[✔️] April 10 , 2022 - Daily Global Warming News Digest.
👀 Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Sun Apr 10 07:14:57 EDT 2022
/*April 10, 2022*/
/[Extinction Rebellion protest - live video from Hyde Park
https://youtu.be/TEdY92rIDT4]
/*LIVE: Day 2 of the April Rebellion: We will not be bystanders*
Extinction Rebellion UK
Thousands of people are gathering in London today for the second day in
our latest wave of non-violent civil disobedience against the UK
Government for its breathtaking inaction on climate change. The
Rebellion will run from Saturday 9th-Sunday 17th April: expect peaceful
disruption, noise, colour, love and rage. We don’t want to be here. Our
present is grave: war in Europe, a cost of living crisis and the
remnants of a cruel pandemic. But our future under climate will be even
worse. The latest IPCC report estimates that we’ll reach the crucial
1.5C so-called ‘safe limit’ of heating within a decade, and the UN
Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, has stated that any further ‘delay
means death’. The world is at a tipping point: we can transition away
from fossil fuels, towards a just society, or dig in our heels,
prioritise profit and drive a race to extinction. Our Government knows
this - yet it’s spent £14 billion financing fuel fuels since the 2015
Paris Agreement. In ignoring the advice of the International Energy
Agency, that all new fossil fuel projects should have been halted by
2021 - last year - it is failing current and future generations. From
trades unions, to professional bodies, to grass-roots communities,
people throughout society are waking up to the human suffering and
environmental injustice caused by our addiction to fossil fuels. We say,
'not in our names': will not be bystanders. Our civil disobedience is
rooted in love and care for all: join us! Don’t just look up, step up –
and then sit down and claim your place in history.
1. Tell The Truth
2. Act Now
3. Beyond Politics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEdY92rIDT4/
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/[ US broadcast from FOX Business - show-cases Senator Manchin for a
long spiel - text and video interview (what is that smudge?) ]/
*Climate activists reportedly arrested outside West Virginia coal plant*
The group accused Manchin of being 'rich and corrupt'/
/
Climate protesters temporarily blocked the entrance to a West Virginia
power plant on Saturday to protest reported profits that West Virginia
Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin earns from its coal production as well as his
overall stance on coal energy.
Protesters descended upon the Grant Town Power Plant for several hours
on Saturday and took part in a protest against Manchin’s coal policies
and financial ties to coal production in a rally that temporarily
blocked the entrance to the plant and resulted in over a dozen arrests,
according to the group West Virginia Rising./..
/
//https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/climate-activists-block-entrance-to-coal-power-plant-to-protest-joe-manchin-energy-policies-arrests-made
- -
/[ NYTimes knows ]/
*How Joe Manchin Aided Coal, and Earned Millions*
At every step of his political career, Joe Manchin helped a West
Virginia power plant that is the sole customer of his private coal
business. Along the way, he blocked ambitious climate action.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/27/climate/manchin-coal-climate-conflicts.html
- -
/[ from Rolling$tone magazine ]/
*Manchin's Coal Corruption Is So Much Worse Than You Knew*
The senator from West Virginia is bought and paid for by Big Coal. With
his help the dying industry is pulling one final heist — and the entire
planet may pay the price...
One of the hardest things to grasp about the climate crisis is the
connectedness of all things. One recent drizzly afternoon, I drove from
Charleston, West Virginia, to the John Amos coal-fired power plant on
the banks of the Kanawha River, near the town of Nitro. In the rain, the
plant looked like one of the dark satanic mills that poet William Blake
wrote about, with three enormous cooling towers that steamed like giant
witches’ cauldrons. Across the river from the plant, mobile homes
cluttered the bank of the Kanawha, streaked black with pollution that
rained down on them 24/7...
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/joe-manchin-big-coal-west-virginia-1280922/
- -
/[ cough, cough, hack, hack.. ]/
*Joe Manchin's coal ties are worse than we thought — yet legal*
The lone Democratic holdout on Build Back Better has an astonishing
conflict of interest.
- -
What’s worse, however, than Manchin’s dodge is that what he’s doing is
perfectly legal. Due to Congress’ lax code of ethics regarding
lawmaker’s investments, Manchin’s conflict of interest is permissible,
and, in many instances, completely routine. In other words, what may be
even more scandalous than Manchin’s conflict of interest is the fact
that it's allowed.
Manchin has a lucrative family business that sells waste coal to a power
plant in West Virginia that “emits air pollution at a higher rate than
any other plant in the state,” according to the Post.
- -
Government ethics experts have pointed out that Manchin has a clear
conflict of interest as he weighs in on policies that directly affect
the industry he’s invested in and making huge sums of money from. But
members of Congress are not required to divest from assets to avoid
conflict of interest.
In fact, congressional norms not only don’t require divestment from
assets that would cause conflict of interest, but actually dictate that
it is inappropriate for a lawmaker to recuse themselves from legislating
on a specific matter purely on the basis that it could cause conflict of
interest. Craig Holman, an ethics expert at Public Citizen, explained it
in an email to me:
[Manchin] is directly and substantially forming climate change policies
that have a direct impact on his own wealth and the wealth of his
family. This is an egregious conflict of interest. However, the conflict
of interest code for members of Congress is also riddled with loopholes.
Members are expected to get involved in every legislative measure that
comes before the body, even if there are significant conflicts of
interest. The congressional rule book states that members have an
obligation to their constituents not to recuse themselves from any such
conflicting actions, unless the transaction would primarily impact only
the member and not the industry as a whole.
So to recap: it’s not just legal for Manchin to vote on policies that he
has a direct financial interest in, he’s actually expected to do, unless
he meets a very high threshold for exemption, because of congressional
guidance on lawmakers attending to all legislative matters before the
body. For this reason, he can chair the Senate Energy and Natural
Resources Committee and singlehandedly torpedo climate policies
desperately needed to help save the planet — all while raking in cash
from the coal industry...
- -
Congress’ rules allow for systematic corruption unbecoming of any
serious democracy. Lawmakers are supposed to be making decisions in
service of the public good, but how can they do that when they know
those decisions can reduce or increase personal wealth they could draw
on for future campaigns or retirement or their children’s trust funds?
Manchin’s unapologetic conflict of interest is simply shining a light on
a much bigger malady in the heart of our democracy’s deliberative process.
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/joe-manchin-s-coal-ties-are-worse-we-thought-yet-n1285934
/[ No water anywhere. But some down below. ]/
*Developers are flooding Arizona with homes even as historic Western
drought intensifie*s
Diana Olick - - APR 5 2022
On a vast swath of land in Buckeye, Arizona, just west of Phoenix, the
Howard Hughes Corporation is developing one of the largest
master-planned communities in the nation, Douglas Ranch, flooding the
desert with housing...
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2022/04/05/rising-risks-arizona.html
- -
A report last spring from ASU’s Kyle Center for Water Policy warned the
amount of groundwater in the Hassayampa subbasin is considerably less
than regulators estimate, and that without a change in direction, ” the
physical groundwater supply under Buckeye will decrease and will not be
sustainable.” The report also says that hundred-year model for
groundwater is constantly changing, especially given the changing
climate. The state’s department of water resources is now in the process
of determining if the basin does in fact have a hundred years’ worth of
water.
“The bottom line is that there are places in this state, in this valley
where there are sufficient water supplies to support new growth. We
don’t need to go way out in the desert and pump groundwater to build new
homes,” said Ferris.
The land, of course, is cheaper out in the desert, but Ferris argues,
“Well, at some point there’s a cost to that.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/05/developers-flood-arizona-with-homes-even-as-drought-intensifies.html
/[ Is there ANYTHING that does not affect global warming? ] /
*All coked up: The global environmental impacts of cocaine*
Sean Mowbray -- 4 April 2022
-- Cocaine is one of the most widely used illicit drugs in the
world, consumed by an estimated 20 million people in 2019, mostly in
North America and Europe.
--Production, transit and consumption of the drug are exacting a
heavy environmental toll, impacting tropical forests, freshwater and
estuary ecosystems. Some of these effects, such as pollution impacts
on eels and other aquatic species, have been documented, but most
are still poorly understood, with many unresearched.
-- Indigenous peoples are often at the front lines of criminal
gangs’ activities in producer and trafficking countries. Often, when
new narco-trafficking transport routes are established, like those
in Central America, those same routes are used for other criminal
activities such as wildlife and weapons trafficking.
-- Researchers argue that detaching the environmental harm caused by
the cocaine trade from the long-lasting war on drugs is not
possible. Solutions implemented to deal with the drug problem, such
as the aerial spraying of illegal coca crops, while locally
effective in curbing illegal cultivation, also cause deforestation
and biodiversity damage.
*Changing the planet*
Cocaine is far from the only pollutant entering waterways, estuaries and
oceans. It’s part of a toxic cocktail of pharmaceuticals, heavy metals,
pesticides, microplastics and much more, that makes up wastewater and
sewage. Recently, the Stockholm Resilience Centre, an international
consortium of scientists, declared that the planetary boundary for
“novel entities” — chemical contaminants introduced by humanity — has
been transgressed, putting Earth’s operating systems and human
civilization at risk. Cocaine excreted via urine, along with the toxic
precursors used in its production, are among the many tens of thousands
of novel entities of emerging concern.
A 2020 study led by Pavel Horký at the Czech University of Life Sciences
grabbed headlines. His research showed that exposure to methamphetamine
— another illicit drug identified in wastewater samples — altered
behavior patterns and elicited signs of addiction in brown trout (Salmo
trutta). To date, no one knows how drug mixtures, such as meth and
cocaine, might combine with other pollutants to impact aquatic species.
“I totally agree with the Stockholm Resilience Centre that chemical
pollution is one of the greatest threats for life in general, [as we
pass] the novel entities boundary,” says Horký. “There are a lot of
contaminants of emerging concern, not only illicit drugs, but also
standard prescription medicines like antidepressants and many others
that are overused by human society. Their risks may vary along with
their additive, synergistic or antagonistic effects.
“Despite the fact that our knowledge is increasing, we are still at the
beginning,” he warns.
There are ways of guarding against this form of environmental harm.
Removing cocaine residues from wastewater is possible, though treatment
facilities vary in effectiveness. Other nature-based solutions, such as
constructed wetlands, offer cleanup alternatives.
In Horký’s mind, there is an easier and cheaper solution: “The best
pollutant is the one that is not released in the environment,” he
states. “Everybody should think about it and use medicines, drugs and
other chemicals responsibly [and for] real need.”
https://news.mongabay.com/2022/04/all-coked-up-the-global-environmental-impacts-of-cocaine/
/[ quick animation says that we're not necessarily doomed (that is, not
if we call it to 2100 ) You do know that everything continues beyond
the year 2100 -- and that soon the average top heat will be 12 to 13
degrees C ] /
*We WILL Fix Climate Change!*
Apr 5, 2022
Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell
Sources & further reading:
https://sites.google.com/view/sources-can-we-fix-climate/
Our home is burning. Rapid climate change is destabilizing our world. It
seems our emissions will not fall quickly enough to avoid runaway
warming and we may soon hit tipping points that will lead to the
collapse of ecosystems and our civilization.
While scientists, activists and much of the younger generation urge
action, it appears most politicians are not committed to do anything
meaningful while the fossil fuel industry still works actively against
change. It seems humanity can’t overcome its greed and obsession with
short term profit and personal gain to save itself.
And so for many the future looks grim and hopeless. Young people feel
particularly anxious and depressed. Instead of looking ahead to a
lifetime of opportunity they wonder if they will even have a future or
if they should bring kids into this world. It’s an age of doom and
hopelessness and giving up seems the only sensible thing to do.
But that’s not true. You are not doomed. Humanity is not doomed./[by the
year 2100]/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxgMdjyw8uw
/[ From a study published in 2015 ] /
*Climate Change: What Happens after 2100?*
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY : Climate Change, Ecosystems, Culture, Risk,
Vulnerabilities
2011-11-16 Gregory Trencher
- -
The carbon that we are releasing into the atmosphere today is in the
process of ‘programming’ a potential 2-5 metres of sea level rise by
around the year 2300.
But that’s not all. The report also states that “even a thousand years
after reaching a zero-emission society, temperatures will remain
elevated, likely cooling down by only a few tenths of a degree below
their peak values.”
In other words, whatever the mitigation efforts of future civilisations,
climate change is here to stay. Only after this extremely long period of
forced warming — far more than the history of modern civilisation since
the Scientific Revolution — will climate change slowly begin to
‘reverse’ and the planet will at last embark on a cooling trajectory,
the report explains.
But long before this ever happens, humanity must prepare itself for an
inland retreat and a constant battle against rising seawater that will
continue for hundreds and hundreds of years into the future. The
phenomenon of sea level rise resulting from thermal expansion (sea water
expands as it warms) and melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica
is the perfect illustration of climate inertia in action.
As may be seen from the graph below, showing estimates from three
different models, it takes several centuries for the oceans to fully
respond to a warmer climate and altered carbon balance. As a result, the
carbon that we are releasing into the atmosphere today is in the process
of ‘programming’ a potential 2-5 metres of sea level rise by around the
year 2300.
https://i.unu.edu/media/ourworld.unu.edu-en/article/4055/see-level-change-grap1.gif
Source: Copenhagen Diagnosis.
What’s more, the authors of the Copenhagen Diagnosis warn that sea level
rise will continue for many centuries after the eventual stabilisation
of global temperature (and therefore beyond the upper limit of this
graph too). This is no doubt going to have a devastating impact upon
future cities, towns, agricultural areas and freshwater resources
located near coastal regions. (The Centre for Remote Sensing of Ice
Sheets has some detailed images available of the areas of the globe most
threatened by sea level rise.)
*
**Small decisions, huge consequences*
With this geological mayhem scheduled to take place over the next
several thousand years, the decisions that we are making (read: not
making) in the present take on a new light. Clearly we need to expand
the time scale with which we assess the full implications of the climate
crisis beyond the current century. Once humans turn up the planetary
thermostat by 2°C (the goal to which the international community is
committed at present, albeit very optimistically), there will be no
turning it back, save a trend towards planet-altering geo-engineering.
Instead, the temperature control will be locked in and all life forms on
Earth will be pressured to adapt for thousands of years. The climate
change-driven ecological destruction that we are witnessing today —
immeasurable loss of human life, plant and animal species caused by
natural disasters such as floods, droughts, wildfires and heat waves,
the disappearance of vast snow caps, glaciers and almost half of the
Arctic — is the result of a mere 0.8°C rise in average temperature since
1800. We can only imagine what a further 1.2°C rise before 2100 will
mean for the Earth’s already vulnerable ecosystems and at-climate-risk
communities.
*Future ethics*
The planet is the ultimate ‘global commons’. It belongs to neither a
particular individual nor a particular nation. Nor does it belong to a
single generation such as us, our children or our grandchildren.
Instead, it belongs to all living creatures both alive now and in the
future. Just as all of humanity is connected ‘horizontally’ across the
globe, so too are all past and future life forms bound ‘vertically’ in a
continual unfolding of the story of life.
Yet the political and economic institutions of our civilisation are
fixated on enjoying the present and unable to account for the
consequences of our actions on tomorrow. This may be all too easily
observed in our financial behaviour, where individuals, corporations and
governments are forever borrowing from the future in order to improve
the present.
In the same way, the fossil fuelled party of our capitalist global
civilisation is in the midst of a financial and ecological borrowing
frenzy from the future. And not only are the spoils of our mastery over
nature enjoyed by only a minority of the planet, but in geological
terms, they are being consumed within an extremely short time-span.
In a crisis of modernity that could also be re-interpreted as one of
ethics and values, how should we reframe our choices and actions in the
present, in light of tomorrow?
Surely it is just a matter of standing in the shoes of all future
citizens and asking ourselves what sort of planet they would like to
live on. Surely our descendants, hundreds and thousands of years into
the future, would wish for, and have a right to, the same stable climate
and ocean levels that have allowed the attainment of such an advanced
and flourishing civilisation today.
It is none other than this consideration for future human beings and
other life forms that should form the yardstick by which we set our
mitigation targets — not merely what is politically and economically
feasible for the industrialised world today.
https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/climate-change-what-happens-after-2100
/[ Nice little history lesson - 14 min video ]/
*Petroleum - Modern history of oil on a Map*
Mar 2, 2019
Geo History
Let's retrace on an animated map a summary of the modern history of
petroleum until the present day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMQUGSrnbP8
- -
/[ ugh, ugly little future conjecture -- opinion ]/
*The World We Need to Prepare for | Peter Zeihan*
Mar 29, 2022
GEOPOP
Audio is from new Peter Zeihan podcast …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93JKT4LkUOo
/[The news archive - looking back]/
*April 10, 2007*
In a debate with Senator John Kerry in Washington, DC, Newt Gingrich
acknowledges that climate change is real and largely caused by human
activity, though he insists that regulatory solutions are not needed to
stem emissions. By 2009, Gingrich would once again suggest that the
basic science of human-caused climate change was in dispute.
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/197538-1
https://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/02/19/gingrich-didnt-always-take-issue-with-john-kerr/198125
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