Summer Ice Melt, EKC (Kuznets curve) and nuclear bombs

Summer Ice Melt On Antarctic Peninsula Is Now Nonlinear, Fastest In Over 1000 Years /Apr 15, 2013/
<lots of links to Nature, NASA and other reports. Worthwhile.>
A new study finds "a nearly tenfold increase in melt intensity" on the Antarctic Peninsula in the last few hundred years.

It was just 2006 when Penn State climatologist Richard Alley explained that observations had indicated the great ice sheets appear to be shrinking "100 years ahead of schedule."
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/04/15/1864401/summer-ice-melt-on-antarctic-peninsula-is-now-nonlinear-fastest-in-over-1000-years/?mobile=nc

In 2001, the IPCC "consensus" said neither Greenland nor Antarctica would lose significant mass by 2100. They both already have.  As Penn State climatologist Richard Alley said in March 2006, the ice sheets appear to be shrinking "100 years ahead of schedule." 
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/06/27/254996/melting-antarctic-ice/

Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlogNOAA report unable to pinpoint causes of the historic 2012 U.S. drought
The extreme 2012 drought in the Central Great Plains of the U.S. was more intense than any drought since record keeping began in 1895, says a new NOAA assessment of the historic drought, released Thursday. However, the study was unable to pinpoint the cause of the drought.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2384
  <see also the heading Criticism of the report> below the picture>

My thoughts are: when we've to deal with so much damages, the money won't matter anymore. Humanity, run for (y)our lives.
Yes, Climate Change Is Worsening U.S. Drought — NOAA Report Needlessly Confuses The Issue http://clmpr.gs/ZeyZsV via @thinkprogress.


"The EKC hypothesis derives from a model of the economy in which there is no feedback from the state of the environment to economic growth. Rising levels of deforestation and pollution are seen as having harmful effects on the quality of life but not on production possibilities.

From one of the classics: Stern, D. I., Common, M. S., & Barbier, E. B. (1996). Economic growth and environmental degradation: the environmental Kuznets curve and sustainable development. World development, 24(7), 1151-1160.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0305750X96000320

See also more recent studies:
Environmental Kuznets curve for CO2 in Canada (He, Richard, 2010) (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800909004790)
The relationship between income and environment in Turkey: Is there an environmental Kuznets curve? (2009): (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421508005624)
The Environmental Kuznets Curve: Seeking Empirical Regularity and Theoretical Structure (Carson et al., 2010) (http://reep.oxfordjournals.org/content/4/1/3.short)
  "Ultimately, the view that income growth by itself eventually will be good for the environment also appears to be wrong because a causal relationship between income and environmental quality cannot be demonstrated. The original empirical estimates appear fragile at best compared to estimates using more representative datasets, higher-quality data, and more appropriate econometric techniques. More plausible explanations for the observed data revolve around good government, effective regulation, and diffusion of technological change."

Munasinghe (1999): Is environmental degradation an inevitable consequence of economic growth: tunneling through the environmental Kuznets curve
Developing countries could learn from the experiences of industrialized nations, and restructure growth and development to `tunnel' through any potential EKC—thereby avoiding going through the same stages of growth that involve relatively high (and even irreversible) levels of environmental harm. An environmentally adjusted measure of national income could significantly change the shape of the development-environment relationship.
(http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0921-8009(98)00062-7)

Economic growth and pollutant emissions in Tunisia: An empirical analysis of the environmental Kuznets curve (Fodha, Zaghdoudb, 2010)
An inverted U relationship between SO2 emissions and GDP has been found/.../. However, a monotonically increasing relationship with GDP is found more appropriate for CO2 emissions. Furthermore, the causality results show that the relationship between income and pollution in Tunisia is one of unidirectional causality with income causing environmental changes and not vice versa, both in the short-run and long-run. This implies that an emission reduction policies and more investment in pollution abatement expense will not hurt economic growth. It could be a feasible policy tool for Tunisia to achieve its sustainable growth in the long-run.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421509008301)

The Rise and Fall of the Environmental Kuznets Curve. (Stern, 2004)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X04000798

 

I'll end with this, since I also read the Arrow et al., 1995 paper some time ago and found myself agreeing with much that was said:

"Arrow et al. (1995) note that "all economic activity ultimately depends" on the "environmental resource base," imprudent use of which "may irreversibly reduce the capacity for generating material production in the future."

The environmental resource base includes assimilative capacities for waste discharges.
Exceeding assimilative capacity gives rise to pollution, which in addition to being directly offensive and/or injurious to humans, can reduce the availability and productivity of renewable resources, and interfere with the operation of environmental life support services (Common, 1995)."
(From Stern et al, 1996: 1155)
 

"Countries, such as Japan for example, that import most of their raw materials may be exporting environmental impacts to the countries with which they trade (Herendeen, 1994)." (Ibidem)

 

To finish off, some ideas I've been struggling with during the day:
 

"Lately, North Korea has once again been using its nukes as a political tool. The public opinion in South Korea has now fully swung toward the belief that they too must acquire the big stick of nukes in order to counter their neighbor's threats."
Bracken: "

Nuclear weapons are used every single day to extort food and oil from the rest of the world to keep the regime going."

 

Disarmament, he would say, is a sweet fantasy. The best we can hope for is to "manage" the nuclear menagerie — and we cannot be confident of success…
From: The Threat of Nuclear War in an Age of Eco-Collapse and Peak Everything (20. mar 2013)
http://collapseofindustrialcivilization.com/tag/hiroshima-and-nagasaki/