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Articles : EnvironmentClimate, Culture, and Collapse: Responding to Rapid Change
Introduction
Recent and emerging observations of the severity of human-induced climate change have led to a feverish burst of publications imploring radical and immediate action. Many of the world’s most eminent scientists are now joining NGOs in calling for drastic halts in greenhouse gas emissions and societal changes on an unprecedented and global scale. The Climate Code Red Call for a Sustainability Emergency, for instance, likens our current position to that of the astronauts in the Apollo 13 crisis: a desperate time-crunch necessitating quick thinking, rapid response, and radical action.
However, the magnitude of the climate issue is profound and the mainstream has not responded to the scale of the threat. We are at the cusp of a global crisis that is still only perceived by relatively few individuals and groups. The voices of these authorities – our leading global change scientists and organizations – are often muffled, suppressed, or diminished by the influence of media and mass culture.
Opposition to creating sustainable change appears overwhelming: an increasingly interconnected global culture enamored with unlimited propagation and increasing energy consumption. In the following series of articles we will begin to unravel the details of our most pressing and up-to-date environmental sciences, pair this with social and cultural trends, and discuss solutions. We begin with an analysis of the world’s leading climate authority: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as well as discussing some of the emerging observations of global change and continue by placing climate change within the larger frame of overall environmental/resource shortages and implications for civilization.
You down with IPCC?
The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) process has become a symbol of scientific integrity and the evolution of a sound, effective climate change policy. Without it and the guidance that its researchers have provided it is doubtful that a global agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions would be on the table. However, despite its achievements, even the most recent IPCC reports have been superseded by emerging research. The march of scientific knowledge has brought into focus mechanisms (rapid, non-linear change, positive feedback loops) that the IPCC failed to address in depth and which force us to adjust our sense of urgency in dealing with the threat posed by climate change.
Yet for humankind to benefit from scientific knowledge, policy makers, the media, and the public in general must learn to collectively receive and act upon updated information. Relying on the work of the IPCC results in a time lag, as much of research on which it is based is two years old or more. Climate and global systems sciences are dynamic and complex fields that provide a vast array of crucial information for global environmental and social stability. The process of research and discovery never stops, at least while civilization persists. Until then, failure to heed the advice and recommendations of most pertinent and recent data from these arenas is likely to have catastrophic results.
For example, on sea levels, the IPCC has been attacked as not giving adequate attention to research that suggests that policy makers have underestimated future rises. As NASA climatologist James Hansen told Grist.com in May 2007, “I was very disappointed that their [the IPCC’s] comments about sea level didn’t make clear that there’s been a huge change in our understanding of that situation, and it’s a much more dangerous problem than we had realized [while] their report actually caused confusion by giving smaller numbers than they gave in the previous report.”
Moreover, the main IPCC report on the physical science of climate change, released in February 2007 has since been challenged by the IPCC’s “synthesis report.” For the first time, an IPCC document spoke of “abrupt and irreversible shifts” – in effect admitting that its earlier findings had omitted crucial developments in key areas.
Additionally, some glaciologists complained about the IPCC’s predictions of sea level rise due to Antarctic glacial melt. While the February document spoke of rises between 18 and 59 centimeters and asserted that “current model studies project that the Antarctic ice sheet will remain too cold for widespread surface melting and is expected to gain mass due to increased snowfall”, the authors of the synthesis document wrote that, “this report does not assess the likelihood, nor provide a best estimate or an upper bound for sea level rise.”
In a variety of areas, scientists are now challenging our certainties that the process of climate change has “upper boundaries.” There is a rising awareness that what are called “non-linear shifts” can occur almost instantaneously. Such shifts are “non-linear” in comparison with the idea of gradual temperature rise in step with rising greenhouse gas emissions. Such a scenario no longer holds true in the scientific community. The changes we must expect will not be gradual – they will be abrupt, multiple and potentially massive.
The earth’s climate can reach what could be called called “tipping points.” As Lenton et al put it in a recent paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: “The term ‘‘tipping point’‘ commonly refers to a critical threshold at which a tiny perturbation can qualitatively alter the state or development of a system.”
There is a growing awareness that relatively small increases in temperature can have massive consequences. What are called “positive feedback” loops can form, in which rising temperatures amplify carbon emissions, raising temperatures still further and engaging other feedback systems in the process. The earth, we are finding, is a much more sensitive place than we had previously thought.
As discussed below, paleoclimatologists are showing us that both non-linear shifts and positive feedback loops have historical precedents that we must heed. Civilization-breaking climate change has resulted from minor changes in the earth’s orbit, while human activities have contributed to local climate changes with devastating results.
Given what we are coming to know about the sensitivity of the earth’s climate, it is becoming clear that we cannot resolve our ecological crisis without radical social change. Business as usual, we will argue, is a recipe for disaster, and the remedies proposed by the IPCC are no better. The nature of the players and pressures involved in large policy making groups do not allow for the radical, emergency crisis responses called for by many of our leading climate scientists.
We propose the abandonment of upper limits on decarbonization and a transition to sustainable technology. 100 percent decarbonization must be the goal of the world economy by 2050 if we are to avert catastrophic climate change. This process must also start now, and we will require the political resources currently monopolized by corporations and governments in order to do so. It will also require the diversion of enough economic power to shift production and consumption from unsustainable methods. Consumerism as currently practiced in the richer parts of the world, may not be tenable.
A climate modeling project undertaken by scientists at the Carnegie Institution reported last year that to stabilize global temperatures we must reduce emissions by 100 percent, as quickly as possible. The IPCC recommended 50 percent reductions by 2050, and the UK Climate Bill currently demands 60 percent. But both targets will result in massive increase in temperature.
Recent work by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research has found that if 60 percent cuts are enacted by 2050, and extended across the world, The targets are more likely to contribute to a world 4°C or 5°C warmer than pre-industrial levels, than they are to constrain warming to no more than 2°C. This would unleash drought and flooding across the world. It will also engage positive feedback loops and pass numerous tipping points, making it virtually useless in avoiding climate catastrophe.
However, we can do much better. As Ken Caldeira, one of the scientists behind the Carnegie Institution modeling has said, “It is just not that hard to solve the technological challenges. We can develop and deploy wind turbines, electric cars, and so on, and live well without damaging the environment. The future can be better than the present, but we have to take steps to start kicking the CO2 habit now, so we won’t need to go cold turkey later.”
Unfortunately the kind of actions needed to avert future disaster are still seen as impractical, too extreme, uneconomical or politically unfeasible. Yet we are now at the stage when the radical has become reasonable and what is currently seen as moderate has become insane. We are also at a stage where political cowardice amounts to mass murder. Not acting out of fears that elections will be lost, or the media will misunderstand, is inexcusable when the future of the biosphere is at stake:
We are in the middle of a climate emergency. It’s time to wake up and smell the burning planet.
Non-linear climate change and tipping points: the justification of “radical is reasonable”
Paleoclimate data (data from the distant past) clearly tells a story of major local and global shifts in climate due to biophysical feedbacks. Many of these shifts display non-linear characteristics, thresholds and critical tipping points: in other words, they were quick and utterly devastating. Relatively minor changes in an earth system can push that system into a novel state, causing widespread and rapid alterations in systemic functions. This historical evidence of fast, major climate change combined with the obvious and accelerating anthropogenic upsets of our planet´s biogeochemical systems and climate indicates a bleak future for human populations and natural resources.
In a climate system a tipping point occurs when a relatively small increase in temperature or another factor has a disproportionately large overall effect. Scientists currently identify several major present-day climate tipping points with observable and imminent shifts. Irreversible arctic sea ice loss, Greenland ice sheet loss, West Antarctic ice melt, the collapse of the Gulf Stream, acidification of marine ecosystems, and the rapid loss of Amazon rain forest are among some of the most catastrophic and looming changes characterized by critical tipping points. Without immediate, urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and capture excess carbon dioxide some, if not all, of these events appear likely within decades.
One well-documented example of these types of rapid shifts led to a major alteration in African ecosystems in the relatively recent past. A relatively slight change in Earth’s orbit over 5,500 years ago caused a minor disruption in the distribution of solar radiation on the surface of the planet. Yet this small shift triggered abrupt and large scale climatic drying through a series of interlinked feedback systems. One of the results of this systemic upset was the conversion of Africa´s Sahel region from a more humid savanna into its modern day desert condition. Model simulations suggest that biological oceanic, atmospheric, and terrestrial influences amplified the effects of the initial orbital forcing. Based on historical climate data, we can expect similar non-linear mechanisms to lead to rapid local and global climate shifts in the near future.
In addition to rapid, non-linear changes, we must also be weary of the positive feedbacks to climate change both expected and observed. Positive feedbacks which are capable of adding increasing amounts of greenhouse gases include a litany of interconnected and potentially catastrophic elements:
- Higher temperature and increasing deforestation lowers the planet’s carbon removal mechanisms
- Increased global temperatures cause faster rates of microbial metabolism, releasing more CO2
- The Southern Ocean’s ability to absorb CO2 has decreased over 30% in the last 20 years and is reaching saturation
- Hotter, drier conditions in forests worldwide lead to increased fires and droughts
We now have evidence of rapid climatic alterations from non-human sources: biophysical feedback systems. These rapid shifts demonstrate that the risks of non-linear changes are high. Yet skeptics often doubt that humans can have profound effects on terrestrial mechanisms like the climate. Unfortunately for them, a familiar, yet seemingly easy to forget episode refutes their claims.
One of the most frightening instances of anthropogenic alterations to the atmospheric components that ensure our biosphere’s functioning is the depletion of the ozone layer by chloroflurocarbon (CFC) emissions. The rapid cultural response to this crisis has barely enabled humankind to avoid catastrophic climatic alterations and serves as an example that global societies may quickly alter their behavior in response to emerging scientific findings if the information is met with appropriate responses by policy makers, the business and industrial sectors, and the general public.
Avoiding catastrophic ozone deterioration came partly by sheer luck. If the chemical industry had arbitrarily chosen to use bromofluorocarbons (an equally useful refrigerant but far more dangerous ozone destroyer) instead of chlorofluorocarbons, atmospheric chemists would not have had time to identify and alter their effects without creating a global catastrophe. This should serve as a harbinger of the dangers of the industrial-technological sector left unattended by policy derived from sound ecosystem science.
Adaptation or Extinction
Compiling and reviewing the most up to date and emerging observations of climate change as well as those of current greenhouse gas emissions gives a bleak and urgent image: both the effects of warming as well as predicted emissions rises have been grossly underestimated in even the worst-case scenario predictions of most major reports from past data. The planet is barreling full-throttle into a global climate disaster and its time for societies to react in response to the severity of the situation.
Based on climate data from historical proxy and model predictions, we can expect with high confidence that the rapid fluctuations to Earth system cycles caused by human activity will be met with similarly drastic alterations. The longer we hesitate to make widespread societal responses to our greenhouse gas emission rates the greater the future cost in lives as well as economic and natural resources.
These tipping points, if reached, are also likely to further speed up processes of climatic change. For example, the loss of Arctic sea ice will reduce the albedo of the polar region, reducing the amount of sunlight reflected back into space and increasing the amount of energy trapped within the earth’s atmosphere. Large scale burning and depletion of the Amazon will eliminate a massive carbon sink and liberate enormous quantities of carbon into the air, further accelerating warming.
There is a high probability that these tipping points cannot be separated from each other. We need to look at the “big picture” if we are to understand the gravity of the climate crisis. If we reach one, we will likely reach many or all of them, with catastrophic consequences. Failure to act appropriately may lead to a runaway cascade of rapid, non-linear shifts, a process that could prove unstoppable and, for much of humanity, unsurvivable. Radical action must begin immediately and continue unabated by the dawdling typical of “business-as-usual” policy.
Global cultural awareness actions such as Live Earth, Earth Hour, the recent Allegiance for Climate Protection climate commercials, and similar social unification events and statements are working to push the cultural tipping-point towards sustainability. Whether or not they will be successful may hold the fate for the majority of human and non-human life on Earth. The following article in this series will continue to address cultural components of climate change and consider these and other environmental and natural resource issues within the framework of the transition from the industrial to ecological era.
We are now in the process of launching even more devastating changes – on a global scale. Scientists have come to call the period of our attempted global suicide the Anthropocene – in which human beings have become the dominant force in changing global ecosystems. This is our planet, whether we like it or not, and it is ours either to break, or to heal.
Posted by Livingston
Time to bring it down again Don't just call me pessimist Try and read between the lines I can't imagine why you wouldn't Welcome any "change":http://www.kheper.net/evolution/sociocultural.html, my friend I wanna see it come down Suck it down Flush it down ...
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- Culture, technology and the eco-collapse
Posted by BurningMonk on Monday, April 28th 2008 - A Global Warming Primer
Posted by Snark on Saturday, April 16th 2005
why put this on the front page below EiE?
congrats Liv, Szam!!
sweet, will read this after work, and agreed, should be number 1, definitely above any compilations
thanks.
here are some supplemental articles regarding abrupt shifts, tipping points, feedback, and rapid climate change:
Abrupt Non-Linear Climate Change, Irreversibility and Surprise
Unfortunately, most climate change assessments rarely consider low-probability, but high consequence extreme events. Instead, they primarily consider scenarios that supposedly “bracket the uncertainty” rather than explicitly integrate unlikely events from the “tails of the distribution.” Not even considered in the standard analytical works are structural changes in political or economic systems or regime shifts such as a change in public consciousness regarding environmental values. Although researchers may recognize the wide range of uncertainty surrounding global climate change, their analyses are typically surprise-free. Thus, decision-makers reading the “standard” literature will rarely appreciate the full range of possible outcomes, and thus might be more willing to risk adapting to prospective changes rather than attempting to avoid them through abatement than if they were aware that some potentially unpleasant surprises could be lurking (pleasant ones might occur as well, but many policymakers tend to insure against negative outcomes preferentially).
This paper is out of date considering the massive 2007 summer arctic ice melt. We already have significant evidence of non-linear events occuring – they are no longer low probability. While we wait for mainstream culture and governments to adjust to reality the issues are compounding and hightening.
Non-linear Climate Change
Short, easy to read blurb on non-linear change by the world climate report
Climate surprise wikipedia
“Tipping point on horizon for Greenland ice
OSLO (Reuters) – Global warming this century could trigger a runaway thaw of Greenland’s ice sheet and other abrupt shifts such as a dieback of the Amazon rainforest, scientists said on Monday.
They urged governments to be more aware of “tipping points” in nature, tiny shifts that can bring big and almost always damaging changes such as a melt of Arctic summer sea ice or a collapse of the Indian monsoon.
I believe hemp and cockroaches will thrive in the New World Climate Order …
Not too sure what use a cockroach is, but hemp has over 25,000 uses …. including FOOOOOOOOOOOD and OOOOIIIIIILLLLLL
Hemp Brownie or Cockroach Salad. Take your pick.
HEMP for Victory!!!
WARNING, BULLSHIT ALERT
It’s so nice of Bacchus to start putting this warning on his posts; one would hope that he would start putting this warning before any post he makes.
When I encounter climate change skeptics I ask them “how much time have you actually spent in wild country?” How much time in actual glacial or mountain terrain? To me the skepticism reeks of someone who has not spent much time on the landscape witnessing the rapid environmental changes that are occurring. Sorry to make myself sound old, but in two decades I have seen how change is occurring in a number of significant mountain ranges through out the Americas. It is good to question the political manipulations accompanying climate change. Yet drastic changes are happening fast, and a glaciers retreat is not something that can be faked. The implications are serious.
I have never been to Greenland but I have colleagues that have climbed on Baffin Island, and they report major changes in lack of ice on water bodies etc. What is happening in Greenland is of massive importance.
Congrats GNN on getting these guys published up front and in color. Brilliant collaboration.
im not sure if bacchus is calling bullshit on hemp for victory (which is no bullshit) or preluding his posts.
i can only wait in eager anticipation of irrelevant graphs and data from exxonmobile experts.
tango – any comments on the article? there’s still a good bit of debate on a lot of the paleoclimate evidence for abrupt shifts – when and how fast the thermohaline conductor collapsed, the time period for the desertification of Sahara…
i think what we must recognize is that relatively rapid shifts occured in the past without anthropogenic forcing and the combined and compounding effects of human pressure on a global scale (massive deforestation, upset of nutrient cycles, conversion of over 50% of arable land, so on) is likely to elicit some unprecedented responses from the same systems.
Yet drastic changes are happening fast, and a glaciers retreat is not something that can be faked. The implications are serious. To me the skepticism reeks of someone who has not spent much time on the landscape witnessing the rapid environmental changes that are occurring.
yeah, if you are actually out there living and working in the places we are discussing you cannot deny the changes. for those of us who actually care about the environment and wild nature what’s happening is terrifying.
last time i visited Colorado the devastation from the pine beetles (linked to climate change) was horrible.
loss of these forests and increasing fires will be another of the many feedbacks.
Warmer temperatures have allowed beetles to survive farther north and at higher elevations.
“This is the kind of feedback we’re all very worried about in the carbon cycle — a warming planet leading to, in this case, an insect outbreak that increases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which can increase warming,” said Andy Jacobson, a carbon cycle scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colo.
link
im researching terra preta, tropical reforestation and biochar schemes for carbon sequestration right now… should be able to include this stuff in the next article.
we have the technology and knowledge to begin to restore the carbon imbalance – we need goverments and society to help impliment them.
thanks, manyhues.
I’m with Bacchus.
good to knwo floydanderson. you and bacchus represent a formidable intellectual force that we from the NWO must one day reckon wit and destroy.
so far i dink we have the masses on our side.
hey, check it out – kids are so gullible:
1.5 Million Chinese Children Take Part in Painting Competition on Climate Change
Nairobi, 8 May 2008 – An unprecedented 1.5 million Chinese children have participated in a painting competition on the topic of climate change, in a sign of the country’s growing awareness of environmental issues.
muhahaha! New World Order all the way!
So you’re a compromised NWO propagandist eco-nazi who takes pleasure in warping people’s minds
I’ve noticed how you like to call people retards etc. if they don’t go along with your propaganda. Not too cool.
Liv, what do you think of David Mayer de Rothschild?
“So you’re a compromised NWO propagandist eco-nazi who takes pleasure in warping people’s minds”
You should check back into whatever nuthouse you just escaped from.
Great work, by the way. Eminently readable and although bacchus and floyd’s unassailable arguments poked some holes in the article, it still stands up pretty well…
I hope it gets warm enough in the UK so I can grown bananas. The ones we get from South America are shit (just had one – tasted like a tampon).
I would like to see a 7 degree (Celsius) increase in global temperature.
I don’t understand Liv’s bipolar position.
One minute he’s all “apocalypse, party time, excellent” like the problem is so bad it’s going to shorten our lifespans.
The next minute he’s saying “we have the technology, we can rebuild it”.
Are we fucked or not?
I don’t see how you can be encouraged by UN sponsored coloring competition.
I mean, don’t get me wrong…
Are we fucked or not?
heh. you never knwo
Great work, by the way. Eminently readable and although bacchus and floyd’s unassailable arguments poked some holes in the article, it still stands up pretty well…
heh. yeah. they debate rages on.
I’ve noticed how you like to call people retards etc. if they don’t go along with your propaganda. Not too cool.
remind me one day to explain the rules of the global warming denial drinking game to you, retard.
so far this thread is keeping us sober. cmon gang… one irrelevant graph and we’re off.
Some of you may have wondered why, after years posting here, I left.
It’s because of posts like this:
And then, when anybody with a functioning frontal lobe and a sense of humor calls them illiterate fuckbags and tells them that they’re polluting an otherwise eminently reasonable, interesting article’s comment thread with jabbering bullshit and Alex Jones-caliber paranoid bullshit, they get all whiny.
Yes, Floyd, you’re a friggin’ retard. Your contempt for science, your subliterate paranoia, and your ideas about global warming are the mark of a dangerously compromised critical thinking facility. In short, you’re a retard. Don’t like it? Go post about it on Prison Pwaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhnet.
SNARK = FIVE
heh
This is a great article. My only criticism is the grammatical errors throughout the piece. It wasn’t quite ready to hit the front page as is…but whatever. Anthony is the one ultimately responsible.
Great to see ya at the G again, Snark.
:-)
yeah Snark, you’re awesome
ever heard of the Club of Rome?
Goddamn, you’re a retard.
The elitist snobs of gnn don’t take kindly to valid criticisms.
The obvious flaws and totalitarian overtones of the carbon tax scam render any serious discussion on the subject taboo, as any even superficial analysis could lead to other uncomfortable questions.
Those meagre minds wholly cultivated with the educated ignorance of our prussian based system of schooling, when confronted with information that contradicts their own brand of dogma, have little recourse other than to revert to the obfuscational jargon of their unnecessarily convoluted discourse of scientism, in a thoroughly habituated effort to veil the essence of the matter behind a members-only language inaccessable to the uninitiated.
Or, if confronted with an equally obtuse parataxis from other members within the church of scientism, to resort to a childlike ridicule and defensive vitriol even apr could be proud of.
Those with a vested lifelong interest in our compromised (by design) educational (indoctrinational) establishment are behest to their own well groomed and exploited egos, unaware of how their paradigms have been prescriptively customized over the course of their state run lifetimes.
Any information that threatens that paradigm is also a threat to that ego and is subject to any and all manner of reactionary berzerkery. So here at gnn, independent thinkers have become accustomed to being accosted and talked down to by self aggrandized gerbils with superiority complexes. Generally, the more valid and inarguable the criticism, the more pretentious and infantile the response.
It’s gotten to the point here at gnn where even the more intelligent (albeit tailored) scientismists, such as livingston, have little to contribute other than strings of assinine and unimaginative insults — the word retard is popular — which typically go unreciprocated by the independent thinker/initiator. Any comment which is critical of any one aspect, such as the carbon tax, is responded to with an eerie obliviousness as to the specifics wherein even if that individual accepts the general premise of anthropogenic climate change, he is labeled a denier. The cumulative effect of all this one sided dumbassery is a degredation of the scientismist argument, which is unfortunate. Actual scientific discourse demands an openness which scientism cannot endure.
Ofcourse, it doesn’t help that tensions are systematically inflamed by trolls. Our divisions are to remain unbridgable. Your egos are to be stroked and your self righteousness reinforced by transparently disingenuous apoligists such as apr or fennec, who’ve recently changed their names in unison, adopting titles such as science and criticalthinking in an effort to superficially inflate their ere of credibility.
And while they ingraciate themselves to your majesties you will overlook any and all examples of their dishonourable nature. But that’s another matter i guess.
So it goes.
when exactly did “WARNING – BULLSHIT ALERT” or “So you’re a compromised NWO propagandist eco-nazi who takes pleasure in warping people’s minds” become valid criticisms?
thanks snark. glad yer back in the game. shit. i guess i gotta PM you about the rules for the climate denial drinkin game. science, remarcus, anyone else in? its quite fun…
yeah rich sorry about the grammar but i never wuz to goode at english i figured id neva have the chance to go all over there to england so why learn the silly idioma, right?
heh. planet dies/melts, scientists call for radical immediate action, people at computers post alex jones videos and fret over grammar.
love you guys. good work.
heh and meh.
“valid criticisms”
Like this
or this?
“The obvious flaws and totalitarian overtones of the carbon tax scam”
Are you this fucking stupid or did you not read the article?
“Those meagre minds wholly cultivated with the educated ignorance of our prussian based system of schooling, when confronted with information that contradicts their own brand of dogma, have little recourse other than to revert to the obfuscational jargon of their unnecessarily convoluted discourse of scientism, in a thoroughly habituated effort to veil the essence of the matter behind a members-only language inaccessable to the uninitiated.”
So you’re saying that since you can’t understand or argue with the science you’re going to whine about the tone of the scientists on gnn. Just say that then. Inventing words like “scientism” and “obfuscatonal” may be more fun, but ultimately they’re just going to give you carpal tunnel.
please don’t make me plot an insult graph, toad.
so eh bodo got any insight on the article?
floydanderson and bhacchus’ comments were really thought provoking
what you got
and you expect us to take yall seriously?
cmon guys
i kinda wish you would
how far back would such a graph go?
I’d be delighted, but it’s gonna have to be water for me…haha, was going to make a drinking game flavored insult to a member of the forum but fuck it…
I recently asked a zealous climate change scientist (in person) how he accounts for co2 increases preceding global temperature rises by an average of 700 years.
Before quickly changing the subject he stuttered and said it was too complicated to explain. Then he reassured me by telling me how long he’s been involved in the academic discourse, listing off all his credentials and accomplishments over his lifetime. After this he seemed to feel much better. It was really quite pathetic.
mmm, anecdotal
how far back would such a graph go?
Since Gore’s film came out?
“Since Gore’s film came out?”
That’s when global warming came on your radar, huh? Kudos to Gore on a job well done, then.
you done that graph yet, Science? Be sure to superimpose the insult graph over the co2 graph, that way we know you’re not being a filthy liar.
I think you’re confused.
You think I invented the word ‘scientism’?
I think you need another name change.
Exactly. The moment Bacchus stops being an asshat is the moment I stop treating him like one. Until then, fuck off, stop whining, and take it like men.
Bodo-
And rightly so. No offense, but there’s no bridging rational thought and irrational prejudice. And rightly so.
No, they just call us eco-nazis. But that’s just an honest expression of their views, eh? Because acting like an asshole is bad if you’re a paternalist scientism-imperialist (or whatever the fuck) and ok if you’re challenging same, right?
If he couldn’t answer that, he didn’t know his shit. The reason that CO2 and temperature have, in the past, been decoupled is that it’s only been in this century that CO2 has been the primary climate forcing mechanism. In the past, global warming has been caused by solar irradiance cycles, orbital irregularities, and volcanism. CO2 was a bit player at that time. At present, those forcings are not increasing commensurate with the rise in temperature, and atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (CO2, NOx, CH4, and, locally, water vapor) have become the primary influence on climate. The fact that, in the past, CO2 followed climate changes rather than following them has no bearing on the fact that CO2 is driving climate changes now.
Your question, which I can tell you thought was hella cutting and impressive and scored a hell of a point against that imperialist paternalist paradigm of male-led scientific dogma blah blah blah, does nothing but demonstrate your ignorance of the science you reject, so pretentiously and at such great length.
And speaking of which:
Somewhere, the god of irony just took a huge bong rip, ate a cookie, and started giggling uncontrollably. Nobody who writes a sentence like “...have little recourse other than to revert to the obfuscational jargon of their unnecessarily convoluted discourse of scientism” EVER gets to bitch about anybody’s obfuscational jargon, for any reason. Especially when nobody in this thread used language anywhere near that dense and pretentious before you weighted in.
I’m sorry, are carbon taxes part of the scientific literature on global warming? Are we talking about science here, or policy? Do you recognize that the science and the policy of global warming are two separate things? It’s entirely possible to accept the scientific literature without supporting the policies being suggested to combat it. If you want to talk about carbon tax, let’s talk about the friggin’ carbon tax, and if you want to talk about climatology, let’s talk about that. But don’t conflate the two out of intellectual laziness.
That said, I think your opposition to the carbon tax is more rooted in Alex Jones-style paranoiac-libertarianism than it is in a cogent beef with proposed carbon tax policies, given my past interactions with you on the topic, but if you want to talk about that, pick another thread.
Those meagre minds wholly cultivated with the educated ignorance of our prussian based system of schooling, when confronted with information that contradicts their own brand of dogma, have little recourse other than to revert to the obfuscational jargon of their unnecessarily convoluted discourse of scientism, in a thoroughly habituated effort to veil the essence of the matter behind a members-only language inaccessable to the uninitiated.
Jeez. You use language that unpenetrable and you can accuse the GNN “snobs” of being “elitist”???
Anyhow, regardless of the accusations of NWO involvement and elitism, hopefully this article can be the basis of others which explore the roots of our ecological crisis and whether or not we can do anything about it.
I guess that’s not for everyone, but for all those interested please do hang in there.
Do you recognize that the science and the policy of global warming are two separate things? It’s entirely possible to accept the scientific literature without supporting the policies being suggested to combat it. If you want to talk about carbon tax, let’s talk about the friggin’ carbon tax, and if you want to talk about climatology, let’s talk about that. But don’t conflate the two out of intellectual laziness.
Can you explain all that to Livingston plz? fanx
Exactly. The moment Bacchus stops being an asshat is the moment I stop treating him like one. Until then, fuck off, stop whining, and take it like men.
LOL, “like men”. Grrr, snark is butch.
You have always treated people who disagree with you in the same manner, whether they are rude or not.
And you’ve always hidden behind your “hey, I am snark after all” excuse.
Livingston has benn a prick recently. All insults and disengagement. He wrecks these guys threads so they wreck his.
It’s too far gone for anyone to really claim moral high ground so stop it.
Take it like men.
Any educational psychologist will tell you that kids who cannot get attention by being good will behave badly to see if that works. Kids look for strokes, and prefer it if they are positive. If you give them the positive strokes they will repeat the behaviors that bring on the warm feeling. However they will go for negative strokes rather than no attention at all. And if you react when the scamps behave badly they will keep on doing it.
I guess I could just have said “Ignore the Troll”. Sorry!
hilarious commentary! i’ll stay out of this one, except to say:
the “eco-nazi” or “eco-fascist” label was thought up by Ron Arnold and the Wise Use boys…
As is the term “eco-terrorism/terrorist”.
“Our goal is to destroy the environmental movement”~Ron Arnold
how great would it be to meet bodo in person?
It would probably be about as fun as meeting Ron Arnold.
Compiling and reviewing the most up to date and emerging observations of climate change as well as those of current greenhouse gas emissions gives a bleak and urgent image: both the effects of warming as well as predicted emissions rises have been grossly underestimated in even the worst-case scenario predictions of most major reports from past data. The planet is barreling full-throttle into a global climate disaster and its time for societies to react in response to the severity of the situation.
A. Water vapor is a GHG.
B. Human alterations to the planet’s hydrological cycle increase the amount of water vapor in the troposphere.
While the residence time of water vapor is relatively short (about 9 days) and for this reason is largely being ignored by most in this debate, the residence time of water in deep groundwater reservoirs, that are currently being pumped and utilized far faster than they can recharge, is estimated to be about 10,000 years.
Continental runoff, diverted from the oceans directly back to the troposphere, would have been held reserve if this water had reached the ocean an average residence time of 3,200 years.
We are constantly upsetting, by virtue of our agricultural activity, damming and irrigation the former equilibrium of this planet’s hydrological system, which is without debate, the primary means by which this planet maintains a habitable temperature and redistributes incoming solar energy.
Any reasonable debate of anthropogenic climate influence must include estimates of historical, current and future impacts of anthropogenic alterations to the hydrological cycle.
Absent the inclusion and reasonable estimates of this anthropogenic impact, there is no debate, just more CO2 centric propaganda and trace gas hysteria.
Peace,
I think hunta is getting his “theory” mixed up with religion.
It’s as good a religion as any. Incorrect and not based in reality, but what religion is? Anyway, I got some girl scout cookie (Edy’s) thinmint ice cream from the store the other day. This may be off topic, but it’s fucking delicious.
do they have tagalong ice cream? Because that is, in my opinion, the best that the girl scouts offer.
I love me those thinmints…not sure, didn’t notice any of the other flavors. Will check next time I’m at the store, only unfortunate thing is it’s only for a limited time.
GWH, I don’t understand your emphasis on damming and hydroelectric energy as big factors in human’s interference with the otherwise natural climate.
Surely the influence is much greater in nuclear energy production where reactors are built on rivers precisely because the water is needed to cool off the fuel rods.
The resultant water may not be radioactive nor toxic but it is undoubtably hotter.
Recall that Three-Mile Island melted down precisely because of water pump failure.
Isn’t hydroelectric power the cleanest and most renewable form of energy?
The article is good in terms of content but the form is not congruent. The sentences are too long and often have the important point at the very end rather than the beginning.
Perhaps I read Bodo’s post wrong but I thought he was spoofing the form while still making valid observations.
Snark, you want to distinguish science from policy.
There are two problems:
Objective (public funded) science is great but subjective science (private interest) can be no more than a predetermined advertisement which of course lacks credibilty.
Secondly, the real, concrete “policies” are implemented without any public discussion. Examples include chemtrails and DU dispersal~very expensive policies which “officially” don’t even exist.
Livingston has benn a prick recently. All insults and disengagement. He wrecks these guys threads so they wreck his.
heh. insults, disengagement, headlines and articles. hey, speaking of which when is the NWO crews article explaining their theory coming out. im still a bit confused about how stopping the war and reforesting the tropics fits into our evil overlords scheme.
lets see an article dudes.
If you want to talk about carbon tax, let’s talk about the friggin’ carbon tax, and if you want to talk about climatology, let’s talk about that. But don’t conflate the two out of intellectual laziness.
Can you explain all that to Livingston plz? fanx
yeah, the problem here is that these people do not actually have any idea about the political or scientific aspects of global change.
the funniest thing is that they probably believe that by spending massive amounts of energy arguing against the scientific consensus they are doing humanity a favor by waking us up to the paranoid delusions of alex jones.
have any of you guys ever investigated or worked with deforestation, invasive species, nutrient imbalance, climate change or any other ecological field study?
have you ever noticed all the people here on GNN who hold opinions opposite of yours are experts (or at least somewhat experienced) working in these fields?
Absent the inclusion and reasonable estimates of this anthropogenic impact, there is no debate, just more CO2 centric propaganda and trace gas hysteria.
hilarious as always. yes water vapor is a powerful greenhouse gas but it has different effects at different altitudes. you cite no legit information indicating that human changes to groundwater contribute directly to warming.
some scientists are actually proposing to create low lying clouds to slow global warming. the effects of water vapor depend on where its at.
regardless, the ocean is also acidifying rapidly due to uptake of CO2. your vapor theory doesn’t explain that.
sigh. if you poor retards could only read a little deeper into what im doing here on the GNN, you’d realize that im a part of the NWO agenda. look, we’re so powerful that i can actually explain that we are using global warming to scare the world into driving less and supporting ecological worldviews and you poor peons still wont be able to convince anyone of the truth: that all us scientists work for the global elite and will have you slaving in salt mines for eternity through the use of global warming or taxes or something.
muhuhhahahah! (cracks the wip)
Snark, Liv… love youse guys.
Now back to the motherfuckin’ salt-mines to hatch another Pretentious douchebag biology ninja cabal plot!
Perhaps I read Bodo’s post wrong but I thought he was spoofing the form while still making valid observations.
Thanks.
by waking us up to the paranoid delusions of alex jones.
Holy shit. Livingston, please read something other than eco-periodicals and derrick jensen (whom i enjoy) before it is too late. You seem to have no clue what is happening outside of your own narrow field of study, and its turning you into an upgraded apr clone.
pretty please?
please read something other than eco-periodicals and derrick jensen
ie: www.prisonplanet.com
I recently asked a zealous climate change scientist (in person) how he accounts for co2 increases preceding global temperature rises by an average of 700 years
you are an gullible imbecile on the internet, so I can’t imagine that you are much more intelligent in person, the scientist may have just been trying to not waste time by attempting to explain something to you that is beyond your intellectual capacity
Actually, I think that’s a major problem with this academic ilk. Way too many assumptions floating around, not enough inquisitiveness. You all need desperately to broaden your field of investigation. Sure, it might mean you’re slightly less than the best eco-nerd you can be, but when you open your mouth on anything other than eco-collapse you won’t sound like…
explain something to you that is beyond your intellectual capacity
apr, we’ve reached a point of familiarity where you hurt the credibility of whoever you agree with.
thank god I don’t agree with alex jones then, that man needs all the credibility he can get!
I like having bodo around. He makes everyone else here on GNN feel smart.
here, you can start by learning what happened to you. If you actually bother to read this i’ll send you a box of organic maple syrup.
people that are educated are less likely to buy into bullshit that alex jones and co. sell. I can definitely understand your fear of schools teaching kids critical thinking bodo. They might start believing in science and global warming then.
bodo… you still don’t get it do you?
we’re all working for them
and we’re coming to tax you
your taxes pay for me to stay funded, drunk and ranting about environmental crap
i haven’t worked a real job in years
all i have to do i write a grant proposal from time to time and keep the peons scared
of crazy made up stuff like the destruction of our oceans, pollution, extinction of species…
do you really expect me to read or care about any of your retarded ideas?
i have hammock related eco-nazi work to get back to
NWO all teh way foos
I wouldn’t worry apr, they probably won’t read it anyways. So i’ll just post a couple fun quotes to makes meself feel better:
The thesis I venture to submit to you is as follows: That during the past forty or fifty years those who are responsible for education have progressively removed from the curriculum of studies the Western culture which produced the modern democratic state; That the schools and colleges have, therefore, been sending out into the world men who no longer understand the creative principle of the society in which they must live; That deprived of their cultural tradition, the newly educated Western men no longer possess in the form and substance of their own minds and spirits and ideas, the premises, the rationale, the logic, the method, the values of the deposited wisdom which are the genius of the development of Western civilization; That the prevailing education is destined, if it continues, to destroy Western civilization and is in fact destroying it.
I realize quite well that this thesis constitutes a sweeping indictment of modern education. But I believe the indictment is justified and here is a prima facie case for entering this indictment.
— Walter Lippmann, speaking before the Association for the Advancement of Science, December 29, 1940
The erroneous assumption is to the effort that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence….Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues, and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else.
-H.L. Mencken
Take at hazard one hundred children of several educated generations and one hundred uneducated children of the people and compare them in anything you please; in strength, in agility, in mind, in the ability to acquire knowledge, even in morality—and in all respects you are startled by the vast superiority on the side of the children of the uneducated.
— Count Leo Tolstoy, “Education and Children” (1862)
Whoever controls the image and information of the past determines what and how future generations will think; whoever controls the information and images of the present determines how those same people will view the past.1
— George Orwell, 1984 (1949)
Today’s corporate sponsors want to see their money used in ways to line up with business objectives…. This is a young generation of corporate sponsors and they have discovered the advantages of building long-term relationships with educational institutions.
— Suzanne Cornforth of Paschall & Associates, public relations consultants. As quoted in The New York Times, July 15, 1998
Most people don’t know who controls American education because little attention has been given the question by either educators or the public. Also because the question is not easily or neatly answered
— James D. Koerner, Who Controls American Education (1968)
I have undertaken to get at the facts from the point of view of the business men—citizens of the community who, after all, pay the bills and, therefore, have a right to say what they shall have in their schools.
— Charles H. Thurber, from an address at the Annual Meeting of the National Education Association, July 9, 1897
It was natural businessmen should devote themselves to something besides business; that they should seek to influence the enactment and administration of laws, national and international, and that they should try to control education.
— Max Otto, Science and the Moral Life (1949)
A lower middle class which has received secondary or even university education without being given any corresponding outlet for its trained abilities was the backbone of the twentieth century Fascist Party in Italy and the National Socialist Party in Germany. The demoniac driving force which carried Mussolini and Hitler to power was generated out of this intellectual proletariat’s exasperation at finding its painful efforts at self-improvement were not sufficient — Arnold Toynbee, MA Study of History
Education is the modern world’s temporal religion…
— Bob Chase, president, National Education Association, NEA TODAY, April 1997
Don’t let schooling interfere with your education.
-Twain
do you really expect me to read or care about any of your retarded ideas?
Liv, I’m sincerely saddened to say I’ve lost all respect for you.
It takes a special kind of guy to trash someone just for having learned things you are unwilling to learn yourself.
I never knew you were so mean spirited. Really disheartening.
people that are educated are less likely to buy into bullshit that alex jones and co. sell.
not to make you look even sillier than you already do, apr, but the author of that book was teacher of the year for new york state and city three years in a row.
Alex Jones whaa?
so one must read him in order to understand why alex jones can be trusted and why global warming is an evil hoax to make more taxes. Am I part of the NWO too if I believe in global warming? How does one become a member of teh NWO global warming conspiracie, bodilicious?
Related
As sweeping as your indictment of modern education may be, I totally agree with you. A simple core for your thesis:
The culture of capitalism has converted education into a commodity.
The customers (student and their parents) are investing in a degree towards future financial gains. The successful merchants (educational institutions) adapt by providing better service in the area of customer demand, which requires reductions in other areas. Promotion of social eduction, such as history and language, suffers. And forget about the arts. Education is a business.
I can testify that I am a product of this culture. I lucked out, as I had some great teachers who encouraged social/personal growth above “career training”. But that encouragment was rare. The majority of “encouragement” came in the form of a society demanding I develop math/science/computer skills in order to climb the salary ladder.
have you ever noticed all the people here on GNN who hold opinions opposite of yours are experts (or at least somewhat experienced) working in these fields?
I’ve noticed that they claim to. Since we’re on the internet and I have no proof of their credentials they get no extra credibility. I don’t care what they claim.
You have to defend your stance just like anyone else.
You do a very poor job.
I’ve also noticed that you guys have a really hard time identifying the actions of powerful criminals, ie 911.
It could be worse though. You could snack on big handfuls of flouride like snark.If you think any serious environmental issues are going to be solved under the current regimes you’re a kool-aid drinker for reals.
IPCC is not, as some believe, a group of scientists, but a panel set up by the United Nations comprising representatives from about 140 governments to consider what we currently know about climate change.
The panel decides whether an assessment is needed, and then engages scientists to conduct it.
Professor Martin Parry
Co-chair, IPCC Working Group II
Shuckies, I can’t see why those of us concerned with Government corruption could be alarmed by that.
The Sun, be damned.
“I never learned anything at school and I didn’t read a book for pleasure until I was nineteen years old”
“I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything, and by using fear as the basic motivation. Fear of getting falling grades, fear of not staying with your class, etc. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker.”
— Stanley Kubrick
“If I think back about my experience, there’s a dark spot there. That’s what schooling generally is, I suppose. It’s a period of regimentation and control, part of which involves direct indoctrination, providing a system of false beliefs. But more importantly, I think, is the manner and style of preventing and blocking independent and creative thinking and imposing hierarchies and competitiveness and the need to excel, not in the sense of doing as well as you can, but doing better than the next person. Schools vary, of course, but I think that those features are commonplace. I know that they’re not necessary, because, for example, the school I went to as a child wasn’t like that at all.”
“I think schools could be run quite differently. That would be very important, but I really don’t think that any society based on authoritarian hierarchic institutions would tolerate such a school system for long. As Sam Bowles and Herb Gintis have pointed out, it might be tolerated for the elite, because they would have to learn how to think and create and so on, but not for the mass of the population. There are roles that the public schools play in society that can be very destructive.”
— Noam Chomsky
I remember reading (or hearing) Chomsky talk of a friend who had come from Germany or somewhere, who had spoke of the odd seriousness placed on being on-time.
muhahahha still on this thread you poor wankers?
look! me and my NWO friends have catalyzed worldwide movements of millions of morons to believe in “global warming” hahahahahahahhahahahahah
350.org
meh. by night we pluck the divine fruits in the hidden orchards of bohemian grove… and blow mad coke off slutty underage girls and drown kittens and all that fun shit
hahahah 350 ppm CO2 or we all fry! hurry humans capture the deadly gas!
muhuhuhhahahahah
harf!
GWH, I don’t understand your emphasis on damming and hydroelectric energy as big factors in human’s interference with the otherwise natural climate.
Clearly not.
Let me again try to reframe and at the same time acknowledge that my writing style can be longwinded and difficult to follow.
The issue has nothing to do with warming the water directly.
It has to do primarily with increasing continental evapotranspiration rates.
Water vapor is the number one GHG.
The solar energy sequestered as the latent heat of vaporization in the troposphere annually due to agriculural irrigation is more than 20 times the amount of energy generated by all the coal, oil, gas, hydropower, biomass and nuclear power currently utilized by mankind.
Once this additional water vapor is formed it serves as a powerful GHG in the troposphere.
Peace,
At present, those forcings are not increasing commensurate with the rise in temperature, and atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (CO2, NOx, CH4, and, locally, water vapor) have become the primary influence on climate.
~Snark
...and, locally, water vapor?
Water vapor is not a factor in global temperature?
Your listing of GHG’s with water vapor last and “local” regarding climate influence is in a word…
Ridiculous.
Absent the inclusion and reasonable estimates of this anthropogenic impact, there is no debate, just more CO2 centric propaganda and trace gas hysteria.
No reasonable person, scientist or not, but especially a climatologist, would ever try to convince anyone that the carbon cycle is more influential in our planet Earth’s “greenhouse effect” than is the water cycle.
Sorry, but if you find my “theories” regarding human agricultural activity as being the principal anthropogenic climate influence incomprehensible, you’re way over your head in this debate.
Peace,
A challenge to any out there doubting the validity of that which I’ve posted on this site regarding the climate.
Cite me and explain why any portion of it isn’t so.
Sometimes no Piece
I’m waiting, but I won’t be holding my breath.
(Got to dispense with the additional water vapor and CO2)
Peace,
Oxidation of unburnt hydrocarbons (HC) to carbon dioxide and water: 2CxHy + (2x+y/2)O2 © 2xCO2 + yH2O
Another unconsidered source on anthropogenic water vapor in our troposphere, the catalytic convertor.
Sometimes no Peace
imbecile.
Like you’ve got enough on the ball to make that call.
Put up or shut up.
Sometimes no Peace
If you think any serious environmental issues are going to be solved under the current regimes you’re a kool-aid drinker for reals.
yeah, cuz liv and sam are definitely believe that. try this
even bacchus said it was a great article.
i don’t get it. if global warming is largely a hoax created by some NWO type thingy, why would the US government censor scientists trying to report on the severity of it?
see this
this
this
and why would a non-governmental group like Friends of the Earth Australia, who published the Climate Code Red report, be so much more vocal about the need for change than the IPCC?
and what does lovelock get out of what he’s saying about our future? head from thatcher? maybe gaia as the official goddess of the NWO? or I guess that since he worked for NASA he’s gotta be in on it.
I’m not about denial of anthropogenic climate impact, I’m about acknowledging it and addressing it rationally.
I’ve explained how anthropogenic hydrological alterations warm the planet and have even roughly quantified our collective impact.
I’ve also recommended steps we can all take immediately to reduce our individual climate footprints, both environmental and carbon at the very same time.
None of the “scientists” posting here have done anything remotely similar with explaining atmospheric CO2 or can refute a single point I’ve made on the issue.
Bottom line is that correlation is not causation and namecalling doesn’t cut it.
Peace,
imbecile
Begin here:
Without water in the atmosphere there would be no weather, no rain, no snow, or even clouds. Water, in the form of water vapour in the atmosphere, or currents in the ocean is responsible for transferring heat energy from the equator towards the poles.
“Good luck with that.“
heh.
the real troof about global warming is that folks like me who are approaching it based on greenhouse gas emissions get funding. you’ll see as time progresses that we will continue to get support and more funding. you’ll also see that all of your time making up alternative theories about the NWO or water vapor will get no support. this is true today, tomorrow, and will continue this way.
waste as much time as you like hammering away quotes and bullshit.
you’ll be ignored by us and by the rest of the world.
and what does lovelock get out of what he’s saying about our future? head from thatcher?
heh