5 Charts That Explain 2014’s Record-Smashing Heat

January 18, 2015 6:00pm by

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Source: Mother Jones

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  1. Whammer commented on Jan 18

    That last set of charts showing the various forcings is very good. A few years of low volcanic activity and it will be even worse…..

  2. krice2001 commented on Jan 18

    Barry, wouldn’t it be great if it really were only a hoax…. Unfortunately in the real world we’re going to have to deal with it one way or the other. And the longer we humans wait, the harder the choices become, or at some point it may just get get too late…

  3. Molesworth commented on Jan 18

    Let me generalize and suggest that climate deniers tend to be from the Mid West and South East USA.
    A quick glance at those two maps explains one more reason why they are deniers.
    It’s colder there.

    @krice2001 – I’m wondering where the kids are. Kids protested for civil rights; kids protested the Vietnam war. Then they disappeared. Oh a few months with Occupy and a few months with Ferguson, etc, but nothing sustained. Kids ought to have figured out they are inheriting a stormy future. They ought to be out there pressing for change. But where are they?

    • JoeG commented on Jan 21

      Some thoughts on this:
      I don’t think age, in and of itself, is a deciding factor.
      The argument could be made that the introduction of many new ideas and yes, substances, shifted the kids in the 60s – that the explosion of energy was a reaction to years of conservative stifling from the 50s that pretended all was fine – which it wasn’t for blacks, poor, young, gays, hispanics, women, pretty much anyone but middle-aged white guys (why does this still sound familiar? Oh, right, the US has a long history of this, per Howard Zinn for starters).
      There was a draft on and the odds of being yanked off the streets and sent to a rice paddy to kill ppl who never did you harm did not sit well with kids getting their first taste of freedom and power. At the very least they saw their friends going and not coming back.
      That’s powerful motivator. MOBE brought a lot of ppl together. Also look at Berkeley Free Speech Movement, for example.
      I would make the argument that the literary and philosophical influences – Beats, for example – then, are vastly different and helped to feed this energy as opposed to today. Far as I can tell today’s millennial are not as “educated” to the same degree as the kids back then. I have no data for this.
      In 1968, > 45% of US was under 30. Baby Boomers.
      Today that is about 13%

      Books by Theodore Rozak may help answer this.

      The ArchDruid would suggest this a natural symptom of the decline of american empire and larger decline of Industrial Civilization due to running our of fossil fuels. Lack of consensus, for example, is shown in all declining civilizations, per Toynbee.

      You might also read the speeches of RFK before they blew his head off.

      But I think Hunter Thompson nailed it:
      History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of “history” it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time — and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

      Beyond that? who knows?

  4. victor commented on Jan 18

    “The best projections tell us that we have less than one hundred months to alter our behavior before we risk catastrophic climate change, and the unimaginable horrors that this would bring. Is this a risk really worth taking? What is the point of gambling away our future? Why can’t we take the wisest course and adopt the precautionary approach? So, on top of the resource demands we are making on the world, we also have to reduce our global CO2 emissions”. Prince Charles, Mar-2009.

    The 100 months would run out by 2017…..Precautionary approach? Who’s listening? China?

  5. spudvol commented on Jan 18

    krice2001

    Humans aren’t waiting, Republicans are.

    *rimshot*

    I’m here all week!

  6. Futuredome commented on Jan 19

    The phases of the PDO are key. IMO, greenhouse gasses are causing abnormal surges in the PDO. We have been in a general -phase since the late 90’s but we are not getting the declines as in the past and are not cooling off enough. The current PDO surge is abnormal in size, though seen historical during the -phase. It will probably end early this spring and we will transition to a -PDO again, cooling things off. The real problem comes when the PDO returns to its positive phase in 2025-28 period. That is some scary stuff right there.

    I am afraid it is going to create religious zealotry. Most hoax pushers are acting in selfish commercial interest. Believers are acting in religious extremism.

  7. CDizzle commented on Jan 19

    @Molesworth – The “kids” are engrossed in the technological advancements that alienate humans from their natural state and fragment the sense of community.

    @Futuredome – Is religious zealotry anything new? Any significant change in the basics results in increased religious zealotry (and, not coincidentally, increased selfish commercial interest). These are basic human reactions to the movement of yon cheese. “Mars Attacks” comes to mind as a comical but not inaccurate depiction of such reactions.

    It is entirely possible, that humans, as a race, are simply un(der)equipped to manage a situation such as climate change. Deny, deny, deny….PANIC!

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