earth

This is an almost incomprehensibly bleak update.

We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster. This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled. We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis. For many years, scientists, including a group of more than 15,000, have sounded the alarm about the impending dangers of climate change driven by increasing greenhouse gas emissions and ecosystem change (Ripple et al. 2020). For half a century, global warming has been correctly predicted even before it was observed—and not only by independent academic scientists but also by fossil fuel companies (Supran et al. 2023). Despite these warnings, we are still moving in the wrong direction; fossil fuel emissions have increased to an all-time high, the 3 hottest days ever occurred in July of 2024 (Guterres 2024), and current policies have us on track for approximately 2.7 degrees Celsius (°C) peak warming by 2100 (UNEP 2023). Tragically, we are failing to avoid serious impacts, and we can now only hope to limit the extent of the damage. We are witnessing the grim reality of the forecasts as climate impacts escalate, bringing forth scenes of unprecedented disasters around the world and human and nonhuman suffering. We find ourselves amid an abrupt climate upheaval, a dire situation never before encountered in the annals of human existence. We have now brought the planet into climatic conditions never witnessed by us or our prehistoric relatives within our genus, Homo (supplemental figure S1; CenCO2PIP Consortium et al. 2023).

Last year, we witnessed record-breaking sea surface temperatures (Cheng et al. 2024), the hottest Northern Hemisphere extratropical summer in 2000 years (Esper et al. 2024), and the breaking of many other climate records (Ripple et al. 2023a). Moreover, we will see much more extreme weather in the coming years (Masson-Delmotte et al. 2021). Human-caused carbon dioxide emissions and other greenhouse gases are the primary drivers of climate change. As of 2022, global fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes account for approximately 90% of these emissions, whereas land-use change, primarily deforestation, accounts for approximately 10% (supplemental figure S2).

Our aim in the present article is to communicate directly to researchers, policymakers, and the public. As scientists and academics, we feel it is our moral duty and that of our institutions to alert humanity to the growing threats that we face as clearly as possible and to show leadership in addressing them. In this report, we analyze the latest trends in a wide array of planetary vital signs. We also review notable recent climate-related disasters, spotlight important climate-related topics, and discuss needed policy interventions. This report is part of our series of concise annual updates on the state of the climate.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Katia,_Irma,_Jose_2017-09-08_1745Z%E2%80%931935Z.jpg

From left to right: Katia, Irma, and Jose.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hurricane_Katrina_Eye_viewed_from_Hurricane_Hunter.jpg

Milton is gonna be really bad folks

I love how they use the top of utility poles as a little stage

Took the tarp off a woodpile and found a coiled up adult copperhead and dear reader let me assure you I did not remain calm, or withdraw from the encounter with dignity or in silence.

https://subium.com/profile/edburmila.bsky.social/post/3l5rs6wbq4m2o

Last month, Michele Francis, an environmental scientist at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, relocated to central Connecticut only to discover that her new home showed signs of termite damage. When an exterminator suggested setting out traps, Dr. Francis demurred. “I wondered if I could persuade the termites to eat the trees around my house rather than the house itself,” she said. “I hold termites in high esteem.”

Giant Canada geese, so ubiquitous today in cities across the country, were once considered extinct. What can we learn from watching them up close?

In the opening minutes of Karsten Wall’s short film, Modern Goose, a flock of geese arrives in a cacophony of honks, barks, cackles and splashes, as it touches down in a human-made pond behind an outlet mall. The ruckus blends with the hum of traffic as they waddle under the neon glow of billboards and parking lot lights, picking at patches of grass and dodging vehicles in the drive-thru lane.

It’s a scene that would feel familiar in most Canadian cities, where geese have become ubiquitous to daily life. As it happens, these geese are Winnipeggers, descendants of a historically significant flock once thought to have disappeared altogether.

“A lot of people in the cities consider them pests, but then a lot of people go to Fort Whyte to watch the migration,” he says. “It was important to me to just let people sit and appreciate their amazing flying abilities, their migration abilities and how well they’re actually doing.”

There are other aspects of goose life that are relatable to humans. They mate for life (with just a 15 per cent separation rate, according to a Canadian field naturalist study titled “Divorce in Canada Geese”), raise their young together and migrate as a family. When female geese mature and find mates, they return to the place they were hatched to build nests of their own.

With today’s geese so abundant, it’s difficult to imagine a world without them.

But at the turn of the 20th century, unregulated hunting, egg collection and habitat erosion had nearly wiped out North America’s goose population and the giant Canada goose was thought to have disappeared altogether.

Full article

linky to skynews

So they never actually meant to hit those targets?

Amaize said another reason corporations may appear to be retreating on their climate targets is a phenomenon she calls "green-hushing." That is, as a result of anti-greenwashing legislation such as amendments to Canada's Competition Act under Bill C-59, some companies might be reluctant to tout their environmental measures for fear of being sued for false claims.

A prominent example is the Pathways Alliance, a consortium of Canada's six biggest oilsands companies, which removed almost all content from its website and social media feeds in June in response to C-59.

The OWA's budget has steadily increased in recent years in anticipation of the Sequoia assets, which has resulted in higher levies charged to industry.

And taxpayers have increasingly covered some of the cost to clean up aging wells, including the federal government's $1.7-billion commitment in 2020, which also aimed to provide stimulus for the oilfield service sector when oil prices crashed after the pandemic began.

lmao great gameplan

be charged "levee" to clean up all the shit I ruin as part of my business model

pay token amounts and don't actually do anything

wait for inevitable crisis to roll around once a decade so taxpayers give me $1.7 billion as "stimulus" so I don't have to actually pay for cleanup myself

Other oil industry shenanigans:

The case has its origins in the reorganization of Perpetual Energy in 2016. That Calgary-based company transferred many of its money-losing properties to an associated company. Then Sequoia, which was founded by a pair of Chinese investors that same year, acquired those assets in a deal for $1. Sequoia would go bankrupt in 2018.

PWC sought $217 million in damages from Perpetual. In 2021, while the bankruptcy battle was ongoing, Perpetual stored the majority of its assets into a new company called Rubellite Energy, which would have the same employees and office space as Perpetual.

"The Rubellite transactions and the proposed arrangement represent a radical solution to Perpetual's overwhelming financial problems: the establishment of Rubellite as a successor entity, free of Perpetual's obligations, to its creditors and other stakeholders," submitted PWC in a court filing. "Perpetual's shareholders receive clean shares in a 'pure' successor entity with 'no debt.'"

Perpetual chief executive Sue Riddell Rose described the move differently, calling it a way for "Perpetual shareholders to benefit through Rubellite to unlock the value of these high-quality assets while at the same time providing a full capital solution, reducing Perpetual's leverage and improving its liquidity to surface value from Perpetual's remaining asset base."

The creation of Rubellite was allowed, leaving Perpetual with a much lower value.

lmfao

Source: https://flipping.rocks/@loren/112831248847518661

Source: https://ecoevo.social/@nemo/113222736941970553