New World: Climate Change

[Tyger]

I will try to re-set this thread by doing a streamlined statement of intent, giving the parameters of the discussion. There's been a significant dust-up, as can be seen. A certain agreement has been reached on how to proceed. All the global warming threads that debate the science stand open and ready to continue the dialog. This is the sole thread that will treat global warming as a fact. More, it will accept that there is a strong human component in global warming 'this time round'. It will accept that what is happening is 'new' in that in all past warming/climate change scenarios/events, humankind was a leaf on the wave. This time, humankind is the driving factor. If you don't 'believe' this latter aspect, if you are not convinced, and feel compelled to argue the point, please do not do that here on this thread, but on one of the many global warming threads that do debate the science and that can be found on this site.

Climate Change is the raison d'être for the thread. It is a given, not a debate. There are innumerable threads where that "debate" can be waged, but not here. Saying this does not then mean that one does not have varying views about what many are saying. Do I personally believe in an imminent catastrophic climate collapse inimical to humans? I see no point in such a question. I am here to explore all the ideas - and that is one - argued with considerable passion and persuasiveness by a (growing) handful of scientists. Others take a more measured view. Others factor in all the unknowns that we can never fully program into our models. But it's the nature of the scientific debate to explore all possibilities fully. That is what I hope can happen here on this thread - a thread for laymen. There are very few of us here who are scientists (though an astonishing cache are I have found - or at least have a science background of one kind or another). Fewer still who are versed in the totality of the science in this discipline. Nonetheless, all that notwithstanding, good speculation can ensue.

To say yet again: this thread is not for debate about the science of global warming (agw or not, of whatever extreme). That does not mean that science won't be posted - it will. That does not mean that the conflict between "deniers and warmists" won't be mentioned - even explored - it will. Because all of that is part of what is in store in the coming years, in the 'new world'. That tension will be playing out in spades for a long time.

[Please see the first post of this thread for the link regarding Global Warming/Climate Change.]

Regarding the debate: one can have questions, of course, but every question invariably has an answer on-line somewhere - such as at the site Skeptical Science (linked in the first post). I don't think one should be looking for an in-depth 'education' in this area on a chat site not peopled with scientists nor with it as a direct focus. That's not saying that there are not exceedingly intelligent posters here with a considerable grasp of complicated facts. However, the conversations have taken place on several other threads here which are still extant, not even archived - so one's best bet is to go reading (and conversing) on those threads, if one seeks 'debate' on whether there is warming, whether it is human caused, etc..

This thread is solely to explore the situation as a fact rather than a debate - it's an aspect that is rarely fully fleshed out in conversation. There is lots of elbow room to have differing views regarding the future within the scope of human induced climate change. Are we headed for extinction in 15 years? Couldn't say, but it's fascinating to read the reasoning. The number of scientists saying so - and their bona fides - is impressive. The prognostications are potentially disquieting. However, take it how you will, I am an eternal optimist, and feel the situation will continue to shift and to clarify. We'll find we were wrong in one way, righter than we want to be in other ways. Solutions will come, perhaps in surprising ways via Nature itself. I don't know, but I'm keen for the conversation, wherever it will lead.

 

[Tyger]

You are also on ignore.

Manxman, to re-state - you've not just been asked, but told - very nicely - to stay clear. Thank you for abiding by the truce. No more posting to this thread in any form. Much obliged.

 

[Tyger]

One last comment: I am assured that the kind of belligerent counter-arguing, peppered with ad hominems, will no longer take place on this thread. I say this to assure those who might wish to join in the conversation but are hesitating, questioning whether or not they will be subject to any untoward reactions/responses. Pixel and manxman will debate with anyone on any of the global warming threads, but will leave this thread alone, to the point of not posting on it. That is the agreement. Their graciousness is appreciated.

 

[Tyger]

Don't people think half of these posts are too long? Is a single person reading the lot?

Some of them are wayyyyy too long - yes. I am not reading them. On this thread I doubt anyone is reading them. But that gives me a segue into an aside - in no way do I ever presume that my posts are read. I've started innumerable threads on this site that have had a sprinkling of interest and then quietly went into oblivion (Magic and Consciousness, The Electric Universe - and such. Every now and again I shoot them a post but they are pretty much non-movers - and I'm okay with that. In that way I think I am unique on a chat site). Just thought I'd say.

I have no reason to expect that this thread will have anything but the same fate as all my other threads. But while it lasts I will have fun exploring a topic with an occasional comment or two from someone. So thanks to all who decide to comment. Otherwise I go my merry way.


I suppose the most dramatic aspect of the extreme view of climate change is the unnerving suggestion that human life will end not in some not-connected-to-me future, but very shortly - like 15 years. Is this credible? How does one take that? Does one change one's whole life as a result? Probably not, thus annoying my 1990's acquaintance (mentioned below) who saw the handwriting-on-the-wall and despaired.

So to begin - I have been coming across what seems to me unusual postings by scientists undergoing stress over the climate change scenarios. I realize that I have a more cerebral view of things and I tend to trust that it's not going to be as bad as some think, and even if it is, we'll figure things out. It's a kind of blasé acceptance that has annoyed a scientist friend or two. I recall one scientist acquaintance in the 1990's being distressed when I was seriously arguing against the trustworthiness of the computer models. He was beside himself with the blindness of people and lamented that the reaction of people to the climate problem will be: 'Science will come up with the answers to get us out of the predicament we are in.' He did not believe science would. This was in the late 1990's and the handwriting-on-the-wall was already dire for many.

If the dire predictions are valid, we are indeed in a pickle. Here is a sprinkling of the angst - I will post just enough of the article to get the jist. Click on the link to read the entire article -

Dahr Jamail | Mourning Our Planet: Climate Scientists Share Their Grieving Process
Sunday, 25 January 2015
LINK: Dahr Jamail | Mourning Our Planet: Climate Scientists Share Their Grieving Process
TEXT: "I have been researching and writing about anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) for Truthout for the past year, because I have long been deeply troubled by how fast the planet has been emitting its obvious distress signals. On a nearly daily basis, I've sought out the most recent scientific studies, interviewed the top researchers and scientists penning those studies, and connected the dots to give readers as clear a picture as possible about the magnitude of the emergency we are in.

"This work has emotional consequences: I've struggled with depression, anger and fear. I've watched myself shift through some of the five stages of grief proposed by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. I've grieved for the planet and all the species who live here, and continue to do so as I work today. I have been vacillating between depression and acceptance of where we are, both as victims - fragile human beings – and as perpetrators: We are the species responsible for altering the climate system of the planet we inhabit to the point of possibly driving ourselves extinct, in addition to the 150 to 200 species we are already driving extinct daily. Can you relate to this grieving process? If so, you might find solace in the fact that you are not alone: Climate science researchers, scientists, journalists and activists have all been struggling with grief around what we are witnessing.

"Take Professor Camille Parmesan, a climate researcher who says that ACD is the driving cause of her depression. "I don't know of a single scientist that's not having an emotional reaction to what is being lost," Parmesan said in the National Wildlife Federation's 2012 report. "It's gotten to be so depressing that I'm not sure I'm going to go back to this particular site again," she said in reference to an ocean reef she had studied since 2002, "because I just know I'm going to see more and more of the coral dead, and bleached, and covered with brown algae."

"Last year I wrote about the work of Joanna Macy, a scholar of Buddhism, eco-philosophy, general systems theory and deep ecology, and author of more than a dozen books. Her initiative, The Work That Reconnects, helps people essentially do nothing more mysterious than telling the truth about what we see, know and feel is happening to our world. In order to remain able to continue in our work, we first must feel the full pain of what is being done to the world, according to Macy." Refusing to feel pain, and becoming incapable of feeling the pain, which is actually the root meaning of apathy, refusal to suffer - that makes us stupid, and half alive," she told me. "It causes us to become blind to see what is really out there."

"I recently came across a blog titled, Is This How You Feel? It is an extraordinary compilation of handwritten letters from highly credentialed climate scientists and researchers sharing their myriad feelings about what they are seeing. The blog is run and operated by Joe Duggan, a science communicator, who described his project like this: "All the scientists that have penned letters for this site have a sound understanding of climate change. Some have spent years designing models to predict changing climate, others, years investigating the implications for animal life. More still have been exploring a range of other topics concerning the causes and implications of a changing climate. As a minimum, they’ve all achieved a PhD in their area of expertise."

"With Joe's permission, I am happy to share the passages below. In the spirit of opening the door to a continuing dialog among readers about our collective situation, what follows are the - often very personal - thoughts and feelings of several leading climate scientists.

[Several scientists' letters are quoted at this stage of the article.]

"[...] disturbing trends of widespread denial, disinformation by the corporate media, and the worsening impacts of runaway ACD, which are all increasing, are something she is very mindful of. As she wrote in World as Lover, World as Self, "The loss of certainty that there will be a future is, I believe, the pivotal psychological reality of our time." We don't know how long we have left on earth. Five years? 15 years? 30? Beyond the year 2100? But when we allow our hearts to be shattered - broken completely open - by these stark, cold realities, we allow our perspectives to be opened up to vistas we've never known. When we allow ourselves to fully experience the crisis in this way, we are then able to truly see it through new eyes."

 

[Tyger]

IS THIS HOW YOU FEEL?
The scientists: What follows are the words of real scientists. Researchers that understand climate change.
LINK: This is how scientists feel - Is this how you feel?

 

[Tyger]

In many ways denial makes more sense than swallowing whole what the scientists say is coming. Everyday life is far more pleasant. But far more interesting than the catchy phrase 'scared scientists' and the pictures of stressed men and women, are the 'snap-shot' statements by the scientists as to why they are 'scared'. I post some of the comments after the link and link text.

PORTRAITS OF SCARED SCIENTISTS REVEAL TRUTH ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE
by Rachel Guest in New Photography on Wednesday 20 August 2014
LINK: Portraits of scared scientists reveal truth about climate change » Lost At E Minor: For creative people
TEXT: "Sometimes a picture says a thousand facts. Tired of climate change being discussed in dry facts and figures, photographer Nick Bowers decided to take an emotive approach to climate change by capturing the frightened faces of those most in the know – climatologists.

"Supported by a short interview with each expert, the portraits are a striking reminder that global warming is incredibly alarming and just as telling as any IPCC report."

TIM FLANNERY
Mammologist, Palaeontologist
University of New South Wales,
Monash University, La Trobe University
FEAR: DISRUPTION OF GLOBAL CIVILISATION
Climate Science underestimated the pace of climate change, it was too conservative. We’re now having far more rapid change than originally projected. Change that if not slowed, will undoubtedly affect my children and my grandchildren.

There is genuine potential for a change in climate to disrupt our global civilisation. If that happens, we know human nature has a dark side, people will fight over an ever diminishing resource pool, and that is a future we want to avoid.

This decade is critical, it is our last chance to prevent our children from that type of world. We have to make significant progress and get the global emissions trajectory turning downwards. That is the urgent task at hand.

WILL STEFFEN
Earth System Scientist
University of Florida, University of Missouri, Australian National University
FEAR: LOSS OF CONTROL OF THE CLIMATE SYSTEM
The climate is related to many parts of the Earth; the land, the ocean, the ice, the atmosphere. We’re noticing abrupt changes in all of these areas.

We’ll reach a point where we’ll lose control over the system. Right now, if we reduce our emissions, we can probably stabilise the system. If we push the climate too far, if we start losing ice too rapidly, start flipping things like the Amazon, then the internal dynamics of the climate will take over – and even if we pull emissions back, we won’t be able to stop very large changes – that’s my biggest fear.

The thing people don’t realise, is getting emissions down is not only feasible but economically promising and will actually lead to a better life. The narrative needs to change, it’s not all doom and gloom. Yes, it will be another massive transformation in human history, but it will lead to a cleaner environment, to more jobs, and an easier lifestyle.

We still have a chance to pull back climate change, but we need to act vigorously and we need to act soon.

LESLEY HUGHES
Ecologist, Macquarie University, Sydney
FEAR: SPECIES EXTINCTION
My work on the potential impacts of climate change on species and ecosystems has made it clear that the human species is now threatened.

We need to acknowledge the time lag between what we do to the atmosphere and its impacts on the climate. What we do now, affects the climate decades into the future. This means we need to drastically cut our emissions, now and forever, to stabilise the climate in the second half of the century.

If you think these facts are frightening, help us change them.


SARAH PERKINS
Extreme weather researcher
University of New South Wales
FEAR: INCREASE IN EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS
As the background climate warms due to human activity, this increases the frequency and intensity of hot temperature events. I am concerned about how the very broad and damaging impacts of heatwaves will affect human health, infrastructure, agriculture, and natural systems. By the time we realise we need to make changes and start to put these changes in place, it might not be enough to balance out the range of catastrophes we will be facing.


MATTHEW ENGLAND
Oceanographer, Climate scientist,
University of NSW, Sydney
FEAR: CLIMATE INDUCED GLOBAL CONFLICT
Accelerated warming and expansion of water in the oceans, and increased melting rates of glaciers and ice caps are expected to increase sea levels by a metre or more over the next 100 years. This will pose a decisive threat to the existence of human settlements, infrastructures and industries across the world that are close to the shore lines. Those environmental degradations will aggravate global conflict as tens of millions of people migrate and their food supplies become threatened.

We need to understand that the cost of solving the problem is so much less than the cost of dealing with it down the track; that cost is going to be huge for future generations. Not dealing with it is selfish, short-sighted, narrow minded and obscene. It represents such a level of injustice as those that are going to be impacted are not playing a role in the decisions that are being made now.


SHAUNA MURRAY
Biological Scientist
University of Technology Sydney, University of Tokyo, University of New South Wales
FEAR: REACHING THE FOUR DEGREES OF WARMING
We’ve recorded all sorts of climate change shifts in multiple areas. However, the scientific process is consistent. Every single individual study that has been done, has gone through the same rigorous process, data collection, research analysis, and qualified peer review. At the moment, we’ve at least 10 000 different papers, completed over 20 years, each using different data sets, and they are all coming to the same climate change conclusions. We’ve a weight of evidence that the average person is simply not aware of – and this frightens me.

I’d like to think that we’re not going to reach the projected four degrees of warming this century; because I can’t even imagine what that would look like. 80 years is not that long, and unless we act soon, my seven year old daughter will probably have to live through that.



PETER MACREADIE
Marine Ecologist
University of Technology Sydney, Deakin University
FEAR: GLOBAL CATASTROPHE
IPCC predicts that the impacts of climate change will be catastrophic. This affects everybody. Nobody is safe. We’re going to lose low lying countries, there will be a loss of live stock, potential wide spread famine and species extinction.

One thing people need to remember, is that scientists are the biggest skeptics on Earth. We’re constantly trying to disprove each other. This is the one thing we agree on. The evidence is endless. We’re not making this up, this is really serious, we’re very concerned and there’s not enough being done about it. We really need to be pushing our governments. Let’s not look back and regret what we’ve done.



PENELOPE AJANIBiological Scientist
University of Macquarie, Sydney
FEAR: UNKNOWN REPERCUSSIONS OF CLIMATE CHANGE
The scientific community know sea levels will rise, people will be displaced and food resources will diminish. But I work on the small things, the ocean’s plankton, and we are already seeing climate shifts in these organisms. How those changes will affect the global ocean is something we really can’t answer – and that scares me. For example, the fact that we’re seeing tropical species all the way down the east coast of Australia, means massive changes are occurring. However, we currently can’t predict the exact impact of these shifts.

Another example is that climate change will create winners and losers, there’ll be some species that get wiped out and some that will become prolific. Will it be the toxic algal species that are going to survive?

There will come a time when we need to have answers, when these changes will greatly challenge humanity.

 

[Tyger]

It becomes a case of 'pick your poison'.

Fukushima operator to miss toxic water clean-up deadline, suspends till May
Published time: January 23, 2015 16:09
LINK: Fukushima operator to miss toxic water clean-up deadline, suspends till May — RT News
TEXT: "Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said it won’t be able to process the radioactive water stored at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant by March, as the operator had promised earlier. The company’s president said the delay is due to technical problems."

 

[Tyger]

Anyway, it all comes down to (as I think Mike suggested at some point on one of the threads) - what are each of us experiencing?

For myself, I am living in SoCal. I am not a native. I have lived here in SoCal for only 5 years so I am not a legitimate witness. I do know that an old-timer once stated that the last spate of regular thunderstorms in Los Angeles (that she recalls) were in the late 1980's. I can vouch for the fact that hearing thunder in LA now is rare enough to be a source of comment.

Most everyday currently is unusual. It feels like the heat of summer one day - then we are near freezing temperatures (abnormal of SoCal). Last week suddenly we experience a puff of spring - then rain - now warmth. The changeability is unusual, I understand, but nothing I say can be anything but anecdotal, and not informed.

Anyone else care to say what they are experiencing?

 

[mike]

in addition to the 150 to 200 species we are already driving extinct daily. Can you relate to this grieving process?

Yeah i can

I find it really hard to accept that entire species need to be lost, just so ours can have even more than the more than fair share of the planets resources we already gobble up.

Its not fair, there is no justice in this reality. And if an ET's are watching this play out, i cant help think they would be unimpressed.

In around 300 years time, 75% of all mammal species will have disappeared from this planet. That's the startling prediction from Anthony Barnosky, a palaeobiologist at the University of California, Berkeley – that’s if the current rates of extinction continue and the animals already threatened or endangered are wiped out this century.

In the past, the extinction rate has been balanced by the evolution of new species, but the current, human-caused extinction is happening so fast that evolution cannot keep pace. Barnosky estimates that the current rate is 1,000 times the natural rate

BBC - Future - A looming mass extinction caused by humans

How anyone could reasonably turn a blind eye to this insanity and claim we dont have a problem with what we are doing to this planet eludes me

 

[mike]

Wow, was this a bad year for those who deny the reality and the significance of human-induced climate change. Of course, there were the recent flurry of reports that 2014 surface temperatures had hit their hottest values ever recorded. The 2014 record was first called on this blog in December and the final results were reported as well, here. All of this happened in a year that the denialists told us would not be very hot.
But those denialists are having a tough time now as they look around the planet for ANY evidence that climate change is not happening. The problem is, they’ve been striking out.

The oceans are warming so fast, they keep breaking scientists' charts | John Abraham | Environment | The Guardian

 

[mike]

We land-based creatures live in the midst of a massive extinction crisis, just the sixth one over the past half billion years. What about the oceans? A much-discussed, wide-ranging recent Science study (paywalled) has good news: Sea critters are currently faring much better than their land counterparts, which are going extinct at a rate 36 times higher. (That number is likely exaggerated, the authors note, because scientists have done a much better job of cataloging land critters than sea critters.)
Tackling the over-fishing problem will be no mean feat, given the expected rise of the human population to 9 billion by 2050, but it's probably doable.
But the report also brings horrible news: Between over-fishing and habitat destruction (think acidification, coastal development, warming, coral destruction, dead zones from fertilizer runoff, etc.), the oceans may be on the brink of their own extinction catastrophe. (The New York Times' Carl Zimmer has more details here; Vox's Brad Plumer has a good analysis here.) Today's marine extinction rates look eerily similar to the "moderate" land-based ones just before the Industrial Revolution, the authors warn. "Rates of extinction on land increased dramatically after this period, and we may now be sitting at the precipice of a similar extinction transition in the oceans."

The Oceans Are On the Verge of Mass Extinction. Here's How to Avoid It. | Mother Jones

What to do? Tackling the over-fishing problem will be no mean feat, given the expected rise of the human population to 9 billion by 2050

Habitat degradation, according to the Science authors, is the main trigger for the extinction wave we're now seeing on land, and is probably the biggest threat to cause a similar catastrophe at sea. "If you cranked up the aquarium heater and dumped some acid in the water, your fish would not be very happy," Malin L. Pinsky, a marine biologist at Rutgers University and an author of the report, told The Times' Zimmer. "In effect, that's what we’re doing to the oceans." Of course, both warming and acidification are the direct result of our fossil fuel habit—the same force that's generating potentially catastrophic climate change up here on land. There's no saving the oceans without solving that problem.

 

[mike]

On St Matthew Island in the Bering Sea the US Coastguard shipped in 29 reindeer in 1944 as food for the navigation station personnel, but none were ever shot and all 29 were left behind at the end of the war.

By 1957 the herd swelled in size to over a thousand, thriving on the abundant moss and lichen. Although the animals were healthy, observers noted small patches of overgrazing. The island had reached its carrying capacity. Six thousand were counted in 1963.

The reindeer were thin and showing signs of stress. When observers returned in 1966, the island was littered with skeletons. The herd had been reduced to just 42 reindeer with no active males; it faced extinction in the next generation and the island environment had become devastated by the herd

http://populationmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/D20Carryingcapacity.pdf

Population Matters » for a sustainable future


It faced extinction in the next generation and the island environment had become devastated by the herd.........................

And thats what we are seeing globally today, mass extinctions and a devastated biosphere.....

 

[mike]

"There's no point bleating about the future of pandas, polar bears and tigers when we're not addressing the factor putting more pressure on the ecosystem than any other — the size of the world's population."
Chris Packham

Speak out « Population Matters

 

[Tyger]

If I occasionally re-post a link someone else has already posted, sorry about that - I do it unawares. Sometimes it's easy to forget where one saw something first - on a thread or elsewhere. Anyway, I think repetition is not always a bad thing, so......

Humanity Is In The Existential Danger Zone, Study Confirms
January 22, 2015 | by James Dyk
LINK: Humanity Is In The Existential Danger Zone, Study Confirms | IFLScience
TEXT: "The Earth’s climate has always changed. All species eventually become extinct. But a new study has brought into sharp relief the fact that humans have, in the context of geological timescales, produced near instantaneous planetary-scale disruption. We are sowing the seeds of havoc on the Earth, it suggests, and the time is fast approaching when we will reap this harvest. This in the year that the UN climate change circus will pitch its tents in Paris. December’s Conference of the Parties will be the first time individual nations submit their proposals for their carbon emission reduction targets. Sparks are sure to fly.

"The research, published in the journal Science, should focus the minds of delegates and their nations as it lays out in authoritative fashion how far we are driving the climate and other vital Earth systems beyond any safe operating space. The paper, headed by Will Steffen of the Australian National University and Stockholm Resilience Centre, concludes that our industrialised civilisation is driving a number of key planetary processes into areas of high risk. It argues climate change along with “biodiversity integrity” should be recognized as core elements of the Earth system. These are two of nine planetary boundaries that we must remain within if we are to avoid undermining the biophysical systems our species depends upon.

"The original planetary boundaries were conceived in 2009 by a team lead by Johan Rockstrom, also of the Stockholm Resilience Centre. Together with his co-authors, Rockstrom produced a list of nine human-driven changes to the Earth’s system: climate change, ocean acidification, stratospheric ozone depletion, alteration of nitrogen and phosphorus cycling, freshwater consumption, land use change, biodiversity loss, aerosol and chemical pollution. Each of these nine, if driven hard enough, could alter the planet to the point where it becomes a much less hospitable place on which to live.

"The past 11,000 years have seen a remarkably stable climate. The name given to this most recent geological epoch is the Holocene. It is perhaps no coincidence that human civilisation emerged during this period of stability. What is certain is that our civilisation is in very important ways dependent on the Earth system remaining within or at least approximately near Holocene conditions. This is why Rockstrom and co looked at human impacts in these nine different areas. They wanted to consider the risk of humans bringing about the end of the Holocene. Some would argue that we have already entered a new geological epoch – the Anthropocene – which recognizes that Homo sapiens have become a planet-altering species. But the planetary boundaries concepts doesn’t just attempt to quantify human impacts. It seeks to understand how they may affect human welfare now, and in the future.

[...]

"Climate change impacts are firmly within this new yellow zone. Our atmosphere currently has about 400 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide. To recover back to the green zone we still need to get back to 350ppm – the same precautionary boundary as before. Perhaps most importantly the research produces a two-tier hierarchy in which climate change and biosphere integrity are recognised as the core planetary boundaries through which the others operate. This makes sense: life and climate are the main columns buttressing our continual existence within the Holocene. Weakening them risks amplifying other stresses on other boundaries.

"Reasons Not To Be Cheerful
"And so to the very bad news. Given the importance of biodiversity to the functioning of the Earth’s climate and the other planetary boundaries, it is with real dismay that this study adds yet more evidence to the already burgeoning pile that concludes we appear to be doing our best to destroy it as fast as we possibly can.

"Extinction rates are very hard to measure but the background rate – the rate at which species would be lost in the absence of human impacts – is something like ten a year per million species. Current extinction rates are anywhere between 100 to 1000 times higher than that. We are possibly in the middle of one of the great mass extinctions in the history of life on Earth."

 

[Tyger]

"There's no point bleating about the future of pandas, polar bears and tigers when we're not addressing the factor putting more pressure on the ecosystem than any other — the size of the world's population."
Chris Packham

Speak out « Population Matters

I'm thinking about it. Might the pressure be because of the way we live? If we live differently, might the planet be able to sustain any population? I've always had that hunch - but, of course, the planet cannot sustain large population given the way we live and consume. But were that consumption and life style to change, would the problem dissolve?

 

[DissectionStalker]

Are we headed for extinction in 15 years? Couldn't say, but it's fascinating to read the reasoning. The number of scientists saying so - and their bona fides - is impressive.

15 years is really freaky!!! Where are those 15 year scenarios?

We need a countdown clock for the 15 years to "check off" the signs as each year passes.

That would certainly get media attention... like the... how many minutes to nuclear destruction clock.

 

[mike]

I'm thinking about it. Might the pressure be because of the way we live? If we live differently, might the planet be able to sustain any population? I've always had that hunch - but, of course, the planet cannot sustain large population given the way we live and consume. But were that consumption and life style to change, would the problem dissolve?

Consumption is a big part of the equation, And just as we saw in the CO2 debate, denialists will try and isolate small factors and try and make their case on those.

We hear the total population could fit into Texas, but when you look at the math in regards to fresh water and sanitation that argument falls over.

Western lifestyles require 12 acres of land per person per year for the food they eat (its 4 acres in the 3rd world) but running on the 4 acre figure and using figures from 2008

Total Earth's solid surface is , 57,500,000 sq mi. Now, there are 640 acres per square mile which when multiplies together =
36,800,000,000 total acres on land to be divided up.
Latest World census figures as of Dec. 10, 2008 = 6,867,020,300 people living on Earth as of today. Divide the acres of land by the number of people and you get = 5.36 acres of land for every single person on Earth.

China is using its water aquifers faster than they can replenish

Falling water tables are already adversely affecting harvests in some countries, including China, the world’s largest grain producer. A groundwater survey released in Beijing in August 2001 revealed that the water table under the North China Plain, which produces over half of that country’s wheat and a third of its corn, is falling faster than earlier reported. Overpumping has largely depleted the shallow aquifer, forcing well drillers to turn to the region’s deep fossil aquifer, which is not replenishable.
The survey, conducted by the Geological Environmental Monitoring Institute (GEMI) in Beijing, reported that under Hebei Province in the heart of the North China Plain, the average level of the deep aquifer was dropping nearly 3 meters (10 feet) per year. Around some cities in the province, it was falling twice as fast. He Qingcheng, head of the GEMI groundwater monitoring team, notes that as the deep aquifer is depleted, the region is losing its last water reserve—its only safety cushion.
He Qingcheng's concerns are mirrored in a World Bank report: “Anecdotal evidence suggests that deep wells [drilled] around Beijing now have to reach 1,000 meters [more than half a mile] to tap fresh water, adding dramatically to the cost of supply.” In unusually strong language for a Bank report, it foresees “catastrophic consequences for future generations” unless water use and supply can quickly be brought back into balance.

This is now happening everywhere

Bookstore - Outgrowing the Earth: The Food Security Challenge in an Age of Falling Water Tables and Rising Temperatures | Chapter 6. Stabilizing Water Tables: Falling Water Tables| EPI

The real threat to our future is peak water | Lester Brown | Global development | The Guardian

But people dont just want food and water, they want stuff. Cars and lithium ion batteries for portable devices, this drives industry and industry makes pollution.

Now one fix is as you suggest to reduce our consumption. But follow this process through

Our quality of life goes down as we tighten our belts and do without, while the population grows
As one factor gets larger (population) the other (resource share /quality of life) gets smaller

In the end you wind up with a massive population living on the bare minimum, thats the endgame. And if the population continues to grow....

The other option is to limit population, to balance the books by scaling back on the consumers rather than the consumption

It gives you a better result in the long game

Think of it like this. you have limited housing, you cant build any more houses, but the population keeps growing

Soon there are 3 people to a room, each person has less personal space , two years later you have 6 to a room. each person has even less space

As each house gets more and more crowded the quality of life goes down for all of them

You can solve the growing population issue my simply cutting back on the living space of that population until the houses are intolerably overcrowded
Or you can scale back the growth which is the real cause of the problem

Yes consumption is a factor, but the real culprit is growth, you cannot have runaway growth in a finite system

You can manage it in the short term by scaling back consumption, but all you get is a still growing population that has to make do with less and less as that number grows.
Eventually you reach a point where you cannot consume any less than what you do, and at that point the only fix is to limit growth.

So why not limit growth now while everyone still has a reasonable share of resources

 

[mike]

Its a really important question at what minute is the testube half full ?


Limiting our consumption doesnt fix the problem of exponential growth, it just delays the inevitable. Kicks the can down the road for a very short distance

 

[mike]

In a world where financial deficits are measured in the trillions, 7 billion doesnt seem that big

Seven billion is a hard number to imagine, but each of us counts as one of those people. If you started now to count out loud to 7 billion, how long do you think it would take you? According to National Geographic, it would take you... 200 years! -

Even on a logarithmic plot—on which exponentials are tamed into straight lines—our population trend resembles the infamous “hockey stick” curve seen in so many domains (atmospheric CO2, global surface temperature, and practically any measure associated with human activity). A logarithmic hockey stick is truly scary. Because human impacts on the planet scale with population, it is not terribly surprising that a hockey-stick population curve should translate into hockey sticks everywhere. It is in this sense that population underlies nearly every issue and challenge of our times.

- See more at: The Real Population Problem | Do the Math


It is not physically impossible, but supporting billions of people on this planet for the long haul is not something we are proving adept at doing.

When the historical record is riddled with examples of civilizations peaking, overreaching, and collapsing, it becomes rather difficult to subscribe to the notion that this time is different, when faced with so many monumental and simultaneous challenges.

Population, as a reflection of human nature, may well be the mother of all challenges. Tightly bound to resource demands, the problem isn’t going to go away by ignoring our own personal roles and instead focusing attention on poor nations half-a-world away.

Economic growth incentivizes population growth, which plays right into our biological desires. It would be refreshing to no longer be enslaved as victims to either of these forces.

Otherwise we don’t really get to write our own future. And nature doesn’t care if we don’t understand.

 

[mike]

This complexity is best viewed using a systems approach, which helps top overcome the polarization found in the most prominent views of population-environment linkages.
The systems approach has two key differences from conventional approaches. It does not focus on a single factor, but instead builds in as many potential factors as possible

Throughout most of history, humanity has used nature’s resources to build cities and roads, to provide food and create products, and to absorb our carbon dioxide at a rate that was well within Earth’s budget. But in the mid-1970s, we crossed a critical threshold: Human consumption began outstripping what the planet could reproduce.
According to Global Footprint Network’s calculations, our demand for renewable ecological resources and the services they provide is now equivalent to that of more than 1.5 Earths. The data shows us on track to require the resources of two planets well before mid-century.
The fact that we are using, or “spending,” our natural capital faster than it can replenish is similar to having expenditures that continuously exceed income. In planetary terms, the costs of our ecological overspending are becoming more evident by the day. Climate change—a result of greenhouse gases being emitted faster than they can be absorbed by forests and oceans—is the most obvious and arguably pressing result. But there are others—shrinking forests, species loss, fisheries collapse, higher commodity prices and civil unrest, to name a few. The environmental and economic crises we are experiencing are symptoms of looming catastrophe. Humanity is simply using more than what the planet can provide.

http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/earth_overshoot_day/

The current levels of population/consumption are already more than the planet can sustain in the long term.

Reducing consuption does help but doesnt solve the problem. And sadly the actual trend is the complete opposite of what we would need to effect even that temporary fix.

Developed nations are not reducing their consumption, and less developed nations seeing how we live, want the same and are increasing their consumption rates.

The west isnt scaling back its lifestyle and living more simply, rather the underdeveloped nations are scaling up their consuption to enjoy the lifestyle we currently do.