*doublepromote someone else finally telling the truth, even if it is just a fictional tv character. I’ve been saying the same thing since around 2000. If we went all in, halted all co2 emissions and all methane emissions 20 years ago, and invested in methods to catch and sequester what we already emitted, we might have avoided the tipping point where we are no longer in control….but instead we increased emissions every year, flooring it towards that cliff and hitting the nitrous button.
*quality if inconvenient truths

That tipping point was reached well over a decade ago when methane started to melt out of permafrost and the deep ocean where it has been frozen for eons. It’s capable of causing warming >80 times as much as co2 short term, >25 times as much long term, and is boiling out at rapidly increasing rates. Pre 2006 it’s estimated around .5 million tons per year…2006 it was measured at 3.8 million tons…by 2013 that was up to 17 million tons with the trend increasing. More recent estimates are hard to find, but it’s agreed that as temperatures climb not only are hydrates melting much more rapidly, bacteria are also accelerating decomposition in the thawed permafrost, and they emit methane. The Arctic is warming up to 5 times faster than the average global temperature. It’s likely over 50 million tons per year by now if not much higher.

Shakhova et al. (2008) estimate that not less than 1,400 gigatonnes (Gt=1 billion tons) of carbon is presently locked up as methane and methane hydrates under the Arctic submarine permafrost, and 5–10% of that area is subject to puncturing by open taliks. They conclude that "release of up to 50 Gt of predicted amount of hydrate storage [is] highly possible for abrupt release at any time". That would increase the methane content of the planet's atmosphere by a factor of twelve in one shot….game over.

Bear in mind, 1 cubic meter of hydrate contains >160 cubic meters of methane gas at atmospheric pressure.

The amount of increase from bacterial emissions in rotting permafrost is debatable, but even the lowest estimates are insurmountable.

This is only one of dozens of KNOWN feedback loops already in action, and there are definitely unknown feedback systems we can’t predict.

This does not mean there’s nothing to be done, we can still mitigate the damage somewhat, maybe slow the rate of change enough that some animals and plants more advanced than bacteria survive long term. It does mean a massive >99% culling of humanity, a total shift in civilization from a money based civilization to one focused on survival, and likely an unavoidable mass extinction rivaling any previous extinctions.

...lifting it let the decomposition gases out?

Again, I can't seem to pull up the full text of your article through google scholar. Even your summary though states an additional warming contribution of 0.3C by 2100. Sorry, but I don't class that as catastrophic. What's more, simply doing a google scholar search for articles on "permafrost methane climate" and taking the first four full articles give the following, with absolutely zero effort taken to pluck out ones that support my particular claim:

http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/2/4/045016/fulltext/
According to our results, by mid-21st century the annual net flux of methane from Russian permafrost regions may increase by 6–8 Mt, depending on climatic scenario. If other sinks and sources of methane remain unchanged, this may increase the overall content of methane in the atmosphere by approximately 100 Mt, or 0.04 ppm, and lead to 0.012 °C global temperature rise.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010RG000326/full
It's a more sweeping assessment so it doesn't have a nice short quotable for our particular point. It's most concise point is in Figure 7 which I'm not sure how to link into here as an image. You can check for yourself though that even the highest error margins on methane releases touch natural emissions till long, long after 2100, matching the IPCC millenial timescale statement I cited earlier.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003GL018680/full
A detailed study of one mire show that the permafrost and vegetation changes have been associated with increases in landscape scale CH4 emissions in the range of 22–66% over the period 1970 to 2000.

http://www.pnas.org/content/108/36/14769.full
We attempted to incorporate in this study some of the latest mechanistic understanding about the mechanisms controlling soil CO2 respiration and wetland CH4 emissions, but uncertainties remain large, due to incomplete understanding of biogeochemical and physical processes and our ability to encapsulate them in large-scale models. In particular, small-scale hydrological effects (36) and interactions between warming and hydrological processes are only crudely represented in the current generation of terrestrial biosphere models. Fundamental processes such as thermokarst erosion (37) or the effects of drying on peatland CO2 emissions (e.g., ref. 38) are lacking here, causing uncertainty on future high-latitude carbon-climate feedbacks. In addition, large uncertainty arises from our ability to model wetland dynamics or the microbial processes that govern CH4 emissions, and in particular how the complicated dynamics of permafrost thaw would affect these processes.

The control of changes in the carbon balance of terrestrial regions by production vs. decomposition has been explored by a number of authors, with differing estimates of whether vegetation or soil changes have the largest overall effect on carbon storage changes (39–41). These results demonstrate that with the inclusion of two well-observed mechanisms: the relative inhibition of respiration by soil freezing (42) and the vertical motion in Arctic soils that buries old but labile carbon in deeper permafrost horizons, which can be remobilized by warming (3), the high-latitude terrestrial carbon response to warming can tip from near equilibrium to a sustained source of CO2 by the mid-21st century. We repeat that uncertainties on these estimates of CO2 and CH4 balance are large, due to the complexity of high-latitude ecosystems vs. the simplified process treatment used here.

And I was able to find the full PDF for your own original sink on the subject:
here
We conclude that the ice-free area of
northeastGreenland acts as a net sink of atmosphericmethane,
and suggest that this sink will probably be enhanced under
future warmer climatic conditions.

All of the above seem to fairly well corroborate my earlier citation to the IPCC's own summary of the current knowledge on permafrost and northern methane impact on future warming:
However modelling studies and expert judgment indicate that CH4 and CO2 emissions will increase under Arctic warming, and that they will provide a positive climate feedback. Over centuries, this feedback will be moderate: of a magnitude similar to other climate–terrestrial ecosystem feedbacks
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter06_FINAL.pdf
From FAQ 6.1

If you want to more simply claim that there exist studies, with noted high uncertainties, that under the worst case emission scenarios that show a possible significant release of methan prior to 2100 and possible catatrophic releases after, then I agree. If you want to claim that the consensus is we are facing catastrophe in our lifetime, as your first post claimed, then I most point to the overwhelming scientific evidence linked above that simply does not agree, once again chosen at random and with no effort to cherry pick only results that match what I want. I must note I lack surprise though as the IPCC had already been claiming the same of the literature and existing evidence.

Your video, The fascinating process of human decomposition., has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 65 Badge!

3 more comments have been lost in the ether at this killed duplicate.

@bmacs27 Cell phones don't launch you to a higher standard of living more than a fully integrated energy system. Refrigeration, transportation, fertilizer, steel production, manufacturing, iron ore reprocessing, food production, water purification, medicine distribution/production/manufacture ect. These things require TONS of energy, something a cellphone charger stove is not. A phone charging stove, IMO, will confer very little improvement to the standard of living to the their world. "Worthwhile" is a pretty arbitrary idea, though, so there isn't a "right" answer per say. But I would wager greater quality of life would be had if you used all the money from these stove thingies into an energy infrastructure; having access to clean water and a electrical grid might be better than a marginally cleaner stove.

Particulate matter is usually the risk associated with burning coals and woods from coal and wood ash. Greenhouse isn't the issue (the CO2 in plants will go back into the air via decomposition), it is the junk that goes into your lungs. Less is good, but electric stoves (or gas) would be better as you can move the source of smoke to some distant place. I don't know the economics of small village towns, so perhaps this has a place as a stopgap until there is serious economic development, but it isn't a very big step...so I am trying some googlefu to see how much they plan to spend over there on these. If it is like 10k bucks or something, then ya, those 200 people or so you help is niceish, if they plan to spend millions, or they are charging them instead of handing them out, then other developments would be far better. As someone who has burned wood to heat a house as the primary source, it isn't fun, even if it was 50% better, using money to buy a better stove would of been silly compared to just using gas or electric provided there was an system for doing so. I think money would be better spent developing those systems instead of vesting money in a dead end technology (burning wood). One might liken it to fixing up that old car that keeps breaking down, it is a money trap...best to go get a better car if you could.

Even so, I think I might get one in the future for camping. Could be fun to mess with the TEG and main container to perhaps tweak some higher power levels out of it!

I would think that zombie would go thorough some kind of life cycle as they go through the 5 stages of decomposition (Fresh, Bloat, Active Decay, Advanced Decay, and Dry Remains) I don't think a zombie outbreak would last too long, it would just be a matter of waiting it out. Unless they are the zombie like things in I Am Legend where people are just sick with a mutated measles virus. That would be a tougher situation to deal with. Of course the repeated singular goal thing might just be a residual of when they were alive, Kinda like how Sean Hannity can't say anything more then two or three exaggerated right wing ideological sentences all day.

>> ^lucky760:
This makes me wonder why then that's the only basic instinctual behavior zombies carry out. It seems they should be doing other things like trying to make sex with one another.


Because I think any media involving an army of undead rapists would probably have trouble getting made!

It's a great book, I actually got a little scared reading it. The presentation is thoroughly committed to the reality of zombie attacks occurring. It's not presented as "what if this happens" but instead "when this happens." It's fun to get so deeply absorbed into the mythos and the genre.>> ^lucky760:

You actually read that book? Nice.

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According to Max Brooks' The Zombie Survival Guide, decomposition will continue to occur at a normal rate, even after infection, and this explains why zombie outbreaks in tropical environments are shorter lived than those in arid or frigid zones.

The "wait them out" approach is viable, perhaps taking care of 99%, but the possibility of a zombie frozen in ice would haunt your people for decades thereafter.

Thanks for the promote and the facts!
In reply to this comment by RhesusMonk:
So, a couple of things. First, the domesticated chicken is almost completely flavorless when eaten immediately after slaughter and draining. The flavor we omnivores call "chicken" actually derives from the byproduct of decomposition bacteria that are ever-present in chicken flesh and only begin to grow into large enough numbers for us to taste well after the flesh is dead. This flavor phenomenon is true of many of the meats humans eat.

Second, the Eskimo-Aleut (and I mean the language group here) diet has been rigorously studied and determined to be among the most robust and healthful diets ever established by humans. I'm certainly not saying that eating fermented birds is either tasty or good for you, but the people who thought this up are way better at eating than nearly all of you are.

http://www.jstor.org/pss/40315808
http://www.livestrong.com/article/491284-traditional-inuit-aleut-diet/
http://jdr.sagepub.com/content/56/3_suppl/C79.extract
http://www.straightdope.co
m/columns/read/2374/traditionally-eskimos-ate-only-meat-and-fish-why-didnt-they-get-scurvy

P.S.--You wanna call bogus on these facts--which a few have done since the studies in the late '90s--please bring hard evidence.

*promote

So, a couple of things. First, the domesticated chicken is almost completely flavorless when eaten immediately after slaughter and draining. The flavor we omnivores call "chicken" actually derives from the byproduct of decomposition bacteria that are ever-present in chicken flesh and only begin to grow into large enough numbers for us to taste well after the flesh is dead. This flavor phenomenon is true of many of the meats humans eat.

Second, the Eskimo-Aleut (and I mean the language group here) diet has been rigorously studied and determined to be among the most robust and healthful diets ever established by humans. I'm certainly not saying that eating fermented birds is either tasty or good for you, but the people who thought this up are way better at eating than nearly all of you are.

http://www.jstor.org/pss/40315808
http://www.livestrong.com/article/491284-traditional-inuit-aleut-diet/
http://jdr.sagepub.com/content/56/3_suppl/C79.extract
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2374/traditionally-eskimos-ate-only-meat-and-fish-why-didnt-they-get-scurvy

P.S.--You wanna call bogus on these facts--which a few have done since the studies in the late '90s--please bring hard evidence.

*promote

Actually. There is a video out there of a "body farm" where forensic scientists do exactly what you are taking about to better understand decomposition. Not sure if it is sifted, but I'm sure the short documentary on it is on YouTube. >> ^hpqp:

As horrible as it may sound, I wish there were a similar video showing the decomposition of a human being. It would be a quick and easy answer to the question "what happens to you after you die?"

As horrible as it may sound, I wish there were a similar video showing the decomposition of a human being. It would be a quick and easy answer to the question "what happens to you after you die?"