New report on climate change released today

[lpetrich]

There was indeed more atmospheric CO2 in the past, starting as recently as the Pliocene, some 3 million years go. But it balanced out the Sun being less luminous back then - the less solar luminosity, the more atmospheric CO2.

That is what produced those 380 million years of forests.

 

[SimpleDon]

Here's a little fact that's not nor can be easily refuted.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide has been on a downward trend for millions of years, from many times today's almost historical low. If oceans have absorbed much of this CO2 , they would have become much more acidic, yet limestone, corals and exoskeletons continued to grow, not be dissolved out of existence.

Adherents of GW/CC/CD can lambast " fringe conspiracy theorists " as much as they want, but they can't prove their pet theories or modeling of a coming Apocalypse. Now even the much referred to NASA to argument their religious like adherence to GW/CC/CD as human caused has been thrown out the window by saying it's the Earth's eccentric orbit around it's star for the majority of the changes, like it's always been.


https://www.scientificamerican.com/...ts-may-have-triggered-ancient-global-warming/

What orbital eccentries are you asserting have been creating the rapid warming over the last few decades? Why are only you noticing them?

You have been warned repeatedly here that you should actually read the material that you offer as support for your positions and to not just accept what other people tell you is being said.

This article is subtitled A new study combining astronomical and geologic data hints at an extraterrestrial cause for extreme climate change 56 million years ago. Something that happened 56 million years ago isn't causing our current warming. The authors of the article and the study make this abundantly clear in the conclusion of the article.

Whatever was responsible for the surge of carbon dioxide that preceded the PETM, the event—and the rise in global temperatures that followed—is the best analog in the rock record for current human-caused global warming. That does not mean orbital forcing is playing a role in anthropogenic climate change, Zeebe says. In fact, humans are releasing carbon into the atmosphere far faster than it occurred at the time of the PETM, meaning its impacts could be more severe. “Obviously, orbital configurations today are very different than they were 56 million years ago,” he says. “And in terms of future climate change, there’s very little expectation that orbital forcing will reduce or mitigate [it].”

Once again, the best evidence that the current warming isn't caused by the natural phenomenon as you assert is the rapid rate of warming. You haven't addressed this point. Please correct this omission.

 

[angelo]

Solar radiation will keep increasing regardless of what humanity does, until eventually it will fry all the inner planets. But that's billions of years away. But the sun is the main driver of Earth's climate. In fact many scientists would agree that it's the Earth's warming that produces more CO2, not the minute amount [ 2.5 % ] produced by human activity.

The sun isn't warming things fast enough to explain what we see. I only brought it up because you brought up the old, irrelevant bit about CO2 being higher in the past.

Before humans even started climbing down from the trees in the African savannas, the CO2 was 3-4 times higher than it is today. So it's far from being irrelevant!

 

[ZiprHead]

Solar radiation will keep increasing regardless of what humanity does, until eventually it will fry all the inner planets. But that's billions of years away. But the sun is the main driver of Earth's climate. In fact many scientists would agree that it's the Earth's warming that produces more CO2, not the minute amount [ 2.5 % ] produced by human activity.

The sun isn't warming things fast enough to explain what we see. I only brought it up because you brought up the old, irrelevant bit about CO2 being higher in the past.

Before humans even started climbing down from the trees in the African savannas, the CO2 was 3-4 times higher than it is today. So it's far from being irrelevant!

Why do you think that's relevant to today?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Why are people arguing with a simulating anti-science Madlib? What part of angelo's lack of responses to the substance of any posts leads anyone left to think responding to these posts is anything but a waste of time?

 

[starwater]

Why are people arguing with a simulating anti-science Madlib? What part of angelo's lack of responses to the substance of any posts leads anyone left to think responding to these posts is anything but a waste of time?

Oh but its fun to poke and see how it scrambles to try and splain things.

 

[lpetrich]

Greta Thunberg: TIME's Person of the Year 2019 | Time

“We can’t just continue living as if there was no tomorrow, because there is a tomorrow,” she says, tugging on the sleeve of her blue sweatshirt. “That is all we are saying.”

...
Thunberg began a global movement by skipping school: starting in August 2018, she spent her days camped out in front of the Swedish Parliament, holding a sign painted in black letters on a white background that read Skolstrejk för klimatet: “School Strike for Climate.” In the 16 months since, she has addressed heads of state at the U.N., met with the Pope, sparred with the President of the United States and inspired 4 million people to join the global climate strike on September 20, 2019, in what was the largest climate demonstration in human history. Her image has been celebrated in murals and Halloween costumes, and her name has been attached to everything from bike shares to beetles. Margaret Atwood compared her to Joan of Arc. After noticing a hundredfold increase in its usage, lexicographers at Collins Dictionary named Thunberg’s pioneering idea, climate strike, the word of the year.

...
“This moment does feel different,” former Vice President Al Gore, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his decades of climate advocacy work, tells TIME. “Throughout history, many great morally based movements have gained traction at the very moment when young people decided to make that movement their cause.”

TIME on Twitter: ".@GretaThunberg is TIME's 2019 Person of the Year #TIMEPOY [url]https://t.co/YZ7U6Up76v https://t.co/SWALBfeGl6" / Twitter[/url]
then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Incredible, inspiring, and well-deserved.
The time for climate action and youth movements is now. https://t.co/RX9YCUZjCS" / Twitter

 

[fromderinside]

Well posted lpetrich​.

 

[lpetrich]

Protests all over the world. New York City, London, Berlin, Johannesburg, Kabul, Kampala, Sao Paulo, Antarctica, Papua New Guinea, ... just about everywhere in the world with an open political system and that is not too small or too poor.

The biggest exceptions among carbon emitters are China and Saudi Arabia. China continues to be a one-party state, with its Communist Party continuing to claim a monopoly on political activity. Saudi Arabia continues to be ruled by its large royal family, a family that also claims a monopoly on political activity.

Russia and Iran are semiopen, so there's a little hope there.

In Guilin, China, 16-year-old Howey Ou posted a picture of herself online in front of city government offices in a solo act of climate protest; she was taken to a police station and told her demonstration was illegal. In Moscow, 25-year-old Arshak Makichyan began a one-man picket for climate, risking arrest in a country where street protest is tightly restricted.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Solar radiation will keep increasing regardless of what humanity does, until eventually it will fry all the inner planets. But that's billions of years away. But the sun is the main driver of Earth's climate. In fact many scientists would agree that it's the Earth's warming that produces more CO2, not the minute amount [ 2.5 % ] produced by human activity.

The sun isn't warming things fast enough to explain what we see. I only brought it up because you brought up the old, irrelevant bit about CO2 being higher in the past.

Before humans even started climbing down from the trees in the African savannas, the CO2 was 3-4 times higher than it is today. So it's far from being irrelevant!

<Smacks angelo with a railroad tie as a clue-by-4 has proven inadequate>

You're still ignoring the fact that in those times of high CO2 the sun wasn't putting out as much energy.

 

[angelo]

Greta Thunberg: TIME's Person of the Year 2019 | Time

“We can’t just continue living as if there was no tomorrow, because there is a tomorrow,” she says, tugging on the sleeve of her blue sweatshirt. “That is all we are saying.”

...
Thunberg began a global movement by skipping school: starting in August 2018, she spent her days camped out in front of the Swedish Parliament, holding a sign painted in black letters on a white background that read Skolstrejk för klimatet: “School Strike for Climate.” In the 16 months since, she has addressed heads of state at the U.N., met with the Pope, sparred with the President of the United States and inspired 4 million people to join the global climate strike on September 20, 2019, in what was the largest climate demonstration in human history. Her image has been celebrated in murals and Halloween costumes, and her name has been attached to everything from bike shares to beetles. Margaret Atwood compared her to Joan of Arc. After noticing a hundredfold increase in its usage, lexicographers at Collins Dictionary named Thunberg’s pioneering idea, climate strike, the word of the year.

...
“This moment does feel different,” former Vice President Al Gore, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his decades of climate advocacy work, tells TIME. “Throughout history, many great morally based movements have gained traction at the very moment when young people decided to make that movement their cause.”

TIME on Twitter: ".@GretaThunberg is TIME's 2019 Person of the Year #TIMEPOY [url]https://t.co/YZ7U6Up76v https://t.co/SWALBfeGl6" / Twitter[/url]
then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Incredible, inspiring, and well-deserved.
The time for climate action and youth movements is now. https://t.co/RX9YCUZjCS" / Twitter

Hitler also won Time magazine's " Man Of The Year." By the way, the brat only just pipped the Trump for the honor!

 

[lpetrich]

Glen Peters on Twitter: "How big is the CO₂ bucket for 1.5°C?
Well, the bucket is about to overflow in a few short years, unless we:
1. Turn off the tap (urgently)
2. Put a hole in the bottom to remove CO₂ (negative emissions)
#COP25 #CarbonBudget @FutureEarth @gcarbonproject [url]https://t.co/ycYcuFSPdF https://t.co/o7JwZt7GlX" / Twitter[/url]
then
Greta Thunberg on Twitter: "This is what it’s all about. And yet, basically no one has even seen these figures. We need to communicate this everywhere over and over again. Let’s get started. https://t.co/x30t5QGVGA" / Twitter
The bucket is now 90% full, and it was about half-full in 1994. Massive CO2 emission has happened remarkably fast.

It was about 45% full in 1989, the year that AOC was born, and 80% full in 2013, the year that GT was born. When I was born, it was only about 18% full.

Carbon Budget - the Global Carbon Project

It’s a Vast, Invisible Climate Menace. We Made It Visible. - The New York Times - observing methane emissions with infrared cameras. They see in wavelengths 3.2 - 3.4 mcm, where methane has an infrared spectral line there. From () - 1406.4194.pdf CH4 (C-12, H-1) has a vibrational spectral line at 3.31 mcm, and combined rotational-vibrational (rovibrational) lines from 3.15 to 3.45 mcm.

 

[lpetrich]

Methane's 3.31-mcm spectral line is well above the room-temperature blackbody peak of 10 mcm in energy. In any case, the NYT videos show plenty of detail, showing that it isn't mostly thermal emissions.


GCP - Carbon Budget - Visualizations:

A Brief History of CO2 Emissions – ᴜᴄʟᴀʙ - video showing that history. It all started in the UK then spread to elsewhere in the world. Shows big emitters as pillars on the globe.

The Great Decoupling - economic growth and carbon-emission growth, and how they are starting to decouple. Meaning the dawn of our second age of renewable energy.

Top 20 Country Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Emission History (1960-2017) - YouTube - the US was the world champion for most of that time. Around 1970, China beat Japan for 2nd place, and both nations beat the UK around then.

China beat the US in 2006, with Russia next -- and far behind. It was a bit bigger than Japan and India.

India beat Russia around 2009, and by 2017, China was twice the US, and the US twice India.

Countries with Largest CO2 emissions 1850-2017 - YouTube
The UK was the initial champion, easily beating every other nation combined.

After being neck and neck with France and Germany, the US surged ahead, beating the UK in 1888, with Germany at half it and France at half Germany.

By 1902, the US was at twice as much as the UK, Germany was a little behind the UK, and France about 1/3 as much.

By 1914, the US was at 3 times as much as the UK and Germany separately, and the UK was over 4 times as much as France and Russia separately.

There was a big decline in total output during the Great Depression, around 1933, then recovery. By 1939, Germany was a bit more than 1/3 of the US, and the UK and the USSR about 2/3 of Germany separately. By 1948, the USSR was the second largest at 1/5 the US, with the UK a little bit behind.

By 1957, when Sputnik 1 was launched, the USSR was about 1/3 the US and nearly twice the UK and W Germany separately. By 1973, the USSR was about 2/3 the US and 3 times China and Japan separately. The next in line were W Germany, the UK, and France.

The USSR broke up in 1991, and it was at 3/4 the US's emissions, China was at 1/2 the US, and Japan 1/5 the US.

By 2005, China had caught up with the US, and with Russia a bit more than 1/4, and Japan and India each at about 1/5. The next one was Germany at 1/6.

 

[lpetrich]

Varshini Prakash and the Sunrise Movement’s plan for the Green New Deal - Vox - Jul 31

“No permanent friends, no permanent enemies”: inside the Sunrise Movement’s plan to save humanity

A conversation with Varshini Prakash, the activist leading the charge for the Green New Deal.

She is the daughter of two South Indian immigrants, and she remembers the 2014 Indian-Ocean tsunami being very big news. Then Hurricane Katrina did so.

In her early years, she was apolitical, but in college, she became an anti-fossil-fuel activist, and she liked being one of many activists. About being an activist,

... You find the best of people in this work because you find people who have decided that every single day they are going to wake up and assert themselves to the mission at hand of creating a more just society. Those are incredible people to be around. I have learned a level of of compassion, a level of generosity, almost a necessary joyfulness. The fact that we are just steeped in painful topics means you actually have to create your own joy.

The Sunrise founders had different paths to activism, but they got started in the Obama years, as it got evident that CO2-caused climate changes were going to get worse and worse over the next decade. They got together in early 2016, well before their famous sit-in in Nancy Pelosi's office in late 2018.

VP recognizes that it would take a massive government effort to get off of fossil fuels and do other things to fix the climate. "We also knew it would take a movement unlike what we’ve seen in probably half a century to build enough power to govern for enough time to get us there." -- that's looking back to the mass movements of the sixties, roughly 1955 to 1975.

VP mentioned this: It may only take 3.5% of the population to topple a dictator – with civil resistance | Erica Chenoweth | Opinion | The Guardian - so if enough people using nonviolent resistance tactics, they can do it.

Active support is a whole range of things. It includes people who are voting on the issue, who are donating to institutions and organizations that are working toward a solution, who are active on social media, who are signing pledges and participating in call-in days, and in other creative ways. Giving your time, whether it’s one hour a week or 50 hours of your week, toward the broader of trying to solve the climate crisis.

For Sunrise, we actually need people to donate whatever they can, however they can, to the movement in order to sustain us. So we have moms and dads who cook for our retreats and our organization, who support our movements with volunteer housing so our volunteers can live and eat for free in their homes. So being active looks like a whole number of things.

 

[lpetrich]

Varshini Prakash noted that people power is only one of the three parts of her movement's strategy.

The second part is political power, getting friendly politicians into office. She mentioned how the Trump administration showed the importance of that, with the House and the Senate being in Republican hands for the first two years of it.

Right now there’s a real debate within the Democratic Party about whether to embrace broad social programs that uplift the most vulnerable among us. We think the outcome of that fight will affect the direction of climate policymaking in the United States.

She then got into political alignment, the third part. She notes the FDR New-Deal one from the 1930's to the 1970's, and the Reagan one from the 1980's one onward.

From  Cyclical theory (United States history) one can construct this list of alignments:

• 1774 - 1793: Founding: Continental Congress, Revolution, Constitution
• 1793 - 1800: Federalist era
• 1800 - 1828: Jefferson era
• 1828 - 1856: Jackson era
• 1856 - 1896: Republican era I
• 1896 - 1932: Republican era II
• 1932 - 1980: New Deal era
• 1980 - present: Reagan era: Gilded Age II

So we think there’s actually a new opportunity at this particular rupture for a “people’s alignment,” where movements, institutions, think tanks, businesses, and unions are organized around a new set of values aimed at building a government and an economy that actually works for all people.

Then the question of political power. A lot of activists dislike politics as corrupting, and they don't want to have to make painful compromises. Some activists, like the Occupy movement, avoid politics outright, while others have political power as their main focus.

VP then explained that her movement has a principle: no permanent friends, no permanent enemies. Thus, the Sunrise Movement can work with someone like AOC now, but it doesn't mean that the movement is always committed to working with someone like that.

Why the big upsurge in activism? VP:

I was honored to be Sen. Markey’s guests to the State of the Union earlier this year, and I asked him about the difference between 2009 and 2019. His answer was that the biggest difference is that we actually have an army of people outside of the halls of Congress who are fighting to stop climate change.

Then what happened to make it politically polarized. Ezra Klein, her interviewer, suspected Al Gore with "An Inconvenient Truth", but I think that it was form fossil-fuel lobbyists finding Republicans more receptive to their message than Democrats. That's help make climate-change denial into a bit of right-wing political correctness.

 

[lpetrich]

Varshini Prakash:

... For so long, we have framed solutions to the climate crisis as taking something away from people. So I think we need to change how we talk about solutions. What I explain to people is that the Green New Deal is not only about tackling the climate crisis. It’s also about providing people with tens of millions of good jobs. It’s about trying to reinvigorate an economy and put money back in the hands of working people. It’s about alleviating inequality between different groups of people. It’s about ensuring we have clean air and clean water.

Not only that, one will directly benefit from lowered electric bills.

Why a lot of singing in the Sunrise Movement?

I think singing for us carries a few different tools. In our movements, we use song to build joy. We use it in times of fear or intensity, as a way to show solidarity with one another and show our strength. We use it in times of sorrow or pain to give voice to our feelings. We use it in moments of anger. Like many movements throughout history, we use song to bring people together and give voice to what we’re here to do.

A sort of team-building exercise.

Then what a horrible disaster failure would be and how great success would be.

... There always will be the fear, but I also think there is the knowledge that something is more important — a deep spiritual calling toward doing something to better people’s lives. The only failure would be to do nothing at all.

I look to texts for wisdom and guidance in this moment as well. One of my favorites is actually the Tao Te Ching. There’s this one verse that says something like “do your work and then step back and it is the only path to serenity.” So the way I see it, if we are constantly striving and we are constantly working and putting every ounce of ourselves to make this life better, that to me is a life worth living.

Richard Carrier was once a philosophical Taoist, and he still considers Taoism the most plausible theology: From Taoist to Infidel - Richard Carrier Blogs: Tao Te Ching

 

[lpetrich]

Chloé Farand on Twitter: "Plenary is about to start at #Cop25. The latest text has been released this morning and all the language on ambition has been scrapped. Countries are now "invited" to "communicate" by 2020 their mid and long-term climate plans. No language to "update" or "enhance". https://t.co/GZ5WgOBGOl" / Twitter
then
Karl Mathiesen on Twitter: "Things are going to get ugly. Cop president Carolina Schmidt, who many of the ambitious parties will be very cross with, has just walked into the plenary. Watch here: [url]https://t.co/oPRG22ahzm https://t.co/bk01EXkJRT" / Twitter[/url]
then
Simon Lewis on Twitter: "As if UK politics wasn’t depressing enough, the overrunning #COP25 climate talks, supposed to finish yesterday, are overrunning all night and new into the next day. They are a mess. As public pressure is mounting, countries are back-sliding. A dangerous moment. https://t.co/E896o5L2On" / Twitter
then
David Wallace-Wells on Twitter: "The entire purpose of COP25 was for nations to scale up their own ambitions and raise the decarbonization targets established under Paris. After an extra day of contentious negotiation, all language referring to that goal has been stripped from the resolution. https://t.co/OFJvE67K0i" / Twitter
then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "An utter failure.
#COP25 & conferences like it are intended to be actual negotiations to urgently drawdown global carbon emissions - not cocktail parties to make politicians feel better about themselves as they squash dissent & sell off our futures to fossil fuel interests. https://t.co/cw1B1dtS53" / Twitter


350.org – Joint CSO Statement from COP25 — UNFCCC de-badges civil society engaged in peaceful protest, removing access to all Observers, in unprecedented crackdown on dissent
then
Bill McKibben on Twitter: "When the UN is kicking out protesters, not polluters, from the climate talks, you get a sense of why things are going off the rails https://t.co/JLCc7ZdB5D" / Twitter
then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "By pulling out of the Paris Agreement, Trump gave up his seat at the table for global climate negotiations a long time ago.
He’s a glorified fossil fuel lobbyist sabotaging the effort to save our future.
Yet he’s not the only one - there are plenty more in our gov & abroad. https://t.co/7qY917YUnV" / Twitter


So COP25 didn't turn out very well. A lot of politicians will need to be dragged into action, and dragged kicking and screaming, if necessary.

 

[repoman]

In this lecture he says that mostly agriculture in responsible for pushing the pre-industrial CO2 baseline from 260 to 280 ppm. He also hints that without this the pre-industrial temps would have been a lot cooler, heading back to a glacial period.

 

[angelo]

In other words, the science is far from being settled, right? Alarmists use modeling to argument their case, while real scientific methods are rarely used!

 

[lpetrich]

350.org - named after the preindustrial concentration of CO2 in our planet's atmosphere.

350 is building a future that's just, prosperous, equitable and safe from the effects of climate change.

We're an international movement of ordinary people working to end the age of fossil fuels and build a world of community-led renewable energy for all.

1. A Fast & Just Transition to 100% Renewable Energy for All
Accelerate the transition to a new, just clean energy economy by supporting community-led energy solutions.

2. No New Fossil Fuel Projects Anywhere.
Stop and ban all oil, coal and gas projects from being built through local resolutions and community resistance.

3. Not a Penny more for Dirty Energy
Cut off the social license and financing for fossil fuel companies — divest, desponsor and defund.

The map of 350.org chapters is interesting. Lots of them in the richer nations, and also in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Oceania, with some in Africa, South Asia, and East Asia. The only one in China is in Hong Kong. In Europe, there are plenty in Western, Northern, Southern, and Central Europe, with hardly any in Eastern Europe, and none in Russia. There are only two in the Middle East and North Africa.

This fits the pattern that I found earlier, that the less open societies tend to be "activism deserts".