Free AI web copilot to create summaries, insights and extended knowledge, download it at here

Abstract

quote id="5e30"><p>“This 12-month record is exactly what we expect from a global climate fueled by carbon pollution,” Dr. Andrew Pershing, vice president for science at Climate Central said. “<b>Records will continue to fall next year, especially as the growing El Niño begins to take hold, exposing billions to unusual heat.</b> While climate impacts are most acute in developing countries near the equator, seeing climate-fueled streaks of extreme heat in the U.S., India, Japan, and Europe underscores that no one is safe from climate change.”</p></blockquote><h1 id="f7b6">Is This Just Weird Weather, or Climate Change?</h1><p id="2bab">One of the biggest (and dumbest) arguments against climate change is that these temperature extremes can just be chalked up to “weird weather this year”.</p><p id="732c">While it’s true that some variation is caused by cyclical weather patterns (see El Nino above), there is now a measure of how much of our exteme climate is likely to have been caused by humans through fossil fuel and other emissions.</p><p id="5282"><a href="https://www.climatecentral.org/tools/climate-shift-index">The Climate Shift Index</a> was created to show just how much influence human activity has on weather.</p><blockquote id="ef7b"><p>The CSI is a categorical scale, with the categories defined by the ratio of how common (or likely) a temperature is in today’s altered climate vs. how common it would be in a climate without human-caused climate change.</p></blockquote><p id="62b2">To simplify this, let’s look at another number.</p><p id="a456">Of the 7.8 billion people who experienced warmer than average temperatures this year, the weather for 7.3 billion of those people was 300% more likely to have occurred due to human activity.</p><p id="55c8">In other words, it is 3x more likely that the GHG emissions caused warmer temperatures than other natural causes, like El Nino.</p><p id="1394">Now, I understand that many people will find this a) difficult to understand and b) hard to believe because humans, as a species, have a tough time with probability based math. We like things to be black and white, right and wrong; not a set of possibilities that might, could have, or probably will cause global warming.</p><p id="35cb">But think of it this way.</p><p id="feb1">The 1990’s Bulls had a 300% increase in the probability of winning when they had Michael Jordan on their roster each night.</p><p id="1aac">Could they have won without Jordan? Absolutely they could have. Just like areas of Earth could have seen these higher temps without GHG emissions.</p><p id="2028">Is it likely to happen every night? Probably not. Just like the global higher temps are unlikely to be seen without GHG emissions.</p><h1 id="ac38">Impacts Beyond Humans</h1><p id="b910">As I’m sure you are aware, climate change impacts all living creatures on Earth, not just humans. However, we are blindly ignorant of the mechanisms of this negative impact.</p><p id="6cc5">I’ve written before about how high heat impacts the <a href="https://readmedium.com/climate-change-will-kill-the-weakest-and-youngest-of-everything-66f16ed8afc8">young and weak first</a>, and the <a href="https://phys.org/news/2022-11-climate-endangered-african-wild-dogs.html">African wild dog is no exception</a>.</p><p id="73ff">Wild dogs normally give birth at a time when the pups can be raised in cooler months. But the higher temps have pushed that back by about three weeks, forcing them to give birth later and later each year.</p><p id="9a97">At first glance, that’s not a big deal, ri

Options

ght? The babies are born later but still raised in the cooler months. The problem is that the seasons of cooler temps is not only getting pushed back later, but it is also ending sooner.</p><p id="3a96">This inadvertently results in wild dog mothers giving birth at just the wrong time.</p><p id="13d1">Now, someone might suggest that they just move to cooler regions. After all, they are wild animals and can go where they please.</p><p id="9ed6">Well, that’s another issue altogether, as wild dogs are now confined to just 7% of their historical range. It’s not like they can just get up and move to a neighborhood park in what was originally their hunting grounds decades ago.</p><p id="c9ee">Why does this matter? Because wild dogs are acting as a proxy for other keystone animals. But it’s hard to get the right data.</p><blockquote id="8156"><p>Because monitoring large carnivore populations over several decades is challenging and expensive, such long-term data either don’t exist or have not been assessed for most large carnivores.</p></blockquote><blockquote id="a1d5"><p>Every time we look for an impact of temperature on African wild dogs, however, we uncover something new and unexpected. <b>Climate-driven impacts on large carnivore behavior, populations and life histories may well be more widespread than previously thought.</b> Because large carnivores play an important role in shaping ecosystems, such impacts have much broader implications.</p></blockquote><blockquote id="cee9"><p>With <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/">continued temperature rises projected across their range</a>, the effects of climate change on this already endangered species — and others like it — are of great concern.</p></blockquote><p id="832c">The whole situation is a kind of “climate trap”. Too hot to breed and too many humans around to move.</p><p id="806b">And it’s just the beginning for the animals, too. <a href="https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/climate-issues/biodiversity">Biodiversity </a>loss is being touted as an equal to climate change, with both issues clamoring for solutions that actually go <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2811131">hand-in-hand for each crisis</a>.</p><h1 id="7e95">The Takeaway</h1><p id="05b3">Humanity is finally reaping what we have been sowing since the beginning of the last century. Billions of tons of CO2e, along with myriad other emissions (NOx, SOx, aerosols, etc.) are finally having the impact that was warned about for decades prior.</p><p id="a9da">There is no sustainability.</p><p id="d724">There is no remediation.</p><p id="0d05">There is only adapting to an ever warming world.</p><p id="34c8">We’ll be lucky to merely start reducing global GHG emissions by 2050, which means climate change will be here to stay for at least the rest of the century.</p><p id="b3f7">Best be prepared for the inevitable.</p><div id="e5fb" class="link-block"> <a href="https://anguspeterson.medium.com/subscribe"> <div> <div> <h2>Bypass the algorithm. Control your inbox.</h2> <div><h3>Bypass the algorithm. Control your inbox. Stop letting Medium force content you don't want into your feed. Subscribe…</h3></div> <div><p>anguspeterson.medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*Tkvm3Ht3q7tN0uL9)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

Spotlighting Black Comedians | Black History Month

Franklyn Ajaye is More Than the Fly in Car Wash

He’s an oldie, but goodie

Collage created in Canva by Toni Greathouse with Google Screengrabs

It’s no secret Black folks have always had to laugh to keep from crying — it’s a rite of passage from the cradle to the grave.

We laugh out loud. We laugh with our mouths, hearts, and soul wide open. We laugh to heal.

Our comedians, loved and reviled because of spoken truths some love to hate or hate to love. Either way, we can boast some of the most prolific comedians worldwide who have kept us balanced through a steady diet of humor whenever we feel malnourished, invisible, or disconnected.

We can always count on our comedians to serve as a bridge over troubled waters to the other side of joy.

My family loves to laugh. Get a few of us together in a room — we’re cracking up during nonstop storytelling and poking fun at each other. We’ve grown to expect a knock at the door to keep our noise levels down because no one is having as much fun as us in hotel rooms and residential neighborhoods alike.

When our entire family gathers for the holidays — baaaby, it’s a feast-filled, game playing, throw your head back laugh fest.

My husband laughs more heartily than anyone about his own jokes long after everyone’s chuckle gas is extinguished — it’s hilarious unless you’re the brunt of the joke. Sometimes my laugh simmers down into a sarcastic, “ha-ha, you’re so funny,” kind of vibe since I’m the sensitive one in the bunch.

Franklyn Ajaye is one of my husband’s best friends — they grew up together in Los Angeles. Although I don’t know how anyone could have missed it, you may or may not be aware of the 1976 cult classic movie, “Car Wash,” about a day in the lives of multiracial employees exploring their dreams and experiencing growing pains. He plays the character, TC, also nicknamed the fly known for his huge afro.

Don’t let his shenanigans fool you. Franklyn is an intellectual brother who attended UCLA and quit Columbia Law School to follow his dream. In the early 1970s, he cut his first comedic teeth in New York City comedy clubs after realizing law wasn’t for him.

He’s often referred to as the Jazz-comedian because of his improvisational style and pregnant pauses during his comedy routines.

Born to a Sierra Leonean father, a strict disciplinarian, and a Black American mother in Brooklyn, New York, he often jokes, he’s truly an African American. He and his younger brother, both trained musicians were raised in Los Angeles. He plays the clarinet.

Franklyn credits my hubby’s ability to laugh at his own jokes as one of his comedic techniques when he was developing his own unique style. Check out this podcast where he’s giving hubby props at the 17:30 minute mark.

The first time we met, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I didn’t know if he’d be arrogant or try too hard to get a laugh. He’s neither, but if you’re not paying attention, he’ll slide some sarcasm in while you’re not looking, like telling my hubby he robbed the cradle — we’re 10 years apart.

He’s well grounded, reserved with a cool exterior, but still warm and gregarious. He has moments where he’s quiet, pensive. My fellow Taurus brother.

Maybe I’m biased because he crashed at our house for a week one summer when we were first married and had me rolling on the floor every night, but he is one the funniest comedians from the old school of comedy along with Paul Mooney and Richard Pryor.

Thought-provoking sarcasm, satire, dry wit, and clever storytelling are my favored comedy brand. Franklyn encompasses all.

Influenced by Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Bill Cosby, Robert Cline, and Bob Newhart, to name a few, I think Dave Chappelle comes closest to matching his intellect and clever delivery.

Franklyn Ajaye had the uncanny ability to fly under the radar during the Black comedy explosion — he didn’t feel the need to drown the voices of others to be heard.

His name may not readily come to mind, but he made incredible strides in his career not only in stand up. He also kept his name untarnished throughout his career — an accomplishment within itself.

Multi-talented, he is an accomplished actor and brilliant writer — received two ‘Primetime Emmy Award’ nominations for ‘Outstanding Writing for a Variety or Music Program’ for In Living Color in 1990 and Politically Incorrect in 1997.

A partial list of his accomplishments;

First television appearance in 1973: The Flip Wilson Show Between 1974 and 1980: Cotton Club, ’75, Keep on Trucking, Dinah! The Midnight Special, Saturday Night Live, The Mike Douglas Show, The Comedy Shop, and the John Davidson Show. He appeared in three episodes of a popular show Late Night with David Letterman and starred in the Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson Show for 19 episodes. Between 1981 and 1994: performed his stand-up comedy in seven episodes of An Evening at the Improv

In 1984, he starred as Walter Cronkite in the comedy television series Hot Flashes. He would later appear in the HBO Comedy Showcase in 1995. Having decades of experience in the comedy world, and featured in five episodes of the comedy talk show The Panel between 1998 and 2001. While he was doing comedy shows, he also continued appearing in television series. He played the role of Five-Spice in the 2003 action-adventure television series Pirate Islands.

From 2005 to 2006, he played Samuel Fields in the historical crime-drama series, Deadwood, appearing in its 11 episodes. Cast in the 2009 comedy documentary titled Why We Laugh: Black Comedians on Black Comedy. Also featured in I Am Comic, a documentary about stand-up comedians’ professional setbacks.

Ajaye has authored a book titled Comic Insights: The Art of Standup Comedy, published on 1 September 2001 by Silman-James Press. Ajaye wrote the book targeting aspiring stand-up comedians and featured advice and conversations with many contemporary top comedians, including Louie Anderson, Roseanne, Paul Reiser, and George Wallace.

We haven’t seen Franklyn in years, but speak with him and exchange emails often. He calls the land down under his home now where he has continued performing stand up and playing in jazz clubs along with his brother.

When I wanted to take writing more seriously, he was generous with advice and recommendations of books to read. Franklyn is currently working on a memoir — stay tuned. He’s the reason Australia is on my bucket list! Hope to see him soon.