[Cid_Yama]

They started in Europe in 2003 when 35,000 died heat related deaths. Thousands more died this last year in Russia. This without ever seeing a peak heat stress.

The first to go will be those unaccustomed to the heat. Increasing numbers and durations of heat waves in the mid and northern latitudes.

Places where air conditioning has been used infrequently. The power grid will be unable to handle the additional load as everybody runs out to buy one.

The grid crashes for an extended time, no one has air conditioning and thousands die as nursing homes and and other places with vunerable populations swelter in 100 degree temps.

Then we hit the tipping point and global average temperatures jump 5-7C within a couple years. Bang, those accustomed to the heat begin dying because there is no way to cool off. Pakistan, India, the Middle East, Africa, South East Asia, Brazil. Then Southern Europe, China, Central America, the Southern US.

Of course we will continue to call it extreme heat waves all the way to the end. There will be no widespread recognition of it being in fact a climate shift.

[Ludi]

They started in Europe in 2003 when 35,000 died heat related deaths. Thousands more died this last year in Russia. This without ever seeing a peak heat stress.

The first to go will be those unaccustomed to the heat. Increasing numbers and durations of heat waves in the mid and northern latitudes.

Places where air conditioning has been used infrequently. The power grid will be unable to handle the additional load as everybody runs out to buy one.

The grid crashes for an extended time, no one has air conditioning and thousands die as nursing homes and and other places with vunerable populations swelter in 100 degree temps.

Then we hit the tipping point and global average temperatures jump 5-7C within a couple years. Bang, those accustomed to the heat begin dying because there is no way to cool off. Pakistan, India, the Middle East, Africa, South East Asia, Central America. Then Southern Europe, China, the Southern US.

So you are saying we will hit a tipping point in a couple years? Or are you saying some time within the next 10 years we will hit a tipping point and then a couple years after that there will be mass deaths in Pakistan, India, the Middle East, Africa, South East Asia, Central America,Southern Europe, China,and the Southern US?

So, up to 12 years before we see mass deaths from heat stress?

[Cid_Yama]

You wish we had that much time. We will see a fundamental shift of the climate over the next couple years. Ice core and sediment records show paleoclimate shifts in as short as 3-5 years. Russia was the start. Much of Siberia still wasn't covered with snow at the beginning of November, Temperatures were 15C above normal.

We have already seen a fundamental shift in weather patterns in the Arctic over the last two years.

[Ludi]

Thanks for the more specific answer.

Yes, I wish we had plenty of time, most people do, I think. Don't you?

[vtsnowedin]

You wish we had that much time. We will see a fundamental shift of the climate over the next couple years. Ice core and sediment records show paleoclimate shifts in as short as 3-5 years. Russia was the start. Much of Siberia still wasn't covered with snow at the beginning of November, Temperatures were 15C above normal.

We have already seen a fundamental shift in weather patterns in the Arctic over the last two years.

Oh really? Whats the modis picture showing us? White grass.
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subs ... .terra.4km

[SeaGypsy]

Nothing I have seen on the matter addresses the topic of oceanic temperature modulation. The general sweeping statements about 5 to 7 celcius rises do not make sense. 5 to 7 where? Generally all over? That isn't how temperature works. 5 to 7 average? Does that mean 3 to 5 degrees rise with ocean modulation and 5 to 7 dregrees continentally? What about temperature of the oceans themselves, disregarding land masses?

Besides this contention, taking Cid's telling of it on face value, I can see a different scenario playing out.

The worst place to be in a heat wave is landlocked, or on the persistently downwind coast of a continent. If you can find a sea breeze you will be 10 degrees cooler than if not, approximately.

It takes about 6 weeks for a healthy person's metabolism to adjust the blood lipid count up or down to match a sudden change in environmental temperature, such as moving to the equator from Finland for example, or vis- versa. This suggets that if the change is somewhat gradual, many people will adjust in good time enough, while those with compromised metabolisms could be done for much sooner.

In the scenario I am going to propose, Continental North America, Europe, India and China areright in the spotlight for heat stress death epidemic. Look at the highly populated continental populations first. They will be feeling the brunt of extreme change well before underpopulated and non continental populations.

These heat stress death waves will cause massive disruption to the economies of these areas first.
As soon as it gets to the tipping point of regular masive grid overloads in peak summer heat, (as has already begun in many places as Cid mentions), it won't just be old and sick dieing, but babies, newborns. Anyone who has ever dealt with the grief of losing a child can begin to imagine the strife if millions of infant deaths occured suddenly. People will go completely mental. Ensuing strife would lead to gridlock. The gridlock would tip the already delicate world economy over the edge.
As most of the world's population is now virtually utterly dependent on economic survival for their actual survival, the collapse of the economy of the world would kill billions through starvation in fairly short order.

Eventually in my scenario, humans would end up surviving by again becoming nomadic, in far smaller numbers than we have now of course. I am assuming there will be enough oxygen to breath at sea level and that some edible plants and animals will survive.

There are also some massive underground military installations capable of cleaning their own air supply and regulating the temperature within them. Whether these will be maintained once soldier's grandparents and babies are dieing in droves remains somewhat doubtfull, and how long they can keep a subterrainean life going in a closed loop likewise.

[Ludi]

I don't know that we can say with confidence that the European heat wave was the beginning of the mass deaths due to climate change heat waves. More people live in cities, people in cities are more vulnerable to heat stress.

[mos6507]

I think I agree with Mos, with the dreaded large scale methane release occurring in the arctic it is now game over.

I didn't say it's game over. I just said that IF it's game over, maybe the melodrama that Cid keeps demonstrating is pointless. I can't think of how it would serve the public to know about a doom they can't stop, other than to maybe "make their peace", so to speak, for whatever that's worth, if you're not religious at least.

[mos6507]

Then we hit the tipping point and global average temperatures jump 5-7C within a couple years.

That's your bold prediction? I've been hanging around here long enough to see some of these bold predictions go up in flames.

The poster-child for this is Rockman and his infamous bunker. Or maybe the Supervolcano false-alarm for something more recent.

Are you sure you want to put your reputation on this line here? 2 years will go by like nothing, man. We'll still be here to dredge up this thread.

I mean, all you have to do is add some qualifications to your prediction. You know, words like "might" or "probably" or "I think". This would at least give you an exit clause.

I know you're a very bright person so really think before you stick your neck out like this. I've seen too many doomers make bogus predictions and just add to the mountain of Chicken Little arguments for why the bigger picture of limits to growth is invalid.

I know you aren't Matt Simmons talking on the mass media about the BP oil spill, but seriously, I'm throwing you a lifeline here. Last chance before you place your bet.

[Sixstrings]

With less than 10 years remaining before most of the planet reaches the point where peak heat stresses make it uninhabitable, what would the political priorities be?

In the US it's pretty clear that both parties, except for the progressives, have cut loose the masses. They know. The masses are toast. So what next.

Boy that's so true. Both parties have cut the masses loose, and the elites are getting fat off globalism while the rest of the country rots.

As for what comes next.. sadly Cid, just look to history for the answer. The newly impoverished American teeming masses will be seen as a political opportunity -- demagogues will rise to power but they won't follow through on their campaign promises. It's happened over and over and over in South America, and that's what we're headed for.

Alternatively, we go could move even farther to the right into fascism. But it won't be national socialism since that's protectionist.. whatever happens, we will remain globalists since too many elites are making too much money off it.

Or.. maybe we'll become just another Brazil or Mexico and folks will learn to accept that. Although we don't have stability from religion in the way they do, and we are awash in consumerist values. So I don't know if Americans can handle being poor like they can in Brazil or the Philipines.

[Rod_Cloutier]

It bothers me that 90% of the population are oblivious to these problems! I was at a wedding reception tonight and people are going on like everything is on the up and up, conversing about their wonderful trip to Disneyworld and so forth. It’s not even polite conversation to talk about issues like global warming and peak oil!

If its impolite to even chat casually about these things, then how is our society going to react when these problems are suddenly in our face- where they can't be ignored? I'm in my 40's and I feel sorry for all the baby-boomer aged family members who aren't going to have the fairytale retirement they've been planning for. Instead there are going to lose their savings, their dreams, and perhaps even their lives as society becomes chaotic and unravels over the next several years.

With every attempt I have made to get older people to plan for a very different future than the lifestyle they currently have has been met with failure. Older people have NO CONCEPTION that things can be different than the lifestyle they have lived with over the past 60 years. They don't believe me when I talk of impending shortages, the end to economic growth. Even the obvious collapse in the banking system, which is in their face, is met with disbelief- they think the problems are temporary, that everything will be back to normal soon.

I can't imagine the turmoil that they will face as their planned futures disappear? I also can't assist much, little lone support a dozen or more aging relatives through all these problems in the future. The baby boomer generation is an enigma, problematic for both the generation before and for the generation after, an aberration from the long term norm never to be repeated.

[PrestonSturges]

I don't know that we can say with confidence that the European heat wave was the beginning of the mass deaths due to climate change heat waves. More people live in cities, people in cities are more vulnerable to heat stress.

When the US southern Atlantic states were having apocalyptic droughts in 2007 (?), within 15 miles of the beach the weather was pretty normal due to moisture off the sea and crops were normal. Where ponds inland totally vanished for months, they just dropped quite a bit down towards the shore.

[mos6507]

It bothers me that 90% of the population are oblivious to these problems!

I wonder sometimes how oblivious they are.

For instance, I have a pretty bad case of tinnitus. I have had to develop a mental practice called habituation, well habituation and masking (which isn't hard, sitting next to a computer with spinning fans and a hard drive).

Habituation is the process where your mind is able to tune out the ambient surroundings. You don't hear the chirping of the birds or the traffic noise or the crashing of the waves. Well, you do, but you aren't constantly aware of it. It just moves to the background.

So it's not that I don't know my ears are ringing. I know it. But I don't think about it all the time because my mind latches onto other things to focus on.

What this mental practice has done to me, which is sad, is made it impossible for me to ever completely relax. I can not experience silence. I can not meditate because if I stop focusing my mind on something that fully engages me, I begin to become more aware of the ringing. So from the moment I get up to the moment I hit the pillow in the wee hours of the morning, I am in some way having to focus my attention like a laser on _something_, even if it's nothing but some classic rock on the radio. Just anything. I have no more dynamic range. It's a tough compromise that I've had to make. For all I know this set the stage for my doomerism because there's probably no way I'd have spent so many man-hours of my life researching these issues if I could truly relax. It's made me move from one obsessive hobby to another.

I think that's what a lot of people do these days in order to not have to become aware of the growing dystopian ambience of modern life. You could call it being amused or distracted to death if you like. My dad is certainly like that. He falls asleep to the TV blaring. You just keep yourself busy with something, even if it's nothing but being a couch potato, or an alcoholic or druggy, and this takes your mind off of things.

To confront people with the elephants in the room is akin to putting me in a padded soundbooth where I can not escape the fingernails on the chalkboard sound of my own broken inner-ear cells firing off. It's intolerable.

[Ludi]

To confront people with the elephants in the room is akin to putting me in a padded soundbooth where I can not escape the fingernails on the chalkboard sound of my own broken inner-ear cells firing off. It's intolerable.

My question is, once you have forced people to constantly be aware of the elephants in the room, what do you propose they DO with this knowledge?

For instance, once you have confronted the baby-boomers with the end of all of their plans for their lives, what plans do you have to replace them? Once you have convinced them they are screwed, what then? (I guess this question is more for Repent than for you, mos)

[Rod_Cloutier]

I confronted my baby boomer mother with this summary video containing clips from several expert peak oil and climate change authors:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUmwy0VT ... BAC7EC8216

This is part of her reply to me:

Yes, we all are worried about climate change - look at the weather Nova Scotia had this year!! We can only do our part by recycling, walking when we don't need to drive, plant trees, avoid overpackaged products, help the envirnment etc. Make conscious choices to eat properly. When you shop, read labels - avoid sugar and corn syrup and salt. Buy fresh or frozen where possible. Avoid packaged, over processed foods with additives.Our bodies are meant to move and eat food from the earth - not the supermarket. Please start today

So defacto she doesn't get it, which I've found is typical of people of her generation. Make a few minor changes in lifestyle and change your diet and everything will be fine. Nope, the changes mentioned aren't even remotely sufficient for the scale of problems were facing and the looming prospect of social collapse, nor will they address the speed at which these problems are going to unfold. (Also notice the hidden assumption that we will still be driving and have supermarkets to buy food from)

[Ludi]

What changes would you like your mother to make that would be sufficient?

[Ibon]

You guys remember the heat wave in France in 2003 that resulted in 14000 heat related deaths? France like most of Europe has no air conditioning. This event happened and past and it is long forgotten.

What type of consequence do you guys feel would be sufficient to brake the spell of denial. 100,000 deaths? 500,000 deaths? Maybe a combination of heat, flooding and droughts in different regions?

1 million deaths due to a climate event represents .4% of the current human population. What real economic impact would this have?

How much will Mos scream and pull his hair out when even a million deaths don't wake us up?

If we put the death rate for an event to wake up people say at a very modest 2% of the human population we are talking about 140 million deaths.

Would that do it? Would 2% die-off really impact the status quo.

I mention this just to put into perspective that consequences that will catalyze cultural transition need to have numbers of deaths that bite.

We aint seen anything coming close to these numbers yet.

Stop being so impatient and give it a little more time

[Rod_Cloutier]

No, a small die-off would not wake people up. What it will take is a profound and lasting disruption of business as usual.

I'm thinking something like a flesh eating bacteria that is easily spread and only eats tattooed flesh. This would have a disproportionate effect on young people (the strong), and certain sectors of the economy like the military, as well as trucking and shipping where tattoos are common place and traditional.

Something that effectively shuts down the military and freight transportation would be a wakeup call that people could not ignore; but of course it would be hard to link such an event to peak oil or climate change.

(Ludi I don't expect the baby boomers to do anything! My point is that I can't minimize their suffering by warning them. Events as they unfold will be personal and agonizing to watch. There is no set of policy prescriptions to deal with social and economic collapse. It’s really tragic, seeing your elders metaphorically tied down to a set of train tracks knowing full well that soon or later a train will come by and kill them, and being powerless to untie them before the train hits.)

[Ludi]

I'm glad I don't feel as helpless about my elders. That is, I don't feel more helpless about them than I do about myself. By some measures I'm a baby-boomer and the youngest person in my immediate family. I expect when hard times roll around, my family will group together for mutual support. I'm sorry your family isn't able to do this. It's actually really shocking to me that you don't have plans to help your own mother. My father is 80, and relatively healthy for a person of his age. He jogs every day and volunteers at the dental school and the charity dental clinic. He is aware of the potential for tough times from peak oil and climate change, though we have not discussed it much. I don't think he is a "doomer," I think he thinks things will be basically ok. There's no benefit to either of us for me to tell him that times might get very tough during the last decade or so of his life (his mom lived to 102, so we expect him to be around for awhile longer). There's no benefit to either of us for me to try to wrench him from his comfortable life to do - what? So I don't know how it would be important for him to internalize the bad news. He's fighting depression enough after losing his second wife a couple years ago. Unless we have some action for people to take, I'm not sure why we should want people to be "totally aware" of the bad news, except from some kind of misery loves company feeling. So, I'm not sure why you're dismayed about people not being aware if you have no action for them to take. WHY do you want them to be aware, is what I guess I'm asking. To what purpose?

[Rod_Cloutier]

Ludi, my parents are by all accounts wealthy. They have 3 cars, a 1/3 million dollar estate that is paid off with 5 acres of land, 3 boats including a yacht, 1/3 million dollar cottage with 18 acres of mountain land, a snowmobile, a motorcycle, and no dependents living at home, other than 3 dogs and and 4 cats and 1/2 million inheritance received from their parents when they passed on.

Unfortunately that's not enough for them, they want more. They are presently planning on selling their house and moving to a larger estate in another city when their about to turn 60. I have advised them with all the problems about to come about, that selling land and buying a bigger house, (with a new mortgage), in their late 50's is not a good idea! What do they not have that they still need? How much is enough? (I'm 40 and poor with dependants by comparisome).

Yet they are following the culture meme that 'there is no such thing as enough'. Work harder to get the promotion then relocate to buy a bigger better house, a more expensive sports car, a bigger yacht! This is a destrutive cultural meme they are living out. Trying to climb an invisible social ladder that knows no top and has no limit. It can't continue.

How do I save my mother from this rat race treadmill? How do I convince her and my step-father to live modestly in preparation for a diminished future?