Climate Change - increasingly horrible disasters loom
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there is so much out there about this - I don't really need to provide a lot of sources - a quick google
Ther is nothing scientic about that 'the truth' that you posted.
I'm not disputing the science at all. Big fan of science. More of it please.
You want science .... I'll give you science and math too !!
1) Energy
Energy comes in multiple forms.
a) We have electromagnetic radiation or EMR which comes in a variety of frequency and wavelengths.
b) We have the energy which holds the respective atoms of a molecule together which also have parallel frequencies and wavelengths.
The greenhouse effect comes from the bonds of a greenhouse gas molecule such as CO2 absorbing and redirecting outgoing infrared radiation and keeping it from radiating to outer space. A scientist named John Tyndall proved this in a lab setting in the 1850's.
c) there is energy which holds atoms together and is released by nuclear fission or fusion reactions. This is largely irrelevant to climate change except that it offers an alternative energy source which does not pollute the atmosphere with greenhouse gases.
2) Matter
Matter is made up of elements or atoms. Each element is differentiated by it's atomic number which is defined by the number of protons in its nucleus. An element like carbon comes in 3 different forms called isotopes which is determined by the number of neutrons in its nucleus. Isotopes offer very important clues which help paleo-scientists unravel the mysteries of earth's past.
3) Atmospheric Composition
The Earth's atmosphere is full of gases which are invisible to the human eye. There are well-mixed gases whose concentrations are evenly distributed around the Earth and local gases such as water vapor which are more abundant in humid climates.
The concentration of well mixed gases is roughly as follows.
Nitrogen 78%
Oxygen 21 %
Argon 0.9 %
CO2 0.043%
Other (remaining 0.05%)
The greenhouse gases are CO2 and others such as methane (CH4) which are so small in concentration that they part of the Other category.
4) What is heat and where does it come from ?
Heat is infrared radiation. It has a major source and a tiny source.
The tiny source is from the Earth's molten core. It radiates outward to the surface.
The major source is from absorbed sunlight. Sunlight is not heat ... it's light. But when it is absorbed by the Earth's surface, the wavelength and frequency change and the energy is transformed into heat.
4.5) Which factors influence how much sunlight is absorbed and converted to heat ?
The majors factors include the following ...
a) The Earth's orbital relationship with the sun is variable and cyclical with cycle times of ~100k years during which the Earth has oscillated between glacial maxima and interglacial periods. For further clarification, learn about Milankovitch Cycles.
b) The Earth's albedo or degree of whiteness. A white surface such as ice or snow reflects more sunlight and prevents it from being absorbed and converted to heat.
c) Cloud and aerosols such as those emitting from burning coal or other "dirty" fuel. These features also reflect incoming sunlight in the same manner that a white surface does.
This points to a situation where the same activity simultaneously creates a warming effect by the release of CO2 and a partially offsetting cooling effect of creating an atmospheric aerosol which temporarily masks the true long-term heating effect. One type of geoengineering which scientists are contemplating is the intentional release of atmospheric aerosols to mute GHG forcing.
5) What would the Earth's temperature be if we had zero greenhouse gases ?
The surface temperature on Earth would be ~ 30C lower than present if there were no GHG's. The oceans would be solid ice. There would be humans on such a planet.
We can calibrate our calculations directly with the observations of other planets and moons in our solar system as a result of data gathered from sending space probes. We can further calibrate with extensive fossil studies, isotope analysis and sedimentary layers which help to reconstruct Earth's climate history.
6) How much will Earth's temperature rise as a result of current greenhouse gas levels (assuming no widespread attempt at geoengineering)
Ah ... this is the big question which has no precise answer at the moment. But paleo-climate reconstruction offers a lot of clues.
The worlds scientists have a term for this value. It's called Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity or ECS. ECS is the temperature change which will occur when the greenhouse forcing is doubled AFTER THE PLANET REACHES AN EQUILIBRIUM TO THE NEW LEVEL OF FORCING.
7) Why doesn't the planet reach equilibrium immediately to the new level of GHG's ?
This is best explained by way of analogy.
Imagine you put two pots of water on the stove to boil. The pots and the temperature are exactly the same, but the volume of water is not. One has 2 liters of water and the other has 4 liters.
The water does not come to a boil immediately. The time it takes to come to a boil is a function of how much water is in the pot. The pot with 2 liters of water will come to a boil first because there is less water to be heated.
The Earth is basically a giant pot of water. Most of the heat is stored in the ocean. Adn the greenhouse gas level is the heat setting. It takes nearly a century for the Earth's surface temperature to reach equilibrium to a change in the heat setting.
The atmospheric temperature increases we see today (+1.6C in 2024 vs 1850-1900 baseline)) are reflective of an atmosphere which has reached equilibrium to GHG levels during the Clinton administration. If we were to stop emitting new GHG's today, atmospheric temperatures would continue to rise for many decades to come. And it's not realistic to expect that we will even reduce the rate of GHG emission materially.
8) How much warming have we committed to ?
No one has a crystal ball to see into the future and determine what innovations and geoengineering techniques that humans will attempt going forward. But in the absence of any intervention, we have already increased the GHG levels to increase average atmospheric temps by an estimated 4 degrees Celsius according to the latest climate models which are collectively known as CMIP6.
To call such an increase apocalyptic would be an understatement. We would be living in a completely different version of planet Earth than humans have any acquaintance with and hasn't been experienced since the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum of ~ 55M years ago which saw all land animals larger than a few pounds go extinct. The mammaliian ancestors of humans who survived that episode weighed only an ounce or two. Alligators and sea turtles survived as a result of their being able to live under water and migrate to cooler regions.
9) What are tipping points and why do we need to be concerned about them ?
The classic example of a tipping point is observed when pushing a boulder over the top of a hill. At the moment the center of gravity of the boulder passes the peak of the hill, it starts rolling down and gaining momentum. Assuming the boulder is heavy, there is no way to stop the momentum and it will continue until it comes to rest at the bottom of the valley below the other side of the hill.
In terms of climate change, this refers to a change in equilibrium which becomes impossible for humans to influence. We have the potential to tip earth systems beyond a point at which apocalyptic consequences become inevitable.
In order to understand this we need to have an overview of feedback loops.
10) An overview of feedback loops.
The historical change in temperature and GHG levels are well documented. Prior to human civilization as mentioned in number 5 above, the root cause of change in Earth's climate system was Earth's orbital cycles which influenced how much sunlight reached the surface.
As the Earth gets more light, more is absorbed and converted to heat.
A warmer atmosphere causes the following examples of feedback effects ....
Melting of ice and snow .... the Earth gets darker and absorbs more sun light and creates more heat.
Thawing of permafrost ... triggering micro-organismal metabolism which releases GHG's like CO2 and methane
Greater carrying capacity of water in the atmosphere. Water vapor is also a potent local greenhouse gas. Each degree Celsius increase in air temperature results in a 7% increase in atmospheric water carrying capacity (Clausius Clapeyron).
Increased drought, which combined with heat, results in more wildfires whose result is the transfer of CO2 from a land sink (trees) to an atmospheric sink.
Increased breeding cycles of insects like bark beetles which feed on tree bark and weaken trees and make them more vulnerable to decay and wildfire.
A warmer ocean causes the following examples of feedback effects
The solubility of atmospheric gases in water is a function of the water temperature. At higher temperatures, a smaller proportion of atmospheric gases is dissolved in the ocean and more remains in the atmosphere to trap heat.
A warmer ocean melts ice sheets below the surface. This is the major cause of ice sheet shrinkage vs melting from air temperatures. In Antarctica. the air is too cold to melt the ice below .... the ice sheets there are losing mass as a result of warmer ocean water making its way to the underside of the ice sheets.
11) What stopped these feedback effects from getting out of control before human civilization came along ?
That's simple. When the Earth's orbital cycle transitioned into the phase where the Earth was receiving less light, the entire process reversed itself naturally.
So ... in the last 2.6M years, average Earth temperatures oscillated in a range of +/- 5C while atmospheric CO2 oscillated in a range of 160 to 280 ppm (parts per million). During the cold parts of the cycle, we had glacial maxima in which the area of cities like NYC and Boston were underneath the Laurentide Ice Sheet. During the warm parts, we had an interglacial such as the most recent one which emerged ~ 15,000 years ago and created the opportunity for human agricultural civilization.
12) Let's talk about the balance between animal life and plant life.
Animals (including humans) and plants live in harmony with each other.
Animals breathe in oxygen and exhale CO2 in a process called cellular respiration. Plants take in CO2 and "exhale" oxygen in a process called photosynthesis. These two processes were in balance prior to the industrial revolution.
A human being exhales ~ 800 lbs of CO2 per year. In the year 1750, there were ~ 800 million people on Earth so they were exhaling about 0.32 billion tons of CO2 per year.
During the industrial revolution, we built machines which are basically artificial animals because they also emit CO2 like us.
Today, humans and their artificial machine animals "exhale" about 40 billion tons of CO2 per year. That's a growth in human CO2 production of ~130x in the last 300 years !!! while the size of the plant population is slightly declining as we eliminate forests. We have completely lost the balance.
13) Isn't CO2 "plant food" and good for plants ?
CO2 is "plant food".
But when plants "eat" .... CO2 goes away and that carbon becomes part of the growing plant. We are creating more CO2 than plants can eat ... and that's evident in the increase in atmospheric CO2 levels from 280 ppm to 430 ppm.
14) What evidence do we have that we have passed tipping points ?
Human emissions of CO2 have stabilized in recent years at roughly 40 gigatons per year. But the annual increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations is not stable .... it is getting larger each year.
In the 1960's, atmospheric CO2 concentrations increased by ~ 1 ppm per year. In the last decade, they have increased by ~ 2.5 ppm per year and in the last year the increase has been ~ 3ppm. This is a sign that feedback loops are kicking in and increasing transferring carbon from oceanic and land reservoirs into the atmosphere. This is the evidence of the boulder passing the top of the hill and starting to gain momentum in a potentially unstoppable way.
15) Summary
This is not all that complicated. This information is accessible to a curious human being and no more complex than the drivers handbook we have to learn in order to get a drivers license.
Obviously, the motivation to learn this is completely different from the motivation to get a driver's license which is important to us personally and our ability to function in our personal transit oriented society.
This information that I am sharing should be part of a standard high school curriculum and I believe that a responsible government would require that a high school student to pass a course in basic climate science principles.
The problem is that such a course would reveal to the public the gravity of our predicament and induce public fear and disorder. Unfortunately, the lack of understanding means that we are digging a deeper and deeper hole due to inaction ... a hole which we may never be able to crawl out of.
This is just a summary and an outline. I invite the members of the forum to read it and kick the tires. To drill deeper into the math and science in order to satisfy yourselves that you understand the issues as well as possible. If you have questions, please ask them, If you want sources, I'm happy to assist you in discovering them.
Nut Nut
Are you still sticking with this.
Bendell's departure from orthodoxy is no different than Copernicus or Galileo when they were proving that the Earth is not the center of the universe or even the solar system.
As children, we learn the fable of the Emperor Who Had No Clothes .... all the people ooh-ing and aah-ing and some random child blurts out that the emperor is in fact, naked.
The Earth is finite.
The stock market requires perpetual growth.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to comprehend that we're heading for a collision. A child can understand this.
3) yes disagree. (compatible on bad faith)
It's baked in, which I discovered the other day:
Here’s how we get serious about the awful monetary system
Posted on July 3, 2025 by jembendell
I have been hearing more of my environmentalist friends mention that the monetary and banking systems are driving a metacrisis, where nearly everything is getting worse, nearly everywhere. Like me, they have come to realise that by incentivising endless commodification, debt, and growth, an expansionist monetary system is at the root of so much of what’s going wrong. But most of them are at a loss for what to do about it. Why? Because it’s big, vague, and hard to understand. In my case, it took years of study to feel that I could speak clearly on the subject – finally taking to the TEDx stage in 2011. In the years since then, I met many environmentalists who were so overwhelmed by the topic that they went back to what was familiar to them: fighting plastics, pushing for stricter deforestation laws, or calling for lower carbon footprints. All are important. But if we ignore the expansionist monetary system that drives such harms, amongst others, our situation will only get worse.
That is one scary scenario for future generations younger than I, 70's.
It's baked in, which I discovered the other day:
I'm pleased that you're beginning to see the light.
Yeah, I'm beginning to:
1. Make a broad, unproven claim that sounds intuitively true to some.
2. If challenged, shift the burden of proof: demand that others disprove your intuition.
3a. If they offer a counter-argument, play skeptic: make them prove every detail, then ignore their argument and take a victory lap.
3b. If they don’t take the bait, take a victory lap.
Yeah, I'm beginning to:
1. Make a broad, unproven claim that sounds intuitively true to some.
2. If challenged, shift the burden of proof: demand that others disprove your intuition.
3a. If they offer a counter-argument, play skeptic: make them prove every detail, then ignore their argument and take a victory lap.
3b. If they don’t take the bait, take a victory lap.
Can you actually name a claim I've made which is unproven ?
Sorry I wrote I think was thoughtful reponse but 2+2 decided to think about whether I was human, insulted me by deciding I was and then fell over.
I may have another go later today
It's baked in, which I discovered the other day:
Just quickly. i'm not in a big political disagreement. I think capitalism as we know it has massive problem and is ****ing us in several ways including environmentaly. I also think captalism as we know it is dying.
But the whole question is about how we need to change. It's not a defense of the status quo. The claim that growth itself has to go doesn't follow from anything and imo totally wrong. The claim that the ftse as aproxy for capitalism can't grow is one I might well agree with (nits aside) but it's not obvious and it's definitely not scientific.
Jem Bendell: The Fossil Fuel Industry's Staunchest Supporter
Turns out “follow the money” really does pay off. Bendell must be on the fossil fuel industry’s payroll. I mean, who benefits more than the very industry destroying the environment from destroying trust in the scientific community trying to save the planet?
Most people don’t have the tools to evaluate competing scientific claims, so when every expert is cast as suspect, the easiest option is to do nothing, which is exactly what the fossil fuel industry wants. Even climate scientists are noticing. Zeke Hausfather, a lead IPCC author, said: “Many of us climate scientists have spent more time arguing with the doomers than with the deniers.[1]” And as openDemocracy put it, Bendell’s collapse narrative “risks disempowering people and eroding trust in climate science.[2]”
You couldn’t ask for a more effective ally to the fossil fuel industry than someone convincing people that science can’t be trusted, action is pointless, and the end is already inevitable. But what makes it worse is how many people - genuinely concerned for the planet and future generations - have been unknowingly recruited into becoming de facto supporters of the very industry driving the climate crisis.
It’s a double tragedy with those trying to save the planet only helping drive the climate crisis, all thanks to: The Fossil Fuel Industry's Staunchest Supporter aka, Jem Bendell.
References:
[1] Why climate ‘doomers’ are replacing climate ‘deniers’
How U.N. reports and confusing headlines created a generation of people who believe climate change can’t be stopped
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-e...
[2] The faulty science, doomism, and flawed conclusions of 'Deep Adaptation'
The claim that runaway climate change has made societal collapse inevitable is not only wrong – it undermines the cause of the climate movement.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/ourecon...
Jem Bendell: The Fossil Fuel Industry's Staunchest SupporterTurns out “follow the money” really does pay off. Bendell must be on the fossil fuel industry’s payroll. I mean, who benefits more than the very industry destroying the environment from destroying trust in the scientific community trying to save the planet? Most people don’t have the tools to evaluate competing scient
Dou you realize that the people criticizing Bendell wrote the following in the critique they shared. Do you agree with them ? If not, why are you sharing that critique.
There is an unprecedented global climate and ecological emergency. If governments do not undertake enormous measures to mitigate climate change, then some form of “societal collapse” is plausible — albeit in varying forms and undoubtedly far worse for the poorest people.
Just quickly. i'm not in a big political disagreement. I think capitalism as we know it has massive problem and is ****ing us in several ways including environmentaly. I also think captalism as we know it is dying.But the whole question is about how we need to change. It's not a defense of the status quo. The claim that growth itself has to go doesn't follow from anything and i
If you would allow me, I'd like to ask you some questions to help me unravel your worldview.
At the present moment, there is zero jurisdiction or regulation regarding the chemical composition of Earth's atmosphere or oceans. We have the unlimited personal liberty to add as much CO2 to the shared global atmosphere as we like and there is no law which attempts to curtail that liberty.
How do you think globally shared resources like the atmosphere should be regulated ?
My view is that regulation is woefully insufficient. Not against regulation (although it'd too often more of service to the big offenders than a constraint) but imo we have to take public ownership of the key industries, tech etc.
Another part of my worldview is that's is massively easier to get people to use green alternatives than to get them to abstain. It's vital we develop the future tech ASAP.
My view is that regulation is woefully insufficient. Not against regulation (although it'd too often more of service to the big offenders than a constraint) but imo we have to take public ownership of the key industries, tech etc.Another part of my worldview is that's is massively easier to get people to use green alternatives than to get them to abstain. It's vital we develo
You didn't answer the question.
I asked HOW you think what we put into the oceans and atmosphere should be regulated.
We have 2 options. Either humans learns to regulate themselves or nature will kick us out with its non negotiable regulatory authority.
Putting private companies under government ownership doesn't solve the problem of unregulated emissions unless that government is part of a global agreement to regulate emissions.
Just quickly. i'm not in a big political disagreement. I think capitalism as we know it has massive problem and is ****ing us in several ways including environmentaly. I also think captalism as we know it is dying.But the whole question is about how we need to change. It's not a defense of the status quo. The claim that growth itself has to go doesn't follow from anything and i
It's like if someone a couple hundred years ago tried to calculate the maximum number of horses Earth could support, not realizing that oil, buried underground, would soon make that entire equation obsolete. Then fast forward to the 1990s, when experts warned we’d soon run out of oil. But we didn’t. We found more, developed better extraction methods, and doubled fuel efficiency through innovations like fuel injection. That’s the good of capitalism; it didn’t deny the limits, it innovated around them in ways centrally planned economies often fail to do.
We don’t need to rehash capitalism’s flaws because that’s what socialism was basically invented to address. But at the end of the day, it’s rigid adherence to ideology on both sides that causes the problem. I mean the ideal isn’t dogma. Instead it’s incentivized competition on a well-designed and legally regulated and controlled field, ie, one that channels innovation toward outcomes we or society actually want. Might take a political revolution to get there but I think we will.
Dou you realize that the people criticizing Bendell wrote the following in the critique they shared. Do you agree with them ? If not, why are you sharing that critique.
Of course I read it and agree with it, with the possible exception of the means in 3.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/ourecon...
To be totally clear, we argue that all of the following are simultaneously true:
- 1. There is an unprecedented global climate and ecological emergency. If governments do not undertake enormous measures to mitigate climate change, then some form of “societal collapse” is plausible — albeit in varying forms and undoubtedly far worse for the poorest people.
- 2. Policymakers and society at large are not treating this grave threat with anything approaching sufficient urgency.
- 3. The climate crisis is dire enough in any case to justify urgent action, including mass sustained nonviolent disruption, to pressure governments to address it swiftly.
- 4. However, neither social science nor the best available climate science support ‘Deep Adaptation’s core premise: that near-term societal collapse due to climate change is inevitable.
- 5. This false belief undermines the environmental movement and could lead to harmful political decisions, overwhelming grief, and fading resolve for decisive action.
- 6. Respecting the distinction between the coming hardships and unstoppable collapse clarifies our agency to minimise future harm by mitigating and adapting to climate change, whilst freeing us from moral and political blinkers.
[my bolded]
Do you agree with 1-4 as written?
You didn't answer the question.
I asked HOW you think what we put into the oceans and atmosphere should be regulated.
Putting private companies under government ownership doesn't solve the problem of unregulated emissions unless that government is part of a global agreement to regulate emissions.
I dont know how. We're in race against time and we may lose. We may have already lost. Then again we may not lose and it's a matter of how painful it's going to be. I agree public ownership isn't sufficient but you asked my worldview and I think it is necessary.
We have 2 options. Either humans learns to regulate themselves or nature will kick us out with its non negotiable regulatory authority.
Can't leave advances in tech/etc out of the equation. Again from my last attempt to answer your question - regulation to propel use of greener tech is massively easy than regulation to abstain. Eventually you dont need the regualtion because the newer tech becomes so muich better and cheaper.
That the mainstream scientific community is bought and paid for and scientists aren't saying what they know to be true because they're afraid of losing their jobs.
First of all .... there is no doubt whatsoever that the scientific community is "paid for". If they weren't paid, they wouldn't be able to eat and pay for a roof over their heads.
Second ... I never claimed that scientists are knowingly withholding the truth.
I would like to share a quote from Upton Sinclair and ask if you find it to be an accurate description of the way people work.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
Let's do a thought experiment John21. Let's imagine hypothetically that the truth is more dire than mainstream scientists are communicating ..... WHO would pay them to tell that tale ?
Scientific researchers are dependent upon some form of patronage. Someone must be willing to pay for their research in order for them to be able to survive. That need to please their patrons in order to survive is an obvious curb on their freedom of expression. To believe otherwise is simply naive.
The people who have the money or the power to direct money to a researcher perceive themselves to be the beneficiaries of the status quo. They aren't going to spend money on someone whose advice is the lessening of their privilege.
The top 10% or the global elite contribute 50% of the emissions. These are the people with the power to fire climate scientists by withdrawing funding for their research.
Look at what the Trump Administration is doing .... pulling funding from scientific research and climate awareness. They're cutting it off because they don't want the truth to be known.
In #1, The people who questioned Bendell said that societal collapse is plausible.
In #4, They disputed Bendell's claim that collapse is inevitable. They say that social science doesn't support this.
There is some nuance here in terms of how we define collapse.
This version of civilization which has zero regulation of many fundamental toxic wastes such as CO2 will inevitably collapse.
It is possible that a version of human civilization which resembles the current one in terms of having functioning cities will remain. But that is only possible if the current economic and political system is replaced by one which puts environmental sustainability and survival at its apex.
There is no precedent for a class of powerful people to give up power voluntarily. and submit to a system which limits their privilege. A social scientist who wanted to dispute Bendell's conclusion of inevitable collapse would need to provide evidence that humans are capable of making such a transition. In the absence of being able to point to any precedent for the necessary transition, I think their conclusion about Bendell's forecast is baseless.
Look around you .... is there any discussion whatsoever in public media which questions the privilege to add unlimited CO2 to the global atmosphere ? The answer is NO. From a social science perspective ... that is data. The variable is media minutes devoted to discussion of the individual liberty to add CO2 to the atmosphere. The value is ZERO.
To me .... that is ample evidence which points to the inevitability of collapse. How can we solve a problem that we can't even talk about ?
