Systemic Collapse: The Basics

[littlebabyjesus]

Apparently not. OK - let me put it another way. I'm going to stop arguing about it.

That is of course your prerogative. But you leave in the air a statement about future drought conditions that would appear to me to be totally unjustified. And here we have one of those uncertain worst-case scenarios that you add into your mix to reach your conclusions.

 

[Falcon]

But you leave in the air a statement about future drought conditions that would appear to me to be totally unjustified. And here we have one of those uncertain worst-case scenarios that you add into your mix to reach your conclusions.

A point you would be rather better taking up with the climate change experts, who appear to think, not only is it justified, but it probably understates the gravity of the situation. Worst case for them is mobilisation of methane currently locked up in tundra and seabed clathrates, rendering the surface uninhabitable in many parts. In which case your little agriculture experiments are a little moot.

All I'm suggesting is that your studies don't fully acknowledge or reflect recent improvements in our understanding of climate science - I'm not sure why you find that so objectionable. You seem peculiarly tolerant of uncertainty in your supporting data, and peculiarly intolerant of uncertainty in opposing data. I've been forced to conclude that there is no number of times that I can restate my view that this is not about certainty, but what the precautionary principle requires our rational behaviour to be in the absence of certainty. I presume it is just too inconvenient to your grim faced determination to score some kind of point.

Nor am I entirely sure where Urban75 denizens suddenly became apologists for oil/aviation/coal coalition climate change denial. The effect is quite disconcerting.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The possibilities of methane release are indeed a scary possible positive feedback of climate change. I acknowledged that earlier.

 

[free spirit]

Nor am I entirely sure where Urban75 denizens suddenly became apologists for oil/aviation/coal coalition climate change denial. The effect is quite disconcerting.

here's a wee clue.

10 years ago you'd have been arguing against me from a different position, but my position would not have changed significantly in the meantime.

I understood climate change, peak oil, sustainable developemt and multiple other issue 15 years ago as I'd spent 3 year being taught about them by experts in the field.

I'm almost certain that back then you'd have been arguing a significantly different position to the one you're currently arguing.

When you find the likes of me and LBJ arguing against you from the opposite perspective, it'd be a fair indication that you've gone seriously wrong in the intervening period.

You once told me that the reason that BP managed to fuck of solarex was their / your inexperience in the field, rather than any actual conspiracies to deliberately fuck it up. You stated that you basically didn't know what you were doing when you took it over. I'd put it to you that the same applies here.

 

[Falcon]

10 years ago you'd have been arguing against me from a different position, but my position would not have changed significantly in the meantime.

Compare with:

The pace of global warming is likely to be much faster than recent predictions, because industrial greenhouse gas emissions have increased more quickly than expected and higher temperatures are triggering self-reinforcing feedback mechanisms in global ecosystems, scientists said Saturday.

"We are basically looking now at a future climate that's beyond anything we've considered seriously in climate model simulations," Christopher Field, founding director of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University, said at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

-- "Scientists: Pace of Climate Change Exceeds Estimates", Washington Post, 15.02.2009 (ref)

So the reason you are so tolerant of the uncertainty in your evidence and intolerant of the uncertainty in contradicting evidence, is because you haven't significantly changed the views you formed 10 years ago about climate science despite significant changes in our understanding of climate science, and the rapid acceleration of climate change?

Meanwhile, the fact that I have been persuaded by the climate change argument is evidence, according to you, that I have gone "seriously wrong"?

OK.

 

[Dr Jon]

Readers of Private Eye may appreciate this:

Lookalike

Salmonella Typhimurium

Homo Sapiens

 

[free spirit]

Compare with:


So the reason you are so tolerant of the uncertainty in your evidence and intolerant of the uncertainty in contradicting evidence, is because you haven't significantly changed the views you formed 10 years ago about climate science despite significant changes in our understanding of climate science, and the rapid acceleration of climate change?

You're assuming my understanding of the situation 10 years ago was in tune with the scientist in that article. From the sounds of that article, it wasn't.

10 years ago, I was pointing out the flaws in the IPCC understanding of eg the ice melt process, the role of the feed back mechanisms, permafrost melting etc etc. and predicting CO2 rises in excess of the IPCC ranges if the US didn't join the Kyoto process.

All that I can see in that article is that over the last 10 years we've had further confirmation that pretty much everything we were discussing on here 10 years ago has been confirmed to be happening.

It was obvious to anyone that emissions were going to continue rising faster than IPCC predictions, as soon as the US refused to participate in the Kyoto process in the 90s, then elected Bush and re-elected him, so the fact current emissions rates are higher than any of the earlier IPCC predictions ranges aren't really a surprise to me.

Meanwhile, the fact that I have been persuaded by the climate change argument is evidence, according to you, that I have gone "seriously wrong"?

when you've got yourself into a position where you're somehow equating LBJ's position to that of a climate sceptic, I'd suggest that you might want to consider the possibility that your position itself is right on the extreme end of the climate alarmist spectrum, rather than being a mainstream interpretation of the science.

The drought issue being a case in point, in that you're only raising one aspect of the predictions, and not clarifying that these predictions only apply to certain areas of the world, rather than the entire planet, with other areas experiencing increased rainfall etc. So yes there will be a serious impact, but no it's not likely to be of major droughts across the entire world (as people will take from your posts if you don't put any caveats in them to clarify the situation).

In case you think I'm bullshitting about my position on this subject 10 years ago, here are a couple of examples, and I'm sure you can find numerous others if you're interested enough.

2002

You also fail to take into account potential feedback mechanisms such as the ice caps melting resulting in less heat being reflected / more heat being absorbed, melting permafrost emitting large amounts of trapped methane and Co2... Once these effects start kicking in it is too late for us to simply reduce our emmissions, the global climate will be rebalancing itself, finding it's new dynamic equilibrium and we may not like it.

2005

time to wake up and smell the coffee people, it's becoming increasingly obvious that this is no longer a theoretical discussion, the planet is warming, multiple positive feedback mechanisms are kicking in, and there's precious little sign of any negative feedback mechanisms happening. This has to mean that the likelihood of warming hitting the higher end of predictions has increased dramatically since the last ippc report in 2001.

 

[Dr Jon]

In summary:

Man vs. Gaia

 

[love detective]

prick

 

[Crispy]

Get laid or something. Life is worth living you know?

 

[Falcon]

You also fail to take into account potential feedback mechanisms such as the ice caps melting resulting in less heat being reflected / more heat being absorbed, melting permafrost emitting large amounts of trapped methane and Co2... Once these effects start kicking in it is too late for us to simply reduce our emmissions (sic), the global climate will be rebalancing itself, finding it's (sic) new dynamic equilibrium and we may not like it.

The possibilities of methane release are indeed a scary possible positive feedback of climate change. I acknowledged that earlier.

Free Spirit - You have presented estimates of food yields that have been achieved in a number of isolated experiment. They are interesting, but even if the climate conditions under which the trials had been conducted had been representative of the climate conditions under which the global agriculture system will be required to perform in future, the task of scaling those experiments up to global levels in a neoliberal financial capitalist global political economy under conditions of a rising and industrialising population, energy depletion induced economic and financial instability, and an environment which has already been severely degraded by the industrial agricultural system, would be deeply problematic. I don't detect you taking any account of those issues.

Worse, the climate conditions of your trials are unrepresentative of future climate conditions. Most particularly, drought is the single largest risk factor in the sustainability of your trials, yet prolonged, widespread, severe drought in many of the current high population density, high food yield zones is a clearly predicted outcome in mainstream climate change scientist forecasts. Changes in a broad set of other climate and environment factors (e.g. flooding, wind, pest, disease) further reduce gains which may be expected from your trials. I don't detect you taking any account of any of those issues, either.

And mainstream climate change scientific consensus is simultaneously lowering its estimate of the atmospheric carbon concentration threshold of climate destabilisation (from 450ppm to 350ppm), while strengthening its fear that the concentration we are on track to achieve is above the threshold at which positive feedback induced thermal runaways will be induced. Rather than merely impacting the gains to be expected from your trials, the latter entails the possibility of species extinction. You and others, while disagreeing with the scientific community on the severity of the outcome, agree that this is a significant possibility and, indeed, you accuse others of failing to take it into account, while opportunistically rejecting it as "alarmist" in your own arguments here.

Yet you have chosen (unwisely, in my view) to pursue a deeply antagonistic argument predicated exclusively on the simultaneous denial of uncertainty about your assumption about the scalability and durability of your crop trials, and an assertion of uncertainty in climate change science based evidence that challenges their gains. In order to preserve the integrity of your argument, your argument has been forced to assume the core apparatus of climate change denial in emphasising the uncertainty of climate change science, while implicitly labelling the core institutions of climate change science (such as NOAA) as climate alarmists. Any "victory" for you in this argument would be pyrrhic.

Most centrally, you have chosen (and continue to choose) to ignore my central point: this is not about certainty, but about what our actions should be in the absence of certainty. I expect that, in whatever response you concoct now, you will ignore it again.

OK.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Readers of Private Eye may appreciate this:

Lookalike

Salmonella Typhimurium

Homo Sapiens

In summary:

Man vs. Gaia

For fuck's sake. You really, really hate people don't you?

 

[Idris2002]

For fuck's sake. You really, really hate people don't you?

You know what? Fuck this guy.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

You know what? Fuck this guy.

It would be a public service if somebody did, I think.

 

[elbows]

Recently got done watching the Lord of the Rings films. Denethor, far more negatively portrayed than in the novel, reminds me of this thread and one or two of its contributors.

 

[Falcon]

Recently got done watching the Lord of the Rings films. Denethor, far more negatively portrayed than in the novel, reminds me of this thread and one or two of its contributors.

Literary ad hominem. Exquisitely refined.

 

[Crispy]

Literary ad hominem. Exquisitely refined.

tbf, it's only ad hominem if he's saying "Your argument is false, because you're a grumpy bastard".
If all he's saying is "You're a grumpy bastard", then it's just an insult. Or an observation, if you really are a grumpy bastard

 

[Falcon]

I'd suggest that you might want to consider the possibility that your position itself is right on the extreme end of the climate alarmist spectrum, rather than being a mainstream interpretation of the science.

More alarmism from that extremist institution, the International Energy Agency:

On current form, she warns, the world is on track for warming of 6C by the end of the century – a level that would create catastrophe, wiping out agriculture in many areas and rendering swathes of the globe uninhabitable, as well as raising sea levels and causing mass migration, according to scientists...

the IEA, widely regarded as the gold standard for energy research...

-- "Governments failing to avert catastrophic climate change, IEA warns", Guardian 25 April 2012 (ref)

 

[BigTom]

More alarmism from that extremist institution, the International Energy Agency:

Those aren't direct quotes from the IEA though are they, that's what the journalist is saying the research says, which may or may not be representative of what they mean. Not that what is quoted in the article sounds good or anything, but really would need to quantify what "many" and "swathes" actually mean before assuming the journalist/PR person has understood the research well enough to present it properly.

 

[Falcon]

Those aren't direct quotes from the IEA though are they, that's what the journalist is saying the research says

No. It's what Maria van der Hoeven, executive director of the International Energy Agency, said.

 

[BigTom]

No. It's what Maria van der Hoeven, executive director of the International Energy Agency, said.

It's not in quotation marks.

 

[Falcon]

It's not in quotation marks.

The IEA press release dated 25 April 2012 states that, under current policies, energy related CO2 emissions "will likely send global temperatures at least 6 degrees higher". Earlier in the thread, this was considered to be an alarmist view and evidence of an extreme position.

 

[BigTom]

The IEA press release dated 25 April 2012 states that, under current policies, energy related CO2 emissions "will likely send global temperatures at least 6 degrees higher". Earlier in the thread, this was considered to be an alarmist view and evidence of an extreme position.

Oh, ok if that's what is important, that's not what I'm questioning - I want to know what "many areas" and "swathes of the globe" means in more precise terms, and whether the journalist (or PR person who wrote the press release) was right to use those words for what the IEA research is saying.
I doubt I'd understand the research well enough to know, but I also doubt the journalist will.

 

[panpete]

Just spotted An Invitation To Anarchy by the same author, who notes that:

It is tragic that the issue of population - the root cause of peak everything - has been deliberately avoided by governments, who have left this problem to the whims of unregulated corporate smash-n-grab, aka "the free market". After all, more people = more punters in the casino of crapitalism.

The so-called "tin-foil hat brigade" say Reptiles rule the world. Personally, I don't believe it. The tin foil hat brigade also believe in a de-population conspiracy.
I can see their reasoning behind it (less people=quicker to enslave), but I still remain to be convinced, if anything, I believe overpopulation is not an accident.

The above post seems a really good reason for this conspiracy.

 

[panpete]

I'm not going rouge. I'll stick with my sensible foundation and neutral lipstick.

I had to look up the meaning of going rouge on google and it suggested 'going rogue' instead, which aptly describes how I see the future of the US sadly.

 

[panpete]

A good summary of that which we face.
Goodchild, peter. Systemic Collapse: The Basics. Countercurrents.org 2009

like

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

I had to look up the meaning of going rouge on google and it suggested 'going rogue' instead, which aptly describes how I see the future of the US sadly.

You know its sad when Sarah Palin's book title describes how fucked everything is right now.

 

[Dr Jon]

For fuck's sake. You really, really hate people don't you?

No. I find it offensive that you assume that I do. I was merely demonstrating our predicament.

What I do "hate" is suffering and misery. The extent and magnitude of these we see in the world today is an obscenity - one that our species has consistently been unwilling to avoid - and I fear we ain't seen nothing yet.


People have been warning of this since before the first oil crisis with the publication of Silent Spring, The Population Bomb and Limits to Growth.

Our response? - double the number of people on the planet, dramatically increase consumption of oil and finite resources, trash more of the natural environment and drive around in SUVs.

Pretty smart species eh?

 

[free spirit]

The IEA press release dated 25 April 2012 states that, under current policies, energy related CO2 emissions "will likely send global temperatures at least 6 degrees higher". Earlier in the thread, this was considered to be an alarmist view and evidence of an extreme position.

sorry, but that is entirely misrepresenting the thread and your contributions to it, which bare little comparison to the IEA quotes in that press release.

let's play a game of spot the difference

She said: "The current state of affairs is unacceptable precisely because we have a responsibility and a golden opportunity to act. Energy-related CO2 emissions are at historic highs, and under current policies, we estimate that energy use and CO2 emissions would increase by a third by 2020, and almost double by 2050. This would be likely to send global temperatures at least 6C higher within this century."

To meet the carbon cuts that scientists calculate are needed by 2020, the IEA says, the world needs to generate 28% of its electricity from renewable sources and 47% by 2035. Yet renewables now make up just 16% of global electricity supply.

vs

We are already on course for irreversible climate change in five years at the current rate of capital investment in coal fired electricity generation (ref).

I detect the climate scientists really starting to shit themselves over the dozens of positive feedback systems we have identified so far that more or less ensure we will engage thermal runaway and hit 6 degrees, which is a species extinction risk.

But now we have to switch 80% of it off fairly soon,

 

[free spirit]

I don't have a problem with the idea that a doubling of CO2 emissions by 2050 could very likely lead to a warming of 6 degrees*, and certainly not with the idea that we should be investing much more heavily in renewables and energy efficiency in order to prevent this / seriously reduce the impact of climate change.

That's pretty much been my position throughout this thread and every other thread on the subject.

It's a very different position though to saying that we're only 5 years from irreversible climate change, and we must leave 80% of all fossil fuels in the ground and therefore won't have the energy available to invest in new renewables, and anyway that would be pointless because renewables somehow have a negative EROI, and we're just going to have to accept a reduction in global population to 2 billion as being inevitable. Which after several years discussing this with you would seem to sum up your position on the subject.


(*minor quibbles about the timescale on it, I'd expect greater thermal inertia than that, but in principle, yeah if we continue to increase the rate of greenhouse gas emissions through to 2050 at that sort of rate, then the resulting warming is likely to be far higher than we / future generations can really cope with).