Monday, January 13, 2020

A depressing climate crisis update to all: Rising ocean temperatures will increase violent deaths!

One-third of the total human population lives within 60 miles of an ocean coastline, two-thirds live within 300 miles, and four-fifths live within 500 miles. Humans tend to not get far away from water. Historically, when they moved away from oceans they tended to follow rivers. So the story above matters to humans. It explains:

    The new analysis shows the past five years are the top five warmest years recorded in the ocean and the past 10 years are also the top 10 years on record. The amount of heat being added to the oceans is equivalent to every person on the planet running 100 microwave ovens all day and all night.
    The results show heat increasing at an accelerating rate as greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere. The rate from 1987 to 2019 is four and a half times faster than that from 1955 to 1986. The vast majority of oceans regions are showing an increase in thermal energy.

An accompanying article is headlined Climate crisis likely to increase violent deaths of young people – report.  It asserts: "Rising temperatures caused by global heating are likely to increase deaths from road crashes, violence, suicides and drowning, according to new research, and will affect young people most."

By "young people" one can conclude from a graph in the article that its folks age 15-75 and far more men than women.

One might want to believe that the U.S. population is not as concentrated by the oceans as other parts of the world.

Yeah. Hey, Chicago a long ways from any ocean. Except, of course, the Great Lakes are right there. And, of course, as the Detroit News and others noted last year  Report: Great Lakes warming faster than rest of U.S. So if you add the states with beach frontage on the Great Lakes to those with beach frontage on the oceans, you have about 80% (aka four-fifths) of the American population).

As noted here in 2018 "no one is mentioning the many, many American billionaires quietly investing in expensive homes on hundreds or thousands of acres of ranch land in the area of the Eastern Slope of the Continental divide." They are buying for the future in states without beaches. Of course, most already own property in states with beaches - frequently homes on the beaches. But it doesn't hurt to have a little "get away" for their kids and grandkids.

You don't get to be a billionaire by ignoring facts like the oceans are heating more rapidly now that we missed the chance Al Gore gave us in the 1980's to do something about Global Warming, in fact heating four and a half times faster in the period from 1987 to 2019 than they did from 1955 to 1986.

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