The simple, brutal truth is that man made pollution has passed a tipping point where the feedback loops built into the biosphere are now beyond our ability to control. We are facing catastrophic climate change now – which makes the Green Parties and NGOs celebrations at Paris so galling…
February breaks global temperature records by ‘shocking’ amount
February smashed a century of global temperature records by “stunning” margin, according to data released by Nasa.
The unprecedented leap led scientists, usually wary of highlighting a single month’s temperature, to label the new record a “shocker” and warn of a “climate emergency”
The Nasa data shows the average global surface temperature in February was 1.35C warmer than the average temperature for the month between 1951-1980, a far bigger margin than ever seen before. The previous record, set just one month earlier in January, was 1.15C above the long-term average for that month.
“Nasa dropped a bombshell of a climate report,” said Jeff Masters and Bob Henson, who analysed the data on the Weather Underground website. “February dispensed with the one-month-old record by a full 0.21C – an extraordinary margin to beat a monthly world temperature record by.”
“This result is a true shocker, and yet another reminder of the incessant long-term rise in global temperature resulting from human-produced greenhouse gases,” said Masters and Henson. “We are now hurtling at a frightening pace toward the globally agreed maximum of 2C warming over pre-industrial levels.
…climate deniers like far right hate speech blogger Cameron Slater and climate minimalists like David Farrar have been allowed to dominate the debate – they need to be held accountable for their lies and muddying of the waters. Well known climate denier Paul Henry on his one hand clapping show this morning was confronted by the facts by a Scientist and then laughed them off.
The speed of the climate meltdown has shocked scientists and has highlighted how ineffective the IPCC has really been by not including the worst case scenarios as likelihood.
When the Arctic is 50 degrees hotter than average, the time for action is now.
As the planet super heats because of the CO2 we pump into the atmosphere, more and more heat is trapped. That heat pushes temperatures up, those temperatures melt ice at the polar caps. This melting ice does two things. Firstly it reduces the amount of white space on the planet that simply bounces heat back into space so it ends up quickening the heating process and more importantly it puts more fresh water into the oceans. As heat build, frozen methane trapped on the ocean floor and in Siberia is released in massive amounts, this rapidly melts remaining glaciers desalinating ocean conveyor pumps, particularly in the Labrador and Irminger Seas around southern Greenland which shut down the flow of heat from the tropics north which in turn plunges the Northern hemisphere into a new ice age.
Within the space of a decade we can go from a 7 degree hike in temperatures to a frozen snowball.
The ability for most species to adapt to that kind of climate extreme will see many become extinct and the ability for Governments and civilisations to function crumble.
We need to be on a war footing to cope with the changes we need to implement, not some foot dragging irrelevancy.
Our total denial of the realities we face if we do not make significant changes now is as bewildering as our blind ignorance. We deserve political leaders who will lead, not make excuses. The very existence of us as a species demands it.
Next week the oil conference on Monday will be held at Sky City Casino. The only response now is civil disobedience.
“The simple, brutal truth is that [that] man made pollution has passed a tipping point”
I thought you were describing Paul Henry at first, and it still reads true.
And should destroy those who destroy the earth.”
And there shall be a time of trouble,
Such as never was since there was a nation,
Just a few lines from old books, strictly speaking not the correct way to study however as the rampant greed in this world shows the futility of man made answers maybe some will consider there is an alternative view of world events
Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea.
Every man made climate change denier I have come across has been male, white, and mostly over 40. Funny that climate deniers should all fit just the one demographic. I think it might be the “white males know best syndrome” at play.
Eso – I welcome anthropogenic climate change deniers. They will be the ones to whom property owners on coastal areas will be selling their land to.
I bet they are also earning well above the average wage too. No co-incidence that the rich are the worst climate deniers.
other than the female members of the National Party Cabinet
I know one who is about 35. However, he also openly states that he is a conservative because his parents are. This is a guy who actually admits that he doesn’t think for himself, so no surprise, really.
It would help if you defined which temperature scale you are using in your reporting.
Good stuff, Martyn.
The crux of the problem is that the Ponzi western-style financial-economic system cannot function without destroying the habitability of the Earth. And politicians and media commentators are more interested in maintaining their own short-term vested interests than the futures of their children/grandchildren. The phony mainstream narrative will be maintained, whatever the cost.
Until recently the oceans were able to absorb much of the excess heat trapped by CO2 and other greenhouse gases. And a lot of trapped heat was used in melting ice. But now the oceans have become so overheated and the quantity of ice so small we are -as you correctly point out- in the early stages of catastrophic (and accelerating) meltdown.
I think we can expect the fuckwits, bought-and-paid-for liars and money-grubbers who control the political system and the media to maintain their level of denial of reality until sea water starts flooding the low-lying parts of Auckland, Napier, Christchurch and Dunedin etc. Then they will said: “We could never have known this would happen.”
Meanwhile the CO2 level continues its inexorable rise. Currently 405ppm and expected to reach an average of 408ppm, with outlier results as high as 410ppm, in a couple of months.
https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/wp-content/plugins/sio-bluemoon/graphs/mlo_two_years.png
The situation in the Arctic is less clear; more than 2 standard deviations below ‘normal’ ice cover, and entering the melt season with the highest CO2 level in history and the warmest waters in the North Atlantic ever, we should not be surprised if all the ice melts this year. Then the ‘fireworks’ will really begin.
On the other hand, unlike industrial humans, nature does try hard to preserve life on Earth.
The degree of direness should be much clearer in a couple of weeks.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/
Don’t disagree with your diagnosis except that it is not encompassing enough. The problem is actually far worse, its you and me, plus the other several billion human inhabitants of the planet. Its in our genes, we are super exploiters….we found the Ring of Power (fossil energy) et voila, applied it to a technological revolution and away we went. The further we took it the more we wanted. More more more…always more.
And if we couldn’t have it today we wanted tomorrow share (that’s called credit, it is where the bankers come in). Of course now we are all used to energy slaves we would lie to ourselves endlessly to keep them, even if we knew (as we do) that they will go away.
When you work out how many kilometers your car does to the liter imagine the “liter” being a bunch of Paul Henrys. The Henrys role is to perform a liters work, pushing your car up a hill for 10 kms at 70kph. Its going to take at-least 10 slave Henrys to push your car up that hill, slowly at one fifteenth the speed required…15 x 10 equal 150 Paul Henrys all sweating from exertion. What a ghastly concept. And that is what we don’t seem to want to be without.
I agree that homo sapiens are ‘super-exploiters’ (as you put it).
However, the bulk of the populace does not make the decisions that determine the nature of societies; the direction western societies have taken over the past century or so has been the result of decisions made at behind-closed-doors meetings of ‘oil barons’, car manufacturers, bankers etc. They funnel profits from commercial activities into the bank accounts of politicians to ensure planet-fucking activities continue. Hence the near-complete lack of action on anything of significance environmental.
The general populace are just the cannon-fodder, lied to on a continuous basis and told that slow self-annihilation is ‘progress’. Since that is the ONLY message many receive, they believe it.
I think that one of the most interesting aspects of the times we live in is that the mainstream narrative of infinite-growth-on-a finite-planet has hit the wall, as has the technology-can-solve-everything narrative.
Homo sapiens are the product of 600 million plus years of evolution. Over the next decade homo sapiens are going to rediscover that they are mammals which require natural geochemical and natural biological systems to remain intact in order to exist……..too late of course. Too much damage has already been done by ‘homo colossus’.
With regard to pushing a car, it is generally accepted that one tank of petrol is equivalent to 6 weeks hard labour for a human, i.e. try pushing a car from Auckland to Napier or from Christchurch to Nelson.
One tank of petrol typically costs (NZ) $50 to $100. How many people would be prepared to do hard labour for 6 weeks for $50 or $100?
Thus, we see just how much fossil fuels are undervalued, and hence are squandered, causing the planetary meltdown we are currently witnessing.
AFKTT You ascribe the blame to men behind closed doors. I don’t doubt their existence and culpability, it would seem to me that they are super multipliers of a human condition. Ultimately if you and I get into the car so are we.
Don’t forget that the US presidential task force on CO2 emissions in 1965 confirmed that CO2 would become a massive problem in the future, but the ‘captains of industry’ would not allow the recommendations to be acted on and declared that ‘What’s good for General Motors is good for America’.
The recommendation of the task force were buried and car culture took off via the lies of car manufacturers and the lies of oil companies (they’ve know for decades where we were headed but poured millions of dollars into disinformation campaigns to keep the general public dumbed-down and consuming).
Any prospect of continued life on a bountiful planet Earth was sabotaged between the mid-1960s and the mid-1970s, in favour of short-term commercial profits.
Anyone who becomes informed rejects mainstream culture: it is all bollocks and lies, geared to keeping ‘slaves’ trapped in ‘The Matrix’.
Everything from corporatized sport to corporatized processed food to corporatized transport is debilitating to the individual and destructive of the natural systems that make life possible.
Most people don’t bother to become informed about anything of significance and embrace mainstream culture; that is why there is no hope for the next generation.
The only hope is us, the consumers. We have to stop using, which I suspect is problematic. I know nobody, not even myself who has successfully jumped off the fossil fuel laden merry-go-round. Maybe we can only be saved by the destruction of our creation: by famine, plague, financial collapse, war and sundry things that kill us off en-mass. Oil running out tomorrow would both promote this and cause it. Saying this will not make anybody popular, but when the bear is in the room we might as well know what is about to eat us.
That “50 degrees hotter” is in Fahrenheit. Units are pretty important for this sort of thing and should always be stated explicitly. That said, this still equates to a ~24 Celsius difference (from the article), so is obviously of considerable concern.
Paul Henry is not alone, he is heading that morning show by Newshub and TV3, because the view is that a fair share of the population think much like him and rather either stick their heads deep into the sand, or laugh it off.
Sadly dumbing down seems to work excellently well with the shallow, silly factor using MSM we have, even TVNZ’s breakfast show now seems to be more about endless chatter than anything of substance.
Problem is again, climate change is a very complex topic, and the causes are also complex, definitely involving a significant human species contribution, through gases like CO2, Methane and so forth.
The government has appointed another Silly Factor as Minister for Climate Change, Paula Bennett, aka Paula Beneshit (as she used to “shit” on her clientele when Minister of Social Security). She has no clue about most of what the IPCC may research, find and report, she does not seem that interested either.
Even the Speaker has to put her in line in the House, when she interjects with stupid and wannabe smart alec comments, despite of his usual bias. He seems to lose patient with her.
When John Key appoints Bennett to that job, we know, the government and PM are not taking the issue that seriously, probably not more than Paul Henry. Hence Henry can get away with this, feels encouraged, and the populace is not informed about the seriousness of it all, so the fools are allowed to take over the asylum and just ignore it all, make silly jokes and can keep jumping into their cars every morning, blissfully ignorant in continuing the pollution.
Be happy, don’t worry, that seems to be the motto, until we reach the cliff, and this country, its economy and people will face a grim future, due to droughts, storms, exports shrinking as agriculture will suffer. Sea levels will keep rising, but those living near the coast will simply demand their council does not put a warning onto their LIM reports, so they can sell it to also ignorant new migrants, fleeing from the floods and disasters where they come from.
Welcome to Niu Zilliland, where you get rewarded for being a clown and fool.
Paul Henry is only one of a number of high profile people in positions of influence that should be held accountable – Mike Hoskings denied climate change on Radio Talk back last year, Leighton Smith .. at the very least, they could admit their error and start mitigating the damage to humanity that they have fostered and so instead, start creating public awareness of the true scientific situation.
The rewards for lying (a secure job, a fat salary and approval of the board) beat the reward for telling the truth (out of a job in week) every time.
Climate change believers do so to satisfy their own egos and insecurities. Some one will suggest we can turn off gravity next. Yes the planet is getting warmer. No it is not human influence. It in natural. Believe what you want. I for one will be sleeping easy.
The flip side to you gravity theory is a poorly documented n=1 theory that low sunspots cause cooling.
I don’t think there is any actual scientist anywhere who is pushing the entire conclusion of Grand Minimum = will happen = global cooling effect will happen = imminent Little Ice Age even with Industrial atmosphere.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!
Climate change deniers do so because the solutions are the antithesis of their beliefs and desires.
The solutions are based in collective action, looking after everyone not just oneself, and some degree of self-sacrifice (giving up stuff).
If you think of the people for whom these things would be the most confronting & annoying, that is pretty much your denier cohort.
No.
We aren’t “believing” to satisfy our egos and insecurities.
Quite the opposite.
We understand and accept the science.
And when you do that, it’s downright terrifying.
I have a BSc. I’m bloody terrified at what we’ve done to the Earth. And you should be too. I suspect you’re too scientifically illiterate to understand the basic science.
So Dave, you intend to sleep easy despite what is happening to our Mother Earth ? Sort of hard for the rest of us to work out when you are actually awake…..
When I awake I get excited about driving my V8 to work and really enjoy it. In the weekend will enjoy some motor racing. I might patent a special cork for fitment in cows bottoms to stop them emitting methane into the atmosphere. This brilliant idea will help fund my motor racing hobby.
Dave’s right really, the situation is so fked that is doesn’t matter if we drive our V8s towards the cliff or our push bikes, we are all destined for the cliff.
@ 17:40 ish https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6uEhYtlwjs&feature=youtu.be&app=desktop Guy points out that over the past 2 billion years, the environment has only been ‘human friendly/sustainable’ for a very short period of time, and the planet is more use to way hotter or way colder, regardless of the cause this short period is on its way out, and the planet is going back to it’s warmer self, did I mention “minus most life forms” ?
The result will be the same regardless of the cause, my vote is humans have helped speed things up, and we are living in unprecedented times. No one knows what the hell is coming, …. I think that is the definition of unprecedented, runaway is another word people can’t get their heads around, once something has ‘run away’ it’s fucked off, out of control. Just like the environment.
We haven’t got a clue.
Ninety percent of a cow’s methane emissions come out of its mouth.
similar to some polletitions then
Paul Henry actually interviewed Guy McPherson from Nature Bats Last blog on his show (Guy has all the AB and C’s in front of his name) Paul must have a little shudder going down his spine about now thinking that Guy’s predictions are most likely right.
Guy said, ” ….no humans will be alive on Earth due to loss of habitat by 2030″.
Climate change will cause near term human extinction, we are already in the 6th mass extinction (which is largely ignored)!
Our human ‘exceptionalism’ our ‘fantasy thinking’ has the population so fooled and stupid most believe we are not even animals in need of a living habitat, just a cell phone.
For anyone watching this unfolding horror show on our living planet the ones who CAN see through our stupid civilisation and it’s lies and a culture motivated by profit over planet and nonhuman life at all costs, have seen this coming.
The CO2 trap has been sprung, now the Methane monster has arrived. Even little old N.Z has many new plumes of methane bubbling up off the cost line. Which never makes our bullshit news.
This parasitic death culture is going to be flicked off like a bunch of fleas.
For 200 thousand years humans have been here in our current flesh packaging. We didn’t shit up ALL our rivers, kill ALL the fish, dump plastic in the sea… Fuck up ALL of our atmosphere with pollution, extinct 200 species a day, deforest.
ALL of this planet killing happened over the last few hundred years full-tit. Mostly for a quick buck and some bling to show off to the other apes. And fly around in circles.
Astonishingly fucken stupid!
Elong (or what ever has name is) has us going to mars, swallow that dead rat, it’s total bullshit, off the cliff we go like chickens in a barn on fire.
Sorry but my loyalty is with nature not this sick culture, the faster it’s over the better the chances are for the rest of life on Earth. And the faster it WILL go our cultural motto is faster and faster. All we can do now is bear witness, it’s not like you can stop the cultural machine by asking, it has to crash, it was never going to last.
Your Scientist Should Tell You the Truth on Climate Change * Prof Guy McPherson – Paul Henry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaZvxCQ3iW0
Thanks Robert for finding the link.
OMG
So we’ve gone from
“there’s no climate change, the planet isn’t warming, it’s cooling”
to
“there’s climate change but it’s all natural and has always happened”
to
“it’s happening, it’s caused by us, it’s passed a tipping point and there’s nothing we can do to stop it, we’re all fucked so go drive your big V8 anyway”
Great.
Now that’s just bloody depressing.
and yet you have a computer maybe a phone a car a house a job shop at the supermarket take the kids to school traveled been on a holiday you have more clothes than you can wear, some jewelry a small tattoo four pairs of shoes a university degree you drink coffee and drive to the farmers market.you bought your mum a birthday present drink wine recycle glass bottles you have electric lights running water got a flu jab you have had two small operations and wear glasses your hair is dyed you have handed out pamphlets and carried placards
you lead a moderate but not a frugal life
you do not need to walk to draw water from a well
you do not need to toil from dawn to dusk
watched always by hunger and uncertainty
and the woman that does have to, if she can imagine such a thing, wishes she had your life
PETER H; Like the indigenous peoples before empire, that is exactly what is the real world. Empire has come in and taken resources from countries who had lived for generation after generation on the land for hundreds and thousands of years. Salmon returning to rivers so huge in numbers they could be heard coming from miles away. Now nothing but EXTINCTION of salmon due to dams, deforestation and climate change. Once civilization collapses we won’t even be able to live off the land because WE killed everything that sustained us.
As I said this life is unsustainable full stop.
“We deserve political leaders who will lead, not make excuses.”
Not sure about that, judging by the past 30 years of Labour and National we’ve voted for, we deserve to drown in our own stupidity
I can see it coming… a “War on Climate”. And the response will be to geo-engineer.
My non-scientific elderly neighbour tells me she became concerned about the use of fossil fuels as long ago as 1975 when she sat in a park somewhere near London and observed the passenger planes overhead bound for Heathrow. She was astonished to realise there was one every 90 seconds. “I didn’t see how the atmosphere could handle all those exhaust fumes,” she said. And now her simple commonsense has been proved right.
Lived in Windsor near Heathrow in the 70s. Sometimes an aircraft was flying in to land every 20 seconds!
And don’t forget the chemtrails. Even more damaging.
@ fern – Ninety percent of a Paul Henry’s methane emissions come out of his mouth.
No, I think he is the source of most flatulence in their studio, hence he always sits well off-side or opposite the rest of the team, his rear end kept well towards the other side and back side of the studio, where they probably have a ventilator go on full steam 24/7.
Just have a close look at him, when he is on his morning show, it is so obvious.
11,000km2 of sea ice lost according to the latest data update.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/
It will be REALLY interesting from this point on.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!
He’s a paid right-wing mouthpiece? What else is he going to say?
“Within the space of a decade we can go from a 7 degree hike in temperatures to a frozen snowball.”
Errr, no. That the Hollywood movie The Day After Tomorrow. And methane in permafrost and in hydrates are a huge problem, but the best available science indicates it will be released over centuries, not all at once.
Very bad things are indeed coming our way – coral reefs are currently bleaching and dying in only the 3rd global event ever observed for instance, and coral reef mortality will grow much, much worse in the next few decades – but there’s no need to exaggerate. It’s bad enough as it is.
If we all go along with Bill Gates of Microsoft fame we will have a reduction in CO2 in no time at all using vaccinations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gROhNaJoGzI
Has Henry any qualifications as a scientist? If not then why is he still talking……?
Martyn
I didn’t know you had a background in science!
Where did you study?
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