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It's a bit warm/ wet/ cold outside

Started by The Enigmatic Dr X, 24 July, 2019, 09:35:09 AM

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shaolin_monkey

Prof. Ed Hawkins from Reading University (he of showyourstripes.info fame) has put together a very effective visual representation of warming from 1850 to 2019.

2019 was a shocker.

https://twitter.com/ed_hawkins/status/1217476536154173440?s=21

Hawkmumbler

No relation to yours truly, just an FYI....

shaolin_monkey

The World Economic Forum Global Risks 2020 report is out and waddaya know - the top five risks based on likelihood and impact are all environmental!



http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Risk_Report_2020.pdf

shaolin_monkey

Even the rich folk are waking up to the threat now:

" *Climate threats and accelerated biodiversity loss*

Climate change is striking harder and more rapidly than many expected. The last five years are on track to be the warmest on record, natural disasters are becoming more intense and more frequent, and last year witnessed unprecedented extreme weather throughout the world.

Alarmingly, global temperatures are on track to increase by at least 3°C towards the end of the century—twice what climate experts have warned is the limit to avoid the most severe economic, social and environmental consequences. The near- term impacts of m climate change add up to a planetary emergency that will include loss of life, social and geopolitical tensions and negative economic impacts.


For the first time in the history of the Global Risks Perception Survey, environmental concerns dominate the top long-term risks by likelihood among members of the World Economic Forum's multistakeholder community; three of the top five risks by impact are also environmental (see Figure I, The Evolving Risks Landscape 2007–2020). "Failure of climate change mitigation and adaption" is the number one risk by impact and number two by likelihood over the next 10 years, according to our survey. Members of the Global Shapers Community—the Forum's younger constituents—show even more concern, ranking environmental issues as the top risks in both the short and long terms.

The Forum's multistakeholder network rate "biodiversity loss" as the second most impactful and third most likely risk for the next decade. The current rate of extinction is tens to hundreds of times higher than the average over the past 10 million years—and it is accelerating. Biodiversity loss has critical implications for humanity, from the collapse of food and health systems to the disruption of entire supply chains."

http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Risk_Report_2020.pdf


Tiplodocus

Yeah, it's certainly getting into the top agenda at our work as opposed to a tacked on afterthought. Long may it continue.
Be excellent to each other. And party on!

shaolin_monkey

"When glaciers retreat...pressure lifts and volcanic activity surges."

*Get Ready for More Volcanic Eruptions as the Planet Warms*

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/get-ready-for-more-volcanic-eruptions-as-the-planet-warms/

Funt Solo

BBC has a strip of dedicated coverage on their front page:

++ A-Z ++  coma ++

The Legendary Shark


Whilst I agree that the evolving climate plays a part in the Australian bushfires, it is by no means the whole story. For thousands of years the indigenous people of Australia have been managing the problem in ways based on ancient traditional knowledge.

Then we come along, with our modern science and ideas, and trash all that for political convenience and economy. Our governmental mentality imposes systems and practices which simply do not work and, as in the case of this particular tragedy, make things worse. As I've said before, it's basically down to our fundamental misconception that this planet belongs to us when, in reality, we're simply a part of it. If anything, we belong to the planet. We need to wake up to this fact and act accordingly. It's not the climate that's the problem, it's how we manage ourselves.

Government is the ultimate owner - pretending ownership of lands, waters, resources, laws, systems, economies, information, power, rights, money, healthcare, food, water, wildlife, ideas and you. Government policies are based on the idea of ownership, which is a big part (perhaps the biggest part) of every environmental crisis we face from deforestation to dwindling water supplies to extinctions to droughts to floods. All based on the fundamentally flawed idea of planetary ownership.

But keep on voting, keep on giving these psychopathic owners agency because one day they'll wise up and get it right. Don't blame the governmental system, blame the climate. It's all the climate's fault - but that's okay because we own the climate and can bend it to our will. It's easier to do that than blame the way we treat each other and our little blue dot.

[move]~~~^~~~~~~~[/move]




Funt Solo

It's human-induced climate change that's the problem (see pages and pages of evidence), so (yes), humans can do something to alleviate the issues. But only if we get organized (governance). Gaia is not going to save us.

Unfortunately, neither are traditional aboriginal cold burn practices. Those are still done in some places, but not all terrain is suited. There is a problem where traditional practices have been banned, and so in those areas the fire danger is worse than it could be. But that's a sideshow compared to the overall warming of the planet, which takes us back to my first paragraph.

I wonder about your suggested way forward: it seems to be that we should stop voting, and then everything will miraculously be fine. I don't see how you've reached that conclusion, because it doesn't seem to follow any kind of logical sequence of thought. Sitting on our hands won't reduce global temperatures.
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

shaolin_monkey

The Australian fires will have been started a whole bunch of ways - lightning strikes, careless disposal of cigarette butts, electrical shorts, and even arson (though police and firefighters say reports of arson have been massively exaggerated). Of course land management will feature in there somewhere.

But the fires are amongst the worst ever because the land has become more arid this decade, the droughts more prolonged, and the vegetation made much more crisp and ripe for burning than usual. And THAT is because of man-made climate change.

You can see the Australian temperatures going up and up and up over the last century on Prof. Ed Hawkins' excellent showyourstripes.info website:




shaolin_monkey

On a more positive note, it is nice to see something hopeful coming out about climate change!

Limited showings around the UK this weekend, and out on DVD in March:

https://youtu.be/p-rTQ443akE

The Legendary Shark


No, Funt, it's not about not voting - that's just a means to an end. It's about stripping government of its power to do deliberate harm by re-naming things (for example, calling theft taxation and calling legislation law), propagating the idea of ownership, monopolising essentials and using force to compel compliance.

Australia needs help right now (and it's not the only place), but what's the most powerful government in the world concentrating on? Trying to engineer a war with Iran. Very helpful.

Rule by a "living god" built the pyramids, but we moved on from that to rule by "the will of god," which built cities. Then we moved on to rule by "the will of the people" (although we're not quite sure which people), which built us a global infrastructure. We must move on again because the current system is no longer fit for purpose.

As The Man said, we cannot solve problems using the same thinking that created them.

[move]~~~^~~~~~~~[/move]




shaolin_monkey

Interesting that Sharkey's comment pops up as this ruling is released.

Kids lose landmark case against US for breaching constitutional rights by not imposing strict emissions laws, and thereby threatening their future life and happiness.

HOWEVER, page 33 onwards -  note judges remarks re CO2 and warning:

"STATON, District Judge, dissenting:

In these proceedings, the government accepts as fact that the United States has reached a tipping point crying out for a concerted response—yet presses ahead toward calamity. It is as if an asteroid were barreling toward Earth and the government decided to shut down our only defenses.

Seeking to quash this suit, the government bluntly insists that it has the absolute and unreviewable power to destroy the Nation.

My colleagues throw up their hands, concluding that this case presents nothing fit for the Judiciary. On a fundamental point, we agree: No case can singlehandedly prevent the catastrophic effects of climate change predicted by the government and scientists. But a federal court need not manage all of the delicate foreign relations and regulatory minutiae implicated by climate change to offer real relief, and the mere fact that this suit cannot alone halt climate change does not mean that it presents no claim suitable for judicial resolution.
Plaintiffs bring suit to enforce the most basic structural principle embedded in our system of ordered liberty: that the Constitution does not condone the Nation's willful destruction. So viewed, plaintiffs' claims adhere to a judicially administrable standard. And considering plaintiffs seek no less than to forestall the Nation's demise, even a partial and temporary reprieve would constitute meaningful redress. Such relief, much like the desegregation orders and statewid e prison injunctions the Supreme Court has sanctioned, would vindicate plaintiffs' constitutional rights without exceeding the Judiciary's province. For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.

As the majority recognizes, and the government does not contest, carbon dioxide ("CO2") and other greenhouse gas ("GHG") emissions created by burning fossil fuels are devastating the planet. Maj. Op. at 14–15. According to one of plaintiffs' experts, the inevitable result, absent immediate action, is "an inhospitable future . . . marked by rising seas, coastal city functionality loss, mass migrations, resource wars, food shortages, heat waves, mega-storms, soil depletion and desiccation, freshwater shortage, public health system collapse, and the extinction of increasing numbers of species." Even government scientists2 project that, given current warming trends, sea levels will rise two feet by 2050, nearly four feet by 2070, over eight feet by 2100, 18 feet by 2150, and over 31 feet by 2200. To put that in perspective, a three-foot sea level rise will make two million American homes uninhabitable; a rise of approximately 20 feet will result in the total loss of Miami, New Orleans, and other coastal cities. So, as described by plaintiffs' experts, the injuries experienced by plaintiffs are the first small wave in an oncoming tsunami—now visible on the horizon of the not-so-distant future—that will destroy the United States as we currently know it.

What sets this harm apart from all others is not just its magnitude, but its irreversibility. The devastation might look and feel somewhat different if future generations could simply pick up the pieces and restore the Nation. But plaintiffs' experts speak of a certain level of global warming as "locking in" this catastrophic damage. Put more starkly by plaintiffs' expert, Dr. Harold R. Wanless, "[a]tmospheric warming will continue for some 30 years after we stop putting more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. But that warmed atmosphere will continue warming the ocean for centuries, and the accumulating heat in the oceans will persist for millennia" (emphasis added). Indeed, another of plaintiffs' experts echoes, "[t]he fact that GHGs dissipate very slowly from the atmosphere . . . and that the costs of taking CO2 out of the atmosphere through non-biological carbon capture and storage are very high means that the consequences of GHG emissions should be viewed as effectively irreversible" (emphasis added). In other words, "[g]iven the self-reinforcing nature of climate change," the tipping point may well have arrived, and we may be rapidly approaching the point of no return.

Despite countless studies over the last half century warning of the catastrophic consequences of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, many of which the government conducted, the government not only failed to act but also "affirmatively promote[d] fossil fuel use in a host of ways." Maj. Op. at 15. According to plaintiffs' evidence, our nation is crumbling—at our government's own hand—into a wasteland. In short, the government has directly facilitated an existential crisis to the country's perpetuity."

http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2020/01/17/18-36082.pdf

Funt Solo

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 17 January, 2020, 10:18:23 AM
But keep on voting...

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 17 January, 2020, 07:46:33 PM
No, Funt, it's not about not voting...

I just can't have a straight discussion with you if you do that circular bullshit thing on me. You brought up voting in the first place. I responded about what you said. Now you're saying what you said isn't relevant.

If what you say isn't relevant, then why are you saying it?
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Dandontdare

Quote from: Funt Solo on 17 January, 2020, 09:00:05 PM
Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 17 January, 2020, 10:18:23 AM
But keep on voting...

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 17 January, 2020, 07:46:33 PM
No, Funt, it's not about not voting...

I just can't have a straight discussion with you if you do that circular bullshit thing on me. You brought up voting in the first place. I responded about what you said. Now you're saying what you said isn't relevant.

If what you say isn't relevant, then why are you saying it?

welcome to the world of the circular shark debate