Climate Change / Global Warming Discussion

[mspohr]

Amazon rainforest 'close to irreversible tipping point'

Amazon rainforest 'close to irreversible tipping point'

Soaring deforestation coupled with the destructive policies of Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, could push the Amazon rainforest dangerously to an irreversible “tipping point” within two years, a prominent economist has said.

After this point the rainforest would stop producing enough rain to sustain itself and start slowly degrading into a drier savannah, releasing billions of tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, which would exacerbate global heating and disrupt weather across South America.

 

[ladysbff]

Organic battles climate change | Organic Report Magazine

“Organic farming is poised to be part of the climate change solution. Numerous studies have found that organic farming methods reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase energy efficiency in agriculture,” says Dr. Jessica Shade, Director of Science Programs for The Organic Center.
“Just as poor land-management practices are contributors to climate change, use of good on-farm practices can actually lead to climate change mitigation. Organic farmers don’t rely on fossil-fuel intensive synthetic inputs to manage pests or increase soil fertility, and they also use farming techniques that sequester carbon in the soil. Organic practices have always been environmentally friendly, and today they are critical if we want to win the fight against climate change,” adds Shade.

Buy Organic!!!

 

[mspohr]

Pollutionwatch: European air-quality map exposes dangers

Pollutionwatch: European air-quality map exposes dangers

Air quality in Europe 2019

 

[iPlug]

According to the IEA:

SUVs were the second largest contributor to the increase in global carbon emissions from 2010 to 2018​

No energy sector except power drove a larger increase in carbon emissions, putting SUVs ahead of heavy industry (including iron, steel, cement and aluminium), aviation and shipping.​

SUVs second biggest cause of emissions rise, figures reveal

 

[S'toon]

The face of the problem. Exhibit A, of the deniers who caused the problem:


A former premier and the current head of Newfoundland and Labrador's offshore oil regulator told a room of oil industry representatives Thursday to be just as loud as people like Greta Thunberg to ensure it's not only young people controlling the message around climate change.

Roger Grimes, chair of the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board, said the climate change issue was "almost dominating" debates during the federal election, and he wanted to encourage the industry to be vocal — just as Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish environmental activist, has done.

"She speaks very passionately and she's convinced that leaders like me, in the 20 years that I was at it, made some decisions that have endangered the very planet on which she lives," Grimes said, "and that somebody else better start doing things a bit differently or there's not gonna be a similar type of planet for her to grow up in."


<snip>


He said the teenager's message is a risk for the oil industry.

"In 20 years she'll be in this room, someone just like her will sit in this room and be in a leadership role," he said, adding that the industry should push for a collaborative approach with oil industry and climate change activists.

"Don't lose the ground to people who want to say, 'If you keep doing this, you're going to destroy the planet.'"

<snip>

Full article at:
Oil industry at risk of 'losing the battle' to climate change activists, warns Roger Grimes

 

[S'toon]

ExxonMobil says it believes “the risk of climate change is real,” and it is “committed to being part of the solution.” The largest investor-owned oil company in the world also says it supports a federal carbon tax and the Paris climate agreement.

Then why, after all these years, is the company still financing advocacy groups, think tanks, and business associations that reject the reality and seriousness of the climate crisis, as well as members of Congress who deny the science and oppose efforts to rein in carbon emissions?


According to the company’s latest grantmaking report, it gave $772,500 to 10 such groups in 2018, which does not include its annual dues to trade groups such as the American Petroleum Institute, which opposes a carbon tax. In addition, ExxonMobil continued to promote gridlock directly on Capitol Hill. Two-thirds of the $1.65 million it spent on congressional election campaigns during the 2017-18 election cycle went to climate science deniers.

Nearly half of ExxonMobil’s 2018 donations to nonprofit denier groups went to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Another 30 percent went to the American Enterprise Institute and the Manhattan Institute, which have been ExxonMobil grantees for 20 years. All told, the company has spent some $37 million since 1998 on a network of denier organizations—a sorry record of support that ranks second only to Charles Koch and his brother, the late David Koch, owners of the coal, oil and gas conglomerate Koch Industries.

<snip>

Full article at:
ExxonMobil is still bankrolling climate science deniers – Alternet.org

 

[WannabeOwner]

I stumbled over this YouTube (about how all the coal in the world was formed at the same time)

and that (and others like it) are being created by Influences to publicise #TeamTrees which is raising money to plant tress ($1 each) target 20M trees in 2020

Help Us Plant 20 Million Trees - Join #TeamTrees

It said that if I couldn't afford a donation I should spread the word ... I figured I should do both

 

[ladysbff]

General Motors Sides With Trump in Emissions Battle, Splitting the Industry

General Motors Sides With Trump in Emissions Battle, Splitting the Industry

The automakers that are siding with the Trump administration, led by the industry group Global Automakers, say that the federal government, not California, has the ultimate authority to set fuel economy standards for passenger cars and trucks.

 

[Norbert]

Full article at:
ExxonMobil is still bankrolling climate science deniers – Alternet.org

Exxon knew for more than 30 years.

These are various video excerpts from a recent house hearing. I haven't found a complete video yet.

On Twitter: (Most complete)

The Independent on Twitter

On YouTube:

 

[Merrill]

General Motors Sides With Trump in Emissions Battle, Splitting the Industry

General Motors Sides With Trump in Emissions Battle, Splitting the Industry

The automakers that are siding with the Trump administration, led by the industry group Global Automakers, say that the federal government, not California, has the ultimate authority to set fuel economy standards for passenger cars and trucks.

Of course, they do not give a crap about the environment only the money.

 

[Norbert]

Exxon knew for more than 30 years.

These are various video excerpts from a recent house hearing. I haven't found a complete video yet.

Found a video of the complete hearing.

AOC's main questioning line that was referenced above is from 2:01:30 to 2:07:00
It is regarding climate science and climate models done by Exxon more than 30 years ago, which with surprising accuracy projected CO2 levels and temperature effects measured today.

 

[mspohr]

Has the climate crisis made California too dangerous to live in?

Has the climate crisis made California too dangerous to live in? | Bill McKibben

Three years in a row feels like – well, it starts to feel like the new, and impossible, normal. That’s what the local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, implied this morning when, in the middle of its account of the inferno, it included the following sentence: the fires had “intensified fears that parts of California had become almost too dangerous to inhabit”. Read that again: the local paper is on record stating that part of the state is now so risky that its citizens might have to leave.

On the one hand, this comes as no real surprise. My most recent book, Falter, centered on the notion that the climate crisis was making large swaths of the world increasingly off-limits to humans. Cities in Asia and the Middle East where the temperature now reaches the upper 120s – levels so high that the human body can’t really cool itself; island nations (and Florida beaches) where each high tide washes through the living room or the streets; Arctic villages relocating because, with sea ice vanished, the ocean erodes the shore.

And so Californians – always shirtsleeved and cool – spend some of the year in face masks and much of it with a feeling of trepidation. As with so many things, they are going first where the rest of us will follow.

 

[winfield100]

Success doesn't mean bringing irrationals to rationality. We know that never happens. Success means I got a couple of you spluttering which I did. I am amused and I hope some others are too. Goal achieved.

Hmm. I never have done this before but I guess this makes me a flame baiter? But genug ist zuviel. I won't be back.

thank you

 

[ladysbff]

Superchargers Visited

A fellow TMC member just ran into Greta at the Kettleman City Supercharger

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Say, for example, most of the world has the political will within a couple decades, but Russia and Saudi Arabia do not, leaving lots of fossil fuels in the pipeline. Also say there are willing buyers for their oil and NG exports in poorer countries.

How do we address that? Sanction suppliers and/or consumers? And if that doesn’t work, war?

People still use coal, but it's dropping like a stone. Poorer countries use it, but no one's going to build new coal plants when solar/wind+storage are so much better and cheaper. It's already unthinkably rapid decline will likely accelerate from here.

Demand for oil is already in the 6 year window of peaking and pretty soon all investment will flee just like with coal. After that comes chaos that will continue to ratchet down the use of oil as it becomes alternately dirt cheap and absurdly expensive. Sit back and enjoy the show, it's gonna be hilarious.

 

[WannabeOwner]

After that comes chaos that will continue to ratchet down the use of oil as it becomes alternately dirt cheap and absurdly expensive

I don't see it like that.

Consumption falls, production still exists and then increasingly exceeds consumption so price will fall - and that will discourage migration to renewables

New exploration will tail off, so at some point price will rise as existing wells dry up and consumption exceed supply ... although that is a balance between continued migration to EV and oil price (but a lot depends on governments discouraging Oil Economy and sponsoring Electric Economy)

 

[mspohr]

'The climate doesn't need awards': Greta Thunberg declines environmental prize

'The climate doesn't need awards': Greta Thunberg declines environmental prize

She addressed the decision in a post on Instagram from the United States.

“The climate movement does not need any more awards,” she wrote.

“What we need is for our politicians and the people in power start to listen to the current, best available science.”

While thanking the Nordic Council for the “huge honour”, she also criticised Nordic countries for not living up to their “great reputation” on climate issues.

“There is no lack of bragging about this. There is no lack of beautiful words. But when it comes to our actual emissions and our ecological footprints per capita … then it’s a whole other story,” Thunberg said.

 

[mspohr]

Rising Seas Will Erase More Cities by 2050, New Research Shows

Rising seas could affect three times more people by 2050 than previously thought, according to new research, threatening to all but erase some of the world’s great coastal cities.

The authors of a paper published Tuesday developed a more accurate way of calculating land elevation based on satellite readings, a standard way of estimating the effects of sea level rise over large areas, and found that the previous numbers were far too optimistic. The new research shows that some 150 million people are now living on land that will be below the high-tide line by midcentury.

 

[iPlug]

People still use coal, but it's dropping like a stone. Poorer countries use it, but no one's going to build new coal plants when solar/wind+storage are so much better and cheaper. It's already unthinkably rapid decline will likely accelerate from here.

Demand for oil is already in the 6 year window of peaking and pretty soon all investment will flee just like with coal. After that comes chaos that will continue to ratchet down the use of oil as it becomes alternately dirt cheap and absurdly expensive. Sit back and enjoy the show, it's gonna be hilarious.

Agree with WannabeOwner above.

Although I hope for reality to as rapidly mirror your optimistic predictions, I don’t see market economics and politics playing out so quickly in favor of renewables. Would bet internationally coal and oil use hold out longer than most here would like.

Still, tackling the problem seriously (and right now) to mitigate the worst outcomes of delayed transition seems quite prudent.

 

[mspohr]

Climate emissions from tropical forest damage 'underestimated by a factor of six'

Climate emissions from tropical forest damage 'underestimated by a factor of six'

Watson said the numbers used for tropical rainforests were “conservative”, adding, “this is a carbon time bomb and policymakers have to get to grips with this”.

When countries declare greenhouse gas emissions from changes in forests, they do not account for the CO2 that forests would have continued to soak up for decades had they not been cleared or damaged. This is a measure known as “forgone removal”.

“From a policy point of view, this is a horror story, but it also points to a simple solution,” he said, adding that keeping forests intact and properly accounting for the benefits would put countries like Australia at a “massive competitive advantage”.