Early reports forecast maybe some rain for the end of next week, but right now a most-pleasant environment.
T-Rump’s meltdown-yanking of the US out of the Paris climate accord was not the climate, or economics, or anything of logical-reason, but because he’s a petulant, cretin-asshole — Michael Grunwald at Politico nailed it: ‘No, Trump’s abrupt withdrawal from this carefully crafted multilateral compromise was a diplomatic and political slap: It was about extending a middle finger to the world, while reminding his base that he shares its resentments of fancy-pants elites and smarty-pants scientists and tree-hugging squishes who look down on real Americans who drill for oil and dig for coal.’
Maybe even worse, if possible — Mike Pence (The Hill): ‘“We’ve demonstrated real leadership. We’ve demonstrated real progress…But for some reason or another, this issue of climate change has emerged as a paramount issue for the left in this country and around the world.”‘
Seemingly, even worse than that — Scott Pruitt, the T-Rump’s guy at the EPA, during a brief appearance at this morning’s White House briefing (Mashable):
Pruitt, in discussing his own views on climate change, said there should be more of a debate about climate science.
“I think that — what the debate — what the American people deserve is a debate, objective, transparent discussion about this issue,” he said.
In reality, scientists have been debating climate change findings for more than a century and have reached a consensus that it is, in fact, real and human-caused.
Pruitt was criticized for a March interview with CNBC during which he asserted that carbon dioxide is not the main cause of global warming, which he repeated on Friday using different wording.
He said it’s difficult to measure “with precision the extent of human influence” on the climate, which is not actually true.
In other words, Pruitt thinks, we may be causing climate change, or we may be causing only a tiny fraction of it, in which case why do anything about it?
That Pruitt is in charge of the EPA, of all agencies, should tell you all you need to know about Trump’s true colors on climate change.
A future without debate yet the actual reality of the reality — this afternoon from Climate Central:
With May in the books, it’s official: carbon dioxide set an all-time monthly record.
It’s a sobering annual reminder that humans are pushing the climate into a state unseen in millions of years.
Carbon dioxide peaked at 409.65 parts per million for the year, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
It’s not a surprise that it happened.
Carbon dioxide levels at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii peak in May every year.
…
The reading from May is well above the 407.7 ppm reading from May 2016.
And it’s far above the 317.5 ppm on record for May 1958, the first May measurement on record for Mauna Loa, the gold standard for carbon dioxide measurements.
Prior to the Industrial Revolution, carbon dioxide stood at roughly 280 ppm.
The new carbon dioxide high water mark follows a report released last week showing that last year, the world saw its second-biggest annual leap in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
It’s second only to 2015, a year in which El Niño helped boost levels.
Both years saw jumps that were roughly double the increase seen in 1979 when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration started keeping the index.
The rise in carbon dioxide is tipping the climate into a volatile state, one in which Arctic sea ice is scraping the bottom of the barrel, oceans are rising and causing flooding even on sunny days, and the earth has warmed 1.8°F above pre-industrial levels.
As carbon dioxide levels continue to increase, those impacts will only become more pronounced.
And this also often reported the last few days — per ScienceNews yesterday:
The rift in Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf continues to rip.
Researchers from Project MIDAS, which tracks the effects of a warming climate on the ice shelf, report that the crack grew 17 kilometers between May 25 and May 31.
The crack has now turned toward the water and is within 13 kilometers of the edge of the shelf.
Within days, the crack could reach the edge.
When that happens, one of the largest icebergs ever recorded will fall into the ocean.
“There appears to be very little to prevent the iceberg from breaking away completely,” the researchers write.
After calving such a massive section, the shelf won’t be stable.
It may experience the same fate as Larsen B, which disintegrated in 2002, after a crack there broke off a huge chunk of ice.
And the meltdown continues…
(Illustration above: Salvador Dali’s ‘Hell Canto 2: Giants,’ found here).