Climate Links June 2019

Climate Chaos and Our Own Responsibilities. Arshad Khan, CounterPunch. June 28, 2019.

On the last day of the UN Climate Change (June 17-27, 2019) meeting in Bonn the key IPCC report on 1.5 C was blocked from further discussion by Saudi Arabia and an unlikely set of allies: the US, Iran and Russia. The report, as the saying goes, has been deep-sixed meriting only a five-para watered down waffle at the end of the agreement, so what next?

There is worse for at a 2C rise the cycle becomes self-sustaining, meaning a runaway feedback loop cycle. Clearly the Paris agreement, holding temperature increase to 2C, is no longer viable if we are not to leave behind a raging planet to our children and grandchildren.

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In short, to stop hothouse earth, we have to start removing CO2 from the air.

Canada’s Climate Change Election: An Energy Mix Special Report Launches Today. Energy Central. June 16, 2019.

Climate change and the transition off fossil fuels are emerging as top-tier issues in the federal election coming up this fall. And between now and October 21, The Energy Mix has got you covered. 

Today, we’re proud to launch Canada’s Climate Change Election 2019, a special report where we will consolidate the news and opinion that will shape the next four years on the single biggest issue the country faces. 

We’ll keep updating the page right up to Election Day, with breaking news and feature reporting on Canada’s climate action gap, political party campaigns and platforms, public opinion, the continuing contention on carbon pricing, fossil and pipeline politics, climate impacts and adaptation, and the practicalities of the off-carbon transition.

Alberta Taxpayers Will Get Stuck With $400 Billion+ Oil & Gas Cleanup Bill. Steve Hanley, CleanTechnica. June 14, 2019.

Scientists shocked by Arctic permafrost thawing 70 years sooner than predicted. Guardian. June 18, 2019.

Permafrost collapses 70 years early. Robert Hunziker, CounterPunch. June 21, 2019.

These instances of collapsing permafrost are deafening bell-ringers and exactly the type of awful news that presages Runaway Global Warming (RGW). 

In point of fact, Farquharson’s “70-yr too early permafrost collapse” makes the onset of RGW look like a dead-ringer, but when? Still, nobody really knows for sure how horrible it will be for society at large, but it’s 100% guaranteed to upend capitalism’s rampant growth machine. Functioning ecosystems and roughshod capitalism that willy-nilly consumes ecosystems, punctuated by the advent of plutocracy, don’t jive very well. 

Maybe a change is in order. 

There’s no getting around the fact that ecosystems are collapsing. The evidence is too palpable to ignore. It’s serious; it’s deadly, and it could be too late to do much to stop it, other than a last-ditch WWII Marshall Plan Worldwide Consortium dedicated to converting the world to renewable energy, and forcing removal of CO2 from the atmosphere, yet, those solutions take years and years of planning, setup, construction, and billions upon billions of funding. It’s not happening. 

Meanwhile, carbon that has been trapped in and under permafrost over eons readies to escape to turbo-charge an already oversaturated turbo-charged climate. It’s literally happening right now. The waiting room is already full. Farquharson’s study proves it, and Alaska’s permafrost carbon emissions that compete with U.S. commercial CO2 emissions prove it, as sled dogs wade through it. 

It’s postulated that Runaway Global Warming, which could wipe out huge swaths of civilized society, starts in the North, where few people live. Egad! They’re already seeing it.

Extreme Temperatures Are Melting The Arctic. Steve Hanley, CleanTechnica. June 18, 2019.

Any hope that the world can limit global warming to merely disastrous levels is fading rapidly. In fact, it may already be too late for humans to do anything significant about the rotten, stinking mess they have made, which reminds me of this prophetic ditty by Yip Harburg:

God made the world in six days flat.
On the seventh, He said, “I’ll rest.”
So He let the thing into orbit swing,
To give it a dry run test.
A billion years went by,
Then he took a look at the whirling blob.
His spirits fell as he said,
“Oh well. It was only a six day job.”