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#Post#: 20663--------------------------------------------------
Re: Climate, Weather, and Climate Effects, 2020 and Beyond
By: guest98 Date: June 27, 2023, 3:15 pm
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HTML https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66036541
Canada wildfires spark air quality alerts in Chicago and
Milwaukee
[quote]
Heavy smoke from wildfires has prompted air quality warnings in
parts of Canada and the US Midwest, with some registering levels
among the world's worst on Tuesday.
Smoke has continued to drift south across North America in waves
after the east coast was blanketed earlier this month.
This year's wildfire season is the worst on record in Canada,
according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.
On Tuesday, a visible haze and burning smell lingered over the
region.
Cities including Chicago and Milwaukee, as well as parts of
Michigan and Ontario, registered air quality index levels in the
200s on a 500-point scale.
Those are numbers considered "very unhealthy", although lower
than the levels seen earlier this month, which breached 400 in
New York and other parts of the North East.
Health authorities said that groups including children, the
elderly and people with respiratory problems should limit
outdoor activities when air quality is poor.
Canadian fire authorities say nearly 500 fires are still
burning, out of nearly 3,000 recorded so far this season. A
total of 7.7m hectares (30,000 square miles) - an area roughly
the size of South Carolina - has already been set ablaze.
The fires have released a record 160m tonnes of carbon into the
atmosphere, according to the European Union's Copernicus
Atmospheric Monitoring Service.
The smoke is forecast to drift to the south and east over the
course of the next few days.
[/quote]
HTML https://www.cheknews.ca/weve-never-seen-this-before-b-c-could-experience-historic-drought-this-summer-1158005/
‘We’ve never seen this before’: B.C. could experience historic
drought this summer
[quote]
River and reservoir levels are dropping rapidly across British
Columbia and much earlier than normal, according to weather
officials.
The situation is so extreme that B.C.’s River Forecast Centre is
concerned we are heading into uncharted territory.
“We’ve never seen this before,” said Dave Campbell, the head of
the forecast centre, in an interview with CHEK News Monday.
“We are really going to need to see wet weather and persistent
wet weather for the next several weeks if we were to avoid
significant drought for places like Vancouver Island for later
this summer.”
Environment Canada tells CHEK News that wet and persistent
weather is not coming in the near future.
Officials are asking people to conserve water now as we head
into what could be a history-making drought season.
[/quote]
#Post#: 20702--------------------------------------------------
Re: Climate, Weather, and Climate Effects, 2020 and Beyond
By: guest98 Date: June 29, 2023, 3:34 pm
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HTML https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-smoke-from-canada-wildfires-is-increasing-health-risks-in-black-and/
Smoke from Canada wildfires is increasing health risks in Black
and poorer U.S. communities
[quote]
Smoky air from Canada’s wildfires shrouded broad swaths of the
U.S. from Minnesota to New York and Kentucky on Wednesday,
prompting warnings to stay inside and exacerbating health risks
for people already suffering from industrial pollution.
The impacts are particularly hard on poor and minority
communities that are more likely to live near polluting plants
and have higher rates of asthma. Detroit, a mostly Black city
with a poverty rate of about 30%, had some of the worst air
quality in the U.S. on Wednesday, prompting the Environmental
Protection Agency to warn that “everyone should stay indoors.”
“The more breaths you’re taking, you’re inhaling, literally, a
fire, camp smoke, into your lungs,” said Darren Riley, who was
diagnosed with asthma in 2018, a few years after arriving in
Detroit.
“Many communities face this way too often,” said Riley, who is
Black. “And while this wildfire smoke allows, unfortunately,
many people to feel this burden, this is a burden that far too
long communities have faced day in and day out.”
The EPA’s AirNow.gov site showed cities including Chicago,
Detroit, Indianapolis and Cleveland, Ohio, had “very unhealthy
air” as of Wednesday afternoon. A wider circle of unhealthy air
spread into Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Louisville, Kentucky.
Earlier this month, smoke from the wildfires blanketed the U.S.
East Coast for days.
n the U.S., the smoke is exacerbating air quality issues for
poor and Black communities that already are more likely to live
near polluting plants, and in rental housing with mould and
other triggers.
Detroit’s southwest side is home to a number of sprawling
refineries and manufacturing plants. It is one of the poorest
parts of the city. According to a 2022 report by the American
Lung Association, the city’s and short-term particle pollution
ranked among the worst in the nation.
The warming planet will produce hotter and longer heat waves,
making for bigger, smokier fires, said Joel Thornton, professor
and chair of the department of atmospheric sciences at the
University of Washington.
“It just sits like this all day,” said Hernandez, saying that it
smelled like being at a barbecue. “Literally, the smoke just
sits in the air.”
[/quote]
#Post#: 20712--------------------------------------------------
Re: Climate, Weather, and Climate Effects, 2020 and Beyond
By: guest98 Date: June 30, 2023, 3:11 pm
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HTML https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/climate-nears-point-no-return-land-sea-temperatures-break-records-experts-2023-06-30/
Climate nears point of no return as land, sea temperatures break
records, experts say
[quote]
The target of keeping long-term global warming within 1.5
degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) is moving out of reach, climate
experts say, with nations failing to set more ambitious goals
despite months of record-breaking heat on land and sea.
As envoys gathered in Bonn in early June to prepare for this
year's annual climate talks in November, average global surface
air temperatures were more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels
for several days, the EU-funded Copernicus Climate Change
Service (C3S) said.
Countries agreed in Paris in 2015 to try to keep long-term
average temperature rises within 1.5C, but there is now a 66%
likelihood the annual mean will cross the 1.5C threshold for at
least one whole year between now and 2027, the World
Meteorological Organization predicted in May.
High land temperatures have been matched by those on the sea,
with warming intensified by an El Nino event and other factors.
Global average sea surface temperatures hit 21C in late March
and have remained at record levels for the time of year
throughout April and May. Australia's weather agency warned that
Pacific and Indian ocean sea temperatures could be 3C warmer
than normal by October.
Global warming is the major factor, said Piers Forster,
professor of climate physics at the University of Leeds, but El
Nino, the decline in Saharan dust blowing over the ocean and the
use of low-sulphur shipping fuels were also to blame.
"So in all, oceans are being hit by a quadruple whammy," he
said. "It's a sign of things to come."
Warmer seas could also mean less wind and rain, creating a
vicious circle that leads to even more heat, said Annalisa
Bracco, a climatologist at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
The Worldwide Fund for Nature, however, warned of a "worrying
lack of momentum" during climate talks in Bonn this month, with
little progress made on key issues like fossil fuels and finance
ahead of November's COP28 climate talks in Dubai.
"It was very detached from what was going on outside of the
building in Bonn - I was very disappointed by that," said Li
Shuo, Greenpeace's senior climate adviser in Beijing.
"We are really getting to the moment of truth ... I am hoping
that the sheer reality will help us change people's moves and
change the politics."
[/quote]
#Post#: 20989--------------------------------------------------
Re: Climate, Weather, and Climate Effects, 2020 and Beyond
By: guest98 Date: July 18, 2023, 3:11 pm
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HTML https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/16/big-oil-climate-pledges-extreme-heat-fossil-fuel
Big oil quietly walks back on climate pledges as global heat
records tumble
[quote]
It was probably the Earth’s hottest week in history earlier this
month, following the warmest June on record, and top scientists
agree that the planet will get even hotter unless we phase out
fossil fuels.
Yet leading energy companies are intent on pushing the world in
the opposite direction, expanding fossil fuel production and
insisting that there is no alternative. It is evidence that they
are motivated not by record warming, but by record profits,
experts say.
“The fossil fuel industry has massively profited from selling a
dangerous product and now innocent people and governments across
the globe are paying the price for their recklessness,” Naomi
Oreskes, a history of science professor at Harvard University
who studies the oil industry, said.
Oil majors have, over the past several years, rolled out pledges
to decrease oil and gas production and slash their emissions,
citing concerns about the climate crisis. But more recently,
many have walked those plans back.
But Dan Cohn, global energy transition researcher at the
Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, said that
the oil industry’s climate plans should not be taken at “face
value”.
“They have left no doubt that their pledges were deployed for
cynical political purposes, only to be ditched when they no
longer suited the industry’s strategic position,” he said.
That strategic position was to avoid being governed, said
Timmons Roberts, professor of environment and sociology at Brown
University.
“The climate commitments … were almost certainly made to give
the impression that they don’t need to be regulated because
their voluntary pledges are adequate,” he said.
“It became clear that they’re motivated by profits,” said
Roberts, adding that the drive is unsurprising, since CEOs of
public companies can be removed if they do not maximize profit
growth.
No matter what strategy they employ at any given time, the
industry has “done everything they can to block climate action
and keep us dependent on their products”, said Oreskes.
To foster a real energy transition, said Roberts, leaders must
stop believing that energy companies will voluntarily change
their business models. He likened politicians’ behavior to the
gag in the Peanuts comic, wherein Charlie Brown repeatedly
attempts to kick a football held up by Lucy, even though she
always pulls it away and lets him fall over.
“The oil companies keep holding up the football,” he said. “Are
we gonna ask them hold it again for us? I don’t think we
should.”
[/quote]
Big oil ceo's need to be exterminated.
#Post#: 21119--------------------------------------------------
Re: Hungary & V4 (& others)
By: guest98 Date: July 25, 2023, 2:22 pm
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'We are at war' Greece wildfires blaze with no respite
[quote]More than 80 fires are raging across Greece. Fires on the
island of Rhodes prompted one of Greece's largest evacuations
ever, and now wildfires have forced the evacuation of nearly
2,500 people from a beach on the island of Corfu.[/quote]
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R6i6JEkutk
#Post#: 21121--------------------------------------------------
Re: Climate, Weather, and Climate Effects, 2020 and Beyond
By: guest98 Date: July 25, 2023, 2:39 pm
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Algeria wildfires: "This fire is not normal," resident says as
inferno rips through provinces
[quote]Algeria was battling to contain devastating forest fires
along its Mediterranean coast on Tuesday, in an inferno that has
killed at least 34 people, authorities said, adding they had
managed to control about four-fifths of the blaze.
The fires broke out in several provinces in Algeria on Monday,
ripping through forests, olive groves, and low-lying shrubland.
More than 8,000 firefighters were deployed to bring the flames
under control.
Algerian civil protection services said 15 fires were raging
across eight regions on Tuesday at Skikda, Jijel, Bouira,
Bejaia, Tebessa, Medea, Setif, and El Tarf.
In Bejaia, resident Souhila Belkati said, “This fire is not
normal, it jumps from one place to another.”
Ten of the 34 victims reported on Monday were soldiers.
Authorities said they had evacuated some 1,500 people from their
homes.[/quote]
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR5kasMjVig
#Post#: 21154--------------------------------------------------
Re: Climate, Weather, and Climate Effects, 2020 and Beyond
By: guest98 Date: July 26, 2023, 7:23 pm
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HTML https://www.ctvnews.ca/climate-and-environment/nearly-100-pilot-whales-strand-themselves-on-an-australian-beach-half-dead-despite-efforts-1.6494359
Volunteers working to save nearly 100 beached whales in
Australia, but more than half have died
[quote]
Volunteers worked frantically on a second day Wednesday to save
dozens of pilot whales that have stranded themselves on a beach
in Western Australia, but more than 50 have already died.
Nearly 100 long-finned pilot whales, stranded themselves Tuesday
on the beach by the city of Albany, on the southern tip of
Western Australia, south of Perth.
Reece Whitby, Western Australia's environment minister, said it
was particularly frustrating because it's not known why the
phenomenon occurs.
"What we're seeing is utterly heartbreaking and distressing," he
told reporters. "It's just a terrible, terrible tragedy to see
these dead pilot whales on the beach."
Drone footage released by the department showed the whales
clustering and forming into a heart shape before stranding
themselves on the beach.
"This is just an amazing event," Joanne Marsh, the owner the
Cheynes Beach Caravan Park told the ABC. "We've never seen
anything quite like this."
Wildlife experts said the unusual behaviour of the whales could
be an indicator of stress or illness within the pod. Pilot
whales are highly social animals and often maintain close
relationships with their pods throughout their lives.
Macquarie University wildlife scientist Vanessa Pirotta said the
drone footage could suggest the whales had become disoriented,
although she said the exact reasons for mass strandings remain
unclear.
"The fact that they were in one area very huddled, and doing
really interesting behaviours, and looking around at times,
suggests that something else is going on that we just don't
know," she said.
The incident is reminiscent of one in September, in which some
200 pilot whales died after a pod stranded itself on the remote
west coast of Tasmania, off Australia's southeastern coast.
The following month, nearly 500 pilot whales died after
stranding themselves on two remote beaches in New Zealand.
[/quote]
#Post#: 21409--------------------------------------------------
Re: Climate, Weather, and Climate Effects, 2020 and Beyond
By: 90sRetroFan Date: August 8, 2023, 10:13 pm
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HTML https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/06/jef-goodell-heatwaves-racism-the-heat-will-kill-you-first-book
[quote]Racism at heart of US failure to tackle deadly heatwaves,
expert warns
...
people of color - including millions of migrant workers who are
bearing the brunt of record-breaking temperatures as farmhands,
builders and delivery workers - are not guaranteed lifesaving
measures like water and shade breaks because they are considered
expendable.
“To be blunt about it, the people most impacted by heat are not
the kind of voting demographic that gets any politician nervous.
They’re unsheltered people, poor people, agricultural and
construction workers. People like Sebastian Perez are just seen
as expendable. They’re not seen as humans who need to be
protected. Racism is absolutely central to the government’s
failure to protect vulnerable people.”
A couple of states have implemented heat exposure rules, yet
last month in the middle of a heatwave, Texas governor Greg
Abbott signed legislation prohibiting any city or county in the
state from passing laws requiring shade and water breaks for
outdoor workers. The vast majority of farmhands and construction
workers in Texas are migrants from Mexico and Central America.
“I mean, that is insane, and emblematic of the ‘cruelty is the
point’ ideology in so much of our politics right now.”
According to Goodell, the risks faced by mostly Black and brown
workers also reveal enduring elements of scientific racism
previously used to justify forcing enslaved African people to do
backbreaking farm work in the scorching south. “There were all
kinds of crazy racist ideas like African people having thicker
bones in their skulls that insulated them from heat. While
nobody talks about that explicitly now, it is absolutely an
undercurrent that having Mexicans pave roads in Austin in 107F
[42C] is fine because they’re from Mexico, and used to it.
“It’s not just about these vulnerable people who can’t vote or
the incompetence of the government, it is out and out racism.”
...
“Air conditioning is emblematic of all of the insanity and
paradoxes of what we consider progress, both a technology of
personal comfort and a technology of forgetting.
...
Air conditioning is a climate catch-22.
Globally, there are more than 1bn single-room air conditioning
units in the world right now – about one for every seven people
on Earth – accounting for nearly 20% of the total electricity
used in buildings, and hence a major contributor of the
greenhouse gases making the planet hotter, driving up demand for
aircon. If demand continues to grow at the current pace, by
2050, there will probably be more than 4.5bn units, Goodell
writes, making them as common as cellphones today. Meanwhile,
tried and tested non-tech, carbon-neutral solutions dating back
centuries have largely been dismissed or forgotten.
Heat, much like the Covid pandemic, exposes and exacerbates
existing structural and racial inequalities in housing, wages,
healthcare, mobility and access to solutions. One of Goodell’s
biggest fears is that the world will adapt to heat deaths much
like it did with Covid. “Covid showed us how much death we’re
willing to tolerate. I am concerned that we’ll simply adapt to
the chaos and tragedy and accept 60,000 people dying every
summer, and we’ll forget that we created this climate and that
we have control over it.”[/quote]
#Post#: 21441--------------------------------------------------
Re: Climate, Weather, and Climate Effects, 2020 and Beyond
By: 90sRetroFan Date: August 10, 2023, 7:51 pm
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HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V9LEI0XemU
#Post#: 21461--------------------------------------------------
Re: Climate, Weather, and Climate Effects, 2020 and Beyond
By: 90sRetroFan Date: August 11, 2023, 8:05 pm
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HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSb1_OP7h24
Western civilization is to blame.
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