Music Banter - The Environmental Watchdog MasterThread

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^ beautiful in it's own way; also one more word: albedo

Quote:

Originally Posted by OccultHawk (Post 2097813)

Carbon emmisions worldwide were up 1% in 2019.

Up.

Claiming carbon emmisions are slowing is like saying you’re driving slower because you only increased your speed from 100 to 101.

^ Yes, bad news -but a good analogy. It shows how one statistic, taken without the context, can give a very false impression. There were probably a bunch of those going round at the recent international climate conference that indicated so clearly how the world is responding to the global warming crisis: bickering and stalling over the implementation of measures that prob won't be adequate anyway. Depressing as hell, really.

And talking of Hell, Australia continues to suffer:-

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50938504 : Australia Fires Worsen As Every State Hits 40°C

Quote:

[Emergency coordinator guy] said the huge blazes had produced their own weather systems from smoke columns "punching into the atmosphere 14km high. There's lightning coming out of these columns. It is unpredictable [and] it's dangerous out there," he said.

Lightning strikes in dry, drought-affected forests have the potential to quickly become fires that threaten lives and homes. Dry lightning sparked at least 70 new fires in the region in the past 24 hours, officials said.

( Click on the link for a map that shows how the fires are breaking out right across the country. :yikes: )

Quote:

Originally Posted by DMBFFF (Post 2097820)

^ beautiful in it's own way; also one more word: albedo

There used to be a visualization for WinAmp called Albedo:

https://winampheritage.com/visualiza...o-plugin/31692

^ Aha! Also a Vangelis album.
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Stop Press on one particular fire in Australia:-

Quote:

Thousands of people are trapped on a beach in southeast Australia after fleeing their homes as strong winds brought wildfires and smoke so thick that the morning sky turned dark.

On Tuesday, about 4,000 residents and visitors were forced to leave their homes and vacation accommodation in Mallacoota, in the state of Victoria, authorities said, as wildfires rage across the region. "There's no way in or out," Mallacoota resident Jason Selmes told CNN

https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/asse...xlarge-169.jpg

^ The sky in Mallacoota was pitch black even at 10 a.m. on Tuesday. ^

You don't have to be a news junkie to've heard a fair number of officials issuing public safety warnings on tv, but I haven't heard many stated as baldly as this one:-

Quote:

"It is too late to leave," said Victoria Emergency, warning that Mallacoota residents were "in danger ... and need to act immediately to survive."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lisnaholic (Post 2098029)

^ Aha! Also a Vangelis album.

Doesn't surprise me one bit.

Those poor Aussies though. Dam. There really isn't a whole lot of standardization for wildfire training as compared to residential/commercial. It's mostly just prevention, and most times it's unavoidable or too coincidental to prepare for.

^ I forgot that you know about firefighter training! Yes, it's one thing to have a mock-up for an urban fire. With a wildfire, you can't set fire to a forest to practise on, and of course a real wildfire is on such a big scale...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Plankton (Post 2098337)

Doesn't surprise me one bit.

^ :laughing: It has just sunk in what a good comment that was, Plankton!
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Quote:

New Zealand glaciers turn brown and 'could melt faster because of Australia's bushfires'

By Gianluca Mezzofiore.

Updated 1433 GMT (2233 HKT) January 2, 2020
https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/asse...xlarge-169.jpg
A photo taken on January 1 shows the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers in New Zealand, which have turned brown as a result of Australian bushfire smoke and ash.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/02/a...cli/index.html

^ This nudges our albedo in the wrong direction, and is an example of how problems spread out beyond the first obvious danger. A similar problem arose with the Siberian wildfires back in August:-

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lisnaholic (Post 2069925)

And the worst of the worst are the catastrophes that guarrantee that the rate of catastrophes is going to get worse. See bits in bold:-

Quote:

This soot can be harmful to humans and animals, entering the lungs and bloodstream. It also plays a role in global warming. Nasa scientists say the soot absorbs sunlight and warms the atmosphere. If it falls on ice or snow, it reduces reflectivity and can trap more heat, speeding up the melting process.

The fires are releasing copious volumes of previously stored carbon dioxide and methane - carbon stocks that have in some cases been held in the ground for thousands of years. The fires .... emitted an estimated 100 megatons of CO2 between 1 June and 21 July, almost the equivalent of the carbon output of Belgium in 2017, according to Cams.

... meanwhile the ecological disaster that is Donald Trump continues its dirty work. This latest move will allow for unprecedented levels of water contamination:-

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51225604 :Trump Rolls Back US Water Pollution Controls

Sometimes I pull out a quote to give the gist of an article, but this one is such a compendium of disastrous news that it's hard to choose one sentence. :(