Looks like WordPress changed the rules: you can’t embiggen by clicking any more. You have to right-click and select “View Image” instead. Stupid WordPress. Time for the semiannual Gallery Update—that moment when, coddled by a comfy world devoid of trouble, you can dip into newly-uploaded visions of Wattsian dystopia for a bit of cold water […]
For three hours Moore had barely moved a muscle. He’d sat petrified as they stepped over Sengupta’s body and left him behind—the vampire in the lead, the biologist bumbling haplessly in her wake. He’d sat as the deck tilted a little, and a little more, some small abstract part of him marveling that his chair […]
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January ’21
• Future environmental conditions will be far more dangerous than currently believed. “The scale of the threats to the biosphere and all its lifeforms—including humanity—is in fact so great that it is difficult to grasp for even well-informed experts.” Popsci summary here.
• World’s insects suffering ‘death by a thousand cuts’. A series of papers in PNAS. Popsci summary here.
• Solar now cheapest electricity in history. Oil use still hasn’t peaked— and won’t without “stronger climate action”— but it’s something.
• 2020 hottest year in recorded history. Technically tied with 2016, but 2016 cheated by getting an El Niño boost.
December ’20
• Monarch butterflies are endangered under the ESA, but won’t get protection because ‘it costs too much’. Not the only such species, by a long shot.
• Mass die-off of birds in south-western US ’caused by starvation’. One guess what the drought that caused the starvation was caused by.
• Fighting the Covid recession by amping up fossil-fuel production. Imagine my surprise.
• Global human-made mass now exceeds all living biomass. This doesn’t even include landfills.
• Water now trading on the Stock Market. Hey, at least they haven’t monetized the air we breathe. Yet.
• EU’s biggest oil producer closes deal to shut down its entire oil industry. Legally binding on future governments and everything.
• November 202 hottest November on Record, beating out runners-up 2016 and 2019. During an El Nina no less, which acts to cool the planet.
• By 2030, world’s governments plan to produce more than double the fossil fuels than would be consistent with curbing global warming. Meeting even the half-assed Paris accords requires cutting fossil fuel production by 6% annually. Current plans: an annual increase of 2%.
• Media Reframes Projected Failure to Meet Carbon-Reduction Targets as Being ‘Within Striking Distance’ . If every country honors their pledges (which virtually none have done up to this point) we’re still looking at 2.1C increase by centuries’ end. But hey, let’s move the goalposts and call it a win.
• Cloned Meat Goes Commercial. Only in Singapore, so far. And highly carbon-intensive until it scales up. But in a world in which 96% of mammalian biomass is people and livestock, it’s a start.
November ’20
• Once covid passes, we plan on driving even more. We’re a bit more restrained when it comes to flying, at least. Be still my heart.
October ’20
• A fifth of the world’s countries are in danger of ecosystem collapse. Odd. I didn’t realize that “ecosystems” respected international boundaries…
• Arctic methane deposits starting to release, scientists find. Preliminary findings. Still awaiting confirmation. But if true, another cascade has begun.
• China pledges Carbon-neutrality by 2060. The bad news is, talk is cheap from the world’s biggest coal-burner. Good news is, totalitarian regimes can turn on a dime if they really want to. None of that messy pandering-to-the-voter bullshit.
• Over half the Great Barrier Reef has disappeared since the nineties. As usual, this estimate is conservative; it doesn’t include major bleaching events over the past year.
• California wildfires spawn first ‘gigafire’ in modern history. One fire, one-million-plus acres.
• Climate change could tip 1.45 million km2 of Amazonian rainforest to savannah by century’s end. Admittedly a conservative estimate. Popsci coverage here.
September ’20
• World fails to meet a single one of the UN’s 2010 Aichi biodiversity targets to put the brakes on global ecocide. Not a single fucking one. Report here.
• Northern Hemisphere’s 2020 summer hottest in recorded history.
• Global wildlife populations down by 68% since 1970. Two thirds down, one to go.
August ’20
• Greenland Ice Sheet has passed Point of No Return. Already the largest single contributor to rising sea levels. Now there’s no Off switch.
• Rising temperatures on track to kill as many people as all current infectious diseases combined. Original paywalled study here.
July ’20 and earlier
• Forget future development; emissions resulting from projects already committed/underway mean we can kiss 1.5°C goodbye as an attainable target.
• Covid Means Fewer Children!. Even better, the fertility decline preferentially affects those with the biggest carbon bootprints (i.e., urbanites in rich countries).
• 2020: the worst year ever for the fossil fuel industry. “We’re still in for a long and ugly fight”, they admit. Still.
• Virtual extinction of Polar bears within eighty years due to climate change. But it’s not all bad. A few straggly survivors may be all Coca Cola needs to keep its advertising campaign within the bounds of good taste.
• Green power beats fossil fuels for first time in Europe. Still less than half, and pandemic-temporary. But something. Also when there’s a renewables surplus they pay you to consume electricity.
• Unsuitable for ‘human life to flourish’: Up to 3B will live in extreme heat by 2070.
• Record-breaking Siberian winter keeps 2020 on track to be hottest year in recorded history. Covid Pause? What Covid pause?
• It hit 80F in the Arctic this week. Not to mention the zombie fires.
• 2019: the Hottest Year in Europe’s Recorded History.
• Ecuador To Sell A Third Of Its Amazon Rainforest To Chinese Oil Companies.
• Amazon could switch from carbon sink to carbon source within twenty years.. “Decades ahead of even the most pessimistic climate models.”
• The Great Barrier Reef is experiencing its third mass-bleaching event in five years.. Hey, just because nobody’s talking about it doesn’t mean it’s stopped happening.
• E.P.A., Citing Coronavirus, Drastically Relaxes Rules for Polluters. But it’s okay, because they’re also asking companies to “act responsibly”.
• Australian Bushfires destroyed over a fifth of the continent’s temperate broadleaf forests. This year alone. Who knows what next year might bring?
• Global carbon emissions fall 2%. It’s pathetic progress and utterly insufficient, but I’ll take what I can get.
• Australia’s Bushfires Completely Blasted Through the Models. They weren’t supposed to get this bad for another eighty years.
• A quarter of climate-change tweets are from bots. The vast majority of them denialist.
• January 2019 warmest in recorded history.
• Good news for a change: Global emissions didn’t increase in 2019.
• Climate change displaced 17.2 million from their homes in 2019.
• Atmospheric triflouromethane—a greenhouse gas 12,000x worse than CO2— reaches record levels.
• We’re currently adding 5 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat per second to the world’s oceans. And climbing.
• Climate threats now dominate long-term risks. Global leaders finally admit risks outweigh those from cyberattacks, pandemics, geopolitical conflict and weapons of mass destruction. Well, duh.
• Earth just had its hottest decade on record. NASA’s Gavin Schmidt admits 1.5C goal unattainable.
• 2019 UN Emissions Gap Report (global emissions have to drop by 7.6% annually starting now or we’re even more fucked).
• 3.2C unless emission-control efforts tripled.
• Greenhouse gases accelerated to new peak in 2018.
• Nature: Predicted extent of global flooding is triple previous estimates.