Global Warming's Terrifying New Math

It's the necessity of doggedly maintaining the pretense that climate change is a hoax and non-existent, and taking every measure consistent with that view. It is imperative for Trump to project his complete confidence that wasting energy is of no consequence and consumers should never be asked to limit their choices in any way.

If it were in Trump's power to bring back leaded gasoline, he would try it.

the necessity of doggedly maintaining the pretense that climate change is a hoax

Conservative acquaintance of mine posted today that we're being 'alarmist' about the fires in Australia, and offered as proof some bullshit from "cfact.org," which five seconds of googling will tell you is climate change denial funded by Koch Industries.

So there is a huge fear that they're being forced into a green new deal by people who might profit from it, but no concern that these blogs promoting 'a free-market approach to environmental issues' are oil company propaganda.

It's like: who should I believe about smoking, RJ Reynolds Corp. or the American Medical Association? Well, the AMA is probably just trying to sell me Nicorette gum, so I'll just stick to my two pack a day habit, thanks.

It's like: who should I believe about smoking, RJ Reynolds Corp. or the American Medical Association?

i'm a slow motion skipping record in this thread, but there is a really strong connection between the disinformation campaigns waged by tobacco and energy industries - similar tactics, and many of the very same people doing it. that was true at the very beginning, and even to this day: https://www.desmog.co.uk/2019/02/19/how-tobacco-and-fossil-fuel-companies-fund-disinformation-campaigns-around-world

on the weekends, some of them also dispute that concussions are an actual problem in american football

sorry to divert to a david berman thing but i always imagine (speculatively) his father to have held some sort of role in all that shit.

[10 seconds of googling later]

yep

Richard B. Berman (born 1942) is an American lawyer, public relations executive, and former lobbyist.[1] Through his public affairs firm, Berman and Company, he runs several industry-funded non-profit organizations such as the Center for Consumer Freedom,[2] the Center for Union Facts, and the Employment Policies Institute.[3] His organizations have run numerous media campaigns concerning obesity, soda taxation, smoking, cruelty to animals, mad cow disease, taxes, the national debt, drinking and driving, as well as the minimum wage. Through the courts and media campaigns, his company challenges regulations from consumer, safety and environmental groups.[4][5][6][7]

maybe that wasn't speculation, maybe that was just me forgetting that i used to knew that. anyway. it's bizarre that people fall for this bullshit, not in one particular info campaign but across so many different topics and generations of fools (and selfish bastards)! and that in the background there's these dipshits running the show in half empty best western conference rooms near every international airport. and yet they've already wildly succeeded! in order for oil companies to keep running iran for another 25 years, the CIA and MI6 had to instigate a coup and install a puppet. in order for oil companies to protect their industry from climate change regulation for 32 years (since 1988/hansen), all they had to do was shave off a cut of their profits to fund a disinformation industry, the discredited "research" and the distribution network (bullshit "journals" and scientific publications, conferences, think tanks, foundations) to give the whole thing a stage flat neighborhood feel convincing enough to pass on conservative television and radio (it helps to work with other actors). and again - examine any of this close up and you just keep running into the dumbest things possible, and yet no one knows what to do about it, and it keeps working

i mean, just imagine working on a hyper-conservative bloodsucking campaign to protect the alcohol's right to advertise to minors. then you name your organization "Center for Union Facts", because it doesn't even matter, does it. then some dude's out there listening to the radio and hears an ad by a serious sounding actor who says that you have to vote no on Prop 14 because it's going to destroy jobs in the biggest industry in the tri-state area, "paid for by the Center for Union Facts". doot doot doot, 2 months later in the voting booth, "hmm prop 14 is bad for jobs, right? a union said that i think", doot doot doot

bbbut the website is called CFact! It's got facts right in the name, don't you SEE?

They're National SOCIALISTS so Commies are Nazis do you see!!?

Bother me tomorrow, today I'll buy no sorrows
Doot, doot, doot, looking out my back door

vote no on prop 14

“I’m a big believer in that word, the environment,” he said. “I’m a big believer, but I want clean air and I want clean water, I also want jobs, though. I don’t want to close up our industry because somebody said, you know, ‘you have to go with wind’ or ‘you have to go with something else.’ It’s not going to be able to have the capacity to do what we have to do.”

greatest. president. EVER!

truly, we did not get the president we needed, we got the president we deserved

all they had to do was shave off a cut of their profits to fund a disinformation industry

bingo! this means they could fund a few hundred relatively talented Moral Monsters (tm) to come to work each day of their lives and figure out how to get millions of people to swallow whatever pack of lies were most useful to their employers, in exchange for a nice suburban home, benefits, good schools for their kids, and a clean, safe work environment.

In a move that will resound across the world of energy investing, BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, this week warned of a “fundamental reshaping of finance” as the impacts of climate change become better understood.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said in an open letter that his company will end support for thermal coal, screen fossil fuel investments more closely, and redesign its own investment approach to put sustainability at its core. As part of the shift, BlackRock will exit investments it decides have a high-sustainability-related risk.

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/blackrock-sends-huge-warning-shot-at-companies-ignoring-climate-risk

how many new 'hottest years' have we had in the last 40? a lot

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/01/2019-was-2nd-hottest-year-record-nasa-and-noaa-say/604939/

Signing on to the Trillion Tree initiative was basically the cost of admission for the global elite at this year’s World Economic Forum (well, that plus tens of thousands of dollars for the badge). In fact, tree planting was the rare issue on which even Jane Goodall and Donald Trump could get on the same page at Davos.

Meanwhile, Axios revealed last week that Congressman Bruce Westerman, an Arkansas Republican, is working on a bill dubbed the Trillion Trees Act that would set a national target for tree planting (although apparently it won’t be—and almost certainly couldn’t be—a literal trillion).

It’s great that trees are having a moment. Nations absolutely should plant and protect as many as possible—to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, provide habitat for animals, and restore fragile ecosystems.

“Trees are an important, very visible, and very socializable answer,” says Roger Aines, who leads Lawrence Livermore National Lab’s Carbon Initiative, a research program on carbon dioxide removal.

But it’s also a limited and unreliable way of addressing climate change. We have a terrible track record on carrying out reforestation efforts to date. We’d have to plant and protect a massive number of trees for decades to offset even a fraction of global emissions. And years of efforts can be nullified by droughts, wildfires, disease, or deforestation elsewhere.

Perhaps the biggest risk is that the appeal of natural-sounding solutions can delude us into thinking we’re taking more meaningful action than we really are. It “invites people to view tree planting as a substitute” for the sweeping changes required to prevent greenhouse-gas emissions from reaching the atmosphere in the first place, says Jane Flegal, a member of the adjunct faculty at Arizona State University’s School for the Future of Innovation in Society.

...

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615102/tree-planting-is-a-great-idea-that-could-become-a-dangerous-climate-distraction/

oops, i was trying to use those ellipses inside the quote to indicate there's more to the article. not to throw shade on it, as its use outside of the quote box signifies

FP’d you for that. appalling

Throwing shade at trees, how could you.

what have trees ever done for me?

Antarctica just hit 65 F, its warmest temperature ever recorded

It's pretty remarkable that, since 1990, when the climate crisis became clear, federal energy R&D -- supposedly the bipartisan policy everyone agrees on -- is DOWN. That says more about US political will than all the far-off targets in the world. https://t.co/bYRaBpkP2q pic.twitter.com/2R1TYKvPtm

— David Roberts (@drvox) February 25, 2020

This was maybe the most staggering thing I learned on my Shell trip. When these companies talk about going carbon neutral, that means selling off their oil wells, probably to gangsters https://t.co/UMVKbWd793 pic.twitter.com/32HlHaTiE3

— Malcolm Harris (@BigMeanInternet) March 3, 2020

mad max: the prequel

D-

https://time.com/5598313/jo-biden-climate-change-report-card/

starting to think that in a weird way, this might be our best (only?) opportunity to get back on a decent track for emissions reductions. i assume there will be a significant emissions dip this year. we're pouring trillions back into the economy, which is another way of saying we're re-building portions of the economy. i don't think there's a good chance in the United States, politically, but at least there is some chance that the priority would be making sure that the part of the economy that is rebuilt is far greener than before.

unless global dimming turns out to be a real issue and lower emissions reduces it and then we’re even more fucked haha oh god i’m gonna lie down

McKibben, New Yorker (March 20)

One of the best chances to make some positive use of the coronavirus pandemic may be passing swiftly. As the economy craters, big corporations are in need of government assistance, and, on Capitol Hill, the sound of half a trillion dollars in relief money is bringing out the lobbyists. On Thursday afternoon, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, described the scene as a “trough” and mentioned a quote from a lobbyist in The Hill: “Everybody’s asking for something and those that aren’t asking for something only aren’t because they don’t know how.” Whitehouse added, “I fear that enviros don’t know how to ask, because, so far in this scrum, we haven’t heard much from them.”

The drop in global GHG emissions in 2020 is utterly unprecedented. (Great chart from @AxiosVisuals.) https://t.co/K02H7SVZXv pic.twitter.com/3U1clZB5FZ

— David Roberts (@drvox) May 2, 2020

Already the rainiest May in Chicago history ... for the third year in a row.

it has been insane in Wisconsin - honestly thought our basement was gonna flood. Half my yard was underwater

do not worry - god has made a covenant with the people to earth to never again destroy them with a great flood

That seems like a peculiarly narrow covenant. I'd like to know who drew up the original papers on that and how they were getting paid.

one of them had complete leverage in the negotiations, i'd guess

Omnipresent Leverage is the name of my new band

97F in arctic siberia tomorrow, and 90+ for rest of week. Thats inland, but even Chersky on the siberian arctic coast, will be 85

Incredible, and frightening: this is the northernmost 100°F reading ever reliably observed. https://t.co/O99EHKURHx

— Bob Henson (@bhensonweather) June 20, 2020

northernmost latitudes are having another incredibly hot summer. globally, it seems likely to be the hottest year ever. i was expecting covid-related declines. i have no idea whether there's a lag, or this is surprising, or what. but i wouldn't discount the still tbd factor of feedback loops, some of which may have recently passed one or more tipping points, enough to counteract recent manufacturing/energy declines (energy use is supposed to be down 6% this year according to IEA)

> i was expecting covid-related declines

there may be a decline in ghg emissions this year but that means nothing in the short or long terms, the added CO2 from the last 2 centuries remains in the atmosphere and ocean

maybe less was added this year than expected but that's probably be more emissions than in 2000 or whatever
the hole is still being dug, more slowly than last year but still faster than any year in the 20th century

yea to the extent I really get anything about this a drop in emissions now isn't really gonna effect much in the short term, but it might make a dent in the longer term

being only down 6% is pretty depressing though imo

i think greta thunberg said that this year we're all the way down to levels last seen in...... 2006

the thing that makes me a tiny bit optimistic is that we've at least been forced into a blueprint of what massive societal change + some form of decarbonization looks like. we've still got a really long way to go obviously but if we can at least make working from home a normalized and standard thing, I mean, it's something, I'll take any fucking good news whatsoever at this point

for sure

If there was to be a marginal climate effect from Covid-19, it would have been to very slightly warm the planet, due to the reduction of sulfate aerosols while China was shut down, and high altitude contrails with the reduction in air travel. Both affect albedo on short timescales, while the CO2 will be with us for thousands of years.

Korean researchers create heavy-metal and rare-earth-element-free solar panels

They don't say the efficiency numbers in the summary, but supposedly they are comparable to current solar panels.

forgot a dash. The researchers aren't heshers.

Meanwhile, in the Arctic:

https://i.imgur.com/e9X9u4h.png

I just realized the Arctic heat wave has been going on for a month since it hit 100° F in Siberia.

Last night I was watching Frozen Planet (cause it makes me feel cool) but had to skip through the bits with baby polar bears, with Attenborough explaining how hard it is for the mama bear to find food even in a normal Arctic summer. Sorry just trying to brighten your day!

Which GOP asshole was it that brought a snowball to congress to prove global warming was not a thing? Was that Inhofe from OK? I'm sure the fact that there are sub freezing temperatures in TX and the entire state is under a winter storm watch will only reaffirm that everything is just fine.

It was Inhofe that disproved climate change with a snowball, yes