A bit late
on my monthly blog entry eh…Well, it was Earth Day the other day. What did you
do for your planet recently?
The IPCC recently released a grim report on the state of the planet. Anthropological
climate warming is real and if you don’t believe it, you either have your head
in the sand or are just plain dumb. I may sound harsh but it is a harsh reality
that we need to confront. I actually don’t know what’s worst, the planet
warming, or the staggering widespread scientific illiteracy of its citizen.
This
science is the same science that makes the combustion engine possible for you
to go to church or drive your kid to soccer practice, or make it convenient to
pick up your groceries. It is well understood. We know what will happen when we
step on the gas, or let go, in a general sense – it’s not magic, it’s not
political, it’s the nature of how things work, in this case, our planet. There
are even school science fair experiments to show adults how it works!
I won’t
pretend to do science with Google Images but here’s a simple visual compilation
to consider nonetheless:
I admit it
is open to correlation bias criticism – if you want real science, you should
check out the IPCC report. But I’d still like to make a ‘rapid’ point with this
image. In my view, it illustrates that we are messing with entropy, at least
locally, in our nice little “closed” system we call Earth; i.e. we are changing
the organization of stored energy and diffusing it in the atmosphere to
organize information (i.e. ourselves & the World around us). Add a positive
feedback loop through radiative forcing, and it’s no surprise the entropy of
the atmosphere is increasing, making it naturally more turbulent in our case. A turbulent
flow is by its nature irregular and random, and it can thus explain the
increasing frequency of ‘severe’, unforeseen, events. It takes time for a given
energy perturbation to cascade down the system to the dissipative scales. And
we don’t let it…
So we are
poised for radical change, but living in this Universe, aren’t we always? The typical
refrain sounds a bit as such: “Either WE change or the consequences around us
will impose uncomfortable change.”
There are
two things we can do IMO: 1) As the refrain says, we can try to
discipline everyone and rein in our enthusiasm for development, or 2) Perhaps
we could use our current cowboy attitude to improvise further and steer us
madly in a spectacular paradigm shift. Niels Bohr is quoted to have said that ‘an
expert is someone who has made all the mistakes in his field’ – perhaps it will
be necessary for us to bollix-up this planet to learn how to manage one
properly? It would be unfortunate, but the path to progress is not always
pretty. Good thing we are finding new planets nowadays – too bad they are so
far. The race is on then?
A lot of
pundits will argue that we will lose money by addressing these issues; that we
will slow down the economy. I beg to differ and this seems to be supported by
the IPCC report; the economy is fueled from people accomplishing things for
other people. Legislation sets the rules of the playing field and the goals and
to reach those goals people will come out and invest accordingly, given the
rules are properly enforced. So maybe we can just develop differently?
I think
governments need to ‘grow a set of balls’ and act with leadership and direction
in order to set the best policies in the interest of citizens and especially,
and more importantly perhaps, for the future of the species. But does that even
matter?
Regardless,
I feel that the World has been mostly rudderless lately, putting out fires (proverbial and literal), and
letting the free market grow in whatever direction it wanted – like weeds. It’s
time to roll up some sleeves and make a nice garden for ourselves. For some
reason though, I have a feeling outcome #2 is more likely…
No matter
the outcome, we better get used to fighting entropy, it will be recurrent in
our evolution… ;-) Let's see how long we can last...
UN Sustainable Development Goals: Good For Business:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.forbes.com/sites/donyaeger/2015/11/24/how-being-thankful-will-make-you-more-profitable/?utm_campaign=Forbes&utm_source=TWITTER&utm_medium=social&utm_channel=Leadership&linkId=18299088
Some more links in reference to this post:
ReplyDeleteAntarctic wind vortex is strongest for 1000 years
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25547-antarctic-wind-vortex-is-strongest-for-1000-years/#.U3AqQJF5mSN
Arctic's Ozone Hole Looking Good
http://www.livescience.com/44812-arctic-ozone-cfc-ban-helping.html?cmpid=514645_20140415_21937074
No option left but to suck co2 out of air, says IPCC
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25413-no-option-left-but-to-suck-co2-out-of-air-says-ipcc#.U0x6wq2Sw50
Why won't the UN talk about climate engineering?
http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/14/5606102/geoengineering-and-the-ipcc
What Are the Economic Consequences of Climate Change?
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/04/the-economic-case-for-acting-on-climate-change/360995/
Why Habitable Exoplanets Are Bad News for Humanity’s Future
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2014/04/24/why-habitable-exoplanets-are-bad-news-for-humanitys-future/#.Vl0KPHarTBQ
And BAM!
ReplyDeletehttps://secure.avaaz.org/en/climate_story_loc/
For dessert: https://boingboing.net/2016/01/12/keep-your-scythe-the-real-gre.html
ReplyDeleteJames Hansen’s Bombshell Climate Warning Is Now Part of the Scientific Canon
ReplyDeletehttp://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/03/22/james_hansen_sea_level_rise_climate_warning_passes_peer_review.html
In search of the holy grail...
ReplyDeletehttps://aeon.co/essays/could-we-mimic-photosynthesis-to-tap-into-the-sun-s-energy
"People with long-term stakes don't always act wisely. Often they still prefer short-term goals, and often again they do things that are foolish in both the short term and the long term. [...] Leaders who don't just react passively, who have the courage to anticipate crises or to act early, and who make strong insightful decisions of top-down management really can make a huge difference to their societies. So can similarly courageous, active citizens practicing bottom-up management." -Jared Diamond, Collapse (306)
ReplyDeleteWe need to do a better job at forest management. We have the Tools. We need the 'balls' to act globally:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160728143204.htm
Visual evidence of the whole thing:
ReplyDeletehttp://openclimatedata.net/climate-spirals/from-emissions-to-global-warming-line-chart/
Braceyourselves, winter is coming?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thegwpf.com/28155/
Erm, no. Probably not:
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2015/10/climate-disinformer-patrick-moore-talks.html
http://commonsensecanadian.ca/greenwash-king-patrick-moore-sews-seeds-climate-change-doubt/
Leading environmentalist James Lovelock: Humans should save themselves, not the planet
ReplyDeletehttp://www.independent.co.uk/environment/james-lovelock-gaia-the-earth-and-i-humans-save-themselves-ourselves-planet-a7334436.html
A timeline of Earth's average temperature by xkcd:
ReplyDeletehttp://xkcd.com/1732/
Brilliant! What's really warming the planet:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-world/
A few good leads:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/the-cleverest-countries-on-climate-change
I guess we're going in the other direction for now...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.salon.com/2016/12/17/drowning-the-world-in-oil-trumps-carbon-obsessed-energy-policy-and-the-planetary-nightmare-to-come_partner/
Behold! The Sapiezoic aeon!
ReplyDeletehttps://aeon.co/essays/enter-the-sapiezoic-a-new-aeon-of-self-aware-global-change
An update:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/carbon-dioxide-threshold-world-mauna-loa-observatory-global-warming-climate-change-a7699971.html
A good recent (pessimistic) state summary:
ReplyDeletehttp://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html
Another nail in the coffin:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/aug/25/heres-what-happens-when-you-try-to-replicate-climate-contrarian-papers
When a system in equilibrium is perturbed, the 'oscillation frequency' will be thrown off in irregularity, and the new state can be quite different...like a spinning coin, it may fall on heads or tails, but the final outcome cannot be known outside of probabilities...need to be ready for both.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2017/08/03/global-ocean-circulation-appears-to-be-collapsing-due-to-a-warming-planet/#57ae7826f6f4
An interesting study/model that offers a warning..
ReplyDeletehttp://newatlas.com/sixth-mass-extinction-carbon-cycle/51439/?amp=true
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-27/big-oil-moves-on-its-own-to-cut-methane-pollution
ReplyDeleteBad news:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.technologyreview.com/s/609620/global-warmings-worst-case-projections-look-increasingly-likely/
A call to action:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.technologyreview.com/s/610269/missing-the-paris-climate-target-by-just-a-little-means-raising-the-odds-of-extreme-weather/
We need nuclear fusion...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.technologyreview.com/s/610457/at-this-rate-its-going-to-take-nearly-400-years-to-transform-the-energy-system/
Fun:
ReplyDeletehttps://newatlas.com/climate-change-map/53914/
Good news:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-26/europe-s-38-billion-carbon-market-is-finally-starting-to-work
A reminder...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.outsideonline.com/2387816/difference-between-weather-and-climate
An update on power sources:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.technologyreview.com/s/613236/the-two-key-reasons-the-world-cant-reverse-climate-emissions/
Another nail in the coffin:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jul/24/scientific-consensus-on-humans-causing-global-warming-passes-99
Tic-toc-tic-toc...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48964736#
Investors are starting to get it too:
ReplyDeletehttps://realmoney.thestreet.com/jim-cramer/jim-cramer-once-again-why-fossil-fuels-are-on-the-wrong-side-of-history-15227698
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/12/global-economic-growth-will-take-big-hit-due-to-loss-of-nature
ReplyDeletehttps://newatlas.com/environment/human-caused-methane-emissions-higher-previously-estimated/
ReplyDeletehttps://newatlas.com/environment/coral-reef-collapse-end-of-century-study/
ReplyDeletehttps://newatlas.com/environment/maps-arctic-permafrost-climate-change/
ReplyDeleteState of the climate, official UN address:
ReplyDeletehttps://newatlas.com/environment/un-wmo-2019-statement-state-climate-report/
New #data : https://newatlas.com/environment/yearly-ice-loss-antarctic-greenland/
ReplyDeletehttps://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/our-insights/climate-math-what-a-1-point-5-degree-pathway-would-take
ReplyDeletehttps://newatlas.com/environment/study-global-warming-billions-near-unliveable-heat/
ReplyDeletehttps://newatlas.com/environment/atmospheric-co2-record-heights-global-pandemic/
ReplyDelete#entropy... told you so...
ReplyDeletehttps://newatlas.com/environment/40-year-study-hurricanes-stronger/
https://newatlas.com/environment/co2-23-million-years-plant-fossils/
ReplyDeleteEt voilà:
ReplyDeletehttps://newatlas.com/environment/climate-change-natural-disasters-un-report/
https://newatlas.com/environment/record-low-ice-levels-arctic-last-ice-area/
ReplyDeletehttps://newatlas.com/environment/record-antarctic-temperature-confirmed-wmo/
ReplyDeleteWe can do this...
ReplyDeletehttps://newatlas.com/environment/world-avoided-model-ozone-hole-cfc/