Tag: Global warming

All Those Cow Farts

I can recall from a decade of more ago when cows were being blamed for all the global warming…..oh sorry climate change because they eat a lot of fiber and supposedly do a lot of farting.

Does anyone else remember this?

There were even some that blamed the demise of the dinosaur because of their massive consumption and of course their farting….sorry again I digress.

Long a target of environmentalists due to its purported negative effects on the global environment, cattle farming has lately been pilloried by eco-activists for its alleged hastening of warming across the planet due to the high levels of greenhouse gasses that the industry produces every year. 

Yet a relatively small but growing body of research suggests that certain types of cattle farming— namely, those in which cows are raised on pastures for their whole lives as opposed to in feedlots — may actually have a carbon-negative effect on the environment by helping to sequester greenhouse grasses under well-managed grasslands. 

The vast majority of beef produced in the U.S. is sourced in feedlots in which cattle are fed primarily corn and grains, a diet which hastens their fattening and prepares them for slaughter much earlier than traditional methods.

Environmentalists have criticized those systems as ecologically ruinous due to their heavy carbon footprints, citing in part their dependence on chemically fertilized cattle feed and the copious amounts of methane that cows emit in the form of burps and flatulence.

https://justthenews.com/nation/science/beef-takes-beating-environmentalists-research-suggests-cows-can-actually-climate

Stop blaming cows for the problem….assign blame where it belongs….the technique used by the ranchers.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

But are cows the culprit?

 

How About That ‘Green New Deal’?

I have writing about the offering of them Progressive Dems and trying to educate my readers o9n what is what with this proposal……https://lobotero.com/2018/12/06/the-green-new-deal/

Now that we have a new president and maybe a way forward with this proposal…..but first….99% of the Progressive co-sponsors of the Green New Deal won their re-election…..

Shedding more light on a significant electoral trend that progressives have drawn attention to in the aftermath of the 2020 U.S. election, a new analysis by Earther found that of the 93 House co-sponsors of the Green New Deal resolution who ran for reelection this year, only one lost their congressional race. 

“Simply put,” wrote journalist Brian Kahn in Earther, “the Green New Deal is not a political loser,” including for representatives in swing districts. 

Kahn identified four House co-sponsors who represent districts that “range from very slightly Democratic to moderately Republican,” according to Cook Political Report’s Partisan Voting Index. 

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/11/09/99-green-new-deal-co-sponsors-won-their-races-cycle-analysis…but for more in-depth look at those races and people…..https://earther.gizmodo.com/the-green-new-deal-didnt-sink-democrats-1845619942

To put this all simply….the Green New Deal is not the political loser that Centrist Dems and the GOP would have you believe…..but will it ever see the light of day with a Biden presidency….not likely!

While the president-elect, Joe Biden is a Centrist and in my mind a coward…there are a few things he could do to help our climate problems….just 10 things offered up by Naomi Klein…..

  • Declare a national climate emergency under the National Emergencies Act, which would “unlock specific statutory powers to help accomplish the necessary response.” Biden would be able to direct federal agencies to reverse all of President Donald Trump’s regulatory rollbacks.
  • Keep fossil fuels in the ground, halting fossil fuel permits and lease sales, banning fracking on federal lands, and issuing stringent pollution rules for oil and gas companies.
  • Stop fossil fuel exports and infrastructure approvals through executive orders.
  • Shift financial flows from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources through an executive order that would promote new investments and phase out old ones.
  • Using the Clean Air Act, set a science-based national pollution cap.
  • Power the electricity sector with 100% clean and renewable energy by 2030. Pursuant to the National Emergencies Act, Biden could direct the secretary of defense to redirect a portion of military spending to carry out a rapid construction program of renewable energy projects to meet a significant portion of the nation’s power needs. The president-elect could also provide loan guarantees to clean energy developers and utilities that use renewable energy.
  • Issue an executive order creating an inter-agency just transition task force to implement a national program guaranteeing support for communities and workers affected by the halting of fossil fuel extraction.
  • Direct federal agencies assess and mitigate environmental harms that disproportionately impact Indigenous, Black, brown, and low-income communities. 
  • Investigate and prosecute fossil fuel polluters and commit to vetoing all legislation that grants legal immunity to big polluters. 
  • Rejoin the Paris climate agreement and increase the United States’ emissions reduction commitment to slash greenhouse gas emissions below 2005 levels by at least 70% by 2030 and reduce them to near zero by 2040.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/11/09/biden-urged-be-climatepresident-taking-these-10-game-changing-steps-first-10-days

While I like most of this proposal…I just do not see a spineless politician doing them….too much corporate cash in his pocket.

Any Thought?

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Green New Dud

Lots has been writing, argued, debated and lied about when the climate is brought out in polite circles (that excludes deniers and the network they worship)…..

The Dems have been pushing a Green New Deal….well true progressives that is…..and there have been some attempts to calm the rhetoric around climate.

Then there is the worthless attempt by Pallone of New Jersey……

Broadly, Pallone’s climate plan—which came after 15 committee hearings about the human-caused crisis—aims to enable the United States to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas pollution by 2050. It would direct all federal agencies to use their existing authorities to meet that goal, and includes provisions for the power, building, transportation, and energy sectors.

The proposal would require states to develop plans to meet the 2050 target that must take into account the needs of communities on the front lines of the climate crisis. It would also establish a first-of-its-kind National Climate Bank to help states, municipalities, and companies transition.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/27/extremely-disappointing-new-analysis-offers-scathing-critique-top-democrats-clean

It is a dud……this does little but help the industries that profit from exploiting the climate for profits….

The draft Climate Leadership and Environmental Action for our Nation (CLEAN) Future Act—largely seen as a “competing plan” to the Green New Deal—was announced earlier this month by the committee’s chair, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.). Crafted after 15 committee hearings, the bill (pdf) aims to ensure that the United States achieves net-zero greenhouse gas pollution by 2050.

In a joint statement with Reps. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) and Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), Pallone said Tuesday that “every day, communities across the country are paying the price for inaction through record wildfires, flooding, and drought, and Congress cannot afford to simply watch from the sidelines.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/28/green-new-dud-not-green-new-deal-climate-groups-denounce-draft-bill-house-democrats

Just another attempt to be doing something while doing NOTHING substantial.

But for those that need a simpler explanation to why this is not a good deal then please click on this analysis….https://1bps6437gg8c169i0y1drtgz-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Pallone-Energy-Report-Final.pdf

You truly want some true action on climate change?  Then use a Tried a true technique of presidents……Executive Order.

Not long lasting but it would be a start….and the planet will thank you.

This Dem proposal is weak and a worthless waste of time…..but can we expect from them?

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Will Climate Change Make You Sick?

An interesting question….we could say yes from drought or storms or habitat destruction….but there is a chance that something much older could be waiting to attack…..

A new study of ice cores in glaciers in the autonomous Chinese region of Tibet reveals that the ice floes are holding viruses previously unencountered by humans, raising the possibility of the microbes being released as the climate crisis continues. 

“We’ve opened up a Pandora’s box with climate change,” observed one Twitter user. 

The report, “Glacier ice archives fifteen-thousand-year-old viruses,” was published in the journal bioRxiv in early January by the scientists who examined the cores. It is awaiting peer review.

According to NBC News:

The experiment revealed 33 groups of virus genuses (also known as genera) in the ice cores. Of these, 28 were previously unknown to science, the researchers said. “The microbes differed significantly across the two ice cores,” the researchers wrote in the study, “presumably representing the very different climate conditions at the time of deposition.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/23/ancient-viruses-trapped-glaciers-thousands-years-could-be-released-climate-crisis

But not to worry…..according to that idiot senator, Rand Paul, it is all a fake…..

According to U.S. Senator Rand Paul, fears of climate change are overblown — but we should also venture out and drastically change the environments of other planets so humanity might settle them.

Paul tweeted his bizarre stance ­on Sunday, after he attempted to roast Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over her aggressive plans to fight climate change, a move which, as HuffPost reports, backfired spectacularly.

And clapbacks aside, his stance that there’s no urgent rush to try and mitigate climate change is troubling given the exhaustive mountain of evidence to the contrary.

https://futurism.com/the-byte/senator-climate-change-fake-terraform-worlds

There are few words that I can use to describe these morons that does not violate the bounds of decency…..so I will leave it at “MORONS”.

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–15Jan20

Let It Burn!

I am sure that everyone with an ear has heard bout the outrageous fires in Australia…..they have caused deaths both human and animal and blackened millions of acres of land.

The authorities have arrested dozens of people for starting fires…..

At least 24 people have been killed in the bushfires that have raged in Australia. The same number of people in the hard-hit state of New South Wales have been arrested and charged with deliberately setting fires there since the fall. USA Today reports one of the 24 is a 19-year-old volunteer firefighter. Blake Banner is accused of being involved in seven fires that emerged south of Sydney. Suspicions were raised after Banner was regularly among the first to arrive on the scene. ABC News reports a prison term of up to 21 years is possible for anyone found guilty of intentionally igniting a fire and recklessly promoting its growth.

Another 100 people have allegedly violated the state’s fire ban or tossed a lit cigarette or match on the ground. Meanwhile, the AP reports the scope of the financial toll of the disaster became a little more clear Tuesday, with the Insurance Council of Australia doubling the estimated damage bill since just Sunday to $485 million. Australia’s fire season typically runs from December to March, but drought and heat brought on a September start this year.

Is it climate change or just stupid individuals?

New South Wales police force announced that it had charged 24 people with deliberately starting bushfires in the Australian state.

The force also noted that it’s taken legal action against a total of 183 people for 205 bushfire-related offenses, including failure to comply with a fire ban and discarding lit cigarettes or matches on land.

The news that arsonists have contributed to the deadly fires raging in Australia is both highly disturbing and disheartening. But perhaps even more troubling is the wielding of this information as “evidence” that climate change isn’t a major contributing factor to the emergency.

https://futurism.com/australia-arrests-dozens-starting-bushfires

Man made or climate change?

Potato or potato (its all in the pronunciation)

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

How To Deal With The Climate Crisis

Closing Thought–27Sep19

We have heard all the lies and the innuendoes about climate change and how we should approach the problem.

I read a workable plan for dealing with the climate and I believe it came out of Canada.

The meat of the article was…what if we treated the climate crisis like a war?  Remember these are just suggestions…..all of which I do not agree with but at least there is someone thinking about a solution before it is too late……

“We ended WWII with the highest debt-to-GDP ratio ever,” Klein said. ”But it also marked the beginning of the strongest economic performance the country has ever seen. It wasn’t a drag on the economy; it was quite the opposite.”

There are plenty of reasons to question this kind of all-in jingoist climate stimulus plan. The government would need to consider measures to control inflation, or the possibility that rich people would just move their money somewhere else. Researchers have also suggested we might enter an unhinged new era of eco-nationalist propaganda, which would surely add to, not subtract from, a general sense of doom.

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/vb53x9/what-would-happen-if-canada-treated-climate-crisis-like-war

Canada has a plan for the environment…it is called a “Just Transition Act”……..

A re-elected Liberal government would halve the corporate tax rate for companies that develop or manufacture products with zero emissions — part of the party’s plan to move to net-zero emissions by 2050, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau announced today.

Taxes for small clean technology businesses would be reduced to 4.5 per cent from the current nine per cent under the Liberal plan, while larger companies would pay 7.5 per cent in taxes instead of the current 15 per cent.

Eligible sectors could include manufacturing related to renewable energy, production of renewable fuels, zero emission vehicles and batteries for them, carbon capture and removal technology and electric vehicle charging systems.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/liberals-climate-change-action-plan-2050-1.5295027

Has anyone else noticed that plans are about saving corporations money not so much about the planet.  I believe that this very thing is what Greta Thunberg was bitching about at the UN….

In case you have NO idea what I am talking about here is a transcript of her speech to the General Assembly….

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/23/763452863/transcript-greta-thunbergs-speech-at-the-u-n-climate-action-summit\

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

Closing Thought–01Jul19

What are the situations facing this country….what is the biggest situation for our nation?

Terrorism is still a major concern around the world, but global warming is the bigger worry, and fear of cyberattacks is on the rise, according to a new Pew Research Center survey on threats.

Following similar studies in 2013 and 2017, Pew researchers asked people in 23 countries whether they considered the following a “major threat to our country”:

  • Global climate change
  • The Islamic militant group known as ISIS
  • Cyberattacks from other countries
  • North Korea’s nuclear program
  • The condition of the global economy
  • U.S. power and influence
  • Russia’s power and influence
  • China’s power and influence

Pew found that global climate change has risen from being a concern for 53% of respondents in 2013 to 63% in 2017 and now 67% in the most recent survey. Here are four major takeaways from the study, which was conducted among 27,612 respondents in 26 countries from May to August 2018:

https://fortune.com/2019/02/11/u-s-report-on-global-threats/

Seems the climate deniers are losing their steam with the American people…..

In The Year Of 2050

Should be a song from the 70s but this case it is some interesting news…..the 2050 is an interesting year. It is the year that we can have a clean environment if we enact certain laws to help climate change….it is the year that the economy will come to be more equable…..if only certain laws are put into place….in other words 2050 is a magical year for the planet…..if only certain laws take effect.

A harrowing scenario analysis of how human civilization might collapse in coming decades due to climate change has been endorsed by a former Australian defense chief and senior royal navy commander.

The analysis, published by the Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration, a think-tank in Melbourne, Australia, describes climate change as “a near- to mid-term existential threat to human civilization” and sets out a plausible scenario of where business-as-usual could lead over the next 30 years.

The paper argues that the potentially “extremely serious outcomes” of climate-related security threats are often far more probable than conventionally assumed, but almost impossible to quantify because they “fall outside the human experience of the last thousand years.”

On our current trajectory, the report warns, “planetary and human systems [are] reaching a ‘point of no return’ by mid-century, in which the prospect of a largely uninhabitable Earth leads to the breakdown of nations and the international order.”

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/597kpd/new-report-suggests-high-likelihood-of-human-civilization-coming-to-an-end-in-2050

Further Reading: 

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/06/04/existential-risk-climate-crisis-could-lead-civilizational-collapse-2050-warns-report

Without good solid plan then I suggest that no one make long term plans after 2050.

Was that BLEAK enough for you?

But not to worry….the uber Centrist Biden has a plan……

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is pitching a $5 trillion-plus climate proposal that he says would lead the US to net zero emissions of carbon pollution by 2050, the AP reports. Biden’s plan calls for $1.7 trillion in federal spending over 10 years, with the rest of the investments coming from the private sector. Biden, who discusses the plan in a video posted online, proposes covering the taxpayer costs by repealing the corporate tax cuts that President Trump signed in 2017, while eliminating existing subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. “Science tells us that how we act or fail to act in the next 12 years will determine the very livability of our planet,” Biden said in a statement ahead of the plan’s unveiling Tuesday. “That’s why I’m calling for a clean energy revolution to confront this crisis and do what America does best—solve big problems with big ideas.”

Yeah…the “Private Sector” has been our partner for decades….and how has that worked out for the climate?

So much crap to gain some support from the environmentalists…..nothing about it is gonna work.  PERIOD!

Climate Change For A Sunday

We are back to warm weather and rain…..the garden will be happy but MoMo is not……the weekend is a time for reflection and meditation……(not really just time to do those honey dos)…..

Climate change has returned to the national dialog……especially since the introduction of the Dems “Green New Deal”…….I posted a couple of articles on this “plan”…….https://lobotero.com/2019/02/21/that-green-new-deal-2/

After that plan I found another plan to help with climate change….ever hear of “geoengineering”?

Nope?

Now you have……


Harvard’s Gernot Wagner wants to save the world from global warming. His method? Develop a new type of plane that will fly more than 4,000 missions a year dumping particulates into the stratosphere.

Wagner and his colleague Wake Smith call the proposed plane “SAI Lofter (SAIL).” Anonymous individuals at “Airbus, Atlas Air, Boeing, Bombardier, GE Engines, Gulfstream, Lockheed Martin, NASA, Near Space Corporation, Northrup Grumman, Rolls Royce Engines, Scaled Composites, The Spaceship Company, and Virgin Orbit” provided input.

Estimates for SAIL’s design and operation seem sophisticated but are fabricated. Wagner and Smith admit, “No existing aircraft design—even with extensive modifications—can reasonably fulfill [their] mission.”

Wagner and others believe that scientists can calculate how many particulates will be needed to cool the Earth to a desired temperature.

https://theantimedia.com/geoengineer-planet-global-warming/
 
At least this is a plan as is the Green New Deal….all are heads above any plan the GOP may have (BTW they have NOTHING to offer in the fight with climate change)

That is about all I have on this Sunday….I am being prodded to get off my butt and go for that delayed walk…..MoMo is persistent if not anything…LOL

Is This Our Darkest Hour?

Hey is it not time to actually have a conversation on climate change?  Or is the term global warming?  Matters not for something is on the horizon and we are sticking our heads in the sand and hoping it will all go away…..

Hint:  IT WON’T!

The word is out and it does not look too promising…..

“The planet warmed more than we thought. It was hidden from us just because we didn’t sample it right. But it was there. It was in the ocean already.”

Offering a stark warning that humanity may have even less time to drastically cut carbon emissions than the United Nations suggested in its latest alarming report on the climate crisis, new research (pdf) published in the journal Nature on Wednesday shows that Earth’s oceans have retained 60 percent more heat each year over the past 25 years than scientists previously believed.

“We thought that we got away with not a lot of warming in both the ocean and the atmosphere for the amount of CO2 that we emitted. But we were wrong,” Laure Resplandy, a geoscientist at Princeton University who led the new study, told the Washington Post. “The planet warmed more than we thought. It was hidden from us just because we didn’t sample it right. But it was there. It was in the ocean already.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/31/we-have-less-time-we-thought-alarming-new-study-shows-oceans-have-retained-far-more

Don’t believe a word of the new study!  But instead take the word of some jack wad that gets his money from the industries causing the world’s problems for we would not want these greed turds to lose any money now do we?

The so-called “Doom and Gloom” continues (maybe it is time to listen)…..https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/26/eco-crises-doom-gloom-truth-consequences/

The biggest threat is the threat of drought……these seem to be expanding yearly…..a bad drought will expand the hunger and the famines……

The most hazardous global warming risk for society at large is widespread loss of grain production because of a synchronized worldwide drought. It would be a colossal killer. It’s happened before, known as The Great Drought 142 years ago.

Unmistakably, droughts feed off global warming and world temps are heading up, not down. Thus, droughts are intensified by temperature increases. If the same conditions as the drought of 1876 recurs, it would likely be a nightmarish scenario.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/26/the-great-drought/

For a couple of decades the world’s population has looked the other way when the subject of climate change is mentioned…..America’s are some of the worse…

Finally the population has decided that they cannot sleep there way to a cleaner safer world…..civil disobedience, environmental disobedience will return to the world stage……appears the UK may well lead the world in this new found empowerment…..a Declaration Of Rebellion (has a nice ring to it)…..

To underscore the planetary emergency and denounce the U.K. government’s inaction on the climate crisis, a new group calling itself Extinction Rebellion rallied over 1,000 people to block Parliament Square in London on Wednesday. The direct action marks the launch of a mass civil disobedience campaign, with the group issuing a “Declaration of Rebellion” against the government because the activists “refuse to bequeath a dying planet to future generations by failing to act now.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/31/our-darkest-hour-declaration-rebellion-new-group-vows-mass-civil-disobedience-save

May we finally have some progress on saving this world before we go out looking for another one to screw up.

QAPLA!

After writing this draft I read another silly theory……

Brazil’s president-elect Jair Bolsonaro has chosen a new foreign minister who believes climate change is part of a plot by “cultural Marxists” to stifle western economies and promote the growth of China.

Ernesto Araujo – until now a mid-ranking official who blogs about the “criminalisation” of red meat, oil and heterosexual sex – will become the top diplomat of South America’s biggest nation, representing 200 million people and the greatest and most biodiverse forest on Earth, the Amazon.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/15/brazil-foreign-minister-ernesto-araujo-climate-change-marxist-plot

I cannot wait to see how long it takes for the dullards on the Right, the Trumpian Right, to get on board with this silliness.

Any bets?