Antonio Turiel: "Deep Challenges: Oceans, Scarcity and Culture"

Episode 65
April 4, 2023

(Conversation recorded on March 22nd, 2023)  

Show Summary

On this episode, physicist Antonio Turiel joins me for a wide-ranging discussion from oceans and climate to energy and culture. Oceans are one of the most important factors regulating the Earth’s climate, and yet they receive relatively little attention from the climate community. There are numerous critical risk factors to unpack regarding just the oceans alone - and still so much that we don’t know. This conversation also delves into the complexity of an economic system requiring continuous growth itself embedded in an Earth system that is already hitting its limits. What are the boundaries of our energy systems and what options do we have - and not have - for the future? Is the root of the critical issue we’re facing - not a technical problem - but a cultural problem?

About Antonio Turiel

Antonio Turiel Martínez is a scientist and activist with a degree in Physics and Mathematics and a PhD in Theoretical Physics from the Autonomous University of Madrid. He works as a senior scientist at the Institute of Marine Sciences of the CSIC specializing in remote sensing, turbulence, sea surface salinity, water cycle, sea surface temperature, sea surface currents, and chlorophyll concentration. He has written more than 80 scientific articles, but he is better known as an online activist and editor of The Oil Crash blog, where he addresses sensitive issues about the depletion of conventional fossil fuel resources, such as the peak of oil and its possible

To watch this video episode on Youtubehttps://youtu.be/n1fIkS4y798

Show Notes and Links to learn more:

PDF Transcript

00:09 - Antonio Turiel info + works + The Oil Crash

01:39 - Youtube Video

04:36 - TGS Podcasts on Peak Fish (Daniel Pauly) and Hydrogen Sulfide (Peter Ward) and Cetacean Activism (DJ White)

05:02 - Ocean acidification

05:18 - Ocean mixing and absorption of CO2

06:48 - pH sensitivity of marine organisms

08:01 - 80% of the heat from climate change has been absorbed by the oceans

08:18 - Heat capacity

09:33 - Conditions for sudden release of ocean heat

11:52 - How ocean drives climate

11:55 - El Niño/La Niña

13:44 - Coral reefs 75% gone by 2050 or nearly gone by 2100

13:53 - Marine animals dependence on coral

14:05 - Sea surface temperatures effects on coral

16:01 - Trophic food chains

16:40 - Decline of biodiversity in the Mediterranean 

18:50 - Winds are becoming more intense in the open ocean and less intense in the inland continents

20:24 - Hypoxic zones

21:14 - Gill Oxygen Limitation Theory

21:59 - Blue Icebergs

23:08 - General patterns of more organisms moving away from the equator

23:26 - Rate of gender in fishes changing based on temperature

24:10 - Tree monocultures in Spain

24:29 - Atlantic Meridional Ocean Current (AMOC)

24:40 - AMOC slowing

27:24 - How much has the AMOC slowed and how much will it slow

28:04 - Thermohaline Current and effects of icebergs melting

30:34 - The Day After Tomorrow

31:02 - Climate if the AMOC stopped

31:30 - Increase of hurricanes with a warmer ocean/stopped AMOC

32:19 - Effect of a multi-year nuclear winter on oceans

33:45 - Without human influence on climate, we would be heading towards an ice age

34:50 - Particulate matter usually only lasts in the atmosphere for a few years and then settles

36:45 - Fossil fuel depletion

38:01 - Global decline rate of current wells is 7%

38:40 - Germany rebooting coal

39:29 - IPCC models

40:49 - Recent heatwaves and droughts in Europe

42:40 - Plastic accumulation in the oceans and endocrine disruptors

43:49 - Organic chemical pollution in the ocean

44:47 - Exploiting natural resources in the sea (mining)

45:14 - 2nd Law of Thermodynamics - Entropy

52:40 - The maximum amount of energy we could safely harvest from the sun is about 4x what we currently consume

54:40 - Resource scarcity of renewables

55:12 - Water intensity of mining

56:07 - Albert Bartlett

57:22 - All of the renewable systems are highly fossil dependent

58:50 - The biggest wind power companies have barely any losses

1:00:40 - 20% of our electricity production is from renewables

1:01:15 - There has been a plateau or decrease in electricity consumption for the last decade

1:04:29 - The sale of gas driven car forbidden in the EU by 2035

1:05:23 - 30% of global food produced is wasted

1:09:46 - Rationing in Europe

1:16:43 - France reducing energy by 10% by 2025 and 40% by 2050

1:17:12 - Strikes in France

1:18:30 - Nationalization of energy companies

1:27:01 - India’s injection of resources into Sri Lanka to keep them afloat

1:27:35 - Breakdown in Pakistan

1:29:18 - John Michael Greer

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Kim Stanley Robinson: "Climate, Fiction, and The Future"

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Andrew Millison: "Geomorphology, Permaculture, and The Good Work"