Hurricanes, heat waves, fires ravaged planet in 2017

Yahoo – AFP, Kerry SHERIDAN, December 20, 2017

Firefighters lighting backfires as they try to contain the Thomas wildfire in
Ojai, California (AFP Photo/MARK RALSTON)

Miami (AFP) - Fierce hurricanes, heat waves, floods and wildfires ravaged the planet in 2017, as scientists said the role of climate change in causing or worsening certain natural disasters has grown increasingly clear.

It was also the year the world's second largest polluter, the United States, turned its back on the 196-nation Paris climate deal meant to limit global warming to under two degrees Celsius (1.5 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels.

President Donald Trump, who has dismissed global warming as a Chinese hoax, vowed to quit the 2015 Paris accord and tapped fossil fuel allies to key environmental posts.

His administration also dropped climate change from the list of national security threats, announced plans to auction off vast swaths of the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling, and signed a proposal to eliminate the Clean Power Plan, aimed at limiting the release of polluting greenhouse gases.

Trump says the goal is to make America a dominant source of energy for the world, and to create jobs.

"Together, we are going to start a new energy revolution -- one that celebrates American production on American soil," Trump said in June.

In October, Trump signed a proclamation to make America a net energy exporter by 2026, reviving the coal industry and seeking to access the estimated $50 trillion in untapped shale, oil, and natural gas reserves, particularly on federal lands.

While the fossil fuel industry has applauded the moves, scientists have expressed alarm.

"The Trump administration, in less than a year, has done more to undermine climate policy than even the worst previous administration on climate (i.e. George W Bush) had done over the course of two full terms," said Michael Mann, a climatologist and geophysicist at Pennsylvania State University, in an email to AFP.

Mann blamed the conservative billionaire Koch brothers and fossil fuel lobbyists for essentially running US environmental policy under the Trump administration.

"They must be stopped," he added, because their actions "pose an existential threat to us and our children and grandchildren."

People walking through the flooded waters of Telephone Rd. in Houston battled 

with tropical storm Harvey and resulting floods (AFP Photo/Thomas B. Shea)

'New normal'

The more fossil fuels we burn, the hotter the planet becomes due to the accumulation of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

The world is currently on track for its third warmest year in modern times.

Experts say global warming can make certain events, like floods, drought and hurricanes, more frequent and sometimes worse.

Among the fiercest storms seen this year were severe monsoon rains in Bangladesh, India and Nepal that killed more than 1,200 people and affected 40 million people, destroying homes, livestock and crops, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Spain and Portugal have grappled with a deadly drought that dried up rivers, killed crops and fueled wildfires.

Meanwhile, an unusually active hurricane season roiled the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean with 17 big storms, the most since 2005.

Major, deadly hurricanes included Harvey, which flooded Texas with 50 inches (125 centimeters) of rain in some places. The massively powerful Irma devastated the Caribbean and Florida, while Maria flattened much of Puerto Rico.

California Governor Jerry Brown, whose state is currently battling its third largest wildfire since 1932, spoke this month of how such devastation could be the "new normal."

"This could be something that happens every year or every few years," Brown told reporters.

That phrase was echoed in the 2017 Arctic Report Card, an international peer-reviewed report on the fragile Arctic, which is warming at twice the pace of the rest of the world.

"The Arctic environmental system has reached a 'new normal,'" that will raise sea levels, alter weather patterns and unleash more extreme weather across the globe, it said.

Solar panel debris scattered in a solar panel field in the aftermath of Hurricane

Maria in Humacao, Puerto Rico (AFP Photo/Ricardo ARDUENGO)

US 'doubling down'

Just as extreme are the differing actions around the world to address climate change.

China, the world's biggest polluter, just unveiled plans for a national carbon market likely to become the world's largest exchange for emissions credits -- earning praise from environmentalists.

At a Paris summit this month, banks and companies pledged to move billions of dollars out of coal, oil and natural gas.

The United States, however, is "doubling down on fossil fuels to power the nation and the world," said Julia Olson of the Children's Trust, which along with dozens of US children is suing the US government for failing to protect the nation's air, land and water.

Peter Gleick, a president-emeritus of the Pacific Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, said Trump's actions will reverberate for decades.

"Just as human-caused climate change is accelerating and having an increasingly clear impact on disasters and extreme weather events, the US administration is turning its back on climate science and policies that are needed to protect the American people, property, and the environment," he told AFP.

"The anti-science agenda of the Trump administration will, without doubt, lead to preventable deaths and disasters, and is inexcusable."

Fierce hurricanes, heat waves, floods and wildfires ravage the planet in 2017, as scientists remind that climate change in causing or worsening certain natural disasters https://t.co/vaCiPbRY02 pic.twitter.com/2myPCJI9Fd

— AFP news agency (@AFP) December 20, 2017

Related Article:

"A Summary" – Apr 2, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll)

(Subjects: Religion, Shift of Human Consciousness, 2012, Intelligent/Benevolent Design, EU, South America, 5 Currencies, Water Cycle (Heat up, Mini Ice Ace, Oceans, Fish, Earthquakes ..), Middle East, Internet, Israel, Dictators, Palestine, US, Japan (Quake/Tsunami Disasters , People, Society ...), Nuclear Power Revealed, Hydro Power, Geothermal Power, Moon, Financial Institutes (Recession, Realign integrity values ..) , China, North Korea, Global Unity,..... etc.) - (Text version)

“… The Weather

Let's talk about the weather. We retreat to exactly what we told you before in this very chair. The water cycle is a cooling cycle, not a heating cycle. You're going to have more severe winters and storms. It's going to get colder. But it gets warmer before it gets colder. That is the cycle, and it has always been the cycle. You can see it in the rings of the trees and the cores of the ice. Don't let your scientists pull the political wool over your eyes for their own purposes. Start seeing these things for what they are. It's a recurring cycle based on four Earth alignment attributes, including the wobble (the precession). You're in this cycle. Prepare.

The beginnings of it will be with you from now at least until the end of the 2012 36-year window, and you can watch it work. The first thing that happens is that the ice melts at the poles, but not completely. It's the way it has happened before. As the redistribution of weight from the poles to the oceans of the earth takes place, the weight is redistributed to the crust, and that creates earthquakes. And the earthquakes that will be the most powerful are the ones that are closest to the poles. We told you that some time ago. So it's not a mystery that suddenly you have some of the most powerful earthquakes that you've ever had. Not only that, but a cooling ocean creates larger storms.

What do the conspiracists do with all this? "See? We're doomed. Here it comes," they say. "Here it comes! The end is here!" Twenty-two years ago, we gave you the information that is happening today. We told you about the weather. We told you to get ready for it, but we still haven't told you why the water cycle is needed. We've hinted at it since it is very controversial, and we'll lose many readers right here and now. Here's the prediction: The scientists are going to laugh and biologists are going to scratch their heads and roll their eyes.

The Refreshing of the Cycle of Life

When you change the temperature of the waters of the planet, it changes the life cycle of the ocean and it eventually renews itself. The life cycle of the planet has a limit to its viability over time. There has to be a refreshing of the very cycle of life, and this is what the water cycle does. Are there any places you've seen too many fish lately? Yes. Millions of salmon in the north. Odd that it was in Alaska, isn't it? Alaska is very close to the poles where the water temperature is being felt first. Oh, again the experts will tell you that this is not the reason. It's about hatcheries and rivers. But nobody predicted this, did they? Science is fast to give you reasons, but slow to give you logic in advance. They always seem to be surprised.

We are saying things we haven't said before. Again, watch for this, an actual change in the life cycle of the planet's oceans because of the water temperature shift. Biologists are going to have to start redesigning the paradigm of how everything works, including reefs, ocean bottoms, and how plankton survive and reproduce. Listen, this is not the first time that the life cycle has been refreshed! But again, this may take generations of humanity to complete. In the process, you may again lose species. This is normal. Gaia is slow, and Humans are impatient. Your textbooks may someday tell of how naive humanity was back in 2011 when they tried to blame weather changes on everything but a natural cycle. Now you know why there is a water cycle.

So what does that tell you about Gaia? Gaia is beginning the cycle of refreshing life on over-fished oceans. It tells you that in the cracks, there is love and caring about the Humans who live on the earth. There's a reason you're here. There's a plan here, and a benevolent Universe and quantum energy with intelligent design. All is there for you, precious, sacred Human Being. …”