Global warming is shutting down nuclear, not the other way around:
"High river temperatures to limit French nuclear power production"
This is the second summer in a row that French nukes are being taken offline because higher water temperatures make it impossible to cool the reactors and the spent fuel.
Is it time that we started fat-shaming unnecessarily large cars? Because it's ludicrous for this trend to continue - quite apart from the dangers, what a waste of materials, space and energy!
“It’s not too late. It’s not fine. It’s exactly the time to demand a better world.”
Love this by @ClimateAdam and Rosemary Mosco (Bird and Moon Comics).
The news and our anxiety about it can seem devastating and overwhelming - but there's more to the story. The action we take now will and is making a difference, and, at the same time, much more needs to be done, by more people to make the difference that's needed.
And you don’t have to do it on your own, find or start a local Transition group and together reshape your community to be more resilient, fairer and thrive for the future.
I've said it before and I'll say it again.
Climate deniers can claim any nonsense they want, but it's the insurance industry that will bring the reality of climate change to your doorstep. And your pocketbook. #climate
For those who haven’t seen it before, here is my review of The Climate Book, by Greta Thunberg…
I've read dozens of books about climate change, and this one is easily the best. It's packed with information, written to be accessible for anyone from high school (or a bright middle school student) on up, and most importantly it does NOT shy away from the true severity of our situation and the imperative need not only for individual action but for system change.
It's stunning to me that a young woman who just turned twenty years old was able to pull together such a massive project — coordinating the submissions of more than a hundred scientists, activists, and educators — while also writing a large part of the content herself. A truly amazing accomplishment.
This essential work should be in every school library and in every home. It will remain relevant for years to come, I believe, because although there certainly is plenty of data, mostly it's about ideas which will never age.
There is no precedent for what is happening now in Canada. The ongoing forest fires are obliterating all previous records. No matter which chart or graph you look at below, the message they send is shocking and alarming.
Canadian wildfires have burned more than 10 million hectares (24.7 million acres) this year, a record-breaking figure that has surpassed scientists' most pessimistic predictions, government data showed Saturday.
The prior all-time high occurred in 1989, when 7.3 million hectares were burned over the course of an entire year, according to national figures from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC).
The area burned this year, in just six and a half months, is roughly equivalent to the size of Portugal or Iceland.
For those of you who are interested in statistics, this is a five-sigma event. So it's five standard deviations beyond the mean. Which means that if nothing had changed, we'd expect to see a winter like this about once every 7.5 million years."It's gobsmacking."
“But they’ve now had 30 years of blah, blah, blah and where has that led us? We can still turn this around – it is entirely possible."
“Adults keep saying: “We owe it to the young people to give them hope.” But I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic."
“Our house is on fire. I am here to say, our house is on fire.”
Greta, speaking as clearly as possible.
Its not a discussion, its a refusal to act.
We cannot use offsets to excuse further fossil fuel burning. The aim has to be zero carbon emissions. Even if we try hard, we'll miss by a bit, and by then there might be techniques to take in carbon to reach net zero. But decarbonisation must be as complete as possible
Scientists are now saying we are “out of time” to keep global heating at under 1.5°C. It’s simply too late. We’ve delayed any action far too long.
All our talk and meetings and phony “Net Zero” pledges don’t mean anything to an overstressed climate system that is rapidly breaking down.
You can’t fool Mother Nature.
The target of keeping long-term global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) is moving out of reach, climate experts say, with nations failing to set more ambitious goals despite months of record-breaking heat on land and sea.
“We’ve run out of time because change takes time,” said Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, a climatologist at Australia’s University of New South Wales.
As climate envoys from the two biggest greenhouse gas emitters prepare to meet next month, temperatures broke June records in the Chinese capital Beijing, and extreme heat waves have hit the United States.
Parts of North America were some 10C (18F) above the seasonal average this month, and smoke from forest fires blanketed Canada and the US East Coast in a hazardous haze, with carbon emissions estimated at a record 160 million tons.
In India, one of the most climate-vulnerable regions, deaths spiked as a result of sustained high temperatures, and extreme heat has been recorded in Spain, Iran, and Vietnam, raising fears that last year’s deadly summer could become routine.
Countries agreed in Paris in 2015 to try to keep long-term average temperature rises within 1.5C, but there is now a 66% likelihood the annual mean will cross the 1.5C threshold for at least one whole year between now and 2027, the World Meteorological Organization predicted in May.
I suggest we all read this article very very very carefully…
Scientists estimate that the earth’s land ecosystems can hold enough additional vegetation to absorb between 40 and 100 gigatonnes of carbon from the atmosphere. Once this additional growth is achieved (a process which will take a number of decades), there is no capacity for additional carbon storage on land.
But our society is currently pouring CO₂ into the atmosphere at a rate of ten gigatonnes of carbon a year. Natural processes will struggle to keep pace with the deluge of greenhouse gases generated by the global economy. For example, I calculated that a single passenger on a round trip flight from Melbourne to New York City will emit roughly twice as much carbon (1600 kg C) as is contained in an oak tree half a meter in diameter (750 kg C).
Yet fundamental misunderstandings about carbon capture by land ecosystems can have devastating consequences, resulting in losses of biodiversity and an increase in CO₂ concentrations. This seems like a paradox – how can planting trees negatively impact the environment?
The answer lies in the subtle complexities of carbon capture in natural ecosystems. To avoid environmental damage, we must refrain from establishing forests where they naturally don’t belong, avoid “perverse incentives” to cut down existing forest in order to plant new trees, and consider how seedlings planted today might fare over the next several decades. #Climate#ClimateCrisis#CO2#Deforestation
I know we're all keyed into the indictment news, but... Also TODAY:
Brutal heat in Argentina (in WINTER)
Uprecedented heat in Japan
Most intense rain in 140 years in China
Iran shuts down for two days due to high temperatures
Record low sea ice in Antarctica for July
Highest ever recorded ocean temps in Florida
"Dangerous heat" in US Southwest
Tech giants are building massive data centers around the world that require a ton of water and energy. The AI boom will only accelerate it, but local opposition is growing.
I spoke to @slehuede about a group in Chile that fought a Google data center and why the tech industry’s plans must be challenged.