Dave Chandler

Quote

 

The first desperate wail of a beleaguered reactionary nationalist:
“Socialist! Communist!”

Dave Chandler, July 2019
With acknowledgement to Samuel Johnson

More Verification: Humans Cause Global Warming

 

Anthropogenic climate change is a fact ... global warming caused by human beings is real. The science demonstrates this incontrovertibly. And ... common sense makes this phenomenon apparent: In the course of just two hundred years we have burned up literally millions and millions of years of solar energy stored in the form of fossil fuels, there will be consequences.

For all the positives humanity has gained from fossil fuels there is a price to pay -- there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Global warming deniers imperil us all by impeding efforts to change human activities that are causing climate change. Increasingly they don't even try to offer alternative scientific explanations, their response is reactionary, it is merely political and alarmist: global warming is a communist plot.

The scientific research keeps coming in to help us understand what is happening -- and what is happening in front of our very own eyes keeps showing us the predicament we are in and how much it will ultimately cost us and our children and grandchildren.

What to do.
Make a difference.
Climate change: 12 years to save the planet? Make that 18 months
Matt McGrath, BBC - July 24, 2019

 

Climate change: Current warming 'unparalleled' in 2,000 years
BBC - July 24, 2019

The speed and extent of current global warming exceeds any similar event in the past 2,000 years, researchers say.

They show that famous historic events like the "Little Ice Age" don't compare with the scale of warming seen over the last century.

The research suggests that the current warming rate is higher than any observed previously.
The scientists say it shows many of the arguments used by climate sceptics are no longer valid. ...

"This provides strong evidence that anthropogenic (human induced) global warming is not only unparalleled in terms of absolute temperatures but also unprecedented in spatial consistency within the context of the past 2,000 years."

 

Climate scientists drive stake through heart of skeptics' argument
NBC News - July 24, 2019

Global warming skeptics sometimes say rising temperatures are just another naturally occurring shift in Earth’s climate, like the Medieval Warm Period of the years 800 to 1200 or the Little Ice Age, a period of cooling that spanned from roughly 1300 to 1850.

But a pair of studies published Wednesday provides stark evidence that the rise in global temperatures over the past 150 years has been far more rapid and widespread than any warming period in the past 2,000 years — a finding that undercuts claims that today’s global warming isn’t necessarily the result of human activity.

 

I'm a scientist. Under Trump I lost my job for refusing to hide climate crisis facts
Maria Caffrey, The Guardian - July 25, 2019

The Trump administration’s hostility towards climate science is not new. Interior climate staffer Joel Clement’s reassignment and the blocking of intelligence aide Rod Schoonover’s climate testimony, which forced both federal employees to resign in protest, are just two of the innumerable examples. These attempts to suppress climate science can manifest themselves in many ways. It starts with burying important climate reports and becomes something more insidious like stopping climate scientists from doing their jobs. In February 2019, I lost my job because I was a climate scientist in a climate-denying administration. And yet my story is no longer unique. ...

Ultimately it will be the taxpayers who will pay the true price for our apathy towards these violations. It will become progressively costlier to alter our infrastructure to accommodate the incoming tides. And we will watch as our historic structures are swallowed by the sea. As these things are happening, remember that there were probably multiple scientists like me who warned of these dangers but were silenced. The current administration may only last a matter of years, but its actions may potentially impact our planet for centuries.

 

Last Month Was the Hottest June on Earth Ever Recorded
LiveScience.com  - July 18, 2019

If you thought last month felt really, really hot, you were right. June 2019 was the hottest June on record for the globe. And, it was the second month in a row that balmy temperatures caused Antarctic sea ice coverage to reach a record low. ...

Are these record high temperatures a result of climate change? Yup.

"Climate is, by definition, the long-term average of weather, over many years," Josef Werne, a professor of geology and environmental science at the University of Pittsburgh, previously told Live Science. "One cold (or warm) year or season has little to do with overall climate. It is when those cold (or warm) years become more and more regular that we start to recognize it as a change in climate rather than simply an anomalous year of weather," he said.

We All Have to Pay: The Carbon 'Free Lunch' Era is Over

 

The most important thing you can do as an American is vote for candidates committed to international and national policies to deal forthrightly with global warming. Personal actions are admirable, but we are now at the point where we must act together, globally, for the benefit of our posterity. That's all there is to it.

The carbon 'free lunch' socio-economic experiment is over.

For all the positives humanity has gained from fossil fuels -- nothing is free -- there is a price to pay. We are not off the hook for the effects of burning millions of years of stored solar energy in just over two centuries ... just because we did not have sufficient foresight to anticipate the cost does not mean that the bill is not due. It is simple common sense and no amount of denial or political obstinance will alter reality.

Here I link to some particularly salient information to further an understanding of what is going on, what is at stake, and hopefully motivate all of us to do the only thing we can to preserve ourselves and future generations: organize, vote, and support mitigation policies. We are all in this together.

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Weather is explained by climate ... and we are witnessing changes in weather patterns and in the intensity of weather phenomenon that demonstrate the effects of anthropogenic global warming.

This video explains this succinctly.

 

 

Last month was the hottest June ever recorded — as climate groups warn of an ‘ecological emergency’
CNBC - July 3, 2019

Soaring temperatures worldwide made last month the hottest June ever recorded, according to data collected by the EU’s satellite agency.

Data provided by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), which is tasked with providing comprehensive climate information for the EU, showed global average temperatures for June 2019 were the highest on record for the month.

 

Baked Alaska: record heat fuels wildfires and sends tourists to the beach
The Guardian - July 3, 2019

Anchorage experienced higher than average temperatures nearly every day of June, reaching a balmy 80F on days that once maxed out at a mild 67.

The weather is forecasted to heat up further through and after the Fourth of July, with temperatures expected to climb to nearly 90F in Fairbanks and Anchorage over the weekend.

If the forecasts are correct, the state could set several new local heat records before the week is out.

 

CO2 emissions are on track to take us beyond 1.5 degrees of global warming
ScienceNews.org - July 1, 2019

A new study shows just how hard it may be to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius over preindustrial times.

The world’s existing power plants, industrial equipment, vehicles and other CO₂-emitters are on track to pump out enough carbon dioxide to blow past that target by midcentury, researchers report July 1 in Nature. Add in future power plants that are already planned, permitted or under construction, and we could emit enough by 2033 to raise average global atmospheric temperatures by 1.5 degrees, the researchers say. ...

... Human activity has already increased global temperatures by 1 degree. Emitting an additional 420 to 580 gigatons of CO2 could warm the planet to 1.5 degrees above preindustrial levels, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated in 2018. Current infrastructure could emit that much CO2 between 2018 and as early as 2035, though it could take until 2046 to reach those totals, the new study found.

 

Rising heat stress could cost 80 million jobs by 2030 - U.N.
Thomson Reuters Foundation - July 1, 2019

Rising heat due to climate change could lead to the loss of 80 million jobs by 2030, with poor countries worst hit, the United Nations said on Monday, as Europe sweltered in record temperatures.

A temperature rise of 1.5C by the end of century could lead to a 2.2% drop in working hours - equal to 80 million full-time jobs - costing the global economy $2.4 trillion, according to projections by the U.N. International Labour Organization (ILO).

 

 

And ... cognitive dissonance for climate change deniers who are also aggrieved about immigration: these realities are mutually inclusive. There is no such thing as a 'free lunch'.

 

We’ll Never Solve Immigration If We Don’t Solve Climate Change
Fortune/Penny Pritzker - June 18, 2019

Climate change and immigration have become more inextricably linked than ever. As of the end of May in fiscal year 2019, almost 150,000 migrants from Guatemala traveling with family members had been apprehended at our southwest border. That represents roughly 1% of the country’s total population. While there are a number of reasons driving this migration, including violence, poverty, and corruption, researchers now believe that climate change represents a significant underlying factor. In Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, 2.2 million people have lost their crops due to excessive rain and drought, according to the World Food Programme. These are also some of the world’s most susceptible countries to drought.

Rising temperatures have severely impacted weather patterns, rainfall, soil quality, and crops’ vulnerability to disease, and thus have had a significant negative effect on farmers and local economies. Since 1950, the average temperature in Central America has increased by 0.5 degrees Celsius, and it is projected to climb another 1 to 2 degrees by 2050. More broadly, data also shows that global migration due to climate change will only grow in the years ahead. According to the World Bank, climate change could displace as many as 140 million people by 2050 in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia.