Permanent Inaction

Craig Welsh reports on limited data suggesting that some land in the arctic may no longer be freezing even in winter.

If a region's active layer stops freezing consistently, consequences can be swift. Once unfrozen, soil microbes in the active layer can decompose organic material and release greenhouse gases year-round—not just in summer. And it exposes permafrost below to more heat so that layer, too, can begin thawing and releasing gases.

Thawing permafrost is a positive feedback I don't like to think about.

Meanwhile, Robinson Meyer refers to Malcolm Turnbull's defeat in Australia over a climate bill as indicative of a worrisome pattern.

Moderate national leaders—on both the center-left and center-right—in some of the world’s richest and most advanced countries are finding it far easier to talk about climate change than to actually fight it.

Every country except the United States supports the Paris Agreement on climate change. But no major developed country is on track to meet its Paris climate goals, according to the Climate Action Tracker, an independent analysis produced by three European research organizations. Even Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom—where right-wing governments have made combating climate change a national priority—seem likely to miss their goals.

Update (September 5):  The 2018 Report of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate argues that the next 2 or 3 years are a critical window for upcoming investment and policy decisions.

The next 10-15 years are a unique ‘use it or lose it’ moment in economic history. We expect to invest about US$90 trillion in infrastructure to 2030, more than the total current stock. Ensuring that this infrastructure is sustainable will be a critical determinant of future growth and prosperity. The next 10-15 years are also essential in terms of climate: unless we make a decisive shift, by 2030 we will pass the point by which we can keep global average temperature rise to well below 2C.

Update (September 11):  The EPA is proposing to reverse restrictions on methane.

The agency estimated that energy companies would pay $530 million [on the monitoring and repair of methane-leaking wells] by 2025 under Obama’s rules but save $484 million by the same year if the [administration] proposal is implemented.

Update (September 12):  Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers from PopularResistance.org promote #RiseForClimate.

Update (September 13):  William Rivers Pitt explains the concern over the EPA proposal.

The preponderance of methane in our atmosphere lubricates the rails for the nightmare runaway freight train bearing down on us all. Carbon dioxide is dangerous enough, but methane puts it in deep shade when it comes to environmental damage.

Faced with these challenges, a wise person would immediately take active steps to ameliorate the danger. First and foremost, one would think, would be to do everything possible to curb human-created methane emissions wherever and whenever it can be done. This would seem to be simple common sense, enlightened self-interest on both a local and planetary scale. The president of the United States of America is not a wise man.

Update (September 19):  A carbon tax would be hard to establish and probably won't solve the problem.

Scientists are beginning to realize that there are physical limits to how efficiently we can use resources. Sure, we might be able to produce cars and iPhones and skyscrapers more efficiently, but we can’t produce them out of thin air. We might shift the economy to services such as education and yoga, but even universities and workout studios require material inputs. Once we reach the limits of efficiency, pursuing any degree of economic growth drives resource use back up.

These problems throw the entire concept of green growth into doubt and necessitate some radical rethinking. ... We are nowhere near imposing a global carbon tax today, much less one of nearly $600 per metric ton, and resource efficiency is currently getting worse, not better. ... [E]ven if we do everything right, decoupling economic growth with resource use will remain elusive and our environmental problems will continue to worsen.

Update (September 30):  A draft environmental impact statement from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration assumes a nearly 7 degree Fahrenheit rise in mean global temperature by 2100. Michael MacCracken:

The amazing thing they’re saying is human activities are going to lead to this rise of carbon dioxide that is disastrous for the environment and society. And then they’re saying they’re not going to do anything about it.

Oceans on the Brink

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Jenny Panlilio discuss how the health of the oceans affect our own health.

Many algae species can accumulate and form blooms, some of which produce toxins that can cause severe respiratory problems if we inhale them ― and gastrointestinal and even neurological problems if we eat seafood or drink water contaminated with them.

As climate change causes waters to warm and agricultural runoff and pollution cause nutrient levels to increase, humans create conditions for some blooms to become enormous.

And James Bradley examines how marine life is on the verge of collapse.

It is not really a surprise that we find it difficult to assimilate this sort of information. Our ability to conceptualise fundamental changes to the world we inhabit is extremely limited, as is our capacity to think meaningfully about problems that are years or even decades away. To exist in a moment in which geological time and human time are collapsing into each other is to be brought up against the bounds of our imaginations.

This problem is amplified when it comes to the ocean: although we may know one part of the coastline intimately, the ocean’s immensity means that for most of us the rest of the ocean remains essentially unknown, a trackless non-place.

Update (July 11, 2019):  In an article published at PNAS, Daniel Rothman models the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the oceans.

[T]he unusually strong but geologically brief duration of modern anthropogenic oceanic carbon dioxide uptake is roughly equivalent, in terms of its potential to excite a major disruption, to relatively weak but longer-lived perturbations associated with massive volcanism in the geologic past. 

Rothman explains:

It’s a positive feedback. More carbon dioxide leads to more carbon dioxide. The question from a mathematical point of view is, is such a feedback enough to render the system unstable?

Instability seems to come from passing a certain threshold. In the geological record, such instability is associated with mass extinctions. 

Pessimism of the Mind

Climate warnings seem to range from urgent to extreme. But the headlines are filled with the latest twist in the national soap opera. In the shadows, Republicans commit to wreaking as much damage as possible. And the rich won't be stopped from reaping undeserved largesse.

Would a "blue wave" even turn things around?

In interviews, more than a dozen Republican politicians, activists and consultants — including some current and former [von Clownstick] campaign aides with direct lines to the president — said they are increasingly convinced a Democratic House victory in the midterms and subsequent impeachment push would backfire and ultimately help the president in 2020.

So far, the Democratic prospects for 2020 are less than inspiring--and yet, we need someone to catch fire. A handful of progressives get some national attention and attacks from the right are expected, but then it's discouraging to come across disparagement from the left. Maybe I give it too much attention, but a purist attitude just leaves me feeling hopeless for making any kind of change. "Or Bust" is an option from which we might not be able to recover.

Update (August 17):  Heather Digby Parton looks to Andrew Johnson rather than Bill Clinton as a better comparison to von Clownstick.

Johnson's "swing around the circle" strategy [in the 1866 midterm election] greatly damaged his presidency and he went on to be the first president to be impeached, only surviving conviction by one vote in the Senate. He couldn't even win the Democratic nomination in 1868 and the party lost the presidency later that year.

And Amanda Marcotte counsels patience.

This isn't just about politics, to be clear. There's also a moral argument here. There is so much that the public doesn't know about this president and his background, and so much that [Dear Leader] is clearly hiding. We have a right to know, at long last. Rushing into impeachment, a divisive drama that [von Clownstick's] defenders would paint as pure partisanship, could leave far too many stones unturned. It's imperative that, after all this time, the public actually gets a chance to find out what the secretive, paranoid [Fuckface] is so worried about.

[T]he main reason for patience is that it's the best chance the Democrats have of successfully laying waste to this horrible, corrupt administration. Jumping the gun on impeachment early in 2019 will means it dies a near-certain death in the Senate. Building up a case over time, however, and bringing forward new information could change the political calculus so that impeachment is more likely. There might be evidence so serious it finally chips away at Republican support for [Orangeman] and pushes GOP senators to do the right thing. Yes, that's unlikely, but it becomes less so if enough time is given over to investigations.

Andrew Levine is all for hobbling Fuckface as much as possible.

The main thing to hope for from this election, though, is that, when it is over, Democrats, not Republicans, will control the House and the Senate. This is important for damage control, and not much else. Even with a dozen Ocasio-Cortezes and Tlaibs elected, that wretched party will still be part of the problem, not the solution.

Perhaps they and others like them who might emerge out of the forces mobilizing to defeat the [Orange] Party this November will inspire the handful of Progressive Caucus stalwarts who do sometimes show signs of being on the side of the angels to defy their party’s leaders. If that happens, then there might before long be a Progressive Caucus, by that or some other name, large enough and progressive enough to make talk of “democratic socialism” more than just talk.

Update (August 20):  Chris Hedges has the end in sight.

The failure to act to ameliorate global warming exposes the myth of human progress and the illusion that we are rational creatures. We ignore the wisdom of the past and the stark scientific facts before us. We are entranced by electronic hallucinations and burlesque acts, including those emanating from the centers of power, and this ensures our doom. Speak this unpleasant truth and you are condemned by much of society. The mania for hope and magical thinking is as seductive in the Industrial Age as it was in pre-modern societies.

Update (August 30):  David Wallace-Wells acknowledges that in terms of coverage on television, climate change is a "ratings killer".

[I]t is perhaps important to remember that the media did not ignore these stories, or the month of global climate horrors that gave rise to them. Television networks covered those heat waves 127 times. That is, actually, a very lot! They just utterly failed to “connect the dots,” as Emily Atkin put it incisively at The New Republic —broadcasters told the story of the historic temperatures, but chose not to touch the question of why we were seeing so many of them, all at once, with the atmosphere more full of carbon, and the planet hotter, than it has ever been at any point in human history.

Update (August 31):  In a talk about his book, America: The Farewell Tour, Chris Hedges describes Fuckface as a symptom of a failing system that's bringing the rest of us down as the ruling elite fight to maintain their wealth and power. He argues that we need to come to grips with the magnitude of the problem. We can't rely on "hope"; we need figure out ways to resist. Hedges wants the one percent to feel fear. We don't know how things will turn out, but we fight fascists because they are fascists. The way to overcome despair is through resistance.

One Earth is not Enough

Today marks overshoot day, the earliest time it has occurred since humans first started unsustainable consumption in 1969.

Overshooting our resources certainly implies a need to reduce consumption. Yet that appears to be politically untenable. Stan Cox needs to point out that there's no free lunch.

[T]he national or world power structure [has not] acknowledged that deep reductions in human resource use and economic activity, but with sufficiency for all, are necessary. Instead, the most popular proposed “solutions” would double down on human ingenuity and market forces, the two factors that have been central to creating our predicament in the first place.

Cox rejects notions such as 100 percent renewable energy at current levels of consumption, or urban "farming", or gasoline from air. Research continues on carbon extraction from the atmosphere, but it merely seems like a textbook example of increasing complexity.

Modern capitalism is not designed to solve the problems we face.

Ecomodern megacities, LED-powered Caesar salads, robotic servants, gasoline that lets you turn carbon dioxide into carbon dioxide, the blockchain, renewable-energy fantasies, and countless other innovative schemes illustrate how market forces are always far better at producing energy-hungry technologies than they are at finding ways to reduce consumption.

Update (August 13):  Maria Stoian isn't willing to place a bet.

Warmest Four Year Period--Heading for the Hothouse

The annual State of the Climate report shows 2017 to be the warmest non-El Nino year on record and either the second or third warmest overall. And still, Peter Gleick implores us not to give in to fatalism.

It’s too late to stop severe climate change – indeed we see it around us. But it is absolutely not too late to slow the rate of climate change. ... We can, and must, still act.

Update (August 4):  Jem Bendell also continues to see a need for action in what he calls the Deep Adaptation Agenda.

Disruptive impacts from climate change are now inevitable. Geoengineering is likely to be ineffective or counter-productive. Therefore, the mainstream climate policy community now recognises the need to work much more on adaptation to the effects of climate change. That must now rapidly permeate the broader field of people engaged in sustainable development as practitioners, researchers and educators. In assessing how our approaches could evolve, we need to appreciate what kind of adaptation is possible. Recent research suggests that human societies will experience disruptions to their basic functioning within less than ten years due to climate stress. Such disruptions include increased levels of malnutrition, starvation, disease, civil conflict and war – and will not avoid affluent nations.

Update (August 7):  A study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds that even meeting the emissions reductions in the Paris Agreement still risks failing to hold warming to 2 degrees Celsius. Even that increase could trigger positive feedbacks.

A “Hothouse Earth” climate will in the long term stabilize at a global average of 4-5°C higher than pre-industrial temperatures with sea level 10-60 m higher than today.

Update (August 14):  Manuel Garcia notices more headlines about forest fires.

Why this new overt and blaring mainstream news attention to climate change, a subject that was officially hush-hush, trivial and fake news so recently in the past? Obviously because climate change has begun costing big money to major sectors of American capitalism.

Update (August 20):  In an interview with Chris Hedges, Adam Frank also warns of a coming hothouse.

Once you get the ball rolling down the hill. … This is the greatest fear. This is why we don’t want to go past 2 degrees [Celsius] of climate change. We’re scared that once you get past 2 degrees, the planet’s own internal mechanisms kick in. The population comes down like a stone. A complete collapse. You lose the civilization entirely.

Also, a report called What Lies Beneath: The Understatement of Existential Climate Risk seems self explanatory. It highlights a quote by Robert Corell from 2007:

We are climbing rapidly out of mankind's safe zone into new territory, and we have no idea if we can live in it.

Update (August 22):  Robert Hunziker offers a quote from the PNAS study hinting that capitalism is incapable of solving the problem.

The present dominant socioeconomic system, however, is based on high-carbon economic growth and exploitative resource use. ... Incremental linear changes to the present socioeconomic system are not enough to stabilize the Earth System. Widespread, rapid, and fundamental transformations will likely be required to reduce the risk of crossing the threshold and locking in the Hothouse Earth pathway… We suggest that a deep transformation based on a fundamental reorientation of human values, equity, behavior, institutions, economies, and technologies is required.

Update (September 3):  In his book, Light of the Stars, Adam Frank explains his reasoning for assuming technological civilizations have previously existed in the universe. He also presents the results of preliminary modeling for those civilizations encountering their own versions of climate change. The most frequent result was a massive dieoff before stabilization. Adaptation seems more manageable with a greatly reduced population, but what kind of civilization would be left isn't clear. A second result was stabilization after early adoption of low-impact energy technology. The last result was extinction even after later adoption of low-impact technology. Extinction may depend on things like climate sensitivity to new forcings. Of course, all the associated probabilities are unknown.

And a paper published in Science expects changes as large as those during the last glacial-to-interglacial transition.

[W]ithout major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere, terrestrial ecosystems worldwide are at risk of major transformation, with accompanying disruption of ecosystem services and impacts on biodiversity.

Update (January 26, 2019):  Robert Hunziker discusses a video from Jem Bendell.

Update (December 22, 2021):  Marianne Apostolides argues Bendell undervalues new technology that could avoid the collapse of civilization.

[His] logical leap from catastrophic climate change to societal collapse betrays his stance against capitalism, which he has blamed for the climate crisis. Bendell denigrates mainstream adaptation efforts as "encouraging people to try harder to be nicer and better rather than coming together in solidarity to either undermine or overthrow a system that demands we participate in environmental degradation." By implication, those efforts — the unglamorous work of revamping infrastructure, engaging in urban and ecosystem planning, coordinating supply chains for food, water, and raw materials — are superficial, unlike the profound ethical and spiritual transformation that Deep Adaptation envisions. Societal collapse, in this worldview, becomes the event that triggers a creative reimaging of human civilization.

Blinded by utopian visions, Bendell seems to overlook the advancements, in science and technology and other realms, that are capable of upholding society. In sectors such as energy, water, materials science, and agriculture, basic science and innovative technology are spawning new realities that could stabilize societies, even amid horrific shifts in the natural world. Some of this technology, including large-scale nuclear fusion reactors and smaller nuclear batteries, will reduce carbon emissions. Other technologies, especially those developed with synthetic biology, may help us adapt to a warming planet by, for example, improving crop yields and revolutionizing manufacturing. By seizing a power once reserved for nature — the power to direct evolution — scientists can tackle some of the very problems humans have created through their consumption of fossil fuels.

None of these developments is a panacea. None will stop catastrophic climate change. None prefigure a world I want to live in. Yet they all refute the idea of societal collapse.