Global dimming and warming.

[The Grand Nudger]

If that one and all of it's siblings were all going at once (and constantly)...we'd begin to approach the level of activity during P-Tr.

An interesting aside Kichi, re things like major currents and how they affect the environment (and the continued existence of any given species). The formation of Pangea would have cut off, disrupted, and altogether annihilated any currents like the conveyors we see today which were intersected by landmasses. For this reason it has been theorized that the formation of the super-continent itself (no other factors required- though it isn't likely that the super-continent could have formed without any other effects, and obviously it didn't -but just as an exercise in classification) would have kicked off and maintained large scale marine extinction events that lasted for millions of years, ultimately adding to the death toll in the final culmination of that process as it appears to us, P-Tr.

[popeyespappy]

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The proposed cause of the release of methane hydrate was one of the largest known volcanic events to have ever occurred on this planet. Just for starters. I'd say that puts the event at a slight advantage over our current situation. The volcanic activity of the P-Tr event alone would be capable of causing extinctions, even in the absence of climate change. Pangea was forming. Permian life was by no means adaptable to fluctuations in temperature, and compared to ourselves (and all of our mammalian relatives) they were rank amatuers. A severe anoxic event could have turned the water (and the atmosphere above it) into poison, literally. Not only was there a release of toxic chemicals UV radiation damage seems to have spiked (and these two are likely related). To top it all off, there may have been an impact event. Hows about we leave a little bit of the granduer of the P-Tr event intact eh? We aren't facing a P-Tr, not by any stretch of the imagination.

So yeah Poppy, I'm fairly comfortable proposing that the scenario presented to us as the P-Tr event was considerably more horrid than anything that has us screaming about the sky falling down today. I'm comfortable mentioning that we wouldn't expect anything even approaching the devastation of P-Tr today, with our current situation. Call me fucking crazy.....lol.


As to your comments about our proposed mass exodus northward, I don't even need a link. It's called pumping, storage, and transport. We're good at it. If there is water somewhere, allow me to humbly suggest that we're probably capable of getting that water where we want it. Fun fact, the most productive area of commercial agriculture in the united states was once a desert, we "fixed" that. Our water use is wasteful, granted, but it doesn't have to be, and we don't even need to invent new technologies to shore that up. This exodus bit of yours is fantasy, plain and simple.

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A future release of methane hydrate due to warming of the oceans is a real possibility. The oceans are warming because of human activity. That activity is changing the climate, and all indications are that it is changing the climate faster than nature did during the P-Tr extinction event. Therein lays the rub. The last time it was volcanoes that caused the methane hydrate to be released. This time around there are no volcanoes to scale therefore it something similar won’t happen again. It’s shit reasoning. In a broad sense it is the equivalent to saying there were forest fires before there were people therefore people can’t cause forest fires. Volcanoes may or may not have been responsible last time, but nothing says it can’t happen again with similar results for different reasons. Rising temperatures due to increased amounts of CO2 leading to the release of large quantities of methane as the tundra thaws and the permafrost melts could be enough to do it without the help of volcanoes.

The it is not going to be that bad mindset is also an indication that the conservative propaganda machine is winning the battle for our hearts and minds. Their message is it is not us, it is not going to be that bad, and even if it does get bad it is God’s will so there is fuck shit we can do about it anyway. You seem to fall squarely into the middle category despite the mountain of evidence that it not only can but probably will get bad unless we actively do something to mitigate it.

I find that interesting in morbid kind of way. Several times lately I have seen articles discussing the psychology of why people believe what they believe on these particular issues. Basically what it boils down to is the deniers are telling us what we want to hear. The scientists on the other hand are armed only with facts and figures of gloom and doom. Despite the evidence those facts and figures are correct it is simply something many of us don’t want to hear so we choose not to believe it. The current thinking is that if the scientists want the rest of us to believe what the data is telling them they are going to appeal to positive rather than negative emotions.

As far as aquifer depletion goes too bad you weren’t interested in reading the article. You might have learned a few of the reasons why I choose China, India and the US for my example. These countries are the largest food producers on the planet. They depend heavily on irrigation to produce that food. That irrigation is depleting the local water resources in some of the most productive regions. In many of those areas the water resources are old and are not being replenished at a rate that is sustainable over the long term even using conservative farming technics. At least not sustainable at any scale comparable to current production rates.

Global warming is going to make many of those areas drier in the future. Local supplies of both ground and surface water are going to get harder and harder to obtain. While it might be technologically feasible to pump the required water in from long distances doing that economically is another question. For one thing in many of the affected areas the only sustainable source of the quantities in question is going to be the ocean. That means not only are we going to be required to move several large rivers worth of water thousands of miles up hill, but the water is going to have to be desalinated before it can be used. The economics of such an endeavor are mind boggling. It is going to be much easier and less expensive to shift the majority of food production to the higher latitudes.

Since many of the areas in question are among the most populated food production isn’t going to be the only concern. It is going to get to a point where just getting enough water to drink will be difficult in some of them. If we take away the economic incentive of food production the likelihood of pumping the required water in from elsewhere goes down. No, the majority of the populations in the worst affected regions are going to be faced with a choice. Relocate to more environmentally friendly areas or die off.

[The Grand Nudger]

You keep focusing in on the methane release as though the increased volcanic activity (and all the other nasty shit happening at that time) itself wasn't annihilating shit left and right (which we have every reason to believe it was). To describe the vast gulf of differences between the P-Tr event and our current situation, and suggest that we aren't looking at an event of that scale is not shit reasoning, you just don't agree with me.

I have not claimed that "because there were forest fires before people people can't cause forest fires" or anything even remotely to that effect. What I have repeatedly stated is that this particular forest fire is small fucking potatoes compared to the P-Tr "forest fire", regardless of who or what started either. I have not claimed that it "isn't going to be that bad". What I have repeatedly stated is that we don't have any reason to assume that it will be as bad as the events which are so often compared to it. Not only do we have no reason to assume that it will be as bad, it doesn't even have to be as bad as we have reason to assume it could be.

Now that we're hopefully done with that, lets move on to ag and irrigation. Grain production is predominantly rain fed. Ag extensions spend inordinate amounts of money pleading with producers to irrigate, but they are reluctant to try anything new, "That's not the way my daddy did it". When they do irrigate, they do so with the most inexpensive, poorly thought out and wasteful designs available, almost as a rule. It fucking infuriates me. You know what infuriates me even more though? That you thought that our current methods had anything to do with our ability, or that they were in any way a limiting factor to food production in the event that water became more scarce. They aren't. Aquifer depletion is a major concern, take S Fl a couple years back for example. Record low temperatures during the strawberry season led growers to shower their fields nonstop for weeks (to prevent the cell walls of the berries from bursting- making them unmarketable). The ground began to collapse underfoot, not under the growers fields, but miles away in residential housing developments. Here's the real kicker, they survived the freeze. Not only did they survive the freeze those same record lows produced an abundance of strawberries. No one could sell them. They were left to rot in the field because it was too expensive to even disk them under. Now, did any of this have to go down the why it did? To put it simply, no. There are methods, equipment, and practices which would have avoided the whole sad story. It isn't because we don't know how, it;s because we're unwilling to pay (and the real sad part here is that the amount we're unwilling to pay usually adds up to fractions of a penny per pound, fan-fucking-tastic). Tell me more about ag and aquifer depletion, because I just wasn't aware....

When you hear somebody say "not economically feasible" with regards to ag, it's usually not the camp you think it is making that argument. "Not economically feasible" has been our go-to excuse for shitty production methods, and the suppliers of those methods and materials. In effect, they would very much like for you to think that we would all starve if we didn't purchase their products. "Much easier and less expensive" to shift our current practices -a contributor to this whole sad state of affairs- northward, yeah, sure........just so long as we ignore the cost of things like climate change. Here's what really boggles my mind, you think that moving water is a major stumbling block to food production? So lets assume food production moves northward uniformly, and that we just continue to massively fuck up in ag -because it's easier and more cost effective-. What is it you think that we're moving when we ship food back to the south? Water, only this time it's highly perishable water, double bonus.

More fun facts to blow your mind, continuing on with my example of Florida. You know what Florida growers could seriously use? A little aridity. The humid conditions of Florida are the perfect breeding grounds for pest and disease pressure in commercial ag that costs us millions (and again, greatly contributes to the amount of pollutants that ag offers up in the overall shit pie). Steps are actually taken in commercial fields to increase aridity above the root zone while simultaneously increasing moisture below it to promote growth and prevent pressure. Speaking of production and climate change, and specifically since you mentioned grain production, we currently expect to see increased rates of maturation in grain crops as a result of climate change. We'll actually be able to grow grain faster. Combined with longer growing seasons (again a projected effect of climate change) that means we might be able to squeeze in another crop every season. Go figure huh? Of course, mixed vegetable production looks like it will probably suffer for the same reasons that grain production is likely to flourish. These things aren't as black and white as you seem to be suggesting they are. They certainly aren't all black, which is all I see whenever these threads crop up.

Here's a fun link for you. http://www.ca.uky.edu/agc/pubs/id/id36/id36.pdf (and you won't even have to read too far into it). Just so happens that with a modicum of investment (sheets of plastic and drip tape) roughly 50% as much water as we currently use here in Kentucky is capable of producing a greater yield across all known commercial crops (this same method is promoted uniformly across the US btw, not that most farmers actually want to install it). That's not exactly high tech, or anywhere near the limits of our methods. So, half as much water, and we get more food. Don't you think that it would be prudent to see whether or not we already have suitable solutions for the problems you think are so insurmountable as to invoke a mass exodus - before you insisted that it would likely take place?

[popeyespappy]

Just a few points from this end then I quit. You keep talking about the Permian extinction like we can’t get there from here. Yes, I disagree with that assessment because I think we can get there from here. Please note that I didn’t say we would get there just that we could. I believe a similar outcome is avoidable. However if we continue down the same path we are currently on unabated the odds of a similar outcome are greatly increased. While conditions today are not identical to those at the height of the P-Tr event they are similar to in many ways than they were early on in the P-Tr event. CO2 levels in the atmosphere and in the oceans are going up. Surface temperatures are on the rise. These things combined with other human activities are causing habitats to be lost faster than the creatures that live in them can adapt to their changed environment. We are already in the 6th great extinction.

The thing I think you keep missing because you have yet to address it is if things that led up to the P-Tr event were so much worse than they are now, why is the data telling us things are happening faster now than they did then? We won’t need flood basalt eruptions if our current activities set off a chain of events that raise the surface temperature 8 C and releases the methane hydrate currently sequestered at the bottom of the oceans. Hell, right now a good volcanic eruption every couple of years would provide a mitigating effect to AGW.

On aquifer depletion, increased aridity and mass migrations. Never once did I even suggest that low water high yield farming technics are not economically feasible. What I said was many of our aquifers are being depleted at unsustainable rates, and much of what is currently our most productive farmlands are going to experience increased aridity as global warming continues. Where these two conditions come together there will simply not be enough water resources available locally to sustain production at levels even approaching anything like what we see today. You just can’t grow 10 bushels of corn without 200 liters of water no matter what growing technics you use because there is 200 liters of water in 10 bushels of corn. What I said was it will not be economically feasible to desalinate and transport enough water from the oceans to the areas most affected by draught and aquifer depletion to enable large scale food production in those areas.

There is nothing new about the idea of water wars or mass migrations due to water shortages. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 47% of the world’s population will face high water stress by 2030. In other words in less than 20 years 4 billion people are going to find it difficult to obtain enough fresh water to keep them alive. The IPCC says, "Water and its availability and quality will be the main pressures on and issues for, societies and the environment under climate change." The US Senate is issuing reports with names like Avoiding Water Wars: Water Scarcity and Central Asia’s growing Importance for Stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon is on record saying the reason for going to war in 1967 was for water. The Georgia State Legislature has proposed invading the state of Tennessee over access to the Tennessee River. It’s an issue (not invasion but access) that came up again just a couple of years ago when the Atlanta area was under a sever draught.

US corn production is expected to be down 15% this year despite a record planting in 2012. This due to a draught measured in weeks. Future climate change is expected to bring draughts measured in years. But that’s all good. There is no need to try to avoid this type of problem. We have pumps and plastic sheeting. We can deal with it when it comes.

[jonb]

Alight I'm going to throw, my two penny worth in, Yes the weather is changing, but the processes are not fully understood. The outcome could well be catastrophic. To say there were similar situations more than five million years ago, is to forget, five million years ago the Antarctic was covered in trees the summer temperature was 25c and the winter 10c. But then think how could that be? Plus 10 in winter when there was no sun what was providing all that heat? Answer ocean circulation warm water from the equator moving down around the Antarctic and back up a huge radiator keeping the whole place equally warm. Now though the Antarctic and south America have moved apart, so the southern ocean just circulates around the Antarctic insulating it and that continent is now cold. This means there is no longer the radiator to remove heat from the centre that there was.
Given this information what are people going to do? Nothing, give up the car, tv, computer, lifestyle, no its all somebody else's fault. People believe what they want to believe not what is true.

[The Grand Nudger]

"We won’t need flood basalt eruptions if our current activities set off a chain of events that raise the surface temperature 8 C and releases the methane hydrate currently sequestered at the bottom of the oceans."- Nope, that's bad enough by itself, we still won't have to deal with the formation of Pangea, the staggering volcanic activity, possible impacts, or the lack of adaptations to variable climates. Every dust storm is not the Dust Bowl, every hurricane is not Katrina, and AGW is not P-Tr.

I don't understand. If we suddenly find ourselves waterless that will have an effect on the economic viability of de-sal, would it not (transport can't be the issue, because we already transport massive amounts of water to our big ag producing areas to begin with, that's business as usual)? If you're using our current water consumption as a benchmark for whether or not large scale ag is feasible in an area than you are ignoring how ridiculously fucked up our current water management practices are in the first place. If you're proposing a 50% reduction in available water in any given area then black plastic and drip tape -alone- can cover that...while increasing yields. We can do even better (or cover for even more severe shortfalls) with more. I'm going to say this again though, because it must have slipped by. Grain production is predicted to benefit from climate change, not be gutted by it. On the subject of availability of water. Climate change is predicted to increase the amount of available water worldwide. Will the distribution of that water be fair? No, it won't, but it isn't fair now either, and it never has been. This problem would be even worse without the predicted effects of climate change. We'd be chiseling glaciers on a massive scale (and to be honest, we probably still will, with whatever glaciers are left).

Who said we don't need to avoid this problem? Let me repeat myself, again. It is not P-Tr, it is not the apocalypse, we already have solutions for some of the issues we may face.

"US corn production is expected to be down 15% this year despite a record planting in 2012. This due to a draught measured in weeks [combined with poor irrigation, bad soil management, garbage IPM, and unfriendly markets]." - Fixed that for you. Climate change today, similar to the situation at the P-Tr event is not some magic bullet, responsible for all conceivable woes.

-

"Moderate climate change in the early decades of the century is projected to increase aggregate yields of rain-fed agriculture by 5-20%, but with important variability among regions. Crops that are near the warm end of their suitable range or that depend on highly utilized water resources will likely face major challenges."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_ef...al_warming Cited from http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/impacts...ional.html

"With increased carbon dioxide and higher temperatures, the life cycle of grain and oilseed crops will likely progress more rapidly."
"Projected increases in temperature and a lengthening of the growing season will likely extend forage production into late fall and early spring."
http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sa...efault.htm

It sure as hell looks like we're headed for trouble, but not the trouble you seem to think we're headed for (at least not on this count). I think it's important to have an accurate assessment of the problems we face and their relative level of adversity (and whatever options we currently have available to alleviate or circumvent them) if we want to make a run at handling this issue intelligently. Or - we could just keep reminding each other that the end is nigh. The conversations I see time and time again go a bit like this:

-Take the worst possible projection
-Cite the worst possible examples of industry practice
-Ignore any solutions we already have available
-Assume vast and uniform human complacency and indifference to the issue
*In some special cases, just get the whole damned thing flat out wrong, for whatever reason

Climate change isn't going to starve us, we'd have to lend our hand on that count. Not that we aren't demonstrably willing to do so, granted. Climate change is predicted to put the nail in a whole variety of agricultural practices which we have known were a bad idea for quite some time (this isn't limited to ag, but ag is my baby, obviously). It's also predicted to make some really bad ideas even more productive. Some areas will no longer be suitable for mixed vegetables, for example, but will become suitable for forage and grain, with other areas the reverse is predicted to occur. Some areas are predicted to be unsuitable for ag overall, but at the same time areas currently unsuitable for ag are predicted to become very conducive. It's a mixed bag from all sides. Now, why don't we hear about the increased grain production, extended forage, longer growing seasons, and establishment of new, productive farmland where once there was none (except from those asshats which you seem to be assuming I am part and parcel of)...? Because it doesn't make good ad copy, and it doesn't make people watch the news. For that we require doom and gloom and mayhem. The only slack those asshats (you know, the ones who don't think this is occurring/a problem at all) have to sow discord with is the slack our camp gave them by painting such a decidedly apocalyptic and one-sided picture in the first place.

Just so we aren't suffering from any misconceptions here, I'm embarrassed with the way that we have handled this issue. I'm embarrassed for the way we handled it globally, but more importantly, I'm embarrassed with the way the US has handled it, because down to brass tacks -fuck the rest of these people- (I still love you world....let me be patriotic for a minute) we should be at the forefront of a sustainable future. Every time one of our diplomats or scientists stands up to address this issue it should be immediately followed by "and this is the pioneering work we've been doing stateside to address this". Every time we tell china, for example, that they need to curb their fossil fuel consumption - we should show them how we managed to curb ours. When people think "green" they should be thinking about the good ole U.S. of A. Not only am I disappointed in our lack of activity, I'm disappointed in our lack of activism relative to alarmism. A huge part of getting anything done here will be to overcome or court public opinion. The chicken little approach doesn't seem to have worked quite as brilliantly as some must have thought it would.

[Gooders1002]

I am shit scared, I don't see this world lasting past the century. Especially if the religitard keep denying it. I think we need to consentry on global warming. I am glade I am not bring any children into this world, as if something is not done they I am bring the kid into the world to die.

[KichigaiNeko]

Why be shit scared gooders? So the propaganda has gotten to you?

RELAX...Chill pills are in isles 12 (at your local supermarket)

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And for some ungodly reason our PM seems to think that SHE has ALL the answers!! :pfft:

But seriously now .......

I have heard all the doom and gloom for nigh on 50 years...just WHAT-The-Fuck is being done, why?, how much? and what wlse needs to be done to adapt to this "monster" called climate change?

'Cos sure as hell we are NOT going to escape it.

a bit like earthquakes and religion I think......

Me: So YOU think that the Earth was made by god and that is it ad infinitum?

Religious nut job: Oh yes God FIXED the Earth and the stars so they will Never change

Me: yeah right...explain earthquakes, Climate Chang, Magnetic pole shift and everything else that science has uncovered that would lead one to confirm that we live on a volatile rock...third one out from the star Sol in the unfashionable arm of the Milky way Galaxy.

We are NOT great...but we might be getting there
/rant

[Gooders1002]

Why be shit scared gooders? So the propaganda has gotten to you?

RELAX...Chill pills are in isles 12 (at your local supermarket)

I live by the saying hope for the best, plan for the worst. So why should I relax? in short summary as I can't be arsed to read walls of text.

[KichigaiNeko]

Why be shit scared gooders? So the propaganda has gotten to you?

RELAX...Chill pills are in isles 12 (at your local supermarket)

I live by the saying hope for the best, plan for the worst. So why should I relax? in short summary as I can't be arsed to read walls of text.

Meh...me too!

But still RELAX!! I am thinking that the questions now to ask are...."OK so WHAT THE FUCK CAN we do?? How CAN we keep feeding our people and keep economies prosperous??

And DON'T ask Julliar Gillard...she has no clue as to WHO actually owns our power supply let alone anything else; poor girl.