The Global Warming thread.

[Seth Milner]

Pence breaks with Trump, says humans affect climate change

I'm thinking there just may be a light at the end of the tunnel. Trump defeats Hillary, gets bored with the job, caught sniffing coke, or is prosecuted for some who knows what'nall reasons, and Pence assumes the presidency . . . entirely possible!

How can he break with Trump? During the debate Trump claimed he "never said that."

Sump'un broke somewhere.

[Vrede too]

In theory Pence could be a more effective asshole than Trump would be.

Mike Pence: Condoms Are Too Modern

Mike Pence claims condoms are too modern, and too liberal.

Donald Trump’s running mate is a dangerous Christian extremist who wants creationism taught in public schools and believes the government should pay for gay conversion therapy.

In addition, in 2015, as Governor of Indiana, Pence allowed an HIV outbreak to spread, choosing prayer over a clean needle exchange.

But perhaps one of the most idiotic claims made by Pence is that condoms are too “modern,” too “liberal,” and offer a poor defense against sexually transmitted infections and diseases....

[Vrede too]

How Exxon used ALEC to push its anti-climate agenda

... In 2012, Common Cause filed a whistleblower complaint with the IRS to expose ALEC’s abuse of its charity status. Then, last year, ALEC threatened legal action against Common Cause -- accusing us of lying when we said ALEC was denying climate science.

But we won’t be intimidated, because we have the facts on our side. Today, we’re releasing hundreds of documents that show how Exxon used ALEC as a vehicle to secretly push its extreme legislative agenda and undermine the scientific consensus on climate change.

Between 1998 and 2014, Exxon contributed over $1.7 million to ALEC -- and in return, ALEC lobbied for more than a dozen bills that directly benefited Exxon, including blocking and undermining climate science, renewable energy, and environmental and health safety rules.

This is undeniable proof that ALEC is a lobby group -- not a charity like it claims. The IRS doesn’t have any more excuses for inaction -- it’s time to hold ALEC accountable.

Sign our petition to the IRS: Immediately investigate ALEC’s practices, revoke its charity status, and hold ALEC and its corporate members accountable.

[Vrede too]

This hacked Clinton campaign email shows why 'serious' people just don't get climate change

It also elucidates the problem with centrism.

[Vrede too]

The good news is that Trump and the GOP Congress will make our drought and all the other effects of AGW imaginary.

[bannination]

Trump Picks Top Climate Skeptic to Lead EPA Transition

Trump will pick the smartest people, just the best people. https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... transition


By that I guess he actually meant quacks?

[Vrede too]

Will families be protected from the next flood?
A changing climate will bring more storms and floods, we need to adapt to changing conditions.

A quarter million homes were damaged, 93 dams failed and 52 lives were lost. Will we learn from the historic October floods of 2015 and 2016?

For decades scientists have been warning us that a warmer climate will bring more frequent and more violent storms to the Southeast. While the models are complex the concept is simple. Warmer temperatures evaporate more water adding more moisture to the atmosphere. This leads to more precipitation and more large storms.

That is exactly what happened in the Carolinas during back to back years with historic October storms. In 2015, South Carolina witnessed these predictions come true as the remnants of Hurricane Joaquin collided with a stalled weather system turning on a meteorological fire hose that dumped record setting rains across much of the state – two feet or more for some communities.

North and South Carolina are still recovering from the October 2016 winds and flooding from Hurricane Matthew. At least 10 North Carolina counties received eight or more inches of rain in 24 hours setting off catastrophic floods. The Waccamaw River in South Carolina crested at 17.89 feet exceeding the 2015 flood by one and a half feet, and breaking the all-time flood record that stood for 88 years.

The 2015 and 2016 floods combined damaged more than a quarter million homes, caused 93 dams to fail and, most tragically, resulted in the loss of 52 lives. The 2015 floods are South Carolina’s second most costly environmental disaster causing more than $12 billion of economic impacts. Once summary information is available, the 2016 floods will certainly rank among North Carolina’s top environmental disasters....

It sucks that Duke stooge, climate change denier McCrory almost came back to win or did come back to win in large part due to his responding like any Governor would to a disaster that he helped create.

[Boatrocker]

. . . It sucks that Duke stooge, climate change denier McCrory almost came back to win or did come back to win in large part due to his responding like any Governor would to a disaster that he helped create.

The general wingnut lack of irony recognition circuits also contributes to their tendency to hypocrisy.

[Vrede too]

Noam Chomsky: 'The Republican Party Has Become the Most Dangerous Organization in World History'

On Nov. 8, Donald Trump managed to pull the biggest upset in U.S. politics by tapping successfully into the anger of white voters and appealing to the lowest inclinations of people in a manner that would have probably impressed Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels himself....

The most important news of Nov. 8 was barely noted, a fact of some significance in itself.

On Nov. 8, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) delivered a report at the international conference on climate change in Morocco (COP22) which was called in order to carry forward the Paris agreement of COP21. The WMO reported that the past five years were the hottest on record. It reported rising sea levels, soon to increase as a result of the unexpectedly rapid melting of polar ice, most ominously the huge Antarctic glaciers. Already, Arctic sea ice over the past five years is 28 percent below the average of the previous 29 years, not only raising sea levels, but also reducing the cooling effect of polar ice reflection of solar rays, thereby accelerating the grim effects of global warming. The WMO reported further that temperatures are approaching dangerously close to the goal established by COP21, along with other dire reports and forecasts....

On Nov. 8, the most powerful country in world history, which will set its stamp on what comes next, had an election. The outcome placed total control of the government—executive, Congress, the Supreme Court—in the hands of the Republican Party, which has become the most dangerous organization in world history.

Apart from the last phrase, all of this is uncontroversial. The last phrase may seem outlandish, even outrageous. But is it? The facts suggest otherwise. The party is dedicated to racing as rapidly as possible to destruction of organized human life. There is no historical precedent for such a stand....

The winning candidate, now the president-elect, calls for rapid increase in use of fossil fuels, including coal; dismantling of regulations; rejection of help to developing countries that are seeking to move to sustainable energy; and in general, racing to the cliff as fast as possible.

Trump has already taken steps to dismantle the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by placing in charge of the EPA transition a notorious (and proud) climate change denier, Myron Ebell. Trump's top adviser on energy, billionaire oil executive Harold Hamm, announced his expectations, which were predictable: dismantling regulations, tax cuts for the industry (and the wealthy and corporate sector generally), more fossil fuel production, lifting Obama's temporary block on the Dakota Access Pipeline....

Effects may soon become even more vividly apparent than they already are. In Bangladesh alone, tens of millions are expected to have to flee from low-lying plains in coming years because of sea level rise and more severe weather, creating a migrant crisis that will make today's pale in significance. With considerable justice, Bangladesh's leading climate scientist said that "These migrants should have the right to move to the countries from which all these greenhouse gases are coming. Millions should be able to go to the United States." And to the other rich countries that have grown wealthy while bringing about a new geological era, the Anthropocene, marked by radical human transformation of the environment. These catastrophic consequences can only increase, not just in Bangladesh, but in all of South Asia as temperatures, already intolerable for the poor, inexorably rise and the Himalayan glaciers melt, threatening the entire water supply. Already in India, some 300 million people are reported to lack adequate drinking water. And the effects will reach far beyond.

... One of the difficulties in raising public concern over the very severe threats of global warming is that 40 percent of the U.S. population does not see why it is a problem, since Christ is returning in a few decades. About the same percentage believe that the world was created a few thousand years ago. If science conflicts with the Bible, so much the worse for science. It would be hard to find an analogue in other societies.

The Democratic Party abandoned any real concern for working people by the 1970s and they have therefore been drawn to the ranks of their bitter class enemies, who at least pretend to speak their language—Reagan's folksy style of making little jokes while eating jelly beans, George W. Bush's carefully cultivated image of a regular guy you could meet in a bar who loved to cut brush on the ranch in 100-degree heat and his probably faked mispronunciations (it's unlikely that he talked like that at Yale), and now Trump, who gives voice to people with legitimate grievances—people who have lost not just jobs, but also a sense of personal self-worth—and who rails against the government that they perceive as having undermined their lives (not without reason).

One of the great achievements of the doctrinal system has been to divert anger from the corporate sector to the government that implements the programs that the corporate sector designs, such as the highly protectionist corporate/investor rights agreements that are uniformly mis-described as "free trade agreements" in the media and commentary. With all its flaws, the government is, to some extent, under popular influence and control, unlike the corporate sector. It is highly advantageous for the business world to foster hatred for pointy-headed government bureaucrats and to drive out of people's minds the subversive idea that the government might become an instrument of popular will, a government of, by and for the people.

[Mr.B]

Noam Chomsky: 'The Republican Party Has Become the Most Dangerous Organization in World History'

Been reading Facebook again, I see. I'll give you a 'Like'..

[rstrong]

Techdirt: Florida Voters Vote Down Bill Aimed At Hamstringing Solar Competition

Much like the cable companies set up fake consumer groups to get legislation passed banning competition, the utility utilities in Florida tried to do the same to block solar.

Incidentally, just over the last decade neighborhoods along Miami Beach's western edge have started to flood regularly. A University of Miami study confirms that the main reason for the increased flood events is sea-level rise.

So while Republican Gov. Rick Scott has barred government employees from acknowledging sea level rise and the state voted for a President that believes climate change is a Chinese-manufactured hoax, Miami Beach is spending $400 million to raise their roads.

[Vrede too]

North Pole an Insane 36 Degrees Warmer Than Normal as Region Hits Record Low Sea Ice Extent

Last month was the third warmest October on record behind 2014 and 2015, and the year-to-date remains the hottest on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The Arctic in particular has witnessed "a meteoric rise" in October heat and the exceptional warmth contributed to the region's record low sea ice extent for the month, which clocked in at 28.5 percent below the 1981-2010 average.



Presently, the North Pole is recording temperatures 36 F (20 C) above average. One of the clearest consequences of climate change is greater surface warming in the Northern Hemisphere high altitudes, including the Arctic.



There has been "a meteoric rise in October temperatures on Alaska's north slope," said Rick Thoman, NOAA's climate science and services manager in Alaska.

"Since October 2001, there have been no cold Octobers (in Barrow), not one," Thoman said. "This change is the direct result of the really catastrophic loss of autumn sea ice on Alaska's north coast."

[rstrong]

Here in Winnipeg, not only is there no sign of snow here, but the grass is still GREEN. Usually by now, even in the formerly rare years where there isn't snow yet, the grass has been brown for at least a month.

[Vrede too]

No snow now can suck on the Canadian Prairies come Spring and Summer.

It's 77F degrees here today. The historic average high for this date is 54.

[O Really]

And south Florida is slowly going under... http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/us/in ... orida.html

[Vrede too]

Always with the silver lining, O Really.

[rstrong]

Trump calls climate change a Chinese hoax. But he wants a massive seawall around his resort to protect it from increasingly volatile storms and rising sea levels.

[Vrede too]

You guys are making me start to embrace AGW.

[Vrede too]

Late-Season Tropical Storm Otto Hovering in the Caribbean

... Forecasters say more strengthening is expected and hurricane status could be reached within days....

The headline is a bit misleading. Hurricane season ends 11/1.

[Sometime Lefty]

Hurricane season runs through November.