+- +-

+-User

Welcome, Guest.
Please login or register.
 
 
 

Login with your social network

Forgot your password?

+-Stats ezBlock

Members
Total Members: 48
Latest: watcher
New This Month: 0
New This Week: 0
New Today: 0
Stats
Total Posts: 16867
Total Topics: 271
Most Online Today: 119
Most Online Ever: 1208
(March 28, 2024, 07:28:27 am)
Users Online
Members: 0
Guests: 97
Total: 97

Author Topic: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️  (Read 116999 times)

0 Members and 15 Guests are viewing this topic.

AGelbert

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #615 on: July 15, 2016, 08:05:03 pm »

Britain’s Climate Change Department Dissolved: The United Kingdom’s newly-appointed Prime Minister Theresa May : axed the 8-year-old Department of Energy and Climate Change on Thursday and folded some elements into an expanded Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. The new department would be led by Greg Clark  , formerly minister for local government under David Cameron and the shadow secretary for energy and climate change between 2008 and 2010. May’s decision drew angry reactions from some members of the green community for giving climate change issues the backseat while others expressed hope that Clark could introduce a carbon floor price since he “gets climate change.” (BBC, Financial Times $, Independent, New Scientist, Climate Home, Times $, Carbon Brief, Guardian, Newsweek. Commentary: BusinessGreen, James Murray column; Politics, James Thornton op-ed; Guardian, Damian Carrington column)



Alaska Swelters Under Heat Wave: A massive heatwave struck Alaska this week, with the town of Deadhorse witnessing a high of 85°F. This has been the warmest ever in Deadhorse, where average temperatures tend to be 57°F at this time of the year. The temperatures were in the 80s across the region. The highest ever temperature record in Alaska was in 1915 when it reached 100°F in Fort Yukon on June 27. This year Alaska has witnessed a freakishly warm first six months with the state’s temperature averaging 30.4°F, 9°F higher than normal. As a result, the state’s fire season had an early start this year and more wildfires are feared due to the heatwave. (USA Today, Alaska Dispatch News, ThinkProgress, Mashable)



Warm Ocean Water May Be Driving Antarctic Ice Retreat: A group of researchers suspect that warm ocean water may be the main reason behind the retreating glaciers in the Antarctic Peninsula. A study published in Science has found that warm temperatures melting the glaciers from below are the biggest driver behind the retreat -- not atmospheric warming as is generally suspected. The researchers compared the ocean temperatures and region’s ice loss between 1945 and 2009 and found a clear correlation. “The Antarctic Peninsula is one of the largest current contributors to sea-level rise, and the glaciers here are highly sensitive, so [they] are key indicators of how the ice will respond to future changes,” says Alison Cook, lead author of the paper. (Washington Post $, Christian Science Monitor, Carbon Brief)

  https://www.carbonbrief.org/warmer-oceans-driving-antarctic-peninsula-glacier-melt-study-says
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #616 on: July 15, 2016, 08:35:35 pm »
 

DENIER ROUNDUP

July 15, 2016

Quote
Post-Brexit, UK Rearranges DECC Chairs
 

As the United Kingdom shuffles its government in the wake of Brexit, one of the first acts of newly-appointed Prime Minister Theresa May  was to abolish the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and fold it into a new Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy.   


The Independent published a story with reactions, which are all pretty uniformly negative “Plain stupid” is how Ed Miliband described the move and Green Party MP Caroline Lucas said, “To throw [DECC] into the basement of another Whitehall department, looks like a serious backwards step.”
 
WWF-UK CEO David Nussbaum was a bit more optimistic though, saying that the combination of business and energy departments “can be a real powerhouse for change, joining up Whitehall teams to progress the resilient, sustainable, and low carbon infrastructure that we urgently need.”
 
This is similar to a perennial business and sustainability question, of whether it’s better to have a dedicated executive-level sustainability officer, or to have an environmental ethos instilled throughout the entire business, so that those environmental concerns aren’t siloed. In the end, it depends on the degree to which sustainability can be integrated throughout the organization. If everyone is on board, then a dedicated person is redundant. If not, then that sustainability staffer is essential for making sure the issue remains a priority for the organization.
 
 So what about the new UK government? Things aren’t perfectly clear, but the signs indicate that this will certainly not be the “greenest government”. Carbon Brief dug up the new Prime Minister’s praise for the UK’s Climate Change Act back in 2008, but she has been silent on the subject since then. And Greg Clark, the leader of the new Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, has also said good stuff in the past, so there’s hope.
 
 But the newly appointed Environment Secretary is Andrea Leadsom who, according to an Independent headline, “backs fox hunting, selling off forests, and opposes climate change measures.” When Leadsom first became a Department of Energy minister in 2015, her first two questions were “is climate change real?” and “is hydraulic fracturing safe?” She is apparently “now completely persuaded,” and while it’s not clear in which direction she is persuaded on regarding climate change, the rest of the quote indicates that she thinks fracking is safe. And it seems that back in 2008, ALEC brought Leadsom to the US so that she could attend a conference where speakers called climate change “a huge, huge myth.”
 
It remains to be seen then, whether this DECC-demotion is indicative of a deprioritization of climate change in the UK or just a change in name with minimal impacts. In other words, we’ll have to wait and see whether they’re rearranging deck chairs or just throwing DECC overboard altogether.

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #617 on: July 15, 2016, 09:25:35 pm »
EXCELLENT Comment by billwilson18041

billwilson18041


July 16, 2016 12:58 PM EDT

Quote
Some reasons why fraud by Fossil Fuel industry is worse than Tobacco fraud.

 

1. Man Made climate change is the most important and direct threat to every living person on the planet increasing each day. Delay and deceit schemes counter the scientific urgency mandating collective action.

2. Children and future generations were mostly not affected by smoking and most had a choice to smoke or not. Prevention being worth a pound of cure it was a battle between the Marlboro Man, Fake doctors and the growing evidence . Today and for the future more and more simply do not have a choice to move and the poor pay the first costs that can't move from the harms of fossil fuel burning.

3. With most people owning shares through retirement funds etc. it would be critical for the fossil fuel industry to clearly and as soon as known to inform investors that their products will face increasing resistance from the consuming world to cut back on use which strands most of their reserves. This coincides with the clear scientific warnings to leave about 4/5 of known reserves in the ground. So to promise years of dividends and not clearly articulate the knowns of science is simple fraud.

4. It is well known that the industry has funded denial. Not only funded denial but lobbied to get more of our air, land, and water as the socialized costs continue to be paid by the public and hidden from the bottom lines of their companies. With the World Health Organization now claiming from 4.5 to over 6 million premature deaths from outdoor air pollution it is a precursor to climate change and implies not just ignoring real costs that the poor pay but shows by denying man made climate change a willful disregard for life on a massive scale.

So while the same tactics of delay and deceit like Hillary using All Of The Above to increase world wide extraction and burning are used for iffy and ever distant restraint, we saw industry scientists waving the wrong flag which killed many.








He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #618 on: July 18, 2016, 02:28:05 pm »
Climate| Jul 18, 2016

Watch the Climate Change Ad Fox News Refused to Run

and Climate Nexus ByClimate Nexus

Fox News declined to run an ad that calls out the network for refusing to acknowledge human-caused climate change.

The advertisement, sponsored by Friends of the Earth, shows a mock Fox News anchor reporting on extreme weather events while the newsroom slowly floods and then asks, "What will it take for Fox News to accept that humans are changing the climate?"

 

Fox News, meanwhile, agreed to run other ads by Partnership for Responsible Growth (PRG) that show conservative leaders talking about the need for climate action. PRG is also behind an ongoing 12-part climate change ad series in the Wall Street Journal.

http://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change-ad-fox-news-refused-to-run-1929513722.html


He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #619 on: July 20, 2016, 02:52:07 pm »
Climate| Jul 20, 2016

June Was Earth's 14th Straight Record Warm Month, Greenland Loses Shocking 1 Trillion Tons of Ice

By 
 

June has continued the unprecedented heat streak for the 14th month, with globally averaged temperatures being a full 1.62 F (0.9 C) warmer than the average across the 20th century, according to the latest data by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and confirmed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).  NOAA

The effects of last year's El Nińo, which contributed to spike in temperatures, is fading but the record heat streak over the Earth has remained. According to NOAA, the first half of 2016 was 0.36 F (0.2 C) warmer than last year and this year is on track to becoming the third consecutive year to set a new global heat record.

Another indication of warming is Greenland's melting ice. A satellite study has also shown that Greenland has lost a shocking 1 trillion tons of ice in just four years between 2011 and 2014. Ice loss from Greenland, which has been 9 trillion tons in the past century, may have contributed to a full inch of sea-level rise in the last 100 years.

http://www.ecowatch.com/june-record-hot-month-greenland-loses-tons-of-ice-1933857436.html

Agelbert NOTE: Fossil fuel Profit over Planet "Industry" Reaction to ALL THE ABOVE:


Reality Based Community's Reaction to the Suicidal Greedballs "justifying" MORE POLLUTION from the burning of fossil fuels as a "necessary evil": 


If you think this warming is linear (i.e. not accelerating), you do not understand the physics of ice versus open ocean.

It takes 334 Joules of heat to melt one gram of ice, but once that ice melts into water, it only takes about 42 Joules of heat to warm the water by another TEN degrees Celsius.







He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #620 on: July 21, 2016, 06:26:59 pm »
July 21, 2016

Denier Roundup

Quote
Those who derived their power from profits found science-based health and environmental regulations an affront to their business models. Exploiting the postmodern concept that there is no objectivity enabled authoritarians to push their public policy agendas with PR instead of relying on scientific evidence to justify their positions.

Harold Hamm
Harold Hamm: Sergeant in the War on Science

Quote
Last night, oil tycoon Harold Hamm addressed the Republican National Convention. Since this post was written before his speech, we won’t address what was said. Instead, we’ll provide just a bit of history on Hamm and the wider sociopolitical history that has led us to a campaign season where facts have fallen by the wayside and emotional rhetoric have risen in importance.
 
Hamm is the billionaire CEO of the oil company Continental Resources. Before being identified as a potential candidate for a cabinet position and “Trump’s energy whisperer,” Hamm was in the news a year ago for his attempt to silence scientists who were linking Oklahoma’s massive uptick in earthquakes (from one-ish a year in 2009 to over 500 in 2014) to the massive uptick in fracking operations. Hamm apparently  ;) tried to get a University of Oklahoma scientist fired for doing their job in pursuing the science that might interfere with his profits. 
 
This brings us to the larger point of science as a counterbalance to power.
It’s the major theme in Shawn Otto’s newest book, The War on Science: Who’s waging it, Why it matters, What we can do about it.

Otto traces the history of science and politics, starting with the “self-evident” nature of our rights within the Declaration of Independence. Science’s search for the underlying truth of nature, Otto writes, has always been a political force. Not in the partisan sense, but in the power sense. “Science is the great equalizer,” Otto told us via email. “It underpins the whole argument for democracy. But it’s also political, because it either confirms or disrupts somebody’s vested interests, and those people tend to fight back when science suggests certain laws or regulations they don’t like."
 
Fast-forward to the 20th century, when science ended World War II with the power of the atomic bomb. In the ensuing years, science enjoyed the financial support of the military and retreated from the public sphere, as it no longer needed public engagement for funding.
 
At the same time, the public was growing increasingly wary of science, the cause of their children’s pointless “duck and cover” drills in case of nuclear attack.

Meanwhile, in the humanitarian departments of academia, the postmodernist movement was questioning the fundamental nature of science as a way to discover objective truth, portraying it as just another “metanarrative” -- a story told by the ruling class in order to retain power.


 

This thinking worked its way into journalism schools, where reporters  learned that there is no such thing as objectivity , and creating the conditions where false balance thrives and industry    spokespeople  are given equal time and consideration as real scientists
 
This postmodernism, mostly a leftist concept, provided the intellectual underpinning for the larger war on science by the axis of industry and religious forces who coopted that language to insist we “teach the controversy.” Those who derived their power from religion found evolution and stem cells to be affronts to the sacred notion of a creator.

Those who derived their power from profits found science-based health and environmental regulations an affront to their business models. Exploiting the postmodern concept that there is no objectivity enabled authoritarians to push their public policy agendas with PR instead of relying on scientific evidence to justify their positions.

 
Which brings us back to this election cycle and the celebration of a man who has attempted to use his power to silence the science that threatens his profits. Instead of being run out of democratic society for this blatant display of authoritarianism, Hamm’s been given direct access to a candidate, a prime time speaking slot at the convention, and possibly a cabinet position.     

Unlike most books of its type, The War on Science offers up a robust battle plan to restore science to its rightful place as an objective arbiter of the reality we all share, and upon which policy decisions must be made.
 
It won’t be an easy fight, but it’s one we can’t afford to lose. As the government scales of checks and balances are increasingly tilted in favor of the rich and powerful, science offers the strongest anti-authoritarian weapon available to restore power to the people.

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #621 on: July 21, 2016, 07:18:45 pm »
Earth  Environment  July 20, 2016

North American forests unlikely to save us from climate change, study finds

 
A sub-alpine forest in Colorado. Forests in the southwestern US are expected to be among the hardest-hit, according to the projections resulting from the study. Credit: Sydne Record

Forests take up 25-30 percent of human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide—a strong greenhouse gas—and are therefore considered to play a crucial role in mitigating the speed and magnitude of climate change. However, a new study that combines future climate model projections, historic tree-ring records across the entire continent of North America, and how the growth rates of trees may respond to a higher concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has shown that the mitigation effect of forests will likely be much smaller in the future than previously suggested.

Published in the journal Ecology Letters, the study is the first to reveal the possible impact of a changing climate on the growth rate of trees across all of North America, in other words, how their growth changes over time and in response to shifting environmental conditions. The result are detailed forecast maps for the entire North American continent that reveal how forest growth will be impacted by climate change.

The research team, led by scientists at the University of Arizona in Tucson, combined climate projections for North America developed by the International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) with historic tree-ring records based on samples covering the period 1900 to 1950 at 1,457 sampling sites across the continent.

"We then looked at how the growth of those trees changed historically under various past climates and used that to predict how they will grow in the future across the continent all the way from Mexico to Alaska," said the study's first author, Noah Charney, a postdoctoral research associate in UA's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

"The research is unprecedented and novel in the use of big biological data," said co-author Brian Enquist, a professor in the UA's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and a fellow of the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies in Aspen, Colorado. "We utilized a network of more than two million tree-ring observations spanning North America. Tree-rings provide a record into how trees that grow in different climates respond to changes in temperature and rainfall."

The study calls into question previous conclusions about how forests will respond to warmer average temperatures, increased greenhouse gas emissions, and shifting rainfall patterns.

Projected change in forest growth rates for the second half of this century. With the exception of coastal areas, growth rates are projected to go down throughout the North American continent. Credit: Noah Charney

The team was startled to find no evidence for a greenhouse-gas absorbing process called the boreal greening effect in their simulations. Boreal greening refers to the assumption that trees in high latitudes, where colder temperatures limit growth, should benefit from warmer temperatures and higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and, as a result, "green" under the effects of climate change. In turn, these thriving boreal forests should be able to scrub more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, so goes the idea, dampening climate change.
 
"Until now, there wasn't a good way to take into account how trees respond to climate change under novel climate conditions," added senior author Margaret Evans, an assistant research professor in the UA's Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research (LTRR) and the UA's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. "Our study provides that perspective. We see that as trees are pushed under the effect of climate change, their response changes."

"Many previous climate modeling studies counted on the boreal forests to save us from the climatic disaster by offsetting our emissions, but we don't' see any greening in our results," said Valerie Trouet, an associate professor in the LTRR. "Instead, we see browning. The positive influence warmer temperatures are believed to have on boreal forests—we don't see that at all."

The most dramatic changes in projected forest growth rates were found in the interior West of the North American continent, with up to 75 percent slower growth projected for trees in the southwestern U.S., along the Rockies, through interior Canada and Alaska. Increases in growth were seen only along certain coastal areas, mostly in the Pacific Northwest, Northeastern Quebec and the Maritime Provinces and the Florida panhandle.

Some of the predictions arising from the simulations are already happening, the team found.

"In Alaska, for example, where trees have been projected to respond positively to warming temperatures under the boreal greening effect, we see that trees are now responding negatively instead," Evans said. "Trees in very high latitudes are limited by cold temperatures, so yes, in warmer years they grow more, but there is a tipping point, and once they go past that, a warmer climate becomes a bad thing instead of a good thing."

A deciduous Forest in Tennessee. Credit: Noah Charney

The research indicates that the warming climate already is rapidly pushing many forests towards that tipping point, which may be reached as early as 2050: In addition to being rapidly exposed to temperatures they have not experienced in their lifetimes and are not evolutionarily prepared for, being hampered in their growth makes trees even more vulnerable to added stresses.

"There is a critical and potentially detrimental feedback loop going on here," Charney said. "When the growth rate of trees slows down in response to environmental stressors such as cold or drought, they can get by for a few years, but over time, they deplete their resources and are much more susceptible to additional stressors, such as damage by fire or a big drought or insect outbreaks. Year after year of slow growth therefore means forests become less and less resilient."
Quote
As a result, a forest can go from being a climate asset to a carbon producer very quickly.

"It's like a thermostat gone bad," Evans said. "Forests act as a carbon sink by taking carbon dioxide out of atmosphere, but the more the climate is warming, the slower the trees are growing, the less carbon they suck up, the faster the climate is changing."

"The results also highlight the potential importance of locally adapted forest management strategies to help mitigate the decreases in forest growth predicted by our analyses," Charney said.

The implications could potentially apply worldwide. While their models did not include data from outside the North American continent, it "seems very likely that the conclusions drawn in this study apply in the Eurasian forest as well," Evans said. "The boreal forests in Eurasia are more extensive and even more important than the ones in continental North America."

Explore further: Climate change is killing our trees

More information: Noah D. Charney et al, Observed forest sensitivity to climate implies large changes in 21st century North American forest growth, Ecology Letters (2016). DOI: 10.1111/ele.12650

Journal reference: Ecology Letters search and more info website

Provided by: University of Arizona search and more info website


http://phys.org/news/2016-07-north-american-forests-climate.html


He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #622 on: July 21, 2016, 09:56:26 pm »
There’s Nothing “Unrealistic” About Seeking Real Action on Climate Change

Rather than tackle climate change head-on, Obama administration officials continue to attack “Keep It in the Ground” movement

I’ve been in D.C. for a long time, so I’m used to hearing politicians and Beltway insiders say ridiculous things.

But recent news that one of President Obama’s top science advisers, John Holdren, brushed off the growing “Keep It in the Ground” movement — which aims to spur real action in the face of the rapidly expanding climate crisis — as “unrealistic” was a doozy.

I wouldn’t blink twice if this came out of the mouth of a Big Oil spokesman, but a top scientist in the Obama administration? Seriously?

There’s absolutely no doubt that we’re running out of time to take the kind of action that’s needed to truly curb the climate crisis and avoid some of its worst effects, including rising seas inundating our coastal communities, deadly heat waves, food shortages and humanitarian crises as people flee climate-ravaged regions of the world.

World leaders, including the United States, gathered in Paris last year and agreed to take significant steps to rein in climate change and keep the world’s global temperatures “well-below” 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit warming increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Unfortunately, the voluntary pledges by individual countries, including the U.S., are not enough to reach those targets.

The United States needs to take significant additional steps to align its climate goals with its energy policies. And that should start with a ban on new fossil fuel leases on America’s public lands and oceans — lands that are owned by all of us and have become a significant contributor to the climate crisis.

Holdren, like Interior Secretary Sally Jewell before him, has conflated the request to end new federal fossil fuel leasing — a process that locks in fossil fuel extraction and investment for decades — as a demand to immediately end fossil fuel production and consumption. By responding to a demand nobody has made, the administration leaves the public empty-handed when seeking an honest and substantive policy response to the request of ending new federal fossil fuel leasing.

Holdren also seems to think that we have another 30 to 40 years before we need to take serious action and that we can afford to lock in decades more of carbon pollution based on fracked gas and gas pipelines because he thinks it’s less polluting than coal. Well, that’s simply not true — we don’t have 30 to 40 years to wait before we make sharp reductions in greenhouse gas pollution. And when you properly account for the methane emissions of gas production and pipeline transmission it can be even worse for the climate than burning coal.

A study commissioned last year by the Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Earth revealed that a ban on new fossil fuel leasing on federal lands and oceans would keep up to 450 billion tons of carbon pollution from entering the atmosphere. That’s the annual pollution equivalent of more than 118,000 coal-fired power plants. Another recent study revealed that oil, gas and coal already leased to the fossil fuel industry would last between 25 and 40 years, far beyond the point the world will exceed the carbon pollution limits set out in the Paris agreement.

Last week the Center led more than 250 climate, community and tribal organizations in filing a landmark legal petition calling on the Obama administration to halt all new leasing on federal lands for oil, gas, tar sands and oil shale.

Our petition is the natural outgrowth of a growing grassroots movement in the United States — regular, everyday people who see the unfolding climate disaster and want something done. Thousands of people are showing up to protest fossil fuel lease sales around the country, from the Gulf Coast to Colorado to Washington, D.C. They understand the time for action is now, and we need something big enough to make a real impact on our climate future.

John Holdren can call it “unrealistic” if he likes, but the “Keep It in the Ground” movement is the best, most real option on the table right now to truly start handling this crisis. President Obama can implement this ban immediately, without waiting for Congress. Unfortunately, though, his administration has yet to propose nearly enough of the kind of major changes that are needed to address a problem of this magnitude.
Quote

Want to know what’s “unrealistic?” Relying on hope — rather than change — to get us out of this mess.

Randi Spivak is public lands director at the Center for Biological Diversity.


https://medium.com/center-for-biological-diversity/theres-nothing-unrealistic-about-seeking-real-action-on-climate-change-31f66682a298#.yc6cqie8o

 

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #623 on: July 25, 2016, 04:12:47 pm »
Fossil Fuel use = Coral reefs will die from heat and dissolve from acidification 

WHY should you care about what burning fossil fuels does to coral reefs when you make so much money from dividends on fossil fuel stocks and/or have a nice big land yacht to drive hither and yon with all that "cheap" gasoline these days? ???

Because there is no such thing as a cheap fossil fuel or a free externalized pollution "lunch".
Quote

Corals are like speed bumps. They slow down waves and lessen wave energy.

This protects coastlines from hurricanes, cyclones and tsunamis.

Coral reefs protect the shoreline in 81 countries around the world, sheltering the 200 million people living along those coasts.

Quote
“We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.” - Benjamin Franklin

Quote
“But you can't make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. It can't last.” - Ray Bradbury



He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #624 on: July 27, 2016, 03:02:52 pm »
Climate deniers    just lost a major arguing point  ;D

Christine Lepisto (@greenanswer)
Science / Climate Change
 July 26, 2016


(graphic at article link)
Wanted poster for "global warm mongering" with picture of former Vice President Al Gore spotted by photographer "at 5th and B."
CC BY-SA 2.0  Salim Virji

 
The "proof" of many scientific theories lies in the reliability of the results that can be predicted based on that theory. If a theory is correct, predictions should be consistent, and then those predictions should be confirmed by observations.

That has left climate change scientists in a bit of a pickle. Studies predicting the future effects of warming based on studies of past temperature records have been predicting less future warming than studies based on climate models. This also leaves political decision-makers in doubt: what effects can realistically be expected in 30 years, or 70 years?

Which brings us to those who want us to believe that climate change is a myth. The first commenter under an op-ed calling for prosecution of climate deniers reminds us:

"Computer model have been grossly inaccurate and are not a substitute for empirical studies [sic]."

One can hardly blame those whose interests would be harmed by serious action to avert global warming for grasping at such inconsistencies. Will they stop grasping and accept the truth now?

A NASA-led study has found that "almost one-fifth of the global warming that has occurred in the past 150 years has been missed by historical records due to quirks in how global temperatures were recorded."

The problem arises from a couple of fundamental issues with older temperature records. First, they under-represent the climate in Arctic regions where measurements are difficult to make. Because the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the Earth, the missing data underestimates the effects of global warming.

(graphic at article link)
British Columbia Ministry of Transport/Promo image

Second, the historical record mixes air and water temperature records, while models deal with air temperatures only. Finally, there used to be more ice. So there were more temperature readings taken over icy areas while later observations were based on water temperatures. Water warms more slowly than air, so these two issues also lead to cooler predictions based on historical data.

When the scientists ran modern climate models using historical data that was limited to measurements analogous to modern temperature records, their results landed smack in the middle of the range of predictions calculated by the models of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).

Scientists were aware of these issues before, but this is the first time the magnitude of their effect on the predictions has been studied. As noted by lead author Mark Richardson, "They're quite small on their own, but they add up in the same direction. We were surprised that they added up to such a big effect."

Read more in the article Reconciled climate response estimates from climate models and the energy budget of Earth in Nature Climate Change, 2016; (DOI: 10.1038/nclimate3066).
 

Related on TreeHugger.com:
•Scientists collaborate to sort fact from fiction in climate change media coverage
•7 Terrifying Global Warming Pictures
•Rooftop bug collectors find climate change already affecting species

Tags: Al Gore | Global Climate Change | Global Warming Science


http://www.treehugger.com/climate-change/climate-deniers-just-lost-major-arguing-point.html
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #625 on: July 27, 2016, 03:26:46 pm »
Outlook grim for state of Assam, with heavy rain that has buried hundreds of villages and displaced wildlife set to continue for two days.

People push a car across a flooded highway in Kaziranga national park on Tuesday.

Severe floods in India have affected more than 1.6 million people, buried hundreds of villages and submerged most of a national park, forcing wildlife to seek refuge on roads, authorities have said.

With the weather office forecasting heavy rain for at least another 48 hours, the outlook is grim for the tea-growing, north-eastern state of Assam. It is only four years since it suffered its worst floods, which killed 124 people and displaced 6 million.

In neighbouring Nepal, flash floods and landslides have swept through villages, killing at least 58 people over two days, home ministry official Yadav Koirala told Reuters on Wednesday.

A one-horned rhinoceros swims through flood waters in Kaziranga national park, which is home to two-thirds of the world’s population of the animals.

Floods and landslides are common in India and Nepal during the June-September monsoon season, and the death toll runs into the hundreds every year.

“The situation has turned from bad to worse since Tuesday, and over a million people have been shifted to relief camps,” said Keshab Mahanta, Assam’s water resources minister.

The Brahmaputra river and its tributaries have burst their banks, affecting more than half of the region’s 32 districts. Police and rescue workers said at least 12 people had drowned across Assam in recent days.

Animals from the state’s national parks came on to roads built on banks and other high ground as the flood inundated forests.

Rescuers attend to a rhinoceros calf affected by flooding in the park.

The state has five national parks, including the Kaziranga national park, which is home to two-thirds of the world’s one-horned rhinoceroses.

“More than 80% of the park is under water,” said Suvasis Das, a forestry official in the park.

Forest officials said they rescued a three-month-old rhino that took shelter in a backyard in a village. At least 20 hog deer were either washed away or drowned.

Assam’s chief minister, Sarbananda Sonowal, has urged authorities to provide safe drinking water to prevent the outbreak of disease.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/27/flooding-in-india-affects-16m-people-and-submerges-national-park


 

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #626 on: July 27, 2016, 08:59:27 pm »
Climate| Jul 27, 2016

Bill Nye   
 Destroys Climate Change Conspiracy Theories 

and EWContributor   



http://www.ecowatch.com/bill-nye-destroys-climate-change-conspiracy-theories-1946221897.html

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #627 on: July 28, 2016, 07:55:38 pm »
July 27, 2016


US Military Bases Threatened by Climate Change

US military bases along the East and the Gulf Coast could lose large chunks of land due to global warming-driven sea level rise, a new analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) shows.

UCS analyzed 18 installations representing more than 120 coastal bases and found that by 2050, most of sites will see more than 10 times the number of floods they experience at present.

Stressing the need for greater adaptation measures, the analysis also shows that four bases in Florida, Virginia and South Carolina risk losing 75 to 95 percent of their land by end of the century. (USA Today, IB Times $, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Union Leader, Virginian-Pilot, Christian Science Monitor. ThinkProgress, InsideClimate News)

http://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/global-warming-impacts/sea-level-rise-flooding-us-military-bases#.V5qaYq1THm5



 
Scientists Urge Govt. to Stop Federal Coal Leasing

A group of 67 prominent scientists have demanded an end to coal leasing on federal land in a letter they wrote to the Obama administration. More than 40 percent of coal mined in the US currently comes from federal land. In order to meet commitments made under the Paris Agreement, the “vast majority of known coal in the United States must stay in the ground,” the scientists told Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Bureau of Land Management Director Neil Kornze. (Climate Central, ThinkProgress, Greenwire $, Bonner County Daily Bee)
   http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/public_lands/energy/dirty_energy_development/coal/pdfs/16_7_26_Scientist_sign-on_letter_Coal_PEIS.pdf


 
Philippines Takes Polluters to Task for Human Rights Violations

Forty-seven of the world’s largest fossil fuel and cement companies have been called on to answer allegations that pollution from their operations violates the human rights of millions of Filipinos. Such an investigation is one of the first in the world to be launched by a government body.

In a 60-page document, the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines demands that giants such as ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and Chevron explain how violations of rights to “life, food, water, sanitation, adequate housing, and self-determination” caused by climate impacts will be “eliminated, remedied and prevented.”

The Philippines produces less than one percent of global emissions, but is extremely vulnerable to climate impacts. (News: Guardian, Climate Home, Reuters, IB Times $. Commentary: Huffington Post, Jennifer L Morgan op-ed)

http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/07/27/oil-majors-summoned-to-philippines-human-rights-inquiry/
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #628 on: July 29, 2016, 08:58:54 pm »
Something Is Causing Siberia's Tundra to Literally Bubble Underground

Written by Sarah Emerson Contributing Editor
 
July 20, 2016 // 02:00 PM EST

The frigid plains of northern Siberia are becoming a hotspot for mysterious geological phenomena. Over the past couple of years, sudden craters have been exploding from the permafrost-laden ground. Last month, we reported on a giant chasm in the Sakha Republic that looms so wide and deep, locals refer to it as a “gateway to the underworld.”

Now, the frozen tundra on Siberia’s remote Belyy Island is home to the region’s newest aberration: eerie, rippling, underground bubbles.
GIF: YouTube/Siberian Times


In a video released today by the Siberian Times, researchers Alexander Sokolov and Dorothee Ehrich investigate a seemingly nondescript tract of grass that turns out to be a large, concealed pocket of… something. Kind of like a trampoline, the subterranean bubble forcibly undulates as Sokolov puts pressure on one side using his foot. According to the Russian scientists, a total of 15 blister-like patches were discovered on the island.

The researchers who captured the strange footage said both methane and carbon dioxide poured out of the bubble when it was punctured. It’s still unclear why or how these pockets of gas first formed, but it’s possible that an unusual heat wave caused permafrost to thaw, which allowed trapped methane gas to escape.

This wouldn’t be the first time that leaky methane has been blamed for Siberia’s wild anomalies. Geologists suspect that massive sinkholes and craters started to pop up when previously frozen tundras began to rapidly melt. Many scientists are concerned that Arctic methane emissions could “trigger additional warming.” One study estimated that by 2100, up to 205 billion tons of carbon emissions will be released by permafrost if climate change continues to worsen.

Belyy Island sits in the Arctic Ocean’s Kara Sea, and is a popular destination for researchers studying the ways climate change is affecting northern ecosystems. The area is home to a large population of polar bears, which Russian biologists recently started tracking with satellite collars.

According to Sokolov, the island has been unseasonably warm this summer, causing bands of hungry polar bears to come ashore in search of food. Climate change, it seems, is shaking up our world in more ways than just one.
--

Topics: Siberia's Underground Bubbles, Methane, craters, sinkholes, Batagaika Crater, Russia, arctic, climate change, polar bears, Carbon Emissions, Siberian Times   

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/something-is-causing-siberias-tundra-to-literally-bubble-underground?trk_source=popular
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 36274
  • Location: Colchester, Vermont
    • Renwable Revolution
Re: 🚩 Global Climate Chaos ☠️
« Reply #629 on: July 30, 2016, 07:22:09 pm »
Coral
ls are Like… What?! 

Posted On July 25, 2016 by Sarah Cooley

 

This week we’re celebrating all things coral! It’s no secret that coral reefs are spectacular ecosystems, but we wanted to do a deep dive into what exactly makes corals so special. Check out nine ways corals are even cooler than you thought:

1)  Corals are like speed bumps. They slow down waves and lessen wave energy. This protects coastlines from hurricanes, cyclones and tsunamis. Coral reefs protect the shoreline in 81 countries around the world, sheltering the 200 million people living along those coasts.


 

2)  Corals are like nurseries.
They provide homes and hiding places for marine animals large and small. An estimated 25% of all fish species call reefs home, and even more fish species spend part of their young lives there. Losing reefs to ocean warming or acidification costs animals their homes.


3) Corals are like history books. Corals’ hard calcium carbonate skeletons contain bands, like tree rings, that record environmental changes in temperature, water chemistry and sediment. These records help scientists reconstruct what past ages were like before humans kept records.


 

4) Corals are like tropical rainforests.
Both corals and tropical rainforests support an incredible array of life. Both are also under stress from human activities. Rising temperatures, heavy fishing (hunting) pressure and physical destruction are just some of the human-caused problems hurting both corals and rainforests.

5) Corals are like Venus flytraps. Some corals can eat passing plankton by grabbing them from the ocean and ingesting them. This provides a source of fatty acids for corals, and it is thought to help corals resist bleaching and other stresses.

6) Corals are like solar panels. Coral animals contain “symbionts,” which are small cells that photosynthesize, or harvest the sun’s energy, and pass some of it along to the coral in exchange for housing.

 

7) Corals are like flowers. To reproduce, most corals release gametes, or eggs and sperm, into the water. This is similar to how flowers release pollen (gametes) into the wind. Both corals and flowers decide when to reproduce based on temperature and lighting.

8 ) Corals are like medicine cabinets.  Coral reefs and the animals that live around them have many chemical defenses to drive away predators. These chemical compounds could be the inspiration for future medicines, nutritional supplements, pesticides and more.

 
parrotfish on patrol  ;D

9) Corals are like rock quarries. Broken bits of coral create silt and sand that forms seafloor and sandy beaches in many tropical locations. Some coral breakdown is normal, like when parrotfish crunch off bites of coral to digest the living coral tissue, and spit out or excrete the hard skeleton crumbs. Other breakdown isn’t normal, such as the physical and chemical breakdown of coral by ocean acidification, dynamite fishing, ship strikes or other human-caused stress.

http://blog.oceanconservancy.org/2016/07/25/corals-are-like-what/#more-12444


Agelbert NOTE: Humanity must protect Coral Reefs as if our lives depended on it - Because our lives DO depend on it. Protecting this vital part of the biosphere is a sacred trust that we, as self aware beings, alone are responsible for.





He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

 

+-Recent Topics

Future Earth by AGelbert
March 30, 2022, 12:39:42 pm

Key Historical Events ...THAT YOU MAY HAVE NEVER HEARD OF by AGelbert
March 29, 2022, 08:20:56 pm

The Big Picture of Renewable Energy Growth by AGelbert
March 28, 2022, 01:12:42 pm

Electric Vehicles by AGelbert
March 27, 2022, 02:27:28 pm

Heat Pumps by AGelbert
March 26, 2022, 03:54:43 pm

Defending Wildlife by AGelbert
March 25, 2022, 02:04:23 pm

The Koch Brothers Exposed! by AGelbert
March 25, 2022, 01:26:11 pm

Corruption in Government by AGelbert
March 25, 2022, 12:46:08 pm

Books and Audio Books that may interest you 🧐 by AGelbert
March 24, 2022, 04:28:56 pm

COVID-19 🏴☠️ Pandemic by AGelbert
March 23, 2022, 12:14:36 pm