Saturday, January 07, 2017

Cactus and boiled ash make an awesome meal!

The demagogue and the millions who voted for him continue to spin whatever stories that suit them.  But, the laws of physics are the laws of physics, and--unlike the brainless Republicans--are not affected by moronic and misleading tweets from the demagogue.

One of the many, many lessons from this election is that despite all the benefits that we people enjoy from the progress in scientific understanding, a great many are clueless about the scientific method.  The laws work " regardless of political or social prejudices, and they are indisputably true."
But the most basic scientific concept that is clearly and disturbingly missing from today's social and political discourse is the concept that some questions have correct and clear answers. 
The scientific method is not how one feels and does not work by name-calling. It is not faith-based either.  It is the scientific method that leads scientists to conclude:
2016 will go down as the warmest year globally since record-keeping began, with preliminary reports indicating that 2016 was 1.3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times.
And one of the consequences?
As temperatures rise, we’re also learning more about how these rising temperatures affect our weather – and extreme weather events, in particular.
With the help of new and evolving climate research, we’re detecting a stronger link between warming and changing weather patterns.
Yep, extreme weather events.  When it rains it floods creating records. Droughts are record-setting. People old enough to have experienced a sense of predictability are now our living witnesses on how how unpredictable meteorological events have become.

Source

While the demagogue and most of the people who voted for him continue to dismiss climate change and its human cause, the effects of climate change are already being felt all over the world.  Especially in poor countries that do not have the resources to adapt to the rapid changes.  Like in Madagascar:
Southern Africa’s drought and food crisis have gone largely unnoticed around the world. The situation has been particularly severe in Madagascar, a lovely island nation known for deserted sandy beaches and playful long-tailed primates called lemurs.
But the southern part of the island doesn’t look anything like the animated movie “Madagascar”: Families are slowly starving because rains and crops have failed for the last few years. They are reduced to eating cactus and even rocks or ashes. The United Nations estimates that nearly one million people in Madagascar alone need emergency food assistance.
 And the understanding through the scientific method is this:
New research, just published in the bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, concludes that human-caused climate change exacerbated El Niño’s intensity and significantly reduced rainfall in parts of Ethiopia and southern Africa.
The researchers calculated that human contributions to global warming reduced water runoff in southern Africa by 48 percent and concluded that these human contributions “have contributed to substantial food crises.”
Of course, all these are nothing but hoax manufactured by the Chinese!


2 comments:

Ramesh said...

I hadn't heard at all about the famine like situation in Madagascar. In today's world of plenty, a famine is a disgrace to humanity.

Hopefully, China will lead the world effort to control global warming and the US will come back to its senses in four years time.

Sriram Khé said...

Unlike you, I don't expect the US to come to its senses in four years ... there are way too many racist and self-interested Republicans who are willing to vote for awful human beings who promise lower taxes and criminalizing abortion!

The next post is also about climate change issues ...