More dangers lurking..

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For much of the 20th century, we relied on chemicals known as CFCs (short for chlorofluorocarbons, also known as Freon) as coolants in our air conditioners and refrigerators. Then, in the 1970s, scientists discovered that CFCs were chewing a hole through our ozone layer.

So the world's nations got together and enacted the Montreal Protocol in 1989 to phase out CFC use over time. It was one of the all-time great environmental success stories, and the ozone layer is now recovering.

Except for one teensy detail. One of the most popular substitutes for CFCs are a class of chemicals known as HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons). These coolants are fairly harmless to the ozone layer, but they turn out to be extremely potent greenhouse gases — up to 10,000 times as effective at trapping heat as carbon dioxide — when they seep out into the atmosphere. And they’re becoming widespread:

The biggest climate change story in the world this week is quietly playing out in Rwanda - Vox

Couple of notes:

1. "The ozone layer is now recovering" That is, the science has been proven correct. This was not as big a deal as global warming, but there was a fair number of the usual suspects arguing it was all overblown although I don't remember it was portrayed as a liberal conspiracy...
   
2. The replacement gasses, the HFCs now need replacing (see the article). 
   

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And then we have this..

Extreme heat, it turns out, is very bad for the economy. Crops fail. People work less, and are less productive when they do work. That’s why an increase in extremely hot days is one of the more worrisome prospects of climate change. To predict just how various countries might suffer or benefit, a team of scientists at Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley, have turned to historical records of how temperature affects key aspects of the economy. When they use this data to estimate how various countries will fare with a warming planet, the news isn’t good.

Hotter Days Will Drive Global Inequality

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Vietnam is in danger. Rising sea levels pose a huge threat to this coastal country. In less than 100 years much of southern Vietnam’s Mekong Delta – the heart of the nation’s rice production – could go the way of Atlantis. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment  predicts that the ocean will swallow more than a third of the region by the year 2100, taking a swath of Ho Chi Minh City with it. Halfway up the coast from the Mekong Delta, Hoi An’s prognosis is better, but it’s not immune. The city sits where the Thu Bon River meets the South China Sea. Its inhabitants are already used to hauling furniture upstairs during seasonal floods.

Vietnam is in danger. With a dire forecast and limited resources, Vietnam doesn’t have a lot of options. In 2015, then Minister of the Environment Nguyen Minh Quang told the press that the country’s best bet was to plant more mangrove trees. Mangroves are the climate superheroes of the arboreal world. They grow in swamps along the coasts: thin trunks and tangled, spidery roots submerged in dark, briny water. The roots filter saltwater and can expand eroded coastlines. They also create natural storm barriers and protect agricultural land from saltwater infiltration. And on top of everything else, mangroves are atmospheric vacuum cleaners, pulling unparalleled amounts of carbon dioxide from the air.

BBC - Travel - The trees keeping Vietnam afloat

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The first time my father’s basement flooded, it was shortly after he moved in. The building was an ocean-front high-rise in a small city north of Miami called Sunny Isles Beach. The marble lobby had a waterfall that never stopped running; crisp-shirted valets parked your car for you. For the residents who lived in the more lavish flats, these cars were often BMWs and Mercedes. But no matter their value, the cars all wound up in the same place: the basement. When I called, I’d ask my dad how the building was doing. “The basement flooded again a couple weeks ago,” he’d sometimes say. Or: “It’s getting worse.” It’s not only his building: he’s also driven through a foot of water on a main road a couple of towns over and is used to tiptoeing around pools in the local supermarket’s car park. Ask nearly anyone in the Miami area about flooding and they’ll have an anecdote to share. Many will also tell you that it’s happening more and more frequently. The data backs them up.

BBC - Future - Miami’s fight against rising seas

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Throughout history, humans have existed side-by-side with bacteria and viruses. From the bubonic plague to smallpox, we have evolved to resist them, and in response they have developed new ways of infecting us. We have had antibiotics for almost a century, ever since Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin. In response, bacteria have responded by evolving antibiotic resistance.

The battle is endless: because we spend so much time with pathogens, we sometimes develop a kind of natural stalemate. However, what would happen if we were suddenly exposed to deadly bacteria and viruses that have been absent for thousands of years, or that we have never met before? We may be about to find out. Climate change is melting permafrost soils that have been frozen for thousands of years, and as the soils melt they are releasing ancient viruses and bacteria that, having lain dormant, are springing back to life.

In August 2016, in a remote corner of Siberian tundra called the Yamal Peninsula in the Arctic Circle, a 12-year-old boy died and at least twenty people were hospitalised after being infected by anthrax. The theory is that, over 75 years ago, a reindeer infected with anthrax died and its frozen carcass became trapped under a layer of frozen soil, known as permafrost. There it stayed until a heatwave in the summer of 2016, when the permafrost thawed. This exposed the reindeer corpse and released infectious anthrax into nearby water and soil, and then into the food supply. More than 2,000 reindeer grazing nearby became infected, which then led to the small number of human cases.

BBC - Earth - There are diseases hidden in ice, and they are waking up

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LOL..

Last week, CNN aired a story about Tangier, an island in the Chesapeake Bay so low-lying that a mere 83 acres can support its inhabitants. The story had three key points: First, the island is vanishing so rapidly that “the Army Corps of Engineers tells CNN that erosion and sea level rise alone will make this historic crabbing community uninhabitable in as little as 20 years.”

Second, the residents are desperate for government help, like an expensive seawall, which they believe could save their vanishing island if it came quickly enough. Mayor James Eskridge made this on-air plea: “We’re saveable, right now. Donald Trump, if you see this, whatever you can do, we welcome any help you can give us.”

Third, the island voted 87 percent for Trump, and the mayor told CNN, “I love Trump as much as any family member I got.” Trump viewed the CNN story after staffers brought it to his attention, DelMarva Now reported.

Trump called a shocked Eskridge, who said the president explained he “had to call” such a strong supporter. Trump added, “You’ve got one heck of an island there.” “This is a Trump island; we really love you down here,” Eskridge replied. “The stuff you are doing is just commonsense… I believe you came along for such a time as this.” The subject of the call then turned to the island’s fate. Trump “said not to worry about sea-level rise,” Eskridge explained. “He said, ‘Your island has been there for hundreds of years, and I believe your island will be there for hundreds more.’”

The Army Corps says the island will be uninhabitable in perhaps 20 years — or much sooner if it gets struck directly by a major storm — but the president dismissed the primary cause, rising seas.

“Like the president, I’m not concerned about sea level rise,” Eskridge told the Washington Post. “I’m on the water daily, and I just don’t see it.” According to Eskridge, it’s just erosion that is destroying Tangier.

Also, “it doesn’t bother” residents that Trump pulled out of the Paris climate deal, CNN explains: “The residents on Tangier look at the decision as more money it will free up to help them build the infrastructure they need to save their island.”

In reality, Trump’s proposed budget would end federal support of the Chesapeake Bay Program and zero out NOAA’s major coastal protection and adaptation program.

Trump tells mayor of vanishing island ‘not to worry about sea level rise’

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Even with drastic cuts to the emissions of greenhouse gases that are driving up Earth’s temperature, more than half of the world’s population could be exposed to deadly heat waves by century’s end. If emissions continue on their current path, that proportion will jump to three-quarters of the world’s residents, due to both rising temperatures and humidity, a new study detailed Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, finds. That future is what study author Camilo Mora calls a choice between “bad and terrible,” but crucially, it is still a choice. If the world reduces emissions, it can reduce the impacts of warming as much as possible. Societies will also have to adapt to rising temperatures and the higher risks to human health they bring, but it is the developing countries that are least able to adapt that are likely to be hit the hardest.

Half of World Could See Deadly Heat Waves By 2100 | Climate Central

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Sea level rise is real, and it’s getting worse. A study published in the journal Nature Climate Change shows that global sea level rise jumped by 50 percent from 1993 to 2014, the most recent year for which data are available. In 2014, sea levels rose 3.3 millimeters—more than an eighth of an inch—while in 1993 they ticked up 2.2 millimeters. The paper found that melting of the Greenland ice sheet is the major new contributor. In 1993, it accounted for only 5 percent of the rise, but in 2014 it was responsible for one-quarter of the increase. The paper looked at satellite measurements and tide gauges, which measure sea levels around the world..

Don’t Look Now, But Sea Level Rise Just Doubled – Mother Jones

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In northern Siberia, rising temperatures are causing mysterious giant craters — and even more dire consequences could be in store, say climate scientists. The Russian province's long-frozen ground, called permafrost, is thawing, triggering massive changes to the region's landscape and ecology. It could even threaten human lives. "The last time we saw a permafrost melting was 130,000 years ago. It's a natural phenomenon because of changes in the earth's orbit," said professor of earth sciences at the University of Oxford, Dr. Gideon Henderson.

"But what is definitely unprecedented is the rate of warming. The warming that happened 130,000 years ago happened over thousands of years … What we see happening now is warming over decades or a century." We are therefore seeing a much more rapid collapse of the permafrost, Henderson said.

It's clear that the thawing permafrost has an important effect on the climate, Henderson said. Under normal conditions, permafrosts regulate the amount of carbon in the environment by taking up and storing significant portions of carbon that humans release from burning fossil fuel.

In the case of Siberia, this equation is being reversed. "When [permafrosts] release carbon, it will accelerate the rate of warming in the future," Henderson said. A self-reinforcing feedback loop is created whereby warming releases more carbon, which in turn produces greater warming.

Siberian craters: Big releases of methane could pose broad problems

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The purpose was to measure how carbon dioxide may escape from the earth as the atmosphere warms. What they found, published yesterday in the journal Science, may mean the accelerating catastrophe of global warming has been fueled in part by warm dirt. As the Earth heats up, microbes in the soil accelerate the breakdown of organic materials and move on to others that may have once been ignored, each time releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Extrapolating from their forest study, the researchers estimate that over this century the warming induced from global soil loss, at the rate they monitored, will be “equivalent to the past two decades of carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning and is comparable in magnitude to the cumulative carbon losses to the atmosphere due to human-driven land use change during the past two centuries.”

There’s a Climate Bomb Under Your Feet - Bloomberg