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Climate Change News

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Volkonski
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Re: Climate Change News

#51

Post by Volkonski »



Bad news for polar bears. :(
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Re: Climate Change News

#52

Post by Volkonski »



The glaciers of the eastern Alps are past the point of no return.
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Re: Climate Change News

#53

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2 ... ad-hiking/
For more than two months, California authorities could not say what killed a young family of three and their dog along a hiking trail in the Sierra National Forest.

The bodies of John Gerrish, Ellen Chung and their 1-year-old daughter, Miju, were found close to the Merced River with no physical wounds or signs of trauma. Baffled investigators ruled out a number of possibilities, from lightning to carbon monoxide exposure and toxic algae. Now they have an answer: hyperthermia and possible dehydration, Mariposa County Sheriff Jeremy Briese announced Thursday.

The family had hiked a steep incline with little shade at temperatures reaching up to 109 degrees, possibly running out of water at some point during the trip, Briese said. Investigators believe their dog Oski died of heat-related issues.

Briese explained hyperthermia is a condition when body temperatures reach an abnormally high level.

“This is an unfortunate and tragic event due to the weather,” Briese said.
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Re: Climate Change News

#54

Post by Tiredretiredlawyer »

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/1 ... rs-of-M-Ms
Rep. Katie Porter used 479 pounds of rice to show just how much federal land Big Oil is sitting on

Rep. Katie Porter showed exactly how little the oil industry cares about combating climate change through the creative use of props during a House Oversight Committee hearing on Thursday. Porter has consistently been critical of the world’s worst polluters and even signed a pledge not to take money from them. She knows how much fossil fuel companies stand to gain by refusing to adequately address climate change.

During Porter’s questioning of Shell President Gretchen Watkins, the California congresswoman held up a jar filled to the brim with M&Ms, each of which represented about $50 million. Altogether, the M&Ms signified upwards of the $22 billion Shell’s 2020 annual report called for spending on renewable energy in the near term. The near term must add up to almost a decade, because Watkins said Shell is only spending $2 billion to $3 billion on renewables this year.

Porter noted that Shell will be spending between $16 billion and $17 billion this year on oil, gas, and chemical operations, with another $3 billion going towards marketing. “Mrs. Watkins, to me, this does not look like an adequate response to one of the ‘defining challenges of our time,’” Porter said, quoting Watkins’ own testimony. “This is greenwashing,” Porter added.

Soon after, Porter questioned Mike Sommers, who serves as president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute (API). Sommers’ testimony was short on concrete details about combating climate change but long on promises of reducing “emissions while still providing affordable, reliable energy.” Much of what Sommers highlighted focused squarely on continuing to use fossil fuels and repairing existing fossil fuel infrastructure instead of taking the necessary action to eliminate harmful emissions. Porter zeroed in on the API’s habit of leasing large swaths of land, much of which they’ve yet to exploit.

Porter found an even better illustration of this by buying up massive sacks of rice. Each grain of rice represents one acre, so it would take 479 pounds to account for the federal land API members are sitting on. A special shoutout to Porter’s vanity plate, which reads “OVRSITE.”
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Re: Climate Change News

#55

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https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59132104
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has said his Bezos Earth Fund will spend $2bn (£1.5bn) restoring landscapes and transforming food systems.

He told the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow that he had grasped nature's fragility when he travelled into space.

Entrepreneurs including Mr Bezos have been criticised for spending money on trips into space instead of solving problems on Earth.

Amazon has also been criticised by its workers over environmental practices.

Speaking to the COP26 conference, Mr Bezos said: "In too many parts of the world, nature is already flipping from a carbon sink to a carbon source."

The Bezos Earth Fund plans to spend $10bn fighting climate change overall.
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Re: Climate Change News

#56

Post by Foggy »

He told the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow that he had grasped nature's fragility when he travelled into space.
Gosh, I reckon I could never grasp that.

I feel so inadequate.
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Re: Climate Change News

#57

Post by MsDaisy »

A new Supreme Court case could gut the government’s power to fight climate change
Neil Gorsuch’s dream case could be the Earth’s nightmare.
The Supreme Court announced late last week that it will hear four very similar cases — all likely to be consolidated under the name West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency — which could prove to be some of the most consequential court decisions in recent US history.

That’s a bold statement, so allow me to explain.

The cases are the latest chapter in the seemingly never-ending litigation over the Clean Power Plan, arguably former President Barack Obama’s boldest effort to fight climate change. Though the plan was never implemented, it still exists in a zombie-like state. A federal appeals court decision revived the plan last January, but the Biden administration said in February that it would not reinstate Obama’s policy.

Even though it’s no longer likely to be implemented, the petitioners in the West Virginia case — red states, energy companies, and owners of coal mines — are fighting to get the Court to rule that the federal Clean Air Act does not authorize Obama’s plan. More importantly, they call for new limits on the Clean Air Act that would severely restrict the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to reduce greenhouse emissions in the future.

But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. At least some of the parties in the West Virginia litigation claim that it is unconstitutional for the EPA to take the sort of aggressive strides against climate change that the Obama administration took in its Clean Power Plan. This theory wouldn’t just strip the EPA of much of its power to fight climate change, it could potentially disable Congress’s ability to effectively protect the environment.
https://www.vox.com/2021/11/3/22758188/ ... reme-court
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Re: Climate Change News

#58

Post by Slim Cognito »

Can someone tell those rich assholes their grandkids can’t eat or breathe money.
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Re: Climate Change News

#59

Post by Volkonski »

“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.” ― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
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Re: Climate Change News

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Saving History With Sandbags: Climate Change Threatens the Smithsonian
Beneath the National Museum of American History, floodwaters are intruding into collection rooms, a consequence of a warming planet. A fix remains years away.

By Christopher Flavelle
Nov. 25, 2021

WASHINGTON — President Warren Harding’s blue silk pajamas. Muhammad Ali’s boxing gloves. The Star Spangled Banner, stitched by Betsy Ross. Scripts from the television show “M*A*S*H.”

Nearly two million irreplaceable artifacts that tell the American story are housed in the National Museum of American History, part of the Smithsonian Institution, the biggest museum complex in the world.

Now, because of climate change, the Smithsonian stands out for another reason: Its cherished buildings are extremely vulnerable to flooding, and some could eventually be underwater.

Eleven palatial Smithsonian museums and galleries form a ring around the National Mall, the grand two-mile park lined with elms that stretches from the Lincoln Memorial to the U.S. Capitol.

But that land was once marsh. And as the planet warms, the buildings face two threats. Rising seas will eventually push in water from the tidal Potomac River and submerge parts of the Mall, scientists say. More immediately, increasingly heavy rainstorms threaten the museums and their priceless holdings, particularly since many are stored in basements.

At the American History Museum, water is already intruding.

It gurgles up through the floor in the basement. It finds the gaps between ground-level windows, puddling around exhibits. It sneaks into the ductwork, then meanders the building and drips onto display cases. It creeps through the ceiling in locked collection rooms, thief-like, and pools on the floor.



https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/25/clim ... oding.html
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Re: Climate Change News

#61

Post by Volkonski »

Time to invest in warehouses at a higher elevation.
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Re: Climate Change News

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Post by Volkonski »

“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.” ― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
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Re: Climate Change News

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:eek:
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Re: Climate Change News

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ate-change
Conservation documents for more than half of Australia’s critically endangered species and habitats fail to mention climate change according to new analysis that argues there is a significant “climate gap” in the management of Australia’s threatened wildlife.

The report was commissioned by the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) and prepared by the Australian National University’s GreenLaw project, which is led by students in the ANU’s law faculty.

The analysis examined the extent to which conservation documents for Australia’s most imperilled wildlife discussed and addressed the threat of global heating.

It found that for 178 out of 334 critically endangered species and habitats the threat of climate change was not mentioned in the government’s conservation information at all.
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Re: Climate Change News

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Alaska Records a 67-Degree Day, a December Record
The reading from Kodiak Island on Sunday was not the only extreme weather in the state this month. Other places have seen record cold or precipitation.

By Mike Ives
Dec. 29, 2021

In a holiday season of extreme weather events, this one stands out: a 67-degree Fahrenheit reading in Alaska the day after Christmas.

The reading on Sunday, from a tidal station on Kodiak Island, set a statewide temperature record for December, the National Weather Service reported.

The temperature at the station, in southern Alaska, reached the 60s again on Monday before falling to 55 degrees on Tuesday morning, Rick Thoman, a climate specialist with the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy in Fairbanks, said on Twitter.

“In late December,” he added. “I would not have thought such a thing possible.”

It wasn’t the only weather record to fall this month in towns along the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea. A 56-degree day on Dec. 25 in the town of Unalaska, Alaska, appeared to be the state’s highest-ever reliable temperature reading for Christmas Day, Mr. Thoman wrote.

Tying a single heat wave to climate change requires extensive analysis, but scientists say it is abundantly clear that heat waves around the world are growing more frequent, longer lasting and more dangerous.



https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/29/us/a ... ature.html
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Re: Climate Change News

#66

Post by Volkonski »

“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.” ― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
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Re: Climate Change News

#67

Post by Volkonski »

From a FB page about my home town in Massachusetts-
Does anyone know of any good ponds around town to skate on? Would love to lace em up! Thanks!

Ponds no longer freeze around here

It’s crazy there’s no ice
When we were kids we were skating after like Thanksgiving on ponds in the woods, there’s nothing like that anymore

Haven’t seen it stay below freezing enough in a long time to make the ice thick enough to safely skate on.

There are currently no ponds that would safe, temps need to below freezing continuously for several days for ice to even be close to safe

Steve I hope the ponds freeze. I used to skate every day after school when I was a kid. So true not cold enough to make it safe in many years.
When I was a boy our father used to take my brother and me to skate on local ponds. For the ice to be good it needed several days below freezing with no snow.
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Re: Climate Change News

#68

Post by Tiredretiredlawyer »

https://www.treehugger.com/california-s ... gy-5222409
California's 'Solar Canals' Will Save Water and Produce Clean Energy
Covering all 4,000 miles of the state's canals with solar panels could save 63 billion gallons of water annually.

A public-private-academic partnership plans to install solar panels over water canals in California in a bid to produce clean energy and help preserve the state's dwindling water resources.

Construction of Project Nexus, the “first-ever solar panel over canal development in the United States,” will start next fall and is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2023. The 5-megawatt project will consist of three sites along canals in central California with widths ranging from 20 feet to 100 feet.

If the pilot project proves solar canopies are a cost-effective way to produce clean energy and save water, scores of similar installations could be built atop California’s canal network—one of the world’s largest water distribution systems.
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Re: Climate Change News

#69

Post by Suranis »

That's an interesting idea. Keeping the water in continual shade could potentially cut down evaporation from direct sunlight. But I would be concerned at the effect on underwater plants and the like. Not sure how relevant that is on Canals though.
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Re: Climate Change News

#70

Post by W. Kevin Vicklund »

Suranis wrote: Tue Mar 22, 2022 9:28 pm That's an interesting idea. Keeping the water in continual shade could potentially cut down evaporation from direct sunlight. But I would be concerned at the effect on underwater plants and the like. Not sure how relevant that is on Canals though.
They're basically concrete troughs, as I understand it, so any plant life is incidental. A large part of why they can do it so cheaply is that the canals are very consistent in design, and thus require very little engineering (cookie-cutter design).
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Re: Climate Change News

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Post by W. Kevin Vicklund »

W. Kevin Vicklund wrote: Tue Mar 22, 2022 9:35 pm
Suranis wrote: Tue Mar 22, 2022 9:28 pm That's an interesting idea. Keeping the water in continual shade could potentially cut down evaporation from direct sunlight. But I would be concerned at the effect on underwater plants and the like. Not sure how relevant that is on Canals though.
They're basically concrete troughs, as I understand it, so any plant life is incidental. A large part of why they can do it so cheaply is that the canals are very consistent in design, and thus the solar panels and support structures require very little engineering (cookie-cutter design).
*edited for clarity
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Re: Climate Change News

#72

Post by Estiveo »

They are giant concrete troughs...
Estiveoshot_20220322_184119.jpg
...and there's plenty of fish, with plenty of Central Valley Bubbas to catch 'em.
Estiveoshot_20220322_184834.jpg
So that'll have to be taken into consideration.
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Re: Climate Change News

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“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.” ― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
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Re: Climate Change News

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“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.” ― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
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Re: Climate Change News

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“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.” ― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
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