30/09/2021

(The Conversation) Our Climate Projections For 2500 Show An Earth That Is Alien To Humans

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Current climate future predictions do not go far enough. (Shutterstock)

Authors

  •  is Postdoctoral researcher, Natural Resource Sciences, McGill University
  •  is Research Fellow in Palaeobiology, University of Leeds
  •  is Professor in Evolutionary Ecology, University of Sheffield
  •  is Professor, Anthropology, Université de Montréal
  •  is PhD Student, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds
  •  is NERC-IIASA Collaborative Research Fellow, University of Leeds
  •  is Lecturer, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds
  •  is Associate Professor, Palaeobiology, University of Oxford
  •  is Manager, Centre for Doctoral Training, University of Leeds
  •  is Professor, Anthropology, Université de Montréal
  •  is Professor, Environment and Geography, University of York
  •  is Professor of Tropical Ecology, University of York
  •  is Associate Professor, Earth and Environment, University of Leeds
There are many reports based on scientific research that talk about the long-term impacts of climate change — such as rising levels of greenhouse gases, temperatures and sea levels — by the year 2100.

The Paris Agreement, for example, requires us to limit warming to under 2.0 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century.

Every few years since 1990, we have evaluated our progress through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) scientific assessment reports and related special reports.

IPCC reports assess existing research to show us where we are and what we need to do before 2100 to meet our goals, and what could happen if we don’t.

The recently published United Nations assessment of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) warns that current promises from governments set us up for a very dangerous 2.7 degrees Celsius warming by 2100: this means unprecedented fires, storms, droughts, floods and heat, and profound land and aquatic ecosystem change.

While some climate projections do look past 2100, these longer-term projections aren’t being factored into mainstream climate adaptation and environmental decision-making today.

This is surprising because people born now will only be in their 70s by 2100. What will the world look like for their children and grandchildren?

To grasp, plan for and communicate the full spatial and temporal scope of climate impacts under any scenario, even those meeting the Paris Agreement, researchers and policymakers must look well beyond the 2100 horizon.

After 2100

In 2100, will the climate stop warming? If not, what does this mean for humans now and in the future?

In our recent open-access article in Global Change Biology, we begin to answer these questions.

We ran global climate model projections based on Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP), which are “time-dependent projections of atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations.”

Our projections modelled low (RCP6.0), medium (RCP4.5) and high mitigation scenarios (RCP2.6, which corresponds to the “well-below 2 degrees Celsius” Paris Agreement goal) up to the year 2500.

We also modelled vegetation distribution, heat stress and growing conditions for our current major crop plants, to get a sense of the kind of environmental challenges today’s children and their descendants might have to adapt to from the 22nd century onward.

Global mean near-surface air temperature (solid lines) and thermosteric sea level rise (dotted lines) anomalies relative to the 2000-19 mean for the RCP6.0, RCP4.5 and RCP2.6 scenarios. Shaded regions highlight the time horizons of interest and their nominal reference years. The bottom panel shows spatial anomalies relative to 2000-19 mean for the 2100, 2200 and 2500 climates under the three RCPs. (Lyon et al., 2021)

In our model, we found that global average temperatures keep increasing beyond 2100 under RCP4.5 and 6.0.

Under those scenarios, vegetation and the best crop-growing areas move towards the poles, and the area suitable for some crops is reduced. Places with long histories of cultural and ecosystem richness, like the Amazon Basin, may become barren.

Further, we found heat stress may reach fatal levels for humans in tropical regions which are currently highly populated. Such areas might become uninhabitable. Even under high-mitigation scenarios, we found that sea level keeps rising due to expanding and mixing water in warming oceans.

Although our findings are based on one climate model, they fall within the range of projections from others, and help to reveal the potential magnitude of climate upheaval on longer time scales.

To really portray what a low-mitigation/high-heat world could look like compared to what we’ve experienced until now, we used our projections and diverse research expertise to inform a series of nine paintings covering a thousand years (1500, 2020, and 2500 CE) in three major regional landscapes (the Amazon, the Midwest United States and the Indian subcontinent).

The images for the year 2500 centre on the RCP6.0 projections, and include slightly advanced but recognizable versions of today’s technologies.

The Amazon
The top image shows a traditional pre-contact Indigenous village (1500 CE) with access to the river and crops planted in the rainforest. The middle image is a present-day landscape. The bottom image, considers the year 2500 and shows a barren landscape and low water level resulting from vegetation decline, with sparse or degraded infrastructure and minimal human activity. (Lyon et al., 2021), CC BY-ND


Midwest U.S.
The top painting is based on pre-colonisation Indigenous cities and communities with buildings and a diverse maize-based agriculture. The second is the same area today, with a grain monoculture and large harvesters. The last image, however, shows agricultural adaptation to a hot and humid subtropical climate, with imagined subtropical agroforestry based on oil palms and arid zone succulents. The crops are tended by AI drones, with a reduced human presence. (Lyon et al., 2021), CC BY-ND


The Indian subcontinent
The top image is a busy agrarian village scene of rice planting, livestock use and social life. The second is a present-day scene showing the mix of traditional rice farming and modern infrastructure present in many areas of the Global South. The bottom image shows a future of heat-adaptive technologies including robotic agriculture and green buildings with minimal human presence due to the need for personal protective equipment. (Lyon et al., 2021), CC BY-ND


An alien future?

Between 1500 and today, we have witnessed colonization and the Industrial Revolution, the birth of modern states, identities and institutions, the mass combustion of fossil fuels and the associated rise in global temperatures.

If we fail to halt climate warming, the next 500 years and beyond will change the Earth in ways that challenge our ability to maintain many essentials for survival — particularly in the historically and geographically rooted cultures that give us meaning and identity.

The Earth of our high-end projections is alien to humans.

The choice we face is to urgently reduce emissions, while continuing to adapt to the warming we cannot escape as a result of emissions up to now, or begin to consider life on an Earth very different to this one.

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(Independent Australia) Government's Climate Change Web Of Lies

Independent Australia -Sue Arnold

Our political leaders will do anything to stay in positions of power, including deceiving the voting public on urgent matters of climate change, writes Sue Arnold.

Nationals leader, Deputy PM and wearer of ridiculous hats, Barnaby Joyce (Screenshot via YouTube)

PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT issue facing this nation is not the pandemic, economic scenarios or nuclear submarines but a perilous lack of critical thinking and analysis by political parties, the mainstream media and a large majority of Australians.

The latest media drama over whether Prime Minister Scott Morrison will succeed in bringing the National Party to the climate change table is entirely focused on political gains and losses.

We've seen divisions, articles on Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce, Senator Matt Canavan and MP George Christensen, with absolutely zero focus on the extreme urgency of the situation facing our planet.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hailed Morrison as “leading the way” on climate with his spoken importance of countries “meeting and beating” their climate targets. One can only speculate on the calibre of her advisors and whether Australia’s right-wing Government has any bandwidth in U.S. politics.

It was an extraordinary statement given the overwhelming evidence that Australia is a climate change outlier under the Morrison Government, an embarrassment to nations taking steps to address a “code red” issue.

National Party’s emission plan:
No coal executive left behind
The National Party appear to be the only people who think the Morrison Government takes climate seriously and they are not happy.
Listening to Joyce, now elevated to Deputy Prime Minister, cements the fact that Australia is now in the hands of politicians whose only goal is staying in power at any cost.

Their focus is entirely dismissive of the catastrophic environmental impacts outlined by the U.N. report.

IA has compiled a shortlist of Joyce media statements and threatened actions on climate change.

Mid-June, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Joyce warned against a target of net zero by 2050 and joined Senator Canavan in signalling he was willing to cross the floor on the issue.

Wikipedia indicates Canavan’s brother John is a mining executive.

In early September, The Guardian reported that Joyce ‘declares he won’t be “bullied” on climate science’, likening questioning on his stance ‘to a baptism where parents were required to “denounce Satan and all his works and deeds”’.

Joyce further declared that he won’t be “berated” or participate in a “kangaroo court”.

He also indicated that the Nationals would work to ensure urban Australia, not regional Australia, paid the price “if there’s a price to be paid”.

More recently, the SMH reported that ‘Joyce is said to be driving a hard bargain with his cabinet colleagues with one saying he was demanding “bucket loads of cash for the bush” to justify any agreement’ to zero emissions by 2050.

SMH reported earlier this month that Joyce has suggested a $5 billion extension of the Inland Rail into Queensland coal country in return for the Nationals backing a commitment on net zero emissions by 2050.

The National Party has abandoned farmers in favour of caving into the demands of fossil fuel donors, writes David Paull.
On reclaiming the National Party leadership, Joyce demanded security for regional jobs and industries. Exactly what these regional jobs and industries are is difficult to pin down.

Who owns Australia’s agricultural lands? Who is Joyce representing when insisting he’s protecting the bush?

Climate change policy a la Joyce cannot be a series of smart remarks on mainstream media combined with wearing a gigantic, ridiculous hat on television. Does he ever look in the mirror?

Livestock makes up about 10% of Australia’s emissions, mainly due to methane from manure which has 28 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide.

A fascinating gallery of Australia’s biggest private landowners reveals a dog’s breakfast of international actors, major multinational companies, Australian billionaires and millionaires owning a significant wack of agricultural lands. Plus, mega political influence.

A Guardian team also attempted to establish who owns Australia, experiencing the same roadblocks and conflicting information as IA. However, facts dug up by the Guardian team are interesting.

Pastoral leases cover 44% of Australia; the data obtained showed more than 400 owners together owned about a quarter of the country.

The biggest pastoral leaseholder is Western Australian mining magnate Gina Rinehart who controls 1.2% of Australia’s landmass.

The Age said of Rinehart:
Over the years, her ardent support for Joyce has included $40,000 on National Agriculture Day in 2017which the magnate billed as an award to the New England MP for being a “champion of our industry”. Amid fierce political criticism, Joyce returned the cash.
In 2013, Rinehart donated $50,000 to his election campaign and in 2011, Joyce was one of three Coalition MPs flown on Rinehart’s private jet to Hyderabad in India for a mining associate’s wedding.
Morrison Government re-election would
be an environmental catastrophe
If the Morrison Government wins the next federal election, Australia can kiss goodbye to our unique, irreplaceable wildlife.
The biggest corporate landholder is Australian Agricultural Company, its biggest shareholder the Bahamas based AA Trust controlled by British billionaire Joe Lewis.

According to Federal Government data, China is the biggest offshore holder of Australian farmland in 2019-2020 with 9.2 million hectares, followed by the UK, the Netherlands, the U.S. and Canada.

Morrison’s latest line, which no doubt he will use as “Australia’s climate plan” at Glasgow and in the forthcoming election, is “technology will change everything”.

What technology?

Energy Minister Angus Taylor has produced a technology investment roadmap titled ‘First Low Emissions Technology Statement— 2020’.

Priority goals are identified as clean hydrogen, energy storage, low carbon materials, CO2 compression, hub transport and storage and soil carbon sequestration.

A national hydrogen strategy estimates a domestic industry could generate over 8,000 jobs and $11billion a year in GDP by 2050. Clearly, no quick fix.

Currently, most hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels, specificallynatural gas.

The roadmap is devoid of environmental recommendations or considerations. There are no recommendations to end the industrial logging of forests, no discussion or recommendations on the importance of retaining biodiversity or intact ecosystems.

As any environmentally aware person will acknowledge, there’s no technology solution for replacing the ecological role of forests in converting CO2 into oxygen. Or one for overcoming drought, or creating rain.

The value of a degrowth economy:
Our planet would be richer for it
Decades of economic expansion have come at the expense of developing nations and a tremendous cost to the planet. Degrowth is a healthier future option.
The Climate Council says:
‘Avoiding clearing of old growth, carbon-rich vegetation and protecting regrowth vegetation are the most effective approaches to mitigating climate change using land systems.’
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Issues Brief on climate change indicates:
Forests help stabilise the climate. They regulate ecosystems, protect biodiversity, play an integral part in the carbon cycle...To maximise the climate benefits of forests, we must keep more forest landscapes intact...Halting the loss and degradation of natural systems and promoting their restoration have the potential to contribute over one-third of the total climate change mitigation scientists say is required by 2030.
On a practical level, there are plenty of available solutions which do not require extensive government statements with graphs and endless mind-numbing weasel words.

Professor Annette Cowie, NSW Department of Primary Industries, says there are many ways cattle farmers can reduce their carbon footprint:
“[By] planting trees, practises that build soil organic matter, feeding biochar to enhance animal health and feeding the algae that reduces methane emissions...”
Both Morrison and Joyce have children. Sussan Ley, Morrison’s Environment Minister, recently challenged a Federal Court ruling that she had an obligation to consider climate change impacts on future generations.

Perhaps it's time to create a portfolio of lies and media statements by our political leaders to present to Glasgow Climate Conference attendees so there is no confusion about the real Morrison Government stand on climate change.



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(The Guardian) ‘Blah, Blah, Blah’: Greta Thunberg Lambasts Leaders Over Climate Crisis

The Guardian -

Exclusive: Activist says there are many fine words but the science does not lie – CO2 emissions are still rising

'All we hear is blah blah blah': Greta Thunberg takes aim at climate platitudes – video 01min 33sec

Greta Thunberg has excoriated global leaders over their promises to address the climate emergency, dismissing them as “blah, blah, blah”.

She quoted statements by Boris Johnson: “This is not some expensive, politically correct, green act of bunny hugging”, and Narendra Modi: “Fighting climate change calls for innovation, cooperation and willpower” but said the science did not lie.

Carbon emissions are on track to rise by 16% by 2030, according to the UN, rather than fall by half, which is the cut needed to keep global heating under the internationally agreed limit of 1.5C.

“Build back better. Blah, blah, blah. Green economy. Blah blah blah. Net zero by 2050. Blah, blah, blah,” she said in a speech to the Youth4Climate summit in Milan, Italy, on Tuesday. “This is all we hear from our so-called leaders. Words that sound great but so far have not led to action. Our hopes and ambitions drown in their empty promises.”

The Cop26 climate summit starts in Glasgow, UK, on 31 October and all the big-polluting countries must deliver tougher pledges to cut emissions to keep the goal of 1.5C within reach.

“Of course we need constructive dialogue,” said Thunberg, whose solo climate strike in 2018 sparked a movement of millions of young climate protesters.

“But they’ve now had 30 years of blah, blah, blah and where has that led us? We can still turn this around – it is entirely possible.

"It will take immediate, drastic annual emission reductions. But not if things go on like today.

"Our leaders’ intentional lack of action is a betrayal toward all present and future generations.”

Research published on Monday showed that children born today would experience many times more extreme heatwaves and other climate disasters over their lifetimes than their grandparents, even if countries fulfil their current emissions pledges.

Officials from the UN, UK and US said Cop26 would not produce the breakthrough needed to fulfil the aspirations of the Paris agreement but the broader goal of the conference – that of “keeping 1.5C alive” – was still possible.

Thunberg, Vanessa Nakate from Uganda, and hundreds of other young people from across the world are attending the Youth4Climate Summit. It is hosted by the Italian government, the UK’s partner in running Cop26.

The youth summit will consist of working groups of young people debating how to increase their participation in decision-making, their role in helping to transform energy use, nature conservation and climate adaptation, and how education can create a climate-conscious society.

It builds on a youth climate summit held at the UN headquarters in New York in 2019.

Greta Thunberg: ‘I really see the value of friendship. Apart from the climate, almost nothing else matters’ Read more
Thunberg said: “They invite cherry-picked young people to meetings like this to pretend that they listen to us. But they clearly don’t listen to us. Our emissions are still rising. The science doesn’t lie.

“We can no longer let the people in power decide what is politically possible. We can no longer let the people in power decide what hope is. Hope is not passive. Hope is not blah, blah, blah. Hope is telling the truth. Hope is taking action. And hope always comes from the people.”

Large numbers of youth climate protesters took to the streets on Friday in almost 100 countries across the world, including 100,000 in Berlin, where Thunberg spoke.

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29/09/2021

(Sydney University) Climate Change Warning From Collapsed Ancient Cities

Sydney University - Loren Smith

Unlike surrounding rural areas, ancient cities failed to pivot and become resilient

Christian Holzinger, Unsplash 

Why did some ancient Khmer and Mesoamerican cities collapse between 900-1500CE while their rural surrounds continued to prosper?

Intentional adaptation to climate changed conditions may be the answer, suggests a new study, which offers lessons for today.

Cities and their hinterlands must build resilience to survive climate stress; this is the grave warning emanating from a study of ancient civilisations and climate change.

From 900 to 1500CE, Khmer cities in mainland Southeast Asia (including Angkor) and Maya cities in Mesoamerica collapsed, coinciding with periods of intense climate variability.

While the ceremonial and administrative urban cores of many cities were abandoned, the surrounding communities may have endured because of long-term investment in resilient landscapes.

“They created extensive landscapes of terraced and bunded (embanked to control water flow) agricultural fields that acted as massive sinks for water, sediment and nutrients,” said lead author Associate Professor Daniel Penny, from the University of Sydney School of Geosciences.

"This long-term investment in soil fertility and the capture and storage of water resources may have allowed some communities to persist..."
Associate Professor Daniel Penny

"This long-term investment in soil fertility and the capture and storage of water resources may have allowed some communities to persist long after the urban cores had been abandoned.”

He and his colleague at the University of Texas at Austin, Professor Timothy Beach, came to this conclusion via a review of relevant archaeological and environmental information from Southeast Asia and Mesoamerica.

At the ancient city of Angkor in modern Cambodia, for example, the administrative and ceremonial core was progressively abandoned over several decades, culminating in a series of catastrophic droughts in the 14th and 15th century, but the surrounding agricultural landscapes may have persisted through these episodes of climatic stress. 

Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, their study provides a rough roadmap for resilience in the face of climate change.

The 12th century CE temple of Preah Khan, one of hundreds of ritual and administrative spaces in the urban core of Angkor in modern Cambodia that were progressively abandoned during the 14th and 15th centuries, coincident with period of intense drought. Credit: Daniel Penny.
Lessons for rural and urban Australia

These historical cases of urban collapse emphasise that long-term and large-scale investment in landscape resilience – such as improving water storage and retention, improving soil fertility, and securing biodiversity – can better enable both urban and rural communities to tolerate periods of climatic stress.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change believes this will become more frequent and more intense in many parts of the world over the coming century.

“We often think of these historic events as disasters, but they also have much to teach us about persistence, resilience and continuity in the face of climate variability,” said Associate Professor Penny.

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(Washington Post) Today’s Kids Will Live Through Three Times As Many Climate Disasters As Their Grandparents, Study Says

Washington Post - Sarah Kaplan

Published in the journal Science, the findings quantify the “intergenerational inequality” of climate change.

Zailey Segura, Zavery Segura and their mother Karen Smith wade through floodwaters after Hurricane Nicholas made landfall in Galveston, Tex., on Sept. 14. (Mark Felix/For The Washington Post)

Adriana Bottino-Poage is 6 years old, with cherub cheeks and curls that bounce when she laughs.

She likes soccer, art and visiting the library. She dreams of being a scientist and inventing a robot that can pull pollution out of the air. She wants to become the kind of grown-up who can help the world.

Yet human actions have made the world a far more dangerous place for Adriana to grow up, according to a first-of-its-kind study of the impacts of climate change across generations.

If the planet continues to warm on its current trajectory, the average 6-year-old will live through roughly three times as many climate disasters as their grandparents, the study finds. They will see twice as many wildfires, 1.7 times as many tropical cyclones, 3.4 times more river floods, 2.5 times more crop failures and 2.3 times as many droughts as someone born in 1960.

Without drastic climate action, children like 6-year-old Adriana Bottino-Poage will live through seven times as many heat waves as their grandparents, scientists say. (Tiziana Bottino)
These findings, published this week in the journal Science, are the result of a massive effort to quantify what lead author Wim Thiery calls the “intergenerational inequality” of climate change.

Drawing on multiple climate and demographic models, Thiery and 36 colleagues compared the risks faced by previous generations to the number of extreme events today’s children will witness in their lifetimes.

Unless world leaders agree on more ambitious policies when they meet for the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, this fall, the study says, today’s children will be exposed to an average of five times more disasters than if they lived 150 years ago.

The changes are especially dramatic in developing nations; infants in sub-Saharan Africa are projected to live through 50 to 54 times as many heat waves as someone born in the preindustrial era.

The disparities underscore how the worst effects of climate change will be experienced in places that contributed least to warming, by people who have had little say in the policies that allow continued emissions to occur, Thiery said.

More than half of all greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were generated after 1990, meaning that most of the disasters today’s children will experience can be linked to emissions produced during their parents’ lifetimes.

Meteorologist Matthew Cappucci explains how, when and where tornadoes form, and how climate change could be affecting these devastating weather events. (Joshua Carroll/The Washington Post)

“Young people are being hit by climate crisis but are not in position to make decisions,” he said. “While the people who can make the change happen will not face the consequences.”

Aggressive efforts to curb fossil fuel use and other planet-warming activities can still dramatically improve the outlook for today’s children, he added. If people manage to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, newborns’ risk of extreme heat exposure will fall almost by half.

They could see 11 percent fewer crop failures, 27 percent fewer droughts and almost a third as many river floods than if emissions continue unabated.

But the world is nowhere near meeting that 1.5 degree target. A U.N. report published earlier this month warned that, based on countries’ current climate pledges, greenhouse gas emissions could actually increase by 16 percent by the end of the decade. That would put the planet on track to warm by 2.7 degrees Celsius (4.9 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century.

This makes Adriana angry. The Woodbridge, Va., first-grader already worries about the wildfires in California, where her half brother lives. She has heard about islands being inundated by rising seas, caught glimpses of hurricanes and droughts on the news.

Meanwhile, adults “don’t listen, and they keep doing it and keep making the Earth hotter” she added. “Everything will keep getting worse and worse until I grow up. Somebody has to do something.”

Brianna Delfin and her children, Noah Delfin, 2, and Adaline Delfin, 3, walk amongst the rubble at Coleman Creek Estates in Phoenix, Ore., on Sept. 9, 2020, after wildfires wiped out much of their community. (Mason Trinca/For The Washington Post)

“It used to be a story of, like, ‘yeah we have to limit global warming because of grandchildren,’ ” he said.

“This study is making clear that climate change has arrived. It’s everywhere.”

The numbers provided in the study are almost certainly an underestimate, said co-author Joeri Rogelj, director of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London.

Data limitations, and the complexity of the analysis, meant the scientists didn’t assess the increased risk of some hazards, such as coastal flooding from sea level rise. The study also doesn’t take into account the increased severity of many events; it only looks at frequency.

On the other hand, he noted, countries also have a chance to adapt to the changes that are coming. If the world invests in making communities safer — for example, installing flood barriers, adopting fire-safe building codes, providing shelter for people at risk from deadly heat — disasters don’t have to be as destructive for future generations as they are for people today.

“Our aim is for this not to be the conclusion of this debate,” Rogelj said, “but for this to be the start of looking at the lived experience of children being born today.”

Kim Cobb, a climate scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology who was not involved in the new research, called it a “robust study” based on established findings from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. As a scientist, Cobb said, she was unsurprised by the results.

But Cobb is also a mother to four children. Reading the report through that lens, she said, “it brings into sharp focus what so many economic models of climate change impacts fail to capture — the vast toll of human suffering that is hanging in the balance with our emissions choices this decade.”

She added: “The moral weight of this moment is almost unbearable.”

In a report published in conjunction with Thiery’s findings, Save the Children International called on world leaders to make the changes necessary to meet the 1.5 degree Celsius target. Wealthy nations must also follow through on their unmet pledge to give $100 billion per year to help low-income countries curb their own emissions and adapt to changes that are already underway, the group said.

Yolande Wright, who directs the nonprofit’s climate efforts, also hopes the findings will bolster legal efforts to force climate action on behalf of children.

Last year, a federal appeals court threw out a case brought by 21 American young people who argued that the government’s failure to act on climate change was a violation of their rights. Similar cases have been filed in Portugal, Peru and elsewhere.

“Now that we can really quantify how a child in their lifetime will see so many more of these extreme events … it helps make the case,” Wright said.

Environmental attorney Dan Galpern, general counsel and director of Climate Protection and Restoration Initiative, agreed that “anticipatory research” like this can help establish governments’ and corporations’ liability for real harms experienced by kids.

Sudanese children stand in floodwaters in the al-Qanaa village in Sudan's southern White Nile state on Sept. 14, 2021. (Ashraf Shazly/AFP/Getty Images)

Young people already say climate change has touched their lives and harmed their mental health.

In a recent survey of 16- to 25-year-olds, scientists found that three quarters of respondents feared the future and more than half believed they would have less opportunity than their parents. Nearly 60 percent said their governments had betrayed them and future generations — making them feel even more anxious.

“The future for me and everyone who comes after is so insecure,” said Emanuel Smari Nielsen, a 14-year-old climate activist from Norway. “When politicians and those with power do not do anything, it makes me feel tired. It almost makes me angry.”

Adriana, the 6-year-old, said she feels “super nervous” when she thinks about what the future might hold. In those moments, there’s nothing that helps her feel better.

“I just wait till I’m done thinking about it,” she said.

Experts say one way to help children cope with climate anxiety is to help them feel empowered to do something about it. The Save the Children report calls for communities, countries and global institutions like the U.N. to give young people a greater role in setting climate policy.

Cormac Buck, an 8-year-old from Savannah, Ga., has decided to stop eating meat (except for the occasional chicken nugget). He is part of a group of kids at his school who have asked teachers and administrators to use fewer fossil fuels.

“Sometimes I hear some depressing things happening, like some animals because of climate change are really close to extinction … and I feel sad,” he said. “And then I normally try to think of a way to stop that from happening again.”

And adults must earn back children’s trust, Thiery said, by making the dramatic emissions reductions that have been so long delayed. Our choices now will determine whether kids grow up in a world with four times as many heat waves or seven times as many heat waves, a world with occasional crop failures or chronic food shortages.

“We can still avoid the worst consequences,” he said. “That is what gives me strength as a father. … Their future is in our hands.”

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(The Conversation) Tweets, Emails Or Hand-Written Notes? What Gets Politicians To Speak Up On Climate

The Conversation - 

Students protesting at a climate rally in Berlin, Germany, March 2019. (Mika Baumeister/Unsplash)

Author
 is a Postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Geography, Planning and Environment, Concordia University     
With the United Nations-led climate negotiations set to occur in November, citizens around the world have reason to despair at their governments’ efforts to tackle climate change.

Existing national policies put the planet on track for 2.7 C of warming — more than double the level that has already wrought so many climate disasters and far greater than the goal of 1.5 C that the world’s nations have agreed to.

For Canadians who have had their say in a recent election, can anything else be done?

Environmental protests have been shown to reduce emissions by pressuring governments to shutter polluting power plants or pass new regulations. So there’s reason to believe that recent climate strikes can help keep politicians focused, but what about speaking directly to elected officials?

Are generic campaign emails effective?

In a recent study, my colleagues and I used a real-world experiment to determine whether generic campaign emails can persuade Members of Parliament to take climate action.

With the help of Evidence for Democracy, a non-partisan organization, constituents emailed their MP with a small request, “Please post this pro-climate message to your Twitter account”:
Science tells us that climate change poses a significant public health threat, from increased asthma and heat stroke to the spread of disease due to extreme weather. Thanks to all the youth who voiced their concern #Fridays4Future #MarchforScience
By monitoring the MPs’ Twitter accounts, we found that only one MP actually posted the text provided in the email. We did find some evidence that MPs who received more emails asking them to tweet about climate change did post more pro-climate tweets — just not with the same words that constituents suggested.

This tells us that MP offices do read their emails and sometimes act on them, but generic emails originating from the websites of advocacy organizations, such as “click here to email your Member of Parliament,” may not be persuasive.

What political staffers have to say

As a follow-up, we interviewed political staffers — the people who decide which messages get through to the MP. Most staffers told us that high-effort contact like phone calls, hand-written letters and personalized emails are more persuasive.

Others maintained that they viewed all contact equally but, as one staffer put it, “When a letter comes in, someone has to physically open it and read it. An email comes in and you get blasted with it … don’t want to say we don’t read them, we read all those, maybe really quickly … and then go to the next one.”

Some MPs talk a lot about climate change, while others rarely mention it. This figure shows the pro-climate tweet rate of Canadian MPs for 17 days in May 2019, with some notable MPs highlighted. (Seth Wynes), Author provided

Take home lessons for activists

Still, for activists planning their campaigns, it may not be wise to give up on digital contact.

First, there are trade-offs in the volume of snail mail you can send compared to emails. But there are also times when a generic email is just as good as an impassioned phone call. Staffers submit tallies of constituent contact to their party headquarters and these tallies don’t differentiate between formats. Parties then craft their policies and messaging with those raw numbers in mind.

This tells us that campaigns and constituents can communicate strategically. If you want to influence a party’s direction while they’re drafting their platform, copy-paste emails are probably OK. But if you are emailing an MP with a cabinet position, then you want something that will catch their attention — and lead to a face-to-face talk if possible.

In 2020, the ruling Liberal cabinet held a meeting on whether to approve the Teck Frontier oilsands project. Reporting suggested that constituent preferences were a central motivation for those who opposed this fossil fuel infrastructure; it helps to persuade the people at the table.

Generally, more messages are more persuasive. So organizing a group of friends or timing messages to coincide with big climate events is a good idea. That’s something that climate strike organizers could consider. According to one study, the largest group of people at Fridays for Future rallies are teenagers, but only 10 per cent of those teens have ever reached out to an elected official.

More climate contact still needed

Although some staffers we spoke with heard plenty from their constituents about climate change, others did not. One staffer said that most communications about climate change were sent automatically from websites, missing any personal touch. Another said, “It’s unfortunate, it surprises me how little activism there is on climate change.”

If you’re sending a message or making a phone call, it’s good to be personal. Let your elected officials know how climate change has affected you and your family and what worries you have for the future. Then you can ask for more ambition, stronger policies and that Parliament prioritize climate change to get things done quickly.

When it comes to addressing climate change, speed really does matter. You don’t need to wait until the next election to have your say.

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