Climate Change / Global Warming Discussion

[mspohr]

Carbon dioxide levels in atmosphere reach record high
Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere fluctuate slightly during the year, dropping as some is absorbed during the spring and summer by plants growing in the northern hemisphere, before it rises again in autumn and winter. But the long-term trend in rising concentrations of carbon dioxide is caused by human activity, mainly through the burning of fossil fuels and also from deforestation, the Met Office said. Global emissions reduced temporarily in 2020 as a result of a drop in transport use and economic activity as the coronavirus pandemic struck.Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere fluctuate slightly during the year, dropping as some is absorbed during the spring and summer by plants growing in the northern hemisphere, before it rises again in autumn and winter. But the long-term trend in rising concentrations of carbon dioxide is caused by human activity, mainly through the burning of fossil fuels and also from deforestation, the Met Office said. Global emissions reduced temporarily in 2020 as a result of a drop in transport use and economic activity as the coronavirus pandemic struck.
Reaching net zero involves cutting emissions to as near to zero as possible and taking steps such as planting trees to absorb any remaining pollution.

 

[Raffy.Roma]

Carbon dioxide levels in atmosphere reach record high
Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere fluctuate slightly during the year, dropping as some is absorbed during the spring and summer by plants growing in the northern hemisphere, before it rises again in autumn and winter. But the long-term trend in rising concentrations of carbon dioxide is caused by human activity, mainly through the burning of fossil fuels and also from deforestation, the Met Office said. Global emissions reduced temporarily in 2020 as a result of a drop in transport use and economic activity as the coronavirus pandemic struck.Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere fluctuate slightly during the year, dropping as some is absorbed during the spring and summer by plants growing in the northern hemisphere, before it rises again in autumn and winter. But the long-term trend in rising concentrations of carbon dioxide is caused by human activity, mainly through the burning of fossil fuels and also from deforestation, the Met Office said. Global emissions reduced temporarily in 2020 as a result of a drop in transport use and economic activity as the coronavirus pandemic struck.
Reaching net zero involves cutting emissions to as near to zero as possible and taking steps such as planting trees to absorb any remaining pollution.

The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere Is 417 ppm now. Such a high value of CO2 has never been achieved on the Earth since 3 millions years ago! And in the last million years we GOT an ICE AGE each One hundred thousands years in coincidence of a CO2 concentration of 300 ppm!
PLEASE CONSIDER THE GRAVITY OF THESE FACTS!

 

[mspohr]

Third of Antarctic ice shelves ‘will collapse amid 4C global heating’

More than a third of the vast floating platforms of ice surrounding Antarctica could be at risk of collapsing and releasing “unimaginable amounts” of water into the sea if global temperatures reach 4C above pre-industrial levels, UK scientists say.
Researchers from the University of Reading said that limiting the temperature rise to 2C could halve the area at risk and avoid a drastic rise in sea levels.

 

[SmartElectric]

2021 real estate listing "40 acre island on Atlantic coast, perfect for cottage" .
2121 real estate listing "underwater paradise, perfect for adventure diving, live under the sea!"

 

[ZsoZso]

2021 real estate listing "40 acre island on Atlantic coast, perfect for cottage" .
2121 real estate listing "underwater paradise, perfect for adventure diving, live under the sea!"

I was seriously considering to buy some cheap coastal land in Florida to build some future under-water hotels. You know similar to the ones near Dubai, however there they built it underwater which is much more expensive. In Florida, you can do the construction now on the dry land much cheaper, then it will get inundated later to open up for business

 

[eevee-fan]

I was seriously considering to buy some cheap coastal land in Florida to build some future under-water hotels. You know similar to the ones near Dubai, however there they built it underwater which is much more expensive. In Florida, you can do the construction now on the dry land much cheaper, then it will get inundated later to open up for business

So that was Trump's plan for Marla Largo... building his under water lair, brilliant!

 

[JRP3]

This article and the related thread are rather terrifying if true. The degrees to which an oil company will go to attack a reporter, and the government apparently allowing and enabling it, are horrifying.

The Judicial Persecution of Steven Donziger

For some, call them criminal justice ingenues, it may be hard to believe this is happening in the United States, that our famed judiciary has sunk this low. But in the U.S., a judge acts as prosecutor and jury on behalf of a giant oil company, Chevron, as it destroys the life and career of human...

www.counterpunch.org

https://twitter.com/SDonziger

 

[Raffy.Roma]

The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere Is 417 ppm now. Such a high value of CO2 has never been achieved on the Earth since 3 millions years ago! And in the last million years we GOT an ICE AGE each One hundred thousands years in coincidence of a CO2 concentration of 300 ppm!
PLEASE CONSIDER THE GRAVITY OF THESE FACTS!

I mean "are we SOON heading to a NEW ICE AGE because of the TOO HIGH CO2 CONCENTRATION that we have NOW IN THE ATMOSPHERE?"
IMHO YES!

 

[mspohr]

Trump Abandoned the Climate. This Is Biden’s Moment. Opinion | Trump Abandoned the Climate. This Is Biden’s Moment.
The second potential game changer is a national clean power standard — a federal mandate requiring that a certain (and steadily increasing) percentage of electricity be generated by zero-carbon or very-low-carbon sources like wind, solar, hydroelectric and nuclear power. All those E.V.s and residential heat pumps in Mr. Biden’s electrified America will need huge amounts of power, and it best be clean. One effect of this rule would be to hasten the transition from fossil fuels. Coal is already on its way out, and natural gas’s days are numbered unless some way can be found to capture the emissions from power plants that use it
Obama-era rules revoked by Mr. Trump will most likely be restored and perhaps strengthened — among them, rules aimed at reducing planet-warming emissions of methane from new and existing oil and gas facilities and rules to reduce carbon emissions from vehicles. The vehicle rules would be particularly important, since they would require manufacturers to produce steadily more-fuel-efficient cars before the transition to electric vehicles really kicks in, which could be a decade or two down the road.

 

[mspohr]

Just 3% of world’s ecosystems remain intact, study suggests

Just 3% of the world’s land remains ecologically intact with healthy populations of all its original animals and undisturbed habitat, a study suggests. These fragments of wilderness undamaged by human activities are mainly in parts of the Amazon and Congo tropical forests, east Siberian and northern Canadian forests and tundra, and the Sahara. Invasive alien species including cats, foxes, rabbits, goats and camels have had a major impact on native species in Australia, with the study finding no intact areas left. The researchers suggest reintroducing a small number of important species to some damaged areas, such as elephants or wolves – a move that could restore up to 20% of the world’s land to ecological intactness.

 

[mspohr]

‘This is it. If we don’t amp up, we’re goners’: the last chance to confront the climate crisis?
“I think in Obama’s mind, it was always about tackling the climate challenge, not making the climate challenge the central element of your economic policy,” says John Podesta, a Democratic power broker and special adviser to President Obama who played a key role in negotiating the Paris agreement. “Biden’s team is different. It is really the core of their economic strategy to make transformation of the energy systems the driver of innovation, growth, and job creation, justice and equity.”
Cutting carbon fast would slow these changes and reduce the risk of other climate catastrophes. But despite the world’s newfound ambition, political leaders are not moving anywhere near fast enough. Even the goal of holding future warming to 2C, which is a centerpiece of the Paris agreement and considered the outer limits of a Goldilocks climate for much of the planet, is nearly out of reach. As a recent paper in Nature pointed out: “On current trends, the probability of staying below 2C of warming is only five percent.”
In a way, the economic chaos caused by the pandemic has created a historic opportunity for the Biden administration. As one White House adviser tells me, “If you are going to pump billions of dollars into the economy, why not use those dollars to help us transition away from fossil fuels?” This is one of the central ideas behind Biden’s $2tn infrastructure bill, which is now being negotiated in Congress.

 

[Raffy.Roma]

‘This is it. If we don’t amp up, we’re goners’: the last chance to confront the climate crisis?
“Even the goal of holding future warming to 2C, which is a centerpiece of the Paris agreement and considered the outer limits of a Goldilocks climate for much of the planet, is nearly out of reach. As a recent paper in Nature pointed out: “On current trends, the probability of staying below 2C of warming is only five percent."

I like this article. But I would like TO POINT OUT this part of the above mentioned article.

 

[mspohr]

US and China commit to cooperating on climate crisis
The joint statement listed multiple avenues of cooperation between the US and China, the world’s top two economies that together account for nearly half of the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change. It stressed “enhancing their respective actions and cooperating in multilateral processes, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement”. The nations also agreed to discuss specific “concrete” emission reduction actions including energy storage, carbon capture and hydrogen, and agreed to take action to maximise financing for developing countries to switch to low-carbon energy sources.

 

[mspohr]

Joe Biden to reveal US emissions pledge in key climate crisis moment
At the meeting, or shortly before, the US is expected to unveil its national plan for cutting greenhouse gas emissions over the next 10 years. If the plan – which the Paris accord refers to as a nationally determined contribution or NDC – is bold enough, and other countries follow suit, the world has a chance of meeting the Paris goals and avoiding dangerous levels of heating. If not, it will face a deepening climate crisis as carbon emissions rebound from their lull during the pandemic.

 

[eevee-fan]

Joe Biden to reveal US emissions pledge in key climate crisis moment
At the meeting, or shortly before, the US is expected to unveil its national plan for cutting greenhouse gas emissions over the next 10 years. If the plan – which the Paris accord refers to as a nationally determined contribution or NDC – is bold enough, and other countries follow suit, the world has a chance of meeting the Paris goals and avoiding dangerous levels of heating. If not, it will face a deepening climate crisis as carbon emissions rebound from their lull during the pandemic.

Great to see some leadership skills coming from the WH vs shameful bullying skills of the previous 4. Hope we can regain our status as a world leader.

 

[mspohr]

Carbon emissions to soar in 2021 by second highest rate in history
In its Global Energy Review, published on Tuesday, the IEA found that global carbon emissions from energy use, which accounts for the great majority of greenhouse gas emissions, were on course to rise by 1.5bn tonnes in 2021, after having fallen last year. That represents a 5% rise to 33bn tonnes of carbon dioxide for the year. After more than half a decade of decline, global coal demand is forecast to grow by 4.5%, approaching its all-time peak in 2014.
Surging use of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, for electricity is largely driving the emissions rise, especially across Asia but also in the US. Coal’s rebound causes particular concern because it comes despite plunging prices for renewable energy, which is now cheaper than coal.

 

[mspohr]

Some say we can ‘solar-engineer’ ourselves out of the climate crisis. Don’t buy it | Ray Pierrehumbert and Michael E Mann

So-called “solar geoengineering” doesn’t actually modify the sun itself. Instead, it reduces incoming sunlight by other means, such as putting chemicals in the atmosphere that reflect sunlight to space. It addresses a symptom of global heating, rather than the root cause, which is human-caused increase in the atmosphere’s burden of carbon dioxide.
While it is certainly true that reducing sunlight can cause cooling (we know that from massive but episodic volcanic eruptions such as Pinatubo in 1991), it acts on a very different part of the climate system than carbon dioxide. And efforts to offset carbon dioxide-caused warming with sunlight reduction would yield a very different climate, perhaps one unlike any seen before in Earth’s history, with massive shifts in atmospheric circulation and rainfall patterns and possible worsening of droughts.
What could possibly go wrong? Elizabeth Kolbert’s book Under a White Sky documents case after case where supposedly benign environmental interventions have had unintended consequences requiring layer after layer of escalating further technological interventions to avert disaster. When the impacts are local, as in Australia’s struggle to deal with consequences of deliberate introduction of the cane toad, the spread of catastrophe can be contained (so far, at least). But what happens when the unintended consequences afflict the entire planet?

 

[mspohr]

Climate Change Could Cut World Economy by $23 Trillion in 2050, Insurance Giant Warns The New York Times - Breaking News, US News, World News and Videos temperatures are likely to reduce global wealth significantly by 2050, as crop yields fall, disease spreads and rising seas consume coastal cities, a major insurance company warned Thursday, highlighting the consequences if the world fails to quickly slow the use of fossil fuels. The effects of climate change can be expected to shave 11 percent to 14 percent off global economic output by 2050 compared with growth levels without climate change, according to a report from Swiss Re, one of the world’s largest providers of insurance to other insurance companies. That amounts to as much as $23 trillion in reduced annual global economic output worldwide as a result of climate change.

 

[eevee-fan]

 

[eevee-fan]

Now that's world leadership compared to whinyship!