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Daniel B.

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #150 on: February 28, 2018, 03:30:12 PM »
How many years with 300 billion worth of natural disasters can the US withstand? What about other countries?

 If the Arctic holds 30 more years, then global warming alone will make years like 2017 happen again and worse. That alone leads to a dimished capacity to withstand and rebuild, that eventually leads to the end of society as we know it. Can we make a transition where loses are minimized and nuclear facilities protected? Sure, but there will be severe loses, specially since we are making the transition blind, without preparation, pretending it is all a hoax or a problem for 2100.

If the Arctic doesn’t hold, then 2017 will look like a walk in the park.  I really don’t want to talk about it in depth, but think of a giant cyclone fed by meandering jet streams, that can last weeks or months in one place. Monsters like that positioned along the east coast of the US could make it impossible to service nuclear facilities. Specially if California is dealing with deadly heat waves and the midwest with a dust bowl. At the same time, Canada and Siberia would probably will probably take turns with wildfires that make the ones over the last few years look like camp fires, and episodes of ferocious, not too cold, snow storms, followed by floods.

Basically, what we are already seeing, but all over the world, every year and whatever new things the transition to a new earth with just one frozen pole will bring.

Obviously if they happened every year, it would be a huge drain.  At the current pace of every dozen years, not so much.  Unless we start to see a change in the near future, this is just fear mongering.

Archimid

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #151 on: February 28, 2018, 04:14:42 PM »

Quote
Obviously if they happened every year, it would be a huge drain
Thats an understatement.  If years like 2017 happenned every year it would be the end of the world as we know it and could easily lead to the meltdown scenario.

Quote
At the current pace of every dozen years, not so much

How do you know that?   We have just enteted that pace, and the evidence indicates that it is only going to get worse. 

Quote
Unless we start to see a change in the near future, this is just fear mongering

I get the feeling that you would have said the same thing 10 years ago. 
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

Daniel B.

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #152 on: February 28, 2018, 05:30:58 PM »

Quote
Obviously if they happened every year, it would be a huge drain
Thats an understatement.  If years like 2017 happenned every year it would be the end of the world as we know it and could easily lead to the meltdown scenario.

No, it would not.  It was less than 10% of the total federal budget.  If necessary, funds could be diverted.

Quote
At the current pace of every dozen years, not so much

How do you know that?   We have just enteted that pace, and the evidence indicates that it is only going to get worse. 

One year does not a trend make.

Quote
Unless we start to see a change in the near future, this is just fear mongering

I get the feeling that you would have said the same thing 10 years ago.

Yes, as not much has change in the interim.

Archimid

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #153 on: February 28, 2018, 06:38:10 PM »
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No, it would not.  It was less than 10% of the total federal budget.  If necessary, funds could be diverted

If 2017 happened every year the collapse of the insurance industry alone would end the world as we know it, let alone the economic contraction and the strain on actual rebuilding resources.

Not that you know if 10% of the budget for disasters is sustainable. You are just assuming that.

Quote
One year does not a trend make.

 Of course not. But the trend that does exist is clear. Climate change is getting worse. Worse years than 2017 are expected.


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Yes, as not much has change in the interim

You have to pardon me, but there has been significant change in so many metrics that I simply can't take this statement serious. There is a huge gap between that statement and my reality.  My logic, knowledge and life experience can not compute it, help me understand it better.

Is there anything that can convince you of the dangers of climate change?  Why are you so confident about the human response to this unprecedented change?
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

Daniel B.

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #154 on: February 28, 2018, 07:33:02 PM »
You seem to be seeing a different trend.



https://theclimatefix.wordpress.com/2018/01/04/weather-disasters-as-proportion-of-global-gdp-1990-2017/

The three highest year in the U.S. have been 2017, 2005, 1993.  What evidence can you present that shows that we have changed from this oscillating trend?

Alexander555

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #155 on: February 28, 2018, 08:10:28 PM »
It depends how you look at it. That 0,5 % of GDP losses in 1995 stands for 165 billion. That 0,4 % of GDP losses in 2017 stands for 360 billion. Thats almost double in nominal terms. And that still seems small. If you look at the numbers from the 3 big hurricans that hit the US in 2017, they were talking about a few hundred billions. So probably there is a difference between losses and insured losses.

gerontocrat

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #156 on: February 28, 2018, 08:27:34 PM »
How many people have abandoned Puerto Rico for good ?
When will the first significant number of climate refugees be abandoning part of the 48 ?
How many residences in the USA are now without flood insurance?

The 300 billion the three hurricanes cost directly are merely part of the true cost.
Trump wants to use just 200 billion of Fed money for infrastructure.

I could go on, but Archimid was there, is there and knows that much has not been fixed and will not be fixed before the next one hits.
"Para a Causa do Povo a Luta Continua!"
"And that's all I'm going to say about that". Forrest Gump
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magnamentis

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #157 on: February 28, 2018, 08:43:39 PM »
How many years with 300 billion worth of natural disasters can the US withstand?

that depends on the definition of "whitstand" and/or which thresholds should be applied.

seen from a objective point of few the "system" including the U.S. or even especially the U.S. is already broke and is kept alive "artificially" / "hangs on the drip"

while naming each ingredient of that drip would reveal nasty details, death tolls in the milliions and destruction of mother nature beyond any chance of repair or unforced turnaround.

the force as opposed to unforced will be total collapse and desaster while i'm not yet sure whether it will be "sudden death" are a long painful downslide.

in case of the U.S. i'm quite positive that the downfall has begun quite a few years ago and is currently accelerating, coming to declared loss of current status in about 150 years from now.

Sleepy

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #158 on: February 28, 2018, 08:49:47 PM »
Omnia mirari, etiam tritissima.
-
Science is a jealous mistress and takes little account of a man's feelings.

El Cid

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #159 on: February 28, 2018, 09:39:42 PM »
Munich Re's numbers always go back to 1980.
https://www.munichre.com/topics-online/en/2018/01/2017-year-in-figures





As noted above, the nominal dollar figures are meaningless. The relevant figure is insurance losses to GDP, and as shown above that is not rising. Climate change so far has not caused big losses for insurers. This will probably only change when global sea levels rise significantly. I do not think that will happen before 2040-50. WHEN sea levels rise by more than 50 cm, we will have serious problems.

gerontocrat

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #160 on: February 28, 2018, 10:00:29 PM »
Quote
The relevant figure is insurance losses to GDP, and as shown above that is not rising. Climate change so far has not caused big losses for insurers.

One figure that is hard to find is the amount of business that insurers have abandoned (or are only continuing because of Government subsidies) because risks are too high. I believe the UK Government has a deal with insures about flood insurance for properties identified at high risk, and the US Federal Government has a travesty called the "National Flood Insurance Fund" that is going bust? Businesses need to be able to make business.

And how many families have been bankrupted and / or lost their home by not having insurance?

"Para a Causa do Povo a Luta Continua!"
"And that's all I'm going to say about that". Forrest Gump
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JimD

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #161 on: February 28, 2018, 10:34:59 PM »
Quote
As noted above, the nominal dollar figures are meaningless. The relevant figure is insurance losses to GDP, and as shown above that is not rising.

This is complete nonsense.  A denialist argument from one of the most well know denialists (Pielke - big surprise).

He is only counting one factor (cherry picking) and there are others to take into account. 

What is important here is the systemic effect.  Cherry picking one metric which makes it seem like things are getting better (insurance losses to GDP) does not tell the whole story.  What is happening to the entire civilizational system is what actually counts.

Here are a few other factors left out.

Insurance premiums have risen thus moving cost from insurers to their customers.

Insurance coverage for weather disasters has been dramatically lowered thus reducing costs to insurers. (and they raised premiums at the same time)

Deductables are much higher now than they used to be.

Caps on maximum coverage are lower than they used to be.

Insurers offset risk by issuing securities which couple the losses to their stock from disasters with the purchase of construction stocks which rise after disasters.

Insurance used to cover the upgrading to current building codes when older structures were damaged in disasters and now they do not cover those costs.

They have removed concurrent disaster causes; i.e. if your home is blown down by hurricane winds and then there is a flood from the storm surge they will not cover both losses.

It is by the use of methods such as these that insurance companies are guaranteeing their profits and are not in danger of bankruptcy. Thus you get your chart produced by Pielke which was undoubtedly produced to further another thread of climate denial - as that is all the Pielke's have been doing for the last 20 years.  In other words the claim is pure BS.  The chart does NOT actually measure the losses from natural disasters at all.  It is a graph of the losses to insurance companies.  A very different thing.

A blind man could see that we are facing constantly increasing global losses to natural disasters and that recovery from such disasters has moved beyond our ability to fully fix and replace.  This situation is only going to get a lot worse over time.



We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable. Alexander Solzhenitsyn

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Daniel B.

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #162 on: February 28, 2018, 10:59:50 PM »
So if the data does not fit your beliefs, you call it nonsense?  How very unscientific of you.  Is a new car less affordable now than 25 years ago, because it’s cost as doubled?  Would not the better comparison be what fraction of your income was necessary to buy a new car then and now?  You could argue and cherry pick all you want about how a new car is different today, but that does not change the basic facts.  The best argument is fraction of gdp.  This is the standard economic parameter, and is used by  every other economist.  The clearest example that you have no counter to this data is your degeneration to referring to it as a denialist argument, said that comment will refute the statement, and you do not need to present any evidence (if which you have shown none).  If you are looking for other meaningful statistics, how about the deep decline in deaths due to natural disasters?  Is not that equally or more important than a dollar figure?

Iceismylife

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #163 on: February 28, 2018, 11:09:04 PM »
...

Yes.  143 deaths over the past 30 years.  Exactly how does this compare to extinction?
It doesn't.

But that is beside the point of the interchange we were having.

Of course if you do not know the trigger, how can you possibly know the consequences?
This statement of your's contains a logic error.  It is very posible to know the consequenses of a trigger without knowing what the trigger is.  Just look at the detonation of 10 kt of HE.  How it gets set off is unpredictable the outcome is very predictable.

As far as how this relates to an extiction event try this on for size.  What safegards do you put in place around 10kt of HE?  What safegards do we put around spent reactor fuel? In light of climate change how do those need to be changed?

Archimid

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #164 on: February 28, 2018, 11:14:51 PM »
Sleepy beat me to the graphs, thanks Sleepy.

The graphs posted by sleepy are made from the same data set that Pielke used for his GDP/disaster costs graph. Natural disasters are increasing in both frequency and intensity. There is a significant change going on and it is just starting.

Here is what the creators of the dataset had to say:

Quote
Both overall and insured losses from natural disasters in 2017 were significantly higher than the corresponding averages for the last ten years, which, after adjustment for inflation, amount to US$ 170bn and US$ 49bn respectively. The hurricane season in the North Atlantic proved particularly costly, accounting for US$ 215bn in overall losses, of which US$ 92bn is expected to be insured. There were also two earthquakes in Mexico with a combined loss of over US$ 8bn, and widespread flooding in China which caused losses of more than US$ 6bn. Severe wildfires were raging in the USA until the end of the year. Losses from the October fires alone exceeded US$ 10bn, with the bulk of this amount – more than US$ 8bn – insured. By the end of the year therefore, losses from wildfires are likely to be substantially higher.

https://www.munichre.com/topics-online/en/2018/01/2017-year-in-figures

By plotting against the GDP it is obvious that GDP grew faster than natural disasters did.  But what does Pielke's graph really means?

What is the Gross Domestic Product?  (Google's definition)
Quote
the total value of goods produced and services provided in a country during one year.


How are the losses defined ?(NOAA's  definition, but they shouldn't  differ much)

Quote
These costs include:

Physical damage to residential, commercial, and government or municipal buildings
Material assets within a building
Time element losses like business interruption
Vehicles and boats
Offshore energy platforms
Public infrastructure like roads, bridges, and buildings
Agricultural assets like crops, livestock, and timber
Disaster restoration and wildfire suppression costs

Here is the catch. For every disaster loss there is an increase of the GDP equal to the goods and services  created in response to the disaster. Disaster losses are good and services that were created in the past, got destroyed and through insurance, government or personal funds the goods and services are produced again.

https://www.economy.com/dismal/analysis/commentary/296804/How-Natural-Disasters-Affect-US-GDP/

So if natural disasters increase the GDP,  it is expected that as natural disasters increase, GDP's increase, which is exactly what is seen in the Pielke's graph.  As usual, deception is these peoples game.

I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

Daniel B.

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #165 on: March 01, 2018, 12:02:17 AM »
That sounds good, but do the math.  If the gdp increases by the amount equal to natural disaster losses, it is barely perceptible in the total.  Any change in disaster losses will have a much bigger impact than the small change in gdp.  The implication that the dollar amount used to replace losses somehow cancels out the percent loss is ridiculous.  Just who is engaging in deception here.

sidd

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #166 on: March 01, 2018, 12:22:01 AM »
"The best argument is fraction of gdp."

Why ? The majority of benefits of GDP increase go to the top few % by income, who are not those who suffer most of the losses.

"This is the standard economic parameter, and is used by  every other economist."

That point might have had more weight before 2008.

But this is perhaps best discussed in the thread called "Economic Inequality"

sidd


harpy

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #167 on: March 01, 2018, 12:47:11 AM »
Dollar amounts are irrelevant to ecosystems, especially considering that the dollar is a make believe currency with zero backing and zero connection to reality.  Maybe if the dollar was backed by something like, oh I don't know ounces of gold, which have a finite supply and a readily obvious energy input to create - dollar amounts would be more relevant because every time a disaster occurs, the US would lose gold having to purchase supplies from other countries (it's a lot more complicated than that, but this is just an illustration for brevities sake).  In reality, the US basically just uses war as a currency - when we need more supplies, we just use economic hitmen, or literal armies (i.e., middle east) to take other countries natural resources, and print more fairy tale currency (the us dollar) and pretend like nothing has changed.  In reality, the carrying capacity of those regions drops, while the carrying capacity of the US remains unchanged or slightly increases.

When considering the damage that takes place during natural disasters, the correct metric is an analysis of how it affects the ecological carrying capacity of the region.

A disaster like the Harvey storm most likely lowered the carrying capacity of that particular ecosystem, as did the storm in peurto rico.  If less humans are capable of surviving on a plot of land that was ravished by a storm, that's the real cost.

So long as fools use dollar amounts to calculate the cost to a species of animal on this planet, humans - the argument is not based in reality.

This discussion should be focused entirely on how natural disasters affect ecological carrying capacity.  Dollars can be printed (literally just magical fantasy idiot currency on a computer screen) by the FED without any effort, and GDP figures can be manipulated - the entire economic system is based on a fairy tale, literally - it's a fake economy completely removed from reality. 

Climate change is lowering the carrying capacity for humans on this planet in a hurry, and when methane clathrates are released by an ice free arctic, that carrying capacity suddenly drops even further.  When giant cyclones sit in one spot, causing melt downs of spent fuel rods, and irreparable damage to important cities - and cause droughts in the breadbasket regions of the planet, that significantly lowers carrying capacity.

Fairy tale "dollar" figures just represent a rough direction of ecological carrying capacity.  They're just make believe data points that demonstrates make believe trends that are occurring for a species that is artificially above its carrying capacity because of the existence of fossil fuels and technology.

This discussion may wish to identify the fact that dollars are not real, and are not based upon anything in reality - dollars are just digital ideas that have long since been connected to anything in the physical world.   The discussion of near term human extinction needs to focus upon how our ecological carrying capacity is decreasing, not the "dollar costs" of environmental catastrophes.
« Last Edit: March 01, 2018, 12:56:11 AM by harpy »

gerontocrat

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #168 on: March 01, 2018, 12:53:29 AM »
GDP measures activity. It does not care what that activity is. Making weapons and armaments, killing people with them so as to produce demand for more increases GDP. Some might say that this does not increase the assets / wealth of a country.

Having to use a portion of GDP to replace assets has an opportunity cost - the opportunity to use that activity to create new assets, i.e. to increase a country's wealth (though these days more likely to be used for consumption of ephemera).

Some might say that by looking at GDP growth as the prime measure of economic success has effectively disguised that many countries are poorer in terms of wealth as the basic infrastructure required for the countries to function has decayed.  To my surprise Trump's call for 1.5 trillion iron men to be spent on infrastructure is probably a pretty good guess.

My guess is that the wealth of Puerto Rico, Lousiana, Florida, and California (to name a few obvious examples) has been and will be permanently and substantially reduced by natural disasters  and other climate change influenced events even as GDP continues to rise and again quoted as economic success.

Economics - the price of everything and the value of nothing
"Para a Causa do Povo a Luta Continua!"
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harpy

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #169 on: March 01, 2018, 01:00:07 AM »
GDP measures activity. It does not care what that activity is. Making weapons and armaments, killing people with them so as to produce demand for more increases GDP. Some might say that this does not increase the assets / wealth of a country.

Having to use a portion of GDP to replace assets has an opportunity cost - the opportunity to use that activity to create new assets, i.e. to increase a country's wealth (though these days more likely to be used for consumption of ephemera).

Some might say that by looking at GDP growth as the prime measure of economic success has effectively disguised that many countries are poorer in terms of wealth as the basic infrastructure required for the countries to function has decayed.  To my surprise Trump's call for 1.5 trillion iron men to be spent on infrastructure is probably a pretty good guess.

My guess is that the wealth of Puerto Rico, Lousiana, Florida, and California (to name a few obvious examples) has been and will be permanently and substantially reduced by natural disasters  and other climate change influenced events even as GDP continues to rise and again quoted as economic success.

Economics - the price of everything and the value of nothing

Yes, I agree that economics is basically examining fantasy prices, while ignoring value or at least distorting it greatly.  However, economics is not based in reality - and certainly not connected to the planetary processes that make life possible (at least the ecological costs are simply not considered in an economic model, which makes all models of economic activity irrelevant and simply a religious exercise).  Economics is nothing more than a cognitive exercise that humans carry out to make sense of our species activity.  In reality, all that matters is ecological carrying capacity of all species on this planet.  If any metric of activity does not take into consideration ecological carrying capacity, then it is not based in reality - it's just a cognitive exercise.

Economics is a religion, nothing more.

Humans have been overly zealous about or economic religion to such an extent that we've set into motion the destruction of the ecological carrying capacity for our species on this planet.  It's now just a matter of waiting for:

1). The planet's positive feedback loops to collapse civilization

2). Which leads to the removing of global dimming

3.  Which leads to further accelerated positive feedback loops, and the melt down of spent fuel rods - ultimately removing what little ecological carrying capacity remained on this planet for large apes.


"Yes, the planet got destroyed.   But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders."
https://imgur.com/gallery/tsCYc
« Last Edit: March 01, 2018, 01:20:49 AM by harpy »

sidd

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #170 on: March 01, 2018, 01:25:55 AM »
For those who need to think in terms of money, here is a paper on ecosystem service pricing By Constanza et. al (2014)

" ... the estimate for the total global ecosystem services in 2011 is $125 trillion/yr (assuming updated unit
values and changes to biome areas) and $145 trillion/yr (assuming only unit values changed), both in
2007 $US. From this we estimated the loss of eco-services from 1997 to 2011 due to land use change at
$4.3–20.2 trillion/yr ..."

They backpedal a bit:

"We emphasize that valuation of ecoservices (in whatever units) is not the same as commodification or privatization. Many eco-services are best considered public goods or common pool resources, so conventional markets are often not the best institutional frameworks to manage them."

But then fall right back in the hole:

"However, these services must be (and are being) valued, and we need new, common asset institutions to better take these values into account."

In the body of the paper :

"Some have argued that estimating the global value of ecosystem services is meaningless, because if we lost all ecosystem services human life would end, so their value must be infinite ..."

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2014.04.002

Read all about it, copy available at

http://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/19113/Costanza_et_al_GEC_2014_%2B_SI.pdf

sidd

Human Habitat Index

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #171 on: March 01, 2018, 02:21:25 AM »
How about a Human Habitat Index  8)
There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. That principle is contempt prior to investigation. - Herbert Spencer

Archimid

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #172 on: March 01, 2018, 03:34:16 AM »
If the gdp increases by the amount equal to natural disaster losses, it is barely perceptible in the total.

 That is not what I said. What I said was:

Quote
For every disaster loss there is an increase of the GDP equal to the goods and services  created in response to the disaster.
...

Quote
Any change in disaster losses will have a much bigger impact than the small change in gdp.

The GDP increase could easily by higher, a lot higher, than the size of the losses, it could also be much lower. A disaster in a low production area might be costly in terms of losses but have a small impact on the GDP. A disaster in a high production area might cost the same but impact on the GDP might be far larger.

 
Quote
The implication that the dollar amount used to replace losses somehow cancels out the percent loss is ridiculous.

What is ridiculous is to use these two different amounts in such fashion, for the argument that there has been no significant change, and then deny the subtleties around it.

Quote
  Just who is engaging in deception here.

Pielke and you.
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

Daniel B.

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #173 on: March 01, 2018, 03:43:49 AM »

harpy

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #174 on: March 01, 2018, 05:29:39 AM »


In the body of the paper :

"Some have argued that estimating the global value of ecosystem services is meaningless, because if we lost all ecosystem services human life would end, so their value must be infinite ..."

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2014.04.002

Read all about it, copy available at

http://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/19113/Costanza_et_al_GEC_2014_%2B_SI.pdf

sidd

This quote from the paper essentially nails it. 

Ecosystem is completely seperate from economy - and therefore economy, in my view, is nothing more than a religion.  Talking about money and value and cost, etc is meaningless unless these costs factor in the effect of "economic" activity into the carrying capacity of large apes.

Large apes have destabilized the atmosphere to the point that the planet itself is now self reinforcing.

This process is basically the societal equivalent as going into your family safe deposit box, getting your great grandfathers gold coins and your great grandmothers jewelry - bringing them to a pawn shop, selling them for 15% of what they're worth -  and buying some black tar heroin with it.

We're trashing resources that are priceless in exchange for, essentially, a religious experience.

B-but...for a short period of time 401k, IRA, and money market accounts experienced incredible gains! 

I hope that felt good, you stupid apes.
« Last Edit: March 01, 2018, 05:40:50 AM by harpy »

oren

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #175 on: March 01, 2018, 11:33:14 AM »
Quote
As noted above, the nominal dollar figures are meaningless. The relevant figure is insurance losses to GDP, and as shown above that is not rising.

This is complete nonsense.  A denialist argument from one of the most well know denialists (Pielke - big surprise).

He is only counting one factor (cherry picking) and there are others to take into account. 

What is important here is the systemic effect.  Cherry picking one metric which makes it seem like things are getting better (insurance losses to GDP) does not tell the whole story.  What is happening to the entire civilizational system is what actually counts.

Here are a few other factors left out.

Insurance premiums have risen thus moving cost from insurers to their customers.

Insurance coverage for weather disasters has been dramatically lowered thus reducing costs to insurers. (and they raised premiums at the same time)

Deductables are much higher now than they used to be.

Caps on maximum coverage are lower than they used to be.

Insurers offset risk by issuing securities which couple the losses to their stock from disasters with the purchase of construction stocks which rise after disasters.

Insurance used to cover the upgrading to current building codes when older structures were damaged in disasters and now they do not cover those costs.

They have removed concurrent disaster causes; i.e. if your home is blown down by hurricane winds and then there is a flood from the storm surge they will not cover both losses.

It is by the use of methods such as these that insurance companies are guaranteeing their profits and are not in danger of bankruptcy. Thus you get your chart produced by Pielke which was undoubtedly produced to further another thread of climate denial - as that is all the Pielke's have been doing for the last 20 years.  In other words the claim is pure BS.  The chart does NOT actually measure the losses from natural disasters at all.  It is a graph of the losses to insurance companies.  A very different thing.

A blind man could see that we are facing constantly increasing global losses to natural disasters and that recovery from such disasters has moved beyond our ability to fully fix and replace.  This situation is only going to get a lot worse over time.
So if the data does not fit your beliefs, you call it nonsense?  How very unscientific of you.  Is a new car less affordable now than 25 years ago, because it’s cost as doubled?  Would not the better comparison be what fraction of your income was necessary to buy a new car then and now?  You could argue and cherry pick all you want about how a new car is different today, but that does not change the basic facts.  The best argument is fraction of gdp.  This is the standard economic parameter, and is used by  every other economist.  The clearest example that you have no counter to this data is your degeneration to referring to it as a denialist argument, said that comment will refute the statement, and you do not need to present any evidence (if which you have shown none).  If you are looking for other meaningful statistics, how about the deep decline in deaths due to natural disasters?  Is not that equally or more important than a dollar figure?
A classic case of cherry-picking the argument itself... The way I understand it, JimD is telling you counting insurance losses to GDP is cherry-picking, and lists several major reasons why insurance losses have been limited by various strategies, while actual losses continued to grow. Out of his argument you picked on GDP, and the whole thread has continued to argue that point.

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #176 on: March 01, 2018, 04:06:32 PM »

[/quote]
A classic case of cherry-picking the argument itself... The way I understand it, JimD is telling you counting insurance losses to GDP is cherry-picking, and lists several major reasons why insurance losses have been limited by various strategies, while actual losses continued to grow. Out of his argument you picked on GDP, and the whole thread has continued to argue that point.
[/quote]

Not really.  GDP is a classic argument for this and other cases.  Cherry-picking is selectively using those reasons why it might be lower, while ignoring those making it higher.  The major factor omitted by JimD is more people living in disaster-prone areas.  This alone is likely to overshadow all his arguments.  How much has water management altered flooding; likely decreasing the number of floods, but making those that do occur worse.  Likewise, how much as land changes affecting the disasters that do occur?   All three of these factors contributed to the situation in Houston.  That is why GDP is a better indicator; it incorporates all these factors, and more.

Archimid

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #177 on: March 01, 2018, 04:58:27 PM »
The only thing that graphs tells me, is that local  natural disaster costs so far have no discernable impact on GDP, except perhaps to increase it.

It says nothing about the risks of climate change.  The fact that the destruction of life and property naively appears to add to to the GDP should be a matter of great  concern. Your result does not match expectations.

Natural disasters are bad. So why a measure typically associated with good things going up as these bad things are happening?
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Daniel B.

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #178 on: March 01, 2018, 05:44:37 PM »
The only thing that graphs tells me, is that local  natural disaster costs so far have no discernable impact on GDP, except perhaps to increase it.

It says nothing about the risks of climate change.  The fact that the destruction of life and property naively appears to add to to the GDP should be a matter of great  concern. Your result does not match expectations.

Natural disasters are bad. So why a measure typically associated with good things going up as these bad things are happening?

Why?  Because yesterday you stated, "If 2017 happened every year the collapse of the insurance industry alone would end the world as we know it."  I was simply countering that years like 2017 have occurred repeatedly in the past, and the world has handled them.  The burden of these disaster shows no signs of increasing, as the economies of the world have been able to overcome them.  The greatest burden to the world last century was WWII.  These natural disasters pale in comparison to what mankind can do.

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #179 on: March 01, 2018, 06:20:27 PM »
Quote
  I was simply countering that years like 2017 have occurred repeatedly in the past, and the world has handled them

Sigh. From the source cited in your link:

Quote
At US$ 330bn, overall losses in 2017 were far greater even than those in the extreme years of 2005 and 2008. Only the record year of 2011 with losses of US$ 350bn, due mainly to the Tohoku earthquake and floods in Thailand, has seen higher loss figures
.

I repeat what I said. If every year was like 2017 it will be the end of the world as we know it. Hopefully, we are not there yet and the losses from disasters give us a few more years to prepare before we get there.
 
Quote
The burden of these disaster shows no signs of increasing, as the economies of the world have been able to overcome them. 

Wait. Are you saying that because the global economy is still going, the impact of natural desasters is not increasing? That doesn't even makes sense.

 The burden of these disasters keeps increasing in almost every metric except for GDP. 

Quote
These natural disasters pale in comparison to what mankind can do.

Finally some truth.
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gerontocrat

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #180 on: March 01, 2018, 06:43:53 PM »
One final (honest, no more) comment on the inadequacy of GDP.

Agriculture and water are a tiny fraction of GDP in the OECD economies, while they are the most essential (= valuable) for human existence. The price of everything and the value of nothing. I have worked in places where famine and drought are things that happen on a regular basis. Free market economics falls to pieces when it happens, unless you believe Social Darwinism is the way to go,
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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #181 on: March 01, 2018, 07:24:16 PM »
One final (honest, no more) comment on the inadequacy of GDP.

Agriculture and water are a tiny fraction of GDP in the OECD economies, while they are the most essential (= valuable) for human existence. The price of everything and the value of nothing. I have worked in places where famine and drought are things that happen on a regular basis. Free market economics falls to pieces when it happens, unless you believe Social Darwinism is the way to go,

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Wherestheice

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #182 on: March 02, 2018, 06:50:07 AM »
« Last Edit: March 02, 2018, 07:00:28 AM by Wherestheice »
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oren

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #183 on: March 02, 2018, 07:48:33 AM »
https://guymcpherson.com/2016/08/the-politics-and-science-of-our-demise/

I recommend giving this a chance
I recommend to avoid it. I am sorry to use such generalities on this fine forum, but this is alarmist claptrap posing as science.

Trying to fight the claims one by one is futile,  this is pure troll feeding. I will refrain. Take my word for it, global temps will not rise 8 degrees C in the next 10 years. (The headline says 10 but never mind the details). I'm just a nobody , but at least I'm not a liar like these folks, so my word might be good for something.
Note: I dislike anyone who bends science on purpose, whether it's deniers or alarmists, both of whom make a good living out of their evil. I recmmend to avoid reading such sources,  and stick to the actual science.

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #184 on: March 02, 2018, 07:58:20 AM »
Trying to fight the claims one by one is futile,  this is pure troll feeding.

That image is almost a canonical version of the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle
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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #185 on: March 02, 2018, 08:15:21 AM »
Note: I dislike anyone who bends science on purpose, whether it's deniers or alarmists, both of whom make a good living out of their evil. I recmmend to avoid reading such sources,  and stick to the actual science.

I fully agree. Conclusions should be always based on avalilable Science and not emotions.

As for insurers: GDP is a valid measure, because on the long run global insurers' equity grows by GDP.

Consider this:

https://www.intelligentinsurer.com/media/project_ii/document/global-reinsurance-guide-2017.pdf

Global reinsurers had 271 billion dollars in equity (excluding Berkshire Hathaway which is in an even better shape than the others!!!), catastrophe losses for them were 10 bn usd, and they made 21 billion dollars in profit, which shows that even in 2017 they were profitable, and also shows that they have huge reserves which could buffer even much bigger losses than 2017. 
Natural disasters nedd to be many-many times bigger than 2017 to cause a problem for global reinsurers and deplete their equity.
 

Wherestheice

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #186 on: March 02, 2018, 08:49:33 AM »
https://guymcpherson.com/2016/08/the-politics-and-science-of-our-demise/

I recommend giving this a chance
I recommend to avoid it. I am sorry to use such generalities on this fine forum, but this is alarmist claptrap posing as science.

Trying to fight the claims one by one is futile,  this is pure troll feeding. I will refrain. Take my word for it, global temps will not rise 8 degrees C in the next 10 years. (The headline says 10 but never mind the details). I'm just a nobody , but at least I'm not a liar like these folks, so my word might be good for something.
Note: I dislike anyone who bends science on purpose, whether it's deniers or alarmists, both of whom make a good living out of their evil. I recmmend to avoid reading such sources,  and stick to the actual science.

I am open to disscussion because I think thats what science is all about, but if you could provide me with proof to explain why 8 degrees wont happen. That would be of great help. I personally think we are headed for about a 4 C rise by 2050.
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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #188 on: March 02, 2018, 01:43:40 PM »
I fully agree. Conclusions should be always based on avalilable Science and not emotions.

That's only an aspiration. In reality that's an impossibility. Being unaware of it's impossibility leads away from the goal of total objectivity.

In climate change objectivity is even harder. Scientists are inside the experiment, as are we all. Any line of research leading to horrible outcomes will necesarilly have an emotional effect on the scientists.


On using the GDP as a measure for ignoring the dangers of climate change, I think many good arguments have already been written. These people do not wish to understand the subtleties of the GDP or  insurance.

Let's hope years like 2017 do not become a yearly occurrence anytime soon.  That's probably the only thing that will convince them, but by then it'll be too late.
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Daniel B.

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #189 on: March 02, 2018, 02:44:02 PM »
https://guymcpherson.com/2016/08/the-politics-and-science-of-our-demise/

I recommend giving this a chance
I recommend to avoid it. I am sorry to use such generalities on this fine forum, but this is alarmist claptrap posing as science.

Trying to fight the claims one by one is futile,  this is pure troll feeding. I will refrain. Take my word for it, global temps will not rise 8 degrees C in the next 10 years. (The headline says 10 but never mind the details). I'm just a nobody , but at least I'm not a liar like these folks, so my word might be good for something.
Note: I dislike anyone who bends science on purpose, whether it's deniers or alarmists, both of whom make a good living out of their evil. I recmmend to avoid reading such sources,  and stick to the actual science.

I am open to disscussion because I think thats what science is all about, but if you could provide me with proof to explain why 8 degrees wont happen. That would be of great help. I personally think we are headed for about a 4 C rise by 2050.

It is extremely difficult to prove today what might happen 30 years in the future.  Still, physicists have estimated that global temperatures will wise another 1C by 2050, if we do nothing.  This is actually higher than the worst case IPCC scenario.  With the bulk of scientists asserting 2C temperature rise or less by 2050, I think the onus is on you to prove otherwise.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/phys.org/news/2016-09-global-2c-threshold.amp

oren

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #190 on: March 02, 2018, 03:47:36 PM »
Whereistheice, the short answer is the thermal inertia of the huge ice sheets, and of the ocean, and moreover the lack of sufficient forcing to cause such fast warming (despite Guy Mcphearson's lies).

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #191 on: March 02, 2018, 05:36:50 PM »
Oren, now you're resorting to name calling towards Dr. McPherson.   

The thermal inertia of the glaciers on land in antarctica and greenland have little to no effect on the temperatures in that chart.

Here's the factors that matter (feel free to refute these claims, this is what Dr. McPherson is discussing - the evidence has been posted earlier in this thread, feel free to revisit):

1.  Arctic sea ice is very thin, and the extent is the lowest on record - an ice free arctic will reduce albedo in that chart, resulting in an increase in global average temperature - let's say even by .50C (a conservative approach). 

2.  an Ice free arctic is going to warm the arctic ocean and allow warm currents to penetrate these waters from the south, which will lead to methane clathrate release.  Let's be conservative and say just 0.5C in a short period of time.

3.  This brings us to 2.5C over baseline (we're at 1.5C above baseline right now).  Civilzation will utterly collapse at 2.5C over baseline, leading to:

4.  Let's say a conservative estimate of 0.50C from lack of global dimming.

Now we're at 3.0C over pre industrial baseline.

At 3.0C over baseline, the effects from increased water vapor will increase temps again by another oh, 0.5C (lets be conservative here).

Now we're at somewhere around 3.5C above pre industrial levels within a short period of time ( by 2030).

The chart that whereistheice posted is a worst case scenerio, I'll give you that Oren.  But a conservative estimate brings us to 3.5C above baseline within 10 years if we get an ice free arctic and methane clathrates are released in large quantities.

If nothing else happens at 3.5C above baseline, then humans could probably survive in some remote areas of the planet for a while if they bring livestock and seeds with them.

But you know that once we hit 3.5C, the positive feedbacks that will be triggered at that point will be self reinforcing and will not stop for tens of thousands of years.

Whereistheice asked for someone to prove this data wrong, and I've seen no evidence that Dr. McPherson's claims are wrong - if anything, his claims are becoming more and more accurate as temperatures continue to skyrocket and the arctic continues to head straight for ice free territory in short order.

I see many posts that basically conclude:  "he's a liar, that can never happen".

3.5C above baseline by 2030, that's a conservative value, it could be far higher than that by 2030 - and even at 3.5C above baseline, the thermal inertia of greenland and west antarctic glaciers will not matter.

Most humans are dead at 3.5C above baseline, some may still be alive - extinction by 2030?  Maybe not, but 95% die off by 2030, that's more realistic in my opinion.
« Last Edit: March 02, 2018, 05:52:14 PM by harpy »

gerontocrat

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #192 on: March 02, 2018, 06:03:20 PM »
Oren, now you're resorting to name calling towards Dr. McPherson.   

1. - an ice free arctic will reduce albedo in that chart, let's say even by .75C (a conservative approach). 

2.  an Ice free arctic is going to warm the arctic ocean and allow warm currents to penetrate these waters from the south, which will lead to methane clathrate release.  Let's be conservative and say just 0.5C in a short period of time.

1.  Arctic sea ice is very thin, and the extent is the lowest on record - an ice free arctic will reduce albedo

True - Extent on March 1st is at a record low by 42,000 km2 on a total of nearly 14,000,000 km2.

2.  an Ice free arctic is going to warm the arctic ocean and allow warm currents to penetrate these waters from the south, which will lead to methane clathrate release.

True - but how quickly? If extent will not disappear overnight then methane from places like the ESAS will not appear overnight.

There is nothing in what you have posted to justify the statement that this will all happen in the next 5, 7,10 years.

And that is the problem with your argument - that it is all going to happen almost immediately, while you give no evidence to say why it is going to happen immediately and all at once.

I did some Armageddon scenarios and could not make the shit hit the fan before 2030, and even then nothing like the picture you present by 2025.

Where is the data, where is the evidence to substantiate your assertion about the timing of Armageddon ? Then a reasoned response can be given. Until then "name calling towards Dr. McPherson" seems a pretty good idea to me.
« Last Edit: March 02, 2018, 06:32:07 PM by gerontocrat »
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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #193 on: March 02, 2018, 06:36:02 PM »
Harpy and Where is the Ice, the extraordinary claims of Guy McPherson require extraordinary proof, which has not been supplied. This forum is a very polite place and almost free from ad hominem attacks. McPherson- not so much. Try disagreeing with him or questioning his conclusions to his "face"  on line sometime. Which does not make him wrong per se....

El Cid

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #194 on: March 02, 2018, 08:01:37 PM »


3.  This brings us to 2.5C over baseline (we're at 1.5C above baseline right now).  Civilzation will utterly collapse at 2.5C over baseline



So in effect you are saying that if global average temps go up 1 (ONE!) degree C from current levels, civilization will collapse.

Why would that happen?

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #195 on: March 02, 2018, 08:04:00 PM »
https://guymcpherson.com/2016/08/the-politics-and-science-of-our-demise/

I recommend giving this a chance
I recommend to avoid it. I am sorry to use such generalities on this fine forum, but this is alarmist claptrap posing as science.

Trying to fight the claims one by one is futile,  this is pure troll feeding. I will refrain. Take my word for it, global temps will not rise 8 degrees C in the next 10 years. (The headline says 10 but never mind the details). I'm just a nobody , but at least I'm not a liar like these folks, so my word might be good for something.
Note: I dislike anyone who bends science on purpose, whether it's deniers or alarmists, both of whom make a good living out of their evil. I recmmend to avoid reading such sources,  and stick to the actual science.

I am open to disscussion because I think thats what science is all about, but if you could provide me with proof to explain why 8 degrees wont happen. That would be of great help. I personally think we are headed for about a 4 C rise by 2050.

On that chart, the top two effects have already occurred, resulting in an estimated warming of 1.9 degrees C since pre-industrial. 

Further down the chart, the aerosol masking is not going to go away in an instant, it will take decades to reduce it, as fossil fuel use and wood burning are not going to be instantly reduced to zero.  Also, the increased black carbon from forest fires and other impacts of climate change will probably offset the cleaning up of smokestack emissions and the reductions in coal use.  So that 2.5 degree change will be closer to zero.

As to increasing CO2 emissions, they tend to take effect slowly (sometimes referred to as the"in the pipeline amount").  The more instantaneous effect has been estimated by climate scientists such as James Hansen as 0.1 to 0.2 degrees per decade.

This chart relies on older estimates of methane release.  More recent articles show that even in periods of much higher global warming than we're currently experiencing, such as the Younger Dryas near the last warming maximum from the previous ice age (about 8,000 to 10,000 years ago), the arctic sea ice clathrates didn't melt. Abstract of article is at this link: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature23316.   So again, the feedbacks from increased arctic methane release are much closer to zero than what's shown on that table.

As to the increase in temperature from the albedo changes in the arctic, 1.6 degrees in the next decade seems extremely unlikely.  Research in 2014 showed that increases in Arctic Sea surface temperature from 2000 to 2012 was 0.58 degrees per decade.  (Article here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013GL058951/full).  During that time, global temperatures, calculated by NASA, increased much less, roughly 0.1 degrees C (data here: https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts.txt.

And the water vapor feedback tends to equal the CO2 increase at about a 1:1 ratio.  So that 2.1 degrees in the chart should be about 0.1 to 0.2 degrees.

In short, we're much more likely to see a slight increase over current warming (0.1 to 0.2 degrees per decade) in the near future, maybe even a doubling to 0.2 to 0.4 degrees by 2026; not an additional 8 degrees C.  So an extinction event (due to climate change) by 2026 is not going to happen.  If we continue on the "business as usual" emissions guidelines, an extinction event in a century or so is possible.  However, so much progress in renewable energy, battery storage, and other technologies to decarbonize our economies has been made that it's clear that we'll emit far less carbon than the business as usual model assumes.

Even so, the effects of our previous and future emission have lead to climate change and it will get worse over the next few decades.  Call me an optimist, but I believe that even with the upcoming troubles ahead, the human race will survive.  And posting extremely alarmist articles like the McPherson one just gives ammunition to deniers who will use it to discredit legitimate science when the alarmist projections don't pan out.

It's helpful to read some of the background science and do your own analysis rather than just accept something that shows up on the internet.  You can start with the IPCC reports.  The latest, AR5, is available at this link:  http://www.climatechange2013.org/report/full-report/.

Edit:  Corrected link to IPCC AR5 report.
« Last Edit: March 02, 2018, 08:09:21 PM by Ken Feldman »

Archimid

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #196 on: March 02, 2018, 08:10:49 PM »
10C  aren't needed for SHTF, neither is methane.  It can happen this very year with a melting season similar to 2012 and a BOE.  The meandering jetstreams and ocean currents will see to that. That said I agree with Oren about very quick temperarure rise.

About McPherson. I think he is wrong in many aspects, but he is more right than the IPCC about the impact of climate change on humanity. I think he saw it coming years ago and has been on a campaign to warn others as best he could. Because of the outright rejections of his points by pretty much everyone he has become jaded and his knowledge clouded. In my opinion he is brave for doing what he is doing, although I wish he dialed back
 and focused in much more likely but almost equally scary scenarios.

He offers fear without hope and that is as paralyzing as the hope without fear offered by the IPCC. There is very real hope even with a BOE , the methane bomb or nuclear meltdown but there are very real dangers of global catastrophe.
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Iceismylife

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #197 on: March 02, 2018, 08:18:31 PM »
<snip>

So again, the feedbacks from increased arctic methane release are much closer to zero than what's shown on that table.
We aren't seeing a zero methane feed back loop now.  The arctic is currently 10% higher than the rest of the world and that is climbing.

Wherestheice

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #198 on: March 02, 2018, 09:02:27 PM »
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Sciguy

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Re: Near Term Human Extinction
« Reply #199 on: March 02, 2018, 09:09:51 PM »
<snip>

So again, the feedbacks from increased arctic methane release are much closer to zero than what's shown on that table.
We aren't seeing a zero methane feed back loop now.  The arctic is currently 10% higher than the rest of the world and that is climbing.

I said close to zero, and I meant over the decade from 2016 to 2026, which is what we're discussing.  And science backs me up on this. The radiative forcing from methane hasn't increased much in the past decade.  Here it is in graphical form: