Greta Thunberg’s Eye Opening Climate Crisis Speech

Once in a generation comes a leader like no other

When it comes to the global threat to the earth’s ecosystems and its inhabitants, including humans, today’s Climate Crisis can no longer be denied or ignored.  No one makes the case better for global and immediate action than Greta Thunberg.

Greta Thunberg (16 years old) sailed to New York in her father’s emissions-free sail boat to give her Climate speech before the UN, September 2019. She was widely quoted and highly edited in the media, and her short message to the entire UN assembly was, in a word, powerful.

But it was Greta’s previous presentation at R20 World Summit earlier the same year that told of a more complex and complete truth-telling of today’s Climate Crisis.   In clear-eyed and nonsense way, Greta left global leaders standing on their feet applauding.  As time runs out — her message to world leaders is clear enough, pick your Climate action priorities, but act now!

1980 Walter Cronkite on Climate Change

On April 3, 1980, Walter Cronkite tossed to a news piece from CBS veteran Nelson Benton.  Thirty-five years ago, for two and half minutes – an eternity even then by TV news standards and a near-impossibility today – a broadcast anchored by The Most Trusted Man in America tried to warn us about Global Warming (aka climate change).

Actually, “climate change” wasn’t mentioned in Benton’s piece, but CO2, “global warming” and the “Greenhouse Effect” were.”Scientists,” intoned Benton, “and a few politicians are beginning to worry.”

The story features Senator Paul Tsongas at a Senate hearing, reciting a list of cities that could someday be under water.  Scientist Gordon MacDonald of the non-profit Mitre Corp. predicts a summertime temperature hike of 16° F.

Benton quotes another unnamed scientist’s reference to the book of Genesis:  “Noah knew trouble was coming, and he prepared for it.”

Despite thirty-five years of accumulating evidence, national TV news can’t much be bothered with covering it.  CNN boss Jeff Zucker candidly said last year that climate change “deserves more attention,” but there’s “a tremendous lack of interest on the audience’s part.”

How climate change makes hurricanes worse

Here’s what vox.com says about climate change and hurricanes.

Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what’s really driving the events in the headlines.

Why People Don’t Believe In Climate Science

Scientists overwhelmingly agree that our climate is changing, Earth is getting warmer, sea levels are rising, and it’s primarily because of humans putting lots of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Yet 4 in 10 Americans aren’t convinced Here’s what psychologists and sociologists have to say about why some people don’t believe in climate science.

The Arctic Meltdown is a huge problem for all of us

The Arctic is in the throes of what sea-ice scientist Peter Wadhams called a “death spiral.” As the region’s once abundant ice melts, giving way to a less reflective surface, the Arctic heats up faster — now at a rate that is double the rest of the planet.

Polar meltdown and the polar jet stream connection — a river of wind that travels around the Northern hemisphere.

Artic MeldownThe air in the north wants to flow to the south, where the layer of air is hotter and thicker (hot air expands). The now-warmer Arctic makes it so there’s less of a pressure difference, so what once was a mountain in the sky becomes a gentle hill.  Like a river moving down a soft incline, the jet stream moves more slowly and more erratically.

In the United States, these changes in the jet stream are linked to a persistent “ridge” — like a hump in the sky. This causes weather patterns to linger, “perpetuating drought, heatwaves, and extensive wildfires across much of western North America,” according to the report.

This phenomenon, according to the NOAA report, brought a “parade of destructive nor’easters along the eastern seaboard” in the winters of 2013-14 and 2017-18. Most notably, it led to what has been dubbed the “bomb cyclone,” an intense blizzard along the East Coast in January 2018.

The same phenomenon is also responsible for so-called “Atmospheric Blocking” which produces all kind of severe weather, including the slower, more intense hurricanes we’ve seen of late. Harvey and Florence, which hovered over the mainland SE coast for days and dumped trillions of gallons of water, were dangerously stuck in place thanks to a “block.”

The Greenland Meltdown Findings – Why it Matters

Greenland has always been known for its glaciers. Currently the glaciers in Greenland are in trouble and are melting unprecedentedly fast. aerial footage as well as research experiments clearly show that the ice is disappearing far too quickly to be any sort of normal climatic change.

French President Macron Gives US Congress A Vital Lesson in Responsibility

French President Emmanuel Macron again on Wednesday (4-26-18) brought up the double-C word — climate change —  during an address to Congress, taking aim at the Trump agenda and the U.S. president’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate accord. “By polluting the oceans, not mitigating CO2 emissions and destroying our biodiversity we are killing our planet,” he said during an address to Congress. “Let us face it, there is no planet B.”

Responding to Extreme Environmental Risks

As the global climate changes, extreme weather events are proving more devastating and expensive. How can affected countries and communities mitigate risk and build long-term resilience?

Guy McPherson – “How Do We Act in the Face of Climate Chaos?”

The rate of climate change clearly has gone beyond linear, as indicated by the presence of myriad self-reinforcing feedback loops, and now threatens our species with extinction in the near term. Anthropologist Louise Leakey ponders our near-term demise in her 5 July 2013 assessment at Huffington Post. In the face of near-term human extinction, most Americans view the threat as distant and irrelevant, as illustrated by a 22 April 2013 article in the Washington Post based on poll results that echo the long-held sentiment that elected officials should be focused on the industrial economy, not faraway minor nuisances such as climate change.

IPCC Report Climate Change 2013: Briefing by Lead Authors at University of Hawaii

On September 30, 2013, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis, which forms a part of the Fifth Climate Assessment Report or AR 5. Lead Authors of the report, who are faculty at the University of Hawaii briefed the press, faculty and students.