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Climate Change / Global Warming Discussion
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cpa
Active Member
South Dakota does it because no one lives there. Seriously, the 2020 census listed South Dakota with just under 900,000 people. It is 45th in density among the 50 states. Except for the Black Hills region, it is famously flat. The Missouri River bisects the state. Wind turbines can be erected on farmland with only a minor disruption to cultivating their row crops.
I do applaud the people of South Dakota for their adoption of WWS for generating electricity. I wish more states would be this serious.
I do applaud the people of South Dakota for their adoption of WWS for generating electricity. I wish more states would be this serious.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
EPA finally wakes up with stiff new climate rules: ‘They’ve hit full throttle’
A slew of anti-pollution, from toxic water to planet-heating emissions has been issued by an agency belatedly flexing its muscles
www.theguardian.com
In the past month, an avalanche of anti-pollution rules, targeting everything from toxic drinking water to planet-heating gases in the atmosphere, have been issued by the agency. Belatedly, the sizable weight of the US federal government is being thrown at longstanding environmental crises, including the climate emergency.
On Thursday, the EPA’s month of frenzied activity was crowned by the toughest ever limits upon carbon pollution from America’s power sector, with large, existing coal and gas plants told they must slash their emissions by 90% or face being shut downIn just a few short months the EPA, diminished and demoralized under Donald Trump, has flexed its regulatory muscles to the extent that 15bn tons of greenhouse gases – equivalent to about three times the US’s carbon pollution, or nearly half of the entire world’s annual fossil fuel emissions – are set to be prevented, transforming the power basis of Americans’ cars and homes in the process.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Cop28 host UAE’s approach is ‘dangerous’, says UN’s ex-climate chief
Christiana Figueres says focus on carbon capture is direct threat to survival of vulnerable countries
www.theguardian.com
The United Arab Emirates’ approach to the Cop28 climate summit it will preside over in November is “very dangerous” and a “direct threat to the survival of vulnerable nations”, according to the UN’s former climate chief. Christiana Figueres, who was pivotal to the delivery of the landmark Paris climate agreement in 2015, also said the country holding the presidency of the UN summit could not put forward its own position and had to be neutral. The UAE is a big oil and gas producer, and the designated president of the Cop28 summit is Sultan Al Jaber, who is also the head of the UAE’s national oil and gas company, Adnoc. Figueres was responding to a speech by Al Jaber in which he said: “We must be laser focused on phasing out fossil fuel emissions, while phasing up viable, affordable zero-carbon alternatives.” That was widely interpreted to mean using carbon capture and storage technology to capture CO2 emissions, and not completely phasing out fossil fuels themselves.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Global heating has likely made El Niños and La Niñas more ‘frequent and extreme’, new study shows
Scientists say greenhouse gases have already affected climate patterns in the Pacific that could lead to more severe weather, floods and heatwaves
www.theguardian.com
Global heating has likely intensified a climate pattern in the Pacific since the 1960s that has driven extreme droughts, floods and heatwaves around the globe, according to a new study. The scientists said they had shown for the first time that greenhouse gas emissions were likely already making El Niños and La Niñas more severe. The shifts in ocean temperatures and atmospheric conditions in the Pacific – known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation (Enso) – affect weather patterns around the globe, threatening food supplies, spreading disease and impacting societies and ecosystems.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
‘The city was underwater’: quarter of a million Somalis flee flooded homes
Climate crisis a key factor in flash flooding of Beledweyne as rains end drought and Shabelle River breaks its banks
www.theguardian.com
Floods have caused almost a quarter of a million people to flee their homes after the Shabelle River in central Somalia broke its banks and submerged the town of Beledweyne, even as the country faces its most severe drought in four decades, according to the government. Aid agencies and scientists have warned that the climate crisis is among the most significant factors accelerating humanitarian emergencies, while those affected are some of the least responsible for CO2 emissions.
After back-to-back disasters, one resident of Beledweyne, Halima Abdullahi, who has two children, said she had seen enough, making her one of the 216 million people the World Bank predicts could be compelled to move within their own country by 2050 because of climate stress. “We shall move to villages far away,” she said. “Beledweyne no longer exists.”
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Italy’s disasters suggest the climate crisis is at the gates of Europe
This week’s floods are latest weather disaster to hit country, as policymakers finally begin to respond to crescendo
www.theguardian.com
This week, parts of northern Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region received half their average annual rainfall in just 36 hours. Rivers burst their banks and thousands of acres of farmland lie submerged. By Thursday evening, an estimated 20,000 people had been left homeless and 13 were confirmed dead.
Climate change is here and we are living the consequences. It isn’t some remote prospect, it is the new normal,” Paola Pino d’Astore, an expert at the Italian Society of Environmental Geology (SIGEA), told Reuters.
The environmental group WWF Italia said the elimination of water-absorbing forests and vegetation along riverbanks in Emilia-Romagna had amplified this week’s disaster. Twenty three rivers burst their banks. Experts say it is the result of years of often unregulated building and industrial-scale agriculture.
I wonder if there was as must denialism in the good old days when the midwest was turning into all dust bowls.
cpa
Active Member
The 24-hour news cycle and social media had not yet penetrated into those states. Plus, it was "God's will," at least according to my grandfather (1884-1969) from Nebraska.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
$209bn a year is what fossil fuel firms owe in climate reparations. We want that paid | André Wright
After a new study revealing the extent to which developing nations have been damaged, there is no excuse for further delay, says André Wright, a former news and opinion editor at the Jamaica Gleaner
www.theguardian.com
The truth is out, and it lays bare big oil’s plunder of the environment for commercial greed. Academics now estimate that the 21 top fossil fuel behemoths are liable for an estimated US$209bn annual reparation bill arising from their exploitation. But what’s more scandalous is that the governments and private investors that have set off an existential timebomb may not be held accountable, despite compelling evidence that they were complicit in the turbocharged, steroidal race for industrial expansion and dominance.
In conversation with me this week, Johnny Briceño, the prime minister of Belize, insisted that that major fossil fuel producers “have a moral and legal responsibility to the rest of countries suffering from climate change”, citing sea-level rise, more frequent and destructive hurricanes, warming waters and eroding coastlines as clear evidence of the dire consequences
There are several key issues that complicate the matter of climate reparations. Will the major fossil fuel producers based in the US and Europe yield to moral persuasion or other arm-twisting overtures? We cannot say. Those deep pockets, slicked with oil and cash, have for decades influenced government policy and will deploy the muscle of lobbyists to delay, or deny, a day of reckoning.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Big polluters’ share prices fall after climate lawsuits, study finds
Exclusive: Fossil fuel companies register drop in value after litigation or unfavourable judgments
www.theguardian.com
Climate litigation poses a financial risk to fossil fuel companies because it lowers the share price of big polluters, research has found.
A study to be published on Tuesday by LSE’s Grantham Research Institute examines how the stock market reacts to news that a fresh climate lawsuit has been filed or a corporation has lost its case.
The researchers hope their work will encourage lenders, financial regulators and governments to consider the effect of climate litigation when making investment decisions in a warmer future, and ultimately drive greener corporate behaviour.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Global heating will push billions outside ‘human climate niche’
World is on track for 2.7C and ‘phenomenal’ human suffering, scientists warn
www.theguardian.com
Global heating will drive billions of people out of the “climate niche” in which humanity has flourished for millennia, a study has estimated, exposing them to unprecedented temperatures and extreme weather. The world is on track for 2.7C of heating with current action plans and this would mean 2 billion people experiencing average annual temperatures above 29C by 2030, a level at which very few communities have lived in the past. Up to 1 billion people could choose to migrate to cooler places, the scientists said, although those areas remaining within the climate niche would still experience more frequent heatwaves and droughts.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
‘Worthless’: Chevron’s carbon offsets are mostly junk and some may harm, research says
Exclusive: investigation finds energy giant’s efforts to offset its huge emissions rely on schemes with little impact
www.theguardian.com
A new investigation into Chevron’s climate pledge has found the fossil fuel company relies on “junk” carbon offsets and “unviable” technologies, which do little to offset its vast greenhouse gas emissions and in some cases may actually be causing communities harm.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Delta Air Lines faces lawsuit over $1bn carbon neutrality claim
US airline pledged to go carbon neutral but plaintiffs say it is relying on offsets that do almost nothing to mitigate global heating
www.theguardian.com
The case argues that there is a market premium for green products and that Delta has profited from a misleading environmental claim. It cites scientific and journalistic evidence that there are deep flaws with carbon credits from the unregulated voluntary market that Delta has purchased for its environmental claims.
The language carbon neutral is so provocative,” says Krikor Kouyoumdjian, a partner with the legal firm Haderlein and Kouyoumdjian LLP which is bringing the case. “When companies say: ‘Don’t worry about our emissions, they’re sorted,’ they are communicating complacency. They are letting consumers pay to feel better and not have to worry about the impact of their consumption. But that is counterfactual to reality. It is not something that you can pay away.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Cop28 president’s team accused of Wikipedia ‘greenwashing’
Exclusive: UAE using site to ‘control narrative’ amid criticism of oil boss leading climate summit, say critics
www.theguardian.com
The Cop28 president, Sultan Al Jaber, has been accused of attempting to “greenwash” his image after it emerged that members of his team had edited Wikipedia pages that highlighted his role as CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc). Work by Al Jaber’s team on his and the climate summit’s Wikipedia entries include adding a quote from an editorial that said Al Jaber – the United Arab Emirates minister for industry and advanced technology – was “precisely the kind of ally the climate movement needs”. They also suggested that editors remove reference to a multibillion-dollar oil pipeline deal he signed in 2019, the Centre for Climate Reporting and the Guardian can reveal
Oil companies and their CEOs are taking greenwash to a whole new level – seizing control of global climate conferences, then getting their own employees to airbrush out criticism of their blatant hypocrisy on Wikipedia,” said Caroline Lucas, the Green party MP.
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