Climate Change News & Discussions

[caltrek]

If Trump Wins the Election this Is What Is at Stake
by Bill McKibben
September 6, 2024

Introduction:

(The Guardian) Here is the biggest thing happening on our planet as we head into the autumn of 2024: the Earth is continuing to heat dramatically. Scientists have said that there’s a better than 90% chance that this year will top 2023 as the warmest ever recorded. And paleoclimatologists were pretty sure last year was the hottest in the last 125,000 years. The result is an almost-cliched run of disasters: open Twitter/X anytime for pictures of floods pushing cars through streets somewhere. It is starting to make life on this planet very difficult, and in some places impossible. And it’s on target to get far, far worse.

Here’s the second-biggest thing happening on our planet right now: finally, finally, renewable energy, mostly from the sun and wind, seems to be reaching some sort of takeoff point. By some calculations, we’re now putting up a nuclear plant’s worth of solar panels every day. In California, there are now enough solar farms and wind turbines that day after day this spring and summer they supplied more than 100% of the state’s electric needs for long stretches; there are now enough batteries on the grid that they become the biggest source of power after dark. In China it looks as if carbon emissions may have peaked – they’re six years ahead of schedule on the effort to build out renewables.

And here’s the third biggest thing in the months ahead: the American presidential election, which looks as if it is going down to the wire – and which may have the power to determine how high the temperature goes and how fast we turn to clean power.

Read more here: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng ... 25-trump

[firestar464]

Does anyone else find it disturbing that for the past eight years, the fate of the ENTIRE HUMAN RACE has been placed in the hands of just over 0.02% (estimated number of eligible Americans/total world population, at the time of writing) of the world population every four years?

(Also reminds me of how the fate of Ukraine and its 38 million people was placed in the hands of Mike Johnson and 100 other on-the-fence GOP representatives.) Truly chilling

[wjfox]

[firestar464]

More on that by the AP:

https://apnews.com/article/van-gogh-sun ... 4f7024252e

They're taking steps to avoid the destruction of the art, so I'm all good. Not sure the people who spraypainted Stonehenge exercised the same amount of care though.

[caltrek]

U.S. Hostility Toward China Threatens Global Climate Progress
by Megan Russell
September 30, 2024

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) Earlier this month, U.S. climate envoy John Podesta met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing to discuss climate financing for the upcoming years. The U.S. has long criticized China’s approach to confronting the climate threat, and continuously pushes Chinese leaders to do more.

At the same time, U.S. leaders label China’s investment into green energy technology as “exploitative” and attempt to sabotage its efforts with high tariffs, driving up the cost of Chinese imports, and making it more challenging to make the transition to green energy.

“They get less attention but they’re fully half of what’s causing global warming,” Podesta commented.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump officially cut off climate talks with China in 2017 after withdrawing from the Paris agreement. This past year, current President Joe Biden has made increasing efforts to engage with China on the topic before the end of his term.

This month’s climate talks were underscored by Beijing’s doubt over the upcoming election and the knowledge that any agreements would be undermined by another Trump win. Foreign Ministe Yi has also voiced concerns over U.S. “pan-securitism and protectionism”—kind words for describing U.S. actions that are accelerating a new cold war with China, including steps for conflict escalation by 2027.

Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/u ... operation

[Time_Traveller]

Switzerland and Italy redraw border due to melting glaciers

8 hours ago



Switzerland and Italy have redrawn part of their border in the Alps due to melting glaciers, caused by climate change.

Part of the area affected will be beneath the Matterhorn, one of Europe's tallest mountains, and close to a number of popular ski resorts.

Large sections of the Swiss-Italian border are determined by glacier ridgelines or areas of perpetual snow, but melting glaciers have caused these natural boundaries to shift, leading to both countries seeking to rectify the border.

Switzerland officially approved the agreement on the change on Friday, but Italy is yet to do the same. This follows a draft agreement by a joint Swiss-Italian commission back in May 2023.

Statistics published last September showed that Switzerland's glaciers lost 4% of their volume in 2023, the second biggest loss ever after 2022's record melt of 6%.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgk7r0rrdnmo

[weatheriscool]

[wjfox]

[caltrek]

Study Shows Wildfires are Burning Through Humanity’s Carbon Budget
by Jonathan Watts
October 3, 2024

Introduction:

(The Guardian) Wildfires are burning through the carbon budget that humans have allocated themselves to limit global heating, a study shows.

The authors said this accelerating trend was approaching – and may have already breached – a “critical temperature threshold” after which fires cause significant shifts in tree cover and carbon storage.

“Alarmingly, the latest temperature at which, globally, these impacts become pronounced is 1.34C – close to current levels of warming [above preindustrial levels],” said the UK Met Office, which led the research.

Forests are going up in smoke in Brazil, the US, Greece, Portugal and even the Arctic Circle amid the Earth’s two hottest years in recorded history.

Each fire has a double impact on the global climate: first, by emitting carbon from the burned trees, and second, by reducing the capacity of forests to absorb carbon dioxide.

Read more here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024 ... udy-shows

[Cyber_Rebel]

Wasn't quite certain whether this fits the Space section more or this one, but we can just say that they both intersect considering the topic: Morbid solution to the Fermi Paradox.

Alien civilizations are probably killing themselves from climate change, bleak study suggests

Astrophysicists estimate that any exponentially growing technological civilization has only 1,000 years until its planet will be too hot to support life.

By Sierra Bouchér published October 2, 2024



Source(s): Livescience

Paper to be peer-reviewed: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2409.06737

It may take less than 1,000 years for an advanced alien civilization to destroy its own planet with climate change, even if it relies solely on renewable energy, a new model suggests.

When astrophysicists simulated the rise and fall of alien civilizations, they found that, if a civilization were to experience exponential technological growth and energy consumption, it would have less than 1,000 years before the alien planet got too hot to be habitable. This would be true even if the civilization used renewable energy sources, due to inevitable leakage in the form of heat, as predicted by the laws of thermodynamics. The new research was posted to the preprint database arXiv and is in the process of being peer-reviewed.

While the astrophysicists wanted to understand the implications for life beyond our planet, their study was initially inspired by human energy use, which has grown exponentially since the 1800's. In 2023, humans used about 180,000 terawatt hours (TWh), which is roughly the same amount of energy that hits Earth from the sun at any given moment. Much of this energy is produced by gas and coal, which is heating up the planet at an unsustainable rate. But even if all that energy were created by renewable sources like wind and solar power, humanity would keep growing, and thus keep needing more energy.

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

[raklian]

So ironic.

[caltrek]

You Should Be Furious at the Political Class for Enabling This Climate Catastrophe
by Nathan J. Robinson
October 9, 2024

Introduction:

(Current Affairs) As I write, a massive Category 4 hurricane is barreling directly toward my hometown of Sarasota, Florida. I’m feeling very tense, because while it’s a beautiful day here in New Orleans, my parents still live in Sarasota and can’t evacuate. Hurricane Milton is terrifying. It looks like it will be the worst storm to hit Tampa Bay in over 100 years. Milton intensified with stunning rapidity, going from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane in 24 hours. It is “now the 4th strongest hurricane ever recorded by pressure on this side of the world” and “nearing the mathematical limit of what Earth's atmosphere over this ocean water can produce.” Because it’s coming on the heels of an already-devastating Hurricane Helene, there’s still debris all over the Gulf Coast that could turn into deadly projectiles. It’s so bad that the local Tampa meteorologist nearly had an emotional breakdown on air, and the city’s mayor has told people who stay in evacuation zones that “you are going to die.” (I don’t actually think that’s a helpful thing for a local leader to say. The risk to people’s lives is high, and it’s important to convey that, but part of the job of an official is to not spread panic.)

Hurricanes have occurred throughout living memory, and every hurricane season is going to have deadly storms, but warming oceans make the storms worse, causing “higher wind speeds, heavier rainfall, and more severe storm surge.” The warming itself is, of course, caused mostly by the burning of fossil fuels. This really is not complicated. We have to stop using fossil fuels as rapidly as possible, because they’re causing a massive global calamity that is not just bringing us worse storms but drawing us closer to irreversible tipping points that will escalate the speed of changes and cause human suffering on an unprecedented level. Scientists who study planetary “vital signs” say that we are imperiling “the very fabric of life on our planet” and are causing an “abrupt climate upheaval, which jeopardizes the life on Earth like nothing humans have ever seen.”

Read more here: https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/yo ... tastrophe

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

[caltrek]

Al Gore Knew Stopping Climate Change Would Be Hard—But Not This Hard
by Kate Yoder
October 11, 2024

Introduction:

(Mother Jones) At a congressional hearing on the greenhouse effect in 1981, Al Gore, then a member of the House of Representatives from Tennessee, remarked that it was hard to come to terms with the fact that rising carbon dioxide emissions could radically alter our world. “Quite frankly, my first reaction to it several years ago was one of disbelief,” he said. “Since then, I have been waiting patiently for it to go away, but it has not gone away.”

Gore’s hearings didn’t spark the epiphany he’d hoped among his fellow members of Congress. More than four decades later, the problem still hasn’t resonated with many of them, even as the devastating weather changes scientists warned about have become reality. Wildfires have turned towns to ash, and the rains unleashed by storms like Hurricane Helene have left even so-called climate havens like Asheville, North Carolina, in a post-apocalyptic state, with power lines tossed around like spaghetti.

“I’ll have to admit to you that I’ve been surprised at how difficult it’s been to implement the kinds of policies that will solve the climate crisis,” Gore said in an interview with Grist.

So he isn’t exactly surprised that the issue is on the back burner this election season. When asked about their plans to fight climate change in the presidential debate last month, Vice President Kamala Harris assured voters she wasn’t against fracking for natural gas, while former President Donald Trump went on a tangent about domestic vehicle manufacturing. The subject took on a more prominent role in the vice presidential debate last Tuesday, when the Republican, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, hedged by calling global warming “weird science” while not actually dismissing it, and the Democrat, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, envisioned America “becoming an energy superpower for the future.” And that was about it.

“Since the struggle for votes is almost always focused on undecided voters, most of them in the center of the political spectrum, it’s not at all unusual to see immediate, visceral issues like jobs and the economy take the foreground,” Gore said.

Read more here: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2 ... industry/

[weatheriscool]

[Time_Traveller]

Dramatic images show the first floods in the Sahara in half a century

Fri 11 Oct 2024 12.32 BST

Dramatic pictures have emerged of the first floods in the Sahara in half a century.

Two days of rainfall in September exceeded yearly averages in several areas of south-east Morocco and caused a deluge, officials of the country’s meteorology agency said in early October. In Tagounite, a village about 450km(280 miles) south of the capital, Rabat, more than 100mm (3.9 inches) was recorded in a 24-hour period.

Satellite imagery from Nasa showed Lake Iriqui, a lake bed between Zagora and Tata that had been dry for 50 years, being filled up.

“It’s been 30 to 50 years since we’ve had this much rain in such a short space of time,’ Houssine Youabeb, an official of Morocco’s meteorology agency told the Associated Press.

Such rains, which meteorologists call an extratropical storm, may change the weather conditions in the region in the coming months and years. As the air holds more moisture, it promotes evaporation and provokes more storms, Youabeb said.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... -a-century

[Time_Traveller]

Trees and land absorbed almost no CO2 last year. Is nature’s carbon sink failing?

Mon 14 Oct 2024 08.00 BST



It begins each day at nightfall. As the light disappears, billions of zooplankton, crustaceans and other marine organisms rise to the ocean surface to feed on microscopic algae, returning to the depths at sunrise. The waste from this frenzy – Earth’s largest migration of creatures – sinks to the ocean floor, removing millions of tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere each year.

This activity is one of thousands of natural processes that regulate the Earth’s climate. Together, the planet’s oceans, forests, soils and other natural carbon sinks absorb about half of all human emissions.

But as the Earth heats up, scientists are increasingly concerned that those crucial processes are breaking down.

In 2023, the hottest year ever recorded, preliminary findings by an international team of researchers show the amount of carbon absorbed by land has temporarily collapsed. The final result was that forest, plants and soil – as a net category – absorbed almost no carbon.

There are warning signs at sea, too. Greenland’s glaciers and Arctic ice sheets are melting faster than expected, which is disrupting the Gulf Stream ocean current and slows the rate at which oceans absorb carbon. For the algae-eating zooplankton, melting sea ice is exposing them to more sunlight – a shift scientists say could keep them in the depths for longer, disrupting the vertical migration that stores carbon on the ocean floor.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... idence-aoe