Amazing anyone would cross the Pacific in some of those boats.
I wouldn't trust them on Lake Erie.
Showing posts with label Soylent Green is coming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Soylent Green is coming. Show all posts
Saturday, August 8, 2020
Thursday, April 23, 2020
Planet of the Humans
Yes, the movie now free on You Tube and, actually, other places.
Nobody's fixing this.
There is no clean source of energy to replace fossil fuels.
(No, nukes are not at all clean.)
There is no happy ending.
The idea of Mr. Gibbs that the corruption of the environmental movement is down to capitalism - as though socialism or communism or something would not have been capable of such - is silly.
Their idea that humanity just has to "get itself under control" to somehow manage a soft landing for a human population far too large to survive the coming energy famine and somehow wind down the good times of the fossil fuel age is also silly.
We're going to crash and burn.
And maybe a mad virus that spreads like Covid-19 and kills like Ebola will do it after two or three consecutive runs round the globe.
And, anyway, quite apart from all that, neither humanity nor planet Earth nor our solar system nor the milky way nor indeed the universe as a whole is forever.
Humans will eventually go extinct in the face of some challenge they cannot overcome and may not even understand.
This is a fact sensible, educated people have lived with for a couple of centuries, and most pre-scientific cultures did not envision humanity living continuously over the future forever, either.
Why does anybody think not only that people will freak at that idea but that they should?
Oddly it seems like lots and lots of people think that.
Why are they right - not that people should freak but that they will?
Nobody's fixing this.
There is no clean source of energy to replace fossil fuels.
(No, nukes are not at all clean.)
There is no happy ending.
The idea of Mr. Gibbs that the corruption of the environmental movement is down to capitalism - as though socialism or communism or something would not have been capable of such - is silly.
Their idea that humanity just has to "get itself under control" to somehow manage a soft landing for a human population far too large to survive the coming energy famine and somehow wind down the good times of the fossil fuel age is also silly.
We're going to crash and burn.
And maybe a mad virus that spreads like Covid-19 and kills like Ebola will do it after two or three consecutive runs round the globe.
And, anyway, quite apart from all that, neither humanity nor planet Earth nor our solar system nor the milky way nor indeed the universe as a whole is forever.
Humans will eventually go extinct in the face of some challenge they cannot overcome and may not even understand.
This is a fact sensible, educated people have lived with for a couple of centuries, and most pre-scientific cultures did not envision humanity living continuously over the future forever, either.
Why does anybody think not only that people will freak at that idea but that they should?
Oddly it seems like lots and lots of people think that.
Why are they right - not that people should freak but that they will?
Wednesday, April 8, 2020
Will they be harvesting discarded plastic from the oceans and rivers of the world, now?
Scientists create mutant enzyme that recycles plastic bottles in hours
Maybe.
A mutant bacterial enzyme that breaks down plastic bottles for recycling in hours has been created by scientists.
The enzyme, originally discovered in a compost heap of leaves, reduced the bottles to chemical building blocks that were then used to make high-quality new bottles.
Existing recycling technologies usually produce plastic only good enough for clothing and carpets.
The company behind the breakthrough, Carbios, said it was aiming for industrial-scale recycling within five years.
It has partnered with major companies including Pepsi and L’Oréal to accelerate development.
Independent experts called the new enzyme a major advance.
Billions of tonnes of plastic waste have polluted the planet, from the Arctic to the deepest ocean trench, and pose a particular risk to sea life.
Campaigners say reducing the use of plastic is key, but the company said the strong, lightweight material was very useful and that true recycling was part of the solution.
Maybe.
A mutant bacterial enzyme that breaks down plastic bottles for recycling in hours has been created by scientists.
The enzyme, originally discovered in a compost heap of leaves, reduced the bottles to chemical building blocks that were then used to make high-quality new bottles.
Existing recycling technologies usually produce plastic only good enough for clothing and carpets.
The company behind the breakthrough, Carbios, said it was aiming for industrial-scale recycling within five years.
It has partnered with major companies including Pepsi and L’Oréal to accelerate development.
Independent experts called the new enzyme a major advance.
Billions of tonnes of plastic waste have polluted the planet, from the Arctic to the deepest ocean trench, and pose a particular risk to sea life.
Campaigners say reducing the use of plastic is key, but the company said the strong, lightweight material was very useful and that true recycling was part of the solution.
Saturday, July 13, 2019
Time to abandon NOLA
Barry is expected to hit as a Category 1 hurricane
Or they're going to need tens of billions from FEMA every single year to keep rebuilding that city after annual devastation in that increasingly absurd and uninhabitable location.
And this is only the beginning.
We have lots of really big coastal cities.
And not too many inland cities to pay the freight.
And that's a big part of what future politics will be about, though of course both sides will make it about race just as much as they can.
Most of the American people live near coasts, and their cities and towns will need increasingly huge annual relief from the taxpayers in areas not annually destroyed.
The Democrats in the House will routinely OK these massive and increasingly conficatory and unsustainable bailouts, while the Republicans in the Senate will resist.
Or they're going to need tens of billions from FEMA every single year to keep rebuilding that city after annual devastation in that increasingly absurd and uninhabitable location.
And this is only the beginning.
We have lots of really big coastal cities.
And not too many inland cities to pay the freight.
And that's a big part of what future politics will be about, though of course both sides will make it about race just as much as they can.
Most of the American people live near coasts, and their cities and towns will need increasingly huge annual relief from the taxpayers in areas not annually destroyed.
The Democrats in the House will routinely OK these massive and increasingly conficatory and unsustainable bailouts, while the Republicans in the Senate will resist.
Tuesday, July 2, 2019
So far this year
I have seen no more than 4 honey bees, no more than three bumble bees, and no wasps or hornets.
I have done some yard work, I have taken my exercise walk outside whenever weather has permitted, and there are always the walks to and from the car at the house, the mall, the grocery store, the barber, and so on.
All the birds just disappeared.
I have done some yard work, I have taken my exercise walk outside whenever weather has permitted, and there are always the walks to and from the car at the house, the mall, the grocery store, the barber, and so on.
[And the hospitals and doctors' offices.Imagine a movie the reverse of The Birds.
My wife has not been well since early last October.
Sometimes I am frightened.
Sometimes she breaks down and despairs, just tired of it all.]
All the birds just disappeared.
Tuesday, April 23, 2019
A Gedankenexperiment: The coming dystopia/utopia
Stiglitz in the Times the other day wrote that in maybe a decade nearly all the country's people who drive for a living will be out of work.
He thinks they need to be somehow retrained.
It's a mug's game.
In, oh, maybe fifty years or so there will be no job at all that cannot be done better and cheaper by an AI-driven machine than by a human.
Even a superlatively talented, educated, and skilled human.
Even a human starved and naked and desperate enough to work 16 hours every day and live in a camp the Nazis would have been ashamed of.
Even those humans will cost more than they are worth.
Let's suppose this is not just another version of the endless Terminator series, and the machines do not decide to kill us all, do not rebel at all, but stick to their lasts.
Those who own the machines will live lives of leisure, and the machine economy will produce ever more astonishing luxuries, using ever more fabulous technology produced by itself, based on ever advancing math and science produced by itself, for the humans who own the machines.
Any other humans, humans who do not own, humans who are not personally capitalists, will survive how, if at all?
Because at any price they will cost more than they are worth to the machine economy, they will not be a part of it and so will have nothing that counts as currency.
So they cannot buy anything from the machine economy.
The machine economy will be as irrelevant to them as they to it.
So they will produce for and buy from each other in isolated communities, like the communities of runaway slaves in Latin America while there still was slavery in the Americas.
An entirely separate and independent, human economy will exist.
Or several, perhaps as many as there are separate communities.
There is a limit to how far their technology can advance, how wealthy they can become in their own, independent history, however.
Actually, two.
One limit is AI.
If they reinvented it their history would repeat in their communities the history that pushed them out of the AI run machine economies in the first place.
But the other limit will prevent that, anyway.
And that is resources.
Between now and this future the world will extravagantly overpopulate, it will overheat, it will use up much that is non-renewable, and the seas will be dead and the air will be noxious.
Think Soylent Green, only worse.
And then think of a version of the movie Elysium in which the rich with their AI run machines have no use whatever for the descendants of their erstwhile proles, so those descendants live in a wretched, polluted, miserable world as well as they can, with their own separate, independent, and wretched, and poor economy.
Think of the wretched urban masses of India, and then imagine worse.
That is a dystopia of the future.
Or could they gradually go extinct, the descendants of the proles made superfluous to the capitalist economy that developed and turned itself over to AI?
Then nobody would be left but the leisured capitalists and their fantastic, ever better and richer and more wonderful AI machine economy.
That is a utopia of the future.
And that is how we get there, on the other side of dystopia.
Just a thought.
He thinks they need to be somehow retrained.
It's a mug's game.
In, oh, maybe fifty years or so there will be no job at all that cannot be done better and cheaper by an AI-driven machine than by a human.
Even a superlatively talented, educated, and skilled human.
Even a human starved and naked and desperate enough to work 16 hours every day and live in a camp the Nazis would have been ashamed of.
Even those humans will cost more than they are worth.
Let's suppose this is not just another version of the endless Terminator series, and the machines do not decide to kill us all, do not rebel at all, but stick to their lasts.
Those who own the machines will live lives of leisure, and the machine economy will produce ever more astonishing luxuries, using ever more fabulous technology produced by itself, based on ever advancing math and science produced by itself, for the humans who own the machines.
Any other humans, humans who do not own, humans who are not personally capitalists, will survive how, if at all?
Because at any price they will cost more than they are worth to the machine economy, they will not be a part of it and so will have nothing that counts as currency.
So they cannot buy anything from the machine economy.
The machine economy will be as irrelevant to them as they to it.
So they will produce for and buy from each other in isolated communities, like the communities of runaway slaves in Latin America while there still was slavery in the Americas.
An entirely separate and independent, human economy will exist.
Or several, perhaps as many as there are separate communities.
There is a limit to how far their technology can advance, how wealthy they can become in their own, independent history, however.
Actually, two.
One limit is AI.
If they reinvented it their history would repeat in their communities the history that pushed them out of the AI run machine economies in the first place.
But the other limit will prevent that, anyway.
And that is resources.
Between now and this future the world will extravagantly overpopulate, it will overheat, it will use up much that is non-renewable, and the seas will be dead and the air will be noxious.
Think Soylent Green, only worse.
And then think of a version of the movie Elysium in which the rich with their AI run machines have no use whatever for the descendants of their erstwhile proles, so those descendants live in a wretched, polluted, miserable world as well as they can, with their own separate, independent, and wretched, and poor economy.
Think of the wretched urban masses of India, and then imagine worse.
That is a dystopia of the future.
Or could they gradually go extinct, the descendants of the proles made superfluous to the capitalist economy that developed and turned itself over to AI?
Then nobody would be left but the leisured capitalists and their fantastic, ever better and richer and more wonderful AI machine economy.
That is a utopia of the future.
And that is how we get there, on the other side of dystopia.
Just a thought.
April is the cruelest month
Saw my first bumblebee today.
I have seen no more than two or three honey bees so far.
The front yard is covered with dandelions and the lilacs are in full bloom beside the house.
They should be covered with busy honey bees.
Not a one.
I have seen no more than two or three honey bees so far.
The front yard is covered with dandelions and the lilacs are in full bloom beside the house.
They should be covered with busy honey bees.
Not a one.
Wednesday, April 17, 2019
Remember Seattle?
Far too many people on the left share the view of so many on the right that their ends justify the use of any means necessary.
People like this give a good cause a bad name and explain the low opinion almost universal among ordinary folks of "activists".
Climate Activists Occupy Major London Landmarks for a Third Day
Climate activists glued themselves to the top of a London commuter train, blocked a major bridge at rush hour by staging a group yoga class and occupied four major London landmarks for a third day on Wednesday as part of a global civil disobedience campaign that demands government action on climate change.
Major London road junctions and tourist sites, including Marble Arch, Oxford Circus and Waterloo Bridge, have been at a standstill since Monday, as hundreds of environmental activists have staged events, formed roadblocks and camped out in colorful tents in scenes reminiscent of the Occupy movement of the past.
Further confrontations were expected after the Metropolitan Police announced their intention to limit the protests only to the area around Marble Arch, and began working to remove protesters from their encampments at Oxford Circus and Waterloo Bridge.
“We will not leave until our concerns are addressed,” said Cressida Thomas, a student from Bristol, after the police warned her to move her tent in Oxford Circus.
“That could take weeks or months. The more of us they arrest the better, it will only bring more attention to the cause.’’
People like this give a good cause a bad name and explain the low opinion almost universal among ordinary folks of "activists".
Climate Activists Occupy Major London Landmarks for a Third Day
Climate activists glued themselves to the top of a London commuter train, blocked a major bridge at rush hour by staging a group yoga class and occupied four major London landmarks for a third day on Wednesday as part of a global civil disobedience campaign that demands government action on climate change.
Major London road junctions and tourist sites, including Marble Arch, Oxford Circus and Waterloo Bridge, have been at a standstill since Monday, as hundreds of environmental activists have staged events, formed roadblocks and camped out in colorful tents in scenes reminiscent of the Occupy movement of the past.
Further confrontations were expected after the Metropolitan Police announced their intention to limit the protests only to the area around Marble Arch, and began working to remove protesters from their encampments at Oxford Circus and Waterloo Bridge.
“We will not leave until our concerns are addressed,” said Cressida Thomas, a student from Bristol, after the police warned her to move her tent in Oxford Circus.
“That could take weeks or months. The more of us they arrest the better, it will only bring more attention to the cause.’’
Monday, March 18, 2019
Time for a global ban. We are so fouling the nest.
88 Pounds of Plastic Found in Dead Whale in the Philippines
A beached whale found in the Philippines on Saturday died with 88 pounds of plastic trash inside its body, an unusually large amount even by the grim standards of what is a common threat to marine wildlife.
The 1,100-pound whale, measuring 15 feet long, was found in the town of Mabini with more than 40 pounds of plastic bags inside its stomach, along with a variety of other disposable plastic products.
Darrell Blatchley, owner of the D’Bone Collector Museum in Davao City, attended a necropsy on the whale and called it the worst collection of plastic inside an animal he had ever seen.
“The plastic in some areas was so compact it was almost becoming calcified, almost like a solid brick,” said Mr. Blatchley, who has seen other marine mammal post-mortems.
“It had been there for so long it had started to compact.”
Ingesting plastic gives whales a false sensation of fullness without providing any of the nutrients they need.
It leads to reduced weight, energy and swimming speed, making them more vulnerable to predators.
They have no way of digesting or expelling the plastic.
The whale’s grisly death brought renewed focus to the worldwide problem of plastics ending up in oceans; a 2015 study estimated that five million to 13 million metric tons of plastic waste pollute oceans each year.
A beached whale found in the Philippines on Saturday died with 88 pounds of plastic trash inside its body, an unusually large amount even by the grim standards of what is a common threat to marine wildlife.
The 1,100-pound whale, measuring 15 feet long, was found in the town of Mabini with more than 40 pounds of plastic bags inside its stomach, along with a variety of other disposable plastic products.
Darrell Blatchley, owner of the D’Bone Collector Museum in Davao City, attended a necropsy on the whale and called it the worst collection of plastic inside an animal he had ever seen.
“The plastic in some areas was so compact it was almost becoming calcified, almost like a solid brick,” said Mr. Blatchley, who has seen other marine mammal post-mortems.
“It had been there for so long it had started to compact.”
Ingesting plastic gives whales a false sensation of fullness without providing any of the nutrients they need.
It leads to reduced weight, energy and swimming speed, making them more vulnerable to predators.
They have no way of digesting or expelling the plastic.
The whale’s grisly death brought renewed focus to the worldwide problem of plastics ending up in oceans; a 2015 study estimated that five million to 13 million metric tons of plastic waste pollute oceans each year.
Wednesday, March 13, 2019
Humans need to figure out how to do without population growth
A Flurry of Ideas to Reverse China’s Declining Birthrate, but Will Beijing Listen?
Cannot China, cannot the world, do without constant population growth?
If not, Soylent Green is coming.
For more than three decades, China enforced its “one child” policy harshly, imposing fines and in some cases abortions and sterilizations.
The government only relented in 2016 after experts anticipated the demographic issues that the country is now facing.
Virtually all families can now have two children, but the anticipated baby boom did not materialize.
In the last two years, births have dropped precipitously, falling by 12 percent in 2018.
The trend has prompted increasingly dire warnings that China faces a graying population and a dwindling work force to support it in the decades ahead.
Cannot China, cannot the world, do without constant population growth?
If not, Soylent Green is coming.
For more than three decades, China enforced its “one child” policy harshly, imposing fines and in some cases abortions and sterilizations.
The government only relented in 2016 after experts anticipated the demographic issues that the country is now facing.
Virtually all families can now have two children, but the anticipated baby boom did not materialize.
In the last two years, births have dropped precipitously, falling by 12 percent in 2018.
The trend has prompted increasingly dire warnings that China faces a graying population and a dwindling work force to support it in the decades ahead.
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
Trump continues to mainstream hoaxes, conspiracy theories, and egregious bullshit
He's trying to help the loony deniers grow in strength against the scientific establishment and the scientists working for the US government who all maintain it's real.
Remember that poor kid whose anti-vaxxer parents got their medical information from Facebook while he turned to the CDC and WebMD?
Trump, himself an anti-vaxxer, is those parents.
He is a mindless gargoyle pouring filth and disinformation into the mainstream via the bully pulpit and social media.
His presidency is the best thing that ever happened to the loonies.
After social media and the Internet.
Hooray for the world wide web.
Trump Parrots Anti-Science Misinformation As He Readies Climate Change Panel
Trump is preparing to convene an ad-hoc panel of scientists and researchers to challenge the scientific consensus that climate change is an immediate crisis driven by fossil fuels.
The panel will conduct “adversarial scientific peer review” of near-universally accepted climate science, according to reporting by E&E News.
One of its primary targets being the National Climate Assessment, a federal report released in November that concluded planetary warming “could increase by 9°F (5°C) or more by the end of this century” if governments don’t implement dramatic emission reductions.
Trump’s reported pick to lead the committee is William Happer, a retired Princeton physics professor with no expertise in climatology.
Happer co-founded the CO2 Coalition in 2015 and now serves as Trump’s deputy assistant for emerging technologies on the National Security Council.
He had called climate science a “cult,” claimed Earth is in the midst of a “CO2 famine,” and said the “demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler.”
Remember that poor kid whose anti-vaxxer parents got their medical information from Facebook while he turned to the CDC and WebMD?
Trump, himself an anti-vaxxer, is those parents.
He is a mindless gargoyle pouring filth and disinformation into the mainstream via the bully pulpit and social media.
His presidency is the best thing that ever happened to the loonies.
After social media and the Internet.
Hooray for the world wide web.
Trump Parrots Anti-Science Misinformation As He Readies Climate Change Panel
Trump is preparing to convene an ad-hoc panel of scientists and researchers to challenge the scientific consensus that climate change is an immediate crisis driven by fossil fuels.
The panel will conduct “adversarial scientific peer review” of near-universally accepted climate science, according to reporting by E&E News.
One of its primary targets being the National Climate Assessment, a federal report released in November that concluded planetary warming “could increase by 9°F (5°C) or more by the end of this century” if governments don’t implement dramatic emission reductions.
Trump’s reported pick to lead the committee is William Happer, a retired Princeton physics professor with no expertise in climatology.
Happer co-founded the CO2 Coalition in 2015 and now serves as Trump’s deputy assistant for emerging technologies on the National Security Council.
He had called climate science a “cult,” claimed Earth is in the midst of a “CO2 famine,” and said the “demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler.”
Friday, February 8, 2019
Leaving it in the ground
Those in the best position to estimate the damage of continuing use of fossil fuels generally urge leaving as much of them as possible unused, in the ground, forever.
But all those reserves are owned by amazingly powerful and frequently utterly unscrupulous interests.
Remember what happened to Khashoggi and how abject Trump has been and remains toward the utterly tyrannical and murderous Saudi Kronprinz (prince héritier) Mohammed Bin Salman.
It is those interests, way more powerful globally and in America than the tobacco industry ever was, I would guess, that created global warming denial and made it a key part of the toxic sludge that is the ideology of today's Republican Party.
All those interests really don't give a shit about what happens to everybody else.
They figure they can run the planet into the ground and they and their descendants will always be able to shift all the costs and damage onto us hoi polloi.
The only way we win is for some at least of the rich and super-rich who are not themselves on the fossil fuel gravy train to make common cause with the rest of us.
And that might not be enough, either.
Particularly since it seems to be uncontroversial that, the more we leave unused in the ground, the poorer all of us collectively will be, especially in the short run.
Update.
But I may never know.
I'm 70 and not in totally good health.
So, there's that.
But all those reserves are owned by amazingly powerful and frequently utterly unscrupulous interests.
Remember what happened to Khashoggi and how abject Trump has been and remains toward the utterly tyrannical and murderous Saudi Kronprinz (prince héritier) Mohammed Bin Salman.
It is those interests, way more powerful globally and in America than the tobacco industry ever was, I would guess, that created global warming denial and made it a key part of the toxic sludge that is the ideology of today's Republican Party.
All those interests really don't give a shit about what happens to everybody else.
They figure they can run the planet into the ground and they and their descendants will always be able to shift all the costs and damage onto us hoi polloi.
The only way we win is for some at least of the rich and super-rich who are not themselves on the fossil fuel gravy train to make common cause with the rest of us.
And that might not be enough, either.
Particularly since it seems to be uncontroversial that, the more we leave unused in the ground, the poorer all of us collectively will be, especially in the short run.
Update.
But I may never know.
I'm 70 and not in totally good health.
So, there's that.
Wednesday, February 6, 2019
Humans causing mass extinction
The killing of large species is pushing them towards extinction, study finds
The vast majority of the world’s largest species are being pushed towards extinction, with the killing of the heftiest animals for meat and body parts the leading cause of decline, according to a new study.
The vast majority of the world’s largest species are being pushed towards extinction, with the killing of the heftiest animals for meat and body parts the leading cause of decline, according to a new study.
Saturday, February 2, 2019
Worse and quicker
Global Warming caused Enormous city-sized Hole discovered in Antarctic Glacier
The very conservative UN IPCC reports had predicted 4 feet of sea level rise by the end of this century.
But if the Thwaite is dissolved before than, it could be 14 feet.
The elevation of Miami is 6.5 feet.
It is gone.
Half of New Orleans is below sea level and the other half can be as high as 20 feet.
Most of the city is gone without billions of dollars in dikes.
It isn’t the Arizona desert that needs a wall.
Even for cities higher than that, such as Houston, which is 50 feet above sea level downtown, the danger of storm surges grows as the sea level rises.
Hurricane Sandy in New York produced 14 foot storm surges, while the storm walls were only 12 feet high.
If the sea itself was 14 feet higher, the surges would be much higher, too.
The very conservative UN IPCC reports had predicted 4 feet of sea level rise by the end of this century.
But if the Thwaite is dissolved before than, it could be 14 feet.
The elevation of Miami is 6.5 feet.
It is gone.
Half of New Orleans is below sea level and the other half can be as high as 20 feet.
Most of the city is gone without billions of dollars in dikes.
It isn’t the Arizona desert that needs a wall.
Even for cities higher than that, such as Houston, which is 50 feet above sea level downtown, the danger of storm surges grows as the sea level rises.
Hurricane Sandy in New York produced 14 foot storm surges, while the storm walls were only 12 feet high.
If the sea itself was 14 feet higher, the surges would be much higher, too.
Sunday, December 2, 2018
"I don't believe it." "I'm very smart."
Is he really as stupid as he seems to be?
Or is it all some kind of act?
And in which case is he more despicable and wholly unfit for the job?
As if to justify his dismissal of the report, Trump explained that smart people realize that if there were a problem US cuts to emissions would do no good so long as the rest of the world refused to cut emissions and continued to contribute to the problem.
A reporter pointed out that the whole rest of the world signed onto and still supports the Paris Accords, while the US under Trump and his government is the only country to have reneged on its commitments under that accord.
US alone in not supporting climate language in G20 communique
The United States was notably alone in not agreeing to part of a joint statement from the G20 summit regarding climate change.
A clause in an agreement says the US “reiterates its decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, and affirms its strong commitment to economic growth and energy access and security, utilizing all energy sources and technologies, while protecting the environment.”
The communique document obtained by CNN includes a section on climate that says signatories to the Paris climate accord reaffirm the agreement “is irreversible and commit to its full implementation, reflecting common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in light of different national circumstances.”
Donald Trump buried a climate change report because 'I don't believe it'
President Donald Trump on Monday dismissed a study produced by his own administration, involving 13 federal agencies and more than 300 leading climate scientists, warning of the potentially catastrophic impact of climate change.
Why, you ask?
"I don't believe it," Trump told reporters on Monday, adding that he had read "some" of the report.
. . . .
Just over eight years ago, he tweeted this: "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive."
In 2014, he penned this tweet: "It's late in July and it is really cold outside in New York. Where the hell is GLOBAL WARMING??? We need some fast! It's now CLIMATE CHANGE."
And then, this from last Wednesday: "Brutal and Extended Cold Blast could shatter ALL RECORDS - Whatever happened to Global Warming?"
(Here are 20 more times in which Trump has dismissed the idea of global warming and/or climate change.)
All of which brings me to last Friday -- 48 hours after Trump's how-can-the-world's-climate-be-changing-if-it's-cold-in-half-the-country-on-one-day tweet -- and the moved-up release of the Fourth National Climate Assessment.
If you missed the study's release, well, that was the point.
It was originally slated to be made public next month but was suddenly released on the day after Thanksgiving, aka Black Friday, when the country shops, eats, hangs with family and pays a total of zero attention to what's going on in politics.
Outside of Christmas and the actual day of Thanksgiving, there's no better day to drop bad news that you don't want people to see.
Because there are VERY few coincidences in politics, the decision to speed up the release of the report to the day after Thanksgiving -- rather than, say, today -- was clearly a move by the administration to cover up what they see to be bad news.
Or, better put, news that challenges Trump's fact-free position that all of this talk of global warming and climate change is belied by, uh, the fact that it was cold in the Northeast on the day before Thanksgiving.
Trump Says He’s Too Intelligent to Believe Climate Change Report
The Trump administration’s effort to delegitimize its own climate change report continued Tuesday night, with President Trump declaring himself not a “believer” of the 1,600-page National Climate Assessment, which paints a dire picture of the coming effects of global warming.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Trump cited his own “high levels of intelligence” when asked why he was skeptical of the report, which was prepared with the input of 13 different federal agencies and 300 scientists.
“One of the problems that a lot of people like myself — we have very high levels of intelligence, but we’re not necessarily such believers,” Trump said.
Or is it all some kind of act?
And in which case is he more despicable and wholly unfit for the job?
As if to justify his dismissal of the report, Trump explained that smart people realize that if there were a problem US cuts to emissions would do no good so long as the rest of the world refused to cut emissions and continued to contribute to the problem.
A reporter pointed out that the whole rest of the world signed onto and still supports the Paris Accords, while the US under Trump and his government is the only country to have reneged on its commitments under that accord.
US alone in not supporting climate language in G20 communique
The United States was notably alone in not agreeing to part of a joint statement from the G20 summit regarding climate change.
A clause in an agreement says the US “reiterates its decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, and affirms its strong commitment to economic growth and energy access and security, utilizing all energy sources and technologies, while protecting the environment.”
The communique document obtained by CNN includes a section on climate that says signatories to the Paris climate accord reaffirm the agreement “is irreversible and commit to its full implementation, reflecting common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in light of different national circumstances.”
Donald Trump buried a climate change report because 'I don't believe it'
President Donald Trump on Monday dismissed a study produced by his own administration, involving 13 federal agencies and more than 300 leading climate scientists, warning of the potentially catastrophic impact of climate change.
Why, you ask?
"I don't believe it," Trump told reporters on Monday, adding that he had read "some" of the report.
. . . .
Just over eight years ago, he tweeted this: "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive."
In 2014, he penned this tweet: "It's late in July and it is really cold outside in New York. Where the hell is GLOBAL WARMING??? We need some fast! It's now CLIMATE CHANGE."
And then, this from last Wednesday: "Brutal and Extended Cold Blast could shatter ALL RECORDS - Whatever happened to Global Warming?"
(Here are 20 more times in which Trump has dismissed the idea of global warming and/or climate change.)
All of which brings me to last Friday -- 48 hours after Trump's how-can-the-world's-climate-be-changing-if-it's-cold-in-half-the-country-on-one-day tweet -- and the moved-up release of the Fourth National Climate Assessment.
If you missed the study's release, well, that was the point.
It was originally slated to be made public next month but was suddenly released on the day after Thanksgiving, aka Black Friday, when the country shops, eats, hangs with family and pays a total of zero attention to what's going on in politics.
Outside of Christmas and the actual day of Thanksgiving, there's no better day to drop bad news that you don't want people to see.
Because there are VERY few coincidences in politics, the decision to speed up the release of the report to the day after Thanksgiving -- rather than, say, today -- was clearly a move by the administration to cover up what they see to be bad news.
Or, better put, news that challenges Trump's fact-free position that all of this talk of global warming and climate change is belied by, uh, the fact that it was cold in the Northeast on the day before Thanksgiving.
Trump Says He’s Too Intelligent to Believe Climate Change Report
The Trump administration’s effort to delegitimize its own climate change report continued Tuesday night, with President Trump declaring himself not a “believer” of the 1,600-page National Climate Assessment, which paints a dire picture of the coming effects of global warming.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Trump cited his own “high levels of intelligence” when asked why he was skeptical of the report, which was prepared with the input of 13 different federal agencies and 300 scientists.
“One of the problems that a lot of people like myself — we have very high levels of intelligence, but we’re not necessarily such believers,” Trump said.
Wednesday, October 3, 2018
Electric cars still suck. Will they be better by 2030?
They cost too much, they have too short a range, and they take too long to recharge.
No ordinary person could even buy one, absent huge subsidies.
And yet, this.
Le Danemark veut mettre fin aux voitures essence et diesel d’ici à 2030
Le Premier ministre danois, Lars Lokke Rasmussen (Parti libéral), veut interdire la vente de voitures à moteur thermique d’ici à 2030.
En outre, le gouvernement désire faire en sorte que 1 million de voitures électriques soient en circulation dans le royaume à cette date – ce qui correspond à un tiers des véhicules personnels des Danois.
L’idée semble “fortement optimiste, sachant que le nombre de voitures électriques vendues cette année se limite à 1 200”, estime le quotidien libéral Politiken, qui consacre sa une du jour à ce sujet.
D’après le journal, trois obstacles risquent en effet d’entraver le projet du gouvernement du royaume.
Tout d’abord, les voitures électriques sont plus chères que les voitures traditionnelles.
Ensuite, la technologie n’est pas encore au point – par exemple, il n’y a pas suffisamment de stations de recharge.
Enfin, les Danois gardent en moyenne leur voiture pendant quinze ans. Il faut donc agir très vite si on veut qu’un tiers du parc automobile soit changé d’ici douze ans, souligne Politiken.
And how are they going to produce all the needed additional electricity?
Nukes are too dangerous for humans to play with, but is anything safer economically practical?
No ordinary person could even buy one, absent huge subsidies.
And yet, this.
Le Danemark veut mettre fin aux voitures essence et diesel d’ici à 2030
Le Premier ministre danois, Lars Lokke Rasmussen (Parti libéral), veut interdire la vente de voitures à moteur thermique d’ici à 2030.
En outre, le gouvernement désire faire en sorte que 1 million de voitures électriques soient en circulation dans le royaume à cette date – ce qui correspond à un tiers des véhicules personnels des Danois.
L’idée semble “fortement optimiste, sachant que le nombre de voitures électriques vendues cette année se limite à 1 200”, estime le quotidien libéral Politiken, qui consacre sa une du jour à ce sujet.
D’après le journal, trois obstacles risquent en effet d’entraver le projet du gouvernement du royaume.
Tout d’abord, les voitures électriques sont plus chères que les voitures traditionnelles.
Ensuite, la technologie n’est pas encore au point – par exemple, il n’y a pas suffisamment de stations de recharge.
Enfin, les Danois gardent en moyenne leur voiture pendant quinze ans. Il faut donc agir très vite si on veut qu’un tiers du parc automobile soit changé d’ici douze ans, souligne Politiken.
And how are they going to produce all the needed additional electricity?
Nukes are too dangerous for humans to play with, but is anything safer economically practical?
Wednesday, June 27, 2018
Oh really?
The point of killing the man-eating tiger is not to send other tigers a message.
The point of putting down the man-attacking dog is not to send other dogs a message.
And neither is it to end once and for all tiger attacks on people (though extinction will do that, probably, fairly soon), or to end once and for all attacks by dogs on children.
The point is to end attacks by that tiger, or by that dog.
And there is not the slightest doubt it works.
Harsher punishment won’t keep kids safe from sexual abuse: the death penalty in India
The point of putting down the man-attacking dog is not to send other dogs a message.
And neither is it to end once and for all tiger attacks on people (though extinction will do that, probably, fairly soon), or to end once and for all attacks by dogs on children.
The point is to end attacks by that tiger, or by that dog.
And there is not the slightest doubt it works.
Harsher punishment won’t keep kids safe from sexual abuse: the death penalty in India
Thursday, April 19, 2018
Falling dominoes
Damage to Great Barrier Reef From Global Warming Is Irreversible, Scientists Say
An underwater heat wave that damaged huge sections of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef two years ago spurred a die-off of coral so severe that scientists say the natural wonder will never look the same again.
Scientists said nearly one-third of the reef’s coral were killed when ocean temperatures spiked in 2016, a result of global warming, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
An underwater heat wave that damaged huge sections of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef two years ago spurred a die-off of coral so severe that scientists say the natural wonder will never look the same again.
Scientists said nearly one-third of the reef’s coral were killed when ocean temperatures spiked in 2016, a result of global warming, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
Sunday, April 15, 2018
Teddy Roosevelt would spin in his grave
Gray Ghosts, the Last Caribou in the Lower 48 States, Are ‘Functionally Extinct’
The battle to save the so-called gray ghosts — the only herd of caribou in the lower 48 states — has been lost.
A recent aerial survey shows that this international herd of southern mountain caribou, which spends part of its year in the Selkirk Mountains of northern Idaho and Washington near the Canadian border, has dwindled to just three animals and should be considered “functionally extinct,” experts say.
The Selkirk herd had been disappearing for the last several years.
In 2009, the herd, the southernmost in North America, had about 50 animals and was declining. Wildlife officials in Canada began a last-ditch effort to protect them by killing wolves, which occasionally preyed on the few caribou that remained.
But the root cause of the extirpation of this herd and the decline of others in Canada is extensive industrial development in British Columbia, experts say.
“The functional loss of this herd is the legacy of decades of government mismanagement across caribou range,” said Mark Hebblewhite, a wildlife biologist at the University of Montana.
British Columbia “has permitted logging, road building, unsustainable recreation, oil and gas development, and mining to continue in mountain caribou habitat,” he added.
“The tragic outcome was very predictable.”
The battle to save the so-called gray ghosts — the only herd of caribou in the lower 48 states — has been lost.
A recent aerial survey shows that this international herd of southern mountain caribou, which spends part of its year in the Selkirk Mountains of northern Idaho and Washington near the Canadian border, has dwindled to just three animals and should be considered “functionally extinct,” experts say.
The Selkirk herd had been disappearing for the last several years.
In 2009, the herd, the southernmost in North America, had about 50 animals and was declining. Wildlife officials in Canada began a last-ditch effort to protect them by killing wolves, which occasionally preyed on the few caribou that remained.
But the root cause of the extirpation of this herd and the decline of others in Canada is extensive industrial development in British Columbia, experts say.
“The functional loss of this herd is the legacy of decades of government mismanagement across caribou range,” said Mark Hebblewhite, a wildlife biologist at the University of Montana.
British Columbia “has permitted logging, road building, unsustainable recreation, oil and gas development, and mining to continue in mountain caribou habitat,” he added.
“The tragic outcome was very predictable.”
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