Author Topic: Global Warming is WITH US (Read 27562 times)

AGelbert · « **Reply #1305 on:** April 13, 2018, 06:37:46 pm »

Mashable

Australia has been breaking records for heat 🔥 in April

BY JOHNNY LIEU

PRIL 13, 2018

Usually the sear of Australia's summer heat would've subsided by now, as winter approaches.

Instead, the country is experiencing an unseasonably warm April so far, prompting Australia's Bureau of Meteorology to explain the unusual event.

SEE ALSO: Researchers hit back at climate change deniers twisting polar bear science

The heat is "more characteristic of mid-summer than mid-autumn," according to its special climate statement, where the country has been experiencing higher than usual maximum temperatures in the first half of the month.

April 9 🔥 was the hottest April day on record in Australia, with a national average of 34.97 degrees Celsius (94.95 degrees Fahrenheit), eclipsing a record set in 2005.

We have published a Special Climate Statement exploring the highly unseasonal hot spell experienced by much of Australia at the start of April. More at https://t.co/jHCzg7hb3c pic.twitter.com/Yg2uQHeOqj

— Bureau of Meteorology, Australia (@BOM_au) April 13, 2018

The country's hotter-than-usual spell primarily affected the country's northwest. Before 2018, nowhere in Australia had a recorded temperature higher than 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit).

That number was broken four times, with Western Australia's Mardie Station and Roebourne recording the highest temperatures of 45.9 degrees Celsius in the last days of March.

The heat then moved southeast, with records set at Nullarbor, South Australia (42.2 degrees Celsius or 107.9 degrees Fahrenheit) on Apr. 9, and Pooncarie, New South Wales (40.5 degrees Celsius or 104.9 degrees Fahrenheit) on Apr. 10.

"The heat had been building up in north western Australia since monsoon rains ended in mid-March," Bureau of Meteorology climatologist Blair Trewin said in a statement online.

"North westerly winds then brought the hot air mass southeast at the start of this week, which is when we saw the impacts on South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales."

The heat has also persisted in some areas, with Sydney's 11 consecutive days of temperatures over 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit) breaking an April record.

It's a situation which has seen plants affected in the country's botanical gardens, reports the Sydney Morning Herald, confused by the late surge of heat.

In early April, parts of Asia saw severe heatwaves that also broke records. As climate change continues to affect the world, these kinds of extreme events are set to become more regular.

https://mashable.com/2018/04/13/australia-heat-records-bom/#Re5f_9pmkiqj

AGelbert · « **Reply #1306 on:** April 13, 2018, 06:44:49 pm »

Global Citizen News Digest

Finland Plans to Ban Coal by 2029, One Year Ahead of Schedule ✨

April 13, 2018

SNIPPET:

The country still gets 10% of its power from coal.

Finland is known for having the world’s best education system. It’s also been called the “happiest country in the world” and the best country to be a mother.

Now, it wants to become one of the first countries in the world to completely phase out coal.

The Scandinavian powerhouse aims to completely eliminate coal dependency by 2029, one year ahead of its previous goal of 2030, environment minister Kimmo Tiilikainen said Tuesday.

Quote

“Greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced much sooner than initially planned to mitigate climate change,” Tiilikainen said in a statement.

Furthermore, energy companies that eliminate coal use by 2025 will be eligible for government subsidies, he added.

full article with graphics:

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/finland-plans-to-ban-coal-2029/

AGelbert · « **Reply #1307 on:** April 13, 2018, 09:11:45 pm »

E360 DIGEST

APRIL 11, 2018

A North American Climate Boundary Has Shifted 140 Miles East Due to Global Warming

Climate change has moved the 100th meridian west climatic divide from its historical position (solid line) 140 miles eastward (dotted line) in recent decades. Modified from Seager et al. Earth Interactions, 2018

In the late 1800s, geologist and explorer John Wesley Powell first described a clear boundary running longitudinally through North America along the 100th meridian west that visibly separated the humid eastern part of the continent from the more arid western plains. Now, 140 years later, scientists have confirmed that such a sharp climatic boundary exists and that it is slowly shifting east due to climate change — a change that scientists say could have significant implications on farming in the region.

The new research, published in a pair of studies in the journal Earth Interactions late last month, found the divide is created by three factors: the Rocky Mountains stopping moisture from the Pacific Ocean reaching farther inland, Atlantic winter storms bringing moisture to the eastern half of the U.S., and moisture from the Gulf of Mexico moving north and curving eastward during the summer months. The only other clear, straight divide between humid and arid areas on the globe is the one separating the Sahara Desert from the rest of Africa, climate scientist Richard Seager of Columbia University, lead author of the new papers, said in a statement.

Seager and his colleagues wanted to study the boundary as an example of “psychogeography” — how environmental conditions affect human decisions. “Powell talked eloquently about the 100th meridian, and this concept of a boundary line has stayed with us down to the current day,” said Seager. “We wanted to ask whether there really is such a divide, and whether it’s influenced human settlement.”

The divide cuts through eastern Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and the Canadian province of Manitoba. West of the 100th meridian, population density declines and development is sparse, and farms are larger and primarily depend on arid-resistant crops like wheat. To the more humid east, more people and infrastructure exist. Farms are smaller and 70 percent of the harvested crop is moisture-loving corn. Studying rainfall and temperature data since 1980, Seager and his colleagues found this climatic boundary has already shifted east about 140 miles so that it now sits closer to the 98th meridian. And it will continue to move east as warming global temperatures increase evaporation from the soil and change precipitation patterns, they concluded.

According to a press release by Columbia University’s Earth Institute, “Seager predicts that as drying progresses, farms further and further east will have to consolidate and become larger in order to remain viable. Unless farmers turn to irrigation or otherwise adapt, they will have to turn from corn to wheat or some other more suitable crop. Large expanses of cropland may fail altogether, and have to be converted to western-style grazing range. Water supplies could become a problem for urban areas.”

https://e360.yale.edu/digest/a-north-american-climate-boundary-has-shifted-140-miles-east-due-to-global-warming

AGelbert · « **Reply #1308 on:** April 15, 2018, 04:12:58 pm »

Agelbert NOTE: This article, over a year old now, has valuable information about what will happen, IN OUR TIME, when, not if, the AMOC shuts down. The East Coast of the USA would almost immediately experience a sea level rise of at least 80 centimeters (i.e. 2 feet and 7.5 inches)

. 🌊 Besides all the catastrophic flooding, it would cost billions of dollars just to raise the level of the port facilities alone.

Topographic map of the Nordic Seas and subpolar basins with schematic circulation of surface currents (solid curves) and deep currents (dashed curves) that form a portion of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). Colors of curves indicate approximate temperatures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_meridional_overturning_circulation

The Atlantic Ocean and an Actual Debate in Climate Science

Scientists have recently begun to re-examine a scary question: Will a crucial ocean current shut down?

ROBINSON MEYER JAN 7, 2017

SNIPPET:

But then she went on. From what we know right now, the possibility that AMOC will shut down remains a “potential impact of climate change with significant consequences.”

“Yet other impacts are much more certain” to result from climate change, she said, listing “increased surface temperatures, sea level rise, and ice melt.” While some harms, like those of a collapsing AMOC, are still up for debate, it is almost completely certain that climate change will bring serious consequences for us in our time. Rampant drought, drier rivers, and vanished 🌊 coasts are all ours to inherit.

Full article:

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/01/what-a-real-debate-looks-like-in-climate-science/512444/

AGelbert · « **Reply #1309 on:** April 15, 2018, 05:13:59 pm »

AMOC Shutdown Potential and Implications

https://youtu.be/IQ8j6jFKSLQ

Climate State

Published on Sep 18, 2016

Climate scientists Mark Serreze, Michael Mann, and James Hansen commenting on the potential for a shutdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), in a historical perspective, based on observations, as well as on the implications.

Ocean Currents Disruption: Slower and Wavier

https://youtu.be/2SYCHtYidAo

Paul Beckwith

Published on Apr 14, 2018

Cutting edge science finds ocean currents slowing down. We all know the equator is warm and poles are cold. This temperature difference causes heat flow from the equator to poles.

As the Arctic warms like crazy, heat flow there slows, thus jet streams slow and are wavier; the same slowing and waviness increase happens with ocean currents.

If sluggish ocean currents (slowing of Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation - AMOC) halt or redistribute, we are in for a heap of chaotic climate change mayhem.

How close are we to shutdown? Stay tuned to my videos and donate to http://paulbeckwith

AGelbert · « **Reply #1310 on:** April 18, 2018, 01:41:39 pm »

Agelbert NOTE: This video continues from the Paul Beckwith video in the previous post on this topic board.

What happens if the Atlantic Meridional Overturning (AMOC) slows down, or even stops?

https://youtu.be/9dC1iVCqmx0

Paul Beckwith

Published on Apr 17, 2018

What happens if the Atlantic Meridional Overturning (AMOC) slows down, or even stops? The former has happened, and if the latter occurs there will be global chaos. How close are we to reaching the threshold for a “rewriting” of global ocean circulation? If it occurs, will it be permanent, for at least hundreds of years? How much will already extreme weather change, and how much will global food supply be impacted?

Always more questions than answers. Please support my ongoing efforts to analyze our global climate system in videos with a donation at my website http://paulbeckwith.net

AGelbert · « **Reply #1311 on:** April 18, 2018, 01:53:38 pm »

Impact of a thermohaline circulation slowdown

https://youtu.be/QH_v4_fDiCw

ClimateEconomics

Published on Dec 11, 2015

Lecture on the economic impacts of a slowdown of the thermohaline circulation, Richard Tol, 9 December 2015, Falmer.

AGelbert · « **Reply #1312 on:** April 20, 2018, 02:57:48 pm »

The Intercept

DENIAL BY A DIFFERENT NAME

It’s Time to Admit That Half-Measures Can’t Stop Climate Change

By Kate Aronoff

April 17 2018, 7:00 a.m.

SNIPPET 1:

Müller, at least, is honest about this denialism — even if he prefers the term “skeptic.”

Müller’s own scientific rationale may make no sense, but his conclusion is easy on the conscience: Relax, everything will be OK. Another version of that message is being marketed across COP23. As climate scientists call for a dramatic transformation of the world’s economy, a different set of deniers is starting to coalesce around something easier — plans to seemingly tackle climate change that may well still portend planetary catastrophe, even according to conservative climate projections. Unlike Müller, they’re at the center of the climate policymaking debate in Bonn. Like its predecessor events, exhibition halls at COP23 were dotted with stalls sponsored by fossil fuel companies proselytizing carbon capture and storage technology; international investment banks eager to discuss the central role of private finance in driving the new green revolution; industry-backed think tanks exploring the necessity of spraying particulates into the air to block out the sun. The solutions coming out of high-level talks don’t inspire much more confidence.

They peddle in a set of easy fixes: a market signal here, an industrial-grade aerosol there, and the crisis will be an artifact of history, with corporate shareholders better off for it.

If you believe that, then I have a clean coal plant to sell you.

SNIPPET 2:

The relevant question isn’t whether the Earth is heating up, but what we intend to do about it. That’s a radically different conversation about climate change than the one that’s been had in America to this point. Here, decades of propaganda from the fossil fuel industry and the denialist think tanks they support have forced the debate to orbit around whether there’s a problem at all, prying open the Overton window to accommodate conspiracy theorists and Nobel Prize winners alike. That the two co-habitated for years on the same cable news panels put the climate debate on deniers’ terms, taking any discussion of reasonable, large-scale solutions — stringent regulation, massive public investment, an economy planned around reducing emissions — virtually off the table. In its place has come a parade of utopian techno-fixes and market-based solutions, dreamed up by the likes of Milton Friedman and now embraced by left and right alike. The same disinformation campaigners that created a debate over the reality of climate change have hedged their bets and staked a claim to solving a problem that they had tried to convince the world didn’t exist.

In late March, Royal Dutch Shell

— Europe’s biggest oil company — released a pathway to meeting the low-bar commitment laid out in the Paris Agreement to cap warming at 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels; the actual text calls to cap it at “well below” 2 degrees Celsius. Still, the company’s decarbonization plan — to reach net-zero emissions by 2070 — is hugely ambitious. As Vox’s David Roberts notes, it’s also premised on two big fantasies: that fossil fuel production and consumption can continue at roughly similar levels for the next several decades, and that at some point between now and then we’ll figure out how to suck massive amount of carbon out from the atmosphere with so-called negative emissions technologies, which remain unproven at scale.

The kinds of wishful thinking baked into Shell’s decarbonization plan, though, are also the ones plaguing the research compiled by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, a clearinghouse for climate science from around the world where the “least-cost” pathways to decarbonization are also those anointed to keep warming below catastrophic levels. As climate modeler Glen Peters points out, the oil giant’s projections for fossil fuel consumption and negative emissions don’t differ wildly from those laid out in the IPCC’s model collection. Fittingly, then, the official account for UNFCCC tweeted a glowing review of the study. 😇 🤬

With multinationals like Shell prepared to play hardball, the debate over what to do about climate change is much harder to win than the one over whether it’s happening. Major polluters are prepared to do just that and are already coming to the table at international climate talks with ready-made plans. 😈 👹 💵 🎩 🍌 🏴‍☠️

Full article:

https://theintercept.com/2018/04/17/climate-change-denial-trump-germany/

Inside Climate News

Fossil Fuels on Trial: Where the Major Climate Change Lawsuits Stand Today

Some of the biggest oil and gas companies are embroiled in legal disputes with cities, states and children over the industry's role in global warming.

Aprill 11, 1018

BY DAVID HASEMYER

SNIPPET:

The storm of litigation could have a broad impact if it succeeds in holding fossil fuel companies accountable for the kinds of damages they foresaw decades ago, said Harold Koh, a professor of international law at Yale Law School who served as senior legal adviser to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"The industry has profited from the manufacture of fossil fuels but has not had to absorb the economic costs of the consequences," Koh said. "The industry had the science 30 years ago and knew what was going to happen but made no warning so that preemptive steps could have beentaken."

"The taxpayers have been bearing the cost for what they should have been warned of 30 years ago," Koh added. "The companies are now being called to account for their conduct and the damages from that conduct."

Full article:

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04042018/climate-change-fossil-fuel-company-lawsuits-timeline-exxon-children-california-cities-attorney-general

AGelbert · « **Reply #1313 on:** April 20, 2018, 03:03:44 pm »

Make Nexus Hot News part of your morning: click here to subscribe.

April 18, 2018

Recess is Over: Americans Taking Fossil Fuels 🦀 🐉🦕🦖 to Court

Despite the panicked desperation of the industry’s PR groups claiming they're winning, the legal case against fossil fuels is gaining momentum. Juliana vs. US, in which a group of young people have sued the US for failing to take sufficient climate action, was recently assigned a court date to argue their case. And this week, another group organized by Our Children’s Trust, ages 10 to 20, filed a suit against Florida Gov. Rick Scott to compel him to take climate action.

Last week, a Massachusetts court ruled against Exxon, forcing them to hand over relevant documents so that the case against them could proceed. This comes on the heels of a similar ruling by a federal judge who called Exxon’s claims of a conspiracy against them “implausible” and “a wild stretch of logic”.

And Exxon’s worry should only be growing, as a group of local Colorado governments announced their own suit against Exxon and Suncor yesterday. While it is perhaps unsurprising for Boulder, with a reputation for being liberal, to fight fossil fuels, it is relatively shocking that one of their legal counselors is David Bookbinder of the libertarian Niskanen Center.

The participation by a decidedly not-lefty organization like Niskanen further undercuts Exxon’s conspiracy theory that this whole campaign is just a partisan liberal conspiracy. While the industry will point out that Niskanen is a grantee of the Rockefeller Brothers, the group’s involvement is nonetheless an important development.

Ideologically, while they’re far from denial, Niskanen still occupies a right-leaning position. They have spoken in cautious favor of Pruitt’s red team project, for example, and a post about climate lawsuits from September of last year was cited in a piece in the National Review (and subsequently ran in the Dallas News…).

They also provide a new and unique ideological justification for the suits, in that libertarians have long held that courts, not the federal government, are best for enforcing pollution controls. The basic thinking is that someone suffering the ills of pollution can sue the polluter for damages. The court then listens to the arguments and, if necessary, determines how much the polluter should pay. This would eliminate the need for a strong centralized government to spend taxpayer money on determining acceptable levels of pollution, monitoring them, and then regulating industry to enforce compliance.

Realistically, the fact that polluters have tons of money and those impacted by the pollution have far less would mean the lopsided expenditures on legal teams would unfairly benefit polluters. So (like much of libertarianism) while it is a simple and elegant approach in theory, in practice it gives a clear advantage to those with resources, and disadvantage those with fewer resources at their disposal.

But in this case, by serving as counsel for Boulder and related municipalities, Niskanen is putting its proverbial money where its institutional mouth is, and providing pro bono legal expertise in opposition to Big Oil.

Traditional green groups taking on oil giants is bold, but for a center-right/libertarian group to join the fray?

That’s Boulder.

AGelbert · « **Reply #1314 on:** April 22, 2018, 09:33:13 pm »

Make Nexus Hot News part of your morning: click here to subscribe.

April 19, 2018

Puerto Rico Blackout and Fracked School Shows Need for Environmental Justice

The power outage in Puerto Rico is on track to become the second largest blackout in world history, surpassed only by the outage from Hurricane Haiyan. As climate change worsens and sea levels rise, we can expect more damage from hurricanes, as higher storm surge reaches much further inland. And climate change is already contributing to increased hurricane activity in the North Atlantic since the 1970s, according to the US National Climate Assessment.

The Puerto Rico blackout is also a prime example of how, despite deniers’ fears of the cost to combat climate change, inaction is far more expensive than addressing it. The price tag to rebuild the PR grid is bigger than the alternative plan to include renewable energy, storage, and microgrids for resilience.

It’s also yet another example of environmental injustice. Because as Politico’s David Viknik exposed last month, the Trump administration’s response to Harvey in Texas and Irma in Florida was much quicker and more robust than Maria in Puerto Rico. Among plenty of other concerning figures, just nine days after Harvey, FEMA had paid out over $140 million to Texans, whereas nine days after Maria they had distributed a paltry $6 million.

That report from not-even-a-month-ago isn’t even the latest example of how communities of color are treated vastly different than wealthy white communities. On Tuesday, Megan Jula of MotherJones reported that after an affluent white community resisted a fracking site near their school, the company decided to move its drill site. Its internal analysis, according to Jula, was that the proximity to the school meant the site was “not preferable.”

So it selected a new site, one that was actually closer to a school. But this school is in a Hispanic community, so instead of drilling near a site that’s 77% white kids, they’ll be risking the health and well-being of a school that’s 82% hispanic.

The location is technically legal- fracking operations are required to be 500 feet from homes, and 1,000 feet from schools. This site is 509 feet from a home and 1,360 feet from the school. Which is totally reasonable and not at all something that families should complain about. 😈

Fortunately the Sierra Club, NAACP and other environmental groups care more about these kids than the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) who approved the fracking application. They’ve filed a lawsuit, arguing that COGCC failed to address public concerns and that because the school’s playground and fields are within 1,000 feet of the fracking rig, it’s illegal.

These examples show how wrong deniers are when they claim hurricanes and climate change are no big deal and shouldn’t be talked about, or that fossil fuels are good for us and should be welcomed into our lives with open arms.

But because these risks are felt more deeply by communities of color than the old affluent white demographic of denial, odds are slim they’ll care.'

AGelbert · « **Reply #1315 on:** April 23, 2018, 03:08:26 pm »

Agelbert NOTE: The following two news items are related. The first one is an excellent example of certain people's consistent "pretty shocked" reaction to the OBVIOUS scientifically proven cause and effect relationship between Catastrophic Climate Change and Sea Level Rise.

The second story evidences that, despite all the efforts by the polluters to game the Florida energy market on behalf of fossil fuels and nuclear power, the OBVIOUS need to transition to energy sources that DO NOT cause the sea level to rise is being taken seriously.

Regardless of what the Trump 🦀 supporting climate change denier crazies babble about, even Republicans can add and subtract in biosphere math.

Climate Nexus Energy Desk

April 23, 2018

Miami Housing Market May Soon Be Under Water, Research Says

Rising sea levels are already beginning to reshape the real estate market in Miami, a new study shows, with potential implications for other property markets across the country. The research, published Friday in the journal Environmental Research Letters, shows that the prices of single-family homes at lower elevations are rising more slowly than those at higher elevations, suggesting that buyers and sellers are weighing the implications of short-term flooding and long-term coastal change. Evidence that low-level homes are falling behind homes at higher elevations "is pretty shocking,"

paper author Jesse Keenan told the Wall Street Journal, "because you can infer that this is a pricing signal from climate change."

http://fortune.com/2018/04/21/climate-change-is-already-depressing-the-price-of-flood-prone-real-estate/

Florida Lifts Limit on Solar Leasing

Florida regulators issued a ruling Friday that would allow solar giant Sunrun to offer residential equipment leases in the state, potentially opening the door for more Floridians to choose solar. Florida state law stipulates that only registered utilities can sell electricity, but the Florida Public Service Commission on Friday ruled that Sunrun's request for 20-year solar equipment leases is not a retail sale of electricity and therefore within the bounds of the law.

"Florida was already going to be a growth market" for solar, Bloomberg New Energy Finance analyst Hugh Bromley told Bloomberg News. "This could supercharge that."

http://www.newsherald.com/news/20180421/psc-oks-companys-solar-equipment-leases

AGelbert · « **Reply #1316 on:** April 25, 2018, 08:51:58 pm »

Ocean Circulation Slowdown Significance

4,559 views

https://youtu.be/-G2vSGofkAc

Paul Beckwith

Published on Apr 19, 2018

Like jet streams in the atmosphere, ocean currents like the Gulf Stream are vital for moving heat from the warm equator to the cold poles. As Arctic temperature abruptly increases, our delicate planetary heat balance is ripped apart, causing extreme weather and extreme ocean events.

The hot, slowing Gulf Stream water piles up on the US East coast causing rapid sea level rise, amplifying hurricanes, filling storms with water to dump as rain or snow on coastal cities, and increasing wave heights that batter and reconfigure coastlines. Weather Wilding and Whiplashing.

Please donate at my website to support my educational videos: http://paulbeckwith.net

AGelbert · « **Reply #1317 on:** April 25, 2018, 11:38:14 pm »

Watch what just happened in New York

Lindsay Meiman - 350.org

Cuomo: Walk the Talk on Climate Action

https://youtu.be/iFmoMhVb6iw

April 25, 2018

While the federal government 🦀 recklessly fans the flames of climate catastrophe for profit, it’s up to all of us to fill this void of leadership by demanding sweeping climate action from our towns, cities, and states.

On May 14th, people around the country are rising together to demand real climate action with the Spring Forward to #FossilFree week of action. We will rally at our local City Halls and introduce our demands for a Fossil Free world. Are you ready to ramp up the fight in your community? Find a Spring Forward action in your hometown, or sign up to host one!

The impacts of Hurricanes Maria and Irma are still felt sharply by many, and the destruction from last year remains fresh in our minds. With the 2018 hurricane season fast approaching, our best shot at building healthy, resilient, and safe communities will come by fighting locally for our shared vision of a Fossil Free world.

Will you join me on May 14th to Spring Forward to #FossilFree?

Together in the fight,

Lindsay
https://gofossilfree.org/usa/cuomo-walk-the-talk-2/

The Climate Mobilization: Catalyzing the Emergency Climate Movement

https://gofossilfree.org/usa/cuomo-walk-the-talk-2/

The Fossil Fuelers 🦖 DID THE Clean Energy Inventions suppressing, Climate Trashing, human health depleting CRIME, but since they have ALWAYS BEEN liars and conscience free crooks 🦀, they are trying to AVOID DOING THE TIME or PAYING THE FINE! Don't let them get away with it! Pass it on!

AGelbert · « **Reply #1318 on:** April 30, 2018, 02:48:24 pm »

Nebraska Dust Storm Causes Deadly Pileup, Closes Interstate 80

By Alex Blumer

Published: April 30, 2018

A large pileup is seen along Interstate 80 near Aurora, Nebraska, on Sunday, April 29, 2018.
(Nebraska State Patrol)

Blowing dust and high winds led to a deadly pileup Sunday evening that shut down Interstate 80 in southern Nebraska, according to local media reports.

The National Weather Service in Hastings reported that the westbound lanes were closed near mile marker 332 just before 6 p.m. local time. The Nebraska State Patrol then shut down I-80 in both directions between Aurora and York, according to KETV.com.

The NSP confirmed one person died and 15 others were injured in the crash, KHGI-TV reported. The victim's identity has not been released.

(MORE: Threat of Severe Thunderstorms, Tornadoes, Ramps Up This Week)

Authorities urged drivers to avoid the area if possible, Nebraska.TV reported.

"Wind gusts frequently in excess of 40 mph ahead of this week's severe storm system and drier-than-average conditions over the last several weeks have and will continue to lead to areas of blowing dust on the Plains," said weather.com meteorologist Jonathan Belles.

https://www.wunderground.com/news/2018-04-29-nebraska-dust-storm-pileup-accident-interstate-80

AGelbert · « **Reply #1319 on:** April 30, 2018, 07:52:17 pm »

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Quote

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders <Senator@sanders.senate.gov>

April 30, 2018

Dear Mr. Gelbert:

Thank you for contacting me to express your opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I share your views on protecting the area, and I was deeply disappointed, but not surprised, when my colleagues decided to hand this treasured public land over to the fossil fuel industry to pay for massive tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest people in this country.

Established by Congress in 1980 through the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, the 19 million acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) is the largest National Wildlife Refuge in the country. This national treasure contains a remarkably diverse set of ecosystems that are home to hundreds of iconic species like caribou, polar bears, grizzly bears, musk ox, and wolves. ANWR is also home to the Cwich’in people, a Native American tribe that has relied on the region’s undeveloped lands and natural resources for thousands of years.

In addition to its immense cultural and ecological value, this national treasure has long been of great interest to gas and oil companies who want to drill in its northern coastal plain region. For over 40 years, the fossil fuel industry has lobbied congress to open ANWR for drilling. On December 22nd, they finally succeeded when President Trump signed on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which opens up ANWR’s northern coastal plain for drilling and fossil fuel infrastructure development. To my mind, there are several reasons why opening up one of our nation’s most wild and iconic landscapes to oil and gas development is exactly the wrong thing to do.

First, nearly forty years of conservation science and administrative policy have established that drilling would be devastating to ANWR’s delicate and unique ecosystems. In particular, development would severely disrupt the majestic Porcupine Caribou herd, which represents an essential subsistence and spiritual resource that the Gwich’in people have relied on for thousands of years. Protecting these caribou and the Gwich’in way of life is a matter of basic human rights.

Second, at a time when we are already seeing the disastrous effects of global climate chance, it does not make any sense drill for more of the dirty fossil fuels that are already destroying our planet. The United States already wastes tens of billions each year providing corporate welfare to the coal, oil, and gas companies that are destroying our planet. We should be working to keep fossil fuels in the ground, not destroying our precious natural resources so we can give more special favors to the fossil fuel industry.

Finally, my colleagues opened up ANWR as a way to pay for tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest people in this country. In fact, the most optimistic projections say that drilling will offset less than one percent of those tax cuts, and even then, my colleagues’ tax legislation will still increase the federal deficit by $1.5 trillion over the next decade. This comes at a time when the wealthiest Americans are already doing phenomenally well and ordinary, working class families are struggling just to get by. We should not be drilling at all, and we most certainly should not be drilling in order to finance tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.

Now is not the time to despair. We have got to continue the fight to cut greenhouse gas emissions and protect clean air and water for future generations. As a member of the Senate energy and environment committees, I will keep your thoughts in mind as I continue to speak out against the detrimental actions of this administration and fight to radically transform our energy system with or without the support of Donald Trump and the fossil fuel industry.

Thank you again for contacting me, and please feel free to stay in touch about this or any other subject of interest to you. For up-to-date information on what I am working on, please sign-up for my e-newsletter, the Bernie Buzz, at http://sanders.senate.gov/buzz/.

Sincerely,

BERNARD SANDERS
United States Senator

Renewable Revolution

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Author Topic: Global Warming is WITH US (Read 27562 times)

AGelbert

Re: Global Warming is WITH US

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AGelbert

Re: Global Warming is WITH US

AGelbert

Re: Global Warming is WITH US

AGelbert

Re: Global Warming is WITH US

AGelbert

Re: Global Warming is WITH US

AGelbert

Re: Global Warming is WITH US

AGelbert

Re: Global Warming is WITH US

AGelbert

Re: Global Warming is WITH US

AGelbert

Re: Global Warming is WITH US

AGelbert

Re: Global Warming is WITH US

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