Climate Crisis: Our Last Chance
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What he said ^^^
FYI;
Harvard Scientists Are Really Launching a Sun-Blocking Geoengineering Experiment
A proposal to spray particles into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight and lower temperatures is actually getting the green light.
*facepalm*
Yep. It’s the sun wots the problem….
Karl included a quote in capital as below;
“Capital is said by a Quarterly Reviewer to fly turbulence and strife, and to be timid, which is very true; but this is very incompletely stating the question. Capital eschews no profit, or very small profit, just as Nature was formerly said to abhor a vacuum.
With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10 per cent. will ensure its employment anywhere; 20 per cent. certain will produce eagerness; 50 per cent., positive audacity; 100 per cent. will make it ready to trample on all human laws; 300 per cent., and there is not a crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged……………..”
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch31.htm#15a
The US depends on the super profits of the Saudi oil industry that get re-circulated via the petro dollar system back into the US economy and subsidises the arms industry with its generous and safe profits.
And Russia and Iran depend on it for foreign exchange revenue.
The sun blocking geo engineering plan was originally a British idea from Bristol university a few years ago I think.
They got attacked for the idea even though they themselves didn’t like the idea for all the expected reasons.
They expected that nothing would be done in time and at least it made sense to have a albeit crappy plan B in place for when things got really dire.
A silver lining? The great thing about a techno-fix is we don’t have to change our lifestyles and most definitely not our economic system
Warming has helped increase U.S. corn harvests, delivering more than one-quarter of the yield growth across Corn Belt states since 1981.
But
Overall, climate change-driven heat, droughts and soil erosion will likely diminish U.S. agricultural production, according to the latest installment of the U.S. National Climate Assessment, issued Friday Nov. 23.
Warmer temperatures also bring “unusually long dry spells and harsher storms” which make farming “more uncertain.”
However
The growing season used to be too short to grow corn in Alberta. That’s no longer true. A warming planet means longer growing seasons, making it practical for Canadian farmers to raise corn.
Canada’s corn acreage has climbed 20% over the past decade, while soybean acreage has roughly doubled… Before 2013, provinces such as Saskatchewan and Alberta grew no significant amounts of soybeans…. Now soybeans cover 425,000 acres in those provinces.
“Today, the U.S. corn belt is in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana,” Cargill CEO David MacLennan said in a 2016 interview. “In 50 years, it may be in Hudson Bay, Canada.”
Bayer AG, Cargill Inc., DowDuPont Inc., and Bunge Ltd. are pushing to develop hardier crops, plan new logistics networks and offer new technologies designed to help farmers adapt. DowDuPont, maker of Pioneer brand seeds, said its scientists are developing crops that mature faster and in drier conditions for farmers in regions growing hotter.
The lesson is that wealthy, First World countries will be able to adapt to climate change, if anyone can. Third World countries will not.
Where No Corn Has Grown Before: Better Living Through Climate Change?
Coal is not staying in the hole… the market rules
despite much of Europe and North America phasing out the dirtiest of all fossil fuels. The International Energy Agency predicted demand will remain steady at least until 2023, due to strong growth in India and Southeast Asia.
More stringent air quality and climate change policies, alongside the declining cost of renewable energy sources and abundant supplies of gas have all made coal an increasingly less attractive option. But despite these trends, after demand for coal increased in 2018 its contribution to the energy mix will only drop slightly by around 2 per cent to 25 per cent in 2023.
“Despite significant media attention being given to divestments and moves away from coal, market trends are proving resistant to change,” the report said.
Anyone heard of this guy? Wrote a book, interesting website….
Take a look at Daniel Christian Wahl (@DrDCWahl): https://twitter.com/DrDCWahl?s=09
Capitalism tries to save itself
http://news.trust.org/item/20181219135521-2fwi8/
“Mainstream and large businesses are an important part of today’s economy. They need to be part of the transformation to foster true systemic change,” Danone’s Blandine Stefani.
Now i wonder what she really means by “true systemic change”
“Mainstream and large businesses are an important part of today’s economy. They need to be part of the transformation to foster true systemic change,”
Sounds like pacifists trying to stop war by joining the army
We have discussed tipping points that will lead to runaway climate change but it seems the risks have been under-estimated
“The risks are greater than assumed because the interactions are more dynamic,” said Juan Rocha of the Stockholm Resilience Centre. “The important message is to recognise the wickedness of the problem that humanity faces.” [strange choice of word – wickedness]
“We’re surprised at the rate of change in the Earth system. So much is happening at the same time and at a faster speed than we would have thought 20 years ago. That’s a real concern,” said Peterson. “We’re heading ever faster towards the edge of a cliff.
Capitalism and Wind Power
A new monthly record was set in September this year, when £28,434,560 was paid out by National Grid to STOP electricity generation. Most cash was paid to Scottish wind farms, with some earning more than £1m a month for NOT supplying power.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/environment/scottish-wind-farm-paid-96m-to-switch-off-1-4846602
Another, older study here:
IPCC’s worst case global warming scenario by the end of the century is extremely unlikely, according to study
“We have a more accurate set of models now. Humans are clearly influencing this situation and we need to do something about it, but the range of expected warming this century has gone from 1.5-4.5 degrees C to 2.2-3.4 degrees Celsius.”
It is also rules out the IPCC’s “best case” scenario of 1.5 degrees C. Or narrows the range of what is likely to happen. Also, since it’s so many degrees above pre-industrial levels and since there’s already been a rise up to now of 1 degree, it’s talking about an additional rise by the end of the century of 1.2-2.4 degrees. It is still (like all the others) only a guestimate as who knows what will happen. The trouble is none of us here are likely to be around towards the end of the century to find out what does.
Worth bearing in mind that most scientific studies will always be ultra conservative in estimates and use language the man on the street would find benign.
But why would they be “ultra conservative” and play down the implications of their studies? A good scientist will advance their ideas as tentative and in terms of probabilities rather than certainties but that’s not the same as being “ultra conservative”. In fact, it’s the scientific method. And what gives non-specialists (like ourselves) the standing to say that a specialist’s conclusions are wrong or underestimates? We would have to set out our reasons in detail, so that they can be examined and challenged.
When it comes to climate change any estimates as to what might happen in the future have to be a “guestimate” even if an informed one. Scientists do not know even such a basic thing as by just how much average global temperatures will rise in response to a given increase in CO2 in the atmosphere. Nobody knows. All they can do is offer a range of more or less likely outcomes. So all we know with certainty is that if there is an increase in CO2 levels there will be an increase in global temperature and so in the effects of this in terms of rising sea levels, more stormy weather, and changing regional agricultural and ecological conditions. So, to avoid these, there’s a need to cut emissions whatever the guestimates.
As to presenting their estimates as “benign”, in the case of climate change the standard way of presenting them is in terms of a rise in average global temperature since pre-industrial times, with 1.5C at the low end 4.5C at the high end by the end of the century. But as average global temperature has already risen 1C since then, they are actually talking about a further rise of between 0.5C and 3.5C, which is rather less scary (though a rise of 3.5C is scary enough).
What I meant was that scientific reports don’t state the risks clearly in ways in which the average person would see as clear danger due to the often conservative language used.
For example
“A team at the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois tested the language used inside the IPCC report and found that people severely underestimated the probabilities that the IPCC intended to communicate. The IPCC uses the term ‘very likely’ to mean a chance of over 90% but three quarters of the lay readers put the odds far lower, some as low as 60% or less, even when they had the official IPCC terms to hand.”
Quoted from Don’t Even Think About It by George Marshall
Very interesting reading, many lessons for us as a Party too when conveying our ideas.
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