Climate Change: I don't want to talk about it

Beyond Tipping Point: Global Warming Has Raised Arctic Temps to Hottest in 120,000 Years

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/10/25-2

"New research shows that in some areas - where human-caused climate change has driven termperatures highter than they've been for tens of thousands of years - melting polar ice caps are now beyond any hope of saving.

A study announced this week confirms for the first time that, because of global warming, the average summer temperature over the past 100 years in the Eastern Canadian Arctic is hotter than any other century in the last 44,000 years and likely the hottest over the past 120,000 years..."

Climate Change To Sink New York (and vid)

http://rt.com/shows/the-truthseeker/climate-change-sink-ny-209/

"New York, Shanghai, London and other cities underwater in decades? Obama spikes EPA report admitting fracking does 'significant' damage to drinking water, and polluters paying Disney to sell their chemicals to children.."

Why they give jerks like this an ounce of airtime I'll never know.

5 reasons Eric Pickles is a floody idiot who can't be taken seriously

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/5-reasons-eric-pickles-floody-3131318

Environment Agency staff not being sent to flood-hit Wraysbury after abuse by villagers

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-weather-environment-agency-staff-3137637

Tens of Thousands in France Say No New Airport!

Tens of thousands of protesters rallied in the western France city of Nantes on Saturday, fighting a new airport they say will cause environmental destruction and fly in the face of President Hollande's promises of a "green transition."

The new airport, described as a pet project of Prime Minister and ex-mayor of Nantes Jean-Marc Ayrault, has been contested for decades.

Among those present at Saturday's protest were farmers, including hundreds of tractors, environmentalists, trade union members, and those described as being "radicals." That fringe group was blamed for acts of violence during the protest, and was hit with water cannons and tear gas by police....

https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/02/22-1

Acidic Waters Kill 10 Million Scallops Off Vancouver

A mass die-off of scallops near Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island is being linked to the increasingly acidic waters that are threatening marine life and aquatic industries along the West Coast.

Rob Saunders, CEO of Island Scallops, estimates his company has lost three years worth of scallops and $10 million dollars — forcing him to lay off approximately one-third of his staff.

“I’m not sure we are going to stay alive and I’m not sure the oyster industry is going to stay alive,” Saunders told The Parksville Qualicum Beach NEWS. “It’s that dramatic.”

Ocean acidification, often referred to as global warming’s “evil twin,” threatens to upend the delicate balance of marine life across the globe. As we pump increasing amounts of carbon pollution into the atmosphere, it’s not just wreaking havoc on air quality. The oceans are the world’s largest carbon sinks, absorbing one-quarter of the carbon dioxide emitted every year. The more carbon dioxide absorbed, the more acidic the water becomes and as a result, organisms like shellfish no longer have the calcium carbonate they need to build their shells....

Let's Call Climate Change What It Really Is—Violence

If you're poor, the only way you're likely to injure someone is the old traditional way: artisanal violence, we could call it – by hands, by knife, by club, or maybe modern hands-on violence, by gun or by car.

But if you're tremendously wealthy, you can practice industrial-scale violence without any manual labor on your own part. You can, say, build a sweatshop factory that will  collapse in Bangladesh and kill more people than any hands-on mass murderer ever did, or you can calculate risk and benefit about putting poisons or unsafe machines into the world, as manufacturers do every day. If you're the leader of a country, you can declare war and kill by the hundreds of thousands or millions. And the nuclear superpowers – the US and Russia – still hold the option of destroying quite a lot of life on Earth.

So do the carbon barons. But when we talk about violence, we almost always talk about violence from below, not above....

http://www.alternet.org/lets-call-climate-change-what-it-really-violence

Ottawa failed in handling of file on Keystone

http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Yedlin+Ottawa+failed+handling+file...

You think it's hot now, eh!

Will the Amazon rain forest be destroyed by fire?

Groundbreaking eight-year study fingers deforestation-caused drought and fires as leading to a possible "tipping point" configuration

SHUTTERSTOCK

http://www.straight.com/news/633911/will-amazon-rain-forest-be-destroyed...

Unprecedented B.C. glacier melt seeps into U.S. climate change concerns

Some B.C. glaciers losing 22 cubic kilometres of ice a year, or about 22 billion cubic metres of water

The mountains of British Columbia cradle glaciers that have scored the landscape over millennia, shaping the rugged West Coast since long before it was the West Coast.

But they're in rapid retreat, and an American state-of-the-union report on climate change has singled out the rapid melt in British Columbia and Alaska as a major climate change issue.

"Most glaciers in Alaska and British Columbia are shrinking substantially," said the U.S. National Climate Assessment, released last week to much fanfare south of the border.

"This trend is expected to continue and has implications for hydropower production, ocean circulation patterns, fisheries, and global sea level rise.".....

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/unprecedented-b-c-glacier...

Scientists Discover Three Massive Holes in Northern Siberia

http://mainenewsonline.com/content/1409715-scientists-discover-three-mas...

Naomi Klein on climate failure: “It’s not that we’ve done nothing. We’ve done the wrong things.

”We can't fight global warming without taking on the system

http://www.salon.com/2014/09/17/naomi_klein_on_climate_failure_its_not_t...

What If Climate Change is Worse Than We Thought?  -  by Robert Hunziker

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/20/what-if-climate-change-is-worse-t...

"It is worse than we thought!

New studies about the warming of the planet and the risk of massive release of methane from the Arctic are 'worse than we thought'..."

I hope Canada/Canadians are getting prepared as we are not immune and are going to be hit with a vengeance sooner than we think.

How many Canadians are living at or close to sea level?

What about yourselves? Do you know how high above sea level you live?

I sometimes drive along highway 99 between Vancouver and White Rock and when I do now I sometimes wonder when is that water I see to the West of me going to come up over the banks and onto the highway. It's coming sure as anythin'.

A lot of housing development in the Richmond area must be very close to sea level. Maybe anyone who wants to move to BC show have to show proof of being able to swim and show ownership of a life preserver.

Winds were bringing water onto the Seawall in Stanley Park today to the point they had to close off a portion of the Seawall.

Is Louisiana’s coastline beyond saving?

An area the size of Delaware has already disappeared, and we may be powerless to stem the rising tides

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana — The river systems of the world have a certain pageantry in the history of the countries through which they flow, and names with a musical ring: Amazon and Ganges, Mekong, Nile and Irrawaddy, Rhine, Volga, Yangtze and the name with a hard, dark pull in New Orleans environmental writer Bob Marshall’s life: Mississippi.

“All of the world’s great deltas are collapsing because of development and sea level rise,” says Marshall, who has long history in the Louisiana coastal wetlands, where the Mississippi River delta meets the Gulf of Mexico.

Rivers were the highways of the world before roads and internal combustion engines,” explains Marshall. “Commerce was at the mouth of these rivers, port to port. The alluvial flood plains were fertile for farming, so they put up levees. The Niger River delta [in Nigeria] has been absolutely destroyed by oil and gas drilling, much worse than ours.”

Marshall reports for The Lens, a digital publication that collaborated with ProPublica on “Losing Ground,” an August investigation of Louisiana’s coastal erosion. The project used map simulations that drew wide media attention for a rendering of how much coastal forest has been swallowed and how far inland the Gulf is rising as south Louisiana sinks.

“Louisiana is drowning, quickly,” Marshall wrote in the main story. “In just 80 years, some 2000 square miles of its coastal landscape have turned to open water, wiping places off maps, bringing the Gulf of Mexico to the back door of New Orleans and posing a lethal threat to an energy and shipping corridor vital to the nation’s economy.”

An area the size of Delaware has disappeared. Acreage the size of a football field sinks in the Gulf on average once an hour. The federal government recently erased more than 20 communities south of New Orleans from the map – they’re underwater now.

http://www.salon.com/2014/11/28/is_louisianas_coastline_beyond_saving_pa...

Climate change survey reveals Canadians' fears for future generations

Poll suggests acceptance of climate change science rising - and most don't see Canada as a laggard

The bottom line, said Neuman, is the new poll shows the Conservative government's handling of climate change is not going to turn into a ballot box issue.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/climate-change-survey-reveals-canadians-...

I am not engaged much on the climate change front - but just wanted to flag this article that I thought presents well some of the challenges and conundrums associated with this file. In a nutshell, the author acknowledges the difference between conservatives - as deniers of climate change, - and liberals - as deniers of the implications of climate change.  (Its American, so small "l" and small "c" throughout.)  

As in, "Hey libs - don't try to kid yourself that more windmills. electric cars and fewer pipelines are going to be enough to make a difference!"  How you translate this sort of analysis - and implicit prescription for change - into a viable political platform is a daunting challenge.

Six Myths About Climate Change that Liberals Rarely Question

Myth #1:  Liberals Are Not In Denial 

“We will not apologize for our way of life” –Barack Obama

The conservative denial of the very fact of climate change looms large in the minds of many liberals.  How, we ask, could people ignore so much solid and unrefuted evidence?   Will they deny the existence of fire as Rome burns once again?  With so much at stake, this denial is maddening, indeed.  But almost never discussed is an unfortunate side-effect of this denial: it has all but insured that any national debate in America will occur in a place where most liberals are not required to challenge any of their own beliefs.  The question has been reduced to a two-sided affair—is it happening or is it not—and liberals are obviously on the right side of that.

If we broadened the debate just a little bit, however, we would see that most liberals have just moved a giant boat-load of denial down-stream, and that this denial is as harmful as that of conservatives...

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-11-26/six-myths-about-climate-change-that-liberals-rarely-question