@cactusjackpine.bsky.social Jan 4, 2025:
Science denial is part and parcel of fascism.
Denial of intellectualism and expertise is a characteristic trait of fascism.
@zacklabe.com Jan 6, 2025:
Unlike just about every other year in the satellite-era record of sea ice by early January, the Hudson Bay (Canada) still hasn’t frozen over… Not good.
@ptjnorth.bsky.social:
This is really bad in so many ways.
I’d hate to be in Churchill about now. Starving polar bears are no fun in the dark.
@cougsta.bsky.social:
Erase the Anthropocene. We’re now entering the Idiotocene.
Prof. Eliot Jacobson @climatecasino.net:
Daily global sea surface temperatures continue to be hot, running #2 to 2024, despite El Nino ending and a mild La Nina already in place.
We are now seeing what 4.8 billion Hiroshima bombs worth of heating since 2001 have done to the oceans.
Trump team takes aim at crown jewel of US climate research, A top aide to the president-elect wants tighter control over the National Climate Assessment by Scott Waldman, Jan 3, 2025, E&E News
Every few years, the federal government publishes a comprehensive report that chronicles how climate change is transforming the United States and devastating the country with more extreme storms, wildfires and droughts.
But the next installment of the National Climate Assessment — due out in 2026 or 2027 — could dial back the usual scientific rigor in favor of an approach that would both elevate the viewpoint of climate science denialists and jettison all contributions from the Biden administration.
Scientists and climate policy experts say the proposed changes — which are being pushed by aides to President-elect Donald Trump — run the risk of undermining a foundational reference for government officials. And they say it could make it harder to craft future U.S. policies to address global warming. …
The drive to reshape the National Climate Assessment is being led by one man: Russell Vought, a conservative warrior whom Trump wants to lead his Office of Management and Budget.
Vought, who ran OMB during Trump’s first term, has long sought to bury or weaken the National Climate Assessment. More recently, Vought has called for greater White House influence over the process, such as giving OMB the power to vet the scientists who will work on the next assessment.
During the first Trump administration, Vought was part of a meeting in the White House situation room where officials discussed firing the scientists who worked on the fourth edition, according to two Trump White House officials who were present.
Vought also is a chief architect of Project 2025, the conservative policy playbook that outlined how a second Trump administration could shift the federal government to the right.
Vought wrote an entire chapter that focused on how Trump could increase his power while diminishing that of Congress. It included a passage on ways to remake the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which produces the National Climate Assessment.
“The great challenge confronting a conservative President is the existential need for aggressive use of the vast powers of the executive branch to return power … to the American people,” Vought wrote.
The Global Change Research Program was established by Congress in 1990 to coordinate federal research to better understand how climate change affects the country. One of its early successes was to reveal how a depleted ozone layer harmed Americans, which led to regulations that addressed the issue.
Nowadays, hundreds of scientists contribute to the production of the National Climate Assessment, which serves as a clearinghouse for U.S. research into global warming.
But the wealth of scientific data provided by the National Climate Assessment is one reason Vought wants to target the report.
Its findings show the country will increasingly suffer as the Earth warms, and the consequences will grow in severity unless the United States joins the world in slashing greenhouse gas emissions.
Vought, however, is worried the report could limit Trump’s authority.
He warned in the Project 2025 playbook that climate research could constrain the incoming administration and “reduce the scope of legally proper options in presidential decision-making and in agency rulemakings and adjudications.”
In addition, he said that “since much environmental policymaking must run the gauntlet of judicial review 
by bribe-taking judges USGCRP actions can frustrate successful litigation defense in ways that the career bureaucracy should not be permitted to control.”
…
According to the Project 2025 playbook, Vought wants to produce a version of the climate report that includes more “diverse viewpoints.” That phrase often has been used by opponents of climate regulation to describe researchers who are known to cast doubt on peer-reviewed science and often are affiliated with industry or conservative think tanks.
Vought’s proposal would also increase his own power to shape the report and pick the researchers anti-science, anti-life thugs who will toe Vought’s line and enable polluters to pollute and kill more. who are working on it.
OMB and the Office of Science and Technology Policy would jointly “assess the independence of the contractors used to conduct much of this outsourced government research that serves as the basis for policymaking,” he wrote in the Project 2025 report.
‘Clowns’ and ‘nonsense’
Vought’s recommendations have come under fire from climate scientists — especially his desire to seek perspectives outside mainstream climate science.
Don Wuebbles, an emeritus professor of atmospheric science at the University of Illinois who worked on all five of the previous National Climate Assessments, said Vought’s push to include more diverse voices was in fact cover to bring in “more biased” ones.
“It will make the U.S. look like clowns to the rest of the world,” he said. “They’re going to try to basically say, ‘We don’t know enough to do anything about the climate,’ which is nonsense.”
Weakening or attacking the assessment and producing a volume of the report that is centered on debunked fossil fuel industry claims also could have a chilling effect on climate policy that is challenged in court, said Michael Gerrard, faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University.
The Trump version of the report, for example, could be referenced for years in industry attacks on future regulations — rather than as a defense of them.
“You very rarely see in court cases challenges to climate science because it’s almost indisputable, but it is used in support of actions that the government has taken on climate change,” he said.
Vought does appear to value the perspective of at least one scientist: David Legates, Trump’s former deputy assistant Commerce secretary for observation and prediction.
In his Project 2025 chapter, he cited Legates as a source.
Legates is a geologist from the University of Delaware and an affiliate of the Heartland Institute who denies basic climate change science.
During Trump’s first term, Legates was brought in as executive director of the U.S. Global Change Research Program in the final months of the administration. But he was later removed from his post after he attempted to publish cherry-picked and incomplete claims about global warming as official government documents.
Legates refers to climate scientists as “alarmists” and says they are participating in a scheme “to change the economy to redistribute our wealth.”Don’t fret dear fella, climate change herself is wiping out lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in “wealth.” You, yours and USA will not be spared, no matter what ugga ugga lies Adolf Orange hollers
He has denied that increasing carbon dioxide has any effect on sea-level rise and has said that rising emissions would lead instead to “enhanced plant growth and hence more abundant and affordable food.”He sounds like a fucking evangelical lying Take Back Albertan
Legates did not respond to a request for comment.
For now, it’s expected that Vought in the next administration would try to weaken the National Climate Assessment rather than kill it.
But six years ago, there was a real debate among Trump aides over whether to torpedo the report.
In 2018, upon learning that work on the assessment by climate scientists had continued during the first Trump administration, a group of officials gathered in the situation room and plotted how to kill it, said Olivia Troye, a former Trump White House homeland security adviser.
Vought was among those in attendance.
Someone suggested they refuse to release the report. It also was suggested that the administration fire all the scientists who worked on the assessment, Troye recalled. Another idea was to produce their own version.
“That was one of the meetings where I was like, ‘Holy shit, what the hell have I done?’” she said. “Hearing it firsthand and being like, ‘Oh my God, they’re actually going to get rid of scientists who are just simply operating on facts.’”
The meeting was chaired by John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser. Bolton did not agree with firing the climate scientists and reminded those gathered in the room that the report was congressionally mandated and thus had to be released. Vought was among those who didn’t want the report released.
“That sounds like Russell, and you know, if you don’t like congressional mandates, get the statute repealed, but it’s just a matter of practical legislative affairs management, that when you ignore a mandate like that, you’re going to have to do it eventually and just kind of cost you more,” Bolton said in an interview. “So screw your teeth and do it.”
In the end, the decision was made to release the report the day after Thanksgiving, at a time when it was presumed few people were paying attention. Instead, the unusual release date received extensive press coverage.
Trump picks Russell Vought, a key figure behind Project 2025, as OMB director, If confirmed, Vought will be in charge of overseeing the White House budget and putting Trump’s policies into action across executive divisions by Clarissa-Jan Lim, Nov. 23, 2024, MSNBC
President-elect Donald Trump, who repeatedly disavowed Project 2025 during his campaign, has announced he will nominate one of the plan’s co-authors, Russell Vought, to his Cabinet.
Meme: “Stupid people are like glow sticks. I want to snap them and shake the shit out of them until the light comes on.”
Trump said Friday that he has picked Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget, a role that would put Vought in charge of overseeing the White House budget and enact Trump’s policies across the executive branch. In a statement announcing his choice, Trump called Vought “an aggressive cost cutter and deregulator who will help us implement our America First Agenda across all Agencies.”And the supreme idiots try to tell us they’re Pro Life.
… Vought was formerly vice president of the Heritage Foundation’s sister organization Heritage Action for America. He was also previously OMB director in Trump’s first term.
On the campaign trail, Trump sought to distance himself from Project 2025, claiming he knew “nothing” about it and had “no idea who is behind it.” But he has since nominated several key figures behind Project 2025 to his administration, Vought among them. …
Climate crisis ‘wreaking havoc’ on Earth’s water cycle, report finds, Global heating is supercharging storms, floods and droughts, affecting entire ecosystems and billions of people by Damian Carrington Environment editor, 6 Jan 2025, The Guardian
The climate crisis is “wreaking havoc” on the planet’s water cycle, with ferocious floods and crippling droughts affecting billions of people, a report has found.
Water is people’s most vital natural resource but global heating is changing the way water moves around the Earth. The analysis of water disasters in 2024, which was the hottest year on record, found they had killed at least 8,700 people, driven 40 million from their homes and caused economic damage of more than $550bn (£445bn).
Rising temperatures, caused by continued burning of fossil fuels, disrupt the water cycle in multiple ways. Warmer air can hold more water vapour, leading to more intense downpours. Warmer seas provide more energy to hurricanes and typhoons, supercharging their destructive power. Global heating can also increase drought by causing more evaporation from soil, as well as shifting rainfall patterns.
Deadly flash floods hit Nepal and Brazil in 2024, while river flooding caused devastation in central Europe, China and Bangladesh. Super Typhoon Yagi, which struck south-east Asia in September, was intensified by the climate crisis, as was Storm Boris which hit Europe the same month.
Droughts also caused major damage, with crop production in southern Africa halving, causing more than 30 million people to face food shortages. Farmers were also forced to cull livestock as their pastures dried up, and falling output from hydropower dams led to widespread blackouts.
“In 2024, Earth experienced its hottest year on record and water systems across the globe bore the brunt, wreaking havoc on the water cycle,” said the report’s leader, Prof Albert van Dijk.
He said 2024 was a year of extremes but that was not an isolated occurrence. “It is part of a worsening trend of more intense floods, prolonged droughts, and record-breaking extremes.” The report warned of even greater dangers in 2025 as carbon emissions continued to rise .
The 2024 Global Water Monitor Report was produced by an international team of researchers from universities in Australia, Saudi Arabia, China, Germany and elsewhere. The team used data from thousands of ground stations and satellites orbiting the Earth to assess critical water variables such as rainfall, soil moisture, river flows, and flooding.
They found rainfall records are being broken with increasing regularity. For example, record highs for monthly rainfall were set 27% more often in 2024 than in the year 2000 and daily rainfall records were set 52% more frequently. Record lows were set 38% more often. “So we are seeing worse extremes on both sides,” said Van Dijk.
In southern China from May to July, the Yangtze and Pearl rivers flooded cities and towns, displacing tens of thousands of people and causing hundreds of millions of dollars of damage to crops. The river floods in Bangladesh in August after heavy monsoon rains affected almost 6 million people and destroyed at least a million tonnes of rice.
Meanwhile, in Spain in October more than 500mm of rain fell in eight hours, causing deadly flash floods. The city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, was inundated with two months’ worth of rain in just three days in May, transforming roads into rivers.
“Heavy rainfall events also caused widespread flash flooding in Afghanistan and Pakistan, killing more than 1,000 people,” Van Dijk said. The flooding also displaced 1.5 million people.
In the Amazon, drought struck. “Wildfires driven by the hot and dry weather burned through more than 52,000 sq km in September alone, releasing vast amounts of greenhouse gases,” Van Dijk said. “From historic droughts to catastrophic floods, these extreme events impact lives, livelihoods, and entire ecosystems.”
The researchers said seasonal climate forecasts for 2025 and current conditions suggested droughts could worsen in northern South America, southern Africa, and parts of Asia. Wetter regions such as the Sahel and Europe may face elevated flood risks.
“We need to prepare and adapt to inevitably more severe extreme events,” said Van Dijk. “That can mean stronger flood defences, developing more drought-resilient food production and water supplies, and better early warning systems. Water is our most critical resource, and its extremes – both floods and droughts – are among the greatest threats we face.”
Global Water Monitor 2024 Summary Report
In 2024, the world broke new temperature records while precipitation extremes increased. Water-related disasters caused extensive impacts, with climate change contributing to the severity of floods, droughts, and cyclones.
Some of the key findings include:
Climate change is making water disasters worse. Rising temperatures caused by fossil fuel burning are increasing the strength and rainfall intensity of monsoons, cyclones and other storm systems.
Global temperatures continue to increase rapidly. Average air temperature over land area hit an all-time high, reaching 1.2°C above the 1995-2005 average. More than half the world’s population spread over 111 countries experienced their warmest year yet, while 34 countries set new maximum temperature records.
Both high rainfall and drought are becoming more extreme. In 2024, months with record-low precipitation were 38% more common than during the 1995-2005 baseline period, while record-high 24h rainfall extremes were 52% more frequent.
Water-related disasters caused major damage in 2024. They caused over 8,700 deaths, displaced 40 million people, and inflicted more than US$550 billion in damages. Flash floods, landslides, and tropical cyclones were the worst types of disasters in terms of casualties and economic damage.
Floods and drought impacted different parts of Africa, and severe drought gripped the Amazon Basin. Surface water extent, lake volumes and soil and groundwater storage changes highlight extremely wet conditions and associated flooding across the Sahel region and East Africa. Drought conditions deepened in the Amazon basin and Southern Africa.
The outlook for 2025 shows increased risks. Seasonal climate forecasts and current catchment conditions signal potential worsening of droughts in northern South America, southern Africa, and parts of Asia. Wetter regions like the Sahel and Europe may face elevated flood risk. Ongoing climate change makes extreme events such as flash floods, heatwaves and bushfires more likely everywhere.Even at criminal craven headquarters, Mar-a-Lago.
Find full details in the report ( PDF, 58p.).
Refer also to:
A proportion (25% to 100%) of the water used in hydraulic fracturing is not recovered, and consequently this water is lost permanently to re-use, which differs from some other water uses in which water can be recovered and processed for re-use.