"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths." Northwoods is a ministry dedicated to refreshing Christians and challenging them to search for the truth in Christianity, politics, sociology, and science
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Father God, thank you for the love of the truth you have given me. Please bless me with the wisdom, knowledge and discernment needed to always present the truth in an attitude of grace and love. Use this blog and Northwoods Ministries for your glory. Help us all to read and to study Your Word without preconceived notions, but rather, let scripture interpret scripture in the presence of the Holy Spirit. All praise to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
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Around the world, record-shattering temperatures are feeding demand for air conditioning. 135 million individual ACs are sold every year, a figure set to triple by 2050 according to the International Energy Agency.
This rush to cool air could in turn become a major driver of electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
In Paris, a little-known network of underground water pipes aims to cool down buildings, without resorting to polluting AC units.
Before climate alarmists claim that global warming is causing flooding in the Sahara Desert, it has yet to be proven. It is certainly possible as an El Nino like effect in the Atlantic is causing the deluge, although Chad's Met. service say it is something that happens every 5 or 10 years.
Floods in Chad have killed hundreds of people and affected 1.5 million, UN says
Every single one of Chad's provinces have been hit by intense floods brought on by severe rainfall that have left 341 dead and affected a total of 1.5 million inhabitants since July, the UN said on Monday.
Weeks of severe flooding in Chad have left 341 people dead and some 1.5 million affected since July, the United Nations said Monday.
The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the flooding had hit all of the country's 23 provinces.
It cited government data which said some 164,000 houses had been destroyed and almost 70,000 heads of cattle lost with 259,000 hectares (640,000 acres) of fields ruined.
The government has yet to publish a breakdown of the damage wrought by the deluge which has broken over the nation of some 16 million.
Last week, 14 students and their teacher died when a school collapsed after torrential rains battered the province of Ouaddai in the semi-arid east.
By mid-August, at least 54 people had lost their lives in flooding in Tibesti province, in Chad's desert far north.
Typically, "rainfall hardly reaches 200 mm per year" in the mountainous region, but severe rainfall does occur "every five or 10 years", according to Idriss Abdallah Hassan, director of meteorological observation and forecasting at Chad's National Meteorological Agency.
The UN warned last week of the impact of "torrential rains and severe flooding" in the region generally, particularly in Chad, while urging immediate action and funding to tackle the climate crisis.
More than 700,000 people have been affected by severe flooding in South Sudan, according to a September 5 OCHA tally.
This summer has been the hottest ever recorded globally with a slew of record temperatures, heatwaves, drought and severe flooding.
Climate alarmists make a big deal out of the fact that Lake Chad is a fraction of the size it used to be. I suspect that argument will quickly disappear.
The plaintiffs, all Portuguese citizens who range in age from 11 to 24, filed the lawsuit in light of deadly wildfires
that have devastated their country every year since 2017. File photo by Tiago Petinga/EPA-EFE
Sept. 27 (UPI) -- Six young people are set to appear in a French court Wednesday to bring a lawsuit against 32 European nations, claiming the governments were violating their human rights by failing to mitigate climate change.
The landmark case before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourgcould require all 27 European Union member states, as well as Britain, Switzerland, Norway, Russia and Turkey, to immediately start reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The court was expected to issue a ruling within months, with the decision being legally binding if it is proven that countries aren't doing enough to curtail global warming to a target goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius over the next decade as set by the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
Amnesty International filed the legal action alongside several other humanitarian organizations, asserting that policymakers had a duty to protect human rights through more robust climate efforts.
The plaintiffs are all Portuguese citizens, and range in age from 11 to 24, according to a statement from the group. They filed the lawsuit in light of deadly wildfires that have devastated the country every year since 2017.
The suit claims their individual lives have been continuously impacted by climate-related factors, including extreme heat and persistent air pollution.
"As in many other places, young people are leading the way and demonstrating that there are legal avenues through which climate justice can be achieved," said Mandi Mudarikwa, the chief litigator for Amnesty International. "This case is hugely significant but is only one of several underway to ensure that everyone's right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is protected."
The case, listed on the docket as Duarte Agostinho and others vs. Portugal and 31 states, alleges violations of four Articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, including Article 2, the right to life; Article 3, the right to be free from torture, inhuman or degrading treatment; Article 8, the right to privacy and family life; and Article 14, the right to be free from discrimination on the grounds of age.
By the time the youngest plaintiff turns 88 in 2100, the planet would be about 3 degrees hotter than current rates of global warming, according to the lawsuit.
Collectively, the group claims extreme heat has curtailed their ability to enjoy outdoor activities and to get comfortable rest at night.
In court papers, many in the group expressed anxiety about the long-term health of the planet, and argued they were not being afforded the opportunity for a normal life.
The Global Legal Action Network recently launched an international fundraiser to help pay legal fees for the group.
The case goes to trial the same week that Nissan announced it would sell only electric vehicles in Europe by 2030 despite British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announcing he would push a goal to ban sales of new non-electric vehicles back to 2035, in line with other nations.
The court was also due to issue rulings on two similar climate lawsuits filed in Switzerland and France which claimed that standing climate policies were failing to protect human rights.
Britain approves $9.85B Rosebank oilfield development project
By Paul Godfrey
Britain's approval Wednesday of a controversial new $9.85 billion oil and gas field off the Shetland Islands, 120 miles north of the Scottish mainland, has met with a storm of angry opposition from environmentalists and politicians north and south of the border. File photo by Carina Johansen/EPA-EFE
LONDON, Sept. 27 (UPI) -- British regulators on Wednesday approved a new $9.85 billion project to develop a major 500 million barrel oil and gas field in the North Sea by the Norwegian state-owned energy giant Equinor and Britain's Ithaca Energy.
The go-ahead for the Rosebank project 80 miles northwest of the Shetland Islands was granted after Equinor and Ithaca satisfied regulators' concerns regarding its impact on the environment and climate, the North Sea Transition Authority said in a news release.
"The consent has been given by the oil and gas regulator to owners Equinor and Ithaca Energy, following the acceptance of the Environmental Statement," NSTA said.
"The Field Development Plan is awarded in accordance with our published guidance and taking net zero considerations into account throughout the project's lifecycle."
The government welcomed the decision characterizing the development as a "highly skilled oil and gas industry strengthening energy security and growing the economy," during a period when the country was transitioning to clean energy and net zero, which it has committed to achieving by 2050.
It said that while the government was scaling up homegrown clean energy such as offshore wind and nuclear, Britain still depended on oil and gas and that would continue to be the case for several decades making support for the country's oil and gas industry crucially important.
"We are investing in our world-leading renewable energy but, as the independent Climate Change Committee recognizes, we will need oil and gas as part of that mix on the path to net zero and so it makes sense to use our own supplies from North Sea fields such as Rosebank," said Energy Security Secretary Claire Coutinho.
Coutinho added that the deal would strengthen Britain's economy and make it "more secure against tyrants" like Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"We will continue to back the U.K.'s oil and gas industry to underpin our energy security, grow our economy and help us deliver the transition to cheaper, cleaner energy," said Coutinho.
However, the news has been greeted with consternation by environmental groups and political parties -- although, notably, the official opposition Labor Party said it would not reverse the decision if it wins a general election due to be held by the end of 2024, but would halt the granting of fresh exploration licenses.
Green Party MP Caroline Lucas called the decision an "act of environmental vandalism" perpetuated by "climate criminals."
"The greatest act of environmental vandalism in my lifetime, causing emissions equal to 28 lowest income countries, busting climate targets and doing nothing for energy security since vast majority [of production] is for export," she wrote in a Twitter post.
Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf called the news "disappointing" given concerns his administration had raised that the majority of what is extracted from Rosebank will go overseas and not remain in Scotland, or Britain.
"We recognize the significant contribution the oil and gas sector makes to Scotland. However, our future is not in unlimited oil and gas extraction. It is in accelerating our just transition to renewables. New oil and gas fields being approved risk the pace of that transition," Yousaf said.
"In the face of a climate catastrophe, the U.K. Government have dropped their green pledges and committed to approving 100 new oil and gas licenses. That isn't climate leadership. It is climate denial. Scotland will remain on the right side of history & demonstrate climate leadership,"
"We're investing $608 million so workers & industry transition from fossil fuels to a net zero future."
His predecessor, MSP Nicola Sturgeon, said she agreed adding that by consuming scarce resources that could be going to renewables, projects such as Rosebank risked "slowing the green transition and the jobs that come from it."
"That's not in the interests of those who work in oil and gas -- they need that transition to happen at pace," Sturgeon wrote on social media.
Climate group Friends of the Earth also condemned the decision and urged the government to instead invest "in real solutions to the challenges we face by prioritizing homegrown renewables and developing a nationwide insulation program -- not pouring more gas and oil on a burning planet."
"This is yet another colossal failure of leadership from a government that seems determined to ignore the scientific warnings on the climate crisis. Giving the green light to Rosebank will send U.K. emissions soaring while failing to boost energy security or reduce bills,' said spokesman, Danny Gross.
"The main beneficiaries of this decision will be the fossil fuel firms who have been raking in bumper profits thanks to outrageous tax breaks and our reliance on costly gas and oil - while cash-strapped households are left to pay the price.
The government argues that North Sea gas has a carbon footprint of around one-quarter of that of imported liquified natural gas and that Rosebank was subject to extensive scrutiny by the regulators, including undergoing a detailed environmental impact assessment process and a period of public consultation.
The Rosebank project, which Equinox estimates will pump 69,000 barrels of oil and 44 million cubic feet of gas per day at its peak, represents a direct investment of about $9.85 billion, of which $7.65 billion would go to British businesses.
A man prepares to return to his home in Lee Creek, B.C., on Aug. 19, amid the wildfires that swept through the province this summer. This year was the worst for wildfires in Canadian history. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
What a summer that was — the hottest ever recorded globally and the worst for wildfires in Canadian history.
Dry conditions and warmer-than-usual temperatures helped fuel a long and unrelenting wildfire season that, to date, has burned more than 17,500,000 hectares, a 647 per cent increase over the 10-year average. Tens of thousands of residents were forced to flee, and six firefighters lost their lives battling the seemingly endless flames.
The question is, are there lessons to be learned? Can the devastating wildfires of 2023 help prepare us for 2024?
Heating up
The whole year is on track to be one of the hottest on record. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), there is a 93.42 per cent chance it will take the top spot and a 99.5 per cent chance it will at least be in the top five.
To put it in perspective, all of the hottest years in NOAA's 143-year record have occurred since 2010, with the last nine years being the nine warmest on record.
Added to that, we're also in the midst of an El Niño — a cyclical warming in the Pacific Ocean that, coupled with the atmosphere, can cause a rise in the global temperature — and that means next summer could see more of the same.
"We already broke various global temperature records in the summer," said Greg Flato, a senior research scientist with Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC). "So my expectation is that we will break even more of those records next year."
What's more concerning however, is the increasing wildfire risk, particularly in British Columbia.
According to a recent study published in Nature Communications, four of the worst wildfire seasons in B.C. in the last 100 years have all occurred in the past seven years: 2017, 2018, 2021 and 2023.
Added to that, Canada's Changing Climate Report, released in 2019. found that as the planet continues to warm Canada will experience more extremes, including drought and wildfire risks.
About half of all wildfires are started by people, mostly accidentally. But there were accusations that many were started on purpose by environmentalists who want to exaggerate the issue of global warming. As unlikely as it seems, we take note that Greece has arrested 79 Muslim migrants for starting fires in what was a very bad fire season in that country. The motivation is different, but it speaks to the fact that people willingly set fires for their own reasons.
Most of the above story talks about strategies for fighting fires. That's all good, but what Canada really needs is an overall forestry strategy to prevent fires from starting, or from growing out of control once they start. A good part of this can be accomplised by strategic logging. A water-bomber dropping retardent on a logged corridor on the edge of a fire should be very effective in controlling that fires progress.
The story below is just one unique idea that can help fight forest fires before they begin, or to keep them from burning towns and cities.
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These goats are 'constantly eating' to prevent wildfires in the California countryside
Armed only with their appetites, a herd of goats can clear about an acre of brush in a day
Philip Drost · CBC Radio · Posted: Sep 26, 2023 3:10 PM PDT | Last Updated: September 26
Michael Choi, owner of Fire Grazers Inc., says the goats will be working until November,
munching on as much brush as they can. (Fire Grazers Inc.)
There's a crew of firefighters gaining renown for their work to keep California safe from wildfires. Each member of the team has a great work ethic, a mean appetite — and four legs.
"They're constantly eating. I mean, they've got several stomachs," Michael Choi, owner of Fire Grazers Inc., told As It Happens host Nil Köksal.
"I like to say that they eat their food twice and that's how much they love to do it."
The goats' buffet turns into a buffer for potential wildfires. All that munching clears away the fuel a wildfire needs to spread.
Choi's business organizes a herd of about 900 goats that eat their way through the brush of California. He'll typically take a herd of 300 of them at a time, who can then eat up to an acre of brush a day.
And as North America recovers from one of its worst wildfire seasons ever, Choi says his goats are playing an important role in prevention.
Working with goats
While a common motto in Hollywood advises TV and film crews against working with animals, Choi says his goats are splendid workers.
They don't mind the heat, and don't need much more than water and their work to keep them happy, he said. They can handle whatever landscape is thrown at them, from grassy flat lands to steep slopes. They do need some protection, but Choi says a well-trained dog can keep predators away.
Choi also has to set up fences to make sure the goats stay eating where they are supposed to; otherwise they might end up in somebody's orchard.
"That's a constant conflict of us trying to say, hey, only eat this stuff," said Choi.
There isn't much a goat won't eat, and that comes in handy when trying to clear the countryside of brush. (Fire Grazers Inc.)
"They eat it pretty much as well as a fire department would require, down to like three inches of brush on the ground. And I mean, in the process, they also treat soil with their fertilizer and their hooves, and get it all nice and ready for the next rain."
And because a goat's digestive system is so intense, the seeds of any invasive plant species they chow down on won't have a chance at growing from that fertilizer.
Busy summer
Choi and the goats have had their work cut out for them this year. A deadly winter of rain has led to more plant growth across the state. Some years, Choi and the goats are done by September, but this year he estimates they will be working until November.
They've had so many requests for their services, Choi needed to get more goats. Choi and his goats have worked with cities, home owner associations, and conservancy organizations across California. But he says not enough people are preparing for the damage forest fires can do.
Almost all of California is finally drought-free, after Tropical Storm Hilary’s rare summer drenching added to this winter’s record-setting rainfall totals.
But despite all that drought-busting precipitation, California continues to capture only a percentage of that water. Much of the abundance in rain from Hilary ended up running off into the ocean — not captured or stored for future use, when California will inevitably face its next drought.
“We’re not even coming close to capturing all the runoff,” said Mark Gold, the director of Water Scarcity Solutions for the Natural Resources Defense Council. He still called Hilary’s rainfall “an unexpected boon” for Southern California’s local water supplies, but said too much of the storm’s water washed away — the latest reminder of the state’s urgent challenge to better capture rainwater to help refill vital groundwater resources.
“The potential is really there for us to do even better,” Gold said. “We can definitely do a lot more than what we’re doing.”
Following the torrent of winter storms from a parade of atmospheric rivers, much of California pulled out of drought conditions after three of the state’s driest years on record. And Hilary continued to build on that trend — pulling one of the state’s driest regions out of such dire conditions.
“Most of that lingering drought ... has been essentially removed from the Mojave Desert,” said David Simeral, a climatologist at the Desert Research Institute, who mapped the latest U.S. Drought Monitor update. While much of the state moved out of drought conditions after strong winter and spring atmospheric river storms, Simeral said the Mojave didn’t benefit as much from those rainmakers.
But after Hilary dumped 2 to 6 inches across the Mojave, “it was enough to be able to remove the remaining areas of drought,” he said. The Mojave had been in drought conditions since August 2020.
Only California’s most northwestern and southeastern corners remain under moderate drought or in abnormally dry conditions — just 6% of the state, according to the drought monitor.
State and local officials have been actively working to improve methods to capture stormwater, but it’s simply not been fast enough to keep up with growing water demands in a more extreme climate — while balancing flood control. Los Angeles County recently shared its latest water plan, which includes lofty goals to greatly increase yearly groundwater recharge.
But when fast, strong storms like Hilary currently hit, the local infrastructure isn’t able to capture a majority of the deluge.
“What that means is that there’s larger amounts of rainwater rolling down the hill, rolling down to the street ... our systems are getting flooded and overwhelmed pretty quickly,” said Art Castro, a watershed manager for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. He said that happened during Tropical Storm Hilary at the Tujunga Spreading Grounds — one of the county’s larger spreading grounds, which employ earthen bowls to capture runoff and encourage the rain to percolate into the earth, recharging important aquifers.
When the basins are full, the water will just “bypass the system,” Castro said, running off into the Pacific.
Still, the city was able to capture more than 10,000 acre-feet of water from Hilary’s rainfall, as of preliminary numbers last week, with more expected as water continues to be diverted from regional dams, Castro said. That’s about 3.2 billion gallons, enough to provide a year’s worth of water to 40,000 households, he said.
However that 10,000 acre-feet only makes up about 7% of the water the city has captured since October, Castro said.
“In a perfect world, we should have captured a lot more than 10,000 acre-feet because of Hilary,” Castro said. “But because of the limitations of our infrastructure ... we weren’t able to maximize that potential.”
And maximizing that water is increasingly important for L.A., as drained aquifers cannot just bounce back after one good water year.
“What we need to do is either capture a lot of the wet season, or develop more stormwater recapture projects that can take advantage of an average year,” Castro said. That will likely require “back-engineering” of L.A.’s water system, he said, as much of it was designed with older rain models in mind, when storms weren’t as intense.
County-operated spreading grounds, of which there more than two dozen, captured approximately 8,600 acre-feet of stormwater during Hilary’s storms, about 2.8 billion gallons, according to L.A. County Public Works spokesperson Steven Frasher. But in this above-average rainfall year, that amounts to less than 2% of the county’s stormwater captured since October.
On a statewide level, Hilary also didn’t have a major effect on water supplies.
Statewide
Statewide reservoir storage capacity is 130% of average for this month.
Historical average
78% full
78% full
“This was a very fast moving storm and, really, it was largely a Southern California event,” said Jeanine Jones, the interstate resources manager for the California Department of Water Resources. “It caused a lot of flash flooding in places that aren’t designed to handle a lot of water, like Death Valley and some of the desert areas, but from a water supply perspective, it’s not really very significant.”
Most of the state’s reservoirs, and its largest, are located in northern California, which meant they were largely unaffected by the southern tropical storm, Jones said. And, perhaps more importantly, most of those reservoirs already sit at some of the highest levels in years, many measuring well above 100% of historical averages, state data show.
“We got a lot of water all at once in a really short time, but it wasn’t the kind of storm that does much for water supply,” Jones said.
The ground can only absorb so much moisture so fast from such quick, intense storms, like Hilary, Jones said.
“The groundwater takes time to recharge,” Jones said. “Most of that water is going to run out to the ocean or run into a desert playa.”
But in the short term, officials are hopeful the rainfall from the unusual tropical storm will help with one thing: wildfires.
“It should help some in terms of adding some soil moisture and helping the plants to not be so dried out,” Simeral said, which creates less fuel for flames.
Forecasters typically expect September to begin the peak of Southern California’s fire season, but the recently added moisture could help delay that, said Rose Schoenfeld, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.
“Hopefully this extra precipitation will push that back even further,” she said.
