Even the Pope sides with Futurecurrents

[Ricter]

Earth on Track to Heat Up to Devastating Levels by 2100, Says New Research
Posted by: News Nov 20, 2016 in Science

Climate Change Isn’t as Bad as We Think, It’s Worse Than We Thought.

"It is well-established in the scientific community that increases in atmospheric CO2 levels result in global warming, but the magnitude of the effect may vary depending on average global temperature. A new study, published this week in Science Advances and led by Tobias Friedrich from the International Pacific Research Center (IPRC) at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, concludes that warm climates are more sensitive to changes in CO2 levels than cold climates.

"Increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations cause an imbalance in the Earth’s heat budget: more heat is retained than expelled, which in turn generates global surface warming. Climate sensitivity is a term used to describe the amount of warming expected to result after an increase in the concentration of CO2. This number is traditionally calculated using complex computer models of the climate system, but despite decades of progress, the number is still subject to uncertainty.

A new method for finding climate sensitivity

"The new study, which included scientists from the University of Washington, University at Albany and Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, took a different approach in calculating climate sensitivity—using data from the history of Earth. The researchers examined various reconstructions of past temperatures and CO2 levels to determine how the climate system has responded to previous changes in its energy balance.

“The first step was to reconstruct the history of global mean temperatures for the last 784,000 years, using combined data from marine sediment cores, ice cores and computer simulations covering the last eight glacial cycles,” said Friedrich, a postdoctoral researcher at IPRC.

"The second step involved calculating the Earth’s energy balance for this time period, using estimates of greenhouse gas concentrations extracted from air bubbles in ice cores, and incorporating astronomical factors, known as Milankovitch Cycles, that effect the planetary heat budget.

“Our results imply that the Earth’s sensitivity to variations in atmospheric CO2 increases as the climate warms,” explained Friedrich. “Currently, our planet is in a warm phase—an interglacial period—and the associated increased climate sensitivity needs to be taken into account for future projections of warming induced by human activities.”

Earth’s past helps to inform about its future

"Using these estimates based on Earth’s paleoclimate sensitivity, the authors computed the warming over the next 85 years that could result from a human-induced, business-as-usual greenhouse gas emission scenario. The researchers project that by the year 2100, global temperatures will rise 5.9°C (~10.5°F) above pre-industrial values. This magnitude of warming overlaps with the upper range of estimates presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“Our study also allows us to put our 21st century temperatures into the context of Earth’s history. Paleoclimate data can actually teach us a lot about our future,” said Axel Timmermann, co-author of the study and professor at UH Mānoa.

"The results of the study demonstrate that unabated human-induced greenhouse gas emissions are likely to push Earth’s climate out of the envelope of temperature conditions that have prevailed for the last 784,000 years.

“The only way out is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible,” concluded Friedrich."

Agencies/Canadajournal

http://canadajournal.net/science/ea...ing-levels-2100-says-new-research-53190-2016/

 

[OddTrader]

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

How to destroy a civilization

http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/how-to-destroy-civilization.html

This is the third post of comments on the "NASA-funded paper" (a term that went viral) on societal collapse by Motesharrei, Rivas and Kalnay (MRK). In my first post on the subject, I noted some qualitative features of the model. In the second post I commented on the debate. Here, I am going more in depth in the structure of the model and I think I can show that the results of the MRK model are very general as they can be reproduced with a simpler model. In the end it IS possible to destroy a civilization by spending too much on non-productive infrastructures - such as the Moai of Easter Island (image above from Wikimedia, creative commons license)

Mathematical models may be a lot of fun, but when you use them to project the future of our civilization the results may be a bit unpleasant, to say the least. That was the destiny of the first quantitative model which examined the future of the world system; the well known "The Limits to Growth" study, sponsored by the Club of Rome in 1972. This study showed that if the world's economy was run in a "business as usual" mode, then the only possible result was collapse.

This kind of unpleasant results is a feature of most models which attempt to foresee the long term destiny of our civilization. Not that it should be surprising considering the speed at which we are wasting our natural resources. Nevertheless, whenever these studies are discussed, they generate a lot of criticism and opposition. It is the result, mainly, of emotional reactions: there is nothing to do about that, it is the way the human mind works.

But let's try to put aside emotions and examine a recent study by by Motesharrei, Rivas and Kalnay (MRK) on the destiny of human society that became known as the "NASA funded model" after a note by Nafeez Ahmed. The model has attracted much criticism (as usual) but it is worth looking at it with some attention because it highlights some features of our world which we should try to understand if we still think we can avoid collapsing (or at least mitigate it).

The MRK model has this specific feature: it divides humankind in two categories, "commoners" and "elites", assuming that the first category produces wealth while the second doesn't. In some assumptions, it turns out that the elite can completely drain all the resources available and bring society to an irreversible collapse, even though the resources are renewable and can reform the initial stock.

I think this is a very fundamental point that describes events which have happened in the past. As I noted in a previous post, it may describe how the Roman Empire destroyed itself by excessive military expenses (we may be doing exactly the same). Or, it may describe the collapse of the society of Easter Island, with a lot of natural capital squandered in building useless stone statues while putting a high strain on the available resources (the story may be more complex than this, but its main elements remain the same)

So, it looks like elites (better defined as "non productive elites") may play a fundamental role in the collapse of societies. But how exactly can this be modeled? The MRK model does that using an approach that, as I noted earlier on, is typical of system dynamics, (even though they do not use the term in their paper). Not only that, but it is clearly a model in the style of those "mind sized" models which I had proposed in a paper of mine. The idea of mind sized models is to avoid a bane of most models - of all kinds - that of "creeping overparametrization". Since, as a modeler, you are always accused that your model is too simple, then you tend to add parameters over parameters. The result is not necessarily more realistic, but surely you add more and more uncertainty to your model. Hence, the need for "mind-sized" models (a term that I attribute to Seymour Papert)

So, let me try to rework the MRK model; simplifying it a little and making it more streamlined. Instead of speaking of "elites" and "commoners", let us speak of two different kinds of capital. One kind we call "productive", the other "non productive". Capital is the result of the exploitation of natural resources. "Productive" capital is the kind that leads to further exploitation and growth of the economy; the other kind is capital which is simply wasted.

Let me explain what I mean with the example of Easter Island's economy, productive capital is the agricultural structure, while non-productive capital is the Moai building structure. Agriculture sustains people who cultivate more land. Moai building doesn't do anything like that - it is a pure waste of resources and human labor. In our times, we can say that the productive capital is everything that exploits the available resources, from refineries to fishing boats. The non-productive capital is everything else, from private yachts to battle tanks.

So, can we build a model that includes these elements? Surely we can; here is a version of the model in the style of "mind sized" models. (done using the "Vensim" software).

The model is a streamlined version of the MRK model, where I added a "pollution" stock (missing in the MRK model) and where I simplified the productive cascade structure. It would take some time to explain the model in detail and there is not enough space here. If you want to go more in depth in this subject you can read my paper on "Sustainability" or this post of mine with the rather ambitious title of "peak oil, entropy, and stoic philosophy." But, please, understand that the model, though very simplified, has a logic; what it does is to describe the degradation of the thermodynamic potential of the starting resources (the first box, up left) into a series of capital reservoirs which, eventually, dissipate it in the form of pollution. The "Ks" are constants which determine how fast capital flows from one stock to another. The arrows indicate feedback: we assume here, for instance, that the production of industrial capital is proportional to the size of both the resources and capital stocks.

Now, let's go to the results obtained with some values of the parameters. Let's take r1=0.25, k1=0.03, k2=0.075, k3=0.075, k4=0.05. The initial values of the stocks are, from top to bottom, 5, 0.1, 0.1, 0.01 - you may think of the stock as measured in energy units and the constants in energy/time units. With these assumptions, the model produces the same phenomenon that MRK had observed with their model. That is, you observe the irreversible collapse of the system, even though the natural resources reform, becoming abundant as at the beginning of the cycle.

You see? Producing and non-producing capital (which MRK calls "commoners" and "elites") both go to zero and disappear. But note how the natural resources reform and return to their former value (actually higher than at the beginning!). This civilization had destroyed everything and won't restart to accumulate capital again for a long, long time. Note also how these results depend on the assumption that non-producing capital cannot be turned into producing capital. It is maybe a drastic simplification, but it is also true that turning swords into plowshares is a nice metaphor, but not something easily done.

At this point, let me say that this post is just a sketch. I can tell you that it took me about 15 minutes to write the model; a few hours to test it, and about one hour to write this post. So, these considerations have no pretense to be anything definitive: the model needs to be studied much more in detail. When I have time (and as soon as I can fix my cloning machine) I would like to write a full paper on this subject (anyone among the readers would like to give me a hand? Maybe someone with a better cloning machine than mine?).

Nevertheless, even though these results are only preliminary, I think that the fact that the MRK results are so easily reproducible indicate that there is something there. They seem to have identified a feature that, so far, most models had neglected. Although you can always accumulate capital by exploiting natural resources, the final outcome depends a lot on how you spend it. The model tells us, for instance, that a popular recipe to "save the economy" by "stimulating consumption" may actually destroy it faster.

So, are we destroying ourselves because we are wasting our natural capital in useless tasks, from battle tanks to SUVs? (and lots of bureaucracy and an overblown financial system, too). Are we destroying our civilization by building these useless structures just as the Eastern Islanders destroyed themselves by building Moai statues? It is something we should think about.




Note 1: I think this model has a lot to do with Tainter's idea of the "declining returns of complexity, if we take "complexity" to mean that lots of resources are used to build something that produces nothing. I already tried to model Tainter's idea with a mind-sized model in a previous post of mine and I am sorry to see that Tainter didn't like so much the MRK model. But I think it is mostly a question of different languages being used. If we work on communication, I think it is possible to find a lot of points of contact in the different approaches of modelers and historians.

Note 2. Doesn't this model contradict the conclusions of my book "Extracted", that is that our society is collapsing as a result of the depletion of mineral resources? No, it doesn't. The parameters I used for the run shown here are chosen to reproduce the results of the MRK paper, which assumes that resources are fully renewable. You can run this model in the hypothesis that resources are NOT renewable, which is an assumption closer to our situation. In this case, the model will tell you that the system will collapse leaving unused a large fraction of these theoretically exploitable resources; the larger the more overblown the non-productive capital stock will turn out to be. This is something that I think is very relevant to our situation: we saw it happening with the financial crisis of 2008 and the next financial crisis, I believe, will generate again this effect. (h/t Tatiana Yugay)

 

[stu]

incidentally I have tried many times here on ET, but to no effect, to make the point that Einstein was making . A single observation not in agreement with the AGW hypothesis calls the hypothesis into question. Either the observation is wrong, or the hypothesis is wrong. They can't both be right!

The point Einstein makes is indeed it would only take one single scientific observation , and not one has yet shown either (Relativity or AGW) to be wrong.

 

[piezoe]

The point Einstein makes is indeed it would only take one single scientific observation , and not one has yet shown either (Relativity or AGW) to be wrong.

That's where we might disagree.

 

[OddTrader]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_catastrophic_risk

Global warming

Main articles: Effects of global warming, Runaway climate change, and Avoiding dangerous climate change

Global warming refers to the warming caused by human technology since the 19th century or earlier. Global warming reflects abnormal variations to the expected climate within the Earth's atmosphere and subsequent effects on other parts of the Earth. Projections of future climate change suggest further global warming, sea level rise, and an increase in the frequency and severity of some extreme weather events and weather-related disasters. Effects of global warming include loss of biodiversity, stresses to existing food-producing systems, increased spread of known infectious diseases such as malaria, and rapid mutation of microorganisms.

It has been suggested that runaway global warming (runaway climate change) might cause Earth to become searingly hot like Venus. In less extreme scenarios, it could cause the end of civilization as we know it.[37]

 

[nitro]

To Save Coal, Trump Has To Raise Your Gas Bill
3 / 25

Forbes
Get the app
Jeff McMahon, Contributor 8 hrs ago

© Provided by Forbes Media LLC

Republicans and Democrats both have reasons for perpetuating the idea of a ”war on coal,” energy experts said this week, but the decline in coal’s fortunes stems largely from competition with natural gas.

“Both sides have a vested interest in the storyline for their constituencies: one, that the government is putting them out of work, and on the other side, that they’re reducing emissions,” said Steve Cicala, an expert on the economics of regulation and professor at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. “And their respective constituencies love that story whether it’s true or not.”

The story’s not true, Cicala contends, so there’s little a President Donald Trump could do to improve coal’s prospects or to save the jobs of coal miners by ending a government war on coal. To keep his campaign promise to revive the coal industry, he has to find a way raise the price of natural gas.

“The only thing that’s going to help these coal-fired power plants stay open and keep operating is if the price of natural gas goes up,” Cicala said in a released Friday by the Energy Policy Institute of Chicago. “That’s the only thing that’s going to make it economical to be firing up these plants.”

The president has limited power to affect gas prices, especially with most of America’s gas flowing from fracked domestic wells on private property. But the government could promote natural-gas exports, which would bring the domestic price into closer balance with the price in Europe, where gas costs twice as much, and in Japan, where it costs four times as much.

That would raise prices for Americans who use gas to heat their homes, and it might help the coal industry. But it also might not, because renewables, also suppressed by low gas prices, are likely to seize much of the opportunity.

“In that sense,” added environmental economist and EPIC executive director Sam Ori, “it doesn’t really seem like there’s much a President Trump can do to bring back those coal jobs.”

During the campaign, focused on removing bureaucratic and political barriers to oil and gas development in the U.S., citing North Dakota’s fracking revolution as its primary example of American energy potential. But he also promised a coal revival, to “get ready because you’re going to be working your asses off.”...

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/mark...-to-raise-your-gas-bill/ar-AAkwcnz?li=BBnb7Kz

 

[piezoe]

Earth on Track to Heat Up to Devastating Levels by 2100, Says New Research
Posted by: News Nov 20, 2016 in Science

Climate Change Isn’t as Bad as We Think, It’s Worse Than We Thought.

"It is well-established in the scientific community that increases in atmospheric CO2 levels result in global warming, but the magnitude of the effect may vary depending on average global temperature. A new study, published this week in Science Advances and led by Tobias Friedrich from the International Pacific Research Center (IPRC) at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, concludes that warm climates are more sensitive to changes in CO2 levels than cold climates.

"Increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations cause an imbalance in the Earth’s heat budget: more heat is retained than expelled, which in turn generates global surface warming. Climate sensitivity is a term used to describe the amount of warming expected to result after an increase in the concentration of CO2. This number is traditionally calculated using complex computer models of the climate system, but despite decades of progress, the number is still subject to uncertainty.

A new method for finding climate sensitivity

"The new study, which included scientists from the University of Washington, University at Albany and Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, took a different approach in calculating climate sensitivity—using data from the history of Earth. The researchers examined various reconstructions of past temperatures and CO2 levels to determine how the climate system has responded to previous changes in its energy balance.

“The first step was to reconstruct the history of global mean temperatures for the last 784,000 years, using combined data from marine sediment cores, ice cores and computer simulations covering the last eight glacial cycles,” said Friedrich, a postdoctoral researcher at IPRC.

"The second step involved calculating the Earth’s energy balance for this time period, using estimates of greenhouse gas concentrations extracted from air bubbles in ice cores, and incorporating astronomical factors, known as Milankovitch Cycles, that effect the planetary heat budget.

“Our results imply that the Earth’s sensitivity to variations in atmospheric CO2 increases as the climate warms,” explained Friedrich. “Currently, our planet is in a warm phase—an interglacial period—and the associated increased climate sensitivity needs to be taken into account for future projections of warming induced by human activities.”

Earth’s past helps to inform about its future

"Using these estimates based on Earth’s paleoclimate sensitivity, the authors computed the warming over the next 85 years that could result from a human-induced, business-as-usual greenhouse gas emission scenario. The researchers project that by the year 2100, global temperatures will rise 5.9°C (~10.5°F) above pre-industrial values. This magnitude of warming overlaps with the upper range of estimates presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“Our study also allows us to put our 21st century temperatures into the context of Earth’s history. Paleoclimate data can actually teach us a lot about our future,” said Axel Timmermann, co-author of the study and professor at UH Mānoa.

"The results of the study demonstrate that unabated human-induced greenhouse gas emissions are likely to push Earth’s climate out of the envelope of temperature conditions that have prevailed for the last 784,000 years.

“The only way out is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible,” concluded Friedrich."

Agencies/Canadajournal

http://canadajournal.net/science/ea...ing-levels-2100-says-new-research-53190-2016/

No more need for suntan lotion, just get out the barbecue sauce.

 

[stu]

That's where we might disagree.

Relativity deniers say that too.

 

[gwb-trading]

To Save Coal, Trump Has To Raise Your Gas Bill
3 / 25

Forbes
Get the app
Jeff McMahon, Contributor 8 hrs ago

© Provided by Forbes Media LLC

Republicans and Democrats both have reasons for perpetuating the idea of a ”war on coal,” energy experts said this week, but the decline in coal’s fortunes stems largely from competition with natural gas.

“Both sides have a vested interest in the storyline for their constituencies: one, that the government is putting them out of work, and on the other side, that they’re reducing emissions,” said Steve Cicala, an expert on the economics of regulation and professor at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. “And their respective constituencies love that story whether it’s true or not.”

The story’s not true, Cicala contends, so there’s little a President Donald Trump could do to improve coal’s prospects or to save the jobs of coal miners by ending a government war on coal. To keep his campaign promise to revive the coal industry, he has to find a way raise the price of natural gas.

“The only thing that’s going to help these coal-fired power plants stay open and keep operating is if the price of natural gas goes up,” Cicala said in a released Friday by the Energy Policy Institute of Chicago. “That’s the only thing that’s going to make it economical to be firing up these plants.”

The president has limited power to affect gas prices, especially with most of America’s gas flowing from fracked domestic wells on private property. But the government could promote natural-gas exports, which would bring the domestic price into closer balance with the price in Europe, where gas costs twice as much, and in Japan, where it costs four times as much.

That would raise prices for Americans who use gas to heat their homes, and it might help the coal industry. But it also might not, because renewables, also suppressed by low gas prices, are likely to seize much of the opportunity.

“In that sense,” added environmental economist and EPIC executive director Sam Ori, “it doesn’t really seem like there’s much a President Trump can do to bring back those coal jobs.”

During the campaign, focused on removing bureaucratic and political barriers to oil and gas development in the U.S., citing North Dakota’s fracking revolution as its primary example of American energy potential. But he also promised a coal revival, to “get ready because you’re going to be working your asses off.”...

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/mark...-to-raise-your-gas-bill/ar-AAkwcnz?li=BBnb7Kz

This article is completely off in regards to coal. A large portion of mined coal in the U.S. is traditionally used to power electric plants. The majority of electricity in many states, including North Carolina, still comes from coal fired power plants.

The article attempts to make a case that the demise of coal is not due to government policy but simply due to cheap natural gas. This is incorrect.

The closing of coal power plants in our state and many others is directly related to the policies of the Obama administration -- which has been forcing the power companies to close the plants rather than attempt to continue their operation. The most obscene of these policies being one which required the power plants remove hard particle scrubbers installed over the recent decade and replace them with CO2 scrubbers to fight "global warming" which put out even more hard particle pollution -- which of course would ensure the plants violate state/regional hard particle guidelines & would be forced to close down (ignoring that the Obama administration was pushing a pollution policy to increase hard particle pollution in our air to make people sick).

Let's be very clear -- if Trump rolls back the Obama's administration "war on coal" then the mining jobs will be resurrected. The power companies have a huge sunk cost into existing coal-fired power plants over decades, and the the cost of operating these plants under pre-Obama regulations is much less than building new natural gas-fired power plants. It should also be noted that an abundant supply of coal is much closer to North Carolina (in West Virginia) than an abundant supply of natural gas.

It is a farce to claim that the price of natural gas is the sole cause of the demise of the coal industry. Most of the demise of coal in our region was primarily driven by the regulations imposed by the Obama administration.

 

[stu]

Similar then to how the 'war on smoking' causes fewer jobs and demise in the tobacco industry.