Climate Change IS An Existential Threat: The Right's Trolls Need To Stop Their Hit Job On Greta Thunberg

Greta Thunberg speaking on Friday during the Global Climate Strike.  Right: Google maps projection of  a +4C greenhouse world -on the verge of being unlivable

Climate strike protesters begin marching on Friday.

"How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.   People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the middle of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth"- Greta Thunberg today, at UN Global Climate Summit.


In the dubious pantheon of dirtbags, trolls, human trash and garbage spewers there is perhaps none more vile than the execrable lot that would attack an innocent - but precocious -  child.  Especially one who has an IQ vastly higher than  they do and isn't afraid to put it to good use in trying to warn a somnolent global population of the climate perils that lie ahead.  I write of the attacks on 16 year old climate activist Greta Thunberg whose "blunt, often biting remarks has offered Americans a sort of unvarnished, outsider’s view of themselves", according to a recent NY Times'  piece.  But which clearly the loathsome maggots can't handle.

An example of such a troll attack is this one from a website, nymag.com:

"Greta Thunberg is used in a sinister plot to put a face on the future generation the climate alarmists outlandishly claim are being robbed of their future. It is a direct attempt to shame Trump, and thereby the US, back to conformity, so it can pick up the tab for their draconian measures and plan for redistribution of wealth."

This ignorant troll asswit - going by the handle of "Silver Surfer" - is evidently oblivious to the fact Trump shamed himself by ordering California and other states to apply lower emission standards to vehicles. A brazen, crass effort to make global warming even worse, e.g.

Donald Trump

Trump Cuts Emissions Standards While Accusing Homeless People of “Polluting”

 But "Surfer's"  imbecilic  comment response also took  exception to Thunberg's observation that by the time she reaches the age  of 75 in 2078, there will be little hope for a future left unless action is mounted now.  That means heat indices reaching 55 C or more, power grids collapsing, not enough water even for basic needs and no more fish in the oceans, only jellyfish and vast blooms of sargassum. The  air will be so polluted it will be impossible to breathe without the equivalent effect of smoking 4 packs of cigs a day.

And note the Right nationalist denier loons and their cretinous ilk always want to fabricate some conspiracy or other to try to portray a simple movement they don't like. In this case, Thunberg is being used in a "sinister plot" to put a face on the future generations to embody claims of climate alarmists.  But it is not alarmism but facts which these mindless twits would know if they could even pass a basic thermal physics test, e.g.

Thermal Physics Test for skeptics

But my take is that this fool doesn't even know the difference between heat and temperature so would flunk it anyway.  Yet one would hope that before these yahoos - likely in their mother's basements- start pounding their keyboards in misplaced angst and paranoia, they do some research. To at least know a few things before they attack a 16 year old kid for her courage in trying to motivate lackadaisical imps to act.

For example:

"A NASA satellite found that Greenland's ice sheet lost about 255 billion metric tons of ice a year between 2003  and 2016, with the loss rate generally getting worse over that period." (Denver Post, Aug. 25, p. 1A, 'Greater Mass Loss Going Forward'):

Add that to the melting of the Arctic ice caps and Antarctic ice shelf as well and one can imagine a scenario for a 20-25 ' sea level rise by mid century.   We also now have to factor in the effects of the burning Amazon rain - forest - likely to add 2- 5 gigatons of carbon to the already CO2 sodden atmosphere. 

Greta herself  began her school strike plan late in August 2018, before the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had released its doomsday SR15 report, which would arrive that October festooned with alarm bells and produce a sea change in public concern.

But even that is likely lowballed e.g.  this article from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:

Climate report understates threat

Excerpt:

"So far, average temperatures have risen by one degree Celsius. Adding 50 percent more warming to reach 1.5 degrees won’t simply increase impacts by the same percentage—bad as that would be. Instead, it risks setting up feedbacks that could fall like dangerous dominos, fundamentally destabilizing the planet. This is analyzed in a recent study showing that the window to prevent runaway climate change and a “hot house” super-heated planet is closing much faster than previously understood."

 And a 4C world may be on its way. Where does the 4C increase come from?  Refer to the lead UK Guardian article from May 17, 2015, which bluntly notes:  

"A paper used for guiding future business planning at the Anglo-Dutch multinational assumes that carbon dioxide emissions will fail to limit temperature increases to 2C, the internationally agreed threshold to prevent widespread flooding, famine and desertification. Instead, the New Lens Scenarios document refers to a forecast by the independent International Energy Agency (IEA) that points to a temperature rise of up to 4C in the short term, rising later to 6C."

THIS is the unvarnished truth but you'd never know it by reading most corporate media  releases.  

 More important and deadly is the cumulative indirect effect of CO2 being added by the gigatons each year to the atmosphere.   

To put it into quantitative terms, the temperature of the planet is currently out of balance by 0.6W/ m²  and this is almost entirely due to the annual rate of CO2 concentrations increasing.  Indeed, the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has accelerated from 400 ppm in 2013 to 415 ppm now.  E.g.  as reported in May of this year:



 That is an approximately 6 year interval for a per year change in concentration of :
(415 ppm - 400 ppm)  / 6 yr  =   15 ppm / 6 yr  =  2.5 ppm/  yr.

Further,  every increase in CO2 concentration now increases the radiative heating effect by 2.5  W/ m^2/  / yr.

Prof. Gunter Weller (formerly of the Univ. of Alaska Geophysical Institute)  estimated the runaway greenhouse effect would kick in when the CO2 concentration level of 600 ppm is surpassed-  which seems reasonable. If it is just over 410 ppm now - by many conservative measures -  then doing the math (adding 2.5  ppm  per year and 2.5 W/ m²   heating effect) puts us in jeopardy before 2100. 

Less objectionable than the loser troll on the Nymag rag site, is WSJ editor Gerald Baker who penned this nonsense in the weekend edition of the Journal,

St. Greta Spreads the Climate Gospel - WSJ

https://www.wsj.com/articles/saint-greta-spreads-the-climate-gospel-11568989306

Writing:

"A movement that believes in sin, penance and salvation doesn’t sound very scientific" 

Of course, these are all interjected ad hoc by Mr. Baker. There is  in fact no "sin" (there is waste, e.g. of food, water (i.e. in fracking),  and CO2 generation by excess consumption), nor is there "penance" - unless one wishes to refer to the coming climatic onslaught in floods, drought, raging fires, sea level rise and the impacts on humans.   Nor is there "salvation" - given it may well be too late to avoid any of those, only mitigate them somewhat.

Then, really going off on a wild tangent:

"It’s been noted before that the cause of addressing climate change has become something like the modern world’s version of a secular religion. In much of Europe especially, but in sections of American society too, a kind of climate theology has replaced traditional Christianity as the ultimate source of authority over human behavior, comprising both an all-embracing teleology of our existence and a prescriptive moral code."

Baker  then goes off into a miasma of false analogy, trying to equate the Catholic Church's apocalyptic and theological dogmas, i.e. about hellfire etc. with the fires we can expect to manifest from global warming, e.g.

"An apocalyptic eschatology warns that we will all be consumed by fire if we don't follow the ordained rules."

Except that theological fire is fanciful, supernatural bilge, designed to terrify the faithful into unthinkingly following the padres and popes....or else. Meanwhile, the fires from enhanced climate change are real and spreading to extend longer and longer across major fire seasons,  such as now ravaging  Alaska, Scandinavia, Siberia, etc.  Note this scene from Tasmania  7 years ago forcing this family to take shelter in water. A taste of what's to come.



One thing an editor like Baker ought to have learned is not to analogize the fantasy "supernatural" fires of a religion's afterlife with the very real fires that will burn across our planet from climate change.  Of course, this false analogy in his specious case paves the way for multiple others, i.e.

"A gospel of redemption emphasized that salvation lies in reducing our carbon footprint, with re-usable shopping bags and bike sharing."

In fact there is no analogous "gospel of redemption" only the cold hard data showing if we don't lessen the carbon inputs our civilization will be reduced to ashes - in the runaway greenhouse - or be flooded out of existence as sea levels rise from the ongoing and accelerating melting.  This isn't supernatural fantasy or allegory, it's the future we face and the future is already erupting all around us - from monster storms and torrential fires, to the spread of new diseases like eastern equine encephalitis and dengue fever, to the spread of fire tornadoes and mega-fire holocausts.

But hey, at least he isn't a 4chan or Nymag.com conspiracy monger troll who suspects Greta of being part of a "sinister plot" for global climate alarmism.  Indeed, he offers a modicum of respect, e.g.

"None of this is to denigrate Ms.  Thunberg. She's clearly a sincere and talented young woman who has dedicated herself to what she believes is the highest moral cause."

Well, because right now, it is!  And please convey your respectful tones to the trolls and losers who inhabit the dregs of the net - and can't contribute anything positive to the advance of humanity. They can only try to slime a young teen who has the courage to act.

What is Mr. Baker's bugbear? Mainly that Thunberg's causes like fighting climate change using serious tools (e.g. taxing carbon use) will "slow economic growth".   This leads to perhaps his most egregious statement other than the false analogies with religion:

"While carbon heavy growth is damaging the planet, it is also producing the technological prowess to address the damage."

For which he cites not a single example other than a vague reference to China. (Which nation is indeed investing far more on solar energy than the U.S.).  But in the end, unless carbon heavy growth is curtailed or stopped it will be our end, no doubts.  This is apart from the fact of its increasing inefficiency which is actually contributing to slower growth, e.g..

$44 TRILLION in Deficits by 2024? Minus 15% Growt...

But at least Baker didn't put Greta at the center of a sinister plot. We must be thankful for small mercies in seeing a residue of intelligence where we can find it!

See also:

CLIMATE CHANGE

Greta Thunberg is a reminder of decades of climate failures-

The youth movement sparked by Greta Thunberg and others wouldn't be necessary if elder generations hadn't squandered the opportunity for a relatively easy transition toward a stable climate future. Read more.

And:

Social Justice and Activism

Saving the Planet Means Overthrowing the Ruling Elites

by Chris Hedges | September 23, 2019 - 6:49am | permalink

And:

Environmental Policy | Social Justice and Activism

Youth Trumps Fossils

by Randall Amster | September 22, 2019 - 5:08am | permalink

"Social Benefits of Fossil Fuels Far Outweigh The Costs"? Balderdash On Every Front!

One has to grudgingly admire the sheer chutzpah of some of the fossil fuel propagandists who pen their swill in The Wall Street Journal  But then since the Journal itself has a history of peddling such bunkum for its (majority)  FOX indulging readers -  with a yen for fake news over the real - this is understandable.

 In one of the most recent  (June 17) iterations,

The Social Benefits of Fossil Fuels Far Outweigh the Costs - WSJ

cow manure peddlers Joseph  L. Bast and Peter Ferrara  expect us to believe use of fossil fuels creates  benefits which "far outweigh"  any health, environmental or other costs.  For example, we an are informed:

"Fossil fuels are lifting billions of people out of poverty and in turn improving health"

Well, not really.  We learn, for example, that recurrent oil spills in the Niger Delta - and this is just one of the places adversely affected by spills- are now linked with infant  deaths. According to The UK Guardian (Nov. 6, 2017):

"Babies in Nigeria are twice as likely to die in the first month of life if their mothers were living near an oil spill before falling pregnant, researchers have found. A new study, the first to link environmental pollution with newborn and child mortality rates in the Niger Delta, shows that oil spills occurring within 10km of a mother’s place of residence doubled neonatal mortality rates and impaired the health of her surviving children.....Regular, uncontrolled spills have been a prominent feature of Nigeria’s oil industry – the nation’s primary source of GDP – since crude was discovered there more than 60 years ago. An estimated 240,000 barrels of crude oil are spilled in the Niger Delta every year, polluting waterways, contaminating crops, and releasing toxic chemicals into the air."

That doesn't sound like a health benefit to me, neither does the prevalence of spills sound like a benefit.    And we haven't even begun to list all the spills, contamination of air, soil and water in the fracking states. As per a Denver Post expose from May, 2014, we learned that   "716,982 gallons of petroleum chemicals spilled during the past decade have stayed in the ground after the initial cleanup. This has contaminated soil, sometimes spreading into groundwater."

According to the Post (ibid.):

“There's about one gallon of toxic liquid penetrating soil every eight minutes.”

In addition, the Post noted: “drillers churn up 135 to 500 tons of dirt with every new well, some of it soaked with hydrocarbons and laced with potentially toxic minerals and salts.”

Given this, is it any wonder thousands of adults – kids living near frack sites often have severe health complaints, ranging from horrific rashes to bleeding orifices to breathing problems? According to Eugene Kelly, chief of soil and crop science at Colorado State University – quoted in the piece:

“The overall impact of the oil and gas boom is like a death sentence for soil. It could be the next limiting component when we talk about feeding the planet and having a sustainable lifestyle- - because all the good stuff is gone and the soil is being degraded.”

In addition:

“State data also show that 12.3 percent of the past 1,000 spills (since June 24, 2012) already had contaminated groundwater before companies began cleanups.”

So much for that fossil fuel fantasy!  Then there is the newly reported  connection to melting permafrost bearing thousands of tons of mercury trapped within.   We know - as the frozen soil thaws-   this  "will have a significant effect on the global mercury cycle",  e.g.

Thousands of tons of mercury are trapped in permafrost - Physics Today

According to the article in Physics Today, U.S. Geological researchers led by Paul Schuster, "deduced that permafrost regions contain a total of 1700 ± 1000 kilotons of mercury, which is around twice as much as all other soils, the ocean, and the atmosphere combined. About half of that mercury is in the permafrost itself, the subsurface soil that stays frozen year round; the other half is in the overlying active layer, which freezes and thaws seasonally."

The melting of the frozen soils (from continued fossil fuel use)  will not deliver a "benefit" but massive added, downstream health costs.   As the PT report notes, the frozen soils are thawing and as much as 99% of Arctic permafrost could be gone by the end of the century.  How much harm the released mercury inflicts on humans and wildlife will depend on the chemical forms the released Hg takes.. Elemental and ionic mercury are relatively benign compared but methyl mercury, the potent neurotoxin that accumulates in fish, isn't.  Also, coal- fired plants are currently the main culprits in mercury emissions and its contamination of food produces serious health risks. (The mercuric ion is one of the strongest thiol-binding agents, and mercury absorbed into the human body attaches to thiol residues in proteins, making it difficult to eliminate from living organisms)  One study published in Scientific Reports (May 9, 2017) found that 79 % of vegetable samples and 67 % of grain samples exceeded the safe levels for mercury contamination allowed by the Chinese agricultural authority.  There is no reason similar contamination wouldn't be found in U.S. areas near coal-fired plants.

Another daft claim is that "fossil fuel emissions create additional benefits, contributing to the greening of the Earth" -  citing a study that found "the global mass of land plants grew 31 % during the 20th century".  Failing to note that  most (~ 65%)  of that mass is from hardy weeds,, such as pig weed and pig thistle that thrive on enhanced CO2 (cf. WSJ,  June 4, 2010, p A16, 'Superweeds Trigger New Arms Race'; June 21, 2010, p. D1, 'Least Welcome Sign of Summer') . See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/06/super-weeds-highlight-another-co2.html

Excerpt:

"The emergence of these super weeds, especially as threats to farm productivity have convinced many farmers they must resort to much more toxic weedicides to get the job done. That includes using such infamous carcinogenic agents as: 2, 4- D, dicamba and paraquat. But critics have warned given the uncontrolled factors afoot, such as ever increasing CO2 concentrations (now tipping at nearly 400 ppm) all that will happen is that even more super weeds will emerge, resistant to even those arch-herbicides.   In the second story, attention is on the accelerative growth of poison ivy and the increased tribulations of people (mainly gardeners, but some hikers) coming in contact with its irritant chemical urushiol."


Pigweed - now growing as if on 'afterburners' with CO2 the fuel,  These are the plants increasing "green land mass".

The growth of these super-weeds was brought home to us at the beginning of summer when we found three wildly sprouting pig thistle variants in our front (xeriscaped) yard.  The weeds can't be just pulled up without growing back. Further, a neighbor's yard now features 4 of these nearly six feet in height. The experts we recruited to get rid of our green  invaders insisted the only way was to use 2,4- D dicamba and advised us to remain inside while the spraying was done. Now, after two saturations, the pig thistle shows no sign of death, or even deterioration, Yeah, we ought to he thankful for the "increased mass of land plants". Not!

The authors, unable to stop themselves from spreading malarkey, then scribble:

"Further, if fossil fuels are responsible for significant warming during the 20th century, then they should also be credited with reducing deaths due to cold weather"

Failing to note such deaths are minimal compared to deaths from exceedingly hot weather, i.e. heat waves - which will increase in frequency and intensity as CO2 concentration ramps up.(As per a Brown University study).  Most of the dreck that "cold kills more than heat" arose from a specious statistical study making use of an "optimum temperature" index for 384 cities around the globe  that in fact introduced subjective selection effects, skewing the balance toward cold death.  Also tossing the study into the research dumpster is the fact that it ignored the most heat wave prone regions, i.e.  no countries from the Middle East or Africa were represented. 

Anyone who's ever taken a statistics course- or used it in serious research -  would have concluded this purported CDC study  is next to useless and certainly not to be invoked as any kind of serious fact claiming fossil fuel benefits.  After all, the entire globe is affected by CO2 increase from fossil fuel burning, not just the subset of cities for this study!

The WSJ authors are correct that fossil fuels enable most of us (at least in the developed West)  to get on in a "high energy civilization based on fossil fuels".  But this dire condition has manifested because of our very inability to control our global population and dependence on high energy industrial (and massively polluting) processes.  As long as the nature of our societies continues to be energy intensive, i.e. invested in high entropy, concentrated energy use (including for continual weapons development), then we will be playing 'catch up' in terms of alternatives able to fill the normal energy use gap.   This is something I've addressed before in a number of posts since 2010.

According to The Physicist's Desk Reference (Table C, p. 187, Energy Generation by Type) the projections for the most energy-intense uses  (aggressive consumption category, I) for all forms of solar, geothermal and wind add up to only 6 exajoules (EJ) by 2020. This compares to 24 EJ for oil (including kerogen), 16 for coal, 9 for natural gas and 6 for nuclear. Thus, ALL the usual "green" alternatives" are projected to barely add up to what nuclear will deliver on its own, and we've already shunned nuclear though we shouldn't have if the intention was to retain some basis for higher energy consumption, see e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/05/top-climate-scientist-advocates-nuclear.html.

 Hence, to realistically phase out fossil fuels we need to not only restrict and curb their use but also add nuclear into the "bridge" source mix - preferably enough to eventually trump natural gas as well. (Which releases methane, another greenhouse gas, into the environment).

Meanwhile, exacerbating the problem of finding and implementing adequate (aggressive consumption) fuel -energy sources is the continually increasing population. Global energy consumption rose from barely 21 EJ in 1900, to 318 EJ in 1988, to close to 435 EJ today. Solar, geothermal + wind by the end of this year, will therefore have contributed only a minuscule fraction.

But this is exactly  why the rate of increase in global population per year needs to be reduced if we're able to get ahead in the energy consumption game! In other words, the added total alternative energy benefit is exactly lost because we added an extra percentage of humans to consume the benefit!  This is why the economists proposing increased global population to enhance GDP are shooting themselves in the foot.

This is why Albert Bartlett, University of Colorado physicist, has noted that "people who believe in the continual possibility of growth are the modern day equivalent of the flat earthers".  The reason is that the flat Earth of yore would have extended infinitely in all directions - thereby providing the means for unlimited resources, energy - and space to grow. But our actual planet is spherical, hence finite in volume and self limiting.  No indefinite growth is possible on a small, spherical world nor do we have the latitude to pollute it with abandon - including pumping CO2 into the atmosphere with fossil fuel burning.


Bast and Ferrara conclude their propaganda piece by claiming advocates of alternative energy sources "omit or diminish  many of these fossil fuel benefits when calculating fossil fuels' social cost"

Actually, we are keenly aware of only one "benefit";  Fossil fuels are indeed needed - given our lack of foresight and planning (including population control) , to sustain (for the time being) an anomalous civilization much too energy intense for its size and scale. As Jay Hanson (www.dieoff.org) pointedly notes:


“The fact that our society can‘t survive on alternative energy should come as no surprise, because only an idiot would believe that windmills and solar panels can run bulldozers, elevators, steel mills, glass factories, electric heat, air conditioning, aircraft, automobiles, etc., AND still have enough energy left over to support a corrupt political system, armies, etc."

Matt Savinar (Life After the Oil Crash) has shown that NONE of the alter-sources usually cited: from methane hydrates, from coal, from geothermal hot dry rock technology, from natural gas, from oil shales and tar sands, from secondary recovery of existing oil fields, and so on- will do squat to totally replace the energy now being consumed for our entire infrastructure, from powering a military-industrial complex with umpteen bombers, and now missile defense, plus more tanks for occupations and wars, not to mention sustaining growth in industries, new computers, maintaining the electrical power grid and building new nuclear reactors.

Given this losing energy -growth wicket. it is only a matter of time before reality sets in. At that point the game, the jig, will indeed be up. Hanson, in his original blogs for his website, forecast a mass die off, similar to what befell the Easter Islanders - who also didn't learn to limit their numbers, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2009/06/isaac-asimovs-warning-part-i.html

Will we? Supposedly the smartest species in the cosmos? Time will tell, but if we don't shape up, as opposed to being blinded by propaganda, the judgment of nature will be remorseless.

See also:

• Perspective: Doubt the planet’s summers are turning hotter? Look at these two maps.

And:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/09/44-trillion-in-deficits-by-2024-minus.html