Climate Change

[Michael Scally MD]

Capitalism threatens all life on the planet - Interview with Professor Guy McPherson
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2015/05/25/title-193#more37570

8) You recently published a book with Carolyn Baker called Extinction Dialogs. How should we prepare for the extinction of all life on the planet?

By living with death in mind. By loving what is, not what should be. By identifying what we love, and pursuing it. By pursuing excellence in our lives. By doing what is right, without attachment to the outcome. All of which applies even if we live forever.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Garrett T. Are there basic physical constraints on future anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide? Climatic Change. 2011;104(3-4):437-55. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-009-9717-9#

Global Circulation Models (GCMs) provide projections for future climate warming using a wide variety of highly sophisticated anthropogenic CO2 emissions scenarios as input, each based on the evolution of four emissions “drivers”: population p, standard of living g, energy productivity (or efficiency) f and energy carbonization c (IPCC WG III 2007).

The range of scenarios considered is extremely broad, however, and this is a primary source of forecast uncertainty (Stott and Kettleborough, Nature 416:723–725, 2002).

Here, it is shown both theoretically and observationally how the evolution of the human system can be considered from a surprisingly simple thermodynamic perspective in which it is unnecessary to explicitly model two of the emissions drivers: population and standard of living.

Specifically, the human system grows through a self-perpetuating feedback loop in which the consumption rate of primary energy resources stays tied to the historical accumulation of global economic production—or p×g—through a time-independent factor of 9.7±0.3 mW per inflation-adjusted 1990 US dollar.

This important constraint, and the fact that f and c have historically varied rather slowly, points towards substantially narrowed visions of future emissions scenarios for implementation in GCMs.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Garrett TJ. No way out? The double-bind in seeking global prosperity alongside mitigated climate change. Earth Syst Dynam. 2012;3(1):1-17. http://www.earth-syst-dynam.net/3/1/2012/esd-3-1-2012.html

In a prior study (Garrett, 2011), I introduced a simple economic growth model designed to be consistent with general thermodynamic laws.

Unlike traditional economic models, civilization is viewed only as a well-mixed global whole with no distinction made between individual nations, economic sectors, labor, or capital investments. At the model core is a hypothesis that the global economy's current rate of primary energy consumption is tied through a constant to a very general representation of its historically accumulated wealth.

Observations support this hypothesis, and indicate that the constant's value is λ = 9.7 ± 0.3 milliwatts per 1990 US dollar. It is this link that allows for treatment of seemingly complex economic systems as simple physical systems.

Here, this growth model is coupled to a linear formulation for the evolution of globally well-mixed atmospheric CO2 concentrations. While very simple, the coupled model provides faithful multi-decadal hindcasts of trajectories in gross world product (GWP) and CO2.

Extending the model to the future, the model suggests that the well-known IPCC SRES scenarios substantially underestimate how much CO2 levels will rise for a given level of future economic prosperity.

For one, global CO2 emission rates cannot be decoupled from wealth through efficiency gains.

For another, like a long-term natural disaster, future greenhouse warming can be expected to act as an inflationary drag on the real growth of global wealth.

For atmospheric CO2 concentrations to remain below a "dangerous" level of 450 ppmv (Hansen et al., 2007), model forecasts suggest that there will have to be some combination of an unrealistically rapid rate of energy decarbonization and nearly immediate reductions in global civilization wealth.

Effectively, it appears that civilization may be in a double-bind.

If civilization does not collapse quickly this century, then CO2 levels will likely end up exceeding 1000 ppmv; but, if CO2 levels rise by this much, then the risk is that civilization will gradually tend towards collapse.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

"The evidence shows that ignoring climate change will eventually damage economic growth. Our actions over the coming few decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, later in this century and in the next, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century. And it will be difficult or impossible to reverse these changes. Tackling climate change is the pro-growth strategy for the longer term, and it can be done in a way that does not cap the aspirations for growth of rich or poor countries. The earlier effective action is taken, the less costly it will be."

Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/sternreview_index.htm

In 2008, however, Stern announced that his report had underestimated the speed and scale of some serious climate impacts and increased his recommendation for expenditure on emissions reductions to 2% of global GDP. Nonetheless, by Stern's analysis, ignoring climate change is still many times more expensive than fixing it. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/jun/26/climatechange.scienceofclimatechange

 

[Michael Scally MD]

ExxonMobil CEO mocks renewable energy in shareholder speech
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/...mate-change-mock-renewable-energy-118330.html

The CEO of one of the world’s largest oil companies downplayed the effects of climate change at his company’s annual meeting Wednesday, telling shareholders his firm hadn’t invested in renewable energy because “We choose not to lose money on purpose.”

“Mankind has this enormous capacity to deal with adversity,” ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson told the meeting, pointing to technologies that can combat inclement weather “that may or may not be induced by climate change.”

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Theme Issue 'Four degrees and beyond: the potential for a global temperature increase of four degrees and its implications'
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1934.toc

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Global warming has hit Alaska and the Eskimos' livelihoods are melting away
http://europe.newsweek.com/global-warming-hits-alaska-eskimos-watch-their-livelihoods-melt-away-328164

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Karl TR, Arguez A, Huang B, Lawrimore JH, McMahon JR, et al. Possible artifacts of data biases in the recent global surface warming hiatus. Science. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2015/06/03/science.aaa5632.abstract

Much study has been devoted to the possible causes of an apparent decrease in the upward trend of global surface temperatures since 1998, a phenomenon that has been dubbed the global warming “hiatus.” Here we present an updated global surface temperature analysis that reveals that global trends are higher than reported by the IPCC, especially in recent decades, and that the central estimate for the rate of warming during the first 15 years of the 21st century is at least as great as the last half of the 20th century. These results do not support the notion of a “slowdown” in the increase of global surface temperature.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

G7 leaders agree to phase out fossil fuel use by end of century
http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...gree-phase-out-fossil-fuel-use-end-of-century

The G7 leading industrial nations have agreed on tough measures to cut greenhouse gases by phasing out the use of fossil fuels by the end of the century, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has announced, in a move hailed as historic by some environmental campaigners.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

We’re all climate change deniers at heart
http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...deniers-g7-goal-fossil-fuels?CMP=share_btn_tw

At yesterday’s summit in Bavaria, the G7 leading industrial nations agreed to phase out fossil fuels by the end of the century. It’s easy to be cynical about these things, but these official goals really matter. And one big reason is this: in the absence of intergovernmental action, we are hopelessly ill-equipped to deal with this problem as individuals.

In fact, if a cabal of evil psychologists had gathered in a secret undersea base to concoct a crisis humanity would be hopelessly ill-equipped to address, they couldn’t have done better than climate change. We’ve evolved to respond more vigorously to threats that are immediate and easy to picture mentally, rather than those that are distant and abstract; we’re more sensitive to intentional threats from specific humans, rather than unintentional ones resulting from collective action; we’re terrible at making small sacrifices in the present to avoid vast ones in future; our attention is seized by phenomena that change daily, rather than those that ratchet up gradually over years.

And should it dawn on us that our behaviours don’t match our beliefs – that we’re not doing our bit to save the planet, even though we think we should – we find it far easier to http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/cognitive_dissonance.htm (downgrading the importance of climate change) than the behaviour (flying less, having fewer children).

In one strikingly depressing scene in his recent http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/dont-even-think-about-it-9781620401330/, climate change activist George Marshall interviews the Nobel prizewinningpsychologist Daniel Kahneman, the leading scholar of cognitive biases, and tries to nudge him into saying that understanding our brains’ limitations will, at the very least, make it easier to overcome them. “I’m not very optimistic about that,” Kahneman replies, despondently sipping tomato soup. “No amount of psychological awareness will overcome people’s reluctance to lower their standard of living. So that’s my bottom line: there is not much hope. I’m thoroughly pessimistic. I’m sorry.” The pessimism of experts provides yet another reason to pay attention to something else, anything else, instead of climate change: why choose to spend your days feeling relentlessly depressed?

 

[Michael Scally MD]

When the Great Ice Sheets Start Going Down — Approaching the Age of “Storms”
https://robertscribbler.wordpress.c...art-going-down-approaching-the-age-of-storms/

The great ice sheets are melting with increasing velocity. Melt ponds are forming over Greenland, then pounding heat down through the ice like the smoldering hammers of ancient Norse fire giants. Warming mid-depth ocean waters are eating away at the undersides of Antarctica’s great ice shelves. Pools of fresh water are expanding outward from the bleeding glaciers, flooding the surface zones of the world’s oceans. Sea level rise rates have jumped to 4.4 millimeters per year (see study here). And the North Atlantic Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is slowing down.

Keeping all this in mind, let’s talk a little bit about the ugly transition to phase 2 climate change. A transition it now appears we’re at the start of. The — you should have listened to Dr. James Hansen and read The Storms of My Grandchildren — phase of climate change. The awful, long, stormy period in which the great glaciers really start going down.

* * * * *

In an effort to organize how human-caused climate change may proceed, it helps to break the likely progression of human-caused climate change down into three basic phases. For this simplification we have phase 1 — polar amplification, phase 2 glacial melt and storms, and phase 3 — runaway hothouse and stratified/Canfield Oceans. For this article, we’ll focus mostly on phase 1 and 2.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

UQx Denial101x Making Sense of Climate Science Denial
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmxzubbVw6jXA7Ak08StYug

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Explosive intervention by Pope Francis set to transform climate change debate
http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...intervention-transforms-climate-change-debate

Pope Francis will call for an ethical and economic revolution to prevent catastrophic climate change and growing inequality in a letter to the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics on Thursday.

In an unprecedented encyclical on the subject of the environment, the pontiff is expected to argue that humanity’s exploitation of the planet’s resources has crossed the Earth’s natural boundaries, and that the world faces ruin without a revolution in hearts and minds. The much-anticipated message, which will be sent to the world’s 5,000 Catholic bishops, will be published online in five languages on Thursday and is expected to be the most radical statement yet from the outspoken pontiff.

However, it is certain to anger sections of Republican opinion in America by endorsing the warnings of climate scientists and admonishing rich elites, say cardinals and scientists who have advised the Vatican.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

How the Pope Could Turn U.S. Climate Politics Upside Down
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...e-could-turn-u-s-climate-politics-upside-down

Pope Francis is about to release a much-anticipated letter to bishops about faith and climate change. If it has the impact he's counting on, it could finally budge a glacier of frozen thinking on the crisis. It could break through to millions of Americans who thought they knew what they thought about global warming.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

The End of Coal?
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2015/06/15/4253096.htm

With the price of coal plummeting and our biggest customers turning to renewable energy, is Australia backing a loser?

When Prime Minister Tony Abbott famously declared coal to be "good for humanity" and "essential to the prosperity of Australia" there was no doubting he saw a coal-fuelled future for the nation.

And it's easy to see why: Australia has one of the world's largest deposits of coal; it provides two-thirds of our power, employs more than 50,000 people and brings in more than $40 billion a year from exports.

Yet not everyone is so upbeat. Some argue that the downturn is permanent.

"There's been a number of price cycles like this in the past. I have to say this is probably the worst we've seen."Mining Executive

Four Corners explores the driving forces that neither the Federal Government nor the mining industry can control.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Papal Draft Blames Most Global Warming on Human Activity
http://www.wsj.com/articles/papal-draft-faults-most-global-warming-on-human-activity-1434389790

ROME—Pope Francis calls global warming a major threat to life on the planet, says it is due mainly to human activity and describes the need to reduce the use of fossil fuels as an “urgent” matter, in a published draft of an upcoming letter on the environment.

The pope’s words appear in a draft copy of “Laudato Si’” (“Be praised”), his long-awaited encyclical on the environment. The draft was published online Monday by the Italian magazine L’Espresso, three days ahead of its scheduled publication date.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said in a statement that the posted text wasn’t the final document, which would remain under embargo until Thursday.

In the draft, Pope Francis wrote of a “very consistent scientific consensus that we are in the presence of an alarming warming of the climactic system.”

While acknowledging that natural causes, including volcanic activity, play a role in climate change, the pope wrote, “numerous scientific studies indicate that the greater part of global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxide and others) emitted above all due to human activity.”

The pope wrote that there is an “urgent and compelling” need for policies that reduce carbon emissions, among other ways, by “replacing fossil fuels and developing sources of renewable energy.”

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

How climate change deniers got it right — but very wrong
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/how-climate-change-deniers-got-it-very-wrong?cid=sm_fb_msnbc

It turns out the climate change deniers were right: There isn’t 97% agreement among climate scientists. The real figure? It’s not lower, but actually higher.

The scientific “consensus” on climate change has gotten stronger, surging past the famous — and controversial — figure of 97% to more than 99.9%, according to a new study reviewed by msnbc.

James L. Powell, director of the National Physical Sciences Consortium, reviewed more than 24,000 peer-reviewed papers on global warming published in 2013 and 2014. Only five reject the reality of rising temperatures or the fact that human emissions are the cause, he found.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

"Clearly, the Bible has no place for a tyrannical anthropocentrism unconcerned for other creatures."
http://m.vatican.va/content/frances...-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html