CLIMATE

CLIMATE WATCH - Current strategies to combat climate change aren't working.

PLANNING WATCH - Since February 24, 2022, when Russian troops moved on the Ukraine, there have been a flurry of articles calling for the reduced use of fossil fuels. 

CLIMATE WATCH - In the year 2021 methane (CH4) concentration in the atmosphere exceeded 1,900 ppb for the first time in human history recorded by Global Monitoring Laboratory, Earth System Research Laboratories, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

BEE BUSINESS - “Help our bees!” “Save our pollinators!”  As long as we consider them ours, can we save them? Here are four thoughts about protecting bees for bees’ sake.

ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY - California’s statewide water policy has evolved to better incorporate the realities of climate change in recent years, recognizing that natural processes are key drivers of sustainability.

CLIMATE WATCH - The egregious situation that has been inflicted on the people of Ukraine by the kleptocratic egotist Vladimir Putin has provided yet another opportunity for humanity to change course.

ENVIRONMENT - Factory farms are the Grim Reapers of civilization, inhumanely penning up and slaughtering cows, pigs, and chickens by the tens of millions, as well as unintentionally, but effectively, poisoning, maiming and/or killing birds, insects, amphibians, mammals, and crucial life-supporting ecosystems that are key to human life. And, it’s legal.

 ENVIRONMENT - At a state Senate hearing on Wednesday, top regulators dismissed concerns about the ability of California’s cap and trade program to help the state meet its climate goals.

ENVIRONMENTAL REFORMS - As Gov. Gavin Newsom described it, a set of legislative reforms and financial plugs to the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) — the agency responsible for the state’s most dangerous materials and wastes — would prove a huge boon for the state, vulnerable communities in particular.

CLIMATE POLITICS - I’ve been in the climate fight for decades. When NASA scientist James Hansen went before the Senate on June 23, 1988 to say global warming is here, it only confirmed what was becoming obvious.

CLIMATE WATCH - Man-made chemicals have exceeded the limits of safety for the planet.

CLIMATE POLITICS - The oceans of the world are undergoing a dangerous and damaging upheaval that manifests throughout scientific studies of late.

CLIMATE WATCH - Fresh U.S. government data spotlighting the rapid growth of atmospheric methane concentrations in recent years has scientists increasingly concerned that the human-caused climate crisis has triggered a vicious feedback loop, potentially resulting in unstoppable planetary warming.

CLIMATE POLITICS - Some time ago Jeremy Grantham (83), a renowned value investor who runs the $65 billion asset fund GMO, called the stock market a “super bubble.”

COMMENTARY - That was the slogan I grew up with in the early 60s but, these days, Nestlé makes neither a good neighbor nor a good corporate citizen. 

ENVIRONMENT WATCH - Water that is promised in a contract but can’t be delivered is called “paper water” – shorthand for water that does not exist except in legal documents.

CLIMATE WATCH - The planet is heating up like never before, as “ground temperatures” hit all-time records in the Northern Hemisphere as well as the Southern Hemisphere, and ocean temperatures threaten the world’s major fisheries of the Far North, which are imperiled beyond any known historical precedent. (See- The Oceans Are Overheating, January 14, 2022)

CLIMATE WATCH - A massive eruption in an undersea volcano, the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai, 40 miles north of the South Pacific island of Tongatapu on Saturday caused a low-level tsunami and flooding on the island, the most populous in the Tonga archipelago.

CLIMATE WATCH - According to the Ocean Conservancy: “From the beginning of industrialization until today, the ocean has absorbed more than 90 percent of the heat from human-caused global warming and about one-third of our carbon emissions.

CLIMATE WATCH - During the month of December 2021 two warnings of impending sea level rise were issued by highly respected groups of climate scientists.

CLIMATE POLITICS - California has cast itself as a leader in the fight against climate change and global warming.

ENVIRONMENT WATCH - Bright Green Lies (Monkfish Book Publishing, 2021) grumbles and growls like a rambunctious thunderstorm on an early spring day opening up darkened clouds of acid rain across the world of environmentalism, including celebrated personalities. 

CLIMATE WATCH - “Forces profound and alarming are reshaping the upper reaches of the North Pacific and Arctic oceans, breaking the food chain that supports billions of creatures and one of the world’s most important fisheries.”

CLIMATE WATCH - The Thwaites “Doomsday Glacier” in West Antarctica is spooking scientists.

CLIMATE WATCH - It’s starting to feel as though scientists and governments announce new policies and predictions for our warming planet every week.

GUEST COMMENTARY - Decisions in the next month will shape California’s future for the next decade. Our state is undergoing a process to redraw the lines of our congressional, state Senate and Assembly districts.

CLIMATE POLITICS - Trees are not re-growing in burned-out forests. This strange occurrence is becoming more frequent as global warming turns verdant flora into flammable tinder, causing more and bigger wild forests fires. 

CLIMATE PLEDGE - One benefit that Amazon has provided society with is a reduction in shopping-related violence.

CLIMATE POLITICS - Veganism isn’t the answer to climate change, nor is eschewing air travel.

CLIMATE OBSERVATIONS - Major portions of the Amazon rainforest have shifted from a carbon sink to a carbon source. This shift has severe planet-wide negative implications.