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Category Archives: dying planet

The United States Is Unprepared For The Heat Of Now – Let alone the future

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Forget about Humans interaction with our Warming Climate. Think about the infrastructure we build  for the last hundred years where one hundred degree Fahrenheit days ARE NOT THE Norm. Now every State in the union will have days over 1 Hundred Degrees and maybe weeks over one Hundred Degrees. Bear in mind that Minnesota had fires this summer around the Northern Lakes Region for the first time in memory. What is it gonna be like when the phone lines and the power lines come down. What is it gonna be like when the roads blow up. I do not mean catastrophic. I mean disruptive. I think disruptive is worse.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/06/portland-seattle-heatwave-warning/619313/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Science

Nowhere Is Ready for This Heat

The Pacific Northwest is melting now, but all across America the infrastructure we have was built for the wrong century.

By Robinson Meyer

The Portland Streetcar is 20 years old, making it relatively sprightly for infrastructure in the United States. Yet it was built for a different geological epoch. On Sunday, while Portland suffered through what was then its hottest day ever, the system started to melt. As the temperature reached 112 degrees Fahrenheit, a power cable on a major bridge warped, twisted around some metal hardware, and scorched. Elsewhere, the wires that run above the track expanded and sagged so much that they risked touching the train cars. By mid-afternoon, the streetcar system had shut down. The trams, which run on 100 percent renewable energy, seem to offer exactly the sort of urban fast transit that the country needs to reduce carbon pollution. But they were not prepared for—they could not withstand—one of the region’s first wrenching encounters with the remade atmosphere.

At first blush, there isn’t much to say about the “heat dome” settled over the Pacific Northwest like a shroud. Here is the story: It is very hot. Portland’s hottest three days on record have been the past three: The city broke its all-time record on Saturday (108 degrees Fahrenheit), smashed it on Sunday (112 degrees), and broke it again yesterday (116 degrees). Seattle-Tacoma International Airport also set an all-time heat record yesterday (108 degrees). Farther north, the temperature in the town of Lytton, British Columbia, yesterday reached 117 degrees Fahrenheit, or 47.5 degrees Celsius—the hottest temperature ever measured anywhere in Canada. America’s northern neighbor now has the same all-time heat record as Las Vegas, hundreds of miles to the south. Portland’s all-time record now exceeds the all-time records for Dallas, Austin, Houston, and Atlanta. It is very hot.

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Go there and sweat. More next week.

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Antarctica Is Melting – Just like the wicked witch of the East

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People all over the world have been saying, “When Antarctica melts then I will believe in Global Warming”. Well it is melting!

Yah I know Nobody Ever Said That. I thought it was a cool lead, or as they say cool lede, now. AND I know Antarctica is hard to care about. It’s just like Greenland. So what if it melts. I live in the mid west. When we flood, the world will really be flooded. No Florida, no Louisiana, no Southern Georgia, and no Southern Alabama and Mississippi. AND no Beaches.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/journey-to-antarctica-is-this-what-a-climate-catastrophe-looks-like-in-real-time?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Journey to Antarctica: Is This What a Climate Catastrophe Looks Like in Real Time?

Scientists aboard the Nathaniel B. Palmer watched a 25-mile-wide section of ice crumble into the sea.

Rolling Stone

  • Jeff Goodell

This is a dispatch in a series from Jeff Goodell, who was aboard the Nathaniel B. Palmer in Antarctica in 2019 , investigating the effect of climate change on Thwaites glacier.

Yesterday, the Nathaniel B. Palmer left Antarctica behind and made the turn toward home. The last science experiments were completed, and the ship headed north, toward Punta Arenas, Chile, where our two-month journey will end. Scientists on board are packing up equipment and writing rough drafts of papers based on discoveries they made during our adventure into uncharted waters around Thwaites glacier. But an almost existential question looms above it all: Did we just witness what amounts to a climate catastrophe playing out in real time?

On March 3rd, 2019, Bastien Queste, an oceanographer at the University of East Anglia who is a key member of the science team aboard the ship, got a WhatsApp message from a colleague back in the UK. She had sent him a satellite image of Thwaites glacier and the surrounding region in West Antarctica. At the time, we had just completed our own close encounter with the awesome craggy blue glacier and were only a few miles away, mapping the seabed in front of the glacier with the ship’s sonar device.

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Go there and cry. More next week.

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Climate Change Started In The 1960s – People spoke up

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Just like CANCER. That was the first thought I had when I read this article. Evidence was gathered 60 years ago. People spoke up, and the oil and gas industry killed any discussion. Now we are stuck with more powerful Hurricanes. We are stuck with the American west being consumed by droughts and fire. The Arctic is gone and the Antarctic going. The world should confiscate their wealth and apply every dime to remediating the effects. Unfortunately the whole world never does anything. I mean the UN could pass a resolution but Pfffhh.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/05/sixty-years-of-climate-change-warnings-the-signs-that-were-missed-and-ignored?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Sixty years of climate change warnings: the signs that were missed (and ignored)

The effects of ‘weird weather’ were already being felt in the 1960s, but scientists linking fossil fuels with climate change were dismissed as prophets of doom

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Mon 5 Jul 2021 01.00 EDT
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In August 1974, the CIA produced a study on “climatological research as it pertains to intelligence problems”. The diagnosis was dramatic. It warned of the emergence of a new era of weird weather, leading to political unrest and mass migration (which, in turn, would cause more unrest). The new era the agency imagined wasn’t necessarily one of hotter temperatures; the CIA had heard from scientists warning of global cooling as well as warming. But the direction in which the thermometer was traveling wasn’t their immediate concern; it was the political impact. They knew that the so-called “little ice age”, a series of cold snaps between, roughly, 1350 and 1850, had brought not only drought and famine, but also war – and so could these new climatic changes.

“The climate change began in 1960,” the report’s first page informs us, “but no one, including the climatologists, recognized it.” Crop failures in the Soviet Union and India in the early 1960s had been attributed to standard unlucky weather. The US shipped grain to India and the Soviets killed off livestock to eat, “and premier Nikita Khrushchev was quietly deposed”.

But, the report argued, the world ignored this warning, as the global population continued to grow and states made massive investments in energy, technology and medicine.

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Go there and read. More next week (if we are still here)

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We Are Living in a Climate Emergency – According to the f%$!ing Scientific American

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This according to 13,000 scientists who think it is now or never for things to change. This is a stunning development. One I never thought would happen until the END. And I will be honest here, we are nowhere near the end. I think we have at least 20 years before things are completely out of control. I never thought I hear these kinds of statement until it was too late. Like hearing “the Titanic is sinking” when it is already half way down and there is no going back. But then again – maybe i better rethink. Anway:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/we-are-living-in-a-climate-emergency-and-were-going-to-say-so/

Climate | Opinion

We Are Living in a Climate Emergency, and We’re Going to Say So

It’s time to use a term that more than 13,000 scientists agree is needed

We Are Living in a Climate Emergency, and We're Going to Say So
Increasingly dangerous wildfires are just one consequence of climate change. Here, a man watches in 2013 as the Springs fire in California approaches. Credit: David McNew Getty Images

An emergency is a serious situation that requires immediate action. When someone calls 911 because they can’t breathe, that’s an emergency. When someone stumbles on the sidewalk because their chest is pounding and their lips are turning blue, that’s an emergency. Both people require help right away. Multiply those individuals by millions of people who have similar symptoms, and it constitutes the biggest global health emergency in a century: the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now consider the following scenarios: A hurricane blasts Florida. A California dam bursts because floods have piled water high up behind it. A sudden, record-setting cold snap cuts power to the entire state of Texas. These are also emergencies that require immediate action. Multiply these situations worldwide, and you have the biggest environmental emergency to beset the earth in millennia: climate change.

Given the circumstances, Scientific American has agreed with major news outlets worldwide to start using the term “climate emergency” in its coverage of climate change. An official statement about this decision, and the impact we hope it can have throughout the media landscape, is below.

The planet is heating up way too fast. It’s time for journalism to recognize that the climate emergency is here

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Go there and read. We will see if it catches on. More next week.

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The Oil Companies Have Poisoned The World – I am not talking about their refined fuels

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I am talking Plastics. A friend of mine once remarked to me that he thought he probably would be carrying around a pound of DDT by the time he died. That may be true but think about a pound of plastic by-products circulating around your body. 60 years again the stuff didn’t even exist. Bakelite did exist and other form forms as well. But not the “soft” stuff. The stuff that universally breaks down. Now plastic and it’s by-products are everywhere AND there is more coming. Yum!

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-world-is-stuck-with-decades-of-new-plastic-it-can-t-recycle?utm_source=pocket-newtab

The World Is Stuck With Decades of New Plastic It Can’t Recycle

We’ve been hoodwinked into thinking recycling is a solution.

Quartz

  • Zoë Schlanger

Ants are useful creatures. As the most numerous insects on Earth, they have colonized nearly every habitat on land. So when a researcher wants to understand how far a contaminant has spread, they turn to ants.

In 2012, a group of French researchers found phthalates in the body of every ant they sampled. Ants from France, Hungary, Spain, Morocco, the Greek island Egine, and Burkina Faso all had at least some of the common plastic additive embedded in their skin. In the conclusion to the paper announcing their findings, they added a restless-sounding note: “In an attempt to find ants bearing no phthalate on their cuticle,” they wrote, they would next look farther afield. There had to be ants out there not yet full of plastic.

But there were not. Five years later, the team published their follow-up. They had sampled ants from the most remote forests of Guyana, and the areas in the Amazon rainforest farthest from any urban center. Again, phthalates were embedded in their skin. “These findings suggest that there is no such thing as a ‘pristine’ zone,” they wrote in a 2017 paper.

Or, as Pete Myers, an environmental health expert and adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University put it, “there is no untouched centimeter.”

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Go there and read. More next week.

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When The World Stops – We all get OFF

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When the atmosphere is so gunked up and the ocean so full of crap then the currents both in the atmosphere and the ocean slow down and eventually stop. At that point we all die. End game. Checkmate. But here I’ll let these people tell you in more technical language. I am sure if you don’t believe me, you will believe them.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/02/atlantic-currents-seem-to-have-started-fading-last-century/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

In deep —

Atlantic currents seem to have started fading last century

Another predicted impact of climate change may be here.

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The major currents in the Atlantic Ocean help control the climate by moving warm surface waters north and south from the equator, with colder deep water pushing back toward the equator from the poles. The presence of that warm surface water plays a key role in moderating the climate in the North Atlantic, giving places like the UK a far more moderate climate than its location—the equivalent of northern Ontario—would otherwise dictate.

But the temperature differences that drive that flow are expected to fade as our climate continues to warm. A bit over a decade ago, measurements of the currents seemed to be indicating that temperatures were dropping, suggesting that we might be seeing these predictions come to pass. But a few years later, it became clear that there was just too much year-to-year variation for us to tell.

Over time, however, researchers have figured out ways of getting indirect measures of the currents, using material that is influenced by the strengths of the water’s flow. These measures have now let us look back on the current’s behavior over the past several centuries. And the results confirm that the strength of the currents has dropped dramatically over the last century.

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Go there and read some. If there is one, More next week.

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Glacier Breaks Dam – In India, what more can I say

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Yes right now the United States has some serious examples of Global Warming. California’s a mess. Let’s see: Massive fires, Massive floods, Massive mud slides and smog. Hotter weather, Melting ice. Then there are the hurricanes.

But this a falling Glacier that destroys a Dam. It killed 100s. That is a serious difference in orders of magnitude.

https://news.sky.com/story/northern-india-150-feared-dead-as-glacier-breaks-and-hits-dam-in-12211408

Northern India: At least 26 dead and 165 missing as glacier breaks and hits dam

A portion of a Himalayan glacier broke off causing a wall of water and debris to hit two hydroelectric projects in Uttarakhand.

By Manpreet Kaur Sachdeva and Russell Hope, news reporters

At least 26 people have died and 165 others are missing in northern India after part of a Himalayan glacier broke off, sending a wall of water and debris into two hydroelectric dams.

More than 2,000 members of the military, paramilitary groups and police are carrying out search-and-rescue missions after Sunday’s incident in the state of Uttarakhand.

The deluge destroyed one dam, damaged another and washed homes away downstream.

The focus of teams’ efforts was on saving 37 workers trapped inside a tunnel at the Dhauliganga project, one of the affected hydropower plants, officials said.

A portion of Nanda Devi glacier broke off in the Tapovan area of Uttarakhand state on Sunday, with the subsequent flooding damaging the Rishiganga and Dhauliganga hydropower projects, officials said.

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Go there and shriek. More next week.

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In The Race To Despoil The Environment, China Wins – They are First, Second and Third

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This is an article from 8 years ago. Imagine how much worse it has gotten since then. They have no shame. Who will stop this? Not the Central Government. Not the Provencial Government and not the local for surel. This is what we call in the United States call, a National Sacrifice zone. Remove the people and keep on going. Its disgusting and it’s despicable. Big YUCK for everyone to see.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/aug/07/china-rare-earth-village-pollution

 

Rare-earth mining in China comes at a heavy cost for local villages

Pollution is poisoning the farms and villages of the region that processes the precious minerals

Health hazard … pipes coming from a rare-earth smelting plant spew into a tailings dam on the outskirts of Baotou in China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region. Photograph: David Gray/Reuters

From the air it looks like a huge lake, fed by many tributaries, but on the ground it turns out to be a murky expanse of water, in which no fish or algae can survive. The shore is coated with a black crust, so thick you can walk on it. Into this huge, 10 sq km tailings pond nearby factories discharge water loaded with chemicals used to process the 17 most sought after minerals in the world, collectively known as rare earths.

The town of Baotou, in Inner Mongolia, is the largest Chinese source of these strategic elements, essential to advanced technology, from smartphones to GPS receivers, but also to wind farms and, above all, electric cars. The minerals are mined at Bayan Obo, 120km farther north, then brought to Baotou for processing.

The concentration of rare earths in the ore is very low, so they must be separated and purified, using hydro-metallurgical techniques and acid baths. China accounts for 97% of global output of these precious substances, with two-thirds produced in Baotou.

The foul waters of the tailings pond contain all sorts of toxic chemicals, but also radioactive elements such as thorium which, if ingested, cause cancers of the pancreas and lungs, and leukaemia. “Before the factories were built, there were just fields here as far as the eye can see. In the place of this radioactive sludge, there were watermelons, aubergines and tomatoes,” says Li Guirong with a sigh.

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Go there and vomit. More next week.

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Habitat Destruction Squeezes Diseases Out Of Mammals – Then they invade humans and kill us

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Seriously, how long can it be before HUMANs realize that by killing the world in general they are killing themselves. Squeezing animals out of their habitats squeezes their viruses out into us. We have no immune defenses against them and we die. I mean it is Earth’s ultimate defense system. I have a hunch we are not gonna be around for long. Wonder which one will get us first, Global Warming or Rejection by the Earth.

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/22/875961137/the-worrisome-link-between-deforestation-and-disease?utm_source=digg

‘Like Poking a Beehive’: The Worrisome Link Between Deforestation And Disease

 

In 2013, an 18-month-old boy got sick after playing near a hollow tree in his backyard in a remote West African village. He developed a fever and started vomiting. His stool turned black. Two days later, he died.

Two years and more than 11,000 deaths later, the World Health Organization put out a report saying the Ebola outbreak that likely emanated from that hollow tree may have been caused in part by deforestation led by “foreign mining and timber operations.”

The tree the boy played near was infested with insectivorous bats — bats that may have been pushed into the boy’s village because upward of 80% of their natural habitat had been destroyed.

“When you disturb a forest, it actually upsets, if you want, the balance of nature, the balance between pathogens and people,” says John E. Fa, a professor of biodiversity and human development at Manchester Metropolitan University, who was part of a team of researchers that linked recent forest loss to 25 Ebola outbreaks that have occurred since 1976.

A finding, he says, that showed a strong correlation between recent deforestation and disease outbreaks.

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Go there and Pray.  More next week.

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Michael Sellenberger Is A Lying Fool – He is a huge supporter of Nuclear Power

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As one of the commenters on Peak Oil said, “yah and smoking cures cancer”. Or as another said. ” a deniers denier, whose paying him”? His editorial is so wrong in so many ways. Yes, we ARE causing the next big extinction by habitat destruction and this pandemic is a perfect result of that habitat destruction and it’s results. Global warming IS the biggest crisis facing humans. Its true – not the biggest crisis facing the Earth cause after we are gone and all the smoke gets reabsorbed the Earth will be just fine. This guy is raising money by spreading feel good skepticism (and that’s all it is) and making himself famous by telling lies.

https://environmentalprogress.org/who-we-are

On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare

The author in Maranhão, Brazil, 1995

The author in Maranhão, Brazil, 1995

On behalf of environmentalists everywhere, I would like to formally apologize for the climate scare we created over the last 30 years. Climate change is happening. It’s just not the end of the world. It’s not even our most serious environmental problem.

I may seem like a strange person to be saying all of this. I have been a climate activist for 20 years and an environmentalist for 30.

But as an energy expert asked by Congress to provide objective expert testimony, and invited by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to serve as Expert Reviewer of its next Assessment Report, I feel an obligation to apologize for how badly we environmentalists have misled the public.

Here are some facts few people know:

  • Humans are not causing a “sixth mass extinction”

  • The Amazon is not “the lungs of the world”

  • Climate change is not making natural disasters worse

  • Fires have declined 25% around the world since 2003

  • The amount of land we use for meat — humankind’s biggest use of land — has declined by an area nearly as large as Alaska

  • The build-up of wood fuel and more houses near forests, not climate change, explain why there are more, and more dangerous, fires in Australia and California

  • Carbon emissions are declining in most rich nations and have been declining in Britain, Germany, and France since the mid-1970s

  • Netherlands became rich not poor while adapting to life below sea level

  • We produce 25% more food than we need and food surpluses will continue to rise as the world gets hotter

  • Habitat loss and the direct killing of wild animals are bigger threats to species than climate change

  • Wood fuel is far worse for people and wildlife than fossil fuels

  • Preventing future pandemics requires more not less “industrial” agriculture

 

 

 

 

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