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

[China]

Dems scramble for climate Plan C as Manchin dashes their dreams

 

Joe Manchin is hearing a dire pitch from his colleagues: Don’t blow our chance to save the world.

 

After Manchin rejected a centerpiece of President Joe Biden’s climate plan and rebuffed a separate carbon tax Tuesday, Senate Democrats are urgently pressing their West Virginia colleague for an alternative. Biden and Democrats are trying to clinch a deal on Biden’s larger social spending bill, but the climate plank has become a serious question mark due to Manchin. And some progressives are reiterating they won't support any bill that doesn’t have a strong climate component.

 

Manchin is reluctant to embrace anything that could significantly disadvantage West Virginia’s gas and coal industry. Though he is endorsing some lower-tier clean energy investments, those fall far short of the two big ideas his colleagues have championed: a program encouraging utilities to cut emissions and a carbon tax. Now, there’s enormous pressure on Democrats to get Manchin on board with what could be Democrats’ only chance in a decade or more to enact consequential climate policies.

 

“Sen. Manchin has to balance the fact that he may have certain opinions, but he also has a responsibility as a chairman in the Democratic caucus, of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee,” said Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), who spoke privately with Manchin after his declaration on Tuesday that the carbon tax was “off the board.”

 

“So he has to be both true to his positions and his own state, and also take that responsibility to the caucus seriously,” Heinrich added.

 

For Manchin, the moment is a culmination of his career as a stick in the mud for his party’s climate policies — a position that’s helped him win reelection. After all, he literally shot a hole through Democrats’ cap-and-trade bill in 2010 in one of his ads. The Senate is evenly split, so Democrats need him to advance their legislation, but some fear he’s intent on whittling down the climate component too much for them to stomach.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Climate change will bring global tension, US intelligence report says

 

Climate change will lead to growing international tensions, the US intelligence community has warned in a bleak assessment.

 

The first ever National Intelligence Estimate on Climate Change looks at the impact of climate on national security through to 2040.

 

Countries will argue over how to respond and the effects will be felt most in poorer countries, which are least able to adapt.

 

The report also warns of the risks if futuristic geo-engineering technologies are deployed by some countries acting alone.

 

The 27-page assessment is the collective view of all 18 US intelligence agencies. It is their first such look-ahead on what climate means for national security.

 

The report paints a picture of a world failing to co-operate, leading to dangerous competition and instability. It has been issued just ahead of President Joe Biden attending next month's COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, which is seeking international agreement.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Greenhouse emissions reached record levels in 2020, even with pandemic lockdowns

 

Despite a world economy that slowed significantly because of COVID-19, the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached a new record last year, putting the goal of slowing the rise of global temperatures "way off track," according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

 

The United Nations body said Monday that carbon dioxide had risen by more than the 10-year average in 2020 to 413.2 parts per million, despite a slight decrease in emissions due to the coronavirus pandemic. Methane and nitrous oxide, two other potent greenhouse gases, also showed increases, the WMO said in the latest issue of its Greenhouse Gas Bulletin.

 

The report comes ahead of next week's international climate meeting in Glasgow, Scotland, known as the Conference of the Parties, or COP, which is meant to take stock of global progress toward cutting emissions. The Biden administration is also struggling to save its Clean Electricity Performance Program, an effort that aims to reduce U.S. emissions to about half of 2005 levels by the end of the decade.

 

Together, the U.S., China and the European Union are responsible for more than 40% of global carbon emissions.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

How decades of disinformation about fossil fuels halted U.S. climate policy

 

In April, President Biden unveiled the United States' most ambitious plan ever to cut emissions that drive climate change, and he urged other nations to follow. Now, days before Biden prepares for a pivotal climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, the White House's keystone legislative plan to tackle climate disruption appears to be dead, sunk by West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin.

 

It's the most recent in a string of defeats to aggressive climate action that stretches back more than 25 years.

 

The United States has contributed more heat-trapping pollution than any country over time and has been the prime driver of global climate change. The national debate about how to address the problem has raged for decades, but progress toward a solution has been slow. Whenever presidents or Congress have introduced measures to slash emissions to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change, they've been repeatedly derailed.

 

In 1997, the Senate unanimously adopted a resolution opposing the first international treaty to cut greenhouse gases. A sweeping 2009 bill to reduce emissions never came to a vote in the Senate because it did not have enough support and was doomed to fail. In 2017, President Donald Trump announced the U.S. would withdraw from the 2015 Paris climate accord, the only country to reject the agreement.

 

The same headwinds have stopped nearly every effort, including Biden's, to make systemic cuts to emissions: a powerful fossil fuel lobby that has spent vast sums of money to influence lawmakers while simultaneously sowing public doubt about the science of climate change.

 

On Thursday, House Democrats will look into what they describe as the oil industry's decades of disinformation and misrepresentation to delay climate action. They have called executives from Exxon Mobil, BP America, Chevron Corp. and Shell Oil to testify. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[tshile]

On 10/22/2021 at 7:15 PM, China said:

Climate change will lead to growing international tensions, the US intelligence community has warned in a bleak assessment.

 

The first ever National Intelligence Estimate on Climate Change looks at the impact of climate on national security through to 2040.

 

Countries will argue over how to respond and the effects will be felt most in poorer countries, which are least able to adapt.

 

The report also warns of the risks if futuristic geo-engineering technologies are deployed by some countries acting alone.

 

gee. If only someone tried to bring attention to this earlier

 

https://freebeacon.com/national-security/supercut-obama-calls-climate-change-not-terrorism-our-greatest-threat/

 

 

[LD0506]

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

 

 

[China]

Few willing to change lifestyle to save the planet, climate survey finds

 

Citizens are alarmed by the climate crisis, but most believe they are already doing more to preserve the planet than anyone else, including their government, and few are willing to make significant lifestyle changes, an international survey has found.

 

“The widespread awareness of the importance of the climate crisis illustrated in this study has yet to be coupled with a proportionate willingness to act,” the survey of 10 countries including the US, UK, France and Germany, observed.

 

Emmanuel Rivière, director of international polling at Kantar Public, said the survey, carried out in late September and published to coincide with the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow, contained “a double lesson for governments”.

 

They have, first, “to measure up to people’s expectations,” Rivière said. “But they also have to persuade people not of the reality of the climate crisis – that’s done – but of what the solutions are, and of how we can fairly share responsibility for them.”

 

The survey found that 62% of people surveyed saw the climate crisis as the main environmental challenge the world was now facing, ahead of air pollution (39%), the impact of waste (38%) and new diseases (36%).

 

But when asked to rate their individual action against others’ such as governments, business and the media, people generally saw themselves as much more committed to the environment than others in their local community, or any institution.

 

About 36% rated themselves “highly committed” to preserving the planet, while only 21% felt the same was true of the media and 19% of local government. A mere 18% felt their local community was equally committed, with national governments (17%) and big corporations (13%) seen as even less engaged.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

How the Chesapeake Bay is warming — and what it means for us, according to new research

 

The Chesapeake Bay is warming as the climate does. Scientists have known that much for years.

 

But exactly how — and by how much? That’s what researchers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science under William & Mary recently set out to answer.

 

Using historical water sampling boosted by sophisticated computer models, the team learned how the water has changed over the past three decades, from the surface to its depths.

 

Since the mid-1980s, the researchers found the bay has warmed by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit or about .07 degrees each year. The water temperature increases much faster in the summer than winter, they said.

 

Overall global warming was the biggest factor, though others play a role, according to the study, which was published in the Journal of the American Water Resources Association.

 

If the trend continues, the increased heat could amplify issues such as decreased oxygen in the bay; plants and critters need oxygen to survive.

 

So what do warming waters mean for us?

 

In addition to lower oxygen levels, fish don’t like swimming in warm surface waters, so their “habitat gets squeezed narrower and narrower,” Friedrichs said.

 

Heat could also bring other issues including increasing acidity or bacteria in the bay.

 

It’s important for officials to consider warming when setting Chesapeake Bay restoration goals, Friedrichs added.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

A North Carolina Town Is Besieged by Hungry Armadillos

 

To spot armadillos in North Carolina was, at first, incongruous. The creature has been Texas’s state mammal for more than two decades, used to the baking heat of the dry, flat state. There, they’re regularly seen as roadkill or in small-scale racing events where they are made to scurry down a 40ft track.

 

Armadillo meat is consumed in Central America, and to a lesser extent in the US, where it was called “poor man’s pork” in Depression-era Texas and has been tainted by the species’ connection to leprosy.

 

Sapphire, meanwhile, is nestled 800 miles and worlds away in the soaring Blue Ridge Mountains. It is part of a scenic plateau that gets so much precipitation that it has developed a temperate rainforest, with the ground and rocks draped in lush mosses amid towering fir and spruce. In autumn, the area is a gorgeous riot of red and orange fall hues. The area even has a small ski resort.

 

When the first armadillo was sighted here in 2019, Bullard got a call. “I just didn’t believe it,” he said. “I thought the woman had a possum and a drinking problem.” But within a year, Bullard was spending his nights at the local golf course, speeding from hole to hole on a golf cart, killing armadillos on the greens like a sort of cross between Tiger Woods and Davy Crockett.

 

The Sapphire valley is the latest place to witness the seemingly relentless northward march of a species that originated in South America, but is now pushing toward the northeast US.

“It’s only a matter of time before we see range expansions into other states,” said Colleen Olfenbuttel, furbearer biologist at the North Carolina wildlife resources commission. The agency confirmed the first armadillo in North Carolina in 2007 but numbers have rocketed in the western half of the state since 2019. “It’s challenging to deal with armadillo damage. They are hard to trap and I don’t know if there’s a repellent for them,” said Olfenbuttel. “I’m as curious as anyone as to where they will pop up next.”

 

The nine-banded armadillo—there are 20 different species, only the three-banded variety can roll itself into a ball—made its way north from Mexico to the US through human intervention and its own ingenuity by the late 19th century. The animals, known for their keratin armored shells, travel unhindered by potential predators. A booming reproduction rate that sees females give birth to quadruplets multiple times also helps their population’s growth.

 

An emerging theory for this advance of armadillos is the climate crisis. The animals dislike freezing conditions and global heating is making winters milder, turning northern parts of the US more armadillo-friendly. Around Sapphire, the armadillos happily root around in the dirt with their snouts and claws, feasting on insects at elevations above 4,000 ft. “We just don’t have those really cold winters any more and I’m sure that’s helped them,” said Olfenbuttel.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Scientists Explore Antarctica's ‘Doomsday' Glacier, a Key Factor Impacting Sea-Level Rise

 

A team of scientists is sailing to “the place in the world that’s the hardest to get to” so they can better figure out how much and how fast seas will rise because of global warming eating away at Antarctica’s ice.

 

Thirty-two scientists on Thursday are starting a more than two-month mission aboard an American research ship to investigate the crucial area where the massive but melting Thwaites glacier faces the Amundsen Sea and may eventually lose large amounts of ice because of warm water. The Florida-sized glacier has gotten the nickname the “doomsday glacier” because of how much ice it has and how much seas could rise if it all melts — more than two feet (65 centimeters) over hundreds of years.

 

Because of its importance, the United States and the United Kingdom are in the midst of a joint $50 million mission to study Thwaites, the widest glacier in the world by land and sea. Not near any of the continent's research stations, Thwaites is on Antarctica's western half, east of the jutting Antarctic Peninsula, which used to be the area scientists worried most about.

 

“Thwaites is the main reason I would say that we have so large an uncertainty in the projections of future sea level rise and that is because it’s a very remote area, difficult to reach,” Anna Wahlin, an oceanographer from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, said Wednesday in an interview from the Research Vessel Nathaniel B. Palmer, which was scheduled to leave its port in Chile hours later. “It is configured in a way so that it’s potentially unstable. And that is why we are worried about this.”

 

Thwaites is putting about 50 billion tons of ice into the water a year. The British Antarctic Survey says the glacier is responsible for 4% of global sea rise, and the conditions leading to it to lose more ice are accelerating, University of Colorado ice scientist Ted Scambos said from the McMurdo land station last month.

 

 

[China]

We’re Getting Less Snow, And It’s Having A Big Impact On The Environment, Study Shows

 

It’s no secret, especially among climatologists, that we’re getting a lot less snow now than we used to.

 

Researchers at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire have been poring over 100 years of available snow data across the globe — which includes everything from simple measurements with yardsticks to sophisticated calculations using automated sensors and satellite photos — to quantify just how much of a decline there’s been, and now they have some early results.

 

In a study published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society in November that’s focused on the Western United States, researchers found declines as big as 30% over the past century, which are directly linked to proceeding summertime droughts and consistent with climate change caused by human activity such as the burning of fossil fuels.

 

“Snow losses are huge,” said Justin Mankin, one of the study’s authors. “That 30% reduction we’ve seen so far is the equivalent to losing Lake Mead, the largest reservoir we have in the United States, the one that sits behind Hoover Dam.”

 

Snow is critical to the water supply in Western States where summers are arid and snow melt accounts for about 70% of the annual water supply, acting as a reservoir that fills rivers and streams in the spring and summer.

 

Water shortages, droughts and wildfires are projected to hit the West hard and more frequently as a result, but climate scientists say New York and the surrounding region have also seen a steep drop-off in snowfall.

 

“Most places are 10 to 15 inches behind,” said Mark Wysocki, a climatologist at Cornell University who was not affiliated with the study. “I think people are going to be very disappointed up here in the Northeast with winters. That doesn’t mean we can’t get a blizzard. It's just that we won’t get as many of them.”

 

That may be bad news for skiers and snow lovers, but Gottlieb said less snow has serious health and environmental impacts. Reductions in snowfall directly affects agriculture and the production of hydroelectric power.

 

David Robinson, a climatologist at Rutgers University who reviewed the study, said snow usually accounts for 20% of the New York metropolitan area’s total annual precipitation. When it doesn’t snow, the precipitation often comes in the form of rain or ice, which will make short-term flash floods more frequent.

 

New York state is already receiving more total precipitation than usual despite the decrease in snowfall, according to Wysocki.

 

The lack of snow and colder temperatures also pose a threat to trees. Insects typically die off in the winter, but as the climate warms, they are thriving year round and increasing in number.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Ice that took roughly 2,000 years to form on Mt Everest has melted in around 25

 

The highest glacier on the world's tallest mountain is losing decades worth of ice every year because of human-induced climate change, a new study shows.

The findings serve as a warning that rapid glacier melt at some of the Earth's highest points could bring worsening climate impacts, including more frequent avalanches and a drying-up of water sources that around 1.6 billion people in mountain ranges depend on for drinking, irrigation and hydropower.

Ice that took around 2,000 years to form on the South Col Glacier has melted in around 25 years, which means it has thinned out around 80 times faster than it formed.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Mountain glaciers may have less ice than estimated, straining freshwater supply

 

Glaciers in the Andes shouldn’t be free of snow so early this time of year, but some are now bare.

 

Warm conditions in January, including a scorching heat wave with temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit in some locations, melted almost all snow cover on some of Chile’s Olivares Glaciers and Volcan Overo in Argentina. With around eight weeks left in the melt season, the exposed glacial ice could disappear faster now without a blanket of snow.

 

“We’re seeing snow-free glaciers at unusual times, and that means midsummer in the Andes,” said Mauri Pelto, a glaciologist at Nichols College. “Those are all related to just high temperatures.”

 

As global temperatures rise, mountain glaciers around the world are sweating. This could affect nearly 1.9 billion people living in and downstream of mountainous areas who depend on melting ice and snow for drinking, agriculture and hydroelectric power. In the tropical Andes, for instance, glaciers provide almost one-third of the water that millions of people in major cities use during the dry season.

 

A study published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience shows the decline could be more calamitous than previously thought. Earth’s mountain glaciers may have less ice than previously estimated, meaning they could be tapped dry sooner than expected, especially as climate change hastens their melt.

 

The researchers also found the potential sea level rise contribution from the glaciers would decrease by about 20 percent from 13 to 10 inches. But since mountain glaciers contribute around only one-third of global sea level rise, this has only a modest impact on future projections.

 

“This study is not good news because we have less freshwater for people if we have less ice,” said Romain Millan, the lead author of the study and a postdoctoral candidate at the Institute of Environmental Geosciences in France. “For sea level rise, it does not change anything to the big picture” because “Greenland and Antarctica are the major drivers of sea level rise.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Trump-Appointed Judge Just Dealt a Blow to Biden’s Climate Efforts

 

When a fossil-fuel power plant releases a ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, how much does that increase the cost of property damage from rising seas—or hurricanes, or wildfires? What’s the price tag on the loss of crops and worsening human health outcomes caused by that ton of greenhouse gas?

 

According to the scientists in President Joe Biden’s administration, the answer is $51—at least for now. This number, known as the “social cost of carbon,” puts a dollar amount on the harm done by climate pollution. It’s a vital figure for all kinds of federal policymaking—from vehicle milage standards to pipeline approvals to oil and gas drilling—and also a deeply controversial one, given the huge range of factors that go into it. As former Mother Jones climate reporter Rebecca Leber wrote last year: 

Quote

Settling on that one number is a minefield of disagreement, because it hinges on estimating generations of damages from climate change as well as the wealth of future generations. While science supports a high social cost of carbon to hasten the transition away from fossil fuels, the politics are much messier and fraught. It’s been a hotly contested issue since the Obama administration, which settled on $51 per metric ton finalized in 2016. The Obama administration used estimates of the social cost of carbon to help justify EPA rules directly targeting climate change, like reducing carbon emissions from cars and trucks, and indirectly, such as regulating mercury from power plants. An even higher figure would help to justify more aggressive action.

 

Amid all this messiness, former President Donald Trump lowered the estimate to between $1 and $7, allowing him to slash climate regulations, Leber reported. (By his administration’s reasoning, climate change impact outside the US shouldn’t factor in to the figure.) Biden, in turn, restored the social cost to an interim figure of $51 based on global climate change impacts, and revived a working group to update it.

 

But in this, as in so many other arenas, one of Trump’s federal court appointees has picked up the ball and is running with it. On Friday, James Cain, a federal judge with the Western District of Louisiana, issued a preliminary injunction to stop the government from using the Biden administration’s higher estimate. Cain sided with a group of Republican attorneys general who sued the administration last year, arguing that it was illegal to restore the higher estimate, and that doing so would drive up energy costs while decreasing state revenues from energy production, according to the Guardian.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[The Evil Genius]

 

[ixcuincle]

 

[China]

I think that ship has already sailed:

 

Climate change: IPCC scientists say it's 'now or never' to limit warming

 

A key UN body says in a report that there must be "rapid, deep and immediate" cuts in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

 

Global emissions of CO2 would need to peak within three years to stave off the worst impacts.

 

Even then, the world would also need technology to suck CO2 from the skies by mid-century.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

How the U.S. climate has warmed since the first Earth Day

 

Since the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, the U.S. national average temperature has climbed by 2.6°F, and the states have warmed — many significantly.

 

Why it matters: Earth Day is supposed to be a symbol of the environmental movement, originally born out of air and water pollution. But now it's a reminder of human-caused climate change — which is leading to more frequent and severe heat waves and wildfires, stronger hurricanes and heavier precipitation events.

 

By the numbers: Out of 49 states with sufficient data and 246 cities examined by researchers at Climate Central, a climate communications nonprofit group, each state and 244 of the cities saw temperatures climb in the past 52 years.

 

The numbers that tell the story:

• 30%: The increase in the atmospheric concentration of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere since 1970.
• 7.7°F: The amount Reno, Nev. has warmed since 1970, putting it first on the list of fastest-warming cities. Other cities in the Southwest saw large increases as well, reflecting the drying trend in the region, as well as expanding urban populations and shifting atmospheric circulation consistent with global warming.
• 4.3°F: The total average warming in Alaska during the past 52 years, earning it the title of the fastest-warming state. Climate projections have consistently showed that higher latitudes would warm faster than the rest of the world.

Click on the link for the full article

 

[The Evil Genius]

 

 

[China]

Activating a Clean Air Act provision could deliver major climate, health, and economic benefits

 

The most recent United Nations climate change report indicates that without significant action to mitigate global warming, the extent and magnitude of climate impacts—from floods to droughts to the spread of disease—could outpace the world's ability to adapt to them. The latest effort to introduce meaningful climate legislation in the United States Congress, the Build Back Better bill, has stalled. The climate package in that bill—$555 billion in funding for climate resilience and clean energy—aims to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by about 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, the nation's current Paris Agreement pledge. With prospects of passing a standalone climate package in the Senate far from assured, is there another pathway to fulfilling that pledge?

 

Recent detailed legal analysis shows that there is at least one viable option for the United States to achieve the 2030 target without legislative action. Under Section 115 on International Air Pollution of the Clean Air Act, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could assign emissions targets to the states that collectively meet the national goal. The president could simply issue an executive order to empower the EPA to do just that. But would that be prudent?

 

A new study led by researchers at the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change explores how, under a federally coordinated carbon dioxide emissions cap-and-trade program aligned with the U.S. Paris Agreement pledge and implemented through Section 115 of the Clean Air Act, the EPA might allocate emissions cuts among states. Recognizing that the Biden or any future administration considering this strategy would need to carefully weigh its benefits against its potential political risks, the study highlights the policy's net economic benefits to the nation.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

 

[China]

The Ocean Is Starting to Lose Its Memory, Scientists Warn

 

The oceans that surround us are transforming. As our climate changes, the world's waters are shifting too, with abnormalities evident not only in the ocean's temperature, but also its structure, currents, and even its color.

 

As these changes manifest, the usually stable environment of the ocean is becoming more unpredictable and erratic, and in some ways the phenomenon is akin to the ocean losing its memory, scientists suggest.

 

"Ocean memory, the persistence of ocean conditions, is a major source of predictability in the climate system beyond weather time scales," researchers explain in a new paper led by first author and climate researcher Hui Shi from the Farallon Institute in Petaluma, California.

 

"We show that ocean memory, as measured by the year-to-year persistence of sea surface temperature anomalies, is projected to steadily decline in the coming decades over much of the globe."

 

In the research, the team studied sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the shallow top layer of the ocean, called the upper-ocean mixed layer (MLD).

 

Despite the MLD's relative shallowness – extending only to a depth of about 50 meters down from the ocean's surface – this upper layer of water exhibits a lot of persistence over time in terms of thermal inertia, especially compared to the variations seen in the atmosphere above.

 

In the future, however, modeling suggests that this 'memory' effect of thermal inertia in the upper ocean is set to decline globally over the rest of the century, with dramatically greater variations in temperature predicted over coming decades.

 

"We discovered this phenomenon by examining the similarity in ocean surface temperature from one year to the next as a simple metric for ocean memory," explains Hui.

 

According to the researchers, shoaling effects in the MLD will introduce greater levels of water-mixing in the upper ocean, effectively thinning out the top layer.

 

This is expected to lower the ocean's capacity for thermal inertia, rendering the upper ocean more susceptible to random temperature anomalies.

 

Just what that means for marine wildlife is unclear, but the researchers note that "consequential impacts on populations are likely", although some species are expected to fare better than others in terms of adaptation.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Revealed: the ‘carbon bombs’ set to trigger catastrophic climate breakdown

 

he world’s biggest fossil fuel firms are quietly planning scores of “carbon bomb” oil and gas projects that would drive the climate past internationally agreed temperature limits with catastrophic global impacts, a Guardian investigation shows.

 

The exclusive data shows these firms are in effect placing multibillion-dollar bets against humanity halting global heating. Their huge investments in new fossil fuel production could pay off only if countries fail to rapidly slash carbon emissions, which scientists say is vital.

 

The oil and gas industry is extremely volatile but extraordinarily profitable, particularly when prices are high, as they are at present. ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and Chevron have made almost $2tn in profits in the past three decades, while recent price rises led BP’s boss to describe the company as a “cash machine”.

 

The lure of colossal payouts in the years to come appears to be irresistible to the oil companies, despite the world’s climate scientists stating in February that further delay in cutting fossil fuel use would mean missing our last chance “to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all”. As the UN secretary general, António Guterres, warned world leaders in April: “Our addiction to fossil fuels is killing us.”

 

Details of the projects being planned are not easily accessible but an investigation published in the Guardian shows:

 

• The fossil fuel industry’s short-term expansion plans involve the start of oil and gas projects that will produce greenhouse gases equivalent to a decade of CO2 emissions from China, the world’s biggest polluter.
• These plans include 195 carbon bombs, gigantic oil and gas projects that would each result in at least a billion tonnes of CO2 emissions over their lifetimes, in total equivalent to about 18 years of current global CO2 emissions. About 60% of these have already started pumping.
• The dozen biggest oil companies are on track to spend $103m a day for the rest of the decade exploiting new fields of oil and gas that cannot be burned if global heating is to be limited to well under 2C.
• The Middle East and Russia often attract the most attention in relation to future oil and gas production but the US, Canada and Australia are among the countries with the biggest expansion plans and the highest number of carbon bombs. The US, Canada and Australia also give some of the world’s biggest subsidies for fossil fuels per capita.

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Large swaths of the U.S. set daily temperature records

 

Unusually high temperatures in the South and Northeast U.S. on Saturday broke records marked on the same day in prior years.
 

Large portions of the country, stretching from Texas to the Northeast, set new daily temperature records over the weekend.

 

Well above normal temps continued on Sunday, largely in the Northeast in Connecticut and Massachusetts, said Marc Chenard, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

 

The record-breaking early season heat wave "is not all that common, but it's not unprecedented by any means," Chenard said.

 

Almost 20 million people were under a heat advisory on Sunday afternoon, a number that fell to about 15.8 million by evening.

 

Scientists have found that climate change both intensifies and drives up the likelihood of heatwaves. While Chenard says he can't determine whether any one event is caused by climate change, the meteorologist attributes the unusual temperatures to the fluctuations in weather patterns.

 

Click on the link for the full article