Freethought Forum - General Environment Thrad

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Re: General Environment Thrad

The use of "apocalypse" in the title leads in to equally horrific words in the body and a nightmare set of photos.

Quote:

natural disasters
a dire threat
toxic mudflows
Pools of liquid sludge containing lignin
risk of pollution from untreated waste storages
Out-of-control infernos are destroying permafrost

https://www.siberiantimes.com/PICTUR...ide_amur_6.jpg
https://www.siberiantimes.com/PICTUR...de_amur_10.jpg

Re: General Environment Thrad

Arctic wildfires: What's caused huge swathes of flames to spread? - BBC News

Quote:

Russian authorities are not tackling the majority of the fires as they argue the cost would be bigger than the damage caused by the flames.

"They do not threaten any settlements or the economy," the press service of the Krasnoyarsk Region forestry ministry told a Siberian news website.

Huge swathes of the Arctic on fire, ‘unprecedented’ satellite images show | The Independent
- This is from a week ago.

Re: General Environment Thrad

And this is from 2017: NASA Images Capture Worst Siberian Wildfires in 10,000 Years

Totally unexpected. Literally no warning at all. Let's just ignore climate change forever shall we?

Re: General Environment Thrad

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeP (Post 1328172)

Arctic wildfires: What's caused huge swathes of flames to spread? - BBC News

Quote:

Russian authorities are not tackling the majority of the fires as they argue the cost would be bigger than the damage caused by the flames1.

"They do not threaten any settlements2 or the economy3," the press service of the Krasnoyarsk Region forestry ministry told a Siberian news website.

1: This year
2: At this time
3: For this quarter

Re: General Environment Thrad

Plus, he "can't see any issues" (eyes were closed)
And "will investigate thoroughly" (fingers crossed behind back)

Re: General Environment Thrad

I wonder why no one has thought to run a presidential campaign centred around climate change. Given how important the issue is, you'd think a person emphasising how important it is to solve might be able to gain some serious traction.

Re: General Environment Thrad

Friday's global strike was likely the largest climate rally ever

Quote:

Local officials and protest organizers offered varying crowd size estimates. According to organizers, some of the other largest demonstrations took place in Berlin (270,000), London (100,000) and across Australia (about 100,000 protesting in Melbourne, organizers say).

In the U.S., big groups also turned out in San Francisco (40,000), Denver (7,500) Boston (7,000), Chicago (3,000), Portland (2,000) and Washington, D.C., among other cities.

Greta Thunberg, the noted 16-year-old Swedish environmental activist who sparked the global movement, joined the strike in New York City. She and other organizers have estimated the worldwide crowd size at 4 million.

"Around the world today about 4 million people have been striking," Thunberg said. "This is the biggest climate strike ever in history and we all should be so proud of ourselves because we have done this together."

She's likely right — preliminary estimates suggest that Friday's strike was the largest climate protest in history.

I attended the Climate Strike here in Portland Oregon with my teenage son; we went to the tail end of the march and rally, and I canvassed for Bernie 2020 and for Paige Kreisman 2020; we saw neighbors, and the classmates and D&D mates of our teenage son were there along with their families.

Re: General Environment Thrad

This is good: Has veganism become a dirty word? | FCRN Blogs

https://fcrn.org.uk/sites/default/fi..._selection.jpg

From the linkAnd it’s not just that the vegan lattes and vegan sausage rolls aren’t necessarily better for the environment, it’s worse than that, the worse being, that the problem is still defined as one whose solution lies in shopping.

Re: General Environment Thrad

That is a really great article, and I have noticed a lot of fracturing in otherwise like minded communities.

I know I blame internet culture for a lot of things, but deal. I blame big tech and media, chasing clicks by splitting people into smaller and smaller factions and sowing sweet, revenue generating discord. There are the pro- and anti-consumerist factions, vegans and vegetarians and omnivores--and vegetarians and vegans at least split up according to motivation and agendas, individual vs. corporate, direct vs. indirect action, and, of course, all the regular race, gender, and age factions thrown into the mix. I have seen some super-ridiculous recurring arguments about things like that. (I'm not claiming to be immune myself.)

I don't spend much time in their circles, so maybe I'm missing something, but the climate change deniers and other wingnuts all seem to stick together so much better.

Re: General Environment Thrad

Climate change: 12 years to save the planet? Make that 18 months

Quote:

Ever since a global climate agreement was signed in Paris in December 2015, negotiators have been consumed with arguing about the rulebook for the pact.

But under the terms of the deal, countries have also promised to improve their carbon-
One of the understated headlines in last year's IPCC report was that global emissions of carbon dioxide must peak by 2020 to keep the planet below 1.5C.

Current plans are nowhere near strong enough to keep temperatures below the so-called safe limit. Right now, we are heading towards 3C of heating by 2100 not 1.5.

As countries usually scope out their plans over five and 10 year timeframes, if the 45% carbon cut target by 2030 is to be met then the plans really need to be on the table by the end of 2020.

Keep in mind the Paris agreement is about voluntary actions by countries- and that as it stands the signatories have only pledged half of the needed reductions required to live on this planet. No biggie.

Re: General Environment Thrad

More than 11,000 scientists issue fresh warning: Earth faces a climate emergency

Quote:

An international consortium of more than 11,000 scientists is backing a study with a dire warning: Earth is facing a climate emergency.

The new study of how human activities have impacted the planet over the past four decades declares that harmful greenhouse gas emissions are rapidly rising, that governments are making insufficient progress in tackling the crisis, and that scientists have “a moral obligation to clearly warn humanity of any catastrophic threat.” The findings were published Tuesday in the journal BioScience.

The research, led by ecologists William Ripple and Christopher Wolf at Oregon State University, identifies six key areas in which governments, businesses and members of the public can make critical changes, including addressing the planet’s swelling population, which has been a contentious topic in the climate debate.

"Contentious issue"= discussions by mostly white global northerners about population controls aimed at the global south and black and brown and generally non-white populations rings a lot of people's eco-fascist alarm bells, and with good reason. Though I wish the article had focused more on the six key areas as opposed to population control. Weird focus.

This PBS Newshour article from January discusses the psychological barriers to humans addressing climate change, beyond the other significant barriers to making change.
Perception of lack of control is one that they identify and discuss.

Quote:

...this cognitive tension runs alongside another barrier known as discounting, wherein people undervalue climate change because its hazards don’t feel immediate or nearby. When they surveyed 3,200 people across 18 nations, they found a majority — those from 15 countries — believed incorrectly that climate change wasn’t a local problem.

This is key IMO
Then also:

Quote:

People often recognize that climate change is bad but don’t know quite what to do about it in their own lives.

Washing clothes in cold water can save up to 15 pounds of carbon emissions per load.
For instance, even if many people know that the average American emits about 17 tons of carbon every year, they don’t realize half of those emissions could be eliminated with simple fixes.

Giving people information so that they can act in their own lives to reduce their carbon footprint and respond to the global crisis is great, as long as no one loses sight that commercial and residential carbon emissions account for example in 2017 in the US, as 12% of total emissions in the country. 29% of the carbon footprint in the US is transportation- tractor trailers are inefficient compared to rail; 28% of the carbon emitted by the US is electricity production- 27.4% of energy production in the US 2018 was from fucking coal; 22% is industry, and 6% is agriculture. Oh and the US military- you know, the imperialism enforcement unit/ jobs program with a budget larger than the next nine countries combined? Well, time to acknowledge the other massive cost of bloated war machines:
The US military is a bigger polluter than more than 100 countries combined

Quote:

If the US military were a country, its fuel usage alone would make it the 47th largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, sitting between Peru and Portugal.

And of course we can point out that 100 COMPANIES ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR 71% OF GHG EMISSIONS.... so anyway the activity in our daily lives may not just be window caulking, riding the bus, and a shower timer; it is important to include boycotting, protesting, picketing, divesting, and sanctioning those 100 companies' tentacles that stretch into our own communities.

Anyway, the PBS article brings up some good points but the viewpoint is from one of a tech-end consumer, within a system- how to be a green investor, discussion of massive carbon-filtering machines; while at the same time pointing out politicians have for the last three decades utterly failed in enacting meaningful legislation.

Re: General Environment Thrad

'Beyond barmy': Irish Rail bans reusable cups over burning fears | World news | The Guardian

They have excuses. Well, they made excuses.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en-gb"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">They can't fit any "normal" size reusable cups under their hot water tap on the catering trolley. I watched incredulously one morning as the assistant made a coffee in the disposable cup, poured it into my reusable one and then binned the disposable cup. It's beyond barmy.</p>— Calvin Jones (@WriterCJ) <a href="https://twitter.com/WriterCJ/status/1206523481908826113?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">16 December 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Re: General Environment Thrad

Meanwhile, in Australia:

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Australia is one of the first countries to ring in 2020; here is what we are waking up to on the last day of this decade. Happy New Year.

https://i.imgur.com/Xair09f.jpg

Red skies have never signified anything ominous before. I’m sure everything will be fine.

Re: General Environment Thrad

It's a good thing climate change is a big fat hoax, else I'd be pretty pissed off about the oil and gas industry ganking $4 billion from taxpayers to protect its own infrastructure from the effects of climate change.

Re: General Environment Thrad

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">this is fine <a href="https://t.co/SSQTai7fKS">pic.twitter.com/SSQTai7fKS</a></p>— Ad Infinitum (@Ad_Inifinitum) <a href="https://twitter.com/Ad_Inifinitum/status/1210652504968585217?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 27, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Re: General Environment Thrad

Plants growing in higher elevations of Himalayas than ever recorded.

BBC: Plant life 'expanding over the Himalayas'

"The researchers found plant life in areas where vegetation was not previously known to grow.

A team used satellite data from 1993 to 2018 to measure the extent of plant cover between the tree-line and the snow-line.

The results are published in the journal Global Change Biology.

The study focused on the subnival region - the area between the tree-line (the edge of the habitat at which trees are capable of growing) and the snow line (the boundary between snow-covered land and snow-free land).

Subnival plants are mainly small grasses and shrubs.

"The strongest trend in increased vegetation cover was between 5,000 metres and 5,500 metres altitude," said Dr Karen Anderson, from Exeter University, lead author of the report.

"At higher elevations, the expansion was strong on flatter areas while at lower levels that has been observed on steeper slopes."

Using Nasa's Landsat satellite images, the researchers divided the heights into four "brackets" between 4,150m and 6,000m."

So, after you summit Everest, you can stop and smell the flowers

Re: General Environment Thrad

Quote:

Originally Posted by LarsMac (Post 1332883)

So, after you summit Everest, you can stop and smell the flowers

And go for a swim?

Re: General Environment Thrad

Why Air Pollution Hasn't Fallen More With Everyone Driving Less : Shots - Health News : NPR

Personal responsibility will only take us so far:

Quote:

Our analysis revealed that, in the vast majority of places, ozone pollution decreased by 15% or less, a clear indication that improving air quality will take much more than cleaning up tailpipes of passenger cars.

In cities such as Los Angeles, stubbornly poor air quality during the coronavirus lockdown underscored how vast fleets of trucks are a dominant source of pollution. In industrial cities like Houston, refineries and petrochemical plants spew considerable air pollution. And in Pittsburgh and across a swath of the eastern U.S., much of the air pollution still comes from burning coal.

Re: General Environment Thrad

The conservative take will be, "See? Driving less is useless! SUVs all around (unless you're a loser who can't afford one)."

Re: General Environment Thrad

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann (Post 1321378)

Beavers and water resource management.

Partnering With Beaver: Nature's Hydrologists and Ecosystem Engineers - YouTube

Of interest to Cascadians, most especially.

The Gnawing Question of Saltwater Beavers

Re: General Environment Thrad

Unfortunately I am immature and unable to read that without Leslie Nielsen responding.

Re: General Environment Thrad

I Am Canadian - We Have Some Nice Beaver - YouTube

It’s 3am, insomnia, so this exchange is funny.

Re: General Environment Thrad

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">In a new <a href="https://twitter.com/CBC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CBC</a> documentary, <a href="https://twitter.com/remixmanifesto?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@remixmanifest o</a> and his (adorbs!) young daughter explore the environmental cost of machine learning. We focus a lot on the privacy issues of the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/InternetOfShit?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"># InternetOfShit</a>, but they're also a climate dumpster-fire.<a href="https://t.co/TesPX7RRRV">https://t.co/TesPX7RRRV</a><br><br>1/ <a href="https://t.co/wrjSgtQ4nm">pic.twitter.com/wrjSgtQ4nm</a></p>— Cory Doctorow #BLM (@doctorow) <a href="https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1262857406595207168?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 19, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>