Reducing your personal footprint while you still can.

Resource limitations and climate change are on the tongues of everyone nowadays. Most of us have a vague idea that we are facing some big change in our lifestyle sometime in the future. Almost nobody, however, has stepped up to the reality of that impending change.

Consider the conversations we all have about reducing our environmental footprint. How many of us really understand why we should do that? Most of our thinking is still stuck in the '70s mindset. We are reducing our energy/resource consumption to do our part in reducing environmental degradation. Wrong! There is little we can do to limit the environmental change that is overtaking us. We (humankind) will use all of the hydrocarbon resources that we can obtain and then some. The climate will adjust to that full load of carbon saturation by reverting to the searing climate profile that it demonstrated the last time all of that carbon was out in the open. No, you are not going to prevent that from happening. There are too many of us.

In fact, what you are doing when you reduce your use of resources is practicing. You are getting ready for a new world that is coming, no matter what any of us do. You are making adjustments to your consumption profile while you still have a choice. Listen carefully. This is not a temporary belt tightening. While you have time, buy a new belt. Better yet, learn how to make one. There are no significant new hydrocarbon resources being created for our next energy binge.

Those who are looking for a change of technology rather than a reduction in consumption are fooling themselves. They are still doing their thinking in an oil-age brain. We should not accept any technological fix until we can see it producing a viable net output entirely independent of hydrocarbons. Show me a windmill that has been built entirely from scratch using only windmill energy to obtain and move raw materials, manufacture the infrastructure and build, install and maintain hardware on site. We won't get nearly enough net power from that model to provide anything approaching the present Western lifestyle for even a fraction of the present population of the earth let alone the projected overshoot population that is set to increase into the future. Technology is energy. With less energy there will be less technology. With less technology there will be less energy.

So make your lifestyle changes. It is important. For you.

Global warming exaggerated, insufficient oil, natural gas and coal | EnergyBulletin.net | Peak Oil News Clearinghouse

Climate change and global warming has become part of our everyday life, and central to this debate is the emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2). The fossil fuels that we use contain carbon and hydrocarbons, and in the combustion of these fuels, carbon dioxide is released along with energy.

In the present climate debate, however, the amount of available fossil fuels does not appear to be an issue. The problem, as usually perceived, is that we will use excessive amounts in the years ahead. It is not even on the map that the amount of fossil fuels required in order to bring about the feared climate changes may in fact not be available.

[Link: Kjell Aleklett - Original article translation from EnergyBulletin.net | Peak Oil News Clearinghouse]

Now here is a classic good news/bad news situation. The shorter version: we may not be destroyed by climate change because we may not have enough fossil fuels to do full damage to the climate. It looks like a race to the bottom doesn't it. Will we destroy our climate or our civilization first. Of course, that is a simplification. If he is right, we will be fighting what climate change there is with a much reduced tool kit so it will be a mix of both.

This should not be a surprise, because climate change and fossil fuel usage are joined at the hip. The climate is a function of how much carbon is in the atmosphere. By returning all of the carbon that was locked up in the earths crust to the atmosphere we have fiddled with that carbon balance. We are getting exactly what we bargained for. Take your pick, livable climate or 100 years of free and easy energy.

Scientists link world's big dams to methane and global warming

In a study released earlier this month, the scientists claim the world's 52,000 dams contribute more than 4 percent of the warming impact linked to human activities. The study even suggests that dams and reservoirs are the single largest source of human-cased methane, a gas that traps heat in the atmosphere.

[Link: Shaun McKinnon - AZCentral.com]

Well, that pretty much does it. All of this time I have been quietly patting myself on the back as I used all of my electrical tools and toys. I live in Seattle. Most of the electrical power in these parts comes from the massive Columbia hydroelectric system. No greenhouse contributions from me, I thought, as long as I keep my power usage electric. This article has torn a big hole in that construct. So much for electric cars and public transport as a way for Seattle to do its part for global warming. The more we understand the less we know it seems.