Global Warming's Terrifying New Math

(CNN)Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday praised the Arctic region -- and its rapidly shrinking levels of sea ice -- for its economic opportunities, despite continued warnings about the catastrophic effects of climate change.

"The Arctic is at the forefront of opportunity and abundance," Pompeo said in remarks in Rovaniemi, Finland. "It houses 13 percent of the world's undiscovered oil, 30 percent of its undiscovered gas, an abundance of uranium, rare earth minerals, gold, diamonds, and millions of square miles of untapped resources, fisheries galore."

"Steady reductions in sea ice are opening new passageways and new opportunities for trade," he continued. "This could potentially slash the time it takes to travel between Asia and the West by as much as 20 days."

"Arctic sea lanes could become the 21st century Suez and Panama Canals," Pompeo remarked.

...Pompeo's Arctic policy speech largely focused on the threats Russia and China posed to the region, comparing the area to other fraught waterways in the hemisphere.

"Do we want the Arctic Ocean to transform into a new South China Sea, fraught with militarization and competing territorial claims?" Pompeo said.

The speech came on the same day as a UN report warned that one million species were at risk of extinction due to human action, including climate change.
In his speech, Pompeo said that President Donald Trump was "committed to leveraging resources in environmentally responsible ways." He touted the US' reduced energy-related CO2 and black carbon emissions.

"The United States is achieving our reductions the American way: through scientific work, through technology, through building out safe and secure energy infrastructure, and through our economic growth, and doing it in a way that doesn't stifle development with burdensome regulations that only create more risk to the environment," Pompeo said.

"America is the world's leader in caring for the environment," he said.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/GOYA_-_El_aquelarre_%28Museo_L%C3%A1zaro_Galdiano%2C_Madrid%2C_1797-98%29.jpg

April 2019 #Arctic sea ice volume was 27% below the 1979-2018 average in this data set. Currently, the thicker sea ice is mostly in the eastern Arctic basin.

Data from https://t.co/dz150Qt4Dy pic.twitter.com/PeAWmRPFt2

— Zack Labe (@ZLabe) May 7, 2019

fisheries galore

Not for long, bucko, if all your mineral extraction and climate catastrophe dreams come true.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D51Y54-W4AAvnAJ.jpg

yeah but at least we finally got some wind yesterday

ran across this earlier this morning, and it seems like a good example of the complications of nuclear energy:

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/three-mile-island-to-close-after-bailout-bill-stalls-in-pennsylvania-legisl/554402

yep, THAT three mile island. Exelon purchased it back in the 90s, and over the last few years there's been a struggle over subsidies to keep it afloat. the last ditch effort to bring in money was for pennsylvania to designate nuclear energy "carbon-free" so that it could be added to the state's alternative energy portfolio standard and get a cool $500 million per year. but the bills to do that failed in committee, so now the plant is officially closing.

or rather, it's beginning the process of closing.

Exelon last month filed the federally required Post Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report in which it details its plans for TMI after its final shutdown. Dismantling the plant, including removing the spent fuel at Unit 1, could take six decades and cost more than $1 billion, media reported, citing Exelon estimates.

of course, those estimates, coming from Exelon, are to be taken with a grain of salt because they were trying to procure funding to stay open and it was in their interest to come up with high figures for shutdown costs.

there's also the PA Public Utility Commission's perspective on this:

Last month, Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commissioner (PUC) Andrew Place wrote a memo in which he voiced his opposition to SB 510.

"While human health and environmental quality; job creation and retention; and maintaining a robust tax base are all cornerstone public policy goals, this bill, in its current form, is far from the least cost mechanism to achieve these goals," Place wrote.

("this bill" was SB 510, which would have added nuclear to the alternative energy portfolio standard at the cost of $500M/year)

but still, all of this illustrates some stuff i mentioned upthread, both recently and i think a year or two ago - nuclear energy is just expensive compared to various wind/solar options (not to mention energy efficiency). three mile island was built in 1968 and it's STILL dependent on subsidies to get by. and the estimated costs of nuclear rarely account for the decommissioning phase - 60 years (!) and $1 billion in this case.

https://i.imgur.com/Zy3GeP0.png

this graph is fascinating and i think i'm about to learn a lot, thanks km!

Bear in mind that at present, every MW of wind/solar also requires a MW of Gas combined cycle (or even peaking). Storage remains a problem.

xp
the graph comes from Lazard, btw: https://www.lazard.com/media/438038/levelized-cost-of-energy-v100.pdf

thx again, i already gis'd the graph, found couple of articles- then began sourcing/assessing the information. always a good start on these things. and your advice and sanpaku's are always incredibly helpful.

In a press release published on Tuesday, two Department of Energy officials used the terms "freedom gas" and "molecules of US freedom" to replace your average, everyday term "natural gas."

The press release was fairly standard, announcing the expansion of a Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) terminal at the Freeport facility on Quintana Island, Texas. It would have gone unnoticed had an E&E News reporter not noted the unique metonymy "molecules of US freedom."

DOE Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy Steven Winberg is quoted as saying, "With the US in another year of record-setting natural gas production, I am pleased that the Department of Energy is doing what it can to promote an efficient regulatory system that allows for molecules of US freedom to be exported to the world.”

Also in the press release, US Under Secretary of Energy Mark W. Menezes refers to natural gas as "freedom gas" in his quote: “Increasing export capacity from the Freeport LNG project is critical to spreading freedom gas throughout the world by giving America’s allies a diverse and affordable source of clean energy."

Slate notes that the term "freedom gas" seems to have originated from an event with DOE Secretary Rick Perry. Earlier this year, the secretary signed an order to double the amount of LNG exports to Europe, saying, “The United States is again delivering a form of freedom to the European continent. And rather than in the form of young American soldiers, it’s in the form of liquefied natural gas.”

A reporter at the order signing jokingly asked whether the LNG shipments should be called "freedom gas," and Perry said, "I think you may be correct in your observation."

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/05/us-department-of-energy-is-now-referring-to-fossil-fuels-as-freedom-gas/

"I think you may be correct in your observation”

classic

Macht Frei

https://dygtyjqp7pi0m.cloudfront.net/i/16681/16373013_1.jpg

“The United States is again delivering a form of freedom to the European continent. And rather than in the form of young American soldiers, it’s in the form of liquefied natural gas.”

this is how skynet starts

i got freedom gas in the Capitol cafeteria

gas wants to be free

https://www.bloomberg.org/press/releases/michael-bloomberg-launches-beyond-carbon-the-largest-ever-coordinated-campaign-against-climate-change-in-united-states/

New York, NY – In a commencement address today at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Michael R. Bloomberg will launch Beyond Carbon, the largest coordinated campaign to tackle climate change ever undertaken in the United States. With a $500 million investment — the largest ever philanthropic effort to fight the climate crisis — Beyond Carbon will work to ­put the U.S. on track towards a 100% clean energy economy by working with advocates around the country to build on the leadership and climate progress underway in our states, cities, and communities. Bloomberg and his foundation joined forces with the Sierra Club in 2011 to launch Beyond Coal with the goal of closing at least a third of the country’s coal plants. With 289 of 530 closed to date – more than half the country’s coal fleet – Beyond Carbon will aim to close the rest by 2030 and stop the rush to build new gas plants.

i love when our elite overlords do something good

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s got a solution to avoiding the harms of climate change: Just live somewhere else. Pompeo gave an interview to the Washington Times on Friday, during which he addressed the Trump administration’s approach to combating global warming.

The top diplomat claimed that the climate “always changes,” and so “societies reorganize, we move to different places, we develop technology and innovation.” In May, Pompeo praised rising sea levels caused by climate change as a boon for trade opportunities.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/pompeo-climate-change-move-different-places

That terrifying 2019 study about breakup of marine subtropical clouds potentially resulting in a +8 °C positive feedback? Coauthor

Again,

That terrifying 2019 study about breakup of marine subtropical clouds potentially resulting in an additional +8 °C positive feedback? Coauthor Tapio Schneider presents this work at CalTech.

That guy is super smart, I took a class with him.

That is frightening. I had no idea we could get to 1200 ppm within a hundred years, and potentially up to 5000 ppm? Sanpaku if you're familiar with the modeling would you agree with his assessment that the type of cloud cover is the main driver of uncertainty?

humans are just kickstarting the Second Cretaceous. no big deal. unless we go full-on Venusian. that would be bad, even for bacteria, our last best hope.

viborg: I'm fascinated with the projections, but its not my field. I'd love to recall enough math to follow what Arrhenius was doing in the field 123 years ago with pencil and paper.

As for 1200 ppm, we're at 415 and adding around 2.5 ppm/yr over the past decade. With no further growth in emissions or positive feedbacks (from permafrost, peat, soil, seabed hydrates), it would take 300 years to hit 1200 ppm. Or by 2100 with just a 2.6% annual growth rate..

the more i read about this the more likely it seems to me that humanity is just an extreme example of a self-limiting organism

as usual thanks for the link sanpaku-- i just "lost" 25 min reading about the carbonic aceeeeed and the temperature of the moon.

looks like rick perry is slowly learning what the Dept of Energy can and cannot do:

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/doe-has-no-regulatory-or-statutory-ability-to-create-coal-nuclear-bailou/556687/

The Department of Energy (DOE) does not have the "regulatory or statutory ability" to create economic incentives for coal and nuclear plants, DOE Secretary Rick Perry told reporters on Tuesday at the 2019 Edison Electric Institute conference in Philadelphia.

"FERC would be where I would direct your attention," he said, adding that he was also not aware of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission or the White House making any progress on plans to bail out the fuels. "We're pretty much at the same place we were 12 months ago," he said, though the administration "continue[s] to talk ... very openly" about "an all of the above strategy."

The secretary's comments come three months after the White House Council of Economic Advisors released a report to the president calling for a strategic electricity reserve to save uneconomic plants. And earlier in March, Perry had told reporters a coal and nuclear bailout was not entirely off the table.

after years of fighting against subsidies for clean energy, republicans have now shifted to fighting for subsidies and bailouts of coal and nuclear

after years of fighting against subsidies for clean energy, republicans have now shifted to fighting for subsidies and bailouts of coal and nuclear

Emphasis added -- they've been subsidizing coal/nuclear for YEARS (which I'm sure you already know).

man, these republicans seem like dicks

total dicks

xp Leee, yes, thanks! not sure why i phrased it like that

https://thinkprogress.org/11-million-renewable-jobs-global-solar-wind-employment-df60d66f4cfe

the tipping point for green jobs in the US is getting closer: 855K employed in renewable industry, vs 1.1M "employed in petroleum fuels, natural gas, coal, and biomass across the country."

https://i.imgur.com/1uB3hOP.jpg

Rapidly melting sea ice in Greenland has presented an unusual hazard for research teams retrieving their oceanographic moorings and weather station equipment.

A photo, taken by Steffen Olsen from the Centre for Ocean and Ice at the Danish Meteorological Institute on 13 June, showed sled dogs wading through water ankle-deep on top of a melting ice sheet in the country’s north-west. In the startling image, it seems as though the dogs are walking on water.

The photo, taken in the Inglefield Bredning fjord, depicted water on top of what Olsen said was an ice sheet 1.2 metres thick.

His colleague at the institute, Rasmus Tonboe, tweeted that the “rapid melt and sea ice with low permeability and few cracks leaves the melt water on top”.

https://i.imgur.com/KbPsIsv.jpg

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/18/photograph-melting-greenland-sea-ice-fjord-dogs-water

gulp

Permafrost at outposts in the Canadian Arctic is thawing 70 years earlier than predicted, an expedition has discovered, in the latest sign that the global climate crisis is accelerating even faster than scientists had feared.

A team from the University of Alaska Fairbanks said they were astounded by how quickly a succession of unusually hot summers had destabilised the upper layers of giant subterranean ice blocks that had been frozen solid for millennia.

“What we saw was amazing,” Vladimir Romanovsky, a professor of geophysics at the university, told Reuters. “It’s an indication that the climate is now warmer than at any time in the last 5,000 or more years.“

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/18/arctic-permafrost-canada-science-climate-crisis

So my friend was reporting to me his 70-ish dad's view on global warming/climate breakdown, which amounted to: "what's everyone on about, it'll be fine! People are always going on about some terrible thing, none of it ever happens." His circle of friends and family seem to think the same way too. Sigh. I'm guessing we as a species will largely go straight from denial to acceptance, and by the time it's all too late the causes will be blamed on no-one and the knock-on social effects will be blamed on migrants or whatever.

a lot of people are angry and concerned

replace concerned with panicking depending on where you are on the spectrum

I sometimes worry (probably irrationally) that there just aren’t enough resources available for e.g. energy storage, solar panels, etc. Like we’re just going to blow through the world’s lithium supply.

the problem is more the cobalt/rare earths etc. so there are supply issues but not so much with lithium itself

http://cleanenergytrust.org/enough-lithium-feed-current-battery-market-demand/

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lithium-batteries-environment-impact

I really wish Aquion's salt water metal hydride batteries would get some $ thrown at them, the company went under but someone's gotta own that IP

http://aquionenergy.com/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-06-11/saving-the-planet-with-electric-cars-means-strangling-this-desert

Don't worry, we're gonna have deserts to spare!

can anyone recommend any authors or works that touch on ethics in the face of this?

Maybe it was mentioned in this thread, but it seemed like there’s was some incorrect modeling that falsely predicted a crisis in the 70s that is possibly informing the older folks’ skepticism. My dad should know better but is always talking about how unreliable models are since he was working in resource management at the time. I used to take these concerns seriously but now realize they’re just excuses to not change anything

I sometimes worry (probably irrationally) that there just aren’t enough resources available for e.g. energy storage, solar panels, etc. Like we’re just going to blow through the world’s lithium supply.

― Vape Store (crüt)

anything we can use up we will. malthus was right.

malthus is a broken clock telling the correct time twice a day, dont give that fucker any credit

Try this on: infinite growth on a finite world is absurd.

Malthus was right about some things, wrong about others. Why should crop productivity grow arithmetically?

At present, though, we're living in a world where no-less than half the global human carrying capacity is provided by Haber-Boche fertilizer (fossil fuels) and the dwarf cereal cultivars that can tolerate it, where groundwater everywhere is being exploited faster than aquifers can refill, where remaining soil can be counted in a few decades of erosion, where Morocco will soon decide whether nations live or die through controlling the phosphorus trade, and where estimates of crop losses due to climate change run 10% per °C for the first few °C, but increasing.

Malthus didn't predict those things, but ecology borrows deeply from him (as Darwin did) in concepts like carrying capacity. A new UN report came out today trumpeting successes in population policy, in which the population would hit 9.7 billion by 2050. Personally, I find those numbers nonsense, as they don't take any consideration of what declining agriculture will mean.

For clarity, that should really read "10% per °C for the first few °C, but with increasingly severe impacts per °C after around +2 °C." We're on track to hit 2 °C around 2050.

The New York Times reports:

The Trump administration on Wednesday finalized a package of new rules to replace the Clean Power Plan, former President Barack Obama’s signature effort to reduce planet-warming emissions from coal plants.

The new measure, known as the Affordable Clean Energy rule, will very likely prompt a flurry of legal challenges from environmental groups that could have far-reaching implications for global warming.

If the Supreme Court ultimately upholds the rule’s approach to the regulation of pollution, it would be difficult or impossible for future presidents to tackle climate change through the Environmental Protection Agency.