Is Global Warming becoming unstoppable?

[basilio]

This is the reality that make Republicians in Florida acknowledge global warming.

Meet America's new climate normal: towns that flood when it isn't raining
Climate change

In this extract from Rising, Elizabeth Rush explains ‘sunny day flooding’ – when a high tide can cause streets to fill with water

• Rising seas: ‘Florida is about to be wiped off the map’

Elizabeth Rush

Thu 28 Jun 2018 11.00 BST Last modified on Thu 28 Jun 2018 17.56 BST

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‘I’ve been here 20 years. When I first moved we used to flood once a year, maybe twice. Now it’s constant.’ Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
I spend the afternoon in Shorecrest, a neighborhood a couple of miles north of downtown Miami. To get there I leave the beach behind and drive past Arky’s Live Bait & Tackle, Deal and Discounts II, Rafiul Food Store, Royal Budget Inn, Family Dollar and Goodwill. As I continue north, the buildings all lose their mirrored glass and their extra floors, until most are single story and made from stucco.

It isn’t raining when I arrive in Shorecrest, and there isn’t a storm offshore; the day is as clear and as blue as the filigree on a porcelain plate. But the streets are still full of water. I watch as a woman wades ankle deep across Tenth Avenue. She has gathered her long russet-colored skirt in her right hand, and in her left she holds a pair of Jesus sandals. When she reaches the bus stop, she sits and puts her shoes on.

“We get flooded with just about every high tide,” the woman tells me. “And if the moon is big it’s worse.”

All along the east coast, from Portland, Maine, to Key West, “sunny day flooding” is increasingly frequent. Many places in the Sunshine State are so low lying that high tide – when coupled with something as innocuous as a full moon – can cause the streets to brim with water. Sometimes the tide simply rises above the seawalls and starts to spill into the roadways; in other cases it enters the neighborhood through the storm-water infrastructure belowground. The very pipes designed to reduce flooding by ushering rain out instead give salt water a chance to work its way in.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/28/rising-elizabeth-rush-extract-towns-flooding

 

[explod]

https://www.news.com.au/technology/...s/news-story/95b6b2cfe79613ae8151e095fb8ef8d0
Last month the hottest on record across the globe.

Keep having a good time comrades.

 

[cynic]

https://www.news.com.au/technology/...s/news-story/95b6b2cfe79613ae8151e095fb8ef8d0
Last month the hottest on record across the globe.

Keep having a good time comrades.

Is it still 2016 where you live?

 

[luutzu]

Is it still 2016 where you live?

New records are broken every time it's counted.

The UK is to also have its hottest in recorded history.

Lower 48 States Just Had the Warmest May on Record
https://weather.com/news/news/2018-06-06-may-2018-record-hot-temperatures-united-states-noaa-report

At a Glance

• May 2018 was the hottest in 124 years of May records across the Lower 48.
• Eight states broke warmth records and no state was colder than average.
• Two states had their wettest Mays.

 

[explod]

Is it still 2016 where you live?

Apologies, mixed the references, the one I wanted it on was June 2018. Was in the Washington Post but cannot lift it I find.

Anyhow Iuutzu is a step ahead, lol

 

[cynic]

Apologies, mixed the references, the one I wanted it on was June 2018. Was in the Washington Post but cannot lift it I find.

Anyhow Iuutzu is a step ahead, lol

Thanks for that, I was about to ask you to place some bets for me, on the last two Melbourn Cups.

 

[luutzu]

Apologies, mixed the references, the one I wanted it on was June 2018. Was in the Washington Post but cannot lift it I find.

Anyhow Iuutzu is a step ahead, lol

When I replied, I actually did paste in that 2016 link. They both said record May temperature.

We're going to be so stuffed.

Reading about temperature and record heatwave doesn't really hit us until we're out there in the heat. Like me last summer when I have to watch a few tradies at work.

I've done work outdoor; have spent quite a few months where I work day in and day out in the heat that I literally turn dark brown. But man, working in +40C temperature... that's going to kill a whole lot of people early.

So yea, policymakers being in AC-ed, high and dry places... Doesn't need much lobbying to not give a damn.

 

[luutzu]

Thanks for that, I was about to ask you to place some bets for me, on the last two Melbourn Cups.

Put it in stocks McFly, Stocks.

 

[Smurf1976]

working in +40C temperature... that's going to kill a whole lot of people early

I’m not certain but I think that building sites etc at least in some states stop work when the temperature exceeds x.

If heatwaves become more common then there’s a direct economic cost there and that’s just one example.

 

[SirRumpole]

Moorland fires in England, and San Francisco burns.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...res-likely-as-climate-changes-scientists-warn

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...wildfire-sacramento-san-francisco-evacuations

Of course these things happen "all the time", but something tells me they are getting worse.

 

[Tisme]

Has Russia started building its pontoon nuclear power plants in its new territory...the Arctic? I seem to recall they placed their flag on the bottom of the ocean a while back.

 

[basilio]

A conservative approach to dealing with climate change.

Declare energy independence with carbon dividends
A carbon tax and dividend system could usher in an era of clean energy independence

......Republican former Secretaries of the Treasury James Baker and George Shultz have called for a carbon dividends strategy, because:

1. it avoids new regulation,
2. it abides by conservative principles of market efficiency, and
3. it leverages improvements to the Main Street economy to ensure a future of real energy freedom.

...
This is how carbon dividends work.

• A simple, upstream fee, paid at the source by any entity that wants to sell polluting fuels that carry such hidden costs and risk. This is administratively simple, light-touch, economy-wide, and fair to all.

• 100% of the revenues from that fee are returned to households in equal shares, every month. This ensures the Main Street economy keeps humming along.

• Because both the fee and the dividend steadily rise, pollution-dependent businesses — and the banks that finance them — can see the optimal rate of innovation and diversification to liberate themselves from the subsidized pollution trap. The whole economy becomes more competitive and more efficient at delivering real-world value to Main Street.

• To ensure energy intensive trade-exposed industries are not drawn away by other nations keeping carbon fuels artificially cheap, a simple border carbon adjustment ensures a level playing field, while adding negotiating power to US diplomatic efforts, on every issue everywhere.

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...are-energy-independence-with-carbon-dividends

 

[cynic]

A conservative approach to dealing with climate change.

Declare energy independence with carbon dividends
A carbon tax and dividend system could usher in an era of clean energy independence

......Republican former Secretaries of the Treasury James Baker and George Shultz have called for a carbon dividends strategy, because:

1. it avoids new regulation,
2. it abides by conservative principles of market efficiency, and
3. it leverages improvements to the Main Street economy to ensure a future of real energy freedom.

...
This is how carbon dividends work.

• A simple, upstream fee, paid at the source by any entity that wants to sell polluting fuels that carry such hidden costs and risk. This is administratively simple, light-touch, economy-wide, and fair to all.

• 100% of the revenues from that fee are returned to households in equal shares, every month. This ensures the Main Street economy keeps humming along.

• Because both the fee and the dividend steadily rise, pollution-dependent businesses — and the banks that finance them — can see the optimal rate of innovation and diversification to liberate themselves from the subsidized pollution trap. The whole economy becomes more competitive and more efficient at delivering real-world value to Main Street.

• To ensure energy intensive trade-exposed industries are not drawn away by other nations keeping carbon fuels artificially cheap, a simple border carbon adjustment ensures a level playing field, while adding negotiating power to US diplomatic efforts, on every issue everywhere.

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...are-energy-independence-with-carbon-dividends

And how does this ensure a level playing field for all nations?

How will the further exportation of Australian industry, aid our global environment?

This sounds suspiciously like a policy, cunningly designed for the purposes of duping a nation into economically crippling itself.

 

[SirRumpole]

This sounds suspiciously like a policy, cunningly designed for the purposes of duping a nation into economically crippling itself.

It sounds like an Emissions Trading Scheme which we could have had years ago if it wasn't for the Greens.

 

[cynic]

It sounds like an Emissions Trading Scheme which we could have had years ago if it wasn't for the Greens.

What?!!
Did the Greens truly do something for which Australians can be thankful?!! (Amazin!! Whowouldathunkit?!!)

 

[ghotib]

How are those two questions relevant to a policy proposed by two former US Treasury Secretaries for the USA?

 

[cynic]

How are those two questions relevant to a policy proposed by two former US Treasury Secretaries for the USA?

How do the origins of authorship alter the merits of the proposal?

 

[basilio]

How are those two questions relevant to a policy proposed by two former US Treasury Secretaries for the USA?

Indeed. The point of highlighting the carbon tax and carbon dividend concept was it's capacity to use market forces to rapidly and fairly redirect economic progress towards to clean energy generation. It isn't about regulation.

That is why many conservative economists and politicians believe it is the most practical free markat approach to dealing with CC.

https://www.clcouncil.org/media/TheConservativeCaseforCarbonDividends.pdf
http://www.wri.org/blog/2017/02/republican-proposed-carbon-dividend-great-sign-progress

 

[basilio]

How do the origins of authorship alter the merits of the proposal?

How about actually reading the proposal and then discussing it's merits ? You will in fact find that it does offer thoughtfull answers to most questions.

 

[Smurf1976]

How do the origins of authorship alter the merits of the proposal?

It seems a reasonable proposal to me.

The only concern I would have, given its origins, is just to make sure they haven't snuck a role for investment banks taxing the entire economy in there somewhere.

That might sound a bit "tin foil hat" but then I've seen how a similar scenario has unfolded with electricity in Australia, in a manner which directly increases emissions in the process, so anything's possible if there's away for someone to siphon off a few $ billion.

So long as there's nothing like that, and there doesn't appear to be so it's just a word of caution on my part there, then it seems a reasonable way forward.