[mousepad]

.... rant ...

Lots of hate, lots of identity politics. Not much substance.

Environmental protection is an extension of affluence. Once affluence is gone, protection goes out the window.
Where's the politician advocating for less? Less growth, less consumption, less population.

[jedrider]

.... rant ...

Lots of hate, lots of identity politics. Not much substance.

Environmental protection is an extension of affluence. Once affluence is gone, protection goes out the window.
Where's the politician advocating for less? Less growth, less consumption, less population.

We've had affluence and environmental protection has been close to nil. One would think one side would finally be choking in their lies, but they seem to thrive in that substance. "Once affluence is gone..." Yes, then what happens?

[vtsnowedin]

.
Where's the politician advocating for less? Less growth, less consumption, less population.

Any politician advocating for less would lose the next election they had to stand for.

[Doly]

Let me guess, the guy that screams the loudest for the head of the denier is the bro from CA driving a tesla, making $250k/yr, flying to Ibon's nature retreat or other far flung place 3 times/yr.

I scream very loud for the head of the climate deniers, and I don't live in the USA, I don't drive any car, I make less than the median wage and I don't fly.

Do I get that head on a silver plate now?

[Tanada]

Environmental protection is an extension of affluence. Once affluence is gone, protection goes out the window.

As a deeply committed environmentalist I used to argue this very thing in the form that Environmentalists should favor exploitation of ANWAR in 2005 when the EPA was still around doing its job and preventing extreme abuse instead of delaying the date until people were desperate and environmental protection was no longer a concern to cold hungry voters. Nobody wanted to listen then and some of the vile names I was called were rather extreme.

[Tanada]

We've had affluence and environmental protection has been close to nil. One would think one side would finally be choking in their lies, but they seem to thrive in that substance. "Once affluence is gone..." Yes, then what happens?

I strongly disagree. Yes our protections could have been stronger than they were, however I remember the Cuyahoga River catching fire, and going to Lake Erie and counting the dead fish that were washing up on the beach right before the government put up the "unsafe, no swimming wading or bathing" signs ever 50 feet along to beaches.

Things in the 60's and 70's were pretty awful and the Clean Air and Clean Water acts went a great distance to end the mass pollution and restore a certain level of sanity to what American industry could get away with dumping on the public. Today both the Cuyahoga River and Lake Erie clean and safe for public use. Without government action under Environmentalist push that would not be the case.

[vtsnowedin]

We've had affluence and environmental protection has been close to nil. One would think one side would finally be choking in their lies, but they seem to thrive in that substance. "Once affluence is gone..." Yes, then what happens?

I strongly disagree. Yes our protections could have been stronger than they were, however I remember the Cuyahoga River catching fire, and going to Lake Erie and counting the dead fish that were washing up on the beach right before the government put up the "unsafe, no swimming wading or bathing" signs ever 50 feet along to beaches.

Things in the 60's and 70's were pretty awful and the Clean Air and Clean Water acts went a great distance to end the mass pollution and restore a certain level of sanity to what American industry could get away with dumping on the public. Today both the Cuyahoga River and Lake Erie clean and safe for public use. Without government action under Environmentalist push that would not be the case.

I agree that the clean water act of 1972 was a good thing but it required polluters to do what was possible to clean up their water before they discharged it into the waters of the country and often government funding was provided to towns and cities to build the needed infrastructure. Today this Zero emissions goal is both impossible and no source of money is available to make even an eyewash attempt at it.

[Doly]

Today this Zero emissions goal is both impossible and no source of money is available to make even an eyewash attempt at it.

The zero emissions goal may be impossible, but since the alternative is starvation once climate change causes enough crop failures, it's got to be tried anyway.

[vtsnowedin]

Today this Zero emissions goal is both impossible and no source of money is available to make even an eyewash attempt at it.

The zero emissions goal may be impossible, but since the alternative is starvation once climate change causes enough crop failures, it's got to be tried anyway.

And your confidence it that conclusion comes from where?

[Doly]

And your confidence it that conclusion comes from where?

If you are talking about climate change causing crop failures, it's happening already. Just check worldwide figures for grain production. Or just American figures, if you want to keep it local.

[vtsnowedin]

And your confidence it that conclusion comes from where?

If you are talking about climate change causing crop failures, it's happening already. Just check worldwide figures for grain production. Or just American figures, if you want to keep it local.

Yes but you apparently have no real statistics to base your conclusion on. There have always been crop failures in one part of the ag world or another but they are usually balanced by bumper crops in some other p[art of the world.
For wheat supply and demand are in close balance with a small shortfall which can be totally accounted for by the loses in Ukraine which have nothing to do with weather.
You might find this interesting.
https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrEePT ... fRRh.1uB0-

[jedrider]

And your confidence it that conclusion comes from where?

If you are talking about climate change causing crop failures, it's happening already. Just check worldwide figures for grain production. Or just American figures, if you want to keep it local.

Yes but you apparently have no real statistics to base your conclusion on. There have always been crop failures in one part of the ag world or another but they are usually balanced by bumper crops in some other p[art of the world.
For wheat supply and demand are in close balance with a small shortfall which can be totally accounted for by the loses in Ukraine which have nothing to do with weather.
You might find this interesting.
https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrEePT ... fRRh.1uB0-

Heat waves in USA, Europe, Asia, and record highs. Yes, our system is resilient with oversupply, but for how long can we count on such oversupply with this onslaught of weird weather? The recent past does not seem to be prelude to what comes next. I think that this appears to be the worst year yet for weather, and with no let up expected.

[vtsnowedin]

And your confidence it that conclusion comes from where?

If you are talking about climate change causing crop failures, it's happening already. Just check worldwide figures for grain production. Or just American figures, if you want to keep it local.

Yes but you apparently have no real statistics to base your conclusion on. There have always been crop failures in one part of the ag world or another but they are usually balanced by bumper crops in some other p[art of the world.
For wheat supply and demand are in close balance with a small shortfall which can be totally accounted for by the loses in Ukraine which have nothing to do with weather.
You might find this interesting.
https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrEePT ... fRRh.1uB0-

Heat waves in USA, Europe, Asia, and record highs. Yes, our system is resilient with oversupply, but for how long can we count on such oversupply with this onslaught of weird weather? The recent past does not seem to be prelude to what comes next. I think that this appears to be the worst year yet for weather, and with no let up expected.

I'll point you to this Wiki list of historic famines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines
Note that as world population increased the number of known victims increases but in recent years they become fewer and farther between due to modern technology and world trade providing relief to effected areas.
Looking back to the dust bowl of the 1930s I don't think this present set of dry weather can be claimed as a permanent change in climate. It may be but it will be some years before anyone knows for sure.

[jedrider]

Looking back to the dust bowl of the 1930s I don't think this present set of dry weather can be claimed as a permanent change in climate. It may be but it will be some years before anyone knows for sure.

Well, I always look at the dust bowl as a warning sign. I wonder why no one else picks it out as being significant? Data is always significant, yet it is seemingly ignored.

To me, the great warning of the dust bowl years is how the aerosol effect influences global warming. Even Guy McPherson notes how terminal that Global Dimming is to our situation.

Every economic downturn will just increase warming until it's apparent that too much warming is already "baked" into the system.

[vtsnowedin]

The dust bowel is an interesting bit of our history and all of it's causes may still be misunderstood. Consider that pour dry land farming practices (plow and harrow to dust) might be combined with the peak in coal fired steam train use along with steel mills etc. spewing huge amounts of pollution including CO2 into the air and a normal dry spell variation in the weather or something else I have not thought of off the cuff.
My father talked about going to Cleveland during the depression looking for work and the air was so bad it turned the nickel bumper on his Model A black.

[FamousDrScanlon]

The global dimming effect is not as well understood as McPherson (100% certain) pretends . We know more about it than when McPherson made his claim 15ish years ago, but no one "knows" for certain how much warming would happen if all industry shut down. If fossil fuel industry shut down there are still 8 billion humans who will be burning plenty of shit. I can imagine a desperate family in the suburbs tearing off their vinyl siding to make a cooking fire to roast the neighbors dog. There have been global dimming studies since the little one done after 9/11 which if I remember correctly was a regional study, not global. McPherson extrapolated it globally which a newer studie says it don't work that way.

Below is a link to a decent article with plenty of information (links) and discussion on global dimming.

Fact-Check: is “global dimming” shielding us from catastrophe?

"This shows how a rapid change in global RF from aerosols still takes a while to drive a change in global surface temperatures, with only ~20% of the total potential impact occurring within a year and ~60% in around 10 years. It’s important to note that this is the global RF and temperature change — a drop in localised aerosol emissions would have a much more rapid regional impact with noticeable effects within only weeks, but it’d take much longer for the whole of the global climate system to catch up."

So the +0.7oC quoted at the start of this article is close to our estimate here of an eventual warming of ~0.6-0.9oC over a century, and fits with other studies too. However, larger masking effects are sometimes claimed. One model study has projected up to 1oC warming resulting from ~80% aerosol emission cuts [NB – this study is often misrepresented as saying this is from as little as a 35% cut, but this figure is only for organic carbon emissions which have a smaller effect], but this represents what would be masked by 2100 after continued moderate CO2 emissions rather than what is being masked right now. An even higher figure of 2.5oC is also sometimes claimed, but this is hard to reconcile with observed RFs and heat budgets. This figure is also based on just one model, with an estimate for the strength of aerosol-cloud feedbacks far outside the range of other models and observations. If aerosols are confirmed to have a larger indirect effect on clouds though then their total effect over a century could be closer to ~1oC, but this has not been convincingly proven."

https://climatetippingpoints.info/2019/ ... tastrophe/

McPherson has an agenda far beyond educating folks on climate change and he is a proven bullshitter. What's strange to me is why exaggerate when what we know and see is a fucking horror show and what we know is baked in is even worse? Climate change and the rest of the predicaments and problems under the Overshoot umbrella don't need any exaggeration at all.

[jedrider]

"This shows how a rapid change in global RF from aerosols still takes a while to drive a change in global surface temperatures, with only ~20% of the total potential impact occurring within a year and ~60% in around 10 years. It’s important to note that this is the global RF and temperature change — a drop in localised aerosol emissions would have a much more rapid regional impact with noticeable effects within only weeks, but it’d take much longer for the whole of the global climate system to catch up."

Seems to me a confusing presentation of the significance of Global Dimming.

First off, of course, it impacts land temperatures much more than global temperatures over shorter timespans, because the ocean is a huge heat sink, but the land's surface isn't. So, it's basically as if the Sun's rays are all of a sudden felt much stronger. So, just maybe, it's effects on land are just amplified. That's not much comfort.

Regardless of the amount of it's contribution, it seems like maybe a sufficient explanation (together with land use practices) for the higher temps recorded during the dust bowl years, making their outlier case entirely tractable within how global warming works and, therefore, that's a poor case for thinking that our current warming may be only temporary (as I'm sure few of you think so except for vision, maybe).

[jedrider]

I'm altering my take on this. Rather than waiting for a sudden catastrophic worldwide grain deficit as a result of global warming, maybe, we will be able to put this off another fifteen years or so. Sorry Guy McPherson. Maybe, our civilization will just ignore climate change and just use capitalism to maximum effect. So what if Europe, USA and China have simultaneous bad harvests? There is always South America and at least half a rain forest left that can be cut down.

What, you mean, that is already happening?

https://www.farmprogress.com/commentary/drought-devastates-brazilian-crop

[suxs]

Kudos for the Famous Doktor Scanlon

"The good Earth -- we could have saved it, but we were too damn cheap and lazy." ~~Kurt Vonnegut calling it for what it is RIP~~

Vonnegut's magnum opus, Slaughterhouse-Five, is brilliant in its ability to blend history with science fiction. During the Battle of the Bulge, US Army infantry scout Vonnegut along with thousands of other GIs was captured by advancing German forces and evacuated to what was thought to be the safe city of Dresden, now overflowing with German and East European civilians all fleeing from advancing Russian forces. Europe's finest example of Baroque architecture had thus far been spared from bombing due to its military unimportance. With just weeks remaining before the German surrender, the head of the RAF, Sir "Mad Bomber" Harris was determined to level Dresden as his departing magnum opus. And so, the Mad Bomber dispatched 772 heavy bombers laden with white phosphorus bombs that initiated a firestorm of such monumental intensity that up to 135,000 women, children, elderly, and, ironically Allied POWs were incinerated. Vonnegut was one of the lucky ones as his POW group was evacuated to a large slaughterhouse deep underground. The men emerged to a moonscape and an unbearable stench of burning flesh. The first order of business was to gather up and stack the bodies into funeral pyres that were then cremated with the use of flame throwers.

[vtsnowedin]

I read Slaughterhouse five about fifty years ago and sadly have forgotten most of it. Po Taa Weeet!