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45°

Along with being the Trig functions for Theta, 45 degrees is also the number being thrown around for expected sustained temperatures in Australia, which many say is already experiencing the predicted effects of global warming. Massive wildfires, drought, flooding in the northern tropical areas – it’s not pretty.

Climate scientists say Australia — beset by prolonged drought and deadly bush fires in the south, monsoon flooding and mosquito-borne fevers in the north, widespread wildlife decline, economic collapse in agriculture and killer heat waves — epitomizes the “accelerated climate crisis” that global warming models have forecast.

With few skeptics among them, Australians appear to be coming to an awakening: Adapt to a rapidly shifting climate, and soon. Scientists here warn that the experience of this island continent is an early cautionary tale for the rest of the world.

A royal commission has  been convened to determine whether, in fact, global warming contributed to the deaths of 173 people in the nation’s worst wildfires ever and the 200 who died from heat the week before. Farmers are being pushed to the verge of suicide and beyond. Rainfall is down by 70 % in many areas. The commission’s report is due in August.

But in a country that gets 80% of its energy from burning coal, what can the report say?

Scientists are frustrated that such dramatic anecdotal and empirical evidence hasn’t sparked equally dramatic action from Australia’s government. They suspect the inaction can be partly explained by examining the nation’s relationship with coal. Australia is the world’s largest exporter of coal and relies on it for 80% of its electricity. That helps make Australia and its 21 million people the world’s highest per-capita producers of greenhouse gases in the industrialized world.

Climate change researcher Cocklin, who is deputy vice chancellor at James Cook University, said the power of the coal companies and the massive receipts they bring in render the industry politically untouchable.

“The nature of our energy profile is one where coal features significantly,” he said. “There’s no denying it’s a massive problem. I don’t think in the public-political arena it is being challenged with the tenacity that you would want. No Labor [Party] government is going to challenge that.”

So, the prime minister pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5% by 2020 (wouldn’t want to rush things). And I think we can relate. Australia is not just a case in point of what global warming will look like, but also an example of vast government inaction in the face of damning consequences. See one, see the other. Pleasant loud speaker voice: In the name of not kinking solid revenue streams, will everyone please step two miles in toward the middle of the country?

Do we actually think that’s going to work? If we don’t – what actually is the plan?

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Planet Split Over Plan to Support Human Life

In the category of parallel universes, consensus continues to jell around the idea that measures to counter catastrophic climate change are really a bothersome nuisance thinking people would be better off ignoring. And while there is some psychological credence to accepting this plan, the downsides are also a tad unsettling.

How should one navigate this quagmire of conflicted opinion? With an automatic locking rear differential and an EPA est. 15/21 city/hwy? By contracting a conglomerate’s Greek Letter-plated consulting arm in order to reduce your company’s energy and water waste? Or how about an individual bubble all your own to ride out all those frosty Inland mornings when the tide washes in over the Handy-mart parking lot and you can’t find your crocs in time to leap over the puddles for your first Burp-y of the day? Okay… went a little too far with that last one, but for a Sunday we’re really putting our best cognitive dissonance on display.

While we’re putting our commercial proclivities to such good use, we might imagine a few ways to distract ourselves with causes that matter. Or the gymnastic possibility (nimble, strong) exists that we might not be able to this on our own. In tribute to an equality of possibilities, where no great consequence may outweigh another, where time is a mere illusion, a subtle question rests: when is a distraction not a distraction?

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The Green Zone

Not that one.

One connection to what’s happening to the planet is the shape our self-interest takes in the form of our kids and what they will be dealing with. In the early years of life when we are learning about the world, unafraid to question adults or puzzle over the answers of more than a few of them, there’s an opportunity to bond with the natural environment in a fundamental way that is a heavy indicator of our later predispositions. Here’s a thoughtful Monitor piece about a mom’s concern for her young sons over global warming.

On the other corner (no offense intended unless appropriate) is this wonderful little bit, via TPM, about the coordination of global warming denial by a former Limbaugh producer. The fun never stops, apparently.

It’s profound in its way, the manner in which that ever-so-brief early epoch of life effects so much of what comes later. Relatedly, in a way that I wish I could say was some kind of extreme example of this but which is way more average than we should be comfortable with, a run down of the top 15 searches on Technorati, via the wit and wisdom of Dr. Cole.

And then, just to round things out, the world’s angriest dog.

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Anarctica

Is not cooling after all.

Global-warming skeptics have pointed to the presumed cooling of the continent as evidence that researchers’ computer projections of climate change are in error, but the new findings reported Thursday appear to refute their criticisms.

“We now see warming as taking place on all seven of the Earth’s continents in accord with what models predict as a response to greenhouse gases,” coauthor Eric J. Steig of the University of Washington said at a news conference about the report published in the journal Nature.

In related stories, scientists have also published new research showing that there is, in fact, no place like home, that many hands do make light work and that you should not put off until tomorrow what you can do today.

Update: That may be one of the last times I link to the L.A. Times. Good grief.