Tag Archives: global-climate

Carbon dioxide levels just hit 415 ppm. Who saw this coming? Exxon Mobil.

Want to see something terrifying? Watch atmospheric carbon emissions climb to the new all-time high of 415 parts per million.

This emissions update comes from daily data collected via analyzer at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii, since 1956. After breaking the 400 ppm threshold in 2013, data from 2019 puts emissions at 415 ppm. The “upward trajectory continues,” the video ends on an ominous note.

Who could have seen this coming? As Brian Kahn at Earther pointed out, leaked internal documents from Exxon Mobil reveal that the oil and gas giant has seen this emissions landmark coming since 1982. A graph shows their 2019 estimated carbon dioxide level was between about 385 ppm and 415 ppm, an impressively accurate guess for the time.

Exxon predicted 2019 would hit near 415 ppm.

Instead of using this knowledge to prevent it from becoming a reality, Exxon launched a series of climate denial efforts. It published anti-climate change ads in The New York Times, lobbied against government efforts to regulate emissions, and helped start the Global Climate Coalition to cast doubt on climate change.

After decades pushing climate denial, oil and gas companies are starting to face the consequences. Countless lawsuits are cropping up from states, cities, tribes, and fishermen that call for oil companies to finally own up to the self-serving role they’ve played in exacerbating the climate crisis.

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Carbon dioxide levels just hit 415 ppm. Who saw this coming? Exxon Mobil.

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Hospitals take aim at ‘the greatest health threat of the 21st century’

One of the larger themes at this week’s massive Global Climate Action Summit taking place in San Francisco is the relationship between climate change and human health.

“Health is the best way to relate to human beings on the issue,” former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said Friday during a session titled “Health is where climate change hits home.” “Let’s put a face on climate.”

Activist artist (and 2018 Grist 50 honoree) Favianna Rodriguez was among those to lend their visage to the cause. “I grew up in a very dirty community — a community that is plagued by asthma as a result of fossil fuels burning up and down the freeway,” said the Oakland native, who spoke at a session on climate justice and equity (where health was also front and center).

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In response to the public health threat posed by warming, members of the health care sector pledged to go beyond just treating patients and shrink their carbon footprints. That might not sound huge, but consider that if America’s health care system were a country, it would be the world’s seventh-largest producer of carbon dioxide.

Earlier this week, health care institutions representing more than 17,000 hospitals and clinics across more than two dozen countries agreed to slash four coal plants’ worth of carbon emissions from their operations each year. The initiative, led by the Global Climate and Health Forum, calls climate change “the greatest health threat of the 21st century. ” The forum notes that warming threatens food and water systems, helps to spread mosquito-borne diseases, and exposes more people to heat waves and other extreme weather events.

“Our biggest hope is that the summit will serve to mobilize people in the health sector around the world to really step up and take action,” says Linda Rudolph, who heads the Public Health Institute’s Center for Climate Change and Health and also hosts the U.S. Climate and Health Alliance.

Rudolph and the Global Climate and Health Forum have outlined a call to action encompassing 10 priorities that they are pushing other health organizations to endorse. They include everything from exceeding the commitments of the Paris Agreement, making solutions to climate change a critical part of health systems, and ensuring that action to stop warming includes gender equity.

“The health sector can reduce its own footprint by moving to renewable energy, by using a food supply chain that’s local and healthy and sustainable,” Rudolph tells Grist. “The health sector can make sure that we build resilience in our communities.”

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Hospitals take aim at ‘the greatest health threat of the 21st century’

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An erupting Indonesian volcano may alter global climate.

After Puerto Rico canceled its controversial contract with the small Montana company last month, Whitefish had agreed to continue repairs on the island’s devastated grid until Nov. 30. But on Monday, the company paused work 10 days early. According to Whitefish, PREPA, Puerto Rico’s government-owned utility, owed it $83 million.

“It may have not been the best business decision coming to work for a bankrupt island,” Whitefish CEO Andy Techmanski told CNN. PREPA was $9 billion in debt before Hurricane Maria.

Whitefish claims that some of its contractors and subcontractors are going unpaid due to PREPA’s delayed payments. Meanwhile, PREPA says it paused payment to Whitefish on Nov. 16 at the request of a subcontractor claiming Whitefish owed it money. Sounds like a chicken-and-egg situation?

Congress and the FBI are currently investigating the $300 million Whitefish contract, which drew scrutiny for its anti-auditing measure and unusually high fees, among other things. A congressional hearing last week found that PREPA ignored lawyers’ advice in signing the deal in the first place. Soon after the hearing, PREPA’s CEO resigned.

Puerto Rico could use an end to the Whitefish drama — and the power outages. Two months after Hurricane Maria, less than half of the power has been restored and entire communities are still living without electricity.

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An erupting Indonesian volcano may alter global climate.

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NASA Facebook page manager has had enough with climate deniers

NASA Facebook page manager has had enough with climate deniers

By on 15 Apr 2016commentsShare

This story was originally published by Huffington Post and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

“We invite you to comment on our page, but we ask that you be courteous and cite credible sources when sharing information.”

That’s the disclaimer posted atop NASA’s Global Climate Change Facebook page. And judging from the normally staid government agency’s response to a handful of climate change deniers who ran amok this week under a post by media personality Bill Nye, they mean it.

Nye, known as “the Science Guy,” shared a story on NASA’s page Monday about a climate change denier who refused to accept $20,000 in bets that the planet will continue getting hotter. The post inspired readers to share a torrent of poorly substantiated — yet fiercely defended — theories in the comments section, ranging from outright climate change denial to vitriolic attacks on NASA itself.

After a couple days of the lunacy (as of Friday morning, the comments section was still growing), whoever manages NASA’s climate change Facebook page finally had enough and decided to set the record straight.

One reader, who referred to NASA as a group of “leftards,” but nevertheless claimed NASA has confirmed “that fossil fuels are actually cooling the planet’s temperature,” earned a clear rebuke: “Do not misrepresent NASA,” the agency responded. “Fossil fuels are not cooling the planet.”

That stone-cold retort appears to have since been deleted, but other similarly blunt replies remain:

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Most of NASA’s replies were informative, well-substantiated, and written with admirable restraint:

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NASA Facebook page manager has had enough with climate deniers

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