Guest essay by Eric Worrall h/t Breitbart – Professor Todd May thinks that when you consider the pain we inflict on animals through climate change, any reasonable assessment suggests humans should not be allowed to continue.
Would Human Extinction Be a Tragedy?
Our species possesses inherent value, but we are devastating the earth and causing unimaginable animal suffering.
By Todd May Mr. May is a professor of philosophy at Clemson University.
This should not be surprising, given the increasingly threatening predations of climate change.
Unless we believe there is such a profound moral gap between the status of human and nonhuman animals, whatever reasonable answer we come up with will be well surpassed by the harm and suffering we inflict upon animals.
Our own science is revealing that richness to us, ironically giving us a reason to eliminate it along with our own continued existence.
One might ask here whether, given this view, it would also be a good thing for those of us who are currently here to end our lives in order to prevent further animal suffering.
Although I do not have a final answer to this question, we should recognize that the case of future humans is very different from the case of currently existing humans.
In contrast, preventing future humans from existing does not introduce such suffering, since those human beings will not exist and therefore not have lives to sacrifice.
Climate Change & Global Warming
This official finding was based on 78 conclusions from 57 peer-reviewed papers on climate change biodiversity impacts, all listed in WG2 table 4.1.
This official figure really says only 10 of the 78 references listed in table 4.1 actually support the IPCC global extinction estimates.
[iv] That is a more than just dubious exponent value for all species including plants, and for climates outside the tropics.
Using a dubious Z in a faulty equation with excessively hot climate model input, this paper then assessed 20% of Earth’s terrestrial surface in 7 specific regions, using seven groups of regionally endemic species including 112 mammals, 238 birds, 69 butterflies, and 607 plants.
‘Small’ Endemic Bird Areas (EBAs) account for about 2500 of the known 10518 avian species, and 93% of all range restricted birds.
Thomas Table 1 says endemic birds were assessed in Queensland Australia, South Africa, Europe, and Mexico.
Queensland has 630 bird species of which 20-22 are endemic; table 1 says 13 were used.
The paper selected 238 out of 3019 bird species known in the studied regions, 8%.
al. selected 9 (but did not say which 0.01%), then modeled a 69-87% extinction risk for those.
al., Extinction Risk from Climate Change, Nature 427: 145-148 (2004) [iii] The fish estimate was 4-22% in just 66 out of 165 rivers (AR4 WG2 table 4.1 #53 said >10%) from a single paper Xenopoulos et.
Britain is bidding to host the UN climate change conference in 2020, the biggest since the Paris agreement was signed in 2015, as part of the government’s aim to be seen as a green leader.
If successful, the move would be a strong signal of the UK government’s determination to retain its role on the world stage after Brexit.
Claire Perry, the climate change minister, flew to Poland on Thursday after taking part in the Conservative party’s vote on Theresa May’s future, which she called “24 hours of political self-indulgence”.
Perry told journalists: “We have to make sure we can deliver a good COP [Conference of the Parties], as 2020 will be a really vital COP, and we absolutely want to be part of that process [of making it a success].” She pointed to the UK’s efforts in cutting greenhouse gas emissions and investing in green jobs, saying Britain had decarbonised faster per unit of GDP than any other country in the past decade, and created 400,000 jobs in the low-carbon economy.
“We have a really good track record in the UK,” she said.
In Poland, the UK joined with other EU member states and scores of developing countries in committing to scale up their ambition on climate change, with a focus on preventing global warming from breaching 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, in line with scientific warnings.
Next year’s host was supposed to be Brazil, but the incoming president, Jair Bolsonaro, is hostile to the Paris agreement and has withdrawn the offer.
Chile and Costa Rica are understood to be considering alternative bids.
It’s an opportunity for the UK to lead the way on climate change at a time when the need for action has never been starker.” COP26, as the 2020 conference is known in UN jargon, will also be notable for the role of the US.
Bolsonaro has indicated he may take Brazil out of the Paris agreement, and the divisions between developed and developing countries that have characterised the current talks are likely to remain in the intervening years, giving the UK a diplomatic mountain to climb to make a success of the talks if awarded host-country status.
Renewable energy reduces power prices by more than cost of subsidies, study finds Posted Thu at 3:06pmThu 6 Dec 2018, 3:06pm Related Story: Renewables ‘heading for 80 per cent of electricity market by 2030’ Related Story: Labor to revive National Energy Guarantee ‘even if it’s not the best’ A landmark study has shown that renewable energy has reduced electricity prices by far more than the subsidies paid for it.
Key points: The study’s lead author said the research proved renewables were the key to lower power prices Researchers found South Australians were paying, on average, the highest electricity prices in the world Gas-fired power is pushing prices higher, while wind and solar are placing downward pressure on prices, the study found The independent study, by the Victoria Energy Policy Centre, focused on the South Australian electricity market and confirmed households in the state have on average the highest electricity prices in the world.
“We have an evidence base that puts this issue on the table for people to engage with.
It found that even though South Australians were paying the highest average bills in the world, wind and solar generation in South Australia actually brought wholesale prices down — and by far more than the subsidies paid for them.
It found that in the 2017–18 financial year, renewables reduced wholesale prices by an average of about 30 per cent, or about $37 per megawatt hour, mostly due to wind generation.
These cheap offers from renewable generators on the wholesale market displace more expensive offers from gas generators, effectively reducing prices for the entire market.
Infographic: But gas generation drives up prices But the study found the reduction in wholesale prices thanks to renewables has not been enough to offset the high price of gas.
“Certainly renewables have benefited the system, and we would have had higher prices in South Australia without renewables, fundamentally because of the high price of gas,” Mr Wood said.
Mr Wood agreed that South Australia’s current energy mix meant expensive gas generation was setting the price for the whole market.
From Phys Org November 26, 2018 by Christina Larson And Mauricio Savarese This May 8, 2018 photo released by the Brazilian Environmental and Renewable Natural Resources Institute (Ibama) shows an illegally deforested area on Pirititi indigenous lands as Ibama agents inspect Roraima state in Brazil’s Amazon basin.
Two months ago, the UN’s climate change panel warned that unless humanity takes drastic action, we will only have 12 years to save the planet from disaster.
Representatives from almost 200 nations are currently meeting in the Polish coal-mining town of Katowice to try to turn the pledges made in Paris in 2015 into a political reality.
There are, with children in Australia walking out of school to protest the climate inaction, signs of generational optimism.
On the other hand, we have Donald Trump dismissing his own government’s climate report, while the incoming Bolsonaro administration is refusing to host next year’s climate talks in Brazil.
There is still time to save the world but at the moment, Robin McKie writes, a climate catastrophe looks inevitable – and everywhere will be affected.
With the White House actively uninterested in the process in Poland, a key role will fall to Obama’s “climate diaspora” – a group of former state department climate officials now working in the private sector who are doing all they can to protect the goals agreed in Paris.
In a fascinating piece, Karl Mathiesen profiles the likes of Sue Biniaz and Todd Stern, who are trying to save the Paris accord from their own president.
As Emmanuel Macron sat with other G20 leaders in Buenos Aires, the group of tax protesters known as the gilets jaunes held a third weekend of demonstrations.
The violence in France brought the government to crisis point.
The battle with the “yellow vests” is the biggest challenge to Macron since he took office last May, writes our Paris correspondent Angelique Chrisafis.
Vastly more complex than the Paris Agreement itself are the set of rules that will make it work After three years of talking, delegates have arrived in Katowice, Poland, to make a deal on the so-called rulebook of the Paris Agreement.
Why are they still negotiating?
These include guidelines on how to articulate and track national climate pledges or, in UN jargon, nationally determined contributions or NDCs; how to meet a national target by helping other countries to reduce their emissions, or how to communicate national efforts to adapt to climate change.
Also on the table will be rules on how to report on finance for climate action and equip developing countries with technology to combat climate change.
Finally, there’s already a copious section dedicated to making the reporting actions more transparent and defining reviewing procedures, such as the global stocktake or the compliance committee.
Country A, for example, may give economy-wide targets for cutting carbon, while others will focus on bringing down emissions per sector.
This will help to make the implementation of the Paris agreement more transparent over time, and foster countries’ trust in each other’s efforts.
In return for greater accountability, developing countries will be expecting financial help from rich countries.
Many of the debates over the rulebook will focus on how climate action is reviewed.
Are the rules going to be the same for every country?
WASHINGTON, DC –A new study shows extreme heat events both in the summer and in the winter are increasing across the U.S. and Canada, while extreme cold events in summer and winter are declining.
A new study in the in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, a publication of the American Geophysical Union, examined absolute extreme temperatures–high temperatures in summer and low temperatures in winter–but also looked at relative extreme temperature events–unusually cold temperatures and unusually warm temperatures throughout the year.
The new study found both relative and absolute extreme heat events have increased across the US and Canada since 1980.
The new research also found both relative and absolute extreme cold events are decreasing, most notably in Alaska and Northern Canada, along with patches along the US Atlantic coast.
The new study is one of the first to explore relative extreme temperature events, which are changing more rapidly than absolute temperature extremes, and can have important implications for the environment, agriculture and human health, according to Scott Sheridan, professor in the department of geography at Kent State University and lead author of the new study.
But we’ve also seen that extreme temperatures that are really anomalous for the time of year can have a high impact–these relative extremes are important and underappreciated,” he said.
In the eastern half of the US, relative extreme heat events occur as early as mid-winter into early spring.
The 2018 bill ditches the concept of “revenue neutrality”, an attempt to protect poor people from the impact of energy price hikes.
Guest essay by Albert Parker A recent paper Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene (Ref.
Proposition 127, a renewable energy initiative in Arizona, lost handily Tuesday, according to ABC Arizona, citing The Associated Press.
Loss of forest cover jumped almost 50% during the election campaign, in anticipation of looser environmental regulations Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon jumped almost 50% during the three month electoral season that brought Jair Bolsonaro to power, according to preliminary official figures.
Deforestation usually increases in Brazil’s electoral years, amid promises from local politicians they will open up protected land or make environmental legislation more flexible if elected.
As a result Bolsonaro, collected landslide victories in Amazon regions with higher deforestation rates.
There were three attacks against federal agents during the campaign.
The most serious one took place on October 19 in Pará state.
The new figures on forest loss come from Deter B, a satellite monitoring system developed by Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (Inpe) in order to monitor deforestation in almost real time for surveillance purposes.
The data is publicly available and the calculation of the rate over the electoral season was made by Inpe at Climate Home News’ request.
But, he said the almost 48.8% difference with last year indicated the deforestation rate was unmistakably higher.
The 2018 deforestation rate is expected to be published in the next weeks and will most likely show a small increase from 2017.
You can read some of the great reporting Fabiano has already done for us here.
In all previous outbreaks, most of which took place in remote areas, the disease was contained before it spread widely.
… Read more (paywalled): https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2018/11/05/cdc-director-warns-that-congos-ebola-outbreak-may-not-be-containable/ As far as I can tell, and I’m not an expert, Ebola currently has three of the four traits it requires to become a global threat.
People who survive the lethal infection sometimes become symptomless carriers, shedding large numbers of virus particles for months, even years after their own personal encounter with Ebola.
Ebola is NOT YET airborne – although there are concerns from time to time that Ebola is marginally airborne in humans, at least via aerosol transmission, this assertion is vigorously denied by health authorities.
There are concerns that Ebola could mutate into an airborne strain, if an outbreak remains active for long enough in human populations.
However, Chiappelli et al. [33] stated that there is a distinct possibility for EBOV to become airborne because of the customary and high mutation rates of negative sense RNA viruses.
Besides, none of the 23 viruses that cause serious disease in humans have been known to mutate in a way that changed their mode of infection … Read more: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4885103/ Obviously there is every chance the latest outbreak will fizzle like all the previous outbreaks.
At any moment, an unknowing Ebola carrier, the sole survivor of an outbreak which killed their family and friends, a carrier with no visible signs of illness, might decide to build a new life in another country.
My recent paper presented a simple heuristic approach to climate science which plausibly proposed that a Millennial Turning Point (MTP)… Guest essay by Eric Worrall Multi-billionaire Bill Gates is apparently OK with the idea of his domestic energy bills rising a little, if Washington State votes to approve a new carbon tax.
[1] below) claims that even if the CO2 emission reductions called for in the Paris Agreement are met, our Earth may still enter what they call “Hothouse Earth” conditions, a long-term stabilization… Despite climate alarmists saying deaths and damages from hurricanes are getting worse, the fact of the matter is that both are in decline.
Climate Kiddies’ Lawsuit: Evidence That Every President Since JFK Ignored Warnings About… Something.
Every president since JFK was warned about climate change Benjamin Hulac, E&E News reporter Climatewire: Tuesday, November 6, 2018 John F. Kennedy was warned about “climate control” in February 1961, becoming perhaps the first American president to learn about people’s impact on planetary temperatures.
President John F. Kennedy Was Not Warned About Climate Change Senator Clinton Anderson (D-NM) “warned” JFK that Godless Red Hordes might attack these tangentially United States with ice ages and hurricanes.
CARBON DIOXIDE FROM FOSSIL
Marine plants obtain carbon from the dissolved carbon dioxide in sea water, which depends for its concentration on an equilibrium with the carbon dioxide of the atmosphere.
The known amounts of limestone and organic carbon in the sediments indicate that the atmospheric carbon dioxide has been changed forty thousand times during the past four billion years, consequently the residence time of carbon in the atmosphere, relative to sedimentary rocks, must be of the order of a hundred thousand years.
The part that remains in the atmosphere may have a significant effect on climate: carbon dioxide is nearly transparent to visible light, but it is a. strong absorber and back radiator of infrared radiation, particularly in the wave from 12 to 18 microns; consequently, an increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide could act, much like the glass in a greenhouse, to raise the temperature of the lower air.
Even today, we cannot make a useful prediction concerning the magnitude or nature of the possible climatic effects.But we are able to say a good deal more than formerly about the change in the quantity of atmospheric carbon dioxide, and about the partition of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion among the atmosphere, the ocean, and the biosphere.
The effect of an increase in CO2 from 300 to 330 ppm can be compensated for completely by a change in the water vapor content of 3 per cent or by a change in the cloudiness of 1 per cent of its value without the occurrence of temperature changes at all.
It is not too difficult to infer from these numbers that the variation in the radiation budget from a changed CO2 concentration can be compensated for completely without any variation in the surface temperature when the cloudiness is increased by +0.006 or the water vapor content is decreased by -0.07 cm l.e.
[…] These are variations in the cloudiness by 1 per cent of its value or in the water vapor content by 3 per cent of its value.
