Scientists outline a bold solution to climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice
"We're arguing for radical incrementalism: achieving massive change through small, short-term steps."
"The income share variable extends back to 1820 and shows how the top 10% have consistently received at least 50% of all income, illustrating global economic inequality over the long term."
The effects of global heating are already being felt, and communities must take steps to prepare for the inevitable challenges ahead. This includes implementing resilient infrastructure, developing early warning systems for extreme weather events, and promoting sustainable #agriculture
practices.
#StormHenk the first named storm of 2024, brought heavy rainfall and strong winds to large parts of the UK.
I would definitely say #mastodon has been the biggest wake-up call for me in appreciating the existential threat of #climateChange and #overshoot and nudging me to begin incremental steps in changing my lifestyle PRN ( medical term indicating ‘as necessary).
Excerpts from an inspiring essay titled: "What if You Did Not Buy a Single New Thing This Month or Even This Year??
There seems to be a growing awareness that you don’t need to — and, more importantly, shouldn’t — keep buying new shiny things all the time.
Some recent online challenges are aimed at reducing the number of things we buy, often referred to as ‘Low-Buy,’ ‘No-Spend’, or, most commonly, ‘No-Buy’ months or years.
The premise is pretty straightforward: abstain from buying any unnecessary new items — excluding essentials like groceries, medicine, toiletries, etc. — for the next twelve months. Or for just one month.
Buying things doesn’t make us better, happier, or more successful. Actually, it’s often quite the opposite: it clutters our homes, drains our savings accounts, and sometimes even creates consumer debt we struggle to pay off for years.
It’s easy to get caught up in a cycle of consumerism. But it’s not always easy to get out of it.
Adopting a ‘No-Buy’ challenge and restraining ourselves from buying unnecessary things for some time while re-assessing the items we already own seems like a good place to start.
I’m sorry to have to tell you this, child, but politicians and government leaders and corporations and the media WILL lie to you.
They do it all the time. Sometimes blatantly, but often cleverly, selecting pleasant words to deceive and manipulate...
Using the word “clean” in terms like “clean energy” and “clean technology” is a great example of an attempt to use language to create reality. I describe the use of the word “clean” in these terms as thought-terminating dogma because it hides the material realities of what so-called clean energy and clean technologies actually require.
When people read the term “clean technology,” they assume it means that the technology is good or will somehow “save the planet.” They don’t think any further about what that technology might involve, because the word “clean” has stopped them from looking more deeply at the issue.
A recent article about direct air capture (DAC) technologies — “massive facilities that remove carbon dioxide from the sky” — says the Biden administration is providing over a billion dollars in grants for this new “clean technology industry.”
Being generous about the meaning of “clean,” we understand that “clean” is applied here because these machines capture more CO2 than they emit as they are running and, at a few facilities, store that CO2 in the ground. (To date, most DACs have not stored the CO2, but rather sold it to — smack your forehead now — oil companies for “enhanced oil extraction,” a process that obviously renders the DAC technologies moot in regards to “saving the planet from climate change.”)
To build the DAC technologies requires mining materials (and destroying the land in the process), refining those materials, manufacturing the machines, installing them, and supplying energy to keep them running— a whole lot of energy, because they are energy intensive technologies. Each one of these steps creates CO2 emissions.
By using the word “clean,” corporations and the Biden administration are hoping to create the illusion that DAC technologies will somehow solve climate change. Never mind that to capture annual global CO2 emissions would require over three million of these machines. Oh, the profit incentives for that industry!
Corporations can win big on both ends of this game: They get paid to emit CO2 into the atmosphere — by extracting fossil fuels and other materials, and selling these materials and the products they make from them — and get paid to make and install DAC technology to pull that CO2 from the atmosphere and store it or use it to extract more materials.
If the word “clean” is used often enough, by corporations that wish to profit from extraction and from the products they manufacture, by government administrations that enable these corporations by writing laws and supplying incentives to support their activities, and by the media reporting on all this, then eventually the public comes to believe DACs and other so-called clean technologies are indeed clean.
What the general public understands to be clean might be very different from the reality, but say it often enough — “clean, clean, clean!” — and you can convince yourself that all these technologies being described as “clean” appear out of thin air without even a smudge of dirt from the land destroyed to build them or a single molecule of CO2 emitted in the process.
That's just one part of a long and wickedly satirical essay titled: "A Guide to Being Delusional."
Capitalism triumphs again. It’s another big win for Business As Usual. When there are potential profits to be made, that always will override any concerns about the environment or pollution or other species.
Norway has taken a step closer to becoming the first country in the world to open up its seabed for commercial deep-sea mining after giving the go-ahead in a parliamentary vote on Tuesday.
The decision comes despite warnings from scientists that it could have a devastating impact on marine life, and despite opposition from the EU and the UK, which have called for a temporary ban on deep-sea mining because of environmental concerns.
The proposal, voted in 80-20 by Norway’s parliament, is expected to speed up exploration of minerals – including precious metals – that are in high demand for 'green' technologies.
While the decision will initially apply to Norwegian waters, it will expose an area larger than Britain – 280,000 sq km (108,000 sq miles) – to potential mining by companies, which will be able to apply for licences to mine minerals including lithium, scandium, and cobalt.
This is why we can't have nice things. Nice things like a healthy environment, or a future for our children. We can't have them because capitalism says they don't matter.
"Clear air #turbulence is caused by instability in the jet stream, which is increasing as the atmosphere warms.
In a recent study, his team found that over the past 40 years, severe clear air turbulence over the North Atlantic increased by more than 50%."
By now you’ve probably seen news reports about 2023 blowing away all previous global heat records, along with warnings that 2024 might be even hotter. We’re already very close to surpassing 1.5°C.
From the Associated Press — “Earth shattered global heat record in ’23”
The European climate agency Copernicus said 2023 was 1.48 degrees Celsius (2.66 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times. That’s barely below the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit that the world hoped to stay within in the 2015 Paris climate accord to avoid the most severe effects of warming.
And January 2024 is on track to be so warm that for the first time a 12-month period will exceed the 1.5-degree threshold. Scientists have repeatedly said that Earth would need to average 1.5 degrees of warming over two or three decades to be a technical breach of the threshold.
Hold on, wait a minute, what?!!
That last sentence above is BS. It's the capitalist establishment and Big Oil trying to change the narrative, NOT scientists. No responsible climate scientist has ever said we should wait "two or three decades" before deciding if we're in a crisis.
But that's what the next move will be. Our rulers will try to convince you that 1.5C won't be so bad. It's maybe 2C or even 3C we should focus on, and that's FAR in the future. So just relax, keep going to work, keep driving, keep flying, keep shopping, keep buying. We've got this, everything's fine. 😃
🚋 In #Leipzig fährt ab heute eine Tram mit den Warming Stripes von Prof. @ed_hawkins
Die Streifen sollen auf einfache Weise die Erderwärmung begreifbar machen - je mehr rot, desto heißer die Jahrestemperaturen. 2023 war weltweit das bisher wärmste Jahr.
Die Klima-Tram ist eine Initiative der Stadt, der LVB und des Bündnis Leipzig für's Klima mit den @s4f_le und weiteren Gruppen.
How many species will Earth lose to climate change?
New study suggests that even under intermediate climate change scenarios, we could see the extinction of 3 to 6 million (or possibly more) animal and plant species within the next 50 years.
The loss of species can lead to a destabilization of ecosystems, and if not reversed, it can ultimately result in total ecosystem collapse.
Today I'm going to post excerpts from an important piece by Joan Westenberg (@Daojoan) that covers these issues:
‣ Why capitalism must end
‣ How difficult that will be
‣ The new direction we can choose
Here is Part 1...
Let’s start with something controversial: Capitalism is not an economic system. It is a philosophical and ideological force that shapes our lives, environment, and perception of humanity.
It’s a behemoth that thrives on relentless growth, often at a devastating cost. Under its reign, we witness the widening chasm of inequality, where the affluent soar on the wings of wealth while the less fortunate are left to the whims of an unforgiving market.
Our planet, the cradle of life itself, is treated as a commodity, its resources extracted with reckless abandon, its delicate ecosystems pushed to the brink for profit.
Capitalism has ushered in an era where consumerism is king and possessions are the yardstick of success. In this relentless pursuit of more, we have lost sight of what truly matters — our connection to each other, our harmony with nature, and our sense of purpose beyond material gains.
We’re trapped in a cycle that glorifies wealth and power, ignoring the human cost it entails — a cost paid in the currency of social injustice, environmental degradation, and a deep sense of existential void.
Capitalism shapes far more than just our economic system — it moulds our culture, worldviews, and even our personal values. After centuries of capitalist ideology spreading globally, most of us struggle to imagine alternatives that look nothing like our capitalist status quo.
But ever-worsening wealth gaps, the climate crisis, and other existential threats rooted in capitalism increasingly demand radical societal shifts.
This is the underlying question: Can we truly free ourselves from it? Can we quit capitalism? Not just in the practicalities of detaching from a capitalist structure, but in delving deeper into the philosophical quest of redefining our values and reshaping our collective consciousness.
It begins with a simple, profound realisation — to quit capitalism, we have to liberate ourselves from its entrenched mindset, a transformation that calls for more than economic reform; it demands a fundamental shift in how we perceive success, value community, and envision our role in the tapestry of humanity.
The United Nations says: “The difference between 1.5°C and 3°C global warming means vastly different scenarios for the future. Our survival on this planet hinges on these few degrees.”
Eunice Foote's research has been rediscovered only in the last decade. Based on published experiments, she suggested that increasing the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere would increase Earth's temperature. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsnr.2020.0031
In 1859, John Tyndall used a 'Radiant Heat Apparatus' (see photo) to measure the energy that was absorbed by gases http://pombo.free.fr/tyndall1861.pdf
This is the conclusion of a scientific research paper published in 2020. The scholarly language tends to soften the message somewhat, but if you look carefully at what they're saying — yikes! 😧
Our model shows that a catastrophic collapse in human population due to resource consumption is the most likely scenario of the dynamical evolution based on current parameters. Adopting a combined deterministic and stochastic model, we conclude from a statistical point of view that the probability that our civilization survives itself is less than 10% in the most optimistic scenario.
Calculations show that maintaining the actual rate of population growth and resource consumption, in particular forest consumption, we have a few decades left before an irreversible collapse of our civilization. Making the situation even worse, we stress once again that it is unrealistic to think that the decline of the population in a situation of strong environmental degradation would be a non-chaotic and well-ordered decline.
"Less than 10% in the most optimistic scenario" ... Holy hell.
"As the world grapples with the existential crisis of #ClimateChange, environmental activists want President Joe Biden to phase out the oil industry, and Republicans argue he’s already doing that. Meanwhile, the surprising reality is the #UnitedStates is pumping oil at a blistering pace and is on track to produce more oil than any country has in history."
Tough words here from Elisabeth Robson about the severe danger of a singular focus on carbon emissions, when the crisis we face is much broader than that.
"Why are we not talking about Ecological Overshoot?"
I’m writing this as COP28 is wrapping up in Dubai, UAE. There was a lot of talk about climate change and fossil fuels — mostly whether we will “phase down” or “phase out” our use of fossil fuels — and about so-called “renewables.” The conference ended with a global goal to “triple renewables and double energy efficiency.”
“We acted, we delivered,” claimed COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber, as if building more industrial technologies like wind turbines and solar panels and making more energy efficient buildings and cars will somehow restore biosphere integrity, regrow all the old-growth forests, un-pave the wetlands, un-pollute the water, land, and air, and reverse the 1000x-faster-than-normal rate we are exterminating species.
The global focus on climate change, cemented by almost 30 years of UN conferences, has blinded the world to our true predicament — that is, ecological overshoot — of which climate change is just one of many symptoms. Organizations, governments, corporations, the media are all talking about climate change and the supposed “solutions” of renewables and energy efficiency, while essentially ignoring the ongoing destruction of the natural world.
Carbon tunnel vision means other problems get short shrift. And the “solutions” that corporations are selling us in order to meet the goals set by federal and state law will actually make many of the other symptoms of ecological overshoot worse. Far worse.
Everyone’s planning assumes the same — that the economy, population, extraction, development, and consumption will all continue to grow. Indeed, an economy based on debt requires life-as-we-know-it to continue.
But this is simply not possible on a finite planet with finite resources and ecosystems already shattering under pressure. Basic laws of ecology tell us that when a species overshoots the regenerative capacity of its environment, that species will collapse. This is true for humans too.
Corporations have created technologies and industries they can sell to the world as “solutions” to climate change. These “solutions” allow corporations and the governments they influence to believe we can continue with Business As Usual. The pervasive propaganda about these “solutions” allows us regular folk to believe we can continue life-as-we-know-it without having to worry too much because “someone’s doing something about climate change.”
Unlike the “solutions” to climate change that corporations are constantly trying to sell us, there is no profitable technology that will eliminate habitat loss, species extinctions, pollution, and deforestation. And so what we hear from organizations, governments, corporations, and the media is all climate change all the time, because someone’s making money.
The nation of Azerbaijan gets two-thirds of its revenue from oil and gas, one of the highest percentages of any country in the world... which makes it a perfect place to hold the next UN climate summit! Am I right?
"Oil-reliant Azerbaijan Chosen to Host COP29 Climate Talks"
#ExtremeHeat Is Endangering America's Workers—and Its Economy
"Public Citizen, a Washington, D.C., based consumer rights advocacy group, estimates that extreme heat contributes to between 600 and 2,000 deaths a year, along with 170,000 injuries, making heat one of the three main causes of death and injury in the American #workplace.
In most American states, you can be fined for leaving a dog outside without water or shade."
[Workers don't have such protection].
"About 3.2 million Americans have moved due to the mounting risk of flooding, the First Street Foundation said in a report that focuses on so-called "#ClimateAbandonment areas," or locations where the local population fell between 2000 and 2020 because of risks linked to #ClimateChange.
Across the U.S., nearly 36 million properties — one-quarter of all U.S. real estate — face rising #insurance prices and reduced coverage due to high climate risks."