Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

global warming enthusiasts are like feminists or religious zealots, 'listen and believe' to the 'existential threats'

Rifugio Guide del Cervino is a bar and restaurant atop the Plateau Rosa, a glacial ridge in the Italian Alps. Or at least, it was. Climate change is moving it inexorably toward Switzerland as the glacier on which it sits steadily melts.

We're used to news reports about people and wildlife forced to move by the effects of climate change. But in this corner of the Alps, climate change is literally moving the border between Italy and Switzerland.

When the Rifugio was built in 1984, it was on the Italian side of the border. Since then, climate change, accelerated by the 2003 European heatwave which caused Alpine glaciers to lose 10% of their mass, has led to the glacier retreating towards Switzerland.

It could prove to be a headache for restaurateur Lucio Trucco. If the eatery were declared to be in Switzerland, he would have to make some major changes to his kitchens, including installing Swiss power sockets, which his Italian plugs won't fit.

Faced with such issues, Trucco, an experienced mountain guide, says he knows which side of the border his restaurant is located. He has been quoted in media reports as insisting: "The building hasn't moved, so this is still Italy."

Mobile Border
The Rifugio has 40 guest beds and is a popular destination for climbers attempting the Breithorn (4,164 meters, or 13,661 feet), neighbor to the Matterhorn on the Swiss border. But that's as close to Switzerland as Trucco wants his restaurant to get.

For now, COVID-19 restrictions mean the Rifugio is closed. Italy is starting to lift its coronavirus lockdown, but with bars among the businesses allowed to open, some people say social distancing in ski resorts may prove hard to implement.

In 2009, Italy and Switzerland agreed their border should be mobile, shifting to accommodate changes caused by glacial melting. Movements are monitored using GPS sensors allowing the border to be redrawn as the ice moves.

The UK can no longer be considered a wet country because of the effects of climate change, the head of the environment agency has said, as he urged people to turn off taps and take showers to save water.

More than 70 per cent of the county perceive the UK as a wet and rainy country and believe we have enough water to meet our needs, according to a new report supported by Sir James Bevan.

In a foreword, Sir James said that perception was “wrong”, despite the flooding seen during recent Storms Ciara and Dennis. Periods of extreme dry weather, linked to climate change, are putting strains on our water resources, with demand threatening to outstrip supply within 20 years, he said.

“Most people will look out the window today and think ‘it's raining - this is a wet country, and we don’t need to worry about water’. And they’re wrong,” he told The Telegraph.

England has just had the driest May on record, after a record sunny Spring across the country, which saw water companies forced to hand out bottled water to cope with increased demand.

The EA has previously said individuals will need to cut their water usage by 20 per cent in order to meet rising demand by 2050. If no action is taken, 3,435 million extra litres of water per day will be needed.

The Love Water campaign is calling on households to turn off taps while brushing their teeth, take short showers instead of baths and avoid pre-rinsing dishes.

Sir James compared the necessary behaviour change to attitudes to smoking or wearing seatbelts.

“It is not just the job of the government or the Environment Agency, or the water companies to fix this problem,” Sir James said. “Each of us as individuals can fix this problem in the way that we behave.”

Daily household water usage per person is on average 143 litres, up from 85 litres in the 1960s.

Sir James urged people to “make the connection between turning on the tap” and the natural landscape under threat from water shortages. “That water is coming from a river or a stream or a wetland or some bit of nature that people probably value and don't want to degrade,” he said.

“Unless we fix the problem, you will see more chalk streams drying up, more wildlife dying, more fish in distress.”

According to the report 88 per cent of people would be willing to reduce their daily water consumption by a third if they knew how.

The campaign is also backed by Water UK, the industry body, TV historian Simon Reeve and sponsored by Finish.

Frequency of heatwaves and cumulative intensity has risen through the decades, research finds

Heatwaves have increased in both length and frequency in nearly every part of the world since the 1950s, according to what is described as the first study to look at the issue at a regional level.

The study found the escalation in heatwaves varied around the planet, with the Amazon, north-eastern Brazil, west Asia (including parts of the subcontinent and central Asia) and the Mediterranean all experiencing more rapid change than, for example, southern Australia and north Asia. The only inhabited region where there was not a trend was in the central United States.

Published in the journal Nature Communications, the study found a clear increasing trend in the total number of heatwave days within and across regions, and that heatwaves were getting longer across the past 70 years.
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(Referring just to the morons of the U S right)Its so friggin obvious that we are in the middle of something increasingly serious yet is still a subject of abject uninformed denial based on anti-science political leanings from the ultra conservatives .
Its like the Fundamentalist anti-science conservative arm of the GOP just wants to bring on "End Times" without a fight.

We will be growing oranges in the high Arctic in much less than 100 years.

(Referring just to the morons of the U S right)Its so friggin obvious that we are in the middle of something increasingly serious yet is still a subject of abject uninformed denial based on anti-science political leanings from the ultra conservatives.
Its like the Fundamentalist anti-science conservative arm of the GOP just wants to bring on "End Times" without a fight.

Evidence abounds,