At COP23, the International Energy Agency predicts U.S. oil production is expected to grow an an unparalleled rate in the coming years—even as the majority of scientists worldwide are saying countries need to cut down on fossil fuel extraction, not accelerate it. Meanwhile, a group of 15,000 scientists have come together to issue a dire “second notice” to humanity, 25 years after a group of scientists issued the “first notice” warning the world about climate change.
That this is the best we can do — indeed that this is a relative triumph for Mr. Turnbull — illustrates just how tangled Australia’s climate politics have become. The country has taken a long, hard look at every warning about the costs of delayed climate action and ignored them all. And, subsequently, it has paid for those costs through high energy prices and curtailed investment.
via Australia Has a Climate Change Lesson for the World – The New York Times
A documentary special reveals how climate change science has been under systematic attack; the multi-million dollar campaign allowed a climate change denier to be elected president (a new version with updated content and music)
Source: TRNN SPECIAL: Trump, The Koch Brothers and Their War on Climate Science
ReachTel poll finds majority in three Liberal-held seats support carbon pricing, and more ambitious renewable policy
In fact, given the patent inaccuracy of his remarks, it’s no surprise he had fly 10,000 miles to find an audience sufficiently receptive, or adequately ignorant of Australia’s climate record, to actually listen.
Source: Tony Abbott has lost touch with reality on climate change
The monster storm has crippled several islands, including Puerto Rico, as it roars across the Caribbean with extreme winds and storm surge. Check back on this post for the latest on the powerful hurri
Source: Live Updates: Puerto Rico Could Be Without Power For Up To Six Months Following Maria
‘Less of an opportunity to clear the mind,’ is the verdict from Bidyadanga, where winter highs of 33C were replaced by 36C as records tumbled across the country
“When you don’t want to see, you don’t see,” the pope says while flying over the hurricane-ravaged Caribbean.
Source: Pope Francis On Climate Change Denial: ‘Man Is Stupid’ | HuffPost
The president’s dismissal of scientific research is doing nothing to protect the livelihoods of ordinary Americans
Source: Irma and Harvey lay the costs of climate change denial at Trump’s door | World news | The Guardian
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Trump may be provoking a big exodus of Cuban-Americans in south …
Source: GOP Mayor of Miami to Trump: ‘If this isn’t Climate Change I don’t know what is’
Hurricane Irma pounded Cuba’s northern coast on Saturday and barrelled toward Florida as authorities scrambled to complete an unprecedented evacuation of millions of residents hours before the storm would engulf the state.
Source: Hurricane Irma closes in on Florida as millions flee
Destructive force of Irma and Harvey has Trump expressing awe, but those in power should focus on the environmental causes
Source: Twin megastorms have scientists fearing this may be the new normal | World news | The Guardian
Reuters quoted a market analyst as saying, “Imports can’t make up for this. . . This is going to be the worst thing the U.S. has seen in decades from an energy standpoint.”Not only is gasoline going to be more expensive as a result, but the pollution dangers from the damaged refineries are horrific.But guess what? Texas’s wind turbines weathered Harvey. Some were pushed to the max by its powerful winds, but they just went on making electricity! Turbines shut down if the wind is 55 mph or more, but most wind farms affected by Harvey were able to keep operating. One shut down because the electrical wires were knocked down, not because the turbines stopped working!. On an average day, Texas gets 20% of its electricity from wind. That only fell to 13% the day of Harvey’s landfall.
But guess what? Texas’s wind turbines weathered Harvey. Some were pushed to the max by its powerful winds, but they just went on making electricity! Turbines shut down if the wind is 55 mph or more, but most wind farms affected by Harvey were able to keep operating. One shut down because the electrical wires were knocked down, not because the turbines stopped working!. On an average day, Texas gets 20% of its electricity from wind. That only fell to 13% the day of Harvey’s landfall.
Source: Texas Wind turbines went right on Turning under Harvey’s impact, as Refineries Shut Down
Hurricane Harvey, now weakened to a tropical depression, has caused widespread devastation along the Texas coast, including record rainfall and flooding comparable to 2005’s Hurricane Katrina. Relief efforts will be costly and take years, authorities say.
Source: ‘Worst flood ever’ hits Houston in wake of Hurricane Harvey — RT America
This is not an administration, it is a rogues gallery of environmental criminals.Want to know why we’re having a once in a 500 years storm and flood in Texas?Because of Trump and his buddies on the cabinet. They are creating a situation where Hurricane Harvey becomes the new normal.They should resign.
Source: The Criminals who amplified Harvey: Trump & Cabinet must Resign
This is no time to take the high moral ground.
Source: The Link Between Hurricane Harvey And Climate Change Is Easy To Explain
This week, our hearts are heavy and our thoughts are with everyone affected by Hurricane Harvey. As climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann wrote, “[W]e can’t say that Hurricane Harvey was caused by climate change. But it was certainly worsened by it.”
Hurricane Harvey and Climate Change: Here Are the Facts | Climate Reality
The report is concrete, careful and scarier than any horror movie you’ve ever seen. It gives upper and lower estimates, depending on whether humankind gets its act together. Given the oil-drenched buffoons now in charge, you’d want to bet on the higher and more dangerous numbers in each case.
Source: Scientists Leak Study on Global Heating Impact b4 Trump can Suppress it | Informed Comment
By James Dyke | (The Conversation) | – – By continuing to delay significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, we …
Source: If we don’t Dump Fossil Fuels *Now*, we’re Sticking our Kids with 0 Trillion in Debt
More frequent severe droughts, coral bleaching are on the agenda with more extreme El Nino events predicted even with ambitious climate goals.
Source: Extreme El Nino events to double in number even with 1.5-degree warming: study
Absence of climate and energy policy has left Australia lagging dangerously behind, missing out on investment and facing major electricity disruptions.
Richard B. Rood | (The Conversation) | – – Earth’s climate is changing rapidly. We know this from billions of …
Since 1880, after carbon dioxide emissions took off with the Industrial Revolution, the average global temperature has increased. With the help of internal variations associated with the El Niño weather pattern, we’ve already experienced months more than 1.5℃ above the average. Sustained temperatures beyond the 1℃ threshold are imminent. Each of the last three decades has been warmer than the preceding decade, as well as warmer than the entire previous century.
Source: It’s going to Get a lot Hotter; how Hot depends on You
By John Church, Christopher Watson, Matt King, Xianyao Chen, and Xuebin Zhang | (The Conversation) | – – Contributions to …
Source: Rate of Sea Level Rise increasing, As Greenland Melts | Informed Comment
As the Turnbull government struggles to convince internal dissenters of the need for tougher carbon reduction measures, forces on the green energy side are positioning for a renewed climate change debate in coming months.
Source: Climate forces consolidate as coal backers rush for government help
For precious decades experts have explained, over and over, that the science of climate change is incontrovertible, the consequences of blindly sticking with fossil fuels catastrophic and the costs of inaction far higher than switching to a low-emissions economy.But these facts had no impact on the sceptics, who cling to a worldview where they find “alternative facts”, where fossil fuel power is the only path to prosperity and mounting environmental and economic evidence to the contrary is some kind of dastardly leftwing plot.
The president called the 2015 international agreement a “deal that punishes the United States,” but added that the US will try to negotiate “a deal that’s fair.
The only other two countries that aren’t supporting the deal are Nicaragua and Syria. https://twitter.com/axios/status/869879115981221888 …
Source: Trump Announced That The US Is Pulling Out Of The Paris Climate Deal
This is what’s happening. You have an American president who is now taking a meat ax to the only American industry that is growing. The clean energy sector in America is producing jobs —
There is no doubt sea levels are rising but how are we preparing to deal with the devastating consequences?
Source: Seven crazy things that are going to happen as sea levels rise
How does it get so hotThere are two processes we think explain the extreme underground conditions at our drill site. An earthquake on the Alpine Fault ha
Source: New Zealand’s Alpine Fault reveals extreme underground heat and fluid pressure | IFLScience
April 2017 was the second-warmest April in 137 years of modern record-keeping, according to a monthly analysis of global temperatures by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York.
Source: Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet: April 2017 was second-warmest April on record
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke “is committed to restoring trust in the Department’s decision-making,” a spokeswoman said.
Every car sold in India will be powered by electricity by the year 2030, according to plans unveiled by the country’s energy minister. The move is intended to lower the cost of importing fuel and lower costs for running vehicles. “We are going to introduce electric vehicles in a very big way,” coal and mines minister Piyush Goyal said at the Confederation of Indian Industry Annual Session 2017 in New Delhi.
The ugly end of decarbonisation is being yanked in different directions by political messaging, in both the US and Australia
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