Sheaf Saint

I'm not going to try and 'dig dirt' on the EPA's data. I'm not disputing that there was a spike in heatwaves in the US in the 1930s. My dispute is with the HI for using that graph to try and make it look like the current increase in global heatwave frequency and intensity isn't actually happening. This is the thing with climate 'sceptics' - they are always cherry picking data to try and disprove the warming narrative, knowing full well that uneducated people will take their claims at face value and do their dirty work for them by spreading them online. To demonstrate this, have a look at this graph from the same EPA site your graph was taken from. Don't just take my word for it. Read for yourself... Ocean and land forcing of the record-breaking Dust Bowl heatwaves across central United States | Nature Communications Abstract The severe drought of the 1930s Dust Bowl decade coincided with record-breaking summer heatwaves that contributed to the socio-economic and ecological disaster over North America’s Great Plains. It remains unresolved to what extent these exceptional heatwaves, hotter than in historically forced coupled climate model simulations, were forced by sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and exacerbated through human-induced deterioration of land cover. Here we show, using an atmospheric-only model, that anomalously warm North Atlantic SSTs enhance heatwave activity through an association with drier spring conditions resulting from weaker moisture transport. Model devegetation simulations, that represent the wide-spread exposure of bare soil in the 1930s, suggest human activity fueled stronger and more frequent heatwaves through greater evaporative drying in the warmer months. This study highlights the potential for the amplification of naturally occurring extreme events like droughts by vegetation feedbacks to create more extreme heatwaves in a warmer world.

I did a little googling and it appears Scally has got this from a website called Climate At A Glance, which is owned and run by the Heartland Institute. The very same organisation that was hired by the tobacco industry in the 1970s to rebut the science that was emerging about the dangers of smoking. They have no scientific credibility whatsoever - they are nothing but a corporate lobby group who peddle pseudo-science dressed up as fact with fancy looking graphs and booklets that, to the layman, look quite convincing, but are actually just laughably bad. I had a little look around the rest of the site. Fuck me! Some of the content on it is just hilarious. Take this for example, where they talk about the scientific consensus. Their central claim is that science is about hard facts and evidence, not a 'show of hands', and they then go and back up their claim that a "strong majority of scientists are not very worried about it", by citing a survey that is literally just a show of hands - asking some scientists what they believe about certain aspects of climate change - that doesn't actually say what they want you to believe it says. As to this graph, it's well known there were heatwaves in the US in the 1930s. They were both a cause and a symptom of the dust bowl event that devastated huge areas or arable land due to poor agricultural practices leading to the soil drying out completely, which in turn influences heat waves. What it doesn't specify is how intense those heatwaves were. And it only refers to the US, not the rest of the world. And, most importantly, it leaves out the whole bit that you posted explaining that heatwaves are becoming more frequent and intense, because that's inconvenient and doesn't fit with their agenda. In short - don't believe a single word printed/posted by the Heartland Institute, because it's guaranteed to be complete bollocks.

Yes, we are. But if we don't start incentivising people to make the transition now, it will only take longer and people will be even less prepared for it when it finally happens. In the mean time, the revenue raised from the incentive schemes can be used to invest in the necessary improvements to infrastructure, like a functional charging network.

Yes, and eventually all petrol and diesel cars will also be completely banned from driving into city centres as well. But obviously it's not feasible to introduce such a ban anywhere yet, because of the massive impact it would have on the economy and people's livelihoods. So until such a ban is feasible, the only option is to try and encourage people to start making the transition to less polluting vehicles as early as possible. And the only really effective way to change people's behaviour is to make it more expensive for them to carry on with the old behaviour.

Don't be too surprised if you don't notice an immediate effect tonight. CBD needs to be taken regularly at an appropriate dose before you will start to feel a real benefit from it. Cutting out caffeine is definitely recommended though. Contrary to popular belief, it doesn't give you energy, but it has the effect of blocking the chemical signals that tell your brain you are tired and it's time to sleep, so if you have it in your system at bed time you will struggle to switch off. Sometimes when I'm a little wired before bed I will use a guided sleep meditation. There's loads of them on Youtube. You just need to find ones without adverts and make sure you have turned off the setting to automatically play the next video when they finish.

Not entirely sure what point you're trying to make here. Yes, cereal production is still on an upward trend, while temperatures have been gradually rising. But at some point along that trajectory, the trends will diverge and grain production will begin to decline as global temperatures rise and rainfall patterns change. If we go over certain tipping points and enter into runaway warming, that point will come sooner rather than later. Interestingly, this chart shows a decline in production in 2018. We had a severe heatwave and drought in parts of Europe that year, and this study documents the impact this had on crop yields... "In 2018, Northern and Eastern Europe experienced multiple and simultaneous crop failures—among the highest observed in recent decades. These yield losses were associated with extremely low rainfalls in combination with high temperatures between March and August 2018".

On the face of it, it's an interesting discussion with a few good points made. Lomborg speaks well and does a decent job of sounding convincing to the layman, but he doesn't exactly have a good reputation for reliability in these matters, and frequently contradicts himself when it comes to climate policy proposals. Just saying "Yay for extra heat because it will save a few lives in winter" is a very myopic way of looking at the situation, and demonstrates a total lack of big picture thinking. Yes, humans may be able to tolerate extra heat more than we can tolerate cold, but what about the rest of the food chain we rely on? Current projections are that maize production could decline by 20% worldwide by 2030, and the extra heat being rapidly absorbed by the oceans is causing a massive disruption to their ecosystems, making them more and more uninhabitable for marine life.

There is no mistake. The plural of axis is axes.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66229065

Being on hold to your employer's IT provider for over half an hour and being forced to listen to the same 30 second clip of soft jazz on continuous repeat for the whole time.

I wonder how well the Saudi authorities will take to him wearing rainbow laces?

Finished watching Silo. Rally enjoyed its moody and claustrophobic aesthetic. A few questionable plot holes but hopefully they will be addressed in S2. While I'm enjoying my free trial of Apple TV, I decided to give Foundation a go, with S2 having just launched. Based on books by Isaac Asimov, it's very ambitious in its scale, spanning both space and time. Really enjoying it.

Not a chance in hell we will accept that offer for him.

The fact check piece mentions that the image has been captioned with "This is how manipulation works", but the poor saps spreading it don't realise it is them that are being manipulated. Unsurprising really.

And as long as you keep taking the bait and reacting, they will keep doing it. You never learn. FFS can we please not derail yet another thread with this pointless, childish bullshit?

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2370179/climate-change-deniers-use-past-heat-records-to-sow-doubt-online

Doesn't look like it will reach us, thankfully. The high pressure system that is causing it is fairly stable and we are experiencing the low pressure that surrounds it, hence the wet, cool and windy conditions. I know it's a bit rubbish for July, but on balance I think I would rather we had this weather than the extreme heat the rest of Europe is getting. After the hot, dry summer last year and below average rainfall during the winter recharge period, we really needed a wet summer to prevent us from going into drought again (although some areas of the south west are still in drought mode from last year). And although summer rain isn't as effective at recharging aquifers as winter rain, it's at least meaning the irrigation demand from agriculture is massively reduced during this growing season.

https://inews.co.uk/news/world/heatwave-pictures-europe-temperatures-today-2485593 Pretty sure approaching 45C isn't 'fairly around what you would expect'. I guess they must have taken these recordings at or near an airport though.

Wrong. We are 17th in the world out of 209 countries for emissions per capita. That's not insignificant. We are also part of the Paris agreement, so it's not like we are standing alone and pissing in the wind while everyone else carries on as normal. We are part of a global effort, which is exactly what is required. You claim China is "laughing at us", but they have a very ambitious net zero target and their demand for coal is expected to peak within the next 3 years (link). And, although we may find their anti-democratic political system abhorrent, there is a major benefit of having a continuous government in that they are able to make long term investment plans in energy infrastructure etc. and actually see them through without fear of getting booted out of office at an election before they get the chance to complete them. Again - wrong. There is no evidence that transitioning to net zero will harm our economy. Quite the opposite, in fact. Between 1990 and 2019, our emissions reduced by 43% and in the same period our GDP rose by 75%. Every credible study into future impacts (and there have been plenty in recent years) indicates multiple economic gains across all sectors and all regions of the UK, which will significantly outweigh the capital costs of investing in decarbonising technologies, and massively outweigh the additional costs associated with failing to adapt.

This isn't actually the case though. The major natural cycles that affect our climate operate over huge timescales. The 3 Milankovitch cycles, for instance, take between 26,000 and 1000,000 years to complete, and they don't come even close to explaining the current rate of warming since the dawn of the industrial age. The solar cycle, which so many climate deniers love to cite as being the primary driver of warming rather than human activity, operates over a much shorter time frame (approximately 11 years), but the variation in solar output between cycles is less than 0.2% which is much less than what would be needed to explain the observed warming over the 20th/21st centuries.

Possibly/probably. El Nino is here, but the effects are not expected to peak until later in the year or into next year. Research into why heatwaves are becoming more common in Europe suggests a link to changes in the Jet Stream. A 'double' jet, which is happening more frequently, reduces the speed of airflow over Europe which is perfect conditions for a heatwave. Reduction in Atlantic current can also combine with the jet stream and other factors (including El Nino) to create greater likelihood of heatwaves, and this is another avenue of research currently being explored. Whatever the cause, there is no doubt that heatwaves are becoming more common in Europe. They are becoming an almost annual event now, which they never used to be.

If it was a one-off, it could be labelled as an outlier and not evidence of anything, but it isn't. Heatwaves around the world have been steadily increasing in frequency and intensity, and the current rate of warming in Europe is almost double the global average.