writeaboutwarming

September 14, 2015 - The news just isn't getting any better, is it?  Heroic people all over the world are working very hard to keep climate change from reaching the tipping point, but governments continue down the same road they've been following for decades.  Sadly, their inertia means the bill that's coming due just keeps getting bigger.  And oh! how badly they and their super-wealthy citizens don't want to pay it.  That's ok.  This bill collector is never turned down.  It will all work out in due course.  After all, it's only humankind that may face extinction. Actually, I do believe there will be survivors.  I don't mean that in the sense of "me and my family have this all figured out."  I mean that in the sense that the odds favor it.  Somebody, somewhere, will get through this.  Maybe a lot of somebodies.  Humanity's chance to influence a more favorable outcome is just about over, however.  Much as we human beings ...

August 19, 2013 – Back in the halcyon days of warnings about a far off event called climate change   (as opposed to   the actual occurrence of climate change, which is what we’re stuck with now), Americans were warned that if certain tendencies in the climate asserted themselves, they would encourage the climate’s unpredictability, thereby leading to more change.   When an action leads to results that reinforce the original action, a feedback loop has been established.   Say, for instance, that a student who dislikes school because he gets poor grades, decides that because of his disliking school he’d rather play soccer with friends than study for a test.   The consequences are quite predictable: because he doesn’t study for the test, he performs poorly on the test, leading to an even greater dislike of school.   That’s a feedback loop. In the early days, right after World War II, all that scientists knew was that the earth was warming.   Becaus...

August 15, 2013 - Our behavior continues to indicate that we believe ourselves to be in control of our world.   Not to pick on the president, but he’s just announced plans for updating the electric grid.   The reason he’s doing that is that, just as the vast majority of Americans are unable to imagine a world without electricity, neither can he.   Or maybe he can, and that’s the problem: people sometimes suffer from “kill the messenger” syndrome, and he absolutely does not want to be the bearer of that particular piece of bad news. What most Americans want to believe, of course, is that we can have our cake and eat it, too.   Burn coal, but not suffer from the consequences of doing so.   Eat food made toxic by RoundUp, but not suffer the consequences of doing so.   Drive cars, but not suffer the consequences of doing so.   Feed   farm animals with GMO foods, but not suffer the consequences of doing so.   Drill for oil in the Arctic, bu...

June 27, 2013 – First of all, let me apologize for my erratic posting schedule.   The good news is I was able to enjoy two brief vacations in June.   The further good news is that there are no more trips in the pipeline, so I’m back at it.   Since my posting schedule isn’t the only thing that’s been erratic lately, let’s talk about the weather. Last Saturday, my husband, a friend, and I were heading back to Loveland from Indianapolis.   Traffic had been slow-moving on the way there, so we decided to take the long way home, thinking we’d be able to bypass the road construction.   Little did we know what lay ahead: strong winds, small hail, torrential rain that caused visibility to decline to zero at times, and electrical activity so intense that at one point we saw four cloud-to-ground lightning bolts strike at the same moment.   My husband prides himself on allowing nothing to keep him off the road; however, this time he bowed to a storm more fearsom...

June 17, 2013 - Perhaps no one word describes climate change better than volatile .  There are a number of words like volatile that can help clarify what is meant by climate change: mercurial, fluctuating, and transient all can be applied - at times - to this emerging phenomenon.  As it emerges, it will grow in geographical impact, grow in severity of effects, grow in variety of effects, and grow exponentially as a result of positive feedback.  Last year will always be better than this year.  It will outpace us - our inability to act collectively will result in millions of individual actions.  Most of them will have been poorly thought out. For now, we must learn to accept that many of our poorly-informed collective actions only serve to compound errors.  Sequestration - a puzzling action at best - has stripped $50 million from the Forest Service's budget, eliminating the jobs of 500 firefighters.  Those still employed w...

June 15, 2013 – The political fallout resulting from global warming is ever more in evidence. Countries as diverse as Syria and China are both dealing with a dissatisfied populace that has taken matters into its own hands. Loss of faith in the government’s willingness to deal with environmental havoc resulted in 50,000 protests last year in China. I wrote recently of the climatic-political origins of the war in Syria. Where else might the climate change tinderbox ignite? The Inter Press Service News Agency recently wrote that flooding has come to stay in Europe. Central and Eastern Europe, after an extremely long winter that was followed by weeks of strong storms (sound familiar?), has seen the Danube and Elbe Rivers rise to record levels. Twenty-one people died as a result, and thousands were evacuated. Mudslides closed down roads and train lines in Austria, and in the Czech Republic, 20,000 people were evacuated from 700 different locations. Damage in the CR is thus far estimated ...

March 13, 2013 – It has always seemed strange to me that some people’s attention is riveted by the cost of preventing/mitigating climate change.   Whatever the cost, it’s too high!   I would have thought that death was too high a price to pay, and that compared to death, we would do anything to survive.   Ultimately I think this has to do with an underperforming imagination.   Climate change deniers do not believe they or their progeny will die because of global warming.   A trifle clammy on an August afternoon?   A few inches of water in the basement?   A brief tornado touchdown in a town suitably far removed from one’s own?   What’s all the excitement about? Let’s see: forest fires, landslides, valley fever, tsunamis, malaria, drought, bird flu, crops destroyed, earthquakes, houses torn off their foundations, famine, dengue fever, avalanches, influenza,   floods,   ebola.   There sure are a lot of ways to die, and some o...

November 19, 2012 - With the issuance of the World Bank report Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4 Degree Centigrade Warmer World Must Be Avoided, the chorus of voices in Washington, D.C. that belong to organizations that have at last found their courage has become quite raucous.  What are they saying? This will happen!  That will happen!  This AND that will happen!  This and that must not happen!  It's serious!  It's very, Very, VERY serious!!  Why?  Because this will happen!  And that will happen!  Etc., etc., etc. Not that they're wrong.  Far from it; the ramifications of doing nothing - which is, in essence, what we are currently doing - are staggeringly awful.  I've covered them quite thoroughly, in the nearly four years I've been writing this blog.  This part of the report they got right. Without mitigative actions, we're in a world of hurt.  Yes, the World Bank speaks truth. They are to be...

October 29, 2012 - Considering that there's an 800 pound gorilla occupying all the available space, I guess we better pay attention to her.  She's big, she's bad, she's ugly: Hurricane Sandy.  From all appearances, she's on target to live up to her advance billing.  Storm of the Century, and then some.  Anything to celebrate here?  Maybe. First of all, a closer look is in order.  Hurricane Sandy is 1,000 miles across, with sustained winds of 90 mph.  Storm surge will be her worst aspect.  Sandy, moving at a snail's pace, is scooping up and pushing water out ahead of her that may create a water wall 15 feet in height in New York City.  Should subways flood, as they are likely to do, clean up and repairs could take weeks. Furthermore, this hurricane's storm surge will last throughout three - count them, three - high tides, thereby significantly magnifying the effect. Did you know that a cubic yard of water weighs nearly a ton?  Sm...

February 14, 2012 - Happy Valentine's Day - here's wishing you the pleasures of loving and being loved.  I'm late because of a nasty cold, but it's time to get myself pulled together.  Climate Change waits for no one! Mostly, I've been hearing about the cold snap in Europe this winter.  I haven't kept up with how the British are faring, but past brutal winters have caused an alarming death rate amongst old-age pensioners; perhaps the British government will have understood by now that their intervention can make the difference between life and death.  Not surprisingly, the homeless are a primary source of unhappy statistics elsewhere.  In Australia, Queenslander's are once again dealing with widespread flooding. While none of us wishes Europeans or Australians ill, these two groups face climatic challenges armed with copious amounts of information, and at least the possiblity of paying for the necessary shelters, fuel, and damage control.  The same...

November 14, 2011 - The International Energy Agency (IEA) has a reputation for conservatism, so its latest report has been regarded as something of an eye-opener. The Agency has joined the ranks of other former climate change mealy mouths (you can just never be too sure, can you?) who now think it's time for immediate action. They've put a pretty fine point on it, too: should governments/agencies fail to act decisively within five years, all hope for a 2 degrees Celsius (roughly 3 1/2 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in average global temperatures will be lost. Not that the IEA should be regarded as the know-all and be-all of climate change. To repeat, their assertion of irrevocable climate change is significant because they have heretofore been reluctant to go on the record with an "official" opinion, particularly one in support of looming disaster. Unfortunately, IEA officials still toe the line when the executive director talks of "growth, prosperity, and rising p...

April 5, 2011 – I really can’t say enough good things about algore.com, not to mention its eponymous founder. Since I’m not a member of Michael Ruppert’s Collapsenet, I can’t compare the two. The Gore site is free, and I think it makes available an admirable quantity of high-quality news and up-to-the-minute information. Today, the former vice president highlights an editorial that ran yesterday at the American Medical Association’s news site, amednews.com. (If you would like to read the entire editorial, go to http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2011/04/04/edsa0404.htm#top ) I can think of no better way to begin than to quote the first paragraph of the editorial: “If physicians want evidence of climate change, they may well find it in their own offices. Patients are presenting with illnesses that once happened only in warmer areas. Chronic conditions are becoming aggravated by more frequent and extended heat waves. Allergy and asthma seasons are getting longer. Spates ...

In an article I wrote for Transition Voice, I wrote about the possible effect of peak everything on climate change. That, I believe, is only half the cycle. As you may recall, I stated that the overall effect of peak non-renewables production might be positive, i.e., the increasing cost of recovering fossil fuels could well serve to make them scarcer, thereby mitigating the effects of climate change. Let me repeat: this could be an outcome of peak everything. There will likely be other, less welcome, changes as well. In this article, I’d like to examine the other half of the cycle: the impact of climate change on peak non-renewables production. The world was only recently on the receiving end of a startling warning in this regard. The torrential rains which have destroyed lives and property in the province of Queensland, Australia, have also managed to temporarily close the region’s coal mines ( http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/01/20/3117184.htm ), with an economic impact likel...

November 15, 2010 – Back in 2009, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued a report saying that temperatures will remain hotter than average for 1000 years after greenhou se ga se s cea se being emitted. How much hotter? Another NOAA report says 9 – 11 degrees Fahrenheit hotter across the United States . That, of cour se , is an average: some places will experience even hotter temperatures, others cooler temperatures. The hottest, it appears, will occur in the Arctic . Moscow is feeling the pinch already, with temperatures 20 degrees above normal this November. 2010, NASA tells us, will be the hottest year in 131 years of record keeping. What will life be like, when winter is the se ason everyone looks forward to, and summertime temperatures cau se human beings to work, and play, in the dark? How will future generations teach our great-great grandchildren to look forward to a better time they will never know? Tree planting will become a human being’s...