File this under uh oh ... That's spelled with a capital UH OH

Countries’ climate pledges built on flawed data, Post investigation finds
Chris Mooney, Juliet Eilperin, Desmond Butler, John Muyskens, Anu Narayanswamy and Naema Ahmed

Malaysia’s latest catalogue of its greenhouse gas emissions to the United Nations reads like a report from a parallel universe. The 285-page document suggests that Malaysia’s trees are absorbing carbon four times faster than similar forests in neighboring Indonesia.

The surprising claim has allowed the country to subtract over 243 million tons of carbon dioxide from its 2016 inventory — slashing 73 percent of emissions from its bottom line.

Across the world, many countries underreport their greenhouse gas emissions in their reports to the United Nations, a Washington Post investigation has found. An examination of 196 country reports reveals a giant gap between what nations declare their emissions to be vs. the greenhouse gases they are sending into the atmosphere. The gap ranges from at least 8.5 billion to as high as 13.3 billion tons a year of underreported emissions — big enough to move the needle on how much the Earth will warm.

The plan to save the world from the worst of climate change is built on data. But the data the world is relying on is inaccurate.

“If we don’t know the state of emissions today, we don’t know whether we’re cutting emissions meaningfully and substantially,” said Rob Jackson, a professor at Stanford University and chair of the Global Carbon Project, a collaboration of hundreds of researchers. “The atmosphere ultimately is the truth. The atmosphere is what we care about. The concentration of methane and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is what’s affecting climate.”

At the low end, the gap is larger than the yearly emissions of the United States. At the high end, it approaches the emissions of ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate- ... dges-data/

More proof that self-policing has NEVER WORKED.

Agreed - but since self-policing doesn't work, what do we replace it with?

We can only change what we doo... including no trade with those who don't.

This Temperature Timeline Of Earth Shows Exactly How Nonsensical Climate-Change Deniers Really Are



Kristy Hamilton
By Kristy Hamilton
12 SEP 2016, 22:54
XKCD, a webcomic created by Randall Munroe, once again tackles climate change – this time in the form of a well-crafted, scrolling timeline of Earth’s average temperature from 20,000 BCE to the projected future of 2100.

The comic aims to punch a hole in the common argument made by climate change deniers, essentially that “the climate has changed before.” The point made here is that Earth’s temperature has change slowly over millennia, not like the jump seen within the last 100 years.

To see for yourself, scroll through our ...

https://www.iflscience.com/environment/ ... eally-are/

The actual scrolling timeline is immediately below the point at which I stopped copying. It's huge and I'm not even going to try copying it here. That said - well worth looking at.

A blizzard warning is in effect for Hawaii as the lower 48 contends with a snow drought

(CNN)As of Friday morning, only two states in the US have blizzard warnings -- and they are Alaska and Hawaii. Yes, you read that correctly. In fact, more snow has fallen in Hawaii this season than in Denver, Colorado.

MORE----> https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/03/weather/ ... index.html

California snowpack could shrink dramatically more or disappear before the end of the century: Study

It was 55 degrees and sunny Thursday at Sugar Bowl Resort, where the opening day of the 2021 ski season — already delayed because of warm weather — was still listed as “TBD.”

“Winter hasn’t quite arrived in Tahoe yet,” officials wrote in a note about the postponement. “The team will be working nightly and ready to flip the switch when Mother Nature cooperates.”

But the mountain isn’t the only place feeling the pinch from lack of snow. A new study led by researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that dwindling snowpack across California and the western United States could shrink dramatically more — or in some cases disappear — before the end of the century.

The study, published recently in the journal Nature Reviews Earth and Environment, paints a worrisome picture of the “potentially catastrophic consequences” of a future with less snow, including the massive implications it holds for California’s water supply, as well as rippling effects on soil, plants, wildlife and even ...

https://ktla.com/news/california/califo ... ury-study/

Gambling ‘America’s Amazon’

Alabama’s largest utility plans to bury a heap of toxic coal waste in one of North America’s most biodiverse river systems. Experts say it will put one of the nation’s most pristine wetlands at risk.

More----> https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2021/12 ... ant-barry/

Snowless Winters Are Already Here
The consequences will go far beyond closed ski resorts.
Sarah Sax



Across the central Rockies, this year has been unseasonably warm and dry. Denver smashed the record for its latest first measurable winter snow. Colorado ski resorts delayed opening because temperatures were too high to even produce much fake snow. And Salt Lake City was entirely snowless through November, for only the second time since 1976.

These snowless scenarios, while still an exception, are set to become much more common as early as 2040, according to a paper published in Nature Reviews Earth and Environment. Drawing from years of snowpack observations, the researchers project that in 35 to 60 years, the Mountain West will be nearly snowless for years at a time if worldwide greenhouse-gas emissions are not rapidly reduced. This could impact everything from wildfires to drinking water.

The purpose of the study was twofold. First, researchers wanted to highlight the extent of snow loss in the past several decades, and in those to come. “This is not an issue in a hypothetical future,” says Erica Siirila-Woodburn, a research scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and one of the study’s lead authors. The Mountain West has already lost 20 percent of its snowpack since the 1950s and could lose another 50 percent by the end of the century. Another key objective, says Siirila-Woodburn, was to provide more accurate and usable information to water managers and policy makers who need precise information on how much time they have to prepare for a future with much less snow.

To do that, the researchers created models that classify the degree of snow loss across four mountain regions. For example, in April 2015, the Sierra Nevada’s peak snowpack was only 5 percent of normal, something the researchers describe as an “extreme” event. And while extreme events will continue to happen with greater frequency, what will also start to become common are “episodic low-to-no snow” events, when at least half of a mountain basin experiences low-to-no snow for five consecutive years. That could happen as early as 2047 in the Sierra Nevada. Persistent snow loss, defined as when at least half of such an area experiences low-to-no snow for 10 consecutive years, could begin in California in the late 2050s, in the Pacific Northwest in the early 2060s, and in the Upper Colorado by the late 2070s.

The effects will extend far beyond just closed ski resorts. The study points out that the declining snowpack is already ...

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arc ... ly/621060/

Greta Thunberg: ‘It’s Strange’ to Consider Biden a Climate ‘Leader’
Sarah Toce

In an interview with the Washington Post Monday, climate activist Greta Thunberg slammed the Biden administration, saying that it’s “strange” to consider Biden a leader in the arena “when you see what his administration is doing.”

“The U.S. is actually expanding fossil fuel infrastructure,” Thunberg said. “Why is the U.S. doing that? It should not fall on us activists and teenagers who just want to go to school to raise this awareness and to inform people that we are actually facing an emergency.”

In November, Thunberg dismissed this year’s COP26 as “a PR event” and she accused world leaders of “greenwashing.”

“In such an emergency as we are in right now, everyone needs to take their moral responsibility, at least I think so, and use whatever power they have, whatever platform they have, to try to influence and push in the right direction, to make a change,” she told The Guardian in October. “I think that’s our duty as human beings.”

Axios’ Andrew Freedman reflected, “The Biden administration set out ambitious goals for reducing planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, including reaching 100 percent clean electricity by 2035 and net-zero emissions by 2050.”

Freedman added, “However, Biden’s main tool for meeting these goals is bogged down in Congress, putting them in doubt. He also has been combatting an increase in gas prices related to the economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic and other factors. This has led Biden to call for a temporary increase in global oil production.”

The Biden administration “also has not followed through on a campaign promise to crack down on new oil and gas leasing on federal lands, instead aiming for reforming the process. Yet, it is also greatly expanding the areas open to renewables, such as offshore wind energy,” Freedman wrote.

https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.c ... /12/46441/

Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

(CNN)Drivers have been stranded for hours on Interstate 95 in eastern Virginia -- some from Monday into Tuesday morning -- because of a severe winter storm that has sent authorities scrambling to clear a path.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/04/weather/ ... index.html

The thing Greta can's seem to get her head around is that, even if every vehicle on Earth were to suddenly become an EV, we would still need oil and the infrastructure for oil transport. It has a lot more uses, including some for building EV's that we can't do with out.

Just recovering from a blizzard. Power off since 18:00 yesterday so it got pretty chilly in the house. Now we dig ourselves out.

Australia equals hottest day on record at 50.7C

Australia has equalled its hottest day on record after a remote coastal town reported temperatures of 50.7C (123.26F).

The temperature in Onslow, Western Australia, on Thursday matched a record set in 1962 in South Australia.

Onslow and the surrounding areas could see records broken again with temperatures set to rise slightly on Friday.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-59977193

This is fantastic!



SEED-DROPPING DRONE COMPANY AIMS TO PLANT 100 MILLION TREES BY 2024

Planting more trees is one of the most obvious steps we need to take to remove carbon from the atmosphere due to their relatively cheap cost and extensive environmental and cultural benefits.

One hurdle is the amount of time and physical labour required to plant enough trees that will make a substantial difference, but an Australian-based biotech company has one solution.

AirSeed Technologies has designed drones that drop seeds as they are flying. Their patented Seed Pod biotechnology encases the seeds so they are protected during their early stages of growth and this pod also contains nutrients that are beneficial to the soil.

“The Seed Pod is basically this nutrient-rich, very specific energy pack of goodness. So it helps protect them from predators and stores the seeds until the environment is right for germination,” Andrew Walker, AirSeed CEO and co-founder, explained to The Weather Network.

https://www.theweathernetwork.com/en/ne ... es-by-2024

#66
Very cool, roseanne!

Another blizzard, another 10 hours without power at -15 temps.
We'll be getting the long pants out, I guess.

We're gonna get hit again. Temps went from -16 to -4 in 3.5 hours. Forecast is +4 with winds up to 100kph.
Power outage probable - again.

Stay safe, Oskar. .

We still can't get out of our driveway due to snow from the last storm. Generator out of fuel and can't drive to get more. Should be fun.

What an awful situation to have to deal with. I just hope you do not lose power as that would be the worst scenario. . Do you have any contingency plans? Is there some way you can get fuel - someone bring it to you and meet them at bottom of driveway? Forgive me, I know you are probably thinking of everything you can, but just want to help even if only ends in a in a possibly fruitless suggestion . .

We put away the shorts and t-shirts.

Glad you still have your sense of humor in tact - .I know mine got me though some tough times

Yet another blizzard. Snow (30-40cm), high winds (80-100kph), freezing rain forecast.