WTF Climate Change News

[danielravennest]

Are we talking here about the same capitalism which also brought the wonderful joy of fracking sideeffects to America at large?

Yes, the very same system, and in some cases the same people. They can be counted on to chase profits wherever they occur. How do you think Tesla became a company valued at $600 billion? The investment world sees massive profit in replacing all the fossil fuel cars with electrics. The fact that it is good for the environment is secondary to the profit potential.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

Just lovin' that name... Ballywatticock in County Down. Rest of the news is sad.

30.8C would be so nice around here right about now, where we are poised to break the record for number of triple-digit days (days with high temperatures of 100F or more) in a single season.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

 

[Soen Eber]

Mixed up membrane desalinates water with 99.99 percent efficiency

Sometimes there's good news...

In tests, the team ran the new membrane for 30 days, and found that it still filtered out 99.99 percent of the salt after that time. That’s a far longer runtime than other electrospun nanofiber membranes, which the team says struggle to last more than 50 hours of continuous use before they begin to leak.

 

[Free]

The Olympics are approaching a danger zone of extreme heat

It will be one of the hottest Olympics on record.

www.theverge.com

Olympic athletes are grappling with another public health threat on top of the pandemic: extreme heat. This year’s summer Olympics are forecast to be the hottest in decades. Temperatures expected to rise above 30 degrees Celsius (close to 90 degrees Fahrenheit) this week could put even the strongest athletes in danger of heat stroke or illness. They’ll also have to contend with oppressive humidity, which interferes with the body’s ability to regulate its temperature by sweating, on top of the scorching heat.

Athletes have tried to acclimate themselves to the weather in advance of the games. Team USA, for example, even took inspiration from how the US military gets soldiers ready for desert deployments, according to The Washington Post. A training regimen might include donning a sweatshirt and beanie while working out in the summer heat. Canada’s women’s rowing team trained indoors and turned the heat all the way up to 35 degrees Celsius inside the sports dome at the Canadian Sport Institute Pacific in Victoria, according to the CBC.

 

[Beebo Brink]

World’s feral pigs produce as much CO2 as 1.1m cars each year, study finds

Researchers estimate the invasive species releases 4.9m metric tonnes of greenhouse gas annually by uprooting soil

www.theguardian.com

 

[Beebo Brink]

It won't stop raining in the New Orleans area. Experts explain why it's been 'brutal'
Intense downpours, a product of warming planet, flood streets, interrupt outdoor work, thwart golf

 

[Beebo Brink]

Top US scientist on melting glaciers: ‘I’ve gone from being an ecologist to a coroner’

Diana Six, an entomologist studying beetles near Glacier national park in Montana, says the crisis has fundamentally changed her profession

www.theguardian.com

“When I was forced to actually confront my identity, I realized that I’m no longer doing what I thought I was. My whole life has been documenting how life works, how we can conserve species that are in trouble. I was no longer cataloging life and finding ways to prevent ecosystems from reaching tipping points. I had actually hit my own tipping point. Somewhere along the way, I had gone from being an ecologist to a coroner. I am no longer documenting life. I’m describing loss, decline, death. And that is what is accounting for my kind of overwhelming sense of grief.

“This is what really brought home to me that my entire job has changed. I don’t like my new job, but I can’t quit. Even if I quit being a professor and doing research, I’m always going to be a coroner now."

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

It won't stop raining in the New Orleans area. Experts explain why it's been 'brutal'
Intense downpours, a product of warming planet, flood streets, interrupt outdoor work, thwart golf

Been doing that here - seems like every day is a downpour.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Yes, the very same system, and in some cases the same people. They can be counted on to chase profits wherever they occur. How do you think Tesla became a company valued at $600 billion? The investment world sees massive profit in replacing all the fossil fuel cars with electrics. The fact that it is good for the environment is secondary to the profit potential.

That's absolutely no proof for anything. Just because in some minor area now profit lies within saving the environment does not mean that capitalism will now solve the problem, which it created since the dawn of the industrialization. Not at all.

Capitalism only cares about profit, growth and making money. That's it. If there are ways to sidestep regulations in any area, like labour rights, labour safety regulations, environment protection rules and so on, it will absolutely do so because it always did in the past. As additional problem though productivity reached in many areas such highly insane levels, that it even will not need so much work force any longer like in the past, meaning it will be unable to put the masses in loan which it needs to get consumption.

 

[Beebo Brink]

After Covid, the climate crisis will be the next thing the right says we ‘just have to live with’ | Aditya Chakrabortty

The politics of this new, extreme individualism will make collective responses to social crises impossible, writes Guardian columnist Aditya Chakrabortty

www.theguardian.com

 

[Beebo Brink]

2021’s extreme weather leads to insurers’ biggest payout in 10 years

Texas polar vortex and heatwaves across US and Canada help push insurance payouts to a 10-year high

www.theguardian.com

 

[Beebo Brink]

Seven Big Warnings from the Killer Heat Wave | The Tyee

The ‘heat dome’ signalled our new reality. Here are key issues we must address now — or pay a big price later.

thetyee.ca

 

[Beebo Brink]

The Guardian view on the climate summit: 100 days to save the world | Editorial

Editorial: Floods, fires and droughts show the global urgency. But the prospects are not looking good for the COP26 conference

www.theguardian.com

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

We're -finally- getting our insurance payment from Sally hitting us -last- summer.
Not surprised though.

 

[Beebo Brink]

Stuck in the Smoke as Billionaires Blast Off

Climate inaction was never really about denial, writes Naomi Klein. Rich countries just thought poorer countries would bear the brunt of the crisis.

theintercept.com

 

[Beebo Brink]

In-depth but very interesting report on the impact of climate migration to local communities after the Camp Fire displaced residents.

A Climate Dystopia in Northern California

California’s divided and fire-scarred cities, reeling from one climate disaster after another, need a Green New Deal.

theintercept.com

Paradise’s middle-class fire victims have, for the most part, been able to move out of emergency mode and rebuild their lives. Despite warnings about ongoing wildfire vulnerability, hundreds of families have returned to Paradise — many to freshly built homes more spacious than the ones taken by fire, thanks to insurance payouts. Others have sold their land to eager developers and settled in less fire-prone areas nearby, including in Chico.

But Paradise previously had a large population of low-income residents as well, who lived for the most part in rented apartments and mobile home parks, overwhelmingly without home insurance. After being evicted from the Walmart parking lot to make way for Thanksgiving shoppers, many never did find stable homes. Instead, they moved through Chico’s shelters, and eventually its parks and waterways, their lives intermingling with those of Chico’s other unhoused individuals and families, all of them shut out of the city’s booming real estate market.

This shorter article highlights income-inequality as a factor in climate deaths.

“We Knew Who Was Going to Die”: Warnings About Lower-Income Heat Risk Went Unheeded

Many of the deaths in extreme heat events, like the record-breaking one in the Pacific Northwest, could be foreseen, a scientist told Congress.

theintercept.com

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Evernote link

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

Evernote link

Yay, here we go again.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Perhaps surprisingly, neither the US nor the UK is among them


Evernote link