/\ Time Lines /\
12/16/21
New Yorker: Bill McKibben: The Year in Climate - Describing among other things the most remarkable heat wave in recorded history that occurred over the Pacific North-West between June 27th - 30th. Temperatures surpassed the hottest ever recorded in Florida, Europe or S. America. Temperatures in Lytton, BC reached 113, 116, 118 and 120 on successive days whereupon the town burned to the ground.
12/13/21
Sierra Club Magazine: Halting the Gas Export Boom - "On Louisiana's Gulf Coast, the fossil fuel industry is planning a massive expansion of LNG exports. One woman is determined to stop them."
"LNG export terminals are among the largest capital projects ever attempted in modern industry, including some projects costing over $30 billion," reports Global Energy Monitor. Companies are willing to make such investments, ironically enough, because the fossil fuel industry is facing its worst existential threat in 150 years. US frackers have never been profitable, and the pool of financial backers willing to float their production losses is shrinking. The growth in demand for fossil fuels was already falling before the COVID-19 pandemic caused a deeper dip. In 2020, more than 100 US and Canadian oil and gas companies declared bankruptcy, more than double the number that did so in the previous year. A dwindling number of customers, primarily based in East Asia and parts of Europe, now compose the market for an increasingly unpopular product.
"US frackers are looking for a reason to exist," says Naomi Yoder, a staff scientist with Healthy Gulf. The LNG export build-out is designed to provide a much-needed market for their gas, most of which was shipped to South Korea, Japan, China, and Spain in 2020."
"While fossil fuel companies are rushing to construct new LNG infrastructure in southern Louisiana, the long-term future of LNG exports is not at all certain. In recent years, communities across the United States have racked up a string of victories against planned LNG facilities."
Guardian: Biden Admin Was Not Legally Bound to Auction Gulf Drilling Rights - "A total of 308 tracts of the gulf’s seabed were sold off, covering 1.7m acres, an area larger than the state of Delaware."
“The administration has been misleading on this, to put it mildly. It’s very disappointing,” said Thomas Meyer, national organizing manager of Food and Water Watch. “They didn’t have to hold this sale and they didn’t have to hold it on this timeline.
“We know this will exacerbate the climate crisis, it undermines US credibility abroad and it contradicts a campaign promise by Biden. If the administration was taking the climate crisis seriously they would be fighting tooth and nail to keep every molecule of fossil fuel in the ground. They are nowhere near to doing that.”
"The decision to go ahead with the sale has damaged Biden’s climate credentials right after the Cop26 talks in Glasgow where he said the US would “lead by example” in slashing greenhouse gas emissions. The president, who has called the climate crisis an “existential threat” to the US, said in a Democratic primary debate last year that under his administration there would be “no more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period, ends, number one.”
“This is not going to help with Democratic turnout next year,” said Meyer. “There is a core constituency of young people and people who care about climate change who are upset and feeling betrayed by the Biden administration.”
Brittney Harvy, senior attorney for Earth Justice: “The Biden administration is talking about a climate crisis and getting to net-zero emissions and then it makes decisions like this that lock us into impacts for decades to come. These leases could potentially be producing oil 50 years from now. We have no good answer as to why they are doing this."
11/9/21
Guardian: Cop26 Sets Course for Disastrous Heating of More then 2.4C
Guardian: Northern California Sees More and More 'Fire Weather Days'
BBC: Ocean's Climated Change 'Buffer' Role Under Threat
11/8/21
NPR: Here's What the World Looks Like If We Pass the Crucial 1.5 Degree Climate Threshold
New Yorker: What It's Like to Fight a Megafire
11/6/21
Common Dreams: 100,000 Take to the Streets in Glasgow
11/5/21
BBC: Greta Thunberg Tells Protest that 'COP26' Has Been a Failure
10/23/21
Guardian: US West Coast Braces for 'Atmospheric River' as Huge Storm Brews
10/19/21
Guardian: 'Case Closed': 99% of Scientists Agree Climate Emergency Caused by Humans - "A previous survey in 2013 showed 97% of studies published between 1991 and 2012 supported the idea that human activities are altering Earth’s climate."
"“It is really case closed. There is nobody of significance in the scientific community who doubts human-caused climate change,” said the lead author, Mark Lynas, a visiting fellow at Cornell University."
"This echoed the view expressed in August by the world’s leading scientific body, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which said: “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.”
10/3/21
CNN: California Oil Spill Could Become Ecological Disaster - Big Oil continues to rape mother Earth. Legislators continue to take their bribes to let it happen. The people, whose descendants will suffer the consequences for generations to come, continue to remain silent.
9/14/21
Oxford University: Empirically Grounded Technology Forecasts and the Energy Transition - Wonky, but the conclusions are that there is no long term cost of leaving fossil fuels in the ground, weaning the US off of petroleum would save $700 Billion and the sooner we do so the more money we save.
9/8/21
National Geographic: To Keep the Lights On, New Orleans Grid Needs to Change - Here's How
9/7/21
Rolling Stone: Hurricane Ida Pounded Louisiana's 'Cancer Alley'. Residents Need Help, and Demand Change - This was Cedric Richmond's old district before Biden made him a 'senior advisor'. Maybe he will put in a good word for the folks that put him into Congress.
9/3/21
National Interagency Fire Center: National Fire News - There are currently 85 'active large fires' in the USA, which have burned 2.8 million acres. Number of 'active large fires contained': 1. Over 5 million total acres have burned so far this year.
9/2/21
Weather Channel: Why September 1 Will Go Down in Weather History
CNN: H. Ida Turns NYC Into Frontline of Climate Change - 9 dead in NYC, NJ & Penn. All time record rainfall: Central Park 7.19", shattering a record set only last week, Newark International 8.44", Trenton 5.6".
9/1/21
Bill McKibben: The Answer to Climate Chage is Organizing
8/31/21
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: Evaluating Build Back Better (BBB) Requires Considering Sound Economic Metrics - Fancy economic speek which concludes that $3.5 Trillion is roughly 1.2% of the total GNP over the same time period. That 1.2% of GNP will reduce America's carbon footprint by 50% by 2030.
8/25/21
Bill McKibben: Slow-Walking the Climate Crisis - "At the moment, the bankers and politicians in the driver’s seat are taking us for a very long, very dangerous, and very expensive ride. We didn’t ask for Hell when we climbed in the cab, but that may well be where we end up, unless we figure out how to grab the wheel."
8/18/21
Guardian: Guyana VP Responds to Yesterday's Guardian Post - Yesterday's post pointed out the deficiencies with regard to its contract with Exxon in terms of pollution oversight and economic benefits to Exxon vs. Guyana. VP: "...our policy is to get as much of the oil out of the ground as quickly as possible ... We have to make use of this resource while there’s still demand.”
So far Guyana's income from the project has been $309M, while Exxon's has been $1.8B.
8/17/21
Guardian: Exxon's Oil Drilling Gamble Off Guyana's Coast 'Poses Major Environmental Risks' - From the article: Experts who've reviewed Exxon's submissions and government permits conclude that this could result in a disaster on a scale with Macondo/Deepwater Horizon, resulting in the complete distruction of local subsistence fisheries. This operation will also send over 2bn metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.
8/16/21
Guardian: Biggest US Reservoir Declares Historic Shortage, Forcing Water Cuts Across West
8/13/21
NOAA: It's Official: July Was Earth's Hottest Month Ever - But Joe Manchin 'has serious concerns' that we may be going too fast on climate change mitigation.
8/10/21
8/9/21
Guardian: IPCC's Starkest Warning Yet: Major Climate Changes Inevitable and Irreversible - Humans guilty of climate crimes against humanity.
8/7/21
Guardian: 8 Missing in Largest Wildfire in California History - Last year it was the August Complex which was the largest up until then. It, in turn, surpassed the 2018 Mendicino Complex fire. And still no meaningful climate legislation, and Here.
8/5/21
Weather Channel: California Town Destroyed by Fire
Sacramento Bee: CA Drought Forces First Ever Closure of Hydro Plant at Lake Oroville
8/4/21
Newsweek: California's Dixie Fire Explodes to 8 Times the Size of San Francisco Amid Scorching Heat
7/30/21
Climate Wire: Bipartisan Deal Would Make Biden Attack His Own Agenda - Joe Manchin says we are "going to the EV" too fast.
7/28/21
CNN: 83 Fires Burning in 13 States
7/27/21
Wired: Good, Now There's an Outbreak of Wildfire Thunderclouds
7/24/21
Red Rock News: Sedona Adopts Climate Plan
7/23/21
Weather Channel: Monsoon Rains Flood Arizona Streets, Cars Swept Away
7/21/21
Guardian: New York Air Quality Among Worst in World as Haze From Western Wildfires Shrouds City
7/20/21
CBS News: Dry Thunderstorms Stoke Bootleg Fire's Flames, Merging it With Log Fire - Growing by "tens of thousands of acres per day."
7/18/21
CBS News: What the Megadrought Means to the American West
7/16/21
Guardian: Oregon Wildfire Causes Miles-High 'Fire Clouds' as Flames Grow
7/15/21
BBC: EU Unveils Sweeping Climate Change Plan
7/14/21
New Yorker: Bill McKibben: We Need the "Whole-of-Government" Climate Fight that Biden Promised - While the SW desert becomes completely desiccated, Las Vegas hits 117 degrees, people in Nevada and Arizona crank up the AC, Democratic Senator Joe Manchin expresses 'grave concerns' that we might be moving too fast on projects like electric vehicles, Republican Ron Johnson says "climate change is bullshit", Biden's Agriculture Dept. is following Trump-era policies on old-growth forests, and Biden's Justice Department allows gas pipelines to proceed.
Guardian: More Than 60 Wildfires Rage Across Western US - Alaska, Wyoming, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, California, Oregon - This area is 'stuck in a cycle of heat, drought and fire.'
Nature: Amazonia As A Carbon Source Linked to Deforestation and Climate Change - The Amazon rain forest has changed from carbon sink to carbon source.
7/9/21
NOAA Climate: June 2021: Hottest June on Record for Contiguous US
7/8/21
World Meteorological Assoc.: North American Heat Wave Almost Impossible Without Climate Change - Typical scientific understatement.
But then this: It is "possible...that the climate system has crossed a non-linear threshold where a small amount of overall global warming is now causing a faster rise in extreme temperatures than has been observed so far." It takes a second for that statement to sink in - the rate of increase in extreme, record temperatures may be rising at an ever faster rate. The 'hockey stick'.
The little town of Lytton, BC recorded the highest ever Canadian temperature: 121.3 F, and was then destroyed by wildfire.
7/7/21
Guardian: Hottest June Ever in N. America
7/5/21
NBC News: Bitcoin Mining Ruining Seneca Lake
7/1/21
Nature Climate Change: Hot Extremes Becoming Drier in the US Southwest - In general, hotter days are typically more humid. However in the SW over the last 70 years, the hottest days have also become the driest as "the extra heat is evaporating moisture straight out of the soil, desiccating the landscape and making huge fires all but inevitable."
6/29/21
Weather Channel: A Running List of All-Time Heat Records Shattered in NW US and Canada
6/28/21
NPR: All-Time Records Fall as a Heat Wave Roasts the NW US
6/25/21
VOX: 6 Crucial Climate Actions the Senate Left Out of its Infrastructure Bill
Guardian: Yellowstone: Report Reveals Extent of Climate Threat to Nation's Oldest National Park
6/24/21
Weather Channel: Potentially Historic Northwest Heat Wave - Likely All Time Record Breaking
Guardian: 'The Water is Coming': Florida Keys Faces Stark Reality as Seas Rise
USA Today: Collapsed Miami Condo Had Been Sinking into the Earth as Early as the 1990s, Researchers Say - See bottom of article where sea level rise is discussed.
6/22/21
Crop Culture: Against Expectations, Southwestern Summers are Getting Even Drier - "Lower soil moisture should also cause temperatures to rise, Dr. Williams said, because there is little or no moisture left to evaporate, and evaporation has a cooling effect...The dice are loaded for extremely intense heat waves, making huge fires all but inevitable."
6/21/21
Intercept: Biden Subsidies for LNG Could Doom International Climate Goals - Carbon capture is totally unrealistic and has no future. Drilling for natural gas releases large amounts of methane - 86 times worse than CO2.
6/20/21
Guardian: UN Blasts World Leaders for Failing to Seal $86B-a-Year Deal on Climate
6/19/21
Guardian: "It's Brutal": Las Vegas Cooks Amid Blazing Heat Wave - And It's Going to Get Worse
Gizmodo: California Hydropower Plant May Have to Shut Down as Record Heat Wave Drains Key Reservoir
6/17/21
Guardian: Earth is Trapping an Unprecedented Amount of Heat, NASA Says
6/14/21
Democracy-NOW: G7 Concludes as Activists Slam Failure to Act on Climate Crisis
Washington Post: Widespread 100-degree Heat Wave Underway in West as Drought Intensifies
EPA: A Closer Look: Temperature and Drought in the Southwest
6/10/21
Guardian: Lake Mead: Largest US Reservoir Falls to Historic Low Amid Devastating Drought
6/9/21
CBS News: Keystone XL Pipeline Terminated By Energy Company - Indigenous peoples have been fighting this since 2011. They were spied on, infiltrated, and attacked by dogs by the company 'security' and undercover state patrol, working for Enbridge. James Hansen originally said its completion would be 'game over for the planet'. Obama delayed the permit in 2015. Trump revived it. Biden revoked the permit on his first day in office. On May 26, big oil had a very bad day. All of these factors together convinced Trans Canada Energy/Enbridge that the project had no future.
New Yorker: A Biden Climate Test on the Banks of the Mississippi - Will he pass? He says it's 'the number one issue facing humanity.' Or are those just typical Democrat feel good words, with no intention of taking concrete action that might upset big donors?
"So Line 3 is a real test. If Biden is truly serious that the climate is the most important priority of his Presidency, it makes no sense to give a permit to a pipeline that, decades from now, will still be disgorging huge quantities of particularly dirty crude. He doesn’t even need Senator Joe Manchin’s vote on this one—he can direct the Army Corps of Engineers to revoke the water-crossing permits, which would stop the project. With the work more than half done, more than half the paychecks have been cashed—and, in any event, the unions should be willing to cut some slack for a President who is working hard to pass an enormous infrastructure-spending package. And the rest of the world is watching to see whether this President really intends to resume America’s leadership role on climate change."
6/7/21
Common Dreams: Atmospheric CO2 Hits Highest Level in Over Four Million Years - 419 ppm
6/6/21
SanTan Sun: Drought in Arizona Worst in 126 Years - "...since records have been kept...one of the driest in the past 1,200 years based on paleohydrology evidence"
The Anasazi sigh.
6/1/21
Sierra Club: Biden Pauses Exploration in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - This is temporary and must be approved by Congress.
5/28/21
AJC: Environmental Groups Ramping Up Opposition to Okefenokee Mining Project
5/27/21
Time: 'Change is Coming.' Activists Just Scored Big Wins Against ExxonMobile, Chevron and Shell
Guardian: Biden Officials Condemned For Backing Trump-Era Alaska Drilling Project and NYTimes - North Slope. 100,000 barrels per day for another 30 years. During the campaign he pledged to aggressively cut the pollution from burning fossil fuel. This move will guarantee drilling and burning of oil for decades to come. Another Biden betrayal.
Guardian: Brazil Aerial Photos Show Miners' Devastation of Indigenous People's Land
5/26/21
Bill McKibben: Big Oil's Bad, Bad Day
Time: A Ceasefire Won't Protect Palestinians From Looming Climate Threats or Israel From the Fallout
5/8/21
NBC News: Cyberattack Forces Shut Down of Major US Pipeline
4/28/21
Bill McKibben: Renewable Energy is Suddenly Startlingly Cheap - The new Carbon Tracker report: "The Sky's the Limit", is a complete game changer. From the report:
"Kingsmill Bond, Carbon Tracker’s energy strategist and report lead author, said: “We are entering a new epoch, comparable to the industrial revolution. Energy will tumble in price and become available to millions more, particularly in low-income countries. Geopolitics will be transformed as nations are freed from expensive imports of coal, oil and gas. Clean renewables will fight catastrophic climate change and free the planet from deadly pollution.”
“...with current technology and in a subset of available locations we can capture at least 6,700 PWh p.a. [petawatt-hours per year] from solar and wind, which is more than 100 times global energy demand.”
“The land required for solar panels alone to provide all global energy is 0.3% of the global land area. That is less than the land required for fossil fuels today."
“We have established that technical and economic barriers have been crossed by falling costs. It follows that the main remaining barrier to change is the ability of incumbents to manipulate political forces to stop change,” the report reads.
Bottom line: There are no more technological hurdles to 100% renewable energy supplying all of the world's needs now and for the foreseable future. Renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels, and getting cheaper by the day. Converting to 100% renewables will create many more jobs than current fossil fuel jobs.
4/24/21
Guardian: Wealthy Nations "Failing to Help Developing World Tackle Climate Crisis" - Biden set 'bold new goals' at the Earth Day Climate Summit in terms of reducing CO2 emissions, and increasing US climate financing. He proposed no action that would assist 3rd world countries in dealing with climate change. First world countries are already behind on committments to 3rd world countries that the first world countries originally proposed in 2009.
We are all anxiously awaiting concrete actions to back up these goals and commitments. Currently the Dems have the executive branch and majorities in both legilative branches. This could all change in the fall of 2022. They need to make stuff happen quickly.
One of the reasons we have so many immigrants showing up at our borders is because they are running from drought, extreme weather, and starvation. Helping their native countries with foreign debt and with building climate mitigation facilities would keep them at home rather than in ICE detention centers.
4/23/21
Carbon Tracker Institute: The Sky's the Limit: Solar and Wind Energy Potential is 100 Times As Much As Global Energy Demand - This potential can be realized on only 0.3% of the Earth's land area - less than the land area currently used by fossil fuel generation.
"Kingsmill Bond, Carbon Tracker’s energy strategist and report lead author, said: “We are entering a new epoch, comparable to the industrial revolution. Energy will tumble in price and become available to millions more, particularly in low-income countries. Geopolitics will be transformed as nations are freed from expensive imports of coal, oil and gas. Clean renewables will fight catastrophic climate change and free the planet from deadly pollution.”
“We have established that technical and economic barriers have been crossed by falling costs. It follows that the main remaining barrier to change is the ability of incumbents to manipulate political forces to stop change,”
Critics can no longer say that wind/solar can't provide all of the energy we need, or that it's too expensive.
Democracy-NOW: Biden Vows to Cut Emissions, But US Continues to Subsidize Fossil Fuels Amid Climate Crisis - From the article:
"There isn’t a plan back home in the U.S. to make good on this. We haven’t passed any climate legislation yet. We might still. But what’s on the table, you know, does not get to that low-bar goal, certainly doesn’t get to the 70% reduction needed."
"$15.2 billion in direct pandemic relief alone to fossil fuel companies, and the fossil fuel industry turned around in 2020 and spent $139 million on political donations and $111 million lobbying."
"GRETA THUNBERG: I know I’m not the one who is supposed to ask questions here, but there is something I really do wonder. How long do you honestly believe that people in power like you will get away with it? How long do you think you can continue to ignore the climate crisis, the global aspect of equity and historic emissions without being held accountable? You get away with it now, but sooner or later people are going to realize what you have been doing all this time. That’s inevitable. You still have time to do the right thing and to save your legacies. But that window of time is not going to last for long. What happens then? We, the young people, are the ones who are going to write about you in the history books. We are the ones who get to decide how you will be remembered. So my advice for you is to choose wisely. Thank you."
4/22/21
Guardian: Greta Thunberg Tells US House Panel 'Fossil Fuel Subsidies are a Disgrace'
New Yorker: Why Bitcoin is Bad for the Environment - "Mining is the process by which bitcoin is both created and accounted for. Instead of being cleared by, say, a bank, bitcoin transactions are recorded by a decentralized network—a blockchain. Miners compete to register the latest “block” of transactions by solving cryptographic puzzles.
“What was quickly discovered is that specialized computing devices—so-called mining rigs—are much, much more effective at solving these puzzles,” Juels said. “And, in addition, there are economies of scale in the operation of these mining groups. So the process of mining, which was originally conducted by a loose federation of presumably individual participants with ordinary computing devices, has now become heavily consolidated.”
According to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, bitcoin-mining operations worldwide now use energy at the rate of nearly a hundred and twenty terawatt-hours per year. This is about the annual domestic electricity consumption of the entire nation of Sweden. According to the Web site Digiconomist, a single bitcoin transaction uses the same amount of power that the average American household consumes in a month, and is responsible for roughly a million times more carbon emissions than a single Visa transaction. At a time when the world desperately needs to cut carbon emissions, does it make sense to be devoting a Sweden’s worth of electricity to a virtual currency? The answer would seem, pretty clearly, to be no. And, yet, here we are."
New Republic: Rich People Paying Other Rich People Is Not A "Climate Solution" - "If this all sounds a little bit like allowing cash-rich companies and corporations to pay off landowners so that they can continue polluting, that’s because that is precisely what offsets and carbon markets are designed to accomplish."
4/21/21
New Yorker: Bill McKibbe: How 1.5 Degrees Became the Key to Climate Progress - It was interesting and welcome to hear the fine words of President Biden today on Earth Day 51 referring to the importance of 1.5, while at the same time supporting fracking, and the Dakota Access Pipeline, and appointing senior staff with ties to the petroleum industry, - all forms of corporate welfare for corporations that are destroying our planet.
Star Tribune: Enbridge Shells Out $750K to Law Enforcement for Line 3 Protest Costs - An example of government and industry teaming up to prevent citizens from exercising their Constitutional rights.
"You have a foreign company funding the police in northern Minnesota and incentivizing the repression of citizens," said Winona LaDuke, head of Honor the Earth, a Minnesota-based Indigenous environmental group. "They basically have taken your police force and turned it into their security force."
4/14/21
New Yorker: Bill McKibben: No More Halfsies on Climate
4/13/21
Guardian: Fukushima: Japan Announces It Will Dump 1M Tons of Contaminated Water into the Pacific
4/9/21
American Association for the Advancement of Science: Warm Water Flowing Beneath Thwaites Glacier
4/3/21
New Yorker: Bill McKibben: The Powerful New Financial Argument for Fossil-Fuel Divestment
2/26/21
American Prospect: The Quiet Winner of the Texas Energy Crisis
2/23/21
Weather.com: Alaska Glacial Lake Growing Very Fast - Think about what could happen if this was in Miami.
2/22 21
Reuters: Cost of Flood Damage to US Homes Will Increase 61% in 30 Years - “By and large, we find that most commercial real estate firms don’t presently have a good grasp of what this change could mean to the repricing of assets,” said Eby.
Democracy-NOW: Fossil Fuel Shock Doctrine Naomi Klein on Deadly Deregulation and Why Texas Needs the Green New Deal - "It’s a plan to marry that huge infrastructure investment in the next green economy with a plan to battle poverty, to create huge numbers of good, union, green jobs, to take care of people. It’s a plan to have universal public healthcare and child care and a jobs guarantee."
2/18/21
Reuters: White House Says Texas Winter Storm Likely Due to Climate Change - Finally somebody uttered the obvious. Incredible that with all of the cable news coverage over the past couple of weeks, this is the first mention of Climate Change.
Weather.com: 7 Million Texans Without Clean Water Due to Storms - Mother Nature is messing with Texas.
Weather.com: Millions Without Water, Power As Death Toll Rises - Texas near breaking point with no heat, water for more than 3 million. Day 3 of below freezing temperatures, and more to come. Texas citizens will continue to pay higher utility bills for years to come.
2/17/21
Common Dreams: Scientists Say Freezing Texas Linked to Warming Artic - Here's another polar vortex explanation, quick video, and Here.
2/16/21
Reuters: Massive Refinery Cleanup Faces Century of Spills
2/14/21
Reuters: Appeals Court Halts Construction at ConocoPhillips Alaska Project
2/12/21
Reuters: Florida Consumers 'Flabbergasted' As Property Insurers Push For Double-Digit Rate Hikes
1/27/21
CNBC: Biden Suspends Oil and Gas Leasing in Slew of Executive Actions on Climate Change
1/26/21
Bloomberg: Latest Biden Climate Plan and Reuters - Includes a halt on new fossil fuel leasing on federal land, converting the entire federal automtive fleet to electric, prioritizing science in government decision making, eliminating fossil-fuel subsidies. This is a great plan.
1/25/21
WSJ: European Banks Quit Ecuador's Amazonian Oil Trade
1/8/21
Guardian: Climate Crisis: 2020 Was Joint Hottest Year Ever Recorded - Also a record 29 tropical storms in the Atlantic. The past 6 years have been the hottest 6. 20 out of the last 22 years have been the hottest on record.
1/7/21
New Yorker: Bill McKibben: Our Best Chance to Slow Global Warning Comes in the Next Nine Years - "This is a timed test."
12/26/20
Guardian: Mass Die-Off of Birds in South-West 'Caused by Starvation' - More evidence of the man-made 6th great extinction event. The Antropocene extinction.
12/17/20
Weather.com: Winter Storm Gail Blasting NE With Up to 40" of Snow
12/15/20
Washington Post: Biden Picks Former EPA Chief Gina McCarthy As White House Climate Czar - Great pick! She'll be the domestic counterpart to John Kerry.
12/14/20
12/11/20
New Yorker: Bill McKibben: Where We Stand on Climate
12/8/20
NYTimes: Shift to a Not-So-Frozen North is Well Underway
12/7/20
Reuters: US Green Groups Say Honeymoon is Over, Turn Up the Heat on Biden
12/3/20
NYC Mayor's Office: Mayor Calls for a Halt to North Brooklyn Pipeline Project
12/2/20
Reuters: Denmark Cancels Future Oil and Gas Hunt In North Sea
CNN: 2020 Set to be One of the Three Hottest Years on Record Despite La Nina's Cooling Effect
11/25/20
New Yorker: Bill McKibben: How Banks Could Bail Us Out of the Climate Crisis
11/20/20
Common Dreams: Climate Justice Activists Conclude 24 Hour Occupation at DNC
11/19/20
Guardian: Senior Biden Adviser Set For Key Role Has Ties to Oil and Gas, Climate Activists Warn - "The Sunrise Movement, a youth-led climate group that pushed Biden to intensify his climate platform, called Cedric Richmond’s hire a “betrayal”.” Richmond’s primary source of campaign contributions has been the Oil and Gas industry.
11/17/20
Guardian: 1% of People Cause Half of Global Aviation Emissions
11/16/20
CNN: Hurricane Iota Strengthens to Cat 5 As It Nears Central America - It is the first Cat 5 of this record breaking season. Following right on the heels of H. Eta which left 298 fatalities (killed or missing) and $5B in damages just 2 weeks ago in this same area
11/13/20
Weather.com: Iota Becomes Record Breaking 30th Named Atlantic Storm in One Year
11/12/20
Intercept: Georgia Senator Dismisses Climate Change While Enjoying Protected Beachfront Mansion
11/10/20
Politico: Fed Formally Calls Out Climate Change As Stability Risk
11/6/20
Science: Global Food Systems Emissions Could Preclude Achieving Climate Change Targets
11/4/20
BBC: The Young Norwegians Taking Their Country to Court Over Oil
10/24/20
CNBC: Joe Biden Calls Climate Change the 'Number One Issue Facing Humanity' - Let's just remember he said this then.
9/28/20
New Yorker: Biden Can Rise to the Challenge of Our Climate Emergency - I doubt it, but here’s hoping. On the one hand there is his $2 trillion climate plan, but on the other, the party refused to include a plank in the platform that would have even slightly reduced subsidies to fossil fuel companies, now at $5 trillion per year globally. The DNC refused to even hold a pre-nomination Climate Debate. But that’s just Democrats for you. They are the lesser of two evils so they can get away with a lot.
9/14/20
The Week: The Climate Refugees Are Here. They're Americans. -
7/14/20
NYTimes: Biden Announces $2 Trillion Climate Plan
6/15/20
Reuters: Democratic Party ‘Irked’ By Council’s Insurgent Climate Plan
Clean Technica: Defending 100% Clean Power: An Energy Efficiency Approach - From the article:
Our energy and ecological crises are as much problems of waste and overconsumption. The US is the most wasteful society on the planet. We produce 3 times as much CO2 per capita as the French.
“Since 1990, Germany’s population has grown by about 5%, or 4 million people. Germany’s real incomes have also increased, and Germans have access to free education, universal and very good healthcare, a flexible transport system, luxurious vacation time, and a strong labor market. Germans work almost 25% less than Americans and less than almost anyone else in the developed world (Germany’s best-kept secret). While maintaining this extraordinary quality of life and extending it to more people, Germans have cut carbon emissions by 1/3. Only to a modest degree was this through renewable energy.
...this cut came from improvements in all sectors of the economy as government policies imposed high costs on waste and as people became more responsible and thought about their actions in ethical terms. This is what success looks like, and as more countries take this path, it becomes easier for everyone as market forces, technological development, and innovation spread across borders.”
6/10/20
4/16/20
JBA: The Physics of Precipitation in a Warming Climate - Per the article: The rise in mean surface temperature of Earth since the pre-industrial age (1850-1900) due to antropogenic activity - 1 degree C - has resulted in an increased atmospheric water content of about 7%. Hurricane Harvey in 2017 dumped about 39" of rain on Houston/Galveston. The Clausius-Clapeyron relationship explained.
12/6/19
The Conversation: Our Climate is Like a Reckless Banking Before a Crash - It's Time to Talk About Near Term Collapse - "The risk of...rocketing food prices, civil unrest, major financial losses, starvation, war and death.”
8/22/19
Common Dreams: Protests Break Out After DNC Committee Votes Against Holding 2020 #ClimateDebate
7/8/19
Yale Climate Connections: How Climate Change is Making Hurricanes More Deadly - The number of tropical cyclones (hurricanes, typhoons) is not increasing but the intensity is. More cat 4-5's, fewer 1's and 2's. Wind intensity/speed is increasing over time. The amount of rainfall is increasing. The warmer the air, the more moisture and the warmer the ocean, the more wind speed.
"...the warmer the air is, the more moisture it can hold and the more rain it produces. ...for every one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) increase, the atmosphere can hold 7% more moisture.
7/1/19
TED Talk: Luisa Neubauer: Why You Should Become a Climate Activist - "This is not a job for one generation. This is a job for humanity. Power is something you either take, or leave to others."
10/24/18
Time: What to Know About Democratic Socialism
8/22/17
In These Times: Bill McKibben: The Unimaginable Is Now Possible: 100% Renewable Energy. We Can’t Settle For Less - The price of renewables has now dropped - and continues to drop - so low that a 100% switchover makes economic sense. The intermittency problem has been solved. There’s nothing stopping us but politicians. Germany, China, the UK, Scandinavian countries, Chile, Holland, etc. are far ahead of the US in the transition to 100% renewables. Currently more workers are employed in the US solar industry than the coal industry. The Labor Network for Sustainability is proposing a law similar to the 1944 GI bill to help displaced coal workers get re-educated and job placement. The transition will turn us all from energy consumers to energy owners.
6/19/17
The New Yorker: The Race to Solar-Power Africa
8/29/16
Guardian: The Anthropocene Epoch
3/21/16
UN: By 2030 Half of the World's Population Will Face Severe Water Stress
7/17/08
First mention of which I am aware 'Green New Deal'
Climate Breakdown Pre-2022