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Page added on December 17, 2017

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A Matter of Degree

“Did we really imagine people would feel threatened by the number 2?“
USAnians are a very strange lot, as Alexis de Tocqueville observed on his road trip with Gustave de Baumont in 1831. The Bible-thumping, coon-skinned, populist utopians fascinated him. Tocqueville blithely compared the young country’s despotic democratic government, then hip-deep in the ethnic cleansing of indigenous peoples, to a parent protective of “perpetual children.”
Anticipating Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent by 157 years, Tocqueville observed that the US brand of fervent fascism doesn’t try to break wills but rather bends them, allowing government to preside over people like “a flock of timid animals.”
These timid animals nonetheless hunted the remnant bands of the First Nations like a wolf pack. Adult male scalps fetched about $100 in silver during Tocqueville’s visit, and about half that for women and children. Such hefty sums attracted those given to that particular skill-set and temperament.
Tocqueville said that USAnians with the most education and intelligence were left with two choices. They could join limited intellectual circles to explore the weighty and complex problems facing society, or they could use their superior talents to amass vast fortunes in the private sector (such as becoming scalpers). Tocqueville said that he did not know of any country where there was “less independence of mind, and true freedom of discussion, than in America.” [Joshua Kaplan “Political Theory: The Classic Texts and their Continuing Relevance,” The Modern Scholar. 14 lectures (2005).]
When will these perpetual children come to grips with climate change? Perhaps it will come sifting through the ashes of their million-dollar mortgaged houses and lifetimes of keepsakes, or mucking through what is left of those after a biblical flood goes where none has gone before — perhaps then? Or perhaps, as good children, they will just go back to the Matrix and await the next FEMA check.

This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill — the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill — you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember: all I’m offering is the truth. Nothing more.

— Morphius, The Matrix (1999)
It occurs to us that one of the flaws in climate messaging has to do with numbers. As Bill McKibben famously told Rolling Stone, “And as far as I know, there’s never been a big political campaign built around a scientific data point.” News flash: there still hasn’t. McKibben tried to make that number be 350, as in the parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, “above which we can’t have a planet similar to the one on which civilization developed or to which life on earth is adapted.”
Unfortunately, by the time he said that, consumer culture had already blown through 350. Oops. That barrier fell in 1990, about the same time he wrote The End of History and we wrote Climate In Crisis. Today we are passing through 410, and moving up that sooty scale nearly twice as fast as we were in 1990.
It is hard to kick for a goal when the goal is behind you.
1975: The year the hockey stick met the blade.

In the UN climate conferences a new number is used — the number 2. That is a nice round number. At first it seems very non-threatening. It refers to an IPCC report’s consensus conclusion that exceeding a 2-degree Celsius increase in average global temperature starting from the 1940 baseline would be “dangerous” and should be avoided. Since the Paris Agreement in 2015, the focus has shifted briefly to the more ambitious goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees, if possible.

 

Regrettably that will not be possible. We are already a full degree above baseline and given the lag time between emissions and warming effect, 1.5 degrees is already in the rear-view and we are now passing 2.
Think of it like you are approaching an intersection in your car and the traffic light turns from green to yellow. You could brake or accelerate to make it through. You decide to step on the gas. Now you are committed. Even if you change your mind and suddenly hit the brakes you won’t stop the car before it is into the crossing, so the only way now is to keep going. We are in that pattern with 2 degrees. We hit the gas a few years ago and there is no stopping now. We will get to 2 degrees, even if nuclear war ended civilization tomorrow.
The authors of a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper, “Well below 2 °C:
Mitigation strategies for avoiding dangerous to catastrophic climate changes,” Yangyang Xu of Texas A&M and Veerabhadran Ramanathan of Scripps, propose we classify any warming beyond 3 degrees as “catastrophic,” and beyond 5 degrees as “unknown.”
Xu and Ramanathan calculate a 50 percent probability that surface warming will catch up with legacy emissions enough to cross the dangerous threshold by mid-century, and a 5 percent probability of hitting 3 degrees by then. Would you get on an airplane if you thought there was a 5 percent chance that it was going to crash?
On present trajectory, the PNAS paper gives 50–50 odds we will be in catastrophic territory by the end of the century, and a 5 percent probability of being fully in the unknown. Recall for a moment we are not even to the “dangerous” level yet. If you live in Houston, San Juan, Santa Rosa, or Santa Claus’s North Pole workshop, baby you ain’t seen nothing yet.
A majority of USAnians, according a recent Yale survey, don’t see the climate issue as all that important. They are evenly divided on whether it will harm some places within the United States, but only 40% think they personally will be impacted.
Climate scientist Michael Mann, author of the famous “hockey stick” image some 30 years ago, complains that science literacy is too low in the US for most citizens to even gauge the danger. Long true of politicians and reporters, today even those who should know better — like weathermen and school teachers — are criminally ignorant. Mann says:

People will often ask, ‘What’s the tipping point?’ or ‘How much warming before we hit the tipping point?’ The answer is there is no one tipping point. That’s not how it works. Its not binary. We don’t go off a cliff. A much better analogy is we’re walking out onto a minefield. The farther we walk out into that minefield the greater likelihood we set off the explosives.

— The Doomed Earth Controversy

 

We are inclined now to conclude the problem really is with the numbers. Did we really imagine people would feel threatened by the number 2? Especially the generations raised on Sesame Street?
As we wrote 28 years ago in Climate in Crisis, in an average day most people on the planet experience more than a 2 degree change in temperature in the first few hours after the sun rises or sets — it is not scary to us. We often experience a change in temperature of more than 2 degrees as we enter or leave a modern office building or bank. How then can most people relate to 2 degrees, or 6 degrees, as an existential threat? The difference is between the global average and your personal skin, but we can relate to our skin, not to global averages.
Climate in Crisis: The Greenhouse Effect and What We Can Do
One of the clearest pictues of the greenhouse effect – why its happening and what we can do about it. Graphs and…smile.amazon.com

To get a one degree increase, you have to heat a lot of ocean water and a lot of atmosphere. It took 18,000 years for the Earth to warm 9 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius) from the last Ice Age to the present, about one half degree every thousand years. One degree in a single century is a substantially faster rate of warming, 20 times faster than the average.

***

At the end of the 21st century the Earth may be warmer than it is now by as much as another 9 degrees (5°C). That would be warmer than it has been in 1,000,000 years.

— Climate in Crisis: The Greenhouse Effect and What We Can Do

 

 Fires, floods, hurricanes and submerged cities are more likely to activate dormant flight or fight responses deep in our reptilian brains. There must, at some point, come recognition of the soup we are slowly marinating in.
Xu and Ramanathan recommend a “three-lever strategy” to limit warming: reducing carbon dioxide emissions to a net of zero; reducing emissions of short-lived but potent “super pollutants” such as methane and hydrofluorocarbons; and extracting and sequestering greenhouse gases from the air.

Ultimately, we must thin the CO2 greenhouse blanket by removing the CO2 that is already in the atmosphere. Given the near-term risk of exceeding the dangerous to catastrophic thresholds, the timing for pulling these levers is a crucial issue. Ideally, these levers should be pulled immediately by 2020.

To limit warming to 2 degrees, we will need drawdown by some 1 trillion tons of CO2 equivalents before 2100 and bend the warming curve to a cooling trend. As we have written here, geoengineering can’t do that, but Natural Climate Solutions can.
If that doesn’t happen soon, it may be too late to avoid catastrophe. Or whatever comes after that.
peak surfer –  The Great Change by Albert Bates 


145 Comments on "A Matter of Degree"

  1. Jef on Sun, 17th Dec 2017 9:59 am 

    Lets do a remake of Thelma and Louise and put them in an EV.

  2. Cloggie on Sun, 17th Dec 2017 10:42 am 

    Isn’t this article anti-American? Dunno, have to ask Davy. He is an expert in those things.

    On topic. Here is the Royal Society. Mind you, they have a portrait of sir Isaac Newton on the wall so they must be serious people. The speaker is a learned gentleman named Matt Ridley, who makes the case that we should not be too worried about Global Luke-warming. His core message: the relationship between atmospheric CO2-concentration and temperature increase is logarithmic. For mere mortals this means that you need a doubling of CO2 concentration to achieve one degree Celsius temperature increase. In other words, we can continue to party until 800 ppm and we only get 1 degree extra. And at 1600 ppm, hoppa another degree Celsius and so on.

    Is this true?

    Don’t know but I sure hope so.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCcLggcPcj0

  3. Davy on Sun, 17th Dec 2017 11:08 am 

    People are not worried much about any of our predicaments really. All this hype about climate is misplaced too. Not because it isn’t dire but because there are other dire issues the climate whiners want to dismiss or ignore. The sheeples the world over rarely worry too deeply. They worry in the immediate. Plenty of personal issues of health, money, and relationships.

    Our civilization is late term. Our planetary ecosystem has crossed thresholds. Climate is in abrupt change. The economy is a Ponzi of wealth transfer and malinvestment. War is increasingly likely. Yet, somehow we keep on keeping on. This habituation has much to do with our numbness to the multiple dangers facing us. We also have techno optimist spreading the word all is ok. A KW is a KW have no fear. Others claim that the markets will innovate us out of this. Still others just pray. Nothing wrong with prayer if it is honest. We need a prayer and a good kick in the ass becuase life is going to get tough sooner or later and most will not be ready.

  4. Aidan on Sun, 17th Dec 2017 11:20 am 

    Cloggie…. Viscount Lord Matt Ridley is a wealhy English landowner with extensive opencast coal mining taking place on his estates. His family wealth is built on generations of coal extraction. He is a deeply controversial figure. He is a ‘scientist’ in that he has a doctorate on “The mating habits of the Pheasant (that is spelt with an ‘h’ following the P.)
    His main claim to fame, apart from being a climate science denier, is that he was Chairman of Northern Rock Bank which went bust in 2007 after offering ‘no questions asked’ mortgages on 125% of the value of a house. It cost the UK taxpayer £11billion (about $14 billion) to bail out the bank. No, he didn’t go to jail, but now writes nonsense for his friend Rupert Murdoch in the WSJ and the London Times.

  5. Cloggie on Sun, 17th Dec 2017 11:29 am 

    I was aware that Ridley “is in coal”.

    Nevertheless, if Atilla the Hun, Stalin, Hitler, Trump, Mussolini, Rachel Maddow or Matt Ridley say that 1+1=2, they are simply right.

    This Ridley chap sounds rather scientific. Perhaps somebody can confirm or refute this logarithmic relationship thingy.

    Thanks in advance.

  6. Aidan on Sun, 17th Dec 2017 11:55 am 

    First off – Ridley is NOT a professor – of anything. Like I said, he has a doctorate in zoology.
    Second, the Royal Society and its membership were furious that this event took place at all. Somehow this climate-denial outfit “The Global Warming Policy Foundation” is a bunch of deniers, led by Lord Nigel Lawson. Mo credibility at all, I’m afraid.

  7. onlooker on Sun, 17th Dec 2017 12:47 pm 

    At this point we need a miracle to avoid catastrophic warming. Curious or Skeptical then read “6 degrees our future on a hotter planet” by Mark Lynas
    As for Geoengineering it’s worth a try but it’s complicated, expensive and can have unintended consequences. And who can say for sure it will work

  8. Duncan Idaho on Sun, 17th Dec 2017 2:18 pm 

    Viscount Lord Matt Ridley, while high cognitive, is somewhat deficient in credibility of any future climate projection:
    Matt Ridley accused of lobbying UK government on behalf of coal industry

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/15/matt-ridley-accused-of-lobbying-uk-government-on-behalf-of-coal-industry

    I kinda like some of his work.

  9. Duncan Idaho on Sun, 17th Dec 2017 2:26 pm 

    More on Ridley:
    https://www.desmog.uk/matt-king-coal-ridley

  10. Makati1 on Sun, 17th Dec 2017 5:54 pm 

    To detect the spin, you ALWAYS have to see who is signing the paycheck. ALWAYS.

  11. Apneaman on Sun, 17th Dec 2017 7:22 pm 


    The great nutrient collapse

    The atmosphere is literally changing the food we eat, for the worse. And almost nobody is paying attention.

    “Zooplankton are microscopic animals that float in the world’s oceans and lakes, and for food they rely on algae, which are essentially tiny plants. Scientists found that they could make algae grow faster by shining more light onto them—increasing the food supply for the zooplankton, which should have flourished. But it didn’t work out that way. When the researchers shined more light on the algae, the algae grew faster, and the tiny animals had lots and lots to eat—but at a certain point they started struggling to survive. This was a paradox. More food should lead to more growth. How could more algae be a problem?

    Loladze was technically in the math department, but he loved biology and couldn’t stop thinking about this. The biologists had an idea of what was going on: The increased light was making the algae grow faster, but they ended up containing fewer of the nutrients the zooplankton needed to thrive. By speeding up their growth, the researchers had essentially turned the algae into junk food. The zooplankton had plenty to eat, but their food was less nutritious, and so they were starving.”

    “Could the same problem affect grass and cows? What about rice and people? “It was kind of a watershed moment for me when I started thinking about human nutrition,” he said.”

    https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrients-carbon-dioxide-000511

  12. Makati1 on Sun, 17th Dec 2017 7:48 pm 

    Ap, most do not know how much our lives depend on the things we cannot see like microbes, bacteria and soil minerals. Ignorance is bliss, I guess. I learned about such things in my high school biology and chemistry classes 55 years ago.

  13. Makati1 on Sun, 17th Dec 2017 7:59 pm 

    “The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it”

    – George Orwell

    “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

    – George Orwell

  14. Anonymous on Sun, 17th Dec 2017 8:34 pm 

    Seems like a Canadian wrote it. “USAians” rather than Americans. And “First Nations” instead of Indians.

    Probably some guy with a little brother complex. It’s OK. We don’t care if Canadians hate the USA. We don’t even notice you!

  15. GregT on Sun, 17th Dec 2017 8:46 pm 

    Albert Bates is a US American Nony.

  16. GregT on Sun, 17th Dec 2017 9:20 pm 

    “And “First Nations” instead of Indians.”

    And Nony, the indigenous populations of North America are not from India. They are the real Americans, they are not Indians.

  17. DerHundistlos on Sun, 17th Dec 2017 9:32 pm 

    American denialism is truly unique and peculiar. I’m always amazed that large numbers of Americans deny AGW. If you were to suggest to a Colombian that AGW is a fraud-regardless of race, economics, age, etc.-you would be certified as mentally ill. You would then become a pariah, someone to avoid.

  18. DerHundistlos on Sun, 17th Dec 2017 9:33 pm 

    Does “Anonymous” = “Nony”?

  19. GregT on Sun, 17th Dec 2017 9:39 pm 

    Does “Anonymous” = “Nony”?

    Yes.

  20. DerHundistlos on Sun, 17th Dec 2017 9:40 pm 

    Thank you Aidan and Duncan Idaho for exposing Matt Ridley as the fraud he is!!!!!!

    Kudos to you gentlemen. 🙂

  21. GregT on Sun, 17th Dec 2017 9:54 pm 

    Nony has had an entire entourage of sock puppets over the years Derhund.

    Econ101, and PapaSmurf, are two of the others that immediately come to mind.

  22. Anonymous on Sun, 17th Dec 2017 10:16 pm 

    I propose that we encourage Alberta to secede from Canada and join the US.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yXzZTYjUl0

    I think they would be happier with us.

  23. GregT on Sun, 17th Dec 2017 10:27 pm 

    “I propose that we encourage Alberta to secede from Canada and join the US.”

    I agree, but only if you guys promise to all move to a different planet. This one’s already fucked up enough.

  24. Anonymous on Sun, 17th Dec 2017 10:47 pm 

    You guys are so jealous. You think about us all the time. And we don’t even think about you. 😉

  25. GregT on Sun, 17th Dec 2017 11:07 pm 

    “You guys are so jealous. You think about us all the time. And we don’t even think about you.”

    I’m happily married Nony, retired at 53, with two adult kids who are both doing far better than you could ever dream of.

    You have absolutely nothing going for you, that I could possibly ever be jealous about. Get your head out of your asshole, dude.

  26. antaris on Sun, 17th Dec 2017 11:22 pm 

    Anony we don’t notice you much either. Just got to read past your dumb shit to get to something that makes sense.

  27. Anonymous on Mon, 18th Dec 2017 12:35 am 

    I was discussing Canadian attention to US and visa versa. Not you and me, Greg. Your personal situation sounds great. Congrats.

  28. GregT on Mon, 18th Dec 2017 1:36 am 

    “I was discussing Canadian attention to US and visa versa.

    A discussion usually involves more than one person Nony.

    Just out of curiosity, who were you discussing ‘Canadian attention to US and visa versa’ with? And other than yourself, who really cares?

  29. deadlykillerbeaz on Mon, 18th Dec 2017 2:09 am 

    Those climate change alarmists, Chicken Littles, will never give it a rest.

    The climate change denier crowd say to give it up.

    The tenth century was warm, the Vikings were living along the shores of Greenland.

    Then the Little Ice Age magically appeared for no reason, well, the sun had to have some influence on the Earth’s climates. The records show an increase in the price of wheat due to crop failure and great strife during those times.

    There are records from those dates that do provide evidence.

    Western Europe experienced a general cooling of the climate between the years 1150 and 1460 and a very cold climate between 1560 and 1850 that brought dire consequences to its peoples. The colder weather impacted agriculture, health, economics, social strife, emigration, and even art and literature. Increased glaciation and storms also had a devastating affect on those that lived near glaciers and the sea.

    http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/lia/little_ice_age.html

    You don’t want the earth to cool too much, it won’t be pretty. Things will get ugly.

    The red man had to be extirpated from the eastern seaboard along the east coast of the United States, there was no room for them. President Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act and the indigenous people took a hike to Oklahoma.

    British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba all should secede from the Dominion and join the United States. They have been effectively Anschlussed, so it would be better for those provinces to be states of the US. We’ll take The Yukon too, so move your 25,000 man army over to Nunavut.

    Resources, oil, forest, the rest of the Rockies, all to us belong. lol

    Have a good day.

  30. Makati1 on Mon, 18th Dec 2017 2:32 am 

    DKB, what is that rambling all about?

    1. The Little Ice Ages were caused by huge volcanic eruptions which can cause a ‘nuclear winter’ type of scenario that may last for years. We may get to see another some day if one of the overdue supers erupt.
    2. Tell it like it was. The “red man” had to be exterminated so that the whiteys could pillage and plunder their resources as has continued until today in the 3rd world by the US.
    3. Again you want to plunder others to keep your wasteful lifestyle in place until you die. Fuck anyone else. Perfect example of the greedy, spoiled, immoral American attitude.

    Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! The sooner the US goes down, the better for the rest of the world.

  31. deadlykillerbeaz on Mon, 18th Dec 2017 3:09 am 

    Yeah, volcanoes too can wreak havoc. The ‘year without a summer’, 1816 CE, was caused by a volcano, Tambora.

    Volcanoes will do that, but not for centuries.

    The sun is also suspect as part of the cause of the LIA.

    You aren’t able to recognize sarcasm.

  32. Makati1 on Mon, 18th Dec 2017 3:23 am 

    When it is presented correctly, I can, but…

  33. Davy on Mon, 18th Dec 2017 4:07 am 

    DKB, what we are doing is forcing the carbon system so I am sure a little Ice age is nothing compared to what we may cause. If the Atlantic conveyor stops moving cold and warm water around now because of Greenland ice melt some areas could have very disrupted local climate. It is clear the world on average is warming everywhere but this does not mean local extremes of cooler climate. I am sure all this means dangerous storms with more droughts and flooding. Oops there goes a moderate climate that allowed civilization. Lets call it climate disruption now with a future of global warming. We don’t know how long modern humans will last either. We might ruin our CO2 producing economy that cuts our CO2 load way down. That might sound good except for the death of maybe 6BIL. There is then the unknown of all those millions of industrial sites, dams, and an assortment of other techno happiness that might fail. Think of the irradiation of hundreds of NUK fuel ponds burning. I think eventually something bad is going to happen. It just appears like a bad trap.

  34. joe on Mon, 18th Dec 2017 8:21 am 

    Guy mcpherson says that our human habitat will die out long before the worst impact of temperature rises come. Basically if the global food belts die out, civilisation dies out and collapses before we can build new ones. For the sake of drama he gave us 10 years.
    How long before the US food production zones suffer from californian style fires and the global price of foods goes up so much that we all become Zimbabwe (ie hyperinflation) and how long before we all become criminal head choppers like isis to stay alive.
    Probobly not long after climate change alters the dynamics of geometric economic growth theory.

  35. onlooker on Mon, 18th Dec 2017 8:53 am 

    Yes Joe, we cannot overestimate the possible severity of climate change when according to the Science almost all MASS EXTINCTION EVENNTS have been connected to climate change

  36. MASTERMIND on Mon, 18th Dec 2017 9:32 am 

    Madkat

    You think the US will go down and the rest of the world will do better afterwards? Your country along with the rest of the world is plugged into the US economy as well. When we go down so will you. You idiot.

  37. Hello on Mon, 18th Dec 2017 9:49 am 

    >>>> When we go down so will you

    It’s different in the phillipines. Once starving looms, every single one of the 10M manila and surounding city dwellers will move back to the family farm for a bunch of subistance farming. There they will enjoy clean water, healthy food and no disease. Only love and happiness.

    At least that is what Mak told me, and am I not to believe him?

  38. fmr-paultard on Mon, 18th Dec 2017 9:57 am 

    i hear a lot of good things about the phils too. i’m an atheist who is a former catholic. i will fit in with the catholic population fine there. i’ll befriend muslims and convert them to atheist since i only go to church once/year now.

    i can’t wait to move to the phils. i hate america it will collapse into nothing and become a dutch colony. we will be part of the crown, dutch crown.

  39. GregT on Mon, 18th Dec 2017 11:46 am 

    MM,

    “When we go down so will you.”

    Who is this “we” you would be referring to? When the economy comes crashing down, some of us actually have plans in effect, Makati1 included.

    None of our plans, include you. You might want to think long and hard about that.

  40. MASTERMIND on Mon, 18th Dec 2017 1:00 pm 

    GregT

    So deluded you and madkat. Once society collapses goons will find you and take whatever they want…You can run post collapse but you can’t hide! That’s called LOGIC!

  41. GregT on Mon, 18th Dec 2017 1:11 pm 

    “That’s called LOGIC!”

    You are obviously nowhere near as smart, as you think that you are.

  42. MASTERMIND on Mon, 18th Dec 2017 1:13 pm 

    President Trump Unveils Anti-New-World-Order National Security Strategy

    Trump is taking on China and Russia..We are coming for you MADKAT!! LOL USA USA USA! Told ya we wont go down without a fight! Say your Mormon prayers! LOL

  43. GregT on Mon, 18th Dec 2017 1:22 pm 

    “We”?

    Talking about being deluded……

    Their plans also, do not include you MM.

  44. Cloggie on Mon, 18th Dec 2017 1:26 pm 

    Trump is taking on China and Russia

    I can’t believe my luck…

  45. GregT on Mon, 18th Dec 2017 1:46 pm 

    “We are coming for you MADKAT!! LOL USA USA USA! Told ya we wont go down without a fight!”

    Makati is an American, MM, and he’s been an American for over twice as long as you’ve been alive.

  46. Apneaman on Mon, 18th Dec 2017 2:28 pm 

    NASA satellite image shows continued destruction of California wildfire

    http://www.mlive.com/news/us-world/index.ssf/2017/12/california_wildfire_nasa_space.html

    Record
    129
    Million Dead Trees in California

    http://calfire.ca.gov/communications/downloads/newsreleases/2017/CAL%20FIREandU.S%20ForestAnnouce129MillionDeadTrees.pdf

  47. onlooker on Mon, 18th Dec 2017 2:42 pm 

    AP, why you being so pessimistic. Cryptocurrencis are skyrocketing in value. That shows al is going just fine on the cancer monkeys planet. sarc…

  48. MASTERMIND on Mon, 18th Dec 2017 2:57 pm 

    As M. King Hubbert (1962) show, Peak Oil is about discovering less oil, and eventually producing less oil due to lack of discovery

    https://imgur.com/a/cz9ln

    Oil Shortage Feared by 2020 as Discoveries Fall to Record Low – Wall Street Journal
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/iea-says-global-oil-discoveries-at-record-low-in-2016-1493244000

    Peak Oil Vindicated “Again”….

  49. Makati1 on Mon, 18th Dec 2017 6:07 pm 

    America is going down. The rest of the world will cheer. If you don’t understand why, MM, you need to get some education. The US is the most hated country on earth today. Guess why? And, it ain’t because of our “freedoms”. Americans have none.

    The slide to third world America continues.

  50. Makati1 on Mon, 18th Dec 2017 6:37 pm 

    “The country has gotten used to thinking that the game of pretend is exactly the same as what is actually going on in the world. The now-seminal phrase coined by Karl Rove, “we make our own reality,” is as comforting these days to Republicans from Idaho as it is to hairy, “intersectional” professors of post-structural gender studies in the bluest ivory towers of the Ivy League. Nobody in this Republic really wants to get his-hers-zhe’s-they’s reality on.”

    JHK got it right. Denial and delusion are the new way of life in America. Reality is taboo. Americans want to believe that they still live in the “American Dream”, even as it turns into a nightmare. So be it.

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