Permafrost Loss Greater Threat Than Deforestation

Pierre Bezukhov writes "Emissions from thawing permafrost may contribute more to global warming than deforestation this century, according to commentary in the journal Nature. Arctic warming of 7.5 degrees Celsius (13.5 degrees Fahrenheit) this century may unlock the equivalent of 380 billion tons of carbon dioxide as soils thaw, allowing carbon to escape as CO2 and methane, University of Florida and University of Alaska biologists wrote today in Nature. Two degrees of warming would release a third of that, they said. The Arctic is an important harbinger of climate change because the United Nations calculates it's warming at almost twice the average rate for the planet. The study adds to pressure on United Nations climate treaty negotiators from more than 190 countries attending two weeks of talks in Durban, South Africa that began Nov. 28."

Comments

And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Anonymous Coward]

Based on their inaction and their stated desire for inaction: Canada, Russia, and the USA.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[war4peace]

That's because both politicians AND industrialists just see lots of fast profit from permafrost thawing, namely more usable land (and whatever might reside beneath).
What would happen with the planet 100 years from now is irrelevant to them; they will be all dead at that time.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Llyr]

Not sure the Canadian North can count as "more usable land" once thawed -- it's largely frozen muskeg swamp at the moment, somewhat usable due to permafrost since at least that way you don't sink into it.
There's some interest in the northern seabed for gas exploration.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[ackthpt]

Not sure the Canadian North can count as "more usable land" once thawed -- it's largely frozen muskeg swamp at the moment, somewhat usable due to permafrost since at least that way you don't sink into it.

There's some interest in the northern seabed for gas exploration.

Great bit on the construction of the trans-Alaskan highway, in Mitchner's Alaska. When they tore the top layer off the tundra their equipment, paving, everything sunk into mud. The only way to build roads was on top of the Permafrost. Nobody going to do any mining, drilling or anything else if the ground is thawed and you have the biggest plain of mud in the world between you and your dreamed of profits.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[ackthpt]

Somebody is conspicuously absent from the Kyoto Protocol.

America, fuck yeah.

In Germany you are taxed to death (by 'merkin standards) and the price of petrol is over 12$US per gallon - yet they have among the highest standard of living and the most robust economy in Europe.

When the people in Washington DC hear about raising the cost of petrol, so people won't waste it so stupidly on SUVs in the city and frivolous trips in the auto, they howl that it will destroy the American Way of Life and the Economy.

Fucking daft, scared "leaders" America is dynamic and can adapt, same as Germany did. Charge $10/gal at the pump and people will stop depending so heavily on petrol that the country has to go to war over it.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Genda]

The problem is that besides the fact that you might gain a little land in the extreme latitudes, you render huge regions in the tropical and temperate zones as dessert. The net loss of viable/arrible land for human habitat and development would be mind boggling. Anyone in extreme climates who thinks we should go through the kind of warming being described here, for their own benefit, at the detriment to billions of others living in more central latitudes is a shortsighted despot.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

It's not that they don't care, it's that the cost to them of committing to the same level of change is much higher--so they don't care enough to make it happen.

Also, you forgot China. It's not like their pollution problem is an eensy-weensy one.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[JWW]

Say, why don't you try looking at a map or a globe and comparing the size of Germany to the size of the US. Now factor in moving goods across each country. What country would suffer more if the cost of gas goes up?

Charge $10/gallon at the pump and then sit back and watch unemployment go from 9% to 19% or more.

I'm not convinced that the dismantling of modern civilization will be less devastating that the affects of climate change.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Luckyo]

There is some really good footage when this happened to already build tracks in Russia. Google for it.

In short: You're going to have to spend HUGE amounts to built any kind of a steel track (and even more to build and maintained a paved road that carries a lot less) to tundra if it thaws. Essentially start hoping that whatever resources you're extracting are close enough to the shore.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Fluffeh]

for their own benefit, at the detriment to billions of others living in more central latitudes is a shortsighted despot.

Welcome to the world we live in. The common good, altruism and generally being the "good guys" are ideologies of generations before the ones currently - at least for the most part. Welcome to the world of no direct consequences, it's like living in the internet, but in real life.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[scamper_22]

I'm neither a politician or an industrialist...

1. There have been reports that we really can't stop global warming anyways. It is "too late".

2. In as much as there are downsides to global warming (floods, heat deaths...), there are benefits (more usable land up north, easier shipping, fewer cold deaths...)

It might be a good idea to just start dealing with a warmer planet. Embrace the good effects. Try to counter the bad ones (build levies/flood protection, move from low lying area...) and address our pollution as technology and time permits.

What will happen to the planet 100 years from now? I really don't think the planet will be in devastating shape... even with a few degrees warming. Life will go on. Don't think I'm underestimating here. I"m sure many parts of the world will feel the huge impacts, especially coastal cities when sea levels rise. But life will go on and we will adapt, even if we have to evacuate Miami.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[khallow]

Or one can make a corduroy road. It's made of logs and not particularly hard to put together.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[cusco]

A goodly portion of the reason gasoline is so cheap is because the industry is heavily subsidized to keep voters happy enough to stay away from the polls. When you have the same people running the war-toy companies as are running the oil companies and they're buying congresscritters wholesale I don't expect any productive change to happen any time soon.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[khallow]

Before we commence with the hand wringing, shouldn't we first show there's a problem that will get substantially worse in a mere century? You can't expect someone to change their behavior based on supposition.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[khallow]

A goodly portion of the reason gasoline is so cheap is because the industry is heavily subsidized to keep voters happy enough to stay away from the polls.

Keep in mind that in the US, gasoline taxes raised about $25 billion per year and that most things considered subsidies for oil are really subsidies for ground vehicles (which happen to burn oil products, but can run on other things) or US defense contractors (who happen to be getting paid lots of money to make weapon systems and provide services to the US military.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[haruchai]

Yes, life will go on and we will adapt but a lot of us will find life to be even nastier, more brutish and much shorter than it is now. The human race is not going to die out but I think a lot of the progress of the 20th century will be reversed, especially in the area of international cooperation. And, if the very worst predictions do start to come through, I wouldn't rule out another World War.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Curunir_wolf]

Somebody is conspicuously absent from the Kyoto Protocol. America, fuck yeah.

Not that it would have made any difference anyway - Kyoto was doomed to failure by design. Actually, it probably would have made some difference, as the US generally makes very good faith efforts to actually stick to the treaties it signs (by comparison, check out how well the signatories have done meeting their targets). So the recession in the US would probably be considerably worse than it is, and China would have become the biggest source of CO2 emissions even sooner.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[ShieldW0lf]

If the permafrost thaws, the way to recover the land would be to borrow from permaculture principles and let nature do most of the work.

First, plant fast growing, cold tolerant plants that fix atmospheric nitrogen like Russian Olives, Bog Myrtles, Northern Bayberries and Buffalo Berries. They'll grow like mad and firm up what soil is there. Then you run an annual slash-and-drop program to build soil. You wouldn't need heavy equipment, just chain saws, because you wouldn't be letting anything get particularly large, and you won't be carting anything in or out, so costs would be relatively low.

Using heavy equipment to cart in material to build up the land when you can let nature do the work would just be stupid.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Luckyo]

You do realize that this wouldn't work? Logs would shift, and the road would destroy itself in a matter of months.

If solution was that simple, they wouldn't have this problem in Russia. Taiga is choke full of trees.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[MightyMartian]

In the short term you may be right, but in the long term, oil is going to run out anyways. And if you think the worst case scenario is $10 a gallon for gasoline, then you're not considering what will happen to innumerable industrial and agricultural processes when we run out of easily obtained long-chain hydrocarbons. The absolutely most moronic, wasteful and short-sighted uses of oil is using it as the energy source for transportation. Nothing demonstrates the sheer awe-inspiring stupidity of the human race than the wasting of long-chain hydrocarbons by sticking them in a gas tank.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[joggle]

America is still a very rich country. Even if we paid $10/gallon at the pump, we'd still be paying lower taxes than Germans (no VAT here and lower income and property tax). We paid very high taxes during WWII and certainly didn't 'dismantle' our modern civilization, quite the opposite actually.

That money doesn't just go 'poof'. In Germany, you can get a free college education (and by 'you', I literally mean you if you are fluent in German regardless of where you're from). They also have high-speed rail, a substantial industrial sector (largest in Europe), and relatively low unemployment.

If gas prices went up, consumption of gas would surely go down, meaning more money would stay in the American economy rather than going overseas.

No doubt it would be painful, but there's no painless way of digging out of the huge debt the US is already in.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[hrvatska]

I don't think you'd see the dismantling of civilization so much as a change in travel patterns, types of vehicles that people choose to purchase and where people choose to live and work. It would lead to more compact suburban communities that could be more easily serviced by mass transit and a further decrease in the population of rural communities. I live in a rural area, and I know if gas prices were gradually increased to $10/gallon it would lead to fewer people choosing to live around here, with most of those who left choosing to live closer to where they work and shop. But again, civilization wouldn't end.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[riverat1]

1. There have been reports that we really can't stop global warming anyways. It is "too late".

It's not a binary issue. The more we increase greenhouse gases in the atmosphere the worse it gets on a smooth curve. There is the global warming that's already occurred and is in the pipeline that we can't stop. That includes the fact that once we get really serious about CO2 emissions it will take 30 or 40 years to to build the infrastructure necessary to convert to non-carbon energy sources so CO2 levels will continue to rise until then. But in the end the total global warming we will see (barring a significant change in the Sun) is largely set by the maximum level that CO2 reaches in the atmosphere. There is good reason to slow down and eventually stop carbon dioxide emissions to keep things from getting worse than they already have to be.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a little silly to assume that because the US is larger that it MUST ship goods across its entire breadth. We are divided into states, after all, most of which on a scale similar to European countries. Even Texas, the largest of the contiguous states, has the option (spelled out in its annexation treaty) to split up into 5 states.

Besides, in a global economy with most industrialized nations expanding free trade with their neighbors, is transporting something from Turkey to Germany so different from transporting from CA to NY?

That said, I do agree that a sudden jump to $10/gal will strangle the economy, and anyone suggesting that it wouldn't is unfamiliar with economics. The problem is that we don't have any long term energy policy, short of the occasional destabilization of central and south America and the middle east. If such a policy was put in place that in 10 years our gas prices reached parity with European gas prices, our economy would not only adapt and tolerate it, but would flourish. The harshest stifling factor for any economy is uncertainty, and a clear energy policy would go a long way toward reducing uncertainty.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[hedwards]

You shouldn't be that hit by it. Trains are how we used to move food across the US, and we still have a good system. A gallon of gas gets a ton ~480 miles further down the line on average via train. Even if the price were to double that would still come out to a pretty piddly sum of money.

The bigger concern ought to be the cost of producing the food in the first place.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[phantomfive]

Fucking daft, scared "leaders" America is dynamic and can adapt, same as Germany did. Charge $10/gal at the pump and people will stop depending so heavily on petrol that the country has to go to war over it.

They aren't daft, they are democratic. Any 'leader' who did that would be voted out. We don't hire our representatives to tell us what to do, we Americans hire them to do what we want. That's why they are called representatives. They don't always represent, but if they get too far out of line and people notice, they will get voted out.

Believe me, if gasoline goes up to $10/gal, people will notice. And the representatives will be voted out.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Anonymous Coward]

You can not discount the nature of the culture and behavior of the population. There are a lot of countries right next to Germany (on pretty much all sides) that have similar taxes and yet do not have the highest standard of living nor robust economy. In fact, most of Europe has exceedingly high gas prices by 'merican standards, so why don't they all have such a high standard of living? I know it isn't popular to suggest, but every country is not equal, and policies that work in one country may not work in the next. Just drive from Germany to Italy and see the difference. It isn't just government policy that changes, it's the people.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Fujisawa Sensei]

Bullshit.

Those ideologies were always there, and they're still here. They just take a back seat to money.

That, like politics, haven't changed since ancient Greece, and no doubt since even before that.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[ShakaUVM]

>>Somebody is conspicuously absent from the Kyoto Protocol.
>>America, fuck yeah.

Kyoto is a terrible treaty for a number of reasons. First, it sets carbon caps on a per-country basis, not a per-capita basis, which fucks developing countries. Secondly, it picked a start date of 1990. The one guaranteed way to reduce CO2 emissions is to collapse your economy, and in 1991 the USSR collapsed like a house of cards. If you look at graphs of the CO2 output of the different regions of the earth, all sectors went up since 1990 except Eastern Europe, which plummeted.

So essentially for countries like the US, you could continue doing business as usual while writing a check each year to countries "cutting their CO2" like Romania, Estonia, Latvia, the Ukraine, and so forth. Whereas they're not really doing anything to reduce CO2 emissions, it's just an artifact of a collapsed economy. Hell, when our economy collapsed in 2007, our CO2 emissions went down, too. It's not a good model for success.

America did the right thing by not signing Kyoto, and this comes from someone that really would like to see something done about global warming in his lifetime.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[aintnostranger]

different prices for Gas and Diesel fuel. Some countries even subsidize diesel fuel used for goods and mass passengers transport, while heavily taxing gas for cars.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[ShakaUVM]

After posting the above, I decided I should qualify my statement by saying the total picture is more complicated than all that, especially when you look at how developed vs. developing countries are treated in Kyoto, but the 1990 start year *was* intentionally chosen as a way for certain countries (Eastern Europe, Germany, and the UK) to win free carbon credits out of the artifact of the start date, without doing anything material to actually reduce their emissions.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[WorBlux]

It's well within our means to modify atmospheric albedo should the need arise (danger of more than 2 deg C warming), the problem is that nobody really agrees where the global temperature ought to end up at. In the meantime the political classes profit by chasing hobgoblins.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Mal-2]

In Germany you are taxed to death (by 'merkin standards) and the price of petrol is over 12$US per gallon - yet they have among the highest standard of living and the most robust economy in Europe.

This will not persist. As it stands, Germany is basically the only solvent economy in the entire EU, and it won't be able to sustain it much longer as credit dries up for even a country of its trustworthy credit rating. West Germany took a big hit from having to absorb the blight the Soviets left in the East, and although they've largely recovered from it, they're not ready or able to support ALL OF EUROPE. Look for Greece to default first (probably late February according to sources I've seen), followed soon after by Spain, Portugal, and Ireland. Credit will become very expensive or cease to exist entirely. Countries that have lived on borrowing, like the U.S., will resort to desperate measures to pay the bills -- in the case of the U.S., that means the Fed using the "nuclear option", seignorage. My personal bet for the seignorage option is on March 23, 2012, give or take a week. You know damn well they'll do it on a Friday afternoon when they hope nobody is watching.

The bankers saw this coming. It's no accident that baseless 2012 prophecies have been played up in the media. They want the populace prepared for a global disaster, it just won't be the one they're expecting. Right or wrong, a disproportionately high number of Americans will survive, compared to casualty rates worldwide. The psyops campaign will be a significant part of why they do.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[rolfwind]

Unless it rose 50% since April, gas price in Germany is around $8.30.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/shocking-gas-prices-globe/story?id=13349235#.TtcsvXM4MUM

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Calydor]

But is that always the right thing? Should elected representatives always do what the population wants?

You know what they say, a man is smart, people are stupid. I would say it is more important for the elected representatives to do what is right for the country in the long run, regardless of whether the population agrees at the time.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[findoutmoretoday]

<quote><p>If solution was that simple, they wouldn't have this problem in Russia. Taiga is choke full of trees.</p></quote>

Only problem is that I expect the permafrost to be found in the tundra as trees could have some problems with permafrost

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Moofie]

"ideologies of generations before the ones currently"

*snort* Which generations were those, exactly?

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[phantomfive]

I would say it is more important for the elected representatives to do what is right for the country in the long run, regardless of whether the population agrees at the time.

Maybe, but representatives who do that often tend to get voted out.

Remember, democracy doesn't guarantee that the people will get the best government, it means they get the government they deserve. If they can't be bothered, the government won't do much either.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Luckyo]

The point that it's quite cheap to simply chop the trees that are nearby and slap them under the new railway tracks if that was that simple. You could just move the trees through the already built railway, which is what was done when they were building tracks on permafrost (and is usually done when building new railways).

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[khallow]

You do realize that this wouldn't work? Logs would shift, and the road would destroy itself in a matter of months.

If you had read the Wikipedia article, you'd see that corduroy roads are built even now (they have a picture of a large excavator building a corduroy road) and that sometimes, particularly in acidic conditions, such as muskeg which appears to be the tundra soil type that you're speaking of, the roads can last a number of years (see that link for discussion of modern construction of corduroy roads in precisely the sort of conditions you are speaking of, BTW). For example, parts of the Alaskan Highway used to be gravel over a corduroy road and were in use from 1943 through to the 90s!

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Joce640k]

They've also heard of the magic geoengineering fairy. It sound cheaper/easier to them.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Luckyo]

If you had any and all understanding of logistics and distances, you would understand that building a DIRT road is indeed possible over it, as it's very insensitive to shifting of bottom elements of the road.

You would also understand just how bad dirt road is for major hauling over long distances, and how uneconomical, which is why railways are always a primary ways of shifting heavy loads over continental surface, with paved roads being a very distant second, and dirt and gravel being largely unused unless absolutely necessary.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[FBeans]

Well this is a very over simplified model of a finacal system. Firstly size of country is just one factor, there are many more factors I can think of and most probably plenty more I can't.

Further to this, the cost of oil will always go up and people will always moan, and groan and rightly so. At the same time, there is nothing the end user can do, they have no leverage, at the end of the day we need fuel, so we use fuel, regardless of price.

So this will have affects on any buisness that use transport directly; their costs go up, their prices go up (or their proftis go down - Unlikly). So then any companies using those companies are effected, allbeit indirectly. And then chain goes on until everyone is affected. So Prices of "everything" is now higher, this is where unions step in and start asking for more money for their workers. Resulting in a massivly complex network of changes to the value of goods and services, ebbing and flowing like the tide's that are pulled around by the moon.

Welcome to the world we live in. It's called inflation, recession, regression, BOOMs. Thats the economical world. Stuff affects other stuff. But "dismanatlling modern civilisation" is an over-statement. In reality there are lots of factors that you and I have not considered.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[khallow]

I do. I also understand the tasks here are limited things like running some oil wells or supplying a small settlement, not major infrastructure for a industrial civilization. Dirt road is indeed good enough for these tasks.

One can also build a small gauge rail on corduroy. That sort of thing (though I don't know of specific examples that run on corduroy) has been used before for mining and lumbering operations. I don't see any problem with running it to supply farms or whatnot.

If you're going to build heavy duty rail or paved roads for something serious, then dig to bedrock. It's pricy, but problem is solved.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Anonymous Coward]

Say, why don't you try looking at a map or a globe and comparing the size of Germany to the size of the US. Now factor in moving goods across each country.

If most of the petrol consumed in the US was used for shipping goods across the country and not for shipping publictransitophobic fatasses between home and work, this would be entirely relevant.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Neil Boekend]

You shouldn't use Germany for that. Use Europe and compare Germany to a state. There is a hell of a lot of international transport here.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Sabriel]

It used to be the atmospheric warming that concerned me, however ocean acidification is a bigger concern. I mean, four degrees warmer? Like you say, pros and cons, even if the weather'll get pretty wild in parts. But the ocean pH worsens by four? Marine life as we know it pretty much goes bye-bye. And even tiny changes in ocean pH is still bad news, since it's a logarithmic effect. Lot of coral reefs are already bleaching out.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[nospam007]

"Look for Greece to default first..."

What I don't understand is why people are so surprised.

'France has been bankrupt before, Greece has been bankrupt five times in 200 years, and the German Reich was both insolvent and bankrupt. '

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,721158-7,00.html

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[artecco]

Sorry, but I donâ(TM)t see the direct link between cost of gas and unemployment.

My country (Norway) has half the population density of the US, which I believe to be a better indication of the need for moving goods rather than the size of the country. At the same time we are paying approx. 11$/gal and have a unemployment rate at 3,6%.

This is of course in a fascist-liberal-socialist-communist-country; hence none of the above is applicable for the US.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[khallow]

And if you think the worst case scenario is $10 a gallon for gasoline, then you're not considering what will happen to innumerable industrial and agricultural processes when we run out of easily obtained long-chain hydrocarbons.

Given the prevalence of slightly less cheap long-chain hydrocarbons, what is your point here? There's biofuels, synthetic oil, oil/tar sands, etc out there. I don't think the worst case scenario is going to be that significant.

Nothing demonstrates the sheer awe-inspiring stupidity of the human race than the wasting of long-chain hydrocarbons by sticking them in a gas tank.

Given that we're doing something valuable with those long-chain hydrocarbons while leaving them in the ground doesn't, I'd have to disagree.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[shilly]

Perhaps you ought to read Collapse by Jared Diamond. It has a famous passage about people chopping down trees.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[CubicleView]

How fast would the process be though? I'd wonder how many companies (and their shareholders) could suffer the upfront cost and subsequent interest of buying the land etc without an expected return within a year or 2.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[boethius78]

What will happen to the planet 100 years from now? I really don't think the planet will be in devastating shape... even with a few degrees warming.

The planet will be fine, it's a big ball of rock with some soft squishy things moving around on it. There might be fewer species roaming about in the short term, but evolution will fix that, given a few million years. The loss in biodiversity will be a Bad Thing, but it'll only be temporary. The human race might encounter some difficulties too, but only from problems that we made for ourselves; I guess we'd better learn either to live with it (and avoid causing further damage) or to figure out how to find some other planet to go live on.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

True, on China; sorry, I was thinking about Kyoto more than the permafrost. =)

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[tbannist]

There are situations where this is necessary, but they are infrequent. In contrast, I heard a story recently about FDR meeting with some union leaders. They had a very list of revolutionary ideas that they wanted fixed in law, including such outlandish ideas as a 40 hour work week and a two day weekend. FDR read their manifesto and told them he agreed with practically everything they wanted, but he wouldn't do a thing about it. He look at them calmly and told them "Make me do it" and so they did.

I don't know if the story is true or not, but the lesson is that if you want lasting change, you need popular support for the change. If you go against what the people want in big, important ways even if it's the right thing to do, then the people will replace you with the first person who promises to undo all your good works and you've accomplished nothing.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[smellotron]

First, plant fast growing, cold tolerant plants that fix atmospheric nitrogen like Russian Olives, Bog Myrtles, Northern Bayberries and Buffalo Berries.

Are those all indigenous species? If not, I could see strong resistance from conservationist groups, as the new flora could accelerate destruction of habitat or spread south. In fairness I know little of tundra ecology so maybe it's not an issue here, but historically we seem to have a bad track record with the "introduce new species!" route.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[jellomizer]

Because they have the most to lose.
The problem is simple the fix isn't. Running a government is hard, much more complicated then those one liners that politics demands to get elected, and much more complicated then those Tea Party or the Occupy Wall Street protesters are advocating.

Energy companies are one of those few areas where these countries can hire a lot of people for good pay. The wrong energy policy would cause problems for millions of Hard working citizens. No doing anything hurts the environment to a point where other problems could outweigh the cost.

The people who speak loudest about the environment on both sides are usually the people who are miss informed the most. Giving Environmentalism a bad name.
Environmental policy is all about trade offs. Yes Trade Offs! You can't be 100% green because you would kill billions of people. You cannot just disregard the environmental problems as they cannot be easily replaced.

We all see the problem... But the solution isn't that simple.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[mcgrew]

They don't always represent

Yes they so, but they don't represent you or me. They represent the people who put them in office, the people who bankrolled their candidacy, the corporations.

I have no representation.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[dasunt]

Say, why don't you try looking at a map or a globe and comparing the size of Germany to the size of the US. Now factor in moving goods across each country. What country would suffer more if the cost of gas goes up?

Does it matter? I think you are overestimating the fuel costs of shipping long distances. Factcheck.org looked at CSX's claim about moving one ton of freight 468 miles on one gallon and ruled it accurate. That's almost a million miles per pound per gallon of fuel. Fuel costs don't really factor in long-distance shipping, at least by train. Cargo-container ships are even more efficient. Semi-trucks are less efficient, but still do pretty well.

Really, it's the last mile that tends to be the least efficient. It's the car driving to the store for a product or a load of groceries where fuel costs start to add up.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[FoolishOwl]

What would happen with the planet 100 years from now is irrelevant to them; they will be all dead at that time.

I'm worried that the critical point is much closer than 100 years from now. And while I'm willing to attribute many of Congress's bad decisions to greed and graft, I think a large part of their inaction on climate issues is that they simply can't grasp the concept that global warming can really be a significant problem.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[scamper_22]

Well that's the point. Let's suppose we have the following conditions.

1. The US has 1 trillion dollars to spend for global warming
2. No matter how much we reduce pollution, sea levels are going to rise by 3 meters devastating the coasts like Florida

Where do we spend the trillion dollars?

Do we spend it converting to better non-carbon sources fighting a futile battle... that in the end sea levels will rise by 3 meters and major coastal cities flood regardless of our pollution efforts.

Or do we spend it building flood protection, evacuating cities... preparing to deal with the inevitable impacts. Just like it will take 30-40 years to convert the infrastructure, it will take decades to deal with flood protection.

Now of course, ideally we do both :P But money and time are limited. What should be our priority? At this point, I'd say preparing to deal with the impacts. We can then deal with the pollution problem in a slower manner.

No one is saying we shouldn't try and stop pollution. But given the choice between say flood protection and building highspeed rail... which do you think california should be embarking on?

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[FoolishOwl]

In the long run, I'm sure the 5% or so of humanity that survives the destruction of most major cities due to direct flooding, the collapse of the ecosystem, the collapse of agriculture, and famine on a scale never experienced before, and has to live with crippling survivors' guilt and massive psychological trauma, and has to completely reinvent food production and rebuild civilization from the ground up, will be fine.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[LingNoi]

It's not that they can't grasp it, it's that you can't grasp the fact that there is more then simply one significant problem which needs attention in politics.

You're simply biased and only care about one thing, the climate, if you cared about something such as cancer you'd be sitting here saying the same thing; telling us how the climate should take a back seat when there are more important issues to be dealing with.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[LingNoi]

If it goes into taxes, and thus back to the people, then no.

Which country just bailed out the rich with tax payers money? Oh right guess your point kind of falls apart there.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[operagost]

Congress and the President don't have a right given to them in the Constitution that allows them to choose what we drive and where. And the unholy SUV is the whipping boy for the Slashdotter. Have you been paying attention to meatspace lately? The age of the SUV is over. Many of them came off the roads in the last few years and have been replaced by more efficient vehicles. We've either been replacing our SUVs with >25 MPG crossovers or >30 MPG sedans. We've been driving less too. The evidence is the fact that our petroleum usage has gone DOWN. Pick a fight that will actually help us. The American Way that you deride should be the way of freedom, not "standard of living". We don't need "stuff".

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[operagost]

We paid very high taxes during WWII and certainly didn't 'dismantle' our modern civilization, quite the opposite actually.

Having a war economy based on Eisenhower's "military industrial complex" (Slashdot's favorite Republican) helps.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[operagost]

High fuel costs have helped destroy the independent trucker.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[riverat1]

That's more binary thinking. Why would you think sea level rise would stop at 3 meters? If all of the ice on Antarctica and Greenland were to melt the stopping point would be around 70 meters (230 feet). Of course it would take a thousand years or more for all of that ice to melt but it's inevitable if we continue business as usual. As I said, the sooner we do something about it the less bad the final result will be.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[phantomfive]

Yes they so, but they don't represent you or me. They represent the people who put them in office, the people who bankrolled their candidacy, the corporations. I have no representation.

If you vote, you do. You've just been deceived because your personal vote is only worth 1/1,000,000 of the representation (depending on how many other people vote), so it doesn't seem like much.

Also, campaign contributions don't do much other than get access to the person, so you can talk to him/her. If you actually want to influence the person to get him/her to vote your way, it's much more effective to bribe them directly, with stock options, or choice land purchases, etc, which are not illegal. This is why you hear politicians always talking about campaign finance reform in a bipartisan way, but never talking about bribe reform. And they don't make congress more open.......it is easier to get an FOIA request filled by the CIA than by congress.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[lexsird]

Hovercraft technology for the win here. Just go sliding across it at about 300 mph trying to bull's eye bears and moose along the way. Seriously people, adapt or die.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[FoolishOwl]

I rely on mass transit to commute to work; most of my co-workers either live close to work, and travel by bicycle, or live more distantly and drive. The drivers mostly would prefer to live closer to work, but can't find affordable housing; there is no alternative to driving, given where they do live.

If we could actually have some actual intelligent city planning, so that people could either live near where they work, or had decent mass transit, we could reduce carbon dioxide emissions significantly, and most people would perceive this as a significant improvement in their living conditions.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[scamper_22]

No one said business as usual.
No one said we shouldn't do anti-pollution efforts.

But we should put more money upfront to combat the immediate effects.

We can then just take longer to handle the long term problem. We have 1000 years until we get to the 70M rise :P There's a balance in there somewhere even if you don't see it.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[forkfail]

Your solution is to dig a 30 foot canyon in a swamp? What could go wrong?

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[FoolishOwl]

There's a fairly long list of issues that I follow and am concerned about. In general, I find they're related, and that solving one problem would ease addressing the others -- and that conventional politicians have little or no interest in solving any of them, in no small part because of the greed and graft I just mentioned.

Some issues, though, are by nature more important than others, and I think that preventing an imminent mass extinction event that will destroy civilization really ought to be a fairly high priority.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[AlterEager]

No one said business as usual.

Of course nobody said business as usual.

We're not doing business as usual.

We're currently doing worse that the IPCC's "worst conceivable increase in CO2 output".

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[SecurityTheatre]

gas prices can significantly affect the price of food since a lot of the food economy is set up to ship food across long distances to take advantage of economies of scale

Yes!!!

Yes!!!!!

Shipping basic food items all over is a huge huge (and stupid) problem.

I was completely amazed when I was in a St. Louis food distribution warehouse and saw a box destined for California that contained all California-grown products.

WTF?

Frankly, if you are charging $5/gallon in taxes and using those to offset the cost of basic commodities, this isn't an issue anyway.

Plus, maybe distributors will start locally sourcing food. The whole global agri-business model completely distorts the real cost of things anyway by artificially inflating some items and deflating others. It encourages mono-culture crop growth (like 1,000,000 acres of soy on one farm with no variations) which is terrible for the enviornment and carries huge risks in terms of genetic diversity of crops, loss of tertiary species in large areas and the over "processing" of food items through the use of cheap additives.

All of it is gross and terrible.

Good!

Fix it.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[SecurityTheatre]

I wonder how taxes stack up if you include your very expensive health care costs in your "taxes". Right-wingers all moan about how taxes will go up if we adopt universal health care like the less idiotic countries do, but I'd wager that taxes would rise less than the cost of insurance, because the insurance companies are parasitic middlemen who do nothing for health care except make it more expensive.

+1

I know many people who have moved from the US to Canada and vice-versa. I also know people who have moved their businesses.

It's pretty much widely regarded in Canada that the employer-supported cost of health care is much higher than the tax-supported cost of provincial health coverage. Businesses moving across the border generally have their "net costs" decreased when moving to Canada. The only place where this is not the case is businesses that have to deal with the VAT (GST), which combined with local taxes makes sales tax quite high.

Income taxes in Canada (which support the government health care) aren't much higher than in the US and most businesses are paying almost 10% of worker outflows into benefits.

The argument that government health care is somehow more expensive than what is currently in the US is a big fat red herring, or lies. I'm not quite sure which, probably a bit of both.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Troed]

Of course it would take a thousand years or more for all of that ice to melt

I think it's a good idea to ask the Vikings what their views are on how to make sure the Earth will be in a good condition for the World of Warcraft generation, don't you?

(Read: We might have opinions on what's good for humanity a few decades down the road, at most, but we don't have a clue what "we" are or how we are living in even a century)

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Troed]

Coral reefs are bleached by warm and/or cold water, fully natural events from which they rebuild quickly. The pH level varies over the earth's oceans by orders of magnitude more than the change we think we might've seen over the last few centuries.

http://coralreef.noaa.gov/aboutcrcp/news/featuredstories/jan10/flbleaching/

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[SecurityTheatre]

What?

Being so short on details makes this hard to believe.

Sounds like a propaganda line to me...

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[SecurityTheatre]

Exxon gets a direct "tax incentive" of $6 billion per year.

I'm sure that looks great on the balance sheet just above the $45 billion in profit they just reported.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[budgenator]

First, You need to watch a couple episodes of "Ice Road Truckers" to regain your grip on reality, nothing can move on thawed tungra.
Second, a 7.5 degrees Celsius increase would mean a CO2 level of 17.9 times or an increase from 392PPM to 7040.08 PPM at a climate sensitivity of 1.8 and an increase of 6.85 times or 2688.31 PPM at climate sensitivity of 2.9 and that's the range that even the Hockey team are use; so talking about a 7.5 degree increase is just crazy
Third, I think TFA's author Alex Morales, just might be enthralled by David Suzuki
Fourthly

December 1, 2011 weather report for:
CAPE LISBURNE, ALASKA, USA (16:55 UTC): -21 degrees Celsius (-6 degrees Fahrenheit).
BARROW, ALASKA, USA (16:53 UTC): -20 degrees Celsius (-4 degrees Fahrenheit).
TUKTOYAKTUK, NWT, CANADA (17:00 UTC): -22 degrees Celsius (-8 degrees Fahrenheit).
KUGLUKTUK, NUNAVUT, CANADA(17:00 UTC): -29 degrees Celsius (-20 degrees Fahrenheit).
CAMBRIDGE BAY, NUNAVUT, CANADA (17:00 UTC): -23 degrees Celsius (-9 degrees Fahrenheit).
IQALUIT, NUNAVUT, CANADA (17:00 UTC): -10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit).
BAKER LAKE, NUNAVUT, CANADA (17:00 UTC): -19 degrees Celsius (-2 degrees Fahrenheit).
ALERT, NUNAVUT, CANADA (16:00 UTC): -32 degrees Celsius (-26 degrees Fahrenheit).
THULE, GREENLAND (16:55 UTC): The temperature was -21 degrees Celsius (-6 degrees Fahrenheit).
SØNDRE STRØMFJORD, GREENLAND (16:50 UTC): -8 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit).
NARSARSUAQ, GREENLAND (16:50 UTC): -2 degrees Celsius (28 degrees Fahrenheit).
REYKJAVIK, ICELAND (17:00 UTC): -3 degrees Celsius (27 degrees Fahrenheit).
KHATANGA, RUSSIA (15:00 UTC): -12 degrees Celsius (10 degrees Fahrenheit).
TISKI, RUSSIA (17:00 UTC): -32 degrees Celsius (-26 degrees Fahrenheit).
PEVEK, RUSSIA (05:00 UTC): -43 degrees Celsius (-45 degrees Fahrenheit).
ANADYR', RUSSIA (08:00 UTC): -28 degrees Celsius (-18 degrees Fahrenheit).
SAVOONGA, ALASKA, USA (17:36 UTC): -13 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit)
NOME, ALASKA, USA (17:53 UTC): -24 degrees Celsius (-11 degrees Fahrenheit)
Athropolis

We still have time for rational thought; Dursban isn't a deadline except for those who believe in the Cause

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[timeOday]

True, it is of course possible to spend tax money in ways that doesn't benefit taxpayers. I should have said something like, "...if it goes into taxes that are spent on services for the taxpayer..." (Granted, it's often subjective who benefits from services...)

Specifically, my point was that raising gas taxes may not increase transportation costs IF that tax money was used to provide public transport or infrastructure.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[budgenator]

Somebodies, Canada to pull out of Kyoto Protocol next month, but that isn't really a change as nobody really had a snowballs chance in hell of reducing CO2 anyways. Anyone who says they did is just as well lying, the accounting was all blue smoke and mirrors at best, outright fraud most of the time.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[budgenator]

That's a small part of it food requires tractors, tillage, planters, sprayers and Combine Harvesters. Add to that pickup trucks to ferry fuel and operators to the equipment, semi trucks to haul the equipment to the fields and the produce to the elevator you can see that's a lot of fuel. Most small operations can't even dream of having all that equipment and contract the work out, teams start out in Texas and work north to Saskatchewan.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[catchblue22]

Welcome to the world we live in. The common good, altruism and generally being the "good guys" are ideologies of generations before the ones currently - at least for the most part. Welcome to the world of no direct consequences, it's like living in the internet, but in real life.

Truth, beauty, and goodness are not mere ideologies.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[khallow]

And factor the costs to the US Transportation industry for maintenance to roads, the full subsidies (which I read for 2010 were around $40billion), you have the US operating at a pretty big loss.

Only if you treat roads as subsidies for oil instead of subsidies for transportation.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[khallow]

After googling a bit, I find it's a manufacturing subsidy not an oil subsidy. You'll notice that I make distinctions between subsidies that are used for fossil fuel-based infrastructure and subsidies for fossil fuel-based infrastructure. The reason is that the former can be used also for competing approaches and hence, don't preferentially incentivize the use of oil.

This is relevant because it means that the fundamental argument that oil-based infrastructure is prefered because it is subsidized, ignores that any similar infrastructure would pick up the majority of those subsidies as well.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[khallow]

Your solution is to dig a 30 foot canyon in a swamp? What could go wrong?

You do realize it would be promptly filled in with something much more stable than muskeg mud? You dig to bedrock, lay a foundation (probably of gravel), and have the rail run on an elevated bank above the muskeg (so that it doesn't get submerged in springtime flooding).

This is a long-solved problem. They just don't do it much because there's not that much that would pay for such a rail.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[khallow]

That's just federal money. The states do most of the funding and they often use gasoline taxes as well.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[SecurityTheatre]

Oh, I'm certainly not claiming that oil is preferred simply due to subsidies.

However, I'll be the first to claim the opposite SHOULD be true.

Thing that damage the environment should cost heavily in additional taxes. This allows that nifty "market forces" thing to help guide people's decisions and businesses to put extra resources into areas with a lower burden of environmental/tax overhead.

It also creates tax revenues from areas without as direct an influence on the poor and may help fund environmental cleanup programs.

Win-Win-Win

Of course, Rick Perry would do away with the EPA entirely, wouldn't he? I seem to have forgotten.... what that third agency is.... heh :-)

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Sabriel]

Sorry, I'm not a biologist, I was thinking more in colour/metaphor; the reefs around here aren't rebuilding quickly. But thankyou for the link, it was interesting reading.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[khallow]

Thing that damage the environment should cost heavily in additional taxes.

Why? I see several problems. The opinion of what is or isn't harm to the environment is subjective. I suspect I would in general think the level of harm from a particular source of pollution is lower than you would think. I also think we should match the imposed cost (taxes or whatever) to the cost of the externality. So IMHO no punitive costs on legal environment harms.

My view is that costing for externalities, whether pollution or something else should be at most the cost of the externality and may be much less, if there's considerable "coming to the nuisance" involved (that is, when the externality is instigated by the party that pays the cost of the nuisance such as building a home bordering a busy airport).

In addition, a certain class of people sees this sort of corrective action as behavior modification. In particular, they consider it to have failed, if the behavior being discouraged continues. This is was a common complaint in European carbon dioxide emission credit markets, for example, that the credits were so cheap that CO2 emissions were not curtailed.

Finally, punitive costs on pollution ignore that the environment is not the sole goal of society. People and groups emit pollutants because they are doing stuff that they want to do, not because they hate life or are evil. Some such things include feeding families, elevating people from poverty, building a better society, and advancing the state of human knowledge.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[war4peace]

Um, nothing conventional would move over thawed tundra, indeed. If you think trucks and the like.
But if you think about other means of transportation (and there are plenty) it suddenly becomes possible.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Reservoir Penguin]

Simply because you are hiding your unemployment problems behind extreme welfare benefits (which are only possible because you have a population of just 5 million people and a shitload of gas&oil). According to WP 22% of Norwegians are on welfare and 13% are too disabled to work. id Norway fighting a secret war somewhere? Lack of workplace safety? Perhaps it's engulfed by an epidemics of a nasty disabling decease? How do you nords account for the highest disability rate in the world?

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[riverat1]

Yes, there are tipping points. When I said a smooth curve I was talking about the primary effects of greenhouse gases. But possible tipping points are the loss of albedo as Arctic ice melts and the CO2 and methane released as the permafrost melts and undersea clathrates decompose from a warming sea. I don't really think we'll know what a tipping point was until after we've passed it and by then it's too late.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[lonecrow]

Firstly, The size of the country shouldn't really matter much. It's all about how you plan your society and your industry.

You may have freedom of movement, but paying for the gas is not an entitlement.

Secondly, I don't think you really have a choice anymore about the cost of fuel. According to the International Energy Agency's 2010 report we already hit peak oil in 2006. http://www.iea.org/Textbase/npsum/weo2010sum.pdf

So even without removing oil's subsidize the cost is going to rise and rise as demand continues to grow.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Paul1969]

Not just Miami, you know. Try all of the largest cities in the entire world. New York, LA, San Francisco, Seattle, Tokyo, Shanghai, Singapore, Mumbai, Cairo, London, etc., etc. Where will they all go?
Denver and Mexico City are gonna get very crowded.
Here's a thought: What will they all eat? We are headed for a climate different from any that has existed since the evolution of humans. Many former grain producing areas will become deserts. And you can't grow wheat in a muskeg swamp.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[ResidentSourcerer]

Look, we're talking about a small temperature change. Possibly enough to change tundra to tiaga. So instead of dwarf swamp birch and arctic shrub willow, you have black spruce. Whoop-de-do. A hundred year old tree that gives you ONE stud.

The place where you might get a change that passed the tipping point for agriculture would be at the northern edge of current agricultural zones.

Even here, the land just isn't valuable enough to make much work worthwhile.

In the Edmonton, Alberta area bush land within the agricultural region, and not in close proximity to a significant city (Significant = has a farm implement dealership) uncleared bush land goes for 90,000 to 180,000 per quarter section (160 acres) It will typically cost another thousand dollars an acre to clear it of spruce and poplar. Depending on the trees and a local mill this may be recoverable from wood sales.

At that point you can farm it.

This is WITHIN the present ag zone.

On the edge of the ag zone, you likely have a more limited set of crops. Possibly only pasture.

Permafrost is potentially deep -- tens to hundreds of feet. It usually isn't drained worth spit. The moss that grows on top/is frozen inside typically has a pH of around 4. Due to the low pH it has almost no nutrients that are available to 'normal' plants. Can it be built up into soil? Probably. But it's not trivial, and would be vastly expensive in a region that is far from being short of land.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Moofie]

You first.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[smithmc]

That's because both politicians AND industrialists just see lots of fast profit from permafrost thawing, namely more usable land

Are you kidding? Do you know what happens to permafrost when it thaws? It becomes an impassable, goopy muck that you can't build on, or drive on, or lay railroad tracks on, etc. Homes and buildings in the regions permafrost zone are built on pilings sunk way down into the portion of the permafrost that's cold enough to never thaw, so that the buildings don't sink into the muck. I'm not sure where the "fast profit" is in working in that kind of terrain.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[Mal-2]

By solvent, I mean the only country that could actually STOP BORROWING and still pay all its obligations.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[twebb72]

If the permafrost thaws, the way to recover the land would be to borrow from permaculture principles and let nature do most of the work.

Keep your liberal agenda to yourself; you just killed 300,000 jobs by letting happen what would naturally happen without applying modern industrial principles.

Re:And half the Arctic countries don't care

[ShieldW0lf]

Different argument. The discussion was about how to allow land travel to resource rich areas through former permafrost areas that are now impassible bog, not implement commercial farming for it's own sake.

Clathrate gun hypothesis

[c0lo]

If clathrate gun hypothesis is correct, the things may become interesting during our lifetime (which may be a shorter one).

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[MachDelta]

there is stronger evidence that runaway methane clathrate breakdown may have caused drastic alteration of the ocean environment and the atmosphere of earth on a number of occasions in the past... most notably in connection with the Permian extinction event

Oh... well, fuck.

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[masternerdguy]

Those poor trilobites.

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[c0lo]

Well, let's add a bit of info, see how different our situation is from the trilobites:

One exception, however, may be in clathrates associated with the Arctic ocean, where clathrates can exist in shallower water stabilized by lower temperatures rather than higher pressures; these may potentially be marginally stable much closer to the surface of the sea-bed, stabilized by a frozen 'lid' of permafrost preventing methane escape. [...]They conclude that "release of up to 50 Gt of predicted amount of hydrate storage [is] highly possible for abrupt release at any time". That would increase the methane content of the planet's atmosphere by a factor of twelve,[16][17] equivalent in greenhouse effect to a doubling in the current level of CO2.

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[Nidi62]

If clathrate gun hypothesis is correct, the things may become interesting during our lifetime (which may be a shorter one).

It seems that, even if this hypothesis were to be true, our lifetimes would not be affected, nor would those of many generations. You're very source says, in the introduction:"In its original form, the hypothesis proposed that the "clathrate gun" could cause abrupt runaway warming in a timescale less than a human lifetime,[1] and might be responsible for warming events in and at the end of the last ice age.[2] This is now thought unlikely.[3][4] However, there is stronger evidence that runaway methane clathrate breakdown may have caused drastic alteration of the ocean environment and the atmosphere of earth on a number of occasions in the past, over timescales of tens of thousands of years;"

Even were it to happen, it seems that the methane released by the Arctic permafrost would have an effect equivalent to doubling the levels of CO2. It is certainly serious, but it would not be an immediate extinction event, although there could certainly be localized loss of life through droughts and famine. Of course, I am just a layman and certainly not a climatologist, so my initial, and admittedly superficial interpretation could be way off.

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[JoeMerchant]

Yeah, so capture the methane, burn it and get CO2 and water. Oh, wait....

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[JoeMerchant]

Of course, I am just a layman and certainly not a climatologist, so my initial, and admittedly superficial interpretation could be way off.

Oh, come on, didn't you see The Day After Tomorrow? Hollywood overdramatization at its most extreme, to the point of making a joke out of the subject. Still, there are lots of "white planet" simulation results that get to white quickly (how quickly depends on the models used) and either never recover, or recover very slowly.

No realistic climate models have the Earth long-term stable like Daisyworld

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[ColdWetDog]

Doesn't sound a whole lot more reassuring. Especially the 'potentially be marginally stable' part. Especially if the permafrost lid gets opened up. Which is exactly the scenario that TFA is discussing.

We're doomed.

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[khallow]

The simple rebuttal is why hasn't the "clathrate gun" gone off some time in the past 650,000 years? From the link:

The ice core data also shows that CO2 and methane levels have been remarkably stable in Antarctica--varying between 300 ppm and 180 ppm--over that entire period and that shifts in levels of these gases took at least 800 years, compared to the roughly 100 years in which humans have increased atmospheric CO2 levels to their present high. "We have added another piece of information showing that the timescales on which humans have changed the composition of the atmosphere are extremely short compared to the natural time cycles of the climate system," says Thomas Stocker of the University of Bern in Switzerland, who led the research.

There have been several shifts from glacial to interglacial climates during that time. My view is that if massive methane releases were a threat now, then we would have seen something similar during one of these times.

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[c0lo]

The simple rebuttal is why hasn't the "clathrate gun" gone off some time in the past 650,000 years?

You know, my investment institution makes the point of "Past performance is not an indication of future performance" quite often, so I'm not quite willing to consider the question of "Why hasn't it gone off?" as a rebuttal... even though it does have a value as a question.

You see... I willing to bet the last 650,000 years didn't see an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico either. Neither did they see a so high concentration of power in the hands of pure economically (read: "greed") driven and short term focused (read: "Next bonuses round") entities.

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[c0lo]

Even were it to happen, it seems that the methane released by the Arctic permafrost would have an effect equivalent to doubling the levels of CO2. It is certainly serious, but it would not be an immediate extinction event, although there could certainly be localized loss of life through droughts and famine. Of course, I am just a layman and certainly not a climatologist, so my initial, and admittedly superficial interpretation could be way off.

If some floods isolated in Thailand causes worldwide harddisk shortages, can you extrapolate what it would be when such floods will become more pervasive? When the current generation is highly dependent on FaeceBook (by extension: communication; not that this communication helps them dealing with the problems) and self-reliant to a minimum?

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[riverat1]

How do you propose to capture methane dribbling out over hundreds of thousands of sq. miles/km of land and sea? It's definitely better to convert methane to CO2 and water than to leave it as methane.

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[phantomfive]

You see... I willing to bet the last 650,000 years didn't see an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico either.

You might lose that bet. A LOT of oil spills into the gulf every year naturally, and it wouldn't be surprising if there were a rupture after an earthquake that released a lot of oil at the same time.......at least once in the last 650,000 years.

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[Rockoon]

Why are they using multiple models?

Surely one is better than the others??

I wonder if the model they know to be best is one of the ones they point at most often.

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[Rockoon]

Pay illegals to wave methane collectors in the air.

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[c0lo]

You see... I willing to bet the last 650,000 years didn't see an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico either.

You might lose that bet. A LOT of oil spills into the gulf every year naturally, and it wouldn't be surprising if there were a rupture after an earthquake that released a lot of oil at the same time.......at least once in the last 650,000 years.

First, the below is not to say that I accept the lack of evidence as a rebuttal of the "clathrate gun hypothesis"

Then let's evaluate the chances of me loosing the bet.

First at all - just to know what you should google for, the terminology one uses spills vs seepage. In this regards, a quote from here:

The Deepwater Horizon site releases 3 to 12 times the oil per day compared to that released by natural seeps across the entire Gulf of Mexico. [...]
Natural seeps are not constantly active; the volume of oil released can vary considerably throughout the day and from day to day. As a result, only a small area around the source is actually exposed to "fresh" non-degraded oil, which is its most toxic state.[...] Their research suggests that oil from natural seeps normally stays in the water for between ten hours to five days.[...]
A sudden, concentrated and massive pulse of oil from an event such as the Deepwater Horizon disaster presents a fundamentally more acute stress to marine and coastal systems

Seismicity in the Gulf of Mexico - just as an estimate for chances of major spills from earth-quakes.

Hmmm... I might loose the bet, as there might have been major earthquakes... but somehow I'm more afraid of the "human greed" as pushing the trigger of the potential "clathrate gun". You see, the presence of old inactive rift faults, with major causes for earthquakes being the redistribution of sediments... doesn't seem as a big danger of things going astray... not as probable as the human greed.

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[phantomfive]

First, the below is not to say that I accept the lack of evidence as a rebuttal of the "clathrate gun hypothesis"

It's not a rebuttal. The hypothesis is still worth looking into, and I hope we get more scientific evidence with reference to it in the future.

However, we shouldn't make policy decisions based on something that has basically no evidence supporting it.

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[khallow]

You know, my investment institution makes the point of "Past performance is not an indication of future performance" quite often, so I'm not quite willing to consider the question of "Why hasn't it gone off?" as a rebuttal... even though it does have a value as a question.

The point here is that Earth has gone through several very significant bouts of global warming in the past 650k years which more or less are similar to the situation that you are worried about. If there had been a history of methane spikes in the record, then your concerns would have merit. But scientists apparently do not see a record of that.

Unlike the financial performance of ephemeral investment brokerages, there really is a case for past performance indicating future performance.

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[khallow]

Neither did they see a so high concentration of power in the hands of pure economically (read: "greed") driven and short term focused (read: "Next bonuses round") entities.

In other words, the Dirt God is going to strike us down because our leaders are self serving bastards. I thought that kind of thinking stopped working early on in the Age of Enlightenment, centuries ago.

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[khallow]

If some floods isolated in Thailand causes worldwide harddisk shortages, can you extrapolate what it would be when such floods will become more pervasive?

Not much different. They'll move production to places where they aren't trying to make them under water. It's a lot like the reason why there aren't thousands of drownings every time high tide rolls in. People have enough sense to move when the current location means they'd be breathing water.

When the current generation is highly dependent on FaeceBook (by extension: communication; not that this communication helps them dealing with the problems) and self-reliant to a minimum?

Compared to who? The TV generation?

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[Stephan Schulz]

Why are they using multiple models? Surely one is better than the others??

Every model has to abstract from certain things - the only thing that is a perfect model of a system is an exact copy of the system, and we don't have a second Earth stashed away in the backyard. Different models made different simplifying assumptions (use different cell size for the simulation, incorporate different feedbacks, use simpler couplings between ocean and atmosphere, and so on). By using a range of different models, we get an idea of how much these simplifications affect the results. So we get a range of results, which hopefully bracket the behaviour of the real system. It's a bit like a shotgun - only a few pellets hit a bird, so why fire a full load?

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[Rockoon]

the only thing that is a perfect model of a system is an exact copy of the system, and we don't have a second Earth stashed away in the backyard.

Bullshit red herring.

I didnt ask that they use the perfect model. I asked that they use the best model they have.

Different models made different simplifying assumptions (use different cell size for the simulation, incorporate different feedbacks, use simpler couplings between ocean and atmosphere, and so on).

Irrelevant. One is better than the others regardless of how the models are implemented.

By using a range of different models, we get an idea of how much these simplifications affect the results.

What does that have to do with anything? I didnt ask that they measure how much a simplification effects the rests. I asked for the results of the best model they have.

So we get a range of results, which hopefully bracket the behaviour of the real system.

I didnt ask the range of results for models with varying levels of simplification. I am asking for the results of the best model.

Are you suggesting that they dont know which model is best, or likely best? Seriously?

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[c0lo]

First, the below is not to say that I accept the lack of evidence as a rebuttal of the "clathrate gun hypothesis"

However, we shouldn't make policy decisions based on something that has basically no evidence supporting it.

God, no! Be a sport and don't spoil the joy of level 44 in Herman Kahn's escalation ladder - after all, his hierarchy is equally untested by reality.

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[JoeMerchant]

How do you propose to capture methane dribbling out over hundreds of thousands of sq. miles/km of land and sea? It's definitely better to convert methane to CO2 and water than to leave it as methane.

Not for burning, but genetically engineered saltwater algae would probably do the trick, what could possibly go wrong?

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[Stephan Schulz]

Are you suggesting that they dont know which model is best, or likely best? Seriously?

Yes. Indeed, I'll even argue that there is no single linear ordering from better to worse. What's better, a 747 or an Ohio class submarine? A garden chair or a Harley Davidson? A C64 or a Sinclair spectrum? It depends on what you want or need to do (a C64 is a lousy computer, but a great door stop - no, I'm not biased, why?). A model that simplifies surface details but has better ocean mixing will make better global results than a model that takes more topographical features into account but uses a slab ocean model. On the other hand, the more topographical model is better able to predict local effects like rain shadows. Both in computing resources and in actual modelling, you have to make a trade-off, and you concentrate on the set of features you think are most important or most relevant for a particular set of questions.

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[Locutus]

that's why there's been a push toward SSD HD's. ;-)

LoB

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[budgenator]

Potentially large deposits of methane clathrate have been found under sediments on the ocean floors of the Earth, although there are many orders of magnitudes in between the estimates of various experts.[6] In fact, the existence of vast oceanic methane clathrate formation is uncertain and usually only based on reflective seismology and pieces larger than 10 cm have only been recovered from three sites.[7]

I have an idea, let's find out how much is actually there before getting our skivies in a bunch, how hard can it be?

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[khallow]

Have you factored in the equation the 7 billions humans more or less hungry of energy and taking increased risks to tap into whatever seems to promise to deliver it on short terms? Politicians hanging with corporations and doing whatever they can to be re-elected?

Yes. The parts which are relevant are just perturbations of the system. The motivations for human behavior as well as your stilted interpretation of them remain irrelevant. It doesn't matter, for example, if an ice age started because the glaciers greedily scooped up land rather than insentiently did so. The consequences are the same no matter what, if any, motivation existed.

As I noted earlier, we have a system that apparently shows considerable methane concentration stability despite substantial changes in climate. That says to me that clathrate release during periods of warming is limited.

Merely saying, "but it's different this time" is not enough. You have to explain why those differences matter. Personally, I don't find your list of reasons to be relevant or even harmful.

Of course, we should want politicians to work to get elected. That makes them accountable to the voters. Similarly, we want them to be friendly to the value-creators of society. Being "hungry of energy", just means that you are using that energy.And taking risks is behavior I wish to encourage. And while I doubt anyone approves of short term thinking, I think environmentalists don't understand the world well enough to accuse the rest of the world of it.

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[khallow]

Well, give it a bit longer and the fundamentalists will bring that kind of thinking back. Especially if the cost of education raises 'til swallowing about 10 years of your life to pay the debt on the tuition fees - with such a high price on education, better stay ignorant, read the "Holy book" and dream your "american dream" bearing your constitutionally allowed arm (much good it does to you).

The great irony here is that the above applies whether your "holy book" is the Bible or The Population Bomb.

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[c0lo]

Have you factored in the equation the 7 billions humans more or less hungry of energy and taking increased risks to tap into whatever seems to promise to deliver it on short terms? Politicians hanging with corporations and doing whatever they can to be re-elected?

Yes. The parts which are relevant are just perturbations of the system.

Yes, a system that may well behave like a gun to a perturbation on the trigger.

As I noted earlier, we have a system that apparently shows considerable methane concentration stability despite substantial changes in climate. That says to me that clathrate release during periods of warming is limited.

The past perturbations may not have been enough of a squeeze on the gun's trigger. Maybe the gun wasn't loaded enough (methane form faster by decomposition than higher hydrocarbons). Maybe.... I admit we don't know enough to say for sure, but I feel we know enough to warrant caution.

Merely saying, "but it's different this time" is not enough. You have to explain why those differences matter. Personally, I don't find your list of reasons to be relevant or even harmful.

My position: "Why hasn't the gun go off in the last 650 kY?" is a valid question (i.e. need investigations for answering) but not a rebuttal. Argument: the conditions have changes too much in the last 650kY - 7 billions of human beings is significant for the environment, I interpret the GW as being anthropologically generated... granted, this would require further a further demonstration, but the correlation between population growth and the acceleration of the GW rate is there
Your position: these changes are small perturbations which doesn't throw the system out of balance - we are still in the safe-zone around the meta-stable equilibrium point. I think you would also have the same burden in demonstrating your statement (that indeed they are small-enough perturbations).

Of course, we should want politicians to work to get elected. That makes them accountable to the voters.

Wake up, old boy, set your eye-glasses right and make distinction between what you want and the reality. You only have to look over the last 10 years - much accountability did they show.

Similarly, we want them to be friendly to the value-creators of society.

Well, we may have different set of values, that's the only explanation I can find for having you siding with the corporations and neglecting the role of people as value creators. I wonder why the politicians aren't that friendly to them lately?

Being "hungry of energy", just means that you are using that energy

Never said that I don't use it. I also take care of producing some of it. I'm almost at a zero balance on average in regards with my consumption.

And taking risks is behavior I wish to encourage.

If I understand your position, the assumption of Global Warming being anthropologically generated and acting on this assumption is also an act of risk taking (because you say: we don't know enough). How come you don't wish to encourage this risk?

And while I doubt anyone approves of short term thinking, I think environmentalists don't understand the world well enough to accuse the rest of the world of it.

Your right to opinion.

On my side: I'm seeing too much risk mitigation (and an incomplete one - much of it seems to end being an "externalized cost") and not enough action in risk prevention. Seems more of a gamble than rational risk management.

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[khallow]

Yes, a system that may well behave like a gun to a perturbation on the trigger.

And your continued disagreement with me may well end up with you being smited by a lightning bolt where you sit by an angry sky god. Sure, it's never happened before, but you might be the perturbation on the trigger.

Similarly, we want them to be friendly to the value-creators of society.

Well, we may have different set of values, that's the only explanation I can find for having you siding with the corporations and neglecting the role of people as value creators. I wonder why the politicians aren't that friendly to them lately?

People produce a lot more value when they're working than when they aren't. Businesses (not just corporations) employ people and make them valuable.

If I understand your position, the assumption of Global Warming being anthropologically generated and acting on this assumption is also an act of risk taking (because you say: we don't know enough). How come you don't wish to encourage this risk?

Why take risks at all? Because you hope to gain more than you risk. You might not have noticed, but humanity built a remarkable global civilization, the likes of which have never been seen before on Earth.

And while I doubt anyone approves of short term thinking, I think environmentalists don't understand the world well enough to accuse the rest of the world of it.

Your right to opinion.

On my side: I'm seeing too much risk mitigation (and an incomplete one - much of it seems to end being an "externalized cost") and not enough action in risk prevention. Seems more of a gamble than rational risk management.

Thanks for proving my point about not understanding the world. Risk prevention is an attempt to avoid risk. Risk mitigation is an attempt to reduce a risk. One of those two is possible and other impossible. You can't eliminate risk, you can only reduce it. That's why risk mitigation is in the game and risk prevention is not.

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[c0lo]

If I understand your position, the assumption of Global Warming being anthropologically generated and acting on this assumption is also an act of risk taking (because you say: we don't know enough). How come you don't wish to encourage this risk?

Why take risks at all? Because you hope to gain more than you risk. You might not have noticed, but humanity built a remarkable global civilization, the likes of which have never been seen before on Earth.

Hmmm... and you see no value to be gained in acting on the assumption the remarkable global civilization (which may not be as global as you think, but that's beside the point) can do something to limit the GW, do you?

Thanks for proving my point about not understanding the world. Risk prevention is an attempt to avoid risk. Risk mitigation is an attempt to reduce a risk. One of those two is possible and other impossible. You can't eliminate risk, you can only reduce it. That's why risk mitigation is in the game and risk prevention is not.

As I don't think I have something new to learn from you, I reckon we are better for our time to live with our own understanding of the world.
Thanks for yours so far, I won't abuse it any more.

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[khallow]

Hmmm... and you see no value to be gained in acting on the assumption the remarkable global civilization (which may not be as global as you think, but that's beside the point) can do something to limit the GW, do you?

There's usually costs and benefits to any action. It is foolish to see only the value and not the cost. As to global civilization, sure it can limit greenhouse gas emissions, but why do so? Shouldn't that question be properly answered first rather than argue from uncertainty?

As I don't think I have something new to learn from you, I reckon we are better for our time to live with our own understanding of the world. Thanks for yours so far, I won't abuse it any more.

I disagree. Any time you feel like it, you can read my previous posts and learn. Unfortunately, I can't do the same for your posts, but not every exchange of knowledge is equally beneficial to the involved parties.

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[c0lo]

As I don't think I have something new to learn from you, I reckon we are better for our time to live with our own understanding of the world. Thanks for yours so far, I won't abuse it any more.

I disagree. Any time you feel like it, you can read my previous posts and learn. Unfortunately, I can't do the same for your posts, but not every exchange of knowledge is equally beneficial to the involved parties.

Well we can settle on "it's not you, its me", then. Cheers.

Re:Clathrate gun hypothesis

[MightyDrunken]

There have been several shifts from glacial to interglacial climates during that time. My view is that if massive methane releases were a threat now, then we would have seen something similar during one of these times.

Well according to the article, in those 650,000 years the highest CO2 levels were at 380ppm, we are now at 390ppm with no sign of slowing down. The temperature highs in that period were a little higher than now, but not by much. So we would not expect the methane to be released yet but sometime in the future. As we have done so little to slow down our CO2 contributions that time could be pretty soon.

Jobs

[masternerdguy]

Permafrost makes it harder to dig, hurting the economy and killing jobs. That's why everyone hates it.

Re:Jobs

[DanDD]

Permafrost makes it harder to dig, hurting the economy and killing jobs. That's why everyone hates it.

Permafrost gives villages something firm to set buildings and roads on. When the permafrost melts, areas typically turn into a marshy bog. This increases the cost of living, travel, infrastructure, etc. The increased insects increase disease.

If you want to live and work in a bog swarming with bugs, go for it. Perhaps you can explain the benefits to the rather annoyed polar bears, or to all the farmers in Texas, Oklahoma, and most of Colorado and Kansas who will see their land turned into an arid desert.

Re:Jobs

[Nidi62]

If you want to live and work in a bog swarming with bugs, go for it.

The 600,000+ people living in Washington, DC don't seem to mind too much.

Re:Jobs

[Llyr]

If you want to live and work in a bog swarming with bugs, go for it.

The 600,000+ people living in Washington, DC don't seem to mind too much.

Some politicians are sufficiently toxic that I doubt the bugs would go after them.

Flawed data

[Waffle Iron]

Arctic temperatures are *not* rising. The data is flawed because the sensors are all set up near Santa's Village, which has been experiencing massive growth over the past few decades as increasing numbers of spoiled kids get more gifts each year. The resulting urban heat island effect (amplified by primitive and inefficient elven HVAC technology) has severely skewed all the Arctic numbers, and the rising temps are just an illusion.

Re:Flawed data

[Mashiki]

David Suzuki is that you? Out to scare more children I see.

Re:Flawed data

[TapeCutter]

No, it's Anthony Watts.

Re:Flawed data

[Mashiki]

I guess you didn't see Suzuki's scare campaign come out today, where he said that the poles are melting and unless you and your kids throw him money. Santa and his reindeer will drown. What? Don't believe me? http://www.wherewillsantalive.ca/ he's just another fearmonger, who's been scaring kids since I was in gradeschool in Canada. And that's nearly 30 years ago.

I don't even read these stories anymore

[paiute]

Because 1. Man is influencing the climate, 2. Most of this change is going to be bad, 3. There is no political or social will to change our current behavior, and 4. Once shit hits the ecological fan, those with resources will shield themselves from the effects and those without resources will be fucked.

Re:I don't even read these stories anymore

[Nursie]

Yup.

Came to this conclusion a long time ago. Humanity ain't gonna get off its collective backside and do anything, least of all when there's profit in breaking any collective agreements, so I may as well just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Re:I don't even read these stories anymore

[EdIII]

There really isn't any point.

1) The majority of people are split across party lines and anti-science.
2) Religious nutbags are everywhere that have the sole justification that climate science is wrong because scientists calculated the age of the Earth incorrectly, and that Man could not possibly affect God's creation.
3) The absolutely ludicrous position is put forward constantly that business and economic considerations must be factored in. That's like arguing on a sinking ship about the value of the cargo.

Irrational and illogical behavior coupled with outright greed and shortsightedness makes it impossible to affect change through legislation. I honestly could not give a fuck about any further research. It does not take a rocket scientist (or a climatologist) to figure out that we have an affect on our environment through our actions with 7 billion people on the planet.

There is one person that I control. Myself. To that end, I do what I can to minimize my own footprint on this planet, and that is all I can do.

Talking is bullshit because nobody is capable of listening, and anyone that does actually listen, is marginalized and has practically no effect. You nailed that. Social will is non-existent. Basically, no one is willing to suffer to get things back to where they need to be. That goes for a lot more than the environment.

I can explain, politely, why it is such a bad idea to buy bottled water, etc. but friends and family still do it anyways because of convenience. I actually got asked why I did not have bottled water from a guest like I was a bad host. I pointed to the glasses and the RO system and this person was indignant because that seemed like more work than getting a bottle from the refrigerator.

Technology and science is not our problem. We are the problem because of how we act globally as a group.

Re:I don't even read these stories anymore

[JoeMerchant]

Because 1. Man is influencing the climate, 2. Most of this change is going to be bad, 3. There is no political or social will to change our current behavior, and 4. Once shit hits the ecological fan, those with resources will shield themselves from the effects and those without resources will be fucked.

1. Yep
2. People hate change, period. Even change for the better is uncomfortable.
3. Ever notice how well the conservatives do in politics?
4. As if those without resources are doing so well right now, or 100 years ago?

Re:I don't even read these stories anymore

[sycodon]

Number one reason....there is always something that is a greater threat than whatever the current threat is.

Re:I don't even read these stories anymore

[riverat1]

... those with resources will shield themselves from the effects and those without resources will be fucked.

There's a limit to how much the well resourced can shield themselves. What happens to the riffraff will have an effect on them too.

Re:I don't even read these stories anymore

[cultiv8]

I just look for the funny comments.

Re:I don't even read these stories anymore

[khallow]

Point 3 really bugs me.

3) The absolutely ludicrous position is put forward constantly that business and economic considerations must be factored in. That's like arguing on a sinking ship about the value of the cargo.

Why is it "ludicrous"? For example, I'd say that by country, poverty is the number one correlation with pollution. Also, we burn fossil fuels for obvious economic reasons, namely, because it is a cheap store of energy. In other words, the environmental problem is in large part caused by economic ones. I see a lot of the environmental repair attempts as making the overall problems worse because of economic ignorance.

For example, people don't seem to realize how aggressive environmental regulations have helped contribute to outsourcing of developed world labor to other parts of the world. Or they kind of do, but think they can fix it by throwing yet more gasoline on the fire.

Talking is bullshit because nobody is capable of listening, and anyone that does actually listen, is marginalized and has practically no effect. You nailed that. Social will is non-existent. Basically, no one is willing to suffer to get things back to where they need to be. That goes for a lot more than the environment.

You could lead by example.

I can explain, politely, why it is such a bad idea to buy bottled water, etc. but friends and family still do it anyways because of convenience. I actually got asked why I did not have bottled water from a guest like I was a bad host. I pointed to the glasses and the RO system and this person was indignant because that seemed like more work than getting a bottle from the refrigerator.

Odds are good that they don't trust either your reverse osmosis system or the cleanliness of your glassware. One doesn't need to worry about such things with bottled water. In the future, you could just be a good host and provide bottled water without the lecture.

Frankly, I think this bogus sanctimony is one of the worst parts of the modern environmentalism movement. I used to work at a place that had as policy weekly information dumps on safety topics and environmental issues. The safety topics were generally relevant (such as office ergonomics or what to do when the fire alarm goes off) while the environmental stuff was mostly sermons. Sure, I want to know what our recycling policies are or the environment-related stuff we do. Our clientele tends to be very concerned about the environment, so we needed to address that. But there was a lot of garbage that went straight to opinion and preaching.

Technology and science is not our problem. We are the problem because of how we act globally as a group.

Yet another reason to include economics since behavior of groups is part of its area of study.

Re:I don't even read these stories anymore

[Rogerborg]

I do what I can to minimize my own footprint on this planet, and that is all I can do

You could switch your computer off rather than using it to turn fossil fuel into CO2 and hipster hair-shirt proselytizing.

Re:I don't even read these stories anymore

[AmiMoJo]

There is political and social will most places, just not in the US. Most other countries signed up to Kyoto and are making headway, not to mention the EU's affect on the amount of dangerous chemicals in products (and thus in landfill). The rest of us are cleaning up our act, with only the US and China still pissing in the pool. At least China is trying.

Re:I don't even read these stories anymore

[scot4875]

You could lead by example.

Which was *exactly* what he said he did in a paragraph you failed to quote.

you could just be a good host and provide bottled water without the lecture.

The mind boggles. Being a good host means having shitty bottled water now? I guess I'm out of touch.

--Jeremy

Re:I don't even read these stories anymore

[khallow]

Which was *exactly* what he said he did in a paragraph you failed to quote.

Uh huh. I use context to figure out he was mistaken. For example, lecturing someone on the evils of bottled water indicates someone who isn't listening.

The mind boggles. Being a good host means having shitty bottled water now? I guess I'm out of touch.

Yes. I'm a bit surprised that this concept is hard for you. If I'm a guest and I want shitty bottled water, then what is the mark of a good host? Lecturing me on the evils of bottled water? Or getting a bottle? I'd say the latter.

Re:I don't even read these stories anymore

[EdIII]

I don't lecture. When asked I explain that I don't purchase it because it is bad for the environment for several reasons, including but not limited to, the use and manufacture of plastics and the energy expended for transport.

Simple, to the point, and nothing further needs to be explained. I don't need or want to drone on about the environment. You have either figured it out, or you have not figured out.

In short, you can bring a horse to water but you cannot make it drink.

It's more important for me to be forward thinking than be a good host. That's like saying the guest wanted shit flavored ice cream for desert and the mark of a good host would be providing it. There are logical limits. I don't visit Indian friends and expect hamburgers for dinner.

You have proven my point far greater than I have with your comments. Thank You.

Economics are *not* a factor. We are at a tipping point right now that *will* radically alter the planet in a way that could take geological time scales to heal up, or even change it so radically that life as we know it cannot be supported.

That is not hyperbole. The science and common sense tell us that immediate action is required along with a strong paradigm shift to mitigate the damage and start living within or means. In other words, engage in a harmonious relationship with the planet.

Anything else ultimately means we sacrifice our future as sentient beings in return for short term pleasures and convenience.

Considering we already do that all time in the form of over eating, over indulging, and over spending, our death is all but assured at this point.

Which is why talking is pointless! LOL.

People like you bring up the economics like it is a choice or something. Tragically funny. The poor schmuck that dies in a fire, not trying to save a poodle, but his beer.

You knock yourself out. Meanwhile I will accept doom with the quite grace and dignity I clearly have.

Re:I don't even read these stories anymore

[EdIII]

Ummm... okay.

We both could stop breathing too and releasing CO2 into the air, but maybe we don't need get that extreme huh?

It's easier to just put out hyperbole like that and claim the other person is a hypocrite I guesssss.....

All those stupid hippies that like breathe and stuff and have the audacity to not live like the Amish while promulgating their views about saving the planet.

You have shamed me sir and won the Internets today.

Re:I don't even read these stories anymore

[khallow]

I don't lecture. When asked I explain that I don't purchase it because it is bad for the environment for several reasons, including but not limited to, the use and manufacture of plastics and the energy expended for transport.

Lo and behold, there's the lecture. You probably suck more resources telling them of the evils of water bottles.

Economics are *not* a factor. We are at a tipping point right now that *will* radically alter the planet in a way that could take geological time scales to heal up, or even change it so radically that life as we know it cannot be supported.

I normally don't care what peoples' religions are, but your religion interferes with my life, my dreams, and my society. You can assert whatever religious convictions you have, but you don't get to be right because of them. And I'll be damned, if I'll drink one less bottle of water because you are willing to completely make over society without a shred of evidence that such action is needed.

Economics is a huge, obvious factor, as I have already noted, because key pollution contributors are economically driven, because any solution to global warming, should it become necessary, will have to be paid for and regulated through economic mechanisms, because economics studies the behavior of groups of people, and because there won't be a magic solution that fixes simultaneously the environment and all the other problems that humanity has.

That is not hyperbole. The science and common sense tell us that immediate action is required along with a strong paradigm shift to mitigate the damage and start living within or means. In other words, engage in a harmonious relationship with the planet.

Then look at the science and the common sense. Stop pretending your religious bullshit has anything to do with it. You have yet to explain how global warming leads to any sort of "doom" for the human race. Currently, we're looking at slightly warmer conditions and higher sea levels, even with a "tipping point" in methane-containing deposits. That's not even remotely close to being a existential threat for humanity.

People like you bring up the economics like it is a choice or something.

I bring it up because economics is fundamental to the problem. Do you want to do something about these problems or just crap on the internet?

Considering we already do that all time in the form of over eating, over indulging, and over spending, our death is all but assured at this point.

Our death is assured no matter whether we overindulge, by your standards, or not. Further, these sort of religious beliefs belong in the Dark Ages, not modern times. We're grown-ups now. If someone drinks bottled water, then that indulgence is far less crippling to us or the environment than having some moral police tell us what to do and not do.

Re:I don't even read these stories anymore

[EdIII]

You need to look up the definitions for lecture and brevity. When I say it, it is just a matter of fact. No emphasis. So you are perceiving a lecture where none exists. I can only control myself, so I don't lecture. Only explain my reasons.

Just what religion do you think I belong too? I find it curious that you assume that I am religious at all. For the record, I am not religious at all. I am right because I am right. Not because of my faith, but my reasoning.

I think you have attacked me and my position out of a misunderstanding and attributed characterizations that are unwarranted.

The evidence shows us that the action is necessary and not a matter of faith, but of common sense, simple reasoning, and observation. When the situation is so dire, economics don't factor in. This goes for many situations. If a corporation is going bankrupt, you don't discuss what donuts you are ordering tomorrow, but how you are going to adapt to level off and start turning a profit again.

We disagree on our observations and the science. That is clear. Additionally, morality has nothing to do with it. Cold, hard, clinical analysis of the current situation leads us to these conclusions.

Economics is not fundamental to the problem. What is fundamental to the problem is that we believe economics is fundamental to the problem.

It is not global warming, but climate change. It is not even really about that. It is simply, and logically, realizing that we are not in balance. All that is left to argue is when we destabilize the environment to the point that life cannot adapt as quickly to changes. Not if, but when. You see it now in the coral at the Great Barrier Reef. It is all but dead and bleached. That life was not able to adapt as quickly to the changes. We probably have had warming periods in the past, but not at the same rate. Life could adapt. More importantly, there have been events in the past where life did not adapt. These are extinction events recorded in our history.

Look at frogs, bees, etc. There are so many warning signs right now that life is not adapting as well it could to the changes humans are making. Deforestation, poaching, pollution, etc.

We are life out of balance. Science and arguments about data are pointless when that simple fact is inarguable.

You believe we have so much time left and are hedging your bet that science will save us over the next few hundred years. Well, it may not and there is no guarantee. Plus we have all the technology we need, but not the will power.

I believe that your insistence of limiting our response to this simple logic with economic considerations is reckless and shortsighted. Sincerely, I hope you are right. That we have time. I don't think your views are supported though.

You seem to be coming back to freedom. The freedom to choose bottled water, or a lower mpg car, etc. Other people telling you what to do is out of line and by doing so they show themselves to be self-righteous, hypocrites, and preachers of morality. It offends you and you won't tolerate it.

Well where is the line? At what point do your actions, along with the actions of so many others, have to be curtailed because it is not in the best interests of everybody, and could ultimately jeopardize us all?

I did mention religion in my original post. In that context what I referring to was that there is the belief that the Earth is so huge and so vast and created by a limitless Higher Power that no real harm or influence could ever be done to it.

Perhaps, you have the belief that the Earth is so huge that we simply cannot affect it like the claims to the contrary.

Earth is smaller and more fragile than you think, and as far as we are concerned, getting smaller all the time.

Re:I don't even read these stories anymore

[khallow]

So your lecture wasn't one because it was brief? Glancing at an online dictionary, I see the second meaning is:

2. An earnest admonition or reproof; a reprimand.

There we go.

The evidence shows us that the action is necessary and not a matter of faith, but of common sense, simple reasoning, and observation. When the situation is so dire, economics don't factor in.

This is the faith I referred to. You have to have evidence first of the direness of the situation before the claim that you have evidence makes sense. You don't have this evidence. Further, you claim that we have to ignore how human society works (your dismissal of economics). Apparently, it's just fine in your book for fixes to make the problem worse. Economics knowledge helps keep that from happening.

This false certainty and dismissal of knowledge that doesn't fit your viewpoint are classic symptoms of the religious.

You seem to be coming back to freedom. The freedom to choose bottled water, or a lower mpg car, etc. Other people telling you what to do is out of line and by doing so they show themselves to be self-righteous, hypocrites, and preachers of morality. It offends you and you won't tolerate it.

You got that right.

Well where is the line? At what point do your actions, along with the actions of so many others, have to be curtailed because it is not in the best interests of everybody, and could ultimately jeopardize us all?

There has to be a line first. It's far too easy to manufacture an imaginary crisis, such as you have done, to take freedom away. That means providing solid evidence not just of global warming, not just of humanity's role in it, but also of the various choices we can make, their costs and benefits. You know, that economics thing that you can't seem to figure out.

I'm not going to curtail someone's freedoms because there might be a problem. Show solid evidence or STFU.

Earth is smaller and more fragile than you think, and as far as we are concerned, getting smaller all the time.

Here's more of that religious faith. The "fragile Earth" belief isn't based on evidence and it uses some touchie feelie idea of "smaller" that's bullshit. Sure, I can communicate with someone on the other side of the planet with only a delay of a few dozen milliseconds, but the physical dimensions of the planet haven't changed a bit.

Sterile wasteland

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't this mean that the sterile wasteland that is permafrost would also come back to life again? I thought more life, especially plant life, was a good thing?

One of the commenters mentioned marshy bog. Isn't that one of the precursors of peat and coal?

Re:Sterile wasteland

[riverat1]

Once the permafrost thaws out it will probably take hundreds of years for the land to become useable for much. Parts of the permafrost could become coal ... if we covered it over (Tear down the Rocky Mountains? Be careful around Yellowstone.) and waited a million years.

Northwest Passage

[cosm]

As the globe continues to warm, eventually the Northwest Passage will be a viable route for less ice-hardy vessels more times out of the year, providing economic benefit for those who could utilize the shipping routes. I imagine there are lobbies that would love to see this happen. This is speculation, for I do now know if people actively encourage warming. Looking at the CO2 data and its positive correlation to the mean global temperature increase, it seems we may see that route in our lifetime.

Also as the permafrost disappears, another side affect is a cascading result in the loss of surface ice/snow pack. As the surface area of the snow/ice/arctic shelf shrinks, the Earth's regional albedo will be reduced, ie there will be less radiational cooling and more energy absorbed by the surface. Cycles such as this create feedback loops in the environment that cause these affects to amplify. Lower albedo -> less permafrost/snow/ice/glacier coverage -> more heat -> lower albedo -> ad inifinitum.

I am not a meteorologist, but based on some cursory research these seem to be realistic eventualities.

Re:Northwest Passage

[Mashiki]

The northwest passage has always been a viable trade route. Anyone who things otherwise has been listening to warmists spout off that we've never used it. I'll give you three guesses as to why Canada and Russia have so many ice breakers up there.

Re:Northwest Passage

[cosm]

The northwest passage has always been a viable trade route. Anyone who things otherwise has been listening to warmists spout off that we've never used it. I'll give you three guesses as to why Canada and Russia have so many ice breakers up there.

I'm talking about shipping savings by sending unassisted regular old plain jane commercial ships without breakers or breaker escorts.
See this. (Circe 2008, fairly recently in terms of open-waters shipping history)

Re:Northwest Passage

[cosm]

Addendum/self-correction - That example is not the first ever, that article is a bit biased. My point was it will be easier for trade and less icebergs = more ships.

Re:Northwest Passage

[Llyr]

The northwest passage has always been a viable trade route. Anyone who things otherwise has been listening to warmists spout off that we've never used it. I'll give you three guesses as to why Canada and Russia have so many ice breakers up there.

Always been viable? The first ship to successfully travel it from west to east took three years (1940-1942). And that wasn't even trying it out as a trade route.

Re:Northwest Passage

[JoeMerchant]

As the globe continues to warm, eventually the Northwest Passage will be a viable route for less ice-hardy vessels more times out of the year, providing economic benefit for those who could utilize the shipping routes.

Yes, but a Northwest Passage is a lot less meaningful today than it would have been when Lewis and Clark were looking for it.

I imagine there are lobbies that would love to see this happen. This is speculation, for I do now know if people actively encourage warming.

With a national population of 300 million, I am virtually certain that there are lobbies that would love to see almost anything happen. The trick, as a representative of your constituents, is to only listen to those lobbyists who are pushing an idea that will benefit the majority of your constituents without completely screwing some of them. At the national level, this is generally too complicated to evaluate by a mere Congressional staff office, thus explaining the propensity of our representatives to support lobbies that support their re-election campaign instead.

Looking at the CO2 data and its positive correlation to the mean global temperature increase, it seems we may see that route in our lifetime.

Looking at the "consensus curve" of warming estimates since 1990, I don't see any oscillations or pullbacks, only continuous upward revision across the board. I can only surmise that future estimates of future warming will, based on this meta-analysis of the estimating trend, be higher than today's estimates for some time to come.

Living in Florida and expecting my children to die around the year 2080, I'm most interested in sea level rise estimation. Sadly, it does not look like my children will be enjoying my parent's waterfront property in their later life.

Also as the permafrost disappears, another side affect is a cascading result in the loss of surface ice/snow pack. As the surface area of the snow/ice/arctic shelf shrinks, the Earth's regional albedo will be reduced, ie there will be less radiational cooling and more energy absorbed by the surface. Cycles such as this create feedback loops in the environment that cause these affects to amplify. Lower albedo -> less permafrost/snow/ice/glacier coverage -> more heat -> lower albedo -> ad inifinitum.

Sooner or later, we will also discover serious mitigating effects, such as increased algal blooms in the ocean that act to sequester carbon, or similar things.

I am not a meteorologist, but based on some cursory research these seem to be realistic eventualities.

I don't think the coming generation will escape the Chinese curses: "May you live in interesting times," nor "May the government be aware of you." But since this generation (and the previous) has mostly experienced the worst one: "May your wishes be granted," the next generation or two may be spared that one.

Re:Northwest Passage

[TapeCutter]

Yep the albedo feedback is the cause of "polar amplification" - the name given to the faster rate of warming in the Artic mentioned in TFS. It's yet another example of a succesful prediction of a previously unknown phenomena by climate models from the 1980's.

Re:Northwest Passage

[symbolset]

Lots of things are going to have to change. Just like lots of things always had to change. We live on a changing planet, and if we left it in about 10,000 years you'd never know we were here without some serious digging.

Re:Northwest Passage

[symbolset]

The albedo feedback is one of the mechanisms for rapid descent into glaciation as well as rapid ascent from it. It's one of the reasons why when we get too close to the cold, the kill-switch wipes out terrestrial animals so fast that we find woolly mammoths frozen in glaciers with daisies in their bellies when the snow melts again. We were slipping back into glaciation there, for about 9,000 years, and getting close to that kill-switch. And it's normal to see the reverse in an interglacial period like we're in now that we're out of that thicket. What would be odd was if the global mean temperature dropped 2c below present and stayed there for a few hundred years or so in a stable thermal mode the Earth doesn't normally have, instead of switching to rapid glaciation and killing off 90-some percent of us.

Re:Northwest Passage

[TapeCutter]

The albedo feedback is one of the mechanisms for rapid descent into glaciation as well as rapid ascent from it.

Yep it amplifies the sign of the forcing, the natural forcing that triggers regular ice ages is the "Milancovich cycle" (Earth's slow orbital wobble). CO2 is also a feedback in the Milancovich cycle that amplifies the sign of the forcing by either being release or locked up in permafrost. With the current warming our GHG emissions is the (main) forcing and we can expect the natural feedbacks to amplify that forcing. On the flip side, man made aerosols are a significant -ve forcing (increases atmospheric albedo) that negates some of the +ve forcing of our GHG emissions.

CO2 and methane are a bit "special", unlike water vapour, ice, aerosols, solar flux, and orbital wobbles, they can act as both as a forcing and a feedback simultaneously.

Re:Northwest Passage

[Neil Boekend]

ad inifinitum.

Nope, once the ice is melted this cycle cannot continue.
Not that means it's not a problem.

2 week vacation in South Africa

[Gothmolly]

If nothing else, soft-science and government types get a taxpayer paid trip to South Africa for 2 weeks. Do you think they really want to FIX global warming?

Re:2 week vacation in South Africa

[Jeremi]

If nothing else, soft-science and government types get a taxpayer paid trip to South Africa for 2 weeks. Do you think they really want to FIX global warming?

Don't you ever get tired of your mindless, knee-jerk cynicism?

I think maybe at one time it might have been clever and refreshing to groundlessly accuse people of having a selfish ulterior motive for everything they do. But now that every single freaking person on the Internet automatically responds that way every time anyone does anything, it's just tedious and depressing.

Re:2 week vacation in South Africa

[Llyr]

At least in South Africa at this time of year they may notice the results of global warming themselves. I remember hearing of one climate meeting a few years back that was held in Ottawa in winter; the weather didn't exactly provide an impression of global warming, and may have left attendees thinking that warming might be a good thing.

Re:2 week vacation in South Africa

[Capsaicin]

I remember hearing of one climate meeting a few years back that was held in Ottawa in winter; the weather didn't exactly provide an impression of global warming ...

Copenhagen was another example of that It's pretty silly really ... almost as if these egg-heads want us to make decisions based on the data and the maths!?

Re:2 week vacation in South Africa

[Troed]

“The weather gods might be sending us a message here,” joked Salwa Dallalah, the UN’s head organiser for the conference.

“Delegates may find themselves having to carry umbrellas, but we can’t do anything about the weather. I am not a scientist, but Durban people have told me that it’s unusually cold. It will be a pity if the rainy weather continues, especially because many Europeans and Americans will come for COP17 expecting lovely summer weather,” she said.

http://globalfreeze.wordpress.com/2011/11/29/unusually-cold-weather-hits-durban-is-al-gore-in-town/

No, no it doesn't.

[pla]

The study adds to pressure on United Nations climate treaty negotiators from more than 190 countries attending two weeks of talks in Durban, South Africa that began Nov. 28.

I would agree with you, except that we can expect to see exactly the same thing that came out of the last UN climate summit... And the one before that. And the Kyoto accords.

Namely, nothing. Politicians act on a scale measured by the next election cycle (and can't even manage that lately). I have absolute confidence that our "leaders" will do nothing whatsoever about climate change until they get to feign surprise that all their precious coastal cities seem to have started taking on water - At which point, they'll blame the other party and still do nothing.

Growth?

[Anonymous Coward]

We have calculated the one-time pulse of CO2 released by thawing. Will the newly arable land not host new carbon absorbing growth into the indefinite future? Perhaps that's how all that carbon got stored there in the first place.

I wonder if this is one of the mechanisms that prevented the Earth from becoming Venus during the last 800 million years of Nitrogen/Oxygen atmosphere. Lord knows I'm left to wonder; I have yet to read a single story about any feedback mechanism that isn't hellbent on destroying the planet.

Re:Growth?

[symbolset]

I might suggest that the vast bulk of CO2 absorbing photosynthesis on earth occurs in the sea since there's such a tall column of growing space to work with - enough to absorb almost all of the light - and ever abundant water to facilitate the process as is required. I shouldn't think terrestrial photosynthesis contributes all that much to the main.

Re:Growth?

[budgenator]

The thing that prevents Earth becoming like Venus is we achieve Venus's air pressure at an Ocean depth of about 3,000 ft.

Visit Alaska, tour the Muskeg

[JoeMerchant]

Think about Alaska, think about the size of Alaska, now, cover it in a layer of mossy stuff several feet thick. That mossy stuff is muskeg, and if you've ever stepped in a soft spot in the muskeg and sunk up to your hip in the muck, you can easily imagine the whole thing decomposing into methane when it gets warm.

It doesn't cover all of Alaska, but then, it's not only in Alaska, it's also all over Canada and Siberia.

Re:Visit Alaska, tour the Muskeg

[ColdWetDog]

Think about Alaska, think about the size of Alaska, now, cover it in a layer of mossy stuff several feet thick. That mossy stuff is muskeg [wikipedia.org], and if you've ever stepped in a soft spot in the muskeg and sunk up to your hip in the muck, you can easily imagine the whole thing decomposing into methane when it gets warm.

I, for one, plan to welcome our new Mosquito Overlords.

All one hundred billion of them.

Re:Visit Alaska, tour the Muskeg

[riverat1]

I, for one, plan to welcome our new Mosquito Overlords.

All one hundred billion of them.

Not if the GM mosquitoes have their way.

Re:Visit Alaska, tour the Muskeg

[riverat1]

You need a better imagination.

Re:Visit Alaska, tour the Muskeg

[Neil Boekend]

I really like his imagination better.
Sadly I'd guess it will not come to be. Trees migrate quite slow and planting them costs to much money.

Oh, yawn, we're all going to die.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh well, the polar bears didn't drown, the Antarctic didn't defrost, New York hasn't been inundated, so now we're down to defrosting the Arctic? Based on some bogus "calculation" by the known frauds at the UN. Yawn, wake me up when the world ends.

Re:Oh, yawn, we're all going to die.

[riverat1]

You live in a world of instant gratification, don't you?

Grandma used to say...

[symbolset]

Go ahead and stay home from school. The world needs ditch-diggers too.

Hard digging is good for jobs. :)

PS - Even France is Better than Germany

[tjstork]

Let's see - France has better looking women, better food, better wine, better movies and better art, and has been a world leader in aeronautics since Bleriot through Arianespace and Bleriot. Their mintel predated and pioneered the idea of a pervasive online service, they've made tremendous contributions in math. And even though they took it on the chin from Germany in World War II, they had incredible artillery and aircraft in World War I, and previously, pioneered everything in engineering from steel warship construction in the La Gloire, and finally, they gave us mayonaisse.

Re:PS - Even France is Better than Germany

[Sique]

Actually, the mayonaisse comes from the town of Mahón (cast.) or Maó (kat.), the capital town of Menorca, one of the islands of the spanish Baleares.

Re:PS - Even France is Better than Germany

[rolfwind]

I prefer German's white wine in the baden region and baking from Munich/Salzberg. As for engineering, I think Germany's contributions are significant (a lot of the different combustion engines designs, etc) As for the rest, not really sure why this pissing contest is even important.

Re:PS - Even France is Better than Germany

[ABCC]

I take my mayonaise with a grain of salt.

If you had ever been cold..

[symbolset]

If you had ever been really, truly cold, then you would understand why the folk in Canada and Russia could really give a damn that global warming is flooding your Florida swamp real-estate.

So, without further ado: The Cremation of Sam McGee.

Re:If you had ever been cold..

[ShieldW0lf]

When you're really, truly cold, a snowbank feels like a feather pillow, and you just want to snuggle up to it and go to sleep.

Re:If you had ever been cold..

[mcgrew]

Thank you for that link, that was excellent.

Re:USA USA USA!

[NeutronCowboy]

1) And the US has a metric shit ton more resources than Germany. Your point?
2) You fail basic economics. If the mark or the euro are overvalued, exports are terrible because they're more expensive than local goods. Try again.
3) A declining population has nothing to do with economic greatness. Unless you're thinking immigration - in which case, the US is trying real hard to come down to Europe's level.
4) You know squat about German corporate taxes, squat about US taxes and even less about real corporate taxes that arise from such niceties as the dutch sandwich or various indirect contributions.
5) You also know squat about the German university system. Anyone can go to University, except those who keep failing their High School classes. Those that do fail classes go to technical trade schools. It's exactly like the US system, except it's predicated on grades rather than money.
6) Your choice.
7) You're making a lot of assumptions about future events. Would you also like a pony?
8) No idea how that bit of (factual, for once) information relates to how well Germany is doing.
9) Yes, you can get fancy food all over the place. That said, I'd rather walk into a random Braustaette than a random American diner.
10) Your info is about 3 years out of date. In the meantime, the Porsche Panamera bettered the laptime by about 4 seconds.

There are a ton of reasons why Germany has a ton of problems and is worse than the US, but for some reason, you managed to barely allude to only one in your list of ten.

Re:USA USA USA!

[nedlohs]

2) Germany's standard of living is based on an export driven economy that essentially relies on the fact that first the mark and now the euro are way overvalued relative to the us dollar.

An overvalued currency harms exports - it makes your prices higher than those of places without overvalued currencies. (And nothing is overvalued relative to the US dollar - well OK, US treasuries but those are really just future US dollars anyway).

3) Germany has a declining population - if Germany was so great, why do they have a forecast net population decline? By contrast, the USA has a population that is growing the fastest out of any of the NATO nations.

So your logic has Ethiopia, Liberia, Somalia, etc. as being "greater" than the US? And Luxemburg and Turkey have faster growing populations than the USA so your facts are wrong too.

4) German corporations have a -lower- tax rate than American ones do. Oops, did I say that? Also, German laws are absolutely brutal for debt collection compared to American ones. If you, in America, blow off paying a loan bank, you get a bunch of angry letters and pissy phone calls and for the most part that's really all about they can do to you. In Germany, they can just come and start taking your shit away.

15% business tax + 15% corporate tax + 5.5% solidarity tax is much lower than a 15-35% federal + 0-12% state progressive scheme? That would depend entirely on which two locations in the countries you are comparing the income of the corporation. Pick a US corporation booking its income in a state with a 12% corporate income tax then sure, saner corporations not so much.

  And having consequences for your actions is a bad thing now?

7) Speaking of taxed to the hilt, Germans are actually more in debt per capita than Americans are, and the American financial picture improves rather dramatically when the Bush tax cuts expire, and the budget sequesters kick in.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt

You ignore half the equation. Germany has more external assets than the US. if I owe $5,000 on my credit card but have $6,000 in my checking account I'm in better shape than the guy who only owes $4,000 on his credit card but has $3,500 in his checking account.

Subtract external debts from external assets and Germany is at +$1.2 trillion (USD) while the USA is at -$2.4 trillion (USD). Note that Japan, whom Americans who like to pretend debt doesn't matter love to cite, is at +$3.4 trillion (USD).

Corduroy fabric in Danish is Jernbanefløjl

[G3ckoG33k]

Apropos "corduroy roads", corduroy fabric in Danish is Jernbanefløjl, which translated literally means - railway velvet! :)

Wasting Long Chain Hydrocarbons, s/he says.

[Web Goddess]

I never thought of that! MightyMartian has a valid point that valuable, difficult-to-manufacture long chain hydrocarbons are being squandered to produce combustion.

That's the same way I feel about sequestering gold. This non-tarnish metal is an extremely valuable manufacturing commodity. And diamonds, the hardest substance known to man, are another stupidly sequestered resource.

Homo sapiens are dingbat dumb.

Re:USA USA USA!

[Anonymous Coward]

"1) And the US has a metric shit ton more resources than Germany."

Actually they are so backwards that they have no _metric_ shit at all.

Not the important item in Nature this week

[icensnow]

TFA is a Bloomberg summary of a Nature commentary about a survey among permafrost scientists, and the main article isn't even linked by Nature. If this was just an excuse to fire up the global warming flame thread, go for it. However, the same issue of Nature has a far more important (for global change) paper that dismisses the CLAW hypothesis in which dimethyl sulfate released from marine organisms is hugely important for creating clouds. In looking for fluff, the meat got missed.

Funny!

[hesaigo999ca]

It is not like you can tell a country to make some changes so the ice stops to melt, this one is out of our control.... are we going to send more ice makers up north to continue freezing the water and ice caps so as they retain all their gases???

Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

But won't thawed permafrost make it easier for more trees (and other plant life) to grow and sequester carbon? The Earth has tremendous balancing mechanisms. It's been WAAAY further out of balance before in its history and those very strong protection mechanisms kick in and push it back the other way. Obviously they DO have limits, but we're nowhere near pushing those. The scope of our pollution doesn't even begin to compare with some of the previous events on the Earth. Pre-human climate history is VERY interesting reading!

Re:Huh?

[forkfail]

Nope.

First, permafrost is basically frozen swamp. Things sink, and quickly, when it melts.

Second, there is an incredible amount of methane trapped in the permafrost. Thaw it out, it all gets released.

Not so permanent , huh?

[JTsyo]

I propose we change the name to semi-permafrost.

Re:Not so permanent , huh?

[riverat1]

The name could be changed to permamelt.

Re:USA USA USA!

[SecurityTheatre]

1) It's also about the size of California. Excluding the mojave desert area, it's about the same population density.

2) German's strong Euro HURTS exports. WTF are you talking about? Just making shit up? It might be worth noting that the EU contributed more than 3x as much as the US during the recent involvement in Libya.

3) This is due in part to Germany's strict immigration policies. The US is also below "replacement rate" in fertility, but also leans on immigration to pick up the bulk of growth. Are you arguing for looser immigration policies in order to spur growth? Interesting...

4) Are you arguing that a European country is more business friendly than a US company? Germany provides national health care, as well as free University education. I like that model. Let's use it!

5) All Germans can go to University if they pass highschool, and even if they don't, they have a path to get there if they choose. Speaking of a class system (and I quote)

There is little available evidence that the United States has more relative mobility than other advanced nations. If anything, the data seem to
suggest the opposite. Using the relationship between parents’ and children’s incomes as an indicator of relative mobility, data show that a number of countries,
including Denmark, Norway, Finland, Canada, Sweden, Germany, and France have more relative mobility than does the United States.

6) Keep in mind the EU is one trading area. Do you live in Kentucky? If not, then importing Kentucky Bourbon is exactly as hard as importing Irish Whiskey or French wine or Polish Vodka for someone in Germany.

7) The Bush tax cuts won't be allowed to expire as long as Republicans control at least 33% of the government. They'll scream bloody murder if someone tries. Also, German's public debt is notably lower than the US, though I guess there are other areas that offset that?

8) Most ironically, the "Republican base", on average, are net recipients of the benefits of the programs they rail against, as you pointed out. Germans don't like that idea. Germans are the California or New York of the US.

9) Anything you can get in the US, you can also get in Germany. Name something where that isn't true.

10) Most German cars will kill their American counterparts on almost any track.

Non sequitur

[Capsaicin]

I guess you didn't see Suzuki's scare campaign come out today

And I guess, in your ardour to expose Suzuki's "scare campaign" you didn't read or comprehend the comment "Arctic temperatures are *not* rising ..." which you originally, and so impertinently, responded to. Eh?

Re:Non sequitur

[Mashiki]

I guess you don't have much of a clue, or understand the history of Suzuki's green agenda, or how this is just a continuing of a trend. I'll wait for you to go read through 30+ years of fear and scare tactics, I'm patient.