Thursday, February 02, 2012

Peak when? We've already passed it

ArsTechnica: When is peak oil? We've passed it. Welcome to the downslope.

CP: How much of recent global warming has been caused by human activities? Most likely more than 100%. How can we have caused more than 100% of something? Without human activity, it is likely that we would have experienced a slight cooling trend and so our activities are primarily responsible for both overcoming this natural trend and the observed warming.

NYT: A case study in overfishing - the collapse of jack mackerel in under a decade. A single super-trawler theoretically has the capacity to catch more jack mackerel annually than the most optimistic estimate of the global sustainable catch. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimated (based on 1998 data, now hopelessly out of date) that global fishing fleets "are 2.5 times larger than needed." The latest estimate of total global subsidies for fishing fleets (back in 2003) was US$25 billion to $29 billion per annum (mainly in fuels). Let us therefore choose between fish and the fishing industry; we cannot save them both.

Physorg: Wheat can't stand the heat. A new study published in Nature Climate Change found that "a 2.0 Celsius increase above long-term averages shortened the growing season by a critical nine days, reducing total yield by up to 20 percent."

NASA: Greenland, the world's northern mirror, is rapidly growing dimmer, with some areas seeing a drop in reflectivity of almost 20% in a few years.

Stephen Leahy: Toxic pollution is a public health problem on a similar scale to malaria. A new study claims that more than 100 million people have their productive life span shortened by an average of 12.7 years. Some of the causes may be encircling your finger, resting in your pocket or illuminating your eyeballs right now, though the victims may well live on the other side of the world.

Onion: Scientists reveal how to achieve sustainability overnight, though wisely leave open the policy questions.

10 comments:

byron smith said...

SkSci: A 2008 paper also found that humans caused more than 100% of recent warming.

byron smith said...

SkSci: Six studies comparing human and natural climate forcings.

byron smith said...

The Conversation: Will techno-fixes save us from peak oil?

byron smith said...

ArsTechnica: Current emissions rates are ten times the highest known rate of CO2 increase in the geological record.

byron smith said...

My implicit reference in the post to harms associated with gold mining really needs to be supplemented by a reference to the recently established fairtrade/fairmined gold standard. A noble effort worthy of your support.

Tim said...

Please tell me you weren't taking the Onion article seriously....

byron smith said...

You needed to ask? ;-)

I frequently throw in an Onion link to spice up depressing posts.

byron smith said...

CC: Greenland ice sheet nears critical tipping point, at which 100% of the surface of the ice experiences summer melt. And an update on the dimming of the ice sheet too.

byron smith said...

A sudden dip in Greenland's albido is visualised and discussed here.

byron smith said...

Grist: NASA 'Unprecedented' 'extraordinary' ice melt in Greenland. This is what the previous link was referring to from the perspective of albido.