WTF Climate Change News

[Innula Zenovka]

Windfarms in Great Britain break record for clean power generation

Forty per cent of Friday’s electricity was generated in windfarms thanks to blustery winter weather

www.theguardian.com

 

[Beebo Brink]

Gotta hand it to Putin: he knows how to play the long game. Weakening the U.S. is strategic. Too bad we're making it so easy for him.

The Big Thaw: How Russia Could Dominate a Warming World

Climate change is propelling enormous human migrations as it transforms global agriculture and remakes the world order — and no country stands to gain more than Russia.

www.propublica.org

 

[danielravennest]

Gotta hand it to Putin: he knows how to play the long game. Weakening the U.S. is strategic. Too bad we're making it so easy for him.

The Big Thaw: How Russia Could Dominate a Warming World

Climate change is propelling enormous human migrations as it transforms global agriculture and remakes the world order — and no country stands to gain more than Russia.

www.propublica.org

I've been pointing this out for years. Climate change *helps* Russia (and northern Canada) because they are too damn cold.

But we got a Christmas present slipped into the giant spending bill just passed:

Solar ITC extension included in US coronavirus relief package

A two-year extension of the investment tax credit (ITC) for solar systems as well as new funding for energy storage research has been included in the US’ wide-reaching pandemic relief package that was approved by Congress on Monday evening.

Under the legislation, the solar ITC will remain at 26% for projects that begin construction in 2021 and 2022, step down to 22% in 2023 and then drop to 10% in 2024 for commercial projects, when the residential credit ends completely. Having fallen from the previous 30% rate in January, the credit was originally set to drop to 22% next year.

The US$900 billion COVID package also includes funding for distributed energy deployment as well as support to provide better access to federal lands for renewable projects. The 5,593-page legislation – which is said to be the longest bill ever passed by Congress – is soon expected to be signed into law by President Trump. . . .

As well as boosts for solar and storage, the emergency relief measures also include a 30% investment tax credit for offshore wind projects that start construction by 2025 and a one-year extension of the production tax credit for wind power.

There is no way Trump is going to read a bill that long, so if he signs it, that's a few more years of help for renewable energy. Hopefully we flip the Senate and can then do more, but this is a start.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Race is on as carmakers shut, switch or sell combustion engine factories

Manufacturers’ share prices will be dependent on their ability to avoid losses on ‘stranded assets’, says analyst

www.theguardian.com

 

[Free]

Rising to meet the tide against the threat of coastal flooding

Faster and more accurate forecasts can save lives and property.

arstechnica.com

Christina Laughlin usually does whatever she can to avoid the flooding that plagues her neighborhood in Norfolk, Virginia, on the Chesapeake Bay. But on a blustery Sunday morning in October 2019, she donned a windbreaker and rain boots, grabbed her battered smartphone and deliberately headed straight to the high-water line.

Like her, hundreds of other locals were out and about that day, busy taking photos of the water and linking them to GPS markers during the year’s highest astronomical tide, known as the “king tide.” Norfolk is one of several eastern US coastal cities with record rates of sea level rise, and scientists hope that the data collected by these citizen scientists can help hone the ability to forecast exactly when and where damaging floods will occur.

 

[Beebo Brink]

Michigan winters, as generations have known them, may be coming to an end

Michigan winters, as generations have known them and relied upon them, appear to be coming to an end.

www.freep.com

The Kalkaska Winterfest, in northern Lower Michigan, features one of the Midwest's largest dog-sledding sprint races, going back to 1965 — longer-running than the famed Iditarod in Alaska.

In 2017, the races scheduled for January were postponed until the first week of March because of a lack of wintry conditions. When it was more of the same in March, the races were canceled.

In 2018, the races were postponed in January, then canceled in February. The next year, the January dates were again moved to February, when the latter half of the racing schedule that weekend was canceled because "everything had just melted," said Shannon Moore, a race marshal and board secretary for the Winterfest.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Climate crisis: 2020 was joint hottest year ever recorded

Global heating continued unabated despite Covid lockdowns, with record Arctic wildfires and Atlantic tropical storms

www.theguardian.com

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Wasn't sure where to put this

 

[Beebo Brink]

Wasn't sure where to put this

This is one of the main reasons I think we've passed the point of ever returning to what we still -- with unconscious nostalgia -- refer to as "normal." Nothing happens in a vacuum, and all the de-stabilizing forces are interconnected, even if somewhat loosely... for now. As these various factors intensify their effect, the interconnections will grow more complex and denser.

 

[Free]

Alt resource for article: Climate change has altered the winter season and the gardener’s sense of it – FREEMEDIA

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Top scientists warn of 'ghastly future of mass extinction' and climate disruption

Sobering new report says world is failing to grasp the extent of threats posed by biodiversity loss and the climate crisis

www.theguardian.com

 

[Free]

Top scientists warn of 'ghastly future of mass extinction' and climate disruption

Sobering new report says world is failing to grasp the extent of threats posed by biodiversity loss and the climate crisis

www.theguardian.com

Don't "top scientists" have anything good to report about the future? Like, lots more surfing?

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Don't "top scientists" have anything good to report about the future? Like, lots more surfing?

Competitive televised shark-jumping.

 

[Free]

Competitive televised shark-jumping.

So we'll still have TV. That's good news.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Countries adapting too slowly to climate breakdown, UN warns

Report says not enough funding is being made available to deal with effects of extreme weather

www.theguardian.com

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

 

[Beebo Brink]

This is an odd little article about the origin of fleas. At first glance it doesn't have anything to do with climate change or apocalyptic extinction events, until you get towards the end:

Fleas have been mysterious insects. But scientists just found their living ‘sisters.’

Some scientists are fearing an “insect apocalypse” or the elimination of insects. Many species of insects around the world are declining in numbers.

“The only time there was a slump was at the Permian-Triassic boundary,” 250 million years ago, says Tihelka. Ninety percent of all species went extinct. “That was as close as we got to wiping all insects out. But other than that, they’ve been successful.”

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

This good for 4 or 8 years?