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

[China]

La Nina: Rare ‘triple-dip’ likely for first time this century, bringing greater global drought risk

 

The ongoing La Niña climate pattern is likely to continue for the third, consecutive winter - creating a rare “triple-dip” event, the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced on Wednesday.

 

It would mean only the third triple La Niña event since 1950, and the first this century.

 

La Niña is a shift in the Earth’s climate that occurs every few years, driven by cooler waters in the eastern-central Pacific. In contrast, warmer waters in that region create its counterpart, El Niño.

 

A longer La Niña could exacerbate disasters linked to the climate crisis like the ongoing severe droughts in the US southwest and East Africa, as well as increasing flood risk in Australia.

“It is exceptional to have three consecutive years with a La Niña event,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said, in a statement.

 

The WMO gives the Pacific Ocean a 70 per cent chance of staying in the La Niña pattern between September and November 2022 and a 55 per cent chance between December and February 2023. The current La Niña began in September 2020.

 

These events upend weather patterns around the world. During a strong La Niña winter, the southern US, Peru and Ecuador will be much drier than usual, and on the other side of the Pacific, Australia, Indonesia and southeast Asia will be much wetter.

 

La Niña can also strengthen hurricane season in the Atlantic, part of the reason why there have been so many hurricanes in the past couple of years.

 

Another La Niña winter will mean that many communities who’ve dealt with this extreme weather over the past two years may not get a reprieve.

 

In the southwest US, another dry winter could further jeopardize low water supplies in California, Nevada and Arizona.

 

Additionally, further drought could increase wildfire risk next summer as the wilderness goes without much water for an additional year.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Zombie ice will raise sea levels more than twice as much as previously forecast

 

Greenland's rapidly melting ice sheet will eventually raise global sea level by at least 10.6 inches (27 centimeters) — more than twice as much as previously forecast — according to a study published Monday.

 

That's because of something that could be called zombie ice. That's doomed ice that, while still attached to thicker areas of ice, is no longer getting replenished by parent glaciers now receiving less snow. Without replenishment, the doomed ice is melting from climate change and will inevitably raise seas, said study co-author William Colgan, a glaciologist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland.

 

"It's dead ice. It's just going to melt and disappear from the ice sheet," Colgan said in an interview. "This ice has been consigned to the ocean, regardless of what climate (emissions) scenario we take now.

 

Study lead author Jason Box, a glaciologist at the Greenland survey, said it is "more like one foot in the grave."

 

The unavoidable ten inches in the study is more than twice as much sea level rise as scientists had previously expected from the melting of Greenland's ice sheet. The study in the journal Nature Climate Change said it could reach as much as 30 inches (78 centimeters). By contrast, last year's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report projected a range of 2 to 5 inches (6 to 13 centimeters) for likely sea level rise from Greenland ice melt by the year 2100.

 

What scientists did for the study was look at the ice in balance. In perfect equilibrium, snowfall in the mountains in Greenland flows down and recharges and thickens the sides of glaciers, balancing out what's melting on the edges. But in the last few decades there's less replenishment and more melting, creating imbalance. Study authors looked at the ratio of what's being added to what's being lost and calculated that 3.3% of Greenland's total ice volume will melt no matter what happens with the world cutting carbon pollution, Colgan said.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s New Climate Theory Is Absurd. It’s Also Very Smart.

 

As heat waves, wildfires, floods, water shortages, and droughts ravage the country, Republicans have been forced to abandon climate denial. I recently noted that Republicans had switched from denial to delay—the idea that global warming is happening, it’s just not an urgent problem right now—a stance in which they are joined by many centrist Democrats, especially those funded by the fossil fuel industry. But this position probably can’t be sustained indefinitely, given its obvious inconsistency: If there is a climate crisis, shouldn’t we address it? Far-right Georgia Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a racist, anti-Semite who is up for reelection this year, is now offering one vision of what the Republican Party may switch to after climate delay, like denial, has outlived its usefulness. Greene argues that climate change exists, but it’s good.

 

“This Earth warming and carbon is actually healthy for us,” Greene said this summer in an interview with the Right Side Broadcasting Network, arguing that warming is good because people die of cold.

 

Greene is right that routine cold does kill people in the winter—and that’s terrible. Unfortunately, however, the disruptions caused by climate change are even worse than that. Since Greene gave this interview in June, Pakistan has seen the deadliest floods and monsoons ever, with one-third of the country underwater. Nearly 1,400 people have died, 13,000 are injured, and millions are homeless. And the region suffered deadly heat waves just a few months earlier.

 

As stupid as Greene seems to those of us who aren’t inclined to agree with her, “climate change is actually good” is probably the right’s best option—largely because all of us, across the political spectrum, would love to believe it. Greene’s narrative is much more appealing than the left’s climate change story. On a bad day, that story amounts to: Everything is getting worse, and to solve the problem, you must give up everything you enjoy too. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Criticism intensifies after big oil admits ‘gaslighting’ public over green aims

 

Criticism in the US of the oil industry’s obfuscation over the climate crisis is intensifying after internal documents showed companies attempted to distance themselves from agreed climate goals, admitted “gaslighting” the public over purported efforts to go green, and even wished critical activists be infested by bedbugs.

 

The communications were unveiled as part of a congressional hearing held in Washington DC, where an investigation into the role of fossil fuels in driving the climate crisis produced documents obtained from the oil giants ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP.

 

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they wish bedbugs on you, then you win,” said Varshini Prakash, executive director of Sunrise. The organization accused Shell of a “legacy of violence and of ignoring the wellbeing of communities across the globe”.

 

The revelations are part of the third hearing held by the House committee on oversight and reform on how the fossil-fuel industry sought to hamper the effort to address the climate crisis. Democrats, who lead the committee, called top executives from the oil companies to testify last year, in which they denied they had misled the public.

 

The new documents are “the latest evidence that oil giants keep lying about their commitments to help solve the climate crisis and should never be trusted by policymakers”, said Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity.

 

“If there is one thing consistent about the oil and gas majors’ position on climate, it’s their utter inability to tell the truth,” Wiles added.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Climate change could bring back wind as the future power source for ocean cargo ships

 

The shipping industry accounts for nearly 3% of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions, producing as much manmade carbon dioxide as all the coal-fired power plants in the U.S. combined. Still, it’s a relatively small output within the overall transportation sector, which is responsible for 37% of annual global greenhouse gases.

 

Yet as international trade continues to grow and heavily rely on oceangoing vessels to move cargo — they currently carry more than 80% of it — some scientists warn that by 2050 shipping could account for 17% of greenhouse gases.

 

That’s why, after years of lackluster efforts to decarbonize, the industry’s regulatory body is getting on board. In 2018, the International Maritime Organization, or IMO, a London-based United Nations agency comprising 175 member countries — many with delegates directly tied to businesses resistant to curbing emissions — adopted a strategy to reduce greenhouse gases by 50% by 2050 compared to the 2008 level.

 

Critics say that goal is too little and too late, insisting the IMO reset its target to 100% decarbonization by mid-century, or preferably sooner.

 

“The IMO has been rather late to the party, in terms of developing climate measures and coming up with a strategy,” said Lucy Gilliam, shipping policy officer at Seas at Risk and a board member of the Clean Shipping Coalition, both environmental NGOs. She cited the fact that international shipping is not included in the Paris climate accord. Plus, a recent study found that only 33 out of the 94 largest shipping companies have a clearly expressed policy to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 and/or have committed to the IMO’s goal.

 

Nonetheless, the private sector is undertaking some initiatives to lessen its climate impact. The simplest solution would be for ships to simply slow down, thus using less carbon-emitting fuel. Shipbuilders are also experimenting with hulls coated with air bubbles to reduce drag, as well as sleeker bows, more efficient engines, propellers and thrusters, and AI-assisted navigation systems.

 

Meanwhile, the industry is beginning to establish green corridors, or specific shipping routes and ports that support zero-emission solutions and policies. The financial world is joining the decarbonization movement as well, with 29 institutions signing onto the Poseidon Principles, an agreement to consider efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions when lending to shipping companies. The signatories represent more than $185 billion in loans to international shipping — nearly half of the global ship finance portfolio.

 

But with a global supply chain designed for speedy deliveries, the big breakthrough bets are being made on the development of low-emission or zero-emission fuels — including green methanol, hydrogen, liquid natural gas (LNG) and ammonia — to reduce or replace the molasses-thick, noxious bunker fuel that feeds most ships’ massive diesel engines.

 

These efforts include electric propulsion, several wind-power technologies and nuclear energy, which has driven naval vessels since the mid-1950s and is getting some attention as it generates zero emissions, though safety and security concerns are major impediments.

 

Here’s an overview of the biggest bets being placed on low-carbon and no-carbon breakthroughs in ocean shipping.

 

Airseas, the maritime unit of France’s Airbus, has developed a gigantic, automated kite called Seawing, which essentially tows a ship.
 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

NSFW language:

 

 

[China]

UK fracking and oil drilling good for environment, claims climate minister

 

Fracking and drilling for new oil and gas in the North Sea is green and good for the environment, Liz Truss’s new climate minister said on Wednesday.

 

Graham Stuart insisted that awarding more than 100 licences to companies for North Sea drilling, covering almost 900 locations, and rolling out fracking across the countryside, were green policies. He told MPs on the environmental audit committee that drilling for new fossil fuels would help the UK reach net zero by 2050.

 

“It’s good for jobs and good for the economy and it is good for the environment,” said Stuart. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[EmirOfShmo]

 

[TradeTheBeal!]

Good read on the crabs.

 

 

[Larry]

I figured it wasn't a simple case of "climate change wiped out all crabs in a single year". 
 

Climate chance, even human accelerated, is a lot slower than that. 
 

To really **** things up that much, that quickly, takes the efforts of large groups of humans, using heavy equipment. 

[China]

How Koch Industries, Fake Scientists, and Rush Limbaugh Invented Climate Denial

 

This is excerpted from the new book “The Petroleum Papers” by frequent VICE News contributor Geoff Dembicki, which pulls from hundreds of confidential documents to tell the story of how oil companies have been lying to the public since at least 1959.

 

On June 5, 1991, an organization closely connected to Koch Industries held one of the world’s first events devoted to climate change denial. Meeting at the Capital Hilton hotel in downtown Washington, D.C., dozens of academics, many of them male, white, and balding, gathered to attack the growing scientific consensus on global warming that James Hansen had helped bring to the public’s attention only three years earlier.

 

“The notion that global warming is a fact and will be catastrophic is drilled into people to the point where it seems surprising that anyone would question it, and yet, underlying it is very little evidence at all,” claimed one participant. “Nonetheless, there are statements made of such overt unrealism that I feel embarrassed.”

 

“Global Environmental Crises: Science or Politics,” as the conference was titled, was hosted by the Cato Institute think tank. The issue of climate change was so new at this point that most conservative organizations didn’t have a clearly defined position on it.

 

But the Cato Institute entered the arena of public debate ready to brawl. “Many may find it surprising that respected scientists challenge all of the media-hyped environmental ills,” reads a conference brochure. “Concern about global warming, for example, has become a part of the American psyche—despite scientific uncertainty.” Attendees saw this as an ominous trend: “We are seemingly marching toward a new world order of population control, economic planning and ‘sustainable development.’”

 

This conspiratorial attack against what was then considered neutral mainstream science was entirely consistent with the Cato Institute’s broader mission and strategy—and with the business interests of Koch Industries. When Charles Koch founded the think tank in the mid-1970s, he proceeded to give it as much as $20 million in start-up funding from his own private fortune during its early years. He saw the organization as the generator of ideas that could build support for a radically limited public sector.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

In a surprise, global greenhouse gas emissions seem to be on the decline

 

The increase in global emissions of carbon dioxide could've been triple what it was from last year if not for major deployments of renewable energy technologies and electric vehicles, the International Energy Agency said Wednesday.

 

The Paris-based IEA estimated that global CO2 emissions are on pace to reach 33.8 billion tons this year, an increase of nearly 300 million tons should forecasts prove accurate. That's substantially lower than the 2-billion-ton increase from 2020 levels last year.

 

Some of that can be attributed to the move toward electric vehicles. The agency has estimated that nearly 7 million electric vehicles were sold in all of 2021. In just the first quarter of 2022 alone, however, that reached 2 million, a 75% increase year-over-year.

 

U.S. consumers were awarded heavy subsidies that would support the purchase of an electric vehicle under President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act. The Energy Department, meanwhile, estimated that gasoline consumption is trending lower because of efficiency improvements for conventional vehicles.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Rate of sea level rise 'has doubled since 1993' thanks to climate change, report finds

 

The rate of global sea level rise is speeding up dramatically as temperatures continue to rise due to climate change, a new report finds, and now poses “a major threat to many millions” of people living on ocean coastlines.

 

Sea levels have risen by an average of 10 millimeters since January 2020, reaching a new record high this year, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which issued a stark warning in its provisional State of the Global Climate in 2022 report, released Sunday. The WMO, a division of the United Nations, found a number of striking facts about climate change and its effects, including that “the past eight years are on track to be the eight warmest on record.”

 

But the most alarming findings may be those related to sea level rise, as the encroaching ocean threatens major coastal population centers with stronger storms, higher storm surges and flooding. “The rate of sea level rise has doubled since 1993,” the WMO noted. “The past two and a half years alone account for 10 percent of the overall rise in sea level since satellite measurements started nearly 30 years ago.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Relentless drought kills hundreds of Kenya’s zebras, elephants, wildebeests

 

More than a thousand animals have died as a result of a drought in Kenya, according to a report released Friday by the country’s Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife, including hundreds of zebras and elephants.

 

Among the deaths related to the drought are 512 wildebeests, 430 zebras, 205 elephants and 51 buffaloes.

 

The report provides insight into the effects of a years-long drought on wildlife in the area, as the United Nations and other organizations have for months warned about the humanitarian impact.

 

“In Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia, we are on the brink of an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe,” Guleid Artan, director of the World Meteorological Organization’s climate center for East Africa, said in August. This season is the “fifth consecutive failed rainy season” in the region, he said.

 

Kenya’s secretary of tourism and wildlife, Peninah Malonza, said at a news conference Friday that the country was intervening by providing hay, water and “enhanced surveillance of wildlife outside protected areas to reduce human-wildlife conflicts.”

 

The figures come as world leaders gather in Egypt on Sunday for COP27, the annual U.N. Climate Change Conference.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

This seems like a bad idea, the law of unintended consequences and all that...

 

The White House Admits It: We Might Need to Block the Sun to Stop Climate Change

 

We’re entering the final days of COP27, the UN’s annual climate summit, and it’s safe to say that this year’s edition was disappointing—to say the least. It was widely panned by climate experts and activists and drew intense criticism for being sponsored by the likes of Coca-Cola, the world's leading plastic polluter.

 

Moreover, like so many climate summits in the past, little action has actually taken place in terms of concrete climate action and policy. In fact, the argument could be made that the biggest decisions to fight climate change weren’t decided at COP27, but rather at the G20 summit between the U.S. and China. Similarly, the U.S. government also signaled last month that it’s looking into one of the most controversial and consequential climate change-fighting tactics yet.

 

On Oct. 13, the White House announced that it was funding a five-year-research plan into one of the most controversial proposals for fighting climate change out there: geoengineering, or the technologies and innovations that can be used to artificially modify the Earth’s climate.

 

The report will be dedicated specifically to a form of geoengineering known as solar radiation management. This is a technique that essentially involves spraying fine aerosols into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight away from the Earth. The idea is that, once it’s reflected, there’ll be less heat and temperatures will go down.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[balki1867]

2 minutes ago, China said:

This seems like a bad idea, the law of unintended consequences and all that...

 

The White House Admits It: We Might Need to Block the Sun to Stop Climate Change

 

 

"Tell me you watched old Simpsons reruns last night without telling me you watched old Simpsons reruns last night"

[China]

Developing countries need trillions for climate action. Where will it come from?

 

In 2009, when representatives from around the world gathered in Copenhagen, Denmark to discuss global action on climate change, wealthy countries pledged $100 billion a year to help developing nations adapt to the impacts of rising temperatures and curb carbon emissions. 

 

The number was arbitrary, tossed into the fray by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as tensions rose over rich countries' responsibility to pay for the problem they had largely caused. But it stuck, and 2020 was set as a goal for delivering the funds.

 

This month, at the United Nations climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, or COP27, these payments were once again front and center. Wealthy nations have yet to meet their $100 billion a year promise, the costs of mitigating and adapting to climate change are only growing, and developing nations are also calling for reparations for the impacts they are already suffering.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Rural voters ‘in the trenches’ on climate, leery of Biden

 

Drought in California meant Raquel Krach, a rice farmer and graduate student in the Sacramento Valley, planted very little. Using groundwater, she and her husband planted 75 acres this year to maintain their markets. The rest of the 200 acres she typically sows remained empty due to an inadequate water supply.

 

The 53-year-old Democrat said it’s clear to her that climate change is responsible. But she says that notion is a deeply divisive one in her community.

 

“Our connections to our neighbors are pretty limited because our views are so different. Climate change is normally a topic we don’t even broach because our views are so different,” Krach said.

 

The impacts of climate change hit communities across the country, including Krach’s, yet voters in rural communities are the least likely to feel Washington is in their corner on the issue. Rural Americans and experts suggest there’s a disconnect between the way leaders talk about climate change and the way these communities experience it.

 

AP VoteCast, a sweeping survey of the 2022 midterm electorate, shows clear differences between urban and rural communities in voter sentiment on President Joe Biden ’s handling of climate, and whether climate change is impacting their communities.

 

About half of voters nationwide approve of the president’s handling of the issue, despite the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act this summer that meant historic investments aimed at reducing the emissions that cause climate change. While around 6 in 10 urban voters approve, the figure drops to about half for suburbanites and roughly 4 in 10 for rural voters.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

What did those rural voters think of Trump's handling of the climate change issue and pulling out of the Paris Climate accords?  Did they ask that?

Or any of their current Republican congressmen, how do they think they're doing?

[China]

In the End, Solar Power Opponents Prevail in Williamsport, Ohio

 

Local opponents have succeeded in killing plans for a solar array in rural Ohio that now becomes one of the largest renewable energy projects in the country canceled because of resistance from nearby residents and their elected leaders. 

 

Mark Schein, a farmer whose land near Williamsport would have hosted part of the project, learned of the change of plans in a brief phone call with the developer, EDF Renewables. The company decided to withdraw its proposal to build the 400-megawatt Chipmunk Solar project in the face of a grassroots campaign and in light of state regulators’ recent rejections of projects that have local opposition.

 

Chipmunk will be the second-largest solar array in the United States to have been submitted for regulatory approval and then withdrawn because of local opposition in at least two years. The largest was Battle Born Solar, an 850-megawatt project in Nevada that was canceled by its developer last year, according to a database maintained by the research firm Wood Mackenzie.

 

“I’m disappointed, and there are a couple people here in the community I don’t think I’ll speak to for the rest of my life,” Schein said, referring to neighbors who sunk the project.

EDF confirmed its plans in a filing Thursday afternoon with the Ohio Power Siting Board and in a letter to the Pickaway County government.

 

With the demise of the project, the community is losing a projected $3.6 million per year in tax revenue, most of which would have gone to public schools. Property owners who signed leases with EDF will forgo a projected $3 million per year in lease payments, according to the company.

 

Based on an anticipated lifespan of 30 years, the cancellation means local governments in this rural county stand to lose about $100 million.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Larry]

Trying to figure out a legitimate reason for opposing solar power. 

[China]

Republicans plan more attacks on ESG. Investors still plan to focus on climate risk

 

Republicans are planning to use their control of the House of Representatives in 2023 to intensify attacks on companies that account for climate-related risks when they're making investment decisions.

 

GOP officials in Washington and more than a dozen states say they're focusing on firms that are using their financial power to push a so-called woke political agenda, rather than trying to maximize profits. As part of the campaign, Florida, Louisiana and Missouri have collectively pulled more than $3 billion from BlackRock over the investment firm's consideration of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. Faced with the political backlash, Vanguard, another large asset manager, said it decided to withdraw from a group of investors that's working to zero out greenhouse gas emissions by midcentury.

 

Republicans say they're fighting a coordinated effort by big investors to impose progressive policies that threaten capitalism itself.

 

Rep. Andy Barr, a Republican from Kentucky and a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee, says ESG investing is aimed at "politicizing capital allocation and actively discriminating against fossil energy."

 

ESG is "a cancer in our capital markets that must be eradicated," Barr said in a statement to NPR.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

[Captain Wiggles]

Quote

GOP officials in Washington and more than a dozen states say they're focusing on firms that are using their financial power to push a so-called woke political agenda, rather than trying to maximize profits.

 

Republicans say they're fighting a coordinated effort by big investors to impose progressive policies that threaten capitalism itself.

 

Sounds a lot like big government getting involved in the free market. 🤭

[Larry]

3 hours ago, China said:

Republicans say they're fighting a coordinated effort by big investors to impose progressive policies that threaten capitalism itself.

Think about that a minute. 
 

Politicians are about to abuse governmental power over a market. 
 

To prevent investors from destroying capitalism. 
 

I'm remembering The Daily Show reaction to the Republicans asking if Warren Buffet was a socialist. 

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[Cooked Crack]