Reminder: A New Government is Not a Solution to the Climate Emergency – Action is Required!

William P. Hall on August 11, 2022

Since Australia’s 21 May national election, I’ve been too busy working on a series of articles on the genesis of the ‘Teal Tsunami’ of climate friendly community independents that is transforming Australian government to post much else. However, replacement of the COALition Government whose solution to the climate emergency was denial by one that at least accepts that the emergency is real still does not solve the problem. Today’s post is a reminder that effective action becomes more urgent with every day that passes.

By David Spratt, 10/08/2022 in Climate Code Red

High-profile paper on “catastrophic” climate impacts echoes our “What Lies Beneath” analysis on fat-tail, existential risks and IPCC reticence, published four years ago

Last week, just as a new paper on catastrophic climate risks was hitting the media, I received an email:

“It would appear some scientists are now, finally, openly speaking about what you yourself have long been describing as the ‘high end’ or ‘fat tail’ risks associated with climate change and want UN scientists to look into the risks of catastrophic climate change. Here’s the link to the article on the BBC website…  On two occasions when reading this article I did punch the air on your behalf; when it mentions the need for more emphasis on tipping points and for the IPCC to produce a special report on catastrophic climate failure..”

It wasn’t the only one. 

So what does this new paper say?  Well, in essence, some very similar things to our report What Lies Beneath: The underestimation of existential climate risks.

Read the complete article: http://www.climatecodered.org/2022/08/high-profile-paper-on-catastrophic.html

As early as 2016 based on my backgrounds in evolutionary biology and technology, I was beginning to publish the same message. If we humans don’t stop and reverse global warming we face near-term (i.e., in less than a century) global mass extinction, including the extinction of our own species and families. See

And, as if this wasn’t enough to highlight the reality of the dangers we face from inaction, the bulk of my posts here in Climate Sentinel News present the ever growing evidence that the impacts we are already facing from the climate emergency are increasing in magnitude, frequency, and death tolls. We are clearly approaching a physical point of no return, beyond which we can do nothing to escape the one-way road to mass extinction.

Parliament needs to declare a state of emergency and begin total mobilization to stop all carbon emissions and begin works to scrub excess carbon from the atmosphere. The latter will require more research, but the most promising technologies I can see from my wide general knowledge all involve either:

  • biological sequestration in the oceans, especially fertilizing ocean ‘deserts’ with iron to grow algae and farming of zooplankton and fish to take the captured carbon to the sea floors along with their deaths; or
  • reflecting solar radiation away from our planet, perhaps using carbonate aerosols (e.g., chalk dust), which in addition to reflecting light will when it falls out help neutralize excess acidity of the oceans produced by its absorption of excess CO2.

PARLIAMENTARIANS NEED TO BEGIN ACTING NOW, AND VOTERS IN UPCOMING STATE ELECTIONS NEED TO ELECT MORE CLIMATE FRIENDLY COMMUNITY INDEPENDENTS TO RE-ENFORCE AND EXECUTE CLIMATE ACTION AT THE LOCAL LEVEL

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

July 2022 Climate – still on road to extinction

William P. Hall on July 31, 2022

Australia has a new government. Every month we fail to stop global warming is a month closer to global mass extinction. Still no visible progress towards solution.

https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/

The graphic above downloaded today shows the current state of sea-ice surrounding the Antarctic continent. Despite what seems to be a cold winter in Victoria, its coverage indicated by the teal blue line in the chart is 530 km2 smaller than it has ever been before for this time of the year. There are many more indicators that the climate is still deteriorating towards making Earth uninhabitable for its present life forms (including humans!) at an accelerating rate.

The following news items underline the dangers this represents for humans.

Model-analyzed temperatures at 12Z Tuesday, July 19, 2022 (noon GMT) were transcending average values for the time of day and season by 12 to 24 degrees Celsius—or 22 to 33 degrees Fahrenheit—over large parts of northwestern Europe. (Image credit: tropicaltidbits.com) [from the article]

by Bob Hensen, 17/07/2022 in Eye on the Storm, Yale Climate Connections

Horrific heat descends upon Western Europe: 104°F in London

Dozens of all-time record highs melted on Monday and Tuesday under a searing, deadly European heat wave that has caused at least 1,169 heat-related deaths in Spain and Portugal. The heat wave has also brought the hottest day on record for many locations in France and the hottest temperatures — by far — ever observed in the United Kingdom.

The record-smashing heat in Europe’s normally mild, maritime northwest corner was eerily comparable to the astounding heat wave in the U.S. Pacific Northwest and far southwest Canada in June 2021. The latter was found to have been “virtually impossible” without human-produced climate change.

By 9 a.m. GMT on Tuesday, July 19, London’s Heathrow Airport had already surged past 90°F, and at 12:50 p.m., the airport’s official observing site for London recorded what, if confirmed, would be the hottest temperature in London history: 40.2 degrees Celsius, or 104.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

…

Read the complete article

Record high temperatures and extreme weather events are being recorded around the world. Photograph: Ian Logan/Getty Images [from the article]

by Robin McKie, 31/07/2022 in the Guardian

‘Soon it will be unrecognisable’: total climate meltdown cannot be stopped, says expert

Blistering heatwaves are just the start. We must accept how bad things are before we can head off global catastrophe, according to a leading UK scientistRobin McKie.

The publication of Bill McGuire’s latest book, Hothouse Earth, could not be more timely. Appearing in the shops this week, it will be perused by sweltering customers who have just endured record high temperatures across the UK and now face the prospect of weeks of drought to add to their discomfort.

And this is just the beginning, insists McGuire, who is emeritus professor of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London. As he makes clear in his uncompromising depiction of the coming climatic catastrophe, we have – for far too long – ignored explicit warnings that rising carbon emissions are dangerously heating the Earth. Now we are going to pay the price for our complacence in the form of storms, floods, droughts and heatwaves that will easily surpass current extremes.

…

Read the complete article

In the run-up to the May 21st Federal Election, I posted many more articles documenting the increasing risk of mass extinction that humans face if we do not stop and reverse the runaway acceleration that is flipping our global climate to the Hothouse Earth state.

In the Election Australians replaced the Liberal/National COALition with a more climate friendly Labor government supported by an extensive cross-bench of climate-friendly independents (‘teals‘) and Greens.

The Government has very little time (if any – see the article above) to act to stop carbon emissions and to do what we can to remove some of the past excesses from the atmosphere.

TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!

Featured image:

Time series graphs showing the variation in the three most important greenhouse gases as observed and recorded by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Global Monitoring Laboratory at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii.

The carbon dioxide data on Mauna Loa shown in the top row constitute the longest record of direct measurements of CO2 in the atmosphere. They were started by C. David Keeling of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in March of 1958 at a facility of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [Keeling, 1976]. The first graph shows atmospheric CO2 concentrations over the last five complete years of the Mauna Loa CO2 record plus the current year. The second graph shows annual mean CO2 growth rates for Mauna Loa. In the graph, decadal averages of the growth rate are also plotted, as horizontal lines for 1960 through 1969, 1970 through 1979, and so on.

The middle row charts the growth of atmospheric methane: the first graph shows the full NOAA time-series starting in 1983, The red circles are globally averaged monthly mean values centered on the middle of each month. The black line and squares show the long-term trend (in principle, similar to a 12-month running mean) where the average seasonal cycle has been removed.The second graph summarizes annual increases in atmospheric CH4 based on globally averaged marine surface data.

The bottom row charts the growth of atmospheric N2O (Nitrous oxide) beginning in 2001, when NOAA began to have confidence in the data. Values for the last year are preliminary pending recalibrations of standard gases and other quality control steps. The second graph plots the annual increase in atmospheric N2O in a given year, i.e., the increase in its abundance (mole fraction) from January 1 in that year to January 1 of the next year, after the seasonal cycle has been removed (as shown by the black lines in the first figure). It represents the sum of all N2O added to, and removed from, the atmosphere during the year by human activities and natural processes.

As yet, there is NO evidence that any of these values are beginning to stop increasing, let alone decrease, as the result of any human actions.

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

True grimness of IPCC’s report still misunderstood

Climate News Links on April 18, 2022

Most media concluded that emissions could go on rising until 2025 and the world could still stay under 1.5C. A potentially lethal error.

photo by Mario Tama / from the article

by Matt McGrath, 16/03/2022 in BBC News

Climate change: Key UN finding widely misinterpreted: A key finding in the latest IPCC climate report has been widely misinterpreted, according to scientists involved in the study:

A major challenge in communicating complex messages about climate change is that the more simplified media reports of these events often have more influence than the science itself.

This worries observers who argue that giving countries the impression that emissions can continue to grow until 2025 would be a disaster for the world.

“We definitely don’t have the luxury of letting emissions grow for yet another three years,” said Kaisa Kosonen from Greenpeace.

“We have eight years to nearly halve global emissions. That’s an enormous task, but still doable, as the IPCC has just reminded us – but if people now start chasing emissions peak by 2025 as some kind of benchmark, we don’t have a chance.”

Read the complete article….

Editor’s note: Based on my rigorous evaluation of the IPCC’s scientific methodology and writing processes, even the corrected understanding of the IPCC report STILL UNDERSTATES the likelihood of the risk from, and the magnitude of consequences of failures or even delays in stopping the progress of global warming. In reality, the report says it is already too late to avoid global average temperatures rising more than 1.5 °C. By reaching net zero in 2030 AND extracting and sequestering most of the excess CO₂ already in the atmosphere we might be able to bring temperatures back down to 1.5 °C or less. Continuing with business as usual keeps us on the road to runaway warming to Earth’s Hothouse Hell and social collapse leading towards global mass extinction of humans and most other large and complex organisms on the planet.

Featured Image: A dried out reservoir in Chile where drought has forced the government to take emergency measures. / Getty Images / from the article.

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

IPCC: Summary of importance of 3 part AR6 Report

Climate News Links on April 10, 2022

Following up on my comprehensive post, The Guardian succinctly explains why the 3 parts of the complete AR6 need to be considered by everyone.

The latest report said that temperatures could rise by as much as 3C, a catastrophic level. Photograph: Mario Hoppmann/AFP/Getty Images / From the article

by Fiona Harvey, 05/04/2022 in the Guardian

Why are the three IPCC working group reports significant? Explainer: The IPCC has now published all parts of its landmark review of climate science.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), made up of the world’s leading climate scientists, has now published all three sections of its landmark comprehensive review of climate science.

…

Yet the picture could already be even worse than the IPCC has presented. The IPCC data took in research papers published from 2014 up to last year, but since then the world has experienced even more extreme weather. The IPCC reports are regarded as cautious and conservative by many scientists, and the summary for policymakers that sets out the key messages of each working group are subject to inputs from governments that some regard as watering down.

Read the complete article….

Featured Image: IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) – complete. From the IPCC Web site.

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

Implications for Australia in latest IPCC report

Climate News Links on April 10, 2022

The IPCC has warned that if we don’t stop and reverse global warming now it will soon be too late to avoid climate catastrophe and suffering.


The IPCC makes it clear that promotion of coal and gas – a favourite pastime of Australian politicians – is making it harder to keep global heating to 1.5C. Photograph: Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images / from the article

By Adam Morton and Graham Readfearn, 09/04/2022 in The Guardian

Latest IPCC report offers key lessons for Australia but is anyone listening? The climate authority has warned it is now or never to cut emissions but will MPs on the campaign trail heed its warning?

Perhaps the message was too familiar. With the unofficial election campaign under way, and the prime minister mired in escalating allegations of bullying and duplicity, a major report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the world’s most respected climate science body – quickly disappeared from the Australian news cycle this week.

…

Headlines told part of the story: it was “now or never” if the world was to limit global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. The report suggests that threshold is already practically out of reach without using technology to suck carbon dioxide from the sky. Keeping heating below 2C, which would trigger damage several magnitudes worse than 1.5C, will require an “abrupt acceleration” of effort after 2030.

Read the complete article….

Featured Image: Scenarios in a mathematical model by en:Adam Frank et al., 2018, which describes climate change due to GHG emissions by an advanced energy-intensive civilization.[1] From left to right, top to bottom: Die-off: The world population reaches a peak and subsequently declines slowly until an equilibrium is attained. Population can decline by up to 90% after peaking; according to Frank, such a civilization “might well just descend into chaos.” Sustainability: Both the world population and average surface temperature rise and then level off. This scenario shows that civilizations can be stable in the long term. Collapse without resource change: A civilization makes no attempt to switch to less GHG-intensive energy and collapses due to runaway climate change, possibly going extinct. Collapse with resource change: A civilization transitions to less GHG-neutral energy, but collapses anyway due to triggering a tipping point in the climate system. / 3-01-2021 by LaundryPizza03 – Own work; adapted from a figure in Billings, 2018. / via Wikimedia Commons.

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

A massive IPCC report out soon – What can we do?

Climate News Links on March 25, 2022

Representatives of most nations of the world are now sign-off on the overview of IPCC’s Mitigation of Climate Change report due out April 4.

Current carbon-cutting commitments still put us on a catastrophic path toward 2.7C of warming by 2100. (From the article)

by Amélie Bottollier-Depois, 18/03/2022 in PhysOrg

UN report to lay out options to halt climate crisis: Nearly 200 nations gather on Monday to confront a question that will outlive Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: how do we stop carbon pollution overheating the planet and threatening life as we know it?

Featured image: AR6 Climate Change 2022 Mitigation of Climate Change — IPCC / via https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-3/

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