Pity those sad unfortunate misunderstood billionaires - What's up with them?

Thanks for confirming my understanding - 40 years worth left of oil and we likely need this 40 years to transition, in your opinion.

Who gives a rats behind about that with the collapse of AMOC??

We have no choice in the matter. The current world’s economy is oil-based.
IMO, it will take about 40 years to replace that entire dependency and build a new world standard of energy sharing, while maintaining a viable oil-based economy for the “duration of change”.

It is impossible to shut it down today
There are no time saving remedies available, options without collapsing the world economy.

Why does that matter when tipping point are approaching?

That’s the mindset that is killing us. People who benefit from this economy aren’t going to give up what they have and people who are exploited by it haven’t figured out they have the power to change it. So we create this fantasy where we transition in an orderly and cooperative manner, but that doesn’t happen so we look for who to blame, and we can’t agree on that since it includes ourseleves.

We can shut down the economy. We did it for covid. If we don’t, it will shut down anyway. Either way, it will suck. I would rather have some control over how much sucking.

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We won’t take effective action until the lack of oil is at its end stage. Petroleum prices should be at least double what they are right now. And the profit going to the petroleum industry should be frozen at its current absolute value which is more than enough to sustain the industry.

The excess monies from the doubling of petroleum prices should go into subsidizing alternative energy technologies, public transportation, and the development of plastics alternatives. The reduction in petroleum consumption due to prices is its own reward towards our environment and our future.

As long as a gallon of gas does not hurt our wallets, we will continue to waste our children’s futures.

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A few people have been advocating that since at least the 70s (interesting aside I was gas station pump boy (back when we pumped the gas, washed windows, checked oil & water, ) during the first oil embargo, that was a kick, and consider the owner I worked for it was quite interesting time - but I digress.

The problem then, as the problem now, is that pretty near nobody is willing to pay higher gas prices, no matter how much sense that mades.

Where’s the Political Will going to come from in this society where increasing material goods and FLASH seems pretty much all that matters to people - and where stuff like the health of Earth’s biosphere along with her realities and needs, get buried in the hinterlands of our thoughts, out of sight and out of mind?

Oh, and speaking of billionaires, who now own this greatest show on Earth, with the rest of us reduced to lemmings running with their colony wherever it may lead.

Climate Equality: A Planet for the 99%” draws on research by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and assesses the consumption emissions of different income groups in 2019, the most recent year for which data are available. The report shows the stark gap between the carbon footprints of the super-rich —whose carbon-hungry lifestyles and investments in polluting industries like fossil fuels are driving global warming— and the bulk of people across the world.

  • The richest 1 percent (77 million people) were responsible for 16 percent of global consumption emissions in 2019 —more than all car and road transport emissions. The richest 10 percent accounted for half (50 percent) of emissions.

  • It would take about 1,500 years for someone in the bottom 99 percent to produce as much carbon as the richest billionaires do in a year.

  • Every year, the emissions of the richest 1 percent cancel out the carbon savings coming from nearly one million wind turbines.

  • Since the 1990s, the richest 1 percent have used up twice as much of the carbon we have left to burn without increasing global temperatures above the safe limit of 1.5°C than the poorest half of humanity.

  • The carbon emissions of richest 1 percent are set to be 22 times greater than the level compatible with the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement in 2030.

Objectively speaking, where do we go from here?

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What are you going to do about it when you cannot stop oil today?

Make sure you can stop oil asap, that is how. There is only one permanent deadline and that is 40 years from now when oil runs out altogether. We better be prepared with alternative energy supply or the world economy will collapse.

There is your deadline.

In 1970, I pumped gas (changed tires, oil, etc.) at a Spur station in New Orleans. I had the graveyard shift. I knew where all the gas caps were. That was a talent back then. Anyway…

We will go wherever we go. As you said, you and I aren’t the gazillionaires. This is a species driven event. Can we survive? If we deserve to. And by deserve, I don’t mean individually but rather collectively. It’s like elections. Individually, I don’t deserve a Trump-led nightmare.

Alas, I’m a very small part of the collective. I am very aware of this fact and, yes it is a scary and helpless feeling. I have decided that even if I go stark raving mad, it won’t make any difference. So why do it? I am near the end of a very full life. My rebellious years - and there were many - have given way to a comfortable acceptance that I fought the good fight. Now I reflect and appreciate my incredible luck in having been in the space and time I was randomly given.

Yeah funny that, I still enjoy doing the squeeze snap at the end of a swipe across the windshield. Like riding a bike, the reflexes never leave one, so long as the body is able.
Bet you still remember your first bike and the feeling of freedom of riding it all over the place?
We had the good years.
Least we should appreciate that much.

I’m not too far from that, and then the fresh set of grandkids started showing up, and I’ve spent a good deal of time with them, and now the daughter I conceived has had her own beautiful bundle of miracles, so my connect to the infinite is stronger than ever, yet my horror and grief at the near term and the real life futures these kids are facing is immense.


Though in the day to day, it’s a nicer story, they’ve rejuvenated my body, spirit and sense of self, totally naturally biologically, simply inhabiting the part of being there and doing the work.

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We are on the way to collapse well before then with the way we are going partner. Your 40 year window is a fake news

How do you know this? Are you able to make long range weather predictions of a chaotic climate system.?

From actual measurements we know that we are running out of oil

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Read the scientific papers. You have one here on AMOC

And papers on the predictability of chaos are always right?

The predictability of running out of oil is a straight mathematical equation.

Yes it is.

Now, matter is when. New ressources and fracking can postpone the term, have postponed it.

We know when, if consumption remains as it is today. Only if we reduce consumption will supply last a little longer, and I mean “just a little” longer.

Let me explain this clearly. At the present rate of 1% increase in consumption per year, we shall be using more oil in the next 70 years than the total amount of oil we have used for the past 300 years.

Do you think we can find that much oil anymore?

Think about this number of oil consumption per day:

WORLD POPULATION

8,183,513,126 Current World Population
(World Population Clock: 8.2 Billion People (LIVE, 2024) - Worldometer)

106,636,380 Births this year
337 Births today

50,247,562 Deaths this year
159 Deaths today

56,388,818 Net population growth this year
178 Net population growth today

ENERGY:

95,306,259 Oil pumped today (barrels)
1,353,449,459,776 Oil left (barrels)

14,115 Days to the end of oil (~39 years)

Countdown to the end of Oil:
Assumption: * If consumed at current rates

Sources and info:

If you check the link, you will see that these numbers are RT running totals.

These are very simple mathematics based on the “exponential function”

I recommend that everyone reading this and is not familiar with the exponential function, should watch this IMPORTANT lecture by Albert Bartlett, professor emeritus, RIP.

I guarantee that you will see the world of consumerism in a different light, explaining the staggering results of “steady growth” over time.

Morgan, if you haven’t seen this excellent lecture yet, trust my recommendation of this.
I really recommend taking the time to listen (view) this and get a broad new perspective of what lies beyond the future horizon in theoretical mathematics.

Honestly, I am afraid that our civilisation will crash before we are out of oil.

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At one time, when I was much younger, I thought about living in the woods on as little as possible. Lots of reasons I didn’t do that. I’m not sure what is meant by “civilization collapse”. The oil based economy will end, no question, and the transition will be difficult, but the question is how difficult. There is more power distributed across more people now, than ever. How will that affect the coming changes?

No answers here, just pondering.

I’m terrified that Morgan is correct - as for the math behind it, it’s way more complicated than predicting oil, so certainty is a foolish thing to expect. But we can certainly draw some stark conclusions, especially consider the history of the past half century. There’s a thing called the preponderance of physical evidence.

In 2023, various historical temperature and ice extent records were broken by enormous margins (figure 1; Ripple et al. 2023a). Both global and North Atlantic sea surface temperatures were far above their 1991–2024 averages for much of the year—a pattern that has continued well into 2024 (figure 1a, 1b).
Although Antarctic and global sea ice extent have now come into range of previous years, they remain well below their 1993–2024 averages (figure 1c, 1d).
Global daily mean temperatures were at record levels for nearly half of 2023 and much of 2024 (figure 1e). On our current emissions trajectory, we may regularly surpass current temperature records in future years (Matthews and Wynes 2022).

Of the 35 planetary vital signs we track annually (figures 2 and 3), 25 are at record levels (supplemental table S1). The global failure to support a rapid and socially just fossil fuel phasedown has led to rapidly escalating climate-related impacts (table 1). Below, we focus on variables that have either changed greatly or are at record extremes. …

… and so on and so forth, but as Profession Bi ponts admonishes, don’t focus on the facts, listen to the beauty of the story we tell ourselves.

Well, there’s rivers (and reservoirs) running dry and power plants no longer being able to produce power. Lots of knock-on effects.

There’s our sea ports being crippled by a combination of increased sea levels and intensified destructive storms. Lots of knock-on effects.

Further degradation and destruction of farm lands, droughts followed by torrential (soil robbing) rain induces lots of knock-on effects.

How about temperature, how well do people function after days and weeks of torrid heat and increasing humidity, there is a threshold, where mammals can’t survive anymore. Lots of knock-on effects

Highways, and bridges and infrastructure, etc., when the damages start surpassing ability to repair. Lots of knock-on effects.

Heck neglected infrastructure in general, such as some long neglected power plants and electricity grids, finally giving up the ghost, have you check out what’s happening in Cuba. That’s going to produce more knock-on effects, especially for the “third world”.

Oh and let’s not forget the forgotten cousin of ocean warming, ocean acidification, lots of ugly biological knock-on effect for the ocean’s creatures, not to mention our fisheries catches. More knock-on effects.

And so on and so forth . . .

You may well be correct and we have only ourselves to blame.