General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhile We Fight Over Democracy and Rule of Law, Climate Insurgency Is Here
There are no base data or reliable simulations to help predict what's coming. It's now here, and sooner than we thought -- wet bulb days across continents. The oceans have a huge phytoplankton die-off, and are themselves dying. THAT is the signal. None of this is abstract or debatable any longer.
António Guterres told ministers from 40 countries meeting to discuss the climate crisis on Monday: Half of humanity is in the danger zone, from floods, droughts, extreme storms and wildfires. No nation is immune. Yet we continue to feed our fossil fuel addiction.
He added: We have a choice. Collective action or collective suicide. It is in our hands.
Wildfires raged at the weekend across Europe and north America. In south America, the Macchu Picchu archaeological site was threatened by fire. Extreme heat has broken records around the world in recent months, as heatwaves have struck India and south Asia, droughts have devastated parts of Africa, and unprecedented heatwaves at both poles simultaneously astonished scientists in March.
In the UK, an extreme heat warning was issued with the hottest temperatures ever recorded in the UK expected on Monday and highs above 40C forecast in some places.
Ministers meeting in Berlin for a two-day climate conference known as the Petersberg Climate Dialogue will discuss the extreme weather, as well as soaring prices for fossil fuels and food, and the impacts of the climate crisis.
The meeting, convened annually for the last 13 years by the German government, marks one of the last opportunities to hammer out agreement among key countries before the Cop27 UN climate summit in Egypt this November.
Alok Sharma, who chaired the Cop26 UN climate summit in Glasgow last November, will be absent from the Berlin conference, though he will join several sessions virtually. He must stay in London to vote in the Conservative party leadership contest, which will determine who takes over as UK prime minister from Boris Johnson. The UK still holds the presidency of the UN talks until Egypt takes on the mantle, and Sharmas absence raised eyebrows among some participants.
Prospects for Cop27 have dimmed considerably in recent months, as energy and food price rises have engulfed governments in an inflationary cost-of-living crisis, prompted in part by the gradual emergence from the Covid-19 pandemic, and exacerbated by the war in Ukraine.
At Cop26, countries agreed to limit global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, but the commitments they made were still inadequate to do so. All countries agreed to come forward this year with improved national plans for greenhouse gas emissions, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs).
Frans Timmermans, the vice president of the European Commission, who leads the EU bloc at the UN climate talks, dampened expectations for the conference in an interview with Guardian. I dont see that many new NDCs on the horizon, frankly, he said, pointing to Australia, with its new government, as a rare exception...
Guterres also sharply criticised the multilateral development banks, institutions including the World Bank that are funded by taxpayers in the rich world to provide assistance to poor countries.
He said they were not fit for purpose when it came to providing the funding needed for the climate crisis, and that they should be reformed.
He said: As shareholders of multilateral development banks, developed countries must demand immediate delivery of the investments and assistance needed to expand renewable energy and build climate-resilience in developing countries. Demand that these banks become fit-for-purpose. Demand that they change their tired frameworks and policies to take more risk Lets show developing countries that they can rely on their partners.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/18/humanity-faces-collective-suicide-over-climate-crisis-warns-un-chief?fbclid=IwAR2ILKKDo23XspZIGyqrtyDQ866Pn9KgHT6NfyLeoGqdNA_2hmq24CdFO9k
What's coming will take much, much more than any "demands." It's the planet's intergovernmental will and commitment that matters. Big Fossil won't stop itself, and most scientists are wishful thinking about human inertia, and whether the planet's governments show coordinated will and nimble action. Humanity's children and grandchildren won't care what else humans have done, if we don't leave them a livable, verdant planet.
Recommended reading to help keep climate on radar, though one can see as one noodles through these, that current climate information sources are limitless.
NASAs Earth Climate Change Maps site includes more links
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/global-maps
Pollution maps that show biggest and smallest per capita polluters
https://data.worldbank.org/topic/environment
More climate data links like Google Earth Pro and others
https://gisgeography.com/wildfire-maps-real-time/
US Gov sources also listed under Wikipedia's 'Climate' entry
https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/nasa-world-fire-043232/
HelpImSurrounded
(482 posts)It was too late 50 years ago. Our government will never have the will to do anything as long as we as a people are so thoroughly divided and we sit on our hands and try to "reason" with MAGAts. And now that crowd is taking us backward. Earth's only real hope I that the rest of the world cuts off the US and moves forward without us until we get our collective head out of our ass. That's not going to happen.
Until we reclaim democracy and rule of law, nothing will change
ancianita
(38,058 posts)Demsrule86
(70,800 posts)ancianita
(38,058 posts)Demsrule86
(70,800 posts)ancianita
(38,058 posts)ck4829
(35,687 posts)Irish_Dem
(55,825 posts)It does not suit their agendas and it will cost them some serious cash.
ancianita
(38,058 posts)Irish_Dem
(55,825 posts)They have been buying up land in various parts of the globe they think will be safe.
Money has always cushioned them from any harsh realties.
ancianita
(38,058 posts)months. Already they've bought up New Zealand real estate and polar islands.
Irish_Dem
(55,825 posts)Yes they are buying up New Zealand land. Yes the poles might be a good spot as well.
The oligarchs have been amassing huge sums of money to build safe living quarters.
I suspect Elon Musk has even been toying with selling space stations to the ultra wealthy.
At any rate the rich and well connected will do fine. Money is a great cushion from reality.
CrispyQ
(37,932 posts)They have a bigger cushion so they will suffer the least & survive the longest but climate change will catch up with them, too. Living in a bunker isn't the same as visiting one for a weekend every now & then, & there's not much infrastructure to live a plush life in the northern/southern latitudes like Greenland or Antarctica. Still, they'll be here & we won't.
What a lot of people think will happen in 2050 or beyond is going to happen so much more quickly. I'm not sure we can imagine our world 10 years from now.
Irish_Dem
(55,825 posts)That is why they are buying land at the poles and New Zealand.
They just assume, as per usual, their vast wealth makes them immune from discomfort or calamity.
The oligarchs are accumulating vast amounts of money for a reason. I do think they believe they can replicate creature comforts anywhere on the planet with this vast wealth.
And yes the rest of us are very poorly informed and/or in grave denial about the future.
ananda
(30,349 posts)I thought Hurricane Katrina would have been a good harbinger,
among other events,
but, well, you know......... I also thought Bush v Gore would
awaken the masses, but, well, you know.............
HelpImSurrounded
(482 posts)ananda
(30,349 posts)I wish I was leaving them a better world.
ck4829
(35,687 posts)Ron Green
(9,839 posts)here on DU. Its as if the only topics we can discuss at length are the ones featured on TeeVee.
HelpImSurrounded
(482 posts)How much more is there to say? We've known about this for more than 100 years and ignored it at every juncture.
What is left to say?
We have a massive population of apex-consumers living in fantasy land who don't care and don't have to care. Instead they've built a fantasy around abortion, angels and armageddon. They won't give up their comfort for the sake of their children or grandchildren. They certainly won't give up that comfort for yours or people they've never met.
These people took control of school curriculum 50 years ago, undermined our math and science curriculums, diverted education funding to football and embraced a host of economic fallacies.
And we tried to reason with these people. decade after decade their fantasy became more complex and impenetrable and we tried to reason with them.
The only industry prepared for global warming is the insurance industry.
Oh, I FORGOT! Our Great Leap Forward in dealing with the problem was to rebrand it from cause to effect. THAT helped.
So, please, enlighten me. What is left to discuss?
Ron Green
(9,839 posts)Last edited Mon Jul 18, 2022, 05:25 PM - Edit history (1)
Joe Biden, going hat-in-hand to Saudi Arabia to ask for more gasoline.
There were no responses to that. So maybe that was other than at length.
What do YOU think about the failure of Democrats to address any of what youve cited above? You dont have to answer at length.
HelpImSurrounded
(482 posts)They failed us.
They failed us in some many ways.
They failed us so bad that in 2000 I did something I can't admit to here.
They ran away from the word liberal in 1988 and let us move to the right. And we've moved to the right and moved to the right. While Republicans spun up their cult on lies and fantasies democrats tried to be reasonable and we got moved to the right. While democrats spent the last 50 years on the defensive, Republicans went on the offensive and moved us to the right. Only two candidates ever offered me something to vote FOR instead of against - Wellstone and Obama. And that was while I live in Minnesota.
Now I live in Texas and I have no choice. I vote for whatever runs as a democrat and never vote for a republican. I donate outside my district to Warren, AOC and the The Squad and occasionally to some others.
Democrats need to go on the offensive. Our "great oligarchs", "Soros" and ...and... and dear gods SOMEBODY needs to initiate a hostile takeover of Fox. Quit starting negotiations "reasonably". Quit attacking our own left wing. EMBRACE our left as the GQP has embraced the right. USE our radical element as leverage to bring us back from the right to the center. Stop "defending choice" and seize "Bodily sovereignty for women". Reach for the GODDAMM STARS so that when we land on the moon we've gotten somewhere instead of trying "walk before we run."
Quit playing "where can we win" and run 50-state campaigns like Obama did.
In all honestly, we've failed on this so badly, the only solutions we have left involve intellectual, economic and physical violence and we can't discuss those ideas here.
GoodRaisin
(9,513 posts)If we dont win democracy we lose climate. Discuss saving democracy, a lot, leading up to this mid term election. We need a campaign message heavy in the Republican attack on democracy to make people who dont understand start understanding, and quickly.
ancianita
(38,058 posts)Got the bumper sticker to describe it: "It's the climate inertia, stupid."
A useless effort that has to be made for the record. Not all of us can live with ourselves in deflections, postponements and frozen fear. This is the hardest problem humans have to face, for good or ill.
ancianita
(38,058 posts)ancianita
(38,058 posts)Rank Candidate Office Amount
1 Manchin, Joe (D-WV) Senate $730,620
2 McCarthy, Kevin (R-CA) House $384,272
3 Lankford, James (R-OK) Senate $288,515
4 Pfluger, August (R-TX) House $282,652
5 Kennedy, John (R-LA) Senate $265,142
6 Murkowski, Lisa (R-AK) Senate $253,169
7 Sinema, Kyrsten (D-AZ) Senate $227,285
8 Hunt, Wesley (R-TX) $213,001
9 Scott, Tim (R-SC) Senate $198,012
10 Cuellar, Henry (D-TX) House $193,450
11 Fletcher, Lizzie (D-TX) House $190,365
12 Scalise, Steve (R-LA) House $190,213
13 Gonzales, Tony (R-TX) House $185,148
14 Crenshaw, Dan (R-TX) House $174,532
15 Herrell, Yvette (R-NM) House $173,219
16 Hoeven, John (R-ND) Senate $169,897
17 Rodgers, Cathy McMorris (R-WA) House $163,499
18 Rubio, Marco (R-FL) Senate $159,803
19 Mullin, Markwayne (R-OK) House $152,300
20 Zinke, Ryan (R-MT) $148,801
SunImp
(2,292 posts)betsuni
(27,251 posts)Last edited Tue Jul 19, 2022, 09:39 AM - Edit history (1)
I guess so. Don't understand why donations from workers are corrupting. I thought the working class was important.
ancianita
(38,058 posts)Johnny2X2X
(21,388 posts)Dems are on board, we know radical action is needed to avoid, or now just to mitigate, a calamity. But Republicans need to start understanding too. Much of the immigration we're seeing at the Southern Border is tied directly to Climate Change. Subsistence farming is dying out in Central America, causing the cities to be overpopulated, causing bad conditions there, so people immigrate to the US.
Many other issues they care about are affected by Climate Change too. Military budgets, foreign wars, stock prices. And everything in between. Global warming is going to cause an extreme amount of radical change in our society.
ancianita
(38,058 posts)Even the Democrats who get big fossil donations. We should make them divest and find other donors.
ancianita
(38,058 posts) https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change
https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/holding-major-fossil-fuel-companies-accountable
Saudi Aramco, Amin H. Al-Nasser, President & CEO, Yasir Al-Rumayyan,president
Chevron, Michael Wirth, chairman & CEO
Gazprom, Viktor Zubkov (Chairman), Alexey Miller (CEO)
Exxon-Mobil, Darren Woods (chairman & CEO)
National Iranian Oil Co. Bijan Namdar Zangeneh, chair Masoud Karbasian
BP British Petroleum, Helge Lund, chairman, Bernard Looney CEO
Royal Dutch Shell, Charles O. Holliday (chairperson), Ben van Beurden (CEO)
Pemex, Octavio Romero Oropeza , CEO
Petroleos de Venezuela, Asdrubal Chavez, President
Petro China, Zhou Jiping (Chairman), Wang Dongjin, CEO
Peabody Energy, Glenn L. Kellow, President & CEO
ConocoPhillips, Ryan Lance, Chairman & CEO
AbuDhabi National OilCompan, Hashem Hashem, CEO
Kuwait Petroleum Corporation,
IraqNational Oil Company, President of Iraq
Total SA, Patrick Pouyanné, Chairman & CEO
Sonatrach, Algerian government
BHP Billiton, Ken MacKenzie (chairperson), Mike Henry (CEO
Petrobras, Eduardo Bacellar,Pres; Roberto Castello Branco CEO
Executive decisions for Big Oils actions will be made by about 500 people (boards,etc.)
good people, patriotic politicians concerned for the fate of their beloved nations citizens;
hard-working corporate executives fulfilling their obligations to shareholders;
men, mostly; family men,well-educated, well-meaning,pillars of their communities, givers to charity, wanting the best for their children.
These men promote and enable, with TRILLIONS in yearly US subsidies (https://www.vox.com/2019/5/17/18624740/fossil-fuel-subsidies-climate-imf)
humans to burn 40 gigatons (gigaton = a biliion tons) of fossil carbon per year.
They are the RUB Rich Unconscious Bubble.
Tennessee Hillbilly
(652 posts)I haven't seen anything about how areas like China, India, and South America have also been impacted.
Here's a link to an article that describes some of the problems in China:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/7/17/2110734/-Nearly-one-billion-Chinese-suffer-extreme-humid-temperatures-Bodies-begin-to-pile-up-in-Europe
ancianita
(38,058 posts)have consistently covered international news for decades.
Wow. That link is an eye opener. Thank you.
That hippie video? Out of place. It doesn't capture the problem and looks more like how grasshoppers cope.
dalton99a
(83,754 posts)ancianita
(38,058 posts)Kaleva
(37,873 posts)Kaleva
(37,873 posts)Hugin
(34,407 posts)It's not merely climate change. It's climate obliteration. We'll suffocate long before we burn up.
ancianita
(38,058 posts)An obliteration scenario could be the drying up/disintegration of the oceans and its floating off into space like what happened with Venus.
Hugin
(34,407 posts)Working title, "Whistling Past Doomsday." Before it is too late. Maybe the alien archeologists will find it interesting.
The thing is, I'm not and never have been particularly environmentally active. My father was. I'm only an average person going about my business.
That is what makes this happening and ME of all people seeing it, horrifying.
ancianita
(38,058 posts)Write it so that our descendants know the forces who knowingly destroyed us.
Hugin
(34,407 posts)I have reduced my overall carbon footprint by at least 10x and probably closer to 100x over the last 15 years. I know, not nearly enough. It is something.
What I am finding the most striking is the changes I have seen in the local flora and fauna. The weeds and lizards common in the area are the type formerly found hundreds of miles south. Many of the larger trees are cooking on their west facing side. There are fewer birds and last summer there were mosquitoes. I had never seen more than a few here previously.
We had multitudes of squirrels 10 years ago. Now we only have two and those survive because my neighbor feeds them.
ancianita
(38,058 posts)I find the same differences in flora and fauna, too. Fewer mosquitos and fewer little birds. The big ones are still around because of the nearby lake, but I find that bugs are fewer.
My son told me that on his car trip to New Mexico there were no windshield bugs. That was troubling to him and me both.
Hugin
(34,407 posts)Formerly, the only bug free driving was in the coldest part of the winter. Spring and Summer, forget it.
Darn. Not good.
ancianita
(38,058 posts)other environments. From what I read of evolution, many who've been decimated return in great numbers again. And bugs are among the oldest species on the planet for that reaon. Take roaches, right? Alligators.
That's our climate mitigation goal. To offset carbon and keep heat no worse than it is so that ecosystems can recover.
Have you come across articles about once thought extinct animals appearing, suddenly being found?
Those articles really heartening.
Hugin
(34,407 posts)I have been following the footprint discoveries in white sands New Mexico.
There was a very good Nova on them recently and the prints have been dated to well before the 10k - 13k first entry theory. Speaking of things which should be headlines. It puts hunting into question as to the megafaunas extinction. Although, it is also clear they were indeed hunting them.
Previously there was some evidence in AZ, but, that was mostly trace. Now they have footprints. Enough so that the investigators were experimenting with different types of barrows they may have used.
ancianita
(38,058 posts)Interesting point about New Mexico prints and the hunting. Thanks.
I'm reminded of how our "modern" hunters have put so much toxic lead into pristine ecosystems with just outdoor shooting practice, not even hunting for food.
I recently saw a good show (maybe Nova, I forget) about the introduction of wolves into Yellowstone decades ago, and how their existence drove out deer and other prey that had overrun the region's flora. Then grasslands came back, aspens grew, and beavers returned, their dams changing the water systems and creating lots of new ecosystems for new animals. And then the deer and elk returned. It was a fine example of how restoring apex predators can balance can thin the density of overeaters in ecosystems.
H2O Man
(75,151 posts)Thank you for this.