Hey! Today it's my sweet
16!
Got Water? Not in Panama.
A severe drought in Panama has reduced the water level in the canal,
forcing the Canal Authority to restrict cargo loads, thereby decreasing its revenue,
which is based on weight. “The last five
months have been the driest dry season in the history of the canal,” said an
executive V. P. of the Panama Canal Authority.
Several of the worst droughts since the canal opened 105 years ago have
occurred in the past decade.
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Chennai Reservoir, 2018
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| Chennai Reservoir, 2019 |
Not in Chennai Either. As of late June, this city of 5 million was running out of water. The monsoon season started late this year,
and Chennai has seen almost none of the rain it should have received by now.
You Can’t See the Forest for the
Soybeans. Since 2010, the area planted with soy beans
in Brazil has increased by 45% and palm oil production in Indonesia has risen
by 75%. These crops are planted in
cleared forests, and deforestation increases greenhouse gas emissions. Greenpeace International estimates that by
2020, approximately 123 million acres (twice the size of the U.K.) will be
deforested in order to plant soy beans, palms, and feed cattle.
Guilets Jaune? No, Just Yellow Jackets.
A yellow jacket super nest is one that can survive into a second
year. The one in Alabama pictured above provides
a home for 15,000 – 18,000 insects.
Warmer winters contribute to super nests, as most yellow jackets freeze
to death or have trouble finding food in cold winters.
It’s Every Man for Himself.
The European Commission's proposal to set a target for carbon neutrality
by 2050 was vetoed by Poland, Hungary, Estonia, and the Czech Republic,
reducing the proposal to a footnote. The
Polish Prime Minister (above) called for a "fair" transition to zero
emissions saying, "We don't want a situation in which caring for the
world's climate will happen at the expense of the Polish economy.” Heaven
forbid! Poland First! Here is one of its prime exports below--smog.
Anarchism is Heating Up. Too. Per
The Guardian: Philip
Alston, UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, warned that the world is increasingly at risk
of “climate apartheid,” where the rich pay to escape the escalating climate
crisis while the rest of the world suffers.
Alston further cautioned that the
impacts of global warming “are likely to undermine not only basic rights to
life, water, food, and housing for hundreds of millions of people, but also
democracy and the rule of law.”
Picking Winners and Losers.
The Center for Climate Integrity predicts that seawall construction in
the U. S. could cost $416 Billion by 2040, almost as much as the initial investment
in the Interstate Highway System. And the
seawall estimate doesn’t even take into account the additional costs of re-configuring
storm sewer, sanitary sewer, and drinking water infrastructure. “Once you get into it, you realize we’re just
not going to protect a lot of these places.
This is the next wave of climate denial — denying the costs that we’re
all facing,” said the executive director of CCI. Many cities, especially smaller ones, won’t
be able to afford these costs and will be looking to the federal government for
help. (My question is, given that when
we’re talking about sea level rise, we’re talking about coastal cities, which in
today’s demographics largely means Democratic urban strongholds, will the GOP vote
to save cities dominated by the opposing party?)
Politics May Not Be a Science, but
Science is Politics. In a sharp departure from previous practice,
the White House-appointed director of the U. S. Geological Survey has ordered that scientific climate
assessments use only models that project the impact of climate change through
2040. Scientists say that this change will
yield misleading data because the biggest effects of current emissions will be
felt after 2040. Moody’s Analytics agrees. See the link in the last entry below.
Sorry. I’m in a Bad Moody’s.
Per The Washington Post:
The
consulting firm Moody’s Analytics says climate change could inflict
$69 trillion in damage on the global economy by the year 2100, assuming
that warming hits the two-degree Celsius threshold widely seen as the limit to
stem its most dire effects.
Moody’s,
citing a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says that
warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, increasingly seen by
scientists as a climate-stabilizing limit, would still cause $54 trillion
in damages by the end of the century.
The
firm warns that passing the two-degree threshold “could hit tipping points for
even larger and irreversible warming feedback loops such as permanent summer
ice melt in the Arctic Ocean.”
The Moody's report predicts
that rising temperatures will “universally hurt worker health and productivity”
and that more frequent extreme weather events “will increasingly disrupt and
damage critical infrastructure and property.”
And on
that cheerful note….
Keep it real!
Marilyn
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