The spotlight is a weekly, categorized compilation of links and excerpts from environmentally related posts at Daily Kos. Any posts included in the collection do not necessarily indicate my agreement with or endorsement of them. Because of the interconnectedness of the subject matter, some of these posts can be placed in more than one category.
CLIMATE EMERGENCY & EXTREME WEATHER
Scientists see evidence of 'vigorous melting' at grounding level of Antarctic 'Doomsday Glacier' by Meteor Blades. Using new satellite data, researchers in the other study—published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—found that jets of warm saltwater are plunging as far as 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) beneath a floating ice shelf of the gigantic Thwaites outlet glacier in West Antarctica. That tongue of ice flexes and bends with the tide allowing the water intrusion and exposing what long ago was nicknamed the “doomsday glacier” to what the researchers call “vigorous melting.” It gets that name because if it melted entirely, that alone would add about 60 centimeters (2 feet) of global sea level rise. But if it did all melt, that would allow a speed-up in the melting of the whole West Antarctic Ice Sheet, a melt that is already inevitable. If the entire ice sheet were to melt, that would add another 3.3 meters (11 feet). But, as Jeff Goodell noted in his book last year, The Heat Will Kill You First. The Thwaites study’s lead author, Eric Rignot, a scientist with the University of California at Irvine, told Chris Mooney at The Washington Post: “The water is able to penetrate beneath the ice over much longer distances than we thought. It’s kind of sending a shock wave down our spine to see that water moving kilometers.” It’s just awesome what it does to my spine when a climate scientist says something revealed in their research gives their spine a jolt.
Trump's offer of a quid pro quo of ending climate fight in exchange for Oil cash has been accepted by Pakalolo. Over two-thirds of voters don't like Trump's offer to end environmental rules in exchange for one billion dollars from oil executives. It would be a shame if this financial news got on every newspaper front page and cable talk show in the country. It is just days after a brutal heat wave and record-breaking rainfall, leaving 800,000 people without power, crippled Houston. It is there that fossil fuel executives will fill Trump’s coffers. He promised that, as a dictator, he would “drill, drill, drill” on day one. Killing the biosphere would be his top priority; the fossil fuel industry has him wrapped around their little finger. The urgent task of preventing and eventually ending greenhouse gas emissions into the rapidly heating atmosphere will end any sliver of hope to prevent the worst impacts of the climate crisis if Trump is elected.
The media is absent on the N Atlantic's heat and how devastating and ugly this summer will likely be by Pakalolo. Scientists have been paying attention to the North Atlantic, which has been anomalously warm over the past thirteen months, the warmest since records began. Meteorologists and climate scientists have been flashing the red lights for decades now, and what they see is a hyperactive hurricane season similar to or worse than 2005, when a record 28 storms formed, including seven classified as major. Six direct hits to the US coast, including Cindy, Dennis (major), Katrina (major), Ophelia (the circulation center hugged the North Carolina coastline like a weed whacker), Rita (major), and Wilma (major). For the first time in history, all the names for the 2005 season were used up, and additional storms used the Greek alphabet. Four had their names retired, including Stan, who caused massive destruction by landslides and flooding in Mexico and Central America. People must be warned about the threats to the East Coast, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. It’s extremely worrisome. This is why I remain on Twitter; that is where some of the climate scientists are, and the media is nowhere to be seen writing about their work and warnings. Be careful and pay attention.
A relentless heatwave with no historical precedent pushes the limits of survivability in Mexico by Pakalolo. After reeling from three intense heat waves, Mexico and Central America will experience the highest recorded temperatures for the next few weeks. Mexico City residents are used to more temperate temperatures, so many homes and businesses lack air conditioning. The situation of our southern neighbors is quite grim. MEXICO CITY (Reuters)—Mexico, reeling from a heat wave that has already broken records, caused power outages and killed people and animals, could see "unprecedented" temperatures over the next two weeks, the country's largest university warned on Wednesday. The extreme heat, fueled partly by the most recent El Nino weather phenomenon, will arrive with 70% of Mexico in drought and a third in severe drought, according to data from the national water commission. "In the next 10 to 15 days, the country will experience the highest temperatures ever recorded," researchers from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) said in a statement.
Denial, delusion and disaster: Ron DeSantis and Florida’s climate change by Silmedia2. In a state so subject to such obvious climatic changes, why does [Florida’s] elected leadership so resolutely refuse to acknowledge what is clearly underway? Some answers seem obvious to even the most casual observer and they’re rooted in basic human nature. There’s simple inertia, a refusal to acknowledge change in any form. There’s denial, the resistance to facing uncomfortable facts. There’s helplessness, a sense that no action will have any effect anyway. Added to those are some political reasons peculiar to Florida. There’s a fear of offending a constituency that’s older and resistant to change—which is also Republican. Every spring and fall, Florida Atlantic University conducts a Florida Climate Resilience Survey to assess public attitudes on climate. This year the survey, released on Tuesday, May 14, one day before the governor’s bill signing, found that belief in human-caused climate change had fallen among Florida Republicans from 45 percent to 40 percent—meaning that 60 percent of Republicans don’t believe human activity is a factor in climate change. That’s the 60 percent of Republican voters that Florida lawmakers need to win their primaries. It also found that older voters are less likely to believe that human activity causes climate change than younger ones (50 percent of Floridians over 50 years of age don’t believe in climate change compared to 66 percent of Floridians under 50).
Florida residents and business owners are paying a ruinous price for climate change denial by TheCriticalMind. Zealots, cultists, and corporate apologists claim that tackling climate change is “too expensive.” Bullshit. Not tackling global warming is becoming punitively ruinous. Just ask people trying to operate assisted living facilities in Florida. In an unambiguously titled piece, Florida’s 125% Surge in Property-Insurance Bills Sows Havoc, Bloomberg reports on a Florida business owner who gave up when faced with the rising cost of ignoring global warming. For Filicia Porter, the insurance bills were the final straw. They’d been climbing steeply for her assisted-living business as Florida was battered with ever more-powerful storms, and eventually, the numbers stopped adding up. So in March, she finally decided to call it quits, shutting the facility near Palm Beach that she opened just two years ago. That came four months after she closed an older location in Port St. Lucie, opened in 2017. Together, they left a dozen residents scrambling to find another place to live. “Each year you see a rise. Why pay more?” said Porter.
The Noise and Disarray of Trying to Wrap Your Head Around Climate Change by Benumbra. I will be 24 this July. Almost weekly I confront myself with the idea of if I have even a glimpse of a future that’s worth living for or if it’ll be better for everyone if I take myself out of the equation before I’m 30, after it’s clear whether or not any positive change has occurred. Since I was 16, I have been gripped by nothing but fear. Donald Trump’s election made me believe that the future state of the world was a sure apocalypse and the next four years only solidified that idea. However, 2020 (despite it feeling like an apocalypse in real time) was a brief respite as we saw a glimpse of a world where the artifices of car dependency and a presidential candidate who seemed to be promising a real acceptance of the truth and not a purely commercial MO. By 2022 I was fully suicidal. I had done what I had thought to be useful; I joined the Sierra Club, I signed petitions when I could, I limited my driving substantially (much easier in college), but on the cusp of my graduation and a desire to fully understand the world I was heading into, I was brought in by a particular online community. Their name was r/collapse. I do not stand by their perspectives, not fully, but when I was first having all of my understandings of the global issues not just validated but enhanced by their extrapolations (where I learned buzz words like “Blue Ocean Event”), the brief cultural phenomenon of “Don’t Look Up”, endless articles from places like The Guardian and op-ed pieces from people like Jonathan Franzen, I was drawn endlessly into their worldview. I found myself hating myself for being American, wishing some poor Bangladeshi kid would get the chance to strangle me with his bare hands as some kind of retribution. I only was rescued by friends and family who cared enough to speak to me, although by that point I had grown to view their optimism as toxic and had to tune that out as much as the suicidal ideation.
Zero day arriving soon for Mexico City and Bogotá? by Robpos. Back in 2018, Cape Town, SA, came within months of running out of water and coined the term Zero Day to illustrate the crisis and spur action. This year, officials in Mexico City and Bogotá are facing a possible Zero Day next month. Already, water service in Mexico City is becoming more and more unreliable for more and more residents, especially for the poorer residents, who, in the best of circumstances, had little by way of stable access. When the water does flow from the taps, it comes out brown with a noxious odor. In Bogotà, reservoir levels have fallen so fast that the city government has instituted rationing by employing rotating water shutoffs. The mayor of Bogotá has also asked residents to shower together and leave the city on weekends to reduce water usage. In Cape Town, the city implemented a massive public awareness campaign and rolled out a system of strict fines to curtail water usage. Their response is seen today as a success story in municipal crisis management. They enacted a tariff system that targeted the highest water users with higher prices per gallon and a door knocking campaign to shame the biggest water hogs. But, the most effective aspect of the campaign was rhetorical. When city officials informed the citizenry that they would be able to get buckets of water from centralized collection points, managed by the military, consumption plummeted and residents began sharing conservation tips, such as recovering water used for showering for flushing the toilet, also.The situation in Mexico City and Bogotá is very different, however.
How to stop climate change by Dooey. Q: How can we stop climate change. A: We can’t. A: We never wanted to. That’s reality. We are in the process of going extinct — actively — right now. The wishful thinking, push-back, propaganda, and and noble indignation is nothing more than hot air on an overheating planet. WELCOME to the soon to be short lived “Carbon Capture” to the rescue media blitz. The ads are popping up everywhere — “ CARBON CAPTURE.” Lots of People of Color as the actors — great graphics — big smiles — lot’s of hope. When one goes online to find out how much carbon we are capturing at present or how much we will be capturing,,,,,,,, the bullshit gets thick fast. Look for the tell tale words “ due to,” “online to,” “set to,” ”in development,” “in the works” ….. If the headline says 35,000 metric tons per year — the actual is probably 1,000 at present BUT they are scaling up for more.
Can Carbon Capture Help Climate Change? Or What we Should Fund Instead of AI by angryea.No one with an ounce of honesty questions that climate change is really and will have real deleterious effects across human society. There are debates about how to best deal with those changes and how to best limit the damage (it does seem pretty clear that some level of heating and thus damage is baked into the system at this point). Carbon capture is one possible route to mitigation. The plant in question is a Direct Air Capture plant. It sucks in air, passes that air through filters that grab the C02 and then heats the filters to extract the C02 and store it, either as rocks (in the case of the Iceland plant in the article) or commercial products (as in the case of some other pilot programs). These programs are not without controversy. First, it is unclear that they can be scaled to the required level to help keep climate warming to under 2 degrees Celsius. Second, they do require a lot of energy and not every proposed plant is well positioned to use entirely carbon free energy. Third, commercializing the operations requires the use of pipelines to shape the product to its end goal and/or final processing destination. New pipelines are not popular in many communities. Finally, they may be relatively inefficient compared to forcing plants and power plants to capture carbon at the release point (the carbon at release points is much more concentrated and thus you get more for your capture buck). However, it is clear that these plants do capture carbon and the government is spending 3.5 billion dollars to pilot, test, and improve the process.
President Biden Has Yet ANOTHER Path to Saving the Planet! Boosting Biden Day 97 by GoodNewsRoundup. The U.S. freight system is vital to our nation’s economy. Trucks, ships, trains, and planes move 55 million tons of goods worth more than $49 billion every day. But while emissions in this sector are down, it’s still our biggest source of climate pollution. Emissions from moving freight still threaten millions of Americans with asthma, heart disease, emphysema and more. What’s more, air quality disparities have gotten worse in the last decade even as air pollution levels have fallen. So an even bigger slice of the population at risk is people of color, who have nearly eight times more pediatric asthma and a 1.3 times higher risk of dying early because of pollutants. Guess who’s doing something about it? You guessed it, Handsome Joe!! President Biden’s Investing in America agenda is supporting solutions that address harmful pollution — and has spurred $165 billion of private sector investments in zero-emission vehicle technologies.
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