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Date: August 09, 2021 at 10:03:09
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: UN issues dire warning on climate change in new report |
URL: https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/566801-climate-report-warns-temps-to-rise-15-degrees-celsius-over-preindustrial-levels |
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UN issues dire warning on climate change in new report
By Rachel Frazin - 08/09/21 04:00 AM EDT
The newest climate report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that climate change is "unequivocally" caused by humans and warns that global temperatures are expected to reach a significant warming milestone in the next 20 years.
The planet is expected to reach average temperatures that are 1.5 degrees warmer than a pre-industrial baseline by 2040, according to the report, which was released on Monday.
A prior special report from the IPCC found that keeping warming below this level would prevent climate-related impacts on extreme weather, biodiversity and food security.
“A 1.5 degree Celsius world is a fundamentally different world with larger extremes and larger climate damages than a 1 degree C world that we’re more or less in right now, which is fundamentally different than the world before this all started,” said Kim Cobb, the lead author of the report's first chapter, in an interview with The Hill.
“We’re already reeling, clearly, from so many of these impacts that the report highlights, especially in the category of extremes that are gripping these headlines and causing so much damage, but of course the 1.5 degree C world is notably and discernibly worse,” Cobb said.
The report also warns that climate change will increasingly be seen in heat waves, more frequent and intense precipitation and droughts.
The report from the IPCC, which was created by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations, stated that increases in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere since about 1750 were “unequivocally caused by human activities.”
"The fact that the IPCC has agreed — with the agreement of all member countries, 195 member countries — that it is unequivocal that human activity is causing climate change, is the strongest statement the IPCC has ever made," Ko Barrett, IPCC vice chair, told reporters on Sunday.
It said that it’s likely that humans had already caused about 1.07 degrees Celsius of extra warming compared to pre-industrial temperatures between 1850 and 1900.
In addition to the 1.5 degrees of warming, the new report also found that without serious greenhouse gas emissions reductions, global temperatures will rise by a full 2 degrees Celsius compared to preindustrial levels.
It said that if greenhouse gas emissions remain around their current levels in the middle of the century, it’s extremely likely that the planet would exceed 2 degrees Celsius of warming by 2100, but this level of warming is unlikely to be exceeded if the world reaches net-zero emissions around or after 2050 and has net-negative emissions thereafter.
To reach net-negative emissions, the world would need to be absorbing or removing more greenhouse gases from the air than it's emitting into the air.
The report said that while 1.5 degrees Celsius was more likely than not to be reached, even in a low-emissions scenario, surface temperatures may decline back to below this level by the end of the century if net-zero is reached and is followed by net-negative emissions.
In a scenario where emissions continue at the same level they’re at until the middle of the century, the planet is expected to reach by about 1.5 degrees of warming in the near-term, 2 degrees in the mid-term and 2.7 degrees by the end of the century.
“This report is a reality check,” IPCC Working Group 1 Co-Chair Valérie Masson-Delmotte said in a statement.
“We now have a much clearer picture of the past, present and future climate, which is essential for understanding where we are headed, what can be done, and how we can prepare,” Masson-Delmotte added.
It predicts that by the end of the century, temperatures could range from about 1.4 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels in a very low emissions scenario to about 4.4 degrees above the baseline in a very high emissions scenario.
"What the report is very clear about is that these choices over the next couple decades are really going to begin to lock in pathways that will have increasingly steep cost functions in terms of climate damages for the rest of this century and beyond," Cobb told The Hill.
The report also warns of serious climate change impacts, saying that for each additional one-half degree Celsius of global warming, there will be “clearly discernible” increases in intensity and frequency of hot extremes like heat waves, heavy precipitation and agricultural and ecological droughts.
It said the extremely hot weather resulting from climate change was very likely, and that droughts and fluctuations in precipitation could be projected with high confidence.
It said that worldwide, daily precipitation events would intensify by about 7 percent for each degree Celsius of warming. It also said the share of hurricanes that are in the most intense categories — categories 4 and 5 — are expected to increase with global warming, as are peak wind speeds.
Increased warming is also expected to worsen permafrost thawing and lack of sea ice. The report predicted that at least one September before 2050 will see the Arctic with practically no sea ice and that this is expected to happen more frequently at higher warming levels.
The report also projected the average sea level around the world would rise during the 21st century.
By 2100, levels could rise between .28 and .62 meters under net-zero scenarios, between 0.44 and 0.76 meters if emissions stay where they are until mid-century and rising between 0.63 and 1.01 meters in a “very high” emissions scenario.
“Climate change is already affecting every region on Earth, in multiple ways. The changes we experience will increase with additional warming,” said IPCC Working Group 1 Co-Chair Panmao Zhai in a statement.
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Responses:
[17716] [17717] |
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Date: August 12, 2021 at 15:04:58
From: Akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Literally 24 hours after IPCC's dire warnings about methane & fossil.. |
URL: Senate Budget Vote Suggests We’re Fracked |
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David Sirota
Aug 11
"NEWS: Literally 24 hours after IPCC's dire warnings about methane & fossil
fuels, 7 Democrats joined Republicans to pass an amendment to block the
government from ever banning fracking.
The 7 Dems raked in $1.7 million from fossil fuel industry donors."
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Senate Budget Vote Suggests We’re Fracked
Seven Dems who raked in $1.7 million from oil and gas donors helped the
GOP try to block fracking restrictions after IPCC scientists’ warnings.
One day after the release of a landmark scientific report on climate change,
the U.S. Senate faced its first test vote on whether scientists’ grave new
warnings are being heeded. In response, a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers
used the moment to try to prevent America from halting a fossil fuel
extraction process linked to one of the most dangerous greenhouse gas
emissions — and to rampant ozone pollution choking the American West.
Fifty Republicans and seven Democrats voted Tuesday in favor of a GOP
amendment designed to prohibit the executive branch from banning
hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking. The measure’s
supporters included Colorado’s Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper,
whose constituents have been warned in recent days to remain inside
because of a mix of smoke from climate-intensified wildfires as well as
ozone — the latter of which is driven in part by fracking emissions. New
Mexico Democrats Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján also voted yes. Their
state has been plagued with unhealthy air too, with local officials telling
people on Monday to stay inside as much as possible.
The other Democratic yes votes were Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia,
Jon Tester of Montana, and Maine Independent Angus King, whose states
have all seen poor air quality at times this summer from wildfires in the west.
Five of the seven Democrats voting for the measure hail from blue states
won by President Joe Biden, who declared unequivocally during the 2020
campaign: "I am not banning fracking.” Over the course of their careers, the
seven Democratic lawmakers who backed the GOP amendment have raked
in nearly $1.7 million from donors in the oil and gas industry, according to
data from OpenSecrets.
The vote Tuesday suggests the entire Republican Party in Congress and
some Democrats are either still climate deniers who insist fossil fuels can be
part of an environmentally sustainable future, or ecocidal sociopaths who
are too corrupt and soulless to care what happens.
The Biden administration’s call Wednesday for OPEC members to boost oil
production offered additional evidence that for all of their rhetoric about the
climate emergency, many Democratic leaders appear ready to let the world
burn.
Banning A Fracking Ban
Monday’s landmark report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) pointed to methane emissions as a key driver of
the climate crisis. Emissions of methane — among the most dangerous
accelerants of climate change — have exploded in concert with the
expansion of fracking.
Ilissa Ocko, a climate scientist at Environmental Defense Fund, said Monday
that “cutting methane emissions is the single fastest, most effective way
there is to slow the rate of warming right now,” according to Gizmodo.
Despite scientists’ warnings about the links between climate change,
methane emissions and fracking, Tuesday’s budget amendment sponsored
by Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., aims to “prohibit the Council on
Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency from
promulgating rules or guidance that bans hydraulic fracturing,” according to
the legislative text.
Cramer’s initiative follows Republican officials in states across the country
passing legislation blocking local communities from restricting fracking. If
some version of the Cramer proposal ever ended up actually becoming law,
the Biden administration and future administrations could be permanently
barred from banning fracking.
Cramer’s top career industry donor by far has been oil and gas, which has
pumped more than $1.1 million into his election campaigns, according to
data compiled by OpenSecrets. Cramer is also pushing separate legislation
to effectively prohibit the federal government from regulating fracking —
which is already exempted from clean water laws, thanks to legislation
passed during the Bush administration.
A recent report from the environmental nonprofit Earthworks found that
North Dakota is now awash in toxic chemicals and wastewater amid its
recent fracking boom.
Because it is part of the budget process, Cramer’s amendment is not
binding — it only instructs the Senate Budget Committee to allow for a
fracking ban in the final budget resolution.
Since the measure passed, Senate Budget Committee chairman Bernie
Sanders, Ind.-Vt., will be given the power — and encouragement — to
include language prohibiting a fracking ban in his $3.5 trillion budget
resolution, which is meant to fund programs to address climate change.
Sanders voted against the amendment, and is the sponsor of legislation to
ban fracking.
Fossil Fuel Allies In Blue States
Though symbolic, the Cramer amendment’s simplicity is clarifying. It put
every senator on record about a controversial fossil fuel extraction process
that has not only been linked to carbon emissions and toxic air, but also to
water pollution and health problems.
Just two years ago, researchers at the Colorado School of Public Health
found that Coloradans living near fracking sites are at far greater risk of
cancer, and previous research linked fracking to birth defects.
Bennet’s vote for the GOP measure comes on the one-year anniversary of
his op-ed promising Coloradans that he understands that “time is running
out for bold action on climate change.” The senator, who made his personal
fortune as a corporate raider for oil billionaire Phil Anscutz, has received
$347,000 of campaign cash from the oil and gas industry. He is up for
reelection in 2022.
Hickenlooper’s vote is among the first he’s cast on the issue as a senator
since using his two gubernatorial terms to boost oil and gas production and
become one of the most vociferous fossil fuel advocates in American
politics. He earned the nickname “Frackenlooper” after he boasted to
Congress that he drank fracking fluid because he’s so sure it is safe.
He won the Colorado Senate Democratic primary in 2020 after the national
party endorsed him and dumped cash into the race, helping him defeat a
progressive candidate whose major television ad warned that climate
change would result in days in which Coloradans were told to avoid being
outside.
That projection has now become reality at precisely the moment
Hickenlooper voted for the amendment to prevent any president from
advancing a fracking ban. Hickenlooper raised $146,000 from oil and gas
donors last year.
Manchin, whose family runs a coal brokerage, has taken in $670,000 from
oil and gas donors during his career. Manchin holds a key role in deciding
climate policy as chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources
Committee, after Democratic senators made him the ranking member of the
committee in late 2018."
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Responses:
[17717] |
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17717 |
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Date: August 12, 2021 at 15:16:49
From: pamela, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Literally 24 hours after IPCC's dire warnings about methane &... |
URL: https://www.dailyposter.com/that-was-me-people/?fbclid=IwAR0vpTyabd7imAE6T3zVaM1t7qMIfEvX90rRPb6iAe8j1JfbEyDz3PNpQKQ |
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Just thought I'd add this news item too.
“That Was Me, People”
The new U.N. report confirms that a repeat of Obama’s
climate denialism will doom humanity — and at least a
few Democrats may finally recognize that.
If you scroll down a bit you will see twitters post on
Obama's bragging he is for fossil fuels and helped keep
this going.
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