21 Comments

1. 

   jupiviv on October 25, 2025 at 9:42 am

   Response to Pan’s response from yesterday:

   “Jupiviv, Tim Morgan at Surplus Energy Economics has suggested that the US reached the end of increasing material prosperity when its Energy Cost of Energy passed the 5% threshold around 2000, so it is quite a long way into that net energy decline. By 2030 ECoE
   would be around 13%. The noose is tightening.”

   Internal ECoE in the first world may have started declining since then but imperialist accumulation made up for that, which seems to be the case even now though not for too much longer. Although even here we see a similar prosperity growth gap since the 80s/90s though far less stark relative to the third world. Let’s say, top 20% versus bottom 50% and a stagnant or gradually worsening middle 30%. So internal ECoE decline softened because it is not really internal and hasn’t been since 1492 CE.

   Accelerating climate catastrophe in years ahead will close off many (eventually most or all) of the “external” sources of first world net energy.

   • 

     jupiviv on October 25, 2025 at 10:33 am

     As an addendum, here’s an article on oil decline just now posted by Quark on their excellent blog.

     https://futurocienciaficcionymatrix.blogspot.com/2025/10/la-distribucion-mundial-del-consumo-de.html

     It’s in Spanish. Their conclusions, google-translated:

     1) From 2027 to 2030, there will be a gentle decline that will barely affect rich countries. Furthermore, the inventories accumulated in 2025-2026 could maintain consumption for a couple more years, even with declines in global production. The biggest losers in this phase are the poor countries.

     2) From 2030 onward, the decline will become progressively more acute. Until 2035, the economic crisis may develop more profoundly, reducing oil consumption at the same rate as production. Therefore, the decline in global production will not be noticed by rich countries, because the economic crisis will mask the decline in production.

     3) Lack of investment will depress production faster than the decline in demand. During this period, all countries are affected by the apparent shortage of oil.

     Point 1 relates directly to my argument in the comment above. Climate change is the sidewinder that could turn that gentle decline into a steep one. Further, if poor countries are hit hard so will the rich ones because the wealth of the former comes from the latter. One thing I’ve been wondering about is how and to what extent oil production itself would be directly affected in a 1.5C or 1.7C world. Probably not drastically, but even a modest effect would be a force multiplier as it were.

   • 

     Panopticon on October 25, 2025 at 1:53 pm

     Jupiviv, Tim Morgan’s Energy Cost of Energy is a global metric but he then examines how exposed each nation is to that rising cost, looking at, for example, the energy-intensity of its economy or how much energy it imports or exports.

     As you say, there are things the US has been able to do to create what Tim would call “cosmetic growth” in the aftermath of its ECoE inflexion point via dollar privilege, rampant debt accrual etc.

     The flip side is that, as a very complex, energy-intensive economy, its ECoE inflexion point comes at a much lower ECoE – 5% – than emerging market economies, which may be able to cope with an ECoE as high as 10%. Unfortunately, we’re now around 12% and have probably passed the global inflexion point [Tim suggests that happened in 2023].

     Thank you for that analysis – very interesting. Of course a financial crisis is the wild card that may throw a huge spanner in the works of any supply/demand forecasts; probably posing a more immediate threat than fallout from climate catastrophe.

2. 

   George Kaplan on October 25, 2025 at 10:06 am

   This is an honest view from a climate scientist (I think) of where we are, even if you don’t agree with it all. The discussion of differences between local extremes versus global averages and the implications on possible global engineering efficacy is especially interesting.

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sNaSI-qrOQ

   This is related to the above and the Rahmstorf X post (and might be a repeat from a previous C&E, it’s difficult to keep up sometimes):

   The subpolar gyre is at risk of crossing a tipping point under future climate change associated with the collapse of deep convection. As such, tipping can have significant climate impacts; it is important to understand the mechanisms at play and how they are represented in modern climate models. In this study, we use causal inference to investigate the representation of several proposed mechanisms for subpolar gyre variability in CMIP6 models. As expected, an increase in sea surface salinity or a decrease in sea surface temperature leads to an increase in mixed layer depth in nearly all CMIP6 models due to an intensification of deep convection. However, the effect of convection on modifying sea surface temperature due to re-stratification is less clear.

   https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/16/1833/2025/

   p.s. You may not know Sandy Denny but you probably know this:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88b0OYxdtyM

   • 

     Panopticon on October 25, 2025 at 2:26 pm

     Thanks, George. I’ll try to find time to watch that “American Resiliency” clip. I had a quick look at the website. It warms the cockles of my heart whenever I hear experts talking about resilience and individual/local disaster-preparedness, as opposed to blowing smoke about green transitions and scapegoating so-called doomists.

     https://www.americanresiliency.org/

     I am indeed familiar with that song by Led Zeppelin. I didn’t know Sandy Denny was the guest-vocalist, though, and I didn’t know it was inspired by “Lord of the Rings”, although that makes perfect sense now that I look at the lyrics.

3. 

   john bee on October 25, 2025 at 11:00 am

   A comment on the possibility of a “new Dust Bowl:” fortunately (or unfortunately) the Dust Bowl was a perfect storm of factors that really can’t be replicated. One of the biggest drivers was the tearing up of topsoil in the high plains, mostly west Texas, the Oklahoma panhandle, and areas northwest. That topsoil is what filled the massive black clouds that swept the nation. That topsoil is long gone. Yes, drought and agricultural monocultures played a role, but we likely won’t see any towers of dust hitting the east coast.

   A side note: it’s interesting to look at some of the worst “natural” disasters in American history. Most of them were exacerbated by human action and inaction: the Dust Bowl, the Johnstown Flood, the Galveston hurricane of 1900, the Labor Day hurricane of 1935, hurricane Katrina, etc. All of these only became disasters because of human activity in the affected regions.

   • 

     Panopticon on October 25, 2025 at 2:42 pm

     Thanks, John – that is indeed food for thought. If not the Midwest, we have many good candidates globally for future “Dust Bowls”, unfortunately – central Asia, MENA, Southern Med, parts of Australia…

4. 

   Martin on October 25, 2025 at 11:35 am

   There is always so much to learn in these links. From the young fellow Fellow of the Andrew Carnegie (leading eugenicist of his day) tank-think:
   “That is not the situation that we find ourselves in. Anthropogenic emissions continue to grow, and climate models increasingly plan to overshoot agreed-upon temperature thresholds (such as 2 degrees Celsius.”
   Impressive. The “models” themselves are the ones doing the planning? Is that some advanced-stage AunI shit or what?
   Up until now I thought that models were numbers spit out by whirring computers, but in reality, there’s little human gremlins inside of the numbers, and they wantz to kill uz all.

   • 

     Panopticon on October 25, 2025 at 4:16 pm

     Martin, Andrew Carnegie is a man I know almost nothing about, which I probably should, as he is a native of Scotland; born in Dunfermline in 1835. It seems his organisation has recently apologised for its ideological sins:

     “Sometime this past Summer, Eric Isaacs, president of the Carnegie Institution for Science, issued a formal apology for his organization’s role in the eugenics movement of the early 20th Century:

     “There is no excuse, then or now, for our institution’s previous willingness to empower researchers who sought to pervert scientific inquiry to justify their own racist and ableist prejudices. Our support of eugenics made us complicit in driving decades of brutal and unconscionable actions by governments in the United States and around the world.

     “”As the President of the Carnegie Institution for Science, I want to express my sincere and profound apologies for this organization’s past involvement in these horrific pseudoscientific activities.”

     https://www.hudson.org/human-rights/carnegie-s-midnight-confession

5. 

   zip on October 25, 2025 at 11:42 am

   The Alaska Scratch Cards – on Oil, Hope, and the Drilling for Enemies

   Somewhere between the polar wind and election fever, the Trump administration has decided to reopen Alaska’s sacred no-man’s-land for oil drilling. Not that anyone is lining up. The previous auction drew zero bids — but that hardly matters. In the politics of spectacle, action outweighs outcome. You just have to keep scratching, even if every ticket is a loser.

   The treasure underground — according to old U.S. Geological Survey reports somewhere between four and eleven billion barrels — has become a kind of sacred number, repeated without belief. No one knows what’s really there; no one has ever drilled it. But it might be. And that “might be” is precisely the fuel modern politics runs on: raw hope, packaged as policy.

   The absence of bidders isn’t a problem. The state of Alaska will simply buy a few leases itself through its development fund so the ritual can proceed. Investment logic is irrelevant; it’s the gesture that counts. Like a gambler buying one last scratch card “for the thrill.”

   But the real output isn’t oil.
   It’s outrage.
   The moment the plan is announced, press releases and protest campaigns ignite. Environmental groups mobilize, lawyers rush to court, and the other side chants the familiar refrain: “America must stay energy independent!” Once again, energy is produced — not from the ground, but from the clash itself.

   In that sense, reopening the Arctic Refuge is a masterstroke: a symbolic project yielding no oil, yet endless political heat.

   • 

     Panopticon on October 25, 2025 at 4:29 pm

     Zip, if the Trump administration’s intention is to polarise and provoke outrage as much as it is to extract energy then to sully a pristine wildlife refuge with oil exploration is probably a pretty good way to go about it.

     Apparently, oil is not the only attraction up there: “The district contains world-class deposits of copper, cobalt, zinc, germanium, and other critical minerals essential for America’s technology manufacturing and national security.”

     Along with the oil/gas permits, the Ambler Road project cutting through the wildlife reserve to enable access to these deposits has been given the green light.

     https://begich.house.gov/media/press-releases/congressman-begich-commends-president-trumps-action-advance-ambler-road-access

6. 

   VPK on October 25, 2025 at 4:02 pm

   We Just Crossed Our FIRST Tipping Point… And It’s NOT What You Think

   PBS Terra
   779K subscribers
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECYMHIbBYyI&t=143s

   Scientists just released the 2025 Global Tipping Points Report. And they say we’ve already crossed our first major tipping point, but it’s not what you think.

   From melting ice sheets to collapsing ocean currents, these sudden, irreversible changes could reshape the planet in ways we can’t undo. But what does it really mean to cross a tipping point? How do we know we’ve crossed one? And how close are we to triggering others?

   In this episode of Weathered, Maiya May talks with scientist Tim Lenton, who helped popularize the term “tipping point” in a landmark 2008 paper, to uncover which Earth systems are at risk, why they’re so hard to predict, and what crossing a tipping point means for our future.

   So, here it is for all on PBS …Maiya May is a talented journalist and provides a steady stream of broadcasts on this channel…as Dr Guy McPherson has pointed out on his, Nature Bats Last, you only need to cross one tipping 👉 point

   • 

     Panopticon on October 25, 2025 at 5:14 pm

     Vince, thank you for that. Coral is the tipping point hinted at. Roughly 500 million people depend directly or indirectly on it for food, livelihoods, and coastal protection, so we’ll miss it when it’s gone.

     Here’s Paul Beckwith’s recent, more in-depth look at those tipping points:

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA1KsGxzfyk

     • 

       VPK on October 25, 2025 at 6:22 pm

       Agreed, live here in South Florida and the coral is essentially extinct.
       Seems most are not able to admit we are looking in the rear view mirror and by some means, as in this video, able to consume “clean, renewable (really replaceable ) “cheaper” energy it will pass a “politics” tipping point to solve it….hmmm…as Gail likes to say, ” happy endings” are a better sale.

7. 

   Rob on October 25, 2025 at 6:19 pm

   MAGAZA Strip T’s on sale in the Garden of the bEast Wing.

   Oops. Just another whopper from the Lord of the Lies golding the Whorehouse.

   ObaMAGAza, Obamagaza, Obamagaza Warfare: cowardly cowboy capitalism’s video-game murder machine will be deployed first on the border, then internally. Just as every one of the other Bush administration’s Global War of Terror (how is a unilaterally declared Global War not a World War, exactly?) such as extraordinary rendition, secret prisons, and extrajudicial murder have all been normalized, not by the Chief Executive, but the Zani party that has given full rein to its Furor.

   ICE chips away at Demockracy: MAGA’s America’s Gestapo Agency:

   But somehow masked assailants driving up in unmarked vehicles to spirit people away are not called the secret Stasi Polizea.

   But, of course, that’s what it

   From an oracle not owned by a criminal cartel:

   Re: The Cradle of Democracy: When the DOW breaks, the cradle will fall.

   • 

     Panopticon on October 26, 2025 at 9:51 am

     A splendid rant, Rob – you might be breaking some records there for wordplay content. I particularly liked this: “…cowardly cowboy capitalism’s video-game murder machine.”

     I often wonder how courageous some of the more hawkish politicians would be (and I’m not just talking US) if they were themselves serving on the front-line.

8. 

   TR on October 25, 2025 at 9:20 pm

   Scroll to Discussion, about the mid point. Then scroll to References, there are only 182. Who would be so dumb as to believe scyentyst?

   “Fig. 4. Environmental parameters can be classified into four categories: known-knowns, unknown-knowns, known-unknowns, unknown-unknowns.
   1. The parameters that we are aware of and we know what their impact is (known-knowns).
   2. The parameters that we are not aware of, but we are aware that those parameters are missing (unknown-knowns).
   3. The parameters that we are aware of, but we do not know what their impact is (known-unknowns).
   4. The parameters that we are not aware of, and we are also not aware that those parameters are missing (unknown-unknowns).” The U-Us hold the surprises. Rhymes with: I didn’t know tariffs & stupid would affect me.

   Guy R. McPherson, et al.
   https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590123023002451

   • 

     Panopticon on October 26, 2025 at 10:01 am

     Thanks, TR. I see that paper is from 2023. I actually had no idea Guy McPherson had put out anything peer-reviewed this recently.

     I see he mentions the experimental Hypertopia Option, which is new to me, and MEER as possible means for stabilising planetary temperature:

     https://www.hrpub.org/journals/article_info.php?aid=8218

9. 

   Monkfish on October 26, 2025 at 5:19 am

   3i atlas seems to be increasing the suns activity or, more appropriately, draining it, in order to perhaps help facilitate the start of a ‘mini ice age’ in 2030.

   Although current projections state this will have a fairly miniscule impact on earths temperature one only has to look back at the last ‘mini ice age’ (a frozen river Thames for example) to know how much of an impact a grand solar minimum can actually have. A period of less than 50 sunspots since the Suns magnetic waves will be all out of sync.

   There’s obviously no doubt this will help to cool the Earth during this predicted period (see link https://www.labmanager.com/new-ice-age-may-begin-by-2030-11630) but the question will be by how much?

   Should northern and western Europe and Canada start worrying?

   • 

     Panopticon on October 26, 2025 at 10:04 am

     About AMOC slowing further or even collapsing, possibly. About solar activity not so much.

10. 

    VPK on October 26, 2025 at 4:46 pm

    Just came to me
    Risk of Atlantic Current Collapsing Much Higher Than Previously Expected
    ‌17 hours agoZachary Shahan
    Support CleanTechnica’s work through a Substack subscription or on Stripe.
    Scientists have warned previously that AMOC collapse must be avoided ‘at all costs’. It would shift the tropical rainfall belt on which many millions of people rely to grow their food, plunge western Europe into extreme cold winters and summer droughts, and add 50cm to already rising sea levels,” the Guardian writes.

    ..With carbon emissions continuing to rise, new research finds a 70% chance that the AMOC collapses! This would wreak all kinds of havoc from South American agriculture to the cities of Europe. Even an “intermediate” level of emissions would result in a 37% chance of collapse. And a low-future-emissions scenario still sees 25% chance of collapse happening!

    https://cleantechnica.com/2025/10/25/risk-of-atlantic-current-collapsing-much-higher-than-previously-expected/amp/

    I put my bet on it collapsing with just about everything else too…too bad can’t collect my winnings

    It’s always Sunny here in South Floridah