Ron and Herb, thanks for sharing this article. It includes the absurd consensus dogma “Unless nations transform their economies and rapidly transition away from polluting fuels, experts warn, this level of warming will unravel ecological webs and cause human-built systems to collapse.”
There is no prospect of such rapid economic transformation, and even if there were, it would not save systems from collapse. Carbon action even at impossible scale would still be too small and slow to mitigate climate risk in the short term. The only action that could make any difference in time is higher albedo. As Herb says, later is too late. I am astonished that such nonsense remains solemnly agreed and no one even debates it in the mass media except for denialists. Talk about the emperor’s new clothes. Fossil fuel use is going up <https://globalcarbonbudget.org/fossil-co2-emissions-at-record-high-in-2023/> , not down. The absence of political interest in rapid transition makes the consensus dogma a stupid proposal. It is impossible. These “experts” are living in Wonderland. "Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." Regards Robert Tulip From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of H simmens Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2024 11:09 AM To: Ron Baiman <[email protected]> Cc: healthy-planet-action-coalition <[email protected]>; Planetary Restoration <[email protected]>; Healthy Climate Alliance <[email protected]>; geoengineering <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [prag] Full text of WaPo "Scientists knew 2023s would be hot!" article Thanks Ron. Sarah Kaplan one of the authors of the article is a first rate Climate journalist and the thoroughness of the article reflects her skills. That said there are several statements that are inconsistent with the science or good practice. One was a quote: “I don’t think anybody was expecting anomalies as large as we have seen,” from a climate scientist that demonstrated the insularity and group think of some in the Climate scientific community. I don’t think that Jim Hansen was particularly surprised for one. Too bad he wasn’t quoted. A second eyebrow raising comment was “Only by reaching “net zero” — the point at which people stop adding additional greenhouse gases to the atmosphere — can humanity reverse Earth’s long-term warming trend, said Paulo Ceppi, a climate scientist at Imperial College London.” This comment would lead the reader to believe that if and when net zero is reached cooling would immediately begin, when absent the other two legs of the Climate triad temperatures will remain sharply elevated and likely continue increasing for centuries depending on how high temperatures are if and when net zero is reached. Such a message conveys a false reassurance totally unwarranted and provides critics with ammunition for opposing DCC - Direct Climate Cooling. The third eyebrow raising comment was “That benchmark will only be reached when temperatures remain 1.5 degrees Celsius above average over a period of at least 20 years.” Depending upon how this 20 year standard - a standard I don’t believe has been universally adopted or accepted or one that makes much sense - is interpreted the world would have to wait another 10 or 20 years - when temperatures will likely be above 2° C - to solemnly pronounce that we’ve passed 1.5° C and we can begin to get worried. And of course it goes without saying that the CTO - Climate Triad Omerta - or code of silence about the need for massive CDR and urgent DCC to reduce temperatures and ultimately restore the climate continues to be obeyed in this article. By the way I watched an extraordinary online program yesterday where an international nonprofit climate marketing group presented the results of their detailed surveys of thousands of inhabitants of every one of the G20 countries. By far the message that resonated the most and changed attitudes in every one of the countries was a message built around these four simple words: “Later is too late” Listeners were urged to incorporate these four words - which have been trademarked by the firm - into our messaging campaigns. The presenters emphasized as strongly as they could that it’s time the climate community start following evidence based market research rather than our own hunches as to what may be an effective set of messages. And their conclusion is that messages that focus on jobs or prosperity or even threats have little purchase. It’s about preserving life for future generations that must be reiterated over and over and over and over again. Much research over many years has shown that the following: * A Simple Message * Repeated over and over again * Presented by trusted sources are the three essential keys to effective Climate communication. Herb Herb Simmens Author of A Climate Vocabulary of the Future “A SciencePoem and an Inspiration.” Kim Stanley Robinson @herbsimmens HerbSimmens.com On Jan 9, 2024, at 5:56 PM, Ron Baiman <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: Dear Colleagues, My apologies if this link has already been shared - but I think the full text merits sharing if it hasn't already! It succinctly lays out the gravity of our situation and possible causes - including the Bunker Fuel aerosol loss that Hansen et al. 2023 point to as a likely key proximate factor. Best, Ron Scientists knew 2023’s heat would be historic — but not by this much By <https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/scott-dance/?itid=ai_top_dances> Scott Dance , <https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/sarah-kaplan/?itid=ai_top_kaplansl> Sarah Kaplan and <https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/veronica-penney/?itid=ai_top_penneyv> Veronica Penney January 9, 2024 at 7:00 a.m. EST The year 2023 was the hottest in recorded human history, Europe’s top climate agency announced Tuesday, with blistering surface temperatures and torrid ocean conditions pushing the planet dangerously close to a long-feared warming threshold. According to new data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service, Earth’s average temperature last year was 1.48 degrees Celsius (2.66 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter than the preindustrial average, before humans began to warm the planet through fossil fuel burning and other polluting activities. Last year shattered the previous global temperature record by almost two-tenths of a degree — the largest jump scientists have ever observed. This year is <https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/01/02/record-heat-2024-el-nino/?itid=ap_scottdance&itid=lk_inline_manual_4> predicted to be even hotter. By the end of January or February, the agency warned, the planet’s 12-month average temperature is likely to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above the preindustrial level — blasting past the world’s most ambitious climate goal. The announcement of a new temperature record comes as little surprise to scientists who have witnessed the past 12 months of raging wildfires, deadly ocean heat waves, cataclysmic flooding and a worrisome Antarctic thaw. A scorching summer and “gobsmacking” autumn temperature anomalies had all but guaranteed that 2023 would be a year for the history books. But the amount by which the previous record was broken shocked even climate experts. “I don’t think anybody was expecting anomalies as large as we have seen,” Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo said. “It was on the edge of what was plausible.” The staggering new statistics underscore how human-caused climate change has allowed regular planetary fluctuations to push temperatures into uncharted territory. Each of the past eight years was already among the eight warmest ever observed. Then, a complex and still somewhat mysterious host of climatic influences combined with human activities to <https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/12/31/2023-record-heat-temperatures/?itid=lk_inline_manual_8> push 2023 even hotter — ushering in an age of “global boiling,” in the words of United Nations Secretary General António Guterres. Unless nations transform their economies and rapidly transition away from polluting fuels, experts warn, this level of warming will unravel ecological webs and cause human-built systems to collapse. A man cools off with a mist dispenser set up in a street in central Baghdad amid soaring temperatures, on Aug. 15. (Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images) A year that ‘doesn’t have an equivalent’ When ominous warmth <https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/04/28/ocean-temperatures-heat-record-surge-climate/?itid=lk_inline_manual_12> first appeared in Earth’s oceans last spring, scientists said it was a likely sign that record global heat was imminent — but not until 2024. But as the planet transitioned into an El Niño climate pattern — characterized by warm Pacific Ocean waters — temperatures <https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/09/06/hottest-summer-record-extreme-heat/?itid=lk_inline_manual_13> took a steeper jump. July and August were the two warmest months in the 173-year record Copernicus examined. <https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2024/global-heat-sea-surface-temperature-records/?itid=lk_interstitial_manual_14> Can you guess how crazy last year’s weather was? Try this game. As <https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/09/25/antarctica-record-low-ice-arctic-climate/?itid=lk_inline_manual_15> Antarctic sea ice dwindled and the planet’s hottest places <https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/07/18/extreme-heat-record-limits-human-survival/?itid=lk_inline_manual_15> flirted with conditions too extreme for people to survive, scientists speculated that 2023 would not only be the warmest on record — it might well exceed anything seen in the last 100,000 years. Analyses of fossils, <https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2023/greenland-ice-sheet-drilling-bedrock-sea-rise/?itid=lk_inline_manual_15> ice cores and ocean sediments suggest that global temperatures haven’t been this high since before the last ice age, when Homo sapiens had just begun to <https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/their-footsteps-human-migration-out-africa/> migrate out of Africa and <https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/netherlands-journal-of-geosciences/article/eemian-mammal-fauna-of-central-europe/4FBC07DE56147B70F9ADFED99D34EF94> hippos roamed <https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/netherlands-journal-of-geosciences/article/eemian-mammal-fauna-of-central-europe/4FBC07DE56147B70F9ADFED99D34EF94> in what is now Germany. Autumn brought even greater departures from the norm. <https://climate.copernicus.eu/record-breaking-north-atlantic-ocean-temperatures-contribute-extreme-marine-heatwaves> Temperatures in September were almost a full degree Celsius hotter than the average over the past 30 years, making it the most unusually warm month in Copernicus’s data set. And two days in November were, for the first time ever, more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter than the preindustrial average for those dates. “What we have seen in 2023 doesn’t have an equivalent,” Buontempo said. This year’s record-setting conditions were driven in part by unprecedented warmth in the oceans’ surface waters, Copernicus said. The agency measured marine heat waves from the Indian Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. Parts of the Atlantic Ocean experienced temperatures 4 to 5 degrees Celsius (7.2 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit) above average — a level that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration classifies as “beyond extreme.” While researchers have not yet determined the impacts on sea life, similar heat waves have caused massive harms to microorganisms at the base of the food web, bleached corals and fueled toxic algae blooms, she added. Though the oceans cover about two-thirds of Earth’s surface, scientists estimate they have absorbed about 90 percent of the extra warming from humans’ burning of fossil fuels and the greenhouse effect those emissions have in the atmosphere. “The ocean is our sentinel,” said Karina von Schuckmann, an oceanographer at the nonprofit Mercator Ocean International. The dramatic warming in the ocean is a clear signal of “how much the Earth is out of energy balance,” she added — with heat continuing to build faster than it can be released from the planet. A helicopter fights a wildfire in Reguengo, Portalegre district, south of Portugal, on Aug. 8. Intense heat across caused fires across Portugal and neighboring Spain. (Patricia De Melo Moreira/AFP/Getty Images) Sunbathers pack into Macumba beach, in the west zone of Rio de Janeiro, on Sept. 24, during a heat wave. (Tercio Teixeira/AFP/Getty Images) What drove the record warmth Scientists are still disentangling the factors that made this year so unusual. The largest and most obvious is El Niño, the infamous global climate pattern that emerges a few times a decade and is known to boost average planetary temperatures by a few tenths of a degree Celsius, or as much as half a degree Fahrenheit. El Niño’s signature is a zone of warmer-than-normal waters in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, which release vast amounts of heat and water vapor and trigger extreme weather patterns around the world. But El Niño alone cannot explain the extraordinary heat of the past 12 months, according to Copernicus. Because it wasn’t just the Pacific that exhibited dramatic warmth this year. Scientists also believe the Atlantic may have warmed as a result of weakened westerly winds, which tend to churn up waters and send surface warmth into deeper ocean layers. It could also have been the product of below-normal Saharan dust in the air; the particles normally act to block some sunlight from reaching the ocean surface. Around the world, in fact, there has been a decline in sun-blocking particles known as aerosols, in large part because of efforts to reduce air pollution. In recent years, shipping freighters have taken measures to reduce their emissions. Scientists have <https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/aerosols-are-so2-emissions-reductions-contributing-global-warming> speculated the decline in aerosols may have allowed more sun to reach the oceans. And then there is the potential impact of a massive underwater volcanic eruption. When Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai blasted a plume 36 miles high in January 2022, scientists warned it released so much water vapor into the atmosphere, it could have a lingering effect for months, if not years, to come. NASA satellite data showed <https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/08/05/volcano-eruption-tonga-record-climate/?itid=lk_inline_manual_33> the volcano sent an unprecedented amount of water into the stratosphere — equal to 10 percent of the amount of water that was already contained in the second layer of Earth’s atmosphere. In the stratosphere, water vapor — like human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide — acts as a greenhouse gas, trapping heat like a blanket around the Earth. But it won’t be clear how much of a role each of those factors played until scientists can test each of those hypotheses. What is clear, scientists stress, is that this year’s extremes were only possible because they unfolded against the backdrop of human-caused climate change. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hit a record high of 419 parts per million in 2023, Copernicus said. And despite global pledges to cut down on methane — which traps 86 times as much heat as carbon dioxide over a short time scales — levels of that gas also reached new peaks. Only by reaching “net zero” — the point at which people stop adding additional greenhouse to the atmosphere — can humanity reverse Earth’s long-term warming trend, said Paulo Ceppi, a climate scientist at Imperial College London. “That is what the physical science tells us that we need to do,” Ceppi said. Icebergs drift as they melt due to warm temperatures along the Scoresby Sound Fjord, in Eastern Greenland on Aug. 16. (Olivier Morin/AFP/Getty Images) What comes next Almost half of all days in 2023 were 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than the preindustrial average for that date, Copernicus said — giving the world a dangerous taste of a climate it had pledged to avoid. At the Paris climate conference in 2015, nations agreed to a stretch goal of “pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C above preindustrial levels.” Three years later, a special report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that staying within this ambitious threshold could avoid many of the most disastrous consequences of warming — but it would require the world to almost halve greenhouse gas emissions in just over a decade. But emissions have continued to rise, and now the world appears poised on the brink of surpassing the Paris target. At least one climate science organization believes the barrier has already been crossed. Berkeley Earth said in December that <https://berkeleyearth.org/november-2023-temperature-update/> 2023 is virtually certain to eclipse it, though its estimates of 19th century temperatures are slightly lower than those other climate scientists use. This doesn’t necessarily mean the world has officially surpassed the limit set in the Paris climate agreement in 2015. That benchmark will only be reached when temperatures remain 1.5 degrees Celsius above average over a period of at least 20 years. But scientists are already speculating that the planet could set another average temperature record in 2024. Some also say the latest spike in global temperatures <https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/12/26/global-warming-accelerating-climate-change/?itid=lk_inline_manual_45> is a sign the rate of climate change has accelerated. Whether or not 2023 surpasses the 1.5 degree limit, the year “has given us a glimpse of what 1.5 may look like,” Buontempo said. He hoped that the latest record allows that reality to set in — and spurs action. “As a society, we have to be better at using this knowledge,” Buontempo added, “because the future will not be like our past.” Alonzo McAdams drinks a bottle of water given to him from a Salvation Army truck handing out water, and other supplies for the homeless in Tucson, on July 26. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images) More on climate change Understanding our climate: <https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/climate-environment/thermometers-climate-change/?itid=lb_more-on-climate-change_1&itid=lb_more-on-climate-change_1> Global warming is a real phenomenon, and weather disasters are <https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2020/10/22/climate-curious-disasters-climate-change/?itid=lb_more-on-climate-change_2> undeniably linked to it. As temperatures rise, heat waves are more often sweeping the globe — and parts of the world are <https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2021/climate-change-humidity/?itid=lb_more-on-climate-change_4&itid=lb_more-on-climate-change_3> becoming too hot to survive. What can be done? The Post is tracking a variety of <https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/?itid=lb_more-on-climate-change_4> climate solutions, as well as the Biden administration’s <https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2021/climate-environment/biden-climate-environment-actions/?itid=lb_more-on-climate-change_9&itid=lb_more-on-climate-change_5> actions on environmental issues. It can feel overwhelming facing the impacts of climate change, but there are <https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/climate-change-anxiety-dread-cope/2021/07/14/471eb264-e4d4-11eb-b722-89ea0dde7771_story.html?itid=lb_more-on-climate-change_6> ways to cope with climate anxiety. Inventive solutions: Some people have built <https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/01/04/earthship-houses-climate-change/?itid=lb_more-on-climate-change_7> off-the-grid homes from trash to stand up to a changing climate. As seas rise, others are exploring <https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/interactive/2021/cop26-scotland-wave-energy-renewables/?itid=lb_more-on-climate-change_14&itid=lb_more-on-climate-change_8> how to harness marine energy. What about your role in climate change? Our <https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/28/why-washington-post-is-starting-climate-advice-column/?itid=lb_more-on-climate-change_9> climate coach Michael J. Coren is answering questions about environmental choices in our everyday lives. <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd-euNpVw9Z7xvi2ZoRiiE9why3YJTsHumbX9XrRe6bXX4Yrg/viewform?itid=lb_more-on-climate-change_10> Submit yours here. You can also <https://www.washingtonpost.com/newsletters/climate-coach/?itid=lb_more-on-climate-change_11> sign up for our Climate Coach newsletter. Climate change and global warming HAND CURATED * <http://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2023/11/26/sea-turtle-climate-pollution-sex/?itid=co_climatechange_1> Pollution fueling a sex imbalance among endangered green sea turtles <http://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2023/11/26/sea-turtle-climate-pollution-sex/?itid=co_climatechange_1> November 26, 2023 * <http://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/10/25/bret-baier-solar-power-home-fox-news/?itid=co_climatechange_2> This Fox News host gives climate skeptics airtime but went solar at home <http://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/10/25/bret-baier-solar-power-home-fox-news/?itid=co_climatechange_2> October 25, 2023 * <http://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2023/anthropocene-geologic-time-crawford-lake/?itid=co_climatechange_3> How humans have altered the Earth enough to start a new chapter of geologic time <http://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2023/anthropocene-geologic-time-crawford-lake/?itid=co_climatechange_3> June 20, 2023 By <https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/scott-dance/> Scott Dance Scott Dance is a reporter for The Washington Post covering extreme weather news and the intersections between weather, climate, society and the environment. He joined The Post in 2022 after more than a decade at the Baltimore Sun, where he most recently focused on climate change and the environment. <https://twitter.com/ssdance> Twitter By <https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/sarah-kaplan/> Sarah Kaplan Sarah Kaplan is a climate reporter covering humanity's response to a warming world. She previously reported on Earth science and the universe. <https://twitter.com/@sarahkaplan48> Twitter By <https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/veronica-penney/> Veronica Penney Veronica Penney is a climate graphics reporter at The Washington Post. She previously worked as a data reporter on Colorado Public Radio's investigative team and covered climate change as a reporting fellow at the New York Times. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Planetary Restoration" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> . 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