Coal in Dire Straits as Renewables, Natural Gas from Fracking Give it a One-Two Punch!

Reblogging another post from Robertscribbler, supplemented (a demain) by a blurb from yesterday's The Automatic Earth Debt Rattle.

Coal Production, Exports Plummet as Peabody Energy Declares Bankruptcy.

by Robert Scribbler, 13 April 2016 (condensing mine)

Jenny Marienau of the climate disaster prevention group 350.org is certainly right about one thing. A healthy world. A world full of life and of prospects for all people, all living things. A world that avoids the worst impacts of a terrible climate disruption on the road to a hothouse mass extinction. In this, far more hopeful, world there is no place for companies like Peabody Energy. Companies whose profit-making and related accumulation of a corrupting political power and influence is entirely dependent on locking in an ever-worsening global crisis.

Today that company, representing the largest coal interest in the Western World, declared bankruptcy. An optimistic announcement that comes amidst a swift sea change and a precipitous contraction in the global coal industry. One that, if world-wide public, private, protest action, and individual efforts to reduce carbon emissions on the back of 200 nations reaching a landmark global climate agreement in Paris continue in force, may well be a beginning of an end to the fossil fuel energy era.

The broadening contraction in coal has forced bankruptcies not just for Peabody, but for other major American coal players like Arch Coal and Alpha Natural Resources. A devastating wave for a climatologically destructive industry that appears less and less likely to survive in any form resembling its former might.

It’s all a part of an emerging supertrend that is being reinforced along many fronts. The first of which involves a broad global protest action against new coal plant construction and wider fossil fuel based energy itself. Led by key groups like 350.org, Greenpeace, and the Sierra Club, these critical actions have targeted construction sites, pipelines, railways and mines. In addition, a comprehensive divestment campaign spear-headed by 350.org has targeted capital flows to the fossil fuel special interests.

Source: Clean Technica with US EIA data.

Within the fossil fuel ranks there is also division. Even among the fossil fuel players there appears to be an acceptance that coal is on its way out. Messaging coming from the fossil fuel industry appears to have shifted to support of the still very harmful natural gas and for a new global fracking campaign. In essence, what we observe is that the oil and gas interests, including the new fracking interests, have basically maneuvered in a way that effectively throws coal under the climate change response bus. Coal is tougher to greenwash than natural gas and the spearhead campaign against coal as the worst of the worst among carbon polluters has proven undeflectable. This has been especially true in the UK where even conservatives are aiming to shut down coal plants (while continuing their harmful efforts in support of fracking and aimed at suppressing rates of renewable energy adoption).

More here. 

Now from Raúl Ilargi Meijer of The Automatic Earth:

Demand destruction and debt deflation.

• Peabody, World’s Top Private Coal Miner, Files For Bankruptcy (Reuters) 

 

[Link]

Peabody Energy, the world’s largest privately owned coal producer, filed for U.S. bankruptcy protection on Wednesday in the wake of a sharp fall in coal prices that left it unable to service a recent debt-fueled expansion into Australia. The company listed both assets and liabilities in the range of $10 billion to $50 billion. Falling global coal demand, stricter environmental controls and a glut of natural gas have pushed big miners, including the second largest U.S. coal producer, Arch Coal, into bankruptcy protection over the past year.

What Robertscribbler and Raúl Meijer didn't tell you, but Reuters does, is that Peabody Coal bought out MacArthur Coal, a big Australian coal mining concern supplying metallurgical  coal to China's steel mills, right when the price for that kind of coal was at an all-time high. As you might have known recently, demand for minerals and fossil fuels of all kinds have been plummeting, perhaps chiefly due to the recent economic stumbles in China. Of course, Mr. Meijer does keep people abreast about the trends in the general economy and whatnot, and they are not good.

And it is these trends which, if they continue, may put the kibosch on Business-As-Usual, and perhaps save us from the worst cases of the upcoming climate changes.

We Missed the Paris COP21 Climate Change Goal!

That is, the goal of 1.5 degrees Centigrade during the first three months of this year, according to Japan Met Office.

From the Robertscribbler...

Japan Meteorological Agency Shows First Three Months of 2016 Were About 1.5 C Above the IPCC Preindustrial Baseline

by Robert Scribbler, 14 April 2016 (link-format and image caption mine)

We should take a moment to appreciate how hot it’s actually been so far in 2016. To think about what it means to be in a world that’s already so damn hot. To think about how far behind the 8 ball we are on responses to human forced climate change. And to consider how urgent it is to swiftly stop burning coal, oil and gas. To stop adding more fuel to an already raging global fire.

Global policy makers, scientists, and many environmentalists have identified an annual average of 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial marks as a level of heat we should try to avoid. [Link] The Paris Climate Summit made a verbal pledge to at least attempt to steer clear of such extreme high temperature ranges. But even the strongest emissions reduction commitments from the nations of the world now do not line up with that pledge. And it’s questionable that they ever could given the massive amount of greenhouse gas overburden that has already accumulated and is already rapidly heating the world’s airs, waters, ice, and carbon stores.

Current emission reduction pledges, though significant when taking into context the size and potential for growth of all of carbon-spewing industry, don’t even come close to the stated 1.5 C goal. Under our presently accepted understanding of climate sensitivity, and barring any response from the global carbon stores unforeseen by mainstream science, pledged reductions in fossil fuel use by the nations of the world under Paris would limit warming to around 3 C by the end of this Century. Rates of carbon emission reduction would necessarily have to significantly speed up beyond the pledged Paris NDC goals in order to hit below 3 C by 2100 — much less avoid 2 C.

As for 1.5 C above preindustrial averages — it already appears that this year, 2016, will see temperatures uncomfortably close to a level that mainstream scientists have identified as dangerous.

Source: Japan Met.

More here.

[Pseudo-]Conservative Hubris to Cause a Triple Greek Tragedy.

Around the world, but especially in the White Anglosphere nations and Russia, pseudo-conservative politicians are enacting or trying to enact laws, policies and subsidies that would favor fossil fuel vested interests over renewable energy.  Do they not realize that the fossil fuels will eventually run out, or do they think the Earth is this creamy nougat with unlimited stores of fossil fuel?  If they do realize, do they think that fossil fuel companies will make out like bandits once fossil fuel extraction peaks and declines as they charge whatever the traffic will bear for an increasingly scarce resource?  And do they really think, peak oil or NO peak oil, we can just keep emitting the combustion waste and extraction by-wastes into the atmosphere and environment without setting off a runaway hothouse climate and creating polluted wastelands in the process?  I mean , how foolish can they be?

One country, the United Kingdom, now has a "Conservative" government that thinks the British can switch over from coal to natural gas by fracking the countryside.  A year back or so, there was an unsuccessful fracking play there; the drillers came up with NOTHING.  This may be typical for Britain. So where are they going to get the natural gas from, Russia?

So without further ado, I'll hand this over to Robertscribbler.

Toxic Interests: In Lead-up to Paris Summit, Conservative Politicians Around the World are Fighting to Kill Renewable Energy

http://robertscribbler.com/2015/11/24/toxic-interests-in-lead-up-to-paris-summit-conservative-politicians-around-the-world-are-fighting-to-kill-renewable-energy/

We have seen the enemy and he is us.

‘He,’ in this case, is those among us now fighting an all-out war against government programs aimed at reducing the damage caused by human-forced climate change. And in this present time of ramping climate catastrophe, there is no excuse at all for this morally reprehensible activity. Yet, excuse or no, the foul actions of these shameless ignoramuses continue. For all around the world conservatives (called [neo] liberals in Australia) with ties to fossil fuel based industry continue to scuttle programs that would result in the more rapid adoption of renewable energy systems even as they undermine related initiatives to increase energy efficiency.

At a time when the world faces down a growing climate crisis — one that will have dramatically worsening impacts as the decades progress — these failed and corruption-born policies represent the most abhorrent of political activities. And as the world convenes to consider how best to lessen the danger posed by an unfolding global tragedy, there are many in power who are now actively working to increase that danger.

More than anything else, this corrupt group is fighting to enforce ramping dangers, an ever-broadening harm, and untold future tragedy.

Continues here.

These neo-liberal politicians are leading us into a triple tragedy of economic collapse due to peak oil, fossil fuel exhaustion and demand destruction because of the businesses and consumers taking on too much debt to continue buying the stuff at the same rate as before; of civilizational collapse due to climate change, especially from the global weirding to come such as the storms of our grandchildren; and environmental collapse due to both climate change and fouling the environment with combustion waste and extraction by-wastes.  These pols are not conservative in the LEAST because in the end they will not conserve ANYTHING.  Not even our "non-negotiable" way of life.

The Greeks had a word for this go-ahead-and-ignore-any-warnings attitude: it's called hubris.

Exxon-Mobil, Koch Brothers and Others Wrecked Public Trust in Climate Science.

The think tanks have been around at least since the mid-90s and what they do is "throw dust into the air" while making the "dust" appear just as good as peer-reviewed scientific papers on climate change. Purpose? To give Climate Deniers their talking points in order to grow doubt among the masses, who wouldn't know whom to trust.

 

Of course, they could have said that the amount of fossil fuel is finite and then say that climate change will not be as bad as the IPCC says it will get under business as usual with no limit to fossil fuels. But then, the investor class will realize that the fossil fuel extraction companies might not earn as much profit as they believed they will. And the public might panic and hunker down and conserve, further eating into these companies' profits. And we can't have that, now, can we? After all, this is America!

Another fine hat tip to dtlange at Robertscribbler.

Research Confirms ExxonMobil, Koch-funded Climate Denial Echo Chamber Polluted Mainstream Media

http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/11/23/research-confirms-exxonmobil-koch-funded-climate-denial-echo-chamber-polluted-mainstream-media

A new study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science (PNAS) shows that the climate denial echo chamber organizations funded by ExxonMobil and Koch family foundations produced misinformation that effectively polluted mainstream media coverage of climate science and polarized the climate policy debate.

The analysis of 20 years’ worth of data by Yale University researcher Dr. Justin Farrell shows beyond a doubt that ExxonMobil and the Kochs are the key actors who funded the creation of climate disinformation think tanks and ensured the prolific spread of their doubt products throughout our mainstream media and public discourse.

“The contrarian efforts have been so effective for the fact that they have made it difficult for ordinary Americans to even know who to trust,”

In the 70s We Were Headed for a Full-Blown Ice Age.

Or at least that's what the news media kept on sayin'. Gnome sayin'?

But in the 80s the media turned on a dime and proclaimed the Earth was globally warming, apparently because they found out scientific consensus was in favor of it. Or was it for no reason? And now we have in the climatic record the biggest jump in climate warming since the Mediaeval Warming Period occurred in the mid-to-late 80s..

Hat tip to Abel Adamski at Robertscribbler.

Climate study finds evidence of global shift in the 1980s

http://phys.org/news/2015-11-climate-evidence-global-shift-1980s.html#jCp

Planet Earth experienced a global climate shift in the late 1980s on an unprecedented scale, fuelled by anthropogenic warming and a volcanic eruption, according to new research published this week.

Scientists say that a major step change, or ‘regime shift’, in the Earth’s biophysical systems, from the upper atmosphere to the depths of the ocean and from the Arctic to Antarctica, was centred around 1987, and was sparked by the El Chichón volcanic eruption in Mexico five years earlier.

Their study, published in Global Change Biology, documents a range of associated events caused by the shift, from a 60% increase in winter river flow into the Baltic Sea to a 400% increase in the average duration of wildfires in the Western United States. It also suggests that climate change is not a gradual process, but one subject to sudden increases, with the 1980s shift representing the largest in an estimated 1,000 years.

“We demonstrate, based on 72 long time series, that a major change took place in the world centred on 1987 that involved a step change and move to a new regime in a wide range of Earth systems,” said Professor Reid.

“Our work contradicts the perceived view that major volcanic eruptions just lead to a cooling of the world. In the case of the regime shift it looks as if global warming has reached a tipping point where the cooling that follows such eruptions rebounds with a rapid rise in temperature in a very short time. The speed of this change has had a pronounced effect on many biological, physical and chemical systems throughout the world, but is especially evident in the Northern temperate zone and Arctic.”

Sao Paolo, Brazil, May Be the First City to Dry Up and Blow Away.

It has come to my attention that Sao Paolo, the largest city in Brazil, is losing residents due to a water availability crisis that was brought on by a years-long drought caused by global warming and the deforestation of the Amazon Rain Forest, and by poor management by the privatized water company.

Hat tip to apneaman at Robertscribbler.

As Brazil's Largest City Struggles With Drought, Residents Are Leaving.

http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/11/22/455751848/as-brazils-largest-city-struggles-with-drought-residents-are-leaving?sc=nd

It happened slowly at first. The reservoir's water level dropped, so the resort extended the boat launch ramp.  Then they had to add another extension.  Eventually, the water dropped so much that business dried up — along with the lake.  "For this coming weekend, there's not one reservation. This business was 98 percent dependent on the water. Now that the water's gone, the customers are gone as well," says Francisco Carlos Fonseca, the manager of Marina Confiança.

Francisco Carlos Fonseca is the manager of Marina Confiança, a resort located on the banks of the Cantareira reservoir system. Behind him is a boat ramp that once led to a lake that he says used to be more than 100 feet deep.

The resort is located on what were once the banks of one of Sao Paulo's most important reservoir system, called Cantareira.  A drought has been devastating the region for the past two years.  Unless there is more rain, some water conservation groups estimate there is only enough water to last about five months.

Renata Trindade, 26, lives in a northern neighborhood of Sao Paulo with her boyfriend.  She says the government has been rationing water, so she sets aside dirty dishes to conserve water for bathing and flushing toilets.  On weekdays, she gets water from 4 a.m. to 1 p.m. and on weekends, from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. 

For her and many other Sao Paulo residents, this is the new normal.

And this city is not alone. Brazil's second largest city, Rio de Janeiro, is also facing water troubles, as are other coastal areas. It's been an enormous shock to Brazilians, who are used to their country being called "the Saudi Arabia of Water" — historically, it has had as much water as that Middle Eastern country has oil.

Some people are already deciding to pick up and move their lives completely, in search of more irrigated pastures.

More here.

Air Pollution to get a lot worse, thanks to further fossil fuel combustion.

Hat tip to dtlange at Robertscribbler.

"Just as FF carbon GHG emissions continue unabated so do particulate aerosols." -- dtlange.  The increase in aerosols will contribute to global dimming, causing the impact of increasing CO2 atmospheric content to be less than it would be otherwise if there were no such aerosol increase. Which means the temperature increase will be delayed. And the more the temperature increase is delayed, making the spike that much bigger when the FF emissions finally do cease. Faustian bargain!

CLIMATE CHANGE: Study says air pollution will get worse.

http://www.pe.com/articles/pollution-787092-allen-change.html

Study by UCR professor says changing weather patterns will worsen fine-particle air pollution.

Climate change could make the world’s air even dirtier than it is now, according to an analysis by UC Riverside climatologist Robert Allen recently published in the journal Nature Climate Change.  Allen used NASA’s super computers to model how global warming changes the atmosphere’s ability to cleanse itself from fine particle pollution — the airborne soot, chemical compounds, dust, and other microscopic specks associated with an array of health problems. The study found that by 2100, such pollution, also called aerosols, would linger longer and build up in the skies above much of the United States, Europe and Asia.  “All of the models show more of a burden of aerosol pollution,” said Allen, an assistant professor in UCR’s Department of Earth Sciences. “All of the models showed a consistent increase.”

Ocean Overheating Causing Beginning of Massive New Coral Bleaching.

This is from Mashable.com via Colorado Bob at Robertscribbler:

The third recorded global coral bleaching event may be underway.

"Coral reefs around the world — from Hawaii to the iconic Great Barrier Reef, eastward all the way to the Bahamas and beyond — are in jeopardy of being severely damaged or even dying because of a dangerous spike in ocean temperatures, scientists say.

"Conditions are so dire that, provided coral bleaching soon spreads from the Florida Keys to the Bahamas, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is expected to declare as soon as two weeks from now that the third global coral bleaching event is here. There’s already evidence of coral bleaching in three major ocean basins.

“ 'It’s like watching a slow-motion train wreck, and we’re waiting for the cars to pile up on this side of the track,' says Mark Eakin, the coordinator of NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch, in an interview with Mashable."

http://mashable.com/2015/09/24/third-global-coral-bleaching-event/?utm_source=climatenexus&utm_medium=referral#oFAa_etJzuqD

NOAA to "declare [a bleaching event] as soon as two weeks from now" and "already evidence of coral bleaching in the three major ocean basins" means the current El Nino, as strong and monstrous as it is, cannot cool down the oceans soon enough to avoid this event. The article also states that "many coral reefs expected to perish by the middle of the century if recent trends continue." which means (1) we need Peak Oil on purpose, now, reducing energy use and switching to renewables, and (2) even if we reduce our emissions to zero, the 405 ppm CO₂ and the 480 ppm CO₂e means we will still have these global warming trends continuing for as long as forty years, or more, until the ice, oceans and atmosphere finally reached equilibrium.

There is a new study out that shows information can be extracted from samples of coral reefs to determine what the paleoclimatic record, i.e., the prehistoric climate, was like.

From Science Daily via Colorado Bob at Robertscribbler:

 Fossil corals have the unique advantage that they can be precisely dated by radiometric uranium-series dating, giving an age scale that can be directly compared to the ice core records.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150924151409.htm

And, now scientists have discovered another effect of global warming which is an amplifying of  semiannual to twice-annual variation in Pacific Ocean sea level, perhaps in both amplitude and frequency, causing South Seas' islands' coral reefs to become exposed to the air and die back as a result.

Also from Science Daily via Colorado Bob at Robertscribbler:

During El Niño, warm water and high sea levels shift eastward, leaving in their wake low sea levels in the western Pacific. Scientists have already shown that this east-west seesaw is often followed six months to a year later by a similar north-south sea level seesaw with water levels dropping by up to one foot (30 cm) in the Southern Hemisphere. Such sea level drops expose shallow marine ecosystems in South Pacific Islands, causing massive coral die-offs with a foul smelling tide called taimasa (pronounced [kai' ma'sa]) by Samoans.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150925142700.htm

Which means there will be more catastrophic diebacks of the coral reefs. Better start transplanting them now. Peak Oil will not stop this.

Methane Warning from the Arctic!

The Royal Society has commissioned a study performed by the now well-known husband and wife team from Russia, Natasha Shakhova and Igor Semiletov, concerning the outgassing of methane (CH₄) from the East Siberian Sea Continental Shelf (ESS), which is essentially frozen tundra that drowned when the glaciers receded about 10,000 years ago and since then. There are about 1,600 billion (that's a b) tons (GT) of CH₄ frozen in hydrates.

Now that the Arctic is getting warmer, the marine ice cap is suffering a catastrophic collapse to the fifth or sixth smallest sea ice area on record, warm waters from the Atlantic and Pacific are sneaking in and storms are churning the near-shore Arctic seas from surface to bottom, methane is escaping from the Arctic Seafloor at an increasing rate, particularly at the ESS area. Previously Shakhova and Semiletov stated that 50 GT of CH₄ could escape at any time.

Natasha Shakhova on Methane Hydrates.

And what the Royal Society study has to say is that the Risk of Significant Methane Release from [the] East Siberian Arctic Shelf [is] Still Growing.

From Robertscribbler:

Large plumes of methane bubbling up from the Arctic Ocean sea-bed, saturating the water column, venting into the air, adding significantly more heat forcing to an already dangerous, fossil fuel-based, accumulation of greenhouse gasses in the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s a nightmare scenario. One in which human-forced warming, already at 1 C above 1880s levels, is further amplified through the feedback release of ancient carbon stored over the past 8 million years of Northern Hemisphere glaciation. And a recent study by the now famous Semiletov and Shakhova team provides still more reason for appropriate concern that such an event may be in the works.

Shakhova and Semiletov’s new study produces an increasingly clear picture of a destabilizing organic carbon store beneath thawing permafrost in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf region. The above images show organic carbon concentration [left frame] and rate of release of methane in grams per square meter per day over observed regions.

By now, many of us are familiar with the controversy over the potential risks of significant-to-catastrophic methane release due to human-forced warming of the Arctic.  An increasing number of observational specialists are pointing toward a risk that rapid human warming will set off the release of still more carbon in the Arctic. For some, this release is expected to be gradual. Others believe there’s enough risk of a rapid release to warrant an equally rapid emergency response.
But regardless of where you stand on the issue, new research coming to light from some of the Arctic’s top observational scientists more clearly describes what appears to be an increasingly dangerous situation.

Increasingly dangerous is right! The present CH₄ overburden is about 1846 ppb (1.85 ppm) which equates to about 5 GT of methane in the atmosphere. An addition of 50 GT of this stuff would add about 18.5 ppm for a grand total of 20.4 ppm of CH₄. At 25 times the heat-trapping efficacy of CO₂ over the lifetime of methane in the air would yield an equivalent of 510 ppm CO₂ E, increasing the global mean temperature by 3 degrees C quite quickly, to about 4 deg C above 1880s values.

Well at least a PB study is suggesting we are nearing peak oil demand. But it might not save us from Hell on Earth! This could be one of those situations where Peak Oil really is no object.

Fin des Voies Rapides, certainement!

Link: http://robertscribbler.com/2015/09/10/new-study-risk-of-significant-methane-release-from-east-siberian-arctic-shelf-still-growing/

It's been a long time.

I've been busy for quite a while filling paperwork to obtain pro bono legal help solve two real-life financial problems before they blow up in my face. Now that they're done and I will receive an answer in eighteen days, I can add new posts to this blog.

This blog has strayed far from its original intent: the effects of peak oil and related subjects. I've been into the gay marriage fight in California, now surprisingly pleasantly successfully concluded, Bradley now Chelsea Manning's trials, crucifixion for a few years, the Historical Jesus (who?), local things and whatnot. It's time for me to bring this blog back to its original subject.

I may not get to write my own posts for a long time, but I'll keep the blog fed with repostings, usually from the Robertscribbler and Our Finite World blogs. Tomorrow I'll start the reposts. See ya then!

Ta Ra Ra BOOM Deeay! Part 2

From Robertscribbler's article "Large Methane Plumes Discovered on Laptev Continental Slope Boundary: Evidence of Possible Methane Hydrate Release":

Over the past few years, the Arctic has been experiencing an invasion.

Emerging from the Gulf Stream, a pulse of warmer than normal water propagated north past Iceland and into the Barents Sea. There, it dove beneath the surface fresh water and retreating sea ice, plunging to a depth of around 200-500 meters where it concentrated, lending heat to the entire water column. Taking a right hand turn along the Siberian Continental Shelf, it crossed through the mid water zones of the Kara. Finally, it entered the Laptev and there it abutted against the downward facing slopes of the submarine continental region.

As the water temperatures at these depths warmed, researchers began to wonder if they would trigger the destabilization of methane hydrate stores locked  in deeper waters along the shelf boundary. And, now, a new expedition may have uncovered evidence that just such an event is ongoing.

And here's a photo of methane bubbles bubbling up from the slope itself!

Source: Stockholm University via Robertscribbler.

The Top 0.1%, Koch Borthers, and Global Weirding

There's a reason why Peak Oil Is No Object, and why we are at the Fin Des Voies Rapides anyway. But it's taken me a while to get there!

It's because of the already extant overburden of Carbon Dioxide (402 ppm), Methane (1830 ppb), Nitrous Oxide, Ozone, etc. We now are at a global warming of 0.92 C since the 1880s -- 0.76 C since 1950 and 0.80 C since 1750, the dawn of industrialization! And already we are having Global Weirding in the weather!

The driving force behind all this -- and controlling the governments -- are the top 0.1%, particularly those who profit from fossil fuels extraction, prime example being the Koch Brothers. And why this driving force? It's as Dmitry Orlov said, it's due to Moneybag Logic:

This logic says that having more money is always good, having less money is always bad, and that therefore everyone should do everything possible to make sure that there is always more money. If that requires turning the Earth into a polluted, radioactive, lifeless desert, so be it.

So here's a subthread I've taken from RobertScribbler's blog article World In Hot Water: Screaming Sea Surface Temperatures Push Globe To Hottest June Yet, and am reblogging it here.

May this begin a discussion.

Raymond DeBrane  /  July 22, 2014

I think the Koch Brothers and other oil and coal billionaires will have to bargain with the military and pay them huge amounts of cash to secure a place in underground shelters such as DUMBS. I strongly suspect that when TSHTF, those rich guys will be tossed out as human garbage when money becomes worthless and there’s nothing more to be gained by the military by giving them food, water, shelter, etc. Since the military is well armed, I’m fairly sure that the military will shoot them down without care or remorse to save the resources they would consume to use for more deserving people. It will be a just end for them all.
   
Andy (in San Diego)  /  July 23, 2014

The military can now legally operate on domestic soil. Cdn + US govt and military signed an agreement a couple of years ago such that they can operate on each others soil during unrest. All the Kochs (and ilk) need to do is own those that tell the military what to do. They have this covered. Greedy yes, and also quite smart.
   
robertscribbler  /  July 23, 2014

Clever, but not smart. Smart people don’t invest in fossil fuels and suppress the alternatives. The Kochs are two clever chaps who’ve long since lost limbic brain functionality.
  
robertscribbler  /  July 23, 2014

I’d also call them monstrous ignoramuses and lump them in with the villainous personas of our age. But that’s neither here nor there when it comes to what’s smart.

In any case, I seriously doubt the Kochs will be able to leverage special military protection, especially when it’s completely obvious to military planners that they’re fighting for the wrong side.
  
robertscribbler  /  July 23, 2014

To this point, you may want to read the book — Soft Apocalypse.
At some point, the military becomes saturated with problems and loses broader functioning. We have 10,000 people fighting fires on the west coast right now. Two brigades worth just to fight fires. How will it look in twenty years? What happens when you’re dealing with mass migration, probably violent unrest, states bordering on collapse, people rioting because their seaside homes were destroyed and there’s no insurance or disaster relief money left, people starving because the Kochs pushed them off food stamps, food riots because the crops failed and people like the Kochs pushed them off food stamps. Who are the people in the military going to sympathize with? The Kochs? You end up with that level of corruption and the whole system collapses pretty quick.

I’m thinking the Kochs have their oxes gored long before that point.
  
Raymond DeBrane  /  July 23, 2014

to Robert,
 I believe, even now, politicians know they are working for the wrong side. Ditto conservative media personalities. As long as the Kochs and other billionaires keep the money flowing to them, they will continue to shill for the wrong side. I think they and the military will take all the money they can get from those guys until things get so out of hand that the banks and the government, and the populace are crippled by financial and environmental collapse, massive gasoline shortages, people out of work that can’t pay for the gas that is available, and not able to pay for food at the grocery store, if it is still available. Then and only then will the Kochs and their ilk become excess baggage, expendable.

If you expect the people in general to come for the Kochs and their ilk, half the country won’t because they are hopelessly brainwashed by conservative media types to be for the policies of the Kochs, and to hate and despise billionaire George Soros, who is fighting the Kochs. Most people I’ve talked to never even heard of the Kochs, and they have no idea of the big picture of what those billionaires are up to and how bad a state the world is in right now because of climate change. Add to that that even people in this blog think that Prof Guy McPherson is wrong about NTE beginning around 2030, and you have people thinking that that can’t happen. It’s too soon. Everybody please Google John Mercer and read about his 1978 prediction about if we keep burning fossil fuels, we will melt the glaciers. As I mentioned previously, he took a lot of flack from his colleagues,, but modern scientists have found him to be a profit.
Thanks for the book recommendation.
  
robertscribbler  /  July 23, 2014

Corrupt political systems fail, media systems based on propaganda fail, and, in the end, people come after the Kochs. Absolutely.

In any case, I’m not so cynical as to believe that the Kochs own the system or that the situation is quite so altogether dark. Do the conservatives own the system? They’ve been more and more marginalized despite massive sums of money expended. They wouldn’t work so hard to suppress the vote if elections didn’t matter.