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.”
Donald Trump’s latest tariff move beggars belief,
He says he’s providing some needed price relief.
But the move will most certainly harm
The folks who own ranches and farms.
Trump thinks he’ll win the midterms with cheap imported beef.
“Young Americans today have never witnessed Congress authorize a war, they’ve never seen a U.S. administration balance its books, they’ve never watched a well-funded and empowered state department operate, and they see only mistrust between allies. They assume the situation is normal. It is not. … The real cost of forgetting the pre-9/11 world is not a country that has changed, but one that no longer knows it could be different.”
“We’re working through some political issues in Israel. I think we agree with them on the end state. They just have a crazy election, and that makes them a little irrational in certain regards.”
— Jared Kushner, quoted by CBS News, on the lack of progress in Gaza.
“If they haven’t understood by now, they should understand before it’s too late that the rules of the game have changed and that from now on, any violation of Iran’s interests and security will receive a ‘faster, heavier, and more painful’ response.”
— “Iran’s ‘proportionate responses’ to U.S. attacks are over, the country’s parliament speaker and top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Sunday, while acknowledging the economic impact of the war,” CNBC reports.
“The war in Iran has now cost U.S. consumers $100 billion in higher energy prices, and the bill is rising another $1 million about every two minutes, per a real-time estimate from Brown University as of Monday morning,” Axios reports. “Energy inflation shows up across the entire economy, and the recent surge in diesel prices in particular threatens to have a dramatic impact on freight and travel in the weeks and months to come.”
A new Economist/YouGov poll finds the president’s approval at 36%, while 60% disapprove. Key takeaway: Just 27% of adults aged 30 to 44 approved of Trump’s job performance, while 70% disapproved.
“ICE officers and agents arrested roughly 50,000 people in August,” NBC News reports. “That number is on par with July’s number, which was the highest single monthly arrest total during the second Trump administration.”