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Senator Whitehouse’s/Climate Crisis/Property Insurance/Re Collapse Scenario

Photo by Breno Assis is licensed by Unsplash
Photo by Breno Assis is licensed by Unsplash

Senator Whitehouse’s Climate Crisis/Property Insurance/RE Collapse Scenario

By Robert Hunziker

Real estate has become climate change’s biggest victim. Climate change is attacking America’s most valuable, biggest asset class. For the first time in history there are regions of the country where major property insurers have dropped coverage altogether as elsewhere rates are on the climb, pricing some buyers out of the market.

America’s politicians punted on tackling climate change decades ago, except for Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who has masterfully delivered more than 290 “Time to Wake Up” climate speeches to the Senate, calling out deniers and demanding bold action. If Congress had been composed of “Whitehouse intellect,” the world climate system would be in much better shape today. And not threatening the American Dream of Homeownership.

At a Senate confirmation hearing for Trump appointee Michael Faulkender as Deputy Treasury Secretary, Senator Whitehouse opened up all firing cylinders, blasting away like there’s no tomorrow, which may be where we’re headed after listening to the senator’s scolding rendition of how Congress has failed climate change impacting the financial system and US economy. In short, climate change is raising hell with the financial system as US property insurance goes up in flames.

In his opening remarks, the senator referenced “very dark economic storm clouds on the horizon,” because of climate change which the administration cannot seriously address because massive political funding has made it “an article of faith to deny climate change,” in fact, claiming “it’s a hoax.” This perverse attitude is now holding America’s homeowner’s hostage.

Interestingly, over past decades, scientists have gotten it right, even the Exxon scientists got it right, meaning, fossil fuel emissions (CO2) cause climate change. Nevertheless, Congress has failed to act because of pressure by fossil fuel interests, including the “largest campaign of disinformation that America has ever seen,” as dark money spills out all over the place. As a result, all serious bipartisan efforts on The Hill on climate change have been squelched. Poof!

Disinformation, disinformation, disinformation has been the guiding light of climate denialism. It’s a hoax; it’s a hoax; it’s a hoax; it’s fake news; it’s fake news, repetition creates fact.

As the senator and the Trump appointee discussed in a meeting beforehand in the senator’s office, the consequences of climate change are severe based upon professional risk judgement where fiduciary responsibly is considered. For example, the chief economist of Freddie Mac told committee hearings we are headed for a “property insurance collapse” that will cascade into a crash in coastal property values that will be so significant that it will cascade into the entire economy, same as 2008. That’s the warning on coastal properties. Additionally, wildfires have now added new property insurance risks that are far removed from coastal property. Climate change knows no boundaries as congressional ineptness and timidity to challenge it clobbers American homeownership.

Senator Whitehouse offered one example after another of how climate change is undermining the financial system of America. In a recent Senate banking committee hearing, the Fed Chairman said there will be “areas of the country where you can’t get a mortgage any longer” because of climate change; a very stern warning that something has to change.

Also, as related by the senator, the Financial Stability Board, the entity that warns the international banking system of impending issues gives the same warning that “property insurance has become a major risk to the survival of the economic system.”

And even closer to home base, meaning Congress itself, a recent bipartisan CBO (Congressional Budget Office) report identified fires, floods and climate change in toto, threatening to undermine our financial system. Yet, Congress ignores its own warnings.

And The Economist magazine cover story in April 2024 depicted climate damage undermining insurance markets and threatening the biggest asset class in the world, RE. predicting a 25 trillion dollar hit to RE because of climate change.

Senator Whitehouse: “The lie that climate change is a hoax is no longer just an act of political malfeasance. It is now an act of economic malfeasance.” Climate change is hitting America’s pocketbooks throughout the country like an early summer thunderstorm crackling in the sky.

The financial/Wall Street/economic impending upside down collapse due to radical climate change should be item number one on Congress’s docket to do whatever is necessary, but it’s not even given a glancing look. Yet, the insurance industry is feeling the heat; homeowners are feeling the heat. Mortgage companies are feeling the heat. And Wall Street is starting to feel the heat. Can the Trump climate hoax syndrome, “ignore it, it’s not real… it’s fake news” hold up in the face of extremely severe financial strain impacting the world’s largest asset class, real estate?

“President Trump issued an executive order aimed at dismantling many of the key actions that have been undertaken at the federal level to address climate change. The order, ‘Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth.” (Trump Issues Executive Order on Climate Change, Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, Columbia Law School)

Nobody’s Insurance Rates Are Safe From Climate Change, Yale Climate Connections, January 14, 2025.

Property Values to Crater Up to 60% Due to Climate Change, Business Insider, Aug. 9, 2024.

U.S. Department of the Treasury Report: Homeowners Insurance Costs Rising, Availability Declining as Climate-Related Events Take Their Toll, U.S. Department of the Treasury, January 16, 2025.

Next to Fall: The Climate-driven Insurance Crisis is Here – And Getting Worse, Senate Budget Committee, Dec. 18, 2024.

Climate Risk Will Take Trillion-dollar Bite Out of America’s Real Estate, Report Finds, USA Today, Feb. 7, 2025.

Homeowners Insurance Sector Slammed by Climate Impacts, Insurance Business America, May 14, 2024.

Climate Change Is Coming for U.S. Property Prices, Heatmap News, Feb. 3, 2025.

Insurers Are Deserting Homeowners as Climate Shocks Worsen, The New York Times, Dec. 18, 2024.

Climate Resiliency Flips the Housing Market Upside Down, Forbes, Feb. 20, 2025.

Climate Change Set to Lower Home Prices, Business Insider, Feb. 4, 2025.

How Climate Change Could Upend the American Dream, Propublica, Feb. 3, 2025.

Climate Change to Wipe Away $1.5 Trillion in U.S. Home Values, Study Says, The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 3, 2025.

Opinion: That Giant Sucking Sound? It’s Climate Change Devouring Your Home’s Value, The New York Times, Feb. 3, 2025.

How and Where Climate Change Will Lower U.S, Home Values, Context News, Feb. 10, 2025.

Climate Change Is Driving an Insurance Crisis, The Equation – Union of Concerned Scientists, June 19, 2024.

Risky Real Estate: How Climate Risk is Changing Prices, Medium, March 3, 2025.

At Least 20% of U.S. Homes Will be De-Valued Due to Climate Change, Says DeltaTerra CEO Dave Burt, CNBC, Feb. 19, 2025.

Climate Change is Fueling the US Insurance Problem, BBC, March 18, 2024.

US Housing Market May Face Losses Due to Climate Change, Realty, Feb. 21, 2025.

Nearly Half of U.S. Homes Face Severe Threat from Climate Change, Study Finds, CBS News, March 13, 2024.

The Possible Collapse of the U.S. Home Insurance System, The New York Times, May 15, 2024.

The Climate Crisis Will End Home Ownership as We Know It and Eventually Crash the Economy, Splinter, Jan. 8, 2025.

Fake news?

The big question going forward is whether climate change’s real estate devaluation, which impacts every American household, will take MAGA down to its knees, drowning its lameness in a sea of turbulent financial chaos followed by a massive irrepressible political tsunami payback event that cleanses the nation of lies?
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This article was originally published on March 24, 2025 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Discovery of Immense Methane Leaks in Antarctica

Photo by Unseen Histories is licensed by Unsplash
Photo by Unseen Histories is licensed Unsplash

Discovery of Immense Methane Leaks in Antarctica

By Robert Hunziker

A new discovery of methane leaks in Antarctica could be a game-changer and potential near-term threat that’s difficult to characterize without sounding overly negative. Of course, situations like this that appear threatening to civilization, or life as we know it, are difficult to believe and accept as something that will really happen, which is understandable because nothing in human history compares to the risk attendant to the dreaded runaway greenhouse effect. So, there’s nothing in human history to compare it to.

Nevertheless, there are scientists who believe we are living on borrowed time because of massive changes happening at the top and at the bottom of the planet where only scientists and Indigenous people hang out. Now, this new discovery serves to emphasize their concerns of a climate monster capable of altering everything, lurking in the background.

The threat is explained in a YouTube video: Immense Methane Leaks in Antarctica: A Hidden Climate Theat Unveiled by Phantom Ecology, which is headed by Milton Muldrow, Ph.D. asst. professor at Wilmington University and Chair/College of Arts & Sciences.

As a prelude to this new information, it’s important to note that Russian scientists have been monitoring the risks of methane breakouts in the High Arctic for a couple of decades and have voiced concern about the risks of a sudden burst as undersea methane clathrates increasingly melt, bubbling to surface in ever-larger diameters, which they have measured. As it happens, methane (CH4) is many times more potent than CO2 at trapping excessive global heat.

Additionally, the risk of a methane breakout is mentioned by Peter Wadhams, emeritus professor, Ocean Physics, University of Cambridge, in his celebrated, brilliant interview: The Future of Sea Level Rise: “Russian scientists working the region believe a huge pulse of methane could erupt.” This could crank up global temperatures to ultra-dangerous levels in as little as 2-3 years. The consequences would be unspeakable. And with Antarctica joining, the game changes.

As a science researcher/writer of over 400 articles, this new development is extraordinarily spooky and difficult to accept because the consequences feel way too close for comfort. Stated at the opening of the Phantom Ecology video: “Deep beneath the icy plains of Antarctica, a slumbering giant is beginning to stir. Scientists have made a startling discovery. Vast reservoirs of methane hydrates locked away for millennia are showing signs of instability.”

The finding sent ripples of concern throughout the world of science. The consequences for the planet could be quite dangerous, maybe sooner rather than later. Rising plumes of methane (CH4) near the Antarctic Peninsula raises a major concern that trapped methane will be released into the atmosphere, exacerbating an already dire situation of accelerating global temperatures. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Maginot line of 1.5C above pre-industrial not to be exceeded as framed at the Paris 2015 climate conference by nearly all the nations of the world is kaput. To date, global temperatures have been exceeding that level for nearly two years running.

Meanwhile, world famous climate scientist James Hansen (Earth Institute, Columbia University) says 2C is on the horizon. “The pace of global heating has been significantly underestimated, according to renowned climate scientist Prof James Hansen, who said the international 2C target is “dead” (Climate Change Target of 2C is ‘Dead’ Says Renonwed Climate Scientist, The Guardian, Feb. 4, 2025). It’s a huge understatement to say this would be horrendous for Antarctic methane leaks, Arctic methane leaks, including Siberian methane leaks and Alaskan methane leaks, as well as Glacial methane leaks (see below “Methane Double Trouble” for another disturbing new discovery).

The volume of methane locked away in Antarctic ice is estimated to be more carbon than all other fuel deposits combined for the planet. A small fraction of this escaping into the atmosphere could have catastrophic consequences for the climate system “in the not-too-distant future.” (Muldrow)

A Climate Time Bomb

Methane hydrates consist of methane molecules trapped within a crystalline lattice of water molecules. This forms an ice substance that can ignite if brought to surface and lit with a match. According to the video: “Release of methane from these hydrates is a frightening prospect. Such a release could trigger a runaway greenhouse effect leading to rapid and catastrophic climate change.” Rapid onset of methane would bring sea levels rising at unprecedented rates, extreme weather events more frequently, and widespread disruptions/destruction to global ecosystems.

Muldrow’s analysis of the first time that large-scale CH4 emissions have been detected in Antarctica is confirmed by Polar Journal d/d March 2025: Large Methane Leaks Discovered in Antarctica: “A research team led by the Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC) and the Spanish Geological and Mining Institute (IGME-CSIC) undertook an expedition to the Antarctic Peninsula as part of the ICEFLAME project. The researchers returned on February 17 and have now reported the discovery of large methane leaks on the sea floor in an ICM publication. For the first time, they were able to observe that large quantities of methane are released from the seabed in a gaseous state where methane hydrates occur.”

Additionally, according to an article in Rapusia.org d/d March 14, 2025, Massive Methane Leaks Detected in Antarctica, Posing Serious Climate Risks: “A team aboard the Sarmiento de Gamboa research vessel observed large columns of gas escaping from the ocean floor, with some extending up to 700 meters (2,300 feet) long and 70 meters (230 feet) wide.”

Methane Double Trouble

In addition to massive CH4 leaks discovered in Antarctica, up north in the Arctic scientists recently discovered Arctic glaciers leaking “significant amounts of methane,” revealed for the first time. As explained: “Glacial melt rivers and groundwater springs are transporting large volumes of methane from beneath the ice to the atmosphere. This previously unrecognized process could contribute to Arctic climate feedback, accelerating global warming.” (‘Glacial Fracking’: A Hidden Source of Arctic Greenhouse Gas Emissions, ScienceDaily, Feb. 19, 2025)

As a result, scientists now need to reassess methane budgets, incorporating glacial emissions alongside permafrost thaw and wetland methane fluxes. The complexities of multiple dangers of global warming continue to expand and merge in time. It now appears that both ends of the planet have turned dicey, risky, subject to sudden change all too soon for comfort and all together at the same time.  This could get very ugly; an article in Space.com deals with the issue of runaway global warming: How The Runaway Greenhouse Gas Effect Can Destroy a Planet’s Habitability — Including Earth’s, Space.com, December 19, 2023. Here’s the storyline: “Using advanced computer simulations, scientists have shown how easily a runaway greenhouse effect can rapidly transform a habitable planet into a hellish world inhospitable to life.”

Alas, as explained many times in prior articles, corporations, oil and gas operations, countries are all failing to honor commitments to mitigate climate change even before the U.S. reversed course on combating climate change under the Trump administration. This becomes infectious as Germany recently announced an intention to lessen its commitments. The timing could not be worse. The WMO State of the Climate 2024 Update once again issued a Red Alert at the sheer pace of climate change in a single generation, turbo-charged by ever-increasing greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere. 2015-2024 will be the warmest ten years on record; the loss of ice from glaciers, sea-level rise and ocean heating are accelerating; and extreme weather is wreaking havoc on communities and economies across the world. (World Meteorological Organization)

Making matters more unnerving yet, according to Copernicus Global Climate Highlights 2024: “Each month from January to June 2024 was warmer than the corresponding month in any previous year. August 2024 equaled the record warmth of August 2023 and the remaining months from July to December were each the second warmest for the time of year, after the corresponding months in 2023.”

With a strong dose of humility, it’s suggested that the world’s leadership undertake all available efforts to confront this real, already started, threat to life on the planet via a super-duper Marshall Plan for the world. Alas, it’s almost assured that this suggestion will go unheeded, especially with consideration of the following headline in the prestigious science publication Nature d/d Feb. 25, 2025: Trump 2.0: An Assault on Science Anywhere is an Assault on Science Everywhere.

The climate system is not going to ring a bell before all hell breaks loose. It’ll happen out of the blue, temperatures relentlessly climbing month by month by month to intolerable levels, possibly already started, observed by Copernicus as stated above. Nobody has ever theorized, or even suggested, that it’s impossible for humanity to exterminate itself.
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This article was originally published on March 21, 2025 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Amazon Rainforest Cleared for Climate Conference

Photo by Ivars Utināns on Unsplash
Photo by Ivars Utināns on Unsplash

Amazon Rainforest Cleared for Climate Conference

By Robert Hunziker

This year’s annual UN climate conference COP30 with 50,000 expected attendees held in Belém, Brazil is one-upping the past two COPs (UN Conference of the Parties) that were held by, and dictated by, Middle Eastern fossil fuel countries, eye-openers that many eco-minded people, still to this day, cannot stomach. Now, Brazil is set to upstage the oil sheiks by bulldozing tens of thousands of acres of “protected rainforest” to build a 4-lane highway to “help reduce traffic” during the two-week conference. This is not made-up. It is true.

The new highway smack-dab down the middle of thick rainforest is known as Avenida Liberdade (English translation: Avenue of Liberty, oh please!) According to the Brazilian government it has “sustainability in mind” with solar lights, bike lanes, and animal crossings so, hopefully, attendees will catch a glimpse of a roaming jaguar, a top predator in the Amazon moseying along glancing at and growling at passing automobiles. If only attendees get lucky enough to take a photo of the jaguar growling, showing teeth, to show friends back home how they faced danger in the rainforest. Venturesomeness and courageousness will be celebrated.

In a statement reminiscent of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four term “newspeak,” meaning propagandistic language characterized by euphemism and circumlocution, as reported by BBC News: “The focus of COP30, according to the host country, Brazil, will be ‘Uniting for our Forests.’ It is their hope that this year’s conference will be a first step to advance and unite climate and biodiversity agendas.” Really?

In lighthearted fashion, BBC commented: “The Amazon plays a vital role in absorbing carbon for the world and providing biodiversity, and many say this deforestation contradicts the very purpose of a climate summit.” (Amazon Forest Felled to Build Road for Climate Summit, BBC News, March 11, 2025) Oh really, no kidding!

And the Brazilian government, cranking up newspeak to a higher pitch yet, claims: “The Brazilian president and environment minister say this will be a historic summit because it is ‘a COP in the Amazon, not a COP about the Amazon,’ The president says the meeting will provide an opportunity to focus on the needs of the Amazon, show the forest to the world, and present what the federal government has done to protect it,” Ibid.

The Amazon is the world’s largest rainforest – spanning 6.9 million square kilometres (2.72 million square miles) across nine countries and covering around 40% of the South American continent. Making up half of the planet’s remaining tropical forests, the forest is also one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems, home to about three million species of plants and animals and 1.6 million indigenous people. The forest is also an important regulator of weather cycles, owing to its cooling effect and its contribution to rainfall and moisture supply in the region, and it is one of the world’s largest natural carbon sinks, absorbing and storing an amount of carbon equivalent to 15 to 20 years of global CO2 emissions from the atmosphere. (Source: Up to 47% of Amazon Rainforest at Risk of Collapse by Mid-Century Due to ‘Unprecedented Stress’ From Global Warming and Deforestation, Earth.org, Feb. 15, 2024)

Here’s what COP30 should handout to the 50,000 attendees: The Amazon Rainforest is at risk of exceeding tipping points leading to a death spiral for up to 47% of the forest within the next several decades because of a combination of climate change related drivers of severe stress. According to research in Nature: “The region is increasingly exposed to unprecedented stress from warming temperatures, extreme droughts, deforestation and fires, even in central and remote parts of the system,” the study, published Wednesday in the scientific journal Nature, read, adding that crossing potential critical thresholds – or tipping points – might trigger “local, regional, or even biome-wide forest collapse” and knock-on effects for regional climate change. Once we cross this tipping point, we will lose control of how the system will behave,” said ecologist Bernardo Flores of the University of Santa Catarina in Brazil, lead author of the report. “The forest will die by itself.” (Nature)

Moreover, a 2021 study found that the Amazonian region had turned into a carbon emitter, in competition with cars, trains, airplanes, and industry. According to the 2021 study, the forest emits about one billion tonnes of CO2 each year, equivalent to the annual emissions released in Japan, the world’s fifth-biggest polluter.

Prior to human-generated CO2 from fossil fuels, which traps heat, the Amazon rainforest was a net carbon sink for millennia. Now, it’s joining the global warming/extreme drought onslaught. Drought Leaves Amazon Basin Rivers at All-time Low, BBC News, Sept. 18,2024. Additionally, and of consequence for the world at large, the Amazon is not alone, Europe’s rivers ran almost completely dry in 2022. In places, the Loire could be crossed on foot; France’s longest river never flowed so slowly. The Rhine was nearly impassable to barge traffic. In Italy, the Po was 2 metres lower than normal, crippling crops. As Serbia dredged the Danube.

COP30 attendees hopefully take notice and focus on the blatant fact that these recurring bouts of severe drought throughout the world are happening more frequently and with much more gusto or destructiveness. For example: China Drought Causes Yangtze to Dry Up, Sparking Shortage of Hydropower, The Guardian, Aug. 22, 2022. The only solution to recurring bouts of increasingly more severe droughts caused by overheating the planet is to stop burning fossil fuels. Science is nearly 100% on this.

Aa for the Amazon rainforest: According to researchers, the only way to avoid biome-wide collapse is to limit deforestation to 10% of the forest’s total cover, restore at least 5% of the biome, and limit global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement target. In other words, since the world is far removed from those data points, and headed in the opposite direction with increasing speed, Avenida Liberdade is a posterchild for the collapse of the Amazon rainforest.
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This article was originally published on March 14, 2025 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Deniers and Insurance Premiums Both Surge

Photo by Joel200716 is licensed by CC BY 4.0
Photo by Joel200716 is licensed by CC BY 4.0

Deniers & Insurance Premiums Both Surge

By Robert Hunziker

Climate change deniers are experiencing a renaissance, especially on social media.

In concert with this upswing in denialism, home insurance premiums are skyrocketing, or coverage is dropped altogether, a problem in coastal states.

Indeed, it’s noteworthy that American real estate is the largest asset class in the world valued at $43.5 trillion that’s challenged for the first time by a bonkers climate system that’s unwelcome and delivering its worst of worst, e.g., firestorms for the ages. The question of the year: Do home insurance companies suddenly have rubber legs. Yes, they likely do because of radically destructive climate change, too much CO2 belching from burnt fossil fuel ultimately causes these kinds of horrible events, LA Fires.

And the climate change issue is much more than simply an argument over whether CO2 is really caused by how society operates and blankets the Earth, heating things up, manmade, but it’s not, because as the deniers claim: “climate always changes.” That’s roughly the simplistic angle the deniers take, it’s not us humans! But climate change, the bad kind, is so obvious that failure to address it is only possible in a society so shallow with such a meaningless value system that it cannot see beyond its nose. And worshipping materialism doesn’t heal the shallowness of anti-cultural anti-humanistic behavior.

On a deeper level yet, the shadow of neoliberalism’s utter destruction of class structure, the whole enchilada of free market dictates of socio/economic materialism at its ugliest, leads to a shallow value system that can’t see beyond its next purchase. In sharp contrast Classical Greek civilization treasured advancements in philosophy, art, architecture, literature, debate, and theater, not the newest millionaire of the day. They’d laugh.

Cultural voids in society are filled by materialistic self-interests that typically have no vision, no long-term outlook beyond what can be consumed today. A threatening climate is too slow to come into vision for such makeup.

Climate change denial and homeownership insurance are interrelated as forces of the same threat that gets worse by the year, every year. It’s a monster in its own right. A new study has uncovered the sources that poison social media with falsehoods. (The study: Networks of Climate Obstruction: Discourses of Denial and Delay in US Fossil Energy, Plastic, and Agrichemical Industries, PLOS, January 15, 2025.)

This is happening within the context of a disruptive climate system that regularly appears on nightly news programs via images of flash floods overturning cars or all-powerful “atmospheric river” instantaneous flooding, as globally 2024 had the most floods in human history and the onset of ginormous wildfires destroying entire communities while wiping out forests, e.g., Canada’s 29 mega fires of 2023. None of these climate events are normal.

Society can handle “normal” but it risks going over cliff’s edge along with busting apart America’s all-important home insurance industry with today’s brand of climate change; it’s brutal! At the same time, denialism is more pronounced than ever before. In the face of a turbulent climate system that needs clearheaded mitigation policies, social media has become a climate denial echo chamber.

How/why this happens in the face of a global climate system that’s gone off the rails is now exposed. But, in truth, shouldn’t rational humans be finding ways to mitigate threats to life-supporting ecosystems? And shouldn’t the people behind low-life groveling in the dirt be publicly humiliated and whipped?

Meanwhile, according to an outstanding research effort by DeSmog, the international journalism organization that focuses on climate change, a major new study has identified the poisoning of social media. (New Study Shows How Fossil Fuel Sectors Created a Climate Denial Echo Chamber on Social Media, DeSmog, Jan. 15, 2025)

“Research finds signs of ‘coordinated climate obstruction efforts’ among oil, plastics, and agrichemical industries in social media messaging,” Ibid.

What could be worse, lowlier, than major corporate lobbyists/representatives, interconnected to fossil fuel use and loaded with stacks of money to spend controlling the narrative of whether climate change is the real thing or not! Wow! And they denigrate it! This gangster-type corporate ganging up altogether to deep-six the climate change narrative is about as low as it gets. What are they running away from? What is scaring them so much? Not that denialism is a new thing, certainly, it’s not, but now they’ve put it on a scorched-earth trajectory.

The dangers of climate change have never been more severe or more obvious, and in the face of this extraordinary danger, the mainstays of production and foodstuff have conspired to work against the best interests of society. What has the world come to?

With science under attack like never before, in fact, since the Middle Ages, according to NASA: “The vast majority of actively publishing climate scientists – 97 percent – agree that humans are causing global warming and climate change. Most of the leading science organizations around the world have issued public statements expressing this, including international and U.S. science academies, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and a whole host of reputable scientific bodies around the world. A list of these organizations is provided here.” (Do Scientists Agree on Climate Change? NASA Science)

The new study “found that all of the organizations, including the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), were mentioned by at least four of the other groups – helping to essentially create an echo chamber for similar messages. The groups also frequently tagged regulators and the media in their posts, with researchers finding the Environmental Protection Agency was tagged 795 times and the Wall Street Journal, the most mentioned media organization, tagged 517 times out of more than 125,000 X posts.”

“Our study suggests that climate obstruction in different industries is more coordinated than is generally recognized,’ said co-author Jennie Stephens, professor of Sustainability Science and Policy at Northeastern University and of Climate Justice at the National University of Ireland Maynooth,” Ibid.

“This paper is interesting because it shows that the fossil fuel industry, plastics industry, and agricultural chemicals industry all promote forms of climate denial on social media, and their messages are largely aligned with each other,’ said Ben Franta, associate professor of climate litigation at the University of Oxford. ‘Is that alignment intentional? Are these industries engaging in a joint enterprise to deceive consumers and the public about petrochemical products and climate change?” Ibid.

The study included 15 years of tweets starting in 2008 before the past year’s election and the return to the presidency of Donald Trump, a longtime climate denier. According to Jennie Stephens of the Study group: “Obviously, we know that climate denial is not over. It’s come back as a strong force.”

According to Bloomberg news, as of January 17th, the Federal Reserve withdrew from the global climate coalition: “The Federal Reserve has withdrawn from the Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System, a global coalition of central banks engaged in the study of climate risk that was launched in 2017.”

Meanwhile, corporations have been dropping like flies from climate mitigation agreements (truth be known, it was greenwashing from the start) over the past two years as Middle Eastern oil producers hijack UN COPs (Conference of the Parties) initially designed to reign-in greenhouse gases like CO2. Moreover, fossil fuel interests have boldly expressed their intention to crank up oil and gas production over the same timeframe that the Paris ’15 climate agreement of 195 nations agreed to cut CO2 by 43% by 2030, which target, according to the UN, is off the mark by a country mile. According to UN Climate Action: Based upon national action plans in effect, the decrease in global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to 2019 will be 2.6%.  The word “outrageous” seems appropriate.

Now that the Federal Reserve Board has officially jumped off the green crusade, global warming has been officially turned lose to “go for it, full blast ahead.”

Although, by the time ugly repercussions of policy makers going deeper rogue than ever before hits home with the public, it’ll be too late to point fingers or the failures to act. By then, home insurance premiums will be one of the largest yearly expenses for homeowners. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis: “Average homeowners insurance premiums have increased by 39 percent over the past seven years, and 15 percent in 2023 alone.”

It’s impossible to ignore the irony of the Fed dropping participation in the global climate coalition as a major branch of its 12-bank network reports on the drama of home ownership insurance premiums cranking up, exceeding the ongoing rate of inflation by a country mile because of the ravages of climate change.

It’s only too obvious that the prevailing issue going forward will be the point in time when climate change becomes too expensive for individual homeowners and not nearly rich enough for homeownership insurers. It’s almost there now and already there for many.

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This article was originally published on January 24, 2025 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Risks of Ecosystem Crash-Landings

Photo by Maksim Shutov is licensed by Unsplash
Photo by Maksim Shutov is licensed by Unsplash

Risks of Ecosystem Crash-Landings

By Robert Hunziker

Biomes as well as individual ecosystems throughout the globe are experiencing considerable stress. As a researcher/writer since 2010 of more than 400 scientific-based articles, I am aware of what science says about the status of the planet’s ecosystems. Since reading hundreds of peer-reviewed papers, it’s not a pretty picture. Yet this is not obvious to the general public inasmuch as damaged ecosystems in large part due to excessive levels of greenhouse gases like CO2 initially show up where almost nobody lives, for example: (1) Antarctica (2) tropical rainforest (3) the oceans (4) Arctic permafrost, covering 25% of Northern Hemisphere landmass. Who lives there?

People who live in NYC or LA or Des Moines don’t see the genesis of a chaotic climate system. But they do see the aftereffects, such as (1) Unprecedented flooding –2024 global record for most floods ever (2) Unprecedented drought, especially the Amazon, which is partially dying (3) Unprecedented heat – exceeded the IPCC line-in-the-sand at +1.5C pre-industrial worldwide, much, much earlier than expected (4) Unprecedented wildfires – twice the loss of the forest tree cover of 20 years ago (5) Unprecedented storms/fires – home insurance rates skyrocket or dropped altogether on both coasts (6) Unprecedented sea level rise -doubled since satellite recordings started.

Nothing is normal any longer. There are no more one-in-100-year events, which statistically means a 1% chance of happening in any given year. Nowadays, it’s all current, no more 1% chances.

Interestingly, emails from readers of my articles address these unprecedented climate events and occasionally somebody with an advanced degree in science or engineering who works for a high-profile institution. One such email recently crossed my desk in response to the article Net Zero/2050, Fantasy or Reality d/d Jan. 10, 2025. That email, in particular, struck a chord because it comes from a senior person at one of the world’s most prestigious, and widely recognized, institutions, and as a bonus, it’s a superb summation of where things stand and where civilization is headed.

It is published herein in its entirety, no edits, no changes, the original email, as follows:

Your latest article (from the weekend edition of CP) – as always – is excellent!   I did notice an assumed subtext and one that permeates all discussions of ‘net-carbon-zero,’– which of course you know and have discussed before, but a fact that often stops people in their tracks during discussions of climate change and ‘mitigating actions’, the 1000 Giga-ton elephant in the room:

Even if we were to achieve net-zero, that would be barely the beginning of our mitigation efforts, as the entire 200-year past atmospheric over-loading is still present, and will remain present for generations, wreaking havoc.  And we are no-where near approaching a path toward ‘net-zero.’

Removing already released atmospheric carbon is 1000’s times more difficult than removing it at the source (or eliminating the source), as you have extensively and excellently discussed, despite what the Fossil Fuel cartels would have us believe – as you have also discussed.

When is it time to say ‘game-over?’ and admit that neo-liberal political systems that have metastatically over-taken most governments of the planet have no impetus to, nor intention of, stopping the ‘growth-forever’ economic model that has doomed us?  I believe the time is now to admit the obvious, that we have destroyed the climate in which we as a species (and most other species) have evolved, and have sent the atmosphere hurtling someplace else – most likely something resembling the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum, of 55 million years ago, where no terrestrial creature bigger than a poodle survived, and the only habitable continent was Antarctica.  And that was with the ease of transition of several million years – a luxury current Earth biosystems won’t have.   Apparently, our rate of CO2 contamination outstrips the lead-up to the PETM by several orders of magnitude.  Humanity’s efforts seem to be effectively tripping all the Greenhouse Earth tipping points simultaneously and with breath-taking speed.

It has been said (and I don’t have the attribution) that the greatest intellectual failing of mankind is to not be able to comprehend the mathematical implications of the exponential function.  It is my own corollary aphorism that the second scariest place to live is to the left of an exponential knee.  The scariest place to be situated is to the right of the exponential knee.  And here we are at the former, staring blankly at our soon-to-be living-place in the latter.

There probably was a point in the 80’s, soon after Jim Hansen made his famous plea to Congress when – with dramatic action – we could have turned the ocean liner around.  No action (aside from grossly exacerbating action) has been taken.  From any rational engineering perspective, it’s ‘game over,’ the current CO2 loading is sending us to a bad place, there is nothing even remotely on the political/economic horizon that will mitigate the trends, and there is really nothing within our power to stop it in any case, we can’t pull the CO2 and methane back, the Earth herself is refusing to extract any more for us (or absorb any more heat either, for that matter) and is beginning to vomit it all back to us – with considerable interest on the principal to boot.  It’s game over.

I see a couple of benefits to making this admission.  First, it’s probably true.  Second, there’s a certain fairness to encouraging people to ponder the (likely) future.  There is a famous airliner disaster (true) story, of United Airlines Flight 232, in 1989, which crashed on emergency landing in Sioux City Iowa, killing roughly a third of the 300 passengers aboard (it being nearly miraculous that anyone survived).  Flight 232 works as a parable on a number of levels, from the standpoint of an undetected (at least admittedly) manufacturing defect in the blades of the GE fanjet engine to the absolute bone-head engineering mistake in the design of the DC-10’s air-surface control-line routings.  But mostly it is a parable in how Captain Al Haynes let the passengers know what they were about to experience.  In short, the fan-blade in the tail engine failed, sending shrapnel throughout the tail section, and in particular, one shard traced through the primary, secondary and even tertiary back-up hydraulic lines (which were bundled adjacent to one another).  All control-surface hydraulic fluid promptly drained from all lines, leaving Cpt. Haynes with no control of his wing or tail air-surface controls.  Through some of the most magnificent flying art in the history of aviation, Cpt. Haynes, using only throttle controls on the two remaining engines managed to maintain a tiny measure of control of the aircraft, and bring it to within fighting-distance of a landing at Sioux City.  As he approached the runway, at just below cruising speed (about 500 mph, because it was only at this speed that he could keep the nose up) he announced to the passengers that they were going to attempt something that had never been attempted before – a landing at nearly cruising speed.  With about a minute to go before the event, he told them that “this is not going to be a landing, this is going to be a crash.  This is going to be the very worst thing you have ever experienced.  I want you to prepare yourself.”

It’s ‘game over:’ this is going to be a crash.  This is going to be the very worst thing that mankind has ever experienced, and we need to prepare ourselves. Many, perhaps most will not survive, quite possibly there will be no human survivors. Our high-level technical civilization, with all of its delicately intertwined technical, economic, material, sociological channels and meta-stable intricacies will almost certainly not survive.  And we’re going to take much of the biosphere with us – it’s already happening, the sixth great extinction is underway and happening before our eyes.  People need to be able to make critical life decisions with clear-eyed focus on what is likely to happen within many of our lifetimes, about bringing more humans into the world, about selecting careers that serve their own interest vs. that of the destroying powers-that-be, or that builds upon the human intellectual edifice  that seems doomed to be a moot (and mute) monument to an extinct species and/or civilization in a very few years.   It is in the interests of the powers that be, who will continue and accelerate their raping and pillaging of the rest of us and the biosphere for their own narrow self-interest, to demand perpetual and accelerating ‘growth’, perpetual war, more human flesh for cannon fodder and slave-wage-minions, and most of all perpetual obscene profits.  It is in their interest to make us believe that they have the power to save us all, but they do not, they only have the power to make things much, much worse, as you well know and have well discussed.  They will continue to bask in obese luxury until the very end, unless the rest of us rise up to stop them and try desperately to create conditions for some sort of survival (which will be impossible with them continuing to be in charge).  But in order to know that such uprising is necessary, it has to become part of the public consciousness that humanity is about to crash in a hard and grisly fashion.  Technology and its mavens won’t save us, technology and its mavens have likely mortally wounded humanity, and people must become aware, and morally (and mortally) outraged about that fact.
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This article was originally published on January 17, 2025 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Net Zero/2050 Fantasy or Reality?

Photo is in the public domain.
Photo is in the public domain.

Net Zero/2050 Fantasy or Reality?

By Robert Hunziker

Net Zero/2050 Fantasy or Reality may be the most significant issue of the 21st century.

Net Zero refers to the balance between the amount of greenhouse gas (GHG), such as CO2, that’s produced and the amount that’s removed from the atmosphere. It can be achieved through a combination of emission reduction and emission removal.

The relationship between CO2 and a warmer/hotter climate is basic science: For example, according to Climate.gov: “The relationship between carbon dioxide (CO2) and global temperatures is directly proportional: As CO2 levels in the atmosphere increase, so do global temperatures, primarily because CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas, trapping heat from the sun.”

If Net Zero/2050 is fantasy (false hope), the repercussions are unimaginable. The science is clear. Major ecosystems of the planet like Greenland, Antarctica, Arctic permafrost, and the Amazon rainforest are already severely stressed, right now, today. Climate Change is already doing its dirty work where nobody resides. There are hundreds of headlines in science journals, magazines, and research papers describing trouble with the world’s most important ecosystems.

Headline examples:

-Emergency Meeting Reveals the Alarming Extent of Antarctica’s Ice Loss (Earth.org)

– Methane Bombs’ Release 30 Years Equivalent of US Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Risk Triggering Climate Catastrophe (Earth.org)

– Critical Slowing down of the Amazon Forest After Increased Drought Occurrence ( PNAS – National Academy of Sciences)

– Thawing Permafrost Poses Environmental Threat to Thousands of Sites with Legacy Industrial Contamination (Nature Communications)

–  A Collapse of the Amazon Could Be Coming ‘Faster Than We Thought,’ The New York Times (The New York Times)

– Staggering Temperature Rise Predicted for the Middle East and North Africa: Some Parts of the Region, Which is Already Warming at the Same Rapid Rate as the Arctic, Could See up to 9 Degrees Celsius of Warming (Journal of Geophysical Research, Atmosphere)

To mitigate, or prevent, the ‘unimageable’, there are hundreds of well-intentioned publications about the pathway to Net Zero emissions by 2050. On balance, they talk favorably about reaching Net Zero by 2050, and these prognostications are found in science publications, economic papers, online sites, and pretty much everywhere, with a strong sense of accomplishment in the offing. Plans to achieve Net Zero/2050 seem to satisfy people in general, believing success is on-target, no worries. But reality tells a different story.

According to UN Climate Action: Based upon national action plans in effect, as of November 2024, the decrease in global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to 2019 will be 2.6%. But according to the Paris ’15 Agreement, a reduction of 43% from 2019 levels is required by 2030 to be on track for Net Zero/2050. That’s pathetically insignificant.

There are plenty of doubters about Net Zero/2050, especially in academia. The MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research published an analysis d/d October 2023. It’s one of many high-level studies: Is Net Zero a Possible Solution to the Climate Problem? A 14-page in-depth analysis: “This commentary explains why achieving global Net-zero is highly unlikely by any certain date and, even if achieved, will not necessarily solve the climate problem. The major obstacles to successful Net-zero are unpredictable, involve significant political issues, and are not easily described in econometric models.”

Meanwhile, as the world waits for Net Zero/2050, climate change clobbers the world over the past two years, 2023-24, setting new records galore, and just to think, Net Zero/2050 is still 25 years away. This despite western democracies such as the UK and Germany and Far Eastern countries like China making solid progress with renewables in 2023-24. Still, the drumbeat of higher CO2 emissions is relentless, higher than ever, and regrettably higher in the face of record-setting renewable installations but in harmony with consistently high oil production.

The amount of CO2 into the atmosphere is straight-forward and easily calculated because human machines like cars and power plants that burn fossil fuels are easily identified. For comparison purposes, 11 billion tons per year was emitted when JFK was president in the early 1960s. Whereas: “Total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are projected to be 41.6 billion tonnes in 2024, up from 40.6 billion tonnes last year. This includes fossil CO2 emissions of 37.4 billion, and the rest from land-use change (deforestation), according to the Global Carbon Budget., Ibid.

Never in human history has so much CO2 been emitted into the atmosphere as today. It’s overwhelming. What if a scientist in 1960, when CO2 emissions were 11 billion metric tons per year, predicted CO2 emissions 65 years hence would be 40 billion metric tons per year? It would’ve been labeled kooky, insane, madness!

As a result of today’s madness, i.e., 40B metric tons, global warming has negatively impacted Nature. The world’s major ecosystems are joining the greenhouse gas parade along with cars, trains, planes, and industry, with little respect for Net Zero targeting by 2050. The insanity of this strange concurrence is only too obvious.

Nature commands large reserves of carbon stored over millennia. For example, the Amazon stores an amount of carbon equivalent to 15–20 years of global CO2 emissions. A study published in the journal Nature found that the eastern Amazon has transitioned into a carbon source. This is global warming hard at work and a danger signal if ever there was one.

With Nature’s major ecosystems switching sides from GHG storehouses to GHG emitters, an x-factor comes into play. This is a serious challenge to Net Zero/2050, as the Amazon rainforest and Northern Hemisphere permafrost join alongside planes, trains, cars, and factories spewing CO2 into the atmosphere. Since time immemorial, these ecosystems have been the biggest absorbers of CO2, keeping the climate system in balance. Oops, suddenly that wonderful balancing act is out of kilter.

For example, Arctic permafrost covers 25% of the land mass of the Northern Hemisphere. It’s rapidly joining forces with human-generated emissions. (Northern Permafrost Region Emits More Greenhouse Gases Than It Captures, Eos, April 2024)

“Arctic permafrost stores nearly 1,700 billion metric tons of frozen and thawing carbon. Anthropogenic warming threatens to release an unknown quantity of this carbon to the atmosphere, influencing the climate in processes collectively known as the permafrost carbon feedback.” (Permafrost Carbon Emissions in a Changing Arctic, Nature, January 2022)

Theoretically, human machines can be altered to stop CO2 emissions, but how to stop nature’s ecosystems from going rogue?

There’s a fundamental truth to climate change that’s dictated by the physics of chemical compounds like CO2 composed of molecules. According to Global Greenhouse Gas Watch: “The long lifetime of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere locks in temperature increase for generations to come. Until we reach net zero CO2 emissions globally, world temperatures will continue to rise and cause increasingly severe impacts – as witnessed in 2024 and recent years.” (Record Carbon Emissions Highlight Urgency of Global Greenhouse Gas Watch, World Meteorological Organization – WMO- November 2024)

The WMO statement implies another 25 years of rising temperatures before Net Zero takes effect. Can society weather 25 years of increasing temperatures like what’s happened over the past couple of years?

The past two years have witnessed a brand-new spin on climate change based upon a chaotic climate system in 2023-24, proving climate change is dangerously real, and it’s here now: (1) Exceeded the dreaded +1.5°C pre-industrial target for over 12 months-running (a few years ago scientists thought this ‘might occur’ in decades, not in 2024) (2) Powerful storms damaging property as householder insurance rates skyrocket with dropped home coverage by several major insurance companies on both US coasts; climate change has chased 7 out of 12 major insurance companies out of states prone to global warming-enhanced wildfires (LA today- never seen anything like it) as well as coastal regions (3) Massive atmospheric river flooding events – setting new records for the most flood disasters of all-time, globally (4) Killer drought sequences in sensitive environments like the Amazon rainforest, slammed again and again and again since the year 2000, NASA says it no longer recovers (5) Enormous never witnessed before wildfires, especially Canada and Siberia (6) State of alarm over sudden breakup of Antarctic sea ice extent, 450 polar scientists hold emergency session in Australia.

Polar scientists’ solution: “Drastic action is necessary before it’s too late, calling for immediate reduction of emissions, CO2.”

And Net Zero 2050 is supposed to save us?

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This article was originally published on January 10, 2025 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

Note: This article will also be posted on the Facing Future Now! Facebook group. If you would like to comment on this article, please go to the Facebook group and post your comments there under the article posting.

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Amazon’s Global Warming Counterweight Threatened

Photo by Andres Medina is licensed by Unsplash
Photo by Andres Medina is licensed by Unsplash

Amazon’s Global Warming Counterweight Threatened

By Robert Hunziker

Since the start of the 21st century, major planetary ecosystems, like the Amazon rainforest and Antarctica have consistently deteriorated, but within only the past two years, these two major ecosystems have deteriorated much faster than ever before. This is happening at geological breakneck speed. Nothing is normal any longer. What’s going on?

The Amazon rainforest experienced a horrific drought event in 2024. Paradoxically, global warming is attacking its own most significant counterweight. A major study found over one third of the Amazon is struggling to recover from four supposedly “one-in-a-century” dry spells in less than 20 years. (Critical Slowing down of the Amazon Forest After Increased Drought Occurrence, PNAS – National Academy of Sciences)

The scientific literature for 2024 focused on some very big issues: (1) record global heat, above the IPCC-warning of 1.5°C above pre-industrial (2) Amazon rainforest rapid deterioration amidst the most brutal drought conditions ever, major rivers dried-up (3) alarming Antarctic conditions prompting an emergency meeting of 450 polar scientists: “Runaway ice loss causing rapid and catastrophic sea-level rise is possible within our lifetimes.” (Emergency Meeting Reveals the Alarming Extent of Antarctica’s Ice Loss, Earth.com, Nov. 24, 2024)

These events are interconnected determinate factors of a global climate system that’s turned unstable. This is not normal. It is erratic and volatile.

For starters, the Amazon rainforest is in terrible condition. Climate scientists would likely agree that loss of the Amazon will be “game over” for civilization in many respects. Based upon current data, they would also likely agree the rainforest is dying.

“A major question is whether a large-scale collapse of the Amazon forest system could actually happen within the twenty-first century…  The Amazon stores an amount of carbon equivalent to 15–20 years of global CO2 emissions and has a net cooling effect from evapotranspiration that stabilizes the Earth’s climate. (Critical Transitions in the Amazon Forest System, Nature, February 14, 2024)

In other words, the Amazon has the biggest job on the planet, stabilizing the climate system. It’s telling that, as the Amazon deteriorates, the climate system turns wackier with massive storms, heat, drought, and floods. No more once in 0ne-hundred-year events. They’re once every other year nowadays.

Evidence of serious Amazon deterioration is prevalent. The world’s leading Amazon authority Carlos Nobre (University of São Paulo) was recently interviewed, November 14, 2024: “Carbon Sink to Carbon Source?”

In 1975, 0.5% of the rainforest was deforested.

Today, 18% is deforested.

Today, 38% of the remaining forest is degraded to a vulnerable condition.

For the first time in recorded history extreme drought has become a regular feature of the rainforest, like clockwork every couple of years. This is not normal. According to NASA, the frequency eliminates natural recovery.

In some regions of the forest, the Amazon emits more carbon than it stores, similar to cars, planes, trains, and industry. This is one more first in climate history, a net carbon CO2 emitter directly into the atmosphere, joining human forces.

But it’s not only the Amazon that’s in deep trouble. Recently, scientists discovered impending Antarctic collapse in some regions, like West Antarctica, more advanced than anybody ever thought possible, necessitating an emergency meeting of 450 polar scientists in Australia only a few weeks ago.

These two major ecosystems have powerful impact on the overall world climate system and by all appearances are in early stages of coming apart at the seams, couched in mystery as to “when” and “how earth-shattering” it will be. Alas, “business as usual,” given enough time, and the world will sit up and take notice and declare an emergency. How to fix it? But when and what to do? And why wasn’t it addressed much sooner?

There are no answers to those questions. The Amazon rainforest, Antarctica, and climate change are not highly ranked in public polls, e.g., according to a Gallup Poll, Dec. 12, 2024, the top concerns include immigration, inflation, the economy, healthcare, and poor government leadership. Climate change didn’t make a showing. It’s of little surprise there is not an effective effort to quantify the risks and recommend what should be done, assuming anything is actually possible, probably not, re anthropogenic destruction of life-supporting ecosystems. But scientists know all about it. Just ask them. Oh yeah, almost forgot, the incoming administration doesn’t believe in science.

In today’s world of politics, especially right-wing, science is ignored or denigrated, as it interferes with cooked up conspiracy stuff that motivates ignorant people to vote for whatever flashes on a TV screen. This results in the greatest dumbing-down of society ever witnessed in human history within a strong science legacy traced back to Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia 3000 to 1200 BCE. Only brief intervals of modern human history have witnessed political denigration of science like today, other than occasional bouts with religion, e.g., centuries ago, Earth as the center of the universe mayhem, ahem! Could we be going back to that? Maybe.

Meanwhile, threatening, the Amazon is at the most vulnerable of its remarkable history of stability. A key study was posted in the prestigious publication Nature, finding that 75% of the Amazon rainforest is losing “resilience,” or the ability to recover from droughts and fires. (Pronounced Loss of Amazon Rainforest Resilience Since 2000s, Nature).

That chilling fact is the product of global warming and forest-clearing/burning. This is not normal. Quite the opposite, as the mighty rainforest has 55 million years under its belt; it’s a strong survivor, until now.

Four years ago, Princeton held a special Amazon Conference: A World Without the Amazon? Stephen Pacala, the Frederick D. Petrie Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University: “We face four major environmental crises in the world now: climate, food, water, and biodiversity. The Amazon is at the center of all of them.”

“The Amazon is the biggest in a belt of forests that wraps the planet’s midsection. It is a jungle so hot and humid it makes its own rain. Its web of rivers is the largest in the world and contains about one-sixth of the world’s fresh water.” (The Amazon is the Planet’s Counterweight to Global Warming, Inside Climate News).

“The trees in the Amazon release 20 billion tonnes of water into the atmosphere per day, playing a critical role in global and regional carbon and water cycles.” (WWF) Where else could 20B tonnes of water per day come from for the global hydrology system? Answer: Nowhere.

Alas, “Up to half of the Amazon rainforest could transform into grassland or weakened ecosystems in the coming decades, a new study found (A Collapse of the Amazon Could Be C0ming Faster Than Thought, New York Times, Feb. 14, 2024).

According to the World Wildlife Fund: “The largest jungle on our planet, the Amazon, is in danger of drying out. If we lose just 5% more to deforestation, it may never be the same again.” (The Amazon is Dying, Our Planet, WWF, Netflix).

That film is five years old. The 5% is nearly gone.

A world climate system not regulated by Antarctica, crumbling, and the Amazon rainforest, which is already wobbly, will turn dangerously erratic in a reign of climate terrorism that takes lives and livelihoods while destroying megacities from coast-to-coast.

Solutions: Stop deforestation and fires that are 95% human-caused and stop CO2 emissions. But nobody wants to hear this.

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This article was originally published on January 3, 2025 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

Note: This article will also be posted on the Facing Future Now! Facebook group. If you would like to comment on this article, please go to the Facebook group and post your comments there under the article posting.

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The Leading Edge of Global Heat – Arabian Peninsula

Photo by Marcel L. is licensed by Unsplash
Photo by Marcel L. is licensed by Unsplash

The Leading Edge of Global Heat – Arabian Peninsula

By Robert Hunziker

Major portions of the Arabian Peninsula are already exceeding 2°C above pre-industrial and likely headed for a staggering temperature rise over coming decades. This disturbing news comes via a major new study by Saudi Arabia’s most prestigious university.

The epicenter of world oil & gas production is in direct line of fire of unnerving acceleration of global warming. This news comes from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia, ranked in the top 1.2% of best global universities and published as a peer-reviewed study: Abdul Malik, et al, Staggering Temperature Rise Predicted for the Middle East and North Africa: Some Parts of the Region, Which is Already Warming at the Same Rapid Rate as the Arctic, Could See up to 9 Degrees Celsius of Warming, Journal of Geophysical Research, Atmosphere, November 21, 2024.

It is a devastating outlook that should shake the Kingdom to its foundation as its principal source of wealth, oil & gas production, works against the Kingdom in a most intrusive unstoppable manner. Early signs of deathly heat are already starting to manifest, for example, between the 14th and 19th of June 2024, 1,301 people on the Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca died due to extreme heat with temperatures exceeding 50 °C (122 °F). At the time, heat and humidity pushed past survival limits for the weakest.

The dangers of exceeding 2C, as outlined in numerous statements by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -IPCC- and echoed by MIT: “Scientists and policymakers have long agreed that global warming beyond 2° C above the pre-industrial average would pose large and escalating risks to human life as we know it on Earth.” (Source: Why did the IPCC choose 2° C as the goal for limiting global warming? MIT, June 21, 2022)

But the fossil fuel industry is not the least bit concerned. In fact, the industry has scoldingly told the world to Stick It, Deal with It, fossil fuels are here to stay until the last drop, period! Meanwhile, as of September 2024, fossil fuels account for 81.5% of total primary energy consumption worldwide (Energy Institute). This figure has remained constant for decades in the face of 30+ years of annual UN climate conferences of the nations of the world calling for reduction of fossil fuel emissions.

In a March 2024 speech at a Houston energy conference Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser described the ambitious timetables of environmental groups as failing because the world continues to consume record amounts of fossil fuels every year: “We should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas and instead invest in them adequately reflecting realistic demand assumptions.”

In the face of demand assumptions for oil and gas, according to the International Energy Agency (IAE), the light at the end of the tunnel for renewables is also brightening: “Led by the massive growth of renewable electricity, the share of renewables in final energy consumption is forecast to increase to nearly 20% by 2030, up from 13% in 2023.”

Yet, the fossil fuel emissions issue is not going away anytime soon.

Because of unremitting fossil fuel production, IAE says 75% in 2030, the world is going to be forced to live with dangerous levels of global warming. After all, nearly every one of the 195 signatory countries to the Paris 2015 Agreement has failed to meet commitments. According to UN Climate Action: Based upon national action plans in effect, the decrease in global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to 2019 will be 2.6%. But according to the Paris ’15 Agreement, a reduction of 43% from 2019 levels is required by 2030. The shortfall is shameful.

Alas, over the past two years, major corporations, world’s biggest, have reversed their climate commitments, e.g., JP Morgan, State Street Quit Climate Group, Blackrock Steps Back, Reuters, Feb. 15, 2024. In fact, ignoring climate change/global warming has become trendy in the corporate world.

Mistakenly, Wall Streeters and fossil fuel companies believe carbon capture technology will overpower the threat of excessive greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and “save the day.” Based upon numerous studies, this is not true, not even close to true, e.g., The False Promise of Carbon Capture as a Climate Solution, Scientific American, May 1, 2024. Rather, carbon capture is a Trojan Horse. Therefore, the challenge going forward will be adaptation to a hotter and hotter unlivable planet.

Eureka! will the planet of the future be viewed from outer space as a world of domed cities surrounded by barren land and turbulent seas?

The Malik Study of heat in the Arabian Peninsula presents a challenging future that could easily go off the tracks and down the rabbit hole: “The Middle East and North Africa, which already include some of the hottest and driest spots on Earth, are undergoing accelerated climate change and will reach warming thresholds two to three decades earlier than the rest of the world. The region, which already has record-breaking summer temperatures, is currently close to exceeding 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming on average compared to pre-industrial temperatures. Additional warming in the region could make some areas uninhabitable without adaption measures… The rapid rate means that the Middle East and North Africa could reach 3 and 4 degrees Celsius of warming (5.4 and 7.2-degrees Fahrenheit) nearly three decades earlier than most of the globe. That warming will be especially rapid in inland areas of the Arabian Peninsula.”

“Adaptation will be necessary, and these adaptation measures could be tested and developed in the Middle East and North Africa. Global warming is a global problem, so you cannot prevent it in just one place. But you can develop artificial environments in regions with high populations,” Ibid.

“Artificial Environment,” as clearly favored in the Malik Study, will likely become the new solution for how to confront climate change. Other than an artificial environment, what choice is there when the world’s leading climate scientist James Hansen (Earth Institute, Columbia University) claims: “Nations of the world meet at annual COP meetings (Conferences of the Parties), where they promise to reduce emissions to ‘net zero’ at some distant date, an almost meaningless pledge. There is no plan to actually stabilize climate…Global temperature took an unprecedented leap of half a degree Celsius in the past two years, which confounded the climate research community… We are headed to global warming greater than 2°C.”

An upcoming global average of 2C suggests the unspeakable for the Middle East, which is outpacing the global average by 2-3 times.

“Mortality from extreme heat could surpass that of all infectious diseases combined, and rival that of cancer and heart disease.” (Source: Why Heat Waves of the Future May Be Even Deadlier Than Feared, The New York Times, October 25, 2024)

In all, and reading between the lines, it seems obvious that the Malik Study serves as a proxy statement for the Saudi Kingdom, implying: (a) the oil spigots will remain wide open, forever, and ever (b) atmospheric CO2 will increase, without limit (c) global temperatures will go up, a lot (d) live with it!

Already, the Middle East favors “artificial environments”: Ski Dubai is an indoor ski resort with 22,500 square meters of indoor ski area. The park maintains a temperature of −1 to 2 °C (30 to 36 °F) throughout the year. Another example: Surfbase will be Dubai’s first all-year-round indoor surfing spot. It is set to open its doors in 2024 or 2025. And Dubai has built three artificial archipelagos for residence living in the shape of palm trees in the Arabian Gulf.

The Saudi message embedded in the Malik Study is loud and clear, learn to adapt to uncomfortably high temperatures because high-end free-market capitalism is addicted to oil. Is a ‘domed’ Dubai really possible?
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This article was originally published on December 27, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Dismantling the ‘Climate Alarm Industry’ per Project 2025

Photo by Mika Baumeister is licensed by Unsplash
Photo by Mika Baumeister is licensed by Unsplash

Dismantling the ‘Climate Alarm Industry’ per Project 2025

By Robert Hunziker

The definition of alarm: “A warning of danger” (Merriam-Webster) according to The State of the Climate Report 2024, 25 of 35 vital signs are at record extremes. By all accounts, this is an over-the-top alarm that’s setting off bells and whistles for knowledgeable scientists throughout the world. Two-thirds of vital signs at “record extremes” amounts to a strong mandate for trouble dead ahead. An alarm is warranted.

Meanwhile, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, is on the Trump administration’s chopping block. According to Project 2025: “The preponderance of climate-change research should be disbanded.”

That’s a very strong statement to make about a 50-year-old institution that the world depends upon for accurate measurements. NOAA scientists were ranked in the World’s Best Scientists List of 2023.

NOAA’s mission is to understand and predict the changing environment, from the deep sea to outer space, and to manage and conserve America’s coastal and marine resources, a federal agency that provides science, information, and services to protect lives and property, and to support the economy. It was founded in 1970 by Richard Nixon.

More specifically, Project 2025 wants the weather forecasting division privatized and other functions downsized. One of Trump’s incoming appointees referred to NOAA as a voice for the climate change alarm industry. Well, frankly, yes, it is true, it is a sounding board for “alarm” and for very good reason. The public needs to be awakened to the alarming facts of disintegrating life-support ecosystems caused by too much CO2 from burning too much fossil fuel. Yes “alarm” is the proper noun.

Speaking of alarming situations: (1) A 2023 report (The Lancet) estimates that China lost 50,000 heatwave deaths in central regions, like Henan (2) northwestern Europe had 107,000 heat-related deaths in 2022-23 (3) the British Columbia heatwave of 2021 killed 619 people (4) a Nature article d/d 2024 claims roughly 50,000 heat-related deaths have occurred in Brazilian urban areas (5) the 2024 Haji pilgrimage in Mecca had 1301 heatwave deaths.

Heat-related deaths are challenging the numbers of wartime deaths with 489,000 heat-related deaths worldwide per year. This is a “new normal.” It is alarming. Heat-related deaths globally from 1990-2019 averaged 153,078 per warm season (WHO). The planet is obviously heating up.

The following scenarios depict “alarming situations” beyond the scope of nature acting on its own, perfect examples of why expressing ‘alarm’ is so important for a truthful public understanding of what’s really happening to the planet and hopefully incentivize people to demand a different socio/politico/economic system:

(1) ‘Intense’ Drought, Fires Pummel Amazon, Conservation.org, Sept. 11, 2024

(2) So-called Doomsday Glacier is ‘in Trouble; Scientists Say After Finding Surprising Formations Under Ice Shelf, CNN World, Feb. 15, 2023

(3) Gone: Greenland’s Melting Ice Sheet Passed a Point of No Return, Inside Climate News, Aug. 15, 2020 94)

(4) Thawing Permafrost Poses Environmental Threat to Thousands of Sites with Legacy Industrial Contamination, Nature Communications, march 28, 2023.

(5) Europe’s Rivers Run Dry as Scientists Warn Drought Could be Worst in 500 Years, The Guardian, August 13, 2022.

(6) China’s Historic Heatwave Turns Deadly Amid Power Crunch Fears, Asia Financial, August 8, 2024

(7) Extreme Heat is Now Making Cities Unlivable. How Can We Survive It, New Scientist, Nov. 20, 2024.

(8) The AMOC Might Be Way More Unstable Than We Thought, PBS Terra, Dec.18, 2024. This alone is a horrific game-changer that hits every ‘alarm button’ with all arrows pointing at the human footprint.

“Alarm” describes each of the above-listed situations happening outside of the scope of nature acting on its own. The list of 8 could easily be expanded to 80. In all cases, the human footprint predominates.

According to Project 2025 as described in the LA Times: “Break up NOAA,’ the document says, referring to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its six main offices, including the 154-year-old National Weather Service. Together, these form a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity,’ the document says.” (Source: Project 2025 Calls for Demolition of NOAA and National Weather Service, LA Times, July 28, 2024)

Really??? Warning society of deteriorating ecosystems that are key to life support is harmful to future U.S. prosperity?? Really? Frankly, the opposite has much more cachet, meaning failure to expose the dangers of climate change is 100% guaranteed to be harmful to future U.S. prosperity.

Meanwhile, if the National Weather Service is privatized, somebody pays for the service. Public taxes will no longer support the weather network infrastructure, including satellites, currently-in-orbit 322 earth observation satellites, 23 are geostationary and 223 polar-orbiting. Privatization means everyone pays (per person) for weather services, maybe on a subscription basis, for example, $19.95/month for the basic service or $295.95/month for premier service, including detailed reports of ski conditions in Aspen.

Specifically, according to Project 2025, the National Weather Service (NWS) should become a “performance-based organization.” This is ‘market talk’ or how the free-market values stocks and bonds and all sorts of investments. Maybe NWS will go public via an IPO. Just imagine shareholders cheering for more massive wildfires burning structures, super-charged hurricanes leveling entire communities, destructive lightning storms, and golf ball-sized hail to juice up the listed shares of NWS stock with all eyes focused on storm map configurations online and on TV with the NWS stock symbol proudly displayed in big red letters for super-hot intense heat days. And, maybe add the impact of AI to crank the stock up to the moon.

Looking ahead, it appears there won’t be regular free weather forecasts. Under the new administration, a profit is essential for essential services. While they’re at it, how about an IPO for Planet Earth?

According to Project 2025: “Investing in commercial partners will increase competition for weather service.”

Seriously? “Competitive weather service” Yes, evidently only a dog-eat-dog commercial enterprise competition can improve weather service, as competition nips at the heels of the staid ole dog-eared NWS that’s faithfully providing 154 years of excellent service.

In all, caution should be the watchword for privatization of public assets. For example, according to Does Privatization Serve the Public Interest? (Harvard Business Review) “Private sector managers may have no compunction about adopting profit-making strategies or corporate practices that make essential services unaffordable or unavailable to large segments of the population.”

And larger issues are at play when privatizing public assets: “Many reject privatization for the distributional consequences. The deeper problem is that it threatens the very foundation of political legitimacy.” (Source: Why Privatization Is Wrong, Boston Review, Nov. 24, 2020) If private actors are morphing into government, can they act with the legitimacy that government claims? And can a government morphed into a network of private actors still govern those subjected to its rules legitimately?

“The private sector’s central goal is to maximize profit, not deliver necessary services. It has proven impossible to ensure that private providers’ incentives match public interest in these arrangements. Too often, contracted companies generate more income by exploiting workers, cutting corners on quality, charging high prices to users, and/or excluding certain groups from service—not by increasing efficiency.” (Source: The Harms of Infrastructure Privatization: A Step Backward in Progressive Policymaking, Roosevelt Institute, July 28, 2021)

Nevertheless, Pay-for-Weather is likely coming. If privatized, the money must come from somewhere. Does it appear truly legitimate? Will it cut corners to achieve a big profit; will it anticipate the arrival of 2C above pre-industrial in time to forewarn coastal cities to build seawalls? A thousand questions come to mind. Will NOAA’s high standards continue? What if consumers refuse to pay for weather reports? Will local TV stations be able to afford weather reports? Or will NWS go bankrupt?

And, finally, will ‘private NWS’ level with the public, forewarn alarming weather conditions that kill people, for example: The ‘wet-bulb’ set to kill hundreds of thousands of people if temperatures and humidity levels continue to rise, Intellinews, April 22, 2024: “The hottest city on earth’, Jacobabad in Pakistan, has passed the wet-bulb threshold four times and La Paz, Mexico, Port Hedland, Australia, and Abu Dhabi, UAE have also breached the limit, according to the 2020 study,” Ibid.

In that regard, NOAA is responsible for keeping the public informed about life-threatening global warming issues that are spreading around the world, and certain portions of the U.S. are getting very close to wet-bulb conditions, especially the Gulf Coast. See – ‘Extreme Threat’: Large Swathe of Southern US at Dangerous ‘Wet Bulb Temperature’, The Hill, June 29, 2023.

NOAA’s responsibilities are about to get very, very heavy.

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This article was originally published on December 20, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

Note: This article will also be posted on the Facing Future Now! Facebook group. If you would like to comment on this article, please go to the Facebook group and post your comments there under the article posting.

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Climate Change Trial at The Hague

Image by Alexander Novikov is licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0
Image by Alexander Novikov is licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

Climate Change Trial at The Hague

By Robert Hunziker

The stakes are extremely high as the impact of fossil fuels on climate change goes to The Hague for hearings December 2-13, 2024 to determine whether nations are obligated to phase out fossil fuels. Will the esteemed court issue an opinion that truly impacts climate change?

The court’s opinion is expected in 2025.

{Special Notification: Antarctica is experiencing a frightening collapse that has polar scientists fearful and speaking out like never before. A link to an interview with James Woodford, a New Scientists’ reporter, who attended a recent emergency session with 450 polar scientists is found at the end of this article. Woodford: “Nobody could have foreseen Antarctic sea ice dropping off a cliff in the way that it has.”}

James Hansen (Earth Institute, Columbia University) and three climate scientists from the Netherlands, conducted a panel discussion December 9th, 2024, regarding the International Court of Justice at the Hague, as part of hearings from scores of nations before it issues its advisory opinion on the Obligations of States in Respect of Climate Change: “The key issue is whether international law requires nations to phase out production, distribution and use of fossil fuels and otherwise pay damages to the most vulnerable and hardest hit of nations.” (Source: James Hansen, International Court of Justice Proceedings in The Hague, December 9, 2024)

What if it is determined that “international law requires nations to phase out production, distribution and use of fossil fuels”? What happens next?

For starters, the setting for this all-important trial has been extensive on a worldly basis: “As of publication, 98 states and 12 international organizations have registered to participate in oral hearings at the court Dec. 2–13. The engagement conveys the urgency and gravity of the climate crisis, and the importance states place on setting straight what international law requires.” (Source: Courts May Be More Effective on Climate Action Than UN, Bloomberg Law, Nov. 22, 2024)

Potential benefits of the hearing before The Hague

The court’s opinion should prove to be an antidote to the political inertia overhanging UN Conference of the Parties (COP) affairs. This strikes at the heart of 30 years of do-nothing conferences because of politically oriented negotiated outcomes that dilute, obstruct, and/or reduce to the lowest common denominator, making UN COPs a laughingstock.

Also, the court can look beyond the UN climate convention or the Paris Agreement to identify responsibilities and duties, e.g., by relying upon longstanding customary international law.

And the court’s advisory opinion can have concrete effects by carrying weight as “authoritative interpretations of binding law.”

“The forthcoming legal opinions on climate change from the ICJ and Inter-American Court of Human Rights, should further clarify states’ obligations to curb drivers of the crisis—including through regulation of companies—and remedy mounting climate harms. They will also affirm the critical role of courts in enforcing ambitious climate action and accountability,” Ibid.

Significantly, ICJ advisory opinions can become part of “customary international law,” which is then legally binding.

Meanwhile, the world climate system has never been more vulnerable, to wit: Perilous Times on Planet Earth: 2024 The State of the Climate Report, 25 of 35 planetary vital signs are at record extremes. Two-thirds with record-extremes is viewed by climate scientists as a clear mandate for a planet “on the edge.”

Climate Science – One of History’s Great Analytical Triumphs

Superimposed on this extraordinary hearing at The Hague: “There has, of course, been a decades-long campaign aiming to discredit climate research and, in some instances, defame individual climate scientists. But if you step back from the smears, you realize that climatology has been one of history’s great analytical triumphs. Climate scientists correctly predicted, decades in advance, an unprecedented rise in global temperatures. They even appear to have gotten the magnitude more or less right.” (Source: Paul Krugman, The Stench of Climate Change Denial, The New York Times, May 27, 2024)

Climate deniers should take a moment to correlate their denialism with a remarkable stretch of scientists’ warnings hitting the mark, bullseye, on target. Yet, twenty-five percent (25%) of America’s congressional members are climate deniers. In sharp contrast to this demonstration of ignorant denialism, climate scientists have been spot-on.

Nevertheless, according to James Hansen: “Nations of the world meet at annual COP meetings (Conferences of the Parties), where they promise to reduce emissions to ‘net zero’ at some distant date, an almost meaningless pledge. There is no plan to actually stabilize climate…Global temperature took an unprecedented leap of half a degree Celsius in the past two years, which confounded the climate research community… We are headed to global warming greater than 2°C.”

What happens at 2°C (above pre-industrial)

“Mortality from extreme heat could surpass that of all infectious diseases combined, and rival that of cancer and heart disease.” (Source: Why Heat Waves of the Future May Be Even Deadlier Than Feared, The New York Times, October 25, 2024)

Heatwaves that have already been documented taking tens of thousands of lives will morph into “Super Heatwaves” with temperatures exceeding 50C (122F). Already, serious deathly heat waves have become prominent in hotspots of the globe, see: Mysterious Global Hotspots.

Regions of the planet will become uninhabitable. In some parts of the world the combination of heat and humidity will reach lethal levels for hours, days, and weeks.

Parts of the globe subject to severe drought will increase by 50%. The Mediterranean, southern Africa and parts of Australia and South America will be particularly affected. The Amazon rainforest already suffers from repeating bouts of scorching drought. Intense and prolonged droughts will decimate food crops and cause high rates of livestock deaths, leading to severe food shortages.

One of the most worrying changes will be the weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) which includes the Gulf Stream, dramatically altering weather patterns throughout the Northern Hemisphere. Europe is especially vulnerable.

With 2C of warming, according to Earth.org, global mean sea level is projected to rise by 1.51-3.25 feet this century, although more recent research indicates that is a low, low number.

Antarctic Emergency Session of 450 Polar Scientists – The Link

Regarding the threat of sea level rise well above expectations, of significant interest for the world at large, the following link is a YouTube video interview about the emergency proceedings of 450 polar scientists: Antarctica Emergency: Scientists Shocked as Sea Ice Melts / New Scientists Weekly 279.

What 2C of Warming Will Look Like: A Comprehensive Assessment, Earth.org. d/d September 2, 2024.

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This article was originally published on December 13, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

Note: This article will also be posted on the Facing Future Now! Facebook group. If you would like to comment on this article, please go to the Facebook group and post your comments there under the article posting.

Facing Future Now! https://www.facebook.com/groups/530755592068234