Bill McKibben: This is how the earth works now
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/271-38/13377-a-summer-of-extremes-signifies-the-new-normalI could go on and on with accounts of this wildest of summers: "refugee camps" for livestock in arid India; the warmest rainstorm ever recorded in Mecca in early summer (109 degrees), a mark that lasted about six weeks until it was broken in the California desert in August (115 degrees); traffic on the Mississippi grinding to a halt as the water level fell and fell and fell; a record area of the continental U.S. burned by wildfires before the summer was even over. Ad infinitum.
But best to end with the words of our leading climatologist, James Hansen, who in August published a peer-reviewed paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. As he had at every stage of the global warming saga, Hansen laid out what was happening with devastating clarity. There's always been extreme heat, he showed - but the one-degree increase in global temperature we've seen so far has been enough to shift the bell curve sharply to the left. In the old summer, the one most of us grew up in, 0.1 to 0.2 percent of the surface area of the planet was dealing with "extreme heat anomalies" at any given moment. Now it was approaching 10 percent. The math, he said, was clear: It "allows us to infer that the area covered by extreme hot anomalies will continue to increase in coming decades and that even more extreme outliers will occur."
In other words, this is no freak summer. This is how the earth works now.
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I don't think we need to wait for 2150. This is very much the situation today, though they haven't made wind and solar illegal. They they don't have to - renewable energy is irrelevant when considered in the context of fossil fuel use, and it's are utterly irrelevant to the real issue at hand - how to reduce global carbon output by 80% to 90% within 20 years.
Here's the evidence, using data taken from the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2012:
To be frankly honest with you, community building and helping our fellowman reconnect with nature is pretty heartwarming and all, but it's not going to really do us any good until we start fixing things, no matter how much we may wish otherwise(I actually went thru this myself at one point.)
Before I go you may want to read this Skeptical Science article:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-too-hard.htm
I do find it rather funny(and not always in a comedic way, either) that there seem to be a few remarkable similarities between the deniers' "Humans can't hurt the climate" arguments, and the "We can't stop global warming!" ones coming from the apocalyptic Cassandra set.
I came to the realization some time ago that sitting around and doing nothing will never help us out. Again, I should reiterate that we can indeed greatly enhance our connections with the natural world and build better communities, but we must also focus on not just mere adaptation, but also mitigating, stabilizing and eventually reversing, whatever problems we can, or it'll all come to naught.
(P.S., I did just start looking at your site, btw.....
Good luck with your endeavors, then.
Seriously, I hope everyone who is passionate about some aspect of life gives it 110%. The state of the world in any given moment is the emergent, dynamically balanced result of 7 billion people all pulling in different directions. I find that idea utterly exhilarating.
FAQ 10.3, Figure 1. (a) Simulated changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration relative to the present-day for emissions stabilized at the current level (black), or at 10% (red), 30% (green), 50% (dark blue) and 100% (light blue) lower than the current level; (b) as in (a) for a trace gas with a lifetime of 120 years, driven by natural and anthropogenic fluxes; and (c) as in (a) for a trace gas with a lifetime of 12 years, driven by only anthropogenic fluxes.
https://www.ipcc.unibe.ch/publications/wg1-ar4/faq/wg1_faq-10.3.html
Reposted from ScienceDaily (Feb. 18, 2008) Now that scientists have reached a consensus that carbon dioxide emissions from human activities are the major cause of global warming, the next question is: How can we stop it? Can we just cut back on carbon, or do we need to go cold turkey? According to a new study by scientists at the Carnegie Institution, halfway measures won’t do the job. To stabilize our planet’s climate, we need to find ways to kick the carbon habit altogether.
In the study, to be published in Geophysical Research Letters, climate scientists Ken Caldeira and Damon Matthews used an Earth system model at the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology to simulate the response of the Earth’s climate to different levels of carbon dioxide emission over the next 500 years. The model, a sophisticated computer program developed at the University of Victoria, Canada, takes into account the flow of heat between the atmosphere and oceans, as well as other factors such as the uptake of carbon dioxide by land vegetation, in its calculations.
This is the first peer-reviewed study to investigate what level of carbon dioxide emission would be needed to prevent further warming of our planet.
...
With emissions set to zero in the simulations, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere slowly fell as carbon “sinks” such as the oceans and land vegetation absorbed the gas. Surprisingly, however, the model predicted that global temperatures would remain high for at least 500 years after carbon dioxide emissions ceased.
Just as an iron skillet will stay hot and keep cooking after the stove burner’s turned off, heat held in the oceans will keep the climate warm even as the heating effect of greenhouse gases diminishes. Adding more greenhouse gases, even at a rate lower than today, would worsen the situation and the effects would persist for centuries.
...
http://co2now.org/Future-CO2/Targets/stabilizing-climate-requires-near-zero-emissions.html
NOAA stunner: Climate change “largely irreversible for 1000 years,” with permanent Dust Bowls in Southwest and around the globe
Important new research led by NOAA scientists, “Irreversible climate change because of carbon dioxide emissions,” finds:
…the climate change that is taking place because of increases in carbon dioxide concentration is largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop…. Among illustrative irreversible impacts that should be expected if atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations increase from current levels near 385 parts per million by volume (ppmv) to a peak of 450-600 ppmv over the coming century are irreversible dry-season rainfall reductions in several regions comparable to those of the ”dust bowl” era and inexorable sea level rise.
I guess this is what President Obama meant when he warned today of “irreversible catastrophe” from climate change. The NOAA press release is here. An excellent video interview of the lead author is here.
The Proceedings of the National Academies of Science paper gives the lie to the notion that it is a moral choice not to do everything humanly possible to prevent this tragedy, a lie to the notion that we can “adapt” to climate change, unless by “adapt” you mean “force the next 50 generations to endure endless misery because we were too damn greedy to give up 0.1% of our GDP each year” (see, for instance, McKinsey: Stabilizing at 450 ppm has a net cost near zero or the 2007 IPCC report).
The most important finding concerns the irreversible precipitation changes we will be forcing on the next 50 generations in the U.S. Southwest, Southeast Asia, Eastern South America, Western Australia, Southern Europe, Southern Africa, and northern Africa (see also US Geological Survey stunner: SW faces “permanent drying” by 2050 and links below)
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2009/01/26/203610/noaa-climate-change-irreversible-1000-years-drought-dust-bowls/
I could go on and on and on....
I admit that you made me chuckle a bit, though. 
No, I haven't read McKibben's book, so I'm not going to say anything about him yet.
Personally, I'm in a situation where I can't do much, physically, but I have been trying to get the word out as much as possible....though given how busy I am these days, it's not always easy.
By the way, Robert, may I ask what you've done?
I've been around a few of the "Earth will turn into Venus" or "Humanity will and should go extinct" types.....perhaps too many, and I haven't seen you saying any of that stuff. You'll have to forgive me for having been so cynical in the past, btw, but I was one of the many Americans turned off by constant barrages of "Earth will turn into Venus" type stuff all over the 'Net....I never did turn into a denier, but it took me a few years to wake up, and that was thanks to people like Peter Sinclair, and others, and they were just putting out the facts.
I'm a realist; I know how terribly serious this problem is and that the world's leaders do need to address the problems ASAP, or nothing will improve for us. And frankly, we have had to face setbacks in recent years, thanks to the downright evil machinations of the Koch Bros. and their ilk. Were it not for them, we would likely be in a much nicer position today.
We may very well face the mass downsizing of global civilization, and the loss of many tens of millions of people thru mega-famines, decades of at least semi-screwy weather patterns, etc. Some people may call me a doomer too, but I reject such labelling because I'm not one of those who believe there's no hope for Earth, or that humanity will go extinct, etc. What I do believe, is the reality that humanity does face an urgent, terrible, challenge for the foreseeable future in dealing with what could very well be the biggest crisis we've ever faced since the age of Civilization began, and that we MUST take action; the longer we wait, the more dire the circumstances. We have no other choice. But if we do, we can take steps to slowly, but surely build a better world for all of us.
You have already done your duty for 30 years, RobertEarl. Please don't stop now; the world needs more people like you. And I mean that sincerely.
Is that before about 2005 there were no "doomers" claiming nothing could be fixed. From the 1960s on there were a lot of people claiming that if we didn't act right fucking now, things might not be fixable later on. That is the Chicken Little claim that Big Energy reframed as "doomerism" and tarred all the climate realists with - the claim that you apparently bought hook, line and sinker. Up until 2005 virtually all the guys like me were saying "Pitter patter, let's get at her!"
Well, I'm sorry to say you read me wrong, and that your belief that climate doomers didn't exist before '05 is simply unprovable.
I've got almost 100 articles on my web site that detail why I think we're screwed, and mostly it comes down to the human brain and our cultural narrative. If we could change our cultural narrative we could act, but we'll only change it after the crisis hits - not before - because that's the way our brains are wired.
Link, please? I'm interested to hear your take on this.
Also, I think it can be legitimately argued that we're in a crisis right now.
A lot of us have realized this, and it has caused us to abandon the path you're on - we've seen that it has no destination, and we understand why that is.
Last time I checked, the path I was on is one of realism: yes, things are getting bad, and we need to urgently address the problems that we are facing, and may face in the future.
We thought the somnolent paralysis was due to a lack of education, or a moral failure on the part of leadership or something equally facile and superficial - but something amenable to education or exhortation.
Which actually turned out to be very correct.....not to mention the vast amounts of propagandizing that occurred.
These are the parts of our brain that hold the self-aggrandizing qualities of leadership and the herding instincts that keep us all together - following our leaders and blinding our rational neocortex to the simple fact that those leaders are leading us over a cliff for their own gain, while we all cheer them on.
That may be true to an extent, but do you think we would have made all of the social and economic progress that's been done over the past 100 years if that was the only factor? Sorry, but I don't buy it. If that was the only factor involved, TBH, we'd still have badly polluted urban water & air; Jim Crow would still be alive and well; people would still believe that the Earth was literally created in a week, 6,000 years ago; hell, the South might still have slavery to this day, even!
We can't fix it because the problem is not in how we act, but in why we act the way we do.
It's not that simple, I'm afraid.
Your deep-rooted desire to blame doomers is simply another manifestation of the problem.
If I was really doing that, I don't think I would have been as civil as I've been with you, GG. The truth is, the doomers were not really to blame for what happened; as I said, they were just used & manipulated. I don't play the "blame the victim" game; as frustrated as I may have gotten, and can still get with the doomers at times, I do realize that they were only trying to help.
I still place the real blame on Big Energy, because they were the ones who chose to be dishonest in the first place. They chose to lie, cheat, and destroy. Were it not for the criminality that became so pervasive amongst Exxon, BP, etc., and people like Dick Cheney and George W. Bush who enabled them, many of our problems wouldn't be as bad as they are now.
Regardless of whether or not we think Earth is doomed to destruction, or merely in for rough times ahead, let's try to fight for what's left. It's only hopeless if we quit. So let's try to do our part, shall we?
The only problem was that, since it was a full month ahead of schedule, there weren't any bees to pollinate them 
My dwarf cherry looked amazing, just white with flowers, but had a few dozen cherries at best.
It very well could become reality, but I doubt we're actually at the 'new normal' yet. On the other hand, we are certainly approaching that. Not good news.
And if you don't have enough evidence of it, how can you tell you are approaching something you cannot recognize because there is no evidence it exists???? 
I would define it as finding solutions that are outside or orthogonal to the problem space, and choosing to put one's efforts into them - and stopping one's involvement with traditional environmentalism that tries to work within the problem space.
This may give you an idea of what I mean - it's one of my articles that I've asked you to read. I readily admit that I take a more abstract approach than some other walkoffs do, but that's just because of who I am. Other people find different expressions that are consistent with their own personalities.
Once I understood and accepted that the disintegration of our civilization is already underway, I spent a number of years trying to get people to change their beliefs and their behaviour. I felt that if they made the changes I was proposing they could make a "good" outcome more likely. I was disappointed when my exhortations and hectoring fell on mostly deaf ears - whenever I wasn't just preaching to the choir, that is. It was Cassandra's dilemma too.
The more I tried to promote change, however, the more I suffered. But the suffering didn't spring simply from the pain of disappointment. It went much deeper than that, and eventually precipitated my Dark Night of the Soul. The Buddha was right when he taught that all suffering springs from attachment. In my case the attachment was to a particular outcome - my vision of a sustainable, just, ecologically conscious society that made room for all living things on the planet, not just our relatives and friends. When that outcome was thwarted through public indifference and even hostility, I suffered mightily.
Fortunately, I went through a transformation about three years ago. The shift was complete enough that it enabled me to detach from outcomes while still remaining committed to the awareness of what's going on. At the same time I adopted the position that this reality is co-created by all its participants, and that at some level the nature of reality and our individual roles in it have been consciously chosen by us all. At that point, I realized that I had been working at cross purposes to the reality that was unfolding. The ongoing transformation, even if it becomes a collapse of civilization, is not meant to be stopped. Rather, it is the vessel within which our conscious awareness is being nurtured, developed and annealed. This leads to the rather uncomfortable conclusion that the collapse is not to be lamented or prevented, but rather to be celebrated and engaged. It will come as no surprise to those on similar journeys that when I surrendered to this understanding, my suffering ceased.
From that perspective, I decided that the most useful thing I can do - something that is aligned with the point of the exercise rather than in opposition to it - is simply to contribute my little bits of awareness to the field. I try to do it without expectation or attachment, without trying to elicit a particular response or outcome. Just put the awareness out there. Those who aren't ready for it yet will ignore or reject it, those who don't yet see it but are ready may awaken a bit more, those who are already aware may find some fresh nuance to play with. Whatever role my observations and discussions play in the unfoldment is the part they are meant to play. This is what I call "vocal witnessing".
I still care very deeply about what's happening, but I now remain relatively unattached to how it might unfold in the future. As a result I avoid talking about solutions as much as possible, largely because I don't think there are any - at least at the level most people think of "solutions" (like new policies or new technologies) The point of all this apparently catastrophic unfoldment is not for us to "solve the problem", but for for us to wake up.
I agree completely with the writer Charles Eisenstein ("The Ascent of Humanity"
and other observers - we do not have a soluble problem, we have an insoluble predicament. Because of that, our most useful response will be at right angles to the problem space. That means that the door out of this mess isn't going to be opened by a new version of our old ways (new legislation, clean energy and more recycling) although that will play a role. The real doorway out will be found by shifting into a completely new way of being - the revolution of consciousness that so many of us know in our bones is just around the corner.
These days I'm putting all my chips on abetting that r/evolution of human consciousness, by acting as a vocal witness to the unfolding collapse.
Within the community of the environmentally and ecologically aware, this is an uncommon position, although perhaps less so among those who have chosen a spiritual response to their apprehension of collapse. Within the mainstream of activist thought it is still viewed as fatalism and defeatism.
How does thinking about this perspective make you feel? Do you think it is a useful point of view or not? Is it helpful or dangerous? Is it an approach you have taken, or could see yourself taking? Or does it feel like sophistry - simply a tricky justification for fiddling while Rome burns?
It's been a long and hard process for me personally, but I hope to complete this task one day. Wish me luck.
I've been saying for a couple of years that once Climate Change gets real obvious, there will be people who blame it on Liberals. Blaming it on the people who were trying to stop it....
Look within this thread for some of what I was talking about.
Sometimes I hate being proven right. 
Assholes.
I was thinking more about this on the bus home just now, and I realized a lot of the problem here stemmed from language. Maybe a careful discussion of terminology and usage is in order. As much for my own clarity as anything, I'd like to take a stab at it.
There is a large(ish) group of people who believe that the human experience has passed some kind of bifurcation point, and that rapid, irreversible, entropic social and ecological change is underway with much more to come. There are many differing ideas about what that bifurcation point might be, the nature of the changes we are entering, how deep the decline might be, what aspects of it can be stopped or reversed, and what the appropriate responses might be. One fairly common meme in this group is that unbridled material/economic growth and a refusal to recognize limits play a large role in the unfolding events.
Of course, the ideas of slowing or stopping economic growth and respecting limits are anathema to TPTB, so they had to find a way to marginalize these people and keep such ideas out of the public square if at all possible. This was urgent, because the evidence was beginning to pile up that these people were right.
TPTB looked at this proto-movement and discovered some vulnerabilities. One was the respect we pay to the fundamentals of Malthusian theory (essentially the recognition that infinite growth in a finite environment is impossible), as well as to the Club of Rome's LtG study of 1971. Then the Peak Oil movement came along, and the combination of that stream of thought with a smattering of complex systems theory made many of us aware of the possibility that a rapid decline in oil production could be extremely damaging to a high-energy society that uses oil as a keystone resource.
A few people (I'll name Matt Savinar, Richard Duncan and Jay Hanson but there were some others - including me from about 2004 to 2008) started talking about the potential for a complete rupture of civilization due to Peak Oil, with an ensuing die-off back to a billion people or less within a short period of time. This was the extreme outer edge of the movement, but it was just visible enough that TPTB could use it as a meme. The word "Doomer" was born, usually coupled with this picture of the "End of the World" guy to drive the point home:
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This identification was used to brand everyone who subscribed to a reduced-growth paradigm - no matter how mild - as a crazy, apocalyptic doomer.
Unfortunately for TPTB, no matter how much blunt-force propaganda trauma they inflicted on the "Malthusian hippies", the evidence continued to accumulate. Eventually there was enough of it that the scientists began to speak out (they'd been silenced by the earlier onslaught of marginalization). As more scientific evidence made its way into public view, a lot of people who previously hadn't been extremist in their views began to realize that the chances the "doomers" could be right was growing every day.
At some point, the doomers themselves repatriated the word as an affectionate shibboleth - an ironic recognition sign. This has echoes of the way blacks repatriated the "N-word".
Many of us have gone through long processes of painful discovery about the real nature of the world we're living in compared to what we'd been told it was. We have endured endless derision and marginalization at the hands of those in power, as well as their minions, fellow travelers and useful idiots. All through this dark night there was the realization that the evidence was on our side. Now the evidence is beginning to pour out from every corner of the scientific world, and the badge of "Doomer" carries a lot of pride for those of us who held fast to our knowledge of the truth.
So when someone comes along and begins using "doomer" here in its old, dark, pejorative sense ... well, it's as though a clueless white man walked into a ghetto bar, went up to a group of young black men at a table and said somewhat aggressively, "Whassup, n*****s?"
When you use that word here, it's best to use it with an ironic, affectionate smile. Call those other guys "extremists" or "apocalyptics" or something, but keep in mind that the problem many of them like Malthus and Meadows and Hubbert had, was that they were right on the wrong side just a bit too early.
One thing I'm beginning to realize is that I myself, could be labelled as a doomsday advocate, simply because I believe that a possibility does exist of the eventual shrinking of global civilization and the possibility of losing hundreds of millions, if not 1-2 billion or more, people, due to mega-famines, constant civil strife, etc. So I'll be rethinking my strategy from here on out.
Cheers.
That was a fascinating conversation. I really enjoyed it, despite what it may have looked like at the beginning. Thank you.