U.S. Midwest Freezes, Australia Burns: This Is the Age of Weather Extremes : New York Times

Frozen Lake Michigan

"As for the extremely low temperatures this week in parts of the United States, they stand in sharp contrast to the trend toward warmer winters. They may also be a result of warming, strangely enough. 

Emerging research 

suggests that a warming Arctic is causing changes in the jet stream and pushing polar air down to latitudes that are unaccustomed to them and often unprepared. Hence this week’s atypical chill over large swaths of the Northeast and Midwest."

Read the NYT article

Related: 

A Closer Look at the Polar Vortex’s Dangerously Cold Winds

Chicago will be as cold as the Arctic on Wednesday. We’ll show you why.

Jan. 30, 2019

 

Climate Change Leads to More Wars and Refugees: Bloomberg

Aleppo,  Photo by aladdin hammami on Unsplash

Pentagon Fears Confirmed: Climate Change Leads to More Wars and Refugees

The conclusions published Wednesday in a scientific journal underscore the rising levels of anxiety that global warming has among leaders. Attendees at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, said the inability to adapt to higher temperatures is the biggest global risk. A Pentagon report published on Tuesday in Washington warned that rising seas and more frequent wild fires threaten U.S. security.

 

The peer-reviewed study, “Climate, conflict and forced migration,” published in Elsevier Ltd.’s Global Environmental Change, analyzed sprawling data sets covering drought, battle deaths, ethnicity and political systems. Those were then combined with geographic information about refugee flows. The researchers discovered that deteriorating climate conditions played a “a statistically significant role” in the recent waves of migrants fleeing Middle East conflict.

 Read the Bloomberg article

 

#war  #climate migration  #climate change  # Syria  # Davos  #sea rise  #wildfire 

Grey Power supports Australian climate action on March 15

Go this Facebook Post to join the action.

#grey power school strike  #climate action  # Australia

Warming world gets older, wiser, richer activists hot under the collar

A growing number of older protesters are standing up and fighting for the environment

When Audrey Cooke first spoke to her family about her retirement plans, they had one condition: “Don’t get arrested.”
The 72-year-old retired Melbourne schoolteacher’s husband died of pancreatic cancer nine years ago. She has two young grandchildren. And she is now a full-time climate activist.

“I’ll do it until I drop,” she says. “I’m in a hurry. We are facing an existential threat and this is more important than anything for me.”

Read The Guardian article 

Related:

Adani contractor won't work on Carmichael project after protesters target worksites

The New Language of Climate Change: Politico Magazine

Climate Catastrophe

Scientists and meteorologists on the front lines of the climate wars are testing a new strategy to get through to the skeptics and outright deniers.

PHOENIX—Leading climate scientists and meteorologists are banking on a new strategy for talking about climate change: Take the politics out of it.

That means avoiding the phrase “climate change,” so loaded with partisan connotations as it is. Stop talking about who or what is most responsible. And focus instead on what is happening and how unusual it is—and what it is costing communities.

That was a main takeaway at the American Meteorological Society’s annual meeting this month, where top meteorologists and environmental scientists from around the country gathered to hear the latest research on record rainfall and drought, debate new weather prediction models and digest all manner of analysis on climatic mutations.

Read the full article

Why it's time to think about human extinction: You Tube

"After listening to this video with Dr David Suzuki, you’ll never be the same again. 

The environmentalist, activist, professor of genetics and science broadcaster hits us with some home truths about what our future will look like if we continue to live the way we have been. What will life be like for our children and grandchildren? Can the damage we’ve done to the planet be reversed? Is extinction of the human race imminent? We talk about population control, the importance of renewable energy and discuss what we can do right now in our own lives that can actually make a difference."

This is for anyone who cares about the future of mankind.

Timestamps
20:06 Why humanity has only got 1 minute left to live
25:25  Humans are the only species that don't care about their own children
29:17  Educate yourself on politics or don't complain about the government
36:26  Can we be saved from our own extinction?
59:09  A final challenge for entrepreneurs

#human extinction  #science  #climate catastrophe  #Paris Agreement  # fossil fuels #renewables

'Terrifying': Scientists dig deep for missing piece of climate puzzle: SMH

"... The implications, though, of proof of a reduced ability to destroy methane - which now has a life in the atmosphere of about a decade - would be profound, depending on the scale of any decline.

Apart from raising the warming potential of methane - whether released from coal mines or natural gas fields - the potential for hydrogen to serve as a "clean fuel" could also be placed in doubt. (Labor this week floated a $1 billion plan to create hydrogen export zones in Queensland to be powered by a massive increase in renewable energy.)

"Hydrogen is a very leaky molecule and we’d have to expect that there’d be some leakage in its production," Etheridge says, adding that hydrogen itself has a greenhouse gas effect.

“It may not be of any significance, but we don’t know.”"

Read the SMH article 

#methane  #hydrogen  #coal mines  #greenhouse gases  #climate catastrophe  #natural gas

Big rise in atmospheric CO2 expected in 2019: BBC News

Old gum tree

"Met Office researchers expect to record one of the biggest rises in atmospheric concentrations of CO2 in 2019. 

Every year, the Earth's natural carbon sinks such as forests soak up large amounts of CO2 produced

Criminal Countries

by human activities.
But in years when the tropical Pacific region is warmer like this year, trees and plants grow less and absorb smaller amounts of the gas. 

As a result, scientists say 2019 will see a much bigger CO2 rise than 2018."

Read the BBC article 

See also: Gum Trees and tghe fight against global warming.

#forests  #carbon sinks  #trees  #carbon dioxide  #anthropocene   #greenhouse gas pollution