Tag: climate change

Fake President is OK with censoring science

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❝ National Park Service officials have deleted every mention of humans’ role in causing climate change in drafts of a long-awaited report on sea level rise and storm surge, contradicting Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s vow to Congress that his department is not censoring science.

The research for the first time projects the risks from rising seas and flooding at 118 coastal national park sites, including the National Mall, the original Jamestown settlement and the Wright Brothers National Memorial. Originally drafted in the summer of 2016 yet still not released to the public, the National Park Service report is intended to inform officials and the public about how to protect park resources and visitors from climate change.

❝ The 87-page report, which was written by a University of Colorado Boulder scientist, has been held up for at least 10 months, according to documents obtained by Reveal. The delay has prevented park managers from having access to the best data in situations such as reacting to hurricane forecasts, safeguarding artifacts from floodwaters or deciding where to locate new buildings.

The omissions reflect a broader crackdown on climate science at federal agencies, including removal of references to human impacts, since President Donald Trump took office. Trump previously called climate change a Chinese hoax, took steps to withdraw from an international agreement to cut greenhouse gases and moved toward reversing President Barack Obama’s policies to regulate power plant emissions.

Trump’s chumps are OK with censoring science. They fear this discipline almost as much as investigative journalism.

Turns out todays’ climate change has a parallel in past global disasters

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❝ The PETM is the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum – an ungainly name for the time that’s considered one of Earth’s best analogues to this era of modern, human-caused global warming. In a matter of a few thousand years, huge amounts of carbon were injected into the atmosphere, causing global temperatures to rise between 5 and 8 degrees Celsius. The rapid climate change disrupted weather, transformed landscapes, acidified oceans and triggered extinctions. It took more than 150,000 years for the world to recover.

If history is allowed to repeat itself, the consequences for modern life could be similarly long-lasting – which is why Scott Wing is so determined to understand this ancient climate catastrophe…

❝ The first major evidence for the PETM was uncovered in the early 1990s by scientists looking at the transition from the Paleocene, the epoch after the extinction of the dinosaurs, to the Eocene, when modern mammal orders first emerged…

❝ To scientists today, many of the phenomena observed during the PETM will feel familiar – so familiar “it’s almost eerie,” Wing said. Humans burning fossil fuels have produced the same kind of carbon isotope spike researchers find in 55-million-year-old rocks. The ocean has become about 30 percent more acidic and it’s losing oxygen – changes that are already triggering die-offs. The world has witnessed dramatic weather extremes – deadly heat waves, severe storms, devastating droughts. In response to these shifts, plants and animals are showing up in new places at unusual times. There’s even evidence that some species, such as birds called red knots, are getting smaller as a result of the warmer climate.

RTFA. There are a fair number of scientists, even politicians around the globe who toil to re-regulate our environment. We just happen to live in one of the few nations run by idjits, ignorant and cowardly, led by greed. So, the first task is going to have to be tossing these creeps out of power.

Grants to US climate scientists to move to France and “Make Our Planet Great Again”

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❝ French President Emmanuel Macron is preparing to award a number of US based climate scientists, multi-year, all-expenses-paid grants to relocate to France.

The “Make Our Planet Great Again” grants are part of Mr Macron’s efforts to counter US President Donald Trump on the climate change front.

❝ Mr Macron is unveiling the first winners at a start-up incubator in Paris called Station F, where Microsoft and smaller tech companies are announcing projects to finance activities aimed at reducing emissions.

They are aimed at giving new impetus to the Paris accord and finding new funding to help governments and businesses meet its goals.

More than 50 world leaders were in Paris for the One Planet Summit, co-hosted by the United Nations and the World Bank. Mr Trump was not invited.

Idiots like Trump and the fools who vote for his policies never recognize that the world moves on regardless of counter productive blather and ignorant policies set in motion by dying cultures.

Aaaargh! The Polar vortex is coming, the polar vortex is coming!

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Well, it’s coming to where I was born, where I lived [off and on] for decades. Not anymore, man [cue Frank Zappa]

❝ Unforgiving cold has punished the eastern United States for the past 10 days. But the most severe winter weather yet will assault the area Wednesday night into the weekend.

First, a monster ocean storm is taking shape, which pasted parts of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina with rare ice and snow early Wednesday. By Thursday, the exploding storm will, in many ways, resemble a winter hurricane, battering easternmost New England with potentially damaging winds in addition to blinding snow. Blizzard warnings have been issued for the Virginia Tidewater region up the coast to eastern Maine, including Ocean City, Atlantic City, eastern Long Island, Boston and Portland…

❝ Specific amounts up and down the coast will depend on the exact storm track. If the storm tracks closer to the coast, snow amounts and peak wind gusts will be higher and extend farther west. But if the storm wobbles east, snow amounts as well as peak winds will decrease.

Not much of the Northeast has buried power cables. Expect outages for a spell.

Pretty much anyplace I owned or rented in New England only appealed to me if it had a fireplace. I had sufficient camping gear – including propane-fired lights, etc. – to get me through several days. I could always stay warm and comfy in front of the fireplace.

Climate change a major issue for forestry planning

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Ho/The Canadian Press

❝ Canada loses 20 times more forested land to fires and invasive bugs each year than it does to harvesting wood for industry — and Canada’s lumber association says climate change is making it worse.

❝ Derek Nighbor, president of the Forest Products Association of Canada, says he believes developing plans to address the impacts a warming planet is having on Canada’s forests needs to be a priority.

“We spend a lot of time looking back at history and trends but we (have) got to be looking forward and doing some modelling in terms of the warming climate and how do we stay ahead of this so we can ensure healthy forests for the future,”…

❝ Nighbor said Canadians have to take time to figure out what the forest looks like in the future.

“How can we ensure a healthy forest, one that balances ecological imperatives, social imperatives, economic opportunities for the country…”

Or they could follow the American model and put a government in charge that couldn’t care less about environmental causes and effects. Especially if that consideration negatively affected profits – short-term – for corporate owners.

Humans Responsible For Virtually All Global Warming Since the 1950s

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Ready to challenge the creeps who profited from this?

❝ Humans are likely responsible for 93 – 123% of Earth’s net global warming after 1950, says a blockbuster climate report…The Climate Science Special Report is the first product released by the Fourth National Climate Assessment; the core assessment itself, focusing on impacts, will be released in 2018. The NCA is an congressionally mandated quadrennial effort by hundreds of U.S. scientists to assess how the climate is changing in the United States. The project is carried out by the U.S. Global Change Research Program. Preparation of the report included workshops around the nation, a public-comment period on the draft, and a technical review spanning 13 agencies.

Yes, of course, Trump and his lackeys in Congress – mostly Republicans – will try their best to stop the full report next year.

China is Building “Sponge Cities” Facing A Critical Aspect of Climate Change

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❝ China is taking the repercussions of climate change seriously. One consequence of our warming world is increasingly frequent and more severe flooding. This is especially problematic in growing, crowded cities, which has made certain regions in China more vulnerable. To combat this growing issue, the country is pursuing the development of “sponge cities.”

❝ The Sponge City Initiative, launched in 2015, invests in projects that focus on absorbing floodwater. Currently, spongy designs are being explored in 30 cities, including Shanghai, Wuhan, and Xiamen. The current aim of the initiative is that, by 2020, 80 percent of urban areas in China will re-use at least 70 percent of their rainwater…

❝ The creation of a sponge city is not a singular, defined process. Each project is customized to its region and aims to improve upon previous techniques and overcome difficult challenges. Strategies include using permeable surfaces and green (meaning that it incorporates plant-life) infrastructure. The concept has so much potential that other cities around the world, like in Berlin, are looking to become more “spongy.”…

❝ Increased natural disasters will be a consequence of climate change that threatens all countries around the world, as illustrated by the recent hurricane and resulting flooding in Houston. …China is taking a firm stand against such flooding with this initiative, and the rest of the world might follow suit. From advanced drainage systems to roadways capable of absorbing water and creative planting, sponge cities are getting increasingly innovative in how they might be able to better fend off treacherous floodwaters.

Or we might continue with the existing style firmly grounded in conservative American politics. “Thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers” for the victims of a growing number of environmental disasters.

The Good Ol’ USA now the only country in the world rejecting the Paris climate accord

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Click to enlarge — Sean Gallup/Getty Images

❝ Today, Syria announced that it would sign the Paris climate agreement — a landmark deal that commits almost 200 countries to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to fight global warming. With Nicaragua also joining the deal last month, the United States is now the only country in the world that opposes it.

In June, President Donald Trump announced that the US will withdraw from the Paris climate accord, unless it is renegotiated to be “fair” to the United States. But other countries in the deal, such as France, Germany, and Italy, said that’s not possible. The Trump administration is also taking steps to roll back regulations passed under former President Barack Obama to achieve the emissions reduction goals set under the Paris deal…

❝ …The Paris accord is one of the most comprehensive climate change agreements ever passed. It is notable because it included countries like China, which pollute heavily but have not signed on to climate deals before…Nicaragua claimed it wasn’t ambitious enough, but reversed its course last month and decided to sign the deal anyway, calling it “the only instrument that currently allows this unity of intentions and efforts…”.

❝ …The announcement leaves the United States more isolated than ever. “With Syria’s decision, the relentless commitment of the global community to deliver on Paris is more evident than ever,” Paula Caballero, director of the climate change program at the World Resources Institute, told the Times. “The US’s stark isolation should give Trump reason to reconsider his ill-advised announcement and join the rest of the world in tackling climate change.”

Which is a foolish analysis of how Trump’s brain rattles around its cage. He cares nothing for educated opinion, scientific study or, in fact, any honest evaluation of measured, verifiable fact. He’s out for short-term gain. Like any pimp.

The same could be said for his dedicated supporters – except I don’t think they’re as capable as he is. As many years as he has working at corruption they’ve been perfecting ignorance.

Record-Melting Fall Heat Wave Bakes Southern California — and More

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Tuesday, 24th, 1PM PDT

❝ It’s not every October 23 or 24 that millions of Americans are swathed in temperatures above 100°F. This week has done just that, bringing some of the toastiest weather ever observed in the United States during late October, and more pre-Halloween heat is on the way. By far the most scorching weather has been in Southern California, although it’s also been exceptionally mild this month in settings as far-flung as Michigan, Florida, and New England…

❝ The first three weeks of October were remarkably mild for most of the United States east of the Rockies. Overnight lows across most of the Northeast on Monday night were in the 50-70°F range—warmer than the average highs for this time of year! Albany, NY, “dipped” to 68°F early Tuesday, compared to its average high and low for the date of 57°F and 37°F. If the temperature stays above 64°F through midnight, it’ll be Albany’s highest daily minimum ever recorded this late in the year, in data going back to 1874.

Don’t know what it’s like in your neck of the prairie; but here in northern New Mexico we used to plan for the first fire in our living room stove on October 15th. Not in a number of years. In fact we stockpiled the usual amount of firewood the last 2 autumns – and didn’t bring in any, this year. We have enough leftover for a full-sized old-fashioned winter, stacked and waiting. No fire in the stove, yet.