[Discussion] Climate Change

This thread is just to post interesting news, thoughts, opinions about climate change.

Stengah wrote:

Pretty sure the people super concerned about migration would be perfectly happy with the idea that the people migrating should stay and die. They're going to see it as a personal choice to live there and dying from a "natural" disaster is just a consequence (you see, its natural, so it's not like it's their fault), the same way they see living in poverty as a personal choice.

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Yesterday, I attended a conference at which an influential financier shared this unpublished map. Look at it. The estimated death toll is 2-3 *billion*; the timeframe is 20-30 years (previously: 50). Segments of the elite have simply 'written off' large parts of the Global South.

The gathering was a psychedelic symposium. The vast majority of attendees seemed dedicated to working on climate solutions; many had been inspired by plant medicines. But it is also becoming increasingly common in these circles to hear about the coming 'shedding'. It's disturbing

There is a lot to say about this map. It looks like a death sentence, but it is a sketch of a shifting picture, which we still have the power to revise. But what is troubling is that some *are already acting on these assumptions* – and the politics (of climate refugees) it infers

Or, as put later in the thread....

The point isn't that this will definitely happen, it's that politics are being decided around that idea that this will happen

Climate change: Kilimanjaro's and Africa's last glaciers to go by 2050, says UN

Glaciers across the globe - including the last ones in Africa - will be unavoidably lost by 2050 due to climate change, the UN says in a report.

Glaciers in a third of UN World Heritage sites will melt within three decades, a UNESCO report found.

Mount Kilimanjaro's last glaciers will vanish as will glaciers in the Alps and Yosemite National Park in the US.

They will melt regardless of the world's actions to combat climate change, the authors say.

Berlin climate protesters condemned after death of cyclist

The death of a cyclist in Berlin has prompted leaders of Germany's Green party to accuse climate change protesters of endangering the lives of others.

The woman was run over and trapped under a concrete mixer lorry on Monday.

The fire service says a specialist rescue vehicle was delayed by traffic because of a climate protest held by a group called "Last Generation".

News of the 44-year-old woman's death emerged on Friday.

There was a robust response from Robert Habeck, vice-chancellor and a senior figure in the Greens, who are part of the governing coalition government.

"Anyone who risks the health and life of others loses all legitimacy and also harms the climate movement itself," he said. "Some protests by some groups are now doing just that."

Deputy government spokesman Wolfgang Büchner did not blame the protesters for the woman's death, but stressed their actions should not break the law.

Last Generation confirmed that some of its members had staged a protest several kilometres from the site of the accident. They'd positioned themselves on a gantry over the A100 - a major route into the west of the capital - which led to police officers reducing what is usually a busy motorway to a single lane of traffic.

In a statement the group said that the "entire media system" had turned against them, adding their members were distraught by the death.

"We know that our protest is uncomfortable in many ways. Every day we confront people with what we would all like to ignore," they said.

Sounds like a failure of dispatching, police traffic control, and some good old scapegoating.

‘Fate of the living world’ will be decided at Cop15, say scientists

The “fate of the entire living world” will be determined at the Cop15 UN biodiversity summit, according to leading scientists.

They said the gathering of the world’s nations, which began on Wednesday in Montreal, is “vastly more important than Cop27”, the recent high-profile UN climate meeting. “We say this because of the many dimensions of anthropogenic global change … the most critical, complex and challenging is that of biodiversity loss,” the researchers said.

The current rapid loss of wildlife and natural places is seen as the start of a sixth mass extinction by many scientists and is destroying the life-support systems on which humanity depends for clean air, water and food. Protection of the natural world, such as rainforests, is also vital in ending the climate emergency.

Cop15 aims to ensure the protection of 30% of the planet by 2030, as well as the redirection of $500bn in agricultural subsidies that support the destruction of nature.

The warning from scientists came in an editorial in the journal Science Advances, written by Prof Shahid Naeem at Columbia University, US; Prof Yonglong Lu at Xiamen University, China; and Prof Jeremy Jackson at the American Museum of Natural History.

It's now 10 years away instead of 20?

Mixolyde wrote:

It's now 10 years away instead of 20?

SoonTM.

It’s really a Big Deal tm. Decades in the making.

There been a few developments in the last 6 months. One I believe where they broke the record for the longest plasma containment. And another that may be the same development where instead of trying to maintain stable plasma, they were developing a non sustaining reaction because it took less energy to generate and thereby easier to tweak to get a larger and larger net positive reaction.

We burned up more coal in 2022 than any year in world history.

The silver lining, which is only visible through a telescope, is that this will probably be peak coal use for the planet, according to forecasters.

Probably.

Press X to Doubt.

So it's been hot in Europe. Like, "warmest January day in history" hot.

(WaPo paywalled link.)

Here's another story from CNN.

On New Year’s Day, at least eight European countries recorded their warmest January day ever: Liechtenstein, the Czech Republic, Poland, the Netherlands, Belarus, Lithuania, Denmark and Latvia, according to the climatologist Maximiliano Herrera, who tracks extreme temperatures across the globe.

It’s “the most extreme heat wave in European history,” Herrera told CNN, based on how far above normal temperatures rose.

Cities that would often be covered in snow instead saw temperatures spike to levels usually seen in summer. “The real ‘monster’ part of this warm spell was December 31 to January 1,” Herrera told CNN.

On January 1, Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein, recorded a peak of 20 degrees Celsius (68 Fahrenheit), the Czech town of Javornik reached 19.6 degrees Celsius (67.3 Fahrenheit), and Jodłownik, a village in Poland, recorded a peak of 19 degrees Celsius (66.2 Fahrenheit).

Ukraine also recorded its highest temperature in January outside of Crimea.

The "good" news is.... people are saving on energy costs?

Rich countries must respond to developing world anger over climate

People in developing countries are feeling increasingly angry and “victimised” by the climate crisis, the US climate envoy John Kerry has warned, and rich countries must respond urgently.

“I’ve been chronicling the increased frustration and anger of island states and vulnerable countries and small African nations and others around the world that feel victimised by the fact that they are a minuscule component of emissions,” he said. “And yet [they are] paying a very high price. Seventeen of the 20 most affected countries in the world, by the climate crisis, are in Africa, and yet 48 sub-Saharan countries total 0.55% of all emissions.”

The Cop27 UN climate summit in Egypt in November was nearly derailed by a bitter row between rich and poor nations over “loss and damage”, the term for the most severe impacts of climate disaster, and the means of rescuing and rebuilding poor nations afflicted by them.

The US, the EU, the UK and other rich nations eventually agreed to a new fund for loss and damage, without saying how much money would be in the fund or where the finance would come from.

Kerry said the US was committed to helping the developing world with loss and damage, but that the details of the fund would need more work in 2023.

“How can you look somebody in the eye, with a straight face, and not accept the notion that there are damages, there are losses?” he asked. “We see them all around the world. You see them in heightened sea levels, we see them in fires, we see them in floods, in Pakistan and elsewhere. We see them in the higher intensity of storms.”

This rock is doomed.

This is basically a big part of the plot to Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson.

Edit: Speaking of which, I still find it hilarious that Obama listed Ministry for the Future as one of his favorite books of 2020 when it specifically condemns Obama-style climate policy as ineffectual and basically implies that the poor will need to resort to ecoterrorism to frighten the wealthy into action.

Mixolyde wrote:

This rock is doomed.

It might not be much comfort to humans but almost certainly life on Earth isn't doomed. There have been at least five mass extinctions in Earth's history and life has chugged on after each of them.

Mixolyde wrote:

This rock is doomed.

George Carlin wrote:

Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet. Nothing wrong with the planet! The planet is fine!

The people are f*cked. Difference.

farley3k wrote:
Mixolyde wrote:

This rock is doomed.

It might not be much comfort to humans but almost certainly life on Earth isn't doomed. There have been at least five mass extinctions in Earth's history and life has chugged on after each of them.

We can still mourn the death of the current age's biosphere. Yes, life will go on in some fashion, but most of the earth's diverse wildlife from the Holocene will go extinct in the coming century (and who knows how much we've already effectively extinguished).

I hate the "earth will live on" attitude even though I know people mean well by it, because it didn't have to be this way and of the uncountable species to go extinct through the current mass extinction, only one species has made the conscious choices that have effected it.

Farscry wrote:

We can still mourn the death of the current age's biosphere. Yes, life will go on in some fashion, but most of the earth's diverse wildlife from the Holocene will go extinct in the coming century (and who knows how much we've already effectively extinguished).

I hate the "earth will live on" attitude even though I know people mean well by it, because it didn't have to be this way and of the uncountable species to go extinct through the current mass extinction, only one species has made the conscious choices that have effected it.

True and fair enough.
I tend to dislike the whole "the Earth is doomed" idea because it implies that if homo sapiens are not here the whole thing is pointless. However you are not wrong.

I just use it as shorthand. Our way of life is doomed.

Here in coastal Nova Scotia this winter has been surreal so far. We haven't had a single day where it was below freezing at noon. This last week the temps have been hovering around 10 degrees Celsius. My grass is a beautiful shade of green. The last month has felt like late April/early May. And the ocean is very very warm. Last year was warm, but this year is something I couldn't have even imagined 10 years ago.

Seeing the trees start budding (and dandelions growing!) in early January is wild.

Can't hear you complain about your spring weather over the sound of my bomb cyclone.

It’s been a balmy 63-65 degrees in Philly…and yeah..it feels like the ship has sailed on humanity. Long live the roaches!

Yeah, so far we've had three once-in-a-century floods this century. And it's only 2023.

I am sure we are not going to have any more for the next few centuries.

farley3k wrote:

I am sure we are not going to have any more for the next few centuries. :)

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If you haven't followed it, it seems the ENSO cycle is rapidly weakening in the East Pacific signalling a move to a neutral position. If that's right, the US / South American west coast should see average rainfall return. It's unknown whether it will shift to El Nino (more warm waters sitting near the Americas) just yet but it's only a matter of time.