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Pinning down climate change’s role in extreme weather

April 27, 2024

Pinning down climate change’s role in extreme weather and did climate change contribute to the flooding in Dubai?

In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or any other disaster, because weather variability always plays a primary role in the genesis of the events.

However, climate change can make these events more intense and, given the non-linearities in the damages, this can vastly increase the damage and misery from extreme weather. So quantifying the role of climate change is therefore of great interest.

A graph showing 24 hour rainfall on 15 April in MSWEP observational data product. A red box indicates the study region. — intense rainfall over Dubai

To do this, scientists turn to extreme event attribution studies. These rely on three separate lines of evidence. The first is the observational record: If you have good observations of the climate over a long enough period, the data set can be statistically analyzed to determine whether the event in question is becoming more frequent as the climate warms.

But correlation does not prove causality, so you need the second line of evidence: a physical understanding of why a particular extreme is getting worse as the climate warms. It should be obvious to readers of this substack why, in a warmer world, we expect to get more frequent heat waves. This physical understanding adds to our conﬁdence that climate change is a factor in the occurrence of heat waves.

Finally, we look to computer simulations of the climate. The most common approach is to produce two different simulations of the climate: One simulation is of the real world, so it includes increasing greenhouse gases and a warming climate…

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

Europe’s historic temperature shift, from summer to winter in just one day

April 26, 2024

Europe’s historic temperature shift, from summer to winter in just one day

Europe has experienced one of the most rapid temperature flips on record in April 2024 — moving from numerous record-breaking summer-like temperatures at the beginning of the month to record-breaking late April records and frost. Climatologist Maximiliano Herrera said Europe has never seen a month like that extreme.

Temperatures across Europe during the first two weeks of April were marked by numerous record-high temperatures, with summer-like temperatures bringing the feeling of upcoming summer and promoting early blooming in many plants. However, this was followed by an abrupt weather reversal in mid-April, bringing unusually cold temperatures, freezing rain, and snow.

“Europe, the crib of meteorology, is experiencing its most extreme month ever seen,” said weather historian and climatologist Maximiliano Herrera.

Slovenia has become a notable example of this sharp climatic shift. On April 16, following more than ten days of summer-like weather with highs exceeding 30 °C (86 °F), the country reported a drastic change. Temperatures fell to icy levels accompanied by wind, rain, and snow, causing not only agricultural concerns but also traffic disruptions and minor damage from weather conditions.

As we reported on April 21, the most significant temperature drop was recorded in Podčetrtek, a town in eastern Slovenia, where temperatures fell from 27.2°C (81.0 °F) on the afternoon of April 15 to just 1 °C (33.8 °F) by 15:00 LT the following day, marking a record decline of 26.2 °C (47.2 °F).

A similar rapid temperature shift was recorded across central Europe, severely affecting the region’s agriculture, particularly fruit trees and vineyards now vulnerable after early blooming.

Winemakers in France and other affected regions fought frost with anti-frost candles, evoking a familiar scene that we’ve seen repeating over the past several years. This sequence marks yet another year where early-season warmth promoted plant blooming, only to be followed by a destructive frost.

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

Protect the Arctic Region: Already Threatened Arctic Ecology Can be Devastated Further by Rapid Militarization

April 26, 2024

Protect the Arctic Region: Already Threatened Arctic Ecology Can be Devastated Further by Rapid Militarization

The Arctic region is warming at twice the global rate, leading to rapid melting of ice–some have even predicted ice-free summers by year 2034. This has brought unprecedented threats to various species of the region including the polar bear. Some species are threatened by the shrinking, even vanishing habitats where they have always lived safely and happily, some are threatened by the fast reducing access to their staple food, while some are threatened by weather extremes.

Despite this there is still relentless march to exploit the vast natural resources of the region, including oil, natural gas, rare earth and other minerals. Partly due to the huge natural resources and partly due to strategic and geo-political reasons, big power confrontation in this remote region can also increase.

In fact melting of ice increases the possibility of higher exploitation of natural resources as well as carving out of new maritime routes with all its strategic and commercial implications. Another complication is the increasing confrontational situation of NATO and Russia which may get extended, tragically, even to the Arctic region with very heavy costs to ecology and to native people.

The Arctic region is spread over 8 countries, 7 of which are NATO members. These are USA, Canada, Iceland, Denmark (Greenland), Norway, Sweden and Finland. The eighth country is Russia.

While Russia has a well-established military presence here, this is largely defensive as Russia has important strategic interests to protect here spread over a vast area. With Finland and Sweden recently becoming NATO members and with the situation in Ukraine not working out to be favorable to NATO plans, the USA may just be tempted to try to create difficulties for Russia in this region…

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

0.04%: Small Does Not = Immaterial

April 26, 2024

0.04%: Small Does Not = Immaterial

Think CO2 Concentration at 0.04% is Low? These 10 Toxins are Deadly at Far Lower Concentrations.

Photo by Markus Spiske / Unsplash

If you follow me on Twitter , you’re probably familiar with the onslaught of nonsense from the anti-science crowd.

I’m fine with respectful, reasoned responses, but many of the arguments are insulting, childish or conspiratorial.

I know, if I were trying to win these people over I shouldn’t belittle them. But I’m not trying to win them over. There’s plenty of objective data showing why they’re wrong, but they choose to believe their feelings and political loudmouths instead of science. Nothing I do will change their minds. So I continue to make my observations about the world – take it or leave it.

Frankly, I don’t understand how these people have the time to scour Twitter for posts outside their world view. This brigade of deniers with nothing better to do has clearly gone through the same training program. They make the same points and share the same charts. Often, their ‘rebuttal’ has nothing to do with the original tweet. It’s like they’re blindly copy-pasting from their “how to be a science-denier” guidebook.

I usually ignore (or block) these comments, but once in a while something drives me nuts.

One argument I’ve heard on repeat recently is that CO2 is only 0.04% of the atmosphere, therefore it cannot affect the climate.

I’m being kind when I say this is a simplistic argument.

Small does not = immaterial.

To prove my point, here are 10 things that are deadly at levels far below 0.04% concentration:

Botulinum toxin: It can be lethal at about 1 nanogram per kilogram of body weight. This equates to incredibly minute concentrations, roughly 0.0000000001% in the body.
Ricin: A dose of about 22 micrograms per kilogram of body weight can be lethal. This is also a very low concentration, about 0.0000022%.

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

‘We were in disbelief’: Antarctica is behaving in a way we’ve never seen before. Can it recover?

April 25, 2024

A small boat glides around patches of sea ice in the water off Deception Island in Antarctica. Sea ice in the region grows from a minimum in summer to a maximum in winter, but in the last several years, the sea ice extent has been shrinking in summer. (Image credit: karenfoleyphotography / Alamy Stock Photo)

Look out over Antarctica in the summer, and time seems frozen. The South Pole’s midnight sun appears to hover in place, never dropping below the horizon for weeks between November and January.

But the Antarctic’s timelessness is an illusion. Only a decade ago, on summer nights across the coast, the sun would glide ever so slightly over the ocean, dusting its ice floes in golden light.

Yet today, much of this sea ice is nowhere in sight. And scientists are increasingly alarmed that it may never come back.

“Antarctica feels very distant, but the sea ice there matters so much to all of us,” Ella Gilbert, a polar climate scientist at the British Antarctic Survey, told Live Science. “It’s a really vital part of our climate system.”

Until recently, Antarctic sea ice fluctuated between relatively stable summer minimums and winter maximums. But after a record minimum in 2016, things began to shift. Two record lows soon followed, including the smallest minimum ever in February 2023 at just 737,000 square miles (1.91 million square kilometers).

As winter began in March of that year, scientists hoped the ice cover would rebound. But what happened instead astonished them: Antarctic ice experienced six months of record lows. At winter’s peak in July, the continent was missing a chunk of ice bigger than Western Europe.

Should we tweak the atmosphere to counteract global warming?

April 24, 2024

Should we tweak the atmosphere to counteract global warming?

With severe climate impacts becoming more and more apparent, many scientists think we should explore ways to block out solar radiation, but doing so would be risky.

Earlier this month, on the deck of a second world war aircraft carrier docked in San Francisco, a giant fan began spraying sea salt particles into the air.

A machine sprays sea salt particles from the flight deck of a decommissioned aircraft carrier in California to test a technique to make clouds brighter

New York Times/Redux/eyevine

Few people, beyond those on the ship and bystanders on the nearby dock, would have taken much notice of the resulting plume of salt spray drifting upwards.

But this fan, and the spray it pumps out, has global significance. It marks one of the first real-world trials of a climate intervention known as marine cloud brightening – essentially an attempt to cool the planet by making clouds more reflective, so that they bounce more of the sun’s energy back into space.

Our chances of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels are rapidly slipping away, with a recent analysis suggesting the world will burn through the remaining carbon budget for this temperature goal by 2029 or earlier.

Meanwhile, global temperatures rose to record levels in 2023. And that extreme heat has brought extreme impacts, with widespread coral reef bleaching, severe marine heatwaves and rapid glacier loss just some of the consequences. Time is running out, scientists agree, to avert disaster.

Could geoengineering buy us time to get our house in order?

Solar radiation modification (SRM) is a type of geoengineering that involves modifying the atmosphere to tweak how much of the sun’s radiation makes it to Earth. Essentially, it would involve pumping tiny reflective particles into the atmosphere to bounce more solar radiation back into space.

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

Europe is the fastest-warming continent, at nearly twice the average rate, report says

April 24, 2024

Europe is the fastest-warming continent, at nearly twice the average rate, report says

The latest 5-year averages show that temperatures in Europe are running 2.3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, compared to 1.3 degrees higher globally.

Residents walk along a footbridge as the sun sets during a heat wave in Ourense, Spain, on Aug. 8. Brais Lorenzo Couto / Bloomberg via Getty Images file

Europe is the fastest-warming continent and its temperatures are rising at roughly twice the global average, two top climate monitoring organizations reported Monday, warning of the consequences for human health, glacier melt and economic activity.

The U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization and the European Union’s climate agency, Copernicus, said in a joint report that the continent has the opportunity to develop targeted strategies to speed up the transition to renewable resources like wind, solar and hydroelectric power in response to the effects of climate change.

The continent generated 43% of its electricity from renewable resources last year, up from 36% the year before, the agencies say in their European State of the Climate report for last year. More energy in Europe was generated from renewables than from fossil fuels for the second year running.

The latest five-year averages show that temperatures in Europe are now running 2.3 degrees Celsius (4.1 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, compared to 1.3 degrees Celsius higher globally, the report says — just shy of the targets under the 2015 Paris climate accord to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Firefighters and volunteers work to extinguish a burning field during a wildfire in Saronida, Greece. — Firefighters and volunteers work to extinguish a burning field during a wildfire in Saronida, Greece, on July 17. Nick Paleologos / Bloomberg via Getty Images file

“Europe saw yet another year of increasing temperatures and intensifying climate extremes — including heat stress with record temperatures, wildfires, heat waves, glacier ice loss and lack of snowfall,” said Elisabeth Hamdouch, the deputy head of unit for Copernicus at the EU’s executive commission.

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

Understanding climate warming impacts on carbon release from the tundra

April 23, 2024

Understanding climate warming impacts on carbon release from the tundra

The warming climate shifts the dynamics of tundra environments and makes them release trapped carbon, according to a new study published in Nature. These changes could transform tundras from carbon sinks into carbon sources, exacerbating the effects of climate change.

A team of more than 70 scientists from different countries used so-called open-top chambers (OTCs) to experimentally simulate the effects of warming on 28 tundra sites around the world. OTCs basically serve as mini-greenhouses, blocking wind and trapping heat to create local warming.

The warming experiments led to a 1.4 degrees Celsius increase in air temperature and a 0.4 degrees increase in soil temperature, along with a 1.6 percent drop in soil moisture. These changes boosted ecosystem respiration by 30 percent during the growing season, causing more carbon to be released because of increased metabolic activity in soil and plants. The changes persisted for at least 25 years after the start of the experimental warming—which earlier studies hadn’t revealed.

“We knew from earlier studies that we were likely to find an increase in respiration with warming, but we found a remarkable increase—nearly four times greater than previously estimated, though it varied with time and location,” says Sybryn Maes of Umeå University, the study’s lead author.

The increase in ecosystem respiration also varied with local soil conditions, such as nitrogen and pH levels. This means that differences in soil conditions and other factors lead to geographic differences in the response—some regions will see more carbon release than others. Understanding the links between soil conditions and respiration in response to warming is important for creating better climate models.

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

Hidden threat: Global underground infrastructure vulnerable to sea-level rise

April 21, 2024

Hidden threat: Global underground infrastructure vulnerable to sea-level rise

As sea levels rise, coastal groundwater is lifted closer to the ground surface while also becoming saltier and more corrosive. A recent study by Earth scientists at the University of Hawai’i (UH) at Mānoa has compiled research from experts worldwide showing that in cities where there are complex networks of buried and partially buried infrastructure, interaction with this shallower and saltier groundwater exacerbates corrosion and failure of critical systems such as sewer lines, roadways, and building foundations.

The research is published in the journal Annual Review of Marine Science.

“While it has been recognized that shallowing groundwater will eventually result in chronic flooding as it surfaces, what’s less known is that it can start causing problems decades beforehand as groundwater interacts with buried infrastructure,” said Shellie Habel, lead author and coastal geologist in the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) at UH Mānoa. “This knowledge gap often results in coastal groundwater changes being fully overlooked in infrastructure planning.”

The research team aimed to create awareness about these issues and offer guidance from world experts on managing them. Habel and co-authors reviewed existing literature to examine the diverse effects on different types of infrastructure. Additionally, by employing worldwide elevation data and geospatial data that indicate the extent of urban development, they identified 1,546 low-lying coastal cities and towns globally, where around 1.42 billion people live, that are likely experiencing these impacts.

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

The Flooding Will Come “No Matter What”

April 14, 2024

The Flooding Will Come “No Matter What”

The complex, contradictory and heartbreaking process of American climate migration is underway.

This article is an excerpt from the book “On The Move: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America,” about climate migration in the U.S. For more, see abrahm.com.

Another great American migration is now underway, this time forced by the warming that is altering how and where people can live. For now, it’s just a trickle. But in the corners of the country’s most vulnerable landscapes — on the shores of its sinking bayous and on the eroding bluffs of its coastal defenses — populations are already in disarray.

A couple of miles west of downtown Slidell, Louisiana, and just upstream from the broad expanse of Lake Pontchartrain — the 40-by-24-mile-wide brackish estuary separating what is now the mainland from New Orleans — a five-room shotgun house sits on a plot of marshy lawn near the edge of Liberty Bayou. Colette Pichon Battle’s mother had been born in that house. Colette, bright-eyed and ambitious, devoutly Catholic, a force on the volleyball court, was raised in the house until the day she left for college. The family’s very identity had grown from the waters of the marsh around it. From a humble rectangle of wood, framed onto brick stanchions that kept it hovering several feet above the ground, shaded by the long beards of Spanish moss hanging from the limbs of towering oaks and a hardy pine, a family was born. Its Creole heritage near the acre of low-lying land goes deeper than the trees, deeper than the United States as a nation, to around 1770. Those roots withstood the tests of centuries: slavery, war and more than their share of storms.

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

Advances and challenges in understanding compound weather and climate extremes

March 16, 2024

Advances and challenges in understanding compound weather and climate extremes

storm — Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

In the context of global warming, many extremes, such as heat waves, heavy precipitation, and droughts, have become increasingly frequent and intense, as expected theoretically. Somewhat unexpectedly, these extremes have also exhibited tightened linkage in both time and space, constituting compound weather and climate extremes with larger impacts.

During the past decade, compound events received considerable attention, with much progress in event typology, impacts, changes and risks already made.

A study led by Prof. Zengchao Hao (College of Water Sciences, Beijing Normal University) and Prof. Yang Chen (State Key Laboratory of Severe Weather, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences) explores more than a dozen recent compound events. The paper is published in the journal Science China Earth Sciences.

By synthesizing nearly 350 peer-reviewed papers, the authors thoroughly documented definitions and impacts, physical mechanisms, and historical/future changes as well as attribution evidence with respect to 13 reported and relatively well-studied compound events. Some of these events are specific to East Asian monsoonal regions.

They also pointed out deficiencies and gaps in existing studies on each of these events. At the end of the review, they attempted to identify data and methodological challenges common to the field and came up with outlooks on the future directions of the emerging topic.

More specifically, they laid out their review by order of definition, mechanisms, changes, and attribution. For each of the reviewed events, the authors adopted an impact-centric approach to introduce the definition by illustrating how the fashion of compounding aggregated and amplified impacts. Distinct from previous reviews on some types of compound events focusing largely on long-term changes, the new review assigned a large volume of space to the underlying physical processes, especially from the dynamic (including monsoon dynamics) and multi-sphere interactive perspectives.

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

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XXIX–Are We Being Duped Regarding Global Warming?

November 20, 2023

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XXIX

August 17, 2021

Are We Being Duped Regarding Global Warming?

Today’s contemplation was prompted by an email my mum sent me. As she closes in on 80, I find that she’s becoming a bit more open-minded about things but remains somewhat of a skeptic when it comes to global warming/anthropogenic climate change. We periodically share thoughts on the state of the world, especially politics, and I think I’ve almost got her convinced to abandon her faith/trust in government…

Anyways, here is the comment about global warming she forwarded to me and my relatively quick response (typed up while I was engaged in replacing a floor/foundation for one of our greenhouses — I never considered a decade ago when I installed the first greenhouse, of three, that the mini-garden ties I was using to terrace our backyard would decay/rot so quickly so I am replacing them with concrete blocks and putting in a patio stone floor so that my eldest daughter who has taken over the greenhouse can have many years of use with it, hopefully). I have added some minor supplemental thoughts (in italics) and supporting links to a few sources (see endnotes).

Comment:

With global warming having become as much a political issue as a scientific inquiry, I went from wondering whether mankind might really be influencing the climate to someone questioning a science I do not understand. I am now worried we are being duped by people with an agenda, like keep the money gravy train running. No one has yet explained to my satisfaction the big ice age followed by warming then a mini-ice age, followed by warming, all before mankind was a significant presence on earth and did nothing but have a few campfires.

Response:

That human activity has an impact on our environment and ecological systems, I have little doubt. How could almost eight billion of us and our resource demands not? Especially the so-called ‘advanced’ economies[i]. There is growing evidence that shows that our industrial civilisation has surpassed several planetary biophysical limits and likely overloaded a number of the planet’s compensatory sinks due to the vast amounts of waste material produced in its quest to procure the minerals and energy that our tools require for their manufacture and pollutants produced through their use.[ii]

The issue with the focus on global warming/climate change/carbon emissions is multi-faceted —such stories are never as simple as we’re led to believe. Geologic history shows pretty clearly that the planet’s climate changes and probably most significantly as a result of the sun’s cycles.[iii]

Is human activity exacerbating natural cycles? Quite possibly[iv]. Is it as catastrophic as painted by some?[v] Only time can truly tell since modelling of complex systems is fraught with difficulties.[vi] One minor variation of one of many variables that are used to create future predictions can shift the eventual outcome significantly.[vii] Of course, humans don’t like uncertainty (which is really all that can be provided about the future — probabilistic scenarios that may or may not occur — no matter how complex one’s predictive model is) so we cling to and tend to believe forecasts that are at their root uncertain; their potential accuracy matters not.[viii]

One of the other complications of the narrative is that our ruling class always leverages crises to their advantage. Always. I have little doubt that the hyper focus on climate and carbon emissions is being used to pursue the ruling class’s primary motivation: control/expansion of the wealth-generating systems that provide their revenue streams.[ix]

The ‘problem’ of climate change is always presented with ‘solutions’ but those ‘solutions’ do not address carbon emissions in the least; in fact, there’s a good argument to be made that they actually increase them.[x] Much as the ruling class manufactures consent for any policy that the masses might question/reject (almost always via significant propaganda campaigns), they have created a narrative that is designed to persuade people to believe something that is increasingly being shown to be completely false and little more than marketing/sloganeering.[xi]

These ‘solutions’ also, conveniently, increase the revenue streams of the ruling class via taxes and complete replacement/overhaul of virtually all important technology (e.g., ‘renewable’ energy, electric vehicles, etc.). Scratch even gently below the surface of the ‘clean/green’ energy story and you discover it’s all basically bullshit.[xii] These technologies not only are not sustainable because of their dependence upon finite resources (including very much on the fossil fuel platform itself), but their production is hugely ecologically destructive. We are being sold a load of crap on various fronts so that the sociopaths that ‘control’ our world can profit. This being said, we do face some significant environmental and resource depletion challenges.

Probably the most dire predicament we face is ecological overshoot — too damn many people (especially living in ‘advanced’ economies) for a planet with finite resources.[xiii] The constant push for growth (which really is just to prolong/support the gargantuan Ponzi that our financial/economic/monetary systems have become) is the exact opposite of what we likely need to be doing; as is the push to ‘electrify’ everything.[xiv] The unfortunate thing for the future is that any species that overshoots its natural carrying capacity has only one way to be rebalanced: a massive die-off.[xv] When that occurs (and how it unfolds) is anybody’s guess…

As much as we tend to believe we understand our world and its complexities, I would contend we do not; at least, not very well. To compensate for this uncertainty we have developed all sorts of psychological mechanisms that lead us to believe particular narratives with some ‘certainty’. The beginning of a recent paper that challenges the mainstream story surrounding ‘renewable’ energy (that has been presented as a panacea for reducing carbon emissions; although I would argue Peak Oil is a more troubling issue in the energy needs of industrial civilisation[xvi]) is pertinent to this idea: “We begin with a reminder that humans are storytellers by nature. We socially construct complex sets of facts, beliefs, and values that guide how we operate in the world. Indeed, humans act out of their socially constructed narratives as if they were real. All political ideologies, religious doctrines, economic paradigms, cultural narratives — even scientific theories — are socially constructed “stories” that may or may not accurately reflect any aspect of reality they purport to represent. Once a particular construct has taken hold, its adherents are likely to treat it more seriously than opposing evidence from an alternate conceptual framework.”[xvii]

[i] https://archive.globalpolicy.org/social-and-economic-policy/the-environment/general-analysis-on-the-environment/45393-how-much-of-the-worlds-resource-consumption-occurs-in-rich-countries.html; https://www.livescience.com/20308-greedy-nations-top-resource-users-earth.html

[ii] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921800914001323; https://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/1259855.full; https://ideas.ted.com/the-9-limits-of-our-planet-and-how-weve-raced-past-4-of-them/; https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/research-news/2015-01-15-planetary-boundaries—an-update.html

[iii] https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/how-does-sun-affect-our-climate; https://phys.org/news/2017-03-sun-impact-climate-quantified.html

[iv] https://sciencing.com/what-human-activities-affect-the-carbon-cycle-12083853.html; https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth103/node/680; https://phys.org/news/2010-12-human-affect-carbon.html

[v] https://www.populationconnectionaction.org/2021/08/12/ipcc-catastrophic-climate-change-is-coming/; https://www.npr.org/2021/08/09/1025898341/major-report-warns-climate-change-is-accelerating-and-humans-must-cut-emissions-; https://mahb.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/deepadaptation.pdf

[vi] https://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/complexsystems/introduction.html; https://wtf.tw/ref/meadows.pdf

[vii] https://issues.org/climate-change-scenarios-lost-touch-reality-pielke-ritchie/?fbclid=IwAR1dbpSNqPXWr9QyfC-fDzlWrvfswO3LLZKj08szexcCb_7h7uRW2j7Qv54

[viii] https://www.amazon.com/Future-Babble-Pundits-Hedgehogs-Foxes/dp/0452297575

[ix] https://www.counterpunch.org/20 , 15/10/06/yes-there-is-an-imperialist-ruling-class/; https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_globalelite07.htm

[x] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2012/jan/09/wind-turbines-increasing-carbon-emissions; https://www.amazon.com/Life-after-Fossil-Fuels-Alternative/dp/3030703347; https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/opinion/mondaycop22-lower-co2-emissions-with-lower-carbon-solar-energy/

[xi] https://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0375714499; https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Edward-Bernays/dp/0970312598; https://planetofthehumans.com; https://www.brightgreenlies.com

[xii] https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/environmental-impacts-renewable-energy-technologies; https://www.e-education.psu.edu/eme807/node/715’ https://www.nap.edu/read/12619/chapter/7; https://www.altenergymag.com/article/2015/08/the-dark-side-of-renewable-energy-negative-impacts-of-renewables-on-the-environment/20963/; https://www.routledge.com/Environmental-Impacts-of-Renewable-Energy/Spellman/p/book/9781482249460; https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/the-environmental-impact-of-lithium-batteries/

[xiii] https://www.pnas.org/content/99/14/9266; https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/319810.Overshoot

[xiv] https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/our-economy-is-a-ponzi-scheme-8fc56b9e594f; https://eand.co/how-the-economy-became-one-giant-ponzi-scheme-4ac84bf18738; https://moneyweek.com/economy/global-economy/601657/why-our-economy-is-a-giant-ponzi-scheme

[xv] https://thesenecaeffect.wordpress.com/2014/12/01/humans-in-ecological-overshoot-collapse-now-to-avoid-a-larger-catastrophe/; https://www.earthovershoot.org/who-we-are/frequent-questions.html; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overshoot_(population)

[xvi] https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/29458/peak-oil-decline-coronavirus-economy/; https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/has-peak-oil-already-happened/; http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph240/liegl1/

[xvii] https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/15/4508/htm?fbclid=IwAR2ISt5shfV4wpFEc8jxbQnrrxyllyvZP-xDnoHhWrjGTQRIqUNfk3hOK1g

Future Headline: White House Prepares to Block Out the Sun

July 15, 2023

Future Headline: White House Prepares to Block Out the Sun

In a world full of unimaginable absurdity, we spend a lot of time thinking about the future… and to where all of this insanity leads.

“Future Headline Friday” is our satirical take of where the world is going if it remains on its current path. While our satire may be humorous and exaggerated, rest assured that everything we write is based on actual events, news stories, personalities, and pending legislation.

July 14, 2027: White House Prepares to Block Out the Sun

It has been four years since President Biden announced the “possible deployment” of Solar Radiation Modification back in 2023.

Solar Radiation Modification (SRM) is a way to partially block out the sun by flooding the earth’s atmosphere with special particles which reflect the sun’s rays, and therefore mitigate global warming.

The Biden administration approved funding to create the SRM in early 2024; and after more than three years of development, the system is now ready.

The 2023 White House report did state that “Gaps remain in our understanding of how SRM deployments might irreversibly alter the Earth’s climate system.”

However Acting President Kamala Harris says that she now understands everything she needs to know about deploying sun-blocking particles.

“We have to be thinking about what we think about, when we are thinking about the sun, and we think about the heat of the sun,” she recently explained. “That heat gets where it needs to go, and right now that’s the Earth. And that’s why global warming. It’s that basic.”

One reporter asked whether blocking out the sun would damage crop yields and agriculture, acting President Harris snapped back that cows are a major contributor to global warming, and their eradication through the SRM would force better dietary choices.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Science Snippets: “If We Start Right Now …”

July 14, 2023

Science Snippets: “If We Start Right Now …”

Every day, I receive an email message from at least one person with this line, or something like it: “If we start right now …” The message then goes on to say that, if we start right now, we can fix the climate emergency. We can preserve habitat for human animals if we start taking action, collectively, right now.

The latest message came from Bill, of course. Bill knows the message from the corporate media is nonsense. In fact, the content of Bill’s message was one line, followed by a link to an article in Axios. The line written by Bill was, “More hopium soaked BS.” Sure enough, the article in Axios was, and is, hopium-soaked BS. Here’s the title of the paper published 13 June 2023, and then I’ll describe and quote from the article: “Climate extremes raise questions, concerns about faster warming.”

The article begins with a figure of daily global average sea surface temperatures plotted over time. Included in the graph is the 1982-2011 average, as if that’s a reasonable baseline. It includes the average for this period and it highlights sea surface temperature for all of 2022 and the first half of 2023.

Early on, the article includes a section called The big picture. Here’s the big picture, which includes embedded links to four additional stories: “Global surface air and ocean temperatures have spiked sharply in recent months, along with record low Antarctic sea ice, extreme heat events around the world, as Canada’s heat and wildfire crisis grips North America. Along with other developments, the combination of these factors have raised alarms regarding whether climate change is accelerating.”

…click on the above link to read the rest…

It’s a Race: Will Human Extinction Result from a Loss of Aerosol Masking or Ongoing Overheating?

January 24, 2023

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