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
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.
In summer, some polar bears do not make the transition from their winter residence on the Svalbard islands to the dense drift ice and pack ice of the high arctic where they would find a plethora of prey. This is due to global climate change which causes the ice around the islands to melt much earlier than previously. The bears need to adapt from their proper food to a diet of detritus, small animals, bird eggs and carcasses of marine animals. Very often they suffer starvation and are doomed to die. The number of these starving animals is sadly increasing.AWeith This file is licensed under the Creative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Endangered_arctic_-_starving_polar_bear.jpg
The most recent IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a UN body) report published today tells us that some impacts of climate change are now irreversible.
[A] liveable future remains within grasp – just. But the window of opportunity for action is “brief and rapidly closing”. The response from UN secretary-general António Guterres was stark: “Delay is death.”
The IPCC report says that we must act now while world governments continue to pursue climate destroying policies. The point is this: We tolerate and suffer these governments and their super-rich masters that they pander to but we don’t have to. We can instead obstruct business as usual, refuse to tolerate and suffer these climate-destroying bastards. We need to act in unity putting away any other differences we might have. Our planet is getting killed, we must act for the sake of our children, young people and future generations. Delay is death.
Instead of responsible government Boris Johnson’s UK government is pursuing climate-harming policies and has stuffed his cabinet with climate-denying ministers. UK Tory MPs are campaigning against climate policies through the Net Zero Scrutiny Group. Legitimate government should be concerned with protecting it’s citizens while Boris Johnson’s UK government is doing the opposite.
