[onlooker]

I started a post for 2016 so now for 2017. Feel free to indulge any possibilities as this is the Open Topic forum. I do not see any catastrophic events but I do see significant revelations as to the path we are on and that in turn should wake even more people up from their slumber of denial and complacency.

[Cog]

2017 will bring love, joy, and many profits.

[onlooker]

2017 will bring love, joy, and many profits.

The question is profits for whom?

[Cog]

Everyone.

[Tanada]

Okay I will climb way way out on the limb with a wild prediction.

The Arctic ocean will experience a 'blue water event' when all or nearly all the sea ice melts the summer of 2017. Doomers will run in circles with their hair on fire declaring we are all dead when this happens. The average American will look around, see things are not all that different and shrug. President Trump will make soothing noises about how the global warming panic was all a fraud Because the scenarios projected by the doomers have been so extreme (extinction of all mammals extinction of humans, Earth as Venus number two) the average person will dismiss all global warming fears including all the legitimate ones as hyperbole. Humanity in the sense of North America will ditch CO2 regulation as nothing but a cash grab and we will resume building the cheapest power supplies instead of what are called the cleanest. By the end of the year there will be serious plans for a whole slate of new cheap coal burning electricity plants to replace the aging ones approaching the end of their useful lives because they cost a heck of a lot less per kWh than natural gas for fuel.

[evilgenius]

There could be a call on the Colorado River. Glen Canyon Damn may not have enough water behind it to meet demand. The current style of negotiating shortfalls, so as not to make the call, may not be sufficient to counter the lack of resources. This might not happen in 2017, but it will happen soon.

[onlooker]

Tanada, your prediction seems quite credible. However. the ironic thing is that of all the threats humanity faces, climate is the most certain to happen and greater than any except perhaps nuclear Armageddon. And now probably the timeline is shorter than most people would assume or than any models have forecast.