Climate Change This Week: South America Disasters, “Worse Than Poop!”, and More!

Climate Change This Week: South America Disasters, “Worse Than Poop!”, and More!
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Today, the Earth got a little hotter, and a little more crowded.

And the chances of Donald Trump’s family and fortune surviving climate change are small, dwindling daily and irreversibly – as are ours.

Saving BUB, Beautiful Unique Biodiversity, as in these Asian scorpian spiders, is another reason to preserve carbon storing forests. Source Pinterest

Forests: the cheapest way to store carbon

Burger King Is Driving Deforestation – But YOU CAN ACT Source Rainforest Rescue

  • While Burger King poses as a “good corporate citizen”,
  • Its suppliers burn Amazon forests to make industrial soy farms to feed cattle.
  • Thus, your local Burger King restaurant is also driving deforestation.

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  • As a corporate titan Burger King could
  • demand that its suppliers produce soy feed without harming nature – but it doesn’t.

Tell Burger King to get deforestation out of its supply chain! Go here.

When we harm forests, we harm ourselves.

Two Big Sources of CO2: Burning Forests and Raising Livestock – and sometimes they go hand in hand, as when forests are burned to raise cattle for Burger King burgers. Source National Geographic

OO Global CO2 Fossil Fuel Emissions Are Flat For 3 Years Running

– But CO2 Still Rising because CO2 also comes from:

  • Human deforestation and clearing of peatlands;
  • Human agriculture, including livestock;
  • Human transportation;
  • Natural feedback systems kick-started by global warming, for ex: melting permafrost releases CO2.

We need to cut deforestation and fossil fuel burning dramatically to bring down CO2 levels to prevent further catastrophic heating of the planet.

Source Flickr

OO South Africa: Plans To Mine Coal In Protected Area

Trigger Conservation Battle in a country that is home to some of the most ancient and diversified plants in the world.

OO Indonesia's Peat Fires Still Blaze, But Decline by 80+ % from 2015 to 2016.

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CLIMATE-CHANGE-DRIVEN DISASTERS HAMMER SOUTH AMERICA

South America contributes little to climate change,

but now suffers disastrous droughts and floods, significantly driven by it

and poor land use choices:

Credit Esteban Felix at AP

OO Chile: Record Wildfires From Drought, Record High Temperatures,

And Land Use Changes – such as replacing fire resistant native forests with highly combustible tree farm monocultures of eucalyptus and pine trees.

OO Peru: Lethal Floods Linked to Unusually Warm Coastal Waters Takeaways:

  • 80+ dead, 1000s evacuate from worst floods in decades,
  • Which came after a severe drought,
  • And are linked to abnormally hot coastal waters.

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  • Some scientists link these temperatures to a local “coastal El Nino,”
  • While other scientists believe it is linked far more broadly to
  • Rising global warming termperatures.

Source Colombian Army

OO Columbia: Intense Rains, Local Deforestation Drive Flood Disaster in Macoa:

200+ Dead, Hundreds Missing – Takeaways:

  • Columbia President Santos blamed climate change for the disaster,
  • Saying the city got one third of its usual monthly rain in just one night.
  • This sent rivers’ overflows ripping through the city.

Additionally, local deforestation prevented local mountain slopes from absorbing the rain.

MEH: climate change intensifies both wet and dry weather; forests absorb rain, helping prevent flooding.

OO South America 2017 Autumn Forecast:

Rain To Dampen Drought, Wildfires In Chile;

Brazil Faces Unrelenting Drought Threatening Amazon

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@@ Worse Than Poop! Is a pooping-car video about climate change for kids, but I suspect even Trump and his gang could understand it – Trump does have a 6 minute attention span, doesn’t he? Anyway, it’s GREAT!!! Check it out, whatever your age, and share!

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CENSORING CLIMATE CHANGE COMMUNICATION

In the US is:

  • Misleading the public;
  • Stalling needed national action;
  • Increasing the future costs and risks of climate change –
  • And the costs of slowing it.

OO CNN Viewers See 500 % More Fossil Fuel Advertising Than Climate Change Reporting Takeaways:

  • CNN aired nearly 5 times more oil industry advertising than climate change-related coverage
  • in the one-week periods after news that 2015 was the hottest year on record
  • and February 2016 was the most abnormally hot month on record.

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That does not include dozens of Koch Industries ads that also ran on CNN,

which boosted the image of the oil billionaire Koch brothers' primary corporation.

OO Corporate Media Was Paid To Hide Climate Change News This should not be surprising:

  • The oil and gas industry spends millions in political contributions and lobbying efforts
  • and billions in advertising each year, mostly to Republicans.
  • In return, they get favorable treatment from Washington,
  • including close to $40 billion in tax breaks each year.

Credit Dan Piraro, modified

OO Broadcast Networks Get “F” On Covering Climate Change In 2016 - Combined coverage of climate change declined from 2015 to 2016 despite opportunities to do so.

Broadcast news spent less than an hour covering climate change in 2016. Takeaways:

  • the Clean Power Plan was mostly ignored;
  • climate change issues were not covered during the campaign,
  • including climate ramifications of a Clinton vs Trump presidency.

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  • Bernie Sanders brought up climate change 4x more often than show hosts did.
  • There was a disproportionate airing of climate change issues AFTER election day.

Credit Rob Tornoe

Most networks failed to::

  • address economic impacts of climate change;
  • discuss climate change impacts on national security;
  • discuss the climate change impacts of building pipelines;

Sunday talk show coverage of climate change significantly decreased.

MEH: Let’s see if they uphold their public responsibility better in 2017.

OO China Blames Climate Change For Record Sea Levels says a government study. Takeaways:

  • coastal China sea levels have been rising 3+ mm per year since 1980,
  • a greater increase than the global average.
  • The rise of sea levels has been attributed to climate change,
  • which could lead to more typhoons and coastal erosion.

"Against the background of global climate change, China's coastal air and sea temperatures have soared, coastal air pressure has fallen and sea levels have also soared."

Related:

SAD: Google Misleads Public on Climate Change in the interests of presenting “all points of view” – including utter nonsense.

OO Google Says Its Job Is To Promote Climate Change Conspiracy Theories – in the interest of “all points of view” on a topic.

Totally SAD and BAD, Google!

Presenting utter nonsense on climate change in the Top Stories Window, which googles controls, lends credibility to nonsense.

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TRUMP TRUMPED BY CLIMATE CHANGE

OO Trump And Family Cons The Public On Climate,

While China Leads, and US Communities Tackle Climate Change

  • “Green” Ivanka urges Dad to stay in the Paris accord, which requires no US action,
  • Rather than urge him to NOT cut the Environmental Protection Agency,
  • An effective enforcer for cutting carbon emissions and pollution.

Meanwhile:

  • China is investing hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy,
  • While US communities try to tackle climate change,
  • As do city leaders around the world – with no offers of help from Ivanka or dad.

OO Bizarre: Trump Budget To Cut Many Money-Saving Environmental Programs such as weatherization of homes. WT?

OO Donald Trump Approves Climate Changing Keystone XL Oil Pipeline

OO Trump Repeal Of Climate Rules Means US Paris Target Now Out Of Reach since he will, if anything, be promoting the burning of fossil fuels, and little else.

OO Trump Lays Plans To Reverse Obama's Climate Change Legacy but his announcements have have zero impact," said Richard J. Lazarus, a professor of environmental law at Harvard.

"They don't change existing law at all."

Much of that task will now fall to Scott Pruitt, and it will take years, including forming a legal defense against an expected barrage of lawsuits almost certain to end up before the Supreme Court.

Trump Keeps Flubbing Along … Source change.org

OO Trump Refuses To Even Measure Economic Cost Of Climate Change

OO The White House Calls Climate Research A ‘Waste.’

Actually, It Is Required By Law

OO The EPA Needs Lots Of Money To Really Gut Itself - Trump’s budget proposal would slash funding to the agency, but replacing rules with far weaker ones is an expensive venture.

At the Core of Earth’s Climate History are records locked in ice within the US ice collection. Credit Sam Brasch at CPR News

OO A Major Climate Change Archive Is Aging And Full, Lacking Funds To Repair And Expand -

the US risks losing an important trove of Earth’s climate history due to Trump’s funding cuts. Takeaways:

  • The National Ice Core Laboratory in Denver, Colorado
  • Is a major collection of cores from polar and glacial ice,
  • Documenting Earth’s climate and atmosphere over 100,000 years ago.

This valuable data shows how quickly Earth’s climate can change,

  • But there is no more room for new ice core samples,
  • And the intense cooling system needs an overhaul.
  • But its funder, the National Science Foundation, faces cuts under Trump.

‘Donald Does Florida’ On Climate Change Censorship letting his DOE poodle Perry ban the phrase “climate change” in any DOE memos.

You can see how well that worked in Florida: amazingly, rising seas still keep flooding Miami at high tides!! Credit Adam Zyglis, modified

OO Energy Department Climate Office Bans Use Of Phrase ‘Climate Change’

OO EPA Chief Calls Historic Climate Treaty A 'Bad Deal' – But Has He Read It? It doesn’t sound like it.

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CLIMATE MYTH BUSTERS!

OO The Reality of Climate Change - below are some of the biggest climate myths currently trending, compared to the reality. A good place for more details is here … where even more myths are busted!

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CLIMATE LEADERSHIP

Source globaldaily.com

OO Worldwide, Women Mayors Are Fighting Climate Change – as they met recently, pledging further action.

"It's not a coincidence that the president of the United States is not particularly concerned with climate or women's issues. That tends to go hand-in-hand."

OO Green Republicans Confront Climate Change Denial pushing "free enterprise" approaches, like carbon tax, instead of regulations that discourage using fossil fuels. The group:

  • includes conservatives, Catholics and younger Republicans who understand climate change;
  • has increased participation of Republicans in the Congressional voting bloc, Climate Solutions Caucus.
  • Belongs to the only major political party (GOP) in the world not convinced by climate change.

"Once they accept the reality and science of climate change, we will have reached a tipping point in the political will for solutions.”

You Can’t See Methane Leaks, But They’re There as this graphic of Boston shows. Source NOAA

OO California Adopts Strictest Methane Rule In The Nation

OO California Upholds Auto Emissions Standards, Setting Up Face-Off With Trump

OO Tom Steyer: The Billionaire On A Mission To Save The Planet From Trump – his organization, NextGen Climate, has spent $170 million over the past four years advocating for policies and politicians that help the environment and advance renewable energy.

OO Colorado: Court Rules For Kids, Says State Must Protect Health And Environment

Before Allowing Oil And Gas Drilling siding with a group of teenagers and reversing a lower court.

OO Fracking Ban Nears Approval In Maryland

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CLUELESS LEADERSHIP

Credit Tom Toles at the Washington Post

OO House Science Committee To Hold Useless Climate Change Hearing – since the head of the committee denies its existence – and the list of “witnesses” that have a history of misleading the public on the real overwhelming consensus among scientists on climate change.

OO Lamar Smith: Admits House Science Committee Is Tool For His Political Agenda as he lays out political strategy at climate doubters’ conference - a shocking display of GOP abuse of science. MEH: If only all politicians could be so honest about their corruption!

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LET’S MARCH

We Resist. We Build. We Rise. Let’s March for our children and our future.

OO April 29, 2017. Let’s March For A Safe Climate. says 350.org. March with hundreds of thousands of others to:

  • push forward with a united vision of a clean energy economy that works for all.
  • reject Trump’s attack on our communities and climate,
  • Push back against fossil-fuel-soaked nationalism, xenophobia, and hatred.
  • Push back against corporate censorship of climate change.

Create a huge impact on our leaders, as past marches have.

You can sign up here .

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HOT NEWS

OO Record-Breaking Climate Change Pushes World Into 'Uncharted Territory' says World Meteorological Organization scientists.

  • 2016 saw the hottest global average temperature ever recorded (back to 1880);
  • research indicates the world was last this warm about 115,000 years ago;
  • Earth has not experienced such high levels of atmospheric CO2 for 4 million years.
  • 2017 has broken more heat records,
  • While the poles are showing record low areas of sea ice.

The Earth’s climate is in upheaval.

One of Many Results from Our Climate “Fingerprints” Credit Stephen B. Morton at AP

OO Climate Change: 'Human Fingerprint' Found On Global Extreme Weather - Global warming makes temperature patterns that cause heatwaves, droughts and floods across the Northern Hemisphere more likely, scientists find.

OO Gulf Of Mexico Waters Are Freakishly Warm,

Which Could Mean Explosive Springtime Storms

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Check it out here, right now!

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MELTDOWN

Record Bipolar Meltdown as both the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice hit record lows this past winter. Source National Snow and Ice Data Center University of Colorado.

OO Ice At Both Poles Shrinks To Record Lows Arctic sea ice reached an all-time winter low while Antarctic ice withered to a summer low, all with global warming fingerprints.

OO Arctic Sea Ice Sets Record Low Peak For Third Year In A Row as well as thinnest in 4 years, satellite data show.

OO Climate Change Is On Pace To Kill An Ice Age Remnant ice sheet, as humans change the planet in a way that hasn’t happened in 2.6 million years.

Scientists Think Arctic May Already Be Emitting Methane as submarine frozen deposits melt. Source news.mongabay.com

OO Global-Warming-Triggered Release of Arctic Methane ''May Be Apocalyptic,''

As An Ancient Methane Release Shows, Study Warns – Takeaways:

  • analyses of Permian (252+ Million Years ago) rocks
  • indicate that volcanoes released enough CO2 to globally warm Earth,
  • and melted and released vast amounts of methane
  • stored in land and sea as solid frozen hydrates.

Source Science Daily

  • The released methane roasted Earth to 17+ C (34 F) degrees higher than today,
  • Killing 70 to 90% of life on the planet.

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  • If our global warming triggers a similar explosive release of methane
  • That heats the planet to those levels again,
  • It would vanquish our civilizations and most of humanity.

The end Permian holds an important lesson for humanity regarding the issue it faces today with greenhouse gas emissions, global warming, and climate change.

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GOOD CLEAN NEWS

OO Halting Global Warming Could Make World $19 Trillion Richer: Report if it rises to the Paris accord goals of limiting a global rise in temperature to 2 C (4 F). To do so:

  • The transition to clean energy needs go 7x faster than its current rate;
  • Requiring an annual global investment of $3.5 Trillion, but
  • That would boost jobs and economic growth,
  • Resulting in a NET global profit of $19 Trillion by 2050.

OO Quiet Efficiency Revolution Cuts Energy Consumption - Energy efficiency is changing the electricity industry and helping to save the planet from climate change.

OO World Abandoning Coal In Dramatic Style Raises Hope Of Avoiding Dangerous Global Warming says report. MEH: I’m skeptical, given that other drivers need to be addressed, as noted elsewhere in this column.

How Much Of This Will Be Wasted? The climate-changing waste is now driving hotel chains to reconsider their menus. Source Pinterest

OO US Hotel Chains To Target Food Waste By Rethinking Menus

OO Americans Ate Nearly 20% Less Beef and Decreased Their Carbon Emissions 9 %

From 2005 To 2014, a new report says, driven by health concerns and other factors.

OO Big Oil Replaces Rigs With Wind Turbines at sea.

OO Dubai Starts Desert Solar Plant As Part Of World's Biggest Park a month ahead of schedule.

OO China's Property Giants Launch Green Index to manage their supplier of cement, steel and iron, all of which require lots of energy to make, as China steps up its fight against climate change.

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SOCIAL REPERCUSSIONS

Intense Droughts Then Storms Often Mean Flooding and both are expected to further intensify under continued climate change.

OO Global Warming Is Increasing Rainfall Intensity And Droughts says a new study. Takeaways:

  • As the atmosphere warms, it holds more water vapor,
  • Fueling more intense downpours,
  • Which help fuel floods.

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  • But hotter temperatures also dry out land more quickly,
  • helping to fuel droughts.*
  • So expect even more future flooding and droughts under continued global warming.

*MEH: Soils dried by drought are less rain-absorbent, another factor that helps fuel subsequent floods.

Planned Cuts to US Climate Science Blinds the US To Its Future when satellites no longer are able to collect observations on how our world is changing. Source www.satnews.com

  • Climate science allows communities to plan for climate change,
  • But the current GOP US government is instead
  • Destroying its climate science infrastructure,
  • And US ability to predict and plan for the future.

OO One In Four Children Will Live With Water Scarcity By 2040 as a result of climate change, the United Nations has warned.

OO US Sees Furious Start To The Wildfire Season – with a whopping 2 million US acres burned so far in 2017, an area larger than the state of Delaware. Photo Credit Matt Granz

OO Burying Their Cattle, Ranchers Call Wildfires 'Our Hurricane Katrina’

Forget The Soda, and Get Them Moving are two tips to keep kids fit and free of diabetes.

Source www.pharmacyphiladelphia.com

OO Global Warming Could Lead To 100,000 + More US Diabetes Cases A Year - a disease in which the body can no longer process sugar, leading to general organ damage. Takeaways:

  • At lower temperatures the body uses fat to stay warm;
  • At higher temperatures, fat is not used as much,
  • And blood sugar levels are also higher.

Research indicates that

  • As average temperature rises, so does obesity
  • And obesity driven diabetes cases.

Diabetes also rises even independent of obesity.

OO Scorching Phoenix May Not Survive Climate Change – a 1.5 million desert metropolis has survived so far with just 18 inches of rain a year and scorching temperatures, but an even hotter, drier future lies ahead.

OO California: Drought -Induced Irrigation Destroys Soil,

But Creates Space For Solar Farms Takeaways:

  • Drought means longterm irrigation in semi-arid and arid areas,
  • But this ultimately leaves too much evaporated salt behind;
  • Some farms are being bought out, and their water rights sold.
  • Then solar farms are built on the land.

Children Suffer The Most in famine, because they have far less body fat than adults.

OO Africa: Drought And War Heighten Threat Of Not Just 1 Famine, But 4 - just 6 years after its last famine, another is starting in Somalia. South Sudan, Nigeria and Yemen are also at risk.

OO Africa: Somaliland Drought "A Kind Of Nightmare” – and a security threat, as it loses its livestock, the basis of its economy.

As Heat Kills Reefs, Beaches Suffer because living reefs provide important barriers to storm and wave erosion. Credit Greg Torda, ARC Centre of Excellence Coral Reef Studies

OO Jamaica: As Coral Reef Dies, Unprotected Iconic Beach Disappearing - waves now pound it and wash away the sand.

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WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

@@ Climate Change 101: Why Care? What You Need to Know - Bill Nye tells it all in five minutes amid graphic, dynamic, engaging, compelling imagery. Check it Out!

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GOOD IDEAS

Or Better Yet, Drive a Solar Car Source www.solarkingu.com

OO What You Can Do About Climate Change: Drive A 50+ Mpg Vehicle Takeaways:

  • If every US household did so, it would reduce U.S. emissions by 10 % - that is a lot!
  • This alone outweighs the effects of many other little changes we can make,
  • And shows how Trump is ready to place small profits over US climate safety,
  • By trying to trash mandated fuel efficiency standards.

OO How To Sell Conservatives On The Environment

Frame issues in terms of common values:

  • national security, small government, free markets, personal liberty and job creation.

Cast environmental protection in terms of

  • defending the purity of nature, expressing patriotism or obeying authority.

OO A Compact, Efficient System That Stores Solar Energy In Liquids has been devised in Sweden.

The system utilizes 80+ % of incoming sunlight, enabling both short-term solar energy storage in water and stable storage in chemical bonds for several months.

OO Don't Link Carbon Markets – a global network would be more complex and result in

fewer emissions cuts.

OO Addressing Climate Change Requires Systemic Social Change,

Not Just Technological Optimism Takeaways:

  • Climate change is just one of several sustainability problems facing humanity.
  • Although numerous tech and economic strategies are popularized to tackle it,
  • Such as a clean energy transition, and a carbon tax,
  • Many overlook the fundamental social drivers of climate change:
  • overconsumption, poverty, industrial agriculture and population growth.

Learning Sustainability In the Field Credit Tristan Spinski, NYTimes

  • To encourage social behaviors that disable these drivers,
  • Education and incentives, such as taxes and subsidies, are needed;
  • Cases show these can do so
  • without overtly changing fundamental values.

Ultimately, social and technological innovation are equally important.

OO ‘Moore’s Law’ For Carbon Would Defeat Global Warming say scientists who propose it as a roadmap. Takeaways:

  • ‘Moore’s Law’ observes that innovation doubles the processing speed of computer chips every 5 years;
  • a “Carbon Law” would set goals of halving carbon emissions every decade,
  • via policies across all business sectors (transport, agriculture, etc.) worldwide,
  • to stimulate necessary innovations and actions.

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Renewable energy capacity is already doubling every 5 years

“Every journey, however long and complicated, is easier with a clear map.”

A Dirty Business, Ethically and Physically resulting in a dangerous climate.

OO Fossil Fuel Corruption Fuels Climate Change — It Must Be Stopped – Corrupt fossil fuel companies:

  • bribe corrupt governments for oil leases.
  • bribe lawmakers to ignore climate change and subsidize climate-changing fossil fuel industries.
  • Mislead the public on the threats of climate change.
  • Mislead the public on the health and climate dangers of fossil fuels.

Society needs to tackle this corruption if it hopes to survive.

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NATURAL REPERCUSSIONS

The Night The Mountain Collapsed can only be imagined from the aftermath shown here. Credit Bjørn Olson, Courtesy Of Ground Truth Trekking

OO Colossal Landslides And Subsequent Tsunamis In Remote Alaska

Illustrate Climate Change Effects as melting glaciers trigger them.

A 2015 landslide triggered a 600 ft wave that swept forests away as it traveled down an inlet to the sea.

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SPEAKING OUT

OO Doctor: To Fight US Asthma, Fight Global Warming climate change is worsening allergies and air pollution, raising the risks for kids with asthma.

OO Doctors: Climate Change Is Already Making Us Kids Sicker and many other Americans, too, says a new coalition of over half of all US medical doctors.

Children are among the most vulnerable to the health impacts of climate change:

  • Especially asthma, because they breathe faster,
  • Exposing them to more air pollution and allergens,
  • As climate change lengthens the pollen season.
  • Many US children are poor, worsening the problem.

OO Last Year's Weather Proves Climate Change Is Real

With 'No Room For Doubt' say scientists. l

The astonishing 2016 weather and scientific advances show that:

  • 'Human-driven climate change is now an empirically verifiable fact ...
  • those who dispute [it] are not sceptics, but anti-science deniers'
  • Fossil fuel emissions are causing global warming –
  • And something must be done about it.

OO Union Chief Calls Out The ‘Insanity’ Of Trump’s EPA Budget Cuts which are aimed at destroying the agency that safeguards the nation’s air and water, says the head of the EPA’s employees’ union.

OO Trump Administration's 'Anti-Scientific Statements' Alarm Ex-Energy Secretary

Carl Sagan of Cosmos Series Fame, Warned Of Today’s Problems when he co-signed the 1992 Warning to Humanity. Photo Source www.deviantart.com

OO 1992 World Scientists' Warning To Humanity Stands Today Signed by some 1,700 of the world's leading scientists, including the majority of science Nobel laureates it warned:

  • Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course.
  • Human activities inflict harsh, often irreversible damage on environment and critical resources.
  • If not checked, they threaten humanity’s future,
  • And may dramatically change life on Earth.

Olympian Sustainability Goals For Our Survival were set forth in the 1992 warning: switch to clean energy, end poverty, stabilize population, conserve resources, and give women reproductive choice.

We must bring environmentally damaging activities under control to restore and protect the integrity of the earth's systems we depend on. This means we must simultaneously:

  • Transition to clean renewable energy to cut climate changing emissions and pollution
  • Manage resources crucial to human welfare more effectively.
  • Stabilize population size.
  • Reduce and eventually eliminate poverty.
  • Ensure sexual equality, and guarantee women reproductive choice.

Signatories included scientific luminaries such as Linus Pauling, and Carl Sagan.

TAKE ACTION here today!

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FOSSIL FUEL FOLLIES

OO Climate Change Makes Deadly China Pollution Worse

-- And That’s Bad News For Australian Coal Exports – Takeaways:

  • China will be more motivated to cut down on coal,
  • And buy even less from a main supplier, Australia.

When Black Gold Becomes Real Gold For Terrorist Weapons as these seized Mexican cartel weapons illustrate, party funded by oil theft. Credit Mario Guzman at Corbis

OO Oil Theft 'Provides Billions For Terrorists And Drug Cartels’ Oil theft is fuelling terrorist groups and drug cartels around the world, according to a new analysis.

OO Another Cook Inlet Pipeline Feared To Be Vulnerable, As Gas Continues To Leak

OO North Dakota: Pipeline Spill Larger Than Previously Thought about 3x larger, nearly 530,000 gallons of leaked oil. When have leaks ever been underestimated?

We’ve Got Plenty of Coal Ash Already… polluting our landscapes, as here in North Carolina in 2014. Source WaterKeeper Alliance Inc at flickr

OO Coal Ash: 'Why In The World Would the US Be Importing It?' but we are, even as America's utilities are struggling to dispose of it.

OO In America's Coal Country, States Emboldened To Ditch Efficiency – taking their lead from Trump.

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FIXING CLIMATE CHANGE

@@ A Simple And Smart Way To Fix Climate Change given by Dan Miller in 2014 at a Ted talk suggests a way to profit as we tackle climate change, by finally charging those who sell and use fossil fuels – and distributing the revenues back to all of us.

The strategy is sure to speed transition to clean renewable energy. What’s not to like? Check it out!

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If we do not live sustainably,

Our children will die inhumanely.

@@ Myth vs Truth: The Huge Value of Contraception is an incisive, heartfelt recognition of the value of contraception by Sarah Brown, CEO, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy

Unintended Pregnancy Costs US Taxpayers:

  • Unintended Pregnancies Cost US Taxypayers Nearly $11 Billion Yearlythe Guttmacher Institute
  • Teen Childbearing Alone Cost US Taxpayers $9+ Billion In 2010
  • And the costs of raising a child usually ensures decades, if not a life, of poverty for its mother.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Help prevent unintended pregnancies in your community:

publicize where women can access affordable contraception.

They can go here to find locations:

And there are many more actions you can do, right here.

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WHY WE SHOULD ACT NOW: RISING RISKS

Daily Climate Change: Global Map of Unusual Temperatures, Apr 5, 2017

Source cci-reanalyzer.org

How unusual has the weather been? No one event is “caused” by climate change, but global warming, which is predicted to increase unusual, extreme weather, is having a daily effect on weather, worldwide.

Unusually heavy rains have released California from a SURFACE water drought, but significantly depleted California aquifers keep 60+% of the state in a GROUNDWATER drought, which will likely take decades to disappear. It also means this major US agricultural region has a small safety net, when the next dry year strikes. Dance in the rain while you can!

Many parts of the US and surrounding waters are experiencing abnormally warm conditions. Much of the areas surrounding the North Pole are experiencing MUCH warmer than normal temperatures, and record low areas of ice cover – not good news for our Arctic thermal shield of ice. Hotter than usual temperatures continue to dominate human habitats.

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There is, of course, much more news on the consequences and solutions to climate change. To get it, check out this annotated resource list I’ve compiled, “Climate Change News Resources,” at Wordpress.com here. For more information on the science of climate change, its consequences and solutions you can view my annotated list of online information resources here.

To help you understand just what science does and does NOT do, check this out!

Every day is Earth Day, folks, as I was reminded by this wild flower I photographed one spring. Making the U.S. a global clean energy leader will ensure a heck of a lot more jobs, and a clean, safe future. If you'd like to join the increasing numbers of people who want to TELL Congress that they will vote for clean energy candidates you can do so here. It's our way of letting Congress know there's a strong clean energy voting bloc out there.

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