Trump Climate Change

[Astrostar]

CNN is reporting that with Syria asking to join the Paris Accord, that leaves the U.S. as the only country in the world that is not a member.

Why? Well, that one is simple. It's because the U.S. is the dumbest country in the world. The U.S. is so stupid that it can't see what's right in front of it's face, that the world's climate is changing for the worse, and man is responsible. The dumbness starts with the leaders of the U.S. and extends to it's citizens. The country, on climate change, by ignoring science and common sense, has proven itself to be ignorant beyond the pale.

Bigly!

 

[Natural Citizen]

The government is the biggest contributor to climate change.

 

[TNHarley]

The UN said last week it wont do shit. Basically, it was a waste of time.
I am so glad we got out of that bullshit!

 

[waltky]

UN Warns Fix Climate Risks or Face Much More Hunger by 2050...

UN Warns Manage Climate Risks or Face Much More Hunger by 2050
November 15, 2017 — Climate change threats, from worsening drought and flooding to sea level rise, could increase the risks of hunger and child malnutrition around the world by 20 percent by 2050, food security researchers warned Wednesday.

But looking carefully at the very different risks facing each country, region and type of food producer — from highland rice farmers in Cambodia to cattle herders in South Sudan — could help reduce that threat of growing hunger, they said. In North Africa, for instance, both herders and farmers face fast-growing risks from more frequent, longer and more intense heatwaves and declining water availability, while population growth and greater urbanization could also hit food security, according to a report by the World Food Program (WFP) released Wednesday at the U.N. climate talks in Bonn. In South Asia, by comparison, dense populations of farmers face threats from worsening floods, cyclones and droughts, as well as long-term threats to the stability of monsoons and water flow in glacier-fed rivers. “Different groups are affected by different types of risks, at different intensities and at different times,” said Gernot Laganda, the director of climate and disaster risk reduction programs at WFP.

Residents wade through flood water in northern province of Son La, Vietnam​

Building greater resilience to the threats will require “layers” of responses, he said. Catastrophic threats of large-scale losses of crops or animals — the type that might come along every 5 to 10 years, for instance, and force those hit to migrate — might be dealt with in part with insurance plans, Laganda said. But more regular seasonal threats — of smaller-scale flooding, for instance — cannot be insured, he said, as the problems come too frequently. In those cases, building savings groups among women farmers, for instance, to ensure cash is on hand to deal with the crop failures, could be a better way to deal with risks. The report aims to give country governments, and food security organizations, a clearer and more specific look at the threats they face, and better tools to deal with them. It looks in detail at particularly threatened regions, including parts of Africa and Asia, and at 15 specific countries, from Afghanistan to Mali.

One surprise from the work, Laganda said, is that it was not always the poorest countries that were most vulnerable to hunger threats. “Sometimes we assume middle-income countries have a much easier time ... which is not necessarily the case,” he said. South Asia, in particular, has big numbers of hungry people, he said and overall “the largest vulnerabilities to loss and damage in food systems occur in Asia.” In Africa, drought is the biggest threat to hunger levels, but conflicts also play a big role, he said.

A young Somali girl stands outside her makeshift hut at a camp of people displaced from their homes elsewhere in the country by the drought, shortly after dawn in Qardho, Somalia​

Laganda said such differences need a careful look if countries and food security agencies are to better manage coming climate threats and achieve the international goal of ending hunger by 2030, one of a set of so-called Sustainable Development Goals. “We are not going to achieve zero hunger by 2030 if we do not factor climate-related shocks and stresses into our equation,” he warned. “Climate needs to factor into food security discussions ... at a country level in a much bigger form than it does now.” And aid agencies like WFP “as much as governments” need to focus more on risk management, he said. Mikael Eriksson, who works on climate, energy and environmental issues for Sweden’s government, said the growing complexity of humanitarian disasters requires innovation and rethinking old ways of doing things. “Prevention is so much more efficient than disaster management,” he said.

UN Warns Manage Climate Risks or Face Much More Hunger by 2050

See also:

Study: Better Soil Could Trap as Much Planet-warming Carbon as Transport Produces
November 14, 2017 — Improving soil health in farmlands could capture extra carbon equivalent to the planet-warming emissions generated by the transport sector, one of the world's most polluting industries, experts said Tuesday.

Soil naturally absorbs carbon from the atmosphere through a process known as sequestration, which not only reduces harmful greenhouse gases but also creates more fertile soil. Better soil management could boost carbon stored in the top layer of the soil by up to 1.85 gigatons each year, about the same as the carbon emissions of transport globally, according to a study published in the journal Nature. "Healthier soils store more carbon and produce more food," Louis Verchot of the Colombia-based International Center for Tropical Agriculture, and one of the study's authors, said in a statement. "Investing in better soil management will make our agricultural systems more productive and resilient to future shocks and stresses."

Using compost, keeping soil disturbance to a minimum, and rotating crops to include plants such as legumes can help restore organic matter in the soil, Verchot told Reuters. The extra carbon that could be stored from rejuvenated soil is equivalent to 3 to 7 billion tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide, he said. "The U.S. emits around 5 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year. So [emissions] equivalent of a major economy could be sequestered in soils each year with changes in farming practices," he added.

Trucks are seen at Haj Omran border, on the border between Iran and Kurdistan, Iraq, Oct. 14, 2017. Improving soil health could capture extra carbon equivalent to the emissions generated by the transport sector, experts said.​

The study found the United States has the highest total annual potential to store carbon in the soil, followed by India, China, Russia and Australia, if soil management is improved. Carbon sequestration could be increased intensively in parts of southern Africa, Ethiopia and Sudan too, Verchot said in a phone interview. The Earth's soils contain more carbon than the planet's atmosphere and vegetation combined, but when land is overexploited or degraded, trapped carbon is released back into the atmosphere, resulting in planet-warming emissions.

About a third of the world's soils are degraded because of soil erosion — the loss of the topsoil by wind, rain or use of machinery — and other practices, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Agriculture, forestry and changes in land use together produce 21 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, making them the second-largest emitter after the energy sector, FAO said.

Study: Better Soil Could Trap as Much Planet-warming Carbon as Transport Produces

 

[Natural Citizen]

UN Warns Fix Climate Risks or Face Much More Hunger by 2050...

Warning signs that suggest deception...

Arguments from adverse consequences (putting pressure on the decision maker by pointing out dire consequences of an "unfavorable" decision).

See here - Error | US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum

Additionally, Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the facts. Haha.

And arguments from authority carry little weight (in science there are no "authorities"). Haha.

 

[Natural Citizen]

But....Appealing to ignorance (absence of evidence is not evidence of absence). Hmmmm.

 

[waltky]

What Can Caribou and Mosquitos Tell Us About Climate Change?...

The Caribou and the Mosquito
The impacts of climate change ripple through ecosystems in unexpected ways.

Rain or shine, Lauren Culler does her pond-side fieldwork in full rain gear. She’s not worried about getting wet. It’s the mosquitoes. Oh, the mosquitoes. In the spring, when the ponds on the fringes of Greenland thaw, the mosquitoes emerge in great, buzzing, voracious clouds. Culler is a Dartmouth College ecologist who studies the web of life in and around these ponds. That means long stretches of time working next to mosquito breeding grounds. “It can be quite miserable,” she said. Impermeable outerwear and a headnet are essential mosquito deterrents. Otherwise, “they will drive you crazy.”

They’re a nuisance to biologists, but they are a real threat to caribou. These animals, a species of deer, spend the brief summer months grazing on Arctic greenery. Harassment from the biting mosquito hordes can be so bad that the caribou flee their grazing grounds for cooler snowbanks, which mosquitoes avoid. But time spent escaping mosquitoes is time not spent fattening up for the long winter ahead. The intensity of the mosquito attacks can mean the difference between life and death.

Nature’s Rube Goldberg devices

Around the world, climate change is rippling through ecosystems, affecting creatures great and small. But how these changes will affect ecosystems is hard to predict. Each one is a complex web of life, a Rube Goldberg device of predators and prey. In Greenland, the caribou’s fate is intertwined with that of an aquatic beetle. Every spring when the ice melts in the Arctic ponds, a battle for survival begins. Thousands upon thousands of mosquito larvae wriggle in the shallow water. They provide an all-you-can-eat buffet for the beetle larvae. The beetles “feed like spiders feed,” Culler said. “They inject these digestive enzymes first. And they liquefy the internal contents of the prey and suck it back up.” Culler thought climate change might give the beetles an edge and cut down on the mosquito hordes. Warmer waters speed up the beetles’ metabolism. They eat more mosquito larvae per day. The question was, would it make a difference? “Is it that more mosquitoes are being eaten in a warmer year, so fewer are likely to emerge? That was kind-of what we thought would happen,” Culler said. But it didn’t.

In their computer model, warmer conditions actually favored the mosquitoes. They matured a few days faster in warm water than in cold. The less time they spend in the water, the better for them. “That’s three or four fewer days where you have the risk of being eaten by one of those beetles,” she explained. “In the simulations that we did, we found that actually really matters, and that the mosquitoes win in that situation.” When mosquitoes win, caribou may lose. Fewer may survive the winter. But beetles are not the only mosquito-eaters lurking in the tundra. Culler is studying what role spiders may play in controlling the mosquito hordes. “They seem to be able to cue in on the ponds right when the mosquitoes are emerging,” she said. Locked up in ice for most of the year, the tundra ecosystem is relatively simple. Untangling the web of connections here offers a taste of the complex ways climate change is altering the entire planet.

The Caribou and the Mosquito

 

[Dan Stubbs]

What Can Caribou and Mosquitos Tell Us About Climate Change?...

The Caribou and the Mosquito
The impacts of climate change ripple through ecosystems in unexpected ways.

Rain or shine, Lauren Culler does her pond-side fieldwork in full rain gear. She’s not worried about getting wet. It’s the mosquitoes. Oh, the mosquitoes. In the spring, when the ponds on the fringes of Greenland thaw, the mosquitoes emerge in great, buzzing, voracious clouds. Culler is a Dartmouth College ecologist who studies the web of life in and around these ponds. That means long stretches of time working next to mosquito breeding grounds. “It can be quite miserable,” she said. Impermeable outerwear and a headnet are essential mosquito deterrents. Otherwise, “they will drive you crazy.”

They’re a nuisance to biologists, but they are a real threat to caribou. These animals, a species of deer, spend the brief summer months grazing on Arctic greenery. Harassment from the biting mosquito hordes can be so bad that the caribou flee their grazing grounds for cooler snowbanks, which mosquitoes avoid. But time spent escaping mosquitoes is time not spent fattening up for the long winter ahead. The intensity of the mosquito attacks can mean the difference between life and death.

Nature’s Rube Goldberg devices

Around the world, climate change is rippling through ecosystems, affecting creatures great and small. But how these changes will affect ecosystems is hard to predict. Each one is a complex web of life, a Rube Goldberg device of predators and prey. In Greenland, the caribou’s fate is intertwined with that of an aquatic beetle. Every spring when the ice melts in the Arctic ponds, a battle for survival begins. Thousands upon thousands of mosquito larvae wriggle in the shallow water. They provide an all-you-can-eat buffet for the beetle larvae. The beetles “feed like spiders feed,” Culler said. “They inject these digestive enzymes first. And they liquefy the internal contents of the prey and suck it back up.” Culler thought climate change might give the beetles an edge and cut down on the mosquito hordes. Warmer waters speed up the beetles’ metabolism. They eat more mosquito larvae per day. The question was, would it make a difference? “Is it that more mosquitoes are being eaten in a warmer year, so fewer are likely to emerge? That was kind-of what we thought would happen,” Culler said. But it didn’t.

In their computer model, warmer conditions actually favored the mosquitoes. They matured a few days faster in warm water than in cold. The less time they spend in the water, the better for them. “That’s three or four fewer days where you have the risk of being eaten by one of those beetles,” she explained. “In the simulations that we did, we found that actually really matters, and that the mosquitoes win in that situation.” When mosquitoes win, caribou may lose. Fewer may survive the winter. But beetles are not the only mosquito-eaters lurking in the tundra. Culler is studying what role spiders may play in controlling the mosquito hordes. “They seem to be able to cue in on the ponds right when the mosquitoes are emerging,” she said. Locked up in ice for most of the year, the tundra ecosystem is relatively simple. Untangling the web of connections here offers a taste of the complex ways climate change is altering the entire planet.

The Caribou and the Mosquito

Nasa just released the latest corrected data on Global warming. After going through the data figures they found no noticeable change from1969 but they did find that the North Pole did lose some ice but the South Pole pick up a large amount. Gore needs to rethink the figures.

 

[Dan Stubbs]

CNN is reporting that with Syria asking to join the Paris Accord, that leaves the U.S. as the only country in the world that is not a member.

Why? Well, that one is simple. It's because the U.S. is the dumbest country in the world. The U.S. is so stupid that it can't see what's right in front of it's face, that the world's climate is changing for the worse, and man is responsible. The dumbness starts with the leaders of the U.S. and extends to it's citizens. The country, on climate change, by ignoring science and common sense, has proven itself to be ignorant beyond the pale.

Bigly!

National Space Agcy disagrees with Europe. sorry.

 

[Slyhunter]

 

[Zorro!]

THE PRESS WAS ALWAYS CAREFUL TO DESCRIBE TEA PARTY RALLIES AS “OVERWHELMINGLY WHITE,” BUT NEVER DOES THAT WITH THE CLIMATE RALLIES THAT ARE FAR LESS DIVERSE: The Unbearable Whiteness Of Climate Protest.

For white progressives, climate change is a unique issue in which racial guilt plays little to no role. Other issues such as police brutality, income inequality, and even women’s rights and access to abortion are steeped in what they perceive as the racist foundation of our country. On these issues, white protesters in the post-Occupy age feel they bear no small amount of collective guilt. But on climate change, for once, they can be the victim, not just the ally.

And man, are they enjoying it. This is the moment for angry, young white people not only to be angry, but to actually be oppressed. It is their own future that they believe is being stripped from them by failure to accept that if we don’t act in the next eight minutes, all is lost. It is their lives that amorphous and evil global corporate and government powers are endangering.

Finally, they can express righteous indignation not just in support of the rights and lives of others, but to protect themselves. It is their Malcolm X in blue jeans moment, a thrilling opportunity to stick it to the man, whoever that might be. The poster child is not a murdered black youth, but a young girl from Sweden astride a solar-powered boat defending the future of lily-white protesters everywhere.

You have fun kids. Then go get jobs and worry about something important.