Flux continu

What is currently happening in Brussels under the guise of regulatory simplification is being presented as something technical and logical. Less regulatory pressure, more competitiveness. A series of so-called omnibus bills are intended to streamline legislation. Reporting obligations are being limited and reassessments of raw materials postponed. It sounds like administrative efficiency. In Washington, things are moving even faster: Trump is dismantling the basis for climate laws while the world continues to warm up. The framing is the same: rules slow down businesses, and a slowed-down business community makes us poor. But that reasoning assumes something that is not true: that everyone wants the same thing from the market.

Les autorités locales ont fait savoir que 44 Indiens et 22 Népalais figuraient parmi les personnes recherchées. La catastrophe s’est produite le 5 août dans la ville touristique de Dharali, dans l’Etat septentrional d’Uttarakhand, après des jours de pluies continues.

In a previous post, I defined this graph as “the most amazing graph of the 21st century.” It shows how the US oil production restarted growing in 2010, picking up speed and surpassing the historical record of the “Hubbert Peak,” which took place in 1970. It overcame the dip caused by the Covid pandemic and, two years after my first post on this subject, it keeps growing.

Wildfires, floods and soaring temperatures have made climate change real to many Americans. Yet a sizeable number continue to dismiss the scientific consensus that human activity is to blame. “Victory,” according to the American Petroleum Institute’s memo, “will be achieved when average citizens ‘understand’ (recognize) uncertainties in climate science… Unless ‘climate change’ becomes a non-issue… there may be no moment when we can declare victory.”

The Gulf Stream has weakened substantially in the past decades, as revealed by the latest data and new studies. Weather in the United States and Europe depends strongly on this ocean current, so it’s important we understand the ongoing changes and what they mean for our weather now and in the near future.

The past season – meteorological NH winter, SH summer – was the 5th warmest Dec-Jan-Feb in the instrumental record, despite the continuing La Niña (the cold tongue in the equatorial Pacific). Most of Eurasia was remarkably warm, 2-5°C above normal. The winter seemed cold to many people in North America, but a very warm December (Fig. 1) made the season well above normal in the U.S.

Generating three centimeters of top soil takes 1,000 years, and if current rates of degradation continue all of the world's top soil could be gone within 60 years, a senior UN official said