This newsletter is about the planet, and I had planned to write this week about light topics, like walking in nature, discovering a rare small mushroom on my island, or about my cat Luna. But it's hard to escape the worrying news about our beautiful planet, so tonight, I just have a short update for you about the state of the planet.
This is all super upsetting, but we have to face facts. Surely the "Russians love their children too" (Sting) and must be willing to stop—or at least decrease—their part of the insanity. It's so incredibly unfair that the whole world is held hostage to power-crazed "leaders." Of course, the U.S. is far from innocent, and today was yet another day to wake up to massive gun violence. So much of U.S. leadership is bought and sold by the lobby that's name is so repulsive, I refuse to type it here. I can't get my thoughts around any of this.
Born at 314 ppm CO2, I was in secondary school during the Cuban Missile Crisis, so I have spent my whole adult life in the shadow of the Doomsday Clock. So maybe that is why I was less disturbed by the nuclear threat than by your last quote: "the heat increase in 2022 compared to 2021 is roughly 19 times as much as the total energy produced by all human activities on Earth in 2020." If that is not due to a re-calibration of the scale, then considering the billions of tonnes of cold melt-water being added every year, we may have already lost the battle.
It suggests that reflected and trapped solar heat is causing about 18 times the heating that human activity does. Am I interpreting it correctly? If I am, it implies that humans could stop all activity tomorrow and the earth would continue to warm at basically the same astounding rate. (?)
Not really. In recent years key climate scientists like Michael E. Mann have changed their insights significantly as to the permanent character of the change. They now assume that if we act in time (meaning very quickly and effectively) the heating of the earth can be stopped quite soon. But the lingering effect is longer for some aspects of climate change; for instance the melting of the icecaps is much harder to stop than extreme weather events. I assume we can therefore say that the heating of the oceans can also be reduced significantly if we would stop burning fossil fuels. But I leave that to the climate scientists to decide, this is just my assumption.
This text about the doomsday clock is a somber post as you write.mIt is more than urgent to act everywhere wisely for the sake of preserving and restoring our planet. Many thanks dear leader for your contribution .
This is all super upsetting, but we have to face facts. Surely the "Russians love their children too" (Sting) and must be willing to stop—or at least decrease—their part of the insanity. It's so incredibly unfair that the whole world is held hostage to power-crazed "leaders." Of course, the U.S. is far from innocent, and today was yet another day to wake up to massive gun violence. So much of U.S. leadership is bought and sold by the lobby that's name is so repulsive, I refuse to type it here. I can't get my thoughts around any of this.
Sadly appropriate
Born at 314 ppm CO2, I was in secondary school during the Cuban Missile Crisis, so I have spent my whole adult life in the shadow of the Doomsday Clock. So maybe that is why I was less disturbed by the nuclear threat than by your last quote: "the heat increase in 2022 compared to 2021 is roughly 19 times as much as the total energy produced by all human activities on Earth in 2020." If that is not due to a re-calibration of the scale, then considering the billions of tonnes of cold melt-water being added every year, we may have already lost the battle.
It suggests that reflected and trapped solar heat is causing about 18 times the heating that human activity does. Am I interpreting it correctly? If I am, it implies that humans could stop all activity tomorrow and the earth would continue to warm at basically the same astounding rate. (?)
Not really. In recent years key climate scientists like Michael E. Mann have changed their insights significantly as to the permanent character of the change. They now assume that if we act in time (meaning very quickly and effectively) the heating of the earth can be stopped quite soon. But the lingering effect is longer for some aspects of climate change; for instance the melting of the icecaps is much harder to stop than extreme weather events. I assume we can therefore say that the heating of the oceans can also be reduced significantly if we would stop burning fossil fuels. But I leave that to the climate scientists to decide, this is just my assumption.
This text about the doomsday clock is a somber post as you write.mIt is more than urgent to act everywhere wisely for the sake of preserving and restoring our planet. Many thanks dear leader for your contribution .
Must share unexpected if dated (2015) documentary viewed on HULU streaming platform in USA “Racing Extinction”!
So well done. Blurb with Jane Goodall. Contains the element of HOPE so needed today. Alternatives for current practices. Highly recommend.❤️🌎🕊️
Thank you Judith, I will look it up!
😢 So many terrible things in our beautiful world.
sadly, yes...