Coming up in this edition of EcoReport, Kade Young and Noelle Herhusky-Schneider continue their discussion in Part 4 about Monroe Lake and then we will listen to episodes about The Secret Life of Fungi.
A committee of the US House has been investigating the role of fossil fuel companies in hiding their awareness that burning fossil fuels would lead to global warming. Documents demonstrate for the first time that fossil fuel companies internally do not dispute that they have understood since at least the 1960s that burning fossil fuels causes climate change. Also, they then worked for decades to undermine public understanding of this fact and to deny the underlying science.
In fall 2015, blockbuster reporting by Inside Climate News and the Los Angeles Times revealed that Big Oil companies such as Exxon knew that burning fossil fuels was a major contributor to climate change. Companies publicly rejected the reporting at the time, but new documents corroborate the reporting and show that fossil fuel companies internally did not dispute the findings, but tried to dismiss them as “hyperbolic” and “journalistic malpractice.”
Big Oil’s deception campaign evolved from explicit denial of the basic science underlying climate change to deception, disinformation, and doublespeak. The fossil fuel industry evolved from denying climate science to spreading disinformation and perpetuating doublespeak about the safety of natural gas and its
commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
New documents demonstrate that Big Oil companies seek to position natural gas as a “bridge fuel” between coal and cleaner, renewable energy. They also portray natural gas as a green, climate-friendly fuel and make public pledges to support the Paris Agreement. Big oil publicly embraced carbon capture technologies to help reduce harmful emissions while privately acknowledging that the technology is expensive. They have been successful in forcing the Biden Administration to fund billions in this area. It is wasted money. Carbon sequestration is something the Indiana Legislature has been keen on, which only demonstrates how little our state leaders know about energy. Additionally, Exxon and others have publicly promoted algae-based biofuels as an innovative low-carbon technology. This made-for-tv concept showed gleaming kettles to impress the public, but now that they’ve accomplished their tree-hugger image, they’ve canceled these programs entirely.
In conclusion, the House committee has proven what climate scientists have been saying for decades.
There are signs in long-range models and climate trends that summer 2024 could end up being one of the hottest summers on record. It appears a La Niña event is developing. La Nina refers to the periodic cooling of ocean surface temperatures in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific. That leaves warm water to accumulate near Australia. This condition has significant
consequences for the US.
The term El Niño is related to La Nina and refers to a warming of the ocean surface in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. El Nino is the warm eastern phase of the Southern Oscillation cycle. A neutral phase refers to accumulation of warm surface water in the mid-Pacific. We have been under an El Nino condition for several months; now it appears there is a transition to La Niña. Forecasts for 2024 call for a transition from El Niño to neutral by April-June 2024 (85% chance), with the odds of La Niña developing by June-August 2024 (60% chance).
A hot summer is expected for nearly all of the contiguous U.S. with only a few exceptions. From June through August, temperatures are forecast to run at least 2 degrees above historical averages across more than half of the country. The last time Indiana experienced a very hot summer was in 2011, a La Nina year.
Summer 2024 might mean heat waves for many areas across the Plains to Northeast. Compared to historical averages, the hottest areas can be over the Great Lakes, Upper Midwest and southwestern Plains. Showers and thunderstorms in these areas may bring periodic breaks in the heat in June and July, but drier weather could result in some of the hottest weather for the region in August. The widespread warmth will translate to higher energy bills across the country. There is a real danger our grid may fail,
because it is sorely in need of updating.
A La Nina is blamed for the record tornado activity across the Southern U.S during Spring 2011, especially the Super Outbreak, which is the largest and costliest tornado outbreak in recorded history, as well as being one of the most violent and one of the deadliest. A destructive Atlantic hurricane season is likely, and the first storm of the year could spin up before the season officially begins on June 1. The number of potential hurricanes in the forecast is almost double the normal number.
When there’s a La Nina, there are more storms in the Atlantic during hurricane season because winds from the west are not sufficient to shear off the tops of storms. We may be in for a difficult summer.
As reported by the New York Times, humans are transforming Earth’s natural landscapes so dramatically that as many as one million plant and animal species are now at risk of extinction, posing a dire threat to ecosystems that people all over the world depend on for their survival, a sweeping new United Nations assessment has concluded.
The 1,500-page report, compiled by hundreds of international experts and based on thousands of scientific studies, is the most exhaustive look yet at the decline in biodiversity across the globe and the dangers that creates for human civilization. A summary of its findings, which was approved by representatives from the United States and 131 other countries, was released recently.
Its conclusions are stark. In most major land habitats, from the savannas of Africa to the rain forests of South America, the average abundance of native plant and animal life has fallen by 20 percent or more, mainly over the past century. With the human population passing 8 billion, activities like farming, logging, poaching, fishing and mining are altering the natural world at a rate “unprecedented in human history.”
This warning is not new. E. O. Wilson, the dean of American biologists, predicted the one million species becoming extinct several years ago. Very recently David Attenborough not only chimed in on the one million species, but he took the debate one giant step forward by saying the extinction would occur within two decades. That is shocking because it comes early into the 6th Mass Extinction. The 6th extinction will continue until the human population is reduced, possibly under 4 billion.
Another event could be coming – the collapse of edible wild fish in the oceans. In 2006, a study of catch data published in the journal Science grimly predicted that if such unsustainable fishing rates continue, all the world’s fisheries will collapse by 2048. Unfortunately, we are on track to fulfill this prediction.
Feature Report:
And now, lets listen to Noelle Herhusky-Schneider and Kade Young as they wrap up their interview about Monroe Lake and then enjoy episodes of The Secret Life of Fungi.
Credits:
This week’s headlines were written by Norm Holy.
Today’s news feature was produced by Kade Young and Noelle Herhusky-Schneider..
Julianna Dailey assembled the script which was edited by the EcoReport team.
Julianna Dailey compiled our events calendar.
Kade Young and Noelle Herhusky-Schneider produced today’s show.
Branden Blewett is our engineer.