Floods and then more floods! Can we expect more yet?

Multiple floods in La Niña years are not unknown in Australia, but global warming can supply more water that makes extreme flooding even worse.

Jason O’Brien/AAP Image from the article

by Margaret Cook, 31/03/2022 in the Conversation

Why can floods like those in the Northern Rivers come in clusters?

Right now, Lismore residents are going through their second major flood in a month.

On February 28th, the devastating first flood peaked at 14.4 metres, fully two metres higher than the previous record of 12.27 metres in 1954, and well above the town’s 10-metre-high levee wall, constructed in 2005. Four people died, with 2000 homes destroyed or unlivable of the city’s 19,000.

Even as Lismore and Northern Rivers residents struggle to recover from the first flood, the floods are coming again. On March 29th, more heavy rain began falling onto the soaked catchment feeding into Wilsons River.

Read the complete article….

Featured Image: Lismore locals are still cleaning up after February’s floods – now they are being hit again. Darren England/AAP Image / from the article.

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

We ignore those who know most about land we occupy

The world’s first nations people have been surviving since the ice ages on lands we occupy. We ignore their knowledge at our perils.

Calgardup Bushfire burning in Margaret River. DFES Incident Photographer Sean Blocksidge/AAP Image/ / from the Article.

by Janine Mohamed, et al., 29/03/2022 in The Conversation

Indigenous peoples across the globe are uniquely equipped to deal with the climate crisis – so why are we being left out of these conversations?

The urgency of tackling climate change is even greater for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and other First Nation peoples across the globe. First Nations people will be disproportionately affected and are already experiencing existential threats from climate change.

The unfolding disaster in the Northern Rivers regions of New South Wales is no exception, with Aboriginal communities completely inundated or cut off from essential supplies.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have protected Country for millennia and have survived dramatic climatic shifts. We are intimately connected to Country, and our knowledge and cultural practices hold solutions to the climate crisis….

Read the complete article….

Castlemaine (Vic.) author Lynne Kelly explains how Aboriginal song lines and similar tools in other primary oral cultures accurately preserve and transmit survival knowledge down through hundreds of generations.

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

What ‘Mr Doesn’t Hold a Hose’ thinks of Global Warming

Budget papers show Morrison government plans to cut climate spending if it wins election: Reduction in spending across clean energy agencies represents a 35% annual cut over four years.
By Adam Morton, 29/03/2022 in The Guardian

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

35% of world’s electricity comes from ‘clean’ sources

Wind and solar count for 10% of total, but coal is also rising. At 10% in two years, Australia is switching fast to green sources

Wind and solar installations grew at pace in 2021 / Getty, from the article.

by Matt McGrath, 30/03/2022, in BBC.com

Climate change: Wind and solar reach milestone as demand surges: Wind and solar generated 10% of global electricity for the first time in 2021, a new analysis shows.

Featured Image: Solar farm / Getty, from the article.

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

Excuse profanity, but Juice Media tells the truth

Floods and climate disasters will keep rising until global warming is reversed. Scummo’s govt. will only continue shoveling coal on the fire.

Honest Government Ad | The Floods
The Australian Government has made an ad about this summer’s floods and it’s surprisingly honest and informative – 17/03/2022 in thejuicemedia

Editor’s comment: This was recorded BEFORE the present NB4 flooding in a sequence of NB4 floods…. Think about who you are voting for!

Featured image: River levels could top 16 metres at Lismore amid more expected rain, the weather bureau says. / from Northern Beaches Review article 28/02/2022 by Australian Associated Press, NSW flood crisis ‘unprecedented’: premier

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

What Mr ‘Doesn’t Hold a Hose’ thinks of Global Warming

Budget papers show Morrison government plans to cut climate spending if it wins election: Reduction in spending across clean energy agencies represents a 35% annual cut over four years.
By Adam Morton, 29/03/2022 in The Guardian

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

Last Horseman: warming & near-term mass extinction

A 2016 article lays out where we were then compared to past extinctions. We are now closer to point of no return. Warming must be stopped!

Coral bleaching in March 2016. Rapid rises of greenhouse gases in the past have been linked to major extinctions in the oceans. XL Catlin Seaview Survey / via the article.

by Katrin Meissner & Kaitlin Alexander , 24/03/2024 in the Conversation

Mass extinctions and climate change: why the speed of rising greenhouse gases matters

[G]reenhouse gases are rising faster than at any time since the demise of dinosaurs, and possibly even earlier. According to research published in Nature Geoscience this week, carbon dioxide (CO₂) is being added to the atmosphere at least ten times faster than during a major warming event about 50 million years ago.

We have emitted almost 600 billion tonnes of carbon since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and atmospheric CO₂ concentrations are now increasing at a rate of 3 parts per million (ppm) per year.

With increasing CO₂ levels, temperatures and ocean acidification also rise, and it is an open question how ecosystems are going to cope under such rapid change.

Read the complete article….

Featured image: Moschorhinus kitchingi with Lystrosaurus. Basal Triassic of South Africa. Lystrosurus was one of the few large animals that survived the Permian-Triassic global mass extinction event anywhere on the planet. Source: Creator:Dmitry Bogdanov / Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.

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

Following today’s Apocalyptic topic back to last year

Considers the grim Apocalyptic Horsemen of too many people and too much consumption in a world approaching runaway global warming

Daniel Mariuz/AAP / from the article

by Corey J. A. Bradshaw, et al., 13/01/2021 in The Conversation

Worried about Earth’s future? Well, the outlook is worse than even scientists can grasp

Anyone with even a passing interest in the global environment knows all is not well. But just how bad is the situation? Our new paper shows the outlook for life on Earth is more dire than is generally understood.

The research published today reviews more than 150 studies to produce a stark summary of the state of the natural world. We outline the likely future trends in biodiversity decline, mass extinction, climate disruption and planetary toxification. We clarify the gravity of the human predicament and provide a timely snapshot of the crises that must be addressed now.

The problems, all tied to human consumption and population growth, will almost certainly worsen over coming decades. The damage will be felt for centuries and threatens the survival of all species, including our own.

Read the complete article….

The article here is based on the reserch paper, Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future by Bradsaw et al., 13/01/2021 in Frontiers in Conservation Science.

Featured image: Said to be the longest traffic jam in the world — in China (https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/worlds-worst-traffic-jam-drone-6594560): Source: unknown, but appearing in many places.

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Help! Australian native ecosystems are collapsing now!

The Apocalyptic horseman of ecosystem collapse is already thundering through Australia’s native ecosystems. His friends aren’t far behind

Shutterstock / From the article

by Dana M Bergstrom et al., 29/02/2022 in The Conversation

‘Existential threat to our survival’: see the 19 Australian ecosystems already collapsing

In 1992, 1,700 scientists warned that human beings and the natural world were “on a collision course”. Seventeen years later, scientists described planetary boundaries within which humans and other life could have a “safe space to operate”. These are environmental thresholds, such as the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and changes in land use.

Crossing such boundaries was considered a risk that would cause environmental changes so profound, they genuinely posed an existential threat to humanity.

This grave reality is what our major research paper, published today, confronts.

Read the complete article….

This article is sourced from the major research paper by Bergstrom, et al., 25/02/2022 in Global Change Biology, Combating ecosystem collapse from the tropics to the Antarctic

Featured image: 19 Australian ecosystems that are already collapsing.In the featured article, clicking on each of the 19 below the article will give a summary of what comprises the ecosystem, its status and the pressures causing its collapse.

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

Tipping points: How do we know when we are tripping?

The idea of a ‘tipping point’ is more than academic. Once you trip over it you are on a downhill slide towards Hell at the bottom of the hill

Fig. 2 from the research paper by Beringer et al., 22/03/2022 in Global Change Biology – Bridge to the future: Important lessons from 20 years of ecosystem observations made by the OzFlux network.
Summary of the significant scientific and technical outcomes from the OzFlux network after two decades: Blue relates to discovery, information and knowledge outcomes; grey outcomes relate to assessments across site, regional and global scales; yellow refers to the capacity building outcomes for researchers and green indicates technical outcomes for observations and modelling.

by Caitlin Moore et al., 25/03/2022 in The Conversation

In 20 years of studying how ecosystems absorb carbon, here’s why we’re worried about a tipping point of collapse

From rainforests to savannas, ecosystems on land absorb almost 30% of the carbon dioxide human activities release into the atmosphere. These ecosystems are critical to stop the planet warming beyond 1.5℃ this century – but climate change may be weakening their capacity to offset global emissions.

This is a key issue that OzFlux, a research network from Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, has been investigating for the past 20 years….

The biggest absorbers of atmospheric carbon dioxide in Australia are savannas and temperate forests…. as effects of climate change intensify, ecosystems such as these are at risk of reaching tipping points of collapse.

Read the complete article….

Featured image: Shutterstock from the featured article.

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