Climate Ghange Flashcards
In Oct 2021, what has been revealed about the conflict between Biden’s rhetoric and the administration’s actions?
The U.N has revealed that despite its sanctimonious rhetoric. World governments across the board are planning to DOUBLE the amount of fossil fuels used in 2030 with only a small decrease in coal production. This is 45% more than what would be consistent with a warming of 2 degrees, which is above the promised 1.5 degrees being aimed at.
What will be a contentious issue for the top 20 major oil producing countirss?
This comes as governments are set to have talks in Glasgow beginning on Oct 31. The group of 20 major industrialized countries have directed nearly 300 billion towards further fossil fuel activities
How much of an increase in fossil fuel consumption are we seeing on the U.S’ part?
A 17% increase in oil production and 12% with gas by 2030 compared to 2019 levels.
What are Arizonianscwrestling with regarding their fight with climate change in the midst of a nauseating debacle concerning Biden’s bill? (2021)
Arizonians feel betrayed by Kristin Sinema, who seems unable to provide any stance on Biden’s 3 trillion dollar infrastructure plan. Sinema has been accused of asking for cuts to Biden’s climate change program, 100 billion dollars, but she has vehemently denied this accusation. This comes as dozens in Phoenix died of a massive heat wave and the earth in Arizona is literally cracking. Wildfires in Arizona have consumed more than half a million acres.
What is so confusing about Sinema’s silence amid accusations she does not support environmental legislation and her obstruction of the Biden’s plan? What may be her concern?
She began her career leading the Arizona Green party. Her concern may be the way in which the project will be funded, namely through corporate and individual taxes.
How many heat related deaths did the state of Arizona report in 2020?
Fucking 500, which many analysts say is an underestimate.
What are the three tenets of Biden’s climate change plan?
Create a civil Climate Change Corps, helping communities install solat panels and electric vehicle charging stations.
In 2005, what did a dry season in the Amazon rainforest do to trees and what were the larger second consequences?
Trees were rendered useless and died in the hundreds, ofsetting the Amazon’s rainforest’s role in converting CO2 into oxygen. The resulting surplus CO2 was equivalent to the carbon output of EUROPE and Japan COMBINED according to a 2009 Science magazine article.
What have tudies been showing may be the future of the Amazon rainforest?
If Bolsonaro continues grazing the land for architecture and raping it for mining, we could see the death of the Amazon, converted into nothing but a dry savannah. In 2020, even during the pandemic, an area larger than Lebanon was cut from the forest.
What other regions of the world have a crisis similar to the Amazon?
Climate models have foreseen other so-called tipping points disrupting Earth’s long-balanced systems, for example warming that causes Siberian permafrost to thaw and release huge amounts of emissions, or Greenland’s Ice Sheet melting at such a rate that annual snowfall can no longer make up for the loss.
How much of its surface water has the amazon lost?
In the three decades prior to 2020, it lost 15% of its surface water. Soil erosion, like that which plagued the Vale do Jequitinhonha, often follows rapid and chaotic agricultural expansion. Land stripped of native vegetation, especially when transformed into pasture and pounded hard by grazing cattle, loses ability to retain water in soil and foliage. Rain runs off the altered surface in sudden surges, dragging topsoil into streams and rivers that then clog and dry.
How is reforesting the amazon more difficult now that the soil has dried and dry seasons continue to mount?
The drier climate makes reforesting harder too. Twenty years ago, rainforest species could be planted straight into the bare soil. Deuseminio says he must now first plant drought-resistant trees, and only once these have grown enough to provide shade and improve the soil, after five years or so, can he follow up with classic Amazon species. Rainforest saplings now struggle to survive, he says, in this part of the Amazon.
What did earleir computer generated models predict would happen to trees of varying age during extreme droughts?
They predicted that the oldest trees would die first, but the opposite seems to be happening. Saplings are dying at an alarming rate, depriving the Amazon of it’s future.
What has celebrated Brazilian climatologist popularized in academic discourse regarding the Amazon rainforest’s tipping point?
Well he actually popularized the whole “tipping point” prediction, observing that if deforestation reaches 20 to 25%, we could reach a point at which the Amazon will become a savannah. We are currently at 17% deforestation according to a major report authored by over 200 scientists this year.
How much of fossil fuel emissions are absorbed by vegetation? And what has happened to carbon absorption in the southeastern Amazon?
A saddening 1/4 since the industrial revolution. But this 1/4 is vital. and chief among the ecosystems that consumed this large percentage, was the Amazon rainforest which in 1980s and 90s consumed 500 million tons of carbon each year.
Startlingly, the southeastern amazon, as we ravaged, cleared, and inhabited it, did not simply reduce its carbon absorption, did not reach zero, no that would be impossible, but the impossible happens, and we made it to be that the southeastern Amazon reversed its trend and now emits carbon.
