03/09/2020

(US) Proving "A Different World Is Possible," ExxonMobil Dropped From Dow Jones After 92-Year Run

Common Dreams - Julia Conley

"Big Oil has fallen. Our job is to make sure they don't take us down with them."

Activists rally against ExxonMobil during the Global Climate March in Washington, D.C., on November 29, 2017. (Johnny Silvercloud/Flickr)

Climate campaigners have marked a major milestone in the fight to eliminate the use of fossil fuels and transition to a green energy economy as ExxonMobil was dropped from the S&P Dow Jones Industrial Average after nearly a century.

The oil giant, the oldest member of the Dow, was replaced on the index by software company Salesforce as more than 100,000 people were displaced by wildfires raging across California, a third year of global Fridays for Future climate action protests kicked off, and the Republican Party was rebuked for failing to even mention the planetary emergency on the first night of its national convention. 

The finance world, 350.org executive director May Boeve said, has been forced to "[wake] up and [cut] ties with these climate criminals."

"Big Oil has fallen," Boeve said. "Our job is to make sure they don't take us down with them. Fossil fuel companies like Exxon knew and lied for decades about the main cause of the devastating impacts we're now experiencing across the globe: from fires, storms, and floods to droughts and rising seas... We are rising up to make polluters pay for their destruction."

Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org, credited climate campaigners who have spent decades educating the public about the climate crisis and the dangerous effects of extracting fossil fuels from the Earth, and demanding a transition to renewable sources of energy like solar and wind power.


In April, oil prices fell below $0 per barrel for the first time on record, prompting calls by climate action advocates to nationalize the oil industry rather than continuing to prop it up.

Meanwhile, the solar and wind sectors have grown at a rapid rate in recent decades, with job growth in the renewable field outpacing oil. 

"Exxon's deep fall today is another powerful reminder of how fossil fuels are too volatile to be the basis of a resilient economy," said Boeve. "It is past time for Exxon to recognize that it is not only one of the most responsible for the climate crisis, but also that its assets are quickly becoming stranded as we move towards more sustainable, resilient, and regenerative economic systems, based on renewable, accessible, and just energy sources."

A poll taken last year by Business Insider found that a majority of Americans favored transitioning away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy sources, and aligned with other recent findings by Gallup.

Seven oil companies have downgraded their assets by at least $87 billion in the last nine months, while more than 1,200 institutions representing more than $14 trillion in assets have committed to fossil fuel divestment.

"None of this is to say Exxon is officially done for or that it doesn't still hold massive power," wrote Brian Kahn at Earther. "A company worth $175 billion with its tentacles latched onto the Republican Party is still a formidable foe. But it does show a different world is possible. Fingers crossed the Dow Jones can get Chevron out of there next."

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How Neanderthals Adjusted To Climate Change

Eurasia Review - 
Neanderthal reconstruction made by Fabio Fogliazza

Climate change occurring shortly before their disappearance triggered a complex change in the behaviour of late Neanderthals in Europe: they developed more complex tools.

This is the conclusion reached by a group of researchers from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) and Università degli Studi die Ferrara (UNIFE) on the basis of finds in the Sesselfelsgrotte cave in Lower Bavaria.



Various Keilmesser and a simple backed knife (top right) from the Neanderthal period 60,000 to 44,000 years ago, from the Sesselfelsgrotte cave near Kelheim. (G-complex, excavations by Prof. Freund, FAU; photo: D. Delpiano, UNIFE).

Neanderthals lived approximately 400,000 to 40,000 years ago in large areas of Europe and the Middle East, even as far as the outer edges of Siberia.

They produced tools using wood and glass-like rock material, which they also sometimes combined, for example to make a spear with a sharp and hard point made of stone.

From approximately 100,000 years ago, their universal cutting and scraping tool was a knife made of stone, the handle consisting of a blunt edge on the tool itself.

These Keilmesser (backed, asymmetrical bifacially-shaped knives) were available in various shapes, leading researchers to wonder why the Neanderthals created such a variety of knives? Did they use different knives for different tasks or did the knives come from different sub-groups of Neanderthals? This was what the international research project hoped to find out.

Keilmesser are the answer

‘Keilmesser are a reaction to the highly mobile lifestyle during the first half of the last ice age. As they could be sharpened again as and when necessary, they were able to be used for a long time – almost like a Swiss army knife today,’ says Prof. Dr. Thorsten Uthmeier from the Institute of Prehistory and Early History at FAU.

Digital analysis of the cross-section and angle of the cutting edge using a 3D model of a backed knife from the Sesselfelsgrotte cave.  (G-complex, excavations by Prof. Freund, FAU; photo: D. Delpiano, UNIFE)

‘However, people often forget that bi-facially worked knives were not the only tools Neanderthals had. Backed knives from the Neanderthal period are surprisingly varied,’ adds his Italian colleague Dr. Davide Delpiano from Sezione di Scienze Preistoriche e Antropologiche at UNIFE.

‘Our research uses the possibilities offered by digital analysis of 3D models to discover similarities and differences between the various types of knives using statistical methods.’

The two researchers investigated artefacts from one of the most important Neanderthal sites in Central Europe, the Sesselfelsgrotte cave in Lower Bavaria.

During excavations in the cave conducted by the Institute of Prehistory and Early History at FAU, more than 100,000 artefacts and innumerable hunting remains left behind by the Neanderthals have been found, even including evidence of a Neanderthal burial.

The researchers have now analysed the most significant knife-like tools using 3D scans produced in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Marc Stamminger and Dr. Frank Bauer from the Chair of Visual Computing at the Department of Computer Science at FAU.

They allow the form and properties of the tool to be recorded extremely precisely.

‘The technical repertoire used to create Keilmesser is not only direct proof of the advanced planning skills of our extinct relatives, but also a strategical reaction to the restrictions imposed upon them by adverse natural conditions,’ says Uthmeier, FAU professor for Early Prehistory and Archaeology of Prehistoric Hunters and Gatherers.

Other climate, other tools

What Uthmeier refers to as ‘adverse natural conditions’ are climate changes after the end of the last interglacial more than 100,000 years ago.

Particularly severe cold phases during the following Weichsel glacial period began more than 60,000 years ago and led to a shortage of natural resources. In order to survive, the Neanderthals had to become more mobile than before, and adjust their tools accordingly.

The Neanderthals probably copied the functionality of unifacial backed knives, which are only shaped on one side, and used these as the starting point to develop bi-facially formed Keilmesser shaped on both sides.

A Neanderthal model at Zagros Paleolithic Museum, Kermanshah. Photo by ICHTO, Wikimedia Commons.

‘This is indicated in particular by similarities in the cutting edge, which consists in both instances of a flat bottom and a convex top, which was predominantly suited for cutting lengthwise, meaning that it is quite right to refer to the tool as a knife,’ says Davide Delpiano from UNIFE.

Both types of knife – the simpler older version and the newer, significantly more complex version – obviously have the same function. The most important difference between the two tools investigated in this instance is the longer lifespan of bi-facial tools.

Keilmesser therefore represent a high-tech concept for a long-life, multi-functional tool, which could be used without any additional accessories such as a wooden handle.

‘Studies from other research groups seem to support our interpretation,’ says Uthmeier. ‘Unlike some people have claimed, the disappearance of the Neanderthals cannot have been a result of a lack of innovation or methodical thinking.’

Neanderthals became extinct around 40,000 years ago. Image: Luca Lorenzelli/Shutterstock

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(US) What Climate Change Does To The Human Body

Scientific American - Neelu Tummala

An Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENT) Physician sees the effects in her patients all the time

Pixabay

Author
Neelu Tummala, M.D., is an ENT doctor with George Washington Medical Faculty Associates.
Dr Tummala is a climate advocate with a special interest in the intersection of climate and health.
She is a Public Voices Fellow with The OpEd Project and the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.
The wildfire season is off to a roaring start. The hot summer is worsening drought and drying out vegetation—an unfortunately ideal environment for wildfires to rage.

But that’s just one consequence of global warming; it’s also leading to flooding, torrential rainstorms and heat-related deaths. In fact, the climate crisis has led to a widespread public health crisis.

And as an ear, nose and throat physician, I see the effects more and more often.

I vividly remember a patient who came in late for her appointment during a July heat wave. When I walked in, she said, “I’m so sorry I’m late, I was up all night walking my grandbaby around the train station.” Without air conditioning at home, the child was sweating through her clothes in the heat of the night, putting her at risk for dehydration.

July 2019 was the hottest July on record; September 2019 was the hottest on record; January 2020 was the hottest on record; May 2020 was the hottest on record. This is not a coincidence. It is a pattern. Carbon dioxide, an important greenhouse gas contributing to global warming, has increased by 9 percent since 2005 and by 31 percent since 1950.

A U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change special report pointed out that the world has already warmed about one degree Celsius from pre-industrial levels. It stressed the urgency to act to limit warming to 1.5 degrees, and that a two-degree increase will lead to unprecedented extreme heat, water scarcity and food shortages around the globe.

Getty Images

Heat affects every part of our body. It can lead to heat exhaustion, heat stroke, anxiety, impaired cognitive function and even premature death from heart and lung disease. Across the country, the health concerns of the climate crisis are increasingly being recognized, pushing thousands of medical providers—doctors, nurses, pharmacists, therapists, medical students—to become advocates for change.

In my own practice, I explain to patients how the climate crisis affects their health. For example, apart from contributing to global warming, rising carbon dioxide levels increase the amount of pollen that plants produce as a consequence of higher rates of photosynthesis. This rise in pollen levels can lead to worsening allergy symptoms.

Another example is fine particulate matter (known as PM2.5) associated with air pollution, much of it linked to the burning of fossil fuels that help drive the warming. When we breathe in these particles, they travel down the airway and settle in the tiny air sacs called alveoli of the lungs, causing inflammation and potentially worsening asthma symptoms.

The explanations are simple, but the health risks are widespread and complex. Ground-level ozone pollution, which is worse in hotter weather, can also harm people with asthma and other respiratory diseases.

And that harm falls disproportionately on the poor. Wealthier people living in North America have a per capita carbon footprint that is 25 percent higher than those of lower-income residents, with some affluent suburbs producing emissions 15 times higher than nearby neighborhoods.

These carbon emissions contribute to global warming, and the subsequent health consequences are felt far beyond the neighborhood that produces them. Older adults, children, low-income communities and communities of color are less resilient on average to the health impacts of climate change.

The climate crisis is thus leading to a disproportionate public health crisis—and worse, it is a threat multiplier. At a time when many Americans are economically challenged, continued heat waves and the higher energy bills they trigger threaten access to water and energy security. The economic benefits of a low-carbon economy are clear. Estimates suggest that without climate investments, the United States will face economic damage from climate change equivalent to 1–3 percent of GDP per year by 2100.

The majority of Americans think global warming is happening. The climate crisis has unfairly been labeled as political, when in fact, people recognize that something needs to be done about it. Even for those who are seemingly unaffected, there is increasing global recognition that the safeguards of living in a protected community and affording expert medical care will eventually fail if global warming continues unchecked.

Unfortunately, there will be no vaccine in six months or a year for the climate crisis. The only treatment is collective climate action in the present.

Climate action is required of our elected leaders, and we must mandate it of ourselves. It can be as simple as educating family and friends, while making sustainable shopping and traveling choices. It includes eating less meat, unplugging electronics and raising a voice against the fossil fuel industry.

With a rise in demand for absentee ballots for the election this November, it is crucial to request mail-in ballots right away to make sure our voices are heard. The United States is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and we must vote for green policy.

Legislative action and policy change work, as evidenced by the Clean Air Act and its subsequent amendments, which are projected to save 230,000 lives in 2020.

The climate crisis is a public health issue, and we must start healing the planet in order to heal each other. Fighting against the climate crisis is one of the most patriotic things we can do right now; it will protect our health and the health of our neighbors across the country and the globe, and will allow all of us to live on this planet, the only home we have.

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