How The Fracking Revolution Is Killing the U.S. Oil and Gas Industry (excerpt): DeSmog

"Competition from Renewables

At the same time, cheap renewable energy is out-competing gas.

A new report released in December by industry analysts Wood MacKenzie predicts that “More than 75% of new liquefied natural gas global supply could be at risk due to competition from renewable energy.”

In December, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicted that the share of electricity in the U.S. produced by natural gas would decline “in response to a forecast increase in the price of natural gas delivered to electricity generators.” The EIA predicts that the percentage of U.S. power generated from natural gas could fall from 39 percent in 2020 to 34 percent in 2021 due to a rise in prices. And the EIA predicts renewable energy, and a return to coal in some locations, will replace that market share.

This highlights a fundamental problem facing the gas industry. Current prices are too low for the industry to make money. But when prices rise to levels where the industry could make money, the gas is no longer economically competitive because renewable energy is cheaper right now.

As gas prices rise and renewable energy prices continue to fall, the U.S. gas industry is in a no-win situation.

Solar is now ‘cheapest electricity in history’, confirms IEA https://t.co/mdhhqjsbgG

— Christian Breyer (@ChristianOnRE) December 13, 2020

A recent analysis by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), for instance, found that shale gas producers in the Appalachian region of the U.S. lost another $500 million in the third quarter of 2020.

The U.S. gas industry also is suffering due to the warmer winters the U.S. is experiencing — warmer weather due in part to the burning of fossil fuels and the methane released by the natural gas industry. Warmer weather depresses gas prices because there is less heating demand.

IEEFA, which has been tracking the industry’s decline, recently summed up the reality of what the “shale revolution” has done: “The shale revolution has turned the U.S. into the world’s most prolific gas producer. Yet in financial terms, the gas production boom has been an unmitigated financial bust.”

It’s Not Easy to Pay Off Debt

Despite all of this, to this day, the U.S. oil and gas industry is still producing large amounts of oil and gas by fracking — and it continues to lose money doing it. The companies that are doing this have taken on large amounts of debt to make this happen."

By Justin Mikulka • Tuesday, December 22, 2020 - 07:26 

 From: How The Fracking Revolution Is Killing the U.S. Oil and Gas Industry (excerpt): DeSmog

Related:  Big batteries are getting bigger and smarter, and doing things fossil fuels can’t do (excerpt): RenewEconomy

Sea-level rise from climate change could exceed the high-end projections, scientists warn (excerpt): CBS News

Since the end of the last Ice Age 20,000 years ago,

  sea levels have risen dramatically,

sometimes at a very fast pace. John Englander

 "Historically speaking, simple math reveals that for every degree Fahrenheit the Earth warms, sea-level eventually rises by an astonishing 24 feet. There is, however, a sizable lag time between warming, melting and consequent sea-level rise. 

Considering that Earth has already warmed 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 1800s, we know that substantial sea-level rise is already baked in, regardless of whether we stop global warming. Scientists just don't know exactly how long it will take to see the rise or how fast it will occur. But using proxy records, glaciologists can see that as we emerged from the last Ice Age, sea level rose at remarkable rates — as fast as 15 feet per century at times.

That said, the fact that there is a lot less ice on Earth today than there was 20,000 years ago means the amount of sea-level rise per degree would likely be less now, and the maximum pace may be tempered as well. But even a pace that's half the historical maximum would still be catastrophic to an Earth with billions of people who depend on stability. 

We must also remember that warming today, due to human-caused climate change, is happening faster than it has in at least 2,000 years and possibly over 100,000 years. So scientists just don't have a directly comparable situation to measure against — once again highlighting our uncertain future. 

While scientists and scientific periodicals tend to be conservative in their public projections of sea-level rise, scientists will often remark that they are concerned it may be much worse. When CBS News asked Englander what he thinks is a "realistic range" of sea-level rise by 2100, he said, "With the current global temperature level and rate of temperature increase I believe that we could get 5 to 10 feet before the end of this century."

While this is just one expert's opinion, if sea-level rise even comes close to those levels, the impacts would be truly dangerous and destabilizing, dramatically reshaping nations' coastlines and forcing hundreds of millions of people to abandon their homes. Englander says to reduce the potential impacts, it is better to be prepared for a worst-case scenario. 

"We need to begin planning and designing for that while there is time to adapt.""

Go to complete CBS story

By Jeff Berardelli

December 23, 2020 / 8:21 AM / CBS News 

 

Related: Beating Back the Tides (excerpt) : NASA

Is Climate-Related Financial Regulation Coming Under Biden? Wall Street Is Betting on It (excerpt): Inside Climate News

President-elect Joe Biden delivers remarks about the U.S. economy

 during a press briefing at the Queen Theater on Nov. 16, 2020

 in Wilmington, Delaware. Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

 "The president-elect has said he would require publicly traded companies to disclose emissions and financial risks associated with global warming.

The White House may not be preparing to transition to a Biden administration, but Wall Street is.

While President Trump and other Republican leaders continue to dispute the election results, the financial sector is moving ahead with plans to begin the transition to a carbon-free economy and acknowledge a new administration that’s eager to tackle the climate crisis.

Investors are increasingly putting their money into funds geared toward either excluding the fossil fuel industry entirely, or underweighting high-carbon companies in their mix. 

A growing number of major banks and other money managers have committed to net-zero emissions by 2050 and have pledged to disclose

exactly how their finances contribute to climate change, as well as which of their assets are at risk from its impacts. And last week, the U.S. Federal Reserve said for the first time that failing to address climate change would put the nation’s finances at risk and its economy at a global disadvantage.

For years, analysts have been saying that the global economy is shifting away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy, with or without the United States. Clean energy saw an expansion this year despite a global drop in energy demand because of the pandemic, the International Energy Agency said last week, and renewables are likely to expand nearly 50 percent by 2025.

Now, as President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take office in January, global finance leaders are again calling on the United States to provide some kind of federal guidance for companies in regard to climate change, especially as other parts of the world begin taking major regulatory action.

Last week, the United Kingdom announced that within five years, all major companies and financial institutions doing business in the country would be required to measure and disclose their climate risks and greenhouse gas emissions—a move met with wide support from the financial industry."

 Link to complete Inside Climate News story by Kristoffer TigueNovember 20, 2020

 

Related: Big batteries are getting bigger and smarter, and doing things fossil fuels can’t do (excerpt): RenewEconomy

 

 

 

 

Green growth vs degrowth: are we missing the point? (excerpt): Open Democracy

Gerd Altmann from Pixabay. Public domain.

"It’s time to stop talking past each other and unite against the real enemies of environmental justice.

By Beth Stratford. Originally published at openDemocracy

4 December 2020 

The row about ecological limits to growth is back with a vengeance. On one side are those who are deeply sceptical about the idea of ‘infinite growth on a finite planet’. They argue that to be sure of offering a good life for all within planetary boundaries, we need to kick our addiction to consumption growth (in wealthy countries at least). These ‘green growth sceptics’ include those advocating for ‘degrowth’, ‘prosperity without growth’, ‘steady state economics’, ‘doughnut economics’ and ‘wellbeing economics’.

In the opposite corner are ‘green growth’ advocates who believe that the historical relationship between GDP and environmental impact can be not just weakened but effectively severed. For green growthers, the key to maintaining a habitable planet is decoupling — reducing the environmental impact associated with each pound or dollar of GDP. By deploying new technologies, and shifting the nature of our consumption, they argue we can do our bit for the environment while continuing to grow our economies, even in wealthy countries.

Green growth sceptics do not dispute the need for decoupling, but observe that the faster we grow the faster we have to decouple. Even a modest goal like 2% growth per year implies doubling the scale of consumption every 35 years. Unfortunately, we have never approached the rates of decoupling that would be necessary for rich countries to get back within their fair share of ecological space while maintaining that kind of exponential growth.

Green growth advocates tend to respond that the historical record shouldn’t be taken as a guide to what is possible in future. Pessimism about future technological breakthroughs will be self-fulfilling, they say.

For some this is a compelling and entertaining debate. But it is not going to be settled in a timeframe that is useful for maintaining a habitable planet. In the meantime, these adversaries are in danger of delivering a major own goal. Because the more time we spend in nerdy (and sometimes venomous) exchanges about decoupling, the less time we have to build the broad-based movement we need to take on the vested interests who benefit from the status quo."

See complete article in openDemocracy

 Related: Photo & Video: Climate Justice Activists Conclude 24-Hour Occupation at Dnc, Demand President-Elect Biden Be Brave (excerpt): Common Dreams

 

degrowth, #economy, growth economy, green growth, 

 

Beating Back the Tides (excerpt) : NASA

High-tide floodwaters in downtown Annapolis on April 4, 2017. Credit: City of Annapolis

 "It was a sight you don’t normally see: a jellyfish lying dead in the middle of a parking lot partly submerged in water. But this was no ordinary parking lot. This particular section of asphalt in downtown Annapolis, Maryland, is among a growing number of areas prone to frequent flooding in the seaside town. The jellyfish had slipped in from the Chesapeake Bay through an opening in the seawall.

“You can literally kayak from the bay right into this parking lot,” said NOAA oceanographer William Sweet on the September day that we visited. The tide was relatively low that day.

On days with the highest tides of the year, whole parking lots and streets in Annapolis are underwater, causing delays and traffic congestion. Compromise Street, a major road into town, is often forced to shut down, slowing response times for firefighters and other first responders. Local businesses have lost as much as $172,000 a year, or 1.4% of their annual revenue, due to high-tide floods, according to a study published in 2019 in the journal Science Advances.

High-tide floods, also known as nuisance floods, sunny-day floods, and recurrent tidal floods, occur “when tides reach anywhere from 1.75 to 2 feet above the daily average high tide and start spilling onto streets or bubbling up from storm drains,” according to an annual report on the subject by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA.) These floods are usually not related to storms; they typically occur during high tides, and they impact people’s lives. Because of rising seas driven by climate change, the frequency of this kind of flood has dramatically increased in recent years.".... By Jenny Marder,
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Go to complete NASA article

Big batteries are getting bigger and smarter, and doing things fossil fuels can’t do (excerpt): RenewEconomy

 "South Australia and Victoria seem to be engaged in a competition for bragging rights over who has the biggest big battery in the country.

Right now it is South Australia, with the newly expanded Hornsdale Power Reserve (150MW/194MWh), but the mantle late next year will go to Victoria, where Hornsdale owner Neoen has committed to building a 300MW/450MWh big battery at Geelong, before the crown possibly returns to South Australia with AGL’s proposed “gigawatt hour” battery next to the Torrens Island gas generator.

What we can be sure of is that big batteries will get even bigger. AGL has talked of a 500MW battery at Liddell with as yet unspecified hours of storage, Neoen is talking of a 900MW/1800MWh big battery at the massive Goyder South wind and solar hybrid plant in South Australia, while Sun Cable may trump them all with a 20 gigawatt hour battery in the Northern Territory if its bold plan to supply Singapore with the world’s biggest solar farm becomes a reality.

Big might be beautiful, and able to steal the headlines, but the real significance of the most recent announcements – Neoen’s in Victoria and AGL’s in South Australia, as well as this week’s new AGL big battery proposal for the Loy Yang A brown coal generator in Victoria – is not just their size, but what they are able to do."

Read complete RenewEconomy article 

Related:   NO FUTURE IN GAS - video

Climate Deniers Are Claiming EVs Are Bad for the Environment — Again. Here’s Why They’re Wrong. (excerpt): DeSmog

Charging electric vehicle

 "A new paper published Tuesday, November 17, by the conservative think tank the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), raises environmental concerns with electric vehicles in what appears to be the latest attempt by organizations associated with fossil fuel funding to pump the brakes on the transportation sector’s transition away from petroleum and towards cleaner electricity.

In the U.S., the transportation sector is the largest contributor to planet-warming emissions. Climate and energy policy experts say electrifying vehicles is necessary to mitigate these emissions.

In fact, scientists recently warned that if the country has any hope of reaching the Paris climate targets of limiting warming to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), 90 percent of all light-duty cars on the road must be electric by 2050.

But the Competitive Enterprise Institute — a longtime disseminator of disinformation on climate science and supported by petroleum funding sources including the oil giant ExxonMobil and petrochemical billionaire Koch foundations — dismisses this imperative and instead tries to portray electrified transport as environmentally problematic in a paper titled, “Would More Electric Vehicles Be Good for the Environment?”

“This is a grab bag of old and misleading claims about EVs [electric

vehicles],” said David Reichmuth, a senior engineer in the clean transportation program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “If you want to answer this question [posed by the report’s title], you have to also look at the question of what are the impacts of the current gasoline and diesel transport system, and this report just ignores that.”.."

See complete DeSmog article
By Dana Drugmand • Tuesday, November 17

Related:   Trump gutted environmental protections. How quickly can Biden restore them? (excerpt): GRIST

Photo & Video: Climate Justice Activists Conclude 24-Hour Occupation at Dnc, Demand President-Elect Biden Be Brave (excerpt): Common Dreams

"WASHINGTON - A coalition of grassroots groups, Black, Indigenous, and Brown leaders from across the nation occupied the Democratic National Committee Headquarters in Washington for 24 hours to demand that President-Elect Biden and his administration follow through on a bold agenda to address the climate crisis. They were joined at an afternoon rally by members of Congress who are leading the effort in the House and Senate to hold the incoming administration to its promises. 

The occupation was led by youth, movement leaders, frontline activists, and artists collectively representing a range of identities and communities confronting the interlocking crises in front of us. For 24 hours, the group marched, created art, and called on Biden to live up to his mandate to invest in Black, Indigenous, Brown, and working-class communities. 

Photos and videos from the event, including speeches from frontline leaders and progressive allies in Congress, are available at: https://media.greenpeace.org/collection/27MDHUS546A 

As Jennifer K. Falcon of the Indigenous Environmental Network put it: “We are beyond the tipping point with climate chaos. We must act quickly to mitigate the climate chaos we are experiencing for the sky, land and water. The people demand President-elect Biden move to a just transition centered in Indigenous knowledge so that Mother Earth can heal. We can't afford to continue to fight climate change with false solutions and carbon mechanisms that allow big polluters to pollute. It's time to divest from fossil fuels and invest in a regenerative economy that allows us to thrive.” ..."

See complete Common Dreams article

Related:  Trump gutted environmental protections. How quickly can Biden restore them? (excerpt): GRIST

Trump gutted environmental protections. How quickly can Biden restore them? (excerpt): GRIST

President Donald Trump hands coal miners the pen he used to sign a bill eliminating

 regulations on the mining industry in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, 

D.C. Nicholas Kamm / AFP / Getty Images

Just a month before he won the U.S. presidential election in 2016, Donald Trump vowed to spend his time in office systematically slashing government rules. “I would say 70 percent of regulations can go,” Trump told a crowd of town hall attendees in New Hampshire. “It’s just stopping businesses from growing.”

Now, four years later, it looks like Trump did his best to keep those promises. Over the course of his term, Trump has erased or watered-down dozens upon dozens of regulations designed to keep pollutants out of the water, air, and soil. He has allowed oil and gas companies to leak planet-warming methane into the air. He has told power plants that they can keep emitting dangerous levels of carbon dioxide. If all those rules stand, according to one analysis, they will be responsible for 1.8 billion metric tons of additional greenhouse gas emissions by 2035.

With President-elect Joe Biden preparing to move into the White

House in January, this anti-environment era is about to come to an end. Biden has promised to re-enter the Paris Agreement, prioritize climate change across the federal government, and push for sweeping clean-energy legislation. But putting the most ambitious plans in place will prove especially difficult if Republicans keep control of the Senate. (Democrats will have one more chance to recapture the chamber in two Georgia runoffs, though they’re facing tough odds.)

 See complete Grist article 

 

Related:  Politicians Try to Rally Support for Coal Despite Economics and Biden Presidential Win (excerpt): DeSmog

 

#climatecriminals, Trump, #fossilfuelcompanies, fossil fuel industry, Biden,

 

 

NO FUTURE IN GAS - video

"Renewables provide the cheapest source of energy and are creating the energy jobs of the present AND the future.

Yet, our State (Victorian) Government has given the go ahead to open up polluting gas fields and a mega gas import terminal that will have little to no impact on our gas bills but a huge impact on our climate. To cut power prices, we need to invest in renewables and help get Brunswick and Victoria off gas. Download our fact sheet here. 

Didn't know there was a problem with gas? Watch this video." 

Dr Tim Read - Greens MP

Climate Ad Project

Stopping climate and ecological breakdown is a task of cosmic importance, and there is a place for each and every one of us in the movement. #IAmAClimateActivist

 

 

Related: Faith Institutions Announce Largest-Ever Joint Divestment From Fossil Fuels (excerpt): 350

Faith Institutions Announce Largest-Ever Joint Divestment From Fossil Fuels (excerpt): 350

"Commitments highlight need for governments to increase ambition
on climate action.

WASHINGTON - Today, 47 faith institutions announce their divestment from fossil fuels, making the largest-ever joint announcement of divestment among religious leaders. These include Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish institutions from 21 countries.

Participating institutions include the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union, American Jewish World Service, and Anglican and Methodist churches across the United Kingdom. The full list of participating institutions is here.

The announcement coincides with the fifth anniversary of the Paris agreement on climate change. Faith leaders’ action puts pressure on government leaders, and their commitment to clean energy stands in stark contrast with many governments’ failure to deliver ambitious energy strategies. "

Go to complete 350.0rg article

Related: Politicians Try to Rally Support for Coal Despite Economics and Biden Presidential Win (excerpt): DeSmog

 

 

 

divestment, 350, fossil fuel industry, Paris Agreement, faith institutions, jail climate criminals

Politicians Try to Rally Support for Coal Despite Economics and Biden Presidential Win (excerpt): DeSmog

Sen. Mitt Romney

"The election results are a stark reminder of just how divided the country remains on many issues. However, in the days since the results were announced November 7, two senators from both parties are finding common ground in a familiar space: opposition to the Green New Deal and support for a dying coal industry.

Both Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) immediately took to CNN and Fox News in the days after the election was called to try and rally support for the fossil fuel industry in the wake of Joe Biden's election as president — a success which brings with it the promise of strong climate action.

But their comments also come on the heels of yet another coal plant closure in the U.S. and as the world's largest coal producer, Peabody Energy, warns of going bankrupt for the second time in five years.

Romney told CNN on November 8 that “I want to make sure that we conservatives keep on fighting to make sure we don't have a Green New Deal, we don't get rid of gas and coal.”

 

Pic from this blog

Meanwhile, Manchin went on Fox News on November 9 to alsocriticize the Green New Deal, saying, “That’s not who we are as a Democratic Party.” 

“We’re going to use fossil in its cleanest fashion,” he added. Manchin's unwavering support for the coal industry is well documented and unsurprising as he ran a coal company prior to being elected to the Senate.

Manchin in his comments also echoed Romney’s call to not get rid of gas and coal, telling Fox News, “You have to have energy independence in this country. You can’t eliminate certain things.”

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) says who he voted for is “in the rearview mirror.”

Now “I want to make sure that we conservatives keep on fighting to make sure we don't have a Green New Deal, we don't get rid of gas and coal and oil, that we don't have a Medicare For All plan …” pic.twitter.com/6DmUivyzs3

— The Recount (@therecount) November 8, 2020"

 

Read complete Politicians Try to Rally Support for Coal Despite Economics and Biden Presidential Win

in DeSmog by Justin Mikulka • Thursday, November 12, 2020. Read time: 10 mins

 

Related:  What is the Climate 21 Project?

 

 

What is the Climate 21 Project?

 

• Menu

The Climate 21 Project taps the expertise of more than 150 experts with high-level government experience, including nine former cabinet appointees, to deliver actionable advice for a rapid-start, whole-of-government climate response coordinated by the White House and accountable to the President.

The memos below contain the Climate 21 Project’s recommendations for 11 White House offices, federal departments, and federal agencies, as well as cross-cutting recommendations on personnel and hiring.

Importantly, the Climate 21 Project is not offering a policy agenda. Rather, the memos below contain

 recommendations that can help the President hit the ground running

 and build the capacity of his administration to tackle the climate crisis quickly with the existing tools at hand.

The recommendations are focused in scope on areas where the contributors have the most expertise. An all-of-government mobilization on climate change will require important work by additional federal departments and agencies that were not examined by the Climate 21 Project.

Go to https://climate21.org/

"A team of former Obama administration officials and experts have created a 300-page blueprint laying out a holistic approach to the climate while avoiding some of the pitfalls that hampered President Barack Obama, who shared some of the same goals but was unable to enact all of them. Dubbed the Climate 21 Project, it took a year and a half to develop and was delivered recently to Biden’s transition team. The document outlines how the incoming administration could restructure aspects of the government to move faster on global warming." Washington Post

Related: The 40 Things Biden Should Do First on Climate Change (excerpt): Bloomberg Green

The 40 Things Biden Should Do First on Climate Change (excerpt): Bloomberg Green

 

Randolph Bell, Director for Global Energy Security, Atlantic Council

Take care of fugitive methane emissions.

“Failing to fully address methane leakage is increasingly a risk for the climate and for the U.S. economy. Methane makes up at least 10 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions—recent analysis suggests far more—and is at least 25% more potent at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. With natural gas projected to play an important role in the global energy system even under aggressive decarbonization scenarios by providing low-carbon power in the developing world and feedstock for hydrogen production (with carbon capture and storage), addressing methane is crucial for meeting climate goals.”

“The U.S.’s methane problem has the attention of major oil & gas producers, who decried the Trump Administration’s August reversal of an Obama-era rule on methane. Engie’s decision last month, under pressure from the French government, to delay its $7 billion deal with U.S. LNG company NextDecade because of U.S. methane emissions underscores the risks to the U.S. economy.”

“President-elect Biden can immediately direct the EPA to initiate a new rulemaking process to ensure that industry monitors and addresses leaks in new equipment, as Obama’s rule did. Biden can also be more ambitious and address leaks in older equipment, an effort that was not completed under Obama.” —As told to Akshat Rathi

 

Go to complete Bloomberg Green story 

 

Related: Preparing for climate refugees

A record hurricane season (excerpt): New York Times

 

Satellite image of the Atlantic on November 10th, 2020. Image: NOAA "Subtropical Storm Theta, which formed in the open waters of the Atlantic this week, became the 29th named storm of this year’s hurricane season, surpassing the total count from 2005. Scientists can’t say for sure whether global warming is causing more hurricanes, but they are confident that it’s changing the way storms behave. Here’s how.

Higher winds. There’s a solid scientific consensus that hurricanes are becoming more powerful. Hurricanes are complex, but one of the key factors that determines how strong a given storm ultimately becomes is ocean surface temperature, because warmer water provides more of the energy that fuels storms.

More rain. Warming also increases the amount of water vapor that the atmosphere can hold. In fact, every degree Celsius of warming allows the air to hold about 7 percent more water. That means we can expect future storms to unleash larger amounts of rainfall.

Slower storms. Researchers do not yet know why storms are moving more slowly, but they are. Slower, wetter storms worsen flooding.

Wider-ranging storms. Because warmer water helps fuel hurricanes, climate change is enlarging the zone where hurricanes can form. That could mean more storms making landfall in higher latitudes, like in the United States or Japan.

More volatility. As the climate warms, researchers also say they expect storms to intensify more rapidly. Researchers are still unsure why it’s happening, but the trend appears to be clear."

Go to New York Times

Related: Polling Shows Growing Climate Concern Among Americans. But Outsized Influence of Deniers Remains a Roadblock (excerpt): DeSmog

Climate Change: How Do We Know? (excerpt): NASA

 

"This graph, based on the comparison of atmospheric samples contained in ice cores and more recent direct measurements, provides evidence that atmospheric CO₂ has increased since the Industrial Revolution. (Credit: Luthi, D., et al.. 2008; Etheridge, D.M., et al. 2010; Vostok ice core data/J.R. Petit et al.; NOAA Mauna Loa CO₂ record.) Find out more about ice cores (external site)."

"Earth's climate has changed throughout history. Just in the last 650,000 years there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat, with the abrupt end of the last ice age about 11,700 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era — and of human civilization. Most of these climate changes are attributed to very small variations in Earth’s orbit that change the amount of solar energy our planet receives.

Scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal.

- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

The current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is extremely likely (greater than 95% probability) to be the result of human activity since the mid-20^th century and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented over decades to millennia.¹

Earth-orbiting satellites and other technological advances have enabled scientists to see the big picture, collecting many different types of information about our planet and its climate on a global scale. This body of data, collected over many years, reveals the signals of a changing climate.

The heat-trapping nature of carbon dioxide and other gases was demonstrated in the mid-19th century.² Their ability to affect the transfer of infrared energy through the atmosphere is the scientific basis of many instruments flown by NASA. There is no question that increased levels of greenhouse gases must cause Earth to warm in response.

Ice cores drawn from Greenland, Antarctica, and tropical mountain glaciers show that Earth’s climate responds to changes in greenhouse gas levels. Ancient evidence can also be found in tree rings, ocean sediments, coral reefs, and layers of sedimentary rocks. This ancient, or paleoclimate, evidence reveals that current warming is occurring roughly ten times faster than the average rate of ice-age-recovery warming. Carbon dioxide from human activity is increasing more than 250 times faster than it did from natural sources after the last Ice Age.³

The evidence for rapid climate change is compelling: ....."

Preparing for climate refugees

As droughts impact and water becomes scarce wars are fought over resources.

 

It is not just war that creates refugees. South and Central American and African droughts are forcing farmers off their lands. 

Sea rise destroying Fijian village

Hurricanes, storms and the resulting flooding is making much of the world’s lower coastal  areas unlivable. 

Sea level rise is poisoning or drowning farm lands or swamping island homes. 

You Tube: Climate Change Will Make MILLIONS Homeless. Where Will They Go? 

Heat is forcing indigenous peoples from their traditional lands. 

Central and South American farmers are forced off their lands by droughts. Many travel north.

 

 

 

Yet the poorest have hardly contributed to climate change. 

 

 

 

 

 

You Tube: Climate Change, Disasters and Refugees - Talking Points

From a purely economic view the indefinite holding of refugees in detention camps is massively expensive. Huge, long-term camps of refugees require a more compassionate response by wealthier nations especially those contributing to wars or climate change.

• Governments require a humane and compassionate response to refugees.

• The United Nations needs to make 'climate change' a legal reason for refugees to seek asylum.

• Planning how refugees can be assimilated and contribute to less climate affected nations is essential.

Latest News:

Climate refugees can't be returned home, says landmark UN human rights ruling

Experts say judgment is ‘tipping point’ that opens the door to climate crisis claims for protection

 • Wealthy nations must contribute more to the poorer nations so they can better manage their own climate refugees and the effects of climate change. 

See also:   Preparing for Killing Air Pollution