Climate Change / Global Warming Discussion

[mspohr]

A good background piece

Are hurricanes getting stronger – and is the climate crisis to blame?

Are hurricanes getting stronger – and is the climate crisis to blame?

Does this mean that hurricanes are getting stronger and more damaging?
While the overall number of hurricanes has remained roughly the same in recent decades, there is evidence they are intensifying more quickly, resulting in a greater number of the most severe category four and five storms.

The proportion of tropical storms that rapidly strengthen into powerful hurricanes has tripled over the past 30 years, according to recent research. A swift increase in pace over a 24-hour period makes hurricanes less predictable, despite improving hurricane forecasting systems, and more likely to cause widespread damage.

But there is a growing evidence that the warming of the atmosphere and upper ocean, due to human activity such as burning fossil fuels, is making conditions ripe for fiercer, more destructive hurricanes.

“The past few years have been highly unusual, such as Irma staying strong for so long, or the hurricane in Mozambique that dumped so much rain,” says Kossin. “All of these things are linked to a warming atmosphere. If you warm things up, over time you will get stronger storms.

The climate emergency is tinkering with hurricanes in a variety of ways. More moisture in the air means more rain, while storms are intensifying more quickly but often stalling once they hit land, resulting in torrential downpours that cause horrendous flooding.

 

[mspohr]

I don't think it's the children who need educating on the climate disaster but this is a start.

Labour pledges to put climate emergency on school curriculum

Labour pledges to put climate emergency on school curriculum

Labour has pledged to make the global climate emergency a core element of the school curriculum from primary school onwards, in response to demands by young people taking part in a series of school climate strikes.

As young activists around the world prepare for another day of strike action on Friday, Labour’s shadow education secretary Angela Rayner said a Labour government would ensure that the climate crisis was an educational priority and that all young people were taught about its ecological and social impact.

 

[mspohr]

CO2 emissions: The trend is not your friend - Resilience

When the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported in late March that energy consumption in 2018 rose at the fastest rate in a decade, it confirmed something that most of those who truly understand the climate crisis already know: Collectively, humanity is making almost no progress in doing anything significant about climate change. So, it’s not surprising that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration has hit yet another record high.

 

[SageBrush]

I don't think it's the children who need educating on the climate disaster but this is a start.

Labour pledges to put climate emergency on school curriculum

Labour pledges to put climate emergency on school curriculum

Labour has pledged to make the global climate emergency a core element of the school curriculum from primary school onwards, in response to demands by young people taking part in a series of school climate strikes.

As young activists around the world prepare for another day of strike action on Friday, Labour’s shadow education secretary Angela Rayner said a Labour government would ensure that the climate crisis was an educational priority and that all young people were taught about its ecological and social impact.

I suspect Greta is not impressed.

 

[mspohr]

Tornadoes leave trail of destruction across Ohio, Indiana

BROOKVILLE, Ohio (AP) — A rapid-fire line of apparent tornadoes tore across Indiana and Ohio overnight, packed so closely together that one crossed the path carved by another.

 

[mspohr]

https://thinkprogress.org/arkansas-...eat-laments-his-states-flooding-98be49de26dd/

Arkansas, like much of the country, is currently experiencing massive damaging floods. Its governor, Republican Asa Hutchinson, joined Fox News on Tuesday to lament the huge damage the deluge has caused — moments after praising the Trump administration’s environmental deregulation.

Hutchinson — who has a long record of opposing almost all climate and environmental protections — was first asked whether President Donald Trump deserves credit for his state’s improving economy. He responded that it was Trump’s environmental deregulation that has helped fuel Arkansas’ growth.
Moments later, Hutchinson accidentally pointed out the short-term and long-term ramifications of the administration’s let-the-polluters-pollute approach. His state, he noted, is suffering from “very serious” flooding crisis.

“We’re having the record floodwaters coming down the Arkansas river, much from rain in happening in Oklahoma. They expect more,” Hutchinson observed. He then explained that it was harming Arkansas already.

“We’re having to close certain interstates, so it interrupts travel,” he said. “… We are having hundreds and hundreds of homes having to be evacuated, that [are] gonna be flooded.”

 

[mspohr]

11 Straight Days of Tornadoes Have U.S. Approaching ‘Uncharted Territory’

11 Straight Days of Tornadoes Have U.S. Approaching ‘Uncharted Territory’

It was a scene that has played out in state after state this spring. In the last week alone, the authorities have linked tornadoes to at least seven deaths and scores of injuries. Federal government weather forecasters logged preliminary reports of more than 500 tornadoes in a 30-day period — a rare figure, if the reports are ultimately verified — after the start of the year proved mercifully quiet.

“From mid-April on, it’s just been on a tear,” said Patrick Marsh, the warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center. “What has really set us apart has been the last 10 days or so. The last 10 days took us from about normal to well above normal.”

 

[mspohr]

Trump Administration Hardens Its Attack on Climate Science

Now, after two years spent unraveling the policies of his predecessors, Mr. Trump and his political appointees are launching a new assault.

In the next few months, the White House will complete the rollback of the most significant federal effort to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, initiated during the Obama administration. It will expand its efforts to impose Mr. Trump’s hard-line views on other nations, building on his retreat from the Paris accord and his recent refusal to sign a communiqué to protect the rapidly melting Arctic region unless it was stripped of any references to climate change.

And, in what could be Mr. Trump’s most consequential action yet, his administration will seek to undermine the very science on which climate change policy rests.

 

[mspohr]

The Presidential Daily Brief for May 29, 2019
Tornadoes Ravage Midwest, Injuring Scores

The Kansas City, Missouri, area was the latest to be hit during a 12-day stretch that’s seen at least eight twisters strafe the Midwest — the first such series since 1980. Ohio’s governor declared a state of emergency in three counties, while storms were also confirmed in eastern Pennsylvania. Even parts of New York City and northern New Jersey were issued warnings by the National Weather Service.

What’s causing these tornadoes? While scientists say climate change probably plays a role in their increased frequency, they’re hard-pressed to pinpoint exactly why.

 

[jerry33]

The Presidential Daily Brief for May 29, 2019
Tornadoes Ravage Midwest, Injuring Scores

The Kansas City, Missouri, area was the latest to be hit during a 12-day stretch that’s seen at least eight twisters strafe the Midwest — the first such series since 1980. Ohio’s governor declared a state of emergency in three counties, while storms were also confirmed in eastern Pennsylvania. Even parts of New York City and northern New Jersey were issued warnings by the National Weather Service.

What’s causing these tornadoes? While scientists say climate change probably plays a role in their increased frequency, they’re hard-pressed to pinpoint exactly why.

Seems fairly straightforward. Warmer climate creates more energy in the atmosphere, creating more violent weather patterns.

 

[ohmman]

What’s causing these tornadoes? While scientists say climate change probably plays a role in their increased frequency, they’re hard-pressed to pinpoint exactly why.

Seems fairly straightforward. Warmer climate creates more energy in the atmosphere, creating more violent weather patterns.

Event attribution science has developed quite a bit. I believe they still use fraction of attributable risk (FAR), which is a statistical method from epidemiology. I really feel as if those statistical numbers should be calculated and published prominently alongside any major newsworthy weather event. On The Media did a piece on attribution science two years ago but I still don't see the media picking up their pace. The science has come along as well, and some areas in Europe have rapid attribution services which provide the statistical outputs to the public. It'll likely be at least a couple of years before we see something similar in the US, considering the backward tack we've taken.

Here is a summary from last year in Nature.

 

[mspohr]

There's a climate crisis – but Trump's cabinet continues to backtrack on science

There's a climate crisis – but Trump's cabinet continues to backtrack on science | Kate Aronoff

The irony in all of this is that Trump, Happer and company may have a firmer grasp on the epic scope of these climate projections than many Democrats. As Naomi Klein argues, even the right’s fervent conspiracy theorists tend to understand at some level how profound the implications of this crisis are for business as usual, which has distributed its profits among elites of both parties.

“Members of Trump’s cabinet,” Klein has written, “with their desperate need to deny the reality of global warming, or belittle its implications”, nonetheless “understand something that is fundamentally true. To avert climate chaos, we need to challenge the free-market fundamentalism that has conquered the world since the 1980s.”

We can’t know whether Happer genuinely believes the nonsense he’s spouting, or is just being paid well enough to sound like he does. The answer doesn’t really matter. Any clear-eyed assessment of what the science is telling us spells out who the winners and losers of rapid decarbonization would be. To cap warming at around 2C – a threshold many already dealing with climate impacts argue is too high – about three-quarters of known fossil fuel reserves will need to be kept underground, a reality that if realized as public policy would crater the stock price of energy companies.

 

[mspohr]

Fossil Fuels shall henceforth be called "Molecules of Freedom" and Natural Gas is "Freedom Gas"

That’s right. Hydrocarbons shall henceforth be known as “molecules of U.S. freedom.” Proud Americans are fracking compounds of liberty from the glorious shale beds of Texas and shipping it ‘round the world.

Anyway, it gets better. The actual news here is that the Department of Energy gave Houston-based Freeport LNG approval to export gas processed at a new liquefaction plant that the company is set to build at a facility off the coast of Texas. Elsewhere in the government’s press release, U.S. Under Secretary of Energy Mark W. Menezes explains, “Increasing export capacity from the Freeport LNG project is critical to spreading freedom gas throughout the world by giving America’s allies a diverse and affordable source of clean energy.” (Bolds are mine.)

The Department of Energy Is Now Calling Fossil Fuels “Molecules of Freedom” and “Freedom Gas”

 

[jerry33]

Fossil Fuels shall henceforth be called "Molecules of Freedom" and Natural Gas is "Freedom Gas"

That’s right. Hydrocarbons shall henceforth be known as “molecules of U.S. freedom.” Proud Americans are fracking compounds of liberty from the glorious shale beds of Texas and shipping it ‘round the world.

Anyway, it gets better. The actual news here is that the Department of Energy gave Houston-based Freeport LNG approval to export gas processed at a new liquefaction plant that the company is set to build at a facility off the coast of Texas. Elsewhere in the government’s press release, U.S. Under Secretary of Energy Mark W. Menezes explains, “Increasing export capacity from the Freeport LNG project is critical to spreading freedom gas throughout the world by giving America’s allies a diverse and affordable source of clean energy.” (Bolds are mine.)

The Department of Energy Is Now Calling Fossil Fuels “Molecules of Freedom” and “Freedom Gas”

That's just sick.

 

[JRP3]

I really thought that was a joke

 

[Merrill]

They call it freedom because if we keep burning that stuff we will all be dead, that is true freedom!

 

[mspohr]

They call it freedom because if we keep burning that stuff we will all be dead, that is true freedom!

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose"

 

[SageBrush]

Fossil Fuels shall henceforth be called "Molecules of Freedom" and Natural Gas is "Freedom Gas"

That’s right. Hydrocarbons shall henceforth be known as “molecules of U.S. freedom.” Proud Americans are fracking compounds of liberty from the glorious shale beds of Texas and shipping it ‘round the world.

Anyway, it gets better. The actual news here is that the Department of Energy gave Houston-based Freeport LNG approval to export gas processed at a new liquefaction plant that the company is set to build at a facility off the coast of Texas. Elsewhere in the government’s press release, U.S. Under Secretary of Energy Mark W. Menezes explains, “Increasing export capacity from the Freeport LNG project is critical to spreading freedom gas throughout the world by giving America’s allies a diverse and affordable source of clean energy.” (Bolds are mine.)

The Department of Energy Is Now Calling Fossil Fuels “Molecules of Freedom” and “Freedom Gas”

That is *almost* too pathetic to believe.

 

[jerry33]

That is *almost* too pathetic to believe.

And it's not even original. A few years ago they wanted to change french fries to freedom fries. Recycling of bad ideas is not an improvement.

 

[ohmman]

And it's not even original. A few years ago they wanted to change french fries to freedom fries. Recycling of bad ideas is not an improvement.

Andrew Yang tried a few names for his $1000/year income distribution concept. What fared best with all Americans (when including those on the right) was a “freedom dividend”. This is the result of brainwashing an association into a populace.