I want to sue the republican party for willful denial of scientific evidence about climate change.

[China]

The Flooding Will Come “No Matter What”

 

Another great American migration is now underway, this time forced by the warming that is altering how and where people can live. For now, it’s just a trickle. But in the corners of the country’s most vulnerable landscapes — on the shores of its sinking bayous and on the eroding bluffs of its coastal defenses — populations are already in disarray.

 

A couple of miles west of downtown Slidell, Louisiana, and just upstream from the broad expanse of Lake Pontchartrain — the 40-by-24-mile-wide brackish estuary separating what is now the mainland from New Orleans — a five-room shotgun house sits on a plot of marshy lawn near the edge of Liberty Bayou. Colette Pichon Battle’s mother had been born in that house. Colette, bright-eyed and ambitious, devoutly Catholic, a force on the volleyball court, was raised in the house until the day she left for college. The family’s very identity had grown from the waters of the marsh around it. From a humble rectangle of wood, framed onto brick stanchions that kept it hovering several feet above the ground, shaded by the long beards of Spanish moss hanging from the limbs of towering oaks and a hardy pine, a family was born. Its Creole heritage near the acre of low-lying land goes deeper than the trees, deeper than the United States as a nation, to around 1770. Those roots withstood the tests of centuries: slavery, war and more than their share of storms.

 

--------

 

As the U.S. gets hotter, its coastal waters rise higher, its wildfires burn larger and its droughts last longer, the notion that humankind can triumph over nature is fading, and with it, slowly, goes the belief that self-determination and personal preference can be the driving factors in choosing where to live. Scientific modeling of these pressures suggest a sweeping change is coming in the shape and location of communities across America, a change that promises to transform the country’s politics, culture and economy.

 

It has already begun. More Americans are displaced by catastrophic climate-change-driven storms and floods and fires every year. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, the global nongovernmental organization researchers rely on to measure the number of people forcibly cast out of their homes by natural disasters, counted very few displaced Americans in 2009, 2010 and 2011, years in which few natural disasters struck the United States. But by 2016 the numbers had begun to surge, with between 1 million and 1.7 million newly displaced people annually. The disasters and heat waves each year have become legion. But the statistics show the human side of what has appeared to be a turning point in both the severity and frequency of wildfires and hurricanes. As the number of displaced people continues to grow, an ever-larger portion of those affected will make their moves permanent, migrating to safer ground or supportive communities. They will do so either because a singular disaster like the 2018 wildfire in Paradise, California — or Hurricane Harvey, which struck the Texas and Louisiana coasts — is so destructive it forces them to, or because the subtler “slow onset” change in their surroundings gradually grows so intolerable, uncomfortable or inconvenient that they make the decision to leave, proactively, by choice. In a 2021 study published in the journal Climatic Change, researchers found that 57% of the Americans they surveyed believed that changes in their climate would push them to consider a move sometime in the next decade.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[philibusters]

On 3/24/2024 at 3:41 PM, China said:

A nuclear plant’s closure was hailed as a green win. Then emissions went up

 

When New York’s deteriorating and unloved Indian Point nuclear plant finally shuttered in 2021, its demise was met with delight from environmentalists who had long demanded it be scrapped.

 

But there has been a sting in the tail – since the closure, New York’s greenhouse gas emissions have gone up.

 

Castigated for its impact upon the surrounding environment and feared for its potential to unleash disaster close to the heart of New York City, Indian Point nevertheless supplied a large chunk of the state’s carbon-free electricity.

 

Since the plant’s closure, it has been gas, rather then clean energy such as solar and wind, that has filled the void, leaving New York City in the embarrassing situation of seeing its planet-heating emissions jump in recent years to the point its power grid is now dirtier than Texas’s, as well as the US average.

 

“From a climate change point of view it’s been a real step backwards and made it harder for New York City to decarbonize its electricity supply than it could’ve been,” said Ben Furnas, a climate and energy policy expert at Cornell University. “This has been a cautionary tale that has left New York in a really challenging spot.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

I definitely don't understand why some environmentalists still continue to dis-like nuclear so much other than they learned it from their parents.   I think the position was more justifiable in 1950's, 1960's, and 1970's when there was no understanding of global warming and hence people didn't factor in carbon emissions and when the design of nuclear powerplants was  less sophisicated and there was more potential for a disaster. On the other hand back then, coal was the most common fuel source and it burned less cleanly than say natural gas which is a lot more common today.  But yeah, environmentalist in France got their country to back up off nuclear like 10 years ago and of course their carbon emissions went up afterwardsd.

[PokerPacker]

10 minutes ago, philibusters said:

 

I definitely don't understand why some environmentalists still continue to dis-like nuclear so much other than they learned it from their parents.   I think the position was more justifiable in 1950's, 1960's, and 1970's when there was no understanding of global warming and hence people didn't factor in carbon emissions and when the design of nuclear powerplants was  less sophisicated and there was more potential for a disaster. On the other hand back then, coal was the most common fuel source and it burned less cleanly than say natural gas which is a lot more common today.  But yeah, environmentalist in France got their country to back up off nuclear like 10 years ago and of course their carbon emissions went up afterwardsd.

We still don't have an acceptable answer to the question of what to do with nuclear waste, really bad things happen when disaster strikes, and it takes decades to get a new plant opened while we can renewables going much, much faster without the prior drawbacks.

[Captain Wiggles]

Lol our solution to dealing with nuclear waste is to bury it under a mountain and it all gets there by rail. Railroads are sooper safe right? There's only like three derailments per day on average. 

 

Make Nuclear Waste Great Again tho. 🤪

[philibusters]

5 hours ago, PokerPacker said:

We still don't have an acceptable answer to the question of what to do with nuclear waste, really bad things happen when disaster strikes, and it takes decades to get a new plant opened while we can renewables going much, much faster without the prior drawbacks.

 

I agree that renewables are very important to the future.  But that they have a ton of drawbacks.  First they are just not as reliable as fossil fuels.  When France got rid of its nuclear power they thought it would mostly be made up through renewables.  It hasn't.  It wasn't made up for with fossil fuels.   Why?  Because France was less windy and more cloudy than anticipated in the years following the transition.  30 years ago there was a hope that batteries could be developed that could store the excess energy renewables produced when it was sunny or windy, but the battery hasn't developed as quickly as hoped and may still be 50 years away (kind of like self-driving cars it seemed close, but then it wasn't).  Second, renewables have their own bad environmental consequences.  It is not 100% clear to me over the long term they are more environmentally friendly than nuclear.  For example in order to generate a large amount of power they need to take up a lot of space.   Now if  you are near a desert where it sunny and sometimes windy and the land is not that useable, that is an easy requirement to hit.  But in crowded urban areas, there really is not enough room to put solar and wind farms.  Likewise solar panels use a lot of fairly rare metals that require a lot of mining.  Some of these metals can be toxic, so like nuclear waste you have to figure out what to do with them after the solar panels die (panel may have a 30 year life).  

Without doubt as the renewable technology gets better and as battery technology gets better renewables will be the wave of the future.  There is no doubt about that.   But as I said I think environmentalist messed  up big time back in the 1950's and 1960's advocating for fossil fuels over nuclear and I think some continue to make the same mistake today.  

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[China]

38 trillion dollars in damages each year: World economy already committed to income reduction of 19 % due to climate change

 

Even if CO2 emissions were to be drastically cut down starting today, the world economy is already committed to an income reduction of 19 % until 2050 due to climate change, a new study published in “Nature” finds. These damages are six times larger than the mitigation costs needed to limit global warming to two degrees. Based on empirical data from more than 1,600 regions worldwide over the past 40 years, scientists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) assessed future impacts of changing climatic conditions on economic growth and their persistence.

 

“Strong income reductions are projected for the majority of regions, including North America and Europe, with South Asia and Africa being most strongly affected. These are caused by the impact of climate change on various aspects that are relevant for economic growth such as agricultural yields, labour productivity or infrastructure,” says PIK scientist and first author of the study Maximilian Kotz. Overall, global annual damages are estimated to be at 38 trillion dollars, with a likely range of 19-59 trillion Dollars in 2050. These damages mainly result from rising temperatures but also from changes in rainfall and temperature variability. Accounting for other weather extremes such as storms or wildfires could further raise them.

 

“Our analysis shows that climate change will cause massive economic damages within the next 25 years in almost all countries around the world, also in highly-developed ones such as Germany, France and the United States,” says PIK scientist Leonie Wenz who led the study. ”These near-term damages are a result of our past emissions. We will need more adaptation efforts if we want to avoid at least some of them. And we have to cut down our emissions drastically and immediately – if not, economic losses will become even bigger in the second half of the century, amounting to up to 60% on global average by 2100. This clearly shows that protecting our climate is much cheaper than not doing so, and that is without even considering non-economic impacts such as loss of life or biodiversity.”

 

Click on the link for more

[China]

Bumblebee babies are dying in their nests because global temperatures are getting too warm, study finds

 

Scientists have been warning for years that bumblebee populations are declining, posing a risk to the vital role that pollinators have in helping maintain food and plants across the world. New research has found a "major factor" in why. 

 

The answer? It's getting way too hot. 

 

Like humans, bumblebees' bodies thrive best within certain temperature thresholds. Based on 180 years worth of literature, University of Guelph environmental science professor Peter Kevan and his team found that bumblebees are most likely to survive up to 36 degrees Celsius, or 96.8 degrees Fahrenheit. Their optimal temperature range for development is between 30 and 32 Celsius, or between 86 and 89.6 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on the species. 

 

Bumblebees do have the ability to thermoregulate, meaning they can somewhat control the heat throughout their bodies. But Kevan said that natural skill does not seem to be enough when it comes to their nests and the larvae that rely on them to grow. 

 

The optimal temperature range for bumblebee nests is between 82.4 and 89.6 degrees Fahrenheit. And when the heat rises just slightly higher to 95 degrees Fahrenheit, Kevan said it becomes "lethal, despite the remarkable capacity of bumblebees to thermoregulate."

 

"We can surmise that nest temperatures above the mid-30s Celsius would likely be highly detrimental and that above about 35 Celsius death would occur, probably quite quickly," Kevan said.

 

Average global temperatures have been significantly rising in recent decades. Last year was the hottest ever recorded and 2024 has only seen back-to-back heat extremes, with many cities across the world seeing record-high temperatures in winter. The situation is only expected to worsen as the continued burning of fossil fuels emits gases that trap heat from the sun, amplifying temperatures. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

April was the moistest on record, evidence of a long-predicted water vapor humidity feedback.

 

Ben Noll is a meteorologist at the Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in New Zealand. He is responsible for monitoring the atmosphere's moisture content and discovered a record-setting pattern of increasing moisture. He found that April was the wettest month on record, and March was the wettest month on record.

 

That is not all. For eleven consecutive months, the Earth has experienced unprecedented heat temperatures. Last month, it was 1.58 Celsius warmer than the average, per Copernicus.

 

The ocean, the largest ecosystem on Earth, comprising seventy percent of the planet's surface area, has been the warmest recorded daily for the past thirteen months. Part of that warming can be attributed to El Nino, a natural climate cycle, as well as the greenhouse effect. The issue is that increasing water vapor is due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Something weird is happening with tornadoes

 

Tornado season is here again, with twisters striking in Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Florida over the past few weeks. But while severe storms in spring are nothing new, there have been subtle changes in tornado patterns in recent years that portend a more dangerous future for communities across the country.

 

According to a preliminary count from the National Centers for Environmental Information, there have been 547 tornadoes documented from January through April 2024. That figure is higher than the year-to-date average — 338 — the organization calculated between 1991 and 2020 but in line with the number observed in 2022 and 2023 in the same time frame.

And even as the number of tornadoes has stayed relatively consistent in the last few years, experts say there have been key changes in their behavior over time that could have major consequences.

 

More tornadoes are now concentrated in fewer days, meaning they are less spread out and there’s a higher number occurring on the same day, according to a 2019 study published in Theoretical and Applied Climatology. A growing number of tornadoes are also occurring in the southeastern part of the US in addition to the Great Plains, where they have been historically most common.

 

There’s still a lot experts don’t know about why both these trends are occurring and it’s not clear if climate change is playing a role. What is more certain is that these shifts mean people will have to prepare for these natural disasters in new ways, with some communities enduring more severe storms in rapid succession and others being forced to build infrastructure for tornadoes they had rarely experienced before.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Cooked Crack]

Quote

Florida will eliminate climate change as a priority in making energy policy decisions, despite the threats it faces from powerful hurricanes, extreme heat and worsening toxic algae blooms.

 

On Wednesday, the state’s governor, Ron DeSantis, signed the legislation, which is set to go into effect on July 1. The measure also removes most references to climate change in state law, bans offshore wind turbines in state waters and weakens regulations on natural gas pipelines.

 

“The legislation I signed today [will] keep windmills off our beaches, gas in our tanks, and China out of our state,” the governor said, according to the DeSantis-friendly outlet Florida’s Voice, which was the first to report that he had signed the bill. “We’re restoring sanity in our approach to energy and rejecting the agenda of the radical green zealots.”

 

[Hersh]

33 minutes ago, Cooked Crack said:

 

 

They are truly the dumbest ****ing people. 

[skinsfan4128]

49 minutes ago, Hersh said:

 

They are truly the dumbest ****ing people. 

Pretty sure there's one ****ing idiot overseeing this dumbassery. 

 

HTTR!

[China]

When will Florida be underwater? Here’s what to know

 

As more attention is being given to melting ice caps and rising sea levels more people are asking when parts of Florida could be left underwater.

 

So News 6 Chief Meteorologist Tom Sorrells asked an expert.

 

Professor Emeritus of Planetary Sciences Dr. Joseph Donoghue with the University of Central Florida said sea levels are rising about 4 millimeters per year, but he expects that number to increase quickly.

 

“The global climate models — which are the only insight we have into future climate — all project that global sea level will continue to accelerate in the rate of rise and that sea levels by 2100, the end of this century, will be over one meter above present, so 3.1 feet, and could be much more if parts of West Antarctica collapse. That’s the worst-case scenario. If that happens, it could be 2 meters or more. Some of the worst-case projections say that it could be 2 meters by 2100 and certainly by another century.”

 

Dr. Donoghue said 1 meter used to be an outrageous suggestion, but it is now what most of the climate models suggest, and if that becomes reality, it will impact a large portion of Florida.

 

“A 1-meter rise inundates about 10% of Florida, and as you said, that’s mostly in the South and Southwest,” Dr. Donoghue said.

 

These projections are already starting to have impacts on people living in the state.

 

“Even the insurance companies are starting to realize that. It’s going to be harder and harder to get a mortgage and insurance on a coastal property,” Dr. Donoghue said.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

New Delhi records highest-ever temperature of 52.3C as north India swelters

 

People in northern India are struggling with an unrelenting, weeks-long heatwave, with temperature in India’s capital soaring to a national record-high of 52.3 degrees Celsius (126.1 Fahrenheit), the government’s weather bureau said.

 

The India Meteorological Department (IMD), which reported “severe heatwave conditions”, recorded the temperature in the New Delhi suburb of Mungeshpur on Wednesday afternoon, smashing the previous national record in the desert of Rajasthan by more than one degree Celsius.

 

Rajasthan’s Phalodi town previously held the all-time heat record, hitting 51C (124F) in 2016. India declares a heatwave whenever temperatures are above 45C (113 F).

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

In historic move, Vermont becomes 1st state to pass law requiring fossil fuel companies to pay for climate change damages

 

Vermont has passed a first-in-the-nation law that will require "Big Oil" to pay for damage caused by climate change, the long-term shift in weather patterns that is heavily influenced by fossil fuel emissions. 

 

Vermont Gov. Phill Scott sent a letter to the state's General Assembly on Thursday allowing the measure, which proposes to establish the Climate Superfund Cost Recovery Program, to become law without his signature. In that letter, Scott said that "taking on 'Big Oil' should not be taken lightly."

 

"With just $600,000 appropriated by the Legislature to complete an analysis that will need to withstand intense legal scrutiny from a well-funded defense, we are not positioning ourselves for success," he said. "I'm deeply concerned about both short- and long-term costs and outcomes." 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Panama prepares to evacuate first island in face of rising sea levels

 

On a tiny island off Panama’s Caribbean coast, about 300 families are packing their belongings in preparation for a dramatic change. Generations of Gunas who have grown up on Gardi Sugdub in a life dedicated to the sea and tourism will trade that next week for the mainland’s solid ground.

 

They go voluntarily — sort of.

 

The Gunas of Gardi Sugdub are the first of 63 communities along Panama’s Caribbean and Pacific coasts that government officials and scientists expect to be forced to relocate by rising sea levels in the coming decades.

 

 

Click on the link for the full article