Global Warming
More bad, bad news
Apr 12th
Carbon dioxide levels also record a big jump in 2021
“Meanwhile, levels of carbon dioxide also continue to increase at historically high rates. The global surface average for carbon dioxide during 2021 was 414.7 parts per million (ppm), which is an increase of 2.66 ppm over the 2020 average. This marks the 10th consecutive year that carbon dioxide increased by more than 2 parts per million, which represents the fastest sustained rate of increase in the 63 years since monitoring began.” https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/increase-in-atmospheric-methane-set-another-record-during-2021
“Observations sustained over many decades, by NOAA and others, show that the rate of carbon dioxide increase has tracked global emissions. Despite international pledges to reduce emissions, climate scientists have seen no measurable progress in reducing greenhouse gas pollution.”
Sky: Does anyone really think that this is God’s will?
2019 atmospheric methane increase greatest in five years
Apr 8th
2019 atmospheric methane increase greatest in five years: preliminary data
By Rachel Frazin – 04/06/20 04:57 PM EDT
“The average level of methane in the atmosphere increased last year by the highest amount in five years, according to preliminary data released Sunday.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found that the average level of methane in the atmosphere increased by 11.54 parts per billion (ppb) in 2019 over the level of methane in the atmosphere in 2018.
This is the largest increase since 2014, when the average level of atmospheric methane increased by 12.72 ppb.
NOAA’s data also showed that in December 2019, the last month for which data was available, the level of methane in the atmosphere was about 1,874.7 ppb.
The data in NOAA’s report is preliminary, and the agency said that it is “likely to change significantly.” A final value is expected this fall.”
Sky:
What this article and many others I have observed, fails to mention is that methane breaks down into water and CO2; both greenhouse gasses. CO2 stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. Thus, methane doses out a double whammy of threat to the environment.
A Religious Left
Sep 30th
A religious left
https://www.npr.org/2019/01/24/684435743/provoked-by-trump-the-religious-left-is-finding-its-voice
“Activists on the left should welcome the emergence of a religious core in their ranks because when political activity is morally inspired, it becomes more passionate — as conservatives already understand. Liberals are famous for being cerebral. A religious left may bring more energy to the progressive movement.”
“Democrats got a jolt of that passion at their last national convention with an appearance by the Rev. William Barber, an African-American preacher from North Carolina who started the “Moral Monday” movement in that state.
“Jesus, a brown-skinned Palestinian Jew, called us to preach good news to the poor, the broken, the bruised, and all those who are made to feel unaccepted!” Barber thundered, bringing the delegates to their feet.
Describing himself as “an evangelical Biblicist,” Barber said the nation is need of “moral defibrillators” to work on its weak heart.
“We must shock this nation with the power of love. We must shock this nation with power of mercy. We must shock this nation and fight for justice for all!” Barber said, in the most rousing speech of the convention.”
I have no problem with concern for the poor, the broken, the bruised etc. However, to ignore the health of the Earth, to ignore an emphasis on “other than humans” is to invite extinction. We truly have a “climate crisis.” CO2 in the troposphere is increasing at an increasing rate. The increase is non-linear and unpredictable. A tipping point has been reached.
Definition of tipping point: the critical point in a situation, process, or system beyond which a significant and often unstoppable effect or change takes place. The process at work here, and that imperils us, is un-predictable and poorly understood positive feedback. We must remember that with a CO2 reading of 414.7 ppm, in May, from the Mauna Loa Research Station on the big island of Hawaii, we have reached levels never before experienced by humans. Notice the caveat “often.” We don’t understand the Earth behaviour triggered by a “runaway” increase of CO2. We must consider that the “often” is probably a “certainly.”
Prof Martin Weitzman on climate change
Sep 15th
Economist Prof Martin Weitzman on climate change
Tim Harford, Financial Times
“The message of Weitzman’s recent work has influenced the policy debates on climate change: the extreme scenarios matter. What we don’t know about climate change is more important, and more dangerous, than what we do.”
One of the most significant examples is the predictions of the amount of tropospheric CO2 in the future. Actually, analysis of the records held by the NASA Earth Observatory at Moana Loa on Hawaii reveal that the amount of CO2 is rising and the amount of rising is increasing. It has already hit a tipping point and the amount is unpredictable. See: http://www.earthenspirituality.com/tippingpoints/tippingpoints.pdf
“Weitzman ‘asked us to contemplate the risk of runaway effects’, or ‘tail risks’ that lie well outside the most likely scenarios, such as permafrost thaw, explains Harford. ‘Central estimates can lead us astray,’ says Harford, and’ it is only when we ponder the tail risk that we realise how dangerous climate change might be’. ‘The truly eye-opening contribution – for me, at least – was Weitzman’s explanation that the worst-case scenarios should rightly loom large in rational calculations,’ says Harford.”
Methane Leaks Rule
Sep 14th
Key facts about the new EPA plan to reverse the Obama-era methane leaks rule
Its ultimate fate may be decided by the administration in office in 2021.
Monday, September 9, 2019
“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, in 2013 estimated that the greenhouse effect from methane is 34 times stronger than carbon dioxide over a 100-year period, and 86 times stronger over a 20-year period. Its potency decreases over time because methane is a relatively short-lived greenhouse gas, mostly breaking down under chemical reactions after about 12 years, whereas carbon dioxide persists in the atmosphere for centuries.”
Here, again, as with so many other reports, the author, whom I greatly respect, fails to point out that methane breaks down into CO2 and water. That’s a double whammy. So, methane breaks down “after about 20 years.” Why not stress that it breaks down into the highly persistent CO2 and water vapor which are both greenhouse gasses?
As for methane leakage, see:
Summer weather becomes more persistent in a 2 °C world
Aug 22nd
Summer weather becomes more persistent in a 2 °C world
- Peter Pfleiderer, peter.pfleiderer@climateanalytics.org
- Carl-Friedrich Schleussner,
- Kai Kornhuber &
- Dim Coumou
Nature Climate Change
Published: 19 August 2019
Abstract
Heat and rainfall extremes have intensified over the past few decades and this trend is projected to continue with future global warming1,2,3. A long persistence of extreme events often leads to societal impacts with warm-and-dry conditions severely affecting agriculture and consecutive days of heavy rainfall leading to flooding. Here we report systematic increases in the persistence of boreal summer weather in a multi-model analysis of a world 2 °C above pre-industrial compared to present-day climate. Averaged over the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitude land area, the probability of warm periods lasting longer than two weeks is projected to increase by 4% (2–6% full uncertainty range) after removing seasonal-mean warming. Compound dry–warm persistence increases at a similar magnitude on average but regionally up to 20% (11–42%) in eastern North America. The probability of at least seven consecutive days of strong precipitation increases by 26% (15–37%) for the mid-latitudes. We present evidence that weakening storm track activity contributes to the projected increase in warm and dry persistence. These changes in persistence are largely avoided when warming is limited to 1.5 °C. In conjunction with the projected intensification of heat and rainfall extremes, an increase in persistence can substantially worsen the effects of future weather extremes.
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I still cannot understand how such detailed probability figures can emerge from a model when the increase of CO2 in the troposphere is increasing at an increasing rate and this rate is not constant. Please see: http://www.earthenspirituality.com/tippingpoints/tippingpoints.pdf
Millions raised for climate activists
Jul 13th
US philanthropists vow to raise millions for climate activists
Matthew Taylor, The Guardian
“The Guardian reports that “a group of wealthy US philanthropists and investors have donated almost half a million pounds to support the grassroots movement Extinction Rebellion and school strike groups – with the promise of tens of millions more in the months ahead”. It adds: “Trevor Neilson, an investor and philanthropist who has worked with some of the world’s richest families, has teamed up with Rory Kennedy – daughter of Robert Kennedy – and Aileen Getty, whose family wealth comes from the oil industry, to launch the Climate Emergency Fund. Neilson, who has worked with figures such as Bill Gates and Richard Branson, said the fund was inspired by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg and the Extinction Rebellion protesters in the UK in April.” The report continues: “Neilson said the three founders were using their contacts among the global mega-rich to get ‘a hundred times’ more in the weeks and months ahead. ‘This might be the single best chance we have to stop the greatest emergency we have ever faced,’ he told the Guardian.”
Carbon Brief Daily | 12/07/2019 Leo Hickman
Human Extinction
May 7th
Human Extinction
Risk ‘misunderestimated’: War, sleeping pills, and the Extinction Rebellion
By Kurt Cobb, originally published by Resource Insights
May 5, 2019
Just when we need wise leadership and global cooperation, what we are seeing is internal fighting over rigid local opinions. It is like people on a train that has jumped the tracks and is headed down the mountain fighting over who gets access to the dining car first.
“The ultimate question that the Extinction Rebellion poses is this: Why should we care about human extinction? The geologic record suggests that humans will one day go extinct no matter what they do. So, what if that happens sooner rather than later?
The answer to those questions hinges on whether a person defines his or her community strictly in spacial terms and does not include temporal terms. In other words, are we a community of people only by space (and then only weakly at that) or are we a community that extends through both space AND time?
In other words, does it matter whether human culture continues?
Those who deny climate change are answering the last two questions “no.” If those who accept that climate change is largely human-caused do not see it as an existential question, they may as well be deniers.”
“The hardest minds to change are those who accept climate change as a reality, but cannot embrace the necessary steps implied by that belief. Will the Extinction Rebellion change that? I’d like to think the answer is yes. But I think a more thoroughgoing change in human hearts and perceptions will likely only come from actual catastrophic consequences hitting much larger groups of people and only if they understand that those consequences are the result of climate change.”
Risk misunderestimated War
May 7th
Risk ‘misunderestimated’ War, sleeping pills, and the Extinction Rebellion
By Kurt Cobb, originally published by Resource Insights
May 5, 2019
“How is it that the awareness of risk has become so blunted among so much of the world’s population?”
Exactly, we are like a frog in a pot of water that has gone sleepy whilst the water is steadily headed toward the boil. Will we jump out in time or not? That is the critical question we must answer.
“It also seems plausible that the infrastructure we have built—dams, reservoirs, roads, electric grids, seawalls, water systems, and other industrial and agricultural systems—will not withstand intact the heat, drought, floods, sea level rise, severe weather and other problems that unchecked climate change will bring with it. At the very least, we are unlikely to be able to reliably grow enough food to feed all of us.
How is it that the awareness of risk has become so blunted among so much of the world’s population? Of course, for the poorest among us—those who barely make it from one day to the next—risk is immediate, personal and abundantly clear. Lack of food, shelter, medical care and protection from violence are existential questions that command attention.”
Why Protesters Should be Wary
Apr 27th
Why Protesters Should be Wary of ’12 Years to Climate Breakdown’ Rhetoric
By Myles Allen, originally published by The Conversation
April 23, 2019
“So please stop saying something globally bad is going to happen in 2030. Bad stuff is already happening and every half a degree of warming matters, but the IPCC does not draw a “planetary boundary” at 1.5°C beyond which lie climate dragons.”
Get angry, but for the right reasons
“What about the other interpretation of the IPCC’s 12 years: that we have 12 years to act? What our report said was, in scenarios with a one-in-two to two-in-three chance of keeping global warming below 1.5°C, emissions are reduced to around half their present level by 2030. That doesn’t mean we have 12 years to act: it means we have to act now, and even if we do, success is not guaranteed.”
“Climate change is not so much an emergency as a festering injustice. Your ancestors did not end slavery by declaring an emergency and dreaming up artificial boundaries on “tolerable” slave numbers. They called it out for what it was: a spectacularly profitable industry, the basis of much prosperity at the time, founded on a fundamental injustice. It’s time to do the same on climate change.”