Earth’s Atmospheric CO2 Hasn’t Been This High In Millions of Years

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Republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons Licence (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

“Either we drive the fossil fuel industry into extinction—or the human race.”

KENNY STANCILMay 17, 2022

Climate scientists and concerned citizens are sounding the alarm as daily, weekly, and monthly records for atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continue to be shattered while the fossil fuel-powered capitalist economic system responsible for skyrocketing greenhouse gas pollution plows ahead.

New data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows that the weekly average CO² concentration at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii reached 421.13 parts per million (ppm) from May 8 to May 14—the highest in recorded history and up from 418.34 ppm one year ago and 397.38 ppm one decade ago.

“We simply do not know a planet like this,” meteorologist Eric Holthaus said Monday. “We are in a climate emergency.”

According to NOAA, the daily average CO² concentration at Mauna Loa hit 422.04 ppm on May 14, just slightly below the agency’s all-time record of 422.06 ppm observed on April 26. Researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, meanwhile, measured 421.68 ppm of CO² at Mauna Loa on May 13, which they consider the daily record as of Monday.

Those record-breaking daily and weekly measurements came after the monthly average CO² concentration at Mauna Loa surpassed 420 ppm for the first time in human history, with NOAA observing 420.23 ppm in April compared with Scripps at 420.02 ppm.

Pieter Tans, a senior scientist at NOAA, recently told Axios that “it is likely May will be higher still.”

“The window to act on climate change is closing,” American Clean Power warned recently on social media. “Accelerating the transition to clean energy will help reduce emissions and secure a healthier future for all.

Twenty years ago, the highest monthly average CO² concentration was 375.93 ppm, according to NOAA. In 1958, the first year scientists began collecting data at Mauna Loa, it was 317.51 ppm.

Climate scientist James Hansen, who alerted congressional lawmakers to the life-threatening dangers of the climate crisis in 1988, has long called for reducing atmospheric CO² to below 350 ppm, and there is now a scientific consensus that the livability of the planet decreases beyond such a concentration.

Nevertheless, the annual rate of increase in CO² levels over the past six decades is now roughly 100 times faster than earlier increases that occurred naturally thousands of years ago.

CO2 concentration over 10,000 years - Keeling Curve

“The world effectively has made no serious progress compared to what is required,” Tans said earlier this month. “We really need to focus on decreasing emissions and we haven’t had much success globally because the rate of increase of CO² remains as high as it has been in the last decade.”

“CO² has a longevity of hundreds to thousands of years,” he noted, “so we are really making a very long-term climate commitment.”

Speaking with the Financial Times recently, Tans added that “we are going in the wrong direction, at maximum speed.”

California-based activist Joe Sanberg put it even more bluntly last week.

“It’s shocking that we’re staring down the barrel of the greatest existential crisis humanity has ever faced and we still haven’t passed a Green New Deal,” Sanberg tweeted. “Time is running out. Either we drive the fossil fuel industry into extinction—or the human race.”

Republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons Licence (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingEarth’s Atmospheric CO2 Hasn’t Been This High In Millions of Years

Met Office: Climate change making heatwaves more intense

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https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/press-office/news/weather-and-climate/2022/southern-asian-heatwave-attribution-study-2022

A Met Office attribution study, produced this week, has estimated the chances of exceeding the record-breaking temperature witnessed in April and May in 2010 – which saw the highest combined average April and May temperature since 1900.

The study shows that the natural probability of a heatwave exceeding the average temperature in 2010 is once in 312 years. In the current climate – accounting for climate change – the probabilities increase to once in every 3.1 years. And by the end of the century, the study – incorporating climate change projections – shows this will increase to once every 1.15 years.

Dr Nikos Christidis produced the Met Office attribution study. He said: “Spells of heat have always been a feature of the region’s pre-monsoon climate during April and May. However, our study shows that climate change is driving the heat intensity of these spells making record-breaking temperatures 100 times more likely. By the end of the century increasing climate change is likely to drive temperatures of these values on average every year.”

Climate change swells odds of record India, Pakistan heatwaves

Climate change makes record-breaking heatwaves in northwest India and Pakistan 100 times more likely, a Met Office study finds.

The region should now expect a heatwave that exceeds the record temperatures seen in 2010 once every three years.

Without climate change, such extreme temperatures would occur only once every 312 years, the Met Office says.

The UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres described the report as “a dismal litany of humanity’s failure to tackle climate disruption.”

Continue ReadingMet Office: Climate change making heatwaves more intense

Are we forced to have a revo?

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The problem is 1. that we have been warned that the climate crisis must be addressed urgently, and 2. that governments and climate-killers e.g. big industry and the rich, are not addressing the climate crisis and there is no indication that they intend to.

It’s a serious step to attempt to usurp an elected government, elected governments in fact. To try to prevent planetary destruction is a valid and adequate reason. What do you think?

ed: Kwasi Kwarteng, some minister or other responsible for granting licences for fossil fuel exploitation even refuses to address the issues and instead repeatedly poses a strawman.

Continue ReadingAre we forced to have a revo?

Governments and fossil fuel companies accelerate fecking the planet

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The Guardian has a very disturbing article reporting it’s research that it’s full speed ahead for climate destroying governments and fossil fuel companies and that there is no regard for the climate destruction that they are causing. It’s also bad news that there was no mention of the climate in the UK’s Queen’s Speech (the UK government giving notice of it’s intentions) other than harsher laws against climate protestors. Kwasi Kwarteng has already said as much – that the UK is aggressively pursuing exploitation of fossil fuels disregarding climate concerns “… we took steps to remove obstacles to accelerate production …”.

I find it difficult to understand how these people are so determined to feck the planet tbh. I know that they are Capitalists and mad Tories but is logic and reason totally alien to them? Don’t they care for their own children and grandchildren? I suppose that they can get into the habit of just following orders but just following orders has been dismissed as a defence.

We have to defeat these cnuts but have very little time to do it …

Continue ReadingGovernments and fossil fuel companies accelerate fecking the planet

Climate limit of 1.5C close to being broken, scientists warn

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/may/09/climate-limit-of-1-5-c-close-to-being-broken-scientists-warn

The year the world breaches for the first time the 1.5C global heating limit set by international governments is fast approaching, a new forecast shows.

The probability of one of the next five years surpassing the limit is now 50%, scientists led by the UK Met Office found. As recently as 2015, there was zero chance of this happening in the following five years. But this surged to 20% in 2020 and 40% in 2021. The global average temperature was 1.1C above pre-industrial levels in 2021.

It is also close to certain – 93% – that by 2026 one year will be the hottest ever recorded, beating 2016, when a natural El Niño climate event supercharged temperatures. It is also near certain that the average temperature of the next five years will be higher than the past five years, as the climate crisis intensifies.

Continue ReadingClimate limit of 1.5C close to being broken, scientists warn

Climate protest news 7 May 2022

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60-hour oil terminal occupation comes to end after 30 activists arrested

A SIXTY-HOUR occupation of an oil terminal near Glasgow finally came to an end on Thursday with over 30 arrests.

Supporters of the Just Stop Oil group launched the action at the Nustar Clydebank facility in West Dunbartonshire at 4am on Tuesday.

The climate activists blockaded the site by locking onto the entrance while others clambered onto oil silos and pipes within the terminal. It ended around 60 hours later on Thursday afternoon.

Scotland Police said that 31 people had been arrested and charged with various offences.

Climate activists halt traffic and occupy Cambridge bank

Extinction Rebellion activists occupied Barclays bank in Cambridge on Saturday (07/05), calling for an end to investment in fossil fuels.

Campaigners entered the bank, as part of a surprise occupation, and sat on the floor where they created a poster with the slogan “A Better World is Possible”.

The group of demonstrators then moved out onto St Andrew’s Street and staged a “die-in” around the poster. They displayed messages such as “Barclays, The Ecocide Bank” and “End Fossil Fuels Now”.

‘FIRST GRAND PRIX UNDER WATER’ – SEBASTIAN VETTEL MAKES CLIMATE CHANGE PROTEST AT MIAMI GRAND PRIX

Aston Martin’s German driver, former Formula One champion Sebastian Vettel, explained his protest at the Miami Grand Prix opening ceremony. Vettel explained that he was baffled by the relaxed attitude in the city given the predictions regarding climate change suggest that the city will end up underwater.

“Sometimes the truth isn’t nice but it’s worth spreading and it will impact so many people, and maybe some can’t afford to start over anew. We’re in trouble and need to act now otherwise there will be a lot of suffering.”

Continue ReadingClimate protest news 7 May 2022

Extreme heatwaves in India and Pakistan

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‘We are living in hell’: Pakistan and India suffer extreme spring heatwaves

Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s minister for climate, told the Guardian that the country was facing an “existential crisis” as climate emergencies were being felt from the north to south of the country.

Rehman warned that the heatwave was causing the glaciers in the north of the country to melt at an unprecedented rate, and that thousands were at risk of being caught in flood bursts. She also said that the sizzling temperatures were not only impacting crops but water supply as well. “The water reservoirs dry up. Our big dams are at dead level right now, and sources of water are scarce,” she said.

Rehman said the heatwave should be a wake-up call to the international community. “Climate and weather events are here to stay and will in fact only accelerate in their scale and intensity if global leaders don’t act now,” she said.

Continue ReadingExtreme heatwaves in India and Pakistan

Climate protests news 4 May 2022

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Members of Extinction Rebellion and sister movement Money Rebellion disrupted the annual general meetings of Barclays Bank in Birmingham and Standard Chartered Bank in London demanding both banks stop financing fossil fuels. Speeches were interrupted at both AGMs, with some wearing masks of Standard Chartered’s Chairman, José Viñals, and the bank’s CEO, Bill Winters, while at the Barclays AGM protestors set off personal alarms. 

Barclays is the UK’s largest investor in fossil fuels, having put over $19.6 Billion into the industry in 2021 alone, while Standard Chartered financed over $6 Billion in the same year, ranking them the third biggest UK bank investing in fossil fuels behind Barclays and HSBC. 

Barclays and Standard Chartered AGMs are the latest to see disruption from protestors demanding an end to fossil fuel investments. HSBC’s meeting was interrupted last week with protestors singing a a revised version of the Abba hit Money, Money, Money during the chairman’s speech.

Extinction Rebellion protesters send Barclays’ AGM in Manchester into chaos

Video footage revealed shows shouting and heckling, with security officers called to attend and requests for people to be taken from the building.

Chairman Nigel Higgins was forced to pause the meeting while security removed the protesters as he was repeatedly interrupted, with the activists dominating the first 45 minutes and setting off personal alarms as he spoke. One woman protester glued herself to her seat in the audience to avoid being removed, according to reports.

Barclays Bank Oxford shut down by Extinction Rebellion protestors

South Lakes Just Stop Oil activist skips court for Warwickshire protest

A CLIMATE activist has skipped her High Court hearing to take part in a protest outside Kingsbury Oil terminal in Warwickshire.

Margaret Reid, 51, from South Lakes, joined ten other activists from Just Stop Oil at the protest and were expecting to be arrested after telling police there was a warrant out for their arrest.

It is expected that they will be jailed for their action.

Supporters of the Just Stop Oil coalition are demanding that the Government stops issuing new oil and gas licenses.

Continue ReadingClimate protests news 4 May 2022

Just Stop Oil news 3 May 2022

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Just Stop Oil protested at the Nustar Clydebank fuel depot near Glasgow, Scotland today.

Just Stop Oil blockades terminal in Glasgow in first Scottish action

Shortly before sunrise on Tuesday, about 40 supporters of the civil resistance campaign against fossil fuel production blocked the entrance to the Nustar Clydebank terminal, locking themselves together and climbing on tankers.

Fourteen more activists made their way inside, with three scaling a storage silo and the rest climbing into pipework distributing fuel around the site, halting operations.

Just Stop Oil, which is calling for the government to promise a moratorium on new fossil fuel projects, said the action was prompted by plans for new oil and gas fields in the North Sea, off Scotland’s coast.

Protesters arrested at oil terminal climate protest, Police Scotland say

Chief Superintendent Lynn Ratcliff said on Tuesday evening protesters were asked to leave and that a “number of people who decided not to cooperate have subsequently been arrested”.

Just Stop Oil protests: Four charged over M25 services damage

Four people have been charged following climate protests at two motorway service stations on the M25 in Surrey.

On Thursday Just Stop Oil said 35 of its supporters blocked petrol stations at Cobham and Clacket Lane services.

The two men and two women have been charged with causing criminal damage of more than £5,000. A further four people have been released under police bail.

An additional 27 people are still under investigation, Surrey Police said.

Continue ReadingJust Stop Oil news 3 May 2022

Politicians are very slow

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Kwasi Kwarteng, UK Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy dishonestly misrepresents Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion’s demands. “I will launch another licensing round later this year.” and ” … we will not bend to the will of activists who naively want us to extinguish production in the UK continental shelf.” I think that means the North Sea.

The IPCC, United Nations and Just Stop Oil are calling for a stop to any new oil and gas exploitation not that North Sea oil and gas is “extinguished”. These politicians are very slow. This is just the start. We’re not going to let you destroy this planet without a fight and I’m hoping that politicians like Kwarteng and Boris Johnson will be held personally responsible for their actions. They’ve been warned told in no uncertain terms that all new fossil fuel exploitation must stop.

“extinguished”. Is that a reference to gas flaring? They really should just tell the truth instead of talking shit.

Continue ReadingPoliticians are very slow