Twenty hottest years in past 22 years! OMG!
From an Article by Lorraine Chow, EcoWatch.com, November 29, 2018
This year 2018 will likely be the fourth hottest year on record, according to the United Nations’ authoritative voice for weather and climate. The three years that were warmer? 2016, 2015 and 2017.
Furthermore, the 20 warmest years on record have been in the past 22 years, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said Thursday in its 2018 State of the Climate report.
The new report, based on five independently maintained global temperature data sets, adds ever more proof that global warming is unequivocal—and we’d better act now to reverse this alarming trend.
Unfortunately, the current pace of international government action is “insufficient” to limit warming, the UN Environment Programme warned yesterday in its 2018 Emissions Gap Report. In fact, the annual assessment found that after a three-year decline, heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions actually increased to “historic levels” of 53.5 billion tonnes in 2017, with no signs of peaking.
“We are not on track to meet climate change targets and rein in temperature increases,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said today in a press release. “Greenhouse gas concentrations are once again at record levels and if the current trend continues we may see temperature increases 3-5°C by the end of the century.”
Taalas stressed that exploitation of fossil fuels will push temperature rise “considerably higher.”
“It is worth repeating once again that we are the first generation to fully understand climate change and the last generation to be able to do something about it,” he said.
Scientists have already warned that 2019 could be an unusually warm year due to a forecasted El Niño, which could cause extreme weather and temperature spikes.
The new State of the Climate report shows that temperatures for the first ten months of 2018 were nearly 1°C above the pre-industrial baseline from 1850-1900.
Last month’s widely disseminated climate report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change showed that average global temperatures between 2006-2015 were 0.86°C above the pre-industrial baseline. In the last five years, 2014-2018, it was 1.04°C above the pre-industrial baseline.
“These are more than just numbers,” said WMO Deputy Secretary-General Elena Manaenkova in today’s press release.
“Every fraction of a degree of warming makes a difference to human health and access to food and fresh water, to the extinction of animals and plants, to the survival of coral reefs and marine life,” she added. “It makes a difference to economic productivity, food security, and to the resilience of our infrastructure and cities. It makes a difference to the speed of glacier melt and water supplies, and the future of low-lying islands and coastal communities. Every extra bit matters.”
The WMO report comes just days before the critical climate summit COP24 in Katowice, Poland, where delegates from roughly 200 countries will create a “rulebook” on how to implement the 2015 Paris agreement to avoid disastrous climate change.
The Paris accord aims to keep global temperature rise this century to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and has a more aspirational target to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C.
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Some 48 arrested at Yale protest over fossil fuel investments
From the Associated Press, December 8, 2018
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — Yale University police have arrested 48 people who were protesting the Ivy League school’s investments in fossil fuel companies and its Puerto Rico debt holdings.
The arrests came during a sit-in demonstration Friday inside Yale’s investment office as more than 300 students and community members rallied outside the building.
Protesters demanded Yale divest endowment funds from fossil fuel companies because of concerns about climate change. They also said they wanted Yale to cancel its holdings in a fund that holds some of Puerto Rico’s massive debt and is suing the U.S. territory to be paid while the island still struggles to recover from hurricane damage.
Yale officials say a school committee has previously addressed concerns about fossil fuel investments and Puerto Rican debt, but that they support student freedom of expression.
https://www.apnews.com/01897be879c14e21bbefb6f8586291bb
Climate Scientist: World’s Richest Must Radically Change Lifestyles to Prevent Global Catastrophe | Democracy Now!
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/12/11/scientist_kevin_anderson_worlds_biggest_emitters
The 24th United Nations climate summit comes amid growing warnings about the catastrophic danger climate change poses to the world.
In October, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that humanity has only a dozen years to mitigate climate change or face global catastrophe—with severe droughts, floods, sea level rise and extreme heat set to cause mass displacement and poverty.
But on Saturday, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait blocked language “welcoming” the landmark IPCC climate report.
New studies show global carbon emissions may have risen as much 3.7 percent in 2018, marking the second annual increase in a row. A recent report likened the rising emissions to a “speeding freight train.”
We speak with Kevin Anderson, professor in climate change leadership at Uppsala University’s Centre for Environment and Development Studies, and 15-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg about the drastic action needed to fight climate change and the impact of President Trump on climate change activism.
See the Interview here:
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/12/11/scientist_kevin_anderson_worlds_biggest_emitters
RE: Immigration, carbon footprint
In response to “Migrants’ carbon footprint” (Pulse, Dec. 26):
Indeed, the liberal left does want to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, but so do conservatives. Climate change is an equal opportunity crisis. The liberal left is not pushing for massive migration of those in the Third World to First World countries, simply that we provide refuge for these people when they seek it.
It would be far preferable for all to recognize that dire poverty, gang violence and unstable governments are pushing these migrants from their homes, and that the ideal solution would be to address these issues, so they would not feel the need to migrate away from their homes.
It’s a red herring argument to pit the needs of the most impoverished and imperiled against the needs of the climate. Let’s look for eloquent solutions that solve the problems of both people and the planet, instead of parsing partisan ideas to make oversimplified arguments.
Furthermore, if coming to a First World country means your carbon footprint will increase, then it is incumbent on the First World to reduce its carbon footprint.
Lisa Kammerer, Omaha
From the Omaha World Herald, December 29, 2018