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FBI Invokes National Security to Justify Surveillance of Tar Sands Protestors
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/...ty-justify-surveillance-tar-sands-protestors/
Both the president and the Pentagon have proclaimed that global warming is a threat to U.S. national security. But there’s no sign that the FBI is wiretapping fossil fuel company CEOs.
On the contrary, in fact: as an FBI document published last week by the Guardian and Earth Island Journal demonstrates, the FBI has monitored members of Tar Sands Blockade, an organization trying to stop the Keystone XL Pipeline because its members believe it would mean “game over” due to climate change. Part of the FBI’s justification was that the “Keystone pipeline, as part of the oil and natural gas industry, is vital to the security and economy of the United States.”
According to the Guardian, FBI files show it conducted an investigation into Tar Sands Blockade members in which the Bureau “collated inside-knowledge about forthcoming protests, documented the identities of individuals photographing oil-related infrastructure, scrutinised police intelligence and cultivated at least one informant.”
The Guardian adds that“the documents connect the investigation into anti-Keystone activists to other ‘domestic terrorism issues’ in the agency and show there was some liaison with the local FBI ‘assistant weapons of mass destruction coordinator.’”
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/...ty-justify-surveillance-tar-sands-protestors/
Both the president and the Pentagon have proclaimed that global warming is a threat to U.S. national security. But there’s no sign that the FBI is wiretapping fossil fuel company CEOs.
On the contrary, in fact: as an FBI document published last week by the Guardian and Earth Island Journal demonstrates, the FBI has monitored members of Tar Sands Blockade, an organization trying to stop the Keystone XL Pipeline because its members believe it would mean “game over” due to climate change. Part of the FBI’s justification was that the “Keystone pipeline, as part of the oil and natural gas industry, is vital to the security and economy of the United States.”
According to the Guardian, FBI files show it conducted an investigation into Tar Sands Blockade members in which the Bureau “collated inside-knowledge about forthcoming protests, documented the identities of individuals photographing oil-related infrastructure, scrutinised police intelligence and cultivated at least one informant.”
The Guardian adds that“the documents connect the investigation into anti-Keystone activists to other ‘domestic terrorism issues’ in the agency and show there was some liaison with the local FBI ‘assistant weapons of mass destruction coordinator.’”
Oceans Will Rise Much More Than Predicted, NASA Says
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/08/150827-NASA-climate-oceans-seas-greenland/
Year by year, millimeter by millimeter, the seas are rising. Fed by melting glaciers and ice sheets, and swollen by thermal expansion of water as the planet warms, the world's oceans now on average are about eight inches higher than a century ago. And this sea change is only getting started.
The question is: How much higher will they go?
NASA scientists are now warning that recent projections seem too conservative: Since 1992, sea levels have increased by an average of 3 inches around the world. Three years ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported that by 2100 sea levels could rise 28 to 98 centimeters (11 to 38 inches), depending on the volumes of greenhouse gases emitted.
Even if greenhouse gas emissions are stabilized and global warming is limited to no more than 2° C, the oceans could reach levels that would transform the world's coasts in the centuries ahead, NASA scientists say.
“With future warming, we may lock ourselves into multiple-meter sea level rise” over the coming centuries, says Eric Rignot, a glaciologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “We're talking about 6 meters—18 feet—and higher of sea level rise. Sea level rise might rise half a meter per century, or several meters per century. We just don't know.”
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/08/150827-NASA-climate-oceans-seas-greenland/
Year by year, millimeter by millimeter, the seas are rising. Fed by melting glaciers and ice sheets, and swollen by thermal expansion of water as the planet warms, the world's oceans now on average are about eight inches higher than a century ago. And this sea change is only getting started.
The question is: How much higher will they go?
NASA scientists are now warning that recent projections seem too conservative: Since 1992, sea levels have increased by an average of 3 inches around the world. Three years ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported that by 2100 sea levels could rise 28 to 98 centimeters (11 to 38 inches), depending on the volumes of greenhouse gases emitted.
Even if greenhouse gas emissions are stabilized and global warming is limited to no more than 2° C, the oceans could reach levels that would transform the world's coasts in the centuries ahead, NASA scientists say.
“With future warming, we may lock ourselves into multiple-meter sea level rise” over the coming centuries, says Eric Rignot, a glaciologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “We're talking about 6 meters—18 feet—and higher of sea level rise. Sea level rise might rise half a meter per century, or several meters per century. We just don't know.”
Joint Statement on Climate Change and the Arctic
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2015/08/246487.htm
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2015/08/246487.htm
When Did the Anthropocene Begin…and Why Does It Matter?
http://monthlyreview.org/2015/09/01/when-did-the-anthropocene-beginand-why-does-it-matter/
The word Anthropocene, unknown twenty years ago, now appears in the titles of three academic journals, dozens of books, and hundreds of academic papers, not to mention innumerable articles in newspapers, magazines, websites, and blogs.
There are exhibitions about art in the Anthropocene, conferences about the humanities in the Anthropocene, and novels about love in the Anthropocene. There is even a heavy metal album called The Anthropocene Extinction. Rarely has a scientific term moved so quickly into wide acceptance and general use.
Behind what might appear to be just a trendy buzzword are important scientific discussions that have radical implications for the future of life on Earth.
Three leading authorities on the science of the Anthropocene express the issues clearly:
The term Anthropocene…suggests that the Earth has now left its natural geological epoch, the present interglacial state called the Holocene. Human activities have become so pervasive and profound that they rival the great forces of Nature and are pushing the Earth into planetary terra incognita. The Earth is rapidly moving into a less biologically diverse, less forested, much warmer, and probably wetter and stormier state.
http://monthlyreview.org/2015/09/01/when-did-the-anthropocene-beginand-why-does-it-matter/
The word Anthropocene, unknown twenty years ago, now appears in the titles of three academic journals, dozens of books, and hundreds of academic papers, not to mention innumerable articles in newspapers, magazines, websites, and blogs.
There are exhibitions about art in the Anthropocene, conferences about the humanities in the Anthropocene, and novels about love in the Anthropocene. There is even a heavy metal album called The Anthropocene Extinction. Rarely has a scientific term moved so quickly into wide acceptance and general use.
Behind what might appear to be just a trendy buzzword are important scientific discussions that have radical implications for the future of life on Earth.
Three leading authorities on the science of the Anthropocene express the issues clearly:
The term Anthropocene…suggests that the Earth has now left its natural geological epoch, the present interglacial state called the Holocene. Human activities have become so pervasive and profound that they rival the great forces of Nature and are pushing the Earth into planetary terra incognita. The Earth is rapidly moving into a less biologically diverse, less forested, much warmer, and probably wetter and stormier state.
Melting Ice in Yellowstone is Revealing Ancient Artifacts Faster Than Researchers Can Handle
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart...revealing-ancient-artifacts-180956488/?no-ist
For Wyofile, Kelsey Dayton reports that in Yellowstone National Park, archeologists are racing to collect the emerging ice-encased trees, the bodies of animals and the ancient tools, spears and utensils that have been preserved high in the Rocky Mountains.
Ice patches don’t move like the larger glaciers, so they are even better suited for preserving material. In the greater Yellowstone ecosystem — an area that includes surrounding mountains and forests — researchers started collecting these artifacts about eight years ago, Craig Lee, an archeologist at the Institute of Arctic Alpine Research in Colorado, told Dayton.
In Yellowstone, Lee, archeologist Staffan Peterson, and others have found animal bones, wooden weapons, and other artifacts ranging from 10,000 year to just a few hundred years old. They've carbon-dated leaves and tree stumps that are more than 5,000 years old.
…
Yet just as they they are in locations around the world, the artifacts in Yellowstone and Glacier are emerging faster than researchers can keep up. “Once those artifacts melt out, they are gone,” Peterson tells Wyofile. “They just fall apart. … They are vanishing. I get the feeling of ‘My God, these things are melting right in front of me and any value they have for science is melting away with them.’"
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart...revealing-ancient-artifacts-180956488/?no-ist
For Wyofile, Kelsey Dayton reports that in Yellowstone National Park, archeologists are racing to collect the emerging ice-encased trees, the bodies of animals and the ancient tools, spears and utensils that have been preserved high in the Rocky Mountains.
Ice patches don’t move like the larger glaciers, so they are even better suited for preserving material. In the greater Yellowstone ecosystem — an area that includes surrounding mountains and forests — researchers started collecting these artifacts about eight years ago, Craig Lee, an archeologist at the Institute of Arctic Alpine Research in Colorado, told Dayton.
In Yellowstone, Lee, archeologist Staffan Peterson, and others have found animal bones, wooden weapons, and other artifacts ranging from 10,000 year to just a few hundred years old. They've carbon-dated leaves and tree stumps that are more than 5,000 years old.
…
Yet just as they they are in locations around the world, the artifacts in Yellowstone and Glacier are emerging faster than researchers can keep up. “Once those artifacts melt out, they are gone,” Peterson tells Wyofile. “They just fall apart. … They are vanishing. I get the feeling of ‘My God, these things are melting right in front of me and any value they have for science is melting away with them.’"
Trying to follow what is going on in Syria and why? This comic will get you there in 5 minutes.
http://www.upworthy.com/trying-to-follow-what-is-going-on-in-syria-and-why-this-comic-will-get-you-there-in-5-minutes?g=2
Wars are complex. They come out of nowhere and all of a sudden, people you've never heard of are killing each other on the evening news.
Here's what you need to know about the war in Syria — and it's not oil or religion.
It's something that we're all creating together.
Climate Change Helped Spark Syrian War, Study Says http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/03/150302-syria-war-climate-change-drought/
A severe drought, worsened by a warming climate, drove Syrian farmers to abandon their crops and flock to cities, helping trigger a civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, according to a new study published Monday.
The research provides the most detailed look yet at how climate change may already be helping spark violent political unrest.
"Up until now we've understood and established that changes in climate may affect human conflict in the future. But everything until now has stopped short of saying climate change is already having an effect," says Solomon Hsiang, a University of California, Berkeley professor who has studied the role of climate change in violence. He did not participate in the new study.
The authors acknowledge that many factors led to Syria's uprising, including corrupt leadership, inequality, massive population growth, and the government's inability to curb human suffering.
But their report, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, compiled statistics showing that water shortages in the Fertile Crescent in Syria, Iraq, and Turkey killed livestock, drove up food prices, sickened children, and forced 1.5 million rural residents to the outskirts of Syria's jam-packed cities—just as that country was exploding with immigrants from the Iraq war.
Kelley CP, Mohtadi S, Cane MA, Seager R, Kushnir Y. Climate change in the Fertile Crescent and implications of the recent Syrian drought. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2015;112(11):3241-6. http://www.pnas.org/content/112/11/3241.abstract
Before the Syrian uprising that began in 2011, the greater Fertile Crescent experienced the most severe drought in the instrumental record. For Syria, a country marked by poor governance and unsustainable agricultural and environmental policies, the drought had a catalytic effect, contributing to political unrest. We show that the recent decrease in Syrian precipitation is a combination of natural variability and a long-term drying trend, and the unusual severity of the observed drought is here shown to be highly unlikely without this trend. Precipitation changes in Syria are linked to rising mean sea-level pressure in the Eastern Mediterranean, which also shows a long-term trend. There has been also a long-term warming trend in the Eastern Mediterranean, adding to the drawdown of soil moisture. No natural cause is apparent for these trends, whereas the observed drying and warming are consistent with model studies of the response to increases in greenhouse gases. Furthermore, model studies show an increasingly drier and hotter future mean climate for the Eastern Mediterranean. Analyses of observations and model simulations indicate that a drought of the severity and duration of the recent Syrian drought, which is implicated in the current conflict, has become more than twice as likely as a consequence of human interference in the climate system.
http://www.upworthy.com/trying-to-follow-what-is-going-on-in-syria-and-why-this-comic-will-get-you-there-in-5-minutes?g=2
Wars are complex. They come out of nowhere and all of a sudden, people you've never heard of are killing each other on the evening news.
Here's what you need to know about the war in Syria — and it's not oil or religion.
It's something that we're all creating together.
Climate Change Helped Spark Syrian War, Study Says http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/03/150302-syria-war-climate-change-drought/
A severe drought, worsened by a warming climate, drove Syrian farmers to abandon their crops and flock to cities, helping trigger a civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, according to a new study published Monday.
The research provides the most detailed look yet at how climate change may already be helping spark violent political unrest.
"Up until now we've understood and established that changes in climate may affect human conflict in the future. But everything until now has stopped short of saying climate change is already having an effect," says Solomon Hsiang, a University of California, Berkeley professor who has studied the role of climate change in violence. He did not participate in the new study.
The authors acknowledge that many factors led to Syria's uprising, including corrupt leadership, inequality, massive population growth, and the government's inability to curb human suffering.
But their report, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, compiled statistics showing that water shortages in the Fertile Crescent in Syria, Iraq, and Turkey killed livestock, drove up food prices, sickened children, and forced 1.5 million rural residents to the outskirts of Syria's jam-packed cities—just as that country was exploding with immigrants from the Iraq war.
Kelley CP, Mohtadi S, Cane MA, Seager R, Kushnir Y. Climate change in the Fertile Crescent and implications of the recent Syrian drought. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2015;112(11):3241-6. http://www.pnas.org/content/112/11/3241.abstract
Before the Syrian uprising that began in 2011, the greater Fertile Crescent experienced the most severe drought in the instrumental record. For Syria, a country marked by poor governance and unsustainable agricultural and environmental policies, the drought had a catalytic effect, contributing to political unrest. We show that the recent decrease in Syrian precipitation is a combination of natural variability and a long-term drying trend, and the unusual severity of the observed drought is here shown to be highly unlikely without this trend. Precipitation changes in Syria are linked to rising mean sea-level pressure in the Eastern Mediterranean, which also shows a long-term trend. There has been also a long-term warming trend in the Eastern Mediterranean, adding to the drawdown of soil moisture. No natural cause is apparent for these trends, whereas the observed drying and warming are consistent with model studies of the response to increases in greenhouse gases. Furthermore, model studies show an increasingly drier and hotter future mean climate for the Eastern Mediterranean. Analyses of observations and model simulations indicate that a drought of the severity and duration of the recent Syrian drought, which is implicated in the current conflict, has become more than twice as likely as a consequence of human interference in the climate system.
Two degrees of climate change may be too much
http://thebulletin.org/two-degrees-climate-change-may-be-too-much8731
http://thebulletin.org/two-degrees-climate-change-may-be-too-much8731
tenpoundsleft
Member
Michael, this is a depressing thread - you're totally undermining your position as a critical thinker. Obviously climate changes, but the lack of any coherent, provable, model for the inputs behind the change makes it a folly to undertake ruinously expensive activities to "mitigate" whatever is disliked by certain political classes. Look at the big light bulb in the sky - there's your change driver. The political bullying from the limousine liberals in our large cities and in academia who insist on crippling our industry for trivial changes is inexcusable.
Go focus on China, India, container ships etc - the big stuff - come back when you've solved their issues.
Go focus on China, India, container ships etc - the big stuff - come back when you've solved their issues.
Denial101x MOOC - Full list of videos and references at your fingertips
http://www.skepticalscience.com/denial101x-videos-and-references.html
The "Denial101x - Making Sense of Climate Science Denial" MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) is now available as a self-paced course that anyone can take at any time. The course was produced by the all-volunteer Skeptical Science team and the University of Queensland, and hosted on the edX-platform. The lectures and expert interviews provide a unique resource for countering climate myths, learning effective myth-debunking techniques, and learning the basics of climate science in easily digestible bites.
tenpoundsleft
Member
Michael, you're the one in denial here. The whole man-made GW racket is pathetic. Particularly so since the GW faithful are changing their stories as time passes, data is fudged, theories unprovable. The only constant is an ever increasing need for government intervention. Ridiculous.
tenpoundsleft
Member
Way to go with the incisive logic and heavy arguments. QED
Funny on this board, one might as well argue with the FDA over the merits of freeing doctors to prescribe as they see fit, or letting people do what they want with their bodies - just as productive. Can't argue against faith.
Your argument is a tautology so I wouldn't talk.
Mining industry's new 'coal is amazing' TV ad labelled desperate
http://www.theguardian.com/environm...ew-coal-is-amazing-tv-ad-slammed-as-desperate
http://www.theguardian.com/environm...ew-coal-is-amazing-tv-ad-slammed-as-desperate
Elon Musk says humanity is currently running 'the dumbest experiment in history'
http://www.techinsider.io/elon-musk-talks-fossil-fuels-with-wait-but-why-2015-8#ixzz3l1YKbVwy
People are running "the dumbest experiment in history" by continuing to burn fossil fuels, Elon Musk said in an interview earlier this year with Wait But Why's Tim Urban.
As Musk explained:
"The greater the change to the chemical composition of the physical, chemical makeup of the oceans and atmosphere [due to increased carbon emissions], the greater the long-term effect will be.
"Given that at some point they'll run out anyway, why run this crazy experiment to see how bad it'll be? We know it's at least some bad, and the overwhelming scientific consensus is that it'll be really bad."
http://www.techinsider.io/elon-musk-talks-fossil-fuels-with-wait-but-why-2015-8#ixzz3l1YKbVwy
People are running "the dumbest experiment in history" by continuing to burn fossil fuels, Elon Musk said in an interview earlier this year with Wait But Why's Tim Urban.
As Musk explained:
"The greater the change to the chemical composition of the physical, chemical makeup of the oceans and atmosphere [due to increased carbon emissions], the greater the long-term effect will be.
"Given that at some point they'll run out anyway, why run this crazy experiment to see how bad it'll be? We know it's at least some bad, and the overwhelming scientific consensus is that it'll be really bad."
GOP to attack climate pact at home and abroad
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/gop-congress-climate-pact-paris-213382#ixzz3l5BGbJIk
Top Republican lawmakers are planning a wide-ranging offensive — including outreach to foreign officials by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's office — to undermine President Barack Obama's hopes of reaching an international climate change agreement that would cement his environmental legacy.
The GOP strategy, emerging after months of quiet discussions, includes sowing doubts about Obama's climate policies at home and abroad, trying to block key environmental regulations in Congress, and challenging the legitimacy of the president's attempts to craft a global agreement without submitting a treaty to the Senate.
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/gop-congress-climate-pact-paris-213382#ixzz3l5BGbJIk
Top Republican lawmakers are planning a wide-ranging offensive — including outreach to foreign officials by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's office — to undermine President Barack Obama's hopes of reaching an international climate change agreement that would cement his environmental legacy.
The GOP strategy, emerging after months of quiet discussions, includes sowing doubts about Obama's climate policies at home and abroad, trying to block key environmental regulations in Congress, and challenging the legitimacy of the president's attempts to craft a global agreement without submitting a treaty to the Senate.
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