More Bad News Ahead

How far do greenhouse gas emissions need to drop in order to change the global warming path we are on? According to Guy Brasseur, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology 80 to90%. Well that level of emissions decrease would mean stopping all industry and transportation. It would also mean stopping all use of coal and other hydrocarbons. If that is what it would take to change the trend, then literally do not have a snow ball's chance of significant positive influence. I do not know if Brasseur's presentation to Parliament included the melting to the permafrost which is releasing methane which is 20 times more damaging than carbon dioxide. My guess is it does to come up with that 80-90% figure.

We are likely continuing to see the devastating effects of what the current warming is doing with raging fires in Australia, and the U.S. (Texas and Oklahoma). Northern California is facing almost biblical flooding as storm after storm rolls in from the Pacific. And there is a yet another tropical storm - Zeta - making it the twenty-seventh named storm swirls in the Atlantic. Amazingly, this storm is a full month past the end of the "hurricane season." This seems to indicate that the equatorial Atlantic is maintaining enough heat to fee tropical storms - and perhaps hurricanes.

Meanwhile, the oil scenario is not improving. Oil market analysts are sounding the alarm that increasing petroleum demand is going to run us over the peak by 2030. That seems wildly optimistic to me, as many of the big names believe we are already at peak. Insultingly, and showing tremendous ethnocentrism, the recommendation is that developing economies reduce their consumption of oil. Since the U.S. alone is using 25% of global supply, then "efficiency measures" might be in order in "developed economies" as well. If we are to be successful at reducing demand, then countries with economic resources need to lead the way - both in terms of consumption, and in the use of clean and renewable energy sources.

So the year ahead looks like even more of the same. More greenhouse gasses; more warming; more storms; more oil consumption and higher costs for that oil.