2017 Is Strange - Part 1 January

I had posted these types of videos on separate blogs for 2015 and 2016 but I've decided to incorporate the similar vids for 2017 here in this blog.

Here is the first video of the "2017 Is Strange" series by the YouTuber LAST MESSAGES.

2017 is strange. Enjoy!

2016 Is the Third Hottest Year in a Row.

The Boston Globe posted a picture touting a 60-degree January day as evidence of Global Warming. But it isn't. There were January thaws with daytime temps in the 60s in the 1970s when I was growing up in greater Boston. But it's the ocean warming and polar warming that's pushing up the annual mean temperatures, year over year over year over year.

For third straight time, Earth sets hottest year record

Justin Gillis and John Schwartz of The New York Times,  January 18, 2017

Source: The Boston Globe.

Marking another milestone for a changing planet, scientists reported on Wednesday that the Earth reached its highest temperature on record in 2016 — trouncing a record set only a year earlier, which beat one set in 2014. It is the first time in the modern era of global warming data that temperatures have blown past the previous record three years in a row. 

.... 

The data show that politicians cannot wish the problem away. The Earth is heating up, a point long beyond serious scientific dispute, but one becoming more evident as the records keep falling. Temperatures are heading toward levels that many experts believe will pose a profound threat to both the natural world and to human civilization. 

In 2015 and 2016, the planetary warming was intensified by the weather pattern known as El Niño, in which the Pacific Ocean released a huge burst of energy and water vapor into the atmosphere. But the bigger factor in setting the records was the long-term trend of rising temperature, which scientists say is being driven by increasing levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. 

“A single warm year is something of a curiosity,” said Deke Arndt, chief of global climate monitoring for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “It’s really the trend, and the fact that we’re punching at the ceiling every year now, that is the real indicator that we’re undergoing big changes.”

For more, click here.

Five feet of Sea Level Rise by 2050? Ten feet at New Orleans in that Case.

I have recently found out that because of the destabilisation of the Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheets in general, and the Pine Island Glacier in particular, we could see five feet of global mean sea-level rise by 2050.  Due to the gravity effects of the loss of ice at the poles, New Orleans will see twice as much seal level rise as the global mean.

Meltwater from the east end of the East Antarctica ice sheet.
As if Greenland and West Antarctica ice melt weren't bad enough.

This is six feet rise in sea level at New Orleans.
This is from a global mean of three feet.
Source: New Orleans Advocate 

From The Huffington Post, 18 November 2016, U.S. Climate Envoy Jonathan Pershing: Five Feet Of Sea Level Rise By 2050 Possible.

The mood in Marrakech was somber when top climate envoy for President Barack Obama Jonathan Pershing dropped a bombshell on observers gathered there: The rapid warming in polar regions the world is now witnessing may result in five feet—or 1.5 meters— of sea level rise by 2050. 

Pershing had met earlier with State Department Secretary John Kerry in Morocco at the 22nd UN Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP22. Kerry had just returned from a trip to Antarctica. According to Pershing, Kerry told him that the Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica “is moving very fast and when it goes, we will see 1.5 meters of sea level rise by 2050.” 

“Five feet of sea level rise in less than 35 years — that is really soon,” said Pershing. “There are 65 million people now living in a state of conflict and 140 million who live less than 3 feet above sea level.

I had reported on the effects of gravity influences on the effect on sea level rise at New Orleans here, based on information reported in the New Orleans Advocate, which has come out with a new article November 23rd on local sea level rise this century: Study hands New Orleans bleak sea rise outlook, with some of highest projections in the world.

Just when you think the news about sea level rise couldn’t get much worse for New Orleans, it has. 

According to a study released this month, the city will experience one of the highest increases in sea level among 138 coastal cities around the planet because of its location on the northern Gulf of Mexico. 

New Orleans could see as much as 14.5 inches of sea level rise by 2040, and 6.5 feet by 2100 if the world doesn’t act quickly to lower greenhouse gas emissions, the main driver of global warming. 

The populated parts of the city, of course, are protected by levees rising to about 22 feet. The increase would be most evident outside the levees

Of course the study that predicts a 14.5 inches' rise by 2040 and 6.5 feet by 2100 does not take into account the above information about the increasingly rapid disintegration of the Greenland and Antarctica ice caps that Pershing dropped on the climate change conference in Marrakesh.

And the ice melt has started on East Antarctica as well, at its east end, reported by Robertscribbler on November xx: Did Föhn Winds Just Melt Two Miles of East Antarctic Surface Ice in One Day?

Supraglacial lake is just another word for a surface glacial melt lake. And these new lakes pose a big issue for ice sheet stability. Surface melt lakes are darker than white glacier surfaces. They act as lenses that focus sunlight. And the comparatively warm waters of these lakes can flood into the glacier itself — increasing the overall heat energy of the ice mass.

But water at the glacier surface doesn’t just sit there. It often bores down into the ice sheet — producing impacts for months and years after the surface lake’s formation. Sub surface lakes can form in the shadow of surface ponds. Transferring heat into the glacier year after year. In other cases, water from these lakes punches all the way to the glacier’s base. There the added lubrication of water speeds the glacier’s flow. All of these processes generate stresses and make glaciers less stable. And it is the presence of surface melt ponds that has been responsible for so much of Greenland’s speeding melt during recent years.

Now, a similar process is impacting the largest concentration of land ice on the planet. And while Greenland holds enough ice to raise sea levels by around 21 feet, East Antarctica contains enough to lift the world’s oceans by about 195 feet. Surface melt there, as a result, produces considerably more risk to the coastal cities of the world.

In other words, it looks like even Pershing's dire warning at Marrakesh recently is now outdated. Oh, crap.

For more info click here, here, here, here, here [scroll down to EXTINCTION (Yes, it is real)], and here. 

Game. Over. Near Term Extinction by 2100.

Scientists state climate is more sensitive to increased carbon than previously thought and predict 7-1/2 degrees Celsius temperature rise by 2100.

From The Independent: Climate change may be escalating so fast it could be 'game over', scientists warn.

Mark Lynas laid out what would happen as the temperature rises in his award-winning book, Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet.

He was shocked by the researchers’ results.

“It sounds on the apocalyptic side of bad and, in some ways, it is realistic because ‘business as usual’ just got more likely as Trump wants to rebuild the pipelines … the complete ‘fossilisation’ of the US,” he said.

“It was game over at six [degrees] to be honest. I don’t think there was much more to add, other than turning the planet into Venus.”

That's what it looks like for the climate and the ability for the planet to sustain life, thanks to Obama's "Drill, Baby Drill" policies (after stating on election night 2008 that global warming and oceanic warming will have stopped that night according to his prediction of what History will write about his administration). Now we have Donald Trump's team promising to bring back oil, gas, clean coal and promising to defund climate science at all agegencies in the US government. I guess that includes the National Weather Service -- weather is just the day-to-day variability of climate and therefore meterology is a climate science. So I guess AccuWeather or the Weather Channel will get the concession to do the government weather forecasts, huh? At the very least, we're going in for business as usual and probably going for it blindly into the future, to boot.

And do you know who I blame the most? Not Trump. Not the GOP. But Obama, Slick Willie, Hillary, and the DNC for ruining the Dems' political capital on Obamacare and for running a supremely lousy campaign that never positively hooked up to the White Working Class and their values like it needed to.

THANKS, DNC Liberals!

Peak Oil is Coming Back...

Right now there is more oil being extracted than ever. Of course, it cannot last. The Bakken and Eagle Ford Shale Oil Fields are declining in production now. Obviously, Peak Oil is over for them and the oil companies that exploit them.

I found this on The Automatic Earth last week --

The Death of the Bakken Field Has Begun: [That] Means Big Trouble For The U.S.

SRSrocco Report 12 September 2016 Link.

The Death of the Great Bakken Oil Field has begun and very few Americans understand the significance. Just a few years ago, the U.S. Energy Industry and Mainstream media were gloating that the United States was on its way to “Energy Independence.” Unfortunately for most Americans, they believed the hype and are now back to driving BIG SUV’s and trucks that get lousy fuel mileage. And why not? Americans now think the price of gasoline will continue to decline because the U.S. oil industry is able to produce its “supposed” massive shale oil reserves for a fraction of the cost, due to the new wonders of technological improvement. [..] they have no clue that the Great Bakken Oil Field is now down a stunning 25% from its peak just a little more than a year and half ago:

Source: SRSrocco Report.

This [is[ true for the Eagle Ford Field in Texas. According to the most recent EIA Drilling Productivity Report, the Eagle Ford Shale Oil Field in Texas will be producing an estimated 1,026,000 barrels of oil per day in September, down from a peak of 1,708,000 barrels per day in May 2015. Thus, Eagle Ford oil production is slated to be down a stunning 40% since its peak last year.

Source: SRSrocco Report.

As I have been documenting in previous articles (going back until 2013) the U.S. Shale Oil Industry was a house-of-cards. Readers who have been following my work, based on intelligent work of others, understood that Shale Oil is just another Ponzi Scheme in a long list of Ponzi Schemes. 

While Donald Trump is receiving more support from Americans in his Presidential race, his campaign motto that he will “Make American Strong Again”, will never happen. The America we once knew is over. There just isn’t the available High EROI – Energy Returned On Investment energy supplies to allow us to continue the same lifestyle we enjoyed in the past. So, now we have to transition to a different more local or regional way of living.

For more information click here.

The END of the American Way of Life is non-negotiable. Sorry, Dick Cheney.

Pace deorum.

The Bourgeoisiophene.

Karl Marx was right. Driven by the Bourgeoisie, Capitalism will continue until all the natural resources are exhausted, the workers are pauperised, and the natural realm, badly polluted. (Of course, based on his views concerning natural resources, Communism and Socialism weren't much better, or were even worse, depending on your perspective.)

From Truthdig: Paul Street, How to Stop Capitalism’s Deadly War With Nature (Link).

Source: Truthdig.com

Earth scientists now know that the history of our planet has been set for some time in our current geological age, the Anthropocene. According to leading experts Will Steffen, Paul Crutzen and John McNeill, in this era, “human activities have become so pervasive and profound that they rival the great forces of Nature and are pushing the earth into planetary terra incognita. The Earth is rapidly moving into a less biologically diverse, less forested, much warmer, and probably wetter and stormier era.” We are living in a “no-analogue state” in which “the Earth system has recently moved well outside the range of natural variability.” ... ...

The terrible trends and data have led the venerable progressive political scientist and social-justice advocate Susan George to introduce what she calls “a new phenomenon in the history of humankind.” In a recent lecture to the International Centre for the Promotion of Human Rights in Buenos Aires, she names it “geocide,” meaning “the collective action of a single species among millions of other species which is changing planet Earth to the point that it can become unrecognisable and unfit for life.” Humanity, George says, “is committing geocide against all components of nature, whether microscopic organisms, plants, animals or against itself, homo sapiens, humankind.” George is unstinting in her denunciation of the human species: “Homo sapiens has only existed for roughly 200,000 years. The time we’ve spent on this planet compared to its total age is infinitesimally short, just the tiniest sliver of geological time. It amounts to a mere 0.00004 percent of Earth’s existence. And although any given species of plant or animal—vertebrate or invertebrate—tends to last on average about 10 million years, our species seems determined to cause its own extinction, along with the rest of creation, long before its allotted time.” ... ...

But is the culprit really Homo sapiens as a whole? The concept of the Anthropocene has rich scientific validity. It holds welcome political relevance in countering the carbon-industrial complex’s denial of humanity’s responsibility for contemporary climate change. Still, we must guard against lapsing into the historically unspecific and class-blind uses of the term “anthros,” and project the recent age of capital onto the broad 100,000-year swath of human activity on and in nature. As the brilliant and prolific environmental historian and political economist Jason Moore reminded Sasha Lilley during a KPFA radio interview in 2015: “It was not humanity as a whole that created … large-scale industry and the massive textile factories of Manchester in the 19th century or Detroit in the last century or Shenzhen today. It was capital.” It is only during a relatively small slice of human history—roughly the last 500 years, give or take a century or so—that humanity has been socially and institutionally wired from the top down to wreck livable ecology.

A compelling case has been made by Moore and other left environmentalists that it is more historically appropriate to understand humanity’s earth-altering assault on livable ecology as “the Capitalocene.” Capitalism has ruled the world since 1600 or thereabouts (by academic calculations), and only during this relatively brief period of history has human social organization developed the capacity and compulsion to transform earth systems. “Geocide” is a capitalist crime, not a transgression of humanity over its long and mostly noncapitalist history.

(Emphases in the above quote are mine)

For more, click here.

It's Inequality Stupid. AND the Political Climate!

Harvard Professor Michael Porter reveals the real reason why the US economy is in the dumps in this video here.

“The confused national discourse about our economy and future prosperity in this election year is our worst nightmare,” Harvard Professor Michael Porter writes. “There is almost a complete disconnect between the national discourse and the reality of what is causing our problems and what to do about them. This misunderstanding of facts and reality is dangerous, and the resulting divisions make an already challenging agenda for America even more daunting.” 

In its just-released report on competitiveness, “Problems Unsolved and a Nation Divided: State of US Competitiveness,” Harvard Business School (HBS) found the US economy currently faces grave concerns. And the path to a solution—namely tax reform, immigration reform, and infrastructure investment—is being hindered by the current political climate. 

Led by Porter, along with Professors Jan Rivkin and Mihir Desai, the report finds that since the launch of the US Competitiveness Project in 2011, concerns about weak job creation and stagnating incomes—particularly for the middle class—have not waned.

The report adds that the wrong diagnosis, along with political paralysis in Washington, has meant that we have made no meaningful progress on any of the critical policy measures needed to address the nation’s underlying competitive weaknesses—which would restore economic growth and also the standard of living for the average citizen.

Porter says the key issue for America today is a lack of “shared prosperity,” as working and middle-class citizens are struggling.

“The lack of shared prosperity has rightly been a central issue in the 2016 campaign, but the diagnoses and proposed solutions are way off the mark,” the report points out.

For more on the Professor's conclusions, click here.

And lurking behind that reasons is this reason: the lack of inexpensive-to-extract oil, which, according to Gail Tverberg is the cause of the professor's reason. For more, click here.