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Climate Change

Climate Change
Quote:Newsweek

Four in five Republicans think that human activity is not playing a major role in climate change, a poll by the Pew Research Center has found. In a survey of almost 11,000 people, it found 22 percent of Republicans think humans are "contributing a great deal" to the problem, despite scientists overwhelmingly agreeing current climate change is anthropogenic. Among Democrats, 72 percent say human activity is behind current climate trends.
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Climate Change
"The advantage of faith over reason, is that reason requires understanding. Which usually requires education; resources of time and money. 
Religion needs none of that. - It empowers the lowliest idiot to pretend that he is wiser than the wise, ignoring all the indications otherwise "
 - A. Ra
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Climate Change
Quote:AP News

House Democrats on Tuesday unveiled a plan to address climate change that would set a goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, while pushing renewable energy such as wind and solar power and addressing environmental contamination that disproportionately harms low-income and minority communities.

The election-year plan backed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other leaders is less ambitious than a sweeping Green New Deal that a group of progressive Democrats outlined last year to combat climate change and create thousands of jobs in renewable energy.

The Green New Deal, championed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., calls for dramatic steps to virtually eliminate U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 with a goal of meeting “100% of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable and zero-emission energy sources,” including nuclear power.

The new plan, put forth Tuesday in a 538-page report, offers similar goals but at a slower pace. It sets a range of targets, including a 45% reduction by 2030 of greenhouse gas emissions, which cause global warming.

The plan also would require that by 2035 new cars emit no greenhouse gases, while heavy-duty trucks would eliminate those emissions by 2040. The plan would eliminate overall emissions from the power sector by 2040 and all but eliminate greenhouse emissions from all economic sectors by 2050.

Supporters say the plan, presented by Democrats on the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, by 2050 would save more than 60,000 American lives every year thanks to reduced air pollution, as well as nearly $8 trillion thanks to health and climate benefits.

“Democrats know the climate crisis is the essential crisis of our time, threatening public health, jobs and the economy, national security and values,″ Pelosi said Tuesday at a Capitol news conference.
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Climate Change
Too bad these asswipes control the senate.

[Image: 1*GWFsvzN8K96fnpWAylvSTA.jpeg]
Robert G. Ingersoll : “No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.”
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Climate Change
Heatwave trends accelerate worldwide

https://phys.org/news/2020-07-heatwave-t...dwide.html

Quote:The first comprehensive worldwide assessment of heatwaves down to regional levels has revealed that in nearly every part of the world heatwaves have been increasing in frequency and duration since the 1950s.

The research published in Nature Communications has also produced a new metric, cumulative heat, which reveals exactly how much heat is packed into individual heatwaves and heatwave seasons. As expected, that number is also on the rise.

In Australia's worst heatwave season, an additional 80°C of cumulative heat was experienced across the country. In Russia and the Mediterranean, their most extreme seasons baked in an additional 200°C or more.

"Not only have we seen more and longer heatwaves worldwide over the past 70 years, but this trend has markedly accelerated," said lead author Dr. Sarah Perkins Kirkpatrick from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes.
“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” -Carl Sagan.
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Climate Change
Quote:Salon

The document that we celebrate on Independence Day, the Declaration of Independence, was supposed to be a statement of liberation — from the political and economic power structures of Great Britain, whose management of the American colony had failed us. There's something similar happening today, though the oppressing power is not a nation-state. Rather, the modern-day impediments to our liberation and freedom come from corporations, billionaires, media conglomerates, big banks and the like.

As we celebrate Independence Day, we must recognize that it is time for a new Declaration of Independence — a Green Declaration of Independence, to be precise, one that liberates the people of the world from economic and political power structures that have failed us by allowing global warming, the pandemic and other existential threats to humanity, as well as by supporting or abetting grave social and economic injustices. In the process these forces threaten our liberty, dignity, quality of life and very survival as a species.
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Climate Change
https://www.independent.co.uk/environmen...reddit.com

Climate crisis: Thawing Arctic permafrost could release deadly waves of ancient diseases, scientists suggest

Quote:Disturbing things are happening in the Arctic.

In the last fortnight a devastating heatwave has seen temperatures in Siberia reach a record 38C (100.4F), meanwhile, vast fires are burning, releasing huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and dramatically illustrating the vicious circle of climate breakdown.

As climate scientists ponder whether these extremes portend the dawn of a terrifying new era of supercharged heat in the Arctic, the planet also remains gripped by the coronavirus pandemic.

It is at this pivotal moment a startling new risk could also be unleashed upon the world – one which binds together both the implications of an overheating planet and the tragedy of a highly contagious disease.

Scientists have said the rapidly warming climate in the far north risks exposing long-dormant viruses, which may be tens or even hundreds of thousands of years old, and have been frozen in the permafrost in the Arctic.

We'll have more than coronavirus to worry about. Not to mention antibacterial resistance. Deadpan Coffee Drinker
“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” -Carl Sagan.
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Climate Change
Quote:The New Yorker

Scientists have discovered a powerful new strain of fact-resistant humans who are threatening the ability of Earth to sustain life, a sobering new study reports.

The research, conducted by the University of Minnesota, identifies a virulent strain of humans who are virtually immune to any form of verifiable knowledge, leaving scientists at a loss as to how to combat them.

“These humans appear to have all the faculties necessary to receive and process information,” Davis Logsdon, one of the scientists who contributed to the study, said. “And yet, somehow, they have developed defenses that, for all intents and purposes, have rendered those faculties totally inactive.”

hobo derp
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Climate Change
(07-08-2020, 02:11 PM)Alan V Wrote:
Quote:The New Yorker

Scientists have discovered a powerful new strain of fact-resistant humans who are threatening the ability of Earth to sustain life, a sobering new study reports.

The research, conducted by the University of Minnesota, identifies a virulent strain of humans who are virtually immune to any form of verifiable knowledge, leaving scientists at a loss as to how to combat them.

“These humans appear to have all the faculties necessary to receive and process information,” Davis Logsdon, one of the scientists who contributed to the study, said. “And yet, somehow, they have developed defenses that, for all intents and purposes, have rendered those faculties totally inactive.”

hobo  derp

Aka "The armour of god", aka "the shield of faith".
"The advantage of faith over reason, is that reason requires understanding. Which usually requires education; resources of time and money. 
Religion needs none of that. - It empowers the lowliest idiot to pretend that he is wiser than the wise, ignoring all the indications otherwise "
 - A. Ra
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Climate Change
By 2025, carbon dioxide levels in Earth's atmosphere will be higher than at any time in the last 3.3 million years

https://phys.org/news/2020-07-carbon-dio...igher.html

Quote: By 2025, atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels will very likely be higher than they were during the warmest period of the last 3.3 million years, according to new research by a team from the University of Southampton published today in Nature Scientific Reports.

Dr. Elwyn de la Vega, who led the study, said: "Knowledge of CO2 during the geological past is of great interest because it tells us how the climate system, ice sheets and sea-level previously responded to the elevated CO2 levels. We studied this particular interval in unprecedented detail because it provides great contextual information for our current climate state."
 

Deadpan Coffee Drinker
“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” -Carl Sagan.
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Climate Change
Last year, Viewbank—a suburb of Melbourne—15km north-east of Melbourne's CBD
recorded its coldest winter day in 20 years.

[Image: Screenshot-2020-07-11-Victoria-in-Winter-2019.png]

Weather is a fickle mistress.     Girl_yes2
I'm a creationist;   I believe that man created God.
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Climate Change
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/brazils-...20-2260679

Brazil's Amazon Deforestation Increased By 25 Per Cent In 2020

Quote: Some 3,069 square kilometers (1,184 square miles) were affected by deforestation, the highest figure since data has been collected beginning in 2015, the country's National Institute for Space Research (INPE) said.

June, which marks the start of the dry season and fires, also hit a record with 1,034 square kilometers of deforestation, an increase of nearly 11 percent.

Brazil has been criticized by a number of countries and environmental groups over large-scale deforestation and fires that ravage the world's largest rainforest during the dry season.

"Last year it just took off, and this should not be repeated," said Mariana Napolitano, science director for the World Wildlife Fund-Brazil, referring to the deforestation.


"But not only is it repeating, it's getting worse, despite military action in the region," Napolitano told AFP.

Illegal logging by the timber industry, as well as mining and cattle ranching in protected areas are the main causes of destruction.


 
“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” -Carl Sagan.
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Climate Change
Good, now they have mats for all the coffins needed. Weeping Facepalm
R.I.P. Hannes
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Climate Change
Quote:ABC News

Former vice president Joe Biden unveiled a sweeping new proposal on Tuesday that called for the United States to achieve a carbon-free power sector by 2035 and make a $2 trillion investment over his first four years in office in green energy and infrastructure to combat the threat of climate change.
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Climate Change
(07-14-2020, 06:07 PM)Alan V Wrote:
Quote:ABC News

Former vice president Joe Biden unveiled a sweeping new proposal on Tuesday that called for the United States to achieve a carbon-free power sector by 2035 and make a $2 trillion investment over his first four years in office in green energy and infrastructure to combat the threat of climate change.

Nowhere in that article do I see any sort of proposal as to how he's going to accomplish this. What is certain to happen is, the people who thought up the carbon credit, carbon offset scam will sup champagne by the bucket. 

And as always they copped on pretty quickly.

 
Quote:A New York-based firm will launch a hedge fund next month aimed at capitalising on the societal shift to a low-carbon economy, with 40% of its investment aimed at purchasing emissions allowances, according to media reports.

I wonder what else we could spend $2 trillion on?
How about the machines we designed in the sixties that work when the wind doesn't blow and aren't afraid of the dark?

My highlight.
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Climate Change
(07-15-2020, 03:25 AM)Inkubus Wrote:
(07-14-2020, 06:07 PM)Alan V Wrote:
Quote:ABC News

Former vice president Joe Biden unveiled a sweeping new proposal on Tuesday that called for the United States to achieve a carbon-free power sector by 2035 and make a $2 trillion investment over his first four years in office in green energy and infrastructure to combat the threat of climate change.

Nowhere in that article do I see any sort of proposal as to how he's going to accomplish this. What is certain to happen is, the people who thought up the carbon credit, carbon offset scam will sup champagne by the bucket. 

And as always they copped on pretty quickly.

 
Quote:A New York-based firm will launch a hedge fund next month aimed at capitalising on the societal shift to a low-carbon economy, with 40% of its investment aimed at purchasing emissions allowances, according to media reports.

I wonder what else we could spend $2 trillion on?
How about the machines we designed in the sixties that work when the wind doesn't blow and aren't afraid of the dark?

My highlight.

Investing in infrastructure for a carbon-free power sector is an important and necessary first step.  The government can also create many jobs that way, which is attractive to politicians.  Such sustainable energy should be competitive right now, but hopefully will be accompanied by removing financial incentives presently built into the system to promote fossil fuels.

in other words, this can be done without either a cap-and-trade system or a carbon tax.  Cap-and-trade is much less likely to work and have positive results than a carbon tax, although the latter would be harder politically.  I wouldn't expect Biden to announce plans for either approach before the election, since both are more difficult to sell politically.

Capitalism can be harnessed in the short run to help us make our energy transition. We certainly will not change our economic system all at once to make progress.

What machines are you referring to?
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Climate Change
Quote:Politico

Many economists have long suspected that climate risks are an underanalyzed, underappreciated threat to the world economy. In a study released in May, then International Monetary Fund found that global stock markets aren’t reflecting the physical dangers of natural disasters. IMF officials said that a first step should be more transparency: "granular, firm-specific information" on climate change exposure, wrote the IMF’s Felix Suntheim and Jérôme Vandenbussche, would help lenders, insurers and investors better understand the liabilities. The IMF said climate change stress testing and scenario analysis for financial firms “can play a potentially important role in providing a better sense of the size of the exposures at a highly granular level.”
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Climate Change
Good news for the climate, and none too soon:

Quote:Politico

The economics of coal-fired electricity have collapsed over the past decade, forcing hundreds of plants into retirement, and the virus is crushing what’s left of the industry. Meanwhile, wind and solar are getting so cheap that instead of replacing pollution belching coal plants with somewhat cleaner natural gas, utilities in states like Arizona, Colorado and Florida are skipping directly to zero-emissions renewables.

Markets are trending green. Tesla stock has tripled since April, global investment in offshore wind has quadrupled in 2020, and the electric truck startup Rivian just raised another $2.5 billion before producing a single vehicle. Wall Street giants like BlackRock are starting to talk big about climate, and cash is pouring into sustainability-focused investment funds.
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Climate Change
Active leak of sea-bed methane discovered in Antarctica for first time

https://phys.org/news/2020-07-leak-sea-b...ctica.html

Quote:A team of researchers with Oregon State University has confirmed the first active leak of sea-bed methane in Antarctica. In their paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the group describes their trip to Cinder Cones located at McMurdo Sound situated in the Ross Sea, and why they believe it signals very serious repercussions for global warming.

Scientists believe that there is a large amount of methane sealed beneath the ocean floor off the coast of Antarctica. It is believed to have developed from algae decaying beneath the seafloor sediment. And it has likely been there for a very long time. As the planet has warmed, scientists have become concerned that the methane could be released if the waters above it were to warm. And if that were to occur, they fear it would release so much methane that there would be no recovering—the planet would warm beyond our means to survive.
“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” -Carl Sagan.
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Climate Change
[Image: tenor.gif]
Robert G. Ingersoll : “No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.”
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Climate Change
Quote:Bloomberg

A major new study of the relationship between carbon dioxide and global warming lowers the odds on worst-case climate change scenarios while also ruling out the most optimistic estimates nations have been counting on as they attempt to implement the Paris Agreement.

A group of 25 leading scientists now conclude that catastrophic warming is almost inevitable if emissions continue at their current rate, even if there’s less reason to anticipate a totally uninhabitable Earth in coming centuries. The research, published Wednesday in the journal Reviews of Geophysics, narrows the answer to a question that’s as old as climate science itself: How much would the planet warm if humanity doubled the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere?

That number, known as “equilibrium climate sensitivity,” is typically expressed as a range. The scientists behind this new study have narrowed the climate-sensitivity window to between 2.6° Celsius and 3.9°C.
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Climate Change
New technique to capture carbon dioxide could greatly reduce power plant greenhouse gases

https://phys.org/news/2020-07-technique-...eatly.html

Quote: A big advance in carbon capture technology could provide an efficient and inexpensive way for natural gas power plants to remove carbon dioxide from their flue emissions, a necessary step in reducing greenhouse gas emissions to slow global warming and climate change.

Developed by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and ExxonMobil, the new technique uses a highly porous material called a metal-organic framework, or MOF, modified with nitrogen-containing amine molecules to capture the CO2 and low temperature steam to flush out the CO2 for other uses or to sequester it underground.

"For CO2 capture, steam stripping—where you use direct contact with steam to take off the CO2—has been a sort of holy grail for the field. It is rightly seen as the cheapest way to do it," said senior researcher Jeffrey Long, UC Berkeley professor of chemistry and of chemical and biomolecular engineering and senior faculty scientist at Berkeley Lab. "These materials, at least from the experiments we have done so far, look very promising."
 
“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” -Carl Sagan.
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Climate Change
I have worked for years as "scientist" where instead I was "lobbying" for the biobased sector, thus I know a couple of things behind the curtains and in front of.
Climate change is real, it is really looming and coming and it will be a mess. Definitely we do have the ability to shift and adapt, but the adaptation phase will not be a as smooth as attending a nice piece at the Opera followed by a free buffet.
Having said that, I really have difficulties in understanding why the topic has been so much politicized and why "conservatives" are the ones who do not believe it.
The first politician to recognize it and that vowed to work against it was Ms. Tatcher, that it is not the stereotye of barefot hippie smoking joints. The same in Germany (where I lived and worked and lobbied), the center wing party is the one that highjacked the greens idea and turned into lucrative business (ecology rhymes with economy as Merkel said).
What do Ms Tatcher and Dr. Merkel have in common? Graduated chemist, and with Ms. Merkel went further up to get a PhD in physical chemistry.
The real issue in my eyes is that: we need to elect more scientist among politicians, and thrw in the bin lawyers, social scientist, political scientist etc etc. Why the chinese can do things so quickly? Because they "elect" engineers, not lawyers....
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Climate Change
(07-24-2020, 11:45 AM)Ausländer Wrote: Having said that, I really have difficulties in understanding why the topic has been so much politicized and why "conservatives" are the ones who do not believe it.

One thing I've noticed about conservatives is they tend to be really bad at understanding complex relationships between things. They want everything to be understandable through our "common sense", or our everyday intuition, which is an extremely naive way of looking at things, to say the least.
“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” -Carl Sagan.
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Climate Change
https://phys.org/news/2020-07-alaska-wet...frost.html

Alaska is getting wetter. That's bad news for permafrost and the climate

Quote:Alaska is getting wetter. A new study spells out what that means for the permafrost that underlies about 85% of the state, and the consequences for Earth's global climate.

The study, published today in Nature Publishing Group journal Climate and Atmospheric Science, is the first to compare how rainfall is affecting permafrost thaw across time, space, and a variety of ecosystems. It shows that increased summer rainfall is degrading permafrost across the state.

As Siberia remains in the headlines for record-setting heat waves and wildfires, Alaska is experiencing the rainiest five years in its century-long meteorological record. Extreme weather on both ends of the spectrum—hot and dry versus cool and wet—are driven by an aspect of climate change called Arctic amplification. As the earth warms, temperatures in the Arctic rise faster than the global average.
“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” -Carl Sagan.
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