THE WORLD GETTING HOTTER!!!

FROM  THE  ECONOMIST  AUGUST 4TH 2018

In the line of fire

The world is losing the war against climate change

EARTH is smouldering. From Seattle to Siberia this summer, flames have consumed swathes of the northern hemisphere. One of 18 wildfires sweeping through California, among the worst in the state's history, is generating such heat that it created its own weather. Fires that raged through a coastal area near Athens last week killed 91 (see Science section). Elsewhere people are suffocating in the heat. Roughly 125 have died in Japan as the result of a heatwave that pushed temperatures in Tokyo above 40°C for the first time.

Such calamities, once considered freakish, are now commonplace. Scientists have long cautioned that, as the planet warms-it is roughly i°C hotter today than before the industrial age's first furnaces were lit-weather patterns will go berserk. An early analysis has found that this sweltering European summer would have been less than half as likely were it not for human-induced global warming.

Yet as the impact of climate change becomes more evident, so too does the scale of the challenge ahead. Three years after countries vowed in Paris to keep warming "well below" 2°C relative to pre-industrial levels, greenhouse-gas emissions are up again. So are investments in oil and gas. In 2017, for the first time in four years, demand for coal rose. Subsidies for renew-ables, such as wind and solar power, are dwindling in many places and investment has stalled; climate-friendly nuclear $ower is expensive and unpopular. It is tempting to think these are temporary setbacks and that mankind, with its instinct for self-preservation, will muddle through to a victory over global warming. In fact, it is losing the war.

Living in a fuel's paradise

Insufficient progress is not to say no progress at all. As solar panels, wind turbines and other low-carbon technologies become cheaper and more efficient, their use has surged. Last year the number of electric cars sold around the world passed im. In some sunny and blustery places renewable power now costs less than coal.

Public concern is picking up. A poll last year of 38 countries found that 61% of people see climate change as a big threat; . only the terrorists of Islamic State inspired more fear. In the West campaigning investors talk of divesting from companies that make their living from coal and oil. Despite President Donald Trump's decision to yank America out of the Paris deal, many American cities and states have reaffirmed their commitment to it. Even some of the sceptic-in-chief's fellow Republicans appear less averse to tackling the problem (see United States section). In smog-shrouded China and India, citizens choking on fumes are prompting governments to rethink plans to rely heavily on coal to electrify their countries.

Optimists say that decarbonisation is within reach. Yet, even allowing for the familiar complexities of agreeing on and enforcing global targets, it is proving extraordinarily difficult.

One reason is soaring energy demand, especially in devel-oping Asia. In 2006-16, as Asia's emerging economies forged ahead, their energy consumption rose by 40%. The use of coal, easily the dirtiest fossil fuel, grew at an annual rate of 34%. Use of cleaner natural gas grew by 5.2% and of oil by 2.9%. Fossil fuels are easier to hook up to today's grids than renewables that depend on the sun shining and the wind blowing. Even as green fund managers threaten to pull back from oil companies, state-owned behemoths in the Middle East and Russia see Asian demand as a compelling reason to invest.

The second reason is economic and political inertia. The more fossil fuels a country consumes, the harder it is to wean itself off them. Powerful lobbies, and the voters who back them, entrench coal in the energy mix. Reshaping existing ways of doing things can take years. In 2017 Britain enjoyed its first coal-free day since igniting the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s. Coal generates not merely 80% of India's electricity, but also underpins the economies of some ofits poorest states (see Briefing). Panjandrums in Delhi are not keen to countenance the end of coal, lest that cripple the banking system, which lent it too much money, and the railways, which depend on it.

Last is the technical challenge of stripping carbon out of industries beyond power generation. Steel, cement, farming, transport and other forms of economic activity account for over half of global carbon emissions. They are technically harder to clean up than power generation and are protected by vested industrial interests. Successes can turn out to be illusory. Because China's un-plus electric cars draw their oomph from an electricity grid that draws two-thirds ofits power from coal, they produce more carbon dioxide than some fuel-efficient petrol-driven models. Meanwhile, scrubbing C02 from the atmosphere, which climate models imply is needed on a vast scale to meet the Paris target, attracts even less attention.

The world is not short of ideas to realise the Paris goal. Around 70 countries or regions, responsible for one-fifth of all emissions, now price carbon. Technologists beaver away on sturdier grids, zero-carbon steel, even carbon-negative cement, whose production absorbs more C02 than it releases. All these efforts and more-including research into "solar geoengineer-ing" to reflect sunlight back into space-should be redoubled.

Blood, sweat and geoengineers

Yet none of these fixes will come to much unless climate list-lessness is tackled head on. Western countries grew wealthy on a carbon-heavy diet of industrial development. They must honour their commitment in the Paris agreement to help poorer places both adapt to a warmer Earth and also abate future emissions without sacrificing the growth needed to leave poverty behind.

Averting climate change will come at a short-term financial cost-although the shift from carbon may eventually enrich the economy, as the move to carbon-burning cars, lorries and electricity did in the 20th century. Politicians have an essential role to play in making the case for reform and in ensuring that the most vulnerable do not bear the brunt of the change. Perhaps global warming will help them fire up the collective will. Sadly, the world looks poised to get a lot hotter first. ■

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BIBLE  PROPHECY  SAYS  IT  IS  GOING  TO  GET  WORSE— MUCH  WORSE!

IT  IS  ALL  HEADING  TO  THE  GREATEST  TROUBLE  THE  EARTH  HAS  EVER  SEEN  SINCE  ADAM  AND  EVE.  SUCH  A  TROUBLE  THAT  NOTHING  WILL  COMPARE  TO  IT,  AND  IT  WILL  NEVER  HAPPEN  AGAIN.

MUCH  HAS  YET  TO  TAKE  PLACE  AMONG  NATIONS  OF  THE  EARTH,  HORRENDOUS  CLIMATE  CHANGE  WILL  IN  THE  END  BE  AS  NOTHING  AS  TO  WHAT  NATIONS  WILL  DO  TO  EACH  OTHER.

JESUS  SAID  IN  MATTHEW  24,  THAT  IF  THAT TIME  WAS  NOT  CUT  SHORT  FOR  THE  ELECTS  SAKE,  NO  FLESH  WOULD  BE  SAVED  ALIVE.

YOUR  THINKING  IT  IS  GETTING  PRETTY  BAD  OUT  THERE,  WELL  YOU  AIN’T  SEEN  NOTHING  YET!

THIS  TIME  OF  THE  GREATEST  TROUBLE  FOR  EARTH  AND  NATIONS,  NEED  NOT  HAPPEN;  IF  NATIONS  WOULD  TURN  TO  THE  LIVING  ALMIGHTY  GOD;  IF  THEY  WOULD  REPENT  OF  SINS,  TURN  AND  GO  THE  WAY  OF  GOD’S  RIGHTEOUSNESS,  EVERYTHING  THE  ETERNAL  HAS  SAID  FOR  THE  MIGHTY  DESTRUCTION  OF  NATIONS  AND  THE  PHYSICAL  EARTH,  COULD  BE  AVOIDED.

BUT  SAD  TO  SAY,  THIS  IS  NOT  GOING  TO  HAPPEN,  THE  NATIONS  HAVE  GONE  OVER  THE  LINE  OF  NO  RETURN.

YOU  CAN  KNOW  WHAT  BIBLE  PROPHECY  HAS  TO  SAY  REGARDING  THE  COMING  END  OF  THIS  AGE,  AND  INTO  THE  AGE  TO  COME.

I’VE  EXPOUNDED  IT  ALL  FOR  YOU  UNDER  THE  “PROPHECY”  SECTION  OF  MY  WEBSITE---- www.keithhunt.com

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