Climate Change

[Irrev-Black]

And the stuff that gets overlooked...

Anthony Baker
@AnthonyBaker@mastodon.social

In all the talk of Burning Man and the Moroccan earthquake, not seeing a lot of reports on the super flooding in #Greece that occurred. They got 31.5 inches of rain in a single 24-hour period of time, supposedly three years’ worth of rain in two days, flooding flatlands and potentially spinning up permanent lakes in populated and agricultural areas.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66751510
Sep 10, 2023, 01:18 · · 48 · 0

[Irrev-Black]

Not to mention the stuff that is not disclosed, by executive order...

https://johnmenadue.com/what-is-albanes ... ell-ahead/

[pipbarber]

Not to mention the stuff that is not disclosed, by executive order...

https://johnmenadue.com/what-is-albanes ... ell-ahead/

If Michael Pascoe is right and the report identifies India as a significant future threat, then that perhaps would be sufficient a reason to bury the report. But i reckon it's equally as likely that the report exposes the precariousness of a market economy to endless natural disasters. Corporations don't pick up bills for thousands of suddenly homeless people nor for regions left uninhabitable by flood, fire and drought. Colesworth care about profit, not feeding people, and food shortages will require government intervention. In fact, everything will require government intervention. Capitalism will disappear like vapor when something is required that doesn't involve executive bonuses. And all this at a time when institutional memory of big strong government is so deep in history it has no utility to the contemporary bunch of politicians who all grew up in the neolib era.

It is difficult to imagine an economic theory that is more unsuited to managing climate catastrophe than neoliberal capitalism. If this mysterious report doesn't mention something along those lines it's probably not much of an assessment, though i say that from a very outsider's perspective. It doesn't seem much of a reach, to me, to get to that conclusion though.

Who knows, it's all speculation, but given how long they've sat on the report every single one of us has license to speculate as wildly as we like.

[stylofone]

Not to mention the stuff that is not disclosed, by executive order...

The utter weirdness of both government and big business, oh and also international affairs, it all reminds me of Gilliam's Brazil or Kafka's The Trial. I definitely prefer the former because you can laugh at it at a certain level. We have this report saying we're going to die but we'd better not tell everyone because they might be unhappy about interrupting their skin care regime or whatever it is.

Keven Rudd's "great moral challenge" comment slightly resembled a normal reaction, but he soon resorted to do-nothing weirdness-as-usual. I'm imagining all sorts of scenarios for what a sane Australian Prime Minister could do. Assuming this unreleased report really is the climate truth bomb about which we are speculating, I'd say a first step would be truth-telling to the Australian people, get together with a good rhetorician and say: we have to do this, I'm gonna start doing it and if you don't like it then you can vote me out, but know that you'll be voting for suicide, which for me personally is better than the mass murder I'd be committing if I carry on the way all the other leaders are. It would have to be some sort of neo-Churchill historical declaration and not my colloquial guff.

The second step would be international relations, getting up in a joint news conference with Biden or whoever it happens to be, and saying, listen Joe, we all know all this Inflation Reduction Act and Net Zero stuff is a crock of shit, and Australia has decided to stop pretending. We all have to take drastic action for it to work. We're going to go first, because any hardship will be worth it and probably no worse if we are going it alone. But what we're doing is giving up evil, and now that we've said it, you can't escape the truth that you are still evil and we're not.

The third step would be real action, e.g. shutting down fossil fuel operations, including coal and gas exports, rationing energy for domestic use and taking emergency measures for the effects on lost exports... which probably won't be that great because the alleged benefits aren't that great anyway.

Actually what would really be needed would be a sort of bottom-to-top revolutionary philosophy of reinventing economic relations and concepts of value in all human activity and interaction. The Uluru Statement from the Heart might be a good model for how it could be formulated.

[wadaye]

It can't be more than what we already know, that the system is headed for a head-on collision and over the cliff through overshoot.

[pipbarber]

It can't be more than what we already know, that the system is headed for a head-on collision and over the cliff through overshoot.

When you say 'we'....

Anecdotally, i'm constantly flabbergasted by how indifferent my family and friends are to the immediate threat that the climate catastrophe poses despite most of these people being firmly on the left and fully supportive of climate action. Amongst my broader connections, no one thinks about climate change, ever.

I'd wager that the majority are not overly concerned. It's still an issue for 2100, or 2050....at best. So a big report that says 'we're fucked' would indeed be news for most, in my view.

Moreover, the economic impact on a systemic level would be immediately profound. Why would anyone buy a 40 year mortgage? Why save? Why work that bullshit job? Why go into debt, or why not go into debt?

The economic rationalism the system is built on might be seriously compromised by a 'we're fucked' report and no government is brave enough to face that.

[Irrev-Black]

Shit's happening in ways we don't yet know...

In short: A helicopter expedition has helped scientists confirm warm water is melting the Totten Glacier from below.

By dropping probes from a helicopter into cracks in the ice, a research team was able to measure temperature and salinity in previously inaccessible areas in East Antarctica.

The researchers say helicopter-based measurements are better than ships because helicopter operations are "insensitive to sea ice conditions", faster and more manoeuvrable than ships and "cheaper to operate than an icebreaker".

What's next? The research, conducted in 2019 but only just published, will help researchers fill in the "bigger picture" of the pathways and mechanisms of warm water inflow.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-13/ ... /102844512

[Irrev-Black]

Just another bunch of beachside property owners complaining?

Nah.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-13/ ... /102844236

[pipbarber]

I'm aware that the death toll from the hurricane in Libya is largely due to it being a failed state (thanks in no small part to western meddling). The integrity of the collapsed damn system seems to have been of concern a year ago, and nothing was done about it. Nevertheless, the scale of the tragedy can't be ignored, nor can the impact of climate change be disregarded.

Perhaps the most unsettling takeaway is how unfair it is that those least responsible for climate change also have the least capacity to deal with it. It makes me angry, to be honest.

I'm also a little shocked at how minimal the media coverage is. In the last 24 hours i've told 3 people about the incident who had heard nothing about it!

[pipbarber]

Short term update from the bom.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/

Still hanging back from declaring El Nino, but it continues to be highly likely. The IOD is solidly positive now, but again the bom is holding off declaration. The Southern Annular Mode (SAM) is currently negative. All of these measures, on their own, indicate lower rainfall and warmer than average weather in spring. All three combined at once....is a worry, or it should be. Not sure Murdoch has much news on any of this.