How’s the heat going?
That record breaking heat wave right after the hottest year on record that follows the other hottest years while Nelson burns?
How’s it all going?
Terrifying yet?
It should be.
The planet is heating faster than Scientists had feared…
Met Office: global warming could exceed 1.5C within five years
Global warming could temporarily hit 1.5C above pre-industrial levels for the first time between now and 2023, according to a long-term forecast by the Met Office.
Meteorologists said there was a 10% chance of a year in which the average temperature rise exceeds 1.5C, which is the lowest of the two Paris agreement targets set for the end of the century.
…more than half of the carbon emitted since the Industrial Revolution was emitted in the past 25 years, the speed with which climate change starts becoming a run away climate event means adaptation now is the only honest focus of any Government.
Rachel Stewart denounces the climate deniers…
Day after day, disturbing images of the new climate reality pour in from around the globe.
There’s no ignoring what’s happening in Australia. Temperatures off the charts. Fires, flooding, and drought. Wildlife are dropping down dead, fish are dying in rivers en masse, thousands of homes are currently inundated in Townsville, and farmers are beyond anything even resembling hope in many parts of the continent. Our closest neighbours are doing it hard.
In North America, the polar vortex saw the temperature in Fargo, North Dakota, drop to -35 degrees Celsius. In Chicago, Illinois, it was -28 degrees Celsius, but brisk winds made the air feel like -50 degrees. That kind of wind chill can freeze a person’s skin within 15 minutes, and over 20 deaths have been recorded so far.
Of course, these events have always happened. But not with the frequency or intensity we are seeing now. Faced with the fact that climate change is not linear but exponential in nature, then the years ahead are guaranteed to be a living climate hell. Add heat to any system and it simply creates more energy.
There’s no doubt we’ve had decades to do something meaningful about the problem, while there’s also no doubt that we haven’t. The citizenry’s only hope is to force change by pushing politicians to act.
Currently, the homegrown political tinkering involves much talking, with glacial, if any, progress, while soundbites are becoming parodies.
…we are going to need lots more firefighters, planting 2 billion more trees (including Hemp) and a vast increase in the military budget. I mean, a bewilderingly huge increase in the military budget.
When Australians start dying in the tens of thousands as heatwaves scour their blackened sun burnt environment beyond human survival, where will those 24 and a half million flee to?
We are going to need a much bigger military.
The Tsunami of climate change impacts about to envelope us must be fought on a war economy footing.
There’s a reason why ‘Alarmist Climate Change’ is so alarmist, it’s because it’s bloody alarming!
It’s a guarantee that the elite will not be safe in their bunkers and hidey-holes and that some of the despised and reviled despicable underclass will ferret them out and enact swift street justice with sticks and stones 😉
Never fight a class with nothing to lose.
The elite will be safe, they will happily sign a Treaty, same as the one that was signed in 1840, this time with the Mainland Chinese occupation forces and administration (or whosoever else may come), for ‘looking after’ NZ Inc and its resources.
The elite is always corrupt, and when they fear losing privilege, they happily make deals with other elites, so the party can carry on as per usual. The wines and champagnes in the cellars will be safe, they will simply share it with the new owners on the block, a deal will be made, which will though ignore the rights of most common people.
Re our Australian refugees, Martyn, I am intrigued by what you expect our “vastly bigger military” to do. Are we going to “fight them on the beaches – We shall never surrender”? That may not be a good idea. I cant see Australia standing by while we gun them down and Australia’s military is much bigger than ours.
Climate change is such a massive issue that particular challenges come along with that. One of the main challenges is that lack of feed back when ever some one does something positive about it and trying to create better conditions and the SIS, GCSB, and police not really understanding how to respond to economic inequality which is massive but climate change is really massive.
We can break up the challenges into Labour camp and National Party camps. Labour are some what responsive but they’re globalist and National are just terrible. So the party that ends up in charge will be locked into this dance that services wealth and power. So when the poo poo really hits the fan the elites will retreat into there gated communities with amenities and services and security denied to the rest of us. The rest will be left to fend for themselves.
Every one understands this. This isn’t like the Springboks tour where the nation is split. To have a chance at existence for our near decedents we will have to redouble our efforts to pay our taxes that funds public programmes and policy that make kiwis better off. And for this we will need an army, an airforce, and a navy.
Climate refugees are here already. The tide is rising.
The army we have processes applications for entry.
If you have lots of money you are in.
One yank Theil got citizen ship in a few hours.
Time for the climate rescue guerilla to take action. I expect that some extremists will soon start setting nice and new gas guzzling SUVs and the likes on fire, or demobilise them by putting something into the petrol tank, or whatsoever.
Daily I see the 99.9 percent of the population of NZ Inc, same as in most other places, carry on as per usual.
There is NO true awareness of the challenge we face, there is NO honest and real change. We pollute our atmosphere mostly by emitting climate changing gases from fossil fuel transport vehicles, and much also from the animals kept in agriculture.
As we cannot all suddenly become vegan or at least vegetarian, and as many will continue eating some meat, we have to focus on radical changes in the way transport is run in New Zealand, especially in urban centres.
People will have to be forced out of fossil fuel powered cars, petrol should cost five dollars or more per litre (put taxes up), public transport investment must have absolute priority, and only trucks, buses and trains should for some time still be allowed to use fossil fuels, as they are needed to keep the goods running, and people transported.
Instead people complain about the price of petrol, drive everywhere, and keep polluting, also complaining about the heat and fires and drought. Prices of veges go up if there are prolonged droughts, but people behave like idiots, who turn the heater up, when they already sweat like pigs in the sauna.
Human beings are heading full steam into self destruction.
‘There is NO true awareness of the challenge we face,’
As you know, central, regional and local government act in unison to deliver totally the wrong messages to the general populace. They block anything that even whiffs of genuine sustainability. And they have absolutely no intention of changing.
Growth, development, tourism, shopping, roads, airports.
BAU rules (until it doesn’t).
Keep that terrorist bs to yer self
???
The ‘terrorists’ sit in the White House, Pentagon, Wall Street banks, in London’s City, even in the Beehive in Wellington, if you would even care to give it some thought!?
Civil disobedience is a duty when saving our climate so humanity will not self destruct itself.
Do you support the Orwellian type fascists, and dictatorial neoliberal enviro wasters, who will destroy your offspring’s future on Earth???
Quite apart from the overseas CC refugees there will be a mass of internal displacement once sea-level rise kicks in at scale.
Surely our first responsibility is to care for our own.
How all of this will be paid for is one of many knotty questions that need to be examined now.
Sadly there are many capable brains stuck in the denier position – we need you all, now.
Rachel Stewart does a fine job challenging BAU but this: ‘Add heat to any system and it simply creates more energy’ is not correct.
Other than in nuclear reactions, energy cannot be created or destroyed. Under normal conditions (i.e. not in a nuclear reactor or a star) energy changes from one form to another, and it is conserved.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energy
This may seem arcane but it is actually crucial.
When energy changes form, a portion (or all of it) ends up as heat. Heat is regarded as the lowest form of energy because once another form of energy has been converted to heat it is darned difficult (or impossible) to reverse that energy transition and convert the heat back into its original form. For instance, the chemical energy in motor fuel all ends up as heat. There is absolutely no way to use heat to convert CO2 and H2O back into motor fuel.
What is heat? The best simple explanation is, that which increases the motion of atoms within matter. Absolute zero equates with no motion, and higher temperatures equate with more motion.
There are dramatic transitions when heat is added to substances. Solids become liquids and liquids become gases. And therein lies the great danger of allowing the atmospheric CO2 concentration to continually rise: more and more heat trapped, and the matter that constitutes the Earth (and practically everything on) it moves faster or changes phase (solid to liquid or liquid to gas).
The warmer the Earth becomes as a consequence of CO2 emissions, the greater the tendency for water molecules anywhere to become airborne; water vaoour is a greenhouse gas which ADDS to the heat trapping effect of atmospheric CO2. And when those airborne water vapour molecules lose [kinetic] energy to the atmosphere and turn back into liquid water they tend to fall out the sky. Hence, planetary overheating causes both increased droughts and increased torrential rain. And wild swings in temperature as jest streams meander.
Hot bodies radiate heat, so the Earth loses heat to space. But those ‘pesky’CO2 molecules in the atmosphere interfere with that. The energy balance that existed before industrialism has been severely disturbed.
The hotter the Earth becomes, the more heat energy it will lose to space. With no increase in greenhouse gases, the Earth’s average temperature will eventually plateau. The big questions are: how much extra CO2 are humans prepared to add to the atmosphere and what will that plateau temperature be?
The answers seem to be that humans will keep adding CO2 until they run out of stuff to burn, and therefore the ultimate plateau temperature will be several degrees above baselline…. certainly not 1 or 2!…. maybe 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 above current? no one knows. However, we do know the ecology of the Earth cannot stand 2oC above baseline, and therefore the human species is headed for self-induced extinction.
Burn baby, burn (as I wrote nearly 2 decades ago).
Meh. I’m far more alarmed at the US$500 trillion global debt bomb ( alot of it tied to corporations and Governments) that could explode at any moment. That is surely going to kill a hell of a lot more people than the climate will (climate change screamers should champion that I suppose, because less people = less emissions!).
Money will become irrelevant as temperatures rise, sea levels rise, droughts become more extreme, and storms more powerful. Survival will be the name of the game.
How’s the drought going for you?
http://www.weatheraction.com/resource/data/wact1/docs/ScientistsAgainstExtinctionFAKErebellion1.pdf
lovin it, but notice the wind?
https://www.predictweather.co.nz/ArticleShow.aspx?ID=599&type=home
You need to rewire your brain-cells, mate.
Perhaps some form of electric shock will do the job, but better seek expert advice beforehand, as it could prove fatal if not done professionally.
Any person believing that crap you link to is near hopeless condition, I fear.
Its just a stage of confusion and denial.
There is plenty of that sort disordered logic mixed with mythical disjointed information and outright crap around. Gullible folk grasp it.
Give them time to sort out the mess they become en-mired with.
Evangelists love a following, 40 days in the wilderness can lead to a lifetime of belief in mythical magical beings without any evidence of their existence.
No different.
Mjolnir, I cant see why money becomes irrelevant as temperatures rise. So long as we have a central government and a transport system of some kind we will need money – even if it is only some kind of local currency.
https://www.thegwpf.com/world-cooling-but-rapid-warming-forecast/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/02/08/forecast-suggests-earths-warmest-period-on-record/
Whats really disturbing is the step up in panic mongering rhetoric issuing forth from the 2 Trillion dollar a year climate change (global Warming) industry
https://climatism.blog/category/origins-of-the-global-warming-scam/
heres a quote for ya
GLOBAL WARMING aka climate change has long abandoned any connection it has with actual science. It is an ideology. A religion. Australia’s former Prime Minister Tony Abbott likening it to, “socialism masquerading as environmentalism“.
NOBEL Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever
And yet, Rickoshay, despite linking to those dubious conspiracy-theory blogsites, last year was the fourth hottest on record. Data from NOAA and NASA confirm this. (Unless you believe those two organisations are “in-on-the-conspiracy”?!)
ref: https://www.climatecentral.org/gallery/graphics/the-10-hottest-global-years-on-record
And NIWA has confirmed January 2019 as the third warmest on record;
ref: https://www.niwa.co.nz/climate/monthly/climate-summary-for-january-2019
Whilst the science confirms rising temperatures, you point to blogsites offering opinion-masquerading-as-fact; cheery-picked data; and non-existant scientific “papers”.
The question is, who really “has long abandoned any connection it has with actual science. It is an ideology. A religion”. When you ignore the science and push a belief (as you are doing), the answer is apparent.
By the way, one of the organisations you linked to was The Global Warming Policy Foundation. This organisation shrouds its funding in secrecy and refuses to disclose where it gets it’s money from.
ref: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/dec/04/climate-sceptics-public-opinion
Ironic, since climate sceptics demand maximum transparency from others.
However, one thing that the so-called “Global Warming Policy Foundation” couldn’t hide was where they were first set up: in a room rented from the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (UK).
ref: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/nov/24/voices-of-climate-change-denial?INTCMP=SRCH
Still feel like that is a credible group to be quoting?
NASA likely is in on the conspiracy, given they were caught red-handed fudging data. Every religion needs believers.
https://principia-scientific.org/nasa-exposed-in-massive-new-climate-data-fraud/
Without even scrolling down to the actual article, I’m going to assume it’s all idiotic bullshit.
Laughable and pathetic, Nitirum. The author of that so-called article is the same P Gosselin of notrickszone.com who has already been thoroughly discredited.
The best deniers of the well established fact that CO2 absorbs and reradiates in the IR and that atmospheric CO2 is 180 ppm above the 800,000-year average (and rising) is keep to recycling the same old crap from one denial website to another.
Meanwhile, the data that really matters, such as the rapidly increasing heat content of the oceans, is ASSIDUOUSLY IGNORED by deniers.
https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/
AFKTT
CO2 at over 411ppm and climbing.
Ocean heating and acidifying
Ice caps melting
Sea level rising.
Fish stocks depleted
Loss of forest globally
Accelerating rate of species extinction
Methane release rate rapidly increasing
Fertile soil loss of 50% over two generations
Peak grain production per capita was 1987
Human population overshoot
Non Renewable Natural Resources depleted to under 30% of that at 1800 .
Oil miners still doing OK but need to spend heavily to keep people clinging onto myths of convenience.
Hey the rich guys say its all OK.
Money speaks and fools follow.
‘CO2 at over 411 ppm and climbing.’
I see from the latest update there’s another new record daily high: 414.27 ppm
(not a weekly or monthly average figure, but nevertheless pretty shocking).
Some time soon we will witness a greater loss of Arctic sea ice than occurred in 2012, and it could be this year. The graph is currently tracking less ice than 2012.
RICKOSHAY to the rescue?
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
you call the guardian credible? or the BBC, as with any criminal conspiracy follow the money, because thats what this is all about, and yes NASA NOAA and NIWA anyone who uses bad computer models to generate panic, you need to stop equating weather with climate anit you heard of EL nino?
Sure at the moment we have a sea surface temperature anomaly keeping us warm, thats weather not climate and not caused bye CO2, but more likely caused bye the magnetic field anomaly.
Do you think that someone who does not even bother to try to construct proper sentences, does not use punctuation, does not capitalise letters when appropriate, and has zero understanding of basic science has any credibility?
You say follow the money. Yes, do that, and recognised that the global economic system is totally dependent on the extraction and consumption of fossil fuels; since fossil fuels support everything else, it naturally follows that there is more money involved in the extraction and burning of fossil fuels than anything else on this planet.
‘anyone who uses bad computer models to generate panic’
I don’t see much panic. On the other hand, I do see an awful lot of ignorance, stupidity complacency, corruption, and denial.
Panic will emerge when the globalised economic system collapses, as it must inevitably do, since the globalised economic system is predicated on the conversion of finite resources into harmful waste.
By the way, do you know the difference between by and bye?
Rick
Do you really know anything about the geology of the planet and the physics of the Earth’s magnetic fields.
Is that you area of expertise.
Or are you just having fun.
I dont claim to be an expert in anything, i follow whats happening in the new field of The electric plasma based universe, its all there online for anyone to check out, it goes a long way towards explaining cause and effect in our solar system, not just the earth, and presents a new technology opportunity for unlimited clean energy following Tesla’s ideas about frequency and wireless electric transmission of energy.
Electromagnetic energy surrounds us and has a major effect on our planet, we could not live here with out it.
Imagine an electric car that didnt need battery’s, or your home powered bye an aerial on the roof, power plants that dont need coal,oil, nuclear or hydro generation.
an yeah i spell like i talk so dont be so judgmental, you Koolaid drinking, conspiracy peddling climate panic monger-er KTAT Open your mind
And your views on HAARP.
He does not know how to play the HARP, I guess.
id be guessing, but they are out of the closet on Cem Trails
Internationally not good news either for climate change…
Precarious politics pose threats to world’s three biggest rainforests
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/02/08/the-daily-blog-open-mic-friday-8th-february-2019/
Climate change is going to seriously decrease the number of people that NZ can support – and I’m not sure that we can support the 4.5 million people here now.
Forget trade. Once climate change settles in there’s not going to be any of that as nations struggle for survival.
The thing about being so far away from everything else, especially when there’s conflict, every one wants to be in the place where the fighting isn’t.
If you divid the number of people by the area of land there’s plenty of space to double the population. New Zealand accepts about 4 million tourists a year, the problem is they don’t pay taxes so it’s more of a cultural problem where the more tourism NZ does the poorer we get.
There may be plenty of space but there certainly won’t be plenty of food. So DTB is right: ‘Climate change is going to seriously decrease the number of people that NZ can support’
The closest comparison of a sustained population (sans industrial food etc.) is pre-European Maori. The NZ land mass (plus the very productive waters that surrounded it at the time) supported fewer than 100,000 pre-European Maori. And tribes fought for control of resources even with that ‘low’ population. And they exterminated the last of the moas (for food).
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/photo/maori-and-european-population-numbers-1838–1901
With messed up ecology and serious overheating the NZ of the 2040s or 2050s may not even support 100,000 humans.
For every kg of meat protein it takes about 4 times more water than a kg of vegetables, about 12 times more oil, and about 6kgs of grain feed. If we wanted to double the population then all those resources used in beef production could feed people and double the population quiet easily.
You have entirely missed the point, and clearly have little understanding of either the global oil predicament or nutrient values. I’m not sure you will get it if I explain but I’ll try anyway.
1. There won’t be ANY [mineral] oil available in the future NZ, so all your talk about ‘those resources being used…’ is nonsense. Just when imported oil deliveries be terminated is unknown but you can bet it will be well before 2050 and could easily be as early as 2030. It could even be later this year, though that is extremely unlikely. Local extraction may satisfy some requirement for a while…until the infrastructure required to extract it and use it breaks down.
2. Without oil the entire structure of civilisation will collapse. If we are ‘lucky’ the cut off will be gradual rather than sudden. A sudden cut off would lead to mayhem within a month.
3. Assuming a gradual reduction in imported oil, as dwellings become uninhabitable and the resources to replace roofs and to service water systems and remove waste etc. break down, those people capable of leaving the death zones it will be forced to live off the land.
4. Vegetables provide roughage and trace elements but, being primarily water and complex carbohydrate, provide little energy.
5. Energy is provided by fats and oils and starch (found in grains etc.), with fats and oils providing a higher per unit energy than simple carbohydrates. Proteins are the building blocks of human bodies but can be utilised for energy.
6. With the globalised system having failed, there will be no imports of vegetable oils or grains or sugar, which provide the bulk of the energy for people on low meat diets.
7. There won’t be any confined animal systems which currently provide most of the chicken and pork (high energy foods) because they are dependent on imported oil.
8. Our closest comparison to the future without imported mineral oil, without imported vegetable oils, without imported grains etc. is pre-European Maori.
9. Pre-European Maori lived off the land, growing vegetables, catching and eating fish, collecting and eating shellfish, and eating whatever birds they could catch.
10. The NZ landmass and waters supported below 100,000 humans.
11. The NZ of the future will have a very much more extreme climate and very much less productive land mass and waters than at the time of Pre-European Maori. Therefore, we should expect it to support a much lower population.
12. If the worse case scenarios ensue (and there is every reason to believe they will, since NOTHING is being done to reduce emissions and everything is being done to increase them) NZ will become increasingly uninhabitable, with Stewart Island having the last remnants of a failed to culture to experience die-off.
Why worry about whether it is meat or plant because the structures of neoliberalism are forcing farmers to grow things they can’t eat
“The World Bank, for instance, traditionally has been headed by a U.S. Secretary of Defense. Its steady policy since its inception is to provide loans for countries to devote their land to export crops instead of giving priority to feeding themselves. That is why its loans are only in foreign currency, not in the domestic currency needed to provide price supports and agricultural extension services such as have made U.S. agriculture so productive. By following U.S. advice, countries have left themselves open to food blackmail – sanctions against providing them with grain and other food, in case they step out of line with U.S. diplomatic demands.
It is worthwhile to note that our global imposition of the mythical “efficiencies” of forcing Latin American countries to become plantations for export crops like coffee and bananas rather than growing their own wheat and corn has failed catastrophically to deliver better lives, especially for those living in Central America. The “spread” between the export crops and cheaper food imports from the U.S. that was supposed to materialize for countries following our playbook failed miserably – witness the caravans and refugees across Mexico.”
https://michael-hudson.com/2019/02/trumps-brilliant-strategy-to-dismember-u-s-dollar-hegemony/
… or in NZ we are increasingly moving into no longer owning our farms and agriculture , nor can many living here afford to eat our own better quality food, so we are fast becoming the breadbasket for other countries wealthy who increasingly own our land as well as control the supply chain, and our government freely signs free trade agreements that stop any changes or regain of that control …
And one of the things that we’re going to be having is more droughts and so we will have less water.
Oil can, and should, be eliminated from the production of our food altogether. And so should grain feed.
And, of course, we don’t actually need so many cows or other farm animals if we’re only trying to feed ourselves.
Concerning entrepreneurs the world over is how to use resources more efficiently and not about random variables they can not control like oil price and public policy. To understand how to do this magic, break down all sectors and go through what can be done with oil-efficiency, and look at how many dollars you pay or save, to SAVE a barrel of oil. It works out that you could save a bit over half the oil at an average cost of $12.50 per barrel, this could be done by 2025 but you couldn’t actually do that with out dramatic transformation of the national motor pool, it would probably take a couple more decades to electrify the transport sector. But $12.50 per barrel is with no new technology, it doesn’t include stuff like lightweight carbon-fibre designs and halving engine wights or flying wings and other things that pundits talk about that’s 20 years old.
So using old technology and nothing integrated you could save a quarter of a barrel at $6 per barrel but getting rid of the other 3 quarters of the barrel of oil on the supply side would cost to much. So it’s a much better deal to save half through efficiency and save the other half on replacement supplies. And I’m talking about making ethanol out bio wast in the forestry industry. Brazil had a plan to deal with its bio wast from forestry wast, stuff like this is quiet labour intensive so it helps out on the development side and we could continue to use nitrogen based fertilisers and / or run an airline.
And if New Zealand’s technological efficiencies and GDP is sufficient to support bio-diesel fuels then we could run a Navy powered by diesel electric casually with out the need for costly trade agreements.
They weren’t sustainable. They had already eliminated ~50% of the forests before the Europeans got here.
With good farming practices which include the full natural cycle for fertilisation of the ground from our waste and we may be able to support the present population – but I have my doubts.
Of the 4.5 million we may need a fighting force of a million, guerilla type, to defend this country from foreign invasion attempts.
But most here live in cuckoo land,thinking we are so isolated, nobody knows of these isles. Trouble is, we have over 3.5 million tourists every year, spreading the word. And we also run tourism advertising campaigns, so as if we cannot get enough tourists trample on our native plants and species.
Dumb and dumb = insanity.
More people means more consumers and more profit for business investors mainly based off shore. They don’t give a fuck about what is good for Kiwis.
The per capita analysis of where NZ is going is an indicator for an strong downhill trend for the things that count.
GDP is a dangerous measure, a business world smoke screen.
Inclusive Wealth Index (IWI) still uses human capital as a part of its measure but also takes into account environmental assets which in NZ are being downgraded at an alarming rate,
by far off setting human capital in real terms..
We need wilderness and large undeveloped of tracts of land.
Having “space” is a misnomer as we have lost so much environmental assets that need space that has been consumed for human purpose. Does the Amazon need clearing??
NZ between 1910 and 2010
Natural capital down 40%
Renewable resources down 38%
Non Renewable Resources down 58%
Agricultural land down 45%
Total Forestry down 16%
GDP up 35%
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/140c66aTDMaQ-3hxZuvYNciVMc8DCu3iPWtrB125SLrc/edit#gid=0
On a per capita basis we are on a downhill slide. Tourism since 2010 will make for a greater destruction of things that matter long term.
NZ is on and insane course with reducing environmental assets, increasing human population, decreasing self reliance for daily food, increasing dependence on internationals transportation and loss of resilience destroyed by globalisation.
Cows will do nothing effective to help us long term nor will tourism.
The numbers coming through at the moment are pretty scary for those who understand the role atmospheric CO2 plays in planetary meltdown and the potential for triggering runaway overheating (or accelerating it if we have already triggered positive feedbacks).
Daily CO2
February 9, 2019: 414.27 ppm
February 9, 2018: 408.99 ppm
https://www.co2.earth/daily-co2
Sure, the numbers ‘bounce around’, depending on local conditions that affect the absorbance into the oceans etc. and we will see some lower numbers [than 414 ppm] over the coming weeks.
Nevertheless, the effect of atmospheric CO2 is both instantaneous and cumulative, and zilch is being done politically or economically or culturally to reduce the rate of increase.
Following up on JOHN W’s comment almost lost in the thread: ‘Accelerating rate of species extinction’
The Guardian reports:
‘Plummeting insect numbers ‘threaten collapse of nature’
Exclusive: Insects could vanish within a century at current rate of decline, says global review
The world’s insects are hurtling down the path to extinction, threatening a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems”, according to the first global scientific review.
More than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered, the analysis found. The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. The total mass of insects is falling by a precipitous 2.5% a year, according to the best data available, suggesting they could vanish within a century.
The planet is at the start of a sixth mass extinction in its history, with huge losses already reported in larger animals that are easier to study. But insects are by far the most varied and abundant animals, outweighing humanity by 17 times. They are “essential” for the proper functioning of all ecosystems, the researchers say, as food for other creatures, pollinators and recyclers of nutrients.
Insect population collapses have recently been reported in Germany and Puerto Rico, but the review strongly indicates the crisis is global
..’
The threat to insects and thus us as human species was reported on TV news, but way down the ‘priority’ scale. Under further ran kind of topics.
It will be in one ear out the other, as per usual.
Insect population is reportedly declining at a rate of 2,5% total mass per year. That rate is likely to increase as the consequences of human activity take further effect.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/plummeting-insect-numbers-threaten-collapse-of-nature
Human population declining at that rate would mean 175 million less humans per year.
That we would notice.
The decline in insects appears to be directly related to the impact of humans with our population overshoot, destruction of habitat, use of artificial chemicals in agriculture, use of herbicides, insecticides, genetically modified plants and industrial scale destruction of soils with corporate farming conglomerates.
When human numbers start to fall at 2.5% yearly then it will be too late to slow the monster we have created. That monster has been fed with fossil fuel and other energy harvesting.
Our survival, if that is at all possible at this late stage, will depend on drastically lowering our energy use immdeiately.
Food has to be grown locally and cities eventually abandoned.
Industrialisation growth has stalled already and has to run out of resources before long, and we will de-industrialise.
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