What World Under Climate Change

[Tyger]

The biggest effect on the planet Earth is.... you guessed it, the Sun. What can we do about that... nada. If you want to ride out climate change I suggest somewhere warm and tropical. Perhaps Fiji or Bali.

This thread is not about arguing the science, but for those who are muddled about the science, there is this -

As a poster states: "You might need a seatbelt for this one. Fast, dense, and plenty of new information. Very little of it is pleasant... but thank you so much for being so forthright. This is a very important lecture. If you watch only a few serious lectures on global warming -- be sure to make this one of them."

Lecture starts at 8:30 sec in.

Climate Change and Global Food Security: Prof David Battisti

TEXT: "Published on May 29, 2016"

 

[Tyger]

Just passing it along: today in Alaska temperatures soared at 78'F/26'C up to 86'F/30'C past the Arctic Circle. Mark that: 86'F north of the Arctic Circle. Warmer than Los Angeles which was at 80'F/27'C. Imagine the ice melt!

 

[pixelsmith]

Just passing it along: today in Alaska temperatures soared at 78'F/26'C up to 86'F/30'C past the Arctic Circle. Mark that: 86'F north of the Arctic Circle. Warmer than Los Angeles which was at 80'F/27'C. Imagine the ice melt!

This is good news. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Tyger]

An epic Middle East heat wave could be global warming’s hellish curtain-raiser - August 10, 2016
LINK: An epic Middle East heat wave could be global warming’s hellish curtain-raiser

TEXT: "BAGHDAD — Record-shattering temperatures this summer have scorched countries from Morocco to Saudi Arabia and beyond, as climate experts warn that the severe weather could be a harbinger of worse to come.

"In coming decades, U.N. officials and climate scientists predict that the region’s mushrooming populations will face extreme water scarcity, temperatures almost too hot for human survival and other consequences of global warming. If that happens, conflicts and refugee crises far greater than those now underway are probable, said Adel Abdellatif, a senior adviser at the U.N. Development Program’s Regional Bureau for Arab States who has worked on studies about the effect of climate change on the region. “This incredible weather shows that climate change is already taking a toll now and that it is — by far — one of the biggest challenges ever faced by this region,” he said. These countries have grappled with remarkably warm summers in recent years, but this year has been particularly brutal.

"Parts of the United Arab Emirates and Iran experienced a heat index — a measurement that factors in humidity as well as temperature — that soared to 140 degrees in July, and Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, recorded an all-time high temperature of nearly 126 degrees. Southern Morocco’s relatively cooler climate suddenly sizzled last month, with temperatures surging to highs between 109 and 116 degrees. In May, record-breaking temperatures in Israel led to a surge in heat-related illnesses.

"Temperatures in Kuwait and Iraq startled observers. On July 22, the mercury climbed to 129 degrees in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. A day earlier, it reached 129.2 in Mitribah, Kuwait. If confirmed by the World Meteorological Organization, the two temperatures would be the hottest ever recorded in the Eastern Hemisphere.

"The bad news isn’t over, either. Iraq’s heat wave is expected to continue this week. Stepping outside is like “walking into a fire,” said Zainab Guman, a 26-year-old university student who lives in Basra. “It’s like everything on your body — your skin, your eyes, your nose — starts to burn,” she said. Guman has rarely left home during daylight hours since June, when temperatures started rising above 120 degrees and metal objects outside turned into searing-hot hazards. The government has declared multiple mandatory official holidays because of the heat. When that happens, many public employees turn up to work anyway because of the air conditioning available at government offices.

"About that time, Aymen Karim also began feeling trapped. The 28-year-old engineer at a government-run oil company in Basra said employees were ordered to stay home for several days in the past month. He and his family try not to go outside before 7 p.m. “We’re prisoners,” Karim said.

"Bassem Antoine, an Iraqi economist, said the weather has inflicted serious damage to the country’s economy. He estimates that Iraq’s gross domestic product — about $230 billion annually — has probably contracted 10 to 20 percent during the summer heat.

"Iraqi officials say scores of farmers across the country have been struggling with wilting crops, and general workforce productivity has decreased. Hospitals, meanwhile, have seen an uptick in the number of people suffering from dehydration and heat exhaustion. Tens of thousands of Iraqis displaced by battles between government forces and Islamic State militants have endured the heat in tents and other makeshift shelters. Humanitarian organizations have been unable to reach all of them because of budget constraints, restrictions by Iraq’s government and risks associated with operating in war zones.

“A lot of these people are probably dying, but it’s hard to know,” said an official at an aid organization who was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly and so spoke on the condition of anonymity.

"In Baghdad, the capital, the temperature measured at the international airport has reached 109 degrees or higher nearly every day since June 19. The city has been 10 and even 20 degrees warmer than normal for this time of year.
"Most Iraqi homes and businesses suffer daily power cuts for 12 hours or more, and most Iraqis — unlike their rich neighbors in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia — are too poor to afford 24-hour air conditioning anyway. Such a luxury requires paying expensive fees for gas-powered generators. During daylight hours, Baghdad’s streets are empty, but some businesses remain open. It’s either sweat at work or starve at home, said Eissa Mohsen, who owns a fruit stand in the Karrada area of downtown Baghdad. “Look over there! That’s an air-conditioning unit, but I can’t afford to pay the generator fees to run it,” he said at his shop on a recent day.

"The immediate cause of all this misery is a stubborn high-pressure system, but a fundamental shift in the country’s weather patterns appears to be taking place, said Mahmoud Abdul-Latif, spokesman for Iraq’s meteorological department. In Baghdad, he said, the number of days with temperatures at 118 degrees or higher has more than doubled in recent years. “If you look back 40 years ago, you’d have these temperatures for four or five days, but then the wind would kick up dust and that would cool the surface. That’s just not happening now,” he said. Climate scientists say this shouldn’t be surprising.

"A study published by the journal Nature Climate Change in October predicted that heat waves in parts of the Persian Gulf could threaten human survival toward the end of the century. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and the Cyprus Institute in Nicosia recently predicted a similarly grim fate for the Middle East and North Africa, a vast area currently home to about a half-billion people. The region’s governments are generally not prepared to deal with rapidly growing populations and climactic shifts, said Francesca de Châtel, an Amsterdam-based expert on Middle Eastern water issues. For years, she said, they have failed to address these problems adequately despite warnings from climate experts and U.N. agencies, and it may be too late now.

"The United Nations predicts that the combined population of 22 Arab countries will grow from about 400 million to nearly 600 million by 2050. That would place tremendous stress on countries where climate scientists predict significantly lower rainfall and saltier groundwater from rising sea levels. Already, most countries in the region face acute water crises because of dry climates, surging consumption and wasteful agricultural practices.

"Analysts point to inadequate government handling of an unprecedented drought in Syria as a trigger for the country’s devastating civil war, which has produced extraordinary refugee flows that have spilled into Europe. Last year, Iraqis rallied in Baghdad against their government’s inability to provide enough electricity during another scorching summer heat wave. Little, if anything, resulted from those demonstrations. According to some estimates, Iraq’s population of about 33 million people will nearly double by 2050. “The countries in the region are not prepared to cope with the effects of climate change,” said de Châtel.

"Such a blistering future doesn’t seem like a far-off possibility to 33-year-old Arkan Farhan, who lives with his family near Baghdad in a tin hut at camp for people displaced by the Islamic State. Last month, he said, he contracted typhoid from a communal water source that has become particularly crowded — and filthy — this summer. To cool off, his sons use it to fill a pan for bathing. This month, his 69-year-old father, Jassam, was taken to the hospital after passing out from the heat. “Fortunately, he was only bruised. He didn’t break any bones,” Farhan said of his father while sitting in his sweltering shack. “Iraqis are strong people. But this heat is like a fire. Can people live in fire?”

"Mustafa Salim in Baghdad and Sheikha al-Dosary in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, contributed this report."​

 

[Tyger]

An article from October 2015 both predicts what is taking place and what that means for other areas -

Persian Gulf may be too hot for human survival by 2090. Here’s what this means for your city.
LINK: Persian Gulf may be too hot for human survival by 2090. Here’s what this means for your city.

TEXT: "A study predicting deadly heat waves in the Persian Gulf by the century’s end has underscored concerns about the effects of rising global temperatures on cities in other parts of the world, including the United States.

"Monday’s report in the journal Nature Climate Change warned that Persian Gulf cities could experience extreme summer temperatures that are literally too hot for human survival. But scientists say climate change will inevitably lead to hotter, longer heat waves and higher rates of heat-related deaths across large swaths of the planet.

"A study by U.S. researchers released in August predicted that the number of “dangerous” heat events experienced by Americans each year will rise from a baseline of four — the average number during the period from 1981 to 2010 — to about 10 in the year 2030, and then to 35 by the year 2090.

"Such heat waves could potentially cause large numbers of deaths, as occurred in the 1998 Chicago hot spell blamed for the deaths of 700 people, said the report by scientists from Rutgers University, the University of California at Berkeley and the Rhodium Group. But the chance of crossing the “extraordinarily dangerous” threshold forecast for Persian Gulf cities is slim — for now, said Robert Kopp, a co-author and associate director of the Rutgers Energy Institute.

"Decades from now, the chances for an “extraordinarily dangerous” U.S. event start to creep higher, Kopp said. The lethal threshold is described as a “wet-bulb” temperature of 35 degrees C, or 95 degrees F, based on a complicated formula that measures the lowest temperature a parcel of air can reach by the evaporation of water into it. Typically it requires a “dry” temperature of at least 115 degrees and humidity above 50 percent.

“If you’re in the shade and you’re engaging in a 150-watt activity — moderate exercise — in an hour you’ll have a skin temperature and core temperature of 104 degrees,” Kopp said. “Those sorts of days have no precedent in the United States.” But they could for other regions, in the relatively near future, scientists say.

"Monday’s Nature Climate Change study said Persian Gulf cities from Dubai to Iran’s Bandar Abbas could experience summer days that surpass the “human habitability” limit, with heat and humidity so high that even the healthiest people could not withstand more than a few hours outdoors. Other Middle Eastern cities could approach the lethal threshold, including the Saudi holy city of Mecca, a destination for millions of Muslim pilgrims every year, according to the report in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Climate Change.

"Scientists have long maintained that parts of the planet could experience extreme temperatures if global warming continues at current rates. But the suggestion that major world metropolises could cross the “habitability” threshold in the 21st century surprised some climate experts. “The threats to human health may be much more severe than previously thought, and may occur in the current century,” Christoph Schaer, a physicist and climate modeler at the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Zurich, Switzerland, said in a commentary on the study’s conclusions. “Our results expose a regional hotspot where climate change, in the absence of significant mitigation, is likely to severely impact human habitability in the future,” the authors write in the study.

"The Persian Gulf region is already notorious for oppressive heat, with temperatures regularly surpassing 110 degrees F in the summer and heat-index values that contribute to high rates of heatstroke among outdoor workers. The study’s authors say the worst impacts could be avoided if the world’s countries can find the will to curb emissions of greenhouse-gas pollution. In any case, urban planners will soon have to plan for major infrastructure changes as temperatures approach the lethal threshold. “Although it may be feasible to adapt indoor activities in the rich oil countries of the region, even the most basic outdoor activities are likely to be severely impacted,” the report stated."​

 

[pixelsmith]

More good news! A warmer planet is good for mammals. More CO2 is good for plants and is greening the deserts and increasing crop yields.
Please keep this good news coming!

 

[Tyger]

Climate Change And The Astrobiology Of The Anthropocene - October 1, 2016
LINK: /495437158/climate-change-and-the-astrobiology-of-the-anthropocene?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=202601

TEXT: "You can't solve a problem until you understand it. When it comes to climate change, on a fundamental level we don't really understand the problem.

"For some time now, I've been writing about the need to broaden our thinking about climate. That includes our role in changing it — and the profound challenges those changes pose to our rightly cherished 'project' of civilization. Today, I want to sharpen the point. But first, as always, let's be clear: We have not gotten the science wrong. The Earth's climate is changing because of human activity. That part has been well-established for awhile now, in spite of the never ending — and always depressing — faux 'climate debate' we get in politics. But the part of climate change we've failed to culturally metabolize is the meaning of what's happening to us and the planet.

"In other words, what we don't get is the true planetary context of the planetary transformation human civilization is driving. Getting this context right is, I think, essential — and I'm dedicating most of the year to writing a book on the subject. The book's focus is what I believe should be a new scientific (and philosophical) enterprise: the astrobiology of the Anthropocene. I meet a lot of folks who've heard of both astrobiology and the Anthropocene before. In general, however, lots of people look at me a bit sideways when I use either word, much less lump them together as the future of humanity. Given that experience, let's start with a couple of definitions.

"A trip to NASA's astrobiology homepage will tell you the field is all about understanding life in its planetary context. It might seem strange to have an entire scientific domain dedicated to a subject for which we have just one example (i.e. life on Earth). But take that perspective and you'd miss the spectacular transformation astrobiology has brought to our understanding of life and its possibilities in the universe.

"All those planets we've discovered orbiting other stars are part of astrobiological studies. The robot rovers rolling around Mars proving that the planet was once warm and wet — they are astrobiology, too. The same is true for work on Earth's deep history. These studies show us that Earth has been many planets in its past: a potential water world before major continents grew; a totally glaciated snowball world; a hothouse jungle planet. In understanding these transformations, we've gotten to see one example of life and a planet co-evolving over billions of years.

"If you want an example, consider how cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, completely reworked the planet's atmosphere 2.5 billion years ago giving us the oxygen-rich air we breathe today. Another example is the work showing how after the retreat of Ice Age glaciers, Earth entered a warm, wet and climatically stable period that geologists call the Holocene — about 10,000 years ago.

"The Holocene has been a good time for human civilization to emerge and thrive. The seasons have been pretty regular, moving between relatively mild boundaries of hot-ish and cold-ish. That transition was the key change and allowed humans to get stable and productive agriculture started. But, thanks to civilization, the Holocene is now at an end. That's where the story gets really interesting and where the Anthropocene makes its entrance.

"Scientists now recognize that our impact on Earth has become so significant we've pushed it out of the Holocene into the Anthropocene, an entirely new geological epoch dominated by our own activity (see Andy Revkin's reporting on the subject). And it's not just about climate change. Human beings have now "colonized" more than 50 percent of the planet's surface. And we drive flows of key planetary substances, like potassium, far above the "natural" levels. It may seem impossible to some folks that a bunch of hairless "primates" could change an entire planet. But that view misses the most important part of our story, the part that speaks directly to our moment in planetary evolution.

"What I'm interested in, now, is putting these two ideas together: the astrobiology of the Anthropocene. That means looking at what's happening to us today from the broadest possible perspective. A couple of years ago, my colleague Woody Sullivan and I published a paper titled "Sustainability and the Astrobiological Perspective: Framing Human Futures in a Planetary Context." The idea was to show how much of what's been learned in astrobiology could be brought to bear in understanding what's happening to us now (a'la climate change, etc.). Going further, we wanted to know how the astrobiological perspective about life and planets might also help us understand what to do next. (Here is a piece I wrote for The New York Times about it, since the paper is behind a pay wall.)

"Our robotic probes of Venus and Mars provide one good example of this intersection. Both planets have taught us about climate extremes. Venus is a runaway greenhouse world and Mars is freezing desert. Venus taught us a huge amount about the greenhouse effect. Even better, we have ample evidence that Mars was once a warm, wet and potentially habitable world. That means Mars provides us a laboratory for how planetary climate conditions can change. So why does that matter so much?

"Astrobiology is fundamentally a study of planets and their 'habitability' for life. But sustainability is really just a concern over the habitability of one planet (Earth) for a certain kind of species (homo sapiens) with a certain kind of organization (modern civilization). That means our urgent questions about sustainability are a subset of questions about habitability. The key point, here, is the planets in our own solar system, like Mars, show us that habitability is not forever. It will likely be a moving target over time. The same idea is likely true for sustainability — and we are going to need a plan for that.

"Woody and I are not the only ones thinking about astrobiology and the Anthropocene. David Grinspoon, a highly-respected planetary scientist has also been pursuing his own line of inquiry on the issue. As the Library of Congress's chair of astrobiology, Grinspoon began exploring his questions with experts in fields as diverse as history and ecology. His new book The Earth In Our Hands gives a beautiful and detailed overview of the ways we must change our thinking if we want to truly understand the transformation in our midst.

"Possible trajectories of history for a young species building an energy intensive technological civilization. This plot shows the trajectories defined by 3 variables: Population (N); energy use (ec) and the degree of feedback on the planet. Harvesting energy allows the species to grow rapidly until the feedback from that energy use changes the planets climate.

"Thinking about the astrobiology of the Anthropocene in terms of just our species is, I think, a rich line of inquiry. But I think we can go even further. In the last part of my book I'm following a line of research that is also the focus on my sabbatical year.

"As a theoretical physicist, I'm used to watching colleagues take the science we understand now and extend it to new possible domains of behavior. This is what happens when particle physicists think about new, but as yet unobserved, kinds of particles. Such theoretical investigations can prove enormously beneficial in widening our vision of the world's behavior.

"There is no reason we can't take the same approach with the astrobiology of the Anthropocene. Earlier this year, Woody and I used the amazing exo-planet data (and some very simple reasoning) to set an empirical limit on the probability that we are the only time in cosmic history that an advanced civilization evolved. It turns out the probability is pretty low — one in 10 billion trillion. In other words, one can argue that the odds are very good that we're not the first time this — meaning an energy intensive civilization — has occurred. With that idea in hand, you can take a theoretical jump and ask a simple question: How likely is it that other young civilizations like our own have run into the kind of sustainability crisis we face today?

"We know enough about planets and climate to begin investigating that question. In our 2014 paper, Woody and I presented an outline for this kind approach. One can ignore science fiction issues about alien sociology and just ask physics — i.e. thermodynamic — kinds of questions. If young civilizations use some particular energy modality (combustion, wind, solar, etc.) what will the feedback on their planet look like? (By the way, as we've discussed before, there is always a planetary feedback when using lots of energy for large-scale civilization building. No free lunches folks. Sorry).

"Woody and I sketched out the kind of behaviors you might expect from this kind of modeling. Considering just population, energy use and planetary feedback, one can imagine models showing trajectories of history that lead to collapse or to sustainability.

"Which path a civilization finds itself on will depend on the parameters for their planet and the energy modalities (sources) they're using (or switching between). Of course, the models I am building are not reality. But they can prove to be a huge help in understanding the interplay of forces that shape the fate of planetary-scale civilizations like ours. In the end, this kind of understanding can help us at least understand what we're up against. Are we doomed, or is there a lot wiggle room in the choices we have to make?

"The key point, for me, is that consideration of the astrobiology of the Anthropocene changes the frame of our debate and lets us see something we have been missing. We're not a plague on the planet. Instead, we are simply another thing the Earth has done in its long history. We're an 'expression of the planet,' as Kim Stanley Robinson puts it. It's also quite possible that we are not the first civilization is cosmic history to go through something like this. From that perspective, climate change and the sustainability crises may best be seen as our 'final exam' (as Raymond Pierre Humbert calls it). Better yet, it's our coming of age as a true planetary species.

"We will either make it across to the other side with the maturity to 'think like a planet' or the planet will just move on without us. That, I believe, is the real meaning of what's happening to us now. It's a perspective we can't afford to miss."
​

 

[victimized]

What choice does a human actually have regarding other bodies of power in the space review?

The human life is natural in the conditions that supports its evolution.

The status of evolution states....a snap freeze on Earth changed and evolved life.

How is this condition a science, or an application that science can use?

Destruction of our cellular nature, all of our mutations, sickness and illness and the modern day attacks on Nature regarding UFO awareness regards the information, that life is being destroyed simply due to the fact that human beings decided to impose a condition upon natural life, that they can control nuclear powers in buildings.

The condition for the natural life when reviewed states that when the powers interact in the nuclear condition, there was no ice, there was no organic life and there definitely was no building.

Therefore how can a modern day occultist, a scientist argue with the life review, when humanity states we are being attacked and destroyed as a natural living condition?

Yet they do, they argue because they wanted to apply science as a control condition. Yet where is the control? Did ice melt?

A scientist states that the building of a nuclear power plant is in his control....yet he is destroying and altering a naturally evolved fused state. Since when does he control the conditions for the fused state disappearing?

What happens to life on Earth when nuclear dust no longer exists? A review the scientist should consider, for the nuclear dust has been on Earth as a support of evolution for a very long time.

The above comment about the co2 condition, states that it allows life to flourish, yet the current day tropical and moist condition is supported and allowed to continue only due to ice being present on Earth. What would happen to the tropical condition if ice suddenly melted?

It is a typical science response to make a 1 of comment about a condition that is supported by all other conditions, the very reason why life on Earth has been destroyed before.

The only reason why a scientist states that his mind can now view or study a new particle as a new consideration is due to disintegration of a previous particle status. As we observe the state of what we cause, to consider that a new unobserved particle exists, could only be a consideration of the loss of earth fusion itself......sink holes as a previous unknown modern day observation/aware status.

The state of atmospheric feed back allows new information to be made aware, yet awareness only comes about by change and change through conditions of alteration. Alteration on Planet Earth is only caused by those who cause it.......scientists who convert natural fusion.

 

[pixelsmith]

Thankfully science has put all this catastrophic global warming/climate change nonsense in proper perspective.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Tyger]

Arctic warming 6 times faster than the rest of the earth. Very warm - freakishky warm - ocean.

If We Don't Fight Like Hell On Climate, We're Screwed!

TEXT: "Published on Nov 18, 2016: Thom talks about a recent news article about how the temperatures in the Arctic are 26 degrees above normal and what that means for our future if we don't fight."

 

[pixelsmith]

Arctic warming 6 times faster than the rest of the earth. Very warm - freakishky warm - ocean.

If We Don't Fight Like Hell On Climate, We're Screwed!

TEXT: "Published on Nov 18, 2016: Thom talks about a recent news article about how the temperatures in the Arctic are 26 degrees above normal and what that means for our future if we don't fight."

Interglacial periods are warmer parts of a current ice age. Move along folks nothing to see here.

 

[Tyger]

Perils of Climate Change Could Swamp Coastal Real Estate
Homeowners are slowly growing wary of buying property in the areas most at risk, setting up a potential economic time bomb in an industry that is struggling to adapt.
By IAN URBINA November 24, 2016
LINK: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/24/s..._th_20161125&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=54852892

TEXT: "Rising sea levels are changing the way people think about waterfront real estate. Though demand remains strong and developers continue to build near the water in many coastal cities, homeowners across the nation are slowly growing wary of buying property in areas most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

"A warming planet has already forced a number of industries — coal, oil, agriculture and utilities among them — to account for potential future costs of a changed climate. The real estate industry, particularly along the vulnerable coastlines, is slowly awakening to the need to factor in the risks of catastrophic damage from climate change, including that wrought by rising seas and storm-driven flooding.

"But many economists say that this reckoning needs to happen much faster and that home buyers urgently need to be better informed. Some analysts say the economic impact of a collapse in the waterfront property market could surpass that of the bursting dot-com and real estate bubbles of 2000 and 2008.

"The fallout would be felt by property owners, developers, real estate lenders and the financial institutions that bundle and resell mortgages. Over the past five years, home sales in flood-prone areas grew about 25 percent less quickly than in counties that do not typically flood, according to county-by-county data from Attom Data Solutions, the parent company of RealtyTrac. Many coastal residents are rethinking their investments and heading for safer ground."​

 

[Tyger]

In particular note points 10, 11, 12, and 13 - but 11 and 12 are standouts - where in the world are those aliens.......?

11. … and the effects on migration
One of the many impacts of climate breakdown – aside from such minor matters as the inundation of cities, the loss of food production and curtailment of water supplies – will be the mass movement of people, to an extent that dwarfs current migration. The humanitarian, political and military implications are off the scale.

12. … with just 60 harvests left
According to the UN food and agriculture organisation, at current rates of soil loss we have 60 years of harvests left.

[Emphasis in text my own.]

The 13 impossible crises that humanity now faces - George Monbiot
From Trump to climate change, this multiheaded crisis presages collapse. And there’s no hope of exiting the ‘other side’ if political alternatives are shut down
LINK: The 13 impossible crises that humanity now faces | George Monbiot

TEXT: 1. Donald Trump
The next occupant of the White House will be a man who appears to possess no capacity for restraint, balance or empathy, but a bottomless capacity for revenge and vindictiveness. He has been granted a clean sweep of power, with both houses and the supreme court in his pocket. He is surrounding himself with people whose judgment and knowledge of the world are, to say the least, limited. He will take charge of the world’s biggest nuclear and conventional arsenals, and the most extensive surveillance and security apparatus any state has ever developed.

2. His national security adviser
In making strategic military decisions, he has a free hand, with the capacity to act even without the nominal constraint of Congress. His national security adviser,Michael T Flynn, is a dangerous extremist.

3. The rest of his team
Trump’s team is partly composed of professional lobbyists hired by fossil fuel, tobacco, chemical and finance companies and assorted billionaires. Their primary political effort is to avoid regulation and taxation. These people – or rather the interests they represent – are now in charge. Aside from the implications for the living world, public health, public finance and financial stability, this is a vindication of the political model pioneered by the tobacco companies in the 1960s. It demonstrates that if you spend enough money setting up thinktanks, academic posts and fake grassroots movements, and work with the corporate media to give them a platform, you can buy all the politics you need. Democracy becomes a dead letter. Political alternatives are shut down.​

4. The transatlantic backdrop
Meanwhile, on this side of the Atlantic, Britain’s attempts to disentangle itself from the European Union are confronted with a level of complexity that may be insuperable. Moreover, there may be no answer to the political fix in which the government finds itself. This is as follows: a) either it agrees to the free movement of people in exchange for access to the single market, in which case the pro-Brexit camp will have gained nothing except massive embarrassment, or b) the EU slams the shutters down. Not only is it likely to reject the terms the government proposes; but it might also try to impose an exit bill of about €60 billion for the costs incurred by our withdrawal. This would be politically impossible for the government to pay, leading to a non-negotiated rupture and the hardest imaginable Brexit.

5. Eurozone risks
The Italian banking crisis looks big. What impact this might have on the survival of the eurozone is anyone’s guess.

6. … and their global ramifications
Whether it is also sufficient to trigger another global financial crisis is again hard to judge. If such a thing were to occur, governments would not be able to mount a rescue plan of the kind they used in 2007-8. The coffers are empty.

7. Job-eating automation
Automation will destroy jobs on an unprecedented scale, and because the penetration of information technology into every part of the economy is not a passing phase but an escalating trend, it is hard to see how this employment will be replaced. No government or major political party anywhere shows any sign of comprehending the scale of this issue.

8. If Marine Le Pen wins
Marine Le Pen has a moderate to fair chance of becoming the French president in May. Whether this would be sufficient to trigger the collapse of the EU is another unknown. If this is not a sufficient crisis, there are several others lining up (especially the growing nationalist movements across central and eastern Europe in particular, but to a lesser extent almost everywhere) that could catalyse a chain reaction. I believe that when this begins, it will happen with a speed that will take almost everyone by surprise. From one month to the next, the EU could cease to exist.

9. The UN security council would look like …
If Le Pen wins, the permanent members of the UN security council will be represented by the following people: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Theresa May and Marine Le Pen. It would be a stretch to call that reassuring.

10. The Paris climate agreement trashed
National climate change programmes bear no connection to the commitments governments made at Paris. Even if these programmes are fully implemented (they won’t be), they set us on a climate-change trajectory way beyond that envisaged by the agreement. And this is before we know what Trump will do.

11. … and the effects on migration
One of the many impacts of climate breakdown – aside from such minor matters as the inundation of cities, the loss of food production and curtailment of water supplies – will be the mass movement of people, to an extent that dwarfs current migration. The humanitarian, political and military implications are off the scale.

12. … with just 60 harvests left
According to the UN food and agriculture organisation, at current rates of soil loss we have 60 years of harvests left.

13. … an accelerating extinction crisis
The extinction crisis appears, if anything, to be accelerating.

One of the peculiarities of this complex, multiheaded crisis is that there appears to be no “other side” on to which we might emerge. It is hard to imagine a realistic scenario in which governments lose the capacity for total surveillance and drone strikes; in which billionaires forget how to manipulate public opinion; in which a broken EU reconvenes; in which climate breakdown unhappens, species return from extinction and the soil comes back to the land. These are not momentary crises, but appear to presage permanent collapse.

So the key question is not how we weather them but how – if this is possible – we avert them. Can it be done? If so what would it take?

I write this not to depress you, though I know it will have that effect, but to concentrate our minds on the scale of the task. - George Monbiot​

 

[Tyger]

Trump’s climate denial is just one of the forces that point towards war by George Monbiot
The failure to get to grips with our crises, by all mainstream political parties, is likely to lead to a war between the major powers in my lifetime
LINK: Trump’s climate denial is just one of the forces that point towards war | George Monbiot

TEXT: "Wave the magic wand and the problem goes away. Those pesky pollution laws, carbon caps and clean-power plans: swish them away and the golden age of blue-collar employment will return. This is Donald Trump’s promise, in his video message on Monday, in which the US president-elect claimed that unleashing coal and fracking would create 'many millions of high-paid jobs'. He will tear down everything to make it come true.

"But it won’t come true. Even if we ripped the world to pieces in the search for full employment, leaving no mountain unturned, we would not find it. Instead, we would merely jeopardise the prosperity – and the lives – of people everywhere. However slavishly governments grovel to corporate Luddism, they will not bring the smog economy back.

"No one can deny the problem Trump claims to be addressing. The old mining and industrial areas are in crisis throughout the rich world. And we have seen nothing yet. I have just reread the study published by the Oxford Martin School in 2013 on the impacts of computerisation. What jumps out, to put it crudely, is that jobs in the rust belts and rural towns that voted for Trump are at high risk of automation, while the professions of many Hillary Clinton supporters are at low risk.

"The jobs most likely to be destroyed are in mining, raw materials, manufacturing, transport and logistics, cargo handling, warehousing and retailing, construction (prefabricated buildings will be assembled by robots in factories), office support, administration and telemarketing. So what, in the areas that voted for Trump, will be left?

"Farm jobs have mostly gone already. Service and care work, where hope for some appeared to lie, will be threatened by a further wave of automation, as service robots – commercial and domestic – take over.

"Yes, there will be jobs in the green economy: more and better than any that could be revived in the fossil economy. But they won’t be enough to fill the gaps, and many will be in the wrong places for those losing their professions.

"At lower risk is work that requires negotiation, persuasion, originality and creativity. The management and business jobs that demand these skills are comparatively safe from automation; so are those of lawyers, teachers, researchers, doctors, journalists, actors and artists. The jobs that demand the highest educational attainment are the least susceptible to computerisation. The divisions tearing America apart will only widen.

"Even this bleak analysis does not capture in full the underlying reasons why good, abundant jobs will not return to the places that need them most. As Paul Mason argues in Post Capitalism, the impacts of information technology go way beyond simple automation: they are likely to destroy the very basis of the market economy, and the relationship between work and wages.

"And, as the French writer Paul Arbair notes in the most interesting essay I have read this year, beyond a certain level of complexity economies become harder to sustain. There’s a point at which further complexity delivers diminishing returns; society is then overwhelmed by its demands, and breaks down. He argues that the political crisis in western countries suggests we may have reached this point.

"Trump has also announced that on his first day in office he will withdraw America from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). He is right to do so, but for the wrong reasons. Like TTIP and Ceta, the TPP is a fake trade treaty whose primary impact is to extend corporate property rights at the expense of both competition and democracy. But withdrawal will not, as he claims, 'bring jobs and industry back to American shores'. The work in Mexico and China that Trump wants to reclaim will evaporate long before it can be repatriated.

"As for the high-quality, high-waged working-class jobs he promised, these are never handed down from on high. They are secured through the organisation of labour. But the unions were smashed by Ronald Reagan, and collective bargaining has been suppressed ever since by casualisation and fragmentation. So how is this going to happen? Out of the kindness of Trump’s heart? Kindness, Trump, heart?

"But it’s not just Trump. Clinton and Bernie Sanders also made impossible promises to bring back jobs. Half the platform of each party was based on a delusion. The social, environmental and economic crises we face require a complete reappraisal of the way we live and work. The failure by mainstream political parties to produce a new and persuasive economic narrative, which does not rely on sustaining impossible levels of growth and generating illusory jobs, provides a marvellous opening for demagogues everywhere.

"Governments across the world are making promises they cannot keep. In the absence of a new vision, their failure to materialise will mean only one thing: something or someone must be found to blame. As people become angrier and more alienated, as the complexity and connectivity of global systems becomes ever harder to manage, as institutions such as the European Union collapse and as climate change renders parts of the world uninhabitable, forcing hundreds of millions of people from their homes, the net of blame will be cast ever wider.

"Eventually the anger that cannot be assuaged through policy will be turned outwards, towards other nations. Faced with a choice between hard truths and easy lies, politicians and their supporters in the media will discover that foreign aggression is among the few options for political survival. I now believe that we will see war between the major powers within my lifetime. Which ones it will involve, and on what apparent cause, remains far from clear. But something that once seemed remote now looks probable.

"A complete reframing of economic life is needed not just to suppress the existential risk that climate change presents (a risk marked by a 20°C anomaly reported in the Arctic Ocean while I was writing this article), but other existential threats as well – including war. Today’s governments, whether they are run by Trump or Obama or May or Merkel, lack the courage and imagination even to open this conversation. It is left to others to conceive of a more plausible vision than trying to magic back the good old days. The task for all those who love this world and fear for our children is to imagine a different future rather than another past."​

 

[Tyger]

Brace yourself, the polar vortex is shifting - Winter is coming.
LINK: Brace Yourself, the Polar Vortex Is Shifting

TEXT: "Climate change has hit the Arctic worse than ever over the past few years, but that doesn't mean the Northern Hemisphere is going to be experiencing a mild winter this year. In fact, a new study shows that the polar vortex is shifting, and it's going to make winters on the east coast of the US and parts of Europe even longer, with exceptionally cold temperatures expected during March.

"The polar vortex is that lovely zone of cold air that swirls around the Arctic during winter. When parts of the vortex break apart and splinter off, it can cause unseasonably cold conditions in late-winter and early-spring in the Northern Hemisphere. This happened in early 2014 - as you can see in the satellite image above [see link and see visual below] - and caused an extreme weather event in the northern US and Canada.

"But not many people realise there are actually two polar vortices: the stratospheric polar vortex, which is about 19,800 metres (65,000 feet) above the surface of the Earth; and the tropospheric polar vortex around 5,500 to 9,100 metres (18,000 to 30,000 feet) above the surface. Usually, when the weather forecasters are talking about the polar vortex, they're referring to the tropospheric vortex, which is the one that rips apart and plunges cold air towards mid-latitude cities, such as New York. But this study looked at the stratospheric polar vortex, which can have a bigger, but more subtle effect on mid-latitude weather.

"After looking at satellite data over the past three decades, the team showed that the stratospheric polar vortex has gradually been moving towards the Eurasian continent, and getting weaker over the past 30 years. That might sound like a good thing for warm weather lovers, but a weaker polar vortex means a vortex that's more likely to break, and those breakages are what send unseasonably late winter blasts of cold air down to the rest of the world. When the polar vortex is strong, on the other hand, all that cold air gets contained nicely in the Arctic circle where it traditionally is at that time of year.

"The weakening of the polar vortex isn't necessarily new - it's something several studies have shown over recent years. But this study also shows that the vortex is moving away from North America and towards Europe and Asia during February each year - and that could cause the east coast of the US to get even colder. 'The meteorology is complicated, but the study says this shift tends to result in more of a dip in the jet stream over the east coast during March, which leads to colder temperatures,' writes Jason Samenow for The Washington Post.

"The study also found that this vortex shift is 'closely related' to shrinking sea ice coverage in the Arctic - particularly in the Barents-Kara seas - and increased snow cover over the Eurasian continent. But that link is still a little tenuous. The main issue here is that researchers have found a correlation, but no one has been able to show exactly how melting ice in the Arctic sea is causing the polar vortex to shift. 'I thought the paper presented adequate evidence to support its conclusions, but obviously one paper is not going to settle an issue,' James Screen, a climate scientist at the University of Exeter in the UK, who wasn't involved in the study, told Samenow. 'The problem with most if not all of the Arctic/jet stream studies has been the lack of a clear physical cause and effect relationship, with correlations found but mechanisms as yet uncovered,' added Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Centre for Atmospheric research, who wasn't involved in the study.

"The team admits they don't have all the answers just yet, but that the relationship between the polar vortex and Arctic ice loss is worth investigating further. 'The potential vortex shift in response to persistent sea-ice loss in the future, and its associated climatic impact, deserve attention to better constrain future climate changes,' they conclude.

"Unfortunately, researchers will have plenty of opportunity to explore this link this winter, with the temperature around the North Pole 36 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius) warmer than it should be right now, and the ice sheets struggling to freeze up.

"The research has been published in Nature Climate Change."
​

 

[pixelsmith]

Is everyone sick of Tygers doom and gloom yet? Climate change is normal. People like Tyger should go away.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Tyger]

Many are living in the past. The future is unfolding all around us - and the economic shift is painful. Love this quote he gives: "Only puny secrets need protection. Big discoveries are protected by public incredulity." ~ Marshall McLuhan

The example of Ford as the disruptive technolgy in the early 1900's is exceptionally vivid with the two pictures he shows: one in 1900 (hard to find the first automobile), and 1913 (hard to find the last horse and buggy). In just thirteen years there was a stunning change in the technological landscape - he has a lot of interesting observations and perspectives to share.

The future foreseen by so many is coming no matter what - and as it happens - because of Trump, in fact - it will be coming down around us faster than we bargained for just 6 years ago. Consider the rapidity of the change - the scientists have been correct in their predictions, although actually not aggressive enough as it happens. The game has significantly shifted - the biggest player of all is the climate forcing our hand. While people rail that it's all 'silly' to be so engaged there are things to do, people to see, problems to solve, and a new world to usher in. Those prepared will be the ones to prosper. The rest - the nay-sayers et al - will hang on as best they can and hope to survive the coming alterations.

Disruptive Energy Futures: Dr Amory Lovins (March 2016)

TEXT: "Published on Nov 22, 2016: Fair Use: Educational (March 2016)"

 

[Tyger]

We can limit global warming to 1.5°C if we do these things in the next ten years
LINK: We can limit global warming to 1.5°C if we do these things in the next ten years
TEXT Excerpt: "In the early 1900s, Henry Ford took cars into mass production. A century later, we’re on the brink of the next major transition towards electric vehicles, pioneered by manufacturers such as Elon Musk’s Tesla and making a major contribution to reducing emissions from transport."

Electrifcation of the transport system is just one part of what is coming.

 

[pixelsmith]

We can limit global warming to 1.5°C if we do these things in the next ten years
LINK: We can limit global warming to 1.5°C if we do these things in the next ten years
TEXT Excerpt: "In the early 1900s, Henry Ford took cars into mass production. A century later, we’re on the brink of the next major transition towards electric vehicles, pioneered by manufacturers such as Elon Musk’s Tesla and making a major contribution to reducing emissions from transport."

Electrifcation of the transport system is just one part of what is coming.

Climate has changed chaotically for 4.5 billion years an Tyger wants to limit warming to 1.5 C.
Idiotic.

 

[Tyger]

Gavin Schmidt: The emergent patterns of climate change

TEXT: "Published on May 1, 2014: You can't understand climate change in pieces, says climate scientist Gavin Schmidt. It's the whole, or it's nothing. In this illuminating talk, he explains how he studies the big picture of climate change with mesmerizing models that illustrate the endlessly complex interactions of small-scale environmental events."