Slashdot Mirror
All-time Heat Records Are Being Set All Over the World (washingtonpost.com)
As the U.K. begins a two-week heat wave, one pedestrian apparently found his leg sinking into tarmac, which had melted, requiring a call to emergency rescue services.
"All-time heat records have been set all over the world during the past week," reports the Washington Post, in an article titled "Red-Hot Planet," which they've updated throughout the week with new all-time heat records. From the normally mild summer climes of Ireland, Scotland and Canada to the scorching Middle East to Southern California, numerous locations in the Northern Hemisphere have witnessed their hottest weather ever recorded over the past week.... The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reports the heat is to blame for at least 54 deaths in southern Quebec, mostly in and near Montreal, which endured record high temperatures. In Northern Siberia, along the coast of the Arctic Ocean -- where weather observations are scarce -- model analyses showed temperatures soaring 40 degrees above normal on July 5, to over 90 degrees...
On Thursday, Africa likely witnessed its hottest temperature ever reliably measured. Ouargla, Algeria soared to 124.3 degrees (51.3 Celsius). If verified, it would surpass Africa's previous highest reliable temperature measurement of 123.3 degrees (50.7 Celsius) set July 13, 1961, in Morocco. No single record, in isolation, can be attributed to global warming. But collectively, these heat records are consistent with the kind of extremes we expect to see increase in a warming world.
Nasdaq Inc. even warned customers that high humidity in New Jersey was slowing the radio transmissions needed for high-speed trading, according to an article shared by Slashdot reader narcoossee. And Southern California has also experienced record-setting temperatures "well above 110 degrees across the region," sparking brush fires that burned homes in two counties.
Last July several U.S. cities experienced their hottest month ever, including Reno, Salt Lake City, and Miami. And Death Valley, California maintained an average temperature of 107.4 degrees for an entire month, the hottest month ever recorded on earth. "The temperature didn't fall below 89 degrees at any point in the month of July at Death Valley," reports the Washington Post, adding "On three nights, the 'low' temperature was 102-103 degrees."
And last month the Middle East city Quriyat (in Oman) endured more than two full days in which the temperature never dropped below 108.7 degrees.
"All-time heat records have been set all over the world during the past week," reports the Washington Post, in an article titled "Red-Hot Planet," which they've updated throughout the week with new all-time heat records. From the normally mild summer climes of Ireland, Scotland and Canada to the scorching Middle East to Southern California, numerous locations in the Northern Hemisphere have witnessed their hottest weather ever recorded over the past week.... The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reports the heat is to blame for at least 54 deaths in southern Quebec, mostly in and near Montreal, which endured record high temperatures. In Northern Siberia, along the coast of the Arctic Ocean -- where weather observations are scarce -- model analyses showed temperatures soaring 40 degrees above normal on July 5, to over 90 degrees...
On Thursday, Africa likely witnessed its hottest temperature ever reliably measured. Ouargla, Algeria soared to 124.3 degrees (51.3 Celsius). If verified, it would surpass Africa's previous highest reliable temperature measurement of 123.3 degrees (50.7 Celsius) set July 13, 1961, in Morocco. No single record, in isolation, can be attributed to global warming. But collectively, these heat records are consistent with the kind of extremes we expect to see increase in a warming world.
Nasdaq Inc. even warned customers that high humidity in New Jersey was slowing the radio transmissions needed for high-speed trading, according to an article shared by Slashdot reader narcoossee. And Southern California has also experienced record-setting temperatures "well above 110 degrees across the region," sparking brush fires that burned homes in two counties.
Last July several U.S. cities experienced their hottest month ever, including Reno, Salt Lake City, and Miami. And Death Valley, California maintained an average temperature of 107.4 degrees for an entire month, the hottest month ever recorded on earth. "The temperature didn't fall below 89 degrees at any point in the month of July at Death Valley," reports the Washington Post, adding "On three nights, the 'low' temperature was 102-103 degrees."
And last month the Middle East city Quriyat (in Oman) endured more than two full days in which the temperature never dropped below 108.7 degrees.
Accepted dogma says this cannot be climate change. Or if it is, it cannot be human made. Rationality is irrelevant.
Well, fuckers, it is going to kill you or at least your children just the same, no matter how much you deny it.
to boil a monkey's bum.
And here I am, freezing by arse off down here in New Zealand where it's cold, went and windy and I've had a cold for over a month now.
Throw some of that heat down this way guys!
This must have been posted by the EPA as proof that global warming/climate change is a hoax.
Shut up Hudson.
All time??? Hysteria
Where I am it has been a very normal summer. In fact, it's ten degrees *cooler* this year, and the summer monsoons are right on schedule. I'm not discounting climate change, but sometimes cycles really are just cycles.
Sometimes I seriously wonder whether those dumb comments are: a. misspelled intentionally, or b. from somebody without a decent education, or c. from a non-native troll.
will continue just say, nah, fake news, and continue wasting and polluting the environment like the last 100 years, ..! ;-/
Exxon knew this as far back as the 1970s. They had the best climate science back then. They had a decision to make. They chose this. Now we'll all have to suffer the consequences for the sake of Exxon's greed and indifference.
The Earth is burning up!!!! WE"RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Where's Algore, when we need him?
This is a bit of bad data.
The measurement was next to, and downwind of, a jet aircraft parking area.
The real temperature was probably several degrees cooler at that point. Not even close to a real record.
Ditto for one in Scotland: they recorded "record high heat" exactly when - of all things - an ice cream truck was parked right next to the weather station for an extended period. Running engine + multiple coolers = a lot of extra heat right on top of the thermometer. They already downgraded that one.
Basically, most of the "records" we've been seeing lately are a measurement of Urban Heat Island encroachment and bad station siting, not higher overall temperatures.
(A tip: if you're going to measure temperature trends, don't put vehicles and buildings right next to your instruments...)
It's the corporations that are doing it. They're also the ones who corrupted and undermined our democracies.
The planet Earth will continue being warm due to the damn actions of the humans.
The humans didn't care this planet and will pay the consequences.
Over 50 Celsius, some humans won't be supported (will be killed by this warm).
Over 60 Celsius, a majority of humans won't be supported.
Over 70 Celsius, there will be very few survivors.
There are not easy water for everybody.
...is for people to recognize that all of the fancy carbon trading schemes and other nonsense has to end. This isn't about economic fairness - it's about fundamental survival of the human race. We need more research into thorium reactors, more alternative power and cutting down all carbon emissions regardless of source once and for all.
Just wait for it.
It is pretty obvious nothing is going to be done to slow GW so how about instead we focus on dealing with it. This summary reads like a nah nah nah, see we were right gloat which helps nothing.
Actually he is quoting Ralph Wiggum. The original quote was "me fail English. That's unpossible."
The purpose of worrying about climate change has to do with human habitility and not with your straw man of a desire for global stasis. There is also no principle that hot periods must be balanced by an equal amount of cold periods.
There are lots of studies estimating just how bad climate change may get if global temperatures go up by X degrees, or Y degrees, or Z degrees by the year 2050, or 2100 or beyond. One problem with these predictive studies, however, is that nobody actually KNOWS with any certainty how climate will behave once you cross a certain temperature treshold that may exist and that we may not be aware of at all. Some experts say "As long as we can keep warming below 2 degrees C by the year 2100, the worst effects should be mitigated". Except that a climate system this huge and this complex and potentially this poorly understood cannot be accurately simulated on any existing supercomputer we have anywhere in the world today. We may find that in just a few years - maybe 2025, maybe 2030, maybe 2035 - we cross an "invisible temperature line" after which seriously catastrophic weather events start to occur all over the world with a severity and ferocity that nobody thought was possible, and that nobody can do anything whatsoever to mitigate, unless someone invents an actually working "weather control" technology in the next 10 years or so. Meteorologists can usually predict large scale weather events/problems a few days ahead of time today. But if the behavior of the entire system shifts and destabilizes in idiosyncratic ways, you may find that really scary weather events materialize in places where they have never happened before, and without anyone being able to foresee where and when the event will occur. Imagine a world where on a perfectly normal day, a Superstorm suddenly builds, and you have maybe 30 minutes of warning time before it hits where you are.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
They are what they are named.
Heat waves are normal. 116 is not unheard of in the inland areas.
I'm Scottish and my father was, until recently retiring, a farmer. In the last decade of his farming he struggled to make any hay in the summer.
It had previously been tricky but do-able in the 4 decades prior to that. If you farm you notice climate change.
Now it's like it's "flipped" completely. Making hay this year should be easy if it hasn't dried out too much and the grass has grown.
The bit that's missing in this post is that the UK, and Scotland in particular, had one of the coldest winters on record. More snow than they've seen in decades.
It's as if the weather that north eastern Europe normally gets has shifted over west.
The gulf stream that normally warms N.Europe in winters and keeps it wet in summer is in flux.
I fully expect the UK will get a freezing winter in return for this recording setting summer if this continues.
Take a look at the rain and flooding in France and Spain that's also going on right now. Very unusual and abnormal.
Of course it's all "fake news" to those who feel this is an Inconvenient Truth.
I'm reading that as saw 124.3 degrees and though holy fuck, that was on Earth, not some other planet? My browser width was just right (wrong) that real number, 51.3 Celsius, was on the next line. That sounds more real, yea, just that one country on the planet who still donesn't know how to measure temperature yet. Guess I should be glad they bother to put Celsius at all. Wait spoke too soon, only 25% of the temperatures had conversions. I'm going to dig out a conversion tool just to read this, nope, have whinge instead.
Ok, I get it "The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it." but at least put some F's after those numbers so we know they are USA only numbers, not international standard!
Yea, go on score me down as a troll, my karma score can handle it and after decades of dealing with this rubbish I feel the need to bitch occasionally.
I LIVE IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. MY AIR CONDITIONER, WHICH I RUN 2-3 DAYS A YEAR IN AUGUST/SEPTEMBER, HAS BEEN ON HIGH FOR 2 DAYS NOW!
SPEAK UP, I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER MY FREEDUM AIR!!
ahhhhhh, that's better.
Well, yes, they put the sensors right outside the White House, oblivious to the effect all the hot air produced there would have.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
To put ReneR's point more clearly, when you are investigating a crime, it often helps to ask "Who profits?" Unfortunately, the murder victim in question may be the earth, and if so, the REAL answer is no one.
Actually, I don't think climate change alone will cause a human-extinction-level catastrophe. I even think there would be human survivors after a nuclear war, though most of them would be sorry to have survived. My money says we exterminate ourselves with a genetically engineered bioweapon. Costs have declined so rapidly that most countries and larger corporations could afford to create it, but pretty soon it will be within the reach of an individual madman, and we've never had a sufficient shortage of them.
In Japan the current effect of the broken planet is flooding. The description translates something like "rain and flooding unlike anything seen in decades". Even with the warnings (and they were ALL over the news), over 40 people have been confirmed dead. So far. Not over yet.
(Oh yeah. And massive damages, but no economic estimates yet.)
Even if we humans only helped a little in the breaking of the planet, why are we continuing to make it worse? We definitely know some things we could do to not make it worse, but we can't even implement the soft Paris Accord properly...
Mostly because the Koch brothers think they are profiting. Not really, because they are going to die soon, and it doesn't matter how many toys they died with.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Actually he is quoting Ralph Wiggum. The original quote was "me fail English. That's unpossible."
Actually, Unpossible is the sanctioned word in Newspeak.
Todos seremos morenos bajo el Sol.
(there is not english-translation of the above phrase)
As the U.K. begins a two-week heat wave
What are you talking about ? it's been two weeks already! and it looks to keep on going.
Leg in melted tarmac? That sounds like a second or third degree burn. (But the guy's leg doesn't look burned.)
I wonder how hot the tarmac was.
But corporations are people too. Or people are corporations. I forget which. Anyway, corporations are better than people because they're not constrained by morals.
What is this in units I can understand? This strange obsolete stuff is not used round here.
Wow, so they have Republican faggot denialists in New Zealand also? What for? Who is paying them to be stupid?
If it wasn't for Al Gore inventing the internet and global warming, we would not be reading about this climate event on the internet! What a hero that man is, inconveniant but still a hero!
They aren't.
Go try to superimpose your fantasy futures on someone else.
It is WINTER in New Zealand.
If there's anything interesting long term, it's how this will affect architecture*, and urban design**. Not to mention utility grids, and power sources, after all air conditioning takes a lot of power.
*Houses and apartments will be built differently.
**reducing the heat island effect.
The only people I have seen deny climate change are the AGW idiots who think the climate has ever been stable, and who demand global action to try to put it into some sort of climatic stasis.
The rest of us have always accepted the SCIENTIFIC FACTS that:
(a) The Earth's climate has always changed and always will.
(b) The Earth's climate is EXTREMELY COMPLEX and cannot currently be accurately modeled in a computer.
(c) While humans, like EVERYTHING ELSE, have SOME effects on climate, there are plenty of other causes of change including many we probably do not know/understand. Some of these other sources, like the sun, have a far greater impact than humans.
(d) The Earth has been both significantly hotter and extremely cold many times in the past before there were enough humans to have had ANY effect on any of those previously very extreme changes.
We ALSO embrace things like the laws of economics, the record of human history, and accept basic human nature - so we:
(a) Believe humans will continue to advance technologically and thus we as a species become better able to deal with climate change with every passing decade, making it retrograde to go nuts trying to offset it now - even if we could, and if we could afford it, and if its happening.
(b) Know that far more people are dying today from other sources than from climate, and that reducing some of the deaths and suffering of people TODAY is achieved using some of those fossil fuels people like you want eliminated or made too expensive because YOU claim it will save some future persons from some imagined future horror.
(c) WE actually believe a pet theory should be PROVEN before we implement policies that have a negative impact on the lives of millions of people in the name of "solving" the supposed problem. In fact, we'd like to not only see the problem PROVEN to exist, but we also want to see that the proposed solution will actually work, will be the most cost-effective option, and will have the least impact upon the lives and liberty of the people who are alive today.
So... who are the REAL "deniers"? You guys need to drop the quasi-religious fervor-driven propaganda and start persuading with REAL SCIENCE and not with slogans, bitter accusations, suppression of persons with opposed opinions, rigging of the peer review and paper publishing business, data hiding, data manipulation, etc. Your side could make a tiny start by dropping the "denier" and "paid for by big oil" accusations and not hurling expletives like ornery pubescent teenagers.
I have seen asphalt melt and even bubble. If the tarmac has melted, his leg would have shown visible burns. That tarmac did not melt. This is FAKE NEWS.
We have very accurate satellite-based temperature data for the Earth for the past 50 years (approx). Before that the data is less accurate since it was taken by humans using mercury thermometers at spotty locations around the globe (various ships at sea, airport weather stations, train stations, cities, and so forth) going back a little more than 200 years. Before that, the temperature data records are far spottier and they're mostly for Europe.
200 years of data out of 6,000,000,000 years is a statistically insignificant sample.
In this context, "hottest ever recorded" and "coldest ever recorded" are sensational headlines meant to mislead the ignorant, i.e. tools of propaganda.
No amount of funding the scientists might be able to lay their hands on would solve the main problem: how to make a denier understand and stop being an a*ole?
Wait, would they stop being idiots if paid to not be?
Captcha: "totally"
I've lived in the US South or Hawaii my whole life. Legs don't sink into the tarmac. Does the UK use toffee for paving? The worst I've seen is that the bus lanes get pressed a bit. People don't just sink. No way is the UK hot like it is where I live.
I live in the UAE. I'd love to go to Montreal or Death Valley to cool down.
And Southern California has also experienced record-setting temperatures "well above 110 degrees across the region," sparking brush fires that burned homes in two counties.
Unless the heat is pushing 450 Fahrenheit the heat likely isn't "sparking" any brush fires. What's easier to believe is that the heat causes vegetation to be dry so that a spark from some means other than the heat has ample fuel to catch fire and grow.
Yes, I could do the conversion, I know. I just wish I didn't have to. But I guess most readers are from the US or have gotten used to Farenheit and miles.
You're a dipshit, this is a slew of records all at once moron. No wonder Republicans are afraid of abortion, their mothers would end their retarded asses in the womb.
When cancer comes for you, the world will be a better place.
in a fucking coal mine.
And the old record has been revised colder just to make the current temps higher
The "Heat Wave" reports about "Canada" are really about Eastern Canada, where temperatures above 28C [86F] generally cause panic of sorts, and will trigger weather warnings in Toronto.
Out here in Western Canada (prairies and the coast) temperatures around that number get you a "it's warm out" and "enjoy the sunshine" from the TV weatherman. Today it was 32C [90F] with the Humidex at 40 [104F] and nobody blinked, nobody keeled over dead, and everyone just enjoyed the weather. I believe that is the same as the highest temperature all week in Montreal where the "heat wave death" news reports apparently come from.
Normal temperatures in my city range from -40C [-40F] wintertime to +40C [104F] summertime air temperatures, with rare occurrences (say, 10 year highs and lows) a little beyond. The Humidex of course would be higher.
It all comes down to what people are used to ... I remember the panic in the UK this year at the London Marathon where temperatures reached a record high of 28C [82F] and the BBC was warning about the heat and urging everyone from participants to spectators to keep hydrated.
A problem in determining whether there is a temperature trend is the variability of the weather. However, exactly this may be used to study the trend as well.
Here is a page (in Dutch but you can look at the graphs near the bottom) showing the number temperature records registered by the Dutch meteorological institute since it started at the beginning of the previous century. For a stable climate you expect the ratio of warm records and cold records to be stable, averaging 1. You also expect the number of records to drop over time. That is not what is observed as is clear from the graphs at the bottom right. The ratio is consistently well over one and the number of heat records doesnâ(TM)t drop very much the last few decades.
Bert
is getting permission to 'Build a Wall'. No, not to stop Mexicans and others from entering the USA but around his Irish Golf Course to stop the Atlantic Ocean and rising sea levels from stopping a few elderly white males from hitting a little ball around and paying him lots of mulah for the pleasure.
What is the world coming to eh?
The end is nigh.
I keep wondering how soon we will see a GOP that has knees that bend backwards, and they speak in weird languages?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
People that are genetically more adapted to colder climates will suffer, those who are adapted to warmer climates will thrive. This is called macro evolution. Those well adapted to the cold will naturally fight against the warming of the planet. Hence we have a large group of white liberals living in Madison Wisonson who quite rightfully believe climate change is a threat to their world. Others who aren't white could not care less, but would like to have cheap electricity.
Your opinion on climate change largely depends on where you were born. If you were born someplace cold, you want to keep the planet cold. If you were born in a warmer climate you just want cheap energy and could not care less about about the most windmills
...you're going to do about this so-called climate change?
The answer is, "Not a damned thing." Why? Because you can't. That is, not without widespread death from the methods you would use to combat it.
Raise the price of fuels to astronomical levels? It'd just plunge the almost-poor into abject poverty, which is deadly. Smoking will take maybe 7 years off your life, but living in poverty will take about 10. Wanna kill a lotta people? Make 'em poor. That's what the normal, environmentalist-approach is to every question, "Money is no object" and then we get cars that cost twice as much as they should while chasing the goal of eliminating 0.0002% of the remainder of some imagined deadly pollutant. Eliminate the pollutant and save 27 people this year, and kill 100,000 from poverty. (F U!)
The bottom line is that there's nothing you can do about this that will come out of a Congress or a Parliament. The answer for this is going to come out of a physics lab. Walking up and down in front of some legislature with your hand-lettered sign in your father-Christmas beard and sandals isn't going to do a damned thing because all they can do is create poor people by passing some expensive law, which will kill a good percentage of those newly-minted poor people.
No, the fix for this is going to come from scientists that invent the magic battery or the magic supercapacitor that will store grid electricity or electric car electricity so that we can stop using fossil fuels. Oh, BTW, wind is not gonna be the savior, since the foundation of each of these massive wind turbines takes about 250 cubic yards of concrete, which is a huge CO2 emitter during its manufacture. While a nuke plant uses maybe 400,000 cubic yards of concrete in its containment structure, our >52,000 wind turbines amount to 13,000,000 cubic yards of concrete, minimum, for their foundations. And our 52,000 wind turbines have a combined capacity of slightly less than 8 gigawatts. That compares to the largest nuclear power station in the world that has slightly more than 8 gigawatts output. Composed of multiple nuclear reactors, I believe it is 7, that would be 2.8 million cubic yards of concrete. How many such plants does it take to run the entire USA? 302,229 megawatt-hours was the April generation, so with 24 hours in a day and 30 days in April, that is about 420 megawatts continuously. 420 megawatts / 8 megawatts per 52,000 wind turbines, assuming the wind blows 24/7/365, would be 52.5 times the 52,000 or so wind turbines we have now, which would be 2,730,0000 total wind turbines, or 2,679,500 _additional_ wind turbines to be built, except the wind doesn't blow continuously so double that for backup, so we want and additional 5.4 million wind turbines. And again, at 250 cubic yards of concrete for foundation per wind turbine, that's 5.4 X 250 = 1,350 million cubic yards of CO2 producing concrete manufacturing.
And of course there's still PV, with solar farms as far as the eye can see. No big need for CO2 producing concrete with those, but the sun doesn't shine 24/7/365 either. Solar photovoltaic energy is only available for a fraction of the day, since there's that night bugaboo plus the occasional cloud, so we're going to need billions of them and we're going to need energy storage.
So... really... what's the answer? A wind turbine in the frame of absolutely every outdoor photograph anyone takes within the borders of the USA, and a country probably devoid of birds that would all be killed by the whirling blades? Or solar photovoltaic "farms" in said outdoor photographs no matter where in the USA one points the camera?
Solve those PHYSICS problems and MAYBE we could stem the production of CO2 if we can find out how to use electricity to replace a jet engine, but if we turn propellers with electric motors, we'll get propeller speeds again, back to the 1950's air travel model.
But nobody's going to solve this by whining at legislators.
In the UK? Why doesn't it melt in Arizona or the thousands of other places where it gets a hell of a lot hotter than the UK? What do they pave with over there, milk chocolate?!?
Something smells fishy about that story.
And then you won't be fit to work and you'll die unless you find some younger people to sponge off.
Job done. We'll have cut the CO2 output by half with just removing ~3% of the planet's population. Please head to your nearest termination center!
23-25 C in the middle of winter this week. I've been walking around the street in a tee shirt.
Which old record, where? In some places in Europe, it's breaking the record set less than half a decade previously.
Our measurements for this record are not that extensive. Maybe 200 years at absolute best!
So itâ(TM)s not all time heat records, itâ(TM)s just higher than weâ(TM)ve recorded before. The Earth is a cycle of cycles that cycle, the earth has been here before and so have we. Just chill, or melt, whatever you want to be anxious about
Another example of someone who does not know the difference between weather and climate.
The effects of Climate Change are becoming more and more obvious. Sooner or later, something really nasty is going to happen, with widespread serious consequences for one or more First World countries.
And when that "something" occurs, whether it's a prolonged heat wave, an unprecedented string of devastating storms or wildfires, an epidemic, a drought or whatever, a lot of people are going to die.
When that happens, who will be an easier target for the rage of bereaved survivors, the head of Exxon, or the asshole down the street who liked to sneer at "SJW's" and spray pesticides when the neighbour's kids were playing outside?
It doesn't take a lot of training to make a Molotov cocktail.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Normal is gone.
Look back N months and count how many of them have been the hottest on record. Same for the past M years too if you look. The 'new normal' is warming and the side-effects of warming such as cooling, flooding, severe weather. The rate is increasing too, due to several positive-feedback loops we stupid humans set in motion to feed the machine that sustains us. Glaciers and permafrost melting, methane release.
No we are not doing to do anything better we are not going to change we are going to run over the impending cliff like lemmings. Already millions of people fleeing areas that no longer produce.
Next check the rate at which the very life of planet Earth is going extinct. 1000-year-old trees are now dying, the coral reefs are dying, 200 species are dying each day. You see the same amount of natural life - insects, bees, birds, small animals - around as you remember?
The gross area of real estate that can grow food without artificial cover is dwindling. We've turned the best farming areas into asphalt-covered hell. Warming is causing flooding and severe weather already. And the farmland that's left has no natural soil left - everything chemical pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, fertlizers growing plastic food.
And we're not done trying to kill ourselves either. Plastic is choking the life out of the oceans as fast as warming. Waters now covered with an ultra-fine slick of sunscreen/natural oils/mineral oils/nerts/fat+greases/etc, just enough to deter the natural process of CO2 absorption and gas exchange.
Copapods are choking, plankton are choking, and practically every human body has trace elements of plastic, DDT, PCBs, mercury, lead and all kinds of other chemical crap. Over half of the fish population gone since the 1970's. More than half of the forests have been harvested. And we're filling the rivers, lakes and oceans with organic sludge, treated or not, that breaks down and robs the water of oxygen.
2026 before the major food crops crash is best case, 2019 is worst case. Animal feed gone. Human feed gone.
Please dont be angry or depressed. The above is all really good news. For these final years we will live as well as any humans have ever lived. We all get to see how the story of humanity ends and life on earth pauses for a million years. Perhaps this is the finalé for all intelligent life in the universe. And if there's going to be a second-coming it has to be soon. Maybe we don't have to stress about our money so much. There doesn't have to be so much competition. Maybe we don't need to pressure ourselves to accumulate stuff any longer. Maybe we can spend our last few years living a more ideal life. You will do it, but prepping is expensive and wasteful, at best only trading dollars for minutes.
Believe me or not. Agree or not. Make your own call but pull your head out of the sand first. Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. See you on the other side. Peace, be good.
Somebody call Algore at his new California beach house, The Event is about to begin!
My oldest brother and his wife just purchased their dream home on one of the barrier islands north of Miami this spring (on a different island from the Southern White House, but close). While the house is on the sound side of the island, it is on the waterfront, so it didn't come cheap.
Before committing to the purchase, they looked into risks like tsunamis due to landslides in the Azores and Canaries (apparently, there is evidence of past such events in the geological record). However, they refused to even consider the risks of sea level rise or more frequent/powerful hurricanes due to climate change because it’s just a hoax (the are Fox News watchers and rabid Trumpicans).
That bi-polar thinking is fascinating to me. They employ reason in some cases, but in other cases they totally abandon reason for devotion to their cult.
... for PV panels, all we need is the legislation.
There are 74 million single family homes in the US housing 210 million people (or 2/3 of the US population).
* Source: https://www.quora.com/How-many-houses-are-there-in-the-US
Power consumption of an American home is 11KW-Hrs per year, but this also includes multi-family homes, so let's round up to 15KW-Hrs per year for single family homes, which is about 4 KW-Hrs a day.
* Source: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3
Roof area of a single family home is 1250 square feet (2500 square feet finished floor area / 2 finished floors)
* Source: http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/the-righteous-small-house-challenging-house-size-and-the-irresponsible-american-dream
Assuming 300 ft of roof area (25%) available for PV cells, and 6 hours of sunlight, we can generate 40KW-Hrs a day per home.
* Source: https://www.sunpower.com.au/sites/international/files/media-library/data-sheets/ds-x-series-solar-panels-x21-australia.pdf
Power conversion efficiencies of 85% are not unreasonable, and Li-Ion battery charge-discharge efficiencies are also 85%.
* Source: https://www.digikey.com/en/articles/techzone/2015/aug/efficiency-standards-for-external-power-supplies
* Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery
That means, we can generate, store and retrieve 28KW-Hrs a day per single family home which needs only 4 KW-Hrs a day assuming local battery storage. Only one in 7 homes needs PV panels to generate the electricity needs of the US.
Yes, the physics is already solved. All we need now is the right legislation.
If we legislate that all new single family homes and and all new roofs will have PV systems (the latter being financed by the power company), 3M total new roofs/year will generate electricity using PV cells.
In less than 3 years, we will be net zero for electrical power, and will also be able to replace natural gas for heating (22% of household energy consumption). Within a decade, we'll close down all our coal, nuclear, gas and wind powered electricity generation. Energy will be so cheap that we'll expend on things that we can't do cheaply today like recycling.
yawn
At least for the Los Angeles area those sources are pretty darn poor...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Looks like weâ(TM)ll be safe from Ice-9 after all.