WTF Climate Change News

[Beebo Brink]

The Well Fixer’s Warning

The lesson that California never learns

www.theatlantic.com

From the data on his devices, Angell calculated that the underground water table in Madera County, one of the most over-tapped in the West, had dropped an astounding 60 feet over late spring and summer. So many agricultural pumps were dipping their bowls into the same depleted resource that the aquifer was collapsing, a descent he had never witnessed. “I’m 62 years old. I’ve been doing this more than half my life, and I’ve never seen this. Not even close,” he said. “This is all brand new, and it’s shaken everything I believe in.”

When he took a closer look at the well’s steel casing, he could see six hairline fractures that started at the 280-foot level and ended at the 900-foot level. But what he encountered between those two depths confirmed a phenomenon sometimes found in clay soils but rarely in sandy loams such as this. The casing had been bent by a profound force; the steel was rippled like a crushed soda can. That force, he knew, was the downward pull of subsidence. As a consequence of too much water being sucked out of the aquifer, the earth itself was sinking, first by inches and then by feet, shearing off pumps, eating away at ditches, canals, and aqueduct, stealing gravity from California’s one-of-a-kind water-delivery system that counted on gravity to flow.

 

[Beebo Brink]

Big oil, gas and coal making headway on Russian Arctic coast

Hundreds of ships loaded with construction materials shuttle to the sites of new nonrenewable energy projects.

thebarentsobserver.com

 

[Beebo Brink]

An ancient era of global warming could hint at our scorching future

Fifty-five million years ago, Earth’s thermostat shot up—and life dramatically changed. Here’s what history can teach us about our modern temperature surge.

www.popsci.com

There was a time when alligators slid through weed-choked swamps near the North Pole. Some 55 million years ago—just around 10 million years after the mass extinction that killed T. rex and most of its kin—the average global temperature sat more than 20°F higher than it does today. Subtropical forests spread to northern latitudes, and mammals thrived in lush new habitats.

The toasty weather had nothing to do with the event that killed the dinos. The driver for the climatic shift came not from above, but from below—in Earth’s oceans. Paleontologists and geologists suspect that some amount of natural warming that took place during the Paleocene, or the period following the die-off, caused great deposits of crystallized methane to transform into gas. Seabeds belched the excess out into the water and the air, which was bad news for the planet: Methane is a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide. The globe rapidly warmed in response—jumping about 10°F in less than 20,000 years—and held steady for some 70,000 more before starting a long and slow recovery.

 

[Beebo Brink]

How climate change kills the future

It will be challenging to remain optimistic about a future where the climate will get worse by the year

www.axios.com

One of the hardest facts to grasp about climate change is this: No matter what we do now, it's almost certain to get worse in the future.

 

[Beebo Brink]

Weather is not climate, but extreme weather.....
At least 21 dead, 20 missing after ‘catastrophic’ flooding in central Tennessee, officials say

One observation site recorded 17 inches of rain in 24 hours, blowing past the state’s nearly 14-inch record set in 1982, a meteorologist said.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

 

[Free]

 

[Archer]

This thread pulls all the worlds climate disasters together to give a picture of where we are currently. This is part 1 i think, with more to come.

 

[Beebo Brink]

Excellent, and terrifying, overview of climate change impact on agriculture.

 

[Fionalein]

Excellent, and terrifying, overview of climate change impact on agriculture.

The problem with the food industry is: agriculture is not only the victim but also one of the culprits. Sorry, but not sorry for their losses.

 

[Beebo Brink]

The problem with the food industry is: agriculture is not only the victim but also one of the culprits. Sorry, but not sorry for their losses.

Agriculture is pretty much responsible for the ills of humankind since the beginning of the Neolithic, nonetheless I'm not looking forward to food shortages and famine.

 

[Fionalein]

Agriculture is pretty much responsible for the ills of humankind since the beginning of the Neolithic, nonetheless I'm not looking forward to food shortages and famine.

Maybe but we lost around 2 meters of fertile soil since the Neolithic, but half of that in the last 100 years. That's no imminent problem in China where fertile soil layers are 30 meters or more. In Europe we got maybe 3 meters left on average. If we let them continue famines will be unavoidable anyways.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

The problem with the food industry is: agriculture is not only the victim but also one of the culprits. Sorry, but not sorry for their losses.

ummmm... you're saying that as if we won't go down with it? And this really is the fault of the government for not helping and forcing them to go green. It's hard to survive as the one honest company in any industry, that's why governments need to step in.

 

[Fionalein]

ummmm... you're saying that as if we won't go down with it? And this really is the fault of the government for not helping and forcing them to go green. It's hard to survive as the one honest company in any industry, that's why governments need to step in.

Thats the problem, the goverment indoctrinated them with profit maximisation. The market makes sure they cannot survive if they don't march along either. That's why I believe it won't change without a total collapse. The earlier the collapse happens the more can be saved. Sucks to inherit a doomed business, but the way we operate right now we are racing towards a cliff edge.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

Thats the problem, the goverment indoctrinated them with profit maximisation.

I mostly agree with your statement, except this quoted part. "The government" didn't do that, that's how corporations naturally do things. That's capitalism left to it's own devices. That said, I do agree we are racing towards a cliff edge...

 

[Fionalein]

Lobbies made the goverment indoctrinate them with profit maximisation.

I mostly agree with your statement, except this quoted part. "The government" didn't do that, that's how corporations naturally do things. That's capitalism left to it's own devices. That said, I do agree we are racing towards a cliff edge...

Happy now?

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

Happy now?

LOL... who was funding the lobbies? The corporations weren't indoctrinated into profit maximization by anybody but themselves... but I don't want to thread hijack, lol.

 

[Archer]

Thats the problem, the goverment indoctrinated them with profit maximisation. The market makes sure they cannot survive if they don't march along either. That's why I believe it won't change without a total collapse. The earlier the collapse happens the more can be saved. Sucks to inherit a doomed business, but the way we operate right now we are racing towards a cliff edge.

Not sure what your idea of "saved" is here. You think that collapse of our food supply will lead to ANY kind of good outcome? Maybe in another 200 - 300 years, but certainly not within our grandchildren's lifetimes. What you are rooting for here is pretty sadistic in my opinion. Why not find ways to force governments to regulate the industry so as to bring about the results that are more sustainable, rather than just burning the whole planet down and starting over?

 

[Fionalein]

Not sure what your idea of "saved" is here. You think that collapse of our food supply will lead to ANY kind of good outcome? Maybe in another 200 - 300 years, but certainly not within our grandchildren's lifetimes. What you are rooting for here is pretty sadistic in my opinion.

Once all the organic soil is gone it will collapse anyways - without chance of recovery.

Why not find ways to force governments to regulate the industry so as to bring about the results that are more sustainable, rather than just burning the whole planet down and starting over?

Been there, done that - no one listened. Only way out is an early collapse.