Climate Change

[6666]

Why did they use a different spelling for its name if it's named after her..?

[nudge]

11 minutes ago, 6666 said:

Why did they use a different spelling for its name if it's named after her..?

It's not a different spelling; it's the genitive case of her name in Latin in order to meet the requirements of binomial nomenclature. 

[CaaC (John)+]

Chile cancels climate and Apec summits amid mass protests

Chile has pulled out of hosting two major international summits, including a UN climate change conference, as anti-government protests continue.

President Sebastián Piñera said the decision had caused him "pain" but his government needed "to prioritise re-establishing public order".

The COP25 climate summit was scheduled for 2 to 13 December, while the Apec trade forum was next month.

The UN said it was now looking at alternative venues.

World leaders were to gather at this year's Conference of the Parties (COP) to discuss the implementation of the Paris Accord - a landmark international climate agreement, first signed at COP21 in December 2015.

This is the first time a country has pulled out of hosting the conference at such short notice.

FULL REPORT

[CaaC (John)+]

Climate change: Sea level rise to affect 'three times more people'

Millions of more people will be at risk of coastal flooding from climate-driven sea-level rise later this century.

That's the conclusion of new research conducted by Climate Central, a US-based non-profit news organisation.

It finds that 190 million people will be living in areas that are projected to be below high-tide lines come 2100.

Today, the group calculates roughly 110 million are presently occupying these lands, protected by walls, levees, and other coastal defences.

The future at-risk total assumes only moderate global warming and therefore limited ocean encroachment.

Climate Central's investigations, published in the journal Nature Communications have sought to correct the biases in the elevation datasets previously used to work out how far inland coastlines will be inundated.

• UN panel signals red alert on 'Blue Planet'
• Warming to drive 'robust increase' in UK flooding
• Satellites sense Earth's lumps and bumps

FULL REPORT

[CaaC (John)+]

Climate change: Spain offers to host COP25 in Madrid

Climate policies 'will transform the UK landscape

Climate change 'making mountaineering riskier

[CaaC (John)+]

Jane Fonda: 'I worry about climate activist Greta Thunberg'

The actress and activist Jane Fonda says she "worries" about climate activist Greta Thunberg.

"She understands that if she's attacked it's because she's making a difference and that is what scares people," says Fonda.

The 81-year-old has vowed to protest every Friday until January to demand action to be taken to address climate change.

Thunberg, 16, found fame after her youth climate strike protests spread to schools around the world.

"They handcuff you with plastic things, not the old good metal ones. They hurt more," Fonda says of her most recent arrest.

But she says: "I don't want to go to prison.

"I don't think that Jane Fonda the martyr is exactly what the movement needs right now."

"The police are figuring out what to do. I was told if I keep getting arrested every week I may be put in the slammer. I may not get arrested every week because I have to start filming Grace and Frankie (her series for Netflix)."

Fonda has been an active campaigner for years, being involved in Native American rights campaigns, civil rights campaigns and protesting against the Vietnam War.

"I haven't been very well in my skin because I knew I wasn't doing what I can do. I was not a super happy person until I started to do this."

She says she asked an "ocean scientist" taking part in her recent protest, "How do you stop from getting depressed?

"He said, 'I become active. The minute you start doing something about it, the depression goes away'."

Her latest action, she says, was inspired by the student protests led by Thunberg.

They are "more politically savvy than we ever were at that age. They're much more sensitive of diversity. This can't be a white, elite climate action.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-50264547

[Pyfish+]

Quote

Extinction Rebellion have won a High Court challenge against a police ban on protests throughout London.
Scores of climate protesters were arrested for defying the ban, which was imposed by the Metropolitan Police last month.
The environmental pressure group held 10 days of protests in October, which shut down key areas of Central London.
The Metropolitan Police used a section of the Public Order Act to try and prevent demonstrations involving more than two people.
Extinction Rebellion's lawyers argued that the police's actions were beyond the powers of the act, which the Metropolitan Police said were used to tackle disruption caused by the protests.

https://news.sky.com/story/extinction-rebellion-win-high-court-challenge-against-police-11855504

[Guest]

What I don't get about climate change denial is why it is so linked to the right wing. I'm not saying all right wingers are deniers or that there are no left wing deniers but it does seem to be heavily linked to the right wing. What is it about right wing ideas that creats global warming denial?

[Spike]

Ah yes, the Australian Liberal Government guilty the Adani mine scheme and destruction of the Great Barrier Reef in QLD, deregulating forestation for farmers in NSW leading to over 1,000 species of fauna to be listed as 'endangered', repealing the Carbon Tax, lying in bed with corrupt officials (The Nationals) allowing farmers to siphon water from critically low sources to water their non-essential crops (read: cotton), damming the Mindinee Lakes leading to three huge ecological disasters concerning fish culls, privatising Australia's national resources and giving tax breaks to mining companies, 'debating' the use of Nuclear energy because WMC (read: a company that benefited from privatising national resources and Liberal tax cuts) owns 33% of the world's uranium despite the fact that the UK scrapped two failed nuclear projects in the last decade; and France, Germany, and Japan are all decomissioning their nuclear powerplants for green energy.

Tell me again how this party spends most of the elected to government? @Harry @Devil-Dick Willie @Toinho

PS: Robert Menzies and John Howard are the worst. The only good thing to come from a Liberal government is the lawns concerning guns but any government would have reacted to the Port-Arthur Massacre with gun legislation. But you know they also hiked the Medicare costs for that year because if there is one thing the Liberals have always wanted to gimp the Medicare in Australia, I'm sure they would have loved to take down Medicare with the guns.

[Toinho]

Well, we’d have a different government if Queensland didn’t shoot themselves in the foot and went liberal!  

[Spike]

4 minutes ago, Toinho said:

Well, we’d have a different government if Queensland didn’t shoot themselves in the foot and went liberal!  

The Nationals are pro at siphoning votes out of typically Labor areas. You only need to talk about 'OH, THE POOR FARMERS' (I'm a country boy and farmers can fuckoff) and there you go, the entire outback of QLD that isn't int he SW-corner is voting for the Nationals, aka the Coalition - i.e. The Liberal Party. Another thing you could bring up is 'THE DAMN IMMIGRANTS' and every XXXX holding deadshit is voting Liberal, because for some reason depsite the fact that Labor is harder on immigration that the Liberals the narrative is the opposite. 

[Devil-Dick Willie]

It's so painful to watch the poor uneducated continue to vote for the party that oppresses them because the channel 10 and the news papers tell them it's in their bets interests. 

Labour: We're going to fix the system, housing costs will come down, medicare will improve, public education will improve, the evil corporations will be held accountable for their tax dodging and their exploitation of workers, we'll empower the unions to protect the working class and the laws regarding the environment will drastically change to protect our nation. All these things must change.

 

Liberals: Australia is a fantastic country and we'll change nothing because it's already perfect. We'll continue to privatise hospitals, build roads and stadiums just to line the pockets of developers, protect the elite, slash full time jobs, cripple the unions, protect paedophiles, sell the nation to India and China and keep housing as a profit market commodity for the rich, rather than a thing young families can access. How good is Australia?

Poor people. Fuck yeah go Australia!! 

Then education spending is slashed again, more hospitals are built with tax payer money, sold to fucked up private buyers then go down the shitter, and the dumb western sydney/QLD cunts wonder why they're renting, their kids are dumb, and why Johno got laid off.

[RandoEFC+]

8 minutes ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

It's so painful to watch the poor uneducated continue to vote for the party that oppresses them because the channel 10 and the news papers tell them it's in their bets interests. 

Hmm, this sounds familiar, I wonder why...

[Spike]

7 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

Hmm, this sounds familiar, I wonder why...

[Devil-Dick Willie]

6 hours ago, Spike said:

I'd take all his fucking fingers off the way medieval kings took the hands off thieves. Then I'd burn him to death from the feet up.

The rotten old cunt lining his pockets in his death bed while the working people of the world suffer. 

[Harry]

13 hours ago, Spike said:

Ah yes, the Australian Liberal Government guilty the Adani mine scheme and destruction of the Great Barrier Reef in QLD, deregulating forestation for farmers in NSW leading to over 1,000 species of fauna to be listed as 'endangered', repealing the Carbon Tax, lying in bed with corrupt officials (The Nationals) allowing farmers to siphon water from critically low sources to water their non-essential crops (read: cotton), damming the Mindinee Lakes leading to three huge ecological disasters concerning fish culls, privatising Australia's national resources and giving tax breaks to mining companies, 'debating' the use of Nuclear energy because WMC (read: a company that benefited from privatising national resources and Liberal tax cuts) owns 33% of the world's uranium despite the fact that the UK scrapped two failed nuclear projects in the last decade; and France, Germany, and Japan are all decomissioning their nuclear powerplants for green energy.

Tell me again how this party spends most of the elected to government? @Harry @Devil-Dick Willie @Toinho

PS: Robert Menzies and John Howard are the worst. The only good thing to come from a Liberal government is the lawns concerning guns but any government would have reacted to the Port-Arthur Massacre with gun legislation. But you know they also hiked the Medicare costs for that year because if there is one thing the Liberals have always wanted to gimp the Medicare in Australia, I'm sure they would have loved to take down Medicare with the guns.

I'm saying this as someone who has only voted for the liberals federally once since I turned 18 (which was when Turnbull stepped in ahead of Abbott) but I think you've been a bit one sided on the libs here.

The Adani mine would have certainly been supported by both major parties. Labor were just trying to get away with being non committal about it during the election campaign which is one of the three big reasons they lost imo. They got smashed in Queensland for it and deservedly so.

Highly likely there'd be a quotable number of endangered species regardless of the forestry deregulation.

Repealing the carbon tax... Totally indefensible I agree. They really deserved to lose this last election for tanking Turnbull's NEG scheme. That was the biggest factor for me in deciding my vote and it likely will continue to be.

Corrupt officials... Labor no better here imo they've continually abolished the ABCC every time they come into government and let militant unions run riot. 

There was a lot of misinformation about the cotton farming water allocations that did not get reported. I can't recall exactly but I heard a correction on ABC News when the main company under fire came forward and revealed their actual uptake of water in the two years prior.... This saga was a water scarcity issue mistakenly simplified to being all about one root cause of cotton farming. It was one sided and lacked rigor but people believed it because it suited them and they wanted a focus for their anger.

The tax breaks to mining companies and unsustainable rises in property values is not my thing but it ultimately delivered necessary returns to shareholders of which many are superannuation funds trying to amass retirement income for an ageing population that had only had the super scheme since the 1990's and retirement is imminent for many of them 

Nuclear power should have always been a component of Australia's energy mix (at least to an exploratory level) given we are equally world leading in uranium supply as we are coal, and if we had these plants on board from a decade or two ago they would not be the ones we'd be talking about closing to meet our emissions targets. Japan has targeted halving it's nuclear output and has mostly replaced it with thermal generation via imported LNG and coal from Australia... Nuclear R&D should still be a significant priority for world governments serious about addressing climate change imo. Base load stability of power will always be critical and solar and wind cannot remotely deliver it... In a world full of wind and solar plants large scale battery storage would be necessary to provide that stability but it's phenomenally expensive and of limited viability. It has a role to play but I do not have confidence that it will be able to eliminate the need for baseload generation, and nuclear is the best carbon free option I'm aware of.

 

[Harry]

10 hours ago, Spike said:

I don't think anyone has fucked up the developed world in the last 30 years more than this guy.

 

[CaaC (John)+]

Climate change: Sea ice loss linked to the spread of a deadly virus

The decline in sea ice seen in the Arctic in recent decades has been linked by scientists to the spread of a deadly virus in marine mammals.

Researchers found that Phocine distemper virus (PDV) had spread from animals in the North Atlantic to populations in the North Pacific.

The scientists say the spread of pathogens could become more common as ice declines further.

The 15-year study tracked seals, sea lions and otters via satellite.

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The loss of sea ice in the Arctic has been one of the most visible signs of climate change on the planet over the past four decades. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the ice has been retreating by around 12% per decade between 1979 and 2018.

"These sea ice changes in September are likely unprecedented for at least 1,000 years. Arctic sea ice has thinned, concurrent with a transition to younger ice. Between 1979 and 2018, the real proportion of multi-year ice that is at least five years old has declined by approximately 90%," the IPCC said in their report on the oceans and the cryosphere published in September.

Against this changing background, researchers have investigated the likely spread of the PDV infection, which caused a large number of deaths among harbour seals in the North Atlantic in 2002.

But outbreaks of the virus had not been seen in marine creatures in the North Pacific until 2004 when PDV was found in northern sea otters in Alaska.

Samples were collected from 2,500 marine mammals in a variety of locations over the course of the study. Satellite data from tagged animals recorded locations. This was correlated with data on sea ice loss.

The scientists say that the record melt in August 2002 was followed by widespread exposure and infection with PDV in Steller sea lions in the North Pacific in 2003 and 2004 with over 30% of animals testing positive. PDV prevalence then declined until it peaked again in 2009, following on from the presence of open water routes in 2008.

"The loss of sea ice is leading marine wildlife to seek and forage in new habitats and removing that physical barrier, allowing for new pathways for them to move," said author Dr Tracey Goldstein, from the University of California, Davis.

"As animals move and come in contact with other species, they carry opportunities to introduce and transmit new infectious disease, with potentially devastating impacts."

The authors warn that this trend could continue as they believe climate-driven changes in the Arctic ocean will increase. The opportunities for the spread of pathogens will likely grow, with uncertain health outcomes for many species.

The study has been published in the journal, Scientific Reports.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-50333627

 

[Spike]

@Harry

Never trust the ABC to be honest concerning the in-power government. It is a state run channel, never believe what they say about those in charge.

Concerning the ABCC, it is hypocritical considering the Liberals have constantly weakened labour unions in the country, the ABCC has no jurisdiction over mining or domesitc construction, and richer yet any sort of Liberal infrastructure is marred by exporting labour and materials to other nations. The Sydney lightrail being a famous example of wasting tax payers money. The Korean engineering company contracted not only delivered an inferior product, but they measured the cab size inccorectly making them a few cm too large to even be used. Thanks, Libs! What does the ABCC matter when projects are delegated to other nations and Australia's unions are weakened. This does nothing to protect workers nor does it ensure project pheasibility. 

Whether it be miscommunicated or not, farmers have constantly been tapping water from unviable sources for too long, there are communities in rural Australia that don't have safe drinking water. People like to talk about Flint, Michigan, USA, but the domestic issues ring truer, Collarenebri, and Lightning Ridge all off the Murray-Darling basin have water so filthy it isn't even okay to wash. That is in Northern NSW next to where I grew up, my town is connected to the Murray-Darling. If not for the Great Artesian basin my town would be better off dead. Cotton is non-essential and so are many other commodities, I do not want to see farmers that earn $$$ of Australian land and people getting grants, donations, breaks, free-water, so they can sell cotton to foreign nations for profit. That is abuse of the land and it's people, and I have firsthand seen the suffering that drought stricken communities suffer, I've been in that life before. There IS corruption in the water, and few are profitting from monopolising it.

The Howard government capped and reduced super to 10% instead of Paul Keating's originally planned 15%, thanks Libs! Ah yes, thanks for privatising Australia's resources to make huge bank on private companies while capping the superannuation it was meant to help. 

If nuclear power is pheasible why are four major nations decomissioning nuclear energy for other solutions?  Nuclear energy is dying a slow death, it's not that practical, it doesn't generate enough power, and I've spoken to an ex-nuclear engineer, and maybe I shouldn't always take it from the horse's mouth but he stated that nuclear energy is in all effect obsolete. People get excited because the lack of emissions but nuclear energy is like digging a well in a desert. It's a seductive alternative pitched by coal to suppress any sort of renewable energy efforts. Why tackle green energy when the public can be lied to about a 'magical solution' that has always been available? Coal knows nuclear will never take off, so just focus Australia on a dead end so they can't think about what will really help the nation. 

[Burning Gold]

On 07/11/2019 at 14:14, Gunnersauraus said:

What I don't get about climate change denial is why it is so linked to the right wing. I'm not saying all right wingers are deniers or that there are no left wing deniers but it does seem to be heavily linked to the right wing. What is it about right wing ideas that creats global warming denial?

I don't know that this is "the" answer, but all of the solutions to climate change are distasteful to those with a classic right wing worldview. Regulations, tax incentives and penalties -  big government things. If you can't offer a solution to a problem, it's easier to pretend it doesn't actually exist than to admit the other side might be right on this issue.

Somewhat related, but consider who stands to benefit the most from climate change not being taken seriously: big corporations and the wealthy. They influence right wing media outlets, who in turn push the notion that climate change is a hoax (or not that big of a deal) to their readers.

[CaaC (John)+]

The biggest and most damaging hurricanes are now three times more frequent than they were 100 years ago, say researchers.

Using a new method of calculating the destruction, the scientists say the increase in frequency is "unequivocal".

Previous attempts to isolate the impact of climate change on hurricanes have often came up with conflicting results.

But the new study says the increase in damage caused by these big cyclones is linked by global warming.

• BA reviews 'fuel-tinkering' over climate concerns
• Speed limits for ships can have 'massive' benefits
• Sea ice loss linked to the spread of the deadly virus

Hurricanes or tropical cyclones are one of the most destructive natural disasters. The damage inflicted by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was estimated to be $125bn, roughly 1% of US GDP.

FULL REPORT

[CaaC (John)+]

Climate change: Warming signal links global floods and fires

With homes underwater in South Yorkshire, near-record flooding in Venice, and burgeoning wildfires in Australia, many people are asking if and how climate change is connected to these extreme weather events.

• Warming makes bigger hurricanes more damaging
• BA reviews 'fuel-tankering' over climate concerns
• Speed limits for ships can have 'massive' benefits

What can we say about the role of climate change in floods like those seen in South Yorkshire?

There are some basic physical factors that help explain the scale of the downpours that recently swamped the village of Fishlake and other locations in Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire.

The very scientific-sounding Clausius-Clapeyron equation is one key element.

Clausius and Clapeyron are the surnames of the German and French meteorologists who discovered that a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture. For every 1 degree C increase in temperature, the air can hold about 7% extra water vapour.

When you get the sorts of storms that generate rapid cooling, you get heavier rain falling rapidly out of the clouds, as happened in parts of England last week.

FULL REPORT

[CaaC (John)+]

Flooded Venice battles new tidal surge

Flooded Venice has been hit by a new high tide of 160cm (5.3ft), giving residents no respite from a crisis costing millions of euros.

World-famous St Mark's Square, a magnet for tourists, has been closed, and schools are shut for the third day.

The Italian city's famous waterbuses - the vaporetti - have stopped running.

The 187cm peak on Tuesday was the highest level for more than 50 years, damaging cultural monuments, businesses and homes. More than 80% of the canal city was flooded.

The government declared a state of emergency in the Unesco world heritage site.

Residents with flood-damaged homes will get up to €5,000 (£4,300; $5,500), and businesses up to €20,000 in compensation.

FULL REPORT

 

 

[Spike]

BURNING WITH RAGE HOTTER THAN THE AUSTRALIAN BUSHFIRES. Fuck the Liberal party and their continued rape of Australia but especially Gladys Berejiklian and Michael McCormack. Climate change deniers both, the latter even blaming ‘woke inner city greenies’ for the fires (they have one fucking seat in parliament). How pathetic, draining billions of litres of water from the Murray Darling to feed cotton crops, issuing government drought grants to swing voting towns that are unaffected drought, funding private schools to educate ‘drought awareness’, cutting funding to regional and rural VFFs, and they still have the gall to look condescendingly at everyone and shame them for ‘politicising the fires’. THATS IS ALL THE LIBERALS DO.

Also fuck the bogans and troglodytes that think it would have been easy to avoid if Australia ‘controlled burned like da abos did’. How the fuck is Australia supposed to control burn thousands of  sq kms of bush intersected by property, towns , and farmlands. The manpower doesn’t exist, and there is a reason why the bush fires are so bad, because it spreads easily. this is a systematic abuse of Australia’s natural resources, its animals, and its citizens. Climate change, the drought, and the liberal party have done this to us.

[CaaC (John)+]

Coal: Is this the beginning of the end?

The fuel that powered the industrial revolution may be in decline at last.

This year looks set to see the largest fall in electricity production from coal on record, according to a new report.

The reduction is estimated to be more than the power generated from coal in Germany, Spain and the UK combined.

It is projected to drop by 3% - which is a fall of 300 terawatt-hours.

The report by three energy experts - published in the online journal Carbon Brief - draws on energy sector data from around the world for the first seven to 10 months of the year.

The record drop raises the prospect of a slowing of global CO2 emissions growth in 2019.

But the authors warn that, even with this decline, coal use and emissions remain far higher than the level required to keep the global temperature rise below 2C.

Record decline

Coal has been the mainstay of electricity generation for over a century and has seen decades of near-uninterrupted growth.

Yet this report finds that record reductions in coal use in developed countries, including the US, European Union, and South Korea, could signal the beginning of the end of the industry.

These reductions in use are not being matched by increases elsewhere.

The decline suggests that coal plants will take a significant blow to revenues as average running hours look set to reach an all-time low.

"It is clear that the economics of coal production no longer make sense in many parts of the world where it is simply cheaper to generate electricity from natural gas and renewables," said Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on climate change and the environment at the London School of Economics.

However, he also warned that is too early to tell whether the global downturn in coal consumption in 2019 is the start of a declining trend.

Rise of renewables

The report suggests that the reasons for the drop in coal-fired generation vary from country to country, but include increased electricity generation from renewables, nuclear and gas, as well as slowing or negative demand for electricity.

In previous years the reductions in coal generation in the US and EU have been offset by increases elsewhere, particularly China.

This year, however, the fall in developed economies is accelerating, while coal generation in India and China is slowing sharply

The Chinese situation is complex.

A recent report showed a surge in new coal-fired plants in China.

However, this new analysis shows that electricity demand growth in China this year slowed to 3%, down from 6.7% over the last two years.

It finds that non-fossil energy sources - nuclear, wind and hydro generation - have met almost all of this demand.

As a result, coal-fired power plants are being used less intensively.

The report estimates that this year utilisation rates will be below 49% - a record low.

It says 2019 has also seen the first Chinese contracts for wind and solar plants that will generate power at the same price as coal power plants.

The authors say this could threaten the long-term viability of coal in China and put it on a path to renewable energy "grid parity" as those projects come online in 2020.

US bankruptcies

Meanwhile, the US has seen the largest reductions in coal-fired power generation.

This comes despite US President Donald Trump's vigorous efforts to revive the US coal industry.

Eight US coal companies have filed for bankruptcy this year, including Murray Energy, the largest privately-held coal company in the country.

At the same time, the report finds there has been a sharp turnaround in India, where coal power output is on track to fall for the first time in at least three decades.

Only south-east Asia has seen significant increases in coal generation, but demand here is relatively small relative to the global total.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-50520962