Climate Change/Mass Extinction Megathread

[Legbiter]

Just broke my two person teapot that I've been using for years, 3-4 of those with a busted lid; so what's the least climate damaging way of disposing of it?

I think I should just bury it in the garden's soil here, as opposed to putting it in the bin, for it to be transported to landfill, it is after all, an entirely benign material?

Seems the Holy Spirit has already guided you towards good works (yes, toss it in the midden).  

[Josquius]

Just broke my two person teapot that I've been using for years, 3-4 of those with a busted lid; so what's the least climate damaging way of disposing of it?

I think I should just bury it in the garden's soil here, as opposed to putting it in the bin, for it to be transported to landfill, it is after all, an entirely benign material?

And it might give a future archaeologist a 'thrill', perhaps a seen as a votive offering to all of the animal* bones in the garden?


* pets, though I think most of them will entirely decay given the soil conditions here.

My lovely old one had it's spout broken off. I repurposed it as a plant pot. Planted mint in it and it can look quite cool with some bits growing inside.


And shame on you for not crafting stone sarcophogae for your pets.

[viper37]

And it might give a future archaeologist a 'thrill', perhaps a seen as a votive offering to all of the animal* bones in the garden?

This.  Leave it for future archeologist, from a distant planet, post apocalypse to interpret what you meant by that offering.

[Richard Hakluyt]

The round swelling of the teapot body and a very suggestive spout; clearly something to do with a fertility cult 

[mongers]

The round swelling of the teapot body and a very suggestive spout; clearly something to do with a fertility cult 

[Maladict]

 

[viper37]

Such an interesting idea.  What could go wrong, really?

EU looks into blocking out the sun as climate efforts falter

[HVC]

[Josquius]

Such an interesting idea.  What could go wrong, really?

EU looks into blocking out the sun as climate efforts falter

The spreading particles in the atmosphere shit - no way. That's the start of a disaster movie. Literally snowpiercers plot. Really don't think we know enough to even try that.

Space born satellite swarms to reduce the sun's rays however... That does seem like a good thing to shoot for to me.
It's no substitute for actually reducing greenhouse gases, and runs the risk of making people think they can slack off there. Lots of other issues with high co2 than just global warming.
But I don't see the problem with doing this as it is by nature easily reversible if there is a unforseen consequence.
Nice to see actual attention, no matter how small, being turned to it.

[viper37]

The spreading particles in the atmosphere shit - no way. That's the start of a disaster movie. Literally snowpiercers plot. Really don't think we know enough to even try that.

Yep.  I was thinking of that movie too.

Space born satellite swarms to reduce the sun's rays however... That does seem like a good thing to shoot for to me.
It's no substitute for actually reducing greenhouse gases, and runs the risk of making people think they can slack off there. Lots of other issues with high co2 than just global warming.
But I don't see the problem with doing this as it is by nature easily reversible if there is a unforseen consequence.
Nice to see actual attention, no matter how small, being turned to it.

It's going to be run by a crazy AI that decides it needs to use humans as a source of energy.  I think I've seen this too in a movie before.

[Syt]

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-scientists-freaking-out-about-surging-temperatures-heat-record-climate-change/

Scientists are freaking out about surging temperatures. Why aren't politicians?
Western leaders' attention is focused elsewhere as 'unprecedented' heat warms oceans and land.

Europe and America are — quite literally — in hot water, but transatlantic attention is focused elsewhere.

For months, scientists have been sounding the alarm over unusual upswings in land and ocean temperatures.

The beginning of July marked the planet's hottest week in recorded history. Last month was the warmest-ever June. The arrival of a strong El Niño is likely to push global temperatures even higher, whipping up extreme weather worldwide.

Meanwhile, the seas are heating up and temperatures in the North Atlantic in particular are "off the charts," as European scientists put it.

Taken together, "it is a good demonstration of the fact that we are in uncharted territory," said Carlo Buontempo, director of the EU's Copernicus climate change monitoring service.

Yet leaders and lawmakers on either side of the ocean remain mostly preoccupied with the war in Ukraine and its economic fallout.

As catastrophic flooding hit Vermont and Turkey and brutal heat swept across Southern Europe and multiple U.S. states this week, political attention remained firmly on the NATO summit taking place in Lithuania.

While NATO leaders identified climate change as "a defining challenge with a profound impact on Allied security," they did so only near the end of Tuesday's joint communiqué, with more words devoted to tackling threats linked to cybersecurity or space.

Buontempo was reluctant to criticize leaders, but he said: "Mine is a plea to all politicians to look at the facts, to look at the data we have, and react to those."

Oceans heating up

Earth is already 1.2 degrees Celsius hotter than in the preindustrial era. The developing El Niño, a naturally occurring weather phenomenon in the Pacific, is expected to exacerbate this man-made warming trend.

The World Meteorological Organization has warned that this El Niño — which comes after the planet spent three years under the influence of La Niña, the cooling phase of the Pacific cycle — is set to "push global temperatures into uncharted territory."

El Niño's full effect won't take hold until later this year, however, and isn't to blame for the temperature anomalies in the Atlantic. 

"We're seeing these high temperatures in the North Atlantic despite the fact that El Niño hasn't really got going yet," Michael Sparrow, head of the WMO's climate research division, told reporters this week.

While the warming is particularly pronounced in the Northeastern Atlantic, global sea surface temperatures have been hitting record highs for the past three months.

In June, a marine heat wave warmed waters around the British Isles to more than 5 degrees Celsius above normal; some coastal areas of Florida are currently surrounded by what one expert called "bathtub water" of more than 30C.   

It's not fully clear what's fueling these spikes, although scientists are certain that man-made climate change plays a leading role. Copernicus says a mix of global warming trends and "unusual" atmospheric circulation is driving the marine anomalies.

Scientists also point to the sharp reduction in pollution from shipping since 2020, when strict rules came into effect to protect human and environmental health.

Those have led to a 10 percent drop in emissions of sulfur dioxide, which has a cooling effect — giving a slight boost to global warming. A recent analysis by Carbon Brief found that this contributes the equivalent of two years' worth of global emissions.

Climate scientists have also identified an unusual absence of Saharan dust — which tends to reflect the sun's warming rays — over the Atlantic in recent months.

Smashed heat records
 
Oceans absorb most of the warming humans have produced, but the heat doesn't all stay there.

"When the oceans are particularly warm, it means they warm the atmosphere considerably as well," Sparrow said.

The planet's hottest-ever week was July 3 to 9, the WMO said Monday, citing Copernicus data.

Besides the current high ocean temperatures and the broader warming trend, two additional factors likely helped raise the world's average daily temperature to a record 17.2C last week.

Changes to the polar jet stream pattern, which some scientists believe is linked to climate change, are increasingly trapping high-pressure systems bringing hot and dry conditions. Such blocking highs have helped fuel Canada's devastating wildfires, for example.

Then there's the 2022 undersea volcanic eruption in Tonga. While above-ground volcanoes can spew cooling sulfur into the stratosphere, a recent study found last year's eruption sent massive amounts of water vapor skyward — likely having a slight warming effect.

Ripple effects

The higher the global average temperature, the more intense and frequent dangerous heat waves become. Italian meteorologists have warned that the country could break the European heat record of 48.8C this week.

Extreme heat can be dangerous by itself — a study this week found that more than 60,000 Europeans died due to heat last summer — and can have devastating consequences for ecosystems, which may affect food security.

This summer, because of the abnormally warm waters, Florida's corals are at an unprecedented risk of bleaching events, an existential threat to reefs.

Marine heat waves also threaten fisheries and, by extension, humans and animals that rely on them for food.

Mexico's government said last month that hundreds of birds found starved to death were victims of the developing El Niño, whose warming effect can drive fish into deeper, cooler waters where seabirds can't get to.

Higher land and ocean temperatures contribute to ice loss at the poles, which accelerates global warming as dark seawater absorbs more radiation than white ice sheets. Scientists are particularly concerned about the record low in Antarctic sea ice this year.

They also set the stage for more extreme weather in Europe and around the globe.

"The North Atlantic is one of the key drivers of extreme weather in Europe, and also on the other side of the Atlantic," said Omar Baddour, head of the WMO's climate monitoring division. The warm waters could fuel strong hurricanes or extreme rainfall, he added.

With all this scientific data out there, Buontempo says society and politics must now make use of it.

"We have data that tell us what is the climate of today, and what is likely to be the climate of tomorrow, and it would be unwise not to use that information," he said. "Ask any business leader — if you know something about the future, use it. It would be stupid not to."

[Valmy]

Well politics and reality have been unhooked from each other for awhile. Sure it would be stupid to ignore a problem that will likely kill and impoverish many people...but that stupidity is politically popular.

[viper37]

Well politics and reality have been unhooked from each other for awhile. Sure it would be stupid to ignore a problem that will likely kill and impoverish many people...but that stupidity is politically popular.

Yeah, it's not like politicians have been listening to scientists for a while now.

[Josquius]

The death of the kelp fields in the north sea is particularly worrying to me. Within my life time the kelp was still considered a pest for boats and now its mostly gone.
Seems like something where we could take solid action to fix it too...but aren't.

[Tamas]

The widespread anti-vax and anti-restrictions nonsense during the pandemic has pretty much killed all my hopes for a political/societal solution, heck, even mitigation, to climate change.

Why? Because it showed the unbelievable lengths the human mind can go to convince itself that maintaining of habits and comforts is fine and the right logical and moral choice. An entire ethos grown out of people's unwillingness to temporarily adapt new ways and to dismiss the fears which were raised by the calls for these changes.

Wrapping so-called solutions into the wrapper or prestige and indulgence papers (like EVs) can only go so far. Either science finds a way which will make non-pollution the comfortable and profitable way, or we are screwed.