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For N. Africa, Tunisia most projections show a continued drying expecting more variable weather like snow, flash flooding yet extended drought and higher temperatures overall.
Pumping fossil water isn't a solution, please consider flood-agriculture practiced by many surviving tribes in the Americas in desert lands, modified by terracing and rock cisterns buried to avoid heating and evaporation these can water drip irrigated terraces above them. With the cisterns you collect when the water comes, 1 acre-foot of water can be stored this way on 1/2-acre of land.
Consider that individual up to collective reversal of albedo-loss, reductions in reflectivity of one's roof, the street no longer black that added up is more important now for the next few decades than reducing emissions, this also seems to not be happening in a timely manner.
The heat gain from sea-ice loss now is 25-years worth of power for the USA, about 95,000-Terawatt-hours/year over the 1980-2000 average extent. This heat will have a portion reflected back by the greenhouse forcing.
For context adding up the waste-heat for all the steam power plants globally it's about 36,000-Twh/year, 38% of albedo-loss for the sea-ice so far.
So if all those steam plants were removed it's still far less than gained by the loss in ice cover.
Basically we can't afford to lose the rest of the Arctic sea-ice and expect to land at less than 4-5C/7.2-9F in 84-years and it lasts for thousands of years at the elevated temperature regardless of we ending emissions by business-as-usual.
The reason is we have so much legacy carbon from the planet sequestering it over time and the planet only uses rock erosion to remove it, that's the process now so the rule is that 1/4th, 25% of our carbon now stays in the air for over 10,000-years.
To dream we can remove our excess demands zero emissions by any sequester method, the coal companies have tried since the 60's using algae and other means, did it work yet?
Thom,
Something to rant about:
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-griswold-globalization-and-tr...
Homo SAPIENS? Not
{… a rhyme …}
Homo sapiens? Well, no.
“Sapiens” is quite the wrong term.
In stupidity’s suicidal woe
our species will squirm like a worm.
==========================
Sadly there isno need of excution, as with the rest of humanity they will be killed by Mother Earth. And it is already too late. We would not only have to instantly stop all emisions yesterday but find a way to get alot of the co2 out of the atmosphere. And even if we found a way to pull that off we are still screwed. All the deniers will keep at it untill the ship sinks. Death will shut them up!
Homo-Sapiens = Homo-Terminus = Homo-Extinctus.
Earth probably had use for all the oil US cartels are sucking out of here
Polutocrats
{a limerick}
O Mother Earth, take ye us whither?
To your oven? - which heats as we dither
while politicians slither
with {plutocrats} polutocrats hither
and thither, until all is {withered} awither?
… PS:
“They” don’t want us to think
that our Earth is a sinking heat sink.
================================
I have two questions and a comment. The first question is Are there any studies as to how climate change effects different regions on the globe? What can be done to alert the public here in Tunisia and North Africa?
I know this is Draconian but it is time to have the death penalty for climate change deniers.
Polutocrats
{a limerick}
O Mother Earth, take ye us whither?
To your oven? - which heats as we dither
while politicians slither
with {plutocrats} polutocrats hither
and thither, until all is {withered} awither?
… PS:
“They” don’t want us to think
that our Earth is a sinking heat sink.
================================
See the book "The Corporation" for a discussion of corporate sociopathy.
Thom,
For God's sake Thom, why don't you mention the harmful effects of animal agriculture every time you write about global warming. You always discuss fossil fuel but seldom expand on the equally crucial component of eating meat. i know you are vegetarian (vegan?) and have discussed this before but why not go into this every time the topic of global warming is brought up. The most important single thing any one person can do to decrease global warming is to stop or at least decrease the amount of meat you consume. Come on Thom. This is too important to ignore.
An Oval Oral-Orifice
{... a limerick and an image ...}
THIS might be how it will go: -
- A Maniac, Meg-a-lo
will steer us to doom
from the oval room.
Whoa. Spare us this shmoe.
… Image -
An oval oral-orifice in the oval office:
http://www.urantiansojourn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/TrumpOvalOffice.jpg
===========================
As a retired plant biologist I continue to follow trends related to the plant sciences. I have a long interest in the genetic technology related to crops and the environment. After hearing the discussion regarding Dr. Elaine Ingram's work on GMO soil bacteria, I decided to take a closer look. After I was unable to find the paper mentioned on the show, I discovered that the work has been strongly rebutted by representatives from the Royal Commission on Genetic Engineering. The work was described as "inaccurate, careless and exaggerated" as well as "generating speculative doomsday scenarios that are not scientifically supportable." As presented, I found the reviewers arguments very convincing.
The addiction is capitalism. Commercial fisherman for example, when confronted with dwindling numbers of a desired species, turn to other less desirable species and rather than try to help marine ecosystems just continue to change species when the one they are fishing for gets rare. We are now getting down to jellyfish. This is no joke. Over-harvest and the effects of pollution, warming, plastics and increased C02 concentrations in the oceans are setting back ecological succession about 500 million years.
Commercial interests in China are now farming jellyfish in an attempt to corner the market. Shrimp fisherman in Georgia have turned to netting jellyfish which they sell for a few cents per pound. When the jellyfish are gone--that's it folks.
Remember the passenger pigeon-probably not-but there were billions of them in North America. The capitalism minded business people refused to believe that a species so numerous could ever go extinct. Business men fought hard to keep any laws to protect this species from ever getting passed. The government went along with business because they wanted to deny American Indians a food source. The last passenger pigeon died in 1914.
Mass extinction is now possible. We cannot afford to play the hierarchical capitalistic game anymore. We need to fire the Republican and Democratic political parties and stop pretending that we have democracy. I mean get real- we have two ego maniac candidates for president, a republican congress that won't do a dam thing, and a democratic congress that stands by and watches. Hypocrisy on steroids.
Step out of the old box-vote Green or some other third party.
I think it's time to stop hanging on to the hope that we're going to stop this. We aren't even doing the minimum. If we stopped burning all fossil fuels tomorrow, the positive feedback loops that climatologists have identified will continue warming the planet exponentially (by definition of feedback loop).
We're screwed. It's over. Enjoy what remains of your life and humanity.
Thom, I hear you using the term "global warming" to describe climate change dynamics that have been obvious to all except the most intoxicated and catatonic observers (and kool-aid sipping Republicans) for at least the past 5 years. Language is important. Is it not time we described this rapidly accelerating climate change as "global heating" or even "global superheating" since it is changing at a much more rapid pace than our best climate scientists predicted in recent years? We need media language to convey a much greater sense of urgency in discussing this problem, and "global superheating" seems to me an accurate term to describe it.
Where are the daytime driving insects you use to have to clean off your windsheild, no not night, just daytime driving. Insects, pollenators are the first domino, and especially Americans mutilate busy bees as theyre busy collecting from corporate term "weeds". Your God made one mistake and it wasn't "weeds or pests".
Hey Tom... I've been listening to you for years and always hear you attributing NAFTA to Bill Clinton. What needs to be pointed out whenever the subject arises is that George HW Bush negotiated and "signed" the NAFTA treaty. In the midst of the Senate ratification hearings of the treaty, HW lost reelection (posibly in part to his agreement of NAFTA??) and it was ultimately Bill Clinton that Ratified the treaty with his signature, but the terms of the agreement are 100% owned by George Bush. Even the Wikipedia page for NAFTA shows a picture of George Bush at the serimonial signing with the other presidents that were party to the agreement. Just my humble $.02
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Free_Trade_Agreement
Damn.
...didn't follow all that much of that.
...didn't know we were still in the steam age, even.
(heard that a guy named Rumsey (?) actually ushered it in, though Watt got the credit)
Sho'nuf seems like maybe we's got us an albedo-loss(?) 'round our necks.
"Time is up." ... too true. Forget boiling water for watts, it uses the Steam-Age's totally inefficient thermal method.
To get a Watt on-the-wire using steam takes 2-Joules, the Joules are waste-heat, a direct heating of the planet, it's air, soils and water so to understand how bad this is the analog is Arctic sea-ice albedo-loss.
With today's albedo-loss it's worth 25-years of USA power compared to the previous average 1980-2000 sea-ice cover, about 3,800-Terajoule-hours/yr for USA power = 95,000-Twh a year in energy, 1-Watt = 1-Joule.
Global steam capacity is some 18,000-Twh/year so the waste-heat is 36,000-Twh/year of direct heating; to compare: 38000÷95000 = 38% of albedo-loss for impacts.
We have direct control over this waste-heat.
End the Steam-Age, there's no excuse to keep it at any level of science.
Homo SAPIENS? Not
{… a rhyme …}
Homo sapiens? Well, no.
“Sapiens” is quite the wrong term.
In stupidity’s suicidal woe
our species will squirm like a worm.
=============================
As much as I wanted Bernie as President,I did vote for him,we must hold our nose and vote for Hillary. I didn't like the Tim Kaine appointment either as I would have rather had Elizabeth warren as veep candidate,but that being said,we can't let Donald Trump be elected. We are still cleaning up from the Bush/Cheney disaster. Can anyone imagine the destruction this complete egotistical,lying asshole would reign on us and the world? I'd rather not.
Although I understand the point you make about the capitalistic nature of doctors pushing operations to make money, I think you need to acknowledge there are people who benefit from fusion surgery. In 1999, my husband could no longer stand for any reasonable amount of time without agonizing pain. Three years of shots, physical therapy, and pain treatment did nothing. He had a very painful operation to fuse his vertebrae where the pain emanated. He recovered with greatly minimized pain.
I feel that physicians should use ethical diagnosis and procedures. Insurance companies are not doctors and should not deem plausible treatment to sustain what is in their financial interest
We Cook our own Gooses
{a limerick}
We sit on inert cabooses
while oil companies tighten our nooses.
We cook our own gooses
in humid-heat’s juices,
broiling from carbon’s abuses.
========================