Climate Links: 03/28/2017

Massive Permafrost Thaw Documented in Canada; Huge Carbon Release May Be Coming. Gaius Publius, naked capitalism. Mar. 4, 2017.

I’ve called this tendency to under-anticipate the pace of climate change “being wrong to the slow side.” We have a strong (and encouraged) tendency to believe that the relentless march out of the climate range that nurtured human civilization will happen slowly, incrementally, gradually — yet we consistently find out, again and again, in instance after instance, that these changes can also occur in unanticipated leaps and collapses as well. 

These leaps and collapses are going to become more frequent, as the pace of change accelerates and larger and more significant elements of the climate system destabilize. Leave a glass of ice sitting at room temperature, and the ice will melt slowly at first, but that melt-rate will inevitably accelerate. Same with a destabilized, out-of-equilibrium climate system. 

You could call the accelerating pace of climate change a kind of Snowball Effect — a mirror of what happens when a snowball starts rolling down a hill. After a period of slow and gradual movement, it picks up both speed and momentum (added mass) until it becomes a large, destructive force.

...

There’s twice as much carbon in the permafrost as there is in the air today. Let that sink in. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is 400 ppm (parts per million by volume). Pre-Industrial atmospheric CO2 was 280 ppm. There’s enough carbon in the permafrost to more than double today’s 400 ppm number before natural processes start to remove it — and that net-removal of CO2 assumes that humans stop adding their own, something we show no sign of doing.

Release of Arctic Methane "May Be Apocalyptic," Study Warns. Dahr Jamail, Truthout. Mar 23, 2017.

A scientific study published in the prestigious journal Palaeoworld in December issued a dire -- and possibly prophetic -- warning, though it garnered little attention in the media. 

"Global warming triggered by the massive release of carbon dioxide may be catastrophic," reads the study's abstract. "But the release of methane from hydrate may be apocalyptic."

Methane Hydrate: Killer cause of Earth's greatest mass extinction. Science Direct.com.


The Day Earth Was Murdered. Paul Craig Roberts. Mar. 24, 2017.

“Change you can believe in” disappeared in the early days of the Obama regime as the same Washington insiders filled the new government’s ranks. David Brooks sung the praises of those who made change impossible: “the best of the Washington insiders, Achievetrons who got double 800s on their SATs.”

Eight years later Donald Trump was specific about the changes he intended, the two most important being normalized relations with Russia and the return home of the middle class jobs and associated state and local tax base that US corporations had moved offshore to foreign locations. But Trump’s government quickly became home to corporate polluters, Wall Street executives, defense contractors, and Russophobic generals.

Obama’s disappointed supporters held firm to their conviction that their man would set the agenda and not the Washington insiders who occupied his government. Trump’s disheartened deplorables are currently finding refuge in this same conviction. But it looks like we will not get the good part from Trump, only the bad part of more pollution and more damage to the social safety net.

Those who agree about this disagree over the explanation. Some insist that Trump, not Hillary, was the establishment’s choice from the beginning and that the fierce opposition to Trump played out in the press and on the airwaves was only an orchestration to convince flyover America that Trump stood for them. My view is different. Trump threatened the power and budget of the military/security complex and the profits of Wall Street before he had an organization and a team in place to impose his agenda. Unlike Michael Corleone, Trump was rash. 

Consequently, the CIA, FBI, NSA, Democrats, John McCain and Lindsey Graham, and the presstitute media boxed Trump in by portraying him in collusion with Russian President Putin to steal the election from Hillary. Marches worldwide were instantly choreographed, and there were constant and escalating accusations portraying Trump and his associates as puppets on Putin’s string. Lists were made of Internet media sites that took exception to Washington’s wars and dangerous provocations of Russia, China, and Iran. 

The attack on Trump seems to have succeeded. Trump lost his National Security Adviser who favored normalized relations with Russia. Trump was forced to prove he was not working for Putin by appointing a Russophobe as National Security Adviser. Trump backed off from an early meeting with Putin to reduce the tensions in the relationship caused by the past three US presidents.

The CIA won the fight by creating an atmosphere hostile to any thought that Russia is not a dangerous adversary and the main threat that the US faces. In other words, a preference for reduced tensions between nuclear powers has become evidence that one is a Russian agent or Putin’s dupe. 

The CIA’s victory means that the prospect of nuclear Armageddon remains on the table, but the budget of the military/security complex is safe and rising. Is this an acceptable trade-off for you? 

I was astonished to see the liberal/progressive/left line up with the CIA against peace and with globalism and Identity Politics against the working class. The liberal/progressive/left has turned against heterosexual white males and transformed the working class from a victim group into alleged victimizers of women, blacks, homosexuals, and Muslim refugees. The American left has degenerated into the Identity Politics that originated with Zionism. (See for example the article by Eric Draitser, the host of CounterPunch Radio, http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/03/24/donald-trump-and-the-triumph-of-white-identity-politics/.)

The political left, once a force for peace, has transitioned into a force for war, as war is the likely outcome of the high level of tension that now exists between the US and Russia. By helping the CIA handicap President Trump and prevent him from reducing these tensions, the liberal/progressive/left has responsibility for the impending danger.

These tensions are very dangerous. They have resulted in high-readiness nuclear alert postures, which together with short warning times, false signals of incoming missiles and distrust, create a dangerous strategic nuclear situation.

It is reckless for Washington to convince Russia (and China) that the US is preparing a pre-emptive nuclear strike against them. But that is what Washington is doing when it puts anti-ballistic missiles on Russia’s border and tells the Russians the lie that the missiles are there to protect Europe from Iranian ICBMs. The entire world knows that Iran does not have nukes or ICBMs. All Washington’s lie does is to make the purpose of the missiles obvious to the Russians. 

The continuous anti-Russian propaganda issuing from Washington, NATO and the despicable Western presstitutes has the purpose of orchestrating a Russian Threat and preventing a reduction of tensions between the nuclear powers. The demonization of Russia’s president and the clearly false charges against Russia, such as interference in the US presidential election, invasion of Ukraine, reconstruction of the Soviet empire—are understood by the Russians as a propaganda campaign to prepare Western populations for a pre-emptive nuclear attack on Russia. The conventional NATO forces conducting military exercises and deployed on Russia’s border are understood by the Russians as being too small and lacking in strength to be of any consequence. They are merely an orchestration to emphasize the Russian Threat for insouciant Western populations. The Russian government understands that all of this is preparation for an attack on Russia. Just as Saddam Hussein, Gadaffi, and Assad were demonized by US government officials, now it is Putin. The dangerous situation could not be more obvious. 

Yet Hillary supporters are completely blind to what is occurring in front of their noses, as is the liberal/progressive/left, the idiot EU governments, and the Western presstitute media. As President Putin himself has stated, “no one listens to us when we point out the impending danger.” 

As environmentally damaging as a pipeline can be, it is nothing compared to nuclear war. In the opposition to Trump, emotion has prevailed over reason and hate has prevailed over judgment. The consequences for life on earth will be dire.

Just as the CIA is indifferent to the threat to life on earth that the agency’s orchestration of the Russian Threat presents, and the liberal/progressive/left is too absorbed in hatred of Trump to comprehend that it is enabling the march to nuclear war, the Trump forces are enabling another catastrophic/apocalyptic threat by dismissing global warning as a hoax. 

That the obvious, observable melting of Artic ice can be dismissed as a plot against capitalism by left-wing scientists demonstrates a detachment from reality that is difficult to fathom. For whatever reason the ice is melting, the consequence is the sudden enormous release of life-destroying methane into the atmosphere. As far as I am aware, the dire consequences of massive methane release are not controversial. 

For a world that sees itself as based on science, it is amazing how uninfluential scientists are. They warn of the consequences of nuclear war, and Western governments continue escalating tensions between nuclear powers. Scientists warn of the consequences of global warming, and the polluting economic interests and their supporters cry “hoax.”

Read Dahr Jamail’s report on the latest published scientific report on the likelihood of a sudden and gigantic release of methane, and then go read the report itself. This is not the fake news that you get from the New York Times, BBC, CNN, Washington Post, Le Monde, MSNBC and the rest of the presstitutes. This report is peer-reviewed scientific opinion based on the known facts at hand. http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/39957-release-of-arctic-methane-may-be-apocalyptic-study-warns 

What is known among scientists as the Artic “Methane Time Bomb” has been studied intensely. Scientists believe that a 50-gigaton “burp” of methane could be released in a brief period of time from the melting of the Artic ice. This would be the sudden addition to the atmosphere of ten times the amount of methane currently in the atmosphere. Scientists equate this to an increase in carbon dioxide of 1,000 gigatons. 

In other words, based on our existing scientific knowledge, life on earth depends on the Arctic ice not melting. But it is melting. 

With the two apocalyptic scenarios described in this article both possibly close at hand, why is the liberal/progressive/left concerned with tranny toilet facilities and the freedom of Muslims to immigrate to Europe and the US? Is this the way they distract themselves from the real threatening issues? 

Why are the timber companies cutting down forests and why are the remaining rain forests being massacred when it is trees that absorbe carbon dioxide and emit oxygen?

Why is there intense commercial farming of beef and pork when the methane release from the vast numbers of animals is extraordinary and a factor in the rising temperatures that are melting the Artic ice? 

The answer is that profit-seeking has only short-term motivations, and the profits come mainly from the external costs imposed on third parties and the environment. The effort to control what economists call externalities requires thoughtful and determined regulation. Yet, the Trump administration declares regulation to be a hindrance to business. In other words, regulation interferes with the ability of capitalism to generate profits by externalizing its costs, and, thereby, regulation must be abolished. 

We have reached the point where the externalities of economic activity and the externalities of the military/security complex’s need for a Russian threat are on the verge of bringing life on Earth to an end. 

The idiocy of Identity Politics is that the ideology has no idea that we are all victims of the real victimizers—the US military/security complex and a carbon-based life style. 

Considering the dire circumstances, it really doesn’t matter if more Muslim refugees, whose countries and prospects we have destroyed with our wars of hegemony and who may be seeking revenge for what they have suffered, are admitted to the West. The danger of being run over on a London bridge or at a German bus stop by a Muslim seeking revenge is miniscule compared to thermo-nuclear war and catastrophic changes in the biosphere. 

But don’t expect any intelligent awareness from any Western government or from any member of the Western presstitute media. Truth is the last thing that interests these purveyors of fake news. They are interested in manufacturing fake threats, not confronting real ones. 

What these hyper-criminals are doing is murdering planet Earth.

Global Warming Is Real Say the Academies of Sciences of All of the Major Countries, But a Handful of my Readers Know Better. Paul Craig Roberts, Mar. 27, 2017.

I find it difficult to believe that the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the European Space Agency, The University of Bremen’s Institute of Physical Analysis, the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Danish National Space Center, The Russian Academy of Sciences, the UK Royal Society, the US National Academy of Sciences, the Science Council of Japan, the Accademia dei Lincei of Italy, the French Academie des Sciences, the Academia Brasiliera de Ciencias, Canada’s Royal Society, the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Indian National Science Academy are in a conspiracy against capitalism. “Climate change is real” declares the Joint Science Academies’ statement. http://nationalacademies.org/onpi/06072005.pdf

Global Warming Wrap-up. PCR, Mar 27, 2017.

The mental convolutions in which some will engage in order to ignore the evidence that the polar ice caps are melting—and if not from warming from what?—is as astounding as the convolutions and denial of basic facts that characterize those who believe the government’s official 9/11 fairy tale.

The Globalization of Environmental Degradation, George Abert and Paul Craig Roberts. Feb. 13, 2017.

Figuratively speaking, a ginormous asteroid is hurtling to a cataclysmic rendezvous with earth, but we are not supposed to notice. The asteroid is the rising threat from environmental degradation. Evidence is accumulating that environmental degradation is becoming global. 

We can either act responsibly by accepting the challenge or take refuge in denial and risk the consequences. 

There is nothing new about climate change. It has been ongoing for as long as earth has had an atmosphere. Through change nature produced an atmosphere supportive of life. We know for a fact that human activities can have adverse impacts on the air, water, and land resources. If these impacts become global, as independent scientists believe, life on earth might be at risk. 

We’re in a state of perpetual crisis 

Moreover, environmental degradation can contribute to, and be worsened by, other changes that are not under our control. Presently humanity is challenged by three revolutions which collectively constitute a perpetual crisis: the technological revolution that is displacing humans in the production of goods and services, the volatility and instability of the global financial system, and environmental degradation. Our focus is on environmental degradation.

It’s a matter of balance 

The weight of the atmosphere, at 14.7 PSI, has remained relatively constant throughout much of earth’s existence. What has varied is the makeup of the atmospheric gaseous mix. The mixes that existed prior to the current era would prove toxic to the contemporary biosphere. As the biosphere evolved over the hundreds of millions of years prior to the current era, the gaseous mix of the atmosphere and the biosphere came into perfect, or indeed as some might say, heavenly balance. 

Indeed, our very existence as well as the existence of the biosphere depends on this balance. There is no question that human activities can affect this balance. Perhaps not enough that nature wouldn’t eventually be able to reset the balance, but perhaps enough to end civilization before nature could correct the disturbance. While some are cavalierly dismissive, others have concluded that things are already so irreversibly out of balance that civilization as we know it will cease before the middle of this century.

Easter Island is an example of death by environmental degradation on a local level. When the island was first settled, it was covered by a forest. Soil analysis suggests that the natural environment was reasonably diverse and, absent human settlement, resilient enough to recover from natural disturbances that included volcanic eruptions. The humans that settled on Easter Island thrived until the population degraded the environment to the point that it could not support the population.

Tree removal was one of the activities that proved detrimental to the island’s natural balance. As trees were removed, so too was the island’s natural diversity and its ability to support human habitation. Many have wondered what Easter Islanders were thinking as they cut down the last tree. 

Environmental degradation’s role in the collapse of civilizations is well told in Jared Diamond’s book, Collapse. At least two pre-Columbian empires fell to sudden environmental collapse. Environmental degradation even contributed to Rome’s fall. 

Throughout history, empires and civilizations have collapsed once they degrade the environment below its capacity to carry the human footprint imposed on the environment. 

Global warming introduces a difference. In the past environmental destruction was local or regional. But what is now underway appears to be global. It can take a long time to unbalance the biosphere, but once the line is crossed, collapse can be rapid and irreversible. 

Global Warming a hoax? 

Humans and animals convert oxygen to carbon-dioxide, and trees and plants convert carbon-dioxide to oxygen. It’s a simple truth that burning fossil fuels increases atmospheric carbon-dioxide. Carbon-dioxide is one of several greenhouse gases so named because they contribute to atmospheric warming. The atmospheric carbon-dioxide molecular count has steadily increased since measurements were first made decades ago. Analysis of ice cores extracted from glaciers and polar ice indicate that carbon dioxide levels were never as high as they are now for millions of years prior to the Industrial Revolution. In addition, vast amounts of woodlands have been cleared thus reducing the biosphere’s capacity to absorb and process carbon-dioxide. For example, by 2030 it’s predicted that just 40% of the Amazon rain forest, itself a massive percentage of the biosphere, will remain. 

But carbon-dioxide isn’t the only concern. In addition, vast amounts of methane, also known to be a potent greenhouse gas, are also being released into the atmosphere. 

The oceans also contain gasses that if released into the atmosphere could prove toxic to the biosphere. The earth itself contains gasses, such as methane, which is routinely released into the atmosphere through coal and petroleum extraction operations. Animal farming adds more methane. Even larger amounts of methane are estimated to be locked up in polar ice. Based on recent measurements and observations, vast amounts of methane, estimated to be in excess of ten times as much as is presently contained in the atmosphere, are predicted to be released in a sudden volcanic-like eruption as the ice melts. A sudden release of methane could cause the atmosphere to rapidly heat to a temperature where most agricultural activities, except perhaps for hydroponic operations housed in controlled environments, would cease. 

The Pace is Quickening 

From one day to the next it is difficult to discern changes in the environment. Yet those of us old enough to have been around for decades know that the weather has changed. Predictions made by scientists are being met sooner than expected. Carbon dioxide levels are increasing faster and glaciers and polar ice are melting faster. The release of methane locked in arctic ice could quicken environmental change so that it is noticeable in real time. 

The simple truth is that the atmospheric gaseous mix is changing and altering the natural balance. This is in addition to the historical kinds of local and regional environmental degradation associated with human activity. When humans destroy watersheds with deforestation, turn fertile lands into deserts, and pollute local sources of water, they can move on. But when the global environment degrades, there is no where else to go. 

As climate changes, so does the geographical location for the best crop yields. Climate change has produced a new occupation: climatologists who predict for Wall Street investment bankers the best geographical locations for the highest crop yields. 

Environmental changes, even a temporary one such as a multi-year drought, can cause turmoil in societies that result in deadly conflict. During the three years that preceded the “Arab Spring” of 2011, the Levant (Eastern Mediterranean) suffered from an extended drought. In Syria as water became more scarce, the government favored the most loyal elements of the population. Crop failures in the unfavored regions prompted a migration to the cities and produced political unrest. The US used this unrest to intervene against the Assad government which had alienated the US by pursuing an independent foreign policy. 

The global spread of corporate monoculture agriculture and the global timber corporations’ exploitation of the remaining virgin forests are spreading environmental fragilities. On Easter Island the population declined into disappearance. For a thousand years after the Roman Empire collapsed the Italian peninsula was an environmental disaster with soils so depleted, agriculture was reduced to marginal subsistence farming barely sufficient to support a population a fraction of what it had been. Unlike our time, the Romans achieved environmental degradation without burning fossil fuels or fertilizing their fields with toxic petrochemicals and herbicides known to deplete soils to the point where continued land use is predicated on artificial fertilizers and ever larger applications of herbicides, the runoffs from which produce algae blooms and destroy marine life. 

Today in locations where multinational agribusiness has replaced traditional farming, it can take years for soils to regain their natural fertility and for the societies to regain their economic balance from the imbalance that agricultural monoculture produces. 

Environmental degradation can be destructive irrespective of global warming. Throughout history, humans have degraded their environments to the point that their societies failed or were weakened to the point that they were conquered in whole or part by invaders. However, global environmental failure can terminate life in general. 

Environmental failure can result from ignorance, careless practices, and the short time horizon associated with profit maximization which encourages disposing of waste products directly into the environment where they damage, air, water, and land resources. When emissions alter the atmospheric balance, what has historically been local and regional damage becomes global. 

In other words, human activities can put life in general at risk. This risk is too total to justify dismissing accumulated evidence as a hoax or as “a plot against capitalism.” We must assess the risk without being shouted down by material interests. There is no prospect of finding a solution to an unacknowledged risk. 

Just as Easter Islanders did not understand the consequences for them of deforestation, today many in government do not acknowledge the risks of global degradation. President Trump has appointed a climate change skeptic as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. This is not enough for US Rep. Matt Gaetz who wants the EPA abolished. Is humanity now globally on the same path and in the same denial as led to the extinction of human life on Easter Island?

A View We Don’t Often Hear. Paul Craig Roberts. Mar. 28, 2017.

Little wonder some of you prefer the Koch brothers propaganda. No global warming is a much happier story. I like it better myself. From a reader: 

Hi Paul,

Right you are. The Arctic sea ice is steadily diminishing, the temperature of the Arctic seas is steadily rising. and if these trends continue, some near future month or year, there will be a sudden, massive eruption of gigatons of methane from the Arctic region into the atmosphere. 

The primary, secondary and tertiary effects will be global and dramatic. Most humans will probably be dead as a result within a matter of a very few years or less. It will alter everything: climate (precipitation, winds, temperature), atmospheric chemistry, global ecology, global crop production (meaning lack thereof — hence no food), and much more. 

This scenario could even kick in with a vengeance as soon as later this year, or in 2018 or 2019. We are drawing closer and closer to the big event. It will happen if we continue on the present global trajectory, and it won’t take decades to arrive. 

This is quite apart from the concomitant Fukushima nuclear crisis (likely a global extinction level event in itself), the accelerating collapse of the global ecology, accelerating global deforestation, accelerating chemical contamination of global ecosystems, accelerating extinction of a whole wide range of flora and fauna, etc. 

In other words, we are fucked, largely at our own hands. Some experts give the world ten years or less until the global decline and chaos on all fronts becomes so severe that even the most willfully stupid and the most willfully ignorant realize that all around them, the planet is swiftly dying. I am reasonably well informed and I would say that by 2035, at the outside, it all falls irretrievably apart, if humanity continues on our present, unimaginably stupid trajectory. That’s just 18 years from now. But I would not argue with those who say we have only ten years left, maybe less. The situation is extreme. 

Donald Trump says nothing about any of this. Hillary Clinton says nothing about any of this. Angela Merkel says nothing about any of this. John McCain says nothing about any of this. The Bushes say nothing about any of this. And none of them offer any solutions, apart from the fact that their mental horizons don’t even extend 10% as far as mine. And yet they are so-called “leaders”. 

They are all a bunch of political whores, goddamned sock puppets for the Big Banks, Wall Street, the Military Industrial Complex, the international multi-billionaire class and the CIA. 

What’s needed is a massive, global reforestation project. A massive, global, sea cleaning operation. A massive, global de-nuclearization initiative. A massive, global, non-GMO, non-chemical agricultural movement. A massive, global roll-out of so-called “free energy” technology, which the compartmentalized Black World has and uses. 

Absent these initiatives, we are cooked. It’s game over, as humanity and the planet die. 

regards,

For what the scientific story is worth, it goes like this: 

As a biosphere evolved that supports life on planet earth, toxic gases were locked away in various places, such as ice and permafrost. 

The atmosphere is in delicate balance. Animal life absorbs oxygen and emits carbon dioxide. Trees absorb carbon dioxide and emit oxygen. This balance has been under assault for 150 years. Deforestation has reduced the ability of the planet to process CO2, while a carbon-based existence of 7 billion people pour CO2 into the atmosphere. 

The CO2 buildup is believed to be the cause of the warming that is melting the polar ice caps and the permafrost. A sudden release of methane equivalent to 1,000 gigatons of CO2 could be the consequence. This is about as much CO2 as industrial civilization has released in 150 years. 

Warming also has effects on the oceans, on the acid level of the water, and the ability of oceans to absorb CO2 and retain oxygen. The great barrier reef in Australia is dying.
There are many feedbacks, and once the process begins it feeds upon itself regardless of human measures. For example, the more polar ice is lost, the faster the warming. 

Previous events that destroyed the balance in the biosphere resulted in life extinctions. The belief that a 7 billion population in a carbon-based culture cannot alter the balance in the biosphere seems to be wishful thinking not supported by science.  

It suits me fine if the Koch brothers climate spokespersons are correct. Even if they are not correct, why escape from The Matrix when not even Neo can repair the damage to the biosphere?

Apocalypse Tourism? Cruising the Melting Arctic Ocean. Katie Orlinsky and Eva Holland. Bloomberg. Sep 2016.