A Perfect Storm Cometh: Climate Change Denial, Family Style

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Climate Change Denial, Family Style

So for months, well, years now I've been trying to get my family excited about responding to The Perfect Storm in the only way I know of that addresses all three facets of what we face: Anthropogenicaly-driven Climate Change (ACC, a.k.a. Climate Change, Global Warming), the economic crash and Peak Oil.

I've shared with them my observations and have found, happily they agreed with me! Yay! We all get that things are going chaotic! Yay! Peak Oil is real! Yay! The economy is run by crooks and liars! Yay! Real incomes haven't risen for decades! Yay!

Riiiiing.... riiiing.....riiiing....

Them: Hello?

Me: Hey, it's me. How's it going? (Blah, blah, blah.....) So, hey, bros, Mom, everyone... let's get the hell out of Dodge and set up in such a way that no matter how the future goes, we'll be able to muddle through!

Them: Ya.... er.... not so much, no.

Me: Huh?

Them: Well, sure, kinda sounds nice and all, but heck, we've got things going OK here.

Me: But, um... we can have things even better, and best of all, if things *don't* go to hell in a handbasket our lives will still be better, we can have a thriving business that helps reduce carbon emissions, live in homes that need no energy inputs for heating or cooling, thus save energy, produce goods and services that will always be in demand AND be as self-reliant as is possible. Let's do it!

Them: No, really, we've got things going OK here. And we don't like the cold.

Me: But you can't feed yourselves where you are. The water is running out. You're facing on-going droughts that could last decades.

Them: Avacadoes. We've got avacadoes. And our own water supply.

Me: I love avacadoes! But you can't live on avacadoes, can't sell them if there's no one to sell them to because there's no economy and you can't grow them if there's no water.

Them: Our own water supply.

Me: Cool! Aquifer?

Them: Rain.

Me: Hey, I'm all for water catchment. I think everyone should do it, buuut... the rains are pretty much expected to stop where you are. Even the massive reservoirs around you are having massive drops in level. And what about the temperatures? How hot can your avacadoes go? We're talking HOT ass summers. Even hotter than you've seen. So, sure, you can go in the house, but the avacadoes can't.

Tell you what. You guys stay there, but go in with us on this plan so we have enough resources to establish a place that we can all share if things get too tough where you are.

Them: Thanks, but... mumble mumble mumble.. natural.. mumble mumble..volcanoes.. CO2... mumble mumble...lying scientists....mumble mumble.. Al Gore...mumble mumble mumble... climate models...

Me: Dude, did you just say volcanoes? And you believe the "scientists" who have 1. done no science and/or 2. are bought and paid for or 3. aren't even scientists?

Them: You can't PROVE it!!!

Me: You really have no idea what you're saying, do you? Look, it's absolutely impossible to claim volcanoes do more damage than anthropogenic forcings do. It's flat wrong. It's a denialist talking point that has no grounding in science. Al Gore is not a scientist. That's a red herring. The climate models are wrong? Bull. In fact, their scenarios are underestimating the observable phenomenon to a great degree, so to say because they underestimate change that they don't represent any change is ridiculous. It makes no sense. Instead, you think the people who said there is NO change happening, thus deny ANY warming are more correct than those that underestimated. Seriously, WTF?

Oh, and if you think science, particularly climate science, begins and ends with modeling, then you really don't understand the most basic elements of scientific method.

Them: mumble mumble mumble.. natural.. mumble mumble.. volcanoes... CO2... mumble mumble... lying scientists.... mumble mumble.. Al Gore... mumble mumble mumble... climate models... You can't PROVE it!!!

Me: Prove it? Did you know E=mc2 was only mathematically proven in the last two or three years? ACC is pretty much the most intensively studied phenomenon in human history. There is ZERO doubt about the human factor. There is no debate based in science that is legit. The sun? Debunked. CO2 can't affect climate? Just ass-stupid. It's not us? 280 --> 387. 'Nuff said. Etc. Lying scientists? We have memos in hand showing that denialist organizations such as the Global Climate Coalition lied about ACC. We know for a fact that an organized effort to sow doubt - not disprove, which is an important point - about ACC existed and exists. ExxonMobile, the worst of the worst in this regard, has acknowledged ACC is real and happening and has promised to stop funding denialists' bullshit - though there's some evidence they lied about that, too.

Really, my head is going to explode. Tend your avacadoes. We'll be trying to carve out a way to help stop or slow ACC, deal with Peak Oil and survive should there be collapse of our civil systems, to whatever degree.

We'll leave the renewably powered light on if and when you change your minds.

Love you.

(Click.)

PS. watch the vdeo below. And this space. I might have a post just for you coming soon.

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Where We Stand

Economic Crisis

Peak Oil
* Peak production appears to have occurred in 2005 or 2008. Certainly, production has been on a plateau since 2004-5. The recession and the high prices from last year caused falling demand. This is brought on lower prices. That caused new production projects to be slowed, delayed or stopped. Because starting up projects takes much longer than shutting them down, this will likely lead to oil shortages if the economy and demand rebound, certainly by 2012 or so.

UPDATE Nov. '09: The new IEA World Energy Outlook revised **downward** to 105 million barrels a day it's projections for future oil production. What they are saying is, over the next 20 years, we won't be finding much oil. Whistle blowers, one still employed, one not, say even this is wishful thinking. We agree. We have thought so for two or three years. They also say the decline rate is higher than admitted - and it was already 4.2%!!! This means we are looking at, what? Six percent? Eight? At six percent we lose the equivalent of Saudi Arabia every two years. Of course, we aren't finding that much new, recoverable oil each year and haven't for decades. Where's the extra coming from?

** Peak occurred from 2005 to 2008. It is slightly possible we could exceed past production in the next two years *if* there is economic growth as there is some spare capacity and some new spare capacity came on this year. There appears to be just enough new oil coming online - or there would have been if projects hadn't been shut in due to the economic crash - the next two years to barely stay even. After that, decline will have eaten away two Saudi Arabias and it will be impossible to reach a new high.

* Production surpasses new oil discoveries by a margin of 3 :1 or 4:1. This is unsustainable.

*The global economic downturn may decrease these numbers, which would help slow the fall down the back slope of the decline curve.

* The "Export Land" Model (.pdf) shows increased consumption in oil exporting nations leads to decreasing exports. Exports dropped by 3% in 2006. For oil importing nations, this means oil availability falls 2x to 3x the global decline rate.

* Current prices make some alternative energy projects economically infeasible. While oil is depleting and declining, the low prices and economic crash are impacting our ability to ramp up renewables to replace fossil fuel-based energy.

* OPEC has announced (1/2/08) future production is in peril. Many believe OPEC cannot raise their current production by more than 3 million barrels a day. Ever. Or can do so only at the cost of future production. I.e., they must choose between their own citizens and the rest of the world.

* A nice, but older, overview (.pdf). Its age, 2005, makes the time lines a little longer than seems probable. Still, excellent forecasting.

People & Power - Peaked - 06 Jan 08 - Part 1.
(Part 2 can be found on youtube.)
An excellent overview of Peak Oil right now.

Climate Change
* James Hansen, et al., published some very important papers (article) this year. Conclusions are thus:

1. The world is at @ 392 ppm CO2, but irreversible climate change happens at just 350, which we passed decades ago. This is why time is shorter than it seems.

2. The goal now is to stop warming at only 2 degrees C. This will still mean seas rising a meter or more and climate change globally, but we may be able to stabilize there. It also means reducing carbon emissions by 90% by 2100. That's creating an entirely new energy system in less than a century. We did that already, but that was when there was virtually no infrastructure in place.

3. Action must be taken in a very short time period. Waiting ten years is almost certainly too long. The silver lining that comes with Peak Oil? It may give us no choice but to act sooner rather than later. The solutions for Peak Oil and Climate Change are the same (except for bio-fuels.) This situation is unprecedented in human history.

* The Arctic melted to an extraordinary degree in 2007 and nearly as much in 2008 - despite perfect conditions for 2008. This is THE canary in the coal mine. Back in February, when the first of three IPCC (Those rock-n-rollers of recent Nobel fame.) reports came out and didn't include ice melt in their projections, I was stunned. Various scientists, also. I knew viscerally that change was coming faster than they stated. Much faster. The summer melt validated that view. Hold on to your hats. f you know anything of Chaos, bifurcations, tipping points and non-linear systems, you're probably as scared as I am.

* New findings of methane being released from the Arctic permafrost and sea floor, along with increased atmospheric methane are ominous signs we may be well past key tipping points. There have been massive, abrupt climate changes in the past due to the release of methan clathrates from the sea floor.

The Big Melt - Arctic ice melt accelerates by 20+%.

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Thursday, June 11, 2009

Climate Change Denial, Family Style

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