FL Gov. Ron DeSantis’s sad trombone of a campaign was womp-womp-womping its way through Iowa last week and had planned to be in South Carolina today. But a racist terrorist attack in Jacksonville that killed three and a storm aiming at the state forced him off the trail and back to Tallahassee, according to WUSF: …
Climate Change
Monday Morning Open Thread: President Biden Goes to Maui
This post is in: 2024 Primaries, Climate Change, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, Republicans in Disarray!
Biden heading to Maui to meet with wildfire survivors https://t.co/Svw6dqlnYQ pic.twitter.com/uF7kNvWwG6 — Reuters (@Reuters) August 21, 2023 President Joe Biden’s duty as consoler-in-chief will be put to the test on Monday when he visits Maui, nearly two weeks after wildfires swept through the Hawaiian island and killed more than 100 people. Biden will pause his …
Monday Morning Open Thread: President Biden Goes to MauiPost + Comments (140)
You know who else has been awesome? My amazing senator @brianschatz. On the ground in Maui. Helpful. Kind. Empathetic. 100% responsive. Everything you want in your senator. Mahalo nui loa.https://t.co/SZ9NTwSzgV
— HawaiiDelilah™ 🟦 #MauiStrong (@HawaiiDelilah) August 21, 2023
Lured by jobs, a laid-back lifestyle and gorgeous scenery, immigrants had flocked to Lahaina from all over the world. But after fires leveled the town, some foreign-born workers perished, and many lost everything in the inferno, including documents.. https://t.co/mrz0pXyy7S
— The Associated Press (@AP) August 21, 2023
Meanwhile, the Disloyal Opposition:
Disaster tourism.
No better than that kid who traveled to Syria or the multitude of people who decide they're going to show the "Truth about North Korea". https://t.co/EJjRUdhl7p
— Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ (@padresj) August 20, 2023
Monday Morning Open Thread: The Maui Disaster
This post is in: Climate Change, Open Threads, Show Us on the Doll Where the Invisible Hand Touched You
The situation on Maui is devastating..Last night @WCKitchen teams brought hot meals, fresh sandwiches made by local restaurants, water &fruit to families in and around Lahaina . Today WCK teams are setting up again with thousands of meals for people in need🙏 #ChefsForHawaii pic.twitter.com/KkWBw1O55G — José Andrés 🇺🇸🇪🇸🇺🇦 (@chefjoseandres) August 11, 2023 Liable to be …
Monday Morning Open Thread: The Maui DisasterPost + Comments (198)
Reminder that you can help the people of Lahaina Maui right here. Mahalo for your support. https://t.co/imol6Zr9mI
— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) August 10, 2023
Maui folks, FEMA is on the ground and people need to be enlisted in every program for which they are eligible. This will be difficult without internet access; try calling 800-621-FEMA (3362) to apply. Mahalo, @brianschatz https://t.co/Dr2O019GFg
— HawaiiDelilah™ 🟦 #MauiStrong (@HawaiiDelilah) August 14, 2023
Lahaina residents worry that rebuilt homes in their Maui town could slip into the hands of affluent outsiders seeking a tropical haven rather than homegrown residents who give the Hawaiian island its spirit and identity. https://t.co/tD9a6RGVhF
— The Associated Press (@AP) August 13, 2023
The federal government is doing A LOT to help Maui. Way more significant than a photo op from a president throwing paper towels are suffering people: pic.twitter.com/GdnAUUOUeO
— HawaiiDelilah™ 🟦 #MauiStrong (@HawaiiDelilah) August 13, 2023
With the death toll from the Maui wildfires at 93 and expected to rise, search crews continued to scour the scorched ruins Sunday and officials pleaded for patience as they struggle to recover human remains. https://t.co/2nuINm6IRI
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) August 14, 2023
Monday Morning Open Thread: New Week, Same… Stuff
This post is in: Excellent Links, How about that weather?, Open Threads, Republican Stupidity, Space
Think July was hot in the desert SW? Aug says hold my beer. A monster heat dome likely by next weekend – the most intense yet this summer. Magenta indicates where all-time record heights are forecast. This on top of PHX so far beating its hottest month on record by almost 4F!! 1/ pic.twitter.com/1tts60hrOr — …
Monday Morning Open Thread: New Week, Same… StuffPost + Comments (159)
The aliens have landed. And they have a gavel!
That is as plausible a takeaway as any from this week’s House Oversight Committee hearing on unidentified anomalous phenomena, the curiosity formerly known as UFOs. The panel’s national security subcommittee brought in, as its star witness, one David Grusch, a former Defense Department intelligence official who now claims:
– That there are “quite a number” of “nonhuman” space vehicles in the possession of the U.S. government.
– That one “partially intact vehicle” was retrieved from Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in 1933 by the United States, acting on a tip from Pope Pius XII.
– That the aliens have engaged in “malevolent activity” and “malevolent events” on Earth that have harmed or killed humans.
– That the U.S. government is also in possession of “dead pilots” from the spaceships…Alas, Grusch has no documents, photos or other evidence to corroborate any of his fantastic claims. It’s classified, you see.
Maybe everything he says is true, even the claim that “the Vatican was involved” in pursuing extraterrestrials, and Grusch has just exposed the best-kept secret and most sprawling conspiracy in the history of the universe. Or maybe Grusch himself is a conspiracy theorist, or he’s just having a lark at the subcommittee’s expense. Easier to discern was the motive of several Republicans on the panel: They greeted his out-of-this-world claims with total credulity, using them as just more evidence that the deep-state U.S. government is lying to the American people, covering up the truth and can never be trusted. Their anti-government vendetta has gone intergalactic…
Just over a year ago, a House Intelligence subcommittee held a similar hearing on “unidentified aerial phenomena” but with dramatically different results. The panel’s bipartisan leadership said the matter should be taken seriously to protect pilots and to make sure enemies don’t develop breakthrough weapons. But they assured the public there was no evidence of “anything nonterrestrial in origin,” and they cautioned against conspiracy theories. In addition, Sean Kirkpatrick, the head of the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, where Grusch worked, testified to senators in April that his UAP-hunting office “has found no credible evidence thus far of extraterrestrial activity, off-world technology or objects that defy the known laws of physics.” NASA has said likewise…
Some of the House’s leading conspiracy theorists — Republicans Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, Virginia Foxx, James Comer — took seats on the dais, whether or not they were on the subcommittee. Many in the audience, who lined up for a seat in the room, applauded the beaming witnesses when they entered. And for more than two hours, Republicans on the subcommittee indulged in otherworldly accusations of a government coverup.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) proposed that the government is trying “to gaslight Americans into thinking that this is not happening.” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) accused the government of “misdirection,” and Mace suggested the United States acted “unlawfully.” Complaints about overclassification even came from the Democratic side.
“The coverup goes a lot deeper” than politics, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) argued, vowing “to uncover the coverup” perpetrated by the Pentagon and the intelligence community. “You can’t trust a government that does not trust its people.” Burchett said he would like to visit Area 51 or other locations purportedly housing alien spaceships, but “as soon as we announce it, I’m sure the moving vans pull up.”…
“I don’t trust anything in this town,” complained [Rep. Eric (R-Mo.)] Burlison.
But Burlison trusted Grusch COMPLETELY, even relying on the witness to explain the “interdimensional potential” of nonhuman spacecraft — which Grusch obligingly illustrated with his index finger.
“You can be projected, quasi-projected from higher dimensional space to lower dimensional,” he explained. “It’s a scientific trope that you can actually cross, literally, as far as I understand, but there’s probably guys with PhDs who would probably argue about that.”
Yeah, they probably would…
Climate Solutions: Rewilding..and Bees
by TaMara| 133 Comments
This post is in: Climate Change, Climate Change Solutions, Open Threads
ETA: This seemed appropriate to this post somehow A couple of quick hits. As you may know, I listen to CBS Sunday morning while doing all those Sunday chores. These two stories had me going back to actually watch: Some additional links: More on the Knepp Castle Rewilding Rewilding Britian The Book of Wilding …
Climate Solutions: Climate Doomerism, It’s a Thing, Let’s Not Do It
by TaMara| 209 Comments
This post is in: Climate Change, Climate Change Solutions
I thought some of you could use some optimism while sweltering. I should probably be writing more on resources and the latest in climate solutions, but at the moment, my desire to be online and/or write is much like a combustion engine running on fumes and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. But I …
Climate Solutions: Climate Doomerism, It’s a Thing, Let’s Not Do ItPost + Comments (209)
The warming of the planet – including the most up-to-date data for 2023 – is entirely consistent with what climate modelers warned decades ago
The climate crisis – and yes, it is now a crisis – is endangering us now, where we live. Whether it’s the recurrent episodes of hazardous air quality in the east coast cities some of us call home from windblown Canadian wildfire smoke or the toll sadly now being measured in human lives from deadly nearby floods, we are witnessing the devastating and dangerous consequences of unabated human-caused warming. That is a fact.
Indeed, as you “doomscroll” on whatever social media platform you prefer these days, you might see selective images and graphs that would lead you to think Earth’s climate is spinning out of control, in a runaway feedback loop of irreversible tipping points leading us down an inescapable planetary death spiral.
But that’s not what’s happening.
The average warming of the planet – including the most up-to-date measurements for 2023 – is entirely consistent with what climate modelers warned decades ago would happen if we continued with the business-as-usual burning of fossil fuels. Yes, there are alarming data coming in, from record-shattering loss of winter sea ice in the southern hemisphere to off-the-charts warmth in the North Atlantic with hot tub-grade waters off the Florida coast. We’ve also seen the hottest week on record for the planet as a whole this month. We can attribute blame to a combination of ongoing human-caused warming, an incipient major El Niño event and the vagaries of natural variability….
…Yes, we have failed to prevent dangerous climate change. It is here. What remains to be seen is just how bad we’re willing to let it get. A window of opportunity remains for averting a catastrophic 1.5C/2.7F warming of the planet, beyond which we’ll see far worse consequences than anything we’ve seen so far. But that window is closing and we’re not making enough progress.
We cannot afford to give in to despair. Better to channel our energy into action, as there’s so much work to be done to prevent this crisis from escalating into a catastrophe. If the extremes of this summer fill you with fears of imminent and inevitable climate collapse, remember, it’s not game over. It’s game on. Read the article in its entirety here.
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The Best Climate Science You’ve Never Heard Of
By Mark Hertsgaard, Saleemul Huq andMichael E. Mann
(note: this is the original full version of our recent Washington Post op-ed, based on a recent press briefing involving the authors, sponsored by Scientific American and Covering Climate Now)
One of the biggest obstacles to avoiding global climate breakdown is that so many people think there’s nothing we can do about it.
They point out that record-breaking heat waves, fires, and storms are already devastating communities and economies throughout the world. And they’ve long been told that temperatures will keep rising for decades to come, no matter how many solar panels replace oil derricks or how many meat-eaters go vegetarian. No wonder they think we’re doomed.
But climate science actually doesn’t say this. On the contrary, the best climate science you’ve probably never heard of suggests that humanity can still limit the damage to a fraction of the worst projections if—and, we admit, this is a big if—governments, businesses, and all of us take strong action starting now.
The science we’re referencing is included in the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s most recent report, issued last August. But first, some context.
For many years, the scientific rule of thumb was that a sizable amount of temperature rise was indeed locked into the earth’s climate system. Scientists believed—and told policymakers and journalists, who told the public—that even if humanity hypothetically halted all heat trapping emissions overnight, carbon dioxide’s long lifetime in the atmosphere combined with the sluggish thermal properties of the oceans would nevertheless keep global surface temperatures rising for 30 to 40 more years. Since shifting to a zero-carbon global economy would take at least a decade or two, temperatures were bound to keep rising for at least another half century.
But guided by subsequent research, scientists dramatically revised that lag time estimate down to as little as 3 to 5 years. The updated finding is included in the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report, Working Group I, that made headlines last August. Indeed, it underlies the widely-now used concept of a “carbon budget”. It allows us to specify (with some uncertainty range) the maximum amount of carbon that we can still burn if we are to keep global surface warming below the critical level of 1.5C (3F).
Most importantly, it tells us that if humanity slashes emissions to zero, global temperatures will stop rising almost immediately.
To its credit, Scientific American did discuss this updated science in a short article last October. But why isn’t this reason for cautious optimism more widely known?
There’s plenty of blame to go around. Two of the co-authors of this article are climate scientists, while the other is a veteran journalist.We can collectively attest that scientists aren’t always the best natural communicators, journalists and scientists typically don’t speak the same language, and much gets lost in translation. Add to that the concerted headwind of a fossil fuel industry-funded disinformation campaign, and you have the makings of a substantial breakdown in communication.
That’s a shame, because this revised timeline implies a paradigm shift in how humanity can respond the to the climate emergency. The implications fall into three categories—the three P’s of psychology, politics, and policies.
Psychology is arguably the most important, for it makes possible the rest. Knowing that global temperature rise can be stopped almost immediately means that humanity is not doomed after all. We can still save our civilization, at least most of it, if we take rapid, forceful action. This knowledge can banish the sense of inevitability that paralyzes people and instead inspire them towards greater resolve and activity.
This psychological shift can in turn transform the politics of climate change, for it can entice more people to join the fight—or to stay in the fight rather than succumbing to despair… Continue reading here
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We need the right kind of climate optimism
Climate pessimism dooms us to a terrible future. Complacent optimism is no better.
By Hannah Ritchie Updated
We environmentalists spend our lives thinking about ways the world will end. There’s nowhere that I see doomer culture more vocal than on my home turf.
With leading activists like Roger Hallam, co-founder of the popular climate protest movement Extinction Rebellion, telling young people that they “face annihilation,” it’s no surprise so many of them feel terrified. In a large recent international survey on youth attitudes toward climate change, more than half said that “humanity is doomed” and three-quarters said the future is frightening. Young people have good reasons to worry about our ability to tackle climate change, but this level of despair should be alarming to anyone who cares about the well-being of future generations — which is, after all, what the climate movement is all about.
As the lead researcher for Our World in Data, an organization that aims to make data on the world’s biggest problems accessible and understandable, I’ve written extensively on the reasons to be optimistic about the future. The prices of solar and wind power, as well as of batteries for storing low-carbon energy, have all plunged. Global deforestation peaked decades ago and has been slowly declining. Sales of new gas and diesel cars are now falling. Coal is starting to die in many countries. Government commitments are getting closer to limiting global warming to 2°C. Deaths from natural disasters — despite what news about climate change-related fires and hurricanes might appear to suggest — are a fraction of what they used to be. The list goes on.
But here, I don’t want to talk about whether pessimism is accurate. I want to focus on whether it’s useful. People might defend doomsday scenarios as the wake-up call that society needs. If they’re exaggerated, so what? They might be the crucial catalyst that gets us to act on climate change. Continue reading here….
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Okay, doomer. Leaving hopelessness behind, young climate activists are flipping the script on climate doom-and-gloom. They not only believe we can still win the fight, they’re working to convince others of the same. Speakers: Allegra Kirkland (moderator), Isaias Hernandez, Kristy Drutman, Alaina Wood This is a conversation from Aspen Ideas: Climate in Miami Beach, Florida. Now in its second year, Aspen Ideas: Climate is co-organized by the Aspen Institute and the City of Miami Beach. In addition to plenary sessions, breakout discussions, announcements, and private roundtables, the event features a tech expo and career fair, a climate solutions showcase, a public arts program, and excursions. Aspen Ideas: Climate takes place March 6–9, 2023. #AspenIdeasClimate
So what can you do? Here are some resources Earthday.org, Rewiring America, Kiss the Ground, Climate Reality/Al Gore
There are many more resources (you can even check back on previous Climate Solution posts for others), but I have to walk the dogs and get my day started.
Let’s all quit doomscrolling and instead tackle climate change, one day at a time. – TaMara
This Heat Wave is Terrifying
This post is in: Climate Change
The current heat wave is terrifying to me, and what scares me even more is that it is only going to get worse. It is going to get hotter for longer, the weather is going to get more violent, and honestly large portions of places where people live now are going to be basically incapable …
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