers feel inadequate... From what I gather, the dastardly "greens" have been trying to protect our common environment since the 1960's The wankers have been on the Man V Nature kick for generations. Check out this 10 minute clip on DDT; the arrogance of the chemist is breath taking, and that was what, 60 odd years ago...?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ipbc-6IvMQI

So, you asked what my solution would be...

As I said, to late, we are screwed. Even if you pulled the plug today, shut down human industrial carbon emissions entirely and ditched the farmed meat chain, simple inertia will keep the process going for centuries... and that's just ONE of our engineered issues.

Here is another! There is so much crap in the oceans now, they'll be dead in a decade or so as the micro plastics wipe out the base of the marine food chain... and thats not even addressing warming or acidification, the later would continue even with a sulphur aerosol turning the sky the colour of piss...

If you want even a faint chance of avoiding the worst of it, start by killing at least 5 or 6 billion humans... nah, don't bother, nature is about to do it for us... :rolleyes:

[FlashDrive]

Rom .... without appearing to be sarcastic .... have you anything to look forward to in life

Col....

[el_draco]

Heaps... I have a wonderful life, (Thanks for asking :rofl:), and I will be dead before it really hits the fan. :P

Alas, people don't like hearing about the consequences of their actions... :shrug:

[xelasnave]

My daughter put in a passion fruit vine and noticed when the flowers appeared there were no bees around and had to pollinate the flowers with a soft artists brush.

There are now sixty fruit but it makes one think of how nice it would be to keep the bees around.

Lucky the bees are OK and not under threat and if they do die out given we have a good supply of pollinating brushes we will still have passion fruit.


So there really is nothing to worry about with the bees.

Folk have to realize to grow food you have to spray a little poison which may kill a few bees but lets face it there are plenty of bees just look at the honey in the supermarket.
And look at the jobs and investment in insecticides and then you get these greenies making waves and making the stock market jittery...that is worse than treason...look at where workers have their super invested. ..when you cause problems for the share market you are attacking the investments of millions of workers.

And shielding all these broken nuclear plants is good for construction jobs ... why dont folk look at the bright side.

And nuclear power will save the planet from warming and it is very cheap and we have a good supply of the raw materials so think of the jobs and the investment.
And with more beef being grown in feed lots really that will head off problems with the polution side because all the cattle are in the one place so less transport less fuel less pollution but more jobs and investment.
And think of those supply cattle food...more jobs and investment. An all the methan is in one place so it causes less problems.

And certainly there is a problem with the crill...too many birds and fish (that we cant eat) eating it...save the crill for the tuna.
And look at all those whales eat..I mean it was tolerable when we needed whale oil for lamps but now we dont need them and really what benefit are they except to a few tourist groups whale watching. Not that many jobs to protect.
There are too many short sighted people who fail to see how resourse consuming wild animals can inhibit turning usless bush into farmland for humans...
So long as we make jobs and investment a priority nothing bad will happen to the environment.


Alex

[AndrewJ]

:poke:

[JA]

Yes ^ :D

I would've added the same sort of image but, plus firebreathing type GIF, but we don't seem to have one.

Best
JA

[xelasnave]

Before anyone wastes time seeking a cartoon to express their feelings let me say I was attempting Satire...I would not suggest we actually get rid of the whales but merely to farm them and bring back oil lamps in an effort to save the planet.
Think of the jobs and investment.
Alex

[75BC]

The thing I love about astronomy is how it put’s myself, and humanity as a whole into perspective.

We are relatively microscopic. That has always made me think if we could look at our planet as though it was a small creature. A living thing, which in a way it is. We would consider our species as a parasitic infection of the kind that reproduces uncontrolled and eventually overwhelms the host.

The other thought I have relates to science fiction stories of the War of the Worlds kind where humans are rounded up and treated as a food or energy source. It would be terrifying if it were to happen. But isn’t that how we as Humans treat every other life form on Earth. As though we own it.

I believe Human Beings to be an extremely arrogant and ignorant species. The ‘We can fix anything’ attitude. But we tend to stuff a lot of things up to put it simply. That’s what is going to get us in trouble, and has caused us trouble in the past.

I’ am a Human Being by the way. :P

[raymo]

100% agree.
raymo

[el_draco]

Alex, You are a lout ;):lol:.... but since you mentioned whales:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnxChnDP6os

[AndrewJ]

I have always thought that our cities were the equivalent of skin cancers
and the roads and rail etc were arteries we build to feed em.
Cars and trains are the red blood cells and humans are the virus being transported.
At least thats what an alien doctor would diagnose,

[JA]

Hi Alex,

Yes I got the satire :thumbsup:, my comment was about such threads in general, not your post (although I made my response directly below it). My comment was based around most of the Global Warming / Climate change threads I've been involved in here and elsewhere. They always seem to have,acquire or develop that certain stick poking or prodding element as per the posted GIF, but, I just couldn't find the firebreathing GIF as a pictorial response, sometimes the result :D

Best
JA

[xelasnave]

Thanks for the video Rom and although i enjoyed it all I can say is that is greenie propaganda that threatens jobs and investment.

I was researching aqua culture when thinking of building a fish farm...interestingly there are various level of intensity.

Level one simply involves fertilizing the ground above the dam ( the catchement area) which sees small life generate and the fish are the final beneficiaries.
I never thought of putting a whale in the dam but that could work.
All their splashing would be great to get oxygen into the water.
And if you got the right sort of whale it would not eat the fish.
I can see a business opportunity to supply whale food to fish farmers.
Alex

[el_draco]

You could log and burn the catchment above the dam as well. All that fine silt would block out the sunlight and keep the fish cool... and the ash would stop carbon going atmospheric as well... win:win! :question:

[xelasnave]

I am happy that you understood my attempted satire and now understand what I did not before your post.

I see humanity parralleling a finely tunned motor already reving at red line and the revs increasing...it will throw a piston any time soon.
Alex

[xelasnave]

Reminds me..I had three iron barks around the dam near the house that I decided to cut fown.

In the bush one holds a certain pride in being able to drop a tree where you predict.

First one would miss the dams..opps how did that happen?
It is not easy cutting up a tree in the dam. But the second and third all fell in the dam..its was like they were attracted to the water.

I am so happy I never started the fish farm...imagine you get it working sucessfully and you get to clean a couple of ton of fish each week...like so many good things to do in retirement it was stupid.

These folk who retire and buy a motel...what were they thinking????

Building up a farm means if it works out you work twenty four seven to get a negative return on your investment...seems like a good idea..its not.

Alex

[el_draco]

Reminded me of a dam incident I had Alex.

I once had a neighbour some years back who found out I was into protecting forest, so he got out his bulldozer, and started knocking down all the trees up slope of his property. When i asked him why he said, "no money in trees". He then dug a dam at the bottom of the hill... took him a week.

That was in Summer ;)

Along comes Winter and the dam was full of mud by the second decent downpour... and he spent most of Winter trying to control erosion blowouts all over the joint.... Never spoke to him again, never got water in the dam and the trees are growing back... :rolleyes:

[xelasnave]

It amazes me how many folk building dams dont have a clue.
First they think running the machine over the dam walls compacts the soil or clay as it should be...no you need a sheeps foot compactor or similar...fail number one...but the worst is they dig a dam an it leaks cause they have not made sure there is a good barrier between what they dig down to ( usually rocks determine the bottom) and the water...clay is necessary.
And some of these characters think they onow it all...I read one book on the subject which compared to them makes me the expert.
They built a dam at the fire shed..a good thing...but it leaked and would they listen to a city slicker or take notice of those fancy books written by a book learning engineer...of course not...so the fire shed has a dam which does not hold water.☺
Alex

[AndyG]

Sounds like nature outsmarted the human's "engineering" - All in 1/2 a revolution of the sun.

[AndrewJ]

I would classify that dam builder more as a "home handyman" :-)

[E23]

Nice solution Rom. Pol Pot would have been proud of you. Does it mean that you are not on my team to save the planet. I do hope you are not a total nihilist?

Andras

[el_draco]

Eh, takes all types. I think he cleared the slope, just to be a "pointy object". Only an idiot clears a 30 degree incline. Anyhow, I think maybe he learned a valuable lesson by trying to be a smart arsenal.

Off topic! THE END IS NIGH... don't bother running, there's no planet B ! :eyepop::eyepop:

[el_draco]

Got a better plan that does not involve magic... or "god":question:

I've done vastly more than probably 99.9999% of the worlds population to reverse some of the damage and got nothin but karma, and a buggered back... :rolleyes:

[xelasnave]

There is no need to be concerned about the planet it will always be ok until enveloped by the Sun and I doubt if you can save the planet from its inevitable firey death.

We can only speculate how much more time humans have before their extinction.


Unlike other species we have the ability to analyse various things to make reliable future predictions.

We have analysed the reasons why our planet is getting hotter and worked out the consequences but we do little to change our behaviour such that at least we show we care.

Sure folk invest in alternate energy but the motivation is not anything less than that of profit.

We all want an easy way out of the crisis and I suggest there is no easy way to avoid the consequences waiting for us.


From my observation it seems there is an unfortunate majority of humans who believe that outside help will come from an unobserved entity and so they feel the problem
is somewhat already solved.

It would be reasonable to speculate that while such lack of thinking is somewhat a norm and no one wants to consume less or demand of government immediate statagies be implemented so curb the horrific gluttony of toys in the form of form of powerful motor cars, boats and planes well then humanity can not be saved.

Coal and fossil fuel is not the problen and not to see the real problem simply means we face extinction I suggest within less than two centuries..just wait and see if I am not right.

I have seen the future and sadly there isnt one.

Alex

[E23]

Sorry Rom, I got to go. It's a clear night here and need to do something for the planet. Look me up on http://www.arcadiaobservatory.org

Andras

[Sparksinspace]

A bit like Uranus ;):P:P:rofl::rofl::rofl:

Sorry I had to :screwy::screwy::screwy:

[E23]

Alex

I agree that doing nothing is terminal. Merely stopping further CO2 pollution from here on is not enough. But the story is far from over unless you give up now like Rom. My contribution in this discussion was only to point out that we do have the smarts to reverse the effect of CO2 in the atmosphere by decreasing the incident solar radiation one way or other. Just let the scientists and engineers get on the job. But that probably won't happen until your arse catches fire.

Andras

[el_draco]

Already did... nice dome

[el_draco]

So are we... :rolleyes:

[xelasnave]

Engineers can not change gluttony.

We live on a planet where the adults behave like children ... what hope can you muster when we believe fossil fuels are the problem when each year motor car companies seek to build better toys for the child like adults who demand vehicles that are beyond the requirements of comfortable transport...

why waste resourses which equate to energy which comes from burning coal to provide 20 tires for each race car that is umong perhaps field of thirty all consuming similar...Does no one have the sence to realise tires motors boats plans beside burning fuel require much coal to be burnt to provide the electricity for their production...how much coal is burnt to produce the tires for a single race car for one year, how much coal burns to produce the electricity to produce these things that go around and around for no productive purpose. ..think it through ...we ignore the unnecessary waste yet wring our hands and declare it can be fixed with a tax or a windmill or a greater reliance on science to make more efficient solar panels...or of course there is the now new green power that comes from yellow cake already demonstrated to be insanely dangerous yet of course the next reactors will not be a problem as they will never see an accident..dont people realise we call accidents accidents because they are unforseen or unplanned ..oh no all the accidents for nuclear power have happened and never again will we see an accident in the neclear power industry. Sound stupid because accidents will happen and in NP it does not get fixed for centuries...it should be abandoned.


We could turn out lights at night after midnight, we could stop racing, we could make solar hot water compulsory, we could outlaw fridges in office buildings, we could demand office building do not leave their lights on all night we could limit overseas travel and the jets in the air...we could do so many things but all we have are folk investing in alternate energy to capitalise on the fear which I suspect is pushed more by the nuclear power mob than any greenie...their propaganda is so intense that we now have greenies demanding nuclear power as if it was their idea.


The problem is not coal or yellow cake it is the gluttony which wont go away and will get worse as more humans realise the rich are indulgent, which is how we define sucess, and so as they can idividually afford it they embrace gluttony as a virtue and unrelated to the inevitable extinction of the human race.

I dont care I really dont I do dispair only over the hypocracy and the stupidity and the insatiable greed of those who promote that gluttony is good.


And look at Al Gore the champion of the movement ..his concern was for the millions to be made not saving humanity...check his house his car etc...what a joke.
He would have laughed all the way to the bank and I hope you folk who were taken in by him are now more wise...he conned you.

So lets employ the engineers to find a solution where we can consume more and more and not have to reduce gluttony.

Drag cars and summer nats where burn outs are worshipped as the pinicle of human achievement...how much coal is burnt for that event alone.

And how many lights on in your house right now, how many tv on and not watched how much coal could you save with just a little less consumption.

The horse has aready bolted..less ice more heat, more roads more heat, more toys more heat and the perma frost melts and the methane escapes ...the horse has bolted and he will not stop.
We are at the start of a hundred year or more event that humanity will not survive.

But lets put up another carbon tax ...yeh after all its those big company's fault...no they are there to assist consumsion they will sell to gluttons...wear out the cars, burn out the tires the faster the better for them...the main thing to remember who is really to blame..greedy humans who dont understand everything must...absolutely must ...be measured by how many buckets of coal it cost not the dollars but the coal used for production.

And stamp out the stupidity that has stupid folk believing an invisable friend will fix it..
Alex

[JA]

Hi Stephen,

Based on aspects of his essay....... Option B - Alarmist

Best
JA

[clive milne]

Hi Stephan,

The aspect of climate change that concerns scientists above all other factors is natural feedback loops.
Arguably one of the biggest (potentially) is methane released by thawing permafrost on the siberian continental shelf.

Once the sea ice above these carbon deposits melts, the sea temperature can rise above zero degrees, at which point bacteria become active and converts the carbon to methane. (Already happening)

The quantity of methane that could be released would be in the region of 50 to 100 giga tonnes.

The time frame for this release to happen would be at the decade level (give or take)

The consequence to global global average temperature of a 50 GT methane release would be approximately +17C.

The cat is not actually out of the bag yet... true.
But let me put it this way; the bag is in tatters and there is no putting it back together again. The cat is just waking up, yawning and stretching it's claws.

The ice is no longer there during the summer months and the ocean temperatures have warmed to the extent that the permafrost is more or less a fond memory visible in the rear view mirror.

Now, to put that in to perspective...
Even if it were the case that the Rubicon was still to be crossed.
Consider this:
The Earth's climate is pretty much driven by the oceans, or more specifically the ocean's temperatures.

The time it takes for an ocean to respond to an energy imbalance is around about 40 years (there's a bit of inertia there due to thermal mass).

It should then be obvious that even if we stopped GHG emissions completely tomorrow, we have still locked in 2 degrees Celsius of global warming once all the dust settles.
But that ain't gonna happen.
A more realistic appraisal is that modern society is addicted to an energy intensive economy (and one should never trust a junky)

It is going to take at least a couple of decades to get off the needle, by which time we will have chiselled the inevitability of a 4C temperature rise
in stone....

By extension, we are then committed to a further 17C rise from the positive feedback loops.

The chances of that NOT happening are pretty much the same as those of waking up tomorrow and every politician decides to be honest... every CEO decides not to be driven by greed.... every talking head on TV decides to stop being a presstitute and every person in the world decides to become responsible for our long term future as a species.

ie) zero chance of that.

It's not all bad news though...
At least you get a ring side seat with a back stage pass.

[morls]

Hi Clive,

I'm not disputing what you say, but I need to ask what your references are for the above. There is so much 'noise' about this topic, I want to be very careful that any findings or projections I might cite when trying to impress on people the urgency of the situation have been arrived at through sound research methodologies and a process of rigorous, impartial peer review.

Anything less just gives deniers and vested interests more material for obsufication.

And even then they will often just spin bull****...

Cheers

Stephen

[morls]

I've found some information here https://phys.org/news/2018-01-permafrost.html that speaks to the permafrost issue. It was written January 12, 2018 by Renee Cho, Earth Institute, Columbia University. I'll quote:

The 'active layer' of soil on top of the permafrost, which may be two to 13 feet deep, thaws each summer and can sustain plant life. This layer releases carbon from the roots of plants that respire out CO2, and from microbes in the soil. Some microbes break down the organic matter into CO2. Others, called archaea, produce methane instead, when conditions are anaerobic—when the soil is saturated with water or no oxygen is available. Methane is 20 to 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide at exacerbating global warming, but it remains in the atmosphere for less time.

As permafrost thaws, the active layer deepens. The microbes become active and plant roots can penetrate further down, resulting in the production of more CO2. The amount of methane generated depends on how saturated the ground is.

Scientists don't know the relative proportions of carbon dioxide and methane emissions that might result from largescale thawing permafrost, said Anderson O. Roger Anderson, a biologist at the Earth Institute's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory , because this has never happened in human history. However, research on the upper layer of the tundra (treeless plains overlying the permafrost) suggests that the average carbon dioxide emissions are about 50 times higher than those of methane.

"And we know that for every 10 degrees Celsius that the soil warms up, the emission of CO2 will double," said Anderson.

A 2017 study estimated that if global temperatures rise 1.5˚C above 1861 levels, thawing permafrost could release 68 to 508 gigatons of carbon. Without factoring in human activity, this carbon alone would increase global temperatures 0.13 to1.69˚C by 2300. Since we may have already locked in 1.5˚C of warming above pre-industrial levels, this amount of additional warming could result in catastrophic impacts of climate change.

[xelasnave]

I wonder how our species will be living say 200 years from now.

Will we have to live undergroud or move to the poles.
Will we live in cities under water.
Clives cat in the bag is the way to look at things and the run away effects..it will get hotter which will cause effects like the methane problem...lets not forget the more ice that is lost the more things heat up and the more ice we lose.

I think the best way to handle folk who wont face it is to show them plans for your underground house and photos of the space suit you will use on the surface of our planet in the future.
Probably buying old mines is a good investment ...fit them with homes units ... hang on it gets hotter as you go deeper so what may be the right zone...the sewers may be prime real estate ...just how would things change?
Alex

[Russj]

This quote kinda fits in well with our current situation on this planet.

"I'd like to share a revelation I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to another area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we are the cure"

- Agent Smith "The Matrix"