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Irreversible Climate Change Looms Within Five Years
LONDON - Unless there is a "bold change of policy direction," the world will lock itself into an insecure, inefficient and high-carbon energy system, the International Energy Agency warned at the launch of its 2011 World Energy Outlook today in London.
Coal-fired power generating station in Shanxi, China. (Photo courtesy Skoda Export) The report says there is still time to act, but despite steps in the right direction the door of opportunity is closing.
The agency's warning comes at a critical time in international climate change negotiations, as governments prepare for the annual UN climate summit in Durban, South Africa, from November 28.
"If we do not have an international agreement whose effect is put in place by 2017, then the door will be closed forever," IEA Chief Economist Fatih Birol warned today.
"Growth, prosperity and rising population will inevitably push up energy needs over the coming decades. But we cannot continue to rely on insecure and environmentally unsustainable uses of energy," said IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven.
"Governments need to introduce stronger measures to drive investment in efficient and low-carbon technologies," she said.
"The Fukushima nuclear accident, the turmoil in parts of the Middle East and North Africa and a sharp rebound in energy demand in 2010 which pushed CO2 emissions to a record high, highlight the urgency and the scale of the challenge," van der Hoeven said.
Some key trends are pointing in worrying directions, the agency told reporters today. CO2 emissions have rebounded to a record high, the energy efficiency of global economy worsened for second straight year and spending on oil imports is near record highs.
In the World Energy Outlook's central New Policies Scenario, which assumes that recent government commitments are implemented in a cautious manner, primary energy demand increases by one-third between 2010 and 2035, with 90 percent of the growth in non-OECD economies.
In the New Policies Scenario, cumulative carbon dioxide emissions over the next 25 years amount to three-quarters of the total from the past 110 years, leading to a long-term average temperature rise of 3.5 degrees C.
"Were the new policies not implemented, we are on an even more dangerous track, to an increase of six degrees C.
The IEA projects that China will consolidate its position as the world's largest energy consumer. It consumes nearly 70 percent more energy than the United States by 2035, even though, by then, per capita demand in China is still less than half the level in the United States.
The share of fossil fuels in global primary energy consumption falls from around 81 percent today to 75 percent in 2035.
Renewables increase from 13 percent of the mix today to 18 percent in 2035; the growth in renewables is underpinned by subsidies that rise from $64 billion in 2010 to $250 billion in 2035, support that in some cases cannot be taken for granted in this age of fiscal austerity.
By contrast, subsidies for fossil fuels amounted to $409 billion in 2010.
"As each year passes without clear signals to drive investment in clean energy, the "lock-in" of high-carbon infrastructure is making it harder and more expensive to meet our energy security and climate goals," said Birol.
The World Energy Outlook also presents a 450 Scenario, which traces an energy path consistent with meeting the globally agreed goal of limiting the temperature rise to two degrees Celsuis above pre-industrial levels.
Four-fifths of the total energy-related CO2 emissions permitted to 2035 in the 450 Scenario are already locked in by existing capital stock, including power stations, buildings and factories, the report finds.
Without further action by 2017, the energy-related infrastructure then in place would generate all the CO2 emissions allowed in the 450 Scenario up to 2035.
"Delaying action is a false economy," Birol warned, saying that for every $1 of investment in cleaner technology that is avoided in the power sector before 2020, an additional $4.30 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions.
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233 Comments so far
Show AllYep, this is a really important point: voluntary individual action can only accomplish so much. Eliminating unnecessary individual waste and even large parts of (mostly pointless) individual consumption is important, but it is impossible in the current economy, as any resources "freed up" by a decreasing individual consumption will not be "saved", just used up elsewhere. Of course this could partly mean a bit more economic justice (increasing standards of living in third world countries) or may be investment needed for a more sustainable economy but don't hold your breath - it's more likely to be redirected into the same type of wasteful crap that it's supposed to decrease, into vanity projects where wealth is super concentrated or into military development and generally maintaining violence based technological control.
Atomsk: You make good points, and to a large extent I agree with you. But I do think the story is more nuanced. As more people adopt responsible lifestyles and activities, it does have its own ripple effect. For example: More people walking and biking in a neighborhood attracts more like-minded people to those neighborhoods. As the critical mass of like-minded people grows, they support city and state leaders (and tax measures) that build and maintain walkable, bikeable, and transit-friendly neighborhoods. Businesses begin to spring up that both promote and benefit from those changes, further reinforcing change. Et cetera.
Not trying to be Pollyannish. I agree that real lasting change will require a more fundamental and radical shift in our economic underpinnings. But -- leadership towards those changes tends to bubble up from the bottom. Portland became the progressive, bicycle-friendly it is because of a lot of individual voluntary actions (initially) that grew into a friendly infrastructure and political climate (eventually).
Another observation: people are motivated to recycle more when they find out their neighbors recycle more than they do. That has a bigger impact than cash awards, etc. Interesting. So let's not discourage "individual action". It has more than an individual impact. But let's just not stop there.
The problem is that you missed the most important point that makes all of your arguments mostly worthless: the resources the behaviours you described free up will ultimately not be "saved", just used for something else. This is the nature of capitalism. It is also called the Jevons paradox, but it is a paradox only if you ignore the inherently and unavoidably expansionary nature of capitalism; in actual fact it reflects its essence most accurately.
Basically, none of what you said counts in any way because none of these actions will limit and decrease absolute levels of resource use and waste over time. Sorry.
From Jevons paradox:
In 1865, the English economist William Stanley Jevons observed that technological improvements that increased the efficiency of coal-use led to the increased consumption of coal in a wide range of industries. He argued that, contrary to common intuition, technological improvements could not be relied upon to reduce fuel consumption.
Hansen et al address the Jevons paradox aspect of energy efficiency near the conclusion of The Case for Young People:
Governments have taken steps to promote renewable energies and encourage energy efficiency. But renewable energies total only a few percent of all energy sources, and improved efficiency only slows the growth of energy use. The transition to a post-fossil fuel world of clean energies is blocked by a fundamental fact, as certain as the law of gravity: as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy, they will be burned.
However, fossil fuels are cheapest only because they are subsidized directly and indirectly, and because they are not made to pay their costs to society – the costs of air and water pollution on human health and costs of present and future climate disruption and change.
A nice article about this on MR:
http://monthlyreview.org/2010/11/01/capitalism-and-the-curse-of-energy-efficiency
I don't think the arguments you quote from Hansen are too good though (I agree with them but I think they're not the strongest arguments and do not go to the root of the problem). First, the constant burning of fossil fuels has less to do with cheapness and more to do with the basic expansionary nature of capitalism - it is simply not capable (in normal circumstances) to decrease resource use (or even to keep it on a constant level). Second, I just cannot believe that fossil fuels are only the cheapest because of subsidies. Right now I'm pretty sure that the advantages of volume, controllability (the ability to choose when and where the energy will be used - ie. the ability to transport fossil fuels and the ability to store them for as long as necessary), ease of use and energy density of fossil fuels is unparalleled.
As for the "costs" of pollution and healthcare not being paid - absolutely true, but there is not a single economic system that can reliably systematically evaluate and compensate for these costs, and from a capitalist point of view they simply do not exist (as the effects are so long term). In short, this is how capitalism works. It can not account for all its resource use (in fact, it relies on "externalisation", on accounting for as little of its effects as possible) and it can not stop growing (and these two things are closely connected).
The ultimate point is that while it's very nice if some people don't eat meat or stop driving, it will ultimately have no effect on total resource use. The only way to achieve that imo is to impose hard limits on resource consumption, coupled with a guaranteed access to necessities of life, and reorganise production to satisfy these limits. But individual choice will have no effect on total overall resource waste - and that is a systemic attribute of capitalism.
Atomsk,
If I abstain from fossil fuel use, I have decreased demand and indirectly made the price of fossil fuel cheaper - which makes it more likely to be consumed by someone else. The basic principle that price drives demand - a lower price increases demand, a higher price decreases demand - is at the heart of the "paradox" you astutely articulate.
By the same token, simply imposing a price on carbon emissions, as Hansen recommends, would inevitably decrease demand for fossil fuels. This would hold regardless of the overall economic system within which fossil fuels are purchased.
Though I'm a flaming red at heart, I have a couple of problems with socialist remedies to the global warming problem:
The core problem is infinite growth of human structures within a finite ecological system. The growth dynamic is orthogonal to the socialist-capitalist gradient: there are growth-based and steady-state theorists in both camps.
Every five years of continuing BAU emissions costs the Earth another century of dangerously elevated temperatures. The planet may not be able to afford waiting around for a worldwide socialist revolution.
I've participated in Occupy Oakland, and I'm frankly worried about how long it's going to take before economically dislocated activists understand that the ecological crisis is a fundamental driver of the inequities they decry. I don't see much ecological concern out there: in the signs, in the songs, or in the speeches.
By comparison, I'm a bit embarrassed at the write-your-congressman, letter-to-the-editor, working within the system approach of the Citizen's Climate Lobby, a group of activists working for Fee and Dividend legislation. I can either sit on my ass and feel superior, or try to work with some collective effort - where ever it looks like there's the best potential for traction in the near future, because the world is running out of time.
"By the same token, simply imposing a price on carbon emissions, as Hansen recommends, would inevitably decrease demand for fossil fuels. This would hold regardless of the overall economic system within which fossil fuels are purchased."
You're probably right, although I think that even these mechanisms could be "hacked" somehow - they will have to be in the form of laws and regulations and we know how those work :-/ (although I haven't really thought about a carbon tax so I don't know much.) I just have a hunch that without conscious control (as opposed to a mechanism within this existing super complex economic system) based on measurements and information there will be no actual change.
"Though I'm a flaming red at heart, I have a couple of problems with socialist remedies to the global warming problem..."
I agree, mostly. Socialism (despite the fact that Engels and Marx were both aware of the ecological implications of capitalist industry) can easily be unecological ("actually existing socialism" definitely was) - although I don't see how "capitalism" could be a steady-state system :-) I also agree that we don't have much time. On the other hand, this doesn't mean that any solution that stays within this economic system even exists. It seems to be so deeply incapable of reducing resource use and pollution, which is why a solution that includes changing the current economic system may even be the fastest one...which is pretty bad news.
For those of you a few decades behind on the issue, the Jevons paradox has been shown to be false. While there is an increase in use of fuel etc. due to conservation reducing price (effectively reducing price, because you get more for each ounce burned), this increase is pretty much always less than the fuel saved by the efficiency increase.
Increased efficiency leads to decreased fuel use, all other things being equal. And most of the people who continue to insist otherwise have a hidden (or not) agenda--to promote fossil or nuclear fuel use and slow demands for efficiency and renewables. i ran into Mr. Jevons continually during the light bulb freedom silliness, and every poster who brought him up was a denyalist or delayalist.
The basic underlying thing is still true: increase in energy efficiency has not lead to decreased total energy consumption. Energy consumption per capita is not exactly decreasing (except in times of crisis). Whether it's called Jevons paradox or Atomsk paradox, I don't give a shit: that higher resource efficiency in itself does not limit total resource use is afaics a historical fact. I mean, of course energy efficiency itself is important, but it will only work with a hard upper limit on total energy use. In itself it does not drive total energy consumption down. Whether economics can explain this or not, afaics this is what's happening in actual reality.
And of course this is a pretty important strategic issue: do we have to actually do something about wasteful lifestyles (and other waste not related to individual consumption), or can we just rely on technology to make everything we have basically free in terms of energy consumption?
What I'm talking about is summarised in Weight of Nations:
"Industrial economies are becoming more efficient in their use of materials, but waste generation continues to increase.
Despite strong economic growth in all countries studied, resource inputs and waste outputs between 1975 and 1996 rose relatively little, on a per capita basis, and fell dramatically when measured against units of economic output.
Even as decoupling between economic growth and resource throughput occurred on a per capita and per unit GDP basis, however, overall resource use and waste flows into the environment continued to grow. We found no evidence of an absolute reduction in resource throughput.
One half to three quarters of annual resource inputs to industrial economies are returned to the environment as wastes within a year.
Material outputs to the environment from economic activity in the five study countries range from 11 metric tons per person per year in Japan to 25 metric tons per person per year in the United States.
When “hidden flows” are included—flows which do not enter the economy, such as soil erosion, mining overburden, and earth moved during construction—total annual material outputs to the environment range from 21 metric tons per person in Japan to 86 metric tons per person in the United States."
Whatever this phenomenon is called, it is what counts.
atomsk,
When you solarize your home, the first thing you do is ruthlessly eliminate wastes of energy. As we turn to renewables, efficiency is an absolutely crucial part of making it possible and making it more obviously affordable. Correlation does not equal causation (or even relation). The fact that energy use has kept going up has not been shown to have anything to do with increasing efficiency. Even if it has some relation, there’s no reason to believe it’s the only or even a major cause. Energy use has gone up; a certain definition of efficiency has gone up. So has your age but I don’t hear anyone saying it’s all your fault.
The phenomenon whereof you speak is called externalizing. It’s partly the result of power inequality but at root has a lot more to do with a parallel psychological phenomenon called projection. It’s likely a main cause of externalizing, which is what I keep saying on all these articles and very few people seem to get it.
I didn't intend to say that increasing efficiency made total consumption go up, only that despite huge gains in efficiency, total consumption has still gone up, which is a fact. The conclusion I drew was that in itself, increasing efficiency will not decrease total consumption, and we need to set hard limits from outside the economy to make them go down, that's all that can help. Basically: without external control and a conscious plan to decrease CO2 emissions and waste in general, and more importantly, without discarding this expansion based economic system, there will be no change in TOTAL outputs. Which is what counts. So my conclusion remains completely unchanged: individual action and technological efficiency gains will have *no effect on total resource use* unless they are accompanied by a deep change in the economic system. In which case they will become very important - but not otherwise.
BTW, Naomi Klein's new article on Z (and another one by John Bellamy Foster) seem to be saying the same thing (just read these today).
"The phenomenon whereof you speak is called externalizing. It’s partly the result of power inequality but at root has a lot more to do with a parallel psychological phenomenon called projection. It’s likely a main cause of externalizing, which is what I keep saying on all these articles and very few people seem to get it. "
Errr, I know what externalisation is, but I don't see how it connects to projection, and I can't really agree even remotely that a material process of such incredible size is a result of some psychological issue and doesn't have a material, economic root. Externalisation has a lot of obvious material advantages for the externaliser, and the externaliser invariably takes these advantages, so any psychological discussion is mostly beside the point: externalisation is clearly driven by the material advantages it confers.
The cumulative effect of many people’s personal action can be, and usually is, either reinforcement of the status quo or a change. In fact, it is constant change and that can't be stopped; only the direction and speed are determinable.
It always astounds me when people living in this century do not know that most of what we do is unconscious, and is motivated by unmet psychological needs. Of course mind and body being one, it is more complicated than that but that will suffice for now. Have you never heard of Sigmund Freud? Carl Jung? Wilhelm Reich? Systems thinking or family therapy? Now here’s a revelation every bit –absolutely every bit—as important and revolutionary as evolution, and far more cogent to daily life, yet there are denialists on the left as well as many on the right.
Why do people want material advantage, beyond a certain basic level? It doesn’t make them happier; it is so completely clear that it’s destroying other people and the rest of nature that the only way to not know that is to systematically turn attention away from it, continually, in an active process that is both physical and psychological.
Why do people pursue policies that are self-destructive, other-destructive, and clearly not the only choice available? Why are there climate denialists? Why do people oppose ecological, safety and health regulation, working together to create a better world by making sure everyone is healthy, educated, productive, and understands how we’re all connected?
Every process is the result of psychology—every religious, philosophical, economic, cultural, political, societal, engineering, scientific, artistic process, thought, feeling, decision…. Every realm of human endeavor is controlled by psychology. Doesn’t it seem like a good idea for us to understand it? So that we could all understand how externalization relates to projection?
Externalization is clearly NOT driven simply by materialism; not everyone takes the opportunity to externalize. Why some do and some don't is very much in the realm of psychology and so it is completely the point. We can never hope to win even the tiniest skirmish if we don't have some model, theory and practice of human psychology.
J4zonian, very nicely argued. You also ask some very important questions, perhaps rhetorically:
>>"Why do people pursue policies that are self-destructive, other-destructive, and clearly not the only choice available? Why are there climate denialists? Why do people oppose ecological, safety and health regulation, working together to create a better world by making sure everyone is healthy, educated, productive, and understands how we’re all connected?"<<
I will not attempt to answer them, as I think it's better to leave some questions as they are so that people who are serious can find their own answers.
Alcyon,
Thanks, but i beg you to reconsider. What are we here for on Common Dreams comment threads if not to try to answer questions of motivation, so that we can then answer the questions of re-motivation in more useful, wise directions? if you have answers, or even ideas about what the answers might look, sound, feel or smell like, please share them.
You still didn't explain what projection has to do with externalisation, and you don't make many arguments in your posts, except for the following, which is basically the complete opposite of the truth, the tail wagging the dog etc etc:
"Every process is the result of psychology—every religious, philosophical, economic, cultural, political, societal, engineering, scientific, artistic process, thought, feeling, decision…. Every realm of human endeavor is controlled by psychology. Doesn’t it seem like a good idea for us to understand it? So that we could all understand how externalization relates to projection?"
It's actually the other way around. There are material processes that are governed by natural laws, and the human mind reflects and manipulates these material processes. Material processes are not controlled by psychology, although through cultural development they become understood better and better both consciously and unconsciously (reflected in patterns of behaviour that fit processes well but aren't consciously understood). These are all behavioural responses to, and not drivers of, real world material processes - which is shown best by the fact that sometimes these patterns of behaviour become out of date and incapable of handling real life problems and result in decline and destruction of social structures. Initially, these are always responses to material circumstances, but in turn, these responses and their effects themselves become part of the material and social environment and so on.
Of course you may be thinking of, say, the psychology of an individual investor etc, someone who has power to do A or B, and whose "psychology" is, in this case, important to understand his choice between A and B. But you have to understand that it's to a very large extent the material world that selects people to perform these decisions, who acquire this kind of power through making selections conforming to their (human scale) reality, and so the range of their possible actions is also limited (just look at how Bill Gates acts with his "charity" and how completely in sync it is with generic neoliberal globalist capitalist thinking). There may be exceptions, but those are very rare.
Obviously individuals act based on what you call psychology (although of course it's more complex than what this discipline covers), but their actions are bounded by material limitations and the social systems they take part in (and in turn, the type of social structures is also limited by material boundaries), and are ultimately "judged" and selected by this material framework.
Anyway. I quite like philosophy and speculation in general, but my initial point (to which all of your later replies were sadly irrelevant) was this:
Change that decreases total resource use (despite availability or even abundance) within the current economic framework of capitalism is *impossible*. Neither individual initiative nor increasing resource efficiency will lead to a decrease of total resource use, and in themselves, neither will be able to set up a "steady state" system (although they will be important in setting up one that has a higher level of material abundance). The only way to limit total resource use that I see is to impose a conscious limit on its consumption externally - ie. politically. Unless this is done, no resources will stay unused, although the rate of use can be influenced minimally (to such a small extent that it doesn't really count - just look at the minimal effect the greatest depression in 80 years had on resource use).
"Externalization is clearly NOT driven simply by materialism; not everyone takes the opportunity to externalize."
This looks like a non sequitur, but more importantly, it is also wrong: externalisation is unavoidable in the capitalist system, as any corporation that wanted to account for all its resource use (pollutione etc) and decrease it to zero will be uncompetitive and eliminated by competition. Whether the person wants to do that is irrelevant. Just like you can't understand a war only based on understanding the psychology of the individual soldiers fighting, you can't understand a social system just based on individual psychology.
What happens is this: externalisation (or whatever else) as a pattern of behaviour, a tool, a method (in increasing order of consciousness) confers material advantages to anyone using it and wishing for material advantages, and thus strengthens the group of people that uses it, thus helps its survival. "Psychology" in this case just supplies the basic pool of variety of behaviours that effectively "compete" with each other (consciously or not). The material world limits the number of viable patterns of behaviour and weeds out the stuff that doesn't work within the current framework. Changing outcomes thus requires changing of the material framework - unless, of course, you prefer to psychologically engineer (or even reengineer) people that fit a particular material framework. The psychological "why" is mostly unimportant (unless, as I said, you want to change people's thinking, through pedagogical or manipulative methods) - there are always a limited number of patterns that make sense - and all of them have to be judged by the material world about how much sense they make. In addition to this, psychology will never be able to predict which of these patterns will work (because that's in the realm of the material world) and which won't; it can determine which of these are easier to accept for people though, and that's important, but a side issue from the point of view of actually effecting change. (This issue is actually the biggest traditional mistake of "bourgeois" idealist philosophy. Individual mental processes do not create reality only reflect it, are shaped by it so that they become progressively more similar and even analogous. Since the ultimate judge of a behaviour's validity is always the material world, understanding of society must come from understanding material processes. Not understanding this is the reason that bourgeois philosophy always tends towards subjectivism and subjective idealism. Objectivism is an excellent example, especially because of the choice of name.)
meet you at the end?
(cont)
"Why some do and some don't is very much in the realm of psychology and so it is completely the point."
No, it is mostly (although not completely) irrelevant. The variance in behaviours may be mostly random, dependent on complex and even unknowable genetic, cultural and environmental factors; what counts is what kinds of behaviours the material framework prefers and selects from this set. The final judgment is in the hands of the material world. Psychology "only" supplies some limited understanding of the variance of possible behaviours - but which of these possible behaviours actually work is determined by the material world (and understood and explained by material sciences, not psychology).
"We can never hope to win even the tiniest skirmish if we don't have some model, theory and practice of human psychology. "
And what exactly are you going to if you understand it? How do you propose to use it? Are you going to change people's psychology on a mass scale? Or are you suggesting that we can develop a "technology" of pedagogy (or even manipulation), of making people understand the "truth" and behave "well"? As for me, I have to admit that I absolutely prefer the traditional view of simply taking people seriously and what they say at face value, not reinterpreting everything psychologically, as that's what works best for anything with actual substance, actual relevance to reality (that's what science and the scientific method is all about, for one). It's silly to put in layers of transformation and interpretation when the issue discussed is extremely complex in itself. There are important uses (mostly pedagogical), but simple honesty and goodwill in discussions is what works best. Even worse, as far as I can see, nothing else works at all. Definitely not the self-appointed "smart" people, the "best and the brightest" deciding stuff and lying about it (do not misunderstand me, I am not at all referring to you or what you're saying, but Hedges' "liberal class", the "liberal intelligentsia").
"Why do people pursue policies that are self-destructive, other-destructive, and clearly not the only choice available? Why are there climate denialists? Why do people oppose ecological, safety and health regulation, working together to create a better world by making sure everyone is healthy, educated, productive, and understands how we’re all connected? "
Your first and third questions are referring to different processes. It is not "people" who pursue self-destructive policies, but groups of people, or rather, concentrations of power. They're doing stuff their way because that works for their group interests - maybe not individually and psychologically, it's just that as long as the social structure manages to select people who *act* a certain way, it doesn't really matter what they *think* privately. Climate denialism and opposition of regulation etc are mostly learned behaviours and support (ie. rationalise) behaviours that are preferable (in the short term) for individual private interests (on the human individual scale) - but they are invented and spread through the media because of material interests of large concentrations of power. Of course there is cognitive dissonance here - but it is between the material aspects of reality, between short term/individual and long term/communal *material interests*. This is pretty well understood by the fuckwits spreading this crap.
Psychology can be important in designing material systems that are acceptable to most people and robust and allow people to have a happy life, but it will not explain the problems of the material world. What drives, eg, "externalisation" psychologically in different individuals is not really an important question for several reasons: this particular pattern is not in fact based on individual decisions but forced upon competing corporations by competition (any company that accounts and pays for everything it uses will simply die - and this is determined economically and legally) so even if you could eliminate the personal psychological drive, without changing the economic system, without changing the real world, you'd achieve nothing - as most people doing the "externalising" don't even need to be aware of it and wouldn't even have the slightest psychological connection to this behaviour, as its essence is now encapsulated by the corporate form and the surrounding economic and legal framework.
Of course it is interesting and important to understand what kind of behaviour patterns or what kind of personality is preferred by a system (cf the apparently common theory that modern corporate structures prefer sociopathic behaviour)
Fortunately, solar cell costs are falling so dramatically that within a few years they should be competitive with coal (even with all the subsidies coal gets, like the ability to poison our air, and oceans with mercury, free of charge). But that, itself, was so unnecessary. Everyone knew that solar would be subject to 'economies of scale': the cost per unit depends on how many are ordered. We needed our governments to order quantities of solar sufficient to get the market going, so entrepreneurs would find it profitable to make the next, best, solar cell. But our gov'ts are so wedded to fossils that they never did their part and solar languished, unnecessarily, for 20-30 years. So sad, so unnecessary. Consider the trillions upon trillions of dollars nuclear has gotten, directly, from governments all over the world, to hammer out its technical issues, the starvation policy directed toward solar will be one of the most talked about scandals of the last 30 years, in time.
On an unrelated note: I'm sure the residents of Alaska are thrilled to know that whatever is hitting them cannot be classified a Hurricane...
We do not have a few more years to stop burning coal...We have to stop it now.
We have to stop thinking of 20, 30, 40 or more years, or as so many of our scientists say, until the year 2100... We have less than (five years) to prevent RUNAWAY global warming..... Does anyone here not understand that?
II is just like an incoming massive asteroid which would end almost all life on Earth, life down to the microbreal level.
World govvernments' would work together to do all possible to divert that incoming asteroid... They have to do the same to prevent runaway global warming... That's it! We either accept that fact or we go about our business and pretend it isn't happening, or deny it, or ignore it.... Those are our choices as the human race on Earth.
Would anyone here actually ignore it if someone was going to kill them, their family and their children? ___ Well, runaway global warming will most assuredly kill you, your family and your children... That's how it is, nothing to argue about.
Human beings living like the Tribes used to live? That's an interesting romantic vision, but somehow I doubt that the current bison herds could support all seven billion human beings. In fact, it looks increasingly doubtful whether the planet itself can for much longer.
Nope. No clever solutions from this old geezer. Just more or less resigned to the increasingly likely outcome. If you know a way to divert human "societal development" from its self-destructive path, you're much more clever than I.
"All I am going to do is live my life, pay my bills, and die."
As must we all, although bankruptcy can be an attractive option in some cases. Anyhow, it's not my world. It's just the world we're compelled to deal with as best any of us can -- in my own case, not for much longer I'm not entirely sorry to say.
Shadow Dancer: It would have been an honor, a privilege, and an education to have joined you. You and I both understand time AS a circle, and therefore those who do survive the calamities already being set into ecological motion, will likely be forced to learn (or adapt to) earlier Indigenous ways... lifestyles experienced in intimate closeness with the earth. What again will be regarded as precious is that which is priceless (and never should have been allowed to have a price tag put upon it, with the result being that 95% of nature, and its living entities, got whipped into submission and effectively treated like slaves). Just as the spoiled child seldom appreciates what he's been easily given until it's taken away, human survivors will learn to demonstrate awe and respect for Nature and her systems. ---------------------------------------------------------------- You have a great sense of humor as offset to what you see going on around you. That's a great and helpful) asset.
SHADOW DANCER: I agree about True Prophecy, and yet there are many false prophets, especially in these times. I call them "prophets for profit." What's fascinating to me is realizing the ways that so many prophecies are all coming together. One could say that science, in terms of studies based on climate change, now validates what the mystics have been saying for years. I read the SUN BEAR prophecies, along with some Hopi Prophecies; and then there's the astrological count of time which shows a HUGE perturbation now. Add that to the Christian End Times, and the Mayan mathematicians noting the significance of 2012, and much points to present times as a pivotal shifting point.------------------------------------------------------------
Meanwhile, to earthbound types, three serious tributaries are about to converge, and the evidence is difficult to dismiss. Any one of these will radically alter life on this planet, and these are: --------------------------------------------------------
1. The End of Oil------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. The false monetary systems decoupled from any honest or sane measures of wealth. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Natural Capital, in the form of nature's amazing assets, running short in lots of areas, with things as basic as harvest cycles, about to misfire, if not implode. --------------------------------------------------------------------
I am a great fan of the Indigenous teaching that one must "Live simply that others may simply live." Had that been respected by Western civilization, we would not be facing the potential End of Nature... at least in a form supportive of human life. It's nearly full moon in Taurus, the sign of the Earth Mother. In mythology, her counterpart, Demeter closed down the harvest cycles because Zeus (the CEO of Olympus) would do nothing to see to it that her abducted daughter, Persephone, was returned. It was only when the Goddess of Nature made use of her powers to close down the harvests that Zeus was forced to act. I think we are about to see a similar enactment, and so many "sophisticated Westerners" suggest that mythology and prophecy are all bunk. The signs ARE speaking, but many prove blind to what's right before their eyes... and increasingly escalating in intensity and scope.
He only said that current populations can not be supported without agriculture (well he just said bison herds but I think this is the point). That was all.
Yeah, that's more or less what I meant. ShadowDancer suggested living as the Tribes used to live. I refered to the sorely depleted bison herds in relation to the current populace merely as an example of some practical issues involved in that suggestion.
I replied to ShadowDancer and the "he" referred to you (although I did interpret your statement more generally). I thought ShadowDancer attributed opinions (and attitudes) to you that you don't hold (or maybe you do but the post you made surely didn't contain them) and I wanted to point that out, but maybe I misunderstood something, sorry.
No problem. Just wanted to clarify that my own response was in no way intended as a "smartass" derogatory response to ShadowDancer or anyone else. It was merely a reflection on some current realities.
The (KEY) for the most serious and important issue humanity has ever faced,,, is the Arctic region of Earth.
Global warming has effected the Arctic far more than any other area of the planet where temperatures have risen far more due to global warming. The result is dramatic melting of the sea ice and permafrost.
There are over 1.5 trillion tons of methane safely locked in the Arctic’s permafrost. As the permafrost melts, methane gas enters the atmosphere in huge amounts.
It has been discovered that methane, CH4, is 72 times more potent than Co2 as a greenhouse gas for the first 20 to 25 years it is in the atmosphere… We already have a very serious problem with excess Co2 in the atmosphere without the addition of methane in the greenhouse gas mix.
It has also been discovered that methane has caused (a third) of the planet’s temperature rise,,, not just (a sixth) as was previously believed… Therefore the release of vast quantities of methane gas into the atmosphere from the melting Arctic permafrost is the KEY issue.
“Dr Martin Sommerkorn, the Senior Climate Change Adviser at WWF International's Arctic Programme stated, ("The pace at which both the Arctic sea ice and the Greenland ice sheet is melting has "severely accelerated" and could bring about rapid and unstoppable change in natural systems across the world…. And the scientist's added,,, ("The melting of the Arctic ice is happening quicker than predicted and may now be close to its 'tipping point' when the changes cannot be reversed.").
“Cannot be reversed”!! __ We’d better get our act together and very, very soon.
Or not. The planet will ultimately survive as it has in the past and it's doubful that its next intelligent species (if any) will look back upon so-called homo sapiens as anything more than a badly misnamed bump on the evolutionary path.
These are times when being over seventy years of age is not a matter for much regret.
I disagree with your Ho-Hum attitude... I care about the future generations of children who are not responsible for what we and our ancestors have done to our atmosphere and our oceans by burning coal.
And not that it will matter after we are all gone, but the planet may not survive this episode of human caused global warming as a unique only known Water World in the entire vast universe.... It could become another Venus if all of the coral reefs die off and there are no more phytoplanton to produce oxygen.
We MUST have a (world wide) massive program to produce clean energy, solar, tidal and geothermal and STOP burning coal and do that very, very, verrrrrry soon.
Personally however, I do not believe many here,,, if any,,, believe or understand that fact and neither do our world leaders, so get ready for the downhill ride and it won't be fun for anyone.
I can only wish you the very best of good luck with that "MUST have" worldwide massive program. Personally, ho-hum or not, I stand with Canute's attitude toward the likelihood of tidal reversals by human command, especially at this late stage.
"As each year passes without clear signals to drive investment in clean energy, the "lock-in" of high-carbon infrastructure is making it harder and more expensive to meet our energy security and climate goals," said Birol.
A serious obstacle to reducing greenhouse gases is this common misconception that if we only invested in "clean" energies, all would be well. Not only is this untrue, it serves to delay action on the more realistic strategy of restructuring our lives and our communities to meet our essential needs with much (80% at least) less energy than we now use. It can be done, but as long as we entertain the fantasy that some nonpolluting magical energy source will scale up to replace fossil fuels, there is little incentive to make substantial lifestyle and infrastructure changes.
We're not going to make it. We will of course suffer and then we will start to think about how to remove CO2 from the air or how to limit sunlight hitting the earth. And the generation which is tasked with this burden will have nothing but scorn for us. I think I can already feel it.
tammons,
take your despair and get thee to a therapist. Please remember that your personal feelings projected onto the world do not accurately predict global events. Peddle it somewhere else; we got work to do here.
Not making it is not an option.
... said the dinosaur, frantically running from the oncoming asteroid.
I think this is pure Hollywood movie idiocy, in other words a distant reflection of the individualist ideology behind the American Dream. "Success will come if you try hard enough." But, you know, it's a lie. Life is mostly about luck and drifting along the routes that pressures of economics and politics and thinking form - the effectiveness of individual intention is very limited. "Not making it" is for a lot of people not just an "option" but an inevitability. Stop believing in this subjective idealist crap already :-/
"Then the shit hit the fan. "
John Kenneth Galbraith
How many posting comments here have read and understand the headline of this very important article?
_______ :Irreversible Climate Change Looms Within Five Years"._____
Yes, I think most people understood it. More also realized that there's bugger all that's going to be done about it, some of us think the tipping point has already passed us by. I think we're in the car that's still going forward, but the cliff is behind us and we've not yet started to fall.
Afraid you are correct ~Aaronica~.
Well, some re-runs of "I love Lucy" are on the telly so guess I'll go have some laughs before I go buy some discounted Chinese made Christmas lights at Wal-Mart.
Anyone following the Penn State football scandal? Neat shit huh? Let us all just forget all about the Arctic ice melting off and that trillion + tons of methane ready to burst out and kill us all... Too damn many of us here anyway.
Noone wants to accept it and fight hard to have some firm sensible action taken to prevent it.
I thought the headline was a very poor choice. First of all, climate change *will* and *always* has occured, just as the orientation of the continental landmasses have changed and continue to change as I type. Thus, the word "irreversible" is 100% incorrect, because the current climate is eventually going to change, and then it will eventually change again, and then it will change again, and ....---I think you all can get the idea. Second, Climate Change is already here--not 5 Years away--and that change is constantly being amplified. Third, this article isn't anymore "important" than those published by other Propaganda System outlets--the IEA's 2011 World Energy Outlook is the important item here, http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/
The headline strongly implies the imminence of runaway climate change, this much is true. But the story underneath the headline is not discussing the response of Earth systems. From the first sentence onward, the subject is commitments to human infrastructural investments which the IEA is concerned will make continuing growth in emissions irreversible.
Unless there is a "bold change of policy direction," the world will lock itself into an insecure, inefficient and high-carbon energy system, the International Energy Agency warned at the launch of its 2011 World Energy Outlook today in London.
This is an important message, but it's not saying we'll see runaway climate change within five years. That message would be coming from physical analysts, not economic analysts at the IEA. The headline writer is confused.
I note that this article is based on a just released study by the International Energy Agency--IEA--its 2011 World Energy Outlook, yet there is no link provided to it or the PR this seems partially based upon. So, the PR is here, http://www.iea.org/press/pressdetail.asp?PRESS_REL_ID=426 and the study here, http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/
At theoildrum.com a poster here http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8583/849236 provided a very important graphic and additional links to the Presentation, Factsheet, and Key Graphs that I suggest people take time to digest. It's also interesting what various Propaganda System outlets have chosen from to highlight when one inputs International Energy Agency's 2011 World Energy Outlook into google news.
"growth and prosperity....." That prediction doesn't seem likely in the near future. Just felt like pointing that out.
Our human nature is understood quite well by the advertisers ,auto makers,and oil men.Cars ,trucks, eating burgers , and energy use have become equated with sex,freedom ,and power--as American values.Caring about the future of anything but the unsustainable lifestyle of Americans is Anti-American in this worldview.Science and technology have become a false religion that the true believers hold up as being the force to save us from ourselves.I remember how the developement of the atomic bomb was pushed by the technocracy as the means to end all war.
Perhaps saddest of all, that "false religion" adds incentives for inhabitants of "less developed" regions to match the gluttonous consumption of the world's worst exploiters (which often seems to be the tendency in any case) and definitely not the reverse as would be necessary for any long-term solution.
To me, however, capitalism itself is the primary false religion, more so than science and technology per se, as capitalism is actually based on the ponzi scheme principle of an infinitely expandable base of suckers (a.k.a. consumers) supporting its whole pyramid -- and an increasingly shaky pyramid at that.
Smart post, Scott. You see thru the PR better than most.