February temp deviations crush previous measures how hot can it get?
What’s it going to take for climate deniers to finally admit the truth? It’s hot and getting hotter, no two ways about it. All the bloviating from paid industry hacks, their geisha girls in Congress, and their rent-boys in the media to the contrary means absolutely nothing in the face of record-breaking weather every month.
Two years ago, in 2014 we experienced the warmest year ever recorded. Then, in 2015 we had a year that was even warmer. Along comes January 2016, which breaks the record for the title of the most anomalously warm month on record, with an average temperature deviation from normal of 1.13º C.
And so we come to February. That month proved another record breaker, with temperatures yet again reaching records for being the most unusually warm month, with the Earth’s surface north of the equator reaching temperatures more than 2º C warmer than they were in pre-industrial times.Parts of the Arctic reached temperatures more than 16º C warmer than normal.
If you remember the hype surrounding the COP21 talks in Paris, that conclave of confabulation and feel-good self-congratulation that accomplished exactly nothing, you will recall that that 2º C mark was supposed to be our climate change line in the sand. This is the point at which we stalwart nations were to be amassing our defenses.
The COP21 talks then–which resulted in a massive, toothless document full of “shoulds”instead of “shalls,” (try telling a toddler he “should” not eat only cookies and then leave him alone with the cookies jar) is already obsolete, at least in terms of the northern hemisphere. But with John Kerry’s self-congratulatory rounds following the talks a distant memory, who is gong to step up and start asking questions about all those things we said we “should” do?
Certainly no one on the Republican side. Not one of the candidates acknowledges the truth of global climate change. And with a leading candidate on the other side who is in the tank for big banks and its cronies, we can be certain that business as usual will be the order of the day no matter who wins in November.
All of which makes you want to tear your hair out. But even more than that, don’t any of these people realize that this is the planet from which they make their money? In other words, as things turn chaotic and unpredictable, don’t they realize that that is likely to affect their bottom line? And that the dumbest of all the reasons to work toward
mitigating climate change, and they won’t even consider that. At least the Pentagon has implemented contingency plans to deal with climate change issues. Can’t have our ability to kill people in any way impeded.
If the human race does continue to exist in something like its current form for any great length of time beyond the present, future generations will look back on us and call us monsters.
http://www.alternet.org/environment/february-didnt-just-break-climate-change-records-it-totally-obliterated-them?akid=14107.108705.meojdF&rd=1&src=newsletter1052893&t=30