I don't think most people are aware just now of what, exactly, is going on, worldwide, with weather and the catastrophes that are taking place just now.
Here's one, the first here today--
“Greenland is home to the world's second-largest ice sheet. And when it melts significantly -- as it is expected to do this year -- there are knock-on effects for sea levels and weather across the globe.
Greenland's ice sheet usually melts during the summer. This year, it started melting earlier, in May, and this week's heatwave is expected to accelerate the melt.
… 2019 could come close to the record-setting year of 2012, said Jason Box, professor and ice climatologist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. During that ‘…year’…, Greenland's ice sheet lost 450 million metric tons -- the equivalent of more than 14,000 tons of ice lost per second.”
“…it's already poised to rival the proportions of 2012 -- and we haven't even reached the end of summer. In July alone, Greenland's ice sheet lost 160 billion tons of ice, according to Clare Nullis, spokeswoman for the UN World Meteorological Organization.
‘Normally when you get a temperature record broken, it's by a fraction of a degree,’ said Nullis. ‘What we saw yesterday was records being broken by two, three, four degrees -- it was absolutely incredible.’"
That alone is huge but then, this is taking place in Siberia, Russia.
There is also this from Japan:
Finally, there is this:
“A heatwave in Europe is causing low water levels on the…Rhine…”
At what point do climate deniers give it up? At what point do the get on board, so to speak, and accept our current reality, let alone what is projected to happen across the world, if we don't cut carbon dioxide emissions and pollution?
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This graph spells it all out: There's no way the world will mitigate to 5 percent this year; 9% by 2029 is risible.
We've been beguiled by childish assumptions promulgated by our government and endlessly repeated by the media, both of which are owned by billionaires who want no changes (to their bottom lines.)
70 degree temps and permafrost melt in the Arctic, not expected for at least a 70 more years, have already started releasing huge quantities of methane, a much stronger greenhouse gas than carbon.
The fact of the matter is that virtually everything will happen faster than the current government propaganda, to include estimates put forth by the UN. Why? Politics, of course - they’re telling decision makers only what they are willing to hear. Then there's systems thinking, a skill with which even scientists aren't particularly adept; "break points" and exponential growth don’t parse for most people. This is further aggravated by people's perception of the world around them: The world is mostly the same day to day, with a few (mostly linear) trends, so the assumption is the world will be tomorrow how it was yesterday (plus or minus a trend) and boom, you're done, world without end, amen.
But when the world actually changes, it changes fast. Those linear trends (70 degree Arctic heat not due for at least 70 more years) suddenly hit their break points, and they go exponential and everything changes. For the longest time there’s a status quo, with slow change, until seemingly overnight, there isn't. This is how climate change is working.
This is just a precursor to further climate change, only a decade off, that will create a very different world, economically, ecologically and socially. We're already seeing some of this in the climbing numbers of climate change refugees, a trend that looks to be threatening a break point soon. Agriculture is feeling the heat as well, despite the Orange Shitgibbon supressing his own government's studies on the topic.
70 degree temps and permafrost melt in the Arctic can no longer be stopped or reversed. Killing 110 degree heat waves can no longer be stopped or reversed. The lack of potable water will continue to worsen, Green New Deals and their inevitable imitators aside; political violence world wide will worsen as all the preceding hit their own breakpoints and contribute to widespread food shortages, further aggravating the climate change refugee crisis.
Finally, little will even be attempted to ameliorate the situation, especially in the US. This is mostly because treasonous fucks like Mitch McConnell and his band of sycophants in the Senate are more concerned with creating an authoritarian nation wherein they believe they can reshape the culture to reflect their 1950s' fever dreams, and if some starving refugees have to die, so be it. But just as likely it's because McConnell and his ilk, along with the rich, are old and will die before the worst of it, protected (so they believe) by their money. But for 95% of the rest of the world, widespread catastrophes will end up killing millions.
If you are not old or unlikely to die with in the next 20 years, or if you have a family...it's time to quit worrying about separating your fucking recyclables and make realistic plans about how you will survive. Thor knows there will no help from any quarter.
Wow.
Incredible response. Thanks for writing.
All these current events stunned me.
It's going to get worse, soon. Like in the next 2-3 years. Take water, even in the US. The aquifers have/are drying up and our rainfall patterns have already started to change. Surely you've noticed the weird snowfall patterns, and obvs. you're hip to the glaciers dying. What this means is all the sources of water are going to be fair game; groundwater, lakes, rivers and streams. What will happen is many if not most of these will simply dry up...
We will see/are already seeing this in America's Southwest . That area will eventually flat-out run out of water. Period, no ifs and or buts. Think America has a refugee crisis now? Hoo boy...what will we do with millions of our own as the flee the area?
Same withe India, which is already in a death spiral of low/no water and killing heat waves. Large amounts of China suffer from the same problem, et cetera, et cetera, et alis...
The US, as well as some other countries, are already practicing contraction; that will be the overt standard soon for everyone.
Smart people would do well to figure out where their water comes from and how vulnerable it is to outside forces. Then they might figure out how, at a minimum, to supplement that source. I personally know a couple of folks who have quietly purchased property with proven water, dug their own wells and then built rough "weekend cabins" right over them.
That's what surprises me. These I posted on are/were all happening at the same time but I think few of us are aware of it all.
The media, owned by mostly republican/alt-right billionaires, have no interest in informing us as to how dire the situation really is.
Moreover, they just don't care. And they've already got their hands full trying to suppress democracy in the country and their addled puppet on the throne. Add to that the fact that, while there are steps that could be taken to attempt to ameliorate at least the pace of the coming catastrophe, reread above about what I wrote re contraction: They don't want to educate and assist the general populace of this or any other country. What they want is for a majority of us to simply die.
To that end, why warn the cattle?
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