Category: Climate Change

See no evil

~ susie ~ 1 Comment
THE DEVASTATING CALIFORNIA CAMP FIRE HAS BEEN CONTAINED

Right in line with his belief that if he covers up his crimes, no one can prove he actually did them, Trump proves he’s an idiot:

(CNN)President Donald Trump on Monday dismissed a study produced by his own administration, involving 13 federal agencies and more than 300 leading climate scientists, warning of the potentially catastrophic impact of climate change.

Why, you ask?

“I don’t believe it,” Trump told reporters on Monday, adding that he had read “some” of the report.

Here’s what voting Republican gets you

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Or third party, for that matter:

https://twitter.com/PeterGleick/status/1050459382784307200

Here she comes

~ susie
https://twitter.com/aravosis/status/1039645972148703234

Get ready

~ susie

Via the Washington Post:

Hurricane Florence is tracking toward the East Coast with invariability rarely seen in storms several days away from landfall. While forecasters were careful to cite “high uncertainty” and “low model confidence” last week, their tone changed after watching the storm’s eventual path barely shift from what they had considered to be the worst-case scenario. 

On Sunday evening, the National Hurricane Center was forecasting Florence to become a strong Category 4 just prior to making landfall somewhere on the Southeast or Mid-Atlantic coast on Thursday. 

With each passing flight into the eye of the storm and every new forecast from the global weather models, it is increasingly unlikely Florence will turn out to sea and spare the Eastern Seaboard from potentially devastating storm surge, flooding and wind. There’s even some indication the hurricane will slow or stall out over the Mid-Atlantic later this week, which could lead to a disastrous amount of rain. 

“There is an increasing risk of two life-threatening impacts from Florence: Storm surge at the coast and freshwater flooding from a prolonged heavy rainfall event inland,” the National Hurricane Center wrote Sunday. Storm surge is the rise in ocean water above normally dry land at the coast, which can inundate homes, roads and businesses.

If you don’t have it, you can watch the Weather Channel here: https://youtu.be/Rf2KQLdY3aY

Mama whale’s message to the media

~ odd man out

From NPR:

After carrying her deceased baby for at least 17 days and 1,000 miles, an orca mother has shown signs of returning to normal. She was seen Saturday with fellow members of her pod, chasing a school of salmon. She is no longer carrying her baby, and she looks healthy. “Her tour of grief is now over and her behavior is remarkably frisky,” according to a statement on the Center for Whale Research’s website… Not a single orca born in the past three years has been known to survive, according to the Center for Whale Research. That’s why the fact that [the mother whale] recently gave birth was so exciting, if only for a brief moment. Her calf died just 30 minutes after it was first spotted by a whale watch operator on July 24.

I’m not sentimental, but the whale story moved me. It spooked me. What if she was grieving not just for her baby, but for her entire species, and for all endangered species? What if her “tour of grief” was to remind humans that the huge amounts of toxins we generate are killing the oceans?

And don’t tell me it’s silly to attribute thoughts and feelings to non-human creatures. Whales feel deeply and are highly intelligent. Humans, on the other hand, are too dumb or selfish to care that their behavior might be dooming not just whales but their own future generations.

Footnote: Save the whales! Save the humans! Something’s wrong, as Spirit noted almost a half-century ago: https://youtu.be/YsTK2LHZKPQ

Mr. Wizard strikes again

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

DSC06261

“Unmitigated crap,” one scientist called it:

Two years ago, an actual headline from CBS in Sacramento was, “Donald Trump Tells California ‘There Is No Drought’ As Drought Continues.”

And now, on Sunday evening, Trump’s denial of reality in California continued, as he attempted to blame the ever-worsening wildfires in the state on everything but climate change.

“California wildfires are being magnified & made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amount of readily available water to be properly utilized,” the President tweeted. “It is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Must also tree clear to stop fire spreading!”

The tweet came just hours after the Trump administration declared the California wildfires a major disaster.

Experts, however, immediately mocked Trump’s explanation — and his refusal to acknowledge that climate change is a major driver in worsening wildfires.