quick easy access high quality links and comment re climate change, encroaching fascism, pricking pretension and the obsession of thinking 'we are so modern' …
I’ve lain fallow on this for a few weeks following the damp squib of a wasted COP26 Glasgow, to let the dust settle so to speak, to reflect. The IPCC should hang their heads in shame.
The four years of a trump vested interest and an ‘in reverse’ shambles of what could only laughingly be called an ‘administration’ (note I deny him upper case) has not helped this planet or its peoples in any way whatsoever unless of course you are already an exceedingly rich US billionaire; lets face it millions are small change these days….
But trump is not a billionaire, no matter how crooked his schemes and evasions it has still left him hanging on propped up by debt from lenders of near last resort.
I worry about the Yemen, the inexcusable shambles of a deliberately callous Afghanistan withdrawl etc etc
In all this blog of say six hundred posts I reckon my sources are of good quality, will stand to scrutiny and illuminate and educate. Brave people, particularly in the USA, they face demotion or dismissal for speaking like this.
Heres two for climate change …
Note in the above from Dr Guy Macpherson his concern at the big hit from ozone depletion at 02:45 from rising sea level and hence the loss and destruction of nuclear generation (ie meltdown) and hence near instant ozone loss rendering the ‘out of doors’ uninhabitable. Its a chilling quote “The living will envy the dead” at 03:28. My own hobby horse is diatoms and the oceanic plankton that scrub half of the worlds carbon for us for free, all are near or are actually microscopic; trees and land based CO2 conversion will fail us I’m sure and unfortunately the plankton too. We’ve played with a world size chemistry set and it all appears inevitable. I found the link for the above on …. https://www.facebook.com/groups/arcticnews/
Here below is disturbing footage, note the blackened ice, note how beavers are colonising further north and flood the land / permafrost with their dams, the catastrophic opening of Arctic ocean seaways with accompanying noise pollution destroying marine mammal habitat and their ability to communicate and organise.
I abhor groups and crowds at the best of times buts let remember theres going to be one heck of a covid spike after scenes such as this slow moving jumble of people. How horrifying to be trapped in such a manner.
Covid virus is so small two hundred of the virus will fit side by side in one thousandth of an inch … this equates to four hundred virus side by side across the thickness of a human hair ie 0.002in. Lab workers, biochemists etc know fine well as how dastardly small virus can be and how difficult therefore to work with.
Masks may hinder breath projection which is all to the good but I doubt have much effect at scrubbing inward breath, distance is crucial, as is hand washing and minimising cross contamination, imagine its a powerful red dye that sticks to surfaces, keep off!
It is our daily 365 lives that signal our true carbon footprint, at the moment I’ve got my annualised electricity for my house at 86p a day, at the old tariff I wonder if I can get that to below 80p? Now I just need to work on the gas. We mustn’t lose sight that we still need to be productive in our work and business, unless of course our lives are propelled into a new and topsy turvy world of extinct businesses, shortages and limitations.
I fear for the poor, already in the UK Boris and rich kid Rishi are doing their best to knock the poor back, blind to the hardship they are creating with stopping a measley £20 note, this in practical reality anything BUT the handy feelgood ‘levelling up’ as promised. A lot of of what we hear from number ten is mere feelgood mantra, a slogan, a handy peg to hang an air thin promise upon, a soundbite and little else. Look at the decade and more of defunding of the NHS, ditto Education. Boris ‘acts the part’ but is no politician of any great ability, he does not respect Parliament quite obviously and from my observation has no perceptible knowledge or desire to take us to a better place.
I have no fear of the future, its as if we ourselves are a vast experiment viewed from some distant planet so to speak; our journey of exploration and discovery has spanned a hundred thousand years of stone tools to agriculture, to towns and cities, religion, electricity, the electron, things digital etc. I really don’t know if its at all possible to ‘get out of this jam’.
But also I can’t help but feel what a pity we invented the internal combustion engine! knowledge or desire
At least as a species we’ll not go down without an effort.
The more I think about all this the more I get bugged … Mans intransigence and utmost stupidity, trumps one trillion to the already super-wealthy, the craving for the latest bigger and bigger SUV, the multi home and multi car lifestyle. And sadly academics and scientists at least so far to this point having to keep shtum re the real situation, otherwise you get fired, side-lined, demoted, transferred to other duties; the USA particularly endemic of this so very non-scientific manner of managing things.
Lets drag a few other points, elaborate and often wasteful food consumption ….. just look at the problem of obesity. The need for a foreign holiday. The nonsense of countries saying “Look at our reduced carbon footprint” when in fact most our of goods are made in China, shipped across the world and the West has the audacity to accuse Chine of carbon footprint! Lets remember until recent times all through the C20 the near universal personal mode of transport in China was the bicycle.
Meat being dumped, does this figure in the news, the actual amount of meat taken back off supermarket shelves as out of date, I’ve witnessed this late in the evening as standard supermarket practice, is there data on this, is it fully recognised? I think I’ve had merely half a dozen traditional Sunday dinners in thirty years and now cooking my own food even regrettably being a meat eater I can pad out any casserole or stew with lots of veg, herbs and spices, particularly so far with tricks from India and Pakistan, hint … incorporate punchpooran, a five seed mix that to my mind eliminates the need for salt or meat to any great extent.
In my opinion a one child policy is essential.
1.5 degrees is now a nonsense, its obscene to think this is still a valid number, likewise 2050 ….
Anything style ‘2050’ is utter nonsense, we haven’t got the time, I doubt we’ll be here. Likewise I doubt if the vast majority of humans will be here by 2035. I wonder how diluted will be the reports planned for the first day at COP26, I’d like to think there will be a few suprises, maybe scientists will come forward and ‘grow a pair’ so to speak.
This morning I read of the tragic and gross scouring of the sea bed by deep trawling, surely this should have been stopped years ago?
Interestingly its only been this week I’ve encountered the term ‘vertical melt’ … this is exactly what I’ve been railing about all the time I’ve blogged here, ie three / four years. As all kids know, the extent of snow and ice can still appear as it has been first arrived but only at closer observation can we see that in fact its the thickness that much reduces every day until suddenly one morning we wake up and our sledging and fun in the snow has completely gone. That, is the nature of snow and ice.
Link below for a high quality overview of climate change….
The title says it all, just about the last thing we need is the accumulation of carbon particles on Arctic ice with its increased absorption and hence melting all the quicker, as goes for a myriad of other interconnected feedback loops ie impending methane in its three forms, permafrost thawing, jet stream alteration (now very much in change) and Greenland ice loss, the demise of algae and plankton, bees and insects in decline, none of those things we need right now.
We have upset this chemistry set called planet Earth with its fag paper thin inhabitable zone as if a one thou cigarette paper clinging to a child eight inch diameter football as demonstrated by simple arithmetic.
The IPCC is an organisation I am very sceptical of, the experts are ‘hand-sorted’ so to speak which as we know with the lamentable omission of Prof Peter Wadhams in their last big science-fest a few years ago and so by not publishing his work (the considerations of a world ranking Arctic ice expert) … this means mostly the IPCC can only offer a sanitised and diluted version of what could actually happen to us all.
Heres a case in point of the IPCC not liking the extent of what could occur in the next few years re climate change and how they throw out of the window any modelling that scares or offends them, its bad science, selective science of the worst sort, be sure to look at the chart …
It must be remembered that if we model climate on a childs eight inch football the portion that we inhabit ie half a mile up and half a mile down equates to the thickness of a cigarette paper, one thousandths of an inch which is half the thickness of a human hair… FACT.
This means the chemistry set known as our worldwide climate systems are easily jarred and reactive to new ingredients ie temperature, ocean flow, atmospheric modifications, jet stream modification, ice loss, methane eruption, carbon particles ie dust, the loss of algal activity in the oceans, changing weather patterns over whole continents, etc etc.
In other words ‘crazy cussed stuff’ … such as drought where we don’t want it (lets say Americas grainbelt or Chinas rice bowl) and rain where it should not be for example in the Gobi Desert or the Himalayas (just guessing). Today we hear in the news that California is losing its electricity supply, upstream theres not enough water to power the hydro-electric generators.
Therefore in the above link which exposes the IPCC dislike of what could happen andrefusal to accept modelling for a more catastrophic future than they are prepared to admit, I personally go with Sam Carana and fear the temperature rise will be greater than any contemplated by the IPCC, we are being spoon fed only what is deemed digestible by certain experts and vested interest.
What is fundamental to all this forecasting and modelling is that EVERYTHING seems somehow to be involved in a myriad of self reinforcing feedback loops. For instance today we hear on the news that Siberian fires are releasing carbon particles right up into the North Pole, this was easily seen on NASA Worldview a few days ago. Therefore the ice becomes darker, absorbs heat quicker and … BINGO melts faster from above, never mind the warmer water attacking from beneath. It will be near an instantaneous event when all ice ‘flashes’ from the Arctic, an event of probably weeks, months but not decades.
We have to fight, we cannot go down without a fight, but will it do any good? Not really.
It saddens me that hubris, name it what you will, will never un-mend peoples needs for vehicles of any sort which always one way or another carry huge carbon costs in manufacture and huge problems of disposal.
We need to live near our work, to walk there or maybe an electric or hydrogen trolleybus.
We need a one child policy everywhere. And applaud those with no children.
Car ownership of any sort needs to be a rarer thing.
Vastly reduce the American style burger culture.
Much reduce airflight for personal and even business need.
Minimise food waste, ie see your supermarket near closing, trolleyfulls of meat for disposal!
Only eat what you need.
Look at the footprint for concrete as a building material.
Look at the longevity of wind production, not so green.
etc etc name anything you like, there will be a downside to it!
If we lived ‘biblically’ simple farmers and traders and craftspeople I’m sure we would not be in this mess.
Will any of the above bullet points help us all … not really.
This is indeed something the IPCC (ie a worldwide ‘formal’ association and so-called working group of bods pertinent to governments, policy, forecasting and climate change) which in reality lags way behind in vision and of forecasting the dreaded consequences of global warming.
So many crashes and disasters seem so under-reported and under-recognised, for instance to name just a few topics …. the Arctic, jet stream, diatoms, algae, plankton, marine food chain, loss of seabirds, loss of salmon, loss of bees, flying insects, decreasing soil health and microbial activity, methane, importance of ocean algae for DMS and oceanic weather systems, even the decline of the beloved wasp!
In my own garden and at a nature reserve I have visited near daily for decades I’m sure theres less bees and flying insects, hoverflies, Vanessids etc. At the rear of this house two out of three birdboxes have been taken over by bees these last couple of years, my ‘unusual’ garden providing lots of flowering plants and shrubs for them, all intentional. Say March to July I’m actually not in the further reaches of my back garden as I want nesting birds and fledglings to feel undisturbed, apart of course from the dreaded hawk that even last night whizzed past my head and I think had caused problems for the blackbirds, a single adult blackbird clucking the alarm call for more than twenty minutes, I’m guessing as much distress as warning to others. I even a few years ago witnessed a queen fly her flightless workers into the birdbox one by one, carried ‘piggy-back’ from the shrubbery and vegetation at the far edge of the lawn, a sight I’ll never forget. She must have brought them in by stages, grouped for the final hurdle into the birdbox. So that is no problem, I’ll stick another couple of birdboxes up soon, made by me of thicker heavier section wood than anything one can usually buy.
The IPCC seems slow and stagnant on everything. From my viewpoint as merely an interested layman I don’t think there is anything that the IPCC is not woefully slow or blind to at present nor cognisant of the fast happening realtime changes, Governmental deficiencies and their consequences. For instance its near impossible to find mention online of the diatom/ bryozoan symbiosis that constitutes a living coral reef, all we ever hear is ‘coral whitening’ but no practical explanations for the ‘mechanics’ for this to occur, why the bryozoans have perished. To my mind the great IPCC sticking point and the professionals that comprise its panels and working groups is the spectre of potentially losing ‘funding’ for speaking out or being avoided and shut out by colleagues. From what I’ve read the IPCC also seems unable to realise the importance of the interconnectedness of feedback loops, Sam Carana mentions this regularly. An example, increased CO2 triggers plants to reduce conversion of CO2 to O …. and their pollen becomes less nuitritional / of value to bees and insects and I think I’m right in saying there is a decrease in nuitritional of green plant food material to humans and animals as a food source. Happy days!
This is from the above link, if this doesn’t grab attention and motivate then nothing will.
Heres a vid below I’m adding a day later, my heart goes out to all the people and animals and whatever that are stuck with these horribly high temperatures. With the attendant drought we wonder if west coast living might become a thing of the past. We can assume as summer rolls on wildfire will set new records, setting more ash and soot onto the surface of arctic ice and melting it even quicker, the big time bomb (of many) in my mind will be when we lose most of the ice as presently visible by satellite, ice extent is still quite considerable but it is thickness that is rapidly decreasing, ie multi-year ice is fast diminishing.
trumps performance at Davos as everywhere he goes is repugnant to any caring, free thinking sensible citizen, in the last couple of days all we hear is trump carnage and apparent ineptitude, but however the gold plated turd does in fact seem to have some ie a little energy and momentary focus, witness the removal of wetland protection and environmental safeguards for water quality … like that runny clear thing that is the cornerstone to a families establishment and a communities survival.
Destruction and the lowest common denominator is the trump byword, nothing good comes from trump. He is a showman, a fairground barker, a Father Coglan; trump mobilises hate. trump has no real ethical talent, he just knows that de-stabilising the sludge at the bottom of the barrel might just keep him in Office.
I particularly am horrified at trumps absolute refusal to take notice of the natural world (ie that thing outside the window that makes the clouds roll by) … of climate and how quickly unfriendly feedbacks are cascading into a most horrible scenario.
It beggars belief the White House has sunk so low, the web / social media aiding his prospects enormously.
I think the above image ie NY Times doesn’t quite help us realise that it is running water that is under threat, that people and communities DOWNSTREAM expect better and deserve better than in the days of old.
Here the friendly folk at conservapedia at great time and effort list the vigour at which trump and his motley crew strip and de-establish hard won safeguards, trumps big-time business owner chums must be hardly be able to believe their luck at low IQ low attention span Donald twitching and jumping at every callous request … https://www.conservapedia.com/Donald_Trump_achievements:_Energy_and_environmental_policy
When a seasoned, experienced no frills highly regarded Scientist (and many like him) use the term ‘existential impasse’ and stresses the absolute need for real world CO2 draw-down and which entails developing the technique and then implementing practical solutions with apparatus (huge apparatus) on a multi-scale Manhattan Project style venture around the globe and that these things we know are not happening in any forseeable large scale venture, then we know our days as a species are numbered. At least of those that are of ordinary means and not of obscene and excessive wealth who for a time will be able to bypass the inevitable (I’m thinking methane release, East Siberian Ice Shelf). Remember trees are no good, once increased CO2 hits as well as the methane the trees will shrink from the task, a question of timescale too, but never mind, pretend, its good for planetary sanity.
Look at the multi lane freeways, look at the adoration of huge personal vehicles, dinosaurs on wheels, can anyone detect a lessening of this fixation? No, men still want their big toys and outward success still has the same talismans to display. Of consumption, red meat, food waste, far too many airflights merely for leisure, diesels idling needlessly whilst the other person shops, everything spun and tumble-dried when the washing line used to suffice, food flown in from across the world, excessive lighting when not needed, the American burger culture, hubris and ego. No wonder we are struggling as a species and throwing all the others into jeopardy.
This year theres no short-eared owls to be seen here in NE UK, therefore we can assume vole populations are down (their food chain also) and how is the earthworm faring as chemtrail aluminium wreaks whatever destruction is unseen by most people. Already we know insect populations are much reduced hence songbird food sources are much scarcer, bees are critical, its supposedly dementia, again another nano-particle aluminium tie-in. By the time we get it as confirmed peer-reviewed scientific findings it will all be too late.
And heres a little idea of mine, living and spending much time so close to agricultural land, the landscape, a century ago stone walls were much commoner, we even had ‘hemels’ dotted around the agricultural landscape here in the North of England, ideal habitat / housing for small mammals and nesting sites. These days the vogue is for wire fencing and often with wildlife margins allowed, but its nothing near like the value of a stone wall, or winter protection for sheep for instance. Another example of how ‘we’ are trying so hard to be clever but absolutely missing the point. No-one observes, no-one evaluates, no critical thinking, what at one time would be termed the umbrella term COMMON SENSE.
I’m using a Mark Gertler painting below as what I perceive as the Merry-go-round of consumption, they all look hell bent on enjoying themselves, noisy and blind. The year 1916 and how very observant of Mark.
Greta Thunberg was Guest Editor this morning on the bbc r4 ‘Today’ programme.
Does everyone know this? I was very impressed, I only caught the last half hour but is available to listen again and download over on the bbc radio website. Only drawback is that these days we have to perform the dreaded ‘log-in’; this I shall in this instance do. At one time it was merely click and play; everyone every organisation wants their stats. ‘The Cloud’ I read is running at 4% of annual electricity consumption and of course is set to rise!
I’m v impressed with Greta, she is erudite in English, has a v good brain and implores everyone note EVERYONE to read the science. We would hope a certain donald trump and his crooked coterie would likewise read the science but of course we know of his unshakable inability to read, inability to accept experts and inability to learn.
Science we know can be achingingly slow at coming back from the ‘front line’, we now have to stay on the up-curve, work hard to be near the crest of real-time feedbacks and data. Science too is full of vested interest, funding sensitivities, viewpoints and stances of all forms of regard and hue.
I wish Greta the greatest good luck and good health in maintaining ‘the message’. She is much too valuable to go back into a schoolroom, it would horrifying for me to see her having to plod along at dated quite needless material when her real task is elsewhere ie the whole world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na1aHtv0OKI
For a ‘no punches pulled’ instructional overview on climate change and what we need do, the best I can think of is anything from Prof Kevin Anderson, full of intelligent content; it is a no waffle, pure condensed informative and knowledgeable overview. He speaks with the directness and brevity of a top class experienced engineer.
My own ethos is, in my own immediate little world:-
no more long drives out into the countryside, I walk and ramble much closer to home.
make clothes last, wear them out.
cook quick meals, seldom any longwinded oven cooking (and for me certainly no baking).
I wash everything by hand, wring dry and use a bamboo pole across the kitchen ceiling and/ or my washing line outside. No tumbler, no spinner.
get rid of the SUV…. and something that particularly irritates me, forget about letting the diesel idle pointlessly in the supermarket car park!
forget about airflights.
pester the Council, some carriageways are far too overlit at night.
eat less red meat; move away from ready-bought ‘burger culture’ its a con !
I actually prefer a £15 Melissa bench-top oven, the main oven hasn’t been used in twenty years.
slim down web posts, keep it brief, therefore reduces charging and ‘cloud’.
Blimey, this is worrying. I wonder also how the common earthworm is faring, without it we are snookered. Likewise plankton and remember marine diatoms are utterly essential. I hate to be a doomster but when things ‘get into gear’ re species loss it will all happen frighteningly fast ie a few years. Likewise in my opinion ice loss is being dreadfully under forecast, it seems to my mind laughable when we hear on serious news programmes “Greenland ice could all be gone by the end of the century”, even as a kid I can tell you ice goes a lot quicker than thought credible. More like ten years than eighty, just my guess that’s all.
I wonder if this freshwater mussel die-off is tied into aluminium levels from chemtrail, I also wonder at the diatom and algal populations in the river under question, the Clinch River. These last few days theres been plenty to see on NASA Worldview; but first, mussel die off links ….
Most certainly change is afoot, buildings toppling, tundra reduced to a squishy mess, roads disturbed and in some cases unusable.
I’ve refrained from ever posting a picture of the difficulties for Polar Bears, its sort of perhaps a tad comic in the image below but mostly sad that these fine creatures are reduced to scavenging through human cast off junk and detritus to find a morsel. As I’ve said before, a picture of a starving polar bear should be nailed to the forehead of the nasty clown known as d.j.trump so that he can appreciate the subject to which he is an arch-denier ie climate change.
Maybe yes Polar Bears are scavengers, they can drift inward to seek out something from human presence but we all know these fine animals need to be out on the ice and following tens of thousands or millions of years of pre-programmed instinct.
climate-change-briefing 