Debt Rattle May 18 2015

[Raúl Ilargi Meijer]

Harris&Ewing Car exterior. Washington & Old Dominion R.R. 1930 • Q Ratio: Today’s Stock Market Has at Least One Similarity to 1929 (Bloomberg) • Greec
[See the full post at: Debt Rattle May 18 2015]

[Raleigh]

It’s getting hottttttttter and the ice is melting. The population in Africa alone is set to explode beyond 4 billion by the turn of the century. Oh, joy! Go north, you say? Well, no, the permafrost is almost melting, sending tons of methane into the atmosphere. “Methane (CH4) is 25 times more efficient at entrapping solar radiation and effectuating global warming than is carbon dioxide (CO2).”

“Over the past couple of centuries, the rate of increase of CO2 versus CH4 in the atmosphere is running askew as carbon dioxide’s increase of 40% is a far distant second place to methane’s 250% increase. There’s nothing confusing about those numbers. […]

Thereby, CO2 blanketing the earth is similar to turning on an oven, the more CO2 is emitted, similar to turning up the oven, the more heat builds, as it gets hotter and hotter and hotter over time whilst the “CO2 blanket” traps solar radiation. In time, humanity is toast.

Considering the fact that scientists worry about CO2 in the atmosphere, they must be experiencing migraines, sleeplessness and outright gloominess about CH4 because, with gigatons of methane trapped under Arctic ice, only a fraction of that CH4 could turn the planet into something akin to an oven, assuming too much Arctic ice melts. And, that is precisely the point as Arctic melt is already occurring at an alarming rate! […]

Remarkably, Prof Kirpotin’s discovery is essentially a trip back in geologic time to the last Ice Age, 100,000-to-20, 000 years ago, which is amazing and also filled with scary after-effects. Just to think: The permafrost Dr. Kirpotin investigated has not melted since the last Ice Age, until now! This is yet another distinctive footprint of global warming.

According to Prof Kirpotin, “There is a so-called methane threat in the north of the bog. On top of that, the ice shelf is also thawing, releasing methane hydrates and something really awful is happening.”

Methane’s Danger Accelerating

Hansel and Gretel.

[Nassim]

As Martin Armstrong never tires of pointing out, lots of things out there are cyclical. El Niño is another of these cyclical phenomenon.

We in Australia, have had plenty of rain over the past 5 years – since the previous drought broke. California and much of the Americas have suffered from a severe drought. Doubtless, when this event comes about, our situations will be reversed. Once again, we will have bush fires and a lot of “folk” (as Obama would say) will lose their homes because they built in a zone where the native trees actually need fire to propagate. One thing I love about this area is the pervasive smell of eucalyptus oil early in the morning – it is a bit like living near an oil refinery, but the smell is a lot pleasanter.

“Fire — both good and bad for the Australian bush”

https://www.mdavid.com.au/fire/bushfires.shtml

Once again, we will have journalists falling over one another to tell us that “this time it is different”. Well, we will see.

Here is a famous painting at the Melbourne Central Library.

“Black Thursday, 6 February. 1851”

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/WP_Black_Thursday.jpg

In 1851, 5 million hectares were burnt – around 1/4 of Victoria. You cannot get much bigger than that.

“The Black Thursday bushfires, the largest Australian bush fires ever recorded, were caused in part by an intense drought that occurred throughout 1850 when the continent suffered from extreme heat. On 6 February 1851, a strong furnace-like wind came down from the north and gained power and speed as the hours passed. It is believed that the disaster began in Plenty Ranges when a couple of bullock drivers left logs burning unattended, which set fire to long, dry grass affected by the recent drought. The year preceding the fires was exceptionally hot and dry and this trend continued into the summer of 1851.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Thursday_%281851%29

1851 was just before the Gold Rush and very few people lived here.

[Author]

Posts