No Answers from Politicians

In a small Australian town real people are asking who pays the human costs when the coal fired power plants and coal mines are closed?  Nobody seems to have a practical answer.  

“I don’t think there’s been a great deal of thinking or attention to what [a climate transition] means for small towns like us. What I see is politicians, tourism people, saying each one of our jobs is going to be replaced by a new tourism job. But I don’t see that as practical at all. It fails to take into account that we own houses, businesses, we have settled families. What exactly is our transition plan for these people? Should we just leave our homes and businesses and move..."

Only governments can solve the climate crisis and they will only act if we take to the streets and demand not just technical solutions, but human solutions.

Lenticular Cloud Formation

...lenticular clouds are common around mountains that force incoming air to rise. If that air is carrying water vapor, then when it rises through the atmosphere and its temperature drops, the water will condense into a crowd of water droplets, the same way that droplets cover a cold glass on a warm, humid day. In the sky, the massive collection of suspended droplets forms a lenticular cloud, which erodes as the air sinks back down.

A single lenticular cloud recently appeared downwind of California’s Mount Shasta, per the Post. But Mount Washington’s cloud had another trick to share. Unstable conditions in the atmosphere can lead air currents to rise, while fast, low-density wind sweeps along the top. These wind currents can “sculpt” a cloud into the curlicue shape of a Kelvin-Helmholtz wave, meteorologist Jesse Ferrell tells AccuWeather’s Lauren Fox.  ---  Smithsonian Magazine

The Ocean Will Win

Sea level rise is going to happen.  Wait, that statement is incorrect.  Sea level rise is happening right now.  Multiple California communities are struggling with the encroachment of the ocean most often with expensive project that may, at best, delay the inevitable.  Just north of Monterey, the small town of Marina is planning for the ocean to win and how to accommodate the changes that victory will entail while still retaining their community.

At a time when Del Mar, Pacifica and other coastal cities are fighting to defend their homes and roads from the rising sea, Marina has embarked on a path less traveled. Here in this Army turned university town, residents are learning how to adjust with the ocean as the water moves inland.

“Marina is such a good test case,” said David Revell, a coastal geomorphologist who has advised numerous cities, including Marina, on sea level rise. “Here we have the precedent of a community who understands that … there has to be enough lead time to get things out of the way — before it’s in the way.

“That is a really powerful message to the rest of California.”

Who Says TV Isn't Educational?

Researchers in Finland studied two species of  local birds, the great tit (Parus major) and the blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus).  These birds have shown the ability to learn foods to avoid by watching how other birds react after eating them.  The researchers showed some of the birds videos of their peers eating and reacting to almonds where some of the almonds had been treated with a bitter substance.  Birds who ate those almonds reacted by "wiping their beaks and shaking their heads."  

Birds that had watched the videos ate fewer of the icky prey packets than those that had not, the researchers found. Blue tits seemed to learn better after watching videos featuring members of their own species, while great tits performed similarly regardless of what species had been featured in the videos.

“By watching others, [great tits and blue tits] can learn quickly and safely which prey are best to eat,” Hämäläinen says. “This can reduce the time and energy they invest in trying different prey, and also help them avoid the ill effects of eating toxic prey.”

An Army Of Denialist Bots

A new study of social media site Twitter finds that there is provides a voice to a vast army of automated Twitter bots routinely providing climate change denialist misinformation and expressing disdain and skepticism regarding legitimate climate change science and information.

The social media conversation over the climate crisis is being reshaped by an army of automated Twitter bots, with a new analysis finding that a quarter of all tweets about climate on an average day are produced by bots, the Guardian can reveal. 

The stunning levels of Twitter bot activity on topics related to global heating and the climate crisis is distorting the online discourse to include far more climate science denialism than it would otherwise.

On an average day during the period studied, 25% of all tweets about the climate crisis came from bots. This proportion was higher in certain topics – bots were responsible for 38% of tweets about “fake science” and 28% of all tweets about the petroleum giant Exxon.

The study doesn't identify the sources behind the bots, but considering their content it seems clear that the goal of the bots is to continue to inject confusion regarding climate science and support the goals of those who wish to delay action on reducing fossil fuel consumption.  Who could have goals like that?

There Is Always A Worse Worst Case

In The Future We Choose, Christina Figueres and Tom Rivett Carnac, two key figures in the development of the Paris Climate Agreement, describe a pair of potential futures for our planet and human civilization.  
In the Guardian, they summarize the best cast and worst case for our future.

The Worst Case (of course things could always be worse)

...Our world is getting hotter. Over the next two decades, projections tell us that temperatures in some areas of the globe will rise even higher, an irreversible development now utterly beyond our control...Now there are few forests left, most of them either logged or consumed by wildfire, and the permafrost is belching greenhouse gases into an already overburdened atmosphere...in five to 10 years, vast swaths of the planet will be increasingly inhospitable to humans...No one knows what the future holds for their children and grandchildren: tipping point after tipping point is being reached, casting doubt on the form of future civilisation. Some say that humans will be cast to the winds again, gathering in small tribes, hunkered down and living on whatever patch of land might sustain them.

And, the Best Case (already cast in doubt):

While we may have successfully reduced carbon emissions, we’re still dealing with the aftereffects of record levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The long-living greenhouse gases have nowhere to go other than the already-loaded atmosphere, so they are still causing increasingly extreme weather, though it’s less extreme than it would have been had we continued to burn fossil fuels.

Glaciers and Arctic ice are still melting and the sea is still rising. Severe droughts and desertification are occurring in the western United States, the Mediterranean and parts of China. Ongoing extreme weather and resource degradation continue to multiply existing disparities in income, public health, food security and water availability. But now governments have recognised climate crisis factors for the threat multipliers that they are. That awareness allows us to predict downstream problems and head them off before they become humanitarian crises.

Sadly, the Best Case here requires immediate and sustained planet wide activities that aren't even being considered by the largest greenhouse gas producing countries.  The Worst Case on the other hand could easily be the title of the Trump Republican environmental policy.  A policy being adopted by other countries with like minded autocratic governments.

Resorts Flying in Snow

A French ski resort is under fire for using a helicopter to deliver 50 tonnes (110,000 pounds) of snow that allowed the resort to continue to operate on a limited basis.  Despite the incredible carbon emissions cost of helicopter snow delivery the resort justified their actions as a job preservation measure.  Climate change driven by CO2 emissions is a primary cause of reduced snowfall, so the irony of using an extravagant delivery system to protect of small number of jobs isn't lost on the critics.  

This is a problem at ski resorts everywhere; Vail Resorts has been trying to go Net Zero by 2030 and is running its new high efficiency snow guns on wind power, but you can't make snow when it's 50°F out. According to research published in Geophysical Research Letters, the amount of snow mass in the USA had dropped 41 percent since 1980 and the snow season has shrunk by 34 days.

If only Senator James Inhofe (OK-Oil Shill) could deliver snow to ski resorts the way he did in the US Senate a few years ago.

The Recycling Scam - Part the Infinity

Today, Greenpeace issued a comprehensive report on the state of recycling in the US.  The report is clear in it conclusion and also crystal clear in its indictment of the packaging industry which continues to hide behind the essentially phony recycling symbol that it attaches to tons of single use plastic packaging material.

Companies are liable and at risk now. Companies that make “recyclable” claims in marketing materials or on products are liable for misrepresentation and need to ensure that the claims are accurate and not deceptive or misleading. Recyclable claims or labels on products other than PET #1 and HDPE #2 bottles and jugs are not accurate in the U.S. and expose companies to legal, reputational and financial liability risks.

By claiming that their products are recyclable packaging companies and their corporate customers are promoting a lie.  These companies know that the vast majority of the plastic material that they are using is not recyclable, but that virtually all of it ends in dump sites, incinerators or casually tossed out in our parks or on our beaches.  The cost of disposing of this "recyclable" material is left to communities.  

“This report shows that one of the best things to do to save recycling is to stop claiming that everything is recyclable,” said John Hocevar, director of Greenpeace’s Oceans Campaign. “We have to talk to companies about not producing so much throw-away plastic that ends up in the ocean or in incinerators.”

The plastic packaging industry needs to make major changes, but so do consumers. We need to understand that virtually all plastic packaging material is not recyclable and that all but a tiny fraction ends up in as garbage - waste that is filling out landfills or generating air pollution as it is incinerated.

Coyote and Badger On An Adventure

This video of a young coyote and a badger has gone viral.  This notoriety is due in large part to the playful behavior of the coyote and the way the two seem to be on an adventure together.   Behavioralist Jennifer Campbell-Smith sees something more than just a cute video.  She sees a lesson in animal behavior that illustrates the growing understanding that animal behavior is more than stimulus and response, but is often based on the "personality" of the individual animals themselves.

Scientifically, we are finally emerging from a dark period of studying nature simply as a stimulus-and-instinct-driven movie that humans can observe — the kind of thinking used to justify government-funded culls and mass indiscriminate killing of native species. Recent research demonstrates the cognitive and cultural capabilities of non-human animals, as well as the importance of their proclivities and personalities, and more data keep piling up.

This video comes from the Bay Area's Open Space Trust.  Please support their work.

Bighorn Airlift

Nevada's Pyramid Lake is an ancient natural lake fed by the Truckee River that transports water from Lake Tahoe down the eastern face of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  The Northern Paiute Tribe was squeezed onto the Pyramid Lake reservation in the 19th century, although the Paiutes had lived in the Great Basin and ranged between the Rocky and Sierra Nevada Mountains for hundreds of years.  

Pyramid Lake provided the Paiutes with fish, the cui-ui and Lahontan cutthroat trout, both struggling, but on the rebound due to the tribe's conservation efforts.  However, bighorn sheep that were a critical part of the tribe's culture had been missing from the reservation for a century.  Until now.

For the first time in roughly a hundred years, the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe will have a flock of bighorn sheep on tribal land that was once a part of the sheep’s historic habitat. Not only will the effort help restore the species; it will also renew hunting and tanning traditions and support ceremonial uses — practices disrupted as the sheep population declined.

Berry Important to Wolves

An interesting observation of wolf behavior is generating some serious questions.

In 2017, biologist Austin Homkes of Northern Michigan University in Marquette noticed some unusual behavior. He was following the GPS signal from previously installed wolf collars. It seemed like a gathering where several wolves met up — indicative of a hunt, he thought.

It’s common for wolves to hunt something and then bring the pups to the carcass to feed. But this wasn’t the case. It was, indeed, a rendezvous site. Homkes watched from a distance, observing as pups gathered around an adult wolf. They started licking its mouth, which stimulates adults to throw up. Then, Homkes thought, it must be still some meat the adult wolf had previously consumed.

But this wasn’t the case here. Homkes watched in shock as the wolf regurgitated piles of partially chewed blueberries, which the pups munched on.

The question of blueberry consumption illuminates the need to understand the contribution to wolf nutrition that food like these berries provide.  Could wolves benefit from forestry practices that encouraged the growth of berries?   You can review the study here.

                                                                                                                   Photo:  ODFW

Arrokoth

Photographed by the New Horizon spacecraft.  

Arrokoth comes from a region of the Solar System called the Kuiper Belt, specifically from an area that's outside the gravitational influence of Neptune, the outermost large planet. In this region, there was enough material to form icy bodies, but it was spread so thinly that the bodies seem to have remained small, without interacting frequently enough to form larger planets. Neptune's influence scattered some of the Kuiper Belt objects further inward, where collisions with other bodies were more likely and the influence of the Sun was stronger. But Arrokoth currently orbits beyond the point where that was likely to happen. --- Ars Technica

                                                                                                                  Photo: NASA

A Gold Rush When the Ice Melts

I can't wait for someone from the Trump crime family to discuss how great it will be to exploit the mineral resources of Antarctica once all that pesky ice melts.

Brazilian scientists measured a temperature of 20.75 degrees Celsius (approximately 69.35 degrees Fahrenheit) on Seymour Island Feb. 9...

"We'd never seen a temperature this high in Antarctica," Brazilian scientist Carlos Schaefer told AFP.

It's just a matter of time.

...Antarctica as a whole has warmed by almost three degrees Celsius over the past 50 years, according to WMO data reported by BBC News. During that time, about 87 percent of the glaciers on its western coast have retreated. The region also just recorded its warmest January on record.

"burned away with god's own blessed fire"

After a discussion of two of the most egregious examples of the corruption of Donald Trump's war on the environment and public health and safety, Charles Pierce talks about what will be necessary when Trump is defeated in November. 

I don't want conciliation if this president* loses in the fall. I don't want to look forward and not backwards, and I sure as hell don't want to turn any pages. I want democratic government restored to its full and righteous power until the last slime that has seeped into our institutions has been burned away with god's own blessed fire. This isn't vengeance. It's justice, full, transparent and complete. And it is our common right to see it done.

The Wall Trumps All

For nearly three decades the Malpai Borderlands Group, a coalition of ranchers along the southern border of Arizona and New Mexico, has worked to protect and preserve 800,000 acres of range land.  They have worked with environmental groups and various government agencies to preserve the open land and protect the environment.

Ranchers have worked to restore the watershed through a series of small rock structures that slow water runoff during heavy rains, recharging groundwater. A cattle-pond enhancement project aided the threatened Chiricahua leopard frog. The group has received money from the Natural Resources Conservation Service, a federal agency, to enhance water sources for both the ranchers’ cattle and the wildlife that cross through their land, and their work has helped inform regional fire-management decisions. Approximately 86,000 acres of land have been protected through conservation easements, maintaining ecological connectivity in a region that both ranchers and environmentalists feared would be fragmented by subdivisions.

Since some of this vast acreage runs along the US-Mexico border, the group has worked successfully with the Border Patrol to support border security while maintaining environmental responsibility. 

The group takes border security seriously; in the early 2000s, some of its ranches were situated along drug-trafficking routes. The ranchers helped the Border Patrol place surveillance towers on their property, and over the years, border crossings fell significantly in their sector.

That was before Trump and his border wall.  Now the Trump Administration is building the wall directly through some of the most environmentally sensitive areas of the borderlands.

In January... the 30-foot bollard wall was being erected...  carving up wildlife habitat, cutting off water sources for animals like jaguars, javelina and mountain lions, and cordoning off open space between the United States and Mexico...

Despite its history of close cooperation with the Border Patrol and what the group believed was an understanding with the government, the border wall is going up.

...Bill McDonald, the former executive director and founding member of the Malpai Borderlands Group...A fifth-generation cattle rancher, he won the prestigious MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” in 1998 for his work in land conservation.

When asked about his thoughts on the border wall, he told me he feels betrayed by the government. The group approached Border Patrol much the same way it pursued relationships with diverse regional stakeholders — through building trust. Until last March, McDonald thought they were all on the same page.

There is no "same page" with Trump, the environment will always suffer and people of goodwill will always be betrayed. 



For more background on the Malpai Borderlands Group.

Death from Above

Frightening if you are a gazelle.

Ignorance Is Bliss - Titanic Syndrome

Ever wonder what the impact of decades of climate change denialism and Republican's routine attacks on science have on people when they are introduced to the potential impact of climate change on their very homes?   Those people most likely to suffer directly, deny the science.  

The study was intended to assess how residents might perceive the vulnerability of their property and their communities to severe storms. We asked residents about their political affiliation and their support for policies such as zoning laws, gasoline taxes and other measures to address climate change.

Surprisingly, we found that those who had viewed the maps were, on average, less likely to say they believed that climate change was taking place than those who had not seen the maps.

Further, those who saw the maps were less likely than those survey respondents who had not seen the maps to believe that climate change was responsible for the increased intensity of storms. Respondents who classified themselves as Republicans had the strongest negative responses to the maps.

Those who saw the maps were no more likely to believe that climate change exists, that climate change increases the severity of storms or that sea level is rising and related to climate change. Even more dramatically, exposure to the scientific map did not influence beliefs that their own homes were susceptible to flooding or that sea level rise would reduce local property values.

Facts are easier to ignore when that ignorance is reinforced by politicians, corporations and media outlets like Fox News.

Look What Crashed Through My Window

The average life span of a bald eagle in the wild is 20 years, so it's a pretty big deal when a 30 year old eagle crashes through your window while you are tying flies for fishing season

Meghan Warren from the Teton Raptor Center captured the bird Tuesday after it flew through a double-paned window and crashed onto the fly-tying desk of Reed Moulton. Moulton thought the bird had died, but after a few minutes it stood up and perched among Moulton’s hooks and feathers.

A band on the rescued bird’s right leg revealed that it had been banded in the Yellowstone Ecosystem in the spring of 1989 and is 30 years old. The Exxon Valdez spilled its cargo in Prince William Sound that year, Mike Sullivan was the governor and the B52s released the hit “Love Shack.”

The male eagle is looking forward to a quick release and return to soaring with his pals. 

                                                                         Photo: January 31, 2020 by Angus M. Thuermer Jr. 

Global Warming Drives Declining Bee Populations

When the most useful insects become extinct, what bugs will likely survive?   Mosquitos, the ubiquitous cockroach, ants....?  A world without bees will also be a world with fewer flowers, fruits and, of course, almonds.

The study found that in the course of a single human generation, the chances of a bumble bee population surviving in a given place has dropped by an average of over 30 percent.

"Bumble bees are the best pollinators we have in wild landscapes and the most effective pollinators for crops like tomato, squash, and berries," says fist author Peter Soroye, a PhD student in the Department of Biology at the University of Ottawa. "Our results show that we face a future with many less bumble bees and much less diversity, both in the outdoors and on our plates."

The bright side is that the authors of this study have created a tool to determine the likelihood of extinction for a species.  So  there is that.

Hotter and Faster....Maybe.

Global warming models are critical to understanding the impact of atmospheric CO2 build-up on almost every aspect of life on the planet.  Sea level rise, loss of arable land, species extinction, wildfire risks, deforestation…..the doomsday list goes on and on. 

For almost 50 years these models have had a strong track record in predicting global warming.  The results of those models figure strongly in the calculations and international commitments made in the Paris Agreement.  The global response to a predicted three decree Celsius temperature increase by 2100 is based on the scientific models.

“Particularly impressive” were models from the 1970s because there wasn’t much observable evidence for warming at that time. Back then, the paper noted, “the world was thought to have been cooling for the past few decades.”

In the last year, warming models have begun to generate results that indicate that both the magnitude of warming and the timeframe for meaningful human action are much more critical.   It's getting hotter faster are the basic results of multiple highly respected models.

The reason for worry is that these same models have successfully projected global warming for a half century. Their output continues to frame all major scientific, policy and private-sector climate goals and debates, including the sixth encyclopedic assessment by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change due out next year. If the same amount of climate pollution will bring faster warming than previously thought, humanity would have less time to avoid the worst impacts.

Warming models have become more sophisticated over the years and more complex.  The basic data doesn’t change, but assumptions regarding the impact of both current warming, human activity and even clouds can influence the results the models predict.  Scientists know that the models are critical to the complex web of political considerations and decision that must be made to ameliorate the worst impact of global warming.  They are working to refine the models and develop a consensus of the scenarios to help shape the necessary global response.

In the next year, climate-modeling groups will peruse each other’s results to figure out how seemingly good improvements in cloud and aerosol science may have pushed the models into hotter states. These conversations happen in the open, through peer-reviewed journals, conferences and blog posts. The authors of the main UN climate-science reports will follow along and try to stitch together a big picture, for release in 2021.

Pass this On - This is Who Trump Is

This is the man who has decided that all of the climate science is wrong and the answer to the world's problems is more fossil fuel.  He loves "clean coal."  And, the Republicans are happy to let this mentally compromised man destroy the world.   

                                                                                                    From Real Time with Bill Maher