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To: Brumar89 who wrote (70358)6/2/2016 1:40:15 PM
From: Brumar89  Respond to of 86352
 
Media Already Blames Global Warming For Shark Attacks That Haven’t Happened Yet

The wider media blamed global warming Monday for a projected increase in shark attacks based on incredibly hedged claims from a single expert.

Tech Times wrote an article Monday, entitled “Shark Attacks Predicted To Increase This Year: Is Global Warming To Blame?,” claiming that global warming encourages people to go swimming, which leads to a rising number of shark attacks.

Other media outlets such as The Daily Mail, Investors Business Daily and CBS News quickly replicated the claim, citing a single expert who told Reuters that rising temperatures might make swimming more popular, which could lead to more attacks.

“We should have more bites this year than last,” George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida, told Reuters. Burgess noted that the projected increase in attacks is due to the shark population recovering from historic lows in the 1990s.

Burgess has previously said that the rising population of humans and increased beach activities are the main driver of shark attacks, but notes that the odds of a fatal shark attacks are so low that beach goers face a higher risk of being killed “by sand collapsing as the result of over achieving sand castle builders.”

Last year, there were 98 total shark attacks worldwide, six of which resulted in deaths. Precisely 30 of these attacks occured in the state of Florida.

Tech Times isn’t the first media outlet to blame shark attacks on global warming. National Geographic claimed last year that global warming was a major factor in a spree of seven shark attacks in North Carolina. The magazine did quote shark biologist Frank Schwartz of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill who “says there’s too much natural variability in weather cycles to blame the recent shark attacks on global warming.”

Environmentalist media, such as EcoWatch, has a long history of linking shark attacks to global warming, but the existence of such a link is doubted by scientists.

There is less than one shark-attack death every two years in America, according to a 2005 study by National Geographic. Statistically speaking, cows are much more dangerous than sharks as they cause 20 deaths annually in the U.S.

http://dailycaller.com/2016/05/31/media-already-blames-global-warming-for-shark-attacks-that-havent-happened-yet/

Next they'll say manmade global warming turns cows into killers.



To: Brumar89 who wrote (70358)6/2/2016 1:42:01 PM
From: Brumar89  Respond to of 86352
 
Modern Debacle Of Wasted Trillions. Consensus: Efforts To Prevent Climate Change “Will Almost Surely Fail”!By P Gosselin on 2. June 2016

Scientific Consensus: “Efforts to curtail world temps will almost surely fail”By Kenneth Richard

Already this year there are 6 peer-reviewed papers examining efforts to curtail CO2 emissions through the use renewable energies. They all conclude that the effort won’t be successful. Given the trillions already committed and at risk of being totally wasted, one has to seriously question the wisdom of the effort.

In fact, some think the renewable energy effort could make things even worse.

What follows are 6 scientific publications from this year alone that tell us the climate protection efforts are not working.

1. Jones and Warner, 2016

“Here we quantify the changes in the global energy mix necessary to address population and climate change under two energy-use scenarios, finding that renewable energy production (9% in 2014) must comprise 87–94% of global energy consumption by 2100. Our study suggests >50% renewable energy needs to occur by 2028 in a <2 °C warming scenario

Press release here.

“Efforts to curtail world temps will almost surely fail”

The Texas A&M researchers modelled the projected growth in global population and per capita energy consumption, as well as the size of known reserves of oil, coal and natural gas, and greenhouse gas emissions to determine just how difficult it will be to achieve the less-than-2 degree Celsius warming goal. “It would require rates of change in our energy infrastructure and energy mix that have never happened in world history and that are extremely unlikely to be achieved,” explains Jones. “Just considering wind power, we found that it would take an annual installation of 485,000 5-megawatt wind turbines by 2028. The equivalent of about 13,000 were installed in 2015. That’s a 37-fold increase in the annual installation rate in only 13 years to achieve just the wind power goal,” adds Jones. Similar expansion rates are needed for other renewable energy sources. “To even come close to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement, 50 percent of our energy will need to come from renewable sources by 2028, and today it is only 9 percent, including hydropower. For a world that wants to fight climate change, the numbers just don’t add up to do it.”

2. Lomborg, 2016

“All climate policies by the US, China, the EU and the rest of the world, implemented from the early 2000s to 2030 and sustained through the century will likely reduce global temperature rise about 0.17°C in 2100. These impact estimates are robust to different calibrations of climate sensitivity, carbon cycling and different climate scenarios. Current climate policy promises will do little to stabilize the climate and their impact will be undetectable for many decades.”

3. Moriarty and Honnery, 2016

Highlights: “We argue it is unlikely that RE [renewable energy] can meet existing global energy use.

Fossil fuels face resource depletion, supply security, and climate change problems; renewable energy (RE) may offer the best prospects for their long-term replacement. However, RE sources differ in many important ways from fossil fuels, particularly in that they are energy flows rather than stocks. The most important RE sources, wind and solar energy, are also intermittent, necessitating major energy storage as these sources increase their share of total energy supply. We show that estimates for the technical potential of RE vary by two orders of magnitude, and argue that values at the lower end of the range must be seriously considered, both because their energy return on energy invested falls, and environmental costs rise, with cumulative output. Finally, most future RE output will be electric, necessitating radical reconfiguration of existing grids to function with intermittent RE.”

4. Ferroni and Hopkirk, 2016

Abstract: “Many people believe renewable energy sources to be capable of substituting fossil or nuclear energy. However there exist very few scientifically sound studies, which apply due diligence to substantiating this impression. In the present paper, the case of photovoltaic power sources in regions of moderate insolation is analysed critically by using the concept of Energy Return on Energy Invested (ERoEI, also called EROI). But the methodology for calculating the ERoEI differs greatly from author-to-author. The main differences between solar PV Systems are between the current ERoEI and what is called the extended ERoEI (ERoEI EXT). The current methodology recommended by the International Energy Agency is not strictly applicable for comparing photovoltaic (PV) power generation with other systems. The main reasons are due to the fact that on one hand, solar electricity is very material-intensive, labour-intensive and capital-intensive and on the other hand the solar radiation exhibits a rather low power density.”

Conclusion: [A]n electrical supply system based on today’s PV technologies cannot be termed an energy source, but rather a non-sustainable energy sink. … [I]t has become clear that photovoltaic energy at least will not help in any way to replace the fossil fuel.

5. Bannaga, 2016

“It is evident that UN efforts to combat climate change are not effective because past experience shows that CO2 generation cuts weren’t near enough. The recent Paris Agreement may restore a faith in UN process if implemented but doesn’t reduce temperatures as needed unless all drivers of climate variability are considered, particularly the abortive role of developing cities. The UN Programme appears to be focusing on attaining urban resilience rather than targeting grassroots causes. Urbane-bias global policies drive the rural population to leave their land and flood cities while over-usage of natural resources by the rich is left unchecked.”

6. Kelly, 2016

“The growth of the ecological footprint of a human population about to increase from 7B now to 9B in 2050 raises serious concerns about how to live both more efficiently and with less permanent impacts on the finite world. One present focus is the future of our climate, where the level of concern has prompted actions across the world in mitigation of the emissions of CO2. An examination of successful and failed introductions of technology over the last 200 years generates several lessons that should be kept in mind as we proceed to 80% decarbonize the world economy by 2050. I will argue that all the actions taken together until now to reduce our emissions of carbon dioxide will not achieve a serious reduction, and in some cases, they will actually make matters worse. In practice, the scaleand the different specific engineering challenges of the decarbonization project are without precedent in human history. This means that any new technology introductions need to be able to meet the huge implied capabilities. An altogether more sophisticated public debate is urgently needed on appropriate actions that (i) considers the full range of threats to humanity, and (ii) weighs more carefully both the upsides and downsides of taking any action, and of not taking that action.”

- See more at: http://notrickszone.com/#sthash.2epVdTPE.dpuf



To: Brumar89 who wrote (70358)6/3/2016 10:50:37 AM
From: Eric  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 86352
 
The New York Assembly Just Passed The Nation’s Most Ambitious Climate Bill

by Natasha Geiling Jun 2, 2016 12:57 pm

The New York State Assembly has passed the most ambitious climate bill in the country, one that would require the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from major sources to zero by 2050. The bill was passed Wednesday night with support from a broad coalition of organizations, including labor groups, environmental groups, and community leaders.

The bill seeks to codify into law certain climate goals put forth by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who has said in the past that he wants the state to generate half of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030. In December, Cuomo mandated that the New York Department of Public Service begin establishing a plan to transition to at least 50 percent renewable electricity by 2030. Without making these goals into laws, however, Cuomo’s targets could be reversed by whoever holds the governorship next.

The bill passed Wednesday night by the Assembly — dubbed the Climate and Community Protection Act — would apply to major sources of anthropogenic carbon pollution, such as major electrical producers or large industrial factories, and would regulate the carbon emissions from any industry that emits 25,000 tons or more of greenhouse gases annually or any power plant that is 25 megawatts or larger. The bill also requires New York to hit a set of incremental targets for the percent of electricity generated from renewable sources: 27 percent by next year, 30 percent by 2020, forty percent by 2025, and 50 percent by 2030.

It’s just as much in our members’ interest to have a livable planet as it is to have a retirement.Environmental groups have also praised the bill for its focus on environmental justice. The bill would establish a working group of representatives from the environmental justice community, as well as from certain government agencies, to help guide climate decisions in a way that lessens the burden on low-income and minority communities. The bill also focuses on creating green jobs throughout the state, and especially focuses on creating these jobs in marginalized communities. In fact, the bill mandates that 40 percent of any funds generated from new market schemes set up to help the state reach its renewable energy goals — a carbon market, for instance — must be put back into creating job opportunities or investing in clean energy or energy-efficiency in marginalized communities.

Labor groups also supported the bill, arguing that it helps protect workers from the dangerous consequences of climate change.

“It is an incredibly important and ambitious bill,” Pete Sikora, legislative and political director of Communications Workers of America told ThinkProgress. “The bill reflects what our coalition is attempting to do, which is solve the climate crisis and provide good jobs for communities that need them.”

“It’s just as much in our members’ interest to have a livable planet as it is to have a retirement,” he added.

The bill was first introduced to the state Assembly on May 23 by Assemblyman Steve Englebright (D). There is currently no equivalent bill in the state Senate, and with only eight days left in the legislative session, it’s unclear whether the bill will make it to Cuomo’s desk for a signature before the legislative session ends.

New York’s climate legislation would be the most ambitious — but not the first — state-wide legislation aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions. California was the first state to pass statewide climate legislation in 2006, which set limits on the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. Earlier this year, Oregon also passed a bill that requires the state’s two largest utilities to completely phase out coal by 2030. And Washington appears to be on the brink of regulating its own greenhouse gas emissions, with the Department of Ecology recently proposing a Clean Air Rule that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions statewide by 1.7 percent each year. If the Clean Power Plan is ultimately upheld by the D.C. Circuit Court, all states will eventually have to come up with similar plans for curbing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

thinkprogress.org