We are still screwed: the coming climate disaster

Amen to that, we need more nuclear power and fast.

;) Not ‘exactly’ what i was getting at. Nuclear has it’s own set of issues we have yet to find long term solutions too.

Just to be clear when i say ‘green’ and ‘sustainable’ i mean either Wind/Solar/Wave/Geothermal in general. But i say this not to kick of ANOTHER round of nuclear power debate, just to clarify what my terms mean when i use them, to avoid such confusions in future :)

‘Yorkshire fracking approval may be unlawful, campaigners say’:

Anti-fracking campaigners have claimed that a decision to allow energy companies to drill for shale gas in Yorkshire could be challenged in court.

The fracking firm Third Energy was given permission last month to carry out test drilling at a site in Kirby Misperton in Rydale, North Yorkshire, even after locals opposed the application.

Friends of the Earth and a local campaign group, Frack Free Ryedale, have written to North Yorkshire county council claiming the decision could be illegal. They have warned their letter could be followed by an application to the courts to have the decision overturned.

After a two-day meeting at the county hall in Northallerton, councillors voted by a majority of seven to four to approve the fracking operation near Pickering. The move was hailed by the government and the fracking industry as a “fantastic opportunity”.

The decision, which will allow fracking in the UK for the first time in five years, was made despite thousands of objections from residents and campaigners.

The approval prompted fears around the country that other fracking sites would be given the green light. Those fears are particularly acute in Lancashire, seen as the next frontier in the fight against the extreme form of energy extraction.

In a letter sent to the Yorkshire authority this week, the campaigners argue that the authority did not put enough weight on the potential impact on global warming of burning the gas extracted at Kirby Misperton.

Friends of the Earth’s legal adviser Jake White said: “Communities have no right of appeal against fracking decisions, only developers do. Friends of the Earth and local people can’t appeal to get the councillors’ decision overturned.

“Given that we have legitimate legal concerns, it is only right that the court may be called upon to decide them. Because the decision appears to have been arrived at without properly considering climate change, we believe it to be unlawful.”

Fracking was halted on the Fylde coast in 2011 when tests found it was probably the cause of minor earthquakes in the area. Since then two high-profile applications to frack in Lancashire have been rejected by councillors and are the subject of appeals.

Planners had recommended the most recent application be approved, despite acknowledging that the majority of representations received in consultation were objections.

And that last bit is what i find really troubling about the whole fracking thing. It is not being done in a democratic manner, your vote/concern has no bearing over the profits of the companies looking to Frack. That is wrong.

And that last bit is what i find really troubling about the whole fracking thing. It is not being done in a democratic manner, your vote/concern has no bearing over the profits of the companies looking to Frack. That is wrong.

Except no. That’s not how government works, unless your local governments are totally different from ours.

The democratic bit is when you elect your local government and planners. You get a vote in that.

Representatives in consultation are not votes. They are just folks speaking on that particular issue… and it’s not uncommon for them to mostly be objections. But this isn’t the same as voting, because only a trivial handful of people are actually participating.

‘locally’ the numbers were not trivial, but yes i agree it obviously is not the same democratic method as when we vote, it must still feel ‘un-democratic’ to those local people that were given a chance to voice their concerns (why provide that platform if it means nothing?) and were then ignored.


Here is an interesting concept, give half the world over to protected natural sites:

‘Could we set aside half the Earth for nature?’:

As of today, the only place in the universe where we are certain life exists is on our little home, the third planet from the sun. But also as of today, species on Earth are winking out at rates likely not seen since the demise of the dinosaurs. If we don’t change our ways, we will witness a mass extinction event that will not only leave our world a far more boring and lonely place, but will undercut the very survival of our species .

So, what do we do?

E.O. Wilson, one of the world’s most respected biologists, has proposed a radical, wild and challenging idea to our species: set aside half of the planet as nature preserves.

“Even in the best scenarios of conventional conservation practice the losses [of biodiversity] should be considered unacceptable by civilised peoples,” Wilson writes in his new book, Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life. One of the world’s most respected biologists, Wilson is known as the father of sociobiology, a specialist in island biogeography, an expert on ant societies and a passionate conservationist.

In the book, Wilson argues eloquently for setting aside half of the planet for nature, including both terrestrial and marine ecosystems. He writes that it’s time for the conservation community to set a big goal, instead of aiming for incremental progress.

“People understand and prefer goals,” he writes. “They need a victory, not just news that progress is being made. It is human nature to yearn for finality, something achieved by which their anxieties and fears are put to rest…It is further our nature to choose large goals that while difficult are potentially game-changing and universal in benefit. To strive against odds on behalf of all life would be humanity at its most noble.”

The reason why half is the answer, according to Wilson, is located deep in the science of ecology.

“The principal cause of extinction is habitat loss. With a decrease of habitat, the sustainable number of species in it drops by (roughly) the fourth root of the habitable area,” Wilson wrote via email, referencing the species-area curve equation that describes how many species are capable of surviving long-term in a particular area.

By preserving half of the planet, we would theoretically protect 80% of the world’s species from extinction, according to the species-area curve. If protection efforts, however, focus on the most biodiverse areas (think tropical forests and coral reefs), we could potentially protect more than 80% of species without going beyond the half-Earth goal. In contrast, if we only protect 10% of the Earth, we are set to lose around half of the planet’s species over time. This is the track we are currently on.

“The extinction rate our behavior is now imposing on the rest of life, and seems destined to continue, is…the equivalent of a Chicxulub-sized asteroid strike played out over several human generations,” Wilson writes in Half-Earth, referencing the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs – at least those that didn’t evolve into birds.

According to the World Database on Protected Areas, the world has protected 15.4% of terrestrial area, including inland waters, as of 2014. But protection of the oceans lags far behind with only 3.4% of marine environments under some form of protection. The Aichi Biodiversity Target has set a goal of protecting 17% of land areas and 10% of the oceans by 2020.

And while i can laud it’s ambition, i think it maybe too early in earths human history for such a move. I completely agree we need to do much, much more than we currently are in terms of protecting our natural habitats (real fines for corporations destroying such places etc). Still in the future of humanity, one where we have left the confines of our one earth and started to live on other planets (maybe even having reached out beyond our own solar system?), i can certainly see a place for an earth in which it’s role is to fully protect the nature it so beautifully generates with little effort needed from ourselves, it is an incredibly precious commodity in our comparatively mostly lifeless universe, and that should give it the right to be looked after rather than just exploited imho.

'Shattered records show climate change is an emergency today, scientists warn ':

May was the 13th month in a row to break temperature records according to figures published this week that are the latest in 2016’s string of incredible climate records which scientists have described as a bombshell and an emergency.

The series of smashed global records, particularly the extraordinary heat in February and March, has provoked a stunned reaction from climate scientists, who are warning that climate change has reached unprecedented levels and is no longer only a threat for the future.

Alongside the soaring temperatures, other records have tumbled around the world, from vanishing Arctic sea ice to a searing drought in India and the vast bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef. The UK has experienced record flooding that has devastated communities across the country and scientists predict that the flash floods seen by parts of the country in recent days will increase in future.

“The impacts of human-caused climate change are no longer subtle – they are playing out, in real time, before us,” says Prof Michael Mann, at Penn State University in the US. “They serve as a constant reminder now of how critical it is that we engage in the actions necessary to avert ever-more dangerous and potentially irreversible warming of the planet.”

It was just last December when the world’s nations sealed a deal in Paris to defeat global warming but Prof Stefan Rahmstorf, at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, says: “These [records] are very worrying signs and I think it shows we are on a crash course with the Paris targets unless we change course very, very fast. I hope people realise that global warming is not something down the road, but it is here now and it affecting us now.”

“What is happening right now is we are catapulting ourselves out of the Holocene, which is the geological epoch that human civilisation has been able to develop in, because of the relatively stable climate,” says Rahmstorf. “It allowed us to invent agriculture, rather than living as nomads. It allowed a big population growth, it allowed the foundation of cities, all of which required a stable climate.”

But the spikes in global surface temperatures in recent months have been anything but stable. They did not just break the records, they obliterated them. “The numbers are completely unprecedented,” says Adam Scaife, at the Met Office in the UK. “They really stick out like a sore thumb.”

The scorching temperatures mean 2016 is all but certain to be the hottest year ever recorded, beating the previous hottest year in 2015, which itself beat 2014. This run of three record years is also unprecedented and, without climate change, would be a one in a million chance. Scaife says: “Including this year so far, 16 of the 17 warmest years on record have been since 2000 – it’s a shocking statistic.”

And yet, The Republican Party refuses even to admit it’s a significant issue. If ever there was time to be a single issue voter, this might be it.

It’s just a liberal lie. Exxon and Mobil told us so.

I read that parts of Arizona may set new records. The forecast is for 110+ degrees there, with Phoenix possibly breaking its record of 122 degrees.

Cripes. Remind me never to move to AZ. My folks used to have a place in Tucson, which isn’t quite as hot (and I think Phoenix has higher humidity than bone-dry Tucson) and is perfectly pleasant in March or so, but damn.

‘World carbon emissions stopped growing in 2015, says BP’:

Carbon emissions stopped growing in 2015 for the first time in 10 years as the world turned its back on coal and embraced energy efficiency and renewable power with increased vigour, according to a new set of statistics.

China led the way in driving down emissions but the latest figures from oil company BP come with a warning that the progress may not last.

With the exception of a drop in global emissions around the time of the 2009 financial crisis, which heavily depressed overall business activity, the BP figure of 0.1% growth in CO2 is the lowest for 25 years.

Wind power capacity grew by 17.4% and solar by 32.6% last year with China overtaking Germany and the US as the largest generator of solar. America’s overall renewable energy capacity increased by 19.7%, Germany’s by 10.9% and Britain’s by only 4.8%.

“There are good reasons for thinking that some of this (CO2) slowdown reflects structural forces (pushing for low carbon power) that are likely to persist and grow in importance,” said Spencer Dale, BP’s chief economist.

“But some probably reflects cyclical factors, particularly the contraction of China’s most energy-intensive sectors, which are unlikely to keep being repeated and may well unwind in future years,” he added.


‘Cambridge University rejects calls to divest from fossil fuels’:

The University of Cambridge has rejected calls to divest its £5.9bn endowment from fossil fuels, as students, academics and the former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams have called for.

In a report on Friday, the university ruled out future investments in coal and tar sands, although it currently has no direct holdings in either, and only negligible holdings in coal by investments managed externally.

But the working group on investment responsibility argued it was better to keep investments in oil and gas companies, and engage with them.

The trouble is is that Capitalism is pretty much a binary system, so you either feed it or starve it to see change, it is not that open to dialogue outside of that (that makes a large enough change, quickly enough. As the saying ‘Money talks, bullshit walks’ sort of highlights?).

While true, Phoenix in the summer time IS hell on earth, you can’t really go by their record setting heat I don’t think. Climate-wise, the southwestern US is simply a furnace that promotes high pressure and deflects moisture. The native americans who apparently used to thrive around there centuries ago gave up on it a long, long time ago.

More telling are the subtler things like how much earlier it is getting hotter in the midwest, and the south and the northeast; and how much more severe storms have become. Or the ever expanding ‘hurricane season’.

On the other hand, people choosing voluntarily to live year-round in Phoenix will never not be funny.

A couple of articles related to what the Brexit might mean for the environment:

‘EU out vote puts UK commitment to Paris climate agreement in doubt’

The UK government won high praise six months ago for taking a leading role in the successful Paris climate change agreement, the first legally binding commitment on curbing carbon emissions by all 195 United Nations countries.

With the vote to leave the EU, the UK’s future participation in that landmark accord is now in doubt.

More importantly, for the rest of the world, the Leave campaign’s victory provides a fillip globally for groups opposed to climate action, and if it causes delays to the Paris accord coming into effect, it could provide an opening for aspiring right-wing leaders - including Donald Trump - to try to unpick the pact.

“There is a risk that this could kick EU ratification of the Paris agreement into the long grass,” Jonathan Grant, director of sustainability at PwC, told the Guardian.

That would be a setback to the UN in itself, but also concerns participants because of the US presidential election this year.

Donald Trump has vowed to withdraw from the Paris agreement if elected. Proponents of the agreement are therefore hoping for a quick process of ratification by as many parties as possible, including EU member states, which would bring the agreement into immediate effect and make it much harder for countries to renege upon afterwards.


‘UK’s out vote is a ‘red alert’ for the environment’:

Despite being an issue that knows no borders, affects all and is of vital interest to future generations, the environment was low on the agenda ahead of the UK’s historic vote to leave the European Union.

The short answer to what happens next with pollution, wildlife, farming, green energy, climate change and more is we don’t know – we are in uncharted territory. But all the indications – from the “red-tape” slashing desires of the Brexiters to the judgment of environmental professionals – are that the protections for our environment will get weaker.

There is one immediate impact though, right here, right now: the crashing financial markets will damage the huge investments needed to create a cleaner and safer environment and will dent the nation’s fast-growing green economy, one economic sector where the UK could lead.

From the air we breathe to the food we eat to the climate we live in, how we protect and enhance the environment underpins the healthy and happy lives we all aspire to, now and for generations to come.

The 75% of 18-24-year-old Britons who voted to remain in the EU must be feeling betrayed by older generations today. Why? Because the UK’s membership of the EU has been a virtually unalloyed good for the environment.

The Brexit vote leaves it highly uncertain which protections will remain in place and the prospect of improving them seems remote. Ukip’s Nigel Farage, the politician who did more than anyone to force the EU referendum, doesn’t even think climate change is a problem and wants to scrap pollution limits on power stations.

With 400,000 early deaths a year from air pollution – 40,000 in the UK – the EU saw things differently and set new legal limits in 2010. Many UK cities and towns remain above those limits today and campaigners have used EU rules to successfully sue the UK government. But UK ministers are even now fighting new EU rules to reduce early deaths. Pollution does not stop in its tracks at national borders, and 88% of environment professionals in the UK think an EU-wide policy is needed.

Sorry to see Zak go :(
With the rise of the far right in Europe and our pending Trumpocalypse, this probably is the largest issue we face.

Two key climate change indicators—global surface temperatures and Arctic sea ice extent—have broken numerous records through the first half of 2016, according to NASA analyses of ground-based observations and satellite data.
Each of the first six months of 2016 set a record as the warmest respective month globally in the modern temperature record, which dates to 1880, according to scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. The six-month period from January to June was also the planet’s warmest half-year on record, with an average temperature 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.4 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the late nineteenth century.
Five of the first six months of 2016 also set records for the smallest respective monthly Arctic sea ice extent since consistent satellite records began in 1979, according to analyses developed by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland. The one exception, March, recorded the second smallest extent for that month.
While these two key climate indicators have broken records in 2016, NASA scientists said it is more significant that global temperature and Arctic sea ice are continuing their decades-long trends of change. Both trends are ultimately driven by rising concentrations of heat-trapping carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Read more at: 2016 climate trends continue to break records

I miss Zak. :(

Somebody should activate his account so he can participate by email.

@clay, is the mailing list functionality going to be turned on? Might be a question for @wumpus and @tomchick as well, given the effect it may have on email traffic…

Well, Tom disabled the digest emails for all users. A better setting, perhaps, would be to enable them and set the default user frequency to never.

However, if Zak’s email is correct and his account is activated, then you should be able to @tag him and he’ll receive an email notification of the post, to which he can reply to post back to the topic.

To be honest, while I am not going to criticize his paranoia (everybody has their things…), I don’t personally think any time should be spent trying to accommodate it. JavaScript is no more dangerous in this environment than anything else.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I am guessing tagging him won’t work while his account is closed, which it currently seems to be… I am guessing that is because it was never activated post migration.

@tomchick, I don’t suppose you would care to manually activate his account so we can ping him via tag and see if he wants to swing by? At least then he can reply to this thread via email, as I do miss his bumping this one.

Thanks for making an effort to reach out to Zak.

Interesting piece at Scientific American.

Yeah, I appreciated all of the climate change article updates (even if we didn’t agree on GMOs) but… there was some serious tinfoil hat business over his security concerns.