To read an annotated version of this article, complete with interviews with scientists and links to further reading, click HERE
I. ‘Doomsday’
Peering beyond scientific reticence.
It is, I promise, worse than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible, even within the lifetime of a teenager today. And yet the swelling seas — and the cities they will drown — have so dominated the picture of global warming, and so overwhelmed our capacity for climate panic, that they have occluded our perception of other threats, many much closer at hand. Rising oceans are bad, in fact very bad; but fleeing the coastline will not be enough.
Indeed, absent a significant adjustment to how billions of humans conduct their lives, parts of the Earth will likely become close to uninhabitable, and other parts horrifically inhospitable, as soon as the end of this century.
Even when we train our eyes on climate change, we are unable to comprehend its scope. This past winter, a string of days 60 and 70 degrees warmer than normal baked the North Pole, melting the permafrost that encased Norway’s Svalbard seed vault — a global food bank nicknamed “Doomsday,” designed to ensure that our agriculture survives any catastrophe, and which appeared to have been flooded by climate change less than ten years after being built …
• David Wallace-Wells’ article (published only on July 9) has led to its own Wikipedia page HERE
• Scientific American: A Surge in Heat Wave “Danger Days” Is Expected in Coming Decades [Infographic]
• Washington Post: Scientists challenge magazine story about ‘uninhabitable Earth’
• Guardian: Third-hottest June globally puts 2017 on track to make one of three hottest years
Kim Peart
July 18, 2017 at 14:00
This long article in the New York Magazine spells out the brutal truth of a future we are collectively creating, which can, allowed to go all the way, deliver an uninhabitable planet.
In this future, life could continue, for survivors able to live on Earth as if in space, in protected environments, and go outside in space suits, because the heat would be dangerous, the solar and cosmic radiation would be a killer and the poisonous air may no longer be breathable.
At that stage, James Hansen warns that our once emerald planet will be well on the way to becoming a second Venus, where rocks glow in the heat, and survivors will at some point no longer be able to survive on Earth.
I wonder if there is a way that this collectively created problem could be solved by collective action, so that we could win back a safe Earth.
Planting trees will be a waste of time, where ~ “No plausible program of emissions reductions alone can prevent climate disaster.”
Before climate disaster runs too deeply into the death zone, I suspect nuclear madness may awaken.
What can we do to save the Earth, and save the human?
Keith Antonysen
July 18, 2017 at 15:32
The original version of the Wallace-Wells paper created much controversy; it was reviewed by scientists, he then revised the paper through providing annotations. The annotations provide notes from interviews with scientists and published science research.
In an article titled … “We aren’t doomed by climate change. Right now we are choosing to be doomed.” Joe Romm clearly argues that it is a business as usual approach that will ultimately lead to horrendous impacts. Joe Romm is a Physicist who regularly writes about climate science.
Joe Romm states:
“We have been choosing to destroy ourselves for quite some time now. Climate silence and climate ignorance are literally destroying us.”
In Australia, much energy has been devoted to the risk factors created by criminal terrorists ; no real action has been devoted to the risk created through climate change where the risks are very high.
Turnbull has stated that the government’s task is to keep citizens safe; but, with climate change the LNP are doing the complete opposite.
Jon Sumby
July 18, 2017 at 15:51
The science is solid.
A report released this week warns:
Climate change will bring soaring temperatures, more intense storms, erratic rainfall, plummeting crop yields and a collapse of coral reefs to the Asia-Pacific unless countries fully implement their commitments under the Paris climate pact, scientists say, calling the challenges “unprecedented”.
The region’s future growth and security – as well as the welfare of hundreds of millions of people – are at stake, says a new report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).
Early and aggressive measures are needed to achieve that goal, the report says.
If the world continues to emit planet-warming greenhouse gases as now, global mean temperature would increase by over 4C by the end of the century, with parts of the Asia-Pacific seeing a rise of 6C, it says.
Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and northwestern China could experience even hotter climates, with temperatures rising 8C.
This would bring drastic changes in the region’s weather, biodiversity, agriculture and fisheries, and drive migration as some parts become less habitable, said the report.
“Such a scenario may even pose an existential threat to some countries in the region, and crush any hope of achieving sustainable and inclusive development,” the ADB said in a statement.
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/07/14/asia-faces-climate-change-disaster-report
While a 2010 article in Australasian Science pointed out:
Human tolerance could be pushed to the limit in the near future if global warming continues unabated due to business-as-usual emissions of greenhouse gases. The maths is simple: a 4°C increase in wet bulb values creates intolerable outdoor conditions, even in the shade in some areas. The Amazon and parts of India would be first, with northern Australia and other regions with very humid summers not too far behind.
Simulations of warmer climates show that this happens if the average global surface temperature rises by 6°C. According to the highest of the widely accepted range of projections, in the absence of strong measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels, a temperature increase of 6°C could occur within the lifetime of babies being born today. Although this is a worst-case scenario, an eventual warming of at least 6°C some time beyond 2100 is likely if the world continues its growing dependence on fossil fuels.
The research indicates that if the planet reaches 4°C by 2100 it will continue on to reach 7-8°C a few decades later. At that point coastal regions north of the Victorian-NSW border will be uninhabitable.
Sea level is currently projected at 0.98 m by 2100, but a paper in Nature Climate Change last week reported that:
“For lack of precise estimates of future change, scientists have remained conservative in what this melting means for the globe, but recent estimates suggest Antarctica could contribute more than a metre to sea-level rise by 2100 and over 15 metres by 2500 undercurrent emissions trajectories,” Dr Spence said.
“This would be disastrous for coastal regions and displace hundreds of millions of people worldwide”.
“If we do take rapid action to counter global warming and slow the rise in temperatures, southern storms tracks are likely to return to a more northerly position. That may slow the melting in Western Antarctica and bring
more reliable autumn and winter rains back to the southern parts of Australia.”
“It would also limit ocean warming and give some of the world’s major marine-terminating ice sheets a chance to stabilize. It’s vital we achieve this or we are likely to see more calving of large ice shelves, similar to the recent Larsen C event.”
(No link because of link limits)
If oil and coal use is not reduced rapidly and the emissions continue as they are we can expect around 82 to 98 cm of sea level rise by 2100, and that is without the projected Antarctic contributions.
How much is ‘rapid’? That is an emissions reduction of 6.2% per year for the next few decades. Last year global emissions dropped by 0.9% so we are not on track to meet the 2°C target.
Under current emissions are we going to pass 1.5°C? Yes, by 2024.
Under current emissions are we going to pass 2°C? Probably by 2036, there is about a 1 in 10 chance that we will reduce emissions enough to stay below the 2°C limit, if all nations work together to reduce oil and gas and coal burning.
Under current emissions are we going to pass 4°C? Very likely by 2090. Crossing that warming level is considered a ‘civilisation ending’ event with best estimates of one to two centuries before civilisation collapses after 4°C warming.
The planet has already warmed by just 1°C and we are already seeing effects, the next few decades will be worse and children born today will never live in a climate like the one we grew up in.
john hayward
July 18, 2017 at 20:18
There are a few shafts of light in this otherwise black hole of a prognosis.
The projected 21% fall in our collective cognitive capacity with increased heat should ensure that our magnificent LibLabs remain at the wheel for the remainder of the Anthropocene, while also giving TGC the inside running for a Nobel in science for his magisterial rebuttals of all the pessimistic stuff.
John Hayward
Keith Antonysen
July 19, 2017 at 02:13
Professor Hansen, was “Asked to assess the world’s current progress in fighting climate change, he said the “s*** is hitting the fanâ€.†The article stating the quote was published yesterday.
Some tasks suggested as necessary were planting trees, improve soil fertility, using biofuel and extracting the CO2 created, and using technology to pull CO2 from the atmosphere if necessary.
A further quote:
“An international team of researchers – led by Professor Jim Hansen, Nasa’s former climate science chief – said their conclusion that the world had already overshot targets to limit global warming to within acceptable levels was “sufficiently grim†to force them to urge “rapid emission reductionsâ€.â€
And:
““We conclude that the world has already overshot appropriate targets for greenhouse gas amount and global temperature, and we thus infer an urgent need for rapid phasedown of fossil fuel emissions [and] actions that draw down atmospheric carbon dioxide.â€
From:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/carbon-dioxide-remove-atmosphere-climate-change-greenhouse-gas-scientists-jim-hansen-a7847426.html
Wallace-Wells, Romm, Hansen agree that taking real action in relation to climate change means that the edge can be taken off some of the more dire consequences. Hansen el al provide a response which is job creating, something we all want.
The Adani mine in this context is pure madness.
PHilip Lowe
July 19, 2017 at 05:42
what can we do?We can instigate population controls worldwide.China did it!We can get rid of antiquated religious philosophies and replace them with Pantheistic pagan beliefs where the Earth is worshipped and respected.We can bring in world wide restrictive practices where activity detrimental to the Planet Earth is banned and punishable,ie wars.We can initiate educational advertising to all these effects.
And it ain’t gonna happen.The establishment is seemingly obsessed with the destruction of this beautiful planet.That includes conventional religion,established governmental systems,law and order etc.It won’t happen.
Jon Sumby
July 19, 2017 at 16:00
No. 5, Keith,
I read that article you mentioned and Hansen is addle-brained in his ideas.
Every geo-tech or tech ‘solution’ to global warming has been debunked. There are no technological solutions. The only solution to minimising the devastation our civilisation has made is to stop burning oil, coal, and gas.
Even if we did that right now, today, the planet will continue to warm to levels that will threaten society and kill millions. Not to mention the Sixth Extinction we have made that will kill around 90% of all animal species over the next couple of centuries and the incalculable ecosystem changes that will cause.
The planet will stay warmer for a time measured in thousands of years. Around 20% of the CO2 released so far will still be in the air 30,000 years from now.
The Earth’s climate has changed forever and there is no tech solution for that, there is only harm minimisation by emissions reduction.
max
July 19, 2017 at 23:53
10 billion tons of coal are burnt annually worldwide. It would be impossible to grow trees fast enough no matter how many were planted to store the released carbon from 10 billion tons of coal.Trees are not a safe storage for carbon, one mega fire and they are becoming a common occurrence, the stored carbon is back where it came from.
Who in their right mind except the present government would think that planting trees would offset their export of coal
Uplifting Me
July 20, 2017 at 00:20
re #8. Yes, there is no solution.
More people will wake up to this, and the consequences, with each passing year or two.
As it gets worse, the psychology of young people will change.
Mix them up with the other dispossessed, and the French Revolution will look like a picnic in retrospect.
john hayward
July 21, 2017 at 19:10
Connoisseurs of nihilism and or have already been blessed with the ascension of Trump.
Now we are informed that old clown Scaramouche himself has been made Trumpty’s spokesman. Those hoping that the fates have overlooked Oz have been hoist with the promotion of Dutton.
Kim Peart’s blast-off to a habitable galaxy is probably booked out already.
John Hayward
Kim Peart
July 22, 2017 at 18:32
Re: 10 ~ When the proposed space nation of Asgardia was announced last October, over half a million people expressed interest in a couple of weeks. Elon Musk’s plan to build a city on Mars. These are dreams for the wealthy few, driven by a top-down approach.
In the article, mention is made of the Great Filter theory, which suggests that civilisations fail to survive on planets, because they burn too much fossil fuel and essentially, poison their planet and go extinct.
If we can learn from this, then we can observe how the key decade for energy transition was in the 1980s. This would have involved continuing work with serious space development and building solar power stations in space, so that industry could be launched beyond Earth and human cosmic survival invested in. We could also have kept a safe Earth by replacing fossil fuels with solar power beamed from space, as well as shifting heavy industry into space.
Now we find ourselves in a cosmic survival crisis, because we did not wake up to the need to expand beyond Earth by the 1980s, using all the engineering plans that had been worked out in the 1970s. Burning fossil fuels like there was no tomorrow, and failing to make energy transition in space, we have collectively doomed the planet, if warnings of a runaway greenhouse effect go all the way to a hot dead Earth. Is that a risk we are willing to gamble on?
The stark reminder is the fact that there is no sign of any other civilisation in the Universe. We can talk our way out of that, but the reality is, planet civilisations could simply and repeatedly rise to to the edge of expansion beyond their home planet, and delay action at a critical moment, burn too much fossil fuel, and slide into collapse with environmental crisis and also potentially, nuclear war as conflict increases.
My suggestion is simply for ordinary citizens to wake up to what is happening, take on board the cosmic survival detail, and get serious about space development. The percentage odds of not working our carbon and survival crisis out on Earth alone are way too high and not worth betting on, if survival is in our bucket list, and is our wish for kin and grandkids.
It would be nice if a leader like Winston Churchill would bark like a bulldog and wake us up, but maybe that’s not how things work now. Do we have to take responsibility as citizens, and wake up to what must be done?
I suggest that if ten million citizens woke up and saw the needs of cosmic survival, they could collaborate in demanding action, driving investment and supporting research and development.
The aim would be to invest in a solar power station in space, and beam that power to Earth, so that we would have the energy to extract excess carbon from the air, and process extracted carbon into a useful resource for Earth and space industries. With industry in space, we would be able to build a sunshade in space to help cool the Earth.
In the process, we may be the first planet civilisation in the Milky Way galaxy to survive, and also preserve our home planet.
We would also be in a position to defend the Earth from asteroids, or be in a better survival position if an asteroid is too large, or arrives too soon to deal with, or is too large to deal with.
Are there ten million citizens out there who want to make a future that includes cosmic survival?
Maybe we must all be Winston Churchill now, and demand action of ourselves, to win this fight.
There are ways to rise to the challenge and mobilise globally, but if we wait for a strong leader to tell us what to do, we may simply be dooming the planet to hell, along with winning a gamble into human extinction.
Comment #9 says ~ “there is no solution.” I agree with this, if the focus is on Earth alone.
If the focus on Earth alone is murdering Mother Nature, then this is a criminal level of gangster activity that we must deal with.
Simon Warriner
July 22, 2017 at 19:37
re 10, 11, this pretty much explains why such optimism is entirely misplaced.
http://boingboing.net/2015/11/16/our-generation-ships-will-sink.html
The more we learn, the less we know, seems to be the central theme.
feel free to continue the delusion at your leisure.
Jon Sumby
July 22, 2017 at 22:56
No. 1, Simon,
Interesting but the author misses a couple of interesting points, probably because they weren’t known widely back then.
Eyesight.
It has been found that in low gravity environments that astronauts eyesight declines permanently. Basically the eyeball is a bag of fluid and in low-g it deforms and the astronauts become progressively more short sighted. The effect is permanent and a solution hasn’t been found.
Proprioception.
In low-g the sensor nerves in the joints and other parts of the body lose their ability to tell where in they are in relation to the body.
This means that an astronaut travelling to Mars is unlikely to be able to stand up and walk when they arrive, as well as do motor-function tasks. Just this year, NASA teamed up with the University of Canberra to design motorised walking frames for any possible Mars attempt.
As NASA explains; On landing day, most crew members had a wide-based gait, had trouble turning corners, and could not land from a jump. They didn’t like bending over or turning their heads independent of their torsos. Recovery usually took about 3 days; but the more time the crew member spent in microgravity, the longer it took for his or her balance and coordination to return to normal.
Indeed, when faced with a dark environment (simulated by closing their eyes), the crew members easily lost their balance on an unstable surface (like beach sand, deep grass, or a slippery shower floor), particularly if they made any head movements.
As a result, crew members were restricted from certain activities for a few days after shuttle
flights to help them avoid injuring themselves.
This is why astronauts are often seen sitting down immediately after returning to Earth, they have trouble being able to stand.
For example; When she and the three other astronauts landed in Kazakhstan in the Soyuz capsule, they had to be carried to the medical tent.
“Your co-ordination, your balance, all the little tiny muscles that you don’t even know you have but that help you to sit upright and walk upright†– all that was gone, she says over the phone from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, where she has been undergoing physical wellbeing tests and rehabilitation since her return.
The 38-year-old will spend almost four weeks in this intensive programme, working to overcome the havoc wrought on her body by months in space. The absence of gravity means the body stops wasting energy building unnecessary muscle and bone, leaving astronauts weak on their return. They can suffer dizziness, because of the change in blood pressure, and even have trouble speaking, because they’ve grown used to having weightless tongues.
Cristoforetti expects it will take a year to be fully back to normal.
There a host of other physiological problems (e.g. bone density loss), emerging with living in low-g just for short periods and actually living in space for years appears to be not possible.
(Cristoforetti story:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/11708381/Record-breaking-astronaut-Samantha-Cristoforetti.html )
Kim Peart
July 23, 2017 at 02:28
Re: 12 ~ An argument is weakened when SF is resorted to over science fact. The argument in the link states ~ “we come to an entirely new realization about our species: there is no Planet B. Earth is our only home.â€
But, no real evidence is provided to support the argument, and comes across as a kind of a flat Earth religious dogma that aims to lock humans up on Earth, for all eternity. This line of reasoning also empowers carbon energy propaganda, that wants the whole world firmly focused on the belly of the Earth for energy and dreams made of fossil fuel.
The argument that an Earth-only approach to life is the only way, is a threat to human survival. The Earth-only way is killing Mother Nature, and this is murder.
The conclusion lacks credibility ~ “This conclusion, startling to some, obvious to others, has ramifications that are worth pondering. If it comes to be a generally agreed on view, it might change how we act as individuals and a civilization. These changes in behavior might turn out to be crucial for our descendants.â€
That approach is pure gambling on an idea that denies science.
There is another take on Stanley-Robinson’s SF novel, which is based in science and drills into the flawed science of the novel. ~ “In summary, while Aurora is an intriguing combination of literary, political, scientific and technical notions, and while it reflects many current speculations about the difficulty of interstellar travel, in many instances it lacks the supporting credible scientific and technical detail required to make its polemic case that human interstellar travel is impossible. The journey is not plausible, and nor is the destination.â€
A Science Critique of Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson
Paul Gilster, 14 August 2015, Centauri Dreams
https://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=33838
continued …..
Kim Peart
July 23, 2017 at 02:29
Re: 12 ~ continued ~
The article at the head of this threat presents a time capsule of the science, opened now, which paints a stark picture for human survival, pointing out how the conditions of 252 million years ago are now being rapidly driven into reality, when most of life on Earth perished. Read up on the Grate Dying for the details of how poisonous hydrogen sulphide gas from dying oceans killed life on land, and destroyed the ozone layer, letting in lethal doses of solar and cosmic radiation, which killed more life on land.
The article explores the many ways to die that we are creating, by clinging to the Earth with carbon religious zeal.
Anyone can write diatribes denouncing fossil fuel dependence, but unless a working alternative is being demonstrated, the net result is a win for the carbon killing fields.
Read the article carefully, and its stated how many scientists are concerned at the Fermi Paradox, and particularly, the Great Filter theory in that, which raises the question as to whether alien civilizations have a really bad habit of burning fossil fuel too long and bringing on what we are now bringing on with our carbon apocalypse, which is predicted to end in a hot dead Earth (‘Storms of My Grandchildren’ by James Hansen, 2009).
If this is what we are up against when it comes to cosmic survival, then we need to drill into that and understand the implications. I did drill, and I found that the 1980s was the key decade for action on expansion beyond Earth. We missed our date with cosmic survival, and energy transition by building solar power stations in space.
Now we are faced with a monstrous challenge of carbon extraction from the air, if we want to win back a safe Earth and regain harmony with Nature. As pointed out in the article, we are currently at war with the Earth, and Nature is fighting back.
Today, with robotics and automation, a space program can be run from Earth using remote control systems.
Humans can move to Earth gravity orbital space settlements, when they are safe for habitation.
Planets will not be needed as a place to call home, and habitable planets will not be needed in space, when we can build orbital settlements with a combined land area thousands of times that of Earth, from materials in the asteroid belt alone.
There is no saying humans will be the main occupants of space.
The emergence of intelligent machines reveals a future among the stars, where robots may evolve a long way beyond humans, and have no trouble making time-numbing journeys to distant stars.
If humans tag along, this may be in the form of information, which is built as biology at the new star.
If quantum entanglement allows instant communication between stars, biological information may be transmitted across space in an instant, and made into biology. Recent work in quantum communication is showing that this may be possible.
So whether humans travel to a star, or go as information, is a minor factor in terms of cosmic survival, where our creation, intelligent machines, may build a galaxy-wide web of communications.
If we want to be part of the future, if we want a safe Earth, then we need to get serious about what cosmic survival actually requires of us.
If this is the case, it is a matter wired into natural law, as tightly as gravity, and as resoundingly as evolution.
Kim Peart
July 23, 2017 at 11:46
Re: 13 ~ What are your recommended solutions to each of these problems?
Fish must have found it tough coming out of the sea and learning to live on land, but here we are.
My preference is for Earth gravity orbital space settlements, or cities, or habitats, which also provide radiation protection.
A recent document on some of the latest research for the first city in space ~
Al Globus, Stephen Covey, & Daniel Faber, NSS Space Settlement Journal, July 2017
http://www.nss.org/settlement/journal/NSS-JOURNAL-Space-Settlement-An-Easier-Way.pdf
For YouTube films of this design, google ~ Kalpana One.
Remote control systems will allow people on Earth to work in space, much like the drone pilots in California driving flights in Syria via Pine Gap.
When space is safe, human occupation can follow.
A good flight to an Earth gravity space settlement above Mars, will be the one that offers in-flight gravity generated by rotation.
In the short term, there will be pioneers willing to take the risks of an adventure in space.
For many, that would be far better than dying of boredom on Earth, wondering when the war begins and the nukes arrive.
Simon Warriner
July 23, 2017 at 12:26
Kim, your endless ranting is a distraction from the immediate and urgent task of learning how to
a stop shitting in our own nest, and
b cleaning up the shit that is already here.
Humanity is on the threshold of a declining everything after 250 years of continuous growth. Pie in the sky thought bubbles like interstellar expansion of humanity were unaffordable 30 years ago, at peak prosperity, and will become ever less so as the oil runs out and the population shrinks, and the wars being fought over the dregs burn up the store of global treasure that might fund such madness. The real work is in trying to get some semblance of humanity through that dark age and out the other side, and that it can be done is by no means a certainty.
Go read “limits to growth” and research the correlation between the trajectories predicted and the actual paths for energy, population, etc.
Kim Peart
July 23, 2017 at 13:06
Re: 17 ~ Is the writer of this article “ranting” when he points out that missing the space option could be the very thing that dooms us.
We face a raw survival challenge, so how can continuing down the same path that has led us to doom be the solution?
‘Limits to Growth’ is an Earth-only approach.
Beyond Earth there is no limit to energy from the Sun to do work, and therefore be able too deal with problems on Earth.
Look at the Universe.
The cosmos is about unlimited growth, from the Big Bang to the ever expanding universe around us.
If we will expand our thinking from the limits of Earth, to unlimited potential of the Solar System as a whole, then we have a much larger tool kit to deal with the needs of the Earth, and the demands of cosmic survival.
The Earth-only approach may simply be a recipe for suicide, and being a murderer of Mother Nature.
To live in harmony with Nature, we need to run with evolution, which like the Universe, is about expansion and unlimited potential.
First we must survive.
This article reinforces my views, and adds to the matters that I speak of, especially with the Great Filter theory to explain the silence from the stars.
I look at history, and I see our window for a celestial future was in the 1980s.
We will now have to fight a lot harder, and even smash the glass, if that window has slammed shut and we have doomed ourselves on Earth.
Keith Antonysen
July 23, 2017 at 15:14
No 16, Kim
How long do you anticipate that space cities could be a going concern?
You say for many it would be far better than dying of boredom on Earth; ultimately being on a space city might become boring through being confined, and the number of activities available are decreased.
There are plans to build huge skyscrapers in Hobart completely foreign to the current city landscape; planning, gaining approval for the buildings; and then; building them if approved, takes a number of years. What you propose is completely on a scale which is unheard of.
Currently sea ice extent in the Arctic is running at the second or third lowest recorded since 1979 (there are daily variations), but the thickness of the sea ice is something like a metre below what it had been in 2012 when a major record had been established. The likelihood of sea ice volume creating a record when measured in September is likely. There are about 7 weeks left before we will know the result. The Arctic has a big influence on climate; and once the Arctic’s ability to neutralise potential temperature increase through loss of the albedo effect, temperatures will increase.
In twenty or thirty years after the Arctic has become ice free many matters will become apparent, including resources will be going into rehabilitating and adaptation of communities, rather than creating cities in space. There are already parts of Earth that are on the verge of being uninhabited.
Simon Warriner
July 23, 2017 at 17:30
Kim, you make this statement in response to my #17. “We face a raw survival challenge, so how can continuing down the same path that has led us to doom be the solution?”.
Learning how a) to stop shitting in our own nest and b) learning how to clean up the mess we have already created is not “continuing down the same path”. It is quite obviously doing something we have not done before and it is a vital preliminary step before anything as complex as exporting humanity across the galaxies is attempted. In fact, to attempt such a feat before completing those two tasks is morally repugnant. It is also something we need to do even if we are to attempt anything you are suggesting because at the current rates of progress along current trajectories your nirvana isn’t going to be reached before some fuckwit with nuclear launch codes fucks it up for everyone.
Kim Peart
July 23, 2017 at 17:37
Re: 19 ~ Space cities can last as long as the Sun shines.
With a virtually infinite energy well in the Sun, only increasing in radiance over the next 5 billion years, until expanding to the orbit of the Earth as a red giant star, there need be no waste in space, with total recycling and rebuilding as design ideas improve.
In the 1970s engineers designed space habitats a mile in diameter by ten miles long.
The time it takes to get to the opening of the first space city is not such a problem, as it would be the going there that would inspire new hope.
If ten million people were demanding action, the process could turn out to be quite rapid, with building materials coming from near-Earth asteroids and the Moon.
The vision that I am running with is as much about Earth as it is about space, and would be gunning for Earth care in every which way.
Space factories, for instance, could produce craft to clean up trash in the ocean, down to the micro plastics.
This may be a free service, providing the terrestrials stop polluting the oceans.
In time space cities and habitats can be located anywhere in the Solar System, with citizens being able to travel from city to city.
A city above Venus could offer robot remote control exploration of the surface, like using a VR headset.
If we are bold enough to invest in cosmic survival beyond Earth, one year the first space Olympics will be held, with sports in a wide range of gravities, and especially in zero-G.
The space Olympics may end up becoming the biggest sporting event in the Solar System.
With the main thrust of human activity and creativity going into space, it will be possible to give the home planet a good long rest, and allow Mother Nature to recover from the rattling received in the years of the juvenile human off-spring.
We can start working out now, while still on Earth, where the 40% of the planet’s wilderness will be, so evolution can find new ways to thrive on Earth.
With unlimited growth open in space, maintaining a stable population will be a practical consideration on Earth, especially with poverty out of the picture.
The wealth of space, based on the power of the Sun, offers a whole new range of opportunities for human futures, both on Earth and among the stars.
Jon Sumby
July 23, 2017 at 19:39
No. 19, 20, 21; Keith, Simon, Kim,
Yes. It is a question of time; time that is now measured in years. The task is huge, in an article late last year:
“It means that by 2025 we will have to have closed down all coal-fired power stations across the planet,†said John Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “And by 2030 you will have to get rid of the combustion engine entirely. That
decarbonisation will not guarantee a rise of no more than 1.5C but it will give us a chance. But even that is a tremendous task.
What he describes is emission reductions without what are called ‘negative emissions’.
The awful truth is that the emissions reductions projections nearly all include negative emissions, that is, removing CO2 from the atmosphere. I read a couple of papers recently that said in order to do that we would have to remove around 10 billion tonnes of CO2 from the air every year for a century or more (to account for outgassing of ocean stored CO2).
Problem is, no one knows where it could be stored. The other problem is that there are some demonstration units but they are energy hungry and only produce small amounts. They are also corporate-owned patented ideas.
We are guaranteed to exceed 1.5°C and absent any global scale nuclear powered system of 10 billion ton CO2 removal and storage systems we are going to blow past 2°C by the most current best estimate of 2036 and certainly by the estimate of 2050, derived a few years ago. Climate change is happening stronger, faster, and sooner than we projected.
If we keep to the Paris Agreement, most analyses indicate that the 2100 temperature would be 3°C or slightly above.
If we continue on the current emissions we will get to the 4.1°C projected by the IPCC, but note that is a median value and the high temperature is 6°C.
To quote one researcher addressing an international conference on a 4°C world back in 2011, when he rhetorically asked:
“What is the difference between two degrees (of temperature increase)
and four degrees?â€
He said, “The difference is human civilisationâ€.
At 1.5°C there will be an increase in heat stress deaths around the world, by 2°C there will be several single day events every year of lethal heat and humidity in a swath of coastal areas with a total population of 262 million; by 2080 these are expected to arrive as multi-day lethal heat and humidity events.
The latest research indicates that in the Mediterranean basin (the coastal region from Lisbon in Portugal around to Lebanon; the islands; the coastal region from Morocco opposite Gibraltar, through Algeria, Tunisia, to Tripoli in Libya) are projected to have a water availability reduction of 7%. With 2°C warming that will be 19% less water, which will present enormous food and drinking water problems.
Because of heat already coming through the system we will cross 1.5°C by the current best estimate of 2024 and then 2°C ten years later if the leaders and the people of the world don’t make rapid and continuing reductions in emissions.
I read about the O’Neill space cylinders ten years after they were proposed, and since then I have read a lot about space travel, Project Daedalus, Bussard Ramjets, space travel theories, worm hole travel, and about space habitats; the Bernal Sphere, Kalpana, etc., all the way up to the Dyson Sphere and the Ringworld. Planet settling and terraforming.
Fascinating stuff and theoretically achievable, given time, and with civilisation succeeding and growing in unity, peace, and prosperity.
But sadly for Kim and others who share his ideas, time is not what we have. We have years to reduce emissions, decades to adapt to the changes, and centuries to avoid the collapse of civilisation, if we keep below 2°C.
If we hit 4°C or more, as is likely, civilisation will fall on a timescale of a couple of centuries.
To achieve the dream of a space based society, we have to do it in 30 to 80 years.
Heat stress at 1.5°C:
https://theconversation.com/deadly-heat-stress-could-threaten-hundreds-of-millions-even-if-climate-targets-reached-75102
Comparisons between 1.5 and 2°C, with a good infographic:
https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-what-can-climate-models-tell-about-impacts-onepointfive-two-degrees
Kim Peart
July 23, 2017 at 22:59
Re: 20 ~ Space pioneers must also be good environmentalists, to care for a space environment that must be kept clean for safety reasons and where there is total recycling.
The environmental inspiration of engaging in designing a space future may be the shot in the arm that environmentalism needs, just as the Earthrise image inspired a new wave of environmentalism in 1968.
Designing a society without poverty on Earth has defied all attempts and has not happened, but designing a society without poverty in space is intrinsic to the challenge, and achievable with the wealth created with space development, drawing on the power of the Sun in space.
Being able to design a future without poverty on Earth, is the key way to step beyond nuclear weapons.
A rude detail in the article of this thread states ~ “No plausible program of emissions reductions alone can prevent climate disaster.â€
In another article I read ~ “By continuing to delay significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, we risk handing young people alive today a bill of up to US$535 trillion. This would be the cost of the “negative emissions†technologies required to remove COâ‚‚ from the air in order to avoid dangerous climate change. These are the main findings of new research published in Earth System Dynamics, conducted by an international team led by US climate scientist James Hansen, previously the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The Paris Agreement in 2015 saw the international community agree to limit warming to within 2°C. The Hansen team argue that the much safer approach is to reduce atmospheric concentrations of COâ‚‚ from the current annual average of more than 400ppm (parts per million) back to 1980s levels of 350ppm.†~ “Humans have pumped over 1.5 trillion tonnes of COâ‚‚ into the atmosphere since 1750.†~ “By delaying significant carbon emission reductions we risk handing both an impossible financial and technological burden to future generations. Our children and grandchildren may be unable to understand how we negotiated such an arrangement on their behalf.”
‘Inaction on climate change risks leaving future generations $530 trillion in debt’
James Dyke, 19 July 2017, The Conversation
https://theconversation.com/inaction-on-climate-change-risks-leaving-future-generations-530-trillion-in-debt-81134
To make sense in planning for a safe Earth, we must extract excess carbon from the air to regain a 1980s level, but the cost of doing this is so great, it won’t happen, and so we condemn the Earth and the human.
I see hope in achieving carbon extraction, by using the power of the Sun harvested in space and beamed to Earth to do the work, as well as processing extracted carbon into a useful resource for Earth and space industries.
A global project like that can inspire citizens to work for a peaceful future beyond the tyranny of nuclear weapons.
We would be offering hope.
With industry in space, we would also be able to build a sunshade in space to help cool the Earth, while excess carbon is being extracted from the air.
This approach can hope to inspire action at the grass roots, globally, to win back a safe Earth.
Energy transition should have been happening in the 1980s, with plans worked out in the 1970s.
I was onto that option from 1976.
Why did the environmental movement avoid it?
That avoidance allowed the fossil fuel industries to get away with the blue murder of the Earth, with carbon daggers.
Now we face the cost of delayed action with energy transition, at a level that will extract and cut carbon emissions.
Kim Peart
July 24, 2017 at 10:48
Another report from science that reveals the Earth system is again more sensitive to temperature rise than we dared to imagine ~
‘Extreme El Nino events to double in number even with 1.5-degree warming: study’
Peter Hannam, 25 July 2017, Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/extreme-el-nino-events-to-double-in-number-even-with-15degree-warming-study-20170720-gxfmwl.html
“Extreme El Nino events will more than double in frequency, even with the most ambitious goals to curtail global warming, exposing large regions to severe droughts and placing coral reefs in peril, a team of scientists including Australians say. In 2015, almost 200 nations signed the Paris Climate accord, agreeing to curb greenhouse gas emissions to prevent global temperatures warming more than 1.5-2 degrees compared with pre-industrial times. National pledges so far point to warming of closer to 3 degrees. Even at the lower end of that range, which implies atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide peak by about 2040-2050 before starting to decline, big El Ninos will still become twice as common as their natural frequency to an average of about 10 per century and continue to rise further, according to research published in Nature Climate Change.”
“There have been four such events since 1950 compared with one in the previous half century. “To our surprise, if you stabilise GMT at 1.5 degrees, the extreme El Ninos continue to rise,” Dr Cai said. “After that, the frequency of extremes rises another 40 per cent” to as often as one in every seven years before finally stabilising. Aiming for that 1.5-degree warming cap is still worthwhile not least because the frequency of severe El Ninos will increase even faster if temperatures climb higher, Dr Cai said.â€
At this rate of surprise, shock and horror revelations, we can expect the predicted future realities to be worse and arrive faster.
Our number may be up in the coal mine we have furiously pumped into the air and sea.
Survival is now the name of the game, in a future where living on Earth may become more like living in space, where protective suits may be required to venture into the hot poisonous air (hydrogen sulphide gas released from dying oceans).
Ardent suvivalists can do their best to design a future that works back to a safe Earth, but to succeed, they will need a pretty good tool kit.
They will also need a presence in space, to cool the planet with a sunshade, as excess carbon is extracted from the air.
We will need many greenhouses to preseve life, arks in a hostile environment, both on Earth and in space.
When we have saved the Earth, we will have also gained the skills to turn Venus green.
Venus will take a little longer, but so will the Earth, if we have caused third rock to tumble toward becoming a second Venus.
Is this why James Hansen now recommends keeping the Earth’s temperature rise below 1C?
What is the level of CO2 in the air for that, and what year did we sail by it?
Kim Peart
July 24, 2017 at 15:27
Re: 22 ~ If I may be permitted a considered reply…..
The speed of near-future global warming may be determined by the volume of greenhouse gases released from a rapidly warming Arctic region, a matter raised in this article ~
“Arctic permafrost contains 1.8 trillion tons of carbon, more than twice as much as is currently suspended in the Earth’s atmosphere. When it thaws and is released, that carbon may evaporate as methane, which is 34 times as powerful a greenhouse-gas warming blanket as carbon dioxide when judged on the timescale of a century; when judged on the timescale of two decades, it is 86 times as powerful. In other words, we have, trapped in Arctic permafrost, twice as much carbon as is currently wrecking the atmosphere of the planet, all of it scheduled to be released at a date that keeps getting moved up, partially in the form of a gas that multiplies its warming power 86 times over.â€
In another article we can read ~
“One of the most feared of these feedback loops is the vast amount of organic material currently trapped in permafrost, which would release methane and other greenhouse gases in large amounts given the right conditions. And now a team of researchers has discovered another significant source of emissions that would result from the thawing of the tundra. For the frozen ground acts as a cap on much more ancient gas deposits, preventing them from escaping into the atmosphere.”
‘Thawing permafrost poses even greater global warming threat than previously thought, suggests study’
Ian Johnston, 19 July 2017, Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/thawing-permafrost-global-warming-climate-change-glaciers-antarctic-threat-mackenzie-delta-a7849211.html
All signs indicate that our struggle to survive on Earth will get tougher, and much sooner than we would like and or hope for.
In the article we can also read ~ “A planet five degrees warmer would have at least half again as many wars as we do today.â€
Tension like that now flaring up between India and China (Sydney Morning Herald), war in Ukraine, War in Syria and Iraq, war in Yemen, Islamic State in the Philippines, the Chinese claim on the South China Sea and simmering tensions over North Korea, draw in so many nuclear powers, we need to imagine how we are going to avoid a nuclear holocaust.
Nations with nukes engaged in or on the edge of current conflicts ~ North Korea, China, United States, Russia, India, Pakistan, and Israel.
We may reach 1.5C temperature rise by 2030, or if there is a methane belch from the Arctic, and from ocean floor methane hydrates, it could be 2C, or more.
In the article we again can read ~ “the history of the planet shows that temperature can shift as much as five degrees Celsius within thirteen years.â€
James Lovelock attempted to warn the citizens of this planet about this happening in his 2009 book ‘The Vanishing Face of Gaia: a final warning’.
Who read that book?
Who absorbed the information?
Lovelock’s warning was based on the simple observation that the Sun is 35% hotter than at its birth 4.5 billion years ago, and the Earth’s life-support system has to work harder now to keep a steady temperature for life.
As we have destabilised the Earth system, the next phase is sudden change to a permanently hotter world.
James Hansen drilled deep into the data and was able to predict that 350 ppm CO2 in the air would deliver 1.5C temperature rise.
So the tipping point for a stable Earth environment was passed in the 1980s.
Carbon extraction needed to be happening in the 1980s, but that wasn’t understood, then.
continued …..
Kim Peart
July 24, 2017 at 15:28
Re: 22 ~ continued …..
Now we have the full blast of the facts and figures to tell us what is happening, and we are witnessing the acceleration of a process that we committed to in the 1980s.
All that has happened since, with all that extra carbon pumped into the air and sea, is the future of the carbon apocalypse that we are now in and tumbling deeper into.
We are falling into hell.
And the potential of a nuclear holocaust rises with the temperature.
Doom and damnation is now upon us.
All we can do is identify a very clever survival plan.
Secure survival, and then include an effective way to extract excess carbon from the air.
With survival and carbon extraction clearly on the table, then we can hope to inspire good citizens to rise to the challenge of all available grass-roots action.
Lacking an effect plan for carbon extraction, all calls to reduce carbon emissions will not be taken seriously, and will not work.
If we will not address and tell the brutal truth, we are simply blowing hot air, and will be ignored.
The O’Neill plan for a future in space was built on an environmental vision, where solar power stations in space could be used to avoid the carbon apocalypse, which we are now realising has been our doom since the 1980s.
On page 162 of O’Neill’s 1977 book ’The High Frontier’ we can read concerning solar power stations in space ~ “If this development comes to pass, we will find ourselves here on Earth with a clean energy source, and we will further improve our environment by saving, each year, over a billion tons of fossil fuels,â€
The Apollo space mind-set of solving any problem was what delivered an image of the Earth from the Moon in 1968.
I personally lament that environmentalists did not get serious about the space settlement vision in the 1970s, as that is how we could have avoided the current carbon apocalypse.
Now we have to figure out how we will survive the black seeds of doom falling around us.
We can do so much now, in the time available, if we focus on the demands of survival.
We can raise hell with a global campaign to mobilise citizens around the Earth.
Such a campaign begins with each individual, as there can be no passing of any buck when it comes to survival.
Ten million determined people could make a difference, and inspire action.
Mini robots can be developed and used to work in space from Earth with remote control systems.
Mini robots, I suggest, will be the swiftest and cheapest way to secure a sustainable industrial presence beyond Earth, which will improve our survival options, and our ability to win back a safe Earth.
Everyone can be directly involved in driving this, and engaged globally via avatars in the virtual worlds, as well as local action.
We can also include survival on Earth beyond the carbon apocalypse, or a nuclear holocaust, using protected environments to preserve life, and a mini robot program to rebuild and be able to go into space again.
Inaction will make us a cosmic statistic in the Fermi Paradox, where the Great Filter theory will find its proof in our stupidity.
We can do better than that, but we don’t have a single minute to mess around, if survival matters.
max
July 24, 2017 at 16:48
Josh Frydenberg laid it on the line on Q&A, jobs trump survival. A coal mine gives jobs, survival is not the priority, coal is our big export and the future is beyond the next election.