CLIMATE CHANGE AND GLOBAL WARMING

[plaques]

Some of the biggest famines in the Ukraine and Russia have been because of slight changes to the weather pattern that cause wheat crops to fail. A dry spell with less snowfall in early winter left the ground open to freezing winds followed by a wet spell causing the seed to rot, result famine. Warmer arctic temperatures may result in changes to the weather patterns that millions of people depend on.

[chinatyke]

Won't there be just as many places that benefit from the climate change? Why concentrate on only the places that are negatively hit? Can't countries adapt to changes?
If less people survive then the Eco-system becomes self-correcting. The population decline also corrects the world economy! Simples! Tough on the poor buggers who fall by the wayside, I'm glad I'm old!

[Stanley]

Malthus is alive and well.......

[Tizer]

Chinatyke can work out the answers for himself so I'm not going do it for him. It will do him good to research the question!

This has been worrying me ever since the big push began to plant trees on a large scale. Like carbon credits, it was asking to be manipulated by the moneymakers - tear down native forest, plant more conifers in their place and create more sterile forests, free of significant wildlife...
`Climate change: Planting new forests 'can do more harm than good'' LINK

[Stanley]

Indeed. Commercial conifer forests are dead. They also acidify the water table. In Scandinavia they blamed our east coast power stations for years for 'acid rain' and then discovered it was conifer forests that were the main contributor.

[Tizer]

`Likelihood of 40C temperatures in UK is ‘rapidly accelerating’' Guardian

`Climate change: UK could hit 40C 'regularly' by end of this century' BBC

[Stanley]

And basically a fractured world political system ensures that there is no meaningful cooperation.
I'm just reading Bolton's inside track on the US withdrawal from the Paris agreement and he says it was done because the 'agreement' was meaningless. In some ways I have to agree even though I deplore the reasoning.

[Tizer]

The comment about smoke and covid infection is interesting. It might help prompt more action to prevent fires....
`Amazon fires at 13-year high for June' LINK
`Fires in Brazil's Amazon rainforest rose by almost 20% in June - a 13-year high for the month, according to government data. With such an increase at the start of the dry season, there are concerns that this year's fires could surpass 2019's disastrous blazes. Activists say the coronavirus pandemic is exacerbating the problem. They believe arson is likely to be even less monitored while authorities are stretched. Many forest fires in the country are started deliberately by illegal loggers and farmers wanting to quickly clear ground. Brazil has the world's second-highest coronavirus death toll, after the US, and there are also concerns that increased smoke could have a damaging effect on the breathing of virus patients. In June, the country's National Institute for Space Research (INPE) recorded 2,248 fires using satellite imagery, as opposed to 1,880 fires in June 2019. ..'.

[Stanley]

The fires in Brazil... Very disturbing how Bolsonaro is handing both Covid and the fires. In many ways he out Trumps Trump!
I see increasing comment on the fact that Covid is making us take our eye off the ball with climate change and global warming. Legitimate I think, many of the bad guys are using the situation to promote their own ends. We even see evidence of that in the UK planning process!

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC account of the report issued by The World Meteorological Organisation which says there's a growing chance that global temperatures will rise by more than 1.5C over the next five years, compared to pre-industrial levels.

Also, see THIS 2018 report. I can't find the recent one on rock dust but top dressing with specific forms of dust is giving good results. No doubt Tiz will be able to find it!

[Tizer]

The rock dust idea is an attempt to accelerate the natural weathering of silicate rocks which is a very slow process involving physical erosion and chemical changes leading to incorporation of the carbon from rainwater CO2 to form carbonate minerals. This New Scientist report describes the project: `A sprinkle of rock dust could help avoid catastrophic climate change' LINK

This approach can only account for a small fraction of the CO2 we are putting into the atmosphere and it will use up a lot of energy to grind the rock to a fine dust. It does have the benefit of improving agricultural soils. However, to gain either benefit farmers would have to make a better job of stopping the wash out of silt from their fields into rivers. This is a growing problem and is ruining both the fields and the streams and rivers.

[Whyperion]

Terracing, Trees and Hedgerows normally mitigate wash out.

[Tizer]

The government denies it, saying the report is based on old data - that sounds like Trump shouting `fake news' to me!
`Climate change: Road plans will scupper CO2 targets, report says' LINK

[Stanley]

I agree Tiz. I don't understand why expanding roads and car use can't be bad for efforts to make a greener world.

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report on the latest assessment of the recent Siberian weather. The conclusion is that without global warming due to greenhouse gases the recent warm weather couldn't have happened.
Over to the deniers......

[Tizer]

The short video in that article is a very good, easily understood presentation of the situation. At last the Met Office and other climate scientists are beginning to get over their initial shock at all the abuse they've received for warning about climate change.

[Whyperion]

BBC
Summers Could become too hot for humans

[Stanley]

True Peter, bolstered by an ever increasing mass of evidence.

[Stanley]

Talking about evidence... See THIS news. The last fully intact ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic has collapsed, losing more than 40 per cent of its area in just two days at the end of July, researchers said on Thursday. The Milne Ice Shelf is at the fringe of Ellesmere Island, in the sparsely populated northern Canadian territory of Nunavut. It is the elevated Arctic temperatures at work of course. More evidence.

[Tizer]

Thanks for that link, I haven't seen that news anywhere else. I hope you've been listening to the `How They Made Us Doubt Everything' series on Radio 4? I'm glad that at last the BBC seems to have returned to proper reporting of climate change. They did it well in the early days but then got so much abuse and flak from deniers like Lawson that they eased off. What they report in the series is what happened to the BBC and other reliable sources - all confounded by clever deniers paid by the vested interests.

[Stanley]

I've been following it Peter and listened to the last episode yesterday. Brilliant, well researched series and totally open about how the BBC like other media was manoeuvred into giving air time to deniers like Lawson.
I heard about the ice shelf on World Service, consistently better as an independent source even though their budget has been slashed to ribbons.

[Tizer]

This sounds sensible to me. As well as helping counter climate change it will boost our defence against flooding and restore natural environments.
`Climate change: UK peat emissions could cancel forest benefits' LINK

[Stanley]

I agree. They quote evidence and figures that can't be argued against but who is listening?

[Tizer]

`Climate change: Power companies 'hindering' move to green energy' LINK
`New research suggests that power companies are dragging their feet when it comes to embracing green energy sources such as wind and solar. Only one in 10 energy suppliers globally has prioritised renewables over fossil fuels, the study finds. Even those that are spending on greener energy are continuing to invest in carbon heavy coal and natural gas. The lead researcher says the slow uptake undermines global efforts to tackle climate change..'.

[Stanley]

Peter, like the oil companies they are always looking for the path of least resistance as that is usually the way to profit. I get the feeling that public pressure is forcing them to pay lip service to greening but in truth their heart isn't in it even though they see it as inevitable. Something to do with 'sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof'.