Warmest Greetings

 

Warmest Greetings

The Climate Change You Can’t See is so Much Worse than What You Can

Climate change is impacted very significantly by lighter colored areas on the planet, which (like ice and snow) reflect heat away from the surface, and dark areas (the rest) that absorb that heat. As ice and snow melt, as glaciers disappear, as the Northwest Passage opens up, all that snow and ice is replaced by darker seas and land below… which absorbs heat. Thus, there comes a point – and we are just about there – where even slowing or eliminating greenhouse emissions generated by humans’ burning fossil fuel for our rising energy needs still becomes an internal and accelerating self-generating accelerant of climate change. We are moving to a point where not only must we need to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions but also have to find ways to eliminate carbon dioxide and methane gasses that are already in the atmosphere. Even stopping our emissions might be too little, too late. It becomes a vicious cycle, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

With over 70% of the Earth’s surface covered by water, most of the damage due to greenhouse emissions is not readily visible. We know we are losing our coral reefs, that major species of marine life are dying out, and we can see animal sea life struggling to migrate, where they can, to water that is more compatible with the feeding and reproductive requirements. But most of us are not aware of the level of the absorbed energy that has already impacted our oceans. Rising seas, temperatures that warm water that is pulled into massive storms, intensifying the downpours from hurricanes, just as the weight of that extra water carried by those events slow the storm down… allowing it to sit over land mass longer, dumping so much more water onto the land. We’ve seen the floods, the new atmospheric rivers and the flooding and crushing storm surges eating away at our coastlines. This is old news, but it isn’t getting any better.

Writing for the January 9th, FastCompany.com, journalist Kristin Toussaint, examined recent studies to explain what is happening: “The figure on ocean warming comes from a new analysis published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, conducted by more than 50 scientists from 31 global research institutions… Ocean heat is important to pay attention to because it’s a barometer for climate change. The ocean acts as a heat sink for our emissions… The world’s oceans once again hit a record high temperature in 2025, storing more heat than during any previous year since modern recording began.

“That heat is so extreme that it’s calculated in zettajoules, a measurement equal to one sextillion joules. In 2025 alone, ocean heat increased 23 zettajoules—or 23,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules of energy... That figure is daunting to understand. For comparison, the Hiroshima atomic bomb ‘Little Boy’ exploded with an energy of about 63,000,000,000,000 joules.

“That means in 2025, the amount of heat the oceans absorbed is equivalent to more than 365 million atomic bombs—or, as thermal sciences professor John Abraham says, ‘like 12 Hiroshima bombs being detonated each second, for every minute, hour, and day for the entire year.’…”

As climate-change denier, Donald Trump, pulls the United States out of every international body that has pledged to fight climate change (which he stupidly continues to label “a hoax”), as he cancels alternative energy and related research, amps up under his “drill baby, drill” mantra, even as there is already a global oil glut. “‘Trump cutting ties with the world’s oldest climate treaty is another despicable effort to let corporate fossil fuel interests run our government,’ Jean Su, energy justice director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. ‘It’s foolish and downright deadly for Trump to turn his back on the climate devastation ripping across the U.S. and the world.’

“The Trump administration has also recently cut hundreds of millions of dollars from climate energy research, including for the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory—which Trump actually renamed, in December, to the National Lab of the Rockies… These cuts will make the U.S. even more vulnerable to climate impacts, experts say.” Toussaint.

Meanwhile, China just stepped up to be the world leader in alternative energy research, systems, and deployment. China makes and sells more EV cars and trucks by far than do we… in fact, now exports more cars in general than does the United States and accounts for 74% of global research and investment in alternative energy.

When Donald Trump put the kibosh on US EV manufacturing incentives, Tesla sales, already falling, added to the $19 billion write-off that Ford took on their lower-cost EV models. Instead, Trump has committed the United States to take over Venezuelan oil – even as US companies are pushing back – and has requested a 50% increase in our military budget and instructed the Pentagon to prepare a detailed plan for the takeover of Greenland (more for minerals, including rare earths, and not oil)… literally pushing NATO to the brink of extinction. Assuming he is not stopped from such absurd goals, we will be an isolated global pariah, prices will begin to soar, we can expect serious retaliation from former allies, and Trump effectively pushes us away from Western Europe and into the arms of Vladimir Putin.

I’m Peter Dekom, and Trump’s abnormal obsession with oil, including building our military to be able to annex foreign lands with resources and assets we want, is literally insanity that could destabilize, if not destroy, this country.