On February 14, 2021 north Texas was hit by back-to-back “unprecedented” deep-freezing storms Uri and Viola wiping out electrical power for all 254 counties across the entire state of Texas. The temperature bottomed out at −2° Fahrenheit (−19 °C) on Tuesday the 16th, temperatures the outdated equipment, the grid, and high-demand for statewide heat could not handle. Personally, I did not have my electrical power restored until Sunday, Feb. 20th, six days later. Hot water wasn’t restored until late the following day. The internet/WiFi was not restored till Wednesday, Feb. 24th. I was one of the very fortunate 4.3-million Texans without power or heat. Way too many less fortunate Texans are only now getting clean pure water delivered or restored to their homes.
Since 2002 when the Texas Senate deregulated electricity for most of the state, Texans have had a host of REP’s to buy their power from. That does not include who transmits and delivers it. There are five providers distributing electricity to the state and they are supervised by ERCOT, or the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. This supervision includes state-wide emergencies such as February’s two back-to-back arctic blasts. According to several Texas news reports, we were only a few hours away from total long-term collapse of the state’s five power grids serving approximately 29-million customers.
For most wireless phone customers and social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter they were blitzed with anti-science propaganda memes and comments. Many of these particular subscribers posted photos of deep snow drifts and hard ice with a footnote such as “Global Warming? Really?” Another was “If this is a warming planet, then we have three Moons at night! (rolling eyes emoji).” Unquestionably, these remarks were simply gross demonstrations of premature, short-sighted, uneducated arrogance.
Some of you who follow my blog have attained and maintain at least a high school AP-level or higher grasp of Earth Science and our planet’s interacting, interlocking meteorological-ecological systems. You also understand quite well Earth’s growing, intensifying tantrums to humanity’s repeated disregard to her sickly alarms. You know and understand how to read and analyze the exhaustive meteorological and oceanic data. You comprehend the supporting evidence accumulated for two centuries and more importantly over the last 20-30 years. Weather records undeniably show we are trending, headed in one direction if we continue with business as usual.
For those of us who properly discern and follow science, and the over 11,000 climatologists, meteorologists, and oceanographers along with marine biologists in 153 nations, we and those experts have all been warning every First-world nation as well as friends and families exactly what is happening: the early symptoms are the Impending Cataclysm, speeding to the point of no return. Consequential Climate Change is here without question. The first signs of critical climate change are more extreme weather events. If Earth and humanity are not at the No Return door, we are certainly on the front porch.
What Texans and most of the American Southwest and Southeast endured those 2-weeks from Uri and Viola—storms the ordinary Texas customers were wretchedly unprotected and marginalized by the five TDU’s and ERCOT—were events essentially identical to what the world’s collective atmospheric and marine scientists had been repeatedly warning us about over the last 15-20 years: that all four seasons will become increasingly extreme, increasingly uncharacteristic, most notably winters and summers.
Although the scientific community would not officially announce, “Told you so,” we all know they were completely justified in saying it. Unfortunately, the warnings these expert scientists declared many years ago while dedicating their career-lives studying Earth’s changing climate and ecosystems—which by the way feed and sustain all living creatures on this planet, including most of all we Homo sapiens equally so—their warnings had fallen upon the apathetic deaf ears of governments and corporate industrialists with their sociopolitical cohort-base.
Earth Isn’t Warming Because Cold Weather and Snowstorms Still Occur!
This popular opinion is categorically false. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine based in Washington D.C. is an organization of three honorific societies—the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), National Academy of Engineering (NAE), and National Academy of Medicine (NAM). Joined together these academies “marshal knowledge and expertise across disciplines to study complex and sometimes contentious issues, reach consensus based on the evidence, and identify the best path forward.“ The academies, or NASEM, concluded years ago that frigid temperature drops and snowstorms are not evidence against climate change or global warming:
Cold conditions—even bitter cold—can still happen in a warming world. For example, record low temperatures plunged the Midwest into a deep freeze in late January 2019. But at any given time, the weather in one area may or may not reflect global trends. […]
One way to see this trend is to look at how often new daily high and low temperature records are set. Daily temperatures are measured at hundreds of weather stations around the globe. In the United States, high and low records at weather stations were set at about the same rate in the 1950s. Yet since the late 1960s, the number of record daily high temperatures measured each year has been increasing at a faster rate than record daily low temperatures. This shift is largely due to far fewer record daily low temperatures in recent decades. That pattern was evident in January 2019, when there were 17 cold record temperatures set around the world and 269 heat records.
NASEM – Based on Science: Climate Change, “Cold weather still happens in a warming world,” published March 9, 2020. Accessed 2/26/2021.
The fact that there are still climate change deniers today reflects one of two things: 1) a very poor education and understanding of Earth Science, particularly where and how meteorology fits into and interacts with other Earth-systems. Or 2) self-appointed ignorance. I am not going to take readers through a course all of us should’ve completed in middle school and high school. However, for the sake of all non-scientific superstitious believers who are barely novices regarding climate, I will share this quick 4-minute video that explains how Earth’s weather system functions:
Nevertheless, global warming is indeed making weather events more extreme and more frequent. This is a no brainer. Scientists know that since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution ca. 1760, human civilization and manufacturing have significantly contributed to global warming and climate change. Those sectors of industry and manufacturing have expelled untold cubic tons of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide into Earth’s atmosphere for well over 250-years.
Because of human industry and waste, less and less heat from our Sun escapes the atmosphere returning back out into space. This entrapment of solar heat is commonly known as the Greenhouse Effect. One of the symptoms of increased Greenhouse gases pumped into our atmosphere are extreme weather events:
As Earth’s climate has warmed, a new pattern of more frequent and more intense weather events has unfolded around the world. Scientists identify these extreme weather events based on the historical record of weather in a particular region. They consider extreme weather events to be those that produce unusually high or low levels of rain or snow, temperature, wind, or other effects. Typically, these events are considered extreme if they are unlike 90% or 95% of similar weather events that happened before in that same area.
Global warming [contributes] to the intensity of heat waves by increasing the chances of very hot days and nights. Warming air also boosts evaporation, which can worsen drought. More drought creates dry fields and forests that are prone to catching fire, and increasing temperatures mean a longer wildfire season. Global warming also increases water vapor in the atmosphere, which can lead to more frequent heavy rain and snowstorms.
NASEM – Based on Science: Climate Change, “Global warming is contributing to extreme weather events,” published August 5, 2019. Accessed 2/26/2021.
Let’s not forget what great achievements have been made in science and medicine/health that have greatly bestowed a better, safer, happier, and longer life-span to the human race than ever before prior. The same science is telling us, no… screaming at us unequivocally that we must change our energy-life habits or soon suffer unimaginable hardships, irreparable devastation, and death for our generation. It also means the same and likely much worse consequences for several future generations, including your own children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. This assumes of course that your grandchildren survive what’s coming and your great grandchildren even exist at that future time.
Humanity’s Greatest Achievements in Science and Medicine
- Vaccines (1796)
- Penicillin (1928)
- Genome editing (2012)
- RNA Sequencing (2006)
- Anesthesia (1846)
- Medical imaging (1895)
- Organ transplants (1954)
- Electricity (1750’s)
- Teamwork/Psychology and Diplomacy (1879 or sooner)
- Antiviral drugs (1960’s)
- Immunotherapy (1970’s)
- Artificial Intelligence (21st century)
- Germ theory (1861)
- Interplanetary travel (1960’s)
If humanity’s existence has ever been more improved, more advanced, more knowledgeable, more intelligent, and progressively more civilized, it has been accomplished through the many disciplines of science, not superstitions. Granted, several scientific advances have been made and used for war, for genocide and other atrocities, but over all recorded human history it has been the contributions of science and medicine that have made our existence on Earth more tolerable, and significantly safer as the above list attests. Applying those sciences to Global Warming and Climate Change is what will save the human race, all plants and animals (what’s left of them), and save Earth from becoming a barren planet versus a living, thriving green and Pale-blue planet.
Why Are Scientific Facts, Proofs, and Accumulated Evidence Still Unconvincing to Doubters and Deniers Today?
Have you ever found yourself in a conversation among friends, family, or strangers at a public gathering and someone in the group begins speaking on a topic as if they are the supreme authority on the matter? For example, if I began speaking as if I was an experienced F-22 Raptor pilot with 2-3 tours of duty and then someone asked me where I trained, what squadron and wing I was piloting in, and I answered truthfully “I’ve never stepped into an F-22 cockpit or simulator.” How would that affect the validity of everything I just rattled off? Or a topic I am indeed quite experienced, over 28-years, trained, played, and awarded… soccer or football to the rest of the world, and I was trying to assist a new American fan to learn and understand how offsides worked in a game. How does that affect the veracity of what I speak to others? It seems today the term “expert” is often too liberally thrown around and/or assumed when it is not deserved. This is why I always look to and consult the true “experts” of a particular field of inquiry, i.e. climatology, meteorology, biology, etc. Case and point, Katharine Hayhoe:
Hayhoe explains in her video that often when scientific facts and data are used to argue or convince others of very real Climate Change and Global Warming, they perceive it as a personal attack. Okay, fine. But what else is going on psychologically with the Doubter-Denier? It is literally impossible to be an “expert” in every discipline of science or every possible occupation in the work force or business world. Duh, right? Therefore, why is it such a struggle to plainly, publicly admit/confess that one is NOT an expert in any particular field or specialty? If you have not spent several decades or a lifetime studying and experimenting with theories in a specific field or discipline on an annual basis, then why pretend to speak as someone you are clearly not? Isn’t that an ethical issue for the Pretender?
Therefore, just shut up and quit pretending to be someone you are not! Simple, right? No. Sadly, too many people of the Internet Social-media Age hold themselves in very high-regard and spew out unfounded and/or erroneous information. Honest discretion is becoming a dying art in this age of hyper-technology and Fly-by-Night Ph.D’s. Internet Wizards of Oz are now a pandemic at the expense of true, merited experts from highly reputable institutions of academia.
To conclude, if you are unaware of what exactly “Global Weirding” entails, then here is a common definition. It is a complimentary term to Global Warming which reflects causes by climate change and will subsequently cause various weather-related extremes, including both severe, often unprecedented hot and cold weather. Our four seasons become increasingly more intense, shortened or lengthened, and are more catastrophic over time, unless the Greenhouse gases are reduced and/or stopped being expelled into our atmosphere. The alternative?
Newsflash Texans and Americans! Expect more frequent winter storms like Uri and Viola, as well as Category 4 and 5 hurricanes every 2-4 years instead of every century, what used to be the norm. Those years and decades are gone unless humanity collectively changes our energy-habits and lifestyle. Otherwise, Mother Earth is going to turn into the most vengeful Bitch ever imagined and lay waste to life as we know it. She will humble our arrogance, apathy, and ignorance without a second thought or a bit of sympathy. Guaranteed. She is trying to warn us. Are we going to listen and heed her anger?
∼ ∼ ∼ § ∼ ∼ ∼
If you would like more extensive scientific information, reports, and facts compiled over two decades, go here: the IPCC, or Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. There you will find regular assessments of the scientific basis of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for adaptation and mitigation.
Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always
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The Professor's Convatorium 
Great post. Also, good to see you got through that mess.
Climate denial is an organized attack. It is a political stance. It is conpiracy theory shit gone haywire. Oil money flows through Faux News and the like, and greases the palms of politicians, with the intent to sow discord against the climate science. Hell science itself, not just climate science, is being eroded by intentional stupidity.
The rubes, predictably, just play along.
Which is also why we still have religion, as well as Q-anon and orange idiot supporters.
Greed and stupidity, are the only three words necessary for the tombstone of our planet.
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I managed to get to some friend’s house about 30-miles outside of Dallas and during the relative calm between winter storm Uri and Viola. Their power was from a small, separate Co-Op independent of the five BIG power distributors so they had everything working the whole time during both storms. Many many people throughout the state were not so lucky. Several cities/towns were having to boil water because of broken contaminated water pipes.
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Well, climate is complicated, and complicated things are difficult for dumb people to understand, and right-wingers tend to be toward the dumber end of the bell-shaped curve. In some cases the models actually predict that the warming climate will lead to lower local temperatures — for example, western Europe will get colder because global warming will weaken the Gulf Stream.
They tend to take factual arguments as personal attacks because lately they’ve made certain crank beliefs part of their very sense of identity (not really surprising — they and their ancestors have been doing that with religion for centuries), so any argument against those beliefs comes across to them as an attack on who they are. It doesn’t help that the wingnut media have convinced them that everything they don’t like, often including science, is part of some vast evil conspiracy.
The global-warming-denialist percentage of the US population is trending downward over time, so people are getting it, but there is always that hard core of people who reject reality, even if it’s shrinking. If nothing is done to harden the Texas power system, the next such major winter storm may actually lead to that “total long-term collapse of the state’s five power grids”. Then, some more people will get it, though others will still blame windmills.
As for the greatest achievements in science and medicine, don’t forget modern contraception, which freed women from the animalistic cycle of repeated unplanned pregnancy and hugely broadened their options in life. Or the H-bomb, which has saved tens of millions of lives by ending the practice of all-out wars between superpowers, by making them too dangerous for politicians to risk.
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Yes! Contraception is another HUGE breakthrough for women and more control of their bodies—well, after assaulters and rapists took what they wanted. But those crimes are being outed and punished now too, more than ever in the past. Progress.
Excellent feedback Infidel. Thank you Sir. 🙂
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Very well written and this article should be required reading for everyone out there. Climate change science should not be controversial. This stuff is about as basic as it gets. There is no guess work here, this isn’t somebody’s opinion, this is all based on hard fact. We know how CO2 and methane and other gasses can trap heat. We can calculate the amount of heat they will trap based on their percentages in the atmosphere, we know how much of the stuff we produce. I remember reading an old magazine, I think it was a Popular Mechanics, going back to WWII, where a scientist from one of the big oil companies was already warning people about what would happen if we kept on burning oil and coal in unlimited quantities.
Even more upsetting is that if we’d invested even a small fraction of the world’s military budgets into dealing with the problem we could have gone a long way to solve it, and we could have done so without disrupting the economy and without altering people’s life style.
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All great points Grouchy. I’m in total agreement. The science is indisputably clear, isn’t it?
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Excellent post!
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Thank you Jeff. 🙂
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“complicated things are difficult for dumb people to understand”
Ahh, so you are aware of my algebra deficiency? Yes! I admit it!
…the blaming of the wind turbines, that really surprised me. I had no idea they(R’s and Texas R’s specifically) could be that henious. Blatant, intentional, unforgivable. Unless you can convince me they are just that stupid.
So, as an honorary Texan, I was born in Austin, let me ask a Texan a question. How do you feel about the Ted Cruz Cancun fiasco?
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The Cruz Cancun debacle? It merely showed the man’s true nature, true character, i.e. Trumpism=Egotism, and that degradation has now become all too prevalent within the Republican Party. Just look at all the Republican Congressmen who denounced Trump’s incited insurrection in January and now have done complete 180° reversals. It is beyond reprehensible for a public servant who vowed to uphold our Constitution! 😠
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I wish they had focused upon one of the consequences of global atmospheric warming, namely it creates weather chaos. Ask any farmer if what he desires is weather chaos.
And as to the flat earthers, et. al. it is clear that facts are irrelevant. When one has been conned it is shown that when one is presented with contradicting facts, one is more likely to double-down on the conn, so that approach doesn’t work. I suggest ridicule. “You have no idea what you are talking about, do you?” That also won’t work very well, but at least we will feel a bit better for calling out a bullshit artist. :o) It was ridicule and social approbation that got overt racists to shut up. Unfortunately the anonymity of the Internet has allowed them to be vocal again. But the ridicule and approbation worked. Maybe they will again.
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If we don’t get through the hardened, insensitive hearts and thick-skulled brains Steve, then what are the alternatives? A dying Earth where no one wins, no one survives? There are not too many options remaining at this very, VERY late point… other than Mother Earth reaping a shit-storm vengeance upon us. 😬
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There will always be “hardened, insensitive hearts and thick-skulled brains”, but they, and leaders in thrall to them, don’t need to be in power.
The practical problem is not so much ignorant idiots as leaders who pander to ignorant idiots, like Trump or Bolsonaro. Biden listens to scientists. So do Merkel, Johnson, Macron, even Modi and Xi and Putin. We should focus less on converting the morons and more on out-voting them.
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Hey, two Canadians mentioned: Hayhoe (a born again but fine climate scientist who is accepted by evangelical community as ‘one of their own’), and Alberta’s very own Ted Cruz who, much to Canada’s eternal gratitude, moved south in so many ways. You guys are so lucky!
Tildeb replies:
Well… I’m going to explain how and why this is actually the case and how you can see it happening on a daily basis! Lucky you!
Because the spherical earth rotates beneath a layer of gas – the atmosphere – and parts are much warmer than other parts due to the angle of sunlight on each square meter of surface, very clear wind patterns are created where the different temperature air masses – between the pole and the equator – come into contact. The greater the temperature difference between the two, the ‘straighter’ this border will be. So how do we see this border and why does that matter?
Well, we know that warm air that cools falls. Anyone with air conditioning or standing in front of an open fridge can feel the air that is colder than the air in the room fall to the floor. The same is true with the atmosphere. Cold air falls. Warm air rises. This air movement creates weather that we experience at the ‘floor’ level, the ground or lake or sea or ocean. Temperature causes air movement. The greater the temperature variance or difference between any two air temperatures, the faster the fall (anyone even remember the massive US Derecho of 2020?). See here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_2020_Midwest_derecho
So the borders between these regional patterns of air circulation create ‘streams’ of air by all this cooling and falling… but in the same angled direction because of the earth’s spin (in North America, it falls but the earth spins east to west (counter-clockwise if looking directly down at the north pole so the air relative to the surface falls west to east. I know. Who cares?). What matters is that a ‘stream’ of air is between the two air masses that has direction and velocity – a west to east stream in this case. So in North America, we call this major ‘stream’ of air created between the colder polar region and the southern equatorial region the ‘Jet’ stream (originally named ‘strahlstromung’ – very strong winds that can often exceed over 200 mph and screwing up the German bomber raids – but really an emergent property of fluid mechanics… again, for the more pedantic among us, first identified by a Swede named Rosby. That’s why the ‘Jet Stream’ is called a Rosby wave on maps for this reason: it looks like a 2D drawing of a wave… like a sine wave ).
Anyway, so we know how wind is created and we know how and why it moves. We throw in some humidity and geographical features (topography) that make the ‘floor’ sometimes bumpy, sometimes flat, sometimes wet, sometimes dry, and presto! – we get ‘weather’. Weather is really what is produced on earth when larger air masses of different temperatures come into contact. Lots of most excellent physics and chemistry occur here. But the take way point is actually twofold: the temperature difference – the ‘gradient’ – between these air masses drives the jet stream (determines its size and speed and ‘how straight it travels from west to east), and the jet stream drives our local weather. When you look at a weather map, you will ALWAYS see this moving band of air traveling west to east with an arrow showing its direction. The side towards the pole is always the colder side and the side towards the equator is always the warmer side. Weather ‘travels’ under or is driven by this jet stream. Because falling air creates a lower level of atmosphere sitting above it, we call this a ‘low’ pressure system. Low pressure is related to unstable weather because this is the stirred part of this atmospheric cocktail, which is why weather maps always show not only where the low pressures are (they try to travel but higher pressure areas tend to deflect them) but indicate how they are going to move. Again, the major driver is the Rosby wave we see on these maps, the Jet Stream flowing through the atmosphere. The faster the Jet Stream, the faster that associated low pressure moves across the map, the faster weather comes and goes. What makes the Jet Stream faster or slower? The temperature differential between the two major air masses.
So. Let’s make a prediction.
Instruments tell us that not only are the polar regions warming each year compared to previous years (there’s some fluctuation here) but is warming at least twice as fast compared to equatorial regions. Yeah, so what? Is an ice free open seaway through the Arctic year round such a bad idea? Think of the economic benefits for shipping! But let’s think about the Jet Stream here and see if we can predict what should happen if global warming is true, if the temperature difference between polar and equatorial air masses is reduced as these climate extremists and paid UN schills are being paid to tell us is happening.
What do you think? What should we see happen to Rosby waves on our local weather maps?
Okay, give me a moment here. If you take a bucket of water outside and pour it out quickly on a slope, what ‘shape’ will the newborn river you’ve created take? Well, with enough slope it will take a straight path downhill regardless of any impediments where you’ve poured it. But if you empty the bucket and follow the mini river down the changing slope, you’ll see it soon start to bend, to go around impediments, and as the slope is reduced the water slows accordingly and when the slope is approach level, you’ll see the water path begin to track bends back and forth in every increasing loops – both in size and number – until your river flattens out and disappears altogether. If you look at a local map you will see that rivers in your area do exactly this: straight and fast if at elevation, more and more bendy and loopy as if reaches flatter and flatter ground. You can actually predict slope based on something as simple as the shape of a river. This is how fluid mechanics works.
Atmospheric studies show us exactly the same effects. That’s why fluid mechanics is the main engine of weather. When you reduce the temperature differential between air masses, it is expected that the Jet Stream will 1) slow down, and 2) begin to bend more and have deeper loops between crests and troughs of the Roby wave. Fast is straight, slow is loops. Do we see this happening now with our weather maps?
The answer is yes. We see the Rosby wave – the Jet Stream – reducing in speed and creating bigger and bigger loops of greater amplitude (meaning distance from a center point, meaning more northerly and southerly extents). Cold air to the polar side, warm air to the equatorial side. Weather where the two meet. Slowing unstable air, the low pressures, moving along this line, taking longer and longer to make the journey west to east. Sometime just… stopping in place… for days!
Take a look at the Texas weather. The Jet Stream actually bent far enough south to be over the Gulf of Mexico! All the air to the north was cold. Really cold! Pipe freezing cold. Turtle stunning cold. It came from the polar region directly. And the storms along the contact line? Ponderously slow but without the humidity to have more than just a few inches of snow. Slowly moving west to east but travelling many hundreds of miles – in total, well over a thousand miles – just north and south along this huge loop caused by a very slow moving Jet Stream. But look at the loop into the high artic over Alaska panhandle! Because the Rosby wave went well north of Anchorage and east of Juneau, both of these place were on the equatorial side of the Jet Stream. It was way, WAY warmer in Anchorage than in Austin!
So it’s not latitude alone that determines warmer or colder weather (the amount of radiation from the sun per square meter); more and more our weather is determined by the ever-decreasing temperature differential between polar and equatorial air masses. That’s why we have to prepare southern areas for winter conditions and northern areas for summer conditions… including electrical grids! These extreme Rosby wave swings are occurring with more and more frequency to the point where insurance companies can accurately predict major flooding events using a simple equation: for every 1C, divide the frequency of occurrence by 5. A 20 year flood every 4 years, a catastrophic 100 year flood for which very little flood infrastructure has been built every 20 years. Now increase the warming by another degree. And another. We’re on track to reach a minimum 3.5C by 2100. There is cause for urgency.
So the question about what is causing the decrease in this temperature differential – the reason why high pressures get ‘stuck’ and cause droughts and conditions for wildfire, why low pressures get ‘stuck’ and cause massive flooding or massive snow events, why hurricanes have more heat fuel from equatorial waters, why sea levels are responding with rising (both by heat absorption and glacial melt and higher tides), why the Gulf Stream current itself is slowing past anything humanity has ever experienced certainly in the last thousand years, and so on – is all related to the decreasing temperature differential by increasing the atmospheric global temperature. And we know – for a FACT – that the main driver of warming the global atmosphere is altering the chemistry of our atmosphere to ‘capture’ more heat by increasing the global level of heat trapping gases. These are measurable concentrations and well known: and the major one is CO2. Plain and simple. Beyond reasonable doubt.
That’s why the solution rests solely with getting rid of carbon emissions. And the solution is clearly renewables. Plain and simple, we have to stop adding CO2 to the atmosphere as soon as possible and not get sidetracked from this goal by clever diversions about what each of us can do to reduce our ‘carbon footprint’, everything from meat consumption to banning plastic straws. Those aren’t causing this global problem, this existential threat to humanity. What is necessary is a completely carbon-free energy system to allow our planet time to absorb these current amounts of carbon to the point where weather patterns can stabilize and the rate of climate change reduced. These other issues, although important, are not the problem here. Atmospheric chemistry is the issue because this drives faster and faster changing weather patterns which result in faster and fast climate change giving us less and less time to adjust.
That’s why this is THE issue of our times. Everything else is a diversion.
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HAH! 😄 Tildeb, I do not mind one bit the length of your excellent comment! I say Bravo! Let your delightful scientific brain FLY! This is magnificent information in scientific detail. Thank you! Hope you don’t mind that I touched up a small tad (aesthetically) a couple of spots in your comment, like your opening “question” from an anonymous Texan (I assume?) not well educated in Earth Science and relevant disciplines. Let me know if I changed too much for your liking. I’ll correct it. 😉
Again, fantastic contribution and elaboration to my post Tildeb. Very appreciated Sir!
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Nice work boss! The other problem is—even those who accept climate facts are not changing their lifestyles. For every 1 that decides to live simply, hundreds or thousands are still joining the foray. There is little hope that will change when climate science is deemed a violation of human rights and freedom.
We’re building bigger and bigger more wasteful homes than ever before and even in COVID it hasn’t slowed a nickel.
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“…even those who accept climate facts are not changing their lifestyles.”
That’s a great point Jim. And to be fair to those who tried to change and are still trying (like me 😉 ), it is NOT EASY at all to maintain a minimal to non-existent carbon footprint when the entire economic and social systems work non-stop against you. 😒 As one tiny example, it is sometimes near effin impossible to purchase groceries, household items, etc, without taking home—then trashing it—plastic packaging… which purchasing those items only profits all those retail corporations who fuel the entire petroleum-refineries more making them drill or frack more! Rinse, repeat. 🤦♂️
It is sometimes/often infuriating Jim how I cannot avoid plastic… EVERYWHERE!!! 😠
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It is a marvel that we can feed this many people unspoiled food, but there is just too many people. Plastic is a pet peeve of mine as well, but I suppose we need it til something more reasonable comes along.
Here in the US we manage garbage pretty well. Ain’t so in many other places. It’s a terrible problem everywhere
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Sheesh! If you and tildeb ever had a contest between who could write the most words, I really wouldn’t know which one to place my bet on! 🙄
I haven’t read your entire post as yet … nor all the comments … so this may have been addressed already. My other-half’s take on all this is that “the earth has been doing this for thousands and thousands of years.” In other words, this is just Mother Nature doing her thing and humans just need to go with the flow. Since any discussion on the matter results in “unpleasantness,” I choose to remain silent when the subject is broached.
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Sorry for the length, Nan. But if your other half wants to know why the idea that “the earth has been doing this for thousands and thousands of years” is factually wrong, that making personal choices as if this affects what’s going on is a con job, and someone wants some way to put this global warming claim to the test on a day by day basis to find out why this business-as-usual is a central problem to addressing it effectively, then reading – and the inevitable suffering it causes – is going to raise it’s ugly head. I have always found understanding to be particularly challenging this way. So many words to get through.
That’s why I understand It’s SO much easier to just listen to the Orange Man or his Enablers let them tell us what’s true. No reading required, and isn’t THAT reason enough. But I’m almost sure the end result is the same: understanding!
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C’mon tildeb! People like him don’t CARE that what he believes is “factually wrong.” This is why I don’t interact with him on the topic.
As for reading … I’m all for it! I just don’t think blog posts/comments are necessarily the medium to write dissertations. My personal opinion only.
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True. Mind you, many dissertations are certainly book length and are often repackaged as such so a lengthy comment hardly compares.
The reason for the length is to allow readers to be able to see a daily weather map and see in it the global warming effect right there in daily action once the understanding is in place, to invite those who doubt the climate issue to explain the weirding– as the Prof might say in this post – to someone who has an alternative and science-fueled explanation in comparison. I hope people who can understand how to read a map can first understand and then explain the pattern of a warming climate accurately to someone who doubts, who can use the daily weather map to demonstrate the daily effect from a warming climate. That understanding, that I can only hopes sends out a few ripples from here, cannot be done in a 350 word paragraph. This was an opportunity here given the widespread awareness of the Texas tragedy.
Understanding what I’ve written also protects people from being led astray by all these targeted diversions – often with a moral component to signal virtue (because the merchants of doubt are a wily bunch and know how to manipulate good-hearted and honest people away from granting political will to their representatives to bring about necessary change because such a move would harm their clients’ profit margin selling a toxic gas to a willing and gullible population). The problem is very real, however, and it’s here now. If we know how, we can see its fingerprints each and every day on our weather if we know what to look for. Once we have gained this understanding, no one has any excuse to deny this reality other than willful and intentional ignorance and selfishness and so their opinions on such matters can be safely and accurately dismissed out of hand. In fact, their steadfast refusal to face reality is an impediment to necessary action.
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A well constructed, considered, polite, and factually-based answer/reply—in general Nan; not directed at you Ma’am—to lazy Deniers/Doubters Tildeb! I’m in complete agreement. Bravo! 👏
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Yay! Glad you’re alive with all your toes still attached. Eh… you still have all your toes right?
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Hahaha! 😄 Yes. When I rose this morning out of bed, I looked down and counted 10. And THAT was even before any java/coffee! That in itself is monumental for me. LOL
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premature, short-sighted, uneducated arrogance
Hooo-boy, I can think of a few other sweet adjectives that could be more appropriate here 🙂
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HAH! Please feel totally free to use all those adjectives John! You officially have my invitation, Carte Blanche, if you will, to let ’em fly. 😉
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Lint-licking, cock-juggling, shit gilded nerf herders
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That’s a start! 😉
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Nice post. Unfortunately, popular media has in many ways glorified ignorance. I’m thinking of all the advertising featuring morons using and loving various products–and these are the people we’re supposedly identifying with because the ads seem to work. It’s now ok to not work at something to understand it. You only need to get the gist of a subject and you’re good to go.
On a personal note, I see this attitude with respect to language learning. Companies like Babel seem to be doing quite well while spending millions on advertising that promises fluency within a few months of using their app. Fluency apparently now boils down to being able to introduce yourself, pay a taxi driver, and order a meal in a restaurant. Why would you want to discuss anything else anyway?
Good to see you’re back online and not wasting any time taking the right-wingers to task.
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You are so right Carol about “half-ass” attitudes and mentalities regarding BARE MINIMUMS, ultra-convenience, and “I want it right now! In my hand, brain, or stomach… even before I THINK about wanting it!” 😛
One word Carol, describes it all: LAZY!
The noble, fine art of exquisite meticulousness, which makes something timeless for the ages, is becoming or has become a lost mentality, a lost art. An example might be how much time, planning, passion, and maintenance goes into a stunning, soothing Japanese Garden. Know what I mean?
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Yes. The Japanese garden is an excellent example. I would be thrilled if people put forward one quarter of that required effort toward learning something new before proudly announcing they’ve “nailed it”. 🙂
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Ahh, yes. “Authority. Expertise. Connessuer. Master. Savant. Combat Veteran?”
Those are a few badges of merit, of honor that in the (distant?) past took decades or a lifetime of hard work, even blood, sweat, or many tears to be distinguished like that by most all of your equal peers, OR superiors. Sometimes or often by those AROUND THE WORLD!!!
Sadly, with the advent of the internet and social-media those highly distinguishing ranks (e.g. Nobel Prize) appear to mean less and less to impatient internet-connected mobs and masses. 😔
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Now what’s this I hear about Elon Musk dumping a huge battery right in your back yard, Professor? Also, do please let me know your opinion on Small Modular Reactors. Methinks I may stock up on uranium stonks. Cheers old bean.
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Hmmm, well I’ll be a Son of a Gun Hariod! I hadn’t heard about this. Funny I’m hearing about it for the first time from my dear blogging friend across The Pond. Hah! Tells you how much I’ve had to reduce my time watching or reading current news in this damn Lone Star State! 😄
Reading this Popular Mechanics article on that Elon Musk’s Tesla battery one can apparently power 20,000 homes for one day. And apparently Hornsdale, Australia has already purchased and are using these batteries from his company. That article:
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a35770429/tesla-battery-texas-power-grid/
This is all incredibly intriguing as well as revealing about Texas’ current energy infrastructure, something that is SO DEEPLY rooted in the state’s long, PROUD history of being “the oil capital/state of the nation.” This state pride goes back many generations in many proud, well-known Texas families and their corporations based here—seventeen billionaire families to be exact as of 2018.* Several of those billionaire families achieved their wealth in oil and gas pipelines, which of course are a significant part of what froze-up during the two Winter Storms last February. The energy infrastructure currently in place is by most industry standards “feeble” and outdated, BUT extremely cheap for the family-owned corporate energy manufacturers aforementioned.
Anyway, thanks for bringing this up Hariod. I’m much more informed about my home state now… well, especially so regarding Texas wealth and business. What winter storms Uri and Viola unveiled is infuriating about this state’s economy and where/why its wealth has been structured. None of it surprises me however, saving and helping the GENERAL population of Texans by equipping our state’s power-grid with AT LEAST industry standards and backups if not state-of-the-art equipment across the entire power-grid. But no, ultra-Conservative Republican business models and politics can NEVER do something like take care of basic population needs… like electricity/power to stay warm during unprecedented deep freeze storms! That’s way too socialistic or inching towards “evil Soviet Union Socialism,” the typical Republican outcry when masses of people need help or better living standards! Grrrrrr, that chaps my ass every time it arises. And Hariod, here in Texas that Republican strawman debate arises all too frequently. 😡
So great to hear from you my Friend. You are too much a stranger of late Sir. Come around more often, please! 😉
—————
* Source — https://www.oilandgas360.com/texas-38-richest-billionaires/
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PT — this part of your reply: That’s way too socialistic or inching towards “evil Soviet Union Socialism,” prompts me to encourage you to read Mel’s recent post (3/10): “Why Socialism is Evil.” I have a hunch you’ll want to comment (if he’ll let you).
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Mel? As in our/my old adversary Pastor Mel?
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Ahh, yes. That is who you were referring to. I found his post. Yes, you are correct Nan, he Moderates all his submitted comments still. The last time a commented at his blog was maybe 2-years ago? Can’t remember.
I left a quick “Test” comment with a brief post-script of my visit there. It’s in Moderation. We’ll see if he allows it. Thanks Nan. 🙂
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Nan, Mel completely edited, changed, and removed my initial submitted comment to him—you can read HIS Mel-modified version—and you can read it there. But what he did irritates the fire out of me. The only unauthorized changes a blog-owner should make to a Visitor’s comment is 1) if it is entirely inappropriate, rude, etc, and 2) if the edits are only very, VERY minor, aesthetic, etc!
But Mel did not do either of those and completely removed my 2-3 supporting New Testament Scripture passages attached to my comment and their relevance! That’s why I don’t bother with those type of Propagandist bloggers, much less those who misrepresent and censor what is submitted as opposing commentary.
Grrrrrr, you and Arkenaten get me lured over to those personality types that I have VERY LITTLE patience with, especially when they blatantly censor or change your submitted comments in major significant ways!
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I understand your frustration, PT, but you know me … I have reservations about “too much” information. And I do have to agree with HIS point … the information you share is often “overkill” because few people are that interested in “the facts.” Sad, but true.
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I hear ya Nan about TMI, in particular TMI that is redundant. 🙂 But THIS particular comment was not that. The length was caused by 2-3 Scripture passages of Jesus/Yeshua teaching how to love and care for each other in a community, or group, or by inference a ‘Christian’ nation relative to a functioning, thriving economic model like the Nordic nations have successfully utilized. Mel omitted that critical portion of my comment. I’m sure you can imagine why he removed his own Scripture passages SUPPORTING a Social Democracy or “Cuddly Capitalism” as they sometimes reference it in Scandinavia.
Nevertheless, as I predicted, Mel does indeed censor, edit, omit, and refuses my comments that are sound and directly oppose his blog-post Christian narrative. The reasons why are obvious: because I thoroughly, exhaustively, share the cumulative supporting evidence and facts… that as you correctly point out “few people are that interested in “the facts.” Sad, but true.” And sometimes Nan there are a WHOLE LOTTA TMI-facts to share. 😉 😛
I made several other comments throughout the comment-section (Jim’s threads), but at the moment he hasn’t released them out of Moderation. Oh well, I find Mel’s blog and bias, censored/edited discussion threads a waste of valuable time for me. Wasted a good hour and a half or two there yesterday. Nothing he published represents what I actually stated.
Take care Nan. ❤️
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Thank you for all this . . . this invaluable . . . commentary, Professor, all of which I am either in enthusiastic agreement with or else would bow before — to wit: those parts your advanced knowledge on such things so boldy exposes, vis-à-vis . . . hmm . . . (or should that be hum?) . . . battery-type things, the lecky lecture, sparks malarkey and what have you. If I may impose once more: what do you think of the aforementioned SMRs (Small Modular Reactors)? I think they may be good news for humankind (including Texans), though you may chastise me for such evil cogitations, may puke at nuke. Yours abidingly, Hariod Brawn Esq.
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P.S. I did not know that seventeen members of your family are billionaires. I daresay you do alright at Christmas, on your birthday and what have you? No wonder you have your own convatorium. Is it a uPVC or hardwood one? Hardwood, no doubt, knowing you. (Oh, Kate, we do miss your upbraiding.)
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HAH!!! I wish they were 17 of my family members. Even though my Mum/Mom retired from Mobil Oil Research & Development here in Dallas, she is by NO MEANS a billionaire or millionaire. LOL
However, her late husband was indeed a millionaire who retired from Mobil Oil… now known as Exxon Mobil. 🙂 But both of them were mere Pee-ons in that division of Mobil Oil—my Mum/Mom a top Executive Assistant (called Secretary back in her days) and that late husband was a highly achieved chemical geologist with some 10-12 U.S. patents he owned in that field. Consequently, because of him they both retired in opulent living and travel. However, with our current economy in total shambles the last 10-years Mum’s/Mom’s FAT retirement benefits, investments, health care costs, etc, has REMARKABLY been drained to a dangerously low, measly amount. She’s very, VERY worried now that she might out live her retirement benefits and savings. Honestly, I am too. 😬
You KNOW it is bad here when oil, gas, R&D retirees are hurting! 😔 Those billionaires we are talking about? They are even MORE wealthy from all the recent tragedies, climate catastrophes, and a volatile stock market… OF COURSE. 😡
No surprise there, right? The super wealthy always have the upper advantage in every sector of our Capitalistic economy, EVEN when there are horrific regional, national, or global tragedies. They always have the resources to make MORE bundles of money even in a struggling or crashing economy/stock market. But I know you know this as well. I’m ranting to the choir aren’t I? 😉
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Oh dear gods, goddesses, unicorns, and fairies Hariod! Small Modular Reactors? What tha hell are those? Are you about to educate me AGAIN trying to turn me into an Autodidact!? 🤨 Am I not smart enough—close to a Dunce?—already? You always challenge me to hold a decent WordPress conversation with you, tempting me to EMBARRASS myself in front of my 10,000 Followers here! 🤭 😉
Give me about 48-72 hours to lookup and research DAYUM Small Modular Reactors. Geeezzz, am I going to become an atomic physicist after all this???
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/canada-embraces-nuclear-energy-expansion-to-lower-carbon-emissions-11614767403 (Paywall?)
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It’s all a hoax. Even the polar bears are chilled. So much so that several oil producers, along with a dedicated group of Texas cattle ranchers have formed a focus group to fund the development of a special sun glasses and sun tan lotion for Polar Bears. It’s true. MacDonald’s and Kentucky fc are also working on a plan to deliver seal nuggets in bio degradable polystyrene boxes. Jeff Bizos has offered to fly them up to whatever ice floes remain once the project finally gets off the ground.
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None of this would surprise me much Ark, if it is indeed true or mostly true. This nation and my Red state here knows no bottom to the idiocy and misinformation (propaganda) for the gullible to feast upon. Appetites here are insatiable for polarization—no pun intended—and sensationalism at the expense of reason, calm, and common sense. 🙄😔
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