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Burning All Fossil Fuels Would Scorch Earth, Says Study (phys.org)
mspohr quotes a report from Phys.Org: A new study published in the Journal Nature Climate Change shows our precarious climate condition: "Using up all known fossil fuel reserves would render Earth even more unlivable than scientists had previously projected, researchers said on Monday. Average temperatures would climb by up to 9.5 degrees Celsius (17 degrees Fahrenheit) -- five times the cap on global warming set at climate talks in Paris in December, they reported. In the Arctic region -- already heating at more than double the global average -- the thermometer would rise an unimaginable 15 C to 20 C." This would make most of Earth uninhabitable to humans (although the dinosaurs seemed to do fine with it 65 million years ago). The report also stated that if fossil fuel trends go unchanged, ten times the 540 billion tons of carbon emitted since the start of industrialization would be reached near the end of the 22nd century. For comparison, "older models had projected that depleting fossil fuel reserves entirely would heat the planet by 4.3 C to 8.4 C. The new study revises this to between 6.4 C and 9.5 C," writes Phys.Org.
If you burned it all tomorrow, yes the planet would burn.. burn it over a millennia, no, it won't. Something else might (and probably will at the rate we're going) do it in in that thousand years, but it would not be emissions from fossil fuels.
The article makes absolutely NO MENTION of time frame, and no mention of preventative measures that may be (and are) taken.
Wouldn't some of us surviving mean that the earth is still habitable? Livable?
Looks like we are on track now.
The report also stated that if fossil fuel trends go unchanged...
So the model depends on future casting assuming a trend is unchanged. And my psychic and telekinetic powers will someday work too.
In the 1970s, it was predicted the price of natural gas would climb to astronomical levels, and it would run out by the end of the 20th century.
Because, the trend remained unchanged in their minds. Modeling and fortune telling are more art and religion than actual science.
Us humans are just another test run of this life.exe program. When we die off, we'll just become the next ancient history Dino sludge to fuel the next test run in another couple hundred million years.
Well, at least Antarctica will be a nicer place to live.
Your statement, as reassuring as it sounds, isn't going to help us at all. At the current rate there is no way we would last a single millenium on the current reserves.
And I don't know where you get the notion that a slower release would make things better.
Just hoping??
What, get smaller and grow feathers?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Anyone who makes predictions based on nothing changing for almost 200 years is an idiot.
Climate researchers run a variety of emissions scenarios in their models. There are also a number of different models used to make their projections. These models also have a lot of settings that can significantly change the configuration, which affects the results. There is no single climate projection, but a spread of possible outcomes for future climate.
These models are hypotheses that try to explain the behavior of the climate system. If these models are started with data from 10 or 20 years ago, they can also project what Earth's temperature should be now. Our greenhouse gas emissions are at the very high end of the scenarios. Despite promises to curb emissions, they continue to increase on the global scale. The scenarios with the highest emissions are also the warmest scenarios.
Here's the problem: our temperatures aren't at the high end of the projections. Instead, they're at the bottom end. Yes, the Earth has gotten warmer, but not nearly to the extent the models have already projected.
If the models aren't accurately predicting our temperatures now, why should we believe their predictions for farther in the future? If the models are already too warm, why should we believe them when their predictions are revised upward?
This comes across as totally alarmist. It seems like someone, whether a scientist or a politician, really wants more money. To get the money, they've stepped up their already overstated dire predictions about climate change.
A serious question about the squabble. Even if GW is not AGW, even if GW is not real, why should we not as a species work to reduce our impacts everywhere?
Silence is a state of mime.
I get the vibe that Mdsolar really wants us to invest in Nuclear power.
Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
. . . they are very difficult to get rid of. Give 'em a scorched Earth . . . they'll figure some way to survive in it.
Will a lot of folks suffer and die in the process? Hell, yeah. But there will still be some humans around who have figured out how to thrive in that environment.
People like to joke about cockroaches being the only living critter that will survive the nuclear apocalypse.
When I think of the post-nuclear apocalypse world, I see a creepy looking humanoid, munching on cockroaches.
McCockroaches, indeed.
"Would you like some fries with your roaches?"
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Considering the rate at which new reserves are discovered as it becomes profitable to look for them in more difficult places, it wouldn't surprise me if we could find enough fossil fuels to last a millennium. That would of course make the Earth considerably hotter than this projection.
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Seriously, I don't want to troll or anything but few years ago I asked similar question to a libertanian. What is going to happen when it all comes to an end [the fossil fuels]?
The answer was: the last barrel will cost infinite amount of money; the market will fix everything.....
How retarded you have to be to posit only one criteria for success or failure of any endeavor - the profit - is beyond me! It seems these people believe that as long as the market is fine, insignificant things like the laws of nature are not important...
OK, the sky is falling... Got it.
Did they pen this missive with a quill and ink, and convey it by horse-drawn carriage? No? Hypocrites.
How much would be global warming *reduced* by burning the Koch brothers?
If we started using plastic as the primary product instead of fuel, and as a building material, we'd render the fossil fuels safe for the atmosphere by locking the carbon up into a stable structure that lasts for 50,000 years.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I've seen more than one claim that the earth can only sustain 500M people. If we would only get rid of the other 7B or so, then a select group of 500M could live a life in perpetual balance with nature.
Stop peddling your bullshit anon:
They can't explain the mechanism
Bullshit: http://scied.ucar.edu/carbon-d...
nor can they explain why Earth was so much colder during times when CO2 concentration was 10 times what it is today.
Bullshit: https://www.skepticalscience.c...
They talk out of both sides of their mouths and are bullshitting for money, lots and lots of taxpayer money. Why do they need taxpayer money?
Bullshit: Fossil fuels recieve considerably more taxpayer money than renewables, and they only reason climate science needs funding is that fossil fuel interests insist on continuously pushing back on scientists recommendations.
You think there would need to be reports like this if, in the 70s, governments had simply agreed that yes, they do need to reduce and stabilise CO2 production? The only reason climate scientists continually need to prove themselves is because of big oil shills and IDIOTS LIKE YOU who are drinking their koolaid.
I mean hell you're not even honest enough to use your account.
[...]it wouldn't surprise me if we could find enough fossil fuels to last a millennium.
Me neither. I think we are getting nearer to the turning point where fossil fuels are not seen as viable anymore. Demand will start to drop rapidly such that, in the end, most of the remaining reserves will simply stay where they are...
Point of fact: Mt. Pinatubo erupted in 1991 and put more pollutants into the air than the entire industrialized history of man. Where is the climate change? When Saddam Hussein set the oil fields of Iraq ablaze, we were told there would be a "nuclear winter". It didn't happen. When Katrina hit NOLA, they told us it would be the start of heightened hurricane activity... What followed was the quietest period of Hurricane activity in the Gulf in decades. How many times do these little boys have to cry "WOLF!" before you wake up?
clothes optional...
Those who are in "policy making" are bad at math and physic. I always get a sense that low IQ or low persistence people become politicians that always want to control others. It was always like that through ages, since the times when everyone knew that earth is being held by three giant whales or elephants.
Most of fossil fuels represent energy of sun converted to carbohydrates or coal. Of course burning all of it would heat up mother Earth. But burning it slowly, won't.
Those models that calculate carbon dioxide emitted to earth always, and I say, always, fail to take into account intricacies on how fast carbon dioxide is consumed by the oxygen making living organisms of the earth. Have there been any studies that demonstrate marginal increase in carbon dioxide absorption compared to the increase of the output of carbon dioxide.
If there are any serious studies, such studies will never be mentioned by policy makers. Nobody is denying that a lot of carbon dioxide is emitted to the atmosphere, and that the climate is changing (it always changing).
To battle climate change by wearing green shirt and driving Prius, is similar to the rainmaking rituals of Zuni: one most wear blue feather and avoid staring to the buffalo on the day of the ritual. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Yes indeed, if only scientists could establish a mechanism.....
You mean the Precambrian? Where every bloody factor involved in our planet's climate system was also different? Or were you under the impression that there's only one factor that determines Earth's surface temperature, carbon dioxide?
The most important factor is that the sun emitted much less light early in Earth's history. Here's a graph. Lest you think that those sorts of differences don't matter much, it should be pointed out that a 10% increase in solar radiation is predicted to be capable of boiling off Earth's oceans. Over the scale of hundreds of millions of years, the light from the sun changes by quite relevant amounts, as it slowly progresses towards its inevitable end as a red giant. Over the scale of hundreds of years? Not so much. It's also one of the most observed objects in the universe; when something changes with the sun, we know about it, and have for quite a long time.
I'm sorry, I interrupted your rant about all those idiot scientists and their pre-kindergarten education... please continue.
Friends! Help! A guinea pig tricked me!
although the dinosaurs seemed to do fine with it 65 million years ago
Conveniently the facts that the grass lands did not exist and temperature difference (according to Wikipedia) were only 4 degrees are left out.
Burning all the fossil fuels on the planet at once in a large thruster will SAVE the planet. All we need to do is move the planet further out in orbit from the sun and it will counteract all effects of global warming.
These scientists today are only looking for problems and not solutions.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Should read "Burning all fossil fuels will improve UK temperatures immensely!" -How soon can we start?
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
Just another unprovable prediction made to take money from some people to give to others. Wonder why predictions are always 100+ years now? because all the short term predictions were wrong.
Could Germany be having second thoughts about setting fire to that 85 square kilometers of lignite?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
It's a problem today, but in 20-50 years, solar-powered nanomachines will suck carbon from the air, creating cheap diamond bricks that could be used for building material.
And I don't know where you get the notion that a slower release would make things better.
I'm not a denier, by any means, but it does make some sense that a slower release would be better. There are processes (photosynthesis being the most obvious) that take CO2 out of the atmosphere. Conceivably, there is some rate of fossil fuel use that is sustainable, but maybe that rate is so low that it's irrelevant on a global industrial scale.
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
AFIAK, we have passed peak coal, where anthracite (the highest quality coal) is almost impossible to find, so a lot of coal plants burn lignite (one step up from peat.) Peak oil is long since behind us, especially with the pushback from fracking. Then, you get reports of solar actually being cheaper than fossil fuels, especially for maintenance.
There are three things which would kill fossil fuels dead that are still out there:
1: Nuclear power becoming accepted, or re-accepted.
2: Battery density getting near current fossil fuels.
3: A usable, efficient way to put energy in, suck out CO2 from the air, and make an easy to store fuel like synthetic diesel, fuel, ethanol, or even propane. Hydrogen is mentioned, but that is not a real soliution as making it requires a lot of energy, and storing it for the long term is difficult due to how it embrittles tanks and has a tendency to escape.
>> This would make most of Earth uninhabitable to humans
Are you sure you're counting the large landmasses in Canada and Siberia?
Time to buy that farm in Siberia. Or Antarctica.
In all fairness, they think dinosaurs always had feathers. But it does seem that more of them became able to fly. And if it means I'm on the path to being able to fly then sweet!
Yup. Slashdot.
I wonder if they factored in increased plant growth at higher CO2 levels into their end of the world scenario. One of the reasons why we have so much oil is that back during the age of dinosaurs CO2 levels were much higher, which resulted in much more plant life, which in turn resulted in ever larger land creatures. Sure rising CO2 levels wouldn't be a good thing, for us, but for the planet as a whole it could very well result in a far more humid & warm environment for plants which would absorb CO2 from the atmosphere and turn that CO2 back into oil/coal. Then in a few million years the smart cockroaches or intelligent lemurs can dig that up and use it to fuel their civilization.
(Also, by the way, the highest temperatures in the Jurassic were about 10 warmer than the current era. So, 15-20C would, in fact, be higher than temperatures in the era of dinosaurs.)
This whole discussion is based on the fallacy that "fossil fuels" (inaccurate term) are composed of the remains of dinosaurs, plants, etc...
Go look up "abiotic oil theory".
Not to mention: it is incredibly unlikely that we could survive in Dinosaur climates - or they in ours. Plenty of things have existed in the past which could not possibly exist now. In the Carboniferous we had dragonflies with 1m wingspans. That could not possibly exist today - because their booklungs are just not efficient enough to get enough oxygen for a body that big in a climate where the oxygen concentration is around 21%, when they lived it was more like 40% - nearly twice what it is now. But - chances are - we could not have survived then anymore than they could survive now (for different reasons).
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
The point of the pseudo-skepticism is put off that day as long as possible. There are great fortunes founded on fossil fuels, and those that have those fortunes want to maximize profits. Of course, they have a lot of witless mindless soldiers who they've convinced that climatology is really a communist fantasy, and those brainless idiots run around the intertubes with oft-repeated memes and a near total ignorance of the actual science (though some of these people are a little more capable and thus have rehearsed a somewhat more complex version of the pseudo-scientific drivel).
But make no mistake, when Saudi Arabia is creating the largest sovereign wealth fund in history, it's not because it sees a bright future for oil.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Most of fossil fuels represent energy of sun converted to carbohydrates or coal. Of course burning all of it would heat up mother Earth. But burning it slowly, won't.
Define "slowly". Show your working.
Yeah, but that increased plantlife is most likely to be ragweed.
Also, any intelligent inhabitants of Earth millions of years from now will not find coal deposits created during our era.
The reason we have great deposits of coal is that they were accrued before fungus with the ability to break down lignin evolved. That was a one-shot deal. Unless those breeds of fungus go extinct.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Reading about climate change in the popular press gives the impression that the vast majority of climate change research over the last 5 hears has found that our situation is more dire than that indicated in prior publications. Is that actually the case, or is the popular press cherry-picking the headline-grabbing studies. It would make an interesting survey to identify a baseline of expected climate change in research preceding 2011, and compare that to the expected climate change in research that is fewer than five years old. If a significant majority of recent publications predict a climate in greater distress than previously thought, that would affirm suspicions that the research is tainted. Likewise, if recent publications were well-distributed both above and below prior-2011 predictions, that would lend credence to the assertion that the climate change research is valid.
I don't know about solar being cheaper maybe as a solar farm but after considerable research I found that a solar grid tie system could supplement or even power my house but it would have to run without occurring additional costs for 12-15 years before it would have produced enough kwh for them to cost the same as I'm currently paying. Wind would be a better choice for me thanks to a good location unfortunately local regulations prohibit it.
Central heat and air account for a large amount of my homes energy use, upgrading the windows and insulation would be a much better investment.
I believe the future is also the past and batteries will eventually replace gas in our vehicles.
Sorry, global warming is not a hoax. However, CAGW with CO2 being the primary driver most likely is a hoax. The current temperature situation in relation to the average temp for many years seems to indicate it. I also did not like the fact that some guy named gore completely misrepresented the Vostok ice core data. I am not certain if it was ignorance or self interest that drove him to spew that conclusion. I am leaning toward self interest. I believe that CO2 is not a pollutant. I also believe that there is a much more complex system interaction that cannot be accurately modeled at this time. The empirical evidence in regard to IPCC predictions seems to be a strong indicator of the current algorithmic deficiency. Looks like taxing the air just got real.
(Disclaimer: I am a realist)
* The current temp situation in relation to the relatively large amount of CO2 for many years seems to indicate it.
Don't forget Sawyer, 1972, although I don't think he used a GCM. His prediction was right on the money. Arrhenius was pretty accurate too, on the high side of current forcing estimates, but still within the likely band.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Useless science. Thank goodness climate change is almost completely natural.
And I don't know where you get the notion that a slower release would make things better.
Of course slower release is better. The atmosphere is not a bottle! There are many feedback mechanisms, both positive and negative, at work. The danger is not the total amount released, but entirely the speed.
The major carbon cycle for the earth is the geological cycle. All the carbon in the air, water, all life, and all fossil fuel reserves, all of that is a rounding error compared to the carbon bound up in the crust, slowly released by volcanic activity and reclaimed by erosion. That's a feedback loop that brings temps and CO2 levels away from extremes, and one that wouldn't even notice if we burned all the fossil fuels. Sadly, it's a geological cycle, so it might take 100M years to recover, but that's just the biggest such cycle.
At every time scale, there some feedback mechanism. The problem is that we're overwhelming those in human timescales, and we care more about the climate in 100 years than 100k or 100M years.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
And if you go read "some" right-wing blogs, you'll find people calling for total and absolute control over every aspect of your life... what religion you practice, what you do with your body, the things you are allowed to say, the things you are allowed to do at home, what political/ideological principles you must publicly make statements supporting if you want to continue living, subjugation or extermination of races of people, etc.
Yes, crackpots exist in all groups.
What you do is take the last record heat way you had and add 9.5C/17F to it. For example Texas had an heat way in the tripe digits : 104F, so with that you get 121F. You tell yourself that ain't that hot it gets like that in Kuwait. But you forget in Kuwait the humidity is low. In Texas it is high. Let we explain it to you at 121F for a week anyone who ain't got air conditioning is dead. Any large animal like cows, horses, even dogs outside are dead.
Here is the press release from the University of Victoria:
www.communications.uvic.ca/releases/tip.php?date=23052016
and here are some sources that discuss the paper without quite as much in the way of scare words and hype:
www.reportingclimatescience.com/2016/05/23/unmitigated-emissions/
www.metronews.ca/news/vancouver/2016/05/23/uvic-researcher-models-worst-case-climate-change.html
Well put! Your post is well reasoned enough to entertain the thought of sustainable fossil fuel use. However I'd have to add one more condition. For additional photosynthesis needed to offset the additional CO2, the current deforestation trends would also have to be reversed. I suppose massive algae blooms could also take care of it but that would cause a whole host of other problems.
Touche', but going from being called "TYRANNOSAURUS REX!!!" to "bird brain" is a pretty sad fate....
A rise of 9.5C would certainly cause lots of changes across the world, but it wouldn't "scorch" earth. The term "scorch" implies arid, infertile land. In fact, it would make earth's climate more uniform, more mild, and generally wetter. If the transition period is slow enough (several centuries), this would arguably be a better climate than what we have now. The major cost would be loss of coastal lands due to sea level rise, but that would be even slower than temperature rise. That would probably be more than compensated for by the opening up of large areas with mild climates in the Arctic and the Antarctic.
That's just wrong, for a couple of reasons. First, such climatic conditions existed over long time periods, and not only dinosaurs did fine (until asteroids and volcanoes kille them), but also mammals and primates. Second, among large land animals, humans are the most adaptive to different climates: we can live from the Arctic all the way down to the Sahara.
What the study really tells you is that even if we could burn all fossil fuel (which we can't really), the worst thing that would happen is that we get a warm, wet climate all over the globe and gradual sea level rise that causes cities to slowly move away from the current coastlines over the span of the next thousand years. No doubt this is bad for Miami or NYC real estate corporations with an eye on the long term; for the rest of humanity, it's probably somewhere between neutral to positive.
This has already happened, when some Siberian coal deposits caught fire immediately after the earth's crust shifted at the end of the Carboniferous. The result was the Permian, with a massive (>90%) extinction.
Yes. That was my point. Photosynthesis was what locked the CO2 we are currently releasing into the ground in the first place. But we all know that took hunderd of milions of years. Not a few millenia like the poster suggested.
So the question put forth by the original poster is: what is best release the remaining CO2 in the next 100 years or the next 1000?
The answer is that it won't make a difference at all for the end state of the climate. And if we don't switch away from fossil fuels soon we won't need anything close to 1000 years to burn what remains...
Plants grow and remove CO2 from the atmosphere, but then they die, and when they decay the CO2 goes back in.
Back in geological time when the coal was being made from plants, bacteria and fungi had not yet evolved the ability to break down certain tough parts of the plants, and therefore dead plants built up and up and up and over geological time were compressed and ended up underground. Today, these are known as coal mines.
Since then, these microbes do have the ability to break down and decay the dead plants fully, the CO2 will never ever leave the atmosphere in the long run.
To reduce CO2 climatically, it has to go somewhere which is entirely out of the biosphere and stay there. For instance, coal is excellent carbon sequestration.
In 100 years, the uncontrolled mining and burning of coal will be regarded like civilization today sees slavery: a revoltingly immoral abomination, and yet once was legal, accepted and a major commercial activity. Except that the ill consequences of past evil people would continue to hurt them indefinitely.
What a bunch of horseshit.
they focus on the small guys.
My guess is that things will get MUCH MUCH worse, before it gets better. Sadly, this is an example of extremism in politics. Groups like the GOP as well as 350.org are destroying the world.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
What is this, a possible script for Will Ferrell's next movie?
The causal link between CO2 and warming was described by Arrhenius in 1895. But in case you believe that dinosaur-riding Jesus had not yet created the Earth in 1895 you may find it difficult to accept that fact.
It's a little more complicated... Photosynthesis isn't enough.
We need need to alter the balance of the cycle, we need that photosynthesis to turn that CO2 into a nice green carbon sink. That is- we need to increase the amount of biomass on the planet. If we're pulling the shit out of the dirt- we need to be increasing biomass, or we're fucking with the planet's thermodynamic equilibrium.
Simply replanting what we cut down isn't enough- we need to offset what we pull out of the dirt with an increase in overall biomass. I really, really, really don't see that happening.
Good thing I don't read.
Uh?
Rightists/Exponentialists don't want to control the wealth, they control it.
Their idea of healthcare is endless bureaucracy, price gouging and denial of care, and bankruptcy of insured people by medical bills.
They determined that you deserve to eat pink slime and steroid beef.
Rightists/Exponentialists want you to pledge allegiance to "free trade", Wall Street, the European Union and so on. If your country lacks "compliance" the US of A and its numerous allies will target it for "regime change" (also now called a "political transition") through various means including firing over a hundred cruise missiles, snipers that fire both at the crowds and the police or sending weapons and money to Al Qaeda so that they fight for "freedom" and "democracy".
This reduces population but not by very much, about a million per decade these days. Rightists/Exponentialists are content with that since they can sell weapons, provide "security guards" and "reconstruction" services.
And I forgot, to find crackpots listen at presidents, prime ministers, secretaries of State, foreign ministers, the mainstream media.
Of course slower release is better. The atmosphere is not a bottle! There are many feedback mechanisms, both positive and negative, at work. The danger is not the total amount released, but entirely the speed.
You're right, of course... But the rate of slow in order to make your correctness relevant is... unrealistic.
It's not going to take humanity millions of years to burn through our fuels, and plate tectonics simply aren't going to work on a human timescale.
Maybe you were just being pedantic, but for the purposes of the article, slower (at least on human timescales) just isn't going to make a lick of difference.
I'm having trouble with this part: "This would make most of Earth uninhabitable to humans."
But I guess maybe most of Earth is uninhabitable by humans now? The oceans cover 71 percent of the Earth's surface, right? Are they saying that more than 50% of what is now habitable will be covered with water and will become uninhabitable? What about the currently uninhabitable parts that will become habitable?
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety"-B.Franklin
The "study" didn't project nature using the carbon emissions like for trees, grass, and algae that turns CO^2 in to oxygen.
So another study is needed to study this study that studies the last study so on and so forth.
Full of sequestered carbon yet environmentalists hate them. Environmentalists are like all of the Debby Downers of the world decided to form a club.
nor can they explain why Earth was so much colder during times when CO2 concentration was 10 times what it is today. ... how could it?
Because it was not
Why do you have that idiotic idea?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Of course, they have a lot of witless mindless soldiers who they've convinced that climatology is really a communist fantasy
You mean like the United Nations Climate Chief?
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Not just pedantic: there are many such feedback cycles, it just happens that the big one is fairly well understood. The cycles on shorter time-frames aren't so well understood, let alone well modeled (e.g., ocean mixing which is key to CO2 dissolution, the plankton-krill interaction with temp and CO2, etc). The scary part is the positive feedback loops, of course.
The amount of carbon in all known fossil fuels is larger than what's in the atmosphere and ocean today, IIRC. It probably matters whether we're burning through it in 100 or 1000 or 10000 years.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I just had a look at their supplementary information. Their models have no error bars. Quelle surprise!.
Not exactly a "call for depopulation" but a number of sources have comments like:
"Our species’ demographic growth since its birth in Africa 200,000 years ago clearly contributed to this crisis. If world population had stayed stable at roughly 300 million people—a number that demographers believe characterized humanity from the birth of Christ to A.D. 1000 and that equals the population of just the U.S. today—there would not be enough of us to have the effect of relocating the coastlines even if we all drove Hummers. " [Scientific American]
The implication is strong that we'd be better off with dramatically reduced population.
As noted by others, the Georgia Guidestones have it as a commandment:
Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
Guide reproduction wisely — improving fitness and diversity.
Unite humanity with a living new language.
Rule passion — faith — tradition — and all things with tempered reason.
Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
Balance personal rights with social duties.
Prize truth — beauty — love — seeking harmony with the infinite.
Be not a cancer on the earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.
It can be hard to find the original sources outside of conspiracy sites, but there are things like The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement: "Phasing out the human race by voluntarily ceasing to breed will allow Earth’s biosphere to return to good health. Crowded conditions and resource shortages will improve as we become less dense." "The sooner we go extinct, the greater the biological diversity we’ll leave behind to carry on." "[O]ur voluntary phase out, begun soon enough, would avoid the tragic collapse of both our global civilization and the biosphere. Humanity could improve conditions for all life while enjoying renewed bounty from restored ecosystems. Abundant resources would make world peace possible, and our shrinking human family could grow closer together."
Not to mention environmental fascist wackos like Pentti Linkola:
"If there were a button I could press, I would sacrifice myself without hesitating, if it meant millions of people would die." "We even have to be able to re-evaluate Fascism and recognize the service that philosophy made 30 years ago when it freed the Earth from the weight of tens of millions of overeating Europeans, six million of them by an almost ideally painless, environment-preserving means."
...make anyone who didn't already care about it suddenly want to care more, and most of the people that would want to do something to prevent this are powerless to do so because of a lack of economic and/or political influence. Barring completely unprecedented action by everybody, everywhere when it is unrealistic to expect even half if the world to agree on any single thing, this planet is doomed. Enjoy it while it lasts. It's only good for another couple of centuries at most.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
There's a link to the online, scientist only, real time editor for climate publishing at ClimateFeedback.org. If you install the browser extension, you will be able to see the edits, with redlines, and links to sources including name and bio of the posting climatologist, geologist, paleontologist or other reputable, published scientist with academic credentials (this leaves out the charlatans at Heartland, of course, none of them are academically qualified to comment on climatology)
When you're burning the results of millions of years of biomass accumulation on century scales it's not possible living biomass to come anywhere close to keeping up with current emissions.
I'm having trouble with this part: "This would make most of Earth uninhabitable to humans."
I do want to point out that this line comes from the sensationalist slashdot summary. It's not in the article being discussed.
(Also, the number quoted is "15 to 20C"-- not the 10 you have in your post's headline.)
If you install it yourself the cost is 1/3 of what companies are charging bringing the years dow to 4 or 5
When you're burning the results of millions of years of biomass accumulation on century scales it's not possible living biomass to come anywhere close to keeping up with current emissions.
I know. But it's a step in the right direction, and it's the only realistic way to move the needle in the other direction once we've stopped injecting fossil carbon into the atmosphere.
I still go by the report that came out in 1978 by the UN that stated scientists concluded that all fossil fuel reserves planet wide would be depleted in 30 years. So there you go. No problem here. Move along.
Politicians are often smart, although not typically up on hard science. It's one of the more competitive pursuits, and stupid politicians are going to have trouble surviving.
You mean "hydrocarbons or coal" in your second paragraph. It really won't matter to the atmosphere whether we burn it all now, or relatively slowly, we're still screwed. We have to leave most of that stuff in the ground.
I believe (not that I've checked it myself) that the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been going up less than our fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions, so there are feedback mechanisms. They aren't enough, and they have other issues (for example, the pH of the oceans has been changing significantly). You do realize that, since atmospheric CO2 levels have gone from 280ppm in 1850 to over 400ppm now, it should be clear that we are increasing the concentration significantly.
The climate is changing very fast, and it's changing to be well outside the normal variation that human civilization has developed in.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Why not just rename the site 'Climatedot' and have done with it? Does anybody actually trust anything the alarmist 'scientists' say, seeing as their funding is directly proportionate to how much fear and terror they can induce in the public?
www.wattsupwiththat.com
www.climatedepot.com
It's the end of May in the UK and the outside temperature is still COOL. Ten years ago it would have been sweltering every evening, past sundown. Now it's cool by 5 in the afternoon.
The scarcer a resource is, the most lucrative it is to the owner. Considering that fossil fuels are an incredibly rich supply of concentrated biochemical resources, why would anyone want to sell as much as possible today, using up their supply of the non-renewable resource? I understand short-term profits and quarterly shareholder reports. But I can't help comparing this situation to a person or family who sells off all of their resources for short-term gain. Is that ever good for the family or the fossil fuel company? Part of me is a deep "conservative" in that I think we need to conserve resources so that they are there when we REALLY need them. ~ just a naive thought ...
A chart with just says "reality" seems to strongly suggest it is about a measured temperature anomaly. Well let us look at the actual data https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming which says something very different to the preposter's suggestions.
Are you a brain-washed nazi or a deliberate liar?
I have no reports on whether or not this guy is also a flat-earther.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Seems like we are hopelessly done: Even though it is prudent to err on the side of caution, especially since this is a matter of survival, the majority of humankind still refuses to take remedial action. Thus, we are a self-sabotaging race of idiots that deserves the extinction we are headed for. We empower dangerous people: Hitler, Stalin, Trump, ... We ignore scientific data that clearly suggests steps to taken immediately. Are you angry enough to do something radical yet?!
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
"but it would have to run without occurring additional costs for 12-15 years before it would have produced enough kwh for them to cost the same as I'm currently paying."
The current crop of chinese solar panel will last 7-8 years before being effectively dead
And "dead" is a pretty apt description of the areas where they're being produced. Solar PV production is an environmental toxic disaster. It's not "Green" to simply shift your pollution somewhere else.
"I'm not a denier, by any means, but it does make some sense that a slower release would be better."
You're 100% correct.
The problem is that in order for emissions to be balanced by absorbtion, human carbon emissions will need to drop at least 80%
Rapidly ending the use of fossil fuels *without* something to replace them would result in a world wide famine. Fusion or some large number of fission plants could replace fossil fuels, or there is this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Shorter version that was shown a the White House recently
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
It's about power satellites as a solution for CO2
Keith
End MGM. Get prospective parents of boys to Google: Men do complain
Fossil fuels are by definition created from fossils. So burning them is making the earth like it used to be before they were created. And it must have supported life back then or there wouldn't be fossils.
So how did the temps get that high in the era of dinosaurs. They must have been burning fossil fuels too. lol. Or maybe the planet goes through cycles that we have no control of! These Same Global Warming Idiots were telling us that we were causing an ice age 30 years ago. The temp goes up or goes down... the weather is calm or stormy and it is always mans fault.
In fact it was so hot during the dinosaur age because the earth knew man was coming. Or wait, maybe it was that cave man who was smoking weed in his cave.
I can't read the report. I think you have pay for information and that is just unethical.
"Fuel Reserves" usually includes deposits still buried underground. And those deposits are HUGE. There is tons and tons of fuel down there, but most of it will never be used, because it takes more energy to get it then the value someone will pay to use it.
The other usage of "fuel reserves" could mean that we are talking about fuel that is housed and reserved by nations for emergency or in storage for later sale into the market. I don't think this is what the article is talking about, but if so... we are in big trouble. Still I think this report is nonsense because we will never use all that fuel.