Global Climate Change Science News

[pErvinalia]

The thing is, we don't seem to be reducing emissions. So not only are we likely to push through 2C,its probably going to be far worse. Could involve a serious reduction in our population. Leaves us open to chance events like pandemics or natural disasters.

[Brian Peacock]

Platitudes do nothing.

OK. Without the platitude then.

Never gonna be totally fatal to humans...biome is fucked tho.

I think that's a comforting assumption. I'm not saying it'll turn out to be false, I just don't think we have enough info or experience to make a judgement one way or another.

I say that because I agree with you that the "biome is fucked tho." As a global community we are yet to accept, let alone embrace, the fact that human existence, well-being and flourishing is wholly dependent on the existence, well-being and flourishing of the natural ecologies in which we have evolved, and upon which we rely for our survival - and upon which we will always continue to rely.

[macdoc]

More platitudes nothing concrete at all

well-being and flourishing of the natural ecologies in which we have evolved, and upon which we rely for our survival - and upon which we will always continue to rely.

The loss of biodiversity is regrettable but not an existential threat to homosapiens and you overstate the case anyways.
We have learned to manipulate the biological world to our own ends and will continue to do so and also are preserving diversity even while damaging it.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is owned by Norway and managed in partnership between the Norwegian Ministry of Agriculture and Food, the regional genebank NordGen and the Crop Trust.

Nations are pledging to create ocean preserves

The Conversation
https://theconversation.com › nations-are-pledging-to-...
Jun 9, 2022 — As nations pledge to preserve swaths of ocean within their territorial waters, a marine scientist explains why some marine protected areas ..

Sunlight and seawater are very productive and maybe you don't like to eat algae but we can.....and there are insects ...

The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com › food › may › if-we-w...
May 8, 2021 — Insects not only make a far more efficient feed – they can also be fed on waste and their “frass” (excrement) can be used as fertiliser.

Even the loss of a few billion humans would not impact our long term survival.

[Sean Hayden]

On these matters talk couldn’t be cheaper, right?

I’m skeptical of any claim that we’ll be okay. Mostly because even systems designed by people are susceptible to unforeseen and catastrophic failures. How many more unpredictable possibilities exist in nature?

[Brian Peacock]

More platitudes nothing concrete at all!

[Brian Peacock]

More platitudes nothing concrete at all

well-being and flourishing of the natural ecologies in which we have evolved, and upon which we rely for our survival - and upon which we will always continue to rely.

The loss of biodiversity is regrettable but not an existential threat to homosapiens and you overstate the case anyways.

A bold statement indeed. Got anything more than a feeling to support it? What exactly did I overstate?

Never gonna be totally fatal to humans...biome is fucked tho.

I think that's a comforting assumption. I'm not saying it'll turn out to be false, I just don't think we have enough info or experience to make a judgement one way or another.

Or was it that our well-being as a species is wholly dependent upon the ecologies we evolved within?

I don't see the persistence of our species as the ultimate prize. I see the limiting and reducing of suffering as far more a pressing and important matter, and a necessary pre-condition for sustaining the ongoing development of our species and its cultures. I've talked about this before, many times.

I think I need to write a screed on how tech-bro utopianism is a form of climate denial.

[macdoc]

Survival is a long way from utopia.
Moving the goal posts from survival to "reduction of suffering"???!!!!!

[aufbahrung]

Could go anyway but given the human ability to make bad situations worse, don't be too optimistic about founding a long lived dynasty. Humans will die out whilst busy doing other things most likely, are stating too already most likely.

[Brian Peacock]

Survival is a long way from utopia.
Moving the goal posts from survival to "reduction of suffering"???!!!!!

But I'm talking about the lives people lead, might lead or could lead, not some dry accounting that hedges on the persistence a future breeding population of homo sapiens in a post-climate meltdown world. All I'm saying is that the future survival of humanity is not assured and we should put a heavy thumb on the scales now to improve the odds later.

[macdoc]

anything concrete with the buttery waffles ?

[macdoc]

Concrete...not waffles...

World’s largest offshore windfarm project starts powering UK grid
First of 277 turbines goes into operation at site that will produce enough energy for 6m homes a year

Alex Lawson
Mon 9 Oct 2023 22.30 BST
The first turbine to be completed in a project to build the world’s largest offshore windfarm, in the North Sea, has begun powering British homes and businesses.

Developers confirmed on Monday that Dogger Bank, which sits 70 nautical miles off the coast of Yorkshire, started producing power over the weekend as the first of 277 turbines was connected to the electricity grid.

The project, jointly developed by Britain’s SSE and Norway’s Equinor and Vårgrønn, will produce 3.6 gigawatts of power, enough for 6m homes a year, when it is completed in 2026.

[Brian Peacock]

Good news indeed. But in the past three months the UK govt has granted 120+ North sea oil and gas exploration licences supported with subsidies and tax breaks, withdrawn regulatory obligations on the construction sector to protect the water table and waterways from consequencial pollution, not only halted progress on the building of high speed electrified rail infrastructure but made a furure restart impossible by selling the land they'd acquired off to developers at a loss, brought in laws which could see you getting a £10k fine and upto ten years in prison for organising a climate protest (even it doesn't go ahead) or arrested for intending to attend a protest, and forbidden those arrested over climate protests from offering their reasoning and motivation as a defence in court (reducing their defence to arguments about how they did not break the law). And at their party conference last week a raft of ministers and fringe speakers declared their government's own net-zero objectives under the Paris Agreement as bonkers, woke, eco fascism, and bad for the economy. So you have to see these things in context.

[Brian Peacock]

Ministers ‘misrepresented’ UK climate advisory body, say scientists

The UK government has “misrepresented” the Climate Change Committee (CCC) by wrongly claiming it said we would need a quarter of our energy to come from fossil fuels by 2050, scientists have said.

In order to justify signing off new oil and gas licences in the North Sea, ministers have said the country will still require a quarter of its energy to come from gas in 2050, the year the UK is supposed to meet net zero.

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) says this figure comes from the CCC, the government’s statutory advisory body, which has strongly advised against licensing new fossil fuels.

Claire Coutinho, the energy security and net zero secretary, said recently: “We will not play politics with our energy security. Even the independent CCC has said that in 2050, we will need oil and gas for a quarter of our energy.”

DESNZ confirmed to the Guardian that the figure often cited by the department came from the CCC’s sixth carbon budget.

When asked for its methodology – how it arrived at this figure from the CCC’s data – a department spokesperson did not return a request for comment.

A spokesperson for the CCC said: “The data is used from our sixth carbon budget but they used their own calculation to get to that.” It is understood the committee does not endorse the 25% figure...

[Brian Peacock]

‘This is political expediency’: how the Tories turned on 15-minute cities

Imagine a city in which you could walk or cycle to almost anywhere you needed to go in the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee. Shops, medical facilities and artistic sites would be spread throughout neighbourhoods. Remote and home working would be embraced.

Children could easily and safely cycle to school, breathing cleaner air. With less need for commuting, quieter streets could even be turned over to parks. Known as the “15-minute city” after the time it takes to get around, it’s a model that promises a return to local living – and a greener, healthier, more sustainable way of life.

Sound idyllic? Not if you’re Rishi Sunak. The prime minister used an interview before this week’s party conference to “hit out” at the 15-minute city concept, saying there was a “relentless attack” on motorists who “depend on their cars to get to work, take their kids to school, do their shopping, see the doctor” – ignoring that this dependence is exactly what the model aims to reduce.

The transport secretary, Mark Harper, went further, telling delegates the 15-minute cities concept was “a Labour-backed movement … to remove your freedom to get from A to B how you want.

“What is sinister, and what we shouldn’t tolerate, is the idea that local councils can decide how often you go to the shops, and that they can ration who uses the roads and when, and that they police it all with CCTV.” The government would look into ways to stop “overzealous” councils restricting road use “if they don’t follow the rules”, he said.

All of which may sound like a lot of airtime for an arcane local planning policy, but to a small number in his audience, 15-minute cities represent a lot more than that. Since it was first outlined in 2016 by Carlos Moreno, a Colombian professor in urban planning at the Pantheon-Sorbonne university in Paris, the model has been embraced by city authorities in Paris, Seattle, Bogotá, Melbourne, Shanghai and beyond. In the UK, cities including Oxford, Bristol, Birmingham and Canterbury have proposed versions of the scheme.

But for a vocal few, the concept has become bound up in conspiracy theories about a “great reset” that will see people confined to highly restricted zones by a cabal of climate-obsessed authorities. The climate crisis, they believe, is a contrivance to allow sinister powers to restrict individual freedoms – and this is one of their tools to do so...

[pErvinalia]

What, are you some sort of commie?