Maybe you could follow it by recreating the Pitch drop experiment - Wikipedia
As ever George says it how it is.
I also read the linked article on democracy/plutocracy. There has always been a pattern of ebb and flow that in historic records look like cycles. Proving this scientifically is interesting and it certainly does seem very much as though the world is now in the brink of a long downward spiral.
If history tells us anything, it is that the “immiseration” phase is going to be violent and parts of the planet become unliveable. There inevitably will be mass migration. Putting up walls or deporting large numbers of desperate people is not going to stop this. The world must devise and put in place now humane measures to keep humanity going.
I’m not at all sure that scientifically proving to people and government what is going to happen will result in significant remedial action.
I can’t afford these books yet.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B09BDSGVMH/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1689426639&sr=8-1
Is that ironic?
I bought this book after a positive review by @AngelaR
https://www.amazon.fr/gp/aw/d/1788451562?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_image
Very happy with it but did cost me more than either of those money advice tomes. So, not sure what that says!
So glad you liked it! I’ve been driving our poor visiting friend distracted by reading little poems to her from it… (Not sure what that says about me )
Back onto less good news of the climate breakdown topic….
Seems we in the northern hemisphere may have to prepare for colder weather this century
I read in the New York Times
The last time there was a major slowdown in the mighty network of ocean currents that shapes the climate around the North Atlantic, it seems to have plunged Europe into a deep cold for over a millennium.
That was roughly 12,800 years ago, when not many people were around to experience it. But in recent decades, human-driven warming could be causing the currents to slow once more, and scientists have been working to determine whether and when they might undergo another great weakening, which would have ripple effects for weather patterns across a swath of the globe.
A pair of researchers in Denmark this week put forth a bold answer: A sharp weakening of the currents, or even a shutdown, could be upon us by century’s end.
For those who cannot access the NYT article, here is a link to the research reference
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39810-w
More from the NYT article
Were the circulation to tip into a much weaker state, the effects on the climate would be far-reaching, though scientists are still examining their potential magnitude. Much of the Northern Hemisphere could cool. The coastlines of North America and Europe could see faster sea-level rise. Northern Europe could experience stormier winters, while the Sahel in Africa and the monsoon regions of Asia would most likely get less rain.
Dr. Ditlevsen’s new analysis focused on a simple metric, based on sea-surface temperatures, that is similar to ones other scientists have used as proxies for the strength of the Atlantic circulation. She conducted the analysis with Peter Ditlevsen, her brother, who is a climate scientist at the University of Copenhagen’s Niels Bohr Institute. They used data on their proxy measure from 1870 to 2020 to calculate statistical indicators that presage changes in the overturning.
“Not only do we see an increase in these indicators,” Peter Ditlevsen said, “but we see an increase which is consistent with this approaching a tipping point.”
They then used the mathematical properties of a tipping-point-like system to extrapolate from these trends. That led them to predict that the Atlantic circulation could collapse around midcentury, though it could potentially occur as soon as 2025 and as late as 2095.
Scientists’ uncertainty about the timing of an AMOC collapse shouldn’t be taken as an excuse for not reducing greenhouse-gas emissions to try to avoid it, said Hali Kilbourne, an associate research professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.
“It is very plausible that we’ve fallen off a cliff already and don’t know it,” Dr. Kilbourne said. “I fear, honestly, that by the time any of this is settled science, it’s way too late to act.”
Tuesday June 24st to be precise (ok I made that up) but it is getting very concerning, see temperatures off the coast of Florida hit 38c???
The Med hits highest temperature ever recorded.
Now I’m worried about the sea creatures!
🪼
Yes indeed, destabilisation of the oceans will cause bad things to happen to sea creatures and us.
Quite apart from the warming seas, I remember seeing the shocking destruction caused in Asia by use of dynamite by fishermen. Vast areas of dead coral meant no more fish. A self fulfilling manmade disaster.
Man has radically interfered with Nature’s ecosystem, and the reckoning is coming.
I’m always worried about the sea creatures. The seas and oceans used as dustbins, heating up, turning acid… There should be a 25 year or even longer hard moratorium on fishing, and no fish farming either since that is a cause of eg sand-eel overfishing which leads among other things to mass seabird deaths. The idea of fishing out already very depleted stocks in order to make fish-pellets or fertiliser is completely disgusting, as is farming octopus.
Hope, in this discouraging hour, only exists because you exist.
I saw that earlier, but thought I didn’t need any more beating up or hand-wringing over climate.
Here is a more positive suggestion for buildings to aid the environment, improve aesthetics and curtail the throw-away era
The only problems I foresee will be added cost, and possibly the challenge of requiring knowledgable, experienced and physically able workmen.
Hope something meaningful comes of this prosecution of Montana State Government regarding climate change…
Me too.
I admire the courage and tenacity shown by these young persons fighting for their future. Admirably counters the condescending ‘snowflakes’ slur.
Well, if you read the Guardian critically (as one should always do with any publication, especially those with an agenda), and apply a bit of legal nous, you will realise that the action was brought in the names of various young people by a law firm (Our Children’s Trust) founded by a very experienced activist attorney, Julia Olson, with the aim of bringing this type of case (which they have done in all 50 states).
So these “[courageous and tenacious] young people” seem to be no more than convenient figureheads.
What a bitter and cynical viewpoint that would be.
I don’t read it that way! I read it this way…
Julia Olson works at the intersection of human rights and environmental protection. A 1997 graduate of the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, Olson spent the first part of her 22-year career representing grassroots conservation groups working to protect the environment, organic agriculture, and human health. After becoming a mother, and realizing the greatest threat to her children and children everywhere was climate change, Olson focused her work on representing young people and elevating their voices on the issue that will most determine the quality of their lives and the well-being of all future generations.
Olson founded Our Children’s Trust in 2010 to lead this strategic legal campaign on behalf of the world’s youth against governments everywhere.