Antony Blinken: Addressing Climate Change a ‘Powerful Tool’ Against ‘Systemic Racism’

Breitbart 20/04/2021

While delivering a speech on the “climate crisis” from the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, Blinken said:

I spend a great deal of my time focused on threats to America’s security and interests – aggressive actions by Russia or China, the spread of COVID-19 [coronavirus disease], the challenges facing democracies. But an equally grave threat to the American people – and an existential one over the long term – can be seen right here, on the Chesapeake Bay, where the costs of climate change are already manifesting themselves.

Climate change would hit poor minority communities “the hardest,” Blinken proposed, adding that addressing the issue “offers one of the most powerful tools we have to fight inequity and systemic racism.”

The top U.S. diplomat predicted:

More frequent and more intense storms; longer dry spells; bigger floods; more extreme heat and more extreme cold; faster sea level rise; more people displaced; more pollution; more asthma. Higher health costs; less predictable seasons for farmers. And all of that will hit low-income, black and brown communities the hardest.

Meanwhile, Blinken admitted some American workers “would be hit hard” by the Biden administration’s response to the “climate crisis.”

However, he promised, “We won’t leave those Americans behind. We’ll provide our fellow Americans with pathways to new, sustainable livelihoods and support as they navigate this transition.”

Blinken warned the United States is “falling behind” China as the global leader of the renewable energy industry, adding climate change could serve as an economic “opportunity” for America.

Bill Gates wants to spray millions of tonnes of chalk into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight and slow global warming

Dailymail 23 March 2021

The first test of a project backed to spray millions of tonnes of chalk into the stratosphere, in an attempt to 'dim the sun' and cool the Earth, could happen in June.

Harvard University experts will test the system by sending a large balloon 12 miles above the Swedish town of Kiruna and have it drop 2kg of chalk dust into the stratosphere.

The aim of the estimated $3 million mission, backed by billionaire Bill Gates, is to have the chalk deflect a portion of the sun's radiation, stop it from hitting the surface, and cool the planet.

The idea has been heavily criticised since its inception, with project director Frank Keutsch even calling the need for this scale of geo-engineering 'terrifying'.

And experts have warned that the unusual technique could be disastrous for weather systems in ways nobody can predict.

Backed by a range of private donors including Gates, the test mission is launching from Sweden as they could offer a launch by the end of this summer. 

The test balloon will lift 600kg of scientific equipment 12 miles above the surface of the Arctic town and if it all goes well, about 2kg of dust will be released. 

This will then create a dust plume several kilometres in length - not large enough to have any effect on the intensity of the sun's rays hitting the Earth. 

During that first test the team would gather information on how particles of dust react with the air.

EXPOSED: Chemtrails hint at ongoing “New Manhattan Project” to alter Earth’s atmosphere

Chemtrails News 03/04/2021

The chemtrails that we see in our skies today are connected to a global weather modification project that stems from the WWII-era Manhattan Project, according to an exposé by researcher Peter A. Kirby. Like its predecessor, the “new Manhattan Project” is a complex and highly secretive military science project.

In fact, some of the scientists who worked on the original atomic weapon Manhattan Project have compared the power of the atomic bomb to that of storms. Many of the project’s most important scientists went on to carry out work in atmospheric science and weather modification.

According to Kirby, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is the modern project’s main center for research and development, particularly its Radiation Laboratory, or Rad Lab. In his book, Chemtrails Exposed: The New Manhattan Project, he exposes how the military/industrial/academic complex that was established during WWII has enabled the development of technology that now plays a starring role in the New Manhattan Project global weather modification efforts.

Some of the research used in the project comes from Nikola Tesla, Kirby believes. Tesla first conceived of plans for manipulating weather using electromagnetic energy. When he died, many of his scientific papers and instruments were confiscated by the U.S. government, and it was just three years afterward that Bernard Vonnegut and two other General Electric scientists kicked off the New Manhattan Project.

The expert tasked with reviewing Tesla’s papers was Radiation Lab Steering Committee member and Assistant Director John G. Trump, who went on to serve as head of MIT Radiation Lab’s British Branch. Scientists at the Rad Lab made important early advancements in ionospheric heaters and air traffic control using electromagnetic energy.

The Rad Lab went on to become MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics’ Basic Research Division. Now, ionospheric heaters based on their technology are creating electromagnetic energy to modify the weather.

Weather modification as a weapon

 

The time for a deep and global ecological conversion

AP News May 18, 2020

The Vatican is marking the 5th anniversary of Pope Francis’ environmental encyclical by calling for the world to map out a sustainable post-coronavirus future that considers the plight of the hungry and poor.

To kick off the week, 42 faith organizations from 14 countries announced they were divesting from fossil fuels. Among them are a handful of Catholic dioceses and religious orders in Britain, Ireland and the developing world, as well as some individual Methodist, Baptist and Quaker churches.

Francis has made protecting the planet one of the hallmarks of his papacy, and in 2015 issued a landmark encyclical, “Praised Be,” to lay out his appeal in the most authoritative teaching document a pope can pen. In it, Francis denounced the “perverse” economic model that had allowed the wealthy to exploit the poor and turn the Earth into an “immense pile of filth.”

A look at the powerful, elite-backed machine behind Greta Thunberg and the true agenda behind her world tour.

Vigilant Citizen October 15, 2019

In the matter of a few months, Greta Thunberg went from a lone girl protesting in front of the Swedish parliament to an international phenomenon. Although mass media is making it seem as if this meteoric rise to prominence happened organically, this is simply not true.

Behind Greta is a major machine, one that is controlled by major international actors and backed by major funds. This PR machine has allowed Greta to make the covers of magazines, become the subject of thousands of news articles while being photographed with world leaders and giving speeches at elite organizations such as the United Nations.

Although Greta might very well be genuinely concerned with the fate of the planet, her message is carefully crafted by those who control her to generate a specific response from the youth. In short, Greta is the face of a major marketing scheme – a tightly coordinated international effort to sell global warming through a specific lens: Fear, panic, and urgency.

Before going further, I need to point out that I am neither a “climate denier” nor a “climate activist”. That is not my field of expertise. I never analyzed any data regarding climate change and its correlation with human activity. I am far from qualified from speaking about this issue so I won’t.

Zoologist expelled from University for stating polar bears are at no risk of extinction from climate change

Financial Post   Oct/2019

A world-renowned expert in animal bone identification has lost her position at the University of Victoria (UVic), she believes for telling school kids politically incorrect facts about polar bears.

Zoologist Dr. Susan Crockford is routinely hired by biologists and archeologists in Canada and abroad to identify the remains of mammals, birds and fish. She has helped catalog museum collections, and assisted police with forensic analyses. But UVic students will no longer benefit from her expertise, and her ability to apply for research grants has come to a screeching halt. In May, the Anthropology Department withdrew her Adjunct Professor status, depriving her of a university affiliation.

Crockford describes her expulsion as “an academic hanging without a trial, conducted behind closed doors.” After being renewed unanimously in 2016 for a three-year term, her adjunct status was not renewed the next time around.

Crockford is the author of a popular blog, polarbearscience.com, as well as five books about these animals. Polar Bear Facts and Myths has been translated into four languages. She says that, contrary to the claims of environmental activists, polar bears are currently thriving and are at no risk of extinction from climate change.

Google's seventh annual meeting is dedicated to the climate crisis

Aug. 02, 2019  Ecowatch

Google's seventh annual meeting of the minds, dubbed Google Camp, is happening at a seaside resort in Sicily and this year, it is dedicated to the climate crisis. Luminaries from tech, business, entertainment and politics descended upon the Italian island to discuss ideas and solutions for tackling the climate crisis at the three-day event that costs Google upwards of $20 million, according to Business Insider.

The highly secretive event at the Verdura Resort near a UNESCO World Heritage ruins prevents attendees from posting on social media while in attendance. On the first night, Chris Martin of Coldplay performed a private concert for attendees with the Valley of the Temples ruins in nearby Agrigento as a backdrop.

The Verdura Resort is a short distance from the airport in Palermo, though many guests arrive via private helicopter or on private yachts, according to Forbes.

In fact, the Palermo airport had made preparations for the expected arrival of 114 private jets, according to Giornale Di Sicilia. The influx of private jets, private yachts, helicopters, sports cars and limousines seems in stark contrast to the theme of the conference. By contrast, Greta Thunberg, the teenage activist, eschews meat, dairy and air travel, to mitigate her carbon footprint. She will sail to New York from Europe to attend the UN Climate Summit next month.

The transportation of the various guests, including Barack Obama, Leonardo DiCaprio, Harry Styles, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Mark Zuckerberg, and Diane Von Furstenberg amongst many others have drawn condemnation on social media and in the press. After all, a flight from New York to Palermo, Sicily, generates around 4.24 metric tons of CO2, or the equivalent of 540,652 smart phones being charged at one time, according to EuroNews. That's a lot of carbon for just a few people. And, that doesn't include the greenhouse gasses emitted by the 2,300 horsepower diesel-engine private yachts.

One Twitter user commented, "Several #celebrities, wealthy and famous people have arrived in Sicily for #Google summit to discuss climate change. Are these folks going to push for a bill to be passed to ban use of private jets and mega yachts?" as Fox News reported

Misinformation and hysteria over wildfires in the Amazon

August 25, 2019 Blaze
While climate change alarmists spread fear over wildfires in the Amazon rainforest, data from NASA shows there is no reason for concern — or there should have been concern in past years.

 

From media outlets to politicians, the wildfires have sparked a wave of misinformation and hysteria. The wildfires are so frightening because the Amazon produces 20 percent of the world's oxygen, they claim. Others alleged the fires could speed up climate change. 

 

However, the panic appears to be completely overblown.

According to NASA, fires are common in the Amazon due to the arrival of a dry season in July. Fire activity typically peaks in September before ending in November.

And even though fires are common, NASA analysis shows that current fire activity is at or below average.
 

U.S. religious leaders issue “Religious Declaration of Unprecedented Human Emergency”

Yale May 9, 2019

What is an emergency? Merriam-Webster defines emergency as “an unforeseen combination of circumstances or the resulting state that calls for immediate action.” Does climate change count as an emergency? Not if an “emergency” is necessarily “unforeseen,” for when it comes to climate change, scientists have been sounding the alarm for decades, telling us that burning massive quantities of fossil fuels would lead to catastrophe. Of course, the fossil fuel industry (see #ExxonKnew) has spent millions of dollars trying to make the climate emergency as “unforeseen” as possible, for as long as possible, to as many people as possible. But the clock has run out. The time of reckoning is at hand. Foreseen or unforeseen, the climate crisis is upon us and it calls for immediate action.

In the same week that the U.K. became the first country to declare “an environment and climate emergency,” and in the same week that the Anglican Communion became, as far as I know, the first global religious body to recognize a climate emergency, National Religious Coalition for Creation gathered for its 20^th annual prayer breakfast in Washington, DC. NRCCC is a group composed of members of major faith groups in America, including Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, and Orthodox Christians, and Jews. After opening prayers, a lively presentation by Chad Hanson (Director of the John Muir Project) on forest protection as an essential aspect of addressing climate change, and the bestowal of the 2019 Steward of God’s Creation award to two outstanding climate champions – the Rev. Dr. Gerald L. Durley and the Rev. Dr. Jim Antal – we moved outside to announce the release of Religious Declaration of Unprecedented Climate Emergency.

Religious Declaration of Unprecedented Human Emergency clarifies two essential facts: humanity has an extremely short window of time in which to avert irreversible climate chaos, and religions around the world consider protecting God’s Creation a moral and spiritual imperative.

Perhaps it was fitting that the Religious Declaration was publicly announced in Pershing Park, a National World War I Memorial. Just as William James and Jimmy Carter spoke of “the moral equivalent of war,” so, too, are increasing numbers of citizens realizing that we need to address climate change with the same focus, fervor and self-sacrifice of a nation that is mobilized to fight a war.

The stakes are high. As stated in the opening lines of the Religious Declaration, climate change is unlike any other challenge that confronts humanity, “because it is largely irreversible ‘for 1,000 years after emissions stop’ with ‘profound impacts on global climate, ecosystems and human societies for the next ten millennia and beyond.’¹ The shocking truth is that decisions we make now could, in the words of climate economist Ross Garnaut, ‘haunt humanity until the end of time.’² Nuclear war, while also irreversible, is only a possibility. Human-induced climate change is underway now, and its impacts are greater and more extensive than scientific models predicted. We will significantly alter the future of civilization as we know it and may eventually cause its collapse if we continue down this path.”

The Declaration calls for bold, concerted action: “Decades of delay on climate action have made small corrective measures and incremental approaches useless. Those who are invested in maintaining the status quo, or who put forth proposals that are clearly incompatible with what climate science demands, are condemning innocent young people – including their own children and generations to come – to a future of unimaginable suffering: the mass death of human populations and the extinction of species.

Crop Catastrophe In The Midwest

TECB. May 26, 2019

The last 12 months have been the wettest in all of U.S. history, and this has created absolutely horrific conditions for U.S. farmers.  Thanks to endless rain and historic flooding that has stretched on for months, many farmers have not been able to plant crops at all, and a lot of the crops that have actually been planted are deeply struggling.  What this means is that U.S. agricultural production is going to be way, way down this year.  The numbers that I am about to share with you are deeply alarming, and they should serve as a wake up call for all of us.  The food that each one of us eats every day is produced by our farmers, and right now our farmers are truly facing a nightmare scenario.

You can view the latest USDA crop progress report right here.  According to that report, corn and soybean production is way behind expectations.

Last year, 78 percent of all corn acreage had been planted by now.  This year, that number is sitting at just 49 percent.

And the percentage of corn that has emerged from the ground is at a paltry 19 percent compared to 47 percent at this time last year.

We see similar numbers when we look at soybeans.

Last year, 53 percent of all soybean acreage had been planted by now.  This year, that number has fallen to 19 percent.

And the percentage of soybeans that have emerged from the ground is just 5 percent compared to 24 percent at this time last year.

In other words, we are going to have a whole lot less corn and soybeans this year.

Farmers in the middle of the country desperately need conditions to dry out for an extended period of time, but so far that has not happened.

In fact, last week the heartland was hit by yet another string of devastating storms.  The following comes from CNN…

Ten people are dead and a 4 year-old boy remains missing after more than a week of severe weather across the central US that put tens of millions of people at risk.
The deadly spring storm system ravaged several states, unleashing more than 170 reported tornadoes, fierce winds, drenching rain, flash flooding and hail.

One of the tornadoes that was spawned absolutely devastated the capital city of Missouri.  It was reportedly a mile wide, and it stayed on the ground for almost 20 miles…

A clearer picture emerged Friday of the size and scope of the powerful tornadoes that tore across Missouri on Wednesday night, leaving a trail of destruction in their paths. The state’s capital, Jefferson City, was among the hardest-hit places, struck overnight by a tornado with a peak wind speed of 160 mph that has been given preliminary rating of EF3.
The monstrous nighttime tornado that struck Jefferson City, a city with a population of about 42,000, was almost a mile wide and was on the ground for nearly 20 miles, toppling homes, ripping roofs off homes and business below.

What we are witnessing is definitely not “normal”, and I have had a number of readers write to me about this recently.  The other day one of my readers in Montana sent me a photograph of a freak May snowstorm that had just hit his area, and another one of my readers in Missouri explained that his boss is freaking out because they haven’t been able to get soybeans in the ground.  All over the country people want answers, and they are frustrated with the lack of information that they are getting from the mainstream media.

Unfortunately, the truth is that things are going to get worse.  Global weather patterns are dramatically shifting, and there is nothing that the authorities will be able to do to stop it from happening.

Global marches seek urgent action on climate change

Washington Post September 8

PARIS — More than 18,000 people marched Saturday in Paris as part of an international mobilization to show popular support for urgent measures to combat climate change in advance of a San Francisco summit.

Crowds overflowed a plaza in front of City Hall before marching east to the Place de la Republique, carrying an urgent message that it’s up to the public to put global warming at the top of the political agenda.

“Planet in Danger,” read some banners.

Activists around the world encouraged “Rise for Climate” protests before the summit taking place Sept.12-Sept. 14. California’s governor proposed the event after President Donald Trump vowed to pull the U.S. out of a landmark 2015 climate accord.

The international agreement was negotiated in France, and the French capital’s march was more successful than ones held Saturday in other French cities or elsewhere in Europe.

Environmental groups said the organized hundreds of events around the globe Saturday to highlight the issue.

Thousands of people took to the streets of San Francisco, marching about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) from the city’s piers to City Hall. Demonstrators banged drums, sang and hoisted signs that said “Rise for climate justice” and “Not a penny more for dirty energy.” They called for politicians to spearhead a transition to 100 percent renewable energy.

Top bank warns that earth is running out of resources to sustain life

RT 9 Aug, 2018

One of the world’s largest banks, HSBC, has highlighted research indicating that Earth is running out of resources to sustain life and that governments and corporations are failing to prepare for the effects of climate change.

The world has spent its entire budget of natural resources for the year after crossing the threshold on August 1. The date, dubbed ‘Earth Overshoot Day’, marks the earliest point the planet hit its annual resource limit.

HSBC highlighted the issue using research from the Global Footprint Network (GFN), an independent think tank that promotes conservation and sustainability. The bank blamed businesses and governments for not adequately preparing for climate change, and not using natural resources efficiently.

The bank noted extreme weather events, such as rising temperatures across Europe and wildfires in California, Greece and Scandinavia in its remarks about the research. "As scientists work on attribution analysis for specific events – the general consensus is that climate change is making these events more likely to occur and more severe,” HSBC said, according to Business Insider.

World sees rapid upsurge in extreme weather events

Phys March 21, 2018

A world addled by climate change has seen a four-fold increase in major flooding events since 1980, and a doubling of significant storms, droughts and heat waves, Europe's national science academies jointly reported Wednesday.

In Europe, where precise data reaches back decades, the number of severe floods has jumped five fold since 1995, according to the report, which updates a 2013 assessment.
"There has been, and continues to be, a significant increase in the frequency of extreme weather events," said Michael Norton, environmental programme director for the European Academies' Science Advisory Council.
"They underline the importance of avoiding greenhouse gases, which are fundamentally responsible for driving these changes," he told AFP.
For impacts that cannot be avoided, he added, "this makes climate proofing all the more urgent."
In Europe, efforts to shore up defences against river flooding have proven effective: despite an increase in frequency of such events, economic loses on the continent have remained static.
"Rather than just coping with disasters after they strike, we need to shift to proactive management of all drivers of risks," commented Munich Climate Insurance Initiative director Soenke Kreft, who did not contribute to the report.
In the United States, however, the damage wrought by storms doubled, on average, from $10 billion in 1980 to $20 billion in 2015, adjusted for inflation, according to the report, based in part on data from insurance giant Munich Re's NatCatSERVICE.
The update also assessed new findings on possible changes in the Gulf Stream, powerful ocean currents running between the Arctic region and the Caribbean that warm the air in northwestern Europe and the US eastern seaboard.

People of all faiths are unified globally to beat climate change

Two years after Pope Francis launched Laudato Si, the Vatican's plea to save the Earth, Trump rejected its tenets and the Paris Agreement. But people of all faiths are unified globally to beat climate change.

On May 24th, a grim-faced Pope Francis handed a signed copy of Laudato Si to President Donald Trump during his visit to Rome. The United States president, who has called climate change "a hoax," promised to read the papal encyclical, a spiritual and secular plea to save the Earth from environmental destruction.

A week later, Trump announced plans to yank the U.S. out of the 2015 Paris Agreement, whose prologue was influenced by the principles embodied in Laudato Si. In doing so, Trump repudiated 195 nations' pledges to reduce their carbon footprint to mitigate the worst effects of climate change; he repudiated Pope Francis and his encyclical as well.         More

World leaders duped manipulated global warming data

By David Rose February 4, 2017

The Mail on Sunday today reveals astonishing evidence that the organization that is the world’s leading source of climate data rushed to publish a landmark paper that exaggerated global warming and was timed to influence the historic Paris Agreement on climate change.

A high-level whistleblower has told this newspaper that America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) breached its own rules on scientific integrity when it published the sensational but flawed report, aimed at making the maximum possible impact on world leaders including Barack Obama and David Cameron at the UN climate conference in Paris in 2015.

The report claimed that the ‘pause’ or ‘slowdown’ in global warming in the period since 1998 – revealed by UN scientists in 2013 – never existed, and that world temperatures had been rising faster than scientists expected. Launched by NOAA with a public relations fanfare, it was splashed across the world’s media, and cited repeatedly by politicians and policy makers.

But the whistleblower, Dr John Bates, a top NOAA scientist with an impeccable reputation, has shown The Mail on Sunday irrefutable evidence that the paper was based on misleading, ‘unverified’ data.

It was never subjected to NOAA’s rigorous internal evaluation process – which Dr Bates devised.

His vehement objections to the publication of the faulty data were overridden by his NOAA superiors in what he describes as a ‘blatant attempt to intensify the impact’ of what became known as the Pausebuster paper.

His disclosures are likely to stiffen President Trump’s determination to enact his pledges to reverse his predecessor’s ‘green’ policies, and to withdraw from the Paris deal – so triggering an intense political row.      DailyMail

Pope Francis and climate politics

By E. Calvin Beisner - - Sunday, December 4, 2016

Reuters reports, “Pope Francis urged national leaders on Monday to implement global environmental agreements without delay, a message that looked to be squarely aimed at U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.

“Addressing a group of scientists that included theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, the pope gave his strongest speech on the environment since the election of Trump, who has threatened to pull out of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.

‘The ‘distraction’ or delay in implementing global agreements on the environment shows that politics has become submissive to a technology and economy which seek profit above all else,’ Francis said.”

So the pope thinks opposition to the Paris Treaty stems from profit seeking?

How about all the billions in profits sought by renewable energy corporations like wind turbine makers General Electric and Siemens or solar panel makers First Solar and Solar City, whose products can’t compete economically with fossil fuels or nuclear without massive government subsidies and mandates?

How about the billions of taxpayer dollars showered on Solyndra and similar now-bankrupt renewable energy companies?

How about all the billions of taxpayers’ dollars showered on the climate-change research complex to fund its continued modeling that has achieved the magnificent advance in scientific knowledge since 1978 of narrowing the estimate of the warming effect of doubled atmospheric CO2 from 1.5-4.5 C to 1.5-4.5 C? (Yes, you read that right — no narrowing achieved. Scores of billions spent over 38 years and no advance in what we really need to know.)

How about all the profits sought by carbon traders who expect to amass billions trading permits whose economic value rests on nothing but empirically falsified climate models that project 2 to 3 times the warming actually observed?

All this isn’t even to mention the anti-capitalistic mentality apparent in the pope’s implicit condemnation of profit seeking. “But he only condemns seeking profit “above all else,” you say? Sorry, that doesn’t ring true to Francis’ past. Despite the fact capitalism has lifted whole societies out of poverty while socialism has only trapped them in or returned them to poverty, Francis has been committed to Liberation Theology — a Latin American variant of Marxism learned by Latin American priests while studying mostly in Marxist-dominated French seminaries—since early in his priesthood.

One can’t help wondering if his embrace of climate alarmism rests on politics rather than science. That wouldn’t be unique to him, as former U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretary General Christiana Figueres said as much last year.

Certainly the absence of any hard science in the four paragraphs on climate change in Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ suggests science didn’t much factor into his opinion. That’s why hundreds of scientists — including climate scientists — signed the Cornwall Alliance’s Open Letter to Pope Francis on Climate Change, and were joined by economists, theologians and ethicists.

If politics has become submissive to a technology and economy that seeks profit above all else, the technology is that of renewable energy, which is subsidized 60 (wind) to 400 (solar) times as much per megawatt-hour of electricity generated as fossil fuels. How else do you explain governments’ willingness to sign onto a climate treaty implementation of which will cost $70-$140 trillion by century’s end while, on the IPCC’s own assumptions, reducing global average temperature by no more than 0.17 C.

Perhaps Pope Francis, who purports to care so much about the world’s poor, should consider how much more that money could achieve to lift people out of poverty if spent on things like water purification, sewage sanitation, nutrition supplements, infectious disease control, and health care.

Meanwhile, President-elect Trump, at whom the pontiff was preaching, should stick to his guns. He should announce that because President Obama never submitted the Paris treaty to the Senate for ratification, which the Constitution requires for the United States to be bound by any treaty, the U.S. is not a party to the treaty. Then, on the day he’s inaugurated, he should submit the treaty to the Senate, where it will die the ignominious death it deserves.                 Washington Times

Pope Francis: “Never been such a clear need for science” to protect the planet

By Brady Dennis November 29 at 4:32 PM

Pope Francis this week implored world leaders not to postpone the implementation of global environmental pacts, an appeal that appeared aimed at President-elect Donald Trump’s vows to end the United States’ leading role in combating climate change.

The pope’s remarks came during a gathering of scientists at the Vatican, at which he said there has “never been such a clear need for science” to guide human actions to safeguard the future of the planet.

“It is worth noting that international politics has reacted weakly — albeit with some praiseworthy exceptions — regarding the concrete will to seek the common good and universal goods, and the ease with which well-founded scientific opinion about the state of our planet is disregarded,” the pontiff said, according to a translation provided by the Vatican. He added that the “‘distraction’ or delay” in implementing global agreements on the environment demonstrates how politics have become submissive “to a technology and an economy which seek profit above all else.”

Trump, who is set to become one of the only world leaders to question the notion of global warming, has vowed to “cancel” U.S. participation in the international climate accord signed last year in Paris, in which countries pledged to cut carbon dioxide emissions sharply in coming years. In addition, Trump has called for rolling back pollution regulations on the oil, gas and coal industries and shrinking the role of the Environmental Protection Agency.

This week’s comments echoed an encyclical regarding the environment issued by Francis last year in which he wrote about the “urgent challenge to protect our common home” and argued that “the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor.”

At the Vatican, Francis praised the work of scientists, who he said must remain independent and emerge as leaders in fighting for climate action.

“I would say that it falls to scientists, who work free of political, economic or ideological interests, to develop a cultural model which can face the crisis of climatic change and its social consequences,” he said, “so that the vast potential of productivity will not be reserved for only a few.”                  Washington Post 

A new record for planet-wide heat

August 17, 2016Tom Randall tsrandall

Photographer: Ringo Chiu/AFP via Getty Images

Firefighters battle the Blue Cut wildfire near Cajon Pass, north of San Bernardino, California, on Aug. 16, 2016.

As more than 100,000 Americans flee destructive wildfires in California and floods in Louisiana, earth sends yet another reminder that the worst is yet to come: a new record for planet-wide heat.
Last month wasn’t just the hottest July on record for the surface of earth. It continued the longest-ever streak of record-breaking months—15, according to data released on Wednesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). July followed the hottest June, May, April, March, February, January, December, November, October, and September, along with last August, July, June, and May.
The extremes of recent months are such that we're only midway into 2016, and there’s already a greater than 99 percent likelihood that this year will go down as the hottest on record, according to Gavin Schmidt, who directs NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. NASA and NOAA maintain independent records of the earth’s temperatures, and both agree that last month was a scorcher. "July 2016 was absolutely the hottest month since the instrumental records began," Schmidt wrote on Twitter.
The interactive chart below shows earth’s warming climate, measured by land and sea, dating back to 1880. 

In Baton Rouge, La., days of heavy rainfall caused water to overrun levees along several tributaries this week. About 40,000 homes in southeastern Louisiana have been affected by the floods, and at least 11 people have died. In California, more than 80,000 people fled out-of-control wildfires after the state's fifth year of drought turned forests into tinderboxes. Wildfire season typically doesn't begin until fall. 

The July heat was experienced differently across the globe but was felt to some degree almost everywhere. The dark red swaths on the map below show areas that set new records. 

NOAA

Some of this is still the result of El Niño, which releases heat from the Pacific that typically lingers for months after the underlying conditions subside. Last year's powerful El Niño may soon shift to a cooling La Niña, according to NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. The agency gives a 55 percent to 60 percent chance of a La Niña pattern developing in the fall or winter. That, however, doesn’t change earth’s long-term trajectory.

This year is on track to be the third consecutive year to set a new global heat record. So far, 15 of the hottest 16 years ever measured have come in the 21st century. Results from the world’s chief monitoring agencies vary slightly, but all agree that the extremes of 2016 are unrivaled—for now.                           Bloomberg

Democrats join Pope Francis on climate change

Mark Silk | July 26, 2016

A year ago, Pope Francis issued the encyclical Laudato Si’, his clarion call for international action to address the existential crisis of climate change. Yesterday, the Democratic party signaled it’s with the program by approving a platform that recognizes climate change as “an urgent threat and a defining challenge of our time.”

Of greatest significance is a section on global threats that declares the United States must take the lead in “forging a robust global solution to the climate crisis.” Here’s what that means:

We are committed to a national mobilization, and to leading a global effort to mobilize nations to address this threat on a scale not seen since World War II. In the first 100 days of the next administration, the President will convene a summit of the world’s best engineers, climate scientists, policy experts, activists, and indigenous communities to chart a course to solve the climate crisis.

The contrast with the Republican platform could not be starker. That document calls the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change “a political mechanism, not an unbiased scientific institution.” It rejects “the agendas of both the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement.”

Opining that climate change “is far from this nation’s most pressing national security issue,” the Republicans pledge their support for “the development of all forms of energy that are marketable in a free economy without subsidies, including coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear power, and hydropower.” Without actually denying climate change, they have set forth a blueprint for doing nothing about it.

That’s not to say that the Democratic agenda doesn’t leave a good deal to be desired. It proposes to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, a level that some climate scientists believe will have disastrous consequences and which in any event cannot be achieved if, as the platform proposes, 2050 is the target date for having the economy running entirely on clean energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent.

The learning curve remains steep. That’s why the promise of a climate change summit during the first 100 days of the next administration is critical. With the right people at the table, this will provide the marching orders for the World War II-scale mobilization to come.

I’d advise President Clinton to put her vice president in charge of the summit. Tim Kaine’s environmental record is far from perfect, but as governor of a coal-mining state with an endangered low-lying coastline, he learned how to negotiate the politics of climate change as well as anyone in national politics.

Plus Kaine is a Pope Francis Catholic. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he not only has Laudato Si’ on his shelf but has read it from cover to cover. And taken it to heart.       Religion News