No System Of Government Designed By Human Beings Can Survive What The Climate Crisis Will Bring

Esquire - Charles P. Pierce

The window to prevent the worst of it is closing. Fast.

ARUN SANKAR Getty Images

It is a long held belief here in the shebeen that, thanks to those clever Chinese climate hoaxsters, the next world wars are going to be fought not over oil, but over water. 

This is especially true in places like India, which is currently in the middle of a murderous heat wave in which temperatures regularly top out at 120 degrees Fahrenheit, and where hugely populated cities are running out of water. From the BBC:

Residents have had to stand in line for hours to get water from government tanks, and restaurants have closed due to the lack of water. "Only rain can save Chennai from this situation," an official told BBC Tamil.
The city, which, according to the 2011 census, is India's sixth largest, has been in the grip of a severe water shortage for weeks now.
As the reservoirs started to run dry, many hotels and restaurants shut down temporarily.
The Chennai metro has turned off air conditioning in the stations, while offices have asked staff to work from home in a bid to conserve water...
The water crisis has also meant that most of the city has to depend solely on Chennai's water department, which has been distributing water through government trucks across neighborhoods.
"The destruction has just begun," an official said. "If the rain fails us this year too, we are totally destroyed."

And, as the Times of London reports, the combination of heat and drought not only is killing people, but also is emptying villages in the northern part of India. (Gee, I wonder where everyone will go and how welcome they'll be when they get there?) And things among the people who have stayed so far are getting ugly.

In the worst-hit areas many villages starved of water have been abandoned until the arrival of the monsoon brings relief, after weeks of temperatures topping 50 degrees.
In the northern states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan fighting has broken out over scarce water supplies, with police deployed to protect water trucks and wells.

Water levels in the four main reservoirs in Chennai has fallen to one of its lowest levels in 70 years, according to Indian media reports, with the current levels amounting to only 1.3 percent of full capacity. ARUN SANKAR Getty Images

This is a part of the new normal, and it's coming soon to a theater near you. But, not to worry. According to this guy, if we don't turn things around on those clever Chinese climate hoaxsters in the next half-decade, we're all screwed anyway. From those noted tree-hugging libs at Forbes:

"We have exquisite information about what that state is, because we have a paleo record going back millions of years, when the earth had no ice at either pole. There was almost no temperature difference between the equator and the pole," said James Anderson, a Harvard University professor of atmospheric chemistry best known for establishing that chlorofluorocarbons were damaging the Ozone Layer.
"The ocean was running almost 10ºC warmer all the way to the bottom than it is today," Anderson said of this once-and-future climate, "and the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere would have meant that storm systems would be violent in the extreme, because water vapor, which is an exponential function of water temperature, is the gasoline that fuels the frequency and intensity of storm systems."...
People have the misapprehension that we can recover from this state just by reducing carbon emissions, Anderson said in an appearance at the University of Chicago.
Recovery is all but impossible, he argued, without a World War II-style transformation of industry—an acceleration of the effort to halt carbon pollution and remove it from the atmosphere, and a new effort to reflect sunlight away from the earth's poles.
This has to be done, Anderson added, within the next five years.
"The chance that there will be any permanent ice left in the Arctic after 2022 is essentially zero," Anderson said, with 75 to 80 percent of permanent ice having melted already in the last 35 years.

No system of government devised by human beings can withstand what's coming, any more than overbuilt coastal enclaves can.

Links

• Chennai water crisis: City's reservoirs run dry - BBC News
• Tens of Thousands Flee Extreme Heatwave in India as Temperatures Topping 120°F Kill Dozens Across Country
• Thousands abandon villages in India to escape record 50 degree heat wave
• We Have Five Years To Save Ourselves From Climate Change, Harvard Scientist Says

New Temperature Record Set As France Swelters Through June Heatwave

ABC News - Reuters


As the mercury climbed, Europeans were doing all they could to beat the heat (Photo: AP). (ABC News)

Key points: The previous highest temperature record in France was set in 2003 Wildfires are being fought in northeast Spain, which firefighters said could easily quadruple in size A 93-year-old man in central Spain collapsed and died from the extreme heat

France has registered its highest temperature since records began as the death toll rose from a heatwave suffocating much of Europe.The mercury hit 45.9 degrees Celsius in Villevieille, in the southerly Provence region, the weather forecaster Meteo France said, almost two degrees above the previous high of 44.1 Celsius recorded in August 2003.
The World Meteorological Organisation said that 2019 was on track to be among the world's hottest years, and that 2015-2019 would then be the hottest five-year period on record.
It said the European heatwave was "absolutely consistent" with extremes linked to the impact of greenhouse gas emissions.
Four administrative departments in France were placed on red alert, signalling temperatures of "dangerous intensity" that are more typical of Saudi Arabia.

Deaths and injuries reported due to extreme heat
Temperatures in parts of Spain were expected to hit a new June record of 43 degrees.
Since 1975, Spain has registered nine heatwaves in June. Five of them, however, have been in the past decade, according to the Spanish meteorological office.
In Catalonia, in north-east Spain, bushfires were raging across 60 square kilometres of land, but firefighters said that area could quadruple.
Farmers were asked to stop all work across the region for 48 hours.

Lakes have proven to be a welcome reprieve during the heatwave. (AP: Thomas Warnack)

In the city of Valladolid in central Spain, a 93-year-old man collapsed and died due to the heat, police said.
And in a small town outside Cordoba, a 17-year-old died of heat-related effects after jumping into a swimming pool to cool off after a day working in the fields, regional health authorities said.
In France, one boy was seriously hurt when he was thrown back by a jet of water from a fire hydrant.
Some 4,000 schools were either closed or running a limited service to help working parents unable to stay at home.
French families with elderly relatives who were ill or living alone were advised to call or visit them twice a day and take them to cool places, while the state-run rail operator SNCF offered free cancellations or exchanges on long-distance trips.
The greater Paris region, Ile de France, had already banned more than half of cars from its roads as the stifling heat worsened air pollution, the toughest restriction provided for — although all cars were to be allowed to leave the city as school holidays began.
The cities of Lyon, Strasbourg and Marseille have also restricted traffic.
The unusually high temperatures are forecast to last until early next week.

France's many canals have become a popular way for people to cool down. (AP: Lewis Joly)

Links

• Europe Heatwave Sees Temperatures Soar To Record Highs As Wildfires Take Hold In Spain 
• Europe battling heatwave so hot it's causing chicken manure to combust and spark bushfires
• In pictures: Europe swelters through early summer heatwave
• Europe's hellish heatwave is caused by a high-pressure weather system unlike any ever seen before
• European heatwave could be the norm in a climate change affected world
• Europe is cooking in yet another heatwave. Our attempts to outrun climate change are futile
• Mont Blanc is melting and is a warning of our future as climate change sees the world's temperature rise
• Europe heatwave: Temperatures to hit 45C in France as death toll grows from 'enormous' bubble of Saharan air sweeping continent
• Record-breaking heat wave cooks Europe

Is Climate Change Causing Europe’s Intense Heat? A Scientist Weighs In

Science News - Carolyn Gramling

Karsten Haustein talks about what is driving extreme heat in Europe and South Asia

SUN SHELTER  A brief, but intense, heat wave is baking much of mainland Europe, including Paris, shown in this photograph taken June 26. Researchers are working to determine how this heat wave might be linked to human-caused climate change.

Dr Karsten Haustein Dr Haustein is a climate scientist at the School of Geography and Environment, Oxford University, and a member of the World Weather Attribution Network, an international scientific consortium. Dr Karsten interests include climate modelling and atmospheric aerosol research.

Mainland Europe has sweltered for days under record-breaking temperatures, prompting researchers to try to untangle how much of the heat wave can be linked to climate change.
A report on that, by an international consortium of scientists called the World Weather Attribution Network, is expected to be released on July 2.
Previous heat records for many parts of Europe were set in the summer of 2003, when temperatures soared to 44.1° Celsius (111.4° Fahrenheit) in the southern French town of Conqueyrac.
That extreme heat killed more than 70,000 people across the continent — a death toll  that researchers determined was amplified by climate change (SN: 9/3/16, p. 5).
As another heat wave in 2018 baked Europe for three months, the consortium conducted a rapid assessment that determined it could not have happened without anthropogenic, or human-caused, climate change.
Such events could occur yearly if global temperatures rise 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2100, the researchers found. If global warming is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius, though, such events were predicted every two out of three years.
This year’s event, which began in mid-June, is expected to be shorter. But it is intense. On June 28, temperatures in Gallargues-le-Montueux, a city in southern France, hit 45.9° C (114.6° F), smashing temperature records for the country.
But Europe isn’t the only part of the world dealing with dangerous heat levels. India and Pakistan have been suffering since mid-May under one of the longest-lasting heat waves in its recent history. In June, temperatures in New Delhi soared to 48° C (118.4° F), the highest ever recorded for the month in the Indian capital. By June 21, at least 180 people reportedly had died from heat-related causes.
Science News spoke with Karsten Haustein, a climate scientist at the University of Oxford in England who is affiliated with the consortium, about what’s behind these deadly events and how scientists determine in real time whether a particular heat wave can be attributed to climate change. His comments have been edited for clarity and brevity.

SN: Why was the World Weather Attribution Network created?
Haustein: The idea was that we would look at any given extreme events while they’re happening and try to scientifically attribute the climate change factor. For example, has it become a more likely event or not [due to climate change]? We define the event, put it into historic context — for example, is it a 1-in-100-year event? — and determine if it’s setting records or getting media attention. And then we do the model analyses to isolate the climate signal. We’re also teaching other researchers, in places including Kenya, South Africa and Australia, how to use our methods.

SN: Why are you analyzing the current Europe heat wave?
Haustein: This current heat wave just started 10 days ago. [By June 24], it was already shaping up to be pretty extreme, so we went for it.
The all-time maximum temperature in France was 44.1° C, from August 2003. That was a really bad one. There are chances we’ll get up to 45° C, which would be quite a new record. [A few hours after this interview, that milestone was reached on June 28.] For June, that’s pretty epic. Germany’s temperatures will peak on Sunday [June 30], and probably Monday [July 1] in Austria. And then there are two cold fronts that will be pushing through.

SN: What atmospheric conditions are causing the intense heat?
Haustein: To get a heat wave going, you need warm air in the upper level [of the atmosphere]. That comes from the south, from Africa. We actually set a record [on June 27] for temperatures at 1.5 kilometers above Earth’s surface, reaching 25.5° C.
How those upper-level air masses translate into temperatures on the surface is a different story. In simple terms, the jet stream where it sits across Europe divides colder air in the north from warmer air in the south. Sometimes [this fast current of air above the Northern Hemisphere] becomes very wiggly, with big loops going far to the north and all the way down to northern Africa. That can transport really hot air from Africa to Europe. If it sits over Europe for several days, it can heat the surface.
What’s causing that wiggly jet stream is contentious. Some people have suggested it’s linked to increasing temperatures in the Arctic. But we don’t really know. All we can say is that, over the last 10 days, there’s been a tendency to have this pattern: We see the jet stream digging farther south, and Europe is sitting in this warm air.

⬤ ⬤ ⬤

Blistering heat
Extreme temperatures scorched much of India and Pakistan from mid-May through June 2019. NASA’s Goddard Earth Observing System, a global atmospheric climate simulation, created this map of air temperatures across the region on June 10. Several factors contributed to the heat wave, including a delayed monsoon. The health impacts of South Asia’s rising temperatures are unclear, though, due to other factors that can impact health, including higher humidity and air pollution levels in the region. And it’s also not yet clear if the region has been seeing an overall trend of increasing maximum air temperatures since the 1970s.

NASA Earth Observatory
⬤ ⬤ ⬤

SN: What about the heat wave in South Asia?
Haustein: As far as climate attribution, it’s similar to work we did on the 2016 heat wave in India. [That heat wave included a record-breaking temperature of 51° C in the western state of Rajasthan.] India’s 2019 temperatures appear to be due to natural year-to-year variability. We did a brief analysis that found that maximum temperatures across India in the hottest months aren’t clearly increasing.

SN: What did the consortium learn in analyzing the 2018 European heat wave?
Haustein: We know that the frequency and intensity of heat waves are increasing globally. Heat waves in Europe, such as the one in 2018, are at least twice as likely to occur now as a result of climate change.

Links

• Europe Heatwave Sees Temperatures Soar To Record Highs As Wildfires Take Hold In Spain
• Air pollution and irrigation mask extremes of India’s 2019 heatwave
• Heatwave in northern Europe, summer 2018
• Attributing human mortality during extreme heat waves to anthropogenic climate change
• Limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees C could prevent thousands of deaths in the U.S.
• Are we ready for the deadly heat waves of the future?
• The list of extreme weather caused by human-driven climate change grows
• Half a degree stole the climate spotlight in 2018
• Limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees versus 2 has big benefits, the IPCC says
• These weather events turned extreme thanks to human-driven climate change
• South Asia could face deadly heat and humidity by the end of this century
• For three years in a row, Earth breaks heat record
• Global warming amplified death toll during 2003 European heat wave

Political Change Is The First Step To Stopping The Climate Crisis

Independent Australia - Climate News Network

Every answer has a cost. Every choice exacts a penalty. A new book reminds readers there are no easy answers to the climate crisis.

The first step to fixing our climate crisis is targeting corporate greed and profiteering (Image via Flickr)

LONDON − Resolving the climate crisis demands radical political change, a British author argues: the end of free market capitalism.
You could turn the entire United Kingdom into a giant wind farm and it still wouldn’t generate all of the UK’s current energy demand. That is because only 2% of the solar energy that slams into and powers the whole planet on a daily basis is converted into wind and most of that is either high in the jet stream or far out to sea.
Hydropower could, in theory, supply most of or perhaps even all the energy needs of 7 billion humans, but only if every drop that falls as rain was saved to power the most perfectly efficient turbines.
And that, too, is wildly unrealistic, says Mike Berners-Lee in his thoughtful and stimulating new paperback, ‘There Is No Planet B’. He adds: ‘Thank goodness, as it would mean totally doing away with mountain streams and even, if you really think about it, hillsides.’

Great interview on @thewireradio with IA's executive editor @vmp9. Listen here:https://t.co/jL3Epi0mla

— IndependentAustralia (@independentaus) June 20, 2019

This is a book for people who really want to think about the state of the world, how to get to zero-carbon emissions as swiftly as possible and in a way that preserves a decent life for the 11 billion or so who will people the planet by 2050. And, of course, everything boils down to energy

Enough for everyone
The sun delivers around 16,300 kilowatts to the Earth’s surface for every person on the planet — enough, he says, to boil an Olympic-sized swimming pool of water for each and every one.
Solar panels that covered just 0.1% of the total land surface (think of a small country just 366 kilometres square) could meet all of today’s human energy needs. But human demand for energy is growing at 2.4% a year. If this goes on, then in 300 years human demand would need solar panels over every square metre of land surface.
The message from every page of this book is that we need to think and think again. We could, of course, think about using the energy we have more efficiently, but history suggests there might be a catch.
The catch is now called the Jevons Paradox, after William Stanley Jevons who in 1863 (he was thinking at the time about the exploitation of coal) pointed out that energy efficiency tends to lead to increases in demand, because that’s how humans respond to plenty — they want even more of it.



So we don’t just have to think again, we have to rethink the whole basis of human behaviour. This means switching to vegetarian or vegan diets, abandoning plastic packaging and cutting down on air travel (powered by biofuels, if we must, but the biofuel business is lunacy – he uses the word “bonkers” – in energy terms).
But these are small things. The big and not necessarily entirely popular message of the book is that we must change politically. Free market capitalism or neoliberalism or any pursuit entirely and only for profit cannot deliver answers to the coming climate crisis.
Professor Berners-Lee takes a lesson from simple physics: wealth is, or ought to be, shared the way kinetic energy is shared around the planet.
When molecules of a gas collide, they redistribute energy; just as when people catch a bus or buy a sandwich, they redistribute wealth. The Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution law says that you rarely get one atom or molecule with more than ten times the average energy and almost never with more than 20 times the average energy.
And if human wealth was distributed according to the same law, the total wealth would not change and some people would still be richer than others, but the median wealth – the income of the person right in the middle – would be a massive 79% of the mean or average. That’s better than the share of wealth in the fair nation of Iceland. So it would be a manifestly fairer world.



Fairer resource-sharing
If the world shared its wealth (and wealth is a proxy for energy resources) more fairly, then it might be a great deal easier to be sure of democratic assent and international co-operation for radical shifts in the way we manage our food, water, transport and our precarious natural wealth in the form of biodiversity: all the wild birds, mammals, fish amphibians, reptiles, plants, fungi and microbes on which humankind ultimately depends.
The above is just a small sample of a rich, thought-provoking and easy-to-enjoy text. Berners-Lee doesn’t have all the answers and admits as much, but he does know how to frame a lot of questions in illuminating ways.
He has packed his book with explanatory notes, supporting evidence and definitions, one of them being the case for democracy in the world of the Anthropocene.
‘Fit for purpose democracy,’ he warns, ‘entails not just voting but accurate information, and a widespread sense of responsibility for the common good’. A book like this could help us get there.

Should we become vegetarians? Is it OK to fly? Mike Berners-Lee, the author of There Is No Planet B, A Handbook for the Make or Break Years, answers the big questions https://t.co/tGS6ECReCA

— Maeve Bruce (@MaeveBruce) March 28, 2019

‘There Is No Planet B’ is available from

The Book Depository for $18.95 (paperback) RRP.

Links

• There Is No Planet B: A Handbook for the Make or Break Years
• Professor Mike Berners-Lee
• William Stanley Jevons English Economist And Logician
• Healthy diet good for climate change
• Plastics leave permanent indestructible legacy
• Scientists beef up energy potential
• Humans drive sixth mass extinction wave
• New planetary epoch makes its mark

Europe Heatwave Sees Temperatures Soar To Record Highs As Wildfires Take Hold In Spain

ABC News - ABC | wire

Although heatwaves are not uncommon in Europe, experts say climate change is increasing their frequency and intensity. (AFP: Alberto Pizzoli)

Key points: Temperatures climbed towards 44 degrees Celsius in parts of Spain and France Calls to emergency services are on the rise in France An intense wildfire in Spain is thought to have started after chicken poo combusted

An intense heatwave has sent temperatures across Europe soaring to record highs, with central Europe forecast to hit the mid-40s on Friday
New records have already been set in Poland and the Czech Republic, which both reached their highest temperatures for June on Wednesday, while Austria expects to have its warmest June on record — 4.5 degrees Celsius above the long-term average.In Germany, 51 observing stations broke their June temperature records this week, according to the World Meteorology Organization, but there has been some relief for northern Germany with Berlin dropping from 37C on Wednesday down to just 21C on Thursday
Across the continent, zookeepers struggled to keep animals cool, feeding frozen treats to animals and providing water tubs and hoses to cool down elephants and primates.
Temperatures have climbed past 44C in northern Spain and southern France, driving people to seek refuge in the sea or nearby rivers, with it predicted to rise even higher on Friday.
French authorities put restrictions on vehicles to reduce pollution and schools have been closed.
French Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said the conditions were unprecedented and emergency services were overwhelmed with patients.

Temperatures forecast to top 40°C in parts of Spain and France today amid widespread #heatwave warnings in Europe. Follow national advice. Protect your health and the environment against #wildfires https://t.co/qMe9ublyZz pic.twitter.com/juCVKC3Pra

— WMO | OMM (@WMO) June 27, 2019

Chicken manure wildfire takes hold in Spain
Spanish firefighters are battling wildfires in Catalonia, the worst the state has seen in two decades, according to the local government.
Hundreds of firefighters have struggled to contain the blaze in north-eastern Spain, with it already spreading over 5,500 hectares and forcing the evacuation of 53 residents.

Firefighters say high temperatures and a drop in humidity will likely fan the flames in Spain. (AP: Jordi Borras)

Miquel Buch, the Regional Interior Minister, said 20,000 hectares were under threat.
Mr Buch said authorities suspected the cause of the outbreak was a deposit of improperly stored chicken manure at a farm in the village of Torre de l'Espanyol that high temperatures caused to combust.
Firefighters said high temperatures, low humidity and high winds fanned the flames.
Television images showed horses and sheep incinerated on a farm that had stood in the path of the fire.

Emergency service calls 'on the rise'

Temperatures soared towards 44 degrees Celsius in parts of Spain and France. (AP: Alvaro Barrientos)

As temperatures climbed towards 44 degrees in parts of central Europe, French authorities extended restrictions on vehicles, already imposed in Paris and Lyon, to Marseille and Strasbourg in an effort to curb air pollution.
Some schools postponed summer exams, and parts of northern France were put on drought alert, with water supplies to businesses, farmers and ordinary residents restricted.
French Agriculture Minister Didier Guillaume announced a ban on the transportation of animals until the heatwave had ended.
Grid operator RTE said French electricity demand on Thursday (local time) was close to a summer record seen two years ago, as people turned on fans and coolers to full blast for relief from the scorching temperatures.

Hot air from Africa is bringing a heatwave to Europe, prompting health warnings and exceptionally high temperatures in Spain. (AP: Alvaro Barrientos)

"Calls to the emergency services are on the rise nationwide," said Jerome Saloman, head of national public health.

"We are seeing the beginning of a clear impact of the heatwave. For us, the worst is still to come."

Mr Saloman said four drownings had been recorded in France since the start of the week directly linked to the heatwave as people try to cool themselves.
However, the full toll directly linked to the heatwave would only be known in the days or weeks ahead.

Regions placed on red alert

This heatwave is unprecedented and exceptional in its intensity, the French Health Minister says. (AP: Alessandra Tarantino)

Ms Buzyn said four administrative regions in southern France had been placed on red alert, the highest crisis level, with 76 others on orange alert.
This heatwave was unprecedented and exceptional in its intensity, the Health Minister told a news conference.
The red alert would mean school outings, outdoor sport and other festive activities are suspended or postponed. Ms Buzyn cautioned joggers and other sport lovers to curb their activities.
The unusually hot weather in June is caused by a swathe of warm air from Africa.
Although heatwaves are not uncommon in Europe, experts say climate change is increasing their frequency and intensity.
"This increase in heat extremes is just as predicted by climate science as a consequence of global warming caused by the increasing greenhouse gases from burning coal, oil, and gas," said Stefan Rahmstorf, a climatologist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.


European zoo animals try to beat the heatwave (ABC News)

Links

• In pictures: Europe swelters through early summer heatwave
• European heatwave: Temperature may reach highest on record in France
• Europe's hellish heatwave is caused by a high-pressure weather system unlike any ever seen before
• European heatwave could be the norm in a climate change affected world
• Europe is cooking in yet another heatwave. Our attempts to outrun climate change are futile
• Mont Blanc is melting and is a warning of our future as climate change sees the world's temperature rise
• Europe heatwave: Temperatures to hit 45C in France as death toll grows from 'enormous' bubble of Saharan air sweeping continent
• Record-breaking heat wave cooks Europe

Letter: Doctors Against Climate Catastrophe

The Guardian - Letters

‘The diagnosis is clear and the treatment urgent. Yet politicians prevaricate and global emissions still rise’ 

An Extinction Rebellion protest in Camden, London, earlier this month. Photograph: Ollie Millington/Getty Images 

We are qualified medical doctors united by our distress at the minimal response to looming environmental disaster. We sympathise with current widespread protest, notably by children who will be most affected. We urge government and media to respond immediately and proportionately.
As caring professionals we cannot countenance current policies that push the world’s most vulnerable towards environmental catastrophe. We are particularly alarmed by the effects of rising temperatures on health and heed predictions of societal collapse and consequent mass migration. Such collapse risks damage to physical and mental health on an unprecedented scale.
Present policies and responses are woefully inadequate. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that we have only 11 years to halve global emissions to meet their 1.5C target, yet last year our global emissions rose yet again. It will be a massive task to avoid catastrophic warming and we need radical action now. Our unchecked consumption, dependence on fossil fuels and decimation of ecosystems continue. The diagnosis is clear and the treatment urgent. Yet politicians prevaricate and global emissions still rise.
Governments abrogate their responsibility when pursuing grossly inadequate policies that risk environmental collapse. Non-violent direct action then becomes the reasonable choice for responsible individuals.
We support the following key demands, which parallel those made by Extinction Rebellion:

• governments and media should be honest about the challenges and urgency of tackling ecological disaster;
• governments should effect carbon neutrality within the IPCC timeframe;
• governments should establish and be led by Citizens’ Assemblies to enable climate and ecological justice.

Signatories

• James Underwood
  Past president, Royal College of Pathologists


• Professor John Middleton
  President, UK Faculty of Public Health


• Professor David Pencheon
  Honorary professor of health and sustainable development, University of Exeter, UK


• Dr Bing Jones
  Retired associate specialist in haematology


• Dr Terry Kemple
  Past president, Royal College of General Practitioners

Links

• Letter in Full: The Cancer of Climate Change
• Doctors call for nonviolent direct action over climate crisis
• Climate Crisis Seriously Damaging Human Health, Report Finds
• Strengthen Health Systems To Cope With Climate Change Challenges
• Doctors Warn Australian Health System Not Prepared For Climate Change
• Australian Doctors Declare A Climate Emergency
• Why Fear And Anger Are Rational Responses To Climate Change
• Climate Change Will Expose Half Of World’s Population To Disease-Spreading Mosquitoes By 2050
• Climate Change And The Risk To Civilisation: The Doctors' Prescription
• Save Millions Of Lives By Tackling Climate Change, Says WHO
• The Climate Apocalypse Is Now, And It’s Happening To You
• Climate Change Already A Health Emergency, Say Experts

Australia Leads The G20 Nations' Pack In Aid For Coal-Fired Power

Sydney Morning Herald - Peter Hannam

Subsidies for coal-fired power production almost tripled in the three years to 2016-17 among G20 nations, with Australia providing among the largest support, an international study has found.
The report by UK think tank, the Overseas Development Institute, found aid for such power stations soared from US$17.2 billion ($24.7 billion) in 2013-14 to $US47 billion in the most recent year. It's in contrast to pledges made by the 20 biggest economies in 2009 to phase out subsidies to reduce the risks of climate change.
Total support for coal, including production, was US$63.9 billion in the 2016-17 year, the report found. Of that, about US$3.1 billion went to fiscal aid for communities to transition off coal.

Exhaust plumes from cooling towers at the Jaenschwalde brown coal-fired power station in eastern Germany. Credit: Sean Gallup

The highest amounts of total support to coal consumption were identified in Indonesia at US$2.3 billion per year, Italy and Australia, both about US$870 million, the US at US$708 million, and the UK with US$682 million, it reported."These tens of billions of dollars a year of G20 support to coal are not just locking in the high-carbon
economy and leading to stranded assets, they are also a missed opportunity to support a clean energy transition and to achieve other sustainable development objectives," the study said.
Those subsidies, which count public support for coal such as China's US$9.5 billion to annual aid construction of plants and mining in other nations - were likely an underestimate.
The report noted the G20 nations indirectly support the coal industry "by failing to charge companies for the health and climate damages they cause". A separate report out last month from the International Monetary Fund estimated fossil fuel subsidies by all nations for coal, gas, oil and other fossil fuels totalled US$5.2 trillion in 2017.
Comment was sought from Energy Minister Angus Taylor and the Minerals Council. A spokesman for Resources Minister Matt Canavan noted the most recent report from the Productivity Commission on trade assistance found tariff and budgetary assistance for mining to be "negligible."
The ODI paper comes as leaders of the G20 nations including Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison are due to gather in Osaka, Japan, on Friday and Saturday.
According to the Financial Times, the summit hosts have bowed to pressure from the Trump administration to downplay climate change.
The draft communique will omit the words “global warming” and “decarbonisation” and diminished the importance of the Paris climate accord compared with previous summits, the paper said.

'Ecological crisis'
Jamie Hanson, head of campaigns at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said Australia was in an "ecological crisis driven by climate change".
"Coal is the primary cause of the climate damage that is causing extinctions all over the country, drought and fire that has torched ancient rainforests, and that has killed half the Great Barrier Reef in the last five years," he said.
"Climate-destroying government handouts to the coal industry defy all logic - especially now, when we know that clean renewable energy is the cheapest form of new power."
Separately, Australia's climate ambassador Patrick Suckling has argued at a United Nations conference in Bonn, Germany that the country's carbon reduction efforts were "having a positive effect".

Links

• REPORT G20 coal subsidies: Tracking government support to a fading industry (pdf)
• IMF: Global Fossil Fuel Subsidies Remain Large - An Update Based on Country-Level Estimates
• Federal Government: Australia - progress to meeting our 2020 target (pdf)
• Australia's greenhouse gas emissions up for four years in a row
• 'Huge gamble': Coalition faces $18b hole if climate plan trips up
• City of Sydney officially declares 'climate emergency'

Are Australians More Worried About Climate Change Or Climate Policy?

The Interpreter - Matt McDonald

Climate change is again on the public mind but this didn’t translate to a strong message at the ballot box for action. 

Wandandian, New South Wales, during the 2018 drought. (Photo: Brendon Thorne via Getty)

The latest Lowy Institute poll indicates that Australians are increasingly concerned about climate change and its implications. Three figures are particularly telling.
First, and perhaps most striking, Australians have identified climate change as the most critical threat to Australia’s “vital interests”. Almost two thirds (64%) of respondents described climate change as a critical threat, above cyber attacks (62%), terrorism (61%) or North Korea’s nuclear program (60%), for example.
While perhaps surprising, this continues a steady increase in this view of climate change in the Lowy polls over the past five years. It also builds on a 2017 Senate Inquiry into the national security implications of climate change. And as I wrote The Interpreter that same year, the results of an unofficial survey of academic researchers in the field of international security indicated that these researchers overwhelmingly identified climate change as the most pressing threat to global security.

Second, the latest poll indicates that Australians believe energy policy should primarily orient around reducing carbon emissions. This policy priority was identified as the most important by 47% of respondents, higher than reducing household bills (38%) or reducing the risk of power blackouts (15%).
Third, 61% of Australians surveyed agreed with the statement that global warming is “a serious and pressing problem (and) we should begin taking steps now even if this involves significant costs”. This is the highest point for over a decade (since 2008).

Illustration: Matthew Martin

So is this grounds for hope that we will see substantive action on climate change in Australia? Will public attitudes ultimately drive new and ambitious climate policy?
Aside from the ideological commitments of this government, there are three big reasons to be cautious.
First, the poll indicates significant demographic differences between Australians. While younger Australians seem deeply concerned about climate change and its implications, older Australians are more ambivalent. Over three quarters of Australians aged 18-44 (76%) agreed with the proposition that “climate change is a serious and pressing problem (and) we should begin taking steps now even if this involves significant costs”. By contrast, less than half of those aged over 45 (49%) agreed with this proposition. Combined with significant differences in attitudes to climate change between rural and urban voters, and based on levels of wealth and education, this suggests continued divisions across the country that policy-makers may struggle to overcome.

Second, Australians had a chance at the ballot box only weeks ago to send a strong and meaningful message about their desire for climate action, and largely didn’t. While the Greens did quite well, Australians ultimately voted in a government that had gone to the election with minimal emissions reduction targets, a commitment to new fossil fuel projects, no new emissions reduction policy and a track record of steadily rising emissions.
Third, we’ve been here before. One fascinating feature of the Lowy poll figures on climate change concern since 2006 is the seemingly inverse relationship between public concern and policy ambition. The high point of support for action on climate change was the first year of the survey in 2006 (68%), when John Howard was overseeing continued rises in greenhouse emissions and refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. This began to drop quickly and significantly under Labor governments, reaching a low point when the carbon tax came into effect in 2012 (36%). Under subsequent conservative governments from 2013, when Tony Abbott was elected promising to repeal the carbon tax, public concern has steadily grown to the current figure of 61% (2019).
These latter two points suggest that when Australians are ultimately faced with supporting strong climate action, they get cold feet. Perhaps this is the product of effective mobilisation by forces and voices for climate inaction. But it probably shouldn’t be this easy for public opinion to be manipulated, at least not to the scale we’ve seen with climate change.
A simpler, if more cynical, interpretation is that when we think we might need to make sacrifices to act on climate change, our concerns about climate change itself starts to wane, at least relative to other considerations.

>Protestors in Melbourne in May demand action on climate change. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty)

The challenge for substantive policy action all this poses is significant.
It involves overcoming divisions across the country on this issue, encouraging Australians to recognise and prioritise the threat of climate change itself over action designed to address it, and developing  alternative narratives to the (often misleading) claims about the irrelevance of Australian mitigation action or the economic costs of transitioning away from fossil fuels. It should also ideally involve Australians recognising obligations to outsiders more vulnerable to climate change, less responsible for climate change and less able to adapt to it.
The big question is whether any political leaders in Australia are capable of harnessing current concern about climate change and sustaining broad community support for policy that substantively addresses it.
Time will tell. Although if the scientists are right, we’re running out of it.

Links

• Senate report: climate change is a clear and present danger to Australia’s security
• What keeps global security academics awake at night
• As Extinctions Loom, Biodiversity Warnings Fail To Resonate With Governments, Media
• Morrison Sprints To Adani Approval
• Government Accused Of Hiding Full Extent Of Climate Change
• In 2018 The Australian Government Chased Its Energy Tail. Here's A More Hopeful Story
• Australians Disagree On How Important Climate Change Is: Poll
• Climate Change Threat Now Tops Australians' Concerns, Lowy Poll Finds
• Support For Action Surges, As Majority Say We Face Climate Emergency
• A Record Share Of Australians Say Humans Cause Climate Change: Poll

Sydney Declares A Climate Emergency – What Does That Mean In Practice?

The Conversation - Chris Turney

Sydney has become Australia’s first major city to declare a climate emergency. AAP Image/Stephen Saphore

Late on Monday night, the City of Sydney became the first state capital in Australia to officially declare a climate emergency. With climate change considered a threat to human life, Sydney councillors unanimously supported a motion put forward by Lord Mayor Clover Moore to mobilise city resources to reduce carbon emissions and minimise the impact of future change.
The decision sees Sydney join a variety of local and national governments around the world, in a movement that is increasingly gaining momentum. In total, some 658 local governments around the world have made the same declaration, with the UK and Canada committing their national governments to the global movement in just the past two months.
An official declaration of climate emergency puts a government on a “wartime mobilisation” that places climate change at the centre of policy and planning decisions.
While interpretations differ on what a “climate emergency” means in practice, governments have established a range of measures to help meet the targets set by the Paris climate agreement. Under this agreement, 197 countries have pledged to limit global temperature rise to less than 2℃ above pre-industrial levels, and ideally no more than 1.5℃.
With 2018 having brought all manner of record-breaking climate extremes, and global average temperatures projected to reach 3.2℃ above the pre-industrial average based on current national pledges and targets for greenhouse emissions, Sydney’s recognition of a national emergency is both highly appropriate and also a major turning-point for Australia.
Although a signatory to the Paris Agreement, Australia’s greenhouse emissions have risen over the past four years since the repeal of the carbon price. With Australian emissions most notably increasing around transport, the United Nations climate discussions currently being held in Bonn have raised concerns over the nation’s ability to meet its Paris commitments.

Economic impacts
With the global cost of inaction on climate change projected to reach a staggering US$23 trillion a year by the end of the century (equivalent to around five 2008 global financial crises every year), several nations are already ramping up their Paris Agreement commitments ahead of schedule. The UK recently announced its intention to be carbon-neutral by 2050.
Australia is particularly vulnerable to the future financial costs of climate change, with economic models suggesting losses of A$159 billion a year through the impact of sea level rise and drought-driven collapses in agricultural productivity. The cost for each household has been put at about A$14,000.
After Sydney’s declaration, 150 faith leaders on Tuesday signed an open letter endorsing the decision, and describing the climate issue as a moral challenge that transcends religious belief. They have called for an urgent mobilisation to reach 100% renewable energy by the year 2030, and for an end to the approval of any new coal and gas projects, including Adani’s controversial Carmichael coal mine in Queensland.
The recent court ruling against the proposed Rocky Hill coal mine in the New South Wales Hunter Valley – a decision made partly on climate grounds – could mark a crucial turning point in the fortunes of future mining projects.
As part of its emergency declaration, Sydney has also called on the federal government to establish a “just transition authority” to support Australians currently employed in fossil fuel industries. This is an urgent issue and a crucial part of the transition to a low-emissions economy.
A major nationwide training program will be needed to help re-skill the estimated 8,000 people who work in fossil-fuelled electricity production, and to help fill the tens of thousands of new jobs in renewable energy-related fields.
With the scale of change required to decarbonise the global economy and hopefully avoid a 2℃ warmer world, the need to support communities across Australia and overseas will likely become an increasing challenge for governments around the world. Putting ourselves on an emergency footing could help provide precisely the impetus we need.

Links

• The City Of Sydney Has Officially Declared A Climate Emergency
• Blockchain and carbon offsetting can help cities reduce emissions – but sometimes simpler is better
• UK becomes first country to declare a 'climate emergency'
• Cutting cities' emissions does have economic benefits – and these ultimately outweigh the costs
• Landmark Rocky Hill ruling could pave the way for more courts to choose climate over coal
• The Climate Crisis Is Our Third World War. It Needs A Bold Response
• Climate Change Doomsday Report Predicts End Of Human Civilisation
• Time To Flick Climate Emergency Switch: A Plea To Our New Parliament
• The Heat Is On Over The Climate Crisis. Only Radical Measures Will Work
• Come Senators, MPs, There's A Climate Emergency Raging
• The Guardian View On Extinction: Time To Rebel
• Biodiversity Crisis Is About To Put Humanity At Risk, UN Scientists To Warn
• Our Carbon Budget Is All But Spent, But Who In Canberra Is Counting?

'No Faith In Coal': Religious Leaders Urge Scott Morrison To Take Climate Action

The Guardian - Adam Morton

Open letter calls on the prime minister to block all new coal and gas projects, including Adani


More than 150 religious leaders have called on Scott Morrison to acknowledge the world faces a climate emergency and block all new coal and gas projects, including Adani’s Carmichael mine.
In an open letter headed “no faith in coal”, the leaders say the climate crisis is a profoundly moral problem and Australia’s response will be crucial in addressing it.
“Simply put, opening up new coal reserves for mining is not compatible with any global response to avoid catastrophe. We call on you to show true moral leadership,” the letter says.
Signatories to the letter include bishops, rabbis, theologians, the grand mufti of Australia and the heads of the Uniting Church, the Federation of Australian Buddhist Councils, Muslims Australia and the National Council of Churches.
It asks the prime minister to make the climate emergency his number one priority and endorses the three demands of protesting school students: stopping the Adani mine in central Queensland, not allowing new coal or gas developments and moving Australia to run entirely on renewable energy by 2030.
“Despite the differences in our faith, we all regard addressing the climate emergency as our shared moral challenge. We stand together for our common home, the Earth,” the letter says.
“Will you and your government have the courage to agree to this simple threefold agenda? We pray that you will.”

Rabbi Jonathan Keren-Black uses a rabbinical horn (shofar) to sound the end of the era of coal. Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP 

The letter was organised by advocacy group the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change. It concedes the shift will be challenging, not least for people in communities reliant on fossil fuel industries, but says a courageous leader would come up with a jobs plan based on clean energy.
Loreto Sister Libby Rogerson said burning fossil fuels was worsening extreme weather, crop failures and sea level rise. By continuing the practice, Australia was moving further away from “loving God and God’s creation and loving our neighbour”, she said.
“We have a sacred responsibility to care for the Earth and all living beings, especially the vulnerable people on the frontlines,” she said.
The letter was published shortly after City of Sydney became the latest jurisdiction to declare a climate emergency. Councillors unanimously backed a motion by the lord mayor, Clover Moore, on Monday warning the climate crisis poses a serious risk to Sydneysiders.
Noting Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions have increased four years straight, Moore called on the Morrison government to respond urgently by reintroducing a price on carbon and establishing a body to help workers in fossil fuel industries to transition to other jobs.
“Successive federal governments have shamefully presided over a climate disaster, and now we are at a critical juncture,” she said.
Other cities to have declared a climate emergency include London, Auckland and Vancouver. At a meeting in March, Australia’s capital city mayors called for national action to adapt to the changing climate, including increasing storm severity, extreme heat, drought, floods and bushfire.
The government has rejected calls for additional policies to reduce emissions, which began to rise after the Coalition repealed a carbon price scheme in 2014.
In a speech to business leaders in Perth on Monday, which focused on reducing regulation, Morrison said: “We all agree you need to take action on climate change and we’re taking responsible and effective action.”

Links

• Australia's emissions still rising, says report withheld in defiance of Senate order
• Pope Francis Slams 'Stupid' Climate Change Deniers
• Letter to the Prime Minister: No Faith In Coal
• Sidelining God: Why Secular Climate Projects In The Pacific Islands Are Failing
• Could Making Climate Change A 'Pro-Life' Issue Bring Conservatives On Board?
• Cities urge national action to build resilience to climate change
• Climate Change Helped Destroy These Four Ancient Civilisations
• Major Oil Companies Commit To Carbon Pricing At Vatican
• Pope Francis Backs Carbon Pricing And 'Radical Energy Transition' To Act Against Global Warming
• Church Of England Votes To Withdraw Funds From Companies That Contribute To Climate Change
• Pope Francis Warns Against Turning Earth Into Vast Pile Of 'Rubble, Deserts And Refuse'