Stop being so cautious Labour: make the election a referendum on net zero

Like showbiz, successful electoral politics needs swagger and a desire to run towards the sound of gunfire, not away from it

14 positive and powerful things everyone can do in relation to . I do believe if youre committed to everyone tackling it together and not keen on direct action these are all must-dos.

Something's up this month with caterpillars of the NZ magpie moth, mokarakara (Nyctemera annulata) in tautahi-Christchurch, .

These are the black hairy caterpillars that eat our groundsels (Senecio species).

Since 2007 I've been consistently recording every one of these I find. I've already seen more caterpillars this August so far than in all other Augusts put together. Their spring is starting way early.

Time will tell.

SOLASTALGIA - the existential distress that is produced by environmental change impacting on people while they are directly connected to their home environment. As opposed to nostalgia, the melancholia or homesickness experienced by individuals when separated from a loved home

Morning everyone

There was quite an array of responses to my post about cars vs bikes. Some useful and constructive, some more negative and snarky.

I looked back at what I typed and I don't think there was anything too controversial. I'm not a climate change denier and I was advocating the reduced use of cars too. I acknowledge society needs to change and quickly.

So, I don't understand the need for negativity. A sensible debate is all that's necessary.

A pretty on-the-nose metaphor for
Accurate down to the people sitting enjoying the sun gawping at the destruction until its too late for them to do anything to protect themselves.

My brilliant colleague Julia Mosquera wrote a piece about our work in the Spanish newspaper El Pas. She describes how can cause various , emotional reactions, and affective dilemmas. She highlights the importance of recognizing and respecting individual differences in emotional reactions, as we need constructive dialogue and finding common ground in addressing the challenges we face.

A summary in English (link to the article included):

International media have featured quite a few stories about tipping points in the system. Some of these reports have been worrying.

What is tipping and why it matters - a short summary from the EU project Tipping points in the Earth System.

Lake Titicaca waters, the world's highest navigable in the Andes, falls to historic levels.

Titicaca's water levels peaked in 1986 at 12,504.2 feet (3,811 metres) above sea level, about 12 feet (3.65 metres) higher than they are now.

The level of Lake Titicaca "has been progressively decreasing due to many meteorological, hydrological and climatic factors," and the outlook for the Uros people is not good.

(Photos from the lake taken in 2017)

Vu Londres

: "Lets start here: Yes, we will probably need carbon dioxide removal, or CDR, to meet the worlds and the countrys climate goals.

This wasnt always clear. When I started as a climate reporter in 2015, carbon removal was taboo, something that only climate deniers and other folks who wanted to delay decarbonization brought up. An influential Princeton study from earlier in the decade had concluded that carbon removal especially capturing carbon in the ambient air, a strategy called direct air capture, or DAC would never pencil out financially and that it would always be cheaper to reduce fossil-fuel use rather than suck carbon out of the sky.

But in 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change made a startling announcement: So much carbon dioxide had accumulated in the atmosphere that it would be virtually impossible to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius without carbon removal.

The IPCC studied global energy models and found that even in optimistic scenarios, humanity would release too much carbon by the middle of the century to keep temperatures from briefly rising by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. But if we began removing carbon from the atmosphere, then we could avoid locking in that spike in temperatures for the long term. That is, in order to hit the 1.5-degree goal by 2100, humanity must spend much of the 21st century removing carbon from the atmosphere and sequestering it for thousands of years.

We need carbon removal, in other words, not so we can keep burning fossil fuels, but to deal with the fossil-fuel pollution that is already in the atmosphere."

16 young Montanans sued their state over , using their states constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment and they won, in a first-of-its-kind trial.

Other states have similar rights in their state laws, and more are considering them.

(via )

Triste record : La temprature moyenne mondiale pour juillet 2023 est la plus leve jamais enregistre et probablement le mois le plus chaud depuis 100 000 ans !

And, oh how I want to say "You blinking fools. This was foretold over a decade ago. What have you been doing"
means more extreme weather events occurring more frequently. Premiums will skyrocket, or homes and businesses will become uninsurable.

Another interesting , with !

Did you know that is five times more expensive compared to power, per kWh
This is only one of many reasons why we should focus on power!

According to the we also need to:
- develop
- restore
- stop
- eat more food
to reduce - in a way which increases

Listen to it (in Swedish) here:

This would be hilariously funny if not tragically these imbeciles have most likely spawned more imbeciles. Meaning the imbecile gene remains in the human race

It's the smoking industry playbook.

With the difference that the healthcare costs caused are small change compared to

Its the End of as We Know It. : NY Times

and : Medium

: Assessment on the Potential of Sustainable Upscaling for , and the : UNEP

Check our latest

We don't talk enough about how working from home,if you're able to, is good for reducing carbon emissions.

We drink a lot of & if trends continue, consumption will double (again) by 2050, but currently coffee consumption is (again) outstriping production.

So, the Q,s are:
a. Can (and should) production be expanded
b. What will be the impact of on production
c. Is a continuation of consumption of a stimulant necessarily neutral in health terms

and finally, how much more will your cup of coffee be costing you in the future

(and then there's the issues....)

In Montana, young environmental campaigners scored a landmark court victory when a judge decided that allowing fossil fuel development violated their constitutional right to a clean and healthy environment.

This is pretty damn awesome.

Montana youth sued their government over climate change and won. Heres why thats a big deal. - Inside Climate News

Paul Beckwith: Why We Should Expect Global Warming To Sky-Rocket During Next 1.5 Years: The Scary Science

It's still 85F/29C here at shortly before 10pm. (This is still considered Not Normal for the US Pacific NW, btw.) There's not enough time for all that heat to dissipate before sunrise, so we're in for another smoky baker tomorrow. LOL semi-pun sort of intended, best I can do at the moment when my brain is being lowkey climate-anxiety-potato.

I was listening to a lecture by Dr. Michael Sugrue on the topic of Hegel and his phenomenology of Geist. I wasn't fully paying attention as I was riding my to an appointment. The lecture mentioned Ralph Waldo Emerson's concept of the Over-soul , The spirit of a society. It brought to mind this shared task of tackling man made and how we must form a global collective, eschewing history and culture to face a universal challenge. Anyway, that's the Gist of it

Una nova frontera climtica

James Hansen, Makiko Sato, Reto Ruedy:

Aqu alguns apunts per millor que aneu al document

Es preveu una acceleraci de la taxa d'escalfament global a llarg termini en almenys un 50%, s a dir, almenys a 0,27 C/decenni, principalment a causa de la reducci dels aerosols artificials.

Quan comenci a passar l'hivern austral i el sol surti (ara s de nit) es trobar amb una disminuci de la coberta de gel mar, fet que propiciar un augment de l'absorci de la llum solar, augmentant aix el desequilibri energtic de la Terra i accelerant l'escalfament.

El desequilibri energtic de la Terra (EEI) s la causa de l'escalfament global. El gran desequilibri suggereix que cada mes durant la resta de l'any pot ser un nou rcord

+++ Time is up. (rt!)
Criminal biologist Dr. Mark Benecke presents the new measurements on environment & climate for autumn 2023 in the middle of the hottest summer since human memory This time live from the Linnean Society of London

In Deutsch.

With subtitles in all languages via yt subtitle function.

climate wildcard - Greenland melt lakes

Jason Box

12 min video

Greenland melt dynamics. A bunch of factors not in modeling.

Locals in turning to ice cream like it's some kind of protective talisman from the

... Waving a cone at the sky to try and ward off of the new triple-digit normal.

Having grown up in Texas, I don't get it - you can't beat the heat by scarfing down a stick of butter

everything is fine

Prof. Jason Box: Climate Wildcard - Greenland Melt Lakes

This is incredible..

Made this dumb little promo. I'm shit with video editing so everything has a meme quality to it.

Cartoon by David Pope 15 August 2023.

is on fire.
People are losing their homes.
People are .

wildfires are extremely serious.

We need to show some financial support for people displaced and for putting their lives on the line. In alone, there are over 360 as I write.

Here is the story: :

During July 2023, the US Department of Energy (DOE published an update to its Critical Materials Assessment.
The DOE has recommended a designation of near-critical for copper during the medium-term (2025-2035).