18/08/2020

We’ve Got To Start Thinking Beyond Our Own Lifespans If We’re Going To Avoid Extinction

The Guardian - 

Short-term analysis of ways to save society, and indeed humanity, is useless

Amiens Cathedral, France: built across several lifetimes during the 13th century. Photograph: Alamy

Sonia Sodha is an Observer columnist
In a biology lesson about the bacterial growth curve, the parallels with the climate crisis were hard to miss.

Stick bacteria in a test tube with food and their population will grow exponentially until, eventually, they run out of resources and kill themselves off.

Even a couple of decades ago, the comparison with humanity’s predicament felt glaringly obvious; and we have not really strayed since from the inevitable path to extinction.

The hope seems to be that a big crisis might be the shock we need to change course. But we are living through the biggest global crisis for decades – and are travelling and consuming less as a result of the pandemic – yet it already seems unlikely that much will change. It’s easy enough to throw around the old adage “never waste a good crisis”. But when it comes to existential questions about the future of humanity, it has proved fairly useless.

Coronavirus or not, we remain locked into a treadmill that measures progress by growing GDP rather than by wellbeing and environmental sustainability. This is an economic paradigm that has served most of us – particularly the most affluent – pretty well for decades.

But the richer we’ve got, the more the benefits have tailed off. There have been a number of studies showing that, beyond a certain point, more wealth does not necessarily equal more happiness – true at a societal level as well as an individual one.

There is a lot that could account for this flatlining. It was once assumed that increased productivity, driven by technological progress, would result in us having more leisure time: see John Maynard Keynes’s prediction in the 1930s that we’d be working just 15 hours a week by now.

But instead, luxury beat leisure and an explosion in consumerism has driven us towards ever more consumption. The “happiness” economist Richard Layard has also pointed towards “disorders of development” such as obesity and tech addiction (although it should be noted that within a wealthy society such as ours, obesity is associated with poverty).
For a while after the 2008 crash, it looked as if things might change – economists designed global ‘happiness’ indices
The costs of this consumption have increased. Much of it is subsidised by labour exploitation, both at home and abroad. And then there is the small issue of catastrophic climate change, as we race towards “tipping points” beyond which global heating becomes self-reinforcing and harder to halt without unprecedented levels of coordinated international action.

Stack all this up, and the idea of already-rich societies moving towards a “zero growth” economic model – once the preserve of the radical green fringes of politics – starts to look increasingly like a no-brainer.

We would have to sacrifice gains in material living standards, but the potential prize would be preserving the planet and achieving a better worklife balance. If we could protect the least affluent from any negative impacts – which would require more redistribution, not to mention paying more for services such as caring and cleaning – what’s not to like?

The big problem is, of course, no one knows how to get there. The 2008 financial crisis offered a chance to take stock. For a while, it looked like something might happen: economists designed global “happiness” indices and the UN General Assembly declared a “world happiness day”. But not only did nothing change: it was used as political cover for darker agendas.

Bhutan adopted a measure for Gross National Happiness in an attempt to market itself globally as the “happiness” country, while papering over its record of human rights abuses and ethnic cleansing. In the UK, David Cameron pledged to set up a national wellbeing index as he cut back mental health services, youth services and children’s centres.

We’re back there again: happiness advocates saying we can’t afford to waste this opportunity to rethink, even as the government has prioritised pubs over schools – economic recovery over broader measures of wellbeing – in relaxing the lockdown.

This is no surprise. Our political and economic systems are utterly indisposed to the radical shifts we need to promote wellbeing over wealth and protect the planet. Short-termism is everywhere, from politicians who face elections every few years to company directors who must account for quarterly results.

On the right, there are powerful vested interests who want to maintain business as usual – who go quiet in the wake of a crisis, or even appear to jump on the bandwagon (just look at Davos agendas in recent years), but who do all in their power to obstruct change.

The left often makes peace with continuous growth, despite its costs, because a rising tide makes redistribution easier. And it is crazy to think that a shock to GDP caused by a financial crisis or a pandemic could be used as a bridge to a different world because the brunt of the pain is always, always borne by the least affluent and the young.

So we need to think far more about the mechanisms and institutions that could get us on to a different path. The Long Time Project is exploring how humans could shift their time horizons so, simply put, we feel more emotionally connected to our future descendants. It points to the fact that we tend to view our future selves, let alone future generations, as strangers.

We need to rewire the way we think about the future, and our own ageing and deaths; the projects’ founders believe that art and culture can play an important role. And we could learn from those times in history when humans have proved their ability to think beyond their own lifespan: “cathedral thinking” is based on those architects who planned spectacular buildings that would never be finished in their own lifetimes.

It’s no exaggeration to say that, unless we find a way to think differently about consumption, wellbeing and sustainability, humans will be responsible for our own extinction. And it should be clear by now that crises – extreme weather, pandemics, financial crises – are never going to be the wake-up call that forces us to confront our own fragility.

A good crisis inevitably goes to waste, and it is lazy and irresponsible to think otherwise.

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What I Learned Covering The Climate Crisis For 15 Years

Poynter - 

Vanessa Hauc, news anchor at Noticias Telemundo, stands in the aftermath of a devastating forest fire. Courtesy Noticias Telemundo

Being a climate journalist has never been so critical.

For the past 15 years, I’ve been reporting on environmental issues for Noticias Telemundo and I can tell you that this is the most important story of our times, the story journalists critically need to tell.

But it’s also one of the most difficult stories to cover. The challenges we’re facing today, with our planet changing at a rapid pace, can make the task of covering climate seem overwhelming at times.

As a climate journalist, I have to report every day on storms that become monster hurricanes in a matter of hours. I have to cover fires that ravage the Amazon jungle, devastating everything. I have to witness the sorrow and desperation of people who are forced to leave everything behind after years of drought or report on the extinction of rare plants and animals.

We’re at a unique point in history, one of those crossroads that define fate, not only for us but for future generations. Leading scientists tell us we only have 10 years to turn around and create a carbon-neutral economy. That alone is a huge task. Achieving it will require a monumental effort to transform the way we live. This, in turn, will call for a lot of guidance and information. Climate journalists will clearly play a key role in that process.

Here is what I’ve learned over nearly two decades of crisis reporting about being effective:

Focus on the disproportionately vulnerable

When you’re out in the field it’s important to understand that even though climate change affects us all, it doesn’t affect everyone equally. Minorities, women and children and other disempowered groups are mostly affected by the impact of climate change.

Ironically, these groups are also the ones that contribute to the problem the least. Additionally, women are most likely to be displaced by climate change. Women are also the primary caregivers and providers of food for their families and children, making them more vulnerable when a storm or a drought hits.

In the United States, Latinos are disproportionately more affected by our changing climate as half of the Latino population lives in the 25 most polluted cities in the country, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. As a consequence, Latino children are 40% more likely to die from asthma; Latina mothers are more likely to have premature babies; and, according to a recent Harvard study, people who live in polluted areas are more likely to die from COVID-19.

 These are serious implications that must be considered in our reporting on climate change, so we properly highlight the struggle of underrepresented communities.

Don’t let people look away. Demand accountability.

It’s clear that we need to change the way we live if we want a chance at surviving. But, most importantly, there are systemic changes that need to come from the top.

Politicians, business leaders, and policymakers will be key to this transformation. They are the ones who need to create tougher environmental laws. They are the ones who need to innovate and create sustainable companies. And they are the ones who need to be bold and break the status quo to create platforms for the rest of us to live sustainable lives.

As journalists, we have to hold these leaders to account. We have to question their plans, compel them to confront polluters and demand clear answers.

For example, this February I had the opportunity to moderate the Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas. I asked former Vice President Joe Biden if he would hold the fossil fuel executives accountable for the damage made to our environment. I pressed him for a clear answer, specifically asking which companies would he hold accountable and how far was he willing to go.

His answer was a compilation of his will to return to the Paris agreement, eliminate the subsidies for big oil and fight for environmental justice issues. Fossil fuel companies knew for decades that their products — oil, natural gas and coal — caused irreversible damage to our planet and did nothing to solve it and instead used deceptive practices to hide the truth.

I asked again: “What would you do with these companies that are responsible for the destruction of our planet?” Biden then answered that if the executives were lying, they should be able to be sued and be held personally accountable.

Courtesy Noticias Telemundo

Hope comes from within

Sometimes this job can be pretty demanding. Last year I traveled to Ecuador to report on our melting glaciers. In the Andes, some glaciers have lost more than half of their ice within the past decades and will be iceless in the next five years.

Immediately after, I went to Bolivia to cover the fire that devastated millions of acres of Amazon jungle. Walking through mile after mile of ash was absolutely heartbreaking. Seeing animals burned and stretched out on the ground gave me a feeling of hopelessness.

In times like these, I choose to focus on life. When I get home, I do yoga, meditate, surround myself with nature and spend time with the ones I love. I practice gratitude every day, and recognize the beauty and perfection of our planet. I see the big picture.

Our planet is an amazing organism capable of sustaining almost 8 billion people and it has an amazing capacity to regenerate. Today we have the technology, the resources and the will of the people to change the way we live. The journey begins with the contribution of each one of us.

I know it won’t be easy. We will have to challenge politicians, polluters and even some newsroom editors. You will come home tired and heartbroken. You will feel the pain of the ones suffering the effects of climate change.

But at the end of the day, I promise you will go to bed with a great feeling of accomplishment that the job you do is actually having a powerful impact. Your stories will touch hearts and change minds. Your words and questions will travel distances.

And when we all leave this planet and complete this great human experience, we will be able to say that the job that we did was so worthwhile. Because of it, children will breathe better air, oceans will be replenished with fish and new coral, animals will walk tall, and our beautiful planet will be renewed.

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Science Has A New Tool In The Fight Against Climate Change: Good Data

Wired - Tom Ward

A European network of carbon monitoring stations is using new approach to data capture that may be the key to reversing the climate crisis

Konsta Punkka

Founded in 2008 and given European Research Infrastructure Consortium status by the EU Commission in 2015, the Integrated Carbon Observation Systems (ICOS) is a network of 130 carbon-measuring stations (along with expertise centres and laboratories) set up to measure greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, as well as how carbon fluxes between the atmosphere, Earth and oceans.

Situated in some of Europe’s most remote locations – from far-flung Nordic mountains to French grasslands and Czech wetlands – each station is designed to provide uniform data on carbon emissions across disparate nations and environments. As one ICOS employee explains, prior to the network, comparing data collected across Europe was “like comparing apples and oranges”.

By making this peer-reviewed data available to scientists and governments worldwide through a centralised portal, ICOS is speeding up our understanding of carbon emissions, and helping scientists keep up with climate change in real time.

"A scientist can start their research by downloading a homogenous dataset available from a single source, instead of collecting measurements from several sources in different formats and of variable quality," says Elena Saltikoff, head of operations at ICOS. “Ultimately, this is about bringing reliable data and knowledge on greenhouse gases to policy makers much faster than was previously possible."

An instrument for measuring greenhouse gases, installed in a field in Hohenpeissenberg, in Bavaria, in southern Germany. Konsta Punkka

ICOS is already changing how scientists study climate change. In September 2018, scientists decided to gather data on the drought that led to the vast summer fires that had ravaged Europe earlier that year. Previously, gathering this data would have taken years. Thanks to ICOS, the researchers had the data by Christmas, with the first research paper currently in progress.

Despite this, ICOS leaders argue that policymakers are still not reacting quickly enough to the threat of climate change. “We still have the huge problem that the reduction of fossil-fuel emissions is too slow,” says ICOS director general Werner Kutsch. “If we want to hit the Paris Agreement targets of staying under a 2°C temperature increase, we need to act much faster.”

Kutsch is actively pushing ICOS to collaborate with researchers from the social sciences, mechanical sciences, behavioural sciences and more behind the climate change banner, in the belief that doing so will help galvanise innovation and help force vital policy change. One of its key developments is in helping governments differentiate between natural and man made carbon emissions.

Measuring greenhouse gases at the Swiss Jungfraujoch station, 3,450m above sea level. Konsta Punkka

Many greenhouse gases occur naturally and are exchanged between the oceans, various ecosystems and the atmosphere. Forests and peatlands, for example, are "sinks", which store carbon dioxide, while forest fires and lakes emit part of it back. Should a sink become significantly weaker – as is currently happening in the Amazon rainforest – Werner believes governments should then be able to use ICOS data to course correct within a timeframe of months rather than years.

The reverse is also possible. Should emissions suddenly decrease, as they have during the global coronavirus pandemic, Kutsch and his team have the chance to see what Earth would look like without the overbearing influence of man.“We can see that carbon emissions are decreasing through shutting down flights and industries not using as much electricity and so on,” says Kutsch. The decrease in emissions coincides with a natural, seasonal decrease that occurs around spring, when more plants remove carbon dioxide through photosynthesis. Kutsch says it should take “some months” for ICOS to collect accurate data on how much of our CO2 reduction is natural, and how much is a result of the pandemic.

A researcher checks scientific instruments in a forest in Lanžhot in the Czech Republic. Konsta Punkka

Whatever the data reveals, Kutsch hopes that the current crisis will help governments view climate change differently. He points to South Korea as an example of a country that took scientists seriously and managed to avoid a catastrophic coronavirus death toll. Once life returns to normal, Kutsch hopes that globally we will all pay more attention to scientists in general.

“I think this is a learning experience,” he says. “Scientists were facing a lot of denial and negative comments in the past, then suddenly we learned from the corona crisis that it is definitely helpful to listen to scientists. I hope this learning experience will last when we’re starting to talk about climate change again.”

He hopes too that this period of slowed-down living will instil lessons of how to move forward. “Perhaps people have learned that not every face to face meeting is necessary and that you can use virtual tools,” he says. “Perhaps behaviour may change, people may learn that it pays to take care of each other. It might be that people find some kind of solidarity between generations, people and countries. In the end, I hope it will improve and strengthen internationalism; in the long run we’ll have to co-operate internationally.”

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