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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Oct 18, 2018 - 10:59am PT
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You may be right, August, re. Cali droughts, but we've had truly BIBLICAL droughts historically, like 30-year-plus monsters that predate any human powered climate change. The American west is a harsh mistress, always has been.
Yes there have been some really serious droughts and floods in the distant past. And even without human powered climate change there would be really serious ones in the future.
But the climate has generally, over the last 10,000 years or so since the last ice age, been pretty stable and pretty favorable for the rise of human civilization. We are disrupting that.
So it isn't the 1 in 10,000+ year events that are the big worry. It is that the current ecosystem (both the natural and the human ecosystem) are not compatible with where things are going. If things in CA had always been hot and dry, there would be fewer forest. As it is, it is going to be a painful transition as vast tracts of forest burn and gets replaced with some type of chaparral.
Same thing with our expectation of the amount of available water for agriculture and other uses.
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Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
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Oct 18, 2018 - 11:23am PT
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I wish our records were longer. It will be interesting, to say the least, to see how this plays out. Here's a wiki-list of recorded Cali droughts:
1841
The drought was so bad that "a dry Sonoma was declared entirely unsuitable for agriculture".[1]
1863-1864
This drought was preceded by the torrential floods of 1861–1862.[1]
1924
This drought encouraged farmers to start using irrigation more regularly. Because of the fluctuation in California weather, the need for consistent water availability was crucial for farmers.[1]
1929–1934
This drought occurred during the infamous Dust Bowl period that ripped across the plains of the United States in the 1920s and 1930s.[1] The Central Valley Project was started in the 1930s in response to drought.[38]
1950s
The 1950s drought contributed to the creation of the State Water Project.[38]
1976–77
1977 had been the driest year in state history to date.[39] According to the Los Angeles Times, "Drought in the 1970s spurred efforts at urban conservation and the state's Drought Emergency Water Bank came out of drought in the 1980s."[38]
1986–1992
California endured one of its longest droughts ever, observed from late 1986 through late 1992. Drought worsened in 1988 as much of the United States also suffered from severe drought. In California, the six-year drought ended in late 1992 as a significant El Niño event in the Pacific Ocean (and the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in June 1991) most likely caused unusual persistent heavy rains.[40]
2007–2009
2007–2009 saw three years of drought conditions, the 12th worst drought period in the state's history, and the first drought for which a statewide proclamation of emergency was issued. The drought of 2007–2009 also saw greatly reduced water diversions from the state water project. The summer of 2007 saw some of the worst wildfires in Southern California history.[41]
2011–2017
Main article: 2011–17 California drought
Progression of the drought from December 2013 to July 2014
The period between late 2011 and 2014 was the driest in California history since record-keeping began.[42] In May 2015, a state resident poll conducted by Field Poll found that two out of three respondents agreed that it should be mandated for water agencies to reduce water consumption by 25%.[43]
The 2015 prediction of El Niño to bring rains to California raised hopes of ending the drought. In the spring of 2015, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration named the probability of the presence of El Niño conditions until the end of 2015 at 80%. Historically, sixteen winters between 1951 and 2015 had created El Niño. Six of those had below-average rainfall, five had average rainfall, and five had above-average rainfall. However, as of May 2015, drought conditions had worsened and above average ocean temperatures had not resulted in large storms.[44]
Of course, we had that WHOPPER rainfall year that broke all records. Global weirding indeed.
BAd
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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Oct 18, 2018 - 05:04pm PT
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Meanwhile New Orleans is building their $1 billion+ airport.
This sounds like a cash disposal project as the city has a dismal future.
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Splater
climber
Grey Matter
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Oct 19, 2018 - 12:30pm PT
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Most of the deniers have finally disappeared from this thread, but they continue to run the country and much of the world.
Even California polling is up in the air whether we are about to overturn the minor gasoline and diesel tax increase.
Part of the reason is a complaint with the wasteful expensive California government, but another part is likely that because California already has more focus on renewables than most of the country, and the rest aren't going to go along with saving the world, then we might as well all buy gashogs and party on. There has been no federal gas tax increase since 1993 so due to inflation the federal gas tax has decreased by 68%.
https://taxfoundation.org/state-gasoline-tax-rates-2017/
This is also the excuse used by the rest of the country to excuse why they don't do anything. They can only think in very short terms. They blame China, India, etc. for not doing enough and make excuses for not even trying to negotiate treaties with goals for everyone. America First! even if it kills us.
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Oct 20, 2018 - 11:33am PT
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They blame China, India, etc. for not doing enough and make excuses for not even trying to negotiate treaties with goals for everyone. America First! even if it kills us.
I still have hope that humanity will come to its senses.
But I have zero optimism.
Outside of some improbable technological breakthrough that makes it really cheap to suck large amounts of CO2 out of the atmosphere and bury it...
I think civilization is in for a world of pain.
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Oct 22, 2018 - 11:57am PT
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Those who survive the collapse of civilization will be in a world of shortages.
I don't expect the current civilization to last forever. Whether climate change, probably combined with mass migrations and unstable populist politics could cause a collapse in the next few hundred years. Perhaps. I wouldn't rule it out. But where societies and technology is going to go that far in the future isn't knowable.
If there is a collapse, there will be a huge drop in population that would presumably stabilize at some point. At that point, I'm not sure I would describe that as "shortages" any more than a stable, low density population of hunter/gatherers faces shortages.
It would be curious to know how far civilization would collapse back to. But I think there would be a tipping point beyond which things would fall apart back to a pre-industrial level. If large scale mechanized farming breaks down and/or trade and the ability to move food and goods, you have mass starvation even in the rich world. At that point, all bets would be off.
There would be a lot of tools and a lot of know-how lying around. But almost all the easily accessible oil and coal is gone. I think it would be much harder to re-industrialize if the best/only fuel source is wood.
Hopefully the world doesn't find out. Still not very optimistic.
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Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
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Oct 26, 2018 - 07:28am PT
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I love getting on here and seeing how many times in a row Malmute can post. Four times on this page alone! Classic. LOL.
BAd
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EdwardT
Trad climber
Retired
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Oct 26, 2018 - 07:31am PT
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Is the sound of one hand clapping the path to enlightenment?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Oct 26, 2018 - 12:03pm PT
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this will be an interesting lawsuit to watch, it's been going on for 3 years now
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/24/climate/exxon-lawsuit-climate-change.html
The suit does not charge Exxon with playing a role in creating climate change, though the burning of fossil fuels is a major contributor to human-driven warming. Rather, it is a fairly straightforward shareholder fraud suit, the kind that New York attorneys general have long brought and successfully prosecuted under state law.
It says the company engaged in a “longstanding fraudulent scheme” to deceive investors, analysts and underwriters “concerning the company’s management of the risks posed to its business by climate change regulation.”
The value of oil/gas reserves at the current price is huge, trillions of dollars, but these are dollars to be made in the future.
If the future involves regulation(s) that prevents that oil/gas from being sold, the value of the reserves are greatly reduced.
As I understand the lawsuit, ExxonMobile was trying to estimate the future value of its reserves given the progress of climate change driven from human energy use exhausted into the atmosphere, and they had various scenarios to project the reserve values.
However, they didn't tell the ExxonMobile stock holders about those calculations of reserve value, rather, they painted a rosy picture of profits from those reserves into the future and perhaps downplayed the likelihood of government regulating the use of fossil fuel. I guess they didn't want to worry their investors too much about that likelihood, or the consequent change of their reserve's value. They certainly lobbied to prevent regulation in the US for quite a while.
“Exxon provided false and misleading assurances that it is effectively managing the economic risks posed to its business by the increasingly stringent policies and regulations that it expects governments to adopt to address climate change.”
New York state asserts that this constitutes fraud on the part of ExxonMobile.
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Dave
Mountain climber
the ANTI-fresno
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Oct 26, 2018 - 06:57pm PT
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The issue with the Exxon lawsuit is that the SEC provides clear guidance on how to value mineral reserves for the public's consumption.
If the government tells you how to value reserves, and you follow their guidance, how can the government sue you for how you value those reserves?
Value is based on trailing price (so says SEC guidance), not some hypothetical future price based on conjecture.
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clifff
Mountain climber
golden, rollin hills of California
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Oct 27, 2018 - 01:20pm PT
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Ecological Armageddon! Insects Vanish All over the World
[Click to View YouTube Video]
excellent video + lots of links
Climate-driven declines in arthropod abundance restructure a rainforest food web
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/10/09/1722477115
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Everywhere, invertebrates are threatened by climate change, competition from invasive species and habitat loss. Insect abundance seems to be declining precipitously, even in places where their habitats have not suffered notable new losses. A troubling new report from Germany has shown a 75% plunge in insect populations since 1989, suggesting that they may be even more imperilled than any previous studies suggested.
Various kinds of anecdotal evidence appear to support these observations. The environmental journalist Michael McCarthy has noted the seeming disappearance of the windscreen phenomenon. Once, he writes, “any long automobile journey,” especially one undertaken in summer, “would result in a car windscreen that was insect-spattered”. In recent years this phenomenon seems to have vanished.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/14/a-different-dimension-of-loss-great-insect-die-off-sixth-extinction
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Freakishly Low Sea Ice Regrowth
Arctic sea ice regrowth in October is freakishly slow. We are at record low ice extent for late October; even lower than the 2012 minimum. In this video, and the next, I chat about Beaufort Gyre stalling and reversal, atmospheric and ocean circulation changes, sea-surface and water column temperatures, salinities, heat transport, and much more. Since formation in 2015, there have been two permanent hot spots in the oceans off Svalbard, with water temperatures at 78 degrees latitude North of 18.5 degrees Celsius in late October.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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fricken chips
Trad climber
utah, usa
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Oct 28, 2018 - 01:44pm PT
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i'm sorry i've been lying to you all along.
winter is not real. it was just a friendly hoax -
i was getting up in the middle of the night
while you were sleeping and i put snow on the mountains
and wind down the ridges. i filled up the rivers and lakes.
and painted gray skies for you. all for you.
but i'm f*#king done, now. i'm hanging up my humor
and crossing my arms, wearing a smug smile.
if you want to tell your children that there are seasons
then you better spike your rum with some caffeine and get
used to staying up late with alpine bedtimes and lot's of miles in your boots and it's a thankless job - delivering winter to naive believers.
i'll tell you what.
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EdwardT
Trad climber
Retired
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Oct 30, 2018 - 06:36am PT
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Dana Nuccitelli has arguably written more about climate change than any other journalist.
From his most recent story:
Note: this will be our final entry on Climate Consensus - the 97%. The Guardian has decided to discontinue its Science and Environment blogging networks. We would like to thank this great paper for hosting us over the past five years, and to our readers for making it a worthwhile and rewarding endeavor.
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clifff
Mountain climber
golden, rollin hills of California
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Massive Canadian glaciers shrinking rapidly
“The region is one of the hotspots for warming, which is something we’ve come to realize over the last 15 years,” said David Hik of Simon Fraser University. “The magnitude of the changes is dramatic.”
In their recent State of the Mountains report published earlier in the summer, the Canadian Alpine Club found that the Saint Elias mountains – which span British Columbia, the Yukon and Alaska – are losing ice faster than the rest of the country.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/30/canada-glaciers-yukon-shrinking
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TradMike
Trad climber
Cincinnati, Ohio
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Population Explosion is the main culprit of increases in CO2 as of late. You cannot deny that each individual has a carbon footprint with some being smaller than others but none a net zero that I can see (maybe some dude living off the land in a remote part of the world - maybe a handful). Global, ocean going container ships use 90% of the globes daily fuel consumption (buy local - shut down global trade). The true way to balance things out and become more sustainable would be a reduced footprint and population is part of it. There are only so many resources on earth and we are using all the precious ones at an alarming rate and no solution be it easy or difficult to point to. Say you did somehow go all solar and wind powered, there are still too many people to provide enough power this way to satisfy all without giving up everything you find enjoyable. We are starting to see great conflicts in areas where the resources are nearly gone or not enough for the larger population densities. We are creating an apocalypse of Global proportions. First it will be the migrants fleeing areas they have overpopulated beyond what it could support and still be happy. When resources get slim, the bad get violent to protect a piece for themselves. Global pollution is off the charts (tied closely to population). I have seen for myself how the oceans have been dying from all the pollution we dump into them at an ever increasing rate as the population climbs. Florida and many other states/countries still dump their sewage straight into the ocean. Add all the nutrients from this sewage to the agricultural runoff nutrients (which supports this huge population) and you get a red tide that will only get worse killing off all marine life.
The only solution I see, would be to reduce population down to a reasonable level. This could be done by only have one child to replace yourself. With the death rates as they are, this would slowly reduce the population. Maybe then, a couple could consider having more then two children. Until then, watch the migration and all areas of the globe getting crowded and many more and more frequent conflicts. Forget climbing as we used to know it, there will be hordes of people at the cliffs.
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Lituya
Mountain climber
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The report found that more than half of global industrial emissions since 1988 – the year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was established – can be traced to just 25 corporate and state-owned entities.
...and the people who consume their products. Like you.
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