Meteorologists report weather – they don’t make it!

Meteorologists are being threatened and abused for forecasting and reporting record high temperatures and weather extremes.

Last week Spain recorded the highest April temperature on record (38.8 °C) following on from last year, 2022, its hottest year since records began.

Nearly 75 percent of Spain is susceptible to desertification due to climate change. Water reservoirs are at half their capacity and farmers unions say 60 percent of agricultural land is “suffocating” from lack of rain. Spain has asked Brussels to help by activating the EU’s agriculture crisis reserve funds (when many other areas of Europe are also suffering from drought).

Long drowned villages emerging from bottoms of desiccating reservoirs: The ruins of the Sant Romà church, exposed due to historically low water levels in the Sau reservoir, Spain in April. Photographer: Angel Garcia/Bloomberg

AFP – Agence France Presse – 05/05/2023, Barron’s

Insults, Threats Target Spain Forecasters Over Climate ‘Conspiracy’

Spain’s government on Friday came to the defence of the AEMET weather agency, which has suffered threats and abuse from climate conspiracy theorists over its forecasts during a record drought.

“Murderers”, “Criminals”, “You’ll pay for this” and “We’re watching you” are just some of the anonymous messages sent to AEMET in recent weeks on social media, by email and even by phone.

The threats were responding to forecasts and reports published by AEMET, notably over last week’s early heatwave, when Spain registered its hottest-ever temperature for April, reaching 38.8 degrees Celsius (101.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in Cordoba.

Read the complete article…

Drought → crop failures → famine?

Where the European/Mediterranean region is concerned, Spain is not the only country facing water crises. Even before the end of winter, the Guardian’s article of 4 March, ‘Very precarious’: Europe faces growing water crisis as winter drought worsens, Austria, Germany, France, Italy and Switzerland were all suffering problems from shortages of rain and runoff from the small amount of accumulated winter snow.

Australia has already lost a lot of agricultural productivity because of three years of La Niña flooding. For several months we couldn’t even buy frozen french fries (shades of the Irish Potato Famine). This may well be followed by even more damaging droughts when the next major El Niño surpasses the last two to reach 1.5 °C above the pre-industrial baseline, as seems likely given past trends.

As a target for those with an often visceral distrust of the established science of human-caused global heating, the Bureau of Meteorology’s temperature record might be seen as ground zero. Photograph: Bill Bachman/Alamy / from the article.

Graham Readfearn – 7/05/2023, The Guardian

Climate scientists first laughed at a ‘bizarre’ campaign against the BoM – then came the harassment

Former Bureau of Meteorology staff say claims they deliberately manipulated data to make warming seem worse are being fed by a ‘fever swamp’ of climate denial.

For more than a decade, climate science deniers, rightwing politicians and sections of the Murdoch media have waged a campaign to undermine the legitimacy of the Bureau of Meteorology’s temperature records.

Those records say Australia has warmed by 1.4C since 1910, the year when the bureau’s main quality-controlled climate dataset starts.

Extremely hot days come along more often than they used to, and the warming trends are happening everywhere, at all times of the year.

As a target for those with an often visceral distrust of the established science of human-caused global heating, the bureau’s temperature record might be seen as ground zero.

“This has frankly been a concerted campaign,” says climate scientist Dr Ailie Gallant, of Monash University. “But this is not about genuine scepticism. It is harassment and blatant misinformation that has been perpetuated.”

Read the complete article….

Attacking messengers because you dislike or fear the messages only impedes circulating knowledge that might help to solve real-world problems and save your life or the lives of your family members. That global warming causes record temperatures and droughts is a fact that causes problems…. Denying the fact does not make the problems go away! It only keeps the problem from being solved until it is too late to do anything effective.

When there are too many crop failures over too wide an area for too long, famine is the consequence, and can lead to. Continuing famine leads to starvation and, eventually, mass deaths.


Featured Image:

Situation of Combined Drought Indicator in Europe – 2nd ten-day period of April 2023 from Copernicus’s EDO – European Drought Observatory

Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.

See new Climate Council report on lost opportunities

Eight years ago the LNP COALition govt. cancelled the national Climate Commission. But they kept on. Their report details lost opportunities.

Members of the Climate Commission would not lie down and die. They found their own funding and carried on.

Report summary, via Amanda McKenzie – Climate Council CEO, 01/04/2022:

Good factual, evidence-based reporting meticulously details the costs of 8 years LNP COALition Government denial and sabotage of science, blocking, disinformation, and downright malfeasance to prevent effective action on the growing climate emergency

The Climate Council’s full report can be downloaded from here.

Not counting front and end matter the Report provides 72 pages of well documented reportage on just what the government has done (1) to impede action on the global climate emergency that I have reported on extensively in Climate Sentinel News and (2) what the government has failed to do to help protect Australians from the worst impacts of climate change.

The analysis begins with an Introduction and Scorecard on Federal Government Climate Action that can be used to track progress into the future.

The real meat begins with Chapter 3 – Attacks on Science. What is documented here is a concerted attack to downsize and terrorize some of Australia’s world ranked scientific and technical institutions (e.g., CSIRO Climate Science Division) because the Government didn’t like the reality they reported. The cost of this denialism and threats is tracked through the remainder of the chapter (as well as through the rest of the Report).

Chapter 4 traces Australia’s dismal record, showing amongst other gems of mismanagement that:

In the thirty years since Australia first committed to tackling climate change, our emissions have increased by more than a quarter. [my emphasis]

p. 23

Chapter 5 – Setting the Record Straight, looks the physical cause of global warming, greenhouse gas emissions, and what can be done to reduce and stop them.

Chapter 6 – Reckless Conduct, looks at the LNP Government’s actions to promote fossil fuel industry growth at the expense of mitigating impacts of global warming induced climate change.

Chapter 7 explores the impacts of the LNP Government’s bad management of the climate emergency on Australia’s foreign policy and relationships.

The final chapter, saving the Conclusion of the Report surveys the Government’s program and policy decisions favoring its mates in the fossil fuel industry versus closing down or cutting programs addressing climate change.

…Australia can and should cut its emissions at an even faster rate than the required global average. The Climate Council recommends that to make a fair contribution to the required global effort, Australia should achieve net zero emissions by 2035, and reduce emissions by 75 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. As a first step, Australia should match its key allies and commit to at least halving emissions by 2030. We should aim high, and we should move fast in order to maximise the benefits and minimise the risks.

Embracing our natural advantages in clean energy, zero-carbon manufacturing and other climate solutions will ensure jobs and prosperity for Australians now and for generations to come. It will improve our health, and help protect our natural heritage. Bold and transformative action this decade is not only fundamental to protecting all of us, but can also secure Australia’s economic prosperity.

It’s crunch time. Another lost decade will put us on the precipice of climate catastrophe. The 2020s are our ‘Last-Chance Decade’ – a decade the next Federal Government cannot afford to squander.

pp. 65- 66

In Scotty’s own words in one of his pet mediums – something to think about:

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he is supportive of Australia’s fossil fuel industry – and particularly coal, which he… says will be around for “decades to come”. “When it comes to the coal industry, it’s worth $35 billion to us every year in exports, and that’s money Australia needs to grow our economy,” Mr Morrison said. “What you need in today’s energy economy is you need to continue to run your coal-fired power stations for as long as you possibly can and that is our policy … we want them to run as long as they possibly can.” Coal-fired power stations will continue to run to back up renewable power sources, although Mr Morrison said gas would play a larger role in the energy mix in years to come. Mr Morrison added that building a new coal-fired power station would be difficult because of the state government planning powers, which would “probably never allow them to do it”. For the video see: The Australian, 14/03/2022, Commentary/coal-will-be-around-for-decades-to-come-scott-morrison/video. See also ‘We will keep mining’, says Australian prime minister Scott Morrison about the future of coal.

If that wasn’t enough, here’s a choice of some of Scotty’s thinking about stopping our slide down the slope to runaway global warming and possible near-term extinction

We’ll keep mining!
09/09/2021 via the Guardian

We need to get the gas from under our feet. We’ve got to get the gas!
The future of power: What’s behind Australia’s push for gas-fired energy | ABC Four Corners

What can/must we do about this dreadful government and even worse situation?

We need to turn away from the the road to hothouse hell, and we won’t do this by continuing with the kind of business as usual Scotty from Maketing and his fossil fuel puppets are spruiking!

It seems to taken the clear thinking of Greta Thunberg, a 16 year-old girl who concluded school was pointless as long as humans continued their blind ‘business as usual’ rush towards extinction.

greta-act-as-if-the-house-was-on-fire
Listen to Greta’s speech live at the World Economic forum in Davos 2019. Except for her reliance on the IPCC’s overoptimistic emissions budget, everything she says is spot on that even she, as a child, can understand the alternatives and what has to happen.

In other words, wake up! smell the smoke! see the grimly frightful reality, and fight the fire that is burning up our only planet so we can give our offspring a hopeful future. This is the only issue that matters. Even the IPCC’s hyperconservative Sixth Assessment WG2 Report that looks at climate change’s global and regional impacts on ecosystems, biodiversity, and human communities makes it clear we are headed for climate catastrophe if we don’t stop the warming process.

Scott Morrison and his troop of wooden-headed puppets are doing essentially nothing to organize effective action against the warming. In fact all they doing is rearranging the furniture in the burning house to be incinerated along with anything and everyone we may care about.

In Greta’s words, “even a small child can understand [this]”. People hope for their children’s futures. She doesn’t want your hopium. She wants you to rationally panic enough to wake up, pay attention to reality, and fight the fire…. so our offspring can have some hope for their future. Vote Climate One’s Traffic Light Voting System will help you use your preferential votes wisely on behalf of our offsprings’ future.

Our young ones are walking into an unknown future. Give them hope and not the Ukraine.

Featured image: Fig. 17 from the Climate Council Report, THE LOST YEARS: COUNTING THE COSTS OF CLIMATE INACTION IN AUSTRALIA

Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.

White House fights climate denial and delayed action

Past denial & blocking of climate action is hurting society. How do we respond to accelerate effective action to deal with the emergency?

Maxine Joeslow, 24/02/2022 in The Washington Post Climate & Environment
White House science office to hold first event on countering climate change denial and delay: Leading climate scientists will meet with officials in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.

Facebook still spreading fake climate news & denial

Analysis shows that about half the posts from long established and well-known fake news publishers were posted with no warnings from Facebook

by Elizabeth Culliford, 24/02/2022 in Reuters Technology
Facebook did not label posts from top climate change deniers, report says: Facebook did not add labels to half of posts pushing content from top climate change deniers, according to an analysis from the Center for Countering Digital Hate

  • See also: The Toxic Ten: How 10 fringe publishers fuel 69% of digital climate change denial

Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.

Despite science some still deny climate change — why?

That human caused climate emergency exists is now settled science, yet too many who see it happening are still in denial. How do we fix this?

by Below2C, 05/02/2022 in BELOW2°C
Why Climate Denial Is Still Happening: You don’t need to be a scientist or climatologist to know something is not right. You just need to look out your window or look up. And yet, millions still won’t see the warning signs. Why is climate denial still happening when the evidence of climate breakdown is all around us?

Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.