17 Comments

1. 

   VPK on November 2, 2023 at 12:59 pm

   Humans are disrupting natural ‘salt cycle’ on a global scale, new study shows
   https://phys.org/news/2023-10-humans-disrupting-natural-salt-global.amp

   The planet’s demand for salt comes at a cost to the environment and human health, according to a new scientific review led by University of Maryland Geology Professor Sujay Kaushal. Published in the journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, the paper revealed that human activities are making Earth’s air, soil and freshwater saltier, which could pose an “existential threat” if current trends continue.
   Geologic and hydrologic processes bring salts to Earth’s surface over time, but human activities such as mining and land development are rapidly accelerating the natural “salt cycle.” Agriculture, construction, water and road treatment, and other industrial activities can also intensify salinization, which harms biodiversity and makes drinking water unsafe in extreme cases.

   “If you think of the planet as a living organism, when you accumulate so much salt it could affect the functioning of vital organs or ecosystems,” said Kaushal, who holds a joint appointment in UMD’s Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center. “Removing salt from water is energy intensive and expensive, and the brine byproduct you end up with is saltier than ocean water and can’t be easily disposed of.”

   Kaushal and his co-authors described these disturbances as an “anthropogenic salt cycle,” establishing for the first time that humans affect the concentration and cycling of salt on a global, interconnected scale.

   ……lastly….The study’s authors also called for the creation of a “planetary boundary for safe and sustainable salt use” in much the same way that carbon dioxide levels are associated with a planetary boundary to limit climate change. Kaushal said that while it’s theoretically possible to regulate and control salt levels, it comes with unique challenges.

   Sure we will..limit that is…doubt we humans will willingly do so unless we have to..

   PS.. Here in the USA ABC network nightly News did cover he extreme flooding of Milan..
   Reverting video shown and not one mention of climate change…
   No real reaction from coworkers watching other than one muttering something … here too

   • 

     Cassandra on November 2, 2023 at 1:18 pm

     Wow. Salt? So many ways we homo sapiens are destroying our planet.

2. 

   Cassandra on November 2, 2023 at 1:17 pm

   Really good article. Hat tip to Heather. An inside look at the corruption of science. I feel angry when deniers say scientists are corrupt and lying – this article shows the lie. Most scientists are honest and doing vital work but the higher ups censor them. Same old story.
   https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-24/odyssey-climate-scientists-suppress-truth-or-risk-funds-careers/102968970

3. 

   zip on November 2, 2023 at 2:57 pm

   Hello Pan

   Whether the Arctic is going to be ‘a big giant construction site’ remains to be seen 🙂 I could not open the article but I could open the same article from Yahoo. Everyone writes after each other anyway some slightly better than others.

   Since my childhood and the books about the harsh journey and wintering on Nova Zembla, I always breathlessly follow the exploration of what goes on above the Arctic Circle. In good spirits, we set off for the Last Frontiers…. but that always disappoints. The ‘cost pays off’ but we don’t get much benefit out of it.

   That whole exploration of Siberia, Alaska and Greenland, Svalbard is always only temporary just like Shell trying in vain for years to extract something ‘extractable’ from the sea. It will be no different now. All rather long-term plans presented with much boy-book bravado but just as quickly abandoned. All too expensive, no infrastructure, terrible weather, too dark, freezing cold, etc. etc. In the link a nice overview article of mining in Greenland….. will be nothing all those rare metals remain nicely in the ground all ‘feasibility studies’ much more it never became except for a single case (cryolite)

   There are as many as two mining projects active at the moment…….

   Sad that ‘man’ then suddenly posits global warming as ‘an opportunity’. This is where the shore is going to turn the ship.

   https://www.energymonitor.ai/industry/why-the-world-finds-itself-in-a-greenland-mining-rush/?cf-view

   • 

     Panopticon on November 2, 2023 at 4:44 pm

     “That whole exploration of Siberia, Alaska and Greenland, Svalbard is always only temporary just like Shell trying in vain for years to extract something ‘extractable’ from the sea.”

     Right, and look at the expensive nightmare the Kashagan field in the Caspian Sea has turned out to be. Yet some of us still think asteroid mining can actually be a thing.

     “Kashagan is one of the world’s most ambitious oil developments and the biggest new field in decades. But despite $50 billion in investment by some of the world’s largest oil companies and the Kazakhstan government, the Caspian Sea-based project isn’t working.”

     https://www.wsj.com/video/50-billion-kashagan-oil-development-isnt-working/30820524-F68F-46AA-B1BC-7C81849758BA

     • 

       Panopticon on November 2, 2023 at 5:00 pm

       That link is much older than I thought – 2014… but Kashagan is still an expensive nightmare:

       “Kazakhstan slams huge fine on Kashagan and raises pipeline fees. Authorities in Astana seek higher payments and possibly, other concessions from foreign oil producers.”

       https://www.upstreamonline.com/production/kazakhstan-slams-huge-fine-on-kashagan-and-raises-pipeline-fees/2-1-1430258

   • 

     Regan P on November 2, 2023 at 7:53 pm

     What a report today. 2024 will be freaking crazy.

4. 

   Heather B on November 2, 2023 at 3:54 pm

   https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-24/odyssey-climate-scientists-suppress-truth-or-risk-funds-careers/102968970
   A really good article on science suppression on information and studies and how bad things really are

   • 

     Panopticon on November 2, 2023 at 4:50 pm

     Thank you for that, Heather. The article reminds me that it can be a good idea to pay attention to the retired scientists, who no longer have to fear loss of funding.

     • 

       FamousDrScanlon on November 2, 2023 at 7:04 pm

       Indeed, just like Australia’s own, late great Frank Fenner.

       Humans will be extinct in 100 years says eminent scientist

       “(PhysOrg.com) — Eminent Australian scientist Professor Frank Fenner, who helped to wipe out smallpox, predicts humans will probably be extinct within 100 years, because of overpopulation, environmental destruction and climate change.

       Fenner, who is emeritus professor of microbiology at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, said homo sapiens will not be able to survive the population explosion and “unbridled consumption,” and will become extinct, perhaps within a century, along with many other species.”

       “He said he believes the situation is irreversible, and it is too late because the effects we have had on Earth since industrialization (a period now known to scientists unofficially as the Anthropocene) rivals any effects of ice ages or comet impacts.”

       “Fenner said that climate change is only at its beginning, but is likely to be the cause of our extinction.”

       https://phys.org/news/2010-06-humans-extinct-years-eminent-scientist.html

       That was in 2010. Frank is a biology man, but he certainly understand the awesome power of inertia. It’s one of the most powerful forces in the universe, but one the humans are mostly blind to due to our inherent short termism.

5. 

   Rob on November 2, 2023 at 4:27 pm

   ‘The Arctic is becoming one giant construction site”…. A decade ago, I wrote a post entitled, “The Ring of Fire: One Ring to melt them all”, about the Arctic becoming one giant construction site … 10 years ago. During that same year Paula Krugman insisted in one of his Climate-change-denying op ed pieces that :”we can have economic growth and CO2 reduction at the same time”, an out and out lie that has since been proven as such. It has been my contention that this form of denial is far worse than the Trumplestiltskin’s, as it convinces those who should (and do) know better that their increasing reliance on increasing levels of electron excitation is perfectly sustainable, “we just need to …. ‘ (Fill in whichever Bright Green Lie you prefer).

   Since then the fracturing in the Arctic, and the methane released from the drilling in the Bakken, the Athabasca, the North Sea, the taiga, etc have only increased. And the methane emissions resulting therefrom have been all-but-ignored, even as scientists warn that such increases “will” (my contention is “has already”) increase the CO2 forcing of global temperatures by .5 degrees C” within 10 years. In other words, the methane increase that has been noticed by scientists started to take off in 2006, the same year the Bakken was emitting so much methane the flaring from its wells alone propelled the US to the #1 flaring position long held (and since regained) by Russia.

   Everything is related ; the resource wars in the guise of religious wars we are witnessing were predicted a good ten years before my post, so none of what is happening right now was unexpected … even the timeframe, which was known because of the nature of fracturing, ie, the rigs only produce for ~ 18 months before they hit their peaks. 2024 was the projected year for the 2’nd peak oil plateau to be reached in the US. Hence the push, albeit belatedly, for EV’s. But the largest selling vehicle in the US is the Ford Commander: an outsize pick up truck that is exempt from EPA fuel standards (an exemption won from bribed politicians by corponational interests).

   My point is, that I am not a journalist, nor a scientist, I’m not even that bright, yet what was glaringly, flaringly obvious to even my blighted intelligence is only now, ten years later, long after the damage and State-backed investments have increased ten-fold, does mass media make this observation. Thus my conviction that the upcoming COPout conference will merely be one more opportunity to spread pretty lies to enable Corponational interests to pound additional nails into our collective coffin.

   • 

     Panopticon on November 2, 2023 at 4:54 pm

     “…COPout conference will merely be one more opportunity to spread pretty lies to enable Corponational interests to pound additional nails into our collective coffin.”

     I’m sure. Oh, well – at least we get to enjoy it as unintentional satire. This era is golden for tragicomedy.

6. 

   FamousDrScanlon on November 2, 2023 at 6:40 pm

   “”Panopticon on November 1, 2023 at 7:02 am

   FamousDrScanlon, just a heads up that comments with more than one link automatically get stuck in WordPress’s sometimes weirdly overbearing moderation.””

   Pan, would you prefer I only insert one link per comment? I have no problem doing that if it makes for less work for you – let me know.

   I do have a climate like to share today. Y’all will have to give me the main points because I can’t Bear to read it.

   Climate change is affecting bears, and humans need to learn more to avoid conflicts

   [Author Douglas Clark, Associate Professor in Human Dimensions of Environment & Sustainability, University of Saskatchewan]

   https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-affecting-bears-and-humans-need-to-learn-more-to-avoid-conflicts-215404

   • 

     Panopticon on November 3, 2023 at 7:11 am

     “Pan, would you prefer I only insert one link per comment? I have no problem doing that if it makes for less work for you – let me know.”

     FamousDrScanlon, I don’t mind either way but comments can sit unmoderated for a while whilst I’m tucked up in bed or sucked into a vortex of domestic chaos, so have less time to gain responses. And because each thread is replaced by a fresh one each day, time is somewhat of the essence.

7. 

   Kali on November 2, 2023 at 9:03 pm

   “A world desparate for sugar”
   That says a lot. A completely nonessential (but tasty) and in fact toxic “food.”

8. 

   TR on November 2, 2023 at 11:03 pm

   1.5C,my big old butt. I’m trying to find the link to the report of 2.2C now.

   Hubris – Not one paid climate scientist that I’ve found or Guy McPherson who is unpaid will say the reason we got here.
   TR ain’t skeered of words or phrases: overpopulation, “Your children aren’t special.”
   Many children will be special. They will be the first Clever Apes to be part of NTHE.
   Let me summarize: ‘Some can’t handle the truth!’ because it might upset one’s tender sensibilities. Dark humor? Wait! Stop! Pan beat me to it; “tragicomedy”!

   “The projected rate of climate change based on the type of gradualism indicated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change outstrips the adaptive response of vertebrates by a factor of 10,000 times. Closer to home Homo sapiens, mammals cannot evolve fast enough to escape the current extinction crisis. Humans are vertebrate mammals. To believe that our species can avoid extinction, even as non-human vertebrates and non-human mammals disappear, is classic human hubris wrapped in a warm blanket of myth-based human supremacy. Abundant evidence indicates humans will join the annihilation of “all life on earth,” as reported in the peer-reviewed Scientific Reports on November 13th, 2018. Why? Because we cannot keep up with the ongoing and predicted rates of environmental change.”

   https://guymcpherson.com/edge-of-extinction-weve-been-warned/

   Today’s climate report adds a little substantiation to where we are headed?

   If this was my site,I would ban myself. 😉

   • 

     Rob on November 4, 2023 at 5:10 pm

     I wouldn’t ban you, TR, your comments are spot on. All this talk about NTE is disturbing because, unlike yourself, it seems that no one else has the tiniest bit of compassion for the multitude of species that will of necessity disappear before humans do. The reality is, save the biosphere, we save ourselves, take care for the multiplicity of other life forms, And we are taking care of ourselves . Whereas here in the US, every religion has abandoned the concept of love, I still believe that the compassion the “religious’ have rejected, preferring an inchoate rage, is the only hope we have left.