Lethal Heating: 01/27/22

27/01/2022

(Yahoo News Australia) What Australia Looks Like In 2050: 'A Very Different World'

Yahoo News Australia - Michael Dahlstrom

We've asked the world's top experts to predict how Australia will look in the years 2030, 2050 and 2100.

2030: More extreme weather
2050: A different world to today
2100: Either uninhabitable or beginning to repair

By 2100 Australia's weather will be very different than it is today. Source: Getty - File

As global warming continues to disrupt seasonal norms, many Aussies could have already experienced the most stable temperatures of their lifetimes.

Over the coming two decades, extreme weather is set to disrupt society with increasingly severe bushfires, drought and storms.

The good news is by the end of the century, living on Earth could actually be more pleasant than it is today.

Working to predict how the future may look, we spoke with climate scientist Professor Tim Flannery who examined what life will be like if we reduce greenhouse gas emissions compared with failure to act.

Professor Flannery has been warning about the impact of global warming for decades and is the author of over 20 books, a founding member of advocacy group Climate Council, and the 2007 Australian of the Year.

Over the last 10 years, he has witnessed global warming shift from being “mostly theoretical” in the public consciousness to something that affects us all.

“I think we’re living now in the era of early climate change impacts,” he told Yahoo News Australia.

“There is no doubt that we’re going to see more and more of these extreme weather events, but I guess in the future they may not seem so extreme.”

How climate change will harm Australia by 2030

Looking towards 2030 can be a little frightening as the carbon and methane emissions already in the atmosphere continue to impact the climate.

A comparison of the periods July 1950 - June 1985 and July 1985 - June 2020 shows dangerous fire weather days have already increased. Source: BoM

“The trajectory is pretty baked in for the next decade or two because carbon takes a long time to reach its full warming potential… we should prepare for that,” Prof Flannery said.

“Australia already has average temperatures over the continent above 1.5 degrees above the pre-industrial average, while the rest of the world is at 1.1 degrees.

“In a decade from now the rest of the world will probably be at 1.5 degrees and Australia will probably be around 2 degrees, maybe a bit more.”

Once Australia hits this climate milestone, Prof Flannery warns the country will begin to experience the “really serious impacts” scientists have been warning about.

The warming will likely cause a number of key trends:

Accelerated sea level rise and worsening coastal erosion
Increased weather intensity including Category 6 cyclones
More frequent and extreme bushfires
A greater chance of extreme flood events

How climate change could impact Australia by 2050

Australia now faces a sliding doors moment when it comes to how the country will look in 2050.

Without meaningful steps to tackle the crisis, Prof Flannery warns we’re looking at “such a different world” – though it’s difficult to predict a complete picture.

Although each approach reaches net zero by 2050, the emissions accumulated during the intervening years differs, leading scientists to call for hard and fast cuts now. Source: Climate Council

“If we don’t take action, and we continue to emit at current levels, by 2050 we are going to be probably close to 3 degrees of warming,” he said.

“At that stage we will have triggered some of the positive feedback loops that drive warming ever faster.

“No matter what we do at that point there's very little impact that we'll have, particularly in terms of shifting to clean energy and closing off our polluting plan, because the damage will already have been done.”

An alternative vision of 2050 explained

Despite his bleak forecasts, Prof Flannery remains confident that the worst impacts of the climate crisis can be avoided.

During the COP26 climate talks he witnessed commitments from government and industry which he believes will see global warming kept below 2 degrees.

“I prefer to not look at that grimmer possible future; It feels to me to be disempowering,” he said.

“I put all of my energy into avoiding that worse future.”

If emissions are sharply decreased by 2030, there will be less severe climate change impact by 2050.

The world may then be focused on removing carbon from the atmosphere and improving biodiversity.

“So restoring forests, restoring ocean health, looking at those half dozen possibilities that exist for getting carbon dioxide out of the air at scale,” he said.

“We’ll be really nudging those tipping points at that time, and anything we can do to reduce that impact is going to be absolutely essential.”

What other leaders say about the climate crisis

Civilisations could collapse by 2100

Despite only dealing with probabilities, scientists predict without a determined effort to reduce emissions, the globe will likely experience 4 degrees of warming by 2100.

“That makes large parts of Australia and other continents uninhabitable,” Prof Flannery warns.

Australia may actually be a healthier place to live in 2100. Source: Getty - File

While the food, medical and transport sectors have all been disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, that will pale in comparison to the impact of systemic change.

Sustainable patterns of supply that keep our world functioning will begin to collapse and so too will our civilisations.

Why life on Earth could be wonderful by 2100

The further into the future we look, the more time humans will have had to repair the damage they have cause to the planet.

“By 2050, regardless of what we do, we're still going to be in a titanic struggle against the changes that we've already set in place,” Prof Flannery said.

“By 2100, with emphatic action to deal with these problems, I think we could be living in a healing world, a world that's much better than the world we live in today, with restored forests, biodiversity, ocean health and more stability in many ways.

“That possibility is out there. But it will take a lot of work for us to get to that point.”

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(Architectural Digest) Australia Just Opened The Climate Change-Focused Museum Of The Future—And It’s Beautiful

Architectural Digest - Jessica Cherner

Built on the 2,471-acre estate formerly belonging to famed painter Arthur Boyd, Bundanon is now a sprawling destination for both art and ecology

One of the two Kerstin Thompson Architects-designed structures at Bundanon is The Bridge, a 530-foot-long architectural marvel with built-in guest rooms. Photo: Zan Wimberley

In places where the effects of climate change are as frequent as they are devastating, sustainable architecture is perhaps as—if not more—important as aesthetics. Bundanon, the 1,000-hectare arts destination in regional New South Wales, Australia, is taking sustainability to a rather unheard of level.

Designed by the Australian firm Kerstin Thompson Architects (KTA), the new Art Museum and Bridge for Creative Learning is intended to respond and adapt to both current and future climate disasters. The nearly 530-foot-long bridge is positioned so high that floodwaters can flow beneath it rather than on it. What’s more, the art museum is hidden within a hill to protect itself against wildfires.

And if this wasn’t impressive enough for a building, this beautifully constructed fire-resistant infrastructure happens to house a $46.5-million, 4,000-piece contemporary art collection.

The Bridge is built on stilts to avoid inevitable floods. In fact, it was designed in such a way that it would be able to adapt to and even benefit from climate change-induced events. Because flood waters flow beneath The Bridge, the water is harvested and stored for later use. Plus, the whole structure is powered by solar energy. Photo: Zan Wimberley

The two new structures, which opened to the public on January 29 (with an official ceremony and festival of events coming later in the year), were constructed to be environmentally responsible. “Art museums have historically run with high energy consumption,” Bundanon CEO Rachel Kent explains.

“Both cooling and heating systems are needed, for example, to maintain a stable temperature critical to the conservation of artworks. With the current climate crisis, this is clearly unsustainable. It is vital that museums and galleries, like other industry sectors, actively seek solutions that aim to have a net-zero energy target.”

Chief among the energy-saving elements at Bundanon’s new art museum is the solar panels that power the entire museum. One of the many structures on the massive property that will house these solar panels includes the home where famed Australian artist Arthur Boyd and his wife Yvonne lived before donating their estate to Australia in 1993.

Though the estate covers a large swath of ground—2,471 acres, to be exact—it’s split up into two clusters. The first groups the Homestead, Arthur Boyd Studio, and Artists in Residence Complex, while the second one houses the Boyd Education Centre, the new KTA–designed Art Museum, and The Bridge.

Australian artist Arthur Boyd and his wife Yvonne lived on the enormous estate until they donated it in the early 1990s. His studio was only steps away from the couple’s home. Photo: John Janson-Moore

The 541-foot-long by 30-foot-wide bridge borders the museum and comprises 34 guest rooms, dining spaces, and a public cafe—amenities nearly ever other traditional bridges lack.

Plus, The Bridge is where Bundanon and KTA’s sustainably-minded ambitions come into play: It’s powered by the aforementioned solar panels, but also enlists passive temperature management and black water treatment, while harvesting and storing rainwater.

Kent adds, “It would be ideal if these solutions and more could be integrated into the museum sector as a standard.”

Perhaps as important as the sustainability of Bundanon’s new additions is the landscaping, which celebrates the surrounding area’s natural heritage—indigenous and pastoral. Of course, there’s also a subtle homage to the Boyds, with their domesticated garden that has been integrated with the bucolic clearings.

For the highly specific landscaping, the Bundanon visionaries turned to landscape architects Wraight Associates and Craig Burton, who rather than place the primary focus on the aesthetic, made ecology the centerpiece of the grounds. Like nearly every aspect of Bundanon, there’s more to the landscaping than trees and gardens.

But that was the architects’ point. They wanted to design groundbreaking structures that are as beautiful as they are full of purpose. The Bridge and museum aren’t there for decoration; they’re responding to climate change in a way no other art-centric architecture has before.

And, of course, the Australian architects wanted to honor the estate’s original owners. Though Bundanon’s latest additions further solidify the Boyds’ legacy, the enormous artistic estate is more than a place to look at beautiful things in a natural oasis—it’s a step-by-step manual that details how to prevent the disastrous effects of climate change.

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(USA EcoWatch) John Kerry Warns ‘We’re in Trouble’ On Climate Change

EcoWatch - Cristen Hemingway Jaynes

“Coal is the dirtiest fuel on the planet."

U.S. special climate envoy, John Kerry speaks during the COP26 climate change conference on November 10, 2021 in Glasgow, Scotland. Jeff J Mitchell / Getty Images

John Kerry, the first United States special presidential envoy for climate, said that the world is “not on a good track” in its goal of avoiding the worst effects of climate change, Reuters reported.

Kerry said actions to move away from fossil fuels must be strengthened this decade. On Monday, Kerry addressed “Building Momentum to UN COP27,” an event hosted by officials from Egypt — who will host the next UN climate summit — and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

“We’re in trouble, I hope everybody understands that. Not trouble we can’t get out of, but we’re not on a good track,” Kerry said, as The Hill reported.

Kerry expressed concern regarding the recent increase in global coal use and about plans for the building of new coal plants that don’t use carbon capture technology, reported Reuters.

According to The Hill, Kerry blamed coal use for “the worst” of climate change.

“Coal is the dirtiest fuel on the planet, no one has figured out how to make it clean, even though they talk about clean coal,” Kerry said.

Kerry expressed that he is in support of gas if it incorporates carbon capture technology, Reuters reported.

“Many countries — most countries — have the ability to deploy very significant additional amounts of renewables, and they’re not doing it,” Kerry said, as The Hill reported.

Kerry said that, instead, gas usage in those countries has increased, adding that gas could be used as a “bridge fuel,” but that building gas infrastructure indefinitely would undermine the good it might do.

“If you can capture 100 percent [of emissions] and it makes it affordable — that’s wonderful. But we’re not doing that,” Kerry added, as reported by The Hill.

Kerry expressed that while the COP26 summit in Glasgow resulted in a lot of good, the planet is reaching dangerous tipping points. He cited recent research that found that the Arctic is warming four times faster than the rest of the Earth.

“No government in the world has the amount of money we need to affect this transition,” Kerry said at a virtual event last week, CNBC reported. “It will be private sector investment and private sector discovery more than anything else … that’s what’s going to get us out of this hole.”

Kerry said that the number of private sector entities that had set forth net-zero goals at the Glasgow summit encouraged him, reported The Hill.

“We need to be compelled as human beings, as leaders particularly, to respond to this,” added Kerry, as The Hill reported.

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