Look over there, shiny - there is nothing to see here...
Story 1
The report found that more than half of global industrial emissions since 1988 – the year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was established – can be traced to just 25 corporate and state-owned entities. The scale of historical emissions associated with these fossil fuel producers is large enough to have contributed significantly to climate change, according to the report.
Story 2
The population extinction pulse we describe here shows, from a quantitative viewpoint, that Earth’s sixth mass extinction is more severe than perceived when looking exclusively at species extinctions. Therefore, humanity needs to address anthropogenic population extirpation and decimation immediately. That conclusion is based on analyses of the numbers and degrees of range contraction (indicative of population shrinkage and/or population extinctions according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature) using a sample of 27,600 vertebrate species, and on a more detailed analysis documenting the population extinctions between 1900 and 2015 in 177 mammal species. We find that the rate of population loss in terrestrial vertebrates is extremely high—even in “species of low concern.” In our sample, comprising nearly half of known vertebrate species, 32% (8,851/27,600) are decreasing; that is, they have decreased in population size and range. In the 177 mammals for which we have detailed data, all have lost 30% or more of their geographic ranges and more than 40% of the species have experienced severe population declines (>80% range shrinkage). Our data indicate that beyond global species extinctions Earth is experiencing a huge episode of population declines and extirpations, which will have negative cascading consequences on ecosystem functioning and services vital to sustaining civilization. We describe this as a “biological annihilation” to highlight the current magnitude of Earth’s ongoing sixth major extinction event.
Story 3
Permafrost in the Arctic is thawing, exposing large carbon and nitrogen stocks for decomposition. Gaseous carbon release from Arctic soils due to permafrost thawing is known to be substantial, but growing evidence suggests that Arctic soils may also be relevant sources of nitrous oxide (N2O). Here we show that N2O emissions from subarctic peatlands increase as the permafrost thaws. In our study, the highest postthaw emissions occurred from bare peat surfaces, a typical landform in permafrost peatlands, where permafrost thaw caused a fivefold increase in emissions (0.56 ± 0.11 vs. 2.81 ± 0.6 mg N2O m−2 d−1). These emission rates match those from tropical forest soils, the world's largest natural terrestrial N2O source. The presence of vegetation, known to limit N2O emissions in tundra, did decrease (by ∼90%) but did not prevent thaw-induced N2O release, whereas waterlogged conditions suppressed the emissions. We show that regions with high probability for N2O emissions cover one-fourth of the Arctic. Our results imply that the Arctic N2O budget will depend strongly on moisture changes, and that a gradual deepening of the active layer will create a strong noncarbon climate change feedback.
Story 4
Escaping methane gas has blown at least two new holes in the Siberian tundra in the past few months, according to eyewitness accounts to the Siberian Times and the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Reindeer herders northwest of the village of Seyakha in Siberia's far north reported seeing an eruption of fire and smoke on the morning of June 28 — an event caught on seismic sensors at 11 a.m. local time, according to The Siberian Times. Scientists visiting the site photographed a fresh crater blown into the banks of a river.
Researchers also discovered a second, previously unknown crater in the Tyumen region of Siberia this month, the newspaper reported. Local herders told Aleksandr Sokolov, a researcher at the Institute of Ecology of Plants and Animals in Russia, that they'd observed fire in the area of that crater in the winter or early spring. [See Photos of Siberia's Mysterious Craters]
When permafrost melts, it releases large amounts of methane. According to Russian scientists, this sudden release could have led to the explosions. How fast and how frequently this is happening remain controversial topics in the scientific community, given that Siberia is so remote and unexplored. But scientists do agree that Siberia's permafrost is in danger of melting as the globe warms.
Story 5
Satellite images have revealed more than 200 strange, bright blue lakes in Russia's Arctic regions that are bubbling "like jacuzzis" as a result of leaking methane gas.
The lakes are a type of thermokarst lake, which form when thawing permafrost causes the surface to collapse and fill in with meltwater. But unlike normal, dark thermokarst lakes, these ones are bright blue and bubbling, because of methane that's leaking into them before escaping into the atmosphere.
Nothing to see here
Move along
Trump
Russia
Comments
The millions of dead
for each of several species of Pacific sea life ... Why even mention it? It's not like humanity is facing increasing desertification, food and potable water shortages.
I'm just waiting for someone to publish Trump's Russian birth certificate because why not?
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
We are also trying to coat the planet with a thick
layer of plastic, in the hope to preserve it in the refrigerator for later?
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/02/here-s-how-much-plastic-enters-oc...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/15/38-million-pieces-of...
So it may be too late to extirpate 70% of human populations
which we (US) have done in parts of the ME. I still figure a plague will occur, ebola-like in its lethality, which can collapse any form of Western civilization. It's a grim scenario, denied by so many (since it's not stressed on TV-land daily)and also a certain POTUS.
GM, LaFeminista.
edited for grammar.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
Personally I doubt a disease per se, more like a global war,
starvation and disease in combination.
Note Yemen, a vision of the future? 240,000 people with cholera and 6.8 million on the verge of starvation
http://www.unocha.org/yemen
Because, war on terror. Who is terrorizing whom?
Will methane be the Earth's nuclear bomb against us?
http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/methane-vs-carbon-dioxide...
Are we looking at a creating a methane bomb as more and more of it escapes from Siberia and Arctic leading to a very very intense period of higher temperatures--much more than CO2 is doing?. Scientists have been warning about escaping methane for awhile. Now the shit is hitting the proverbial fan.
As for the Russia distraction. Two parts to it. First, sane people argue that the revelations are distorted and fiction in many cases. Which leads to the other point many people make and most important: Stop it!! We have more important shit to worry about. Rachel, fly to Siberia and give us hours about the methane leaks and the implications.
The solid methane hydrates locked up on the sea floor
make the methane leaks from the thawing tundra regions in North America and Siberia look insignificant.
@CB clearly it is time to
clearly it is time to start harvesting and burning the methyl hydrates before someone else beats us to them! /s
@CB
Yup, I've been thinking for a while that they're very likely creating Methane Planet out of a once fabulous world of life, destroying the result of billions of years of evolution - and I see comments sometimes saying that it's OK because over billions of years, life of some sort may arise again.
Sorta like saying, it doesn't matter how many people are killed by
monopolistic/destructive power-seeking and profiteering'policies' because there's another one born every minute, only over a postulated long-term.Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
ATM
Anthropocene Thermal Maximum, that's what it will be called...if there is any intelligent life on the planet to notice. CO2 levels of 410ppm should scare the living daylights out of everyone. You can't change that fundamental state of the planet without serious consequences. It is also increasing at about 3+ ppm per year, Carbon Dioxide Is Rising at Record Rates. So not only is it at an unequaled high for this geological era, but the rate of increase is increasing. Any savings in sustainability is being swamped by civilization growth and development. The geological era that we are exiting, The Holocene, saw ice ages at 180ppm CO2 and inter ice age periods at 280ppm. We are now in a period, some are calling the Anthropocene, where ice will continue to melt without abatement. In other words, the planet that we have created is vastly different from the planet that we inherited, and which nurtured the current species of plants and animals, including us. It took millions of years for life on the planet to produce its state at the beginning of the industrial era. That state consisted of long-term carbon sequestering, medium-term sequestering and free carbon in the biosphere. We have drastically altered that state. It's not just that we will have slightly warmer weather, it's that we have altered the climate for a very long time going forward. There is no short term natural mechanism to sequester the excess CO2 in the environment. Re-read that last sentence, it's critical. Species adapt to a particular habitat and require time to migrate and adapt. There is insufficient time now, because this change is so rapid. We are in extreme crisis and it requires stopping everything that we do and concentrate solely on solving this problem.
Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.
Our 'betters' profit off the death, devastation,
and hardship of fossil fuels. Caring about life on this planet does absolutely NOTHING for their bank balance. And anyway, they've got the situation covered for them and theirs. Or so they think.
It's gonna be a Clockwork Orange world.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
@Amanda Matthews
From your link, and thanks for posting this very interesting read!
(Bolding and bitter laughter mine)
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-for-the-super...
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
I'm sure their descendants like
living deep inside the dirt for generations.
It adds a whole new dimension to to the concept of life in the 'underground'.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
Those companies sure use a lot of hydrocarbons
to heat and cool their huge homes (by world standards), drive their big SUV's, fly on airplanes for holiday jaunts and buy a bazillion hydro-carbon based plastic products to fill their (plastic) garbage cans.
I blame consumers not producers. I suggest doubling the price of gasoline in America to reflect global pricing and use the extra money for renewable's. Then maybe more than half the cars on the road would have more than one person in it.
What's the chances of that happening in the great throwaway nation where cheap gasoline and two cars in every driveway in the car-dependent suburbs are considered a birthright? No other country in the world has an automobile for almost every man, woman and child.
Sadly though, I think the cars on the road
are just like the populations in Southern Cally, told they must not flush that toilet one extra time, while 80% of all water use is agriculture. Most of our pollution is industrial and agricultural, so until we rein those practices in, I feel like we could all stop driving tomorrow and it would change almost nothing - it will not be enough to change what really must be changed. IMHO.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
I love the low flow toilets
that use only half the water, but require three flushes to eliminate the waste.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
You are exactly right, CB
Regarding raising the price of gas, diesel, and oil. Double the price in taxes before the oil companies jack up the profits.
If gas is $5.00 A gallon people will buy less. The oil companies will be reluctant to raise prices further for fear of collapsing the market entirely and starting a stampede to all electric vehicles.
With the added revenue start a public corporation producing solar, wind, and geo energy components.
Screw Corporate America. If they don't want to invest in renewable energy, then let the people's government profit from it.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
Sure, except what would
"the people's government" do with the revenue? I'm guessing that they would throw it to contracts for favored oligarchs from Team Blue.
As an anarchist, I regard corporations and government with equal suspicion.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
Doesn't the Postal Service work to your satisfaction?
What about Medicare? Are you suspicious of it also. Social Security?
Currently, fuel tax money goes toward transportation improvements and maintenance. I would rather target that extra money for strictly renewables.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
It's not a matter of whether those work or not
(although did you know that postal carriers frequently work 7 days a week, for weeks on end?), but rather what would the usual suspects do with a big new cash infusion?
As it stands, thousands of federal contractors leech off of federal spending, especially defense. I have no confidence that current management would do anything honest or responsible with the money.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
@dervish
Thank you for answering that so that I didn't have to.
As usual, the poor (probably 50-60% of non-wealthy-Americans?) would starve, only even more quickly, and the tax money would be poured into billionaire/corporate welfare.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
There is already a global stampede to all electric vehicles
China is leading the pack not only with electric cars but with electric buses, sanitation and other industrial vehicles. All new taxis in Beijing must now be electric.
Americans have been so busy navel gazing, they don't realize the world is leaving them behind.
@CB I have mixed feelings on
I have mixed feelings on this outlook. I mean yes, consumers continue to feed the gluttony of the system. But the approach you discuss continues to look at that system. I guess my point is if we didn't have said system, our problems would lessen significantly.
Case in point: I've been to Japan (amazing place). My number one mode of transportation was trains, followed by buses, and then very rarely, a taxi. Between all that was tons of walking. Here in America, well, I need my car. I have a '99 car, almost as old as me (born in 91). I live in a more rural environment, a smaller town of about 13,000 but i live outside town limits. I live in Minnesota and it gets frighteningly cold.
Overall I guess, if America had a robust, and I mean robust public transportation system that truly served the needs of people, I firmly believe that the car would slowly fall to the wayside. Doubling the price of gas in the end will merely hurt the people who have to get around. I do see your point, people with monster SUV's who don't even use the space or large trucks who don't even use the truck because they need a truck. Where I live I mean I can spot the folks who have trucks and then actually use it for things they need to do, and then those who have it as a symbol.
Zoning and city planning
have a lot to do with it. I think of the compact towns and villages of many parts of Europe, each with excellent train and bus connections to elsewhere.
American cities aren't built for walking and public transportation, although they used to be. The smart money would build out that infrastructure again.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
@dervish Zoning and city
Zoning and city planning seem like very minor things compared to the say power of the federal government to actually want to do the project. Perhaps I'm viewing it wrong but I would think this would require a massive federal infrastructure project, perhaps even the largest in our history compared to local bureaucracy.
I'm talking about the basics,
like urban density. As long as our towns consist of 3 houses per acre and and endless strip centers, transportation will be inefficient. Compact, higher density construction and utilization is the way to go, and it would encourage pedestrian and bike travel as well.
That's something that has to be figured out at the local level.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
@Strife Delivery
Fuel increases, even if only projected, are also used for price hikes in essentials such as food, and the price of food never seems to go back down after the 'increased transportation costs' do. This on top of increased prices for essentials such as heating/cooling; too many people are already sliding down the wrong side of the edge to be able to keep those fingernails dug in any harder...
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
We are in the midst of the 6th great extinction event.
Welcome to history. Tie it all around the necks of the entire US political system....and the greed of human beings.
There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties.. This...is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.--John Adams
I always thought a good replacement for Sunday School
would be environmental school or how to be a good shepherd if you must keep the religious connotations.
In the midst of this chaos,
Much of the developing world maintains sky-high birthrates. The whole equation is completely unsustainable, and I strongly doubt that there is any way out, except perhaps finding a hole and riding it out (even that is doubtful).
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
War and genocides as people flee the devastated areas
I fear that more and more.
For the first time in a long while,
I find myself grateful for my advancing middle age, instead of wishing I were younger.
I doubt *I'll* even get out of here before everything goes completely to shit; I can't imagine what it will be like for my generation's children (I don't have any by choice) and *their* children, now just entering this world.
Corporations don't give a
Corporations don't give a damn.
Neither party here in America gives a damn.
I don't know who I despise more actually: Republicans who state these aren't problems or don't exist, or Democrats who actually think they are doing something to help.
You have one group going 80 mph over the cliff and another going 60 mph over the cliff. Democrats actually think that fracking their way to prosperity helps the environment and climate change... let that sink in. And through it all they are the most smug and condescending people you will ever face.
Humanity had the potential to be a powerful and amazing force. Instead, we are a powerful force -- a powerful force of ignorance, greed, and malice.
@Strife Delivery
Lol, I wouldn't bet that corporate Dems are stupid enough to think that fracking up the water supply is a worth-while pursuit for the greater good. But they are stupid enough to think that if they only have enough money, they'll somehow still have a great life in a poisoned world with no economy to make those data-dots worth anything, with limited stockpiled resources controlled by various small and once-powerful groups battling for the dwindling leavings on Methane World.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Thank you so much for so
Thank you so much for so comprehensively putting this together in such an easily understandable fashion.
It's this big picture - and the relative few greed/power-driven exploiters creating the worst of this - that people need to understand. So often the massive and life-destroying level of gratuitous 'cost-cutting'/'expedient' industrial/military pollution and destruction goes entirely unmentioned, to focus only on carbon, frequently without even specifying toxic-to-life fossil fuels, discussing mitigation only of this single issue.
But a poisoned and dying planet with great chunks of its interdependent life support system missing cannot be (profitably, at public cost) 'mitigated' or 'replaced' to be made healthy and pristine again and wide-ranging genetic/epigenetic damage cannot be undone.
Evolution was possible only because stable genes/characteristics or the potentials for these, could be passed on through offspring generally more likely to survive whatever current conditions existed at the time.
Life itself has been and is under attack in all ways by the forces of mindless, lunatic greed in at least some cases believing that they could force their delusions of personal 'god-hood' on the real world as 'reality' if they only had enough money...
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.