Baked In, Baked Off: The Trump Administration Climate “Admission”

start by owning one’s one actions in one’s own tiny world. (like the backpackers’ mantra, leave no trace.. and another, minimize your presence..) what’s your personal energy consumption metric, mandos?
– no car?
– thermostat settings as a f(seasons)?
– climate-controlled living space?
– ???

It’s locked in – in the pipeline, as a frequent though subdued commenter here used to say – seven billion people on a ball of rock that can barely sustain one. Do. The Math. Grow thicker skin.

The only thing that counts is my grandchildren’s survival.

ah, the power of the masses: hollywood wouldn’t be the hollywood it is if fewer folks patronized their products. i think of david foster wallace. writing about the pervasive entertain me, entertain me mindset of the contempory masses. i admire him for turning off the ignition and tossing the keys.

I do not think you can talk about human driven climate change without also discussing overpopulation. They go together. Almost no one talks about overpopulation. As for climate change, people talk about it, but they don’t do much about it. The Paris Accords are voluntary and are not slated to start until 2020. They are framed within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which went into force in 1994, that is 24 years ago. Hardly a blistering pace from where I’m sitting.

Trump is out to destroy the EPA because he is a kleptocrat. Belief doesn’t really enter into it. Kleptocrats don’t care. They will loot to a collapse and then loot the collapse. It is all and always IBG, YBG. I’ll be gone, you’ll be gone. Despite all the hoopla, coal is not coming back no matter what Trump wants. Many utilities have switched to natural gas. The plants are already built.
Others are still on the drawing boards. They are not going to switch back. As for coal jobs, there are only about 50,000 left in the whole US. They aren’t coming back both because of this and also because the coal industry moved to hilltop removal which is environmentally damaging but requires few workers. Also, many of Trump’s attacks on the environment through sleazy corrupt hacks like Pruitt are tied up in the courts. Other attacks on the environment like hilltop removal, fracking, and deep water drilling predate his administration.

I saw an article in the paper today that people are enlarging their garages to fit their ever more monstrously sized SUVs. If we were having a serious public discussion on climate change, I would think an important part of it would be on the social irresponsibility of such vehicles. But that’s just it, there is talk but no serious discussion and even less action. As I have often said here, we have until 2030 to have serious responses up and running to both climate change and overpopulation. If we do not, it will not be us but Mother Nature who will determine our fate.

If I understand the prediction, it is that We’re Doomed no matter what, so get what you can while you can, the Devil take the hindmost. Western society has been through this phase many times.

I’ve been saying that Our Rulers have long known and believed and acted on precisely this. And they have no intention of becoming the victims of what is to come. They are fully prepared to sacrifice the Rabble in its entirety so long as they themselves stay safe and served, even if it’s in their bunkers or on a freaking other planet.

They are determined to survive and prosper no matter what comes, including a Climate Catastrophe or Revolution. They care not at all what happens to the rest of us, and would just as soon we disappear sooner rather than later. Thus, why not accelerate the inevitable?

The Overpopulation Thing is one area where parts of the Rabble and their Betters are in perfect sync. The only question is who gets eliminated and how quickly. No matter what, the Overclass is busy ensuring it won’t be them.





Since we’re the frickin USofA, a Floridian version of the Zuiderzee Works would be at least twice as big as anything those clompy shoed dutch could do, employing at least twice the number snowflakes. Where the money come from? Like everything else meant to enrich True Capitalists, we frickin finance it. Make the dumbass children pay. They always start out as snowflakes anyways.

As I understand it, the underlying soil substrate in the Florida coastal regions are sufficiently porous that dikes won’t work as the water will simply rise through the soil. Maybe Miami can be re-engineered into a latter day Venice but I wouldn’t bet on it. If we were serious about mitigation, we’d be talking mass reforestation as well as reducing greenhouse emissions. Forests are nature’s own carbon sequestration schemes.

Indeed. The future of this Great Land Of Ours involves the coal miners. That wind energy is becoming competitive with coal power for cost is a buncha liberal hot air:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/dominicdudley/2018/01/13/renewable-energy-cost-effective-fossil-fuels-2020/#583f8154ff2e
and more polluting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H65Co1W_BCQ

All the best true patriots know that gays, not global warming, is what’s really causing
Floridian hurricanes (well, maybe the trailer trash who’d rather be drunk than at church). Unfortunately if we move gays into trailer parks well into the interior, tornadoes will happen. It’s always something with this tough love God of ours.

Peter

Making the people of Appalachia even poorer by ending coal mining is a brilliant idea.

1) Coal ain’t making them rich. The environmentally destructive practice of mountaintop removal replacing underground mining and mechanization is what is driving down coal employment, not the EPA. In fact, one of the reasons why mountaintop removal was in 2002 the Bush administration started allowing mining companies to dump mining waste into the region’s natural waterways, while making more lax the restriction that the land had to be restored.

Appalachia does not make much money on coal. It is an extractive industry and the profits from it gets largely exported elsewhere. In that way you could consider Appalachia a ‘colony’ of sorts for the rest of the nation. Appalachia is being *plundered*, not helped, by coal.

2) Appalachia can be economically diversified. In fact, some of it already is:

http://economicdiversityinappalachia.creconline.org/

Might I add that the more prosperous counties in blue aren’t the ones being plundered for their coal? The problem with more diversification is that this, can’t be done solely by Daddy Warbucks any more than Daddy Warbucks would have brought electricity to this region. You need something like the TVA.

“I do not think you can talk about human driven climate change without also discussing overpopulation. ”

Sure you can, most people doing the polluting are from developed societies. The poor people do not add that much to the total. The only difference is China, and that is not because of population but because they want power. it is not the number, it is the impact.

Largely, it is the rich and their followers who want to keep coal place that is the biggest contributors (though at this point is to simply cutting coal is nowhere near enough). They want free pollution, because to them it is free. The people pay for it, of course, think differently. But largely their children or not yet born.

I normally don’t read Mandos but the topic is important so I read the post.

It will take a lava flow-load of multi-million citizen pressure against the political system for many years to force the political system to countenance and then begin to apply any even-the-mildest regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.

It would take a multi-million-member movement many years to apply that level of citizen pressure against the political-government complex to force that complex to begin the kind of regulation which Mandos considers a minimal first-step start. And it would take a culture of millions of members to support and sustain such a movement. How would such a culture emerge and from where?

For example, in America the Slaves began accepting the reality of their shared fate and position in the Enslavement Society. They evolved over several generations a culture with shared language and lifeways-and-lifemeans, and a shared Church. This became the Black Church which became culturally coherent enough to support a multi-decades-long Civil Rights Movement.

How might Americans for DeWarming the Global find some way to see eachother through the social fog and hear eachother through the social static and cultural pink noise? One way might well be through visible personal conservation lifestyling. If the numbers of people doing conservation lifestyling rose to some tipping-point threshhold-number of millions of people; those people might co-ordinate elements of their social and conservation-lifestyling lives enough to begin forming up into a culture. If they could retain or even strengthen their culture-of-conservation group-coherency, they might be able to power up a movement for pressuring the political-government complex into beginning the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions which might lead to successful control of such emissions. In the context of that approach and set of steps, personal conservation lifestyling could become a useful pursuit.

How much actual de-greenhousing effect such a conservation-based culture-movement of millions could have from the personal behavior-sphere by adding up their millions of personal greenhouse-reduction lifestyling arrangements is an interesting topic for debate and would remain to be seen. If 50 million Americans decidec to take this approach . . . evolving themselves into a Conservation Culture able to support a Greenhouse Control Movement long-term strong enough to force the political-government complex into Greenhouse Control Regulation . . . . we would get an answer to that question.

If America has 250 million people adult enough and brain-functional enough to know what “culture” is and what a “movement” is, then 50 million of those people could develop a Conservation Lifestyling Culture and make it strong enough to support a Global DeWarming Movement. And if they did so, that would still leave 200 million Americans able to divide themselves into 4 OTHER groups of 50 million people apiece pursuing 4 OTHER culture-creation and movement support approaches in distinction from or even in opposition to the Conservation Culture approach I am suggesting. These 5 separate TAGS ( Theory Action Groups) need not jealously poach eachothers’ members or spitefully put broken glass in eachothers’ shoes. They could each focus on their separate goals and approaches and see which goals and approaches meet with Darwin’s approval.

dc: “I normally don’t read Mandos but the topic is important so I read the post.”
….. what a douche.

@UserFriendly:
Nice to see you over here. And thank you for all the work you do over at naked capitalism.

On topic, and carrying over from a previous thread, none of this changes until the boomers are out of power. You know the old saying about teaching a old dog new tricks? Well, this is what we’re experiencing. They were brought up in Mayberry. There was no climate change. There was no sexual assault (at least that made the news). There was no great depression (that they could remember). Growing up, the world was just one big happy Dr. Spock love fest. Take the show Mad Men as instructive. That is how the boomers were raised. No regard for shit unless it benefits them personally. They are simply a massive Dunning-Krueger demographic that can’t relate to the modern problems that they allowed to transpire on their watch, because they had no ability to wrap their heads around the problems from the way they were raised.

Seriously, these are my parents. All of these new problems we face, they honestly STRUGGLE to understand them. Now, Ten Bears & dc, I know this isn’t you, and apologies are in order for my personal attack in an earlier thread. I apologize. I don’t like myself when I get that way. But I mean it when I say you guys need to own it.

ps,
and i categorize hollywood w/ religions, as both market the imaginary for entertainment. and as anyone knows, too much of a good thing — entertainment in this case — can wreak havoc.

How does the greatest generation spawn the leastest generation? You’d think that painful lessons from the past would be gradually diminished over many generations, instead of being almost completely lost on the very next one.

Of course not everybody is cut from the same rationalistically selfish me-first cloth. There are rational empaths from every generation who can figure things out for themselves, to see reality for what it is and do the cause-effect reasoning it takes to discern where things are heading, while caring about the impacts to everybody else. But they seem to underestimate the number of babbling tribal sycophants wired to mindlessly follow devious power players like a bunch of silly yellow minions. They don’t know how to counter things like stampeding mobs or overgrazing herds since logic doesn’t work well on the masses when emotions are in control.

IMHO, boomers were ripe for manipulation by the always present worst elements, because of certain circumstances already described by others here. I’m curious about how many of them can learn the painful lessons which they never had, by observing the struggles of their own children.

@Webstir,

I note you recently referred to my “diminished mental capacity”. I think I remember you having TESS- tified to having been a practicing alcoholic in your past. I also remember realitychecker having brought it up from time to time when he felt it helpful or useful.

If my memory is wrong about that then that would show my mental capacity is indeed reduced. If I remember correctly, that might serve to indicate that my memory at least is pretty strong. For your part, I wonder how many millions of brain cells you might have killed during your past alcoholism. I suppose your own personal experience and possibly present condition might well make you an expert in diminished mental capacity.

Be that as it may, you are still a Youth-Nazi and an Age-Racist. And I am still . . . In the Way and In your Face.

@Webstir,

By the way, I accept your apology, now that I have circled back and read it. I don’t like it when you get that way, either. And I will respond in the very nastiest way I know whenever I am subjected to it. And I will do it again if provoked, every single time.

Also, the good people at Naked Capitalism have noted the logical fallacy and failure of thought and analysis involved in broad brush generational stereotyping. Their thoughts on the subject deserve a close and careful reading.

Womandos, you are a dumbass nigga and I don’t usually say nigga, nigga. But I am satin nigga a lot in this post mah nigga!

LOLOLOL I makes myself life like Jesus with a turnip in his bumhole

Did you here the joke about the grammar Nazi? He also gassed the Jews and then gassed irregardless! ROFLCOMPUTER

@doc,
sweeping generalizations: let’s take walmart, as a simple example. who keeps their massively complex store shelves supply chains working? the ceo, their corporate mba’s, the local store employees, or all of the corp’s employees and stockholders and board? at some point, when discussing issues, the context demands appropriate labels, simply to reduce drowning in details. in the present case of the greatest generation affecting the leastest generation, i think sweeping generalizations are more appropriate than naming my bestest most greatest fifth grade teacher who perhaps set my life compass more than any other of my puplic school teachers. why name all of them?

A general question for the readers: on what basis is a bunch of future warming considered to be baked into the future from the current present? On the basis of heat already in storage in earth’s surface, the oceans, etc.? Or on the basis of global warming gases currently in the atmosphere which are considered to be difficult or impossible to remove in less than a century or so?

different clue, reducing human contributions to climate change is like trying to change the course of a supertanker. It’s not going to be easy. It is a combination of where you already are, how long you delay in acting, and how much you do to change course.

It’s the trajectory, and the world is not doing that much. The stated goal of the Paris Agreement was to keep world temperature increase well below 2°C. But the UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) said that the Paris Agreement pledges are “only a third of what is needed to avoid worst impacts of climate change.”

It went on to say:

“The Paris Agreement looks to limit global warming to under 2° C, with a more ambitious goal of 1.5° C also on the table. Meeting these targets would reduce the likelihood of severe climate impacts that could damage human health, livelihoods and economies across the globe.

As things stand, even full implementation of current unconditional and conditional Nationally Determined Contributions makes a temperature increase of at least 3° C by 2100 very likely.”

https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/press-release/emissions-gap-report-2017-governments-non-state-actors-must-do-more

There are also other things like ice sheets that once melted would take centuries or even millennia to refreeze under the best of circumstances, and along with that salinity levels in the oceans.

@Hugh,

I was asking a different and narrower question having to do with the energetics of the mechanism of the warming buildup. Is it the heat already in the oceans which will keep the global warmed no matter what people do about levels of greenhouse gases in the air? Or is it the greenhouse gases currently there and new amounts expected to join them which will keep preventing pre-industrial levels of heat re-radiation from earth back into space . . . which is what will keep the warming going?

I will propose my own “theory”. It is the greenhouse gases themselves which will keep the warming going because they will still be incurably up there still reducing earth-heat infra-red re-radiation into space which will cause the onrolling heat buildup. It is the gases themselves, not the heat already “down here” in the oceans, which will keep earth-surface heating. Am I wrong about that? Strictly at the physical mechanism level?

@highrpm,

Feinstein is pre-boomer by many years. I haven’t run the numbers, but she is either Silent Generation or Greatest Generation at the very least. I wonder how many other Senators are pre-boomer?

I do not have a generational view. Young people can have old ideas and vice versa. What is important is the ideas.

But for others to decide, here are some of the ages of current leaders and people seen in the Kavanaugh hearings:

Dianne Feinstein b. 1933 (85 yrs old)
Nancy Pelosi b. 1940 (78)
Chuck Schumer b. 1950 (67) Soon to be 68
Joe Biden b. 1942 (75) Soon to be 76
Elizabeth Warren b. 1949 (69)
Patrick Leahy b. 1940 (78)
Bernie Sanders b. 1941 (77)

Donald Trump b. 1946 (72)
Mitch McConnell b. 1942 (76)
Chuck Grassley b. 1933 (85)
Lindsey Graham b. 1955 (63)

On the development of the kleptocracy, I guess it’s time to recommend once again my favorite documentary on the subject — Adam Curtis’ Century of the Self.

@dc,
geez. nitpicking. ever heard of reasonance? dissonance? flow? pre-existing grudge? dc, what does your sensitivity say about embedded transferences? my bias to old age was obvious w/o pychoanalysis: if boomers should make room for youngsters, then of course, pre-boomers should look for the exits, too. (as as far as old age bias, look no further than silicon valley and the typing speed of younger programmers versus older boomer coders.)

@Hugh,

Your reply lends validation to my all-along thought that it is the excess CO2 in the atmosphere which is depressing the IR re-radiation of heat from earth into space to below pre-industrial levels.
So . . . the further warming predicted to continue is considered baked in because the ongoing presence of excess CO2 in the atmosphere is considered baked in.

But is the current CO2 skyload currently baked in? If aerial CO2 were sucked down out of the air back to only the pre-industrial amount remaining up there, then the IR re-radiating back out into space would be less re-reflected back to earth surface and hence more able to escape, just like before the Industrial Revoluion. And that would let the earth-surface system re-cool fairly quickly back down to pre-Industrial levels.

So . . . is there a reason why the CO2 currently in the air is considered non-removable over any
near-future historical timespan?

different clue, human contributions have thrown the natural carbon cycle out of balance. From the wiki article I cited above:

“the natural decay of organic material in forests and grasslands and the action of forest fires results in the release of about 439 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide every year, while new growth entirely counteracts this effect, absorbing 450 gigatonnes per year.”

That’s about 10 gigatons CO2 clearing capacity each year in the natural carbon cycle. So if we have something like a trillion excess tons of CO2 in the atmosphere, at this rate it would take about 100 years to clear. Now we would not need to clear all this before we began to reduce some of the effects of climate change, but we aren’t doing this. We keep adding to the excess. And of course, this would not mean glaciers and ice sheets that took tens and hundreds of thousands of year to form would suddenly reappear.

I wanted to add again in response to Sterling, that the 5th IPCC Assessment report identifies population and economic activity as the two largest drivers of human contributions to climate change. It does consider that economic activity is increasing faster.

@Peter,

This may be a valuable comment that you have offered. Are there links to any of these studies clickable on-line? Are there names and places for these studies so they may be looked up and read off-line in the analog-meatspace real-world realisphere?

@DC

There are dozens of reports about the topic, CO2 climate sensitivity, to be viewed at a google search. You would probably have to pay to view the studies online but the results and methods are discussed in many of the reports. The climate alarmist as well as the climate skeptic sites are all reporting lower sensitivity numbers but still disagree about the numbers and what they mean.

There is a whole cottage industry of whack human driven climate change deniers. Nicola Scafetta belongs to this group. He thinks that what heating has occurred is due to the movement of planets, cosmic rays, and solar activity (although there is no evidence for any of this).

https://skepticalscience.com/scafetta-widget-problems.html

Was going to make another comment but shall go to open thread instead

( My lonely comment sits and weeps in moderation).