Brexit. Why do Brits want Out of the EU?

I read alla ya.

‘Some economic security-related work like climate change and illegal wildlife trade will be scaled down’

The UK Government plans to water down regulations surrounding climate change and illegal wildlife trading in an effort to help secure post-Brexit trade, civil service documents have reportedly revealed.

In an upcoming speech by Tim Hitchens, the director-general of economic and consular affairs at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), he said the UK must to change its focus to carry out Prime Minister Theresa May’s vision of the UK as a “great, global trading nation”.

“You have a crucial role to play in posts in implementing our new approach to prosperity against the huge changes stemming from last year’s Brexit vote,” the notes seen by The Sunday Times read.

“Trade and growth are now priorities for all posts — you will all need to prioritise developing capability in this area. Some economic security-related work like climate change and illegal wildlife trade will be scaled down.”

A changing focus would reportedly make it easier for the UK to sign deals with Africa and Latin America.

The speech will take place on 26 April at a conference called Prosperity UK, sponsored by think tanks Legatum Institute and Open Europe.

The documents were contained in the folder of a senior civil servant at the Department for International Trade and were photographed by a passenger on a train.

They also exposed tensions between that department and the FCO, which are in the same building.

Some senior civil servants have expressed frustration that Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, is more focused on signing tariff-free trade deals around the world than rolling back regulatory burdens.

In particular, if you try to tell a GW denier that the consequences of GW are likely to be catastrophic, he will not listen to you but immediately withdraw in his bubble of denial, like a snail withdrawing into his shell.

On the long run, it's almost bound to become catastrophic. There are vast quantities of methane trapped in permafrost and at the bottom of artic seas. Thanks to progressive warming, at some point this methane will get released in the atmosphere in sufficient quantities for a big jump in temperature. Methane is a much more potent greenhlouse gas than CO2.

On the long run, it's almost bound to become catastrophic. There are vast quantities of methane trapped in permafrost and at the bottom of artic seas. Thanks to progressive warming, at some point this methane will get released in the atmosphere in sufficient quantities for a big jump in temperature. Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2.

Huge amounts of methane are stored around the world in the sea floor in the form of solid methane hydrates. These hydrates represent a large energy reserve for humanity. Climate warming, however, could cause the hydrates to destabilize. The methane, a potent greenhouse gas, would escape unused into the atmosphere and could even accelerate climate change.

[...] Today it is assumed that in the worst case, with a steady warming of the ocean of 3 degrees Celsius, around 85 per cent of the methane trapped in the sea floor could be released into the water column.

Other, more sensitive models predict that methane hydrates at great water depths are not threatened by warming. According to these models, only the methane hydrates that are located directly at the boundaries of the stability zones would be primarily affected. At these locations, a temperature increase of only 1 degree ­Celsius would be sufficient to release large amounts of methane from the hydrates. The methane hydrates in the open ocean at around 500 metres of water depth, and deposits in the shallow regions of the Arctic would mainly be affected.

In the course of the Earth’s warming, it is also expected that sea level will rise due to melting of the polar ice caps and glacial ice. This inevitably results in greater pressure at the sea floor. The increase in pressure, however, would not be sufficient to counteract the effect of increasing temperature to dissolve the methane hydrates. According to the latest calculations, a sea-level rise of ten metres could slow down the methane-hydrate dissolution caused by a warming of one degree Celsius only by a few decades.

Study: Arctic seafloor methane releases double previous estimates
November 25, 2013

The seafloor off the coast of Northern Siberia is releasing more than twice the amount of methane as previously estimated, according to new research results published in the Nov. 24 edition of the journal Nature Geoscience.

The East Siberian Arctic Shelf is venting at least 17 teragrams of the methane into the atmosphere each year. A teragram is equal to 1 million tons.

“It is now on par with the methane being released from the arctic tundra, which is considered to be one of the major sources of methane in the Northern Hemisphere,” said Natalia Shakhova, one of the paper’s lead authors and a scientist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “Increased methane releases in this area are a possible new climate-change-driven factor that will strengthen over time.”

Methane is a greenhouse gas more than 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide. On land, methane is released when previously frozen organic material decomposes. In the seabed, methane can be stored as a pre-formed gas or asmethane hydrates. As long as the subsea permafrost remains frozen, it forms a cap, effectively trapping the methane beneath. However, as the permafrost thaws, it develops holes, which allow the methane to escape. These releases can be larger and more abrupt than those that result from decomposition.

The findings are the latest in an ongoing international research project led by Shakhova and Igor Semiletov, both researchers at the UAF International Arctic Research Center. Their twice-yearly arctic expeditions have revealed that the subsea permafrost in the area has thawed much more extensively than previously thought, in part due to warming water near the bottom of the ocean. The warming has created conditions that allow the subsea methane to escape in much greater amounts than their earlier models estimated. Frequent storms in the area hasten its release into the atmosphere, much in the same way stirring a soda releases the carbonation more quickly.