21 Comments

1. 

   Martin on April 6, 2024 at 10:44 am

   The amazing, inexhaustible pace that Pan-O sets with these daily briefings mandates that his loyal readers do their share of homework each day to try to keep up.
   Not with the present – no one could match Pan-O. But with our not-so-recent climate change-centered past? Yes, thankfully the interwebs can offer a gem like YouTube’s presentation of the stunning ABC News 2009 program “Earth 2100,” wherein the stupidly-named “legacy” media actually dared to use then-youthful collapse experts (not giving away the surprise factor here) to use animation to predict a “worse-case scenario” of our time.
   Cut to the chase- what they say might happen in 2070, 2080, 2100 is precisely what Pan-O documents in chilling detail is happening RIGHT NOW.
   Of course , Earth 2100 was marginalized, dumped into the remainder bin when it came out, derided as doomist, fear-mongering propaganda.
   Now? Eerily prescient.

   • 

     Regan P on April 6, 2024 at 11:47 am

     Your work is incredible.

     • 

       Panopticon on April 6, 2024 at 4:39 pm

       Thank you both for the nice compliments.

       BTW, if anyone is wondering about the picture next to the climate engineering article, it is from the video of ‘Cloudbusting’ by Kate Bush. The song is sung from the perspective of Peter Reich, son of the fantastically eccentric, Austrian psychoanalyst and would be geo-engineer, Wilhelm Reich.

       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pllRW9wETzw

       • 

         Panopticon on April 6, 2024 at 4:46 pm

         The article itself posits an intriguing scenario that had never occurred to me, but which seems very possible.

         Really, why wouldn’t a nation or coalition of nations that sees itself as fairly blameless in terms of carbon-footprint per capita but which is facing collapse and inhabitability due to extreme heat, roll the dice on a unilateral cooling project? Pakistan springs randomly to mind.

2. 

   VPK on April 6, 2024 at 11:29 am

   You know, I still find myself not accepting or wanting to believe this is happening NOW.
   Probably a defense mechanism kicking in for self protection of the fragile id/ego Freud long ago identified. Always, like the Michael Mann s of the world, easier to think we still have time to fix, it ain’t so bad, and there are solutions, but human behavior is in the way.
   I’m not a newbie to all this either. Unfortunately, being disconnected and artificially supported by plenty, clouds the mind. Not enough food at home, no problem, drive to Walmart and buy organic (doing my part eating clean). Too hot 🔥 today, flip a switch…discomfort solved…
   Think TR (among others here) is correct…ain’t gonna happen. The Billionaires and wanna be billionaires (have you bought a Powerball lottery ticket for tonight’s $1.3 billion record jackpot?), are just fine with the status and not willingly giving up on it.
   That’s why all this drama will continue back and forth…the Matrix is our reality and so entrenched in our being, we can’t break it. Chad A Haag in his Being and Oil; Peak Oil and the Ontology of Limitation addresses …It is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of technological progress. (which is based on burning more fossil fuels).
   Be that it may, following these reports here, along with others, changes all that wishfulness of its tomorrows problem.
   Thank you your efforts to bring us to the actual.

   • 

     Panopticon on April 6, 2024 at 4:47 pm

     You are welcome.

3. 

   dale wolver on April 6, 2024 at 1:01 pm

   Been re-hashing some of Tom Murphy’s perspectives (Do the math) where he discusses human lifetimes (https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/04/distilled-disintegration/#more-5727 and https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/01/a-lifetime-ago/ ). So in about the last 3 lifespans we have gone from the animal powered plow to giant tractors. We discovered coal then perhaps 2 lifespans ago oil. During the last .75 lifespans we’ve consumed the majority of the easy to find (cheap) energy and scraped up the majority of easy to find minerals. Going forward the next .5 lifespans will run out of those non-renewables and agricultural land. And highly likely within the next 2 lifespans the vast majority of life will be … gone. It’s astonishing that 30,000+ lifespans of human history will be eradicated within such a brief “poof” moment. Talk about a Seneca cliff.

   • 

     Jerry McManus on April 6, 2024 at 3:39 pm

     Many years ago I once saw a graph showing what the sources of primary energy were in the world going back centuries. I have never been able to find it since, but to my eye it showed our future very clearly.

     It was a time series going back centuries and it was measuring the percentage of all primary energy sources as they changed over time, so the y-axis went from 0 to 100 percent.

     It wasn’t that long ago that human and animal muscles were 80 or 90 percent of the mix, with wind and water being most of the rest, as I recall.

     Then as fossil fuels exploded on the scene you could clearly see muscle power drop to a tiny fraction of what it was, but not to zero. It looked just like an upside down bell curve, and that’s when it hit me: Our future is going to be one of returning to the original mix, mostly muscle power. Slaves and beasts of burden.

     Assuming the planet is still habitable, of course.

     • 

       VPK on April 6, 2024 at 4:28 pm

       Good reflection, Dale, will save that for reference..

       Other news in Forbes ..
       Bezos’ fortune grew by about $2 billion to just below $201 billion, according to Forbes’ calculations, extending his lead over the next wealthiest American, Tesla CEO Elon Musk with a $191 billion net worth, to some $10 billion.

       Worth more than $85 billion more than he was a year ago, Bezos has benefited from a massive stock market surge for Amazon, as its stock has more than doubled since the beginning of 2023.

       Bezos remains about $21 billion poorer than the world’s richest man, French luxury tycoon Bernard Arnault, steward of a $221 billion fortune.

       Bezos is poorer than the riches man on the planet…oh the shame…how can he sleep with that on his back?
       Answer; In silk sheets

     • 

       TR on April 6, 2024 at 11:54 pm

       Might not be long before we have to use muscle to turn generators to have electricity. 😉

       “The situation is sparking battles across the nation over who will pay for new power supplies, with regulators worrying that residential ratepayers could be stuck with the bill for costly upgrades.”

       This species wants all the amenities but doesn’t want to have to pay for them. People will lose it when crypto can’t be traded. OMG! I don’t have any power to my computer,how
       am I going to make brilliant comments on social media. 😉

       https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/amid-explosive-demand-america-running-152219813.html

       Hey monkey minds, how’s that infinite growth on a finite planet working out.

       • 

         VPK on April 7, 2024 at 12:50 am

         Thank you, TR..yes, our monkey minds are indeed pitiful and we worship our so-called intellect as proof of superiority over nature, the more fool this species

4. 

   Edward on April 6, 2024 at 1:20 pm

   I’m resigned to sit back and watch the climate disaster all unfold. The people with the least amount of science knowledge have all the power. Even some of those who want a better environment in “The Green Party” seem to be overall clueless. i.e. Christina Khalil – “I experienced my first earthquake in NJ. We never get earthquakes. The climate crisis is real. The weirdest experience ever.” She has since defended her statement.

   This along with the movie, “Climate: The Movie” keeps the general public ignorant about the true facts of climate science. The deniers and people in power have control and nothing will be done to mitigate climate mayhem. Of course, I’m of the opinion that it is already too late without some miracle of technology (which won’t happen). The people and scientists sounding the alarms are though of as fanatics and “cultists”.

   If I didn’t visit this site daily, I’d see more disinformation about climate change than legitimate information.

   So, sit back and hold on tight, it’s going to get bumpy from here. Well, it’s already bumpy.

   The US government (congress) are so clueless about science I wouldn’t even be surprised if they tried to pass a bill to reschedule the solar eclipse for a clear day if they thought Monday was going to overcast.

   • 

     Panopticon on April 6, 2024 at 5:04 pm

     I have very little to do with deniers these days. I’m too busy charting climate change to waste time arguing over whether it’s actually a thing or not, especially with people who, for a host of reasons, are simply not open to going where the evidence takes them.

     However, I follow Art Berman on Twitter for his insights into the oil industry and he has recently branched out into a more holistic analysis of our predicament, which now encompasses climate change. My goodness, the comments he gets… 🙄

5. 

   Jerry McManus on April 6, 2024 at 3:55 pm

   Really pleased to see reports of what the actual anomalies are! The endless reports of shattered temperature records are informative, no doubt about that, but I’ve been intensely curious what the magnitude of those anomalies are.

   Now we know: 2 to 4degC above the baseline! Holy guacamole! I know the baseline can seem to be a moving goalpost, but that is ridiculous.

   This is why global average temps are such a terrible way to think about this crisis. A global average anomaly of 1.5degC translates to crushing anomalies over the continents of twice that! Or more! And here we are sailing straight to 2degC and beyond. Probably by 2030, give or take, if Hansen et. al. are right.

   And now we can add to that a huge acceleration in CO2 levels, five parts per million in one year, possibly as much as seven. Feedbacks anyone? Tipping points, perhaps?

   Yes, hold onto your hats.

   • 

     Panopticon on April 6, 2024 at 4:57 pm

     “Now we know: 2 to 4degC above the baseline!”

     Right. And, within those sustained anomalies, we are seeing eye-popping spikes and local monthly records being broken by huge margins of up to 10C. The recent European record of min temperature for March at 28.1c at El Ejido in Spain, for example; it not only broke the March record but exceeded the April record, too.

6. 

   Heather B on April 6, 2024 at 4:43 pm

   https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/apr/05/industrial-revolution-began-in-17th-not-18th-century-say-academics
   This interesting the Industrial Revolution started in 17th century not 18th yeah so temps are higher than they are telling us and the graphs need to adjust them down not up for starting dates so 1860 is completely wrong

   • 

     Panopticon on April 6, 2024 at 5:18 pm

     Thanks, Heather. Apparently, one of the reasons us Brits were at the forefront of global industrialisation was our national fondness for tea, which may in turn have stemmed from our rather chilly and soggy climate. Come to think of it, the chilly, soggy climate probably helped spur our enthusiasm for scrabbling coal out of the ground, too. 😆

     Tea has some antimicrobial properties but more importantly required boiling, which helped curb the sort of water-borne diseases like dysentery, cholera, and typhoid that had hitherto prevented urbanization on the scale required.

7. 

   Rusty on April 6, 2024 at 8:47 pm

   I don’t comment often but I want to thank everyone who commented today (and other days). It’s tremendously helpful to read the thoughts of you who also see what is happening, fearlessly or fearfully.

8. 

   TR on April 7, 2024 at 11:36 pm

   Let’s don’t miss the eclipse or the continuous reporting about the only eclipse to ever happen in the universe. Remember to record the final game of March Madness since it is the very first basketball playoff game. I don’t suppose I need to tell anyone how shallow this species is, but …..the shallowness is awesome.

   “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” – 1 Corinthians 13:11

   It could be time to look up the definition of “priorities”.

9. 

   TR on April 8, 2024 at 12:57 am

   Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.
   Critical thinkers can move to acceptance immediately after seeing the facts & the active consequences.

   Damn! I’m good! 😉

   • 

     VPK on April 8, 2024 at 3:18 am

     I just got Art Berman s latest write-up…we f#cked up

     Scientists can be pretty bad at communicating to the public about the state of the planet. In retrospect, our focus on carbon dioxide (CO2) was a messaging disaster. It confused the public and opened the door for deniers to change the subject from global heating to whether or not CO2 was its cause.
     It was also a mistake to use terms like “global warming” and “climate change.” These bland expressions suggested that the future was manageable if we just made a few small adjustments.
     The emphasis all along should have been on temperature, the heating of the planet.
     The planet is getting too hot for humans and most other species to flourish. Mean global temperature is at the highest level in at least the last 11,000 years (Figure 1).

     Art, hate to disagree, our clever monkey minds would have wiggled out of facing the music with whatever approach was used to shake our comfort zone.
     TR, I envy those that are clueless to our demise…it’s nice to observe fellow humans totally at ease in their acceptance all will be fine and they will solve it…
     At this stage, it matters not