The day before the first Democratic debate in Miami, dozens gathered at the DNC to demand a climate debate. They say they plan to stay until the DNC meets their demands...

 

See video:

 

https://therealnews.com/stories/sunrise-sits-in-at-dnc-headquarters-demanding-climate-debate

 

 

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Even modest climate change will increase global energy demand by up to a quarter before mid-century, and by nearly 60 percent if humanity fails to curb greenhouse gas emissions, researchers said Monday.

To the extent this energy comes from fossil fuels, the extra power needed to cool industries, homes and retail outlets in the coming decades will itself contribute to more warming, they reported in the journal Nature Communication.

In 2018, oil and gas accounted for two thirds of global electricity generation, while solar and wind contributed less than 10 percent, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Even under optimistic scenarios, renewables cannot be scaled up quickly enough to replace fossil fuels by 2050, even if higher energy needs due to climate change are left out of the picture.

 

Read more:

https://www.france24.com/en/20190624-global-warming-more-energy-use-more...

 

 

See also:

 

https://www.scientistswarning.org/impacts-news/

Predictions for Europe:

 

"If carbon emissions do not drop, we can expect temperatures of 50 ° C towards the end of the century"

Climatologist Robert Vautard explains why heat waves will increase in the future.

 

The mercury does not stop climbing in France. Tuesday, June 25, more than two thirds of the departments were in orange alert, two days out from the expected peak of a heat wave unprecedented for June.

 

Robert Vautard, a climatologist at the Pierre-Simon-Laplace Institute's Climate and Environmental Sciences Laboratory, specializing in extreme weather events, explains why this event will be repeated with global warming.

 

Heat wave: what are the absolute heat records in your city?

 

Is this scary phenomenon exceptional?

 

This heat wave is at first exceptional in its intensity, with extreme historical values: Météo France forecasts 41 ° C in Clermont-Ferrand and Auvergne and 42 ° C in Ardèche for the day of Thursday, as well as 45 ° C in the Gard and Nîmes for Friday, temperatures never recorded.

 

Then, it is the first time that an event of such intensity takes place in June. These heat waves are more like mid-summer phenomena. In 2017, August 5, we recorded 42 ° C in Nîmes, which was already a record. Once you reach 40 ° C, you break records.

 

Are heat waves and heat waves more frequent than in the past?

 

In Europe, and in France, heat waves are more intense, longer and becoming more frequent since the last thirty years.

 

In recent years, heat waves are estimated to be at least four to ten times more likely due to climate change. Since 2015, a heat wave occurs every year somewhere on the Old Continent: in 2015 and 2016, it was in Central Europe, in 2017 in Southern Europe, in 2018 in Northern Europe. This year, at the beginning of June, temperatures were around 30° C near the Arctic Circle in Finland.

 

What will be the evolution of these heat waves in the future?

 

A heat wave like the one that hit southern Europe in the summer of 2017 should be repeated every ten years in the current climate.

 

In a climate without human interactions, it would occur every hundred years. But in a warmer world of 2° C compared to the pre-industrial era - which we will probably reach in 2050 - this will become the norm: on average, summers will all be hotter than now.

 

 

Translation by Jules Letambour

 

 

Read more:

https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2019/06/26/les-vagues-de-chaleur-...

 

 

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Wednesday was even hotter, especially in the Rhine-Main area of western and central Germany. Meteorologist Sabine Krüger from the German Weather Service (DWD) said the temperatures "will reach 39C and, in some places, even the 40C mark could be cracked."

Read more: Dying fish and drying rivers — consequences of Europe's summer heat wave

In Germany, the previous hottest temperature on record on a June day was 38.5 degrees Celsius in Bühlertal in Baden-Württemberg in 1947.

Kitzingen in the southern state of Bavaria recorded 40.3 degrees Celsius — the highest ever in Germany — on both July 5 and August 7, 2015. Experts say it is possible that temperatures could be even higher this year.

Meteorologists say the extremely hot weather in June is due to warm air moving from Africa to Central Europe. It is likely to last until the end of the week.

Temporary speed limits, hot trains, pool problems

German authorities have urged people to take necessary measures to avoid heat stroke, as temperatures above 37C could cause exhaustion or even cardiac failure. Experts say that elderly people, babies, and sick people are particularly at risk.

Temporary speed limits have been imposed on several autobahns as a result of the heat. Authorities fear that the temperatures could suddenly cause the asphalt to warp or break up. 

In the eastern state of Brandenburg, police shared images of a man riding his moped in the nude (albeit wearing his helmet) when he was stopped by officers. Police quoted him as responding, "It's pretty warm after all, isn't it?" when challenged.

 

Read more:

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-sweats-through-hottest-june-day-ever/a-493...

 

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Note that this episode of heat is happening during a "quiet cool time" of the sun cycle. 

From Dollar Hegemony to Global Warming: Globalization, Glyphosate and Doctrines of Consent...

by Colin Todhunter

AUTHOR’S NOTE: While I can certainly appreciate Denis Rancourt’s views on climate crisis and consent, I do not endorse his data on climate warming itself and therefore his conclusions based on that data.

 

There has been an on-going tectonic shift in the West since the abandonment of the Bretton Woods agreement in 1971. This accelerated when the USSR ended and has resulted in the ‘neoliberal globalization’ we see today.

At the same time, there has been an unprecedented campaign to re-engineer social consensus in the West. Part of this strategy, involves getting populations in Western countries to fixate on ‘global warming’, ‘gender equity’ and ‘anti-racism’: by focusing on identity politics and climate change, the devastating effects and injustices brought about by globalized capitalism and associated militarism largely remain unchallenged by the masses and stay firmly in the background.

This is the argument presented by Denis Rancourt, a researcher at Ontario Civil Liberties Association, in a new report.

Rancourt is a former full professor of physics at the University of Ottawa in Canada and author of ‘Geo-economics and geo-politics drive successive eras of predatory globalization and socialengineering: Historical emergence of climate change, gender equity, and anti-racism as state doctrines’ (April 2019).

In the report, Rancourt references Michael Hudson’s 1972 book Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire to help explain the key role of maintaining dollar hegemony and the importance of the petrodollar to US global dominance.

Aside from the significance of oil, Rancourt argues that the US has an existential interest to ensure that opioid drugs are traded in US dollars, another major global commodity. This explains the US occupation of Afghanistan. He also pinpoints the importance of US agribusiness and the arms industry in helping to secure US geostrategic goals.

Since the fall of the USSR in 1991, Rancourt says, US war campaigns have, among other things, protected the US dollar from abandonment, destroyed nations seeking sovereignty from US dominance, secured the opium trade, increased control over oil and have frustrated Eurasian integration.

In addition, we have seen certain countries face a bombardment of sanctions and hostility in an attempt to destroy energy-producing centres that the US does not control, not least Russia.

He also outlines the impacts within Western countries too, including: the systematic relative loss of middle-class economic status, the rise of urban homelessness, the decimation of the industrial working class, corporate megamergers, rising inequality, the dismantling of welfare, financial speculation, stagnant wages, debt, deregulation and privatisation.

In addition, the increased leniency in food and drug regulation has led to the dramatic increase in the use of the herbicide glyphosate, which has been concurrent with upsurges of many diseases and chronic ailments.

In the face of this devastation, Western nations have had to secure ongoing consent among their own populations. To help explain how this has been achieved, Rancourt focuses on gender equity, anti-racism and global warming as state doctrines that have been used to divert attention from the machinations of US empire (and also to prevent class consciousness taking hold).

I recently asked Denis Rancourt about this aspect of his report.

*

Colin Todhunter: Can you say a bit about yourself and how you came to produce this report? What is it meant to achieve?

Denis Rancourt: I’m a former physics professor, environmental scientist and a civil rights advocate. I currently work as a researcher for the Ontario Civil Liberties Association (ocla.ca). During a conversation about civil rights issues I had with the executive director of OCLA, we identified several important societal and economic phenomena that seemed to be related to the early 1990s. So, I eventually settled in to do some ‘heavy lifting’, research wise.

While there is no lack of hired intellectuals and experts to wrongly guide our perception, my research demonstrates a link between surges in large-scale suppression and exploitation of national populations with the acceleration of an aggressive, exploitative globalization.

CT: In your report, you’ve described the consequences of the abandonment of Bretton Woods and the dissolution of the USSR in terms of dollar hegemony, US militarism and the devastating impacts of ‘neoliberal globalisation’ both for nation states and for ordinary people.

DR: There is little doubt that Russian and Chinese analysts have a solid understanding of what I have outlined in my report. For instance, foreshadowing Trump’s trade war, the People’s Liberation Army Major-General Qiao Liang’s April 2015 speech to the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee and government office, included the following:

Since that day [dissolution of Bretton Woods], a true financial empire has emerged, the US dollar’s hegemony has been established, and we have entered a true paper currency era. There is no precious metal behind the US dollar. The government’s credit is the sole support for the US dollar. The US makes a profit from the whole world.

This means that the Americans can obtain material wealth from the world by printing a piece of green paper. […] If we [now] acknowledge that there is a US dollar index cycle [punctuated by engineered crises, including war] and the Americans use this cycle to harvest from other countries, then we can conclude that it was time for the Americans to harvest China…

CT: You discuss the need for states to ensure consent: the need to pacify, hypnotize and align populations for continued globalization; more precisely, the need to divert attention from the structural violence of economic policies and the actual violence of militarism. Can you say something about how the issue of global warming relates to this?

DR: Irrespective of whether the so-called ‘climate crisis’ is real, exaggerated or fabricated, it is clear, from the data in my report, that the ethos of global warming was engineered on a global scale and benefits the exploiters of the carbon-economy and, more indirectly, the state.

For example, one of the studies that I review shows that a many-fold increase in mainstream media reporting about global warming suddenly occurred in the mid-2000s, in all the leading news media, at the same time that the financiers and their acolytes such as Al Gore decided to make and manage a global carbon economy. This media campaign has been sustained ever since and the global warming ethos has been institutionalized.

Carbon sequestration schemes have devastated local communities on every occupied continent. If anything, carbon schemes − from wind farms to biofuel harvesting to industrial battery production to solar-cell array installations to mining uranium to mega hydro-dam construction and so on – have accelerated habitat destruction.

Meanwhile, economic and military warfare rages, glyphosate is dumped into the ecosphere at unprecedented rates (poured on GM herbicide-resistant cash crops), active genocides are in progress (Yemen), the US is unilaterally withdrawing from nuclear treaties and forcing an arms race with next-generation death machines and US-held extortionary loans are serviced by land-use transformation on the scale of nations; while our educated children have nervous breakdowns trying to get governments to “act” on “climate”.

In the early-1990s, a world conference on climate environmentalism was an express response to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. This was part of a global propaganda project intended to mask the new wave of accelerated predatory globalism that was unleashed now that the USSR was definitively out of the way.

CT: What are your thoughts on Greta Thunberg and the movement surrounding her?

DR: It is sad and pathetic. The movement is a testament to the success of the global propaganda project that I describe in my report. The movement is also an indicator of the degree to which totalitarianism has taken hold in Western societies; wherein individuals, associations and institutions lose their ability for independent thought to steer society away from the designs of an occupying elite. Individuals (and their parents) become morality police in the service of this ‘environmentalism’.

CT: You also talk about the emergence of gender-equity (third wave feminism) and anti-racism as state doctrines. Can you say something about this?

DR: In my report, I use historical institutional records and societal data to demonstrate that a triad of ‘state religions’ was globally engendered and emerged on cue following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. This triad consists of climate alarmism, exaggerated tunnel-vision focus on gender equity and a campaign of anti-racism focussed on engineering thoughts, language and attitudes.

These state ideologies were conceived and propelled by UN efforts and the resulting signed protocols. Western academia enthusiastically took up and institutionalized the program. Mainstream media religiously promoted the newly minted ethos. Political parties largely applied increased quotas of gender and race elected representatives.

These processes and ideas served to soothe, massage and occupy the Western mind, especially among the upper-middle, professional and managerial classes and the elite classes of economically occupied territories but did nothing to alleviate the most violent and globally widespread forms of actual racism and misogyny as a result of predatory globalization and militarism.

Ironically, the global attacks on human dignity, human health and the environment were in proportion to the systematic and sometimes shrill calls for gender equity, anti-racism and climate ‘action’. The entire edifice of these ‘state religions’ leaves no room for required conflicts of class and expressly undermines any questioning of the mechanisms and consequences of globalization.

CT: Can you say something about the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests), Brexit and the Trump electoral phenomenon.

DR: Combine aggressive globalization, constant financial predation, gutting of the Western working and middle classes and a glib discourse of climate change, anti-racism and gender equity and something has to give. French geographer Christophe Guilluy predicted the reactions in some detail, and it is not difficult to understand.

It is no accident that the revolting working- and middle-classes are critical of the narratives of climate crisis, anti-racism and gender equity; and that their voices are cast by the mainstream media as racist, misogynist and ignorant of science.

It seems that any class which opposes its own destruction is accused of being populated by racist and ignorant folks that can’t see that salvation lies in a carbon-managed and globalized world. It becomes imperative, therefore, to shut down all the venues where such an ‘ignorant lot’ could communicate their views, attempt to organize and thereby threaten the prevailing social order.

 

AUTHOR’S NOTE: While I can certainly appreciate Denis Rancourt’s views on climate crisis and consent, I do not endorse his data on climate warming itself and therefore his conclusions based on that data.

 

 

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France has registered its highest temperature since records began as the death toll rose from a heatwave suffocating much of Europe.

Key points:

• The previous highest temperature record in France was set in 2003
• Wildfires are being fought in northeast Spain, which firefighters said could easily quadruple in size
• A 93-year-old man in central Spain collapsed and died from the extreme heat

 

The mercury hit 45.9 degrees Celsius in Villevieille, in the southerly Provence region, the weather forecaster Meteo France said, almost two degrees above the previous high of 44.1 Celsius recorded in August 2003.

The World Meteorological Organisation said that 2019 was on track to be among the world's hottest years, and that 2015-2019 would then be the hottest five-year period on record.

It said the European heatwave was "absolutely consistent" with extremes linked to the impact of greenhouse gas emissions.

Four administrative departments in France were placed on red alert, signalling temperatures of "dangerous intensity" that are more typical of Saudi Arabia.

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-29/france-heatwave-sets-a-new-record...

 

 

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The heat of these last days is so overwhelming that it has crushed just about all the other concerns of the French. For five days now, the country has been listening to fans and the media are sharing news stories in Ehpad and practical advice on hydration. Excessive? One can, of course, ironize on the catastrophist tone of some, who seem to obviously compete for the price of the whistleblower end of the world version. Libé, titling "The heat of fear," even found an expert predicting temperatures of 50 ° C in France by the end of the century. But no matter the excesses, the situation is indeed deeply worrying. Not only because the month of June 2019 is likely to be the hottest ever recorded in France, but especially because this particularly early heat wave is combined in some regions with a water deficit of a rare magnitude. Anyone who walks on the banks of the Loire can only be alarmed in front of the sandbanks that no longer bloom but are huge islands in the middle of the river.

 

Are we only able to consider the consequences of such phenomena? The most temperate regions of France, Touraine, Berry, Orléanais, face hot heats. Since early April, the northern prefecture has imposed water restrictions in the department. Others will follow this summer, with consequences on agriculture, gardens ... but ...

 

Read more:

https://www.marianne.net/societe/climat-meteo-canicule-changer

 

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Some denialistic scientists have argued that a change (rise) of one degree Celsius is a ridicule amount to mount a global warming campaign... In fact, consider that it's 35 degrees in the UK and its deemed to be HOT, while in Sydney Australia, it's about 18 degrees and we "freeze"... On the scale of temperatures (energy) from 0 Kelvin to millions of Kelvin, the narrow band of comfortable temperatures is essential for our survival.

 

GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL AND ANTHROPOGENIC.

 

A freak hailstorm has struck Guadalajara, one of Mexico's most populous cities, shocking residents and trapping vehicles in a deluge of ice pellets up to two metres deep.

"I've never seen such scenes in Guadalajara," state governor Enrique Alfaro said.

"Then we ask ourselves if climate change is real. These are never-before-seen natural phenomena. It's incredible."

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-01/freak-hailstorm-buries-cars-and-b...

 

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Some denialistic scientists have argued that a change (rise) of one degree Celsius is a ridicule amount to mount a global warming campaign... In fact, consider that it's 35 degrees in the UK and its deemed to be HOT, while in Sydney Australia, it's about 18 degrees and we "freeze"... On the scale of temperatures (energy) from 0 Kelvin to millions of Kelvin, the narrow band of comfortable temperatures is essential for our survival.

 

GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL AND ANTHROPOGENIC.

After a cool May, it finally warmed up in June in Germany. A lot. Last Wednesday, the thermometer near Guben in the northern German state of Brandenburg reached 38.6 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit). That marked the first time since measurements began in 1881 that a temperature that high was reached in Germany in June. 

The record lasted for three days. On Sunday, thermometers in Bernburg, just northwest of Leipzig, hit 39.6 degrees. The average temperature for June is 20 degrees Celsius.

Almost half of the continent, from Portugal to Poland, was hit by a heat wave in recent days that was extremely unusual for this time of year. Madrid recorded temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius on Friday and Saturday, with one Spanish TV meteorologist tweeting "Hell is coming" just before the heat wave arrived. The Swiss town of Sion recorded 37 degrees on Sunday, the highest mark ever recorded in June in the country. In the Czech Republic, temperatures reached 38.9 degrees on Wednesday, also a June record for the country.

In France, where some regions saw temperatures of over 45 degrees, schools had to delay their final exams on Thursday and Friday. In Paris, many parks and outdoor pools remained open at night so that people could escape their hot apartments. The heat wave is conjuring terrible memories of the one from 2003, when almost 15,000 people died.

'Already Extreme'

The world will soon find out how much of the current temperatures can be blamed on man-made climate change. German physicist Friederike Otto at Oxford University is currently putting together a quick study about the situation in Toulouse and France generally. The results should be available this week. This June, she says, was "quite extreme."

Otto and her team has already carried out similar investigations of seven northern European cities that suffered under last year's abnormally hot summer. The results show that, depending on the geographical location, climate change has increased the likelihood of such heatwaves by two- to tenfold.

In a world without climate change, Utrecht in the Netherlands would expect temperatures like these only once every 20 years. Now, though, they will occur every five years. The same, they claim, is likely true of many German cities. 

Monday saw the heat wave break, with more normal temperatures expected through early July. But it remains unclear how the rest of the summer will unfold. 

The private American weather service Accuweather is predicting a series of especially long heat waves for Europe in July and August -- over 38 degrees in Germany, Belgium and Poland, over 40 degrees in southern France and over 43 degrees in parts of Spain and Portugal.

 

Read more:

https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/hell-is-coming-europe-engulf...

 

 

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beyond a certain level of temperature, some plants will "burn". See:

 http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/25853

The study, conducted by Illinois and Indiana researchers, looked into hordes of cockroaches and the way they reacted to separate insecticides and combinations of them.

Cockroaches appear to be evolving at a galloping pace, threatening the environment with a new plague; a new study attests that they are developing cross-resistance to a vast number of insecticides.

The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, put the focus on widespread species such as Blatella germanica (picture by Gus) and found that the pests are growing increasingly immune to chemicals, which renders them almost totally uncontrollable.

The team notably tested a variety of poisonous substances on the pests, and combined their use in different ways to obtain a stronger solution, while the experimental species were locked in multi-unit buildings in Indiana and Illinois over a six-month period.

According to Professor Michael Scharf from Purdue University, Indiana, the test results point to a “previously unrealised challenge in cockroaches”, as once researchers have the ability to test the roaches first and then pick the insecticide that has low resistance, “this ups the odds”.

He admitted that the researchers encountered problems controlling populations, even if there was a somewhat positive result.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/society/201907021076126660-cockroach-invasion-ma...

 

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Read also: 

getting used to it...

 

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/27933

 

the first wings...

 

 

The natural way to control cockroaches: 

balance of nature...

 

catch of the day...

 

 

 

Anchorage, Alaska, saw the mercury soar to 90 degrees Fahrenheit on Thursday shattering the city's all-time record-high temperature by 5 degrees. The previous record of 85 F was set in 1969. It also shattered the daily record of 77 F for July 4, which had stood since 1999. Records in Anchorage date back to 1952.

Several other places in Alaska set all-time or daily records on Thursday.

While it was well above normal in Anchorage, the 90-degree temperature is not a first for the state of Alaska. According to records kept by the National Weather Service (NWS), Alaska is no stranger to the 90s. In fact, way back on July 28, 1919, Fairbanks made a run at 100 when the mercury topped out at 99. Fairbanks has experienced 90-degree heat on several other occasions, most recently on August 5, 1994, when it recorded a 93-degree temperature.

Other spots in Alaska have hit the 90s too, including McGrath, which saw a 94-degree temperature as recently as June 17, 2013. Alaska has seen triple-digit heat at least once since record keeping began: In 1915, Fort Yukon, which is situated in central eastern Alaska, recorded a temperature of 100 degrees.

 

Read more:

https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/sweltering-heat-wave-produce...

 

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It’s a year today since a young Swedish girl stood alone on the steps of her nation’s parliament demanding action on climate change, a seminal moment in the climate debate.

“Greta Thunberg was just a single voice, a teenage girl who felt compelled to act. Her extraordinary determination and her courage in speaking truth to power has inspired millions of people around the world,” said the Climate Council’s CEO, Amanda McKenzie.

“Twelve months on from Greta’s first climate strike it’s interesting to reflect on why she’s been so effective. She has had extraordinary access to power, yet she is not in awe of it, nor is she intimidated by it. With Greta, there is no diplomatic posturing, no spin, no honey-tongued language. She tells the unvarnished truth about climate change,” said Ms McKenzie.

In Greta’s words: “Now is not the time for speaking politely. Solving the climate crisis is the greatest and most complex challenge that Homo sapiens have ever faced. The main solution, however, is so simple that even a small child can understand it. We have to stop our emissions of greenhouse gases.” 

“Greta is an absolute inspiration and reminder of the power of one!” said Climate Councillor Professor Lesley Hughes.

“Greta has ignited the most important voice of all in the climate change challenge – the next generation. This should inspire us all to re-double our efforts to meet the Paris targets,” said Climate Councillor Professor Will Steffen.

And so – from Australia’s Climate Council to Greta Thunberg on the first anniversary of your climate strike – thank you for all that you have done. 

 

https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/greta-thunberg-anniversary/

 

 

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Read from top. True to his delusions, Trump has given up of the façade of international fake action...