W_Lucht

W_Lucht, 10 months ago to random

Dear followers here on mastodon, ever since MurX took over, I've regarded mstdn as my home base. But I've posted 'over there' in parallel because too many important actors still refuse to be here. And in my field, with my objective of contributing mainly original content, being part of a much larger conversation that might change the debate in climate science and social ecology amid all the backlash remains important.

But I am done, and this is what I posted there.
A thread 🧵.

W_Lucht, 11 months ago to random

I had a conversation recently with respected colleagues who forcefully objected to using the word "climate emergency" in a scientific context, arguing it polarizes, antagonizes readers.

Meanwhile messaging at the UN is drawing straight conclusions from the findings of science:

W_Lucht, 8 months ago to random

💥 And here you have it:

The new official "Planetary Boundaries" graphic!

👉 For the first time, all boundaries have been quantified
👉 The colour gradients are the same as in the IPCC's "Reasons for Concern", showing increasing risk, not just for climate heating but also other Earth system dimensions
👉 Scaling is logarithmic beyond each boundary

This is the update by the original authors: Johan Rockström, Will Steffen, Katherine Richardson - a group I was privileged to join with my team.

W_Lucht, 2 months ago to random

😡🤯 German is a gendered language. The female version of "Professor" is a "Professorin". If you wish to include everyone, it's become a great practice to write "Professor:in" (as I do) or some variant. One speaks it with a small stop.

Now Bavaria has outlawed this use of language by state employees, claiming it's ideologically motivated. If I were a professor in Bavaria, I could be sanctioned for the inclusive way I write.

Backlash against nature, women, immigrants ... it's all connected.

W_Lucht, 8 months ago to random

It might be a waste of money and we certainly have more urgent things to do here on Earth.

But I continue to feel moved by living during a time when robots send detailed images of the moon itself and other planets, the surface of Mars, comet Halley's nucleus.

So I couldn't help but feel touched by today's return to Earth of a capsule containing material collected 3 years ago from a carbonaceous asteroid thought to not have changed much since the formation of the solar system.

Who are we?

The capsule hanging from its descent parachute over dessert terrain after reentry from space, captured from above by a high-altitude long-range camera.
The sampling arm of the mission as it closed in on the surface of asteroid Bennu in October, 2020, to blast material into a sampling tube to be returned to Earth. The surface looks gravely with lid of sandy material and small rocks. The probe's collection arm is a technical device featuring numerous parts and forms, ending in a round sampling head.

W_Lucht, 1 year ago to random

Topic: Is ending fossil heating being rushed?
Not: Why use of fossils has to end.
Discussed: Costs, freedom.
Not discussed: Climate.
Present: Politicians, journalists.
Not present: Actual experts.
Political strategy: Populism.
Victim: Climate.
#StateOfDebate

W_Lucht, 1 month ago to random

Thread on the hunger strike for climate action in Berlin and my reaction to being mentioned in today's press release by the group.

For the past 61 days, a climate activist, Wolfgang Metzeler-Kick, has been on ("wet") hunger strike in central Berlin. He was subsequently joined by now three others. One activist's medical condition is reported to be critical now. The public has not taken very much notice.

Reports are that he is determined to die, if need be.

1/n

https://hungern-bis-ihr-ehrlich-seid.de/

W_Lucht, 7 months ago (edited 7 months ago) to random

100 yrs ago today, far-right nationalist autocrats tried to take over the government of Bavaria, aiming to march on Berlin. Storming venues, seizing offices, mobilising marchers, the coup attempt failed and a scheming loud-mouth called Hitler was arrested. He used it as a platform.

Just 10 years later he was in power in Berlin, beginning a reign of terror that in 12 years ended with a world war, genocide, millions dead and the country in ruins.

It has more to do with today than is ok.

W_Lucht, 1 year ago to random

Courts are now going for jail sentences for peaceful civil disobedience on climate.

This is unreasonable. It shows a society lacking confidence in its path. The precedent in law has to evolve. History will judge. Democracy requires taking factual evidence into account.

W_Lucht, 9 months ago to random

"If one were to put last year's German CO2 emissions into a container as a pure gas, one wld need a sphere with a diameter of almost 9 km. The huge object wld nearly reach the altitude of airliners. If the CO2 weren't to escape into the atmosphere but collect on the ground, all of 🇩🇪 would be covered by a layer 1 m high - just from the emissions of 2022."

Excellent piece by @christianschwaegerl debunking once more the false claim that 🇩🇪 emissions don't matter much.
https://www.spektrum.de/news/klimaschutz-und-zwei-prozent-retten-doch-die-welt/2172312

W_Lucht, 4 months ago to random

My colleague @Rahmstorf, a pioneer and leading expert in the field, has written an excellent explanation - I highly recommend it - on the new study published this evening on the breakdown (tipping) of the Atlantic ocean's circulation.

The findings are in line with previous work but make it much more certain. They're very scary.

"... northern Europe ... would suffer devastating impacts ... leading to a completely different climate within a decade or two" after tipping.

https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/02/new-study-suggests-the-atlantic-overturning-circulation-amoc-is-on-tipping-course/

W_Lucht, 1 month ago to random

I've posted this before, made it almost exactly a year ago. It was never more suitable than today.

After a campaign of scare mongering by the liberals devoid of facts that some media went along with, the gvmt has reached agreement to abolish strict adherence to emissions reductions targets in key sectors - only "the government" as a collective whole is responsible, no ministry can be strictly held legally accountable for their (lack of) contributions.

It's called "diffusion of responsibility".

W_Lucht, 6 months ago to random

There seems to be a far-reaching consensus in the 🇩🇪 media that climate protection is a green ambition they lose on, you know, because ... (enter your favourite objection). There is little sense that the climate crisis is existential and concerns us all.

The absence of climate scientists from the talkshows speaks volumes. It is all treated as a matter of priorities, power, politics. The actual urgency is rarely a factor.

As a climate scientist I sometimes don't know what more to say.

W_Lucht, 8 months ago to random

‼️💥 We are destabilising Earth - six of nine Planetary Boundaries are now transgressed.

I am thrilled that our update of the PB framework has finally been published.
https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458

Next to climate heating, the degradation of the biosphere's integrity and the poisoning of the environment with novel substances have reached new levels of risk. 🌍 Earth is leaving the safe operating space for humanity - the only space we've known since the beginnings of agriculture and civilization. ⚡

W_Lucht, 6 months ago to renewableenergy

It's hard to take: At #COP28, chancellor Scholz presents himself as the leader of a Climate Club with ambition, calls for determination in ramping up #RenewableEnergy and ending coal.

But his own gvmt follows none of that. They're watering down our climate law by diffusing responsibilities, coalition partners block ambitions of the Greens. There's little progress in housing, traffic, heating. Renewables are stagnant.

Such hypocricy undermines the public's already shaky trust in politicians.

W_Lucht, 2 months ago to random

The space of potential futures is so much larger than the one we usually analyse - we impose constraints on our thoughts that hugely curtail what we consider.

(Or is this just a delusion of freedoms we trick ourselves into believing we have? Discuss! How much agency do humans have?)

Nice figure from a paper of December 2023: "The Future in Anthropocene Science", by P. W. Keys, L. Badia, R. Warrier, in Earth's Future, 12.

Open source:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023EF003820

W_Lucht, 4 months ago to random

Legal: Blocking of roads throughout 🇩🇪 by farmers. The objective: continued subsidies for agricultural fossil fuels.

Legal: Rail workers bringing most train services in 🇩🇪 to a standstill for a full 3 days. The objective: more pay, less work hours.

Illegal: Limited blockades by climate activists. Considered undue force, pot. criminal. The objective: protecting Earth and our societies from large-scale disruption.

It took decades to gain the right to strike. We don't have decades for climate.

W_Lucht, 11 months ago to climate

State of the distortion: This piece today in the WashingtonP Post, while discussing the symptoms, does not contain the words "emissions", "CO2" or "fossil". #Climate
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/07/06/earth-record-heat-climate-extremes/

W_Lucht, 3 months ago to random

The thing that Putin doesn't get in all his grandiose speeches and threats: that people don't want to live under his dictatorship but want to be free to direct their own future. Dictators can cling to power for a long time. But history will favour those who topple them, freeing the spirit, the energy, the self-determination of the people.

W_Lucht, 3 months ago to random

Bill McGuire at CNN (shortened): " I’m a climate scientist. If you knew what I know, you’d be terrified too".

"We’re experiencing, in our lifetimes, a heating episode that is probably unique in the last 4.6 billion years."

"In fact, this isn’t a matter of scaring people, but of informing them. As a climate scientist, it is my duty to tell you."

"Everyone has the right to know the facts so as to provide the opportunity to act upon the reality of what we are doing."

https://us.cnn.com/2024/03/07/opinions/climate-scientist-scare-doom-anxiety-mcguire/index.html

W_Lucht, 1 year ago to random

The denial society in full swing. Climate activists under full pressure to counter their deliberate criminalisation by a public that wants to be left alone & politicians that drive populist opposition to ecological transformation. Not under pressure: those destroying our future.

W_Lucht, 1 month ago to random

‼️ Today is 🇩🇪's widely reported "overshoot day" - and it's true: we overuse natural resources, substantially. Six of nine planetary boundaries are transgressed, some by a lot. This endangers planetary stability, as numerous indicators with strongly negative trends show.

But what most don't know (but @christianschwaegerl investigated and highlighted last year) are some important shortcomings of this popular metric ...

(1/2)

W_Lucht, 1 year ago to random

The public criminalisation of the climate activists of the "Last Generation" under laws intended to fight organized crime and terrorism is worrisome. While our unconstitutional collective failure to come together behind effective climate policies is met with excuses and a shrug.

W_Lucht, 14 days ago to random

1/2
Tonight, German investigative journalism will uncover what they call one of the largest consumer and climate frauds involving the German fossil fuel industry: green washing of fossil emissions, defrauding paying consumers.

👉 from around 18:00
👉 on ZDFheute and investigative show "frontal" (21:00)

#Klimabetrug #Climatefraud
@S4F @fff
@parents4future

W_Lucht, 12 days ago to random

So wow - I turned 60 today. I really don't know how that happened. Or maybe I do.

I must say, I've enjoyed every decade of my life just as it is, for what it is.