Greta Thunberg (@gretathunberg), brzmiąca nieco cynicznie...
"Co jakiś czas nasi przywódcy składają kilka obietnic i wyznaczają różne niejasne, niewiążące, często odległe cele. Następnie, gdy tylko nie uda im się ich osiągnąć, natychmiast wyznaczają nowe. I tak dalej.
"Może się to wydawać absurdalne, ale zdecydowanie działa - jeśli celem jest utrzymanie dotychczasowej działalności, wzrostu gospodarczego i wysokich wskaźników popularności.
"Ponieważ poziom publicznego zainteresowania i świadomości tych nieudanych zobowiązań dotyczących klimatu i różnorodności biologicznej jest bliski zeru, a media tęsknią za pozytywnymi wiadomościami w ramach swojej polityki obustronnego raportowania - nie może być tylko ponuro i ponuro! - ogólne przesłanie, które jest przekazywane, jeśli w ogóle, jest takie, że podejmowane są działania. Może nie zawsze wszystko idzie tak dobrze, ale hej, oni naprawdę bardzo się starają i na pewno poczyniono duże postępy - więc przestań być tak negatywny przez cały czas!".
Earth on verge of five catastrophic climate tipping points, scientists warn
“Tipping points in the Earth system pose threats of a magnitude never faced by humanity,”
Tim Lenton, from the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute.
"They can trigger devastating domino effects, including the loss of whole ecosystems and capacity to grow staple crops, with societal impacts including mass displacement, political instability and financial collapse. The tipping points at risk include the collapse of big ice sheets in Greenland and the West Antarctic, the widespread thawing of permafrost, the death of coral reefs in warm waters, and the collapse of atmospheric circulation in the North Atlantic."
What should happen to native forests when logging ends? Ask Victoria’s First Peoples
"Conservationists are celebrating a win sought for decades. The damage done by logging on biodiversity has been significant, with once common species now endangered and mature forests now fragmented and dotted with young fire-prone regrowth."
"Colonisation affected Country differently across Australia. But many effects are similar across the continent. European-style land management coincides with species extinctions across the continent. "
>> https://theconversation.com/what-should-happen-to-native-forests-when-logging-ends-ask-victorias-first-peoples-206412
Reading the black book: The number, timing, distribution and causes of listed extinctions in Australia
"We conclude that 100 Australian endemic species are validly recognised as extinct since 1788: a rate of loss of about 4.3 species per decade since European colonisation of the continent. This rate is not diminishing and we interpret this more-or-less constant but continuing rate of loss .."
Wealthiest 10 Percent of Americans Responsible for 40 Percent of U.S. Emissions
“It just seems morally and politically problematic to have one group of people reaping so much benefit from emissions while the poorer groups in society are asked to disproportionately deal with the harms of those emissions,” said Jared Starr, a sustainability scientist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
For the new study, researchers analyzed data on emissions and income from 1990 to 2019. Accounting for earnings from investments, they found that not only are the top 10 percent of earners responsible for 40 percent of emissions, but the top 1 percent are responsible for at least 15 percent of emissions. The study, published in PLOS Climate, further found that white Americans have the biggest carbon footprint of any group, while Black Americans have the smallest, a reflection of the racial wealth gap.
@MHowell
This is the same with nearly everything though.
Voters will never vote for poltocans who'd inconvenience Musk or.Taylor Swifts ability to travel around on a private jet, let alone the nearly incompressible emissions from the US War machine
Our paper “No Research on a Dead Planet” is out today! Aaron Thierry is very much the lead author, but it’s been great working on this together with AT, Laura Horn and Charlie Gardner. Why do #Universities, #ClimateEmergency declarations and all, still largely continue with #BusinessAsUsual? For us it’s about #CognitiveDissonance as well as the structures of neoliberal #HE. HE needs to change & lead on true #ClimateAction. Open access @ScientistRebellion
Interview by Design and Decode with Charlie Gardner - co-author of #NoResearchOnADeadPlanet (see above) and impressive activist and writer all round. Always interesting to read about and reflect on other's activist journeys. #climateemergency
"You worry too much. Everything's going to be fine. Humans are the most adaptable species on the planet. We've always adapted before, and so of course we also can adapt to climate change."
Ever hear something like that?
Andrew Dessler (@andrewdessler), a climate scientist and Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas A&M, offers a response to the optimistic "We'll adapt" crowd...
“Humans have always adapted.”
If you’ve followed the climate debate, you’ve inevitably come across these soothing words, usually made by someone rich, often working for a think tank whose agenda is stopping action on climate change.
The argument taps into the romantic notion of human resilience, suggesting that adaptation is not just possible but a simple, cost-free solution to the climate catastrophe unfolding before us.
This view is overly optimistic. Adaptation, far from being an easy way out, is shaping up to be an absolute nightmare.
The point of my article is not that we CANNOT adapt, it's that the people pushing adaptation have zero interest in actually doing it. Instead, it's an excuse to do nothing.
We absolutely can and need to adapt. But we also need to decarbonize. We need to do everything.
I have to be careful not to overdo my exposure to terrible news like this, and to balance it with things I enjoy that make me happy. Otherwise I'll lose myself in grief and rage.
More than a hundred dolphins have been found dead in the Brazilian Amazon amid an historic drought and record-high water temperatures that in places have exceeded 102 degrees Fahrenheit.
The dead dolphins were all found in Lake Tefé over the past seven days, according to the Mamirauá Institute, a research facility funded by the Brazilian Ministry of Science.
The institute said such a high number of deaths was unusual and suggested record-high lake temperatures and an historic drought in the Amazon may have been the cause.
The news is likely to add to the concerns of climate scientists over the effects human activity and extreme droughts are having on the region.
Below average levels of water have been reported in 59 municipalities in Amazonas State, impeding both transport and fishing activities on the river.
Authorities expect even more acute droughts over the next couple of weeks, which could result in further deaths of dolphins, CNN Brasil reported.
A severe drought in the Aamazon, with fish dying and drinking water contaminated...
What does that sound like? It sounds to me like Business As Usual. 😡
The Amazon rainforest in Brazil is in the grips of a severe drought that may affect around 500,000 people by the end of the year, limiting their access to food, drinking water, and other supplies.
Water levels have already dropped, and dead fish now float atop some of the rainforest’s winding rivers.
Their rotting corpses have contaminated the water supply in some areas, officials told the news agency Reuters, with more than 110,000 people facing repercussions.
In Manacapuru — a town two hours’ drive from the major city of Manaus, considered a gateway to the Amazon — fish launched themselves out of the scorching, shallow waters in a desperate attempt to survive. The smell of rot, emanating from the brown water, filled the air.
This drought is forecast to last longer and be more intense because of the El Niño climate phenomenon, which inhibits the formation of rain clouds, the civil defence authority said.
Climate change also exacerbates droughts by making them more frequent, longer and more severe. Warmer temperatures enhance evaporation, which reduces surface water and dries out soils and vegetation.
In an opinion piece posted at Common Dreams, Tom Weis says, "To keep pretending, year after year, decade after decade, that the U.N. process is working when everyone can see that it is failing, is its own kind of denial."
Here's more...
Every year, the world’s governments gather at what the United Nations calls a Conference of the Parties, or COP, to talk about lowering carbon emissions while they just watch emissions continue to rise. It is time to start calling these annual gatherings what they are: COP-OUTs.
COP28 is already shaping up to be the biggest COP-OUT of them all. Taking the dressed-up climate pageant to a new level of absurdity, the COP28 conference being held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from November 30 to December 12 is being chaired by — get this — an oil baron. The president of COP28 is Sultan Al Jaber, CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.
Lest you think the Biden administration truly gets that we’re in a climate emergency, John Kerry, Biden’s Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, publicly praised Al Jaber’s appointment as “a terrific choice,” as if the idea of an oil baron presiding over international climate talks wasn’t preposterous on its face.
We need to stop thinking things will get better with the next COP-OUT, when things just keep getting worse. The hostile takeover of the international climate negotiations by fossil fuel industry arsonists is an unconscionable betrayal of our children’s trust and of all generations to come. Big Oil has not only been lying to the public for decades, it is knowingly perpetrating ecocide and crimes against humanity.
It's true and it's wrong to assume that the people at the UN are so stupid they can't see it. But the trouble is, the Charter was written in such way that it's impossible to enact any kind of serious reform without the votes of every SC permanent member (which includes Russia and China).
Basically, the only way forward is to go the way of the League of Nations - to abolish the UN and build a new and better one on its ruins.
But then, that could be a long and winding road and in the meantime we need a place where the nations, though perhaps not entirely united, can actually get together and talk about things.
@breadandcircuses
To add to this, a cheeky quote from a 2015 article by Georrge Monbit on the same thing.
> If you visit the website of the UN body that oversees the world’s climate negotiations, you will find dozens of pictures, taken across 20 years, of people clapping. These photos should be of interest to anthropologists and psychologists. For they show hundreds of intelligent, educated, well-paid and elegantly-dressed people wasting their lives. - George Monbiot (2015)
Our capitalist rulers are very clever. They realize that many people are concerned about climate change and want our governments to take action against it.
So they come up with cool-sounding ideas like "Carbon Capture and Storage" to make it appear as if something is being done — when in reality that same technology is being used to increase fossil fuel extraction and sales, producing even more profits for the oil and gas industry.
It's a win-win for the capitalists: They look good AND they make more money.
Business As Usual goes on...
When Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber opens the 28th annual UN climate conference in Dubai in November, he will be juggling two roles – convincing the world of the United Arab Emirates’ leadership in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, while preserving the very industry that’s causing them.
In addition to his job as summit president, Al Jaber heads the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), which plans to increase its oil and gas output by 11% by 2027. The company says that more oil will mean less emissions, however — provided the industry builds enough facilities to capture carbon dioxide (CO2), the main gas causing the climate crisis.
On September 6, ADNOC finalized a deal to build a carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in the UAE’s Habshan oil and gas field, extending the company’s existing CCS operations at a steel plant. Now projected to become one of the largest carbon capture plants in the Middle East, ADNOC says the facility will have the equivalent climate impact of removing 500,000 cars from the road.
In fact, the project will be used to squeeze even more oil from the ground. Most of the CO2 ADNOC already captures is pumped into existing oil wells, forcing residual crude to the surface in a process known as “enhanced oil recovery.”
It is a trend reflected across the sector: Of the 32 commercial CCS facilities operating worldwide, 22 use most, or all, of their captured CO2 to push more oil out of already tapped reservoirs. But the fact that existing carbon capture projects are mostly used to bring more oil to the surface has not stopped oil and gas companies championing the technology as a climate solution in the run-up to COP28.
That's from an excellent investigative piece by DeSmog, which makes it clear that Al Jaber is not the only villain. Oil companies in the US pioneered this devious plan years ago, and Europe soon followed.
Meanwhile, as long as people continue to believe this decades-old lie, why not just run with it?
@breadandcircuses They got sent for a loss in North Dakota when they said NO to the utterly stupid "Navigator" pipeline, which is a project that exists because they are the only viable corporation that can cash in on the tax rebate.
You have to have a claimed tax liability large enough, is part of the deal.
@breadandcircuses I agree with this 100% other than the part where "our capitalist rulers are clever"
I would suggest they are lazy, (so are we generally) and by proposing "A" solution then we don't have to think about it. Even if the solution is terribad.