Alaska just can’t seem to shake the fever it has been running. This spring was easily the hottest the state has ever recorded and it contributed to a year-to-date temperature that is more than 10 degrees F (5.5 degrees C) above average, according to data released Wednesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Source: Alaska is way, way hotter than normal right now ‹ Reader — WordPress.com
GR: Lost habitat and wildlife are not even included in the costs.
Take what you want and pay for it, says God. – Spanish Proverb
Peter Sinclair.–As the damages from a changing climate mount up in areas from Texas to Miami Beach, citizens of Planet Earth will be faced with greater and greater damages from coastal flooding, extreme storms, and other signals of a warming planet.While a favorite climate denier talking point is to rail against sensible taxes on fossil fuels, its an illusion to think we are not already paying the costs – in damage to infrastructure, homes, agriculture, health, and economic activity. A sober view of what we face in the real world is unfashionable in the Trumpiverse, but some communities will go ahead and face it anyway. Continue reading: Three Certainties: Death, Taxes, and a Warming Planet | Climate Denial Crock of the Week
GR: Impacts of declining monsoon rainfall will extend beyond India. As mentioned in the comments on this post, emigration will grow to become a gigantic problem as India’s 1.4 billion residents respond to food shortages. Decreasing life span and emigration will help with the country’s massive population problem, but not the way anyone would want.
“It has been observed that since 2001, places in northern India, especially in Rajasthan, are witnessing a rising temperature trend every year. The main reason is the excessive … emission of carbon dioxide.” — Laxman Singh Rathore, the director general of the India Meteorological Department.
The reduction in India’s monsoon rains is a big deal. It generates systemic drought, creates a prevalence for heatwaves, and locally amplifies the impacts of human-caused climate change. For three years now, the Indian monsoon has been delayed. India is experiencing its worst heatwaves ever recorded and water shortages across the country are growing dire. The monsoonal rains are coming, again late. And people across India — residents as well as weather and climate experts — are beginning to wonder if the endemic drought and heat stress will ever end.
Historically, there was only one climate condition known to bring about a delay in India’s Monsoon — El Nino. And last year, a strong El Nino is thought to have contributed both to the Monsoon’s late arrival and to a very severe drought that is now gripping the state. What the 2015 El Nino cannot also account for is the 2014 delay and weakening of monsoonal rains. And during 2016, as India’s monsoon has again been held back by 1-2 weeks, and El Nino is now but a memory, it’s beginning to become quite clear that there’s something else involved in the weakening of India’s annual rains.
Source: robertscribbler | Scribbling for environmental, social and economic justice
It is ridiculous to pretend that Australia As World’s Nuclear Waste Dump is “just a State issue” for South Australia.
What about the port for receiving the radioactive trash? – in what State? What about the rail and road transport of radioactive trash? Across which States?
What about Australia as the world’s laughing stock? No other country wants to be the global toxic trash can.
And of those countries that have nuclear power, not one of them has a completed and successfully operating nuclear waste facility for their own radioactive trash, let alone everybody else’s.
Change in government’s energy policy blamed for job losses just as solar power eclipses coal in electricity generation
Terry Macalister Energy editor: The solar power industry says it has seen the loss of more than half its 35,000 jobs due to recent changes in government energy policy, just at a time when solar power has eclipsed coal as a major generator of Britain’s electricity.
Experts believe ministers had cut subsidies too far and too fast, praising the “seismic”, record-breaking growth of solar in recent years.
This month the Solar Cloth Company became the latest to be put into administration, following the liquidation and 170 job losses at Solarlec two weeks ago.
Pole to pole and across the world’s oceans and mountains, climate change impacts are adding up
By Bob Berwyn: For any Summit Voice readers not following my Twitter or Facebook feeds, here’s a list of links to my recent stories for InsideClimate News.
Of greatest interest here in the West is a new University of Utah study that projects a dramatic upward shift of the snowline in the Rockies and coastal ranges in California, Oregon and Washington. Less spring snowpack at lower elevations has huge effects on we manage our water, and could also result in more early season wildfires: Unabated Global Warming Threatens West’s Snowpack, Water Supply.
In mid-May I wrote about the latest update to NOAA’s annual greenhouse gas index, which showed that atmospheric CO2 concentration showed its biggest annual increase on record in the past year. The index also showed a surge in Methane, an etremely potent heat-trapping pollutant: Far From Turning a Corner, Global CO2 Emissions Still Accelerating. Continue reading: Connecting the climate change dots | Summit County Citizens Voice
GR: Here’s an opportunity to add your voice to the conversation on climate, nuclear power, and nature conservation.
Christina Macpherson: With 3 weeks to go until the federal election, watching the performance of our major parties is a pretty unedifying sight. If I hear the words “Jobs and Growth” one more time, I will do an Elvis Presley, and throw a tomahawk at the TV set. (Did Elvis really do that? But I digress) Today PM Turnbull mouthed a few motherhood statements about climate, but no policy there. Labor is better, with a promising renewable energy policy. (Of course, neither are breathing a word about Australia importing nuclear waste. Nor is Nick Xenophon, the rising star who might hold the balance of power after the election) ) The Greens have an economically sound renewable energy plan.
I have emailed all Labor MPs, Senators and Candidates, asking each if they want to hold to Labor’s strong anti-nuclear policy, which bars importing nuclear waste, or if they would agree to change it. Few replies, so far, and most replies simply dodge the question Australians! You could send your own or use the sample at the end of this email. Contact details for Australian politicians and candidates are here.
On the State scene, South Australian Labor Premier Weatherill and Liberal Opposition Leader Steven Marshall are off together for a little nuclear lovefest in Finland, to look at Finland’s (not yet operative) nuclear waste repository.
The planned South Australian high level nuclear waste one will need to be up to 28 times the size of Finland’s. That’s around 112 square kms or 5,500 Adelaide ovals, 400 metres underground – and that’s not taking into consideration the 470,000 m3 of low and intermediate level nuclear waste. Source: The past week in nuclear news « Antinuclear
President Francois Hollande will formally sign the Paris climate agreement on Wednesday, June 15, making France the first industrialized nation to ratify the landmark accord, Environment Minister Segolene Royal said on Friday.
France’s Senate adopted a bill authorizing the government to ratify the agreement on Wednesday after a near unanimous vote by the lower house in May, Royal told a carbon pricing forum in Paris. Source: France to formally ratify Paris climate accord on June 15 – Minister | Reuters
GR: Beginning in the 1950’s, India has had the most proactive population control program in the world. From quotas, and often-forced sterilization to meet them, to paid sterilization, the country has tried–and failed to control population growth. The article below discusses some of the reasons and some of the alternative approaches. What’s missing is a global program similar to the one taking shape for climate change. Instead of planning a massive increase in coal-fired energy production, it would be much better if India would invent and lead a world-wide movement to reduce the human population.
Joe Bish, Population Media Center.–If India is going to avoid a population time bomb, experts say, it has to move away from sterilization as the preferred form of contraception.
As an introduction to her essay below, author Christine Chung writes: “Despite half a century of efforts to reduce population growth, India faces challenges in delivering a family-planning program that goes beyond female sterilization to help couples delay and space out their children.”
The essay may best be read in the context of a recent report issued by the Population Foundation of India (PFI), which demonstrated that the country is on track to fail in the commitments it made towards the Family Planning 2020 initiative. PFI found that the central government needs to pony up another $2.3 billion USD (Rs 15,800 crore) over the next 4 years to have a realistic shot at meeting their goals around contraceptive prevalence. Even more bothersome on the financing front, it seems India has gone the “devolution” route, wherein the central government has, to some extent, passed responsibility for family planning programs to the state governments. If so, it is worth remembering that such a scheme was major contributor to Indonesia’s family planning program stalling out in the past decade. Continue: Meanwhile, In India: Family Planning Beyond Sterilization
GarryRogers Nature Conservation 