Home » Posts tagged 'climate change' (Page 16)

Tag Archives: climate change

Clearly we have lost the Arctic as one of our major planetary thermostats.

Myself, Beryl Sirmacek, John Doyle and Arctic Oceanographer Jim Massa discuss the unravelling in the Arctic and the cascading consequences of lost albedo and habitat for the Arctic fauna and flora both above and below the ice

I mentioned the possibility of the Great Barrier Reef having another bleaching event unfold late in January 2022; Great Barrier Reef could face another mass bleaching by end of January, forecast says

Guy McPherson and I interviewed Jim Massa on our radio show Nature Bats Last;
“Natalia and Igor have done an enormous amount of work studying the methane issue. They have covered a lot of area between the Russian side of the arctic ocean as well as Siberia itself examining what is happening to not only the ESAS and Laptev but the permafrost in the tundra itself.

Those who are quick to dismiss their work, say they are being hyperbolic about the methane time bomb are really missing the forest for the trees. If they wish to debate their estimated levels, okay, have that debate. That’s a legitimate scientific debate. But to be dismissive of the threat posed by methane is imo a grave error in judgment.” Jim Massa We discussed the threat of methane in the ESAS and the work of Dr Natalia Shakova and Igor Semiletov Current rates and mechanisms of subsea permafrost degradation in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf

Science Talk with Jim Massa on Nature Bats Last
Beryl brilliantly mocked the delinquent corporate construct the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change..

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“Don’t Look Up” (part 1) – climate movie is kryptonite to the super villains

January 2, 2022

“Don’t Look Up” (part 1) – climate movie is kryptonite to the super villains

You know a satirical movie has hit its target when the mainstream reviewers call it “shrill” and “overblown.”

That’s what’s happened to the brash comedy “Don’t Look Up” which was released on Netflix the day before Christmas. Most of the mainstream reviewers panned it. Audiences disagreed – the movie promptly jumped to the top of Netflix’s most-watched list in 89 countries.

As one site said, “general audiences don’t give a rat’s ass about what the critics think.”

Like the earlier political comedies “Network” and “Dr. Strangelove,” the movie is a cry of frustration. We know bad things are in store. We know we’re being lied to by politicians, the media, the sociopathic billionaires.

But what can we do? We write earnest articles, we protest, we try to understand different points of view.

For years we do this, and the machine rolls on. Sometimes we just need to rear back and laugh at all the jackassery.

Peter Kalmus tweets:

As a climate scientist, I live in #DontLookUp every fucking day

I felt seen

… it’s satire but it’s also damn accurate … we need more climate storytelling like this

What’s ironic is that the movie doesn’t mention climate at all. Instead a comet is discovered hurtling towards earth. It’s a planet killer which will send tidal waves a mile high in all directions.

You’d think that the imminent catastrophe would set off screaming headlines and a lightning response from world governments.

If you think that, silly you! You haven’t been paying attention to our dysfunctional response to:

Climate change
Covid
Obscene wealth vs growing desperation
Species extinction
Resource depletion

The movie shows us a familiar cast of characters. Some struggle heroically to get the word out. Others plot how to squeeze the crisis to their personal advantage.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

False Beliefs and Denial

December 27, 2021

False Beliefs and Denial

Sam’s Gap at the Tennessee/North Carolina border

I have embarked on quite the journey over the past year. I stepped out of my comfort zone and decided to begin writing this blog. I do enjoy discussing energy and resource decline and climate change, because of the stark implications they present. I’m less comfortable talking about extinction due to the uncertainty of a timeline and the controversy surrounding it. Despite my knowledge in this field, I never feel like I know enough; so I’m always digging for more information. The studies, articles, videos, and other media I have discovered are sometimes difficult to digest. I often have to step back to think about what I am writing and how it will be received for those few who are reading it. I am ever mindful of how I felt upon first discovering where we are as a species and precisely how we continue chopping off the limb we are perched upon. It is quite difficult at times, understanding not only where we are but where we are headed; also comprehending the inertia behind us pushing us into new realms and sending us beyond tipping points. Today’s article combines an eclectic mix of both recent events and stories with new material from Tom Murphy, William Rees, Jeff Masters, Alice Friedemann, and many others. Those of you familiar with my posts will be unfazed; new readers may be horrified.

The way some of my articles are received by a few point to anger and denial. I understand this because I was also there for a while, although I quickly progressed beyond those stages of grief. Despite my knowledge regarding human denial of reality and then the accompanying optimism bias which often typically lead to overshoot, I am still surprised by the sheer scale of this denial..

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Blueprints for impossible futures

December 24, 2021

Blueprints for impossible futures

“A People’s Green New Deal” demands a different kind of impossible

Over the past two decades, a proliferation of “Green New Deal” literature has promoted various strategies for changing the structure of the global energy system to combat climate change. While the term was first coined by the neoliberal economist Thomas Friedman, it has since been taken up by more progressive voices, from Keynesian social democrats to eco-socialists. Sadly, despite the promise of a new wave of climate-conscious legislation, from the European Green Deal and the UN Climate Agreement to the AOC-Markey legislation of 2019, each seems as unlikely as its predecessors to enact substantive change. At the recent COP 26 Climate Summit, for example, the United States failed to join 30 other nations in pledging to phase out sales of new gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles by 2040 worldwide. With the US federal government dominated by fossil-fuel friendly Democrats and climate-change denying Republicans, the chances of passing ambitious climate legislation appear bleak. In the absence of real political force, GND proposals often serve as blueprints that respond to a largely speculative question: what would we do if we were in a position of power to create meaningful, lasting, and necessary change?

Instead of offering another blueprint for an impossible future, Max Ajl’s A People’s Green New Deal levels a critique at the genre itself, raising significant questions about the way that plans are proffered, and how most green futures implicitly accept the ongoing violence of capitalist imperialism. Ajl’s work engages critically with a wide spectrum of GND proposals, from policy documents like the European Commission and European Environmental Agency’s “European Green Deal” and Senator Ed Markey and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s House Resolution 109…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Tim Merges the Worst Climate News in History with Epic Images

December 24, 2021

Tim Merges the Worst Climate News in History with Epic Images

“Climate change is one of a host of environmental ills for which technological solutions are being proposed. In fact, most of the proposed solutions exacerbate environmental ills in other dimensions such as species loss and mass extinction. This tendency of technological reasoning to ‘bleed’ from one dimension or axis to another— to cause unintended consequences, is a function of the structure of this type of reasoning.”
“Paradoxically, calls for analytical rigor tend to narrow the realm of scientific concern, thereby raising the range of unintended consequences. This paradox is internal to the structure of technological reasoning. In practical terms, the 2018 IPCC Report on climate change relies on dubious technology to produce ‘negative carbon emissions.’ This both distracts attention away from more plausible methods and it could wildly exacerbate mass extinction.” Climate Change and Technology

Mark Brimblecombe’s piece de resistance on the mitigation myth is a must read;
“It is not nice to be told that you have been diagnosed with a terminal condition. It is even worse to be given false hope that if you did this or that you could mitigate the problem or turn it around when it cannot. If a medical practitioner does this, they lose their job. But climate scientists do this frequently, and probably to keep their job. It is virtue-signalling to agree with national and international climate agreements which propose that we can fix this by reducing (mitigating) our carbon footprint and carbon emissions… and so continue ‘business as usual’ and live happily ever after.” Climate Change and the Mitigation Myth

In the above video I mentioned the paper by Professor Corey Bradshaw suggesting that even Tardigrades are in danger. Our interview with Professor Bradshaw and links to the paper we discussed are embedded following; Professor Corey Bradshaw explains the unfolding “Extinction Cascades” on Nature Bats Last.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Introduction to Power by Richard Heinberg

December 23, 2021

Introduction to Power by Richard Heinberg

Richard Heinberg’s latest title, Power is an exploration of humanity’s power over nature and the power of some people over others. Power traces how four key elements developed to give humans extraordinary power: tool making ability, language, social complexity, and the ability to harness energy sources — most significantly, fossil fuels. Today, we take an excerpt from Power that explains how Richard started on the journey of writing this book.

Excerpted from the introduction to Power

Many people are searching for a magic formula to save the world from the converging crises of the 21st century. Climate change, economic inequality, air and water pollution, resource depletion, and the catastrophic disappearance of wildlife threaten to upend society while destabilizing our planet to such a degree that it may be impossible for future generations of humans to persist. What if we could solve all these problems with one simple trick?

Don’t hold your breath. A single solution doesn’t exist: it’s not socialism or capitalism, it’s not renewable energy or nuclear power, it’s not religion or atheism, and it’s not hemp. However, I believe there is a single causative agent in back of most of our troubles, the understanding of which could indeed help us emerge from the hole we’re rapidly digging for ourselves.

That causative agent is power—our pursuit of it, our overuse of it, and our abuse of it. In this book, I argue that all the problems mentioned above, and others as well, are problems of power. We humans are nature’s supreme power addicts. Power—the ability to do something, the ability to get someone else to do something, or the ability to prevent someone else from doing something—is everywhere in the human world…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

My Brainwashing

December 21, 2021

My Brainwashing

From Pixabay/Tumisu.

People rarely recognize or admit that they have been brainwashed. Perhaps the term brainwashed is too extreme, in which case manipulated or fooled may be substituted.

An insightful quote from Mark Twain says:

It is easier to fool people than it is to convince them that they have been fooled.

What often happens, in fact, is that people on opposite sides of an issue suspect (or are convinced) that the other side has been brainwashed. Sometimes one side is more justified in the charge than the other, in which case the brainwashed victims effectively assert a sort of projected symmetry that rings false.

Bi-directional allegations of brainwashing show up in the context of COVID: masks provide a clear means of identifying either those (masked individuals) who have been fooled into controlled submission to believe that the pandemic is real and deadly vs. those (unmasked fighters for freedom) who have been sadly misled to think it’s all a hoax and in so doing endanger us all. Each side may feel anger or pity toward the other. Climate change is similar: its denial has become an article of faith for the brainwashed non-believers, who accuse the gullible believers of being brainwashed by self-serving scientists vying for funding, power, or something (cake, maybe?).

To either side, it seems inconceivable that someone could deny the truths that are so obvious to them. For me, an uptick in total deaths closely matching reports of COVID deaths is pretty convincing, and it is hard for me to make out why anyone in power would want to wreck the economy and could somehow convince countries around the world to overlook a competitive advantage and follow suit…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Veterans target US military’s outsized impact on the climate crisis

December 21, 2021

Veterans target US military’s outsized impact on the climate crisis

With no mention of military emissions at COP26, a coalition is mobilizing to force the Pentagon to disclose and reduce its enormous carbon footprint.

More than 100,000 people protested the United Nations Climate Change Convention, or COP26, in Glasgow last month, where they networked, forged alliances and made clear their opposition to the status quo.

“There have been 25 COPs before this one, and every year leaders come to these climate negotiations with an array of new pledges, commitments and promises and as each COP comes and goes, emissions continue to rise,” Ugandan delegate Vanessa Nakate said. “I hope you can appreciate that we may be skeptical when the largest delegation here … does not belong to a country but instead belongs to the fossil fuel industry.”

There were in fact more than 500 delegates in attendance at the conference with ties to the fossil fuel industry, or twice the number of indigenous delegates.

Scientists from within the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, acting out of fear that their reports would be watered down, leaked part of the IPCC report months ahead of schedule. The report provided critical information about the huge energy consumption of wealthy populations and the need for them to adopt lifestyle changes in order to avoid civilizational collapse.

Additionally, Greenpeace UK reported that more than 30,000 leaked files show corporations and nations, including petrostate Saudi Arabia and OPEC, pressured the IPCC to focus on potential technological solutions and exclude language calling for phasing out fossil fuels. In the end, COP26’s weakened language called for a “phase-down of unabated coal power and inefficient fossil fuel subsidies” rather than the “phase-out of fossil fuels.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Scientists watch giant ‘doomsday’ glacier in Antarctica with concern

December 18, 2021

Scientists watch giant ‘doomsday’ glacier in Antarctica with concern

Cracks and fissures stoke fears of breakup that could lead to half-metre rise in global sea levels – or more

Satellite view of Antarctica with the Thwaites glacier marked in red. Photograph: UniversalImagesGroup/UIG/Getty Images

Twenty years ago, an area of ice thought to weigh almost 500bn tonnes dramatically broke off the Antarctic continent and shattered into thousands of icebergs into the Weddell Sea.

The 1,255-sq-mile (3,250-sq-km) Larsen B ice shelf was known to be melting fast but no one had predicted that it would take just one month for the 200-metre-thick behemoth to completely disintegrate.

Glaciologists were shocked as much by the speed as by the scale of the collapse. “This is staggering. It’s just broken apart. It fell over like a wall and has broken as if into hundreds of thousands of bricks”, said one.

This week, ice scientists meeting in New Orleans warned that something even more alarming was brewing on the West Antarctic ice sheet – a vast basin of ice on the Antarctic peninsula. Years of research by teams of British and American researchers showed that great cracks and fissures had opened up both on top of and underneath the Thwaites glacier, one of the biggest in the world, and it was feared that parts of it, too, may fracture and collapse possibly within five years or less.

Thwaites makes Larsen B look like an icicle. It is roughly 100 times larger, about the size of Britain, and contains enough water on its own to raise sea levels worldwide by more than half a metre. It contributes about 4% of annual global sea level rise and has been called the most important glacier in the world, even the “doomsday” glacier. Satellite studies show it is melting far faster than it did in the 1990s.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The climate response cliff

December 17, 2021

The climate response cliff

Climate change is only one symptom of a broader ecological crisis; the rapid loss of wild life is equally critical. Most species other than humans and our livestock, (and pets and pests) have had horrifying drops in population within the last 70 years or so, even if they are not yet threatened with extinction. We and our livestock are now 96% of the mass of land vertebrates, leaving all wild creatures together to comprise a mere 4%. At this rate within another generation there may be virtually nothing left but us and our coterie—and we would not survive that, as we depend on a network of life more complex than we can imagine. We’re also seeing the oceans acidifying, filling with plastic and toxins, and warming; topsoil depleted, rivers and aquifers running dry; and the proliferation of nuclear weapons and power plants leaving sites potentially dangerous for thousands or even millions of years. Various toxins are infiltrating our water, our food and our bodies.

All these threats are related—there are simply too many humans, and the richest segment are consuming and wasting too much per capita. Solutions to climate change will generally solve the other environmental problems as well. Real solutions that is, not the magic tricks of entrenched industrial interests, the dependence on technical breakthroughs unlikely to happen…the greenwashing. Real solutions involve drastic change in the lifestyles of we who live in the “developed” nations.

How drastic? That’s the crux of this essay. We’re caught in an energy trap, the consequences of which keep building. If we had taken sensible and responsible steps when the first signs of depletion and overshoot became apparent around 1980, we could probably have transitioned in the way many proponents of a Green New Deal imagine…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

What is Post-Doom? – Another End of the World is Possible #ClimateCrisis #Ecocide #Overshoot #auspol #Energy #Consumption #Population Listen to the scientists.

December 15, 2021

What is Post-Doom? – Another End of the World is Possible #ClimateCrisis #Ecocide #Overshoot #auspol #Energy #Consumption #Population Listen to the scientists.

“Post-doom has a gorgeous sunrise.”

— Connie Barlow

Why I am not a “Doomer”

After several years of mobilizing with 350.org and other environmental groups, I came to realize that the whole movement had been addressing a surface level problem–where we get our energy from–instead of the underlying problem–how much energy we are using. In other words, the movement was focused on fossil fuels when it should be focusing on capitalism and the growth economy. There are several reasons for this misplaced focus, which include psychology and marketing (it’s easier to imagine a transition to fossil fuels than powering down our economy), as well as complicity (there’s a lot of money invested in renewables).

I also realized that it was very unlikely that our society would ever voluntarily power down, and so a collapse–economic, social, and environmental–is probably unavoidable. Following Jem Bendell, author of the now (in)famous “Deep Adaptation paper”, I anticipate “inevitable collapse, probable catastrophe, and possible extinction”. It’s impossible to say how long it will take, but I would guess that it will take generations. I would guess that it will be a prolonged and staggered collapse, a series of mini-collapses followed by partial recoveries. I believe that this collapse has already begun, that it has been going on for a while, and that climate change is only one aspect of it.[FN1]

Now, this realization might lead a person to throw up their hands and say “F@#k it!” And, in fact, there is a whole community of people called “Doomers” who seem to revel in the thought of collapse and make a pastime of nihilism.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

B.C.’s oil and gas royalty review must take climate action seriously

December 14, 2021

British Columbia’s recently updated climate plan, Roadmap to 2030, promises to integrate emissions goals into the oil and gas royalty system. But the province’s current royalty system review doesn’t include a design with environmental or climate outcomes in mind.

The policies proposed in the natural gas royalty discussion paper and the expert panel’s report follow an outdated policy approach that’s out of step with B.C.’s climate goals. The review is supposed to align royalties with the province’s revenue, sustainability and climate goals, but the five design objectives arbitrarily exclude the environment. As well, not one of the proposed royalty reforms addresses environmental objectives.

The public consultation phase of the natural gas royalty review process ends Dec. 10 and the outcome of the review is to be released in February.

As an economist studying royalties and emissions from the oil and gas industry in the U.S., I couldn’t help comparing the approaches across the two countries. The U.S. House of Representatives just took a step forward by passing a bill raising oil and gas royalties on public lands from the current 12.5 per cent to 18.75 per cent, which is closer to market rates.

B.C. has stronger climate policies than most American states, so one would expect the province to have a reasonable return for publicly owned oil and gas reserves. I thought 12.5 per cent was a low rate – private U.S. landowners typically get nearly 20 to 25 per cent – but B.C.’s rate was just 2.4 per cent last year, as determined by the recent independent assessment of the natural gas royalty program…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Against Doomsday Scenarios: What Is to Be Done Now?

December 14, 2021

Against Doomsday Scenarios: What Is to Be Done Now?

John Bellamy Foster is the editor of Monthly Review and a professor of sociology at the University of Oregon. John Molyneux edits the Irish Marxist Review, is a member of People Before Profit, is coordinator of the Global Ecosocialist Network, and has written widely on Marxism and ecosocialism. Owen McCormack is a longstanding socialist activist. He is a bus driver who has also worked as a parliamentary researcher for People Before Profit, with a special focus on ecology.

This interview took place in early October and first appeared in the November 2021 issue of the Irish Marxist Review under the title “The Planetary Emergency: What Is to Be Done Now?” It has been adapted for publication here.

John Molyneux and Owen McCormack: Given the extreme summer weather and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, just how bad are things now? What do you believe the time scale is for catastrophe and what do you think that catastrophe will look like? Are things worse than the IPCC report claims? Some, including Michael Mann, have warned against “doomsday scenarios” that might deter people from acting. In your view, are doomsday scenarios the truth that needs to be told?

John Bellamy Foster: We should of course avoid promoting “doomsday scenarios” in the sense of offering a fatalistic worldview. In fact, the environmental movement in general and ecosocialism in particular are all about combating the current trend toward ecological destruction. As UN general secretary António Guterres recently declared with respect to climate change, it is now “code red for humanity.” This is not a doomsday forecast but a call to action.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Modern Grand Solar Minimum will lead to terrestrial cooling

December 11, 2021

Modern Grand Solar Minimum will lead to terrestrial cooling

In this editorial I will demonstrate with newly discovered solar activity proxy-magnetic field that the Sun has entered into the modern Grand Solar Minimum (2020–2053) that will lead to a significant reduction of solar magnetic field and activity like during Maunder minimum leading to noticeable reduction of terrestrial temperature.

Sun is the main source of energy for all planets of the solar system. This energy is delivered to Earth in a form of solar radiation in different wavelengths, called total solar irradiance. Variations of solar irradiance lead to heating of upper planetary atmosphere and complex processes of solar energy transport toward a planetary surface.

The signs of solar activity are seen in cyclic 11-year variations of a number of sunspots on the solar surface using averaged monthly sunspot numbers as a proxy of solar activity for the past 150 years. Solar cycles were described by the action of solar dynamo mechanism in the solar interior generating magnetic ropes at the bottom of solar convective zone.

These magnetic ropes travel through the solar interior appearing on the solar surface, or photosphere, as sunspots indicating the footpoints where these magnetic ropes are embedded into the photosphere.

Magnetic field of sunspots forms toroidal field while solar background magnetic field forms poloidal field. Solar dynamo cyclically converts poloidal field into toroidal one reaching its maximum at a solar cycle maximum and then the toroidal field back to the poloidal one toward a solar minimum. It is evident that for the same leading polarity of the magnetic field in sunspots in the same hemisphere the solar cycle length should be extended to 22 years.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us

December 11, 2021

Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us

· Secret report warns of rioting and nuclear war
· Britain will be ‘Siberian’ in less than 20 years
· Threat to the world is greater than terrorism

Pentagon outside Washington, DC (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..

A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a ‘Siberian’ climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.

The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.

‘Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,’ concludes the Pentagon analysis. ‘Once again, warfare would define human life.’

The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush administration, which has repeatedly denied that climate change even exists. Experts said that they will also make unsettling reading for a President who has insisted national defence is a priority.

The report was commissioned by influential Pentagon defence adviser Andrew Marshall, who has held considerable sway on US military thinking over the past three decades. He was the man behind a sweeping recent review aimed at transforming the American military under Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Climate change ‘should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern’, say the authors, Peter Schwartz, CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of the California-based Global Business Network.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Tag Archives: climate change

Content

Post categories

Economic Links

Energy/Resource Links

Environmental Links

Geopolitical Links

Liberty Links

News Links

Other Links

Survival Skills

Post Archives by Category

Post navigation

Latest Posts