Despite what apologists for capitalism (some even here on Mastodon!) would have you believe, it is possible for humans to live comfortably and sustainably within a system that does not rely on deception, oppression, and exploitation.
It’s important to remember that capitalism is an extremely recent invention. For almost all of humanity's 200,000+ years of existence, we got along just fine without it, living mostly in harmony with our surroundings.
Our only hope at this point is to get rid of the system that is literally killing us. It’s a matter of survival not only for humans but for countless other animal and plant species being sacrificed on the altar of maximum profits and infinite growth.
We're seeing now what happens when you pump a trillion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in only a few decades, heating the ocean to levels never seen in human history and threatening the survival of everything that makes our lives possible.
More than 90% of excess heat trapped in the Earth system due to human-caused global warming has been absorbed by the oceans. But as the ocean continues to warm like the rest of the planet, its waters are projected to become less efficient at taking in carbon dioxide and could then release it back into the atmosphere more rapidly.
The past is gone. Continue to hope and work for the best, but prepare for the worst.
Burning an insane amount of fossil fuels and adding trillions of tons of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere means our planet is now absorbing much more heat from the sun instead of reflecting it back into space.
Earth's energy imbalance is way out of whack. And all that heat has to go somewhere.
Most of it, for now, into the oceans...
In 2023, the world's oceans took up an enormous amount of excess heat, enough to "boil away billions of Olympic-sized swimming pools," according to an annual report published Thursday.
Oceans cover 70% of the planet and have kept the Earth's surface livable by absorbing 90% of the excess heat produced by the carbon pollution from human activity since the dawn of the industrial age.
In 2023, the oceans soaked up around 9 to 15 zettajoules more than in 2022, according to estimates from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Chinese Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP).
One zettajoule of energy is roughly equivalent to ten times the electricity generated worldwide in a year.
In 2023, sea surface temperature and the energy stored in the upper 2000 meters of the ocean both reached record highs, according to the study published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences.
The amount of energy stored in the oceans is a key indicator of global warming because it is less affected by natural climate variability than sea surface temperature.
Because Earth's oceans are so big and so deep, it takes an immense amount of heat to warm them even a few degrees. But that's what we have accomplished.
And — because the oceans are so big and so deep, the changes we are causing in them are essentially irreversible. We'll have to live, or die, with the consequences of our foolish behaviors.
“Astounding” ocean temperatures in 2023 supercharged “freak” weather around the world as the climate crisis continued to intensify, new data has revealed.
The oceans absorb 90% of the heat trapped by the carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, making it the clearest indicator of global heating. Record levels of heat were taken up by the oceans in 2023, scientists said, and the data showed that for the past decade the oceans have been hotter every year than the year before.
The heat also led to record levels of stratification in the oceans, where warm water ponding on the surface reduces the mixing with deeper waters. This cuts the amount of oxygen in the oceans, threatening marine life, and also reduces the amount of carbon dioxide and heat the seas can take up in the future.
Humanity's insane experiment in planetary modification is literally murderous, triggering a new mass extinction event...
As we continue to funnel the exhaust from fossil fuels into our atmosphere, the excess heat is changing the ocean's chemistry and reducing its capacity to hold oxygen. A new study takes into account the well-studied relationship between oxygen, temperature, and the physiological limits of different species; the conclusion suggests our current warming trajectory will lead to a mass extinction at a scale we've not seen since the loss of non-avian dinosaurs.
This is without even taking into account further changes in marine chemistry that will follow – ocean acidification – which will wipe out even more species.
Today warming is already driving marine life towards cooler seas, dropping levels of ocean oxygen globally, bleaching reefs, decimating kelp forests and, in weird blobs of warm water, suffocating masses of animals to death.
"Climate change is, in effect, walking species off the ends of the Earth," wrote Rutgers University ecologists Malin Pinsky and Alexa Fredston.
It's an unprecedented experiment in planetary modification, conducted by the Global North and to the detriment (mostly, for now) of the Global South. Let's burn an insane amount of fossil fuels, adding trillions of tons of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, and see what happens.
One of the most dangerous long-term effects is a change in ocean temperature and chemistry...
The ocean temperatures in 2023 have once again shattered records, and the warming trend will persist throughout this century, even if greenhouse gas emissions were to be halted, according to a new study.
Research was conducted by a multinational team of scientists from 17 institutes, spanning China, the United States, New Zealand, Italy, and France. They found that last year was the hottest on record for the world's oceans for the fifth consecutive year.
Cheng Lijing, a researcher at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences and lead author of the study, said ocean warming is a key indicator for quantifying climate change, as more than 90% of global heat ends up in the oceans.
The impact of this is an increase in water temperatures. According to the study, the global average sea surface temperature in 2023 showed a notable rise of 0.23 degrees Celsius compared to the previous year, 2022.
Ocean warming will reduce oxygen in seawater and its ability to take up carbon dioxide, leading to severe consequences for ocean plant and animal life, said the study.
It can also supercharge the weather. The extra heat and moisture that enters the atmosphere make storms more severe, with heavier rain, stronger winds, and more significant flooding.
According to the scientists, ocean warming is an irreversible phenomenon that will persist throughout this century, even if greenhouse gas emissions could be stopped.
<sigh> Business As Usual will go on into the foreseeable future...
Global coal usage in 2023 hit a record high, surpassing 8.5 billion tons for the first time, on the back of strong demand in emerging and developing countries such as India and China. There are no signs of a slowdown, with the International Energy Agency saying coal consumption in India and Southeast Asia is projected to “grow significantly.”
China and India’s growing economies will continue to fuel demand for coal even as they set ambitious renewable energy targets. While China is the world’s largest energy consumer, India is ranked third globally, and both countries are the top consumers of coal as they strive to fuel economic growth.
“If India and China are still growing economically at decent rates for the next decade, we’re not going to see coal demand disappearing anytime soon, globally,” said Ian Roper, commodity strategist at Astris Advisory.
"Big Oil Launches Propaganda Campaign to Thwart US Energy Transition"
The American oil lobby launched an eight-figure media campaign this week promoting the idea that fossil fuels are “vital” to global energy security, alarming climate experts.
“US natural gas and oil play a key role in supplying the world with cleaner, more reliable energy,” the new initiative’s website says. The campaign comes amid record fossil fuel extraction in the US, and as the industry is attempting to capitalize on the war in Gaza to escalate production even further, climate advocates say.
Launched Tuesday by the nation’s top fossil fuel interest group, the campaign will work to “dismantle policy threats” to the sector, said American Petroleum Institute CEO Mike Sommers.
In a CNN interview, Sommers said clean energy can currently only play a limited role. “Renewable sources have a role to play, but oil and natural gas will be needed for decades,” he said.
The ad blitz comes after US oil production reached a record high in 2023, which was also the hottest year ever recorded.
“We’re already moving in the wrong direction on fossil fuels,” said Tim Roberts, professor of environment and sociology at Brown University. “They want to push us further.”
No matter how difficult and how painful it will prove to be, the only sensible choice right now is for the world to unite as one and agree that it is time to totally break our addiction to fossil fuels.
But this almost certainly will never happen.
Even if the UN General Assembly voted in favor, that still would not happen. Why? Because the US capitalist empire would never allow it, and the United Nations is essentially powerless to enforce anything.
And it’s not only the US. It’s also Norway, Sweden, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Canada, Australia, India, China, Japan, South Korea — on and on and on and on.
Virtually every nation-state in the world is far too invested in capitalism’s fever dream of endless growth to ever consider calling a halt or urging their citizens to adopt a carbon-free lifestyle.
Instead we’ll simply carry on with Business As Usual, with politicians making their phony pledges and corporations doing their greenwashing, and with temperatures rising and ecosystems declining and species dying, while billionaires turn into trillionaires.
You know what’s awesome about Business As Usual? Not only is our biosphere being trashed, and not only are countless species of plants and animals disappearing forever — but the world’s richest men are getting even richer!!!
The world’s five richest men have more than doubled their fortunes to $869 billion (£681 billion) since 2020, while the world’s poorest 60% – almost five billion people – have lost money.
The details come in a report by Oxfam as the world’s richest people gather in Davos, Switzerland, for the annual World Economic Forum meeting of political leaders, corporate executives, and the super-rich.
The yawning gap between rich and poor is likely to increase, the report says, and will lead to the world crowning its first trillionaire within a decade. At the same time, it warns, if current trends continue, world poverty will not be eradicated for another 229 years.
I must admit that climate denial makes me angry. Some nobody, with no training/education in the climate sciences, cries out that the science of climate change is wrong ... gives a false & dumb reason ... while people are dying bc of the #ClimateCrisis.
One of the major worries about climate tipping points is that it’s impossible for anyone, even the smartest of scientists, to say with any certainty just how soon each of them will be reached, or what happens then.
Might one tipping point trigger another?
Yes, probably, but we don’t for sure which ones or exactly how. And we can’t really predict the timing or the magnitude of positive feedbacks and cascading effects, when multiple tipping points could overlap and reinforce and possibly amplify each other.
It’s not the fault of the scientists. They’re doing their best with the evidence and the tools they have. But it’s all quite unpredictable because they have never been in this position before. No one ever has.
What human industry has done since 1990, pumping nearly a trillion tons of CO2 into the air, has no precedent. Never before in Earth’s history has so much carbon dioxide been added to the atmosphere over such a short period of time.
Because human lifespans are short, 34 years may seem like a long time to us — but in geological terms, that’s merely the blink of an eye. On such a scale, it’s literally as if we have detonated a BOMB.
From an article about "tipping points" posted yesterday at SciTechDaily...
Climate tipping points are critical junctures in Earth’s environmental systems, where minor yet pivotal changes can lead to irreversible and dramatic shifts. These changes, ranging from melting ice caps to the demise of coral reefs, are direct consequences of global warming.
In essence, climate tipping points are elements of the Earth system in which small changes can kick off reinforcing loops that ‘tip’ a system from one stable state into a profoundly different state.
For example, a rise in global temperatures because of fossil fuel burning, further down the line triggers a change like a rainforest becoming a dry savannah. This change is propelled by self-perpetuating feedback loops, even if what was driving the change in the system stops. The system – in this case the forest – may remain ‘tipped’ even if the temperature falls below the threshold again.
On top of that, the crossing of one tipping point could lead to the triggering of further tipping elements – unleashing a domino-effect chain reaction and could lead to some places becoming less suitable for sustaining human and natural systems.
So, the Arctic is warming almost four times faster than anywhere else in the world, accelerating ice melt from the Greenland Ice Sheet and the melting of Arctic sea ice.
This in turn could be what is slowing down the ocean’s circulation of heat, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), in turn impacting the monsoon system over South America. Monsoon changes may be contributing to the rising frequency of droughts over the Amazon rainforest, lowering its carbon storage capacity and intensifying climate warming.
The impacts of such a ‘tipping cascade,’ crossing multiple climate tipping points, could be severe and widespread.
This stuff is hard. I mean, it’s hard for scientists to always understand what’s happening in our complex and extremely messed-up biosphere. They’re trying their best, but it’s not easy.
More unpleasant surprises lie ahead, no doubt.
Climate scientists don’t like surprises. It means our deep understanding of how the climate works isn’t quite as complete as we need. But unfortunately, as climate change worsens, surprises and unprecedented events keep happening.
In March 2022, Antarctica experienced an extraordinary heatwave. Large swathes of East Antarctica experienced temperatures up to 40°C (72°F) above normal, shattering temperature records. It was the most intense heatwave ever recorded anywhere in the world.
So shocking and rare was the event, it blew the minds of the Antarctic climate science community. A major global research project was launched to unravel the reasons behind it and the damage it caused.
The results are alarming. But they provide scientists a deeper understanding of the links between the tropics and Antarctica – and give the global community a chance to prepare for what a warmer world may bring.
This extraordinary heatwave shows how compounding weather events in the tropics can affect the vast Antarctic ice sheet. The heatwave further reduced the extent of sea ice, which was already at record lows. This loss of sea ice was exacerbated this year, resulting in the lowest summer and winter sea ice ever recorded. It shows how disturbances in one year can compound in later years.
The event also demonstrated how tropical heat can trigger the collapse of unstable ice shelves. Floating ice shelves don’t contribute to global sea-level rise, but they acts as dams to the ice sheets behind them, which do contribute.
This research contributes another piece to the complex jigsaw puzzle of climate change. And reminds us that delays to action on climate change will raise the price we pay.
The Guardian: “Astounding” ocean temperatures in 2023 supercharged “freak” weather around the world as the climate crisis continued to intensify, new data has revealed.
‘Astounding’ #ocean#temperatures in 2023 intensified #ExtremeWeather, data shows - Record levels of #heat were absorbed last year by Earth’s #seas, which have been #warming year-on-year for the past decade - The #oceans absorb 90% of the heat trapped by the #carbon#emissions from the burning of #FossilFuels, making it the clearest indicator of #GlobalHeating. Record levels of heat were taken up by the oceans in 2023, scientists said, and the data showed that for the past decade the oceans have been hotter every year than the year before."
Here is part of a review of Greta Thunberg's "The Climate Book" that I hadn't seen before...
Structured in five parts, The Climate Book walks its reader through the basic facts essential to understanding the decision we face today and then provides concrete steps for how one might — and must — move beyond dialogue to act. Thunberg begins with the fundamental science about how climate works, including readable primers on carbon dioxide and our evolutionary impact. She then traces how our planet is changing, from excessive heat and methane to oceanic and glacial dynamics, the proliferation of microplastics, the erosion of biodiversity, and more.
Thunberg does not claim to do what she cannot. She is not a geophysicist, an oceanographer, an economist, a historian, a physician, an Indigenous leader, a policymaker, or even a young adult of drinking age in the United States. While she has earned honorary degrees, she has not attended university herself, as she’s been purposefully busy in myriad other ways. The Climate Book is not the least of these endeavors. At 464 pages, the edited volume includes contributions from an impressive list of experts.
One of the most inspiring essays comes from George Monbiot and Rebecca Wrigley, who advocate for “rewilding,” both by allowing ecosystems to restore themselves naturally without interference and by getting back to nature ourselves. They insist that “we can replace our silent spring with a raucous summer.” From climate justice on a societal level down to the logical, manageable, evidence-based sacrifices that we each must make, we have a project on our hands.
It is wholly appropriate that this volume should simultaneously speak to our sharing a single planet while also reminding us that we are not all in the same boat. That is, we experience climate change differently, depending on our geography and resources. Some bear more responsibility for the circumstances we find ourselves in. Thunberg calls out “people living in rich economies who still act as if they rule the world” before she gives voice to authors who share perspectives and challenges from Bangladesh, Jamaica, El Salvador, Chad, Brazil, and more.
@breadandcircuses
As someone born in Arica, in the northernmost part of Chile, it's a bit of a shame that the English article fails to portray the wordplay and multiple meanings of Desierto Vestido (desert dress, dressed desert, deserted dress) and thus the probable creativity in their work.
The "No votar basura" is probably also such a word-play, although in no way certain. Chilean Spanish often switches the pronunciation of b and v (: