[✔️] Jan 10, 2024 Global Warming News | Hottest on record, SCOTUS abjures, 1.5 degrees up, Gaza war heat, West's fall, Doomerism, 2006 Climate Scientist

[Richard Pauli]

/*January*//*10, 2024*/

/[ DW News is a multi-lingual news service based in Germany -- 3 min 
video ]/
*Hottest year on record: EU climate change service Copernicus publishes 
climate report 2023 | DW News*
DW News
Jan 9, 2024  #climatechange #globalwarming #climatecrisis
Researchers have confirmed that 2023 was the hottest year on record. The 
European Union's Copernicus climate change service looked at global 
temperature records going back to 1850. And scientists warn this year 
could be even hotter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ft5S8RcQ2qI


[ SCOTUS abjures ]
*US Supreme Court declines to hear Exxon, Koch Industries appeal on 
venue in climate case*
By Clark Mindock
January 8, 2024
Jan 8 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a 
bid by major fossil fuel companies and an industry trade group to move a 
lawsuit filed by Minnesota accusing them of worsening climate change out 
of state court and into federal court, the energy industry's favored venue.

Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N), Koch Industries and the American Petroleum 
Institute had asked the justices to review a March decision by the St. 
Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That court found that 
Minnesota's lawsuit accusing the energy industry of engaging in decades 
of deceptive marketing to undermine climate science and the public's 
understanding of the dangers of burning fossil fuels belonged in state 
court, where it was originally filed...
- -
Last year, the justices declined to consider several similar appeals, 
effectively sending cases filed in California, Colorado, Rhode Island, 
Hawaii, Maryland and elsewhere back to state court, a venue often seen 
as more favorable to plaintiffs than federal court.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a statement Monday that 
the decision will now allow the case to proceed toward trial in state 
court, and that the decision aligns with similar decisions in courts 
across the country...
- -
Representatives for the American Petroleum Institute, Koch and Exxon did 
not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Eight U.S. appeals courts have affirmed lower court decisions remanding 
similar climate cases to state courts, finding generally that the 
lawsuits exclusively raise state law claims and thus federal courts do 
not have jurisdiction.

The American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas lobby group that has 
been accused of helping to coordinate the industry's alleged deception, 
and energy companies have said federal jurisdiction is appropriate 
because climate change is an issue of national and global importance...
- -
The fossil fuel industry has said the lawsuits effectively try to 
regulate federal energy policy through state law, and that the federal 
court system is the appropriate place to litigate harms allegedly caused 
by greenhouse gas emissions, which are produced across the globe and 
cannot be contained within state lines.

Minnesota's 2020 lawsuit accused the energy companies and the American 
Petroleum Institute of knowing since the 1970s and 1980s that the fossil 
fuels they sold would cause climate change, but that the companies did 
not disclose that risk to the Minnesota public and instead actively 
sought to undermine climate change science. The state said the 
coordinated efforts to downplay the risks of fossil fuels violated state 
consumer protection and fraud laws, and has caused the state billions of 
dollars in economic damages tied to climate change.

"Taken together, the defendants’ behavior has delayed the transition to 
alternative energy sources and a lower carbon economy, resulting in dire 
impacts on Minnesota’s environment and enormous costs to Minnesotans and 
the world," Ellison said Monday.

The companies and the institute have denied those allegations, and told 
the Supreme Court in August that the case deserved to be in federal 
court given the state's apparent aim to seek a remedy for the impacts of 
a global phenomenon such as climate change.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-supreme-court-declines-hear-exxon-koch-industries-appeal-climate-case-2024-01-08/



/[ article in the Guardian ]/
*Global heating will pass 1.5C threshold this year, top ex-Nasa 
scientist says*
James Hansen says limit will be passed ‘for all practical purposes’ by 
May though other experts predict that will happen in 2030s
Global heating will pass 1.5C threshold this year, top ex-Nasa scientist 
says
James Hansen says limit will be passed ‘for all practical purposes’ by 
May though other experts predict that will happen in 2030s
Oliver Milman
@olliemilman
Mon 8 Jan 2024
The internationally agreed threshold to prevent the Earth from spiraling 
into a new superheated era will be “passed for all practical purposes” 
during 2024, the man known as the godfather of climate science has warned.

James Hansen, the former Nasa scientist credited for alerting the world 
to the dangers of climate change in the 1980s, said that global heating 
caused by the burning of fossil fuels, amplified by the naturally 
reoccurring El Niño climatic event, will by May push temperatures to as 
much as 1.7C (3F) above the average experienced before industrialization.

This temperature high, measured over the 12-month period to May, will 
not by itself break the commitment made by the world’s governments to 
limit global heating to 1.5C (2.7F) above the time before the dominance 
of coal, oil and gas. Scientists say the 1.5C ceiling cannot be 
considered breached until a string of several years exceed this limit, 
with this moment considered most likely to happen at some point in the 
2030s.

But Hansen said that even after the waning of El Niño, which typically 
drives up average global heat, the span of subsequent years will, taken 
together, still average at the 1.5C limit. The heating of the world from 
greenhouse gas emissions is being reinforced by knock-on impacts, Hansen 
said, such as the melting of the planet’s ice, which is making the 
surface darker and therefore absorbing even more sunlight.

“We are now in the process of moving into the 1.5C world,” Hansen told 
the Guardian. “You can bet $100 to a donut on this and be sure of 
getting a free donut, if you can find a sucker willing to take the bet.”...
- -
While the 1.5C target is a political as much as a scientific one, 
researchers say there will be worsening impacts in terms of heatwaves, 
droughts, flooding and other calamities should the world exceed this 
temperature. For developing countries and small island states at 
existential risk from sea level rise and extreme weather, the agreed 
goal is a hard-fought and totemic one, with “1.5 to stay alive” now a 
common mantra heard at international climate talks...
- -
“I do think that in worrying about some particular threshold we are 
addressing the wrong question,” said Kerry Emanuel, a climate and 
meteorological expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 
“There are no magic numbers in climate change, just rapidly growing risks.”

Emanuel pointed to recent severe heatwaves, fires and storms that are 
already being supercharged by global heating of around 1.2C (2.1F) above 
what it was a little more than a century ago. “Perhaps, once half the 
population of the planet has experienced at least one of these weather 
catastrophes, they will get their leaders to act,” Emanuel said. “I hope 
it doesn’t take that much pain.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/08/global-temperature-over-1-5-c-climate-change


/
/

/[   War is not healthy for the planet...]
/*Emissions from Israel’s war in Gaza have ‘immense’ effect on climate 
catastrophe*/*
*/*Exclusive: First months of conflict produced more planet-warming 
gases than 20 climate-vulnerable nations do in a year, study shows*
*The climate costs of war and militaries can no longer be ignored*
Nina Lakhani Climate justice reporter
@ninalakhani
Tue 9 Jan 2024
The planet-warming emissions generated during the first two months of 
the war in Gaza were greater than the annual carbon footprint of more 
than 20 of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations, new research 
reveals.
The vast majority (over 99%) of the 281,000 metric tonnes of carbon 
dioxide (CO2 equivalent) estimated to have been generated in the first 
60 days following the 7 October Hamas attack can be attributed to 
Israel’s aerial bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza, according to a 
first-of-its-kind analysis by researchers in the UK and US.

According to the study, which is based on only a handful of 
carbon-intensive activities and is therefore probably a significant 
underestimate, the climate cost of the first 60 days of Israel’s 
military response was equivalent to burning at least 150,000 tonnes of coal.

The analysis, which is yet to be peer reviewed, includes CO2 from 
aircraft missions, tanks and fuel from other vehicles, as well as 
emissions generated by making and exploding the bombs, artillery and 
rockets. It does not include other planet-warming gases such as methane. 
Almost half the total CO2 emissions were down to US cargo planes flying 
military supplies to Israel.

Hamas rockets fired into Israel during the same period generated about 
713 tonnes of CO2, which is equivalent to approximately 300 tonnes of 
coal – underscoring the asymmetry of each side’s war machinery.

The data, shared exclusively with the Guardian, provides the first, 
albeit conservative estimate of the carbon cost of the current conflict 
in Gaza, which is causing unprecedented human suffering, infrastructure 
damage and environmental catastrophe.

It comes amid growing calls for greater accountability of military 
greenhouse gas emissions, which play an outsize role in the climate 
crisis but are largely kept secret and unaccounted for in the annual UN 
negotiations on climate action.

“This study is only a snapshot of the larger military boot print of war 
… a partial picture of the massive carbon emissions and wider toxic 
pollutants that will remain long after the fighting is over,” said 
Benjamin Neimark, a senior lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London 
(QMUL), and co-author of the research published on Tuesday on Social 
Science Research Network...
- -
Previous studies suggest the true carbon footprint could be five to 
eight times higher – if emissions from the entire war supply chain were 
included.
- -
“The military’s environmental exceptionalism allows them to pollute with 
impunity, as if the carbon emissions spitting from their tanks and 
fighter jets don’t count. This has to stop, to tackle the climate crisis 
we need accountability,” added Neimark, who partnered with researchers 
at University of Lancaster and the Climate and Community Project (CCP), 
a US-based climate policy thinktank.

Israel’s unprecedented bombardment of Gaza since Hamas killed as many as 
1,200 Israelis has caused widespread death and destruction. According to 
the Gaza health authority, almost 23,000 Palestinians – mostly women and 
children – have been killed, with thousands more buried under the rubble 
presumed dead. About 85% of the population has been forcibly displaced 
and faces life-threatening food and water shortages, according to UN 
agencies. More than 100 Israeli hostages remain captive in Gaza and 
hundreds of Israeli soldiers have been killed.

In addition to the immediate suffering, the conflict is exacerbating the 
global climate emergency, which goes far beyond the CO2 emissions from 
bombs and planes...
- -
The new research calculates that the carbon cost of rebuilding Gaza’s 
100,000 damaged buildings using contemporary construction techniques 
will generate at least 30m metric tonnes of warming gases. This is on a 
par with New Zealand’s annual CO2 emissions and higher than 135 other 
countries and territories including Sri Lanka, Lebanon and Uruguay.

David Boyd, the UN special rapporteur for human rights and the 
environment, said: “This research helps us understand the immense 
magnitude of military emissions – from preparing for war, carrying out 
war and rebuilding after war. Armed conflict pushes humanity even closer 
to the precipice of climate catastrophe, and is an idiotic way to spend 
our shrinking carbon budget.”

Climate consequences including sea level rise, drought and extreme heat 
were already threatening water supplies and food security in Palestine. 
The environmental situation in Gaza is now catastrophic, as much of the 
farmland, energy and water infrastructure has been destroyed or 
polluted, with devastating health implications probably for decades to 
come, experts have warned. Between 36% and 45% of Gaza’s buildings – 
homes, schools, mosques, hospitals, shops – have so far been destroyed 
or damaged, and construction is a major driver of global heating...
- -
“The catastrophic aerial attack on Gaza will not fade when a ceasefire 
comes,” said Zena Agha, policy analyst at Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian 
Policy Network, who writes about the climate crisis and the Israeli 
occupation. “The military detritus will continue to live in the soil, 
the earth, the sea and the bodies of the Palestinians living in Gaza – 
just as it does in other postwar contexts such as Iraq.”

*An opaque military carbon footprint*
Overall, the climate consequences of war and occupation are poorly 
understood. Thanks in large part to pressure from the US, reporting 
military emissions is voluntary, and only four countries submit some 
incomplete data to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change 
(UNFCCC), which organises the annual climate talks.

Even without comprehensive data, one recent study found that militaries 
account for almost 5.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions annually – 
more than the aviation and shipping industries combined. This makes the 
global military carbon footprint – even without factoring in 
conflict-related emission spikes – the fourth largest after only the US, 
China and India.

At Cop28 in Dubai last month, the unfolding humanitarian and 
environmental catastrophe in Gaza and Ukraine put war, security and the 
climate crisis on the agenda, but did not lead to any meaningful steps 
towards increasing transparency and accountability for armed forces or 
the military industry.
The Israeli delegation was mostly promoting its burgeoning climate tech 
industry in areas such as carbon capture and storage, water harvesting 
and plant-based meat alternatives. “Israel’s biggest contribution to the 
climate crisis comes in the form of the solutions,” said Gideon Behar, 
special envoy for climate change and sustainability.

Ran Peleg, Israel’s director of Middle East economic relations, told the 
Guardian that the question of calculating greenhouse gas emissions from 
IDF operations – current or previous – had not been discussed. “This is 
actually the first time this issue has been raised, and I’m not aware 
that there are any ways to count these kinds of things.”

Hadeel Ikhmais, head of the climate change office at the Palestinian 
Environmental Quality Authority, said: “We are trying to do our part on 
the climate crisis but even before the war in Gaza, it is hard to adapt 
and mitigate when we cannot access water or land or any technologies 
without Israel’s permission.”

Neither the Israel government nor Palestinian authorities appear to have 
ever reported military emissions figures to the UNFCCC.

Using its defence budget as a proxy, the new study estimates that 
Israel’s annual baseline military carbon footprint – without accounting 
for conflict – was almost 7m metric tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2019. 
This is about equivalent to the CO2 emitted by the entire nation of 
Cyprus, and 55% more emissions than the whole of Palestine.
No comparable military emissions calculation was possible for Palestine, 
due to Hamas’s ad hoc offensive capabilities, according to researchers.

But the Israel-Palestine situation was unique even before 7 October. In 
occupied Gaza, most Palestinians already faced significant food, water 
and energy insecurity due to the Israeli occupation, blockade, 
population density and the worsening climate crisis. Israelis meanwhile 
have long lived under the threat of rocket fire.

In order to capture some of the climate consequences of this militarized 
setting, researchers calculated the carbon footprint of war-related 
concrete infrastructure – walls and tunnels – constructed by Hamas and 
Israel since 2007.

Constructing the Gaza Metro – the 500km underground network of tunnels 
used to move and hide everything from basic supplies to weapons, Hamas 
fighters and hostages – generated an estimated 176,000 tonnes of 
greenhouse gas emissions, more than the island nation of Tonga emits 
annually, according to the study.

Building Israel’s iron wall, which runs 65km along most of its border 
with Gaza and features surveillance cameras, underground sensors, razor 
wire, a 20ft high metal fence and large concrete barriers, contributed 
almost 274,000 tonnes of CO2. This is almost on par with the entire 2022 
emissions by Central African Republic, one of the most climate 
vulnerable countries in the world.
*- -*
“The role of the US in the human and environmental destruction of Gaza 
cannot be overstated,” said co-author Patrick Bigger, research director 
at the thinktank CCP.

And not just in Gaza. In 2022, the US military reported that it 
generated an estimated 48m metric tonnes of CO2 , according to separate 
research by Neta Crawford, author of The Pentagon, Climate Change and 
War. This baseline military carbon footprint, which excludes emissions 
generated by attacks on Islamic State oil infrastructure in 2022, was 
higher than the annual emissions of 150 individual countries and 
territories including Norway, Ireland and Azerbaijan.

According to Crawford, about 20% of the US military’s annual operational 
emissions go towards protecting fossil fuel interests in the Gulf region 
– a climate change hotspot, warming twice as fast as the rest of the 
inhabited world. Yet the US – like other Nato countries – is mostly 
focused on the climate crisis as a national security risk, rather than 
on its contribution to it.

“Quite simply we’re preparing for the wrong risks by putting too many of 
our eggs in the military basket, when actually we have a much more dire 
emergency facing all of us. Moving military resources into the [energy] 
transition is low-hanging fruit,” said Crawford, who is the Montague 
Burton professor of International Relations at Oxford University.

Responding to the carbon analysis, Lior Haiat, a spokesperson for the 
Israeli ministry of foreign affairs, said: “Israel did not want this 
war. It was imposed on us by the Hamas terror organization that killed, 
murdered, executed hundreds of people and kidnapped over 240 including 
children, women and the elderly.

“Among all the problems facing the state of Palestine in the coming 
decades, climate change is the most immediate and certain – and this has 
been amplified by the occupation and war on Gaza since the 7 October,” 
said Ikhmais, the Palestinian climate director. “The carbon emissions 
from the military attacks contradict the UNFCCC and Paris agreement goal 
… recognizing the environmental impact of war is crucial.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/09/emissions-gaza-israel-hamas-war-climate-change



/[ from Canada's National Observer ]/
*The West’s gentle fall is a bad omen*
By Max Fawcett | Opinion, Politics | January 9th 2024
It used to be the case that a gentle fall was a welcome blessing to most 
Albertans. But after a summer of wildfires, drought and other 
climate-related catastrophes, the record-setting warmth has a foreboding 
quality to it that’s hard to ignore. In November, the city of Edmonton 
didn’t see any snow for the first time since 1928, while Calgary just 
enjoyed the warmest December on record in over 141 years of data.

As a result, scientists — and, belatedly, the Alberta government — are 
warning this summer could be even more difficult as the absence of 
moisture makes the forecast for wildfire season even more ominous. 
“These regions still don’t have snow cover,” University of Saskatchewan 
professor John Pomeroy told Global News. “Soil moisture levels are less 
than 40 per cent of normal. The snowpacks have not built up this year. 
And we know snow is how we got into trouble last year with the drought: 
the snowpacks were below normal and then they melted early.”

Pomeroy, who’s also the Canada Research Chair in water resources and 
climate change, says this is what the new normal looks like in a rapidly 
warming world. “We’re going to keep seeing these effects year on year. 
Alberta was over five degrees above normal in December. If we have those 
conditions in the spring again, then we’re back into an agricultural 
disaster.”...
Believe it or not, there are still wildfires burning in Alberta right 
now because there hasn’t been enough precipitation or cold to help the 
province’s firefighters finish off fires that kicked off last summer.

The province’s environment minister, who seems to spend most of her time 
advocating for new oil and gas development, has finally cottoned on to 
the scale of the threat. In the coming weeks, the Alberta government 
will apparently be awarding a contract for drought-modelling work and a 
drought advisory committee will be struck. “Our province has navigated 
droughts before. We have a long, proud history of coming together during 
tough times, and we will get through this together,” Rebecca Schulz said 
in a statement.

Schulz’s remarks make it seem like this is business as usual and that 
there isn’t anything new or unusual about the scale and scope of the 
threat her province faces. Residents in southern Alberta, which is in 
the midst of the worst drought in half a century, would probably beg to 
differ. There’s also no mention of the role climate change is playing 
here. Under the United Conservative Party’s leadership, it’s the truth 
that dare not be spoken aloud.
But as a recent review of more than a century of scientific literature 
by a team of academics at the University of Alberta makes clear, climate 
change cannot be ignored anymore. Their data shows a consistent trend of 
rising air temperatures, less snowfall and more disruptive and 
destructive weather events. Most worrisome was the increase in the 
minimum air temperature, which rose from 1 C to 4.5 C. Emmanuel Mapfumo, 
an adjunct professor at the University of Alberta, describes that as a 
“significant finding” since it means winters are getting less cold. 
“That can result in mid-season snowmelt, lower snow levels and less 
moisture in the early spring, which is important for sustaining 
early-stage crop growth...
Yes, the higher temperatures could theoretically allow for crops like 
corn and wheat to grow at higher latitudes, but those gains may quickly 
be subsumed by the spread of disease and pests like the wheat midge. As 
we saw in British Columbia’s forests and the catastrophic spread of the 
mountain pine beetle, relatively small changes in temperature can have 
enormous impacts.

Ironically, rural and remote communities where resistance to climate 
science is most widespread stand to get hit the hardest. As a team of 
academics noted in a 2019 survey of attitudes among Alberta beef and 
grain producers, “Even in comparison to general public samples, farmers 
also stand out in their particularly high levels of climate skepticism, 
preferring to attribute observed changes in climate to natural causes.”

Last summer’s wildfires in Western Canada were brutally bad. Thanks to a 
historically warm fall, this year’s might be even worse — and yes, 
climate change is the driving force behind it all.
In those circles, you can bet this year’s drought will be blamed on El 
Niño, the weather pattern that sees warm water in the Pacific shove the 
Pacific jet stream south of its natural position and create warmer and 
drier weather in the West. But, of course, climate change is 
exacerbating this natural phenomenon and making its impacts more intense 
than they might otherwise be. Sound familiar?

Not everyone is determined to miss this particular forest for the trees. 
Paul McLauchlin, the reeve of Ponoka County and president of the Rural 
Municipalities of Alberta, seems to understand the challenge posed by 
climate change to people in his community. "We have to have probably 
some hard conversations that we probably have never really had 
provincewide as opposed to our localized drought events that have 
happened historically," he told the CBC. Those include the oversized 
impact of agriculture and the oil and gas industry on water usage, and 
how they can better co-exist with the needs of ordinary people.

But with the United Conservative Party in power and fringe elements like 
Take Back Alberta holding its reins, those conversations won’t include 
climate change or Alberta’s disproportionate role in advancing it. This 
is an area where conservative politicians, who dominate rural parts of 
this country, could play a leadership role. They could help steer a more 
productive conversation on the subject, one that avoids polarization and 
partisanship and instead tries to help educate and inform. Alas, these 
conservatives just aren’t interested in any of that — and it’s their 
rural voters who will pay the highest price for it.
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2024/01/09/opinion/west-gentle-fall-bad-omen



/[ Understanding Doomerism - often the doomerist philosophy is adopted 
by despairing youth and older folks.  Generally, climate scientists 
describe many different models for a few more decades of inevitable 
heating and intensifying chaos - this is enabled by human passivity -- 
unless humans move to specific mechanical intervention to make specific 
changes to the atmosphere.  So viewers may want to start this video 
introduction a few minutes in.  ]/
*B: "This Is How All Civilizations End: In Denial, Followed by Panic"*
Collapse Chronicles
Jan 9, 2024  DUNNELLON
In today's Chronicle of the collapse, we dive into an essay by "B" (aka 
"the honest sorcerer") entitled, "Death Cults, Doomers and an End of a 
Civilization." Here is a link to the rest of the essay on Medium.com:
https://thehonestsorcerer.medium.com/death-cults-doomers-and-an-end-of-a-civilization-363c8fe033e9
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAHpWYx5AB4
- -
/[ text from The Medium - starts with a poem by Shelley ]/
*Death Cults, Doomers and an End of a Civilization*
(the author is named) B

    I met a traveller from an antique land,
    Who said — “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
    Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
    Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
    And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
    Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
    Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
    The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
    And on the pedestal, these words appear:
    My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
    Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
    Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
    Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
    The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
                              Percy Bysshe Shelley

Our industrial civilization is in full denial of its mortality. We teach 
Ozymandias to our children, yet somehow manage to remain fully oblivious 
to the temporal nature of our culture. Why do I tell such “depressing” 
stories? Well, while I’m fully aware that the decline of our modern age 
is inevitable, I do believe that we ‘doomers’ and ‘collapseniks’ have an 
important role to play.

Depression, doom, and despair are important emotions, but they are not 
the end state. These feelings must be contended with, and then passed by 
in the process of grief felt over the loss of this way of life, and the 
world we came to know as a child. I do believe that learning to mourn 
your losses then move on is an important step in becoming a grown adult. 
And while some prefer the mushroom treatment (kept in the dark and fed 
BS), I suspect that there are quite a few who would like to understand 
what is really going on, and why.

It’s like becoming aware that you are neither invulnerable nor going to 
live forever. Some never learn this lesson and fail to grow up, or end 
up in the mortuary much sooner than it would be otherwise expected. 
Others, and I believe this is the vast majority, accept the first part 
but somehow struggle to fully embrace the second. Unfortunately, they 
learn this at the very end to their lives, when they finally get their 
terminal diagnosis. It is only then, when they really start to process 
their grief felt over the loss of all their future prospects, they 
realize that they could’ve lived a different life...
- -
Just like you cannot save yourself from death, although many still 
believe they can, you cannot save a civilization either. Having a 
high-tech society is a one time offer in any intelligent species life. 
Something which is bound to have a beginning, a high point and an end, 
as resources run out and pollution takes over. Without accepting this 
simple fact of life we are preparing our children for a future which is 
physically impossible to bring about...
- -
Even though our situation looks special — thanks to our massive overuse 
of technology — our civilization’s decline will share many of its traits 
with its predecessors. Knowing how deeply unaware both the general 
public and the ruling classes are, I bet once things starts slipping 
there will be little if any chance of anyone stopping the landslide 
before the whole shebang hits the bottom of the valley. The reasons, as 
always, are panic and compounding mistakes...

    *This is how all civilizations end: in denial, followed by panic.*

Knowing that any civilization on the planet was a time limited offer — 
ours included — makes acceptance much easier though. I feel no 
resentment neither towards the political class, nor industrialists. 
Sure, our civilization could’ve been managed much better — at least in 
theory — but this is what we got. While keeping this in mind might be a 
heavy burden, it also saves one from falling for demagogues, tyrants and 
death cultists insisting how we must all fight (and die) in the 
cleansing flames of a holy war. No. The end of a civilization is not 
God’s punishment, but a fact of life due to a number of factors 
simultaneously at play. Resource depletion is just one of them. There is 
no one to blame, and no one can bring back the good old days either. 
Instead, we need to look forward, no matter how dark or light the future 
might seem, and focus on managing a graceful landing for this 
unsustainable little civilization of ours.

Until next time,
B
Written by B
A critic of modern times - offering ideas for honest contemplation. Also 
on Substack: https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/
https://thehonestsorcerer.medium.com/death-cults-doomers-and-an-end-of-a-civilization-363c8fe033e9



/[The news archive - interview with a climate scientist ]/
/*January 10, 2006 */
January 10, 2006: The New York Times interviews MIT's Kerry Emanuel 
regarding his research on climate change and hurricanes.
There is no doubt that in the last 20 years, the earth has been warming 
up. And it's warming up much too fast to ascribe to any natural process 
we know about.
We still don't have a good grasp of how clouds and water vapor, the two 
big feedbacks in the climate system, will respond to global warming. 
What we are seeing is a modest increase in the intensity of hurricanes.

I predicted years ago that if you warmed the tropical oceans by a degree 
Centigrade, you should see something on the order of a 5 percent 
increase in the wind speed during hurricanes. We've seen a larger 
increase, more like 10 percent, for an ocean temperature increase of 
only one-half degree Centigrade.

Q. So what are the implications of increased ocean temperatures?

A. Not much for storms at the time of landfall. But if you look at the 
whole life of storms in large ocean basins, we are seeing changes. And 
even if that doesn't have an immediate effect, people ought to be 
concerned about this because it is a large change in a natural phenomenon.

Q. There are scientists who say of fossil fuel consumption and global 
warming, We may not have all the evidence yet, but we ought to be acting 
as if the worst could happen. Do you agree?

A. It's always struck me as odd that this country hasn't put far more 
resources into research on alternative energy. Europeans are. France has 
managed to go 85 percent nuclear in its electrical generation. And the 
Europeans have gotten together to fund a major nuclear fusion project. 
It almost offends my pride as a U.S. scientist that we've fallen down so 
badly in this competition...
- -
Q. Would you ever buy a house on the beach?

A. I'd love to! But if I could do that, I'd insist on paying for my 
risk. And I'd do what is now being called "the Fire Island option," 
which involves putting up flimsy houses that you don't mind losing to a 
storm. You don't insure them.

Q. Almost concurrent to Hurricane Katrina, you published a beautifully 
packaged book, "Divine Wind: The History and Science of Hurricanes." How 
did you feel about the timing of its publication?

A. Not terribly good. If one is just interested in sales, I suppose it 
was fortuitous. But I was trying to convey a sense of hurricanes as not 
just things of scientific interest, but as beautiful. A leopard is a 
very beautiful animal. But if you took it out of its cage, it would go 
for your jugular. Anyone can understand that neither a leopard nor a 
hurricane is a willful killer.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/10/science/10conv.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0




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