Climate Change News & Discussions

[weatheriscool]

European climate agency says this will likely be the hottest year on record -- again

Source: AP

Updated 7:39 AM EST, November 7, 2024

CHICAGO (AP) — For the second year in a row, Earth will almost certainly be the hottest it’s ever been. And for the first time, the globe this year reached more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming compared to the pre-industrial average, the European climate agency Copernicus said Thursday.

“It’s this relentless nature of the warming that I think is worrying,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of Copernicus. Buontempo said the data clearly shows the planet would not see such a long sequence of record-breaking temperatures without the constant increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere driving global warming.

He cited other factors that contribute to exceptionally warm years like last year and this one. They include El Nino — the temporary warming of parts of the Pacific that changes weather worldwide — as well as volcanic eruptions that spew water vapor into the air and variations in energy from the sun. But he and other scientists say the long-term increase in temperatures beyond fluctuations like El Nino is a bad sign.

“A very strong El Nino event is a sneak peek into what the new normal will be about a decade from now,” said Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist with the nonprofit Berkeley Earth.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/climate-chan ... d2bf5a5f8b

[weatheriscool]

[Time_Traveller]

Planting trees in the Arctic could make global warming worse, not better, say scientists

November 7, 2024

As the climate continues to warm, trees can be planted further and further north, and large-scale tree-planting projects in the Arctic have been championed by governments and corporations as a way to mitigate the worst effects of climate change.

However, when trees are planted in the wrong places -- such as normally treeless tundra and mires, as well as large areas of the boreal forest with relatively open tree canopies -- they can make global warming worse.

According to lead author Assistant Professor Jeppe Kristensen from Aarhus University in Denmark, the unique characteristics of Arctic and sub-Arctic ecosystems make them poorly suited for tree planting for climate mitigation.

"Soils in the Arctic store more carbon than all vegetation on Earth," said Kristensen. "These soils are vulnerable to disturbances, such as cultivation for forestry or agriculture, but also the penetration of tree roots. The semi-continuous daylight during the spring and early summer, when snow is still on the ground, also makes the energy balance in this region extremely sensitive to surface darkening, since green and brown trees will soak up more heat from the sun than white snow."

In addition, the regions surrounding the North Pole in North America, Asia and Scandinavia are prone to natural disturbances -- such as wildfires and droughts -- that kill off vegetation. Climate change makes these disturbances both more frequent and more severe.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 115055.htm

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

[caltrek]

'Ready to Fight' for Climate, Students Walk Out Over Trump
by Jessica Corbett
November 8, 2024

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) Students with the youth-led Sunrise Movement walked out of over 30 high schools and universities across the United States on Friday to stand against U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's "extreme agenda" and promote "the fight for climate justice, workers' rights, and democracy."

The protesters carried signs and banners with messages including "This Is a Climate Emergency," "Protect Our Futures," "People Not Profit," "f*ck Trump," "Together We Rise," and "The Dems Failed, The People Won't."

"Students from every corner of the country came together to send a powerful message of solidarity. We won't stand by while Donald Trump's dangerous agenda threatens everything we believe in," said Aster Chau, a 16-year-old from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. "This movement is about hope—hope that when we stand together, we can push our leaders to take bold action. We won't back down. This is our future, and we're taking it back."

Trump's first presidential term featured a wide range of attacks on the Earth. This cycle, he pledged to "drill, baby, drill," provoking warnings about how his return to power would lead to a surge in planet-heating pollution, and vowed to roll back Biden-Harris administration climate policies if Big Oil poured just $1 billion into his campaign.

Since Trump beat Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday, critics including the Sunrise Movement have called out her party's leadership for failing to adequately prioritize the needs and demands of the working class.

Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/news/trum ... e-change

caltrek’s comment: It was not just that the Biden administration did not do enough to "adequately prioritize" on this issue. It is also that even media organizations that were relatively sympathetic to the Democrats, such as MSNBC and CNN, also failed to focus enough attention on the climate issue.

[weatheriscool]

[wjfox]

Shell wins landmark climate case against green groups in Dutch appeal

12 November 2024

Oil giant Shell has won a landmark case in the Dutch courts, overturning an earlier ruling requiring it to cut its carbon emissions by 45%.

The Hague court of appeal said it could not establish that Shell had a "social standard of care" to reduce its emissions by 45% or any other amount, even though it agreed the company had an obligation to citizens to limit emissions.

Three years ago, a court in The Hague backed a case by Friends of the Earth and 17,000 Dutch citizens requiring Shell to reduce its CO2 emissions significantly, in line with the Paris climate accords.

The ruling came as climate talks involving some 200 countries got under way in Azerbaijan.

Shell said it was pleased with the court's decision, but Friends of the Earth Netherlands said the ruling was a setback that affected them deeply.

The environmental group can now take its case against Shell to the Supreme Court - but a final verdict could be years away.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx240l9xq2yo

[weatheriscool]

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monito ... bal/202410
The average global temperature for October was 2.38 degrees F (1.32 degrees C) above the 20th-century average of 57.2 degrees F (14.0 degrees C), ranking as the world’s second-warmest October on record — just 0.09 of a degree F (0.05 of a degree C) cooler than the record-warm October 2023.

The January–October global surface temperature ranked warmest in the 175-year record at 1.28°C (2.30°F) above the 1901-2000 average of 14.1°C (57.4°F). According to NCEI's statistical analysis, it is practically certain that 2024 will rank as the warmest year on record.

[Time_Traveller]

'Drowning' mangrove forests in Maldives signal global coastal threat

November 12, 2024

Researchers have found evidence that mangrove forests -- which protect tropical and subtropical coastlines -- are drowning in the Maldives.

Their findings, published today (Tuesday 12 December) in Scientific Reports, indicate that rising sea level and a climate phenomenon known as the Indian Ocean Dipole have led to some Maldivian islands losing over half of their mangrove cover since 2020.

The research team, led by Northumbria University, warn that the findings have implications not only for the Maldives, but also for other island nations and coastal ecosystems around the world.

In 2020, more than a quarter of the Maldivian islands containing mangrove forests saw their trees experiencing a gradual deterioration before dying, a condition known as dieback.

Satellite imagery of both inhabited and uninhabited islands revealed the severity of this issue, showing that some islands lost over half of their mangrove cover.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 123310.htm

[wjfox]

‘Minimal progress’ made this year on curbing global heating, report finds

Thu 14 Nov 2024 05.00 GMT

World leaders have promised to try to stop the planet heating by more than 1.5C (2.7F). But current policies put the temperature rise on track for 2.7C, a report has found.

The expected level of global heating by the end of the century has not changed since 2021, with “minimal progress” made this year, according to the Climate Action Tracker project. The consortium’s estimate has not shifted since the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow three years ago.

“We have clearly failed to bend the curve,” said the lead author of the analysis, Sofia Gonzales-Zuñiga, from Climate Analytics.

[...]

The researchers warned their median warming estimate of 2.7C by 2100 had a wide enough margin of error that it could translate into far hotter temperatures than scientists were expecting.

“There is a 33% chance of our projection being 3C or higher, and a 10% chance of being 3.6C or higher,” said Gonzales-Zuniga. The latter would be “absolutely catastrophic”, she added.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... port-cop29

[weatheriscool]

[firestar464]

We are so cooked. If humanity doesn't outright destroy itself due to the increase in emissions under Trump, then China is going to become the next leader of the world. UGH.

[Time_Traveller]

UN climate talks 'no longer fit for purpose' say key experts

14 November 2024

The United Nations' COP climate talks are "no longer fit for purpose" and need an urgent overhaul, key experts including a former UN secretary general and former UN climate chief have said.

In a letter to the UN, external, senior figures say countries should not host the talks if they don’t support the phase out of fossil energy.

This week the Azerbaijani president told world leaders gathered in his country for COP29 that natural gas was a “gift from God” and he shouldn’t be blamed for bringing it to market.

That came days after the BBC reported that a senior Azerbaijani official appeared to have used his role at COP to arrange a meeting to discuss potential fossil fuel deals.

The UN’s climate talks have made significant progress in recent years, despite the fact that unanimous agreement is needed among almost 200 countries to take action.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2 ... =serp_auto

[caltrek]

These Down-Ballot Election Results Will Slow States’ Transition to Clean Energy
by Gautama Mehta
November 8, 2024

Introduction:

(Grist) Some of the votes Americans cast on Tuesday that may have mattered most for the climate were quite a bit downballot from the presidential ticket: A handful of states held elections for the commissions that regulate utilities, and thereby exercise direct control over what sort of energy mix will fuel the coming years’ expected growth in electricity demand. In three closely watched races around the country — the utility commissions in Arizona, Montana, and Louisiana — Republican candidates either won or are in the lead. While they generally pitched themselves to voters as market-friendly, favoring an all-of-the-above approach to energy, clean energy advocates interviewed by Grist cast these candidates as deferential to the power companies they aspired to regulate.

Arizona is, in a word, sunny. Its geography makes it “the famously obvious place to build solar,” said Caroline Spears, executive director of Climate Cabinet, a nonprofit that works to get clean energy advocates elected. But its utilities have built just a sliver of the potential solar energy that there is room for in the state — and the Arizona Corporation Commission, which regulates the state’s investor-owned utilities, is partly to blame for that. That commission’s most recent goal for renewable energy, set in 2007, was an unambitious 15 percent to be reached by 2025. “Their goals are worse than where Texas currently is and where Iowa currently is on clean energy,” Spears said. What’s more, the current slate of commissioners is in the process of considering whether to ditch that goal altogether.

Those commissioners have held a 4-1 Republican majority on the commission since 2022, and in that time they’ve approved the construction of new gas plants, imposed new fees on rooftop solar, and raised electricity rates. Tuesday’s election, in which three of the commission’s five seats were on the ballot, gave voters a chance to reverse course. The race hasn’t yet been officially called, but three Republican candidates are in the lead, ahead of three Democratic candidates, two Green candidates, and a write-in independent. (The election is structured such that candidates don’t run for individual seats or in districts; rather, the seats go to the three top vote-getters.)

Read more here: https://grist.org/politics/public-util ... montana/

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

[wjfox]

[Tadasuke]

I've learned a lot regarding the whole climate change topic. However, I neither enjoy learning it nor like writing about it.

From what I now know, there are insane mistakes and impenitent irrationality on the side of the climate change activists. There is a lot going awfully in the world, but CO2 emissions are not one of the bad things. In fact, CO2 is good for plants, it's necessary.

It's worth watching and listening to this, the guy used to be the president of Greenpeace:


I think this website and forum are also misguided and confused about this whole topic. You are not reading the right books. However, I don't enjoy reading nor listening about such topics at all.

[erowind]

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