Study Asserts Climate Change Could Make South Asia Uninhabitable In Our Lifetime

Futurism - Chelsea Gohd

New research shows how, by the year 2100, many regions in South Asia could become so hot that humans could no longer survive there.

Foggy Morning India Gate. Prasenjeet Gautam

Climate Change
The consequences of climate change are not only real and imminent, but increasingly catastrophic.
Currently, climate change has been attributed to dangerously increasing temperatures, sea levels rising, the extinction of a variety of species, and much more.
Without fierce opposition, the effects of climate change will only become more and more destructive. Natural disasters, mass flooding, food shortages and other crises are all possible (some already happening, in fact) if current trends continue.
One part of the world may even become uninhabitable in our lifetime.
Elfatih Eltahir, a professor at MIT, recently published new research in the journal Science Advances that shows how, by the end of the century, areas in South Asia could be too hot for humans to survive there.
In a Skype interview from Khartoum, Sudan with CBC News, Eltahir said, “The risk of the impacts of climate change in that region could be quite severe.”
Eltahir and his colleagues analyzed this projected situation under two conditions: a “business-as-usual” model and a model in which we increase our efforts to mitigate emissions.
The team concluded that the “business-as-usual” model was not only most likely, but would yield unlivable conditions by the year 2100.


How long will deadly India heatwave continue? BBC News

The Only Way is Forward
The effects of the projected heat waves will not fall over sparse landscapes that would be easily escapable.
They will wash over the densely populated, agricultural areas of South Asia, directly threatening the lives of countless inhabitants who — because many of the people living there live in poverty — will be essentially trapped in the deadly conditions.
Climate change has already taken lives, and isn’t slowing down.
This deadly heat wave scenario would only be a piece of the puzzle in the year 2100.
Where will the people of the agricultural regions of South Asia go if the rest of the planet is also facing the catastrophic effects of global warming? (That is, of course, if they are able to leave at all in future socioeconomic conditions.)
The only way is forward, and the only way forward includes our best efforts against climate change.

Links

• Deadly heat waves projected in the densely populated agricultural regions of South Asia
• Parts of South Asia could be too hot to live in by end of century 
• Study suggests Earth to warm more than 2 C this century
• World temperatures hit new high in 2016 for 3rd year in row
• Farmer suicides rise in India as climate warms, study shows
• Study suggests Earth to warm more than 2 C this century
• Climate change before your eyes: Seas rise and trees die
• The world hit its warmest in 2016 — and it's getting hotter: study
• India records its hottest temperature ever of 51 C
• Rain brings little relief as India heat toll passes 2,200

Anti-Pipeline Campaigners Found Not Guilty By Judge Because 'Protest Against Climate Change Crisis' Was Legal 'Necessity'

The Independent - Andrew Buncombe

'We're part of the the movement that is standing up and saying we won’t let this go by on our watch'

More than a dozen protesters who clambered into holes dug for a high pressure gas pipeline said they had been found not responsible by a judge after hearing them argue their actions to try and stop climate change were a legal “necessity”.
Karenna Gore, the daughter of former Vice President Al Gore, was among more than 198 people who were arrested because of their 2015 actions protesting the pipeline in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. Thirteen people were to go on trial this week, though prosecutors downgraded their original criminal charges to one of civil infraction.

Karenna Gore said the protesters were part of a movement that was not allowed to let such things happen 'on our watch'.

Speaking outside the court afterwards, Ms Gore, 44, Director of the Centre for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York, said the court’s decision was historic. “What happened today was really important,” she said.
“The people….were found not responsible by reason of necessity. The irony is that we are making ourselves responsible. We’re part of the the movement that is standing up and saying we won’t let this go by on our watch. We won’t act like nothing’s wrong.”
On Tuesday, Judge Mary Ann Driscoll of West Roxbury District Court, found all 13 defendants not responsible, the equivalent of not guilty in a criminal case. She did so after each of the defendants addressed the judge and explained why they were driven to try and halt the pipeline’s construction.

Roxbury Defendants

Marla Marcum of the Climate Change Disobedience Centre, which supported the activists, said that each of the 13 had addressed the judge about why they had been part of the protests against the pipeline, which was constructed by Houston-based company Spectra Energy.
“At the end, she said they were all not responsible by reason of legal necessity,” she said. She said the group had an audio recording of the hearing which it intended to post online.
Neither Ms Driscoll or the court clerk was available for comment. However, one member of the court’s staff who asked not to be named, told The Independent the judge had found them not responsible. The person denied, however, that the judge had made the ruling on the grounds of legal necessity.

The environmentalist and academic Bill McKibben, who was to appear as a defence witness for the defendants, said on Twitter: “Good golly! A few minutes ago a Boston judge acquitted 13 pipeline protesters on the grounds that the climate crisis made it necessary for them to commit civil disobedience. This may be a first in America.”
Spectra Energy, which was last year bought by the Canadian firm Enbridge Inc, did not immediately respond to inquiries.


Mothers Out Front in West Roxbury

Links

• Exciting News from West Roxbury
• West Roxbury Lateral Pipeline in Boston Criminal Trial Downgraded
• West Roxbury Pipeline Protestors Arrested
• Judge: Anti-Pipeline Activists' Acts Necessary To Fight Climate Change

AGL Lines Liddell Up For Pumped Storage, Dismisses Chinese 'Approach'

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

AGL Energy is proceeding with plans to replace its Liddell power station with other energy sources including pumped hydro, dismissing a report that a Chinese textile group offered to buy the ailing power plant.
The nation's biggest energy company said it had not had any approach from Shandong Ruyi, the owner of the giant Cubbie Station cotton farm.
A News Corp newspaper reported the Chinese firm had contacted the Prime Minister's office in December, indicating an interest in buying the Hunter Valley power plant that AGL plans to close in 2022.

AGL Energy's Liddell power plant, with Lake Liddell in the foreground, and the company's Bayswater power plant behind. Photo: Simone De Peak

"We remain committed to our NSW Generation Plan as the most economic way to fully replace the Liddell plant, as reviewed and confirmed by [the Australian Energy Market Operator]," an AGL spokesman said.
It's understood the PM's office did not inform AGL of any Chinese interest and considers the report to be a "non-story".
Minister for the Environment and Energy, Josh Frydenberg, told Sky News he was "aware there had been expressions of interest" in Liddell "but it is up to those companies to directly approach AGL".
Doug Jackson, an AGL executive group manager, told Fairfax Media that Lake Liddell - which currently provides cooling for the adjacent power station - is one of two sites in the Hunter now being looked at for possible pumped hydro.
The two plants, still at the pre-feasibility stage, were in the order of 200-250 megawatts of capacity each, compared with the 1680-MW capacity of the coal-fired plant.
Pumped hydro typically requires an upper and lower reservoir. During times of low-cost power - such as during windy days - the operator pumps water to the higher reservoir, to be released to generate hydropower when power prices are high.
Don Harwin, the NSW Minister for Energy, said the state was keen to boost pumped hydro, particularly to support the three renewable energy priority zones announced last week. An Australian National University study last year identified 8600 such sites in NSW, and the Berejiklian government is looking to prioritise development of the most promising pumped storage areas.
“Pumped hydro is 'nature’s battery' and the world’s most established bulk energy storage technology, making up 97 per cent of global energy storage capacity,” Mr Harwin said.
“We need a mix of generation sources to maintain our security into the future. If we can harness our natural assets we can have an affordable, clean and secure energy future for NSW,” he said.
AGL's Mr Jackson declined to specify the location of the second Hunter site. He added that mine voids could be among the suitable locations.
Either project, though, could turn out to be much cheaper and faster to build than the much bigger Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro plan touted by the Turnbull government.
Current estimates put the cost of that project at more than $2000 per megawatt of storage, or in excess of $4 billion.
"Lake Liddell is a pretty easy one to get going in a few short years," Mr Jackson said, noting the existing access to power transmission among its advantages.

The Snowy Hydro 2.0 project has been touted by the Turnbull government. Photo: Supplied

Links

• NSW government's power plan reveals huge renewable energy resources
• Revealing The Dark Side Of Liddell, From Power Failures To Distorted Debate
• A Future Without Coal-Fired Power Stations Is Inevitable
• AGL Rebuffs Malcolm Turnbull And Commits To Ditching Liddell Power Station For Gas, Wind And Solar
• Why South Australia Must, And Will, Lead World On Renewables
• 'Worst Fears': States Prepare To Highlight The Negatives In Turnbull's Energy Plan
• Australia Could Be 'World Leader' In Energy Storage Despite Public Skepticism
• Let’s Be Honest: Australia Is Well Behind On Renewables

Marine Heatwave Recorded In Tasman Sea Breaks Records, Prompts Joint Climate Report

ABC News - Carla Howarth

Warm water events have taken their toll on Tasmania's kelp forests. (Mick Baron: Eaglehawk Dive Centre)

The Tasman Sea experienced a "marine heatwave" over summer that pushed the surface temperature to a record high, climate scientists say.

Following a particularly hot summer on both sides of the Tasman and in between, the Bureau of Meteorology and New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research teamed up to release a "special climate statement".
New Zealand's summer was the hottest ever recorded, while Tasmania had its hottest November-January on record.
"Tasmania had its warmest November on record and its second-warmest December and second-warmest January," senior BOM climatologist Dr Blair Trewin said.
"In New Zealand, they had their hottest summer on record and January was their hottest month on record, so it was exceptionally warm on both sides of the Tasman."
Dr Trewin said the water surface temperature in the southern Tasman Sea was also exceptionally high.
"They were more than two degrees above average in December and part of January," he said.

Tasmania had its hottest November on record in 2017. (Supplied: Bureau of Meteorology)

"And for the November to January period, they were easily the highest on record — 0.6 of a degree on any other year."
Dr Trewin said the record temperatures were caused by a "very persistent" belt of high pressure from Tasmania to New Zealand in November last year that remained stationary for three weeks.
"That allowed the ocean waters to heat up under very constant sunshine without being disturbed," he said.
"Ocean waters take a long time to warm up or cool down, so they stayed persistently warm right through until the end of January before coming back a bit closer to average in February," Dr Trewin said.
Tasmania's waters have experienced a number of marine heatwaves in recent years, taking its toll on abalone stocks and kelp forests.

Urge to document 'major climate event'
The collaboration was a first between the two organisations, who said the purpose of the report was to "document major events and act as a historical record".
"Sea surface temperatures in the southern Tasman Sea rose to exceptionally high levels in late 2017 and early 2018," the report begins.

"These temperatures were far above any others previously observed at that time of year in the region, and extended west from New Zealand to Tasmania and mainland southeast Australia."

Dr Trewin said scientists had identified a long-term warming trend in the world's oceans.
"You're seeing these extremes emerge in different places in individual years but when you look at the overall number of significant marine heatwaves, it's only going in one direction and that's upwards," he said.

Alarm over extreme weather events
Acting Climate Council CEO Dr Martin Rice said the weather patterns were alarming.

"For Australia to tackle climate change and curb current extreme weather trends, we need to quickly and deeply cut our greenhouse gas pollution by continuing our transition to clean, affordable and reliable renewable energy and storage technologies," he said.

"Worsening climate change, driven by the burning of coal, oil and gas, is causing temperatures to rise at unprecedented rates and is making extreme weather events across Australia and elsewhere more intense, damaging and costly.
"As 2018 gets underway, we've already seen the country hit with a series of extreme weather events, including tropical cyclones, severe heatwaves, intense rainfall and bushfires."

Links

• Special Climate Statement—record warmth in the Tasman Sea, New Zealand and Tasmania (pdf)
• Australian and NZ weather experts issue joint statement
• Tasmanian marine heatwave longest since records began
• BOM annual climate statement shows 2017 was Australia's third-warmest year on record
• Abalone industry heading for collapse without urgent action, warn veteran divers

Hydrogen-Powered Transport Key To Climate Targets, Says Shell

The Guardian - Adam Vaughan

Oil firm says gas could account for 10% of global energy consumption by end of century 

Hyundai’s hydrogen car, the ix35 Fuel Cell. Photograph: Hyundai 

Planes and trucks powered by hydrogen will be a crucial part of efforts to cut carbon emissions to safe levels, according to oil giant Shell.
For the first time, the Anglo Dutch firm, which is facing calls by activist shareholders to take stronger action on global warming, has mapped out how the world could hit the Paris climate deal’s target of keeping temperature rises below 2C.
While development of hydrogen cars has stalled in the face of rapid growth in battery-electric vehicles, Shell believes the gas could account for 10% of global energy consumption by the end of the century.
The company’s Sky scenario, published on Monday, envisages that as fossil fuel use declines, old oil and gas facilities will be repurposed for hydrogen storage and transport.
Shell has no large scale hydrogen production but is a major player in natural gas, from which hydrogen can be made. The company launched its first hydrogen refuelling station in the UK last year and on Tuesday will open a second at a service station in Buckinghamshire.

The scenario envisages the first intercontinental flight in 2040. By 2070, the majority of trucks will be powered by hydrogen or batteries, as Tesla is planning.
Shell sees oil demand stagnating in the 2020s, followed by gas demand falling rapidly from 2040 as competition from renewables bites.
Many power grids will be forced by legislation to become entirely run off solar, wind and hydro power by 2040. But the biggest impact from governments will come from carbon taxes or prices put in place by 2030 across rich countries and China.
Industry watchers noted that the Sky scenario would still see temperatures rise to around 1.7-1.8C, above the Paris accord’s goal of pursuing efforts to limit rises to 1.5C, in addition to “well below” 2C.

Links

• Shell to open electric vehicle charging points at UK petrol stations
• Electric and plug-in hybrid cars whiz past 3m mark worldwide
• Shell Shareholder Resolution 2018
• Elon Musk unveils Tesla electric truck – and a surprise new sports car
• Hydrogen-Powered Trains Are Coming To Germany In 2021

As A Grazier I Rely On Water. Adani’s Latest Plans Put Our Future At Risk

The Guardian - Bruce Currie*

Scientists are concerned that the Carmichael mine could drain ancient Great Artesian Basin springs. Out in the dry country, this would be a disaster

Waterlillies at the natural springs on Doongmabulla Cattle Station. ‘We’ve been working incredibly hard to stop the damage and restore the Great Artesian Basin to its former glory’ Photograph: Tom Jefferson

It’s dry country up here, west of Emerald in Central Queensland. Free standing water is like liquid gold to us.
Luckily for graziers like me, we have the Great Artesian Basin, our greatest inland water resource, which covers 22% of Australia. Sometimes the Basin expels water from deep underground up to the surface, in the form of natural springs. They are like oases, providing reliable water in times of drought and supporting remarkable ecosystems.
But they’re under threat. More than 81% of Great Artesian Basin springs are now inactive, and I’m the first to acknowledge that a lot of that harm was caused by water extraction by graziers and farmers. In the past, we didn’t understand the impacts that our water extraction was having on the Great Artesian Basin, or how to fix it.
But we do now, and we’ve been working incredibly hard to stop the damage and restore the Great Artesian Basin to its former glory. Graziers across the Basin have been switching from uncontrolled bores and open drains to capped bores and pipes to control flows. In fact, over the last 17 years, more than 750 bores have been upgraded and more than 250 billion litres of water saved per year.
It’s taken a huge concerted effort and it’s had the support of Australian governments who have contributed approximately $250m to make it happen.

But when it comes to water conservation, it seems all are not equal. Just as we started to make real progress in reducing water wastage, the mining boom arrived and blew all our efforts out of the water (if you’ll pardon the pun).
Now, the very same governments that spent so much time and effort working with graziers to cap bores and install pipes, are handing out unlimited quantities of water, including Great Artesian Basin water, to coal and gas companies.
Last week we’ve heard that Adani’s Carmichael coal mine could threaten the magnificent Doongmabulla Springs – a sequence of 160 separate wetlands that stretches across a large area inland of Clermont. Scientists have pointed to new information which raises greater concerns that the Carmichael mine will drain these ancient Great Artesian Basin springs.
The federal department of environment has commissioned additional reports as part of the bioregional assessment for our region. These reports indicate that there is major uncertainty about the source of the Doongmabulla Springs, which leads to risks that they may not survive should the Carmichael mine proceed.
But that information is missing from a key document submitted by Adani to the Queensland government. In Adani’s Groundwater Dependent Ecosystem Management Plan, which determines how they deal with the risk to these natural springs, they ignore the information from the bioregional assessment.
The Adani Management Plan does not refer to the new research that has found geological faulting in nearby areas or the fact that the true source of the Doongmabulla Springs is still unknown. It does not refer to the new research that the bioregional assessment recommended should be undertaken to identify the source of the springs and assess the true risk of the mine – seismic surveys and a nest of deep bores.
The bioregional assessment was initiated by the commonwealth government several years ago, to quantify the cumulative impacts and risks that multiple new coal and gas projects were having on Queensland’s water resources. Large sums of taxpayers’ funds are being spent on it, and yet it is being ignored by mining companies such as Adani.
The mining process, through long wall and open cut operations, threatens aquifer structures. There is no management plan that could reverse this proposed destruction, confine toxins or reinstate aquifers.
I can’t help but feel there’s one set of rules for the mining industry and a different set for everyone else. It’s not just the double standards that grate on me, it’s the fact that what they are putting at risk is impossible to replace – aquifers of the Great Artesian Basin and ancient natural springs.
And out here in this dry country, that puts our future on the line.
Put simply no water means no business, no food production, no communities, just a toxic wasteland to be suffered by future generations.

*Bruce Currie runs a cattle grazing enterprise with his family in Central Queensland

Links

• Why Adani's planned Carmichael coalmine matters to Australia – and the world
• Brenda the Civil Disobedience Penguin v the Adani mine. Democracy is fatally compromised! 
• Federal Government To Lend Money To Adani Business Associates
• Shorten Says Talk About Adani Mine 'Dumbing Down Climate Debate'
• Bill Shorten Says There's A 'Role For Coal' And Adani Mine Just 'Another Project'
• Could A Future Labor Government Really Stop The Adani Mine?
• Labor Pushes For Federal Investigation Into Adani
• Adani Coalmine Won't Get Federal Rail Funding, Liberal Minister Says
• Big Surge In Opposition To Adani, New Polling Reveals
• Shorten Hails Cheap Wind And Solar, But Will He Stop Adani?
• Adani Parts Ways With Mining Services Company Downer Over Proposed Carmichael Mine
• Qld Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk Seeks To Veto Adani Loan
• Another Blow For Adani As Chinese Backers Pull Out
• NSW Coal Mines In The Pipeline Are 'Bigger Than Adani', Lock The Gate Says

How Smartphones Are Heating Up The Planet

The Conversation - Lotfi Belkhir

Smart phones are rarely recycled and that’s just one reason tech devices are increasing our carbon footprints. Here Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, is seen in 2016 talking about new iPhones. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)

When we think about climate change, the main sources of carbon emissions that come to mind for most of us are heavy industries like petroleum, mining and transportation.
Rarely do we point the finger at computer technologies.
In fact, many experts view the cyber-world of information and computer technologies (ICT) as our potential saviour, replacing many of our physical activities with a lower-carbon virtual alternative.
That is not what our study, recently published in the Journal of Cleaner Production, suggests.
Having conducted a meticulous and fairly exhaustive inventory of the contribution of ICT —including devices like PCs, laptops, monitors, smartphones and tablets — and infrastructure like data centres and communication networks, we found that the relative contribution of ICT to the total global footprint is expected to grow from about one per cent in 2007 to 3.5 per cent by 2020 and reaching 14 per cent by 2040.
That’s more than half the relative contribution of the entire transportation sector worldwide.
Another disconcerting finding is that all this extraordinary growth is mostly incremental, essentially shattering the hope that ICT will help reduce the global carbon footprint by substituting physical activities with their virtual counterparts.

The impact of smartphones
Perhaps the most surprising result of our study was the disproportionate contribution of smartphones relative to the overall ICT footprint.
We found that the relative emissions share of smartphones is expected to grow from four per cent in 2010 to 11 per cent by 2020, dwarfing the individual contributions of PCs, laptops and computer displays.
In absolute values, emissions caused by smartphones will jump from 17 to 125 megatons of CO2 equivalent per year (Mt-CO2e/yr) in that time span, or a 730 per cent growth.
The lion’s share of this footprint (85 to 95 per cent) will be caused not by the use of the device, but rather by its production. That includes, in addition to the manufacturing energy, the energy for material mining for gold and the so-called rare-earth elements like yttrium, lanthanium and several others that today are almost exclusively available only from China.

Want to help combat climate change? Stop replacing your phone every two years. (Shutterstock)

Another guilty participant in this excessive carbon footprint are the phone plans that encourage users to get a new smartphone every two years. That accelerates the rate at which older models become obsolete and leads to an extraordinary and unnecessary amount of waste.
These findings pertain to the device side.

Every text, download, email uses server energy
On the infrastructure side, we predict the combined footprint of data centres and communications networks will grow from 215 megatons of C02 equivalent a year (Mt-CO2e/yr) in 2007 to 764 MtCO2-e/yr by 2020, with data centres accounting for about two thirds of the total contribution.

Data centres are an increasing source of carbon emissions. (Shutterstock)

For comparison purposes, the entire carbon footprint of Canada was about 730 MtCO2-e in 2016 and is expected to decrease by 2020.
The growth in smartphones and data centres aren’t unrelated.
Indeed, it’s the dizzying growth in mobile communications that’s largely driving the pace for data centres. For every text message, video download, photo exchange, email or chat, there’s a 24/7 power-hungry server in some data centre that’s making it happen.
It’s the energy consumption that we don’t see.

Software companies spur growth
Finally, and perhaps the most ironic aspect of all this, is that it’s software that is driving the overall growth in ICT as a whole, devices and infrastructure included.
Software companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo boast some of the largest data centres in the world. The rise in dominance of the mobile operating systems, namely Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android, along with the millions of mobile applications that are built on top of those platforms, has spawned the mobile communication age.
The incredible —as well as unsustainable— growth in the emission footprint of all this hardware is there for only one purpose: To support and serve the software universe.
In other words, while it’s the hardware that does all the dirty work, it’s the software that’s calling all the shots.
The way out?
At the societal level, we must demand that all data centres run exclusively on renewable energy.
At the individual level: Hold on to your smartphone for as long as you can, and when you do upgrade, make sure you recycle your old one. Sadly, only one per cent of smartphones are being recycled today.

Links

• Why we need to tackle the growing mountain of ‘digital waste’
• Global Emissions
• Assessing ICT global emissions footprint: Trends to 2040 & recommendations
• Where to Find Rare Earth Elements