The Weekly Flail — November 24, 2023

Winnowing the Media

From 2018–2022, the United States experienced 89 climate disasters, costing at least $1 billion in damages. That equates to one every three weeks, compared to one every four months in the 1980s. Nature November 15, 2023

Climate Change’s $150 Billion Hit to the U.S. Economy [based on the above-accelerated rate of disasters] WSJ November 14, 2023

We now know the climate disaster is moving faster than we thought. Disasters will happen at a faster rate in 2024, but how fast? The oligarch media has to report this and is beginning to link these things together.

Is it too late to keep global warming below 1.5 °C? This article has excellent graphs showing very conservative estimates, i.e., somehow, this could be done if we dropped everything and got serious about global warming. More realistic calculations, e.g., based on the heat in Brazil, say we will be over 1.5 C average regionally by next year. Annual averages will take a little longer.

Based on all the above, we are committed to at least 2.0 C without drastic planetary action.

Super-Rich 1% Match Carbon Emissions of the Poorest 5 Billion People, Oxfam ReportThe report . . . makes clear the impact of such emissions, stating that in 2019, the emissions of the super-rich 1%…