Climate change: 2019 was Europe's warmest year on record

 Matt McGrath BBC Environment correspondent 22 April 2020

GETTY IMAGES

Three heatwaves hit Europe across 2019

Europe is heating faster than the global average as new data indicates that last year was the warmest on record.

While globally the year was the second warmest, a series of heatwaves helped push the region to a new high mark.

Over the past five years, global temperatures were, on average, just over 1C warmer than at the end of the 19th century.

In Europe, in the same period, temperatures were almost 2C warmer.

July was 'marginally' world's warmest month ever
Hundreds of temperature records broken over summer
Last decade 'on course' to be warmest

The data has been published as Earth Day marks its 50th anniversary.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says the physical signs of climate change and impacts on our planet have gathered pace in the past five years, which were the hottest on record.

The European data, which comes from the EU's Copernicus Climate Service, 11 of the 12 warmest years on record on the continent have occurred since 2000.

The European State of the Climate 2019 shows that warm conditions and summer heatwaves saw drought in many parts of central Europe.

While the UK saw a new all-time high temperature recorded in Cambridge in July, in many places across the continent, the weather was 3-4C warmer than normal.

This is reflected in the amount of sunshine that hit Europe across the year. The number of sunshine hours was the largest on record.

C3S/ECMWF

2019 was a record year for sunshine hours

The hot summer weather across Europe was followed by one of the wettest Novembers on record, with rainfall almost four times the normal amount in western and southern Europe.

The European Arctic region though was below the high temperatures seen in recent years, just 0.9C higher than average.

Taken together, the data show "a clear warming trend across the last four decades."

"Europe has indeed been warming significantly faster than the global average," said Prof Rowan Sutton, director of science (climate) at the UK's National Centre for Atmospheric Science.

C3S/ECMWF

Europe was also hit by heavy rainfall during the later part of last year

"This is for two reasons. First, land regions in general are warming faster than the oceans, largely because the greater availability of moisture over the oceans damps the rate of warming."

"Secondly, reductions in specific forms of air pollution have contributed to the recent warming in Europe, particularly in summer."

What will worry researchers is that the mean temperature in Europe over the past five years is averaging almost 2C warmer than pre-industrial figures.

This suggests that the continent is breaching the promise made in the Paris climate agreement to keep temperatures "well below" 2C.

"In lockdown, sitting on our sofas or our makeshift desks or in many more difficult situations, it would be easy for us to take our eyes off this alarming reality; that 2019 was the warmest year on record for Europe, that November brought us massively more precipitation than normal," said Prof Hannah Cloke, from the University of Reading.

"And for every decade I have been on this planet, it has been getting hotter and hotter and hotter. "

Researchers in the field are keen to underline that while the coronavirus pandemic might mean a temporary drop in emissions of greenhouse gases, much more will need to be done to arrest the worrying warming trend.

"While pollution has dropped with economic activity in response to the global pandemic, CO2 is not just disappearing overnight," said Prof Daniela Schmidt, from the University of Bristol.

GETTY IMAGES

Fires made worse by drought were a feature in many European countries in 2019

"The impact of the warming like sea level rise will be with us for centuries. The pandemic has made us less able to tackle the impact of climate change impacts. Our communities which have just been flooded will find sheltering in their damaged homes much more challenging.

"We have also learned, though, during the last months that actions taken together to make a difference."

The new data has been published by the Copernicus Climate Change Service, which is implemented by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.

Commenting on the Earth Day anniversary, the WMO's secretary general, Petteri Taalas, said it was important to continue tackling climate change amid the global pandemic.

"Whilst COVID-19 has caused a severe international health and economic crisis, failure to tackle climate change may threaten human well-being, ecosystems and economies for centuries," he said.

"We need to flatten both the pandemic and climate change curves."

Echoing earlier comments by the UN secretary general Antonio Guterres, Mr Taalas commented: "We need to show the same determination and unity against climate change as against COVID-19. We need to act together in the interests of the health and welfare of humanity not just for the coming weeks and months, but for many generations ahead."

Antarctica's A-68: Is the world's biggest iceberg about to break up?


BBC 23 April 2020

COPERNICUS/ESA/SENTINEL-1

]A-68 has now dropped a large chunk of ice itself. The main berg is about 150km long

The world's biggest iceberg, A-68, just got a little smaller.

At around 5,100 sq km, the behemoth has been the largest free-floating block of ice in Antarctica since it broke away from the continent in July 2017.

But on Thursday, it dropped a sizeable chunk measuring about 175 sq km.

The iceberg is currently moving north from the Antarctic Peninsula. Having entered rougher, warmer waters - it is now riding currents that should take it towards the South Atlantic.

Prof Adrian Luckman, who's been following A-68's progress, said the new fracture could mark the beginning of the end of this icy giant.

"I am continually amazed that something so thin and fragile has lasted so long on the open sea," the Swansea University researcher told BBC News.

"I suspect that the final break-up is now starting, but the ensuing fragments will probably be with us for years."

Evidence of Thursday's split came via a radar image acquired by the European Union's Sentinel-1 satellite.

NASA/JOHN SONNTAG

Wide but thin: A-68 has a profile akin to a few sheets of A4 paper stacked on top of each other

A-68's name comes from a classification system run by the US National Ice Center, which divides the Antarctic into quadrants. Because the berg broke from the Larsen C Ice Shelf in the Weddell Sea, it got an "A" designation. "68" was the latest number in the series of large calvings in that sector.

Properly, we should refer to the berg as A-68A - that's because subsequent breakages also get their own related name. A-68B was dropped early in the life of the main berg. This new chunk will almost certainly get the designation A-68C.

Were there indications that this particular corner would come off? "Not that I have seen. I've been keeping an eye on progress, but mostly it's been attrition of small flakes from all around," said Prof Luckman.

Antarctic scientist Ella Gilbert was the first to film iceberg A-68

When first calved in 2017, A-68 was close to 6,000 sq km in area, with an average thickness of about 190m.

For months it appeared to catch on the seafloor and didn't move very far. But eventually it spun around and picked up pace as it drifted northwards. This past austral summer saw the giant break free of the persistent sea-ice that clogs the Weddell Sea - a significant development because it has exposed A-68 to much greater swells. Its structure is now under more stress and further splits should be expected.

It's currently travelling past the South Orkney Islands which form the far tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. Currents should then throw it in the general direction of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.

How much longer A-68 can maintain its present integrity is anyone's guess. But even if it does suffer a major fragmentation event, the individual icy blocks could persist well into the 2020s before melting away.

A-68 broke away from the eastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula

In pictures: May Day protests around the world

https://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-52501211

Every year May Day is used to mark many things - from the coming of spring in the Northern Hemisphere to the fight for workers' rights. This year many rallies have been scaled back because of coronavirus lockdowns, although some have taken place on the streets and online.

Here are some of the events that have marked the day.

The Greek government asked groups to delay public rallies by more than a week, but leading union GSEE called for a general strike to coincide with May Day


In Vienna, Austria, protesters hold a banner reading: "Organise the masses in the duty of the proletarian world revolution". There are 15 different registered demonstrations and gatherings across the city

SOCIAL DISTANCING PROTESTERS
In Thessaloniki, Greece, a woman holds a placard that reads: "No to robbing people for the profit of capital"

Members of the Greek Labour Union (PAME), wearing protective masks and respecting the social distances, protest in front of the Greek Parliament in Athens

Coronavirus recovery plan 'must tackle climate change'
By Roger Harrabin BBC environment analyst
25 April 2020

GETTY IMAGES

Tackling climate change must be woven into the solution to the Covid-19 economic crisis, the UK will tell governments next week.

Environment ministers from 30 countries are meeting in a two-day online conference in a bid to make progress on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

The gathering is called the "Petersberg Climate Dialogue".

It will focus on how to organise a "green" economic recovery after the acute phase of the pandemic is over.

The other aim is to forge international agreement on ambitious carbon cuts despite the postponement of the key conference COP26 - previously scheduled for Glasgow in November (now without a date).

Alok Sharma, the UK Climate Secretary and president of COP26, said: "I am committed to increasing global climate ambition so that we deliver on the Paris Agreement (to stabilise temperature rise well below 2C).

"The world must work together, as it has to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, to support a green and resilient recovery, which leaves no one behind.

"At the Petersberg Climate Dialogue, we will come together to discuss how we can turn ambition into real action."

The informal conference is co-hosted by the UK and Germany.

Developed and developing countries will attend, along with the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, and members of civil society and business. Last week, Mr Guterres warned that climate change was a deeper problem than the virus.

Campaign groups will be sceptical about the meeting. Since the Paris deal to cut emissions, CO2 has actually been rising - although there's currently a blip in the trend thanks to the Covid recession.

The development charity CARE says it's alarmed that public finance provided from rich countries to developing countries to adapt to inevitable climate change actually decreased in 2018.

Sven Harmeling from CARE said: "If governments fail to make their economic stimulus sustainable and equitable, they will drive our planet much deeper into the existential economic, social and ecological turmoil caused by the climate crisis."

The EU is already set on delivering a green stimulus. The Commission's Green Deal chief, Frans Timmermans, said every euro spent on economic recovery measures after the COVID-19 crisis would be linked to the green and digital transitions.

"The European Green Deal is a growth strategy and a winning strategy," he tweeted.

"It's not a luxury we drop when we hit another crisis. It is essential for Europe's future.

Meanwhile, China appears set on its current carbon-intensive development path, and President Trump says the US will rescue struggling fossil fuel firms.

Even in Europe there's a degree of push-back against the idea of a green stimulus .

Markus Pieper, an MEP from the centre-right German CDU party, told the magazine FOCUS that the EU's sweeping plan for investment in clean technologies would no longer be possible.

He said: "The Green Deal was a gigantic challenge for an economy in top shape. After the corona bloodletting, it is simply not financially viable."

But the UK climate economist Lord Stern told BBC News: "The immediate priority is the current Covid crisis – but then we have to build for the future.

"Timmermans is right and Trump is wrong. We should only be bailing out firms that are going to contribute to tackling climate change.

"They don’t have be be ostensibly clean tech firms at the moment – but they do have to be committed to cutting their emissions in line with international targets."

A Magical Messiah. Discussing Jesus As An Ancient Magician Through The Synoptic Gospels

https://archive.org/details/amagicalmessiah.discussingjesusasanancientmagicianthroughthesynopticgospels/mode/2up

Robert Conner is the author of:

"Magic in the New Testament"

"Jesus the Sorcerer"

"Magic in Christianity. From Jesus to the Gnostics"

"Apparitions of Jesus. The Resurrection as Ghost Story"

See his books at: https://tinyurl.com/yx86egmb

His review of Morton Smith's book "Jesus the Magician":

"Although considered controversial at the time, Jesus the Magician, published in 1978 by R. Morton Smith, a professor at Columbia University, is old news. Smith's basic claim--that Jesus was known both by his Jewish contemporaries and pagan critics as a magician--had been preceded by articles in scholarly journals dating back to the 1930's and at least one book-length treatment (Hull, Hellenistic Magic and the Synoptic Tradition, 1974) that made essentially the same claim. In the years following the release of Jesus the Magician, scores of articles and books have appeared that note the close similarities between Jesus' exorcisms, healing, and other miracles and the spells of the Greek magical papyri as well as the reported wonders of such figures as Apollonius of Tyana. Hostile Jewish and Roman sources (Julian, Celsus, Porphyry, etc) openly accused Jesus and early Christians of sorcery. At this late date only a stranger to the scholarly writing on Jesus and early Christianity or a biblical literalist would find the claim that Jesus practiced magic surprising, much less scandalous. In short, Smith's analysis of Jesus' miracle working has received extensive support from many scholars in the years that followed the publication of Jesus the Magician and additional articles, essays and books in Hebrew and the major European languages that link early Jewish and Christian practices with magic continue to appear.

That said, the choice of Dr. Ehrman to write an introduction seems somewhat...well, odd. Smith was also the discoverer of the "Secret" gospel of Mark, actually an excerpt of a putative letter of Clement of Alexandria, a 2nd century theologian, that quotes two passages from a variant edition of the gospel of Mark. The gospel fragments, or rather Smith's interpretation of them, provoked a firestorm of invective from Catholic and evangelical quarters including accusations that Smith had forged the letter of Clement to discredit Christianity. Dr. Ehrman, who I respect as a serious and productive New Testament scholar, has argued that Smith had the ability and presumably a motive to forge the Clement letter although he has never actually claimed that Smith did it. Although I believe the Clement letter and gospel fragments it quotes are almost certainly genuine, as far as I know, Dr. Ehrman is still of the opinion that Morton Smith had the ability, motive and opportunity to produce one of the 20th century's greatest forgeries."

texts

Gnostic Prayers From The Lightworld. Mandaean Hymns

https://archive.org/details/gnosicprayersfromthelightworld.mandaeanhymns/page/n1/mode/2up

Ethel Stefana Drower née Stevens (1 December 1879 – 27 January 1972) was a British cultural anthropologist who studied the Middle East and its cultures. She was considered the primary specialist on the Mandaeans, and the chief collector of Mandaean manuscripts.

She was a daughter of a clergyman. In 1906 she was working for Curtis Brown, a London literary agency when she signed Arthur Ransome to write Bohemia in London.

In 1911, she married Edwin Drower and after his knighthood became Lady Drower. As E. S. Stevens, she wrote a series of romantic novels for Mills & Boon and other publishers. In 1921, she accompanied her husband to Iraq where Sir Edwin Drower was adviser to the Justice Minister from 1921 to 1946. Her works include The Prayer book of the Mandaeans (a translation of the Qolusta); The Secret Adam (Mandaeans); and The Peacock Angel (about the Yezidis).Among her grandchildren was the campaigning journalist Roly Drower.

 Jesus, John, And The Making Of A Messiah

https://archive.org/details/jesusjohnandthemakingofamessiah/page/n1/mode/2up


Preface

Church attendance in developed nations has been on a
downward spiral for the best part of a century. The strong
likelihood is that it will continue to decline. In the past, almost
everyone was a churchgoer. But today, irrespective of whether or
not they believe in God, the majority of the population regards
organized religion as an anachronism.
Increased levels of education since the end of World War II
brought with them a greater demand for intellectual satisfaction.
Now, most people will only accept something as ‘true’ if it can be
explained by reason or else resonates with their experience.
Absolute ‘truths’ must pertain to reality. Not reality as perception,
but reality which is the same for everyone. Doctrines that insist on
faith in the irrational and unfamiliar no longer have mass appeal,
because by implication, they are not true.
Formerly, the Church could withdraw some of its erroneous
tenets, for example, that the sun orbits the earth, because they
were incidental to its central theology. In the modern era, as
potential embarrassments cropped up with increasing regularity,
the Church adopted the position that religion and science were
mutually incompatible. Therefore, any attempts to reconcile them
were futile.
The idea that life allowed for the existence of contradictory laws
did not impress Einstein, who famously stated that “God does not
play dice with the universe.” His comment that “science would
provide a surer path to God than religion,” reflects a widely held
opinion that religious institutions are paralyzed by the instinct for
self-preservation and reluctance to acknowledge error. As far as
most people today are concerned, the Church has not only ceded
to science the ability to interpret the physical world, but also the
world unseen, and all that that implies.
Despite public skepticism toward the Christian Church, the
indisputable fact of history is that Western civilization is a 
Judeo Christian legacy. The predominant culture is actually based on a
complex synthesis of Hebraism and Hellenism, but its catalyst was
provided by events in the life of one man -- Jesus. And we simply
cannot understand the modern world without first understanding
our Judeo-Christian past.
The phenomenal success of the movies, The Passion of Christ and
The Da Vinci Code, prove that the desire to know what happened
two thousand years ago has not diminished. Still, from whatever
point of view Jesus is presented, we don’t know who he was. For
traditionalists, the focal point of ‘genuine’ Christianity is Christ,
the risen God. ‘Christ’ transcends human attributes, so in the
grand scheme of things, the historical man Jesus is incidental. At
the opposite end of the spectrum, liberal academics cite a lack of
documentation to prove much of anything about Jesus, and being
good scholars they only go where the ‘facts’ lead.
Making sense of Jesus then, is not easy. Apparently, he was
rejected by those ‘in charge of religion’ as an ordinary man with
blasphemous delusions of grandeur. But now that he is regarded
as God, or as a character to be defined only on the limited basis of
a few prose narratives, Jesus cannot be legitimately considered as
an actual human being with normal physical, spiritual, emotional
and intellectual needs.
The Virgin and The Priest does not directly address the issue of
Jesus’ marital status, or even if he had children. Researching the
possibility of a surviving bloodline without first identifying Jesus’
parents, not only puts the genealogical cart before the horse, it
perpetuates the confusion over his status. Jesus’ ‘divinity’ has been
the foundation of Christian theology ever since Church councils
began, and still conditions public perception of him today. For that
reason, Jesus’ ancestors, rather than his descendants, ought
properly to be the starting point of any investigation of his life.
Officially, Protestant Churches do not insist on the virgin birth
doctrine as do Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Mary’s
miraculous conception, however, is taken for granted by most of
their membership, and by a large percentage of the general
population. Even non believers jump on the bandwagon when
Christmas comes around. Who can blame them? It is a beautiful
story. A young virgin conceives a child miraculously. She gives
birth to God’s only Son in a humble stable. Wise men travel from
afar to offer gifts to the newborn king. The word ‘miracle,’
however, can only be used legitimately when describing events
that lack a rational or scientific explanation, and as an absolute
principle, all forms of life are created by, and therefore preceded
by, a relationship or interaction between opposites: male/female or
positive/negative. So regardless of any theological claims, if Jesus
existed then he must have had biological parents. His birth,
therefore, was not a miracle. Moreover, if Jesus’ father were
identified it might help explain other aspects of his life, and inject a
dose of much-needed reality into the study of Christian origins.
To protect the early church, the gospel writers deliberately crafted
explanations of Jesus’ birth to mystify the uninformed and obscure
the truth from those deemed incapable of receiving it. To achieve
this, they used an ancient ‘messianic’ scribal code belonging to an
esoteric strand of Judaism. Later, as the church developed in the
Gentile nations, ignorance of this code proved disastrous.
Centuries of pointless and unnecessary theological argument
precipitated divisions in human society that led to centuries of
bloodshed, persecution, and suffering on a truly unimaginable
scale. In explaining the messianic code, The Virgin and The Priest
does not so much go where the facts lead, because hardly any exist.
The case presented is not one that would stand up in a modern
court of law. There are no sworn affidavits, no eye witness
testimonies, and no DNA paternity-test results. The argument
follows only where reason takes it, supported by a framework of
coherent and consistent logic, based on the Jewish traditions of the
biblical writers. Corroborative evidence is presented from
apocryphal gospels, writings of early Church Fathers, and the
Koran. The cryptic images of Renaissance masterpieces, so long a
source of confusion to ‘experts’ and bewilderment to the general
public, are deciphered to show that knowledge of Jesus’ biological
father was pivotal to an important and influential subversive
tradition.
That the name of Jesus’ father has never been publicly disclosed
attests to the existence of a controlling and pervasive conspiracy of
silence by those who knew it, both inside and outside the Church.
The perpetrators were aided and abetted by the suffocating power
of preconceived ideas, working hand in hand with history’s largest
ever propaganda campaign, incessantly and repeatedly broadcast
throughout the world for seventeen centuries. And, in common
with modern sales and marketing promotions, the message was
both deceptive and illusory, designed solely to benefit vested
interests. Deep down we knew it, but still bought the product.
Christianity’s sacred cows have been challenged many times
before, but never as comprehensively as in The Virgin and The
Priest. Perhaps above all else, the spotlight falls on the life of Saint
John the Baptist -- one of the most neglected areas of New
Testament studies and Dead Sea Scrolls research -- and the part he
played in Jesus’ tragic life. Hopefully, any errors along the way are
minor and thus peripheral to the book’s central arguments. For
readers raised on the tenets of traditional religious teaching, The
Virgin and The Priest will be a journey into unchartered waters. Bon
voyage!
Ubud, Bali November, 2007

Preliminary report on the findings of the Mountain-Complex city of Atlantis
https://archive.org/details/preliminaryreportonthefindingsofthemountaincomplexcityofatlantisr/mode/2up


Abstract
In the Peninsula of Khatiawar in West India at the geographical location with the
coordinates: 21° 31’ 40” 00 N 70° 31’ 40” 00 E, a mountain-complex presenting rare
geological features has been identified. [Fig. 1].

We believe that this mountain-complex, locally called Girnar or Girinagar Mountain
shows all the historical and geomorphological characteristics of the civilization
mentioned by the Greek philosopher Plato in 350 BCE, the so called: “Lost City of
Atlantis”.

The discovery that this site is Atlantis is still theoretical, a work in progress; therefore
we must find physical evidence of this ancestral civilization. However, the geological,
zoological, botanical, geographical, climatological, sociological and historical evidence
found in the region indicates that Girnar mountain-complex has all the characteristics of
the lost civilization of Atlantis. 

Keywords
Atlantis, Lost civilization, Egypt, Olmec, Maya, India, Sumerian, Rome, Greece, Vinca,
Glozel, Harappa

Loimographia : an account of the Great Plague of London in the year 1665

https://archive.org/details/b24400014/page/n21/mode/2up

by Boghurst, William, 1631-1685; Payne, Joseph Frank, 1840-1910
Publication date 1894

Topics Plague

Publisher London : Shaw and Sons

THE PLAGUE RESULTED IN THE GREAT FIRE AND CONFLAGRATION 

OF LONDON 1666 https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=1666

Conspirituality Reconsidered: How Surprising and How New is the Confluence of Spirituality and Conspiracy Theory?

Egil Asprem

Asbjørn Dyrendal

New Religious Movements,

Conspiracy Theories,

Contemporary Religion,

Western Esotericism (History),

Conspiracy Culture

Those who have followed the development of online new religiosity over the past decade will not have failed to notice that conspiracy theories and ‘New Age’ ideas are thriving together. But how new and how surprising is the phenomenon of ‘conspirituality’? In the present article, we challenge the thesis put forward by Charlotte Ward and David Voas in their article of 2011, published in the Journal of Contemporary Religion, that a confluence of spirituality and conspiracism has emerged in the past two decades as a form of New Age theodicy. Instead, we argue, on theoretical grounds, that conspirituality can be viewed as a predictable result of structural elements in the cultic milieu and, on historical grounds, that its roots stretch deep into the history of Western esotericism. Together, these two considerations allow us not only to suggest that conspirituality is old and predictable, but also to identify a large potential for further research which will contribute to the study of conspiracy culture and enable a new line of comparative research in religious studies.

https://www.academia.edu/16169524/Conspirituality_Reconsidered_How_Surprising_and_How_New_is_the_Confluence_of_Spirituality_and_Conspiracy_Theory