[scas]

Curt Stager is an ecologist, paleoclimatologist, and science journalist with a Ph.D. in biology and geology from Duke University (1985). He has published over three dozen peer- reviewed articles in major journals including Science and Quaternary Research, and has written extensively for general audiences in periodicals such as National Geographic and Adirondack Life.


Curt Stager attempts to remove the hysteria from climate change and take the long view. He describes himself as being in the middle - the environmentalist don't think he's alarmist enough. He provides a detailed look at climate and fauna during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, the ocean acidity, and explains how this would be a terrible and unethical scenario to go. He shows how the oceans could become dominated by non-carbonate soft squishy animals, and expresses pause at dumping CO2 into the deep ocean for sequestration since many slow growing corals and pH dependent organisms live in the deep canyon walls. He looks to the Eemian interglacial which was slightly warmer than our Holocene and describes the worlds landscape and all the positive and negative changes that will occur, how the Arctic and Greenland will open up, if we can limit our emission to moderate 1000 GT. In the long term, there will be obvious winners and losers. In the short term, most people will feel the transition and in a sense we will all lose. He adamantly expresses that we now exist in the Anthropocene; most people peg the date around the invention of the steam engine, and that we already exist in a climate changed world and have been so for a long time. He tries to take the fear away from rising sea levels, and mentions many coastal cities are sinking faster than the sea is rising. Nonetheless he thoroughly describes the various ways we may be underestimating ice melt. He doesn’t address higher storm surges with gradually rising seas. He thinks the people of New Orleans shouldn’t rebuild in the same place, but retreat.

He is highly critical of drought and rainfall models, since you can get any result. He says what is likely to happen is intensification of present trends. So some deserts could become greener. He points to many examples of humans thriving in deserts, and how adaptable we can be. He is highly critical of the fatalistic “we’re all gonna die soon/ religious apocalypse” since we then assume future generations won’t exist and we stop caring about our pollution in the present. He emphasizes that humans are extremely hard to exterminate in almost any disaster scenario, and our actions today will have delayed an ice age 50 000 years and possibly 130 00 years from now, so were not all bad, and it could be much worse. He describes the various orbital cycles that affected past climate change. The opening of the Arctic will in the long term be beneficial to those people and animals that move into the Arctic. Unfortunately for the cold-loving species, they find cold refuges or die.

He mentions that one prominent scientist said to him that he exaggerates in public speakings, because he says fear is the only way to get attention. He is slightly critical of alarmist messages, yet he very clearly describes an obviously unpleasant change. He thinks the most likely means of abrupt climate change is methane from shallow seas and mud flats. He does not however mention the Siberian Sea nor the recent developments. He says that David Archer believes the methane is too well insulated by sediment to release all in one go and instead will release over thousands of years. He says the clathrate-gun hypothesis is more like a squirt gun. I imagine this to mean that he sees methane ebullitions causing heat spikes over a few years, but these are periodic pulses in the steep climb to thermal peak over a few centuries. He does acknowledge that our present process of adding CO2 is steeper than the PETMs CO2 dump. He also says that superhothouse earths have existed, so the alarmists alarm is not unfounded, and expects 5-9 degrees Celcius in an extreme emissions scenario, 2-4 degrees in a moderate scenario.

He sees the ITCZ region expanding and intensifying pre-existing conditions of today, so if your location is drying, expect it to get worse. He believes some equatorial regions will be lush with the changing rainfall and be habitable to people. He is quite adamant we leave the coal in the ground, not just because it’s so damaging and valuable, but because it represents climate control insurance for future generations. He analogized burning coal for power to burning down your house because its cold, or cutting a square off the floor of your lifeboat to patch your jacket. He wants to get off carbon fuels as much for the impeding energy crisis as for climate. He wants to keep nuclear in our back pocket because of current waste disposal problems, and expects cheaper wind power, solar, algal engineering, hydrogen from microbes, and nanotech- photosynthetic paints on cars.

Overall the picture he paints is not alarmist, but one that very thoroughly describes the changes we face long term. He tells you you're in for a hell of a ride without leaving you scared. He is particular about climate change not being a killer - Earth has thrived in previous superhothouses. However, humans now occupy all space and block the paths of migrating species moving polewards. Species cannot move and it is possible entire species could evaporate just like the glaciers. He points out that we already live in an incredibly species-deficient world - forests and animals. Most people don’t realize the changes that have happened. We love the environment we are born into.

While worried about climate change, he is more concerned about the near term depletion of oil and thinks that could be far worse to the society experiencing it than climate change. In a sense, he agrees with the people on the forum - oil depletion, overpopulation, and a changing climate. They're all going to hurt us, but climate change is survivable. He believes our present condition is more a result of our human behaviour, and habit of squeezing to the boundaries of every environment, occupying every space so that any change in the climate is potentially disruptive. Over the long term he sees people moving to the polar regions until the next ice age 50 000 and 130 000 years from now when they will have to retreat if they do not have coal reserves to prevent it.

[mos6507]

"They're all going to hurt us, but climate change is survivable."

By how many breeding pairs?

Seriously, is that what "not alarmist" means now? We're killing the planet, wiping most vertebrates away in the process, but we'll somehow get through this even if we crash down to Georgia Guidestones levels and huddle around the arctic circle? That's how low the bar is for us to shoot for?

Sometimes the situation is inherently alarming and we should drop the pretense that we shouldn't be alarmed.

[eXpat]

Earth will survive all right, is just most animals -mammal life, birds, fish - (including humankind of course) that will be wiped out. If you are a rock, that is good news I suppose.
Climate change is not this:

Is this for several millions years in the future as a final result:

We may share around 100 or 200 of those next 100 000 years. That´s the only thing still under discussion, since there are several models and there´s more data everyday. Here is just one of those models
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/earth-may-be-too-hot-for-humans-by-2300-study-1970969.html

[vision-master]

[Pretorian]

We may share around 100 or 200 of those next 100 000 years. That´s the only thing still under discussion, since there are several models and there´s more data everyday. Here is just one of those models
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/earth-may-be-too-hot-for-humans-by-2300-study-1970969.html

What exactly is a temperature that cannot be tolerated by human species?

[eXpat]

We may share around 100 or 200 of those next 100 000 years. That´s the only thing still under discussion, since there are several models and there´s more data everyday. Here is just one of those models
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/earth-may-be-too-hot-for-humans-by-2300-study-1970969.html

What exactly is a temperature that cannot be tolerated by human species?

This is what just a 6 C degrees rise can do:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/world-on-course-for-catastrophic-6deg-rise-reveal-scientists-1822396.html
is just not a matter that it gets hotter, with the rise of temperature, there´s a destruction of all ecosystems that support human life and changes in the atmosphere as well. Is a process of terraforming the planet.

[Pretorian]

We may share around 100 or 200 of those next 100 000 years. That´s the only thing still under discussion, since there are several models and there´s more data everyday. Here is just one of those models
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/earth-may-be-too-hot-for-humans-by-2300-study-1970969.html

What exactly is a temperature that cannot be tolerated by human species?

This is what just a 6 C degrees rise can do:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/world-on-course-for-catastrophic-6deg-rise-reveal-scientists-1822396.html
is just not a matter that it gets hotter, with the rise of temperature, there´s a destruction of all ecosystems that support human life and changes in the atmosphere as well. Is a process of terraforming the planet.

Are you saying that within a last 100 mln years there were conditions at which human life was impossible? 4-500 individuals is all it takes for a specie to exist indefinitely. Even 200 perhaps, with use of eugenics.

[eXpat]

Are you saying that within a last 100 mln years there were conditions at which human life was impossible? 4-500 individuals is all it takes for a specie to exist indefinitely. Even 200 perhaps, with use of eugenics.

I think that the numbers you mention are probably right, I think human as a race, can survive with a minimum number of 200/500 (from 7 billions!), Amazonian tribes living in isolation come to mind as an example, but they need an ecological niche to sustain themselves and humans can live within a certain range of temperatures and atmospheric conditions, all that is to change in a process of runaway climate change.
BTW, it has been calculated that back when humans numbered 18500, they were an endangered species.
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/03/when-was-earths-human-population-18500.html