A Heat Wave Bakes Europe, Where Air-Conditioning Is Scarce

LONDON — Never in recorded history has Paris been hotter than it was on Thursday, when the temperature neared 110 degrees. The same was true of Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, as a dangerous heat wave scorched Western Europe.

Air conditoning is scarce in Europe.

Parisians could be seen plunging fully clothed into the fountains of the Trocadéro, Viennese cooled themselves in municipal misters, and Amsterdamers dangled their feet in a repurposed kiddie pool at a cafe. But here is what is far less likely to be seen: air-conditioners.

That’s because the technology that transformed American homes and offices over the last century still gets a chilly reception in much of Europe.

Read the story from The New York Times by Iliana Magra, Elian Peltier and Constant Méheut  - “A Heat Wave Bakes Europe, Where Air-Conditioning Is Scarce.”

This Is What Climate Change Looks Like in VR

As I look down from space on our spinning blue and green planet, I understand why astronauts so often describe the experience of “Earth-gazing” as life-changing. I’m seeing our tiny planet highlighted against the infinite black expanse of the universe as I have never seen it before. It really does evoke a visceral sense of vastness and wonder.

Looking at climate change through virtual reality.

It would be intimidating were I not able to anchor myself with familiar landmarks. That dry patch over there is the Sahara Desert. There’s the North Pole. And that’s North America! Below is the verdant Brazilian rainforest. Here comes Australia, with its vast expanse of parched Outback — and that long, lush green chain of islands must be Indonesia. I feel a profound sense of pride. Earth may be a tiny, insignificant speck in the universe, but this amazing speck is our home.

My reverie is broken by a somber female voice. “Climate change has begun.”

I’m not actually in outer space, of course. I’m standing in a bare Columbia University classroom on Manhattan’s West Side. I’m wearing virtual reality goggles tethered to a computer, headphones swallow up my ears, and I’m holding controllers that allow me to reach out and “touch” the world around me. It’s so immersive that a researcher trails behind me to make sure I don’t accidentally walk into a wall or out a window.

Read the story from Medium by Adam Piore - “This Is What Climate Change Looks Like in VR."

The oceans have never been hotter than they are now

2017 was only the second-warmest year on record, according to NASA. But when it comes to the ocean, temperatures have never been warmer.

Our oceans have never been warmer.

New data from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Atmospheric Physics analyzing ocean data from the last half-century shows a clear trend: The oceans are steadily getting warmer, with this year registering the hottest yet. And while the atmospheric temperature is more susceptible to year-to-year shifts, the data from the Earth’s waters shows the consistency with which our world is heating up.

“The ocean heat records are so impressive because they’re absolutely on a steady warming trend,” Robert Anderson, a geochemist at Columbia University, told VICE News. “People who point to pauses in global warming haven’t looked at the warming of the oceans.”

Read the Vice News story by Alex Lubben - “The oceans have never been hotter than they are now.”

Are we approaching Peak Oil Demand? Not if the oil industry can help it

Peak oil used to be about running out of supply; now some think that we will run out of demand. The oil companies will ensure that we never run out of demand.

Remember Peak Oil? It was all over TreeHugger, the idea that the easy oil was going to start running out and it would get more and more expensive and difficult to find.

We wrote post after post about Hubbert's Peak and how we were all gonna die, that we are "in the confusion stage now, followed by chaos and collapse and basically the End of the world as we know it as we slide down the slope from the Peak.”

Then along came hydraulic fracturing (fracking), tight oil, deepwater drilling, Trump, Zinke and Pruitt, and the oil and gas are flowing freely and people are piling into pickups. Peak oilman King Hubbert became "a punchline rather than a visionary." And now, over at the NRDC, Jeff Turrentine asks Could Peak Oil Demand Be Just a Dozen Years Away? But he isn't talking about oil supply, he is talking demand, suggesting that electric cars are going to cause a different kind of peak.

Read Lloyd Alter’s story from Treehugger - “Are we approaching Peak Oil Demand? Not if the oil industry can help it.”

In the US, now is never the time to talk about climate change

Washington: It's as bizarre as it is American – the immediate aftermath of a crisis is never the time to debate what might have caused it. 

A woman walks through the debris at the Seabreeze
 trailer park in the Florida Keys on Tuesday, after
Hurricane Irma hit the area. 

Big losses in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? No – to question the wisdom or management of the wars was to disrespect the memory of soldiers who had died. 

Gun violence? No, no – talking about gun control after yet another massacre is insensitive to the grief of the victims' families.

And so it was on the weekend, when a reporter was rude enough to ask US Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt about the impact of climate change on monster hurricanes that have been smashing southern states, he responded: "To have any kind of focus on the cause and effect of the storm; versus helping people, or actually facing the effect of the storm, is misplaced…very, very insensitive to these people in Florida.”

Read the story by Paul McGeough in today’s Melbourne Age - “In the US, now is never the time to talk about climate change.”