It's a bit warm/ wet/ cold outside

[shaolin_monkey]

Good point!

Coming back to something I flagged earlier in the thread, here's an article from last year re how the billionaires are preparing for the apocalypse:

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-valley-billionaires-are-prepping-for-the-apocalypse-in-new-zealand


By the way, has anyone read 'Stark' by Ben Elton? It's becoming more and more prophetic.

[shaolin_monkey]

"US threatens retaliation against EU over proposed carbon tax"

This is one way that petrostates (including the U.S. under Trump/Exxon/Koch) are trying to sabotage efforts by the rest of the world to act on climate.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/us-threatens-retaliation-against-eu-over-proposed-carbon-tax-1.4151974

[shaolin_monkey]

As the climate changes, in some places it creates perfect breeding grounds for pests.

China is experiencing something similar with Armyworm.

Combined with flooding, drought, and other climactic stresses, we are going to see more and more crop failures as time goes on.

https://time.com/5771621/locust-swarms-africa/

[shaolin_monkey]

Some good news - nuclear power in the U.K. fast becoming irrelevant and costly as renewables take the lead.


https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/jan/27/weatherwatch-nuclear-energy-now-surplus-to-needs-renewable-energy

[Professor Bear]

I suspect this is only good news if efficiency, safety, the well-being of the population and the long-term survival of humanity are more important priorities for the UK's governing party than their donors in the nuclear and fossil fuel industries.

[shaolin_monkey]

Absolutely. And they've got form.

[shaolin_monkey]

I mentioned ocean acidification from absorbing CO2 previously. Scientists warned this would affect anything with a shell:

https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/invertebrates/ocean-acidification



Now we are actually starting to see this in action:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/27/us/pacific-ocean-acidification-crabs-dissolving-shells-scn-

[shaolin_monkey]

This is a superb article on Antarctica, and in particular the Thwaites glacier.  Did you know the ice in Antarctica holds 90% of the world's fresh water?? Some of the ice is over a mile deep. 

Imagine what would happen to sea levels if all that melts – which it is starting to...


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51097309

[Jim_Campbell]

Imagine what would happen to sea levels if all that melts – which it is starting to...

Not just sea levels, as I understand it. All that ice in both the arctic and antarctic circles weighs a huge amount and that mass pressing down has a stabilising effect on the tectonic plates below.

[shaolin_monkey]

Imagine what would happen to sea levels if all that melts – which it is starting to...

Not just sea levels, as I understand it. All that ice in both the arctic and antarctic circles weighs a huge amount and that mass pressing down has a stabilising effect on the tectonic plates below.

Yep!!  It's nuts isn't it - in a warming world we are going to see more volcanic activity, particularly in places like Alaska or Greenland where ice is suddenly lost, or permafrost disappears.

Here's an interesting study on Alaska from 2018:

Glaciation of mountainous areas introduce extra load on Earth's crust, which introduces stress in the crust. Depending on the rate of the isostatic uplift due to melting glacier and the composition of the underlying strata, these stresses can be released as landslides, ductile deformation and also as earthquakes. It may look ridiculous that climate change can affect the tectonic plate moment beneath the crust, but scientists like McGuire argue that it cannot just intensify disastrous events like cyclones, volcanoes, tsunamis but can trigger earthquakes as well.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/167/1/012018/pdf

[shaolin_monkey]

Man-made climate change = Ming the Merciless:

https://youtu.be/_QC7uMo1uPQ

[shaolin_monkey]

Canberra now threatened. If you've been following this you'll have seen some utterly hellish footage.


https://www.vox.com/2020/1/31/21116787/australia-fires-canberra-emergency-air-quality-smoke

[shaolin_monkey]

Africa has been suffering the effects of climate change for some time now, yet it isn't widely reported.

https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/december-2018-march-2019/global-warming-severe-consequences-africa

[shaolin_monkey]

Massive flooding in Brazil very recently:

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/27/americas/rains-floods-minas-gerais-brazil-intl/index.html

[shaolin_monkey]

That free course I did recently restarts in Feb. It is free, and I highly recommend it.

It is from Prof. John Cook of Queensland University, and covers:

- the psychology of denial
- the tactics of the fossil fuel industry to sow discord and alter public opinion
- the science of man-made climate change
- how to recognise and respond to the logical fallacies of deniers


It's a fascinating course, about eight weeks if you invest 2-3 hours of learning a week.

https://www.edx.org/course/making-sense-of-climate-science-denial