Something to keep in mind…
We must rethink
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the whole basis of human behavior.
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Our survival requires the
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complete restructuring of human society.
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THE CLIMATE CRISIS IS AFFECTING THE WEATHER
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As the path of the jet stream veers farther south, enabling it to carry warm air up to the Arctic, it also pushes cold air into the midlatitudes. This is affecting all weather systems.
More importantly, warmer air holds more moisture and there is much more warm air now.
When moist warm air meets cold air, weather happens. So, as the ’climate’ warms, more radical and disastrous events transpire.
Freak summer hailstorm buries cars in Mexico’s Guadalajara
At least six neighbourhoods in the city outskirts woke up to ice pellets up to two metres deep. Nearly 200 homes and businesses reported hail damage, and at least 50 vehicles were swept away by the deluge of ice in hilly areas, some buried under piles of pellets.
32 Dead as Worst Flooding in a Decade Hits Booming Mumbai
After nearly 16 inches of rain fell last night in some areas, several parts of the city became inundated in waist deep water. Local train and bus services have been disrupted. Schools and colleges were closed, and nearly 50 flights were canceled from Mumbai airport, where a Spice Jet plane overshot the runway. … It was the second heaviest rainfall in Mumbai in the last 45 years … In just three days, the city and its more than 20 million residents have endured more rain than they typically do during the entire month of June.
Climate Change is Devastating India With Heat Waves and Water Shortages
This water crisis is actually related with climate change and the heatwaves, which have been ongoing now in India. Some recent studies done by Columbia University shows that it’s not only the groundwater, which is running dry, but the glaciers are melting at an unprecedented rate since the beginning of 2000.
Europe’s heatwave burns on, but eases from record highs
In France, which experienced a national record of 45.9 Celsius (114.6 Fahrenheit) in the south on Friday, temperatures were set to fall gradually.
Jerome Despey, a wine producer in France’s southwestern Herault region, tweeted photos of shrivelled grapes, and complained of “widespread damage”.
Meteorologists say a weakening of the high-level jet stream is increasingly causing weather systems to stall and leading summer temperatures to soar. Five of Europe’s hottest summers in the last 500 years have happened in this century.
Alaska’s heat wave fuels dangerous smoke, melts glaciers
Alaska’s heat wave is driving wildfires and melting glaciers, choking the state’s biggest cities with smoke and bloating rivers with meltwater.
“People should GO, evacuate NOW. Leave immediately. DO NOT delay leaving,” the evacuation order said.
In all, there were 354 wildfires covering 443,211 acres in Alaska as of Sunday morning, according to state and federal fire managers.
Melting glaciers and mountain snowfields are bloating rivers and streams across a large swath of south central Alaska, the NWS said.
The melt has brought water levels to flood stage at the Yentna River northwest of Anchorage on Sunday, said NWS forecaster Bob Clay.
More record-breaking heat and wildfire smoke forecast for week of Fourth of July
As of Sunday, the fire was at 68,060 acres with 17 percent contained, said Jonathan Ashford, a spokesman for the Alaska Incident Management Team. There are now 487 firefighters and other personnel working the fire.
By Tuesday, another high-pressure ridge is expected to move over Southcentral Alaska, according to meteorologists. Expect temperatures into the 80s for midweek and the Fourth of July holiday, when many Alaskans hit the roads to camp and recreate outside and when major events like Seward’s Mount Marathon take place.
“It’s forecast to be stronger and hotter than the one we just had,” said Patrick Doll, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Anchorage. “Think of what we’ve been experiencing and tack on 2-4 degrees.”
Limit of Human Survivability at High Temperature, Humidity Conditions Leading to Uninhabitability
Air Conditioning Access Divides those who get to Live from those who DIE: Class-divides Brutal
The Climate Crisis is now reaching the end-game, where very soon humanity must choose between taking unprecedented action, or bear the consequences…
HOT AIR NEWS ROUNDUP
This report addresses the short comings of the IPCC reports. Well worth reading…
What Lies Beneath: The Understatement of Existential Climate Risk
Breakthrough, National Centre for Climate Restoraton 2018
What Lies Beneath is an important report. It does not deliver new facts and figures, but instead provides a new perspective on the existential risks associated with anthropogenic global warming. … Firstly, the IPCC is stricken with the Probability Obsession. Ever since statistics was established in the16th century, scientists have tried to capture the complex, stochastic behaviour of a given non-trivial object (such as a roulette wheel) by repeating the same experiment on that object many, many times. If there was a set of well-defined outcomes (such as the ball ending on the red or black of the wheel), then the probability of a specific outcome was simply the number of experiments delivering that outcome divided by the total number of experiments. … So calculating probabilities makes little sense in the most critical instances, such as the methane- release dynamics in thawing permafrost areas or the potential failing of entire states in the climate crisis. Rather, we should identify possibilities, that is, potential developments in the planetary make-up that are consistent with the initial and boundary conditions, the processes and the drivers we know
Take the ‘test’ below and see how you score…
The most effective ways to curb climate change might surprise you
CNN 4-19-19
Let’s see how much you know about what can be done to fight climate change.
Rank the solutions
The group Project Drawdown has ranked the most effective climate change solutions, and below, we’ve separated some of the top ones by category. Actions are labeled to indicate whether they can be implemented by individuals, companies or policymakers.
”Every answer has a cost. Every choice exacts a penalty. A new book reminds readers there are no easy answers to the climate crisis”…
Pursuit of profit won’t solve climate crisis
Climate News Network 6-24-19
We have to rethink the whole basis of human behaviour. This means switching to vegetarian or vegan diets, abandoning plastic packaging, and cutting down on air travel (powered by biofuels, if we must, but the biofuel business is lunacy – he uses the word “bonkers” – in energy terms). But these are small things. … Free market capitalism or neoliberalism or any pursuit entirely and only for profit cannot deliver answers to the coming climate crisis. … If the world shared its wealth (and wealth is a proxy for energy resources) more fairly, then it might be a great deal easier to be sure of democratic assent and international co-operation for radical shifts in the way we manage our food, water, transport and our precarious natural wealth in the form of biodiversity: all the wild birds, mammals, fish amphibians, reptiles, plants, fungi and microbes on which humankind ultimately depends.
Google, Facebook, and Microsoft Sponsored a Conference That Promoted Climate Change Denial
Climate Desk 6-28-19
All three tech companies were sponsors of LibertyCon, the annual convention of the libertarian group Students for Liberty, which took place in Washington, DC. Google was a platinum sponsor, ponying up $25,000, and Facebook and Microsoft each contributed $10,000 as gold sponsors. … The [CO2 Doalition] coalition is funded by conservative foundations that have backed other climate change denial efforts. These include the Mercer Family Foundation, which in recent years has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to right-wing think tanks engaged in climate change denialism, and the Charles Koch Institute, the charitable arm of one of the brothers behind Koch Industries, the oil and gas behemoth.
Climate impact of clouds made from airplane contrails may triple by 2050
EurekAlert 6-27-19
The increase in contrail cirrus radiative forcing is due to air traffic growth, expected to be 4 times larger in 2050 compared to 2006 levels, and a slight shift of flight routes to higher altitudes, which favours the formation of contrails in the tropics. The impact on climate due to contrail cirrus will be stronger over Northern America and Europe, the busiest air traffic areas on the globe, but will also significantly increase in Asia. “Contrail cirrus’ main impact is that of warming the higher atmosphere at air traffic levels and changing natural cloudiness.
This is a stunningly thorough article by Dahr Jamail…
Over One-Tenth of Global Population Could Lack Drinking Water by 2030
Truthout 7-1-19
Meanwhile, the news of the collapse continues to roll in. A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that sea-level rise could be twice as bad as previously expected, due to accelerated melting in the Antarctic and Greenland. Instead of the previous worst-case scenario of 1 meter by 2100, the study has doubled that figure. Several scientists this writer has interviewed believe the realistic figure of sea level rise by 2100 will be even higher than this recent study’s prediction.
US generates more electricity from renewables than coal for first time ever
The Guardian 6-26-19 h/
Clean energy such as solar and wind provided 23% of US electricity generation during the month, compared with coal’s 20%, according to the Energy Information Administration. This represents the first time coal has been surpassed by energy sources that do not release pollution such as planet-heating gases. … “The fate of coal has been sealed, the market has spoken,” said Michael Webber, an energy expert at the University of Texas. “The trend is irreversible now, the decline of coal is unstoppable despite Donald Trump’s rhetoric.”
LEGISLATION, ELECTIONS & POLICY
Climate ‘red line’ at G20: Emmanuel Macron
TOI 6-26-19
TOKYO: France will not sign any final statement at this week’s G20 summit that does not commit to ambitious climate goals, President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday, calling climate is likely to be among many contentious issues on the table at the meeting in Japan’s Osaka on June 28-29, with Washington expected to pppose strong references to the Paris climate accord, from which it plans to withdraw.
Bonn climate talks end with Saudis and Brazil defiant
Climate Chanage News 6-27-19
Talks wrapped up on Thursday evening in Bonn, Germany with diplomats defiantly standing up for the scientific community against Saudi Arabia – but the petrostate won the day. After a week of backroom discussions, a key report on 1.5C warming was scrubbed forever from formal UN climate talks after the Saudis repeatedly tried to load a statement with equivocation on the science. … Brazil continued to stall efforts to regulate carbon credits, clinging to a demand that negotiators warned would “kill” the Paris Agreement.
Oh, well…
Mike Pence dodges climate change questions as Agriculture Department buries new scientific studies
Salon 6-24-19
While being questioned by CNN’s Jake Tapper, Pence listened to the anchor quote Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats discussing the geopolitical threat posed by climate change. Tapper then mentioned how the EPA had rolled back part of former President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan before asking the vice president, “Do you think human-induced climate emergency is a threat to the United States?” Pence responded, “Well, what I will tell you is that we will always follow the science on that in this administration.” “The science says, ‘It is,'” Tapper interjected. Pence continued, arguing that what the Trump administration “won’t do — and the Clean Power Plan was all about that — was hamstringing energy in this country, raising the cost of the utility rates for working families across this country while other nations like China and India do absolutely nothing or make illusory promises decades down the road to deal with it.”
Climate change takes back seat at presidential debate — again
Roll Call 6-28-19
“Adding only a single measly minute to the climate discussion compared to the first night was grossly insufficient — voters need to understand where every candidate stands on the most pressing emergency of our time,” Kassie Siegel, climate director at the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, said shortly after the debate. “That’s why we need a climate debate.”
‘This Is Not How You Behave in an Emergency’: Demand for Climate-Focused Democratic Debate Grows After Second Night of Paltry Questions
Common Dreadms 6-28-19
“The climate questions asked were far too simplistic, and missed the chance to challenge candidates to demonstrate how committed they are to tackling the climate crisis, and what their plans are to take on the fossil fuel industry,” said Turnbull. “The only thing we learned about the climate crisis this week was that we need a DNC-sanctioned climate debate,” Turnbull said, “moderated by journalists who understand the issue.”
NYC Declares Climate Emergency
The Climate Mobilization 6-26-19
We are proud — and thrilled — that New York City has joined the over 650 local governments in declaring a Climate Emergency, becoming the largest local government to declare to date! This declaration has been a strategic goal of ours for some time — New York City’s leadership in the U.S. and on the global stage now takes our Climate Emergency Campaign to another level. Much credit belongs to Extinction Rebellion NYC, which has done breakthrough work on securing this declaration.
Oregon Republican senators end walkout over carbon bill
Chron 6-28-19
Nine minority Republicans returned to the Senate on Saturday after Senate President Peter Courtney said the majority Democrats lacked the necessary 16 votes to pass the legislation, a statewide cap on carbon that allows companies to trade pollution credits. Shortly after convening, senators quickly voted 17-10 to send the climate proposal back to committee, essentially killing it for the session.
Hijacking of Oregon’s Climate Law Is Bad News for Democracy
Sierrra Magazine 6-25-19
Now, the tantrum by Oregon Republicans has blocked that route to climate progress. Last Tuesday, Senate president Peter Courtney announced, to the shock and dismay of Oregon climate activists, that HB 2020 didn’t have the votes to pass and that he was pulling it from the floor. On Friday afternoon, the Republican senators returned to the statehouse, having fulfilled their goal of sinking the bill. ” … Such ruthless political tactics come from a position not of strength but weakness. Republicans in Oregon—like Republicans nationally—know that they are outnumbered. So they are forced to engage in dirty tricks, or gross intimidation and hints of violence, designed to maintain their current power. Or, in the case of Oregon, to hold progressive reforms at bay. The result is a sort of tyranny of the minority.
CO2-pricing: German chancellor Angela Merkel visited PIK for a scientific briefing
PICIR 6-14-19
German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) last Thursday to discuss climate change and climate policy with Director Ottmar Edenhofer and other researchers. A special focus of the meeting lay on options for an effective and fair CO2 pricing.
THE ARCTIC
Antarctica Lost Sea Ice 4x the Size of France in 3 Years
EcoWatch 7-2-19
The rapid decline, revealed in a study of satellite data published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, marks a stunning reversal for the South Pole: Between 1979 and 2014, its sea ice was actually expanding. Then, it lost 2.1 million square kilometers (approximately 810,815 square miles) in three years, falling from 12.8 million square kilometers (approximately 4.9 million square miles) to 10.7 million square kilometers (approximately 4.1 million square miles)
“The plunge in the average annual extent means Antarctica lost as much sea ice in four years as the Arctic lost in 34 years.”
#ClimateBreakdown #ClimateEmergency https://t.co/tMiTCkKURO— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg)
Adapting to Climate Change in Alaska
Scientific American 6-28-19
In the off-grid homes of Alaskan hunters, naturalists and Native weavers—and in the offices of land managers working in America’s largest national forest—I asked this question over and over again. We were talking about climate change. The answers were across the board: “There are some things we can do. I would hope that there’s more we can do if we discover even better, cheaper energy sources.” “There’s a lot we can do, and we’re not doing it.” “I’m an optimist. There are a lot of things we can do. Politics and greed can get in the way of making some of the tough decisions we need to make as a country and as a world. But we’re already seeing some recognize, from a social standpoint and an environmental standpoint, businesses have a role to play.” “I don’t think there’s anything I can do.” … “The animals I used to catch as a kid are no longer there,” said Kollmuss. “A lot of anger, grief, and hopelessness comes with that.
Clouds dominate uncertainties in predicting future Greenland melt
Science Daily 6-25-19
New research suggests that the representation of clouds in climate models is as, or more, important than the amount of greenhouse gas emissions when it comes to projecting future Greenland ice sheet melt. … Recent research shows that the whole of the Greenland ice sheet could be gone within the next thousand years, raising global sea level by more than seven metres. … in a warming world, cloud microphysics play as an important role as greenhouse gases and, for high emission scenarios, dominate the uncertainties in projecting the future melting of the ice sheet.
More than 50 newly discovered lakes beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet
Science Dialy 6-26-19
Researchers have discovered 56 previously uncharted subglacial lakes beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet bringing the total known number of lakes to 60. Although these lakes are typically smaller than similar lakes in Antarctica, their discovery demonstrates that lakes beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet are much more common than previously thought.
FOSSIL FUELS
B.C. government quietly posts response to expert fracking report
The Narwhal 6-28-19
Notably absent from the government’s news release — posted on its website Thursday but strangely not sent out to media — is any commitment to investigate the human health impacts of fracking in the province’s northeast. … “We know that the mix of chemicals being used and being pumped into the ground include highly toxic compounds and we should absolutely be determining what any impacts are to human health,” … The LNG Canada project will emit 3.45 megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually, according to the provincial government, which promised the cleanest LNG in the world even though claims of “clean LNG” have been thoroughly debunked.
All you ever wanted to know about pipelines – what they are and where they are…
Pipelines 101: An Introduction To North American Oil & Gas Pipeline Routes and Safety Concerns
Deep Green Resistance 6-28-19
But not all is so rosy with these tools of fossil energy infrastructure. Pipelines leak and spill – pretty often, actually. They run through fragile ecosystems, under waterways, and across incredibly valuable aquifers. And as crucial as they are in delivering affordable fuel to your gas tank or furnace, they’re pretty tempting targets for anyone who wants to deal our nation’s energy supply a serious blow. In other words, our dependance on oil and gas pipelines makes our nation vulnerable to a terrorist attack, a concern that’s been long established in security circles. Pipelines are typically built and paid for by private companies. But public support is crucial to the industry, and it comes in many forms, from eminent domain takings to subsidies and tax breaks to favorable environmental impact reviews.
WEATHER
#HEATWAVE2019 in #Europe caused by spinning low pressure west of Portugal pumping heat north from Africa. Storm’s been ‘stuck’ because of Greenland/ neg. NAO block, which is a normal cycle BUT is likely being enhanced by Arctic Amplification due to human-forced #climate change. pic.twitter.com/vZZvutpuaA
— Jeff Berardelli (@WeatherProf)
European Heat Wave Shifts East; All-Time Heat Records Tumble in Germany
Category Six 7-1-19
“For all practical purposes, the heat wave is caused by human-made global warming,” Columbia University’s Jim Hansen told CBS News in an interview last week. Hansen gained fame more than 30 years ago, in the parched U.S. summer of 1988, when he testified before Congress that the world was seeing the first signs of climate change due to human-produced greenhouse gases. One of Hansen’s strongest statements at the time: ”It is time to stop waffling so much and say that the evidence is pretty strong that the greenhouse effect is here.” In his CBS interview, Hansen said that the odds of a heat wave as intense as this past week’s in Europe would be extremely remote without the contribution of heat-trapping emissions from fossil fuels.
All-time June Heat Records Fall in 5 European Nations
Category Six 6-27-19
Europe’s brutal June heat wave is less than half over, but all-time June national heat records have already fallen in five nations. Extreme heat is expected to last through Monday over portions of Western and Southern Europe, thanks to a “stuck” jet stream pattern that has allowed a hot airmass from the Sahara Desert to flow northwards into Europe.Wednesday’s all-time June national heat records:
Poland, 38.2°C (100.8°F) at Radzyń; previous record 38.0°C in Wroclaw in 1935.
Czech Republic, 38.9°C (101.3°F) at Doksany; previous record 38.2°C at Brno in June 2000.
Germany, 38.6°C (101.5°F) at Coschen; previous record 38.5°C in June 1947.
Luxembourg, 36.8°C (98.2°F) at Petange; previous record 36.1°C on June 22, 2017.
Principality of Andorra, 37.8°C (100°F) at Borda Vidal; previous record 36.0°C in June 1935.
Update: an all-time June French national heat record of 42.3°C (108.1°F) was set at Gropsierres on Thursday. Previous record: 41.5°C (106.7°F), June 21, 2003.
Hottest Day in French History: 45.9°C (114.6°F)
Category Six
On Saturday, the most intense heat will be centered over Spain and the western two-thirds of France. By Sunday, the heat will progress eastwards, with France, Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic all at risk of breaking all-time heat records. Sunday is expected to be the hottest day of the heat wave for Germany, where at least 204 of 451 of the German weather service’s active stations broke or tied their June record on Wednesday. That list included 13 stations that broke or tied their all-time heat record for any month. Many of those records are set to fall again on Sunday.
Atmospheric rivers getting warmer along U.S. West Coast
PHYS ORG 6-25-19
Atmospheres finds atmospheric rivers –plumes of moisture that deliver much of the west’s precipitation—have gotten warmer over the past 36 years. Warmer atmospheric rivers generally produce more rain than snow, potentially causing problems for the region, according to Katerina Gonzales, an atmospheric scientist at Stanford University and lead author of the new study.
Wildfires and Power Cuts Plague Europeans as Heatwave Breaks Records
Climate Change News 6-29=19
Hundreds of firefighters battled on Saturday to contain wildfires in southern France as a stifling heatwave brought record-breaking temperatures to parts of Europe, killing at least three people in Italy. In the Gard region, where France’s highest temperature on record was registered on Friday at 45.9 degrees Celsius (114 degrees Fahrenheit), scores of fires burned some 600 hectares (about 1,500 acres) of land and destroyed several houses and vehicles, emergency services said.
Europe’s heatwave consistent with climate change, more to come – U.N.
Reuters 6-28-19
This year is on track to be among the hottest ever and that would make 2015-2019 the world’s hottest five-year period on record, the World Meteorological Organization said on Friday. … “Heatwaves will become more intense, they will become more drawn out, they will become more extreme, they will start earlier and they will finish later,” WMO spokeswoman Clare Nullis told a briefing in Geneva.
ADAPTION AND RESILIENCE
Transforming plastic waste into a 100% recycled building material alternative.
ByFusion PBC
ByFusion is a 100% modular technology platform that converts all types of waste plastic into an alternative building material called RePlast. Our eco-friendly process is a low emission and non-toxic way to “upcycle” plastic waste from our communities, coastlines, and landfills into a readily-usable new product. ByFusion is capable of processing plastic collected from our oceans and coastlines and diverting millions of tons of plastic from landfills, saving taxpayers and municipal governments billions of dollars in costs, and creating jobs through local and regional business development.
High-Speed Sorting Machine to Recycle Plastic
[VIDEO]
Why carrying your own fork and spoon helps solve the plastic crisis
National Geographic 6-28-19
That marriage of culture and convenience led to companies such as Sodexo, a French firm that’s one of the world’s largest food-service providers, to turn to plastic. “[Convenience] really made this whole disposal space become part of our everyday life,” says Judy Panayos, Sodexo’s senior director of sustainability in supply management.
plastic cutlery is a $2.6 billion business.
Household tissue is a climate issue
Climate News Network 6-27-19
A substantial portion of the tissue products we buy – toilet paper, paper towels and facial tissues – comes from boreal forests, the dense ring of trees which encircles much of the globe just below the Arctic Circle. These forests – and the soils they stand in – contain vast amounts of carbon; when trees are felled and the land they are growing in is disturbed, carbon is released into the atmosphere, adding to the already dangerously high levels of climate-changing greenhouse gases. A new report looking at tissue use in the US says Americans are voracious consumers of tissue products; they make up only 4% of the world’s population yet account for more than 20% of global tissue consumption.
WILDLIFE & THE ENVIRONMENT
Microbes Hold the Balance in Climate Crisis
Climate Change News 6-29-19
Thirty scientists from nine nations have issued a challenge to the rest of climate science: don’t forget the microbes. They argue that research is ignoring the silent, unseen majority that makes up the microbial world. Lifeforms that add up to a huge proportion of living matter on the planet are being largely left out of climate calculations. Microbes have been around for 3.8 billion years, manipulating sunlight and turning carbon dioxide into carbon-based living tissue, and the mass of all the microbes on the planet probably contains 70 billion tonnes of carbon alone.
Trees’ water-use strategies can intensify droughts
Science Daily 6-24-19
New research find that some plants and trees are prolific spendthrifts in drought conditions — ‘spending’ precious soil water to cool themselves and, in the process, making droughts more intense. … It’s true that hot and dry regions tend to have more plants and trees that are adapted to dry conditions. But regardless of the climate some species with water-intensive traits, such as oaks in a Mediterranean climate, can still exacerbate a drought.
Undercounting of agroforestry skews climate change mitigation planning and reporting
Science Daily 6-25-19
Scientists expose the lack of measurement of and reporting on agroforestry in international climate agreements. This has strong implications for accounting for both how much carbon IS being sequestered and how much COULD BE sequestered, given national planning and potential climate finance.
Heatwave cooks mussels in their shells on California shore
The Guardian 6-28-19
In all her years working at Bodega Bay, the marine reserve research coordinator Jackie Sones had never seen anything like it: scores of dead mussels on the rocks, their shells gaping and scorched, their meats thoroughly cooked. A record-breaking June heatwave apparently caused the largest die-off of mussels in at least 15 years at Bodega Head, a small headland on the northern California bay. And Sones received reports from other researchers of similar mass mussel deaths at various beaches across roughly 140 miles of coastline.
PROTESTS • EXTINCTION REBELLION • RESISTANCE
Interesting article…
Indian ‘Cult’ Blames Climate Change on Capitalists, Gains Thousands of Followers
Vice 6-26-19
Climate change is real, terrifying, and happening because of a ton of reasons. But one popular group in north India that claims it’s committed to saving the planet from climate change thinks it has found the very crux of this problem staring us in the face. According to them, the taps running dry, the heatwave from hell and the “eating” of the glaciers of Himalayas are all the consequences of the existence of the baniyas (capitalists) and Jains in India.
After an MP grabbed a climate protester, young Brits will never vote for these Tories
Climate Change News 6-26-19
How do the Tories expect to win the vote of young people when they behave like this? We’re already annoyed by the government’s persistent policy green-washing and pitiful pledge to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, now you add dishonesty and violence. Climate change is the defining issue for our generation, just as it should’ve been for the generation before us.
Fridays for Future
In depth article…
Fridays for Future: Tens of thousands demonstrate on climate change in Aachen, Germany
WSWS 6-26-19
The first international mass demonstration organized by Fridays for Future, the student environmental activist group, brought together young people from 15 countries in Aachen, Germany on June 21. The protest in Germany’s westernmost city, near the borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, was held under the slogan, “Climate Justice Without Borders—United for a Future.” Some 40,000 students demanded a rapid shutdown of coal-fired power plants and other measures.
Greta Thunberg
When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez met Greta Thunberg: ‘Hope is contagious’
The Guardian 6-29-19
In the course of their conversation, Ocasio-Cortez and Thunberg discuss what it is like to be dismissed for their age, how depressed we should be about the future, and what tactics, as an activist, really work. Ocasio-Cortez speaks with her customary snap and brilliance that, held up against the general waffle of political discourse, seems startlingly direct. Thunberg, meanwhile, is phenomenally articulate, well-informed and self-assured, holding her own in conversation with an elected official nearly twice her age and speaking in deliberate, thoughtful English.
Extinction Rebellion
JOIN XR USA: on their website
XR NEWSLETTERS & EVENTS: on their website
XR USA: on YOUTUBE
Great pictures…
Extinction Rebellion: Glastonbury march by climate protesters
BBC 6-28-19
Thousands of festival-goers have taken part in a climate change protest march at Glastonbury Festival. The event, a collaboration between Extinction Rebellion and Greenpeace, began at the Park Stage and ended at the Stone Circle. At the end of the march, crowds formed a large human sculpture of an hourglass to symbolise extinction. Ruairi Brogan, a student from Belfast, said: “I think it will be remembered as the start of something, of change.” Extinction Rebellion describes itself as an “international movement” that uses “non-violent civil disobedience” to bring issues such as climate change to the fore. In April, protests by the group’s activists across London saw 1,130 people arrested for various offences.
On ‘Hottest Day in History of France,’ World Told ‘Do Not Look Away’ as Police Tear-Gas Climate Campaigners in Paris
Common Dreams 6-28-19
French riot police tear-gassed climate protesters in Paris on Friday as the county sweltered under record heat. Activists with Extinction Rebellion (XR) were occupying a bridge over the Seine to demand the French government declare a climate emergency and take necessary action to avert planetary catastrophe. “We need to civilly disrupt because, otherwise, nothing is going to be done,” a British woman who took part in the protest told Euronews.
CLIMATE STUDIES
Conceptual model can explain how thunderstorm clouds bunch together
Science Daily 6-25-19
Understanding how the weather and climate change is one of the most important challenges in science today. A new theoretical study presents a new mechanism for the self-aggregation of storm clouds, a phenomenon, by which storm clouds bunch together in dense clusters. The researcher used methods from complexity science, and applied them to formerly established research in meteorology on the behavior of thunderstorm clouds.
Is a great iron fertilization experiment already underway?
EurekAlert 6-26-19
Iron released by human activities contributes as much as 80 percent of the iron falling on the ocean surface, even in the dusty North Atlantic Ocean, and is likely underestimated worldwide, according to a new study in Nature Communications. … Since the 1990s scientists have proposed the idea of fertilizing the water with iron released from ships to accelerate the growth of phytoplankton. The thinking goes like this: Iron is a vital micronutrient that phytoplankton need to grow but it’s generally scarce in the ocean. When available via dust storm or other source, the phytoplankton slurp up the carbon dioxide during photosynthesis at the ocean’s surface. When they die and sink to the ocean bottom, they take the carbon with it – effectively acting as a “carbon sink.” … “It seems we’ve already been fertilizing the ocean. We just couldn’t quantify it,”
Technical but interesting…
Earth’s Future
AGU100 5-7-19
Reduced complexity climate models are useful tools for quantifying decision‐relevant uncertainties, given their flexibility, computational efficiency, and suitability for large‐ensemble frameworks necessary for statistical estimation using resampling techniques. We find the addition of thermal expansion as an observational constraint sharpens inference for the upper tail of posterior equilibrium climate sensitivity estimates, while other contributors to sea level change play a lesser role.
Study shows how to produce natural gas while storing carbon dioxide
PHYS ORG 6-27-19
New research at The University of Texas at Austin shows that injecting air and carbon dioxide into methane ice deposits buried beneath the Gulf of Mexico could unlock vast natural gas energy resources while helping fight climate change by trapping the carbon dioxide underground. … “Our study shows that you can store carbon dioxide in hydrates and produce energy at the same time,” … “Second, by swapping the methane hydrate with CO2 hydrate, we disturb the (geologic) formation less, lowering the environmental impact, and we make the process energetically more efficient.”
The water future of Earth’s ‘third pole’
Science Daily 6-26-19
One-seventh of the world’s population depends on rivers flowing from Asia’s high mountain ranges for water to drink and to irrigate crops. Rapid changes in the region’s climate are likely to influence food and water security in India, Pakistan, China and other nations. NASA keeps a space-based eye on changes like these worldwide to better understand the future of our planet’s water cycle.
Global Warnings
Paul Beckwith: “I declare a global climate change emergency to claw back up the rock face to attempt to regain system stability, or face an untenable calamity of biblical proportions.”
Kevin Hester: “There is no past analogue for the rapidity of what we are baring witness to. There has been a flood of articles … 2C is no longer attainable and that we are heading for dangerous climate change”
Magi Amma: We need to turn on a dime at mach nine!
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Equivalencies:
• 1 gigatonne equals one billion tons
• 1 gigatonne of carbon equals 3.67 gigatonnes of CO2
• 1 part per million of atmospheric CO2 is equivalent to 7.81 gigatonnes of CO2
