tip of the hat to http://all-hat-no-cattle.blogspot.com

From the headline on msn.com Thursday:

2021 saw record-high greenhouse gases, sea levels and ocean heat, new report shows 

When you turn on the news today, after you get by the stories of our former treasonous president, there are the stories of the predicted climate calamities coming true. Mega monsoons in Pakistan, huge flooding in major cities in the US, drought in crop growing regions around the world, ice sheets melting and heat, heat, heat everywhere. 

About the worst news we could get at this time is that we humans are continuing to do the very things possible to make the situation worse. And that is exactly what the headline at MSN said: record-high greenhouse gases. From the MSN report: 

The annual State of the Climate report, published Wednesday in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society and led by scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information, also found that global sea level and ocean heat reached record highs in 2021.

“The data presented in this report are clear — we continue to see more compelling scientific evidence that climate change has global impacts and shows no sign of slowing,” NOAA administrator Rick Spinrad said in a statement. “With many communities hit with 1,000-year floods, exceptional drought and historic heat this year, it shows that the climate crisis is not a future threat but something we must address today as we work to build a Climate-Ready Nation — and world — that is resilient to climate-driven extremes.”

Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are the “most significant driver of observed climate change since the mid-20th century,” according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, warming the climate as they build up in the atmosphere.

In 2021, the global annual average atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration was 414.7 parts per million (ppm) — 2.3 ppm greater than the amounts measured in 2020, according to the latest State of the Climate report. That marks the highest amount measured since 1958 — the start of the instrumental record — and in at least the last million years, based on paleoclimatic records, the report found. It was also the fifth-highest growth rate in the modern record.

Last year was the fifth- or sixth-warmest on record, depending on the dataset referenced, with the last seven years (2015-2021) the seven warmest years on record, according to the report.”

Just to bring it a little closer to home, ABC News reports on a report that an “extreme heat belt” will cover much of America’s midland in the next 30 years. This includes Iowa:

By 2053, 1,023 counties, an area home to more than 107 million Americans and covers a quarter of U.S. land, are expected to see the heat index, or the feels-like temperature, surpass 125 degrees Fahrenheit at least one day a year, according to the report, which was released Monday.

According to the First Street Foundation’s study, those high temperatures, considered extremely dangerous by the National Weather Service, are expected to affect 8 million Americans this year and increase 13 times over 30 years.

The “extreme heat belt” extends from Texas’ northern border and Louisiana north through Iowa, Indiana and Illinois, the report shows.”

source:https://abcnews.go.com/US/millions-people-midwest-experience-extreme-heat-belt-2053/story?id=88410076

If you are paying any attention at all, Democrats only (no Republican votes) passed climate action in the omnibus Inflation Reduction Act passed last month. Iowa’s Republicans in congress voted against this bill! If we are to have a future and do something for our kids, do not put Republicans in decision making jobs any more. 

There are four overriding issues this year. Republicans fail on all:

• Climate Change
• Democracy remaining viable in the US and maintaining the rule of law
• Allegiance to a cult of personality in Trump 
• Women’s reproductive right (access to abortion)

And now for a word about the kids. Remember how Republicans claim they are “pro-life.” They sure fail here. Youngsters are being traumatized by the prospects of what is to come (5 minutes):