Doug's Darkworld

I was wondering the other day how much human activity is altering the plant, erosion specifically was what got me looking into the subject. I mean, humans have converted vast amounts of forest and prairie into farmland or worse, and erosion rates must have gone up significantly over normal background  rates of erosion. Well, turns out geologists have calculated that the global erosion rate is about 10 billion tons of sediment moved from mountains to sea every year. Since the onset of agriculture, this has risen to about 28 billion tons per year. And we also move tens of billions of other material around in the form of mining, concrete production, etc. There’s not any question that humans are now the dominant force shaping the very surface of the Earth by a huge margin. The numbers a so huge that geologists are seriously considering defining the human era as a whole new geological era, the Anthropocene Epoch.

Then there’s the impact of humans have on the atmosphere. Let’s look at volcanoes. Every year volcanoes erupt and dump copious amounts of CO2 and SO2 (sulphur dioxide) into the atmosphere. Humans? We dump about 100 times and five times respectively as much CO2 and SO2 into the atmosphere every year as volcanoes. This is not chicken scratch. In fact the amount of CO2 released by humans and absorbed by the oceans has increased ocean acidity by 25%. This is a huge increase, and has changed the geological processes on the ocean floor in ways we don’t begin to understand.

Let’s just look at it from an energy standpoint. The heat energy released by the Earth every year is well understood. It’s about 44 trillion watts a year. This is what powers volcanoes, earthquakes, and plate tectonics. Human activity is about 16 trillion watts per year. Yes, human energy output is now about 1/3 the energy output of the Earth itself! And if it keeps doubling every 34 years, the current rate of increase, by about 2060 humans will be generating more energy than the Earth! Puny my ass.

It gets worse. As CO2 builds up in the atmosphere it increases the greenhouse effect, IE it traps more of the Sun’s heat on the Earth, warming the crust, the oceans, and the air. If the CO2 in the atmosphere doubles, it will add about 1300 trillion watts of heat energy to the Earth every year! That’s about 28 times the energy the Earth generates every year. And we’re well on the way, humans have increased the CO2 in the atmosphere by about 40% so far with no end in sight. Humans are literally cooking the planet’s crust, atmosphere, and oceans. Literally.

And these are just the big picture items. Little picture items, though the term is misleading, include deforestation, habitat destruction, over-fishing, and groundwater depletion just to name a few. Then there’s the dizzying array of chemicals we make and dump. Any of these could fill volumes with their effects, at least their known effects. My point here is very simple, humans not only are having a huge impact on the nature of our planet, we have no clue what the end results of these will be.

We are deliberately and literally geoengineering our planet, our only planet, with little to no understanding of the long term consequences of our actions. This is why the aliens haven’t contacted us yet, and this is why I question the idea that humans are an intelligent species. We are transforming the globe in ways we don’t even begin to understand, in the name of greed, ideology, and religion.

This isn’t going to end well.

(The above image is a NASA image and is being used legally, essentially it’s a Public Domain image as long as it is used in such a way that does not imply that NASA is endorsing a product or service. NASA does not endorse Doug’s Darkworld. It’s the decline of the Aral Sea in central Asia, once the world’s fourth largest lake. It’s now about 10% of it’s former size, entirely due to human activity and the results have been catastrophic. Lastly, much of the information on this post came from Our effect on the earth is real: how we’re geo-engineering the planet.)

Part of the reason my blogging has slowed down recently is that so much of what is going on today makes me mad. So I decided to vent about it, maybe it will be cathartic, maybe it will just make me madder. In no particular order, and in no way comprehensive, here are ten things I spend my time seething about. Be warned, I may use some harsh language as the situation warrants.

1. The rich are ass raping us all, and tens of millions of Americans are clamouring for more. The rich have been getting richer in the USA since the 1970s, while the middle class has slowly and steadily lost ground. This is not debatable. They’ve moved our factories to foreign lands, slashed their taxes, taken over our government and mainstream media, and stolen trillions from the public till. And most Americans are so brain-washed and propagandized that they blame immigrants, liberals, conservatives, atheists, shriners, whatever. Anyone but the people who have actually gotten us into this mess.

2. The debt, an extension of number one. The Federal government  has been running in the red a record breaking 33 months now. State and local governments are no better. How in the name of God did the richest country the world has ever seen run up debts so insane that there is no conceivable way to ever pay them off? The infinite greed of the rich and the apparently infinite stupidity of the great unwashed masses is my guess.

3. The Pentagon. There was a reason the founding fathers were adamantly opposed to a standing army. Armies get involved in politics, and then get the country involved in wars. All of which costs the country blood and money. And it just keeps getting worse, while tens of millions of Americans regurgitate the crap that our legions overseas are fighting to “defend our freedoms.” No, they are fighting and dying to make the rich richer and create endless new enemies for the USA. Frankly the US army needs to be disbanded it’s so out of control.

4. The historic last flight of the space shuttle. Good riddance. The space shuttle was one of the biggest boondoggles in history, it should never have been built in the first place, and it most certainly should have been canned after the first one blew up. Yet Americans are celebrating the lives lost and the billions wasted on this flying cash cow.

5. Iran is going to have nukes soon! Yes, another right wing think tank claims that Iran is going to be building nukes soon! Yes, the exact same claim that has been made by Israeli and American war mongers since the 1980s! Yes, for nearly thirty years Iran has been “just about to” build nuclear weapons! Meanwhile Israel and the USA have massively increased their war spending, including the creation of an Israeli nuclear arsenal. The USA spends more money on air conditioning for its troops in Iraq and Afghanistan than the entire Iranian military budget, yet we are supposed to quail in our boots because Iran might someday acquire a few fifties era nukes?

6. Casey Anderson. A woman was acquitted of a terrible crime in a fair trial … and millions of Americans are braying for her blood. Literally. How does this make them any different than stone throwing Muslims? It doesn’t.

7. Health Care. France spends 11% of its GNP on health care, and provides everyone in France with cradle to grave health care of the highest quality. The USA spends 16% of its GNP on health care and provides its citizens with the worst health care in the industrialized world. Anyone who isn’t mad about this is a fool.

8. Fucking the globe. From climate change to deforestation to over-fishing humans are making widespread and unprecedented changes to the surface of our fine planet. Humans are now the greatest force for change operating on the surface of the Earth in numerous realms, in most cases either ignorant of what the end result will be, or worse, deliberately proceeding even though our best minds say the end result will be catastrophic. Collectively we are no smarter than ants.

9. Religious nuts. Even the Romans understood: “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.” – Seneca the Younger (4 B.C. – 65 A.D.) And here we are two thousand years later blowing each other up, destroying the planet, and breeding like rabbits because people think it’s a great idea to do stuff because of what someone’s imaginary friend said. Jesus wept.

10. We’re all little better than monkeys. Yes, science has now shown that our brains are hard wired to be stupid. When most people are confronted with logical and scientific evidence that refutes some stupid idea they have, it reinforces their beliefs! This wouldn’t be such problem if our leaders weren’t all too eager to promote dumb fuck ideas because it makes them richer and more powerful.

In conclusion, speaking globally, this isn’t going to end well. Speaking locally, despite a missing lime and a recalcitrant pull tab, it’s going quite well and will end up nicely. And when I wake up, maybe the last 31 years will have all been a nightmare. A man can dream.

(The above image is of a painting made in 1562, so it’s currently Public Domain under US copyright law. I expect that to change soon as corporations twist the law to their own purposes. It’s titled “The Fall of the Rebel Angels” by Pieter Brueghal the Elder. I believe it’s self evident why I thought this was an appropriate image for this post.)

Well, the infamous “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign over the Auschwitz Death Camp gate has been stolen. The words mean “Work sets you free.” A spokesman for the holocaust museum called it an “act of war.” No, it was an act of vandalism and theft for God’s sake. Frankly, there are times when I think that holocaust remembrance has crossed the line into holocaust worship, and when someone calls a simple act of vandalism an “act of war,” that line has been crossed. Or at least the line between considered response and hysterical overreaction. The same spokesman also said he assumed it was stolen by neo-Nazis. I dunno, maybe it was stolen by people who think that the goddamn camp should be bulldozed instead of memorialized? The holocaust was a terrible thing, but do we really need to make the Death Camps into what are almost  shrines to remember that?

Moving right along …

… speaking of shrines, the above image was sent in by a long time reader. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, so I’m posting it for general interest. As far as I am concerned, as soon as someone brings up Al Gore in any discussion about AGW (human caused global warming,) they have admitted they either know nothing about the science involved, or are afraid to actually debate the science involved. Mostly the former, I’ve been studying climatology for years now and still don’t understand the half of it. Not to mention that when someone uses mocking in a debate, they are pretty much admitting they don’t want to debate. Still, I guess some will be amused by it.

And while we are on the topic of odd pictures, there’s this little gem from New Zealand:

This was a billboard put up by a church in New Zealand aimed at “challenging stereotypes” about the birth of Christ. Within hours it had been defaced by some enraged local, and came under heavy flak from Catholics among others. Since the brew ha ha about “The Last Temptation of Christ” I have been puzzled by the fact that some Christians basically get extremely upset about even the suggestion that the birth of Christ might have actually involved normal human beings. In the movie they were upset by the idea that Christ might have human doubts and feelings, he was portrayed as imagining while nailed to the cross that maybe he should have just married Mary Magdalen and settled down and had a family instead of becoming a preacher. I don’t really see why the idea that the divine might experience human thought s and emotions is all that threatening, I thought we were made in his image? Maybe someone can explain it to me.

And since weird images seems to be the theme of this post, I’ll conclude with this one:

This was a Christmas card sold by a big chain store in the UK. The company in question, TESCO, withdrew the card and apologized after people complained. To me this falls under the “what were they thinking category?” Yeah, on the one hand it’s just light hearted fun and maybe even is trying to make a point. On the other hand, kids were actually physically assaulted on the recent Facebook “kick a  ginger day,” so I can see why some people were upset. My main thought is that anything that serves to stereotype people is at least part of the problem. Since stereotyping people by the colour of their hair has to be one of the stupidest stereotypes around, and has resulted in physical violence, I see no problem with the store in question withdrawing the card and apologizing. And with a  lot of stuff like this, even though it purports to be humorous, I don’t get the joke.

Is there any theme to these images? Not really. The first one is simply an illustration, and unless you’re a  holocaust denier, I can’t see it causing any offence. The second one, about global warming, is meant to be belittling and mocking. Since I can’t think of a better way for AGW deniers to proclaim that they don’t  have any real scientific arguments, I don’t have a problem with it. The Mary and Joseph image was produced by a  liberal Christian church, ostensibly to promote discussion. I’m not surprised that people took offence though, there are Christians just as irrational about “insults” to their saviour as some Muslims are about insulting Mohammad. You’d think a Christian church would have known that, but c’est la vie. The last image, who knows what the motivation of the card’s creator was, though I kind of suspect that only someone who was genuinely prejudiced would come up with something like this.

Next week, I change my mind about Obama, I rethink the threat of fascism in America, and Gran Torino. Have a great weekend everyone.

(The above images are all claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. None of them are being used for profit, some of them are arguably important images, and by definition they illustrate what the post is about, themselves. I actually thought the Joseph and Mary one was really funny. Poor guy, can you imagine, he’s like: “You had a one night stand with who?“)

Climategate. I haven’t written about climategate yet. In fact I haven’t written about global warming at all for awhile. There’s reasons for that, but it is an important topic, so it deserves the occasional glance. Important, but depressing. OK, climategate. In short, someone hacked into a major centre of climate research, stole a vast amount of stuff including email, and published it. Some of the emails are pretty embarrassing, careers may be hurt or ruined. And there’s certainly evidence that some scientists engaged in less than ethical conduct to prove the case that human caused global warming is a problem. People sceptical of AGW (anthropogenic global warming, the idea that human activity is warming the globe) are making this out to be a very important development, some have even gone so far as to claim that this is the final proof that AGW is a hoax.

Before I go further, I have a problem here. If I understand it correctly, the sceptics are claiming that essentially the entire field of climatology is conspiring to “hoax” the world about AGW, presumably in order to keep the research grants coming. This alone gives me pause, has there ever been a case in history where an entire scientific discipline conspired to mislead the planet?  We’re talking tens of thousands of people in every country on Earth, and we  are talking all of them. Climatologists, the scientists who have actually spent their entire lives studying climate, are essentially in 100 percent in agreement that AGW is a reality. I find it very difficult to swallow that an entire branch of science is so corrupt and/or ignorant that they would perpetrate and/or fall for a hoax on this scale. Finding even a handful of people to conspire with is a tricky business, but thousands of them? Now maybe I’m overstating my case, but for the sceptics to be right, the entire field of climatology has to be wrong. Right?

Back to Climategate. I have a problem here too. Climategate isn’t about the science.  IE Even if we grant the worst case scenario, that a handful of scientists used unethical (and possibly illegal) means to promote their case, what does that have to do with the science? Well, nothing. The stolen and released emails do not show that any data was falsified or  that any studies need to be withdrawn. So no matter how damaging they are to the authors of the emails, what the stolen emails don’t address is the data and science itself. So what, exactly, does Climategate tell us about AGW? Nothing. I’d go more into the nuts and bolts of the whole mess, but others have done it better. In fact as far as I can tell, the AGW sceptics are operating the same way that a lot of people who have “maverick” beliefs are operating. They latch onto anything that appears to support their case, and claim that it discredits everything that doesn’t support their case. Um, one can support any belief in this fashion.

Moving right along, I’m actually not even going to address AGW, because it doesn’t matter. that’s right, it doesn’t matter if AGW is proved beyond any doubt. This is because whether or not one believes that humans are changing the climate, there isn’t any doubt whatsoever that the climate is changing. Even worse, the changes are much worse than the models predicted just a few years ago. The ice caps are melting, the glaciers are melting, and sea ice is disappearing at a much greater rate than anyone predicted. The evidence for this is documented in hundreds of studies world wide, by scientists from every country. Sea levels have risen an inch and a half in the last decade alone, and the rate of change is actually accelerating. These two links both address the actual science and its relevance to Climategate. I highly recommend them: What happened to the evidence? and The Reality of Climategate. I also find it interesting that the global warming sceptic’s position could have been written by the PR department of any major oil company. Interesting company to keep.

Another point that rarely gets mentioned, is that the people who think that human produced CO2 is part of the problem aren’t advocating “doing something” about it. They are advocating that the people who are doing something, slow down what they are doing. IE the sceptics who claim that CO2 isn’t part of the problem need to demonstrate that what is being done is perfectly safe. By dumping CO2 into the atmosphere at an unprecedented rate,  we are conducting the greatest scientific experiment in history using our own planet as a guinea pig! Um, if there is even a 1% chance that AGW is a reality, isn’t this a terrible risk to take? I wish some of the sceptics would explain just why they think we should conduct this sort of planetary experiment, what, exactly, is the point?

Which leads us to my last point, what, exactly, is so wrong about cutting CO2 emissions? Making things less polluting is going to create plenty of jobs, it’s not like the environmental movement of the 60s and 70s shut down the planet’s industries. Eating less meat, relying more on walking and public transit, recycling, buying locally produced products, growing a vegetable garden … this is not exactly waterboarding now, is it? In fact I would venture to say that most people either wouldn’t notice the difference, or would actually be healthier and happier if these changes were to take place. Even if the oil companies and car companies make fewer profits, it’s not like the money is vanishing, it just means it’s circulating somewhere else in the economy. And pretty much has to be circulating somewhere lower down by definition, nu?

Lastly, the final point, and the reason I don’t write about this very often. (Well, aside from the fact that I don’t think any of the remaining AGW sceptics are particularly interested in debate, but I digress.) The reason I don’t write about AGW much is that we aren’t going to do anything until it is way too late. The governments of China, the USA, and  Canada are completely suborned by corporate/business interests, and their is zero chance they will do anything to inconvenience their masters. The rich and the powerful have historically always pursued their own interests at the expense of everyone else, that’s how you get to be rich and powerful in the first place. Global warming may be the second greatest threat the human race has ever faced, but as long as the planet’s wealth is ever flowing upwards, I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for change.

And anyhow, at this rate I’ll be living in a beach front apartment soon enough. I can live with that. Coming soon, why I hate Al-Jazeera.

(I believe the above image originated with NASA and is thus public domain under US copyright law. In any event it’s not being used for profit and its use here is central to illustrating the post. It’s an illustration of just one of the many dramatic changes that have taken place on Earth in juts the past few years. Yes folks, the canary in the coal mine is stone cold dead.)

The economy is in free fall, we are involved in two endless wars,  people are rioting. Could it get worse? Yes, that’s what I have been saying since last July. Pay attention people! I got the map above from this fine site. And as far as I can tell, it’s pretty darn accurate. (click on the image for the full size view.)  What does it mean? It means that we are going into 2009 with a substantial percentage of the world’s agricultural regions experiencing drought, in some cases severe and historically unprecedented drought. Rivers and lakes are drying up in Australia for example, it has been suffering severe drought since 2004.  The author claims that not only locally, but in a global sense the current drought conditions are historically unprecedented. I’m not sure how accurate that is, but I wouldn’t argue with him. I checked he’s not making this up. And whether historically unprecedented or not, it’s definitely a period of unusually widespread drought.

So, what does this mean? There are a number of unpleasant aspects to this situation. The first thing is that food prices should continue to rise through the year. In the west this will be annoying, though most of us in the west don’t spend a huge percentage of our income on food, so it won’t be debilitating. Poor people, and other people in the world who spend a larger percentage of their income on food are going to be hurt very badly by this. And if food shortages get bad enough, people will starve. Again though, it’s the third world poor who will starve preferentially. This is because much of the food exports from the third world are their governments main source of hard income, so for the most part they will keep selling food to the west while their own people starve. Our dollar menus in the USA may become five dollar menus, but at least we won’t be starving. Granted some of us will feel bad about eating food that was effectively stolen from the third world, but since that’s been true all our lives, I suppose it won’t bother too many.

We’re not completely off the hook in the west though, this is problem will also compound the world’s economic problems. Agriculture related businesses like farms and food processors are already hurting, the USA’s largest chicken processor folded in December. Any business in these drought struck regions that depends on water will have trouble.  At the very least the price of water is going to be going up, and that’s going to come out of everyone’s pockets. And in fact shortages of water are already limiting growth and development in some parts of the world, including the USA. The point here is that these droughts are going to affect all of our wallets in a number of indirect ways, it won’t just be the price of food that goes up because of this.

Lastly, this is not going to help the world politically. Everyone knows what a food riot is, widespread food riots are a definite possibility this year. And oddly enough, this likely will translate into further political instability and unrest. Which, as the discerning reader has already realized, is going to also have negative economic impacts. I suppose the makers of police riot gear may experience boom times (I expect royalties if anyone makes a killing on the stock market because of that tip) but everyone else is going to again suffer in the pocketbook if there is wide spread food shortage related instability.

I should also point out, this global drought is not terribly surprising. Even ignoring global climate change, the world experienced unusually good weather for much of the last half of the twentieth century. So it’s not terribly surprising that we are experiencing some bad times, sooner or later one draws a bad hand in any poker game. And as far as science is concerned, not only was this a statistical inevitability, it’s more than likely part and parcel of global climate change. (They aren’t calling it global warming anymore because they got tired of explaining that climate and weather are two different things, and that global warming didn’t mean the world was going to warm up everywhere.) No, global climate change means just that, as the worlds average temperature increases, the world’s weather systems will change and destabilize, resulting in more extremes. Some might have noticed that while some parts of the world are experiencing drought, other parts of the world are experiencing record rainfall and flooding. And too much water is almost as bad as too little water in terms of agriculture, so again, the problem is worse than it appears.

The worst case scenario is that this could get really really bad. We are already heading into the most problematic summer since the thirties in terms of widespread risk of economic calamity, instability, and even war. It would not be surprising if millions starved to death, in fact that may be the best case scenario. The world has very limited food reserves, and if these drought conditions do cripple agricultural output as much as they might … tens of millions or hundreds of millions could starve. Half the human race starved in the 535-536AD global crop failure, while we may be more advanced now, there are a lot more mouths to feed. And there is no technological substitute for food, it’s not like we can quickly convert the world’s mind numbing arsenal of weaponry into food.

Well, not directly at least. Would people and nations use their weapons to steal food? As a formerly famous politician once said “You betcha.”

(The above image is claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. It is not being used for profit and is central to illustrating the post. I think Eric de Carbonnal may have even prepared the graphic himself, I highly recommend his site and will be linking to it regularly. Credit and copyright:  Market Skeptics/Eric de Carbonnal. A fly in the ointment is of Biblical origin: “Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour.” — Ecclesiastes 10:1)

I haven’t posted on global warming much recently. I didn’t want to get into endless repetition of the science on a point by point basis, other people have done it better. However, as I was wandering around on Yahoo Answers I saw someone had posted a December 2007 report from the US Senate that listed 400 prominent scientists who think anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is bogus: U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007 Check it out, could this be it, proof that I and so many other people are wrong about the human role in global warming?

I admit at first I was a little dismayed, could 400 prominent scientists be seriously disputing AGW theory? Then I started reading. First it lists all the news outlets that carried the report. What does that have to do with anything? Then it launches into a breathless explanation about how all these persecuted scientists think AGW is a hoax and that there really isn’t any consensus. I couldn’t help but notice that it made a lot of claims, but didn’t really say anything about AGW. Then…the report quotes all sorts of people whose claims the report is going to refute, who are these people? Media folks, columnists, TV personalities, and Al Gore. Um, shouldn’t this report be refuting actual scientist’s statements?

Then, the meat. The 400 “prominent scientists” listed with a select few quotes from each of them. OK, I don’t have time to refute what appear to be a tired collection of the same old long refuted arguments, so who are these guys touted as international experts on the subject? I googled a few near the top of the list…and gee, turns out that a certain obscure west coast blogger has a vastly greater web presence than world renowned experts in global warming. So either I am a far more popular and influential writer than I imagined (and all the blog statistics indicate) or there was something fishy about this list.

Now I didn’t have time to look up 400 hundred guys on google, so off to the web to see what other people thought of this report. And boy was that tiresome. Every global warming denier on the planet had reproduced the report and was making a huge deal out of it, so I had to wade through a lot of that. I did eventually find other people who had taken the time to check out these 400 “prominent scientists.” Guess what?

• 85 are on the oil/gas industry payroll.
• 49 are retired.
• 44 are television weathermen.
• 20 are economists.
• 7o have no expertise in climate science whatsoever.

Now granted on a case by case basis this wouldn’t be reason to dismiss these people’s views. I mean, some experts may be retired or what not…but going by these standards, there have to be millions of “prominent experts” in the field of climate research. This is the best 400 scientists they could come up with? This is not just sad, it’s almost silly. 400 most definitely obscure climate scientists (in only the loosest sense of the term climate scientist) dispute human caused global warming, and this proves there is no scientific consensus on the subject? No, this is the exception that proves the rule. In any event, read all about the debunking of this alleged debunking here.

So if anything, I have to thank Senator Inhofe for producing this lovely document. This is written proof beyond any doubt that the global warming debate is over, because the global warming denial side of the argument is reduced to shooting blanks. I doubt that was the good Senator’s intent, since he (predictably) is the second biggest recipient of oil money in Congress. As for his scientific acumen, the good Senator thinks that humans don’t need to worry about the environment: since God gave it to us, God will take care of any problems that arise. In other words, Inhofe’s Senate report is pure propaganda, a blatant hoax, and a hit piece meant to fool people into thinking that there is still scientific debate when there is none. A list of similar “experts” could be produced to deny evolution, continental drift, or the theory of relativity.

I rest my case.

(On the left is a photograph of Muir Glacier taken on August 13, 1941, by glaciologist William O. Field; on the right, a photograph taken from the same vantage on August 31, 2004, by geologist Bruce F. Molnia of the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Image Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center, W. O. Field, B. F. Molnia )

A new species of giant rat was “discovered” recently in a remote corner of Indonesia. I say “discovered” since these guys are so unafraid of humans that they wandered into the scientist’s camp. So it’s more correct to say a group of scientists was discovered by giant rats. Scientists also discovered a new species of miniature possum, as well as recording the mating activities of several rare birds. I hope this wasn’t a privately funded scientific expedition, how do you explain this to your sponsor? “Yes, Lord Mallomy, we discovered a giant rat, a pygmy possum, and photographed birds f**king. We’ve named the rat after you. Can we have ten million pounds for the next expedition?” Even Indiana Jones couldn’t make that fly.

Kidding side, these are important scientific discoveries, and it shows that there are still many discoveries to be made in the odd corners of our planet. Of course, what do these giant rats have to do with global warming? Nothing really, but people are so bored with global warming that I thought I’d spice it up a bit. The ability of our society to focus seems pretty limited these days, it’s one crises to the next with little long term staying power. One of the best examples of this is overpopulation, which was a huge issue back in the day. Fortunately it has been solved and we no longer need to worry about humans breeding to the point where our whole system collapses under the strain of producing ever more food for ever more mouths.

Insert rolled eyes here. Of course we do, the overpopulation problem is as bad as it ever was, and humans are pushing into the last corners of the world modifying the environment in a reckless way and destroying the local wild life. The great apes are well on track to being extinct in the wild in a generation for example, due to human activities encroaching on their remaining forest refuges. In a very real sense, unless we solve the overpopulation problem, any and all solutions to other problems are merely stopgap measures.

Moving right along, this is a global warming post, even if I am wandering a bit. The news on the global warming front has continued to be grim, and has continued to exceed our worst case models. The latest example of this is sea level rise, which appears to be worse than predicted. The seas may rise five feet or more this century, and that’s assuming no catastrophic ice sheet collapse and melting in Greenland or Antarctica.

The interesting this about this failure to predict is that it is similar to many recent examples where the trends are running ahead of our worst case scenarios. In many areas of global warming, as things heat up, changes are occurring in the environment that are accelerating the process. Some were simple to predict and easy to model, like less sea ice means less sunlight reflected back into space by ice. Others are far more subtle and hard to understand, like how melting ice is sinking through cracks and speeding up glaciers as they head to the sea. Many people, like me, were predicting long ago that we needed to take this problem far more seriously because if positive feedback kicked in, the problem could get much worse very fast. And sadly, the past few years we are seeing things like global temperatures and melting Arctic ice exceeding all expectations because of unanticipated positive feedback.

This is not good. Fortunately the governments of the world, especially the US, are starting to sit up and take the problem more seriously. In the latest UN Global Warming conference, the USA reversed itself and agreed to a compromise. Yes, the USA agreed to intensely study the issue for two more years, but insisted that the developing countries of the world must also make sacrifices. Uh huh. Let’s see if I have this right, the hyper rich insist that the hyper poor pay their “fair share” to fix a problem caused by the hyper rich. Yeah, that’s fair.

The ridiculous thing about the “debate” is that the amount of money it would take to dramatically reduce global warming gases is minor in the greater scheme of things. And it’s not like the money is going anywhere, it will still be circulating in the economy. So what’s the problem? The problem is that a few powerful industries like the energy industry and the dam building industry would have to retool, and it would cut their profits for a few years. This would mean that a tiny number of people who are already rich beyond the comprehension of normal folks would have a few less zeros in their bank accounts. And since these people own the media and have enormous influence in government, nothing will get done until the last possible second.

The problem isn’t global warming, it’s greed. Some things never change.

(The above image of Mallomys Giant Rat is claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. It’s not being used for profit, it is being used for educational purposes, and it is central to illustrating the post. Credit: BBC/Conservation International. Isn’t he cute? I’m thinking “glove liners.”)

Until this summer it was possible to make a reasonable case that alarmism was a hallmark of global warming theory. The terrible predictions about extremes had not and would not come to pass, that the changes occurring were part of a natural cycle, and that humans had adapted just fine to changes that occurred during the previous 100 years, I mean the sea level rose a foot or so in the twentieth century and the world didn’t end. And when it came right down to it, there were very many things about how the world’s climate works that we don’t know, and that making alarmist predictions is very irresponsible. All good points, and ones that many global warming proponents often failed to address adequately, thus further polarizing an already polarized debate.

Until this summer. While the debate continued, what happened in the Arctic this summer pretty much destroyed the idea that we were seeing a slow gradual warming of the globe from natural variation. The melting that occurred in the Arctic this summer was far worse than anyone predicted. Even the most fervent proponents of global warming didn’t think the Arctic would melt so soon and so thoroughly. And we are talking thoroughly melted, not only did the area covered by ice shrink to an unprecedented low, the amount of old thick ice has dropped to negligible levels. This means that what remains will be very vulnerable to melting next year, some are now predicting ice free Arctic summers by as early as 2013. Um, a year ago scientists thought this would take many decades, if not centuries. This is not alarmist, this is alarming.

What does it mean? A year ago I said it might make sense to wait and see what another 5-10 years brings. Now I think we can shave that down to a year. Global warming is real, no one denies that. And the Earth has warmed before, again, no one disagrees. The problem is that the scope and speed of the warming in the past few decades do not appear to have happened any time in the last few hundred thousand years. And in the last couple years, it is spiking even faster and higher than anyone dared predict.

When one is witnessing an event that is unprecedented, saying that “it’s natural variation and it will likely change soon” is basically wishful thinking. When you’ve tossed a coin and it’s come up heads a hundred times doesn’t mean the odds are good that it will be tails on the next toss…it means you need to look at the coin and figure out why it keeps coming up heads. And with this summer’s Arctic ice melt we’re at about a hundred heads in a row, if global warming keeps accelerating at the rate it’s been accelerating the past few years, we’re screwed. Humans can adapt to slow change, fast change is a whole other problem.

I’m not even sure what can be done at this point. Way too many things have gone on way too long without check, the energy lobby and the dam building lobby and the cattle lobby and the military lobby and all the other corporate lobbies are too powerful and too entrenched to change their ways quickly. I suspect that by the time most of the world’s governments are on board, it will be too late to avert catastrophic climate change and sea level rise. Could I be wrong? Ask me in another year after we see what happens in the Arctic and Greenland…

Tomorrow, ten things that could kill us all! It will be fun! Trust me!

(The above image of Krakatoa erupting in 1883 is public domain under US copyright law. I used it to illustrate the post because an enormous volcanic eruption would cool the Earth and buy us years or decades to deal with global warming. Great, we need a mega disaster to save us from our own folly, who’s running this trolley anyhow?)

Well, for the first time that we know of, and definitely the first time since 1978, the Northwest Passage is ice free. Basically a sea route around Northern Canada from the North Atlantic to the North Pacific Ocean, the Northwest Passage was sought by navigators and explorers for centuries as it would dramatically reduce the sailing distance between Europe and Asia. By the mid nineteenth century a lot of dead explorers had pretty much proved that there was no reliable ice free passage. And that was the end of that neat idea.

Until now. While the passage is not exactly ready to rock and roll just yet, at the rate at which the ice in the Arctic is melting, it could be just a few years. Yes, China will be able to ship it’s crap to Europe even cheaper, and drive even more local business’s into the ground. The next time you’re looking at tourist kitsch in Rome or Paris, note how much of it is “made in China” now. China is becoming the world’s Walmart…and it’s not a good thing.

However, I digress. What does this historic occurrence mean? For one thing it’s another indication that global warming is speeding up faster than the most pessimistic models predicted. Yes, the global warming scientists are wrong, it’s happening much faster than they said it would! I can imagine the global warming skeptics saying “Nyaa,Nyaa, Nyaa, we were right all along, we’re all going to die sooner! In your face science!” Sigh, I hope not, but these days when the media delights in encouraging the partisan aspect of just about everything, who knows.

Speaking of partisan, the melting of the Arctic Ice is ushering in a “black gold rush” as Arctic nations dust off old territorial claims and repackage them for modern times. The Russians have even gone so far as to place a Russian flag on the seabed at the North pole, to bolster their claim that a huge underwater mountain range, the Lomonosov Ridge is an extension of Russia’s continental shelf. Their claim is regarded as optimistic at best, but with possibly as much as a quarter of the world’s oil reserves being in the Arctic, the various nations that border on the Arctic are certainly going to try and claim as much as they can. That would be Russia, Canada, Norway, Denmark (through Greenland,) and the USA.

On the one hand it would be ironic if the melting of the Arctic allowed us to rush in and pump and burn more oil and make the global warming problem even worse. It’s like setting fire to your curtains to warm your home. No wonder the aliens haven’t contacted us yet, they’re quietly circling above us saying “What are those people doing?” Moving right along, I guess even without global warming, all this mineral and oil exploration (presuming we don’t get into war over it) can’t be good for the environment in one of the world’s remaining almost pristine regions.

On the other hand the Arctic environment is basically melting and transforming so much that there is zero chance of preserving its wildlife in it’s native state. We can’t exactly build an artificial trans oceanic ice pack. The Polar Bears, seals, walrus and Narwals and such are in deep trouble no matter what we do now in their environment. The Inuit and other Arctic dwelling folks are going to have to get used to hornets and cockroaches I guess. I know some may pillory me for seeming indifference to this aspect of global warming, it’s a matter of choosing one’s battles wisely. It’s still remotely possible that the rapid melting we are seeing in the Arctic is some sort of local phenomena, so I don’t want to split hares over it.

Sigh. And yes, I did promise a list of “ten good things.” It’s been hard, I’m up to six now, and even that was scraping a few barrels. It’s easy to find little stuff where a pet snake rescues a litter of puppies from a chemical spill and such, but good news that is truly global is harder to come by. Suggestions are welcome.

(The above image was produced by the ESA and I suspect it’s public domain, but in any case I am claiming it as Fair Use under US copyright law. It’s not being used for profit, it is central to illustrating the post, and it is an historically important image. Credit: ESA/BBC)

Well, I had strange and disturbing dreams last night. And just in general I have been down lately, it’s even seeped into my blogging and paralysed my ability to write. So what the hell, let’s just get it all out in the light and see if maybe we can shrivel up some of these monsters. Here is my current list of the ten things that are depressing me most. No effort is going to be made to be light hearted here, this is just plain blech. Maybe this will get it out of my system and tomorrow I can blog about ten uplifting things. Without further ado:

TEN DEPRESSING THINGS

1. Politics. Dear God, has there ever been such a worthless pack of presidential candidates? More money is being spent on this election than ever before, and all it’s resulted in is an endless series of boring debates where the candidates try to think of novel ways to wrap themselves in flags and bibles. If Obama is sincere, I give him higher marks, but I don’t think he is. I like Ron Paul, but he is being studiously ignored by the media because saying “The emperor has no clothes” simply isn’t the message the powers that be want us to hear.

2. Iraq. This mess is on track to cost us two trillion dollars, 70% of the American public want us out, and there’s no end in sight. We goddamn elected an anti-war congress, and they simply caved in to the war party. When will we be leaving Iraq? Damned if I know, but I stick to what I said when we first invaded: It’s not a question of will the US be leaving Iraq, it’s just a question of how soon and how ignominiously. And four plus years in I would add that the longer we put it off, the more ignominious it’s going to be.

3. GWOT/Militarism. OK, we had the most expensive military that money could buy, and a handful of guys with box cutters flew under our radar and nailed us. Did we punish the people who were manning the ramparts? No. Did we re-examine the cult of militarism that has infected the USA since at least World War Two? No. We gave even more money to the people who failed to protect us against 9/11 in the first place…and redoubled our efforts to meddle in the foreign lands where our meddling spawned Al-Qaeda in the first place. If bombing people and invading countries and ever more expensive militaries could bring peace and safety…Israel would be living in a sea of peace and plenty. Which brings us too…

4. Palestine. Someday Israel has to decide what to do with the territories they occupied in 1967. That’s more than 50 years ago. They need to either annex them and let the people there be citizens of Israel…or allow them to form a state of their own. Instead, for 50 years Israel has kept millions of people in stateless limbo and pretended that they didn’t create this problem. Until Israel makes up it’s mind, nothing will change and the seeds of Islamic extremism will not only find fertile ground in the occupied territories, they will continue to spread. And no, it’s not all Israel’s fault, but they are the ones with all the power and weapons and they are the ones who occupied the West Bank and Gaza in the first place.

5. Russia. Has anyone noticed that Russia is now run by organized crime? People worry about the possibility of a few mullahs getting a crude 50s era nuclear bomb…while the world’s largest nuclear arsenal and the means to deliver it globally is in the hands of a man who makes Tony Soprano look like a Boy Scout. No wonder the Russians are fleeing their country in droves. Their solution: have a baby, get a car. Sheesh.

6. Extinctions. Nothing but bad news here, at great expense we “saved” a few keynote species and cleaned up some of the world’s most visible pollution…while the habitat destruction and overpopulation continued unheralded in the background. The first cetacean (whale/dolphin) ever just went extinct, the gorilla is in trouble, the Polar Bear is in big trouble…and just in general a world without large animals outside of zoos is not so slowly emerging. This is what we were warned about in the sixties and seventies. Sigh.

7. Climate Change. Arctic sea ice is disappearing at a rate no one predicted, and just in general the world appears to be warming up faster than our worst models predicted. The result? The rich are scrambling to control the rapidly melting arctic and get to the oil there. Which we will burn and make the problem even worse.

8. The Economy. Way too many level headed people are concerned about the state of America’s economy, and by extension the world’s economy. Yes, there does appear to be a limit to how many times each dollar can be loaned out. The fallacy of basing economic growth on “printing” ever more dollars and loaning money to ever more unqualified people has always been known, and now the chickens look like they will be coming home to roost soon. The rich are however getting considerably richer all the time.

9. Walmart. OK, not Walmart specifically, but the wave of box stores and grocery chains that destroyed America’s small town main streets and created the fattest population on the planet is rapidly engulfing the developing world. Yes, we have a world wide obesity epidemic under way as people abandon their locally produced healthy diets and buy their food at the new fangled supermarkets. Except of course things like soda pop are not really food, so they are trading in their health and well being in order to put out of business their local small businesses. The dark side of capitalism.

10. Everything else. Ahmadinejad, Afghanistan, the Taliban, ebola, earthquakes, “reality” television, Syria, pollution, overpopulation, the End Times, oil prices, science under attack, hurricanes, colonialism, Hugo Chavez, Al-Qaeda, collapsing infrastructure, missing children, corruption, failing schools, debt, and Britney Spears.

OK, I feel much better now, have a nice day everyone. :)

(The above image of Congress at work is believed to be public domain under US copyright law. It was obtained from the Lycos Image Library. Credit: Charles Knight)