Global Warming's Terrifying New Math

Alfred Wegener playing the ultimate long game in exacting revenge upon his foes.

Step aside climate change and Red Giant Sun, I’m burning the Earth first. The Andromeda-Milky Way Collision is the end of show fireworks. Angry neutron stars yelling that you don’t have to go home to resist entropy but you can’t do it there.

JFC: https://kotaku.com/shell-big-oil-roadtrips-fortnite-map-collab-tiktok-ign-1850907435

lol kids are absolutely not gonna fall for that shit. they're just throwing money into a hole. good thing they have so much of it!

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/search-10-billion-missing-snow-crabs-scientists-eye-marine-heat-waves-rcna121449

When insurance giant AIG rattled the industry last year with an audacious plan to stop writing policies for some of the most heavily polluting fossil fuel projects, environmentalists and lawmakers showered the company with plaudits.

Like so many other large companies pledging to help the world avert climate catastrophe, AIG is finding that making such vows is easier than making good on them. The company is now a target of a Senate investigation into the insurance industry, led by lawmakers who warn that AIG and other companies continue to play a pivotal role in underwriting some of the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel projects in the world — despite lofty climate promises.

...AIG, which declined to comment or share its response to questions about its climate pledge from the committee, is hardly unusual. Over the last year, Amazon retreated from an effort to zero out the emissions of half its shipments by 2030. Shell Oil dropped an ambitious initiative to build a pipeline of carbon credits through investment in forest preservation and other carbon-absorbing projects worldwide. And BP significantly scaled back its plan to reduce emissions by as much as 35 percent by the end of the decade.

As the planet heats up at an alarming pace, these turnabouts expose the shortcomings of leaving it up to voluntary corporate action to solve an existential crisis, said John Lang, the project lead at Net Zero Tracker, a group that monitors progress on corporate and government climate pledges.

“There is a massive credibility gap with these corporate targets,” he said. “We need more regulation. Otherwise, the dial just will not turn.”

...Lang’s group examined more than 1,000 companies that have pledges to zero out their emissions by 2050. It found that 38 of them — less than 4 percent — are doing the bare minimum required under the Paris agreement’s goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The rest are not meeting the “starting line criteria” laid out by the United Nations, which calls on companies to track their carbon footprint across supply chains, immediately cut emissions, create a scientifically credible plan for using carbon offsets and report annual progress on meeting climate targets.

gift link: https://wapo.st/48470m1

nice to see some reporting on the failed commitments, rather than just the front-end coverage of corporate PR bullshit promises that have no enforcement mechanism.

Alaska's snow crab season canceled for second year in a row
https://www.yahoo.com/news/alaskas-snow-crab-season-canceled-002948381.html

“People are like, ‘Yeah, yeah, the world is going to end. But I’m still going to vacation on the Greek islands or the Bahamas.’”

Everyone at Davos should have been Mr. Choppy'ed years ago.

will bono be spared

no

the only thing pro bono will be mr choppy's defense lawyer

Mexico City running out of water.

https://news.yahoo.com/mexico-city-teeters-unprecedented-water-000337079.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/02/09/atlantic-ocean-amoc-climate-change/

Mexico City running out of water.

https://news.yahoo.com/mexico-city-teeters-unprecedented-water-000337079.html

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Thursday, 1 February 2024 bookmarkflaglink

Last year it was Montevideo. All of these flashing points..

https://i.imgur.com/UXcvJqj.png

the solid black line is global surface ocean temperatures for 2024, so far
the gold line is 2023

the three dotted black lines represent the mean temps from 1981-2011, and then 2 standard deviations above and below that mean.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/02/skyrocketing-ocean-temperatures-have-scientists-scratching-their-heads/

Thanks, z. That article is a fabulous example of good science writing that doesn't dumb down its subject. And considering it describes a phenomenon I shall only experience in its third or or fourth order effects, it is still miserably stomach-churning.

https://img.thedailybeast.com/image/upload/c_crop,d_placeholder_euli9k,h_2150,w_3822,x_0,y_0/dpr_1.5/c_limit,w_608/fl_lossy,q_auto/v1710158341/Screenshot_2024-03-11_at_11.46.32_vwhvnz

In a drastic attempt to protect their beachfront homes, residents in Salisbury, Massachusetts, invested $500,000 in a sand dune to defend against encroaching tides. After being completed last week, the barrier made from 14,000 tons of sand lasted just 72 hours before it was completely washed away, according to WCVB.

someone tell ben shapiro about this real estate opportunity

“Nobody really anticipated that the Earth would speed up to the point where we might have to remove a leap second,” Agnew said.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/27/climate/timekeeping-polar-ice-melt-earth-rotation

*nerd in the back*

"....um i did, neeeheeeheee!"

Solastalgia (/ˌsɒləˈstældʒə/) is a neologism, formed by the combination of the Latin words sōlācium (comfort) and the Greek root -algia (pain, suffering, grief), that describes a form of emotional or existential distress caused by environmental change.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solastalgia

i think that's a new one for me? i can dig it. as a word.

you guys might not believe this, but 2024 is on track to be the warmest year in recorded history.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/07/climate/record-hot-april/index.html

Global warming personal relations and anecdotes 20-year update request:

Does anyone know someone who was a climate change denier (like, a loud angry one) in the early 2000s (or before, or after) and realized they were completely wrong? Did they say anything about it later or admit that they were wrong? Or did they just carry on and pretend like it never happened? Or, are they still denying it, I guess.

My dad is the only person I really have opportunity to talk about these kinds of things and he makes me instantly blow my top. I've talked about getting an EV which he's against because he's all of a sudden concerned about the environmental cost of mining rare earth materials, which I guess is progress, but he's probably echoing petro/car-maker talking points.

i will opt for a hybrid as long as i live, if/when the shit hits the fan, electric vehicles are going to me rendered useless pretty quickly— just ask the rich folks who horde diesel powered vehicles and own bunkers.

going to be*

Venezuela Becomes First Modern Country to Lose All Its Glaciers
https://explorersweb.com/venezuela-loses-last-glacier/

Just v sad, reading that