Climate Change / Global Warming Discussion

[mspohr]

Opinion | The Party That Ruined the Planet

But one factor stands out above all others: the fanatical opposition of America’s Republicans, who are the world’s only major climate-denialist party. Because of this opposition, the United States hasn’t just failed to provide the kind of leadership that would have been essential to global action, it has become a force against action.

 

[JRP3]

Where are the major oil companies funding misinformation?

How can you be so uniformed yet still think you're able to comment on climate change?

A new investigation shows the oil company understood the science before it became a public issue and spent millions to promote misinformation

Exxon Knew about Climate Change almost 40 years ago

 

[ZsoZso]

Where are the major oil companies funding misinformation? For years the oil companies thought we were near peak oil. That should have pushed folks to conserve fossil fuels even more than the possibility that CO2 is causing global warming.

A few pointers:

Heartland on Global Warming – Case Study in Propaganda | NeuroLogica Blog

Oil companies admitting / knowing about (Exon, BP, Shell) it:

BP, the largest oil company in the UK and one of the largest in the world, has this opinion:
http://www.bp.com/subsection.do?categoryId=9012335&contentId=7025781
There is an increasing consensus that climate change is linked to the consumption of carbon based fuels and that action is required now to avoid further increases in carbon emissions as the global demand for energy increases.

Shell Oil (yes, as in oil, the fossil fuel) says:
http://www.shell.com/static/au-en/downloads/corporate/annual_review_2003.pdf
Shell shares the widespread concern that the emission of greenhouse gases from human activities is leading to changes in the global climate.

Exxon: http://graphics.latimes.com/exxon-arctic/
By 1978 Exxon’s senior scientists were telling top management that climate change was real, caused by man, and would raise global temperatures by 2-3C this century, which was pretty much spot-on.
By the early 1980s they’d validated these findings with shipborne measurements of CO2 (they outfitted a giant tanker with carbon sensors for a research voyage) and with computer models that showed precisely what was coming. As the head of one key lab at Exxon Research wrote to his superiors, there was “unanimous agreement in the scientific community that a temperature increase of this magnitude would bring about significant changes in the earth’s climate, including rainfall distribution and alterations in the biosphere”.
And by the early 1990s their researchers studying the possibility for new exploration in the Arctic were well aware that human-induced climate change was melting the poles. Indeed, they used that knowledge to plan their strategy, reporting that soon the Beaufort Sea would be ice-free as much as five months a year instead of the historic two. Greenhouse gases are rising “due to the burning of fossil fuels,” a key Exxon researcher told an audience of engineers at a conference in 1991. “Nobody disputes this fact.”

Exxon's climate lie: 'No corporation has ever done anything this big or bad' | Bill McKibben


Misinformation campaign, paid off articles, tobacco-style lobby

"Dark Money" Funds Climate Change Denial Effort
A Drexel University study finds that a large slice of donations to organizations that deny global warming are funneled through third-party pass-through organizations that conceal the original funder

Meet The Climate Denial Machine
Despite the overwhelming consensus among climate experts that human activity is contributing to rising global temperatures, 66 percent of Americans incorrectly believe there is "a lot of disagreement among scientists about whether or not global warming is happening." The conservative media has fueled this confusion by distorting scientific research, hyping faux-scandals, and giving voice to groups funded by industries that have a financial interest in blocking action on climate change. Meanwhile, mainstream media outlets have shied away from the "controversy" over climate change and have failed to press U.S. policymakers on how they will address this global threat. When climate change is discussed, mainstream outlets sometimes strive for a false balance that elevates marginal voices and enables them to sow doubt about the science even in the face of mounting evidence.

The WSJ article (The Myth of the Climate Change '97%') was written by Joseph Bast, who studied Economics as an undergraduate at the University of Chicago. According to Sourcewatch, he did not complete his degree.
Joseph Bast co-founded the Heartland Institute (Heartland Institute) in 1984 with David M. Padder. He currently serves as the institute's president and CEO.
He is one of several climate change skeptics cc'd on an email from S. Fred Singer in hopes of countering the documentary film “Merchants of Doubt,” which exposes the network of climate change skeptics and deniers trying to delay legislative action on climate change. Merchants of Doubt Film Debuts, Textbook Denial Attack Campaign Led By Fred Singer Ensues

The Heartland Institute is a Chicago-based free market think tank and 501(c)(3) charity that has been at the forefront of denying the scientific evidence for man-made climate change. The Heartland Institute has received at least $676,500 from ExxonMobil since 1998 but no longer discloses its funding sources. The Union of Concerned Scientists found (PDF) that “Nearly 40% of the total funds that the Heartland Institute has received from ExxonMobil since 1998 were specifically designated for climate change projects.”
In the 1990s, the Heartland Institute worked with the tobacco company Philip Morris to question the science linking second-hand smoke to health risks, and lobbied against government public health reforms. Heartland continues to maintain a “Smoker's Lounge” section of their website which brings together their policy studies, Op-Eds, essays, and other documents that purport to “[cut] through the propaganda and exaggeration of anti-smoking groups.” [6]

Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine
Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine
The Koch Brothers have sent at least $79,048,951 to groups denying climate change science since 1997.
Bloomberg - Are you a robot?
A loose network of 4,556 individuals with overlapping ties to 164 organizations do the most to dispute climate change in the U.S., according to a paper published today in Nature Climate Change. ExxonMobil and the family foundations controlled by Charles and David Koch emerge as the most significant sources of funding for these skeptics.
He examined Internal Revenue Service data showing which groups in the network of climate contrarians accepted funding from ExxonMobil or Koch foundations between 1993 and 2013. Recipients from those two sources tend to occupy central nodes in what he calls a "contrarian network."

http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nclimate2875

 

[mspohr]

Another example of how we have destroyed the forest and attempts to restore it.
Rewilding: How Trees for Life are renewing the Highlands

Rewilding: How Trees for Life are renewing the Highlands

Since Victorian times, when the sheep estates that followed the Highland clearances were replaced by more lucrative deer hunting estates, the landscape, and economic model, has been shaped by red deer. Around Dundreggan there are also non-native sika and roe deer. What many see as a wild, natural landscape – the treeless mountains – is engineered by deer, whose grazing of tasty young shoots prevents old trees being replaced by young. Less than 2% of Scotland’s native Caledonian forest – dominated by Scots pines – remains.

 

[ohmman]

Rewilding: How Trees for Life are renewing the Highlands

Thanks. I just sent them a donation.

It is really fascinating how quickly a landscape can be accidentally transformed for the worse, but I keep in mind that in many ways it means we can also transform it for the better. Where I live in the Sonoma Valley, our hills are covered in European annual grasses instead of the native perennial grasses. The European grasses were planted early because they were better for livestock grazing. Perennial grasses had roots going down tens of feet, and stayed green all year. Grass fire risks were of course lower. When winter rains came, the roots created a perforated, broken soil that allowed water to absorb more readily and not run off nearly as much. But those native grasses cannot survive with vigorous annuals choking them out.

Streams didn't connect to the main creek in the middle of the valley. Many of them died into mini seasonal sloughs, which would create habitats for wildlife and would aid in groundwater recharge. But humans don't want seasonal wetlands in the middle of their own habitat, so those streams were connected to Sonoma Creek and aid in channeling our copious winter rainfall directly out to the bay.

Minor changes like these, seemingly "improving" the land for use, actually add up to a major negative transformation of the land. All of this transformation in Sonoma took place over about 150-175 years, which is almost instantaneous in geologic time.

 

[S'toon]

For those who every year say that winter disproves global warming:

Almost all of mainland Australia will be roasted in a huge heatwave next week, with the mercury likely to nudge 50 degrees in parts of the south.

Perth is in the midst of a four-day scorching as it plays host to the first day-night cricket Test between Australia and New Zealand.

Maximum temperatures are likely to near or exceed 40 degrees until Sunday, with the heat gradually shifting east.

Records are likely to tumble in many areas for days of consecutive heat even if individual daily maximums are broken, Kim Westcott, a meteorologist with Weatherzone, said. Remaining moisture in the environment may not fare well.

"Days when it feels like a furnace outside are not going to be great for any moisture that's still around," she said.

Apart from humans caught in the prolonged heat, wildlife from birds to bees, livestock and pets may also struggle.

On present forecasts, the hottest places may be in South Australia, with the Bureau of Meteorology indicating back-to-back days of 49 and 50 degrees in some remote regions for next Wednesday and Thursday.

<snip>

Full article at:
'Like a furnace': Massive heatwave could roast Australian records

49 degrees C = 120F
50 degrees C = 122F

 

[cpa]

Thanks. I just sent them a donation.

It is really fascinating how quickly a landscape can be accidentally transformed for the worse, but I keep in mind that in many ways it means we can also transform it for the better. Where I live in the Sonoma Valley, our hills are covered in European annual grasses instead of the native perennial grasses. The European grasses were planted early because they were better for livestock grazing. Perennial grasses had roots going down tens of feet, and stayed green all year. Grass fire risks were of course lower. When winter rains came, the roots created a perforated, broken soil that allowed water to absorb more readily and not run off nearly as much. But those native grasses cannot survive with vigorous annuals choking them out.

Streams didn't connect to the main creek in the middle of the valley. Many of them died into mini seasonal sloughs, which would create habitats for wildlife and would aid in groundwater recharge. But humans don't want seasonal wetlands in the middle of their own habitat, so those streams were connected to Sonoma Creek and aid in channeling our copious winter rainfall directly out to the bay.

Minor changes like these, seemingly "improving" the land for use, actually add up to a major negative transformation of the land. All of this transformation in Sonoma took place over about 150-175 years, which is almost instantaneous in geologic time.

I know better than to quibble with Ohmman, but will jump into the frying pan with full knowledge of getting toasted rather than sauteed:

My dim recollection of California's native perennial grasses in its interior valleys (from several articles in "California Agriculture," a research journal from UCCE) is that they are primarily bunch/clump grasses with a smattering of rhizomatous grasses as well. I cannot comment on the length of their roots. However they are not green year round. The leaves manufacture food throughout the growing season to sustain the eventual florescence and seed maturation plus they establish the nodes for the following year's growth, either with basal nodes in clump grasses or on the rhizomes that are about 1/2 to 3/4" beneath the soil surface. Once the seeds are mature, the foliage dies back and turns our lovely shade of California tan, only to green up again after the first good autumn rain. Our hot, long, and dry summers play in concert with this growing cycle. Moreover, the desiccated foliage provides additional cover for all sorts of animals in the food chain.

First the Spaniards in the 17th Century, followed by ranchers in the 19th Century planted European annual grasses as annuals grow faster than perennials which allowed for heavier grazing by ungulates.

Fun fact: Many botanists conjecture that the family, Gramineae (or Poaceae), the grasses, are the most highly evolved of all flowering plants.

One question remains for you Ohhman: When you are describing the "mini-sloughs" and their ultimate demise, are you referring to our vernal pools? These have been sucked dry over the decades and had been home to all sorts of invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles, and temporary homes to transient avians as they negotiated the Pacific Flyway.

 

[iPlug]

Germany plans price hike for CO2 emissions

Germany is planning to more than double its original pricing scheme for carbon dioxide emissions, government sources said Monday — one day after the dead-end outcome of conversations in Madrid between global climate negotiators about how to implement the ambitious Paris climate agreement of 2015. ​

Germany plans price hike for CO2 emissions | DW | 16.12.2019

 

[iPlug]

A Methane Leak, Seen From Space, Proves to Be Far Larger Than Thought

​

The first satellite designed to continuously monitor the planet for methane leaks made a startling discovery last year: A little known gas-well accident at an Ohio fracking site was in fact one of the largest methane leaks ever recorded in the United States.​

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/16/climate/methane-leak-satellite.html

 

[rays427]

A few pointers:

Heartland on Global Warming – Case Study in Propaganda | NeuroLogica Blog

Oil companies admitting / knowing about (Exon, BP, Shell) it:

BP, the largest oil company in the UK and one of the largest in the world, has this opinion:
http://www.bp.com/subsection.do?categoryId=9012335&contentId=7025781
There is an increasing consensus that climate change is linked to the consumption of carbon based fuels and that action is required now to avoid further increases in carbon emissions as the global demand for energy increases.

Shell Oil (yes, as in oil, the fossil fuel) says:
http://www.shell.com/static/au-en/downloads/corporate/annual_review_2003.pdf
Shell shares the widespread concern that the emission of greenhouse gases from human activities is leading to changes in the global climate.

Exxon: http://graphics.latimes.com/exxon-arctic/
By 1978 Exxon’s senior scientists were telling top management that climate change was real, caused by man, and would raise global temperatures by 2-3C this century, which was pretty much spot-on.
By the early 1980s they’d validated these findings with shipborne measurements of CO2 (they outfitted a giant tanker with carbon sensors for a research voyage) and with computer models that showed precisely what was coming. As the head of one key lab at Exxon Research wrote to his superiors, there was “unanimous agreement in the scientific community that a temperature increase of this magnitude would bring about significant changes in the earth’s climate, including rainfall distribution and alterations in the biosphere”.
And by the early 1990s their researchers studying the possibility for new exploration in the Arctic were well aware that human-induced climate change was melting the poles. Indeed, they used that knowledge to plan their strategy, reporting that soon the Beaufort Sea would be ice-free as much as five months a year instead of the historic two. Greenhouse gases are rising “due to the burning of fossil fuels,” a key Exxon researcher told an audience of engineers at a conference in 1991. “Nobody disputes this fact.”

Exxon's climate lie: 'No corporation has ever done anything this big or bad' | Bill McKibben


Misinformation campaign, paid off articles, tobacco-style lobby

"Dark Money" Funds Climate Change Denial Effort
A Drexel University study finds that a large slice of donations to organizations that deny global warming are funneled through third-party pass-through organizations that conceal the original funder

Meet The Climate Denial Machine
Despite the overwhelming consensus among climate experts that human activity is contributing to rising global temperatures, 66 percent of Americans incorrectly believe there is "a lot of disagreement among scientists about whether or not global warming is happening." The conservative media has fueled this confusion by distorting scientific research, hyping faux-scandals, and giving voice to groups funded by industries that have a financial interest in blocking action on climate change. Meanwhile, mainstream media outlets have shied away from the "controversy" over climate change and have failed to press U.S. policymakers on how they will address this global threat. When climate change is discussed, mainstream outlets sometimes strive for a false balance that elevates marginal voices and enables them to sow doubt about the science even in the face of mounting evidence.

The WSJ article (The Myth of the Climate Change '97%') was written by Joseph Bast, who studied Economics as an undergraduate at the University of Chicago. According to Sourcewatch, he did not complete his degree.
Joseph Bast co-founded the Heartland Institute (Heartland Institute) in 1984 with David M. Padder. He currently serves as the institute's president and CEO.
He is one of several climate change skeptics cc'd on an email from S. Fred Singer in hopes of countering the documentary film “Merchants of Doubt,” which exposes the network of climate change skeptics and deniers trying to delay legislative action on climate change. Merchants of Doubt Film Debuts, Textbook Denial Attack Campaign Led By Fred Singer Ensues

The Heartland Institute is a Chicago-based free market think tank and 501(c)(3) charity that has been at the forefront of denying the scientific evidence for man-made climate change. The Heartland Institute has received at least $676,500 from ExxonMobil since 1998 but no longer discloses its funding sources. The Union of Concerned Scientists found (PDF) that “Nearly 40% of the total funds that the Heartland Institute has received from ExxonMobil since 1998 were specifically designated for climate change projects.”
In the 1990s, the Heartland Institute worked with the tobacco company Philip Morris to question the science linking second-hand smoke to health risks, and lobbied against government public health reforms. Heartland continues to maintain a “Smoker's Lounge” section of their website which brings together their policy studies, Op-Eds, essays, and other documents that purport to “[cut] through the propaganda and exaggeration of anti-smoking groups.” [6]

Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine
Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine
The Koch Brothers have sent at least $79,048,951 to groups denying climate change science since 1997.
Bloomberg - Are you a robot?
A loose network of 4,556 individuals with overlapping ties to 164 organizations do the most to dispute climate change in the U.S., according to a paper published today in Nature Climate Change. ExxonMobil and the family foundations controlled by Charles and David Koch emerge as the most significant sources of funding for these skeptics.
He examined Internal Revenue Service data showing which groups in the network of climate contrarians accepted funding from ExxonMobil or Koch foundations between 1993 and 2013. Recipients from those two sources tend to occupy central nodes in what he calls a "contrarian network."

http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nclimate2875

The 97% is a farce. The question was basically do you agree that an increase in CO2 will increase global temperature. Most if not almost all skeptics/deniers agree with this. What they don't agree with is how much it will increase global temperature and would it be catastrophic. They believe there are many other factors that control our climate other than CO2. If you check out the highest recorded temperature per state you will find most were before 1950. So what caused these extreme temperatures? It certainly wasn't CO2. Wind and solar on their own will not replace fossil fuels because they are intermittent. Currently there is now way of economically providing required backup power. If folks really believed in catastrophic climate change caused by CO2 they would be pushing nuclear power. The Green New Deal is more about pushing social equality than Climate Change

 

[rays427]

A few pointers:

Heartland on Global Warming – Case Study in Propaganda | NeuroLogica Blog

Oil companies admitting / knowing about (Exon, BP, Shell) it:

BP, the largest oil company in the UK and one of the largest in the world, has this opinion:
http://www.bp.com/subsection.do?categoryId=9012335&contentId=7025781
There is an increasing consensus that climate change is linked to the consumption of carbon based fuels and that action is required now to avoid further increases in carbon emissions as the global demand for energy increases.

Shell Oil (yes, as in oil, the fossil fuel) says:
http://www.shell.com/static/au-en/downloads/corporate/annual_review_2003.pdf
Shell shares the widespread concern that the emission of greenhouse gases from human activities is leading to changes in the global climate.

Exxon: http://graphics.latimes.com/exxon-arctic/
By 1978 Exxon’s senior scientists were telling top management that climate change was real, caused by man, and would raise global temperatures by 2-3C this century, which was pretty much spot-on.
By the early 1980s they’d validated these findings with shipborne measurements of CO2 (they outfitted a giant tanker with carbon sensors for a research voyage) and with computer models that showed precisely what was coming. As the head of one key lab at Exxon Research wrote to his superiors, there was “unanimous agreement in the scientific community that a temperature increase of this magnitude would bring about significant changes in the earth’s climate, including rainfall distribution and alterations in the biosphere”.
And by the early 1990s their researchers studying the possibility for new exploration in the Arctic were well aware that human-induced climate change was melting the poles. Indeed, they used that knowledge to plan their strategy, reporting that soon the Beaufort Sea would be ice-free as much as five months a year instead of the historic two. Greenhouse gases are rising “due to the burning of fossil fuels,” a key Exxon researcher told an audience of engineers at a conference in 1991. “Nobody disputes this fact.”

Exxon's climate lie: 'No corporation has ever done anything this big or bad' | Bill McKibben


Misinformation campaign, paid off articles, tobacco-style lobby

"Dark Money" Funds Climate Change Denial Effort
A Drexel University study finds that a large slice of donations to organizations that deny global warming are funneled through third-party pass-through organizations that conceal the original funder

Meet The Climate Denial Machine
Despite the overwhelming consensus among climate experts that human activity is contributing to rising global temperatures, 66 percent of Americans incorrectly believe there is "a lot of disagreement among scientists about whether or not global warming is happening." The conservative media has fueled this confusion by distorting scientific research, hyping faux-scandals, and giving voice to groups funded by industries that have a financial interest in blocking action on climate change. Meanwhile, mainstream media outlets have shied away from the "controversy" over climate change and have failed to press U.S. policymakers on how they will address this global threat. When climate change is discussed, mainstream outlets sometimes strive for a false balance that elevates marginal voices and enables them to sow doubt about the science even in the face of mounting evidence.

The WSJ article (The Myth of the Climate Change '97%') was written by Joseph Bast, who studied Economics as an undergraduate at the University of Chicago. According to Sourcewatch, he did not complete his degree.
Joseph Bast co-founded the Heartland Institute (Heartland Institute) in 1984 with David M. Padder. He currently serves as the institute's president and CEO.
He is one of several climate change skeptics cc'd on an email from S. Fred Singer in hopes of countering the documentary film “Merchants of Doubt,” which exposes the network of climate change skeptics and deniers trying to delay legislative action on climate change. Merchants of Doubt Film Debuts, Textbook Denial Attack Campaign Led By Fred Singer Ensues

The Heartland Institute is a Chicago-based free market think tank and 501(c)(3) charity that has been at the forefront of denying the scientific evidence for man-made climate change. The Heartland Institute has received at least $676,500 from ExxonMobil since 1998 but no longer discloses its funding sources. The Union of Concerned Scientists found (PDF) that “Nearly 40% of the total funds that the Heartland Institute has received from ExxonMobil since 1998 were specifically designated for climate change projects.”
In the 1990s, the Heartland Institute worked with the tobacco company Philip Morris to question the science linking second-hand smoke to health risks, and lobbied against government public health reforms. Heartland continues to maintain a “Smoker's Lounge” section of their website which brings together their policy studies, Op-Eds, essays, and other documents that purport to “[cut] through the propaganda and exaggeration of anti-smoking groups.” [6]

Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine
Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine
The Koch Brothers have sent at least $79,048,951 to groups denying climate change science since 1997.
Bloomberg - Are you a robot?
A loose network of 4,556 individuals with overlapping ties to 164 organizations do the most to dispute climate change in the U.S., according to a paper published today in Nature Climate Change. ExxonMobil and the family foundations controlled by Charles and David Koch emerge as the most significant sources of funding for these skeptics.
He examined Internal Revenue Service data showing which groups in the network of climate contrarians accepted funding from ExxonMobil or Koch foundations between 1993 and 2013. Recipients from those two sources tend to occupy central nodes in what he calls a "contrarian network."

http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nclimate2875

The money shown going to conservative groups by the Koch brothers and others is not just funding climate skeptics/deniers. In fact most of what is shown is used for other conservative issues. As an example the Cato Institute lists around 16 issues with one of those being about climate. In addition the total in 20 years of $80 million shown to be spent by the Koch brothers is $4 million per year which is chicken feed compared to what folks like Soros and Seyer have spent on pushing man made climate change.

 

[dhrivnak]

The 97% is a farce. The question was basically do you agree that an increase in CO2 will increase global temperature. Most if not almost all skeptics/deniers agree with this. What they don't agree with is how much it will increase global temperature and would it be catastrophic. They believe there are many other factors that control our climate other than CO2. If you check out the highest recorded temperature per state you will find most were before 1950. So what caused these extreme temperatures? It certainly wasn't CO2. Wind and solar on their own will not replace fossil fuels because they are intermittent. Currently there is now way of economically providing required backup power. If folks really believed in catastrophic climate change caused by CO2 they would be pushing nuclear power. The Green New Deal is more about pushing social equality than Climate Change

Can you show any data to support your ridiculous claims? And I am surprised to hear solar will not work. And here I have powered my house AND my cars for the last 6.5 years, how foolish of me to think the system is working. I somehow fooled the power company as well as my average bill has been $18.25. Curious what do you pay for power and fuel?

 

[ZsoZso]

The 97% is a farce.

OK, you are right about this one. The 97% is total BS.
The real consensus in peer-reviewed scientific literature is actually 99.94%:
Science Confirms Global Warming

Using rejection as the criterion of consensus, five literature surveys (11-15 in the chart above) agree closely (literature survey 10 did not use rejection alone). The five comprise 54,195 articles from 1991-2015 and reveal an average consensus of 99.94%.

 

[msm859]

OK, you are right about this one. The 97% is total BS.
The real consensus in peer-reviewed scientific literature is actually 99.94%:
Science Confirms Global Warming

And actually whether it is 97% or 99.94% or even 50% is an argument solely designed to distract. If there were 100 meteorologist in a room and a percent of them were saying don't take (insert the person you love the most) outside because there is going to be a lightning storm and you will be killed - what percent would you require not to take your loved one for a walk? 99% - 97% - 50% - 1%???
The consequence of being wrong on global warming for one side is catastrophic. For the other side there are still a lot of good things - cleaner air, water, not sending billions to the Middle East to fund terrorists etc.

Even President Reagan was smart enough to listen to the scientist about the ozone layer when he did not believe - calling it cheap insurance.

 

[winfield100]

The 97% is a farce. The question was basically do you agree that an increase in CO2 will increase global temperature. Most if not almost all skeptics/deniers agree with this. What they don't agree with is how much it will increase global temperature and would it be catastrophic. They believe there are many other factors that control our climate other than CO2. If you check out the highest recorded temperature per state you will find most were before 1950. So what caused these extreme temperatures? It certainly wasn't CO2. Wind and solar on their own will not replace fossil fuels because they are intermittent. Currently there is now way of economically providing required backup power. If folks really believed in catastrophic climate change caused by CO2 they would be pushing nuclear power. The Green New Deal is more about pushing social equality than Climate Change

As a simplistic response to your uninformed comment.
Many of us already use free nuclear power, sunlight.
I make ~190% of my needs from sunlight and nuclear fusion.
I point you towards costs of nuclear reactors situated on the planet, specifically, the decommissioned ones on the rivers in the Midwest that would have flooded except they had about 10 feet of emergency sandbags, the ones owned by TVA that ran out of cooling water when rivers virtually dried up a few years back, one in SE Florida with failing and leaking cooling canals, Diablo Canyon nuke in California, that it was discovered was built on an earthquake fault line and is being decommissioned, South Anna in Virginia nuke that was supposedly built on stable land, and the earthquake a few years back was almost enough to crack the containment shell, 3 mile Island nuke, on the Susquehanna river, the river that forms the Chesapeake bay, you know, Harrisburg Pennsylvania, Baltimore Maryland, Washington DC, Norfolk and Newport News including major navy bases, Chernobyl that contaminated large parts of Europe, over 100 gigawatt s released in less than 2 weeks, Fukushima Daichi, cost far more to clean up than any energy it produced, (a nuke takes about 10 years to build
Read and understand BP Statistical review of world energy

https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/b...l-review/bp-stats-review-2019-full-report.pdf

 

[mspohr]

A Coal Baron Funded Climate Denial as His Company Spiraled Into Bankruptcy

WASHINGTON — As his coal mining company hurtled into bankruptcy, Robert E. Murray, the former chief executive, paid himself $14 million, handed his successor a $4 million bonus and earmarked nearly $1 million for casting doubt on man-made climate change, new court filings show.

 

[mspohr]

US among top 10 countries for pollution-related deaths, new study shows

US among top 10 countries for pollution-related deaths, new study shows

The United States is among the top 10 deadliest countries for pollution-related fatalities, according to a landmark new global study, which warns that understanding the magnitude of the pollution crisis is being obstructed by “vested interests and overtaxed political infrastructures

 

[mspohr]

Zero-carbon ships on horizon under fuel levy plan

Zero-carbon ships on horizon under fuel levy plan

The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), which represents 80% of the global shipping industry, is proposing a $2 levy on every tonne of fuel consumed by ships, raising $500m a year that would be devoted to research and development of zero-carbon vessels.

Investing research to create zero-carbon ships is not a bad thing in itself, but it becomes suspiciously close to a delaying tactic if it is not accompanied by clear reduction targets. If the shipping industry wants people to believe this is a serious move, then they should change course and support legally binding targets to cut their planet-warming emissions.”

 

[iPlug]

Much work to still be done in the United States, but would argue we need to look at per capita pollution related deaths in rankings. Nominal numbers are much greater in countries with large populations even if their air pollution per capita is relatively low.

Explore the Data | State of Global Air

 

[mspohr]

More from the article

Globally, the actual death and disability burden is almost certainly much higher as a multitude of omnipresent toxins – including pharmaceutical waste, plastics, most lead sources, mercury, and hormone disrupting chemicals – are not yet included in the health data analysed in the new report from the Global Alliance on Health and Pollution.

But, the US ranks seventh for overall deaths, sandwiched between Bangladesh and Russia, and is the “wealthiest” nation to feature in the top 10 with almost 197,000 American lives lost in 2017.

The US has historically been the gold standard in tackling pollution, and today we are sadly not doing enough and the fact that we’re going backward is unconscionable,” said Gina McCarthy, a former Environmental Protection Agency administrator. “We’re facing serious risks from pollution and those risks are exacerbated by climate change.”