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The combination of greenhouse gas emissions and the hot air coming from the White House is leading to dire consequences for our planet.
US greenhouse gas emissions spiked in 2018
The Washington Post, Jan 8 2019 4:20 AM
US carbon dioxide emissions rose an estimated 3.4% in 2018, according to new research — a jarring increase that comes as scientists say the world needs to be aggressively cutting its emissions to avoid the most devastating effects of climate change. The findings, published today by the independent economic research firm Rhodium Group, mean that the United States now has a diminishing chance of meeting its pledge under the 2015 Paris climate agreement to dramatically reduce its emissions by 2025.
The findings also underscore how the world's second-largest emitter, once a global leader in pushing for climate action, has all but abandoned efforts to mitigate the effects of a warming world. President Trump has said he plans to officially withdraw the nation from the Paris climate agreement in 2020 and in the meantime has rolled back Obama administration regulations aimed at reducing the country's carbon emissions. The sharp emissions rise was fueled primarily by a booming economy, researchers found. But the increase, which could prove to be the second-largest in the last 20 years, probably would not have been as stark without Trump administration rollbacks, said Trevor Houser, a partner at Rhodium.
https://www.latimes.com/nation/natio...108-story.html
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Here is the latest dire news for our planet -- news which our President will ignore and dismiss:
Oceans are warming dramatically faster, new study warns
CBS News, Jan 11 2019 7:54 PM
A new study finds the world's oceans are warming significantly faster than previously thought. The analysis, published Thursday in the journal Science, raises the stakes for curbing climate change. Since 1970, the ocean has warmed 40% more than previous estimates, according to climate scientist Zeke Hausfather, one of the authors of the study.
The study examined four new or updated Ocean Heat Content records — a fancy term for measuring how warm the ocean is, taking into account deeper water, not just surface temperatures — and finds the ocean warming is significantly higher than estimated in the last comprehensive report by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2013. Ninety-three percent of the excess heat trapped in the earth's system by human-caused greenhouse gas emissions is stored in the oceans. If it weren't for this ocean buffer absorbing so much heat, our atmosphere would be roasting us by now.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/oceans-...e-study-warns/
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I wonder how many cities would still be above sea level if the oceans rose 188 feet -- and would Denver, Omaha and Wichita become coastal communities?
Antarctica ice melt has accelerated by 280% in the last four decades
Brandon Miller, CNN, Jan 14 2019 4:15 PM
A new study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals that our planet's ice is melting at an alarming rate, which is bad news for global sea levels. According to the study, led by Eric Rignot from the University of California at Irvine, which looked at details of ice and snow from the entire continent of Antarctica since 1979, Antarctica's crucial ice sheet has been melting for the entire 39 year period. The rate of that ice loss has not been consistent, with ice disappearing faster in each successive decade, from 40 gigatons per year from 1979-90 all the way up to 252 gigatons per year from 2009-17, a six-fold increase. That melt-rate has been accelerating in the most recent decades, up 280% in the second half of the nearly 40 years compared to the first half.
The continent holds a majority of the planet's ice and, if melted, would cause the average sea level to rise 188 feet. "If we fail to achieve carbon dioxide emissions targets and earth's average temperature warms more than 2° Celsius, sea ice will diminish," said Richard Levy of New Zealand's GNS Science & Victoria University of Wellington. Currently, Antarctica's sea ice is at the lowest January levels since detailed observations began in 1979, according to data from the US National Snow & Ice Data Center.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/14/world...ies/index.html
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A few Republicans are siding with Democrats who support a carbon tax but the majority are afraid to go against the President who ignores all the data from hundreds of climate-change studies and insists global warming is a "hoax." In an open letter published in the Wall Street Journal, 45 top economists say a national tax on carbon emissions would be the most cost-effective way to reduce global warming. Increases in the cost of fuel and electricity would be offset by huge rebates paid to American families -- or so they say.
A huge number of economists agree we need a policy to fight climate change -- but lawmakers aren't getting on board
https://www.businessinsider.com/clim...n-board-2019-1
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UC Berkeley health professor Ray Catalano says climate change models "predict that things will get less predictable. We'll have greater swings of temperatures with higher highs, lower lows and faster oscillations between the two extremes. When you change the climate the way we're changing it, you will change, profoundly, the characteristics of the population" and the ratio of male births to female births will change.
Climate change will affect the ratio of male-to-female newborns, scientists say
CNN, Jan 23 2019 7:40 PM ET
Global warming will have a variety of effects on our planet, yet it may also directly impact our human biology, research suggests. Specifically, climate change could alter the proportion of male and female newborns, with more boys born in places where temperatures rise and fewer boys born in places with other environmental changes, such as drought or wildfire caused by global warming. A recent study in Japan found a link between temperature fluctuations and a lower male-to-female sex ratio at birth, with conceptions of boys especially vulnerable to external stress factors, wrote Dr. Misao Fukuda, lead study author and founder of the M&K Health Institute in Hyogo.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/23/healt...ntl/index.html
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Climate change is leading to stronger hurricanes, melting glaciers, rising sea levels, warmer oceans, more storm surges and flooding, dying coral reefs and higher carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. These things are scary, says CNN's Mark Lynas, because they show we are drawing "ever closer to the worst-case scenarios of climate models." He adds, "Perhaps the scariest thing of all is that millions of people, including the President of the United States, are still climate skeptics. For them, conspiracy theories and mass psychological denial serve to justify business as usual." Scary indeed.
Climate change: The more we know, the worse it seems
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/25/opini...ntl/index.html
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While Donald Trump -- who continues to insist climate change is a hoax -- is busy eliminating clean-air regulations, rolling back fuel-efficiency standards and trying to get coal miners back to work, other nations are working to combat climate change:
Germany to close all 84 of its coal-fired power plants by 2038, will rely primarily on renewable energy
https://www.latimes.com/world/europe...126-story.html
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Donald Trump is citing this week's freezing-cold weather in much of the US as "proof" that global warming isn't real. Trump is wrong. However, he and the other climate-change deniers are going to continue denying. They likely won't ever bother to read these stories:
If the earth is warming, why is it so cold outside?
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...d-weather.html
How cold weather and climate change are connected
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/30/c...ather-dvr.html
Why cold weather doesn’t mean climate change is fake
Weather and climate aren't the same thing, meaning you can expect harsher winters in a warming world.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/e...-polar-vortex/
Why global warming can mean harsher winter weather
Scientists look at the big picture, not today's weather, to see the impact of climate change.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...arsher-winter/
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NASA and NOAA climate data released today show that 2018 was the fourth-warmest year ever recorded. The five warmest years on record were the past five years and 18 of the 19 warmest years have occurred since 2001. Okay, climate change deniers, start your denying!
Earth just experienced one of the warmest years on record
https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/02/06/wor...asa/index.html
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Revelation 16:8-9: "The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun and it was given power to scorch the people with fire. And the people were scorched by intense heat and they cursed the name of God." When that happens, I bet there will no longer be any climate-change deniers.
Climate change will melt vast parts of the Himalayas, study says
CNN, Feb 4 2019 10:41 PM
At least a third of the ice in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region, an area that includes the world's highest peaks Mount Everest and K2, could melt by the end of this century, according to an assessment released Monday -- even if there is aggressive action to curb greenhouse gases and meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement. The Hindu Kush Himalayan Assessment was put together by more than 200 authors aiming to create a baseline of knowledge to understand the region that includes China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan. The report highlights previous studies that predicted glacier volumes in this region could decline between 45% and 90% through the 21st century.
Rising temperatures are a serious threat to the eight countries including China, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region. Fresh water from the region's glaciers flows into 10 major river basins, contributing to the drinking water, irrigation and energy needs of approximately 1.9 billion people. Glaciers have been retreating and thinning in the area since the 1970s, the report says, but there's been an accelerating rate of retreat since then. This loss has caused severe economic damage and floods, landslides and deadly epidemics. Global warming has also reduced snow cover and degraded permafrost. The consequences of inaction will be devastating, impacting food and water supplies and raising the risk of mass population displacement, the assessment says.
Climate change will reduce how much food farmers will be able to produce in this part of the world. About 70% of the population of this region are farmers and there is already great food insecurity there. Warmer water temperatures will encourage the growth of invasive species. Extreme floods and droughts may "destroy the food production base of the region," the report said. Rivers that farmers and energy companies rely on, such as the Ganges, Yangtze, Mekong and Indus, will also be hurt by glacier melt.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/04/world...udy/index.html
