#CLIMATE #APOCALYPSE: #ARCTIC SEA ICE GONE IN TWO MONTHS

Good Afternoon Folks

Just so you know and don't get blindsided by events.

   'more heat will accumulate in the Arctic Ocean, threatening that the methane hydrates tipping point will get crossed."  

Best Regards

TM

PLEASE SHARE

ARCTIC SEA ICE GONE IN TWO MONTHS

All I can say is that we are in a heap of trouble - Where 's the media coverage? Government? NGO's?

This is an all hands on deck matter and we are quickly running out of time. Someone needs to sound the horn. 

 

This is the biggest crisis humanity has ever faced; we are asleep at the switch - maybe we don't know where it is?

TM

Arctic sea ice could disappear completely within two months' time

Arctic sea ice fell by 3.239 million km² in extent in 25 days (i.e. from July 1 to 25, 2020). Melting will likely continue for another two months. If it continues on its current trajectory, the remaining 6.333 million km² of Arctic sea ice could disappear completely within two months' time.

The fall in extent over the next two months' time may not remain as as steep as it was in July, yet the sea ice still could disappear completely. One reason for this is that, over the years, sea ice thickness has been declining even faster than extent. The rapid decline in sea ice thickness is illustrated by the sequence of images below.

The image on the right further illustrates that sea ice is getting very thin, which threatens the latent heat tipping point to get crossed. 

Sea currents and the Coriolis force will make that the influx of warm, salty water into the Arctic Ocean will continue. With no buffer of sea ice left underneath the surface of the sea ice to absorb incoming ocean heat, more heat will accumulate in the Arctic Ocean, threatening that the methane hydrates tipping point will get crossed.

The navy.mil animation below was run on July 27, 2020, and shows sea ice thickness over 30 days (last 8 frames are forecasts for July 28 - August 4, 2020).

Here's another indication that the buffer is disappearing fast. North of Greenland and of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, some 700 km from the North Pole, sea ice is disappearing, precisely where the thickest sea ice used to be located.

High greenhouse gas levels are causing high temperatures over the Arctic and high ocean temperatures. 

On July 25, 2020, sea surface temperatures in the Arctic Ocean were as high as 20.8°C or 69.4°F (at the green circle on above image).

At that same location, on July 22, 2020, sea surface temperatures in the Arctic Ocean were as much as 17°C or 30.5°F higher than the daily average during the years 1981-2011.

This location is where the Pechora River flows into the Barents Sea (the green circle pointed at by the white arrow on above image).

Distortion of the jet stream is causing more extreme weather, resulting in the recent lengthy heatwave over Siberia that has heated up the water of rivers flowing into the Arctic Ocean.

Ominously, a cyclone appears to be developing over the Arctic Ocean, as illustrated by the image on the right. 

Underneath on the right is a forecast for August 7, 2020, showing rain over the North Pole. 

In summary, Arctic sea ice may disappear completely over the next two months, and there are at least five reasons why this could occur:

• Low Arctic sea ice extent;
• Low Arctic sea ice thickness;
• High ocean temperature;
• High greenhouse gas levels and high temperatures over the Arctic;
• Distorted jet stream causing extreme weather such as storms resulting in sea ice collapse.

The situation is dire and calls for immediate, comprehensive and effective action, as described in the Climate Plan.


Links

• NSIDC Arctic sea ice
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews

• Polar Portal - sea ice volume
http://polarportal.dk/en/sea-ice-and-icebergs/sea-ice-thickness-and-volume

• NASA Worldview
https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov

• Arctic Hit By Ten Tipping Points
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2020/04/arctic-hit-by-ten-tipping-points.html

• Fast Path to Extinction
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2020/06/fast-path-to-extinction.html

• 2020 Siberian Heatwave continues
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2020/06/2020-siberian-heatwave-continues.html

• Climate Plan
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climateplan.html

--

T. A McNeil

CEO and Founder 

First Financial Insights Inc.

#POTH SEQUEL #FREE VIP #WEBINAR - PLANET OF THE HUMANS

  

"MOST IMPORTANT STAR-STUDDED WEBINAR EVER"

  

RED CARPET EVENT

What did the film get right, and what should we do about it?

Live VIP Webinar
Tuesday, May 19

6 pm U.S. Pacific Time

9 pm U.S. Eastern Time

                               

No Cost to Attend

Video Replay link will be provided to all Registrants

REGISTER HERE

What should we do in response to the key messages of Planet of the Humans? Love it or hate it, there’s no escaping some inconvenient truths in this controversial film released by Michael Moore. Join us as we examine those truths, consider the necessary course corrections, and identify actions we can take now – to avoid terminating or greatly harming human civilization.

Our panel will share insights about the film and what they believe are the key take-aways. They’ll discuss the roles of overpopulation, overconsumption, and economic growth in the most serious environmental crises we face. Most importantly, they’ll pick up where the film leaves off: discussing what we can and should do if this film motivates us to act. See the movie free for a limited time.

 

Kristine Mattis

An interdisciplinary environmental scholar with a background in Biology and Earth System Science, Kristine has worked as a medical researcher, a science reporter for the congressional record in the U.S. House of Representatives, and a science teacher. She holds a PhD in Environment and Resources. Her writing encompasses issues of social and environmental justice, public health, risk, and science.

 

Dave Gardner

Co-host of the GrowthBusters podcast about sustainable living; co-host of The Overpopulation Podcast; director of the documentary GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth; host of the syndicated radio series, Conversation Earth; and executive director of World Population Balance.

 

Erika Arias

Co-host of the GrowthBusters podcast about sustainable living; co-host of The Overpopulation Podcast; Programs & Engagement Coordinator for World Population Balance, and a childfree researcher and advocate

 

Brian Czech

Executive director of the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE). With a Ph.D. in renewable natural resources, his specialties intersect ecological economics, conservation biology, and public policy. The author of several books, Czech recently edited Best of The Daly News: Selected Essays from the Leading Blog in Steady State Econ

VIP REGISTER HERE

The Big Guy is RIGHT #POTH;

'I think the big crisis of our times is that our minds have been manipulated to give power to illusions'. — Vandana Shiva

Climate Crisis: Our Ecological Dysfunction Has a Marketing Problem (and it’s not Michael Moore)

I first heard of Jeff Gibbs’ contentious film Planet of the Humans (POH) sometime last year. Like millions of others, I viewed it just recently. Over the past week, the scathingly negative reviews I discovered disheartened but did not surprise me. While the film may present outdated statistics about so-called renewable energy technologies (which should have been revised to reflect current trends), while it may clumsily cobble together disparate aspects of the ecological effects of our species on the planet, and while it utilizes what may be characterized as calculating imagery to evoke emotional resonance (as all films do), the crux of Gibbs’ argument should not be discarded and deserves discussion: that we cannot achieve ecological sustainability without addressing the role of humanity’s overproduction and overconsumption.

It seems to me that people who watch this film project onto it what they want to see, much like they did with Advertising Age’s Marketer of the Year, President Obama, during his 2008 campaign. Rather than view the film for what it is, they see it through their personal lens. My lens is, at my core, that of a biologist, which means what I see concerns life and the preservation of life on this planet. What I see is that our ecological dysfunction is not merely one of climate crisis, but of the totality of human disruptions that impair the health of all organisms and ecosystems.

Compartmentalization and reductionism: “To a man with a hammer, everything is a nail”

Some critics of the film are proving to be as disingenuous as they purport the filmmakers to be. The film may be facile at times, but so are many of the critiques. Myopia on the topics of renewables and population (which I will discuss further down) overlooks the heart of the film: that we cannot continue to increase our economic growth and resource use on a finite planet; that we are leaving a morass of waste and pollution in our wake that is killing all life on the planet, including us; that our high-tech solutions to maintain our over-consumptive way of life have not done any good in terms of mitigating our colossal environmental emergencies; and that overexploitation of natural resources is a major problem that we refuse to address.

On the May 1st edition of Rising, filmmaker Josh Fox, who called for an all-out ban of POH, stated, “The IPPC is telling us that we have to reduce our emissions by 50%, OK, 50% in the next ten years. That means we have to replace 50% of the fossil fuel technology in the world — or more than that — with renewable energy.” This is circular logic that assumes only one possible solution: replacement of energy sources rather than reduction of energy use. Both are possible.

Critics like Josh quibble about the inaccuracies with the carbon budgets and carbon accounting of so-called green energy because they say that the renewable energy technologies explored in the film are now much more cost-effective and efficient than what the films claim. True enough. Yet there is so much more to the picture, which is why many of these reductive scientific analyses do not suffice in terms of overall ecological sustainability. Most look at carbon and little else within the life cycle analysis (LCA) of technologies. This is partially because there do not exist clear comprehensive metrics through which to quantify ecology, though researchers continually try. I know from my own experience conducting LCAs that pertinent variables are frequently omitted, either by design (they are not or because the variable does not have reliable data or cannot be numerically quantified. Thus, LCAs do not necessarily reflect a complete picture of the whole ecological footprint of the technology. Moreover, sometimes qualitative issues are more important than quantitative. (See addendum for example.)

Critics of POH rarely if ever mention ecological and environmental health, toxic pollutants, and general resource use, perhaps because a good number of them originate from high-tech and engineering fields. They do not account for the entire diverse ecosystem, with all of its flora and fauna, that was decimated to create that mirrored solar array in the California desert, as shown in the film. Land use, habitat loss, and toxic contamination are primary drivers of our biodiversity crisis. In creating that solar playground, we might win in terms of non-fossil fuel energy, but we lose in a number of other ways that are unaccounted for. They also do not consider the socioeconomic, political, and public health costs of our continually increasing resource extraction and industrial lifestyle, nor the human rights and environmental justice issues therein.

.READ MORE

LEARN MORE

#2050 RESOURCE #DEPLETION SPELLS END OF INDUSTRIAL AGE

" We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics"      - FDR

BLIP

Humanity's 300 year self-terminating experiment with industrialism

Since the inception of our industrial revolution, we increasingly ingenious Homo sapiens have been depleting - persistently and increasingly - the finite, non-replenishing, and increasingly scarce NNRs (nonrenewable natural resources) that enable our industrialized way of life, and our very existence.

Regrettably, because the NNR utilization behavior that enables our species' existence - and that is essential to perpetuating our existence - simultaneously undermines our existence, both our NNR utilization behavior and our resultant industrial lifestyle paradigm are unsustainable.

As a perverse consequence of our unparalleled ingenuity, we have become enmeshed in a self-inflicted, inescapable, and self-terminating "predicament" - we are doomed if we persist in our unsustainable NNR utilization behavior, and we are doomed if we do not - a predicament that will resolve itself catastrophically for humankind.

NATURE BATS LAST

The premise of "Blip" is that increasingly pervasive global NNR scarcity is causing faltering global human prosperity, which is causing increasing global political instability, economic fragility, and societal unrest.

This scenario will intensify during the coming decades and culminate in humanity's self-inflicted global societal (species) collapse, almost certainly by the year 2050.

"Blip" substantiates these seemingly inconceivable assertions by synthesizing the quantitative and qualitative evidence produced by hundreds of scientists, scholars, researchers, and analysts in the various physical sciences and behavioral sciences that address the origins and evolution of industrial humanity and human industrialism.

These experts produced the "dots", which are connected clearly and comprehensibly in "Blip".

We will soon discover that humanity's self-terminating experiment with industrialism represents a mere 300 year "blip" along the three million year timeline of human existence.

Dear Chris ;

Thanks so much for a copy of your recent book.  As always, excellent work.

Here are a few of my humble observations and thoughts, adding further despondency to the whole situation. 

Aggregating all NNRs from a planetary perspective, thereby creating a single theoretical planetary NNR unit to your lessons, should help clearly convey our grave circumstances, thusly causing even deeper concern among readers.

Following from the above, one could point out that it is our traditional economic theory that drove us into this abyss. And it still fails to acknowledge or understand the realities we now face in terms of certain economic collapse, particularly as NNRs diminishing returns will tie directly to the dilution and collapse of all currencies. Few will understand, it seems until it is much too late, that this is the true and primary cause of ALL Fiscal Cliffs - not our politicians, for sure.

The diminishing returns from the planetary NNR unit are also dramatically accelerated by population growth, climate change, and other related concerns. Throw into this mix, the demise of the supporting social, economic, and political frameworks, then the dark outcomes of diminishing returns get much deeper.

So, the only question to ponder now is: Where do we stand? And based on the projected extraction and consumption growth of the global NNR units, all other things being equal;   

HOW MUCH LONGER DO WE HAVE; EVEN ON A BEST CASE BASIS? 

Sincerely,

T. A. McNeil, B.Admin, CMA, CA

CEO - Founder

First Financial Insights Inc.

WATCH THE MOST IMPORTANT VIDEO EVER

#POTH - 30 YEARS NO #RESOURCES (NNRs) SEALS #HUMANITY'S FATE

Out of intense complexities, intense simplicities emerge " - W Churchill  

First, I truly believe that there is almost no time left to create any long-term sustainable solution for the human predicament. In all likelihood, we have about 30 years left because we know civilization will collapse once we run out of key non-renewable resources (NNRs) and that would likely lead to wars, conflicts, and other horrors in the end-game process.  (See Blip Stanford Edu )

But we could also be wiped out before that time due to the consequences of either climate change or ecological destruction. Either one could spell the demise of homo sapiens in short order. Short of global genocide reducing the population by 90% or more - any other form of population or birth control would now be pointless given the terminal diseases noted.  We needed to be introducing population and growth control measures 200, or more years ago, before these diseases had a chance to become malignant.

Even if there was enough time, I would not, however, support and endorse violence nor race stratification policies of any form for moral, human, and historic reasons. We had already experienced that these tactics would lead to suppression, tyrannies, and criminal authoritarianism. Not healthy for the virtues of liberty, justice, equality, and democracy. Dangerous and ultimately deadly for all.

There is another approach one could consider that is less offensive and does not jeopardize human rights, social justice, and democracy to the same degree. It is still, however, a drastic measure with moral perils. That approach is the implementation of new taxation on individuals.

SO HOW MANY CHILDREN DO YOU HAVE

Two new forms of tax could be leveled on both births and new-comers. If we view citizenship as being a right or benefit similar to a business entity's common shareholding, then it could be accorded an economic value that could be fairly and justifiably determined; then charged as a tax when it is acquired by birth or migration. For instance, the net present value of the benefits of a US birth maybe $250,00 for a  citizen's birth of their new-comer child, whereas other newcomers by way of foreigner childbirth in the country or an immigrating person would be taxed at a much higher level - say, $500,000.

Why the difference? Because current citizens and their forebears built the country and its inherent economic and social values- they are the invisible and unrecognized shareholders in the country or national enterprise whose past efforts are to be appreciated and monetized by the lower level of tax on their childbirths. The tax meanwhile also reflects the hypothetical future aggregate costs of climate, ecological, resource, and economic footprints over an expected lifespan of 80 years these people  - assuming highly optimistic current mortalities would still apply.

However, as mentioned above, such taxes or other plans would be redundant in application because again there is simply not enough time left to resolve the driving overpopulation and economic growth issue nor the climate, ecological, and resource problems they create. Measures probably needed to be taken at the commencement of the Industrial Age - 300 years ago -when the insanity of infinite growth in a finite context should have been mathematically realized -and thus future populations and growth accordingly limited. 

Adam Smith plus all subsequent Nobel Prize-winning and classical economists overlooked and ignored this reality and premised economic modeling on the concept of the laissez-faire capitalist's Invisible Hand that would magically guide individuals' and nations' activities to their best of infinite outcomes. They were wrong - and moreover, just like Santa Clause, it never existed. It was a HUGE mistake.

On reflection, Adam Smith's secular book,  The Wealth of Nations, has been even more devastating to current human behavior and conditions than the collective dogmatic assertions of all religious writings. It is ironic, however, how in most, either secular or religious, cases these imagined beliefs in supposedly good, invisible, and magical entities have come to cause us so much real universal harm and destruction - these entities somehow seem to represent one of the critical cognitive shortcomings of our species - resulting in poor actions and plans. Is there a lesson here?

And for any plan - it now appears that it is simply just too little, too late. 

Be wise, be kind, and think...

Cheers