Warning:  Reading media reports about global warming/climate change can cause serious whiplash, far beyond the danger in watching a professional tennis match.  Take today, for example (all excerpts in italics with my bolds)

‘May already be too late to reverse global warming’ at hthk.hk.

The tipping point for irreversible global warming may have already been triggered, the scientist who led the biggest-ever expedition to the Arctic warned on Tuesday.

“The disappearance of summer sea ice in the Arctic is one of the first landmines in this minefield, one of the tipping points that we set off first when we push warming too far,” said Markus Rex.

“And one can essentially ask if we haven’t already stepped on this mine and already set off the beginning of the explosion.”

Rex led the world’s biggest mission to the North Pole, an expedition involving 300 scientists from 20 countries.

Summarising their first findings, Rex said scientists found that the Arctic sea ice had retreated “faster in the spring of 2020 than since the beginning of records” and that “the spread of the sea ice in the summer was only half as large as decades ago”. [Really?]

“Only evaluation in the coming years will allow us to determine if we can still save the year-round Arctic sea ice through forceful climate protection or whether we have already passed this important tipping point in the climate system,” Rex added, urging rapid action to halt warming.

Stefanie Arndt, who specialises in sea ice physics, said it was “painful to know that we are possibly the last generation who can experience an Arctic which still has a sea ice cover in the summer”.

“This sea ice cover is gradually shrinking and it is an important living space for polar bears,” said Arndt, while recounting observations of seals and other animals in the polar habitat. [What about this?]

Comment:  I agree it’s high time to stop trying to cut emissions, and commit to adapting to whatever nature brings: whether warming, or the greater threat, cooling.

Climate change to blame for ‘catastrophic’ French frost: analysis at Daily Sabah

As temperatures fall below zero degrees celsius during the night, anti-frost candles burn through sunrise in the Chablis vineyards near Chablis, Burgundy, France, April 7, 2021. (AFP Photo)

Scientists said Tuesday that climate change had sharply increased the odds of devastating events such as the frost that wiped out a third of French wine production at a cost of around 2 billion euros ($2.42 billion) in the space of a few nights in April. The frost blanketed the country’s most well-known and prestigious wine-producing regions in what minister Julien Denormandie called “probably the greatest agricultural catastrophe of the beginning of the 21st century.”

Scientists warned that climate change would raise the risk of such events even further in the future.

Greta Thunberg calls out hypocrisy of world leaders for eating steak and lobster at climate summit.  at VegNews

This week, vegan climate activist Greta Thunberg expressed her disappointment with world leaders making empty promises about climate action during the G7 (Group of Seven) summit at the luxury Carbis Bay Hotel in Cornwall, England. Led by United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson and attended by United States President Joe Biden, the purpose of the three-day event was for the group to meet prior to this year’s United Nations conferences to discuss a variety of global issues, including their collaborative effort to tackle the climate crisis.

Throughout the weekend, event attendees were treated to a variety of meals, including a five-course dinner which included turbot fish, a selection of Cornish cheeses, and dairy-based desserts on Friday; and a lavish beach barbecue on Saturday which included seafood appetizers made with scallops, mackerel, and crab claws, and a traditional surf-and-turf entrée that featured sirloin steak and lobsters. The meals were marketed as sustainable and “carbon neutral” because animals such as lamb and crab were sourced locally.

Wildfire Ashes Dumped on Pelosi’s Porch as Youth Climate Activists Descend on US Lawmakers’ CA Homes at Sputnik News.

Last month, the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led political movement against climate change, kicked off a series of ‘Generation on Fire’ marches in California and the Gulf Coast. Since then, members of the group have marched hundreds of miles and held a demonstration in Paradise, California, the site of a 2018 fire that displaced nearly 50,000 people.

The San Francisco, California, homes of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and longtime Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) became the sites of protest as over 100 young activists of the Sunrise Movement ended a 266-mile march on Monday.

The climate change activists could be overheard chanting, among many things, “Whose future? Our future!” as they marched across the Golden Gate Bridge to get to Pelosi’s Normandie Terrace home and Feinstein’s mansion.

Big Four beancounter PwC to hire 100,000 employees world-wide as it expands consultancy services at This Is Money.

Big Four accountant PwC plans to hire 100,000 employees world-wide as it expands lucrative consultancy services in areas such as climate change.

The hiring spree over the next five years will take its global headcount to nearly 384,000.

It is part of a £8.5billion investment to take advantage of huge demand from businesses for advice on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues.

PwC is investing in recruitment, training and technology to foster expertise on subjects ranging from how firms can cut carbon emissions, to ‘hybrid’ working practices after the pandemic and how to hire executives from a mix of backgrounds.

Florida skies to turn orange as dust storm travels over from Sahara at The Independent.

Florida’s skies are set to be turned orange this week by a giant Saharan dust storm that has traveled across the Atlantic.

The dust is part of 60 million tons of sand and mineral particles that are annually swept up off the African desert floor and pushed westwards across the ocean by winds.

Weather experts predict that the cloud of dust is due to arrive in the Gulf of Mexico this week and will likely hit Florida on Wednesday.

Should we pay a carbon tax to our own government or to someone else’s? at WA Today.

Despite Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s popular determination to tackle climate change with “technology not taxes”, the decision might not long remain in Australian hands if the G7 leaders’ statement from the weekend meeting in Cornwall is anything to go by.

Soon we might have to decide if we want to pay a carbon tax to our own government, or one to someone else’s.