Tag: Climate Change

We did it, not only was 2023 the hottest year ever recorded for our planet but because January 2024 was also hot the Earth surpassed the 1.5º C above pre-industrial levels for an entire year. 

The bad news came shortly after New Year’s with the announcement by climate scientists that the year 2023 was on average the warmest year ever recorded for our planet, surpassing the previous record holder 2016 by nearly a tenth of a degree Celsius. While a 0.1ºC increase may not sound like a great deal that happening for the entire planet over an entire year represents an enormous amount of extra heat in the atmosphere.

2023 was not only the hottest year ever recorded it broke the previous record by an astounding amount. Also, notice how the ten hottest years ever have all been in the last ten years!!! (Credit: News Center Maine)

The final tally for 2023 was an increase of 1.48ºC above pre-industrial temperatures; just slightly below the 1.5ºC increase that climatologists have been warning for decades will bring on ever greater climate disasters. Worst still, if you consider the 12 month period from the first of February 2023 to the 31 of January 2024 we broke that 1.5ºC barrier.

Scientists have been warning us for decades that climate change starts to get real bad when we go over 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels. Well, we’re past that now and can 2 degrees be far away? (Credit: CBC)

Meteorologists point out that the strong El Nino pacific weather pattern that developed around May in 2023 added to the historic heat levels measured from June to December, and now January 2024 as well. That El Nino is expected to continue for some time in 2024 so it is perfectly possible that 2024 may wind up being even hotter than 2023. So we are now getting a taste of a world above that 1.5ºC, a world with severe weather year round, from tornadoes during the winter months to endless wildfires, floodings etc.etc. The question is, are people paying attention.

The Pacific phenomenon known as El Nino can effect weather patterns around the World. (Credit: SciJinks)

I’m afraid that the answer to that question is no. The climate deniers are still out there, still trying to convince people that civilization will collapse if we don’t keep on burning coal, oil and natural gas. There has been a shift in their arguments however. With the actual measured data clearly showing that the last ten years, 2014 to 2023, were the hottest ten years ever recorded the petroleum industry and its apologists are no longer trying to assert that global warming simply isn’t happening, or at least that human activity isn’t to blame for it. No, instead they are now trying to convince people that, while climate change may be happening, it’s really not going to be that bad and besides there’s nothing we can do to stop it.

And if all of you Republicans who believe climate change is a Chinese hoax will clap your hands the bad weather will just go away! (Credit: Los Angeles Times)

This ‘New Denialism’ is showing up in ever increasing numbers of YouTube videos, facebook posts, and other forms of social media. This new denialism is characterized by attacks on possible solutions to global warming along with the worldwide climate movement. False claims that Solar and Wind energy don’t work and that climate scientists are either alarmists or corrupt, I’ll have more to say about that later, have increased to 70% of anti-climate videos on YouTube while actual claims that climate change isn’t happening have dropped to only 14%. Some of the claims come close to hysteria, ‘They’re trying to take away your cars and stoves’ for example or that wind turbines cause cancer.  For the most part however the deniers claim that clean, green energy will simply not work and attempts to reduce green house gas emissions will destroy the economy.

Of course what they are really saying is that the economy of the billionaires and millionaires will be harmed if we get rid of fossil fuels! (Credit: Aurora Sentinel)

One recent claim even asserted that the sonar surveys carried out in preparation for the construction of wind farms along the US Atlantic coastline were causing whales and dolphins to beach themselves. This is despite the fact that the beachings occurred more than nine months after the surveys had been completed. Republican State Legislators in the State of New Jersey even tried to get a bill passed to ‘Save the Whales’ by halting further development work on the wind farms. I’m certain it’s the first time any of them ever cared about Whales. 

In the last three months 24 whales and dolphins have washed up on the US East Coast. That’s a tragedy but it’s also 9 months after the sonar surveys for offshore winds farms were completed! (Credit: The New York Times)

At the same time other bills and zoning regulations are also cropping up across the country that are designed to restrict if not halt the construction of clean energy wind and solar energy installations. As many as 15% of the counties in the US have passed bans or moratoriums that effectively make it impossible for anyone to construct a large scale wind or solar farm, even on their own property. Worst still, many of the places that are banning green energy projects are the best places for such projects. Think about it, Texas obviously gets a lot more sunlight than Maine, but Texas is an oil state and the politicians in Texas would rather force people to keep burning fossil fuels than allow anyone to build solar power projects. That’s despite the economic benefits from the money for the energy produced along with all the good paying green energy jobs. It’s an old story, many of the people who oppose wind and solar projects actually accept the need for green energy to combat climate change, they just don’t want them in their backyard.

Currently a large majority of Americans feel that we should increase our energy production through the use of wind and solar power, but why does it have to be near me!!!!! (Credit: National Geographic Society)

After all of that bad news I do have a small piece of good news. The climate deniers on the web have many times not only lied about climate science but the scientists who are trying to warn us about the climate disasters we now face. These falsehoods have many times gone far beyond criticizing the work the scientists are doing to include allegations that the scientists are taking bribes for falsifying climate data and even claims that the scientists are guilty of crimes, even sex offenses.

How could any human being be so proud of being so stupid? (Credit: Inside Climate News)

Well one noted climate scientist decided to fight back. Michael Mann is a highly regarded climatologist at the University of Pennsylvania here in Philadelphia who has long been in the forefront of the fight to convince the public of the serious threat that greenhouse gasses pose. It was back in 1998 that Doctor Mann published his ‘Hockey Stick’ graph of global temperatures over the past several hundred years.

The famous ‘Hickey Stick’ graph of global temperatures over the last thousand years. For the first approximately 800 years the temperature was slowly getting colder, we’re still really in an ‘Ice Age’ after all. In the last 150 years however global temps have gone up three times as much as they’d gone down in the previous 800 years. (Credit:

Dr. Mann had used his research in tree rings, coral reefs and ice cores to show that global temperatures had been relatively stable for centuries before the start of the industrial revolution but that ever since humanity had begun to burn large quantities of fossil fuels global temperatures had spiked dramatically. The graph of that increase was said to resemble a hockey stick, laid on the ground with its blade pointing up, hence the name. That graph became famous and made Mann the target of right-wing critics more interested in defending fossil fuels than the truth or a dedicated scientist’s reputation.

A jury may have found that climate deniers defamed scientist Michael Mann (r) but of course the plaintiffs are appealing that judgement. (Credit: YouTube)

Two conservative writers in particular, Rand Simberg of the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Mark Steyn of the National Review went so far that in 2012 Professor Mann sued them for defamation. It took twelve years of legal wrangling but in early February a jury in Superior Court for the District of Columbia finally agreed with Mann and awarded the climatologist $1 Million in punitive damages. Of course both defendants have announced that they will be appealing the decision so this case isn’t over yet. Still it demonstrates that those people, not just scientists but everyone who is concerned for our planet, can and should stand up to the bullies who ignore the harm they are doing to the world so long as they can make a quick buck.

As the Evidence for Climate Change continues to mount how are Governments and the Media reacting?

In my last post I recounted some of the severe weather events that have already taken place here in the year 2023, a year that will almost certainly be recorded as the warmest in human history, or at least that is until 2024. To be honest I could have written two or three times as much as I did write in that post, extreme weather was basically everywhere this year and many locations around the world suffered for long periods of time or several times over.

Even before this year has set a new record, the top 10 hottest years ever recorded have all come in the last twelve years. That’s kinda scary!!!! (Credit: KCRA)

The important thing to keep in mind is that in 2023 for the first time the average global temperature could cross over the 1.5ºC above pre-industrial average that scientists have been warning will bring ever greater climate change and the natural disasters that accompany it. If, as now predicted this year’s El Niǹo continues into 2024 then the world could remain above that threshold and next year’s weather could be even worse.

The consensus is that El Nino has caused 2023 to be even hotter than predicted. With El Nino still hanging around will next year be even hotter? (Credit: YouTube)

So with the evidence of climate change all around us is the human race as a whole finally waking up to the danger we ourselves are creating? Are governments and the media paying attention, enough attention so that some real progress will finally be made?

Young people are paying attention to the dangers of global warming, are you? (Credit: Denise Pass)

The answer of course is both yes and no. There are clear signs that a large fraction of society is becoming very concerned about the world’s environmental future and are ready to do something about it. As you might guess young people are in the forefront of this movement.

It’s easy to understand why young people are concerned about climate change, it’s the future they’re going to have to live in. (Credit: Oregon Public Broadcasting)

A main focus of the efforts undertaken so far by young people worried about their future has been in courtrooms around the world. This summer a lawsuit was filed in Montana by 16 of the state’s teenagers alleging that the state government has violated the Montana constitution by failing to “maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment for present and future generations.” The Judge in the case agreed, ruling that the state was violating the rights of young people when it enacted policies that prohibit the state from considering the effects on the environment of fossil fuel extraction in the state. Whether or not that judgment will affect the coal and oil industry in Montana remains to be seen, indeed the state is already appealing the decision. However the simple fact that a of that kind case could be brought and won in such a deep red state as Montana is clear evidence that more and more people are becoming concerned about our changing climate. Similar lawsuits have been filed by a group of teenagers in Hawaii and by young people suing the Federal Government as well.

The Montana children who chose to act like adults while the adults in the State Legislature chose to act like children. (Credit: Vox)

Meanwhile in other countries a similar lawsuit was brought by 6 youngsters in Portugal, but these plaintiffs were a bit more ambitious, they decided to sue the entire European Union along with the UK, Switzerland, Norway, Russia and Turkey, 32 countries in all. In this case the plaintiffs allege that the increasing temperatures and drought conditions in their country are generating a Sahara desert like environment in Portugal that is again to the determent of their future lives. They blame this growing problem on the reluctance of the 32 governments to enact significant policies for fighting climate change, specifically legislation to curb CO2 emissions.

Talk ’bout David versus Goliath, six kids in Portugal are suing 32 countries over climate change. (Credit:Climate Home News)

This suit, brought before the European Court of Human Rights  (ECHR) in Strasbourg could actually have major consequences, at least for the EU countries. Again the idea is that the entire future lives of these young people are being harmed by the shortsighted policies of the present. The success for these lawsuits, even if only partial so far, will generate more and more such cases until governments are finally forced to take real action.

For half a century now the world seems to have been concerned only with the next paycheck, the next quarter’s profit, the next election. All the while the foundation of the world we live in has been crumbling beneath our feet. (Credit: Mashvisor)
By a large majority now the people of the US support combating climate change. But with the special interests willing to spend so much money keep on emitting greenhouse gasses will that be enough? (Credit: CNN)

Which some governments are actually doing, if only in small steps so far. Here in the US last year the Biden administration, as a part of its Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), succeed in allocating the most money ever for subsidies to boost green energy production. This money is targeted not only for new solar and wind power projects but also to help reduce the cost of electric vehicles (EV) and to increase the number of EV charging stations throughout the nation. At the same time President Biden has announced the formation of his American Climate Corps (ACC), an organization patterned after the New Deal’s Civilian Conservation Corps and intended as a training program for young people leading to good jobs in green energy and climate mitigation. Although both the ACC and the IRA are insufficient to solve the coming climate crisis they are at least steps in the right direction, and can serve as foundations for further programs if the political will for fighting climate change increases.

While the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is a board piece of legislation intended to fix many problems it does provide a considerable amount of money for Green Energy and other environmental issues. (Credit: AFL-CIO)

A few individual states are also taking action. In California the state’s attorney general has filed a lawsuit against Exxon-Mobile, BP, Shell, Chevron and ConocoPhillips, all the big oil companies alleging that for decades they have been fully aware of the effect that fossil fuel emissions were having on the environment. The suit contends that the oil companies deliberately continued to minimize the threat of global warming while suppressing the data collected by their own scientists. 

As the damage caused by climate change grows, 25 billion dollar environmental disasters so far this year, the number of suits against Oil Companies will also grow (Credit: Informed Comment)

Meanwhile voters in Switzerland have passed a referendum calling for their government to enact legislation to curb greenhouse gas emissions by their country. The measure, which passed with 59.1% of the vote for and 40.9% against requires Switzerland to achieve ‘net zero’ carbon emissions by 2050. More immediately it provides more than 3 billion Swiss francs ($3.3 billion US dollars) to help Swiss citizens and companies develop greener energy programs.

Switzerland is a country famous for its glaciers. But for how much longer. The Swiss people voted this year to try to keep such beauty as this. (Credit: AP News)

In parallel with the actions taken by environmental activists and groups there has been a significant increase in the coverage of climate change in many, although certainly not all, media outlets. During the heat of the Summer CNN and MSNBC devoted extensive time to the major environmental stories like Phoenix’s streak of days over 110ºF, the wildfires in Canada and the resulting smoke that drifted down into the US, and of course the great loss of life in the wildfire in Maui. So important were these stories that even Fox news was forced to cover them to some extent. The winner for news coverage of climate change however has to be the Weather Channel, which has even created a daily program, Pattrn, devoted to climate change and other environmental issues.

A major cable network devoting an entire hour every day to environmental issues, especially climate change. Who would have ever have thought it possible? (Credit: www.pattrn.com)

So there is progress, even if only in small steps so far. But as Isaac Newton pointed out, “For every action there is an equal an opposite reaction,” and the climate deniers have been busy as well. So, for every attempt at government action to fight global warming there has been an effort to deny or hide the facts, such as the decision by the Florida Department of Education, as directed by the state’s Governor Ron DeSantis, to approve climate change denying videos for use in the classroom.

Running for President as ‘Trump without the Chaos’ Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has ordered his state’s schools to deny climate change when teaching children. (Credit: Imgur)

At the same time court cases brought by citizens concerned about the future of our planet are opposed by lawyers and officials bought and paid for by the petroleum industry who care about nothing but their next quarter’s profit. The lawsuit won in Montana is already being appealed while other cases are being delayed or obstructed.

Have you seen this ad from the Americans for Prosperity? An Ernst Hemingway lookalike telling us that Prosperity is Possible, at least it is for oil billionaire Charles Koch, he’s the one paying for the ad! (Credit: YouTube)

Finally, even as the overwhelming number of environmental stories has forced Fox news to actually cover global warming they still try with all of their might to obscure the issue by making such absurd claims as that the extreme temperatures endured by Phoenix this summer were caused by ‘the heat island effect’. ‘Heat Islands’ caused by the concrete and asphalt in a city is a real enough phenomenon but one that doesn’t explain the equally high temperatures in the desert around Phoenix, nor the high temperatures in Greece, or Portugal or Vietnam or etc, etc, etc.

During June, July and August there was hardly anywhere on Earth that wasn’t setting record high temps. Is this our Future? (Credit: NASA Climate Change)

About the only thing we can say for certain concerning the world’s reaction to 2023 being the hottest year on record is that the political war over global warming is heating up. Right now world leaders have gathered in the United Arab Emirates for the COP28 meeting on climate change. As I write these words there is considerable division over whether the phrase ‘phasing out of fossil fuels’ manages to get included in the final report that every country must agree to or will the entire conference break apart over the issue. I’ll be sure to keep you informed.

Holding a conference on Climate Change in a country grown rich from oil! Not a good idea. (Credit: State Department)

Addendum: The COP28 final accord has been agreed upon in Dubai and it’s something of a victory for the struggle to fight climate change. For the first time the conferences final document does for the first time explicitly mention fossil fuels as the leading cause of climate change. (Think about that, it took world leaders 28 years just to finally agree that coal, oil and natural gas are causing climate change.) In addition the final accord also calls for a ‘Transitioning away from’ the use of fossil fuels.

The first draft of a final agreement at COP28 caused a firestorm at the weak language about getting rid of fossil fuels. (Credit: BBC)
In the end even the Oil executive who was the president of the conference was forced to accept language that at least called for the elimination of fossil fuels. (Credit: CNN)

Now don’t get too excited. The timetable for that transitioning is very non-specific, and there are no enforcement provisions of any kind. Any country that wants to can simply ignore their commitment any time they choose. Nevertheless getting 198 nations, many of them fossil fuel producers or are dependent on fossil fuels, to agree to someday getting rid of those pollutants is a major achievement.

The main parts of the agreement. The big question is whether or not the countries that signed up for this will actually do it! (Credit: CNN)
He’s right, it’s really up to all of us to keep up the pressure on our governments and get the job of zero carbon emissions done. (Credit: CNN)

Perhaps the climate disasters of the past year have finally made the nations of the world take notice of the disaster looming not too far in the future. The nations of the world have made a commitment; it’s going to be up to all of us to see to it that they keep it.     

The evidence for Global Warming continues to grow, and the World now seems certain to experience its hottest year ever recorded.

COP28, the annual international conference on Climate Change has started in Dubai, 30November, and so I’ll be posting about global warming the next several weeks.

Meeting in the United Arab Emirates the COP28 conference on Climate Change has already been criticized for being hosted by an oil kingdom while allowing petroleum lobbyists free reign. (Credit: Campaign Middle East)

Barring a miracle now the year 2023 is going to wind up as the hottest year ever recorded for the entire planet and that by a wide margin. The declared culprits of this temperature rise are usually stated in the media as being the steady increase in temperature caused by global warming coupled with the return of the phenomenon El Niǹo in the Pacific Ocean. El Niǹo was last observed back in 2016, the previous hottest year on record before 2023. Together they have caused the Earth’s average temperature to rise very close to the 1.5ºC increase over pre-industrial averages that scientists have been saying for decades now will bring about far worse climate conditions.

While still not fully understood the El Nino ocean current in the Pacific Ocean does lead to warmer conditions around the world. (Credit: NOAASciJinks)

And that prediction has certainly appeared to come true. Phoenix Arizona, already one of the hottest cities on Earth, smashed its previous record of consecutive days above 110ºF (43.3ºC), going from 18 to 31. At the same time the city also set a record for most consecutive days where the low temperature at night never got below 90ºF (36.25ºC). (I’ve been to Phoenix and I know it’s a dry heat there but nevertheless I can’t even imagine what a month of temperatures that hot is like.)

Just one day of 110 degree heat would be too much for most people so just imagine 30 days in a row! (Credit: Los Angeles Times)

Phoenix of course is just one example of record shattering heat; many other parts of the world also saw record high temperatures. Places as far apart as Vietnam, France and China each experienced all time record temperatures. For a few days in August the entire nation of Iran was forced to shut down all but emergency services because it was simply too hot for anyone to remain outdoors for any length of time. And just to put a cap on the record setting temperatures on the 17th of November the average temperature for the entire planet passed the 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial level mark for the first time, a very dangerous sign of things to come.

While tying the record temperature set in Death Valley just last year the heat in Ahvaz Iran was actually much worse because unlike California it’s very humid in the Persian Gulf so the heat index was the highest ever recorded.

Then there were the massive wildfires around the planet in places like Greece, China and even Hawaii where 99 people died as a wildfire surged across the island of Maui. But by far the worst fires were the hundreds that spread throughout Canada. Think about it, Canada is the largest nation on Earth by area and most of that is sparsely populated forest so when Canada suffers its worst ever wildfire season that’s a lot of trees being burned. The smoke from those Canadian fires even drifted south into the United States giving cities like New York, Philadelphia and Minneapolis their worst ever measured air quality conditions.

On June 5th Philadelphia experienced a nice late spring day (l). Two days later the city experienced its worst air quality day ever (r) all because of wildfires thousands of kilometers away in Canada! (Credit: WHYY)

The increase in heat also brought with it drought conditions across southern Europe, the southern US, China and worst of all large parts of northern Africa, where millions of people live on the edge of survival during the best of times. Drought conditions have caused many of the world’s great rivers to see unprecedented drops in their water levels. For example sections of the Amazon are experiencing their lowest water levels in over 120 years. Meanwhile the drought conditions throughout the Mississippi watershed has caused the flow of that great river to become so anemic that salt water from the Gulf of Mexico has pushed its way upriver almost to the city of New Orleans, threatening the city’s water supply.

Drought conditions throughout the Mississippi watershed have caused salt water from the Gulf of Mexico to back up into the lower Mississippi threatening the water supply of New Orleans. (Credit: CNN)

At the same time other areas of world like Libya, Scotland and even usually dry southern California were stricken with periods of severe flooding. Providing further evidence that global warming doesn’t cause one particular kind of weather disaster but simply causes all types of weather to become more extreme.

They don’t have Hurricanes in the Mediterranean but Storm Daniel was as destructive as any tropical storm, devastating several cities along the Libyan coast. (Credit: Floodlist)

The world’s oceans did not escape from the extreme heat either. The hottest ocean temperature ever recorded was measured in the Caribbean not far from the Florida Keys at over 32.4ºC (90ºF) while the average ocean temperature in early August reached 20.96ºC (69.71ºF), the warmest global average ever recorded. One result of this record heat is that vast stretches of coral reefs around the world are being bleached and could die if temperatures continue to rise.  

While all of the world’s oceans are warming in July the temperature measured in the Florida Keys surpassed 100 degrees F for the first time ever. (Credit: Washington Post)

In the Polar Regions the extreme heat did exactly what you would expect as the sea ice around both the North Pole and Antarctica fell below the lowest levels ever previously observed. Glaciers from the Alps to the Himalayas to the Andes and Rockies all saw a continuation of the melting that has been seen for decades now. A recent survey in Switzerland has concluded that the glaciers in that country famed for its glaciers have lost 10% of their volume in just the last two years, that’s the same amount as was lost over the thirty years between 1960 and 1990. By the by it was the retreat of the world’s glaciers that was actually the first real evidence for global warming.

The Trient glacier in Switzerland pictured in 1891 (l) and 2023 (r). Much of southern Europe gets its waters from rivers that flow from glaciers like Trient, if they disappear large parts of southern Europe could become a desert. (Credit: NBC News)

All in all this has simply been a record shattering year for global warming starting with the month of June being measured as the hottest June ever recorded. Then the month of July was recorded as being simply the hottest month ever recorded. July didn’t keep that record for long however as August surged past July’s average temperature to become the new hottest month of all time. September was not quite so hot, just the hottest September ever recorded, as was October. So unless November and December are really below average in temperature, very unlikely with El Niǹo still warming the eastern Pacific, then 2023 will become the hottest year on record, possibly breaking that crucial 1.5ºC above pre-industrial averages that climatologists are convinced will generate even worst climatic conditions.

The effect on the Planet of 1.5 degree warming versus 2 degrees. We still have hopes of staying below 1.5 degrees but for at least one day we’ve gone over 2 degrees and we’re still not even trying to do enough to stop the relentless climb. (Credit: Panda.org)

So if all of the foregoing just seems like a long litany of climate disasters, well it is, and things are just going to get much worse if we don’t really start taking climate change seriously. Next week I’ll discuss some of the ways that people in government and in the media are starting to take global warming seriously, and some of the ways that the petroleum industry and its apologists are still trying to cause confusion in order to continue to deceive the average person.

Book Review: Hothouse Earth, an Inhabitants Guide by Bill McGuire

I’m certain that it won’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with this blog that I’m very much concerned with Climate Change / Global Warming and in fact with environmental issues in general. I know that more and more of my posts lately have been devoted to the damage that we ourselves are doing to our planet. I guess I’m just trying to do what I can to educate people about how bad the climate crisis is, and how much worse it could get.

The latest climate crisis I never imagined happening are the wildfires raging across the Hawaiian islands. Maui in particular has been devastated. (Credit: BBC)

So in this post I’m going to review a book by an author who is much better suited to give the warning about climate change than I am. Bill McGuire is Professor Emeritus of Geophysical and Climate Hazards at University College London and was a contributing scientist to the 2012 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Since that time Professor McGuire has written numerous articles for periodicals about the coming dangers of global warming as well as the book I’ll be reviewing today, ‘Hothouse Earth, an Inhabitants Guide’.

Cover art for ‘Hothouse Earth’ by Bill McGuire
Professor Bill McGuire is one of the World’s leading climatologists and the author of several books on the coming climate crisis. (Credit: UCL)

Professor McGuire begins at the beginning, two hundred and fifty years ago with the invention by Richard Arkwright of a mechanical loom for the production of cotton thread, an invention that is often sited as the beginning of the industrial revolution. While that first mechanical loom was powered by a water wheel subsequent versions were soon powered by James Watt’s coal burning steam engine and so began the connection between industry and carbon emissions. In ‘Hothouse Earth’ Professor McGuire often returns to the day of Richard Arkwright as being his baseline for the days before humanity began dumping huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Often called the father of the Industrial Revolution Richard Arkwright invented the water driven loom shown here. (Credit: Study.com)

‘Hothouse Earth’ then presents a brief outline of those scientists who studied the effect that CO2 in the atmosphere has on the planet’s temperature. It was the American chemist Eunice Foote who in 1856 demonstrated that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, trapping the Sun’s energy so that it warms our planet. Then just forty years later it was Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius who developed the first climate models for how Earth’s temperature would change depending on the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Based on the amount of coal that was being burned back in 1900 Arrhenius even predicted that we would be seeing the effects of global warming just about now! As Professor McGuire puts it “No one can say we weren’t warned!”

Besides predicting global warming over 125 years ago Svante Arrhenius was also executor of Alfred Nobel’s will and therefore the person who actually set up the Nobel prizes, winning a chemistry one himself in 1903. (Credit: Energy Education)

With his background in geology Professor McGuire is well versed in how the Earth’s temperature has changed in the past, from ice ages to long periods when the planet was so warm that the polar ice caps completed melted. Throughout ‘Hothouse Earth’ Professor McGuire uses examples from those past eras to illustrate what our climate will be like before long, while repeatedly pointing out that the climate of our planet today is changing faster than it ever has.

Geologically planet Earth is actually in an ice age period. The fact that it is burning up is completely our doing! (Credit: www.history.com)

The meat of ‘Hothouse Earth’ is a long survey of the ways that climate change is going to make our planet a much worse place to live. In addition to more sever weather, both droughts and flooding, there’s rising sea levels, more massive wildfires, ocean acidification, the spread of tropical diseases etc, etc. Those are the direct effects of climate change but as Professor McGuire points out the growing scarcity of water and food, along with large areas of the planet becoming uninhabitable will combine to drive migrations of whole populations, and greatly increase the chances for future conflict.

Global warming isn’t just a disaster on land. The warming of the oceans is killing the coral reefs where half of all marine life exists. (Credit: NBC News)

It’s not a pretty picture and Professor McGuire doesn’t try to sugarcoat what’s coming. In fact he’s well aware that many people will regard him as an alarmist and he refuses to apologize for it, insisting that raising the alarm on climate change is a good thing. At the same time ‘Hothouse Earth’ also  takes aim at both the climate deniers and the geoengineers who hope to invent some technical ‘fix’ to negate global warming. You may have heard on the news one or more of the many ideas put forward that propose to either reflect some of the Sun’s energy before it warms the Earth or suck all of the CO2 out of the air so that we can continue to burn all of the fossil fuels we want.

There are a lot of ‘ideas’ going around right now to ‘fix’ the climate crisis. None are as cheap or as sure, or as safe as simply stopping the burning of fossil fuels! (Credit: Phys.org)

While the deniers are simply obstinate fools the geoengineers at least recognize that there is a problem that needs to be solved. Their plans so far however vary between dangerous, like spraying massive amounts of sulfuric acid into the atmosphere to simulate the cooling caused by volcanic eruptions to simply much too expensive. We already know what the solution to global warming is, we’ve known it all along, stop burning fossil fuels.

There simply can’t be anybody who thinks this is a good thing. But far too many people think it’s profitable and in our world money is more important than goodness! (Credit: BONews)

‘Hothouse Earth’ isn’t a fun read, it isn’t meant to be. It is meant to raise the alarm because everyday now we hear about record setting temperatures in Dallas and Beijing, wildfires in Canada, droughts across Africa and on and on. We really are at a tipping point, it is thought that we could see a 1.5ºC temperature rise since Richard Arkwright’s time this very year. That 1.5ºC rise is thought by many climatologists to be a level where the effects of global warming increase significantly so we really are running out of time.

The hottest month ever measured and now officially over the 1.5 degree threshold scientists have been warning us about, July of 2023 will be long remembered as when the climate crisis began in earnest. (Credit: BBC)

In other words things could be getting a lot worse real soon. If you want to do something about it then I strongly suggest that ‘Hothouse Earth’ by Bill McGuire is a good place to start.   

As our Planet continues to get hotter so is the rhetoric of Climate Change deniers who are now insulting and even threatening scientists on social media.

The evidence for climate change just keeps piling up. High temperature records are being set on an almost daily basis. Severe storms seem to be ravaging half of the world while the other half is suffering from drought. The weather on planet Earth is simply becoming more extreme with each passing year.

The wildfires ravaging Canada right now are only the latest sign of our environment going out of wack. More and more of the news is being devoted to climate change but is anybody paying attention? (Credit: ABC)

To give a few details, in early May Southeast Asia endured a weeklong heat wave that broke the all time temperature records of three countries. In the northern Tuong Duong district of Vietnam the temperature reached 44.2ºC, the hottest temperature ever recorded in that country. Just next door in Laos the city of Loang Prabang saw a temperature of 43.5ºC again surpassing that nation’s previous all time record of 42.7ºC, a record that had been set only a month before. Finally the capital of Thailand, Bangkok saw its highest ever recorded temperature of 41ºC. Millions of human beings, many living in third world conditions suffered through greater heat than they had ever experienced and remember, deaths due to overheating exceed all other weather related deaths combined.

This year has been a record setter for high temperatures throughout all of SE Asia. (Credit: Living ASEAN)

Here in North America a similar scenario is occurring in the Pacific Northwest stretching from the states of Oregon and Washington up through the Canadian province of Alberta. While not as extreme as the heat wave in Southeast Asia daily records in many cities and towns were broken with the temperature on the 13th of May in Seattle reaching 32.2ºC, a new record for that day and the hottest temperature ever that early in the year.

The heat wave in the Pacific NW hasn’t been setting all-time records, just daily ones! (Credit: Fox 13 Seattle)

Of greater concern is the effect the heat wave had on the dozens of wildfires burning in Alberta, fires that had already destroyed more than a million and a quarter acres of forest before the heat wave arrived. It almost seems as though the devastating wildfires that torched the western states of the US over the last decade are now moving north into western Canada, exactly what you would expect due to global warming.

And if thinking of escaping global warming by moving up to Canada think again, the province of Alberta is basically on fire. (Credit: St. Albert Gazette)

By the way a new study from the Union of Concerned Scientists and published in the journal Environmental Research Letters concludes that more than a third, 37% of all of the forest land burned by wildfires in western North America since 1986, that’s a total of 19.8 million acres, is due to the burning of fossil fuels. The study was carried out by comparing the real life data of wildfires to an idealized model of fires in a world without fossil fuel emissions.

The study by the Union of Concerned Scientists details just now the amount of forest being destroyed by wildfires continues to grow decade by decade. (Credit: Union of Concerned Scientists)

Those are just two snapshots out of many extreme weather events already this year. I could have discussed all of the tornadoes across the south and central US so far in 2023. Or I could have discussed the continuing drought in Spain and France, even war torn Ukraine has seen an unusually early spring thaw that has allowed the fighting there to intensify.

Every cloud has a silver lining. If droughts like the one in France continue we won’t have to build so many bridges! (Credit: Forbes)

With all of the extreme weather events occurring across the world you’d think that the debate over climate change would be over by now. You’d think that any sensible person would see that things are getting bad and are going to get much worse if we don’t deal with the problem of CO2 emissions. But in fact the fight over global warming is actually getting even uglier. 

I was quite surprised to discover that the US is not the world leader in Climate Change denialism. We’re #2 but I know if we put some effort into it we can take the top spot. C’mon America! (Credit: Statista)

A big change for the worst has recently taken place since Elon Musk took over control of twitter. Musk’s firm commitment to ‘Free Speech’, any kind of speech, has opened the door to vicious attacks on climate scientists. On top of that Musk also laid off nearly half of Twitter’s work force including most of those assigned to finding and eliminating hate speech from the platform.

One think ya gotta say about Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, it hasn’t been boring. (Credit: CNBC)

The result has been a enormous increase in misinformation about climate change as well as outright threats on Twitter against climate scientists. According to Professor of Earth Science Mark Maslin at University College London, who is also the author of popular books on climate change such as ‘How to Save Our Planet’, “There’s been a massive change. I get so much abuse and rude comments now. It’s happening to all of us, but I challenge the climate deniers so I’ve been really targeted.”

Conversations with: Professor Mark Maslin – Conversations in Human Evolution
Professor Mark Maslin out where he likes to be, in the environment. (Credit: Conversations in Human Evolution)

Not all climate scientists are as feisty as Professor Maslin however. Doug McNeall is a statistician studying climate change at the MET Office Hadley Center of Exeter University who asserts that the constant abuse has become nerve wracking. “I got to the point where it was definitely affecting my mental health.”

Typical hate message being sent to people who are only trying to learn the truth. By the way most climate scientists get paid around $100,000 dollars a year, which they’d still get even if the climate was getting better! We’d still want to know more about Earth’s climate even if there was no global warming. By the way if you want to know how much money the oil companies are making by causing climate change just keep reading. (Credit: Inside Climate News)

Many of the climate deniers even pay subscriptions to Twitter in order to get their attacks higher up in the list of replies to a scientist’s tweet. Which makes you wonder who is paying these people to be climate deniers. Perhaps worst of all however is the fact that a recent survey of 468 international climate scientists has found that one in eight female climate scientists has received online threats of sexual violence from climate deniers.

Fear of sexual violence a special kind of hell just for woman. The threat of it in a political argument is a special kind of evil. (Credit: UN Women Asia and the Pacific)

How much of this abusive climate denialism is actually being paid for by the oil and gas industry we’ll probably never know. But remember, Exxon-Mobile made a record $55.7 billion Dollars in profit last year, Shell made $39.9 billion profit while Chevron made $35.5 billion profit and poor little BP had to make do with only $27.7 billion, in profit! That’s more than enough to pay a few hundred, or a few thousand computer geeks to spread lies and distortions about what the petroleum industry is doing to our world.

So Exxon-Mobile got $11.4 billion in one quarter while the average climate scientist got around $100,000 per year. Those greedy scientists! (Credit: Statista)

The fate of our world depends on whether we listen to the climate scientists or the climate deniers. There isn’t much time left to decide.

New Studies indicate that Sea Level Rise due to Climate Change over the next 100 years could be far worse than previously expected. Meanwhile the big Oil companies continue to make record profits.

Over the last several years various aspects of Climate Change have been getting a bit more attention in the news than previously. Both the continuing drought in the Western North America, East Africa and Europe as well as the abnormally severe storms, hurricanes, tornadoes along with massive floods throughout the world have been making so many headlines that global warming can no longer be completely ignored.

So far this year has been unprecedented in the number and destruction of Tornadoes here in the US. How anyone can continue to doubt the reality of Climate Change is beyond my understanding. (Credit: American Museum of Natural History)

Now all of that news coverage is a good thing but all of those stories about changing weather patterns have obscured another piece of the climate change problem, sea level rise. Sea level rise may not get the headlines, basically because we haven’t begun to see the worst effects of it yet, but millimeter by millimeter it just keeps it just keeps on building, a measured 20cm rise worldwide over the last 100 years. Already some of its effects have been noticed in low laying parts of the world like the Mississippi delta or islands like the Seychelles. At the same time the entire US gulf and Atlantic coasts have been subjected to an ever growing number of ‘King Tides’, periodic flooding of land areas even when there has been no rain for days. In the city of Miami seawater has been known to come bursting out of sewers while the Sun is shining brightly.

While Hurricanes, Tornadoes and Droughts get the most press coverage, King Tides caused by the slow but constant rise in sea level are becoming a regular nuisance in many coastal cities. (Credit: Science / How Stuff Works)

Now two news studies, each looking at the long term consequences of sea level rise from opposite directions have concluded that the problem will become much worse, much quicker than expected. The first study, published in the journal Nature Communications by an international team of scientists details the results of a series of model based computer simulations.

The ice in Greenland is melting faster than ever and now there is evidence that the ice is melting from the bottom up indicating that the whole ice cap could become unstable! (Credit: CNN)

Those results predict that not only will the melting of the ice caps on both Greenland and Antarctica continue, but that the melting will accelerate, causing a much greater rise in sea level by the end of the century. In fact the models show that, if global temperature rise should exceed 1.8ºC above pre-industrial levels the melting of the ice caps would reach irreversible, catastrophic amounts with a sea level rise by the year 2100 estimated at one meter above today’s level.

It was all smiles as the nations of the world agree to keep global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees back in 2015. It seems however that nobody realized that meant that had to do something other than just smile! (Credit: State of the Planet – Columbia University)

Now remember, ever since the Paris climate accords of 2015 both scientists and politicians have been pushing for a limit of 1.5ºC rise in global temperature, and pretty much failing to do anything substantial to actually stop the world from going past that goal. Indeed, the latest estimates have the global temperature rise going above 1.5ºC sometime in the next five years. And once we’re past 1.5ºC can 1.8ºC be far behind. So the amount of water being dumped into the oceans by melting ice caps is going to increase rapidly, threatening the low laying areas of every nation on Earth.

Worst case scenario for sea level rise here in the US. Even without this extreme case many of our largest cities will become unlivable due to constant floodings and storm damage. (Credit: Forbes)

The second paper concerns those low laying areas and concludes that we have been greatly underestimating the amount of global land area that will be lost due to sea level rise. The study, published in the American Geophysical Union’s journal Earth’s Future, utilizes data from NASA’s ICESat-2 LiDAR satellite, which was launched back in 2018, to determine the elevation above sea level of land areas throughout the globe.

Well they finally did it, NASA put a LASER in space. Don’t worry this one is intended to measure land elevations not blast cities to rubble. (Credit: ICESat-2 -NASA)

Previous measurements of land elevations were carried out by airplanes using radar, but those measurements were inaccurate, primarily because radar cannot penetrate beneath vegetation to the true ground surface. The ICESat-2 satellite uses the much more precise Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) that is better able to determine the true elevation of land areas.

Elevation maps showing the hight above sea level of land areas are a common tool in geography but if sea level continues to rise we are going to need to redo all of them! (Credit: SERC)

What the researchers found was the elevation of much of the world’s low laying land areas was being overestimated. Not by much, only a meter or two for the most part, but when coupled with a one meter rise in sea level it means that just about twice as much of the world is going to sink beneath the ocean by the year 2100 than was previously thought.

Salt Marshes are among the richest and most important ecological environments in the world. A 1 meter rise in sea level would result in most of the world’s salt marshes simply disappearing. (Credit: The Pew Charitable Trusts)

That means that millions more people will see their homes swept away by floods. Whole nations like Bangladesh may simply cease to exist while seacoasts around the world will be inundated. Rich cities like Miami and Boston may be able to afford to build dikes to preserve them, but what about poorer cities like Mumbai and Bangkok? What about the numerous small coastal towns in New Jersey, North Carolina, Florida and Texas?

One of the most densely populated counties in the world Bangladesh is also probably the most threatened by sea level rise. (Credit: UCAR Center for Science Education)

So it may not be long before you start hearing more and more stories on the news about widespread flooding across the globe. It’ll happen slowly, millimeter by millimeter as the sea rises, but it’s going to happen.

By building a large interconnected system of dykes the people of the Netherlands succeeded in building a country that is mostly below sea level. However that task took centuries to complete and Holland isn’t that big a country. Imagine the cost of doing that for the whole world! (Credit: Quora)

Now, if you find the latest estimates on sea level rise and the flooding of the world’s coastlines associated with it to be a bit depressing then here’s some news that I’m certain will cheer you up. The major oil companies have recently all announced that they made record profits during last year 2022. So even as the planet burns up you can still have a safe investment for your 401K that will be paying dividends in the post-apocalyptic hellscape to come.

Is this what the future holds for New York and other coastal cities? (Credit: Rolling Stone)

For the record, Exxon-Mobile posted a profit in 2022 of $55.7 Billion, that’s profit, not sales, while Shell announced $39.9 Billion in profit. The other oil giants saw similar levels of profit, Chevron $35.5 Billion, BP $27.7 while France’s Total Energies announced $36.6 Billion. All of these numbers were records for each company and came while the world was recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic and tittering on the brink of a recession.

Even as people all over the world complained about the sharp rise in the price of gas the oil companies were quite happy. (Credit: Bloomberg.com)

Of course the oil giants insist that they did nothing wrong, it was the pandemic’s fault really. You see during all of the Covid lockdowns the demand for oil and natural gas dropped so they all had to cut way back on production. Then last year, as life throughout the world began to return to normal the demand for oil and natural gas shot up. Add to that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia is the world’s third largest oil producer and second largest producer of natural gas, and the price for a barrel of oil went through the roof. There was nothing the oil companies could do; the law of supply and demand literally forced them to make ungodly amounts of money.

How much is Russian oil paying for Russia’s war in Ukraine? How many wars so far this millennia have been fueled by oil? (Credit: Fair Observer)

All of which is just more evidence of how hard it is going to be to get the human race to stop polluting the world with fossil fuels. There are simply too many people making too much money from oil and natural gas, I won’t even mention coal, for them to be simply outlawed. The question therefore becomes how much of the world’s land mass has to be flooded, how severe do storms have to become, how many people have to suffer in droughts or wildfires before we finally do something? And will it be too late by then?

Climate Change: COP 27 ends with an historic agreement for richer nations to provide money to help poorer nations that are already suffering from climate disasters. On the other hand little progress was made in actually stopping the greenhouse gasses that are causing the climate problems.

Every year representatives from nearly 200 countries come together at a chosen location to discuss efforts toward fighting global warming and the harmful changes in our planet’s climate caused by it. The first such conference was held in 1995 and given the title COP 1.

The slogan for COP27, the international conference on Climate Change was a ‘New Era of Implementation’, but not much got implemented. (Credit: IFLR)

Each succeeding forum has added one to the number with COP 20 back in 2015 generating the famous ‘Paris Accord’ where a target figure of a rise in global temperature of no more than 1.5º C above pre-industrial levels was pledged by every nation in attendance. However no concrete plan to eliminate greenhouse gasses such as CO2 and Methane was agreed upon in Paris and every conference since then has basically failed to stop the ever increasing rise in fossil fuel emissions.

The difference in the damage done to our environment but 1.5 degree and 2 degree rise in temperature. We’re basically already at 1.5 degrees and doing little if anything to stop getting to 2 degrees. (Credit: CBC)

 Last year’s COP 26 in Scotland could not even reach an agreement on how or when to eliminate the use of coal, the worst emitter of CO2. Plans to issue a strong final statement on ‘Phasing Out’ coal were scuttled by India, the world’s forth largest emitter of CO2 but a nation still considered to be ‘developing’ and which in fact has plans to greatly increase its fossil fuel emissions. The wording that was finally agreed to was to ‘Phase Down’ coal use instead of ‘Phase Out’.

The use of coal to generate energy is the worst polluter but at COP26 in Scotland the nation of India refused to accept the wording of ‘Phase out’ the use of coal instead forcing the term “Phase Down’ on the conference. (Credit: The Wire Science)

With so much contention making it impossible to develop any realistic plan to fight global warming it not surprising that the negotiators at COP 27, held in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh on the Red Sea, spent more of their time tackling a different part of the climate problem. The negotiators concentrated their efforts on the question of how to help those of the poorer countries of the world who are already suffering from climate change. Over the last year the flooding in Pakistan and Niger coupled with severe droughts in east and south Africa have brought attention to the fact that many of the countries that produce the smallest amounts of greenhouse gasses are enduring some of the worst consequences of global warming.

It’s estimated that one third of the nation of Pakistan saw flooding this year, millions suffered and the chances of more of this happening just keeps growing. (Credit: The Diplomat)

For the past thirty years these poorer countries have been pushing the richer countries, who just happen to be the biggest polluters, to establish a reparations fund that will help pay the costs of disaster relief. And for the past thirty years the richer countries have resisted signing a blank cheque that could keep them paying into this fund for decades. Another complication was the status of China, which back in 1995 was still a small economy producing only a small amount of greenhouse gasses but which since then has become the world’s second biggest economy and the biggest emitter of both CO2 and methane. So should China contribute to this fund or should it, and this would be a real farce, actually benefit from such a fund?

China has swiftly become the world’s worst polluter (top), but it’s still considered to be a ‘Developing Country’. The harm the Chinese are doing to their own country is easily seen (bottom). (Credit: Financial Times / New York Times)

Right at the start of COP27 the European Union signaled that they were now ready to support the reparations proposal but the United States was still reluctant. When the US’s chief negotiator, former US Senator John Kerry tested positive for Covid-19 it appeared that the entire conference might end without any real progress.

Former Senator John Kerry is America’s special representative for climate change. He’s pushing hard but there’s only so much one man can do. (Credit: The American University in Cairo)

Only a willingness to extend the negotiations through the weekend allowed the conference to come to an agreement. The world now has an established fund, endowed by most of the world’s richer nations, to help poorer countries pay for the damage done to them by climate change. Before you start thinking that a tremendous achievement was made however bear in mind that the richer nations have yet to announce how they will contribute and for how long and the status of China has yet to be decided.

The poorer nations of the world, who have contributed little to the huge amounts of greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere are nevertheless suffering the most. They want those nations that profited from fossil fuels to pay for the damage. (Credit: WNYC)

The worst part however is that by appearing to make progress on who will pay for the damage caused by climate change absolutely nothing was achieved toward reducing, let alone eliminating the use of fossil fuels for energy production. So the release of greenhouse gasses is going to continue, in fact increase, increasing both the severity and length of the whole problem.

They just keep rising. Greenhouse gasses are being released in ever growing quantities and we’re simply not doing enough to stop the trend. (Credit: Institute for European Environmental Policy)

The final report from COP27 did restate the goal of preventing global temperature rise from exceeding 1.5ºC over pre-industrial levels but it also restates that coal use is to be ‘phased down’ not ‘phased out’. The world still has no agreement on or plan for how to stop making the problem of climate change worse.

The whole world is in this position! (Credit: Shutterstock)

And while the politicians dither more greenhouse gasses are being dumped into the atmosphere every day causing the world’s temperature to continue to rise bringing with it ever more severe climate crisis.

US Congress passes the largest ever investment in actions to fight Climate Change. Have we finally reached a tipping point where humanity will actually do something to stop the worst effects of Global Warming or is this just too little too late.

After a flurry of last minute negotiations with moderate democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrstin Sinema the United States senate passed legislation that will provide $376 billion dollars for incentives to help develop green energy technologies. While the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) does also include provisions to extend Obamacare rebates and for the first time it allows Medicare to negotiate the price of some prescription drugs with drug manufacturers it is the money to fight climate change that represents the biggest shift in Federal policy.

A lot of progressives are angry at moderate democratic senators Kyrstin Sinema (l) and Joe Manchin (r). But if we can’t find a way to work with our friends what chance do we have of getting anything done! (Credit: CNN)

As I said the bill’s provisions for green technology consists entirely of incentives, rebate money and tax deductions to help offset the cost of private individuals and corporations converting to solar or wind power generation. Rebates are also included in the bill for the purchase of electric vehicles (EVs). The IRA therefore is all carrot, money to make green technology cheaper, but no sticks, taxes or other penalties for continuing to burn fossil fuel.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) contains money to help develop new sustainable energy sources but it doesn’t place any penalties on the continued use of existing coal and oil power plants. (Credit: The Leading Solar Magazine in India)

Of course the bill produced one of the biggest partisan fights ever in an era of extreme partisanship. Every republican in both the senate and the house of representatives voted against the bill claiming that it would actually increase inflation or that it was nothing but a laundry list of democratic pet projects. To be honest however what the republicans really objected to was the tax increase on large corporations that will generate $700 billion in revenue over the next ten years and offset the cost of the programs in the bill.

Solving our environmental issues is going to require money, lots of it and the only way to get that money is by taxing rich people which is the real reason republicans are against it. (Credit: Teen Vogue)

Even some climate change activists were upset at certain provisions in the bill that called for oil and gas drilling on Federal lands and mandating construction of certain oil pipelines, concessions to the petroleum industry that were necessary to gain the support of Manchin and Sinema. So the IRA isn’t perfect and even so it barely managed to squeeze through congress and to President Biden’s desk. Nevertheless it represents the biggest, in terms of money, effort by any government in the world to combat global warming.

It’s as true today as when Voltaire said 250 years ago. The point is to start getting something done, today! (Credit: Bethany United Church)

So, have we actually reached an inflection point, has the evidence for climate change finally grown so overwhelming that there are now enough people concerned about the future of our planet to get something done? Is there now enough political will to make the needed changes to achieve a sustainable society?

In math an inflection point, the point where a curve changers direction, is easy to calculate. In real life, especially in politics, it ain’t that easy! (Credit: Quora)

The weather so far this year has certainly provided further evidence. Excessive heat waves in the northern hemisphere have been occurring non-stop since late spring and even areas of the world not normally associated with high temperatures have been affected. In early July England, Scotland and Wales all set all time record high temperatures, and records in the British Isles go back all the way to the 1860s. On the 16th of July, London, the UK capital saw the temperature exceed 40ºC a number that once would have seemed impossible in a city that far north, London lays at a latitude of 50º, 30′ north, about the same as Newfoundland in North America. And with the heat has come the most severe drought the UK has suffered in decades with both agriculture and river traffic feeling the pain.

England is supposed to be in a temperate zone, not too hot, not too cold. But thanks to global warming there may no longer be such a thing, we’re all living in the tropics! (Credit: Yahoo News)

The rest of Europe has suffered as well, with record high temperatures and severe drought conditions existing from Spain, Portugal and Italy in the south to Germany and the Netherlands in the north. While on the other side of the world Japan and eastern China have also been seeing record setting heat waves. In Japan the government went to the extraordinary measure of asking the 37 million people who live in and around the capital Tokyo to conserve electricity in order to prevent possible power shortages during an unprecedented 40ºC heat wave in late June.

Even though America and Europe are getting the most press coverage Asian nations like China are also experiencing record heat waves. Climate change is no longer a statistical bump, it’s now everywhere. (Credit: MIT News)

All across the world as the heat increases the use of air conditioning rises even faster and the strain on aging power grids is quickly reaching the breaking point. Imagine the disaster that could happen if the Texas power grid collapses during a week of consecutive days at or above 40ºC as happened in July in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin. 

On the 7th of September a massive ‘Heat Dome’ over the western US brought California’s power grid to within minutes of large scale blackouts. Only quick thinking by officials along with cooperation from consumers averted the disaster. (Credit: Bloomberg Law)

But its not just heat and drought that are causing disasters this summer. Here in the US the eastern part of the state of Kentucky saw flooding that killed some 40 people and destroyed whole towns. That event was matched by massive flooding around Yellowstone National Park where flood waters forced the park’s closure for a week even while many visitors were trapped inside.

The valleys of eastern Kentucky are used to occasional flooding but the scale and severity of this year’s event are unprecedented. (Credit: UofL News)

Paradoxically drought and flooding actually go together as a couple of months of no rain can make the soil as hard as concrete so that when rain does occur rather than sinking into the ground it all runs down into the valleys and creek beds leading to a surge of water. That’s what happened in Death Valley where an unusually strong rainstorm trapped hundreds of tourists for days by rising floodwaters.

Death Valley in California rarely gets any rain but paradoxically when it does get rain that rain can lead to flooding. (Credit: UnitedKingdom Knews)

This year’s surge of climate change induced, weather related disasters are just the beginning for we are still dumping huge amounts of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere where they will only cause further increases in the world’s temperature. Now the First Street Foundation, a non-profit think tank that studies climate change has issued their estimate for what the hottest days of summer will be like for the US in the year 2053. Currently there are ten counties in this country that can expect to see one day a year where the heat index, the ‘feels like’ temperature that is a combination of actual temperature and humidity, can reach over 50ºC, an unbearable, life threatening amount of heat. The majority of these counties are of course in the desert southwest but there are a few in the middle section of the country far from the cooling effect of the ocean.

Currently only a few US counties are considered to be in an ‘extreme heat’ zone (l). By 2053 that are of ‘extreme heat’ is expected to grow dramatically. (Credit: News Times)

The peer reviewed analysis by the First Street Foundation predicts that by 2053 the number of counties reaching a heat index of 50ºC will rise to over a thousand, a two orders of magnitude increase. The part of the country that will see the biggest increase in area will be that middle section where a swath of extreme heat will form starting with Texas and Louisiana in the south and extending as far north as Chicago. Over 100 million people will see deadly heat waves for at least part of the year while the big cities of Texas could see temperatures over 40ºC for months on end.

Texas has always been hot, but before long it may simply become unlivable. (Credit: Fox Weather)

Meanwhile another heat zone will form along the east coast  starting in Georgia and South Carolina and reaching my home here in Philadelphia. Every part of the country can expect increased heat as well, with what are today the 7 hottest days of the year extending to become the 18 hottest days in nearly every locality. The effect that this increase will have on other weather conditions, drought or flooding, tornadoes and other severe storms can only be guessed at right now.

And with the increase in heat comes an increase in severe weather like tornadoes. (Credit: Texas A&M Today)

And the First Street Foundation is not the only voice crying out in alarum. A leading Earth Sciences Professor at University College London named Bill McGuire has recently published a new book entitled ‘Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitants Guide’ that outlays his vision for our weather future. According to Professor McGuire severe climate change is inevitable and irreversible. McGuire is quite correct when he states, “And as we head further into 2022, it is already a different world out there. Soon it will be unrecognizable to every one of us.”

Maybe this is a book we should all read. I’ve got my copy on order! (Credit: Amazon.com)

So the question becomes, is the Inflation Reduction Act with its $376 billion to fight climate change nothing but, too little too late. Or has humanity finally faced the fact that climate change is an existential threat that we must deal with and the IRA just the first step in an ever growing effort to save the world.

With a stroke of Joe Biden’s pen the IRA becomes law but it will take more, a lot more and not just from the Federal government, from all of us! (Credit: ABC News)

Only time will tell, and I don’t think we’re going to have to wait until 2053.

The COP26 Climate Change Conference closes with an Agreement. Is it all just a lot of Promises or are the Nations of the World ready to begin the hard work of saving the Planet we all live on?

The international conference on combating climate change known as COP26 has ended and so now the question can be asked, how much was accomplished? Was it enough to keep the increase in global temperature below the +1.5ºC agreed that was upon at the 2015 Paris conference? That figure of +1.5ºC happens to be the maximum value that scientists think will allow us to avoid catastrophic environment damage. Was anything accomplished in Glasgow at all?

The Main Hall of the COP26 Climate Conference. (Credit: Reuters)

In my pre-COP26 post of 3 November 2021 I wasn’t too optimistic. The very fact that the heads of state for two of the world’s biggest polluters, China and Russia, weren’t even going to Glasgow to attend the conference certainly didn’t bode well. And the Prime Minister of India, another big emitter of greenhouse gasses, seemed to come to the conference with the full intention of preventing any meaning full progress.

India’s PM Modi announced that his nation will not reach net-zero emissions until 2070. Not a good start to the conference. (Credit: India Today)

If there was going to be any progress it would all depend on how much pressure the smaller countries, especially those Island nations like the Marshall Islands and Grenada whose very existence depends on curtailing the rise of sea level due to global warming, could impose on the big polluters. Some of the big economies, the big emitters of the past like Great Britain, Germany and France supported the smaller nations and perhaps most importantly this time the United States took a leading role pushing for meaningful commitments towards reducing greenhouse gasses. Other nations like China and India however were determined to resist any threat to their growing economies.

To dramatize his nation’s plight the Minister of the small Island Nation of Tuvalu gave his opening address while standing in the Pacific Ocean. (Credit: Today in 24 English)

So what was actually accomplished, anything? Yes, believe it or not at least there were some meaningful, and surprising agreements made at the conference. Halfway through the conference, even as the final, big climate pact was being negotiated it was announced that a group of 30 nations had made a separate agreement to reduce deforestation by half within their collective borders by 2030. The biggest surprise about this agreement was that one of the signatories was Brazil whose Amazon rainforest has over the last decade suffered a greater amount of deforestation than anywhere else on Earth. The Amazon jungle has been christened ‘the world’s lungs’ because of its ability to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and replace it with oxygen so Brazil’s agreement is a big deal.

Piece by piece the Amazon rain forest, the largest forest in the world is being converted into grassland for cattle production. Will the new agreement at COP26 do anything to bring this destruction to a halt? (Credit: The Guardian)

The most important part of the conference however was the final agreement, the final climate pact that had to be signed off by all of the 197 countries that participated at the conference. One major achievement in that pact was that for the first time fossil fuels were explicitly called out as being the cause of climate change. (Makes you sort of wonder how it was possible to have 25 previous climate change / global warming conferences without ever mentioning the cause!)

The main hall at COP1, the first worldwide conference on dealing with global warming. The meeting took place in Berlin in 1995. 26 Conferences and what has been accomplished? (Credit: Medium)

Another positive result was the promise by the world’s wealthier nations to double the amount of money they would provide to poorer nations. This money is intended to both help the small economies mitigate the effects of climate change as well as develop greener sources of energy so that they not further increase the amount of CO2 being released into the atmosphere. The new agreed amount is $200 billion per year by 2024.

Even my local Weather reporter mentioned the progress at COP-26. If these pledges are kept they could be actually help. (Credit: WPVI)

Nevertheless the final document feel well short of the hopes of climate scientists because it did not explicitly call out any actual cuts in greenhouse gas emissions from any country. Instead each country made a commitment to prepare such a concrete plan of action that will be submitted at the COP27 conference next year. The metaphor ‘kicking the can down the road’ was used several times in media reports.

The one thing Politicians are able to agree on is to not solve a problem. Just kick that can down the Road and let Someone else solve it! (Credit: The Argotist)

The last two days of intense negotiations actually came down to a conflict over a single word. The draft pact that had been prepared by Conference President Alok Sharma of the host nation the UK stated that the use of coal, the source of the greatest part of greenhouse gas emissions, was to be ‘cut out’ by all nations although no definite date was given. Several nations objected to the word ‘out’ and wanted it to be replaced by the word ‘down’. In the end India and Iran simply refused to accept the pact without the change so the final pact agreed upon by all the participating nations does not even call for an eventual end to the use of coal for energy!

India needs cheap power from coal to grow its economy and lift it’s 1.3 billion citizens out of poverty. Currently the Indian government is simply ignoring the harm that does to both India and the World. (Credit: The Economic Times)

Of course the real problem is that the entire agreement is just promises, there are no consequences for any nation that fails to live up to the pact. All of which means that literally nothing could come from the COP26 climate change conference, CO2 emissions could keep on rising along with sea level, deforestation could continue unabated while wild fires destroy the rest of the trees, severe storms could continue to grow both in number and intensity.

Climate Change really isn’t so bad right now so doesn’t that make it her problem? And shouldn’t we just leave it for her to solve? (Credit: CTV News)

Some of you out there may be familiar with an old British comedy series called “Yes Minister / Yes Prime Minister”. The premise of the show was that a Minister in Her Majesty’s Government, Prime Minister in the second year of the show, named James Hacker matches wits with his chief Civil Servant named Sir Humphrey Appleby. The politician Hacker wants to achieve great things so that he can get re-elected while the bureaucrat Appleby wants to slow everything down with red tape. It was without doubt one of the most intelligent TV shows ever written.

If you’ve never seen the BBC comedy ‘Yes Minister / Yes Prime Minister’ I can only recommend it as the most intelligent comedy I’ve ever seen. (Credit: Amazon.com)

In one episode the two are arguing over exactly what constitutes efficient government. A local city council has been providing services to their people without high taxes, Minister Hacker calls that efficient. “But they haven’t been filling out their forms and submitting them,” Sir Humphrey complains, “So we don’t know what they’re doing.” The best line comes when Sir Humphrey proclaims. “We don’t measure our success by our accomplishments but by our activity!”

The Right Honourable James Hacker MP (l) with his department’s permanent Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby (r). You’ll learn a lot about how government functions while laughing your head off! (Credit: BritBox)

On that basis COP26 has been a great success because there was certainly an enormous amount of activity by hundreds of bureaucrats who did finally manage to get everyone to sign on to a massive agreement. Whether that agreement actually accomplishes anything at all only time will tell.

The ‘Remnants’ of Hurricane Ida cause Catastrophic Destruction in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York. Once again Climate Change is making once in a thousand years Weather Events ‘The New Normal’.

Just a few weeks ago, 11August 2021, I published a post describing the massive flooding that had hit the cities of Zhengzhou in central China and London in the UK. The rainstorms that caused the flood events in both cities would have been considered to have been once in a thousand years deluges were it not for the way that climate change is making extreme weather much more common. In that post I wondered how the infrastructure in cities, especially older cities like London, were going to cope with ‘The New Normal’.

Aftermath of the flooding in Zhengzhou China only a month ago. (Credit: New York Times)

When I wrote that post I had no idea that I was soon to become a witness to the very predicament I had written about. That’s because, on the first of September 2021 the remnants of Hurricane Ida, the leftovers that is, unleashed its destructive power on my home state of Pennsylvania along with New Jersey and New York.

As Ida, now a tropical depression, passed through the mid-Atlantic states it released one last disaster. (Credit: Bucks County Courier Times)

Now Ida had already caused more than enough damage to the state of Louisiana and southern Mississippi when it came ashore on the 29th of August, the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The storm hit as a strong category 4 with winds over 240 kph causing terrific damage. Whole communities were destroyed with more than a dozen dead while over 1 million people lost their electrical power due to downed power lines and uprooted trees.

Just a bit of the destruction wrought by Ida in Louisiana. (Credit: CNN)

Turning to the northeast over the next several days Ida brought heavy rains to the states of Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky West Virginia and Virginia before entering the Mid-Atlantic States. It was here that the now tropical depression collided with a cold front coming down from Canada. That front squeezed Ida like a sponge releasing its remaining moisture and causing the storm to regain some of her strength.

Even as Ida was coming ashore in the gulf states a front was moving down from Canada. The two would meet over Pennsylvania. (Credit: WDBJ)

If you draw a line from Baltimore through Philadelphia to New York City to the northwest of that line there were historic amounts of rainfall that caused unprecedented flooding. To the southeast a series of supercell storms dropped strong tornadoes that ripped up trees and flattened homes.

One of the Tornadoes generated by Ida in New Jersey. (Credit: Tony Citara / WPVI)
Some of the damage done by Tornadoes in Mullica Hill New Jersey. (Credit: WPVI)

The period of the strongest storms began a little after 4PM EDT when Philadelphia’s three local news stations had begun their evening broadcasts. As the destruction unfolded all other news was forgotten and the meteorologists at those three stations continuously stayed on the air for the next four hours while the National Weather Service issued tornado warning after tornado warning, flash flood warning after flash flood warning.

Last Year’s total of Tornadoes and warnings smashed all previous records for the Delaware Valley region. This year has already smashed last year’s records. (Credit: WPVI)

Several of the weatherpersons who have lived all their lives in the Philadelphia area were simply stunned by the enormity of the storm’s power. “Philadelphia doesn’t get weather like this” they continually stated, “This is historic”. And it was; 20 record rainfall totals were set along with record flooding in many creeks and rivers. And so far this year the Delaware valley has seen 25 tornadoes. I don’t think we had 25 tornadoes in the first sixty years of my life!

The Tornadoes weren’t just confined to New Jersey, here’s a damaged home in Chester County Pa. (Credit: WPVI)

I almost feel guilty to say it but I was safe throughout the entire ordeal, my neighborhood got 10Cm of rain but fortunately nothing worse. Many people were not so lucky. As I write these words 50 people are known to have died and thousands more have lost their homes or automobiles. Indeed the number of cars that were simply abandoned by their drivers because they were stuck on crowded highways while the waters rose around them is simply unbelievable. Many areas of Philadelphia and the surrounding communities that I known very well are currently underwater and will remain so for days, and only then can the cleanup effort begin.

An underpass of the Vine Street Expressway, the major route through center city Philadelphia. Well, it’s certainly under something now! (Credit: WPVI)
Some of the flooding caused by the Brandywine Creek in Chadds Ford Pennsylvania. (Credit: WPVI)

The city of New York suffered similarly with the heaviest rain ever measured falling on Central Park and many of the city’s subway stations closed due to flooding. Of course its not just the big cities that suffered, smaller cities like Wilmington, Delaware and Trenton, New Jersey also saw major flooding along with scores of smaller towns. In all three states there were hundreds of water rescues of people whom the waters had trapped in their cars or homes.

On the left a New York City bus is flooded, on the right a subway car in Zhengzhou. Several times during Ida I was struck by a feeling of deja vu. (Credit: New York Post and Insider)
Play Ball! Not for awhile as the minor league park in Bound Brook in New Jersey is flooded out. (Credit: CNN)
Water rescues underway in Wilmington Delaware. Scenes like this occurred in eight states. (Credit: WPVI)

With such extreme weather of course climate change was bought up and I suppose it’s a sign of some progress that all of the weathercasters and most of the newspersons I watched that night have accepted global warming as a major factor in the strength of these storms. After all global warming is heating our atmosphere and oceans, and since heat is just a form of energy that warming just makes the storms that develop over the oceans much more energetic, that much more deadly. It’s that extra energy that is turning once in a hundred, once in five hundred year weather events into the new normal.

Arial view of the Vine Street Expressway. Compare this image to the first image above from Zhengzhou, again eerily similar. (Credit: WPVI)
The Manayunk section of Philadelphia along the Schuylkill River is known for occasional flooding, but not like this. (Credit: WPVI)

However it still seems that there are plenty of politicians who will do anything and everything in their power to keep on burning fossil fuels. The battle isn’t won yet; let’s be honest, it’s only just started.

Fortunately it looks like Hurricane Larry will stay out in the Atlantic. We won’t always be so lucky! (Credit: WPLG)

   Oh, and Hurricane Larry has formed out in the Atlantic, its expected to grow into a big one!