I went down to the cross roads

Where do think you're going?

I think you don't know

    Mark Knoffler

And where will you go my blue eyed son

And where will you go, my darling young one?

    Bob Dylan

Greetings

   In case you missed the news -for the first time the monthly average CO2 concentration exceeded 410,  in April.  Just so you know

These CO2 levels, according to NOAA's climate department, haven't been seen on Earth in 3 million years, when temperatures were 3.6° to 5.4°F warmer, and sea level was 50 to 80 feet higher than today

   Of course, in order to deal with climate change we nee to start reducing the Co2 concentration, hopefully to 350.  But before we can do that we need to stop it from growing.   But before we do that we need to stop accelerating!  That's right the growth rate of  CO2 concentration,  is itself growing.  See this chart 

Decadal Average Annual Growth RatesMauna Loa Observatory (MLO)1958 - 2014

Decade	Atmospheric CO2 Growth Rate
2005 - 2014	2.11 ppm per year
1995 - 2004	1.87 ppm per year
1985 - 1994	1.42 ppm per year
1975 - 1984	1.44 ppm per year
1965 - 1974	1.06 ppm per year
1959 - 1964 (6 years only)	0.73 ppm per year

ppm = parts per million

   

    One way to see the climate situation is that we are at a crossroad, and there are three roads ahead to choose from. .   The 2, the 3, and the 4 degree roads. As shown from this article by Dave Roberts

As for the 2 degree road, he find that it is possible, though extremely unlikely. In a nicely titled article "What genuine, no bullshit ambition on climate change would look like."  he reviews a number of proposals that do not incorporate "negative emissions"  such as  BECC,   Why no BECC?    Roberts explains

"There is currently no commercial BECCS industry. Neither the BE nor the CCS part has been demonstrated at any serious scale, much less at the scale necessary. (The land area needed to grow all that biomass for BECCS in these models is estimated to be around one to three times the size of India.)

Roberts concludes that although it is "possible", it would require adopting a number of changes, technical, political and behavioral.  

"...a global carbon tax, maximized efficiency, an explosion of renewable energy, a wholesale revolution in agriculture, rapid reduction of non-CO2 GHGs, a rapid shift in global lifestyle choices, and successful measures to curb population growth — would be an enormous achievement.

To completely avoid BECCS while still hitting the 1.5 degree target, we would have to accomplish all of them.

That is highly unlikely. Still, the important point of the Nature Climate Change research remains: “alternative pathways exist allowing for more moderate use and postponement of BECCS.” Given the substantial and uncharted difficulties facing BECCS, policymakers owe those alternative pathways a look.

Obviously these strategies face all kinds of social and economic barriers. (I’m trying to envision what it would take to rapidly shift Americans from beef to cultured meat ... trying and failing.)

It's hard to imagine this without a dictatorial take over or a wartime situation.

The second road is the one that leads to 3 - 3.5 degrees by 2100.  This is the road Roberts thinks we are on.   To see what that would be like Roberts suggests  a summary of "6 degrees" by Mark Lynas .  It describes the effects 

As Lynas puts it:

With structural famine gripping much of the subtropics, hundreds of millions of people will have only one choice left other than death for themselves and their families: They will have to pack up their belongings and leave... Conflicts will inevitably erupt as these numerous climate refugees spill into already densely populated areas... Uprooted, stateless, and without hope, these will be the first generation of a new type of people: climate nomads, constantly moving in search of food, their varied cultures forgotten, ancestral ties to ancient lands cut forever... As social collapse accelerates, new political philosophies may emerge, philosophies that seek to lay blame where it truly belongs--on the rich countries that lit the fire that has now begun to consume the world.

  

but even more alarming it also suggests

With 3 degrees of warming, "Instead of absorbing CO2, vegetation and soils start releasing it in massive quantities, as soil bacteria work faster to break down organic matter in a hotter environment, and plant growth goes into reverse." The result, in the model, was the release of an additional 250 ppm of carbon dioxide by 2100, and an additional 1.5 degrees of warming. In other words, the 3 C world was not stable--hitting the 3-degree threshold meant hitting a 'tipping point' which led directly (though not immediately) to the 4 C world.

This effect was primarily due to a huge dieback of the Amazon rainforest. With warming and drying the rainforest collapsed almost completely. Later studies found globally similar effects, albeit in differing amounts. And a recent study suggests that the likelihood of an Amazonian collapse may be lower than first thought--welcome news, to be sure.

If that's true, the best you can say about the three degree road is that it doesn't get to 4 degrees quite as fast 

The third road also goes to 4 degrees, but much faster  - by 2100.   We can get to this result by taking no action.   

I'm not going to describe what that would look like - if you are interested take a look  here  Lets just say its not to be wished for. 

It is worthwhile to note that each of these roads assumes the continued growth of the industrial consumer economy. In fact, it may argued that it is that growth that makes these scenarios likely.

(It is worth mentioning that global emissions declined in the 19900's was the period when the USSR broke up, causing what might be called an economic collapse in Russia and the surrounding nations.  They also fell in 2008 -09.  There also was a dip in 2015, but it was quickly at by record breaking amounts )

So, what about a slow down of the industrial / consumer enterprise ?

There are two alternatives.  Voluntary or involuntary.   On the voluntary side, you might find the transition offered by The Simpler Way. See eg here. Here is a summary

Given the magnitude of the overshoot, the huge extent to which we have exceeded sustainable limits, there can be no solution unless there is enormous and radical transition to some kind of Simpler Way. Only this can enable per capita resource use to be cut to the region of 10% of present levels. Thus there must be:

        Much simpler lifestyles, far lower per capita resource consumption.

Mostly small, highly self-sufficient local economies, putting local resources into meeting local needs.  When petroleum becomes scarce there will be no choice about this.

Much more cooperative and participatory ways, enabling people in small communities to take collective control of their own development, to include and provide for all. We must develop commons, co-ops and working bees.

Participatory town self-government, The important decisions about the development and running of the town must be made by town assemblies, local committees andreferenda involving everyone. The town must be have as much control over its own fate as possible.

A new economy, one that is not driven by profit or market forces, that has no growth at all, that involves far less production and work than the present one, and focuses on needs and rights and the quality of life of all. It might have many private firms anda market sector, but there must be (participatory, democratic, open and local) social control over what is developed, what is produced, and how it is distributed. All must be provided for, meaning no poverty or unemployment and everyone having a livelihood, the capacity to make a valued contribution.

New values.  These communities cannot work well unless people shift from the present individualistic, competitive and acquisitive orientation to a world view focused on being content with frugal sufficiency and living within a supportive community in which all enjoy a high quality of life. There must be conscientious and socially responsible citizens who prioritise the public good.

This, also looks fairly challenging!  Like Roberts's  2 degree no bullshit plans, this would require significant behavioral and political changes.

As for the involuntary,  here is another perspective.   Nate Hagens, who now spends his time attempting to prepare college students for what he calls "The Great Simplification", a period of declining available energy and goods    He believes "The Great Simplification"will begin on the next decade.   He hopes to prepare students by giving them some idea why it is happening. As part of this , he offers  a grounding in some topics which they may not be exposed yo otherwise such as :  the role of energy in the economy,  system dynamics, ecological economics, , and evolutionary psychology.

See here for some of ideas - 

Here is his summary

Around 11,000 years ago, as the last ice age ended, our ancestors – in no fewer than 5 locations around the world – took advantage of the new conditions and tried an agricultural way of life.  Fast forward through two momentous phase shifts in human history (agricultural and industrial revolutions), and here we are: approaching 8 billion, seeking freedom, experiences, and material wealth all derived from physical surplus.  As many are aware, the procuring of this ‘surplus’ is also impacting the larger sphere outside our homes, (we call it “Earth”) in increasingly deleterious ways.  Yet, at an annual global growth rate of 3%, which most governments and institutions expect, we would close to double the size of energy and materials it took us 11,000 years to amass, in the next 25 years.

Under current trends, a college student today would see over 2 such doublings in her lifetime. (yes,  2Xè 4X in size by the time they’re 70).  Is this possible? Is this desirable?  What are the variables that will influence this trajectory? What would be the impacts if it happens?  And if it doesn’t? There currently is no natural entity in our society charged with such questions.  Or answers to the questions.  But perhaps there should be.  A systems synthesis which integrates aspects of energy, the environment, the economy and human behavior is a prerequisite to understanding what is unlikely, what is possible, what’s at stake, and ultimately what to strive for and work towards.

My own conclusion is that The Next Doubling is now no longer possible.  In the coming decade, we are going to have to collectively deal with what I refer to as the Great Simplification.  This will mean less physical throughput and fewer economic benefits to the average citizen in the developed world than the past 2 decades.  If managed, the Great Simplification could result in positive outcomes and a saner system and very high standards of living vs most periods in our history.

His view is that we are hitting  "peak affordable oil", but that the price of the oil is artificially low, in part as a result of cheap credit for oil companies,   allowing companies to sell oil below cost. see here

We need energy to create our physical realities and create our economic growth and trade for transport, everything. If the energy sector requires a greater and greater chunk of that energy, we have less available for the rest of discretionary society. And once that constraint exists and even accelerates, you need to respond to that. And the way we responded to that was increasing our debt, which, of course, as you know, is pretty much created by a pen stroke. So that can temporarily offset energy shortages at a cost of a steeper decline, because debt actually functions as a spacial and temporal reallocater of resources, away from the periphery towards the center and away from the future towards the present. So there’s a very subtle but important relationship between debt and energy. And the problem is, is that most of, as you term, economic priests and priestesses, don’t have training in the biophysical economic world, and they treat everything in monetary terms. And we just throw more money at the problem, and it’ll go away. Well, our energy, and especially our net energy story, is getting worse. So we’re increasing our money supply while our energy supply is declining, and, yeah, that’s not a good situation.

 And eventually we get to a point where the oil companies need higher and higher oil price in order to make a profit, but society can afford less and less. And at some point those two prices of oil cross and we have a real problem. You know, right now, the marginal barrel of oil costs between $70 and $90, so there’s a little bit of a cushion in there now. But a lot of people say above a hundred dollar oil, it has significant economic headwinds. So at some point there, dollars don’t become an accurate measure of our real natural resource balance sheet. 

It's pssoble that we have hit that point.  Art Berman reports that 2/3 of tight oil companies lost money in the first 3 quarters of 2017

and the Wall Street Journal reported    

"... the oil giants are still barely able to pay for new investments and dividends without selling assets or going deeper into debt. Last year, the five companies spent $31 billion more in cash on new investments and dividends than they generated from operations, according to FactSet.

See also Heinberg, here

Is "the Great Simplification" inevitable?  Will it be beneficial?  Is it something to encourage?  see Crash on Demand

For an interesting discussion of the possibility of, and the likely impacts of, an economic. "collapse",  with George Monbiot, David Holmgren, Nicol Foss and others see here.  .  Its quite entertaining.