Which will hit first: energy crisis or disastrous climate change?

[Dogmudgeon]

Poll question: Which will hit first: energy crisis or disastrous climate change?

I believe that Humanity is facing a pair of potentially lethal crises: The first, a shortfall in the available energy required to power civilization, and the second, a climatic disaster brought about by a dramtic increase in greenhouse-gas related warming.

The energy crisis is currently known as "Peak Oil", though that term is too sunny for what the projections imply. We are just starting on an era where oil output will decline world-wide with a corresponding jump in energy prices. At first, these price increases will be confined to consumer markets, but will soon extend to the economy in general, eventually bringing economic growth to a screeching halt. The loss of inexpensive petrochemical fertilizers will lead to massive famines and die-offs within a decade of that.

The timing? Petrologist Kenneth Deffeyes is on record as saying that the slump will begin on Thanksgiving week of 2005; he is only being half-facetious. Some say we've already passed it, but the most optimistic estimates seldom push the inflection point past 2020.

The second crisis is the mounting climatic and environmental crisis. Atmospheric carbon dioxide, which has historically been around 280 ppm, has risen to 393 ppm, and is now rising at 3 ppm per year. Every CO₂-related climate change studied so far has been associated with CO₂ levels of 400-450 ppm. Methane, far more potent than carbon dioxide, has recently joined CO₂ as a major greenhouse gas. The methane seems to be coming from northern hemisphere peat bogs and oceanic methane clathrates, liberated by the already increased temperatures.

The timing for a climate crisis is much more difficult to gauge. But one of the strongest theories is that when a certain (but still unknown) point is passed, the climate will "flip-flop" into a stadial phase -- an Ice Age. Wallace Broecker, of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia U., thinks that this process will take about 50 years to complete, but doesn't venture a guess as to when it will start. The movie The Day After Tomorrow highlighted the "Superstorm" theory, which theorizes that an ice age can begin in a very short time (in the movie, 6-8 weeks) -- though evidence for global superstorms is weak. The cause of die-off will probably not be from the cold, but from global famine caused by the disruption of several harvests.

There may be several opportune periods for the climate to shift, and I think we are in one such period now. They may "flicker" on and off for centuries, or this period may be the last one, the fifth or sixth in the last 4000 years. When "it happens", I think it will start with a change in the seasons that will not raise suspicions at first. The last several summers have given us some interesting data to consider. But if the next ten or fifteen summers are joined by increasingly brutal winters and the appearance of increasingly anomalous weather happenings, it will be difficult to ignore the possibility that the ski reports will be too good for the next 100,000 years.

The course of these unpleasant futures are obviously interrelated. If we lose most of our food production capacity in the next eight or ten years from a climate change, our energy demand will certainly be reduced by the deaths of millions, perhaps billions, of people. But if we're already low on fuel for heat in an energy crisis, if a series of blizzards come rolling down from the Arctic Circle, a lot of people will also die. And either episode could provoke desperate nations to war, including using nuclear weapons as a bargaining tool.

Of course, it is possible that we will weather each storm with only minimal damage, and the second half of the century will be filled with marvels, including nanotechnology, immortality, socialized gun ownership, legalized marijuana and music downloads, and the universal use of Esperanto as a world language.

So, what is your guess? Will we be energy-starved by the time the climatic boom is lowered, or will we be chilled to the bone when the energy crunch hits? What will come first -- and how will the process play out?

--bkl

[The Traveler]

1. If the energy crunch comes soon enough

we may avoid that particular climate change scenario.

Man, this is tough to predict. These two issues are linked in a non-linear manner ... and we as a people have never been here before. High energy technology based civilization is less than 200 years old ... a relatively new phenomenon in human history. The preponderance of the data suggests an accelerating change in the thermal balance of the planet. Certainly atmospheric chemical composition is changing with alarming speed, as is manifested by ozone holes and such. Oxygen levels in the oceans are declining, and a recurring "dead zone" of oxygen depleted water has manifested in the Pacific and in the Gulf of Mexico.

All of this is, within the context of history, new to us. How can we possibly know what is going to happen? My gut hunch is that "The Day After Tomorrow" type scenario ... sudden, unexpected transition to a new (and less hospitable) equilibrium may be more likely than we think. We've seen ecosystems hit the "tipping point" recently ... and when it happens it happens fast. (Read Sylvia Earle's "Sea Change" for an excellent discussion on that.)

Either way, we are in a race and we are wasting our time running in circles. That is one of the big reasons why the neocons have to be shut down, why Bush must go.

[ramapo]

4. It's too late baby

The warning came 30 years ago with the twin oil shocks of the '70s. Back then there was much ado about alternative energy, environmental degradation, and the need to take action.

So what happened? The U.S went on a binge fueled by 12 years of Reagan/Bush followed by 8 years of, sad to say, the not much better Clinton/Gore.

Of course the past three years have been an unmitigated disaster.

Still most of the population are completely oblivious or in denial.

It will take a sharp smack in the face to rouse the common citizen out of their fog. Unfortunately that smack will consist of a energy crisis that will make the gas lines and economic displacement of the '70s look like a picnic or climatic events that signal Mother Nature taking a bit of revenge.

Change may then come but it will be at a hugh cost with massive disruption.

[david_vincent]

6. What bothers me

is knowing that there are a lot of people for whom a smack in the face, metaphorically or literally, will never be enough to wake them up. There are many, many people who will go to their graves with their heads buried like ostriches. The problem is that they are going to do their best to stop anything from being done. It makes me wonder if trying to educate people, so that they can vote properly, so we can have enlightened representatives, who can pass appropriate legislation, isn't going to take entirely too long.

[phantom power]

2. I think we're in the early stages of both.

I'm troubled by the possibility that even if we magically went carbon-neutral tomorrow, we've already set in motion a climate phase change.

Fatalistic thinking gets us nowhere, but it weighs on my mind.

[Boomer]

7. Too little, too late

The feedback loop is in full motion, with the northern areas of the globe rapidly warming and melting. The permafrost layers are melting, exposing organic material that will decompose and release huge amounts of C02, regardless of what humans are doing.

Meanwhile, the ocean is nearing saturation level for C02, which means we've lost that buffer. And continued deforestation just worsens an already bad situation.

Even a 100 degree turnaround to a complete Green approach by every country in the world would require decades to plan and put in motion. And we don't have decades to BEGIN the process.

We may not ALL be doomed, but it's going to be a very rough century for the large portion of humanity.

[NNadir]

3. I think we can replace the energy, It's the atmosphere I'm worried about.

That is irreplacable.

[brokensymmetry]

5. I've been reading "The end of oil"

And it sounds as if the carbon cycle is pretty much beyond the point of no return. We'd have to implement really large cuts in the usage of carbon generating fuels...but as oil goes up in price, the most likely candidate for a replacement is coal.

Also, I've noticed that the hurricanes are more frequent this year. Summer was unusually cool.

And then there's the report that farmers in Asia are using irrigation to drain aquifers completely...when those fail, and if we also have a substantial climate change, we face a large, nuclear armed nation with lots of people.

I think that reality may well be worse than we imagine. :scared: