IN CLIMATEBALL, THE NORTH POLE IS A MOVING GOAL POST

A decade before Nature and the UN signed up with Covering Climate Now, tectonic modeling favored northward drift of the plates over the next 200 million years, culminating in a supercontinent more Arctic than Equatorial, dubbed "Amasia":

Supercontinent cycles and the calculation of absolute palaeolongitude in deep time

Ross N. Mitchell, Taylor M. Kilian & David A. D. Evans 

Nature volume 482, 208–211 (2012)

Abstract

Traditional models of the supercontinent cycle predict that the next supercontinent—‘Amasia’—will form either where Pangaea rifted (the ‘introversion’1 model) or on the opposite side of the world (the ‘extroversion’2,3,4 models). Here, by contrast, we develop an ‘orthoversion’5 model whereby a succeeding supercontinent forms 90° away, within the great circle of subduction encircling its relict predecessor

Their model's results looked like this:  

A new study in Nature Geoscience , 

Climate extremes likely to drive land mammal extinction during next supercontinent assembly

• Alexander Farnsworth, 
• Y. T. Eunice Lo, 
• …
• Hannah R. Wakeford 

emphasizes runs ending with more land close to the equator, and including CO2 outgassing of the mantle and a quarter-billion years worth of scary but un-tectonic, solar forcing from a brightening sun:

"Here we show that increased 𝑝CO2, solar energy (F⨀; approximately +2.5% W m−2 greater than today) and continentality (larger range in temperatures away from the ocean) lead to increasing warming hostile to mammalian life... predicted background 𝑝CO2 levels of 410–816 ppm combined with increased F⨀ will probably lead to a climate tipping point and their mass extinction"

This somewhat recalls UN Secretary General Guterres'  "The Gates of Hell have opened" Climate Week speech. According to CNN:

"If humans are still around in 250 million years, Farnsworth speculates that they might have found ways to adapt, with Earth resembling the 1965 science-fiction novel Dune. “Do humans become more specialist in desert environments, become more nocturnal, or keep in caves?” he asks. “I would suspect if we can get off this planet and find somewhere more habitable, that would be more preferable.”

While Tectonic animations of deep time  recapitulate the ground truth of  continental drift ,paleontology and geochemistry,  video renderings of models of  the deep future remain more akin  to Walt Disney's Fantasia. The Dino bits and Night on Bald Mountain are plenty scary, but  given the chaotic evolution of flow over geological  time,  fast-forwarded renderings of the far future  remain subject to Alfred Hitchcock's caveat,"It's just a movie."

Farnsworth  hopes to get around to a remake of the Amasia script , a project I suspect the late Frank Herbert would approve.

PASS THE GMO POPCORN, THIS IS GETTING INTERESTING

 THE HARVARD GAZETTE  25 SEPTEMBER 2023

"Only 8 % of organic sales in the U.S. were still being made by small farmers … 

Over 80 % of all U.S. organic sales are now made by corporate conglomerates like ConAgra, Heinz, and Kellogg. The biggest retailers… are Walmart, Costco & Kroger

Wondering is a series of random questions answered by experts.  

Robert Paarlberg is an associate in the Sustainability Science Program at the Kennedy School and the author of several books on agriculture and food, including “Resetting the Table.” We asked him whether eating organic is better for us.

Is organic food, grown without synthetic chemicals, healthier than conventionally grown food? Roughly 40 percent of Americans say at least some of the food they eat is organic, so quite a few eaters clearly believe it is.

However, there is no reliable evidence showing that organically grown foods are more nutritious or safer to eat... studies conducted at the Center for Health Policy at Stanford University concluded there were no convincing differences between organic and conventional foods in nutrient content or health benefit. 

The organic ban on synthetic chemicals also fails to improve food safety in the U.S., since the use of pesticides is now significantly regulated in conventional farming (insecticide use today is 82 percent lower than it was in 1972), and because produce in supermarkets has been washed to remove nearly all of the chemical residues that might remain.

In 2021, the USDA... annual survey of pesticide residues on food... found > 99 percent had residues safely below EPA’s tolerance levels, which are cautiously set at only 1/100th of an exposure that still does not cause toxicity in laboratory animals. Food scientists at the University of California, Davis, conclude… the “marginal benefits of reducing human exposure to pesticides in the diet through increased consumption of organic produce appear to be insignificant.”

Many consumers continue to think organic foods come from small local farms, but most now come from distant industrial farms. By one estimate in 2014, only 8 percent of organic sales in the U.S. were still being made by small farmers through farmers markets or through community supported agriculture. Over 80 percent of all U.S. organic sales are now made by corporate conglomerates like ConAgra, H.J. Heinz, and Kellogg. The biggest retailers of organic foods are Walmart, Costco, and Kroger.

Most commercial farmers, both large and small, want to use at least some synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, which means they can’t be certified as organic. This is why less than 1 percent of harvested cropland in America is certified organic... without synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, 40 percent of the increased food production required by today’s population could never have taken place.

WHAT IS MORE. ORGANIC FARMING MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO BATS:

Bats struggle during organic farming transition

University of Bristol press release :21 July 2023

Bat activity falls as farms make the transition to organic agriculture, new research shows.

Organic farming is better for biodiversity than conventional farming, which relies heavily on substances such as pesticides, herbicides and fertilisers. However, little is known about how wildlife is affected by the transition period when a farm goes organic.

-        Activity of Savi's pipistrelles was three times lower – and activity of Kuhl's pipistrelles and common bent-wings was twice as low – on organic-transitional farms compared to conventional farms.

-        Activity of Kuhl's pipistrelles was twice as high on organic farms compared to conventional farms.

-        Activity of Kuhl's pipistrelles and Savi's pipistrelles was higher or organic farms than on organic-transition farms (by threefold and twofold respectively).

-        The presence of “semi-natural” areas surrounding the farms did not affect these differences.

ANNALS OF PALAEOCLIMATOLOGY: CLIMATE WEEK 20231 BC

 

AND NOW A WORD FROM THE MINISTRY OF PROPAGANDA

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The Guardian - Back to homeThe Guardian

Support the GuardianEnvironment

The media need to cover the climate crisis as seriously as it covered Covid

Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope

As founders of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration formed to break the “climate silence” that long prevailed in the media, we’ve been working to help our colleagues throughout the news business and amp up their coverage of the climate story.

In…  the past four years, we’ve seen encouraging successes: in the US, major outlets including the Washington Post now treat the climate crisis as a subject to cover every day and not solely as a weather story... Dramatic changes in climate have made increased news coverage of extreme weather unavoidable. But explaining the climate connection to extreme weather…  is where news coverage needs to end up.

As journalists, we have to do better. The broad, general public needs to understand what is happening, why it matters, and, above all, that they can fix it – for example, by voting,Upcoming event: September 21, 2023 - September 22, 2023

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In-person registration is closed. Attend online by registering for the livestream.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR THE LIVESTREAM →

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• Climate Changes Everything Agenda and Speakers
• 2023 Covering Climate Now Awards
• Solutions Journalism Network Climate Beacon Newsrooms

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About the Event

Hosted by Covering Climate Now, Columbia Journalism Review, The Nation, the Guardian, and Solutions Journalism Network.

Join leading journalists from around the world on September 21 and 22 in New York for an unprecedented conversation about how to cover a world on fire.

Through panels, workshops, and more, we aim to challenge colleagues in newsrooms around the world to tackle the climate story with more urgency, depth, and creativity than ever before. Speakers will include reporters, editors, and news executives from Agence France-Presse, the Associated Press, CBS News, Puerto Rico’s Center for Investigative Journalism, France Télévisions, the Guardian, South Florida’s NBC 6, NowThis, Telemundo, TIME, The Times of India, and The Weather Channel, among many other outlet

HELL'S GATES GAPE WIDE AS UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY OPENS

WELCOME TO CLIMATE WEEK !

"THE GATES OF HELL HAVE OPENED"

https://youtu.be/0Bp6POI5bT0?si=kCjtJdCeyS1NJXn8

Liza Featherstone, who writes for Jacobin & The Nation reports:

"Every year around this time in New York City, I become intrigued at the uptick in protests, screenings, art installations, and panel discussions about climate change. I start feeling hopeful: We must finally be getting to the point, as a society, where all our political discourse is about climate, I think to myself. Good! How else are we going to address this crisis? 

Inevitably I wake up from this pleasant confusion. I then realize with disappoint that… This just happens to be Climate Week… it is now the closest thing the climate movement has to a trade show, a week of fancy lunches and private drinks and flashy presentations announcing new investment funds, new green pledges from businesses and states, and thought leaders taking the opportunity to show their climate bona fides...

Climate Week is a vestige of an earlier era, when climate was one of many issues competing for our attention and doing anything to increase public consciousness felt like important work. That time has passed.

Liza Featherstone @lfeatherz

>

IT'S COLD UP THERE : CLIMATE CRISIS FACESEXISTENTIAL THREAT FROM POLAR CONTINENTAL DRIFT

In 2014 Kerri Smith told  Scientific American that in 50 million to 200 million years' time, all of Earth's current continents will be pushed together into a single landmass around the North Pole. 

That is the conclusion of an effort detailed in  Nature  to model the slow movements of the continents over the next tens of millions of years. 

CAN CLIMATE ACTIVISTS STOP THE DRIFT BY GLUING
  THEMSELVES ACROSS THE SAN ANDREAS FAULT?

A supercontinent last formed 300 million years ago, when all the land masses grouped together on the equator as Pangaea, centered about where West Africa is now. After looking at the geology of mountain ranges around the world, geologists had assumed that the next supercontinent would form either in the same place as Pangaea, closing the Atlantic Ocean like an accordion, or on the other side of the world, in the middle of the current Pacific Ocean.

But Ross Mitchell, a geologist at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., and his colleagues have a new idea. They analyzed the magnetism of ancient rocks to work out their locations on the globe over time, and measured how the material under Earth's crust, the mantle, moves the continents that float on its surface.

They found that instead of staying near the equator, the next supercontinent--dubbed Amasia--should form 90 degrees away from Pangaea, over the Arctic.

THE BEAUTY OF MITCHELL'S HYPOTHESIS IS THAT

 LAND LOSS FROM RISING SEAS WILL BE OFFSET BY

THE ADDITION OF ANTARCTICA TO THE TEMPERATE ZONE

THE VICTORIAN ROOTS OF GENE SPLICING AND REWILDING

COPYRIGHT 1903  RUDOLPH DIRKS

HALVING THE CO2 COST OF MELTING METAL

 

World's First Megawatt-level High-temperature Superconducting Induction Heating Device Debuts in China

 

The world's first megawatt-level high-temperature superconducting induction heating device is put into use 

The world's first megawatt-level high-temperature superconducting induction heating device, developed by China, has been put into use in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, China Media Group reported on Sunday.

Compared with the resistance furnace commonly used in the past, this device can double the energy efficiency conversion rate of induction heating devices, save energy by 50 percent, and reduce carbon emissions by more than half.

This device takes a new technical route, using the movement of metal in a magnetic field to generate eddy currents to heat, said Zhao Zhongxian, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"I think this is a very good starting point for combining high-tech and traditional industries, which is a very important way for traditional industries' development in the future," he said.

It used to take at least nine hours to heat an aluminum ingot weighing more than 500 kilograms from 20 degrees Celsius to 403 degrees Celsius, but the process only needs 10 minutes with the device now.

The device utilizes the characteristics of a superconductor that can achieve a stable zero-resistance superconducting state at a low temperature. It can not only be used for extrusion and forging of non-ferrous metal profiles, such as aluminum and copper, but also for smelting and heat treatment of high-end alloys. (CGTN)

WHAT DO HAWAII AND ALASKA HAVE IN COMMON ?

Secretary Haaland stresses importance of indigenous knowledge in ‘era of climate crisis’ 

Jun. 27, 2023 at 9:25 PM EDT

HONOLULU  - 

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and Hawaii leaders gathered in Heeia on Tuesday to underscore the importance of indigenous knowledge preservation in conservation efforts.

“ I think that indigenous knowledge is one of the absolute most important things that we can practice in this era of the climate crisis,” Haaland said.

On the grounds of Kakoo Oiwi — a nonprofit organization that maintains Native Hawaiian cultural practices … In 2022, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, the most significant climate bill in U.S. history, which included $369,000,000,000 for clean energy and climate provisions. With funding from this act and additional funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Department of Interior is investing $2 billion in department-led integrative restoration initiatives.

ABC News September 18

Haaland embraces 'indigenous knowledge' in confronting historic climate change impacts

A relentless drought and wildfire season in America's West and a tense standoff over federal leases for oil and gas drilling have been early tests for the Biden administration's climate policy and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to hold the job … 

She leads the agency which manages more than 480 million acres of public lands and a government leasing program that has allowed private energy businesses to tap into valuable natural resources situated on federal property.

"Certainly, in this time of climate change bearing down upon us, that indigenous knowledge about our natural world will be extremely valuable."

"They know how to take care of the land … And for indigenous peoples on these lands -- it goes back to land theft," said Krystal Two Bulls, director of the Landback movement,  

"Whoever's currently in charge is not protecting these lands, indigenous peoples…" Two Bulls told ABC News. " knew how to manage and work with the fire, as a natural element, we knew how to do that."

It goes on and on for many, many, pages