This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It first appeared at The Conversation.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1399301
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1399301
Could have included some discussion on disruption of sea and air currents, black carbon, destruction of cryosphere, etc.
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There are just too many aspects of AGW. That’s the problem with the problem.
For instance both the Pine Island Glacier and the Thwaits Glacier in Antarctica are cracking up as I write. Indicating that they are both unmoored from their grounding lines and have begun to accelerate into the ocean. This means a very significant sea level rise of at least 6feet is baked into the future even if we stopped emitting carbon today. 1 billion folks will become refugees.
Also too. Climate change will meet homelessness in Seattle next week with an extremely rare week long cold snap.
AGW related issues are already here but we have already surrendered to 2.4C.
Materialism is our death cult.
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I am curious about the “more intense rain storms”. It seems to me that this would be a transitional phenomenon. Rain results from warm damp air confronting and mixing with cold air resulting in a a mix of air that is cooler and unable to keep the moisture. I can see that as climates become warmer there will be a period where colder air will be available at times, but over-all climate equilibrium will eventually come, and both the warm air and the cooler air will both be warmer. I think the results of this would be harder to predict as to wetter or drier over-all. But I also think more intense storms is a transitional thing.
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The consensus I get from climate scientists (Arctic Sea Ice Blog) is that overall precipitation will decrease but the physics suggest that the storms will be more severe. Also too with the kinky jet stream the precipitation events will hang around for days rather than blow through in a few hours.
As to when we might attain a “new normal”, don’t hold your prevailing wind. A BOE (blue ocean event) will inevitably occur in the Arctic and result in a global atmospheric kerfuffle that will persist for centuries. Bringing a succession of extreme weather events.
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Yes, many many aspects. There is a lot of discussion about how the pandemic is a big driver of current American politics, but the pandemic is also a product of human disruption of natural services. Perhaps not a cart-horse thing, but certainly a linkage of pandemics and climate disruption exists.
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True that… Climate change causes ecosystem damage which gives rapidly reproducing organisms a spike up on the large organisms.
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Yes, the facts that no one dares discuss honestly because Nazi style harassment and all the stupid tropes of fascism. This human dystopic society is the culmination of uncontrolled capitalism plus childish myopia.
The worst thing though is that scientists started warning of this potential consequence in the 19th century. Think Malthus. As a late teen in 1965, the IGY (International Geophysical Year) highlighted CO2 and discussed the possible melting of the polar icecaps. I was horrified then as a young scientist.
Looking back, my whole life ‘we the people’ have been fed a pack of lies in so many fronts. It is now on an exponential rise. Today’s COVID curve and our exploding insanity match one another.
Humans of our type may date evolutionarily back over a million years, dates rather uncertain due to the tiny fraction of good fossils to study. But like all species, it’s an eyeblink in geological time. We are clearly unable to see this clearly, by design in that humans have ‘succeeded’ because we’ve been just smart enough to tap the Earth’s massive energy stores, growing our population beyond the limits of resources.
The trait of deceiving our fellows is hard wired in our brains, which in the short run is an evolutionary advantage. It fails when the resources start running out. But we still can’t NOT deceive, hence FOX news and dipshits like Trump are resorted to to keep the whole charade going long enough for the top capitalists to amass incredible fortunes and create their post apocalyptic castles of refuge when the whole souffle collapses.
So like bacteria on a Petri dish rich in the foods in the agar, we will soon suffer the inevitable: a die off of massive proportions.
Happy Christmas. It could be different if we got it together. But can we, will we?
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i.e. Joe Manchin in a Maserti SUV.
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This summer I expect to be fucking ugly and intensely hot here in Southern AZ. I expect no rain from February to September. No monsoon and if there is one it will be serious gully washers.
Ick!
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Among the more popular die-off theories was Richard Duncan’s Olduvai Collapse theory. But certainly the notion of biological ups-and-downs has been in our scientific literature even before Alexander von Humbolt characterized it. And there are the writings of Paul and Ann Erlich, extrapolating from the dynamics of insect populations. Recently, the narrative about too many people too little resources has been picked up by the old ASPO alums such as Gail Tverberg. Of course, if we learned anything from Jared Diamond, things go up and down all the time. Peter Turchin calls these things “secular cycles”.
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Yes thanks. There is so much that has been thought and publicized that is ignored by the current tsunami of bullshit. It’s no wonder then that we are mostly whistling past the graveyard in the hope that spiritual and emotional maturity can win the day. A majority is needed that understands where we are in all probability headed, coupled with the governmental/leadership superstructure to reverse the denial + idiocy propaganda.
Even TPM spends time remembering and reiterating the year’s stupid maliciousness. That simply repeats the memes and reinforces them. Where are the solutions being reiterated, over and over and over as needed to get them into everyone’s subconscious? That’s what has been needed for decades, but alas, does not seem to resonate.
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It doesn’t resonate because the solutions go against human nature, which is to value comfort and procreation. The solution, or rather the mitigation of what’s coming, is to be less comfortable by reforming our materialist culture, and to have fewer kids. That was never going to be an easy sell.
“What, I can’t have my McMansion, my two big SUVs and 5 kids? I need that stuff!”
It’s not just a 1st world issue either. Try telling people in poor countries they should have fewer kids, and they shouldn’t expect the same comfortable lifestyle they see in 1st world countries.
What may finally be waking people up is the first round of climate impacts; the droughts, the storms that grab headlines. As this gets worse, maybe it will convince enough people to start making major societal changes. It won’t change what’s already baked into the planet for the next 80 years or so, but it may keep it from getting worse.
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You’re right about human nature, and that the terrible effects of climate change will be the ultimate, if only, thing that could reverse the situation of denial and propaganda. Disease is already a huge factor besides climate disasters.
Some of us back in the 70’s built solar homes and managed to learn to live in less comfort by being on the forefront of solar energy development. We spent our own small incomes while designing and crafting the experimental panels for water and electricity. We designed passive solar dwellings that incorporated the seasonal sun angles to either heat in winter or provide shade in summer. That was reward enough, just knowing we could do the right thing and not be fugging capitalists.
It took thinking and science and humility and seeing what was likely to come. Decades have been frittered away by subsidizing big oil, paying taxes to create the massive infrastructure which allows huge corporations to fleece us of our money and our future, and finally it’s reached the crisis stage. Our country is a sham democracy crafted from day one to be a white dominant society of elite men. We have been trained to buy and consume beyond rationality. Religion punishment/reward idiocy plus governments in cahoots are part of human nature.
Without the left’s understanding what the right’s messages has successfully done, we cannot regain sanity. We understood human nature then and we understand it now. What I’m saying is without figuring out how to combat the destructive propaganda with truthful propaganda, we are suffering the adverse consequences which could be mitigated. It’s not impossible…
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There are too many idle, purposeless people. If this does not present a purpose, we are insane.
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His Maserati is insignificant compared to his company Enersystems selling gob (waste coal) to burn for power. The Maserati Levante gets 16-22 MPG and he doesn’t drive it that much. When you look at all the Congressmen who fly home and back at least twice a week, his Maserati is actually green in comparison. And he does stay in houseboat instead of traveling home.
More about waste coal and his company:
That could preserve a large portion of Manchin’s personal income. His company, Enersystems, supplies the plant with nearly all of the gob, or waste coal, it uses for electricity generation from large piles of discarded shale, clay and slurry dug out from two nearby coal mines that closed years ago.
The Grant Town power plant is named after a former coal baron, Robert Grant, who opened a mine in the early 1900s along Paw Paw Creek in northeast West Virginia. At 80 megawatts, it’s one of the smallest plants in the state — and it’s the only one that still burns waste coal.
Waste coal has higher concentration of mercury than normal coals. In West Virginia and nationally, gob has 4 times more mercury than bituminous coal. In Pennsylvania, gob has 3.5 times more mercury than bituminous coal. Burning waste coal doesn’t make the waste go away. If 100 tons of waste coal are burned, 85 tons will remain as waste coal ash.
I think I read there were at least 18 plants left that still burn gob. Most of them are in Pennsylvania.
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Thanks for the link to Arctic Sea Ice Blog.
I think we’ve moved past climate change to climate disruption. Climate catastrophe is within the century. The consequences are horrific. Today’s grandchildren have a bleak future. Science and technology can do amazing things—the Covid vaccines are examples. But if people fight science over a vaccine, I have little hope for the political action necessary for civilization to adjust.
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Yes… but no.
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A chaotic environment works to the advantage of organisms that can recycle their genetic memory quickly so as to adapt to change. Insects reproduce thousands of times faster than humans. Bacteria run through their reproductive cycles in mere hours. Just as weeds benefit from farmers tilling the soil, the smaller organisms will adapt to what we humans see as chaos. If you go to Yellowstone, you can see bacteria living in simmering hot springs. Dig out some of the rock at the bottom of an African gold mine and find nematodes living off chemical energy. Marvel at lichen growing on top of Denali. If we as a species fail, replacements are waiting. Earth is very patient.
Humans fear change, and if anything, want to go backwards. We have plenty of mental horsepower to survive but lack the will.
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Earth Abides.
- George R. Stewart (1949)
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