How Bad Is Global Warming?

Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff

Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby DrEvil » Thu Jul 20, 2017 4:01 pm

Thanks Iam!

The whole "it's natural!" argument is pure, gold-plated BS. If I'm not mistaken human contributions to the warming is actually over 100%. If it was just natural cycles we should be cooling right now, but try telling that to the dumb fuck denialists.

Their tactics can be summed up in one picture:
Image

At some point we should say enough and start putting these fuckers up against a (metaphorical) wall.
"I only read American. I want my fantasy pure." - Dave
User avatar
DrEvil
 
Posts: 3972
Joined: Mon Mar 22, 2010 1:37 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby Iamwhomiam » Fri Jul 21, 2017 1:53 pm

How much more water has passed under the bridge since this occurred in 2008?



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC3VTgIPoGU

More than you'd believe.

Two articles, the second an updated, corrected and annotated version of the first, both too long for posting.

The Uninhabitable Earth

Famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: What climate change could wreak — sooner than you think.

July 9, 2017 9:00 pm

By David Wallace-Wells

It is, I promise, worse than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible, even within the lifetime of a teenager today. And yet the swelling seas — and the cities they will drown — have so dominated the picture of global warming, and so overwhelmed our capacity for climate panic, that they have occluded our perception of other threats, many much closer at hand. Rising oceans are bad, in fact very bad; but fleeing the coastline will not be enough.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans-annotated.html
User avatar
Iamwhomiam
 
Posts: 6572
Joined: Thu Sep 27, 2007 2:47 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby stillrobertpaulsen » Mon Jul 31, 2017 4:36 pm

This is from CNN, so as usual, the immediacy is being soft-pedaled.

Earth to warm 2 degrees Celsius by the end of this century, studies say
Ashley Strickland-Profile-Image

By Ashley Strickland, CNN

Updated 12:44 PM ET, Mon July 31, 2017

(CNN)By the end of the century, the global temperature is likely to rise more than 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

This rise in temperature is the ominous conclusion reached by two different studies using entirely different methods published in the journal Nature Climate Change on Monday.

One study used statistical analysis to show that there is a 95% chance that Earth will warm more than 2 degrees at century's end, and a 1% chance that it's below 1.5 C.

"The likely range of global temperature increase is 2.0-4.9 [degrees Celsius] and our median forecast is 3.2 C," said Adrian Raftery, author of the first study. "Our model is based on data which already show the effect of existing emission mitigation policies. Achieving the goal of less than 1.5 C warming will require carbon intensity to decline much faster than in the recent past."

The second study analyzed past emissions of greenhouse gases and the burning of fossil fuels to show that even if humans suddenly stopped burning fossil fuels now, Earth will continue to heat up about two more degrees by 2100. It also concluded that if emissions continue for 15 more years, which is more likely than a sudden stop, Earth's global temperature could rise as much as 3 degrees.

"Even if we would stop burning fossil fuels today, then the Earth would continue to warm slowly," said Thorsten Mauritsen, author of the second study. "It is this committed warming that we estimate."

Taken together, the similar results present a grim reality.

"These studies are part of the emerging scientific understanding that we're in even hotter water than we'd thought," said Bill McKibben, an environmentalist not affiliated with either study. "We're a long ways down the path to disastrous global warming, and the policy response -- especially in the United States -- has been pathetically underwhelming."

Because both studies were completed before the United States left the Paris Agreement under President Trump earlier this year, that has not been accounted for in either study.

"Clearly the US leaving the Paris Agreement would make the 2 C or 1.5 C targets even harder to achieve than they currently are," said Raftery.

Why two degrees?

The 2 degree mark -- that's 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit -- was set by the 2016 Paris Agreement. It was first proposed as a threshold by Yale economist William Nordhaus in 1977. The climate has been warming since the burning of fossil fuels began in the late 1800s during the Industrial Revolution, researchers say.

If we surpass that mark, it has been estimated by scientists that life on our planet will change as we know it. Rising seas, mass extinctions, super droughts, increased wildfires, intense hurricanes, decreased crops and fresh water and the melting of the Arctic are expected.

The impact on human health would be profound. Rising temperatures and shifts in weather would lead to reduced air quality, food and water contamination, more infections carried by mosquitoes and ticks and stress on mental health, according to a recent report from the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health.

Currently, the World Health Organization estimates that 12.6 million people die globally due to pollution, extreme weather and climate-related disease. Climate change between 2030 and 2050 is expected to cause 250,000 additional global deaths, according to the WHO.

Our potential future

The first study used population, carbon emission and gross domestic product data from 152 countries (accounting for 98.7% of the world's population as of 2015) over the past 50 years to develop a new statistical model, said Raftery, a professor of statistics and sociology at the University of Washington.

Many studies come from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change and use climate model scenarios -- not forecasts -- to use as examples of what might happen, based on specific assumptions about economics, population and carbon emissions in the future.

"This leaves open the question of how likely they are, or whether they cover the range of possibilities," Raftery said. "In contrast, our results are statistically based and probabilistic, in that they aim to cover the range of likely outcomes."

What Raftery and his colleagues discovered is that population is not a factor.

"This is due to the fact that much of the expected future population growth will be in Africa, in countries whose carbon emissions are currently very low," Raftery said.

The study confirms conclusions of many other studies, said Bill Hare, director and senior scientists of nonprofit Climate Analytics. Hare was not affiliated with either study.

"This interesting paper confirms the conclusion about where the world is headed unless there is a major increase in the ambition of climate and energy policies," Hare said.

The other finding of the study suggests that achieving a goal of less than 1.5 Celsius warming would require carbon intensity to decline faster than it has in the past. "The whole purpose of climate and energy policy is to accelerate decarbonisation and this will necessarily be faster than what we have seen globally," Hare said.
Mauritsen, author of the second study and climate researcher at Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, also shared thoughts on Raftery's findings.

"It seems interesting in that it uses an economic statistical model that accounts for an increasing energy efficiency as societies develop," Mauritsen said. "It shows that the 1.5 to 2 degrees targets will not be met without additional mitigation, and suggests that a focus on energy efficiency is the best way forward."

The impact of our past

By combining observations of past global warming and how much heat and carbon is being captured and taken in by the ocean, Mauritsen and his co-author, Robert Pincus, found that even though CO2 has an incredibly long lifetime in the atmosphere, the ocean's absorption capacity may reduce estimates of global warming by 0.2 degrees Celsius.

They arrived at the "committed" warming of 1.3 Celsius by 2100, and the estimate including the ocean factor is 1.1 degrees Celsius. But that is still nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit: 1.8, to be precise.

"What the study is not concerned with is how future emissions might develop," Mauritsen said. "This is a societal problem where we as physical scientists have fairly little to add. These future emissions will, however, add warming on top of the already committed warming and so our study can act as a baseline for estimating how far we are from reaching various temperature targets."

Hare also found this study to be consistent with previous papers on global temperatures on the rise.
"It shows, in effect, that unless we start reducing emissions quickly -- soon there is a risk that we will overshoot temperature limits like 1.5 or 2 degrees C," Hare said. "It is just another confirmation of how dangerous the present situation is unless CO2 emissions, which have flatlined in the last few years, really start dropping.

"This addresses a somewhat different question, namely how much warming should we expect if fossil fuel emissions were to suddenly cease," Raftery said. "In contrast, our study tries to assess how much warming we should expect given realistic future trajectories of emissions. Thus the other study provides a lower bound on expected emissions and warming, and this is indeed lower than the likely range we find, as we would expect."

What can be done?

Researchers know that if there is any hope of preventing the outcomes they include in their findings, changing public policy is key.

"The next few years are going to be key in the fight against global warming," said Dargan Frierson, co-author of the first study. "Are we going to get to work installing clean energy, or stick to old polluting sources? If we don't act quickly, we better get to work preparing for many severe consequences of a much hotter world."

"There are only two realistic paths toward avoiding long-run disaster: increased financial incentives to avoid greenhouse gas emissions and greatly increased funding for research that will lead to at least partial technological fixes," said Dick Startz, economist and co-author of the second study. "Neither is free. Both are better than the catastrophe at the end of the current path."

Silver linings and hope are hard to find in climate change studies, but they also don't account for every factor.
"The only bright point is that, as the study authors say, they haven't factored in the plummeting cost of solar power," McKibben said. "That's the one way out we still might take -- but only if our governments take full advantage of the breakthroughs our engineers have produced."
"Huey Long once said, “Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism.” I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security."
-Jim Garrison 1967
User avatar
stillrobertpaulsen
 
Posts: 2414
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2009 2:43 pm
Location: California
Blog: View Blog (37)

Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby seemslikeadream » Tue Aug 01, 2017 8:16 am

Tomgram: Michael Klare,

Spreading the Cult of Carbon

Posted by Michael Klare at 3:51pm, July 30, 2017.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter @TomDispatch.


When you think about it, isn’t it strange that Donald Trump doesn’t represent the historical norm, that Americans have never before elected a P.T. Barnum president (though Barnum did become the mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut)? After all, as I wrote of Trump during the 2016 election campaign, “What could be more American than his two major roles: salesman (or pitchman) and con artist?” Americans have always loved a con man -- something Hillary Clinton and her advisers somehow never quite grasped.

Trump was always, at heart, both the pitchman of, and a con artist for, American abundance, or rather for a particularly American version of conspicuous consumption. Hence, the reported $7 million in gold leaf in the Louis XIV-style ballroom at his Mar-a-Lago private club, the gold-plated bathroom fixtures on his plane, the gold-plated helicopter he owned, the $100 bottles of Trump 24K Super Premium Vodka with a 24-karat gold “T” on the label, and of course his name skylined across the planet in giant golden letters. Hence also his ability to convince others of his success, even when his casinos cratered -- he still made millions off them, leaving his investors holding the bag -- his magazine floundered, his steaks went to the dogs, his airlines barely got off the ground, and Trump University’s triumph lay in the number of lawsuits it produced (and the Mexican-American judge he defamed). Consider this not failure, but Donald Trump in his prime.

So it’s strange that, in the thunderstorm of media coverage of President Trump -- never has any president sucked the air out of the media room this way -- his greatest pitch and what may be the greatest selling scam in history has gotten so little attention in these last six months. I’m talking about his scheme, as reported by TomDispatch regular Michael Klare today, to open the gold-plated spigot on American fossil fuels and sell the country’s oil and natural gas abroad in far greater quantities than at present.

In the past, the pain Trump caused had its limits (though tell that to those casino investors or the “students” of Trump University). Even Trumpcare, which -- were it ever to come to be, leaving the health of millions in tatters -- would only wound some, not all. On the other hand, convincing the world that this is the moment to burn yet more American fossil fuels and so release yet more carbon emissions into an already overheating atmosphere, if carried off “successfully,” might prove the greatest scam in history. The pain from it would be beyond measure, since it would damage the very environment that has proven, for all these millennia, so welcoming to humanity. It would, in short, represent an all-too-conspicuous consumption -- of pain. Let Klare explain. Tom

America’s Carbon-Pusher in Chief

Trump’s Fossil-Fueled Foreign Policy

By Michael T. Klare

Who says President Trump doesn’t have a coherent foreign policy? Pundits and critics across the political spectrum have chided him for failing to articulate and implement a clear international agenda. Look closely at his overseas endeavors, though, and one all-too-consistent pattern emerges: Donald Trump will do whatever it takes to prolong the reign of fossil fuels by sabotaging efforts to curb carbon emissions and promoting the global consumption of U.S. oil, coal, and natural gas. Whenever he meets with foreign leaders, it seems, his first impulse is to ply them with American fossil fuels.

His decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, which obliged this country to reduce its coal consumption and take other steps to curb its carbon emissions, was widely covered by the American mainstream news media. On the other hand, the president’s efforts to promote greater fossil fuel consumption abroad -- just as significant in terms of potential harm to the planet -- have received remarkably little attention.

Bear in mind that while Trump’s drive to sabotage international efforts to curb carbon emissions will undoubtedly slow progress in that area, it will hardly stop it. At the recent G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, 19 of the leaders of the world’s 20 largest economies reaffirmed their commitment to the Paris accord and pledged to “mitigate greenhouse gas emissions through, among other [initiatives], increased innovation on sustainable and clean energies.” This means that whatever Trump does, continuing innovation in the energy field will indeed help reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and so slow the advance of climate change. Unfortunately, Trump’s relentless drive to promote fossil-fuel consumption abroad could ensure that carbon emissions continue to rise anyway, neutralizing whatever progress might be made elsewhere and dooming humanity to a climate-ravaged future.

How the two sides of the ledger -- green energy progress versus Trump’s drive to boost carbon exports -- will balance out in the years ahead cannot be foreseen. Every boost in carbon emissions, however, pushes us closer to the moment when global temperatures will exceed the two degrees Celsius rise from pre-industrial levels that scientists say is the maximum the planet can absorb without suffering catastrophic consequences. Those would include rising sea levels that could drown New York, Miami, Shanghai, London, and many other coastal cities, as well as a sharp drop in global food production that could devastate entire populations.

Spreading the Cult of Carbon

President Trump’s pursuit of increased global carbon consumption is proving to be a two-front campaign. He’s working in every way imaginable to increase the production of fossil fuels domestically, even as he engages in a diplomatic blitzkreig to open doors to American fossil-fuel exports abroad.

At home, he’s already reversed numerous Obama-era restrictions on fossil fuel extraction, including curbs on mountaintop removal -- an environmentally hazardous form of coal mining -- and on oil and gas drilling in Arctic waters off Alaska. He’s also ordered the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Scott Pruitt -- a notorious enemy of environmental regulations opposed by the energy industry -- to dismantle the Clean Power Plan, President Obama’s program to sharply reduce the use of coal in domestic electricity generation.

These and similar initiatives have gotten a fair amount of media attention already, but it’s no less important to focus on another key aspect of Trump’s pro-carbon global initiative which has gone largely unnoticed. While, under the Paris climate accord, the other industrial powers are still obliged to help developing countries install carbon-free energy technologies, Trump has freed himself to sell American fossil fuels everywhere to his heart’s content. At that G-20 meeting, for example, he forced his peers to insert a clause in their final communiqué stating, “The United States of America states it will endeavor to work closely with other countries to help them access and use fossil fuels more cleanly and efficiently.” (The “more cleanly and efficiently” was undoubtedly his modest concession to the other 19 leaders.)

To spread the mantra of fossil fuels, Trump has become the nation’s carbon-pusher in chief. He’s already personally engaged in energy diplomacy, while demanding that various cabinet officials make oil, gas, and coal exports a priority. On June 29th, for instance, he publicly ordered the Treasury Department to do away with “barriers to the financing of highly efficient overseas coal energy plants.” In the same speech, he spoke of his desire to supply American coal to Ukraine, currently cut off from Russian natural gas thanks to its ongoing conflict with that country. “Ukraine already tells us they need millions and millions of metric tons [of coal] right now,” Trump said, pointing out that there are many other countries in a similar state, “and we want to sell it to them, and to everyone else all over the globe who needs it.”

He added, “We are a top producer of petroleum and the number-one producer of natural gas. We have so much more than we ever thought possible, and we’re going to be an exporter... We will export American energy all over the world, all around the globe.”

In his urge to preserve the reign of fossil fuels, President Trump has already taken on a unique personal role, meeting with foreign officials and promoting cooperation with key American energy firms. Take the June 26th White House visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. While the media reported on how the two of them took up the subject of future arms sales to India, it made no mention of energy deals. Yet Secretary of Energy Rick Perry revealed that this topic was crucial to their encounter. At a Trump-hosted dinner for Modi at the White House, Perry reported, “we talked about the three areas of which there will be great back-and-forth cooperation -- deal-making, if you will. One of those is in LNG [liquefied natural gas]. The other side of that is in clean coal. Thirdly is on the nuclear side. So there is great opportunity for India and the United States to become even stronger allies, stronger partners -- energy being the glue that will hold that partnership together for a long, long time.”

To put this in context, making deals to sell coal to India is like selling OxyContin to an opioid addict. After all, in 2015, that country overtook the United States to become the world’s second-biggest consumer of coal (after China). To keep up the pace of its rapid economic growth, India had plans to increase its reliance on coal yet more, which would mean a steady increase in carbon emissions. India now trails only China and the United States as an emitter of carbon dioxide and its share is expected to grow. However, it is also likely to suffer disproportionately from climate change, which its emissions will only accelerate. Given that future extreme heat events are expected to periodically destroy crops on which a large part of its population depends, Modi’s government has recently begun seeking ways to reduce the country’s long-term reliance on fossil fuels, in part by becoming a solar superpower. In other words, in pitching coal to India -- a true case of bringing coals to Newcastle (or at least Mumbai) -- Trump is functionally working to sabotage India’s struggle to free itself from the scourge of carbon addiction.

He similarly pushed fossil-fuel exports in his first encounter with newly elected South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Not surprisingly, press coverage of the event highlighted their discussions about the nuclear threat posed by North Korea. Some reports also noted that trade issues came up, but none mentioned energy matters. Yet, shortly before his state dinner with Moon, Trump announced that a U.S. company, Sempra Energy, had just that day signed an agreement to sell more American natural gas to South Korea. “And, as you know,” he added, “the leaders of South Korea are coming to the White House today, and we’ve got a lot of discussion to do, but we will also be talking about them buying energy from the United States of America, and I’m sure they’ll like to do it.” In other words, the president has made it eminently clear how foreign leaders in need of American support can please him.

His first overseas trips have also featured versions of such pitchmanship. During his visit to Saudi Arabia in May, he evidently sought to promote cooperation between U.S. and Saudi energy firms. Again, press coverage of his meeting with Saudi King Salman highlighted other topics, notably the war on terror, the regional divide between Sunnis and Shiites, and new Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s hard line on Iran. But the two of them did, in fact, issue a statement affirming “the importance of investment in energy by companies in both countries, and the importance of coordinating policies that ensure the stability of markets and an abundance of supplies.” Where this might lead is anyone’s guess, but presumably to a commitment to the continued dominance of petroleum in the world’s future energy markets.

On the subject of his two meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 summit (at the second of these without even an American translator), we obviously know far less. It is, however, reasonable to assume that his interest in improving ties with Russia is at least partially energy-focused. During the first of those conversations, Trump was accompanied only by a translator and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson who, as CEO of ExxonMobil, had inked energy deals with Rosneft, the Russian state-owned oil giant, and lobbied against the imposition of sanctions on Russia’s energy sector. (Those deals are now being investigated by the Treasury Department as possible violations of government-mandated sanctions then in effect.) Five days later, while flying to Paris on Air Force One, Trump told reporters that he would like to meet again with Putin, once that became politically feasible, adding, “and, by the way, I only want to make great deals with Russia.”

To further boost the export of U.S. fossil fuels abroad, Trump has also leaned on various government agencies to facilitate such efforts. In a talk he gave on June 29th to energy company officials at the Department of Energy, for example, the president hailed its approval of two long-term projects to promote U.S. energy abroad: the export of additional natural gas from a terminal in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and plans to construct a new oil pipeline to Mexico -- about which, he assured listeners, “It will go right under the wall, right?... You know, a little like this [gesticulating]. Right under the wall.”

And keep in mind that we are undoubtedly catching no more than a glimpse of Trump’s efforts to promote the sale of American oil, coal, and natural gas abroad. From what little has been reported on the subject in his meetings with Prime Minister Modi, President Moon, and King Salman, it’s reasonable to assume that the topic has come up in most of his conversations with foreign leaders and represents a far more significant aspect of his international policymaking than generally realized.

American Energy Dominance

Don’t imagine, however, that Trump’s fossil-fueled salesmanship is primarily driven by a desire to enrich American energy firms (though he would undoubtedly consider that a plus). It’s clearly motivated by a deeper, more visceral set of urges. Still trapped in his memories of his 1950s childhood when gas-guzzling American cars were a prominent symbol of national wealth and power, he has a deep belief in the capacity of fossil fuels to propel and sustain the country’s global dominance. He often recalls that formative period in his musings, describing it as a golden age when America won all its wars and was dominant on the world stage. For him, oil equals vigor equals national ascendancy, and no other countries -- least of all an international community united behind the Paris climate accord -- should be able to deprive the U.S. of its carbon fix.

All this was implicit in that Energy Department speech, which offered a genuine window into his thinking on the subject. Here’s the crucial passage, delivered in his usual extemporaneous style:

“Our country is blessed with extraordinary energy abundance... We have nearly 100 years’ worth of natural gas and more than 250 years’ worth of clean, beautiful coal... We have so much more than we ever thought possible. We are really in the driving seat. And you know what? We don’t want to let other countries take away our sovereignty and tell us what to do and how to do it. With these incredible resources, my administration will seek not only American energy independence that we’ve been looking for so long, but American energy dominance.”

Trump’s personal fascination with symbols of excess -- think of those giant golden letters over his properties -- is evident in that monologue. It’s clear that he’s been especially taken with breakthroughs in the enhancement of American energy abundance, especially the success of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. That process has liberated vast quantities of oil and natural gas from previously unusable shale formations. Prior to the introduction of fracking, oil and gas production in the United States had been in decline, but thanks to what’s been termed the “shale revolution,” production has soared. In July 2017, at 9.4 million barrels per day, U.S. crude oil output was up 68% over six years earlier, when production was running at just 5.6 million barrels per day. Natural gas has registered a similar leap. All this, in turn, generated -- at least for a time -- a feeling of euphoria in the oil and gas industry, with some pundits even dubbing this country “Saudi America” and portraying it as a new energy El Dorado.

As this sense of euphoria took hold, American energy analysts began viewing the explosion of domestic hydrocarbon output as a crucial source of geopolitical clout. The immense flood of cheap natural gas has “boosted U.S. economic competitiveness,” said Robert Manning of the Atlantic Council typically enough, “and by extension, U.S. comprehensive national power, and U.S. capacity for global leadership.” Think of it as Viagra for Washington policymakers.

Recently, however, some of this euphoria has dissipated as bargain-basement oil and gas prices, the inevitable consequence of overproduction, have been eating into corporate profits and forcing some over-exposed energy companies to declare bankruptcy. Trump’s belief in the ability of petroleum to enhance America’s global clout has, however, clearly been unshaken. “We’ve got underneath us more oil than anybody,” he declared in a conversation with journalists aboard Air Force One on July 12th. “And I want to use it.”

Whatever the sources of his fascination with fossil fuels, six months into his presidency one thing is clear: he’s determined to spread the cult of American carbon internationally and this urge has already become a defining theme of his foreign policy, even if the mainstream media, despite its deluge of Trump-centered coverage, has hardly noticed.

A New American Legacy

Previous American presidents have sought fame through the promotion of freedom, democracy, and human rights abroad. In fact, virtually every formal presidential expression of foreign policy in the post-Cold War era has ritualistically identified those values as America’s greatest exports (whatever values Washington was actually exporting). Not so for Donald Trump, however. What he seeks to export are habit-forming, climate-altering hydrocarbons.

It remains to be seen how successful his drive to spread the cult of carbon will be. As time goes on and the effects of climate change intensify in a warming world, more countries will undoubtedly begin to focus on easing or even ending their reliance on fossil fuels and promoting carbon-free alternatives. Market forces will play a crucial role in this process, since the price of renewable energy -- especially solar -- has been dropping quickly and is already, in certain circumstances, a cheaper way to go than using coal to generate electricity.

Even if Trump’s fossil-fueled scheming doesn’t succeed in the long run, he will undoubtedly ensure that more greenhouse gases enter the planet’s atmosphere, meaning that temperatures will continue to climb and punishing droughts and heat waves will become ever more the new global norm.

It's time to give his snake-oil-style energy salesmanship and the future environmental destruction that will accompany it the attention they deserve. If humanity is to have any chance to survive the planetary warming to come in reasonable shape, all the American carbon Trump hopes to sell to foreigners has to stay in the ground.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176313/ ... rbon/#more
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
Blog: View Blog (83)

Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby Burnt Hill » Sun Aug 06, 2017 12:33 pm

Methane-eating bacteria in lake deep beneath Antarctic ice sheet may reduce greenhouse gas emissions

nsf.gov
Samples from subglacial Lake Whillans indicate ecosystem acts as 'methane biofilter'

July 31, 2017
An interdisciplinary team of researchers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) has concluded that bacteria in a lake 800 meters (2,600 feet) beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet may digest methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, preventing its release into the atmosphere.
As part of the NSF-funded Whillans Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling (WISSARD) project, the researchers successfully drilled through the ice sheet in 2013 to reach Lake Whillans. They retrieved water and sediment samples from a body of water that had been isolated from direct contact with the atmosphere for many thousands of years.
The prevalence of methane-consuming bacteria in the upper lake sediment suggests a "methane biofilter" prevents the gas from entering the subglacial water, where it can eventually drain into the ocean and be released into the atmosphere. The bacteria obtain energy from digesting the methane.
The team, which includes researchers from Montana State University, Louisiana State University and Aberystwyth University in Wales, used a combination of measurements of methane concentrations and genomic analyses to describe how lake bacteria chemically convert methane in a way that reduces the warming potential of subglacial gases during ice sheet retreats.
The scientists say that if their analysis is correct, it could mean that a large reservoir of methane thought to lie under the vast West Antarctic Ice Sheet -- which encompasses 25.4 million cubic kilometers (6.1 million cubic miles) of ice -- is less likely to be released into the atmosphere.
They also note that because methane is such a potent greenhouse gas, "understanding its global sources, sinks and feedbacks within the climate system is of considerable importance" to the scientific understanding of the larger global climate picture.
The team published its results today in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Their findings describe how biological processes in the sediments at the lake bottom transform the methane into carbon dioxide. This area, where the water meets the lake bottom, may be vital to the success of ecosystems of subglacial lakes, which are permanently cut off from atmospheric heat and sunlight.
"Not only is this important for the global climate, but methane oxidation could be a widespread means of life for microbes in the deep, permanently cold biosphere beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet," said Alexander Michaud of Montana State University, the lead author on the paper.
Studies of subglacial lakes may contain clues as to how microbial life might persist in the outer solar system, where ice-covered moons orbit the larger planets.
In recent decades, researchers, primarily using airborne radar and satellite laser observations, have discovered a continental system of rivers and lakes -- some similar in size to North America's Great Lakes -- beneath the Antarctic ice sheet.
Only a small portion of these lakes have been explored, largely to prevent contamination of a pristine ecosystem that may be interconnected in unknown ways. WISSARD researchers used a specially designed hot-water drill to make certain that the subglacial environment would remain pristine, and to prevent contamination of samples.
Results presented in the Lake Whillans paper imply that a vast microbial ecosystem capable of transforming key geochemical elements lies beneath the Antarctic ice sheet.
The WISSARD project was preceded by ongoing field research that began as early as 2007 to place this individual lake in context with the larger subglacial water system. The NSF's U.S. Antarctic Program funded, and provided the complex logistics, for those investigations and the sampling of Lake Whillans.
"It took more than a decade of scientific and logistical planning to collect the first clean samples from an Antarctic subglacial environment, but the results have transformed the way we view the Antarctic continent," said John Priscu of Montana State University, a co-author on the paper.
In addition to Michaud and Priscu, the research team included Trista Vick-Majors, John Dore and Mark Skidmore from Montana State University; Amanda Achberger and Brent Christner from Louisiana State University; and Andy Mitchell from Aberystwyth University in Wales.
-NSF-
Media Contacts
Peter West, NSF, (703) 292-7530, pwest@nsf.gov
Evelyn Boswell, Montana State University, (406) 994-5135, evelynb@montana.edu
Co-Investigators
John Priscu, Montana State University, (406) 994-3250, jpriscu@montana.edu
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering. In fiscal year (FY) 2017, its budget is $7.5 billion. NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000 colleges, universities and other institutions. Each year, NSF receives more than 48,000 competitive proposals for funding and makes about 12,000 new funding awards.
User avatar
Burnt Hill
 
Posts: 2584
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2006 7:42 pm
Location: down down
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby seemslikeadream » Tue Aug 08, 2017 11:10 am

Scientists Leak Study on Global Heating Impact b4 Trump can Suppress it
By Juan Cole | Aug. 8, 2017 |

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – –
A draft report on the current impact of global heating on the United States, produced by 13 Federal agencies, has been leaked to the New York Times. The scientists who leaked it are afraid that the anti-science Trump administration will suppress the findings to help its friends in Big Oil.
One of its central findings is that man-made climate change (driving your car, air-conditioning your house on fossil fuels so that you release toxic CO2) is already having an impact on the United States. For instance, the West is hotter, which exacerbates droughts.
One of the findings that alarmed me is that just in the next few decades average temperatures in the US will go up 2.5 degrees F. But by 2100, only 80 years from now, the average temperature will be 5 to 8.5 degrees F. higher! Remember, average surface temperature includes the cold Great Lakes and cold North Dakota. So in any particular place, say Savannah or Atlanta or Phoenix, the temperature could go up even higher than 8.5 degrees F. The scientists are saying that unusual record temperatures will become normal. Some whole cities (we’re looking at you, Tucson) could become uninhabitable in the old age of my grandchildren!
Screen Shot 2017-08-08 at 3.08.58 AM
The report says,
“The world has warmed (globally and annually averaged surface air temperature ) by about 1.6 °F (0.9°C) over the last 150 years (1865 – 2015), and the spatial and temporal non-uniformity of the warming has triggered many other changes to the Earth’s climate.
*Evidence for a changing climate abounds, from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans.
*Thousands of studies conducted by tens of thousands of scientists around the world have documented changes in surface, atmospheric, and oceanic temperatures;
*melting glaciers;
*disappearing snow cover; shrinking sea ice; rising sea level; and an increase in atmospheric water vapor.
*Many lines of evidence demonstrate that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse (heat-trapping) gases, are primarily responsible for recent observed climate changes.
*The last few years have also seen record-breaking, climate-related, weather extremes,
*as well as the warmest years on record for the globe.
In the beginning of the Executive Summary, the government scientists have managed to refute all the talking points of their current ignoramus or venal bosses, Donald Trump and Scott Pruitt. And a simple little chart shows that the idea that there hasn’t been dramatic heating already (especially in the American West) is daft:
heating
The report is good on regional differences. The US Northeast has had an unusual amount of heavy precipitation lately. These extreme rain events and the consequent danger of flooding will increase.
The West, in contrast, risks long-term drought and declining snow packs.
The oceans around the US are rising, warming and becoming more acidic. You take a Gulf coast fishing town and this is bad news. The town itself could be flooded out and disappear. Warmer Gulf waters mean more extreme hurricanes, so it could be leveled. And an acidic ocean will kill off a lot of the fish on which they depend.
The report is concrete, careful and scarier than any horror movie you’ve ever seen. It gives upper and lower estimates, depending on whether humankind gets its act together. Given the oil-drenched buffoons now in charge, you’d want to bet on the higher and more dangerous numbers in each case.
Appendix:
Let’s see if my coding abilities are up to embedding the report here:
https://www.juancole.com/2017/08/scient ... press.html
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
Blog: View Blog (83)

Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby Iamwhomiam » Tue Aug 08, 2017 12:09 pm

User avatar
Iamwhomiam
 
Posts: 6572
Joined: Thu Sep 27, 2007 2:47 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby seemslikeadream » Tue Aug 08, 2017 12:19 pm

US federal department is censoring use of term 'climate change', emails reveal

Exclusive: series of emails show staff at Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service advised to reference ‘weather extremes’ instead
california drought


Among the ‘intense weather events’ qualifying as climate change under the advice in the email chain is drought. Photograph: David Mcnew/AFP/Getty Images

Oliver Milman in New York
@olliemilman
Monday 7 August 2017 11.43 EDT Last modified on Tuesday 8 August 2017 02.53 EDT
Staff at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) have been told to avoid using the term climate change in their work, with the officials instructed to reference “weather extremes” instead.

A series of emails obtained by the Guardian between staff at the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), a USDA unit that oversees farmers’ land conservation, show that the incoming Trump administration has had a stark impact on the language used by some federal employees around climate change.


A missive from Bianca Moebius-Clune, director of soil health, lists terms that should be avoided by staff and those that should replace them. “Climate change” is in the “avoid” category, to be replaced by “weather extremes”. Instead of “climate change adaption”, staff are asked to use “resilience to weather extremes”.

The primary cause of human-driven climate change is also targeted, with the term “reduce greenhouse gases” blacklisted in favor of “build soil organic matter, increase nutrient use efficiency”. Meanwhile, “sequester carbon” is ruled out and replaced by “build soil organic matter”.

Firefighters battle a wildfire in California.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest
Firefighters battle a wildfire in California. Photograph: Noah Berger/AP
In her email to staff, dated 16 February this year, Moebius-Clune said the new language was given to her staff and suggests it be passed on. She writes that “we won’t change the modeling, just how we talk about it – there are a lot of benefits to putting carbon back in the sail [sic], climate mitigation is just one of them”, and that a colleague from USDA’s public affairs team gave advice to “tamp down on discretionary messaging right now”.

In contrast to these newly contentious climate terms, Moebius-Clune wrote that references to economic growth, emerging business opportunities in the rural US, agro-tourism and “improved aesthetics” should be “tolerated if not appreciated by all”.


Trump is deleting climate change, one site at a time
Read more
In a separate email to senior employees on 24 January, just days after Trump’s inauguration, Jimmy Bramblett, deputy chief for programs at the NRCS, said: “It has become clear one of the previous administration’s priority is not consistent with that of the incoming administration. Namely, that priority is climate change. Please visit with your staff and make them aware of this shift in perspective within the executive branch.”

Bramblett added that “prudence” should be used when discussing greenhouse gases and said the agency’s work on air quality regarding these gases could be discontinued.

Other emails show the often agonized discussions between staff unsure of what is forbidden. On 16 February, a staffer named Tim Hafner write to Bramblett: “I would like to know correct terms I should use instead of climate changes and anything to do with carbon ... I want to ensure to incorporate correct terminology that the agency has approved to use.”

On 5 April, Suzanne Baker, a New York-based NRCS employee, emailed a query as to whether staff are “allowed to publish work from outside the USDA that use ‘climate change’”. A colleague advises that the issue be determined in a phone call.

Some staff weren’t enamored with the new regime, with one employee stating on an email on 5 July that “we would prefer to keep the language as is” and stressing the need to maintain the “scientific integrity of the work”.

In a statement, USDA said that on 23 January it had issued “interim operating procedures outlining procedures to ensure the new policy team has an opportunity to review policy-related statements, legislation, budgets and regulations prior to issuance”.

The statement added: “This guidance, similar to procedures issued by previous administrations, was misinterpreted by some to cover data and scientific publications. This was never the case and USDA interim procedures will allow complete, objective information for the new policy staff reviewing policy decisions.”

Kaveh Sadeghzadeh of the Natural Resources Conservation Service added that his organisation “has not received direction from USDA or the administration to modify its communications on climate change or any other topic”.

Trump's planned EPA cuts will hit America's most vulnerable
Mustafa Santiago Ali
Read more
Trump has repeatedly questioned the veracity of climate change research, infamously suggesting that it is part of an elaborate Chinese hoax. The president has started the process of withdrawing the US from the Paris climate agreement, has instructed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to scrap or amend various regulations aimed at cutting greenhouse gases, and has moved to open up more public land and waters to fossil fuel activity.

The nomenclature of the federal government has also shifted as these new priorities have taken hold. Mentions of the dangers of climate change have been removed from the websites of the White House and the Department of the Interior, while the EPA scrapped its entire online climate section in April pending a review that will be “updating language to reflect the approach of new leadership”.


The series of emails. Some parts were redacted before the emails were released. The Guardian has further redacted phone numbers, and highlighted key passages.
“These records reveal Trump’s active censorship of science in the name of his political agenda,” said Meg Townsend, open government attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity.

“To think that federal agency staff who report about the air, water and soil that sustains the health of our nation must conform their reporting with the Trump administration’s anti-science rhetoric is appalling and dangerous for America and the greater global community.”

The Center for Biological Diversity is currently suing several government agencies, including the EPA and state department, to force them to release information on the “censoring” of climate change verbiage.

While some of the changes to government websites may have occurred anyway, the emails from within the USDA are the clearest indication yet that staff have been instructed to steer clear of acknowledging climate change or its myriad consequences.

US agriculture is a major source of heat-trapping gases, with 15% of the country’s emissions deriving from farming practices. A USDA plan to address the “far reaching” impacts of climate change is still online.

However, Sam Clovis, Trump’s nomination to be the USDA’s chief scientist, has labeled climate research “junk science”.

Last week it was revealed that Clovis, who is not a scientist, once ran a blog where he called progressives “race traders and race ‘traitors’” and likened Barack Obama to a “communist”.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... hip-emails
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
Blog: View Blog (83)

Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby Sounder » Fri Aug 11, 2017 6:43 am

Google is try to snuff Natural News, so they must be good guys after all.


http://www.naturalnews.com/2017-08-10-c ... -1970.html


I know, that fisherman is full of crabs.
All these things will continue as long as coercion remains a central element of our mentality.
Sounder
 
Posts: 4054
Joined: Thu Nov 09, 2006 8:49 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby DrEvil » Fri Aug 11, 2017 9:38 am

Sounder » Fri Aug 11, 2017 12:43 pm wrote:Google is try to snuff Natural News, so they must be good guys after all.


http://www.naturalnews.com/2017-08-10-c ... -1970.html


I know, that fisherman is full of crabs.


No actually, you are for posting this stupid shit. Why do you keep posting bullshit from crap sources in this thread and then slink away when called on it? It's a shitty and cowardly tactic and you should stop doing it.

Also, Google isn't trying to snuff NN (although I wish someone would), they just move shit sources down the rankings.
If NN stopped posting actual fake news they wouldn't have that problem.
"I only read American. I want my fantasy pure." - Dave
User avatar
DrEvil
 
Posts: 3972
Joined: Mon Mar 22, 2010 1:37 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby Iamwhomiam » Fri Aug 11, 2017 9:54 am

Sounder » Fri Aug 11, 2017 6:43 am wrote:Google is try to snuff Natural News, so they must be good guys after all.


http://www.naturalnews.com/2017-08-10-c ... -1970.html


I know, that fisherman is full of crabs.


Wonderful contribution, Sounder. Another fine piece by Ethan Huff.

If this is the type of misinformation regularly published by Natural News, they should be ignored.

Commercial crabber calls out Al Gore on FAKE SCIENCE, explains sea level hasn’t changed at all since 1970

Don't blame the crabber for posting this crap here; it's you whose gotten your nets knotted by doing that. Next time you go fishing for denialist news, bring a fisherman with you and they might point you to a more credible source, like weatherman Tony Watt.

Sadly, I believe you'll never get your nets unknotted enough to bring us a great catch on this topic and will remain forever believing fake news.
User avatar
Iamwhomiam
 
Posts: 6572
Joined: Thu Sep 27, 2007 2:47 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby Sounder » Fri Aug 11, 2017 6:22 pm

Doc wrote....
No actually, you are for posting this stupid shit. Why do you keep posting bullshit from crap sources in this thread and then slink away when called on it? It's a shitty and cowardly tactic and you should stop doing it.


It’s typical that you would attack the messenger with such vitriolic abandonment. But if you want to answer to the substance of the assertion, feel free. So, is the crab fisherman correct or are the catastrophe distraction sellers correct. The crab fisherman embarrassed Gore on CNN, and he could only respond with something like; ‘well the weather has gotten more severe’. Blather on top of blather. Needless to say I trust the fisherman more than Gore.

Also, Google isn't trying to snuff NN (although I wish someone would), they just move shit sources down the rankings.


Yes well you believe that injecting toxins into the bloodstreams of young babies ‘promotes health’.

If NN stopped posting actual fake news they wouldn't have that problem.


It was a panel discussion on CNN with Anderson Cooper


Commercial crabber calls out Al Gore on FAKE SCIENCE, explains sea level hasn’t changed at all since 1970
Iam wrote....
Don't blame the crabber for posting this crap here; it's you whose gotten your nets knotted by doing that. Next time you go fishing for denialist news, bring a fisherman with you and they might point you to a more credible source, like weatherman Tony Watt.


The crabber made Gore look silly and you are the denialist that cannot quite get that.

Anyway as a tactic, wit is appreciated much more than is vitriolic outrage, but if you want to be witty Iam you will do well to not try so hard.
All these things will continue as long as coercion remains a central element of our mentality.
Sounder
 
Posts: 4054
Joined: Thu Nov 09, 2006 8:49 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby DrEvil » Fri Aug 11, 2017 7:51 pm

Sounder » Sat Aug 12, 2017 12:22 am wrote:Doc wrote....
No actually, you are for posting this stupid shit. Why do you keep posting bullshit from crap sources in this thread and then slink away when called on it? It's a shitty and cowardly tactic and you should stop doing it.


It’s typical that you would attack the messenger with such vitriolic abandonment. But if you want to answer to the substance of the assertion, feel free. So, is the crab fisherman correct or are the catastrophe distraction sellers correct. The crab fisherman embarrassed Gore on CNN, and he could only respond with something like; ‘well the weather has gotten more severe’. Blather on top of blather. Needless to say I trust the fisherman more than Gore.

The way I see it it's OK to shoot the messenger when he personally hand-picked the dumbest possible message he could find to deliver.

What Gore has to say is irrelevant; he's not a climate scientist, and decades worth of measurements trump one crabby old geezer.

What you're actually saying is that one crab fisherman living on one island knows better than every climate scientist on the planet. Excuse me for thinking you're full of shit.

Hard data beats anecdote every day of the week, and it's fucking depressing that I have to point out something so blatantly obvious.
Educate yourself: https://sealevel.nasa.gov/

Also, Google isn't trying to snuff NN (although I wish someone would), they just move shit sources down the rankings.


Yes well you believe that injecting toxins into the bloodstreams of young babies ‘promotes health’.

Speaking of attacking the messenger (seriously, you can't even stay consistent between paragraphs?), what the fuck does this have to do with how Google ranks results?

It's inane shit like this that makes me swear like a crabber when trying to discuss anything with you. The sheer stupidity makes my blood boil.

And again, hard data beats anecdote and fraudulent research for personal profit every day of the week.

If NN stopped posting actual fake news they wouldn't have that problem.


It was a panel discussion on CNN with Anderson Cooper

Reading comprehension: learn it, love it, live it. Natural News is moved down the rankings for posting a lot of lies in general, not because of this specific story which is more in the "incredibly stupid" category as opposed to complete fabrication.

Commercial crabber calls out Al Gore on FAKE SCIENCE, explains sea level hasn’t changed at all since 1970
Iam wrote....
Don't blame the crabber for posting this crap here; it's you whose gotten your nets knotted by doing that. Next time you go fishing for denialist news, bring a fisherman with you and they might point you to a more credible source, like weatherman Tony Watt.


The crabber made Gore look silly and you are the denialist that cannot quite get that.


Oh no! A crabber made a politician look silly. There you have it folks: definitive proof that climate change is just a big hoax.

I mean, what the everlasting fuck?! Do you even listen to yourself? What the hell does it matter if someone made Gore look stupid? All it proves is that there are people who think that it's an actual argument and not just a fucking stupid thing to say.

Natural News operate on the same principle as Nigeria scams and Infowars. They are specifically designed to attract only the most gullible people because they're easier to fleece (disclaimer: this is just my personal opinion and (shock! horror!) I have no data to back it up).
"I only read American. I want my fantasy pure." - Dave
User avatar
DrEvil
 
Posts: 3972
Joined: Mon Mar 22, 2010 1:37 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby Burnt Hill » Fri Aug 11, 2017 8:30 pm

Sounder wrote:Google is try to snuff Natural News, so they must be good guys after all.


http://www.naturalnews.com/2017-08-10-c ... -1970.html


I know, that fisherman is full of crabs.


Respect for the crab fisherman but it is a fallacy to suggest his aneclocal experience is an accurate reflection of a worldwide phenomenon,

So Sounder is penalized 40 rigorous lashes.

Also, how we respond to information that we find wrong or opposite to our own understanding is one small reason for the split by the "Altered Minds" folk.

:coolshades
User avatar
Burnt Hill
 
Posts: 2584
Joined: Wed Nov 22, 2006 7:42 pm
Location: down down
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: How Bad Is Global Warming?

Postby Sounder » Fri Aug 11, 2017 10:38 pm

So Sounder is penalized 40 rigorous lashes.


But I already got at least forty from Dr. Evil, i protest, but OK I can accept my penalty.

As to the 'worldwide phenomenon', feel free to show us the 'worldwide rise'. (It's not a simple thing to measure and even 'orthodox' folk only claim it has risen a few centimeters.) So what, we have bigger and more immediate things to worry about. Things that are 'problematic' to human survival and yet because they are the big money makers for govts. and cartels we are certain to be sold on a diversionary catastrophic threat.

The technocratic strain of thinking in society, with google being an exemplar in this regard, supports the 'chemical solution' with pharmaceuticals, GMO's, mandatory vaccines, and the war that is required to enforce these 'values' on recalcitrant players, and that is in my opinion more problematic to ecosystem integrity than is climate change.

I mean really, those things I mentioned are all based on killing.

How is a healthy culture and ecosystem going to be built or maintained if the dominant narrative promotes tools that kill everything from microbes on up to and no doubt past humans.

Iam, I am not a denialist and you should know that. I'm a don'tgiveadamist
All these things will continue as long as coercion remains a central element of our mentality.
Sounder
 
Posts: 4054
Joined: Thu Nov 09, 2006 8:49 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

PreviousNext

Return to General Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 44 guests