Global warming is changing phytoplankton, and scientists say it’s not good.
Plankton are the food chain’s staple throughout the whole ocean neighborhood.
But they’re losing proteins and nutrients,
Replaced by lipids and carbohydrates.
Just don’t tell Robert Kennedy Jr. we’re turning phytoplankton into junk fish food.
“Right now we are facing a man-made disaster of global scale, our greatest threat in thousands of years: Climate change. If we don’t take action the collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.”
— David Attenborough, naturalist and broadcaster, sounding a dire warning in a speech Monday to the U.N. climate conference in Poland, NPR reports.
We have record high sea surface temperatures. Illustration from NOAA Climate.gov
2016 was the hottest year in 137 years of record-keeping, and the third in a row to be so noted. That and other omens are confirmed in a new report available from the American Meteorological Society called, “State of the Climate 2016.”
The report, peer-reviewed by international scientists, describes the following “highlights.”
Greenhouse gases highest on record
Global surface temperature highest on record
Sea surface temperatures highest on record
Global sea level highest on record
Extremes in the water cycle and precipitation
Arctic continued to warm, sea ice extent remained low
Barack Obama put out the follow statement on President Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement:
A year and a half ago, the world came together in Paris around the first-ever global agreement to set the world on a low-carbon course and protect the world we leave to our children.
It was steady, principled American leadership on the world stage that made that achievement possible. It was bold American ambition that encouraged dozens of other nations to set their sights higher as well. And what made that leadership and ambition possible was America’s private innovation and public investment in growing industries like wind and solar – industries that created some of the fastest new streams of good-paying jobs in recent years, and contributed to the longest streak of job creation in our history.
I woke up thinking about the disheartening news yesterday that Trump is doing his level best to set back Obama’s efforts to avert climate change. And then I saw this video, and realized that Al Gore is still out there somewhere, plugging away at making it better. As Gore put it in his response to Trump’s announcement:
No matter how discouraging this executive order may be, we must, we can, and we will solve the climate crisis. No one man or group can stop the encouraging and escalating momentum we are experiencing in the fight to protect our planet.
Of Americans say they care a great deal about climate change, according to a new Pew Research poll. “Among them, 72% are Democrats and 24% are Republicans; both numbers include independents who say they generally lean toward one party. … On other questions on climate change, Americans remain starkly divided: Nearly 7 out of 10 Democrats believe climate change is mainly a result of human activity; less than a quarter of Republicans believe that.”
Amount that rising global temperatures could cost the global economy by 2030, according to Quartz. “New research suggests that climbing temperatures will make it harder for workers to do their jobs, particularly in the world’s poorest economies. The situation is worst for those in the lowest paid and most heat-exposed professions, such as construction and farming.”
Of likely U.S. voters say they are not willing to pay anything more in higher taxes and utility costs annually to generate cleaner energy and fight global warming, according to a Rasmussen telephone survey. But that’s down from 48% last August and the lowest level measured since January 2013. However, 56% are willing to pay, with 24% willing to spend $100 more per year, unchanged from earlier surveys, and 26% are ready to spend $300 or more a year, with 6% who are willing to spend at least $1,000 more annually.
In Florida we believe that bad words can be harming,
So we’re extra careful when sentences we are forming.
Phrases must be rearranged
If they would include “climate change,”
And we would never ever use a term like “global warming.”
Don Jr. and Bettina are finding out marriage ain’t a walk in the park,
Not even when your daddy is a self-proclaimed genius and wannabe monarch.
It began with a small private wedding ceremony,
But the after-parties were where it really got tony,
With fireworks and a private Bahamian island, paid for by a Russian oligarch.
“With the war it’s just artificial, it’s a little bit high, it’s a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe. They could take out a city. Let ’em take out Los Angeles. Let ’em take out San Diego. This is a very small price to pay and it’s going to be over very soon. It’s essentially almost over with.”
“The cesspit of corruption that is Donald Trump’s presidency is finally getting the attention it deserves. It’s about time. And if a massive blue wave sweeps Washington on November 3rd as polls now suggest, Democrats should put corruption front and center of their agenda in Congress. … The level of corruption that Trump has engaged in and enabled in others is completely unprecedented – self-dealing that, as Trump would say, is like nothing anybody has ever seen before.”
“We’re not talking about socialists, these are communists, Marxists and anarchists. You got to be kidding. They want us to call them democratic socialists, there’s nothing democratic about these people.”
KFF Poll: “With the 2026 midterm campaigns in full swing and early voting about to begin, there is a wide enthusiasm gap between partisan voters, with Democratic voters 25 percentage points more likely than Republican voters to say they are ‘more motivated’ than usual to vote (63% vs. 38%).”
Wall Street Journal: “The U.S. added 29,000 jobs in September, far short of expectations, in a sign that the labor market remains steady but may not be able to deliver consistent and sizable employment gains like it did in the past.”
G. Elliot Morris: “Voters aren’t confused about the motive, either. 62% say Trump made the promise mainly to win votes in November, and only 13% think he genuinely intends to send the money. … Moreover, 71% of adults say it is inappropriate for a president to promise government payments that depend on his party winning an election, including 53% of Republicans.”
“Donald Trump made over a thousand stock sales and purchases worth between $79m and $270m in July,” The Guardian reports. “His two largest sales were of Amazon and Microsoft stock, selling between $5m and $25m each on 20 July. That same day, he also sold up to $5m worth of Oracle and Costco stock, $500,000 to $1m in Nvidia, and bought up to $5m worth of shares in Intuit and Salesforce, among dozens of other transactions.”
“The unprecedented spate of mid-decade redistricting for the U.S. House has changed the congressional districts for one-tenth of Americans and significantly altered the makeup of at least one-fifth of districts, according to a new study,” the Associated Press reports.