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Category: global warming

  • Absurd (Scary) CO2 Emissions

    In a major blow to the Paris ’15 climate agreement, last year witnessed one more nail in the coffin of the celebrated agreement to slow down CO2 emissions by 2030, as CO2, for the first time in modern history, enters the scientifically established danger zone. This agreement was/is meant to curtail global warming and hopefully save major ecosystems from collapse. But now, with too much noncompliance by countries and rapidly ascending CO2 emissions, Paris ’15 is at rest in a coffin awaiting an un-ceremonial burial.  Nobody wants to attend.

    CO2 emissions went bonkers in 2024, up 3.75 ppm, a new all-time-record, smashing all prior years and looking very ominous with trouble likely ahead as global warming kicks into higher gear, raising the question of whether property/casualty insurance companies will survive the onslaught: (1) raging wildfires (2) atmospheric river cloudbursts (3) widespread flooding (4) skies blackened by tornados (5) scorching droughts (6) category 5+ hurricanes, all of which follow in the footsteps of excessive greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

    It should be noted that the property/casualty insurance industry was already on the ropes with CO2 emissions lower. They’ve publicly admitted it! The following is a must-read article written by a key player in the worldwide insurance industry; frankly, a must-read for anybody concerned about the future: “Climate, Risk, Insurance: The Future of Capitalism,” March 25, 2025.

    Within only a couple weeks of that standalone earth-shattering article that lays out the climate change-global warming disaster scenario from a senior member of the property/casualty insurance industry, Arctic News published a startling notice on April 14, 2025, “Record High Increase in Carbon Dioxide,” CO2, the primary target of the now-infamous Paris 2015 climate agreement. Oops! All Paris ’15 bets are off, as CO2 increased by a thundering record-shattering 3.75 ppm, a rocket ship blastoff by historic standards, and the future likely higher yet:

    1960 +0.96 ppm

    1970 +1.13 ppm

    2000 +1.24 ppm

    2024 +3.75 ppm

    And that’s before the Trump administration turned the oil and gas spigot wide open along with a big push for coal as well as an ultra-ultra-massive rollback of environmental regulations, meaning the fossil fuel and chemical industries are deeply indebted to the administration for removing costly regulations that forced them to adhere to a clean environment!

    Additionally, according to a recent article in Science: “Trump Administration Fires Staff for Flagship U.S. Climate Assessment” (subtitle: Move Could Open Door to Using High-Profile Report to Attack Science), April 9, 2025. This is obviously devious to an extreme, possibly altering climate reports. But unfortunately the truth remains, as the insurance industry continues to raise rates and/or drop coverage because the reality of harmful climate change takes precedence over doctored reports.

    The 430 ppm CO2 Danger Zone

    Reality is inescapable: Of all the greenhouse gases, CO2 alone is responsible for 2/3rds of the warming effect by greenhouse gases. This is 100% a proven fact that was discovered by Exxon’s scientists years ago (“Exxon Scientists Predicted Global Warming with ‘Shocking Skill’,” Harvard Gazette, Jan. 12, 2023).

    Effective January 2025, CO2 registered 426.03 ppm versus 422.25 ppm in 2024. By way of comparison, in 1960 CO2 in the atmosphere was 316.00 ppm. And until advent of the industrial revolution mid 18th century, CO2 levels were below 300 ppm for ages.

    According to an IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report: “In 2016, a worldwide body of climate scientists said that a CO2 level of 430 ppm would push the world past its target for avoiding dangerous climate change.” (MIT Climate Portal)

    Acceleration of CO2 is getting to be downright spooky +200%-t0-300% since the start of the new century. It’s never increased at such a rapid pace throughout recorded history. According to current readings by Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii, CO2 exceeded 430 ppm for six days in a row in April 2025 and hit 430.51 on April 21. And the new year is still young. Clearly, CO2 emissions are out of control running roughshod over any pretense of climate change mitigation efforts by parties to the Paris ‘15 climate agreement (RIP?).

    Moreover, the U.S., one of the world’s major influencers of economic behavior and climate change, is pushing in the wrong direction, encouraging more CO2 emissions via increased production of oil and gas and coal while falsely claiming “climate change is a hoax.” This is an extreme position, bold-faced lie, not supported by facts, making Emperor Nero look like a lightweight. It’s the whole planet, stupid, not just Rome!

    Meanwhile, a casual Google search of four words: “climate change and insurance” reveals the startling truth, bringing up page after page after page filled with titles such as: “Climate Change is Driving an Insurance Crisis.”  Business gets it: “Property Values to Crater up to 60% Due to Climate Change,” Business Insider, August 9, 2024. Yes, the word “crisis” fills the pages. It’s a crisis! Crises end badly, but we’ve only just begun.

    According to the Arctic News’ article, it’s about to get much, much worse. But what’s worse than a crisis? A worsening crisis seems to be on the docket. As clearly stated, “Not only are concentrations of CO2 very high, but additionally, there has been an increase in total solar irradiance.” This is therefore the ole one-two punch to the gut as increased solar irradiance means more solar energy reaches the surface absorbed, ipso facto, increasing global temperatures as excessive levels of CO2 blanket and trap heat. This is a fatal formula for life on Earth, just ask sister planet Venus, 95% CO2 atmosphere, surface temperature 870°F, which melts lead.

    It should be noted that Arctic News has a reputation for taking the more extreme view of where climate change is headed, but it should also be noted that it” footnotes a lot of peer-reviewed climate science,” albeit taken to an extreme conclusion, which happens to be the prospect of an oncoming “extinction event” with climate change a wild stallion that can’t be tamed.

    It’s difficult to ignore heightened concern of the property/casualty insurance industry alongside Arctic News both publicly exposing a rapidly descending climate system that’s literally changing the landscape of property ownership, starting with coastal properties and working inland, as homeowners find insurance premiums, if available where they reside, squeezing throats, stated as such in the following quote from the insurance industry article included herein: “The insurance industry has historically managed these risks. But we are fast approaching temperature levels 1.5°C, 2°C, 3°C where insurers will no longer be able to offer coverage for many of these risks. The math breaks down: the premiums required exceed what people or companies can pay. This is already happening. Entire regions are becoming uninsurable. (See: “State Farm and Allstate exiting California’s home insurance market due to wildfire risk,” 2023).

    Already, the climate crisis that started on the West Coast is spreading fast: “The Home Insurance Crisis Hits the US Heartland,” Business Insider, April 6, 2025.

    It was only a couple of months ago when James Hansen (Columbia – Earth Institute) said 2C is dead: “Climate Change Target of 2C is ‘Dead’ says Renowned Climate Scientist,” Guardian, Feb. 4, 2025. If medals are ever awarded for correct calls, James Hansen, Ph.D. gets the gold medal for the following: “Global Warming Has Begun, Expert Tells Senate,” New York Times, June 24, 1988. He nailed it!

    The insurance article insinuation of “entire regions becoming uninsurable,” standing alone, should be enough motivation to turn the screws of climate change mitigation efforts to whatever level necessary at whatever costs! Who cares how much a Worldwide Marshall Plan to ‘hopefully’ control radical climate change costs? The alternative is unspeakable, and there’s little time to waste.

    Now that the insurance industry is feeling the wrath of numerous climate change warnings issued by Arctic News over many years, it may be a good idea to at least consider what the extreme publication has to say.

    Here’s the Arctic News’ summation of climate change:

    Climate Emergency Declaration

    The situation is dire and the precautionary principle calls for rapid, comprehensive and effective action to reduce the damage and to improve the situation, as described in this 2022 post, where needed in combination with a Climate Emergency Declaration, as discussed at this group.

    Climate Emergency in bold red letters is how Arctic News sees the current situation.

    As for the property/casualty insurance industry: “There is only one path forward: Prevent any further increase in atmospheric energy levels. That means keeping emissions out of the atmosphere.” So far, this solution is not even close to working as CO2 emissions are currently cranking up faster than ever before, knocking on the door of the 430 ppm danger zone, which is starting to look like a cake walk.

    You’re underinsured!

    The post Absurd (Scary) CO2 Emissions first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • EPA Torches Home Insurance Coverage

    The Trump administration’s EPA has put the home insurance industry, home mortgage industry, real estate industry, and individual homeownership on notice that the rules are changing against their best interests. Already, before these negativePreview (opens in a new tab) changes to EPA policy, radical climate change has forced insurance companies to eliminate home coverage in regions of America. (“Trump’s EPA Plans to Stop Collecting Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data From Most Polluters,” ProPublica, April 10, 2025)

    The Environmental Protection Agency has thrust a dagger into the heart of American homeownership, and the home insurance industry and the mortgage industry by throwing out accountability of greenhouse gases. The relationship between greenhouse gases and global heat/climate change is accepted by nearly 100% of climate scientists, including Exxon’s own in-house scientists, to wit: “The researchers report that Exxon scientists correctly dismissed the possibility of a coming ice age, accurately predicted that human-caused global warming would first be detectable in the year 2000, plus or minus five years, and reasonably estimated how much CO2 would lead to dangerous warming.” (“Research Shows That Company Modeled and Predicted Global Warming with ‘Shocking Skills and Accuracy’ Starting in the 1970s,” Harvard Gazette, Jan. 12, 2023.

    The single most important thing governments can do in today’s changing climate environment is to identify and monitor sources of greenhouse gases that cause radical climate change. The whole world is doing this to know how to mitigate the problem. But the EPA of the USA is tossing this out the window. (“Nobody’s Insurance Rates are Safe from Climate Change,” Yale Climate Connections, Jan. 14, 2025. “Home Insurance Problem is Set to Intensify,” Business Insider, Oct. 22, 2024. “More Americans, Risking Ruin, Drop Their Home Insurance, New York Times, Jan. 16, 2025.)

    The world insurance industry understands the problem: “Climate change is a source of financial risk, impacting the resilience of individual insurers as well as global financial stability. While insurers are exposed to both transition and physical risks through their underwriting and investment activities, they can also be key agents in identifying, mitigating and managing climate risk, thereby contributing to a sustainable transition to net-zero.” (International Association of Insurance Supervisors)

    Significantly, the EPA has effectively deleted the second sentence to that statement by the International Association of Insurance Supervisors. Namely: You cannot “identify, mitigate and manage climate risk” without knowing where it’s coming from. The EPA is removing that critical component, leaving insurance companies swinging from the branches, directionless.

    The Trump EPA is eye-gouging the home insurance industry and real estate market by changing national standards for collecting and reporting greenhouse gas emissions. This data is crucial to determination of national climate mitigation policies on a worldwide basis. Meanwhile, climate change has been identified by the home insurance industry as its most serious issue, as climate change transforms the American home insurance industry into a basket case that risks undermining the American real estate market down the tubes. Home mortgage companies stand to lose billions. As it stands, real estate is America’s biggest asset class, and it has now been hit hard by EPA rulings.

    No other country in the world has chosen to completely ignore climate change. To do so is a risk to every homeowner in America because climate change has turned into a monster that randomly destroys real property, forcing home insurance rates to the moon.

    And the outlook for climate change, according to state-of-the-art climate research, has turned grim, as follows.

    Is Earth Losing Resilience?

    Knowing/identifying the data behind climate change, which EPA is eliminating, has never more important to safeguard the planetary system. A major study by Johan Rockstrom of Potsdam Institute questions Earth’s resilience, as follows:

    “We have received enough concerning signals from the Earth system, forcing us to seriously ask the question, are we seeing the first signs of Earth losing resilience?”

    “The most recent estimates already point to implications of a weaker planet showing first signs of accelerated warming. The 1.5°C limit will be breached earlier, probably already before 2030. And the BIG question out there is what does all this mean for the risk of crossing tipping points in the Earth system? We already have evidence that multiple tipping elements are likely to cross their thresholds when 1.5°C is breached permanently. This places us in a very delicate situation, given that these tipping elements (Tropical Coral Reef systems, the Greenland Ice Sheet, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, abrupt thawing of permafrost, and collapse of the Barent sea ice) would not only affect billions of people, but comprise feedback systems, i.e., they can trigger permanent changes in the functioning of Earth, which would accelerate warming even further.”(Rockstrom)

    And the EPA wants to ignore greenhouse gases. This is the closest we’ll ever get to mimicking Nero fiddling while Rome burned.

    The post EPA Torches Home Insurance Coverage first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • When the Earth Heats Up: Zunaira Baloch and the Human Cost of Climate Change in Balochistan

    They say only bad news from Balochistan makes the headlines–Pakistan’s largest and most impoverished province marred in a decades long insurgency. The local newspapers are flooded with the news of people being killed in bomb blasts, target killings and the loss of lives in incidents of terrorism. However, amid this backdrop of turmoil, a problem that is just as terrible is subtly developing: climate change. Its perennial consequences are changing the lives of women and children, particularly in the remote and underprivileged parts of Balochistan.

    Noora Ali, 14, was oblivious to the temperature shifts because she had grown up in Turbat, a city around 180 kilometres Southwest of Gwadar, the center of CPEC( China-Pakistan Economic Corridor)–a bilateral project to would facilitate trade between China and Pakistan valued at $46 billion. There was frequent flooding during the monsoon season and blazing heatwaves during the summer, with temperatures rising above 51 centigrade. Compared to other cities in Balochistan, Turbat experiences horrible summers and typical winters. As a result, the majority of wealthy families in the city travel to Gwadar, Quetta, or Karachi during the sweltering summers and return to Turbat during the winters. The Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) moved Noora’s father, who works there, to the neighboring Coastal city of Gwadar in 2022.

    In February of 2022, the sea seemed calmed while boats of the fishermen busily dotted the waters of the Padi Zir (Gwadar’s West bay). It was a typical Thursday morning when rain started pouring down. The rain was so intense that the sea became wild. The roads were washed away, bridges collapsed, streets were inundated with flood water, and the port city became completely disconnected from the rest of the country. Back in Turbat, her ancestral hometown was also submerged under flood water.

    Noora had also heard from her schoolmates that Gwadar and Turbat had never experienced such heavy and intense rainfall before. She knew and felt that the temperature of her native city was rising and that Gwadar beneath flood water didn’t seem normal. “This is due to climate change,” her elder brother tells her. At the age of 14, most youth in Pakistan’s Balochistan have no idea what climate change and global warming are, but they are already feeling it impacts.

    Like Noora, thousands of children in South Asia, particularly Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, and Afghanistan are at the risk of climate related disasters, as per the UNICEF 2021 Children’s Climate Risk Index. The report further reiterates that children in these countries have vigorously been exposed to devastating air pollution and aggressive heatwaves, with 6 million children confronting implacable floods that lashed across these countries in the July of 2024.

    On November 11 and 22, 2024, over 20 youths urged the world leaders to come up with plans to mitigate the impacts of climate change on children at the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 29) held in Baku, Azerbaijan. Among those 20 resolute children was 14-years-old Zunaira Qayyum Baloch, representing the 241.5 million children and women of Pakistan.

    Dressed in her traditional Balochi attire, with a radiant smile and resolute in her commitment, Zunaira Qayyum Baloch has startled everyone. Hailing from the far-flung district of Hub in the Southwest of the Pakistan’s Balochistan, Mrs. Baloch went to represent the children of a country whose carbon footprint is next to zero, yet suffering some of the worst climate-related disasters. Her message to world leaders was clear: step up and combat climate-induced inequalities, particularly those affecting women and children.

    She had always remained conscious about the changing climate in her city, observing the floods of 2022 that had wrecked havoc in Hub Chowki, initiating awareness programmes and youth advocacy guide training in her home city to advocate for girls right to education and climate change.

    “After my father passed away, my mother became the sole breadwinner. She helped us get an education and met all our requirements,” Zunaira explains. “During the catastrophic rains of 2022, an incident changed my perspective on climate change. Rain water had accumulated in the roof of our home and streets were flooded with water. The destruction was so overwhelming, and I realised that such events were no longer rare but increasing constantly.”

    Zunaira Baloch basically hails from the Zehri town of the Khuzdar district. With her journey starting from the Zehri town of Balochistan, she became completely determined to make a difference–initiating awareness drives in her community and educating the people particularly children about climate resilience.

    During the COP29, she expressed her concerns with the experts about how Pakistan, particularly Balochistan has been detrimentally affected by climate disasters like frequent floods, heatwaves, hurricanes, and droughts. Lamenting that climate change was a child-rights crisis, she told the world how changes in the climate had jeopardised the lives of millions of women and children throughout the world.

    Asking the world leaders to join determined children like her to combat climate change, she addressed them in the COP29: “Climate change matters to me, and it should matter to you too.”

    Both Noora and Zunaira are children’s of a backward region of the world, grappling with the harrowing reality of climate change. Given that Noora represents those children unaware of the technicalities of climate change, Zunaira is a resolute hope for Balochistan, leading children like Noora to recognize and combat the stark reality of climate crisis.

    Stark Reality of the Past

    Bibi Dureen, 80, is a witness of how climate is continuously transforming. With wrinkles on her face and a pointed nose, she hails from the outskirts of the Kech district in a town called Nasirabad.

    “The seasons are changing,” she says, her voice laced with sorrow. “The heatwaves have become more aggressive and floods are common. It all started in 1998 in Turbat. Then in 2007, a devastating flood destroyed our homes, date palm trees, livestock–and worst of all, it took lives.” She pauses, her wrinkled hands trembling.

    As she talks to me in front of her thatched cottage, through which sunlight streams in, tears well up in her eyes as she recalls a haunting childhood memory. “I was a small child at that time. It was a pitch-black night and the rain was pouring down mercilessly when a man came shouting that the flood water had reached the fields.” She exclaims, “My mother, desperate to save what little we had, sent her only son, Habib, 16–our family’s only breadwinner–to find the only cow we had in the fields. Neither the cow nor Habib came back. Later some men found his dead body in the jungle.”

    In June 2007, when the Cyclone Yemyin hit the coast of Balochistan, it wrought unprecedented damage to the province, particularly Turbat, Pasni and Ormara. It rendered 50,000 homeless within 24 hours, including children. According to reports 800,000 were affected and 24 went missing.

    The 2022 floods had a devastating impact across Pakistan, Balochistan being one of the hardest-hit. The Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) reported that 528 children had died nationwide, 336 from Balochistan.

    Tragedy struck again in 2024 when torrential rains engulfed 32 districts of Balochistan, particularly the port city of Gwadar and Kech district. The PDMA put the death toll at 170, 55 of which were children.

    These statistics highlight how urgently appropriate plans and proper strategies for disaster preparedness and loss mitigation in Balochistan must be developed. While extreme weather events such as floods become more common, the need to fight climate change has never been greater.

    The Double Crisis Facing Girls: Heatwaves, period poverty

    Regions in Balochistan have seen severe heatwaves in the past few decades. In May 2017, the mercury rose to a record breaking 53.5 centigrade in Turbat, making the district the second hottest locale in 2017 after Mitribah, Kuwait. During heatwaves, cases of fainting and health-related illness among residents, particularly among children are common. According to a 2023 report by the Pakistan Meteorological Department, Balochistan has seen a 1.8°C rise in average temperature over the past three decades, leading to longer and harsher heatwaves.

    Dr Sammi Parvaz, a gynaecologist at the teaching hospital in Turbat, relates that rising temperatures in the district not only contribute to higher dropout rates among school-age girls, but their menstrual cycle is also affected.

    “According to the recent research of the National Institute of Health (NIH), menstruation … is severely affected in countries which are vulnerable to climate change and Pakistan is one them,” she explains. “The menstruation in girl children living in extreme heat, such as in Turbat and Karachi, becomes very intense, painful and with cramps.”

    Dr Sammi further elaborates that this phenomenon is linked to the increased release of cortisol and estrogen, the hormones which regulate the female reproductive cycle. “Girl children exposed to harsher environments such as severe heat or cold, experience hormonal imbalances leading to irregular periods and severe menstrual cramps. The hospitals in Turbat are frequented by patients suffering from intense cramps or irregular periods.”

    Hygiene becomes another pressing issue during floods, especially for young girls. Research published by the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health states that floodwater contains lead, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other chemicals which are cited as causes of irregular periods.

    Overcoming the stigma around periods is a daunting task, particularly in small towns in Balochistan where cultural norms and practices have a strong hold on communities. During floods, thousands of girls struggle with menstruation amid the disasters and lack of menstruation products. For instance, after the 2022 floods, 650,000 pregnant women and girls in Pakistan were without essential maternal care, with a significant proportion from Balochistan.

    Amid all this chaos, climate activists like Zunaira Qayyum Baloch helped raise awareness while women like Maryam Jamali work directly on the ground to ensure that every women has rations in her household and had access to feminine hygiene products during catastrophes.

    Madat Balochistan–a non-profit organisation–has supported 31,000+ people across 34 districts in Sindh and Balochistan. With its major work concentrated in and around Quetta, Dera Bugti, Jaffarabad, Jhal Magsi, Sohbatpur, and Khuzdar, the proudly women-led NGO prioritizes women and girls in its work because even on the frontlines, they are bearing most of the cost of climate change, according to its co-founder, Maryam Jamali.

    “Our conversations on climate change vulnerability often treat everyone as ‘equal’ in terms of impact, when that is far from the truth. Vulnerability is a multi-dimensional concept and in a country like Pakistan where most of the women and girls are pushed to the margins of society in every way possible–we cannot just overlook their struggles,” says Jamali.

    Take the 2022 floods, for example–the most recent catastrophes etched in our memories. Women and girls were responsible for most of the labour when it came to evacuating to safer places. As soon as they did, their needs when it came to menstruation or pregnancy care were completely ignored by aid agencies as they sent out packages or set up medical camps. Most of our work at Madat was compensating for things like this. We worked with midwives to ensure that women who could not stand in lines for ration received it regardless or women who did not want to interact with male doctors didn’t have to. In our housing projects, we prioritize women especially those who don’t have a patriarch in the household because that severely limits their access to resources for rehabilitation.

    Floods, heatwaves, and other natural calamities are gender-neutral. However, girls are more likely to be negatively affected. According to the UN Assistant Secretary-General Asako Okai, when disaster strikes, women and children are 14 times more likely to die than men. In Pakistan, 80% of people displaced by climate disasters are women and children, and the province of Balochistan is a stark reflection of this statistic.

    In patriarchal societies, women and girls are the primary caregivers of the family, and they are the only ones growing crops, doing household chores, and fetching firewood and water. With little or no potable water nearby, girls have to travel far to help their parents, making them vulnerable.

    These household responsibilities create an educational gap, and girls are taken out of schools in Balochistan during floods. With Pakistan’s lowest girl literacy rate at just 27 per cent , the International Rescue Committee (IRC) reported that the province of Sindh and Balochistan have seen greater educational disruptions due to heatwaves and floods, with the 2022 flood causing more educational institutions closure than the combined two year COVID-19 pandemic.

    With 47 percent of it’s child population out of school, extreme heatwaves and recurrent flooding in Balochistan have further compounded this absenteeism. For instance, the 2022 flood damaged or destroyed 7,439 schools in the province, affecting the education of over 386,600 students, 17,660 teachers, and staff members. Reports also mention that most of the government schools were used as flood shelters in the province. In the 2024 floods, 464 schools were again damaged.

    The destruction of educational infrastructure has forced many children out of school, contributing to the province’s high out-of-school rate.

    Monsoon Brides during floods

    Though floodwater is no longer accumulating in the Mulla Band Ward of Gwadar district in Balochistan, the damage it has wrought will stay with the people for a long time for many years. For 16-year-old Gul Naz–a pseudonym–the loss has been devastating.

    She was only 16 years when flood water entered their home in 2022. Her father, being a fisherman, struggled to make ends meet, as the sea was completely closed for fishing, cutting off the family’s only source of income.

    “I was in the Jannat Market and when I returned home, I was told by my mother that my marriage has been fixed to a man twice my age in exchange for money.” She discloses that her parents were given Rs.50,000 ($178.50) which is a whooping sum for a poor family who survive on around one dollar a day.

    “I have two kids now, and I am a child raising a child.”

    The sadness in Gul Naz’s voice is palpable, and she isn’t alone in her predicament. During floods and emergency situations, families in Balochistan resort to desperate means for survival. The first and most obvious way is to give their daughters away in marriage for financial relief–a practice that usually surges during monsoon season, earning the name monsoon brides.

    In Pakistan’s Sindh province this trend is more prevalent, with a spike in the number of monsoon brides during the last flash floods of 2022. In the Khan Mohammad Mallah Village, Dadu district, approximately 45 were married off in that year, according to an NGO Sujag Sansar which works to reduce child marriages in the region.

    Pakistan stands sixth in the world in marriages below age 18. While there has been a reduction in child marriages in Pakistan in recent years, UNICEF warns that extreme weather patterns put the girl children at risk.

    Madat Balochistan has also been in the forefront in reducing child marriages in Balochistan. “It’s not intuitive to think of girls’ education or loan relief or housing provision as measures to build climate change resilience, but in our contexts these are the very things that drive vulnerability to climate change,” says Maryam Jamali. “We have been working on supporting farmers with loan relief so that young girls aren’t married off to compensate for the financial burden of loans after a lost harvest. We are also working on initiatives for sustainable livelihoods for women as well as ensuring that young girls in all the communities we work in have access to education despite geographic or financial limitations.”

    Maryam Jamali thinks that gender inequality is one of the biggest aspects here which makes it absolutely necessary for a region like Balochistan, where physical vulnerability and socio-economic vulnerability is high, to have young girls at the decision-making table.

    “Activists like Zunaira can ensure that when we come up with solutions for climate change, we contextualize them through a gender lens and make sure that this does not become another instance of taking away women’s agency, but becomes an opportunity to involve them in climate change policy decision-making,” Maryam discloses. “ It is rewarding to see the girls we support do great things. One of our girls from Musakhel is studying at Cadet College Quetta, the first in her family to be able to pursue education beyond 8th grade.”

    The Way forward

    “Extreme weather can fuel conflict and be a threat multiplier,” says Advocate Siraj Gul, a lawyer at the Balochistan High Court, Quetta, citing the recent research published in the journal Alternatives: Global, Local, Political.

    Hailing from the Makran division , he stresses that the decades long running insurgency in Balochistan stems from human rights violations, inequality and government negligence. “Climate related catastrophes further destabilise the region’s development. For instance, there was a surge in the number of protests during the 2022 floods in Gwadar, Lasbela and Turbat, reflecting the deep frustration and despair of the people.”

    According to Mr. Gul, if children like Zunaira are given a platform to speak and work for Balochistan, they are not merely advocating for the environment; they are working for a more peaceful and tranquil region.

    In the impoverished regions of the world where climate change fuels droughts, flood and heatwaves, children are the ones to bear. Some are taken out of school, pushed into labor or given away in marriage but if empowered, can become advocates for change like Zunaira Qayyum Baloch. The world needs to provide climate resilient infrastructure and child-oriented disaster relief programs while the global leaders at COP30 had better ensure that climate-torn regions like Balochistan receive the technical and financial support they desperately need.

    The post When the Earth Heats Up: Zunaira Baloch and the Human Cost of Climate Change in Balochistan first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Our Stupid Species

    In short:  Our species was not “born” stupid, but started to become so late in our   history.  It then started on a downward course, and will “soon” go extinct.[1]

    We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster. This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled. We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis.[2]

    Preface

    January, 2025, was a busy month for me![3]  First, on January 6, I celebrated my 85th birthday—on what has come to be called Insurrection Day (because of the events of 2021 in support of Donald J. Trump).  Given that Trump supporters were trying to overthrow our government, I prefer to call it Treason Day!

    Second, during my appointment with my nephrologist, on January 15, we jointly decided that it was time for me to begin dialysis, and the plan was to start on Monday, January 27.  Third, on Sunday, January 26, I started to have some intestinal problems, and they became serious enough for my wife to call an ambulance on Tuesday, January 28, and I was taken to St. Luke’s hospital in Milwaukee; after a wait of about 10 hours (!) I was admitted, assigned a room, then another room.  Fourth, while in the hospital, my intestinal problem was treated, and I received three treatments of dialysis, the last one on Wednesday, February 5, after which I was discharged.  My wonderful wife (of almost 59 years!) has been caring for me since, and I had my first dialysis treatment at a clinic that Friday, February 7, my wife driving me there.  While in the hospital, I started creating this paper “in my head,” and when I arrived home on the 7th started writing a little bit each day since, when able to do so,.  I completed a first draft on February 10.

    *****

    Our species—Homo sapiens—appeared on the scene about 270,000 years ago, and for most of our existence since then we have been foragers:[4]

    The forager way of life is of major interest to anthropologists because dependence on wild food resources was the way humans acquired food for the vast stretch of human history.  Cross-cultural researchers focus on studying patterns across societies and try to answer questions such as:  What are recent hunter-gatherers generally like?  How do they differ from food producers?  How do hunter-gatherer societies vary and what may explain their variability?

    As our ancestors spread across the globe, they encountered environmental differences, and they adapted to those differences in what they ate (e. g., whether or not they ate aquatic life), whether or not they wore clothes or created shelters for themselves, etc.  But they retained certain similarities as well.  For example, the late anthropologist Colin Turnbull [1924 – 1994] wrote this in 1983:

    If we measure a culture’s worth by the longevity of its population, the sophistication of its technology, the material comforts it offers, then many primitive cultures have little to offer us, that is true.  But our study of the life cycle will show that in terms of a, conscious dedication to human relationships that are both affective and effective, the primitive is ahead of us all the way.  He is working at it at every stage of his life, from infancy to death, while playing just as much as while praying; whether at work or at home his life is governed by his conscious quest for social order.  Each individual learns this social consciousness as he grows up, and the lesson is constantly reinforced until the day he dies, and because of that social consciousness each individual is a person of worth and value and importance to society, also from the day of birth to the day of death.

    In other words, each individual was “born to be good,”  was “good natured,” born to live by the principle “love thy neighbor” (!)

    There’s also this interesting statement by the late anthropologist William E. H. Stanner [1905 – 1981][5] (p. 31) regarding the Aborigines in Australia:

    The Aborigines have no gods, just or unjust, to adjudicate the world.  Not even by straining can one see in such culture-heroes as Baiame and Darumulum the true hint of a Yahveh, jealous, omniscient, and omnipotent.  The ethical insights are dim and somewhat coarse in texture.  One can find in them little trace, say, of the inverted pride, the self-scrutiny, and the consciousness of favour and destiny which characterised the early Jews.  A glimpse, but no truly poignant sense, of moral dualism; no notion of grace or redemption; no whisper of inner peace and reconcilement; no problems of worldly life to be solved only by a consummation of history; no heaven of reward or hell of punishment.  The blackfellow’s after-life is but a shadowy replica of worldly-life, so none flee to inner sanctuary to escape the world.  There are no prophets, saints, or illuminati.  There is a concept of goodness, but it lacks true scruple.  Men can become ritually unclean, but may be cleansed by a simple mechanism.  There is a moral law but, as in the beginning, men are both good and bad, and no one is racked by the knowledge.

    Those of us USans[6] who were raised in Christianity may find it difficult to recognize that the concept of deity is not a universal one.  A fact that suggests that where that concept exists, it may have been invented there—or borrowed, with modifications, from a neighboring society.  With the concept functioning to explain why things exist and why they “behave” as they do.  We have been taught that things exist because a Being “out there” created them; it’s possible, however, is that we created god(s) rather than the other way around!

    Or, it may be that God exists, but is a monster!  How else explain the fact that this omniscient/omni-present Being was aware that the Nazis were killing millions of Jews, but failed to use His omnipotence to stop the slaughter?!

    *****

    We humans have been foragers for over 99% of our existence; it should not, therefore be surprising to learn that we became “designed”[7] for that way of life; so that it’s the way of life that’s natural for us.

    And of particular importance is the fact that we became designed for small-group living:[8]

    Many of our problems seem traceable to Homo sapiens being a small-group animal, most comfortable in collections of under 150 people or so, the so-called Dunbar’s number.[[9]]  It was proposed by anthropologist Robin Dunbar based on studies of primate brain size and group size. That’s roughly the maximum size of most hunter-gatherer groups, as it is today of typical groups of colleagues, lengths of Christmas card lists, and so on.

    From an empirical standpoint:

    The fact that small-group living has become uncommon helps explain many of our problems today—including the likelihood that we are now headed for extinction!

    A shattering collapse of civilisation is a “near certainty” in the next few decades due to humanity’s continuing destruction of the natural world that sustains all life on Earth, according to biologist Prof Paul Ehrlich.

    And what adds to that certainty is the recent election of the clueless Donald J. (“drill baby drill”) Trump as our President!!  (More on the threat of our extinction later.)

    *****

    Let me pause for a moment here to say that I wish that I could say that “I can see clearly now ….”  But when we are born into a society, we learn to see through the “lens” provided to us by that society; what I am trying to do here is see through that lens—which is very difficult to achieve!  I must continue with that effort here, though!

    *****

    Agriculture began to replace foraging in some groups about 12,000 years ago, and that was most certainly our “worst mistake” as humans!!   For the new sedentary way of living associated with a dependence on agriculture fostered a growth in a group’s population size, and that development created a situation in which individuals with a tendency to dominate others were now able to do so.

    While a group was still dependent on foraging it had developed means to control such behavior.

    On the basis of … observations, Christopher Boehm:

    proposed the theory that hunter-gatherers maintained equality through a practice that he labeled reverse dominance.  In a standard dominance hierarchy—as can be seen in all of our ape relatives (yes, even in bonobos)—-a few individuals dominate the many.  In a system of reverse dominance, however, the many act in unison to deflate the ego of anyone who tries, even in an incipient way, to dominate them.

    According to Boehm, hunter-gatherers are continuously vigilant to transgressions against the egalitarian ethos.  Someone who boasts, or fails to share, or in any way seems to think that he (or she, but usually it’s a he) is better than others is put in his place through teasing, which stops once the person stops the offensive behavior.  If teasing doesn’t work, the next step is shunning. The band acts as if the offending person doesn’t exist.  That almost always works.  Imagine what it is like to be completely ignored by the very people on whom your life depends.  No human being can live for long alone.  The person either comes around, or he moves away and joins another band, where he’d better shape up or the same thing will happen again.  In his 1999 book, Hierarchy in the Forest, Boehm presents very compelling evidence for his reverse dominance theory.

    As some in a group began to dominate/exploit the others, the eventual result was the formation of a social class system.  So that one became born into a social class.[10]

    It was within early Hebrew society that there seemingly first arose individuals who objected to what was occurring (that is, the creation of social class systems with their exploitation).  And a Tradition arose within early Hebrew society which began with Law creation, saw the rise of prophets (like Amos), and, finally,[11] the “ministry” of Jesus.[12]

    The basis of those objections seems to have been a remembrance-of-sorts of an earlier way of life, one for which we had become “designed” (or a subsequent one, such as nomadism).  As Warren Johnson has written:[13]

    The Biblical legend of the expulsion from the Garden of Eden seems clearly to describe the invention of agriculture.

    The reference to a Garden of Eden being spedifically to an earlier foraging way of life.  Our ancestors were not, however, expulsed from the Garden; their development of agriculture led “naturally” to their leaving it.[14]

    Although it was likely the abandonment of foraging for agriculture that somehow led to the early Hebrews objecting to the creation of social class systems during the Neolithic Revolution, the Tradition that developed as a result of that abandonment was misguided![15]  As Barrie Wilson notes,[16] the Torah—the Holy Book of the ancient Hebrews—“presupposes the view that people are decision makers and can choose their path in life.”

    What that assumption failed to recognize is that it was the societal system changes that occurred during the Neolithic Revolution that were responsible for the problems that began to arise during that Revolution.  So that—and given that we are designed for a way of life based on foraging—the solution to those problems (if there is one now!) is societal system change in a reversionary direction.[17]

    In a sense, the utopians over the centuries,[18] in recognizing a need for societal system change, sensed this.  But their writings are not notable for recognizing that we humans are a small-group animal.

    *****

    The societal system changes that have occurred since the Neolithic Revolution—described well by Eugene Linden in his Affuence and Discontent (1979)—have been in a downward direction; we have been headed for (p. 178) “apocalypse,” for extinction!  I next, then, present a case for such a conclusion.

    *****

    If “love of neighbor” should be the primary principle that guides our behaviors today—after all, that’s how we are “designed”!—then the Neolithic Revolution made following that principle difficult![19]  For the development of social class systems fostered the development of invidious thinking[20] (of both a qualitative and quantitative nature) which, first, served to perpetuate class systems.

    Second, invidious thinking is incompatible with the “love of neighbor” principle:  If one thinks of another as “below” one, it will be difficult to demonstrate any degree of love for that person.  It will, then, not be surprising if a high degree of inequality arises in one’s society.  With the wealthy establishing residential enclaves for themselves to enable “out of sight, out of mind” so far as the society’s “unfortunates” are concerned.

    Doing so is not only unfortunate—it’s STUPID!!  For there’s this:

    If you’re fortunate to be in reasonably good health, how should you live your life?  I believe there should be a quest behind the question, which is, you should do all you can to maintain your health to live a purposeful life and serve those less fortunate.  Instead of taking your health for granted, it can be an invaluable resource to support a loved one, a friend, a neighbor or your community.  Your efforts to maintain your health and willingness to help those in need become a model of compassion to serve a greater good in society, rather than for self-serving motives. Plus, helping others can improve your own well-being and sense of self-worth.

    Given that we humans are “born to be good,” we go against our nature when we fail to engage in helping behaviors.

    And this:

    Consider the positive feelings you experienced the last time when you did something good for someone else.  Perhaps it was the satisfaction of running an errand for your neighbor, or the sense of fulfillment from volunteering at a local organization, or the gratification from donating to a good cause.  Or perhaps it was the simple joy of having helped out a friend.  This “warm glow” of pro-sociality is thought to be one of the drivers of generous behavior in humans.  One reason behind the positive feelings associated with helping others is that being pro-social reinforces our sense of relatedness to others, thus helping us meet our most basic psychological needs.

    Research has found many examples of how doing good, in ways big or small, not only feels  good, but also does us good.  For instance, the well-being-boosting and depression-lowering benefits of volunteering have been repeatedly documented.  As has the sense of meaning and purpose that often accompanies altruistic behavior.  Even when it comes to money, spending it on others predicts increases in happiness compared to spending it on ourselves.  Moreover, there is now neural evidence from fMRI studies suggesting a link between generosity and happiness in the brain.  For example, donating money to charitable organizations activates the same (mesolimbic) regions of the brain that respond to monetary rewards or sex.  In fact, the mere intent and commitment to generosity can stimulate neural change and make people happier.

    Those facts, reported above, may make one ask:

    Why, then, isn’t loving behavior the norm in societies such as ours.

    My answer to that question is that when one is born and raised in a society—such as ours—in which competition[21] plays such an important role—for example, the Super Bowl today (February 9, 2025—one is virtually forced to “join the crowd” of those who engage in some competition for their very survival.

     *****

    A reason why it’s UTTERLY STUPID to engage in invidious thinking is that it fosters consumption behaviors—“conspicuous consumption,” in fact.  This was enabled especially since the Industrial Revolution, when technological developments enabled an expansion of production efforts.  The use of fossil fuels—coal first, then petroleum—for that production had the unintended effect of affecting the “operation” of Earth System—in the direction of making Earth increasingly unlivable for humans (along with other species[22]).

    Our burning of fossil fuels is causing global warming; and global warming, in turn, is having various consequences—all of them negative:

    Climate change [[23]] affects all regions around the world.  Polar ice shields are melting and the sea is rising.  In some regions, extreme weather events and rainfall are becoming more common while others are experiencing more extreme heat waves and droughts.  We need climate action now, or these impacts will only intensify.

    Climate change is a very serious threat, and its consequences impact many different aspects of our lives.  Below, you can find a list of climate change’s main consequences.  Click on the + signs for more information.

    A current consequence of extreme importance is the thawing of permafrost caused by the warming that we humans have caused:

    A thawing permafrost layer can lead to severe impacts on people and the environment.  For instance, as ice-filled permafrost thaws, it can turn into a muddy slurry that cannot support the weight of the soil and vegetation above it.  Infrastructure such as roads, buildings, and pipes could be damaged as permafrost thaws.4 Infrastructure damage and erosion, due in part to permafrost thaw, has already caused some communities in western and southern Alaska to have to relocate. Additionally, organic matter (like the remains of plants) currently frozen in the permafrost will start to decompose when the ground thaws, resulting in the emission of methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.  This contributes to further global climate change.1

    That latter fact—the decomposition of organic matter—is of particular importance for it causes further warming and global warming then “feeding on itself” and, then, being impossible to halt (“runaway”).  If that is now occurring, warming will continue until most of Earth’s permafrost thaws—and we will go extinct!!  The graph below shows global temperature change over the past 2,000 years:

    Note that since about 1850 the trend has been steeply upward!  There’s no reason to believe that that trend won’t continue—with our extinction “soon” being highly likely!  There are articles “out there” with titles such as these:

    “Humans may be extinct in 2026” (during the “reign”of Trump—which would be fitting!)

    “Will the human race go extinct by 2030?”

    “MIT Forecasts Civilization Will Fall By 2040” (but not necessarily go extinct).

    “Human civilization faces “existential risk” by 2050 according to new Australian climate change report”

    Etc.

    In 1984 (!) I published a strategy for bringing about societal system change, thereby possibly “saving” our species from extinction:  “Ecotopia:  A ‘Gerendipitous’ Scenario.” I lacked the financial means to act on that proposal; and although I have brought it to the attention of literally dozens of individuals and organizations, I’ve yet to receive a response from any of them!!  It’s as if most humans have a death wish (or drive)!!

    A more likely reason, however, is media failure to inform/educate the public about the threat posed by global warming.   That failure is at the height of STUPIDITY!   While also being understandable, though:  The commercial media are dependent on advertising for their existence, and advertisers want people to continue to consume—thereby causing continued production and, as a consequence, continued global warming!

    As one with three wonderful children and five fantastic grandchildren, my hope is that they all will have a future.  I find it virtually impossible, however, to have any degree of optimism regarding the human future!!

    Endnotes:

    [1]     Available upon request (from moc.liamgnull@5743nevs) are these two related papers of mine:  “Ten Reasons Why We are Doomed” and “A More Relevant Gaia Hypothesis.”

    [2]     “The 2024 state of the climate report:  Perilous times on planet Earth,” by William J. Ripple et al. [13 co-authors], 2020.  The authors of this report are more cautious than I would be.  I’m retired, so I cannot be terminated!   I should add that little of my life has been spent in academia, my most recent employer being an avionics company (27 years), from which I retired in 2014.

    [3]     Ph.D. in Urban Economic Geography, University of Cincinnati, 1970.

    [4]     The term “hunter-gatherer” is also used, but I avoid that term because it’s a male chauvinist term:  It suggests that hunting—typically done by males—was more important as a source of food than gathering—done typically by females.  Not true!

    [5]     Author of White Man Got No Dreaming (1979); also see this.

    [6]     A resident of the United States—whether or not a “citizen”!

     [7]     The late anthropologist Alan Barnard [1949 – 2022], Hunters and Gatherers:  What Can We Learn from Them (2020), p. 56.

    [8]     Also of relevance here is this article by the Ehrlichs; in it they state:  “Today’s view of normality is possible because everyday thinking about human history largely ignores its first 300,000 years and does not recognize how extremely abnormal the last few centuries have been, roughly just one-thousandth of the history of physically modern Homo sapiens.  Knowing how genetic and cultural evolution over millennia shaped us helps explain today’s human predicament, how hard that predicament is to deal with, and underlines how abnormal human life is in the twenty-first century.”

    [9]     See this on Dunbar’s number.

    [10]    At a later point in time (during the Commercial Revolution, which began in the 11th century?) one’s position in a society—although still influenced by one’s birth—became based on the wealth one was able to acquire.  Which helps explain Trump’s choice of Elon Musk as an advisor.  (Or did Gaia have a hand in this?!  See the second paper listed in note 1 above.)

    [11]    Christianity did not continue the ministry of Jesus!  And per the normative definition of “religion” given in James 1:27, doesn’t even qualify as a “religion”!  Because its focus (except for Quakerism, as one example) is on orthodoxy and rituals, rather than orthopraxy.

    [12]    See my What Are Churches For? (2011).

    [13]    Muddling Toward Frugality (2010), p. 43.  Here’s a discussion of Hebrew origins.

    [14]    Deuteronomy 26:5 says this about Hebrew origins:  “‘Then you shall declare before the Lord your God: ‘My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation, powerful and numerous.’”  And Morris S. Seale (The Desert Bible, 1974) notes the many desert references in the Bible—which suggests that the early Hebrews were nomads—and only earlier foragers.  Here’s an article on Hebrew history.

    [15]    This is not to say, though, that the ethics of Jesus are not as relevant today as they were 2,000 years ago!

    [16] How Jesus Became Christian (2008), p. 28.  I am puzzled by Wilson’s lack of reference to L. Michael White’s slightly earlier (2004), closely related, From Jesus to Christianity.

    [17]    The current Ecovillage Movement can be thought of this way.  Unfortunately, it has been too “weak” to accomplish much!

    [18]    There have AA many!  I used to own a copy of Henry Olerich’s [1851 – 1927] A Cityless and Countryless World (1893); on the inside of the end cover is a list of utopian literature, and it is a long one!

    [19]    But not impossible—as the life of the recently-deceased President Jimmy Carter [1924 – 2024] demonstrates!

    [20]    This sort of thinking played an important role in the writings of Wisconsin-born intellectual Thorstein Veblen [1857 – 1929].  In his classic The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), for example, “invidious” occurs 104 times!

    [21]    Rather than the cooperation advocated in this book.

    [22] “One million species at risk of extinction, UN report warns.”

    [23]    I dislike the use of that term for reasons that I give in my “The Los Angeles Fires ‘Climate Change’ the Cause?”  Available upon request; see note 1 above.

    The post Our Stupid Species first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • The Future of Sea Level Rise

    All of these changes, we can plot them and if we look exponentially, we see really catastrophic effects in the next few years, certainly in the next decade or two the world will be completely different… I think we’re at the last minute now.

    — Peter Wadhams

    PM Margaret Thatcher’s 1989 speech to the UN General Assembly made reference to Peter Wadhams, Head of Polar Ocean Physics, Cambridge as her British scientist on board a ship in the Arctic Ocean: “The lesson of these Polar processes is that an environmental or climatic change produced by man may take on a self-sustaining or ‘runaway’ quality and may be irreversible.”

    Sea level rise is a major threatening issue that’s directly impacted by Arctic sea ice in what PM Thatcher referred to as lessons to learn from “polar processes” that climate change produced by man may take on a self-sustaining or runaway quality and may be irreversible. PM Thatcher studied chemistry at Oxford University and practiced as a research chemist before becoming a politician. She had strong appreciation of science.

    The outlook for sea level rise has never been more pertinent and never so threatening. Global warming is running so far ahead of schedule, the dreaded +1.5°C pre-industrial already knocking on the door, as science consistently plays catchup, and sea level rise is one threat that may be on deck much sooner than anybody thought possible. There’s a risk that society gets blindsided by unanticipated sea level rise.

    For one of the best perspectives on future sea level rise, there’s no better source than the world’s leading polar scientist Peter Wadhams, professor emeritus, Ocean Physics, Cambridge University with over 50 “boots-on-the-ground” and submarine trips to the Arctic and author of A Farewell to Ice; A Report from the Arctic. Fortunately, a special interview of the professor is available via a former cinematic feature documentary and the admirable Extended Interview Series: The Future of Sea Level Rise.

    The following write-up is solely based upon the 45-minute interview of Dr. Wadhams:

    When he initially started researching the Arctic in the 1970s, the ice thickness on average was 6-7 meters (19-23 feet) and multi-years old. Whereas today nearly all the ice is 1-2 meters (3-6 feet) thick and less than one year old. It almost completely melts off every summer, and it is thinning even more. That’s a big change. It impacts the world climate system with a wallop that may be changing the face of the planet during only one human lifetime, a remarkable feat that speaks to the speed of human-caused anthropogenic climate change.

    The Arctic Barometer 

     The Arctic is warming more than any other part of the world, in part, because the troposphere at the Arctic is under 4 miles high versus 11-12 miles at the equator. The changes that affect the climate system of the world are found first in the Arctic. Then, these changes are seen later throughout the world. Of utmost importance, retreat of Arctic sea ice adversely impacts the world climate system and impacts sea level rise. There’s a maxim, what happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic.

    Impact of Loss of Arctic Sea Ice

     First and foremost, the rate of global warming itself is increased as sea ice disappears. When the icy white background is replaced by open water, this reduces the amount of solar radiation that’s reflected from the sun straight back to outer space. The dark background of open seas absorbs solar radiation that otherwise would have been reflected to outer space. The Arctic sea ice and Antarctica, the world’s largest reflectors, under normal conditions (now long gone) reflect 80% of solar radiation back to outer space.

    The acceleration of sea level rise: Until the 1980s science had no preconceived idea that the world’s two largest ice sheets Greenland and Antarctica were starting to melt in a serious manner. Now, the entire Greenland ice sheet is melting during summer months. This is a new event of recent decades, and it’s hugely threatening for sea level rise. In the past only small portions melted during the melt season, now it is the entire ice sheet. This is a knockoff impact of loss of Arctic sea ice. Indeed, Greenland is the major contributor to sea level rise. Unfortunately, there’s not much that can be done about it.

    Another major threat with loss of Arctic sea ice is exposure to huge amounts of methane -CH4- contained in sediments underneath the Arctic continental shelves. This is shallow water, and the threat is too big to ignore. Layers of permafrost currently prevent large methane outbreaks from the seabed. But now the permafrost is melting and starting to expose compounds called methane hydrates. Each year, more and more, bigger and bigger plumes of methane are erupting out of the formerly frozen seabed. Russian scientists working the region believe a huge pulse of methane could erupt, bringing +0.6°C additional warming throughout the world very suddenly, within a year or two. “This would be a catastrophically rapid rate of climate change.”

    Another major impact of loss of Arctic sea ice is pronounced changes in weather. The jet stream at altitude 30,000 feet is driven by westerly winds that separates the Arctic air masses from the tropical air masses. The jet stream slows down as the Arctic warms much faster than the rest of the world. As such, the temperature differential between the Arctic and the tropics decreases, in turn, slowing down the jet stream, which results in north-south lobes or big dips in the jet stream that can halt and remain stationary for extended periods of time. This is a very serious issue as the latitudes where the biggest weather changes impact are located in the same areas where crops are grown. This is a very serious threat to global food production.

    Time Scale and Consequences

    When the first climate change conference happened in 1992, known as Earth Summit which created the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, it was believed that society had many decades to take corrective mitigation measures. That has proven to be false. What was then feared to happen in many, many decades has arrived much sooner than expected. As for example, unprecedented rates of warming. CO2 emissions increasing faster than ever, adverse changes in weather impact, massive hurricanes, and rampant wildfires.

    The Exponential

    Moreover, it will only get worse because everything’s changing exponentially. As for example: “If you’re standing on an exponential curve, and you look behind at what’s happened in the past it’s all nice and flat, nothing much has gone on. So, you think well there hasn’t been that much warming effect so we don’t have to worry, but then when you look forward, you’ve got a steep cliff immediately ahead… this complacency or looking backward in the face of exponential change is something the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has been guilty of, e.g., their prediction of sea level rise underestimates the rate of sea level rise because it’s calculated in a linear fashion. And the IPCC doesn’t take a proper accounting of various impacts, for example, they don’t take proper accounting of Greenland’s melt.

    The IPCC shows sea level rise linearly, which implies society really doesn’t have to do much about sea level rise because it is rising linearly, but it is not. It’s rising exponentially as are other climate-related changes. Truth be known, “before very long we’ll see cities inundated and catastrophic flooding events, especially in low-lying coastal cities.”

    “All of these changes, we can plot them and if we look exponentially, we see really catastrophic effects in the next few years, certainly in the next decade or two the world will be completely different than it is now.”

    Regarding a proper understanding and full disclosure of climate threats to governments of the world, the issue has not necessarily been a failure of IPCC reports (Dr. Wadhams himself has participated in submissions) as much as an issue of the final IPCC reports classified as “intergovernmental,” meaning each governmental entity can make changes to suit their own needs. For example, there is no way oil producers will agree to exposing the true facts about the dangers of CO2 emissions. Therefore, what ends up happening with IPCC reports is actually “a betrayal of the human race because when it was initially set up it was meant to be a warning system reporting on the best science and what the problems are and what’s coming, but it stopped doing that job… it became a tool of national governments.” In that regard, politicians can’t handle the truth about the massive changes required of socio-economic systems, and they don’t want to spend the massive amounts of money necessary. Furthermore, in general, people fear, and don’t want to accept, the type of lifestyle changes necessary to combat climate change. Thus, “collectively” we are all at fault for the problems of climate change.

    Of course, “if we were an intelligent species,” we would recognize the necessity of converting to renewable energy, but we must do much more, e.g., removing CO2 from the atmosphere. Only reducing CO2 will not be fast enough on its own. What’s already up there needs to be removed as well, an enormous expensive challenge, and a very difficult task to execute. It is overwhelmingly big and expensive.

    Wadhams fears that public consciousness that could influence politics of what must be done to stop the consequences of global warming will only become a factor once the worst impacts become so obvious that it’s already too late.

    The only realistic solution going forward is a worldwide movement collectively to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, and that will cost a huge amount. It’s also worth looking at the impact food choice has on global warming. It is significant when eating meat versus eating vegetables, for example: If everybody stopped eating meat tomorrow, there would be an instant positive impact on global climate. This is the only item where individual human choice could have a big effect on climate change.

    As for the IPCC, it has a couple of black marks against it of concealing serious effects from the public. One in particular is Arctic methane in the seabed because based upon what’s happening, a massive increase in methane emissions could have instant powerful negative impact at any point in time. The IPCC downplays this. Yet, there’s a 50% chance this breaks loose and delivers a huge jolt of warming almost instantly This would be absolutely catastrophic. The IPCC does not include this risk properly in assessments.

    Also, IPCC sea level rise projections assume a “level” slow increase rather than an exponential increase, which is much, much steeper. This is a function of governments tampering with the IPCC reports and not wanting to face the music; this undue influence on the reports makes them appear way too conservative.

    Wadhams’ book Farewell to Ice was written not only to expose the most radical changes in the Arctic, within the context of our Holocene era, but the loss of sea ice has universal impact on so much more that embodies the climate system. None of the changes are beneficial for humanity. Today, the world is stuck with positive feedback, meaning acceleration of everything bad, not good. This makes it urgent that we start doing something to combat this asap.

    Today, society is failing to recognize the prospects of big adverse changes to the planetary system, but in a few years, we are going to think we are living on a different planet. For instance, the effects in the U.S. of the floods, fires, severe droughts, atmospheric river flash floods, the massive hurricanes are all going to be recurring every year and getting worse and worse every year.  There will be regions of the planet where people can’t live any longer. The changes will be so big that society won’t be able to ignore them anymore.

    The present consensus view of sea level rise is for at least one meter by the end of the century. But glaciologists that study Greenland and Antarctica, each time they do research, they find something new that’s shocking. The fear now is that it may be 2 meters or 6.5 feet by the end of the century. That’s a huge impact for coastal cities. This impact is not taken seriously enough. And 6.5 feet by end of century implies how much by 2035 and by 2050?

    Cities like Miami and New Orleans, unless they build extraordinarily strong seawalls, may have to be abandoned quite soon. Sea level rise is very serious, and it’s not something that’s easily reversed.

    If we do not start immediately with a full blown worldwide coordinated plan to mitigate and remove CO2 emissions, by 2050 everything will be disastrous. The world won’t be anything like it is today. We’ve got to start implementing solutions now so that when we get to 2050, we’re not seeing the horrific results of a collapsing society.

    We must do something major about reducing and removing carbon dioxide CO2 levels on an immediate basis.

    Alert: “Global warming has accelerated since 2010 by more than 50% over the 1970-2010 warming rate.” (James Hansen, Global Warming Has Accelerated: Are the United Nations and the Public Well-Informed? Earth Institute, Columbia University, Feb. 3, 2024)

    AND: “On millennial timescales, scientists have warned that consistent temperatures in excess of 2°C above pre-industrial levels result in a much greater risk of ‘locking in’ as much as 12 to 20 metres (39-66 feet) of sea level rise from Greenland and Antarctica.” (Cracks in Greenland Ice Sheet Growing More Rapidly, Durham University, Feb. 3, 2025)

    The post The Future of Sea Level Rise first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Marape calls US climate backtracking ‘irresponsible’ in rethink plea to Trump

    PNG Post-Courier

    In a fervent appeal to the global community, Prime Minister James Marape of Papua New Guinea has called on US President Donald Trump to “rethink” his decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and current global climate initiatives.

    Marape’s plea came during the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting held in Davos, Switzerland, on 23 January 2025.

    Expressing deep concern for the impacts of climate change on Papua New Guinea and other vulnerable Pacific Island nations, Marape highlighted the dire consequences these nations face due to rising sea levels and increasingly severe weather patterns.

    “The effects of climate change are not just theoretical for us; they have real, devastating impacts on our fragile economies and our way of life,” he said.

    The Prime Minister emphasised that while it was within President Trump’s prerogative to prioritise American interests, withdrawing the United States — the second-largest emitter of carbon dioxide– from the Paris Agreement without implementing measures to curtail coal power production was “totally irresponsible”, Marape said.

    “As a leader of a major forest and ocean nation in the Pacific region, I urge President Trump to reconsider his decision.”

    He went on to point out the contradiction in the US stance.

    US not closing coal plants
    “The United States is not shutting down any of its coal power plants yet has chosen to withdraw from critical climate efforts. This is fundamentally irresponsible.

    “The science regarding our warming planet is clear — it does not lie,” he said.

    Marape further articulated that as the “Leader of the Free World,” Trump had a moral obligation to engage with global climate issues.


    PNG Prime Minister James Marape’s plea to President Trump.  Video: PNGTV

    “It is morally wrong for President Trump to disregard the pressing challenges of climate change.

    He must articulate how he intends to address this critical issue,” he added, stressing that effective global leaders had a responsibility not only to their own nations but also to the planet as a whole.

    In a bid to advocate for small island nations that are bearing the brunt of climate impacts, PM Marape announced plans to bring this issue to the upcoming Pacific Islands Forum (PIF).

    He hopes to unify the voices of PIF member countries in a collective statement regarding the US withdrawal from climate negotiations.

    US revived Pacific relations
    “The United States has recently revitalised its relations with the Pacific. It is discouraging to see it retreating from climate discussions that significantly affect our region’s efforts to mitigate climate change,” he said.

    Prime Minister Marape reminded the international community that while larger nations might have the capacity to withstand extreme weather events such as typhoons, wildfires, and tornadoes, smaller nations like Papua New Guinea could not endure such impacts.

    “For us, every storm and rising tide represents a potential crisis. Big nations can afford to navigate these challenges, but for us, the stakes are incredibly high,” he said.

    Marape’s appeal underscores the urgent need for collaborative and sustained global action to combat climate change, particularly for nations like Papua New Guinea, which are disproportionately affected by environmental change.

    Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Vanuatu AG condemns Trump’s Paris climate treaty exit as ‘troubling precedent’

    By Harry Pearl of BenarNews

    Vanuatu’s top lawyer has called out the United States for “bad behavior” after newly inaugurated President Donald Trump withdrew the world’s biggest historic emitter of greenhouse gasses from the Paris Agreement for a second time.

    The Pacific nation’s Attorney-General Arnold Loughman, who led Vanuatu’s landmark International Court of Justice climate case at The Hague last month, said the withdrawal represented an “undeniable setback” for international action on global warming.

    “The Paris Agreement remains key to the world’s efforts to combat climate change and respond to its effects, and the participation of major economies like the US is crucial,” he told BenarNews in a statement.

    The withdrawal could also set a “troubling precedent” regarding the accountability of rich nations that are disproportionately responsible for global warming, said Loughman.

    “At the same time, the US’ bad behavior could inspire resolve on behalf of developed countries to act more responsibly to try and safeguard the international rule of law,” he said.

    “Ultimately, the whole world stands to lose if the international legal framework is allowed to erode.”

    20241202 Arnold Loughman Vanuatu ICJ.jpg
    Vanuatu’s Attorney-General Arnold Loughman at the International Court of Justice last month . . . “The whole world stands to lose if the international legal framework is allowed to erode.” Image: ICJ-CIJ

    Trump’s announcement on Monday came less than two weeks after scientists confirmed that 2024 was the hottest year on record and the first in which average temperatures exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

    Agreed to ‘pursue efforts’
    Under the Paris Agreement adopted in 2015, leaders agreed to “pursue efforts” to limit warming under the 1.5°C threshold or, failing that, keep rises “well below” 2°C  by the end of the century.

    Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka said on Wednesday in a brief comment that Trump’s action would “force us to rethink our position” but the US president must do “what is in the best interest of the United States of America”.

    Other Pacific leaders and the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) regional intergovernmental body have not responded to BenarNews requests for comment.

    The forum — comprising 18 Pacific states and territories — in its 2018 Boe Declaration said: “Climate change remains the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of the peoples of the Pacific and [we reaffirm] our commitment to progress the implementation of the Paris Agreement.”

    20250122 Rabuka Fiji Govt.jpg
    Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka speaks at the opening of the new Nabouwalu Water Treatment Plant this week . . . Trump’s action would “force us to rethink our position”. Image: Fiji govt

    Trump’s executive order sparked dismay and criticism in the Pacific, where the impacts of a warming planet are already being felt in the form of more intense storms and rising seas.

    Jacynta Fa’amau, regional Pacific campaigner with environmental group 350 Pacific, said the withdrawal would be a diplomatic setback for the US.

    “The climate crisis has for a long time now been our greatest security threat, especially to the Pacific,” she told BenarNews.

    A clear signal
    “This withdrawal from the agreement is a clear signal about how much the US values the survival of Pacific nations and all communities on the front lines.”

    New Zealand’s former Minister for Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio, said that if the US withdrew from its traditional leadership roles in multilateral organisations China would fill the gap.

    “Some people may not like how China plays its role,” wrote the former Labour MP on Facebook. “But when the great USA withdraws from these global organisations . . . it just means China can now go about providing global leadership.”

    Analysts and former White House advisers told BenarNews last year that climate change could be a potential “flashpoint” between Pacific nations and a second Trump administration at a time of heightened geopolitical competition with China.

    Trump’s announcement was not unexpected. During his first term he withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement, only for former President Joe Biden to promptly rejoin in 2021.

    The latest withdrawal puts the US, the world’s largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases, alongside only Iran, Libya and Yemen outside the climate pact.

    In his executive order, Trump said the US would immediately begin withdrawing from the Paris Agreement and from any other commitments made under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

    US also ending climate finance
    The US would also end its international climate finance programme to developing countries — a blow to small Pacific island states that already struggle to obtain funding for resilience and mitigation.

    20250120 trump inauguration WH screen grab.jpg
    Press releases by the Biden administration were removed from the White House website immediately after President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Image: White House website/Screen capture on Monday

    A fact sheet published by the Biden administration on November 17, which has now been removed from the White House website, said that US international climate finance reached more than US$11 billion in 2024.

    Loughman said the cessation of climate finance payments was particularly concerning for the Pacific region.

    “These funds are essential for building resilience and supporting adaptation strategies,” he said. “Losing this support could severely hinder ongoing and future projects aimed at protecting our vulnerable ecosystems and communities.”

    George Carter, deputy head of the Department of Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University and member of the COP29 Scientific Council, said at the centre of the Biden administration’s re-engagement with the South Pacific was a regional programme on climate adaptation.

    “While the majority of climate finance that flows through the Pacific comes from Australia, Japan, European Union, New Zealand — then the United States — the climate networks and knowledge production from the US to the Pacific are substantial,” he said.

    20241112 george carter COP29 sera sefeti.jpeg
    Sala George Carter (third from right) hosted a panel discussion at COP29 highlighting key challenges Indigenous communities face from climate change last November. Image: Sera Sefeti/BenarNews

    Climate actions plans
    Pacific island states, like all other signatories to the Paris Agreement, will this year be submitting Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs, outlining their climate action plans for the next five years.

    “All climate actions, policies and activities are conditional on international climate finance,” Carter said.

    Pacific island nations are being disproportionately affected by climate change despite contributing just 0.02 percent of global emissions, according to a UN report released last year.

    Low-lying islands are particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels and extreme weather events like cyclones, floods and marine heatwaves, which are projected to occur more frequently this century as a result of higher average global temperatures.

    On January 10, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) confirmed that last year for the first time the global mean temperature tipped over 1.5°C above the 1850-1900 average.

    WMO experts emphasised that a single year of more than 1.5°C does not mean that the world has failed to meet long-term temperature goals, which are measured over decades, but added that “leaders must act — now” to avert negative impacts.

    Harry Pearl is a BenarNews journalist. This article was first published by BenarNews and is republished at Asia Pacific Report with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Palau’s president invites Trump to visit Pacific to see climate crisis impacts

    By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific presenter/Bulletin editor

    Palau’s President Surangel Whipps Jr is inviting US President-elect Donald Trump to “visit the Pacific” to see firsthand the impacts of the climate crisis.

    Palau is set to host the largest annual Pacific leaders meeting in 2026, and the country’s leader Whipps told RNZ Pacific he would “love” Trump to be there.

    He said he might even take the American leader, who is often criticised as a climate change denier, snorkelling in Palau’s pristine waters.

    Whipps said he had seen the damage to the marine ecosystem.

    “I was out snorkelling on Sunday, and once again, it’s unfortunate, but we had another heat, very warm, warming of the oceans, so I saw a lot of bleached coral,” he said.

    “It’s sad to see that it’s happening more frequently and these are just impacts of what is happening around the world because of our addiction to fossil fuel.”

    Bleached corals in Palau.
    Bleached corals in Palau. Image: Dr Piera Biondi/Palau International Coral Reef Center/RNZ Pacific

    “I would very much like to bring [Trump] to Palau if he can. That would be a fantastic opportunity to take him snorkelling and see the impacts. See the islands that are disappearing because of sea level rise, see the taro swamps that are being invaded.”

    Americans experiencing the impacts
    Whipps said Americans were experiencing the impacts in states such as Florida and North Carolina.

    “I mean, that’s something that you need to experience. I mean, they’re experiencing [it] in Florida and North Carolina.

    “They just had major disasters recently and I think that’s the rallying call that we all need to take responsibility.”

    However, Trump is not necessarily known for his support of climate action. Instead, he has promised to “drill baby drill” to expand oil and gas production in the US.

    Palau International Coral Reef Center researcher Christina Muller-Karanasos said surveying of corals in Palau was underway after multiple reports of bleaching.

    She said the main cause of coral bleaching was climate change.

    “It’s upsetting. There were areas where there were quite a lot of bleaching.

    Most beautiful, pristine reef
    “The most beautiful and pristine reef and amount of fish and species of fish that I’ve ever seen. It’s so important for the health of the reef. The healthy reef also supports healthy fish populations, and that’s really important for Palau.”

    Bleached corals in Palau.
    Bleached corals in Palau. Image: Palau International Coral Reef Center/RNZ Pacific

    University of Hawai’i Manoa’s Dr Tarcisius Tara Kabutaulaka suspects Trump will focus on the Pacific, but for geopolitical gains.

    “It will be about the militarisation of the climate change issue that you are using climate change to build relationships so that you can ensure you do the counter China issue as well.”

    He believed Trump has made his position clear on the climate front.

    “He said, and I quote, ‘that it is one of the great scams of all time’. And so he is a climate crisis denier.”

    It is exactly the kind of comment President Whipps does not want to hear, especially from a leader of a country which Palau is close to — or from any nation.

    “We need the United States, we need China, and we need India and Russia to be the leaders to make sure that we put things on track,” he said.

    Bleached corals in Palau.
    Bleached corals in Palau. Image: Palau International Coral Reef Center/RNZ Pacific

    For the Pacific, the climate crisis is the biggest existential and security threat.

    Leaders like Whipps are considering drastic measures, including the nuclear energy option.

    “We’ve got to look at alternatives, and one of those is nuclear energy. It’s clean, it’s carbon free,” he told RNZ Pacific.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Emergency Summit re Antarctic Meltdown

    “Runaway ice loss causing rapid and catastrophic sea level rise is possible within our lifetimes.” (Source: “Our Science, Your Future: Next Generation of Antarctic Scientists Call for Collaborative Action,” Australian Antarctic Research Conference, November 22, 2024)

    Hundreds of scientists gathered in Australia for an “emergency summit” within the auspices of the inaugural Australian Antarctic Research Conference d/d November 2024. This gathering of 450 mostly “early-career” polar scientists flexed scientific muscles to alert the world to the what’s happening to our planet, taking off the gloves and coming out swinging. They claim we’re got a bigger problem than generally realized: “Efforts to slow down climate change through coordinated global action are paramount to protect the future of Australia, Antarctica, and our planet,” Ibid.

    “The experts’ conclusion, published as a press statement, is a somber one: if we don’t act, and quickly, the melting of Antarctica ice could cause catastrophic sea levels rise around the globe.” (Source: Emergency Meeting Reveals the Alarming Extent of Antarctica’s Ice Loss, Earth.com, Nov. 24, 2024)

    According to the polar scientists: “The services of the Southern Ocean and Antarctica — oceanic carbon sink and planetary air-conditioner — have been taken for granted. Global warming-induced shifts observed in the region are immense. Recent research has shown record-low sea ice, extreme heatwaves exceeding 40°C (72°F) above average temperatures, and increased instability around key ice shelves. Shifting ecosystems on land and at sea underscore this sensitive region’s rapid and unprecedented transformations. Runaway ice loss causing rapid and catastrophic sea-level rise is possible within our lifetimes. Whether such irreversible tipping points have already passed is unknown.” (Our Science, Your Future)

    The scientists are calling for society to set immediate targets to “bend the carbon curve.” Failure to do so will commit generations to unpredictable, unstoppable sea level rise, likely beyond current expectations. Drastic action is necessary before it’s too late, calling for immediate reduction of emissions, CO2.

    Coastline Megacities at Risk

     However, reducing emissions is likely impossible unless and until major governmental authorities force the issue. Voluntary commitments to cut GHG (greenhouse gases) have not worked for over 30 years. Pledges by more than 150 nations to voluntarily cut emissions at the celebrated Paris 2015 UN climate meeting have flopped like a house of cards.

    Meanwhile, residents of vulnerable coastal cities may need to consider forcing the issue by forming Citizen Action Flood Prevention Committees to pressure local, state, and federal officials to take immediate measures to protect valuable real estate that’s subject to turning worthless. These committees could be supported by petitions signed by residents, demanding political action to take mitigation measures to protect their coastlines. For example, would nearly 100% of the residents of Miami Beach sign, maybe. And, how about residents of Jersey City? Maybe yes. And onward….

    According to Earth.org, coastal megacities are at serious risk, e.g., Bangkok, Amsterdam, Ho Chi Minh City, Cardiff (UK), New Orleans, Manila, London, Shenzhen, Hamburg, and Dubai as well as megacities Miami and New York City. Many Florida and East Coast cities are high risk, e.g., Ft. Lauderdale, Norfolk, Hampton, Charleston, Cambridge, Jersey City, Chesapeake, Boston, Tampa, Palm Beach. It’s a long list.

    Unless and until citizen committees authorized by locals with demands en masse are presented to and accepted by local, state, and national policymakers and acted upon, according to a highly regarded analysis by The Universal Ecological Fund, working with climate scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, The Truth Behind the Climate Pledges:  “An environmental and economic disaster from human-induced climate change is on the horizon. An analysis of current commitments to reduce emissions between 2020 and 2030 shows that almost 75 percent of the climate pledges are partially or totally insufficient to contribute to reducing GHG emissions by 50 percent by 2030, and some of these pledges are unlikely to be achieved.”

    Moreover, the situation at hand is double trouble as the oil and gas industry has already committed to rapid expansion of fossil fuels at the same time as major corporations are turning up their noses at prior commitments. Climate change has lost its cachet at the worst possible moment: “In February 2024, three major investment companies stepped back from efforts to limit climate-damaging emissions. JPMorgan Chase’s and State Street’s investment arms have both quit a global investor alliance encouraging companies to avoid emissions, and BlackRock has largely limited its involvement. These companies aren’t the only ones backing out on climate agreements. In 2023, Amazon dropped an effort to zero out emissions of half its shipments by 2030, BP scaled back on its plan to reduce emissions by 35 percent by the end of 2030 and Shell Oil dropped an initiative to build a pipeline of carbon credits and other carbon-absorbing projects. Hundreds of companies across the world are backtracking on commitments toward green policies, despite growing concerns that the planet is reaching a crisis point.” (Source: “Why Are Companies Reneging On Emissions Reduction?” Earth Talk, April 11, 2024)

    Recent headlines tell the story: “Top Companies Exaggerating Their progress” (BBC) “When Companies Reverse Their Climate Commitments” (Yale Insights) Net Zero “Promises from Major Corporations Fall Short” (NBC News) “Oil Companies Are Still Committed to Burn the Planet Down” (Jacobin). A comprehensive list of reneging corporate interests is astonishing.

    Making matters more challenging yet, the polar scientists are severely compromised by politics, to wit: “Far-right parties opposing climate action are gaining significant momentum worldwide, especially in Western nations including Argentina, Italy, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK. It is particularly noteworthy that despite their differing domestic agendas, these parties are unified in their resistance to climate initiatives.” (Source: “The Betrayal: Why the Far Right Abandoned Action on Climate Change,” Oxford Political Review, 18 June 2024)

    “The contemporary far-right’s turn against the environment is a major break from the past. During the 1980s, traditional conservatives, like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, showed an interest in addressing environmental issues,” Ibid.

    The World at a Crossroads

    Which will it be? The choice is crystal clear. There are two and only two: (1) Fight dangerous climate change by stopping fossil fuel CO2 emissions now, or (2) Bale-out flooded megacities down the road?

    Based upon data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 6th Assessment and multiple lines of evidence, current and future emissions will determine the amount of additional sea level rise: the greater the emissions, the greater the warming, and the greater the likelihood of higher sea levels. Based upon emissions to date, two feet of sea level rise will likely occur along the U.S. coastline between 2020 and 2100. That’s already baked into the cake. Failing to curb future emissions could add an additional 1.5 to 5 feet of rise, for a total of 3.5 to 7 feet. (Source: U.S. Sea Level Change, USGS Technical Report, 2022)

    The USGS 2022 Technical Report, as outlined in the preceding paragraph, is now choking on the dust of two-years of the hottest 24 months on record, smashing all records with 2023 +1.48C hotter and January-September 2024 +1.54C above the pre-industrial average. A USGS technical update today would almost certainly add to sea level rise projections. Thus, prompting an obvious concern: Is global warming already getting out of hand?

    Which way will society turn: (1) stop fossil fuel emissions now, or (2) bale-out flooded megacities later? And would that even be possible?

    450 polar scientists are not scaremongers. They’re professionals that are deadly serious. We’ve got a much bigger problem than generally realized.

    The post Emergency Summit re Antarctic Meltdown first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Doubling Down on “Too Much Heat”

    A recent Arctic News headline on October 4, 2024 refers to one of the most significant climate-related studies this year. It describes in detail the worldwide all-encompassing danger of loss of sea ice: “Double Blue Ocean Event, 2025”? It demands attention. 

    A casual reading of climate change literature reveals several mentions of ecosystem impairment or collapse of one sort or another occurring in various timeframes this century. In that context, nothing quite compares to a Double Blue Ocean Event. This event, should it occur, changes everything. It has the potential to be the “holocaust of climate change” with uncontrollable self-propelled rapid global temperature rise damaging or completely destroying ecosystems supportive of life. Already, there’s palpable early-stage evidence this has started, for example, in the Amazon rainforest.

    Double Blue Ocean Event 2025? is a lengthy science-based essay of the mechanics and sources and implications of a Double Blue Ocean Event occurring as early as this decade. But, like all climate events, nothing’s certain until it happens. The climate can be fickle. Hopefully, this one doesn’t, but it’s not looking good.

    A Double Blue Ocean Event occurs when the sea ice of both Antarctica and the Arctic virtually disappears with sea ice minimum extent (a summer seasonal event) falling below one million km², which is classified as a “blue ocean event.” According to the Danish Meteorological Institute, as of September 2024, Arctic sea ice minimum extent was 4.28 million km². The referenced Arctic News’ study believes several factors have aligned that could speed up loss of sea ice extent rapidly, within a few years.

    For another viewpoint, the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free in summer by the 2030s, even if we do a good job of reducing emissions between now and then. That’s the conclusion of a recent peer-reviewed study in Nature Communications.

    Of course, none of this would be happening without excessive amounts of CO2 from burning fossil fuels, resulting in human thrusters, i.e., greenhouse gases like CO2, impacting climate change/global warming >10 times faster than nature’s true course. This is well-established fact.

    Along with the Arctic, Antarctica is expected to reach an equivalent sea ice minimum extent as early as February 2025. In fact, Antarctic sea ice minimum extent has been well below 2.0 million km² for each of the past three years. It is within striking distance of a blue ocean event.

    The worldwide impact of low global sea ice extent drives up global temperatures in multiple ways well beyond current experience. This involves seven (7) mechanisms that cause global surface temperature to rise, in turn, accelerating decline of sea ice extent as the pattern self-perpetuates, faster and faster, bigger and bigger, feeding upon itself. Each of the seven mechanisms relates to profound changes in (1) snow and ice cover (2) wind patterns and (3) ocean currents.

    According to Arctic News: “Low global sea ice is driving up global temperatures at the moment in multiple ways. Global sea ice extent is now several million km² lower than it was decades ago, i.e., more than 2.5 million km² lower than the 2010’s average extent and more than 5 million km² lower than the 1980’s average extent.” As a result, global ice cover no longer absorbs nor reflects solar radiation efficiently enough to prevent rapid, excessive global warming. This ageless ice cushion that’s as old as humankind is now departing the timeless equation of keeping Earth in balance. It is nearly gone, forever gone.

    According to Arctic News, today’s sea ice extent dictates a call to arms, aka: “Climate Emergency Declaration” today, not tomorrow, but today.

    The evidence that low global sea ice is already impacting the climate system is found in NASA data, as of September 2024, showing global temperature more than 1.5°C above a baseline 1903-1924 consecutively for 15 months; however, when compared to the real (much older) pre-industrial base, it is higher yet. This exceeds everything the nations of the world agreed to at the Paris 2015 climate conference, and surprise, surprise, happening within only one decade of their ill-kept promise to limit CO2 emissions so as not to exceed +1.5°C pre-industrial. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC: “Exceeding 1.5°C could trigger irreversible climate tipping points, such as (1) collapse of tropical coral reefs (2) thawing permafrost, and (3) breakdown of ocean circulation systems.” All three have respectively started collapsing, thawing, and breaking down:

    1. Coral Reefs Could Pass Their Point of No Return This Decade, GermanWatch, February 16, 2023
    2. Arctic Permafrost is Now a Net Source of Major Greenhouse Gases, NewScientist, April 12, 2024.
    3. A Crucial System of Ocean Currents is Heading for a Collapse That ‘Would Affect Every Person on the Planet’, CNN, July 26, 2023

    The most obvious mechanism influencing, and measuring global temperature is the growing energy imbalance or the difference between what Earth absorbs and what Earth reflects of incoming solar radiation to outer space (Problem #1, the Blue Ocean Event eliminates the planet’s biggest reflector). A decade ago (2010s) the energy imbalance was +0.81 W/m2  (watts per square meter). Today it is +1.23 W/m2 That’s a whopping +52% increase in a geological wink of the eye. It’s an earth-shattering increase, spelling trouble, in all-caps. Clearly, the planet’s energy imbalance is skyrocketing, out of control, absorbing way too much heat way too fast. Humanity’s just asking for trouble.

    Here’s what the Arctic News article has to say about the severity of the energy imbalance: “It’s obvious that political action can and must improve Earth’s Energy Imbalance, which can and must be achieved by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and further action through transitions in energy use, agriculture, transport, etc.”

    “The IPCC has for many years weaved and twisted findings by scientists into a political narrative that downplays the temperature rise and refuses to point at the most effective measures to be taken to act on climate change in an effort to create the illusion that there was a carbon budget to be divided among polluters as if pollution could continue for decades to come.” (Arctic News)

    Worldwide Ice Loss: A Gargantuan Planetary Tipping Point

    The Arctic News article postulates that civilization, as we know it, is skating on thin ice as a result of the hidden impact and consequences of worldwide ice loss via (1) Arctic sea ice loss (2) permafrost loss in Siberia and North America (3) loss of Antarctica sea ice (4) loss of snow and ice on Greenland (5) loss of mountaintop glaciers like the Tibetan Plateau (6) Patagonian Ice Fields (7) Andes Mountains, and (8) the famous Alps; all tipping points when combined become a gargantuan juggernaut of planetary change no longer serving as a cushion preventing runaway planetary heat. It’s serious business, cannot be ignored, requiring immediate cuts in CO2 emissions… or else?

    In the simplest of terms, massive loss of world ice extent, as well as glaciers, is comparable to shutting off the air conditioning of a Phoenix, Arizona apartment complex on a hot summer 115°F day, midday. In the instance of ice loss: Solar radiation is no longer absorbed, neutralized by ice nor reflected to outer space. Thereafter, heat suddenly overwhelms and hangs out in the apartment complex (proxy for the planet). Consequently, record 2024 temperatures of +1.5°C above preindustrial look mild by comparison, as compromised ecosystems, like the Amazon rainforest, lose it.

    According to Arctic News: A huge temperature rise could occur soon, as the impact of these mechanisms keeps growing with latent heat tipping points triggered by the Double Blue Ocean Event subsequently triggering a massive seafloor methane tipping point, feeding into a frenzied hot house Earth. Early warning signs of this are prevalent.

    “The situation is dire and the precautionary principle calls for rapid, comprehensive and effective action to reduce the damage and to improve the situation, as described in this 2022 post, where needed, in combination with a Climate Emergency Declaration, as discussed at this group.” (Arctic News)

    All of which recalls philosopher-economist Kohei Saito (University of Tokyo) Capital in the Anthropocene, Shueisha Publishing, 2020: “Capitalism and a healthy planet are intrinsically at odds.” (Source: “A Carbon-free World Isn’t Possible with Capitalism,” Broadview, March 14, 2024)

    What to do?

    And there’s this: 10/28/2024: “A new report reveals the profound consequences of rising temperatures on both the environment and human health. The ‘10 New Insights In Climate Science’ highlight how surging global temperatures are not only threatening the stability of oceans and pushing the Amazon rainforest towards collapse, but also endangering maternal and reproductive health for future generations. The annual synthesis report has been launched by a consortium of more than 80 global experts from the social and natural sciences, including researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).” (Source: “10 New Insights in Climate Science 2024: Heat Surges Risk Ecosystem Collapse,” Potsdam Institute For Climate Impact Research, October 28, 2024)

    The study of surging global temperatures making the planet increasingly uninhabitable by the prestigious Potsdam Institute confirms the overriding thesis of the Arctic News’ study and clearly reinforces a call for immediate steps to halt excessive amounts of greenhouse gases, like CO2.

    The post Doubling Down on “Too Much Heat” first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Climate Scientists and Environmental Groups Alarmed Over New UN Climate Report

    The world’s nations must commit to dramatically slashing greenhouse gas emissions in the near future or risk a “catastrophic” rise in global average temperatures, a key United Nations climate report published Thursday warned. “It is still technically possible to meet the 1.5°C goal” set out in the Paris agreement, “but only with a G20-led massive global mobilization to cut all greenhouse gas…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Amazon Death Rattle

    The Amazon rainforest is in deep trouble. Labeling it a “crisis”, however, seems too hackneyed and not descriptive enough because the devastation is beyond description.

    The magnificent rainforest is morphing into a tinder box that’s trapped in the worst drought of all time. According to MapBiomas, an all-time record amount of land is charred and smoldering as 180,000 fires this year, over 50,000 current, light up Brazil, potentially threatening major cities Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

    An estimated 20% of the Brasilia National Forest burned just last week.” (ABC News, 9/10/2024)

    What’s happening in the Amazon may strike people as routine fires that news outlets have been covering for years. Nothing could be further from the truth. Historically, there’s nothing routine about this. Today’s fires are an unnerving example of a trend that is unique to modern-day society. Historically, over millennia, the Amazon rainforest did not experience massive take-down wildfires that incinerated all life forms.

    “The Amazon evolved for millions of years without fire… its plants and animals lack the necessary adaptation….” (Source: Amazon Rainforest Fires: Everything You Need to Know, College of Natural Resources, North Carolina State University, September 23, 2019)

    Making matters far-far worse than any previous fires and a chilling new development: “Almost half of the fires in the Amazon burned pristine forests, according to data from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research. That is far from typical. It means fighting deforestation in the Amazon is no longer enough to stop fires. This matters because it shows that the fire-control practices in some of the world’s most biodiverse places are not working. And that threatens myriad forms of life, including us.” (Source: “The Fires That Could Reshape the Amazon”, The New York Times, September 17, 2024)

    From Canada to Siberia to Brazil the world is on fire. When forests burn, they emit CO2. Therefore, wildfires convert carbon-sequestering trees into CO2 belching monsters in competition with gas-powered automobiles. This is global warming feeding on itself.

    As a result, forest fires are getting worse. Burned-out forests in 2023 topped all previous years by a record-smashing +24%. “The latest data on forest fires confirms what we’ve long feared: Forest fires are becoming more widespread, burning at least twice as much tree cover today as they did two decades ago.” (Source: The Latest Data Confirm Forests Fires Are Getting Worse, World Resources Institute, August 13, 2024)

    Global warming has turned lethal. In Brazil, a drought that began last year has become the worst on record, according to national disaster monitoring agency Cemaden. “In general, the 2023-2024 drought is the most intense, long-lasting in some regions and extensive in recent history, at least in the data since 1950,” according to Ana Paula Cunha, a drought researcher with Cemaden. (Source: South America Surpasses Record for Fires, Reuters, September 13, 2024)

    According to Rachael Garrett, Professor of Conservation/University of Cambridge: “Deforestation of the Amazon has led to a reduction in rainfall in Brazil, throwing the ecosystem off balance and causing a loop of drought and devastating wildfires now impacted by the worst drought in memory.” (Source: Brazil Experiencing Record-Breaking Wildfires as Persistent Drought Affects the Amazon Rainforest, ABC News, September 14, 2024)

    Global warming has become more than the mighty Amazon can handle, turning charcoal black, smothering smoke. This one-and-only world gem directly influences global hydrology from the cornfields of Iowa to the crest of the Tibetan Plateau 15,000 km away; it is literally at the heartbeat of the planet and suffering, in early stages of a massive die-off. Loss of the rainforest will bring a different world, a foreign world that nobody wants to recognize.

    “According to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE), there were over 65,000 fire hotspots by the end of August 2024—the highest number for this period since 2005.” (Source: 2024 Marks the Worst Year for Amazon Fires Since 2005, Rainforest Foundation, 2024) Worse yet, of the fire hotspots, over 38,000 were recorded in August alone, an increase of 120% compared to the same month last year with 17,373 fire hotspots.

    Since time immemorial, healthy rainforests don’t burn. Fires in healthy forests do not turn catastrophic. They remain low intensity and stay close to the ground, removing debris, small trees, and woody shrubs in the understory. The Amazon rainforest, when healthy, is shrouded by misty fog in a warm climate with lots of rain, up to 260 inches per year. But global warming has taken that description away. Recurring droughts are killing the rainforest, setting the stage for massive wildfires. NASA claims droughts come so frequently that large regions of the rainforest no longer recover. This is not normal. In a word, it is frightening.

    A high-end collaboration of 80 scientists claims trees in western and southern Amazon face serious risk of dying because of global warming-induced droughts. (Source: Amazon – How Will it Cope with Drought? University of Leeds, April 26, 2023)

    “Wildfires in the Amazon are choking swaths of Brazil, Bolivia, and Ecuador with smoke leading to evacuations, school closures, canceled flights and a dire threat to plant and animal life in the region… An estimated 20% of the Brasilia National Forest burned just last week.” (Source: ‘Out of Control’ Fires Ravage the Amazon Region, ABC News, September 10, 2024) This is so far beyond normal that it doesn’t even compute.

    “The fires in California or the fires in Europe, those aren’t the same as the fires in South America. There’s an enormous difference — the loss of biodiversity,’ says Guillermo Villalobos, a political scientist focusing on climate science at Bolivian nonprofit Fundación Solon. ‘Forests like the Amazon are historically tropical forests, meaning they’ve never burned, they’ve never coexisted with the fire. This is terribly tragic for the ecosystem and the world. The Amazon is in its worst state of the last 50 years.” (Ibid.)

    The statement “tropical forests never burned” tells a horrific tale that is impossible to ignore. Human activity has lit a devasting scorching change to nature that’s sparked by the advent of CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels, which causes excessive global warming, which is crushing the Amazon rainforest with recurring droughts that NASA says repeat so often that the once-mighty forest no longer recovers, no longer regrows. If fossil fuel emissions continue at current rates, the rainforest is destined to die. And the world will change like the remaking of a Hollywood science fiction film.

    Science fiction writers have written stories about dying planets, like Dune, where inhabitants of the planet Arrakis wear “stillsuits” that recycle body moisture. Interestingly, Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel was one of the first to take environmental concerns seriously and became a rallying point for the environmental movement of the late 1960s and 70s.

    Now, fifty years later, fiction like Dune turns real right before our eyes. But where’s an environmental movement as strong, as effective, as pro-active as the 1960s and 70s on progressive legislation protecting the environment? It’s disappeared.

    Alas, in the face of raging forests fires around the world, we’re going backwards on environmental protections, for example, the Supreme Court is stripping environmental legislation of the 1960s-70s: “The Supreme Court is effectively axing a major component of the Clean Water Act, rolling back 50 years of wetland protection in a declaration of war against nature by changing a word in the text of the Clean Water Act. Seldom, if ever, will repercussions of a Supreme Court decision be so far-reaching and detrimental to life for the planet. It’s a dagger strike deep into the heart of the world’s most significant life source. Justice Samuel Alito “changing the text of the Clean Water Act” is guaranteed to bring forth much, much worse flooding, especially along coastlines as sea levels rise from global warming; it’ll engender new sources of pollution of streams and lakes and bring on huge losses in biodiversity and crush the beauty of nature displaced by concrete, asphalt and development. Most importantly, aquifers depend upon wetlands for replenishment.” (Source: Supremes Declare War on Wetlands, May 29, 2023)

    According to the Sierra Club: “The Supreme Court’s decision will open millions of acres of wetlands—all formerly protected by the Clean Water Act—to pollution and destruction.”

    Even Justice Brett Kavanaugh took exception, “scolding” Samuel Alito for “taking liberties with congressional law.” (Ibid.)

    Stop CO2 emissions. Stop deforestation.

    We’re methodically killing the planet. The planet cannot count on life support coming to its rescue. Hmm, the planet is life support.

    But life support is burning.

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  • Antarctica’s Deep Vulnerability Exposed at 11th Scientific Conference

    The 11th Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research conference was held in Pucón, Chile August 19-23, 2024. Fifteen-hundred academics, researchers, and scientists specializing in Antarctica met to share cutting-edge research. Reports at the conference exposed new dimensions of the Antarctic risk profile that should move the world’s leadership posthaste to mitigate society’s self-destructive dependence on fossil fuels.

    Antarctica is starting to carry the brunt of too much CO2 leading to too much heat, leading to unstable ice sheets. And it’s happening much, much faster than anybody thought possible. This is a relatively new development that could have far-reaching consequences.

    For example, Gino Casassa, glaciologist, head of Chilean Antarctica Institute commented: “Current estimates show sea levels rising by 4 meters (13 feet) by 2100 and more if emissions continue to grow.” (Source: Scientists in Chile Question if Antarctica Has Hit a Point of No Return, Reuters, August 28, 2024)

    Thirteen feet higher won’t suddenly appear in 2100. It builds up over decades. Assuming emissions “continue to grow”, as warned by Dr. Casassa, you’ve gotta wonder, with 13 feet by 2100, what will 2035, or 2050, look like? That’s right around the corner.

    Sea level rise is one of the most challenging fields in science and thus produces the most complex results. For example, in comparison to Casassa’s estimate of 13 feet by 2100, a recent study: What Are the Best – and Worst – Case Scenarios for Sea Level Rise? MIT Climate Portal, June 12, 2024: “By 2100, we could see as little as 8 inches of additional sea level rise, or over 6 feet—based partly on how much we continue to pollute the climate, and partly on how the oceans respond to climate change that’s already baked in… despite the enormous stakes for the future of humanity, it remains frustratingly difficult to know how much sea level rise is in store for us. All we know for sure is that taking strong and immediate action to control our greenhouse gas emissions gives us the best chance to avoid meters of sea level rise. ‘The difference between the low-end projections and the high-end projections is many trillions of dollars in infrastructure, and hundreds of millions of people losing their homes,’ Minchew says (Brent Minchew, MIT geophysicist) ‘But we don’t have a good answer to which one of those scenarios is more likely.”

    The biggest concern echoed throughout the conference hall: “Antarctica is changing faster than expected.” For example: “Extreme weather events in the ice-covered continent were no longer hypothetical presentations, but first-hand accounts from researchers about heavy rainfall, intense heat waves and sudden Foehn (strong dry winds) events at research stations that led to mass melting, giant glacier breakoffs and dangerous weather conditions with global implications.” (Ibid.)

    A hot topic was whether Antarctica has reached a tipping point, a point of accelerated, irreversible sea ice loss, especially West Antarctica where the Thwaites Doomsday Glacier is located. But scientists have yet to determine whether current observations indicate a ‘temporary blip” or a “downward plunge of sea ice.” Nevertheless, by all appearances, it’s advanced far enough for “plunging sea ice” to raise very serious concerns.

    What is clear is the rate of change, unprecedented, nothing compares. According to Liz Keller, a paleoclimate specialist at Victoria University of Wellington/New Zealand; ‘”You might see the same rise in CO2 over thousands of years, and now it’s happened in 100 years.” (Ibid.) Which is a prime example of today’s human-generated climate change working >10 times faster than nature on its own.

    That one factor is what confuses those who argue “oh yeah, the climate always changes, so what?” However, there’s regular climate change in nature, like they allude to, which takes centuries to develop and then, there’s turbo-charged climate change, like we’ve got now that takes decades, not centuries, thanks to human-generated excessive CO2 thrusts from burning fossil fuels.

    Climate change has become a straight-forward function of human activity.

    Hopefulness

    According to some reports at the conference, “the worst-case scenarios can be avoided by dramatically reducing fossil fuel emissions.” Specifically, regarding mitigation, Mike Weber, a paleoceanographer, University of Bonn, who specializes in Antarctic ice sheet stability: “If we keep emissions low, we can stop this eventually. If we keep them high, we have a runaway situation and we cannot do anything.”

    On the other hand, there is evidence that ecosystems may already be exceeding boundaries; e.g., Mathieu Casado, a paleoclimate and polar meteorologist at France’s Climate and Environment Sciences Laboratory claims dozens of ice core collected throughout the ice sheet have allowed him to reconstruct temperature patterns in Antarctica dating back 800,000 years. The last time the planet was as warm as today, 125,000 years ago, sea levels were 6-to-9 meters (20-to-30 feet) higher with a large contribution coming from West Antarctica. Ipso facto, with temperatures today as warm as 125,000 years ago causing seas to be 20-30 feet higher, then every coastal megacity should be/will be flooded, which begs the obvious question of “how long do these things take to playout?” And, more importantly, how do we get CO2 and temperatures back down?

    Speakers at the conference made special note of the extraordinary speed and amount of carbon -CO2- being pumped into the atmosphere, unprecedented, causing rapid global warming.  There’s no previous paleoclimate record of CO2 hitting the planet with such ferocity and large scale and so suddenly. This recalls Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick that famously said it all with one vertical image.

    The hockey stick graph is a visualization of the average temperature of the Northern Hemisphere over the past 500 to 2000 years. Because of the spectacular hockey stick concept, Professor Mann became an overnight target of right-wing charlatans and fossil fuel attempts to destroy him. They failed: A Jury in February 2024 awarded Mann more than US$1 million in a lawsuit that accused two conservative commentators of defamation for challenging his research and comparing him to a convicted child molester.

    “The Hockey Stick achieved prominence in a 2001 UN report on climate change and quickly became a central icon in the ‘climate wars.’ The real issue has never been the graph’s data but rather its implied threat to those who oppose governmental regulation and other restraints to protect the environment and planet.” (Foreword by Bill Nye, The Hockey Stick and The Climate Wars by Michael E. Mann)

    In that regard, with parts of West Antarctica hanging by a very big thread, timing couldn’t be worse as the climate wars heat up once again: Bloomberg News headline: Right-Wing Populist Backlash Is Threatening Climate Fight d/d June 20, 2024: “The green revolution is in trouble. The rise of the nationalist right in much of the Western world has placed huge question marks over commitments to transition out of fossil fuels to fight climate change. Donald Trump in the US and other populist politicians have vowed to jettison low-carbon policies and downplayed the impact of global warming.”

    Antarctica has rapidly become a dangerous climate change symbol of major concern and nail-biting as it serves to verify Mann’s early warnings. Global warming has become humanity’s number one challenge for survival of the species. Mann’s Hockey Stick is an amazing analog of 8 billion people sucking up oil from the planet, belching out CO2 in hockey stick fashion, vertically, up, up, and away into an increasingly overloaded CO2 atmosphere that weighs on planetary heat.

    Reality

    Meanwhile, as stated numerous times in articles like this one, the oil and gas industry has publicly brushed aside concerns about climate change. Looking ahead to the future, it’s full bore, full speed ahead with record-setting fossil fuel production and record-setting CO2 on a very full agenda of oil and gas production to 2030 and beyond.

    “The world’s fossil-fuel producers are on track to nearly quadruple the amount of extracted oil and gas from newly approved projects by the end of this decade, with the US leading the way in a surge of activity that threatens to blow apart agreed climate goals.” (The Guardian, March 28, 2024). Questioning whether West Antarctica, especially the Doomsday Glacier, can survive the onslaught of fossil fuel interests looking the other way as right-wing interests threaten anything and everything green.

    According to Mike Weber, paleoceanographer, University of Bonn, who specializes in Antarctic ice sheet stability, regarding fossil fuel CO2 emissions: “If we keep them high, we have a runaway situation, and we cannot do anything.”

    We’re keeping ’em high.

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  • Humans Rescue Doomsday Glacier?

    Rolling Stone

    It was only 3 years ago when a group of distinguished climate scientists led by Erin C. Pettit (Oregon State University) said Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf of the Thwaites Glacier/Antarctica, aka: Doomsday Glacier, could collapse “within as little as 5 years.” (Source: C34A-07 Collapse of Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf by intersecting fractures, American Geophysical Union, December 15, 2021)

    Assuming they nail it, what happens around the year 2026? Sea levels start rising more than previously but nobody is sure by how much as millions of people could be impacted by flooding. According to the Pettit study: “TEIS (Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf) has the potential to increase the contribution of Thwaites Glacier to sea level rise by up to 25%.” TEIS buttresses one-third of the world’s widest glacier at 75 miles across. It is a big deal, a very big deal. All of which prompts the question whether it further destabilizes all of Thwaites? The answer seems to be “yes, it probably would.”

    However, there are studies only two years later (2023) that claim the loss of Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf will not impact sea level rise as much as suggested by the Pettit study. For example: Limited Impact of Thwaites Ice Shelf on Future Ice Loss From Antarctica., Geophysical Research Letters, 2023.

    Today, there is plenty of research about Thwaites that runs the gamut from a UN climate change panel’s worst-case scenario that collapse would cause global sea levels to drastically rise by three feet by 2070, 10 feet by 2100 to a recent study by Dartmouth College researchers, which disputes the UN panel’s modeling, claiming Thwaites will not see that type of collapse this century. Yet, the Dartmouth report “says retreat is still dire.” (Source: Study Finds Highest Prediction of Sea-Level Rise Unlikely, Dartmouth.edu, August 21, 2024)

    The Doomsday Glacier is located at the northern edge of the West Antarctica Ice Sheet. It drains into the Amundsen Sea. And it is big! It’s the world’s widest glacier at 75 miles across. And it is one of the most talked about glaciers in the world. It has its own study group: The International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, which consist of UK and US scientists investigating one of the most unstable glaciers in the world. For perspective purposes, there are more than 500 named glaciers in Antarctica and many thousands more not named. But Thwaites stands out as the most notorious and most celebrated glaciology superstar.

    Thwaites Glacier is like a sore that does not heal; it constantly throbs, drawing attention because it is a real threat to every coastal megacity on the planet. Alas the newest news is that ocean temperatures are skyrocketing, suddenly turning straight up like never before, starting within the past two years. In turn, that’s what works underwater at loosening up Thwaites for collapse. For example, a NYT headline d/d February 27, 2024, says it all: “Scientists Are Freaking Out About Ocean Temperatures.” And, there’s this: Live Science d/d May 21, 2024: Warm Ocean Water is Rushing Beneath Antarctica’s ‘Doomsday Glacier,’ Making Collapse More Likely.

    With record-breaking ocean temperatures at rates nobody expected, how long will it take for the Doomsday Glacier to melt completely? According to Eric Rignot, Senior Research Scientist NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, when interviewed by USA Today d/d May 20th, 2024: “It will take many decades, not centuries… part of the answer also depends on whether our climate keeps getting warmer or not which depends completely on us and how we manage the planet.”

    But low-lying metropolises like Miami Beach are not as concerned about melting taking “many decades, not centuries” as they are concerned about which decade starts the major melting process. This is where the rubber meets the road for low-lying megacities of the world, according to a UN report: New York City, Cairo, Mumbai, Jakarta, Shanghai, Copenhagen, London, Bangkok, Buenos Aires, Lagos, and Los Angeles are all at risk.

    So, which decade does it start with full force? Nobody knows but Thwaites is tipsy. That much is known, and that’s why Thwaites has its own study group. Conceivably, the initial decades of collapse could be disastrous.

    The risks of collapse have never been higher. Here’s why: Climate change mitigation efforts across the globe have been feeble as CO2 and global warming in parallel have set new all-time higher records in both 2023 and 2024. These are the highest records in human history. People that truly understand the implications are extremely edgy about the prospects of unexpected climate-related shocks over the near-term, meaning not 2050 and not 2100 and not some distant fantasy, but within society’s current generations.

    Forget Net Zero Emissions by 2050 (“NZE”), that’s a crapshoot that creates false hope.

    “Despite many pledges and efforts by governments to tackle the causes of global warming, CO2 emissions from energy and industry have increased by 60% since the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed in 1992… pledges by governments to date – even if fully achieved – fall well short of what is required to bring global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions to net zero by 2050 and give the world an even chance of limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5 °C.” (Source: Net Zero by 2050, International Energy Agency, 2024) This report also claims: “As the major source of global emissions, the energy sector holds the key to responding to the world’s climate challenge.” The report offers solutions.

    In that regard, of special note and concern, according to Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), global temperatures exceeded 1.5°C (2.7°F) above preindustrial for the first time in human history for a 12-month period from July 2023 to June 2024, when it averaged 1.64°C. According to the UN climate report, sustained temperatures above 1.5C pre-industrial triggers major tipping points like breakdown of ocean circulation systems and others, but that one alone is all it takes for all hell to break loose.

    Human Rescue Plan

    The gravity of the global situation is only too obvious when a group of glaciologists feels compelled to organize a plan to “Save the Doomsday Glacier” led by John Moore, Research Professor, Arctic Centre, Lapland University/Finland. Within the next two years the group intends to test a prototype fixit in a Norwegian fjord. ultimately installing a giant submarine curtain, up to 50 miles across, that seals off glaciers like Thwaites from Antarctic warm currents. The costs for erecting a curtain across the Amundsen Sea would be $80 billion to see if human intervention really works in the most challenging, treacherous region of the world.

    “The proposal calls for a series of giant overlapping plastic or fiber curtains tethered to concrete foundations. To hold the warm current at bay, the curtain would stretch for 50 miles across the entrance to the Amundsen Sea and extend upwards for much of the 2,000 feet from the sea floor to the surface.” (Source: Fred Pearce, As ‘Doomsday’ Glacier Melts, Can an Artificial Barrier Save It? YaleEnvironment360, August 26, 2024)

    Thus, human ingenuity is called into action for one of the biggest assignments of all time. Equally significant to the herculean human effort to put a big human thumb in the Antarctic dyke, is the significance of what this says about how far and how fast global warming has progressed. And, even more important, what’s to stop it? And how many doomsday scenarios can humanity handle?

    Thwaites is not only a threat, but also an omen, a forewarning of what’s to come.

    Every year 195 nations gather for their annual UN climate meeting to make declarations about what’s happened and what they plan on doing, but no tangible results since 1992 when they started. Instead, CO2 and global temps are setting new record highs by the year every year. This is directly opposite the stated objectives of UN climate conferences ongoing for over 30 years.

    The next meeting this November is in Baku, Azerbaijan, an oil and gas country, similar to last year’s meeting in Dubai. And since oil and gas CO2 emissions are the principal cause of global warming, which, in turn, is the reason Thwaites threatens coastal megacities with flooding; why are oil and gas producing countries the focus for holding meetings about the problems of global warming?

    Have Oil Producers hijacked UN climate conferences?

    Answer: Yes, they have hijacked UN COPs (Conference of the Parties). Oh please! It’s blatantly obvious. COP28 was held in Dubai. The serving president of the climate conference COP28 was Sultan bin Ahmed Al Jaber, who’s chair of Dhabi National Oil Company and who publicly stated there is “no science” behind calls for a phase out of fossil fuels. But he conveniently overlooks reams, and reams, of long-standing scientific evidence of CO2 emissions directly linked to global temperature levels. It’s established science, period.

    As of today, there are plenty of public statements by the fossil fuel industry that it has decided to ignore the climate change issue and move ahead full blast with increased production. This is reality. For example, The Guardian d/d April 2024: World Set to Quadruple Oil and Gas Production by 2030, Led by New US Projects. Fasten seat belts it’s blast-off time, meaning hotter and hotter, faster and faster, as Thwiates totters.

    One can only hope that (1) geoengineering massive glaciers (how many more are there and will it even work?) and (2) geoengineering to remove CO2 from the atmosphere (extremely questionable as to proficiency of scale?) can save the day because an overkill of CO2 emissions is coming like there’s no tomorrow. Oh, by the way, the fossil fuel industry is also banking on technology to save the day.

    But there are as many question marks as there are hopeful proposals and too little certainty. Alas, the world is riddled with sharp divisions over: (1) reality of climate change (2) how to tackle the biggest threat in human history (3) and, then, there’s this: Bloomberg News headline: Right-Wing Populist Backlash Is Threatening Climate Fight d/d June 20, 2024: “The green revolution is in trouble. The rise of the nationalist right in much of the Western world has placed huge question marks over commitments to transition out of fossil fuels to fight climate change. Donald Trump in the US and other populist politicians have vowed to jettison low-carbon policies and downplayed the impact of global warming.”

    Meanwhile, the global-warming-timebomb is ticking faster than ever, working overtime, not waiting for some kind of universal resolution for the only issue, other than nuclear, that threatens to bring our own self-destruction.

    The Thwaites protective curtain will hopefully be in place sometime by 2040, hmm.

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  • Broken Temperature Records Are Alarming, But More Are Not Inevitable

    July 22, 2024 was the hottest day in recorded human history, with a global average temperature of 17.16 C. This followed the hottest June ever recorded, which followed the hottest May ever recorded. This all follows 2023, which was the hottest year on record at 1.48 C warmer than the 1850-1900 average according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service. As a climate scientist…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Tipping Points:  Where Things Stand

    Major planetary boundaries that support life are at risk of collapse. This is happening at speeds that climate scientists never thought possible. What are the consequences and what, if anything, can be done?

    Johan Rockström, Potsdam Institute for Climate Research, Germany, recently gave a 20-mimute TED speech: The Tipping Points of Climate Change. He is a world-class climate scientist specializing in planetary boundary frameworks. Of note, Dr. Rockström is one climate scientist that other scientists pay attention to when he talks.

    A summation of what should be categorized as “one of the most important speeches of 2024” is included herein.

    It’s fair to say that he views recent abrupt Earth system changes as profoundly disturbing and far beyond the boundaries of what climate science expected. In fact, climate scientists have never seen such rapid transition of what’s normally a slow-moving Earth system now in the wrong direction so rapidly that it’s threatening the existence of key ecosystems that make today’s life possible.

    In his words: “The planet is now in a place where we’ve underestimated risks. Abrupt changes are occurring way beyond realistic expectations in science.” It was fifteen years ago when he introduced a planetary boundary framework composed of nine earth system processes to determine the stability, resilience, and life support on planet Earth.

    Then, ten years ago 195 countries signed the Paris ’15 climate agreement.

    And in 2019, five years ago, the signatories to Paris ‘15 entered the most decisive decade of this generation where their choices this decade determine the future for all generations on Earth.

    The scientific state of the planet as of August 2024:

    !) We’ve reached 1.2°C mean surface temperature above pre-industrial. This is the warmest in 100,000 years.

    2) We touched 1.5°C as an annual mean temperature in 2023.

    3) The biggest worry is evidence of an “acceleration of warming.” Over the past 50 years, the rate of warming was 0.18C per decade from 1970 to 2010 but from 2014 onward it’s been 0.26C per decade, or +45%, and if this course continues, we’ll crash thru 2C within 20 years and hit 3C by 2200, a disastrous outcome, caused by humans.

    4) But it’s much more than CO2 that’s at issue. Several things are undermining the stability of the planet. For example, over-consumption of fresh water, the 6th mass extinction of species, abusing freshwater systems with nitrogen phosphorus, etc.

    A combination of factors has disrupted the Earth system by spreading chaos across the planet, droughts, floods, heat waves, disease patterns, human-caused massive storms, 40°C (104°F) life-threatening heat across all continents in the year 2023. In Mecca, 52°C (126°F) hit over 1,000 worshipers who lost their lives at the Hajj pilgrimage in June 2024. At current rates, by 2050 expect an 18% economic loss of GDP or $38 trillion per year. The abrupt change in Earth systems is starting to hurt in human social costs and economic costs.

    And it is happening at only 1.2°C mean surface global temperature. But we’re on a path to 2.7C this century. Will floods, droughts, and heat waves get worse? Without immediate mitigation efforts, yes.

    As far back as 3,000,000 years the planet never exceeded 2C. We’ve been living in “The Corridor of Life.” It’s all we’ve got.

    Alas, the risks are even more serious. There are two major risks to the planetary system: 1) buffering capacity 2) crossing tipping points. And both are moving in the wrong direction much faster than anybody thought possible.

    Buffering capacity is Earth’s ability to dampen shocks and stress; e.g., soaking up greenhouse gases that impact nature on land and ocean. Mother Earth has been very, very forgiving, as 53% of CO2 from fossil fuels have been soaked up by intact nature on land and sea. However, there is increasing scientific evidence of “widening cracks in this system.”

    For example, land absorbs 31% of CO2 of greenhouse emissions, but the boreal forests in Canada and temperate mixed forests in Germany and Russia are all starting to lose carbon uptake capacity. More alarming yet, the latest science shows part of Amazon rain forest, the richest biome on terrestrial land, has already tipped and in parts of the forest it is no longer a carbon sink. It’s becoming a carbon source. Yet, the Amazon is vital to the health of the planet, playing a critical role in the global carbon cycle and water cycle and responsible for absorbing billions of tons of emissions. This unique one-of-a-kind force of nature is at risk like never before.

    But what’s most cause for concern is the ocean. It absorbs 90% of the heat caused by human-induced climate change. This is well understood. But what’s really worrying is the latest data on temperature all-across the ocean. It has been getting warmer and warmer since 1980. Then, suddenly, out of the blue, in 2023 temperatures went completely off the charts at 0.4C above the warmest temps of all previous years.

    What’s happening?

    Scientists do not know what’s happening, but it is off the charts and continuing in that same direction in 2024.

    Searching for answers, the number one candidate is “energy imbalance caused by humans.” The imbalance is enormous, for example, in one year alone the heat equivalent of 300-times the entire global electricity system is absorbed by the Earth system.

    Meanwhile, scientists question whether the ocean is losing its resilience, at risk of releasing heat back into the atmosphere, thus self-amplifying the warming process. Science does not have answers for this, but something totally unprecedented in this regard may be happening right before our eyes.

    Here’s what is known for certain… The ocean is sounding the alarm.

    The planetary system is now at a point where we’re forced to ask the following questions: Are we are risk of pushing the planet out of the basin of attraction or the stability of the planet where we’ve been since the last ice age? Are we headed to unstoppable Hot House Earth with self-amplified warming and losing life support?

    The bigger question is: What could take us there?

    The answer is “crossing over tipping points” takes us there.

    Crossing tipping points references the big systems (a) Greenland (b) the ice sheets (c) overturning of heat in the North Atlantic (d) the Amazon rain forest, by pushing them too far, thus tipping over from a state that helps us to a state of self-amplifying in the wrong direction. This is taking the planet from a mode of cooling and dampening to self-amplifying and warming.

    There are 16 tipping systems that regulate the climate system. Five of these tipping systems are what’s referred to as ground zero in the Arctic connection thru the ocean via the AMOC of the Atlantic overturning heat all the way down to Antarctica. We depend upon this big biophysical system for stability of the planet. At what temperatures is this at risk of tipping?

    For the first time, we have an answer. The average temperature at which 5 of 16 are likely to cross the tipping point is at 1.5C, including (1) the Greenland ice sheet (2) West Antarctica ice sheet (3) abrupt thawing permafrost (4) losing all tropical coral reefs and (5) collapse of the Bering Sea ice. The two major ice sheets hold 10M (33-feet) of sea level rise.

    (Editorial: According to Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), global temperatures exceeded 1.5°C (2.7°F) above preindustrial for the first time in human history for a 12-month period from July 2023 to June 2024, when it averaged 1.64°C)

    In all, the more science learns about the climate system, the higher science discovers the risks. We’ve got a planet that’s smack dab in the midst of a high-level danger zone.

    For example, the Amazon basin risks tipping into savannah, over time. Currently, the risk is loss of the forest system; tipping can occur at 1.5-2C, assuming loss of 20-25% of forest cover. It’s currently at 17% deforestation. This is very close to a tipping point when there is no turning back.

    What must be done to avoid what increasingly looks inevitable?

    According to the IPCC, to stay under 1.5C (sustained annually over a few years) we need to operate within the global carbon budget. But all that remains of that budget is 200B tons of CO2. Yet, 40B tons is emitted per year giving 5 years.at current emissions rates before we hit over-budget. Moreover, the IPCC says a pathway for a safe landing is to reduce emissions by 7% per year for a safe landing to net zero by 2050.

    (Editorial- that’ll take some serious work: Global CO2 emissions are blasting off to the upside and not looking back)

    Status of Atmospheric CO2 (Mauna Loa):

    August 2, 2024 – 424.76 ppm

    August 2, 2023 – 421.52 ppm

    One-year change: 3.24 ppm

    1960-year change: 0.71 ppm

    Meanwhile, we’ve already overloaded the climate system with gases and other problems that inevitably lead to a period of overshoot. Therefore, society must be prepared for breaching 1.5C between 2030 and 2035 or within 5-to-10 years.

    There are two main messages; 1) buckle up- we know 100% for sure it means more droughts, more floods, more heat waves, more human reinforced storms, more disease over one generation, plus, in time. 2023 which was the warmest year on record will be looked back on as a mild year, 2) why would the planet come back to 1.5 after an overshoot?

    The health of the planet must be kept intact. We must have a planet that can continue to absorb 50% of CO2 without crossing tipping points. But, of special note and caution, there is no holding to 1.5C by only phasing out fossil fuels. More needs to be done like coming back to nature’s biodiversity and maintaining all the planetary boundaries of nature.

    We are at a pivot point for either transforming the world for the better or going over the edge… which will it be.?

    We must govern the entire planet…we have the solutions; i.e., (1) rapid transition away from fossil fuels (2) transitioning to a circular business model (3) transitioning to healthy diets (4) scaling regeneration and restoration of marine systems, forests, and wetlands.

    Already of serious concern, starting from 2020, emissions had to be cut in half by 2030 to stay out of trouble but halfway into the decade and emissions are steeper than ever. This is what really concerns scientists.

    In summation, scientists have issued warnings for years and years, but now even those warnings look too conservative. Problematically, it is obvious that none of the prior warnings were embraced by the 195 countries that committed to mitigate emissions at Paris ’15 UN climate agreement. Since 2015, atmospheric CO2 has steadily climbed, year-by-year, never down, to all-time highs as global mean temperatures sets new records by the month.

    The evidence is clear: Paris ’15 has not made a dent in global warming, which is currently cruising up, up and away, all-time records and accelerating with nothing standing in its way. In fact, since 195 countries agreed to tackle the issue, emissions and temperatures have done the opposite of what they agreed to by increasing at the fastest rates in human history.

    The Paris ‘15 plans to mitigate emissions are so far behind schedule that it’s questionable whether it’s achievable. What’s to stop emissions and temperatures from getting worse and sea level from flooding coastal mega-cities? Eight of the world’s top ten mega-cities are coastal.

    Solution: Opportunity is a prerequisite for a solution and 195 nations opportunistically meet once per year at a UN climate conference. Maybe they’ll adopt an agreement to control greenhouse gas emissions that’s meaningfully enforceable. Voluntary doesn’t work.

    The post Tipping Points:  Where Things Stand first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • The Future of Our World by Noam Chomsky

    Noam Chomsky (95) famous dissident and father of modern linguistics, considered one of the world’s leading intellectuals, is recovering from a stroke he suffered at age 94 and now living with his wife in Brazil. According to a report in Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now d/d July 2, 2024, this past June Brazilian President Lula personally visited Chomsky, holding his hand, saying: “You are one of the most influential people of my life” personally witnessed by Vijay Prashad, co-author with Noam Chomsky, The Withdrawal (The New Press).

    Indeed, Noam Chomsky is established as one of the most influential intellectuals of the 21st century.

    A pre-stroke video interview with Chomsky conducted at the University of Arizona is extraordinarily contemporary and insightful with a powerful message: What Does the Future Hold Q&A With Noam Chomsky hosted by Lori Poloni-Staudinger, Dean of School of Behavioral Sciences and Professor, School of Government and Public Policy, University of Arizona.

    Chomsky joined the School of Behavioral Sciences in 2017 and taught “Consequences of Capitalism.”

    This article is a synopsis of some of Chomsky’s responses to questions, and it includes third-party supporting facts surrounding his statements about the two biggest risks to humanity’s continual existence.

    What Does the Future Hold?

    Question: geopolitics, unipolar versus multipolar

    Chomsky: First there are two crises that determine whether it is even appropriate to consider how geopolitics will look in the future: (1) threat of nuclear war (2) the climate crisis.

    “If the climate crisis is not dealt with in the next few years, human society is essentially finished. Everything else is moot unless these two crises are dealt with.”

    (This paragraph is not part of Chomsky’s answer) Regarding Chomsky’s warning, several key indicators of the climate crisis are flashing red, not green. For example, nine years ago 195 nations at the UN climate conference Paris ‘15 agreed to take measures to mitigate CO2 emissions to hold global warming to under 1.5°C pre-industrial. Yet, within only nine years of that agreement amongst 195 nations, according to Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), global temperatures exceeded 1.5°C (2.7°F) above preindustrial for the first time in human history for a 12-month period from February 2023 to January 2024 and now fast approaching danger zones. Obviously, nations of the world did not follow their own dictates, and if not them, who will?

    Paleoclimatology has evidence of what to expect if the “climate crisis,” as labeled by Chomsky, is not dealt with (The following paragraph is also not part of Chomsky’s answer): “While today’s CO2-driven climate change scenario is unprecedented in human history, similar circumstances existed in the geological record that give us an idea of what to expect in the way of global sea level rise, and the process that will get us there. About 3.2 million years ago, during the Pliocene epoch, CO2 levels were about 400 ppm (427 ppm today) and temperatures were 2-3°C above the “pre-industrial” temperatures of 1850-1880. At the same time, proxy data indicate global sea level was about 52 feet (within a 39-foot to 66-foot range) higher than today.” (Source: The Sleeping Giant Awakens, Climate Adaptation Center, May 21, 2024)

    Maybe that is why the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) strongly suggests keeping temperatures ideally below 1.5°C and certainly not above 2.0°C pre-industrial.

    Chomsky on World Power: Currently the center of world power, whether unipolar or multipolar is very much in the news. This issue has roots going back to the end of WWII when the US established overwhelming worldwide power. But now the Ukraine war has the world very much divided with most of world outside of the EU, US and its allies calling for diplomatic settlement. But the US position is that the war must continue to severely weaken Russia.

    Consequently, Ukraine is dividing the world, and it shows up in the framework of unipolar versus multipolar. For example, the war has driven the EU away from independent status to firm control by the US. In turn the EU is headed towards industrial decline because of disruption of its natural trading partners, e.g., Russia is full of natural resources that the EU is lacking, which economist have always referred to as a “marriage made in heaven,” a natural trading relationship that has now been broken. (footnote: EU industrial production down 3.9% past 12 months)

    And the Ukrainian imbroglio is cutting off EU access to markets in China e.g., China has been an enormous market for German industrial products. Meanwhile, the US is insisting upon a unipolar framework of world order that wants not only the EU but the world to be incorporated within something like the NATO system. Under US pressure NATO has expanded its reach to the Indo-Pacific region, meaning NATO is now obligated to take part in the US conflict with China.

    Meantime, the rest of the world is trying to develop a multipolar world with several independent sectors of power.  The BRICS countries Brazil, Russia, India, China, Indonesia, South Africa, want an independent source of power of their own. They are 40% of world economy that’s independent of US sanctions and of the US dollar.

    These are developing conflicts over one raging issue and one developing issue. Ukraine is the raging issue; the developing issue is US conflict with China, which is developing its own projects in Eurasia, Africa, Middle East, South Africa, S9uth Asia, and Latin America.

    The US is determined to prevent China’s economic development throughout the world. The Biden administration has “virtually declared a kind of war with China” by demanding that Western allies refuse to permit China to carry out technological development.

    For example, the US insist others do not all0w China access to any technology that has any US parts in it. This includes everything, as for example, Netherlands has a world-class lithographic industry which produces critical parts for semi-conductors for the modern high-tech economy. Now, Netherlands must determine whether it’ll move to an independent course to sell to China, or not… the same is true for Samsung, South Korea, and Japan.

    The world is splintered along those lines as the framework for the foreseeable future.

    Question:  Will multinational corporations gain too much power and influence?

    Chomsky suggests looking at them right now… US based multinationals control about one-half of the world’s wealth. They are first or second in every domain like manufacturing and retail; no one else is close. It’s extraordinary power. Based upon GDP, the US has 20% of world GDP, but if you look at US multinationals it’s more like 50%. Multinationals have extraordinary power over domestic policy in both the US and in other capitalistic countries. So, how will multinationals react when told they cannot deal with a major market, like China?

    How does this develop over future years? The EU is going into a period of decline because of breaking relationships in trade and commercial business with the East. Yet, it’s not sure that the EU will stay subordinate to the US and willingly go into decline, or will the EU join the rest of the world and move into a more complex multipolar world and integrate with countries in the East? This is yet to be determined. For example, France’s President Emmanuel Macron (2017-) has been vilified and condemned for saying that after Russia is driven out of Ukraine, a way must be found to accommodate Russia within an international system, an initial crack in the US/EU relationship.

    Threat of nuclear war question: Russia suspended the START Nuclear Arms Treaty with the US and how important is this to the threat of nuclear war?

    Chomsky: It is very significant. It is the last remaining arms control treaty, the new START Treaty, Trump almost cancelled it. The treaty was due to expire in February when Biden took over in time to extend it, which he did.

    Keep in mind that the US was instrumental in creating a regime which somewhat mitigates the threat of nuclear war, which means “terminal war.” We talk much too casually about nuclear war. There can’t be a nuclear war. If there is, we’re finished. It’s why the Doomsday Clock is set at 90 seconds to midnight, the closest it’s been.

    Starting with George W. Bush the US began dismantling arms control. Bush dismantled the ABM Treaty, a missile treaty very significantly part of the arms control system and an enormous threat to Russia. So, the dismantling allowed the US to set up installations right at the border of Russia. It’s a severe threat to Russia. And Russia has reacted.

    The Trump administration got rid of the INF Treaty, the Reagan-Gorbachev treaty of 1987 which ended short-range missiles in Europe. Those missiles are now back in place on the borders of Russia. Trump, to make it clear that we meant business, arranged missile launches right away upon breaking of the treaty.

    Trump destroyed the Open Skies Treaty which originated with Eisenhower stating that each side should share information about what the other side was doing to reduce the threat of misunderstanding.

    Only the new START Treaty remains. And Russia suspended it. START restricts the number of strategic weapons for each side. The treaty terminates in 2026, but it’s suspended by Russia anyway. So, in effect there are no agreed upon restraints to increasing nuclear weapons.

    Both sides already have way more nuclear weapons than necessary; One Trident nuclear submarine could destroy a couple hundred cities all over the world. And land based nuclear missile locations are known by both sides. So, if there is a threat, those would be hit immediately. Which means if there’s a threat, “you’d better send’em off, use’em or lose’em.” This obviously is a very touchy, extraordinarily risky situation because one mistake could amplify very quickly.

    The new START Treaty that’s been suspended by Russia did restrict the enormous excessive number of strategic weapons. So, we should be in negotiations right now to expand it, restore it, and reinstitute the treaties the US has dismantled, the INF Treaty, Reagan-Gorbachev treaty, ABM Treaty, Open Stars Treaty should all be brought back.

    Question: Will society muster the will for change for equity, prosperity, and sustainability?

    Chomsky: There is no answer. It’s up to the population to come to grips with issues and say we are not going to march to the precipice and fall over it. But it’s exactly what our leaders are telling us to do. Look at the environmental crisis. It is well understood that we may have enough time to control heating of the environment, destruction of habitat, destruction of the oceans which is going to lead to total catastrophe. It’s not like everybody will die all at once, but we’re going to reach irreversible tipping points that becomes just a steady decline. To know how serious it is, look at particular areas of the world.

    The Middle East region is one of the most rapidly heating regions of the world at rates twice as fast as the rest of the world. Projections by the end of the century at current trajectories show sea level in Mediterranean will rise about 10 feet.

    Look at a map where people live, it is indescribable. Around Southeast Asia and peasants in India are trying to survive temperatures in the 120s where less than 10% of population has air conditioning. This will cause huge migrations from areas of the world where life will become unlivable.

    Fossil fuel companies are so profitable that they’ve decided to quit any sustainable efforts in favor of letting profits run as fast and as far as possible. They’re opening new oil and gas fields that can produce another 30-40 years but at that point we’ll all be finished.

    We have the same issue with nuclear weapons as with the environment. If these two issues are not dealt with, in the not-too-distant future, it’ll be all over. The population needs to “have the will” to stop it.

    Question: How do we muster that will?

    Chomsky: Talk to neighbors, join community organizations, join activist’s groups, press Congress, get out into the streets if necessary. How have things happened in the past? For example, back in the 1960s small groups of women got together, forming consciousness-raising groups and it was 1975 (Sex Discrimination Act) that women were granted the right of persons peers under US domestic law, prior to that we’re still back in the age of the founding fathers when women were property  Look at the Civil Rights movement. Go back to the 1950s, Rosa Parks refused to move from her seat on a bus that was planned by an organized group of activists that led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, big change… in 1960 a couple of black students in No. Carolina decided to sit in at a lunch counter segregated. Immediately arrested, and the next day another group came… later they became organized as SNCC, Student Nonviolent Coordinated Committee. Young people from the North started to join. Next freedom buses started running to Alabama to convince black farmers to cast a vote. It went on this way, building, until you got civil rights legislation in Washington.

    What’s happening right now as an example of what people can do? The Biden administration passed the Inflation Reduction Act, IRA. It’s mostly a climate change act. The only way you can get banks and fossil fuel companies to stop destroying the world is to bribe them. That’s basically our system. But IRA is not the substantial program that Biden presented. It is watered down. The original came out of Bernie Sander’s office. As for the background for that, young people, from the Sunrise Movement, were active and organizing and sat in on Congressional offices. AOC joined them. A bill came out of this, but Republican opposition cut back the original bill by nearly 100% They are a denialist party. They want to destroy the world in the interest of private profit.  The final IRA bill is nowhere near enough.

    Summation: Chomsky sees a world of turmoil trying to sort out whether unipolar or multipolar wins the day with the Ukrainian war serving as a catalyst to change. Meanwhile, the EU carries the brunt of its impact. Meantime, nuclear arms treaties have literally dissolved in the face of a tenuous situation along the Russia/EU borders with newly armed missiles pointed at Russia’s heartland. In the face of this touch-and-go Russia vs. the West potentially explosive scenario, the global climate system is under attack via excessive fossil fuel emissions cranking up global temperatures beyond what 195 countries agreed was a danger zone.

    Chomsky sees a nervous nuclear weapons-rattling high-risk world flanked by unmitigated deterioration of ecosystems that global warming steadily, assuredly takes down for the count, as global temperatures set new records. He calls for individuals to take action, do whatever necessary to change the trajectory of nuclear weaponry and climate change to save society. Chomsky offered several examples of small groups of people acting together, over time, turning into serious protests and ultimately positive legislation.

    AmThis article covers the first 34 minutes of a 52-minute video: Noam Chomsky: About the Future of Our World.

    “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed individuals can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” (Margaret Mead, Anthropologist)

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  • Midwinter Antarctica 50°F Above Average

    Temperatures for the entire month of July in Antarctica were 50°F above average, but it also experienced days when temperatures spiked up to 82°F above average. Yes, Antarctica is the world’s deepfreeze, and it is the dead of winter. What does this portend?

    For starters, according to Michael Dukes, director of forecasting at MetDesk: “In Antarctica generally that kind of warming in the winter and continuing into summer months can lead to collapsing of the ice sheets.” (Source: “Antarctica Temperatures Rise 10C Above Average in Near Record Heatwave”, The Guardian, August 1, 2024.)

    Already, the summers of 2022 and 2023 saw unprecedented loss of Antarctic sea ice, which fell below 2 million square kilometers for the first time in the satellite record going back to 1979. Moreover, the year 2023 marked the 8th year of steep decline in sea ice. (Source: “The Sleeping Giant Awakens”, Climate Adaptation Center, May 21, 2024.)

    Antarctica is massive with total area as large as the US and Mexico combined and average ice thickness of 7,200 feet covering 98% of the continent which is 90% of the world’s ice and 70% of the fresh water of the world. There’s plenty for global warming to work with!

    A primary ongoing concern is sea level rise. According to NASA, the rate of sea level rise has tripled in 21st century.

    What’s Next?

    As for future expectations, there is a paleoclimate record that spells out what to expect:

    “While today’s CO2-driven climate change scenario is unprecedented in human history, similar circumstances existed in the geological record that give us an idea of what to expect in the way of global sea level rise, and the process that will get us there. About 3.2 million years ago, during the Pliocene epoch, CO2 levels were about 400 ppm, and temperatures were 2-3°C above the “pre-industrial” temperatures of 1850-1880. At the same time, proxy data indicate global sea level was about 52 feet (within a 39-foot to 66-foot range) higher than today.” (Ibid.)

    Maybe that is why the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) strongly suggests keeping temperatures ideally below 1.5°C but not above 2.0°C pre-industrial, at all costs, or big trouble ensues. FYI- The IPCC looks for sustained temps above 1.5°C for several years to declare it official. And the world has already blown thru the 1.5°C barrier. Hopefully, that barrier eases up or stabilizes, but it requires cutting emissions almost immediately. Good luck with that. Global CO2 emissions are blasting off to the upside and not looking back.

    Status of Atmospheric CO2 (Mauna Loa):

    August 2, 2024 – 424.76 ppm
    August 2, 2023 – 421.52 ppm
    One-year change:    3.24 ppm
    1960-year change:   0.71 ppm

    CO2 affects temperature, which, according to Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), exceeded 1.5°C (2.7°F) above preindustrial for the first time in a 12-month period from February 2023 to January 2024. This is the level that 195 countries that signed onto the 2015 Paris Agreement agreed to stay below. Oops! It only took 9 years.

    For the record: “The annual rate of increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the past 60 years is about 100 times faster than previous natural increases, such as those that occurred at the end of the last ice age 11,000-17,000 years ago.” (Source: “Climate Change: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide”, Climate.gov, April 9, 2024.)

    That explains why it only took 9 years to hit 1.5C. Paleoclimate research of the above-mentioned Pliocene era shows a CO2 rate of increase of 0.02 ppm/annum in nature without humans around. But human influence has cranked it up to 2.80 ppm/annum (the 2023 full year rate) more than 100 times faster. Ipso facto, global warming is on a warpath.

    According to Climate Adaptation Center: “Research supports the conclusion that by 2°C, virtually all of Greenland, most of West Antarctica and part of East Antarctica will be locked into long-term, irrevocable sea level rise, even if we succeed in drawing down temperatures at a later date. This is primarily because the warmer ocean will hold heat much longer than the atmosphere, and because of a number of self-reinforcing feedback mechanisms. As a result, it takes ice sheets much longer to grow back (tens of thousands of years) than to lose their ice.” (Ibid.)

    All of which leads to when or if Antarctic sea ice will reach a serious breaking point. This challenging supposition has possibly been answered: “What happened in the winter of 2023 shocked scientists. ‘It was completely off the rails,’ according to Ted Scambos, senior researcher at Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). ‘Throughout the 2023 austral winter, sea ice was far below any previous winter extent in the 45-year satellite record.” (Source: “Has Antarctic Sea Ice Hit a Breaking Point?” Earth Data, National Snow and Ice Date Center, NSIDC, July 4, 2024.)

    Regime Shift in Antarctica

    There’s clear evidence of what’s referred to as a “regime shift” in Antarctica, to wit: “Low sea ice extent once dominated certain areas, especially near the Antarctic Peninsula, but now all sectors surrounding Antarctica are responding together. Referred to as ‘spatial coherence,’ this is yet another sign that something is shifting for Antarctic sea ice, not just in some areas, not just in some years, but on larger scales and for longer periods. These Antarctic-wide sea ice changes, together with their greater variability and persistence, are three main factors that indicate a regime shift.” (Ibid.)

    Additionally, sea ice is taking longer to recover from low extents and the recovered ice is thinner than decades earlier. All of which is attributable to a warming planet, with Antarctica experiencing bouts of excessively high anomalous temperatures more frequently, even during winter, but winter-time temperatures do remain below freezing. Nevertheless, the major concern is the warming trend and “regime shift,” moreover, what’s not seen is most concerning, for example: A headline in Live Science d/d May 21, 2024: Warm Ocean Water is Rushing Beneath Antarctica’s ‘Doomsday Glacier,’ Making Collapse More Likely.

    Indeed, it would be enormously comforting if scientists could say for sure that the prospect of collapsing ice sheets and rapidly flowing glaciers on a major scale, taking sea levels far too high, flooding coastal cities, are not a concern this century, so, no sweat, don’t worry. But they can’t say that because climate change is moving much faster than scientists’ models predict. For example, nobody in 200o or 2010 or even a few years ago foresaw a major “Antarctic regime shift” or a 12-month consecutive increase of +1.5°C above pre-industrial by 2024. In point of fact, climate change is so far ahead of schedule that it’s ridiculous.

    If climate models missed identifying the shockingly rapid onset of two extremely powerful climate-altering events, signaling deep trouble dead ahead, what are they missing now?

    According to Sharon Stammerjohn, senior researcher at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, INSTAAR, University of Colorado, Boulder: “Conceptually, I just see this wall of heat knocking at the door in the Southern Ocean, and it’s starting to find ways to come in.” (Ibid.)

    Here’s what UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at World Environment Day June 5, 2024, about heat finding its way: “The truth is the world is spewing emissions so fast that by 2030, a far higher temperature rise would be all but guaranteed… The truth is we already face incursions into the 1.5-degree territory… In 2015, they said the chance of such a breach was near zero.” He calls for nations of the world to come together to halt fossil fuel emissions.

    Similarly, the International Energy Agency (IEA) Declaration of 2021: “There can be no new oil and gas infrastructure if the planet is to avoid careering past 1.5C (2.7F) of global heating, above pre-industrial times.”

    However, the truth is revealed only three years later, Global Energy Monitor 2024 Report: “The world’s fossil-fuel producers are on track to nearly quadruple the amount of extracted oil and gas from newly approved projects by the end of this decade, with the US leading the way in a surge of activity that threatens to blow apart agreed climate goals.”

    That’ll crank up Mauna Loa’s CO2 readings to “spinning out of control” mode.

    And, just for good measure: “We should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas.” (Amin Nasser, Head of Aramco, speaking in Texas, March 2024.)

    A wall of heat hitting Antarctica is bad news and “regime shift” tells a worrisome tale. And with CO2 already cranking 100+ times faster than all history, and with fossil fuel interests on a road to madness, where does this leave Antarctica? No comment.

    Still, where do things stand? There are scientists on both sides of the maxim “we are screwed,” some say, “we can still work out of this self-inflicted disaster,” but others say, “it’s already too late.” Usually, these situations end up somewhere in the middle. So, what will “we are partially screwed” look like?

    Not good.

    The post Midwinter Antarctica 50°F Above Average first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • Methane Emissions “Fastest in Decades”

    A new study shows methane (CH4) emissions behaving like a sprinter on speed, setting decadal records. This is bad news. It’s 80-times more powerful than CO2 at trapping heat.

    Global emissions of methane, a powerful planet-heating gas, are ‘rising rapidly’ at the fastest rate in decades, requiring immediate action to help avert a dangerous escalation in the climate crisis, a new study has warned.

    — “Global Methane Emissions Rising at Fastest Rate in Decades, Scientists Warn”, The Guardian, July 30, 2024.

    The new study by Drew Shindell, et al, “The Methane Imperative”, Frontiers in Science, July 29, 2024 discusses the methane issue and steps that must be taken to mitigate methane emissions. These steps are considered critical to meet well-advertised goals to limit global warming, which has not been limited nearly enough to count. On the contrary, it’s getting hotter by the year, every year.

    Another new study underscores failures to tackle the methane problem:

    New comprehensive aerial measurements show oil and natural gas producers across the U.S. are emitting methane into the atmosphere at over four times the rates estimated by the Environmental Protection Agency for those same areas based on industry-reported data. The results also show that operators are exceeding their own widely touted emissions goals eightfold.

    — “New Data Show U.S. Oil & Gas Methane Emissions Over Four Times Higher Than EPA Estimates, Eight Times Greater Than Industry Target”, Environmental Defense Fund, July 31, 2024.

    Regardless of the reasons, the emission rates are way too high. New, long-anticipated EPA rules finalized earlier this year by the Biden-Harris administration that leverage widely available, cost-effective solutions, along with methane reduction incentives included in the Inflation Reduction Act, are vital to bringing the numbers down. It is essential that states and EPA move forward with swiftly implementing these protective standards

    —  Ibid.

    Trump has publicly stated he will destroy Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and let producers off the hook and institute policies that increase greenhouse gases. In that regard, according to Bloomberg News:

    The White House’s policies have fueled plans for more than $200 billion in cleantech manufacturing investments mostly (ed. $161B) in districts with Republican lawmakers opposed (ed. all of them opposed it) to the agenda.

    — Bloomberg News d/d June 20, 2024.

    The past two years of heat on top of more record-setting heat is a sure sign of failure to control human-generated greenhouse gases like CH4, but more troubling yet, slowly but steadily self-reinforcing permafrost melt as well as glacial melt contribute to increasing levels of CH4 as if on automatic pilot, feeding on global warming it creates, releasing CH4. This is real danger, and it’s flashing red. Controlling CH4 emissions wherever humanly possible cannot be done soon enough. Global warming is not waiting around. This could get real messy real soon unless the brakes are put on emissions.

    With global news already covering widespread overheating of the planet, which is caused by excessive levels of greenhouse gases, new news that methane (CH4) has gone ballistic should make bolder headlines because, more insidiously than CO2, it turns up the thermostat, causing all kinds of problems for human survival. Already, several regions of the world were/are on the ropes, feeling dangerous levels of heat.

    The human body can only accommodate temperatures above 95 degrees with high humidity for short periods of time.

    —  Americares

    Humans lose 80% of body heat through sweating. When both humidity and heat combined are too high, sweating becomes harder and harder until impossible to shed heat. According to a study at Arizona State University, a healthy young adult could die after six hours of 92°F with 50% humidity.

    Hottest Survivable Temperatures Are Lower Than Expected.

    — Scientific American, December 12, 2023.

    According to Global Methane Tracker 2024:

    The concentration of methane in the atmosphere is now over two-and-a-half times greater than the pre-industrial levels. The increase has accelerated in recent years and preliminary data indicates that there was another significant annual increase in 2023.

    Earth System Research Laboratories (as of July 5, 2024)

    Global CH4 Monthly Means:

    March 2024 1930.75 ppb

    March 1983 1645.00 ppb (when official measurements started)

    The Shindell study clearly points to fossil fuels, primarily oil and gas production, and increased decomposition rates from wetlands because of global warming, which, of course, accelerates excessive levels of CH4, meaning, it’s self-reinforcing. This is evident across the vastness of Arctic permafrost covering roughly 20% of the Northern Hemisphere. It’s a time bomb that’s already ticking. And it is enormous.

    Hopefully, nations of the world hurry mitigation measures because the methane curse is not just oil and gas production and wetlands in specific easily accessed regions.  Several studies have exposed threats heretofore ignored where CH4 is cocked and loaded and ready to accelerate. e.g., (1) a recent study found migrating methane gas under the base of permafrost in Svalbard, Norway which has “significant implications for climate change.” (2) Arctic News d/d January 14, 2024 reported the impact of rising Northern Hemisphere ocean temperatures “… threatens to cause rapid destabilization of methane hydrates at the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean and lead to explosive eruptions of methane, as its volume increases 160 to 180-fold when leaving the hydrate.”

    According to some studies, triggering a climate catastrophe that slams humanity down onto the mat is within the range of possibilities:

    Methane bombs – gas fields where leakage alone from the full exploitation of the resources would result in emissions equivalent to at least a billion tonnes of CO2 – represent a huge threat to the climate and have the potential to release methane levels equivalent to three decades of all US greenhouse gas emissions, a new investigation by The Guardian has revealed.

    — “Methane Bombs’ Release 30 Years Equivalent of US Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Risk Triggering Climate Catastrophe”, Earth.org, March 8, 2023.

    Underscoring these recent studies is a haunting incomprehensible undertone of human failure to address the risks of human extinction. Once the signs become more apparent, it’ll be too late. In fact, there are some rumblings that “too late” may be right around the corner, but that’s too pessimistic, or is it? Regardless, the offset to pessimism about climate change is nobody really knows for sure when what will happen, but trends tell a story, such as radical changes in ecosystems like tens of thousands of thermokarst lakes emitting CH4 suddenly appearing in Arctic permafrost regions of Siberia and Alaska as undeniably factual and impossible to accurately measure but rapidly surfacing methane bubbles up and away into the atmosphere, defining a cloudy uncertain future.

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  • July 21 Was Earth’s Hottest Day on Record

    July 21 was Earth’s hottest day on record, overtaking the record set last July during the hottest year in millennia. The European Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) found that Sunday’s average air surface temperature soared to 17.09°C , or 62.76°F, according to preliminary data. While that is only 0.1°C warmer than the previous record — set on July 6, 2023 — it was nearly 3°C higher than…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Amid Climate Crisis, Global Warming Was Glossed Over in Presidential Debate

    Over more than an hour and a half of back-and-forth, climate change got just a couple minutes of airtime during a CNN-hosted debate between President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump on Thursday. It was the first time the men had faced each other on the debate stage since October 2020. Both candidates were reportedly eager for the confrontation, with Biden’s team seeking to warn voters…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Antarctic Ice Melt: New Sobering Studies  

    It was only two years ago that studies of the infamous Thwaites Glacier, aka: the Doomsday Glacier located in West Antarctica, found rapid melting. At the time, scientists said it was “hanging on by its fingernails.” (Source: “Doomsday Glacier”, Which Could Raise Sea Level by Several Feet, is “Hanging by its Fingernails”, Scientists Say”, CNN, September 6, 2022.)

    Since that warning was issued the planet has vastly exceeded global warming expectations. A new study raises the bet on sea level rise, maybe by a lot. The study warns that the Antarctic ice sheet is melting in a “new, worrying way” that scientific models of sea level rise have failed to account for.  (Source: Alexander T. Bradley, et al, “Tipping Point in Ice-Sheet Grounding-Zone Melting Due to Ocean Water Intrusion”, Nature Geoscience, 2024.)

    British Antarctic Survey scientists discovered warm ocean water seeping beneath the ice sheet down to the grounding line, which is where the ice rises from the seabed and starts to float. Moreover, adding another dimension, new studies show that small increases in ocean temperatures can have big impact on melting. These new facts raise very serious concerns about all projections of sea level rise.

    Moreover, ocean temperatures have been setting new records.  “The ocean has now broken temperature records every day for more than a year.” (Source: “The Ocean Has Shattered Records for More Than a Year”, The New York Times, April 10, 2024.)

    Making matters more edgy yet, a 2,000-foot-long ice core removed from West Antarctica looks like a game-changer. And it’s not pretty. (Source: Mackenzie M. Grieman, et al, “Abrupt Holocene Ice Loss Due to Thinning and Underground in the Weddell Sea Embayment”, Nature Geoscience, February 8, 2024.)

    The 2,000-foot-long ice core is the first paleoclimatic proof that the Antarctic ice sheet can melt very fast in a relatively short period of time.

    Under circumstances somewhat like today, but 8,000 years ago, part of the ice sheet melted by 450 meters (1,476 feet, or higher than the Empire State Bldg.) over a period of only 200 years, which was at the end of the last ice age. According to Eric Wolff, glaciologist at University of Cambridge/UK: “We’ve been able to say exactly when it retreated, but we’ve also been able to say how fast it retreated.” (Source: “Scientists Discover an Alarming Change in Antarctica’s Past That Could Spell Devastating Future Sea Level Rise”, CNN, February 8, 2024.)

    According to the scientists, in today’s world: “If it does start to retreat, it really will do it very fast.” And, of course, the concern is not only 1,476 feet of ice melt over 200 years, but also, and more importantly, what will be the sea level impact of the initial several feet over upcoming decades, assuming a repeat of what occurred 8,000 years ago, which, so far, knock on wood, does not look to have started, yet. But West Antarctica is not going to make a pre-announcement that it’s ready to commence a cascading meltdown!

    According to Ted Scambos, glaciologist, Univeristy of Colorado, Boulder: “The amount of ice stored in Antarctica can change very quickly— at a pace that would be hard to deal with for many coastal cities”. (Ibid.)

    The Grieman, et al detailed study of the 8,000-year-old ice core revealed the biggest surprise in recent memory: Antarctic ice meltdowns can happen much faster than current sea level studies assume. According to Wolff: “We actually spent a lot of time checking that we hadn’t made a mistake with the analysis.” (Ibid.)

    Wolff warns that it is crucial to take all measures possible to tackle climate change to avoid “these tipping points.” We do not want the same 1,476-foot ice meltdown to start again at such an alarming rate. The point is: It already happened under similar circumstances as today so it’s an understatement that nation/states should react as soon as possible and take all measures possible to mitigate climate change/global warming.

    The most recent National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report highlights concerns: The month of May had a record-high monthly global ocean surface temperature for the 14th consecutive month. The ocean-only temperature for May in the Southern Hemisphere ranked the highest on record.

    “Over the past 50 years, the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula has been one of the most rapidly warming parts of the planet. And it has been established that Antarctic Circumpolar Current is warming more rapidly than the global ocean as a whole.” (Source: “Impacts of Climate Change“, Discovery Antarctica.)

    Assuming nation/states fail to take enough measures soon enough to mitigate global warming, which increasingly looks likely, a significant issue arises: When should sea walls be built and how high will be high enough?

    The post Antarctic Ice Melt: New Sobering Studies   first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • At the Edge of Apocalypse

    Biblical flooding, scorching heat, collapsing grid system, animals crumbling, waters rising, crops wilting, economy on the brink, and millions displaced.

    Welcome to the future of climate change… Pakistan.

    If one could classify a global warming beta test as a success towards an ultimate goal of apocalypse, unfortunately, it has turned Pakistan into a country populated by millions of displaced people in the early chapters of a horror story with no ending in sight because it is likely to get worse. Pakistan has been thrashed back and forth from one year (2022) of biblical flooding to years of record-setting heat. Normality has fled, chased out by an ogre of darkened apocalypse in the making.

    Wherefore, Inside Climate News d/d June 8, 2024 has a remarkable series entitled “Living on Earth”, which recently interviewed Rafay Alam, who is an environmental lawyer and a member of Pakistan’s Climate Change Council. The title of the interview: “As Temperatures in Pakistan Top 120 Degrees, There’s Nowhere to Run”. That interview is the basis for this article about a country of 240 million people at the brink of apocalypse.

    Based upon Pakistan’s severe climate experience, here is what Rafay Alam concludes, a widely shared viewpoint throughout the Global South:

    There is a significant denialism on climate change in places like the United States. And it angers me because I see people affected. I see animals affected. And this is a lived experience for the global majority, the Global South. It’s extremely infuriating to see people who’ve participated in this global warming deny it, deny any accountability, try and move on as if nothing’s happened and try and continue to make money and drive that bottom line.

    There’s an adage of the 1950s “Ugly Americans” that lingers to this day outside of America’s borders. It pejoratively references Americans as loud, arrogant, self-absorbed, demeaning, thoughtless, ignorant, with ugly ethnocentric behavior, which also applies to U.S. corporate interests internationally. Regrettably, climate change is reviving this debasing dictum in a very big way, 70 years later. And people who think today’s sociopolitical atmosphere is poisoned, divided, and postured for trouble in the USA should look over their shoulders, as anger foments around the world with America a target. Trouble’s universal.

    Rafay Alam resides in Lahore (pop. 13M) known as the “City of Gardens.” It is the cultural heart of Pakistan with exquisite arts, cuisine, and music festivals, known for filmmaking and the recognized home of the intelligentsia. Lahore is a sophisticated metropolis that’s a safe place to live. According to the World Crime Index, the city is safer than living in London, New York, or Melbourne.

    Yet, life for millions in Pakistan has changed for the worse seemingly overnight. Today, the country experiences persistent heat waves over 120°F in some cities, and summer is just beginning. Anything approaching the normal rhythm of life of past decades has been overwhelmed by brutal severely damaging climate change. The country is still recovering from the biblical flooding of 2022 when normal rainfall turned voracious 400% to 800% beyond anything ever experienced, a torrential downpouring lasting weeks in regions of the country that do not drain into the Indus Basin. Thus, a 100-kilometer (62-mile) artificial lake formed, displacing 10 million and impacting 30 million, bringing in its wake $35B infrastructure damage, roads swept away, schools swept away, hospitals swept away. It will take a generation to rebuild. This is climate change in full blast mode.

    Rafay Alam:

    We’ve seen temperatures since the middle of May to the first of June currently more than 50 degrees Centigrade, which is well over 120°F. Lahore, where I live is 44°C today, which is about 111°F… I go for a walk in the evenings when the sun sets It’s not unpleasant, but I notice animals and birds collapsed to the ground looking for water, dogs on the side of the road unable to get up… Recently, it was 125°F, the hottest place on Earth, at Mohenjo-Daro, which is home to an ancient civilization.

    Accordingly, Pakistan is not just experiencing a scorching heat wave, it is actively experiencing the climate crisis in all its variations on a real time basis. And according to meteorologists: “It’s going to stay hotter for longer.”

    Climate change has wrought an economic nightmare, as Pakistan has sought flood relief that came as loans, not grants or aid, which has doubled Pakistan’s external debt in only two years. This is devastating for a country that is trying to regain its footing and rebuild an economy that climate change clobbered.

    Nevertheless, the country is learning to live with devastating temperatures by changing life’s normal patterns. Schools are let out by 12:00 noon but shutdown entirely when temperatures rise too far, which is a common experience of late.

    Of even more concern, and possibly the most dangerous scenario of all, the monsoon season is coming by the end of June, early July which will convert dry heat to extreme humid heat with deadly wet bulb temperatures. At 95°F and 70% humidity, it’ll impact the human body like 120°F. That’s deadly because at that level the human body cannot release heat by sweating. Rather, it bakes internal organs. Hmm- it’s been triple digits for some time now with daytime forecasts to remain in triple digits to the end of June, and likely beyond into the heart of the summer.

    Agriculture is 20% of Pakistan GDP. And according to Alam, a leading English newspaper recently ran a headline about crops decimated in Pakistan by heat, cotton basically sizzling, maize, mangos, and other vegetables and fodder for cattle, expecting a decline of productivity. Nearly one-half of the Pakistani workforce is in agriculture and they’re being hammered down to the poverty line by unforgiving climate change.

    This heat wave is a man-made event due to the greenhouse gases consumed and thrown into the atmosphere by the Global North since the industrial revolution These greenhouse gases have to stop. (Alam)

    Meanwhile, he claims the country must adapt as soon as possible to an off-the-rails climate system fed by profit-motives outside of Pakistan. He suggests changes to agriculture by working on heat-resistant crops. Currently, no crops can withstand 50-plus Centigrade temperatures. And the water economy must learn to adapt as 90% of water goes to agriculture, which is 20% of GDP employing 40% of the workforce, which is at the poverty line.

    Meanwhile, it is currently harvesting season. Agricultural workers are waking up when the sun rises for only a couple of hours of work before it gets too hot to work. When it’s too hot to work any longer, people congregate inside for shelter from the sun. But those who live near fields are warned that snakes and scorpions also seek cooler spaces, entering homes en masse seeking shelter.

    Alam’s biggest concern is for most Pakistanis who are middle class, working class and at the poverty line, unable to withstand climate shocks much further. Moreover, there are really not many safe places for them to go to escape global heat, unless they have a rich friend.

    Even heading to the Himalaya mountains for cooler terrain could be treacherous. There are over 3,000 glaciers that, due to global warming, form glacial lakes in the mountains. Over time, these blow apart in outburst of devastating unannounced floods bringing down mountainsides as roads and bridges are washed away leaving those seeking cool mountain air stranded. According to the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, the Hindu Kush Himalaya is a “hotspot of risk” for outburst floods.

    Pakistan, unfortunately, has become a proving ground for what climate change is capable of. And there’s no reason to expect it to remain confined to the borders of Pakistan.

    Rafay Alam first became aware of climate change’s potential impact nearly 20 years ago when he saw Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth (Paramount Classics, May 2006), which opened a lot of eyes. Yet, the nations of the world have failed to adequately confront the primary cause, burning fossil fuels, that fuels radical climate change that’s whiplashed Pakistan’s environment beyond limits.

    Alam believes the basis of the legal systems and the international system can’t cope with an existential crisis such as climate change: “One of the worst ways to deal with something like climate change is to divide the world into 200 different countries and have them argue with each other.” The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -IPCC- is testament to this, 30 years later and CO2 is still increasing each year without missing a beat, targeting Pakistan. But, for certain, Pakistan is not an isolated case.

    According to Alam, in conclusion:

    Earth’s ecosystem has been in balance since the last ice age… That civilization is over… the way that we interact with each other- extremely heavy energy use, extremely heavy water use, incredibly consumptive of natural resources producing greenhouse gases for just about everything… It’s this behavior, this civilization, which is at risk. And yes, it is very much an apocalypse.

    The post At the Edge of Apocalypse first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • Chomsky and UN Forewarnings Revisited

    I recently attended a family affair in Upstate NY and was informed that climate change articles, like this one, are too negative, causing close relatives to shutdown and going so far as to ignore articles, too gloomy, too negative, do something more positive. My response: Analyzing the planet’s climate system by studying peer-reviewed scientific publications for over a decade, every year has gotten worse and worse, no letups, more negatives every year… there’s nothing positive about climate change to write about. And people need to know the truth about anthropogenic-led crashing of ecosystems.

    Furthermore, one of the key reasons why many Americans don’t accept climate change as an existential issue is because they have been shielded from the most impactful events of climate change, from the truth as experienced by the rest of the world; e.g., Europe’s five-year average temperature has been running 2.3°C above pre-industrial, a danger zone according t0 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which, under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nearly 200 countries agreed to limit global warming to no more than 2.0° Celsius by 2100 to avoid significant and potentially catastrophic changes to the planet. Hmm. Ipso facto, 75% of Spain is at risk of desertification, according to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.

    The USA, uniquely. happens to be located in a “global sweet spot” ideally within latitudes and longitudes that first attracted Europeans to a Garden of Eden setting, For example, during the mid-17th century in the words of William Wood of Boston, circa 1634 (Source: “Boston’s Flora and Fauna in the 1630s”, Boston Public Library):

    For the Country it is as well watered as any land under the Sun, every family, or every two families having a spring of sweet waters betwixt them, which is far different from the waters of England being not so, but of a fatter substance, and of a more jetty colour; it is thought there can be so better water in the world.

    The next commodity the land affords, is good store of Woods, & that not only such as may be needful for fuel, but likewise for the building of Ships, and houses, & Mils, and all manner of water-work about which Wood is necessary. The Timber of the Country grows straight and tall, some trees being twenty, some thirty-foot high, before they spread forth their branches…. Of these swamps, some be ten, some twenty, some thirty miles long, being preserved by the wetness of the soils wherein they grow.

    Today, people in Asia and Europe and Central America do not complain about negtive climate articles, rather, they embrace it, believing that more exposure is necessary so people know how to bitch and moan and groan about the failure of political leaders to take heed of top-notch scientists’ warnings for decades that global warming, primarily caused by fossil fuels like CO2, eventually leads to ecosystem collapse and dangerous heatwaves and destructive droughts. Today, unrelenting heatwaves are rampant for all to see but could be only the beginning.

    Regarding the Chomsky and UN warnings, it was June 2022 when the UN issued GAR2022, UN Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction shortly thereafter followed by Noam Chomsky as keynote speaker for the American Solar Energy Society 51st annual conference at the University of New Mexico.

    The UN report, for the first time, brought into focus the challenge: “Escalating synergies of climate disasters, economic vulnerability, and ecosystem failures increasingly headed for a juggernaut of collapse.”

    On the heels of the UN report about an impending “juggernaut of collapse,” Chomsky’s opening statement at the American Solar Energy Society echoed the UN’s statement:

    We are at a unique moment in human history. Decisions that must be made right now will determine the course of future history if there is to be any human history, which is very much in doubt. There is a narrow window in which we must implement measures to avert cataclysmic destruction of the environment.

    Today, there is compelling evidence that both the UN and Chomsky were dead-on correct. But Chomsky’s call for implementing measures to avert cataclysmic destruction of the environment have been mostly ignored. Now, two short years later. killer heat is consuming the lifeblood of megacities in some regions of the planet.

    “Water sources are depleted around the world,” according to Victoria Beard, professor of city and regional planning, Cornell University: “Every year, more cities will face ‘Day Zero,’ with no water in their piped systems.” (Source: “This Mega-City is Running Out of Water: What Will 22 Million People do When the Taps Run Dry?” Phys.org, March 26, 2024.)

    For example: Mexico City (22M pop.) could run dry this summer. Bogotá (8M pop.) recently started water rationing. Residents of Johannesburg (6M pop.) line up for municipal truck deliveries. South Delhi (2.7M pop.) announced a rationing plan on May 29th. Several cities of southern Europe have rationing plans on the table. In March 2024 China announced its first-ever National-Level Regulations on Water Conservation, a disguised version of water rationing. Global warming is the key problem as severe droughts clobber reservoirs. And global warming is a product of energy creation from fossil fuel emissions such s CO2.

    According to Chomsky, the “Energy System” is the provocateur of global warming, and it has enormous institutional breadth, including fossil fuel companies, banks, and other financial institutions and a large part of the legal community. Accordingly, the Energy System’s political base is the Republican Party, and it is the main driving force for global warming which, in turn, threatens megacities with “Day Zero” or dry reservoirs. This is becoming prevalent around the globe.

    The fact that the UN Global Assessment Report GAR2022 received little, or no media attention, explains how and why we are in deep trouble; the issue is simply ignored. Yet, it is the first-ever UN flagship global report with findings that current global policies are “accelerating the collapse of human civilization.” It should have been front page news. Importantly, the report does not suggest that collapse is a “done deal.” Rather, without radical change, it’s where the world is headed.

    Alas, where is the “radical change” that the UN report said is necessary to prevent collapse? Answer: There is no radical change ongoing, planned, or discussed. Radical change has never been mentioned by any world-recognized authorities.

    Celebrated weather historian Maximiliano Herrera, recently commented on global warming’s impact: “Thousands of records are being brutalized all over Asia, which is by far the most extreme event in world climatic history.” (Source: “Summer Heat Hits Asia Early, Killing Dozens as one Expert Calls it the ‘Most Extreme Event’ in Climate History”, CBS News, May 2, 2024.)

    “The most extreme event in world climatic history” is a very strong characterization of the impact of climate change and global warming. Dangerous heat waves are sweeping the world like a scythe harvesting wheat and more people are being killed than reported by authorities, especially in India. There’ll never be accurate counts of the dead for public release. Some megacities are currently at knife’s edge of loss of drinking water for millions of residents. They’re not prepared. Water is trucked for firefighting in some megacities and to neighborhoods where residents are parched. This could have been prevented, but it wasn’t.

    Of even more immediate concern, an Environmental Emergency has been declared for Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands by Mato Grosso do Sul, the Brazilian state containing most of Pantanal. The emergency has been declared as the number of fires surged by 980%, as of June 5th, well ahead of wildfire season which starts in July/August. This is one of the world’s largest wetlands (10 times Florida’s everglades) which has partially dried out due to ongoing severe drought. (Source: “Fires in Brazilian Wetlands Surge 980%, Extreme Drought Expected”, Reuters, June 7, 2024.)

    The Pantanal is the world’s largest freshwater wetland stretching over parts of Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia offering unseen gifts to a vast swath of South America by regulating the water cycle upon which life depends. Its countless swamps, lagoons and tributaries purify water and help prevent floods and droughts. It stores untold amounts of carbon, helping to stabilize the world’s climate. It is one of the wonders of the world, but large areas are blazing afire because of severe drought; it’s global warming at work.

    What to do? There are experienced capable people, such as Roger Hallam, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, who believe that the failure of world leaders to listen to scientists for decades necessitates a changing of the guard. He’s organizing a worldwide movement.

    In summation, the United Nations claims “radical change” is needed, and as stated by Noam Chomsky: “There is a narrow window in which we must implement measures to avert cataclysmic destruction of the environment.” But nobody is doing this on a radical change basis.

    Meantime, if megacities run dry, what will millions of city residents do? The risks have never been more pronounced.

    The post Chomsky and UN Forewarnings Revisited first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • Where’s the Water?

    “Whiskey’s for drinking and water’s for fighting,” a popular adage from the chronicles of the American West that’s starting to come back into vogue.

    The world’s megacities are on a knife’s edge of water stress.

    Climate change is clobbering water resources and testing the nerves of the world, especially megacities; e.g., Mexico City (pop. 22 million) could run dry this summer. Nearly 90% of greater Mexico City is in severe drought.  The country has been in widespread drought since 2021-22. Subsidence is causing the city to sink 20 inches per year because of rapid groundwater extraction supplanting low reservoirs. The Metro is sinking unevenly. The rails are wobbly. The massive city could go dry this year.

    Bogotá, a city of 8 million located in a humid patch of the northern Andes Mountains surrounded by cloud forests, has instituted water rationing as of April 15, 2024. The Chingaza Reservoir System is 15% full and if rains do not return soon, it’ll run out of water in two months. The mayor recommended eliminating daily personal showers, with several other suggestions.

    Human-caused climate change is enemy number one, and it all starts at the Arctic, influencing the entire Northern Hemisphere, too hot for too long melting reflective ice, upsetting an age-old interchange with jet streams at 30,000 feet that drive weather patterns. Like a drunken sailor, the jet streams don’t know which way to go and neither do weather systems. Result, rains for Mexico City reservoirs are horribly weak, if at all, following years of unprecedented drought.

    The United Nations General Assembly, NY was briefed last year by leading scientists: “Conflict, Climate and Cooperation.” It’s been 4,500 years since an actual war has broken out over water rights. It took place between two Mesopotamian city-states in what is now called Iraq.

    Like 4,500 years ago, tensions over water are on the rise and climate change is largely to blame as fossil fuels lurk in the background. Major cities of the world are at risk of drying out and climate change is the problem, too hot for too long with drought on a rampage, festering big time trouble of Day Zero, as taps go dry. Leading candidates: Mexico City, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Jakarta, São Paulo, Beijing, Cairo, Bangalore, Tokyo, London, Bogotá, Moscow, Istanbul (Sources:  Euronews and World Resources Institute Aqueduct).

    Global warming is impacting a very sensitive touch-and-go relationship between major cities and diminishing water resources. Extreme heat shrinks reservoirs combined with decades of neglect as water infrastructure crumbles and climate change shifts precipitation patterns making once wet regions drier than ever.

    The 2024 World Water Development Report claims that nearly one-half of the world’s population experiences “at least temporary severe water scarcity.” Meanwhile, tensions over water are exacerbating conflicts worldwide. (Source: Press Release: Water Crises Threaten World Peace, UNESCO, March 2024.) More to the point, 2.2 billion people don’t have access to “safely managed drinking water.” This is a guaranteed formula for trouble as desperate people take desperate measures… to survive.

    Recent water wars have spilled bloodshed in India, Kenya, and Yemen. And on the Iran-Afghanistan border, conflict rages over water from the Helmand River.

    Based upon studies by the Pacific Institute, over the past 18 months there have been 344 instances of water-related conflicts in the world. According to Peter Gleick of Pacific Institute: “We also see a worrying increase in violence associate with water security worsened by drought – climate disruptions, growing populations, and competition for water.” (Source: “Water Increasingly at the Center of Conflicts from Ukraine to the Middle East”, LA Times, December 28, 2023.)

    Climate change is creating a war path, forcing major urban centers to change lifestyles, living with less, and butting heads with a worldwide neoliberal capitalistic economic system that promotes endless growth at any and all costs.

    By ignoring the dreadful influence of fossil fuels spewing CO2 whilst powering endless growth that rips apart predictable climate systems of the ages, which has now turned viciously unpredictable, the end may be in sight.

    The ineptitude of world leadership to properly judge and deal with human-generated global warming, despite decades of warnings by top notch scientists, and their blatant kowtowing to the fossil fuel interests, is leading down a very difficult pathway. As a result, there are rumblings about how to change direction, for example, The Climate Revolution broadcast on the Climate Emergency Forum featuring Roger Hallam, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, who suggests a changing of the guard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc8KS89lG8Y&t=276s

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    This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Robert Hunziker.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Goodbye Oil and Gas: Hello Thermal Bricks

    The world of energy struggles with the nearly impossible task of getting off fossil fuels. This requires thinking outside of the box, something revolutionary bustling with energy that bails us out of sluggish fossil fuels that emit too much CO2 into the atmosphere and rapidly overheats the planet. The CO2/global warming relationship, joined at the hip, must come to an end, or it’ll self-destruct everything in sight.

    In the face of ultra-rapid technological developments, oil and gas production is old and dirty and slow and captures unbelievable sums of money for few people by removing the remains of dead organisms found deep underground; i.e., oil. In a strange, twisted manner, this is biological money stolen from Earth. but that’s too deep of a subject for now.

    Instead, what if thermal bricks with zero CO2 content could convert electricity to 1,800°C (3,275°F) powerful enough to melt steel, no fossil fuels needed? And not only create heat for heavy industry but also store heat for days when the sun doesn’t shine. Sounds too good to be true. It’s a case that breaks that rule.

    Abracadabra! Meet Electrified Thermal Solutions (“ETS”) an MIT spinoff that has designed Joule Hive, a thermal battery the size of an elevator that’s featured in a write-up in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: “Can Electrically Conductive Bricks Replace Fossil Fuels?“, d/d May 27, 2024, (originally from Inside Climate News).

    Even more miraculous yet, ETS has perfected the technologically marvelous brick and contracted with a major industrial brick manufacturer, using ETS’s proprietary formula, to bring to market orders ranging from two tons of bricks to 2,000 tons of bricks, or more. In fact, ETS recently received its first multi-ton order for thermal bricks, no CO2 included.

    A Brick that Creates Industrial-Scale Heat

    ETS’s brick is a brilliant answer for the energy transition to convert electricity to high temperature heat that today is done by coal and natural gas to power heavy industry. Bring the bricks, remove the coal, turn off the natural gas. Brick technology is here to eliminate global warming’s biggest advocates; i.e., oil and gas and coal.

    Significantly, and this is big: With the Joule Hive Thermal Battery, for the first-time electricity can be used to drive a gas turbine. Interpretation: The world’s 1.8 Terawatts of existing natural gas power plants could be converted to grid-scale batteries to balance intermittent renewable generation. ETS intends to transform natural gas power plants into decarbonized batteries to enable a zero-carbon grid of the future. Here’s the bottom line: One trillion watts (one Terawatt) equals all the electricity from all US power plants, now targeted by thermal bricks that will boot CO2 out of the front gate of the industrial plant.

    The origin of thermal bricks came from Dan Stack and Joey Kabel, when Dan Stack, as a grad student at MIT, wondered out loud whether fire bricks like those commonly used in residential fireplaces could be used to store heat as well as create heat. Thereafter, altering the metal oxides within brick creation, wonderful things happen: (1) conduct electricity (2) generate heat (3) store heat. It’s remarkable and marketable and should become a hot new product, assuming success in the commercial market with a couple of high-profile adventurous first-time customers.

    According to Stack, “There’s no exotic metals in here, there’s nothing that’ll burn out.”

    Thanks to the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act -IRA-, the US Energy Department awarded ETS a $5 million grant to help build the first commercial-scale demo at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio: “The project will demonstrate how the thermal battery could provide high temperature heat for a number of industrial processes including cement manufacturing, which currently relies primarily on burning coal for heat.” (Bulletin)

    Massimo Toso, president and chief executive of Buzzi Unicem USA, one of the largest cement producers in the United States and an industrial partner with ETS on the Energy Department grant, praised the company’s thermal battery: “ETS’s Joule Hive Thermal Battery is the first industrial heat decarbonization solution we have identified that could potentially enable us to cost effectively and eliminate the use of fossil fuels in our heating processes.” (Ibid.)

    This is a big step for decarbonization of heavy industry, which accounts for approximately one-fourth (1/4th) of direct greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. It’s believed thermal batteries (bricks) powered-up by renewable energy could reduce one-half of industry emissions. That’s a huge step in the right direction and groundbreaking for more rapid decarbonization of the economy. Indeed, if as successful as it appears, this is a giant leap forward towards getting off fossil fuels.

    Another astute placement by the Biden administration was a $35 million grant to Ashland, a specialty chemical manufacturer in Wilmington, Delaware, a matching grant from the Energy Department for commercial deployment of ETS’s thermal batteries to be installed at Ashland’s ISP Chemicals Plant in Calvert City, Kentucky where large volumes of high temperature steam are needed to run its operations.

    “The project would replace natural gas-fired boilers at the Calvert City plant with ETS’s thermal batteries. Air blown through the Joule Hive batteries would transfer flame-temperature heat to the boilers to generate steam. The project would reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with steam generation at the plant by nearly 70 percent, according to the Energy Department.” (Ibid.)  Ashland is currently evaluating the proposal.

    This brings to the forefront the significance and key role of policymakers that focus on mitigation of global warming; it’s never been more important. Global warming is not a tongue-in-cheek make-fun-of issue. It’s already killing people and decimating life-sourcing ecosystems, rising ocean levels, and turning the global weather system inside out and upside down with unprecedented levels of ferociousness never witnessed, world’s biggest, fiercest wildfires, meanwhile, scorching heat now blankets the planet like never before: When it is hot, it’s never been so hot!

    A fair question is whether Electrified Thermal Solutions would have been funded under the description of the following proposal for a new 2025 federal administration: Project 2025 is the Heritage Foundation’s roadmap for MAGA Republicans going forward: “The plan’s proposals include eviscerating existing climate programs and increasing reliance on fossil fuels. It emphatically repudiates efforts to decarbonize the economy and is a wholesale reversal of the progress made on climate policy over recent years.” (Source: ” Project 2025 Tells us What a Second Trump Term Could Mean for Climate Policy. It Isn’t Pretty“, WBUR nonprofit news org, March 27, 2024.

    The light at the end of the tunnel just flickered.

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  • Heat Waves Make Pregnancy More Dangerous, Exacerbate Maternal Health Disparities

    When Rupa Basu was pregnant with her second child, her body temperature felt out of control — particularly as her third trimester began in the summer of 2007. It wasn’t particularly hot in Oakland, California, with high temperatures reaching 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Still, she felt uncomfortably warm even as her colleagues and friends were unbothered. As her October due date approached…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • NOAA Predicts More Atlantic Storms, Hurricanes Than Average for 2024 Season

    Last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued an alarming May forecast for the upcoming Atlantic storm season, predicting an increase in storms in a number of categories, including intense hurricanes. The report comes as the climate crisis, coupled with El Niño/La Niña weather phenomena, has already resulted in an increase of devastating natural disasters across the…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Deadly Heat in a Political Jungle

    World heat is worse than ever. The entire planet is sweating.

    Every summer is hot but never like this. In America, it’s a national election year in the face of global record heat. What are candidates’ positions on CO2-infused heat?

    Graph by Brian Brettschneider, PhD, Climatologist

    It’s extremely significant that global heat is just as bad in the world’s oceans, which have absorbed 85-90% of planetary heat, serving as a heat reservoir for decades. But now, the oceans are starting to strut their hot stuff. According to Copernicus, April was the 13th month in a row that global sea surface temperatures between 60 degrees latitude south and 60 degrees latitude north have been the warmest on record for the month. Astoundingly, nearly 30% of the world’s oceans were above 28C (82.4°F) too hot for a bath, in April 2024, setting a record. Both the Mediterranean and Black Seas also had sharp upward trends for the month. Has civilization lost its ocean heat cushion?

    Consequently, heat deaths are on the rise and look to escalate, by a lot, and soon. This is a worldwide crisis like none other. It requires world leadership to do something, soon, like the day before yesterday. But, how soon and will it be enough and who’s willing?

    According to World Weather Attribution d/d May 14, 2024: Consistent sweltering temperatures well above 40C (104F) are creating havoc from Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria in the West to Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines in the East, and even though  heat-related death tolls are typically underreported, hundreds of heat-related deaths have been reported, schools have been closed, and citizens warned to stay indoors.

    Moreover, two studies by World Weather Attribution (WWA) “found that human-induced climate change influenced the events, making them around 30 times more likely and much hotter.”

    Heat knows no borders. According to WLRN South Florida d/d May 23, 2024: “Heat Dome Leads to Sweltering Temperatures in Mexico, Central America, and US South”: “This extreme heat is occurring in a world that is quickly warming due to greenhouse gases, which come from the burning of fossil fuels like oil, gas, and coal.” For example, Miami International Airport is running 10°F hotter than normal at 96°F.

    Mexico City is nearly a war zone scenario with record high temperatures which, combined with pollution, leads to multiple city-wide protests, including by police: “A group of police agents blocked six lanes of traffic Wednesday on a main Mexico City avenue, saying their barracks lacked water for a week and the bathrooms were unusable. ” (Ibid.) Water has been trucked for hospitals and to firefighting teams. Numerous birds and animals in the wild of Mexico have dropped dead on the spot.

    All Central America is exposed to the same horrendous moist heat. And people wonder why they migrate North.

    Yale Climate Connections d/d April 29, 2024 listed some global warming samplers (1) corals are bleaching in every corner of the ocean, threatening its web of life (2) extreme drought in southern Africa leaves millions hungry (3) West African heat wave: high humidity made 40°C feel like 50°C, which is a killer (4) discomfort may increase: Asia’s heat wave scorches hundreds of millions (5) record heat in Europe, Asia closes another extremely warm month for the planet (6) Europe unprepared for rapidly growing climate risks, report finds (7) China breaks heat records as sweltering weather baked cities from north to south.

    “The era of global boiling has arrived,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres has warned. “Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning.” (Source: Climate Action, World Economic Forum, August 4, 2023.)

    António Guterres “nailed it” nine months ago. Meanwhile, at some point in time soon, the major nations of the world will hit panic buttons and go all-in supplanting fossil fuels with renewables as quickly as possible. They’ll be forced to do this. After all, when police protest in the streets, as in Mexico City, who’s left to patrol?

    It’s a national election year in America, and climate change should be a major political issue as the heat is on for the whole world to see like never before, and it will get worse, as stated by the UN secretary-general. What’s the political landscape in America? According to the mainstream publication Yahoo! Finance d/d Feb. 15, 2024: “MAGA Republicans Have a 920-Page Plan to Make Climate Change Worse.” Isn’t that just great!

    Here’s the opening paragraph of Yahoo! Finance’s write-up: “When former President Donald Trump exited the Oval Office in January 2021, he left behind a record of environmental rollbacks unrivaled in US history. Over his 1,461 days as commander-in-chief, Trump replaced, eliminated, or otherwise dismantled more than 100 environmental rules – at least — from repealing the Clean Air Act to allowing coal plants to dump toxic wastewater into lakes and rivers to declaring open season on endangered gray wolves.” Several of the hatcheted rules were from Richard Nixon’s administration.

    Subsequently, the Biden administration rolled back a lot of Trump’s hatchet job.

    “Had all Trump’s policies gone into effect, the nonpartisan Rhodium Group estimated at the end of 2020, they would have added an additional 1.8 gigatons of CO2-equivalent to the atmosphere by 2035 – more than the annual energy emissions of Germany, Britain, and Canada combined. But even though we never felt the full brunt of them, the medical journal The Lancet estimated that the policies undertaken during his presidency were responsible for 22,000 deaths in 2019 alone due to sharp increases in things like asthma, heart disease, and lung cancer.” (Ibid.)

    Project 2025 is the Heritage Foundation’s roadmap for MAGA Republicans going forward: “The plan’s proposals include eviscerating existing climate programs and increasing reliance on fossil fuels. It emphatically repudiates efforts to decarbonize the economy and is a wholesale reversal of the progress made on climate policy over recent years.” (Source: “Project 2025 Tells us What a Second Trump Term Could Mean for Climate Policy. It Isn’t Pretty“, WBUR nonprofit news org, March 27, 2024.)

    Well, that’s great to know, but here’s the real issue: “Much of the voting public is disturbingly unaware of both Biden’s climate record and the assault that Project 2025 would marshal against it.” (Ibid.)

    Make America Great Again. Really?

    The post Deadly Heat in a Political Jungle first appeared on Dissident Voice.


    This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Robert Hunziker.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Amazon Rainforest Collapse?

    Photo Credit: Rainforest Trust

    “A major question is whether a large-scale collapse of the Amazon forest system could actually happen within the twenty-first century.” (Source: Bernardo M. Flores, et al, “Critical Transitions in the Amazon Forest System”, Nature, February 14, 2024).

    It may seem absurd to consider collapse of the Amazon rainforest (65-million-years-old) which seems impossible, too far out, not warranting an article like this, but, sorry to say. it is already happening in early stages, as explained herein in some detail, with facts.

    In fact, peer-reviewed studies of ecosystems such as (1) Greenland (2) the Great Barrier Reef (3) vast permafrost regions of the Northern Hemisphere upper latitudes define risks combined with (4) the Amazon rainforest could result in a synchronized collapse 1,2,3,4 sometime in the future, who knows, but it’s headed in that direction. All four are noticeably breaking down; no doubt about it, 100% factual. It would likely be geologically catastrophically quick. Each of these tottering ecosystems is negatively impacted by human-generated global warming via fossil fuel emissions, CO2. And it’s happening fast.

    The potential collapse of the iconic Amazon, one of the planet’s biggest, best-known ecosystems, arises after years of failure by world leaders to listen to scientists’ warnings to do something about fossil fuel CO2. As a result, by ignoring science, society is its own worst enemy, in denial, unapproachable denial.

    A recent Earth.org headline reflects the sobering facts found in the Flores study of the Amazon and supports the uncanny proposition of a potential synchronized collapse of ecosystems: “Up to 47% of Amazon Rainforest at Risk of Collapse by Mid-Century Due to ‘Unprecedented Stress’ from Global Warming and Deforestation,” Earth.org, February 15, 2024.

    The Flores study is the first-ever major study to focus on a range of forcings impacting the world’s most famous rainforest. Previous research only assessed individual forcing aspects without looking at the entire picture. “This study adds it all up to show how this tipping point is closer than other studies estimated,” said Carlos Nobre, an author of the study.” (Source: Manuela Andreoni, “A Collapse of the Amazon Could Be Coming ‘Faster Than We Thought’,’’ The New York Times, February 14, 2024).

    The Flores study combined with NASA research of droughts occurring so frequently that the Amazon no longer has enough time to heal, depict a tenuous ecosystem that could turn the global climate system upside down, putting civilization into a state of stress and confusion. Already, portions of southeastern Amazon have experienced large-scale deforestation that’s past the point of recovery.

    “The collapse of part or all the Amazon rainforests would release the equivalent of several years’ worth of global emissions, possibly as much as 20 years’ worth, into the atmosphere as its trees, which store vast amounts of carbon, are replaced by degraded ecosystems. And, because those same trees pump huge amounts of water into the atmosphere, their loss could also disturb global rainfall patterns and temperatures in ways that aren’t well understood.” (Ibid.)

    The Flores study outlines parameters for the rainforest to survive: (1) global warming not to exceed 1.5°C, (2) deforestation kept below 10% of original tree cover, (3) annual dry season cannot exceed five months for the forest to stay intact. “If you pass those thresholds, then the forest could, in principle, collapse or transition into different ecosystems”. (Ibid.)

    {Footnote to Prior Paragraph: According to the World Wildlife Foundation, 17% of the forest is already lost with another 17% degraded. The Council on Foreign Relations claims 20% has been destroyed over 50 years. According to a recent study in Nature d/d March 1, 2024: “The combined effects of land use change and global warming resulted in a mean annual rainfall reduction of 44% and a dry season length increase of 69%, when averaged over the Amazon basin… Savannization and climate change, via increasing dry-season length and drought frequency, might have already pushed the Amazon close to a critical threshold of rainforest dieback. Increases in the length of the dry season have been reported in several recent studies.”}

    Are the three above-stated parameters for rainforest survival achievable?

    The Flores study says governments must halt carbon emissions and deforestation and somehow restore 5% of the degraded rainforest to keep the ecosystem alive and functioning as a rainforest. Yet, the parameters are threatened: “Dry season mean temperature is now more than 2° C higher than it was 40 years ago in large parts of the central and southeastern Amazon. If trends continue, these areas could potentially warm by over 4° C by 2050.” (Flores)

    “Keeping the Amazon forest resilient depends firstly on humanity’s ability to stop greenhouse gas emissions, mitigating the impacts of global warming on regional climatic conditions.” (Flores) Indeed, this is the problem of all problems as fossil fuel producers are intent on increasing production over the foreseeable future into 2050. The health of the Amazon rainforest is not a consideration in oil and gas company business plans.

    Yet already, “the northwestern portion of the biome (in Amazonas and Roraima states) and in the interior of the Para state, as well as other parts of Brazil, such as the semiarid region of Bahia state, in the northeast, and Mato Grosso d0 Sul state in the savanna biome, have already seen extreme temperature increases of more than 3° C (5.4°F) just since the 1960s.” (S0urce: “Detailed NASA Analysis Finds Earth and Amazon in Deep Climate Trouble”, Mongabay, December  21, 2023).

    This “deep climate trouble” statement made by NASA reflects insanely fast temperature increases, and GRACE satellite groundwater readings in dangerous red zones with severe bouts of drought so frequent that the rainforest no longer snaps back, never seen before in NASA’s data base. The Amazon rainforest is truly a victim of excessive global warming. All arrows point down.

    Moreover, in addition to too much CO2: “Real-time satellite monitoring shows that so far in 2024, more than 10,000 wildfires have ripped across 11,000 square kilometers of the Amazon, across multiple countries, never have this many fires burned so much of the forest this early in the year.” (Source: “Fires Imperil the Future of the Amazon Rainforest”, Mother Jones, March 18, 2024.) This info is based upon Brazil’s own National Institute for Space Research, as excessive wildfires weaken the forests and emit CO2 in competition with human CO2 emissions.

    Roraima, which is Brazil’s northernmost state within the rainforest and known for its “wet-wet climate” positioned above the equator naturally suppresses forest fires because of its “wetness.” However, in late February, according to NASA satellites, widespread intense fire activity 5-times the average for February and 50% above the previous record number of fires. According to Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service: “The intensity and size of many of the fires are also unusual.” It’s dry, it burns.

    Equally concerning for Roraima, during a normal year the fires only cover a few square kilometers, but this year the fires that began in fragmented regions of the rainforest of pastures and recently cleared forest spread into surrounding areas, burning hundreds of square kilometers, not just a ‘few.” (Source; Shane Coffield, postdoc at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center).

    “A new NASA study shows that over the last 20 years, the atmosphere above the Amazon rainforest has been drying out, increasing the demand for water, and leaving ecosystems vulnerable to fires and drought. It also shows that the increase in dryness is primarily the result of human activities.” (“Hunan Activities Are Drying Out the Amazon: NASA Study”, Vital Signs of the Planet, NASA.)

    “Indeed, despite global efforts to protect forest land, deforestation is still rampant, with around 15% of the Amazon already cleared, 17% degraded by human activities such as logging, fires, and under-canopy extraction, and a further 38% at risk due to prolonged droughts. About a third of global tropical deforestation occurs in Brazil’s Amazon forest, amounting to 1.5 million hectares each year.” (Earth.org)

    Based upon simple arithmetic from the preceding paragraph, 70% of the rainforest is (a) already cleared (b) degraded by human activities (c) at further risk due to prolonged droughts. Not a good score card. In fact, horrible.

    There are solutions, which have been harped upon by climate scientists for decades, stop fossil fuel emissions, stop CO2 which is 76% of greenhouse gases. At the risk of being overly didactic, world leaders need to consider ramifications when skirting the original precepts of the Paris 2015 climate accord to take bold measures to commence halting CO2 emissions more seriously by 2030 to hold global warming in check at 1.5C pre-industrial, especially as major ecosystems of the world are fast approaching the cliff’s edge with global temperatures knocking on the 1.5C door (assuming IPCC decadal calculations for 1.5C) although 1.5C seems to be here now.

    Should world leaders, more than 100 typically attend UN climate conferences, “go to the ends of the earth” to demand sticking to the Paris climate accords of 2015 instead of attending the conference just for photo ops with Bono?

    Answer: Absolutely, Yes!

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