Global Climate Change Science News

[Brian Peacock]

War time - Manhattan Project level without the secrecy...

In other words, a massive mobilisation of resources and a focused restructuring of the economy to meet this specific challenge.

... and nations cant expect anything of others...

No nation acting alone can address climate change. Emissions, global heating, and the effects thereof don't respect national borders.

... [nations] all have to do what they can without pointing fingers.

But we have enough science now to point exactly to the drivers of climate change and to the causes of those drivers.

Democracy not well suited.

To which, in light of my previous posts, I'll just reiterate that this is a good argument in favour of mass social action for positive political change towards more sustainable, green, and circular economic models. As noted, Jim or I can put you in touch with your local XR group - and there are a growing number of protest groups and third-sector organisation working towards the same end that you could get involved with.

[Brian Peacock]

When can environmental destruction be considered a crime?

Green Criminology: Capitalism, Green Crime and Justice, and Environmental Destruction
Lynch & Long, Jan 2022, Annual Review of Criminology

... Although green criminology is a subfield within criminology, there are several ways in which criminology and green criminology differ that are important. The primary differences include green criminology's attention to exploring and explaining the ways in which humans harm the ecosystem. Ecosystem harms involve conceptualizing direct or primary harms to ecosystems as a form of victimization of the natural world that deserves criminological attention. Ecosystem harms, however, can also have secondary effects on species that live within an ecosystem. For example, water pollution not only damages a waterway as an ecosystem and impairs its normal operation, health, and life course, it also impacts the species that rely on the waterway as habitat or for the provision of environmental services such as drinking water. In taking up the study of these kinds of ecological harms, green criminology draws attention to a much broader array of victims than traditional forms of criminology have typically addressed.

The study of green criminology treats ecosystems and components of ecosystems as living entities and includes addressing not only a diverse array of harms and crimes that affect humans but also how ecological harms affect nonhuman animal species. In doing so, the point is to draw attention to the ways in which human behaviors that harm ecosystems make each of these beings (e.g., humans, animals, ecosystems) the victims of human development. For green criminologists, the concept of victimization is much broader than it is for other criminologists. This is an outcome of the ecological view taken within green criminology and its recognition that ecosystems and nonhuman species are also living beings that can be harmed and victimized.

Conceptualized in the above ecologically oriented manner, green crimes/harms include a wide range of human behaviors that generate environmental harms and produce ecological disorganization or the disruption of the normal organization and operation of the natural world. These ecologically destructive behaviors can include, for example, air, water, and land pollution, deforestation, and various forms of mining as well as the wildlife trade and illegal wildlife trafficking.

Green crimes, however, can also include other harms against nonhuman species, including those that victimize human companion animals, farm animals, and laboratory animals. The study of green crime and injustice also draws attention to the larger problem of ecocide—the deliberate or negligent destruction or killing of nature—and its intersection with other social injurious behaviors such as genocide. Green criminological research has also examined harms/crimes related to food injustice and manipulation of crop or animal genetics that are changing the world around us, possibly in unforeseen ways.

Each of these harmful human behaviors can include those that criminologists might typically assume to be ordinary behaviors that constitute conforming and nondeviant activities. Viewed uncritically, in other words, some of the behaviors associated with modern life seem normalized and ordinary and even required to carry out life in modern society. These behaviors could include, for instance, engaging in timber clear-cutting, mineral mining, oil exploration, or pollution of ecosystems. To be sure, these kinds of behaviors certainly have become routinized in the modern world. The fact that these behaviors are routine, however, does not mean they are not harmful or that there are not alternatives to the commission of these kinds of ecological harms. ...

(open access)

[macdoc]

Truth or fiction....

Toyota claims battery breakthrough in potential boost for electric cars
Japanese firm believes it could make a solid-state battery with a range of 745 miles that charges in 10 minutes
https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... ctric-cars

[Brian Peacock]

I wonder what the cost will be?

David Bailey, a professor of business economics at the University of Birmingham, said that if Toyota’s claims were founded, it could be a landmark moment for the future of electric cars.

“Often there are breakthroughs at the prototype stage but then scaling it up is difficult,” he said. “If it is a genuine breakthrough it could be a gamechanger, very much the holy grail of battery vehicles.”

[Brian Peacock]

Articles from the Lancet in the last few months tagged "climate":

• Increased late preterm birth risk and altered uterine blood flow upon exposure to heat stress
• Viral respiratory infections in a rapidly changing climate: the need to prepare for the next pandemic
• The impact of non-optimum temperatures, heatwaves and cold spells on out-of-hospital cardiac arrest onset in a changing climate in China: a multi-center, time-stratified, case-crossover study
• A cross-sectional survey of climate and COVID-19 crises in young people in Indian slums: context, psychological responses, and agency
• The 2022 South America report of The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: trust the science. Now that we know, we must act

[Brian Peacock]

UN says climate change ‘out of control’ after likely hottest week on record.

Last weekend the mercury soared past 40°C (104°F) for three consecutive days, the first time that Bejing has endured such prolonged heat since its weather station started recording temperatures in 1951.

Scorching Middle East heat produces 126-degree temperature in Iran.

[Brian Peacock]

More from The Lancet:

Climate change: we must act now to secure a sustainable, healthy future for all
Apr 2023, Lancet Regional Health - Americas (PDF)

...The transition to clean energy sources will have the greatest impact in reducing greenhouse gases with health benefits that can enable a climate-resilient development, and should be at the centre of every government agenda and National Adaptation Plan (NAP). South American countries are not currently delivering adaptation responses proportionally to the increasing risks their populations face. Despite the almost universal access to electricity in South American homes, only half is generated from clean sources, with a substantial difference between urban and rural areas. Although on a global level the region contributes only to 6% of total greenhouse gas emissions, fossil fuels are the primary energy source for road transport in the region (95%), which is also marked by extremely high levels of urban pollution. Living with the worst air quality in the region, Peruvians and Bolivians are exposed to an annual level of pollution more than five times above the WHO-defined levels for a healthy life. Mitigation plans focused on decarbonising road transport and increasing access to clean energy sources, especially in rural areas, could deliver major physical and mental health benefits for South Americans.

A just transition is one that happens simultaneously in all regions and can only be possible with international collaboration. The IPCC Assessment Report calls for a so-called many folds increase in global financing if the climate goals are to be achieved. However, in reality, there is no shortage of capital available; what we are missing is the political commitment to allocate the money to the right places and close this financial gap.

It is also clear that a just transition will have to prioritise vulnerable regions and communities that, despite contributing the least to climate change, are the most affected and have the least resources. Indigenous Communities and regions in Central and South America are among those facing the largest adverse impacts. Extreme weather events, including droughts and floods, directly impact crop growth and duration, increasing pressure on food systems and threatening food and water security, especially for those already in vulnerable situations. In South America, 168.7 million people are already affected by moderate or severe food insecurity. The additional pressure from climate change will jeopardise efforts to meet the 2030 WHO agenda for Sustainable Development...

[Brian Peacock]

Large global variations in the carbon dioxide removal potential of seaweed farming due to biophysical constraints
Arzeno-Soltero et al, Nature Communications Earth & Environment, Jun 2023

Abstract

Estimates suggest that over 4 gigatons per year of carbon dioxide (Gt-CO2 year−1) be removed from the atmosphere by 2050 to meet international climate goals. One strategy for carbon dioxide removal is seaweed farming; however its global potential remains highly uncertain. Here, we apply a dynamic seaweed growth model that includes growth-limiting mechanisms, such as nitrate supply, to estimate the global potential yield of four types of seaweed. We estimate that harvesting 1 Gt year−1 of seaweed carbon would require farming over 1 million km2 of the most productive exclusive economic zones, located in the equatorial Pacific; the cultivation area would need to be tripled to attain an additional 1 Gt year−1 of harvested carbon, indicating dramatic reductions in carbon harvest efficiency beyond the most productive waters. Improving the accuracy of annual harvest yield estimates requires better understanding of biophysical constraints such as seaweed loss rates (e.g., infestation, disease, grazing, wave erosion).

(open access)

tl;dr: cultivating seaweed farms to sequester excess carbon dioxide is a non-starter.

[Brian Peacock]

Global climate-change trends detected in indicators of ocean ecology
Cael et al, Nature, Jul 2023

Abstract

Strong natural variability has been thought to mask possible climate-change-driven trends in phytoplankton populations from Earth-observing satellites. More than 30 years of continuous data were thought to be needed to detect a trend driven by climate change1. Here we show that climate-change trends emerge more rapidly in ocean colour (remote-sensing reflectance, Rrs), because Rrs is multivariate and some wavebands have low interannual variability. We analyse a 20-year Rrs time series from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite, and find significant trends in Rrs for 56% of the global surface ocean, mainly equatorward of 40°. The climate-change signal in Rrs emerges after 20 years in similar regions covering a similar fraction of the ocean in a state-of-the-art ecosystem model2, which suggests that our observed trends indicate shifts in ocean colour—and, by extension, in surface-ocean ecosystems—that are driven by climate change. On the whole, low-latitude oceans have become greener in the past 20 years.

(open access)

tl;dr: The colour of the oceans gives an indication of the state of their ecosystems. Changes have been detected over 56% of the world’s oceans – an area greater than all of the land on Earth. Computer modelling with a high degree of certainty strongly implies that the changes are the result of human activity (carbon dioxide emissions, global heating etc).

[Brian Peacock]

European heat wave sparks multiple warnings, shuts Greece’s Acropolis

Parts of southern Europe are sweltering under a heat wave, with a historic monument forced to close in Greece as authorities in several countries issued warnings over the high temperatures.

Cyprus’s meteorology department warned of extreme heat on Saturday, with temperatures expected to reach 110 degrees Fahrenheit (44 Celsius) in inland areas, while Italy’s Health Ministry issued red alerts for over a dozen cities, including the capital Rome, and warned people to avoid heat and direct sun during the hottest hours. Germany, meanwhile, announced heat warnings for about half the country.

...

Scientists warned earlier this summer that El Niño, the infamous climate pattern, had returned for the first time in four years and could push average global temperatures beyond a record set in 2016.

This year, a U.N. climate change report found the planet is likely to pass a dangerous temperature threshold within the decade, which would push the planet past the point of catastrophic warming...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... -warnings/

[JimC]

Could be a summer of bushfires coming up down under...

[Brian Peacock]

[Brian Peacock]

Could be a summer of bushfires coming up down under...

El Niño might have different ideas, but fingers crossed for a drama-free summer mate.

[Brian Peacock]

57°C in Xinjan province, China, today.

[Brian Peacock]

Phoenix AZ 19 days straight with temps above 47°C.