Caution: ‘Advance Notice of Something’

January 10, 2019


(Illustration by Handoko Tjung, found here).

Sunshine though faded is fully-welcomed mid-afternoon Thursday here on California’s north coast, first real shine in awhile.
Rain expected for tomorrow, maybe some sun on Saturday, but mostly just rain-like, cloudy overcast, probably some drizzle/showers thrown into the works. Fairly predictable weather, so far…

Warnings! Warnings!
Today’s New York Times:

Scientists say the world’s oceans are warming far more quickly than previously thought, a finding with dire implications for climate change because almost all the excess heat absorbed by the planet ends up stored in their waters.
A new analysis, published Thursday in the journal Science, found that the oceans are heating up 40 percent faster on average than a United Nations panel estimated five years ago.
The researchers also concluded that ocean temperatures have broken records for several straight years.
“2018 is going to be the warmest year on record for the Earth’s oceans,” said Zeke Hausfather, an energy systems analyst at the independent climate research group Berkeley Earth and an author of the study.
“As 2017 was the warmest year, and 2016 was the warmest year.”

Mr Hausfather tries:

“Oceans are really the best thermometer we have for changes in the Earth,” he said.

Though the new findings provide a grim forecast for the future of the oceans, Mr. Hausfather said that efforts to mitigate global warming, including the 2015 Paris climate agreement, would help.
“I think there’s some reason for confidence that we’ll avoid the worst-case outcomes,” he said, “even if we’re not on track for the outcomes we want.”

Not the outcome of a real crisis.
Further on the report from CNBC this afternoon:

Man-made greenhouse gas emissions are warming the atmosphere, according to the overwhelming majority of climate scientists, and a large part of the heat gets absorbed by the oceans.
That in turn is forcing fish to flee to cooler waters.
“Global warming is here, and has major consequences already. There is no doubt, none!” the authors wrote in a statement.

Yet right now, supposedly the most powerful guy on the planet is blubbering about a really totally-not-an-emergency ‘crisis’ on the US southern border, in person, along that horrifying border.
And the reality is catching up — crazy on Fox (The Daily Beast):

In a rare break from pandering to President Trump, Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade spent Thursday morning warning that a declaration of national emergency to fund a Mexico border wall would constitute a “disaster.”

But Kilmeade sat baffled on the couch, warning: “It would just be a disaster in the big picture and just show us being inept and unable to govern around the world, and it would just set a terrible precedent.”
Then he warned, “The next president, if it is a liberal president, will say a state of emergency will be climate change. Look at what happened with [Hurricane] Sandy, look at what happened with the earthquake, look at what’s happening to the polar bears, who’ve no place to walk on ice.”

When you lose the Fox, maybe you’re fucked…

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