[ralfy]

I think Ibon has simply achieved the last stage of the grief cycle, he has accepted that nothing he can do will change the fate of the human race. At this point from everything he posts here his concern is preserving as much of the natural world as possible for after the coming bottleneck.

I think part of his ability to pass into acceptance easier is the fact that he lives in a low population location bordering on a national park. It is a lot easier in that spot to focus on the rest of nature and tune out the coming pangs the human race will experience in all those locations where the carrying capacity has been greatly exceeded. India, China, New York City, Los Angeles, Mexico City...in all these places the population far exceeds what the local environment can feed today, let alone in a disrupted world where crop failures are common. People living in a small town in the mountains of Kentucky, or in a place like Port Edward, British Columbia are at or below the carrying capacity of where they currently live. Baring a disaster like the dinosaur killer meteor they have a better than even chance of surviving the bottleneck. People in any city over about 20,000 people will have a much harder time, and the bigger the city is the harder it will be.

To get back towards the topic of the thread, if it is soon too hot for people to labor outdoors during the peak heat of the day hours then people will stop doing that. What really matters is how well the crops in those regions survive. I think it was Ibon who mentioned the Siesta option, where people take it very easy during the peak heat of the day, and Kaiser mentioned constructing basements or root cellar type shelters where people can retreat during the peak heat hours to cool off.

For crop production, well if you look at any of the big farms you will see that most modern agribusiness uses climate controlled equipment. the operator sits in an air conditioned and/or heated cab with all the lights needed to operate the equipment 24/7 if necessary. It would be inconvenient to be a poor manual labor farmer in some third world country if heat days get too intense, but if you stop and think for a minute you will realize that crops can be tended and harvested in the cool of the dawn and evening, they don't have to be tended and harvested at noon. If you have modern technology available you can even do all the needed work during the dark hours of the night and sleep during the day. That is not my preferred lifestyle, but humans are VERY adaptable creatures.

Failing all of that even if everyone between say 45 North and 45 South latitude were to die of heat stroke today there are millions of people who live further north or south of those latitudes. Maybe that will be the so called bottleneck that eliminated 6/7ths of the humans living today, but I seriously doubt it. People in addition to being extremely adaptable are also highly mobile. Even an elderly person with a walker can travel a mile a day, and healthy people can walk 20-30 miles a day. Trains and cars speed up refugee flow, but walking is just as effective. You think the USA/Mexico border is porous now, if heat waves start killing millions of people in Mexico that trickle will turn into a flood overnight. How many countries are ready to place large width mine fields, razor wire and automated gun emplacements on their borders to kill the refugees? So far, none of them.

My understanding is that for him the "fate" of the human race will be one involving some universal and lasting "cultural change." The counter argument is that there will be none.

[ralfy]

In particular, I don't know on what basis you can assert that humans will suffer more than any other part of the eco-system.

First, thanks all for the comments and what Ritter and Dohboi mentioned about appreciating the space to be able to directly discuss these most complicated and challenging issues.

The above comment you address lies at the very center of the new orientation and must be better understood and I will therefore expand on this.

When any species is in overshoot and approaches collapse it becomes the most vulnerable component in the eco system, this is not true for just humans. It is an ecological reality. As an example. When moose or deer or lemmings experience a popualtion explosion and go into overshoot they severely deplete their preferred forage and then mill through lesser forage virtually stripping the under story of forests. At the peak of overshoot one looks at the forest under story and sees all the damage the moose have done and all the plant species under stress. It looks like these plant species are the ones endangered not the thousands of moose in overshoot. This is where we are now with human overshoot. We are focussing on all the natural ecosystems that we have put under stress and see them all as vulnerable. It can't possibly be the 8 billion humans, so abundant, are vulnerable after all the damage and hubris we have caused. But we get this narrative all wrong. The minute consequences start correcting human overshoot, from that moment native ecosystems start to heal. The minute the moose population collapses the forest starts to regenerate. Within 10 years the forest under story is once again lush. As a first step in explaining this new orientation you have to recognize that a species in overshoot standing before a collapse is the most vulnerable component in the ecosystem. Always has been. Always will be.

Let's move on to something we have discussed before and it needs to be repeated. Our food crops, especially since the yield gains with GMO crops, have now been reduced to a few key grains and within those grains to a dangerously small genetic variation. Very little resiliency. Very little redundancies. Alternatives that cannot be scaled when needing to feed 8 billion as anyone who has honestly looked at permaculture for example well understands. Human landscapes dedicated to food production are vast monocultures and very vulnerable to disease and external stresses. With global warming there are no reserve sinks when you have a population in overshoot. There are no additional fertile untapped lands to put under cultivation. This is a key component of where human ecosystems are far more vulnerable the native eco systems. In native ecosystems squirrels will move over to acorns if the pine nut harvest collapses. Bears will get more protein from blueberries if the salmon run is lean. In native ecosystems the food sources and relative abundance or scarcity of all the players means that external environmental changes in food sources means there will be winners and losers. In human landscapes there is only one player, one winner in times of abundance and only one loser in times of consequences. Get it?

Natural ecosystems have huge biodiversity, if acidity goes up in the ocean, there are shifts in populations of organisms that have higher or lower tolerances. Same with salinity. Same with terrestrial environments regarding temperature. The relative scarcity or abundance of species in any given habitat is determined by the shifting environmental conditions. Native ecosystems therefore have greater resiliency for this reason. Now let’s look at the shelters, the specific living arrangements of humans. The majority of the human population lives in coastal areas and the sheer massive scale of reconstruction required to relocate folks to higher ground with sea level rise puts alot more stress on human landscapes than on native coastal habitat. Salt intrusion means that salt tolerant mangroves move inland, fresh water plants recede. But the habitat shifts in relative abundance of species that adapt to these changes. Compare this to human habitat were we will see coastal ruins around the globe.

I could go on and on regarding this topic. The consequences are the solution going forward and they will disproportionately target humans and their habitats more than native eco systems. This does not mean that native ecosystems will be spared, that coral bleaching will not expand, etc, etc, we will not avoid a continued massive increase in the rates of extinction. That will continue to be true but the treasure chest of biodiversity on this planet will remain diverse and will adapt with a resiliency far greater than the far more fragile human landscape. Remember the key word here is disproportionately. Human landscapes will suffer more the consequences than native habitats.
I don’t have these views because I live next to a pristine national park. I have these views from observing damaged and degraded habitat and how quickly it regenerates when human impact is removed. I have witnessed this here in Panama with how fast forests regenerate on former pastureland. I saw this in South Florida on how the quickly sawgrass habitat returned when drainage canals were refilled.

I think global warming has a lot of you guys spooked. Human induced climate change will last thousands of years and yes droughts may get worse, storms maybe stronger, sea level rise will be in the meters, but these scenarios of cascading collapse of entire bio-regions and biotopes and marine environments is not a given. It is not yet known as there are too many factors.

I am sympathetic with the view that we need to focus on the short term since as the future extends outward we cannot really predict accurately.

I think Lore is right, I am more of a doomer than many of you as I no longer am in invested in educating humanity. I accept deeply that external consequences are now what is driving humanities trajectory going forward. And that these very external consequences will lay the ground work for real change being embraced eventually and establishing a new status quo. I mostly agree also with Tanada's assessment of where I am in accepting the inevitable.

Global warming that "will last thousands of years" involving worsening droughts, storms, etc., plus sea level rise, is the definition of "cascading collapse."

[ralfy]

"I think "embracing consequences" isn't a solution but what happens when there are no solutions." It is all about perspective. From the perspective of humans, yes we do not wish to confront consequences because these consequences equate to something from the 4 horseman of the apocalypse; death, plague, famine and war. On the other hand from the perspective of the natural ecosystems, our demise is beneficial because it halts the assault on them.

I think most don't want to "confront consequences" because they can't imagine that things will get worse, or they believe that the future will not be as bad as "doomers" argue.

[kiwichick]

brought up the subject within the context of a very warm autumn with a friend recently and the response was "that global warming is all bullshit "

people are still keen to buy coastal and riverside property

that's fine by me , we are buying inland , at least 30 metres above current sea level

[Ibon]

Global warming that "will last thousands of years" involving worsening droughts, storms, etc., plus sea level rise, is the definition of "cascading collapse."

In your head it is. Not in mine. The truth? In a field of beautiful dreams.....

This paragraph I wrote needs repeating. We see the damage we have wrought and so dreadfully misinterpret our vulnerability. Our planet is not in peril. We are.

When any species is in overshoot and approaches collapse it becomes the most vulnerable component in the eco system, this is not true for just humans. It is an ecological reality. As an example. When moose or deer or lemmings experience a popualtion explosion and go into overshoot they severely deplete their preferred forage and then mill through lesser forage virtually stripping the under story of forests. At the peak of overshoot one looks at the forest under story and sees all the damage the moose have done and all the plant species under stress. It looks like these plant species are the ones endangered not the thousands of moose in overshoot. This is where we are now with human overshoot. We are focussing on all the natural ecosystems that we have put under stress and see them all as vulnerable. It can't possibly be the 8 billion humans, so abundant, are vulnerable after all the damage and hubris we have caused. But we get this narrative all wrong. The minute consequences start correcting human overshoot, from that moment native ecosystems start to heal. The minute the moose population collapses the forest starts to regenerate. Within 10 years the forest under story is once again lush. As a first step in explaining this new orientation you have to recognize that a species in overshoot standing before a collapse is the most vulnerable component in the ecosystem. Always has been. Always will be.

[dohboi]

"The minute consequences start correcting human overshoot, from that moment native ecosystems start to heal."

Can we agree, at least, that this is one place that we disagree?

We have already launched the earth into a mass extinction event, first from our various direct disruptions and predations. If these were the only sources of extinction of other species, I might be convinced that your statement above was at least a possibility.

But now we have also launched the earth into a massive and very rapid GW event, of a kind much faster then earlier GW events that sparked earlier mass extinctions all by themselves, with no humans present--including the "Great Dying," the P-Tr extinction where some 90% of aquatic and 70% of terrestrial life was wiped out.

And carbon feedbacks have already kicked in strongly enough that CO2 levels will remain high, even if we immediately stopped all further GHG emissions, for at least centuries, and probably much, much longer (as MacDougall et alia showed already in 2013 http://www.skepticalscience.com/Macdougall.html ).

I'm wondering which part of that you deny or misunderstand or have counter-evidence for.

[dohboi]

We're going to start seeing and hearing about more and more events like this in more and more places:

...temperatures have been just as extreme...in Gujarat where conditions are so bad that bats are falling lifeless from the trees in the sizzling heat.

http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/05/2 ... AykPWVe.99

(Thanks to mbs for this linkie)

[Ibon]

I'm wondering which part of that you deny or misunderstand or have counter-evidence for.

I do not have any evidence that counters the dire warnings of climate change scientists regarding the threat of cascading tipping points. I take each of those as serious possibilities. Nobody here though can claim to know the way these changes will unfold, either debilitating to the point of extinction of debilitating to the point that they force us to adapt. In very simple terms these are the two possibilities.

Which option you go for speaks volumes for your world view. The problem is that we confuse any optimism as cornucopian denial. This is what Cid claims. This keeps his certainty of extinction hermetically sealed in circular logic as closed as any evangelical christians in regards to the question if god exists. For Cid extinction is therefore a certainty.

I am equally enclosed in a hermetically sealed belief that extinction is not an option and I will always interpret the data through this lens.

What is objective reality?

[Cid_Yama]

I am equally enclosed in a hermetically sealed belief that extinction is not an option and I will always interpret the data through this lens.

What is objective reality?

Comparing physical laws to beliefs is a false equivalency. Physical laws are unchanging whether you believe or not. Try not believing in Gravity and see how far you get.

Physical laws govern reality. The reality I live in. It is not a matter of belief. 2 plus 2 always equals 4, whether that's convenient or not, whether that aligns with your wishes or not.

Internal temperatures above a given point initiate cell death, whether you like it or not, whether you believe it or not.

Outside their climatic range of temperature and precipitation, crops fail. Above a certain temperature evaporation eliminates surface water.

These are not amenable to your will.

THAT is objective reality.

[Tanada]

Cid you are conveniently ignoring a couple of physical laws. For example the stone age tribes that lived in the Andes, Rockies, Tibet, Urals and Alps all lived very well in high mountain environments where the air pressure lowers the ambient temperature 3C per thousand meters. then there is all of Antarctica and much of Siberia/Alaska/Canada/Scandinavia where even under the 6C climate disaster the summer temperatures will still be quite tolerable for human beings.

Just because these facts do not fit your extinction meme does not make them invalid.

[AgentR11]

Personally, I think both of yalls' approaches is a bit divorced from reality. Extinction is neither guaranteed, nor "not an option" in the near term. Of course, in the long term all complex species go extinct either through evolving to a new species or disappearing at the end of a line.

There are, unfortunately, several pathways forward that result in the near term extinction of humans as the end of the hominid line; some quite quick ones too; while others simply result in a die-back and end to industrial civilization. While none of these pathways is guaranteed; it is also likely true that we no longer will have much to say about which pathway eventually plays out.

Thus my approach is simply to "contest the day"; as it comes, I will strive to survive and do what I am able to enhanced the odds of my child to survive. Not in a bold, grandiose act, but in each, very small, nearly insignificant act as I live. If I fail, I will die without regret, having put it all on the table, holding nothing back.

My hunch is one of the die-back pathways will occur, with human range largely reduced to subarctic and arctic zones; grains may still grow quite well north of Lat 50; so the population could even be a few million. A very respectable number for a medium weight predator.

[ennui2]

then there is all of Antarctica and much of Siberia/Alaska/Canada/Scandinavia where even under the 6C climate disaster the summer temperatures will still be quite tolerable for human beings.

But as you move further north, agriculture becomes harder to do because of the longer stretches of darkness. Then you need to rely more and more on hunting which only works with very low population density. So if everyone crowds the poles, it would be very very messy (long-pork being the main foodsource).

[Tanada]

then there is all of Antarctica and much of Siberia/Alaska/Canada/Scandinavia where even under the 6C climate disaster the summer temperatures will still be quite tolerable for human beings.

But as you move further north, agriculture becomes harder to do because of the longer stretches of darkness. Then you need to rely more and more on hunting which only works with very low population density. So if everyone crowds the poles, it would be very very messy (long-pork being the main foodsource).

Incorrect, the poles get the same amount of sunlight over 365 days as does the equator. The controlling factor is the number of frost free hours of sunlight during which plants can grow and mature to a state of reproductive capability. Barley can be grown in all the northern areas mentioned up to about 65 degrees north TODAY, let alone in the years after the climate warms. Take a look at pictures from the Alaska state fair some time, they grow massive cabbages and lettuce TODAY in Fairbanks.

[dohboi]

Man does not live on cabbage alone!

Back to the wbt death thing--the Indian situation is getting a bit of press: They talked about it on NPR today, and here are a couple articles that just popped up on fb: http://www.democracynow.org/2016/5/20/h ... re_records

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 39841.html

[dohboi]

It also got the front page photo in the NYT yesterday. But no context or front page article.

[Newfie]

Personally, I think both of yalls' approaches is a bit divorced from reality. Extinction is neither guaranteed, nor "not an option" in the near term. Of course, in the long term all complex species go extinct either through evolving to a new species or disappearing at the end of a line.

There are, unfortunately, several pathways forward that result in the near term extinction of humans as the end of the hominid line; some quite quick ones too; while others simply result in a die-back and end to industrial civilization. While none of these pathways is guaranteed; it is also likely true that we no longer will have much to say about which pathway eventually plays out.

Thus my approach is simply to "contest the day"; as it comes, I will strive to survive and do what I am able to enhanced the odds of my child to survive. Not in a bold, grandiose act, but in each, very small, nearly insignificant act as I live. If I fail, I will die without regret, having put it all on the table, holding nothing back.

My hunch is one of the die-back pathways will occur, with human range largely reduced to subarctic and arctic zones; grains may still grow quite well north of Lat 50; so the population could even be a few million. A very respectable number for a medium weight predator.

I fell this is quite close to my own thinking on the matter.

[kiwichick]

+ 1 agent and newfie....am hoping the south island .....and maybe the north island.....of new Zealand will be ok

I suspect most of Australia will be dodgy......esp the inland areas.....Tasmania might be ok

and apart from that there is really only south America .....and of course Antarctica

so if you live in the northern hemisphere ...... stay there!

[Shaved Monkey]

Its pretty hot and humid in Thailand in the wet season and thats why its a pretty nocturnal place.
Lots of the buildings just have no walls and high ceilings and fans.
People adapt pretty well

[Ibon]

Personally, I think both of yalls' approaches is a bit divorced from reality. Extinction is neither guaranteed, nor "not an option" in the near term. Of course, in the long term all complex species go extinct either through evolving to a new species or disappearing at the end of a line.

There are, unfortunately, several pathways forward that result in the near term extinction of humans as the end of the hominid line; some quite quick ones too; while others simply result in a die-back and end to industrial civilization. While none of these pathways is guaranteed; it is also likely true that we no longer will have much to say about which pathway eventually plays out.

Thus my approach is simply to "contest the day"; as it comes, I will strive to survive and do what I am able to enhanced the odds of my child to survive. Not in a bold, grandiose act, but in each, very small, nearly insignificant act as I live. If I fail, I will die without regret, having put it all on the table, holding nothing back.

My hunch is one of the die-back pathways will occur, with human range largely reduced to subarctic and arctic zones; grains may still grow quite well north of Lat 50; so the population could even be a few million. A very respectable number for a medium weight predator.

Like Newfie I mostly agree. Something to clarify. When I say that my world view sees extinction as not an option this is in reference to taking this position. This is not an option in the role I have in being a mentor and a parent. Extinction is throwing in the towel and even more so when you frame it as a certainty. Bad from a science point of view and defeatist in the deepest sense of the word. I also cannot imagine how you could make yourself more irrelevant to young emerging generations then to go around claiming extinction as a certainty

From a young persons perspective one might hear " Your generation enjoyed abundance and stability and all the benefits as you contributed to climate change and now on top of it you simply wash your hands and want to tell me and my generation that it is a certainty that we will go extinct ...Well sir, go fxxk yourself"

This would be a clear reaction from an emerging generation to this certainty of extinction and for this reason this position for me is not an option.

Otherwise yes extinction is one of the options of what might transpire.

[SeaGypsy]

1000 meters altitude gives 3 degrees cooling. There area quite a few ranges above these heights in the equatorial band, & the suggestion grains are the only efficient enough method of calorie production shows zero awareness of tropical agriculture. I get tired of the dash for absolutes rampant in these conversations.