Every year since the dawn of time, the Santa Ana winds lash Southern California’s dry autumn brushlands into explosive, blazing infernos. Every year since the dawn of the last century, Southern Californians express surprise as they are engulfed in a sea of flame. With climate change, things won’t get better.
“We will never be able to control wildfire,” explains Tania Schoennagel of the Institute for Alpine and Arctic Research, “We have to learn to live with it and adapt, just like we do with droughts and flooding. Our current wildfire policies can’t protect people and homes.”
More:
“The Future of Fighting Wildfires in the Era of Climate Change,” Bob Berwyn, Pacific Standard
“Adapt to more wildfire in western North American forests as climate changes,” Tania Schoennagela, Jennifer K. Balcha, Hannah Brenkert-Smith et al., PNAS
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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com.
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
President Donald J. Trump has announced that the United States is withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord — not to protect American jobs (it won’t) or to help U.S. industry (it won’t) but because he can. Actually, it will take 4 years for the U.S. to fully withdraw from the agreement, unless Mr. Trump ignores its terms and makes the USA seem even more unreliable to other nations.
Mr. Trump’s determination to ignore climate change will come at personal sacrifice, since the resulting sea level rise will engulf his golf courses in Florida and Ireland. Hey, maybe Eric, Don Jr., and Jared can promote water polo. Ivanka can make the bathing suits!
More:
“5 claims Trump used to justify pulling the US out of the Paris agreement — and the reality,” Dana Varinsky, Dave Mosher and Ariel Schwartz, Business Insider
“Paris Climate Deal’s Demise Means Bannon Wins—And The Planet Loses,” Lachlan Markay and Asawin Suebsaeng, Daily Beast
“Bill Nye hits Trump: ‘You can’t build a border wall against CO2 emissions,'” Brandon Carter, The Hill
“The entire Trump presidency, in 1 mind-blowingly stupid announcement,” Paul Waldman, The Week
“Donald Trump has now pissed off the damn Weather Channel,” Clayton Purdom, A.V. Club
Scientists at Denmark’s Aarhus University and the DLF seed corporation are using DNA technology to develop a type of grass that is easier for cows to digest, meaning less gas builds up in bossy’s belly. Bovine burps are a major source of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that promotes climate change.
The project, funded by Denmark’s Ministry of Environment and Food, uses genomic selection to determine promising grass strains for breeding. The project is expected to take about 5 or 6 years, so you’ll have to excuse bovine belching until then. Environmentally-anxious cowboys and cowgirls can follow the project here.
Florida officials have a strategy for fighting climate change: don’t talk about it. Employees at the state’s Department of Environmental Protection were warned not to used the terms “climate change” or “global warming” after Republican Governor Rick Scott took office in 2011. That won’t stop the warming world’s rising seas from swallowing Miami, but mum’s the word until Mr. Scott leaves office.
Climate change means extreme weather. When it’s stormy there will be some monster waves, but there will also be long periods of flat water. The really bad news is that climate warming causes sea level rise:
“Even a foot change in the tide line can mean the difference between great and mediocre waves…. Researchers believe sea levels could rise six inches by 2030, and a foot by 2050, or more.”
At beaches where the water has a sandy bottom, there will still be some slope and maybe some decent wave formation. Where the bottom is rocky or made of coral, the outlook is not so good.
More:
“Will Climate Change Wipe Out Surfing?” Sam Kornell, Pacific Standard
Image (“The Great Wipeout Off Kanagawa, after Hokusai”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
Image (“King Canute Tours North Carolina Shoreline”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
“The idea that we would put Americans’ economy at . . . jeopardy based on scientific theory that’s not settled yet, to me, is just nonsense I mean . . . and I tell somebody, I said, just because you have a group of scientists that have stood up and said here is the fact, Galileo got outvoted for a spell.”
This is a controversial position for a Tea Party Republican in these sceptical times. It might even be taken to mean that Mr. Perry actually believes that the Earth revolves around the Sun, when anyone can plainly can see it’s the other way ’round. The Perry campaign has not responded to questions about those provocative implications.
Republican Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (R, TN-7) has performed a remarkable scientific feat, eliminating the polluting and climatic effects of carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride. She did so at a single stroke by introducing H.R. 97, the “Free Industry Act.”
The act would deny the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to enforce control of those harmful substances by declaring the overwhelming body of scientific evidence to be erroneous. The Republican justification for H.R. 97 is the claim that EPA regulation of the aforesaid substances would be “job-killing.” As Dean Baker puts it, “Republicans call … policies ‘Job Killers’ because the media might ask for evidence if they called them ‘Baby Killers.’”
The art-infested Italian city of Venice got a good cleaning this weekend as the acqua alta high tide sloshed over ancient squares and into palazzo basements. Okay, if palazzos don’t have basements, where do they keep all that wine?
In areas of Venice that are under water, tourists and other pedestrians crowd together on narrow wooden walkways (passerelle). Water depth can range from 1 to 2 meters (about 3 feet, 3 3/5 inches to 6 feet, 6 7/10th inches). Good thing high-heeled boots are in fashion; there’s never a vacant gondola around when you need one.
