Hunger stones

[Skybird]

Curious details, and some politically incorrect obervations about low water in rivers, droughs, and climate.



https://translate.google.de/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.deutschlandfunkkultur.de%2Fudo-pollmers-mahlzeit-hungersteine-zeugen-eines.3522.de.html%3Fdram%3Aarticle_id%3D429771&edit-text=


The author I know quite well by now, me and my parents have some of his books on our shelves. He is food chemist and head of EULA, the European Institute for Ecotrophology (science of food and eating). His spoken and written publications are usually both of grim humour, deep knowledge and biting provocation. Eating gurus and food calvinists for whom any trace of delicious taste and joy from eating is a sin, react to him like a bull reacts to a red rag. - Yes, I like him very much. Sugar, vegetables, bio farming, acrylamide, salad - you name it, he usually shredders it. I admit I have a soft spot for iconoclasts who are basing not on ideology but competence when they slaughter golden calves. Politically very incorrect.

[Catfish]

It is always fun to listen to jesters :)
It is only a problem when people take jokes, exagerrations or lies seriously without scrutinizing them, abusing them for their political agenda – all sides.
Yes i know it is boring to listen to reasonable explanations. You can now stop here.


True that the sun "influences" (lol) global climate, of course. It would be quite cold without it. It would also be cold without the greenhouse effect of the atmosphere, so the latter is not "bad", by whatever definition. Mars has too few of a greenhouse effect, Venus "a bit" too much. Venus' is the earth's twin in a lot of aspects. It is not hot because of vulcans or tectonic activity alone, but because of the CO2 that does not let the heat escape, from the atmosphere. It is enough to make lead melt, at its surface.
Not that i think the earth would experience such a drastic greenhouse-run-away effect, but maybe enough for another evolutional crisis.


On earth, the last summer and the falling dry of some rivers is within the normal fluctuations, a real draught would have been a much different beast.

But the recent global warming of the atmosphere cannot be explained by the sun, since the average amount of its energy has not changed much (which drilling cores in Greenland and Antarctica have shown).

1. Not much change of solar activity or radiance intensity since 1750 (proven by drill cores, plant growth (oak tree rings etc.) and calculations of the earth's precession and orbit around the sun).

2. No climate model can explain the temperature trend of the time after the industrial revolution, without taking the increasing concentration of greenhouse gases into account.

3. More energy from the sun would show in all layers of the earth's atmosphere. Instead there is a cooling in the upper parts of the latter, while lower layers and the surface have warmed. This can up to now only be explained by gases, trapping heat by reflection and warming themselves.

Yes, how boring, i know.
Fun terminated. Schroeder, i hope you are content with my efforts :O:

[Skybird]

The effects of natural phenomenons, namely volcanoes, and effects of natural meta-cycles, namely astronomical ones, get systematically played own, if not completely ignored. Plenty of financial and ideological interest behind doing so. The human influence is there as well, is one factor for sure.


One factor amongst several ones.

We focus on just one factor, the human one. We ignore the others. That is science at its worst.

[Rockstar]

We focus on just one factor, the human one. We ignore the others. That is science at its worst.

When you do it becomes a religion. Like ancient man when he saw his first solar eclipse he attributed the phenomena to something he had done wrong. Let the sacrfices begin.

There is much much more to climate cycles than anthropogenic contributions.

[Catfish]

[...] One factor amongst several ones.

We focus on just one factor, the human one. We ignore the others. That is science at its worst.


"We" do not focus on one human factor.
"We" focus on what we can do to reduce the damage we do.

It is perfectly clear that each and every asteroid can finish "us" off in minutes, even if we had decades to prepare.
I remember you saying painting a big cross on your house for the perfect hit. Just do not expect that from everyone :D

[STEED]

When you do it becomes a religion. Like ancient man when he saw his first solar eclipse he attributed the phenomena to something he had done wrong. Let the sacrfices begin.

2 million odd years later give or take..

Let the drinking contest begin. :03:

[Dowly]

https://i.imgur.com/1r5zMJZ.jpg

[Skybird]

When you do it becomes a religion.
This.

Or a witch hunt.

Both often leads to the same outcome.

However, the article mostly is about that weather extremes of the kind we have seen this summer over here in Germany and Europe, have already been documented in our places several centuries ago.

I often must smile when I read that some volcano somewhere has erupted, and its emissions nullifying emission savings of all industry in Europe of half or even a full year. Puts things into relation a bit. Bad bad nature not playing ball with green politics!

However, I thiunk there is a trend for warmer global climate, and I think man contribtues to it. But I do not thionk that man is the only cause for this. We likely could cut back emissions to the standard of 150 years ago - and still would be faced with a trend climate warming.

Correlations do not prove causality. And irrational beliefs and ideological drives rule strong in man's mind.


Hunger stones - first time I ever heard of it. When reading the headline I thought it was about a fourth Panem novel. :)

[Catfish]

Not to divert this thread from the hunger stones, although i also thought of the Hunger Games at first :03:

As i said before last summer is part of usual fluctuations, but i cannot let an opinion like "human impact on the atmosphere is negligible" stand when it's clearly violating basics that should be known meanwhile, by everyone who has the faintest idea of physics.

https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2015/10/earths-warming-how-scientists-know-its-not-the-sun/

https://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-natural-cycle.htm

http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/milankovitch-cycles
"The natural cycle is range bound and well understood, largely constrained by the Milankovitch cycles. Since the beginning of the industrial age, humankind has caused such a dramatic departure from the natural cycle, that it is hard to imagine anyone thinking that we are still in the natural cycle."

Now you can go and explain to me how you rule out the impact of human influence on the atmosphere. Come on, go ahead.
So human influence burning the earth's "batteries" and setting free what has been deposited for millions of years within 200 years, is only a minor influence. "One cause among many", as you said.

So, what are the other causes? We ruled out the sun. We ruled out the oh-so-often quoted "Milankovic cycles". What is it then? Come on, say it. Asteroids? Orgon energy? A supernova far away?
Volcanoes? Some million years ago they indeed had an influence on the earths atmosphere of the time. COmpared to that nothing much has happened since then. If anything major eruptions producing dust and ashes lead to worldwide cooling, if they are big enough, but also not for long.
Volcanoes emit around 0.3 billion tonnes of CO2 per year. This is about 1% of human CO2 emissions which is around 29 billion tonnes per year.

Problem with you is that you think you can judge anything by your own opinion. You have a right to believe what you want, but i really hope that you will never again make it into government, and the circles of power. Trump is exactly the type, but i am really astonished to see you believing this.

I don't want to add anything, if you choose to ignore what has been found out you should maybe go back to your caves and believe in the godesses/sun's menstrual cycles, or whatever.

[Skybird]

Neither me nor anyone else here said what you put in my or our mouths.

While being a strong defender of scientific approaches and methody, I must admit and have often complained about scientifc everyday busienss, the academic business, is deeply corrupted b unserious methodology, lobby interest, finacial pressure, prestige craving. Especially in climate science, there is a merciless war going on against every heretic daring to doubt the dogmna, with now being dogma what secures this branch the most of possible public attention and financial funding.

I do not go into specific scientific details, for I amdit I do not have all of them always ready in my mind, able to call them up as if reading them out of a book. But what i do remember is the many opportunities when over the past years I have read about it for sure, and saw my questions forming up and my doubts mounting.

Critical issues get most unseriously, even underhandedly dealt with in this branch of science. Propaganda trumps everything, and already since many years before Trump.




A critical book by German. I find this one outstandingly good. Thats why I referred to it severla times before in past years.


https://www.amazon.de/%C3%96ko-Nihilismus-2012-Selbstmord-Edgar-G%C3%A4rtner/dp/3940431311/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1541450723&sr=8-1&keywords=g%C3%A4rtner+%C3%B6ko-nihilismus


Or the IPCC reports. Since many years they have detoriated into tools by which a global financial redistribution scheme gets established, of highly questionable goals and means. The scientific basis for the data they base their yearly reports on is blind on one eye and extremely selective, and the gang behind them has become more and more bigot and intolerant against anyone questioning their dogma, while the figures at the top often are shady and dubious, at least quite some of them.

I have said it many times, the academic business is deeply corrupted and abusive today, and ecology is no exception from this unfortunate rule. And greenish idealism is not holy in itself, in fact it often is as one-sided and blind and unfounded as the lobby and the ideas of those it claims to "demask".

Do not trust them as blindly as you seem to do. The older I got, the more I understood one thing: the louder some messiahs want to save the world, the more they just are about wanting to have power over you and make you do what they demand you to do, to form a uniform collecxtiuve of theirs where everybody must live by their rules. May it be food and health, may it be ecology, may it be social "solidarity", may it be migration activists - you name it. This does not mean the lobbies on the other side of the frontlines are better. They are most likely not. It just means I do not trust any of them all. I look as far as I can overlook my life, I sort what I see, I form an opinion, I make a decison, and I live with its consequences, living my life - and mine exclusively.


We burn too much money for the wrong things when it comes to future security and ecology. For nothing but illusions we do so, to wallow in our self-satisfied emotions over that. And:


WE ARE TOO MANY.



All talking about future sustainability and environmental proteciton is just babbling hot air as long as we have almost 8 billion people crawling on this planet. The biggest problem ther eis - is the mere size of human population itself.


Bring it down to 1- 1.5 billion. Then we can start to be serious. Until then we just kill time, burn money, and do intellectual vademecuum-yoga to ease our conscience.

[Catfish]

It is not that i don't understand what you mean. Tyring to clear this tomorrow, have to sleep now :wah:

[August]

There are over 7 billion people on this planet. Short of drastically reducing that number there is no carbon tax, technical tweak, austerity program or any other wealth redistribution scheme that is going to have even a little effect on a planet wide system like climate.

[Catfish]

@Skybird i speak about how things are, with evidence, based on scientific research. What the loony right and the loony left and loony greeners and others (who have their own special other agenda) do to promote themselves and satisfy their greed, is of no significance to what is.

Everyone tries to cook his own soup on what he/she believes, and finding "evidence" on the 'net for their opinion is easier than ever. Everyone can choose his own filter bubble he wants to live in. Which i think is a very bad way to understand the world and master it.

So you tell me the greens are becoming eco-fascists, the left (ab)uses the global warming to shoot against the right, while the right just plain denies any human pollution entirely to shoot against the left.
Yes, everyone has his own agenda, and whether he personally believes anything or not, he argues with what he wants to believe.


@August and Skybird yes "we" are too many. While the west has on average enough resources to live more or less comfortably and does not suffer a famine, it does not need much children to care for him when he reaches higher ages. This is not so in the poorer parts of the world where children are your life insurance when you get older.

Which is why no one of us western satisfied and relatively "rich" will be able to tell other peoples what is right and that they should abstain from getting more children. Patronising does not work, and even with the most righteous reasons it is perceived as arrogant. Gandhi's wife's intervention back then with "Two is enough" while castrating lots of Indians by force .. not the way.


Once more: Volcanoes emit around 0.3 billion tonnes of CO2 per year. This is about 1% of human CO2 emissions which is around 29 billion tonnes per year.

For me the impact of humans on the pollution of the earth is clear as mud. From toxic waste, to plastic in the seas, to stuffing the air with the CO2 that had been buried and deposited for hundreds of million of years. You have to be delusional not to see what mankind is doing, even if you do not know details about coal and oil formation.


So you say "we are too many". This is true. So what do we do?

Logically, there are two ways:
1. Reduce the earth's population.
2. Inventing smart technology to minimize pollution of the earth and still live comfortably, if a bit different

To 1 i have to say that reducing the population by force cannot be the solution. Trying to do that by education ("Two is enough") is all good and well, but as long as 80 percent of the earth's population have not even enough to eat and survive, this education thing becomes a pure academical thought, apart from taking a long time – generations, that is. Also if already the "educated west" does not want to believe its own research, why should they?
Then there are those surely educated but still retro people who condemn abortion in the enlightened, educated West, for religious reasons.

Then, even if 70 percent of the earth's population gets killed and some "advanced civilisation" survives with its science and technology, does anyone really think that someone like Trump, Putin, younameit, would reduce pollution and waste then? Russia, China, USA? Never. And the EU while it tries is only doing a faint and bad job at it, too. It does not have much impact when exhaust regulations exist in Germany, but not in China.

No, the level of pollution would stay even with 70 percent less people, as long as the "civilised world" survives. It is not the poor population of the earth that is mostly responsible for the worldwide pollution.
(B.t.w. what the west does pollution-wise, atmosphere-wise, spread of radioactivity and so on is certainly felt over the whole world, not only where the poisoning initially happens)


About point 2, civilisation is beginning to understand that we can and are able to reduce certain "negative input" in the world's ecosystem.
Some people speak of "ecosystem" and "environment" as if we would not live in it, as if this would somehow exist outside the human existence. This works as long as we export waste to China and are spared the sight of waste, dying and decay.


Since there is already technology to reduce waste and pollution, and since there is even money in it, why the hell don't we apply it? Laziness? Putting our head in the sand and think "it will go by" is maybe human, but not the solution.


And then there are people who deny both points 1 and 2. "There is no pollution". Or "We can change the world if we introduce exhaust regulations alone in the EU". Or "There is no CO2 problem".

Then of course there are those who know better, but publicly ignore it to get votes, or personal gain, anything that feeds their greed.


Can we afford to let either delusional and uneducated people, or obvious egomaniacs set the way for the future?

[Skybird]

When was it, two or three years ago there was this huge volcano eruption in the far East, it lasted for several weeks, but already after 2-3 weeks it was reported back then to have pumped out more climate-damaging emissions than the whole European industry in one year.


1991 the Pinatubo broke out. In the following 18 months, global temperatures fell by an average of 0.5°C, directly attributed to the volcano event.


There are many other natural phenomenonsns, in forests, in upper and lower layers of the atmosphere, in the oceans, that mess up man's projections on how climate will go and what man must do to be on the safe side, whatever that should mean, since these values vary tremendously. And whenever the next conference gets closer, the reduction values that they say must be reached, suddenly grow upwards (before the last IPCC report presentation it suddenly had grown to over 3.5°, and then even 5° of needed reduction). Thats is becasue many countries hope to get more money out of it the more dramatic a picture they paint. The good-doers of course are all in that scenario anyway, of course.


You said you refer to scientific results. I have hinted at that the scientific results are interest-led, from both sides of the spectrum. When the methods are corrupted and the intention rules out unwanted results from beginning on, then maybe one should not trust these results so blindly. Even more so when there is not just the conservative and industry-friendly lobby that opposes them, but also a small faction of relatively independent scientists whom you can occasionally read about, who put the mainstream dogma in question as well and for that get punished with merciless silence and getting ignored.


I was once the same like you on these issues, catfish. I saw a need over the past couple of years to change my views a bit. Sometimes massively. Sp much for those who accused me in the past that I never allow to have my opinion altered by somebody. I chnage my opinion - but I want to have a good reason for doing so. That I do not do it all too often, to me is a sign that my original option was a well-founded one. If I would cnage my views every months, I would just show that I know nothing and am a clueless idiot on things. Leaf in the wind, and all that.


There is a trend for warmer climate. I think that is clear. Ocean temperatures and salination, glaciers, polar ice caps, speak a clear language, clearer than atmospheric temperature and climate measuring alone. Man contributes to it, that also is beyond doubt to me - but there is more to it than just a human influx. Any values called out for reductions and limitations of global temperature rise, are not only relatively arbitrary, but also are financial interest-led and are result of the desired increase in money transfers from North to South. In the end all this does not impress or interest me that much. It happens, we cannot avoid it, either we are fit to deal with it, or we are not, period. Evolution means adaptation, and that is what I am interested in: if and how man will adapt to the changes in the climate environment. Preventing it, sounds like megalomania to me. Climate engineering is an option I do not want to see for real (once I was a fan of the idea), since I fear human hybris again.


---


I repeatedly referred to the huge population. My number of 1-1.5 billion is the result of various inputs and things I read over the past 10 or 15 years. Books from various branches, media: geographers, biologists, environmentalists, oceanographists, really, a wild input. The number that got most often mentioned as beign the limit of what the Earth can sustain in ressources consummation and human emissions and garbage production, is in the range of 1-1.5 billion. Thats how I come to it.That is somewhere in t he range of global population at the beginning of the 20th century, I seem to recall.



Many people in africa and SE asia have many children not just due to the older ones being cared for, but but because of social prestige and status. Like also many places there are where bigger cattle herds get raised than a tribe actually would need to live, because again: bigger numbers mean more prestige, mean more "wealth". But these huge hers come at their own ecological costs, adn they are devastating, even when they are "fully bio". In short: cultural reasons for having many children overrule social needs by far, in Africa, Asia, and less so, but still: in South and Middle America as well. Children are seen as a gift. For some societies that practice aggressive expansionism due to ideological or powerpolitical motives, high birth rates also are a weapon. Demography is a weapon, lets be absolutely clear about that. I remind of the war index of Gunnar Heinsohn, which weighs the relation between old and young males in a society against the aggressiveness and the likelihood of internal wars in that society. The higher the index marking, the higher the probability of conflict and war. The system works stunningly well both for countries in the highly developed and the under-developed world.


The immense rat tails of consequences when practicing both intense industrial or bio farming, cannot be escaped. The balance has been shifted due to fertilzers and pesticides and artifical watering BUT - none of them is a free ride, they all have their own implicit costs. Too muc simpy is too much. Same is true for fish farms in the sea. You cannot eat the cake and still keep it. Its not possible. Earth's capacity to clean our disposal, is limited as well, so are many ressurces and their availability. I am very critical of the idea to mess up the balance even more by wanting to import ores from Moon or Mars in huge quantities so they make themselves felt in earth'S mineral and climate bilance. We simply know too little about that, and that is also the reason why I oppose ideas of climate engineering by releasing agents into the atmosphere or covering Earth with shields to deflect energy from space, and what else there is in "reasonable" concepts.


For any of these ideas, reduction of man'S global population is the inevitable precondition that cannot be evaded. The position of the Catholic church on issues of birth control and condoms, is not helpful, to put it very mildly. Personaly I think the Vatican should be held accountable at a tribunal like The Hague, for crimes against humanity. sAme is true for any idoelogy and religion propagating uncontrolled baby-booms. Its a recipe for civilizational suicide, and it creates suffering, more suffering, and utmost suffering.


In the medium term, to me all this talkign about ecology and temperature limitation goals and resourse preservation makes no sense as long as we are so many people. Growing. It is very simple. Moral or compassion or agape are things of man's imagination only, for nature they play no role. And if man does not get his acts together, then nature will care of it - with its characteristic lack of compassion and care for the individual. we see it happening everywhere already: wars, famines, ideologically fuelled hate, fight for sweet water, survival, migration. Several of the huge genocides in africa of the past 30 years were fueled by the massive dysbalance between old males keeping social key posts, and young males not finding a place in society and not being able to maintain their own family, since the older ones occupy all ground, options, seats of influence. The media then report just the surface and call it "ethnic hate" between two tribal groups. Thats is just the trigger, the strawman reason so to speak.



We have far to many babies in places where there should not be so many babies, and we have too little babies in places where we should have more. Still, the fundamental dysbalance between numbers in the developed and the less developed world, prevails. even if we would raise more babies in the west, it would mean little for the global population number. But it would mean more future adults runnign the industry that gets demonised so much by certain people - while it is the one thing that keeps the whole overcrowded boat afloat.


I once shared many of your views, Catfish, and I was as passionate in defending them. But I was forced to change quite some of my views. It is not as simplistic as I used to think of things in the past. Especially not with the scientific circus. I defend the method, but one needs to see its limits, and one has to be aware that everyday opportunism and politics have massively corrupted it. And that is true for fields of science that are of high practical value, and in theoretical science as well (string "theory", dont get me started...)

[Rockstar]

Well, as Clive Best says:


Orbital parameters today are very similar to the Anglian interglacial with low eccentricity suppressing precession of the equinoxes. For this reason the Holocene would naturally have lasted longer than normal. However a minimum obliquity will occur in 12000 years time, and this always heralds a new glaciation. Near term global warming is not to be welcomed and will surely have short term negative effects. However, such an AGW spike peaking in 2100 would have a silver lining by making the next glacial cycle habitable for North Americans and Europeans !


http://clivebest.com/blog/?page_id=2949

[Skybird]

Interesting guy you found there, Rockstar, he is unknown to me. Interesting also are some of the replies on the page you linked.

Before somebody declares him to be a clueless climat denier, this is his background:
http://clivebest.com/blog/?page_id=2

That clueless he cannot be.



Curbing carbon emissions is going to be almost impossible while the world’s population continues to grow. My personal view is that humans have massively changed the global natural order and CO2 emissions are a symptom of this rather than the overriding central issue. Only if and when population can be stabilised will we have a hope of balancing human needs with those of nature. Concentrating on CO2 emissions is probably a diversion from this primary problem. I think that the evidence supports the “sceptical” view that temperatures will not rise by more than about 1 degree between 2000 and 2100. Despite this, the push to find new energy sources has a beneficial side effect of climate change policy, and is probably necessary. However, renewable energies currently have far too low energy density – wind energy for example in the UK comes out at just 2 watts/m2. Is it really worth covering the most beautiful parts of britain with 100 meter high unreliable turbines, while China continues to burn cheap coal ? Solar energy farms in deserts, short term expansion of nuclear power until nuclear fusion is tamed are a better investment for us and for the natural world.
(...)
I am not disagreeing with the latest AR5 report. It is a very impressive summary of climate science. (...) So my main complaint is that we only hear the worst case scenarios of 6C warming by 2100 and never the most likely case which is just <2C warming even under business as usual. One reason for that is the politicalisation of climate sciencce, cheer lead by with various hangers on and green pressure groups.



Almost the same point I made: Overpopulation is the real problem, everythign else is just follow-on symptoms.

The comments sections maybe is even more interesting - and certainly more accessible - than the main article. I admit I struggled with the main text.

[Rockstar]

I found Clive Best on the web about a 18 months age. I've always found his opinions and those in the comments section insightful, scientific and remarkably civil in nature. Keeps me coming back. ;)




I have a Bsc in Physics and a PhD in High Energy Physics and have worked as a research fellow at CERN for 3 years, Rutherford Lab for 2 years and the JET Nuclear Fusion experiment for 5 years. http://clivebest.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/clive-150x150.jpg (http://clivebest.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/clive.jpg)Thereafter I worked at the Joint Research Centre in Italy until April 2008 being seconded to the African Union in Addis Adaba Nov 2007 until March 2008. I originally started this blog to record my experiences in Ethiopia. It started out as a travel blog, but has now morphed mainly into a science blog on climate. All results, views, opinions and errors are entirely my own fault and in no way reflect any stance of any previous employer. In April 2008 I co-founded a start up company Osvision. Since then I also got involved with holiday rentals and a business centre at Colletta (http://colletta.it) – a quite beautiful and unique medieval village in Liguria, Italy. I also now have more freedom to travel the world. I am basically a scientific sceptic but with a deep interest in other opinions and cultures.
I became interested in understanding the physics behind climate change after getting fed up with being told that the debate is over. Science is never a closed book and has a habit of turning round and biting those who think so. This explains why the blog now focusses on climate science.

[August]

1. Reduce the earth's population.

2. Inventing smart technology to minimize pollution of the earth and still live comfortably, if a bit different


Unless there is some huge game changing technical breakthrough you cannot invent your way out of this without controlling population or the numbers will swamp any regimen you try to institute.

[Rockstar]

Love this comment


Climate change has about as much impact on our lives as continental drift. Nobody you know is going to be inconvenienced, let alone killed, by the imperceptible drifting of the 17-year running average of weather. The bizarreness of our obsession with climate will take a few years to be widely acknowledged, but when it is, expect to see climate research return to its former status as a niche science of no particular urgency. The biggest challenge is to understand and arrest processes such as cancer and dementia, which will destroy the lives of most of the people you know.