clair031

Summary . This post discusses three newspaper articles concerning global warming-induced sea level rise, which all appeared in a one-week period about the third week of April, 2017. Sea level rise is inexorable, already irreversibly “baked in” to the planet’s climate, because melting of ice in the summer season is not restored by new snow and ice in the winter, and because the melted water flows away into the ocean. Sea level rise is already causing human societal and economic damage around the world.   It will continue unabated, and likely worsen, in future centuries.   To minimize these harms, the world has to minimize greenhouse gas emissions to near zero as soon as possible.   This process would be significantly advanced by adhering to the Paris climate agreement.                                    ...

Early in 2016, shortly after the United Nations-sponsored meeting that culminated in the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015, this writer posted   a fable characterizing a fictional centennial commemoration of the 2015 Agreement in a scenario in which use of fossil fuels had continued unabated during that 100-year interval.   The fable is reproduced below: The Centennial Commemoration of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement A Fable It was December 2115, the hundredth anniversary of the agreement to a climate treaty reached among all the members of the United Nations, in Paris .   The members of the Petrex extended family gathered to mark the occasion.   By that time, three to four generations after the event, the clan had grown considerably, and had established for itself a fully self-sufficient environment inside its terradome.   For the occasion the space was opulently fitted out with an artificial lake in which were moored several model oil rigs.   The pipe l...