These Stunning Timelapse Photos May Just Convince You About Climate Change

Washington Post - Chelsea Harvey

Melting glaciers, from Greenland to Antarctica, have become symbols of global warming — and monitoring their retreat is one major way scientists are keeping tabs on the progress of climate change.
Now, scientists are trying to bring the issue a little closer to home by using time-lapse photos to show the effects of climate change are already occurring.
A paper published last week by the Geological Society of America presents dramatic before-and-after photographs of glaciers around the world over the last decade. Most of the photos were taken by photographer James Balog as part of a project called the Extreme Ice Survey, which began documenting changing glaciers around the world in 2007. The project was featured in the 2012 documentary “Chasing Ice.”
Below is a time-lapse video, using images captured by Balog and the Extreme Ice Survey team, documenting changes at Mendenhall Glacier in Alaska. Between 2007 and 2015, the glacier retreated by 550 meters, or more than 1,800 feet.

Photojournalist James Balog and the Extreme Ice Survey team travels the world to document vanishing ice. (Earth Vision Institute/ Extreme Ice Survey)

On-the-ground expeditions are “key to informing broad audiences of non-specialists,” note the paper’s authors, who include Balog and multiple other glacier and climate experts. “Science is grounded in observation, so science education will benefit from displaying the recently exposed landscapes.”
In an interview with The Washington Post, Balog suggested that ground-level photographs provide an immediacy that’s missing from other scientific tools, such as satellite images.
“I do think that our most dominant sensory apparatus is our vision,” he added. “So when you can deliver an understanding of the reality of what’s going on through vision, rather than numbers or maps, that also has the unique ability to touch and influence people.”
Below are before-and-after images of Switzerland’s Stein Glacier, which also retreated by 550 meters between 2006 and 2015.

Stein Glacier, in part of the Swiss Alps, on Sept. 17, 2011. (James Balog and the Extreme Ice Survey/GSA Today/Geological Society of America)

Stein Glacier on Aug. 20, 2015. (James Balog and the Extreme Ice Survey/GSA Today/The Geological Society of America)

For Balog, the location that’s had the greatest personal impact is Sólheimajökull Glacier in Iceland, which he described as his “first love.”
“It’s where I kind of first realized how quickly the ice is changing,” he said. “And it’s because of what the local scientists were able to show me by way of the change in the glacier in a shockingly short period of time.”
Reports suggest that the glacier has shrunk by more than 2,000 feet since 2007. Below is a time-lapse of its retreat between 2007 and 2015.

Photojournalist James Balog and the Extreme Ice Survey team travels the world to document vanishing ice. (Earth Vision Institute/ Extreme Ice Survey)

While the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets often receive the most press — and not without reason, thanks to the sheer amount of ice they contain — Balog’s photos include smaller mountain glaciers from places like Alaska and Europe. In many places around the world, these smaller glaciers are responding even more rapidly to their changing environments than their polar counterparts.
And while the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets may have the greatest long-term potential to raise global sea levels, melting mountain glaciers come with their own set of consequences as well. Nearby communities often rely on runoff from these glaciers for sources of fresh water. But as the glaciers shrink away, less water becomes available. Some experts have also raised the possibility that melting mountain glaciers could result in huge floods capable of destroying nearby homes and infrastructure.
“People who live in proximity to these things are really are quite acutely aware of how much things are changing and think about it, and the researchers in their areas study it,” Balog said. “These are important and immediate impacts.”
Below is Trift Glacier, which retreated by more than 3,700 feet between 2006 and 2016.

Trift Glacier in the Swiss Alps in 2006. (James Balog and the Extreme Ice Survey/GSA Today/The Geological Society of America)

Trift Glacier on Aug. 20, 2015. (James Balog and the Extreme Ice Survey/GSA Today/Geological Society of America)

Satellite measurements still provide some of the most precise information on glacial retreat all over the world, revealing the vulnerability of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets. Scientists have used satellite data to estimate how much ice these sheets contain in total. (If the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets melted away entirely, for instance, they could raise sea levels by more than 200 feet. But it would take tens of thousands of years for that to happen, even at current warming rates.)
On-the-ground imagery provides a different kind of service, presenting compelling visual evidence of the climate effects that are already occurring. And the photos have an added visceral effect because they come from places where human communities exist — it’s not just ice on deserted Antarctica that’s disappearing, but also glaciers from Europe and the Americas to Asia and Africa. And once they’re gone, they may never exist again.
“It is likely that these recently deglaciated landscapes will not be re-occupied by ice during foreseeable human timeframes,” the paper’s authors warn. “In other places, forests or other vegetation may rapidly colonize such landscapes. Photographic records, such as those included here, provide an outstanding avenue for education, because they display a record of ice that may never be seen again.”

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Conservative Liberals Watching Trump's Lead On Climate, Key Backbencher Says

The Guardian - Katharine Murphy

Craig Kelly, who chairs backbench committee on environment and energy, says he thinks Paris agreement is ‘cactus’

Liberal MP Craig Kelly with Tony Abbott on the backbench during question time. Kelly says Australia should ditch the Paris climate agreement if the US does. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Australia will need to review its participation in the Paris agreement on climate change if Donald Trump follows through with his threat to withdraw from the treaty, according to the chair of the Turnbull government’s backbench committee on environment and energy.
Craig Kelly told Guardian Australia on Wednesday he’d predicted immediately after Trump’s election that the Paris climate deal was “cactus” and he stood by that assessment.
Trump on Tuesday night Australian time signed a new executive order to unravel a number of Barack Obama’s regulatory measures to combat climate change, including eliminating the clean power plan, which sets limits on the amount of greenhouse gases that power plants emit.
The latest executive order is seen as a prelude to the US following through with the campaign commitment to withdraw from the Paris deal.

Donald Trump: I would end Paris climate deal

Australian conservatives are watching events in the US closely.
Kelly said he was aware of the new executive order, and if Trump went the extra step and withdrew from the Paris agreement: “I think we have to review it.”
The former Liberal senator Cory Bernardi, who now sits on the crossbench, holds the same view.
“It is clear America intends to withdraw from the Paris agreement and it would be folly for Australia to be part of it,” Bernardi said. “I don’t think we should subsume our national interest to international bodies.”
Bernardi this week sparked a rebellion inside the government by proposing to disallow an extradition treaty with China on the basis the country’s legal system was deficient.
The disallowance motion prompted a number of Liberals to express opposition to the extradition treaty.
If Trump withdraws from the Paris deal, Bernardi will likely use the development as a recruitment drive for his new Australian Conservatives movement, which will put pressure on conservative MPs in the government.
Kelly, who chairs the government’s backbench committee on climate and energy, has been campaigning internally for months, arguing that the federal renewable energy target should be frozen at its current level.
The Sydney Liberal backbencher said regardless of what the US ultimately did, he had concerns about what the Paris deal could achieve.
Kelly said even if you accepted that fiddling with “the CO2 knob” could influence climate change, he had doubts that countries could meet their Paris commitments “without a technological breakthrough”.
Asked whether a majority of his Coalition colleagues would be in favour of quitting the Paris deal in the event Trump pulled out, Kelly argued “it would be a close run thing”.
He said government MPs were under pressure from voters who believed renewable energy targets were responsible for higher power prices.
The prime minister has signalled Australia will stay the course if the Trump administration follows through with its threats to quit the Paris deal.

Malcolm Turnbull announces Australia has ratified Paris climate change agreement

Turnbull told reporters last November it would take four years to withdraw from the agreement after ratification.

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Senate Coal Inquiry's Split Result Blamed On 'Squabbling' Parties

The Guardian - Katharine Murphy

Australian Conservation Foundation says Coalition and Labor failing workers and risking the country’s energy security

A Senate inquiry into the retirement of coal-fired power stations towards lower-emissions energy sources split three ways. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

A major environment group has blasted Australia’s political parties for squabbling while energy security suffers after a Senate inquiry into the retirement of coal-fired power stations split three ways.
The Senate’s environment and communications references committee has been inquiring into mechanisms for an orderly transition away from coal-fired power to lower emissions energy sources for several months.
At the conclusion of the deliberations, the Greens, Labor and the Coalition all produced separate reports about the best way to manage the change, which were tabled in the Senate on Wednesday evening.
The main report, authored by the Greens, called on the government to adopt a national energy transition plan and a mechanism for the orderly retirement of coal-fired power stations. It also recommended the establishment of an energy transition authority to manage the transition for affected workers and communities.
Labor produced a separate report calling on the government to establish mechanisms to support a “just transition” including a national framework for worker redeployment schemes modelled on the Victorian government’s Latrobe Valley worker transfer scheme.

The Coalition declared the majority report did not “adequately or fairly reflect the evidence presented to the committee”.
“Further, the Coalition senators object to the ideologically driven conclusions, which are counter to the government’s technology agnostic policy approach.”
The Australian Conservation Foundation blasted the rolling contention among Australia’s parliamentarians over climate and energy policy.
“The final report into the closure of the coal industry, with dissenting reports from both Labor and Coalition senators, highlights the squabbling that has characterised energy policy in Australia over the last decade,” said the ACF’s climate change program manager, Gavan McFadzean.
McFadzean said the ACF had “come to expect fossil fuel ideology and nonsense from the Coalition but we are also disappointed federal Labor have missed an opportunity to show courage and lead in the inevitable structural reform, by failing to agree the early and orderly closure of Australia’s coal-fired generation capacity”.
“Unless parties can start working together to ensure a just transition for workers, both they and Australia’s energy security will suffer.”

Links

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• Electricity from coal should be phased out in Australia – Senate report
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• Australian unions call for 'just transition' from coal-generated electricity