News:

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice: for they shall be filled. Mine eye also shall see my desire on mine enemies, and mine ears shall hear my desire of the wicked that rise up against me. The glory of the Lord shall endure for ever: the Lord shall rejoice in his works. He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth: he toucheth the hills, and they smoke. I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. My meditation of him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the Lord. Let sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless thou the Lord, O my soul. Praise ye the Lord.

Author Topic: Future Earth  (Read 698 times)

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AGelbert

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Antarctica: What happens if the 'Doomsday' Glacier collapses?
« Reply #15 on: July 25, 2022, 12:11:11 pm »
Agelbert NOTE: The graphics in this video are spectacular.


Antarctica: What happens if the 'Doomsday' Glacier collapses?

Mar 15, 2020


Just Have a Think
51.6K subscribers

Antarctica is home to some of the world's largest ice sheets and glaciers. They existed in a stable equilibrium of ebb and flow for millions of years until global warming started to melt them faster than the snow falls could replenish their ice. Now a new US / UK research collaboration has discovered that the rate of melt is even worse than scientists feared. What's driving this latest acceleration, and can we slow it down?

Help support and influence the growth of the Just Have a Think initiative here:
www.patreon.com/justhaveathink
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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No, this is not "alarmist" graphics hyperbole.
« Reply #16 on: August 14, 2022, 04:09:54 pm »




AGelbert NOTE: Some lyrics from an old song come to mind...

When Tomorrow is Today, the Bells Will Toll for Some, But Nothing Can Stop the Shape of Things to Come.

And no, this is not "alarmist" graphics hyperbole. Learn about about the GIANT 🌊 Wave activity that Climate Scientists predict is inevitable in our 2 degree Celcius, or more, Catastrophic Climate Changed world.


👉 Climate Change, Blue Water Cargo Shipping and Predicted Ocean Wave Activity: PART 1 of 3

👉 Climate Change, Blue Water Cargo Shipping and Predicted Ocean Wave Activity: PART TWO

👉 Climate Change, Blue Water Cargo Shipping and Predicted Ocean Wave Activity: Part 3 of 3 parts

Or, you can ignore all this "Chinese Hoax alarmist" stuff and continue your excellent imitation of an Ostrich...


« Last Edit: August 14, 2022, 06:54:09 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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Make Nexus Hot News part of your morning: click here to subscribe.

October 11, 2022



Why Is The UN Letting Big Ag's 😇 Front 🐍 Groups Influence Effort To Reduce Ag Emissions?

At the COP26 UN climate summit in Glasgow last year, the US and United Arab Emirates launched a new initiative to fund research into solutions to agricultural emissions, called the Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate (Aim4C). Among its some 200 partners are plenty of nations and even more agricultural-oriented non profits, and for-profit companies.

Unfortunately, as Rachel Sherrington revealed at DeSmog last week as part of their new series on the issue, one of those groups is the North American Meat Institute. And they have some questionable views on climate change, with a "fact" sheet claiming the "degree" to which people are causing climate change (by burning fossil fuels and eating meat) is "unknown," despite their supposed Paris agreement pledge.

And it's not just NAMI. Sherrington also points to the Animal Agriculture Alliance and US Farmers and Ranchers in Action, both Aim4C "knowledge partners" and both featuring members of the American Farm Bureau Federation on their board, and both running off of funding from the industrial agriculture sector.

For those blissfully unaware of what goes on in the weeds of farm politics, AFBF is a long-time 👿 opponent of climate action, essentially the agriculture industry's version of the 😈 American Petroleum Institute. Inside Climate News called it "Big Oil's unnoticed ally" back in 2018, and more recently, reported on how the AFBF has led "a Charge Against SEC Rules Aimed at Corporate Climate Transparency."

The Farm lobby didn't let the fact that a rule applied to publicly traded companies and not farms (because "not a single farm in America is listed with the SEC") distract it from lobbying against climate action.

What sort of "knowledge" are these groups bringing to the "partnership" with Aim4C?

Likely not the kind that will be useful for farmers struggling to cope with climate change, pointed out Anne Maina of the Biodiversity and Biosafety Association of Kenya. She told Sherrington for another DeSmog story that “A focus on ag-tech is often hinged on profits for multinational corporations and not sustainable. Africa has workable alternatives right here at home, for resilient agriculture that works with nature.”

But “When the voice of African farmers and communities is not brought to the negotiating table, we end up with flawed initiatives like Aim4C." 

Specifically, Sherrington writes, "Aim4C argues that technology can increase productivity, help farmers adapt to the climate crisis, and cut emissions" with "climate-smart" solutions which sounds well and good- that's the point. The problem is that "climate-smart" ;) can be used "to promote contested ☠️ practices including the use of ☠️ pesticides and big data in farming have led to concerns that the concept could be used to 😈 “greenwash” polluting forms of agriculture."

And even if things like the "Greener Cattle Initiative" were successful, "it would only reduce methane emissions from the cattle. It doesn’t address the climate impacts of land use change, biodiversity loss, or deforestation associated with cattle production. And it doesn’t take into account the nutrient pollution from the pesticides you use to grow the rest of their feed, corn and soy.”
 
That's why Jennifer Jacquet, author of a book on industrial disinformation , likened "Green cattle" to "clean coal", saying that there's "no getting around" the fact that "beef is the coal of animal ag."

What works? Again, back to Maina: “We need to focus on agroecological solutions: Support resilient agriculture that works with nature, builds crop and diet diversity, and empowers marginalised farmers."

Instead, as Molly Anderson of IPES-Food said, "the kind of technology pursued by Aim4C is proprietary. It’s going into digitalization, it’s going into artificial intelligence. This technology is not available to low-income people. The technology being promoted are things that basically bolster the existing industrialised food system.”

In other words, if 😈 BigAg is allowed to steer Aim4C, what they may be aiming for is
4C of warming.
https://newsletter.climatenexus.org/20221011-julia-iran-oil-workers-megadrought-navajo

Agelbert NOTE: The following is the scientifically predicted ice free North Pole of a, thoroughly coastlines flooded, +3C world.



ALL the Tundra thaws and ALL that methane now trapped there comes out to overheat our biosphere up EVEN FASTER.


Reaching +3C means it is basically over for most mammaliam vertebrate species.

A +4C world would be even MORE hellish, eventually devoid of high order multi-cellular organisms.


If you are a farmer, think about the total insanity of trying to hang on to the profit over people and planet BigAg "business model" . Industrial farmers, STOP BEING STUIPD AND CRAZY!

« Last Edit: October 11, 2022, 04:04:06 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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Re: Future Earth
« Reply #18 on: October 16, 2022, 02:34:50 pm »
November 19, 2021

Agelbert NOTE: After the Glasgow COP26 COP-OUT, the news immediately thereafter of BIG BUCKS spent by Big Oil for NEW Oil Leases in the Gulf of Mexico AND MORE BIG BUCKS in CONTINUED Federal Government SUBSIDIES for the Hydrocarbon "Industry", there can be no doubt whatsoever as to WHO is In Charge of Policies by the governments of industrialized nations to address Catastrophic Climate Change.


So, this is an appropriate, to put it mildly, time to repost this article.

How to Survive When, NOT IF, Catastrophic Climate Change Makes Earth's Climate Unsuitable For Humans

By Anthony G. Gelbert

During many periods in human history, some were doing just fine and others lived on the edge of starvation in a constant state of collapse. Abrupt changes in climate, such as that caused in France by a massive Laki volcanic eruption in Iceland in 1783, have resulted in famine induced starvation. In that case, starvation was followed by social upheaval and revolution, instead of collapse. Civilization in Iceland was nearly wiped out with that eruption (over one third of the population was killed), but did not collapse.

For a collapse to occur, the society destroying pressure must last longer than a decade or so. For example, natural climate alterations that produced lengthy droughts caused some ancient starving civilizations to eventually collapse. 

SNIPPET From the March 21, 2016 article, "Ten Civilizations or Nations That Collapsed From Drought", by Jeff Masters:

Drought is the great enemy of human civilization. Drought deprives us of the two things necessary to sustain life--food and water. When the rains stop and the soil dries up, cities die and civilizations collapse, as people abandon lands no longer able to supply them with the food and water they need to live. While the fall of a great empire is usually due to a complex set of causes, drought has often been identified as the primary culprit or a significant contributing factor in a surprising number of such collapses. Drought experts Justin Sheffield and Eric Wood of Princeton, in their 2011 book, Drought, identify more than ten civilizations, cultures and nations that probably collapsed, in part, because of drought. As we mark World Water Day on March 22, we should not grow overconfident that our current global civilization is immune from our old nemesis--particularly in light of the fact that a hotter climate due to global warming will make droughts more intense and impacts more severe. So, presented here is a "top ten" list of drought's great power over some of the mightiest civilizations in world history--presented chronologically.

֍ Collapse #1. The Akkadian Empire in Syria, 2334 BC - 2193 BC.
 
֍ Collapse #2. The Old Kingdom of ancient Egypt, 4200 years ago.

֍ Collapse #3. The Late Bronze Age (LBA) civilization in the Eastern Mediterranean. About 3200 years ago, the Eastern Mediterranean hosted some of the world’s most advanced civilizations.

֍ Collapse #4. The Maya civilization of 250 - 900 AD in Mexico. Severe drought killed millions of Maya people due to famine and lack of water, and initiated a cascade of internal collapses that destroyed their civilization at the peak of their cultural development, between 750 - 900 AD.

֍ Collapse #5. The Tang Dynasty in China, 700 - 907 AD. At the same time as the Mayan collapse, China was also experiencing the collapse of its ruling empire, the Tang Dynasty. Dynastic changes in China often occurred because of popular uprisings during crop failure and famine associated with drought.

֍ Collapse #6. The Tiwanaku Empire of Bolivia's Lake Titicaca region, 300 - 1000 AD. The Tiwanaku Empire was one of the most important South American civilizations prior to the Inca Empire. After dominating the region for 500 years, the Tiwanaku Empire ended abruptly between 1000 - 1100 AD, following a drying of the region, as measured by ice accumulation in the Quelccaya Ice Cap, Peru.

֍ Collapse #7. The Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) culture in the Southwest U.S. in the 11th - 12th centuries AD. Beginning in 1150 AD, North America experienced a 300-year drought called the Great Drought.

֍ Collapse #8. The Khmer Empire based in Angkor, Cambodia, 802 - 1431 AD. The Khmer Empire ruled Southeast Asia for  intense decades-long droughts interspersed with intense monsoons in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that, in combination with other factors, contributed to the empire's demise.

֍ Collapse #9. The Ming Dynasty in China, 1368 - 1644 AD. China's Ming Dynasty--one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history--collapsed at a time when the most severe drought in the region in over 4000 years was occurring, according to sediments from Lake Huguang Maar analyzed in a 2007 article in Nature by Yancheva et al.

֍ Collapse #10. Modern Syria. Syria's devastating civil war that began in March 2011 has killed over 300,000 people, displaced at least 7.6 million, and created an additional 4.2 million refugees. While the causes of the war are complex, a key contributing factor was the nation's devastating drought that began in 1998. The drought brought Syria's most severe set of crop failures in recorded history, which forced millions of people to migrate from rural areas into cities, where conflict erupted. This drought was almost certainly Syria's worst in the past 500 years (98% chance), and likely the worst for at least the past 900 years (89% chance), according to a 2016 tree ring study by Cook et al., "Spatiotemporal drought variability in the Mediterranean over the last 900 years." Human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases were "a key attributable factor" in the drying up of wintertime precipitation in the Mediterranean region, including Syria, in recent decades, as discussed in a NOAA press release that accompanied a 2011 paper by Hoerling et al., On the Increased Frequency of Mediterranean Drought.

A 2016 paper by drought expert Colin Kelley showed that the influence of human greenhouse gas emissions had made recent drought in the region 2 - 3 times more likely.

Ten Civilizations or Nations That Collapsed From Drought - lots of great pictures

As Dr. Jeff Masters evidenced above, extended drought, sometimes alternating with other harsh climate conditions like intense rains, can lead to starvation. Long wars exacerbate the situation, leading directly to collapse.

In addition to the above, there is another climate change based collapse level attack on human civilization, one that is 100% unavoidable now, that has wreaked havoc in the past.

SNIPPET from the March 23, 2018 article, "Humanity has contended with rising seas before — and it didn’t go well for us", by Alxandru Micu:

The Neolithic revolution was the first major transformation humanity had passed — the transition foraging to farming. Spreading out from the Middle East, this wave of change took peoples used to hunt and forage wherever they pleased and tied them down, hoe in hand, to sedentary — but oh so lucrative — farms and fields.

Around 7,600 years ago, however, the revolution paused — no new agricultural settlements seemed to pop up in Southeastern Europe around the time, existing communities declined, and the progress of civilization as a whole came to a standstill. Up until now, we didn’t have any inkling as to why this happened, but new research from the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, the Goethe University in Frankfurt, and the University of Toronto sheds some light on this mysterious period.

According to their findings, this lull in progress was due to an abrupt rise in sea levels in the northern Aegean Sea. Evidence of this event was calcified in the fossils of tiny marine algae preserved in seafloor sediments.

The impact this event had on societal dynamics and overall development during the time highlights the potential economic and social threats posed by sea level rise in the future, the team says. Given that climate-change-associated changes in sea level are virtually unavoidable, the team hopes their findings will help us better prepare for the flooding ahead.

“Approximately 7,600 years ago, the sea level must have risen abruptly in the Mediterranean regions bordering Southeastern Europe. The northern Aegean, the Marmara Sea and the Black Sea recorded an increase of more than one meter. This led to the flooding of low-lying coastal areas that would have been ideal areas for settlement,” says lead author Professor Dr. Jens Herrle.

The evidence supports a link between the two timeouts in the Neolithic revolution and the flooding events. The event 8,400 years ago coincides with archaeological findings suggesting that settlements in low-lying areas were under significant hardship from encroaching seas and other associated climatic changes. The renewed rise just 800 years later likely amplified these communities’ woes, keeping them from making the transition to agriculture.

“The source of this may have been Lake Agassiz in North America. This glacial meltwater lake was enclosed in ice and experienced a massive breach during this period, which emptied an enormous volume of water into the ocean.”

Past fluctuations in sea levels have already had a significant effect on human history during the early days of agriculture, the authors note, warning that it would be unwise to dismiss the challenges it will place in our path in the future.

"Humanity has contended with rising seas before — and it didn’t go well for us"

The article goes on to repeat the overly conservative estimate from the IPCC of a rise by up to "one meter over the next 100 years". That is the same IPCC that predicted the amount of ice depletion we have at present at the poles would not occur until 2070. That is the same IPCC that has NOT figured in the contribution of ice loss from Greenland to global sea level rise in any of the models.

So, if you are a logical person, I recommend you count on 3 to 6 meters, at least, of sea level rise several decades before the end of the century. As Peter Ward says (The Flooded Earth: Our Future In a World Without Ice Caps by Peter D. Ward), over 25% of the world's arable land is near sea level and will be flooded. Most major airports along coastlines will be flooded. Every harbor facility in the world will require a staggering amount of land fill to raise them as the sea level goes up. Most coastal real estate, currently highly assessed in value, will be flooded and become worthless.     

By the way, the latest science indicates that rapid sea level rise will be accompanied by a large increase in volcanic eruptions (which might slow down the heating due to a temporary increase in aerosols), and increase in earthquake activity. The volcanic aerosols, at most, will be a minor speed bump on the way to intolerable climate caos. So, please don't count on volcanic eruptions to 'save us' from global warming hell. That is wishful thinking.

I am not a voice "crying in the wilderness" on this issue. I will provide you some screenshots from the video of a scientist who recently wrote the book, "Waking the Climate Giant". He predicts a continued increase in volcanic activity, now observed in the data, due to terrain bounce from melting land ice and increased pressure on the surrounding seabed, as the the global average temperature increases. It's not the volcanoes that are increasing the heat, it's the greenhouse gases that are causing massive ice melt that, in turn, triggers earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Read his book if you disagree. I just watched the video but I think he is spot on.

On Earth, destructive climate change was not catastrophic before. The difference now it that the entire globe will be impacted. Humans have never lived on a planet with an average temperature of 3° C above pre-industrial. We will pass that mark up a half century before 2100 and continue towards PLUS 4° C and beyond, with no available technological or natural negative feedback mechanism to stop the continued acceleration, not slowing, of the rate of increase in temperature.

Already our atmosphere is being distorted by global warming to the point of pushing the dry subtropical bands on either side of the tropics towards their respective pole, thereby increasing drought conditions in highly populated areas and a large percentage of hitherto arable terrain.

SNIPPET from the February 2, 2016 article, "The mystery of the expanding tropics", by Olive Heffernan

As Earth's dry zones shift rapidly polewards, researchers are scrambling to figure out the cause — and consequences.

One spring day in 2004, Qiang Fu was poring over atmospheric data collected from satellites when he noticed an unusual and seemingly inexplicable pattern. In two belts on either side of the equator, the lower atmosphere was warming more than anywhere else on Earth. Fu, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle, was puzzled.

It wasn't until a year later that he realized what he had discovered: evidence of a rapid expansion of the tropics, the region that encircles Earth's waist like a green belt. The heart of the tropics is lush, but the northern and southern edges are dry. And these parched borders are growing — expanding into the subtropics and pushing them towards the poles.

Tropical forest losses outpace UN estimates

Cities that currently sit just outside the tropics could soon be smack in the middle of the dry tropical edge. That's bad news for places like San Diego, California. “A shift of just one degree of latitude in southern California — that's enough to have a huge impact on those communities in terms of how much rain they will get,” explains climate modeller Thomas Reichler of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.


Elsewhere, there is evidence that tropical expansion is affecting the ocean. Where the Hadley cell descends, bringing cool air downward, it energizes the ocean and whips up currents to high speeds. This energy powers the upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich waters towards the surface, which feeds some of the world's most productive fisheries. But there are hints that some of these regions are suffering because of shifts in the Hadley cell.

These upwelling zones could move south over time, or get weaker or stronger, depending on what happens to the Hadley cell, says Cook. In any case, it means that fishing communities that rely on these resources will not be able to count on traditional patterns.

On land, biodiversity is also potentially at risk. This is especially true for the climate zones just below the subtropics in South Africa and Australia, on the southern rim of both continents. In southwestern Australia, renowned as one of the world's biodiversity hotspots, flowers bloom during September, when tourists come to marvel at some of the region's 4,000 endemic plant species. But since the late 1970s, rainfall there has dropped by one-quarter. The same is true at South Africa's Cape Floristic Province, another frontier known for its floral beauty. “This is the most concrete evidence we have of tropical expansion,” says Steve Turton, an environmental geographer at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia.

Turton worries that the rate of change will be too rapid for these ecosystems to adapt. “We're talking about rapid expansion that's within half or a third of a human lifetime,” he says. In the worst-case scenario, the subtropics will overtake these ecologically rich outposts and the hotter, drier conditions will take a major toll.

The Mystery of the Expanding Tropics

Vermont is already experiencing the economy harming effects of climate change. A Vermonter, concerned about this, wrote about it. He has a right to be.

Watching Nature Collapse March 24th, 2018 by George Harvey

Sometimes it seems the best of everything is passing away.

SNIPPET:

A few years ago, someone threw a peach pit into shrubbery on the front yard of the house where I live. The tree that sprouted from the peach pit is now bearing fruit. Neighbors have paw-paw trees growing in their yards. But Vermont’s maple sugar industry, and the apple orchards, and the blueberry fields are all suffering. Vermont is fast becoming a place unlike what it has ever been, and it is not an improvement.

Watching Nature Collapse

Don't look at what he wrote as the "new normal" and just think we can 'adapt' to climate change by growing different crops and so on. This is the leading edge of climate that will soon, much sooner than many think, become intolerable for crop growing. We are not just on a treadmill moving in the wrong direction; our velocity on that deadly treadmill is increasing. Please keep that in mind so you are not lulled into thinking it would be 'nice' to grow palm trees in Burlington. Yes, the fossil fuel industry 🦖 does continue to try to pitch the 'warmer weather good' out of context propaganda happy talk. They'll do anything to keep their profit over people and planet suicide machine going. Stupid is as stupid does.

All these deleterious effects of Catastrophic Climate Change will continually get worse, not for a decade or so, but for over a century.

Temperatures unsuitable for human life are baked in for at least a couple of centuries, even if we stopped the insanity of constantly making things even worse by going on a crash program to stop burning fossil fuels. Yeah, we have to do that. Yeah, if we don't, we are all dead. But, regardless of what we do, it will take a while to catch up to all of us. I write this for those who, though sadly unable to stop the insane suicidal "business model" of the biosphere killing fossil fuel fascists, wish to survive as long as possible.


I wish to stress that, though many confused voices out there do not wish to face this, the one unifying aspect of the present threat 🌡️ to human civilization is Catastrophic Climate Change 🚩, NOT lack of fossil fuel based energy.

Have I got your attention? Good.

Then, look at this graphic from the Video, "Waking the Climate Giant", and ask yourself if it reflects our current situation:


The above graphic is already correct in its prediciton. In 2017 (the emissions data was for the years 2014, 2015 and 2016) the greenhouse gas emissions INCREASED. Consequently, there is a very, very high probability that the collapse of our civilization will occur much sooner than we think.

Some humans in different parts of the globe are already well acquainted with living on the edge of collapse. I am absolutely certain that many jungle tribes in Brazil, Ecuador and Peru, RIGHT NOW, live on the edge of starvation in a constant state of collapse, while most of the city dwellers nearby live not much better, but still avoid starvation.

My point in this quixotic exercise in hard truth logic is that the lack of food in the past has eventually triggered revolutions, not collapse of the civilization. It is after the social upheaval, when no solution to the lack of food problem is found, such as is in LONG WARS of aggression or extended harsh climate conditions, that collapse ensues.

People tend to fear other people more than deleterious climate. People can certainly be a threat to your life and stuff, but Catastrophic Climate Change is a much greater threat to everything you hold dear, past, present and future.

Catastrophic Climate Change is worse than a long war of aggression because it will last much longer than a human lifetime.

The climate change problem is intractable, but I believe some WILL beat it for maybe a century or so. For example, there are places near the equator with very high mountains. A world heated plus 4° C by around 2060, despite happy talk by certain wishful thinkers, will kill off most humans. BUT, in high mountains, the tree line will move way up while the temperature becomes temperate, even at the Equator. I stress the equator, though RE (Reverse Engineer internet handle - Joe Smith) will did vigorously disagree, because human civilization in a low food environment with over acidified seas (no easy fish or whales or seals to catch = NO ESKIMOS) with poor available sunlight is not a recipe for long term survival, even if the temperature is mild enough to grow crops.

There is a mountain in Ecuador (Chimborazo) about 20,000 feet high that will, because of the horrendously altered atmosphere, get plenty of rain even at high altitudes. There are several other candidates in the HIGH tropics around the world. This will enable the folks living there to grow enough food, thanks to an ABUNDANCE of sunlight all year round, with low tech methods. They just might be able to ride out the fossil fuel burning stupidity that dooms most of human civilization.

The tree line, the highest point on a mountain that trees will grow, varies between 5,000 feet and up to 13,000 feet above sea level. It varies so much mainly because of wind chill, though the length of the summer growing season is important as well. A tree in relatively mild wind conditions can grow all the way up to the maximum recorded tree line altitude at temperatures well below freezing (down to minus 40° F =- 40° C  ;D), provided its roots can get enough water.

Trees can have liquid water in their tracheal elements at such low temperatures because of a wonderful combination of two factors. The first is that the 'pumping' mechanism of a tree is more a sucking mechanism than a pumping mechanism. The transpiration of water vapor into the atmosphere at the branch leaf pores creates negative pressure on the water molecules inside the tree (as long as the tracheal elements vacuum is not breached by air intrusion).

Water molecules, as they travel up the inside of tree, aided by capillary action as well as transpiration, can be stretched by as much as negative 25 atmospheres! That is how those Giant Sequoias can move up to a 130 gallons of water a day over a 100 feet vertically.

The second factor is that the water in the tracheal elements, in addition to being thoroughly stretched, is extremely pure. This prevents the crystalization of water around non-water substances that would normally trigger freezing at 0° C. But, when the wind is howling during below freezing temperatures, the wind chill can cause the water in the tree to freeze and eventually kill the tree.

The closer to the equator a high mountain tree is located, the longer it's growing season will be. If the growing season is too short, like in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the tree line is only about 4,500 feet.

SNIPPET from an article about the Tree line:

The elevational limit of such suitable summer conditions varies by latitude. In Mexico, for example, treeline occurs somewhere around 13,000 feet, whereas farther north, in the Tetons, for instance, it occurs lower, at approximately 10,000 feet. Again, it’s a ragged line that may vary by hundreds of feet on any mountain, depending largely on shelter and exposure.

Because the elevational treeline is so closely tied to temperature, many suggest that it could be a particularly sensitive indicator of global climate change. Presumably, rising temperatures would increase the elevation of treeline in any locale, altering forest distribution and potentially ousting rare plant communities – and their inhabitants – that now exist above treeline. Although the specific physiological mechanism of treeline formation is not fully understood, there is growing photographic and other evidence of upward shifts in treelines worldwide.

Why Is the Treeline at a Higher Elevation in the Tetons than in the White Mountains?

A PLUS 4° C (and still going up) atmosphere by around 2060 will enable trees to grow at much higher altitudes. For every degree increase in average global temperature, a corresponding increase in humidity of at least 7% to 13% will take place. We will have an atmosphere expanding vertically, but also with increased humidity. This will accelerate warming because water vapor is a powerful greenhouse gas, but the good news is that high mountain areas will, in some areas, experience more rain higher up.

As noted at the beginning of this article, humans need water and other adequate growing conditions in order to have a viable civilization.

The Catastrophic Climate Changed world of 2060 will be a stormy place. The over acidified, mostly dead oceans, will be full of giant waves. The winds during storms will be off the charts in comparison to what we experience now. High up in the mountains, some type of barrier will need to be erected to keep the fierce winds from destroying the crops.

Finally, those hardy folks who carve out a life in year-round sunny high mountains will have to deal with UV radiation. It is a fact that, at present, the UV levels at around 10,000 ft. and above are particularly hazardous to humans.

However, with the expanded atmosphere in an overheated planet, this is the one area I see as hopeful for humans and animals living on very high mountains. You see, in said expanded atmosphere of plus 4° C and above, the massive increase in humidity will inhibit UV radiaiton.

Nevertheless. Since the equator alpine areas are infamous for high UV radiation, it would be prudent to plan to plant crops that have high UV tolerant foliage, like tubers. Hopefully, the greatly increased humidity will help protect the High Mountain Human Heroes.

SNIPPET:

Everyone is exposed to UV radiation from the sun and an increasing number of people are exposed to artificial sources used in industry, commerce and recreation. Emissions from the sun include visible light, heat and UV radiation.

The UV region covers the wavelength range 100-400 nm and is divided into three bands:

UVA (315-400 nm)
UVB (280-315 nm)
UVC (100-280 nm).

As sunlight passes through the atmosphere, all UVC and approximately 90% of UVB radiation is absorbed by ozone, water vapour, oxygen and carbon dioxide. UVA radiation is less affected by the atmosphere. Therefore, the UV radiation reaching the Earth’s surface is largely composed of UVA with a small UVB component.

Environmental factors that influence the UV level

Sun height—the higher the sun in the sky, the higher the UV radiation level. Thus UV radiation varies with time of day and time of year, with maximum levels occurring when the sun is at its maximum elevation, at around midday (solar noon) during the summer months.

Latitude—the closer the equator, the higher the UV radiation levels.  :(

Cloud cover— UV radiation levels are highest under cloudless skies. Even with cloud cover, UV radiation levels can be high due to the scattering of UV radiation by water molecules and fine particles in the atmosphere. :(

Altitude—at higher altitudes, a thinner atmosphere filters less UV radiation. With every 1000 metres increase in altitude, UV levels increase by 10% to 12%.

http://www.who.int/uv/uv_and_health/en/

What do you think are the chances of human civilization achieving what the following graph says we HAVE TO DO?


There is NO WAY in God's (formerly good) Earth that we can avoid a climate that is almost entirely unsuitable for human life. The above graphic illustrates that. Anyone who thinks that we can do what needs to be done to avoid a PLUS 4° C (and above!) climate that will kill most humans and cause the extinction of thousands of other vertebrate species is engaging in magical thinking.  >:( 

ALL the people near the surface in the tropics will die as crispy critters, period. Those in temperate zones will perish too. Those near the poles who live near the surface will last as long as the food they have lasts. Unless they can maintain some geothermally heated and powered high tech greenhouse CITY that includes PLENTY of crop growing quality light and plenty of water, they will die too.

I might add that those greenhouse giant domes, both near the poles ond on high equatorial mountains, had better be MASSIVELY strong. The storms that will visit them and the wind speeds they will face in a PLUS 4 ° C planet will make any recent hurricane look like a gentle breeze.

In Antarctica, some vegetables have now been (sort of) successfully grown.

SNIPPET:

These Antarctic vegetables were grown without pesticides, daylight, or even soil — but they look absolutely delicious.

Various vegetables which were harvested from the EDEN-ISS greenhouse at the Neumayer-Station III on Antarctica. Image credits: DLR

Germany’s southernmost workplace, the Neumayer-Station III, has harvested the first crop of Antarctic vegetables. Biologists report that they’ve successfully grown 3.6 kilograms (8 pounds) of salad greens, 18 cucumbers and 70 radishes grown inside a high-tech greenhouse, as temperatures around the research station were plummeting to -20 degrees Celsius (-4 Fahrenheit).

The plants were grown without soil, in a closed-water circle. No outside lighting was used — instead, researchers optimized and used an LED system. The carbon dioxide cycle was also closely monitored.

While this is a solid crop already, researchers are expecting much more in the future. The German Aerospace Center DLR, which coordinates the project, said that in the coming months, they expect to harvest 4-5 kilograms of fruit and vegetables a week.

Image shows engineer Paul Zabel with fresh salad he harvested in the EDEN-ISS greenhouse at the Neumayer-Station III on Antarctica. The project with — instead of soil — a closed water cycle, optimized lightning and carbon dioxide levels is a test of what may become part of the nutrition program for astronauts in future moon or Mars missions. Image credits: DLR.

Full article: Scientists harvest first batch of Antarctic vegetables

I am skeptical of the nutritive value of crops grown this way. Though it is good to know they used no pesticdes, the article says nothing about any nutritive mineral analysis of these vegetables, so there is no evidence yet that this is a sustainable crop growing method in a harsh climate changed plus 4 degrees C world.

The article ends with optimistic talk about using the above technique (and similar techniques like they use in the International Space Station) to eventually grow food in spaceships and on other planets.

Within a decade or less, successfully growing food near the poles will be far more important for the survival of humanity here on earth than in space or on some other planet. 

Speaking of activity near the poles to deal with Climate Change, Iceland is one of the few places on Earth that are seeing benefits from Climate Change. They may be destined to be one of the outposts of humanity in an increasingly overheated world.

Now they are planting evergreens. But, if we do not reverse the overheating trend, they will eventually have to plant these:🌴 :P



Vikings cleared the forests, now Iceland is bringing them back

Even with laudable efforts like the forest planting project in Iceland, humanity needs to do far, far more to survive.


We will need gigantic, and I mean "miles in diameter" GIGANTIC, greenhouses to get a reasonable amount of food grown near the poles and/or on the equatorial mountains.

The giant greenhouse domes situated in the high equatorial mountains would have to be something like the U.K. Eden Project Domes, but way up high on a mountain. In England they have an enclosed rainforest in these domes. They need to be ten or twenty times bigger for an equatorial alpine community. If the post collapse alpine community could control the atmospheric pressure in the giant domes, more UV protection is guaranteed and more comfortable living for humans too.


For those still worried about fellow humans trying to kill you for your stuff, remember that high mountains are a natural defense against warlike humans during the initial phases of the Climate Change Caused Collapse. The heat lower down will eliminate any human threat after a couple of decades. 



STOP thinking you are going to live on a planet that has the remotest resemblance to the one you have lived in all your life. THAT is WISHFUL THINKING! The LEAST of your problems is going to be worrying about the "zombie" humans getting your stuff.


« Last Edit: August 05, 2023, 07:20:17 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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Re: Future Earth
« Reply #19 on: November 16, 2022, 11:51:38 am »
NOVEMBER 15, 2022 by BILL MCKIBBEN 🌞✨


Someday the climate fight will be dull--and that's how we'll know we're winning

Egypt Dispatch 5: Looking back at America's elections from Sharm el Sheikh

Let us stipulate that climate change shouldn’t be a politically polarizing issue—physics has assigned us a straightforward task, which is to stop burning fossil fuel, and given us a tight timeline. As a world, we should be hard at work; it would be a hard task, but—especially if we’d started when we got our first warnings—well within our powers as a species.

Let us further stipulate that it clearly is a politically polarizing issue, probably the biggest of all time, because power and money are at stake, and the people who possess them under the current system (Exxon, Putin, the Koch Brothers) will do anything they can think of to avoid losing those possessions. That’s what this COP and all the others are really about: an effort to somehow overcome, or work around, that power. There are 636 registered fossil fuel lobbyists on hand here, and the biggest single delegation is from the United Arab Emirates; it’s quite possible that more of the people here want to keep the current order than undermine it.

This is a fighting newsletter. The fight is in its decisive stages, and the next years will tell, so this comes to you for free. But if you can afford the modest monthly subscription without financial hardship, you’ll help keep it coming .

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Because the climate movement was decisively losing this fight, we needed to make it dramatic—we needed, say, to go to jail. That was absurd, at some level—why should someone have go to jail on behalf of physics? But changing the narrative requires getting people’s attention. That’s why my dear friend Svitlana Romanko got carried out of a room at the Egypt talks today—she’s the Ukrainian climate activist fighting fossil-fueled Russian fascism, and she refused to sit silently while Russian ‘diplomats’ told their lies. “I am glad that I named evil by name and I was able to tell them what all Ukrainians would like to tell them if they were here,” she said. “You are a terrorist state, you are genociding, torturing and killing us daily for nine months, your oil and gas are killing us. You are war criminals, you must not be here but in international court.”

But our job is not forever and just to make trouble; eventually, when we start to win, it’s the other side that will need to get desperate. And slowly, too slowly, it’s happening. This fall’s elections are mnore important than anything that’s happening here at Sharm el Sheikh, I think—the one in Brazil last month, and the ones across America last week, and the one that could come in Georgia early next month.

These elections were not, for the most part, fought on climate change, which in itself is something of an accomplishment. In the U.S., Biden’s main legislative accomplishment was the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which is mostly a climate bill, and arguably the most expensive new attempt by the federal government to proactively tackle a problem since the LBJ years. So the fact that the GOP didn’t go after it indicates they understood its basic popularity.

But the news is better than that. Exit polling indicates that for voters considered climate change the second most important issue facing the country—actually, it tied with abortion, and came in ahead of crime, despite the fact that those issues were the centerpieces of Democratic and Republican strategy. (The first place issue, of course, was “economy/jobs”, which is pretty much always the first place issue, because everyone needs a job and has to live in the economy.) A tenth of the populace now understands that climate counts more than anything else—which means that a much larger percentage understands that it counts an awful lot. In any event, a tenth is a big share. And that tenth is obviously concentrated among younger voters—who turned out in larger than expected numbers, and helped turn the election from a toxic red tide into something we can build on.

Still, the political fight continues, and will always continue as long as serious money and power continue to be at stake. Herschel Walker and Raphael Warnock come next, in a Georgia runoff in early December. It’s a crazy battle—between the man who may be the single most articulate U.S. Senator, and the one who would definitely be the least. Walker seems slightly fixated on climate change—early on he explained that we send “good air” to China so…nevermind. This week he added to his legend with a stirring defense of “gas guzzlers,” which is not what their defenders usually call them, but he was saying the noisy part out loud. Even Walker, however, understands there must be some problem associated with the internal combustion engine, so he added—mysteriously—”we got the good emissions under those cars.” And he said (and again, note the concession to some kind of reality) “If we was ready for the green agenda, I'd raise my hand right now. But we're not ready right now.”

This has become the remaining defense of the  fossil fuel industry—’it would be good to get rid of us, but we can’t yet, so 😈 wait a while.’ It’s dangerous nonsense, but it does illustrate how far we’ve moved the reality needle. Raphael Warnock, meanwhile, is not particularly noted as a climate warrior (he’s got other issues where he’s leading) but he too illustrates how far we’ve come: one of his big boasts headed into the runoff is that he helped land a big new battery plant near Augusta. And here’s how he spoke about it: “Georgia is open for business, and today’s announcement is good news for both Georgia’s growing clean energy economy and Augusta workers.  I was proud to fight for and help secure the $178 million needed for this new facility, and I’ll continue to work closely with businesses looking to start or expand in Georgia to secure critical investments that will help create local, good-paying jobs.” Which is not the way I’d describe it—I’d go on and on about the low-carbon future or some such, which is why I’d lose the Georgia elections by a mile. (Also I live in Vermont). But it’s the right way for him to speak about it, because it’s almost dull.

In other words, Democrats have begun to normalize the transition we need to make, to assimilate it into the standard language of politics, and Republicans increasingly look like…morons. Walker actually seems quite dumb, but in this case it’s not his fault; he’s stuck by virtue of his party defending something stupid (“gas guzzlers”). It’s a harder and harder case to make with each passing quarter, because more and more people can read the future. Earlier this year the University of Georgia (whose football glory represents Walker’s main claim on voters) announced a big new center focused on “electric mobility.” “Developments in battery technology, the growth in electric vehicle sales, and the transition to renewable energy are a trifecta for significant societal and economic change delivered by higher levels of energy efficiency and cheaper electricity,” said Regents Professor Richard Watson. “UGA is poised to help Georgia switch on a new future.” The trustees of the University of Georgia are probably not particularly liberal, but they understand about $178 million battery factories.

This normalization is crucial, and ongoing. Another important development along these same lines yesterday, as Ben Jealous was named the new head of America’s biggest environmental group, the Sierra Club. The fossil fuel industry has worked long and hard to try and carve away Black voters and politicians, with donations and with common-man rhetoric. (If you’ve never read the NAACP’s reports on this “fossil fuel foolery", they’re enlightening). But Black Americans remain among the staunchest supporters of action on climate change (because they are among its prominent victims). And now this tie will grow even stronger: Jealous, the former head of the biggest civil rights group in America (the NAACP), is going to lead its biggest green group. This represents a formidable kind of influence. (Jealous is also just good at what he does).

I don’t know if we can address the climate crisis in time; I do know it depends on this political evolution continuing, and speeding up. We have to break the effective power of the fossil fuel industry; it’s going to be close. We’ll need to continue being dramatic, because for now they’re still ahead. But we also need to be dull. Hail Mary passes, but also four-yards-in-a-cloud of dust grind-it-out running game. We’re starting to put points on the board.
« Last Edit: November 16, 2022, 11:56:17 am by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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Re: Future Earth
« Reply #20 on: January 30, 2023, 03:14:44 pm »
 January 30, 2015, 07:53:34 pm
Quote
JD Here's something for you to ponder:
Wrong Brothers at Kitty Hawk to Mach 1: 1903 to 1955
Mach 1 to a space station along with a few Newtonian physics sling shot maneuvers to send probes hither and yon: 1955-2015...

I DON'T THINK SO. WHERE do you get the idea that technological progress SLOWED DOWN after Mach 1? I think it didn't "slow down". I think it has ACCELLERATED. But 🦖 fossil fuel profits had to be 😈 preserved. It's REALLY that simple, JD.

People here (Doomstead Diner) talk about how the elite are going to off the "useless eaters" with all kinds of devilish plans. ::) RE is RIGHT to claim we don't DO separate biospheres well.

They tried that in a Mars Colony setup right here on earth. ALL the atmosphere, water, soil, plants, people and so on were self contained in large concrete and glass building.

But they forgot to figure in the fact that fresh concrete absorbs a lot oxygen (concrete cures for DECADES after it first sets, absorbing oxygen at lesser and lesser rates as it cures).

Guess what happened to the scientists in the Mars colony biome?  Remember, these are dedicated, brilliant individuals. 

They began to have arguments. They formed cliques and began increasingly hostile exchanges and hate filled and hysterical arguments and accusations. To avoid violence the experiment had to be aborted for a brief period.

As soon as the scientists exited the biome, they immediately recovered their civilized demeanor and were thoroughly chagrined by their video taped descent into sniping and false accusations of research sabotaging.

THEN they found that the oxygen level when the paranoia and sniping began had dropped below 18% because the concrete was sucking it up. The plants could not keep up. People were NOT getting headaches like typical anoxia victims get that would have warned them. No the instrumentation in the biome DID NOT register dangerous oxygen levels for some reason - it's in the article - they fixed it  (I've been there as a pilot - When you've got a headache and you are above 10,000 feet without on board oxygen, you KNOW why and you descend).

So, it is EASY to turn us into a bunch a of even more barbaric and insane bastards than we are RIGHT NOW! :o  I can take every single person here and have them ready to go to war with anybody else over imagined paranoia by simply lowering the oxygen from the normal (about 21%) to 18% or lower (without telling them about it, OF COURSE 😈. They won't notice! They'll just turn into savages and eventually start murdering each other!

So the "elite" doesn't need to gas us with hydrogen sulfide or any other expensive plan. ALL THEY NEED TO DO is keep burning those 🦖 fossil fuels full tilt while ☠️ reducing the photosynthetic phytoplankton and flora through heated oceans and desertification. It's SIMPLE! It's also a GREAT BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY!

When word gets out that, unfortunately , the 21% we are used to isn't "holding", SOMEBODY is going to make a LOT OF MONEY selling bottled oxygen...


I'll dig up the article if you want. It's all DOCUMENTED. This is not hyperbole or scare mongering. Our intelligence, morality and civilized demeanor vanishes when we go below around 18% oxygen in the air we breathe, period. I suppose our body senses something isn't right and our brain proceeds to look for someone to blame for it. And that's with oxygen. There are other QUITE COMMON atmospheric gasses than bring about all sorts of "interesting" (depending upon your point of view) responses from Homo SAPS. We are VERY fragile.


"As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come." Proverbs 26:2
« Last Edit: January 30, 2023, 03:46:26 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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RADIO ECOSHOCK

February 15, 2023

Mass Extinction with Apocalyptic Economics
https://www.ecoshock.org/2023/02/mass-extinction-with-apocalyptic-economics.html

AGelbert NOTE: In the second half of the Radio Ecoshock Podcast, Keen explains in the interview that wind transporting heat from the low-latitudes to the high-latitudes would destroy the Ozone layer in less than a decade, ending human civilization

STEVE KEEN: INSANE ECONOMICS TAKES US TO RUIN

An Ecoshock listener wrote: “you have got to hear this!” We all need to hear Australian economist Steve Keen explain why corporations and governments are operating on crazy economic theories about the impacts of climate change.

I remember when the Garnaut Climate Change Review was released in Australia, back in 2008. Garnaut talked about the cost to Gross Domestic Production of a 3 to 4 degree C warming. It would be costly, but business would go on as usual he thought.

Starting in the 1990’s, Yale economist William Nordhaus started us down this dangerous track. Without a real basis in science, Nordhaus assured the world that 2 degrees C of warming would be the upper “safe” limit. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change went along with that for a couple of decades, even as their own scientists raised more and more damages coming not just at 1.5 degrees C, but right now at just over 1 degree warming.

But I’ve read plenty of business-oriented reports suggesting 3 or 4 degrees C. warming is no big deal. Now we know that would be disastrous, likely a civilization-ending event. Business does not go on. Maybe humans do not go on, at least not billions of us.

Steven Keen blows up the Nordhaus theology and all the fellow-travelers who operate as climate minimizers, sometimes with fossil fuel related funding. Keen was an associate professor of economics at University of Western Sydney. He became Head of Economics at at Kingston University in London, and now does independent research. This man knows economics, and he is 📢🚨 blowing the whistle.

Keen tells us: it’s not just corruption. It is just what economists believe. They can become a zealot for capitalism. They reject any opposition or criticism. William Nordhaus said 85% of workers will not be affected by climate because they work indoors, in controlled environments.

By their formula, 6 degrees C of warming leads to an 8% fall in GDP. Keen calls it crazy. He is working on a research project on this right now.“ It’s just nonsense”.
Keen thinks only a major disaster will bring any change. Until the public is freaked out, they will not accept mandated changes to their lifestyles. Politicians cannot get too far ahead of that. To have a chance to maintain a civilization, he says we need to have some reserves, like grain stored in case of disaster, and a ration-based economy, so everyone gets a share. We need a World War Two mentality to deal with the real breakdown of nature.

In the second half of this show, you hear “Exposing Apocalyptic Economics with Steve Keen” as posted January 30, 2023 by theAnalysis.news. My thanks for permission to rebroadcast.

You can listen to Steve Keen and host Colin Anthes 🔊 here.

WARMING COULD CHANGE THE WHOLE ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION SYSTEM (which leads to a very different ☠️ planet…)

During the interview, Keen points to a hair-raising possibility: the entire atmospheric circulation system could shift during global warming. The result would be a band of deserts around the mid-latitudes (like America, China, and Europe) as we now find in the Middle East. High amounts of rain and snow would pour down at both Poles.

This is well explained in this piece from Harvard research:

“The atmosphere transports heat throughout the globe extremely well, but present-day atmospheric characteristics prevent heat from being carried directly from the equator to the poles. Currently, there are three distinct wind cells – Hadley Cells, Ferrell Cells, and Polar Cells – that divide the troposphere into regions of essentially closed wind circulations. In this arrangement, heat from the equator generally sinks around 30° latitude where the Hadley Cells end. As a result, the warmest air does not reach the poles.

If atmospheric dynamics were different, however, it is plausible that one large overturning circulation per hemisphere could exist and that wind from the low-latitudes could transport heat to the high-latitudes. As an explanation for equable climates, Brian Farrell presented this idea in 1990 and advocated that during equable climates, the Hadley Cells extended from the equator to the poles (Farrell, 1990).”

The 1990 Farrell paper is called “Equable Climate Dynamics”.

You can follow up with this 2014 Open Access paper: Weakening of the global atmospheric circulation with global warming.
https://www.ecoshock.org/2023/02/mass-extinction-with-apocalyptic-economics.html

For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator. 1st Peter 4:17-19

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. -- 2nd Peter 3:10


The heart of the prudent getteth knowledge; and the ear of the wise seeketh knowledge. -- Proverbs 18:15
« Last Edit: February 17, 2023, 08:10:52 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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MARCH 29, 2023 By BILL MCKIBBEN

Regular Old Intelligence is Sufficient--Even Lovely

Thinking through the other possible apocalypse

Precisely twenty years ago, I published a book called “Enough” that outlined my fears about artificial intelligence and its companion technologies like advanced robotics and human genetic engineering. It did well enough, even coming out in a number of foreign editions (it turns out that the German for ‘enough’ is the delightful ‘genug.’) But like most warnings it came too early; indeed, warnings generally come too early until they are too late.

Now, however, we may be in a brief window when we have ears to hear. And so I’m going to take a day off from fretting about the thermometer to talk about this other peril—though, as we shall see, they’re related.

This newsletter, I hope, is helpful. It’s free so that all can read, but if you can afford the modest subscription without undue hardship, that’s very kind of you.

The cascading releases of chatbots over the last few months—the GPT family, Bing, Bard—have made it clear that some powerful new force is entering our world. These devices, ‘large language models’ trained by exposure to vast swaths of the internet, have cheerfully explained to people how to build explosives and how to secretly buy guns; they’ve tried to break up marriages and conspired to figure out how to escape the safeguards with which they’ve been equipped. Much of our interaction with them so far has been trivial—we’ve taught them tricks, as if they were pets, and asked them to write limericks. Experts have raised reasonable questions about whether they’re as yet sentient—they work, after all, like giant auto-correction devices, working their magic by guessing what word should come next.

There’s much about them we don’t understand—see Sue Halpern’s excellent essay in the New Yorker today, which points out how opaque the companies marketing these new entities have been. And as is usually the case, most commentary is glib: Tom Friedman has pronounced it “Promethean,” pointing out brightly that it could be “a tool or a weapon.”

But there’s clearly an undercurrent of profound unease. Friedman’s Times colleague, Ezra Klein, has done some of the most dedicated reporting on the topic since he moved to the Bay Area a few years ago, talking with many of the people creating this new technology.

He has two key findings, I think: one is that the people building these systems have only a limited sense of what’s actually happening inside the black box—the bot is doing endless calculations instantaneously, but not in a way even their inventors can actually follow

And second, the people inventing them think they are potentially incredibly dangerous: ten percent of them, in fact, think they might extinguish the human species. They don’t know exactly how, but think Sorcerer’s Apprentice (or google ‘paper clip maximizer.’) 

Taken together, those two things give rise to an obvious question, one Klein has asked: “’If you think calamity so possible, why do this at all?’ Different people have different things to say, but after a few pushes, I find they often answer from something that sounds like the A.I.’s perspective. Many — not all, but enough that I feel comfortable in this characterization —
feel that they have a responsibility to usher this new form of intelligence into the world.”

That is, it seems to me, a dumb answer from smart people—the answer not of people who have thought hard about ethics or even 💣 outcomes, but the answer that would be supplied by a kind of cultist. (Probably the kind with stock options). Still, it does go, fairly neatly, with the default modern assumption that if we can do something we should do it, which is what I want to talk about. The question that I think very few have bothered to answer is, why?

When you read accounts of AI’s usefulness, the example that comes up most often is something called ‘protein folding.’ One pundit after another explains that an AI program called Deep Mind worked far faster than scientists doing experiments to uncover the basic structure of all the different proteins, which will allow quicker drug development. It’s regarded as ipso facto better because it’s faster, and hence—implicitly—worth taking the risks that come with AI.

But why? The sun won’t blow up for a few billion years, meaning that if we don’t manage to drive ourselves to extinction, we’ve got all the time in the world. If it takes a generation or two for normal intelligence to come up with the structure of all the proteins, some people may die because a drug isn’t developed in time for their particular disease, but erring on the side of avoiding extinction seems mathematically sound. We’ve actually managed a great deal of scientific advance—maybe more than our societies can easily handle—without AI. What’s the rush?

The other challenge that people cite, over and over again, to justify running the risks of AI is to “combat climate change,” which everyone reading this newsletter knows a bit about. As it happens, regular old intelligence has already give us most of what we need: engineers have cut the cost of solar power and windpower and the batteries to store the energy they produce so dramatically that they’re now the cheapest power on earth. We don’t actually need artificial intelligence in this case; we need natural compassion, so that we work with the necessary speed to deploy these technologies.

Beyond those, the cases become trivial, or worse. Here’s Klein, playing devil’s advocate: “I wish that I could draw things I can't. It's neat for me, that I can tell the computer what to draw and it will draw. It allows me to play around in art in a way I couldn't before.” Actually, though, playing Etch-a-Sketch with Dall-E, the drawing bot, isn’t really likely to produce deep satisfaction: what we know about human creativity is that is that for us to really lose ourselves we don’t need to be good at something, we just have to be at the limit of whatever our ability is. It’s in the struggle that we achieve the kind of bliss that comes with art, or chess, or whatever. Making it easier actually lessens the pleasure: the athletic equivalent of artificial intelligence is artificial strength or artificial endurance, achieved with various drugs. But as we’ve thought about them, we’ve decided that undermines the whole point of the enterprise. Running a marathon as fast as you can is the point; if finishing the distance as fast as possible was the goal, you could just drive a car.

All of this is a way of saying something we don’t say as often as we should: humans are good enough. We don’t require improvement. We can solve the challenges we face, as humans. It may take us longer than if we can employ some “new form of intelligence,” but slow and steady is the whole point of the race. Unless, of course, you’re trying to make money, in which case “first-mover advantage” is the point. But that’s only useful for a tiny group of shareholders, not for the rest of us.

Allowing that we’re already good enough—indeed that our limitations are intrinsic to us, define us, and make us human—should guide us towards trying to shut down this technology before it does deep damage. A letter began circulating today, signed by dozens of AI professors and futurist thinkers like Yuval Harari: It calls on “all AI labs to immediately pause for at least six months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.” Some have challenged the motives of the signatories, and the fact that Elon Musk is backing it should either give you pause or remind you of an adage about stopped clocks. But slowing down all this work, by whatever peaceful means we can, seems sane to me. GPT-4 is in a remarkable rush: Friedman exults about how it produces mediocre poetry in a flash, and then translates it into Mandarin in another flash (mediocre Mandarin would be my guess). But what’s the hurry? We’re not short of good poetry—we’ve got far more of it than people read already, in any language.

And here’s the thing: pausing, slowing down, stopping calls on the one human gift shared by no other creature, and perhaps by no machine. We are the animal that can, if we want to, decide not to do something we’re capable of doing. In individual terms, that ability forms the core of our ethical and religious systems; in societal terms it’s been crucial as technology has developed over the last century. We’ve, so far, reined in nuclear and biological weapons, designer babies, and a few other maximally dangerous new inventions. It’s time to say do it again, and fast—faster than the next iteration of this tech.

We’re good at building things, but so are beavers and bees. Human beings are fascinating precisely because we can also not build things. It may be our highest calling.
https://open.substack.com/pub/billmckibben/p/regular-old-intelligence-is-sufficient

AGelbert COMMENT: The problem with AI has absolutely nothing to do with AI and everything to do with the ideology of the programmers that write the iterative algorithms within the AI. AI is actually a misnomer, because AI never has, and never will, be a form of "thinking". AI has always been a way to boost the speed of machine decision(s) on what to do when a given cascade of electronic inputs from sensors flags a need for some sort of action, or when there is a need to plow through some gigantic data base to gather stats on some kind of data.
 
Because of the 'greed is good' based assumption that, as long as pecuniary gain is the result of AI software decisions, regardless of whether they result in biosphere degradation, the "Intelligence" attributed to AI is also a misnomer. In a reality based world, ANY decision to profit over planet cannot, by any stretch of the Social Darwinist wishful thinking imagination, be considered "intelligent".

AI will ALWAYS reflect the ideology of the programmers that wrote the iterative algorithms. IF said ideology is the morally bankrupt, profit over people and planet, Social Darwinist Ideology, then AI will put this evil on steroids because AI just does, whatever it does, faster. IF, on the other hand, the ideology of the programmers is "Depart From Evil (i.e. DO NO direct or indirect HARM!), Do Good, Seek Peace, AND Pursue It", AI will actually help humanity. And YES, you CAN have an ETHICS BASED BUSINESS that is PROFITABLE. In a reality based, irrefutable biosphere math world, that would be the ONLY type of business model that is not subject ot criminal prosecution. Unfortunately for us, too many members in good standing of TPTB are Social Darwinists. Like Neo-Darwinists, NONE OF THEM are reality based.

New Peer-Reviewed Paper Challenges Neo-Darwinism

Finally, let me warn all those people out there that are bombarded with all this hype about AI doing "all these great things for us". AI is a TOOL. TPTB are NOT interested in using that TOOL to make the world a "better, safer and healthier place", no matter what they claim. The proof of that is that you have NEVER HEARD ONE WORD about using AI to run the Courts! Now why do you suppose they don't want AI in there? Isn't it "faster"? Isn't it "good"? Isn't it "smart"? Isn't it "ethical"? If AI is such a "big benefit to society", why isn't it used to make our Criminal "Justice" System REALLY JUST?

I'm glad you ;) asked. AI is not allowed in the Courts because AI is CONSISTENT in whatever, good or evil, it does. 

   THINK, people!
« Last Edit: March 30, 2023, 07:10:10 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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Global Warming: The 😈🐘🦕🦖🐍 Decade We Lost Earth



Simon Clark 470K subscribers 118,227 views  Mar 17, 2023
The story of how one man cost us a world with less than 2°C of warming in 1989. To try everything Brilliant has to offer—free—for a full 30 days, visit https://www.brilliant.org/simonclark. The first 200 of you will get 20% off Brilliant's annual premium subscription.

This is a follow-up video to Global Warming: An Inconvenient History, going into much more detail of events from 1979 to 1989. In particular this is the story of the "villain" of climate change, a man you've likely never heard of before. But is that a fair description? You be the judge.

Previous video on the Inconvenient History of Global Warming:   

MAIN SOURCES
Merchants of Doubt: https://geni.us/merchantsofdoubt

Losing Earth: https://geni.us/losingearth

INSPIRATION
BobbyBroccoli:   
 / @bobbybroccoli 
Jon Bois:   
 • Jon Bois 

You can support the channel by becoming a patron at http://www.patreon.com/simonoxfphys

--------- II ---------

More about me https://www.simonoxfphys.com/

--------- II ---------

Music by Epidemic Sound: http://epidemicsound.com
Some stock footage courtesy of Getty.
Directed and edited by Luke Negus.

This video essay in the style of Jon Bois and BobbyBroccoli is about the history of climate change, and how John Sununu is the villain of the story, preventing a binding agreement on carbon emissions at the Noordwijk conference of 1989. Who is to blame for climate change? Who caused global warming? Why was John Sununu so important? These questions and more are answered in this video about the history of science and global warming.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2023, 05:15:22 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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CleanTechnica

July 27, 2023 by Steve Hanley

The Collapse Of The Gulf Stream — An Epitaph For A 🥵 Dying Planet

The most recent study says the Gulf Stream may shut down as early as 2025, with devastating climate effects for the entire world.

SNIPPET:

What happens when the Gulf Stream collapses? According to The Guardian, it will severely disrupt the rains that billions of people depend on for food in India, South America, and West Africa. It will increase storms and lower temperatures in Europe. It will lead to rising sea levels on the east coast of North America and further endanger both the Amazon rain forest and Antarctic ice sheets. “I think we should be very worried,” says Peter Ditlevsen. “This would be a very, very large change. The AMOC has not been shut off for 12,000 years.”

The Gulf Stream collapsed and restarted repeatedly during the ice ages that occurred from 115,000 to 12,000 years ago. It is one of the climate tipping points scientists are most concerned about as global temperatures continue to rise.

The new study, published July 25 in the journal Nature Communications, used sea surface temperature data stretching back to 1870 as a proxy for the change in strength of the Gulf Stream over time. They compared the date to the path seen in systems that are approaching a particular type of crossover point called a “saddle-node bifurcation.” We would call it a “tipping point.”

The data fit that model “surprisingly well,” Ditlevsen said.

Full article:
https://cleantechnica.com/2023/07/27/the-collapse-of-the-gulf-stream-an-epitaph-for-a-dying-planet/

AGelbert COMMENT (there are more at the article comments area): This article should be SHOUTED FROM THE ROOFTOPS!

But 😞, the Hydrocarbon Hellspawn and their bought and paid for morally bankrupt lackeys in government, the media AND Wall Street will, as Steve Hanley asserts, pretend AMOC decay to nothing is ... (see below):



Readings for reality based people:

Quote
"When a mystery is complicated, the French tell us to look for a woman; but in sleuthing among corporations, we found it was much better to look for the chief accountant." -- James Stewart Martin -- ALL HONORABLE MEN

Fascists, like termites, are able organizers, and thoroughly attached to their way of life.  -- ALL HONORABLE MEN by James Stewart Martin

Quote
"The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by 🦕🦖 😈 evil men." - Plato

To say that Fossil Fuel Industry 🦕🦖 😈 disinformation isn’t the whole story is to knock down a straw man: the fact remains that it is a major--and perhaps the most important--part of the story.

"We do not need a 'new' business model for energy because we never had one. What we need, if we wish to avoid extinction, is to plug the environmental and equity costs of energy production and use into our planning and thinking. " -- A.G. Gelbert

What it Means to be Responsible - Reflections on Our Responsibility for the Future  by Theresa Morris, State University of New York at New Paltz

Quote
There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love. Washington Irving

How to Survive When, NOT IF, Catastrophic Climate Change Makes Earth's Climate Unsuitable For Humans

NOTE: THIS is what the Hydrocarbon Hellspawn will soon be pushing (see graphic below). You are warned: A Space Mirror will NOT work. WHY? Because, as the credentialed scientists that have studied this in detail point out, reducing the amount of incoming solar radiation (i.e. insolation) will not be able to counteract the runaway greenhouse effect from too much CO2, CH4 AND H2O in vapor form.

So, when you hear, about 5 or six years from now, what a "great solution" to Catastrophic Global Heating a Space Mirror costing 100's of trillions 😵 of global economy crushing dollars is from our "😇 loyal servants" in the 😈 Hydrocarbon fuels "industry", don't fall for that 📢 LIE.


The following is NOT optional if TPTB REPENT of their suicidally stupid and greedy ways and EMBRACE reality based Climate Remediaton and Repair:
 Economist Steve Keen: "We need a World War Two mentality to deal with the real breakdown of nature."

« Last Edit: July 28, 2023, 05:16:34 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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More Climate Updates based on Dr. Peter Carter’s Slides
« Reply #25 on: August 01, 2023, 01:42:21 pm »

More Climate Updates based on Dr. Peter Carter’s Slides


Paul Beckwith 27.1K subscribers 4,945 views  Jun 28, 2023
Title speaks for itself. Lots of climate updates, reads like a Stephen King horror novel, but it’s real, and happening on a planet near you.

Please donate at http://PaulBeckwith.net to support my research and videos connecting the dots on abrupt climate system change.
« Last Edit: August 01, 2023, 01:56:19 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

AGelbert

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The Crucial Years

This newsletter goes out free to everyone, thanks to the generosity of those who can afford the pay the modest and voluntary subscription fee. I fear they get nothing extra in return, save my heartfelt thanks.

August 5, 2023 by Bill McKibben
   
'Where Should I Live?'

In a 😬 terrifying summer, a search for safety


SNIPPET:

I’ve given a lot of talks about climate change over the years—that’s part of what organizers do. And I can predict with great confidence the questions that people will raise their hands to ask. “Isn’t the real problem overpopulation?” (Not really; most population growth is coming in places that use incredibly small amounts of energy). Or “what about nuclear?” (keep the plants we’ve got open if we safely can; new ones are incredibly slow and expensive to build, though someday a generation of yet newer ones could conceivably change that; in the meantime rely on the nuclear reactor hanging a safe 93 million miles up in the sky).

I can also predict the questions people will ask later, privately, as the crowd drifts out of the auditorium. One—”is it okay for me to have a kid?”—is almost unbearably painful; no one should have to ask it. The other—”where should I move” —is a (little) less traumatized. And I think it’s on a lot of minds, especially right now, as it becomes clear that many parts of our earth won’t be habitable going forward. As I tried to explain in a recent book, global heating is systematically shrinking the size of the board on which humans can play the game of life.

On the one hand, the question implies a certain self-centered approach to the climate crisis—how do I avoid this huge communal disaster—as well as a certain quanta of 💵 privilege: most people in this world, especially the ones who really need a new home, lack the resources or the legal ability to pick up and move. Still, we each get one life and we need to live it somewhere.

It’s easier, actually, to figure out where not to live. Phoenix may be the fastest-growing big city in the country, but anyone who moves there after this summer is not paying attention: 31 straight days over 110 Fahrenheit, and emergency rooms filled with people who burned themselves by… falling on the sidewalk. But it’s not just obvious places, like the middle of the desert. Last week, at four thousand feet in the Andes the temperature topped 95 degrees—in winter. (Weather historian Maximiliano Herrera described it as “one of the extreme events the world has ever seen”). Or take Athens is one of those places we like to call a cradle of western civilization, but two years ago the city’s “chief heat officer” was already warning it might be becoming uninhabitable; last month, during the longest heatwave in the city’s history, authorities closed the Acropolis to tourists in the afternoons.

Even in places used to dealing with extremes, life is getting harder; India’s monsoon, for instance, is ever more “violent and unpredictable.” In Himachal Pradesh, for instance, “the state has already received 1,200 percent more than its annual rainfall, according to data from the India Meteorological Department. Landslides and floods have claimed nearly 100 lives.” I could muster these kinds of statistics for virtually any place you want to name: a recent study found that every time the temperature rises another tenth of a degree Celsius, another 140 million humans find themselves living outside what scientists call the “human climate niche,” the zone with temperatures where our species flourishes.

But as this summer—with the increase in global temperature at least temporarily topping the 1.5 degrees Celsius that the world swore to avoid in Paris—demonstrates, no place is really safe, even within those supposedly habitable zones.

Full article:
https://open.substack.com/pub/billmckibben/p/where-should-i-live

AGelbert COMMENT:
Without a massive rejection of the "greed is good" Social Darwinist ideology that permeates TPTB, all the progress in neighborliness in Vermont, or anywhere else on this planet, will not amount to a hill of beans on behalf of the survival of our species. WHY? Because the morbidly rich, who are over 80% (or more) responsible for this runaway Catastrophic Climate Change, will continue to ignore absolutely everything you and all the scientists of good will, who have warned us for over 40 years that we need to change our biosphere degrading, suicidal stupidity, say BECAUSE those morbidly rich greedballs REALLY believe they can "survive" while over 90% of our species ☠️ perishes.

I did not write the following for the benefit of the elite greedball corporate polluters, mostly responsible for trashing our biospshere and dooming most of us, but I am certain many of them see it as a "solution":
How to Survive When, NOT IF, Catastrophic Climate Change Makes Earth's Climate Unsuitable For Humans
https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/catastrophic-climate-change/future-earth/msg602/#msg602

I agree with you that no place is really safe, but you will never convince the rich of that. They were totally invested in the Thatcher and Reagan egocentric stupidity long before Thatcher and Reagan, and the other neoliberal legerdemain water carriers (SEE: Milton Friedman) corrupted our government(s) with that morally bankrupt ideology. That said, I continue to be grateful to you for your efforts in warning anyone who can add and subtract objectively in biosphere math of how dire our situation is. Only people with a functioning moral compass will listen. Unfortunately, that excludes most people in the top 1% and politics. It's the Social Darwinism.

August 2, 2023 Shocking satellite images shows melting Greenland ice
 https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/catastrophic-climate-change/128681-global-climate-chaos-976065039/msg1219/#msg1219
« Last Edit: August 05, 2023, 06:49:04 pm by AGelbert »
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12