Is this a call to commoditise carbon pollution? Isn’t it the “regulated” free market that created the fucking problem in the first place? So this is really a call for “more regulation”? So why the illusion that it’s still a free market? Oh, I see to hide the need for a major change when major change is what’s needed more than ever and on a global and not just local scale.
Placing a value on the environment through formal well-regulated markets is a better way to effect climate action and change the behaviours destroying our planet, writes Mike Berwick.
La Niña is officially here for the third year in a row. You probably associate it with flooding, but how might it affect future drought and bushfires? And could a fourth La Niña be possible?
After weeks of anticipation, it’s finally official: the Bureau of Meteorology has declared another La Niña is underway. This means Australia’s east coast will likely endure yet another wet, and relatively cool, spring and summer.
It’s the third La Niña event in a row. This is rare, but not unheard of. Triple La Niñas have also occurred in, for example, 1973–1976 and 1998–2001.
The past two La Niñas mean water catchments are already full, and soils are sodden from Noosa in the north through to Lismore and the Hunter Valley in the south. It means more flood events are likely in the coming months.
The bureau’s declaration will be unwelcome news to many people – especially those in parts of New South Wales and Queensland still recovering from recent floods. So what else can flood-weary Australians expect in the coming months? And is a fourth La Niña on the cards?
our latter-day apocalypse will be driven by 15 tipping points affecting the earth’s climate. The sooner humanity stops burning coal, petroleum and fossil gas, the sooner a set of significant dangers will begin to recede. On the other hand, if the new British Prime Minister Liz Truss commits to extracting gas by hydraulic fracturing, she will lock in a significant increase in heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere– carbon dioxide and methane.
David Armstrong McKay et al. have just published at Science an article surveying the 15 climate tipping points identified by the UN’s IPCC and the amount of extra warming that will trigger them. Here is the graphic they used to illustrate these tipping points:
Today, Pakistan, the world’s fifth-most-populous country, is fighting for its survival. This summer, erratic monsoon rains battered the country from north to south – Sindh, the southernmost province, received 464% more rain over the last few weeks than the 30-year average for the period.
Pakistan is undoubtedly on the front lines of climate change. In the ongoing flooding, it is clear that climate change has at minimum played a role in amplifying this event. At worst, it created a compounding set of circumstances causing millions of additional people to suffer than otherwise might have.
According to Murdoch commentators extreme weather events are occurring less often than they were in the past. I guess when new records are set the basis for a statement like that is that there is a new norm bench mark set. So there will always be fewer. Remember when Murdoch’s pundits kept advising us that the planet was cooling Andrew Bolt did that for well over a decade and telling us and that an increase in CO2 emissions were actually a boon to the planet.
Seas rising, carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere rising to best a million-year-old-record, super-monsoons. We can change all this, but we have to hurry to shut down CO2 emissions quickly.
What would Murdoch’s Sky News after Dark say? No proof it’s man-made? Or simply ignore the global extremes
floodwaters had swept away 700,000 livestock.Early estimates have put the flood damage at more than $US10 billion, the government has said, appealing to the world to help it deal with what it has called a man-made climate catastrophe.
If the world halted planet-heating pollution today, the ice sheet would lose more than 3% of its mass in the coming decades, scientists warn. To prevent even worse outcomes, immediate climate action is needed.
The good news is that the revolution we have all been waiting for is already happening. We just don’t hear much about it, as the fossil fuel industry has run a relentless fear campaign to protect their corporate interests. The truth is that change is already sweeping the world, from boardrooms to homes right across the planet.
This is humanity’s moment to right the wrongs of the past, to heal our relationship with each other and all life on Earth. It’s now time to meet the visionaries who are already showing us that another world is not only possible, but inevitable. And unstoppable.A new day is dawning.
Opinion | China Suffers Through ‘Worst Heatwave Ever Recorded’ | Andy Rowell
In a year when climate records—from floods, fire, and drought—are being shattered daily like shards of glass, there is one country that bests them all: China. The country is experiencing a heatwave like no other.
It has lasted over seventy days, with record breaking temperatures at day and at night.
Over 100 million people are affected in an area covering 500,000 square miles of the country, experiencing record temperatures exceeding 104°F (40°C). To put this into perspective, this is equivalent to the size of Texas, Colorado and California combined.
Experts are calling it the “worst heatwave ever recorded in global history,” or “Worst heat wave known in world climatic history.”
Sea life is facing two major challenges from the heat-trapping carbon dioxide we spew out when we drive internal combustion engine (ICE) cars or heat our homes and businesses with coal or fossil gas. Extra CO2 in the atmosphere prevents heat from the sun from radiating back out into space the way it used to before 1750, so instead it heats up the surface of the earth, whether dry land or the oceans. One challenge is that as carbon dioxide is absorbed by the ocean, it makes the water more acidic. It is like throwing hydrochloric acid into your pet’s fish bowl.
While the research predicts “a potentially bleak future for many marine species,” the authors say it “also measures how much our oceans and the life within them stand to benefit from both climate change mitigation and adaptation.”
Antarctica’s coastal glaciers are shedding icebergs more rapidly than nature can replenish the crumbling ice, doubling previous estimates of losses from the world’s largest ice sheet over the past 25 years, a satellite analysis shows.
The oil and gas industry’s plan to convince the world to switch from natural gas to hydrogen made from natural gas is being upended by an unexpected cause: economics.As the climate emergency has gotten more and more impossible to ignore and the world has started moving away from natural gas, the industry has hyped a new technology: so-called blue hydrogen. Blue hydrogen produces no carbon emissions when burned or converted into electricity, but the main component in producing blue hydrogen is methane, the most potent greenhouse gas.
A “great reallocation” of spending is needed to achieve a net-zero economy by 2050, modelling by Deloitte Access Economics shows.Some $20 trillion in forecast investments by Australian governments and industry by 2050 needs to be spent differently to get to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, according to a report released on Thursday.But it is a transformation that Australia can afford, the research commissioned by the National Australia Bank shows.
The best way to Dutton-proof climate ambition is to deliver a solid proof of concept that widens the footprint of support for climate action in the Australian electorate, because if you widen the footprint, the scare campaigns aren’t as salient.
As climate change disrupts migration patterns, animals and the viruses they carry will come into unusual contact with each other — and inevitably with humans, unleashing new pandemics. The only thing that can stop this unfolding nightmare is a mass movement.
While Sky New’s unmade bed Rowan Dean and Andrew Bolt continue to deny any emergency is imminent due to man-made climate change the rest of the world suggests they are the fruit cakes. Murdoch media’s office windows were smashed in London for their refusal to even report on the global science in any balanced way simply for the sake of profit for their fossil fuel-based cash for comment denials,
The unprecedented heatwave and fires engulfing Europe might seem a long way away, but they are a frightening portent of what’s in store for Australia.
Britain has just experienced its highest temperature on record, extreme conditions and fires are sweeping Spain, Portugal, France and Greece. But this is just the latest in a string of extreme events globally. In March, scientists were shocked by record temperatures at both poles, including temperatures up to 40C above normal in the Antarctic and 30C above normal in the Arctic. In May, devastating heatwaves across India, Pakistan and surrounding countries led to weeks where temperatures in some regions repeatedly hit almost 50C. This year has also seen extreme heatwaves in south Asia, China and the US.
The Global Oceanic Environmental Survey, led by Edinburgh University marine biologist Howard Dryden at the university Roslin Innovation Centre had estimated that the plankton in the oceans had been halved in the past 40 years, and that all of it could be gone by 2040. Dryden and GOES were off by twenty years. Plankton is a blanket term for the billions of tiny sea organisms living close to the surface of the oceans, which are eaten by krill,
Meanwhile, Murdoch’s little Rowan Dean the unmade bed still keeps telling us it’s cold and wet outside.
The scorching temperatures have reached as far north as the UK, where its Met Office weather agency has issued its first-ever “red warning” of extreme heat for Monday and Tuesday, when temperatures in southern England may reach 40 degrees for the first time. That will still be relatively bearable compared with the 47 degrees recorded in Portugal’s northern town of Pinhao on Wednesday, establishing a new national record.
Britain’s Met Office weather forecaster has declared a national emergency, with temperatures early next week predicted to approach – and possibly exceed – record highs.“Exceptional, perhaps record-breaking, temperatures are likely on Monday, then again on Tuesday,” the Met Office said on their website.
Australia’s women are recognized and welcomed around the world. Plibersek and Wong are making a world of difference
French President Emmanuel Macron has singled out Australia’s new environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, in front of a global audience in Portugal, declaring that Australia was back in action on climate change.
No one laughs at God in a hospital but the LNP and Sky News After Dark do. Medicine like Climate science isn’t an exact but the Deniers appreciate and take advice from doctors if and when it suits their interests. When it doesn’t they become anti-vaxxers pout scream but still expect hospitals and doctors to take care of them and their children. Hospitals are dealing with more Covid now than ever before and now they blame Dan Andrews for giving them what they wanted. They check the weather forecasts and act accordingly but laugh at Climate science simply because it suits their interests to demand it to be exact not skeptical the very nature of the inquiry, research and it’s resulting predictions.
Climate change is slowing down the conveyor belt of ocean currents that brings warm water from the tropics up to the North Atlantic. Our research, published today in Nature Climate Change, looks at the profound consequences to global climate if this Atlantic conveyor collapses entirely.
The new federal MP for the Queensland seat of Flynn was a founding member of a club formed to promote climate science denial, and was a signatory to an international statement claiming “there is no climate emergency”.
Morrison, Taylor Frydenberg and tha LNP will godown as Australia’s greatest liars on Climate Change
Australia produced 4.04 tonnes of carbon dioxide per person from coal-fired power stations last year, according to a new report by energy think tank Ember. That’s roughly four times the global average, double the average per person in countries like the US and Japan, and more than any other country in the G20 or the OECD. University of Adelaide energy economist Dr Liam Wagner said he was unsurprised by the ranking, given Australia has long been one of the world’s most coal-dependent countries.
Meanwhile for the sake of money the LNP, IPA, and News Corp deny the urgency just as they did the pandemic. They say we just have to live with it.
Climate scientists and concerned citizens are sounding the alarm as daily, weekly, and monthly records for atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continue to be shattered while the fossil fuel-powered capitalist economic system responsible for skyrocketing greenhouse gas pollution plows ahead.
The only way to stop climate change is to build a mass, working-class movement whose demands both resonate with average people and take on the billionaires who are profiteering from the climate crisis.
Good morning, early birds. The Morrison government’s plan for climate action will lead to nearly 4 degrees of global heating according to analysis, and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and opponent Monique Ryan went head-to-head in a fiery debate yesterday. It’s the news you need to know, with Emma Elsworthy.
The Morrison government’s climate change commitments are consistent with more than 3C of global heating, bordering on 4C, a level that would lead to catastrophic damage across the planet, according to a new analysis.
India’s governments– first the colonial British and since 1947 the independent state — have been keeping temperature records all over the country for at least 122 years. 2022 is crashing through many previous records.
This was the hottest March since records began being kept. Aniruddha Gosal at AP notes that a Lancet report last year foound that India’s vulnerability to extreme heat increased 15% from 1990 to 2019. India and Brazil are the two countries where most people die annually of heat exposure.
Scott Morrison has a problem with climate change which reflects his style of governing. He sees it as a political matter to be managed politically, not as an actual problem with the potential to cause severe problems in Australia in the relatively near term. He does not view climate change as a reality that must be dealt with now and with strong, far-reaching measures. Rather, it is something to be managed by the application of least-perturbation decision making aimed at short-term electoral success.
“Last Tuesday, total U.S. wind generation exceeded 2,000 GWh, making wind the second largest producer of electricity in the United States after natural gas for that 24-hour period. Did a quick look at EIA’s numbers going back to 2018. Don’t think that’s ever happened before.” Storrow notes that wind power in the US has occasionally bested coal, but not both coal and nuclear.
China is beating the pants off the United States in the burgeoning new energy vehicle market, out-producing and out-selling America with regard to plug-in vehicles by a massive margin. Whereas the Chinese government is supporting this new industry, the US government is still subsidizing fossil fuels and is spending $728.5 billion a year on the Pentagon at a time when the US is not even at war. The result is bloated and problematic engines of destruction like the failed F-35. In the first quarter of 2022, China is expected to take 65% of the global market in new-energy vehicles, according to Yang Yang at China Daily. China exported about 500,000 new-energy cars in 2021, 2.6 times more than the previous year,. China’s EV exports to Europe rose fivefold to 230,000 units write Akashi Kawakami, Yohei Muramatsu and Saki Shirai at Nikkei Asia.
However Australia sides with Russia and India fuck the world.
The world can still hope to stave off the worst ravages of climate breakdown but only through a “now or never” dash to a low-carbon economy and society, scientists have said in what is in effect a final warning for governments on the climate. Greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2025, and can be nearly halved this decade, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to give the world a chance of limiting future heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The final cost of doing so will be minimal, amounting to just a few percent of global GDP by mid-century, though it will require a massive effort by governments, businesses and individuals.
An election is due within a few months. A number of Australians have chosen to run for office as conservative independents in Coalition held seats. Most, if not all of these ‘teal’ independents are partially motivated by the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison Collation Government’s complete and utter disregard for the environment that our children and grandchildren will have to endure. They seem to be confident of changing the voting habits of a reasonable number of formerly rusted on Coalition voters. We also know from history, that once an electorate chooses an independent candidate, it is difficult for the major parties to regain the seat. Poetic justice would be that when the next ‘unprecedented’ natural disaster hits Australia, Morrison is sitting on his couch and watching the rolling coverage of the unfolding disaster. with the Prime Minister of the day showing Morrison how the job is done and the media making the comparison for all to see. At the same time his daughters are telling him in no uncertain terms that he could have done something when he was PM to stop the tragedies of the future, and didn’t. What do you think?
Both of the Earth’s poles have been hit by freakishly hot weather that has stunned climate experts. Parts of the Arctic are around 30°C warmer than is normally expected at this time of year, while in Antarctica that figure jumped to more than 40°C hotter than average. The unprecedented heatwaves were branded ‘not a good sign’ as concerns continue to mount about the climate crisis worldwide.
Meanwhile, Murdoch media still promotes these events as “unprecedented” but no evidence of a warming planet due to human activity of burning fossil fuels. Is it coincidental that Murdoch is a heavy investor in Genie Oil?
While it made headlines because it is freakish, that parts of Antarctica are 70 degrees F. warmer than usual may just be a fluke. Climate is a trend line you can see over 50 years of changes. Weather is what happens for a day or a week. The more alarming number is one that is slightly lower, which is 50 degrees F. warmer than usual, and it concerns the Arctic, the north pole, not the south. You see the red areas of the map below? They are seriously not supposed to be there, especially at a time when the Arctic is still plunged into the long winter night:
To have these federally funded bodies respond to these emergencies far faster than this government and ADF have reacted to people in need in Lismore, Coraki, Girards Hill, Southgate, Mullumbimby, Picton and many others, we need one more change. We need a federal government that will not simply announce its intentions without any measurable, functional outcomes or run off overseas or hide from public scrutiny, but act promptly to produce results in infrastructure and finance in the towns that will preserve our communities. But, unfortunately, that government is not our current incumbent, whose leader only now, weeks after the start of the floods, while visiting Lismore, indicated an “intention” to declare a “State of Emergency”.
Morrison the socialist made all Australia pay for the increased “risk insurance” companies charged after the last flood in Qld will he do the same again? He set up a $4.5 bn emergency fund back then and hasn’t spent a cent. Building permits for developments were freely handed out were handed out in wrong places, and Climate Change was fobbed off as a Left-Wing political ploy. An ICAC was promised and never delivered because we saw what happened in NSW when some 10 LNP politicians were caught taking backhanders. These floods are no longer an “unprecedented” event.
About half a million people in NSW are under evacuation orders or warnings as the wild weather system that has battered parts of eastern Australia for a week homes in on the greater Sydney region.
Commonwealth legislation on water market behaviour governance and integrity is still very much a ‘work in progress’, or perhaps even a twinkle in the Treasurer’s eye. Like so many other integrity issues, it is in the too-hard basket. But now is the time to act. Water is abundant, tempers have been cooled, and greater attention is being applied to the complex challenge of balancing the competing uses of water and our river system. Waiting till the next drought might seem easy, but it will make reform many times harder.
The US Republican Party may not believe in the menace of the climate emergency, but the animals are far less dumb. They are fleeing for the hills, literally. (Note that I have used “literally” correctly here.) That 50% of the tens of thousands of species surveyed by the iPCC have moved toward the poles to get away from the increasing extremes of heat is a remarkable, and alarming statistic.
olddogthoughts 