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A Happy Ending
It’s nice once in a while.
This may not mean hope for humanity but at least the prospect of occasional good news to distract us from our despair.
Our Saviour may be our Destroyer
Ice that burns
Ice that burns: Will a new discovery trigger runaway global warming?
There’s a theory that global warming cycles over the eons have been the result of the sudden sporadic release of large quantities of methane hydrate.
A tremendous release of methane gas frozen beneath the sea floor heated the Earth by up to 13 degrees Fahrenheit (7 degrees Celsius) 55 million years ago, a new NASA study confirms.
Generally, cold temperatures and high pressure keep methane stable beneath the ocean floor, however, that might not always have been the case. A movement of continental plates, like the Indian subcontinent, may have initiated a release that led to the Late Paleocene Thermal Maximum, occurred around 55 million years ago and lasted about 100,000 years.
Current theory has linked this to a vast release of frozen methane from beneath the sea floor, which led to the earth warming as a result of increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
The large quantity of methane ice at the bottom of the world’s oceans today is seen as a risk factor for accelerated “runaway global warming.” As the oceans heat up, there is a risk that the methane would be released further accelerating the global warming process.
Given this backdrop, this news seems a bit alarming:
Scientists unlock frozen natural gas
For the first time, Canadian and Japanese researchers have managed to efficiently produce a constant stream of natural gas from ice-like gas hydrates that, worldwide, dwarf all known fossil fuel deposits combined.
This breakthrough is touted as something that could one day solve the world’s energy shortages.
But it strikes me that this also has the potential to trigger a fairly cataclysmic release of methane. If the methane is already becoming unstable due to gradually warming oceans, will drilling it be the catalyst for a massive release of gas?
While the engineers will no doubt assure us that there are adequate safety precautions in place, there is no way to have certainty over the outcome of drilling down into the bowels of the earth.
Just ask the people of Sidoarjo.
Deadly Mud Volcano Destroys Village
A team of British researchers says the deadly upwelling began when an exploratory gas well punched through a layer of rock 9,300 feet (2,800 meters) below the surface, allowing hot, high-pressure water to escape.
Save the Planet by Hoarding
Can individuals make a difference?
Big Foot – Michael Specter
How do we alter human behavior significantly enough to limit global warming? Personal choices, no matter how virtuous, cannot do enough. It will also take laws and money.
In “Why Bother?” Michael Pollon response to Specter, looking at the mind set which creates individual apathy in the face of alarming climate change issues.
Here’s the point: Cheap energy, which gives us climate change, fosters precisely the mentality that makes dealing with climate change in our own lives seem impossibly difficult. Specialists ourselves, we can no longer imagine anyone but an expert, or anything but a new technology or law, solving our problems.
I almost agree with him. It is true we do not see the value of ourselves as individual actors on a world stage. But it is not because of specialisation that we feel powerless. It is because for the past generation, we have been indoctrinated into the belief that free markets determine the ultimate good.
Individual efforts in the face of the human tide may be virtuous but ineffective.
The supple of energy and thus carbon emissions are fixed: my change in demand only affects the price. So my reduction in demand simply makes it cheaper for some Chinese guy to put another gallon into his new car.
The Answer is Hoarding
In fact given this paradigm, the only thing that might save planet earth at this point are the spiralling oil prices.
If someone with very deep pockets wanted to make a real change, they would buy oil and hoard it – driving up prices without releasing the carbon they had purchased.
It’s also probably a good long term investment that would pay off well over the next 20-40 years.
The personal equivalent would be a mass movement that encourages individuals to hoard and drive up prices.
Of course if this gained any traction it would probably be outlawed and/or cause massive panic. It would certainly exacerbate climbing food prices which are partly tied to the cost of transportation and fertilizer (of which petrochemicals are a major component).
The problem with the entire equation is that those who waste the most have the largest disposable incomes to weather the increased cost of energy.
Plan B: The Plague.
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Pollon: Grow your own garden
I would like to but so far all my experiments with veggies on a tropical balcony have been destroyed by bugs…
Video: Driving High
How much before your driving goes to pot?
Is one joint the end of civilization as we know it?
