The Environment Thread

[FrostyWinnipeg]

https://www.chrisd.ca/2019/12/17/climate-change-canadian-press-story-year-2019/

[Mark F]

Australian idiot PM thinks there is no problem with climate change.... meanwhile:
 

Quote

 

Ceduna's top of 48.8C was a record high, while Wudinna and Port Augusta — where roads melted in the intense heat — rose above 48C.

"McConnal Road, Alma Street, Forster Street and Cobbin Street have all shown signs of bleeding," Port Augusta City Council said in a statement.

"A contractor has been engaged to spread rocks over problem areas.

"The roads should be avoided and only used by local residents — please take an alternate route during this extreme weather."

SA Power Networks spokesman Paul Roberts warned there was a "heightened risk of extended power outages" in today's conditions.

 

Roads are melting. no problem.

World is run by idiots.

Edited December 20, 2019 by Mark F

[Wanna-B-Fanboy]

 

 

 

Wait... wut?  What is going on here?

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 9, 2020 by wanna-b-fanboy

[Mark F]

9 minutes ago, wanna-b-fanboy said:

 

Wait... wut?  What is going on here?

Trump just invested a ton of money in wind /solar enterprise.

only rational explanation.

[Mark F]

 

• Quote

   

  • In an annual letter to CEOs published Tuesday, BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink said: “Climate change has become a defining factor in companies’ long-term prospects.”
  • “But awareness is rapidly changing, and I believe we are on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance,” he added.
  • BlackRock’s assets under management totaled almost $7 trillion in the third quarter of 2019.
  • The chief of the world’s largest money manager believes the intensifying climate crisis will bring about a fundamental reshaping of finance, with a significant reallocation of capital set to take place “sooner than most anticipate.”
  • Climate change is almost invariably the top issue that clients around the world raise with BlackRock.

   

  https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/14/blackrock-ceo-larry-fink-says-climate-change-will-soon-reshape-markets.html

 

"significant reallocation of capital ..... sooner than most anticipate"

Canada's oil pipeline Alberta to BC is going to be a waste of seven to fifteen billion dollars that should have been spent on moving to the next economy.

Edited January 15, 2020 by Mark F

[Wideleft]

2019 capped off the world’s hottest decade in recorded history

"The past decade was the hottest ever recorded on the planet, driven by an acceleration of temperature increases in the past five years, according to new data released Wednesday by the U.S. government.

The findings, released jointly by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), detail a troubling trajectory: 2019 was the second-hottest year on record, trailing only 2016. The past five years each rank among the five hottest since record-keeping began. And 19 of the hottest 20 years have occurred during the past two decades.

The warming trend also bears the unmistakable fingerprint of humans, who continue to emit tens of billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year, scientists say.

“No individual hot year — or hot day or hot season, for that matter — is by itself evidence for climate change. But this hot year is just one of many hot years in this decade,” said Kate Marvel, a research scientist at NASA and Columbia University. “The planet is statistically, detectably warmer than before the Industrial Revolution. We know why. We know what it means. And we can do something about it.”"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/01/15/2010s-hottest-decade-world/?arc404=true

 

Edited January 15, 2020 by Wideleft

[FrostyWinnipeg]

9 minutes ago, Wideleft said:

2019 capped off the world’s hottest decade in recorded history

"The past decade was the hottest ever recorded on the planet, driven by an acceleration of temperature increases in the past five years, according to new data released Wednesday by the U.S. government.

The findings, released jointly by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), detail a troubling trajectory: 2019 was the second-hottest year on record, trailing only 2016. The past five years each rank among the five hottest since record-keeping began. And 19 of the hottest 20 years have occurred during the past two decades.

The warming trend also bears the unmistakable fingerprint of humans, who continue to emit tens of billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year, scientists say.

“No individual hot year — or hot day or hot season, for that matter — is by itself evidence for climate change. But this hot year is just one of many hot years in this decade,” said Kate Marvel, a research scientist at NASA and Columbia University. “The planet is statistically, detectably warmer than before the Industrial Revolution. We know why. We know what it means. And we can do something about it.”"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/01/15/2010s-hottest-decade-world/?arc404=true

 

Charts and graphs people! If you can not believe charts and graphs.

[Mark F]

1 hour ago, Wideleft said:

"The past decade was the hottest ever recorded on the planet, driven by an acceleration of temperature increases in the past five years, according to new data released Wednesday by the U.S. government.

ocean warming is accelerating. http://seavoicenews.com/2019/01/11/ocean-warming-is-accelerating-40-faster-than-originally-thought/

Quote

The analysis found that the oceans are heating up 40 percent faster on average than a United Nations panel estimated five years ago. As well, they revealed that ocean temperatures have broken high records for several straight years .

the ipcc was always lowballing predictions.

[Fatty Liver]

More of the same shell game.

Group cleaning up old oil wells says Alberta government rules inadequate

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-orphan-wells-1.5427559

Shell Canada has agreed to sell 284 sour gas wells, 66 facilities and 82 pipelines in the southern Alberta foothills to Pieridae Energy, a Calgary-based company with a market value less than the price of the assets and a stock price under $1.

 

Observe as Shell seeks and receives provincial permission to dump liabilities after sucking off accrued profits.   Meanwhile Kenney is whining to Trudeau to step in and clean up the mess at tax-payer expense,

[Mark F]

3 hours ago, Throw Long Bannatyne said:

 

Observe as Shell seeks and receives provincial permission to dump liabilities after sucking off accrued profits.

good comments at that article as well. thanks.

Albertans being led down the garden path.

[blue_gold_84]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/climate-2019-1.5427586

Quote

...scientists say rising heat is about more than just numbers; behind those statistics are consequences for people, their livelihoods and our delicate ecosystems.

Climate change is costing cities as they try to adapt and mitigate. Farmers are facing increasing challenges, which can lead to consumers paying more for food. Extreme weather disasters are on the rise in Canada and costing insurance companies, leading to higher premiums. People are dying in heat waves which are set to become more frequent as the planet warms; and hurricanes are stalling, meaning more people are in danger for longer periods of time. 

This **** is only going to get uglier.

[Mark F]

3 hours ago, blue_gold_84 said:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/climate-2019-1.5427586

This **** is only going to get uglier.

Much uglier.

only thing that explains the inaction ..... if you have enough cash, you will be ok. 
 

and reading comments there continue to be people fooled by oilco lies. 
 

usa is the leading co2 source , and the leading obstacle to change.

 

look at how their citizens are treated now. of course Pelosi , trump, the rest do not care what happens to the average person. They can’t even be bothered to give them clean water and healthcare.why worry about joe blow getting flooded out. Or burned out.

only hope is Bernie,Warren , Ocasio-Cortez.

 

U.S. next election is probably our last chance to avert the absolute worst.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 16, 2020 by Mark F

[JCon]

That's it entirely. If you're rich, you can afford the impact of climate change. You'll be able to afford when gov'ts cut social services because they can't afford them any longer when they're paying to clean up the mess. 

[Fatty Liver]

Colour me shocked, China and India lying about their emissions reductions to maintain their economic advantage.....or perhaps because they have no way of actually controlling what goes on within their borders.

Greenhouse gas 12,000 times worse than CO2 shows surprise rise in the atmosphere

Major producers China and India report drastic emissions cuts, but measurements suggest otherwise.

A greenhouse gas that can cause 12,000 times more warming per tonne than carbon dioxide is rising unexpectedly in the atmosphere, despite reports by its major producers, China and India, that they've mostly eliminated emissions of the gas.

Atmospheric gas measurements at five stations around the world show that emissions of HFC-23 or trifluoromethane reached a record high in 2018 of 15,900 tonnes, reports a study led by Kieran Stanley, a visiting research fellow at the University of Bristol.

That's a lot higher than the 2,400 tonnes of emissions of that gas reported by China and India to the United Nations Environment Program in 2017, notes the study, published this week in Nature Communications.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/hfc-23-1.5435013

[Mark F]

New York Times article.

Could (climate change) also cause the next financial crisis?

A report issued this week by an umbrella organization for the world’s central banks argued that the answer is yes, while warning that central bankers lack tools to deal with what it says could be one of the biggest economic dislocations of all time.

The book-length report, published by the Bank for International Settlements, in Basel, Switzerland, signals what could be the overriding theme for central banks in the decade to come.

“Climate change poses unprecedented challenges to human societies, and our community of central banks and supervisors cannot consider itself immune to the risks ahead of us,” François Villeroy de Galhau, governor of the Banque de France, said in the report.

 

 

Central banks spent much of the last 10 years hauling their economies out of a deep financial crisis that began in 2008. They may well spend the next decade coping with the disruptive effects of climate change and technology, the report said.

[Wideleft]

There are and will be more negative effects from climate change than we can imagine.

 

"(KATITIKA, Kenya) — The hum of millions of locusts on the move is broken by the screams of farmers and the clanging of pots and pans. But their noise-making does little to stop the voracious insects from feasting on their crops in this rural community.

"The worst outbreak of desert locusts in Kenya in 70 years has seen hundreds of millions of the bugs swarm into the East African nation from Somalia and Ethiopia. Those two countries have not had an infestation like this in a quarter-century, destroying farmland and threatening an already vulnerable region with devastating hunger."

 

"A single swarm can contain up to 150 million locusts per square kilometer of farmland, an area the size of almost 250 football fields, regional authorities say."

 

 

"A changing climate has contributed to “exceptional” breeding conditions, said Nairobi-based climate scientist Abubakr Salih Babiker.

Migrating with the wind, the locusts can cover up to 150 kilometers (93 miles) in a single day. They look like tiny aircraft lazily crisscrossing the sky.

They are now heading toward Uganda and fragile South Sudan, where almost half the country faces hunger as it emerges from civil war. Uganda has not had such an outbreak since the 1960s and is already on alert."

https://time.com/5771621/locust-swarms-africa/

 

 

 

[Mark F]

20 hours ago, Wideleft said:

There are and will be more negative effects from climate change than we can imagine.

I have a hunch that the  most dire estimates of the cost of doing nothing, are probably far too low. For instance I doubt that they take into account human nature;

we can see how some people /instituions have reacted/responded to suffering from things like the hurricane in Puerto Rico, the earthquake in Haiti, the response to people fleeing violence in central america.

 

Edited January 28, 2020 by Mark F

[Wideleft]

3 hours ago, Mark F said:

I have a hunch that the  most dire estimates of the cost of doing nothing, are probably far too low. For instance I doubt that they take into account human nature;

we can see how some people /instituions have reacted/responded to suffering from things like the hurricane in Puerto Rico, the earthquake in Haiti, the response to people fleeing violence in central america.

 

From 2016:

"First a heatwave hit Siberia. Then came the anthrax.

Temperatures have soared in western Russia’s Yamal tundra this summer. Across Siberia, some provinces warmed an additional 10 degrees Fahrenheit beyond normal. In the fields, large bubbles of vegetation appeared above the melting permafrost — strange pockets of methane or, more likely, water. Record fires blazed through dry Russian grassland.

In one of the more unusual symptoms of unseasonable warmth, long-dormant bacteria appear to be active. For the first time since 1941, anthrax struck western Siberia. Thirteen Yamal nomads were hospitalized, including four children, the Siberian Times reported. The bacteria took an even worse toll on wildlife, claiming some 1,500 reindeer since Sunday.

According to NBC News, the outbreak is thought to stem from a reindeer carcass that died in the plague 75 years ago. As the old flesh thawed, the bacteria once again became active. The disease tore through the reindeer herds, prompting the relocation of dozens of the indigenous Nenet community. Herders face a quarantine that may last until September."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/07/28/anthrax-sickens-13-in-western-siberia-and-a-thawed-out-reindeer-corpse-may-be-to-blame/

[Wanna-B-Fanboy]

On 2020-01-28 at 12:51 PM, Wideleft said:

From 2016:

"First a heatwave hit Siberia. Then came the anthrax.

Temperatures have soared in western Russia’s Yamal tundra this summer. Across Siberia, some provinces warmed an additional 10 degrees Fahrenheit beyond normal. In the fields, large bubbles of vegetation appeared above the melting permafrost — strange pockets of methane or, more likely, water. Record fires blazed through dry Russian grassland.

In one of the more unusual symptoms of unseasonable warmth, long-dormant bacteria appear to be active. For the first time since 1941, anthrax struck western Siberia. Thirteen Yamal nomads were hospitalized, including four children, the Siberian Times reported. The bacteria took an even worse toll on wildlife, claiming some 1,500 reindeer since Sunday.

According to NBC News, the outbreak is thought to stem from a reindeer carcass that died in the plague 75 years ago. As the old flesh thawed, the bacteria once again became active. The disease tore through the reindeer herds, prompting the relocation of dozens of the indigenous Nenet community. Herders face a quarantine that may last until September."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/07/28/anthrax-sickens-13-in-western-siberia-and-a-thawed-out-reindeer-corpse-may-be-to-blame/

I just recently came across this article that touches upon what you posted:

For the past 15,000 years, a glacier on the northwestern Tibetan Plateau of China has hosted a party for some unusual guests: an ensemble of frozen viruses, many of them unknown to modern science.

Scientists recently broke up this party after taking a look at two ice cores from this Tibetan glacier, revealing the existence of 28 never-before-seen virus groups. 

 

Investigating these mysterious viruses could help scientists on two fronts: For one, these stowaways can teach researchers which viruses thrived in different climates and environments over time, the researchers wrote in a paper posted on the bioRxiv database on Jan. 7. 

 

"However, in a worst-case scenario, this ice melt [from climate change] could release pathogens into the environment," the researchers wrote in the study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed. If this happens, it's best to know as much about these viruses as possible, the researchers wrote.

 

 

 

https://www.livescience.com/unknown-viruses-discovered-tibetan-glacier.html

 

[Mark F]

This is not from "wacko" environmentalists.

 

Change might  come very fast.

Edited January 31, 2020 by Mark F

[Wanna-B-Fanboy]

5 minutes ago, Mark F said:

This is not from "wacko" environmentalists.

 

Change might  come very fast.

Wow... awesome.

[Mark F]

other side of the coin:

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/tesla-stock-price-soars-intraday-record-high-elon-musk-goal-2019-12-1028773656

Today:

 

 

Quote

 

Tesla soars to a record high, closing in on Elon Musk's $420-per-share goal

Tesla's stock has soared about 54% since it posted a surprise third-quarter profit on October 23.

 

 

[Mark F]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/03/sea-level-rise-accelerating-us-coastline-scientists-warn?fbclid=IwAR24cgxBZxtAGOwId1M03gLhlaWT-VuYo0cpSlDelkdtpcFUCn2__ffk1n0

 

The pace of sea level rise accelerated at nearly all measurement stations along the US coastline in 2019, with scientists warning some of the bleakest scenarios for inundation and flooding are steadily becoming more likely.

Of 32 tide-gauge stations in locations along the vast US coastline, 25 showed a clear acceleration in sea level rise last year, according to researchers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (Vims).

The selected measurements are from coastal locations spanning from Maine to Alaska. About 40% of the US population lives in or near coastal areas.

The gathering speed of sea level rise is evident even within the space of a year, with water levels at the 25 sites rising at a faster rate in 2019 than in 2018.

[blue_gold_84]

https://www.livescience.com/arctic-permafrost-rapid-thaw.html

Quote

Across the Arctic, long-frozen permafrost is melting as climate change drives global temperatures higher. Permafrost represents about 15% of Earth's soil, but it holds about 60% of the planet's soil-stored carbon: approximately 1.5 trillion tons (1.4 trillion metric tons) of carbon, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

When permafrost thaws, it releases stored carbon into the atmosphere. This release can then speed up global warming; this cycle is known as climate feedback...

 

[Wideleft]

Antarctica just hit 65 degrees, its warmest temperature ever recorded

It comes days after earth’s warmest January on record.

By Matthew Cappucci

February 7 at 10:56 AM

Just days after the earth saw its warmest January on record, Antarctica has broken its warmest temperature ever recorded. A reading of 65 degrees was taken at Esperanza Base along Antarctica’s Trinity Peninsula on Thursday, making it the ordinarily frigid continent’s highest measured temperature in history.

The Argentine research base is on the northern tip of the Antarctic peninsula. Randy Cerveny, who tracks extremes for the World Meteorological Organization, calls Thursday’s reading a “likely record,” although the mark will still have to be officially reviewed and certified.

The balmy reading beats out the previous record of 63.5 degrees, which occurred on March 24, 2015.

The Antarctic peninsula, on which Thursday’s anomaly was recorded, is one of the fastest-warming regions in the world. In just the past 50 years, temperatures have surged a staggering 5 degrees in response to earth’s swiftly-warming climate. Around 87 percent of glaciers along the peninsula’s west coast have retreated in that time, the majority doing so at an accelerated pace since 2008.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/02/07/antarctica-just-hit-65-degrees-its-warmest-temperature-ever-recorded/?itid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_antarctica-1040am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans