Climate Change: The Science

There’s no more debating if climate change is a reality. Scientists agree: the world is getting warmer and human activity is largely responsible. Today, our planet is hotter than it has been in 2,000 years, and on track to grower hotter than it’s been in two million years.

Storm chasers and Doppler on Wheels truck near Fort Dodge, Iowa, USA.
Climate change is expected to increase the strength and frequency of extreme weather events around the world, like this major storm near Fort Dodge, Iowa.

© Greenpeace / Daniel Beltrá
Donald Trump and his climate-denying administration want you to believe climate change is a mystery (or an outright hoax), but that’s just not true. In fact, science can tell us a lot about the causes and effects of our warming world.

What We Know
Years of scientific investigation have given us a clear understanding of what’s causing climate change and how humans are contributing. It works like this:

Certain gases in the atmosphere — like carbon dioxide — create what’s called the greenhouse effect, trapping in heat and regulating the Earth’s temperature.
Burning fossil fuels releases more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, particularly carbon dioxide. While not the most potent greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide is by far the most emitted by human activities.
More greenhouse gases in the atmosphere means a more intense greenhouse effect, causing the Earth to keep getting warmer.
There’s more carbon dioxide in our atmosphere now than there’s been in the past 150,000 years.
We’re also learning more about the impacts of climate change, many of which have serious consequences for humans and wildlife.

Climate change is closely linked with the rise in extreme weather events we’ve experienced in recent years. Hurricanes, typhoons, floods and drought are all made worse by climate change.
Melting polar ice caused by warmer temperatures has huge ripple effects. Not only does it threaten the habitat of species like polar bears and penguins, it’s causing our sea levels to rise and threatening coastal cities and communities.
How We’re Changing the Climate
Global temperatures have risen and fallen over the Earth’s history for natural reasons. What’s unique about the warming we’re experiencing now is that it can’t be explained by those natural reasons, and that it’s happening faster than ever before.

Human activity plays a central role. The fossil fuels we burn to power our homes, businesses, cars and more all release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and deforestation for timber and agriculture is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions.

Humans are at the center of the problem, but this also means the power is in our hands. The choices we make today will determine the climate of the future.

Still need more information? Don’t just take it from us. Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree that the Earth’s temperature is rising and human activity plays a central role — and NASA has compiled the studies to prove it.
Take Action

Thanx Daniel Beltra
Knight Sha  C.

Keep It in the Ground

 It’s time to keep fossil fuels where they belong: in the ground

To avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we need to keep the world’s remaining fossil fuels in the ground. That means moving away from coal, oil, and natural gas, and towards a renewable energy future.

Tell JPMorgan chase to DEFUND dirty tar sands oil pipelines      take action !
Science has spoken: the path to a sustainable future for people, wildlife, and the climate does not include fossil fuels.

In fact, a 2015 study in the journal Nature revealed that we need to leave at least 80 percent of the world’s known remaining fossil fuel reserves in the ground to prevent runaway climate change. That includes more than 90 percent of U.S. coal reserves and a whopping 100 percent of Arctic oil and gas.

We can start by taking action to protect U.S. public lands. In 2014 alone, the fossil fuel energy produced from public lands included 706 million barrels of oil, 3.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 421 million tons of coal, contributing billions of tons worth of carbon pollution.

Donald Trump and his climate-denying administration’s rise to power is a call to action — we will have to rise up even stronger to push for a clean energy revolution and stop new drilling in our communities. 

Quit Coal
There’s a reason that coal has been singled out in the fight to keep fossil fuels in the ground. It’s one of the most polluting energy sources out there, the single largest contributor to global warming, and makes us sick by polluting our air and water with toxic pollution like mercury.

Despite this, the U.S. government has a long history of giving away our public land to coal companies — so much that today, 40 percent of the coal mined in the United States belongs to taxpayers.

We stand with millions of Americans when they say this is a big mistake for the health of communities and our environment. The Obama administration took a step in the right direction when it announced a major overhaul of the federal coal program in 2016, a change that includes a moratorium on new coal leases on public land. That move alone will keep billions of tons of coal in the ground.

But Trump looks set on reversing course and moving us backwards towards dirty fossil fuels. If we want any chance at preventing catastrophic climate change, we have to resist his attempts to put coal on life support. 

No Offshore Drilling
Our public lands aren’t the only critical battleground in the fight to phase out fossil fuels — offshore oil and gas drilling is a growing threat to our health and climate.

Big oil companies have profited from the exploitation of U.S. public land and water for decades. Their activities have not only devastated land and water that belongs to American taxpayers, but also pushed us steadily closer to climate chaos.

The industry’s greed only grows, fed by a clamor to exploit oil and gas reserves and continue to profit at the expense of people, wildlife, and the climate.

Take the Arctic, for example.
Due to global warming and melting sea ice, the oil deep in Arctic waters is now accessible for the first time. Corporations like Shell, ExxonMobil, and BP want to drill for it.

That’s right — oil that was once out of reach because the Arctic was frozen is now accessible because of climate change. And the very companies responsible for climate change want more oil to make climate change worse.

The good news is that your resistance has kept Arctic oil safe thus far. An incredible global movement forced Shell out of the Arctic in 2015 and prompted President Obama to make the U.S. Arctic off limits to oil drilling for two years. But to keep it that way, we need to keep the pressure on and prevent the Trump administration from rolling back these hard-fought protections. 

Join the Movement to Keep Fossil Fuels in the Ground
With realities of climate change setting in, the last thing we need is more fossil fuels.

From the Arctic to the Gulf and everything in between, our call is united: keep it in the ground. This movement is riding a serious wave of momentum — let’s let this be the start of a revolution against fossil fuels.
Take Action

Crusader Jenny C.     Nanook & Mika

Fighting climate change by desalinating seawater

 

 

 

The island country Cyprus faces climate change among other problems. To fulfill the growing demand for water, the republic uses  seawater desalination plants with a new technology.
Drinking water is a scarce commodity in Cyprus. Intensive agriculture and a growing tourist industry are adding to the strain on water resources. Water scarcity causes significant hardship to the island's population. It defines their daily lives. The hope is that ultrafiltration will help secure the island's water supply in future.
"Everything depends on water. The whole of society." Yianna Economidou, chief engineer of the Water Development Department in Cyprus, is sure that sea water desalination is the only way to make Cyprus independent from climatic conditions. Ultrafiltration membranes play an important role in desalination. 

With this type of desalination, salt water is forced through a reverse osmosis membrane under high pressure. The water passes through the membrane while the salt stays behind. An important first step toward a sustainable water supply, but research into improving the membrane material goes on. The aim is to develop membranes that produce clean drinking water while using the least amount of energy.

When fresh water becomes scarce... and it eventually will, most of the countries in the world may have to build desalination plants. The Earth is 71% water. Most of it is salt water but it is a resource that we can use. Water can also be made by combing oxygen gas and hydrogen gas and heating it to start the reaction of producing water. We won't die of thirst.... But when the time comes that we have to desalinate or create water, it will mean that the rivers and lakes have dried up.

Mount Etna is 'sliding towards the sea'

 By Jonathan Amos BBC Science Correspondent       
 24 March 2018 
Europe's most active volcano, Mount Etna, is sliding towards the sea. 
Scientists have established that the whole structure on the Italian island of Sicily is edging in the direction of the Mediterranean at a rate of 14mm per year. 
The UK-led team says the situation will need careful monitoring because it may lead to increased hazards at Etna in the future. 

"I would say there is currently no cause for alarm, but it is something we need to keep an eye on, especially to see if there is an acceleration in this motion," lead author Dr John Murray told BBC News. 

The Open University geologist has spent almost half a century studying Europe's premier volcano. 
In that time, he has placed a network of high-precision GPS stations around the mountain to monitor its behaviour. 
This instrumentation is sensitive to millimetric changes in the shape of the volcanic cone; and with 11 years of data it is now obvious, he says, that the mountain is moving in an east-south-east direction, on a general track towards the coastal town of Giarre, which is about 15km away. 
Essentially, Etna is sliding down a very gentle slope of 1-3 degrees. This is possible because it is sitting on an underlying platform of weak, pliable sediments. 
Dr Murray's team has conducted lab experiments to illustrate how this works. The group believes it is the first time that basement sliding of an entire active volcano has been directly observed. 

Mount Etna is close to the east coast of Sicily 
On the human scale, a movement of 14mm/yr - that is 1.4m over a hundred years - will seem very small, and it is. But geological investigations elsewhere in the world have shown that extinct volcanoes that display this kind of trend can suffer catastrophic failures on their leading flank as they drift downslope. 
Stresses can build up that lead eventually to devastating landslides. 
Dr Murray and colleagues stress such behaviour is very rare and can take many centuries, even thousands of years, to develop to a critical stage. 
Certainly, there is absolutely no evidence that this is about to happen at Etna. Local residents should not be alarmed, the Open University scientist said. 
"The 14mm/yr is an average; it varies from year to year," he explained. 
"The thing to watch I guess is if in 10 years' time the rate of movement has doubled - that would be a warning. If it's halved, I'd say there really is nothing to worry about." 
Of more immediate concern is the confounding effect this sliding could have for the day-to-day assessment of the volcano. 
Scientists get hints that eruptive activity is about to occur when magma bulges upwards and deforms the shape of the mountain. To gain an unambiguous view of this inflation, researchers will need to subtract the general E-S-E motion. 
 Thanx Jonrthan Amos 
Knight Jonny  C .

San Francisco's Airport is Sinking into the Bay

 By Tia Ghose, Associate Editor | March 17, 2018
 San Francisco International Airport is one of the areas at highest risk of flooding due to land subsidence and rising seas. Up to half of the runways and taxiways at the airport could be underwater by 2100, new research suggests.
Credit: Calbookaddict at English Wikipedia
Large swaths of the Bay Area, including the region's biggest airport, are sinking. As a result, the area could face catastrophic flooding when sea levels rise, new research suggests.

The findings suggest the Bay Area could be even more prone to flooding than current emergency hazard maps or models of climate change predict. 

"The ground goes down, sea level comes up, and flood waters go much farther inland than either change would produce by itself," Manoochehr Shirzaei, an assistant professor of Earth and space exploration at Arizona State University and a member of NASA's Sea Level Change Team, said in a statement.

 Shirzaei and his colleagues analyzed satellite-based interferometric measurements of elevation from 2007 to 2011. This highly precise measurement can detect minute changes in elevation — as small as a 0.03 inches (1 millimeter).

The team found that while most parts of the Bay Area were sinking by just 0.06 inches (2 mm) a year, other areas were falling at 10 times that rate.

Many of the fastest-sinking areas were built on top of landfill. For instance, parts of Treasure Island, which should more rightly be named "Trash Island," are now sinking at a rate of 0.5 to 0.75 inches (12 to 20 mm) a year. The artificial island, located partway between San Francisco proper and Oakland, was constructed out of trash in time for the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition.

Another high-profile area at risk? The San Francisco International Airport (SFO), which was also built on landfill. About 200,000 flights a year land on runways that are perched right by the water of the San Francisco Bay. The study found that SFO is sinking enough that by 2100, half of the runways and taxiways will be underwater.

Foster City, located partway between San Francisco and San Jose, is also at high risk. The landfilled area is home to several high-tech companies — and is likely to be significantly flooded by 2100, the study found.

Area hazard maps that predict flood risk, such as those used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, need to account for both sinking land and rising seas, the researchers suggested. (FEMA currently has maps that account for sea level rise, but not both sea level rise and subsidence).

This isn't the first study to highlight the flood risks of climate change. A study published Nov. 2017 in PLOS One found that 13,000 archaeological sites in the U.S., including the oldest English settlement in the country, could be submerged by 2100, thanks to climate change.

The findings were published today (March 7) in the journal Science Advances.
Thanx  Tia Ghose 
Knight  Sha  C . 

Acknowledging global warming still a partisan issue, polling finds

By Dave Heller March 23, 2018
A bicyclist makes his way west on Market Street, protected from the heavy wet snow of the latest nor'easter by an oversized umbrella. (Emma Lee/WHYY)

NewsWorks Tonight host Dave Heller sits down for his weekly conversation with Gallup’s Frank Newport to talk about trends in U.S. opinion.
The federal budget proposal announced this week could be a sign that Congress is actually getting something done, but the public’s approval of Congress still has a long way to go. It’s been at 15 percent for two months … not the lowest — that was 9 percent in November 2013 — but still dismal.

The new spending bill increases the federal deficit, and the public has mixed reactions to that. Few mention the deficit as the top problem facing the country, but many worry about “federal spending and the budget deficit,” placing it near the top of the list of worries. The deficit is tied with crime and violence and the availability of guns for second place on the “worry list.”
Health care tops the list for the fourth straight year — and the 10th year overall. It’s the only problem a majority says it’s worried about a great deal in every poll going back to 2001. Very few Americans now mention jobs as the most important problem facing the country.

The four nor’easters that hit our area within a month have been linked to changes brought about by climate change. New data show that climate change still does not rank at all near the top of Americans’ environmental concerns – there is much more concern about polluted drinking water.

Just under 70 percent of Republicans say news about global warming has been exaggerated, while about a third of Americans – mostly Republicans – say news about the seriousness of global warming has been generally exaggerated. Just over 40 percent believe it has been underestimated..

It’s a partisan divide; for example, 44 percent of Republicans say most scientists are unsure whether global warming is occurring, while 42 percent say scientists are sure. Among Democrats, 86 percent say scientists are sure that global warming is occurring.
Thanx  Dave Hellar
Crusader Jenny , Nanook & Mika 

Don't believe our ice is melting ??? Watch a glacier, millions of years old, dying

 



Bees are Essential to Humans ... Let's help Them

 

 

In the 1990s, beekeepers started recording major losses of worker honeybees during the winter months. Since then, there have been mass die offs in many of the other 4,000 species of bees. In 2006, the phenomenon was bestowed with the name colony collapse disorder. No one is exactly sure why the bees are dying off in unprecedented numbers, but some theories include the loss of flower meadows, varroa mites that eat the bees’ blood, climate change, and the use of pesticides. Thankfully, we can save the bees, which is good, because it could be disastrous for humanity. Wake up world!!!!!

 Plant things that attract bees:

Flat or shallow blossoms, such as daisies, zinnias, asters and Queen Anne's lace, will attract the largest variety of bees. Long-tongued bees will be attracted to plants in the mint family, such as nepeta, salvia, oregano, mint and lavender.

 

Here's a list: ( Google plants in your climate that attract bees )

1, Forget me nots

2, Nasturtiums

3, Salvias: (grown as an annual in cooler climates)

4, Borage

5, Bee Balm

6, Sunflowers

7, Poppies

8, Cornflowers

9, Cosmos

10, Zinnia

 perennial plants that attract bees:

1, Rosemary

2, Lavender

3, Anise Hyssop

4, Catmint

5, Comfrey

6, Echiums

7, Banksias

8, Raspberries and Blueberries ( and literally, all fruit trees)



Beautiful World....Here Comes the Sun

 

 



Greenland Is Literally Cracking Apart and Flooding the World

By Brandon Specktor, Senior Writer | March 19, 2018

Greenland's lakes are draining away in hours, thanks to a vast network of fissures hidden on the ice sheet below.

Credit: Timo Lieber
Visit Greenland on the right summer day, and you could see a 12-billion-gallon lake disappear before your very eyes.

Glaciologists saw this happen for the first time in 2006, when a 2.2-square-mile (5.6 square kilometers) lake of melted ice drained away into nothing in less than 2 hours. Researchers now see such events as a regular part of Greenland's increasingly hot summer routine; every year, thousands of temporary lakes pop up on Greenland's surface as the surrounding ice melts, sit around for a few weeks or months, and then suddenly drain away through cracks in the ice sheet underneath. [Images of Melt: Earth's Vanishing Ice]

On a recent expedition, however, researchers saw an alarming new pattern behind Greenland's mysterious disappearing lakes: They're starting to drain farther and farther inland. According to a new paper published today (March 14) in the journal Nature Communications, that's because the summer lakes of Greenland drain in a "cascading" chain reaction enabled by a vast, interconnected web of cracks below the ice — and as temperatures climb, the web is getting wider.

Scientists abseil into a fracture in the ice left behind when one of Greenland's summer lakes rapidly drained.
Scientists abseil into a fracture in the ice left behind when one of Greenland's summer lakes rapidly drained.
Credit: Samuel Doyle
"Lakes that drain in one area produce fractures that cause more lakes to drain somewhere elsewhere," co-author Marion Bougamont, a glaciologist at the University of Cambridge's Scott Polar Research Institute, said in a statement. "It all adds up when you look at the pathways of water underneath the ice."

In the new paper, Bougamont and her colleagues used 3D ice-flow models and satellite images of the Greenland Ice Sheet to study this chain reaction. The authors found that when warming weather causes a single lake to drain into the underlying ice sheet, the ice flow below that lake can accelerate dramatically — up to 400 percent faster than in winter months.

As the draining water surges away from the original lake, it can destabilize other nearby ice beds. Fresh cracks form, new lakes drain and the reaction intensifies day by day. In one incident, the researchers observed 124 lakes drain in just five days. Even lakes that formed hundreds of kilometers inland, which were previously thought to be too far removed from the ice bed to drain into it, proved vulnerable to the chain-drain-reaction as new fissures in the ice formed.

This all amounts to billions of gallons of melted ice plunging below Greenland's surface every few days. Some of this water remains trapped in the ice sheet; much of it pours into the surrounding ocean.

"This ice sheet, which covers 1.7 million square kilometers [650,000 square miles], was relatively stable 25 years ago, but now loses one billion tons [900 million metric tons] of ice every day," lead author Poul Christoffersen, also from Cambridge's Scott Polar Research Institute, said in the statement. "This causes one millimeter of global sea level rise per year, a rate which is much faster than what was predicted only a few years ago."

According to a 2017 report, ice loss in Greenland was responsible for about 25 percent of global sea level rise in 2014 — up from just 5 percent in 1993. 

If Greenland melts completely, it could result in a global sea-level rise of about 20 feet (6 meters). According to the Cambridge researchers, a total loss of Greenland's ice is "extremely unlikely in this century" — but even minor increases in sea level could have severe consequences around the world, the authors noted. According to a recent report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), if sea levels rise half a meter (1.6 feet) by 2100, many American coastal cities will experience high-tide flooding "every other day" or more.
Originally published on Live Science.
Thanx  Brandon Specktor
Knight Jonny  C .

Plastic Trash in Oceans could Triple in Ten Years

 

Plastic in the ocean could triple between 2015 and 2025, according to a new report for the United Kingdom government. The Foresight Future of the Sea report said the marine environment faces “unprecedented change as a result of direct human activity and climate change,” and the authors are calling for further investigation according to Professor Edward Hill of the UK National Oceanography Center  “We really need a mission to planet ocean — it’s the last frontier.”

According to Hill, the ocean is “critical to our economic future. Nine billion people will be looking to the ocean for more food. Yet we know so little of what’s down there. We invest a lot of money and enthusiasm for missions to space — but there’s nothing living out there. The sea bed is teeming with life.”
The report recommends reducing pollution by preventing plastic from entering the ocean, utilizing biodegradable plastic, or even creating public awareness campaigns for ocean protection. It also states that the ocean faces threats beyond simple plastic pollution. By 2100, the ocean could warm 1.2 to 3.2 degrees Celsius, depending on emissions — leading to coral bleaching and a slump for cold-water fish species. The report states that ocean warming “is likely to lead to new species in ocean waters,” while marine biodiversity could take a hit from climate change and over-exploitation.

 It stresses that the ocean is being assailed from many different types of pollution - including run-off pesticides and fertilizers from farms, industrial toxins like PCBs, and pharmaceuticals.
The authors say if governments can identify ways of protecting biodiversity in the seas, there are riches to be harvested - fish,  nodules of metals and possibly even cures for cancer.
This latter suggestion alarmed Rachel Jones, a marine expert. "Given that 90% of global fisheries are  in excess of sustainable catch levels, I can't really see how they are going to expand  the fishing industry at any time."

Only about 20 percent of ocean plastic comes from marine sources, such as discarded fishing equipment or cargo ship mishaps. About 80 percent of it washes out to sea from beach litter or was carried downstream in rivers, according to the CSIRO study, which is considered the most comprehensive.

About half of that litter is plastic bottles. Most of the rest is packaging. All of that stuff was in a human's hand at one point or another. The essence of the solution is to provide incentives for people not to throw this stuff away. It is the cheapest, simplest, and far most efficient solution to the problem.

Creating incentives to help reduce littering can be a political challenge. Only one of Australia's eight main states and territories has a beverage-container deposit law.

In the U.S. only ten states—including California, Maine, Massachusetts, and Connecticut-have enacted container deposit laws.
The harm to fish and other sea creatures is increasing. Eight scientists, recently analyzed material in all of the garbage patches. Of  671 fish collected, 35 percent had ingested plastic particles.  Not too nourishing for the fish or for you, when that fish ends up on your plate.

Thanx to BBC and National Geographic

Poppa and me have fun

 Did  you tell about clmate chnge   tel people  to help clean   Mama earth  it will make you fell good  to tel what you know   daddy go to school   he was  in my  clas   daddy say mrs Jarvis  he got a prblem  my son is not speling  his word      daddy got it fix  , my sistr  say daddy  Man can spel     look at the school and Man post paper   Jenny  say  daddy Man need to take his time   so he will see the letter 
Daddy and I had a man to man  talk     daddy say poppa  want me to take my time  so the   angel can read  my post   it take  a long time  to find the letter   daddy say  I will get better  daddy say use my dictionary    daddy say he will help me    daddy say I may not win a spelling be  
people will know what I say   I have a lot to say   about poppa   I want to tel you  abut help mama take  stuf  to hotel at  nanook shop   it is on 3 floor    a man saw poppa  and mr  Mac  and  me  he call poppa   , the man shok poppa hand  , poppa said this is Mr. Mac  my driver   the man say is this the baby  grand son , poppa say yes  he is just like me    the man said  yes he is   mr Mac grin  say they both stay  in truble     poppa and man was talk  I want mama to come so I can go 
It was  a big room  with lot of people  at table  and  put money in macine   people was geting money out  macine   I  saw people sting at table    I walk in the room  there was  a chair   at a table   I sit   on chair    I look  back  mr Mac  was watch me   I see poppa and  man  was talk    it was  lot of table with  people  sit    a man ask me  where is mama   I say in the shop  store   he say do she  know where you are   I say no  mama  say poppa watch me    I look  to see if  the food was coming        he  say do you play  pokr   I say yes   I play  and win all the time  the man say lady do you know him   she say no  she will get  a man to find mama  I say lady  my mama is  not lost    she is  in  the shop   lady call  man to come   to find mama    mr . Mac  come  say  can he help   the lady  say he is lost    mr  Mac grin  say   he is not lost   lady say do you know him  mr  Mac say   yes    I say mr  Mac when the bring the food     mr  Mac  grin  say  here come your poppa  
Poppa  was grin  he say Man what you dong   son you  want to play pokr   I say no poppa  they are  wait  to eat   Poppa grin  say  we go before  your mama  see us    the man say  to poppa  do he belong to you   poppa say  yes  he mine   the man say  what son , poppa say  my oldr  son   this is the  baby   his mama will  spak my musty but  if she see him in here  
mr Mac  tel poppa mama is in the  hall look for us  poppa  say come man we will make  a run  for it   mama see us   come in poppa say run Man   poppa was  run   I run   people grin   say    run here she come   I   look back mr  Mac  was  on a stol grin   poppa got my hand   we run  to  the  place you sit  down   mama    and  mr Mac come   mama say poppa what you do if game people  come  ask what Man do in  pokr  room    poppa grin say  I tel them  Man is  midet   poppa  slap his leg  and grin     mama roll her eye mama say heavn help her   mama say poppa is a hand ful  and grin 
We leave  hotel casno   go to daddy office  I like go to daddy office   poppa and me have  good time     mama say  you to boys be good   mama say she   will  do some work for daddy mama say daddy is in court   with  mr Leonard on a case .
Mama  went in  office  with mrs  Anita     poppa aand I  went  to the  lobby behind the desk   poppa got the  mike     poppa and me  start sing     poppa   make it go   in all the  office   up and down stairs , we sing  poppa  bring the mike  to   front of  desk   we sing and dance   the peple waitng in the loby   pat they hand   and some sing with poppa and me     1 lady  got up  and dance with poppa    she  ask poopa is he got a wife   poppa grin say no   he  got  a lady in canda    she is all he  want  and poppa  grin   poppa tell lady he  got 2 brothr  they want  wife  poppa grin 
I  wil tel you  about  1 time  when  we went to Reno   poppa gave me a pony    one of poppa race  horse is  his daddy   I name him Horse    he run real fast     I   say   poppa I want to race  Horse  
Horse was in  6  race before poppa go to heavn    Horse  place  3 and 2 and  5 and  3 and  2 and 2    poppa was happy   Horse  did  good   in harnes   race   mama  ride  bugy  round tract  one time      I   say Horse  you win one for poppa this year      I will tell you  if Horse win one  this year   race  season is  May to Septeber  
I hope you lke my story about poppa    and tell peple  about  climte change .
Kight  Man  C.

What our future looks like

 

Knowing that we have the power to influence global climate is enormously important when trying to imagine what our climate might look like in 2050. To a large degree, we are deciding the future right now, by every action we take and the actions our leaders take now and in the immediate future.
There are, of course, still some people who do not “believe” in human-caused climate change. Their reasons for this are usually justified by two arguments: The Earth’s environment goes through natural cycles and humans cannot change those cycles. Indeed, variations on this line of reasoning are found daily in social media and other news outlets.

The first of these arguments is true--at least to a degree. The Earth’s environment certainly has different states and, at various times in its history, the Earth has both been much colder and much warmer than it is today. In periods, the Earth’s environment has also apparently “cycled” between different states, for example between ice and non-ice ages. On much shorter time scales, we see oscillations between El Niño and La Niña events.

However, the second argument is demonstrably wrong.  Human activities are, without a doubt, influencing not only the global climate system but also several other global processes, which are important for establishing and maintaining the environment on Earth now and in the future.
It is this recognition of our ability to alter processes at the planetary level that causes many to refer to the current period of Earth history as the Anthropocene, meaning the “period of humankind”. And knowing that we have the power to influence global climate is enormously important when we want to imagine what our climate might look like in 2050.

Climate is controlled by how much of the Sun’s heat energy arrives at, and remains near, the Earth’s surface. Scientists tell us that we can expect no major changes in heat arriving from the Sun for many thousands of years to come. So the changes we will see in climate from now until 2050 will mostly be related to how much of the arriving heat stays here.
This is where our greenhouse gas (GHG) waste (“emission”) becomes important. The greater the concentration of these gases in the atmosphere, the more heat is retained near the Earth and the higher the global average temperature will be.

How hot could it get?
Global political leaders have agreed (the Paris Climate Agreement) that we, the global community, will reduce our GHG emissions to the point that human-caused global warming will never raise the average annual global air temperature by more than two degrees Celsius.  Even if all countries at the signing of the Paris Agreement met that goal,  human-caused global warming is expected to reach around three degrees.
Of course, it is possible and for all of us to adopt even more ambitious goals. If we do so, then many scientists believe that it is still possible to keep global warming within two degrees. The chances of meeting this goal are, however, quickly waning--a recent scientific report suggests that there is only about a five per cent chance of restraining global warming to within two degrees.

 

 

By September 2017, two major hurricanes, including Irma (pictured), had swept through the Caribbean and the coast of southeast US. Climate change is suspected to have already made the impacts of hurricanes more extreme, due to more rain and larger storm surges, and this may continue in the future.

 

If we do no more than we are doing today to reduce GHG emissions, climate science projects that temperature in 2100 will be up to approximately five degrees higher than it is today. The model results generated should not be taken as absolute predictions, but they do provide estimates of the emissions reduction necessary to restrain human-caused global warming to within  the two degree limit.

The Earth will still be warming in 2050
So, the Earth will be warmer in 2050 than it is today and it will still be warming. As noted above, it takes a long time for the Earth’s system to adjust to the changes in its energy budget that increased GHG concentrations imply. That means that, even if we stopped all greenhouse gas emissions today, air temperature would continue to increase for decades.

Even if the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement are met, by 2050 we will globally be looking at heat waves that are dangerous for human health, changes in patterns of rainfall and snowfall, more intense storms, and changes in the distribution, and even extinctions, of various plants and animals--including human pathogens.

Warming will be felt differently around the world. For example, Africa, where populations are growing faster than anywhere else, it will mean increasingly large areas plagued by drought and the potential mass migration of people no longer able to grow food locally and find water.

While in Northern Europe, it will mean warmer winters but also more rain, an increasing number of cloudbursts, stronger storms, and changes in their surrounding natural environment. Some already wet agricultural lands will become too wet to farm and sea level will continue to rise.
Coastal regions will be eroded, washing buildings and other infrastructure out to sea and leading to higher insurance premiums.

The Arctic ice will be gone; and along with it, most of the wildlife that flourished there. That such changes will characterize the climate in 2050 is almost without doubt. The question is really only the degree of these changes, and that is something that we—ourselves—must decide.

OUR FUTURE


 Uncontrollable wild fires

Rainforests, our source of oxygen and  an important  filter for carbon dioxide, deforested almost completely.

 

Arable land turned to desert wastelands

 

Islands completely engulfed by rising water levels 

 

Dried up riverbeds

 

Desolate wasteland around urban areas

 

Remaining waterways choked with garbage

 

Glaciers melted away

 

The  Amazon ( also known as the lungs of the earth ) denuded of  trees and animal habitats

 

 

People living near the sea becoming surrounded by water.\

 

NOT LOOKING TOO GOOD .... IS IT ??



Hawking

 

 

I hope you found freedom...Pax



14 U.S. Cities That Could Disappear Over The Next Century, Thanks To Global Warming

There is really no way around it: Thanks to climate change, sea levels are rising. A huge question on the minds of many is, what does this mean for America? Will sea walls and city planning protect major metropolises, or are we bound to lose some national gems? Unfortunately, the latter is a significant possibility. Read on for 14 U.S. cities that could be devastated over the next century due to rising tides.
1. Miami, Fla.

Is South Beach your go-to summer spot? Do you vacation at the Fountainbleu? Well, climate change might force you to kiss America’s party city goodbye. In a Rolling Stone article written earlier this summer, Jeff Goodell creates a pretty terrifying hypothetical of what a dystopic future could look like in Miami:

With sea levels more than a foot higher than they’d been at the dawn of the century, South Florida was wet, vulnerable and bankrupt. Attempts had been made to armor the coastline, to build sea walls and elevate buildings, but it was a futile undertaking. The coastline from Miami Beach up to Jupiter had been a little more than a series of rugged limestone crags since the mid-2020s, when the state, unable to lay out $100 million every few years to pump in fresh sand, had given up trying to save South Florida’s world-famous­ beaches.
Read more about Goodell’s predictions for Miami’s future, and his investigation into climate resiliency.
2. Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Located less than 30 miles north of Miami, Fort Lauderdale’s future looks similarly doomed. Scientists also warn that long-term sea level rise that would doom Fort Lauderdale’s beachfront could be “locked in” by 2060 if we don’t curtail greenhouse gas emissions. Climate Central researcher Benjamin Strauss adds that “even if we could just stop global emissions tomorrow on a dime, Fort Lauderdale, Miami Gardens, Hoboken, New Jersey will be under sea level.”
3. Boston, Mass.

If Hurricane Sandy struck Boston during high tide, 6.6 percent of the city would have been flooded. Water would have reached the steps of City Hall, according to a piece in The Atlantic. Within 100 years, that could become the new normal, twice a day. Goodbye Boston, even the Yankee fans will miss you.
4. New York City, N.Y.

Probably one of the least surprising entry on this list, Hurricane Sandy gave New Yorkers just a taste of what might happen to their city over the next hundred years. According to new data released in June, sea level could rise by 4-8 inches in New York over just the next TEN years. A terrifying interactive from the New York Times shows that a five-foot rise in sea level would submerge La Guardia airport, many of the barrier islands, and a significant portion of Manhattan.
5. Atlantic City, N.J.

Some of the most shocking images from Hurricane Sandy came from the Atlantic City boardwalk. The place known for carefree debauchery lay in shambles of wooden planks and sand. Was the devastation a sign of things to come? This report suggests that Atlantic City could be a major casualty of sea level rise.
6. Honolulu, Hawaii

Sea level does not rise evenly. While that may mean less of a rise for some places (like those near Greenland) some places will be inundated with much higher tides than others. Like Hawaii. According to a study released in February, the beautiful islands are likely to be hit the hardest by rising sea levels. Some experts claim that just a one INCH rise could cause shoreline to move up eight feet. A one-foot rise would cause the beach to move 100 feet inland. Just imagine what happens to Honolulu when the sea rises by 5 feet.
7. New Orleans, La.

According to The Lens, a Louisiana non-profit news site, Louisiana might be facing the highest sea level rise worldwide. This does not bode well for the low-lying Big Easy, which could be immersed with 4.3 feet of water by the end of the century. Mardi Gras, the French Quarter and NOLA’s jazz scene may all be a thing of the past.
8. Sacramento, Calif.

Although Sacramento is not coastal, it is by no means safe from sea level rise. Thanks to the many waterways surround the area, including the flowing Sacramento river, a five foot sea level rise would inevitably affect California’s capital city. According to the Sacramento Bee, even a moderate rise of two feet could flood a number of neighborhoods.
9. San Diego, Calif.

The outlook for San Diego is pretty grim when it comes to sea level rise. Local news station KPBS reports that the city could see rising tides of 18 inches to four feet by the year 2050. Nickolay Lamm, an artist who has made a number of shocking and beautiful climate change images, created a scary rendering of what San Diego could look like in a future of rising seas.
10. Los Angeles, Calif.

According to a report released by the National Research Council, Southern California is in for quite the climate change fiasco. Acres of beautiful coastline will be engulfed by rising seas, including Long Beach, Venice and Santa Monica.
11. Charleston, S.C.

In a 2007 article, the Charleston City Paper took a very similar approach to Goodell’s Miami doomsday scenario, and painted a picture of what could happen to the city over the next 100 years:

The boat drifts past the ruins of St. Michael’s Church, with its gaping, glass-toothed windows and collapsed steeple, as the tour guide drones on about its rich history and the last services held there back in 2053 — the church’s 300th anniversary — before the rising waters drove its last parishioners to higher ground. The guide reminds you of the great global climate change exodus that began in earnest that decade, with nearly a billion refugees from coastal regions everywhere on top of untold millions of climate-related deaths.
Pretty terrifying. According to the paper, even the best-case scenario will probably wipe away Charleston’s beautiful beachfront mansions and pristine beaches.
12. Virginia Beach, Va.

Virginia Beach’s pristine coast could be obliterated in the next 50 years. In fact, NOAA says that it’s the most threatened area for sea level rise of its size after New Orleans. According to Virginia Beach environmental administrator Clay Bernick, there are too many warning signs to ignore the science. “I wouldn’t put it in the category of fear,” he told The Washington Post, but stressed, “You’ve got multiple factors with flashing lights saying, ‘Okay, guys, what are you going to do?’”

A word to the wise: If you haven’t made your way down to the Hampton Roads area, you might want to make the trip before it is too late.
13. Seattle, Wash.

James Rufo Hill, a climatologist with Seattle Public Utilities, knows Seattle could be in dire trouble by the year 2050. City neighborhoods like Georgetown, South Park, Harbor Island, Interbay and Golden Gardens could be flooded daily during high tide in the next few decades. Check out the video to see Hill explain how climate change will affect the notoriously rainy city.
14. Savannah, Ga.

Savannah, a beautiful southern city only a few miles from marshlands, has a lot to lose if the sea rises by only three feet. Check out this shocking image created by Climate Central to see exactly how much of the city could turn into an underwater wonderland.
Crusader Jenny , Nanook & Knight Mika

Winter temperatures are soaring in the Arctic for the fourth winter in a row. The heat, accompanied by moist air, is entering the Arctic not only through the sector of the North Atlantic Ocean that lies between Greenland and Europe, as it has done in previous years, but is also coming from the North Pacific through the Bering Strait.

“We have seen winter warming events before, but they’re becoming more frequent and more intense,” said Alek Petty, a sea ice researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Scientists are waiting to see how much this heat wave will impact the wintertime sea ice maximum extent, which has been shrinking in the past decades and has hit record lows each of the past three years. The sea ice levels are already at record lows or near-record lows in several areas of the Arctic. Another exceptional event this winter is the opening up of the sea ice cover north of Greenland, releasing heat from the ocean to the atmosphere and making the sea ice more vulnerable to further melting.

“This is a region where we have the thickest multi-year sea ice and expect it to not be mobile, to be resilient,” Petty said. “But now this ice is moving pretty quickly, pushed by strong southerly winds and probably affected by the warm temperatures, too.”

Credit
 NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Thanx : NASA 
Knight Sha  C.

Another reminder about the health consequences of climate change.... We can't stress it often enough

 

Climate change isn’t just bad for the planet’s health—it’s bad for people’s too. Effects will vary by age, gender, geography, and socioeconomic status—and so will remedies. A recent international study in the Lancet says that many more people will be exposed to extreme weather events over the next century than previously thought—“a potentially catastrophic risk to human health” that could undo 50 years of global health gains.

Solutions are in the works. In flood-prone Benin, national health insurance has been expanded to cover diseases likeliest to increase as the world warms and sea levels rise. In the steamy Philippines, programs are helping low-income residents manage weather-related risks with loans, hygiene education, and waste and water control. Meanwhile public health experts everywhere are calling for new measures to help people stay healthy despite floods, droughts, and heat waves. They are trying to convince governments to set up programs to provide water, food, shelter and medicine that automatically kick in when a natural disaster occurs

 

Global climate change can have a lot of negative consequences:

1. Power outages in extreme weather could cripple hospitals and transportation systems when we need them most.
2. Crop declines could lead to undernutrition, hunger, and higher food prices. More CO₂ in the air could make staple crops like barley and soy less nutritious.
3. Occupational hazards such as risk of heatstroke will rise, especially among farmers and construction workers. Labor could shift to dawn and dusk, times when more disease-­carrying insects are out.
4. Hotter days, more rain, and higher humidity will produce more ticks, which spread infectious diseases like Lyme disease. Ticks could be in much of the eastern U.S. by 2080.
5. Trauma from floods, droughts, and heat waves can lead to mental health issues like anxiety, depression, and suicide.

 

Illness and fresh water shortage can severely affect the young and very old and the populations of developing countries. These vulnerable groups will be affected first.

More consequences:

1. More heat can mean longer allergy seasons and more respiratory disease. More rain increases mold, fungi, and indoor air pollutants.
2. Mosquito-borne dengue fever has increased 30-fold in the past 50 years. Three-quarters of those exposed so far live in the Asia-Pacific region.
3. Senior citizens and poor children—especially those already afflicted with malaria, malnutrition, and diarrhea—tend to be most vulnerable to heat-related illnesses.
4. Drought and chronic water shortages harm rural areas and 150 million city dwellers. If localities don’t adjust quickly, that number could be nearly a billion by 2050.
5. Rising sea levels can threaten freshwater supplies for people living in low-lying areas. More severe storms can cause city sewage systems to overflow.

We should be solving these problems before they happen and making as many preparations as we can ahead of time to stave off the multiple effects of climate change.  Or better yet, why don't we work on stopping climate change before these events have a chance of taking place and decimating the human and animal populations ???

 



Poppa and Me

Poppa  lern me nanok dane  my sistr tel  kid in schol abot climte chnge when she went to my schol , Jenny wil go to high schol  when schol strt agin  do you tel peple about clmate chnge  
I hope you do , you can lern what to say  read  on nanok  my brother and sistrs  and aunt Jeannie  wil tel  yo  they are smrt ,
I got a good story about me and poppa   daddy read my post aand he is grin     daddy say he glad I know so much  daddy say poppa tel angls  that I  just like him  I say daddy am I like poppa , daddy say  yes you are   poppa tran you wel 
I will tel you   mama  try to get us   and spank  poppa and my musty but  mama cook cake  for cake for lady   it  on the tablle  poppa say get the cake   I say poppa  mama see us   poppa say  no we be undr tablle    poppa say get the cake  I got on tablle   poppa  say give the cake to me 
poppa take chair from tablle  put cake on flor  poppa got undr tablle  say come  Man  
poppa and me was undr tablle eat   cake   I say poppa  we ned plte  and knfe   poppa say no   we eat with our hand   it was so good   mama come in  to get cake  she no see cake  mama say Elise  get me the cake  she is go to take it to the lady , elise say it on tablle  mama say no   Elise say I see  the 2 boy in here    mama  say Man where you  I say here me   mama lok under tablle  say you 2 will get it  come here 
poppa say  folow me   run fast      poppa got out   say come Man  and we strt run  to poppa tolet  poppa run in   shut dor , I   hit the dor  say poppa let me in  I hit the door lot time  say poppa let me in   mama was in poppa dor  say you  and poppa will get it    poppa open dor  a lite  lok out  saw mama   poppa pull me in the tolet     poppa say mama wil leve  soon  ,  poppa open dor  mama was gon  we  leve tolet  mama was  in  hall  to patio  mama was grin tel Elise  what poppa did  mama say poppa   and me wil go to our rom   
Poppa  say come Man  we snek out the dor  go to  MeMa  to hid out   see what  MeMa  cook.
Mama tel dady what we did    dady grin  say poppa  any cake for me  
Now I wil tel you  poppa by me  big swim pool     poppa blow it up  put water in the swim pool  
aunt Mae  and MeMa and Mama  aand dady  uncle Cris   a lot of couin  was  in yard  my litlle couin was in swim pool   poppa say  put on  the swim  suts  poppa got his spedo pant   poppa cut the but  out the back   poppa cut the but out  mine   poppa had on his  drawr  I had  on drawr  
poppa and me went  to get in  the pool   aunt mae  grin  when  poppa walk by her   aunt mae say  Poppa you but is out    poppa say it cute   daddy  and  uncle Chria grin   it was watr out they eye  
mama say get you musty but  in the house   poppa say no  we swim   poppa was a lot of fun   Elise  call poppa  Mr  Minty   I say poppa why   poppa say he is swet  smel good  
I did lot of stuf with my poppa    .
Poppa I know you read my post   tell Mr. Larry I say  hi  tell my grandmama  I just kike you  .
Poppa I miss you  it mak me fel good  you are near  me  poppa I do good in schol  daddy say I got good penship    poppa I know all  my time tablle    .
Hope you lik read about my poppa  I will tell you more story   I got a lot of them  some when we is in reno .
Knight Man  C.