Clear as a bell this early Thursday on California’s north coast, with some stars twinkling round about — long time since I’d seen stars in the morning.
Fog is the usual culprit.

This is another post on climate change. I do a lot of these, mainly because it’s the most-serious, out-of-control problem facing life right now. All the other shit, from the Ukraine to Washington, D.C., way-pales in comparison.
Environmental writer Elizabeth Kolbert, from her 2006 book, ‘Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change,’ the tagline for the nowadays: “It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing.”

(Illustration found here).

And we’re doing it faster, and if humanity believes there’s a way out of this horror, there is a loose wire in the thinking process. Just in the past week, new reports and studies reveal it’s hot in the world’s hot house — earth.
Last month, the hottest June on record — via PBS:

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released June’s results Monday, revealing an average global temperature of 61.2 degrees for the period.
The result is 1.30 degrees higher than the 20th century average of 59.9 degrees, making this June the warmest in more than 130 years.
The same trend was seen in May, which experienced a 1.33 degree increase from the the average 58.6 degrees.
Increases were most prominent in northern South America, Greenland, New Zealand, central Africa and southern Asia.
Derek Arndt, NOAA climate monitoring chief, attributes the warming to hotter oceans.
His colleague, NOAA climate scientist Jessica Blunden, relays the role of a developing El Nino — the warming of Pacific Ocean — to June’s record heat.

And that “pause” in global warming wasn’t a real pause — Heat got sucked into the oceans.
From Climate Central:

It’s the ocean surface temperatures that put the month over the top.
Temperatures were 1.2°F above average.
That’s a smaller number than the 1.7°F land averages, but oceans tend to lag behind air temperatures.
And despite being a smaller number, oceans cover 70 percent of the planet, which tend to give them more weight on global temperatures.
This June represents a significant milestone for the world’s oceans.
Not only was it the hottest June for oceans since record keeping began in 1880, but it was the most anomalously warm ocean temperature for any month.
That means temperatures were more freakishly above average this past June than at any other time in the period of record.
The previous record was a four-way tie with May 2014 being the most recent month.
This June’s temperature record also represents a global mark for the warmest the oceans have ever been.
The record heat happened to hit in June, when oceans are at their warmest, giving temperatures a further boost.
The news comes on the heels of last week’s State of the Climate report, an annual climate check-up for the globe.
The report showed that 2013 saw record amounts of heat trapped in the upper half mile of the ocean, a phenomenon that scientists think is contributing to the “pause” in global warming.

This global heatwave is felt everywhere, and even for us on the west coast of the US — from the San Francisco Chronicle:

California made history, too.
A warm June helped the state log its hottest start to the year on record, with a temperature 4.8 degrees above the 20th century average for the six-month period, and 1.1 degrees above the previous high in 1934.
San Francisco, Sacramento and Fresno all experienced their hottest six-month starts on record.
Los Angeles saw its second warmest start, while San Diego saw its third warmest.
Temperatures throughout the West have been warmer than average this year, exacerbating the dry conditions that have gripped California in drought and elevated the threat of wildfire.

And it keeps on keeping on. Most-likely the drought we’re experiencing right now (81 percent of the state in ‘extreme’ drought status) will never fully go away. Due to the fact we’re assholes about energy, this problem won’t get a chance to peacefully depart outbound. The US is the least energy efficient country of all the world’s economic powers.
From the Energy Collective:

Many industry observers will not be surprised to find out that Germany outranks the U.S. in terms of energy efficiency, according to the second International Energy Efficiency Scorecard put out by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.
But it’s not just the Germans, who are known for their efficiency and engineering prowess, that best the U.S. in this category.
Italy, India, Spain and China are just a few of the major world economies that also ranked above the U.S., which came in thirteenth out of sixteen countries.
The nations, which together account for 71 percent of global energy consumption, were evaluated across 31 categories for a total of 100 points.
The categories fell into four areas: energy use at a national level, buildings, industry, and transportation.
Germany led in industry, China led the scoring for building efficiency, the EU was first in national efforts, and Italy topped the list for transportation.
“There’s really no excuse for the U.S. lagging behind other nations on energy efficiency. States like Vermont have demonstrated that energy efficiency saves money, reduces environmental impact, and creates jobs,” Congressman Peter Welch (D-VT), said in a statement.
…
There is ample room for improvement in areas such as industrial efficiency, where the U.S. could vastly increase its use of combined heat and power systems and employ mandatory energy audits, as many other countries already do.
“The story of inaction and stagnation definitely applies to the United States,” said Rachel Young, research analyst with ACEEE and lead author on the report.
“The overall story is disappointing,” she added.
Young also noted that Germany, China and Canada are pulling ahead and will eventually be “more nimble and resilient” than the U.S.
But even the countries with the most advanced policies still have significant room for improvement, according to Steve Nadel, director of ACEEE.

Pretty much still a major, major…

(Illustration out front found here.)