Updated July 28 2013


According to Colin Goldblatt, author of a paper published online in the 28 July 2013 issue of Nature Geoscience, “The runaway greenhouse may be much easier to initiate than previously thought.”

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n8/full/ngeo1892.html




If you think we’ll adapt, think again. The rate of evolution trails the rate of climate change by a factor of 10,000, according to a paper in the August 2013 issue of Ecology Letters.

http://news.discovery.com/earth/global-warming/climate-change-10000-times-faster-than-evolution-130718.htm

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ele.12144/abstract



The rate of climate change clearly has gone beyond linear, as indicated by the presence of the myriad self-reinforcing feedback loops described below, and now threatens our species with extinction in the near term. Anthropologist Louise Leakey ponders our near-term demise in her 5 July 2013 assessment at Huffington Post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/louise-leakey/human-extinction_b_3543036.html

In the face of near-term human extinction, most Americans view the threat as distant and irrelevant, as illustrated by a 22 April 2013 article in the Washington Post based on poll results that echo the long-held sentiment that elected officials should be focused on the industrial economy, not far-away minor nuisances such as climate change.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/04/22/how-americans-see-global-warming-in-8-charts/




This essay brings attention to recent projections and positive feedbacks.

All information and sources are readily confirmed with an online search, and links to information about feedbacks can be found here.

http://lackofenvironment.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/what-on-earth-are-we-doing/



Large-scale assessments

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (late 2007): 1 C by 2100

Hadley Centre for Meteorological Research (late 2008): 2 C by 2100

United Nations Environment Programme (mid 2009): 3.5 C by 2100

Hadley Centre for Meteorological Research (October 2009): 4 C by 2060

Global Carbon Project, Copenhagen Diagnosis (November 2009): 6 C, 7 C by 2100

United Nations Environment Programme (December 2010): up to 5 C by 2050

These assessments fail to account for significant self-reinforcing feedback loops (i.e., positive feedbacks, the term that implies the opposite of its meaning). The IPCC’s vaunted Fifth Assessment will continue the trend as it, too, ignores important feedbacks.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/12/02/1253931/ipccs-planned-obsolescence-fifth-assessment-report-will-ignore-crucial-permafrost-carbon-feedback/




Positive feedbacks


Methane hydrates are bubbling out the Arctic Ocean (Science, March 2010). According to NASA’s CARVE project, these plumes were up to 150 kilometers across as of mid-July 2013. Whereas Malcolm Light’s 9 February 2012 forecast of extinction of all life on Earth by the middle of this century appears premature because his conclusion of exponential methane release during summer 2011 was based on data subsequently revised and smoothed by U.S. government agencies, subsequent information — most notably from NASA’s CARVE project — indicates the grave potential for catastrophic release of methane.

Warm Atlantic water is defrosting the Arctic as it shoots through the Fram Strait (Science, January 2011). This breakdown of the thermohaline conveyor belt is happening in the Antarctic as well.

Siberian methane vents have increased in size from less than a meter across in the summer of 2010 to about a kilometer across in 2011 (Tellus, February 2011)

Drought in the Amazon triggered the release of more carbon than the United States in 2010 (Science, February 2011)

Peat in the world’s boreal forests is decomposing at an astonishing rate (Nature Communications, November 2011)

Invasion of tall shrubs warms the soil, hence destabilizes the permafrost (Environmental Research Letters, March 2012)

Greenland ice is darkening (The Cryosphere, June 2012)

Methane is being released from the Antarctic, too (Nature, August 2012). According to a paper in the 24 July 2013 issue of Scientific Reports, melt rate in the Antarctic has caught up to the Arctic.

Russian forest and bog fires are growing (NASA, August 2012), a phenomenon consequently apparent throughout the northern hemisphere (Nature Communications, July 2013). The New York Times reports hotter, drier conditions leading to huge fires in western North America as the “new normal” in their 1 July 2013 issue. A paper in the 22 July 2013 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicates boreal forests are burning at a rate exceeding that of the last 10,000 years.

Cracking of glaciers accelerates in the presence of increased carbon dioxide (Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, October 2012)

The Beaufort Gyre apparently has reversed course (U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center, October 2012)

Exposure to sunlight increases bacterial conversion of exposed soil carbon, thus accelerating thawing of the permafrost (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, February 2013). The microbes have joined the party, too, according to a paper in the 23 February 2013 issue of New Scientist.

Summer ice melt in Antarctica is at its highest level in a thousand years: Summer ice in the Antarctic is melting 10 times quicker than it was 600 years ago, with the most rapid melt occurring in the last 50 years (Nature Geoscience, April 2013)

Floods in Canada are sending pulses of silty water out through the Mackenzie Delta and into the Beaufort Sea, thus painting brown a wide section of the Arctic Ocean near the Mackenzie Delta brown (NASA, June 2013)

Surface meltwater draining through cracks in an ice sheet can warm the sheet from the inside, softening the ice and letting it flow faster, according to a study accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface (July 2013)

Loss of Arctic sea ice is reducing the temperature gradient between the poles and the equator, thus causing the jet stream to slow and meander. One result is the creation of weather blocks such as the recent very high temperatures in Alaska. As a result, boreal peat dries and catches fire like a coal seam. The resulting soot enters the atmosphere to fall again, coating the ice surface elsewhere, thus reducing albedo and hastening the melting of ice. Each of these individual phenomena has been reported, albeit rarely, but to my knowledge the dots have not been connected beyond this space. The inability or unwillingness of the media to connect two dots is not surprising, and has been routinely reported (recently including here with respect to climate change and wildfires) (July 2013)

Arctic drilling was fast-tracked by the Obama administration during the summer of 2012

See the links to all these here:

http://guymcpherson.com/2013/01/climate-change-summary-and-update/

Adding to this, besides the North Pole is now a lake, Greenland is melting all over, and the Antarctic has a giant lake under it, and it's rapidly melting from underneath.

Peat bogs are burning in widespread areas now, then we have the wildfires here as well in western states.

And the drought continues for the 3'rd year in the southwest...

Your name fits, moron, you are crazy as a shit house mouse if you think that climate change is man driven.

Say, with no warming for 17 years, are we heading for a cooling? How about those 1200 or so record breaking cool temps, are they throwing a wet blanket on your lies and bullshit.

Get rid of that pesky sun, that will do away with climate change.

Are we still attacking the messenger, while not addressing the data?

Guy's page at http://www.guymcpherson.com/ has been down since yesterday.

No explanation. He's trying to fix it. The theory is that it has purposely been brought down, and that it is under attack. It wouldn't be the first time our govt. trashed the constitution, and impinged on our right to free speech.

Here's Guy's most recent article at Transition Voice exposing the indiscriminate spying on American citizens and shredding of our Constitutional rights: Disobedience, The True Foundation of Democracy

http://transitionvoice.com/2013/07/disobedience-the-true-foundation-of-liberty/



Here is one possible reason having this as public knowledge scares the crap out of our fascist govt:

Pentagon Prepares for Unrest

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/jun/14/climate-change-energy-shocks-nsa-prism



Many of Guy's supporters, including Michael C. Ruppert, long familiar with govt interference in his free speech, have suggested mirroring to help Guy get out the truth he shares.

Robin Westenra has done exactly that on his blog page.

Here is all the truth you can handle, and that the PWTB don't want you to know about.

http://robinwestenra.blogspot.co.nz/2013/07/climate-change-update.html



Here is another blogger who shared Guy's information.

http://collapseofindustrialcivilization.com/2013/06/09/guy-mcpherson-and-the-nemesis-effect-at-the-age-of-limits-conference-part-one/



***********************************************************************

My note: I've been cross-posting his essays and people's comments on the onion forum.

It's down too, since yesterday.

And there's a new article :

"The selfish surrender of privileged people."

You may find it and the comments interesting.

By Nafeez Ahmed
5 August 2013

(The Guardian) – Debate over the plausibility of a catastrophic release of methane in coming decades due to thawing Arctic permafrost has escalated after a new Nature paper warned that exactly this scenario could trigger costs equivalent to the annual GDP of the global economy.

Scientists of different persuasions remain fundamentally divided over whether such a scenario is even plausible. Carolyn Rupple of the US Geological Survey (USGS) Gas Hydrates Project told NBC News the scenario is "nearly impossible." Ed Dlugokencky, a research scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) said there has been "no detectable change in Arctic methane emissions over the past two decades." NASA's Gavin Schmidt said that ice core records from previously warm Arctic periods show no indication of such a scenario having ever occurred. Methane hydrate expert Prof David Archer reiterated that "the mechanisms for release operate on time scales of centuries and longer." These arguments were finally distilled in a lengthy, seemingly compelling essay posted on Skeptical Science last Thursday, concluding with utter finality:

"There is no evidence that methane will run out of control and initiate any sudden, catastrophic effects."

But none of the scientists rejecting the plausibility of the scenario are experts in the Arctic, specifically the East Siberia Arctic Shelf (ESAS). In contrast, an emerging consensus among ESAS specialists based on continuing fieldwork is highlighting a real danger of unprecedented quantities of methane venting due to thawing permafrost.

So who's right? What are these Arctic specialists saying? Are their claims of a potentially catastrophic methane release plausible at all? I took a dive into the scientific literature to find out.

What I discovered was that Skeptical Science's unusually skewed analysis was extremely selective, and focused almost exclusively on the narrow arguments of scientists out of touch with cutting edge developments in the Arctic. Here's what you need to know.




1. The 50 Gigatonne decadal methane pulse scenario was posited by four Arctic specialists, and is considered plausible by Met Office scientists


The authors of the controversial new Nature paper on costs of Arctic warming didn't just pull their decadal methane catastrophe scenario out of thin air. The scenario was first postulated in 2008 by Dr Natalie Shakhova of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Dr Igor Semiletov from the Pacific Oceanological Institute at the Russian Academy of Sciences, and two other Russian experts.

Their paper noted that while seabed permafrost underlaying most of the ESAS was previously believed to act as an "impermeable lid preventing methane escape," new data showing "extreme methane supersaturation of surface water, implying high sea-to-air fluxes" challenged this assumption. Data showed:

"Extremely high concentrations of methane (up to 8 ppm) in the atmospheric layer above the sea surface along with anomalously high concentrations of dissolved methane in the water column (up to 560 nM, or 12000% of super saturation)."

One source of these emissions "may be highly potential and extremely mobile shallow methane hydrates, whose stability zone is seabed permafrost-related and could be disturbed upon permafrost development, degradation, and thawing." Even if the methane hydrates are deep, fissures, taliks and other soft spots create heat pathways from the seabed which warms quickly due to shallow depths. Various mechanisms for such processes have been elaborated in detail.

The paper then posits the plausibility of a 50 Gigatonne (Gt) methane release occurring abruptly "at any time." Noting that the total quantity of carbon in the ESAS is "not less than 1,400 Gt", the authors wrote:

"Since the area of geological disjunctives (fault zones, tectonically and seismically active areas) within the Siberian Arctic shelf composes not less than 1-2% of the total area and area of open taliks (area of melt through permafrost), acting as a pathway for methane escape within the Siberian Arctic shelf reaches up to 5-10% of the total area, we consider release of up to 50 Gt of predicted amount of hydrate storage as highly possible for abrupt release at any time. That may cause ∼12-times increase of modern atmospheric methane burden with consequent catastrophic greenhouse warming."

So the 50 Gt scenario used by the new Nature paper does not postulate the total release of the ESAS methane hydrate reservoir, but only a tiny fraction of it.

The scale of this scenario is roughly corroborated elsewhere. A 2010 scientific analysis led by the UK's Met Office in Review of Geophysics recognised the plausibility of catastrophic carbon releases from Arctic permafrost thawing of between 50-100 Gt this century, with a 40 Gt carbon release from the Siberian Yedoma region possible over four decades.

Shakhova and her team have developed these findings from data derived from over 20 field expeditions from 1999 to 2011. In 2010, Shakhova et. al published a paper in Science based on their annual research trips which highlighted that the ESAS was a key reservoir of methane "more than three times as large as the nearby Siberian wetland … considered the primary Northern Hemisphere source of atmospheric methane." Current average methane concentrations in the Arctic are:

"about 1.85 parts per million, the highest in 400,000 years" and "on par with previous estimates of methane venting from the entire World Ocean."

As the ESAS is shallow at only 50 metres, most of the methane being released is escaping into the atmosphere rather than being absorbed into water.

The existence of such shallow methane hydrates in permafrost - at depths as small as 20m - was confirmed by Shakhova in the Journal of Geophysical Research. There has been direct observation and sampling of these hydrates by Russian geologists in recent decades until now; this has also been confirmed by US government scientists.





2. Arctic methane hydrates are becoming increasingly unstable in the context of anthropogenic climate change and it's impact on diminishing sea ice


The instability of Arctic methane hydrates in relation to sea ice retreat - not predicted by conventional models - has been increasingly recognised by experts. In 2007, a study in Eos, Transactions found that:

"Large volumes of methane in gas hydrate form can be stored within or below the subsea permafrost, and the stability of this gas hydrate zone is sustained by the existence of permafrost. Degradation of subsea permafrost and the consequent destabilization of gas hydrates could significantly if not dramatically increase the flux of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, to the atmosphere."

In 2009, a research team of 19 scientists wrote a paper in Geophysical Research Letters documenting how the past thirty years of a warming Arctic current due to contemporary climate change was triggering unprecedented emissions of methane from gas hydrate in submarine sediments beneath the seabed in the West Spitsbergen continental margin. Prior to the new warming, these methane hydrates had been stable at water depths as shallow as 360m. Over 250 plumes of methane gas bubbles were found rising from the seabed due to the 1C temperature increase in the current:

"… causing the liberation of methane from decomposing hydrate … If this process becomes widespread along Arctic continental margins, tens of Teragrams of methane per year could be released into the ocean."

The Russian scientists investigating the ESAS also confirmed that the levels of methane release they discovered were new. As Steve Connor reported in the Independent, since 1994 Igor Semilitov:

"… has led about 10 expeditions in the Laptev Sea but during the 1990s he did not detect any elevated levels of methane. However, since 2003 he reported a rising number of methane 'hotspots', which have now been confirmed using more sensitive instruments."

In 2012, a Nature study mapping over 150,000 Arctic methane seeps concluded that:

"… in a warming climate, disintegration of permafrost, glaciers and parts of the polar ice sheets could facilitate the transient expulsion of 14C-depleted methane trapped by the cryosphere cap."






3. Multiple scientific reviews, including one by over 20 Arctic specialists, confirm decadal catastrophic Arctic methane release is plausible



A widely cited 2011 Nature review dismissed such a catastrophic scenario as implausible because methane "gas hydrates occur at low saturations and in sediments at such great depths below the seafloor or onshore permafrost that they will barely be affected by [contemporary levels of] warming over even [1,000] yr."

But this study and others like it completely ignore the new empirical evidence on permafrost-associated shallow water methane hydrates on the Arctic shelf. Scientific reviews that have accounted for the empirically-observed dynamics of permafrost-associated methane come to the opposite conclusion.

In 2007, scientists Matthew Reagan and George Moridis at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory published a paper in Geophysical Research Letters exploring the vulnerability of methane gas hydrates. They concluded based on simulations of different types of oceanic gas hydrate responding to seafloor temperature changes:

"... while many deep hydrate deposits are indeed stable under the influence of rapid seafloor temperature variations, shallow deposits, such as those found in arctic regions or in the Gulf of Mexico, can undergo rapid dissociation and produce significant carbon fluxes over a period of decades."

A 2010 scientific analysis led by the UK's Met Office in Review of Geophysics found:

"The time scales for destabilization of marine hydrates are not well understood and are likely to be very long for hydrates found in deep sediments but much shorter for hydrates below shallow waters, such as in the Arctic Ocean... Overall, uncertainties are large, and it is difficult to be conclusive about the time scales and magnitudes of methane feedbacks, but significant increases in methane emissions are likely, and catastrophic emissions cannot be ruled out... The risk of a rapid increase in [methane] emissions is real but remains largely unquantified."

Another extensive scientific review of data from the ESAS gathered between 1995 and 2011 by over twenty Arctic specialists published in the Proceedings of the Russian Academy of Sciences similarly concluded that:

"The [ESAS] is a powerful supplier of methane to the atmosphere owing to the continued degradation of the submarine permafrost, which causes the destruction of gas hydrates. The emission of methane in several areas of the [ESAS] is massive to the extent that growth in the methane concentrations in the atmosphere to values capable of causing a considerable and even catastrophic warning on the Earth is possible."

Other recent scientific reviews corroborate these findings.






4. Current Arctic methane levels are unprecedented



A 2011 Nature paper found that ten times more carbon than thought is escaping via thawing coastal permafrost at the ESAS. Although it is not yet clear whether or how the quantities of Arctic methane are impacting on total atmospheric methane emissions, a number of scientists argue that the increasing spikes in methane detected in the Arctic in recent years is indeed unprecedented.

Despite NOAA scientist Dr Dlugokencky's reassurances that current Arctic methane emission levels are nothing to be "alarmed" about, his own data shows that Arctic methane levels were 1850 ppb in yr 2000, rising up to 1890 ppb in 2012.

Indeed, Dr Leonid Yurganov, Senior Research Scientist at the NASA/UMBC Joint Centre for Earth Systems Technology, and his co-scientists from NOAA and Harvard (Shawn Xiong and Steven Wofsy) disagree with Dlugokencky. In a paper for the American Geophysical Union last December they charted a worrying "global increase of methane" since 2007-8, with particular spikes in 2009 and 2011-12 in the northern hemisphere, with maximum methane concentrations in the Arctic:

"IASI data for the autumn months (October-November) clearly indicate Eurasian shelf areas of the Arctic Ocean as a significant methane emitter. The maximal methane concentrations were found over Kara and Laptev Seas. According to IASI data, during the last three years in autumn time, methane over Eurasian shelf has been increased by 25 ppb, over the N. American shelf, by 23 ppb, and over the land between 50 N and 70 N for both Eastern and Western hemispheres, by 20 ppb."

Yurganov et. al point out that between January 2009 and 2013, Arctic methane levels ramped steadily higher by about 10-20 ppb on average each year. They also note that maximum Arctic methane emissions occur annually between September and October - coinciding with the Arctic sea ice minimum.






5. The tipping point for continuous Siberian permafrost thaw could be as low as 1.5C


New research led by Prof Antony Vaks published this year in Science analysing a 500,000 year history of Siberian permafrost found that "global climates only slightly warmer than today are sufficient to thaw significant regions of permafrost." The study by eight experts found that there is a tipping point for continuous thawing of permafrost at 1.5C which "can potentially lead to substantial release of carbon trapped in the permafrost into the atmosphere."





6. Arctic conditions during the Eemian interglacial lasting from 130,000 to 115,000 years ago are a terrible analogy for today's Arctic



Two recent studies challenge the relevance of Arctic conditions in the Eemian interglacial. A 2012 Geophysical Research Letters study rejects the idea that the Arctic experienced ice free summers in the Eemian, noting that Arctic temperatures were cooler than previously thought, with evidence that ice sheets were more resistant - partly due to vastly different Arctic ocean currents. Similarly, a new Nature study found that the Greenland ice sheets experienced only modest melting in the Eemian, such that the extensive sea level rise at the time could only be explained by melting in Antarctica. Both studies suggest that the Arctic sea ice simply had not retreated enough to expose permafrost.

According to Prof Paul Beckwith of the University of Ottawa Laboratory for Paleoclimatology and Climatology, this can be explained by a number of factors:

"... the key distinction is that the warming today is from Greenhouse gases being higher and occurs 'twenty-four seven', namely the cooling at night is much less (diurnal variation smaller); in the Eemian the tilt of the Earth was much greater so there was much more seasonality, thus winters were much colder so the sea ice extent, thickness, and thus volume could build up much more, and the summers were warmer in the daytime, however the cooling at night was much greater than now (less greenhouse gas [GHG], more diurnal variation); net result is that the ice was much more durable in the Eemian. Greenland temps were higher during the daytime, but cooled off much more during the nighttime in the lower GHG concentration world."





7. Paleoclimate records will not necessarily capture a large, abrupt methane pulse



Prof Beckwith also poured (ice cold) water on the claim that we know an abrupt methane release cannot occur, because it has never occurred before - purportedly proven as such an event is not detected in the ice cores:

"The length of time for the methane pulse is very important here. If most of the methane came out in a decade, for example then within a subsequent decade or so most of the methane will have been broken down to CO2 and H20 and also been dispersed/distributed around the planet, away from the pulse source area in the Arctic. The CO2 produced would have been small (CO2 stayed within 180-280 ppm range). It takes about 50 years or even more (depending on the snowfall rate and surface melt rates) for snow at the surface to be compacted into firn that closes off the air spaces creating the bubbles in the ice that are reservoirs of the methane and other atmospheric gases. Because of that 50 year bubble closure time, the large pulse of methane that was burped out of the marine sediments and terrestrial permafrost would be long gone and not result in a detectable signal in the ice core record. Just because the record does not capture it does not mean that it was not produced."

These comments are confirmed by an in-depth American Geophysical Union study which notes that it "remains unclear if the full magnitude of atmospheric [methane] changes are recorded in ice cores because of diffusional smoothing of the [methane] while in the firn" as well as "signal smoothing" caused by "atmospheric effects."

But studies do indicate past precedent. A 2009 Science paper argues that abrupt, catastrophic emissions from Arctic methane clathrates including from thawing permafrost played a key role 11,600 years ago at the end of the Younger Dryas cold period in driving wetland emissions, generating sudden massive warming.
So what?

All this proves that the $60 trillion price-tag for Arctic warming estimated by the latest Nature commentary should be taken seriously, prompting further urgent research and action on mitigation - rather than denounced on the basis of outdated, ostrich-like objections based on literature unacquainted with the ESAS.

Without looking at foundation funding and it's role in assuring people chase their own tails or run around like headless chickens thinking they are engaged in some kind of active citizenry, things will continue to get worse.

Some groups exhaust themselves by futilely targeting elected officials, from the White House or Congress, down to local councilpersons. Other groups burn out chasing after corporate-run media. And other people stumble upon each other protesting and screaming about mini scandals as they pop up at a bewildering rate. While the ‘real culprits’ continue to put out these mock targets for people to waste their time chasing, targeting, and attempting to shoot.

The real culprits, the megas, hand pick political candidates and finance their election campaigns.

They own the media.

They fund and take control of any grassroots or watchdog NGOs that exhibit the tiniest sign of success, visibility and or viability. They foresee we the people’s easily foreseeable reaction and possible restlessness or dissent, and make sure it is properly misinformed, misguided, channeled, and diverted.

Thus, the small minority of active citizens continue to become exhausted, burned out, and never get anywhere.

Then, the cycle repeats itself; again, again, and again.

Once upon a time there was a passionate and visionary person. This person came across a major government corruption or fraud case. He took it upon himself to research and investigate the case; most likely after his daytime work was finished, after his children’s bedtime, while sitting behind his computer in the basement of his home. He was driven by his strong sense of justice and honesty, and his feverish passion to expose and hopefully put an end to the injustice and corruption he had discovered.

Along the way he found a couple of comrades who shared his vision, and they too kept working, researching and investigating. They found sources within the target agency, aka whistleblowers, who provided them with inside information and leads, and they made sure they protected the sources anonymity.

And then, bam! The passionate and visionary group realized they had piled up enough data and smoking guns to fire, and they fired. They published their report, worked hard to disseminate it, and gained attention with their uncovering of a certain government agency’s waste and fraud. They earned deserved applause from the general public, even various media publications. It became one of those admired David v. Goliath stories. A ‘real’ one. A ‘genuine’ one.



Then came the second chapter in this story: The earning of the attention and wrath of the affected bosses, and their bosses- the megas.

The intermediate bosses, the executive bureaucrats and appointees, were filled with contempt and rage over the exposure of their fraudulent and corrupt practices. They, known to be reactionaries, wanted to exterminate this newly formed idealistic and driven coalition; they wanted to shut them up-shut them down.

If they had their way, they would have collected dirt on this group, or even better, they would have made up dirt. They knew various ways to use the media to marginalize dogs like this. They knew channels that could get them persecuted or prosecuted. But …

The intermediate bosses’ bosses, the megas, known for their shrewd, calculated, and long-term planning capabilities reined them in. Short term solutions could have short and long term negative consequences. Short term solutions, even if good, would have short-lived benefits.

This was not the first time they were facing a tiny little adversary group of dogs with surprisingly well developed testicles, thus, a fairly loud bark, and a pretty good set of sharp teeth. They had nearly a century of experience with little dogs like that, coming along once in a blue moon.

The megas and their long term tentacles in key government agencies had developed a good solution, a well-devised mechanism, to deal with ‘dogs’ like this. The key component of their long-proven successful method was to emasculate the watch-dogs and turn them into loyal lap-dogs: Reduce the watch-dogs’ testicles size and functionality by attaching strings to them weighted down by anchors, and afterwards file down the watch-dogs’ teeth, one-by-one.


Back to the newly formed coalition, high on success, eyes bright with resolve, and ready to take on the intermediate rulers’ fraud, abuse, and corruption.

The group, emboldened by their recent success and strengthened by their newly-found public notice and support, was transformed from a loosely formed coalition with a common cause to a Watch-Dog Group.

There were so many cases to tackle, so many corrupt practices to investigate, and way too many abusers to chase after; truly overwhelming. Granted, now they had some visibility that provided more clout, a certain level of public backing, and some experience – making future projects less daunting.

But still. They needed more resources; more time and more manpower. So they scrambled and raised a humble amount of money from their public supporters and true believers. They turned their income-earning full-time jobs into part-time work, and spent more time on this noble cause. It was all good. It was all for the good.

And again, they had another successful round, bringing them more recognition and further public cheering and support, and with it raised expectations-both from themselves and the public in general.


If only they could afford an office and more and better computers. If only they could hire a few researchers to conduct the nitty-gritty research and footwork, leaving them free for the major aspects of the tasks at hand. If only they could afford to travel and meet with some of their out of town sources and whistleblowers. If only they were able to afford legal advice to maneuver the treacherous channels…If only.

This ‘if only’ would become the major determinant in whether the story would stop right here, or, enter the next chapter, chapter three: when the corporate-foundations guardian angels started arriving.

The megas who had been closely watching the newly formed government Watch-Dog Group (I say closely because the megas have their ways and channels to keep close tab on their enemies, even those perceived as tiny little enemies).

For them now was the right time to slowly make their entry into the Watch-Dog circle and make their way toward getting at these dogs’ testicles and teeth, and begin the emasculation process.

As the Watch-Dogs pondered ways to expand and strengthen their base and reach, angelic sounding and wisdom-reeking people with excellent connections and sound-sounding ideas began approaching them.

Here are some examples of the dialogue between the Watch-Dogs (WD) and the angelic-sounding advisors (ASA):

ASA: “You certainly need some savvy PR people and legal advisors, and a few experienced researchers.”

WD: “Sigh. You think we don’t know. The problem is; how do we get the badly-needed funds to accomplish all that?…”

ASA: “Surely you can. Of course, you must organize and set yourself up better, before you can even begin to raise those needed funds…I know a few people and noble foundations who would love to help you out, but you are not ready yet…that is, organizationally speaking.”

WD: “And how is that?”

ASA: “ Well, I would start with a solid Board of Directors, and after that, a distinguished Board of Advisors for your organization.”

WD: “That sounds so bureaucratic. Wouldn’t that restrict our decision-making process? With all those people on board, wouldn’t it be harder and much slower making decisions and getting things done?”

ASA: “ Not at all. The alternative is what? You end up working yourself to exhaustion, and achieve very little if anything. Add to that the size of the enemies-the targets you are after, and you know…Of course, it is your decision.”

WD: “ And what do these foundations and generous people want in return? We pride ourselves on being independent and nonpartisan…”

ASA: “Oh, don’t be silly. Just look around you. How many successful and powerful Watch-Dogs do you see out there without big foundation and large donor funding? The ones who didn’t make it, the ones you don’t see, were the ones that didn’t know how to go about getting foundation support and raising funds.”

So the wise and angelic sounding new friends, the megas’ messengers and small-level players, made their way into the Watch-Dog group and started planting the seeds of ‘Grand NGOs via Grand Grants via Grand Foundations.’

The Watch-Dogs didn’t see any harm in putting together a Board of Directors. Of course, the wise and angelic sounding advisors were always there to show them the way:

WD: “Okay, so the three of us and two of our recently retired whistleblowers-sources will be on our board of directors…”

ASA: “That is so cute. It is simply adorable. BUT, it doesn’t work that way. You want a distinguished and experienced group of people. I would say, at least 10-12 distinguished people who are connected to and familiar with the foundations that will be providing you with grants. Maybe a few scholarly academic people who already work with-for these foundations and wealthy individual donors…”

WD: “Hell. How are we going to find and persuade these people to come and sit on our board?!”

ASA: “Oh, don’t be so pessimistic. They would be honored. We’ll give you a list. In fact, we would be more than happy to be the conduit…”



And slowly but surely the Watch-Dogs began implementing their wise and angelic sounding advisors’ to-do list. They established a large and distinguished-sounding Board of Directors. They put together a lengthy list of impressive-looking advisors.

They began frequenting cocktail parties. They made their way into the circle of corporations and foundations which form the corporate-foundations, and of course wealthy individuals and philanthropists.

They had very little time left for their ‘real’ objectives; the watch-dog-ing, but they considered it a temporary thing. Once they had the needed funds and resources, once they had the dollar guarantees, then, well then they could get busy and do tons of watch-dog-ing.


Months went by, and then years.


The Watch-Dog Group, now Watch-Dog Organization, expanded; that is, in budget size, staff size, and office size. Per their Board of Directors and Board of Advisors instructions, aka advice, they replaced the director, their original founder, with a savvier, aka shrewder, person who knew how to handle and please the entire Board of Directors, Board of Advisors, and of course, the corporate-foundations and individual wealthy donors.


They spent a lot of time in cocktail party circles, at wealthy foundations-grantees retreats, and on legal calculations, tax calculations, public relations…

Of course, they did some Watch-Dog-ing work, or more like Watch-Dog-ish mini projects, and they learned how to make their mini Watch-Dog-ish projects sound like grand Watch-Dog projects.

It was an art, and their board members were all masters of this particular art.

As for the megas, by this time they considered their emasculation project completed and yet another long-term success:

The megas’ men and women had penetrated the group as members of the board. They now watched the watch-dogs very closely; every move and every plan. They now ruled the watch-dogs. They reported back on all the anonymous sources within the government agencies that were naively providing information to the watch-dogs, and helped the megas and intermediate government bosses keep tabs on all these insiders-whistleblowers.



The Dogs were placed on a very tight leash. They had built new lives based on highly addictive handsome salaries and benefits: They had bought seven figure houses, enrolled their kids in prep schools, and had grown dependent on high dollars and perks. Their staff’s livelihoods were also dependent upon the same high dollars.

The maintenance of their luxury-filled lives and their dozens of staff had become the number one objective, their first priority.

The Watch-Dogs’ testicles were pulled down and dragged on the ground by the attached multi-strings and weighty anchors – the money from their corporate-foundations’ sugar daddies.

With the testicles almost gone, the Watch-Dogs’ barks became high-pitched and far less audible; more like a wimpy yelp than an actual watch-dog bark.

And they whimpered and yelped only once in a while.

As for the teeth, slowly but surely they were filed and ground down; every one of them; one-after-another.

Basically, in the end, there was not much left of the original Watch-Dogs. Without testicles, with their teeth gone, with an embarrassing yelp rather than a bark, and of course, with their newly acquired lap-dance skills to obtain the highly-addictive foundation grants, they now were officially considered Lap-Dogs- Lap-Dogs of the Corporate-Foundation Sugar Daddies.


..and here we are today

Last week, the journal Nature published a new paper warning of a $60 trillion price tag for a potential 50 Gigatonne methane pulse from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) over 10-50 years this century. The paper, however, prompted many to suggest that its core scenario - as Arctic permafrost thaws it could increasingly unleash dangerous quantities of methane from sub-ice methane hydrates in as quick as a decade - is implausible.

The Washington Post's Jason Samenow argued that "most everything known and published about methane indicates this scenario is very unlikely." Andrew Revkin of the New York Times (NYT) liberally quoted Samenow among others on "the lack of evidence that such an outburst is plausible." Similarly, Carbon Brief concluded: "The scientists we spoke to suggested the authors have chosen a scenario that's either implausible, or very much at the upper limit of what we can reasonably expect."


Both the Post and NYT quoted Prof David Archer, an expert on ocean sediments and methane at the University of Chicago:

"For methane to be a game-changer in the future of Earth's climate, it would have to degas to the atmosphere catastrophically, on a time scale that is faster than the decadal lifetime of methane in the air. So far no one has seen or proposed a mechanism to make that happen."


Dr Vincent Gauci, a methane expert at Open University, similarly argued:

"It's not a given all the methane will end up in the atmosphere. Some could be oxidised [broken down] in the water by bacteria, and some could remain in the sediments on the seafloor."



The problem is that these reservations are based on outdated assumptions that sea floor released methane would not make it into the atmosphere - but all the new fieldwork on the levels of methane being released above the ESAS shows this assumption is just empirically wrong.

Atmospheric methane levels in the Arctic are currently at new record highs, averaging about 1900 parts per billion, 70 parts per billion higher than the global average. NASA researchers have found local methane plumes as large as 150 kilometres across - far higher than previously anticipated.

Dr Gavin Schmidt, climate modeller at NASA, was also cited claiming lack of evidence from ice cores of previous catastrophic methane pulses in the Earth's history in the Early Holocene or Eamian, when Arctic temperatures were warmer than today. But the blanket references to the past may well be irrelevant. In the Early Holocene, the ESAS was not an underwater shelf but a frozen landmass, illustrating the pointlessness of this past analogy with contemporary conditions.


Dr Schmidt also overlooked other issues - such as new research showing that the warm, Eamian interglacial period some 130,000 years ago should not be used as a model for today's climate due to fundamental differences in the development of the Arctic ocean. Ice core methane records are also too short to reach back to the entire Cenozoic - another reason suggesting lack of past evidence is no basis for present complacency; and even Prof Archer himself recognises that ice cores will not necessarily capture a past catastrophic methane release due to fern diffusion.



Finally, the Post and NYT refer to a range of scientific publications - a 2008 report by the US Climate Change Science Programme and a 2011 review of the literature by Carolyn Rupple also in the journal Nature - essentially arguing that a catastrophic methane release would be, for all intents and purposes, impossible within such a short time-frame, with actual methane releases taking place over hundreds if not thousands of years.


Yet in my interview with Prof Peter Wadhams, co-author of the Nature study and head of Polar ocean physics at Cambridge University, he told me that the scientists who rejected his scenario as implausible were simply unacquainted with the unique dynamics of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, the nature of permafrost melting there, and its relationship to ongoing releases of methane in recent years which have been wholly unexpected within established models based on reconstructions of Earth's historical climate:

"Those who understand Arctic seabed geology and the oceanography of water column warming from ice retreat do not say that this is a low probability event. I think one should trust those who know about a subject rather than those who don't. As far as I'm concerned, the experts in this area are the people who have been actively working on the seabed conditions in the East Siberian Sea in summer during the past few summers where the ice cover has disappeared and the water has warmed. The rapid disappearance of offshore permafrost through water heating is a unique phenomenon, so clearly no 'expert' would have found a mechanism elsewhere to compare with this... I think that most Arctic specialists would agree that this scenario is plausible."



In a rebuttal to the original Post article, Wadhams points out that none of the scientists rejecting his scenario understand the unique mechanism currently at play in the Arctic, and all were citing research preceding the empirical evidence which unearthed this mechanism - which has only become clear in recent years in the context of the rapid loss of summer sea ice.

While Wadhams refers directly to an actual empirical phenomenon unique to the Arctic seabed resulting in unprecedented methane venting - uncovered by Dr Natalia Shakhova and Dr Igor Semiletov of the International Arctic Research Center - the critics refer instead to general theoretical dynamics of methane release but show little awareness of what's actually going on in the north pole:

"The mechanism which is causing the observed mass of rising methane plumes in the East Siberian Sea is itself unprecedented and hence it is not surprising that various climate scientists, none of them Arctic specialists, failed to spot it. What is actually happening is that the summer sea ice now retreats so far, and for so long each summer, that there is a substantial ice-free season over the Siberian shelf, sufficient for solar irradiance to warm the surface water by a significant amount – up to 7C according to satellite data.



That warming extends the 50 m or so to the seabed because we are dealing with only a polar surface water layer here (over the shelves the Arctic Ocean structure is one-layer rather than three layers) and the surface warming is mixed down by wave-induced mixing because the extensive open water permits large fetches.

So long as some ice persisted on the shelf, the water mass was held to about 0C in summer because any further heat content in the water column was used for melting the ice underside. But once the ice disappears, as it has done, the temperature of the water can rise significantly, and the heat content reaching the seabed can melt the frozen sediments at a rate that was never before possible. The authors who so confidently dismiss the idea of extensive methane release are simply not aware of the new mechanism that is causing it."

Wadhams thus describes the previous research dismissing the methane threat by Rupple and others as "rendered obsolete by the Semiletov/Shakhova field experiments - the seeing - and the mechanism described above."



So far, cutting edge peer-reviewed research on the link between Arctic permafrost melt and methane release has received no attention from these critics. Indeed, their offhand dismissals are based on ignoring the potential implications of the specific empirical evidence on the ESAS emerging over the last few years, which challenges the assumptions of conventional modelling.


Dr Nafeez Ahmed - as reported in the guardian

(this is the FIFTH TIME I've tried to post this here)

Last week, the journal Nature published a new paper warning of a $60 trillion price tag for a potential 50 Gigatonne methane pulse from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) over 10-50 years this century. The paper, however, prompted many to suggest that its core scenario - as Arctic permafrost thaws it could increasingly unleash dangerous quantities of methane from sub-ice methane hydrates in as quick as a decade - is implausible.

The Washington Post's Jason Samenow argued that "most everything known and published about methane indicates this scenario is very unlikely." Andrew Revkin of the New York Times (NYT) liberally quoted Samenow among others on "the lack of evidence that such an outburst is plausible." Similarly, Carbon Brief concluded: "The scientists we spoke to suggested the authors have chosen a scenario that's either implausible, or very much at the upper limit of what we can reasonably expect."


Both the Post and NYT quoted Prof David Archer, an expert on ocean sediments and methane at the University of Chicago:

"For methane to be a game-changer in the future of Earth's climate, it would have to degas to the atmosphere catastrophically, on a time scale that is faster than the decadal lifetime of methane in the air. So far no one has seen or proposed a mechanism to make that happen."


Dr Vincent Gauci, a methane expert at Open University, similarly argued:

"It's not a given all the methane will end up in the atmosphere. Some could be oxidised [broken down] in the water by bacteria, and some could remain in the sediments on the seafloor."



The problem is that these reservations are based on outdated assumptions that sea floor released methane would not make it into the atmosphere - but all the new fieldwork on the levels of methane being released above the ESAS shows this assumption is just empirically wrong.

Atmospheric methane levels in the Arctic are currently at new record highs, averaging about 1900 parts per billion, 70 parts per billion higher than the global average. NASA researchers have found local methane plumes as large as 150 kilometres across - far higher than previously anticipated.

Dr Gavin Schmidt, climate modeller at NASA, was also cited claiming lack of evidence from ice cores of previous catastrophic methane pulses in the Earth's history in the Early Holocene or Eamian, when Arctic temperatures were warmer than today. But the blanket references to the past may well be irrelevant. In the Early Holocene, the ESAS was not an underwater shelf but a frozen landmass, illustrating the pointlessness of this past analogy with contemporary conditions.


Dr Schmidt also overlooked other issues - such as new research showing that the warm, Eamian interglacial period some 130,000 years ago should not be used as a model for today's climate due to fundamental differences in the development of the Arctic ocean. Ice core methane records are also too short to reach back to the entire Cenozoic - another reason suggesting lack of past evidence is no basis for present complacency; and even Prof Archer himself recognises that ice cores will not necessarily capture a past catastrophic methane release due to fern diffusion.



Finally, the Post and NYT refer to a range of scientific publications - a 2008 report by the US Climate Change Science Programme and a 2011 review of the literature by Carolyn Rupple also in the journal Nature - essentially arguing that a catastrophic methane release would be, for all intents and purposes, impossible within such a short time-frame, with actual methane releases taking place over hundreds if not thousands of years.


Yet in my interview with Prof Peter Wadhams, co-author of the Nature study and head of Polar ocean physics at Cambridge University, he told me that the scientists who rejected his scenario as implausible were simply unacquainted with the unique dynamics of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, the nature of permafrost melting there, and its relationship to ongoing releases of methane in recent years which have been wholly unexpected within established models based on reconstructions of Earth's historical climate:

"Those who understand Arctic seabed geology and the oceanography of water column warming from ice retreat do not say that this is a low probability event. I think one should trust those who know about a subject rather than those who don't. As far as I'm concerned, the experts in this area are the people who have been actively working on the seabed conditions in the East Siberian Sea in summer during the past few summers where the ice cover has disappeared and the water has warmed. The rapid disappearance of offshore permafrost through water heating is a unique phenomenon, so clearly no 'expert' would have found a mechanism elsewhere to compare with this... I think that most Arctic specialists would agree that this scenario is plausible."



In a rebuttal to the original Post article, Wadhams points out that none of the scientists rejecting his scenario understand the unique mechanism currently at play in the Arctic, and all were citing research preceding the empirical evidence which unearthed this mechanism - which has only become clear in recent years in the context of the rapid loss of summer sea ice.

While Wadhams refers directly to an actual empirical phenomenon unique to the Arctic seabed resulting in unprecedented methane venting - uncovered by Dr Natalia Shakhova and Dr Igor Semiletov of the International Arctic Research Center - the critics refer instead to general theoretical dynamics of methane release but show little awareness of what's actually going on in the north pole:

"The mechanism which is causing the observed mass of rising methane plumes in the East Siberian Sea is itself unprecedented and hence it is not surprising that various climate scientists, none of them Arctic specialists, failed to spot it. What is actually happening is that the summer sea ice now retreats so far, and for so long each summer, that there is a substantial ice-free season over the Siberian shelf, sufficient for solar irradiance to warm the surface water by a significant amount – up to 7C according to satellite data.



That warming extends the 50 m or so to the seabed because we are dealing with only a polar surface water layer here (over the shelves the Arctic Ocean structure is one-layer rather than three layers) and the surface warming is mixed down by wave-induced mixing because the extensive open water permits large fetches.

So long as some ice persisted on the shelf, the water mass was held to about 0C in summer because any further heat content in the water column was used for melting the ice underside. But once the ice disappears, as it has done, the temperature of the water can rise significantly, and the heat content reaching the seabed can melt the frozen sediments at a rate that was never before possible. The authors who so confidently dismiss the idea of extensive methane release are simply not aware of the new mechanism that is causing it."

Wadhams thus describes the previous research dismissing the methane threat by Rupple and others as "rendered obsolete by the Semiletov/Shakhova field experiments - the seeing - and the mechanism described above."



So far, cutting edge peer-reviewed research on the link between Arctic permafrost melt and methane release has received no attention from these critics. Indeed, their offhand dismissals are based on ignoring the potential implications of the specific empirical evidence on the ESAS emerging over the last few years, which challenges the assumptions of conventional modelling.


Dr Nafeez Ahmed - as reported in the guardian

(this is the SIXTH TIME I've tried to post this here)

What's the story about the squeaky ball-less dogs about?

Is it the corporatization of "green" NGOs? I'm kind of curious about it. I don't pay that much attention, but heard on KPFK that it's happening, and it's got me worried.

there are many examples

"Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters, Clean Water Action, Environment America and other big green groups endorse Obama."

Keystone XL anyone? (Obama's already approved 3/4'th of it, and in fact fast-tracked it. He's stacked the positions with big oil and wall street people, already received a state department report made by a consultant with strong ties to the oil industry)

Failed to pass a comprehensive climate bill and has punted new smog limits, dragged his feet on power plant EPA emission standards like mercury, and talks about 'clean coal' and fracking as part of the future - a future envisioned like this:

"Global Call for Climate Action. The GCCA represents an unprecedented alliance of more than 400 nonprofit organizations from around the world. Our shared mission is to mobilize civil society and galvanize public support to ensure a safe climate future for people and nature, to promote the low-carbon transition of our economies, and to accelerate the adaptation efforts in communities already affected by climate change."


It's too late for this kind of thinking. Nature and _the people_ are past this.

Here is what I'm currently dealing with - (this weeks community affairs, see online here:

https://2gxxzwnj52jutais.onion.to/phpbb/index.php
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sipping drinks on the Titanic

Once planetary temperatures exceed 4˚C above the norms, we will not survive.

Large scale assessments of climate change and recent new science indicates we will pass the 4˚C mark as soon as 2030, give or take a decade. And, none of these assessments even take any major self-reinforcing feedback loops into account.

These non-linear climate changes will make the planet uninhabitable for humanity, and the downward spiral of the ensuing collapse will obviously be catastrophic. As more and more people come to awareness of the physical meaning of NTE , the chaos of climate collapse would likely result in death by one of three possibilities: predation, starvation, or suicide.

“As of right now, the entire concept of [Near Term Extinction] NTE is still the most profound abstract concept the human race has ever been confronted with. Even though the signs are everywhere,the totality of its cumulative impact is still enough off in the distance for entrenched self-preservation to render it an abstraction in our daily lives."

Since the total environmental pressure is the product of population times resource use… Cutting resource use from the top down would at some point equal a cut by self slaughter from the bottom up. In fact it would entail fewer deaths.

To play that old tune one more time: 5% of the population is using 25% of the resources. So, to cut 25% of the resources, we could drive the top 5% of the population to commit suicide, or approximately 25% at the bottom, and get more or less the same results ecologically, with fewer deaths. If the top were prohibited from excess consumption a ~20% cut could occur without the suicide. But if we took their toys and privileges away, the spoiled brats would probably kill themselves anyway.

As many have said, we live in a hierarchical Death Culture run by greedy manipulative psychopaths. Their powers extend into cultural ideation and mass mind control. I say “Don’t let them eat cake.” And leave a few crumbs for the rest of us.

Driving poor people to suicide to preserve the rich is obscene. Especially if we ignore extinction by climate change and/or radiation.

At some point rapid individual suicide will be a less painful option than slower mass suicide. But not to cater to the rich, to give them a temporary reprieve. That is grossly unacceptable.





Regarding the lack of awareness of the problems of the world by the unwashed masses, who want to keep their heads in the sand, how they buy into the denial or the techno-hopium or whatever mechanism they can to avoid facing the issues.

But “they” are not as out-to-lunch as you believe “them” to be.

They may not be conversing in ppm of CO2 or ppb of CH4 or the effect of ground level ozone on tree immune systems or wet bulb temperatures, but they sure as hell know something is wrong.

They know mistakes were made with industrial agriculture; they know they aren’t as successful hunting or fishing as they used to be; they know species they grew up with have disappeared; they know the temperatures have changed and the winds have shifted and the weather patterns are wacky but they don’t know it in the same way those of we do.


There is a lot of emotional strain floating around these days, because people are aware of this stuff subconsciously.

They just can’t articulate it, they don’t have the time to read about it and study it like we do, they probably wouldn’t really understand it even if they did, and likely couldn’t process it emotionally even if they did understand it.


But there's a huge and growing undercurrent of fear and uncertainty and stress, as people see things fall apart and change and die around them.

They don’t know how to process it intellectually or emotionally, or how to express it, even if they could process it, and who would listen anyway?

Right?

The masses are becoming aware of us “doomers”, actually.

But that might not be a good thing, since they’re now actively trying to discredit us, rather than simply ignore us.

Ah yes - the second stage.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

did you catch that part ? - "5% of the population is using 25% of the resources"

-those big green groups are part of that 5%

1) State the optimum mean annual global temperature or "norm"
2) Detail your methodology for arriving at this figure

"they buy into the denial or the techno-hopium or whatever mechanism they can, to avoid facing the issues."

'Hex' has no personal knowledge on anything in this farce.

....Hex has no fucking clue as to what the optimum global temperature or "norm" is or ought to be...because such a thing is quite literally impossible to determine....even though he pretends there is such a thing.....which reduces him being to just another panty wetting eco-nazi control freak

after all the parrot must be recharged daily

.....but your hero anAL GOREtentive is still spouting his nonsense...like saying just yesterday that the National Weather Service is about to create a new "Category 6" for intense hurricanes....utter bullshit....since Category 5 has no upper limit...and the NWS itself denies any such plan....if "global warming" were something to worry about,then you and anAL GOREtentive wouldn't have to lie to make your case....but the end always justifies the means if you're a "progressive",right Hex?....it's all about "advancing the narrative"

butt your booty says YES!

You just make it up as you go along don't you,Hex....I give you props for having a vivid imagination though....project much?

I'm not the one who brought it up - I've never posted anything about Mr. Gore

The source of the butthurt with him _comes from you_.

Fill out that complaint form and send it to him, maybe he'll 'respond' - you might get lucky!

...I brought up anAL GOREtentive since both of you have to resort to lame ad hominems to try to discredit skeptics who know a scam when they see one....and you can always change the subject that way when you are losing the argument...which you do exceedingly well,Hex

I'm presenting data, measurements and readings.

You're trolling - you've posted no citations, links or data.

There is no argument, there's me posting data and you trying to FUD to make yourself feel better.

You've confused how your meant to feel with knowledge and information. That is the role the PR operations funded by fossil fuel fill - the primary product they sell is feeling good. You're addicted to feeling good and so reject knowledge/data/measuements/readings.

I'm not posting this for people like you - it's here for people who actually want to know whats going on in the world. You come here trolling because you can't stand the idea that other people are talking about issues that don't feel good :

http://guymcpherson.com/

(WARNING: theres a 2 post per day rule there and if you start trolling you WILL be ignored & banned)

I consider this forum unreliable/desireable and so I now have my own forum:

https://2gxxzwnj52jutais.onion.to/phpbb/

(I know you won't break the rules here - there aren't any!)

You can also see (what was my) hidden website all these years (since freedom hosting was raided - I restored it from backup) in the root domain;

https://2gxxzwnj52jutais.onion.to/

- there are media files there which cannot be taken down using a DCMA notice because the server is hidden - there is no IP to send a notice to. The whole hidden services network is a virtual overlay that doesn't use IPs..

and this is just one of my hidden services.

You are inferentially making the argument that we need to suppress or limit consumption of hydrocarbon fuels based on cherry picked data which purport to show that the earth is warming at and alarming and unprecedented rate...when the real time data shows otherwise....the mere fact that you can't or won't acknowledge that you make such an argument is prima facie evidence of your inherent intellectual dishonesty....

"The growing suicide rate seems to be tied to peoples’ inability to cope with the realization that they have been denied the false promises of the Capitalist utopia. It doesn’t appear that most of the self-extinguished had any awareness, or even cared, about the fact that the fantasies that psychologically funded their lives were destroying the bio-sphere, inflicting mass suffering on countless other life forms, and was predicated on third -world slave labor. If one’s self-identity is tied to the geo-cidal system of consumption, then the denial of its goodies would likely cause a deep sense that one’s “soul” was being eroded to the point of extinction. In abusive relationships, when the victim finally takes action against the abuser (e.g. calls the cops after a beating), and the abuser is exposed and deprived of his/her power, the abuser will often portray him/herself as the victim of the former abusee’s persecution. To the extent that the self-extinguisher is acting as the victim of a system that deprived them of their expectations (thus robbing them of their power), I think there is a similar dynamic in play."

now, what I have to say about it :

couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of assholes

Non sequitur

I can't help about the shape I'm in, I can't sing, I ain't pretty and my legs are thin, but don't ask me what I think of you, I might not give the answer that you want me to, oh well.

Now, when I talked to God I knew he'd understand, he said, stick by my side and I'll be your guiding hand, but don't ask me what I think of you, I might not give the answer that you want me to, oh well.

xxx-ooo-xxx

it's not about me it's about the data

- as long as you attempt to make it about me you will continue to be disappointed

Why does nobody talk about the thousands of 1-kilometer wide bubbling methane seabeds recorded in 2011.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/vast-methane-plumes-seen-in-arctic-ocean-as-sea-ice-retreats-6276278.html

Only 1% of methane needs to be released to cause total disaster.
Peter Wadhams interview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_biGUz6ACBg

Natalia Shakhova interview:
do you believe scientists who spent 30 years in the arctic or do you believe scientists who spent 30 years at their computer?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx1Jxk6kjbQ

In response to the news that mass quantities of highly-radioactive water are flowing from Fukushima into the Pacific Ocean – and that the radioactivity is spreading to North America – the usual suspects are saying that that low-level radiation won’t hurt anyone.

Indeed, some are advocating intentionally dumping all of Fukushima’s radiation into the sea as a “safe” solution.

(And some folks are pretending that a little radiation is good for you.)

The truth is quite different.

Even Miniscule Amounts of Radiation Can Be Dangerous

A major 2012 scientific study proves that low-level radiation can cause huge health problems. Science Daily reports:

Even the very lowest levels of radiation are harmful to life, scientists have concluded in the Cambridge Philosophical Society’s journal Biological Reviews. Reporting the results of a wide-ranging analysis of 46 peer-reviewed studies published over the past 40 years, researchers from the University of South Carolina and the University of Paris-Sud found that variation in low-level, natural background radiation was found to have small, but highly statistically significant, negative effects on DNA as well as several measures of health.

The review is a meta-analysis of studies of locations around the globe …. “Pooling across multiple studies, in multiple areas, and in a rigorous statistical manner provides a tool to really get at these questions about low-level radiation.”

Mousseau and co-author Anders Møller of the University of Paris-Sud combed the scientific literature, examining more than 5,000 papers involving natural background radiation that were narrowed to 46 for quantitative comparison. The selected studies all examined both a control group and a more highly irradiated population and quantified the size of the radiation levels for each. Each paper also reported test statistics that allowed direct comparison between the studies.

The organisms studied included plants and animals, but had a large preponderance of human subjects. Each study examined one or more possible effects of radiation, such as DNA damage measured in the lab, prevalence of a disease such as Down’s Syndrome, or the sex ratio produced in offspring. For each effect, a statistical algorithm was used to generate a single value, the effect size, which could be compared across all the studies.

The scientists reported significant negative effects in a range of categories, including immunology, physiology, mutation and disease occurrence. The frequency of negative effects was beyond that of random chance.

***

“When you do the meta-analysis, you do see significant negative effects.”

“It also provides evidence that there is no threshold below which there are no effects of radiation,” he added. “A theory that has been batted around a lot over the last couple of decades is the idea that is there a threshold of exposure below which there are no negative consequences. These data provide fairly strong evidence that there is no threshold — radiation effects are measurable as far down as you can go, given the statistical power you have at hand.”

Mousseau hopes their results, which are consistent with the “linear-no-threshold” model for radiation effects, will better inform the debate about exposure risks. “With the levels of contamination that we have seen as a result of nuclear power plants, especially in the past, and even as a result of Chernobyl and Fukushima and related accidents, there’s an attempt in the industry to downplay the doses that the populations are getting, because maybe it’s only one or two times beyond what is thought to be the natural background level,” he said. “But they’re assuming the natural background levels are fine.”

“And the truth is, if we see effects at these low levels, then we have to be thinking differently about how we develop regulations for exposures, and especially intentional exposures to populations, like the emissions from nuclear power plants, medical procedures, and even some x-ray machines at airports.”

Physicians for Social Responsibility notes:

According to the National Academy of Sciences, there are no safe doses of radiation. Decades of research show clearly that any dose of radiation increases an individual’s risk for the development of cancer.

“There is no safe level of radionuclide exposure, whether from food, water or other sources. Period,” said Jeff Patterson, DO, immediate past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility. “Exposure to radionuclides, such as iodine-131 and cesium-137, increases the incidence of cancer. For this reason, every effort must be taken to minimize the radionuclide content in food and water.”

“Consuming food containing radionuclides is particularly dangerous. If an individual ingests or inhales a radioactive particle, it continues to irradiate the body as long as it remains radioactive and stays in the body,”said Alan H. Lockwood, MD, a member of the Board of Physicians for Social Responsibility.

***

Radiation can be concentrated many times in the food chain and any consumption adds to the cumulative risk of cancer and other diseases.