Myth busting on the road to armageddon and the inevitable and imminent collapse of the biosphere.
For many years we have been sold the lie that a global warming target of 2C was both Safe and Achievable It was never safe nor achievable under the yoke of Industrial civilisation and unfettered capitalism.
The IPCC has been used as the ‘Standard bearer’ for our green house gas emissions targets and there in lies the rub. Since it’s inception, the IPCC has compromised the science in the interests of political expediency and consensus. This has become a pathway to ecological collapse whilst being championed by the large NGO’s and even the large “Green”party’s world wide including the Green Party of Aotearoa who continue to parrot these myths. Instead of being honest about the severity of the crisis, they defer to political expediency, in the vain hope of electoral success at the expense of telling the truth which they either know and can’t face or are blissfully/willfully ignorant of. Time has run out for that strategy and the biosphere and most if not all complex life that depends on it.
From David Wasdell of the Apollo-Gaia Project;
“It is with the utmost concern that we draw your attention to the fundamental methodological flaw in the determination of the value of Climate Sensitivity that is embedded in the Summary for Policymakers of the Scientific Workgroup of the 5th Assessment Report of the IPCC. The error was replicated in the Reports of Workgroups 2 and 3 and carried forward into the Synthesis Report. It has been used as the given basis for every subsequent publication. Our radical analysis of Climate Dynamics has generated a new and robust value of “Earth System Sensitivity” which has profound implications for:
• The relationship between temperature change and cumulative carbon emissions.
• The calculation of “available carbon budget”.
• The evaluation of the INDCs.
• The terms of reference of COP21 in Paris (30 November – 11 December 2015).
• The future global strategy for climate stabilisation.”
David Wasdell explains his concerns in this excellent interview on Radio Ecoshock . Wasdell refers to himself as not being a “Doom-munger”!!! Many of these otherwise brilliant scientists peer over the precipice we are now tumbling down and refuse to accept that we have crossed the multitude of “Tipping points” they have been warning us of for decades.This is where cognitive dissonance kicks in and the desire to continue to receive large salaries and research grants. For me Michael E Mann is the ‘champion’ of this cognitive dissonance. He and his colleagues identified the “Hockey Stick Theory” and now that it has manifest he can no longer see it!!! This is the privilege of the wealthy elites in the west, infinitely less for our cousins in Africa, the Pacific Islands and the Middle East where habitat is collapsing now, not long off in the future.
A large portion of the blame for the severity of the crisis we find ourselves in is the reliance on ‘Models’ as opposed to the much more expensive but reliable Field Research. Peter Wadhams drew attention to this dichotomy in a recent interview on Extinction Radio
For the first time in human existence we have now crossed 410ppm of carbon in the atmosphere, factoring in the 10 to 30 year lag between cause and effect the warming from most if not all of the carbon emitted this century is baked in but yet to manifest.
We have raced from 369.68ppm in 1999 to 410ppm at the time of writing (22/04/2017). The warming from 10% of all carbon dumped into the atmosphere has yet to manifest.
It is feasible that this Northern Hemisphere summer we could see the first Sea Ice Free summer in the Arctic which will trigger the albedo feedback loop which will lead to more warming and more melt in a vicious feedback that could well lead to the discharge of the 50 gigatonne methane burst or more as predicted by Shakova et al from the University of Fairbanks Alaska. Shakovas’ presentation filmed by Nick Breeze is embedded here;
I spent 25 years of my life as an ocean sailor, during which I completed 16 ocean passages on yachts varying in size from 37 ft to 65 ft. On well over half of those voyages I was the ‘Skipper’.
One ominous role of the Skipper is to always have a well thought out strategy in the event of catastrophic failure or loss of the vessel. My personal belief system is to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth to my crew and fellow passengers.
I detect a very stark comparison between the sinking of Titanic and the collapse of the biosphere. When the Titanic was sinking the affluent (effluent) continued to dance and drink champagne whilst the working class (The same ones who had built industrial civilisation and the wealth to afford the champagne) were locked down in the lower ‘steerage’ cabins drowning. Had I been the skipper on the Titanic, the moment I knew the ship was doomed to sink I would have released all of those hard working people, briefed them on the severity of the predicament and enlisted all of the able bodied to build rafts from the ample furniture and ropes and I would have launched the insufficient number of lifeboats with the young, infirm and elderly with the newly constructed liferafts available for the remainder.
Denial of the severity of the crisis means these liferafts which would at least provide psychological comfort would in some small way mitigate the Tsunami of Grief baring down on us. Alas denial and fascism rule at the end of the human epoch.
In 2014 and 2016 I was privileged to tour NZ with Professor Guy McPherson one of the very few scientists on the planet who is prepared to face the severity of the predicament in it’s totality. Most of the NZ presentations and interviews are embedded here;
Professor McPherson and his colleague Mike Sliwa have an excellent radio show on PRN.FM. The archive is embedded here
Recently I had Dahr Jamail, the man that I believe to be the worlds leading climate journalist staying at my home on Rakino Island Aotearoa New Zealand whilst we both did research for his forthcoming, latest book “The End of Ice”. Dahr writes climate dispatches for TruthOut.org links to his speaking truth to power are embedded here;
The situation is as always infinitely worse that we are being told. This post is an attempt to speak truth to power. “At the edge of extinction, only love remains” GMP.
I'm an anti-imperialist, environmental activist and blue ocean sailor, who is passionate about the earth and all it's inhabitants without favour. Brace for imminent impact as we bare witness to the non-linear unraveling of the biosphere and habitability disappearing for most if not all complex life on the only habitable planet we know of. To quote President Niinistö in North Russia: ‘If We Lose the Arctic, We Lose the World’. Folks we have lost the Arctic.
Kevin Hester 
“Professor Peter Wadhams, an expert on the disappearing Arctic ice, says that while countries in North America and Europe are ignoring the threat that changing weather patterns are causing to the world food supply, China is taking “self-protective action”.
“He says that changes in the jet stream caused by the melting of the ice in the Arctic are threatening the most productive agricultural areas on the planet.”
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/09/26/scientists-too-frightened-to-tell-truth-on-climate-impacts/
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Kevin, I love your posts. One bitty note: the usual phrase is ‘bearing down”. If you search for “baring down”, Google will change it to the other.Thanks for all your work.
In Belize ( ? ), are you at some considerable elevation?
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I’m in NZ mate, Guy McPherson is in Belize, easy mistake though, we are very close. I’m at 50m above sea level.
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Hi Kevin, thank you for this brilliantly written summary of ‘the harsh realities of now’.
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Really good post with very interesting informative links. Apparently steerage passengers on the Titanic were not locked in as the myth says but steerage was much harder and more maze like to get up to deck from and there were people bottlenecks. Steerage were segregated from the top decks prior to being disembarked on Ellis Island for disease and health checks by immigration,many would be sent back to Europe. Many didn’t want to abandon their baggage.
I wonder if Dahr thinks in “An End to Ice” in the new hot house Earth we’re heading into and Lovelock said this even before Guy! Guy is not the first! whether there’ll be any ice left on our Planet including Antarctica? The reality is terrifying and the Scientists who realise the grim reality see no upside for themselves telling the full truth but plenty of downside: rejection by Universities, isolation and being labelled as crazy by the outraged public! Not to mention all the goodies they’ll miss out on such as plum jobs and grants and Scientific status. The wife and kids are happier that way too! Some truths can never be told except by the very brave. 😦 WE live in a time of lies, propaganda, manipulation media mass programming in a word the Matrix.
The Matrix Meeting Morpheus
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The Pentagon describes “Climate Change” as a Threat Multiplier. We all know what that entails!
https://flipboard.com/@flipboard/flip.it%2Frh18eC-the-effects-of-climate-change-will-forc/f-d502cd7c6b%2Fwashingtonpost.com
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Great critique of Bill McKibben and his writing. For me he and Michael E Mann have become part of the problem. Link to a Facebook post below;
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“A more sensitive climate system”
“How much global average temperature eventually will rise depends on the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS), which relates atmospheric CO2 concentration to atmospheric temperature. For decades, ECS has been estimated to be between 2.0° and 4.6°C, with much of that uncertainty owing to the difficulty of establishing the effects of clouds on Earth’s energy budget. Tan et al. used satellite observations to constrain the radiative impact of mixed phase clouds. They conclude that ECS could be between 5.0° and 5.3°C—higher than suggested by most global climate models.”
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6282/224.full?ijkey=bkSwN9koNAHgQ&keytype=ref&siteid=sci
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“David Wasdell’s new paper on climate sensitivity is a bit worrying.”February 14/ 2014
“The temperature response to the current set of emission-reduction pledges is c. 10°C, not c. 4°C as indicated in the SPM.
The temperature response to which we are already committed at the present level of cumulative carbon emission is 3.9°C (+ effect of non-CO2 GHG emissions) not 1.5°C implied in the SPM.
The budget of c. 300GtC of available carbon emission before breaching the 2°C policy target is seen to be an illusion. In reality the carbon account is already overdrawn by c. 288GtC.”
https://www.democraticunderground.com/112764607
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I am less concerned with how the numbers are changing than with how the attitudes are, or should be, changing.
For years, McKibben never attacked Obama’s hypocrisy on climate. He merely said to his followers, let’s try to persuade Obama, let’s try to make him aware, etc.
In a recent article, McKibben finally did attack Trudeau’s hypocrisy on climate. That’s an advance in awareness for McKibben, and for his followers. McKibben does a good job of writing in clear and nontechnical terms, which is part of why he has so many followers.
But McKibben still is not thinking in terms of systems. He is still pointing the blame finger at individual people and groups of people — first the fossil fuel companies, then Trudeau. He has not yet see that the fossil fuel companies and Trudeau are driven by a larger system: capitalism and plutocracy.
The only way to avoid rule by the wealthy class is to not have a wealthy class; that requires a total change of our economic system. Our present system, driven by private profit, makes climate change an inevitable externalized cost. That’s in the principles, not just some superficial corruption, not something that can be fixed through mere reforms. If McKibben would see that, then he might write about it in a way that would make his followers see it, and then we might get change. Unfortunately, he isn’t seeing it yet.
Naomi Klein warned us about this trap, and then fell into the trap herself. Here 2011 article “Capitalism versus the Climate” pointed out that most leftists and environmentalists are in denial about how big are the changes we will need in our economic system in order to address climate change. But her 2014 book, with nearly the same title, only suggested reforms, despite its title.
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Michael C Ruppert used to say “Unless we change the way money works we change nothing”. Mike and you are spot on.
My problem with McKibben and Klein is they are still being funded by the Rockeller foundation.
For more on their mendacity follow Wrong Kind of Green.
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Kindred souls, how do you keep going? We grew up with “duck and cover” to escape a nuclear blast. The decision not to have children was easy for us, ee were too busy with teaching and making software systems, but now that people are finally breaking out of linear model thinking, is seems way too little and waay too late!
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Kevin Andersen interviewed on Democracy Now.
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And here’s some of those ‘dynamics’ to chew on:
https://hartmannreport.com/p/will-the-red-state-mega-global-warming?publication_id=302288&post_id=112512640&isFreemail=true
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The Wizard of Oz tornadoes were NOTHING like what we’ve been experiencing the last few years. And this year, hell, it’s only the start of month #4 and it’s been going insane in the US MAGAT slave states and GOP-run states. Some of those states (and GOP states in general) are the poorest and least educated in the countryThe weather weenies have been just freaking the hell out because it’s just not predictable at this point. Climate models aren’t fitting very well anymore, so it’s just a crap shoot which area is going to get smashed flat.
And boy are they getting smashed flat, but not flat like the bigger meaner hurricanes are doing to the Deep South slave state coastlines or the wildfires in the West are. Finger of God shit writing on the planet as it tears through flimsy human settlements is pretty impressive to watch on youtube, though, I must admit!
So I’m waiting to see just how freaking bad the El Nino is going to cook me up here in the Inland Pacific NW mountains while watching the pre-game show in the Midwest before the hurricanes start up and really do some crushing.
sealintheSelkirks
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More ‘dynamics’ to deal with in a state that the former governor banned the mention of anything to do with even the pansy-ass term ‘climate change’ much less climate collapse, atmospheric destabilization, or Global Over-Heating by any state employee on pain of termination:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/13/2163671/-Fort-Lauderdale-experiences-25-inches-of-rainfall-in-less-than-seven-hours
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Wow, this is an impressive little beachfront squall, eh Kev? I can’t say that I give a shit because the entire US Deep South slave-states are desperately trying to deserve what they get for voting these fucks into office. Can’t wait to see what the increasingly vicious hurricanes will do this year… Of course it’s going to burn in heat up here in these mountains. UGH.
As GOP/MAGA congressmen/women are now demanding a ‘national divorce’ from the ‘blue progressive states’ (as if Democrats aren’t owned by the wealthy, too?) that would slash the hell out of any disaster relief funding (FEMA etc), my sympathy levels have hit an all-time low for the continue existence of stupid. Don’t they understand what is going to happen if they ‘divorce’ themselves from those that are paying the taxes that flow to their impoverished states?
Does this make me a ‘bad person’ or just a realist who has figured out that I can do absolutely nothing to raise the IQs of these people?
sealintheSelkirks
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