Guy McPherson - credible or alarmist?

[el_draco (Rom)]

Originally Posted by 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

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

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...

[xelasnave]

Originally Posted by E23

Does it mean that you are not on my team to save the planet.

Andras

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 (Andras)]

Originally Posted by el_draco

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

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...

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 (Steve)]

Originally Posted by 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....

A bit like Uranus

Sorry I had to

[E23 (Andras)]

Originally Posted by 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

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 (Rom)]

Originally Posted by 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

Already did... nice dome

[el_draco (Rom)]

Originally Posted by Sparksinspace

A bit like Uranus

Sorry I had to

So are we...

[xelasnave]

Originally Posted by 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

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]

Originally Posted by morls

Guy McPherson - credible or alarmist?

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-cha...ry-and-update/

Hi Stephen,

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

Best
JA

[clive milne]

Originally Posted by 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-cha...ry-and-update/

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 (Stephen)]

Originally Posted by clive milne

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.

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 (Stephen)]

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 (Russ)]

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"