Stark Photos Show The State Of The Environment

Treehugger - Mary Jo DiLonardo

Winning images highlight impact of coastal erosion, forest fires, and drought.

Michele Lapini / Environmental Photographer of the Year 2021

A home in Italy is completely surrounded by water due to river flooding and melting snow. A child in Africa sleeps in a home destroyed by coastal erosion. Flocks of sheep search for grass in an area of never-ending cracked soil.

These are some of the winning images in the Environmental Photographer of the Year competition. In its 14th year, the contest features global environmental photography. The 2021 event received nearly 7,000 images from professional and amateur photographers from more than 119 nations.

Michele Lapini won the "Environments of the Future" award for the photo he shot above in Modena, Italy. "Flood" was taken in 2020 and is focused on a house submerged by flooding of the River Panaro in Italy's Po Valley due to heavy rainfall and melting snow.

Winners were announced at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow.

The competition was organized by Nikon, as well as Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM), a U.K. charity dedicated to improving water and environmental management, and WaterBear, an on-demand streaming platform focused on environmental issues.

The voting for the People’s Choice Award is now open to the public via social media. To vote, hit "like" for your favorite.

Here's a look at some of the other winners, including the Environmental Photographer of the Year.

Environmental Photographer of the Year

Antonio Aragon Renuncio / Environmental Photographer of the Year 2021

The winning image, "The Rising Tide Sons," was shot in 2019 by Antonio Aragon Renuncio, a documentary photographer, originally from Spain who is living in Nicaragua and spending much of his working time in Africa.

A child sleeps inside his house destroyed by coastal erosion on Afiadenyigba beach. Sea levels in West African countries continue to rise and thousands of people have been forced to leave their homes.

“I am not very optimistic about the future of this child,” Renuncio says. “Although I hope that people's reaction to seeing this, and many other photographs, will be the preamble for this child, along with many others, to have a better chance at life than the one they have today.”

Young Environmental Photographer of the Year

Amaan Ali / Environmental Photographer of the Year 2021 

"Inferno" was photographed in New Delhi in 2021 by Amaan Ali.

A boy fighting surface fires in a forest near his home in Yamuna Ghat, New Delhi, India. According to locals, forest fires caused by human activity in the area are a common occurrence due to adverse living conditions.

The Resilient Award

Ashraful Islam / Environmental Photographer of the Year 2021

"Survive for Alive" was taken by Ashraful Islam in 2021 in Noakhali, Bangladesh.

Flocks of sheep search for grass amongst the cracked soil. Extreme droughts in Bangladesh have created hardships for all living beings.

Sustainable Cities

Simone Tramonte / Environmental Photographer of the Year 2021

"Net-Zero Transition - Photobioreactor" was photographed by Simone Tramonte in Iceland in 2020.

A photobioreactor at Algalif’s facilities in Reykjanesbaer, Iceland, produces sustainable astaxanthin using clean geothermal energy. Iceland has shifted from fossil fuels to 100% of electricity and heat from renewable sources.

Climate Action

Kevin Ochieng Onyango / Environmental Photographer of the Year 2021

Kevin Ochieng Onyango shot "The Last Breath" in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2021.

A boy takes in air from the plant, with a sand storm brewing in the background. This is an impression of the changes to come.

Water and Security

Sandipani Chattopadhyay / Environmental Photographer of the Year 2021

The "Green Barrier" was photographed by Sandipani Chattopadhyay in India in 2021

Irregular monsoon seasons and droughts cause algal bloom on the Damodar river. Algal blooms prevent light from penetrating the surface and prevent oxygen absorbtion by the organisms beneath, impacting human health and habitats in the area.

Links

• The 2021 winners of the Environmental Photographer of the Year have been announced at COP26
• Environmental Photographer of the Year 2021 Winners revealed at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26).
• The Same Arctic Landscape, A Century Apart. Notice Anything Different?
• Satellite images reveal accelerated rate of tree loss in Amazon this year
• Stunning photos of climate change
• Images of Change - Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet
• Enduring and surviving the climate crisis – in pictures
• Photos show a climate change crisis unfolding—and hope for the future
• A Year Of Climate Change In Photos
• Climate Change Captured in Stunning Antarctic Ice Photos
• National Geographic: Climate Change Photographs

(Washington Post) Photos Show Vast Coral Spawning Event In Great Barrier Reef, Giving Divers Hope For Climate Change Recovery

Washington Post - Ellen Francis

Marine scientists recorded the coral spawning event in Australia's Great Barrier Reef. (Gabriel Guzman)

Divers and scientists recorded the birth of billions of coral babies in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef on Tuesday night in a colorful show of life that they hope is a signal that the world’s biggest coral reef ecosystem can recover from climate change.

“It’s a sign of hope that it’s doing well, and we need to keep protecting it,” said marine biologist Gareth Phillips, who monitored the coral spawning event, which is when the corals breed over two to three days by casting sperm and eggs into the water once every year in the Pacific Ocean.

The fertilization off the coast of Cairns showed that the reef’s ecological functions were working even after facing pressures from climate change, according to Phillips, the principal marine biologist at the Reef Teach research center.

“I can only encourage anyone to come see the reef and what we’ve just been witnessing,” Phillips told The Washington Post on Wednesday. “It will change their life.”

Although the United Nations science and culture agency called this year for listing the World Heritage site as being “in danger,” noting serious concerns linked to climate change and water quality, its recommendation fell through after opposition from Australia. The issue will be revisited next year.

The coral spawning event happens once a year. (Gabriel Guzman)

The Great Barrier Reef has in the past been damaged by rising water temperatures that triggered coral bleaching so severe that it alarmed scientists.

When the water warms beyond a certain point, corals evict their food providers, the algae that they shelter in a symbiotic relationship.

The corals appear white after ejecting their colorful partners and ultimately can starve to death.

Mass coral bleachings triggered by rising sea surface temperatures killed 14 percent of the world’s coral between 2009 and 2018 — or what amounts to more than all the coral alive in Australia’s reefs — a study found last month.

The researchers warned that climate change would wipe out more coral as oceans continued warming without curbs to human emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases. But, they said, the underwater ecosystems can bounce back with some respite.

That’s a main takeaway from the coral spawning event for Phillips, who worries that people may get the impression it is too late to save the Great Barrier Reef. “This event is a great showcase that it’s not too late,” he said. “It’s got its pressures, but this is why we need to act to look after it.”

Underwater video shows coral releasing sperm and eggs into the ocean on Nov. 23 at the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, Australia. (Calypso Productions)

In popular travel destinations, nonprofit organizations and biologists have worked through the pandemic to restore reefs, and some of these experts, including in Australia, have called on tourists to help.

The coronavirus shutdowns that forced a pause in many industries also benefited some coral protection efforts — enough for one reef in Hawaii to show signs of regeneration.

The decline of global coral reefs, which are home to 25 percent of all marine animals and plants, also threatens people who rely on the reefs for food, jobs, protection from coastal flooding and billions of dollars a year in tourism spending.

Links

• Climate change killed 14% of the world’s coral reefs in a decade, study finds
• (USA TIME) UNESCO Says Australia's Great Barrier Reef Isn't In Danger Yet. Many Environmentalists And Divers Disagree
• (AU The Conversation) Not Declaring The Great Barrier Reef As ‘In Danger’ Only Postpones The Inevitable
• (AU SBS) Australia Accused Of ‘Censoring Science’ After Great Barrier Reef Avoids World Heritage ‘In Danger’ Listing
• (AU ABC) Australia Avoids Great Barrier Reef Global Embarrassment, But The Dangers Of Climate Change Remain For The Reef
• (AU The Guardian) Coalition Believes It Has Numbers To Stop Great Barrier Reef Being Listed As ‘In Danger’
• (AU ABC) Great Barrier Reef In 'Recovery' But Experts Say Progress Will Be Threatened By Climate-Related Disturbances
• (AU The Guardian) ‘Fossil Fuel Friends’: Saudi Arabia And Bahrain Back Australia’s Lobbying On Great Barrier Reef

(AU Pearls and Irritations) Australia’s Bare-Minimum Emissions Plan Rates Zero All-Round

Pearls and Irritations - Ian Dunlop | Chris Barrie

Australia’s net zero plan is a techno-optimist thought-bubble: it has an inappropriate objective, no clear priorities, and no realistic costing.

(Image: AAP/Lukas Coch)

Authors Ian Dunlop was formerly an international oil, gas and coal industry executive, chair of the Australian Coal Association and CEO of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He is a member of the Club of Rome and Chair, Advisory Board, Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration Chris Barrie is former chief of the Australian Defence Force. He is an executive committee member of the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group.

The Australian government’s Net Zero Emission by 2050 Plan (NZE2050), astonishingly and quite deliberately, ignores the impacts of climate change and the associated social and economic damage of acting too slowly.

Just before departing for the Glasgow climate summit the prime minister launched “Australia’s Long-Term Emissions Reduction Plan; a whole-of-economy Plan to achieve NZE2050”; or “The Australian Way” as the summary version has it.

The modelling and analysis supporting the plan have just been released.

These documents were obviously finalised long before the government reached agreement with the National Party to adopt NZE2050 as policy. Hence the costs and implications of this agreement, which we are told are substantial, are presumably not included in the Plan.

Plans, to be meaningful, need objectives.

The stated objective of the plan is to achieve NZE2050 for Australia.

This is to be done via “technology not taxes”, with “expanded choice, not mandates”, without requiring “coal or gas production to shut down” or “the displacement of productive land”, with “no loss of jobs” or “any cost to the Australian community”.

The rationale for adopting the NZE2050 objective is unclear other than the implication that, as the world is decarbonising, Australia must react and NZE2050 had become the minimal acceptable response from a developed country.

However, the modelling documentation reveals, astonishingly, that the plan is purely an economic and technological forecast which “does not assess the costs or impacts of climate change or the benefits of avoided warming associated with different global emissions trajectories”.

So it ignores the primary reason for climate change action, namely to avoid potentially catastrophic impacts.

Yet in signing the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, the government committed to do so by contributing to “holding the increase in global average temperatures to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels, and pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5C”.

Unfortunately the science confirms it is now virtually impossible to stay below 1.5C, and probably below 2C.

The inadequacy of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change COP process — again demonstrated in Glasgow, not least because of Australian intransigence — means that the world is now faced with the imminent prospect of irreversible, self-sustaining warming.

Only extremely rapid emission reductions by 2030 will avoid this outcome; NZE2050 is far too late.

The first responsibility of the government should be the security and prosperity of the Australian people. The greatest threat to that security now is not China, Taiwan or the lack of submarines, but climate change.

The objective of any sensible plan to address climate change must start from an honest assessment of the climate risks and opportunities. That determines the target to be met and the plan to get there, as proposed in the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group “Missing in Action” report.

The government has never assessed those risks, deliberately ignoring the climate science.

Given the damage already inflicted on the Australian community, particularly in rural areas, with climate-related drought, bushfires, floods and storms, to ignore the massive increase in such impacts likely resulting from NZE2050 beggars belief.

Likewise it is irresponsible to pretend that there will be no cost to the community, not least because emergency action to reach net zero emissions as close to 2030 as possible will become inevitable as climate impacts escalate.

But the most dangerous aspect of the Plan is its assumption that Australia’s coal and gas industries can expand for decades to come, pouring fuel on the climate fire, until markets dictate otherwise, on the basis that emissions will be offset by technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) and soil carbon, which have yet to be proven at scale.

CCS has worked in the oil and gas industry for decades, re-injecting CO2 produced during oil and gas extraction back into the reservoirs from which it came. But those reservoirs are limited, and rarely near the point of emission.

Injecting CO2 into non-oil and gas reservoirs has been attempted for years but proven far more problematic technically, as the WA Gorgon project demonstrates. Most major projects have failed, and CCS will not be available at the scale the plan implies.

Soil carbon works but takes time to become effective, time we no longer have; it is also unlikely to work at the scale required.

Concern has long been expressed over this “moral hazard” around climate change. In short, allowing expansion of fossil fuel use now on the grounds that yet-to-be proven technology will magically appear in the future to solve its emission problem; the danger being that catastrophic climate impacts will get locked in long before that technology eventuates.

That concern, voiced two decades ago, is even more critical today, given the accelerating impact of climate change and the fact that the world must achieve dramatic emission reductions in less than a decade.

For the government to put forward this plan in current circumstances is a complete abrogation of its responsibility to ensure the security of the Australian people, particularly younger generations.

This failure of imagination and leadership must stop and a real plan must be adopted, based on facts not deception.

Links

• The deniers at The Australian with their faux commitment to climate change.
• What must climate and energy policy really achieve?
• The net zero emission illusion
• No island is an island anymore: the flaw in Morrison’s 2050 plan
• Climate emergency: Australia must come in from the cold
• The endless civil war among conservatives over nuclear power
• Gasbagging in Glasgow: COP26 and phasing down coal
• The climate bottom line: rich nations must step up
• It will take more than a Green New Deal to save a planet in peril
• Climate change strategy must be adaptable to withstand new era
• The earth is now warming itself — it may be too late for humanity
• The unspoken lesson from the government’s climate modelling
• Scott Morrison’s cruel indifference to pleas for climate action