Greta Thunberg speaking on Friday during the Global Climate Strike. Right: Google maps projection of a +4C greenhouse world -on the verge of being unlivable
Climate strike protesters begin marching on Friday.
"How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the middle of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth"- Greta Thunberg today, at UN Global Climate Summit.
In the dubious pantheon of dirtbags, trolls, human trash and garbage spewers there is perhaps none more vile than the execrable lot that would attack an innocent - but precocious - child. Especially one who has an IQ vastly higher than they do and isn't afraid to put it to good use in trying to warn a somnolent global population of the climate perils that lie ahead. I write of the attacks on 16 year old climate activist Greta Thunberg whose "blunt, often biting remarks has offered Americans a sort of unvarnished, outsider’s view of themselves", according to a recent NY Times' piece. But which clearly the loathsome maggots can't handle.
An example of such a troll attack is this one from a website, nymag.com:
"Greta Thunberg is used in a sinister plot to put a face on the future generation the climate alarmists outlandishly claim are being robbed of their future. It is a direct attempt to shame Trump, and thereby the US, back to conformity, so it can pick up the tab for their draconian measures and plan for redistribution of wealth."
This ignorant troll asswit - going by the handle of "Silver Surfer" - is evidently oblivious to the fact Trump shamed himself by ordering California and other states to apply lower emission standards to vehicles. A brazen, crass effort to make global warming even worse, e.g.
But "Surfer's" imbecilic comment response also took exception to Thunberg's observation that by the time she reaches the age of 75 in 2078, there will be little hope for a future left unless action is mounted now. That means heat indices reaching 55 C or more, power grids collapsing, not enough water even for basic needs and no more fish in the oceans, only jellyfish and vast blooms of sargassum. The air will be so polluted it will be impossible to breathe without the equivalent effect of smoking 4 packs of cigs a day.
And note the Right nationalist denier loons and their cretinous ilk always want to fabricate some conspiracy or other to try to portray a simple movement they don't like. In this case, Thunberg is being used in a "sinister plot" to put a face on the future generations to embody claims of climate alarmists. But it is not alarmism but facts which these mindless twits would know if they could even pass a basic thermal physics test, e.g.
Thermal Physics Test for skeptics
But my take is that this fool doesn't even know the difference between heat and temperature so would flunk it anyway. Yet one would hope that before these yahoos - likely in their mother's basements- start pounding their keyboards in misplaced angst and paranoia, they do some research. To at least know a few things before they attack a 16 year old kid for her courage in trying to motivate lackadaisical imps to act.
For example:
"A NASA satellite found that Greenland's ice sheet lost about 255 billion metric tons of ice a year between 2003 and 2016, with the loss rate generally getting worse over that period." (Denver Post, Aug. 25, p. 1A, 'Greater Mass Loss Going Forward'):
Add that to the melting of the Arctic ice caps and Antarctic ice shelf as well and one can imagine a scenario for a 20-25 ' sea level rise by mid century. We also now have to factor in the effects of the burning Amazon rain - forest - likely to add 2- 5 gigatons of carbon to the already CO2 sodden atmosphere.
Greta herself began her school strike plan late in August 2018, before the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had released its doomsday SR15 report, which would arrive that October festooned with alarm bells and produce a sea change in public concern.
But even that is likely lowballed e.g. this article from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:
Climate report understates threat
Excerpt:
"So far, average temperatures have risen by one degree Celsius. Adding 50 percent more warming to reach 1.5 degrees won’t simply increase impacts by the same percentage—bad as that would be. Instead, it risks setting up feedbacks that could fall like dangerous dominos, fundamentally destabilizing the planet. This is analyzed in a recent study showing that the window to prevent runaway climate change and a “hot house” super-heated planet is closing much faster than previously understood."
Excerpt:
"So far, average temperatures have risen by one degree Celsius. Adding 50 percent more warming to reach 1.5 degrees won’t simply increase impacts by the same percentage—bad as that would be. Instead, it risks setting up feedbacks that could fall like dangerous dominos, fundamentally destabilizing the planet. This is analyzed in a recent study showing that the window to prevent runaway climate change and a “hot house” super-heated planet is closing much faster than previously understood."
And a 4C world may be on its way. Where does the 4C increase come from? Refer to the lead UK Guardian article from May 17, 2015, which bluntly notes:
"A paper used for guiding future business planning at the Anglo-Dutch multinational assumes that carbon dioxide emissions will fail to limit temperature increases to 2C, the internationally agreed threshold to prevent widespread flooding, famine and desertification. Instead, the New Lens Scenarios document refers to a forecast by the independent International Energy Agency (IEA) that points to a temperature rise of up to 4C in the short term, rising later to 6C."
THIS is the unvarnished truth but you'd never know it by reading most corporate media releases.
More important and deadly is the cumulative indirect effect of CO2 being added by the gigatons each year to the atmosphere.
To put it into quantitative terms, the temperature of the planet is currently out of balance by 0.6W/ m2 and this is almost entirely due to the annual rate of CO2 concentrations increasing. Indeed, the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has accelerated from 400 ppm in 2013 to 415 ppm now. E.g. as reported in May of this year:
That is an approximately 6 year interval for a per year change in concentration of :
(415 ppm - 400 ppm) / 6 yr = 15 ppm / 6 yr = 2.5 ppm/ yr.
Further, every increase in CO2 concentration now increases the radiative heating effect by 2.5 W/ m2/ / yr.
Prof. Gunter Weller (formerly of the Univ. of Alaska Geophysical Institute) estimated the runaway greenhouse effect would kick in when the CO2 concentration level of 600 ppm is surpassed- which seems reasonable. If it is just over 410 ppm now - by many conservative measures - then doing the math (adding 2.5 ppm per year and 2.5 W/ m2 heating effect) puts us in jeopardy before 2100.
Less objectionable than the loser troll on the Nymag rag site, is WSJ editor Gerald Baker who penned this nonsense in the weekend edition of the Journal,
St. Greta Spreads the Climate Gospel - WSJ
Writing:"A movement that believes in sin, penance and salvation doesn’t sound very scientific"
Of course, these are all interjected ad hoc by Mr. Baker. There is in fact no "sin" (there is waste, e.g. of food, water (i.e. in fracking), and CO2 generation by excess consumption), nor is there "penance" - unless one wishes to refer to the coming climatic onslaught in floods, drought, raging fires, sea level rise and the impacts on humans. Nor is there "salvation" - given it may well be too late to avoid any of those, only mitigate them somewhat.
Then, really going off on a wild tangent:
"It’s been noted before that the cause of addressing climate change has become something like the modern world’s version of a secular religion. In much of Europe especially, but in sections of American society too, a kind of climate theology has replaced traditional Christianity as the ultimate source of authority over human behavior, comprising both an all-embracing teleology of our existence and a prescriptive moral code."
Baker then goes off into a miasma of false analogy, trying to equate the Catholic Church's apocalyptic and theological dogmas, i.e. about hellfire etc. with the fires we can expect to manifest from global warming, e.g.
"An apocalyptic eschatology warns that we will all be consumed by fire if we don't follow the ordained rules."
Except that theological fire is fanciful, supernatural bilge, designed to terrify the faithful into unthinkingly following the padres and popes....or else. Meanwhile, the fires from enhanced climate change are real and spreading to extend longer and longer across major fire seasons, such as now ravaging Alaska, Scandinavia, Siberia, etc. Note this scene from Tasmania 7 years ago forcing this family to take shelter in water. A taste of what's to come.
One thing an editor like Baker ought to have learned is not to analogize the fantasy "supernatural" fires of a religion's afterlife with the very real fires that will burn across our planet from climate change. Of course, this false analogy in his specious case paves the way for multiple others, i.e.
"A gospel of redemption emphasized that salvation lies in reducing our carbon footprint, with re-usable shopping bags and bike sharing."
In fact there is no analogous "gospel of redemption" only the cold hard data showing if we don't lessen the carbon inputs our civilization will be reduced to ashes - in the runaway greenhouse - or be flooded out of existence as sea levels rise from the ongoing and accelerating melting. This isn't supernatural fantasy or allegory, it's the future we face and the future is already erupting all around us - from monster storms and torrential fires, to the spread of new diseases like eastern equine encephalitis and dengue fever, to the spread of fire tornadoes and mega-fire holocausts.
But hey, at least he isn't a 4chan or Nymag.com conspiracy monger troll who suspects Greta of being part of a "sinister plot" for global climate alarmism. Indeed, he offers a modicum of respect, e.g.
"None of this is to denigrate Ms. Thunberg. She's clearly a sincere and talented young woman who has dedicated herself to what she believes is the highest moral cause."
Well, because right now, it is! And please convey your respectful tones to the trolls and losers who inhabit the dregs of the net - and can't contribute anything positive to the advance of humanity. They can only try to slime a young teen who has the courage to act.
What is Mr. Baker's bugbear? Mainly that Thunberg's causes like fighting climate change using serious tools (e.g. taxing carbon use) will "slow economic growth". This leads to perhaps his most egregious statement other than the false analogies with religion:
"While carbon heavy growth is damaging the planet, it is also producing the technological prowess to address the damage."
For which he cites not a single example other than a vague reference to China. (Which nation is indeed investing far more on solar energy than the U.S.). But in the end, unless carbon heavy growth is curtailed or stopped it will be our end, no doubts. This is apart from the fact of its increasing inefficiency which is actually contributing to slower growth, e.g..
$44 TRILLION in Deficits by 2024? Minus 15% Growt...
But at least Baker didn't put Greta at the center of a sinister plot. We must be thankful for small mercies in seeing a residue of intelligence where we can find it!
See also:
CLIMATE CHANGE
Greta Thunberg is a reminder of decades of climate
failures-
The youth movement sparked by Greta Thunberg and others wouldn't be necessary if elder generations hadn't squandered the opportunity for a relatively easy transition toward a stable climate future. Read more.
The youth movement sparked by Greta Thunberg and others wouldn't be necessary if elder generations hadn't squandered the opportunity for a relatively easy transition toward a stable climate future. Read more.
And:
by Chris Hedges | September 23, 2019 - 6:49am | permalink
And:
by Randall Amster | September 22, 2019 - 5:08am | permalink
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