Just to keep the weather again in the forefront with news items displaying climate change exacerbating our overheating planet meteorology. The truth is shit-scary:
‘Things are going to be dreadful, but – working together – we still have the time to stop a dangerous future becoming a cataclysmic one.’
Terrifying piece on the impact of #ClimateChange#HeatWave #HeatWaveUK https://t.co/aFIiLOtxOZ
— Daryn Egan-Simon (@darynsimon) July 18, 2022
Bill McGuire, professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at UCL and a climate activist, in an op/ed at the Guardian this afternoon — if you think it’s hot now, just wait:
The brutal truth is that dodging dangerous, all-pervasive, climate breakdown is now practically impossible. Even if all the promises and pledges made at Cop26 were kept, we would still be lucky to stay below a 2C rise, and if tipping points are crossed and feedbacks kick in, the figure could be much higher. So, hothouse Britain is a reality, and the sooner we face this fact, the better. And be very clear, this isn’t alarmist. It isn’t what deniers are fond of calling “climate porn”. This is simply how things are.
Go read the full piece, although most concerned with the UK, the results could actually apply to all of us.
Further afield, as the UK and Europe bake, it’s most appropriate for the 13th Petersberg Climate Dialogue (PCD13) meeting today and tomorrow in Berlin.
UN Secretary General António Guterres repeated the same red flag warnings he’s sounded for years (CNBC):
“Half of humanity is in the danger zone from floods, droughts, extreme storms and wildfires. No nation is immune. Yet we continue to feed our fossil fuel addiction,” Guterres said in a video message to the assembled leaders on Monday.
“What troubles me most is that, in facing this global crisis, we are failing to work together as a multilateral community. Nations continue to play the blame game instead of taking responsibility for our collective future. We cannot continue this way,” Guterres said.
“We have a choice. Collective action or collective suicide. It is in our hands.”
Those last words concluded Guterres’ speech — between ‘half of humanity’ and ‘we have a choice,’ a long, though, true litany of what the planet as a whole must do to keep the worse aspects of climate change to a minimum. All kinds of good points, like reducing emissions and “treat adaptation with the urgency it needs,” but knowing all this needs cooperation and a collective effort — which with America and Joe Manchin shit is impossible, made worse by Russia, Vlad Putin and the war in Ukraine, fucking up shit even more with oil dependency.
And the CGI speed-dialed effect of climate change:
History on a laptop, so here we are once again…
(Illustration out front by Handoko Tjung, found here.)