UN warning

This is about being warned, not un-warned.
The UN has released today a report (how many more needed?) intended as “the final wake-up call to the international community” about the danger humanity is facing. Interesting choice of words - that they labeled it as "final". Climate change, animal extinction and unsustainable population growth are a few of the challenges mentioned.

The NY article announcing it also refers back to a two decades old admonition by the former Norwegian prime minister, Gro Harlem Brundtland, who warned that the survival of humanity was at stake from unsustainable development.

There many different reports and studies over these last few decades - and we have heard "point of no return" often enough that it's a good time to wonder whether we have not passed it already...
For hope's sake I would like to think we have not, but everything I learn of begs to differ.

Peak Oil updates

For those with a propensity (and time) for carefully documented and chart-laden studies here is the newest report from the Energy Watch Group (a German energy research organization):
Crude Oil Supply Outlook

Readers will notice a stark contrast to the models & predictions of the American groups: USGS and IEA from the US government and even ASPO (Association for the Study of Peak Oil). Some of the specific points of difference are in the timing of the peak and the decline rate that follows. The decline rate is higher even than ASPO's projections, considered "moderate".

Now put this together with the (similarly recent) news of China's 11.5% growth rate (albeit slowing a bit now) and that raises the additional question about the actual rate of consumption that needs to be factored in such studies to produce an accurate estimate of "time left".

The EWG study deals mainly with the production/supply side of the equation - and how it evolves over time given the models they are employing.
Crude oil demand has been increasing at a 2% annual rate in recent years, with the lion's share coming from developing countries like China and India. We are yet to see if this rate will tend to stay flat or accele-rate.

As always, a nice starter on the debate can be found on Wikipedia: Peak Oil

No matter which way you look at it, even if you are an incurable optimist - or a member of the US government close to his retirement years - it is not a matter of IF, but one of WHEN. And then the next question is how to prepare for it. It could be our grandchildren, our children, or even ourselves that get experience this coming crunch - do we received it with eyes wide open or wide shut?

And to string the links together - how many of us thought, even only 10 years ago, that we will get to experience first hand the effects of climate change? It may be increased fire danger for me, floods and devastating storms and tornadoes for others, decrease in crop output for yet others. And maybe this was already happening, invisibly and unnamed to us, and nothing has changed but our awareness.

Which is exactly where our opportunity lies - and our chance to become heroes, each of us.

CO2 rising faster than previously thought

A new study released today by the National Academy of Sciences points out that CO2 is actually rising at a much faster rate than the one IPCC had taken into consideration in their troubling report. More recent information points out that whereas the average annual rate of increase in the 1990's was 1.3%, after 2000 it has jumped to 3.3%:
CO2 rise on the rise
CO2 rise on carbon sinks failing
This could mean that the kinds of forecasts IPCC included in the report might be seen a lot earlier than "officially" thought.

It is not difficult to acquiesce such a gloomy possibility when the week's news is loaded with reports about devastating fires in a drought-stricken Southern California, tornadoes and storms in the Midwest, and news up a planned global warming suit by the State of California against the EPA.

Chaos theory predicts things start behaving "erratically" once a transition point is reached. And so far, though pressure is increasing and the environment is strained, there are still backup mechanisms at work that prevent chaos from setting in. But once a threshold is reached (perhaps enough carbon sinks disabled, large enough permafrost acreage thawed, certain CO2 ppm density reached?) things can change dramatically "overnight" - on a geological timescale.
How can it not be frightening to perceive such changes within generations - or even years? Can we not understand that this marks an exponential change somewhere - and implies that changes will occur faster and faster and whatever breakdowns are taking place will spread to other (currently) stable areas?

Upon close review, our global economic system is quite fragile (see the current market turmoil that stemmed from the US subprime meltdown), our infrastructure is at best insufficient (if not obsolete) and incapable of keeping pace with the current growth rate and our thinking not in synergy (if not flat out self-contradicting).

Please share with me what gives you hope in such times - other than a stoic "This too shall pass" attitude or "We've seen it before, we'll weather this one too"?