Diary Of The Last Age

I've been warning about rising sea levels for several years, and just now they're beginning to think about in Florida. Perils of Climate Change Could Swamp Coastal Real Estate MIAMI — Real estate agents looking to sell coastal properties usually focus on one thing: how close the home is to the water’s edge. But buyers are increasingly asking instead how far back it is from the waterline. How many feet above sea level? Is it fortified against storm surges? Does it have emergency power and sump pumps? Rising sea levels are changing the way people think about waterfront real estate. Though demand remains strong and developers continue to build near the water in many coastal cities, homeowners across the nation are slowly growing wary of buying property in areas most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. But many economists say that this reckoning needs to happen much faster and that home buyers urgently need to be better informed. Some analysts say the economic...

‘Jump’ In Global Warming Now Appears ‘Imminent’ 90% of the heat in the atmosphere is absorbed in the oceans.  There are two important processes passing that heat back and forth into the atmosphere, the " ENSO ", i.e., La Nina and El Nino, and the "Pacific Decadal Oscillation " PDO ".  Each of these raise and lower temperatures over the oceans and can have impact on weather over the entire planet.  Historically, they both rise and fall every few years, the PDO in decades, lifting and dropping atmospheric temperatures.  But now with global warming it's more a stair case, each implementation of ENSO, El Nino raises the temperatures more than the last time, and La Nina lowers it less.  The same with the PDO.  We are now in a decadal PDO increase in ocean temperatures meaning the next ten years are going to get very warm.  Our current La Nina will keep it abated somewhat, but another El Nino will follow in a few years and all of our record heat temperatu...

I've discussed this before .  The opponents of GMO's have legitimate problems with it.  But in thirty years there are going to be 8 billion people to feed.  The last time we were threatened by such a catastrophe, in the 1970's, there was a " green revolution " and science brought us back from the brink. Now the looming brink dwarfs the one in the 1970's.  But science again is there, provided that they are going to be allowed to work with GMO's.  To ban this work will be tragic. But now there is incredible hope with GMO research.   A decade ago, agricultural scientists at the University of Illinois suggested a bold approach to improve the food supply: tinker with photosynthesis, the chemical reaction powering nearly all life on Earth.  The idea was greeted skeptically in scientific circles and ignored by funding agencies. But one outfit with deep pockets, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation , eventually paid attention, hoping the research m...

Florida is on it's way to oblivion. Intensified by Climate Change, ‘King Tides’ Change Ways of Life in Florida In an enclave of a city known as the Venice of America, where dream-big houses look out over a maze of picturesque canals, the comparison to the Venice of Italy no longer seems so appealing. On Monday morning, shortly after November’s so-called supermoon dropped from view on Mola Avenue, it was easy to see why. The tide swelled on command. Seawater gurgled audibly up through manhole covers and seeped from the grass. Under a sunny sky, the water drowned docks and slid over low sea walls. By 8:15 a.m., peak tide, this street in the Las Olas Isles neighborhood was inundated, just like the Venice across the pond. Sergio Lafratta, an independent business consultant who moved in just three months ago, stood shirtless in tall waders, watching the saltwater seep into his new lawn. “There goes my grass again,” Mr. Lafratta said. His grass squares floated away down the str...

Conservatives elected Trump; now they own climate change Anyone who voted for Trump shares the responsibility for the climate damages resulting from his presidency The one thing that isn’t transient is the impact this will have on climate change. It is now virtually certain the world will not meet any of its climate targets. If Trump (and the Republican-controlled Congress) stand by their pledges, we will see a major rollback of the tremendous progress that has been made on reducing emissions. A Trump presidency will likely set us back at least a decade, perhaps longer. And that is a decade we can’t afford . The world will blow past the 2C (3.6F) target set in Paris . This means it will be difficult to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. The election also affects how we should talk about climate change. In the US, and in many other countries, opposing steps to cut carbon pollution has become a litmus test for conservative politicians . So, in this sense, conserva...