… on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing

Category: Climate Crisis

  • Thousands Evacuated Amid Northern California Wildfire and Heatwave

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    Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

    Law enforcement officers watch as the Thompson Fire burns over Lake Oroville in Oroville, California on July 2, 2024.  (Photo: Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images)

    “It cannot be stressed enough that this is an exceptionally dangerous and lethal situation,” the National Weather Service warned.

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday declared a state of emergency in a northern county where a major wildfire has burned thousands of acres and forced the evacuation of thousands of residents amid near-record heat throughout much of the Golden State fueled by human-caused global heating.

    The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) said shortly after noon local time Wednesday that the Thompson Fire, which began Tuesday morning in Butte County, had burned 3,568 acres with no containment in and around the city of Oroville, home to more than 20,000 people.

    Citing an “imminent threat to life,” Newsom, a Democrat, issued an emergency declaration and said that “we are using every available tool to tackle this fire and will continue to work closely with our local and federal partners to support impacted communities.”

    CAL FIRE said that more than 1,400 firefighters using 199 engines, 46 dozers, eight helicopters, and other equipment are battling the blaze. More than 28,000 Oroville area residents have been evacuated.

    Red flag conditions are being exacerbated by low humidity and near-record temperatures throughout California. Oroville is expected to hit a high of 110°F on Wednesday, with daytime highs forecast to remain in the 110s through the holiday weekend. Dozens of daily, monthly, and all-time records could be broken throughout the state.

    “It cannot be stressed enough that this is an exceptionally dangerous and lethal situation,” the National Weather Service’s (NWS) San Francisco Bay Area branch cautioned as it extended the red flag warning through Friday while preparing the public for the possibility of further extensions.

    Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said during a video briefing, “I’m not so sure that really any of us will have seen this many days at this sustained level of heat, both daytime and most importantly nighttime heat.”

    Commenting on the wildfire and heatwave, Fossil Free Media director Jamie Henn said on social media that “we need the California Legislature to pass their climate superfund bill NOW to #MakePollutersPay for these fossil-fueled disasters.”

    Introduced in April by California state Sen. Caroline Menjivar (D-20) but shelved the following month, S.B. 1497—the Polluters Pay Climate Cost Recovery Act—would require major fossil fuel producers to pay for their historic carbon emissions.

    The NWS said that as of Wednesday, more than 110 million people across the United States were facing either a heat advisory, watch, or warning. So far, 2024 has been the hottest year on record. Climate Central, a nonprofit news organization focusing on the worsening planetary emergency, said climate change has made the current California heatwave at least five times likelier.

    Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

  • ‘Historic’ Category 5 Hurricane Beryl Offers Terrifying View of Future

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    Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

    John Cangialosi, senior hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center, inspects a satellite image of Hurricane Beryl on July 1, 2024 in Miami, Florida.
     (Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

    “Beryl isn’t ‘unbelievable,’” one expert said. “it’s what happens when you heat up the planet with fossil fuel pollution for decades.”

    As Hurricane Beryl barreled toward Jamaica on Tuesday after killing at least four people in the Caribbean’s Windward Islands, climate scientists warned the record-breaking Category 5 storm is a present-tense example of what’s to come on a rapidly heating planet.

    Even before the Atlantic hurricane season began on June 1, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted an 85% chance of above-normal activity and 17-25 total named storms this year. Matthew Cappucci, a meteorologist for The Washington Post‘s Capital Weather Gang, highlighted some records Beryl has already broken.

    “There is a strong, well-documented link between the effects of human-induced climate change and the development of stronger, wetter storms that are more prone to rapidly intensify,” he wrote Tuesday. “Beryl sprung from a tropical depression to a Category 4 hurricane in just 48 hours, the fastest any storm on record has strengthened before the month of September.”

    Beryl is also the earliest Category 4 and 5 hurricane on record in the Atlantic, Cappucci pointed out. Previously, the earliest storm to reach the top level of the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale was Emily, in mid-July of 2005.

    The Capital Weather Gang reported that Beryl “strengthened more Monday night, its peak winds climbing to 165 mph. It has surpassed Emily (2005) as strongest July hurricane on record. It’s early July but Atlantic is acting like late August.”

    Certified consulting meteorologist Chris Gloninger emphasized that “the climate crisis has led to well-above-average ocean water temperatures and helped this storm explode.”

    As Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Potsdam University explained: “The heat in the upper ocean is the energy source for tropical cyclones. This heat is at record level, mainly caused by emissions from burning fossil fuel. That’s why an extreme hurricane season has been predicted for this year. It’s off to a bad start!”

    Colorado State University meteorologist Philip Klotzbach on Monday shared graphics showing that “Caribbean ocean heat content today is normally what we get in the middle of September.”

    While some expressed disbelief over the storm, CNN extreme weather editor Eric Zerkel stressed that “Beryl isn’t ‘unbelievable’ or ‘defying all logic,’ it’s what happens when you heat up the planet with fossil fuel pollution for decades. The oceans store roughly 90% of that excess heat. The ocean is as warm as it typically is… when Category 4 storms form. June is now August.”

    Acknowledging Beryl’s strength, Steve Bowen, a meteorologist who serves as chief science officer at the global reinsurance firm Gallagher Re, concluded that “this is a massive warning sign for the rest of the season.”

    Looking beyond this hurricane season, which ends in November, University of Hawaii at Mānoa professor and [C]Worthy co-founder David Ho said, “Let’s remember that things are just going to get [worse] as we continue to consume nearly 100 million barrels of oil every day.”

    The “historic” storm is sparking calls for action to phase out fossil fuels across the globe. Noting how Beryl “is breaking records and leaving a trail of destruction throughout the Caribbean,” the U.S.-based Sunrise Movement argued that “we must prosecute Big Oil for their role in causing devastation like this.”

    In response to a climate scientist who shared a photo of some damage Beryl has already caused, Rahmstorf expressed hope that people around the world won’t “wait with voting for climate stabilization until extremes hit their homes.”

    Beryl made landfall Monday as a Category 4 hurricane on Carriacou, a Grenada island, and also affected St. Vincent and Grenadines. According to The Associated Press, at least four people were killed.

    The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Tuesday afternoon that on its current path, “the center of Beryl will move quickly across the central Caribbean Sea today and is forecast to pass near Jamaica on Wednesday and the Cayman Islands on Thursday. The center is forecast to approach the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico on Thursday night.”

    Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

  • Climate protest accused defies judge to give hours-long speech in court

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    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/jul/02/climate-protest-accused-defies-judge-to-give-hours-long-speech-in-court

    Roger Hallam is on trial with others accused of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance. Photograph: Alecsandra Raluca Drăgoi/The Guardian

    A climate protester ignored a judge’s instructions and refused to leave the witness box, instead delivering an hours-long speech telling jurors that his alleged role in a conspiracy to block the M25 was justified by the risk of human extinction.

    Roger Hallam, 58, spoke for more than two hours on why a judge was wrong to rule that he and co-defendants could not bring evidence in their defence on the impacts of climate breakdown, and why such evidence justified the sort of acts of which they are accused.

    The judge Christopher Hehir sent out the jury three times during Hallam’s extended address, left the court himself once, and interrupted Hallam many times to make clear it was not his place to instruct jurors on points of law.

    But Hehir eventually let Hallam continue, to the defendant’s apparent surprise. “I apologise to you if I’m a little bit incoherent,” Hallam told jurors towards the end of his address. “I didn’t actually expect that I was going to get this far.”

    Hallam is on trial alongside Louise Lancaster, Daniel Shaw, Cressida Gethin and Lucia Whittaker-de-Abreu on a charge of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance for allegedly organising activists to climb gantries on the M25 over four days in November 2022.

    …

    Hehir repeatedly interrupted Hallam. “I’m not going to permit you to lecture the jury, wrongly or rightly, about the law,” he said.

    Hehir had ruled that the defendants could not bring extensive evidence about the impacts of climate breakdown but that they could speak about their political or philosophical beliefs on the issue, to give context to actions.

    Hallam’s speech led Hehir to send the jury out of the courtroom three times. Hehir told jurors they were to take instructions on the law only from him and that Hallam’s evidence about the impacts of climate change was not relevant.

    …

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/jul/02/climate-protest-accused-defies-judge-to-give-hours-long-speech-in-court

  • Activists arrested on suspicion of contempt after London court protest

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    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/jul/02/activists-arrested-on-suspicion-of-contempt-after-london-court-protest

    A judge released all the individuals on bail on condition they did not come within the vicinity of Southwark crown court until a contempt proceedings hearing on 27 September. Photograph: Guy Corbishley/Alamy

    A group of 11 activists have been arrested on suspicion of contempt of court after they held up placards outside a crown court.

    Police officers began detaining the protesters, who were standing on the pavement at English Grounds outside Southwark crown court in central London, on Tuesday morning after being given directions by a judge.

    Messages on signs carried by protesters included “jurors deserve to hear the whole truth” and “jurors have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to their conscience”.

    …

    A judge released all the individuals on bail on condition they did not come within the vicinity of Southwark crown court until a contempt proceedings hearing on 27 September.

    The judge told them: “I hope that the time you’ve spent in detention in the precincts of the court is a salutary reminder that the court’s proceedings are not to be trifled with.”

    …

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/jul/02/activists-arrested-on-suspicion-of-contempt-after-london-court-protest

    dizzy: Sounds like this is about climate activists being refused the right to discuss the climate crisis as part of their defence i.e. why they did what they did.

  • Murdoch supports the Red Tories

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    Sunday Times newspaper endorses Labour Party

    Rupert Murdoch supports the Red Tories (UK Labour Party) and needs his nappy changed.
    Rupert Murdoch supports the Red Tories (UK Labour Party) and needs his nappy changed.
    Vote For Genocide Vote Labour.
    Vote For Genocide Vote Labour.