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Environment

Climate strike rolls around the globe

By New Atlas
September 19, 2019
Climate strike rolls around the globe
A NASA heatmap highlights the areas that have experienced the largest increases in warming over the average in the last few years
A NASA heatmap highlights the areas that have experienced the largest increases in warming over the average in the last few years
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A NASA heatmap highlights the areas that have experienced the largest increases in warming over the average in the last few years
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A NASA heatmap highlights the areas that have experienced the largest increases in warming over the average in the last few years
An estimated 100,000 people gathered in Melbourne, Australia today as part of the global climate strike
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An estimated 100,000 people gathered in Melbourne, Australia today as part of the global climate strike

The Earth is heating up at an unprecedented rate – and many of us feel that politicians the world over aren’t doing enough about it. Ahead of the United Nations Climate Action Summit, which kicks off in New York on Monday September 23, a global strike is being held in cities across the world to bring this point home.

World leaders are gathering at the UN Climate Action Summit 2019 to discuss the climate emergency and detail each country’s plan to enact the policies they’ll adopt to help meet the targets set out in the Paris Agreement.

The Global Climate Strike is specifically aimed at the leaders of countries like these, to show that their people want action to be taken. Already this strike has kicked off in New Zealand and Australia, with more countries joining in as Friday September 20 rolls around the globe. Others will take place next Friday the 27th.

An estimated 100,000 people gathered in Melbourne, Australia today as part of the global climate strike
An estimated 100,000 people gathered in Melbourne, Australia today as part of the global climate strike

New Atlas has covered environmental science for close to two decades, and throughout that time the evidence of human-induced climate change has been steadily mounting. Globally, July 2019 was the hottest month on record, and the last five years have been the top five hottest years since 1880. Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that “unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” will be needed to combat the worst effects. Unfortunately, we’re far from on track to meet that goal. The science is clear. Urgent action is needed to tackle the climate crisis.

Environment
12 comments
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12 comments
Kiffit
Unfortunately the deeply entrenched and very powerful fossil fuel and mining lobbies and their carbon guzzling consumer acolytes virtually bought the last election by funding so much negative disinformation they quite literally 'swamped the market'. It almost doesn't matter how many people turn up in the streets to save our collective necks if the bulk of the population have been sucked into thinking that fat SUV and/or 4 wheel drive clunkers are still cool things to drive round the suburbs, rather than being an embarrassing acknowledgement that they really don't think climate change applies to them....or that it is a Murdoch press induced left wing hoax or some other appalling example of sticking their heads in a place where the sun don't shine....
Peter Stilbs
This is all political propaganda, mis-using science
KaiserPingo
With an US president like the one they've got, changes are going to be hard to get.
Worzel
The answer to the problem?
First, ignore CO2; fossil fuels; They are a big red herring and just a political tax scam, designed to force countries whose economies are dependent on fossil fuels into the clutches of the banking mafia.
The real cause of climate warming is desertification, caused by deforestation.
Massive deforestation also started with the industrial revolution, and has been increasing ever since.
Trees cool the climate, remove them, and the climate heats up, remove them entirely, and you have scorching hot desert, and that heat can then be transported worldwide, by the trade-winds etc.
Deforestation has increased to incredible levels, worldwide, recently, especially in the tropics, where its hottest, and causes the greatest effect on climate. Viewed from the ISS at night, whole areas of the tropical forests are burning right across their respective continents. Paradoxically, this heating can have the opposite effect from that predicted, and can tip the planet into a new glacial age. More heat means more evaporation, which in turn means more rain and more snow, which falls in the cooler temperate areas. More snow reflects more sunlight, which cools the temperate areas, and allows more snowfalls. This is a positive feedback process, which becomes exponential, leading the planet into the glacial age, as the permanent snow lines start to spread towards the equator, and from deep sea and lake core drillings, the change from temperate climate to tundra has occurred in as little as 20 - 50 years! The northern and southern hemispheres have experienced record snow falls, AND record cold in the last few years, so the signs are there. In addition, Antarctic ice is advancing rapidly, even in summer, contrary to the mainstream media propaganda. So much so, that recently, a colony of penguins were stranded miles from the sea, and faced extinction. The Arctic will continue to be warmed by the North Atlantic Conveyor, or gulf stream, but when that stops, the climate change in the northern temperate regions will be catastrophic. Local to me, in France, demand for wood has reached the point where Chinese companies are buying all the wood they can find, and are putting local sawmills out of business!
Matt Fletcher
Climate change? Yes, climate is always changing. It has a yearly cycle that causes seasonal change and it has solar, cosmic planetary and inter-planetary cycles that cause change. Are people/ CO2 levels causing change? Yes but it's insignificant (a change in CO2 from 0.03% of our atmosphere to 0.04% in a 100 years.) Concentrate on toxic and nuclear waste not CO2.

It's really just a way to get the masses of unintelligent people (unable to learn for themselves and think coherently) to accept less (no cars, no flying, no eating meat) to save the planet, while the elite will consume more. I myself plan to consume more while polluting less. We should be more concerned about surviving the next catastrophic occurrences as a species than climate change.
Matt Fletcher
What a brilliant idea. Make people that much dumber each year by skipping school, thus reinforcing climate change is more important than school, and have an entire day to push the propaganda. Either way it won't matter much because no one's going to believe in global warming after the current cyclical high hits the next maunder minimum downturn.
piperTom
The new "Al Gore" is called Greta and we get the same strained warning of looming disaster. Remember Al? Twenty-five years ago, he promised disaster by 2010. Well, gee, we had a couple of hurricanes, didn't we? Today, we get the same message: "you have 12 years before it's TOO LATE". It's the same bunk. But, at least Al got rich selling climate indulgences.
bwana4swahili
"Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that “unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” will be needed to combat the worst effects."

More sky-is-falling bullshit! Climates change, get used to it!!
Douglas Rogers
95% of the greenhouse effect on the Earth is due to water vapor. Th remaining 5% is mostly split between CO2 and methane. One third of the CO2 warming, or 1% of the total is due to human CO2. Of this, motor transport represents about 30%. Electric power, about 30%. The easiest way to sequester carbon is to bury fast growing wood deep enough to keep it away from oxygen. The easiest way to cool the Earth is to lower path length water and increase the albedo. This can be done by expanding the equatorial deserts and preventing water evaporation. This will happen on its own and is called an ice age!
holdenmidfield
I figured there would be the usual denier BS being spooned out by supposedly "informed" readers when I saw the article. Why anyone would try to justify polluting the atmosphere is a real puzzle. Got a "man-thing" issue and believe that burning that big turbo makes up for it? Or, most likely, works for, or is in business with, some petroleum producing outfit. The protests are not part of any conspiracy by the banks or the Illuminati. Geez, the lengths some people will go to; we hear everything from "political tax scams" to the next Ice Age. Or better yet, worry more about some other more horrible disaster in the future, yet to be identified. Or propose that the children are less smart because they protests. Really? Gotta say, it's shocking. When scientists found the hole in the ozone, did everyone start saying it was some kind of conspiracy? No. Countries got together and fixed it... or at least patched it up. If you want to know who's telling the truth, follow the money.
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