liveaboard

The history of earth is peppered with huge catastrophes. Great extinctions, climate changes, ice ages, tsunamis.
For the last 20,000 years or more, things have been relatively stable, enabling we humans to spring forward to our current powerful state. It's easy and comfortable to imagine that the planet's environment will stay more or less as it is.
It's estimated we now have 7,400,000,000 humans on earth. These people are fed and clothed by harnessing almost everything available.
Water, fuel, and our complex economic system that no one can quite understand.

Humans are resourceful. When starvation looms, they don't just die quietly; they fight, strive, invent, migrate, protest, steal.
Shit will happen.
Like it always did before, but much bigger.
Whatever happens, I'm sure that some animals, most plants, lots of bugs, and many humans will survive. But less than 7,400,000,000 of us.

Those greenwash ideas everyone takes comfort in [an electric car we'd like to own and an efficiency light bulb] will not save us. burning less fossil fuel, as little as 1995 or 2005, will not stop climate change.
We need an entirely new economic and industrial base.
That could be done if humans would work together instead of separating into arbitrary tribes, building walls, and stoking fear of things that hardly matter while ignoring the huge danger that looms over our heads.

Well, that's what I think anyways.

hottoddy

Well yes liveaboard.However mankind has no choice but to go down a renewable green-road no one said it would be easy.Even to accomplish a world wide 50% renewable energy policy will be a Mammoth task but not impossible.Globally the way our food is grown transported and marketed would need restructuring as there is an estimated 30% waste factor by the time food reaches the family table.This could mean less choice in variety and more locally produced products.Not just in food but also in items.A rapid transgression from fossil fuels i am sorry to say will come at a price.

liveaboard

You're very optimistic; I believe nothing of significance will be done at all. Just a few more windmills and a couple of PV panels here and there to make everyone believe we're "doing all we can", while in reality it's business as usual; pump it out of the ground and burn it. It's SO cheap, so easy, so profitable.
With the US [supposedly] pulling out of the Paris climate treaty [Trump says climate change is a Chinese hoax], there is no way the rest of the world will ever do more than slap a little green paint on the smoke stacks.
The Paris treaty itself was nowhere near sufficient; merely a wedge, getting the political landscape aligned with the possibility of getting real sometime in the near future.
I'm not saying it's impossible; not physically, not even economically. But politically, it's utterly impossible now. The ship has sailed, it's all over folks.
Trump will get the credit for the Obama's US economic recovery, and be reelected [or his cronies will]. by the time they're all discredited, Washington will be under water.

hottoddy

Well dear Liveaboard i tend to look at the optimistic road regarding climate disruption because the pessimistic road is a nightmare.Regarding the Paris climate treaty for nearly 200 countries to agree on anything itself was miraculous.However for the same countries to actually do what they have promised i fear will take a miracle.Regarding your comments about Trump i agree.I will separately post some recent figures regarding renewable energy.Just to spread some more green optimistic paint

hottoddy

As promised

• Renewable energy used in power generation grew by 15.2%, slightly below the 10-year average growth of 15.9% but a record increment (+213 terawatt-hours), which was roughly equal to all of the increase in global power generation. Renewables accounted for 6.7% of global power generation. China (+20.9%) and Germany +23.5%) recorded the largest increments in renewables in power generation.
• Globally, wind energy (+17.4%) remains the largest source of renewable electricity (52.2% of renewable generation), with Germany (+53.4%) recording the largest growth increment.
• Solar power generation grew by 32.6%, with China (+69.7%), the US (+41.8%) and Japan (+58.6%) accounting for the largest increases. China overtook Germany and the US to become the world’s top generator of solar energy.
• Global biofuels production grew by just 0.9%, well below the 10-year average of 14.3%: Brazil (+6.8%) and the US (+2.9%) accounted for essentially all of the net increase, partly offset by large declines in Indonesia (-46.9%) and Argentina (-23.9%).

MikeJ

What about Archimedes? Since most of the ice sits on the sea where it displaces the same amount - ie the level will not rise appreciably. It's only when continental ice melts than the level will rise - and at the moment the ice in Antarctica is growing not shrinking

MikeJ

Have you seen the previews of the Jaguar E-Pace? All electric sporty version of the Jaguar F-Pace. Around 350bhp,twin electric motors (one on each axle) 0-62 in 4 secs - looks tasty at around £60k due in 2018.

MikeJ

MikeJ

The problem about the Paris convention is that it is all predicated on climate change being anthropogenic - what if it isn't?
All the money and taxes being pumped into 'green' solutions will have been wasted. Surely all our intelligence should be invested in ameliorating the effects so that we might survive?

hottoddy

Well we have known for sometime what the effects are by adding carbon into our atmosphere and although skeptics sometimes argue that CO2 follows increasing temperature its nonsensical.At present we are at CO2 levels of 402ppm and each year this figure is rising by just under 3ppm however my immediate concerns are not carbon but CH4 being methane it has been estimated that less than 1% Arctic permafrost melt would instantly add a conservative 0.5 degree temperature rise personally if this happens i fear we will be locked into a runaway climate because if this percentage of a melt happens then it will be the first of many.Even if we dismissed carbon for one moment and look into our biosphere there are no good signs in any of our ecosystems its actually a dam mess.But the most important issue really is that this planets resources are finite its really that simple.

liveaboard

That is true of arctic ice, but the ice on Greenland and Antarctica is on land above sea level; and there's a LOT of it. And it is melting; at least partially.
But more than that is he effect of the water column warming. Although the expansion is tiny, so is the height or our coastal cities.
The sea is very deep; thousands of meters deep. 0.1% expansion of the water will swamp us.
In addition, there is huge amounts of frozen methane on the sea bottom. A few degrees of warming down there will cause it to melt and bubble to the surface. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas. This would have a really large effect.

Like most people, I can't afford one of those electric Jaguars or Teslas; And even if we all could, the power supply is still 90% fossil fuel.

What if the problem isn't man made and we waste the money?
What if it is man made and we all die?????

If [and this is just fantasy] we humans would predominantly vote for governments who would take this seriously, and IF those bureaucrats actually did form a plan, and IF the economy of the human race was switched away from fossil fuel;
Well, no one can predict what 7 billion human minds would invent. Many would cheat of course, as always. Punishments and disincentives would keep it to a minimum. There would be huge new construction projects as new plants are built, as environmentalists oppose every step [Those solar parks ruin the view! windmills will chop all the birds into little pieces! biomas will use all the farmland and we'll starve!].
Big money of today, pumping oil out of the ground for free and selling it for cash, will die out and new big money will be made out of new technology.

Fossil fuel is utterly cheap. People don't realize just how cheap our energy is today compared to only a century ago.
Those ruined old windmills you see dotted around the countryside were local energy industries of yesterday, each one grinding wheat with less power than a modern air-conditioner needs.
A horse or mule was a big expense few could afford, one horsepower was a big asset to have.
Lighting was for the wealthy; most people lived in the dark after sunset.

We wouldn't have to go that far; it wouldn't be possible to feed our huge population without mechanical help and heavy transport to move food around, pump water, and refrigerate. But a post fossil-fuel economy would most likely be one in which a much higher proportion of our income is spent on energy, and we use less of it than today.
300HP Jaguars? Some people would have them. Like always.

Whoa, long post.... Ya'll should know better than to get me started.

GeniB

I wonder what the Mayans thought before the meteorite blocked out the sun for 3 yrs (or so scientist's thought) Or the Dinosaurs ? (I'm guessing they just went huh?) There are a few other things that could scupper us humans I guess

Ingles

No Comment

North Pole an Insane 36 Degrees Warmer Than Normal as Region Hits Record Low Sea Ice Extent

hottoddy

Well i kinda understand why you have posted no comment.But its important to remember that there have been various reasons for past climate disruption and not all are due to greenhouse gasses such as the Milankovitch cycles interesting that could have been the driving force that prompted early man out of Africa.Personally i think it would have been better for all concerned seeing our present situation if early man would have stayed in Africa swinging around in the trees.?

MikeJ

And your point is? I asked what if it wasn't anthropogenic?