"we’re going to experience far more global warming than our current models predict"

[Hissyspit]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltobias/2011/08/29/climate-shock-uc-berkeley-scientist-dr-john-harte-puts-the-world-on-notice/

TECH | 8/29/2011 @ 8:15PM

CLIMATE SHOCK: UC-Berkeley Scientist, Dr. John Harte, Puts the World on Notice

Dr. John Harte is based at the University of California-Berkeley Department of Environmental Science, Policy & Management. With a PhD in physics, his research encompasses the most serious biochemical and climate-ecosystem feedback processes of global warming and theoretical ecology. He has been at the forefront, for decades, of some of the most important studies pertaining to the biological impacts – particularly in alpine environments – of climate change, as well as humanity’s role in the disruption of critical ecosystems.

- snip -

John Harte (JH): Climate science calculates what the future climate will look like using the basic laws of physics. The most trusted and largest group of climate scientists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), summarizes the results of these calculations and concludes that under “business as usual” trends in fossil fuel consumption, by 2050 the planet will on average have warmed between 3 and 8 degrees Fahrenheit.

MT: And the key reasons?

JH: That warming is the result of both the direct heat-trapping effect of greenhouse gases and certain feedback processes. The latter will increasingly occur in response to the direct warming, causing further warming.

- snip -

MT: Not good.

JH: No. It means we’re going to experience far more global warming than our current models predict.

MORE INTERVIEW AT LINK

[Horse with no Name]

1. I believe it.

Texas is like a freaking confection oven and doesn't look like it is going to ease up anytime soon.

[DCKit]

2. "Convection" Horsey, unless you're talkin' cupcakes.

But yeah, we're screwn... either way.

[chillspike]

10. Texas is a giant cotton candy maker???

;)

[Horse with no Name]

12. LOL. See that is what I get for posting late at night when I should be in bed.

:blush:

[glinda]

3. Surely we will. Question is why Countries leaders are not going at this in panic mode.

[Mr Deltoid]

4. The modern world doesn't have an off switch

Because we have an economic model based on constant expansion.

[StarsInHerHair]

6. constant expansion=another phrase for explosion, after which only fragments

remain

[bhikkhu]

62. Exactly...plenty of modes of operation at lower levels of population,

but at 7 billion, there's maybe only one speed that can keep everything going in one piece.

I wouldn't say panic, but keep doing the best we can. It may hit everywhere, but our agricultural situation (huge surplus) puts us in a different boat than most of the world, for better or worse. Long-term, plan on making do with less, and living skills such as growing food, cooking, knowing how to make the things you use, being healthy and positive with or without electronics, etc, are all good things we should learn, practice, and plan to pass on.

[defendandprotect]

9. Answer is that capitalism is suicidal -- elites are suicidal -- adds up to SUICIDE ... !!!

Scientists have known about the impact of industry on nature since the late

1880's -- there was also another large surge in harm -- and the beginning of the

glacier melt in the 1940's -- due to the build up for the war --


Citizens have been aware of the Global Warming model since at least 1957 --

scientists needless to say, much earlier.


We've had more than 50 years of ExxonMobil lies and deception, misinformation and

disinformation thrown at the public to deceive them --

Only in America is Global Warming any kind of a question -- and certianly not among

most scientisdts --


We need to begin to shut down our nuclear reactors -- it's takes 6 months to properly

shut one down -- and I'm not sure about the WASTE ... !!


Obama has to be stopped from authorizing a new generation of nuclear reactors here.

We might not be able to stop Global Warming, but we can perhaps make the difference

between "a whimper or a bang" -- !!

[Uncle Joe]

21. Those PTB elites at the top behind the denial movement aren't suicidal, they're sociopaths.

I believe they believe their extraordinary wealth and power will allow them to survive the coming global catastrophe in some forms of lifeboat.

Other than basic greed, I believe that's what the decades long tax policies of funneling wealth to the mega-wealthy is all about, an accumulation of survival funds for life boats as they pull away from the sinking public ship; aka everyone else.

It isn't just government they; want to drown in a bath tub, it's a very large chunk of humanity, a culling of the herd if you will.

If and when global warming totally hits the fan, I don't believe they will survive either but I do believe that's their game-plan.

One thing is for certain, they can't all be so totally stupid as to believe the denial bullshit they peddle in the face of so much overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary.

[Enthusiast]

22. I believe you are on to something.

Those in control don't believe that global warming is a hoax but they have convinced their incredibly clueless followers that it is.

It is an "inconvenient truth" as Gore put it.

[hifiguy]

26. Correct. TPTB see a massive die-off

as a way to save their own hides from the teeming zillions and as another opportunity to be exploited for a profit: The ultimate piece of disaster capitalism.

[csziggy]

37. Yeah, didn't you see the movie "2012" - the elites had their arks

That they would survive in and fuck the "little people". That part was the most convincing plot point in the entire piece of shlock. One of the most ironic parts of that movie was that they made landfall in South Africa.

[defendandprotect]

44. OIL and COAL industry certainly don't believe their own BS... that's why they bought govrernment-!!

It's a suicidal urge to dominate, to control -- to have power over others.

What's that that Betty Friedan said about them .... ?

Here ...

"The loveless crave power because they lack both love and self" --

and ...

"The human self defines itself and grows through love and work --

All psychology before and after Freud boils down to that -- "



They may be "sociopaths" -- I often think they are paranoid because the things they

do to others they seem to fear being done to themselves!


It's like trying to describe/diagnose DR. STRANGELOVE -- see "How I learned to love

the bomb" -- or Henry Kissinger!


They also can't be satiated no matter how much wealth/power they have --

Howard Huges wanted to own the US!

Global Warming has hit the fan -- the public just hasn't been hearing about it over

the past 15/20 years -- as news has been replaced by celebrity -- "The I Love Lucy"

effect, we might call it -- i.e., as the wars ended and we had a shiny new NAZI-CIA

and entered the Atomic Era and the Cold War -- what were Americans given to discuss?

We should have nationalized oil industry and other natural resources decades ago --


If you haven't read Al Gore's Rolling Stone article its 1 page re Global Warming and

6 pages of our Goebbels' style corporate-press though he doesn't call it that --

but he does confirm "Congress is controlled by oil and coal industries."

[Uncle Joe]

66. I agree that global warming has already begun but I don't believe

that we've seen the worst by a long shot, that's what I meant by "totally hitting the fan."

I agree with you, re; Gore's Rolling Stone interview.:thumbsup:

[kenny blankenship]

11. Global warming doesn't exist, you know. So say Republicans and the Chamber of Commerce Crowd

Unfortunately our President and party are afraid of saying anything that is "too different" or too "radical" or too "controversial" with the Global Warming Deniers of Big Bidness and the Republican Party. They will tell you, when you ask them as a Democrat, that global warming is real and a danger. But they don't plan to make much noise about it.

[Enthusiast]

23. We should just change

Democratic Party name to Pussy Party.

[Hugabear]

61. You don't have to go that far. We have DUers who claim it's all a big hoax

If you really want to see people coming out and denying climate change, just click on any of the Al Gore threads that have been posted in recent weeks.

[caseymoz]

48. Because human beings don't have the degree of social organization to stop it.

We just have the degree necessary to cause the damage.

Global Warming is more a result of population pressure than anything else. We wouldn't be burning so much fossil fuels if we didn't have to strain our resources just to feed the current world population, and feeding them, as always, will result in an even higher population.

We've avoided worldwide population crashes with some very clever adaptations. Unfortunately, each adaptation in the last 300 years has resulted in an even higher population. There is no animal that's adapted to limit it's own population. Our flaw is the flaw of every animal, except we are smarter.

[PufPuf23]

55. Climate change and disruption of ecological processes

on a planetary scale is real.

Climate change is really one of three legs of environmental degradation -- our habitat -- the other two are rate of extinctions/narrowing of genetic diversity and soil loss.

Regarding grants and universities, the research community has become ever more politicized because now private and even land grant universities look more and more to corporations for their funding. This impacts research priorities, who gets patents, who moves readily up the research ladder, etc.

There is going to be a reduction in population, the only question is how horrific.

There is a basic ecological consept that can be stated as the negative natural log 3/2 rule of self-thinning that applies to biological populations in closed environments be in bacteria in a petri dish or corn or Douglas-fir monocultures. Initial growth is a sigmoid curve until limits of space and inputs are reached then the population culls itself by an approximation of the rule.

The world is much more complex and there is also technology but the underlying concept is real.

Civilizations have grown and collapsed throughout history.

[XemaSab]

68. Yeasts limit their own population

but that's in a confined space.

[caseymoz]

70. They don't limit their own population.

They are limited by space, i.e. their available resources. Which is exactly what is going to happen to us. It's definite that yeast will kill itself by drowning in its own excrement, that is, which gives us been, showing that something excellent can come of a Malthusian event.

Besides I said, "no animal limits its own population." Yeasts are plainly not animals. It's like saying that the cells within the human body do limit their own population. But human bodies do not. The cells, like the yeast, are genetically identical. The yeast can sometimes act as one body. Unlike the human cells, it just doesn't do it all the time.

A beehive or ant colony limits its population in a sense. Only the queens, and a few drones, reproduce. (Actually, workers have been observed trying to sneak their own clandestine eggs into the queen's clutch, and it's a capital offense. Workers will also search each other's quarters for clandestine eggs.) However, the colonies themselves reproduce, and they will outstrip their resources.

The amazing thing is how clever we've been at evading crashes by finding new resources and techniques for exploiting them. We've been both lucky and smart so far. however, as they say, smarts only get you so far and luck always runs out.

We first avoided population collapses when game became depleted and we turned to agriculture. We've been pulling rabbits out of the hat ever since. Unfortunately, each advance has simply led to an ever higher population, thus assuring that the eventual crash will be spectacular. We are close, Apocalyptic chaos and destruction, but without a rapture.

We ran out of luck in the 20th century when space travel turned and interplanetary colonization turned out to be far more daunting than it looked. That's the rabbit that never came out. A failure of smarts and luck.

In the meantime, we've become the master invasive species on earth.

[pscot]

53. Leaders? We have leaders'

I thought it was all against all.

[xchrom]

5. Interesting. Nt

[Raine]

7. I'm sure this is correct but NOBODY with power seems to care enough to do anything. nt

[defendandprotect]

8. We are only now feeling our impact on the environment from 1960 onward ....

imagine all we did after that period of time!!

Everything will accelerate -- all of the chaotic events will be more

numerous and more severe --


We need to be closing down our own nuclear power plants which take something like

6 months to properly shut down --

[Enthusiast]

24. It is just getting started, really.

One would have to have their head in the sand not to agree that we are witnessing EXTREME weather events.

We can't even fathom how extreme the weather on planet earth can become. Unfortunately we're about to find out.

[defendandprotect]

45. Agree ---

as we experienced IRENE here in NJ, I could only think this was practice for

what would be coming next --


Yikes!

[Zax2me]

13. Yea, yea. Must be running low on grant money. TERRA!

And the hurricanes will triple in number, many more CAT 5's making landfall....
Didn't happen.
TERRA TERRA TERRA!

This religion is getting as ridiculous as all the others.

follow the money - right from federal grants to this guys office.

[pintobean]

14. A turd in the kool-aid bowl

:rofl:

[Hissyspit]

15. Right-wing talking point you got there.

So is not the money-driven DENIAL of man-made climate change (and that is A WHOLE LOT MORE MONEY at stake for corporations and right-wingers and Fox News) not a factor if you think it is for some scientist and academic?

It's not a religion and your talking point is bullshit. Disprove his science.

[kenny blankenship]

36. Hold your applause, folks, he's got a million of 'em.

[Jamastiene]

17. It's science, not religion.

I guarantee there is a lot more money at stake for corporations and the government to deny global warming than there is to heed the warnings. You might want to check your facts.

[Enthusiast]

25. Take your right wing talking points

down the road, junior.

[sudopod]

27. :/

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[Lucian]

29. Um, calling it a religion is wrong.

Religion is based on faith with no facts or evidence. This is science, based on evidence (facts).

Your ignorance is unforgivable.

[kestrel91316]

51. I suppose you think we hallucinated the 119F that we experienced just

a few years ago right here here in the lovely city of Los Angeles?

[mahina]

58. Do you think that the climate has been stable in recent years?

http://www.cooltheearth.us/EASYExecutiveSummary.pdf

[Hugabear]

60. I can't believe we have to put up with climate change deniers on DU

Climate change is a proven fact. There have been an overwhelming amount of detailed, peer-reviewed studies from scientists in many different fields showing that climate change is not only real, but that the vast majority of it has been caused by human activity.

We should afford climate change deniers the same amount of attention we would someone wanting to discuss Glenn Beck's latest book, or the merits of trickle-down economics.

[Shining Jack]

72. WTF?

I wonder why you lasted so long here, spewing this kind of RW bullshit.

[Overseas]

16. Sad K&R. Pity the milder possibilities were used when first warning people about global warming.

Back in the 80's when it was being discussed, the scientists would present the more moderate scenarios about what could happen if global temperature rose. I remember reading about what could happen if the feedback loops accelerated the warming. It was frightening.

Environmentalists didn't talk much about the worse case scenarios because they didn't want to appear alarmist. Didn't want to be ridiculed for being too extreme. They were hoping to encourage change by noting that we could keep the consequences mild if we acted then and there.

But our legislators seem to have thought-- gee, a bit warmer, changes in agriculture will need to be made some day -- doesn't sound too bad. No need to do anything dramatic to change our use of fossil fuels. Let's just encourage individuals to recycle and leave it at that.

And big oil PR rushed into that void and spent millions on creating doubt that global warming was happening at all. They did a good job, forcing media to invite deniers on to "balance" their TV shows, instead of inviting two climate scientists with differing views about the severity of the consequences of the continuing buildup of carbon in the atmosphere.

We let public relations spending take over and endanger our national environmental security and the world's.

[progressoid]

18. Well it's a good thing we're getting that new pipeline then.

no wait.

:grr: :nuke: :banghead: :argh:

[Uncle Joe]

19. Dr. John Harte makes some good points.

MT: Climate has varied throughout Earth’s history as a result of natural processes — why should we be inordinately concerned about the current warming that our species is currently unleashing/triggering/producing?

(snip)

JH: Well, one way to think about that is to note that when earth’s average temperature was just ten degrees cooler in the last ice age, a 300-foot thick ice sheet covered much of North America and Europe!

(snip)

JH: Other deniers argue that Earth has changed that much in the past and life survived. True, but previously, Earth warmed much more slowly than it is now, giving animals and plants many millennia to adapt or migrate through wilderness — wilderness undisturbed by exploding populations of people who now occupy much of the planet’s former natural habitats.

(snip)

JH: Exactly. The current global heating, which is proceeding at 10 to 100 times the rate of change of ancient climates, is outpacing the capacity of plants and animals to adapt. And during those aforementioned ancient climate transitions, there were not 7 billion human mouths to feed on Earth. The projected loss of irrigation water, increased frequencies of unusual storms and droughts, heat waves, and other climate anomalies are very likely to severely stress our capacity to feed ourselves.

Thanks for the thread, Hissyspit.

[Hissyspit]

33. Thanks for the additional excerpts. nt

[bvar22]

20. If the Summer we just experienced is the "New Normal",

then we are ALL fucked.

---bvar22
On the edge of the Extreme Drought area (West/Central Arkansas)
Even with adequate irrigation,
some of our FOOD plants just laid Down & Died.

We had to feed our HoneyBees and Chickens this Summer.
The Heat/Drought killed all of the Clover/Grass/Weeds, Wildflowers, Wild Berries, and the Bugs that eat them.
In the past, the Chickens and HoneyBees fed themselves for 1/2 the year.


There is not very much hay this year for the cattle,
and the wildlife is suffering too. Scrawny Deer with malnourished Fawns are a common sight on the roadsides looking for water and food. By this time of year, they are usually fat & happy.
The local cattle farmers are trying to sell off as much of their cattle as possible fearing a lack of hay this Winter.

And it is worse to our west.

The HUGE Ogallala Aquifer, that provides drinking water and irrigation to the heart of the US
dropped 5 FEET this Summer.
It replenishes at a rate of 1/2 INCH per year.


It was brutal here,
but my heart goes out to those to the west of us.
This is not just a regional problem. It WILL affect the whole nation.
Expect higher food prices this Winter, especially grain & beef products.


If THIS is the "New Normal",
then we are ALL fucked.

[Enthusiast]

30. We are ALL fucked.

We cannot even fathom how extreme the weather on planet earth can get. Unfortunately we're about to find out.

Just imagine, even here on the DU we still have people arguing that population growth is not a problem. They usually stop short of saying that global warming is a hoax.

[Broderick]

31. Mother nature will thin the herd it seems

[Blue_Tires]

39. +1

[Pooka Fey]

35. + 1

[NickB79]

41. If this pattern holds, we will see a mass exodus of people from the Southwest

Up here in Minnesota, the weather has been hot and humid for much of the summer, but nothing like what you folks are experiencing down there. We're now becoming what Oklahoma and Arkansas used to be as the climate shifts northwards.

[Lucian]

28. This should really have higher recommendations.

[Lars39]

32. Thanks for the reminder!

:kick:

[InvisibleTouch]

34. No doubt in my mind. n/t

[CrawlingChaos]

38. Note his proposed course of action

Birth control, and lots of it.

[NickB79]

42. While unpopular, I've always felt we should remove the child tax credit

Or at the very least, only make it applicable to the first child. Second child, no tax credit. Third child, you PAY extra taxes.

Now I'm off to don my asbestos boxers before the flaming starts up.

[kestrel91316]

52. I say NO child tax credits whatsoever. And yes, tax penalties for more than 2.

[qwlauren35]

40. I Read on Wikipedia

that the US is one of the few countries that doesn't acknowledge global warming. Why is that?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

43. I forget where I read it, but there's a theory abou the Little Ice Age of the late middle ages

It occurred after the Black Death wiped out 1/3 to 1/2 of the population (depending on the region) of both Europe and Asia.

Now think of what that meant in an era when every human being used open fires for cooking and heating. It means that after the plague, there were 1/3 fewer households emitting carbon into the air. Then the climate began to cool, and it didn't warm up again until the population reached its pre plague level, which took a couple of centuries.

[Critters2]

46. I've pretty much believed it all along, but the Feb 1 blizzard removed any trace of doubt.

That was one scary storm! Thunderstorms, a whole line of 'em one after another...with snow...in February. Not just thunder snow, with a couple of claps, but June-like thunderstorms...with snow...in February. Something's going on here!

[wickerwoman]

47. +6 degrees is basically the end of higher lifeforms on earth.

So if he's right, we're beyond fucked.

+2-3 degrees is about what we can manage without massive human dieoffs.

[kestrel91316]

54. We are going to take things down to blue-green algae soup and nothing

else if we don't get our heads out of our asses. And perhaps even if we DO.

[Jim_Shorts]

63. I wish these scientists could could get together and give us some decent models

One guy was doing the late-nite talk show circuit saying its already "game over." Another guy said if we get 3-4 degrees more the ice caps would melt enough to start releasing large pockets of methane trapped below the ice and the problem would snowball quickly.

John Harte is suggesting there is still hope:
Our actions have already ensured further climate change, but the good news is that if we greatly reduced our use of fossil fuels now, we would prevent future catastrophic warming and we would rapidly see and feel the effects of declining levels of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere.

I was about to tell my kids to think twice about making babies, but who knows.

[kestrel91316]

49. Game, set, match. And proof that greed is NOT good.

[Puget Progressive]

50. Dr. Harte is an environmental scientist who can be trusted

I was in a class that he taught in environmental physics at Berkeley back in the later 70s. Even then he had extensive knowledge of environmental matters. He had testified against the proposed sea level canal that would have been dug across Florida and he had also studied the effects of abandoned mine runoff in the Rockies. I will never forget how he introduced himself to the class by describing his previous work. He then made a personal comment that I have thought about over the years. He said that the more he studied the Earth and its systems the more convinced he became that we should leave it alone. He seemed to know even then that we are not wise enough to make use of what we call Earth's "resources" without causing a great deal of cumulative damage. The damage to our climate is particularly frightening as it can bring about so many other problems. Notice that his prediction of a 3-8 degree Fahrenheit rise in average temperatures by mid-century is what the IPCC said originally might be possible by the end of the century. I believe that Dr. Harte is correct. Our estimates of global warming are almost certainly too conservative and the mechanisms for this warming are cumulative in ways that we do not fully understand. For instance, we still have to see how the increasing release of methane (more than 20X more effective at creating global warming than CO2) in huge quantities from regions such as the northern latitudes, where it is being released due to permafrost melting, will accelerate current trends.

[mahina]

57. I was in his Environmental Physics class there too, also late 70's!

Hi and welcome to DU!

Dr. Harte is a very wise and good man. I trust him completely, and I agree with your post.


Have you seen his book, "Cool the Earth, Save the Economy"? http://www.cooltheearth.us/download.php

[Puget Progressive]

67. No, I have not seen his book

but thank you for the link. I will try and find it. Dr. Harte's class was one of the reasons that I enjoyed attending Berkeley so much. I ended up changing my major to physical geography with a minor in environmental studies. Dr. Harte's comment about leaving the Earth alone was one of the more memorable things that any professor ever said to me. It was a personal comment but it reflected a great deal of knowledge about the Earth and its ecosystems and a concern for the future which he continues to express.

[malletgirl02]

56. Insane weather

Is this is why we are see such insane weather in the US? There are droughts most notably in Texas. Then you see some areas that are flooding due to getting too much rain for example North and South Dakota.

[DFW]

59. I was just home in Dallas

Around 40°+C every day (at least 104°F). Even for us, that's unusual.

It sucks all the moisture up into the atmosphere, and then when it all comes back
down during brutal winters, the radical right can deny there is any global warming.

[mahina]

64. Yo Hissy,

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1860931

[JVS]

65. I'm going to need a bigger air conditioner.

[Broderick]

69. I survived the global cooling

that had me buying extra blankets back in the 70s.

I will survive this, I hope. Time will tell.

[defendandprotect]

71. kicky