Lake Chapala -- Mexico's largest freshwater lake
As a football score: It is Catastrophic Climate Change 400 ppm, Humanity 0.
From an Article by John de Waal, MBA, Lake Chapala (Mexico) Magazine, December 2016
The Meteorology Office and Climatic Research Unit at Britain’s University of East Anglia reported that the Earth’s average temperature has increased by 1-degree C (1.8 F). The world’s biggest network of sensors that measure the constituents of the Earth’s atmosphere, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) that has been tracking carbon dioxide concentrations for many decades because it is vital for plant life and traps the sun’s heat to make our planet warmer, also reports that CO2 concentrations have risen 0.5 % during 2013, which is average for the decade, but that methane and nitrous oxide has increased much faster and warming of the planet increased by 36 % since 1990.
WMO Secretary General Michel Jarraud said: “We are moving into unchartered territory at a frightening speed and soon we’ll be living with globally averaged CO2 levels above 400 parts per million as a permanent reality (the carbon dioxide levels should remain well below 400 ppm to avoid long-term disruptions to the Earth’s climate). The implications for the planet are hotter global temperatures, more extreme weather events, melting ice, rising sea levels and increased acidity in oceans. It is an invisible threat, but a very real one!”
Mauna Loa Observatory too reported a 24 % increase since they began record keeping (1958) and NASA’s Dr. Michael Gunson observed:
“We are on an inexorable march to 450 PPM (parts per million) and…it should be a psychological tripwire for everyone.”
Other scientists at NASA said: Climate change is a threat to life on Earth and we can no longer afford to be spectators. The next threshold is the…point of no return in mankind’s unintended global-scale geo-engineering experiment.
As a football score: It is Catastrophic Climate Change 400 ppm, Humanity 0.
If we want to survive we must listen to the scientists, vote wisely, beat carbon addiction and put humanity into the game. Pew Research reports that majorities in all the 40 nations polled say that climate change is a serious problem (the global median is 54%), 78% want greenhouse gas emissions limited and 67% support major life style changes. In the US only 20% of Republicans believe that climate change is a serious problem, but 68% of Democrats do.
We must reduce 80% of CO2 emissions by 2020 by changing over to 100% electric vehicles and renewables for all other power needs. We also must get into the habit of frugality with Earth’s resources. Family planning, education and healthcare for all are essential. The choice is obvious.
See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net
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Letters to the Editor, Lake Chapala Magazine, October 2015
Dear Sir:
The global impacts of anthropomorphic climate disruption (ACD) continue to intensify, as corporations and the global elite continue to plunder our planet and humanity continues to consume the products they pull from the Earth. Many places are already facing fresh-water scarcity and other environmental contamination problems. We may have passed a tipping point to where human survival beyond the next few decades cannot be assured, wrote Dahr Jamail in Truthout, last Monday August 03, 2015.
Indeed, a recently published study by a team from Anglia Ruskin University’s Global Sustainability Institute shows that society will likely collapse by 2045 due to catastrophic permanent food shortages resulting from the ever-worsening impacts of ACD.
Many activists, academics, and policy experts on global warming have concluded that “Humanity is at a crossroads and that our only hope is to stop burning the world’s remaining fossil fuel reserves”. They demand that we “end subsidies to the fossil fuel industry” and “freeze fossil fuel extractions.” They might have added the word “NOW” and suggest that “We switch to100% renewable energy.”
If we meet their demand, we can no longer use our cars, save all-electric vehicles; cook our food on gas or coal and we must use drinking water sparingly. In return, we might live. If we do not meet their demand, we will live a few more years as we have for the last 30 years. In return we’ll gradually choke or starve to death, fall ill or die violently in a food riot within the next 30 years. There are no further alternatives; it is up to us, what will it be?
John de Waal, john.dewaal@gmail.com
Signs of Global Warming at Lakeside
Letter to the Editor, Lake Chapala Magazine, April 2010
The Eye on the Lake, By Ed Tasca
It seems as though everywhere on the planet you look these days, weather patterns are changing, and climates, once predictable, suddenly turn on you like a bad drunk.
Given the predictably near-perfect nature of Lakeside weather, is it possible that global warming can disrupt in any way Lakeside’s revered climate and ecology? I think it’s time we all got real and took a closer look.
One. Rainfall shortage
Since rainfall throughout western Mexico is concentrated largely during the summer months, this past summer’s bashful rains, causing droughts, garden panic and water at mere intravenous supplies, provoked Al Gore to ask, “Lake where?”.
The rainy seasons are getting shorter, but are still closed between the hours of 2 and 4.
So where does the water go? Lake Chapala water losses – in an average year, according to ecology officials – occur as follows: 44 percent flows into the River Santiago, where it spends the winter hatching tons of bobo fly larvae, the inadvertent snacks you get while jogging along the lake; 31 percent evaporates and combines with cement dust to form a mist that gives us sightings of the Virgin Mary; 16 percent pools at the foot of Colon in Ajijic, leaving photoplankton stranded to rot, and sending tourists back into their surgical masks; 5 per cent is piped to Guadalajara, where the actual water content is removed leaving enriched uranium. The remainder is actually glue and mole sauce.
Two. High bacterial levels: The levels of pneumococcal bacterial in the lake water were measured not long ago at several hundred times higher than the levels currently found in any of the Great Lakes and 80 times higher than the maximum concentrations recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency for motel bed spreads.
Three. Insect Growth: Several new species of cockroach have been found in Jocotepec, mutations which actually enjoy sunlight and have been spotted splashing about at the hot springs.
Four. Algae growth: Explosive growth in blue-green algae gives the lake water a distinctive smell and taste, both of which have become quite popular among teens, and have been simulated for chewing gum varieties.
Five. Concentrations of heavy metals: Concentrations of heavy metals in certain aquatic plants, including the water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) and bulrush (Typha latifolia) have exceeded recommended limits and one species of bottom-feeding fish is so engorged with the metals that several have been sighted crashing through man hole covers in Villa Nova.
Six. Infestations of aquatic weeds: Lirio (water hyacinth) had been removed from the lake, but has returned recently. Originally introduced as a garden ornament, the aquatic weeds made their way into lake waters where they flourished, hindering fishermen, encouraging insect infestation and, most critically, posing a risk to Gringos who try walking across them.
Seven. Fewer Fish: The lake once teemed with unique native fish, including species of highly-prized, delicate-tasting whitefish. Many are endangered today, although the whitefish despite their heavy concentrations of mercury are making a comeback, because Lakeside chefs find they can tell their temperature while they’re baking.
Other signs that Lakeside may be surrendering to climate aberrations:
Herons and egrets have begun moving inland, and are now arriving in greater numbers, many, it’s believed, are training to become real estate agents.
Tests of summer air show that carbon monoxide gases have exceeded cement dust as the air’s major component.
Tears coming from statues of the Virgin have been assayed as liquid methane.
Monarch butterflies are arriving in air-conditioned buses.
Carbon dioxide levels make the air so heavy, that fleeing muggers take an average 5. 2 seconds longer to find their getaway cars.
Hurricanes are getting more powerful (the word itself apparently named after a Mayan god). Mexican officials claim the tormentas thundering through Mexico’s new recycle dumps explains why the recyclables wound up again as general trash.
El Nino ocean currents are so permeated with methane gas, accompanying seabirds can be heard singing “Zeta Gas. Zeta Gas.”
What can we do to help? If you’re not asking that question, then you should be ashamed of yourself. I’m doing my part. Knowing the problem as they say is fifty percent of the solution. (What the other fifty percent is anybody’s guess.) But it’s time we stopped being so smug, and engaged in solutions. I for one think you should be telling publishers of magazines like this one who are publishing nonsense like this to stop. That would at least save paper, and it would also raise my Kindle stock prices. At any rate, it’s a start.
In 2017, keep fossil fuels in the ground. Please help!
Dear Friends,
My name is Harrison Wallace and I’m CCAN’s organizer in coastal Virginia, where the seas are rising — and fast. I personally know the risks of Exxon taking the helm of government, and of climate deniers filling a Trump cabinet, because my neighbors and I already see the effects of fossil fuel pollution all around us.
In our coastal neighborhoods, streets flood with blue skies and a high tide. Strong storms make it hard for people to reach work, school, and even hospitals. After Hurricane Matthew hit, underpasses turned into swimming pools and streets became graveyards for stranded cars.
I’m fired up to fight back in 2017 because I know the stakes. And because I know that, with your help, CCAN is ready to play a lead role in resisting Trump’s fossil fuel plans and pushing forward on state and local solutions.
Will you pitch in now with a year-end donation and help us hit the ground running in 2017?
This year, we have seen an amazing grassroots climate movement take shape across the region. In Virginia, hundreds of activists have pledged to resist Dominion Resources’ fracked-gas Atlantic Coast Pipeline, bringing national attention to the project. In Maryland, over 100 groups have come together to tell Governor Hogan “Don’t Frack Maryland,” and municipalities across the state are urging the legislature to pass a groundbreaking statewide ban on the dangerous fossil fuel extraction mechanism.
One group is leading all of these efforts: the Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN).
CCANers have never shied away from a fight, and no matter what the climate deniers throw at us, we won’t back down. Your support is more important now than ever.
Rest assured that we are winning this fight: Marylanders favor a ban on fracking by a margin of 2-1, and Dominion Resources’ progress on the Atlantic Coast Pipeline continues to be delayed as more activists come together to organize a vibrant coalition and bring national attention to the project. In DC, pressure is growing for the city to put a price on carbon. Most importantly, our movement is reaching people who never would have thought of themselves as climate activists just a year ago.
Some people want America to go backwards in 2017. Your gift will help our region continue moving forward toward a clean energy future.
2017 will pose challenges that we’ve never seen before, but with the help of activists like you, CCAN will combat those challenges with a grassroots network that is unlike anything our polluters have ever had to deal with.
Thanks for all of your help and I hope you have a wonderful holiday season,
Harrison Wallace, CCAN
Virginia Hampton Roads Coordinator,
Chesapeake Climate Action Network
2016: Canada’s Oil Sands Downturn Hints at Ominous Future
By Nicholas Kusnetz, Inside Climate News, December 29, 2016
It was a dark year for Canada’s tar sands.
Low oil prices that caused project cancellations, as well as new climate policies, have activists seeing the beginning of the end in Canada’s oil patch.
Plunging oil prices caused companies to cancel or delay nearly three dozen projects. Extensive wildfires forced producers to shut down operations for weeks. And after a decade that saw little action on climate change policy, Canadian officials began shaping plans to cap the tar sands’ emissions and set a national price on carbon with an eye to meeting the country’s commitment to the Paris climate agreement.