This coming year is high risk from many perspectives. Climate change is an ongoing threat and will undoubtedly cause problems in many locations. It will contribute to civil unrest, food shortages, and more extreme weather events. The rise of corporations running governments is a threat to people everywhere, including those places where it's not happening to the same extent because of the on-flow impact on world trade. There is a heightened threat to world-wide security with the election of the unstable, reckless Donald Trump to the highest position in the USA. There is a threat to science and a devaluation of knowledge, which are being disregarded in many countries particularly in the USA, Australia, the UK. Many people in power are actively pursuing plans and policies to spread falsehoods on a scale that is unimaginable to some. The tactics being used are very familiar to those of us who've been watching them applied to climate information: smear the experts, create fake experts, make up false "facts", appeal to greed and fear and bigotry.
We cannot afford to just sit back and wait to see what happens. This is a time to take action in whatever way we can.
While some people are worse off and for some their circumstances have changed little, most people in the world have never been better off materially or health-wise than they are today, yet they have elected corrupt leaders or had them foisted on them, in part because their expectations exceeded the reality. We have allowed the wrong people to run (ruin) the world, people who are motivated not by any intent to make the world a better place, but by greed and a lust for personal power at the expense of the world as a whole.
Don't let them get away with it.
I'm sorry to write such a downer article while wishing you all a Happy New Year. We are on the edge of a dangerous precipice. Let's not fall into it.
Thanks, Sou. Best wishes for the New Year to you also, and to everyone working to encourage urgent action on climate.
ReplyDeleteA happy and safe New Year to all.
ReplyDeleteThat said...
"We are on the edge of a dangerous precipice."
I rather think that we're already falling...
Happy New Year to you, Sou, and to all the regular readers and commenters on your website. And for our AGW-denying friends, a lump of coal without a means to burn it.
ReplyDeletePlease remember that despite occasional reverses, momentum is entirely on the side of science and fact. Time may be tight, but the average age of the contrarians and fake skeptics is likely increasing by ~6 to ~9 months every year.
And no, I won't miss them when they are gone.
Happy New Year, Sou! Good luck and good health to you and your family.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all you've done over the last year to publicly push back against the ignorance and wilful denial of those who live in a non-science world where belief systems and self-interest take precedence over reality.
More power to you in 2017.
Watts has posted the ultimate "ice age is coming" post today. Since it is pretty hard to not show a trend using monthly data since 1998 anymore, the bozo has resorted to daily data over the last 18 months!
ReplyDeleteTo the idiot's credit he did show monthly data since 1987, but plotted a sharp downwards trend since the middle of 2015! Ice will be consuming our cities any minute now!
Happy New Year!
It was -1.7 C at noon, and -15.2 C at 9pm here. If this trend continues, the streets will run with liquid nitrogen by Wednesday!
Delete@Rattus - ha ha. I saw that line from Feb 2016 :) I'm assuming you're talking about the temperature projections article by Walter Dnes. You have to squint, but it looks as if the monthly data only goes back to 1997 not 1987. In deniersville that's when the ice age started, even though it's a lot warmer now.
Delete@numerobis, that's cold :) (We had a cool change come through last night, which brought relief from an early summer heat wave. Right now it's "only" about 30 C.)
It might have been a record high for the day! If not it only missed by a fraction of a degree.
DeleteI'm in Iqaluit for the holidays, just south of the arctic circle. I didn't bring clothing appropriate for such warmth; to go out skiing in temperatures above -20 I've have to improvise.
Rattus,
DeleteI didn't see the basis for your objection there. Walter has been posting the daily records at the end of every month for about a year now. I don't see anything in the post that says ice age coming. His notion is to use the daily reanalysis data to predict the main indices monthly values. I don't know how useful this is, but I don't see any reason to object to it. (Disclosure - I post similar daily data).
Anyway, thanks to Sou for another year of hard work, and best wishes to everyone for the New Year.
LIkewise Sou! Happy New Year! As Tamino said a few years back "I'll continue to do what I can come hell or high water. Expect both!"
ReplyDeleteBuckle up! It could be an interesting year. Good luck to all...we may need it.
Happy New Year from tropical Sydney. I suspect we are going to see more of this, I do not recall seeing a below average month for years. Unoffically the all-time minimum temps record was broken for December.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.weatherzone.com.au/station.jsp?lt=site&lc=66062&mm=12&yyyy=2016&list=ds
Happy New Year Sou and thank you for all your efforts during 2016.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all the work you do. Wish you a good and snarky 2017.
ReplyDeleteAlso the best wishes to all the readers.
Happy New Year to all, and thanks for the efforts. There are some beautiful lumps of coal; here's one:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.google.com/search?q=antiques+roadshow+coal+lion+image
Big thanks to Sou and all you sharp commenters for taking your time year after year. Your work is appreciated by this mostly silent but frequent reader.
ReplyDeleteWell done Sou
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work john
All the best Sou. I wish I was a bit smarter then I could keep up with you.
ReplyDeleteThis is a mosaic of the Vela Super Nova Remnant in narrow band. The star exploded about eleven thousand years ago. The field is 6.5x3.5 degrees. The full complex is about 120 light years across. The field of view is about eighty light years across.
http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.com.au/2016_12/VSNR_2P_mospi.jpg
We are all made of the stuff that is created by nuclear synthesis in the core of stars. Any element higher than iron was produced in a super nova like this.
We are all the product of billions of years of evolution from simple elements to assemblies of very complex molecules.
Bert