Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Yet another last chance, this time from Britain’s version of the US EPA.
2020 is world’s last chance to tackle climate change and protect nature, heads of environmental bodies warn
Top officials say UK is already being hit by ‘dire consequences’ from climate change
The coming year is the “last chance” to bring the world together to tackle climate change to protect communities and nature, the heads of two key environmental bodies have warned.
Climate change and damage to nature are already having “dire consequences”, the leaders of the government agencies Natural England and the Environment Agency have said.
In an article, Natural England chair Tony Juniper and the Environment Agency’s Emma Howard Boyd have pointed to the recent flooding which saw hundreds of people evacuated from Fishlake, Doncaster, with some still out of their homes.
A report in October on the state of nature in the UK found two-fifths (41 per cent) of the country’s wildlife species had declined over the past 50 years and 13 per cent of the species tracked were threatened with extinction in England.
The warning comes after little progress at UN climate talks in Madrid and ahead of a series of international meetings in 2020, including on protecting nature in China in October and crucial climate talks in Glasgow in November.
…
Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-2020-nature-environment-agency-natural-england-flooding-a9263566.html
Don’t greens ever get fed up with issuing “last chance” warnings? We’ve had “last chance” warnings in 2018, 2017, 2016, and plenty more in the past.
Last chance to do what precisely?
Last chance to Bite their lure in 2019
They built a housing estate on somewhere called ‘Fishlake’. And then it flooded. And they were surprised?
The staggering ignorance, and gall, of enviro liars is evident. From halting forest floor clearing, and controlled burns, to this.
Actually the name fishlake deprives from the old English fisc-lacu meaning fish stream and its not a housing estate its a historic village.
The problem is that the river Don around this area is particularly prone to flooding and was regularly dredged as a result, however there has been no dredging in recent times, probably due to the eu regulations from around 2000 on allowing rivers to return to their natural state which has been interpreted by some governments as a ban on dredging. The floods a few years ago in Cumbria have also been attributed to this but of course it was climate change to blame in most sections of the media.
I thought the last chance to fight this problem was when CO2 was at 350ppm/v?
Over 100 fires in NSW in Australia as I write: 68 uncontained… fires also in Queensland, Victoria, South Australia… the whole of Australia was over 40 C yesterday and this is only the start of summer…
This is clearly genuinely unprecedented…
are we still pretending this is NOT caused by climate change?
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2019/dec/31/australia-fires-live-news-nsw-victoria-bushfires-latest-updates
“We’ve got fires burning from the Queensland border all the way down to the Victorian border, across the great dividing range,” says Fitzsimmons (of the NSW fire service)
There have been multiple challenges, he says, noting that today conditions didn’t allow for the flying of some aerial support craft.
“We are expecting a return to more hot dangerous and difficult conditions … and we can expect some fairly widespread severe fire danger ratings.”
He notes the dry landscape, the “moisture depleted” landscape, in a state which is “100% drought-affected”. There’s been a significant number of pyroconvective activity and the tragic consequences of that.
“We have seen now confirmed eight civilian fatalities, three firefighter fatalities, and we have grave concerns for another civilian down in the southeast of NSW,” he says.
“We have seen over 900 homes destroyed and over 3.6m hectares of country burnt so far this season. We have still months to go of summer. Absolutely, this is up to be one of the worst, if not the worst fire season we have experienced here in NSW.”
You going to ignore the part about the level of arson activities in Australia?
“griff December 31, 2019 at 12:43 am
are we still pretending this is NOT caused by climate change?”
The uninformed Griff bleats again from The Guardian. Lets talk about NSW, the state I live in. About 87% of fires were started by arsonists this “season”. The largest fire was started by dry lightening, in a national park. Most other fires were started by flying embers. The national park hasn’t been cleared of fuel load in decades. Is this climate change?
Claim we in the UK are seeing the effects of climate change, then quote examples not linked to climate change.
The flooding around Fishlake, was due to the EA not maintaining the drainage system. https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2019/11/21/forget-climate-excuses-environment-agency-ignored-flood-warnings-for-years-the-times/
Species loss in the UK, has been due to habitat destruction.
During my 10 year stay in Scotland I noticed that the roads in the hilly landscape had thick stone walls at one side of the road to protect traffic from falling down the hill side. very 10 yards or so, there was a big stone left out, in order to drain water from the road – great. However, these holes were often blocked by branches and dirt. So what happens during heavy rain – flooding due to climate change.
Not a little of which is in order to plant windmills and solar panels!
It’s not difficult to find areas at risk of flooding from the River Don – here’s Fishlake in the northernmost part of the map:
https://riverlevels.uk/flood-warning-river-don-lower-catchment#.Xgt0NVX7TIU
For anyone who wants to see pictures of past flooding – for example the 1923 Fishlake flood, there’s some historical society footage for the village online.
I found all this in a matter of a couple of minutes or so – but the ‘Independent’ supports the climate change nonsense all the time, so no surprise here.
As someone who lives in the UK I’m struggling to see these dire consequences? A day hotter than any other by a tenth of a degree? The usual rain? What exactly has happened here that has never happened before?
Just lies, as simple as that.
Phoenix
As A historical climatologist specialising in the English climate over the last 2000 years I can confirm that what we are seeing today we have seen in the past.
What is different is the political agenda. As an example, during the last few days you will have heard of the ‘highest temperature ever, this late in the year’ Disregarding the fact it is just weather (a heat plume from the Sahara) the terminology is ‘the 28th December onwards’. The reason for that being the 27th December 1921 was warmer. Also the Warmest December day belongs to 1948.
Heard about the hottest Easter ever this year> They didn’t mention that the Easter Saturday following (not technically Easter) was some 3 degrees centigrade warmer, again in 1948.
Smoke and mirrors I am afraid. Speaking of mirrors, just google the ‘hottest day ever,’ this year in Cambridge Botanic gardens. Its not an official Met office location any more as it is severely compromised by the city growing round it. Even further compromised by the enormous building just erected next door stuffed full of solar panels!
tonyb
tonyb: thank you for your comments – I’m 71 years of age, and certainly I don’t see any difference in the English climate, having lived here for all of that time.
Phoenix44 might like the link below, which you probably know about – graphs of UK temperatures, rainfall and sunshine going back to 1910 from the Met Office.
Here’s the truth for all to see – so where’s the danger? However, the Met Office, despite having data such as this freely available, still has a website is plastered with all the climate change garbage:
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-temperature-rainfall-and-sunshine-time-series
Climate change and damage to nature are already having “dire consequences”,
Are they refering to Brexit?
If indeed its too late, unless we stop using fossille fuel, what about India, China, and the South East Asia countries .
Do we have to go to war , stop them polliting the world with their CO2.
And what about those nations who are digging up and selling coal to so many countries, such as Australia. Our politicians seem to think that as its burned in the Northern hewmesphere it does not count to our carbon footprint. .
Its now so silly that even allowing for the 15 to 25 year olds,, all emotion and idealist thinking how can they really still believe in CC ?
MJE VK5ELL
“The coming year is the “last chance” to bring the world together to tackle climate change to protect communities and nature, the heads of two key environmental bodies have warned. Climate change and damage to nature are already having “dire consequences”, the leaders of the government agencies Natural England and the Environment Agency have said.”
With any luck there will be no more last chances and when this last chance has come and gone, the tipping point insanity will have come to an end.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/09/01/tipping-points/
They are all nuts, I have nothing more scientific to add.
Is there any significance that this was also reported in the Morning Star yesterday?
“2020 is ‘last chance’ to save the planet
‘We need to change the way we live,’ environmental campaigners warn”
“Natural England chairman Tony Juniper and Environment Agency chairwoman Emma Howard Boyd say that recent flooding in Britain and devastating wildlife loss prove that the “dire consequences” of rising temperatures are already being felt.
Writing on the Green Alliance website, the pair stress that “2020 is our last chance to bring the world together to take decisive action on climate change.”
Global warming is intrinsically linked to wildlife and habitat loss, they explain, saying that restoration of the natural environment must be “at the heart of the response.” ”
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/2020-is-last-chance-to-save-the-planet
The record is stuck…
Last chance, huh? Well, then I’d better check the pantry again. I know I”m stocked up on popcorn but there may not be enough butter to keep it tasty, and soda pop is running low. Tea in plenty, leftover Christmas cookies, some really tasty prime rib patties – 4 to a pack at Wallyworld – and some mashed taters – yeah, I’m good to go. About time to change the furnace filters anyway.
On another note, since Lake Michi Gamu (Michigan) is about five miles from my house, I’ve been trying to figure out how long it will take to erode the ancient dunes (now full of housing) and start eroding the very ancient dune my house sits on. Best guess I could come up with is about 12,000 years, give or take a millennium or two. Should I wait for it?
The government still permits (via local authorities) the building of (bog-standard – i.e. sling it up on a concrete pad) houses on ‘flood plains’….
The clue’s in the description, FCS….
Add that to the Arctic will be ice free in 2013,14,15,16,17 and 18 and this winter the ice has been increasing as always-
“The Arctic sea ice edge is very close to the 1981-2010 median”
Sounds good. Only one more year of listening to these idiots. I am sure they will not change the date again, like they have every year over the last 40…
From the article: “The coming year is the “last chance” to bring the world together to tackle climate change to protect communities and nature, the heads of two key environmental bodies have warned.”
If that’s the case, then it’s all over. Give it up! Switch to mitigation and forget about talking every nation on Earth into reducing it’s CO2 output because it’s not going to happen. You have set yourself an impossible task.
Drastic CO2 reduction is not going to happen in the shortterm and it’s not going to happen in the longterm. In the shortterm, CO2 will double and there’s nothing that can be done about it, and in the longterm it will be seen that a doubling of CO2 is harmless.
“Switch to mitigation”
You meant Switch to adaptation.
The good news is it is a perpetual last chance.
Why on earth do you give any credence to the Independent, for pete’s sake?
There are almost no UK journalists either qualified to discuss climate science nor to demonstrate any from of leadership, evidentiary challenge.
All they can do is rabble rouse like seventh rate versions of Goebbels.
Just ignore them and move on.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50958960
Another “last chance”? I guess this time I should panic … nah.
I’m just going to wait for the final, final warning and then I will be satisfied that there won’t be any more to come. Until then I will just get on with my life and after that, I will just get on with my life.
When the climate changers start buying land on the high ground a couple of miles from the beach, THEN I’ll know they really believe the water is coming up. As for now looks like everyone is betting on the current beach staying just where it is.
But climate change is affecting everywhere at least twice as much as everywhere else!!! At this rate we are already dead! Pay up now!
I predict that in 2020 the earths climate will change as it has for the past 5 plus billion years including the 5 odd million years that humans have inhabited it.