Wednesday, December 25, 2019

EU SEES CLEAR SIGN OF LOOMING CLIMATE EMERGENCY

Wolf 'snatches pet kangaroo' 

from Belgium home

Avon Valley National Park wild Kangaroo in West Australia (stock image)Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Image captionNo remains of the kangaroo have been found 

A wolf has reportedly taken a privately owned kangaroo from a family's garden in Balen, north-east Belgium. 
Jan Loos, a wolf expert, was called to the property by the owners and said he had found wolf prints at the scene.
Mr Loos told AFP the kangaroo is "probably dead" having been eaten by the animal. He said a second kangaroo had also been wounded in the attack. 
Wild wolves used to live in much of continental Europe, but their numbers have been depleted by hunting.
In recent years, sightings of the animals have been on the increase and in 2018 one was recorded in Belgium for the first time in more than 100 years.

Sunday, December 22, 2019

WILL YAK EXTINCTION IMPERIL DUNG BEETLES OF TIBET?

Climatic Change volume

Pastoral yak rearing system is changing with change in climate: an exploration of North Sikkimin Eastern Himalaya

    Climatic Change 

Friday, December 20, 2019

     SOCIAL ECOLOGY COMRADES DENOUNCE PROLETARIAN
                    DISPOSESSION BY JACOBIN GEOENGINEERS

       GEOENGINEERING         MONITOR

        WHY SOCIALISTS

         SHOULD OPPOSE    

       GEOENGINEERING

by Keith Brunner

This article originally submitted to Jacobin in response to an article by their editorial board member, Peter Frase, but Keith has not received any response from them.  Reposted here with permission from the Institute for Social Ecology.
A Socialist Case Against Climate Geoengineering
... Geoengineering has also found a supporter in Jacobin editorial board member Peter Frase. In an article from the “Earth, Wind, and Fire” issue, Frase raises the “prospect of geoengineering in a left context…as part of a larger portrait of eco-socialism” – calling on leftists to embrace geoengineering...

Far from bringing about an ecological transition, allowing the ruling class to gain control of the global thermostat would more likely result in new commodity frontiers and capitalist expansion, along with the development of new weapons to be used against opponents of empire – as the US attempted in Vietnam through weather modification. A review of the most prominent geoengineering technologies reveals that the impacts of deployment would disproportionately fall on peasant and poor communities in the Global South. Socialist support for geoengineering would be a striking reversal for a political tradition based on international solidarity with the oppressed and exploited...
BECCS.... is likely to generate speculative investment in arable land, accelerating a land grab that has led to the dispossession and proletarianization of peasant and Indigenous communities in South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia... leading courageous struggles for Indigenous land rights and popular agrarian reform, land defenders often face severe repression and criminalization. US and European leftists should be aiming to build links of solidarity with these movements, rather than providing support, if indirect, for the reactionary forces arrayed against them.

Tuesday, December 17, 2019

                         EX AFRICA SEMPER ALIQUID NOVI

WHAT DO COTE IVOIRE, BENIN, BURKINA FASO, NIGER, ZIMBABWE,  UGANDA,  GUINEA,   THE  DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO, & SENEGAL HAVE IN COMMON?
LARGER COP-25 DELEGATIONS THAN
THE US, CHINA, RUSSIA,OR THE EUROPEAN UNION.

Saturday, December 14, 2019

 HOW WARM DID IT BLOW, AND WHEN DID THEY KNOW IT?

GREEN STATES MAY SUE
BIG WIND FOR CONCEALING  CLIMATE RISKS
OLD VERMONT WIND DOCUMENTS MAY THROW MONKEY WRENCH  INTO NEW FOSSIL FUEL LAWSUITS:
 WILL VESTA & G-E  BE ACCUSED OF FEIGNING THERMODYNAMIC IGNORANCE TO EARN TAX CREDITS?
  • Wind power reduces emissions but climatic impacts include warmer temperatures
  • Warming effect strongest at night when temperatures increase with height
  • Nighttime warming effect observed at 28 operational US wind farms
  • Wind's warming can exceed avoided warming from reduced CO2 for a century


Summary

We find that generating today's US electricity demand (0.5 TW e) with wind power would warm Continental US surface temperatures by 0.24°C. 

Warming arises, in part, from turbines redistributing heat by mixing the boundary layer. Modeled diurnal and seasonal temperature differences are roughly consistent with recent observations of warming at wind farms, reflecting a coherent mechanistic understanding for how wind turbines alter climate. 

The warming effect is: small compared with projections of 21st century warming, approximately equivalent to the reduced warming achieved by decarbonizing global electricity generation, and large compared with the reduced warming achieved by decarbonizing US electricity with wind. 

For the same generation rate, the climatic impacts from solar photovoltaic systems are about ten times smaller than wind systems. Wind's overall environmental impacts are surely less than fossil energy. Yet, as the energy system is decarbonized, decisions between wind and solar should be informed by estimates of their climate impacts.


References

Baidya Roy S. Traiteur J.
Impacts of wind farms on surface air temperatures.
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 2010; 107: 17899-17904
View in Article

Harris R.A. Zhou L. Xia G.
Satellite observations of wind farm impacts on nocturnal land surface temperature in Iowa.
Rem. Sens. 2014; 6: 12234-12246

Hasager C.B. Vincent P. Badger J. Badger M. Di Bella A.
Peña A.Husson R. Volker P.
Using satellite SAR to characterize the wind flow around offshore wind farms.
Energies. 2015; 8: 5413-5439



WHERE THE GROUND TRUTH IS A MILE UNDERGROUND

THE WEIGHT OF THE ICE ATOP ANTARCTICA HAS PUSHED THE UNDERLYING LAND DEEP INTO THE EARTH'S CRUST

Thursday, December 12, 2019

 PBS TO RECYCLE BILL MOYERS'  THE POWER OF MYTH

REMAKE WILL OPEN WITH WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY & CLIMATE IMPRESSARIO'S WORLD-SAVING 1964 TV SPOT AD
AND SEVERAL LEGENDARY TIME COVERS
TIME, Editor Edward Felsenthal notes that while the Person of the Year franchise  "is rooted in the so-called Great Man theory ":
... In this moment when so many traditional institutions seem to be failing us, amid staggering inequality and social upheaval and political paralysis, we are seeing new kinds of influence take hold...
ALL  SLOGANS GUARANTEED REAL BY THE DUTCHESS OF WINDSOR SUSSEX










Wednesday, December 4, 2019

THAT'S ABOUT PAR FOR A BREITBART CORRESPONDENT

Watch  Delingpole: The UN’s Madrid Climate Conference Is a Sick Joke

MADRID, Spain — 

I’m in Madrid for the latest UN Climate Conference – COP25 – and literally no one cares.

              DID THEY SWIM FROM THE ARCTIC TO MADRID,

   OR DID HEARTLAND UBER A NUCLEAR SUBMARINE?

Tuesday, December 3, 2019

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF ANGRINESS MAKES COP-25 DEBUT

18 MARCH

UN Secretary-General appoints      Red from the Angry Birds as     Honorary Ambassador for Green on        the International Day of Happiness

“We are proud to give Red a reason to go Green. There is no better way to mark the International Day of Happiness than to have our animated ambassador raise awareness about the importance of addressing climate change to create a safer, more sustainable and happier future for all,” 

3 DECEMBER

Greta Thunberg: People underestimate 'angry kids'

Science editor, BBC News website

Responding to a question from a journalist who said some adults viewed her as "angry", Ms Thunberg said:
 "We are angry, we are frustrated and it's because of good reasons.
"If they want us to stop being angry, maybe they should stop making us angry."