Category Archives: global climate change

Trump and the Guy Who Invented the Global Warming Hoax Meet in Mar-a-Lago

by DrusillaHillier Posted on April 6, 2017

Mother Jones

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

A skeptic of man-made climate change, President Donald Trump would likely shrug at the notion that rising seas could swallow his beloved “Winter White House” at Mar-a-Lago by the end of the century.

Unfortunately for Trump, climate change is not a hoax or a scam. And the president’s denial about what is happening, just feet from his luxury Florida property, doesn’t make the threat any less real.

Trump has chosen Mar-a-Lago as the place to “break the ice” with Chinese President Xi Jinping, as a senior White House official put it during a background briefing Tuesday. Starting Thursday afternoon, Trump will host Xi for a highly anticipated two-day summit. It will be the first face-to-face meeting for the leaders of the world’s two largest economies and biggest emitters of greenhouse gases.

The two have a lot to discuss, including trade tensions and the North Korean nuclear threat, a White House official said. But if Tuesday’s briefing was any indication, climate change—a critical issue on which the U.S. and China recently parted ways—won’t be on the agenda.

Bob Deans of the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council told the Huffington Post that the summit presents an opportunity for the two countries to strengthen their relationship and “make real progress on the central environmental challenge of our time.” And to walk away from that would be a big mistake.

“We’re all counting on these two leaders to take this issue seriously and to take it up at Mar-a-Lago,” he said.

In many ways, the location is perfect. South Florida, including Palm Beach County, is already taking steps to prepare for the effects of climate change, namely sea level rise. A 6-foot rise, on the high end of possible scenarios that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted by 2100, would put a significant portion of Trump’s oceanfront resort below the surface.

“Even though he’s president, Mar-a-Lago is not invulnerable to sea level rise,” Palm Beach County Commissioner Steven Abrams, a Republican, recently told Florida’s Sun Sentinel newspaper.

Under former President Barack Obama, the U.S. and China forged a strong partnership in the fight to combat global climate change. Obama and Xi met at the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, China, last September, where they fortified commitments to reduce carbon emissions by formally joining the Paris Agreement and pledged a “continued bilateral climate cooperation.”

That move, along with India’s ratification of the agreement later that month, proved key to the pact taking effect in November.

Today, the story is strikingly different. Obama â&#128;&#149; who believed that “no challengeâ&#128;&#138; poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change” â&#128;&#149; has been replaced by a president who has dismissed the phenomenon as “bullshit” and a “hoax” that was “created by and for the Chinese.”

And where China and the U.S. only months ago found common ground, Trump has chosen to take the country in an opposite, dangerous direction. Since taking office, he has worked feverishly to roll back Obama-era climate policies, and has promised to save America’s dying coal industry, increase oil and gas production and make sweeping cuts at the Environmental Protection Agency that target climate programs.

Meanwhile, China is forging ahead with efforts to move away from coal and reduce emissions, announcing in January that it will invest $360 billion on renewable energy, including solar and wind power, through 2020.

China hasn’t shied away from calling out Trump, both for his Chinese hoax remark and his campaign promise to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate pact. At the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, in January, Xi stressed that tackling climate change is a responsibility owed to future generations and urged then president-elect Trump to keep the U.S. in the pact, calling it a “hard-won achievement” that “all signatories should stick to.”

“It is important to protect the environment while pursuing economic and social progress â&#128;&#149; to achieve harmony between man and nature, and harmony between man and society,” Xi said at the time.

Climate change was mentioned only once at Tuesday’s White House briefing about the Trump-Xi summit â&#128;&#149; by a journalist, who asked on what the U.S. and China hope to collaborate now that Trump has reversed course on climate. A White House official said that North Korea is something the U.S. and China could work together on and that there are still “a lot of areas of cooperation,” including public health.

Though there are many unanswered questions about the U.S.-China relationship going forward, one thing that’s become increasingly clear is that China looks poised to lead where Trump is choosing not to.

“Since Donald Trump’s election victory, China has emerged as a potential new leader on the global stage—and today’s address does little to soften the impression that President Xi is taking an increasingly assertive stance on matters of global trade and climate change,” the World Economic Forum noted in a press release about Xi’s January address.

Given Trump’s actions since taking office, it is unlikely he or his team members will strike up a conversation about the threats of climate change. Which means that if the two are to have such a discussion, Xi will have to bring it up. The two will need to look no further than out one of the club’s many windows for the proof.

NASA research shows that global sea levels rose an average of 3 inches between 1992 and 2015. And a University of Miami study last year found that the rate of sea level rise in South Florida had tripled, to about 3/4 inch a year, over the previous decade.

In 2015, in an effort to better prepare for and minimize the effects, Palm Beach County, where Mar-a-Lago is located, hired a “climate change and sustainability coordinator,” urban land use planner Natalie Schneider.

Harold Wanless, chair of the University of Miami’s geological sciences department, understands the situation facing Florida’s coastal areas well. He has co-signed at least four letters to Trump, Mar-a-Lago or a member of the president’s administration, each stressing the urgent need to accept and combat the realities of climate change. None of the letter signees received a response, he told HuffPost.

Wanless can’t understand how Trump could disregard the evidence.

“This is so real,” he told HuffPost. “And it’s so imminent to begin having serious effects on the stability of our coastal environments and its communities and its people. And it doesn’t matter if somebody believes in it or not, it’s happening. And it’s going to be happening at an accelerated rate.”

In a post Wednesday, Melania Hart, director of China policy at the liberal Center for American Progress, listed climate change among the five issues Trump must handle correctly during the summit. She wrote that she expects Beijing will bring up the issue, if for no other reason than to “needle” the Republican president.

“On this issue, the Trump administration is setting the United States up to be the global bad guy, and that will give China leverage to push back against U.S. initiatives on other issues,” Hart wrote. “If the Trump administration denies climate science or refuses to acknowledge the positive role Beijing is playing, that will undermine Washington’s credibility when it claims to be seriously considering new measures on North Korea or trade.”

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Trump and the Guy Who Invented the Global Warming Hoax Meet in Mar-a-Lago

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Under Pressure, Darrell Issa Takes a Sharp Left Turn

by CarynKunkle Posted on March 3, 2017

Mother Jones

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Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), an early and outspoken supporter of Donald Trump during the presidential campaign, is known for launching frequent investigations of Democrats. Then, in a February 24 appearance on Real Time With Bill Maher, he suddenly became the first congressional Republican to call for a special prosecutor to investigate Trump’s election. He’s long used conspiracy theories to battle established climate science, yet on Thursday he joined the Climate Solutions Caucus, a bipartisan group of legislators dedicated to fighting climate change.

Why the about-face? The former chair of the House Oversight Committee—famous for his high-theater, low-yield investigations into alleged Democratic scandals involving Benghazi, the IRS, the gun sting gone awry known as Operation Fast and Furious, and Healthcare.gov, among others—is suddenly facing a very tough election. California’s 49th Congressional District, where Issa has reigned for more than 16 years, has a growing Latino population that has helped push it slowly but steadily leftward. In November, Issa eked out a win over Democrat Doug Applegate, a political newcomer, by just 1,680 votes. Orange County, part of which falls within Issa’s district, favored Hillary Clinton by a nine-point margin, marking the first time it voted for a Democrat for president since 1936. The New York Times recently called Issa “probably the nation’s most vulnerable incumbent.”

Every week since the election, hundreds of people have descended on his San Diego County office to protest. Critics organized a town hall five miles from his office and raised $6,000 through a GoFundMe campaign for a full-page newspaper ad urging him to appear. Citing a “long-standing obligation” to tour a homeless shelter, he didn’t show. Instead, he was represented by a giant “Where’s Waldo?” cutout with his picture taped to its face.

“It’s been clear to those of us who live here that he’s been in campaign mode 24/7,” says Francine Busby, chair of the San Diego County Democratic Party. “He’s definitely feeling the heat down here. I have no doubt that the Republican warrior who has always toed the party line to the nth degree, who is now changing his tune, has very personal motivations because of the vulnerability he feels in his seat.”

Upon learning that Issa had joined the Climate Solutions Caucus, one San Diego Republican political operative who asked to remain anonymous told Mother Jones, “Wow. That is definitely a calculated move.” Issa voted against the 2009 climate and clean-energy jobs bill and continues to make false claims that “there is a wide range of scientific opinion” on climate change and that “the science community does not agree to the extent of the problem.” The League of Conservation Voters gives him a lifetime score of just 4 percent for overwhelmingly voting “anti-environment” during his years in Congress. In 2013, the organization gave him a “Climate Change Denier” award for “his extreme anti-science views, which put him at odds with 97 percent of scientists and a majority of the American people.”

Issa represents a “highly environmentally conscious district,” the operative says, where Republicans “can’t really win being anti-environment. Even the more conservative Republicans still are pretty centrist on climate issues and the environment. It doesn’t surprise me that he would see that as beneficial, and I have a feeling that polling issues are guiding that too.”

Some observers think Issa’s call for a special prosecutor to investigate Russia’s role in the election might not have been a calculated attempt to distance himself from Trump and pacify his constituents. He may simply have said more than he intended in his appearance on Maher’s show. “I don’t think he was prepared to have that question addressed to him,” says Busby. “There were two busloads of people who had been protesting him every step of the way in that studio that night, and I think that may have influenced his remarks.”

“My read on it,” says the Republican political operative, “was that this was probably a moment of intellectual honesty, particularly given his role on oversight, as something he would have suggested the Obama administration wouldn’t be trusted to investigate themselves.” But he added, “These kinds of things are probably top-of-mind as opportunities to pander, and this will show that ‘I am independent and not a Trumpster.'”

If Issa blurted out more than he meant to, he was bailed out a few days later by news that Attorney General Jeff Sessions had failed to disclose meetings with a Russian diplomat during the 2016 election. “News overnight affirms what I’ve been saying: we need an independent review and Jeff Sessions should recuse himself,” Issa tweeted on Thursday.

Kurt Bardella, a former Issa staffer who criticized Issa’s embrace of Trump during the campaign, doesn’t see Issa’s call for a special prosecutor as a political maneuver. “There were countless times that Darrell led the charge for impartial and independent investigations during the Obama Administration because he recognized the inherent conflict in the idea of self-policing,” Bardella says. “Anyone trying to speculate that what he said was because of pressure from his district is clearly unfamiliar with his extensive oversight body of work.” And climate change, Bardella adds, “has never been an issue that carries any weight in terms of the district.”

Whatever his reasons, it seems clear that as Issa’s constituents continue their leftward march, the congressman is starting to follow them.

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Under Pressure, Darrell Issa Takes a Sharp Left Turn

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Republicans Beg Their Party to Finally Do Something About Global Warming

by tfem31x Posted on February 8, 2017

Mother Jones

You wouldn’t know it by looking at Congress or the White House, but the GOP isn’t in complete lockstep when it comes to climate change denial. The deniers just happen to be the ones who hold all the political power within the party. They drown out the other side—the conservatives who are urging their party to actually do something about global warming.

The contrast was especially clear this week. Just a day after Republicans on the House science committee accused government scientists of fabricating climate research, a group of Republican luminaries who don’t currently hold public office held a press conference calling for climate action. Specifically, they released a report—titled “The Conservative Case for Carbon Dividends“—in which they advocated a tax on carbon emissions.

The report, which was published by the Climate Leadership Council, calls for a tax on carbon starting at $40 per ton and rising over time, with revenue returned to taxpayers in the form of quarterly Social Security dividends. The authors include James Baker, who served as secretary of state and secretary of the treasury in the Reagan and first Bush administrations; Henry Paulson, who served as treasury secretary in the second Bush administration; Reagan Secretary of State George Shultz; and Martin Feldstein and Gregory Mankiw, who chaired the President’s Council of Economic Advisers under Reagan and George W. Bush, respectively. They see the tax as a replacement for the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulations on greenhouse gases, including the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan. The proposal would also include a border adjustment designed to tax products from countries that do not have a similar carbon price.

For these conservatives, a carbon tax would be like insuring against the worst risks of climate change—and they see it as a more efficient solution than EPA regulations. They describe their plan as “win-win”—even if some of them still claim to quibble with the science.

“For too long, we Republicans and conservatives haven’t occupied a real place at the table during the debate about global climate change,” Baker said at a Wednesday press conference. “Instead, we have tended to dispute the fact of climate change and particularly the extent to which man is responsible for any changes in the Earth’s climate. Now I need, in the interest of full disclosure, to tell you that I was and remain somewhat of a skeptic about the extent to which man is responsible for climate change. But I do think that…the risks are too great to ignore, and that we need some sort of insurance policy.”

None of the report’s authors currently hold public office. But Baker was scheduled to meet Wednesday with Vice President Mike Pence, Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner (who serves as a presidential adviser), and Trump adviser Gary Cohn to discuss the recommendations.

There’s a very different conversation underway in the House, where Republicans are obsessed with finding a smoking gun that would expose global warming as a myth. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who chairs the science committee, held a hearing yesterday titled “Making EPA Great Again,” during which he and his colleagues accused federal agencies of falsifying data and pushing a climate hoax.

Smith cited allegations made by former NOAA data scientist John Bates that the agency mishandled data used in a 2015 study challenging the belief that global warming had “paused” in recent years.

“Everything I have read suggests that NOAA cheated and got caught,” Smith said. At another point, he said NOAA scientists wanted to “falsify data to exaggerate global warming.” (Bates, for the record, told the Associated Press that his concerns don’t undermine the scientific consensus that humans are warming the planet and that his NOAA colleagues had done “nothing malicious.” He said the controversy is “really a story of not disclosing what you did. It’s not trumped up data in any way shape or form.”)

For the conservatives behind the Climate Leadership Council report, the debate about science isn’t the point. Benefits of a carbon tax “accrue regardless of one’s views on climate science,” the paper’s authors write.

But this message has hardly gotten anywhere with GOP politicians in the past. And even Baker cautioned against optimism that Trump’s White House will reverse course. “We have no assurance at all that this is going to be something that the administration will grab hold of,” he said. “We happen to believe that this will help make America great again, but that’s our view.”

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Republicans Beg Their Party to Finally Do Something About Global Warming

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We Just Found the Most Terrifying GIF on the Internet

by RosieEddy4 Posted on January 9, 2017

Mother Jones

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Scientists have long warned us about a climate change tipping point—the moment past which there is no turning back. If you haven’t started panicking yet, now is the time. Last week, Kevin Pluck tweeted an alarming GIF that shows the gradual yet relatively stable decline of global sea ice over the past 40 years before experiencing a sudden drop in 2016.

Visualizing data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), the animation borrowed the design of climate scientist Ed Hawkins’ climate spiral, which went viral last year and inspired a reference at the Opening Ceremony of the 2016 Rio Olympics.

According to scientists at the NSIDC, this drop shows the combined disappearance of sea ice at both poles. In mid-November last year, scientists observed an “almost unprecedented” level of Arctic sea ice decline when an area of ice larger than Denmark melted away during a time of year when sea ice typically increases. The Antarctic experienced parallel conditions, with November air temperatures measuring 3.6-7.2°F (2-4°C) warmer than normal.

Both poles play a critical role in stabilizing global temperatures. If these unexpected developments continue, it wouldn’t just spell faster sea level rise but also an unprecedented acceleration of warming that could lead to climate disaster.

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We Just Found the Most Terrifying GIF on the Internet

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Dakota Access protesters reminded the nation they won’t be silenced.

by EAPDario0458 Posted on November 16, 2016

And it’s just in the nick of time, since President-elect Trump has promised to repeal all of President Obama’s climate regulations.

This rule, which will be gradually phased in, requires drilling operators to halve the natural gas that is flared off from new and existing wells, limit venting from storage tanks, inspect for leaks, and so on. DOI projects that the rule should cut methane emissions up to 35 percent.

Methane is an extremely powerful heat-trapping gas. With the the increase in natural gas and oil drilling that is the fracking boom, methane leakage from wells and pipelines has also skyrocketed. A crackdown on these leaks was part of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan.

The new rule doesn’t govern private land, where most drilling takes place. The Environmental Protection Agency developed rules limiting methane leakage from new wells on private land. Hillary Clinton proposed to follow up on that with a rule for existing wells on private land.

Trump will not do that. But, now that the public lands rule is finalized, undoing it would require a new rule-making process, subject to legal challenge.

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Dakota Access protesters reminded the nation they won’t be silenced.

Posted in alo, Anchor, eco-friendly, FF, GE, global climate change, LAI, ONA, Ultima, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Dakota Access protesters reminded the nation they won’t be silenced.

Donald Trump thinks climate change is a Chinese hoax. China begs to differ.

by RosemarLoflin Posted on November 16, 2016

And it’s just in the nick of time, since President-elect Trump has promised to repeal all of President Obama’s climate regulations.

This rule, which will be gradually phased in, requires drilling operators to halve the natural gas that is flared off from new and existing wells, limit venting from storage tanks, inspect for leaks, and so on. DOI projects that the rule should cut methane emissions up to 35 percent.

Methane is an extremely powerful heat-trapping gas. With the the increase in natural gas and oil drilling that is the fracking boom, methane leakage from wells and pipelines has also skyrocketed. A crackdown on these leaks was part of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan.

The new rule doesn’t govern private land, where most drilling takes place. The Environmental Protection Agency developed rules limiting methane leakage from new wells on private land. Hillary Clinton proposed to follow up on that with a rule for existing wells on private land.

Trump will not do that. But, now that the public lands rule is finalized, undoing it would require a new rule-making process, subject to legal challenge.

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Donald Trump thinks climate change is a Chinese hoax. China begs to differ.

Posted in alo, Anchor, eco-friendly, FF, GE, global climate change, LAI, ONA, Ultima, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Donald Trump thinks climate change is a Chinese hoax. China begs to differ.

Climate denier Barrasso to replace climate denier Inhofe as head of Senate environment committee.

by ValentinWessel Posted on November 16, 2016

And it’s just in the nick of time, since President-elect Trump has promised to repeal all of President Obama’s climate regulations.

This rule, which will be gradually phased in, requires drilling operators to halve the natural gas that is flared off from new and existing wells, limit venting from storage tanks, inspect for leaks, and so on. DOI projects that the rule should cut methane emissions up to 35 percent.

Methane is an extremely powerful heat-trapping gas. With the the increase in natural gas and oil drilling that is the fracking boom, methane leakage from wells and pipelines has also skyrocketed. A crackdown on these leaks was part of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan.

The new rule doesn’t govern private land, where most drilling takes place. The Environmental Protection Agency developed rules limiting methane leakage from new wells on private land. Hillary Clinton proposed to follow up on that with a rule for existing wells on private land.

Trump will not do that. But, now that the public lands rule is finalized, undoing it would require a new rule-making process, subject to legal challenge.

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Climate denier Barrasso to replace climate denier Inhofe as head of Senate environment committee.

Posted in alo, Anchor, eco-friendly, FF, GE, global climate change, LAI, LG, ONA, Ultima, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Climate denier Barrasso to replace climate denier Inhofe as head of Senate environment committee.

The Department of Interior finalized a new rule to limit methane leakage on federal and Native American land.

by countdowntimerdesign Posted on November 16, 2016

And it’s just in the nick of time, since President-elect Trump has promised to repeal all of President Obama’s climate regulations.

This rule, which will be gradually phased in, requires drilling operators to halve the natural gas that is flared off from new and existing wells, limit venting from storage tanks, inspect for leaks, and so on. DOI projects that the rule should cut methane emissions up to 35 percent.

Methane is an extremely powerful heat-trapping gas. With the the increase in natural gas and oil drilling that is the fracking boom, methane leakage from wells and pipelines has also skyrocketed. A crackdown on these leaks was part of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan.

The new rule doesn’t govern private land, where most drilling takes place. The Environmental Protection Agency developed rules limiting methane leakage from new wells on private land. Hillary Clinton proposed to follow up on that with a rule for existing wells on private land.

Trump will not do that. But, now that the public lands rule is finalized, undoing it would require a new rule-making process, subject to legal challenge.

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The Department of Interior finalized a new rule to limit methane leakage on federal and Native American land.

Posted in alo, Anchor, eco-friendly, FF, GE, global climate change, LAI, ONA, Ultima, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Department of Interior finalized a new rule to limit methane leakage on federal and Native American land.

We plowed up more wild habitat in the Great Plains than in the Brazilian Amazon in 2014.

by ShanelWsmsw Posted on November 16, 2016

And it’s just in the nick of time, since President-elect Trump has promised to repeal all of President Obama’s climate regulations.

This rule, which will be gradually phased in, requires drilling operators to halve the natural gas that is flared off from new and existing wells, limit venting from storage tanks, inspect for leaks, and so on. DOI projects that the rule should cut methane emissions up to 35 percent.

Methane is an extremely powerful heat-trapping gas. With the the increase in natural gas and oil drilling that is the fracking boom, methane leakage from wells and pipelines has also skyrocketed. A crackdown on these leaks was part of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan.

The new rule doesn’t govern private land, where most drilling takes place. The Environmental Protection Agency developed rules limiting methane leakage from new wells on private land. Hillary Clinton proposed to follow up on that with a rule for existing wells on private land.

Trump will not do that. But, now that the public lands rule is finalized, undoing it would require a new rule-making process, subject to legal challenge.

Read the article – 

We plowed up more wild habitat in the Great Plains than in the Brazilian Amazon in 2014.

Posted in alo, Anchor, eco-friendly, FF, GE, global climate change, LAI, ONA, Ultima, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on We plowed up more wild habitat in the Great Plains than in the Brazilian Amazon in 2014.

Here Are 7 Terrifying Charts That Show Exactly What We’re Doing to the Planet

by Myrna Posted on August 2, 2016

Scientists have some bad news for Earth. Bernhard Staehli/Shutterstock This story was originally published by the Guardian. The world is careening towards an environment never experienced before by humans, with the temperature of the air and oceans breaking records, sea levels reaching historic highs and carbon dioxide surpassing a key milestone, a major international report has found. The “state of the climate” report, led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with input from hundreds of scientists from 62 countries, confirmed there was a “toppling of several symbolic mileposts” in heat, sea level rise and extreme weather in 2015. “The impacts of climate change are no longer subtle,” Michael Mann, a leading climatologist at Penn State, told the Guardian. “They are playing out before us, in real time. The 2015 numbers drive that home.” Last year was the warmest on record, with the annual surface temperature beating the previous mark set in 2014 by 0.1 degrees Celsius (0.18 degrees Fahrenheit). This means that the world is now 1 degree C (1.8 degrees F) warmer than it was in pre-industrial times, largely due to a huge escalation in the production of greenhouse gases. The United Nations has already said that 2016 is highly likely to break the annual record again, after 14 straight months of extreme heat aided by a hefty El Niño climatic event, a weather event that typically raises temperatures around the world. The oceans, which absorb more than 90 percent of the extra CO2 pumped into the atmosphere, also reached a new record temperature, with sharp spikes in the El Niño-dominated eastern Pacific, which was 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) warmer than the long-term average, and the Arctic, where the temperature in August hit a dizzying 8 degrees C (14.4 degrees F) above average. The thermal expansion of the oceans, compounded by melting glaciers, resulted in the highest global sea level on record in 2015. The oceans are around 70 millimeters higher than the 1993 average, which is when comprehensive satellite measurements of sea levels began. The seas are rising at an average rate of 3.3 millimeters a year, with the western Pacific and Indian Oceans experiencing the fastest increases. These changes are being driven by a CO2 concentration that surpassed the symbolic 400 parts per million mark at the Mauna Loa research station in Hawaii last year. The NOAA report states that the global CO2 level was a touch under this, at 399.4 ppm, an increase of 2.2 ppm compared to 2014. NOAA said other “remarkable” changes in 2015 include the Arctic’s lowest maximum sea ice extent in the 37-year satellite record, recorded in February 2015. The world’s alpine glaciers recorded a net annual loss of ice for the 36th consecutive year and the Greenland ice sheet, which would balloon sea levels by around 7 meters should it disintegrate, experienced melting over more than 50 percent of its surface. The rapid changes in the climate may have profound consequences for humans and other species. In June last year, a severe heat wave claimed over 1,000 lives in Karachi, Pakistan. Severe drought caused food shortages for millions of people in Ethiopia, with a lack of rainfall resulting in “intense and widespread” forest fires in Indonesia that belched out a vast quantity of greenhouse gas. Diminishing sea ice is causing major walrus herds to haul themselves out on to land. Arctic marine species, such as snailfish and polar cod, are being pushed out of the region by species coming from further south, attracted to the warming waters. A huge algal bloom off the west coast of North America harmed marine life and fisheries. Scientists have said there were underlying climate change trends at play but last year was also influenced by the strong El Niño event, which is when equatorial Pacific waters warm, leading to an array of weather effects around the world. El Niño has also helped spur searing heat in 2016 but has now petered out. Thomas Karl, director of NOAA national centers for environmental information, said that last year’s climate “was shaped both by long-term change and an El Niño event. When we think about being climate resilient, both of these time scales are important to consider. “Last year’s El Niño was a clear reminder of how short-term events can amplify the relative influence and impacts stemming from longer-term warming trends.” Kate Willett, a senior scientist at Britain’s Met Office, said that there was a 75 percent annual increase in the amount of land that experienced severe drought last year. “Looking at a range of climate measurements, 2015 was yet another highly significant year,” she said. “Not only was 2015 the warmest year on record by a large margin, it was also another year when the levels of dominant greenhouse gases reached new peaks.” The state of the climate report is now in its 26th year. The peer-reviewed series is published annually by the American Meteorological Society. Read more:  Here Are 7 Terrifying Charts That Show Exactly What We’re Doing to the Planet ; ; ;

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Here Are 7 Terrifying Charts That Show Exactly What We’re Doing to the Planet

Posted in ATTRA, Brita, eco-friendly, FF, G & F, GE, global climate change, LAI, LG, Monterey, ONA, OXO, PUR, solar, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Here Are 7 Terrifying Charts That Show Exactly What We’re Doing to the Planet