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Legacy Policy

It’s not the heat, it’s the warming beyond evolutionary boundaries.

By Abrupt changes, Climate Culture, climate emergency, Climate Policy, Climate Reform, climate restoration, climate solutions, CO2 Removal and Sequestration, Emissions, Emissions Scenarios, evolutionary boundaries, Extreme Weather, feedback, Flooding, Impacts, in-depth and Popular Press, Legacy Policy, Negative emissions, Point of No Return, Scenarios, Shifting Ecology, Solutions, The Unexpected, Tipping, Winter Weather

It’s not the heat, it’s the warming beyond evolutionary boundaries. Bruce Melton ClimateDiscovery.org First published as an abridge version on The Rag Blog, as a part of an-in-depth radio interview on the Rag Radio syndicated on Pacifica on 7/21/2023 There’s a quote that has been around forever, variously worded and attributed to many. The origin…

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Failed Legacy Climate Strategy – IPCC 2023 Synthesis Report Review

By Climate Culture, Climate Policy, Emissions, Emissions Scenarios, Legacy Policy, Myths, Point of No Return, politics, Reports, Scenarios, Tipping
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change  Synthesis Report 2023, AR6 Failed Legacy Climate Strategy - IPCC 2023 Synthesis Report Review by Bruce Melton First published in the Austin Sierran on April 7, 2023 Summary: IPCC says climate  change is worse, but they do not recognize tipping activation. The say emissions reductions and carbon dioxide removal must be...
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Giant Sequoias: A Tipping Point

By Abrupt changes, adaptation, Climate Catastrophes, climate emergency, climate restoration, Drought, Earth systems, Fire, forest health, Forest Mortality, Impacts, in-depth and Popular Press, Legacy Policy, pine beetle, Shifting Ecology, The Unexpected, Tipping

The Sequoia Burn Giant Sequoias: A Climate Tipping Point by Bruce Melton PE Follow MeltOn in the field on Instagram See the abridged version on Truthout.org: August 9, 2022. Summary: Up to 13,000 mature sequoias were killed by wildfire between 2015 and 2021, with a total known population of only about 75,500 mature trees. Sequoias…

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When Normals Are Not Normal: The National Weather Service Is Unwittingly Obscuring the Reality of Global Warming

By Climate Culture, Deniers and Delayers, Extreme Weather, global warming psychology, Impacts, in-depth and Popular Press, Legacy Policy, Messaging, Myths, Strategy, Temperature, The Unexpected, Truthout.org, What we can do

When Normals Are Not Normal The National Weather Service Is Unwittingly Obscuring the Reality of Global Warming by Bruce Melton PE See the abridged version on Truthout.org, July 17, 2022 In-depth references are below the article. Summary: The National Weather Service has a periodic procedure where they recalculate the “normal” climate data presented to the…

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Scientific American on Understating Climate Science – Very Important

By Climate Policy, Climate Reform, climate solutions, Deniers and Delayers, global warming psychology, Impacts, Legacy Policy, politics, Psycho

Four giant sequoias killed or mostly killed by climate change-caused wildfire. Sequoia National Monument, Black Mountain Grove, Pier Fire 2017. Sequoias don’t normal die in wildfire. When our climate has changed enough to cause sequoias to die, from overly extreme fires caused by unprecedented low fuel moisture, it’s caused by climate change, not enhanced. Broad…

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New Report Warns Planet May Be Warming Twice as Fast as Expected

By Abrupt changes, Climate Catastrophes, Impacts, Legacy Policy, modeling, Reports, Sensitivity, Solutions, The Unexpected

  New Report Warns Planet May Be Warming Twice as Fast as Expected By Bruce Melton First Published on Truthout, May 28, 2019 New earthshaking science will be coming out in the 2021 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report that could nearly double future warming predictions. We have a window into this new science…

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Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Removal: Science and Money Speak

By adaptation, climate solutions, CO2 Removal and Sequestration, Healthy Climate, Legacy Policy, Negative emissions, Solutions, Strategy

How, exactly, are we going to reverse climate change in time to save our soles from frying on the pavement? As a society, we have easily solved global-scale pollution problems before. How deep would it be and how many of us would be alive today, if when there were 1 billion people on Earth and…

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Climate Science Compromise Feedback Loop and Unrecoverable Impacts

By Abrupt changes, adaptation, Beaches coastal, Climate Catastrophes, Climate Culture, Climate Policy, Climate Reform, climate restoration, Deniers and Delayers, feedback, global warming psychology, Healthy Climate, ice sheet, Impacts, Legacy Policy, Messaging, modeling, politics, Psycho, Sea Level Rise, The Unexpected, West Antarctic Ice Sheet

Why are climate change impacts so much worse than projected? What does it mean? Why don’t we do something? In a nutshell, science is conservative, it’s slow, and the great climate consensus that has evolved to protect our society compounds the understating nature of the industry of science. This creates a vastly understating public facing message. …

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The 45Q Carbon Sequestration Tax Credits: First Steps or Moral Hazard?

By Abrupt changes, Climate Culture, Climate Policy, Climate Reform, climate restoration, climate solutions, CO2 Removal and Sequestration, economics, Healthy Climate, Legacy Policy, Negative emissions, politics, Solutions, Strategy, What we can do

  The 45Q Carbon Sequestration Tax Credits: First Steps or Moral Hazard? Summary: The new enhancements to Obama’s 45Q carbon dioxide sequestration tax credits are widely seen as a boon to the oil industry. A deeper look reveals they could be the incentive that allows us to actually reverse warming, something that most people understand…

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Simple Solution to Climate Pollution

By Climate Culture, Climate Policy, Climate Reform, climate restoration, climate solutions, CO2 Removal and Sequestration, Healthy Climate, Legacy Policy, Negative emissions, Solutions, Strategy, What we can do

Simple Solution to Climate Pollution A must read: “Lackner and Jospe, Climate Change is a Waste Management Problem, Issues in Science and Technology, June 2017.” Times have changed. Delay has created a new climate that requires new strategies. The following is a summary of this must read article. Summary of “Climate Change is a Waste Management…

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A Healthy Climate: Isn’t This the Goal?

By Climate Culture, Climate Policy, Climate Reform, climate restoration, climate solutions, Emissions Scenarios, Healthy Climate, Legacy Policy, Messaging, Negative emissions, politics, Psycho, Solutions, Strategy

Most of us think a healthy climate will result from emissions reductions. Time and again however, the science says this is not so. The reason? Emissions reduction strategies are about 30 years old and we have emitted as much climate pollution in about the last 30 years as we emitted in the previous 200 years….

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Global Environmental Sustainability and a Healthy Climate: Climate Policy 2.0

By adaptation, alternatives, Climate Catastrophes, climate change counter movement, Climate Culture, Climate Policy, Climate Reform, climate restoration, climate solutions, CO2 Removal and Sequestration, Deniers and Delayers, Emissions, Emissions Scenarios, Extreme Weather, global warming psychology, Healthy Climate, Impacts, Legacy Policy, Messaging, Negative emissions, politics, Psycho, Scenarios, Solutions, Strategy, What we can do

  Global Environmental Sustainability and a Healthy Climate: Climate Policy 2.0 We all want a healthy climate and assume that emissions reductions will give us this healthy climate, but emissions reductions alone allow triple to quintuple the warming we have already seen. Today, the public and policy makers –almost completely– believe emissions reductions strategies can…

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Sing Delay, Delay, Delay: 0.5 C Limit to Dangerous Climate Change

By Abrupt changes, Climate Policy, Climate Reform, climate restoration, Emissions, Gulf Stream, ice sheet, Impacts, Legacy Policy, Methane, modeling, sea ice, Strategy, West Antarctic Ice Sheet

Sing Delay, Delay, Delay When serious discussions about global warming gases and fossil fuels began in the 1980s, all that was needed to prevent what would become labeled as dangerous climate change was a reduction of the emissions of global warming gases. Since that time, we have emitted as much CO2 as we emitted in…

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CO2 Capture – We have The Technology

By Climate Culture, Climate Policy, Climate Reform, climate restoration, climate solutions, CO2 Removal and Sequestration, Emissions, Emissions Scenarios, Healthy Climate, Legacy Policy, Negative emissions, politics, Solutions, Strategy

Emissions: We have the Technology From the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Nature Outlook An article review by Bruce Melton First published in the Austin Sierran in March 2018 Atmospheric carbon capture is not yet a mainstream topic in climate policy, but to meet even the goals of the Paris Agreement, it is something that…

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Thirty Years of Warnings: Union of Concerned Scientists 1988

By Climate Culture, Climate Policy, Climate Reform, climate restoration, climate solutions, Legacy Policy, Messaging, Solutions, Strategy, summary

Thirty Years of Warnings: Union of Concerned Scientists 1988 Thirty years of warnings and very little has changed. Except for a few numbers, this letter from the Union of Concerned Scientists could be dated 2018 instead of 1988. “Hottest Ever” or “________ of the last _______ years have occurred in the last decade” or “glaciers…

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Healthy Climate Alliance and 300 ppm CO2 by 2050 (300×2050)

By Climate Culture, Climate Policy, Climate Reform, climate restoration, climate solutions, CO2 Removal and Sequestration, Emissions, Emissions Scenarios, Extreme Weather, feedback, global warming psychology, Healthy Climate, Legacy Policy, Negative emissions, politics, Solutions, Strategy

Healthy Climate Alliance and 300 ppm CO2 by 2050 (300×2050) The Healthy Climate Alliance asks, why aren’t we seeking to restore our climate to its original healthy state? The answer for 30 years has been that limiting emissions was enough. We could decarbonize our infrastructure, limit warming to 2 degrees C and let nature take…

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Advancing Beyond the Moral Imperative Challenge

By alternatives, Climate Reform, climate solutions, CO2 Removal and Sequestration, Legacy Policy, Messaging, Negative emissions, Psycho, Solutions, Strategy, Uncategorized

The “moral imperative challenge” is that thing where we feel it is our duty to create a fossil fuel extinction in order address climate change. This is something our climate culture has been striving for since about 1990. It is ingrained in our emissions reductions psyche and emblazoned across our foreheads. For a generation, emissions…

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New Climate Culture

By Abrupt changes, alternatives, Climate Culture, Climate Policy, Climate Reform, climate solutions, Emissions, Emissions Scenarios, global warming psychology, Legacy Policy, Messaging, Negative emissions, politics, Psycho, Scenarios, Solutions, Strategy, What we can do

  New Climate Culture Our climate culture of the last two or three decades, very bluntly, not working out . Yes, carbon emissions are decreasing, or at least they are not increasing as fast a they were or as fast as projected. Possibly, they are even decreasing. But the bottom line is that current warming…

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Falling Emissions: With Offshored Goods and Fugitive Emissions — Not So Much

By Climate Policy, climate pollutants short-lived, Climate Reform, CO2 Removal and Sequestration, Emissions, Emissions Scenarios, Legacy Policy, Negative emissions, politics, Scenarios, Solutions, Strategy, What we can do

Observations on Declining U.S. Emissions: It’s a widely held belief that the U.S. has been reducing emissions since the peak  2005-2007 before the recession. This is just barely valid today, but several years back it was not. The last time we reported on this, U.S. emission had not fallen as the EPA had insisted, but…

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Large Negative Emissions of 80 Gt Annually Allow Dangerous Warming

By Abrupt changes, CO2 Removal and Sequestration, Emissions, Emissions Scenarios, Legacy Policy, Negative emissions, Scenarios, Sea Level Rise, Solutions, Strategy, Temperature

The greatest climate dude of all time has done it again. James Hansen, 32 year director of the U.S. national climate modeling agency, the NASA Goddard institute for Space Studies, published a new fundamental piece of climate work last month. He looks at the additional negative emission on top of Paris reductions that are needed…

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