A climate history thread. 🧵🚨

In my new book, THE THREE AGES OF WATER, I document the consequences of climate change for water resources. Some additional early history, not in the book, might be of interest. In 1979, the US Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs held a...
1/n symposium "Carbon Dioxide Accumulation in the Atmosphere..."
Among the conclusions of some of the witnesses?
"Man, through the burning of carbon-based fuels, is setting in motion a series of events that seem certain to cause a significant warming of world climates over the...
2/n

🧵Thread: Water and War Crimes
There is no confirmation yet of who is responsible for the destruction of Kakhova Dam on the Dnieper River.
But such an attack is a clear international war crime. The 1977 Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions...
#KakhovkaDam (Article 56 of Protocol I & Article 15 of Protocol II) EXPLICITLY prohibit attacks on infrastructure "containing dangerous forces" including explicitly "dams" and "dykes" if such attacks "may cause the release of dangerous forces and...

🧵A thread on how attacking civilian water and energy infrastructure is a war crime.
International laws of war (yes, that's a thing) are quite explicit: attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure are war crimes.
The Rome Statute of the... International Criminal Court (ICC), adopted in 1998, says:
“[i]ntentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives” is a war crime (Article 8(2)(b)(ii)).
Similarly ...
(2/7)

🧵
It's been a few days, but I have an observation about Musk's Russia tweet that needs airing.
He put out 4 "peace" proposals. I've seen lots of discussion about #1, 2, & 4.
But what's this one about assuring water supply to Crimea? How did that sneak in there? Well... It turns out that Crimea's water supply is heavily dependent on a canal that takes water from the Dnipro River. In the Kherson region of Ukraine at Nova Kakhovka. Toward which the Ukrainians are currently rapidly advancing.

A short thread🧵
The recent news about droughts and floods has been intense recently. This is "weather whiplash" caused by an intensification of the global hydrological cycle & how it distributes water around the planet, influenced by human-caused climate change. Some headlines: Droughts:
New England federal drought disaster declaration
Extreme drought in China, record lows on the Yangtze River; Jialing river runs dry
Europe drought worst in at least 500 years; rivers running dry
Severe three-year California drought
Southwest US 22-year megadrought...

Here's the news about the Arctic, in a nutshell (or a short 🧵):
1. The Arctic is warming as much as four times faster than the rest of the planet.
nature.com/articles/s4324…
2. This warming is due to the way the atmosphere circulates & delivers heat, an increase in...
(1/4) warm ocean waters pushing further into the region, melting ice, the ice/albedo feedback that increases absorption of sunlight into the Arctic Ocean as ice melts, & reductions in sunlight-reflecting aerosols over the past decades.
3. This increase in temperature was...
(2/4)

A climate 🧵.
Are you wondering why and how #climatechange can worsen /both/ floods and droughts?
Here's a short explainer:
1/9
#floods #droughts First, both droughts and floods occur naturally as extremes of weather. As humans have started to change the climate, we're affecting both extremes.
2/9

A short thread on the Colorado River crisis.🧵

In 1993, my colleague Linda Nash & I released a major assessment of the threat of climate change for the Colorado River, for the USEPA...

An urgent call for Western states to 'act now' latimes.com/environment/st… That report (EPA230-R-93-009, "The Colorado River Basin and Climatic Change") evaluated how expected climate change would affect runoff, hydropower, salinity, and reservoirs.
Here are a few of the summary conclusions from that 1993 study, now unfortunately, coming true:

A short thread 🧵about Perry's threat to have Texas build, license, and regulate nuclear reactors on its own.
First, a reminder that Perry was Trump's Secretary of Energy, but apparently learned nothing while there.
Second, because Texas has its own electricity grid, it'll be...

https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1537970670805450755

on its own for the costs. And building many nuclear reactors will almost certainly bankrupt the state.
Third, it'll have to buy nuclear fuel from the federal government or (god help Texas) also build nuclear fuel processing plants, also bankrupting the state.
Fourth, someone...

An unhappy thread about the continuing power of the fossil-fuel industry.
I had the opportunity today to offer in-person testimony to the California Senate in support of a bill that would ask state #water agencies to integrate the science and reality of #climate change into... their evaluation and management of water rights permits and licenses – a long-overdue need. We have to stop giving away rights to #water that may not even exist. To their credit, the Senate appears highly supportive of this. But…

An angry thread.
A well-platformed climate disinformer has just tweeted a deceptive "cherry-picked" graph about US temperatures. It's a master class in deception.

His graph implies the US is getting colder in winter, but to argue this he's had to abuse the data, as follows: Here is @BigJoeBastardi graph, showing central US being colder in Jan-Feb, for a select 13-year period, compared to an average that includes the SAME period (a data violation all by itself). But look... compare those 13 years to a longer (60 yr) average? That cooling disappears

Thread: Increase fossil-fuel supply or reduce demand?
For those seeing the massive PR push to increase fracking, drilling, pumping, & digging for fossil fuels to reduce the blackmail value of Russian dependence, here's a short thread to address the confusion between expanding... the supply of fossil fuels versus reducing demand.
First, yes, it’s possible to modestly increase fossil-fuel production at existing wells/mines. That will be done as the price of fossil fuels rises, but unless it happens where it can replace Russian fuels, it’s not a big help.

Reporters: a thread about the links between human-caused #climatechange & hurricanes. As you report on #HurricanIda, help readers understand these links.
For references & details, see the summary.

1. Warmer oceans worsen & accelerate intensification.
sciline.org/climate/hurric… 2. Warmer air from climate change holds more moisture, which contributes to increased rainfall from hurricanes.
3. Higher sea levels from #climate change means storm surges and coastal flooding are worse than they would otherwise have been.

No one tells the story of California's agricultural water crisis better than Mark Arax. The ag industry, especially the hedge funds, corporations, & suck-the-money-from-the-land-as-fast-as-possible investors turn a blind eye to the unfolding disaster.
1/n
theatlantic.com/politics/archi… The weak legislative effort to regulate groundwater -- the "Sustainable Groundwater Management Act" was a tiny step in the right direction, but prompted a race to pump even more unsustainable groundwater before it takes effect years from now. The result? ...
2/n

Governor Newsom has finally called for a 15%voluntary reduction in water use in California.
Easy.
Here are some ideas for individuals.
1/n If you water a garden 3 days a week, you'll save 33% of your outdoor water use by cutting it to 2 days.
Better yet, get rid of the lawn.
2/n

So, a short thread about how much of the #globalwarming we're seeing is human-caused.
The short answer is ALL of it. Yes, all.
Why?
Here's the longer thread:
1/3 Many natural factors affect the #climate, including the output of the sun, volcanoes, changes (over many thousands of years) in Earth's orbit and tilt, the concentration of certain gases in the atmosphere.
Scientists understand these factors.
And here's the thing:
2/3

Wow. Under the radar, #climate deniers who have taken over the WH Office of Science and Technology Policy have published a series of "Briefs" claiming, falsely, to present "current state-of-the-science" on #climate. These essays are grotesque disinformation & pseudoscience. These are very odd. They appear here:
ceres-science.com/content/climat…

A short thread about the recent claims by some "economists" & #climate skeptics that an 8°C rise in temperature would only cut GDP by 4%:
First, it's complete nonsense. That large a temperature rise would destroy the Arctic, flood every coastal city in the world, cripple (1/n) global agriculture, worsen already severe hurricanes, & disrupt water supplies.
Second, if that's only "4%" of GDP, it's time to acknowledge that GDP is a totally useless measure of well being.
Third, a reminder that breaking your leg or crashing your car raises GDP. But... (2/n)

Thread
You think a #climatechange of just a couple of degrees is no big deal?
Around 12000 years ago, the planet abruptly cooled a couple of degrees, setting back humanity's social evolution for over a thousand years. This cooling period, the Younger Dryas, delayed the transition in the Stone Age from hunter-gatherers to settled agriculture. When the planet warmed again at the beginning of the Holocene, homo sapiens began our slow climb to modern civilization. Now..

1/5 A thread:
There is a severe and growing #climate and #water disaster in India.
Delhi just saw its highest ever June temperature of 48C. Churu, Rajasthan saw highs of 50.8C, making it the hottest place on earth.

theguardian.com/world/2019/jun… 2/5
Hundreds of Indian villages have evacuated as historic drought forces abandonment of homes in search of water. 80% of districts in Karnataka & 72% in Maharashtra are suffering drought & crop failure. Violent conflicts are growing between the two states over shared #water.

The most recent atmospheric CO2 reading is over 410 parts per million.

The last time humans experienced 410 ppm was... never. Never. Humans hadn't evolved yet.

#climatechange Here's 800,000 years of CO2. We're over there on the far right. That line going straight up. #climatechange