Tag: Climate Change
However, when a scientist starts to suggest that climate change isn’t real and that it’s just a conspiracy, I have to wonder why they aren’t actually putting forward an alternative hypothesis that challenges the climate scientists. When they start to argue like Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt, I can’t but think that they’re sounding about as sane as Freddie who is blaming me for the slump in Richmond’s form is a result of my refusal to give Freddie his socks back.
Reducing wildfires requires going beyond addressing the ignition sources and fighting the flames themselves, and also encouraging actions that limit forest flammability. Tackling deforestation remains key as it exposes forest edges to the hotter and drier microclimate of agricultural land, and contributes to regional reductions in rainfall.
Selective logging also plays a key role in making tropical forests more flammable. Walking in a selectively logged forest in the dry season, you feel the sun’s heat directly on your face and the leaf litter crackles and crunches underfoot. In contrast, unlogged primary forests are a shadier world where the leaf litter remains moist. Fire prevention needs to be a key condition of long-term forest stewardship. This will only work if widespread illegal logging is effectively controlled, as cheaper timber undermines the viability of best-practice forest management.
Finally, climate change itself is making dry seasons longer and forests more flammable. Increased temperatures are also resulting in more frequent tropical forest fires in non-drought years. And climate change may also be driving the increasing frequency and intensity of climate anomalies, such as El Niño events that affect fire season intensity across Amazonia.
Addressing these challenges requires integrated national and global actions, collaboration between scientists and policy makers, and long-term funding – approaches that the current Brazilian administration seems intent on destroying.The Conversation
via Horrific Amazon Wildfires: How do they Threaten Us, and how can we stop them?
They get paid for this service (ODT)
They get This is important, because while the Democrats have an 18 to 12 majority in the chamber, there must be 20 members present for a quorum — meaning nothing can be done until at least two members return.
“It’s time for the Senate Republicans to show up and do the job they were elected to do,” Oregon Governor Kate Brown said.
We have so many solutions, and the potential for massive change, more readily available than we realise.
What we lack is both the motivation and sufficient willingness in those whom we elect to turn their backs on the fossil fuel lobbyists and embrace a Brave New World!
via Prepare for war – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The silent convert who now supports Climate cahange and the Paris Agreement
via A message to our Government: Now is the time for decisive climate action
A panel of government-appointed experts has uncovered “integrity issues” with the Coalition’s flagship climate change policy, triggering a warning that some of the emission reductions claimed by Australia may not be genuine.
The findings relate to the Abbott-era Emissions Reduction Fund, established in 2014 to replace Labor’s so-called “carbon tax”. The Morrison government extended the fund in February with a $2 billion injection of taxpayer funds, and renamed it the Climate Solutions Fund.
Climate Change: Experts find ‘integrity issues’ with Coalition’s direct action policy
The government has decided to quote modelling by Brian Fisher, who is already well known for his very dodgy modelling in favour of the coal mining industry, to say that Labor’s policy will cost workers $9,000 per year. This is, of course, complete rubbish and totally at odds with modelling by Frontier Economics and research by the ANU.
The question is not how much Labor’s policy will cost. The cost of not taking action is far too great to contemplate.
The damage from the cyclone coupled with a fire at a port facility in January will lead to a loss of about 14 million tonnes of production in 2019, the miner said in a statement.At today’s iron ore price, that equates to over $1.7 billion dollars lost revenue for one company from one cyclone.
In February, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the state budget is estimated to take a hit of at least $1.5 billion after catastrophic bushfires and floods ravaged Queensland over the summer.
It also has no chance of becoming law, not while Republicans control the Senate and climate change denier Donald Trump resides in the White House.
It’s a remarkable thing to see a populist political stance transform into a liability in front of your eyes. So it is with the federal Coalition’s adventures in climate denialism.
Consider the story arc commencing with Tony Abbott’s leadership: what was once perhaps the most potent stick an opposition leader has wielded – leaving both Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard in its wreckage – this week disintegrated to the point that even the Coalition’s own colleagues in the NSW government have now abandoned them.
via Once again, the Liberals find themselves on the wrong side of history
Watch Fossil Fuel’s lobbyist News Corp’s Andrew Bolt and all you will see is the the voice of the reactionary right wing elders not just aloof but defiant and with tin ears broadcasting and mocking the young 17 year olds who are soon to be voters (ODT)
But the voice and face of the revolt on Monday night painted a different picture. Bellemo was no dill headed for a dole queue.
Related Article
Striking students defy PM to protest at inaction on climate change
Education
Striking students defy PM to protest at inaction on climate changeStudent activism has many precedents over decades, but in 2018 it resonated especially strongly. It’s been the year of the teenage revolt in the US after the Parkland school shooting in February, a tragedy that sent survivors out on a potent public campaign for gun control.
Their message: we may not yet be able to vote, but we do have a voice.
via ‘I don’t believe that’: how a 17-year-old student stole the show on Q&A
President Donald Trump on Monday appeared largely unimpressed by the dire warnings outlined in a recent scientific report issued by more than a dozen federal agencies, which, among its various conclusions, found that the United States is bound for economic disaster unless its reliance on fossil fuels is dramatically curtailed.
“I’ve seen it, I’ve read some of it, and it’s fine,” Trump told reporters as he departed the White House for a campaign rally in Mississippi. The milquetoast response was paired with a physical shrug of the shoulders.
Trump then directly dismissed the report’s conclusion that climate change will bring severe economic damage to the country.
“I don’t believe it,” Trump continued. “No, no I don’t believe it.” He then appeared to blame China, Japan, and “all of Asia” for being the world’s worst climate change offenders, while claiming that the US is currently the “cleanest we’ve ever been.”
via Trump Dismisses His Own Administration’s Devastating Climate Change Report – Mother Jones
IN ORDER TO get to my point of energy policy and climate change, I need to take you back in time to the years 2010-11 when Tony Abbott was the Coalition Opposition leader.
Whoever wins the next election is going to face a monumental task to reduce our emissions in order to tackle the existential threat posed by climate change.
In one way, it would serve Scott Morrison right to have to face the consequences of his lies. But the country cannot afford someone who thinks prayer is the answer to the drought.
Our Prime Minister, the man charged with making the decisions on how to keep us safe, is a bald-faced liar.
via Cantering towards destruction – » The Australian Independent Media Network
But more importantly, this is California, the world’s fifth-largest economy and home to 40 million people, making a huge statement of intent that it’s serious about solving the climate crisis. And not just making a statement – SB 100 will mean the state reshapes its power sector and replaces dirty coal, oil, and gas facilities with wind, solar, and other clean energy technologies to do it.
If you think this bill sends a message to the rest of the country that if California can go all in on clean energy, there’s no reason they can’t too – you’re right. And fossil fuel companies have every reason to be terrified.
via This Is a Big Deal: California Goes All in on Clean Energy | Climate Reality
The me before we in the crazy Capitalist structure. Free market unregulated competition forces me to oversupply, cause a major problem that then we have to pay and fix. Ergo I can’t lose in that never ending denier’s cycle.(ODT)
“Big Oil is asking tax payers to pay for protecting their refineries from sea level rise that they caused by keeping us addicted to oil? Yeah…no.”
by
Jon Queally, staff writer
Yet we are now in a surreal world where consequences and causes are disconnected, where science is ignored in the face of existential threats and where building coal-fired power stations is viewed by some in Government – such as former PM Abbott, Member for Hughes Craig Kelly and Resource Minister Matt Canavan, among others – as some sort of an answer to Australia’s future.
It is now viewed in Government as heresy to mention the drought and climate change in the same sentence, just as it is when bushfire strikes. Those who do so risk being accused of politicising the issue, or worse, of pushing a “green-left” agenda. So toxic are the climate wars that it is now taboo to discuss the possibility that we may be entering a dangerous new time in our “sunburnt country”.
via The NEG and the ‘idiocy’ of COALition climate change wars
Despite the distraction and political chaos of Brexit negotiations, the United Kingdom has just published a far-reaching and thoroughly impressive plan to manage risks from climate change.
This follows on from their broader 25-year Environment Plan, released in January. It aims to “help the natural world regain and retain good health”, to enable it to better cope with climate change.
The recently released climate plan is a strategy to save lives from heat, flood and fire — yes, fire, even in the UK!
It’s important to understand that the JCPOA is not just an agreement between the US and Iran, but one negotiated alongside our partners in the P5+1 – the UK, France, China, Russia and Germany – and endorsed by the United Nations security council. Trump’s withdrawal further deepens tensions with our most important democratic allies, France, the UK and Germany, who all continue to support the agreement and have consistently said that it is in their own national security interests to see it upheld.
Trump also rejected the advice of his own top national security officials like the joint chiefs chairman, Gen Joseph Dunford, and defense secretary, James Mattis, both of whom have repeatedly stated that staying in the agreement is in the national security interests of the US. Nuclear non-proliferation and national security professionals around the world share that assessment. Just as he has done on the issue of climate change with his withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, Trump has chosen to ignore the overwhelming expert consensus and sided instead with a small ideological faction, with disastrous consequences for our global security.
Meanwhile, Columbia University’s Silencing Science Tracker documents news stories about climate scientists who have been discouraged from conducting, publishing or otherwise communicating scientific research. These groups have documented four ways that climate-related information has become less accessible since Trump took office.
So, even with the inherent uncertainty in the pace and potency of these overwhelmingly negative effects of climate change, safety from it all is only likely in a handful of countries – those that currently have mild climates, that are wealthy and resource-rich, that have good healthcare systems, that aren’t politically unstable, and aren’t likely to experience dangerous weather extremes on a regular basis.
That leaves us with a pretty short list, then: Canada, Northern Europe, New Zealand, and perhaps Japan, for example. Wait, what about the Land of the Free – the wealthiest, perhaps most resourceful nation on Earth? Isn’t this a safe haven? Actually, no, not quite.
via As The Climate Changes And The Earth Warms, Where’s The Safest Place On Earth To Live? | IFLScience
those who deny Climate Change and the overwhelming scientific consensus seek to justify their belief by attaching themselves to a minority of science deniers with obscure qualifications or worse-to right-wing shock jocks and journalists with no scientific training what so ever.These people have no way of evaluating the volume of data produced by the various scientific institutions. One of the most outspoken deniers (Andrew Bolt) has, in recent times, been found guilty of deceptive lying in that he defamed some white skinned aboriginals. One has to wonder how many he has told when writing about his favorite topic climate change.Which brings me to the point of this piece: Hypocrisy.Now who said this?
As Turnbull theatrically struts around throwing out childish taunts like Blackout Bill and No Coal Joel, it should be remembered that it isn’t Labor who has changed their support for emissions reduction and renewable energy.You cannot privatise an essential utility and then create such uncertainty that the industry effectively grinds to a halt.Our energy crisis can be laid squarely at the feet of a divided Coalition whose own power struggles over the last decade have made it impossible for them to come up with any sort of enduring policy.
So far, major broadcast networks are failing to note the link between Harvey and climate change
Source: So far, major broadcast networks are failing to note the link between Harvey and climate change
The acclaimed political critic and philosopher delves into a number of pressing subjects in a special hour-long talk with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!
Source: Noam Chomsky on Climate Change, Foreign Policy and ‘the Facade of Trumpisms’ (Video) – Truthdig
Syria and Nicaragua are proud to accept the United States into their league of third-world nations for whom climate change is neither a priority nor a concern.Meanwhile, the President of the United States has now informed the world that he is willing to cede leadership on climate change to China, preferring to bow before the Kochs and other oligarchs instead.
Source: Making China Great Again: Trump Announces Withdrawal From Paris Climate Agreement | Crooks and Liars
The transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy “now appears irreversible” as the cost of green power plunges, according to a new report. In The Transition Takes Hold, Clean Energy Canada said some 6.7 million people were working in the sector worldwide with one out of every 50 new jobs in the US being created by the solar industry alone.
Financial officials from the world’s biggest economies have dropped from a joint statement any mention of financing action on climate change, reportedly following pressure from the US and Saudi Arabia. Finance ministers from the G20, which comprises more than 80 percent of the global economy, debated the wording of their final joint statement on trade at their summit in the German resort of Baden-Baden.
Source: US ‘forces G20 to drop any mention of climate change’ in joint statement | The Independent
Over the past three years, almost all of the world’s reefs have experienced summertime heat stress.
Source: Great Barrier Reef just the tip of the climate change iceberg
Politicians are serving up climate denial as academic freedom.
Source: American Kids Are About to Get Even Dumber When It Comes to Climate Science | Mother Jones
The greatest hallmark of the Coalition’s baked-in streak of climate denialism is the extent to which it will contort itself not to have a credible policy.
Source: Malcolm Turnbull will never have a credible climate change policy
A senior NASA official has taken the extraordinary step of personally rebuking One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts’ claims the agency had falsified key data to exaggerate current extreme warming in the Arctic.
Source: NASA chief slaps down climate sceptic senator Malcolm Roberts: ‘You hold a number of misconceptions’
Australia the only country to receive a rating of ‘very poor’ in a majority of categories in Climate Transparency scorecard
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