Tuesday, April 19, 2022

Climate Change

Let's do a science post.  Rina Torchinsky (NPR) reports:

Human-induced climate change fueled one of the most active North Atlantic hurricane seasons on record in 2020, according to a study published in the journal Nature.

The study analyzed the 2020 season and the impact of human activity on climate change. It found that hourly hurricane rainfall totals were up to 10% higher when compared to hurricanes that took place in the pre-industrial era in 1850, according to a news release from Stony Brook University.

"The impacts of climate change are actually already here," said Stony Brook's Kevin Reed, who led the study. "They're actually changing not only our day-to-day weather, but they're changing the extreme weather events."

There were a record-breaking 30 named storms during the 2020 hurricane season. Twelve of them made landfall in the continental U.S.

These powerful storms are damaging and the economic costs are staggering.

Hurricanes are fueled in part by moisture linked to warm ocean temperatures. Over the last century, higher amounts of greenhouse gases due to human emissions have raised both land and ocean temperatures. 


Climate change or how we're destroying our home.  NASA put together this video.




How hot is too hot?

As Earth’s climate warms, heat waves are becoming more frequent and severe. The health dangers of extreme heat have scientists and medical experts increasingly concerned. And for good reason: heat stress is a leading cause of weather-related deaths in the United States each year. A recent example is the record-breaking heat wave that hit the U.S. Pacific Northwest last summer, killing hundreds.

A bar graph of weather fatalities between 1991 and 2020, showing heat as the leading cause of weather-related deaths
Heat is the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the United States over the 30-year period from 1991 to 2020. Credit: NOAA

Extreme levels of heat stress have more than doubled over the past 40 years. That trend is expected to continue, says Colin Raymond of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Raymond is lead author of a 2020 study on extreme heat and humidity, published in Science Advances.

Temperature map on June 27th, 2021 for the contiguous United States and most of Canada
Temperature anomalies on June 27th, 2021 compared to 2014-2020 average for the same day during the 2021 western North America heat wave. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory/Joshua Stevens

Weather forecasters use different tools to assess the potential for heat stress. Indeed, measurements of heat stress figure prominently in your daily weather report. In addition to forecasts of temperature and relative humidity, you’ll see something called the heat index, or apparent temperature. The heat index is a measure of what the air temperature feels like to our bodies when relative humidity is factored in. Calculated for shady areas, the heat index reflects how uncomfortable we feel when it’s hot and humid.

Heat index chart
Heat index chart. Credit: NOAA

Because the heat index requires calibration, it’s a somewhat subjective measurement. In fact, different countries use different versions of it. For this reason, scientists conducting global climate studies are looking increasingly at another measure of heat stress called wet-bulb temperature.

Wet-bulb temperature is the lowest temperature to which an object can cool down when moisture evaporates from it. The lower the wet-bulb temperature, the easier it is for us to cool down. It measures how well our bodies cool down by sweating when it’s hot and humid, and tells us if conditions may be harmful to our health, or even deadly.



This Friday is Earth Day, something we've been observing since 1970.  Hopefully, each year, we all become a little more award of how much we're damaging and degrading our home.  Hopefully, we have time to get on the same page and actually do something.  Want to be sure your kids are up to speed?  Here's a video from PBS KIDS:




"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Tuesday, April 19, 2022.  Press whores are so overwhelmed with their whoring duties that they can't even save their former precious while the political stalemate continues in Iraq.


In November, the US mid-term elections will be held.  Traditionally, the hose controlling the White House loses seats in Congress during the midterms.


 


Joe Biden's polls8ter says,  "The worst political environment for Democrats in my lifetime.""


AOC and the Fraud Squad can't rally because they've been exposed as worthless.


They tried to bring in Bar8ack Obama this month to help Joe.  Even if the catty behavior between Joe and Barack hadn't taken place at that event, Barack couldn't have helped.


The press whoring just isn't working.  

He was still in the White House when I pointed out that The Cult of St. Barack wouldn't be able to keep him afloat after he was out of the White House.  No, people would begin to notice how he did nothing for him and how various 'media' outlets were really just Democratic Party organ who covered for Barrack and Barack's many failures inste8ad of holding him accountable.


He wa8s never held accountable.  He was going to end veterans homelessness, remember?  He didn't8.  He was going to close the gulag at Guantanamo.  He didn't  He was going to pull all US troops out of Iraq -- he never did and he started sending more back in in the fall of 2012 -- as THE NEW YORK TIMES finally reported in September of that month, buried in a story on Syria.  He then began sending more in in8 the second half of 2014 and they remain in Iraq today.  "We want to end the War! And we want to end it now!"  Remember him thundering that in his 2008 rallies?  Remember his alleged superior judgment and how he used the Iraq War to bash Hillary Clinton?


He was really good a words, they just didn't mean anything.


We constantly, while Barack was in the White House would use Joni Mitchell's "The Last Time I Saw Richard" to describe Barack and his cult back when he was president.


The last time I saw Richard was Detroit in '68
And he told me all romantics meet the same fate someday
Cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark café
You laugh he said you think you're immune
Go look at your eyes they're full of moon
You like roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you
All those pretty lies pretty lies
When you gonna realize they're only pretty lies
Only pretty lies just pretty lies


Pretty lies, when you gonna realize they're just pretty lies?


The press whored for him constantly.  See Ava and my "TV: The Myths" for some of his many broken promises.  And I was right.  The media whores couldn't devote all the attention they did to covering for him and lying for him when he was out of the White House.  No.  


They ahve othere politicians to whore for today.  They still will rally around Barack and they did for that awful documentary.  That's the reality.  It was awful.  NETFLIX knew they had a dog on their hand, i8t was a NETFLIX exec that provided us with the documentary ahead of time and told us that NETFLIX knew they'd wasted money.  It debuted last week and never made it higher than number 3.  It's dropped.  QUEEN OF THE SOUTH, a USA network series, had its final season show up on NETFLIX and it performed better.  WHITE HOT THE RISE & FALL OF ABERCROMBIE & FITCH just started streaming on NETFLIX and already it's creating more excitement.


Barack never helped anyone but himself.  By the time Michelle Obama's book came out, the bloom was off that rose.  It did not meet the publisher's expectations despite a huge promotional push.  


Barack's only accomplishment was overseeing the greatest transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top.  He was the hero of the 1%.  8And this was made clear as he worked to destroy a Chicago neighborhood by mposing his official library there, by yachting with David Geffen and limp noodle Bruce Springsteen.  By getting millions from NETFLIX despite him never having produced a film  or TV show.


His documentary was an embarrassment.  But the press whores worked the p.r. material they were handed and went around, as the p.r. material did, comparing Barack to a man who has spent his lifetime -- and he's nearly 100 now -- covering environmental issues in films and TV shows.  That was so insulting and outrageous and, no surprise, beyond the whores 8that lie never got traction.


He c9984an't save them.  Bill can't save them -- he has to run from reporters these days to avoid facing the questions regarding Juanita and Monica.  Hillary can't do press?  She's seeing campaign aid after campaign aid pulled into an investigation on how the Russia myth was created by her campaign and paid for by her campaign and how aid how one person with her campaign after another lied to the US government.


In the Iraq that the US destroyed, the political stalemate continues.  No president named since the October 10th elections, no prime minister-designate named.   Six months and counting.  QANTARA offers:

Iraq’s fragility and compounding problems are nothing new. The country has witnessed three devastating wars within three long decades, in addition to international sanctions, sectarian war and foreign influence. By the time Saddam Hussein’s statues were toppled, Iraq found itself in a devastating situation, in which bets were being made that Iraq would splinter into several countries based on sectarian and ethnic lines. Although Iraq defied these expectations, it remains a fragile state edging towards failure. 

Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shia cleric who won 73 out of 325 seats in the recent election, is however promising major change. The young cleric wants to break away from the political tradition of forming a national unity government after each election where all parties representing Iraq’s sects, ethnicities, and religions share the spoils. This type of political arrangement is one of the main causes of corruption and social division.

Instead, al-Sadr wants to form a majority government that can begin implementing desperately needed reforms – beginning with controlling the unruly militias and fighting corruption. He also aims to curb foreign influence from countries like Iran and make sure Iraq remains neutral regarding divisive regional issues. But will he succeed? 

Al-Sadr will face many challenges in his efforts to brighten Iraq’s future. Even if he can form a majority government, further change will be an uphill battle because reform in Iraq is a formidable task that requires tremendous effort. Furthermore, some aspects of reform might take decades.



The western press, doing the US State Dept's bidding, whored for Moqtada and declared him a kingmaker and other things.  He's a cult leader who is responsible for the deaths of many Ir8aiqs as w8ell as many US troops.  But in August8, he took the bribe from the US State Dept -- that was made with US tax dollars -- a8nd they began promoting him lilke crazy.


Well he had t8hree tries.  Three times, he called for a vote in Parliament to elect his nominee for president.


Three times he failed.


He's now in the midst of a 40-day, self-imposed exile  


His oppontents are stupid.  There was some initial excitement that the coordinating framework would be able to put together a government.


Then they learned that their answer was to pimp the same person for prime minister and the same person for president. Moqtada had already installed the same person for another term as Speaker of Parliament.  So if the three top positions in government weren't going to change, what was the point8 of those October elections?


It's a question the already disenchanted are asking even louder these days.




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