Permafrost and Human Extinction

1% colder Sun 200 million years ago is probably a bit conservative: in the past 200 million years the Sun became about 1% larger (radius) and 2% hotter. This translates to about 4% higher radiance today: +55W more, per square meter . So we are freeing up carbon stored when the Sun was colder and when there was more vegetation and more O2.

Nature will probably cope one way or another, but whether humanity is part of the outcome is unclear. (Even in the more optimistic scenarios there’s hundreds of million people put into miserable conditions way too fast for them to cope with – killing many of them.)

Karl, I’m with you on the stimulus via payroll tax cuts and AAPL – but global warming is a lot more dangerous process than you seem to allow for. Exactly how dangerous we don’t know, but that is one of the properties that makes it so dangerous.

They have. But if you followed the reports, you would have noticed that they have to adjust their models every other year because they still fail to explain all the available data correctly. Ever heard of chaos theory? The environment is a very complex system and it’s a real challenge to model it. But the scientists are making progress, of course, and one thing is certain: If we continue on the path we’re on, we’ll have to deal with very difficult conditions in the future, and it will be very costly to adjust to this. You have to be a real ignorant to naively believe that “warmer climate” is better. Many regions will be lost for agriculture, and others will be harmed by much stronger weather changes. A larger number of hurricanes and flooding will make many settlements uneconomic for residency. The reduces standard of living for many humans will really be the least of our worries. In one of the worst case scenarios, a collapse of the gulf stream will bring catastrophic changes for the 500 millions living in Europe.

But guys like you still worry about the carbon tax instead. As if the recent years hasn’t shown that governments tend to rather set taxes on the industry too low (in order to attract investment capital in the global competition) rather than too high. You concerns about taxation really are ridiculous in a situation where much more dire consequences are showing up on the horizon. It’s like ranting about the high costs of speed tickets while you’re heading with 150 mph towards a hairpin bend in the mountains, sitting in a muscle car with faulty shocks and worn out brakes. Irresponsible.

“So chaos theory says that the climate models make poor predictions, but also I’m supposed to believe that CO2 is the dominant factor driving global temperature?”

It depends on what question you want the models to answer. If you just want to know whether the world we’re making with our carbon emissions is going to be livable or not, then the models will give you a pretty definite answer.

“Recall, if you actually read the whole conversation above you see that the very point in question was where the limit really is and this is the question that Gray asserted could not be answered by the models.”

There was no conversation. You’re just a troll.

Gosh! Wouldn’t want to confuse the layperson, better just tell them oceans are turning to acid, that’s nice and simple so they can get good and frightened. Since they are obviously too stupid to understand the truth, no need to bother trying, huh?

May I quote from Matt Ridley:

The central concern is that lower pH will make it harder for corals, clams and other “calcifier” creatures to make calcium carbonate skeletons and shells. Yet this concern also may be overstated. Off Papua New Guinea and the Italian island of Ischia, where natural carbon-dioxide bubbles from volcanic vents make the sea less alkaline, and off the Yucatan, where underwater springs make seawater actually acidic, studies have shown that at least some kinds of calcifiers still thrive—at least as far down as pH 7.8.

In a recent experiment in the Mediterranean, reported in Nature Climate Change, corals and mollusks were transplanted to lower pH sites, where they proved “able to calcify and grow at even faster than normal rates when exposed to the high [carbon-dioxide] levels projected for the next 300 years.” In any case, freshwater mussels thrive in Scottish rivers, where the pH is as low as five.

So in a nutshell, the worst imagined pH shift suggested by climate change has already been tested and the shellfish don’t have a problem with it.

As for droughts in Australia, decade long droughts are not actually unusual, even within the relatively short record since European settlement of the continent. If you are curious about what drives Australian farmers to the brink, read the story of Matt and Janet Thompson and their cattle feedlot in West Australia, and everytime they tried to comply with the local environmental regulations those regulations were arbitrarily changed until the local regulators just literally burned out all the farmer’s money. Nothing to do with drought there buddy — pure government interference.

Read the story about Peter Spencer who bought some prime grazing land (that has been prime grazing land for a century) and was then forced to grow native trees on this land (for no financial return) because it happened to help the Australian government fulfil the Koyoto Protocol, so then he proposed plans for a trout farm which was approved until he built it and was then strangely unapproved. Finally he climbed up a pole and started a hunger strike, again, nothing to do with the drought and everything to do with government approach to “saving” us from climate change.

Oh yeah, and Peter Spencer got hit by bushfires, Why? Because state governments refused to allow back burning and the removal of fuel buildup, but they tried hard to blame that one on global warming as well (because it fits the political narrative). If you are really interested, read David Packham on the subject:

I think that the only people who accept fire as a part of our environment are the indigenous people and many of our traditional graziers. I suspect that fire was much better understood and accepted in the century before last than it is now. I think what I have heard said recently is that Australians don’t understand fire. I think it is absolutely correct and to that extent, I think we’re still Euro-centric in our approach to fire.