Is there any point/Are we all buggered anyway?

Pete M.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8594000/8594561.stm

So is Professor Lovelock right or what?

He is pretty well respected.

Should we even bother given the scale of the task and our ongoing ability to make a mess out of everything that we touch, as a species I mean.

Akrasia

Hey, we still have Bruce Willis, Harrison Ford, Nicholas Cage, and if none of them work, Chuck Norris to get us out of this mess.

Even if it seems like we were doomed to disaster, it makes very little sense to just give up and 'accept our fate'. We should do everything in our power to mitigate and minimise the effects of whatever threat we are facing. (and as it stands, we are not even close)

Humans will adapt or die, just like they have always done, the planet is littered with the relics of civilisations that have failled!

I agree that climate change will happen regardless of whatever man tries to do. I don't subscribe to the AGW theory anyway and even if it did play a major part in warming through the excessive burning of fossil fuel, emissions will fall as the supply of such fuels diminish over the next century.

To predict the end of the world as we know it, is easy and anyone can do it as the world is constantly changing anyway, 50 years ago, most consumer products were made in the country they were sold in for example.

The real change is going to be the conversion of mankind from a fossil fuel based existance to ???? while trying to maintain their current lifestyle, such a strategy is doomed to failure.

Changes will be forced onto people as the supplies of fosil fuels diminish, that process has already started with home insulation more efficient engines etc. The next stage, curtailment of consumption of "luxury goods" and reduced personal travel hasn't really started for the majority of people, but it will!

And it's downhill rapidly from there...

Ironically, the people who are best placed to survive are those who never got into the "oil consumers club" and never experienced a local population explosion either.

Capt'n Midnight

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

Arthur C. Clarke, Clarke's first law

Pete M.

Deleted User wrote: »

Humans will adapt or die....

..emissions will fall as the supply of such fuels diminish over the next century...

So the Prof is saying we'll die. Previously these civilisations you refer to have been isolated geographically, with their own localised problems which eventually lead to their downfall. Today, it's global, so we're talking total annihilation or 99.99% of humankind gone.

And whether you subscribe to AGW or not (and remember that the vast majority of experts do, so yours is just an opinion not based on extensive research), emissions will only fall if the peak oil theory is correct and we as a race do not innovate a way to squeeze even more out of the reserves we have and are still discovering.

The interesting part of his opinion expressed in this particular piece IMO is the unpredictibility of what may occur.
We're moving into uncharted territory and there may be extreme events on the way.
I've long been of the opinion that it will take some sort of global catastrophe to make us take the protection of our home, the Earth, seriously.

Pete M.

Pete M. wrote: »

Today, it's global, so we're talking total annihilation or 99.99% of humankind gone.

...

I've long been of the opinion that it will take some sort of global catastrophe to make us take the protection of our home, the Earth, seriously.

Not annihilation, just a major reduction! How large a population can the earth sustain in a post oil world, I don't know, we'll know in a couple of hundred years time.

The likeliest global catastrophe could be something like extreme mineral/oil exploitation destroying large areas of the globe in a desparate attempt to extract the last drops, or large scale cropping of the remaining forests for fuel.

Followed by overrelience of agriculture on a single plant for food production and that one plant is ravaged by an immune pest/desease.

It is possible to prevent those catastrophes from happening, just need to shoot a few people! It will come to that!

The agricultural problem can easily be prevented by maintaining a diverse range of seeds.

Severe population controls need to be employed now to prevend future mass starvation.

Pete M.

What about, going along with The Profs pet theory, Gaia, the catastrophe is 'natural', as opposed to anthropogenic?
Maybe mother Earth is winding up to a big event. I mean there has been a lot of earthquakes so far this year.
Would this be enough for us to wake up so to speak?
Or will it just end up with us dying off relatively slowly, back to manageable numbers?

I think one of the reasons that this caught my interest is that it may give me an 'out' of being ecologically aware to my own detriment in the face of impossible odds, in a futile attempt to make a difference.
I mean if it didn't matter, I could turn my talents to exploiting others and making loads of money at the environments cost.;)

Capt'n Midnight

Deleted User wrote:

Severe population controls need to be employed now to prevend future mass starvation.

The easiest , cheapest and most effective way to reduce population is to improve the education , rights and standard of living of the poorer half of the world.

Any idea of killing off people won't work, there would be a major rise in CO2 when the worms turn, people can be so selfish can't they, team players huh :rolleyes: . Speaking of which has anyone linked CO2 levels during WWII with climate change ? Has anyone done research on fish stocks level before and after WWI and WWII as there was a measurable reduction in fishing.

Capt'n Midnight

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Any idea of killing off people won't work, there would be a major rise in CO2 when the worms turn, people can be so selfish can't they, team players huh :rolleyes: .

I was referring to the "gold rush" type exploitation that will occur when the easy supplies are finally gone, if you want the forests preserved for the future, how else are you going to stop the local population cutting it all down when they have no other source of fuel left to use!

In the fifteenth century (I think) England banned the cutting down of certain trees to preserve the rapidly diminishing forests for shipbuilding, forcing people to use coal instead.

Norman F. Cantor's summary of the effects of late medieval deforestation applies equally well to Early Modern Europe:[26] Norman F. Cantor (born in Winnipeg, Canada in 1930, died in Miami, Florida, United States on September 18, 2004) was a historian who specialized in the medieval period. ...


"Europeans had lived in the midst of vast forests throughout the earlier medieval centuries. After 1250 they became so skilled at deforestation that by 1500 AD they were running short of wood for heating and cooking. They were faced with a nutritional decline because of the elimination of the generous supply of wild game that had inhabited the now-disappearing forests, which throughout medieval times had provided the staple of their carnivorous high-protein diet. By 1500 Europe was on the edge of a fuel and nutritional disaster, [from] which it was saved in the sixteenth century only by the burning of soft coal and the cultivation of potatoes and maize."

Capt'n Midnight

Deleted User wrote: »

In the fifteenth century (I think) England banned the cutting down of certain trees to preserve the rapidly diminishing forests for shipbuilding, forcing people to use coal instead.

The trees were used for smelting, glassmaking and charcoal, they saw the writing on the wall and acted accordingly.

They still have loads of coal


Didn't some lads have a bet about the price of commodities, copper and other useful metals ?

Point being that even though all the easy resources were mined out first, as technology improves then others become economic.

The end of cheap oil can be delayed if anyone develops
- a cheap light battery
- major improvements in flywheels
- a better coal to liquid fuel system
- bacteria or similar to breakdown tarsands
- efficiencies in oil rich algae
- an economical Hydrogen system from cyanobacteria
- processing of methane hydrates into methaol
- decent public transport
etc.

We already have $1/watt solar panels , energy storage is the problem
We should be looking at solar powered oil refineries , heat from sunlight or PV rather than wasting fuel, same for heating water / pumping it down wells


Re population growth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Right_of_Children_to_Free_and_Compulsory_Education_Act

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act was passed by the India parliament on 4 August 2009 which describes the modalities of the provision of free and compulsory education for children between 6 and 14 in India under Article 21A of the Indian Constitution. India became one of the few countries to make education a fundamental right of every child when the act came into force on 1 April 2010

All good points, but the UK coal reserve estimates have recently been reduced yet again, when I was growing up the guestimate was 300 years, I've recently seen figures as low as 20-30 years (can't find the link).

The current recession will slow down (the rise in) consumption of oil for a while before the consumers decide that that old (thing) needs replacing as it's worn out, rather lets get the latest one.

The best hope for future survival will be to decide what is necessary for human existance in comfort sufficient food, shelter etc and ensure that those can be provided for an extended period of time from what oil and other rare earth minerals.

Fortunately, silicon is a very common material and if decent PV solar cells can be produced just using common materials then we're less likely to be too traumatised by the lack of oil.

Cuba has recently had it's own "peak oil" experience and has managed to evolve sufficienty to avert a complete collapse in it's society, there are lessons to be learned there. Granted, Cuba never became as "advanced" as most major first world countries, so therefore had less regression to do, but they are surviving on about a quarter of the oil they had during the Soviet support era. Life is much harder there now!

zod

In his book "revenge of Gaia" by the professor, he outlines the only real method of curbing the CO2 output so as not to throw earth into a Co2/Methane spiral is the following :

1. Stop burning coal immediately
2. Stop wasting money on windfarms/ PV / solar concentrators
3. Widespread and ruthless adoption of nuclear energy everywhere NOW.
4. Wean ourselves off oil in 10 years.
5. Hold on while the CO2 already built up in the atmosphere raises the temp and rocks our world.

If we don't we're doomed because the positive feedback cycle will hit the methane in the arctic tundra and thats end game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1liqk9UQNAQ

So you can choose to believe it or not, but thats what he believes.

A quick comment on point 3.

According to theis website http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf75.html there is about 80 years of uraniun available at current consumption rates, a timescale that would drop considerably if widespread expansion of nuclear energy occurred.

djpbarry

Pete M. wrote: »

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8594000/8594561.stm

So is Professor Lovelock right or what?

He is pretty well respected.

I'm not sure I would agree with that - his 'Gaia hypothesis' was (and still is) ridiculed by many evolutionary biologists, such as Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould.

Capt'n Midnight

zod wrote: »

In his book "revenge of Gaia" by the professor, he outlines the only real method of curbing the CO2 output so as not to throw earth into a Co2/Methane spiral is the following :

....

If we don't we're doomed because the positive feedback cycle will hit the methane in the arctic tundra and thats end game.

other positive feedback mechanisms include releasing sea bed methane hydrates and the drying out of the Amazon where roughly half the rain fall is from transpiration at present.

We could also pump SO2 into the atmosphere for a cost simiilar to the US defence budget.
We could also fertilize the seas to let algae consume CO2
We could also expose more rock to adsorb CO2

But yeah figuring out a way to convert sunlight into storable energy (methanol perhaps) would be the ideal, no question that it can be done, it's more a matter of economics.

gu10

I don't even know why people still listen to the likes of lovelock. If his fanboys got their way we would all be shipped to a massive prison complex somewhere, all our stuff taken off us and fed rice krispies till the threat of climate change (climate changes constantly anyway) goes away. Its just a ploy to get authoritarianism more accepted.. nothing else. I dont know how anyone can be stupid enough to believe that the climate is going to change so suddenly that most of us will die

More likely to be hit by a meteor the size of the one that wiped out the dinosaurs than this kind of climate change.

Capt'n Midnight

Deleted User wrote:

Fortunately, silicon is a very common material and if decent PV solar cells can be produced just using common materials then we're less likely to be too traumatised by the lack of oil.

The earths crust is 60.6% silica and when that runs out we can use other PV technologies


How much land is needed for wind power worldwide
http://www.landartgenerator.org/blagi/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/AreaRequiredWindOnly.jpg

How much land is needed for solar power world wide
http://www.landartgenerator.org/blagi/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/AreaRequired1000.jpg

The problem is not how to generate power, it's how to store it.
We are still using Lead Acid batteries = 1850's technology

Capt'n Midnight

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

The problem is not how to generate power, it's how to store it.
We are still using Lead Acid batteries = 1850's technology

Exactly!

But with Ultracapacitor technology it should be possible for consumers to store short term energy in their homes or even in the appliances using the energy. After all most people have oil tanks,gas bottles or coal/turf bunkers etc why not have electricity storage as well. The advantage of having consumers store the electricity is that the grid is much less loaded (and lossier*) during peak times, all energy generated by alternative sources is actually used and the conventional generators can be operated more efficiently.

The other thing about using ultracapacitors in this way is it bypasses the long term charge holding issues.

*is there such a word!

Pete M.

Deleted User wrote: »

Exactly!

(and lossier*)

*is there such a word!

There is now:)

Anyhoo, this technology may be developed rapidly and allow us to store the clean, efficient energy we need to carry on, but will it be done soon.

Getting back to the original theme, of course there are loads of ways to improve how we consume and get on with things more sustainably, but it all needs to be happening now, not next year or next week.
The Prof is suggesting that we are already too late and I tend to agree with him.
I have worked for some years in the area of environmental protection and don't think there is the will amoung the people nor the political will to face up to the problem.
When you consider the way in which we regard the Earth, Gaia theory and ACC aside, we defile it each and every day in bigger and dirtier ways.
Yes, there is the green wash and eco bling, but does any of it really go any way towards improving our chances of maintaining the planet as a habitable environment for generations to come.

YFlyer

zod wrote: »

In his book "revenge of Gaia" by the professor, he outlines the only real method of curbing the CO2 output so as not to throw earth into a Co2/Methane spiral is the following :

So you can choose to believe it or not, but thats what he believes.

Biochar is the answer.

http://greentechnologyinvestments.kontentkonsult.com/2009/01/biochar-answer-lovelock.html

zod

gu10 wrote: »

dont know how anyone can be stupid enough to believe that the climate is going to change so suddenly that most of us will die

said one dinosaur to the other dinosaur

banshee_bones

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

The easiest , cheapest and most effective way to reduce population is to improve the education , rights and standard of living of the poorer half of the world.

Alot of LDC's are way off target for achieving MDG 2 by 2015

jacaranda

zod wrote: »

said one dinosaur to the other dinosaur

But isn't that the crux of it. The climate is certainly changing, but (i) can we stop it changing (ii) is it desirable to stop it changing , even if we can & (iii) we seem to think with all the wonderful hubris of man that we can make the climate change in a way which we think we might prefer!

PeteHeat

Perhaps it would be better to accept the fact that there will be change and look to how we manage to survive in the changing world?

Respected or not the Professor does speak a lot of sense, the kind that comes from 90 years experience of living with his fellow man (and women).

The number of people who drive the inefficient car, have poor insulation and insist of using fossil fuels for heating will not change suddenly simply because the majority are doing there best to survive with what they have / can afford.

Solar panels make sense but they can be expensive, very few people buy solar to save oil or our oil generated electricity, they do their best to look on it as a means to save money hence all the figures about pay back.

Very few use their gardens to grow veg because they do not have the time and while in this survival mode the cost of the lost overtime at work is compared with the savings made growing your own to the cost in the supermarket.

Lifestyle changes that we (or our children's children) do not like will have to be forced upon us by natural disasters, peak oil, climate change, wars etc etc take your pick.

Maybe the biggest change we will have to make will be from consumers to producers, people may have to harness their own energy from whatever source they can, grow their own food, maybe communities will blossom where the various skills and abilities will be applied.

Of course the world economy as we know it will have to crash and burn considering the misery caused by our modern economy since the first Wall Street crash to the present day woes maybe that would not be such a bad thing.

Like the Professor said enjoy it while you can.

.

jacaranda

PeteHeat wrote: »

Perhaps it would be better to accept the fact that there will be change and look to how we manage to survive in the changing world?

Respected or not the Professor does speak a lot of sense, the kind that comes from 90 years experience of living with his fellow man (and women).

The number of people who drive the inefficient car, have poor insulation and insist of using fossil fuels for heating will not change suddenly simply because the majority are doing there best to survive with what they have / can afford.

Solar panels make sense but they can be expensive, very few people buy solar to save oil or our oil generated electricity, they do their best to look on it as a means to save money hence all the figures about pay back.

Very few use their gardens to grow veg because they do not have the time and while in this survival mode the cost of the lost overtime at work is compared with the savings made growing your own to the cost in the supermarket.

Lifestyle changes that we (or our children's children) do not like will have to be forced upon us by natural disasters, peak oil, climate change, wars etc etc take your pick.

Maybe the biggest change we will have to make will be from consumers to producers, people may have to harness their own energy from whatever source they can, grow their own food, maybe communities will blossom where the various skills and abilities will be applied.

Of course the world economy as we know it will have to crash and burn considering the misery caused by our modern economy since the first Wall Street crash to the present day woes maybe that would not be such a bad thing.

Like the Professor said enjoy it while you can.

.

Since time began, there have always been prophets of doom. This time they have big budgets and big egos instead of sandwich boards and open toes sandals. They may even be right. But the odds are not in their favour.