IPCC Report

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BRUTE
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Re: IPCC Report

Post by BRUTE »

solving the problem once and for all

tonyedgecombe
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Re: IPCC Report

Post by tonyedgecombe »

jacob wrote:
Tue Oct 23, 2018 10:00 am
So of course humans are going to go for it!
We might yet end up with that ice age the deniers have been talking about for years :lol:

stand@desk
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Re: IPCC Report

Post by stand@desk »

This report seems more political than scientific to me. The scientific equations and predictions read that we are doomed. Saying that we have until 2030 to make significant changes is more of a political statement than a scientific statement that such a timeline and action will amount to saving the world.

Ocean acidification is a great point, where we are basically at the point of no return in that area.

I think the best idea for the ERE minded individual is to keep living as they are and enjoy their time now. I think the problem is too big to solve with the world's current emotional/egotistical consideration for the world as a whole. It's never about scientific solutions or "everyone doing their part." It's about geopolitics and capitalism. Jacob is right where the systems are just too large and have too much inertia to change.

I would think there will be more wars and fighting and jockeying for control in the years ahead. Along with the world getting stranger and stranger. I think we shouldn't be too worried or too disappointed that it has to be this way because we have enjoyed such a high standard of living our entire lives and this is what our fate will be for us to have enjoyed living as we have.

hojo-e
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Re: IPCC Report

Post by hojo-e »


JamesR
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Re: IPCC Report

Post by JamesR »

Riggerjack wrote:
Wed Oct 17, 2018 12:02 pm
(**) Power, the really smart people who know everything really important can be summed up in metaphorical comics. Strangely, this group shows a huge overlap with people who believe in political solutions, and other fairy tails.
I'm kind of confused, are you claiming that I believe in political solutions? Are you claiming that when people get off their ass and solve problems, that's a political solution? P.S. I was mainly sharing the comic since BRUTE was strangely appearing to be a bit of a climate denier and I thought the comic was a nice optimistic counterpoint - i.e. that humans will respond and solve the problem, even if they're initially slow to respond societally.
Tyler9000 wrote:
Tue Oct 16, 2018 7:52 pm
I wonder what's less inevitable -- climate change or Godwin's Law. ;)
Touché, actually I wasn't thinking at all about the hitler comparison at all. I was just thinking about the natural/societal transition from denial to response based on urgency/information.

BRUTE
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Re: IPCC Report

Post by BRUTE »

JamesR wrote:
Tue Oct 23, 2018 10:31 pm
BRUTE was strangely appearing to be a bit of a climate denier
correct. brute thinks the climate is a hoax. has JamesR ever SEEN the climate? qed.

Riggerjack
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Re: IPCC Report

Post by Riggerjack »

I'm kind of confused, are you claiming that I believe in political solutions?
No. I have no idea what you believe. If you have a journal, or have expressed beliefs elsewhere, I missed it, I'm sorry. Rather, I read the comic, remembered when I believed something similar, and how wrong I was, about so much.

I'm not trying to disabuse anyone of their beliefs. Merely pointing out that the truthiness of the sentiment in the comic was only good for a single significant digit. It's rounded off. In other words, there is room for 49.9999% BS, but we can still round it off as true, if one's idea of truth is that flexible.

For reference, I would say that this quote from war correspondent, Edward L. Jones, Feb, 1946:

"We shot prisoners in cold blood, wiped out hospitals, strafed lifeboats, killed or mistreated enemy civilians, finished off enemy wounded, tossed the dying in a hole with the dead, and in the Pacific, boiled the flesh off of enemy skulls for table ornaments for sweethearts, or carved their bones into letter openers."
Is also only good for one significant digit of truthiness. Reality as recognized by the people who lived at the time, was somewhere in between.

I was just thinking about the natural/societal transition from denial to response based on urgency/information
As was I. :shock:

7Wannabe5
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Re: IPCC Report

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

My comprehension of the overall topic is still rather hazy and intuitive, but it seems to me that the overall prospects for global economic growth in the IPCC scenarios will be substantially and more near term mitigated by resource depletion issues as discussed in "Scale" by West, "Age of Stagnation" by Das, and reports such as these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KfVJBNX2U4

https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/kharecha_01/


IOW, I am laying my chips on prospect of overall highly ratcheting and regional global economic decline not under direct political or social control over course of next half century limiting average temperature increase to maybe 2.2 degrees, but increasing likelihood that I will live in "interesting" times prior to the theoretical birth of my first great-grand-child in 2050. IOW, I am giving 50/50 odds on peak coal being reached before profound global economic collapse.

jacob
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Re: IPCC Report

Post by jacob »

@7wb5 -

Which of the NASA scenarios (a,b,c,d,e) are you betting on? Then we can do some quick calculations...

Would also note that despite EREOIs being low for tight oil, it has not prevented the US(*) from pursuing shale gas, which is once again booming (after failing out from ZIRP in 2014(?) or so). As long as EROEI, minority fuels are driven by market concerns. Countries have run Fischer-Tropsch on coal(**) in the past even as EREOI is very near 1. I wouldn't discount people using fossil fuels as batteries. They do it for electric cars already.

(**) Most famously Germany during WWII and South Africa during Apartheid.

Natgas (methane) burns cleaner but the extraction process leaks methane which has serious global warming potential (like 86x in the near term relative to CO2). Crossover is at a leak rate around 14% which is right around the upper limit of what's being measured. Fun fact: The Trump administration has deregulated the tracking of methane leaks. We're definitely in good hands here /s

(*) It's deemed too risky (quakes from injection wells and all) and therefore illegal is many other countries.

Riggerjack
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Re: IPCC Report

Post by Riggerjack »

Fun fact: The Trump administration has deregulated the tracking of methane leaks. We're definitely in good hands here /s
And under Obama, the Office of Strategic Resources deregulated the sale of unrefined crude for the first time since I was a small child.

Government doesn't act in accordance with the wishes or policies of the White House. Or anyone else's.

If it did, I am not sure it would be an improvement. This isn't a condemnation if government. It is just an observation of the behavior of a complex system. It just turns out to be less clear than Maddow or Coulter would like us to believe.

7Wannabe5
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Re: IPCC Report

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@jacob:

I'm not betting on any of the NASA illustrations. I was just noticing that in addition to social behavior in response, or more likely reaction, to climate change projections and effects, there will also be social response/reaction to resource retraction to deal with in upcoming decades.

Liquified coal currently starts becoming competitive at around $75 barrel, but that in no way portends a stable price below 3 figures. Also, facilities construction will face similar hurdle as suddenly getting enough nuclear or anything else up and running if/when oil supply takes sudden steep dive. Other consideration might be that the NASA illustrations and IPCC scenarios were not necessarily inclusive of most expert estimates on coal supply.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 10000617#!

https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/why-are-cli ... l-and-coal

What effect would doubling of cost per unit of overall energy supply have on global economy? I am betting even money this will happen before date needed for 40% decrease in emissions in order to keep overall temperature increase below 2.2 degrees.

jacob
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Re: IPCC Report

Post by jacob »

You're pulling papers back from 2010 where climate research was indeed ignoring peak oil (I remember that because that was the time I was still involved in the sustainability nonprofit and integrating specialists was one of the issues). However, it's now known that proven fossil reserves are 3x larger than what it needed to hit 2C. IOW, 2/3 of proven reserves have to stay (or be captured and put back) in the ground in order to avoid crossing 2C(*). If everything is burned off, it's certainly enough to hit the worst case scenario. At these timescales (insofar mass capture has not been introduced), CO2 is a reservoir problem and emissions just keep adding and adding since ultimate reduction happens very slowly via rock weathering.

(*) This would really displease the shareholders :-P

Doubling the oil price which happened back in 2008 will cause/significantly contribute to a global recession. The recession stopped the growth in the emissions rate... which only means that the rate of making the problem worse was not accelerating. Essentially, in terms of driving over the cliff, the foot was taken off the accelerator so the car only maintained a steady speed towards the cliff.

As was mentioned elsewhere (maybe by you?) there's enormous slack in the system, so whenever prices go up, it just removes the slack (stupid use) until prices go down again. It causes people to e.g. drive a little less; not to build new alternative power plants.

Once total energy production is down so much that all the slack is gone, the "signal" will be stronger and perhaps even strong enough. The rhetorical question will then be whether there's enough energy at that point to facilitate a transition to new energy sources AND pay for carbon capture and storage.

JamesR
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Re: IPCC Report

Post by JamesR »

Riggerjack wrote:
Wed Oct 24, 2018 6:21 pm
Rather, I read the comic, remembered when I believed something similar, and how wrong I was, about so much.
Okay, I think you're talking about the war part?

I'm talking more about when countries respond to threats whether artificial or otherwise and do something amazing as a result. For example, building a whole space industry and achieving a moon landing practically within the period of a decade. I'm just saying that having examples of those kind of intense responses leaves me with some optimism for our upcoming responses to climate change.

7Wannabe5
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Re: IPCC Report

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@jacob :

Taking the conversation up to 2016 :lol:

From the HSBC report confirming peak oil in most benign manner possible:
If we assume 5-7%pa decline rates on a benign estimate of 59mbd of global post-peak output,
the supply lost between 2016 and 2040 amounts to 41-48mbd. For context, this is broadly 4x
the current crude oil output of OPEC’s largest producer, Saudi Arabia (c.10.5mbd). Assuming all
other pre-peak production is held constant, this is the amount needed just to keep supply flat.
To provide in addition for the expected rise in global demand over the period, the additional
supply needed could be closer to 55-60mbd...

Given the compounding nature of oil decline rates, a small difference in the initial decline rate
assumptions makes a significant difference to long-term production forecasts 20 years down the
line. For instance, if we assumed a 6% pa global decline rate instead of 5%, we would need to
find 57mbd of new capacity. At a 7% decline rate, we would need 61mbd of new capacity, or
around five “Saudi Arabias”...

Natural decline can be mitigated through investments into additional drilling, facilities,
debottlenecking, secondary and tertiary recovery. Some analyses differentiate natural decline
(which purely reflects physical factors) from managed decline rates, which include the impact
of reinvestment. The IEA estimates that the difference between natural and managed decline
rates is between 2% and 3%, and has been rising over time.
From "The energy-population conundrum and its possible solution"
Francesco Meneguzzo,Ciriminna, Albanese, Pagliaro (my emphasis)
This evidence suggests that most of GDP growth, at least in the last two
decades, can be ascribed more to the increase in debt than to real wealth
generation; and that the concurrent effect of the declining EROI of traditional
fuels has played a substantial role in the dynamics identified [26]. As a
consequence, the chance of future economic growth matching the current
trajectory of the human population is inextricably bound to the wide and growing
availability of highly concentrated energy sources enjoying broad applicability to
energy end uses...

An analysis of the EROI dynamics unequivocally suggests declining average
EROIs for all fossil fuels [40], with the EROI of oil having likely halved in the
short course of the first 15 years of the 21st century
[13, 26, 46].
So, if I just combine these with my intuition based on what I know happens after half the "cherry" books are gone at a used book sale, then my answer to your rhetorical question':
whether there's enough energy at that point to facilitate a transition to new energy sources AND pay for carbon capture and storage.
becomes "No, there will not be enough money for either AND this will happen prior to 2040."

7Wannabe5
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Re: IPCC Report

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Of course, either way Green Wizard style ERE will serve much better than conventional FIRE style ERE. Which is why I am going rough camping up north again this week and then doing some research on arcane topics of personal interest rather than working full-time for money. Collapse early and avoid the rush, etc. etc.

Hobbes
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Re: IPCC Report

Post by Hobbes »

But how would you defend your permaculture paradise against the soon-to-be hungry masses?

7Wannabe5
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Re: IPCC Report

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Hobbes: The population density of the county where I would be relocating is 1 human/15 acres. All the surrounding counties have even lower population density. The nearest city with population of 35,000 is approximately 100 miles away. Almost everybody owns their own small acreage, or is at least the errant nephew of a modest property holder. Almost everybody is within hiking distance of one of several decent sized rivers. Many of the residents are Amish.

I recently attended a very popular open-to-the-public fish fry held at the hall of one of the fraternal organizations in the area, and the odds the crowd in attendance would survive any SHTF scenario over, for example, the crowd I observed in attendance at champagne event on the topic of "Greening of Detroit" is not even a contest. IOW, my permaculture paradise would be surrounded by property held by others who also have skin-in-the-game, so it won't be just me against the hordes. Also, since I do plan on teaching at the local schools, I will likely be known and accepted as a contributing member of the community.

BRUTE
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Re: IPCC Report

Post by BRUTE »

so the FIRE plan is to hold up the Amish at club-point for their produce? :D

7Wannabe5
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Re: IPCC Report

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@BRUTE:

No, I will spend approximately 2 hours/day producing food myself. Definitions of capitalism formulated in era of very cheap dense energy input availability will soon be unraveling, so you best get cracking yourself!
When Solow and other neoclassical economists wrote about the origin of wealth in the middle of the last century, capital seemed much more important than land or labor. Solow believed that capital equipment (represented by physical buildings and the machines within them or their monetary value) was the principal determinant of wealth. But physical capital equipment does not generate wealth by itself, rather it was the means of utilizing the new and increasingly large flows of fossil energy throughout society. Human labor, once so important, had by then decreased to less than one percent of the energy used to generate wealth; the rest was fossil fuels or hydro/nuclear power that flowed through Solow's capital. Thus each school of economics rightfully concentrated on the means by which wealth was generated in their time. In each case, however, what they perceived as important was related to the dominant energy flow that was generating the most wealth at their time, and because little was understood by these economists about energy or its importance in production they tended to focus on proxy values-land, labor, and capital-rather than the true causative agents. -"Energy and the Wealth of Nations: Understanding the Biophysical Economy" - Hall and Klitgaard

Riggerjack
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Re: IPCC Report

Post by Riggerjack »

Okay, I think you're talking about the war part?

I'm talking more about when countries respond to threats whether artificial or otherwise and do something amazing as a result. For example, building a whole space industry and achieving a moon landing practically within the period of a decade.
No. I am talking about the narrative.

You linked to a comic. The comic had a narrative. Something along the lines of CC is hard, seems impossible. Y'know what else seemed impossible, Nazis. But we gathered together, tugged on bootstraps, and everyone sacrificed a bit and we triumphed. No more Nazis. Now let's use that model for CC.

The problem is he is referencing history, which only very slightly agrees with him. Yes, allied forces defeated Nazis. (Until Charlottesville,anyway. :roll: ) Yes, sacrifices were made. But that's where his narrative goes into fictional cheerleading.

There are more details he seems to have glossed over.

So when the comic says "Sacrifices were made by all members of the Allied countries... ...But Planners ensured that all citizens he'd enough food and resources to live within realistic limits"

I'm assuming he must be referring to victory gardens and the Bengalese famine. You know, where first worlders had to grow their own vegetables, and millions of anonymous Indians died because the UK war commission burnt their crops, sank their boats, and forbid anyone from selling them food. Because, you know, sacrifices must be made.

Having watched as my own, or my friends' sacrifices get glossed over, and reading the first hand accounts of others, who don't even recognize how that glossy narrative applied to their experiences; I find that glossy, simplified narratives of this sort are how we paper over atrocities, and stop learning from mistakes.

I want nothing to do with such an approach, and CC is too serious to leave to a council to decide what is an atrocity, and what is acceptable losses.

As one understands that one is an acceptable loss to someone, one tends to not trust life and death decisions to committees. As one studies the quality of decisions made, one comes to distrust committees to make any important decision.

That's not me distrusting government, nor being worked up about war. This is simply my observation of how we make decisions and mistakes. And how we conflate them. And then, after a few generations, gloss over them.

Look a little closer, and you will see the same mechanics at work in NASA.

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