Why you need to support Jay Inslee, even though you’d rather choose another candidate

Hey there, all you Bernie fans! I love him too. Kamala Harris looks good? I agree. You think Elizabeth Warren could do great things? Me too. Does Beto O’Rourke look like he could beat Trump? Yes. There are lots of democrats seeking to be president, and there are a lot of good reasons to choose most of them. But we only get one.

So I suggest you throw your support 100% behind the candidate who I don’t think can get the nomination. Jay Inslee.

What??? Why would I suggest you not only support, but vigourously support the guy I think won’t even get the nomination? Let me tell you.

Time to Get Real

Do you really believe politics always trumps physics? In the end, I’ve got a feeling it will be the other way around.

Jay Inslee for President

Fire and flood do not discriminate, they only destroy. Drought does not choose between liberals and conservatives, it only kills crops. Hurricanes don’t target Christians or Moslems or Buddhists or Shintaoists or atheists, they only tear things apart and drown them in the sea.

Too many conservatives refuse to face the problem, and even those who recognize the threat still insist on their God-given right to a coal-fired pickup truck. Too many liberals blame the problem entirely on conservatives, when we too have spent our lifetimes driving cars and flying planes and developing this magnificent internet thing that eats up electricity like nobody ever expected, all the while complaining about climate change and getting nothing done.

What is far too rare is what is most needed: people who get to work on the problem. Make solar panels more efficient. Make ’em cheaper! Get the wind turbines deployed. Move the ball forward on battery efficiency and other energy storage technologies. WORK the problem, people! RESEARCH: full speed ahead. MANUFACTURING: full speed ahead. DEPLOYMENT: full speed ahead. When we do that, watch the ECONOMY and JOBS go full speed ahead. How can we make this happen?

LEADERSHIP: full speed ahead. Jay Inslee

Jet Stream Wobbles

An article by Mike Mann in the latest issue of Scientific American has a fascinating look at the jet stream, and how it might affect flood, drought, and heat waves.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/droughts-and-floods-may-level-off-until-2050-but-then-watch-out/

Sea Level Rise, Sea Level Lies

Larry Hamlin has shown us all, in a post at WUWT, how warped and twisted is the thinking of those who call themselves “skeptics” about climate change, but are actually deniers.

Time is Short for the Carbon Budget

The “carbon budget” is an estimate of how much CO₂ we can still emit, but still have a good chance to keep global warming from going over the 1.5°C limit into “dangerous” territory. The budget has recently been revised (upward, thank goodness) to about 420 GtCO₂ (420 billion tons of carbon dioxide).

Staying within the 1.5°C limit doesn’t make us “safe” — there are still consequences of climate change, dangerous and costly, and we’re already paying the price despite not having hit 1.5°C yet. But going above 1.5°C takes us into what is best described as: nobody wants to go there.

Open Letter to YOU

We, the young, are deeply concerned about our future. Humanity is currently causing the sixth mass extinction of species and the global climate system is at the brink of a catastrophic crisis. Its devastating impacts are already felt by millions of people around the globe. Yet we are far from reaching the goals of the Paris agreement.

Young people make up more than half of the global population. Our generation grew up with the climate crisis and we will have to deal with it for the rest of our lives. Despite that fact, most of us are not included in the local and global decision-making process. We are the voiceless future of humanity.

We will no longer accept this injustice. We demand justice for all past, current and future victims of the climate crisis, and so we are rising up. Thousands of us have taken to the streets in the past weeks all around the world. Now we will make our voices heard. On 15 March, we will protest on every continent.

We finally need to treat the climate crisis as a crisis. It is the biggest threat in human history and we will not accept the world’s decision-makers’ inaction that threatens our entire civilisation. We will not accept a life in fear and devastation. We have the right to live our dreams and hopes. Climate change is already happening. People did die, are dying and will die because of it, but we can and will stop this madness.

We, the young, have started to move. We are going to change the fate of humanity, whether you like it or not. United we will rise until we see climate justice. We demand the world’s decision-makers take responsibility and solve this crisis.

You have failed us in the past. If you continue failing us in the future, we, the young people, will make change happen by ourselves. The youth of this world has started to move and we will not rest again.

The global coordination group of the youth-led climate strike

Talk About It

Scientists have learned three things about climate change.

#1: It’s real

#2: It’s us

#3: It’s bad

Now that we’ve finally convinced most people about #1 and #2 … it’s time for you to face #3. Here’s a start.

#3a: It’s bad already

#3b: It will be terrible

#3c: How terrible? Depends on us.

Those are facts.

Here’s my opinion: our best hope, maybe our only hope, is to get people to TALK ABOUT IT so much that politicians and pundits cannot ignore us. When enough people TALK ABOUT IT often enough, I’ll have hope. Maybe I’ll even give my friends a break and shut the hell up about it.

Super-Heroes Young and Old

Arctic Sea Ice: the Denier Viewpoint

Since 1979 we’ve kept watch on the Arctic sea ice pack using satellites. It grows and decays with the seasons of course; more ice in winter/spring, less in summer/fall. But over the decades, we’ve also seen it waste away from year to year.

We get an even better view if we show the average for each year:

Now it’s obviously getting smaller. Not every year, of course — it does so in fits and starts, always fluctuating about — but the long term pattern, the trend, is clear. Deny it, and you are a denier.