The climate change thread

[Rewind]

Greta Thunberg, 16, is a Swedish climate activist who spoke at the United Nations climate talks in December and declared, "Our political leaders have failed us.” She organized student walkouts in Europe and the UK and there are plans for a global walkout March 15. They hope that by expressing their concerns about climate change and earth's future, they will usher in "a new era of student engagement in climate activism." Greta's Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/73284649708...7646880269801/

UK children walk out of classrooms to demand action on climate change
"We feel that actually 2025, 2040, is not a million miles away," said 15-year-old George Bond, a UK student who took part in the Fridays For Future school strike.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u...change-n971486

[Rewind]

Global warming, climate change and rising sea levels have led to the extinction of a mammal -- and climate-change deniers should keep in mind that humans are also mammals. We are not immune to the dangers.

An Australian rat, the Bramble Cay melomys, becomes the first mammal to go extinct due to climate change

http://fortune.com/2019/02/20/austra...limate-change/

[Rewind]

Donald Trump refuses to believe the thousands of scientific studies showing the dire effects of global warming. He believes global warming is a "hoax" perpetrated by the Chinese to harm US manufacturing. Thus, it is not surprising that he would want another climate-change skeptic to lead a climate study. It is said that "great minds think alike." So, too, do small minds.

Climate skeptic may lead White House panel to study climate change and national security

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/20/polit...per/index.html

[Rewind]

Scientists say earth's warmest temperatures occurred 56,000,000 years ago during a period of global warming known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. In the 20th and 21st century, the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas has been releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and all that CO₂ has led to a steady rise in earth's average temperatures -- and it's getting worse:

By the middle of next century, carbon dioxide in our atmosphere may soar to levels not seen in 56 million years

https://news.yahoo.com/carbon-dioxid...130003384.html

[Rewind]

Recent polls show the two biggest concerns of voters are health care and climate change. Unfortunately, our President tried his hardest to abolish the Affordable Care Act and he's trying his hardest to abolish anti-climate-change regulations and standards.

Climate change could make clouds disappear, triggering cataclysmic warming
Paste. Feb 26 2019 2:23 PM

Natalie Wolchover has a fascinating and terrifying piece at Quanta that outlines a dire scenario transcending even the most pessimistic recent predictions made by climate scientists. In short, new research suggests that there is a threshold of carbon dioxide beyond which low-lying clouds actually begin to vanish. As Wolchover writes, that triggers a cataclysmic warming cycle: "Clouds currently cover about two-thirds of the planet at any moment. But computer simulations of clouds have begun to suggest that as the earth warms, clouds become scarcer. With fewer white surfaces reflecting sunlight back to space, the earth gets even warmer, leading to more cloud loss. This feedback loop causes warming to spiral out of control."

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articl...r-trigger.html

[Rewind]

We know Donald Trump does not care about the environment. He thinks climate change is a "hoax," he pulled the US out of the Paris Accord, he wants to get coal miners back to work and he's weakened our nation's clean-air, clean-water and fuel-efficiency standards. He's slowly killing us.

Coal ash contaminating groundwater nationwide, groups say
CNN, Mar 4 2019 6:36 PM ET

Waste ash from hundreds of coal-fired power plants has contaminated groundwater in 39 states with toxic substances such as arsenic, lithium and mercury, according to a report by two environmental groups that was based on data the plants reported to the US Environmental Protection Agency. The report, released today by the Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice, highlights more than a dozen instances in which those substances have reached drinking water supplies. The full extent of the effect on drinking water supplies is not known because private sources of drinking water are not tested.

"Virtually all coal plants are poisoning our water," said author Abel Russ, an attorney with the Environmental Integrity Project. The ponds and landfills used to store coal ash are frequently unlined, allowing toxins to leach into groundwater. The report is based on groundwater monitoring data from more than 4,600 wells. It compared measured levels to drinking water or other standards. Contamination was found in groundwater near 242 plants. Fifty-two percent of those sites are contaminated with cancer-causing arsenic and 60% are polluted with lithium, which is linked to neurological damage.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/04/healt...ion/index.html

[Rewind]

The ignorant, delusional Tweeter-In-Chief is at it again:

Trump tweets climate change skeptic in latest denial of science
CNN, Mar 12 2019 3:13 PM

President Donald Trump escalated his denial of global warming today when he took to Twitter to quote a noted climate skeptic who claims climate change is "fake science." Trump cited the comments of Patrick Moore on Fox News' Fox & Friends program, which identified him as the co-founder of the activist group Greenpeace.

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace: "The whole climate crisis is not only Fake News, it’s Fake Science. There is no climate crisis, there’s weather and climate all around the world, and in fact carbon dioxide is the main building block of all life." @foxandfriends Wow!
5:29 AM - Mar 12, 2019

Greenpeace said Moore is not a co-founder but rather "a paid spokesman for a variety of polluting industries for more than 30 years." According to Moore, "there is no climate crisis." But according to Trump's own government's report from November, "the impacts of climate change are already being felt in communities across the country." The National Climate Assessment, which was a collaboration of 13 federal agencies and over 300 leading scientists, found that the US economy could lose hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century because of climate change.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/12/us/tr...ore/index.html

[Rewind]

A new US Gelogical Survey study looked at the combined effects of sea level rise, storms, wave action, cliff erosion, beach loss and other coastal threats. That George Strait song about "ocean front property in Arizona" may someday turn out to be true.

Destruction from sea level rise in California could be worse than wildfires and earthquakes, new research shows

https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/...313-story.html

[Rewind]

Our climate-change-denying President will spend the day in the Oval Office with his fingers in his ears, shouting "Naa naa naa, I can't hear you, naa naa naa!"

Students to demand action on climate change in global school walkout Friday

https://www.daytondailynews.com/news...LwMuPFn2jJaCJ/

[Rewind]

Our production of, and dependence on, fossil fuels is accelerating the rate of climate change. Trump doesn't care. He wants to "make America dependent on coal again." The oil, mining and natural gas industries must have been big contributors to his Presidential campaign and this is how he rewards them -- the environment, the climate and the protected sage grouse be damned.

The Trump administration is opening nearly 9 million acres to drilling – and that's just the start

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/th...art/ar-BBUPKzG