Scientists expressed shock and alarm this weekend amid extreme high temperatures near both of the Earth’s poles—the latest signs of the accelerating planetary climate emergency.
“This event is completely unprecedented and upended our expectations about the Antarctic climate system.”
Temperatures in parts of Antarctica were 50°F-90°F above normal in recent days, while earlier this week the mercury soared to over 50°F higher than average—close to the freezing mark—in areas of the Arctic.
Stefano Di Battista, an Antarctic climatologist, tweeted that such record-shattering heat near the South Pole was “unthinkable” and “impossible.”
“Antarctic climatology has been rewritten,” di Battista wrote.
The joint French-Italian Concordia research station in eastern Antarctica recorded an all-time high of 10°F on Friday. In contrast, high temperatures at the station this time in March average below -50°F.
Record heat in the Arctic is driving an early melt season and crushing 2022 sea-ice extent: current rank now #4. The Antarctic is even worse.
With everything going on in the world right now, the dual polar climate disasters of 2022 should be the top story. pic.twitter.com/qsi4OAob6L
Jonathan Wille, a researcher studying polar meteorology at Université Grenoble Alpes in France, toldThe Washington Post that “this event is completely unprecedented and upended our expectations about the Antarctic climate system.”
“This is when temperatures should be rapidly falling since the summer solstice in December,” Wille tweeted. “This is a Pacific Northwest 2021 heatwave kind of event,” he added, referring to the record-breaking event in which parts of Canada topped 120°F for the first time in recorded history. “Never supposed to happen.”
Walt Meier, a senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, toldUSA Today that “you don’t see the North and the South [poles] both melting at the same time” because “they are opposite seasons.”
“It’s definitely an unusual occurrence,” he added.
50 degrees above normal in the North Pole this week, and 50 to 90 degrees above normal in Antarctica. Good lord. https://t.co/bSrodCJdei
As Common Dreams has reported, the Arctic has been warming three times faster than the world as a whole, accelerating polar ice melt, ocean warming, and other manifestations of the climate emergency.
“Looking back over the last few decades, we can clearly see a trend in warming, particularly in the ‘cold season’ in the Arctic,” Ruth Mottram, a climate scientist with the Danish Meteorological Institute, told the Post. “It’s not surprising that warm air is busting through into the Arctic this year. In general, we expect to see more and more of these events in the future.”
Bitcoin, Ethereum and other PoW cryptocurrencies create significant carbon emissions with each transaction. According to the Digiconomist Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index, a single transaction creates 1259 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions, which is the same carbon footprint of a trans-Atlantic flight from London to New York and back again.
To look at it another way, a single financial transaction using Visa consumes 1.5Wh of electricity on average. Digiconomist says that the average energy use per Bitcoin transaction is 2258 kWh, which is enough to power a single US household for two and a half months.
Alex de Vries, founder of Digiconomist, told Tech Monitor that the Bitcoin network alone generates 200-quintrillion “guesses” a day as part of a numbers game to create one block.
“You have all these machines in the network effectively playing a massive game of guessing numbers and the only one who guesses correctly gets to rate the next block,” he explains. “That’s a huge amount of energy you need to do that to create those new blocks.”
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/5ZsRr/1/
He explains that per year there are 100 million Bitcoin transactions, which is relatively low. However, the carbon footprint to generate new blocks is over 100 megatons of carbon dioxide. “That’s twice the size of Greece’s [carbon footprint],” he says.
The Bitcoin network also uses specialised hardware that creates 386 grams of electronic waste (on average) per transaction on the Bitcoin blockchain. “This is the equivalent to the equipment weight of two iPhones,” explains De Vries.
Protesters from the campaign group Just Stop Oil stormed the Baftas red carpet ceremony on Sunday. Some managed to get in and sat on the carpet chanting slogans as A-listers walked past. The Guardian’s Damien Gayle spoke to some of them before the event
This week the GB News host and former UKIP leader said he was launching a campaign for a public referendum on the UK’s net zero policies, under the slogan “Vote Power, Not Poverty”.
He repeats familiar talking points from public figures blocking climate action, including the Net Zero Scrutiny Group of MPs, who argue that the war in Ukraine means the UK should extract more fossil fuels and overturn its moratorium on fracking. Farage went further – arguing for coal extraction at the proposed mine in Cumbria.
Farage, who has a long record of rejecting climate science, is running the referendum campaign with Richard Tice, a millionaire property developer who bankrolled campaigns for the UK to leave the European Union. “Vote Power, Not Poverty” has received widespread media coverage, especially in Brexit-supporting outlets like the Daily Mail.
Farage has likened his net zero campaign to his push for Brexit and clearly hopes to repeat the populist tactics used ahead of the 2016 EU referendum. DeSmog has verified that the “Vote Power, Not Poverty” Twitter account is the old Brexiteer “Leave Means Leave” Twitter account with a new name.
Police have charged 74 people over Insulate Britain protests.
The charges relate to demonstrations at the Port of Dover and the Dartford Crossing, which caused heavy traffic tailbacks, in September and October.
There are a total of 104 charges, 73 for public nuisance, 29 for obstruction and two for criminal damage, a further 19 people who were arrested were released without charge.
Crawley Magistrates’ Court will begin hearing the charges from April.
[It is difficult to take only quote a small section of this article since it is so short.]
The UN’s expert climate science organization has criticised the “vested interests” obstructing efforts to cut emissions for the first time this week.
The world’s leading climate scientists warned of the “irreversible” impacts of global warming in the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), describing the window of opportunity to act as “brief and rapidly closing”.
The review, which focuses on adaptation, said that despite scientific certainty around human-caused climate change, “vested economic and political interests” were delaying efforts to tackle it.
These have “generated rhetoric and misinformation that undermines climate science and disregards risk and urgency”, it noted, resulting in “public misperception of climate risks and polarised public support for climate actions”.
A Tory MP leading a backbench revolt against climate action recently received £5,000 from the chair of the UK’s most prominent climate science denial group.
Steve Baker, a former Brexit minister, insists that his Net Zero Scrutiny Group (NZSG) of MPs accepts climate science and is only concerned about the cost and efficacy of the UK’s 2050 net zero target.
But the parliamentary register of interests shows that Baker received £5,000 from Neil Record, a Tory Party donor and chairman of both the climate science-denying Global Warming Policy Forum and the Institute of Economic Affairs think tank, which has received funding from oil giant BP, and has a record of opposing government climate policies.
Tens of thousands of people protested across France on Saturday to call for more attention to the climate crisis in the runup to the presidential election next month.
“Look up,” read one message in giant orange letters demonstrators held up in Paris, urging politicians to make protecting the planet a priority.
The sign was a nod to Netflix hit Don’t Look Up, in which astronomers who discover a comet will wipe out the Earth try in vain to get politicians to take the threat seriously. “When are we going to talk about it?” read another sign.
The climate crisis took up only 1.5% of talking points in media coverage of the election campaign from 28 February to 6 March, a recent survey by climate justice NGOs has found.
For your children, to stop the destruction of our planet
10 March 2022: I will be participating of course. I can’t ask other people to do it and not do it myself. There may be some issue about arresting me if I am under an Investigatory Powers Act order so perhaps the police could look into that before 20 March?
[More on that: I am uncertain about it but here’s my reasoning. If I’m watched under an IPA order, evidence that turns up and possibly the fact that I’m under such an order cannot be put before a court. (Is that correct?) So, I would be denied a fair trial. If I’m denied a fair trial then I shouldn’t be arrested or detained.] more: and if that’s the case does it also apply to Assange? There might be some words that make it acceptable.
Bicycles, small motorcycles would seem to be ideal to use – because you can get around traffic.
later: I think that perhaps I’ve been emphasizing Capitalism in this post too much. On the other hand, Capitalism is the problem. Note to self: work this out
10 March 2022: Why is 20 March extended to 36 hours? 20 March is the equinox and also has good numbers. The trouble is that it’s a Sunday and there’s no point disrupting traffic on a Sunday. 21 March is not the equinox and doesn’t have good numbers. So I cheated ;) more: I could have gone into the position of the stars and all that. The trouble is there’s no time to do that (, I’m not that good at it) and we’re not able to delay until the stars are good. [11/3/22 More that the dates of 20 March express what I intend.]
11 March 2022: Feedback is welcomed. It is very unfortunate that presumably the UK government does not permit comments to this blog. On the other hand in this instance they have denied themselves feedback. Hoping that I’ll be able to discuss this Sunday afternoon / evening.
Successive government serially fail to address the climate crisis and must be forced to act. We have now come to realise that 1.5 degree increase is too much. The latest IPCC report has said that we must act now.
Extinction Rebellion are intending to shut down oil refineries starting 9 April and I wish them every success with that. We are sharing the same logic – that we are unwilling to tolerate, actually cannot allow business as usual because it’s killing the planet.
12 March 2022: I’ve had some feedback, it’s usually supportive. The trouble is that it has to be interpreted like reading tarot cards.
Other feedback I interpreted as you will be arrested and it follows that I’ll probably get my own chance to write some prison notebooks. I’m not surprised that I will be arrested, I’m going to be doing criminal damage after all, going out equipped with the intention of doing criminal damage, the discussion of IPA was just wishful thinking and getting arrested is part of the intention.
I also interpreted this feedback as somewhat disparaging, suggesting that I’m a novice. I think that the response to that is that I have been appointed to office, I am by appointment, I never asked to be appointed to a high honourary office and was not even aware of it to start with. I have authority through that office and I am exercising that authority. [ed: not sure that I should regard it as honourary] [14/3/22 I want to stop adding to this post and leave it. I’m not sure if it’s appointed to office – could be more of an official acknowledgement and recognition. I’ve never really benefited from it – I’ve been shown respect by people (including cake thanks) and that’s it. I am otherwise by appointment to … and have been quoted by the highest office.]
I also interpreted this feedback as asking me to take down the sword. It could be straight from Priti. I don’t want any violence or bloodshed which the sword can mean. I do however intend to defend myself according to the law if I’m attacked. I am not XR.
Many people locally are aware who I am. Give me feedback even if it’s just a thumbs up or thumbs down. Nobody’s going to mind you giving them the thumbs up. If you give someone else a thumbs down they’ll just think you’re a nutter. Decide what you want to tell me and tell me.
What’s going to happen? It makes sense to consider different outcomes, to be prepared. Looking at different outcomes, however likely or unlikely.
I could be on my own, I would prefer someone to watch my back while I’m smashing traffic lights but we’ll see.
People can turn out in support to shut roads. I mean blocking roads with their presence. There’s no point doing that until 7 or 8am.
I could get arrested before doing anything. Fine.
This blog could get shut, it’s hard enough to find it anyway.
Shutting down one area could be copied and spread to other areas.
There could be negotiation. Please negotiate with XR, they are in a far better position than me to negotiate.
We could succeed but what then? The intention is to stop business as usual, to show that continuing destruction of the planet is no longer tolerated. Business as usual must stop and XR’s intention of shutting oil refineries is a good one, the ultra-rich to be hugely taxed to finance the green new deal, no more new coal, any spaceport strictly not to include space tourism, superyachts converted to housing, flying restrictions, bitcoin abolished.
Depending on the extent of success, go for a smooth transition, install a caretaker government, no second chamber, early elections (3 months?), proportional representation, voting age 14?, far more involvement in democracy, recall of politicians. It’s not really down to me is it?
14/3/22 What’s going to happen? continued
Whatever happens in this instance, Capitalism is going to fall over the destruction of our planet. If nothing else, parents are not going to tolerate our planet being destroyed for private and corporate profit. A tiny minority – the uber-rich are responsible for this, those that benefit most from the current Capitalist system, the ones that are in charge and direct governments.
