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  2. Another Week of Climate Disruption News, July 28, 2013

Another Week of Climate Disruption News, July 28, 2013

By illconsidered on July 29, 2013.

This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup

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Information is not Knowledge...Knowledge is not Wisdom

July 28, 2013

co2now gfx skeptisci app gfx

 

Here's a wee chuckle for ye:

Looking ahead to COP19 and future international climate negotiations:

Oh, oh. The Major Emitters have spoken:

The Whiteman et al. $60 trillion Arctic disaster played to a lot of echoes and the odd brickbat:

What do we have for warnings this week?

And on the Bottom Line:

Who's getting the subsidies?

First it was the World Bank, then the US Import-Export Bank and now, the European Investment Bank.
Did someone pass these guys the word?

So, If we put a price on nature, will it deal with externalities and lead to greater conservation
or will it lead to greater exploitation or what?

John Cook and friends continue their point-counterpoint articles:

A note on theFukushima disaster:

It is evident that the Fukushima disaster is going to persist for some time.
TEPCO says 6 to 9 months. The previous Japanese Prime Minister, Naoto Kan, said decades.
Now the Japanese government is talking about 30 years.
[Whoops, that has now been updated to 40 years.]
And the IAEA is now saying 40 years too.
We'll see.
At any rate this situation is not going to be resolved any time soon
and deserves its own section.
Meanwhile...
It is very difficult to know for sure what is really going on at Fukushima.
Between the company [TEPCO], the Japanese government, the Japanese regulator [NISA], the international monitor [IAEA], as well as independent analysts and commentators, there is a confusing mish-mash of information.
One has to evaluate both the content and the source of propagated information.
How knowledgeable are they [about nuclear power and about Japan]?
Do they have an agenda?
Are they pro-nuclear or anti-nuclear?
Do they want to write a good news story?
Do they want to write a bad news story?
Where do they rate on a scale of sensationalism?
Where do they rate on a scale of play-it-down-ness?
One fundamental question I would like to see answered:
If the reactors are in meltdown, how can they be in cold shutdown?

Not much good news coming out of Fukushima:

 

What do we have for Fukushima related papers this week?

The Arctic melt continues to garner attention:

As for the charismatic megafauna:

That Damoclean sword still hangs overhead:

As for the geopolitics of Arctic resources:

While in Antarctica:

The food crisis is ongoing:

The state of the world's fisheries is a concern:

So, are these land grabs Colonialism V2.0?

    • 2013/07/23: BBC: World Bank: Africa held back by land ownership confusion
      Africa's economic growth is being held back by confusion over who owns vast swathes of agricultural land, according to a World Bank report.
      The continent is home to half of the world's usable uncultivated land, yet has the highest poverty rate.
      But the Bank said farmers' inability to prove ownership, legal disputes and land grabs had held back cultivation.
      Land governance needs to be improved if Africa is to fully exploit its resources and create jobs, it said.

Regarding the genetic modification of food:

And how are we going to feed 9 billion, 10 billion, 15 billion?

In the Central Pacific, Tropical Storm 06E (Flossie) looks to be heading straight for Hawaii:

In the Atlantic, Tropical Storm Dorian is heading westward (weakly):

 

 

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An honest question...

How would temperature data have been seen during the last 10,000 years prior to the peak of each of the previous Milankovich cycles? What caused the temperature to reverse course in those cycles and why would we not expect it to occur again this time?