climate

Getting rich on "black gold" and moving into the mansion. It really is just about the money, isn't it, plus the expectation of dying before the consequences show up.

In Trump World, an example of unsound science (source: National Academy of Science)by Gaius PubliusIs it an emergency yet?Trump's plans for changes t

Slide 5 from the "NOAA/NASA Annual Global Analysis for 2016" (pdf here; click to enlarge image). As you'll read below, global temperature in 1910 is a good proxy for "pre-Industrial global temperature." Thus, converting °F in the chart to °C, global warming has reached nearly +1.5°C already.

A chart of global surface temperature anomalies, meaning changes from a baseline, for the 2016 calendar year. Here the baseline is 1951–1980 (source: NASA).

Not sure why I'm featuring Obama's climate failure here? Maybe you can figure it out. (If the video above doesn't play, click here.)by Gaius PubliusI'm presenting this for a different reason than the obvious one. It's not actually a shock-people-into-climate-awareness piece. That's just the set-up. What's my actual point?

Temperatures over the Arctic ocean are as much as 50 degrees F (30 Celsius) above normal. It's above freezing in places that are normally 20 below zero in degrees F. Arctic sea ice collapse on the Atlantic side has allowed warm storms to penetrate the central Arctic. This extreme heat is destabilizing the northern hemisphere's atmospheric circulation all the way up to the top of the stratosphere.

Bob Dylan wants shelter from the storm. Don't we all. (Recorded Roseland, October 19, 1994.) by Gaius PubliusI'm offering this news to you not because of its news value — the initiative is certain to fail, given the incoming Trump and the imminently outgoing Obama. Nor am I presenting it because Obama, he of the conflicted climate motivations, is acting like his noblest self.

A great many fracking companies are going out of business with carbon fuel prices this low, because revenue doesn't cover the cost of production.

Notice the massive river deltas (blue dots) and other large low-lying areas (purple), including the North China Plain, the Chinese "breadbasket" (source; click to open at full size in a new tab).by Gaius PubliusWe're about to witness a kind of "perfect storm," perhaps in our lifetime — the confluence of soon-to-be out-of-control climate degradation

Spread of the Black Death in Europe (1346–1353). Population collapses this rapid are not unknown (source; click to enlarge).by Gaius PubliusMost people in this country think of "global warming" as a mainly linear event, an uphill ride at roughly the same pace to a cliff's edge far enough in the future to be not a present concern.