A question about climate change/global warming.

Australia's Bureau of Meterology has reported the highest minimum September temperatures on record, at 2.49 degrees above the 1961-90 average. The second-hottest recorded since 1910 at 2.63 degrees above the average max temp, beaten only by 2013's 3.43 degree blip.

It’s all fine nothing to see here the free market has fixed climate change.

wait, maybe:

China reportedly orders halt to imports of Australian coal

Industry news sources report that Beijing has told several state-owned steelmakers and power plants to stop imports with immediate effect

The move comes amid ongoing tensions in the relationship between China and Australia and reportedly affects both thermal and coking coal.

75 ways Trump made America dirtier and the planet warmer, listicle in the Graun

"his administration...has spent nearly four years systematically dismantling core environmental protections, some of which stretch back decades."

The Australian government: climate change isn't real. you're not on fire. farms don't need water. I'm not coming back from Hawaii. shut the fuck up.

Also The Australian Government: rushes legislation through Parliament to enforce martial law in reaction to climate disasters

I’ve been worried about this ever since I first heard about methane hydrates but this feels like the end game now. This is one of the stronger feedback loops.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/oct/27/sleeping-giant-arctic-methane-deposits-starting-to-release-scientists-find

In other news the fat blonde prick in charge of the UK schooled the fat blonde prick in charge of Australia on climate change.

Keep hoping that the titles of the two climate threads are changed to reflect that this is the one about mostly Australian climate politics. But since the Siberian seas have been mentioned, this is an extraordinary year for both sea ice extent and temperature anomalies.

https://i.redd.it/6wrioa41ftu51.jpghttp://www.karstenhaustein.com/reanalysis/gfs0p5/ANOM2m_arctic/ANOM2m_f00_arctic.png

http://www.karstenhaustein.com/reanalysis/gfs0p5/ANOM2m_arctic/ANOM2m_f00_arctic.png

Third try:
https://i.imgur.com/wZtwvZi.jpg

I can see them!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpGDM7T7sMA

The Trump administration recently appointed a climate-skeptic non-scientist to head the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), the nation’s premier scientific agency.

Craig McLean, the agency’s acting chief scientist... had sent some of the new political appointees a message that asked them to acknowledge the agency’s scientific integrity policy, which prohibits manipulating research or presenting ideologically driven findings.

The request prompted a sharp response from Dr. Noble. “Respectfully, by what authority are you sending this to me?” he wrote, according to a person who received a copy of the exchange after it was circulated within NOAA.

Mr. McLean answered that his role as acting chief scientist made him responsible for ensuring that the agency’s rules on scientific integrity were followed.

The following morning, Dr. Noble responded. “You no longer serve as the acting chief scientist for NOAA,” he informed Mr. McLean, adding that a new chief scientist had already been appointed. “Thank you for your service.”

Replacing Mr. McLean, who remains at the agency, was Ryan Maue, a former researcher for the libertarian Cato Institute who has criticized climate scientists for what he has called unnecessarily dire predictions.

Dr. Maue, a research meteorologist, and Dr. Noble were joined at NOAA by David Legates, a professor at the University of Delaware’s geography department who has questioned human-caused global warming. Dr. Legates was appointed to the position of deputy assistant secretary, a role that did not previously exist.

Neil Jacobs, the NOAA administrator, was not involved in the hirings, according to two people familiar with the selection process.

what... the everloving fuck

Forgot the link, sorry: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/27/climate/trump-election-climate-noaa.html

(Dr Noble was previously a White House policy adviser).

Fantastic. Great move. Well done Angus.

oh wait that's just the regular slanderous fraud by the energy minister, still being ignored by the cops. Meanwhile, an open letter to the PM sees 700 out of 700 medical specialists declaring that Angus is harming the health of the country and the planet.

The last time my name was printed in The Australian it was in the context of them trying to get me sacked. Great to see it again, alongside many people I am proud to call colleagues and friends. The #ClimateCrisis is a health crisis pic.twitter.com/fiknHM3w4q

— Amy C🍩🍩pes (@coopesdetat) November 1, 2020

While we're here, let's see the results of the Royal Commission into last season's bushfires.

A 600 page document, offering 78 recommendations in total.

Importantly, it clarifies that the climate *risk* involves 3 factors: climate variability, global socioeconomic development & resulting emissions + aerosols, & regional climate responses to these. Over the next 20 yrs, our climate path is essentially locked in regardless of mitigation actions.

The Commission says it heard evidence the climate is 'virtually certain' to get warmer, with ongoing drying of the southeast likely, and other threats including ongoing sea level rise & increased extreme weather events like flash floods.

The report cites figures from insurance companies estimating disasters already cost Australia $18.2bn per year, on average in the decade 2007-17.

"Sea levels are also projected to continue to rise. Tropical cyclones are projected to decrease in number, but increase in intensity. Floods and bushfires are expected to become more frequent and more intense."

"Over 3,000 homes were destroyed. Estimates of the national financial impacts are over $10 billion. Nearly three billion animals were killed or displaced and many threatened species and other ecological communities were extensively harmed."

the Commission says there is concern around air quality mitigation guidance (eg masks, purifiers) and levels of evidence. There needs to be a priority to standardise national messaging, Smoke Plans, etc around these issues before the next air quality crisis. Guess it's lucky that hardly anyone in Australia is wearing masks to prevent COVID transmission, so that doesn't have to be factored in!

The impact is not limited to fires, noting people affected by 2011 Brisbane floods were 5.3x more likely to experience worse overall health, and 2.3x more likely worse respiratory health vs the general population. Also noting that many already-vulnerable groups live in exposed areas.

Etc!

Anyway, the ostensibly left-wing opposition party has already signed off on the government's plan to achieve COVID recovery by increasing fossil fuel extraction, so that's probably going to make all these recommendations out of date by the next fire disaster. Might as well not bother reading them, eh?

Good luck Australia. At least you all have the most luxurious skin care brand in the world going for you.

And that's just the bushfire cost

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/02/lack-of-climate-action-over-50-years-will-cost-the-economy-34tn-and-880000-jobs-report

Climate denier and new NOAA chief scientist Ryan Maue purged his Twitter account of tweets insulting climate scientists, journalists, and activists. Emily Atkin saved them: NOAA's new top scientist deletes evidence of his climate views

He'll be fired soon enough

Thread: world leaders congratulations to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris which mention climate change. Australia conspicuously absent.

When world leaders mentioned "climate" alongside their congratulations to @JoeBiden and @KamalaHarris on winning #Election2020...

Thread 🧵

— Akshat Rathi (@AkshatRathi) November 7, 2020

not really:

Prime Minister of Australia https://t.co/4GG8BBlXWd

— Akshat Rathi (@AkshatRathi) November 7, 2020

Nah, he's in there, but with language that says "we cannot do anything now, more money must be funnelled to big business to let them devise a solution"

xp

Headline: two new species of adorable aeronautic mammal discovered in Australia!

https://i.imgur.com/Efj4MPg.jpg

Paragraphs 11 through 17: climate change has already reduced numbers by 80%, and sent several populations extinct.

"For the southern species, anything over 20 degrees Celsius at night means it has to use its energy to actively cool itself and high temperatures also put them off their food and stop them eating."

WaPo: The Trump administration is asking oil and gas firms to pick spots where they want to drill in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as it races to open the pristine wilderness to development and lock in drilling rights before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.

Also, the Trump admin is fast tracking the Oak Flat Land Exchange in Arizona in order to deliver the land, including all sacred cultural sites of the Apache, to mining giant Rio Tinto before the new admin takes office. (This provision was added to the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act as a midnight rider by American hero John McCain in 2015.) The Arizona Central examines Rio Tinto's promises to protect sacred sites based on past fulfilment of such promises: https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/2020/11/16/rio-tinto-copper-mine-not-protect-oak-flat-look-australia/6245846002/

Rio Tinto, destroying indigenous property since 1873.

JUst spent a lot of the weekend in From The Ground uP webinars I think a lot of which were recorded and are now up on youtube,
Had some interesting stuff in over the days i caught.

Still, at least the Trump admin will be gone soon, and Biden has appointed a true fighter for the environment to be the White House liaison between business and "climate change activists".

During his 10 years in Congress, Rep. Cedric Richmond has received roughly $341,000 from donors in the oil and gas industry — the 5th highest total among House Democrats. That includes corporate political action committee donations of $50,000 from Entergy, an electric and natural gas utility; $40,000 from ExxonMobil; and $10,000 apiece from oil companies Chevron, Phillips 66 and Valero Energy.

Richmond has raked in that money while representing a congressional district that is home to 7 of the 10 most air-polluted census tracts in the country.

Richmond has repeatedly broken with his party on major climate and environmental votes. During the climate crisis that has battered his home state of Louisiana, Richmond has joined with Republicans to vote to increase fossil fuel exports and promote pipeline development. He also voted against Democratic legislation to place pollution limits on fracking — and he voted for GOP legislation to limit the Obama administration’s authority to more stringently regulate the practice.

Studies in the last decade have suggested that global warming is exacerbating the effects of El Niño and La Niña events.

Today the Bureau of Meterology announced Australia is facing three-times the normal threat level of deadly rain and cyclones to end 2020.

― erratic wolf angular guitarist (sic), Wednesday, August 19, 2020 7:21 AM (three months ago)

welp

Byron Bay Beach is almost gone, as Parts of QLD and NSW continue to be battered by wild weather, with warnings of king tides, damaging winds and heavy rainfall. Authorities are warning people to stay home as the worst is yet to come. pic.twitter.com/w4Jk3hOGbl

— The Project (@theprojecttv) December 14, 2020

https://i.imgur.com/LKKQ4st.png

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/15/china-scaling-up-weather-modification-programme-we-should-be-worried

It's a slim nothing of a piece but why is it that this geoenginnering programme is attacked when it's China carrying out the project?

China having the capacity to do it is not so much the problem as is the question of whether the decision whether to use that capacity will be a joint decision of the world or a unilateral decision of the Chinese government. Making massive investments in a technology usually leads to using it. See also: every weapons program ever.

That's not part of the worry of the writer which seems to be worrying about it because it's China. Its not that far removed from anti-China conspiracy that we've seen this year, even if the tone is libersl-style cincern.

And it's not like it has to be a joint decision. Countries pursue their own weapons programs all the time no matter how dangerous that might be.

*liberal-style concern

Countries pursue their own weapons programs all the time no matter how dangerous that might be.

And I'm sure you can't see how any problems can come of that.

whenever I read about weather manipulation, geo-engineering, etc. by any state or body the only thing I think is "come the glorious kaczynskian revolution, death to technophiles"

It's a very Silicon Valley solution, at first. but that isn't even the tone The Guardian is taking, and I wonder what the difference would be in coverage with the couple of geo-enginnering projects I've read about that are based in the West.

And I'm sure you can't see how any problems can come of that.

― Respectfully Yours, (Aimless), Tuesday, 15 December 2020 bookmarkflaglink

There are problems with doing nothing. It's pretty clear the Paris accord isn't enough and that kind of long drawn out negotiation can't be the only way either. Whether you and I have a problem isn't the issue. China is doing it and the West can't do much about it, they won't throw sanctions like they could if Iran was doing it instead.

AFAICT from the article, China isn't stratospheric albedo engineering. They're experimenting with the same cloud seeding they used to help clean up the air, and prevent event delays, for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. This perhaps also has some application in reducing tropospheric particulate pollution,

Stratospheric albedo engineering is a much harder problem. Only in the Arctic/Antarctic is the tropopause at a low enough elevation for commercial jets to deposit sulfates, and while that may help with sea-ice loss/Arctic amplification, the places that will want geoengineering later this century are the nations at tropical latitudes, as they'll be starving. I'm sure places like India and Brazil are looking at papaers like this one for their gameplan.

Called it 😎 https://t.co/e1kSLeTahE

— Ketan Joshi (@KetanJ0) December 15, 2020

DID YOU KNOW a girl from the sunrise movement in philly was a contestant on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy? This is what she had to say about driving: https://t.co/faA5cPOst7 pic.twitter.com/kH1zqeQ40k

— N I C 🌨 L E (@nicoleamurray) December 16, 2020

She's right? If that's supposed to be a gotcha, it's pretty weak bullshit

I don't think that was supposed to be a gotcha, it think it's just a boost for a smart way to talk about climate change - putting the focus on the largest companies who generate GHGs, rather than the individual actions of billions of people, all in different socioeconomic circumstances.

Karl, the rest of the thread makes it clearly a gotcha

haha, that's sad, on my part. I actually did read more of that thread, and even retweeted the little cartoon she did a few posts later. i guess what's confusing me is that the way the sunrise movement person who happened to be on queer eye talked about climate change strikes me as a reasonable way to talk to some people about climate. you use different messages for different people. also, the environmental movements have spent 60+ years trying to get people to think about personal consumption choices. i am all for that, and i am all for personal responsibility and try to practice it myself to the degree that i can. but regardless, doing that alone has been a failure. so i actually think it's smart to focus on the producers of GHG, even though obviously we all as consumers we have a role to play as well.

honestly, though, i am having a lot of trouble these days understanding what people are actually saying or what they mean. especially when sarcasm is involved. when i point a finger at other people there are three pointing right back at me, i mean, i spend 90% of my ilx time playing a character that isn't me (there is no me), and i have willingly confused people here literally hundreds of times in the pursuit of making myself laugh, which is fucking crazy. so yeah, 3 fingers back at me. but still, the pointer finger pointing, outwards, at the world

also, this show is sponsored by a car company, w/c is trying to sell cars, a transportation system which is unsustainable. "driving is fine, actually," is a really good slogan for the fossil fuel industry which would love to sell you more gas.

— N I C 🌨 L E (@nicoleamurray) December 17, 2020

also, not a criticism of big don or good ol' @nicole for posting that, but pulling up an old episode of queer eye which includes a person that's affiliated with an environmental org doesn't really...mean anything? who is that girl? is she the leader of the philly chapter? or is she assistant vice-treasurer? are activists expected to be greta thunberg in all contexts and always get the messaging perfect for nicole?

eh, it's a good conversation to have (one i've had a million times), but i can't get worked up over a rando activist not speaking perfectly on a tv show that isn't about the environment. if the goal is to capture a moment of hypocrisy in the environmental movement (she's on a show that is sponsored by a car company, telling people it's ok to drive!) then great, i have a new idea for a massively popular social media account where i will capture moments of hypocrisy in the environmental movement. each day will start out with an examination of how i myself am hypocritical. then i will get up and walk into my kitchen and capture the hypocrisy in my purchasing decisions. then i'll get on ilx and say something that wasn't perfect, and i'll call that out. then i'll walk outside and capture all the hypocrisy, everywhere, all around us, on every single hectare in the country. even the squirrels in the deepest woods will be interrogated, and they are far from innocent

i just hope there aren't any other environmental activists who haven't said the right thing according to everyone else