WTF Climate Change News

[Sid]

Humanity best can forget the idea that we can control the temperatures on earth, let alone reverse the changing climate.
Too many simply don't care or don't care enough. Recycling paper and glass is simply not enough.
And the big industry doesný give a shit, they only see the cash for themselves and the shareholders.

IMHO we can better start concentrating on survival mode for this changing climate. Higher dykes at sea level where needed, water reservoirs where shortage might starting to occur, that kind of stuff.

Yes we have to be more careful with the environment of this planet, but we have to come down from our high horse, thinking we can change back the climate. The latter simply will not happen any time soon IMHO. More survival mode is needed. Things are changing fast now.
The first palm trees are planted in a few gardens in my neighborhood.

Welcome to the Dutch Tropical Holiday Resort in 10 years?
All inclusive + as extra bonus a sea trip to the flooded former coastal provinces of Holland, with spectacular views of the top of the Westerkerk of Amsterdam during low tide. English speaking guide.

 

[Beebo Brink]

Permafrost shock: an unexpected chain reaction scientists never saw coming is now unfolding - Futura-Sciences

The thawing of permafrost is often described as a ticking time bomb for the climate. A new study now suggests that methane release and the reactivation of trapped organic matter may not be the only processes threatening the planet’s climate balance. The oxidation of certain minerals released from thawing ice could also play a major role by emitting massive amounts of CO2 emissions.

 

[Beebo Brink]

The closing of the Strait of Hormuz, which is choking the supply of oil to the world, is a demonstration of what it would be like to voluntarily refrain from the use of oil. This is the stated "solution" that so many climate change advocates propose as obvious and necessary. Stop the oil!

Well, yes, in one sense they're not wrong, but it's hardly surprising that few people would willingly choose to undergo this pain. Dependence on oil is driven by everyone in industrialized nations, not just that hated 1% that is so enriched by it. Yes, they get filthy rich from oil, and yes, they want it to keep flowing, but so do most people because it underpins our modern lifestyle. It also underpins our population numbers. It's not just the fertilizer that enhances food production, but just as importantly it's the energy base that transports and distributes that food.

As we will all see in very short order, as the price of oil goes up, life gets harder. Some people will die. And this is why giving up oil is a very big ask.

 

[Beebo Brink]

 

[Free]

They're not just ignoring science. They're directly denying it. Basically, God is their science.

 

[Beebo Brink]

‘On a whole other level’: rapid snow melt-off in American west stuns scientists | US weather | The Guardian

Experts say brutal March heat has left critical snowpack at record-low levels – and key basins in uncharted territory

Snow surveys taking place across the American west this week are offering a grim prognosis, after a historically warm winter and searing March temperatures left the critical snowpack at record-low levels across the region.
Experts warned that even as the heat begins to subside, the stunning pace of melt-off over the past month has left key basins in uncharted territory for the dry seasons ahead. Though there’s still potential for more snow in the forecast, experts said it will probably be too little too late.

“This year is on a whole other level,” said Dr Russ Schumacher, a Colorado State University climatologist, speaking about the intense heat that began rapidly melting the already sparse snowpack in March. “Seeing this year so far below any of the other years we have data for is very concerning.”

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The Thermodynamic Endgame of Industrial Civilization

The physics of inflation, the logic of transition, and the policies that might save us

kasperbenjamin.substack.com

A new preprint by atmospheric physicist Timothy Garrett and mathematician Matheus Grasselli asks a deceptively simple question: will climate change cause inflation? Their answer rewrites the terms of the entire economic debate.

Not because direct climate damages to GDP are catastrophic in themselves. By their own calculations, even aggressive warming scenarios add less than 0.3% per year to global inflation through direct damage channels. That number is almost negligible. Central bankers would not lose sleep over it.

The real finding is far more disturbing. Garrett and Grasselli show that inflation is not a monetary phenomenon that central banks control with interest rates. It is a thermodynamic property of civilization itself. It emerges from the physical gap between what civilization needs to maintain its existing infrastructure and what it can actually produce as new output. When that gap closes, when all productive capacity is consumed by maintenance and repair, inflation does not creep upward. It detonates.

 

[Ellie]

It is just over 15 years since the devastatingTohoku earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, killing almost 20,000 people and triggering the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Fresh analysis of video footage of the wave has revealed that the mud-rich coastline made the tsunami far more destructive than it might otherwise have been.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/apr/22/mud-rich-coastline-made-2011-japan-tsunami-far-more-destructive-study-finds

Dense mangrove forest of about 200 meters, with density 30 trees of 15 centimeters diameter per 100 square meters can help reduce 50 percent the devastating impact of tsunamis and coastal storms by absorbing some of the waves’ energy.

Mangrove Forests can Reduce the Impacts of tsunami - IPB University

I have no idea if planting mangroves is feasible in Japan, but given the tsunami threat and resulting devastation, including loss of life and food crops, perhaps it would mitigate their impact?

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

Wait, it's been how long since that earthquake???

Fuck, I feel old!

 

[Isabeau]

Women in the “good book” also didn’t bleach their hair.

 

[Free]

Women in the “good book” also didn’t bleach their hair.

They just had it turned to salt.

 

[Isabeau]

Amen

 

[Isabeau]

A catastrophic climate event is upon us. Here is why you’ve heard so little about it | George Monbiot The Guardian

A billionaire death cult has its fingers around humanity’s throat. It both causes and downplays our existential crisis. The oligarchs are not just a class enemy but, as they have always been, a societal enemy: a few thousand people can destroy civilisations. It’s the billions v the billionaires, and the stakes could not possibly be higher.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

‘Point of no return’: New Orleans relocation must start now due to sea level, study finds

 

[Beebo Brink]

Opinion | The New El Niño Might Make 2027 the Hottest Year on Record - The New York Times

A climate monster is growing right now in the Pacific Ocean, perhaps the most fearsome El Niño since before scientists even began modeling them. They now know the pattern quite well: A marine heat-wave in the Pacific Ocean scrambles global weather and produces in some places more intense droughts and in others more intense rainfall and flooding; disruptions to hurricane patterns and monsoon seasons, which can cause widespread crop failures; and much more punishing heat.

The El Niño building right now, and expected to crest around the end of next year, arrives on top of all our global warming. And it appears stupendously intense — almost certainly stronger than the “Super” El Niño of 2015-16, and perhaps the most intense since the epochal El Niño of 1877. The global consequences of that climatic event were so devastating that the environmental historian Mike Davis called them “Late Victorian Holocausts.”

There is more at stake than the consequences of the actual El Niño:

Over the last decade or so, a high-profile group of alarm-raisers led by Hansen has published a series of papers and commentary suggesting that the scientific community has significantly underestimated the rate of warming, which, they argued, has been accelerating faster than the broader community has acknowledged. And that the fact that it is accelerating so quickly is a sign, they believe, that many conventional predictive models are calibrated wrong, that we are heading for much worse warming in the decades ahead than almost anyone appreciates. Over the last few months, Hansen has proposed that this El Niño will offer an explicit test of the thesis. In the next year or two, he expects, we’ll know for sure.

 

[Lori Claremont]

"In the next year or two, he expects, we’ll know for sure. " and by then it will be far too late to mitigate it. Sigh.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

"In the next year or two, he expects, we’ll know for sure. " and by then it will be far too late to mitigate it. Sigh.

I'll send a silly "I told you so" email to my parents about it.... but yeah.... that little bit of satisfaction pales in comparison to the real damage this is causing.

 

[Beebo Brink]

....by then it will be far too late to mitigate it. Sigh.

Seriously? It's been far too late to mitigate for a couple of decades now.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

Even if we could mitigate it with drastic measures, there is basically no political will to do anything. Corporate propaganda has won. A clear majority of Americans believe we should do "something" about climate change but the popular measures would be a drop in the bucket and still can't get passed.

Obviously I'm most familiar with US policy, but it seems like a common theme among other major polluting nations is "We take this very seriously, but don't want to do anything so drastic it might hurt our economies!" A lot of nations have promised to reach net zero carbon emissions decades and decades after it won't matter.

 

[Isabeau]

The global sand crisis: it’s being used up faster than it can be replaced

Around the world, urban development and industry is using sand at a rate of 50bn tonnes a year, a figure that is expected to grow. But a new UN reportwarns that sand is being extracted faster than it can be replenished, and that this is threatening livelihoods, ecosystems and the very structure of the natural world.