Climate Change

[Irrev-Black]

Keep an eye on the aquifers. Groundwater isn't being replenished as fast as it's used (and, of course, there are miners who want to pollute the fuck out of it).

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-22/ ... /103746392

[Irrev-Black]

Fucked, on another front.

Seal pups and fledgling penguins could be at increased risk of sunburn and skin cancers as the ozone layer hole above Antarctica remains open into December, creating dangerously high levels of ultraviolet radiation.

The findings are based on new research conducted by an international team from the United Nations Environmental Effects Assessment Panel, and led by University of Wollongong climate change biologist Professor Sharon Robinson.

For the past four years, the ozone hole above Antarctica has failed to close before summer, causing UV radiation levels in Antarctica as extreme as 14 – similar levels to a Sydney summer.

Robinson said the main causes were twofold: volcanoes and bushfires.

Two massive volcanic eruptions – Hunga Tonga in 2022, and La Soufrière between December 2020 and April 2021 – spewed dangerous levels of sulphates into the stratosphere, which broke down ozone in the southern hemisphere.

“But the other thing that’s happened, which was human induced, or climate-change induced, was the 2019-20 bushfires, which were so strong and so fierce that they injected aerosols into the stratosphere and broke down ozone,” Robinson said.

https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/enviro ... 5fm32.html

[pipbarber]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ing-crisis

“It’s fucking awful,” the softly spoken scientist says, emerging from the ocean. “They said the bleaching was extensive and uniform. They didn’t say it was extensive, uniform and fucking awful.

“It’s a graveyard out there.”

Tragic and infuriating. I have an image of Pauline Hanson snorkeling on a healthy section of the reef in order to explain that climate change wasn't real. That was only a couple of years ago, i reckon.

[Irrev-Black]

We're fucked.

Also, we're virtually defenceless against it.

A former chief of Australia's defence force says the federal government has failed to understand the risk climate change poses to the nation's security, warning the threat was forgotten in this year's defence strategy.

Since his retirement from the military, Admiral Chris Barrie has turned his mind from war to the climate, and in a report by him and other senior former military and intelligence leaders says it is "astonishing" that climate change only rated a passing mention in the government's National Defence Strategy.

The Australian Security Leaders Climate Group warns the government appears to be without a plan for climate-induced security risks, and has kept secret intelligence it has received on climate change's risk to national security.

Labor's strategy acknowledges that risks including climate change pose an "unprecedented challenge" to national security, and that the effects of climate change specifically are amplifying issues of poverty, food security and population displacement in the region.

But the only direct action laid out by the strategy in relation to climate change is for the ADF's bases to "adopt climate adaptation strategies and energy resilience".

Admiral Barrie said the government should be moving to an effective "wartime" footing on climate change — instead, it had dedicated "precisely two sentences of substance" to climate impact.

"It appears that the government either doesn't understand what our scientists are telling them, or they are deliberately hiding the facts from the Australian community," Admiral Barrie said.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-02/ ... /103789018

[Irrev-Black]

Meanwhile, out of mainstream media feeds...

neuronakaya@mastodon.social
Anjiolina Nakaya
@neuronakaya@mastodon.social

Zambales, Philippines has reached 53 celsius. This heatwave is serious.

I'm having heat cramps and exhaustion here in Iloilo. It's midnight and I'm sweating.

https://www.rappler.com/nation/weather/ ... l-28-2024/

https://kolektiva.social/@neuronakaya@m ... 9177720247

[stylofone]

Another month, another record. "We live in an age of fools", says one climate scientist. That's a direct quote. My summary of the broader picture is "we're fucked".

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topst ... r-BB1lZYWf

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... emperature

[Irrev-Black]

It's not just happening in Tassie.

the cause may be different (somebody I read postulated "reduced groundwater + relatively shallow soils") but WA has largescale native forest dieback too.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-09/ ... /103809158

[Irrev-Black]

It's not just happening in Tassie.

the cause may be different (somebody I read postulated "reduced groundwater + relatively shallow soils") but WA has largescale native forest dieback too.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-09/ ... /103809158

Meanwhile, in the coastal zones...

MANY PEOPLE are unaware of the significance of mangroves to our diminishing surroundings and how their loss over the last 50 years or more has affected us.

Mangroves are extremely valuable coastal ecosystems that offer a multitude of benefits, including protection against erosion and rising sea levels, animal shelters, nursery habitats, and food for marine life.

These benefits are significant to local populations on a broad scale and have both cultural and economic value.

During the summer of 2015–2016, the Gulf of Carpentaria in northern Australia experienced a 40-centimetre drop in coastal water due to excessive dry weather caused by a severe El Niño event, which caused some 40 million mangroves to shrivel up and die.

https://independentaustralia.net/enviro ... isis,18583

[Irrev-Black]

Not only are we fucked, but some of those who claimed they wouldn't have us fucked are right behind the fuckery.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjq5gky4e5no

[stylofone]

Not only are we fucked, but some of those who claimed they wouldn't have us fucked are right behind the fuckery.

It's like a serial killer's obsessive drive to kill, they just keep on doing it.